Posts

Silence is the loudest and the heaviest sound

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Evelyn Glennie, a brilliant percussionist, has lost her hearing since the age of 12, but she managed to "hear" with other parts of her body. I didn't plan to watch this documentary tonight. I got home, I turned on the TV as I was too tired to do anything else. Wanting to shut my brain off, I pressed the button. But she was improvising, rubbing a metal disk against a bow. Next, she was rubbing a large metal plane, producing some very interesting sound. I was deeply touched by her notion of music. Silence is the loudest and the heaviest sound, she said. Most people just don't notice. Breathing in and breathing out, and I'm listening.

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 staff in Hong Kong to those I met in Canada. I'm so pissed. Seems like I'm wasting both my time and money here at UST. I had planned to go to a 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

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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 ...

In Support of Local Artists

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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

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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

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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 ...

An interesting read ---Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution

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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.