How I use Soundedit Pro in my work

Soundedit Pro is very useful for editing sound files. I use it in my work very often as I need to play sound files for the listening tests for my students.

First I will extract cda files from audio disks using Soundedit Pro. It will be converted to mp3 files. Normally I need to listen to the sound files and insert silence and other oral instructions. Cutting and pasting are what I normally do to achieve a piece of audio file that suits my purpose.

The mp3 files can then be copied to a CD for playing using a CD player which can play mp3 files. Sometimes this mp3 files can be burned to produce an audio CD and played with a CD player which cannot play mp3 files.

Working Outstation

When I was working or rather teaching in St Theresa Secondary in 1989, I had to travel from Penang to Sungai Petani daily. It was a tiring year for me. Let me explain why it was so.

As I lived in Jelutong, I had to take the first bus at 5.30 to reach the peer so as to catch the 6.00 or 6.10 ferry to Butterworth. There I would board the 6.30 bus to Sungai Petani. To reach my school, I had to walk for ten minutes.

Usually, I would not be late for school which commenced at 7.40 a.m.

I had lunch in the canteen, then it was my journey back to Penang. A colleague would usually give me a lift to the bus station to take the 2.30 bus to Butterworth. By 3.10 I would on the ferry to Penang Island. The 3.30 bus would take me home. By the time I reached home, it was 4.00 p.m. Imagine having to spend 11 hours to work outstation. I would be home by 5.00 pm or later if I missed any bus.

About Yaakub Isa

Yaakub Isa was my Principal when I was teaching in Sek Men Jerantut, Pahang. I can always remember the moustache he sported. It was the symbol of maturity and Yaakub was truly a man of substance. When I learnt that he attended writers' seminar, I knew that he was interested in creative writing. His circulars were proof of his ability in writing. They were precise and concise and poetic too.
I have to thank Yaakub for leaving comments in my recent post for me to recall some fond memories of my former principal.
He was concerned about new teachers' affair. I still can remember the advance of money he gave us before our names were on the pay sheet. It really helped us pay for living expenses such as house rental and food. Without this financial help, we would be left in the lurch.
We also really appreciated the effort that he initiated to enable us to go back earlier on the last day of each school. On that day, all morning session pupils and teachers would end their lessons after recess, that is at 10.30 a.m. The afternoon session pupils and teachers would start their lessons from then on. Hence outstation teachers of both sessions could go back to their home town earlier. As I came from Penang, I surely welcomed this arrangement because it would take me 12 hours to reach my home town from Jerantut. Thank you Encik Yaakub.

You help me, can or not?

I often overhear one student saying to the other, 'You help me, can or not?'
If we ignore the grammatical errors in the sentence or rather question, what the student wants to convey is clear. He wants to know whether his friend is able to help him.
The above sentence is actually the direct translation of Malay which reads 'Kau menolong aku, boleh tak?'
The above sentence should be rendered:
You will help me, won't you?
or
Will you help me?

The difference between 'throw at' and 'throw to'

To throw something at someone is to hurt him with the thing you throw.

On the other hand, to throw something to someone is to pass the thing to him without any intention of hurting and he is prewarned that something will his way and he is supposed to catch it.

The following sentences will make the above explanation clear to readers.
1 Out of angry for being so near him, the boy threw a stone at the dog with all his might. (with the intention of hurting it and making it go away)
2 I threw a can of Cola-cola to John after saying, “Catch it buddy!”. (John knew that I was passing him a drink and he reacted by catching it with his hand.

How to backup your computer system

In my last post, I mentioned how my system was attacked by worms until it crawled. I had my drive C formatted and Windows reinstalled with all the other that I would be using. It took hours. Hence I decided to make backup copies of my system before it crashed again.
Finally I found Norton Ghost 14. It helped me backup 'My Computer' with the system with a recovery point. I tested it with the Semantic Recovery Disk (self-booting) to restore my system. It worked. Then I made another backup copy of my system on a DVD. It occupied 2.56G.
Should I Windows crash again, I will use the Semantic Recovery Disk to restore it. See I have two copies of my backups, one in drive D and one on DVD-R.
The only disadvantage of Norton Ghost is you can't backup on CD's or DVD's. It can only backup to usb drives or hard disk.
In my case, I can use my 4-G thumb drive for backup because my initial system is small.
So much for backing up your system using Norton Ghost.

I had to reformat my drive C today

I had to reformat my drive C today because it crawled due to worm attack. Now I had found a free firewall, the pctools personal firewall which I downloaded and installed. I hope it will stopped any worms from creeping into my system again. As for key generator which usually contained virus, I will not open it until I know it is virus-free.

It took me about three hours to get all my programs back. What a time-consuming effort!
My computer also started to hum. I hope it does not spell the end of my hard disk.

So much for reformatting drive C and reinstalling Windows and all the programs I needed to run to do my job.

How to practise fearless dana

Practising fearless dana will enable us to enjoy good health, according to Buddhism. We can practise this form of dana by not killing animals or birds for food. Taking vegetarian meals is considered practicing fearless dana, too. If one of our friends is scared of the dark and dare not go home, we can accompany him or her until she or he reaches home. This act is considered practising fearless dana because we have made him or her fearless or not scared anymore by our accompanying him or her home.

Thoughts can contribute to karma too

Karma can be formed at any moment through our thoughts. Thoughts, be they good or bad constitute karma too. Hence we should get rid of bad thought or evil thought to prevent forming bad karma and cultivate good thought such as wishing other people succeed in what they are doing, praying the speedy recovery from sickness of someone, etc. If you think of killing someone and before you can do it, you have already formed a bad karma for yourself. Chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha or practicing meditation can help us get rid of thoughts thereby achieving nothingness in our mind. This is also good in avoiding forming bad karma.

The yolk is the most nutritious part of the egg

Most people think that the yolk is bad as it contains a lot of cholesterol. However, this is the most nutritious part of the egg as it is very nutritious when it contains antioxidants, vitamins such as vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein and trace minerals

Egg yolks contain calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, vitamin B6, B12 and panthothenic acid too besides the fat soluble vitamins A,D,E and K.

As for the cholesterol content in the yolk, your body will down-regulate its internal production of cholesterol to balance things out. However, if you do not consume enough cholesterol, your body will still produce more cholesterol because it has lots of functions in the body.

Some people don't seem to click with us

Since young, I have had this experience of finding people who did not seem to click with me. I did not know the reasons then. As I dig deeper into the teaching of Buddha, I can now find explanation to the above phenomenon.

According to Buddhism, a man who does not attain nirvana will be reborn into men, animals, hungry ghosts, dewas and two other realms again and again. Hence I might have been at enmity with that someone. In this present moment, if we happened to meet again our past life experiences will make us treat each other as an enemy and of course we can't click.

How to use 'exercise' correctly

The word ‘exercise’ is usually wrongly used in the following sentence:
We need to do at least half an hour’s exercise daily to remain healthy.

The above should be corrected as below:
We need to exercise for at least thirty minutes daily to remain healthy.

The usage of ‘exercise’ as a noun refers to the work you have to do for your lessons. For example, you can say ‘I have a lot of exercises to do for Maths today.’

As a verb, ‘exercise’ can also be used in sentences such as:
You can exercise your right as a citizen to vote the leader you like to be a Member of Parliament.

Have a peep at your computer system

If you want to find information about your computer system, you need to have the software to do so. I stumbled upon this software called 'Sandra Lite'. It is a free software that helps us analyse our computer system and hardware.

I downloaded and tried it and I got what I needed to know. Hence in this post, I would like to share it with readers. You can download the software from the following link.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_sandra_lite/

Happy peeping at your computer system and hardware.

Web2 Upgrade

There is going to be a great event taking place on 1st July. All websites will be in web2 environment at the click of a mouse from this date onwards. I joined the above group today because I wanted to be part of the event.

If you are interested to be in the community, you can click this link.

Happy being part of a great event.

The goodness of beta glucan

I like to eat cooked oats as they contain beta glucan which is good for our bodies. Beta glucan can enhance our immune system, as it helps to activate white blood cells to do the job of combating invaders such as germs to our bodies. Besides this function, beta glucan can also lower cholesterol level and blood pressure as well as promote weight loss for those who are overweight.

I would like to share the little bit I know about the goodness of beta glucan with readers.

How to use 'lend itself to'

We can use ‘lend itself to’ which means ‘is suitable for’ in the following sentences.

1 The big room here lends itself to holding a birthday party.

2 The hall lend itself to holding an annual general meeting for a club.

How to use 'used to'

In English ‘used to’ means in the past you usually did something as mentioned after to in used to.

Look at how used to is used in the following sentences:

a) I used to swim in the sea when I was small.

b) When Ali and I were still in the primary school, we used to go to school together.

However, if we add another verb such as ‘get’, ‘used to’ means ‘accustomed’. The two examples below show the use of ‘used to’ having this meaning:

a) At first, I did not like to live in town but later I got used to living there.

b) You will get used to the new environment after some time.

Note that, ‘used to’ which carries the meaning of ‘accustomed to’ is followed by a noun or an ‘ing’ verb.

Free Voice Call

I know of one way you can talk with your friends or relatives who stay far away free of charge. What you need is to download skype.exe, a software by the company with the same name to enable you to speak to your pals provided he or she also has installed skype software. With a microphone and a speaker attached to your computer, you can start communicating with others using voice.

I just tried it and it worked. Any one interested can go to skype website to download the software.

Happy talking to your friends free of charge through the Internet.

Your look can give you away

As a form teacher, I had access to my pupils' marks. I used to link the look of a certain pupil to his test marks.

On the average, those pupils who looked dull or dumb usually obtained low grades in exams and intelligent-looking pupils usually passed with flying colours.

From years of experience, I could tell any pupil's intelligence. However, as the saying goes 'looks can be deceptive' because a dull-looking kid can be smart and an a boy or girl with an intelligent look may turn out to be dumb.

Tag for friendship around the world

Tag for Friendship Around the World!

::Start Copy Here::

Rule:
1. Copy from ::Start Copy Here:: through ::End Copy Here::.
2. Add your blog to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs. Just make sure to post this to each of the blog you added in the list.
3. Tag other online friends you know.You don’t need to be tag in order to join. If you want to join just post this one in your blog.
4. Let me know your blog’s name and url by leaving me a comment HERE. I will add you to the master list.That way, everyone is happy and can meet new friends too!
5. Come back once in a while to get the master list! Let’s see how this makes our Technorati and PR goes up!
6. DO NOT REMOVE THIS: scrap page made by Yen. Using alphas and tapes from Kate H., flowers from Ida,paper by Catrine.

1. Me and Mine 2.Creative In Me 3.Little Peanut 4. Pea in a Pod 5. Sugar Magnolias 6.Because Life Is Fun 7. Piece o’Kaje 8. Mon a Bric 9. Celebrate Life 10.My Journey11. Deeply In Love 12. Pink and Brown Diaries 13. Happyheart 14. Wilstop 15. Fun|Fierce|Fab 16. Nita’s Random Thoughts 17. Nita’s Corner 18. Thomas Web Links 19. Thomas Travel Tales 20. Make Money Online 21. Great Finds and Deals 22. PRC Board Exam Results 24. My Wandering Thoughts 25. Nita’s Ramblings 26. Just Me.. Eds 27. Etc Atbp 28. When Silence Speaks 29. Juliana’s Lair 30. Juliana’s World 31. Juliana’s Library 32. Blessed Chic 33. Can of Thoughts 34. Hailey’s Domain 35. Hailey’s Beats and Bits 36. ISL family 37. Arbitrary Thoughts 38. D’ Cooking Mudra 39. My Big Picture 40. Dancing in Midlife Tune 41. Blessings In Life 42. My Colorful World 43. Dare to Blog 44. Life Realities 45. WebGeek Journal DotNet 46. WebGeek Journal 47. Let’s Travel Philippines 49. MY DAILY THOUGHTS AND MOODS 50. A Sweet Taste Of Life 51. My Life in this Wonderful World! 52. Denz Techtronics 53. Denz Recreational 54. Surviving Deplyoment 55. Ester’s Raptured Dreams 56. Nipa Hut 57.Picture Clusters 58. My Wanderings 59.Maiylah’s Snippets 60. EuLehKulit 61. Life Quest 61.Being a wife. Being a Mom. 62. MoMie SPace 63.Woman Xplore 64. PinayWAHM 65. Agring’s Simply Digital 66. Agring’s Home & Garden 67. Agring’s Homecooking & Baking 68. Agring’s Electronics & Entertainments 69. Scrap Addict Sundays 70. Mommy Talks 71. Aggie Scraps 72.Teacher’s Corner 73. My Drift 74. lancernews 75. My so called Life 76. See Me for what You Will… 77. kathycot.com 78. buhaymisis.com 79. All about Mye life 80. Everything has a Reason 81. Life’s Impression 82. Some Thoughts I have 83. Life’s Lessons 84. Just Let Go 85. Pieces Of Me 86. Winding Creek Circle 87. BOTH SIDES NOW 88. Happy Life 89. Blessed Sanctuary 90.Confessions of an Army Life 91. moms….. check nyo 92. Mommy’s Little Corner 93. Wanna Be SuperModel 94. Gandacious 95. Jo-Jo’s Place 96.My Quiet Zone 97. Proud PINAY 98. Simply Jen 99. Jenny Said So 100. A Slice of Life 101. My Blog 102. TIP OF AN ICEBERG 103. Coffee Cup Princess 104. Deranged Insanity 105. Just Another Day 106. Stev & Emz Journey 107.Runaway THoughts of Emz 108. Heart of Rachel 109. Nora’s Notes 110. In the Life Of Mne 111. In my Kitchen 112. Nyumix’s Blog 113. Everything’s Here 114.Out of Nowhere 115. My Simple World 116. Seek Health. Feel Great 117. Smile Puppies 118. Almanacqueen 119. The Life of an Outback Pinay 120. Dancing With Butterflies 121. My Treasures 122. Everything Green 123. 124. Memoirs of a Filipina 125. The Pit Gadgetry! 126. My Daily Life Experience 127. Married and Happy About It 128. My Discoveries 129. iCreate+iDeas 130. My Healthy Living Journal 131. Busy Moms Cook 132. Christian Weekends 133. Reflexes 134. Caramel Corn 135. Sunny Side Up Foodie 136. A Mothers Horizon 137. Bits and Pieces 138. Whats Up! 139. Simply Me 140. Life and Me 141. A Handful of Surprises 142. Anything and Everything in Between 143. from here and beyond 144. The Nameless Blog 145. Exploring Asia 146. Malaya 147. Swan Portraits 148. BUSYNESSWORLD 149. Sprawt 150. Thinking Consciously? 151. BLOGSILOG 152. Cherry’s Comfort Zone 153. DigiScrapz: Captured Memories 154. Buzzy Me 155. Thinking Out Loud 156. Wishing and Hoping 157. Jobs for Davao 158. Jobs for Cebu 159. Filipino Jobs Abroad 160. PRC Board Exam Results 161. Nakedminds 162. Personal 163. Interesting 164. squeeshies 165. Shenzee’s World 166. Geekyology 167. Swanportraits 168. Rumination Under the Clouds 169. In My Home by Ria aka Msculit 170. It’s my Party (and I’ll cry if I want to…) by Ria aka Msculit 171. Malaya 172. Cheese: Jherson84 173. Beans: Jherson 174. EP Treasures 175. Republic of A 176. Nora’s Family Treasures 177. Points of View (Discussion Blog) 178. Gala Tayo! 179. Lucky Peso 180. Buhay Pinoy 181. Pinay Mommy’s Love Blog 182. MOMEMO 183. OnlineBiz and Resources 184. Lourdes’ Mia 185. Pinay Mommy’s DigiScrap and Musings in Life 186. Pinay Mommy Online 187. ‘nna 188. My Sweet Escape 189. The Next Chapter 190. Painted Life 191. Petty Ramblings of a Petty Queen 192. The Real Deal 193. My Beautiful Life 194. Berry Blog 195. A Tsinay Blog 196. A Celebration of Life 197. My love.mylife.my everything. 198. Gamay and Dako Adventures 199. Ester’s Daily Thoughts 200. Choc Mint Girl 201. I AM KCAT 202. RanZ-Goodies 203. RanZ-Famous 204. A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh 205. Surviving the Circus of Life 206. The Nook207. Allen’Wifey 208. Fern’s Backyard 209. Amor’s Blog - My Place in Cyberspace 210. The Other Side of Me 211. Stylishbabe111407 212. The Inner Shopper 213. TheGeneralInfoBlog 214. my angels world 215. Pinoy Raket Online 216. My Life 217. BloggingInMyPyjamas 218. Baby Shern 219. Mariel 220. So Real 221. Okay, I am Arms and this is my blog 222.Lucid Creativity 223. Read my Mind 224.A Simple Life 225. My debt blog 226.1stopmom’s blog 227.Mommy Gamer 228. My First One Million Pesos 229. Mindless Thought 230. MommyandMe Boutique 231. My Life’s Labyrinth 232. 100% Kelly 233. Of Colors And Styles 234. KadusMama 235. The Maven 08 235. Rainbows 236. My freehand 237. Sentiments of a Effed-Up Man 238. Princess Vien 239. My freehand 240. Confessions of an Enchanting Princess 241. Marites-Pinay Heart Wanderings and Musings 242. Me, the Islands and the World243. Leaf In Deforest 244. MAX 245. Lhedy 246. Making sense..(somehow) 247. Our Life Together 248. The Chic Shopaholic 249. In Depth 250. That Blog 4 Me 251. A Nice Thought 252. Live it Up! 253. Chronicles and Tales Unlimited (RED) 254. Momhood Moments 256. It’s a woman’s world! 257. Forgotten 258. Esophoria 259. Pixel Dust 260. GladyGirl 261. Uncomplicated 262. Gentle And Compassionate 263. Kwentong Kengkay 264. Mind Juice In Full Throttle 265. Jo’s Precious Thoughts 266. Hobbies and Such 267.Jenny’s Wandering Thoughts 268. A Window to Our World 269. Let Them Eat Cake! 270. Live Love Life 271.Theif’s Stolen Collections 272. Panda’s Multiply 273. Kitty’s haven 274. lancerlord 275. The YTB Celebs Blog 276. Welcome To Earth David 278. Pinaymama’s Diary 279. Pinay Mom in Czech Republic 280. Ally And Allies” 281. Beauty of Life 282. Creations 283. Watchamacallit! 284. Nellypie’s Chatterbox 285. The Daily Matters 289. Bread & Butter 290. tazdogz blog 291. my 3 boys and i 292. Dabawenyako 293. Icelog 294. Days of Our Life 295. Precious Moments 296. Crissy’s Haven 297. Baby Jhari 298. The Maven ‘08 299. Our Growing Family 300. Confessions Reborn 301. SEWDELISH 302. Live from Waterloo 303. The So-Called Me 304. EP DESIGNS 305. Toni-Marie.net Excelling in Excess since 1988… 306. The Monotonous Life 307. Hit-or-Miss 308. Crazylicio.uS 309. Latina On Travel 310. MoneyGirls Blogging On the Internet 311. MsMoneyGirl Stock Magazine 312. Top College List 313. Free Personality Test 314. A Piece of Idea 315. What Goes Under the Sun316 Your blog here

::End Copy Here::

The difference between 'hanged' and 'hung'

The past tense of 'hang' can be 'hung' or 'hanged' and its past participle can be 'hung' or 'hanged' too.

When something is suspended, we use 'hung' for the past action. e.g. Christy hung her clothes on the rope to dry yesterday.

However, when someone was killed by suspending him by having a piece of rope round his throat until he died, we use 'hanged' to describe the action. e.g. The drug-pusher was hanged to death yesterday.

A strange phenomenon on 'Duan Wu Jie'

In my last post, I told readers about the origin of Duan Wu Jie or the Chang Festival.

Actually on this day, that is yesterday, you could make your eggs stand on their ends. The photo which I scanned from the Kwong Wah Yit Poh that I subscribe to shows two boys doing the experiment with their father. It worked as the eggs were standing on their ends, all of them. If readers want to do this experiment, you can do so on 28 May 2009 next year at noon. This strange phenomenon takes place at noon on Duan Wu Jie every year. So it is worth your attempt to verify what I have said.

See, eggs are standing on their ends!

Duan Wu Jie - the Chang Festival

Today is Duan Wu Jie, the fifth day of the fifth month according to the lunar calendar. This day is set aside to commemorate the death of a famous Chinese patriotic poet and Prime Minister Qu Yuan who committed suicide at Milo River in China. Feeling very sad, he ended his life because his suggestions to improve the state economically, politically and defence-wise were rejected by the Emperor resulting in a war.

On this day, the Chinese will prepare zhong zi or chang in Hokkien, a type of food made of glutinous rice with fillings such as mushrooms, meat, nuts and so on. Initially the aim was to throw this food into the river so that it would be eaten by the fish so that they would not eat the body of Qu Yuan.

The photo below shows the traditional chang as prepared by my mother-in-law. We were given some to satisfy our palates. You should taste one of them as it is really delicious.

Typical 'chang' (rice dumpling)

You must be Mr Yeoh

I went to enquire about bus route to my daughter’s place. She is studying outstation. What surprised me was the woman who handled the booking and sale of express bus ticket was one of my students whom I taught in Sungai Petani, Kedah in the late 70’s. Of course it was she who recognized me but I could not because a student’s appearance would have changed greatly from a teenager to a woman. According to her, I changed a little only and that was why she could addressed me as ‘Mr Yeoh’ correctly. When I asked for her name, she told me that she was Kang Hui Ming – a girl active in sports at that time.

This is not the first time I failed to recognize my students after years of leaving them. Just a few months ago, I went to an eatery to have my lunch. The man who served me ‘Wan Tan Mee’ was one of my pupils. He told me that I taught him Science in Form 2 and that he was not a very smart boy and I most probably would not remember him. I asked about his classmates and from the names mentioned I began to recollect the classroom situation and faintly could remember him as the fat boy sitting behind.

Karma does play a part in our lives

Believe it or not, no one can run away from the effect of good karma or bad one whether you are a Buddhist or not.

If you have read all my posts you must have come across how karma ran after me to effect what was to be done. For example, I cut an ox's eye and took out the lens to show to my pupils in the Science lesson. A few years back, my left eye was operated upon and a few months later my eye lens was taken out and replaced with a plastic one. This is just an example of how we cannot escape from the effect of karma.

When I was a child I liked to suffocate mice in water and now I have sinus problems. The karma in play here is if you suffocate others, you will experience something like suffocation. In my case, the mucous fluid that keeps appearing in my nasal cavity is very uncomfortable and sometimes suffocates me for a while.

The moral is 'do good and abstain from doing bad things in your lives'.

How to improve your English

English is an international language. In this cyber age, a good knowledge of English is an advantage. In order to improve in your English, you must take a strong liking to this language. In the course of your reading, never miss looking up any word whose meaning you are not sure of in a good dictionary – one that illustrates the usage of words in sentences. Observe how other people construct their sentences and how they break the monotony to arrest our interest in reading their writing.

Try to master the use of phrasal verbs as they come in handy when we write articles or essays.

Above all, think of the apt words to use in describing anything we want.

How to use 'lie' and 'lay' correctly

To lie means to recline or not to tell the truth and to lay is to produce eggs as hens do or set the table for meals. The confusion occurs when the past tense of ‘lie’ is spelt ‘lay’.

The past tense of ‘lie’ is ‘lay’ while the past tense of ‘lay’ is ‘laid’.

Here is a way to remember the two words.

Remember ‘pay paid paid’ to recall ‘lay laid laid’.

Present tense Past tense Past participle

pay paid paid

lay laid laid

lie lay lain

lie lied lied

1 I pay her daily to clean the house.

I paid for the lunch I had with my friend just now.

I have paid my club subscription.

2 The hens lay eggs regularly.

The hens laid 100 eggs yesterday.

The hens have laid eggs since a week ago.

3 My parents always lie here.

My parents lay here a moment ago.

My parents have lain here since an hour ago.

4 The boys lie very often.

The boys lied to us yesterday.

The boys have lied.

My experience in translation

When I was serving as a teacher in Jerantut, I had a lot of free time in the afternoon and at weekends. Hence I started to contribute Malay articles to the press. My writing mainly consisted of exam questions and answers to guide the then MCE and LCE students (now the exams are know as SPM and PMR) students. One national Chinese newspaper also published translated works. Hence, I did translation of Mahua short stories (short stories written in Chinese by Malaysian writers) into Malay with my friend, Chong Choong Yong. We used the context type of translation between Chinese grammar differs from the Malay one. Sometimes for one sentence, we had to discuss for quite some time before deciding on the most appropriate one. Cross-cultural translation is no easy job. We had 6 translations to our credits.

I personally translated six Mahua short stories into Malay on my own. My works were exhibited to the public during my school’s centenary celebration.

One direct sale agent asked me to translate one flyer from Chinese into Malay and I charged him according to the number of words I produced out of the original. For one thing, I made sure there were no grammatical errors. For another, it looked like Malay. The essence of translation is to render a piece of work from the original into another language comprehensible to speakers of the latter language.

Portable Applications

There are a number of portable applications which can be put in usb drive to be carried anywhere we go and insert into any computer to do our job. I know of one which I find useful. It is called Paint.NET 3.10.

It helps me to reduce the pixels so that I can upload it to my blog easily. You can also do a number of other tasks with it. If you are interested, here is the link.

Seven don'ts after meals

I received an email from a friend about 7 things you must not do after a meal. Here are the don'ts that I would like to share with readers of this blog.

1 You should not smoke after a meal.

Reason: You are more likely to suffer from cancer as smoking after consumption of food is equivalent to smoking ten cigarettes.[I personally am against smoking.]

2 Abstain from taking fruit immediately after meals.

Reason: The fruit will bloat your tummy. Hence it is advisable to eat fruit one hour before or after food.

3 Drink no tea after a meal.

Reason: The acid contained in tea leaves will harden the protein in your food, rendering it difficult to be digested.

4 You must not loosen your belt after having taken your meal.

Reason: It will cause intestinal problems.

5 No bathing immediately after food.

Reason: It will weaken the digestive system as bathing brings about the increased flow of blood to the limbs and body, thereby reducing the flow of blood around the stomach.

6 Do not take a walk after a meal.

Reason: Walking immediately after food will make it difficult for the digestive system to absorb the nutrients from the food we consume.

If you want to walk, do so after an hour's lapse.

7 Do not go to bed immediately after a meal.

Reason: Your body will not be able to digest your food properly in a state of sleep and this will cause gastro-intestinal problems.