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November 29 education traditionsSchools? Why schools?
Everyone needs to learn! But not everyone can afford school...
From the first moment we're born we've been learning about this world we were born into. We learn by making mistakes, we learn by hurting ourselves, but mostly we learn from our parents.
But for some reason, when we're 6 or 7, our parents stop wanting to teach us stuff so they send us to this place where they make people learn on a mass-production basis. They usually have to pay a large amount of money if they want to send us to a "good school"... and this money they of course have earned by working jobs that take time away from being able to teach you stuff. If They didn't work so much they wouldn't need so much money to send you to that good school because they'll just be able to teach you instead... but no. they don't want to teach you. They'd rather do some stupid job they don't even like 5 days a week just so that they don't have to teach you the skills they have.
So schools are very important for those kids whose parents refuse to teach them...
but maybe the parents refused to teach the kids only after they realized that kids never listen...
September 20 the world sucks right nowThis world sucks majorly!
So why is it like this?
Here are a few reasons, as explained in the context if our world and our society were this big game everybody plays after school...
RULES:
1) Morality: Somethings are just bad. Don't do those things. Let's keep a list of things people shouldn't do and call it *Morality*!
2) Dictatorship of *Morality*: People are too stupid to know what things are good and what things are bad, so let's set up a few people to decide what to write on this list of things you don't do... Let's call it, Church. And from now on, only the Church version of the list of what things are bad is the proper list.
3) Control of the People: Now, let's make sure that people really do what we say on this list! If they do the things that we say are bad on the list, we'll take them and put them in a room together and watch them so that they don't do anything else bad again. Let's get people and put them in uniforms and give them fast cars and let them go and find people who do the things we put on the bad list.
4) Illusion of Democracy: We all agree it's a generally a good idea to have people decide what's best for people. So let's have everyone vote for some dude to decide for them instead of letting people actually vote on the decisions! Because that just would be way too much work to count all these votes... Meanwhile let's set up internet websites to let people vote for which girl look the hottest in a bikini! Oh, everyone was too busy voting for the girl with the tan line and a bunch of dorks got voted to run the world... and now we have to go by these people's list of bad things to do for the next really long time until we get to vote for the next guys, let's hope they don't have a beauty pagent on the next time people get to vote on the important stuff.
These rules suck. This game is getting shitty and I don't wanna play it anymore... I want some better rules, rules that stop them from messing up our climate and our air instead of letting them keep doing it. Rules that stop all the wars instead of starting new ones, rules that let more people be happier instead of getting more people more pissed.
We gotta start thinking about how these new rules should work in this world we live in. Because one day we are going to be the one making them, implimenting them, making them work to make a better world. We gotta start learning about what's going on, what happened before, what will happen if we keep doing this. Get an idea of how things worked before through learning some history, figure out some ways how things are working today by studying everything from physics to philosophy, and apply a bit of creativity and try to figure out how to make it so that our world turns into one which we think it should be in the future... at the same time, it is very important to catch up on important lessons such as "Star Wars", "The Matrix" and other assorted science fiction epics involving kung fu... and it is recommanded that you actually go out side and try to learn some kung fu or train to be a Jedi and learn the way of the force... because then you will be equipped with the skills and powers to defeat the sith lords of the dark side...
This is a Chainletter. Forward it to 5 friends. The end of the world will come 5 minutes later than it's supposed to*.
Forward it to 10 friends, The end of the world will come 10 minutes later than it's supposed to*.
Forward it to 20 friends, The end of the world will come 20 minutes later than it's supposed to*.
All the accumulated minutes of all recipients of this Chainletter will be multiplied by the number of recipients of this Chainletter will give you the total time that will actually be added to elapse before The end of the world is supposed to happen.
*When The end of the world is supposed to happen is actually debatable. But we know, the harder we work towards making this world better than it is now, the more time we will have. Many pieces of literature such as the Holy Bible, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, and the Terminator trilogy (I think the 3rd one with the shapeshifting metallic hot blonde was the worst, and I didn't really like the way John Conner had to start his resistance from scratch!) all seem to predict some sort of a doomsday to happen sometime around the ball park of the 21st century. But then again, let's just keep our fingers crossed that such a day is purely fictional, but makes really cool movies to win Oscars for special effects! September 03 Chinese Myth: Ne Zha, the kid named "Where Hey!"I just ran across this ancient Chinese story which I thought was very interesting in the way that it reflected, or even predicted the way our world is developing... it's about a kid named Ne Zha, where Ne means "where" and Zha, just means Zha... it's like a onematapia kinda thing.
The tale starts with a general named Li Jing, a famous house hold name in Chinese folklore. He's often depicted in pictures as this great huge guy in full armour holding a tower...
As the story goes, General Li spent all his cash building a tower.
When he was building that tower he was a rich man, and during his time of financial prosperity, his wife became pregnant and gave birth to his first son, so he named him the Jin Zha, which can be very loosely translated as "Gold Hey", where as Jin means Gold and Zha is just kinda like this sound you make when you yell at someone... in English, people say Hey, in Chinese, back in those days, they yelled "Zha"!
Apparently he didn't really have a very sound business model when he began to build this tower. Because eventually he exhaughsted his bank account shortly after the tower's completion and instead of being able to afford things made out of gold, he now had to downgrade to stuff made out of wood. Around this time, he's wife became pregnant again and he had his second son. Being the joker that he is, he named him Mu Zha, which means, Wood Hey!
One day, General Li and the misses got busy again and the news of another child got around. But such good news eventually became very old news... three years went by and no sign of water breaking. Obvioiusly Generally Li started freaking out. Not even the finest doctor in the land knew what was up.
Finally the day came when Mrs. Li gave birth to this big weird looking thing. It wasn't much of a baby as it was a big meat ball. General Li freaked out big time and slices it open with his sword and this baby hopped out.
Just then, the house keeper runs in to report that a weird looking old man comes to visit.
Old man comes in and introduces himself as Taiyizhenren from some cave on some mountain. Back then in China these are very impressive creditials because it basically means that this dude was a god. The old man Taiyizhenren (we'll call him the T-geezer) congratulated General Li on his new born son and asked him if a name had been given yet.
General Li had been way too freaked with all of this and didn't get a chance to think about a name yet and asked if the great T-geezer could be so kind as to help him name his new son. T-geezer mumbled something about 15 being a terrible number and how it represented all sorts of bad luck and was an omen to catastrophy and ended up naming the kid Ne Zha, a name which takes exactly 15 brush strokes to write.
The name Ne Zha doesn't really mean much, except the first character means "Where" in common speak and the second character, as we all know, is the Chinese equivalent of "Hey!". General Li wasn't too sure about the name, but since it was given by some old gold from a cave, he decided it was as good as any. After naming the kid, Taiyizhenren headed for the door, but before he left, he told General Li that in 7 years time, this kid will run into some big trouble, and that by then, he will return to pick him up and take him to the mountains to train him to become a Jedi. But General Li had no idea about Light-sabers and the force and such so he was like, whatever.
Life ensues, and 7 years goes by without anything too exciting. So let's fast foward to the next action scene. Ne Zha, now aged 10 (7 years after his birth plus 3 years in the womb), is getting bored of his house and requests the permission to go out beyond the confines of his family estate and play around. Mother agrees to let him go but sends one of the house-hold security officers to go with him.
Security officer dude thought it was a cool gig to goof around all day with the boss' kid, and did not assume too much responsibility in terms of moral guidance. The two of them came to the ocean and started playing around in the water. Ne Zha decides that it was a good idea to wash his shirt in the water.
Deep below the ocean's surface, in the palace of the dragon emporor, a middle aged mutant kung fu turtle comes to report to the dragon that the peace of the ocean was being disturbed by something from above. Apparently Ne Zha's shirt dye contained toxic chemicals and it was polluting the sea.
So he sends up one of his patrol officers, a vicious big fish dude, to take care of the situation.
Visious Big Fish guy comes up and sees Ne Zha playing around in the water and tells him to stop what he's doing because it was disturbing the peace of the ocean world. Ne Zha didn't give a monkey's armpit and even disrespected the big fish by telling him he smells.
Big Fish dude got angry and before you know it, Ne Zha and the Big Fish dude started fighting. But Ne Zha had home game advantage and no matter how powerful the big fish was, he wasn't used to dealing with stuff on land. One thing let to another and eventually Ne Zha killed the big fish and put him on the Barbeque and had a nice meal with his baby-sitter security officer guy.
When this news got back to the water kingdom (as in the mythical realm of the ocean creatures, not the theme park), the Dragon's third son, a handsome and proud young dragon was furious that one of the officers under his command had been slain by some kid with cheap dyed shirt, came up to seek justice.
However, Ne Zha was too smart and too powerful for him, after an intense battle between the boy and the dragon, the dragon got his ass kicked, and further more, Ne Zha skinned the dragon and took it home to show his mother.
Realizing that her son had just killed the 3rd son of the Dragon Emporor, Mrs. Li spatzed out and got General Li, who didn't really know what to do until the Dragon Emporor himself came upon his door to visit.
Dragon Emporor was like, "Dude! Your kid killed my son! I want Justice!"
General Li was like, "Sorry man, he's just a kid, he doesn't know... how about if I donate my house to your cause and make it a Temple to worship the Dragon?"
Dragon Emporor "I don't think so man, your kid murdered my son and killed big fish dude, renaming your house doesn't make up for it. I want justice!"
General Li. "Alright alright, I'll give you justice. I'll punish my son... come here son, listen, what you did was wrong! Don't you ever do that again! *spank spank* Ok? Ok."
Dragon Emporor "What? You must be kidding me! You call that Justice??? I'm gonna report this to the gods in heaven! They'll know what's fair!"
Dragon Emporor storms out... literally... because he's the guy in charge of all the floods and the rain and all that stuff. So when he's pissed, he storms out.
That's when T-geezer returns and takes Ne Zha away to train with him in the mountains... Kill Bill style. Except most of the training invloved Ne Zha sitting in a circle where he could repent for his wrong doings.
To make the long story short, eventually the dragons came back to visit his parents after reporting to the emporor of heaven. Ne Zha came back to assume responsibilities for what he's done so that the dragons would leave his parents alone. He ended up cutting his own arm off and stuck a sword in his own gut and thus destroyed his body.
The dragons thought this was as much justice as they could get for the day so they left. As for Ne Zha, having undergone training with T-geezer, the death of his flesh didn't mean end his spiritual life. His spirit flew back to his master in the mountains, and Taiyizhenren took a few pieces of lotus and formed a new body for him, and continued to train him so that eventually he became a powerful god. But under the guidance of the T-geezer, the new Ne Zha only uses his powers for good instead of destruction.
That's the story. When I read it I thought that it was very much reflective of humanity's course on earth. We are now in the era where we have mastered Gold and Wood and have begun to invade the peace of the ocean. Without understanding it's awesome powers, we're just treating the sea like our play ground, and not respecting the value of the lives of the creatures that live in it. Under this type of ignorance we are continuing to destroy life from the ocean and thus off-setting the symbiotic balance of life on earth. The ultimate end to this, if this story is correct, is that we humans, will eventually destroy ourselves to make up for our wrong doings...
Having examined this story, I urge everyone to start training in moutains so that when the day comes when we bring ourselves to our own ultimate demise, we can at least attain spiritual freedom and maybe turn into a new race of lotus people... July 03 love and possessionLove and possession... any relations?
Do we always love what we possess?
Do we always possess what we love?
I think we usually love what we don't possess... and rarely possess what we love.
We go shopping because we get the chance to "fall in love" with that awesome jacket, or those really cute shoes, or that cleaverly designed letter opener...
we came, we saw, we want to own it. we love it,
we want to own it, because we admire it, it's beautiful
we see the beauty in it, a beauty we do not find in our own life, we ponder through our mind how much beauty this could add to our lives if we could always have it, we grow attached to it, we want to always have it, we want to take it into our life and make it ours.
we want to possess it,
we acquire it by buying it.
the transaction takes place upon which a ritual of a ceremonial contract is made.
the ownership of it is now ours.
Now we have it, it is now a part of our possession... we grow used to it.
This becomes our life... a life that includes our new possession... and the new possession soon enough becomes the old possession... we feel the need to go shopping again, because we miss that feeling of knowing that you get a chance to "fall in love" with that awesome car, that cute dress, or that cleaverly designed piece of furniture...
but we will always love that old toy we had as a child once but have lost over the years... that old toy we love but nolonger possess. July 01 the ultimate posersI really dislike posers... especially poser buddhists...
As far as posers go, poser buddhists are probably on the bottom of the poser food chain, way below poser academics and poser models...
I ran into quite a few poser buddhists today, who were hosting a political demonstration of some sort... The last time I checked, enlightenment didn't involve setting up propaganda displays, handing out pamflets and getting people to sign petitions. Upon seeing such marketing publicity stunt, natrually I wanted to go check it out.
"Help us defeat evil!" said one of the "volunteers" at the table with pamflets, "sign a petition! Chinese Communists don't allow freedom of religion!" He recited, waving a clipboard that had a sheet of paper full of random signatures.
"Whoa, wait a minute!" I had to step in to correct that statement: "I live in Beijing, and I believe in Taoism and occasionally practice Zen, I have friends who are devote Christians and Catholics in Beijing and they go to church on Sundays, what do you mean there's no freedom of religion in China?"
The "volunteer", who was a twenty something fresh-off-the-boat southern Chinese dude, gave me a stare that didn't involve very much compassion, quickly changed his slogan.
"Communist Government remove organs from political prisoners and sell for profit..."
The Chinese Government isn't that desperate for money. In fact, China right now has more investments going into it than it knows how to spend. With Hong Kong being the 4th most expensive city in the world to live in and Beijing climbing to 14th, while Shanghai, Taipei and Shenzhen all ranking in the top 50, things just don't add up for it to be a country whose government would need to conduct secret kidney selling operations to make ends meet.
So I switched the conversation to mandarin, which is my mother tongue, having born and raised in Beijing for the first 11 years of my life, and being a resident of Beijing for the past 7 years, I thought perhaps I should tell this guy what China is really like now.
"I'm from Beijing." I told him with my beijing dialect.
"How long since your immigration to Canada? More than 3 years right? This all happened recently." He questioned, using Mandarin, with a slight southern China accent.
"I live there now, I'm only here in Toronto to visit my parents who live here. I like Beijing, I think China is a great place right now... what's this organization about?"
The guy began to explain to me that his group belongs to an organization called "Fa Lun Gong" a religious establishment based on buddhism, which is being oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party because they don't allow freedom of beliefs, and mistreat political prisoners, and that all they want to do is practice their religion... etc.
It was a run on sentence and the dude talked very fast as though he's reciting some speech he had already made a thousand times.
I proceeded to ask him about his thoughts on enlightenment, but he did not want to participate in that conversation very much and said that he was very busy because there were more people who wanted to sign petitions even though I was the only guy there actually actively engaging him in conversation. He didn't seem to be enlightened enough to me to be considered someone that had anything to do with Buddhism, so I refrained myself from signing his clip-board and just took some flyers* and went on my way.
I've heard about this "religion"... It's called Fa Lun Gong,
considered a cult in China and has been banned for a few years... I remember seeing them on the news on Chinese TV a few years ago when they organized a protest in Beijing one morning, when 10000 people showed up and sat in silence around the office of China's then president Jiang Ze Min. At the time I remember admiring the organization of so many people in such a short time and thought it was probably the biggest "flash mob" event in the world.
I also remember coming across one of their books a few years back in which I read about some of their teachings. The religion claims to be based on buddhist teachings but says it is not buddhism. It introduces the idea of obtaining enlightenment through the practice of a physical exercise reminiscent of a lazy man's version of Yoga, and strives for 3 virtures: Purity of truth (Zhen), Compassion (Shan), and Beauty (Mei, in this case, the beauty applies not only to physical appearances of things, but also of the inner beauty of all things). Pretty good virtues right? But guess what, their fearless leader is this guy in a suit (here's a link to his picture on their official website... a picture speaks a thousand words... http://www.falundafa.org/Photo_ch.html), by the name of Li Hong Zhi, who lives in a million dollar house somewhere on the west coast of the United States and drives an expensive luxery sedan.
A quick search on wikipedia gave me enough information to make my own judgement(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_and_controversies_about_Falun_Gong)
and I preferred the layout of much better than their official website (http://www.falundafa.org/) which had a lot more anti-Sino-propaganda than information relating to the actual "teachings".
It pains me to see so many people are buying into their propaganda, and that on the streets of Toronto there would be such people talking smack about my home country.
*The flyers they were passing out had no information about the buddha's teachings or anything that was even remotely religious or spiritual, rather, they were all articles about how evil the communist part of china is... weird religion eh? self-dellusional species...I still think that's the tragic flaw of mankind... is intelligence.
Having intelligence and recognizing it made us think we're better than all the other creatures on earth, and that we should just use earth for our needs and grow our race exponentially and have everything services us... me me me, not too wise an approach towards existence. The native american indians, believed in that we're just a part of mother earth and the animals and trees and the spirts are all a part of an equilibrium... but they get blanks with chicken pocks and wiped out and their land taken... well, "colonized". The people of Africa lived simple lives too, they took what they needed from around them and lived among nature, but they got enslaved... And now we have a world like this, full of money and power and a middle class suffering from depression... all the things we invented to make life easier for lazy people are now eating up all the planets resources, and what do we do about it? We try to invent faster computers and better cars and bigger screen TVs so that we could distract ourselves with more things and have less time to think about what's actually going on... to realize that we have made a mistake and thought ourselves to be too smart for our own good... trees live, trees die, animals live, animals die, people live, people die... but people endure a life fearing death and thinking about how important they are. Ultimately, everything comes and goes in the circle of life, I believe wisdom is that which allows us to understand and accept the greatness of this cosmic cycle... something which animals and plants on this planet have already obtained without intellect. I find great peace to be a part, though infinitely small and insignificant one, of this omnipotent force. June 28 CWSA class of 2006Just came home from my little sister's grade 8 graduation... where for the first time in my eyes, she appeared as a young girl instead of that goofy kid with that silly grin on her face whom I've come to know and love as my little sister for the past 13 years... Among her fellow graduating class mates, she was just a girl. She was just a girl who dressed plainly, without any special hair-do or make-up or fancy dress to call attention to herself. She was just a girl who, out of respect for the formality of the graduation ceremony, changed out of her jeans and t-shirt and took off her hats* and combed her hair. She wasn't the valedictorian of her graduating class, she didn't receive any special awards for her acheivements like some of her friends, she didn't do anything out of the ordinary to attract attention, she simply was just there, just a girl who walked up the stage when her name was called and got her diploma, shook hands with her teachers and came out. But she wasn't just a girl... she was my little sister who suddenly isn't so little anymore. Among her classmates, many of the boys were in suits and ties as though they wanted to make a good impression at a job interview for a cubical farm, some of the girls wore wore dresses and make-up to make themselves look older but were betrayed by the braces in their mouths, and the way they walked told everyone that it's their first day on high-heels. Everyone did their best to look their best, and I could almost imagine how much time and effort went into some of the more elaborate hair-dos and make-up on some of these girls... Rosy on the other hand, as I recall, took about 10 minutes in the bathroom to change and a few minutes in front of the mirror just to make sure she didn't look informal. At first glance, she was so plain that you might not even have noticed her in the line-up among her friends... but despite the simplicity, she was also the most beautiful, because she was a girl who could be beautiful just by being herself.
Congrats on your graduation Rosy, and not just graduation from all that stupid homework, but graduation from being that goofy kid in my eyes... into a beautiful, smart, fun-to-be-around cool chick!
------ *Rosy usually wears 2 hats on her head. It's her style I guess. A drummer friend of mine called it the "hi-hat" because she were them on over the other, reminiscent of 2 stacked cymbals in a drum kit... June 21 inherited intelligenceIs intelligence inherited?
Are smart people smart because they were born with a better brain than others, or is it because they were taught better?
If it's because they're taught better, then would kids who are taught at the "best school in the world" all be exactly the same in smartness?
Would there not be any "smart kids" at the "best school in the world"? The ones who get better marks than their fellow classmates? Who would be the student council president of "best school in the world"?
Was Albert Einstein a student of the "best school in the world"?
Albert Einstein was a student at a school that's not in anyway comparable to the "best school in the world".
He wasn't the best student in the class either... in fact he got F's on his report cards!
Albert Einstein was one of the smartest people to live on earth last century!
He had a better brain than the rest of us.
Since I cannot think of a smarter person in recent history (the celebrities and world leaders of our time don't seem to compare), I would like to propose studying him. Look him up, read about him and his views, not just about his profession or academic achievements, but also look into his ideas towards life, his ideas about government, his ideas about religion... What he thinks humans should do to build a better future...
I made some notes, in point form about some of his ideas:
-He thought a good government would be of a democratic socialist system which would combine a planned economy with a deep respect for human rights.
-"The tamed metaphysicist believes that not all that is logically simple is embodied in experienced reality, but that the totality of all sensory experience can be 'comprehended' on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity." Wrap your head around that sentence!
-When discussing his ideas about religion, he states "[for the average dude]...God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe. But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
-Then of course he started the whole thing about relativity and quantum mechanics and all that jazz.
I'm pretty sure the world would be a better place if we were populated by more people like Albert Einstein... So, let us try to be more like him, and make smarter babies... Let those smart people breed, and for the rest of us, there's DUREX and internet porn!!! June 11 balletI went to my little sister's ballet recital today.
It had all these kids playing the violin at first... they played it in a way to make me think that I should pick up my violin again and practice... so I guess that's a good thing...
Then the curtains drew close and a CD played on a sound system with a buzzing bass started to feed this recorded classical music through the almost crackling speakers.
The curtains opened again and Voila! We have Ballet!
People in weird skirts came on and moved around to this orchestration of romantic harmonies for a bit, and suddenly there she was, my little sister Rosy wearing that same ridiculous looking out-fit, appearing on stage right. That strange arrangement of lacy fabrics of tacky colours wrapped around who I otherwise know as my dear little sister Rosy... suddently I realized, under that stupid looking ballet dress is nolonger that little kid sister Rosy whom I laughed at snot bubbles with... there's a young girl in that dress now... a young girl who could do that cool trick gliding across the stage on her toes which I never knew she could do...
Despite of the ugly out-fit, I was so proud of her!
Then the Ballet went on for way too long, and featured too many people who should probably not be doing ballet, but I enjoyed every moment when Rosy had something to do on the stage... there was a very cute moment when a bunch of 4 year olds went on and did this Chinese buddha dance, the girl who was the lead was a pretty good dancer and it was funny to watch the boy in the gray wig act like an old man, but all in all, the thing was pretty boring... especially since it was opened by the least enthusiastic violin players in town. But even then, as boring as it was, I totally enjoyed it just because my sister was in it and I totally would come to the next one! Even if it's going to have uglier costumes!
June 08 42 cool things to do on earth for free (or really cheap).OK, I don't claim to be on top of the game when it comes to cool stuff to do. I don't claim to be someone who even know what "cool" means... but I made this list as a reference to people who find themselves bored and want an idea of something to do... well, in this case, it's all the stuff that I find to be "cool things to do". They're listed in the order of idea coming into my head.
(Almost all of the listed activities are much more enjoyable with a friend.)
So here goes: 42 Cool Things To Do On Earth For Free (or almost free).
42: Play on a swing. (Swings can be found pretty much in any park/school yard. If you have trouble finding a swing where you are, then you'll just find something else on this list to do. But if you have found a swing, I recommand swinging really high and then putting your head back so that you see things up side down... the disorienting sensation is quite enjoyable if you're not scared.)
41: Find typos in menus at Chinese restaurants and write down the corrections and give to management.
40: Order something authentically Italian that's not on the menu at an Italian restaurant. (In my experience, the chef will arrange to make it for you and they'll figure out a fair price for it without too much hassle.)
39: See the matinee performance of a Musical/Play. (Usually the Wednesday afternoon shows have a lot of school groups... If you bring a back pack and a baseball cap, you can probably pretend to be a part of the group and get to stay after the show and hear the actors talk about the show... if such a programme was arranged for the school.)
38: Walk around a block and count how many paces it takes. (This is really fun with 2 people. You start of back to back and walk opposite directions around the block and see who took more steps to get to when you meet again on the other side.)
37: Take a picture of something that no one has ever taken a picture of before.
36: Draw a picture of something you wish you had.
35: Find a bunch of words that rhyme, and then fill words between them to get them to make some sort of sense... or just write a poem.
34: Say hello to someone you have on your instant messenger list but not sure who they are.
33: Make a list of things you think is cool to do.
32: Play a strategy board game with someone over 70.
31: Make something with a tool you've never used beforet.
30: Apply for a job you never thought you would do just to see if they'll accept you. (For example, go to Starbucks and fill out the application form if you don't like coffee.)
29: Read a play. (Plays can be easily found in the "theatre section" of most public libraries. This is best done with someone else, where you can each read a different charater's lines.)
28: Browse through the music store and find an instrument you really like and see how well you can learn to play it without buying.
27: Meet someone who lives close to you but you haven't met before.
26: Find a place you like near where you live but have never been.
25: Get rained on and watch how the water is coming down from the clouds.
24: Find a bug you like and give it some food.
23: Shuffle a deck of cards, ask a yes or no question and cut to a card. Assign the different suits to different answers before hand.
22: Go to a place you used to go a lot but have stop going. Check out everything that's different from what you remember and try to guess why the change has been implimented.
21: Learn a song you've heard before but don't know too well.
20: Visit an old teacher of yours.
19: Talk to a homeless person and try to find out where they actually sleep... if you like them, share some food.
18: Give something you like to someone you like.
17: Go to a book store and read a book, and then write down what you thought of the book on a piece of paper and put it in the pages of the book for whoever buys it.
16: Take the subway and sit in the first car and pretending you're driving it. Try to get the real subway driver to let you wear his hat.
15: Climb a tree.
14: Go to your school/work at a time you don't usually go to school/work and see what the place is like. (See if you can still get in.)
13: Ride a bike... (if you don't have one, see where you can borrow one... just to ride it for a bit.)
12: Have a conversation with a friend on paper.
11: Take a walk.
10: Look at clouds and see if you can change them to look like stuff.
9: Blind-fold yourself and just try to do the things you normally do.
8: Hang out with a good friend without talking.
7: Find a word in the dictionary you don't know and make a sentence with it in it and try to make a conversation with someone you know that would give you a chance to use that sentence.
6: Have a race with someone who's obviously slower than you and offer a handicap like hopping on one leg 3 times every 5 steps you run. Try to make it a tie.
5: Make yourself hungry and then eat some food.
4: Make yourself thirsty and drink some water.
3: Inspire someone to have an idea.
2: Pick a good idea you had and do something to start making it happen.
1: Make love with someone you love who loves you. (If you don't have someone you love who loves you around, try doing some of the other things on this list... chances are you'll find that person while you're doing the other stuff.)
June 06 Homework Sucks!Just had the pleasure of helping my sister with her science homework...
what a loAd of horSe Shit!!!!
The subject was Science and the work was to complete some sort of a "Lab" about the properties of light...
and the homework was basically copying down procedures of some experiment from the text book and then handing it in because they didn't have enough time to do everything properly in class.
"It's not a proper lab, just do it."
According to my sister, that was the instruction from the teacher.
It was "make work". There was as much independent thinking involved as making a photocopy of the text book and handing it in. But she still had to do it. That was the homework. She wasn't leaning much about how to think like a scientist, she was learning about how to do the work of a photocopier, she was learning to follow proceedures, following instructions printed in the text book and accepting those printed text as facts and accepting the printed conclusions to be true.
I asked my sister a few questions about what she thought about the experiment and what kind of conclusions she could draw from having done this "lab", however improper it maybe at this point. She didn't really care. Or should I say, she REALLY didn't care... She just needed to get her homework done... this is the way she can get it done, by doing what the teacher said, copying down the procedures and using the given conclusions as the final answer... that would get it done, so that's the way she's doing it. Of course, it was arlready minutes from midnight and she still had an early morning of school to attend. It was pretty obvious that this 13 year old is not gonna be getting her 8 hours of sleep tonight, as on any night with homework like this...
How I wished I could just take her to the science centre and let her discover some of these wonders of the universe on her own, see a prism break up light into a rainbow, watch a large pendulum swing to different directions to match the spinning earth, think with her own mind why things are this way and draw conclusions of her own and instead of just cramming knowledge into her memory, she would be gaining an understanding of how things work in her mind.
But no, I can't do that. She has school the next day... and the day after that... and then piano and cello lessons and ballet classes, dance rehearsals, practices, recitals, exams... and when she's not doing all those things, she has to be doing homework... homework that teaches her nothing but how to be a drone.
I've always hated homework. I never did much of it, but always got away with it somehow. My parents were too busy to care about how well i completed my homework and my teachers, well, they kinda knew that I wasn't cut out to be a straight A student despite of the fact that I maybe Asian... but all the homework I didn't do gave me time to explore all the things I'm really interested in... so that I could learn about them, practice them, become good at them and then one day, use them to do something good for those around me. I'm doing that now and I'm pretty happy with that... because I was the lucky kid who got away without doing much homework... because homework sucks! May 31 KarmaHaven't written in a while... not because I've had nothing to say, but because karma never gave me a chance to say them.
Speaking of which, Karma is a funny thing... it's basically a super old way of explaining the chaos theory... I dig it.
I've just began to realize the potential of this thing called Karma and how beautiful life can be if we could learn to just flow with it, and for those adventurous ones, manipulate it...
I've had the pleasure of recently obtaining a state of mind that attracted a series of pleasant coincidences to happen to me... things like the sky stopping to rain when I felt like going out side during a thunder storm, meeting people I enjoy the company of at random, accidentally running into old friends with whom I have lost touch...
Life has been good, and for the first time, this "good" had nothing to do with advances in my career or making loads of cash or getting hot dates or anything that we usually associate with "the good life"...
I guess above all else, peace of mind can be a pretty awesome thing to obtain...
Being able to help stop a baby's crying on a long airplane trip and calming a little kid during turbulence can be more fun than the most sophisticated video game...
look into it... March 29 having none, having more...The man called me bright and early at 7 AM, when I was in my most indulgent slumber, he called me excitedly with the news that he has found the things he needed to make me the rack. Later that day he showed up to my place after following some very vague directions from me on the phone, holding bags of borrowed tools and found materials he needed to build the rack I drew on the paper.
A couple of hours and a few trips to the near-by hardware store later, I had a new rack on my wall and couple of extra mis-drilled holes on my wall which I asked him not to fix due to my fascination with the makeshiftness of the look of it all.
The man left and I began my house cleaning for the next couple of days. It started with simple vacuuming of the drill dust the man left began and eventually panned out to be a complete furniture move spring cleaning project! I installed a new dolby 5.1 surround mini-system, readjusted my projector to the 2 meter screen, sweeped up all the BB bullets off the floor, disconnected my computer, printer, scanner, took out a table, shifted the futon... etc. The apartment went through a make-over a sorts, and just before the completion of this spring cleaning, I get another call from the man, who wanted to come over to fix the holes...
I really liked the wholes the way they are, but I let him come anyway.
He came in with a freshly shaved head but still the same old soiled clothes, I sat him down and chatted about what we've done for the past couple of days. I told him I stayed home and cleaned my house, and he told me he went around to the Ministry of Labour or some government entity like that, asking for help in finding Mr. Qin and the money he's earned while working for Mr. Qin. The officers said they couldn't help him because he doesn't have a signed contract and the amount of money in question is insufficient to file a proper case. The man has decided to go home without getting paid, even though he feels he's letting down his family by going home without the cash he was supposed to make.
"Do you want to take a shower here?" I asked him. I went and got a fresh towel and turned on the water heater. At first he seemed to like the idea, but eventually declined with reasons regarding not wanting to cause too much trouble.
"in that case, take some clothes..."
I got out a pair of pants I rarely wore, they weren't too nice, but at least they were clean, a nice up-grade from the filth-caked slacks currently covering his lower half. He accepted the gift gracefully and folded it up neatly. Seeing that, I proceeded to go around the house to find more things I could spare that he could use... moments later, I presented him with a pile of charity goods ranging from a pair of knock off Eddie Baure shoes, a fake Tommy Hilfiger fleece with the word "SUCKS" written over the red/white/blue logo with a permanent marker,a deck of Bicycle player cards, a Rock for China-Beijing Pop Festival 2005 T-shirt, a DVD player, a bag of empty recyclable bottles, and a nicely-rolled up pinner containing hard-to-come-by Canadian Pharmaceutical Greenery.
He complimented my manual dexterity as we sat there listening to Evgeny Kissin's rendition of some Chopin Nocturns after a few demonstrations of my magic tricks and other magic related oragami. We sat and talked and laughted through this blissful time in the afternoon... there wasn't a clock in the room but I'm pretty sure it was around 4:20.
The man may never have known who Chopin is or what Kissin's instrument is called, but he heard the music. He was in it. He felt the beautiful sorrow in the slow arpeggios of the harmonizing of the melody without ever having to know these words. I sat there with him, knowing much of the details about the music, but hearing it with only half the insight, if even that.
There I was, in my apartment which is cluttered with the latest gadgetry, in awe of a homeless man who has nothing, but much more than I have.
4:20 eventually came to pass, and we had to carry on with our lives. I walked him downstairs and we said good-bye. I look forward to seeing him again. March 21 I met a man todayI met a man today,
when I was on my way back home.
I was just taking one of those long walks home after an evening of intense introspective ponderings at a friend's house. The night was quiet with the exception of the occasional empty cab zipping by, tearing up scratches in the silence of the street lamps. The man's weakened voice woke me from the song I had in my head.
He carried a bag full of plastic bottles and had a wooden stick for a cane,
it was 3 AM across from the stadium where his voice stopped my steps.
He made a request to me that I could not refuse. He asked for some water, because he was thirsty.
He was about my dad's age, but from the many extra wrinkles on his face I could see that the years haven't been as kind to him. I knew this man was in need of a lot more than just water.
He asked me for water.
Water! He wasn't asking for money, he wasn't even asking for food!
Being a frequent walker of the night who knew the area quite well, I took him to a near-by 24-hour restaurant, with the intention of getting this man the water he needed, and, with his permission, some food.
During the 10 minute walk towards the restaurant, I was able to make out a few pieces of his story as he told it in his northern China dialect of rural Mandarin.
The man was a carpenter. The reason for his being in Beijing was that he came here to work for 50 RMB a day building things out of wood for Mr. Jiang. (That works out to be about $ 6 USD for those of you who needed an international currency reference.) However, at the end of his term of 3 months, Mr. Jiang disappeared without paying the man his money. Now, alone in this strange city, the man has resorted to picking up empty plastic bottles to sustain himself. The man had nothing except for the clothes he had on, a bag full of plastic bottles and the stick in his hands. But it was clear that dispite of the lack of material possessions, the man still had his dignity. He said he was trying to find Mr. Jiang and get his money back so that he could go back home to his family... though he realizes that if he doesn't find Mr. Jiang, he will have to find a freight train to sneak on to steal a ride home. He doesn't want to just go home without taking to his wife the money he came to earn. He still had his dignity.
We walked through the glass doors of the florescent lit restaurant as a table of a few 20-something big spenders stood over their vomiting friend who bowed over a puddle of what he had been eating... and drinking. The restaurant staff with this "grave-yard shift" seem to have gotten used to customers doing such during their patronage and it didn't seem to bother them as much as a guy like me walking in with the man.
We sat down and the man requested that I don't spend more money on him than the cost of a bowl of noodle soup. So I ordered a fried egg and a big bowl of beef noodles for him, some fried dumplings, and a large cup of soya milk for both of us. The food came shortly after, but it took me a few moments to notice that he wasn't eating. I suddenly realized that he was waiting for me to draw my chopsticks first. So I picked up my chopsticks and took a fried dumpling into my plate, and watched the man slowly dig away at his beef noodle soup. The man was polite, and had much better manners than the party of drunken urban professionals tending to their puking associate.
During the noodles he told me how tough things were going for him, but he told the story in such a way as a fighter would tell his friend about a lost battle. The man wasn't begging for sympathy, he was merely sharing his experience of injustice with me while being very appreciative of being treated to dinner. I wanted to help him somehow, but the man had his dignity... With the way he was refusing me to order him more food, I knew the man wasn't someone who would accept a hand out.
I asked the man if he would be interested to do a job for me, to make me a couple of wooden stands to go on my wall... I've been needing such stands for a while, but I thought right now, this man needed to make these stands even more.
The man's eyes lit up when he heard me asking him to do a job, and started asking me for specifics. He said he'll borrow a hammer and some nails and make this for me for no charge because I was his friend, but I rejected that idea and insisted that I should pay him some money, at least for materials.
I opened my note-book and drew out a diagram of what I wanted him to make and included my name and phone number on the bottom. I tore the page out and handed it to him as he cleaned out the last bits in his bowl. While he studied the picture of this new project, I took a napkin and wrapped some cash in it. It was about the same amount I spent on dinner earlier when I treated a few friends at a popular restaurant, but to the man, it was probably enough for a month's food and a train ticket home. I concealed the packet in my hand and waited for the right moment.
I settled the bill with the waitress at the cash register so the man wouldn't see how much I was paying... He had been complaining that it costs as high as 5 RMB to feed himself everyday in Beijing when the cost of food per person per day was 2 RMB where he came from. Our bill came to be more than 10 times that, which would probably be a shock to him if he found out, even though it worked out to be only $ 4 bucks or so.
I asked him to make me that wooden rack and call me when he's finished, to which he gladly agreed.
We said our good byes and I cued up for my exit. Just before I left him I put that little packet of napkin in his hand and told him to open it in the morning. The man looked at it and was a bit confused by why I insisted that he couldn't open the packet now. I backed away from him as I told him not to open the packet now, but I could feel my authority slip away so I started picking up the pace... the last thing I saw him do was beginning to unfold the napkins. I started to walk away rather quickly... as I stepped across the street I heard something from the direction the man was standing but dared not look back. I kept walking until I disappeared into the shadows of an early spring morning in Beijing.
I jumped in the first cab I saw and went home wrapped in a thick layer of sadness. March 02 GoldI just noticed this and thought it was pretty cool: the word Gold, is God with an "l" in it. Ok, letting the right brain run with this... what could this mean? The "l" kinda looks like a wall, which puts up a barrier between "Go" and "d". Before they found this shiny malluable metal, the only thing as awe-inspiring and important and useless was something called "God". This new thing is was not God, but it was pretty damn close... so close, that people used it to replace God. Before, you were good to go if you had God. After this new discovery, you could be pretty good if just had lots of Gold. February 21 Budget for New YorkI would like to have lived in New York for a while in this life time.
$0.00
It would be a learning period. But not necessarily involve any enrollment in a school.
$0.00
A small apartment with 2 windows ($2000.00/month) and enough room for a bed ($500.00), a desk ($60.00) and a piano ($2000.00-$12000.00). Other miscellaneous items ($300.00) such as spoons and coat hangers and shampoo and coffee mugs are kept to a minimum to cater to a small party of 5.
I'd be cooking most of the time so after the grocery bills ($300.00/month), a few instances of indulgence at a few restaurants ($200.00/month) and the occasional visit to the theatre ($500.00/month) should make life quite enjoyable.
Water, Gas and Utilities plus transportation ($500.00/month) would make up the rest of the cost... this would sum up to be
2000+300+200+500+500=$ 3500.00/month plus
500+60+12000+300=$ 12,860.00 for all the stuff.
If I was to live in NYC for 2 years doing this, I would need to make at least $ 84,000.00 first... Damn! Stupid money! February 18 The Food PeopleThis is Day 3 of my New York City visit, and an early afternoon walk down the street led me to a small street-side fast food shop that sold tacos and burritos and other assorted quick bites from Mexico. It's been a while since I had tasted Mexian food, and my current co-ordinates were probably as close to Mexico as I was gonna get this year, I decided to go for it.
A couple of middle aged hispanic women walked into the shop in front of me, they looked at the florescent menu on top and discussed what they wanted to each other in their native tongue. Greeting them was an asian girl, in her polyester uniform, standing politely behind the counter.
"How may I help you?" She said with a mild Cantonese accent to her Central American customers.
As the orders were being taken, I noticed that everyone working here were also asian. I remember last week when I had dinner at a Sushi place downtown Toronto that were run by people who spoke Mandarin, and thinking to myself how odd it is to have Chinese people opening a Japanese restaurant. But at least then, you could at least think since the asians all look the same, most people who go won't know they're actually Chinese instead of Japanese.
Here in New York City, a taco joint on the street run by Chinese people seemed a bit unauthentic.
"What's going on? What planet is this?" I asked myself...
The answer that I came up with for myself for asking such a ridiculous question was Earth, at the beginning of Globalization. As people are being categorized by their culture's "talent".
The Asians seems to specialize in food. Started with Chinese restaurants, then Japanese restaurants, now Mexican... maybe one day all the cooks in the world would be Asian! Ahhh!!!!
So I ordered combo number 1: "Mexican rice and chicken"
It was something I could see being served at Mandarin Buffet. February 15 WaterIs water free here? Or do you have to buy the bottled kind?
Water was free, it always has been a natural resource which nurished all living things...
People didn't always have the need to consume nurishment for entertainment. They drank and ate at home during times of meals and ate and drank just enough to maintain healthy.
Food had to be purchased or bartered or worked for, but water, like air, has always been understood as public domain, water was always given.
But one day, someone wanted to make a change in things. Someone invented a certain bubbly black liquid that was so sweet, it gave people an instantaneous moment of bliss through stimulation of the taste buds. People drank water to keep replenished but purchased this strange new invention for indulgence.
Due to the sweetness and the chaotic pleasures this black bubbly liquid was able to bring to our mouths, we all became big fans of such unnatural beverage and grew accustomed to it. Kids were given this at a young age so they could start to learn to appreciate the sugary bubbling drinking sensation early. Eventually, everyone drank the black bubbly liquid as a default drink, to the point that people drank more of it than they did water.
After a while, people became bored with this black liquid and started inventing variations of it in the name of progress. They added cherry flavour to it, or applied a touch of vanilla cream to the taste, some even went as far as turning the colour from black to clear while still maintaining that special bubbly sweetness. The assortment of flavours expanded to include varieties of juices from countless fruits and even tea...
Until one day, people began to realize that the excess sugar and other added chemicals in such drinks had unhealthy side effects. But by this time, everyone is so used to purchasing these beverages that instead of water, they chose newer and "healthier" varieties of the black liquid. Such as versions of sugar free black bubbly liquids, or sugar free clear bubbly liquids, or even flavourless clear bubbly liquids, and ultimately, they came up with a sugar free, flavour free, bubble free liquid that costed more than the original black bubbly liquid...
What people forgot was that this newest version of beverage is just plain water, which we used to get for free.
Meanwhile, they have begun the same scam with air. Oxygen bars are opening up offering people a product they can breath for a fee, and one day, we'd think nothing of it to go into a store to buy a tank of air to breath...
February 09 People who love Theatrethere are rich people who love theatre then there are poor people who love theatre the rich people who love theatre end up being the ones investing in theatre and producing theatre,
while the poor people who love theatre gets to be writers, actors, or workers of theatre the rich people who love theatre make money from theatre and gets richer because they love theater, sometimes they are willing to risk their wealth by spending their money on a piece of theatre they really believe in, despite the possibility of becoming poor because of theatre, the poor people who love theatre work hard to stay in theatre and don't care if they remain poor because they love theatre, but occasionally some may brought to fame and fortune because of their talent and genius and end up rich because of theatre...
meanwhile, those who attend theatre are the ones who love theatre, but not enough for them to give up whatever it is they're currently doing to stay rich or stay poor... February 07 Celebrities, the modern gods...In Greek Mythology, the world was run by a collection of gods, each one with an area of expertise who had a specific set of skills that were super natrual, and had a distinct appearance and personality.
They were the centre of the culture, they represented the civilization of the time. People used to look up to them, admire them and had art made to represent their image, stories were told about them. They were the names everyone knew.
Eventually, the way their stories were told became more complex, instead of one story teller telling the story, many people acted out different characters from the story and told it in a more vivid manner through symbolic representations of the events. Plays replaced story telling, people acted, and used creative ways to represent scenes that filled their audiences' imaginations with imagery. Sets were built, props were used, the actors began to explore their craft and began introducing other elements to help the process of provoking the imagination. Sound effects, music were introduced, singing became a part of the story telling, the players of the characters demonstrated more skills and that became the attraction of the audience. The story took second place as people began to admire the performers or artists. People separated these skills into different formats of presentation, those who used music to help the scene in the story took off and had pure musical concerts, those who made the sets had showings at galleries showcasing their skills at representing reality with images, sculpters made statues of the gods and painters painted them. Those who acted out stories with great battles developed their physical skills into dance and acrobatics... etc. Eventually, everything became its separate art form. Music, Theatre, Comedy, Magic, Mime... Some people excelled in some of these art forms and became highly well known. The more skilled they were, the better they were recevied by the audience, the more the power the were able to gain form themselves and those who controlled them. Stories were written to showcase the talents of the performers as they showcased their skills in front of more people on more advanced media, plays had to adapt and evolve to facilitate the media, from the stage, to television, to film, the actors influenced the masses with their own generation of stories.
They became the centre of the culture, they represented the civilization of the time. People looked up to them, admired them and had posters made to represent their image, stories were told about them on gossip magazines. They are the names everyone knew.
While each one had an area of expertise, a specific set of skills, a distinct appearance and personality, they are all merely distractions... they are there to distract you from the fact that in today's society, the world is run by the powers that control these new "gods".
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