RE: Don't Waste.

After a lot of thinking I felt really bad for wasting that chunk of rice. Even though it was not so big i thought it was a waste. - Julie Le, Don't waste it

 As I was browsing through some blogs, and finding some responce posts to write for this week, I decide to choose one of Julie Le's post about wasting foods.

There is an old saying in chinese, which says " every piece of rice, is from hardworks and sweats". It might sound disgusting to hear, but it is true. It takes a lot of procedures and hard works just to make a piece of rice out from the monocot plants, and true the process of making it into real piece of rice by a machine.

Rices are pretty much grown in Asia because of the hot climates, and large plains.
The worst part for the farmers is the weather. They already take a long time, and hard works just to grow it and sometimes, unfortunantely all the plants  gets  destroyed because of the monsoon times of the year, and it might even rain for months unceasingly. Or, either it gets very hot during the summer and have droughts.

My mother taught me and always reminds me ever since I learns how to eat by myself to not waste food and must finish the whole thing if possible. There are lots of people in the world today, like in Africa, people are in great hunger and they get sicks because they don't get the nutrition they should get everyday. Some people gets a fat tummy not because they are full, but because they are so hungry that they are suffering  a disease called Kwashiorkor, due to an extreme lack of proteins. It is so sad to see those African children on televisions that are suffering all these things at their age.

We should all appreciate what we already have now, and always remind ourselves how hungry those peoples are, and we should't  waste any foods.!!!!!

CE: Education in Asia

Asia is renowned for producing some of the best and brightest students in the world. Such academic achievement is often underpinned by parental pressure, strict discipline and relentless hard study.

 In Asia, education is not as free as we have in the Americas. I mean by 'free' is like free extra times, and kids here are not as stressed. Every student's  schedule are pretty much filled and full with extra curriculum classes, tutoring programs, sports, and some lessons that they take. It does not mean that they are not smart so they have to take so much classes, but it is for their own knowledge and mostly because parents are also very strict about their educations.

In Hong Kong or China Mainland, school works and studying are very tough and stressed. The kids don't have much free time as we do here in Americas, and they always studies their butts off like until ten o'clock at night.Kids in Hong Kong or Asia  regularly are in the top global rankings for math and science subjects.

Kids are mostly stressed under all those school works, and parental pressures. Kids don't have to go to schools that are near their residence, but they are assigned to go where depending on their rankings and grades that the school likes to accept them. About 60% of students, did not get to college after their three years in high school, and they are off to find a job or going to community colleges.

There has been some cases to some students that commit suicides because of all those hard studying, and  pressures that they get from parents and themselves.They are obsessed with perfection in their knowledge.

 I feel sorry for those students in Asia, and we really don't have the ability to whine over studying and works here in America comparing to kids in Asia. 

FREE: The Drill

On Tuesday October 18th, I participated in the lock down drill that happened in school. About seven hundreds of students participated, and it made a mess.
In my opinion, I think it was dumb. Not because of the drill, but all the extra works that should have done in a better way, and all the times that we waited for. If it was not for the twenty community services hours and it will be stated in the transcript, I would not have done it. I do kind of regret because a lot of my friends were already out of school, and I am still in school sitting in a classroom for two and a half hours FREEZING. And now, I am sick :( 

First of all, I think passing the name tags out to everyone should have done a faster way so we did not have to sit in the Kofman Auditorium. They should have just got everything already set up and ready, so they can give it to us when we sign in the first time with the room number that were assigned to us. It took another forty five minutes listening and waiting for our names to be called, and going up the stage to get it, which made a lot of confusions too. Then, a fire department officer fianlly came and made a speech or something. I remember he said this drill was planned for over a year. [?!?!?!?]

So after the speech the fire department officer made, I thought the drill had finally started. So everyone went to the room they were assigned, and half an hour later, the drill finally started. There were some people acting they were injured or killed which was kind of funny because of the make ups they had on.
Unfortunately, I was assigned to the last class to leave campus after two hours of sitting on the cold floor and doing nothing. I bet if a lock down real happens in school, it will take forever and someone might already got hurt because they were so so so so SLOW.!!

We finally got released by the police after two and a half hour later, and finally leaving the campus. There was another fifteen minutes waiting for the school bus to come pick us up to the base again.
When we got to the base, we waited for another half an hour to be picked up again, and heading toward the O'club to find our parents.

All those extra works should have done better, so it did not have to take so long, and we could have finish the drill in its own plan and on time.

RE: I need a break too.

As I was browsing through some blog posts, I decide to write about this one.
For this week, I will do a response post on Angela Zhou's post, I need a break.

It is the seventh week of school. My tiredness almost takes over all of my other feelings. I lost all the motivation for going to school and doing my homework.  

One day of school feels like months for me. [So sad...]
It is just the seventh week of school, which school has not even past a quarter yet...
When do we break or holidays again, so we can have a day off of school?

I feel so stupid in math class. Everyone can understand the concept of everything, even without the teacher explaining it. Everyone looks like they have known all those things since last year, or already known it since a long time ago...
I am afraid to raise my hand to ask questions too, because I will look more stupid and embarrassed in front of the whole class.
I wonder why are they so smart, and I am like the only one who is clueless and so slow in learning :(

Time passes and everything feels so slow for me.
I don't know why I don't have the motivation to go to school anymore.
Everything seems to be so long. And I am having difficulties to pay attention in class.
I wish I could just get the assignments done without having to listen to the teacher talk, and get everything done.
I am getting more lazier and lazier now these days :(
~sigh...~

CE: Earthquake hits to Indonesia

So this week for the current events post, I will be writing about another tragic disaster that happened in Indonesia.
Sad story again. On Thursday October 13th, a powerful earthquake hits the Indonesia's resort of Bali. The Indonesia's geological agency said the quake's magnitude is at 6.0 . No tsunami alert was reported, but the discrepancy was not immediately clear out to people. This earth quake left at least fifty people injured. But fortunatley, no death was reported.

Most injuries are some cuts, broken bones, and head injuries.
There are twelve students and three teachers who got injured because the ceiling of their high school caved in.
Tourists and visitors were all frightened and were all in panic because it was chaotic. One of the hotel managers said everyone was scared and ran out of the building. Good thing that no buildings had fall down, and no one dies, but some effects are made in the hospitals too.

Some pictures shows huge damages had made to cars, houses, and walls...etc.
Some students can not go to school anymore since the ceilings and walls of the classrooms had fallen off and damaged. It will take some time for remodeling everything, and getting all the materials and furnitures back for the students.
The report also says, the quake struck about sixty kilo meters beneath the ocean floor.

I feel sad for the tourists and visitors because they were suppose to be there for vacation, but now they got injured and scared. It ruined most of their trips, but luckily no one dies.
Another place on earth needs reconstruction again...  :(

FREE: Mirror of Heaven: Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia 

watch this :)-*

There is a place in this world, where heaven can really be visited.
Well, it is not like the heaven that you go to when you past away, but it is an utopia land that looks as pretty as heaven is described.
It is a place that you can feel the distance from the sky to the ground is zero, and you only feel like walking on solid clouds only.

This heaven-like place is in Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. Located in the southwestern regions of Oruno and Potosi.
It is the world's largest salt flat land, and it is known for the two mirror lake, Poopo and Uru Uru, and there are hundreds of pink flamingos there too.

When the salt ground is covered by water, the whole empty land becomes a gigantic mirror, reflecting the blue sky and its clouds, making the land it a very beautiful heavenly scene.
You can feel like you are touching the clouds when you jump up among the clouds.

And especially in the night time, the ground reflects to the dark sky, where stars from the sky are so beautiful.
It feels like a paradise there, where troubles are not to be found.

I would really want to go visit this heaven-like place in the future.
[No offense to say for myself, but maybe if I die someday, I wish my ashes would be released there.
So I can be in that special land, where not much people would visit me.]
~It is the closest door way to heaven...

BC: Jobs' words

When Steve Jobs was 17, he read a quote that says something like, "If you live each day as if it was your last day, someday you will most certainly be right".
Since then, he looked in the mirror everyday and asked himself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am going to do?" This innovated him which changed his living habits to be a more useful person. And whenever the answer has been "No" to many times, he know he needs to change something.

I think Steve Jobs is correct. Not only that quote is inspirational and gave Jobs a goal for living everyday, but we should use that quote as a model and goal to live everyday too.

I'm reminding myself of his words every morning. (Even though I would not go to school if it was the last day of my life, but I still need to follow my normal schedule.)
His words do innovates me by being as happy as I can and do things that I'm happy about.

We don't know what would happen tomorrow. Maybe an earthquake will occur, or maybe a tsunami will happen...etc. Who knows?
Plus, you would not even know if you can finish your day. ( But of course, we would not want that to happen).
There are too much that is happening today in the world. And maybe the 2012 world disaster comes earlier and everyone will die soon.
No matter how rich you are, or how special you are, you will die. someday. Then why not do something you are happy with, or do something that would make it special like it is your last day?

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose".

Life is surprising. And as I already said, we can die tomorrow, and might not even get a chance to finish today. We should not leave anything is regret and not finish, before we get sorry to the point ,and before we can take the last breath.... Who knows right?

"You are already naked. There is no reason why not to follow your heart."

There is no reason to hesitate and think when you are coming to face something that looks small, but would make difference no matter. Just follow your heart. We should always keep in mind that life is precious and we should appreciate we can live another day.

I read something on the web the other day which says something like, " A lot of people lost Jobs this year. But now, we all lost Jobs."
It is sad that we lost Professor Jobs, but actually it might be a good thing for Jobs because now he does not need to face all those pains that he carried for years anymore.
I don't really know what advice I can give to people, but if you live happy  it is worth it.

We will always keep in memories that this genius inventor which brought us  the i-pods, the i-pads, and the i-phones...etc today. His inventions gave us a better way of living and a simpler uses of the personal technologies, and it made our livings more entertained along the way.
We should always keep in mind of his inspirational quote to us and the world, so we can live today like it is our last day, so we can also make the big choices in our life.