mandythemuddy's Xanga

史密夫靚畫

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:42:20 GMT

在xanga亂㩒隨時掘到金！
原來久違了的朋友史密夫先生成日都有放佢自已畫Ｄ畫上去 ﹣ 好好睇！
我最中意嗰幅 “夫一口氣 003“
http://www.xanga.com/no38shing/

Xanga misses me?

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:24:47 GMT

Xanga sent me an email saying "mandythemuddy we miss you"... OK if you REALLY miss me that I will come back. But then I find that I donno how to use xanga anymore! Everything's changed and looks random to me on the screen. Is it because I'm using Safari on a Mac instead of IE on PC? ohhhh you said you miss me and invite me to come home after you changed my everything without my permission - so disrespectful hhhhh!

:P (excuse me for the bitchy mood at the moment)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:44:43 GMT

Watched the movie "V for Vendetta" 3 times.

The first time was in a lecture by Dr. Lee of HKU politics department. I was a bit angry after seeing the movie at the lecture because I thought it was not appropriate for the professor to show students such radical materials without proper guidance. The movie was entertaining but it was against humanity, in my point of view at that time.

After watching it for the third time, I finally feel that I'm able to appreciate the message the movie brings, to appreciate the main character V's spirit.

It's full of wisdom.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:50:00 GMT

Haven't had any weblog entry since I started working. What a shame!

Life has entered a certain routine. In some way it's a nice routine. But the comfort of a routine makes it way too easy to forget things outside of it.

So everyday I try to make it uncomfortable. Yes I ask for the misery.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:26:15 GMT

Think again. Think again how our lives have been made this way. Think again how the human society has been made to work this way.

We say, we can make a better world, a better place to live in. After thousands of years of evolution, how different is our society from the one of our ancestors who fought against the lions and caught the rabbits?

Capitalism is the human version of the State of Nature. The law of a capitalist society is the law of jungle - the stronger prevails.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 06:28:23 GMT

自從1998年斯洛文尼亞奇蹟地入了世界杯決賽, 之後就沒甚麼機會讓人聽到這國家了... 因為AIESEC我認識了Rokie, 因為Rokie我對於這國家有特別的認識, 特別的感覺, 也特別希望多點人認識這個可愛的國家! 難得今天斯洛文尼亞登上國際新聞, 當然要在這裡貼一下

BBC: Slovenian completes Amazon swim

Martin Strel: "The animals have just accepted me"

A Slovenian man has battled piranhas, crocodiles and exhaustion to become the first person to swim the entire length of the Amazon river.

Martin Strel, 52, completed the 5,265km (3,272-mile) marathon in 66 days when he neared Belem, 2,440km north of Rio de Janeiro, on Saturday.

Mr Strel, known as "fish man", was suffering dizziness, nausea, diarrhoea and sunstroke as he neared the end.

He has previously completed the Yangtze, Mississippi and Danube.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 05:13:38 GMT

This semester I take Dr. Joseph Chan's course "POLI0010 Democratic and Its Critics". Every lecture is an enlightenment. While I feel that many other classes only yields impact to my memory but Dr. Chan's lectures are always shaker to my mind, I wonder what makes the big difference.

Just now I came across a passage about Socrates's teaching methodology. Somehow I find the similarity between Socrates' and Dr. Chan's.

The Socratic Method
(Step1) When a youth came to Socrates for instruction, the great teacher would receive him with every mark of respect, and would ask him questions, seeming to be himself a pupil rather than a teacher. Invariably the newcomer would grow expansive under this treatment, and presently he would begin to "show off." Now, the questions of Socrates seemed innocent, but they were most shrewdly put. Sooner or later the overconfident newcomer would involve himself in contradictory answers. Again and again he would be led into conflicting and impossible statements. Socrates would gently point out this distressing state of affairs, and before long the poor victim would be forced to make shamefaced admission that he did not know what he was talking about. This was what Socrates was working for. The confession of ignorance is, he taught, the first essential step in the work of achieving knowledge of self. Thus far the Socratic irony. It cleared and loosened the mental soil.
(Step2) Then came the maieutic process, that is, the process of "bringing to birth" the ideas and judgments of the mind. This process amounted to study and discussion, -- "dialogue," it was called. If, for example, the question "What is virtue?" was posed for his students, Socrates would use, if necessary, the ironic process to disabuse the pupils' minds of hazy, inept, inadequate preconceptions. Then he would call for examples of virtue. He would require a pupil to explain why he had named each example virtue. He would institute comparison of example with example, noting similarities and differences. At length, the pupils would be prepared to formulate a clear and precise definition of virtue. Now, once a person can clearly define a thing, he knows that thing. Thus, by the maieutic process, is knowledge "brought to birth."
This method of working out a concept by studying various instances or examples is known as the inductive method or simply as induction. Socrates is rightly regarded as "the father of induction."
Extracted from http://radicalacademy.com/prcminicoursedevelopment1.htm

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:17:49 GMT

Red Hot Chili Peppers sing this in their <Snow> about drugs:

"The more I see
the less I know
the more I'd like to let it go..."

Having been studying politics for few years, sometimes I feel exactly like this.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:10:54 GMT

Iraqi scholars fighting for an education - By Hugh Sykes - BBC News, Baghdad http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6491443.stm

Violence, and fear of violence, are corroding educational standards in Iraq. Even the planning expert at the Ministry of Education, Nabil al Mira, admitted to me that he keeps his 15-year-old son at home after bomb attacks in Baghdad. He only lets him go back to school when the city has been quiet for two days. So his son has been at home a lot.

Getting to school or university is a daily struggle. Students and teachers are frequently delayed by bomb attacks, or by traffic jams near checkpoints.

At a primary school, 10-year-old Ali tells me: "I want Baghdad to be Dar-es-Salaam as it used to be." Dar-es-Salaam - City of Peace - is an old name for the Iraqi capital.

In the English department at Baghdad University, linguistics teacher Shatha al Jeidi sniffs and struggles to hold back tears. "From the moment I get out of my house, I think of inevitable death, at any moment... that I may not see my family again and they fear the same," she said.

She says her students have to endure this too - so how, she wonders, can they concentrate on their studies and do well? Students sit the same exams on different days depending on when they can get to campus. They have to be trusted not to reveal the questions to their friends. Primary school children remain positive despite the difficulties.

On a bookshelf, there are four photographs of colleagues who have been killed. One shows a smiling middle-aged man with gold-rimmed spectacles and a moustache. This was Rafi.

Rafi, an English-language lecturer, received a warning one day not to give low marks. He ignored the warning and continued to apply the usual standards to students' exam papers.

Rafi was shot dead getting into his car to go to work at the university.

Two other lecturers have received death threats. One found a bullet on her desk with her name written on it. Another came to work one morning to find a message scrawled on her office wall: "Warning - you risk the same fate as Rafi."

Students have been threatened too. A 19-year-old told me a man approached her near her home, and said women shouldn't study, and that she would be killed if she carried on going to college.

She is still going to college.

WHAT'S WRONG?!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:38:08 GMT

第三屆特首選舉, 曾蔭權得649票, 比一個半月前獲得的641個提名還要多出8票, 大勝。梁家傑在政綱方面遜色, 是香港政黨琦型發展的結晶品, 但他對推動香港選舉文化的努力絶對可記一功。

這一個半月對香港政治文化來說是一個洗禮, 是一個香港人思想上的進化, 是一個邁向民主的轉捩點。作為一個香港人, 我充滿希望。

還記得參加AIESEC International Congress 2005 in India那時候, 90個國家, 600代表(delegates), 共同創造"AIESEC 2010"和改寫AIESEC Identity。我曾見證過一個有超過20,000會員的國際機構共同反思自身、共同創造目標和理想的過程, 曾經令我感動而依然印象深刻。希望香港可以透過這樣的過程, 尋找香港人的理想香港 - 理想的政制, 理想的政治文化, 理想的生活。現在我們已經有這理想圖畫中的一部份, 就是一人一票, 而其他部份, 與一人一票相承的, 就還需努力!