a sweet.Friday, November 24, 2006
I am sick of the food that I had to eat these days. While people dine on appetising/stimulating [stomach] home cooked food, served in piping hot condition, which forces one to lust for more, I'm "enjoying" my typical "Neighbourhood Food". If I'm not mistaken, I once remember a certain cartoon hero said that," there's a limit to everything and there's a boundary to tolerance that should never be trepassed." And this pile of bullshit " Neighbourhood Food" has culminated into a unbearable spire, making it worse than the whole of HC food added together. Enough is enough, and it's time to set things right! So I took out the underused wok that stood hidden in the kitchen and whipped out a sumptuous feast of pineapple rice with pork rib soup-just kidding. I just took more efforts to travel further to buy something new.
On this MRT journey to Admiralty to buy my dinner (apparently one stop from Sembawang, where I live), I noticed this lovely cute girl being carried by her mum. Out of the blue, as if some sort of fear just held her in a vice-like grip, she suddenly wailed and attempted to wriggle out of the embrace of her mum. She gave it all she had, the desperate flinging of arms, enthusiastic kicking of legs, and of course twisting her hips-but in vain. One of the commuters, obviously tormented by the psychological stress generated by her high-pitch cries, restlessly approached the little girl, with hands outstreched and fingers clutching a MENTOS mint sweet. [Hey, I accept Paypal Donations.] The sweet was obviously tempting and at that moment, one trickle of saliva can be seen trailing down the corners of her lips. The young girl, at her age, clearly has no willpower to resist such a generous offer, thus glady snatching the mint, and quickly putting it into her mouth, less it gets "stolen away". Then the wailing came no more, as the little girl slowly savour her precious victory.
As I reflected upon that incident, I realised that everyone has a similarity as that of the little girl. We all need something sweet to motivate us to achieve greater heights. We all need some rewards to congratulate ourselves if we did something good, and certainly we all need sweet memories of the past to inspire ourselves in the future. Such sweet rewards, motivations, or memories would not just walk up to us and say "hi", but like the little girl, we must stretch out our hands and reach for it.
If the little girl didn't reach out for it, she wouldn't get to enjoy the benefits of that sweet. If we didn't or wouldn't reach out, then we would never know the good things that are being offered.
Guide to Writing SERIOUSLY Good Book ReviewSunday, November 19, 2006
I have started noticing that there has been renewed interest in reading novels during the holidays. So why not post a book review and share with your friends?
This simple blog entry points out the various guidelines that separate a good book review from a inferior one.
BOOK REVIEW POINTERS:
[1] Include a physical description of the book.
[2] Give introduction about the author
[3] Summarise the key content of the book.
[4] Forecast/Highlight a point that you want your reader to take notice.
[5] Relevance of the plot/characters.
[6] The lessons learnt from this book.
[7] Bring forth a important message.
BOOK REVIEW SAMPLE by astuka:
The book review that I'm writing on is titled "The Cheat". It is in hard cover and there are only limited copies in the world. This book uses recycled paper, that is friendly to the environment and has dimensions of 20.2cm by 13.5cm, with a thickness of 3.05cm(measured by vernier caliper.) [1] The author of this book is an eccentric odd man, Gusav, who primarily writes about social ills, as well as youth issues. [2] Gusav is not very popular yet, and therefore a search on Google would most probably yield irrelevant result. Moreover, after dismal sales record, Gusav has been declared bankrupt after being sued by the publisher, Penguin, and is currently serving time in jail.
"The Cheat" is about an intelligent boy,Brian, in junior high, who hate reading novels. He feel that time wasted on reading books would be better spent on watching pulsating derby matches in EPL or playing professional poker while sponsered 10m by the British Government. However the plot gets a twist when the main character was tasked with an assignment of writing a book review for his beautiful girlfriend. Seeking to impress her, Brian stumbled upon a interesting book, which writes about a guy,Seth, who came up with a plot to fake his teacher. Seth made up a book from the thin air and smoked his way through the entire assignment. Interestingly, the teacher was deceived the realism of Seth's potrayal and gave him an A for his fantastic efforts. [4] Inspired by Seth, Brian did the same, hoping that he would get the same result. [3]
I can relate myself to Brian, because of my similar take on reading and therefore understand Brian's pains and struggles to read a book. I can also understand the sacrifice of desperate individuals, as well as the luring temptation to embark on this sinful path of cheating your teacher. [5] This book teaches us to have integrity and to uphold our moral values when doing a book review, and I would definitely recommend this book to any avid reader. [6]
According to a survey by NUS, if youths and adults pick up interest in reading books, there would be 56% decrease in crime rates in Singapore. [7]
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That's your book review! =)
blogspot welcomes astukaThursday, November 02, 2006
Seriously.
Establishing a blogging spot is one of the many objectives i've had for the holidays...
Since problems started to occur in my spaces domain, like frustrating me with its square, limited templates and the problem of not being able to post any more entry, the agony finally accumulated into a hurried good-bye. Now, to kick some ass.
The pen is mightier than the sword? Guess I got to prove here.
