Love to do good things

I just saw an advice in a book about wisdoms of mothers of famous people. One passage title is "do not force children to do things they dislike." I didn't read the main passage, but I guess most likely it explains the cons of forcing children to do things. I would like to cast it slightly differently ... .

First of all, what are those things that adults would want to force children to do? I bet many of these are "right" things to do. However, such right things may not be likable by children. Thus, the likelihood of adults forcing them to do it. So, the above wisdom seems to suggest "relax, don't force, and lets nature takes its course."

Nevertheless, I agree that we should not "force," regardless how rightful the thing we want children to do. However, the essence is to educate and guide children to like doing right things. In this sense, forcing is not tackling the liking to do the right things, but just the external outcome of children doing it.

I should have mentioned this before, I hate to see parents "forcing" children to greet other adults when meeting other adults. This is the time to observe whether children are doing it, deducing how much they like to do it, but not the time to "educate" or force them to do it. With the observation, at later time when circumstances are suitable, then we make efforts to explain/guide/educate them to like to do it. Observe again next time round, and keep educating.

Of course, if the things we want the children do aren't that "right," e.g. playing piano, then the more we shouldn't force them.

Will teachers like me?

It has been coming to attention by more parents that students are working harder than adults. Although my son is still very young or small, I have this idea years before I was promoted to father.

I plan to teach my child that an important aspect of studying in school is to learn. Thus, doing homework ... not about answering to the "boss" aka the teacher. is towards this goal too. I don't consider cannot finish homework as a direct problem of the child. I will focus on whether he has learned what is being taught.

If no, then the problem is not he not able to finish all the homework, but he hasn't learned the concepts yet. Thus, he should stop doing the homework without understanding rather than just try to finish the homework.

If yes, then he doesn't really need to finish the homework. When the amount of homework is too much, I suggest be smart to browse through and select those that can give you the necessary and sufficient practices to learn and apply knowledge learned.

So, future teachers of my child please take note :)

Destiny and Lineage

It has been some time since I seriously wrote something here. The ranking of this blog has been dropping :( However, I doubt I have something serious to write about now. May be I can talk about the Mas Selemat escape, but that is not too relevant to this blog. Or may be I can talk about some drama that I have been watching, such as CSI, Lost, 24 hour, etc. Ah, thought of something to write :)

Do you feel proud to be selected/recruited/employed by your current company? Would you prefer to be proud? I think it is nice to feel being valued, and being expected to be able to create more value for the company. It is nice to have a company willing to commit the costs for hiring me.

Similarly, do you feel proud to be borned into your family? ... Would you prefer to be proud? However, which family one is being borned into is out of the person's choice, unlike the case of choosing which company to send resume to. Nevertheless, we want to be proud. If already being proud, we should want to be more proud. In another words, it is our destiny to create value for our family, and to our lineage.

In this perspective, I can better appreciate the Chinese saying, 不孝有三无后为大. On looking up this phrase, I just learned that the other two are also very relevant (my own translation):

阿意曲从，陷亲不义，一不孝也； (First unfilial [non-]action: Blind obedience, not correcting parents' mistakes, and thus allowing parents ending up in dishonorable state.)
家贫亲老，不为禄仕，二不孝也； (Second unfilial [non-]action: Being poor when parents are old, yet still not working so as to take good care of them.)
不娶无子，绝先祖祀，三不孝也。 (Third unfilial [non-]action: Being unmarried [or w/o a wife], and without child [or a son], and thus discontinuing the lineage passed down from ancestors.)
三者之中无后为大。 (Among the above three unfilial [non-]actions, without descendants is the worst.)

In a way, regardless we like these or not, or we are able to achieve these or not, these and many other roles and responsibilities are our destiny.

The 3gb communities

Is this just another community-networking site? Sort of, I guess.

If you like to be among the first people to join a new community, this is an opportunity to do so. According to its statistics, it is quite new with less than 500 members, under 100 albums and just over 500 photos now.

Nonetheless, its "Recent news" announces two new systems... , a new MP3 system and a new Chat system. However, these are not new in Internet.

I'm curious what do they mean by 3gb? Typically it means 3 Gigabytes. So, are they saying that they provide freely this amount of storage for members to upload photos and mp3? Is it their intention to let people join 3gb community www.3gb.biz out of curiosity to find out more? Or is it they are so new to have yet to come up with an "About us" section?

Post Sponsored by 3gb Communities.

As if their tails (as if they have) is being stepped on

Would not showing homosexuality publicly hurt those who choose to be of this "minority¹" group? I don't know. Err, actually, I think it doesn't hurt them.

Would showing such hurt those who ...
- are naturally heterosexual? Yes, it does.
- have conservative, or I prefer long accepted moral standards? Yes, it does.
- have faiths, such as Islam, Unificationism, etc. that condemn such stuffs? Yes, it does.

I support and encourage the Singapore's Media Development Authority for being firm on such issues. There are always pros and cons. Here, the cons is some self-defined homosexual people would be offended, while many many others would applau us. Thus, the net results is we would be attracting more people to Singapore, as this is a unique and rare place that uphold such moral standards.

¹ Quoted not because of their numbers, but because of the difference from the use of the word in "minority races."

Special days in April

Here, we have multiculture where the Chinese, Malays, Indians and others may invite each other to their festive celebrations. Here, we are also multireligious. I think it would be nice to have religious memorative days be celebrated together. We should have a similar list like this one: ...

A reversi game ended with less than 64 seeds on board

I didn't know that it can happens until a game I played ended in this way. Two of the corners were unoccupied. Is there any price for this? ... See it for yourselfAfter the last move by white at B2, both black and white sides could not place seed on both the corners. Thus, the game ended in this state.

This is my first time seeing it. By the way, I played the black :)

What if the lack of parent is somebody's intentional fault?

"...having a baby is definitely not something I regret too - I think it's heaven's blessing."

I am quite agree with the above statement.

However, I don't agree when ... it is coming from a single mom.

Furthermore, I am even against it as it is coming from a celebrity.

Furthermore still, I consider it a second offense as she is already a single mom of her first child, from a different dad.

If orphans who lost their parents due to unforeseeable circumstances are sympathized by us, shouldn't those who intentionally, or recklessly "create" [half-]orphans be considered criminals?

GOING... GOING... GOING... and still GOING S T R O N G!

The more I think of it, the more I feel that human is stupid trying to out smart Nature, which is truly a master piece. Just by simply living away from city, the article, Living past 100: on Pulau Ubin, Singapore, describes some old but healthy people on an island just 5 minutes boat ride from mainland Singapore.

Madam Asiah prefers to grow old on the island. 'All I did on the mainland was eat and sleep ... guess what happened?

Madam Asiah prefers to grow old on the island. 'All I did on the mainland was eat and sleep,' she recalled. 'I fell sick. My joints ached from lack of use.'

In a cycling blog, I read someone from the Netherlands (or has been working there), where riding is a common form of transportation, felt the need to cycle because he found he is virtually in sitting position whole of the day everyday.

I myself has gained weight when my riding was significantly reduced from average of 1.5 hour daily (2 x 0.45hr trips), to 3-4 hour weekly (2 x 1.5 hour + misc.), and my IPPT result deterioriate from being able to be awarded $200 without training to merely passing or getting only the $100 award even with training!

I just watched the documentary, Life after People on the History Channel, which suggests that if one day human being just disappeared from earth, life goes on, while most of the human built stuffs will be gone in 1000 years, and almost all will be gone in 10000 years. 10000 years may be longer than our recorded history, but it is much much shorter than the earth's age.

In another documentary, I realized that [manufacturing of] sugar was "discovered" only a few centuries back. Imagine dining without sugar had been the norm for thousands of years!

Singapore-Beijing highway

Just learned about the completion of the Singapore-Beijing highway. The highway will surely boost tourism, but there are critics who afraid it boost tourism also for viruses and diseases. I think extreme protectionisms don't work, both in economy and in fighting diseases.

We have skin to stop most intruders, but also have a defense mechanism within us called the immune system. This system learns and becomes stronger as it encounters challenges.

Similarly, by isolating countries and cities ... is not the way. with high infections won't solve any problem in the long run. First, it is difficult and inhumane to isolate. Second, it leaves these places little resources and attention on tackling the problem.

It seems like this highway forces, or phrasing it nicely, attracted attention and resources from more governments to tackle the problem, seriously.

Nature has its reasons

A research found that preterm birth tied to lifelong problems. The researcher said the re­search raises an im­por­tant ques­tion con­cern­ing the long-term ef­fects of ad­vanc­es in pre­na­tal and ne­o­na­tal care. “Preterm sur­viv­al is im­prov­ing now be­cause of in­ter­ven­tions we have in preg­nan­cy and ne­o­na­tal care. How­ev­er ... something looks good may not be good.
, it may be that we’re im­prov­ing sur­viv­al while ad­versely af­fect­ing the over­all health and qual­ity of life in the long run.”

In many things, Nature has its reasons, which many of them we are not aware and even dislike them. Recently, I think more people start to realize that fever is not a bad thing as it is the way our body handle illness. Getting rid of fever might be an act welcome by the causing agents of the illness.

Thus, for people who want to act smart by giving birth earlier for conveniency, think thrice to the power of many thrices! If ending our life prematurely is wrong, terminating a life in the womb prematurely should be equally wrong!