Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

I hope I am not the only one who hates Windows' continuous efforts to 'make things better' with their updates. Last week, Windows forced me to update again and over the weekend, I struggled with WTF is wrong with Windows syndrome. My desktop is gone and replaced with all those irrelevant Windows icons and I am now forced to use Apple-wannabe Cortana to find simple things like Paint and Notepad. Ugh. I was so determined to not even acknowledge the existence of Cortana. I can't even deal with the name to begin with. LOL. Anyway, I still have to use my laptop for work. The great thing is that my 10+ years old PC is still working and Windows no longer supports whatever Windows version it is running on now. YESSSSSSS!!! DON'T freaking support it, YES!  This means, things look and behaves the way it should, the way I am familiar with, from 10 years ago. Everything is where it should be and nothing changes overnight. Aaaahhh....the beauty of familiarity and consi...

The Koreans might have celebrated National Korean Language day recently considering the fact that some of the shows that I watched all had games and topics revolving around the language. To people like us who rely on sub-titles to get through the shows, we were more than a little baffled. Coincidentally, my son is trying to learn Mandarin, out of the blue. You know, I had so many #facepalm moments that my face is blue black. Both went to Chinese language kindergarten for years. One of them went to a Chinese school for a year until we both collapse in sheer frustration (because my mandarin is passable only when I am buying vegetables in the wet market). I sent them to private home tuition for Mandarin. Both attended special (extra payment, OK?) Mandarin classes in school. They know nothing beyond 1 - 10 in Mandarin after all of that and then when I give up, suddenly Mandarin language is appealing. UGH. Most people my generation speak at least 3 languages and understand at least 2 ...

Some hide it, some shut up about it and some choose to say something about it and is shunned back into silence. This is what sexual assault does to people and some people survive, others don't. And no one is so alone in this world that they have no one to turn to. Tara Stiles also opened up about her experience with sexual assault  which spiraled into an eating disorder and social isolation. Things can happen that way. Some go into depression and it is a very real thing. When I was an entertainer, being 'assaulted' by drunk people was quite the common thing. Even the guys got groped whenever we were required to mingle with the customers . So, we would laugh over it and say nothing else. But why is it OK, when I think about it later? Because if I said it bothered me and the other girls and guys said nothing, it would make me the bad apple, wouldn't it? So, I kept quite and became a little extra vigilant just to keep everyone liked . I come from a family of people who...

We know our usual butter chicken (Chinese-style) and we love it. There's nothing like the butter and curry leaves combination that makes you salivate but when I looked at the list of ingredients in this recipe, I went like...wha...tomato paste, cream, almonds and cilantro? Well....never thought about that! Well, if you are feeling a little adventurous or have some time on your hands, you might want to try your hand in recreating this Butter Chicken recipe featured in New York Times. Happy Sunday, Love, Marsha