Suicide Pact - Teenagers

Yesterday I read from the strait times about a group of teenagers’ pact to commit suicide. Apparently the seven of them agreed to commit suicide to gain spiritual power to save the world from evil. Sounds fantasy or movie plot but its real, and 2 of them died from jumping down.

The rest of them withdrew at the eleventh hours. Ku Witaya was liked a leader in the groups of boys. This 16 years old boys had the full trust of his friends so much so that when the young self professed Taoism medium suggested a suicide pact as part of a grand plan to “sacrifice” themselves in order to save the world from demons, his friends and younger brother agreed.

Moments after Witaya and his close friend, Sia Chan Hong pummeled 9 floors to their deaths in the early hours of 23/08/08, the remaining 5 boys backed out. Even though some of the boys were not convinced and actually terrified of dying, but because of their “loyalty” to him, they agreed. But after witnessing one of them in agony before dying, they got terrified.

It is sad to read it especially the 2 boys are only 16. They should have a bright future ahead but now it was all gone. Imagine their parents’ agonies, raising them from babies till so big, and they just jumped down without evening sparing a thought for their parents.

This new is a wake up call for parents to be more mindful of their children behaviors. If ever sensed they are emotionally disturbed or in stress, then it’s time to seek help and not leave it unattended as we do not know what it can lead to……….

Decapitated Infant

I read from Today online regarding an article about a mum in Texas who killed her newborn son and ate his brain.

The baby (Scotty Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez) was only 3 ½ weeks old yet he left the world. Apparently in the report, it mentioned that the mother was suffering from mental illness which might be post-natal depression.

When the police arrived at the scene, they were all somber. It wasn’t an ordinary crime scene that police would witness daily. They were looking at a decapitated baby, whose head was sever and body parts being chewed off. The mother was screaming and crying “I’ve killed my baby” with self-inflicted wounds on the chest and throat.

The mother claimed that the devil made her killed her baby. Either way, it would never bring alive the baby……

The report gave the accounts of the mother’s aunt and briefly her mental record. It did mention that she has been in and out of the psychiatric units prior to the baby’s death but actual illnesses unknown.

Whatever the reason, the baby was dead and I felt sad when I read the article. I presume post-natal depression is the real cause for the mother’s behavior and it’s terrifying to know how mental illnesses can cause. Pray that the mother will receive the necessary treatment that she needs. Berating her won’t be helpful as I believed she’s unaware of her action anyway the guilt conscience would plague her for the rest of her life and to me that is the worst punishment already……….

Last Tuesday (30/06/09), my friend sent me an email asking for donations to help a little girl called, Charmaine.

She’s a 4 years old girl who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer (Neuroblastoma Cancer), and currently the treatment available in Singapore has only a guarantee rate of 10 – 20%. In order to have a higher rate, she has to be treated in US, and even then the success rate is only 40 – 50% (but the upfront deposit is USD 350,000)

Her mother like me has her own blog and I went to take a look. She’s a single mum, whose husband has left her for her good friend when she was 7th month pregnant (Charmaine). I could imagine her world came crushing down. She started dating her ex-husband at the age of 17, and he’s the only guy she dated. I can’t empathize her suffering but only sympathize.

After reading her blog, I realized I’m very blessed as my daughters are healthy. Without hesitation, I agreed to buy the goodies bags priced at $10 (an organization is raising funds for her to be treated). Even though it was $10, but most of us (my colleagues) donated $20. A little contributed by everyone hopefully can accumulate to a lot.

Many might feel that USD 350,000 can save a lot of lives, but it’s regardless of the numbers of lives one can saves, it’s the 1 life we can save that matter.

I’m a mother myself, and for that I can understands her desperateness. Pray that god will bless her and helps to overcome their obstacles……….

Broke & Forgotten

I read an internet new article and found this piece of new rather sad…..

It mentioned about a homeless Korean man, died with 145k of saving. He was believed to be 56 years old, and suffered from cancer.

He seemed to have no relatives, or should I say he does not even know where he was born or what his real name is.

Apparently he does not know that there’s a law that required proper identification in order to withdraw his saving. While the paper work being sorted out for him, he passed away without getting hold of a single cent……

It’s very sad to pass away without any love one surrounding him…………May he rest in peace and found solace in heaven……………

Summary of events......

This week really tiring for me, firstly I have to prepare Dinah for her SA1, and then it will be my turn preparation for my 1st exam.

I took a numbers of half day leaves to give Dinah intensive coaching, especially her Chinese. Apparently, her level is still low.

The weird part is her Chinese only weak in Han Yu Pin Yin, but not in writing Chinese characters. Too bad, her SA1 focus mainly on Han Yu Pin Yin with minority of Han Zhi.

I can only try my best to clear her confusion, ultimately it’s her effort. Hopefully, she won’t fare too badly.

After this week, next week I have to start preparing my Sociology exam. I consider myself to be fortunate to be able to mix with a few of my course mates, and we suggested splitting up the questions among ourselves, later on consolidate all the questions for a final reviews from the lecturer.

So instead of individually doing 20 questions, we will split among us, and that’s mean 5 questions each. We agreed next Saturday, we shall meet 1 hour earlier before our lesson to consolidate all the questions, and submit for a quick check to see if we have missed out any points.

Eventually we will all use this notes for our exam, actually it’s covered almost all the units except a few, but with the main pints extract out. I believed its made study easier and time saving too. Hopefully it’s the beginning of a group study; I believed forming group is the way to go, in the event if 1 member never turns up, at least others can recap the info for the absentee. Everyone has their strong area, so we can help one another, especially most of us are working adults, we need the additional help…….

Just to side track a bit, yesterday was our new module (Statistic), finally got 1 lecturer randomly group us. I think that will be better for ice breaking, as up till now, I only know the 4 ladies in the whole class. Even though, we might not be in the same class eventually, but it’s good to know one another still.

One never knows what is going to happen, and I believe study is the best time to make some good friends, cos we all share the same goal – to pass and get our degrees.

So finally just want to say nowadays study becoming better for me, at least I have overcome the icy stage……….

Now for really the irrelevant part and late update too. Finally the swine flu seems to settle down, last week was the worst. I was frustrated with all the stringent check, but what to do…..

Currently the big new is the capture of Mas Selemat. He has become the “winner” of the newspaper front cover. Our daily news dosage surely will have his info in it. But I’m surprised that we actually caught him. 1 year over, I have already forgotten about him, and when I read the news that he has been captured in JB, I was laughing at his foolishness. At the same time, amazed that he can escaped in our neighboring country for so long…….It’s really a mixture of feelings, but I’m glad he has been captured and back to where he should be………

Australia Wildfires - Worst in History

Lately all news seems to be focusing on Australia wildfires which resulted from an arson. It's terrible. So far the fire has claimed 173 lives, and left a trailed of charred bodies in the car and wrecked homes.

The police believed that the death toll might rise, given the severity of the destruction around the area.

Those arsonists should be charged with murder. It's protrayed a total disregard of human lives. Australia has been plagued by natural & financial disasters and now human disaster.

It's sad to read so many families has been destroyed in some way or another by this fire. I wonder how those arsonists feel. Do they feel sorry or remorseful??????

US mum on trial for killing 2 years old daughter

Not another case of mother and stepdad killing own daughter. It's about 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers.

The blonde little girl's decomposed body was found stuffed in a plastic container in Galveston Bay in Texas after she had been brutally beaten.

Apparently, she has been lashed and dunked in water for not saying "please" to her stepdad. It's a total disregard of human life.

The toddler has tried to intervene her mother and stepdad lashing by telling her mother "I Love You", but they continued with their brutal lashing.

I can't comprehend why the mother still has the heart to beat her daughter, despite hearing the 3 magic words. But one area I realised - all of the mothers who commit these brutal acts are young single mothers.

My view is that perhaps govt should provide more counselling to better prepare young single mother for motherhood, should they choose to suppor the child themselves. My heart goes out to Riley deeply. May her soul find solace in heaven......

"Sleeping Beauty"

It was simply amazing that one can preserve a dead body so well. This girl is one of the world's best-preserved bodies: Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old Sicilian girl who died of pneumonia in 1920.

If one never read the article, she can be easily mistaken as an ordinary girl sleeping. She was so well preserved that she looked so alive.

We must salute to the "artist" for perserving her body so well, consider it's in the 1920s when there's little technology or medical science we enjoy now. It's truly maginficent......

Cold-Blooded Mother - UK

It's another case of a murder of a 2 years old toddler named Sanam, and her murderers were her mother and mother's lover.

I thought mother supposed to be protecting her child/children. I can't imagine how she can inflicts those horrible injuries to her child.

Over the span of 4 weeks, little Sanam had over 107 injuries. It's only 4 weeks, but her injuries were astonishing. I was speechless on that. I almost cried when I read the article.

The ways her mother and lover tortured her were beyond imagination. She's only 2 years old, for god's sake, where's their conscience, especially her mother.

They never even seek medical attention, despite seeing her unable to walk and in great deal of pain. My only description for them is cruel, and even then cruel is still too light for them. They were simply inhumane.

I treasure my girls so much, that I would not bear to hit them, yet she's torturing her daughter....My girls are very blessed and they must learn to treat others well in return....I always tell Dinah, she's very fortunate in every way. When she's older, I will introduce her to charity work. I want them to grow up knowing how blessed they are and more importantly to understand it's more blessed to give than to receive.......

Murder - Boon Lay Toddler

A 2 years old toddler named Nikie has been murdered at Boon Lay, and the suspect is none other than her father. I never really keep track with the news, but I did come across and I felt pity for the toddler.

I'm not interested to know what's the outcome for the murderer. I just felt sympathize for the toddler. She has been void of the opportunity to live her own life. Her life has been cruelly taken away before she has the opporunity to explore the world.

Whenever I came across such tragedy, I felt sad for the children. I will wonder how people can murder those angelic children, whose faces fill with pureness and their ability to bring joy to masses.........

Delivery is Life or Death - Liberia

I came across this article from yahoo news, that says women in Liberia has one of the highest death mortality during or shortly after childbirth.

Their country seriously short of the basic and trained midwives to help or even detect problem in those ladies.

Most of the ladies have traditional home deliveries, by local midwives. But most of them mostly untrained and there's only 400 of them to serve a big community. Experts estimated that Liberia needs to have at least 1600 midwives in each community, and they need to build more hospital so those ladies can access in case of emergency.

But I think firstly they should trained those midwives, get them to equip with basic knowledge on delivery or at least detect common childbirth problems, so families can quickly send them for medical attention. Usually, it's the delay that cause their lifes.

Still, it's easy for me to say, but for the action to be taken is going to take long time. Liberia is still a very 3rd world country, and alot need to be done. My heart goes out to those women. Childbirth shouldn't be like a matter of life and death. It's supposed to be joyous. You are welcoming new lifes to the world.........

DBS exercise more cost-effective measure

It's must be a turmoil for DBS's staffs. First, it's the retrenchment, and now pay cut couple with reduce bonus.

I don't know what to comment, except that it's still better than retrenchment, more if the workers are financially strapped or family to be fed.

I believed even though recession has hit us, but we should still continue giving to the needy. Perhaps we can exercise some prudent in our saving, but not too excessive that it's might caused further hurt to our economic.

Never mind, our economic won't be low for very long. I've faith in that.................

Civil severants tighten belts......

Today online new state that top civil servants even ministers going to have up to 19% pay cut. It wasn't still today that I know that their part of their salaries are tagged to economic performance.

Their bonus also lower to 2 months at most. But at least the pay cut is only affecting ministers and top civil servants, else all the middle to lower civil servants will be very affected, hopefully I did not misread.

I think their approach is reassuring. At least, they took the initiative to show Singaporean that they are in it as a country. I might not know how much it impact their lifestyle, which I doubt, but overall they are being active in tiding Singapore recession. Let praise them.......

Battered toddler die in horrible way........

I read online newspaper, and came across an article that read toddler battered to death by mum's live-in boyfriend and tenant. The most ridiculous is that social workers fail to notice the injuries despite over 60 times of visit.
I was astonished to read it, and sad at the same time. My deep-felt symapathy go to the boy. So young only 17 months, and a long way to go, yet he's dead. My tear was welling up, but I controlled.
The article state that the mother constantly neglect the child welfare, putting him in cot unattended for hours, while she surfed the internet for pornography. Later when her boyfriend move in, he started abusing the toddler, named Baby P. He treated Baby P like punching bag, not one of his cloth was unstained with blood. He did many abusive thing to Baby P, and he was treated worse than animals. I just couldn't bear to describe the "treatment" endowed on the poor toddler.
One already bad enough, imagine another guy (tenant) move in also same treatment. What amazing is how come the social worker never spot all this injuries, even though the mum has excuses for all his bruises but isn't that abit too far stretched to accept. No matter how active a child, but there can't be so bruises, and it's all over the body.
In the first place, they shouldn't has returned the boy to his mother, after they found the mother to neglect and abusive. When the judge found them all guilty, they aren't guilty or remorseful. It's simply inhumane.
A life is gone just like that, and he's so defendless and vulnerable. A life that has just begun, yet ended so shortly. More thing need to be done to protect children from subjecting to abuse. They deserve the right to grow in a loving and healthy environment. It's also the parents' responsibility to ensure their well-being, physically and emotionally.

Tigers maul worker - Why

I just read the online news and came across this article that reads that 3 white tiger have mauled a malaysian worker to death at our local zoo.
Apparently, the man has jumped into the white tigers enclosure. Read that prior to the fateful accident, the man has been behaving strangly, talking to himself, and told one of the zoo-keeper goodbye, they won't be seeing him anymore.
After a while he left the zoo, before returning shortly, and jumped into their enclosure. Tigers naturally attack their prey so there's no need to sedate them, but weird is why would the man jump over to be attacked.
A very weird method to commit sucide, to allow the tigers to maul on yourself. Nevertheless, he was pronouned dead on the spot from head and neck injuries.
I'm interested to learn from of this case......