My Corner for Education

The other day, I noticed that my Wretch account is up for renewal. Time flies. I can’t believe that I have been blogging for a year since last March. Through blogging I realized that I have been away from Taiwan for far too long to the point that I often feel like I am reading a new language on cyberspace. There are too many slangs and common usage of vocabulary in the Taiwanese blogging world, which is beyond my comprehension at times. A language evolves through time but I didn’t realize that within the short time of being away from Taiwan, I am no longer up to date, not hip anymore! For the first time, I feel absolutely OLD! Duh!

I came to blogging because I was too lazy to keep all my family and friends informed about my life here in Canada. Blogging is a great idea for me because I only have to tell a story once and everyone seems to be able to jump into the conversation/discussion. Plus, I ended up making more friends than I have ever expected. One benefit that I have noticed through blogging is there is no shortage of friendship out there. I got to reconnect with some my old friends, which is absolutely surprising. I have also established cyber friendship with a few blog friends. I even met a couple of blog friends who are living in this region. How cool is that!

My work takes up a lot of my time and blogging is gradually filling up the rest of my time. I am a busy bee and also a home body. I am busy all day long from early morning till late afternoon outside my home. However, once I’ve got home, I like to stay home and enjoy the immediate surrounding space with peace and tranquility. Blogging has become a way of updating my life and communicating my thoughts to friends who may have shown some interests in my boring life and who live in different time zones and it is hard for us to be in touch. Blogging is also a new learning curve for me to get to learn the latest cyber-techno tools which will benefit me in the long run.

Many blog friends have chatted with me online through a special gadget called Plugoo which is on the very top of my blog page. Plugoo is a very neat invention that shows my online status to the readers. When my blog friends see me online, they could type the message in the Plugoo message box and we could communicate online through instant messaging. I am very grateful to be able to chat with so many polite and sincere blog friends who genuinely show interest in reading my blog and getting to know me as a real person, not a fictional figure online (although I like to be a bit mysterious at times.) Due to my job requirement, I am not allowed to disclose my personal identification freely but I am for real, hahahah…, just in case you care.

Where should I go from now on with blogging? I don’t have talented writing skills to write flowery novels or stories and to tell the truth, I don’t have time at all. In fact, I don’t even have time for myself. I am my own life’s faithful historian. I can only record parts of my personal incidentals to whoever cares to read about me; namely, my family and friends. For the rest of my readers, unless you let me know who you are, I could only consider you as invisible non-existent figures out there. You just have to introduce yourself to me whenever you drop by to read my articles, either in English or in Chinese. 

Savage Garden: a two-men band broke up in 2002. I like quite a few of their songs. The followings were a few of my favourite songs, I knew I loved you and Truly Madly Deeply.

If you like these songs, go and buy their albums.





Affirmation

If you love certain type of music, you wouldn't and shouldn't care what the other people think about your taste. I like all types and I also like to sing (never at a karaoke bar though, hahaha). I,however, do enjoy listening to someone who can "actually" sing live.


Here is a song, I Have A Dream, from ABBA but sung by a boy choir. I like many of ABBA's songs. With the promotion of the musical Mama Mia, their music seem to be played more often on the radio for the last few years. Enjoy this one!




I Have A Dream

I am posting it a bit early here because your time is 12 hours ahead of mine and I don't want to miss your count down. 
Happy New Year! Welcome 2008! Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Queen gives 50th televised Christmas message

By Tariq Panja, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS





In this photo released Monday, Dec. 24, 2007, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II delivers her Christmas Day message for broadcast on television and the Internet on Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2007, at Buckingham Palace in London, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. (AP Photo/PA, Steve Parsons)

I heard this song on the radio for so many days and it irked me so much that I could not get the name right. Well, I finally found the album today. The song is titled The Face by twin brothers Ryan Dan. I am pretty sure you would love it. Have a taste for the song.



The Face
by RyanDan



Travellers of the great divides

Nickelback was introduced to me years ago by one of my Grade 3 students. I taught this boy for a year as well as his older brother for two years. Both of them were heavily into baseball and hockey.

One day, I asked my class about the songs and music they usually listened to at home. This student surprised me with a band that I had never heard of at the time. He told me that his brother was taking guitar lessons and Nickelback was one of the rock bands that he was into. I didn't really make an effort to check this band out until Nickelback finally got big and won a few music awards.

Check them out. I like some of their songs; however, I found some of their songs tend to have similar rhythms and styles.


Far Away

After four months of blogging on the cyber space, I’ve got to enjoy
reading people’s weblogs. It is always warm and fuzzy to visit
those bloggers who are very easy going and do not mind sharing
their personal or family stories with total strangers like me.
(Sometimes, I do feel like being a little bit nosy for doing so.)
It is also invigorating to read those weblogs that are academics
oriented. Once a while, when I read about Taiwan’s education reform
or forever chaotic politics, I do get pumped up with frustration
and confusion. Occasionally, I wouldn’t mind sharing my thoughts or
offering my viewpoints if the blog host allows me to do so. Through

The other day when I was at a party, I met an old acquaintance, named R. I have known R for about 11 years. I remember we played basketball together once in a co-ed type of team. The guys were surprised to find out that I played like a Desperado. (hehehe) After that game, they never forget about my basketball skills and “my feisty spirit”. (They still often talk about that game.) Well, I always have to clarify that it is not easy to play with guys, especially, with guys who are much taller than me. (Note 1) The world is not designed for shorter people! Nature has not been kind to us, OK! (Sigh….)

Anyway, good old R still looked the same that day, not much has changed, and he is still SINGLE! Over the years, my friends (the host and the hostess) have been trying their best to introduce single ladies to their best friend R, but all in vain. R is not a picky kind of guy, either. In fact, he should be surrounded by lovely young ladies in my view! He is very handy with a decent look and a superb engineer job working for an energy company. So, what’s wrong with him?

We got to talk about this “dating” issue at the party. He mentioned that where he works is a predominantly male plant, full of engineers and production workers. The work place is not an ideal environment for him to meet the opposite sex. He seems to have other responsibilities at home because he is caring for his aging parents with his sister who is also single. It is simply not easy to find someone who would have the patience to complement him. The oversea Chinese circle is very small and simply does not have “resources” for him to find that special someone. I guess, over the years, my friends have been trying to find ladies from all different ethnic backgrounds for him. Maybe, those ladies are not what he has been hoping for.

It seems to be a modern societal problem for young people who are no longer into the partying or bar-hopping crowds. I heard this rumour, “One in eight couples met through Internet dating service in North America.” I call it a rumour because I have no source to verify it. However, I see it as a by-product of a progressing modern society where people are so caught up in their busy everyday life trying to secure a path to a successful career. By the time they are ready to settle down, they simply have missed many opportunities. If they were lucky (or unlucky) to be able to find someone early on, by this stage, they sometimes have to face another problem, so called “growing apart”. If they were civil, they would depart in a peaceful manner. If not, nasty things could evolve from the sour ending.

For whatever reasons, I feel for this type of lonely people around the world. No wonder, Internet becomes such a convenient tool for many to seek a companion through that route. R told me that one of his co-workers found someone through an online dating service after his divorce. The girl he met happens to live on the same street not too far from him. After they have dated for a while, now they are planning to get married. Without the Internet, they would not have ever met despite that they have lived on the same street for years and even jogged by each other’s houses every day.

I visit other blogs often. Some of the blog friends are quite friendly and easy to communicate with. Lawrence’s blog is one of them. He openly welcomes my visit to his blog. The following is his latest article on the political scene. I totally understand the frustration and sentiments many people share in Taiwan. My reply to his latest article is too long to put in his comment box, so I posted it here just for a short while to share with him and all my readers.

The following is his article, http://blog.sina.com.tw/lawrencelin/article.php?pbgid=40275&entryid=572604,
and my passionate comments follow.

Dear Lawrence,

I totally agree with you. When we lay the bed, we will have to sleep in it, well at least,  for four years in this case. That is the consequence we have to pay in a democratic society. Taiwanese people voted the existing government in again four years ago, so we had to put up with this crap for another four years. Now it is finally time for Taiwanese as a collective to ask themselves, have the politicians done a good job governing Taiwan for the last four years? If not, let democracy be at work and vote them out!

Chinese like to talk about "relation and connection"! Just because so-and-so's brother's cousin's wife's uncle is a DPP and a good friend, it does not mean that so-and-so has to vote for DPP. We should vote for a capable and competent candidate who can truly work for the people in Taiwan. We ask for democracy in Taiwan, but have we been behaving like what democratic citizens should behave in a democratic society? Not really! How could we ask the United Nations or the world to take us seriously if the only news that comes out of Taiwan is politicians' fist fighting in the legislature and the President's scandal? Did people who voted them in give them the mandate to represent them and behave this way in the legislature? It is a farce in my view!