Oops... finished 2 sets even before the picture could be snapped!
31 July 2007
Sinful Japanese Salad
Very nice jap restaurant with nice food... most importantly with nice service!
Flower and Tea and Eggs
Nice to be having a break after a hard day's worth of work... though 430pm is a bit late for lunch
Moth!
A butterfly landed and some of us thought that it may be the founder back for a visit! Haha.. myth or superstition?
Our NCC Team!
Founder's Day Rehearsals! Really glad to be seeing our NCC cadets doing their part for the school with no complaints! Hours are long and training arduous! Cheers to your indomitable spirit!
27 July 2007
Tarot Tarot!
You are The Devil
Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession
The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.
Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
25 July 2007
Fate or Choice?
Its been a long while since the last post. Somehow the will to keep blogging had wavered.
Due to many things in life that are not within our control, often we cannot express ourselves though we meant to. Thus a reason to blog, a motivation to pen down in words what we would have loved to say.
Recently i heard from a friend who told me that she was afraid to see the doctor regarding some pressing medical problems as she had syllables to rush in her teaching job and her students are taking the Os soon.
Makes me ponder... why something so imperative could still be put behind priority... and then i realised, aren't many of us doing the exact same thing to ourselves?
Another teacher friend who also spent loads of time in teaching. It would be work in the morning and lesson preparations in the evenings, in the weekends, even when he was engaged in conversations with me.
Then i thought about another teacher who was literally sacrificing her entire time to teaching. 13-hr work shifts seemed like the average things to do and every day you will see her empty table while she is out there doing her best for her sometimes ungrateful students. She'll get upset even though she knows that it might be to no avail. Deadlines and deadlines seems neverending.
And i thought to myself, did they choose their lives to be like that or life has made them these choices?
Due to many things in life that are not within our control, often we cannot express ourselves though we meant to. Thus a reason to blog, a motivation to pen down in words what we would have loved to say.
Recently i heard from a friend who told me that she was afraid to see the doctor regarding some pressing medical problems as she had syllables to rush in her teaching job and her students are taking the Os soon.
Makes me ponder... why something so imperative could still be put behind priority... and then i realised, aren't many of us doing the exact same thing to ourselves?
Another teacher friend who also spent loads of time in teaching. It would be work in the morning and lesson preparations in the evenings, in the weekends, even when he was engaged in conversations with me.
Then i thought about another teacher who was literally sacrificing her entire time to teaching. 13-hr work shifts seemed like the average things to do and every day you will see her empty table while she is out there doing her best for her sometimes ungrateful students. She'll get upset even though she knows that it might be to no avail. Deadlines and deadlines seems neverending.
And i thought to myself, did they choose their lives to be like that or life has made them these choices?
13 July 2007
面对（死亡）
虽然极不愿意，今天还是再度与死亡（碰头）。
曾祖母于92岁高龄患上盲肠炎，在医院里把大家都吓得眼泪几乎夺眶。瘦弱的身躯，一脸的病容，几位阿姨瞧在眼里，那泪都差点忍不住了。大家心里都非常恐慌……万一阿祖就这样离我们而去，那我们的心不就都会碎裂吗？
但阿祖却一直示意要我们回家，大家都必须工作，早点回去休息吧！
我只能强忍……不让发酸的鼻子触动泪泉。
阿祖，您一定要好起来！
曾祖母于92岁高龄患上盲肠炎，在医院里把大家都吓得眼泪几乎夺眶。瘦弱的身躯，一脸的病容，几位阿姨瞧在眼里，那泪都差点忍不住了。大家心里都非常恐慌……万一阿祖就这样离我们而去，那我们的心不就都会碎裂吗？
但阿祖却一直示意要我们回家，大家都必须工作，早点回去休息吧！
我只能强忍……不让发酸的鼻子触动泪泉。
阿祖，您一定要好起来！
07 July 2007
The Importance of Not So Important Subjects of Study in School
Was talking to an ex-student while preparing my Chinese Culture lessons when he told me that such lessons were a waste of time.
While i agree with him from one perspective, it cannot be said of the same from an educator's point of view.
The argument is more curricular time should be spent on other lessons instead as Chinese Culture lessons take up time. I thought more of it as a mismanagement by policy makers personally. If Mathematics was such an important subject that it has to be made examinable, why not Chinese Culture?
Maybe an individual can excel in Mathematics (no offence) but have no values?
Or one could say that the student can go through Chinese Culture exams for promotion but still be a cheat later in life.
But what message are we giving to our next generation when we made one examinable and the other not?
So in the end i am still going to prepare the lessons.
And hope maybe one or even more individuals can grow to appreciate the beauty of the culture or even learn a thing or two through it, be it subconscious or not.
While i agree with him from one perspective, it cannot be said of the same from an educator's point of view.
The argument is more curricular time should be spent on other lessons instead as Chinese Culture lessons take up time. I thought more of it as a mismanagement by policy makers personally. If Mathematics was such an important subject that it has to be made examinable, why not Chinese Culture?
Maybe an individual can excel in Mathematics (no offence) but have no values?
Or one could say that the student can go through Chinese Culture exams for promotion but still be a cheat later in life.
But what message are we giving to our next generation when we made one examinable and the other not?
So in the end i am still going to prepare the lessons.
And hope maybe one or even more individuals can grow to appreciate the beauty of the culture or even learn a thing or two through it, be it subconscious or not.
06 July 2007
Sky Burial Site
Lamas are buried in stupas if they are of certain stature. They say only the most virtuous among the commoners will be qualified for sky burials. If you are too poor to hire lamas to chant scriptures, then it will be a water burial. The evil will be buried in the earth, thinking that it is a straight way to be sent to hell.
In case you do not know what a sky burial is, its a burial process whereby the dead will be chopped to pieces and fed to the vultures. There is a saying if the vultures do not finish the meat, then the person was not virtuous enough when he was alive.
Due to urbanization, the younger tibetan generation has diverted away from such cultures. In other words, it is a vanishing culture.
Sichuan Cuisine
At first it was fresh tasting, then it felt salty or tasteless, then it became oily, then all appetite was lost :p
L0neliness
This has got to be my favourite shot in the entire tibetan trip. Such beauty that it's beyond words.
05 July 2007
Tibetan Yak
Finally got a shot of the famous Tibetan Yak. Touted to be healthy and precious like children to the Tibetans, they now roam in limited numbers. Massive damage to the environment due to urbanization has decimated their numbers and now you will only see small flocks on the plains or a few roaming by the roads, tended by their owners for the tourism business.
Yamdroktso Lake, Tibet
The wind was so cold, the pressure was so low, our ears hurt and our teeth trembled. At a height of 5030m, it is hard to imagine how Tibetans could have made a living in such conditions...
Into the Mountains!
And so into the mountains we went, though it's majestic, it's not like those that we saw in the Lord of the Rings. Somehow New Zealand has a lusher landscape. Here it just looks like rugged rocks and a sense of being in the desert.
When the Road Goes into the Clouds
And so we went higher and higher into the mountains, and suddenly we were above the clouds! Mid-point destination, Holy Lake Yamdroktso near an elevation of 5030 metres. That's around 2300 storeys in building height standards! Or around Westin Stamford multiply by 33 times in height! Scary huh?
Lake En-route to Shigatse
A very beautiful lake isn't it? And it's just one of the many on our 6-hr journey to Shigatse, the stronghold of the Panchen Lama Sect.
Buddha in the Wall
Sakymuni Buddha, i have somewhat forgotten what the tour guide said but it seems like it was built around the 7th century.
Scripture Wheels
They say that old folks in Lhasa will wake up early in the morning for their exercise and encircle the perimeter around the Potala Palace turning the scripture wheels. It is an usually 5 km walk and the pious old folks will do it without fail every morning. Makes me wonder how much determination we have in retrospect comparatively.
Down-up View of the Potala
Leaving the Potala, somehow in certain aspects, the journey to tibet has somewhat concluded. Maybe it's the rush of the one-hour journey that makes visiting somewhat unsatisfying but i guess we will just have to make do.
01 July 2007
Lhasa City View from the Potala Palace
After climbing the steps which will eventually lead us up 100m above, We are treated to a good overview of the Lhasa city. A little girl in our tour group fainted after climbing as we are lowland people and are somehow doing exercise at an altitude of 3750 metres. Contracted a high fever after this climb. .. then i thought, did i commit some sins? :p
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