I Quit

I used to be addicted on sugar.

I had habit having a cup of milk each morning. I served myself a mealspoon of milk powder in a cup of water, added with a mealspoon of sugar. I had been done that ever since when my mom taught me to serve my own milk. When I was grown up, I could not enjoy my milk without sugar.

Then the phase came to my dad as he was sentenced as diabetes. It depressed him coz it guided him to be dependent on antidiabetic drugs for the rest of his life. Those drugs drove him hypogycemic, made him dizzy. And he had to decline his long-distance-driving hobby coz he could not stand of being sleepy while driving. Shortly, this diabetes did not kill, but it truly decreased his quality of life.

His siblings had fallen into diabetes, too. As my mother’s mom sisters also got diabetes, and her mom then passed away coz diabetes had failed her heart, I soon awared that diabetic gene had streamed in my blood. And it worried me much coz I could not keep sugar away from my dairy milk.

Being married brought me to a new perception. My new husband did not like his milk tasted too sweet. So every morning when I served us milk, I should prepare my own milk with sugar and left his without one. Sometimes our cups were exchanged, and I forgot which cup was whose cup, then my hunk accidentally had the sweet milk. I was dazzled.

He had been living with his mom for years and he got used to her food. Javanese moms love adding salt in every food that they cook, and so does my mom-in-law. Soon I found a new problem: my mom-in-law and my hunk loved salty food, and I prefered sweeties. Then I found out another horrible thing: she had hypertension, and I could not find anything else to blame except his habit for having salties. This hypertension disabled her to control her emotion, and injured her heart, too. I was just afraid that someday this salty habit would made my hunk suffered, too.

I could not stop the diseases from ruining our family, but I knew that I could try to prevent them by creating a new habit. Luckily my hunk loved my food than his mom’s meals, so I had freedom to determine his diet. I decide to decline salt in my recipe. Firstly he still could taste the salt. Then I decline it more, until then I add no salt at all. He has got used to it, and finally he can not even differ which food of mine has salt and which one does not have. It works.

Then I try to treat myself. I decide not to add sugar on my milk. It was difficult on the beginning. But I keep it going on. After two weeks, I have been able to enjoy my milk without having sugar.

I realize then that a diet is about how you can set your self free from your old habit to new one. And you will be satisfied to perform it if you aware that the new habit will prevent you from diseases that can damage your quality of life.

I believe that I will spend my retired life to enjoy travelling more than being burdened of diabetes and hypertension. 🙂 http://georgetterox.blogspot.com
https://laurentina.wordpress.com

One Hour at Sam Poo Kong

My cousin said that hanging out at Sam Poo Kong felt like being at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, with Summer Palace as its background. So I dragged my feet to Semarang for the temple to create my photo session right there.

The temple is located on district of Simongan at the centre of Semarang city. Basicly it is a cluster of five large Confucianism temples (please correct me if I’m wrong, coz I didn’t enter into each of those). Those temples stand around a plaza which becomes the arena for visitors to make pictures with the temples at the background.

Actually Chinese community at Simongan found the temple as memorial site for Zheng He (Cheng Ho), a Chinese admiral who came to Indonesia for selling silk around 15th century. Said that Zheng He was sailing on Java Sea and landed a while at Simongan. Zheng He was actually muslim, and he built a mosque at Simongan for praying. A few times later, he finally sailed back, while some of his flatfeet remained at Simongan, got married to Indonesian and bred into Chinese community who lived in Semarang nowadays. A natural disaster had damaged the mosque that he had created, but then the building was renovated becoming the temple for those Chinese descents to pray. While Simongan which was located on the shore of Java Sea, kept having sedimentation continously became a large land, so its position changed from the seashore into the center of the city which is known as Semarang today.

Are You A Syiah or Sunni?

When the president election was trending, there’s an interesting vocab to me, Syiah. Coz Joko Widodo was rumoured as a Syiah Muslim.

Me, a born muslim, got confused. Was I a Syiah Muslim or Sunni Muslim? Coz I never knew that Islamic appliance could be differed according to its leader, its location, its ethnic, or so on.

What my religion teacher taught me on the second grade was, a Muslim must swore two syahadat sentences, shalat, fasting, paying zakat, and going pilgrimage. Not like the others, I haven’t done the last point coz I still invest for it. Is there any different between Syiah and Sunni for those five points? Such as, discount for fasting, probably?

I Can’t Read Your Poker Face

My teacher, a psycholog, said that the sexual harrasment which happened to a student in the kindergarten at Jakarta two months ago, could be predisposed by the disability of the boy of recognizing the signs of danger. He let his teacher and some janitors abused him coz he did not know that it endangered him.

The psycholog also said that normally a four-year-old kid could recognize if an adult intended to rape him. This did not happen to the victim and it was abnormal. And, surprisingly, this is common to young people nowadays. Young adult and kids today have trouble in reading nonverbal expressions. They could not understand anybody else’s communication except if it involves words. It means that, they must be told verbally that someone is getting angry or sad to them, or even gonna threat them, to let them know.

What did predispose this?

One significant factor was gadgets. Kids and young adult now are getting used to always hold their gadget. They spend a lot of their times to look at their LCD on their hands. And the worse thing is, they keep looking at their gadget while someone else is talking to them.

The psycholog even told me that a research has been developed to explain this. It said that, compared to kids who do not always hold gadget all the time, there was delayment of awaring danger to those kids who was stucked on their gadget.

I am shocked that I am not surprised about it. Delayment of awaring danger tends to inability of demonstrating their expression. And also tends to inability of recognizing anybody else’s expression.

No wonder the kindergarten kid could let himself sexually abused. He cannot read those adult’s poker face.

Brave to Be Dirty

These days, parents are just afraid that their children will get stained.

I was born in a very clean family. My mom is a maniac of cleanness, so she taught me to be always clean. I remember when I was a kid, if I just came home from outside, she always made sure that I have cleaned up my legs and my arms before I ate, especially before I got to bed.

I was once interested to the gardening work of my mom’s maid. Our backyard was not really spacious, but my mom had the maid plant chilli right there. She did it to save the housing budget from buying chilli in the market. Chilli is one of Indonesian favorite spice and my parents cannot eat without it.

Once the six-year-old of me neared the maid to grab the seed, but my mom forbid me to get closer. She said the seed was contained of soil and the soil would stain my hand. She might let me stay for watching, but I thought observing was not my favorite action coz I did not do any thing.

I never had any idea how long the seed took time to grow and produce mature chili.

I grew up to be a doctor and I never got interested in farming, especially chili farming. But when I began to be an housewife and realized how one of two pieces of chili can save almost of main courses in my Indonesian home, I got the idea, it would be very interesting if I could provide my own chili in our backyard.

But I could not plant it coz I did not know how to. 😦

And it was not the only one point. I never knew how it took a big patience to plant a plantation, to make it grow and produce things such as leaves, fruits, stains, and even flowers. The same principle goes in investment, how we save a little bucks and it grows into grands. It takes time and patience, and that’s the main point we should learn from investment. The main point that can be learnt by a kid, from gardening.

And I do remember, my mom did not let me gardening coz she was afraid that I would get dirty.

I believe the other moms do the same to their children.

If I have children someday, I will let them stain themselves to make them learning about gardening. Coz by gardening, my children can be inspired about a lot of things rather than just growing a piece of chili. https://laurentina.wordpress.com
http://georgetterox.blogspot.com