HCFoo's Blogyard

If you read the Education pullout on Sunday Star last week, you definitely won't missed the article entitled Wanted: Sexy Tutors.

Tuition business in Hong Kong is very competitive. Almost every tuition centre able to predict what questions will be asked in exams. Hence, the head of Modern Education, Ken Ng said that to differentiate themselves from other competitors, they sell sex appeal (of course along with teaching ability and knowledge).

Well, Ken Ng is not really a good looking tutor himself. But chances are you won't missed the dashing former model, Frankie Tam, who teaches Computer and Information Technology. This guy, a celebrity in Hong Kong, has a very impressive resume both academically and professionally.



Our local tuition business is equally competitive. I don't mind if the business owners here use the same marketing tactics (or gimmicks) to attract students as long as they provide quality education. I would love to see the emergence of some fresh celebrity tutors instead of the boring Sunny Yee.

The people at Crystal Edge did a very good job in sending out reminders to participants of the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt. Not only I received a reminder email but each of my team members actually received a double text messages to remind us about the event on Saturday.

I actually split up my existing hunter friends so that we can have a better strategy with two teams. We sucked in the previous hunts. We don't have expectation to win but just to gain some experience, have more right rather than wrong answers and most of all, hoping for some good freebies to take home with (dear organizer, you know what to do!).

My team no is lucky 23, comprising my Sis, Bro, a friend and of course, yours truly. So, anyone of you joining the hunt, see you guys there.

A continuation from yesterday's interview with HH Sakya Trizin.

Q: Your Holiness, how should we practice?

A: At the beginning of all Buddhist practice come two very important things: meditation of the Four Recollections and taking Refuge.

The Four Recollections are of the difficulty of getting human rebirth, of the impermanence of all Samsaric things, of the sufferings of Worldly Existence and of the law of Karma, which means of Cause-and-Result.

Generally speaking, it is very difficult to be born as a human being. We think that there are many human beings, but if we compare our numbers to those of other beings we realize how few we are. (For instance, in each of our own bodies there are millions of germs, microbes, viruses ad so on). So statistically the chances of attaining a human life are very poor. In any case, there are many places of rebirth, which are of no use to a being, as he will be unable to meet with the Buddha’s teachings in them. There are eight unfavorable places of birth: the realms of hell, of hungry ghosts and of animals, of barbarians, places where religious teaching is incorrect, where there is no Buddha, certain God realms and the realm of dumb people. Yet even if we get a human rebirth, there are ten necessary pre-conditions: it is necessary to be born in a place to which the Buddha has come, a place in which the Buddha actually taught the religion, a place where the teaching is still alive, where the teachers are kind enough to teach, and where there are still Buddhist followers such as monks and lay followers. There are also five external circumstances required of oneself: one must not have committed any of the five limitless downfalls, as this would create great obstruction.

This difficulty is explained in other ways, also. The cause of human rebirth is the performance of virtuous acts and keeping correct moral conduct, and since very few people are aware of this, human birth is rare by its cause. By nature, it is much easier to be born elsewhere. The difficulty is illustrated by an example: imagine a blind tortoise living in the ocean. Floating on the surface of the ocean is a yoke. The tortoise comes to the surface only once a century, yet he stands a better chance of putting his neck in that yoke than we do of being born in human form.

The recollection is of impermanence: the Buddha said, “The three realms of existence are like a cloud in autumn: the birth and death of beings is like a dancer’s movement; a being’s life is like a waterfall, like a flash of lightning in the sky; it never stops even for a single moment and, once it starts, it goes inevitably to its conclusion.” Everything is changing: outside the seasons change; spring gives way to summer, to autumn and winter. Children grow into adults, adults become old; hair turns from black to white, the skin shrivels and life fades. Isn’t that so? Everything changes constantly. There is not one single place where one can escape impermanence. Since everything changes constantly, one never knows when the end will come. One may be in perfect health today and yet die tomorrow. We know two things of death: it is certain to come and we have no idea when it will come. It could come at any moment and there are many things, internal and external, that can cause it. Thus, if you want to practice Buddhism, you must realize that it is necessary to start immediately. You can never be sure of a tomorrow in which to do anything.

In the next part, HH will answer on how the practice of Buddhism will help us.

Disclaimer: This interview was taken from the book "Pointing Towards Vajrayana" published by The Singapore Buddha Sasana Society Sakya Tenphel Ling. The Palden Sakya Centres of American Buddhism Sakya Shei Drup Ling actually holds the right of this text.

Read it from Offline Geek about Roxik's dancing figure. So, I drew mine. Introducing the the ugly Groovy Froggy!

While searching for teaching materials, I came across a website full of science-themed songs. There are songs about electricity, magnet, what's inside our earth, colours of the rainbow, etc.

What I think is primary science teachers can download the music, listen and jot down the lyrics and then share them with students when teaching related topics. It will be fun!

This is the first academic crossword puzzle competition here. This month, the student (or even adult) who can give me the most correct answers will be entitled for a 6 months subscription of Dewan Siswa.

• The competition closes on Thursday, 15 February 2007. Winner will be announced on Saturday, 17 February 2007.
• The judge's (me!) decision is final.
• You can enter as many times as you want. But each set of answers must be accompanied with a slogan "I love/hate Bahasa Melayu because......"
• If there is more than one entry with all correct answers, the winner will be selected based on the best slogan.
• If there is no entry with all correct answers, the winner will be selected based on the most correct answers.
• To submit, just list down your answers (Melintang: 1. Asonansi, 2. Hiperbola....Ke Bawah: 1. Responsi, 2. ABAB....)
• Send all your answers and slogan to academicxwords@gmail.com
• Click here to download the file.

Tekata #1: KOMSAS Tingkatan 1

Melintang
5. Rima akhir bagi setiap rangkap Syair Menyambut Pelajaran ialah ___.
6. Pantun Budi ialah pantun ___ kerat.
9. “Laksana menumbuk beralas nyiru” dalam Syair Menyambut Pelajaran ialah gaya bahasa ___.
13. Di negeri manakah letaknya Tasik Biru yang menjadi sumber inspirasi kepada penyajaknya, Kemala?
14. Banyak udang banyak garam, banyak orang banyak ___.
15. Kata “pokta” dalam Syair Badrul Zaman ialah gaya bahasa ___.
17. Pengulangan huruf vokal "a" dalam baris “bila kita tiba-tiba merasa kehilangan” dalam sajak Puisi Buat Mama ialah gaya bahasa ___.
18. Kata “bersiram” dalam Syair Ken Tambuhan ialah gaya bahasa ___.
19. Latar masyarakat yang digambarkan dalam Syair Ken Tambuhan ialah masyarakat bangsawan ___.

Ke bawah
1. Nada sajak Puisi Buat Mama ialah ___.
2. Apakah maksud kata “khatam” dalam Syair Badrul Zaman?
3. Tema sajak Negeri Cinta ialah semangat ___.
4. Frasa “suara bibirnya” dalam sajak Seorang Guru ialah gaya bahasa ___.
7. Hancur badan dikandung tanah, ___ yang baik dikenang juga.
8. Sajak Burung ___ bertemakan kegigihan.
10. Kapal belayar dalam semak, perut lapar semua ___.
11. Sajak Surat dari Kampus menceritakan kejayaan anak kampung melanjutkan pelajaran ke menara ___.
12. Dahulu parang sekarang besi, dahulu sayang sekarang benci. Pengulangan kata dahulu ialah gaya bahasa ___.
16. Maksud kata kucupan dalam sajak Puisi Buat Mama bermaksud ___.
17. Apakah rima akhir Pantun Kanak-kanak?

You can also download from here.

It was a tiring day because I went on without sleep since yesterday. I did not sleep after came back from Genting. Instead I stayed awake to update my blog and do some reading on anagrams and cryptograms.

My team and I reached Putrajaya at about 7 a.m. Almost more than half of the cars were already there. There were about 164 cars altogether. During the briefing, we were quite happy because the first half of the destinations were places that we knew well; Shah Alam and SS2, Petaling Jaya. After the midpoint, we were asked to go to Eye On Malaysia, in Taman Tasik Titiwangsa to collect new sheet of questions and accomplished a mission (which involved in answering questions regarding Eye On Malaysia). Then we had to proceed to Pandan Indah (which was a problem because all of us weren't sure where Pandan Indah was) and back to Putrajaya.

My team still couldn't answer most of the questions. We're sucked in anagrams! After two hunts, now my team mates want to quit. I'll probably have to find new team mates in the future because I'm not quitting. I think I just need to do more research and probably involved myself in more hunts to train up my skills.

Example of question for treasure:

Dalam bas ada bilik kecemasan kata orang putih,
Pastikan bukan V6 tapi V1000g, barulah sahih,
Harta karun ini adalah untuk kebajikan,
Yang betul, barulah markah akan diberikan,
Jenama melambangkan percintaan Shah Jehan,
Yang itu sahaja kami inginkan.

Answer: Beras berjenama Taj Mahal (5kg)

We arrived at the Arena of Stars, Genting almost at about 7.20 p.m. By the time my friends and I checked in at the entrance and squeezed through the huge crowd, the emcee of the red carpet show, Hui Min was already counting down the arrival of the stars.

I tried to get a space near the mini stage where Hui Min interviewed the celebrities. The first HK star that arrived was Nat Chan, the emcee of the event, and his wife (I think). I tried very hard to get a good shot, but the best that I could get was his back.

Then of course the arrival of the other emcee of the night, Chui Ling together with Alan Yun. She dominated most of the talking while poor Alan Yun was just posing the rest of the time.

By the way, I'm going to skipped the local celebrities because I don't know most of them except Ryan and Phoebe.

The purpose for me being there tonite was mainly because Kevin Cheng is my favourite TVB stars. He arrived after veteran actor, Tsang Kong, and Raymond Cho. I've been listening to Kevin's songs since my secondary school years which was back in the 1990s. That time he was not very popular but I listened to his songs because I was happened to be a fan of Linda Wong. They were romantically linked to each other at that time.

When Bernice Liu appeared, I was totally blown away by her beauty. I couldn't believe my eyes because she is totally different from most of the characters she played in drama (you know, the sam pat and funny characters she usually played). I must admit she is much prettier in real person than in photo. Probably ten times prettier. On the other hand, Ryan, looked rather chubby in the white shirt.

For the first time in my life, I thought Raymond Lam is really talented. He is cool but not the kind of cool's "cool" like Ron Ng and Kevin Cheng. He can dance and sing better than a lot of young Hong Kong stars today too.

Ron Ng, on the other hand, looked exactly like what he is on tv. He only performed and danced with Raymond Lam tonight. On the other hand, Raymond got a chance to perform his winning theme song from the drama, The Last Break Through.

I didn't know Myolie Wu can sing so well! Well, not perfect but at least this girl can hold some notes here. She really slim down a lot (!) after putting lots pounds for the drama To Grow With Love. She was not as chirpy as last year. Kinda serious. And she broke down in tears after she was announced the favourite leading actress. Probably it was emotional to won an award over Liza Wang, who took away her Best TVB Actress in Hong Kong the previous year.

During the entire event, there was nothing better than to put Moses Chan and Bernice together. The emcees keep teasing them and the fans chanted for them to kiss when they won the Favourite Couple award.

Although my seat was way up at the corner of the hall and I barely recognised the celebrities' faces, from afar, I was completely satisfied with the red carpet show. Watching live awards presentation is definitely better than sitting in front of the idiot box.

I am not really a James Blunt fan until I saw his performance on Oprah. I missed the show many months ago until I watched the repeat last week.

Seriously I've never known any new singers who can sing so intensely like him. Most importantly his song and lyrics reminds me of someone special who got married late last year.

James Blunt sang two songs on Oprah show. Here he is performing "Goodbye My Lover". Loved it so much.

I am supposed to be in bed right now. But it seems that I can't. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. In fact the whole weekend is going to be very busy.

My treasure hunt team mates (SYong, CC and SE) decided that we are going for breakfast as early as 7.30 am before we head to Putrajaya for Flora Hunt briefing. We want to go earlier this time because we do not want to end up with oversized t-shirts like the last time. Besides it's holiday and we wanna reach there early to spend some time to explore Putrajaya especially the Botanical Garden, which we believed could be one of the places to go in the Flora Hunt this Sunday.

Later in the evening, our team (except for SE who will not be joining but instead her new housemate, Jess, a new friend of mine will be taking her place) are going to Genting to watch Astro Wah Lai Toi Drama Awards. I've been asking my Sis for the tickets for the last two years. Finally she got it from her colleague in Wah Lai Toi. Based on the award shows in the previous years, I do not have high expectation for this year's event. However, I'm hoping to see some of my favourite TVB stars like Kevin Cheng, Raymond Lam, Moses Chan, Myolie Wu and Bernice Liu. I kinda followed a lot of TVB series in 2006. I've asked CC and Jess to be ready to snap some photos of the TVB stars at the red carpet while Syong and I will chup the seats for them.

I've just read through the comments from teachers who attended my crossword construction workshop last year. One of the teacher's comment was crossword puzzles is only best in assessing lower thinking skills and not higher order thinking skills. Based on the idea of Bloom's Taxonomy, she believes that crossword puzzles is not applicable at all. I really appreciate her comment and decided to do some research on her argument.

In the process of the research, I came across a research paper by Elizabeth Avery Gomez and Julian Matthew Scher of New Jersey Institute of Technology titled "Design Strategies for the Pedagogical Use of Crossword Puzzle Generation Software, In Individual and Collaborative Design Modes" which is very helpful.

Based on the article, here's how Bloom's Taxonomy can be applied for crossword construction:

1. Knowledge
Skills Demonstrated
• Knowledge of the subject matter
• List, define, examine or describe

Activity
• Solve the instructor’s crossword puzzle individually to demonstrate knowledge of class materials or the context of the course (individual crossword)
• Solve the instructor’s crossword puzzle in groups to demonstrate knowledge of class materials or the context of the course (collaborative crossword)


2. Comprehension
Skills Demonstrated
• Understand meaning of subject matter
• Interpret and associate

Activity
• Interpret and associate the clues with the assigned class materials (individual crossword)
• Interpret and associate the clues with the assigned class materials (collaborative crossword)


3. Application
Skills Demonstrated
• Use information in a new situation
• Solve problems using required skill
• Apply, illustrate or relate

Activity
• Generate a crossword puzzle using the course content domain to illustrate knowledge of class materials (individual crossword)
• List and define clues and answers to contribute for the collaborative crossword to illustrate knowledge of the course content domain (collaborative crossword)


4. Analysis
Skills Demonstrated
• Organize into parts
• Recognize hidden meanings
• Analyze, order, classify

Activity
Individual crossword
• List and define words for the crossword generation
• Interpret the clues to use

Collaborative crossword
• Organize and order contributions from team mates
• Analyze, classify and consolidate team mates clues


5. Synthesis
Skills Demonstrated
• Relate knowledge from old ideas to new ideas
• Combine, modify, create

Activity
Individual crossword
• Complete another classmates crossword individually (synthesis of the instructor crossword and classmate’s crossword)

Collaborative crossword
• Consensus on clues to select
• Generate a collaborative crossword puzzle (synthesis to both instructor crossword and team mates clues)


6. Evaluation
Skills Demonstarted
• Compare ideas and purpose
• Assess value of ideas
• Assess, rank, measure

Activity
Individual crossword
• Compare the individually generated crossword puzzles (clues and answers) to the submitted
crossword puzzles of others

Collaborative crossword
• Compare the collaboratively generated crossword puzzles (clues and answers) to the submitted crossword puzzles of others


As I'll be conducting a similar (but improved) workshop in February, I'll incorporate this research findings as well as make the whole learning process more interactive. Watch out this space!

Recently I was browsing the Internet to find activities for my BM students (currently I'm giving BM tuition for a few UPSR and secondary students). I came across a website titled Combine Your Grammar and Poetry Skills. I find the activity rather interesting and wanted to share with my students.

Here is one of the sajak written by my student, Caryn Goh, a UPSR student. I was amazed by the result and her potential. I discussed with her and suggested some new vocabulary that can be used to improve the sajak.

Caryn's version:

Sang Suria,
Bercahaya dan besar,
Memberi cahaya kepada manusia,
Seperti bola yang panas,
Andainya aku seperti kamu,
Dapat membantu orang ramai.

1. Baris pertama - tulis satu Kata Nama (Am atau Khas atau Terbitan) pilihan anda.


2. Baris kedua - tulis dua Kata Adjektif untuk menerangkan Kata Nama anda. Anda boleh menggunakan Kata Penguat untuk Kata Adjektif anda. Contohnya, amat cantik.


3. Baris ketiga - tulis satu Kata Kerja untuk menerangkan Kata Nama anda.


4. Baris keempat - tulis perbandingan (simile) dengan menggunakan kata-kata seperti bagai, seperti, macam, bak, laksana.


5. Baris kelima - tulis impian/kehendak/keinginan/harapan anda dengan menggunakan kata-kata seperti andainya, sekiranya, hanya jika pada permulaan ayat.