List of Melamine Positive China Products

As I watched the news last night, Hong Kong reported that it found melamine in one of the country’s edible products. Judging by what I saw on TV, you can easily identify what brand it is. But the report never mentioned a particular brand. Not until I read it online (yes I read the news online).

Another was Nissin recalling their instant cup noodles when an old woman had some stomach problems. It was later found out that the product contained a certain pesticide and since there were no punctures whatsoever on the cup, then perhaps the problem was the product/noodles.

Then BFAD released a list of melamine positive China products online.

for the whole article, please click here.

Anxiety

Anxiety is common to all actually and is believed to be a natural way to counteract an individual’s capacity to harm oneself or engage in harmful behaviors (wikipedia).

As wikipedia puts it:

“Although panic attacks are not experienced by every anxiety sufferer, they are a common symptom. Panic attacks usually come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perceived danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if he or she is about to die or pass out.

Emotional symptoms of anxiety include a fear (such as a fear of an illness), or the need to avoid certain stressful situations or social situations due to fear of embarrassment. There may be considerable confusion and irritability when the anxiety is taking place. Physical symptoms include hot flashes, chest pain, sudden tiredness, headaches, shortness of breath, problems digesting and nausea.”

But according to a friend, one should not fear an illness because an illness is curable, a disease is debatable. I am not a health care provider so I would not know. But then again, after reading some related literature (thanks to wikipedia), I found out that there are several types of anxiety disorder. These are Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Phobias, Social Anxiety Disorder, OC Disorder, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and Separation Anxiety. Click here for more information.

Panic Disorder is describe in wikipedia this way.

“Many people who have panic attacks (especially their first one) think they are having a heart attack and often end up at the doctor or emergency room. Even if the tests all come back normal the person will still worry, with the physical manifestations of anxiety only reinforcing their fear that something is wrong with their body. Heightened awareness (hypervigilance) of any change in the normal function of the human body will be noticed and interpreted as a possible life threatening illness by an individual suffering from panic attacks.”

If you feel some of the symptoms mentioned above, there are several treatments available. You may opt for psychotherapy or pharmaceutical therapy or a combination of both. 500mcg of anxiolytic will help you relax and sleep but it may cause some side effects like muscoskeletal pains.

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Why am I writing about this? I don’t know. It might be my way of coping with anxiety.hahaha

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Title of the Book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Author: Mark Haddon

I finished reading this book a long time ago but I haven’t found the right time and the right mindset to write about…until now.

The cover design of this book will surely get your attention while you kill time inside a bookstore. Once you are hooked with its design, you will soon realize that the content of the book is promising – not that I am a good judge of good books and good writing (creative writing people will surely laugh at me).

Preview (Spoiler)

Well, the whole story is all about Christopher Boone who is a mathematically gifted autistic teenager who discovered that his neighbor’s dog was murdered. He was at the crime scene first so everyone thought it was him who stabbed the dog with a pitch fork. He was brought to the police station for questionning and for assaulting an officer on duty.

When his father got him out of the police station, he began his quest to solve the mystery of the murder of Mrs. Shears’s dog. While trying to solve the mystery, he wrote a book about his little detective game. Later in the story he found out that his mother eloped with the husband of Mrs Shears and his father killed Wellington, the dog.

To continue…

What is interesting about this book is that you get to see how an autistic child thinks and reacts to his surroundings. I remember when I volunteered for Special Olympics, a sports festival designed for the gifted, that each child shows affection in a different way. Others get physical, too physical sometimes, and others don’t want to be touched.

Reading the experiences of the protagonist in this story made me realize how interesting it would be to be in the mind of an autistic child – a different view of the world will surely greet you with a bang. Will it be like that of the protagonist in this book? Will he/she be that sensitive to sound, color and light? How does a gifted child reacts to the changes of the world?

This might be my concept for the monologue I am writing.