For Charity, Not for Your Bloody Publicity

Before touching onto related post about the topic, let's have a moment of silence for the victims of #MH17 as they are coming home today to Malaysia for burials. They will always be remembered and condolences to the friends and families of those affected. I'm again deeply saddened by this as I know, in this very flight of MH17, there were a great number of kids in the flight, all just awaiting to go for holiday, not the last flight of their life. Rest in peace, poor souls.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/themalaymailnewspaper?fref=photo

Now, seriously, I believe most nowadays know about this #IceBucketChallenge but, does anyone really know what is it for and the true cause of it ? I believe not. Everyone seems to find it fun and wanting to do it for the sake of publicity, and most especially, wasting the precious drops of water.

Hey, the true hashtag of ice bucket challenge was #ALSIceBucketChallenge and what is ALS? Not much people even bothers to go look this up and let me tell you what it is for the benefit of you lazy bums out there.

The official website of ALS : http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html

To summarize this, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or a disease often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"  affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. In time, ALS patients suffers from movement difficulty to total paralysis. As of current, there are no cure for this disease although there are some medicines here and there being developed to slow it down, not totally stopping it. Probably because not much people knows about it since mostly affected was those adults between 40 and 70 and with only 2 out of every 100,000 people will get the disease each year, this Ice Bucket Challenge thing started as an awareness campaign.

So, I don't need to further explain the ice bucket challege since most people knows about it. But what people don't know, is why are the celebrities doing it. People, it's not being done out of fun, it's being done to raise awareness about ALS and also to DONATE. See, you don't know bout this part now, do you?

The ice bucket challenge started in the States when this golfer guy, Chris Kennedy, a golfer from Sarasota in Florida, was nominated by a friend to it and soon his friends started doing it and the hashtag #StrikeOutALS came along together with the #ALSIceBucketChallenge . The craze started on July and by end of July, the ALS Association reported a dramatic increase in donations. Yes, DONATIONS is what it's all about.

Starting from the States, the craze went on to infect people all over the world, doing videos of them doing this. The videos usually consist of the person saying who nominated them, pours the ice water on themselves, nominates someone else to do it within 24 hours or donate $100 to ALS Association and that's it. What they FORGET was the part to DONATE.

Kudos to Charlie Sheen for doing it right and Steve-O from Jackass for saying it right.

Source: https://uk.celebrity.yahoo.com/gossip/omg/charlie-sheen-does-ice-bucket-challenge-but-with-money-instead-water-legend-122120251.html

Source: http://instagram.com/officiallysteveo

So there you go, the challenge is one thing, the donations is another thing, so people, once you've done the challenge, don't forget to educate them WHERE to donate for the ALS Association.

It's the Life !

Pretty much everything has changed for me and I'd say, a hell lot of things changed in fact since the last post. Undeniably, I was lazy, now, I might as well a pick up my pace. I half considered closing this blog down and carry on with the new one elsewhere. That will be discovered soon. As of now, I'm going to keep on using this site for my blogs. Technically, for now, I'm lost at what to post, thus the constant delaying on updates. I'm no longer the one going out for parties and clubs or whats not. Rather, the life has gotten really dull. Maybe it's what most people say, part of the process of growing up and sacrificing for something else. 

 True enough, I am indeed sacrificing most of my time for something else. That's to be announced when it's all done :D On a side note, I'd like to point out to all that stop expecting party pictures,hot chicks, hot hunks or whats not in trend. I don't do trend. I set my own trend. Look at it this way, people are crazy about minions right now, here, in my country. Minions as in those mini yellow guy who speaks alien language in Despicable Me.

Yes, these little yellow guy in jumpers with goggles on. People rushes to McDonald's and queue up from midnight or whenever to it's open just to get their hands on these little guys. See what the crazy queue and traffic it caused? Both caught at different state in my country.

These two pictures is sourced from my friend, Shuffler Kenneth. Notice those long ass queue? I'm probably dead asleep while these people try to get their hands on the minion toy and throw the foods away, untouched. Now that's truly despicable. But, hurrah to these bunch of people! 

These guys collected the unwanted meals from those hobos that bought the the meal set for the minion toy and donate them to various homeless and orphanages. It seems like they have taken down their Facebook page or  I'm just purely lousy at looking up for people/group in Facebook. Whatever it is, if you don't eat them, give them to those who can't have proper meal, damn it. Don't go wasting foods and just cuz we're not living in Bosnia or Africa, doesn't give you all the damn right to waste foods. 

Salute to you, Sorious Samura !

Looking at people around me, I know obviously, there will not be a chance of hunger that will happen to anyone of us. Yeah, there will, that's only your own fault if it does happen as most of the people who will go into starvation is mostly girls who wanna slim down the hard way. That's pretty stupid, don't you think so? This is what I mean by real starvation in places like Ethiopia.

 

This is just one part of it... Continue to watch it yourself as there is a full 15 part of this clip as this courageous journalist, Sorious Samura, goes into hunger for a full one month to experience the true pain that the people in Ethiopia suffers from.

Wonder why I talk about this all the sudden? Well, I've always watched World Vision's growth everyday and I've even volunteered in their mission sometimes. That was kinda long ago. This is in order to support their new campaign which is called Skip-A-Meal . For each meal you skip a day, you can contribute a lot for kids from Sabah and Korea. So please, help the kids for their future. Feed them so they can grow to see the world, not to end their life...

Lost and Alone

Yesterday I went off to Ulu Yam with Vincent to bring his aunt back to KL for Chinese New Year. You'd be thinking, why can't the aunt come back herself? Good question. First off, she's suffering from mental illness. Down syndrome or whichever it is, I have no idea. Bottom word, she stays in this Welfare Home for the old folks and those mentally handicapped.

I've visited Ulu Yam for my whole life as my grandma stays there (as well as a whole bunch of relatives). Though I don't really fancy that place due to the heat, it's kinda peaceful and it gets me off the KL rush stress. Oh, I'm kinda out of topic already from here.

Back to track, this is not the first time I've went to Ulu Yam to visit Vincent's aunt. In fact, it's just the second time. I still recall that the first time I went there, I'm quite surprised to find that Ulu Yam have these type of places. Maybe because the land there is cheap for them to build such welfare homes? Or is it the fact that it's kinda isolated? I have no idea. My heart kinda twisted when I really look at the old folks there. Listening to the complaints of the caretaker over there doesn't help in comforting me. It gives me a very sickening impression of the people who even have the heart to leave their very own family member there. To think that the phrase 'Blood is thicker than water' makes me sick to the very core.

There are some pictures I've taken using my phone on my visit there last Sunday. It kinda tear me apart to even think of staying in these type of places. Though the caretaker are nice and friendly, but I do have a very clear feeling of how the people there really do feel. Some of them are not even mentally ill. They are just really old and unwanted by their own family members. I recall a story I've read once from a book that teaches the value of our own family...

"Once, there was a family who stays with their very old grandfather. The mom and dad was a very busy person. That leaves the son and the grandfather alone at home most of the time. Needless to say, the son loves the grandfather very much and they used to play together. However, one day, the father comes back, face dark, looked at his very own father and said, 'Dad, I'm sorry but I will have to send you off as I can no longer provide better living for everyone.' Upon hearing that, the grandfather walks off sadly to his room, with tears flowing freely from his wrinkled eyes. That very evening, the father carries the grandfather in a very big basket and when he is about to set off, the young son called out to the father, 'Papa! Papa! When you have sent grandpapa off, don't forget to bring back the basket as well!' Curious, the father turns around and asks the son why. The son said, ' When you are old like grandpapa, I can send you off as well with the basket like what you are doing right now to grandpapa!' Shocked and ashamed, the father puts down the grandfather and apologizes.

I hope you learn something from this story...