Sleepyheads

Love to watch them sleep..

Steer clear

Being captain isn't an easy task. It requires dedication, knowledge, an eye for detail and people skill. 

The hardworking people who made our International Labour Organisation live webcast possible without a hitch, in the client's own words "I've never seen such a smooth operation since my days at BBC". 

Perhaps I should tell her my baptism of fire came through Beebs back in 2004. Just 2 months after joining the company, the catastrophic Asian Tsunami hit the shores of Aceh, Sri Lanka and Phuket and I got thrown into the deep end. I think I spent a total of 2 months on the field coordinating hundreds of BBC reporters/crew covering the story. Two years later, again I had to fly into

Nias Island when a major earthquake killed thousands and flattened towns. 

That was my first up close understanding of 'breaking news'. I never thought it was a biggie 'breaking news' flashed on tv screens but it took so much craziness to have it delivered on Channels. I recall clearly how my hair/clothes/skin smelled of dead corpses at the end of a very rough day with the team. That gut wrenching feeling of seeing firefighters pull out bodies of a father, mother and little newborn baby buried under concrete when the roof of their house collapsed on them- shudder.

These days I'm involved in less gruesome news and current affairs work. At least this live webcast involves no dead people, although I almost buried a crew member who totally screwed up until the very minute we went on-air. It marked the first time I lost my cool on a job, but I'm not sure it wasn't warranted. Blood and dead bodies don't faze me as much as a clueless crew member who talks more than he listens.

Pretty interesting setup, but the location was the one generating the crew's excitement. 

After all, its not everyday we work on a tanker the size of 8 football fields, 15 stories high with a laden weight of 150,000 tonnes. Amazingly enough, it runs with a crew of only 26 seafarers. 

It is captained by a man, of course, because women 'captains' like myself have a low threshold for BS and the weakest link gets the bitchy end of my tongue. At least it got the whole show on the road right *feeling guilty*. 

Lil Champ

He has shown signs of being bored with the Nestle breakfast cereal that we buy for him for awhile now. I am scratching my head thinking what alternatives I have for his breakfast- preferably something easy to whip up and nutritious (read: not out of a can/box). And youtube proved itself a saving grace.

There are very few food channels that dedicate itself to baby food but I found 2 that I really like, for its simplicity and for its nutritional factor.

And from one of them, I learnt this breakfast meal:

... a puree of avocado and banana and strips of lightly toasted bread.

He took it well for a first-timer, enough to keep me motivated to try other recipes from the web soon.

But he has been consuming a variety of foods- from Ramadhan dates to roti jala to mushroom potato potage Campbell soup to Ovalmatine biscuits. And loooovin' it.