I have always lived by one rule: to ensure that no unnecessary suffering is endured to sustain my own existence.

Now, this is rather idealistic. By simply walking down the street, I am causing suffering to trillions of microorganisms and even ants, if I am not careful, by stepping on them and extinguishing their lives. What I shall define this rule by is my consumption of food.

Till recently, I had neglected to include the animals that live and die painfully to feed me every day. It is easy to shut your eyes to what goes on behind the scenes to produce that slab of steak and yummy drumstick. But I have decided to remove those shutters once and for all.

I have been an animal welfare advocate for more than 10 years through my website No More Cruelty! which was run by my cat Boy and now on hiatus. Since, I have supported animal welfare groups like Cat Welfare Society, SPCA, The Animal Rescue Site, and Animals Asia.

Twice I have tried to go vegetarian. The latter, I succeeded for 6 months till I slowly gave up from being always too weak and tired to do anything due to malnutrition. The one organic vegan store I used to eat at every day had closed down.

Nevertheless, this time I have decided to try again. But this time in baby steps and with a full nutritional analysis.

1. My goal is one meal at a time

Even better when several people share a nice vegan or vegetarian meal together. Friends and family have so far enjoyed my vegetarian pastas, Mexican burritos, and vegan cous cous. I've also bought a couple of vegan cookbooks and will try one vegan meal a week.

2. I will give up one type of food at a time

I have already phased out beef, lamb, deer, pork, and veal, simply because I dislike the taste of them. Chicken I eat sporadically.

It is fish that I have a tough time giving up, but the image in my head of a fish asphyxiating, flopping around in distress for 15 minutes before it dies makes it easier to give it up. I love eggs and have been hunting around for a humane egg farmer. Angie tells me Chew's is actually pretty humane but I'll have to see it to believe it. Hubby has said we'll take a trip to the farm in the near future. The alternative is I'll keep my own chickens and that's a no! :D

So for part 1, I am giving up milk first (cheese a little later because I love cheese with a vengeance). I've tried soya milk, which is okay, and rice milk which tastes kinda like breast milk. The rice milk (Rice Dream) is fortified with B12, so that covers the one thing I'll probably lack as a vegan.

3. Enjoy your meals, whatever they may be

Today at Xmas lunch and dinner, I scoffed down heaps of honey ham, parma ham, roast chicken, and smoked salmon. Heck I have a weakness for all things smoked and salted. But I felt rather ill after all that processed meat.

Key is to allow myself to eat anything I want. Eating is a pleasure. We shouldn't change that. If it becomes a chore, veganism won't become a lifelong habit. The repulsion for meat must come naturally. I remind myself that. I also remind myself no one should suffer so that I live another day.

Still, it is still better to eat only bacon as a treat and never eat any other meat, than to throw in the towel and eat everything again. Hence I will not label myself either vegan or apprentice vegan (funny marketing term I made up), or even vegetarian. This puts undue pressure on everyone and helps no one.

4. Search for humane sources of food

Truly, if I can find a farmer who allows his cows to graze in a field of farm land and have their calves naturally and stay with their mothers for a normal period of time, I would drink milk. Similarly, if I can find a farmer who lets his chickens run freely, do not debeak them, nor stick needles in them, I will eat eggs again.

Angie was telling me that in Malaysia, kampong chickens do exactly that. They run free and they lay eggs the way normal chickens do. That's why they are skinny and muscular, and their eggs are small. While it makes sense, I will have to find out more before I can consider them a humane source.

5. Do whatever I can

Whatever I do, I do whatever I can. Small things add up, like spreading the vegan meme. It has been increasing in popularity over the years and look, now you can get organic vegetarian and vegan stuff in the growing number of organic stores all over the country. Soon it will tip.

I have also continued breastfeeding my baby. Aside from the obvious benefits for both of us, I also save a ton of money in milk powder and remove my share of need from the marketplace. Less cows will suffer if every mother breastfeeds their baby.

So far I have thrown three dinner parties with vegetarian meals that the guests truly enjoyed. Considering they would have probably eaten a meat-based meal elsewhere, those meals helped save a few animals by simply offering an alternative and also great company.

An argument to dispel:

We are top of the food chain, so eating meat (et all) is the survival of the fittest. Plus, look at all the animals on Animal Planet, they toy with their prey. Cruelty is in nature.

We were also evolved large brains for our size and with that, the capacity to think, analyse, and possess compassion. Therefore if we cannot see that our mass production methods of producing food is horrifyingly cruel, we are no better than gnats, intellectually.

We can find options, alternatives. We are smart enough to do that. We're just lazy since we don't have to hunt for our food anymore. The distance between the animals that are slaughtered for our food and the nice sterile packages we bring home has made us apathetic to the process that tortures and kills millions of animals every day.

So what if nature is cruel? It is. And it is also in our capacity to reverse some of that cruelty. We have the power to make this world a better place. Why not do that instead of saying that must be the way things are. Because it is natural?

Stay tuned for more culinary adventures.

Technorati: eating humanely, going vegan, going vegetarian

Today we overran a plastic farm and Jack learnt two new words in Mandarin: zhu1 (pig) and niu2 (cow). In the morning, he reiterated his knowledge of two languages by saying men1; actually mao1 (cat) and cat when pointing to a cat (and ben, actually "Boy" when pointing to our cat Boy). In addition to den1 (light) and then light after, showing he knows it is the same word. I was so proud of him.

Surfing around waiting for my anchovy and olive pizza-toast to be grilled, I visited John's blog and found out that Sarah Conner Chronicles is hitting the small screens very soon. As a faithful Arnie and Terminator fan, I will definitely watch it! It's a plus having Lena Headey as Sarah and Summer Glau (from "Serenity" and "Firefly") in it.

Some highlights of the day: bought 2 more Xmas pressies, admired Steiff bears, bumped into my first love, bumped into an old schoolmate with a little angel as her daughter. Ate a delicious all-day breakfast with smoked salmon and my fave mocha at Dome.

Going to get my yummy pizza-toasts now!

Technorati: bilingual children, Sarah Conner Chronicles, Terminator

It was a thrill to receive Sam's acceptance email of my poem "Your Birth Day" which chronicles Jack's birth some year and a half ago. It will appear in The Journal #21 in the UK.

Technorati: poetry, The Journal, birth

Now this should inspire a poem.

Astronomers Find Enormous Hole in the Universe

It is "nearly a billion light-years across" and is completely devoid of everything, including dark matter.

Cool.

First seen on Jason Lundberg's blog.

In other news, just edited and sent out 9 poems in 2 batches. Pondering another 2 poems yet unwritten but swimming in brain for another magazine. Still perturbed about honey green tea remnants festering in now-sticky keyboard.

Technorati: hole in universe, science

Was it 2 nights ago that I finished writing The Flame at 6am? I can't remember. Motherhood does that to you. I remember falling asleep last night at 10pm while nursing Jack to bed (and meaning to stay asleep). That was after a long day out to my sister's and then for a swim, and not forgetting a long traipse around the block looking for a pay phone because I thought I dropped my phone in my Dad's car (which I did). All that drama... and I was out like a light.

Of course I felt rather accomplished for the week. I finished my first short story and not just a short-short which I used to write - those are on average 1k. This one is slightly over 10k and it is a combo of SF and horror. I'm beginning the edit today and do not envy my job of sifting through for plot holes, laggy parts, illogical bits, and everything else that drags a story down. It is easy with poems but for stories, I think most of the accomplishment is in finishing it.

I must apologise to all my online friends. I haven't been very involved lately. My personal time starts at eleven to midnight till anytime from 2-5am and during that time I read, surf, and reply emails. I have also been spending unproductive time on Facebook!

Lately I have started writing again, on this story and working on some poems. Blogging, which I did rather actively for a while, has taken a backseat but I will blog more in time to come. Everything has a season. Now for me, the reading season has just passed but the writing season has begun.

Also with the subprime crisis I have become interested in the stock market again. I picked up a handful - literally - of Google (GOOG) stock when it dipped to 628 and is now on the rise again. It has strong fundamentals although I am still watching their management closely. It'll be around at least for the next 5 years.

Boy has taken to howling at night, which I fear will annoy my neighbours too much. Tux stops after a while, but the old guy has been rather disturbed at night. Removing him from the company of the other cats has had great advantages but I am sure, although he sees them still, he feels a little lonely at night.

Today Jack said his first 2-word combo spontaneously while standing outside our home: papa car. We were enthralled. His papa was not around but he was looking for his car. I realised something - although he understands both languages, when it comes to vocabulary, he still labels one word, whether in English or Mandarin, to one item. That will change in time, but for now, horse is ma3 and duck is ya1.

Technorati: 18 month old baby two languages, short stories, poetry, Facebook, blogging, Google

Which Female Action Hero Are You?

You are Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You are outgoing, warm, and sociable. Your intelligence and intuition give you a strong sense of right and wrong; you may be soft, sweet, and a little air-headed at times, but you are fully capable of proving yourself more than a stereotype.

Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

For the past few nights, Jack has been real restless at night. I had to put him back to bed several times as he sang to himself and cooed at his toys. While cute in theory, at 5am it isn't quite so amusing. I wondered if it was his canines poking their way out of his gums or just the coffee I have been drinking in the day to keep myself awake that is causing this witching hour wakefulness.

My friend Mike would be proud of me starting to write again. I completed a poem last night (completely edited and all - but finicky me would like to go for a second look edit again) and am at 6292 words of my story. I am stuck because I don't know where I want to take the heroes and how a story like that is going to end.

Anyway, since getting my act together, I am beginning to plan fun days for Jack, like trips to the park, swimming, playdates (soon), and places where he can plain have fun (like Go-Go Bambini, which is scheduled for tomorrow). The zoo was thrilling for him but my Dad and I were saddened by the state it was in, how tiny the spaces were for the animals and how terrible it is for animals like polar bears and all the cats (a white male tiger was pacing frustratedly up and down), accustomed to huge expanses of land is confined to what is for them, a 4x4 cell.

At Bukit Timah Plaza today, we stopped by Aquapets and out of guilt I bought the kids a new fishing toy with feathers and a felt carrot, a can of salmon cat treats, and a box of cat grass which I plan to grow (someday). When we got home, Jack eagerly started feeding the cats the salmon treats and I played with Tux and Buffy who were very thrilled with the new toy. Boy looked marginally annoyed when I ruffled his fur with the toy but went on eating the treats Jack was feeding him. It was a happy and lovely evening with all the children!

Technorati: teething, wakefulness, poetry, fiction, play, cats

I can't believe Jack is going to be 18 months already. My MIL has bought him a clay stampy thing to immortalise his hand and footprint, something I deeply regretted not doing when he was born. A girlfriend Pris warned me (with her husband as backup) that the clay dries real fast and don't dilute it either to slow the drying. They failed in their attempt and confirmed that it was the USA-made one they bought too. Well, we'll find out in a few days...

Tonight we did something different at bedtime. Instead of Jack and Mom reading, we had Jack's furry friends (not the cats but his stuffed friends) sit around and read together. He was so thrilled he spent some time arranging his friends in an audience and later, was thrilled when Kaku (tiny stuffed version of her namesake) decided to come and sit with Jack, followed by the rest of the friends. When I declared it was bedtime and his buddies waved by and hopped into the crib, he detained Mr Pterodactyl and bent into the crib to retrieve some of them back. It was real sweet!

He enjoyed the park recently, once to the Jacob Ballas park on Sunday, and to Fort Canning Park this evening where he emulated the joggers, to our amusement. At dinner he chomped on a handroll and helped himself to my ikura. At Popular, he picked out a nice small diary for me and was elated when I bought some Christmas decorations for the home. This Christmas will be one he will thoroughly enjoy.

Nowadays he loves looking at my face and watching my expression with a mischievous grin on his face. It is almost like he is thinking, funny mommy but I love her, as he points at my belly button and squishes my soft belly, laughing and giggling for all it is worth. Then he'll kiss my belly and make farting noises and shriek with laughter. Oh this boy really has my sense of humour. I grab and hug him and shower him with kisses and we have a wonderful laugh together.

Technorati: reading to baby, stuffed toys for baby, Jack

Boy woke us up today, hungry and lonely. Or was that yesterday. The days tend to meld into one and what I do remember are the smiles and the laughter Jack and I share. And of course, people's birthdays.

Vista still annoys the hell out of me on occasion, but my new Nokia e61i usually chases the clouds away especially since I can now surf on it.

Lately I have started writing fiction again and am now working on a relatively long tale about postwar survivors. The premise has me rather enthralled and the first night I sat 6 hours writing the first 3000 words.

Jack can speak both English and Mandarin now, to our delight. He is still the same happy child as when he was born and he's developed a repertoire of mischievous looks he flashes to people, including "the wink" which his aunty Grace was privy to. That's how he charms the girls, we realised, alluding to the many little girls that seem to always want to be near him. His Dad couldn't be prouder!

Technorati: parenting a toddler, Vista, Nokia e61i