HOME

My favorite song of all time-
"Home"

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

More Quotes...

INSANITY is doing things the SAME way and expecting DIFFERENT results.
~Barry Bounous (my former vocal coach)

Higher Order Learning in the Foreign Language Classroom
- Didactic lectures, extensive coverage of content, and mindless drill combine with student passivity to perpetuate the lower-order thinking and learning that students have come to associate with school. When students do not actively think their way to conclusions, when they do not discuss their thinking with other students or the professor, when they do not entertain a variety of points of view, analyze concepts, theories or explanations from their own points of view, actively question the meaning and implications of what they learn, compare what they learn with what their experiences suggest, tackle non-routine problems, examine assumptions, or gather evidence, they do not acheice higher-order learning. These students [...] gain little knowledge or insight. Their ability to mature intellectually, their capacity and motivation to learn is stunted.
~Richard Paul
(Amen, Amen! This applies not only to teaching language but any subjects. There are so many teachers not doing what teaching supposed to be. We need to teach students HOW to learn instead of WHAT to learn!)

Freedom isn't a neighborhood; it isn't an afterhour alleyway; it certainly isn't a private club... It's an attitude about yourself that you carry with you wherever you go... The essence of freedom lies in living it.

History repeated... only worse

Even before the killer is identified and the motivation understood in today's tragedy in Virginia, I just can't help thinking why people haven't learned their lessons that weapons have to be banned on campus and under more stringent regulations? Can you imagine people owning guns with their own free will in Hong Kong? How come there are always more and more violent campus shootings in America? What about media? Ringing a bell yet?

In the backyard...

Just watched "Happy Times" (幸福時光) by Zhang Yimou. I did not have high hopes and the first half was as I expected to be typical Chinese humor and to be honest I am often bugged by the Chinese pragmatism and nonstop arguing and yelling on screen. I really enjoy the second half however as the plot focuses on the relationship between the old man and the girl. The old man's action is not as ridiculous and the girl's acting is great. My favorite part is almost at the very end of the movie when the gangs were "recording" the letter while the cassette player was actually playing. It's hilarious and just classic.

Sometimes there are treasures that you are not aware of right in your backyard. I was getting paper work done on campus for my annual leave and I stumbled across these remnants of the Berlin Wall and it's quite amazing to behold.

Also Monterey is also the place where everything about California began. The first California Constitution was signed here and the city hall where it all happened is minutes away from my house.

The well known bear on the Californian flag!

Happenings

My dated and almost vintage DELL laptop has finally given up on IE7 and I can no longer access any secured websites (which require passwords) or even use messengers. So I'm ditching IE!

So from now on you probably won't see me around on MSN or YIM for a while. This blog or my email probably are the best ways to get in touch with me in cyberspace now. Anyways, I switched to Firefox and I am loving it. It works even faster and smoother than IE.


Last Friday I had one of the most memorable teaching experiences of all time. We were going through routine grammar drills and it was the last class of Friday. I was getting tired of the text book exercises myself so I asked the class if they felt the same. Of course the response was a unanimous "yes" (whey did they ever say they were NOT tired anyways?) I decided to do an impromptu game activity "Big Wind Blows". For you Hongkongers you know what I am talking about. The class sits in a circle and one person stands in the middle and gives a statement. If the statement is true to anyone in the group those people are "blown by the big wind" and they have to find a new seat competing with the person in the middle. The person that is left without a seat becomes the new spokesperson and so on. We were learning the Chinese perfective so it is a nice game to practice through playing. Well, they made quite a scene and lots of noise in the game. It was almost funny to see these soldiers in uniform in action (pun intended) during the game. But boy, didn't we all have fun. We were so loud that it concerned our department chair and the MLI that they stopped by and checked on what we were doing. By the time the dept chair got here we were done playing and all she saw was a messy classroom while the class was trying to catch a breath and working on their grammar again. I was both embarrassed but proud by the scene! I felt like I had my "Dead Poets Society" moment of my life! :)


Another random quote of the day:
Whatever product you're putting out, make it the best product you can make. Whatever your job is, [try] to challenge yourself every day.
~Ellen DeGeneres

Random Quotes

Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.
~ Persian messenger from the movie "300"

Pain is temporary but the film (outcome) is permanent.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Apprentice Season 6

The world is fast learning that of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
~ Booker T. Washington

Completely random...

Can't believe it's already April and I've started counting down towards my annual leave (which means trip home and travel and eat and play, woahoo!) These past couple weeks these following things either happened or somehow ended up in my thoughts...

~ I thought I would never really liked the weather here in Monterey as it was often gloomy, humid, and cold when I first arrived. But when it's warm and sunny and approaching summer, weather in Cali is REAL NICE! We often just decide to have class out in the sun and now I'm used to the humidity here as well.

~ I can't be happier about the place I live! It has actually been quite a hassle when they are doing the huge remodeling work around my building, and it's hard to even find a way in and out of my apartment while they are repaving the ground. It happened a couple times utilities were interrupted (sorry Victor about the water the day you were here!) but Diane told me they would give me a $300 credit for my rent that I was quite happy. And then a few days later they even decided to give me a month of rent free! Quite a few people told me I've been paying a little too much for my rent but I absolutely love my place with its excellent location and facilities. Despite the "inconvenience" I pretty much got my air ticket home paid for without doing anything and the ground work didn't really affect me that much since I'm out of the house most of the time during the day. So people, it's a place you LIVE and you gotta love it first and it will pay back! :)

~ This probably sound pretty lame but I thought I'd post it here anyways. The website HumanForSale has been up quite a while but I stumbled across it again and I figured my current price is $1,625,038. The sad thing is I'm still cheaper than most houses in this area... but the good news is that I'm still "smarter" than 89.67% of all people according to the Am I Dumb web site... no worries, I'm not taking these seriously, um, maybe I'll change my mind when I'm worth more...

~ I have put up the counter and the stats for this page and I found it very intriguing. I always wonder who have been visiting my site (or stalking me, whatever you may call it), I don't mean to spy on people but it is quite fun to guess who those people are (you!) At least I know when they come visit and where they are from. Feel free to leave me a word or two!

~ I came across this definition of "unconditional love": you love someone no matter what and the other person does not have to love you back. It's simple and straightforward enough but it just dawned on me now. If Christ has unconditional love for everyone and we are commanded to emulate Him, I doubt if I have achieved 1% of what we are required to do... sigh...

~ At last, more pictures I (or others) took for fun in the past month...
Lake Tahoe is heaven-like...

A 100-year old Rolls Royce!!!

Another old car (with an old man) in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV

Everything in America has to be ranked #1 somehow...

Upon entering the Valley of Death...

I was very close to the lowest point in America!