I'm so pissed today

How could people manage to go through 300 slides in a two-and-a-half-hour lecture? That's ridiculous! Why should I sit there and listen to all that monotone rambling? It's a totally waste of time. You can't just stuff things into one's head like that. Bad teaching. Very very bad!

I really don't see why they have to do things like this. No structure at all.
I can't help but start comparing the teaching staffs in Hong Kong to those I met in Canada. I'm so pissed. Seems like I'm wasting both my time and my money here in UST. I planned to go to grad school in HK a few months before moving back here and spent so much time on researching and picking between schools. And see what I finally got!

By the end of the semester, there will be over 1000 slides. Crazy~

Say No to Bottled Water

Bottled water is so prevalent nowadays. It’s everywhere in the city. Just try to ask someone near you if s/he has ever consumed bottled water. I’m pretty sure 9 of 10 times the answer is yes. In 1970s, the volume of bottled water sold around the globe was just1 billion litres, and by the year 2000, it had already increased to 84 billion litres(1). Bottled water industrial has expanded enormously over the past 3 decades, and so as the amount of plastic waste produced.

275 million litres of bottled water were sold in Hong Kong in 2008, which is enough to fill the volume of Two International Finance Center(2). Can you image how many plastic bottles we waste each year? Do you know where do they go eventually? How much energy does it take to create one bottle of water? Despite its omnipresence, we actually don’t know much about bottled water.

A recent research shows that the energy needed to produce one bottle of water is up to 2000 times more than that needed to produce the same amount of tap water(3). This is insane, and we still haven’t taken into account the energy required to dispose billions of plastic bottles! If you care about climate change, you definitely need a second thought next time when you are tempted to buy a bottle of water from the convenient store. Bottled water industry is energy intensive beyond doubt. The more energy it takes, the more green house gases it produces, and that eventually speeds up the process of global warming. Save our planet, stop drinking bottled water!

Alternatives?

To go green, you can buy your own reusable water bottle. There are lots of stylish, durable and safe reusable water bottles available on the market. Personally, I prefer a water bottle made of high quality stainless steel because water never smells funny in it.


1) Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke. (2002) Blue gold : the battle against corporate theft of the world's water. Toronto, Stoddart.
2) Dinesh Sadhwani, Jonas Chau, Christine Loh, Mike Kilburn, Andrew Lawson. (2009) Liquid Assets: Water Security and Management in the Pearl River Basin and Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Civic Exchange.
3) Gleick, P.H. and Cooley, H.S. “Energy implications of bottled water.” Environmental Research Letters 4 (2009) 014009 (6pp).





















Pacific Institute estimates that the oil needed to produce one bottle of water equals roughly to 1/4 of the bottle's volume.

In Support of Local Artists

I invite you to listen to this beautiful song created by Nicole Scoffield, a talented Canadian musican.

Nicole is a graduate of the University of Victoria School of Music. She is an accomplished violinist who has been performing and teaching in British Columbia for over 15 years. She plays in numerous bands and orchestras and is a rounded performer who composes, arranges, and sings lead.

Go to http://seatoskyway.com/

This is her tribute song for the 2010 winter Oympics.

Biofuel Displacing Food Crops May Have Bigger Carbon Impact Than Thought

Biofuel Displacing Food Crops May Have Bigger Carbon Impact Than Thought

Besides food crops displacement, it raises a very good point about N2O emission from the production of nitrogen-based fertilizers. N2O is a very potent ozone layer destroyer, and it also contributes to acid rain---an equally serious environmental problem as global warming. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to replace fossil fuel by biofuel, if it's equally unsustainable environmentally . Why don't we put our priority on cutting down fuel consumption first, then to consider other renewable energy sources?

Remember the slogan: reduce>reuse>recycle

Reduce should come first.

Buzzy Things

I like bumble bees. Their fuzzy coat is cute, but unlike honey bees, they don't make nice and tidy nests. Few months ago, I stepped on a bumble bees nest accidentally while I was doing some measurements out here in the forest. I was totally freaked out because two of them just wouldn't stop chasing me, and I didn't know if they were wasps or what. Forturnately, they were bees. I would have got stinged if they were wasps. Bumble bees are way less aggressive than wasps.

Let's compare the nest of the honey bees to one of the bumble bees.

Bumble bee's---real messy. Photo by S. A. Cameron

Honey bee's--- real neat!

Purple people

Since an angel's face is so tricky to wear constantly, if

one day, I can keep my sanity no more

then will they eat me alive

will they want me to die?

---------------------------

Well hey do you do Judo

when they surround you

A little mental yoga

will they disappear

It's grim but never dubious as motives go

One thing she'll always promise promise

is see a show

Thunder wishes it could be the Snow

Wishes it could be as loved as she can be

These gifts are here

for her for you for me

I watch me be this other thing and never know

if I'm marooned or where the purple people go

then lily white matricide from vicious words
it doesn't leave a scratch so therefore no one's hurt

Thunder wishes it could be the Snow

Wishes it could be as loved as she can be

These gifts are here

for her for you for me

And don't you know

The nurses make it clear

Just when you've escape you have yourself to fear

a restaurant that never has to close

Breakfast, every hour

it could save the world

so hey do you do Judo in your finery

an angel's face is tricky to wear constantly

Thunder wishes it could be the Snow

Wishes it could be as loved as she can be

These gifts are here

for her for you for me

For her for her

by Tori Amos

A very very interesting book---Our History is still being written

Just finished reading the book. It based mainly on the oral history presented by the three generals--their personal experiences of the pre-revolution and the post-revolution times. There're lots of less-heard anecdotes, but the most interesting part is when they talk about the problems faced by the Cuban society nowadays.

1959 was not an end. Despite all the marvellous progresses that the Cuban people have made since the triumph of the revolution, struggles still continue.