How are you lovelies doing?

Hello everyone!

I'm really sorry to have been MIA for a loooooong time :( I've been caught up with life off-line and with my limited "band-width", haven't been blogging for some time. I found twitter a nice option tho (140 characters or less!) ;P n have been tweeting no end. Do add me on twitter too if you like :) Drop me a note when you add me tho, so I'll know who you are and add you back!

A disclaimer here: This post has nothing (well, not much anyway) to do with skincare nor cosmetics ...

Well, what has Pinky been up to the past couple of months? Sept was an awfully busy month at work for me. Let's just say I'm glad it's over ;P

In Oct, I had the opp to go for a uber long trip to the US of A. Well, not that long as in years or months, but I was there almost the entire month. It was an eye-opener for me. I still have loads to digest on tho it's been some weeks since I came back. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to distill out the more interesting titbits of that trip ;)

And now here we are in Nov. The weather has turned cool - yes, incredible but it has happened, right here on our little sunny isle. I'm bringing out more of my cardis and jackets. I think they're a nice touch/add-on to my daily work dresses plus a gd additional layer should the office air-con get too cold.

The strap of my work-bag is falling to pieces n my sis bought me a really gorgeous pink-n-black one as a replacement. It goes incredibly well with the bag charm aichaku made for me. I'll try to take some photos n post it up soon. Remind me! :)

In k-drama land, anyone (other than Yumeko, whom I've been fan-girling wif ;P) watching "You're Beautiful"? Don't let the synopsis nor title fool you. It's achingly funny n incredibly addictive. You can read episode recaps here by the awesome Javabeans.

I know I owe some of you product reviews and prices. I'll get to it before this month is over. Gdness, it has been a while. Thanks for being patient with me!

In the meantime, something I've been reading recently. Thot it too good not to share.

Have a lovely beautiful day! ^^

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Elie Wiesel's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1986

It is with a profound sense of humility that I accept the honor you have chosen to bestow upon me. I know: your choice transcends me. This both frightens and pleases me.

It frightens me because I wonder: do I have the right to represent the multitudes who have perished? Do I have the right to accept this great honor on their behalf? ... I do not. That would be presumptuous. No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.

It pleases me because I may say that this honor belongs to all the survivors and their children, and through us, to the Jewish people with whose destiny I have always identified.

I remember: it happened yesterday or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

I remember: he asked his father: "Can this be true?" This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?

And now the boy is turning to me: "Tell me," he asks. "What have you done with my future? What have you done with your life?"

And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remain silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.

Of course, since I am a Jew profoundly rooted in my peoples' memory and tradition, my first response is to Jewish fears, Jewish needs, Jewish crises. For I belong to a traumatized generation, one that experienced the abandonment and solitude of our people. It would be unnatural for me not to make Jewish priorities my own: Israel, Soviet Jewry, Jews in Arab lands ... But there are others as important to me. Apartheid is, in my view, as abhorrent as anti-Semitism. To me, Andrei Sakharov's isolation is as much of a disgrace as Josef Biegun's imprisonment. As is the denial of Solidarity and its leader Lech Walesa's right to dissent. And Nelson Mandela's interminable imprisonment.

There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism, and political persecution, writers and poets, prisoners in so many lands governed by the Left and by the Right. Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon. I trust Israel, for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land.

Yes, I have faith. Faith in God and even in His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all. Isn't this the meaning of Alfred Nobel's legacy? Wasn't his fear of war a shield against war?

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done. One person – a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

This is what I say to the young Jewish boy wondering what I have done with his years. It is in his name that I speak to you and that I express to you my deepest gratitude. No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.

Thank you, Chairman Aarvik. Thank you, members of the Nobel Committee. Thank you, people of Norway, for declaring on this singular occasion that our survival has meaning for mankind.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1987
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Listening to: 이지혜 - 숨겨봐도 안되는 마음
via FoxyTunes