Notice on the window of an apartment block in Puchong

I Love Free Radicals

While trawling the Internet for some interesting facts on Redox Reactions I discovered that oxidation takes place in our body resulting in the loss of electrons by our body cells. This can be caused by the presence of free radicals caused by food and environmental factors. The ravaging effects of free radicals could result in ageing of our body and to counter or retard this ageing process we should resort to food or supplements containing antioxidants, At the same time, I also came across a research on worms that appears to contradict this conventional wisdom. The worms that produced more free radicals had actually lived longer while the fortunes of those that were treated with antioxidants were reversed. Read more at this site: http://news.discovery.com/human/aging-free-radicals-antioxidants.htm

Was this How the Universe was Created?

What Vijay, Dolores & Stephen Hawkings didn't Know

Find out more at the National Visual Arts Gallery

What Makes a Good Teacher

I believe there are many differing views on what it means to be a good teacher. I shall try to distill a definition from my three decades of experience as an English teacher in both public and private institutions of learning. For me, a good teacher is someone who is able to create meaningful learning opportunities that maximize learning. Implicit in this definition is a teacher who plans his or her lessons in such a way that they facilitate learning. Every lesson has to be planned, whether it's written in the form of a lesson plan or the planning is done in the head.So, here are the keywords in my definition: create, plan and facilitate.

What can we learn from this stump? Read about Lessons from a Stump at: http://meexam.blogspot.com

Dateline: Sri Lanka, August 6, 2013

There I was climbing up the steps of this ancient heritage site: Sigiriya. At one of the stops to catch my breath, I was standing next to a French-speaking group when the local guide called out: Venez ici. Regardez! La statue de Buddha. Elle est plus grande! Imagine my excitement. I was able to understand what he was saying. Je peux comprenais! Bravo! 

In these hazy days...

The flats, about 0.6 km away, lost in the haze


Woray ! Woray !
Da haze is back!
Woray ! Woray !
I yamback, yamback,
Yamback to rob and planda
In da kaver of da haze.
-Extract from the Songs of a Bandit

In these hazy days, I try to look for that sliver of light in our economy to cheer me up but this is what I see: a Myanmar teenager working as an apprentice mechanic in a motorbike shop; a young man from India selling newspapers in my neighborhood; Indonesian and Nepalese men and women manning foodstalls or working as waiters in coffee shops and restaurants; Bangladeshis peddling imitation branded clothing in Chinatown. For the last 30 years, our government has been doing the same thing, bringing in cheap unskilled labor from neighboring countries. Can these immigrants help propel our country towards Vision 2020 which is only seven years away? But then again, the man who hatched this vision doesn't even believe in it anymore. So, what does it matter? Just hatch a new vision and give ourselves another twenty years!