Month: September 2008

  • it's time for the Moon Festival!

    we’re celebrating “moon festival” at the kindergarten today! apparently i’ll be helping the kids make “moon cake” as well as portraying Chang Er in the “pantomime”…

    i’ll take pictures ;0)

    The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It’s also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply embedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.

    The Moon Festival is full of legendary stories. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. When the full moon rises, families get together to watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems. With the full moon, the legend, the family and the poems, you can’t help thinking that this is really a perfect world. That is why the Chinese are so fond of the Moon Festival.

    The Moon Festival is also a romantic one. A perfect night for the festival is if it is a quiet night without a silk of cloud and with a little mild breeze from the sea. Lovers spend such a romantic night together tasting the delicious moon cake with some wine while watching the full moon. Even for a couple who can’t be together, they can still enjoy the night by watching the moon at the same time so it seems that they are together at that hour. A great number of poetry has been devoted to this romantic festival. Hope the Moon Festival will bring you happiness.

    The moon cake is the food for the Moon Festival. The Chinese eat the moon cake at night with the full moon in the sky. Here are a few pictures of the typical moon cake.


    The picture on the moon cake box.


    The moon cakes in the box.


    One of the moon cakes in the box.

    source: http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa093097.htm


    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPjUpwLpD-o&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]

  • 33 Funny Exam Answers

    1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics.They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

    2. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible,Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children,Cain, asked, “Am I my brother’s son?”

    3. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

    4. Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

    5. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

    6. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

    7. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

    8. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.

    9. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

    10. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: “Tee hee, Brutus.”

    11. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

    12. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

    13. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

    14. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.

    15. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “hurrah.”

    16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

    17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies,comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

    18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

    19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.

    20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

    21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, “A horse divided against itself cannot stand.”. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

    22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

    23. Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth’s career.

    24. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.

    25. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

    26. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

    27. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

    28. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn’t have any children.

    29. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is In the East and the sun sets in the West.

    30. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

    31. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of river to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men.

    32. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

    33. The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

  • 10 things: I miss about home

    this morning i’m acutely aware of the absence of hot coffee in my life…
    one longing thought gives rise to the next and – before long – we have this:

    1) the strong, black coffee my Dad woke me up with each morning before Bible study,
    2) Bible study the way me and my folks do it,
    3) big, chunky, wholesome salads,
    4) supper-club on tuesdays,
    5) hugs,
    6) the style network
    7) drinkable tap water
    8) non-alcoholic beer
    9) the African outdoors
    10) peanut clusters

  • meanwhile, back in Azania

    with american politics (Коростели летели, летели, …, летели лет сорок – or whatever passes for it) keeping everyone entertained and blissfully unaware – south africa is set to bleed again:


    Cape Town – Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro on Monday defended his controversial cartoon of Jacob Zuma preparing to rape justice, saying he thought “very, very carefully” before doing it.
    The African National Congress and its tripartite alliance partners have condemned the cartoon as disgusting, while ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe labelled it racist.
    The cartoon, published in the Sunday Times under Shapiro’s pen-name, Zapiro, shows a blindfolded female figure labelled “justice system”, being pinned down by Zuma’s political allies.
    The ANC president is depicted in the cartoon unzipping his pants, while Mantashe urges him: “Go for it, boss!”
    Shapiro said he “absolutely” refuted the racism charge, and that his record in the struggle years spoke for itself.
    “There is a very, very pronounced tendency in this country towards exceptionalism, as if our politicians are more sacrosanct than politicians worldwide. That I take issue with,” he said.
    “I really feel strongly that they have to take a hard look at what they are doing and not use the red herring of racism.”
    He said he was not surprised that the cartoon had provoked strong reaction, as the image was “outrageous”, and a “very explosive thing”.
    ——-

    i think the shower head is a nice touch!

  • Kahlil Gibran on Love

    When love beckons to you, follow him,
    Though his ways are hard and steep.
    And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
    Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
    And when he speaks to you believe in him,
    Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

    For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
    Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
    So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

    Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
    He threshes you to make you naked.
    He sifts you to free you from your husks.
    He grinds you to whiteness.
    He kneads you until you are pliant;
    And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

    All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

    But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
    Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
    Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
    Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
    Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
    For love is sufficient unto love.

    When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
    And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

    Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
    But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
    To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
    To know the pain of too much tenderness.
    To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
    And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
    To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
    To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
    To return home at eventide with gratitude;
    And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

  • Road Trip: Kenting


    breaking the fast at starbucks
    hiked to kissing rock
    posed near the light house ( 21°53’57.53″N , 120°51’16.23″E)
    drank some coconuts
    and swam in perfect the blue waters of Kenting

    wish you were here ;0)
  • new adventures in teaching

    when the aim of the game is to talk about following instructions – most 8th graders’ eyes glaze over and your “conversation class” turns into a Shakespearean hell of monologues and asides.

    but lo and behold! pose the question: “how do you skin a cat?” and they rush you for your white-board markers!


    PETA might not be proud – but i had the most interactive class with these kids to date!

  • WΔZ

    this is not a review.

    The Price equation (also known as Price’s equation) is a covariance equation which is a mathematical description of evolution and natural selection. The Price equation was derived by George R. Price, working in London to rederive W.D. Hamilton‘s work on kin selection.


    Running time: 104 mins
    Starring: Stellan Skarsgard, Melissa George, Ashley Walters, Selma Blair

    now i’m probably not the best movie critic in the world – but there’s something about this movie that makes me want to tell you about it.

    WΔZ is brittish film noir where i least expected it. if you like your movies to be largely self-explanatory, you’re going to hate this one. Tom Shankland (director) doesn’t breast feed you with his feature film debut. i’m not exactly sure what he does. but it’s still preying on my mind.

    there’s some blood, some gore, grime and questionable acting – but the implication i picked up on at the end of the movie threw me completely.

    no, i don’t think it’s the best movie ever. in fact, a few minutes into the movie i was convinced that i’d thoroughly hate it. you’ll probably think so too – even afterwards. watch it, though. because i want you to.