New book to read


Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Costed me RMB 66 yuan ... I'm broke.
1.5.06 08:01


My first class as a lecturer (warning: this one is shite)

I'm trying to keep this entry stupid simple and as concise as possible.


I must thank Passby, the pretty girl whose blog(mostly Chinese) is linked on the left(linked as 木耳, for giving me the chance of being a real English teacher for the first time.


She planned to go to a northern city and asked me to do her a favour: babysitting her lovely students. But this part-time college Engish teacher cancelled the trip right after buying the train ticket, what with the dust/sand storm going on recently in the North. Of course she had to get a refund. I suppose she is just as careful and sensitive as every girl to take care of her fragile, southern skin. LOL The dirty, dry even allergic dust would undoubtedly ruin her meticulously preserved facial skin. Ahahaha Ok I'm just kidding.


Anyway, she insisted that I give the two listening classes instead of her, although she would be able to deliver her usual lectures to her students this afternoon. So what she did instead? ... She'd been remiss. LOL again.


The students were quite nice, much better than I'd expected. The first half went for the listening and the second watching a film. I taught them how to memorize vocab more effectively and some tips to listening. ... ... all details concerning the teaching will be ignored this time.


... ...


I think I need to do an entry about how I give tutorials or lectures.


Oh shit, am I writing the right sentences?


This is a piece of shite. Acknowledged.
21.4.06 17:57


New category entry added

Frequent readers of my blog may have noticed long before the existence of a new category named memo, of Planning. Finally I managed to make the first post. It will serve as a notebook for my study of Planning and all related knowledge. Give it a read if you are interested and you can expect more entries under the category.
15.4.06 08:59


Untitled Excerpt on City and Civilization

Each civilization is born, it culminates, and it decays. There is a widespread testimony that this fact is due to inherent biological defect in the crowded life of cities. Now, slowly and at first faintly, an opposite tendency is showing itself. Better roads and better vehicles at first induced the weathier classes to live on the outskirts of cities. Up to the present time, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this new tendency placed the home in the immediate suburbs, but concentrated manufacturing activity, business relations, government, and pleasure in the centres of the cities. The homes were pushed outwards even at the cost of the discomfort of commuting. But, if we examine the trend of technology during the past generation, the reason for this concentration are largely disappearing. Still more, the reasons for the choice of sites for cities are also altering. Mechanical power can be transmitted for hundreds of miles, men can communicate almost instantaneously by telephone, the chiefs of great organizations can be transported by airplanes, the cinemas can produce plays in every village, music and speeches can be broadcast. Almost every reason for the growth of cities, concurrently with the growth of civilization has been profoundly modified.


Evidently, this piece of statement on city and civilization has long been outdated and supposedly it was a product of the early or mid 20th century.
15.4.06 08:41


Weird dreams never end. Several crabs crawled into my duvet and scared the hell out of me. I was awakened in the middle of night just to find myself ok. It was a couple of days ago though.


Another tv programme replay in my brain. Hell, I should watch less and do more sports.


The Da Vinci Code is scheduled to be screened on May 19th. It is my next must-see. Tom Hanks, Audrey Toutuo, Jean Reno and yes, Dan Brown. Who can ignore the very man who created this contraversial piece of work? And I've got to know who the film writer is...


I bought the book about two months ago and now it has become just another addtion to my bookshelf...of unread books. What a shame! I am by no means a voracious reader but an impulsive buyer. So... before the day I go into the theatre I'd better give it a quick read. Otherwise I could be the only man that struggles to avoid looking like a fool.
9.4.06 16:54


Dream

Sometimes I DO have some really strange dreams. I remember very clearly one of those strange scenarios that happened last night.


It was when I was having an English class and we were having a dictation. Hell, my memory still serves accurately at recalling some of the words. There was the word environmentalist and there was high tide. Coincidently I came across them both today! The latter bumped into my mind when seeing Cast Away. It's an old film though.


Some random thoughst: I don't read much about Freud's Interpretation of Dreams but we all could tell our own. Dreams are our dark version of daily activities running on a loop. They are extentions of our mortality, impossibilities, happiness, sadness, etc. They are future scenarios of our lives that constantly pre-appear in our brain. They are our respective prophecies, be they self-fulfilling or not.
29.3.06 13:35


Weblog restructuring

I received my Google Page Creator invitation on the 24th. Since then I have spent most of my online hours learning loads of new things that are not strictly necessary but very helpful, for example HTML codes, for me to enjoy such a creative toy Google generously offered. Although you will have to get your Google account on their waiting list and the long period may have already worn thin your patience when the moment finally comes, the creativity it allows any non-techie to have makes the waiting worthwhile.

I have already owned this 20six weblog for two years and managed to update constantly, if not diligently. Still, I kept searching and registering at new websites(most of which blog service providers) with different features; I tried blogging in two languages seperately on two weblogs(which now I am doing). Such an indecisive mind resulted in my having at least 4 weblogs, 2 photoblogs. And now, with my expanding yet out of focus cyberspace, I set out my journey with the GPC.

That said, I find it important to concentrate on the content of my weblog entry rather than myriad of features those providers have to offer. But before this, I need a final shot to do a bit more with the infrastructure, upgrade the URL location of Lurking In My Brain here at 20six.

So for your convenience, please give full attention to the change of the following link:

www.20six.co.uk/mikez ---> mikez.20six.co.uk

which will take effect at the sole discretion of the blog owner.

The link change will be the first step towards the restructuring process.
27.3.06 17:29


A Cup Of Tea




This is the cup of tea I drank this afternoon. Those flower-like things are white chrysanthemums and the little red fruits are Chinese wolfberries. Both kinds of herbs are good for the circulatory system and are edible.

The Chinese wolfberry is a traditonal herbal medicine for the kidney well-being. As a young man, I know full well the importance of having a healthy pair of kidneys. According to the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine, they are the core to your future fertility, which is an inseperable part of your family happiness. Sterility is still considered by many to be a huge family misforturn here. Such a convention doesn't actually fit into my belief system; but the old... sigh.

We were watching a science programme over dinner. The programme was about how myriads of vitamins take effect on human body and whether extra vitamin intake, especially excessive intake for example vitamin supplements, would do good to our health. Here are what I learned from it:

1) Extra intake of Vitamin C does not help prevent cold;
2) Vitamin E as a fat-soluble substance must be taken with certain amount of fat to be able to take effect.
2) Excessive intake of Vitamin A could result in some diseases as serious as osteoporoses(bone loss) or liver malfunction.

But all VA, VC, VE are antioxidants that limit damages of free radicals which is a cause of many diseases such as cancer.

I believe that both inadequate and excessive intake of these esential substances may cause problems. The ideal health condition is always found in dynamic balance.

I will keep my tea-drinking up.
19.3.06 15:05


Ghostly fog



Fog is not quite often experienced in early Spring where I am, especially in the evening. But last night, when I got on my bed after just another lazy day and looked out of the window, a very dense fog came into my sight.

I opened the slide window a bit. The mist then floated through the narrow opening, reaching the skin of my right hand. It felt a bit cold at first, and then damp after a few seconds. I opened the window completely and sticked out my head. Seeing through fog is like looking at the world under a pair of presbyopic glasses. Your vision becomes blury.(It's another story if you actually need one.)

 Another thing was the smell. It was a damp and suffocating air that you could only breath in an old public bathroom with an old ventilation system. People might get respiratory diseases after long exposure to such air suffused with numerous suspensed particals. So I wouldn't risk my health and recoiled.

I was not sure whether it was only a coincidence that I was reading Chapter 7 of Dracula in which some detailed description of sea-fog is made. I simply couldn't help imaging if there was also an apparition in disguise lurking in the mist, just like Count Dracula steered the schooner to the Whitby harbour through the dank and damp sea-fog.

There was a ghostly smell pervading through the fog.

But hell, it was all in my head. Indeed, the flapping sun-shading clothes outside reminded me of the sail of a ghost ship at sea, I was nowhere near as superstitious as the Irish writer.
18.3.06 17:38


Let the blog continue

I have been really lazy. The fact is, being lazy has virtually become one of my winter holiday traditions. To cut my explanation of such a long absence short, in the past one month, I spent about 10 hours out of 24 sleeping, 2 hours reading and most of the rest faffing about online. I did come up here sometimes but lacked the momentum to do an entry. Sloth exausted my inspiration. And my days made no difference to one another. Consequently, the blog had been neglected and left with no update.fficeffice" />


When I finally forced my hands to the keyboard and tried several times to compose an entry, the language now I am using appears to be a bit odd. I feel my sentences dry, my vocabulary shrinking. I even find it hard to choose the correct tenses for the depiction of a not-so-complicated event. So I will choose not to.



ffice:word" />‘Tis a picture of a thin layer of snow taken this afternoon whilst snowing. I suspect whether precise enough to call it a ‘layer’. The snowflakes were hardly connected, as seen on the near-end side. It seems to make a real contrast at first sight, doesn’t it?


  


But what has my recent dullness to do with the picture or the snow? I have no intention of seeking answers. It merely serves this inane entry as yet another demonstration of the stream of unconsciousness I am drifting with.


 


Anyway, I laboured my mind to tread into some new area which makes sense to me and I plan to publicise it here in the coming blog entry.


 
27.2.06 14:07


Sing your songs here.

留下妳/你的足跡……
19.2.06 15:15


Coming back...but soon tire

Mom and I returned home last night from my grandparents'. We stayed with them for the Spring Festival, which might well explain my long absence from here. Dad didn't go with us.

No sign of change here, aye? Seems that the 20six dictators haven't made the choice to transform our little cyberspaces as they alledged to, for neither my layout scheme nor any of my previous pictures are of any difference. What happened, or simply nothing ever happened at all?

Actually I've got so much to say whereas there's nowhere to begin at the moment cause I'm really tired. I'll make new posts soon.

And a soothing, relaxing weekend for people who have to work in such cold days.

Ah, words fail me. *grumpy*
2.2.06 16:59


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