a book about children education

Recommended by a post on mitbbs, I skimmed a book named "Come here, child", written by a famous Chinese female author in Wuhan, ChiLi.

In this book, the author scratched her experience of raising her daughter, from birth to 16, in the perspective of a mother.  She focus on the interaction of the daughter and the mother, instead of chronology. Unlike most of the parents in China, her education of children is based on nurture the child's interests to nature, to what she love, and to encourage child to pursuit her goal.

This is somehow agree to my idea of children education. In Canada, children are treated as individuals. Parents usually give children a lot of freedom and encourage children to develop their own interests.  But in China, the author's attitude is very rare and precious.

Author summarizes her three rules.
One is to treat child as individual.  Let her decide on many things.  This point is widely believed in Canada.  My friend, Jimmy, treats his son, Eddie, as an individual. We went to a trip together, Eddie presented a high level of self-governance, self-discipline, and individualism, unlike a 9 year old kid, which surprises me a lot.

The second point is to nurture the kid to love the mother nature. This one is also important, as we know that human being are nature animal at first, and then social animal.  Unfortunately, author didn't tell us how she and her daughter develop social activities.  Maybe because the author herself is a writer and divorced, which may affect the social activities of the child, who knows.

The last point is to tell stories to the kid and help develop the reading habit of her daughter.  I can't agree more with this point.  Reading is almost the most educative and informative method of education.  Every child, who developed a habit of reading will benefit from it in the whole life. Naturally, her daughter is also good at writing, as she is a writer.

* Link to the post of about the book.
http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/LeisureTime/79109.html

* Link to the book
http://www.guyizhou.cn/article/3554.htm

three stories

There are three Chinese adages I'd love to share with you. Actually, they are three simple stories that I sometimes think about them during running.

The first story is "To repair the ward after loss of lamp".  It tells you that life is never to late to do something.

The second story is "Race between rabbit and turtle". It tells you that the slow runner may eventually win the race if he keeps running, while the fast runner may lose the race if he stops.

The third story is "The view is the same on the top of the mountain, for both snails and eagles". It tells you that you can enjoy the same success no matter you achieve it fast or slow.

Healthy Food

I was chatting with George during the run this noon.

We started the discussion with the life of human's teeth.  I had another teeth RCT on last Saturday again.  That's really unfortunate. We concluded that human's teeth or other parts of the body may not be evolved to sustain for more than 60 years as the average life of human beings were in the 60s for a while.  Only with the recent advance of medical technique, the expected life of human being is extended to more than 80.  It is good for individual. However, the society may not be ready to welcome the age of old. Japan is a vivid example of how the society is greatly impacted by the aging population. Anyway, as the world is mostly controlled or managed by the old, it is inevitable that more and more resources will be invested in the health research to extend the life of human beings.

We then talked about the importance of healthy food for the health of human being.  It is by far the most important factor of human's health, followed by exercise. I talked about my transition of eating less meat and more vegetable instead.  George mentioned local grow fruits are better than imported fruits as the former is naturally mature than the latter.  He also said that organic milk, egg, and meat may have greater effect in health than organic vegetable as milk, egg, or meat may accumulate more compound or chemical. Organic ones have advantage than non-organic one.  The price of organic milk is about 250% of regular one.  That's pricey, but people are still buying organic ones.  I'll check it out and may try it myself.  I agreed to his statement as I had the similar impress after watching the "Food Inc." documentary.

Guess I have to be more careful about food from now on.

2012 and survivor

I watched the Survivor season 17 last week.  I think that Bob deserve the million dollar. Both Matty and Sugar are so stupid to win the final prize.  Matty didn't learn to ignite a fire after 39 days and Sugar was stupid to save Bob in the final three.  I can't bear it with so stupid contestants in the show.

I also watched the movie <2012> last week.  The first part of the movie is good, with all the background story, the father is trying to save his kids, the yellow stone park volcano. The last part of the movie is also very stupid, when the life of all the people on the ark were rely on this stupid leading role.  The black guy, the chief scientist, was even stupider to claim that we are not human because we didn't save people's life waiting on the deck.  He didn't think about the other people on board already.  How come you may sacrifice even more people's life to save a smaller group or just this one guy.  Haha, because this one guy is the leading role of the movie.  Anyway, it is just a movie and I can't believe the reality will be like that.

B.R.A.I.N.

When I attended the parental class on Saturday, one thing I learned is the B.R.A.I.N. questions  you should ask when you were taking advices and make decisions.

B: benefit

What's the benefit of doing this?

R. reason

What's the reason of doing this?

A. Alternative

What's the alternate solution?

I. Intuition

What's your intuition of doing this?

N. Now, not now, never

What will happen if I do it now, or not now, or never?

Those are good questions to ask the person who gives you advice/suggestion or yourself before making a critical decision.

Allergy

Spring is here, as well as the allergy. I have been experiencing allergy for more than 5 years. My eyes are itching and dry,  my noses are stalled.  Those are typical pollen allergies.

I am used to the allergy already. Allergy is just a over-react reaction of your body's immune system to the outside world when there isn't much work for them to do.  So, I believe a mild pollen allergy is a good thing to  your body.  Your immune system is doing some exercise. :-)

As I refused to take any medicine, I can withstand the symptoms of the allergy now.  I am getting used to it, at least I am not afraid of it psychologically.

Just hope more rain than sunshine, as rain will reduce the amount of pollen in the air, thus alleviate my symptoms.

Anyway, be strong and get away with the allergy.

Go, Canada, Go

I watched the Ice Hockey final game today, Canada vs. US.

I started from the 2nd period. Canada performed very well in the second period.  The second goal was very elegant and beautiful.  However, Canada was a little bit conservative in the 3rd period and was pressed by US.  The dramatic goal by the US before the end of the game really destroyed the conservative dream of Team Canada.

In Overtime, Canada was revived again and played very well.  Sidney Corsby's goal marked the end of the game and Canada won the gold medal of ice hockey.  It's a perfect ending of the Winter Olympic.  Canada won the most number of gold medal over all the Winter Olympic among all the countries.  Canada won both men and women's curling and ice hockey.  It all happened in Vancouver!!

I was so excited after the game.  I yelled and screamed in the balcony.
I am proud of the Team Canada.

Go, Canada, Go!

Born to run

I just finished reading the book recently.  It's a fun book about running.

The book is about ultra runner, a secret Mexican original group, and some ultra races.
The author tracked the mystery running man in a canyon in Mexican famous for ultra running (forget the name). He visited those people and met a guy who want to organize an ultra running race between American elite ultra runners and the Mexican tribe men.

In this book, he also discussed the "born to run" of human body, from both archaeology and evolution's perspectives. Some professors found that the human body was evolved to run long distance, human's brain and reasoning skills etc. were developed during hunting animals by chasing them down over a long distance.  That's a really impressive discovery, but I believe so as I am a runner too. :-)

It's fun to read the book and get inspired by those ultra runners.  I may run an ultra marathon like 100k sometimes this year or next year.

winter Olympic 2010

I watched the last section of Figure Skating - Ice Dance, Free Dance tonight.  As I predicted last night, the Canadian team, Moir and Virtue, won the gold medal with a high margin.  Frankly speaking, all the top three players performed very well in my eyes.  But, the judges were definitely affected the audience in the stadium. Anyway, it's the first time non-Russian players won the ice dance of figure skating since 1960s.  I am proud of them.  The players are so young, only around 20s.  They are been partners for 13 years.  They are great potentials in this game, I believe.

winter Olympic 2010

We went to Pacific Coliseum this afternoon to watch the Figure Skating - Ice Dance - Original Dance game.   One Canada team ranked No. 1 after this game.  This program consists of three sections, including compulsory dance, original dance, and free dance.  Due to the host effect, I think, the Canadian players have higher chance of winning the final gold medal.  Let's see that tomorrow.

You can really feel the host effect.  When the Canadian players appeared on the ice, the whole stadium was filled with applaud, scream, and flags. Everyone was motivated and excited.  I believe the judges were affected by the enthusiasm of all audience and have to give a high score for the performance.  Admittedly, the performance of the Canadian players were pretty good, but I can't really tell the difference from other top players from the eyes of an amateur.  Anyway, to watch the Olympic game in the field is my first time experience.

It's quite a good experience.

new business idea

Develop a similar system of opentable in China. Universal booking system.

* embedded device with 2G/3G connection, may use SMS for communication
   * based on cheap cellphone reference platform with SMS support
   * touchscreen support
* may be deployed to high-end restaurant, entertainment center, or any other booking required places
* application running on embedded device to accept reservation order, manage order
   * different level of applications, charge different monthly fee
   * lite version
   * pro version
   * premium version
* client software for easy booking running on iphone or other smart phone
* may use SMS to book from client
* may book online
* use SMS for confirmation, or phone call from the venue
* server software to send booking info, accept client SMS
* client use cellphone number to register, accumulate cash points

Buying a House

The last weekend was Chinese New Year.  We celebrated the night before New Year's eve in Starlight Casino with a Chinese Buffet.  We watched the Winter Olympic opening ceremony in the casino.  The food in the buffet was just so-so, maybe because we were expecting something more than just Canadian Chinese food.  I played blackjack after the dinner for about 5 minutes and I won $55 and left. What an easy new  year's eve!

We celebrated the new year's eve with Ying and her mom at my home.  We made dumplings together. Ying had brought traditional food made by her mom.  I love the pork skin jello.

We went to White Rock for another house visit trip on Sunday again. We finally decided to go for the previous offered house again, by raising the offer for 5%.  The seller accepted our offer on Monday. It's an important milestone of our house purchase.

We are now busily working on mortgage, house inspection, and everything before the final deal closure.

house visit

We are busily checking on houses this week.  We went to White Rock on Monday afternoon to checkout 6 houses. The following is my summary of the house visit.

1. This one is in a location of good elementary and high school. Quite community. 1,800 sqrt.
One living room, one dinning room, and one office downstairs. 3 small bedrooms plus a small den upstairs.
The owner is a retired accountant. The house has some recent upgrade with new roof, new ceiling, driveway, and window.

2. This one is in a corner of two not-so-busy street.  But the traffic can definitely be heard.
This one has a rented suite $700/month downstairs. The upstairs has a big living room and three bedrooms.

3. This one is on a busy street. It has a rented suite $610/month downstairs. A two stage living room with 3 bedrooms upstairs.

4. This one is not decorated. 1,800 sqrt wit quite community. 3 bedrooms w/o den upstairs.

5. This is the agent's own house.  A big one with a lot of living room spaces. Good community with good schools.

6. This one is in a quite community.  A fan shaped area with small entry. The room are spacious. 3,000 sqrt.  The style is quite interesting, looks luxury.

I am pretty interested in the 1st one and the 6th one,  if the price are reasonable.

Alumni Party Succeeded

We had a successful alumni party yesterday.  Around 60 alumni and relatives attended the new year party. The party was in potluck style, everyone brought food to share with others. The committee provided drink, fruit and snacks, a lot of sunflower seeds and peanuts. Unfortunately, I had cracked the crown I just installed last Dec. What the hell? The crown is so fragile?

Many alumni have discussed about donation to the association.  However, as nobody had followed up on this topic, the good time of collect some money for the association ended with nothing.

Some new alumni have come to the party, but many old ones are missing.

In general, the party is succeeded.  But, we may need to organize more activities to increase the connection of alumni.

diet is the king

Let's discuss the weight loss here again.

I have the plateau of 160lb for over one month since December of 2009.  I had increased the work-out time and the running mileage was increased gradually based on my training plan.  However, I didn't lose a single pound since X'mas.  I finally figured out that the diet is the king.  Although I had increased calories burning through weight training and cardio, I had also increased calories intake since the Christmas season. So, my weight is stabilized at 160lb for such a long time.

As I had realized this point since last week, I have to control my diet further with lighter lunch and without any night snack.  The weight finally dropped to below 160lbs.  I have recorded the new low point of 157.8lb this week.

So, the diet is the king of weight loss.  You have to be very careful with every tiny bite of food, including snack and drink. My typical meal everyday is like the following:

* Breakfast: Oatmeal, 1/4 cup of milk, some blueberries or grape.
* Lunch: two pieces of whole wheat bread with 2 tablespoon of peanut butter, a bowel of green salad with low-fat dressing.
* Late after snack: one banana, one/two small apple, one/two orange, before or after work-out. Sometimes, two pieces of digestive cookie.
* Dinner: vegetable, fish, or pork, chicken soup or vegetable soup.

I felt that dinner right now is the most calories meal in a day.  The vegetables and meat are usually cooked with too much salt and oil.  I may further cut the dinner calories intake if I have another weight plateau.

I am glad now that I am keeping losing weight after the plateau period.

house visit

Linda and I went to visit a house on sale tonight.  This rancher home is built in 1965, with brick outside and hardwood floor.  The lot is around 8,000 sf and the house is about 1,600 sf with 3 bedrooms.

The current tenants are Korean couple with kids. The house is maintained well.  The pros of the house is that it close to Lougheed town center with 5 minutes walking distance to skytrain station. The cons is that the space is a bit limited without any basement structure. The price is reasonable asking for $580,000.

It's still on my candidate list though. But Linda said it is so-so as the space is too limited.

buy new house

With the coming of the new baby, I think it is time to think about purchasing a new house.  My current apartment is too crammed with 4 adults and one baby to come.

As I discussed with friends, I realized that the following aspects should be considered when purchasing new home.

* Location, location, location.  Usually the location is the most important part of the house, and it is already an accumulated factor of other factors like neighbor, school zone, etc. Within the location aspects, the following factors could be considered sub-aspects of location, like:
  * neighbor: security, neighbor people
  * environment: park, view
  * convenience: shopping center, community center, library, sports facilitates, 
  * transportation: commute, bus, skytrain, highway access

* House. The house itself is the next important part as it is the main dwelling place for the family for a not-short time, usually 5-10 years. For the house, the following factors should be considered before the purchase.
  * building quality: main framework, leaking, foundation
  * layout: number of bedrooms, bathrooms, functional areas, full/crawl basement
  * rental suite: separate entry, legal or not, second kitchen
  * orientation: south backyard, lighting condition, fengshui
  * roof, plumbing, outside wall
  * garden, big trees
  * kitchen, bathroom
  * appliance

* Price. Of course, the price is the most influential factor to buy a house.  Within a certain budget, you are confident to checkout the house, otherwise, you won't probably checkout the house anyway.

engagement party

I went to the engagement party of my friend this afternoon.  We have known the couple for years since we were in SFU.  They bought a new spacious townhouse in Port Coquitlam.  Very quite and convenient neighborhood.  It's just a bit too far from where we work.

A lot of people were there to celebrate the new engaged couple for their new life and new home. A new start and life are waiting for them.  Bless them!

children education thought

I thought about the education of children when I was driving home tonight.
It is partially stimulated by the "three word poem" I was reciting recently.

The education of children can be divided into three aspects, merit, behavior, personality.  For each category, I listed the top three points I think that are important. They are,

* people
  * respect others and self-esteem


  * love
  * faithful
* behavior
  * prioritize

  * persistent
  * planning

* personality
  * optimistic
  * curious


There are other merit or personality should be nurtured, admittedly.  I only list the one that I think should be the most important part here, as you have to prioritize the points at first.

iPad

Apple announced the iPad flat screen computer today.

It's an ARM based mobile computer.  That's why the stock price of ARM holding soar today after the announcement.  It reaches 9.91 in today's high and that's 52 week's high point as well.

It's really good news for mobile computing.  Apple's iPad will lead the new mobile computing platform and will eventually replace the traditional desktop/laptop computing environment.
Users won't care about the underlying hardware and the OS running, so long as they have enough app and common applications like web browser, email client, photo viewer, and so on.

The new mobile computing era is coming!