letting it go

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.

Laozi, Dao De Jing

 

the name’s bond…

This is a cute little snippet which appeared in a little brown sidebar, next to an article titled ‘Yuan bond offerings off to strong start in Singapore’ in today’s Today (by the same writer)……

The name’s Bond … Bak Kut Teh Bond?

While analysts are upbeat about the potential of offshore yuan-denominated bonds issued in Singapore, nobody seems certain what to call them.

Initially, many people stuck with “Dim Sum Bonds”, which is what yuan debt issued in Hong Kong is known as. However, to differentiate Singapore’s offerings, some have started to call them “Lion City Bonds”.

But some think that shows a lack of imagination bearing in mind the colourful names given to bonds elsewhere, such as Japan’s Samurai Bonds and Korea’s Kimchi Bonds.

life

My colleague J sent this image to me today……

ploughing on

Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead.

Les Brown, American author

something to think about

I bought my first Valentino scarf in the ’70s. Then came the shoes, then came the blouse, and now I can afford the whole outfit.

Oprah Winfrey, to WWD, at Valentino’s fall couture show in Paris, September 2004 (from here)

hello may

Something really pretty I spotted online a couple of days ago……

from here

karma

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne W Dyer, American self-help author

nothing gold can stay

I first encountered this poem while reading The Outsiders by S E Hinton, which I did for English class in Secondary 1……

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

in the name of god, do your duty

“And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people’s. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand—you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

“Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

Atticus paused and took out his handkerchief. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them, and we saw another “first”: we had never seen him sweat—he was one of those men whose faces never perspired, but now it was shining tan.

magic

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Roald Dahl, The Minpins

how to let go

from here

inside the mind of the octopus

I had always longed to meet an octopus. Now was my chance: senior aquarist Scott Dowd arranged an introduction. In a back room, he would open the top of Athena’s tank. If she consented, I could touch her. The heavy lid covering her tank separated our two worlds. One world was mine and yours, the reality of air and land, where we lumber through life governed by a backbone and constrained by jointed limbs and gravity. The other world was hers, the reality of a nearly gelatinous being breathing water and moving weightlessly through it. We think of our world as the “real” one, but Athena’s is realer still: after all, most of the world is ocean, and most animals live there. Regardless of whether they live on land or water, more than 95 percent of all animals are invertebrates, like Athena.

Click to read Sy Montgomery’s article about several meetings with an octopus called Athena. (Somehow, I find ‘We think of our world as the “real” one, but Athena’s is realer still’ particularly melodious.) A lovely article with a surprisingly moving ending……

advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young
Mary Schmich

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt. Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:

Wear sunscreen.

a piece of creative writing

Friend B, who teaches in a certain boys’ school in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area, posted this on his Facebook wall yesterday:

creative writing paragraph of boy whom I had punished for misplacing a worksheet by sending him out of class to copy the whole worksheet by hand:

“Nevertheless, John did regret losing his creative writing piece. The main reason was that he would probably be forced by the evil, dictator-like teacher to stand outside the class, and worst of all, to rewrite it, as many times as the teacher wanted until she was satisfied. Ms Lee was not for softies. In fact, if she had her way, she would declare the school under martial law Kim Jong Il-style for as long as it would take every student to get an A* in every subject. Which is to say, never.”

And his amusing post garnered over 90 likes, including mine! :D

don’t stigmatise academic successes

I like this letter, published in today’s Straits Times Forum Online, as it echoes my views……

Don’t stigmatise academic successes

FOLLOWING the Ministry of Education’s decision to discontinue the practice of naming top students in the national examinations, one wonders if this cosmetic move has yielded significant changes or improvements in attitudes (“The going got tough, but they got the As”; last Saturday).

Even if the move is meant to be purely symbolic, it has been a half-hearted endeavour to broaden the definitions of success, and by extension reduce the purported disproportionate emphasis on grades and results per se.

Vis-a-vis sporting and artistic achievements, for instance, I find it strange that we have no issue celebrating the successes of athletes and artists who have excelled in their respective fields, but are uncomfortable with naming top scorers. Is the act of naming top students detrimental?