Nice music with some good laugh for Friday

I had posted this on my Chinese blog yesterday.

I like the song, it's one of those old 90s British pop song, "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred and it goes really well with the montage of the falling models.

It's really funny so I thought I maybe I should post it here for those of you, who couldn't read Chinese.



Well, I know it's bad to laugh at others.

However come to think of it, it's a good lesson for us to reflect on our own self. If you fall down, you should just stand up again and move on.

Just like the models when they fell before so many pairs of eyes, there is only one thing they can/should do is to just stand up and walk on.

So if next time if you were to fall down clumsily in front of many eyes, just think of them, stand up, put on a smile and walk on. Sound too easy huh?

You can make a difference: Get Ranked with Real Rank

Did your PageRank get spanked recently? If you say yes, and it's because you do paid post.

Well, it's time to change and think RealRank.

What's RealRank and how it affects you?
RealRank is the ranking system created by people at Izea Ranks. It's a ranking system will weight a blog 70% based on its daily unique visitors, 20% on its daily active inbound links and the last 10% by its daily page views.

All you need to do is just sign up with Izea Ranks, get the IZEA Toolkit(ITK) tracking code and embed it in your blog. The ITK will start the tracking and collecting of the data. RealRank's transparent scoring algorithm, on measuring a blog's actual traffic and its influence throughout the blogosphere, is more relevant and realistic.

All these collected data will enable advertisers to analyze the potential of blogs, and identify their target market, which will then directly influence their decisions on online advertising campaign.

With the real data Izea Ranks provided, advertisers as well as bloggers will be able to compare traffic between different blogs. Every week Izea Ranks will showcase the Top100 based on the collected data.

However, the ranking system is still at its infancy. In order to make it a blogsphere standard, Izea Ranks need to get more users to particiapte in order to be able to pool in more real data for comparison. That's why I'm write about it.

Post-partum Hair Loss

Recently I have noticed that I have a drastic increase in hair loss. And it's scary and distressing to find myself pulling out a large clump of hair after every hair washing or collecting tumbleweeds of hair on my bed or the floor, at times on my shirt. It makes wonder if I'm going to be bald.

And the one day when I looked in the mirror, I have even noticed that there is a my fringe is thinning. Eeek. Will I be bald? I couldn't help myself wondering every time I comb or wash my hair. Btw, I don't remember having this when I had Natalie, or at least not to scary and obvious.

Hopefully no, as I went and googled for some answers. I found that hair loss is not uncommon after pregnancy. It is because the hormonal change in our body.

Did you ever notice that your hair rarely shed during pregnancy? I did. My hair rarely shed. In fact it became thicker. Well, this because our estrogen level increases during pregnancy and this "...causes our hair to remain in the growing phase and stimulates the growth of your hair."(taken from americanpregnancy.org) It means that we tend to be thicker and fuller head of hair during pregnancy.

This is one thing I actually love about pregnancy. So that I don't need to pick up shed hair.

And thank God this hair dropping period is not permanent. Normally it will only last for 6 to 12 months before hair loss returns to normal.

Well, I hope this hair loss phenomenon will end soon as I'm so sick seeing shed hair everywhere and picking them up. Meanwhile resume my one a day dose of vitamin B complex and eat more fruit and veges to ensure I get enough of "...flavonoids and antioxidants that may provide protection for the hair follicles and encourage hair growth."(taken from americanpregnancy.org)

For more ways to reduce hair loss after pregnancy, can refer to Pregnancy and Hair Loss (americanpregnancy.org)

Go Zoodoka!

One of the many ways to promote your blog is through email subscription.

If you look around you would see that, nowadays many blogs have moved towards this email subscription direction. They have, from a blogger, become a content provider. Instead of having we, readers, log in to their blog, but having their content deliver to our mailbox.

You may ask what is the difference between RSS subscription and email newsletter? The main difference is that RSS only goes to your Feed Reader, while email newsletters are directed to your mailbox.

Email newsletter is not a new thing in the web world. However having email newsletter subscription for a blog is a step forward within the blogsphere.

Zookoda
is one of the email marketing application which is designed to cater the need of bloggers. And it’s free for bloggers who would like to build their readership and keep their readers coming back to their blog.

All you have to do is to open an account with Zookoda
, get the subscription form code and place on your blog. When your blog readers subscribe to your newwsletter by entering their email address, Zookoda
will add these data to your mailing list.

No installation is required. Zookoda
works on PC, Mac or Linux. It is compatible with IE 6 or later, and Firefox on the PC, as well as Safari on Mac.

Zoodoka also provides templates which can be easily edit and format. With the online HTML Editor Zookoda
provides, you can quickly edit or customize your email newsletter to your liking.

Meanwhile Zookoda
gives you full control over how your newsletter contents appear to your readers, which you can edit manually.

If one day you should want to discontinue Zookoda
’s service, you can just export your mailing lists in Excel format at any time you want with no obligations.

So if you thik you have great content and would like start email newsletter subscription service for you blog, Zookoda
will be a good place to start with.

The journey of a first time mommy: My Happiness

After delivery, our hormone usually change drastically. As a result, I had post-partum depression.

For the first few months after the delivery, my condition was alright. It was more like minor baby blues sessions with an overworked body and mind for the first two months or so.

It was after my mother's sudden passing, my crying sessions became more obvious and sometimes for no obvious reasons, accompanied by all the persisting achings, on my neck, lower back, knees, shoulders, and forever a gassy stomach. I was treated with pain killer(such as Morbic and this other pain killer), muscle relaxant, gastric medicine and a few others. Even a 3 months physiotherapy which recommended by my orthopaedic specialist. But nothing worked.

My mother's passing dampened my emotion. At that time I was easily so agitated and always angry over some little things. Plus all the negative thoughts. Life became a stranger to me.

However it was for Natalie that I managed hang on there until the day I decided to seek medical advice.

Everyday I reached home and saw her face, I would feel better, regardless how bad my day is. She was all there reasons, my hope and happiness. She gave me my strength to carry on.

My little advice to all new mothers is just take things one step at a time, don't be so hard on yourself. If you can, arrange someone you can trust to help taking care of the baby, at least one or two hours, coz you need rest.

Let spark, mommy bloggers!

I felt flattered when I saw this invitation from IZEA in my mailbox, inviting me to test out the alpha version of of SocialSpark.

With a mixed feeling of excitement and anticipation, I was curious and eager tried it out.

Of course it took me a while to get used of the interface, what’s what and so on.

What’s of SocialSpark, if you haven’t heard of it. Well, imho it’s an improved version of PayPerPost. Why do I said that.

It’s because it provide a social networking platform to bloggers, not only more opportunity to earn some extra cash, but also to interact with each others.

Through of SocialSpark, we bloggers can now interact with not only others bloggers, but the advertisers.

Via of SocialSpark, bloggers can do post-exchange with each other, where I review your blog and you review mine. This is one way to help new bloggers like me, not so new though, to gain traffic and make some new friends.

More importantly advertiser can now easily go direct to us, bloggers via of SocialSpark, .They can access our previous submitted posts, your Real Rank and credibility in the network.

It’s a good way to promote interaction within the blogsphere.

What I like about SocialSpark
So far this is the first opportunity I have got from of SocialSpark. It’s too soon to speak though. However, I have to say that I like the feature where one can reserve an opportunity by submitting your name to the waiting list. If someone fails to complete the task, it will go to next person in line. When the opportunity is available for you, you will be notify via an email alert.

Of course downside is one has only 6 hours to complete the task from the time when the alert is sent. What if I miss the opportunity? Well, too bad. Therefore always keep your mailbox open.

Blogger Bonus
Besides, of SocialSpark has come up with Blogger Bonus, an incentive to encourage quality posts from bloggers. This bonus will be given to one or more bloggers monthly, based on the quality of the post and the advertiser’s ROI. Is it great?

Making friends
Like I have said before, of SocialSpark is also a social network platform, like Facebook, where you ca make friends and build your community. They have a feature where you can forward an opportunity to your friend.
Analytics tool
Apart from the above, of SocialSpark also has an analytic feature. With the javascript that we embedded in our blog, of SocialSpark will start collecting data of our blog visitors, such as top referrers, top outgoing links, our visitors demographics and so on. So that we know who has visited our blogs, where they come from, their age, their locations and more. These data are important feedback to us and will affect our RealRank.

Meanwhile these data also give the advertisers more information of our blogs.

Anyone can access these data, or you can choose to unchecked the feature. It’s your choice.

Well, these are just the beginning, I believe IZEA will keep improving their system to provide us more features in future in order to expand network.

So, sound good? Why not signing up now and see for yourself!

A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 03

A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 01
A Blessed Natural Birth After Caeserean Journey 02

I was admitted at 1pm on Saturday afternoon, 10 Nov 2007.

Actually on that day, we had a little episode on our way to the hospital. We were caught in this massive traffic jam from NKVE toll all the way to Kerinchi toll. Well the whole pJ was badly congested on that day. Only God knows what went wrong. I was so worried that Max would come out before we reached the hospital...

Thank God, he was well-behaved till the next morning...

Before that I had only mild contraction. I could still happily enjoyed my McChicken Deluxe Combo while watching tv.

The real pain only kicked in after 12am.

At 4am, the contraction became more regular and intense. I told the nurse the pain was getting unbearable.

"Did it feel like shitting?" One of the nurse asked me.
"Yeah."I replied. So she checked for dilation, and it was already 6cm.
"Good. Most likely baby will come another 4 hours..."she told me.
4 hours? I thought. 4 hours was a long time though the pain only come at the end of every contraction.

The nurse did ask me if I wanted the epidural. But I was firm with my intial decision, NO epidural, as I was worried about my caeserean wound.

But later they gave me some painkiller jab and the laughing, after that I was in a half-sleep mode, drifting in and out of sleep. It was painful but I somehow managed to get on with it.

Well, it wasn't that painful actually as there was a break between each contraction.

Comparing my previous experience, caeserean, this was a much pleasant experience.

As it was getting closer and closer to the final stage, the nurse were getting ready for the birth, setting up.

Ding Dong Ding Dong, 10cm, time to call the doctor. But before that, the nurse had a hard time trying to break my water bag... Hahaha...

Then the doctor came in.

The most difficult part, push the baby out. It felt a massive constipation and having a hard time to poo...

After a few pushes, the doctor decided to use the vacuum. One suction and Max was out. What a GREAT relief.

In my heart I was saying, "Thank you, God." And I was very grateful and proud.

The journey of a first time mommy - First night...

Rewind back to 21 months so ago, the first day Natalie was brought home. It was a Labour Monday, May 1st 2006.

That night was a disaster to us..

First few days in hospital, everything was just fine and smooth, as there were nurses for SOS. When Natalie cried, needed to be changed, fed, I could just press the red button. Someone would come and bring ther back to the nursery.

However, the night that we were back home, things were different and ugly. Reality kicked in. We have to face everything ourselves, problem. For first time parents, we were lost when Natalie started to cry non-stop for no reason, even after feeding her and diaper changed. Two clueless exhausted parents and a crying infant in a small room tussled till 3, 4 am in the next morning.

We were stoned yet frustrated. I wanted to cry as I didn't know what to do to sooth Natalie to sleep.

DH couldn't stand the crying and he just walked of the room... I forgot how I managed to get Natalie to bed later.

But the very next night and thereafter, I was left all alone with Natalie every night, while everyone in the house was in deep sleep, including hubby.

For the first few weeks I had Natalie fell asleep on my breast, while I leaned agaisnt the piled up pillows to keep myself in a sitting position. Often I dozed myself before I knew it... those were the lonely nights.

Then I resolved to watching tv while feeding Natalie or soothing her to sleep, so that I could stay awake.

Emotionally and physically I was exhausted and stressed out. Also because of the hormone changes, I cried alot, especially when I failed to breastfeed her.

Sometimes when I really needed a break, I got my in-laws to take care of Natalie. Often I made sure Nat was asleep and had her last feed, when I handed her over to them. So my MIl only need to feed her once, at 5 or 6 am, that's the time she gets up. Sometimes twice, the earlier feed at 2am.

By fourth or fifth months I took care of Natalie full time at night, as she began to sleep longer hours, until the night before I gave birth to Max.

The ultimate reward of this first experience is Natalie and I are very close though she rather not to call me mommy until today. I'm still her No.1 favourite...

In the case if I'm not around, she prefers her grandparents to her daddy. Tes, the last person she seeks is my DH... haha... he couldn't handle her except when he has got food with him. Natalie is a "wai sik mao"(loves food).

Though I didn't manage to breastfeed her properly, I'm still very proud of myself and Natalie of what we had been through all those nights

However, things became a little different when Max was brought home from the hospital and that was another story.

Lemon Rosemary Grilled Chicken

Sunday evening I tried out this Lemon Rosemary Grilled Chicken, which recommended by a co-worker of mine, for dinner.

It pretty easy to prepare. All you need are;

1 whole chicken
2 lemons
20g Dry Rosemary
3 or 4 Garlic
Olive Oil

First cooked the lemon in boiling water for 15 minutes, till you poked the skin with a fork.

Meanwhile you can blend the garlic and the dry rosemary spices together. When it's done, mix the smashed garlic and rosemary with 2 tablespoon of olive oil.

Then rub the mixture onto the chicken inside out.

Lastly put the 2 cooked lemons into the chicken stomach, before grilling it at 180C for 60 minutes in an oven.