Monday, July 28, 2008

How To Iron Your Shirts

My husband learned to become self-reliant at a very young age. He lost his father at the age of 10 and had to help out at home. This experience makes him a natural taking care of the children when I am not around and he has no qualms helping out at home.

This is the kind of man, I would like my son to grow up to be. Teaching him how to iron his own shirt is a good start.



If I keep at teaching him how to be self-reliant at home, he is going to grow up to be a ladies' man, I am sure. Don't you agree?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Photographs by Tom Arma

I have 3 books for children with photographs by Tom Arma that I like very much. They are:

1) Dress-Up Time

2) Funny Farm

3) Zoo Crew


These are the only books that my children have outgrown that I have held on to. So, who is Tom Arma? The New York Times reported that he is the most published baby photographer in the world. Check out the photos on these slides and see for yourself.



I still enjoy looking at them.

The Miracle of Life

Mummy grew up being told by your grandma that I was picked up from the dustbin. This is what I discovered. The environment where you and I first started from was beautiful.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Cool Transport

Calvin loves seeing pictures of cars and could remember and name models of cars he saw on the road when he was as young as 4 years old. He impressed taxi drivers whenever we had to travel in one. He has a good collection of model cars and books on automobiles.

Here are pictures that he took of some of his favourite.







I am sure that he would enjoy checking this out.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Why learn my ABC?

I think that there is an error in the way we teach our children. We make them learn things without making them aware of how they can benefit from the things they will be picking up. They have to memorise some of the things they learn and then the teachers seem to be repeating what they teach. A very good example would be learning the alphabets from A-Z.

So, here is my list of what you can do with alphabets:

1) Learn to spell.
2) Write your name, your family's and friends.
3) String letters together to form words.
4) String words together to form sentences.
5) Express yourself in letters, blogs or books.
6) Learn to sort and find books you want at libraries.
7) Find your friends or directions to shops in directories.
8) Write about things you enjoy
9) Learn new languages.
10) Share meaningful tips from A-Z like this one:

Bizarre Aircrafts

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Aircraft B737-800



B737-800 over Funchal, Madeira,Portugal.July 2008.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Mind Mapping for Study Success

I like the article "How to Mind Map for Study Success" from Learning Fundamentals.

If you are good at it, you can do something useful and meaningful like this Combating Global Warming Mindmap created by Sharon Genovese.

You will also find the following articles useful:

Who wants to have a Mega Memory?


Fueling your mind for great energy and results

Here are 5 ways to stay focused on your work

Do something. Be amazing.

What would amaze you? Who are the people who have amazed you? Can you be just as amazing?

Someday - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

I am impressed by children who have won the "Do Something Award" to receive USD100,000.

Though this is only open to all US and Canadian citizens under age 25, I hope you will find inspiring stories from previous winners to motivate you to do something in your life.

This is a good way to be remembered.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 21

Learn from others.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

How to become famous?

How to become famous? Calvin wants to know. Let us find the ways.

Learn from WikiHow

How to become famous on Youtube



Be a professional online funny dancer like Harding and get a company like Stride Gum to discover you on YouTube to sponsor your world dancing travels.

Stride Gum -- Dancing Matt 2008



10 People Made Famous by Youtube



Be innovative



Join contests and be recognised as the world's best and create an awareness of your being.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Learning from Peter Pan and Willy Wonka

Will you be wasting time reading fairy tales? Not if you know how to use what you have read in your life.



So, how can you become creative like this slide creator?

1) Read books with lots of pictures
2) Be inspire to draw
3) Keep a record of your own pictures.
4) Create your own style.
5) Find time to think. (Mummy does this while doing mundane chores).
6) Try your ideas out and listen to what others have to say about them.
7) What do you plan to do with this creativity?
8) Building up your learning power. Check out:

a) Bloom's Taxonomy and its variations.

b) Angles on Learning

c) Your motivation to keep learning.

d) Mind mapping: develop your own study skills or use free software available.

World Money

Check out the currency of countries around the world.



Find out the kind of currency we used when Malaysia was known as Malaya and still under British rule. So, now you know that images on currency can change with politics. An interesting way to learn about the history of your country.

Find out at Currency Converter for 164 Currencies, the value of our currency compared to that of another country.

According to CollectPaperMoney.com, collecting world paper money is a wonderful way to learn about geography, anthropology, economics, mathematics, politics, art, and even biology. Check out the collectors' tips if you think this is a fun way to learn.

You can also learn from Ron Wise. He has many useful links on his site like this one I found about Anatomy of a Banknote.

Learn about the security features incorporated into the banknotes to make it difficult to print counterfeits or bogus notes.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Relying on each other.

Though I have always said that it is best not to rely on others and lead a life full of obligations to reciprocate the kindness; on reflection life is about reliance.

We rely on nature to take its course so that we can enjoy the seasonal food we expect. Couples rely on their love for each other to stay true in their relationship. While as consumers we rely on our suppliers to provide the best in services and products our money can buy; they rely on our patronage to keep their business growing.

All parents rely on the older siblings to show good examples and protect the younger ones. As your parents, we rely on your love for each other to help and support each other in time of needs. Along the way you may have to teach or guide one or the other.

Following are useful links to websites and articles that will be helpful for you in your development:

By Recycling Nursery Rhymes

Meaningful Articles

Motivating Articles

World Wide Words

Looking for meanings to WEIRD WORDS? Do a search or browse World Wide Words for answers.

You can also find meaning to new words that have not been printed on dictionaries.

Also check out useful links to sites explaining words you are interested in.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I am sorry I hurt you, Callie.

I received an email today that reminded me to write about my hearing problem and tell Callie how sorry I am.

Put both your hands straight out in front of you. Now try touching the tip of your right index finger with the tip of your left index finger. That is easy, isn't it? Now try doing it again with one of your eyes closed. How are you doing? It is a little more difficult to judge the distance between the two fingers to touch, right?

This principal applies too for someone who has hearing disability in one ear. It would be difficult for him or her to sense the direction a sound is coming from. I know because I have a hearing problem in my left ear.

When I am listening to a phone call with my right ear, I tend to speak louder than I need to because my right ear is covered. I only realised that when people complained to me that I am too loud whenever I am talking on my phone.

Since young, my left ear is easily infected (otitis media) and as the pus builds up inside the middle ear, it irritated the skin and I had to clear it with a cotton bud to relieve the itch.

It was many years later that a company doctor ran a test on me that I realised that I have a hearing disability. He confirmed that it is due to a perforated eardrum in my left ear. The tear is too large to be sewn and the only alternative would be to remove the ear drum to stop further ear infections. That would mean being totally deaf in one ear. I decided to tolerate my ear infections.

I guess I must have perforated it when I tried to clear the pus each time my ear became infected. The bacteria responsible for my problem is likely Streptococcus pneumoniae as it is easily transmittable. I recall that my younger sister and female cousins living together with us have had ear infections when they were younger too. One of them loss her hearing.

So, if your children complain of ear ache or if you see them digging their ears, take them for a check up to see if they have been infected by this bacteria because it can infect the upper respiratory tracts and lead to pneumococcal pneumonia, which can be fatal.

Here are some symptoms to look out for:

1) The children are usually fussy and irritable.
2) They may also have trouble sleeping, feeding, or hearing.
3) They often complain about ear pain.
4) A feeling of fullness or pressure in the ear.
5) Hearing loss.
6) May also have a fever.

Symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection:

1) Cold
2) Stuffy or runny nose
3) Mild cough
4) Breathlessness

In fact, some of the symptoms I noted here were what Callie tend to show just before she was hospitalised in ICU for lung infection. I almost lost her.

When she first became breathless, it was during the night. She sounded like she was sobbing and I mistook it for misbehavior because she refused to go to sleep. I told her to stop and she shouted back, "It's like that!" I thought she was being insolent and I canned her. I insisted that she stopped sobbing or I would cane her again. She was only 5. I do not how she managed it but she stopped her "sobbing" and went back to bed.

I am sorry, Callie.

Parents, make sure that you do not make the mistake I made.

Tell your children my story to prevent them from hurting their eardrums. Tell them that it still hurts me when family members become frustrated when they often have to repeat everything they said to me. Sometimes I have to remind them of my hearing problem.

I cannot explain to strangers who scolded or shouted at me for talking too loud on my mobile phone. All I could say is that I am sorry.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Understanding classics you read.

Working on encouraging my children to read, I discovered Bartleby. It is a free online reference for proverbs, phrases or verses found in classics, literature and nonfiction.

This is where they can go to for explainations. For example, if they come across the proverb, "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad will go to the mountain", and they do not understand it, they are less likely to continue with the book, right?

Moreover many free online story books from public domains that I have suggested are written in ways that are not easy to comprehend. So, if they come across one, they can click on "Fiction" to locate the phrase they are looking up. Here is a very good example of a passage from a fable by Aesop:

The Cock and the Pearl

A COCK was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shining amid the straw. “Ho! ho!” quoth he, “that’s for me,” and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? “You may be a treasure,” quoth Master Cock, “to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.”

This is how it is interpreted on Bartley: “PRECIOUS THINGS ARE FOR THOSE THAT CAN PRIZE THEM.”

There are many more useful links on this website. I hope they will see be able to see the treasures that I see there.

Videos of plane landing

Calvin enjoys watching videos on YouTube. So, here are some aircraft landings I have collected for him with a message.

Lufthansa Airbus wingstrike at Hamburg



Wellington Airport, New Zealand



Plane Landing Too Close to Beach



Incredible plane landing on sea caught on camera!



Don't believe everything you read or see, Calvin.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Music for my children

This is a good reminder for me to write about the children's piano purchased in February.

Sounds Of The Sea - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

These are websites that I had been to while researching brands and models to look into.

Inside Tips on Choosing a Quality used Upright Piano posted on eBay

Before You Buy Your First Piano by Espie Estrella on About.com

In the end, their father chose a US50 model Kawai because he enjoyed the resonance of the piano when played by the shop owner. It is an upright grand and that means that we do not have to upgrade it as the children progress in their piano lessons.

Based on its S/N 1279742, I discovered from Kawai that it was manufactured during the period of April 1980 - December 1981.

Following are websites that should be useful for my little music learners:

The FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS about Kawai

All about Piano by Wikipedia
Basic Music Theory pages

Free Sheet Music Sites:

Choral Public Domain Library is one of the world's largest free sheet music sites.

The Mutopia Project: Classical music for free download.

Gutenberg:The Sheet Music Project. Browse by category of authors, titles or languages.

More from Google Directory

To find more of such sites, do a search for "public domain Music Sheet"

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Polish your English to donate rice.

Kids, it is 3.22am and I couldn't sleep. I think it has to do with the 2 cups of coffee today.

Insomnia - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Anyway, I have not wasted my sleepless night away. I have just donated 880 grains of rice and learn many new words in the process. I hope you will donate at least 20 grains on a daily basis.

To get your answers all right, make use of the online dictionaries I have collected for you.

Happy goody learning.

English of the future

My children of the Z Generation will no longer be speaking in English the way I have been taught to speak.

Good thing I have Word Spy to refer to. That the place where recently coined, new and insanely interesting words or phrases are explained in the English I know.

Another great site for Asian recipes

Asian Food Recipes is also a great site for information about ingredients used in Asian cooking with lots of pictures.

Check out:

1) the substitute page for ingredients that we do not have at home.

2) The Yin and Yang of food

3) Methods used in buying, preparing and cooking food.

I am surprised to discover that this website is not created by an Asian. It is by a Lawrence Wheeler from USA.

All the more not to be branded a "fun tong". Take time to learn.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Free classics to read or listen to .

Lots of classic literature Mummy had read as a child are available on Read Print, a free online library.

Learn to polish your English and be inspired to write your own book through some useful information from Literature Articles.

And if you do not like to read online, you can also download audio versions of books available at LibriVox.

These are books that were published before 1923 and available in the public domain (books no longer under copyright), such as, Project Gutenberg.

The audio versions are available free because they have been read and recorded by volunteers. You think this is something you would like to do too? Experience is not a problem as there many helpful people on the forum who will help you get yourself set up.

What a nice way to learn something new. If you become very good at it, it could become your source of livelihood and the books you have recorded, your reference for experience.

Opportunities are everywhere when you look for them.

Bahasa Malaysia homework mate

Callie finds these sites very useful when she tried to do her Bahasa Malaysia homework on her own.

She can search for the meaning of words on Bhanot's Malay-English Dictionary.

Check out WikiQuote for meanings to Malay proverbs

Kataku Automatic Translation is a free service that will enable her to translate English text to Indonesian and Indonesian text to English for up to 300 words.

There is a link to English to Malay dictionary on Dicts.Info. And from there, there is a picture dictionary she can go to if she does not understand the English translation.

Many things for her to pick up via text or audio at Basic Course in Bahasa Malaysia. Here are some for her to look at:

1) At Appendix (the peN, meN and ber- prefixes) she can learn when to use:

men- or pen-
mem- or pem-
meny- or peny-
meng- or peng-
me- or pe-

2) Lesson 60 Penjodoh bilangan (numerical coefficient or classifier)

3) Lesson 49 Sebutan (Pronunciation 1)

4) Lesson 59 Pekerjaan (Occupations)

5) Lesson 50 Sebutan (Pronunciation 2)

6) Lesson 64 Signboard language

Many more of such sites at Travel Portal but not all of them provides the translation free. From there I discovered:

1) Unilang, a Malay language course forum you can consider taking part in when you are older.

2) Malay-Chinese dictionary