Who's Gopalan Nair? Never heard of him,

Don't know what this lunatic was up to when 'HE' showed up on the papers,

Felt that he acted like a girl when he apologized and caught the earliest flight back to the States

And withdrew his goddamned apologies

What an honourable man

your essay ended at the climax.

wtf? please continue with your story man

Your blog is the nicest to read.

the fun thing about dreaming is yu can do whatever you like

the not so fun thing is, sometimes u cant really control yourself

go vegan and exercise!!!, saves a buck for a bang( think "Mary Chia" slimming models )

1)get a National skin center referral from any polyclinic and fix an appointment

2)settle your appointment and explain your current condition to the dermatologist

3)dermatologist will arrange a date for the mole removal surgery

4)depending on your pain threshold level, you can opt for laser or surgical(using surgical knives and stuff)

5)Surgery time!, nurse will call your name and you'll enter a small operation theatre in National skin center and will be asked to sign a form, you are responsible for anything that occurs from the operation.

6)Doctor smiles and blindfolds you while you lie on the bed, after a few minutes you'll feel pain comparable to ants biting on that part of the face for a few seconds.

7)stitching, nurse will follow up with bandaging.

8)come back a few weeks later for the stitching to be removed

9)walla!

cost : varies depending on the kind of mole (whether it is cancerous or not). Costs will be >$100 non-inclusive of gst and service charge

o no, everton wants to dominate the league ? as with Man City . Jan transfer window will be an interestin one to watch.

I would've written 1 trillion dollars on the cheque

understand and then memorise the concept.

approach your tutors for help, they're paid to help student, clarify until you understand 

scared of exams for what? exams are meant for testing your knowledge of a subject, not meant to strike fear into our minds

be thick skin and ask for help from your peers and tutors

i'd prefer to bold a note on my wedding invitation : No red packets please

"(AP) <!-- sphereit start -->He was 14 when the girl entered his grass-covered hut and placed a plate in front of him containing an ancient recipe.

Like all men on this African isle, Carvadju Jose Nananghe knew exactly what it meant. Refusing was not an option. His heart pounding, he lifted the steaming fish to his lips, agreeing in one bite to marry the girl.

“I had no feelings for her,” said Nananghe, now 65. “Then when I ate this meal, it was like lightning. I wanted only her.”

In this archipelago of 50 islands of pale blue water off the western rim of Africa, it's women, not men, who choose. They make their proposals public by offering their grooms-to-be a dish of distinctively prepared fish, marinated in red palm oil. It's the equivalent of a man bending on one knee and offering a woman a diamond ring, except that in one of the world's matriarchal cultures, it's women that do the asking, and once they have, men are powerless to say no.

To have refused, explained the old man remembering the day half a century ago, would have dishonored his family — and in any case, why would he want to choose his own wife?

“Love comes first into the heart of the woman,” explained Nananghe. “Once it's in the woman, only then can it jump into the man.”

But the treacherous tides and narrow channels that have long kept outsiders out of these remote islands are no longer holding back the modern world. Young men are increasingly leaving Orango, located 38 miles off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, a country in West Africa. They find jobs carrying luggage for tourist hotels on the archipelago's more developed islands; others collect oil from the island's abundant palm trees and sell it on the African mainland.

They return bringing with them a new form of courtship, one which their elders find deeply unsettling.

“Now the world is upside down,” complained 90-year-old Cesar Okrane, his eyes obscured by a cloud of cataracts. “Men are running after women, instead of waiting for them to come to them.”

Standing in the shade of a grass roof, he holds himself upright with the help of a tall spear and explains that when he was young he took extra care to maintain his physique, learned to dance and practiced writing poetry — all ways in which men can try to attract women, without overtly making the first move.

In recent years, young men have become increasingly bold, going so far as to openly propose marriage — a dangerous turn, say traditionalists.

“The choice of a woman is much more stable,” explains Okrane. “Rarely were there divorces before. Now, with men choosing, divorce has become common.”

With records not readily available, it's unclear how many divorces there were earlier, but islanders agree that there are significantly more now than in the years when men waited patiently for a proposal on a plate. They waited some more, as their brides-to-be then set out for the eggshell-white beaches encircling the island, looking for the raw materials with which to build their new house.

Women built all the grass-covered huts here, dragging driftwood back from the ocean to use as poles, cutting blankets of blond grass to weave into roofs and shaping the pink mud underfoot into bricks. Only once the house is built, a process that takes at least four months, can the couple move in and their marriage be considered official.

There are matrilineal cultures in numerous pockets of the world, including in other parts of Africa, as well as in China's Yunnan province and in northeastern Thailand, says anthropologist Christine Henry, a researcher at France's elite National Center for Scientific Research, or CNRS. But the unquestioned authority given to women in matters of the heart on this island is unique — “I don't know of it happening anywhere else,” says Henry, who has written a book on the customs of the archipelago.

That things are changing is evident in the material chosen for the island's newest house: concrete. It was erected by paid laborers, not local women.

Although priestesses still control the island's relationship with the spirit world, their clout is waning, as churches sown by missionaries have taken root.

“When I get married it will be in a church, wearing a white dress and a veil,” says 19-year-old Marisa de Pina, who strikes a modern pose under the blond grass of her family's hut, wearing tight Capri pants and sequined sandals.

She says the Protestant church she attends has taught her that it is men, not women, that should make the first move, and so she plans to wait for a man to approach her. To make her point, the teenager pops into her hut and returns holding a worn copy of the New Testament, its pages stuffed with post-it notes, letters and business cards.

It's a decision that has caused strife inside the mud walls of her family's house.

Like her niece, Edelia Noro wears store-bought clothes instead of the grass skirts still favored by some older women. She, too, attends church. But she says she doesn't see why these trappings of modern life should alter the system of courtship.

More than two decades ago, she set off for the closest beach looking for the ingredients with which to propose to the man she loved.

Noro waited for the tide to recede, then dug in the wet sand for clams, collecting them in a woven basket. She was embarrassed, she said, that she was too poor to afford a proper meal of fish and could only offer her groom-to-be what she could gather with her own hands. So after preparing the dish, she placed it in front of him, then ran and hid behind a tree, peeking out to see his reaction.

“He did not hesitate and ate right away. I could see the love shining in his eyes,” she said, a glow spreading across her cheeks.

Although the island's unique customs may be fading, there are still pockets of resistance. Often, it's women that lure men back into the fold of ancient ways.

Now 23, Laurindo Carvalho first spotted the girl when he was 13. He worked in a tourist hotel, wore jeans, and owned a cell phone and thought of himself as modern and so he thought he could turn tradition on its head, asking the girl to marry him. With the wave of a hand, she rejected him.

Six years passed and one day, when both were 19, he heard a knock at his door. Outside, his love stood holding out a plate of freshly caught fish, a coy smile on her face.

Carvalho still wears sandblasted jeans and flip-flops bearing the Adidas logo, but he now sees himself as embedded in the village's matriarchal fiber.

“I learned the hard way that here, a man never approaches a woman,” he says.<!-- sphereit end -->

© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

My lecturer brought up this article today and it reminds me of the traditional match making days back in China and traditional practises in parts of the world today that are similar to the one mentioned in the article ( In Sri Lanka, every girl upon entering adulthood has to marry a man chosen by her relatives )

Love unconditionally and to cherish everyone as much as they cherish you.

ignore it la,  as long as she is okay with it.

but ah, dont anyhow touch here touch dere when u get drunk with girls

wait, the reason there's inadequate security is because of complacency. Singapore's

excellent safety standards are well known,  robberies takes place only once every

few months.

What a bullSh*t complain

If you don't even know how to defend yourself, there's no point in complaining being a

victim of a robbery.

after u recover, just go out and study in your neighbourhood library

demolish some HDB blocks to make way for the uNi

10 mil is almost half his fortune....gee i would have sued him for his entire fortune

well i hope that even if he stays, his performances will still be consistent

Na, it won't be at yishun , the field opposite northpoint is too small to accommodate a local university campus.

president of iran, and the news about him running a blog sprung up about a year ago.

greedy people

haha, I remembered during the 2002 world cup, bookies were offering odds of $500 for every $1 if China were to win it. 

woah , don't worry just approach your PEM personally, tell him/her your situation.

Let em understand.

I have a few friends who had <85 % attendance yet nvr get debarred as they had no bad attitudes in class. Just ensure this is your las time late

Singaporeans are not afraid of the government , if we're afraid, wouldn't we be pissing our pants or holding our breath when Parliamentary session is televised during our night time TV schedules?

If we're afraid, wouldn't there be substantial votes for PAP MP's during the last GE to throw opposition members off balance?

Come on, I feel our government has done an excellent job in ensuring our path is littered with few garbage ( eg . SARS crisis, 9/11 and Iraq War ). In comparison to other countries where political problem arises every few months, there's a 0.001 % chance of that occurring in Singapore. when was the last time a political crises with a magnitude comparable to that during the 1960's occurred (the MCP vs PAP)? Political problems inevitably leads to economic problems, they're just like siamese twins.

Maybe we can refer to it as a blessing in disguise, however I feel that the recent price hikes is unavoidable. With rising global food prices, which government would be willing to subsidise the increase in costs? in the end, even if they do, policies will be brought forward to increase GST ( which haven't happen to us ever since the earliest rise in food prices were announced )

One of the solutions to the problem can be, the government should encourage everyone to donate food items to the poor, when they are the ones severely affected by the rise in rising prices.

prick the pimple only when it's ripe , otherwise don't bother. After pricking, remember to apply medicine that dries up thats spot (eg. oxy ). This allows blood to clot from inside and you'll have those hardened 'shell' forming over it.

after this phase, do not bother that spot again until it heals up. how to know if it's healing? ans: A loose hardened shell is a good indicator. Remember to seek treatment from the doctor too, facial spas helps to clean the face from the outside only,

but medical prescription from doctors ( topical and oral medicine ) cleans everything inside out.

Remember to apply sunscreen too. I prefer sunscreen over moisturizer as i believe prolonged exposure to the sun increases the risk of skin inflammation which results in acne

Originally posted by zocoss:

The Silva brothers...

 

I just have a funny thought like in the future, if one of them turn out to be very good offensively, then in big matches... they can change shirt and the other team's defenders end up marking the wrong guy...

all the more we should have a "one face" team