Wei Choong’s blog

This is a true story which happened in the States. A man came out of his home to admire his new truck. To his puzzlement, his three-year-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint of the truck. The man ran to his son, knocked him away, hammered the little boy's hands into pulp as punishment. When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital.

Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he finally had to amputate the fingers from both the boy's hands. When the boy woke up from the surgery & saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently said, "Daddy, I'm sorry about your truck." Then he asked, "But when are my fingers going to grow back?" The father went home & committed suicide.

Think about this story the next time someone steps on your feet or u wish to take revenge. Think first before u lose your patience with someone u love. Trucks can be repaired... Broken bones & hurt feelings often can't. Too often we fail to recognize the difference between the person and the performance. We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.

People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.

A person visited the government matchmaker for marriage, SDU, and requested "I am looking for a spouse. Please help me to find a suitable one." The SDU officer said, "Your requirements, please." "Oh, good looking, polite, humorous, sporty, knowledgeable, and good in singing and dancing. Willing to accompany me the whole day at home during my leisure hour, if I don't go out. Telling me interesting stories when I need companion for conversation and be silent when I want to rest." The officer listened carefully and replied, "I understand you need television."

There is a saying that a perfect match can only be found between a blind wife and a deaf husband, because the blind wife cannot see the faults of the husband and the deaf husband cannot hear the nagging of the wife. Many couples are blind and deaf at the courting stage and dream of perpetual perfect relationship. Unfortunately, when the excitement of love wears off, they wake up and discover that marriage is not a bed of roses. The nightmare begins.

A friend and her millionaire husband visited their construction site. A worker who wore a helmet saw her and shouted,"Hi, Emily! Remember me? We used to date in the secondary school." On the way home, her millionaire husband teased her, "Luckily you married me. Otherwise you will be the wife of a construction worker." She answered,"You should appreciate that you married me. Otherwise, he will be the millionaire and not you."

Once upon a time, allegedly, in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny and an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were blind from birth. One day, the bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down. This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit. "Oh, my," said the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm also an orphan, I don't even know what I am." "It's quite OK," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is much the same as yours. I, too, have been blind since birth, and also never knew my mother. Tell you what, maybe I could slither all over you, and work out what you are, so at least you'll have that going for you.." "Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake slithered all over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur; you have really long ears; your nose twitches; and you have a soft cottony tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit." "Oh, thank you! Thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me." So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth and slippery, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls. I'd say you must be either a team leader or possibly someone in senior management".

TRUST is a very important factor for all relationships. When trust is broken, it is the end of the relationship. Lack of trust leads to suspicion, suspicion generates anger, anger causes enmity and enmity may result in separation.

A telephone operator told me that one day she received a phone call. She answered, "Public Utilities Board." There was silence. She repeated, "PUB." There was still no answer. When she was about to cut off the line, she heard a lady's voice, "Oh, so this is PUB. Sorry, I got the number from my husband's pocket but I do not know whose number it is."

Without mutual trust, just imagine what would have happened to the couple if the telephone operator simply answered with just "hello" instead of "PUB".

A woman comes home and tells her husband, "Remember those headaches I've been having all these years? Well, they're gone."

"No more headaches?" the husband asks, "What happened?"

His wife replies, "Margie referred me to a hypnotist. He told me to stand in front of a mirror, stare at myself and repeat 'I do not have a headache; I do not have a headache, I do not have a headache.' It worked! The headaches are all gone."

The husband replies, "Well, that is wonderful."

His wife then says, "You know, you haven't been exactly a ball of fire in the bedroom these last few years. Why don't you go see the hypnotist and see if he can do anything for that?" The husband agrees to try it.

Following his appointment, the husband comes home, rips off his clothes, picks up his wife and carries her into the bedroom. He puts her on the bed and says, "Don't move, I'll be right back." He goes into the bathroom and comes back a few minutes later and jumps into bed and makes passionate love to his wife like never before.

His wife says, "Boy, that was wonderful!"

The husband says, "Don't move! I will be right back." He goes back into the bathroom, comes back and round two was even better than the first time. The wife sits up and her head is spinning.

Her husband again says, "Don't move, I'll be right back."

With that, he goes back in the bathroom. This time, his wife quietly follows him and there, in the bathroom, she sees him standing at the mirror and saying, "She's not my wife. She's not my wife. She's not my wife!"

WASHINGTON - DARK chocolate can not only soothe your soul but also lower blood pressure as well, researchers reported on Monday.

Their study, published by the American Heart Association, joins a growing body of research that shows compounds found in chocolate called flavonoids can help the blood vessels work more smoothly, reducing the risk of heart disease.

'This is one of the first clinical trials to look specifically at dark chocolate's effect on lowering blood pressure among people with hypertension,' said Dr Jeffrey Blumberg of Tufts University in Boston, who led the study.
 
'This study suggests that cocoa flavonoids appear to have benefits on vascular function and glucose sensitivity.'

Dr Blumberg and his colleagues at the University of L'Aquila in Italy studied 10 men and 10 women with high blood pressure.

For 15 days, half of them ate a daily 100g bar of specially formulated, flavonoid-rich dark chocolate, while the other half ate the same amount of white chocolate. Then each group 'crossed over' and ate the other chocolate.

White chocolate, which has no flavonoids, was used as a control food as it contains all the other ingredients and calories found in dark chocolate.

Dr Blumberg's team reported that volunteers who ate the dark chocolate had a 12mm Hg (blood pressure points) decrease in systolic blood pressure, which is the top number in a blood pressure reading.

They also noted a 9mm Hg decrease in diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number.

Blood pressure did not change when the volunteers ate white chocolate.

Eating dark chocolate also seemed to improve the way the body used insulin, and reduced low-density lipoprotein, or 'bad' cholesterol, by about 10 per cent on average. - REUTERS

There is a difference between being an acquaintance and being a friend. First, an acquaintance is someone whose name you know, whom you see every now and then, with whom you probably have something in common, and around whom you feel comfortable. It's a person that you can invite to your home and share things with. But they are people with whom you wouldn't share your life, whose actions sometimes you don't understand because you don't know enough about them...

On the other hand, a friend is someone you love. Not that you are "in love" with him or her, but you care about the person, and you think about him or her when they are not there. Friends are the people of whom you are reminded when you see something they might like, and you know this because you know them so well. They are the people whose pictures you have and whose faces are in your head regardless. They are the people you see in your mind when you hear a song on the radio because they made you go up to the person they like and ask them to dance with them; or maybe you danced with them, maybe they stepped on your toes, or just put their head on your shoulder. They are the people around whom you feel safe because you know they care about you. They call just to see how you are doing, because friends don't need an excuse. They tell you the truth - the first time - and you do the same. You know that if you have a problem, they are there to listen. They are the people who won't laugh at you or hurt you, and if they do hurt you, they try hard to make it up to you. They are the people you love, regardless of whether you realize it. They are the people with whom you cried when you got rejected from colleges and during the last song at prom and at graduation. They are the people that when you hug them, you don't think about how long to hug and who's going to be the first one to let go. Maybe they are the people who hold the rings at your wedding, or maybe they are the people who give you away at your wedding, or maybe they are the people you marry. They are the people who cry at your wedding because they are happy, or because they are proud, or because they are so in love. They are the people who stop you from making mistakes and help you when you do. They stick with you and stand by you. They hold your hand. They watch you live, and you watch them live, and you learn from them.

Your life is not the same without them. These are your friends. How many do you have?