Roundtable

I learn Roundtable Group from Cup Magazine.

It is a Research Institute which aims at developing a platform for young generations to learn, discuss and express their point of views of various Hong Kong issues, from sustainable development to heritage conservation.

The group is formed by professional from various aspect, such as political commentators, professors, accountants, civil servants, university students, etc. To achieve self reliance and responsibility, the group was restructuring into Roundtable Enterprise and Roundtable Community in 2006, which offer services of research & event consultancy, travel and exchange activities, education and design work.

Roundtable Group offers E-Journal online, please access the below link for further information:
http://roundtable.com.hk/index.php

High recommend you to have a look, then you will know that apart from pollutants and the blossoming stock market, Hong Kong is much more than that.

101Things You Need To Know (... and Some You Don't)

Jealous Lucas took away the book '101Things You Need To Know' from my hands several times, because he didn't want me to spend more time on it. Frankly speaking, once you pick it up, it is difficult to put it down.

There are 101 facts the book is going to tell you. 101 star stickers come with it, if you think you can master a 'thing to know', you can put a achieved star on the page.

The basic need to read this book is, as mentioned - 'A secret hiding place for this book' (you see my case now, I worry Lucas will flush it into toilet on day'. It also requires you to have 'A brain like a sponge'.

Give you a glimpse about what facts will be taught in this book, here are the examples:

What is the Sixth Sense?

Why do we dream?

Were all Roman from Rome?

Who invent the Internet?

What happens in the Bermuda Triangle?

Can you sneeze with your eyes open?

Is your teacher an alien?

I admit, all topics are very 'discovery science'... people know me well now understand why I love this book a lot, because I am a 'discovery science' junkie!!

4th Wedding Anniversary

Tomorrow will be our 4th Wedding Anniversary. I want to send a big big kiss to Jeff. You are always my best husband. Thanks for your caring and patience to this weird, rebellious, pessimistic and stubborn Manki.

I do not know where I have guts to pick up another life-long project - to become a mother of our second baby, sometimes when people ask me how come I wanna have another baby, I cannot give them an answer, or just provide a rationalized answer, but I know from my heart, I have such courage simply because I love you and you give me strengths all the time.

Hope we will share all happiness and bitterness together in the future. Thank you!!!

A physical challenge

Being pregnant and taking care of a 1 year old kid at the same time is a tough physical challenge to me.

I just want to sleep through my holidays.

讀書樂

剛過了的週日，我取消了小提琴課，讓自已歇一下，並跟謝菲及小朗B享受清閑的早晨。

我們先去又一城的超級三文治吃過一頓豐富早餐(小朗B搶吃了一大塊火蹆及煎蛋)，跟著到壹頁堂看書。在壹頁堂內，起初小朗B還是中規中矩，怎知逛到中文書部變得異常興奮，一手取了倪匡的<夢裡的話.酒後的話>，再跑到走廊中央，一邊坐下一邊大力摺皺書皮。我阻止他並表演徒手捉B時，有位先生在旁欣賞並發笑。

其實當天我們買了很多書，每人也有收穫，其中兩套我最喜歡是：

"我的低能之道"

同事陳是作者馬仔的粉絲。馬仔是一位典形的OL女人仔，現己是全職創作人了。在這書她以漫畫描述她在家庭、工作、讀書及生活的低能事，令你捧腹大笑。我當日已看畢，並借了給妹妹，有笑同爆。


馬仔有一個網站，有興趣可以去hea一下 http://www.maggiemarket.com/。



"The Miniature World of Peter Rabbit"

是買給小朗B的，我也很喜歡。小小的盒內藏有十二本Beatrix Potter的名著，是一套很漂亮的Pocket Library。

這個週日很疲倦，又很滿足。

Put some sheer blackberry on my lips

This is the next beauty item I wanna have - Clinique Almost Lipstick Sheer Blackberry.

A hint of dark red colour matches perfectly with A/W outfits and black wears, it is the best touche up for a look of rebellious girl look. Yes, this is the image I am going to create in this winter... isn't it funny for a pregnant woman to look a bit naughty and deviant?

Just kidding, but I have never tried such dark colour before. I guess the last trend of deep red lips was in early 90s - Christy Chung was the best demonstrator of such make up style. However, it would be a modified version this year, sheer texture should come with the dark shade to make the lips more kissable and radiant. I guess Clinique is a good choice, and I heard that MAC is not bad also.

However, to create a rocky girl look, I should get well soon and start to do some exercise, otherwise, it can be very awful to my pale complexion goes with the dark lips, or I should save this horrible look for Halloween.

I am a mean girl

I have just called off the search of Jelly. Finally he came back to Hong Kong from some place else. He was out of town to a mysterious place about a half month.

Maybe we have not seen him for quite a long time, we feel he looks a bit different, or maybe he is just tired.

In the afternoon, my interesting colleague, who likes Jelly a lot, came into my room and was whispering 'Oh your boss is back...why did he shave his hair?'

I replied straightly 'He didn't shave his hair, he lost it.'

Definitely the above dialogue is in Cantonese, not Jelly's mother tongue.

No more frowning

The story told by Chrissee this morning made me discover my 'little yet big' change - I used to have a 'frowning lines' which lies vertically between my eyebrows, and the left one was particularly obvious, but they diminish... actually I can still spot the very fine line in the left when I have a close up, but it is not that obvious as before.

I can conclude 4 possibilities of this 'miracle':
1. I feel more content to my life and reduce the frequency of frowning.
2. I don't have to sharpen my vision by squeezing my eyebrows when my eyes feel tired but I wear glasses during work (I have long sight).
3. My moisturizer and beauty rituals do work.
4. All of above

Girls, relax and smile more to stop fine lines and wrinkles develop on your face!!!

Save our habitat

I am still suffering from running nose, sneeze and sore throat.

Actually the sickness was not serious, however, thanks to the pollutants we can see by our flesh eyes, they stimulate my respiratory system and I could not get the total recovery for a whole week.

When I look up the grey sky, I ask myself, how come Hong Kong is being like this? Where is our lovely subtropical monsoon climate? What a unbearable habitat we leave for our next generations??

I am thinking, I should do something.

I am going to write an email to Environmental Campaign Committee (ecc.epd.gov.hk) to address my concerns. It is useless for the government to deliver slogans simply from the Blue Sky Campaign but lack of other effective measures, if it still believes protecting our living place will damage the economic development. Do you remember the '888 light out event' in 2006? Mr. Tsang refused to stop the A Symphony of Lights for just one night, his reasons was - it will damage the international status of Hong Kong if we switch off the lights.

My gracious!!!

In long term, I will try my best to convey the concept of 'saving our planet' to the next generation, to write some stories and arrange field trips for them, and to join some Environmental Protection Organization with them.

Personal effort can still make a big difference, it just depends whether you are willing to do it.

What if I live alone?

Suddenly I have a weird thought...

How about if I have not married but am having a single life and living alone?

I think my little 'paradise' will be very messy. I will not make my bed everyday because I slept until the last moment. I will not cook always because this is neither my interest nor strength. You know, I can just pick a piece of ham from fridge and put into my mouth.

I will spend a lot on skincare and outfits and you cannot tell my home is a chaotic place by judging my appearance.

I would not switch on the air con always because I hate air con and it makes my skin dry. Instead, I will use fan or air cooler more.

I may stock up many organic and healthy food but cannot consume all before the expiry dates.

I will only wash my clothes once a week or less, or just send to laundry.

I will burn essential oil to make my place cozier... but just in the first few months when I move in this house, and give up soon because I realise I am too lazy to clean the burner.

CUP Magazine

Have you read a magazine called CUP?

It never targets the mass market, a very localized, political, sarcastic, critical yet hilarious monthly magazine from several intellectuals in Hong Kong. It's available Pacific Coffee and I read it every weekend when I go there, but I am considering to subscribe it.

I think you may love it, if you don't, at least you can learn something from it.

There is no free education

Have just read an article in SCMP 'The high cost of our 'free' education, by Alex Lo, Sep 06, 2007.

His key point is, thanks to the dyfunction of Hong Kong education system, many parents pay huge expenses to tutorial and interest classes for their children - the education in Hong Kong is not free at all.

Our education system has gone through radical revolution for decades, but what we can get from it?

Do you remember how many tutorial classes you attended in Form 5 and Form 7? For me, in Form 7, I joined 4 tutorial courses- Micro/ Macro Economics and Physical/ Human Geography, for the two A-level subjects. Not to mention those super intensive courses before the examination.

Frankly, I do not want my kid to go through the same ridiculuous system as I did.

Visual bookshelf

I am tidying up the Visual Bookshelf in my facebook. It is an application to show your friends what books you had read, want to read or are reading.

Currently I am reading 'The Nanny's Diaries'. A novel about the part-time nanny, Nanny (this is her name), who is a college student who helps wealthy Mrs. X to take care of her 4 years old kid, Grayer.

Mrs. X is a typical wife of an affluent man, especially in the world of soap opera and novels- doesn't work, doesn't do housework, doesn't raise her own kid, doesn't own her husband solely..... her main 'jobs' are throwing parties, collecting silver plate from Tiffany, having high-tea, etc. Well, sometimes I wonder if this is just a kind of stereotyping we have to all those rich wives?

I have just finished less than half, I read so slow once I have Lucas.

My mother is a good presenter

If you know my mother well, you will know that my motherand many Tai-Tais, love to repeat every point at least 3 times in a conversation.

Remember my bosses had taught me a very basic rule for presentation, that is:
Tell them (the audience) what you are going to tell them - i.e. the introduction
Tell them - the main content
Tell them what you have told them - the summary

I just realize my mother is an outstanding presenter.

Boring...

Had just gone through a painful peak season. This peak season was the one of the most exhaustive because it crashed my morning sickness.

Anyway, these two weeks are already much better. God treats me not bad, at least all those new projects just fly into after the end of the prime time.

My company will have an incentive tour tomorrow until next Monday, the destination is Perth, Australia. Wow!!! Poorly I will stay in office because Jeff strongly 'recommended' me not to travel when I am pregnant...... He even threatened me he would not sleep and have microwave lunch box with Lucas for every meal if I insist to travel.

Okay, giant trees and fresh air in Perth, hope we will meet one day.

Professional Nannies

I've just read an article 'In good hands' in SCMP, which is about professional nannies in Hong Kong. Most parents who employed these professionalists were expatriates in the past but now local Chinese is also a fast- growing customer segment.



These super nannies are highly educated and well trained. Most of them received education in early childhood education. Some local parents love to hire English native speaking nannies in order to allow their kids to expose to the language in the very early stage, while other selected those from Taiwan who can teach the children Mandarin in the daily environment.

Surely, you have to pay big buck for these specialists, the salary of an experienced nanny is around HKD40,000.

In the article, a western nanny comments that Hong Kong parents in general focus too much on the kids' academic result but overlook other important aspects of their upbringing.


Well, I still believe love, care and teaching from parents are the most important for children. Being a mother, I think the best thing for my kids is to expose to different opportunities and experience, to encourage them to explore life, but not to mould them into the shape as I expect. We give lives to children, but it does not mean we have the right to control their path in the future.