My Sister's Keeper

Finished reading this book a few weeks ago and get the chance to watch this movie yesterday. Both the novel and movie brings the same feeling to me. It almost make me cry, only when my room mate beside me who was watching comedy chuckle. Can you imagine how i feels who was actually going to cry.. But anyway, thumbs up to Jodi Picoult for writing this wonderful novel! Here is the synopsis of the novel:

My Sister's Keeper is a novel by Jodi Picoult. The story follows the life of 11- year-old Anna Fitzgerald, who enlists the help of an attorney, Campbell Alexander, to sue her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald for rights to her own body. Kate Fitzgerald, Anna's older sister, suffers from leukemia, and their parents conceived Anna through in vitro fertilization to be a genetic match donor for her sister Kate. Anna donates genetic material throughout her life, including blood and bone marrow for her sister. Their parents want Anna to donate a kidney to Kate after she goes into renal failure, but Anna instead files a lawsuit against her parents for medical emancipation from her parents despite the consequences of her sister's health.

Her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, have different reactions to the law suit. Brian has mixed feelings whereas, Sara feels that Anna should donate the kidney to save Kate's life. Sara is a lawyer turned housewife and decides to represent herself and her husband in the suit. She continuously attempts to get Anna to drop the suit, but Anna refuses and moves out of the house and into the fire station where her father works.

After Kate's cancer diagnosis, Jesse Fitzgerald, Brian and Sara's oldest child, grows up to be a troublemaker involved in alcohol, drugs, theft, and arson. Throughout the book an arsonist frequently sets fires in the area, a problem for Brian and his colleagues. After following the clues, Brian discovers that the arsonist was Jesse. Following which, Brian confronts Jesse and learns how badly Kate's illness has affected him. Brian vows to keep Jesse's arson a secret. Jesse eventually straightens himself out later on becoming a police officer.

The judge at the hearing, Judge DeSalvo, is a parent who lost his 12-year-old daughter, Dena, in a drunk-driving accident. The guardian ad litem assigned to Anna as her representative is Julia Romano, an old girlfriend of Campbell's.

Julia and Campbell met in a private high school. She was a scholarship student from a poor background while he was a rich kid. They fell in love and enjoyed a relationship until Campbell broke up with her at graduation. Julia never knew the reason but felt it was because of her social class. Although they try to conduct court business, their attraction to each other is obvious.

Campbell has a service dog named Judge to aid him with his disability. He keeps the purpose of the dog a secret and gives frivolous answers to any questions on the dog's purpose. Feeling abandoned again, Julia is frustrated about her relationship with Campbell. But when Campbell has a seizure during Anna's testimony, the purpose of the dog is revealed: he is a seizure dog. She discovers Campbell developed epilepsy after a wreck before graduation, and he broke up with her because he did not want to be a burden. She supports him, and they reunite. They eventually marry.

Campbell and Sara bring in their witnesses and battle over whether Anna is mature enough for medical emancipation. Julia, who is supposed to deliver a report about who she thinks should win, is undecided. Anna, who has refused to testify, is the last witness to speak. She reveals that Kate told her that she did not want Anna to go through with the transplant. Which was why Anna filed the lawsuit. The judge decides in favor of Anna and gives Campbell medical power of attorney over her.

Anna dies in a car wreck soon after she is emancipated from her parents. Her kidneys, and other organs, are donated to Kate, and other patients that might need them.

Kate believes that the reason she survived is because someone had to go, and Anna took her place. She grows up to be a dance instructor and whenever she'd missed her sister, she'd look at the scars from the kidney transplant and believe she took Anna wherever she went.

The ending of the movie is slightly different where Kate is the one who pass away....

Rating for the movie: 8.5/10

Starbucks Coffee

I have always wanted to have a try working in Starbucks ever since i drank their coffee for the first time many years ago. And now, i finally have the chances to work in KLCC Starbucks outlet. Why i want to work at this moment since i have class in university? Many of my friends throw this question to me after i had sounded out this idea. The truth is i only have a two hours class in a week this semester and i need to find something to do in order to fill up my free time. The subject that i took this semester is Sun Tzu Art of War: Business Strategy which don't come with final exam, only hundred percent on assignment. The assignment is much more easier since it is a group work and to be able to work it out with Nick, Nicole, Yoke Har and Vince makes my job much more easier. It is an honor to be able to be in their group.


Talking about working as a barista in Starbucks, patience, hardworking, respect, dignity,passion, efficient and muscles(just kidding) are character requires to be able to in work here especially in KLCC outlet. Since this outlet is the most crowded and busiest besides than the Genting outlet, it is almost impossible for you to catch a breathe during peak hours like weekends. Every new barista is given two normal Starbucks black shirt, two Christmas promotion shirt, two apron, a cap, and a barista training program book. You might say wow! There's many stuff given to new barista! But the sad thing is the largest available T-shirt is L size which don't really fit with me. So I look extreamly bizarre and I have no choice but to show my "six packs" -__-"


Most of the time I will be sliding, which means taking care of the cafe. I will be doing stuff like cleaning the table, washing plates, stoking up and sweeping the floor since I am new here. This few days I started to do some blending job where i play around with the cream, coffee, blending machine, milk and syrup. There is much more to learn as I couldn't make the drinks that fast and some of the seniors lost patience with me. I haven't try out with the espresso machine and the cashier area and i guess i will be trying out pretty soon. Besides, I think I am getting better in doing the four base which is Signature Hot Chocolate, Cream Base, Coffee base and Bar Mocha. As for the ingredient used, I cant list it out as this illegal. Who knows there might be some competitors who wants to steal the idea like in the cartoon Spongebox Squarepants(oh, i sound so childish).


Am I happy working here? Well, i can only say i prefer studying. My aim to work here is just mainly to gain experiences, not because of money. I doesn't want to be regret. When you are getting elder and look back at times, this will be one of the best memories you have in life. Live life to the fullest!

2012

I was actually not planning to watch this super cool movie today due to several reasons. First, i just came back from Shah Alam without dropping by my second house here in Genting Klang and straight away to university. Together with me is my laptop on my shoulder and a pair of belly shoes in my red beg. It's kinda tired waking up at six something and bored the eight o'clock train. My plan was going back straight after the class ends and have a good rest because the next day i need to work (Did i mentioned that i work as part time in Starbucks?). But it seems my plan just didn't work out as my roommate aka my course mate ask me for a movie. And so to prevent disappointment, i agrees!

For the movie part, it's really incredible and fascinating. I've got nothing to comment. If you guys out there wanna have some sort of preview, i can only say you will not regret!!! :) Two thumbs up for the movie!

Rating: 9.5/10

Olivia Ong

Lately i have been so into bossanova songs especially by this Singapore singing angel - Olivia Ong. As you can hear from my music play list, her voice is really sweet and unique at the same time. It brings relaxation and you wouldnt hesitate to hear for another hundreds or thousands times i tell you. So I would like to take this opportunities to promote her album in my blog.

Olivia Ong (オリビア・オン,, born October 2, 1985) is a Chinese Singaporan singer. She sings mostly in English but developed her career singing in English and, later,.Japanes. In addition, she has also released rare tracks, recorded in Mandarin Chinese, which can be found on limited edition album tracklistings.

Likened to Seiko Matsuda, she won a singing contest and was signed to a Japanese recording company S2S Pte Ltd at only 15. Olivia, along with 2 other Singaporean girls formed the Japanese pop group, Mirai. Their first single, Open Up Your Mind, was 1 of the theme songs in the Japanese anime (Gensoumaden Saiyuki).

After taking her O-level examinations in Singapore, Olivia moved to Japan to further her studies as well as her career as a solo artist. In Japan, she became a member of a Japanese pop (J-Pop) group called Mirai before she released her bestselling début, "A Girl Meets Bossa Nova" at only 19. With her sultry, soulful, pristine and innocent vocals, she reinterprets Frank Sinatra's hits such as "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars", among other jazz and pop numbers. She is one of the new wave of Singaporean talent being exported internationally. So far, Olivia is the only pop sensation exported exclusively to Japan; previous stars such as Mavis Hee, Kit Chan, Tanya Chua, Joi Chua, Stefanie Sun, Michelle Saram etc, have only been exporting to the Greater Chinese market.

Olivia became a big hit back home in Singapore after she sang the theme song of the drama serial, "The Little Nyonya". She had stated that her paternal grandfather is Peranakan.

Annaism

How humans made their way to Earth? It goes like this: in the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a sliced of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.




Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, though, was that in the daytime, they 'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.




The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man and a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding on to whatever scraps she had left.

Religion of Annaism......

my sister's keeper
Jodi Picoult