Kita melihat, orang-orang bersaing memperebutkan sesuatu yang mereka anggap bersama sebagai kesuksesan. Seperti misalnya gelar, jabatan, kedudukan, pangkat, uang, dlsb. Padahal kita mengetahui ada hal (kesuksesan) lain di luar itu. Kesuksesan tersebut semestinya tampak, tapi hanya beberapa orang saja yang mampu melihatnya. Mereka yang memiliki cara pandang di luar cara pandang masyarakat umum, mereka yang kreatif, mereka yang sensitif, mereka yang "berbeda" itulah yang akan meraihnya, tanpa harus berebut. Maukah kita menjadi seperti mereka atau sudah cukup puas mengikuti arus?

Don't be afraid of a broken heart.

Jobs Touch from Nytimes

When Steve Jobs resigned as the chief executive of Apple on Wednesday, his note to the public and the Apple board was short and classy. The gist was this: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”
As you can imagine, this news is rocking the world — and not just the tech world. Mr. Jobs, after all, has almost single-handedly reshaped a stunning range of industries: music, TV, movies, software, cellphones, and cloud computing. The products he’s shepherded into existence with single-minded vision read like a Top 10 list, or a Top 50 list, of the world’s most successful inventions: Macintosh. iPod. iPhone. iTunes. iMovie. iPad.
He’s done pretty well for Apple stockholders, too. Ten years ago Apple’s stock was at $9 a share; today, it’s $376. Apple is neck-and-neck with Exxon Mobil for the title of world’s most valuable company.
Most of the reactions online today read like obituaries — for Steve Jobs, if not for Apple.
Is that appropriate? Well, only Mr. Jobs’s inner circle knows how sick he actually is. (He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, had a liver transplant in 2009 and has had health troubles ever since.) But nobody, not even Mr. Jobs, can say for sure whether Apple can still be Apple without him at the helm.
There are three reasons that it might — and one big reason that it might not.

The good news: First, Mr. Jobs isn’t leaving Apple. He’ll remain as chairman of the Apple board. Tim Cook, who’s been Apple’s director of operations for seven years, will take over as chief executive. (He’s been acting C.E.O. since January.)
You can bet that as chairman, Mr. Jobs will still be the godfather. He’ll still be pulling plenty of strings, feeding his vision to his carefully built team, and weighing in on the company’s compass headings.
Second, the tech world doesn’t turn on a dime. Apple’s pipeline is already stuffed with at least a couple of years’ worth of Jobs-directed products. In the short term, you won’t see any difference in Apple’s output of cool, popular inventions.
Third, even if Mr. Jobs isn’t sitting at every design meeting, ripping apart or heartily embracing each idea presented to him, his tastes, methods and philosophies are deeply entrenched in the company’s blood.
In Silicon Valley, success begets success. And at this point, few companies have as high a concentration of geniuses — in technology, design and marketing — as Apple. Leaders like the design god Jonathan Ive and the operations mastermind Tim Cook won’t let the company go astray.
So it’s pretty clear that for the next few years, at least, Apple will still be Apple without Mr. Jobs as involved as he’s been for years.
But despite these positive signs, there’s one heck of a huge elephant in the room — one unavoidable reason why it’s hard to imagine Apple without Mr. Jobs steering the ship: personality.
His personality made Apple Apple. That’s why no other company has ever been able to duplicate Apple’s success. Even when Microsoft or Google or Hewlett-Packard tried to mimic Apple’s every move, run its designs through the corporate copying machine, they never succeeded. And that’s because they never had such a single, razor-focused, deeply opinionated, micromanaging, uncompromising, charismatic, persuasive, mind-blowingly visionary leader.
By maintaining so much control over even the smallest design decisions, by anticipating what we all wanted even before we did, by spotting the promise in new technologies when they were still prototypes, Steve Jobs ran Apple with the nimbleness of a start-up company, even as he built it into one of the world’s biggest enterprises.
“I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it,” Mr. Jobs wrote in his resignation letter.
That’s a wonderful endorsement. But really? Can he really mean that Apple’s days will be brighter and more innovative without him in the driver’s seat?
Tim Cook gets rave reviews as an executive and numbers guy. But is he a Jobs-style visionary? Does he have Jobs-style charisma? Does he have a Jobsian reality distortion field? In 2001, would he have been able to convince the record companies to sell their music for $1 a song? In 2005, would he have had the force of personality to make Cingular redesign its voice-mail system for the iPhone’s visual voice mail? In 2009, would he have been able to cow AT&T into offering a no-contract-required, month-at-a-time data plan for the iPad?
Will he have the crazy confidence to kill off technologies he sees as dying, as Mr. Jobs has over and over again (floppy drive, dial-up modem, and, in Mac OS X Lion, even faxing)?
Does he know where the puck of public taste will come to rest two years from now? Five years from now?
There’s an awful lot of Steve Jobs in Apple, and an incredible amount of talent at its Cupertino headquarters. So no matter what happens, Apple will not slowly sink into a directionless, uncharacterizable, spread-thin blob like, say, Yahoo or Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft.
But what will happen when Mr. Jobs’s pipeline is no longer full, and when his difficult, brilliant, charismatic, future-shaping personality is no longer the face of Apple?
It’s hard to imagine that we’ll ever see another 15 years of blockbuster, culture-changing hits like the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad — from Apple or anyone else. And that’s really, really sad.
Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for an incredible run. The worlds of culture, media and technology have never seen anything like you.
In your new role, we wish you health, rest and happiness — and, whenever you feel up to it, the opportunity to let Apple know where the puck will come to rest.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/12/magazine/creating-jobs.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Empowerment

Three simple keys that organizations can use to effectively open the knowledge, experience, and motivation power that people already have. The three keys that managers must use to empower their employees are: share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries and replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams.

source

it's not about how good you take pictures but how good you feel about the pictures you take (NN?)

Steve Jobs on His Life, Career and Illness: ‘Find What You Love’

by Stroppoli from yahoo dailyticker

This evening we got the news that Steve Jobs has stepped down from his post as Apple CEO after having been on medical leave since January. In a commencement speech given at Stanford University in 2005, he spoke about his life, his career and his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. His words, spoken six years ago, resonate strongly tonight.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Belajar dari sebaik-baik wanita di alam semesta

Dari Asiyah istri Fir’aun, saya belajar
Nasib dan sholihahnya seorang wanita ditentukan oleh dirinya sendiri

Dari Maryam putri Imran,
Istiqomah, tawakkal dan kesabaran adalah kunci kehidupan muslimah

Dari Khadijah binti Khuwailid,
Menjadi wanita cerdas, sukses, ulet dan mandiri adalah kekuatan
Dan Alloh memberikan kekuatan memberikan pula ketaqwaan

Dari Fatimah binti Muhammad SAW
Beruntunglah mereka kaum wanita yang memiliki nasab dan orangtua yang sholih/ah
Pondasi telah mereka dapat, tiang2 kuat menancap

HN24Ramadhan1432H

Pinta Seorang Ibu

Suaranya begitu lembut, mengalir bersama makna
Mengimami tarawih di tiap malam-malam buta
Mengilhami makmumnya
Seorang ibu muda

Dia berpinta
Berdoa
Untuk anaknya
Untuk anak menantunya
Untuk cucunya
Dan keturunannya
Agar mereka dikaruniai kemudahan
Menjadikan lisan mereka Al Quran

Mimpi seorang ibu muda
Sepuluh, atau dua puluh tahun kelak
Di rumahnya
Dia menjadi makmum
Dari anaknya, anak menantunya
Mendengarkan suara mereka nan lembut
Melafalkan ayat demi ayat Quran
Dari al Fatihah hingga Annaas tanpa membaca
Dingin, sejuk ... menyegarkan jiwa ibunda

Pinta seorang ibu
Doa seorang ibu
Mimpi seorang ibu
Mudahkanlah ya Alloh

HN23Ramadhan1432H

"But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin." (Mitch Albom - For One More Day)

Seorang istri dan seorang ibu.
Seorang yang membesarkan suaminya dan seorang yang membesarkan anaknya.
Ada seorang ibu yang membesarkan suaminya dahulu dan ada seorang wanita yang membesarkan anaknya kelak.
Seorang istri dan seorang ibu.
Seorang istri dan seorang ibu.
Seorang istri dan seorang ibu.

-poligami,adakahberperandalammembesarkanseseorang?-

Success Mind

All you need, to get your person and catch your dreams, is just political and strategic thinking.

While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at. (Oscar Wilde, A critic in Pall Mall, p. 195)

---an enlightment in writing, let's learn it from Terence Tao UCLA

One’s writing should also be taken seriously; your work is going to appear in permanently available journals, and what may seem witty or clever today may be incredibly embarrassing for you a decade from now.

Being assertive is fine, but being overly self-promoting or competitive is generally counterproductive; if your work is good, it should speak for itself, and it is better to spend your energies on creating new mathematics than trying to fight over your old mathematics.

Try not to take any research setbacks (such as a rejection of a paper, or discovery of an error) personally; there are usually constructive resolutions to these issues that will ensure that you become a better mathematician and avoid these problems in the future.

Be generous with assigning credit, acknowledgements and precedence in your own writing (but make sure it is assigned correctly!). The tone of the writing should be neutral and professional; personal opinions (e.g. as to the importance of a subject, a paper, or an author) should be rarely voiced, and clearly marked as opinion when they are. In short, you should write professionally. (See also my advice on writing papers.)

On your web page, keep the personal separated from the professional; your colleagues are visiting your web page to get your papers, preprints, contact info, and curriculum vitae, and are probably not interested in your hobbies or opinions. (Conversely, your friends are probably not interested in your research papers.)

and other sentences...

Overly philosophical, witty, obscure or otherwise “clever” comments should generally be avoided; they may not seem so clever to you ten years from now, and can sometimes irritate the very readers you want to communicate your result to.

So it is worth devoting some effort and thought to ensuring that the prose portion of the paper is at a professional standard of quality, though as mentioned before one shouldn’t try to be excessively polished or clever in one’s choice of words; we are, after all, taking about a mathematical paper here, rather than an essay or a piece of literature.

Lehr- und Lernziel, and the Level of Learning

Cognitive: knowledge gain and remember - comprehension, understanding - application - analysis, synthesis, evaluation - creation, new knowledge

Affective: receiving, passive attention - responding, reaction - valuing - organizing - characterizing

Psychomotor: perception, sensory cues - set, readiness to act, mental physical and emotionalsets, desire to learn a new process (motivation) - guided response, imitation and trial and error, practicing - mechanism, habitual, performed with confidence and proficiency - complex overt response, highly coordinated, minimun of energy, automatic performance, quick and accurate - adaptation, well developed skill, can be modified to fit special requirement - origination, creating new movement pattern, composing, making, originating

more here

The big picture

Shakespears
Hokusai
Da Vinci
and many grandmasters
was looking for the answer
about human and their life
days and nights without any break
collecting part by part, piece by piece
til they got the big picture

What about scientist?
What they are looking for

The answer is merely already written
But only a few know
Only a few get the idea
Back to the real eternal life

Hokusai, la gran ola de Oriente

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.

The Old Man Mad about Art, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji has traditionally been linked with eternal life.

adn.es/cultura
Making us human
36 views of Mount Fuji !!
foating world

Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that were the traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his work became focused on landscapes and images of the daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels.

Get the DVD of The Private Life of a Masterpiece

“What a man can be, he must be.”

Another Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

greatness

Dimanapun engkau ibu...

Kurang lebih sembilan bulan sepuluh hari tidaklah cukup. Masih ada bertahun-tahun ke depan di mana anak kita akan terus bersama kita, meskipun jauh, meskipun hanya kontak batin, seorang anak akan terus "melihat" ibunya. Apakah ibunya seorang pekerja keras, pejuang rumah tangga, pendidik yang berhasil, seorang yang tak mengenal kata gagal ataukah sebaliknya. Anak-anak akan menanamkan sebuah pikiran tentang ibunya dan merefleksikan hidupnya pada jalan hidup ibunya. Meskipun ada beberapa perkecualian namun hukum normal terus berlaku, anak yang sukses lahir dari ibu yang sukses juga, anak yang pantang menyerah lahir dari ibu yang pantang menyerah, anak yang pemberani, tegas, berwibawa juga lahir dari ibu yang berkarakter serupa. Begitu juga, anak yang lemah, anak yang pesimis, dan yang paling menyedihkan adalah anak yang tidak memiliki kebutuhan untuk terus belajar dan maju. Meskipun tidak kita sangkal, genetik memberikan pengaruh besar akan tetapi lingkunganlah yang membentuk karakter dan mental seorang anak. Siapa seorang ibu di mata anaknya adalah lingkungan dalam pikiran anak yang di dalamnya akan tumbuh cara pandang sang anak terhadap hidup dan lingkungan yang sesungguhnya.

Terima kasih ibunda dan terima kasih untuk para perempuan yang telah dan sedang berjuang dalam membentuk mental dan innate curiosity anak-anak mereka.

Room Color and How it Affects your Mood by Freshhome.com

While most of us may not spend a lot of time thinking about room color, it affects every day of our lives. Room color can influence our mood and our thoughts. Colors affect people in many ways, depending upon one’s age, gender, ethnic background or local climate. Certain colors or groups of colors tend to get a similar reaction from most people – the overall difference being in the shade or tones used. So it’s important to choose wisely.

To have a beautiful home, you do not have to worry about trends. Color trends will come and go. The people who live in a home make it beautiful by choosing colors that reflect their likes and their personalities. The trick is to blend those colors you like into a pleasing combination. Choosing color combinations is one of the most intimidating steps for beginners. Color has the power to change the shape and size of furnishings as well as the shape and size of the room itself.

Selecting colors is not difficult if you equip yourself with some basic information about color and its effects, so let’s find more about room colors, and how these affect your mood.

Let’s begin …

When selecting color for a room, keep in mind that each color has a psychological value. Think about how those colors make you feel. The main color of your room can have an effect on your mood. These colors can make you feel anything from tranquil to rage. So when trying to create peace and harmony in your home choose your colors wisely. Some colors in large amounts will have just the opposite affect on you and your loved ones’ moods.

What mood do you want to create? Which colors will help you achieve that mood?

Find clear answers to these questions. If you find this task quite difficult try to look at magazines, decorating books, blogs and websites for ideas, or let your fabric be your guide. In fact, this is a good approach to take even if you’re starting from scratch. Fabric, carpeting, furniture and tile are available in a more limited range of colors than is paint, so choose them first and then decide on your paint color. Once you’ve found what you where searching for limit the number of colors in a room to no more than three or four. Too many colors can make a room look busy or cluttered.

Paint is a fairly inexpensive and transforms a room more quickly than anything else you can do so you can afford to experiment a little.

Room Colors

Understand that colors behave in three basic ways : active, passive, and neutral , and you can easily match every room’s colors to your personal desires and taste and to the room’s purpose. Light colors are expansive and airy, they make rooms seem larger and brighter. Dark colors are sophisticated and warm; they give large rooms a more intimate appearance.

Now let’s find more about some colors.

Red raises a room’s energy level. It’s a good choice when you want to stir up excitement, particularly at night. In the living room or dining room, red draws people together and stimulates conversation. In an entryway, it creates a strong first impression. Red has been shown to raise blood pressure, speed respiration and heart rate. It is usually considered too stimulating for bedrooms, but if you’re only in the room after dark, you’ll be seeing it mostly by lamplight, when the color will appear muted, rich, and elegant. Red, the most intense, pumps the adrenaline like no other hue.

Crimson can make some people feel irritable. With red invoking feels of rage and hostility is a color that should be avoided as the main color of a room. Sitting for long periods of time in a room this color will likely breakdown any peace and harmony you are striving to create in your home. Ancient cultures used the color red to stimulate the body and mind and to increase circulation.
Yellow captures the joy of sunshine and communicates happiness. It’s perfect for kitchens, dining rooms, and bathrooms, where happy color is energizing and uplifting. In halls, entries, and small spaces, yellow can feel expansive and welcoming.Yellow although is a cheery color is not a good choice in main color schemes of a room. People are more likely to lose their tempers in a yellow room. Babies also seem to cry more in a yellow room. This color tends to create feeling of
frustration and anger in people. This color is the most fatiguing on the eyes.In chromotherapy yellow was believed to stimulate the nerves and purify the body.

Blue brings down blood pressure and slows respiration and heart rate. That’s why it’s considered calming, relaxing, and serene, and is often recommended for bedrooms and bathrooms. Be careful, however: A pastel blue that looks pretty on the paint chip can come across as unpleasantly chilly when it’s on the walls and furnishings, especially in a room that receives little natural light. If you opt for a light blue as the primary color in a room, balance it with warm hues in the furnishings
and fabrics.

To encourage relaxation in the rooms where people gather family rooms, living rooms, large kitchens consider warmer blues, such as periwinkle, or bright blues, such as cerulean or turquoise. Blue is known to have a calming effect when used as the main color of a room. When going with blue go for softer shades of blue. Dark blue has the opposite effect. Dark blue evokes feels of sadness. So refrain from using darker blues in your main color scheme. Stay with the lighter shades of blue to give you and your loved ones a calm effect.

Green is considered the most restful color for the eye. Combining the refreshing quality of blue and the cheerfulness of yellow, green is suited to almost any room in the house. In a kitchen, a sage or medium green cools things down; in a family room or living room, it encourages unwinding but has enough warmth to promote comfort and togetherness. In a bedroom, it’s relaxing and pleasant.Green also has a calming effect when used as a main color for decorating. It is believed to relieve stress by helping people relax. Also believed to help with fertility this is a great choice for the bedroom.

Purple in its darkest values (eggplant, for example) is rich, dramatic, and sophisticated. It’s associated with luxury as well as creativity, and as an accent or secondary color, it gives a scheme depth. Lighter versions of purple, such as lavender and lilac, bring the same restful quality to bedrooms as blue does, but without the risk of feeling chilly.

Orange evokes excitement, enthusiasm and is an energetic color. While not a good idea for a living room or for bedrooms this color is great for an exercise room. It will bring all the emotions out that you need when jumping into your fitness routine.In ancient cultures orange was used to heal the lungs and increase energy levels.

Neutrals (black, gray, white, and brown) are basic to the decorator’s tool kit. All-neutral schemes fall in and out of fashion, but their virtue lies in their flexibility: Add color to liven things up; subtract it to calm things down. Black is best used in small doses as an accent , indeed, some experts maintain that every room needs a touch of black to ground the color scheme and give it depth.

To make the job easier, you can rely on the interior designer’s most important color tool: the color wheel.

Something about Ceiling and Walls

The ceiling represents one-sixth of the space in a room, but too often it gets nothing more than a coat of white paint. In fact, for decades, white has been considered not only the safest but also the best choice for ceilings. As a general rule, ceilings that are lighter than the walls feel higher, while those that are darker feel lower. Lower” need not mean claustrophobic: Visually lowered ceilings can evoke cozy intimacy.

Dark walls make a room seem smaller, and light walls make a room seem larger.

Conclusion

These general guidelines are a good starting point in your search for a paint color. But remember that color choice is a very personal matter. You’re the one who has to live with your new paint color, so choose a hue that suits you, your family and your lifestyle.And after investing time to select just the right color, make sure it continues to look that way long-term by investing in a top quality paint.

Di atas langit ada langit, membuat kita silau namun tetap menatapnya. Di bawah tanah masih ada tanah, seharusnya kita sadar -dan tidak banyak mengeluh- masih banyak orang lain yang diberi cobaan lebih berat dari kita.

Hidup ini keras dan penuh perjuangan. Jangan bermanja-manja.

Terima kasih utk pemberi inspirasi di atas.

The work is done, but we're not happy. Just good enough isnt good enough. We realise that we want better, better and better.

Intellectual need, intellectual growth

is a specific form of intrinsic motivation; it is a desire to learn something. Although it is a difficult concept to grasp, it has been recognized as critical in effective educationlearning. Intellectual need arises when someone poses a question to themselves or others, either out of curiosity or to solve a specific problem. and

Intellectual need is often greatest when there is a hole in an otherwise well-connected web of knowledge. Merely understanding a question and being unable to answer it is not sufficient to create intellectual need—intellectual need arises when a person believes the question to be interesting or important, and usually this involves fitting the question into a framework of well-understood ideas.

A common critique of certain educational systems is that students are expected to learn facts and ideas in the absence of any intellectual need. As a result, the teachers and educational system must provide extrinsic motivation for the students in the form of tests, grades, or other incentives. This gives rise to a whole series of problems, ranging from boredom to academic dishonesty.

thanks to wikipedia

Examples

• A student who asks a question is displaying an intellectual need for the question to be answered.
• A birdwatcher who cannot identify a certain bird will often have a strong intellectual need to identify that bird because it represents a hole in their knowledge; however, others might have no intellectual need, even though they also cannot identify the bird.
• One can cultivate intellectual need by giving students a problem they can easily understand but cannot solve, or a question they can understand but cannot answer, before introducing a technique that can be used to solve the problem or information that answers the question.
• If a student cannot understand a question or problem, it cannot provide intellectual need for a solution.
• Giving students a new technique to solve a problem will not be effective if the students are already able to solve the problem through other easier or more enjoyable techniques, because they will have no intellectual need for the new technique.

From erdhaus.ch

„Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future“( Charles F. Kettering )

Personal and social change in our global community requires flexible, multi- functionally adapted solutions of our built environment.Unfortunately, most contemporary buildings are the result of conventional thinking in designs of past days.

Architecture should not dictate nature, it should cooperate with it.

Sustainable architecture is preferrably integrated into the natural environment and should be in a symbiotic relationship with it.Earth-covered architecture benefits from the natural balance of temperatures. It’s cooler in sommer and warmer in winter.High contamination facilities can be built with earth covered architecture to reduce impact to nature. Good working/living environment even in underprivileged locations can be created.The curvy forms of the earth-houses are an ideal synthesis between form and function. The emotional archaic form is an hommage to the natural environment.Planning should be centered around mankind, making the house his 3rd skin in context with nature.

Experience around people

Yes, there are many virtual tourist website in the internet. But the atmosfer and the sense of being around with local people could only be felt in the real situation, in 4D dimension with real time feature. This make you experience some kind of human universal condition to act humanly. So, travelling does give you that expensive taste of people. And it enrichs your humanist soul.


Have you had enough experience around people?

If you ask me, what type of treasure hunter i am, undoubtely i say, i am looking for people treasure! just believe me, amazing things will happen when you go on an expedition to find treasure in people.

and dont forget, research is the key to treasure hunting success

How I survive

All life is just a compensation
from shadow into sunshine, from storm into refuge.
Light and dark, storm and shine, wind and silence - these are all but reflection

and all successes come from failures

It is all a matter of learning how to have control over the mind
Fight to help those less fortunate than yourself

Do you think that that sorrow was brought for a purpose?


Yes, for the soul has to have all varieties of experience before it can unfold the highest. The soul is eternal and carries with it the result of every thought, of every spoken word, of every deed, and you are what you have made yourself - second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. You achieve your own growth and all actions that you perform determine the state of your evolution. No one else accomplishes that growth for you.

From the greatest sorrow comes the greatest knowledge

Why do they think that their only solution must be to kill as many as possible, that the one who is the greatest killer is accounted the victor? It is a strange world you live in.


THERE IS NOTHING BUT FUTURE

Naj ul Balagha (2)

A few of the many verses of the Qur'an that require metaphysical understandings about God are:

• And His is the loftiest likeness in the heavens and the earth. (30:27)
• And He is God in the heavens and the earth. He knows our secrets, and what you publish. (6:3)
• He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. He has knowledge of everything. (57:3)
• Allah is One and Absolute. (112:1-2)
• This is a scripture that We have revealed unto thee, full of blessings, that they may ponder its revelations, and that men of understanding may reflect. (38:29)

"God is not inside things in the sense of physical penetration and is not outside them in the sense of physical exclusion. Times do not keep company with Him, and implements do not help Him. His Being precedes times. His Existence precedes non-existence and His eternity precedes beginning. By His creating the senses it is known that He has no senses. By the contraries in various matters it is known that He has no contrary, and by the similarity between things it is known that there is nothing similar to Him. He has made light the contrary of darkness, brightness that of gloom, dryness that of moisture and heat that of cold. He produces affection among inimical things." (Sermon 186)

islam and metaphysics

Naj ul Balagha, Peak of Eloquence (1)

• There is no greater wealth than wisdom, no greater poverty than ignorance; no greater heritage than culture and no greater support than consultation.
• Patience is of two kinds: patience over what pains you, and patience against what you covet.
• Man is a wonderful creature; he sees through the layers of fat (eyes), hears through a bone (ears) and speaks through a lump of flesh (tongue).
• A wise man first thinks and then speaks and a fool speaks first and then thinks.
• Success is the result of foresight and resolution, foresight depends upon deep thinking and planning and the most important factor of planning is to keep your secrets to yourself.
• People in this world are like travelers whose journey is going on though they are asleep. ( Life's journey is going on though men may not feel it ).
• Lack of friends means, stranger in one's own country.
• Not to have a thing is less humiliating than to beg it.
• Every breath you take is a step towards death.
• Value of each man depends upon the art and skill which he has attained.
• Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.
• That knowledge which remains only on your tongue is very superficial. The intrinsic value of knowledge is that you act upon it.
• To lose or to waste an opportunity will result in grief and sorrow.
• This world is not a permanent place, it is a passage, a road on which you are passing. There are two kinds of people here: One is the kind of those who have sold their souls for eternal damnation, the other is of those who have purchased their souls and freed them from damnation.
• A friend cannot be considered a friend unless he is tested on three occasions: in time of need, behind your back and after your death.
• One of the conveniences in life is to have less children.
• A man can be valued through his sayings.
• Poverty is the worst form of death.
• To keep silent when you can say something wise and useful is as bad as keeping on propagating foolish and unwise thoughts.
• Hearts have the tendency of likes and dislikes and are liable to be energetic and lethargic, therefore, make them work when they are energetic because if hearts are forced (to do a thing) they will be blinded.
• The wiser a man is, the less talkative will he be.
• If a friend envies you, then he is not a true friend.

Peak of Eloquence
Nahjul Balagha
Sermons and Letters of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib (as)
Translated by Askari Jafri
Eleventh Revised Edition - Islamic Seminary Publications
ISBN 0-941724-18-2
islamology.com

more:
http://dawoodi-bohras.com/pdfs/Nahjul-Balagah-English.pdf
http://www.al-islam.org/nahjul/index.htm

An Introduction to Islam and Economics

Jafar Hasan from islamicinsights.com

Economics, or finance, can be defined as the branch of social science that deals with production, distribution and consumption of wealth. Every country or doctrine has their own form of economic system, with the two main forms being capitalism and socialism.

Capitalism is an economic situation where private ownership holds the key. It is the adherence to the concept of private ownership in an unlimited form which signifies that the capitalist is the one who is the owner of the capital. Capitalism entertains the ownership of the natural resources (for example land) and capital goods (for example raw materials for any industry) but ignores the ownership of the labor. Thus the bridge between the rich and the poor widens as it is very visible in most of economic systems that follow capitalism. Socialism or communism on the other hand constitutes the principle of ownership of the state or public. It centralizes the public ownership through production and distribution of the wealth, which is exactly the opposite of capitalism. In socialism, there is lack of incentive for people to gain financial advantage and the finance system becomes depreciated, unstable, non competitive and without any common goal.

More extensive analysis of capitalism, socialism or Marxism can be found in the highly acclaimed book Iqtisaduna (Our Economics) by Martyr Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr.

What does Islam say about Economics?

Islam is a comprehensive school that offers both social and spiritual teachings in life. Islamic economy is not a separate study but rather a part of the general Islamic system of organizing different aspects of life in the society. The economic structure of Islam preserves the rights of the individual and instructs social behavior. As other economic systems boast about social equality, the feature of social justice in Islam differs from all other systems in the core of its concepts.

That everything which exists belongs to Allah, is the essence of the Islamic economic system. As the Qur'an states, "To Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth." (2:284) Nevertheless, Allah has allowed us to own the wealth of this world and be a private owner. The Qur'an states, "He has created for you whatever that is in the earth." (2:29) Islam recognizes the rights of the private owner but it has also limited the ways of acquiring and collecting excessive wealth, thereby regulating finance in the society and constituting a variety of forms of ownership. Allah says, "And the man shall gain nothing but what he strives for" (53:39), indicating that man should only seek what he deserves from his hard work. Islam seeks to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor, and while it is not pragmatic to get rid of poverty completely, an overall equilibrium can be reached between the poor and the rich. This is why Islam has its complete way of economic life and principles.

Martyr Baqir al-Sadr writes in Iqtisaduna that the variety of the forms of ownership in Islam is only an expression of an original religious planning which is based on certain ideological basis and which lies in a special framework of values and meanings, contrary to the bases, values and meanings on which are based free Capitalism and Socialism. He critically explains each of the two economic systems and in contrast, describes the perfect economic laws in Islam.

In a journal of Islamic studies, Message of the Thaqalayn, the various Islamic economic ideologies are discussed by Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri. He discussed the flexibility of the economic system in Islam by explaining that the existence of different leading jurists (Mujtahids) and their constant openness represents one of the flexibility elements, without which one cannot know the effect of the development on the nature of the rules.

The Wonders of Islamic Economic Principles

Islam has laid down some exquisite principles about handling wealth in a society or individually. A few of the exceptional principles follow:

1. Real ownership belongs to Allah.
2. Islamic law (Shari'ah) has banned certain economic and social acts which are against Islamic values, such as usury and monopolization.
3. The legal power of the head of the Islamic government (Waliy al-Amr) to supervise and control the flow of the wealth in the country is with a view to maintain the public interests. The head of the government can restrict the freedom of certain individuals to perform or not to perform certain activities within the Islamic law. The Qur'an states, "O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those vested with authority among you." (4:59)
4. Elimination of the basic needs (hajat) of individuals and uplifting the needy people to the stage of being free from want (ghani).
5. Financial punishments and methods that are developed by Islam to transfer private properties to the public ownership as with respect to mawqufat (endowments), or the lands the inhabitants of which perished, or the dead without heirs and so forth.
6. Prohibition of wasting and squandering (israf).
7. Prohibition of every action that leads to the misuse of any property, and to amusement (lahw).
8. Constant remembrance of Islamic ethical concepts such as honesty, wisdom, piety and self-sacrifice during any financial transaction.
9. Preserving the rights and money of the people. Once Abdullah ibn Zamaah came to Imam Ali (peace be upon him) during the time of his caliphate and asked for some money from the treasury. Imam Ali said, "This money is neither for me nor for you, but it is the collective property of the Muslims and the acquisition of their swords. If you had taken part with them in their fighting you would have a share equal to theirs, otherwise the earning of their hands cannot be for other than their mouths." (Sermon 232, Nahj al-Balagha)
10. Implementation of various taxes in various conditions such Khums, Zakat, Fitrah, Khiraj etc.
11. Thanking Allah for the blessings and all kinds of resources (natural or man-made).
12. Remaining humble in charity. Allah says: "O you who have believed, do not invalidate your charities with reminders or injury as does one who spends his wealth (only) to be seen by the people and does not believe in Allah and the Last Day." (2:264)
13. Justifying economic equality, Islam believes in the concept of charity (sadaqa and infaq). There are a number of verses in the Qur'an on charity: "…and spend (in charity) out of what We have provided for them." (2:3)

Concept of Islamic Taxes

The main taxes that are obligatory for capable individuals in Islam are Zakat and Khums. Zakat is not a commonly used tax as it is imposed on only nine items; gold and silver coins, camels, cows and sheep, wheat, barley, dates and raisins. Khums, however, is the obligatory tax which applies to most Muslims. In his book Khums: the Islamic Tax, the renowned scholar Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi explains the philosophy and rulings about Khums. It literally means one-fifth of certain items which a person acquires as wealth, which should be paid as an Islamic tax. About Khums, the Qur'an states: "Know that whatever of a thing you acquire, a fifth of it is for Allah, for the Messenger, for the near relatives, and the orphans, the needy, and the wayfarer..." (8:41)

From the Qur'anic verse, Khums is divided into two equal shares. The first half is for Allah, His Messenger (peace be upon him and his progeny) and our Living Imam (may Allah hasted his reappearance) while the second half is for the orphans, the needy and the travellers from the family of the Prophet. The first is known as the share of the Imam (Sahm al-Imam) and the second the share of the Sayyids (Sahm al-Saada) who descend from Lady Fatima (peace be upon her). The share of the present Imam goes to the Religious Authorities (Maraja Taqleed) and is used in propagating the religion of Islam, establishing schools, academic and household expenses of religious scholars etc.

What is the Cause of Global Economic Problems?

As all economic systems of the world have faced several problems, Marxist is of the view that the problem lies between the variation in production and distribution relations, whereas capitalists believe that the major economic problem lies in nature and scarcity in natural resources. In Our Economics, Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr condemns this variation and magnificently explains how Islam has the solution. He states that Islam disagrees with both of the beliefs above as it is of the view that nature, being self-sufficient, can ensure all the necessities of life. The problem lies in man himself.

It is Allah who created the heavens and the earth and sent down rain from the sky and produced thereby some fruits as provision for you and subjected for you the ships to sail through the sea by His command and subjected for you the rivers.And He subjected for you the sun and the moon, continuous (in orbit), and subjected for you the night and the day. And He gave you from all you asked of Him. And if you should count the favors of Allah, you could not enumerate them. Indeed, mankind is (generally) most unjust and ungrateful.(14:32-34)

With these holy verses, it is clearly visible that Allah has provided all the necessities and resources to man and it is man himself that has created troubles in the society. Man's thanklessness and unjust, selfish behavior towards himself and the society are the real causes of the economic problems present in the world. Financial problems can indeed be solved by properly following the Islamic laws concerning economics and finance, which incorporates every necessary aspect of production and distribution of wealth.

Cultured People

Goh Sin Tub from thinkquest.org

Chinese New Year. The season of hongbao’s (Chinese for red packets) for children, and gifts in kind to be delivered to people’s homes before the big day, Chu Yi, the first day of the Lunar New year.

Helen fussed about, devoting much time, energy and money to shopping for the package of gifts for Mr Loo’s family. Mr Loo was her husband’s rich cousin who lived in a beautiful mansion in prestigious District 10. She packed her purchases with meticulous care in a lovely red-painted basket she bought from a gift’s boutique in Orchard Road, wrapped everything up in printed pink cellophane banded with a red ribbon, topping the magnificent assemblage with a posy of artificial roses.

The entire operation took her two evenings. At last she was satisfied that it was good enough for the Loo’s. She asked her husband to pass judgment.

“Okay,” Joe said. He wasn’t into the aesthetics of gift wrapping. But he was not ungrateful that someone in the family was, even of he wasn’t convinced she needed to go to all that trouble. He would have just rung up the gifts people. He said so.

“Not the same thing – no personal touch,” his wife said. “The Loo’s are cultured people, you know? They use Wedgwood china and Tiffany cloth napkins even when only eating lunch by themselves at home. They attend SSO concerts. And you saw those original Liu Kang paintings on the walls of their lounge? We can’t give them just any ordinary thing from anywhere!”

Fortunately the remaining gifts did not need that kind of intensive input. Otherwise she would have been at it forever. When she was finished she went through her gift list once more.

She yelped. “Hey! I’ve forgotten that second cousin of yours, Joe. You remember Ah Gek, the widow who works as a washerwoman? She and her poor sickly sister may not be cultured people like the Loos, but you remember how she surprised us last year visiting us with her package of sweets and nuts. Luckily I found something to return to her as our gift. That’s our custom. Where there is coming in, there must be giving out too! We should go to her place first and give her something this year. After all, she’s your elder – her father was much older than yours…But what to give her?”

“Anything will do! Whatever you’re giving the others…” Joe often wondered why Helen had to select a variety – different gifts for different recipients. What did it really matter if you gave everyone the same thing? And so long as you were early enough with your giving, you wouldn’t commit that horrendous atrocity: returning a waxed duck for a waxed duck or bak kua (wafer-thin slices of grilled pork) for bak kua.

“What about Chinese sausages?” Helen asked. Joe had no problem with that or any other gift suggestion for that matter. So Chinese sausages it was for Ah Gek.

Ah Gek’s old two-room flat was on the route to the Loo mansion. They decided they would drop briefly in on her on their way home, provided they were not delayed by the Loos’ hospitality.

------------

The guard at the gate of the mansion allowed them to drive in. They stopped their car at the marble-walled porch. They rang the sculptured bronze doorbell. The carved oak wall was opened by one of the Loos’ maids who was, of course, uniformed, complete with the embroidered Loo logo.

“Who is it?” They heard Loo’s voice asking from the inside of the house.

The maid went in. “Visitors with a gift basket, sir, they could hear her loud reply. Loo was hard of hearing.

“Just tell them to leave it in corner with the other baskets!”

“Sir, it’s not delivery people. It’s your relatives.”

“Never mind, just tell them I’m too busy. Say I can’t come out…”

Busy? Joe and Helen could hear the football commentary coming from the TV inside.

“Maybe better if I call Ma’am down to talk with them, sir?”

“Okay, whatever you like…”

Joe and Helen waited a while before Mrs Loo appeared.

“Oh, it’s you? Er, what’s your name…Joe, isn’t it? And, and she’s… whatever? Don’t have time to talk. Got to run. My mahjong friends are waiting. Just leave your thing in that corner. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks!”

They could not get a word in. She spoke like a machine-gun. Her thanks were shot out like bullets – rat-tat-tat-tat! And then she was silent, body half-turned back – an unspoken “Anything else?” on her face.

They were dismissed.

They said goodbye. She did not hear them. She had already gone upstairs.

------------

They drove off, not saying anything, a shade shell-shocked. Joe suddenly remembered and turned the car around. They went to Ah Gek’s two-room flat, which she shared with her sister. The neighbourhood was shabby, the buildings already slated for demolition.

Ah Gek’s flat was sparsely furnished, but everything was neat and tidy. Helen noted that the blue-coloured crockery they had on their table, though inexpensive plastic, was still smart-looking.

No beautiful paintings, of course.

But on one wall there was something given pride of place. There, Ah Gek and her sister venerated their ancestors. The black-and-white photos hung over a small, tidy altar – forefathers made immortal by the remembrance of faithful descendants. Joe recognized their common grandfathers. He felt guilty. He had never thought of the putting up their photos in his own home.

The sisters were overwhelmed by their visit. They received them as though they were royalty. They insisted on at least serving them a drink. They thanked them repeatedly, openly touched that Joe and Helen, who lived in a mansion, should honour them by coming up to their humble flat.

When they handed the sisters their gift, Ah Gek and her sister rushed into their bedroom and came out with a return gift. A box of birds’ nest, an expensive delicacy, never mind what grade.

Joe and Helen were embarrassed. They had only bought Ah Gek some Chinese sausages – by comparison, cheap. They did not want to take the sisters’ gifts. They said they need not return them anything. But the sisters insisted. That’s our custom, our culture, the way we have been brought up.

“Woo jip woo ch’oot” they said in their Hokkien dialect. Where there is coming in, there must be giving out too.

And Joe and Helen were seen off all the way down to their car. It was their turn to be overwhelmed – by the sisters’ grateful thanks and goodbyes to relatives who had honoured them with a visit.

On their way, Joe and Helen talked.

About paintings and pictures on the wall. About Wedgwood and plastic crockery. About receptions and goodbyes. About Chinese custom.

And about cultured people – and uncultured people.

Glossary

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is generally considered the most important festival for the Chinese. It falls on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar and is therefore also known as Lunar New Year. Since it marks the beginning of the year, it is also called the Spring Festival.

The Chinese prepare for the Chinese New Year weeks before the festival. They spring-clean their homes by discarding old or unwanted things and cleaning the house thoroughly. Some even give their homes fresh coats of paint. Spring-cleaning is done not only to welcome the new year but also to signify a fresh start to the year.

Some Chinese put up spring couplets on the doors or walls of their homes. Spring couplets are verses, which have two lines, each containing the same number of words. They are written on red paper and express auspicious sayings or wishes.

Write Up

In this story, we see the importance of social status in a society. The rich are considered "cultured" because they live in luxury and are able to afford anything their hearts desire. The poor, on the other hand, are looked down upon and even ignored just because they don’t wear designer clothes and live in a nice house. Everyday, people are judged based on their appearances and not by who they truly are. Few people realize that it's what's inside that counts. Helen and Joe made the same mistake when they felt that the Loos were superior to Ah Gek and her sister who were not as wealthy. It is common to think that the cultured are those who are rich. Thus, it is ironic that Helen and Joe discover, in the end, that those who are cultured need not be rich but they are well-mannered, respectful, have moral values and more importantly, have a compassionate heart.

In Singapore, the wealthy are often more influential than the poor. They have a certain status because they possess the 5 'C's - Condominium, Cash, Credit card, Car and Country club membership. (The 5 'C's were often used to describe the criteria by which Singaporeans judge whether or not they are successful or whether they have "made it" in life.) However, today, Singaporeans have moved beyond a pre-occupation with material things and they value other things in life that are more important (i.e. charity work, relationships).

Die Entdeckung der Geheimnisse

Es war ein Moment: ohne Idee, ohne Lust zum Schreiben
Weil es noch nicht keine Entdeckung gab

Es war ein Moment: so viele Idee, und mehr Lust zum Schreiben
Weil es schon entdenkt ist

Glück im unglück
Gott sei Dank

Richtiges Sehen
Sensitives Hören
Totales Fühlen


Scharfere Sinne, neues Leben

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