Life 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[helios]

o ... there r things to be engaged & passionate abt.

10mins ago, i juz received a call fr BMDP, to help them (as a volunteer writer).

they recently celebrated e 2nd donor/patient meet-up in 3 years.

(In brief, when a donor is successfully matched to a patient, he/she will undergo a period of 1 year b4 they r allowed to meet for e first time).

San is in SIN, who knows one day, might be have a calling to save - someone, somewhere?

[iam802]

San,

what is BMDP?

[helios]

bone marrow donor prog., s'pore nonprofit org.

[winston]

In Praise of Lifelong Learning by Alexander Green

This week I'm experiencing heaven on earth. My family and I are spending a week at the Chautauqua Institution.

Founded in 1874, the Institution is a non-profit, 783-acre educational center on Chautauqua Lake in Southwestern New York State. Approximately 7,500 people are in residence here during the nine-week season from June to August. (Roughly 150,000 more will attend scheduled public events.)

The institution is not only a forum for open discussions on international relations, politics, religion, and science, it also promotes the arts with its own special studies programs, symphony orchestra, chamber group, and theater, ballet, and opera companies.

The institution sponsors daily lectures from prominent writers, artists, historians, diplomats and scientists - either at the 5,000-seat open-air Amphitheater or at the Hall of Philosophy next door. And there are beautiful grounds that offer endless opportunities to run, bike, swim, fish, or boat.

Historian David McCullough, a frequent visitor to Chautuaqua, said, "There is no place like it. No resort. No spa. Not anywhere else in the country, or anywhere else in the world. It is at once a summer encampment and a small town, a college campus, an arts colony, a music festival, a religious retreat and the village square - and there's no place - no place - with anything like its history."

Susan B. Anthony argued for women's suffrage here in 1892. FDR gave his "I Hate War" speech here in 1936. Over the years, Chautuaqua has hosted thousands of prominent speakers, from Amelia Earhart and Thurgood Marshall to Kurt Vonnegut and Bill Cosby.

Why do they come? To celebrate Chautauqua's ideal of lifelong learning.

Many of us apply ourselves in school and later strive to learn as much as we can about our business. But beyond that, learning is often considered frivolous.

That's unfortunate. The more knowledge you possess, the more aware you are of our history and what is happening in the world today, the richer your life becomes.

Lifelong learning broadens your horizons and expands your viewpoint. It enables you to make better decisions in both your business and personal life. And it's fun.

On a panel with publisher Steve Forbes, author Jeremy Siegel and former Columbia University professor John Whitney at FreedomFest in Las Vegas two weeks ago, we got into a discussion of the value of education beyond formal schooling.

I made the offhand remark that I don't care if my daughter Hannah - now 10 - decides she wants to spin a pottery wheel for a living, as long as she is an educated pottery spinner.

The audience assumed I was kidding. I wasn't.

Like most parents, I want two primary things for my kids: health and happiness. If spinning pottery makes my daughter truly happy, that's what I hope she does.

Like the rest of us, however, she'll still need critical thinking skills and a decent level of cultural literacy to make good choices in her life and maximize her opportunities.

As John Adams said just before the American Revolution, "I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, navigation and commerce... in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

This was the upward climb the Founders envisioned for the good society. And you don't need 19 years of school or a visit to the Chautauqua Institution to experience it.

Like-minded people from New York to Los Angeles, for example, are signing up for "One Day University," where award-winning professors from Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and other top-tier schools come together for a single day to create a live classroom experience. One Day University bills itself as "The Best Professors from the Finest Schools, teaching their Greatest Courses."

If your schedule won't allow you to attend lectures, visit The Teaching Company. It offers over 200 courses on history, philosophy, science, mathematics, economics and literature in both CD and DVD formats. I've bought several of these courses and found them uniformly excellent.

If you go for a walk or run with your iPod, instead of listening to Jimmy Buffett for the umpteenth time, you can learn about the history of numbers, ancient Greek civilization, great American Broadway musicals, or the natural history of the earth.

There are also thousands of courses you can now take online, whether you want to earn a degree or just take a continuing education class. Here's a good starting point.

However, you don't have to go online, attend a class or spend a dime to make a commitment to lifelong learning. You can always take full advantage of a fabulous 2,000-year-old technology - the book - at your local library.

Not a bad idea, either. After all, how can we make sound judgments or live our lives fully if our minds have not been opened and enlarged by reading, listening, and experiencing life broadly?

As Albert Einstein pointed out, "Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it."

[helios]

ultimately, it boils down to one's perspective, how he personally feel abt it.

if u look at lifelong learning as a spinning globe w latitute & longitude values.

what do u see?

[winston]

On Tuesday, we were deciding whether to go to the beach or not. It was 4.30pm and it was drizzling slightly. We were all also tired from the morning trip to the Underwater World.

We thought that maybe we would go to the beach on Wednesday morning instead, just b4 we fly off on Weds afternoon.

However, the boys whined and we gave in. The boys really enjoyed themselves. Both of them had their backs facing the waves and whenever the waves hit them, they would jumped up with delight. They must have done this for 1.5 hours in the sea.

I allowed them to stay in the water for a long time. When they came up, the elder boy was complaining that his hands were numbed and painful as the water was quite cold. Anyway he is ok as he wasplaying his PSP furiously yesterday.

Yesterday morning, it was raining very heavily. If I did not bring them to the beach on Tuesday evening, they would have no chance to go to the beach again as we were flying off on Wednesday.

Morale of the story: Dont put off something if you dont have to. You may not have a chance to enjoy it again

[LenaHuat]

Breaking news :

PROF. RANDY PAUSCH, AUTHOR OF THE 'LAST LECTURE' CHRONICLING HIS BATTLE WITH PANCREATIC CANCER, DIES AT 47.

[millionairemind]

Sigh.... We really have to grab life by the horns and do things we want to do before it is too late..

His book The Last Lecture is a good reminder of that. Do remember to tell your children and your spouse that you love them every single day... go do what you want in your life.. stop living someone else's expectations of how you should live you life... Life is very very short....and very precious.

[winston]

The School House That Ye Built
By Michael Masterson

You have heard so much about it already: the earthquake that stunned China. The municipal buildings survived because they were built to earthquake standards. But the public schools collapsed because they were not.

That is mostly true - with one exception: the schoolhouse that Ye built.

When Ye Zhiping became principal of the Sangzao Middle School several years ago, his first job was to inspect the school building. He found many smaller problems that could be corrected easily - exit lights that weren't working, fire escapes that needed fixing, etc. But the biggest problem - the integrity of the building itself - needed more than a quick fix.

Zhiping went to work immediately, raising funds, drawing up plans, getting approvals, and supervising contractors. Over a two-year period, he raised 400,000 yen (about $60,000), which he used to reinforce the building's concrete pillars and rebuild some floors that had been weakened by water damage.

After the earthquake, parents rushed to the school. Teachers lined the children up outside and conducted a head count. When it was complete, said Edward Wong, reporting for The New York Times, the "fate [of the children] was clear: all 2,323 were alive."

Parents, covered in blood and dust, hugged their children. Everyone was crying happily. But no one was happier than Ye Zhiping. For in his heart, he knew he had saved them.

We won't all have the chance to save schoolchildren from earthquakes, but we will - and do - have opportunities every day to make our world a little better than it is right now.

Look around you. At your desk right now. At your office, home, or community. Surely there is something you can do. Something that could be cleaned or fixed or in some other way improved.

That's all Ye Zhiping did, if you think about it. He didn't set out to save two thousand lives. He didn't plan to be a hero. He simply noticed something that needed to be improved. And he did something about it.

What was special, if anything, about what Ye Zhiping did was his motive for acting. He didn't fix the building because it was annoying him. He didn't spend the money on leaky pipes or a bad heating system. The problem with the school building was one that could have easily been ignored. That's what Zhiping's predecessors had done - just shrugged their shoulders and hoped everything would be okay.

But instead of ignoring the problem, he went into action. To get the job done, he probably had to spend much of his spare time writing letters and filling out forms and holding fundraisers and cajoling politicians. He ignored his own comfort and risked the censure of school authorities because he believed it was somehow his duty. Not as a school principal, but as a human being.

My mother always said, "Leave the world a better place than you found it." Your mother probably said that to you, too. Take a moment right now to think about what you are currently doing to make your world a better place. But remember - we're not talking about things that make the world better for you. We're talking about making it better for others.

That's the essence of goodness, if goodness has any value at all: taking pains for other people.

So how, exactly, are you doing on that score?

[sidney]

In my view of life, i see myself inherently as extremely impatient in wanting to know all the answers to all things. And has been looking thru the pinhole with both of my eyes. Tat was years ago with those teenage impulse and stupidty. It didn't help tat i previously had pride like a lion. It cost a relationship and really low self worth. Now i'm surrounded with friends i handpicked to be good influence, probably slightly nerdy but nonetheless friends i can depend upon, enjoy dining, spending time. I found peace of mind and is very contented having outings with close friends like winston did. On top of tat, i had good family and friends relationships and a (grunt) job tat pays for my school fees and cost of living.

Now the challenge is to find some real purpose. I think life is worth living only if we found something, someone or some cause to live and die for. I see myself "living in quiet desperation"... probably lost and absolutely clueless in answering "who am i."

If life is hope for the future, living in the present, accepting the past, where do i stood, i wondered? It is "someone or some cause i couldn't live without" that i seek all my life? I'm not blaming my life. In fact, its comfy and i won't want to swap place with a grunty millionaire. (Billionaire, yes i will)