A lady doctor who passed away in
Dr Tan Bee Hooi from
In modern day's hectic life, many city folk suffer from stress which invariably leads to hypertension. I know of one schoolmate who takes ten pills a day. These are for reducing hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol and calming down or reducing stress.
To me, reducing stress can be done without any medication. Here are some of the ways you may use to reduce stress.
1 Meditate for 11 minutes per day.
Eleven is considered 'fullness'. Hence meditating for eleven minutes should be sufficient to calm oneself.
2 Forget your enemies every night you go to sleep. Theoretically you will have no enemies the next day to worry about since you have forgotten them the night before.
3 Read light articles and humorous stories in between your busy schedule to give yourself time to have a good laugh.
4 Be positive-minded and optimistic. Always expect things to go right and with this mental magnetism radiating from you, things will usually go smoothly as planned.
5 Should failure or disappointment knock at your door, accept it and start afresh. Don't let worries make you stressful.
Finally remember that STRESS simply means 'Seeing the rainbow emerge stretching sky-high' and the beauty of the rainbow will drive away all your stressful feeling.
Yesterday my right arm became too painful to bear. Earlier massage by the Chinese chiropractor did not work. At
As this was my first visit, the lady physiotherapist who attended to me spent quite some time diagnosing the condition of my elbow. After pressing certain painful points she confirmed her diagnosis. According to her, I had a condition known as tennis elbow. She told me that the tendon at my right elbow had inflammation and swollen. That explains the pain I experienced when I tried to lift things.
Then she told me that it would take quite some time to heal.
The first thing she did was to attach four suction rubber cups between my right elbow and sent mild current through them to my arm. There was vibration and some tickling sensation. This lasted for 15 minutes. Then a device she used sent ultrasound to the area around my elbow. The physiotherapist told me that the sound would induce the growth of more proteins to expedite healing. For ten minutes my elbow area was exposed to ultrasound. It was followed by cold compress. A tube containing cold water or some coolant was wrapped around my elbow area. It would help in healing my inflamed tendon, she said.
After all these had been done, she started to mobilise my elbow. There was bending of my arm, traction and meridian point massage. Finally I was fitted with a tennis elbow wrap. It took one hour and fifteen minutes for the treatment. I felt better after all her trouble and I thanked her before I left the clinic. I had to see her again for review and treatment again the following week.
Starting today, police personnel on beat duty will take on a new look with uniforms made of flame-resistant cloth.
The lightweight fabric gives police personnel more flexibility – enabling them to chase after criminals or engage in hand-to-hand combat. Accessories include a gadget belt, baton, pepper spray, a set of handcuffs, walkie-talkie and semi-automatic gun. To complete the look are a beret and boots. Unlike the old uniforms, where badges are pinned, the insignias form part of the outfit.
The above two paragraphs about the new look of the uniform of the police force in
Look at the following sentences to know the correct usage of 'chase' visually:
1 The policeman chased after the snatch-thief. [wrong]
2 The policeman chased the snatch-thief. [correct]
3 The policeman ran after the snatch-thief. [correct]
In my earlier post, I talked about Sam Sung, a tourist guide from in
I could see her efficiency when she settled our checking in at the airport, especially the luggage. Though of small build she could drag the luggage effortly.
As for the sitting arrangement on the plane, she took pains to pair us and group all those in a family together. Hence it was a pleasant journey with the one you knew seated next to you.
She was also very professional when it came to the itineraries. If a place could not be visited she would arrange for an alternative site for sight-seeing.
As for morning call, she would ring us if we needed her to do so.
We would not be left stranded should we leave the group for a while, as she was very good at head counting. The group would not leave without the presence of every body. Usually Sam Sung Sam led the tour group and Siau Ching would be at the end to make sure no one was left behind.
She was also good at telling jokes to kill our boredom during long journey from place to another.
Thank you very much, Siau Ching, formaking our trip to
Sam Sung and Samsung are two different entities. The former is the name of a tour guide whereas the latter is a Korean brand.
Sam Sung was waiting with a piece of cloth bearing his name on it at the airport when we reached
Sam Sung spoke Mandarin with a
Later, I had a chance to talk to him. From our conversation, I realised that unemployment is quite bad among graduates like him. Hence he ended up being a tour guide. He is the only child in his family as the policy of
Sam Sung is still single. He lives with his family in a flat. It seems that landed property is beyond the means of lower income groups in
That’s about Sam Sung, the tour guide that made my visit to
‘Most of the + nouns’ can be followed by singular verbs or plural ones, depending on which nouns are used.
a) If the nouns are countable, the plural verbs are used.
e.g. Most of the books sold in the bookshop are cheap.
Most of the boys learn how to spell well.
b) If the nouns are uncountable, then singular verbs are used.
e.g. Most of the water in the area tastes salty.
Most of the petrol sold in this country is imported.
In English, ‘a little’ is used in front of uncountable nouns such as money, water, oil, time,etc.
e.g. a) There is a little water left in my glass.
b) I need a little more time to finish my assignment.
c) If you give a little thought to what you want to do, you will be able to do it better.
d) We spent only a little money per day as we do not earn much.
e) They need a little help from us.
On the other hand, ‘a few’ is placed in front of countable nouns such as books, cars, pens, etc.
e.g. a) A few boys are still playing in the field.
b) I went to see a few friends who lived there.
c) She has just enough money to buy a few books only.
d) There are a few things which I would like to tell you.
e) Here are a few tips on how to make your computer run faster.
Man cannot live alone. Somehow or other he has to interact with others. Personally I find that interacting is important in the course of our work.
As a teacher, I need to interact with my pupils to understand their weaknesses in the subject that I teach so that I can plan my lessons according to their level so that they can fully grasp the contents of the lessons taught. If teachers are willing to interact with pupils, the classroom atmosphere will be less tense but more lively. We need not confine ourselves to subject matter only as the class can discuss matters that interest everybody for five or ten minutes to add variety to the lesson of the day to avoid boredom.
Interaction among colleagues is very important too. How can we work with people in the same office without uttering a word to the one sitting next to you. Mutual understanding can be fostered through two-day communication. In this way, less friction will occur in the workplace.
At home too, family members need to interact to keep their relationship closer. Interaction among family members will make the home merrier and prevent generation gap as has happened before people realize the importance of interaction.
We can write a certain sentence in different ways by replacing words which bear the same meaning.
Example 1
She chanced to meet her friend a few days ago.
Sentences with the same meaning are as follows:
A) She ran into her friend a few days ago.
B) She bumped into her friend a few days ago.
C) She met her friend by chance a few days ago.
d) She ran into her friend the other day.
e) She bumped into her friend the other day.
f) She met her friend by chance the other day.
Example 2
Money matters a lot as we need it to buy things and get services from others.
We can express the above sentence in the following ways:
A) Money matters a lot for we need it to buy things and get services from others.
b) Money matters a lot as we need it to purchase things and get services from others.
c) Money matters a lot for we need it to buy things and obtain services from others.
d) Money matters a lot for we need it to buy things and get services from other people.
e) Money is very important for we need it to buy things and get services from others.
f) Money is very important as we need it to purchase things and get services from others.
g) Money is very important as we need it to buy things and obtain services from others.
h) Money is very important as we need it to buy things and obtain services from other people.
There are words in English that belong to two Parts of Speech, that is nouns and verbs. By the way, Parts of Speech refer to eight categories of words, namely nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
Examples of such words are as follows:
Example 1: race
The race will be held tomorrow. [noun]
My race is Chinese.[noun]
They usually race to the bus station so as not to miss the bus.[verb]
Example 2: shower
I had a shower when I reached home.
[noun]
Modern parents usually shower their children with love. [verb]
Example 3: house
My house is by the sea. [noun]
The new building will house all the artifacts in our country. [verb]
Example 4: present
I gave her a present on her birthday. [noun]
The principal will present prizes to the winners. [verb]
Example 5: hunger
The beggar had no more energy to move forward because of hunger. [noun]
As they hunger for knowledge, they find that the Internet is the best place for them to search for what they want. [verb]
Example 6: box
I kept all my mementos in a box. [noun]
They went forward to box the thief until he bled. [verb]
Example 7: time
What is the time now? [noun]
The coach likes to time how long the runner takes him to run 5000 kilometres. [verb]
Example 8: stone
He picked a stone and threw it at the dog which followed him. [noun]
They intended to stone the monkey that came to still their food. [verb]
Example 9: hand
He used his left hand to write when his right one was injured. [noun]
We will hand the thief to the police. [verb]
Example 10: foot
I sprained when left foot when I ran down the stairs.
John had to foot the bill because I forgot to bring my wallet to the restaurant.
In my earlier post, I discussed how nouns could be formed from adjectives. In today's blog, I will talk about the formation of verbs from adjectives.
Verbs can be formed from adjectives by:
1 adding 'en'
e.g. hard -->harden
soft -->soften
weak -- >weaken
broad -->broaden
smooth -- > smoothen
less -- > lessen
rich -->enrich
large-->enlarge
2 adding 'ise'
e.g. real --> realise
legal-->legalise
3 adding 'ify'
e.g. false -->falsify
null -->nullify
4 changing its spelling.
e.g. long -- > lengthen
strong -- > strengthen
There are certain words in English that are pronounced differently with different meanings. Four examples of these are 'row', 'refuse', ‘lead’ and ‘minute’.
1 'refuse' is pronounced as 're fius' and 'rare fius'.
When it is pronounced as 'refuse', it means ' to say that you will not do or accept something'.
e.g. They refuse to help their selfish neighbour.
When 'rare fius' is the pronunciation of 'refuse', it means 'rubbish'.
e.g. The residents there do not dispose of their refuse properly.
2 'row' has two pronunciations, that is 'row' as in 'arrow' and 'row' as in 'rowdy'.
In the former pronunciation, it means ' a line of things or people'.
e.g I sat in the eighth row when I was watching the movie.
When the pronunciation is the latter, it means 'quarrel'.
e.g. They had a row just now over very trivial things.
3 ‘lead’ can be pronounced as ‘lid’ or ‘led’.
When ‘lid’ is the pronunciation, it means ‘to control a group of people’.
e.g. A capable man was chosen to lead the new organization.
When it is pronounced as ‘led’, ‘lead’ means ‘a kind of dark-grey poisonous metal’.
e.g. The patient suffered from lead poisoning.
4 The two pronunciations for ‘minute’ is ‘minit’ and ‘my newt’.
When pronounced as ‘minit’, ‘minute’ has the meaning of ‘one sixtieth part of an hour’.
e.g. It took him one minute to write to sign the agreement.
When ‘my newt’ is the pronunciation, ‘minute’ means ‘very tiny’.
e.g. Bacteria are minute creatures.
In English, adjectives can sometimes be used to denote plural nouns. This can be done by adding 'the' in front of them.
The following are some of these examples:
1 The elderly = old people
2 The poor = poor people
3 The rich = rich people
4 The underprivileged = less fortunate people
5 The young = youngsters
6 The talented = talented people
7 The handicapped = handicapped people
8 The blind = blind people
9 The dead = dead people
Besides nouns that exist on their own, we can form nouns from other parts of speech such as adjectives. The use of adjectives and their noun forms help to add variety in our essays.
The formation of nouns from adjectives can be done by:
a) adding 'ness'
e.g. fair --> fairness
good ---> goodness
thick --> thickness
b) adding 'ness' after - y + i
e.g. happy -->happiness
ready --> readiness
c) adding 'th' and minus 'e'
e.g. true ---> truth
wide --> width
d) changing its spelling + 'th'
e.g. long --> length
strong --> strength
broad --> breadth
e) adding ‘y’ or ‘ty’
e.g. difficult --> difficulty
royal --> royalty
f) changing their spelling
e.g. high -->height
g) adding ‘ship’
e.g. hard --> hardship
The adjective ‘bored’ means ‘feeling tired and unhappy because something is not interesting or because you have nothing to do.
On the other hand, the adjective ‘boring’ bears the meaning of ‘not interesting or exciting’.
‘bored’ is used:
a) after ‘feel’
Example: I felt bored yesterday because I had nothing to do.
b) before ‘with’ or ‘of’
Example: I was getting bored of listening to the same song,
‘boring’ is used:
a) before a noun.
Example: It was a boring movie and I nearly felt asleep.
b) after a noun
Example: I found the show boring.
How to apply CPR on yourself during a heart attack
I received an email written in Chinese regarding the above matter. As I think it is very useful in saving lives, I will translate it here for readers. Here it goes:
Suppose the time is
You have learnt how to apply CPR (Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation) on others but you have not learnt how to do it on yourself to save your own life.
When alone, how do you apply CPR ?
If your heart cannot beat normally and you feel as if you are going to faint, you will have about 10 seconds before you lose you consciousness. You have to use the precious 10 seconds to save yourself.
Don’t panic. This is what you must do.
1 Just cough continuously and forcefully.
2 Before coughing, take a deep breath, then cough hard and for a long time as if you want to cough out the phlegm.
3 Take your breath every 2 seconds and continue to cough hard until help arrives or until your heart beat returns to normal.
In my earlier post, 'to' is used as an infinitive. For example, 'to' in the following sentence is an infinitive:
He came to visit me when I was ill.
I am going to discuss the use of 'to' as a preposition in this post.
As I mentioned in my post very much earlier, a preposition can be followed by a noun/noun phrase, a pronoun or an ing-verb. The examples below should make this point clear:
Example 1
My grandmother looks after my sister when my mother is at work.
['my sister' behind the preposition 'after' is a noun phrase and 'work' after the preposition ‘at’ is a noun.]
Example 2
The police are still after him.
[The pronoun 'him' is used after the preposition 'after']
Example 3
They kept on trying until they succeeded.
[The word after the preposition 'on' is an ing-verb or a gerund.]
Now look at how 'to' is used as a preposition through the following examples:
Example 1
Diligence is the key to success.
[The noun 'success' is used after 'to'.]
Example 2
The extortionist resorted to force when his victim refused to part with his money.
[It is another case of a noun after a preposition.]
Example 3
They talked to her to calm her.
[The pronoun 'her' is used after 'to' which is used as a preposition here.]
Example 4
I look forward to receiving your letter soon.
[The word after 'to' is an ing-verb.]
Example 5
We resorted to using river water as our drink to quench our thirst.
[Another example of using an ing-verb after a preposition.]
Infinitives are verbs in their basic forms and they are usually placed after 'to'.
In the sentence 'I want to go there.', 'go' is an infinitive.
You can also see infinitives after 'do', 'does', 'did',' will', 'should', 'would',
'must', 'can', 'could', 'don't', 'doesn't', 'won't', 'shouldn't', 'wouldn't', 'can't, 'couldn't', and 'mustn't'.
Examples
1 I do take care of my aged parents.
2 I did come here yesterday but you were not around.
3 She will take up a nursing course.
4 You should learn a foreign language.
5 He would sit here all day when he was free.
6 They must adapt themselves to the new environment.
7 You can have my book.
8 He could run ten miles when he was young.
9 We don't have the necessary tools to dismantle this machine.
10 The reckless driver didn't stop his car when he knocked down a pedestrian.
11 I won't help you unless you promise to work hard.
12 You shouldn't vandalise the public phone.
13 The old lady wouldn't move although the flood water level had reached her waist.
14 You mustn't give lame excuses if you can't complete an assignment.
15 I can't read what he has written.
16 We couldn't complete the work in time.
The following verbs need infinitives too:
suggest, recommend, make, see
Examples
1 In the meeting held yesterday, he suggested that we increase the club subscription.
[Note that although the finite verb 'suggested' is in the past tense, the infinitive 'increase' (present tense) is used.]
2 She recommended that we hire Indonesian maids for the time being.
[The infinitive 'hire' is used here even if the finite verb 'recommended' is in the past tense.]
3 The teacher made the student rewrite his essay.
4 I saw the man take a pen and put it into his pocket.
In my earlier post, I shared my knowledge of enabling registry editor in Windows with readers. Today, I would to tell you how to enable task manager in WinXp.
If you press Ctrl, Shift and Delete keys together, the task manager will come out for us to shut down the program we don't want to run. As has happened to me a few times, the message 'Task manager has been disabled by adminstrator' will appear instead and we can't use it. When this happens, execute the following steps to enable the task manager again.
Now, if you press Ctrl, Shift and Delete simultaneously, the task manager should appear on your screen.
Sometimes, your system may be changed by certain programmes that you have installed. The disabling of the registry editor is very common. To enable the registry editor again, do the following.
1 Go to Start and click Run.
2 Type the following exactly and press OK.
REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
To be doubly sure, highlight the above and right click your mouse to copy and paste it in the box in Run.
Now, go to Start and click Run, then type 'regedit' without the quotes and you should be able to edit the registry of your Windows again.
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