Catching up! Charging up!
Was threatened to be severed all ties by a friend recently. He proclaimed that we are all not valuing or treasuring the friendship of 5 years and thus the threat. So another friend made a last-minute effort to gather the group again to meet up for coffee 2 days later just to "save" the friendship.

Its really sad that we are so weighed down by work that we "give up" on friendships and bonding in our bids to discharged our duties. I talked to my colleagues and many are managing not really well in their work either. I wonder if students nowadays are doing as badly? Do we have time to play? Do we have time to catch up with friends we hold so dear? Have we lost some of them in midst of our work?

Really need to go up to the mountains and recharge myself again; to breathe in the fresh air and clear up the mind with the simple but majestic sight. Sometimes the feeling can be really spiritual when you are standing at a veranda at the edge of a huge mountain. The surrounding is silent and the air is light; calm is all around and you feel really really relaxed.

Can i go trekking in the mountains anytime soon?


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Currently listening to "Fantasia of the Wind" - Kiseki No Umi, "Don't Explain" - George Shearing
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 12:05 AM 0 comments

 
Relevations
I realised that many a time people are only concerned of your product and not of what you are going through. Deadlines are set and it is up to us to fulfil. You perform and it is deemed as performing up to the mark and thus even tougher challenges. You do not perform and you will then be classified as incompetent. Regardless of the turmoil that you go through, you are still expected to be as you are deemed.

So how do we make amends? How do we strike a balance?
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 8:37 AM 1 comments

 
Annapurna Base Camp

Firstly this is not a picture that i have taken. But well i did come up to this place in 2002. It was a big group of us and we were really low morale when we reached the base camp.

It was terribly cold; there were raining sheets of ice and the wind was chilling to the bone. I was wearing my long johns inside my trek pants and down-jacket already and i was still feeling cold! The gloves weren't doing much help as i had to grab on to certain places when i had to climb, and well those places felt wet! Thus wearing those gloves were like burying your hands in ice?

Haha but were we so glad when the Bunsen burner was switched on beneath the tables in the lodge. Then SZ surprised all of us with Bak Gwa from Singapore! Wow! Was really a morale booster.

Then after sharing with everyone, including the guides, there was nothing left. So it was my turn and i took out snicker and Toblerone Chocolate! Haha then they said that i am really like Doraemon.. bag so small but yet contains so many things... and everything needed was like all coming from me.. heh heh..

See how it helps if you know how to pack your stuff? :p

- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:29 PM 0 comments

 
Lake Matheson

Well we went to this place, i think in 2004. Woke up early in the morning around 6 or 7 am and prepared a walk into the lake to catch the scenery. Lake Matheson is situated en route from Franc Josez and Fox's Glaciers if i remembered correctly... but well.. it was not this clear when we were there. This picture was taken by one of our friends who was there at another date.

But the scenery was still great even when it was hazy. We could see Mt Cook near the back of the ridge lines and the air was just superb.

Now thats what i call a real holiday :)

- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:03 PM 0 comments

 
The Point of Taking Exams?
Okay so it is the last week before exam starts. What is your take on them?

Exams are here for all of us because it is supposed to serve as a gauge on how much we have learnt. However it evolved to become an indicator of excellence; that you are labelled as a success if you perform well in one.

An exam does not give any indication of the character of the person taking it and neither does it show any signs of personality in a person perhaps except for the handwriting that the testee produces.

In ancient China exams rose to become a standard whereby officials are chosen to run the country based on a set of books written by famous personalities such like Confucius and other philosophers or learned men.

The West followed suit and soon examinations became the universal measure of capability. True enough, there are success stories of people who did not manage to meet the standards, and most often than not they are huge success stories that can be so easily quoted by word of many. But how many of the fallen have actually made that take?

Moral of the story? ---- Unless you are really sure you can make it out big without a good educational qualification, the best is still to stick within and excel.

That is my take on examinations.
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 2:51 PM 0 comments

 
Today is NPCC Day Parade
My friend says that my postings are generally very ideological and fuzzy. This may not be a very good thing to be done since i want to share my thoughts with people around me, especially for 4 Charles. So i guess i might have to write simpler things that can be easily understood.

Today i seemed to have seen a glimpse of myself many years back. It was also NPCC Day Parade and i was right at the same place. Many trainings had taken place before that and each training was itself a gruelling experience. Our entire squad was in the Guard of Honour Contingent and some of our secondary 3 juniors were also with us.

However i had failed to march in the parade square on the actual day.

I was suffering from a really bad cough and each time i coughed, my body would shake uncontrollably. Thus i had to make the painful decision to let another reserve to stand in for me. I took over the camera and i took down shots of my unit marching off in the TRACOM parade square.

It was a mix of emotions when i saw them march off at that time.

It would be my last parade in the unit, and very soon I would have to leave the juniors of whom i had grown to love. They seemed all so ready to take over then. I was leaving. My squadmates are marching off in their smart no.1 uniform. I was holding the camera. The crowd was cheering. We are the no.1 Gold Unit. We sang the school song proudly and loudly in front of all the people at the place. We... ....

Why would i sacrifice the chance to be on the parade square? Especially when i had not missed a single training session? Even if I was subjected to tremendous pressure to be leading the entire sec 3 and 4 squad every time to the training sessions? To pull it through the trainings even if my fellow peers might be sabotaging now and then through not attending trainings or just plainly making things difficult?

It is now that i realised, I did not want to walk the last distance. I did not want to experience the final glory that would lead me to my exit from a place and from people whom i have grown to love so much.

But wish as i might, time does not hold still for anyone. So treasure it is that we must do for the things that we love and sacrifice for what we hold dear. I have chosen this CCA to be a commitment, and as commitment it shall remain.
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 5:04 PM 0 comments

 
What is the Marist Spirit?

It is when we feel as a community. I saw Mr Kwok the other day in the hall asking for volunteers to go support the badminton players in the hall and was led to thinking: why isn't Maris Stella the way it used to be?

We used to have very a strong basketball team and the whole school would take the day off when they managed to qualify for the final round with Mayflower Secondary. The school was virtually roaring when we were at Gay World Stadium then. We would cheer and we would give them thunderous applauses.

How about us today?

Why is 4 Charles so individualistic in all of our thinking? Why would there be people telling me that he feels closer to people of other class when it ought to be his own class that he should feel the sense of belonging to?

Perhaps i have not done enough to gel the class? Perhaps people do not realise the importance and the preciousness of a sense of belonging? Of how literally miracles can happen if the class can gel together? Of how it can feel if you classmate comes to look for you when u are not feeling well or in the hospital? Or that someone offers you a comforting pat on your back when u feel down and out? Or maybe someone just to keep company and study together?

Let's take up this challenge and make our class a better place to study and play, and most importantly a place and experience that we can fondly think back many years from now when we are really alone out in the cold cold world.

Let's create miracles.
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:10 AM 0 comments

 
What is the Marist Spirit?

It is when we feel as a community. I saw Mr Kwok the other day in the hall asking for volunteers to go support the badminton players in the hall and was led to thinking: why isn't Maris Stella the way it used to be?

We used to have very a strong basketball team and the whole school would take the day off when they managed to qualify for the final round with Mayflower Secondary. The school was virtually roaring when we were at Gay World Stadium then. We would cheer and we would give them thunderous applauses.

How about us today?

Why is 4 Charles so individualistic in all of our thinking? Why would there be people telling me that he feels closer to people of other class when it ought to be his own class that he should feel the sense of belonging to?

Perhaps i have not done enough to gel the class? Perhaps people do not realise the importance and the preciousness of a sense of belonging? Of how literally miracles can happen if the class can gel together? Of how it can feel if you classmate comes to look for you when u are not feeling well or in the hospital? Or that someone offers you a comforting pat on your back when u feel down and out? Or maybe someone just to keep company and study together?

Let's take up this challenge and make our class a better place to study and play, and most importantly a place and experience that we can fondly think back many years from now when we are really alone out in the cold cold world.

Let's create miracles.
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:10 AM 1 comments

 
3 Iron
If it was that a man could go against all the norms of society and live a life he want to be, it would be a terribly lonely world. Kim Ki-duk could be thinking of this society as a place whereby people are generally unhappy about life, acting about their daily lives in a mundane manner, or even just plain boring folks going about their lives in the same way day after day.

Perhaps a change in the monotony by going on a trip, and getting back angrily because they might be doing something that they are reluctant to do subconsciously? Or that damaged things are just left as they are because everyone is too busy to do anything about them. So is there that certain someone who will just clear up the mess?

How about being totally unseen by anyone? How about getting back at seemingly important in their own psyche, in their very sanity? How about differentiating between dreams and reality? Is the world really as what Kim Ki-duk puts it out to be?
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:50 PM 0 comments

 
Selling ice cream .. ...
It was the ringing of the bells that brought me to the ice-cream man; the flavours in the tub hasn't been changed for decades past but yet these flavours could still withstand the competition of many a brand that come onto the market. The ice cream flavours did not change but change does time, but it has been said that a single scoop of an ice cream would require a 2.4 km run to digest -- that consuming ice-cream is a really bad thing to be doing.

I chose to ignore that particular opinion.

I walked towards the vehicle, and i saw the face of the ice cream vendor and i heard him say:"wow now thats a big one for you. Are you sure you can finish it?" The little boy seemed a bit perplexed, perhaps not expecting the vendor to make a statement, or whether to answer the question or not as he handed over a dollar to him.

I greeted him with a smile, and he took my order and to which i went home through the faint sound of the rain. I thought, how could this ice-cream man understand the 2.4 km digestion process? How could he think of ice-cream as the source of health hazards when it is his very own livelihood? How can it even be branded as a bad thing when he was trying to ask the boy if he enjoyed his ice-cream?

Are certain things really as bad as what we make them out to be?
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 7:50 AM 0 comments

 
A Blossom of Yellow...

Stepping onto a sea of yellow as i walked into the seldom-travelled part of the long corridors... a picture of serenity in the midst of mayhem... a resting place amongst the chaos... a wonderful sight

- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 2:55 PM 0 comments

 
Blossoms of Red

What a burst of flames, the sparkles dancing upon the green surface of leaves; the little sparks linger on the edge, making it a myriad contrast of red, orange and pale-ish white...

- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

 
Hanuman Shrine

Hmm and so the journey goes on.. though this time it into the annals of time.

Hanuman, or Monkey God as it is affectionally known, is originally an Indian God recorded in the ancient Hindu scripture Ramayana whereby Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu play important roles in the creation, destroying and peservation of the universe.

Later Hanuman got "transported" to China through means of trade and exchange between the 2 countries and sunsequently ended up in the famous novel classic "Journey to the West".

Isn't that strange? Two entirely different entities playing a myriad of roles in two countries of distinct culture?

- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 2:20 PM 0 comments

 
Family Bliss
Saw this scene on the tv when i passed by the tv set in the living room:

Husband: "Are you afraid of being a pauper?"

Wife: "No, i have been through worst times, whats being poor to me? I am just worried over my daughter-in-law, of the overwhelmming bills that keep piling every day, and it makes me so sad to see my son and you to be taking the burden."

Husband: "But we are men and it is our responsibilities to carry such a burden, your own savings should be left for your own use."

Wife: "But i cannot sit back and do nothing while i see you taking double jobs, our son looking ever haggard by the day, his wife in a comma, and that the unborn baby not be able to come into the world... ..."

Husband: "Well i have never been poor and so i do not know how it feels to be poor, nor to be afraid of it. But what i am afraid is of the fact that my wife is sad, my son is suffering, my daughter-in-law never wakes and that my grandson never gets borne -- See the people rushing on their own ways in the streets? Why are they rushing?"

Wife: "I don't know."

Husband: "Well they are rushing off out of the cold streets into the warmth that their homes are preparing them for."
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 9:21 AM 0 comments

 
Practice Makes Perfect
Read this somewhere:

They all say members of a softball team are all fanatic playing the game that they forget the training of swinging a bat is such a repetitive and boring chore.

Does it sound like the learning of reading and writing? Seems like the purpose of doing such things are completely useless if we don't see the meaning behind them all. Why do we have to learn english and chinese, maths and sciences, humanities and projects, and test after test?

Practice makes perfect, the champion on the field of a stadium of softball fans seldom see him practice the thousands or perhaps millions of swings that took him to become a champion player on the field. He should have played many a time before a big audience -- a kind of preparatory training before his very big match. But it would never be effective if he did not always put in his best.

Doesn't class tests and exams sound all the same before we all go through the very big exam that's coming our way?

Should we not try our very best each time?
- posted by “兴”火燎原 @ 3:56 PM 0 comments