I've just finished with the 7 episodes (each more than an hour worth mind you) of the HBO series called John Adams.

It's a bio-series of John Adams who was the second President of the United States. He had served a very short term after being the Vice-President for two terms. John Adams is considered to be one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States. For one, he played a leading role in persuading the Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence. His foreign relations had saved the country from war from both Great Britain and France. His son succeeded him as the sixth President of the United States.

I'm the first to admit I know nuts about American history, nuts about politics and the structure of governance. Despite all that, this series is great because they made the convoluted politicking and international relations easy to understand. It's a bit on the heavy side, and extremely slow because almost no details were left out. There's virtually no action in this series, only conversations after conversations, after all, asides from George Washington (who is the first President if you don't already know), all the other politicians are not men of action.

Presumably, I won't recommend everyone to watch the series. Those who can tolerate more talking than action may consider watching this because I feel it's a great series. It virtually brings you to the starting point for John Adams till his death. By the time you reach the finale, you would feel that John Adams was a patriotic man worthy of respect despite all his human flaws and disappointments. The series brings you on a journey of desperation, hope, liberation, of good wealthy times to the outspread of pox and poverty and the trials and tribulations of a man who gave up so much of his life to sculpt a country for his children and his childrens' children to fulfill their dreams. And he had to do this in spite of facing so much opposition.  

And the best thing of all was the way the men of those times conversed and wrote. Beautiful literary works of art. Really. People don't write like that anymore. The pity. And here's something for you to part with - the "best known sentence in the English Language".

Quick update. Lump is almost gone and the doc didn't mention anything about the minor surgery so I take it that the situation is positive and I don't have to take any more medicine nor go for the surgery. I still need to apply that small tub of cream now and then for the next ten days or so and hopefully the lump goes off completely. Doc seems pretty sure that it'll be gone in ten days so hurrah!

On the other hand, I've been warned by her that I need to change certain lifestyle habits such as wearing tight pants etc. Argh. This means more skirts and dresses for me. Wait... need to change wardrobe?! Kns. Please don't ask me why I can't wear pants anymore because of the lump, which may or may not decide to return, it's embarrassing. T.T

Read on alerione 's LJ about breast cancer. I have an aunt who also has breast cancer but it's mostly due to her eating those post menopause pills to make her look younger. Not sure how it works but an fyi for all of you out there who are thinking of doing the same thing: there are side effects to all kinds of medication.

What they say about mammograms isn't entirely accurate either. It's a little known fact but sometimes mammograms and other forms of "medical tests" - especially the ones that require injecting a needle to check if you have lumps or such - causes the cancer to spread. Most tumors and cancer cells may remain dormant for a long time until radiation, and mammograms and needles breaks the "malignant cells" and causes the cancer cells to spread, hence making the situation worse. However, I am unsure about the ratio of people who have such cases against the ratio of people who remain "safe" because of such procedures. Yet another fyi to you all out there. Doesn't mean it has been strongly advised means it's good.

Alternative forms of prevention and (hopefully) stalling the disease does exist. alerione , you may want to ask your aunt to check out Betty Khoo's Cancer Cured and Prevented Naturally book. The methods mentioned do not guarantee full recovery, no one with cancer actually ever recovers fully. But it has cancer survivors swearing that their lives are much better and their life spans longer when they no longer go for chemo and other forms of painful therapy. Instead, they went for a full lifestyle change. Turning vegan and exercising seems to be the trick.

Doctors and hospitals don't provide such knowledge on such "therapy" because there isn't any scientific base to it and also I suspect they all work as a corporation rather than a well fare organization. Even without scientific proof I am inclined to believe that it does help. After all, vegan diet is... uber healthy.

I was reading this book called Peaks and Valleys by Spencer Johnson - the same guy who wrote the bestseller, Who Moved My Cheese?. So yes, he published a new book that will be out in stores in March. I thought Who Moved My Cheese? was one of the better books I've read. A great idea, put into a very simple easy-to-read analogy. 

Peaks and Valleys works the same way, in which a "moral" is fitted into a story for easy understanding. It isn't as good as the former but it does reiterate something useful that we all should already know (that is, those of us who have common sense).
P/S: I'm on Twitter. So if anyone of you has an account please add me at my gmail email address!

"I don't think you're materialistic. I think you're material conscious."

This, coming from a person who claims to know less than 50% of me.

I first heard this speech by Martin Luther King back in secondary school. I was inspired. Still is inspired.


Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" is delivered on the 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

( Martin Luther King, Jr's  )
Resource: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm