School CIP

My eldest son spent the third day of the CNY at a school for the disabled as part of a Community Involvement Program (CIP). He came back very quiet. When he was quiet, the whole house noticed because since young, he was like a broken-down radio – talking non-stop. Since secondary school, he has toned down considerably. But we all felt uneasy when he suddenly became so silent.
I thought I would wait for a little longer to let him internalized his feelings. He had probably seen something we ourselves could not bear to see. When I finally spoke to him in the evening, he said, “Today, we interacted with a group of teenagers who are 2 to 3 years older than we are. But due to their disabilities, they behaved very childishly with behavior one would associate with lower primary students …”
Then he paused for a while and continued, “But from their perspectives, looking at us with ‘perfect’ functioning brains, we were like gods to them!”
I knew why he felt burdened. Spiderman said so, “With greater power, comes greater responsibilities.” Therefore, much is given, much is expected.

#22 eBooks and Audio eBooks

Free eBooks are available at the following sites:
http://www.worldebookfair.com/
http://www.friedbeef.com/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide/
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

audio books
http://librivox.org/

NP staff and students should make use of books24x7 which is a service provided by NP library.
You can register and create a personal account via this link, VPN required.

#21 Make screencast using Jing capture

MD5 checksum is used mainly to verify the integrity of files in transit. It uniquely identifies a file like its fingerprint. Suppose you downloaded a file and its MD5 signature is also known, you can ensure that the downloaded file has not been tampered with by regenerating its MD5 checksum and compare it with the original known value.
The accompany Jing file shows how to create the checksum using a freeware called FreeCommander.
1. Invoke FreeCommander.
2. Select the target file.
3. File -> Create MD-5 checksum -> Ok

Creative CNY Greeting

牛（扭）来 牛（扭）去，牛（扭）过 去.
I overheard the above greeting on a Taiwanese CNY variety show which featured a creative greeting contest and each contestant was given Ang Pow for his or her effort. This greeting was from a Russian lady dancer/singer. It can be read in two ways: the first interpretation reads 'niu' as ox (the Chinese zodiac for this year) and the challenges ahead that we will overcome. The second reads the 'niu' as twist which is what she does as a professional dancer.
The other contestants were so smitten by her composition that they spontaneously surrendered their Ang Pow to her. The first few probably did it out of impulse while the rest just followed blindly or succumbed to peer pressure.

#23 Course Summary

Summarize your thoughts about this program
I was literally conned into this course: the course brief mentioned Blogging, Technorati, Flickr, Web2.0 Awards, etc and one hour at TLC. To my horror, the one hour was only for the briefing; the course actually stretched for three months. Sounded like Lehman Brothers, isn’t it? My first reaction was I have a certification exam coming up so I won’t have time for the course. My excuse was set aside for I was allowed to start two weeks later than the rest.
To withdraw from the course in NPAL was going to be more painful than the course itself so I decided to make the most out of the situation I got myself into. As an engineer by training, my focus was on application. For every ‘thing’ in the list of 23 things, I was driven by this one question: “How does it apply to me?”
The first thing to hit me was the sense of achievement and ownership– my own website and customized gadgets. From the start, I treated it as a real tool instead of an academic exercise. The mid-course face-to-face session was very helpful for it helped me to solve many problems quickly.
I have always wanted to document the little things that I picked up in life especially my holiday but I never got to doing it. Blogging instilled in me this discipline. For the first time, I did it for the recent December holiday. My father was a computer illiterate and yet through my brother, he could to enjoy my pictures on Flickr. I have quite a few of my relatives and friends who are stationed overseas and they wanted to know how my children are getting on. The blog site served this function neatly.
This course is Learner-centered- Learning (LcL) at its best. The facilitators were always hovering around; we learnt at our own pace and from each other and applied the knowledge almost immediately. I enjoyed the course very much and I have no regrets for the mistake I made when I signed up for the course.

Sting Ray

My two boys bought two small ‘sting rays’ (about 5cm from the mouth to the tail) for three dollars each. From then on, no one dares to put their hands into the aquarium. One day, over lunch, I shared my experience with aquarium hobbyist, Quek SK. He became skeptical when he heard about the price. To him, one just cannot get a sting ray for three dollars whatever the size. He asked for a photo. I was sulking that my friend could think that I cannot even tell whether a fish is a sting ray or not. When I came home and tell my eldest son about it. His reaction surprised me. He smiled and said, “As long as I am happy with them, who care what others think.”
To take a picture of the fish in the fiber glass tank is not going to be a fruitful exercise as the picture will not be clear, so I decided to catch it for photo taking. However, spotting them is already very difficult because there are so many hiding places in the tank. Catching them is close to impossible as they swim very fast and stick to the surface. The only way is probably to empty the tank which I am not keen.
After explaining to my friend about my failure to produce a picture, he searched and found the accompany picture from Internet. That settles the argument once and for all. He was right. The fish belongs to the sucker family and it is known by many names: Borneo Sucker, Borneo Loach, Hong Kong Pleco, Butterfly Loach and Chinese Hillstream Loach.
From this episode, I learned to be happy with what I have and I am thankful to my friend and Internet for the info.

Reminiscing

Recently, I was issued with a new laptop, X200, to replace the aging R40. In the process of backing up my old files, I came across some old pictures which made me regret not blogging earlier in life. The discipline of blogging would have chronicled them in proper order.
Still, I would like to share with you one such photo which I liked very much. It was a picture of my son and daughter – innocent and rebellious at the same time especially the latter. All of us have some rebellious nature in us but adulterated through the years of social conditioning. During the times in England, I enjoyed carrying her around giving the impression (not intentional, though) of a loving father. Actually, she was like a hot water bottle to me in the cold England weather. As I am averse to cold, I needed her more than she needed me.

#20a Report on two RSS feeds

#20a. Report on the latest items in your 2 RSS feeds from before.
From my Google Reader, I realized that Dorene wanted to know the password to the Sandbox exercise. I jumped into her blog and put my two-cent worth.
In another RSS feed, I saw Cheriboy has another Sandbox exercise. That piques my interest.

Children say the darnest things

After a family dinner at NP Alumni, I wanted to show the children the Alumni swimming pool. As we walk past the "Halo Bar", my eldest son looked at the sign and said, "Where angels indulge in sinful pleasure".

This year, we celebrate our birthdays by country. I chose Hong Kong. Being a Cantonese, I have a natural affinity for Hong Kong food and I was all praises at the table. My son just had to rub it in, "Hunger compliments the worst dish". (He was trying to remind me the long wait before we were seated)

On another occasion, we were talking about war and terrorism. The same son suddenly quoted in Latin: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"("It is sweet and proper to die for one's country" in English).

#20b West Coast Park Spinning Terror

#18 Online Productivity Tools

#18 Take a look at some online productivity tools. Write a blog post on what you have learned.
Online productivity tools such as Google Docs are very powerful concepts. They are free-of-charge and easily to use. There is no need to install or patch the software for they are maintained by the hosting server. They can be access anywhere and by anyone you wish to share it with.
Coupled with netbook* (ultra-lightweight laptop), this is a gleam of the way we work in the future. No more bulky software that take up gigabyte of memory and hours to install and maintain. No more heavy laptop. No more battery guzzling machine.
Netbook* is also known by many names, such as, thin client, ultra-portable, mini-botebook, cloud PC, etc

Milk Fruit

My brother-in-law brought back a basket of fruits on a business trip to Vietnam recently. Among the many types of exotic fruit is one called the “Milk Fruit”. Apparently, it is not cheap, one Sing dollar per fruit. We did not enjoy the fruit until a friend told us that we need to chill it and roll it until they are soft before eating it.

Buah Tarap

I have been to Sabah a couple of times and I recommend you a wild fruit called Buah Tarap. It tastes like Caster Apple but very much less expensive. One big fruit costs only 3 ringgits.
For some reasons, I was not impressed with it when I first tried it. So much so that when my family was in Sabah for holiday, I even told them to give it a miss. A trip in Oct/Nov 2007 changed my perception. The fruit tasted so good that I told myself that I must bring some Tarap back to Singapore to correct my children’s misconception.
The problem was at the airport. The fruit was too pungent to be checked-in or hand carried. In my desperation, I covered 2 Taraps with Avocado and declared them as Avocado. My children wolfed them down and it made all the risk worthwhile.
Sept to Nov is Sabah’s fruit season; you can eat till your heart’s content. But don’t think of durians in Sabah, they are more expensive than what you can get in Singapore and not so good ones too.

#17 Wiki and my students

Create a blog post on how you might use wikis with your students.
I plan to use a Wiki website at wetpaint.com to co-ordinate the ECE FOC '09 for the following purposes:

1. To facilitate discussions/suggestions.
2. To make announcements to the group of student leaders and staff committee members.
3. To share photos.

In addition, I am going to use free Web storage to share some documents such as camper namelist, camp program, budget, recruitment poster, T-shirt design and logistics.

#17 Wiki Sandbox

Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.
Honestly, I cannot make the 'head or tail' of the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki story which is written by different people at different times. The article looks like the work of a deranged mind. By the way, the Bible was written in similar way except for the lack of technology and over a much greater period of time yet the story is consistent in every way.
I was very tempted to give up on this exercise but I would have missed the point -- the spirit of the Sandbox (scratch pad). It is meant to give us hands-on experience with Wiki, the logic of the story is secondary. The original Sandbox story has many references to cats and dogs, so I continued its tradition. My entry was as follows:

"By now, the cat’s great appetite has caused it to grow to a humongous size. Coupled with its wandering nature, it has triggered a couple of alarms in the neighbourhood. When it strayed into the neighbour’s backyard, its black colour and size give the impression of a BIG wild cat (black panther?) We were told to restraint the cat but anyone who has kept cats before would know that it is close to impossible. You only hear of “walking the dog”, but never the cat. You can confine a dog to a house but not the cat.
One day, ..."

So, you think I make up this story, uh? No, I did not. The accompanying photo shows my son and Ben, the big fat cat (Haslemere, England, 2001)

It is supposed to be a cat and dog story, many thanks to Doris from BA, the other side of the story unfolds, ...

dog decided that chasing cats around the compound and all over the kitchen was really no fun. It just made everyone mad, especially when there were muddy paw prints all over the brand new carpet. One glorious morining, it spied something more interesting in the house just across the road -a new neighbour - an oh-so-lovely maltese of agal. Such luscious eye lashes, such dainty paws and my, my, fur as white as snow. He could feel his heart skip a beat as his thoughts ran wild.Gosh! Was she some kind of a princess? Dog could almost imagine himself fetching a slipper for her to chew on... he wondered how he could catch her attention........ Could this possibly be puppy love????

Doris writes very well and from a perspective uncommon among most people. You can read her blog here.

The story continues ...

Hmm...it'a a tough act to follow. As the dog observed the new kid on the block, a lady in sports attire came out of the house with a cat on a leash, walking towards the tennis court. Whoever has heard of a cat on a leash? The dog was curious and dashed after the lady. Well, all seemed normal as the lady played a few rounds of tennis with her friends while the cat slept comfortably under a shady tree. When they decided that they had enough exercise, the lady just walked the cat home. Now, how did that happen?....No cat fights? Strange....wildrabbit

Wildrabbit is so brave. Knowing that it is a tough act to follow and still do it. We all benefited because of her spirit.

#16 Wikis

Write a blog post on what you have discovered about Wikis.
Wiki is a technology that enables mass collaboration 0n the Web by allowing users to co-edit and create on-line discussions and share photos in an accountable manner. Without Wiki, there will be no Wikipedia. On a smaller scale, Wiki is used to build interest group websites, plan camping trips (e.g. YEP), analyze case studies, write report as equal partners.
After looking up a couple of free Wiki websites, my vote goes to ‘wetpaint.com’. Some Wiki sites are free as long as the number of users are limited (PBWiki’s limit is 3) and others have time limit.

True Wisdom

I join the Chinese church service, not because my Mandarin is any good but somehow when I use English, I connected mostly on the logical plane. I feel more emotionally and spiritually when I use Mandarin.
Recently, I heard a very touching story during one of the services and I would like to share with you. Pastor Zhou was from Shanghai on a mission trip to Northern Thailand. One late evening, a child from a nearby village became seriously ill. His mother, a non-believer, approached the church for help because the church is one of the few in that area that has transport.
However, the journey to the hospital after dusk was too dangerous. It was decided to give the child some fever medicine and they would go to the hospital after the morning prayer.
Pastor Zhou led the morning prayer, in the mid of it, a terrible cry echoed the hall -- the child died in his mother's arms. It was a terrible blow to the mother. The pastor was at a lost too. His years of training deserted him; he could not master the words to comfort the lady.
Near the village where the tribal lady came from was a little rundown church building. The pastor would preach there week after week. The lady would sit quietly on the last row. One day, the pastor suggested to renovate the church building. As usual, there was silence. Then the lady stood up and volunteered to contribute the pillars. Her effort was infectious; others started to come forward too.
As the pastor work with her, he realized that she had accepted Christ as her savior despite the church 'failure' to save her son. That to the pastor is true wisdom.

Hello 2009

With great joy we thank God for the year 2008. This is not only a year of celebrations (Bible Church celebrates its 50th anniversary and NP its 45th) but also a year that spurred us on. At the threshold of a new year, we will be strong and courageous for the Lord goes before us and He will never forsake us.