Tag Archives: friends

Farewell to Someone who I used to know

This weekend, while I was browsing through local online newspapers, I came across an article about a missing young lady with the name of Ruth Attard. Later on, I learned that she is from my home town Hal Qormi, and that she is the same age as me. When her body was discovered in Ghar Lapsi, my childhood friends started getting in contact with me over Facebook and on a group we are all part of.

Turns out that Ruth Attard went to school with me both at primary school and secondary school. She was a year younger than me, but a very sweet looking and well behaved girl. She always carried a smile on her face and was ever so cheerful. We were all trying to remember instances from our childhood where we met her; How she was in Mr. Saliba’s class and how she was Snow White during one of the yearly school plays; How she was so devoted to gym and how often we glimpsed her at the gymnasium during the school breaks.. climbing up ropes, doing somersaults. But none of us stayed in contact with her when we finished school. We never spoke again, we only remember her beautiful face. 5498932469_fd0886c60d_zIt comes to us as a shock, that Ruth is no longer with us. Even more so, because we wouldn’t have ever expected something like this to happen to her, or any one of us.

We are so young, we still have all our life before us. Truth is, we take these things for granted.  We should be thankful to be alive, thankful that we are happy… Glad that we are strong, and surrounded with people who love us, appreciate us and are there for us. That because of all of this, we won’t break apart from ourselves or one another…

While we keep Ruth and her family in our thoughts and prayers, let’s learn something from this. Let’s be more thoughtful about those around us; forgive and move on. Love not hate. Teach not shout. Let’s all communicate with one another. Let’s be in contact while we can… Let’s not forget one another… Farewell to Someone who I used to know… May you rest in peace, dear Ruth.

Funeral is tomorrow 10th June at 14:30 at Saint Sebastian Church, Qormi.

Fresh Pasta

One of the plans I had for this weekend is to meet up with my good friend Mirka and our Italian friend Paddy for a cook-out. We have been saying that we should attempt making fresh pasta, for weeks; if not months. Finally the day was upon us!

For our first try, we decided on keeping things simple, and make tagliatelle.

To make the pasta dough, it turned out to be quite a marathon, or even a workout. We took turns to knead the dough until silky and smooth, and until no flour blobs were visible.

Making use of the Andrew James pasta maker was pretty straightforward for us newbies, and we made the most gorgeous pasta.

11126905_10153775207439606_7270732943495376375_n

11193307_10153775207934606_2582396457457588726_n

We cooked it in hot boiling water, with some salt and made a mushroom, onion, and bacon white sauce for it.

20150425_194743_LLS

It was great, and I can confirm that the first attempt was a major success!!

Of HayFever and Fun

This weekend was not an eventful weekend, mostly cos I had a lot of my plans cancelled due to a losing battle against my nose aka hayfever.
I started off Friday feeling miserably sick  so decided I should stay in. I spent my Friday swallowing pills and gutted that I had to miss an event happening at Razzett l-ahmar. When I woke up Saturday morning I felt almost as good as new. The plan was to go to Valletta with my mum to pick up our passports. Turns out we got delayed and found the passport office closed. I would have never guessed that they’d close at 11am on Saturday! We arrived only a few minutes late and we were devastated. I guess I know what I will be doing next Saturday morning!!
In the evening me and two friends went out to Coconut/Remedy which is the only alternative and metal pub still standing in Paceville. There was a live event of Martyrium and afterwards a goth/ebm event.
20150418 -  Where the light DIES (Martyrium Gig @Remedy) (6) copy
The gig itself was awesome. I was very impressed with their new material and some of their cover versions, mainly Dimmu Borgir. The party afterwards was a let down as no one would dance and most people vanished straight after the live music was over.
But our night was not over… We went downstairs and enjoyed 80s music and Rammstein music for the rest of the night. It’s my favourite music style anyway so I was not really gutted about the ebm party.
20150418 -  Where the light DIES (Martyrium Gig @Remedy)
On Sunday, my hayfever decided to take over again so I spent my day being lazy. I watched the most awaited first episode of the new season for Orphan Black and then straight after I watched ‘Secrets and LIes’ – a series which I recently discovered.

Steffi Advice #3 – Inhabitable Situation with Parents

Dear Steffi,

I am 32 years old and I still live with my parents. I am about to be married in 2 years, and it is best to stay with them as it is cheaper this way and can save more money for the wedding. But they make me so angry, I want to punch a wall sometimes.

Wall Puncher

—————–

Dear Wall Puncher,

I can understand your situation as I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who went through this problem. When you are of a certain age, and you want your own privacy and space, it is a huge challenge to keep living with your parents without any fights and disruptions. Two years is quite some time, and I doubt that you should wait this long. Being stressed and angry with your situation, is not only bad for your relationship with your parents, but also with your soon to be spouse as well as with friends. It can affect your sleep and thus your behaviour at work and your motivation in everything else. I would suggest that you find a flat mate or perhaps see if one of your friends would like to join forces to live together to reduce costs. if you have bought a home with your partner and it’s habitable you can consider moving there, if you are both in agreement to it. You can give it a try for a number of days, and see if you prefer this to your current living situation. Good luck!

Much Love XXX

Have you ever wondered why some people are more curious than others?

curiosity…Well, I did. So I researched the topic, to try and understand this phenomenon.

Being curious is much related to the exploratory behaviour of a person in his early life. Some of us are more interested in familiarity, others feel the need to be subjected to new experiences and the novelty of life. According to research the brain structure is different depending on how you were raised and whether one is more drawn towards novelty or towards familiarity.

As a trait, being curious make you more aware of the changes going on both inside you and around you. When something is of interest you are more often then not head over heels about it and explore it to the depth, and beyond when possible. Being curious works hand in hand with intelligence as when one is curious, one reads and learns. They are better at maintaining relationships, not just because they have more to talk about, but because they have an attitude of openness, passion and interest, which decreases the odds of becoming bored of each other.

When one stops being curious and showing interest in the things around him, then one can say that his way of thinking is polluted. This would affect a person’s creativity, problem solving skills as well as feeling disconnected from others. They would fear the unknown, getting to know new people and will be stuck in a world of their own. Not in the good kind of way; they will hold onto the past because that is familiar.

And till this day, I keep wondering, and thinking. Why was life so much slower when I was younger? Time does not go by faster now, but sure feels like it! I ask myself, how people can not be curious? Why some don’t question life after death? How can you believe that heaven exists, when there’s no proof? Although, that would be nice, and would give me comfort at night.

curiosity1

What is on your mind? What are you curious about?