A big happy Good Friday to those who’re celebrating! I’m no a religious person myself and of course, didn’t know much about Christianity. On Wednesday I was walking with ChoYee and Jaslyn from lunch and was reminded that Good Friday is on this week. Curious, I jumped into this impromptu questionaire session with Jaslyn, who celebrates the festival with her family and church members. Knew a little more about Good Friday and Easter Day, thanks Jaslyn for the enlightenment. I hope you’ll have a great weekend celebrating… and others too!
Again, I would like to apologize profusely that I’m so busy I won’t be leaving any comments on your blogs for the next few weeks. Take it as a debt I’m extending to you guys, which I will gratefully repay when I’m done with all the exam baloney.
The L’Aquila Earthquake
Countless of news agencies covered the tragic earthquake that struck Italy. Measuring at a magnitude of 6.3, it struck the central Italian region of Abruzzo on 6th April, leaving 100+ dead and displacing up to 28,000 people. To make things worse, the prime minister said that the displaced population are so well cared of that they should consider themselves to be on a “camping weekend”1. Of course you could say that – sitting in your office overlooking the rescue efforts. What a travesty.
Boston.com compiled 30+ photos from various sources and put together another stunning and impactful gallery as their latest ‘The Big Photo’ feature, The L’Aquila Earthquake. Some may find a few photos slightly disturbing – user discretion is advised.
Here are a few photos that really left me shaken after browsing through the whole gallery. The most impactful one, I would say, is #27.
A firefighter cries after finding his daughter, dead in the rubble of a collapsed house after an earthquake in Aquila April 7, 2009. (REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito)
A woman is comforted as she reacts following an earthquake aftershock, at a makeshift camp in L'Aquila, central Italy, Tuesday, April 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
More photos are available at Boston’s The Big Picture gallery for the earthquake.
Thumbs up to the Italian police forces, firemen, rescue workers, health workers who’ve worked day and night to rescue and take care of earthquake victims. It’s very heartening to see the people of Italy uniting together at such hard times, showing graceful, unconditional care and concern for those who’re injured or dead. Kudos to Madonna for donating a large, undisclosed sum (it was rumoured to be around $500k) to the victims in Italy. My thoughts are there for those who’ve lost their lives in the disaster, and my prayers are up for them as well.
Sponsor Lee, and help disabled children
I recently read about webdesigner and blogger Lee Munroe attending the London Marathon to raise funds for disabled children.
Sponsor Lee to run the London Marathon for Action for Kids
He will be doing all the hardwork of training for the marathon and running on the actual day, and all he needs is for you to chip in a little and donate to Action For Kids. Take it as doing a good deed on Good Friday and Easter weekend – any amount of money will do. He will also be linking donors/sponsors to his run, but that’s not the main point – if you donate just to get listed (and get all the SEO love all over yourself), boo.
If you can help, just do it. Kudos to Lee for his effort!
Fonty Friday: Fontin & Fontin Sans
We’re here again, for Fonty Friday! Jos Buivenga, the designer behind Museo (and Museo Sans), Fertigo, Anivers and Delicious, brings us Fontin and Fontin Sans. I’m always impressed with his typefaces – they’re unique and interesting. Elegantly designed, not horribly generic (and boring), lovely, regular spacing between characters.
That’s all for this Friday’s updates! Happy Good Friday, people!
- “Berlusconi gaffe as he says quake homeless should enjoy ‘a camping weekend’s” – News article ↩
Happy Good Friday to you as well. :)
I just read about the earthquake yesterday (bit late on the news). My heart goes out to those who have lost their family members or friends in this unfortunate incident.
I love the fonts shared on your Fonty Friday post. ;) More fonts for photoshopping. Lovely! Thanks. :)
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I didn’t know how serious the earthquake was until my friend shared the Boston Big Picture gallery to me. There are more than 200 dead up till now, and my heart goes out to those who’ve perished in this disaster…
Thanks for the compliment! Actually, Fonty Friday is giving me a good reason why I should consciously invest some effort in cooking up a post on a weekly basis, even when I’m busy, heh.
Oh god. I cried while reading this and especially viewing the photos. I don’t know how I got through them all. There were a few that REALLY got to me: Number 12, god. What really got me is that I noticed a wedding band on their finger and just thinking about their loved ones.. gah, it’s heartrending. Number 24 is what really done it for me. There is no words to express something like this, I just wanted to jump through the screen and hug everyone.
This is my first time hearing about this earthquake.. All that goes through my mind is “why?”.. I have to push it aside because those are answers we’re never going to find. My heart goes out to ALL those families. And a BIG THANK YOU to all the firemen, rescue workers, and all the others helping. Those are true Heroes! Thank God for people with huge hearts.
Speaking of heroes.. thanks for sharing the Sponser Lee website. How amazing of this guy! And very cool he has almost reached his $2,000 goal. I absolutely love people like this. They make your day, you know.. they really do.
As for Good Friday, we don’t normally celebrate. As mostly a Christian family.. you’d think we would but we never have. You know I just recently started studying Christianity and about Jesus so today will certainly be the first Good Friday I actually sit and think about the importance of this day. As for Easter.. my family gets together, probably 30 of us and paint eggs and hide them for the kids. Get all dressed up, cook out, and have a good time with the family. We just recently started talking about Jesus and the story of Easter for the little kids. So that was interesting.
We’re also celebrating my niece’s 2nd birthday so this weekend should be loads of fun. My other niece, Alana, whom I helped care for for almost two years is coming down to spend the weekend with me. (Her and my sister has moved away for a few months so I am THRILLED to see them again!) I’m very much looking forward to this weekend. :)
I’m glad that even though you’re swamped with school work you still take time to blog! We love hearing from you. Especially on fridays. :P
Hope all is well and you enjoy your weekend!
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Ahhh, same here Trina. My eyes welled up after going through the photo gallery and reading up the articles. I wonder how much the quake will affect their faith – afterall, it occurred on the week before Good Friday. My heart goes out to those who’ve perished or who’ve lost their friends or family members to the earthquake.
Kudos to the rescue workers. They’ve worked tirelessly day and night to rescue as many people as possible from the rubble. Many of them are working without proper equipments, exposing them to risks of injury. And they didn’t care. All they had in mind is to save trapped victims. Their spirit reminds me of the 9-11 incident, which still give me tear-jerks whenever the anniversary is near.
I don’t remember celebrating Good Friday in my life before. My parents were raised as Buddhists, but when we were kid they gave my brother and I religious freedom – we followed our neighbours to Sunday School, went to visit temples and etc. They gave us a choice. In the end, my brother and I chose to be free thinkers instead, although we still firmly belief in the existence of a divine entity :)
I only remembered mom preparing turkey during one of the Christmas eves. We helped her to wrap the turkey in a foil, shoved it in the microwave (most Asian families don’t have ovens at home because we rarely use them – in fact, a rice pot and a wok will do, plus gas, of course). A few years after that, my parents got really scared by the health effects of consuming microwaved food (which is scientifically unfounded), they gave the microwave away – and it was in such a good condition, what a waste.
Sounds like you’re going to have a lot of fun this weekend! I wonder if you’re going to take photos of the party and share them with us, heh. It’s nice to have guests staying over! I rarely have guests staying over at my house – except for my cousins and etc. My friends never spent sleepovers. It’s just not part of our culture, how sad! I realized that I’m missing out a lot on the sleepover fun, hah!
another busy bee here too…met ur pops this morning and looks like it already a year of uni life for u eh coussie…time flies..anyway…good luck with ure exams and yea…u need better zzz pattern
take care ;)
Almost! It’s actually 9 months, since I think I’ll be home most of the time during summer break. We have to evacuate our rooms by 30th April (2 days after my final paper, demmit) because they’ll have to carry out renovation works. The good thing is that, we have air-conditioned rooms and new furniture for 2009/2010, but this gives the university all the right to conveniently raise the rental prices. Smart.
Thanks for the best wishes!
Thx for sharing this, really great post.