ARTICLES

Lost in Libya's Turmoil: Workers from the Third World

2011-06-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Lost in Libya's Turmoil: Workers from the Third World

By Abigail Hauslohner / Benghazi Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011

TIME MAGAZINE

Foreign workers wait in queues in Benghazi, Libya, on Saturday, Feb. 26, hoping to evacuate the country.

Grammar- Tenses

Aziz has no passport, no money and a lot of anxiety. He spent months making his way illegally northeast from West Africa, bypassing other conflicts, to get away from his own war-torn nation of Liberia and find something better in oil-rich

Libya

. "I was looking for survival," he says of the long desert journey from Sudan. For a year, he found it, earning a meager wage as a car washer in the town of Kish. Now, waiting in line at Shehada Jazeera School in the Libyan port city of Benghazi, he's running for his life all over again.

The Libyan revolution 1. ___________( just enter) only its second week of turmoil. But tens of thousands of expatriates 2. __________( already flee) the country — spilling over the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, out of Tripoli on chartered evacuation flights and into the port at Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, which is now under rebel control.

In late February, foreign embassies 3. __________(scramble) to evacuate their nationals as fighting rocked the capital and other cities along the country's coast. On Feb. 25, a U.S.-chartered ferry 4. _________(evacuate) more than 300 people, including 167 Americans, from Tripoli to Malta. British military aircraft evacuated 150 oil workers from the Libyan desert on Feb. 26, and the embassy 5. ______(charter) other aircraft from the capital. China says it has so far evacuated 12,000 Chinese workers out of some 33,000 believed to be working in the country.

On Saturday, Feb. 26, in Benghazi, a lone British diplomat 6. ________(scan) the lines of Chinese and Bangladeshi workers who 7. __________( queue) in a cold Mediterranean drizzle, amid the overpowering stench of raw sewage, to board two Greek cruise ships that 8. __________(dock) overnight to evacuate more people. Sent by the British embassy in Tripoli, the diplomat said he 9. __________(scour) the city for British citizens who still needed help. Finding none at the port, he got back into his car and drove off. Later, the ships departed, carrying only the Chinese workers; the hundreds of Bangladeshis who 10. ________(wait) for hours were left behind, many of them in tears.

Indeed, for those holding passports from the developing world, the situation is increasingly grim. Thousands of workers from South Asia and West Africa are stranded here, many without passports or any cash and with nowhere else to go. Crowding the floors of buildings inside the port are Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Thais and Filipinos. Most, like the Bangladeshis, 11. _________(abandon) by their construction companies. Their Turkish and Chinese managers have escaped without them, and their home countries are too poor, unorganized or anarchic to lend a hand. "We spoke to the Turkish consulate, and they said they would only take the Turkish people," says Idris Shebany, 42, a Libyan businessman turned volunteer who has set up camp at the port to help the foreign refugees, with a sigh. "The others 12. ________(be) no ambassadors, no consuls," says another volunteer, Hayan Salaama, as he shakes his head.

In the absence of a functioning government or international aid organizations, it is Libyan volunteers like Shebany and Salaama — many of them businessmen and doctors in the opposition-held port city — who 13. _________(take) on the difficult task of helping the foreign workers who have been left behind make their escape from chaos. They 14. __________(set) up a makeshift clinic and gathered blankets and mattresses, and they are churning out three meals a day for the foreign workers crowding abandoned offices and storage rooms. One man who normally sells women's clothes 15. __________(pick) up an AK-47 to guard the camp.

Shebany says that roughly 5,000 to 6,000 new foreigners have been arriving every day, many of them packed into buses or trucks. Most so far — Chinese, Turks, Americans and Europeans — have gotten out, the Chinese abandoning an entire battery of cars and trucks in their wake. A muddy field at one end of the port, where people making a quick exit had recently been camped, is scattered with shoes and discarded clothing.

On Saturday morning, 800 Filipinos and 400 Indians arrived from the desert towns of Jalu and al-Kufrah, Shebany says. But it's impossible to get an exact head count. "After an hour, it could be 2,000 to 3,000. We don't have a list, and at any minute, more buses could arrive." He tried asking the Egyptians if they could take any of the foreign nationals over the border. Their response was no.

VOCABULARY

Find the correct word from the passage for each of the following meanings given below.

1. looking or sounding very serious. ________________

2. situation in which groups of people or organizations are involves in serious disagreements ot arguments. __________________

3. an attempt, by a large number of people, to change the government of a country, especially by violent actions. ______________

4. a state of great anxiety or confusion. ____________

5. a person who fights against the government of the country. __________

6. to move people from a place of danger to a safe place. ____________

7. a person whose job is to represent his or her country in a foreign country. _____________

8. to leave somebody in a place from which they have no way of leaving. _____________

9. a situation in a country or organization in which there is no government, order or control. ______________

10. the building where a consul works. A consul is a government official who is the representative of his country in a foreign city. _____________

ANSWERS-Grammar- 1. has just entered 2. has already fled 3. scrambled 4. evacuated

5. chartered 6. scanned 7. were queuing 8. had docked 9. was scouring

10. had waited 11. have been abandoned 12. have 13. have taken

14. have set 15. has picked

Vocabulary- 1. grim 2. conflicts 3. revolution 4. turmoil 5. rebel 6. evacuated 7. diplomat 8. stranded 9. anarchic 10.consulate

Blade Runner from Readers' Digest

2011-06-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

Blade Runner

Oscar Pistorius is forcing the world to rethink what it means to be disabled

It's time to make time for friends by Lee Wei Ling

2011-06-29T08:47:00.001-07:00

I have always tried to live as spartan a life as possible. My room, my attire, my food and drinks are such that if I need to pay my own bills inclusive of rent, I could comfortably live on $2,000 a month. Since I live with my father, I spend even less. Some would call me frugal; others, less friendly, would call me stingy.

Since my secondary school days, I have always been economical about my time. It was 10 years ago that I first read Rudyard Kipling's poem If in its entirety. My mother used to chide me for being so intense about not wasting time. But as Kipling put it: 'If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,/ Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,/ And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!'

My mother told me my father would often quote these lines. So for appointments or meetings or functions, he would calculate the precise travelling time he would require and leave home so as to arrive at his destination at the exact time, and not a second earlier.

Coming back to Kipling's poem, while I have no desire to own the Earth or everything in it - and I most certainly have no wish to be a man - I still try to 'fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' run'. But I do so in different ways now than I used to, for I have grown older.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when I did research, I would key in the data myself, write the program for the statistical analysis, do the analysis, then, using the results of the analysis, write up the article. All that took a lot of time.

So as to fill the minute with 'sixty seconds' run', I had a plank of wood firmly attached to the handle bar of my stationary bike. With the keyboard resting on the plank, I would do my work while pedalling away furiously.

I have friends, and I don't forget them. I would certainly help any of my friends if they need my help, and I know they would help me if I needed help.

In my two years at Raffles Institution (RI), I made only a handful of friends. Forty years later, we are still close friends, though we sometimes don't meet up for a few years. Some people may find this strange. The answer is simple: We are all in different professions.

X is a vice-principal, Y is an analyst in the petroleum industry, and Z and S were administrators who have retired early though they are only 56. None among them, besides me, is a doctor.

In daily life, we interact most often with those with whom we work. So some of my closest friends are in the same profession as I am - medicine.

My staff at the National Neuroscience Institute are thus also among my friends. Indeed, a more precise term for them would be 'comrades', for we share the same aspiration, which is to help our patients. I also like the fact that 'comrade' carries a socialist egalitarian implication.

The last time my RI friends and I met was in 2009 when I was hospitalised. We tried to arrange another meeting earlier this year, but it was postponed twice. I was happy when we finally did manage to meet up.

Age has treated my friends very kindly; they do not look 56 years old. I have been less fortunate in that respect, but I have no right to complain. I escaped death by a hair's breadth a few times. I am not sure why, but I have mellowed as a result. I now actually actively invite friends to visit me, rather than say, 'I'm too busy, carry on without me'.

So I had a great time catching up with my RI friends and talking about our dreams for our future. On the spur of the moment, I wanted to show them a particular photograph that was perched on my bookshelf.

At the top of the shelf, I have a few pictures, including a replica of a painting by Sir John Everett Millais showing two nuns digging a grave in a graveyard in a rural area with poplar and other varieties of trees in the background. There is also a Liuligongfang, a special glass statue of a lotus leaf with a lotus pod. It is understated yet elegant. My mother had given it to me.

As I was reaching for the photograph I wanted, I toppled the glass lotus leaf. A corner of the leaf broke off. I cursed, 'Dammit', picked up the glass lotus, and placed it back on the shelf. Then carefully, I picked up all fragments of glass on the floor.

For a few minutes, I was somewhat despondent, for the glass lotus was not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also had great sentimental value. Then I reminded myself that detachment from worldly things is part of Buddhist philosophy. Anyway, unless one goes right up to the ornament and stares at it, the defect would not be obvious.

My old classmates were sitting outside in my sitting room. I took the photo I wanted to show them, and told them what had happened. I used the Chinese phrase, nadeqi, fangdexia, which means if you can pick something up, you should be prepared to let it go without any feeling of regret or sorrow. That is similar to the Buddhist teaching of detachment.

I have not attained that state yet, but perhaps I am closer to it than before. As I told my old friends, much as I valued the glass lotus, their presence and our friendship far outweighed the loss.

My mother, if she had been still alive, would certainly have approved of how I reacted. Friends are indeed more precious than even beautiful objects.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.

The Earthquake in Japan: Monster Tsunami

2011-03-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

Mar 12, 2011 , STRAITS TIMES

JAPAN TSUNAMI

Monster Tsunami

Hundreds killed after major quake triggered tsunami in Japan

By Kwan Weng Kin, Japan Correspondent

GRAMMAR- Past Tense and Past Perfect tense

TOKYO: A massive tsunami unleashed by the most powerful earthquake on record to hit Japan caused widespread damage across the nation's Pacific coast yesterday, killing hundreds and injuring an untold number.

The wall of water - reports said it was as high as 10m in some parts – 1. _______(toss) large ships around like rubber dinghies, 2. _______(drag) vehicles as if they were toys, and destroyed buildings across a wide area.

The tsunami washed tonnes of debris several kilometres inland and placed large swathes of coastal cities underwater, 3. _______(rip) up highways and downing phone lines. In one episode, the Kyoto news agency said the 4. _______(churn) waves washed away a boat with 100 people aboard.

Late last night, reports began 5. _______(emerge) that a passenger train 6. ______(go) missing in a coastal area. There was no information on the number of people aboard.

Police in the coastal city of Sendai reported finding more than 200 bodies, and 7. ______(dispatch) about dead or missing people continued to trickle in late into the night.

But rescue efforts are just getting under way, and it is likely the final death toll and full extent of devastation will only be known in the coming days.

The magnitude 8.9 quake 8. ________(occur) about 128km off Japan's north-east coast, and triggered tsunami warnings across much of the Pacific Ocean, including as far away as South America.

But as the hours ticked by, that threat 9. ________(recede), with many countries which 10. _______(brace) themselves for inundation reporting that only small waves reached their shores.

Nevertheless, the fear of a repeat of the 2004 tsunami disaster sent thousands in South-east Asia, including Indonesia and the Philippines, 10. _______(rush) inland and towards higher ground.

By late last night, the tsunami, travelling at the speed of a jet aircraft, 12. _______(reach) Hawaii, but was much smaller than feared - waves reached about 30 cm in height - bringing relief to an edgy populace that had endured a night with the sound of warning sirens blaring.

The authorities on the west coast of the United States and elsewhere, however, were still steeling themselves for impact. The waves are projected to make landfall there early this morning.

Japan's Pacific coast fared much worse. As many in the country watched in horror on live TV - an unlikely spectacle made possible by the practice of networks here to switch to quake programming whenever a major one hits - a rolling wall of brackish water gobbled up boats, cars, farmland and highways near the Natori River.

Live pictures also showed the runway at Sendai airport being turned into a river, and another gathering storm offshore heading towards the stricken city.

'I 13. ______(never see) anything like this,' Mr Ken Hoshi, a local government official in Ishinomaki, a port city in Miyagi prefecture where Sendai is located, told Agence-France Presse.

Similar scenes unfolded at dozens of cities and villages along the coast.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Naoto Kan acknowledged that widespread damage 14. ________(cause) by the tsunami.

Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano told the Associated Press: 'Our initial assessment indicates that there 15. _________(already be) enormous damage.

'We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment.'

“Offers of help in dealing with the disaster are already pouring in, with Singapore, China and Russia among those offering expertise,” said an official.

In a statement last night, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: 'We are in touch with the relevant Japanese authorities to work out their specific needs.'

US President Barack Obama offered his country's help. The United Nations and European Union also made similar offers.

In contrast to the devastation wrought by the tsunami, the earthquake and as many as 20 aftershocks which followed caused comparatively little damage.

In the immediate aftermath of the temblors, scattered reports of damage surfaced - several fires broke out, and there were reports of houses and other structures collapsing in Ibaraki and other prefectures north of Tokyo, as well as several injuries from falling debris.

There were numerous flight disruptions after airports 16. ____(close), stranding thousands of travellers. But most - except the one at Sendai - were shut down as a precaution, and by early evening many, including Narita, were slowly resuming operations.

The most alarming incident concerned a nuclear power plant whose cooling system developed a fault.

Several such plants near the epicentre of the quake 17. ________(shut down) successfully as a precaution, but the Fukushima No. 1 plant in Onahama city, 270km north-east of Tokyo, developed problems.

Although no leaks were detected, a state of emergency 18. _______(declare), and residents living within a 3km radius of the plant 19. ______(tell) to evacuate.

In Tokyo, the most serious incident appeared to be the collapse of the roof in a hall where a graduation ceremony 20. ________(hold), injuring students.

VOCABULARY

Widespread panic, however, gripped millions, who left their offices and rushed out onto the streets in search of safety.

Trains also ground to a 1. ________, stranding thousands of commuters.

Many homes were left without power and water in the greater Tokyo area.

The 2. ________ caused lifts to automatically stop moving all across the capital, forcing many companies to call it a day earlier than usual.

Earthquakes in Japan, which sits within the so-called Pacific 'Ring of 3. _______', are fairly commonplace, although the vast majority are weak tremors.

Still, the country is well-drilled in responding to quakes, and strict building codes and other steps have made it widely regarded as possibly the nation best 4. ________for natural disasters of this sort.

But the damage this time to Japan's economic infrastructure is likely to derail the country's nascent economic recovery.

Huge amounts of 5. _______ needed for the reconstruction of quake-hit areas are likely to add to Japan's already soaring public debt, which is close to 200 per cent of its gross domestic product.

'This is certainly the worst thing that can happen in Japan at the worst time,' Mr Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted the global financial crisis, told Bloomberg Television.

'There will be fiscal stimulus to reconstruct but Japan already has a budget deficit of close to 10 per cent' of gross domestic product and an ageing population.

ANSWERS- Grammar- 1.tossed 2 dragged 3 ripping 4 churning 5 emergency 6 had gone 7 dispatches 8 occurred 9 receded 10 had braced 11 rushing 12 had reached 13 have never seen 14 had been caused 15 has already been 16. Were closed 17 were shut down 18 was declared 19 were told 20 were being held

Vocabulary – 1. Halt 2 vibrations 3 Fire 4 prepared 5 money

Amid Sendai's Devastation, a Father Seeks His Daughter

2011-03-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

Amid Sendai's Devastation, a Father Seeks His Daughter

The Earthquake in Japan

By HANNAH BEECH / SENDAI Sunday, Mar. 13, 2011 , TIMES MAGAZINE ONLINE

Bowlegged and rheumy-eyed, 76-year-old farmer Masahira Kasamatsu barreled down the sodden path. His pants were rolled above his knees and his shoeless feet were covered with inky mud deposited by the tsunami that had swept across northeastern Japan three days earlier, killing thousands upon thousands of people. "I'm looking for my daughter," he said, barely breaking his stride as we negotiated fallen electricity poles and mangled cars. "Her name is Yoko Oosato. Have you seen her?"

Kasamatsu's daughter 1. __________(work) for 30 years at the airport in Sendai, the largest city in the devastated region. After a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the worst in Japan's history, 2. ________(strike) on March 11, the coastal airport 3. ________(deluge) by a 10-m-high wave of water that churned up debris and mud several kilometers inland. Hundreds of upturned cars, airplanes and trucks littered the waterlogged landscape.

For three days, Kasamatsu, whose coastal home 4. __________(flood) by the tsunami, called his daughter's cell phone to no avail. He 5. _______(listen) to the death rolls on the radio. He did not hear her name. Finally, Kasamatsu and his wife, Emiko, climbed into their car and drove toward the airport. The roads were barely passable; petrol ran out. The couple spent the night in their unheated car before he abandoned the vehicle and began desperately wading through water and mud to get to the airport.

"I know there are so many people that are dead," he said, as we entered the terminal building, passing 6-m-high piles of cars and uprooted pines. A pair of 6. _______(discard) sandals sat neatly in front of the domestic terminal. "I know that my daughter may be just one more person among so many dead. But my 7. ______(deep) hope is that she is alive. That 8. ______(be) my only prayer at this moment."

Across northern Japan, invocations 9. ______(utter)by family members who still had no idea whether their loved ones were alive or dead. Tens of thousands of people were still unaccounted for, and radio stations 10. _________(labour) relayed information about centenarians looking for their relatives or dead children identified by their birthmarks. Cell-phone networks were down in much of the region, and vast lakes formed by the tsunami rendered roads 11. ______(pass).

With food, water and gas 12. ______(run) low, lines of people snaked through towns in stretches of several kilometers, waiting patiently for whatever sustenance could be found, even as temperatures 13. ______(dip) toward freezing. Adding to the distress, nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture were in danger of suffering meltdowns as a result of the quake and tsunami, 14. _______(send) radioactive material into air already bursting with tragedy. On Sunday, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and possible nuclear fallout the country's "worst crisis" since World War II.

In Miyagi prefecture, a group of students from the Civil Aviation College floated in an inflatable yellow raft across what was dry land just three days before. Some 170 students and airplane-maintenance employees 15. _______(watch) the tsunami roll in from the roof of a school building, where they 16. ________(decamp) after the earthquake triggered a tsunami alert that was broadcast on loudspeakers, radios and TVs. "The tsunami came toward us so slowly that it was hard to understand what 17. _______(approach)," recalled Satoshi Tsuchira, 24. "But then it came and kept on coming and I wondered if it would ever end."

A 10-m-high wave of water 18. _______(maroon) their building and sent a churning mass of vehicles, planes and houses swirling past them. The students kept their eyes on a solitary man who clung to the top of a bobbing truck for a night and 19. ______(gasp) as the receding waters pulled dozens of cars out to sea. Those stranded on the roof had only one box of energy cookies for every four individuals. Rationing began, and a cold rain continued. On a nearby road, a forlorn piano lay on its side, along with an office stripped of its wall. After more than 24 hours, the fire department arrived to rescue the trapped students. As they ferried some of their belongings from their dorm to high ground, the prospect of a radioactive cloud possibly making its way toward them was too much to comprehend. "We have suffered through an earthquake and a tsunami," said Koutaro Nousou. "Our college is underwater. I can't deal with another disaster. It's just too much."

As the students gathered up their things to take to an unheated evacuation center where they would sleep two to one blanket, Masahira Kasamatsu 20. ________(make) his way to the Sendai airport. Entering the terminal, he climbed up a suspended escalator that wobbled under his weight and quietly approached a man in a gray jacket who looked like he was in charge. His name was Kenichi Numata. After suffering through the earthquake, Numata immediately headed to the designated high ground — in his case the airport — as he 21. ______(teach) in the tsunami drills conducted up and down coastal Japan. Numata had watched from the airport as dozens of people 22. _______(succumb) in the surrounding water. He now knew that his house 23. _______(wash) away. "Everything is gone," he said, with a sweep of his hand. "It's all gone."

But there was little time to process this loss. Numata 24. ________(designate) as one of the section leaders organizing the 1,600 people initially stranded at the Sendai airport. They 25. _________(complete) cut off, with no cell-phone access or information about what 26. ________(befall) the rest of the region. "What is your daughter's name, again?" he asked Kasamatsu. The farmer slowly repeated her name and stared into the middle distance. Numata and others conferred. "Yoko Oosato, is it," Numata said. "Why, she went home just a little while ago." It took a moment for Kasamatsu to process the news. He nodded slowly. "She's O.K.," he repeated, as if to convince himself. "She's O.K."

We drove Kasamatsu through the floodwaters back to his wife, who was waiting beside their car, 27. ______(mangle) vehicles and 28. ______(twist) buildings all around. As we approached, she dove into her car to offer me an armful of oranges and apples in gratitude for 29. _______(drive) her husband back from the airport. Only as she gathered up the fruit did their eyes meet. "And Yoko?" she asked her husband. "She's O.K.," Kasamatsu replied. "She's O.K." There were no hugs or overwhelming expressions of elation. Their daughter 29. _________(spare). But devastation was still all around.

ANSWERS- 1. Had worked 2. Struck 3. Was deluged 4. Had been flooded 5. Listened 6. Discarded 7. Deepest 8 is 9 were being uttered 10 laboriously 11 impassable 12 running 13 dipped 14 sending
15. had watched 16 had decamped 17. Was approaching 18 marooned 19 gasped 20 was making 21 had been taught 22 succumbed 23 had washed away 24 had been designated 25 had been completely 26 had befallen 27 mangled 28 twisted 29 having driven 30 had been spared

The Earthquake in Japan, March 2011

2011-03-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

The Earthquake in Japan
After a Disaster, What Defines a Country's Resilience?

By DR. SHERI FINK Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2011 . TIME MAGAZINE

Japan, March 15, 2011.

GRAMMAR- perfect tenses, present, past

The unfolding crisis in Japan is marked by uncertainty, but seasoned emergency responders have a clear mission: to promote resilience in survivors. Resilience, in this sense, is a metaphor for the quality of an elastic object that springs back into shape after being deformed. Resilient people and communities are those that recover readily from trauma.

In the acute phase of a disaster, fostering resilience has more to do with social than psychological assistance. Not long ago, it was common to find therapists rushing to a disaster zone, 1. _________(engage) survivors in a discussion about the trauma they had just experienced, and sometimes indiscriminately dispensing sedatives. So-called "critical incident stress debriefing," which still has its adherents, 2. ________(fall) out of vogue. It's "been found to be ineffective," says Dr. Leslie Snider, a psychiatrist and senior technical adviser for the War Trauma Foundation in the Netherlands.

Research and experience 3. _______(lead) experts to focus instead on promoting social interventions that decrease stress and restore a sense of control, safety and normality whenever possible. That includes ensuring that survivors 4. ________(be) social support and access to information about the emergency. It also means arming people with practical knowledge about how to help themselves and those around them, a sort of emotional first aid that anyone can offer to a neighbor, friend or loved one. Helping others "is good for the people 5. ________(help) as well as the people providing that help," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "The more people know what they're supposed to do and what they can expect, the more capable they will be in responding to a disaster."

By the measure of self-help, the Japanese 6. _______( already show) great signs of resilience, which benefits from good disaster 7. ________(prepare). The government is working with private companies such as supermarkets to increase food aid to disaster survivors. Hundreds of disaster medical teams 8. _________(deploy), and many localities are drawing upon pre-existing agreements to aid each other in times of need. Many regular citizens 9. _________( also step) forward to assist, including offering private buildings to shelter the displaced.

With an estimated 15,000 people still missing, 10. ________(reunite) family members with surviving relatives as quickly as possible, and 11. ________(bring) those without families into social networks, is also important for recovery, particularly among children. " 12. ______(be) a buffering adult who's protective, who's reassuring and is confident, can help children get through the most traumatic situations relatively unscathed," Redlener says.

The United Nations estimates that about half a million people have moved to evacuation centers in Japan, almost half of them from areas around nuclear plants. Aid workers from the nonprofit organization Save the Children USA have set up a play area in one center in Sendai and are planning for more. "The most simple interventions really change lives," says Deb Barry, global director for child protection at the organization.

Save the Children 13. ______(train) disaster-affected volunteers to staff these "child friendly spaces" in emergencies. The idea is to give children a safe place to be kids. Barry says she 14. _______(see) "children who just literally don't speak, who are really afraid of things, even the sound of a truck going by because it reminds them of an earthquake. All the sudden, [they] get this confidence back where they can really express themselves."

Quickly 15. _______(restart) school may be an even stronger way to promote resilience in children. "In Japan, children's lives are very structured," Barry says. "We're already getting a sense children want to be back in school."

Cultural insights like that are important for responders from overseas. The Japanese government 16. ______( officially accept) assistance from 14 countries, and hundreds of international relief and search and rescue workers have already arrived. In particular, acts of mourning and recovery often draw on specific religious and spiritual practices and beliefs; in Japan, naming and identifying those who have died will be particularly important. When it comes to offering counseling, Japanese nationals are the best ones to provide it, says Yukie Osa, a professor of sociology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo and board chair of the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan. "It will be difficult for foreigners," she says. "The culture will be very different."

Osa, whose organization 17. ________(assist) survivors in Japan after having provided emergency relief around the world, including in war-ravaged Afghanistan and after the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, says Japanese people are used to giving overseas disaster aid, not getting it. "It's our first time to be helped," she says, but with such a vast area of devastation, ongoing displacement, harsh weather, and some places yet to be reached, the help is welcome. "I think people are ready to receive foreign assistance." She adds: "It's not only the goods, but also the people that are a help."

A recent newscast showed Pakistani residents of Japan 18. _________(cook) boiled rice for displaced people in a school. "The Pakistani person interviewed said, 'Since we were helped by Japanese people five years ago when the earthquake hit [Pakistan], now it is our turn to help Japanese people,'" Osa says. A child eating food in the gymnasium said that the curry was spicy, but delicious. "She 19. _______(smile)," Osa says. "It was a very touching scene."

Psychiatrist Snider says that profound events lead not only to losses, but also to unexpected gains, including new knowledge and skills. "Our lives are all about how we make meaning of events," she says. "How we pull the thread of our life's story through a very tragic or significant event is particularly important, because [the event] 20. __________(become) a part of that life story." Promoting resilience, she said, is about helping survivors search for and find their own meaning.

Dr. Fink is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, author of War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival, and a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She has worked with humanitarian aid organizations in more than a half dozen emergencies in the U.S. and overseas.

ANSWERS -Grammar- 1 engaging 2 has fallen 3 have led 4 have 5 being helped 6 have already shown 7 preparedness 8 have been deployed 9 have also stepped 10 reuniting 11 bringing 12 having 13 trains 14 has seen 15 restarting 16 has officially accepted 17 is assisting 18 cooking 19 was smiling 20 becomes

A LOVE STORY

2010-10-03T04:09:00.001-07:00

STRAITS TIMES, 19 Iune 2010.

A love story

Love at first sight is romantic but may not hold a candle to love that lasts a lifetime & is for better or for worse

By Lee Wei Ling

An advertisement for the 'Sassy Miss 2010 Workshop Series' in The Straits Times caught my eye recently. The headline was: 'The Power of First Impressions.'

The text claimed: 'It takes just 30 seconds for your first date or prospective employer to form an everlasting impression of you. So flash your X-factor, from the way you look to the style in which you carry yourself. Come uncover all the trade secrets of image-making at this power workshop!'

I was amused. If I want to make an impression, it would be to show my competence, sincerity, pragmatism and willingness to fight for what is right. My appearance and how I carry myself are highly unlikely to make an impression in a 30-minute encounter, let alone a 30-second 'flash'.

As for assessing someone on the first encounter, it would take me at least five to 10 minutes to appraise a person. I do not base my judgment on whether the person is good-looking or how he carries himself. Instead I would focus on his facial expression and body language.

If these contradict what he says, I would be wary of him. Body language and facial expressions are rarely under voluntary control and hence are better indicators of the true intent of a person than speech.

I am fairly good at sizing up people. There have been quite a few instances when I have accurately assessed someone at the first brief encounter. But even then, I seldom depend solely on first impressions. I will reassess the person on subsequent occasions. Only if I observe certain traits repeatedly would I be confident in my assessment.

Some people do indeed judge others on the basis of first impressions. Their judgment may well be strongly influenced by the person's appearance, how well he carries himself and how eloquently he speaks. I think such people are shallow. In life, we have to interact with people; and the more accurately we judge people, the fewer mistakes we are likely to make about them.

Research on interpersonal relationships between strangers shows that physical appearance does influence first impressions. But this does not explain why people stick together in long-term relationships. Commitment is a key variable in sustaining such relationships.

The one remarkable relationship I have personally observed is the one between my father and mother. Theirs was certainly not love at first sight. Nor were looks the main factor in their mutual attraction. Rather, it was personality and intellectual compatibility.

They are not only lovers, they are also best friends. There has never been any calculation about how much each had invested in the relationship. Theirs is an unconditional love.

Before my mother suffered her first stroke in 2003, she lived her life around my father, taking care of his every need. The stroke and the resultant disability made my mother quite frail.

From that point on, my father lived his life around her. He was still in the Cabinet, first as Senior Minister and then as Minister Mentor, but he tried his best to arrange his working schedule around my mother's needs.

He also took care of her health, strongly urging her to swim daily for exercise, and supervised her complicated regime of medication. He would also measure her blood pressure several times a day, till I got in touch with Dr Ting Choon Ming who had invented a blood pressure measuring equipment that is worn like a watch. Next day, when Dr Ting came to take the watch back to analyse the recorded blood pressure, my mother said to him: 'I prefer to have my husband measure my blood pressure.'

After my mother's second stroke in 2008, she became bed-bound and could no longer accompany my father on his travels overseas or to social functions here. Every night after returning home from work, my father now spends about two hours telling my mother about his day and reading aloud her favourite poems to her.

The poetry books are rather thick and heavy, so he uses a heavy-duty music stand to place the books. One night, he was so sleepy, he fell asleep while reading to my mother, slumped forward and hit his face against the music stand. Since the music stand was made of metal, he suffered abrasions on his face. He cursed himself for his carelessness but still carries on reading aloud to my mother every night.

I have always known my father was fearless, willing to fight to the bitter end for Singapore. When Vietnam fell in 1975, it looked for a while as though the domino hypothesis - which held that other South-east Asian states would also fall to the communists like dominoes - might turn out to be true. My father knew how ruthless the communists were, but he was determined to stay on in Singapore, and my mother was just as determined to stay on by his side.

I began this article because I was reading an article in a psychological journal on 'love at first sight versus love for a lifetime, for better or for worse'.

Love at first sight is rare and often does not endure. The affection my parents have for each other is also rare. They are each other's soul mates; their happy marriage has lasted beyond their diamond anniversary.

But they have never made a show of being a loving couple in public. Even in private, they have rarely demonstrated their love for each other with hugs or kisses. It was only after my mother's second stroke that I saw my father kiss my mother on her forehead to comfort her. They don't seem to feel the need for a dramatic physical show of love.

I have great admiration for what my father has done for Singapore - and at age 87, he is still promoting Singapore's interests. But he being the first-born son in a Peranakan family, I would not have suspected him to have been capable of such devotion as he has shown for my mother, taking care of her so painstakingly. My admiration for him has increased manifold because I have watched him look after my mother so devotedly over the last two painful years.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute

CONFIDANTE, COUNSEL AND COMPANION OF 63 YEARS

2010-10-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

Oct 3, 2010

Confidante, counsel and companion of 63 years

Brilliant and intensely private, the late Madam Kwa Geok Choo is best remembered as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's loyal partner, whose strength of character supported him as he built a new nation

By Lee Siew Hua, Senior Writer

She was the supremely capable wife who signed the cheques and kept the family strong, prompting her husband, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, to suggest, only half in jest, that he was a 'kept man'.

Many men will cringe at that status, believing that being kept is a contemptible station in life. Not so Mr Lee, who sometimes made counter-intuitive remarks about his wife that hinted at how equal their marriage was.

Married in 1947, their union spanned the decades from Singapore's vulnerable infancy to its arrival as a First World country. Telling the nation that he was a kept man was Mr Lee's way of acknowledging how central his wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, a brilliant cheongsam-clad lawyer, was in his career.

Because he had a resolute, able and successful wife at his side during the riotous 1950s, he had the freedom of mind to take arms against colonialism and communism, without worrying that their three young children might suffer if anything were to happen to him.

It was years later, in 1985, that he would say in Parliament: 'Over the years I've been a kept man. My wife keeps the family.'

That was a rare moment when the role in his life played by his intensely shy and private spouse surfaced.

For she had chosen all her life to support him from behind the front line. It was not her place to offer political advice, both appeared to agree, or advance her own agenda or take a direct part in politics.

When senior Straits Times journalists, interviewing him in the late 1990s for their book Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas, wanted to know what 'influence' Mrs Lee had on him, he responded:

'Not in political matters. In political matters, she would not know enough to tell me whether this is right or wrong.'

Tellingly, though, he indicated that she was a discerning judge of character.

Other times, he valued her frugality and staid quality. 'She's a very caring person, very staid, very caring; she's not frivolous and does not like to socialise, which saves a lot of time,' he said.

Trusted intermediary

Mr and Mrs Lee, together with Mr Lee's brother Kim Yew, set up the Lee & Lee law firm in a shabby Malacca Street shophouse in 1955.

It was there that Mrs Lee, or Choo as her husband called her, 'first personified the whole hazardous balancing act that was to decide the fate of Singapore', according to the late British journalist Dennis Bloodworth, who authored The Tiger And The Trojan Horse.

There, under the radar, she played the unlikely role of 'cut-out' or trusted intermediary between Mr Lee and two irreconcilable enemies - the British Governor and the 'Plenipotentiary' of the Malayan Communist Party.

Governor William Goode would make contact with Mr Lee, leader of the radical People's Action Party (PAP), through his confidential secretary Pamela Hickley, who would phone Mrs Lee and communicate in hushed tones.

As for 'The Plen', Mr Fang Chuang Pi, he did not trust telephones. But Lee & Lee's clients then included petty gangsters, unlicensed hawkers and a whole host of other humble people, so it was easy for The Plen's courier to slip upstairs to her office.

As Mrs Lee drily pointed out to Mr Bloodworth: 'A four-digit lottery runner would look much the same as a communist agent.'

Mr Bloodworth was able to consult her in the early 1980s for his rich account of the duel between the non-communist PAP and communists. Her voice as it emerged in brief quotes in the book sounded coolly cogent and eloquent, hinting at a precise, lawyerly wit.

The same voice was also evident in the odd e-mail interviews she gave the media in her later years.

For example, when asked if she and Mr Lee had disagreements, she responded: 'Would you believe me if I say we never disagree or quarrel?

'Fortunately, these are over little matters. Kuan Yew leaves household decisions to me. Family matters have not been a problem.'

Another time, in a light-hearted sequence when Radio Television Hong Kong quizzed the couple in 2002, she teased Mr Lee. The interviewer, who started by asking them if they held hands, wondered about changes since their romantic Cambridge years.

Mrs Lee gave a deliberately plain reply: 'The only change is that we've grown older.'

Cheekily, the interviewer said: 'Black hair to white hair.'

Mrs Lee, who often banters with her husband, looked at him and quipped: 'Black hair to no hair.'

Nixon's compliment

In 1973, then United States President Richard Nixon paid artful homage to her at the White House:

'Tonight, when you saw me turning to Mrs Lee, I said, 'Mrs Lee, tell me, is it true that you were No. 1 in the class at Cambridge Law School and your husband was No. 2?' And she said, 'Mr President, do you think he would have married me if that were the case?'

'But I probed further, and I found that, as a matter of fact, Mrs Lee... did receive a first at Cambridge Law School.

'Her husband did also, but like a very loyal wife, she said, 'He had a first with a star after his name, and that is something very special'.'

Mrs Lee was being modest, for she had outshone her husband academically - not at Cambridge but earlier, at Raffles College.

As Mr Lee related in his memoirs, The Singapore Story, he was the best student in mathematics, scoring over 90 marks.

'But to my horror, I discovered I was not the best in either English or economics. I was in second place, way behind a certain Miss Kwa Geok Choo.'

He sat up. 'I knew I would face stiff competition for the Queen's Scholarship,' he wrote.

They had first met at Raffles Institution. As the only girl in a boys' school, the principal had asked her to present the prizes in 1939, and he collected three books from her.

Their intellectual rivalry turned into friendship - and then love.

Her Prince Charming

The war from 1943 to 1946 disrupted their education. Together with Mr Yong Nyuk Lin, later a minister, whose wife was Miss Kwa's sister, Mr Lee started a small business making gum, which was then in short supply. The young Kuan Yew reconnected with Geok Choo in that context.

Later, he recalled: 'She told me... she was looking for her Prince Charming. I turned up, not on a white horse but a bicycle with solid tyres!'

It was often in his happy recollection of their love story - from his moonlight proposal to their secret wedding in 1947 while they were law students in Cambridge - that Mr Lee's forceful personality seemed to soften, even sparkle, most.

But then Mrs Lee regularly revealed a different side of the leader simply by her presence, or her well-timed words in a light British accent.

One day, for a Straits Times report to highlight healthy living, he hopped onto a bicycle on the Istana grounds.

The photographer and journalist found it awkward to instruct the leader of the land to keep cycling. Mrs Lee stepped to the fore, urging her husband to continue riding in circles until the photo shoot was complete.

In the public mind, however, she was very much the silent partner. 'I walk two steps behind my husband like a good Asian wife,' she said in 1976 on a visit to Kuala Lumpur. 'I am not used to interviews. I suppose I am interview-shy.'

In 1971, the Manila Times marvelled at the way the Lees kept out of the public eye. Mr Lee made sure there was 'no Lee Kuan Yew family with a capital F' and 'no Lee Kuan Yew cult', the paper said in a front-page story. And Mrs Lee was 'almost an invisible entity', the paper observed - in marked contrast to some first ladies elsewhere, including in the Philippines itself.

In this respect, she personified - and in many ways, set the model for - the Singapore-style political spouse: in the background, not a newsmaker, not flashy. She was always very quiet by Mr Lee's side in public. And by her manner and deportment, she set the moral tone for all the other political wives. Which was not to say she wasn't always observant - of situations as well as of people.

Mr Lee paid a glowing tribute to his wife in the preface to the first volume of his memoirs, The Singapore Story, which was dedicated to 'Choo':

'Choo was a tower of strength, giving me constant emotional and intellectual support,' he wrote. She would stay up with him till 4am while he laboured over his tome. 'A powerful critic and helper', she went over every word. 'We had endless arguments,' he wrote.

This was an echo of his early political life, when she used to polish his speeches because he had no time.

More significantly, she also had a hand in the 1965 Separation Agreement with Malaysia drafted by then Law Minister Eddie Barker.

Mr Lee had wanted the critical water agreements with Johor to be included in the Separation Agreement. He recounted in his memoirs: 'I was too hard-pressed, and told Choo, who was a good conveyancing lawyer, to find a neat way to achieve this.'

The paragraphs she drafted later became part of the Malaysian Constitution, guaranteeing Singapore's water supply from Johor.

The couple were inseparable. One evocative photograph that has appeared in this paper shows Mrs Lee watching and listening to her husband from a private coign on a rooftop, as he spoke at Fullerton Square rally during the 1984 General Election.

Even after her first stroke in 2003, which occurred while she and her husband were in London, she would still accompany him on trips - whether it was to Chinese New Year dinners in his Tanjong Pagar constituency or on long visits to the Middle East.

At every turn of their marriage of 63 years and in the nation's life of over 45 years, Mrs Lee's love for the father of modern Singapore ran like a leitmotif in his and the nation's life.

In the end, her life, so quiet and yet so entwined with his, made her a vital partner in the Singapore story.

siewhua@sph.com.sg

________________________________________

ABOUT MRS LEE

Madam Kwa Geok Choo was born in Singapore on Dec 21, 1920. Her parents were Mr and Mrs Kwa Siew Tee. Her father was the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation's (OCBC Bank) general manager from 1935 to 1945.

1936: Completes secondary education at Methodist Girls' School. First in the Senior Cambridge Examination for the whole of Malaya.

1937-39: Joins Raffles Institution Special Class, where she meets Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

1940-46: Enrols in Raffles College in 1940 and returns in 1946 after end of World War II.

1947: Graduates from Raffles College with First Class Diploma in Arts, winning the Queen's Scholarship.

1947-49: Reads law as a second-year student in Girton College, Cambridge University.

Places first in Part II of the Law Tripos - the first woman in Malaya to win this distinction.

1947: Secretly marries Mr Lee in December.

1950: Passes Bar final in May. Both she and Mr Lee are called to the Bar at the Middle Temple on June 21. Returns to Singapore. Marries Mr Lee again on Sept 30.

1951: Is admitted to the Bar in Singapore on Aug 7. Joins and becomes senior partner of a local law firm.

1952: Gives birth to son Lee Hsien Loong.

1955: The Lee & Lee law firm is established by Mr Lee, his brother Kim Yew and Madam Kwa.

1955: Gives birth to daughter Lee Wei Ling.

1957: Gives birth to second son Lee Hsien Yang.

1959: Mr Lee Kuan Yew is elected Prime Minister of Singapore. His brother and Madam Kwa take over the reins of Lee & Lee. They remain as consultants even after retirement from active practice.

1965: Helps in drafting parts of the Separation Agreement when Singapore leaves Malaysia.

2003: Suffers a stroke in October while on a visit to London. Recovers soon after and continues to accompany her husband on official trips.

2008: Suffers two strokes in May and in June, which leave her unable to get out of bed, move or speak.

2010: Dies at age 89, 11 weeks before her 90th birthday.

DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT A LOVED ONE'S SUFFERING

2010-10-03T04:05:00.001-07:00

Aug 29, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES

Difficult to accept a loved one's suffering

Feeling compassion with a detachment is wise, but tough when it comes to Mama

By Lee Wei Ling

The writer, then 19, with her mother and father in Rajasthan, India. Those were happier times before her mother suffered a stroke in May 2008 and became bedbound. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEE WEI LING

I awoke with a start, a while ago, from a dream. I looked at my watch. It was 4am.

It was a dream worth remembering, so I decided to write it down immediately. If I had not done so, I would not have been able to remember it later.

In my dream, I seemed to be simultaneously at home and outdoors at some unfamiliar place. Suddenly, a monster appeared and attacked me. I struggled with the monster but it matched me strength for strength. I did not utter a sound, nor was I frightened. Instead, I wrestled silently with it.

Suddenly my mother appeared. She walked towards us, but did not say anything either. Instead, she made a dismissive gesture and the monster turned tail and ran away.

That would be Mama's way of tackling problems, I thought: no need for unnecessary words or actions; just do things quietly and effectively.

At that point, I woke up. I got up from the floor where I was sleeping and went into my mother's room to see how she was doing. She was sleeping peacefully. I am now back in my room recording what I can still remember of my dream - for a 'dream' indeed it was, as it cannot be classified as a nightmare.

For two years and three months already, my mother has been too weak to get out of bed. But in that brief moment in my dream, I saw her again as she had been - physically normal.

I wished I could have dreamt on, and after some time, together with Mama, vanquished the monster in the dream and then walked off together.

In dreams, everything seems possible. That my mother appeared magically in my dream did not surprise me - either while I was dreaming or when I awoke. This is because between Mama and me, there was always some form of telepathy.

Once, when I was staying with my brother Hsien Loong, my toothbrush was worn out and needed to be replaced. I hardly ever shop, so I did what I had always done before: I told Mama I needed a new toothbrush.

Since we were in different houses and I did not want to wake her if she was sleeping by calling her on the telephone, I e-mailed her: 'Ma, I need a toothbrush.'

She e-mailed back: 'I am telepathic. I just got a toothbrush for you. But one day, the commissariat will not be around. If you don't know the word 'commissariat' go look it up in the dictionary.'

She was correct: I did not know what the word meant. And since I did not know where the dictionary was kept in my brother's house, that evening at dinner, I asked him what the word meant.

He knew, of course. 'Commissariat', he explained, is a department in the army charged with providing provisions to soldiers.

Now Mama is no longer in a position to be my commissariat. Worse yet, she is bedbound and no longer able to read - a favourite activity of hers.

Mama had wide interests. She knew things that even many highly educated people would not know or be interested in, as would be obvious if one rummaged through her bookshelves, as I did recently.

There were several books on the flora and fauna of Singapore. There was a hardcover book of children's nursery rhymes, which she had used to read to her grandchildren. Of all her grandchildren, my albino nephew enjoyed reading the nursery rhymes with her the most.

There were several books on Buddhism and Hinduism. There was a King James version of the Bible printed in a large font so that she could read it even without her reading glasses. There were many books on the Indian caste system, and a book describing the ancient city of Harappa in the Indus valley. The city dates back about 4,600 years ago, and was an important trade centre in the ancient world.

Mama was interested in the Silk Route long before it became a fashionable subject of interest. She had a book chronicling the travels of a Victorian lady on the Silk Route.

There were six Malay kamus, or dictionaries. There was a book on Chinese customs and symbols. And of course, there were many books of poetry, including a collection of Rudyard Kipling's poems.

There were also books relating to the early days of Singapore, including The Battle For Merger, a collection of radio talks my father delivered in 1961, detailing the early history of the People's Action Party's struggles with the communists. It is now out of print.

There were many books, too, written by others about my father, including Lee Kuan Yew In His Own Words, excerpts of his speeches from 1959 to 1970, edited by S.J. Rodringuez.

Mama also had the kinds of books one would expect to find on the bookshelves of someone so cultured: among other things, The Tale Of Genji, Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum And The Sword, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto's The Daughter Of A Samurai, the novels of Jane Austen, and a book I enjoyed tremendously as a child, Anne Of Green Gables.

Mama didn't just collect these books, she read them.

It is now 5.30am. I popped into her room again a while ago and she was still sleeping. I comforted myself that at least when she was sleeping, she was unaware of her unfortunate situation.

Now I am trying to go back to sleep myself, but I cannot do so - not because of the dream but because of Mama's unhappy predicament. It is acutely felt by her three children, my two sisters-in-law, and my cousin Kwa Kim Li, who is my mother's favourite niece. But the one who has been hurting the most, and is yet carrying on stoically, is my father.

It is easy when thinking in the abstract, to conclude that being born, growing old, falling sick and eventually dying is what happens to all of us. I accept these facts with no resentment that life is unkind. I have had more than my fair share of bad luck, but I never resented it, for I think suffering built up my resilience.

But I find it difficult to accept my mother's suffering. The Buddhist principle of feeling compassion but with detachment is wise, but it is not an attitude that I find humanly possible to adopt when it comes to Mama. I cannot see her suffering with detachment.

But there is nothing I can do to get her back to where she was before she suffered a massive stroke on May 12, 2008. She has been suffering since then, and so has my father. But that is life, and we all plod on, fulfilling our duties as best we can. Indeed by focusing my mind on my duties, I manage to temporarily block Mama's suffering from my consciousness.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.

Devoted Mother

2010-10-03T04:02:00.001-07:00

Oct 3, 2010

Devoted mother

Mrs Lee raised her children to be well-mannered and disciplined, and took pride in their achievements

To the country, she was Mrs lee. To her husband, she was Choo

To her three children, she was Mama - who corrected their English, took time off from work to lunch with them every day, occasionally wielded a cane, and continued to look out for them when they were adults, down to replacing her daughter's toothbrush when it was worn out.

She took Hsien Yang, now 53 and chairman of Fraser & Neave, out to the beach, watching over him like a hawk as he built sandcastles.

She bought clothes for Wei Ling, now 55 and director of the National Neuroscience Institute, as the latter was a 'reluctant dresser'.

And when her eldest son, Hsien Loong, now 58 and the Prime Minister of Singapore, was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1992, she agonised as only a mother could.

With a mother's telepathy, she knew instinctively when her children were in trouble.

Dr Lee Wei Ling, in a column for The Sunday Times, wrote of how in 1995 she had called home after a brush with death on a hiking holiday in New Zealand, but without intending to tell her parents what had happened.

Her mother nevertheless sensed instinctively that something had happened - 'but I'd rather not know what', she told a relative.

Wrote Dr Lee: 'My mother knew me better than I knew myself.'

By accounts, Mrs Lee practised tough love when the children were growing up, making sure that they never threw their weight around although they were the offspring of the prime minister.

When the need called for it, she did not spare the rod 'when the children were particularly naughty or disobedient', recounted Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in his memoirs.

'She brought them up well-mannered and self-disciplined,' he wrote.

As the family's main breadwinner during the early days of MM Lee's foray into politics, she worked long hours at the law firm she had co-founded with MM Lee and his brother, but would forego business lunches so as to be with the children.

In the evenings, she would take them to 'run around the Istana grounds while Kuan Yew played golf or practised on the practice tee and the putting green', she recalled in an interview with The Straits Times. 'And I remember taking them along to PAP picnics, and to Pulau Ubin to visit the Outward Bound School.'

For holidays, the family would visit the Cameron Highlands or Fraser's Hill in Malaysia at least once or twice a year - up to 1965. After that, they would vacation in Changi.

She took quiet pride in the children's achievements.

For instance, when Dr Lee had essays published in the Chinese newspapers, she would cut them out and paste them neatly in an exercise book.

Educated in Chinese-medium schools, their command of English is her achievement. A voracious reader with a passion for literature, she corrected their grammatical errors.

But the couple left it to the children to decide their careers, although she did dissuade Dr Lee, who was fond of dogs, against a career as a vet.

After the trio grew up, Mrs Lee's role evolved from a disciplinarian to that of confidante and companion.

In cahoots with her daughter, she persuaded Mr Lee on his 75th birthday to donate the proceeds from his book sales to polytechnic and Institute of Technical Education students instead of academically gifted students.

Her advice was often laced with her trademark humour.

Dr Lee recounted how as a by-product of being MM Lee's daughter, various people would ask to meet her though they had nothing specific to say to her.

'My mother used to say wryly of such people: 'If they cannot see the panda, the panda's daughter may be an acceptable substitute.'

She was a brilliant student and a sharp conveyancing lawyer. But it was clear that being a wife and mother were the most important roles to Mrs Lee.

In 2003, when the family auctioned for charity various personal possessions, she kept one thing: a pair of small ivory seals which she and Mr Lee had used to stamp the report cards of their three children. Another of her prized possessions was a gold pendant that Mr Lee had commissioned for her, with the engraved Chinese characters 'xian qi liang mu' (virtuous wife and caring mother) and 'nei xian wai de' (wise in looking after the family, virtuous in behaviour towards the outside world).

Dr Lee has written of how she had once e-mailed her mother when her toothbrush needed replacing. Mrs Lee e-mailed back:

'I am telepathic. I just got a toothbrush for you.

'But one day, the commissariat will not be around.'

Commonwealth Essay Competition: THE DAY I SAW MY PO-PO

2010-09-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Aug 24, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES

THE DAY I SAW MY PO-PO

Singaporean Tee Zhuo, 17, from Hwa Chong Institution, won a Gold Award (Special Award) at the 2010 Commonwealth Essay Competition organised by the Royal Commonwealth Society. The theme was 'Science, technology and society'. He wrote on inter-generational relationships.

GRAMMAR

IT WAS a swelteringly hot Saturday morning. Then again, which day isn't hot in this country? I couldn't help but wish I 1. ________(opt) to stay at home. Mum 2. _________(narrow) her eyes at me and I'd be in for a round of painful nagging later - but anything, anything just to stay at home. Away from this burning heat. Trudge, trudge, trudge. Away from what was sure to be an hour of 3. _______(listen) to dear old Po-po (Grandma) muttering under her breath about her husband. Who wasn't even alive. Trudge, trudge. Away from 4. ________(carry) enough groceries to last her last years. Trudge.

'Choy! Watch your tongue!' I immediately 5. _______(hear) Mum's voice sound inside my head, the forceful reproach followed immediately by the image of her 6. ________(flap) her hands, as though to frantically wave away my inauspicious mental comment. The real woman 7. ______(be) in front of me, handbag hanging from one hand, keys in the other, clacking-clapping against the jade bangle she wore. Po-po couldn't tell the front door from the TV, so Mum had to unlock the door herself.

'Hurry up. You waiting for Chinese New Year?' she 8. ______(snap) impatiently without looking back.

Glaring at her back, I 9. ______(trudge) on, feeling the poorly designed supermarket plastic bags cut into my palms. Up four flights of stairs, because this particular neighbourhood of Housing Board flats 10. _______(be+been+overlook) for refurbishment.

Refurbishment, which might 11. ________(include) a new lift. The old one served only odd-numbered floors and, well, Po-po just 12. _______(be) to live on the fourth floor, didn't she? In any case, the lift was faulty. Not that I 13. ______(will+be+enjoy) travelling in that metal box reeking of aged incontinence.

Finally. Knock, knock. Mum always knocked, even though she knew no one would answer. Then, sighing, she would fit the key into the padlock that sealed shut Po-po's kingdom. And with that horrible squeaking noise, the gate would open, and the door next. Today was the same. Knock, knock. Sigh. Click. Squeeeak.

'Ma, I'm here,' Mum said. As she did, every time. Then, depending on how my mother 14. ______(look) that day, one of the following replies would come from Po-po:

(A) 'Ah-Jing, come here, come here! So long since we've met!'

(B) 'Ah-Xiu, good to see you. 15. ________(be + you+eat) ?'

(C) 'Who are you? What are you doing in my house?'

(D) Bahasa Indonesia words that I can't comprehend. When we brought her along one day, our Indonesian maid giggled and said they meant: 'Stupid people, stop begging for money.'

Ah-Jing was the name Po-po gave my mother. But that wasn't her real name. Ah-Jing was given as a nickname because jing meant 'gold', 'shiny' or 'smart' in Chinese; (B) happened whenever my mother wore too much red and had her sunglasses on. Ah-Xiu was Po-po's favourite cousin. She was incredibly rich, but had died some years ago of pneumonia; (C) could happen any time at all, and happened the most often; (D) was when Mum brought me along. Somehow I reminded Po-po of beggars.

VOCABULARY

Sure enough, the moment we stepped in, an 1. __________ string of Bahasa Indonesia was feebly directed at us from what looked, at first 2. __________, to be an oddly shaped and purple-coloured batik bag on the sofa. Looking closer, you could see stick-thin limbs poking out of the bag, and the likeness of a face somewhere at the top of the bag. Po-po was a pitifully aged and tiny creature, having been 3. _________ ripped from her mother's womb, a story she was fond of 4. __________. A web of mustiness hung over her, an immovable, 5. __________ fortress. Even while standing just a few feet from her, I felt like she was miles away, locked away in some distant 6. ________ perhaps. Much like those cracked pieces of pottery you see at the museum.

The window in the flat was always shut tight, for the simple reason that Po-po would probably shatter in the wind if the window were left open. Therefore the air was still and 7. ________, like it was reluctant to part for anyone. Stepping into it gave no relief at all to the heat outside. It was like stepping into a 8. ________. Even the walls looked liked they were burnt, with black imprints where old bookshelves or a table had been.

My mother repeated: 'Ma, I'm here already. Ma?' As Mum shook her gently, it seemed as if Po-po was roused from some pleasant dream, her glazed-over eyes immediately 9. _______ back to the dark, angry black of reality.

'Ah-Xiu?' she croaked, a slight smile 10. _______ up her face.

'No, Ma, I'm Ah-Jing', said my mother resignedly. 'Zhuo, take the groceries to the kitchen and then come back and sit with Po-po.'

All hope was lost. Faintly, I heard the promise of a beautiful and relaxing Saturday float away like the dust in this flat. Half-formed ideas of swimming and ice cream 11. ________away.

Sigh. 'Po-po,' I mouthed almost noiselessly, hoping that she wouldn't catch it.

For someone so old, her hearing was 12. _________ keen. Beckoning to me, she patted the 13. _______ moth-eaten sofa beside her. Glancing at my watch, I made a mental note to time how long she would take today to tell the same old story.

'Good, Zhuo, be a filial grandson and keep her company,' my mother smiled encouragingly from behind the mountain of groceries.

I rolled my eyes at her, and then 14. _______ myself, as a soldier readies himself against the onslaught of the inevitable.

'When I was just a young girl in Jakarta...' That was odd. Po-po had never related the story of her 15. __________ in Indonesia. It was either 'My husband, that accursed mongrel, that infidel, that...' or just Bahasa Indonesia stream-of-consciousness complaints about everything in Singapore, from the heat to the food. It was with interest that I continued listening to this old woman in a purple batik dress that hung off her like an elephant's skin.

A small, pretty girl, probably not older than seven, stood in the middle of an equally beautiful garden. Orchids, ixora and spider lilies dotted the cool green grass of the garden like brilliant splashes of paint on an emerald canvas. The evening sunlight softly beamed on the little blur of purple, as the girl twirled around the garden.

'Pulang (come back), Wan Li. Dinner's almost ready,' called a voice from within the grand manor that towered behind the garden.

Happily, the little girl skipped back to the house, sure that her favourite beef rendang was waiting for her. And she wasn't disappointed. The smell reached her quite before the sight, the rich aroma of spices and coconut milk leading her towards the large rosewood table, where among a dozen other mouth-watering dishes stood a pot of piping hot rendang.

As though already predicting what would happen, her mother called out from within the kitchen: 'Don't touch the rendang, Wan Li.'

'Yes, Ibu (Mother)', but in the next second, she immediately scooped up a spoonful of the stew. Ah... Heavenly. The tender meat melted in her mouth, followed by the heart-warming sensation that comes only from homemade food.

After dinner, the little girl played Bengawan Solo on her grand piano, her small hands dancing carefully over the keys. She looked around, and saw her mother smiling indulgently while singing softly and clapping to the beat. Then, a long bath, a cup of hot wedang serbat (spiced drink), and the little girl was tucked into bed by her parents, sleeping with a smile on her face, knowing tomorrow would be yet another happy day, without worries - wonderful, perfect.

'Selamat tidur, sayang (good night, dear),' they would say.

'Selamat tidur, ibu. Selamat tidur, pak,' she would reply.

* * *

I HAD never seen Zhuo so attentive before. I unpacked the groceries, went to see if the laundry was done, swept the kitchen floor and came back. He was still sitting there.

No drooping head, or mechanical nodding. Unable to help myself, I smiled. Every day, I nagged at him: 'Can you be more caring towards Po-po? Talk more to Po-po! Go sit beside Po-po.' I knew he thought it was pointless to talk to an old woman, stricken with dementia, barely knowing to whom she was talking. How do you pull your child away from his teenage paradise of Wii, PS3 and iWhatever?

When Pa was still alive, he and Ma would take Zhuo to the kindergarten. They were so happy then, Pa driving the old Suzuki lorry and Ma beside him balancing Zhuo on her lap, laughing all the way to school. All differences between the two set aside, just for their grandson. But that was before Pa passed away. Then Ma grieved for so long, I was worried every day. She wouldn't eat. She grew depressed, angry at the world, angry at everything. Angry that she had come to Singapore. Angry with Pa, whom she cursed for tricking her. Tricking her into leaving family and home in Jakarta, only to come to this stifling 'neraka' (hell), as she called it. Her mind broke. I have never seen her smile since.

And yet today, she is smiling. Zhuo is smiling. My son is not looking at his watch impatiently, he is not sighing or making faces. Today, I see what my heart has wished for so long.

* * *

LAST week, I would have sat up, stretched, given a great sigh of relief and then bid farewell cheerfully. Today, however, I saw Po-po in a different light. I saw past the sagging skin, the old, mouldy dress. I saw deep into the eyes, found in them a little girl in a purple dress smiling back at me, and I felt an unfamiliar feeling. I think it was guilt. I had been so convinced that my ideal world was all just about me, and nobody else. Now, I could feel, almost see, the boundaries of that world stretching, making space for Po-po and Mum.

'Po-po, I didn't know you had such a happy childhood.' Po-po's laugh carried into the kitchen. My mother poked her surprised face out, and laughed too.

AT THE unfamiliar sound of the family laughing, the little girl in the purple dress nudges Po-po through that web of musty memories, and for the first time, Po-po turns her back on her to embrace Zhuo and his mother.

ANSWERS
Grammar 1. had opted 2. would have narrowed 3. listening 4. carrying

5. heard 6. flapping 7. was 8. snapped 9.trudged 10. had been overlooked

11. have included 12. had 13. would have enjoyed 14. looked 15. have you eaten

Vocabulary 1. unintelligible 2. sight 3. prematurely 4. recounting

5. impenetrable 6. memory 7. dead 8. furnance 9. snapping 10. lighting

11. melted 12. remarkably 13. mouldy 14. readied 15. childhood

Describing Places: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE- Guilin, China.

2010-09-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

Sep 14, 2010, STRAITS TIMES . Describing Places.

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE
...with the sound of music as Zhang Yimou's Liu Sanjie is staged near Guilin

VOCABULARY

Mention the city of Guilin and two images come to mind. One, a postcard-pretty portrait of limestone mountains beside meandering emerald rivers, shrouded in a veil of mist, forming a truly breathtaking tableau of natural beauty.

The other, a classic 1960 Chinese movie, Liu Sanjie or Third Sister Liu, about the love story between a folk singer from the Zhuang minority in Guangxi Autonomous Region where Guilin is located and Ah Niu, a young fisherman. Not unlike a Western musical, the movie is well known 1. ________ for the many folk songs of the Zhuang minority.

Which was why I was skeptical - and 2. _________ - when I heard that the highlight of a recent four-day trip to Guilin was to watch an ongoing stage production of the movie, never mind the producer is acclaimed director Zhang Yimou, who also produced the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The sense of 3. _________ only grew when I turned up at the ticketing counter at the city of Yangshuo, about 60km from the city centre of Guilin, and realised the tickets did not come cheap at all.

They cost no less than 198 yuan (S$40) and go up to a princely 680 yuan for a VIP ticket. That kind of money could buy me a good seat for a Tony-award-winning musical on Broadway.

But the prices did not appear to deter hundreds of chain-smoking Chinese domestic tourists, milling around outside the counter, waiting for their tour guides to usher them into the show.

What would I, a third-generation Singaporean bred on Hollywood movies, possibly enjoy in a musical about a rather predictable romance between two young lovers in a minority tribe in China, and featuring 'shan ge', or mountain song, a genre of Chinese folk song commonly sung in rural provinces?

About an hour later, I was singing a different tune. True, I understood not a single word of the folk songs. True, too, I had only a vague idea of the plot or the key characters among the 600-strong cast comprising villagers and minority tribes living along the more than 100km Li River.

But Impressions: Liu Sanjie was well and truly a spectacle. The 70-minute performance took place on a Li River lake, no smaller than two football fields, encircled by limestone hills and with the violet-hued night sky as the 4. ________. It could be one of the world's largest 5. _______ theatre spaces.

The enveloping mist, moonlight, hills and their inverted reflections in the river formed a constantly changing background, made all the more 6. _______ with strategically hidden floodlights 7. _________ the facade of the mountains.

As the lights fell on the faces of the hills, numerous torches 8. _________ from the far side of the lake as scores of fishermen on bamboo rafts snaked their way across the lake, creating a depth and perspective probably impossible to achieve on a 9. ________ stage.

As the fishermen unfurled large bales of red silk across the lake, now lit up by floodlights, they looked as if they were walking on water.

The finale was no less stunning: Hundreds of performers, each wearing a series of tiny light bulbs, formed a long column across the bridge over the Li River and appeared like an army of 10. ________ pixies.

The performance, which took five years to 11. ________ from page to stage, is no doubt one of the reasons for a growing number of tourists to Guilin.

In 2002, there were close to 11 million tourists, of which about one million were foreigners. The most recent figures in 2008 revealed about 16.3 million tourists, 1.3 million of whom came from outside China.

The city, long 12. ________ for its natural beauty, is one in transition. While villagers continue to hawk their produce - watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes and cabbages - from the back of their lorries and tricycles, evidence of change is unmistakeable.

Every turn you take, roads are paved and 13. ______. Scaffoldings wrap old buildings to indicate a new facade is on the way. Elsewhere, new developments - commercial buildings and 14. ______ apartments - dot the city landscape.

In March this year, luxury hotel operator Shangri-La opened a seven-storey, 449-room property, located just a 35-minute drive from the Guilin Liangjiang International Airport and 10 minutes from the heart of the city.

The first new five-star hotel in 20 years in Guilin, it has a 9,999-yuan package which includes a two-night stay in an Executive Suite and a chartered 15. _______ down the Li River, Guilin's main attraction.

The cruise down the 16. ________ stretch of the river lasts 90 minutes in an air-conditioned barge, with a hotel chef on hand to prepare the meals.

A village where time stands still

The 10km stretch from Long Chuan Ping Jetty to Die Cai Mountain passes through 10 of Guilin's most famous mountains - the ones which have been the subject of many 17. _________ and postcards depicting the beauty of the area.

Along the way, you will pass the must-see sight of the Elephant Trunk Hill, a karst formation which resembles an elephant drinking from the Li River, as well as Laoren Hill, or Old Man Hill, which bears an 18. ________ likeness to a hunched old man with a protruding forehead, looming over the mountains.

My favourite moment on the cruise was the stretch from Yangshuo to Yuchun, a village by the Li River which was established in the Ming dynasty. Former United States president Bill Clinton visited it when he was on a nine-day visit to China in 1998.

On my visit, save the makeshift stalls that lined the flight of stone steps leading to the entrance, time seemed to have stood still in the brick-and-mortar village.

Water buffaloes grazed on the banks as women did their laundry by the river. Kids dived into the river from small rocky 19. _______ as the older folk hawked deep-fried crabs, shrimps and fishes caught from the river.

Fishermen on bamboo rafts drifted leisurely down the river with their cormorants, which did the work for them snagging fish from the resource-rich river.

In the village, winding 20. _______ streets appeared to lead nowhere and every turn was an 21. ______ in itself. Up on the roofs of the houses (pay 10 yuan to the owner for access), I saw a village of stone houses built along a 22. _______of streets, a village of order in 23. _____. This, just 24. ______ four hours away from Singapore by 25. ______.

ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. worldwide 2. apprehensive 3. trepidation

4. backdrop 5. natural 6. magical 7. illuminating 8. flickered

9. conventional 10. shimmering 11. conceptualise 12. famous

13. repaved 14. residential 15. cruise 16. fabled 17. paintings

18. uncanny 19. outcrops 20. cobbled 21. adventure

22. maze 23. chaos 24. under 25. plane

MINE DISASTER- CHILE: TRAPPED MINERS

2010-09-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Aug 24, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

Trapped miners alive after two weeks

But it could be months before the 33 Chilean miners are rescued
President Pinera holding up a plastic bag containing a message from the trapped miners on Sunday in Copiapo. It reads in Spanish: 'We are okay in the refuge, the 33 miners.' The men were found about 7km inside the winding mine after a drill broke through 688m of solid rock.

VOCABULARY CLOZE

SANTIAGO: Chileans were 1. _____________ after receiving word that 33 miners trapped deep below ground for more than two weeks were alive and apparently in good 2. _____________, though experts warned that it could still be three to four months before they are rescued.

The first black and white images of some of the 33 men were shown late on Sunday after rescuers made their first 3 . _________ with them since a tunnel collapse on Aug 5 at the San Jose copper and gold mine.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who was at the 4. ________ of the disaster, read out one of the two notes sent up by the 5. _______ miners that said: 'We are okay in the refuge, the 33 miners,' as people around him rejoiced.

'The whole of Chile is crying with joy and 6. _______,' he remarked.

The trapped men were found about 7km inside the 7. ________ mine after a narrow drill broke through 688m of solid rock to reach an emergency refuge where they had gathered.

The notes were found tied to the 8. ________.

A remotely operated camera lowered down the 9. ________ hole later showed the miners sweaty and shirtless in the hot shelter, but in apparently good condition and high 10. _______.

'Many of them approached the camera and put their faces right 11. ______against it, like children, and we could see happiness and hope in their eyes,' said Mr Pinera as he vowed a major overhaul of the mining regulator.

Officials said the miners are located in a space about the size of a small apartment and had 12. _______ amounts of food but more would be passed to them 13. _______ the drill hole.

Tanks of water and 14. _______ shafts are helping them survive, they said, adding that the miners used the batteries of a truck down in the mine to charge their helmet lamps. The miners may have lost about 8kg to 9kg each, they said.

National Emergency Office regional director Carlos Garcia said relatives would soon be allowed to speak with them through a cable dropped down the drill bore.

Chief engineer Andres Sougarret, who is in charge of the rescue operation, said it would take at least 120 days or until around Christmas to drill a shaft large enough to bring out the trapped miners.

Rescuers said the miners would have to assist in their own release by clearing 15. _________ away from the hole beneath ground as drillers worked from above.

'They'll come out thin and dirty, but whole and strong, because the miners have shown they have courage and 16. _______, which is what has kept them together,' Mr Pinera said, choking with emotion.

'God is great,' 63-year-old Mario Gomez, the oldest of the trapped miners, wrote in the second note found attached to the drill.

'I hope to get out soon. Have 17. _______ and faith,' he said in the note addressed to his wife.

The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history.

ANSWERS: VOCABULARY- 1.euphoric 2. condition 3. contact 4. site 5. trapped

6. emotion 7. winding 8. drill 9. bore 10. spirits 11. up 12. limited

13. through 14. ventilation 15. debris 16. mettle 17. patience

OLD WAYS OF LIFE SWEPT AWAY BY FLOODS

2010-09-21T22:29:00.001-07:00

Aug 28, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

Old ways of life swept away by floods

Pakistani survivors return home to ruins

Mr Anar Gul and his son collecting belongings on Thursday from the rubble of their house, which was demolished by heavy floods in Azakhel, Nowshera, in north-west Pakistan. It is the same scene for many other survivors. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

GRAMMAR

AZAKHEL (PAKISTAN): This is what Mr Anar Gul found when he came home: Eight mattresses 1. _______(cover) with polyester swirls, a dozen blankets, a broken tape player and a large metal box buried deep in the mud.

After more than 30 years of 2. _______(carve) out the semblance of a working-class life, this junk spread out to dry on the wreckage of his house 3. ______(be) now all Mr Gul had.

'This is everything,' he said, waving his hands at the muck and the garbage. The former woodcutter 4. ________(build) a mud-walled house with three bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom.

Nearly a month after floods first 5. _______(begin) battering Pakistan, and as waters still sweep through the south, the first victims are returning home. Millions of people may soon find that, like Mr Gul, their old lives have disappeared.

'We understand the devastation is so intense that even the government cannot help everyone,' said Mr Gul, who 6. ________(add) that he was about 70 years old. 'But the government 7. _______(need) to help us.'

The floods began here, in north-western Pakistan, late last month when the annual monsoon rains began falling. Azakhel, a small town outside the city of Nowshera, saw thousands of homes 8. _______(submerge). Most people 9. _______(flee) by the end of last month and came back only in the last week or so.

Rivers 10. ______(swell) by rain that fell in the mountainous north 11. ______(flow) southward, ravaging a massive swathe of the agricultural heartland. Only in the coming days are floodwaters expected to fully drain into the Arabian Sea.

More than 1,500 people 12. ________(die), most of whom perished in flash floods in the initial days. The death toll does not reflect the scale of the crisis, with millions of hectares under water and the agricultural economy 13. ________(devastate).

More than eight million people need emergency assistance, and the international community 14. _________(pledge) hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

Mr Rahimullah Yousafzai, a prominent Pakistani writer, said the promises of international aid could backfire.

It is not yet clear what help people will get.

The Pakistani government 15. _______(promise) 20,000 rupees (S$320) to families affected by the floods, with a presidential spokesman calling the payment 'initial assistance'.

Most Pakistanis are, however, distrustful of their government.

Mr Yousafzai said 16. _______(squabble) over aid 17. ________(be+lead) to ethnic and regional tensions and possibly anti- government unrest.

Government officials, for the most part, are nowhere to be 18. ________(see).

'The government hasn't even bothered to ask if we are living or dying,' said Mr Karim Baksh, a retired bureaucrat with the state electricity company. His home in Nowshera was all but 19. ______(level) by floodwaters.

His neighbour, 23-year-old business student Yasir Naseer, 20. _______(urge) international aid groups to distribute help on their own.

'Don't give any cash or anything to our government officials. They cannot be trusted.'

EDITING: The following words are wrongly spelt. Write the correct answer on the lines.

1. rabble ___________

2. devastetain ____________

3. domelished ____________

4. reveging __________

5. missive sweatha ___________ __________

6. amergancy essistence _________ __________

ANSWERS

Grammar – 1. covered 2. covering 3. was 4. had built

5. began 6. added 7. needs 8. submerged 9. had fled

10. swollen 11. had flowed 12. have died 13. devastated

14. has pledged 15. has promised 16. squabbling

17. could had 18. seen 19. leveled 20. urged

DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT A LOVED ONE'S SUFFERING- by Lee Wei Ling

2010-09-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

Aug 29, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES

Difficult to accept a loved one's suffering

Feeling compassion with a detachment is wise, but tough when it comes to Mama

By Lee Wei Ling

The writer, then 19, with her mother and father in Rajasthan, India. Those were happier times before her mother suffered a stroke in May 2008 and became bedbound. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEE WEI LING

GRAMMAR- Tenses, Prepositions, Conjunctions , Adjectives and Adverbs.

Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the word given in brackets.

Fill in the blanks with the correct preposition or conjunction in the blanks.

I awoke with a start, a while ago, from a dream. I 1. ________(look) at my watch. It was 4am.

It was a dream worth remembering, so I 2. _______(decide) to write it down immediately. If I 3. ________(be+not+do) so, I 4. _______(be) not have been able to remember it later.

In my dream, I seemed to be simultaneously at home and outdoors at some unfamiliar place. Suddenly, a monster 5. ______(appear) and 6. _____(attack) me. I 7. ______(struggle) with the monster but it 7. ______(match) me strength 8. _______ strength. I did not utter a sound, nor was I frightened. Instead, I wrestled silently with it.

Suddenly my mother appeared. She walked 9. _______ us, but did not say anything either. Instead, she made a 10. _______(dismiss) gesture and the monster turned tail and ran away.

That 11. _______(be) be Mama's way of tackling problems, I thought: no need for unnecessary words 12. _______ actions; just do things 13. ______(quiet) and effectively.

At that point, I woke up. I got up from the floor where I 14. _______(sleep) and went into my mother's room to see how she 15. _______(do). She was sleeping peacefully. I 16. ______(be) now back in my room recording what I can still remember of my dream - for a 'dream' indeed it was, as it cannot be classified as a nightmare.

For two years and three months already, my mother 17. _______(be) too weak to get out of bed. But in that brief moment in my dream, I saw her again as she 18. ______(be) - physically normal.

I wished I 19. ________(can+be+dream) on, and after some time, together with Mama, vanquished the monster in the dream and then walked 20. ________ together.

In dreams, everything seems possible. That my mother appeared 21. ______(magic) in my dream did not surprise me - either while I was dreaming or when I 22. ______(awake). This is because between Mama and me, there was always some form of telepathy.

Once, when I was staying with my brother Hsien Loong, my toothbrush 23. ______(wear) out and needed to be replaced. I hardly ever shop, so I did what I had always done before: I told Mama I needed a new toothbrush.

Since we were in different houses and I did not want to wake her if she was sleeping by calling her on the telephone, I e-mailed her: 'Ma, I need a toothbrush.'

She e-mailed back: 'I am telepathic. I just got a toothbrush for you. But one day, the commissariat will not be around. If you don't know the word 'commissariat' go look it 24. ______ in the dictionary.'

She was correct: I did not know what the word meant. And since I did not know where the dictionary 25. _________(keep) in my brother's house, that evening at dinner, I asked him what the word meant.

He knew, of course. 'Commissariat', he explained, is a department in the army charged with providing provisions to soldiers.

Now Mama is no longer in a position to be my commissariat. Worse yet, she is bedbound and no longer able to read - a favourite activity of hers.

Mama had wide interests. She 26. _______(know) things that even many highly educated people would not know or be interested in, as would be obvious if one rummaged 27. ________ her bookshelves, as I did recently.

There were several books on the flora and fauna of Singapore. There was a hardcover book of children's nursery rhymes, which she 28. _______(use) to read to her grandchildren. Of all her grandchildren, my albino nephew 29. ______(enjoy) reading the nursery rhymes 30. ______ her the most.

VOCABULARY : Fill in the blanks using the given helping words

fashionable collect suffering detachment excerpts collection early delivered predicament struggles cultured chronicling stoically caste ancient resilience duties

There were several books on Buddhism and Hinduism. There was a King James version of the Bible printed in a large 1. _______ so that she could read it even without her reading glasses. There were many books on the Indian 2. _______ system, and a book describing the ancient city of Harappa in the Indus valley. The city dates back about 4,600 years ago, and was an important trade centre in the 3. _______ world.

Mama was interested in the Silk Route long before it became a 4. ________ subject of interest. She had a book 5. ________ the travels of a Victorian lady on the Silk Route.

There were six Malay kamus, or dictionaries. There was a book on Chinese customs and symbols. And of course, there were many books of poetry, including a 6. ________ of Rudyard Kipling's poems.

There were also books relating to the 7. _______ days of Singapore, including The Battle For Merger, a collection of radio talks my father 8. _______ in 1961, detailing the early history of the People's Action Party's 9. ________ with the communists. It is now out of print.

There were many books, too, written by others about my father, including Lee Kuan Yew In His Own Words, 10. _______ of his speeches from 1959 to 1970, edited by S.J. Rodringuez.

Mama also had the kinds of books one would expect to find on the bookshelves of someone so 11. ________: among other things, The Tale Of Genji, Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum And The Sword, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto's The Daughter Of A Samurai, the novels of Jane Austen, and a book I enjoyed tremendously as a child, Anne Of Green Gables.

Mama didn't just 12. _______ these books, she read them.

It is now 5.30am. I popped into her room again a while ago and she was still sleeping. I comforted myself that at least when she was sleeping, she was unaware of her unfortunate situation.

Now I am trying to go back to sleep myself, but I cannot do so - not because of the dream but because of Mama's unhappy 13. _______. It is acutely felt by her three children, my two sisters-in-law, and my cousin Kwa Kim Li, who is my mother's favourite niece. But the one who has been hurting the most, and is yet carrying on 14. _______, is my father.

It is easy when thinking in the abstract, to conclude that being born, growing old, falling sick and eventually dying is what happens to all of us. I accept these facts with no resentment that life is unkind. I have had more than my fair share of bad luck, but I never resented it, for I think suffering built up my 15. _________.

But I find it difficult to accept my mother's 16. _______. The Buddhist principle of feeling compassion but with detachment is wise, but it is not an attitude that I find humanly possible to adopt when it comes to Mama. I cannot see her suffering with 17. _________.

But there is nothing I can do to get her back to where she was before she suffered a massive stroke on May 12, 2008. She has been suffering since then, and so has my father. But that is life, and we all plod on, fulfilling our duties as best we can. Indeed by focusing my mind on my 18. _______, I manage to temporarily block Mama's suffering from my consciousness.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.

ANSWERS

Grammar - 1. looked 2. decided 3. had not done 4. would 5. appeared 6. attacked
7. matched 8. for 9. towards 10. dismissive 11. would 12. or 13. quietly
14. was sleeping 15. was doing 16. am 17. has been 18. had been 19. could have dreamt 20. off 21. magically 22. awoke 23. was worn 24. up 25. was kept
26. knew 27. through 28. had used 29. enjoyed 30. with
Vocabulary – 1. font 2. caste 3. ancient 4. fashionable 5. chronicling 6. collection 7. early 8. delivered 9. struggles 10. excerpts 11. cultured 12. collect 13. predicament 14. stoically 15. resilience 16. suffering 17. detachment 18. duties

DESALINATION: GET THE SALT OUT

2010-09-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

THE BIG IDEA

Theme: WATER

National Geographic, March, 2010.

Get the Salt Out

Fill in the blanks using the helping words given below.

scarcer out condense reverse salty off boom expand

only boiling woes membrane per salinity cheap

There's no shortage of water on the blue planet—just a shortage of fresh water. New technologies may offer better ways to get the salt 1. ______.

Three hundred million people now get their water from the sea or from brackish groundwater that is too 2. ______ to drink. That’s double the number a decade ago. Desalination took 3. _____ in the 1970s in the Middle East and has since spread to 150 countries. Within the next six years new desalination plants may add as much as 13 billion gallons a day to the global water supply, the equivalent of another Colorado River. The reason for the 4. ______ is simple: As populations grow and agriculture and industry 5. _______, fresh water—especially clean fresh water—is getting 6. _______. “The thing about water is, you gotta have it,” says Tom Pankratz, editor of the Water Desalination Report, a trade publication. “Desalination is not a cheap way to get water, but sometimes it’s the 7. _______ way there is.”

And it’s much cheaper than it was two decades ago. The first desalination method—and still the most common, especially in oil-rich countries along the Persian Gulf—was brute-force distillation: Heat seawater until it turns to steam, leaving its salt behind, then 8. ______ it. The current state of the art, used, for example, at plants that opened recently in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Perth, Australia, is 9. ______ osmosis, in which water is forced through a 10. ______ that catches the salt. Pumping seawater to pressures of more than a thousand pounds 11. _____ square inch takes less energy than 12. ______ it—but it is still expensive.

Researchers are now working on at least three new technologies that could cut the energy required even further. The closest to commercialization, called forward osmosis, draws water through the porous membrane into a solution that contains even more salt than seawater, but a kind of salt that is easily evaporated. The other two approaches redesign the membrane itself— one by using carbon nanotubes as the pores, the other by using the same proteins that usher water molecules through the membranes of living cells.

None of the three will be a solution for all the world’s water 13. _____. Desalination inevitably leaves behind a concentrated brine, which can harm the environment and even the water supply itself. Brine discharges are especially tricky to dispose of at inland desalination plants, and they’re also raising the 14. _______ in parts of the shallow Persian Gulf. The saltier the water gets, the more expensive it becomes to desalinate.

What’s more, none of the new technologies seem simple and 15. _______ enough to offer much hope to the world’s poor, says geologist Farouk El-Baz of Boston University. He recently attended a desalination-industry conference looking for ways to bring fresh water to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur. “I asked the engineers, ‘What if you are in a tiny village of 3,000, and the water is a hundred feet underground and laden with salt, and there is no electricity?’ ” El-Baz says. “Their mouths just dropped.” —Karen E. Lange

ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. out 2. salty 3. off 4. boom 5. expand

6. scarcer 7. only 8. condense 9. reverse 10. membrane 11. per

12. boiling 13. woes 14. salinity 15. cheap

THE BURDEN OF THIRST

2010-09-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

THE BURDEN OF THIRST

If the millions of women who haul water long distances had a faucet by their door, whole societies could be transformed.

By Tina Rosenberg, National Geographic, April 2010.

drinking puddles excrement struggles hard perch squishing admonishes straps slippery steepest grimaces brew every soap

In much of the developing world, lack of water is at the center of a vicious circle of inequality. Some women in Foro come down to the river five times a day—with one or two of the trips devoted to getting water to make a beer-style home 1. _____ for their husbands. When I first came to Foro, some 60 men were sitting in the shade of a metal-roofed building, 2. _______ and talking. It was midmorning. Women, says Binayo, "never get five seconds to sit down and rest."

On a hot late afternoon I go with her to the river, carrying an empty jerry can. The trail is steep and in places 3. _______. We scramble down large rocks alongside cacti and thornbushes. After 50 minutes we reach the river—or what is a river at certain times of the year. Now it is a series of black, muddy pools, some barely 4. ________. The banks and rocks are littered with the 5. ________ of donkeys and cows. There are about 40 people at the river, enough so that Binayo decides that the wait might be shorter upstream. The wait is especially long early in the morning, so Binayo usually makes her first trip before it is light, leaving her son Kumacho, a serious-faced little man who looks even younger than his four years, in charge of his younger brothers.

We walk another ten minutes upstream, and Binayo claims a 6. _______ next to a good pool, one fed not only by a dirty puddle just above but also a cleaner stream to the side. Children are jumping on the banks, 7. _______ mud through their feet and stirring up the water. "Please don't jump," Binayo 8. _______ them. "It makes the water dirtier." A donkey steps in to drink from the puddle feeding Binayo's pool. When the donkey leaves, the women at the puddle scoop out some water to clear it, sending the dirty water down to Binayo, who scolds them.

After half an hour it is her turn. She takes her first jerry can and her yellow plastic scoop. Just as she puts her scoop in the water, she looks up to see another donkey plunk its hoof into the pool feeding hers. She 9. _______. But she cannot wait any longer. She does not have the luxury of time.

An hour after we arrive at the river, she has filled two jerry cans—one for her to carry back up, one for me to carry for her. She ties a leather strap around my can and puts it on my back. I am grateful for the smooth leather—Binayo herself uses a coarse rope. Still, the 10. _______ cut into my shoulders. The plastic can is full to the top, and the 50-pound load bounces off my spine as I walk. With difficulty, I make it halfway up. But where the trail turns 11. ______ I can go no farther. Sheepishly, I trade cans with a girl who looks to be about eight, carrying a jerry can half the size of mine. She 12. _____ with the heavier can, and about ten minutes from the top it is too much for her. Binayo takes the heavy jerry can from the girl and puts it on her own back, on top of the one she is carrying. She shoots us both a look of disgust and continues up the mountain, now with nearly 12 gallons of water—a hundred pounds—on her back.

"When we are born, we know that we will have a 13. ______ life," Binayo says, sitting outside a hut in her compound, in front of the cassava she is drying on a goatskin, holding Kumacho, who wears no pants. "It is the culture of Konso from a long time before us." She has never questioned this life, never expected anything different. But soon, for the first time, things are going to change.

When you spend hours hauling water long distances, you measure 14. _____ drop. The average American uses a hundred gallons of water just at home every day; Aylito Binayo makes do with two and a half gallons. Persuading people to use their water for washing is far more difficult when that water is carried up a mountain. And yet sanitation and hygiene matter—proper hand washing alone can cut diarrheal diseases by some 45 percent. Binayo washes her hands with water "maybe once a day," she says. She washes clothes once a year. "We don't even have enough water for drinking—how can we wash our clothes?" she says. She washes her own body only occasionally. A 2007 survey found that not a single Konso household had water with soap or ash (a decent cleanser) near their latrines to wash their hands. Binayo's family recently dug a latrine but cannot afford to buy 15. ______.

ANSWERS- Vocabulary – 1. brew 2. drinking 3. slippery 4. puddles 5. excrement 6. perch 7. squishing 8. admonishes 9. grimaces 10. straps 11. steepest 12. struggles 13. hard 14. every 15. soap

SINGAPORE: Global Competitiveness Ranking- No 3.

2010-09-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

Sep 10, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS RANKING

Singapore retains No. 3 spot

VOCABULARY

Fill in the blanks using the given helping words.

highest challenges outlook remain place future efficiency anchored competitiveness technologies released crisis financial Nordic sustainable

SINGAPORE has held on to third place in a global competitiveness ranking to remain true to form as the fastest recovering economy post-recession.

It lost out only to Switzerland, which retained top spot, and Sweden, the new No. 2 in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) annual Global Competitiveness Report, which was 1. _______ in Tianjin, China yesterday.

The United States, still suffering the fallout from the financial 2. _______, fell two places to fourth, having conceded the No.1 ranking to Switzerland last year.

The WEF said that aside from macroeconomic imbalances building up over time in the US, there has been a weakening of the superpower's public and private institutions, as well as 'lingering concerns about the state of its 3. ________ markets'.

4. ________ nations Sweden, Finland (seventh), Denmark (ninth) and Norway (14th) again dominated the top 15, but Asia was also strongly represented by Japan (sixth), Hong Kong (11th) and Taiwan (13th).

The report measures the productivity of an economy and its capacity for 5. ________ growth over the next five to 10 years.

The WEF based its study on publicly available data and a survey of business leaders. This year, more than 13,500 of them from 139 economies were polled.

At No. 3, Singapore remains the 6. _________ ranked Asian economy, and came in tops for both the lack of corruption in the country and government efficiency.

In other separate categories and sub-indices, Singapore also came in tops for the 7. _________ of its goods and labour markets, second for its financial market sophistication and fifth for infrastructure.

But while its competitiveness was 8. _________ by its strong focus on education and providing individuals with the necessary skills in a rapidly changing global economy, Singapore was still found wanting in a few areas.

They include innovation (ninth), business sophistication (15th) and market size, where it placed 41st.

'In order to strengthen its 9. _________ further, Singapore could encourage even stronger adoption of the latest 10. ________ as well as policies that enhance the sophistication of its companies,' added the WEF report.

Looking at the broader picture, Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University and co-author of the report said that while concerns about the 11. ________ for the global economy remain, policymakers 'must not lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals amid short-term 12. _______'.

'For economies to 13. _________ competitive, they must ensure that they have in 14. ______ those factors driving the productivity enhancements on which their present and 15. _______ prosperity is built.'

ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. released 2. crisis 3. financial 4. Nordic 5. sustainable

6. highest 7. efficiency 8. anchored 9. competitiveness 10. technologies

11. outlook 12. challenges 13. remain 14. place 15. future

A GEISHA'S JOURNEY

2010-09-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

A Geisha's Journey

Readers’ Digest, August 2010.

Young Komomo dreams of becoming a geisha. She sacrifices her youth to enter a refined but very demanding life. Welcome to her secret world
There was so much I had to learn as a maiko, and so many duties to perform. Every day I 1. ________(face) with things I didn’t understand; sometimes it seemed as if the streets of Miyagawa-cho 2. ______(pepper) with land mines just waiting to explode in my face. It was like being at school 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A maiko’s schedule is fixed. In the evening, I 3. _______(attend) ozashiki – a ceremony or party – from 4. _______ six until late. Ozashiki usually take place at one of the tea houses, although they are sometimes held in restaurants and hotels. Geiko 5. _______(hire) to entertain and perform for the guests, and we’re also expected to pour drinks and enter 6. ______ conversation.

A large part of my day 7. ______(spend) in practice. As a maiko, I was expected to learn to sing and play the shamisen, play 8. ________(rhythm) instruments, perform the tea ceremony, and, of course, dance. Dance practice was the one I had to concentrate on most. A maiko 9. ______(be+to) learn two different dances for every month of the year to perform 10. ______ the customers at ozashiki.

Learning just one dance took a long time. Each practice session was between 45 minutes and an hour, and I 11. _____(be) to go through three or four sessions to figure 12. ______ the basic steps of a single dance. Important dances like “The Ballad of Gion” or “Four Seasons in Kyoto” took me more than ten sessions to master.

As the youngest student, it was also my responsibility to look after the dance master. That meant I 13. ______(be+to+pour) her a new cup of tea when her cup was empty, and make sure she wasn’t too hot or too cold. To show my respect, I also 14. _______(be+ to +wait )until all of the older students, whom we call sempai, 15. ________(greet) her before I 16. ______(be) say hello.

When I first started out, I 17. ______(terrify) of my sempai; they were always getting mad at me and it seemed as if I couldn’t do anything right around them. Because of nerves, I 18. _______(be+sometime+ greet) them before the master, or the customers. The sempai 19. __________(be+get+angry) at me for not greeting the master or the customers first, 20. _____(make) me even more fearful of them.

Looking back, I would say that about 90 percent of my maiko education involved just trying to get through one difficult day after another. Every morning I would wake up around ten. After dressing in my less formal kimono, I had practice in the performing arts, and at lunchtime, I paid visits to each of the almost 40 tea houses in Miyagawa-cho, where many of the ozashiki are held.

At one of my first ozashiki, my sempai asked me in front of the customers what dance I would like to perform. When I cheerfully answered, she suddenly got mad. I realise now that her anger was part of my hanamachi education – in order to appear humble and modest, I should have declined to answer.

Strange though it may seem, becoming a full geiko had never crossed my mind. Over those years, I 21. ______(give) a lot of thought to what I wanted to do when my period of service was over. I already 22. _______(be)a lot of plans: study abroad, learn English, and perhaps research Japanese culture and folklore.

Then, two months before I 23. ______( suppose) to leave the hanamachi, I realised how much I loved this world with all its culture and tradition. I thought about all the things I still 24. ______(be+ to + learn)and felt ashamed that I had actually thought I would achieve everything I wanted in just six years. I made up my mind to become a geiko. I informed Koito-san and we decided I 25. _______(be+ become) a full geiko on December 8, 2005.

Before that, however, was the period of sakko, which in our geiko house lasts for 15 days. Sakko is the last hairstyle in the maiko stage. I would wear a black formal kimono for five days, then a coloured one for five days, and then the black one again.

Now that I have become a geiko, one of the observations I made was that ozashiki are completely different for geiko and maiko.

Maiko are often just seen as stereotypes; nobody bothers to look beyond the make-up to the real person beneath. A geiko, on the other hand, is seen as an individual with a name and a unique personality. For a maiko, the most important thing is to match the image that people have of us, but as a geiko, it’s OK for us to let our own character show.

After all my worry about becoming a geiko, I finally felt liberated.

ANSWERS – Grammar- 1. was faced 2. were peppered 3. would attend 4. around

5. are hired 6. into 7. was spent 8. rhythmical 9. has to 10. for 11. had 12. out

13. had to pout 14. had to wait 15. had to greet 16. could 17. was terrified

18. would sometimes greet 19. would get angry 20. making 21. had given

22. had 23. was supposed 24. had to learn 25. would become

2010-08-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Aug 10, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

NDP 2010

White -hot PASSION

white : pervading and everlasting purity and virtue

Looking smart in their white ceremonial uniforms, the Republic of Singapore Navy's Guard of Honour contingent marching past the old Supreme Court.

GRAMMAR

STANDING ramrod straight, Lieutenant Li Yong Rui cut an imposing figure in his white No. 1 uniform - the ceremonial outfit he wears at official functions.

He 1. _______(bark) a command.

On cue, a powerful bellow 2. _______(come) from a 25-pounder cannon - one of six at the War Memorial Park along Beach Road near the Padang - as it belched a thick cloud of white smoke.

The cannons 3. ________(fire) off at 60-second intervals as President S R Nathan 4. _________(inspect) the front row of the marching contingents over at the Padang. It was a moment Lt Li, commander of the presidential gun salute, will not forget.

'Right before I give the command, I can't describe the feeling. I'm thinking, 'The President is actually here. The whole sequence of events 5. _______(go) to be started by me',' said Lt Li, 22.

'And when it actually fires, it's so powerful and loud, it feels so awesome.'

He is no novice at the National Day Parade, 6. _______(participate) on three previous occasions.

But as the commander of the gun salute, yesterday's was the best, he said. 'The salute is for both the country and the President. I 7. _______(shock) and honoured to be chosen,' he added.

Precision and order were on display throughout the parade, from the RSAF's crowd-pleasing aerial display to the marching of the 30 contingents.

Wild cheers 8. _______(greet) the mobile column, which made a return after five years.

As the 210 battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles trundled past City Hall, spectators 9. ______(whip) out their phones and cameras to record the impressive display of military might featuring vehicles like the Leopard 2A4 main battle tank.

'This is my first time 10. _______(celebrate) NDP at the Padang and my first time being so close to all these vehicles. It's very exciting,' said Mr Govindaswamy Lakshmanan, 43, an executive at a garment manufacturing company.

Just moments before the mobile column made its way 11. ______(pass) the parade ground, Captain Michael Luo, 25, marched along the same stretch as part of the Guard of Honour contingent from the Republic of Singapore Navy.

'Standing on the parade ground, representing not just the navy but also the Singapore Armed Forces, I'm at a place where many people would want to be, but not many get the chance to be there. I'm honoured to 12. _______(select),' he said.

Match the following meanings with the correct word form the passage.

1. Very rigid or straight and stiff. ___________

2. Impressive in size and bearing; dignity. _______________

3. To gush out _________

4. A representative group _____________

5. A loud shout ___________

6. Great wonder, marvel ____________

7. A connected series of events __________

8. Beginner _____________

9. Accurate _____________

10. Haul, wheel , roll, spin _____________

11. In the air ___________

12. Moveable ________________

13. A powerful army ___________

Comprehension

1. Give two words to show the appearance of the Lieutenant Li .

2. What happened when the 25 pounder cannon was fired?

3. Explain which moment will be etched in Lieutenant Li’ s memory for a long time?

4. What was the spectators’ reaction when the tanks and armoured vehicles trundled past City hall?

5. Why did captain Micheal Luo felt honoured?

ANSWERS

Grammar – 1. Barked 2. Came 3. Were found 4. Inspected 5. Is going 6. Having participated 7. Was shocked 8. Greeted 9. Whipped 10. Celebrating 11. Past 12. To have been selected

Vocabulary – 1. Ramrod straight 2. Imposing figure 3. Belched 4. Contingents 5. A powerful bellow 6. Awesome 7. Sequence of events 8. Novice 9. Precision 10. Trundled 11. Aerial 12. Mobile 13. Military might

NATIONAL DAY PARADE 2010

2010-08-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

Aug 10, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

THIS IS home TRULY

A magical night as NDP returns to the Padang, while those in heartland join in celebrations too
FOUR minutes and six seconds.

Time seemed to hold its breath while the nation sang Home together last night, as Singapore's 45th birthday celebrations drew to a resounding close.

'This is Home truly, where I know I must be,' Singaporeans 1. ________(sing) along with homegrown singer Kit Chan. 'Where my dreams wait for me, where that river always flows...'

Ms Chan, a slender presence on a crescent-shaped stage, set the scene for the One Voice moment at 2010 hours, or 8.10pm.

Following Home, the 26,500 people at the Padang, as well as thousands in the surrounding Marina Bay area and in the heartland, 2. ________(rise) to their feet.

In one voice, they 3. __________(recite) the National Pledge and sang the National Anthem.

The night ended with fireworks going off at the Padang and nine other locations in the city, as all-time favourite national songs like Count On Me, Singapore and We Are Singapore played.

Indeed, it was the music of Singapore that 4. _______(draw) the nation together at its 2010 birthday party, which returned to the Padang for a magical night after an absence of five years.

The celebrations come at a time when Singapore is riding high on confidence.

As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong 5. _________(note) in his National Day Message on Sunday, the economy has rebounded strongly from last year's recession, many jobs have been created, and unemployment is low.

The exceptional performance, Mr Lee said, is the fruit of Singaporeans' united response during the crisis, which enabled the country to take advantage of improved global conditions.

If music set the mood for yesterday's celebrations, what 6. _______(stand) out was how 7. _______(unite) was also a theme.

The parade 8. ________(celebrate) not only at the 9. ________(history) City Hall site in the city, but also at the doorsteps of people's homes in Eunos, Sengkang, Bishan, Choa Chu Kang and Woodlands.

The 21/2-hour parade featured live feeds to the simultaneous celebrations at the five heartland locations, where more than 80,000 people had gathered in open fields, allowing Singaporeans to be almost together in body as well as spirit.

'To sing along with everyone else in the Padang is great,' said jewellery designer Manoj Jaswani, 45, who was at Bishan with his family of three.

'We may not be where the parade is, but the party here is just as big and the atmosphere 10. _______(feel) the same.'

Spectators started gathering as early at 3.30pm at the Padang site, which 11. ______(festoon) with flags in line with this year's parade theme of Live Our Dreams, Fly Our Flag.

After weeks in which the weather 12. _______(swing) from dismal rain to scorching heat, it was a fine evening. It did not rain, and many were seen furiously fanning themselves to keep cool.

The parade kicked off with the daredevil Red Lions parachutists wowing the crowd. The marching contingents that followed also got people onto their feet.

Cheers 13. _______(greet) the arrival of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, 14. ________(follow) by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a little later.

A high point for the crowd was the four-minute aerial display 15. _________(feature) Singapore's latest F-15 fighter jets and the Gulfstream 550 airborne early warning aircraft.

Making a welcome comeback was the mobile column, an impressive, 210-strong convoy that trundled down St Andrew's Road and, in smaller groups, into the five HDB estates.

Military might made way for grace when the high-energy four-act show got under way. The 90-minute show directed by Dick Lee was divided into acts exploring the ideals symbolised by the red, white, crescent moon, and stars of the Singapore flag.

Los Angeles-based Singaporean singer-songwriter Corrinne May got the crowd onto their feet when she sang her tribute to the nation, Song For Singapore.

As dusk descended, the seating galleries turned into a sea of twinkling colours as spectators waved flag-shaped clappers cum torches, supplied in their fun totes. The bags this year came in designs by seven of the country's top designers.

A light display bathed the stately columns of City Hall in vibrant shades, while a stone's throw away, the waters of Marina Bay shimmered in the neon lights of the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort.

Retiree Chua Gek Soon, 63, was dazzled by the moon- and star-shaped fireworks. 'Marina Bay looks so beautiful now,' said the retiree, who was at the Padang with his wife. 'Singapore has achieved so much within such a short time.'

Singapore Airlines flight attendant Celine Poh, 31, rushed to the Padang after landing at Changi Airport from Ho Chi Minh City, just an hour before the parade.

'Rushing here is really nothing compared with being back here to celebrate the nation's birthday with my fellow Singaporeans,' she said.

She was, after all, Home.

5 magical moments AT THE NATIONAL DAY PARADE

1 ONE VOICE 2010

At exactly 8.10pm, 26,500 spectators at the Padang recited the Pledge and sang the Anthem. They joined voices with 80,000 residents taking part in heartland festivities, and with many more people across the island.
2 AERIAL DISPLAY

The newest additions to Singapore's air force took to the skies yesterday. Two sleek F-15 fighter jets streaked over Marina Bay Sands and executed a 'shackle' manoeuvre, showcasing the aircraft's ability to execute sharp turns.

3 COLOURFUL COSTUMES

Vibrant, cutting-edge, coordinated and 'wow'. The Padang exploded in a riot of colours right from the show's opening act, which featured the multifaceted costumes of Singapore's racial and cultural groups.

4 FIREWORKS OVER THE BAY

The skies above Marina Bay burst into myriad colours as fireworks were set off at an unprecedented nine locations, including the Esplanade and City Hall. Spectators were captivated by the spectacular pyrotechnics.

5 CITY HALL LIGHT SHOW

City Hall was turned into a huge canvas. More than 20 patterns like stars, flowers and futuristic circuit boards were projected on the building, which has witnessed momentous events since Singapore's independence in 1965.

Match the following meanings with the correct word given in the passage.

1. Slim, not fat. ______________

2. Originated from the country of birth or citizenship ___________

3. Having a sense of the supernatural ____________

4. A central region where most people live ___________

5. Enjoying great success ____________

6. A period of time where business is poor __________

7. Recovered very fast __________

8. A situation where there is profit or gain __________

9. Extraordinarily good achievement ___________

10. Celebrations that are going on at the same time ____________

11. Shown on mass media ___________

12. Real time data shown on mass media ___________

13. Very hot __________

14. Causing the audience to marvel _________

15. Depressing and dull rain _________

16. A group of soldiers escorting for protection _____________

17. To represent by a sign ____________

18. A payment as an acknowledgement ________________

19. A large area of bright flashing colours ___________

20. To impress deeply _____________

21. Celebrations ___________

22. A lot of colours _______________

23. Lively, full of energy _____________

24. Very modern, using the latest technology _______________

25. Smooth and shining ___________

26. To move swiftly ____________

27. To move around _____________

28. Carry out, perform , evasive movement ____________

29. Exhibiting to a crowd of people _________

30. Attire worn by performers that show many aspects of the races and cultures ______________________

ANSWERS

Grammar- 1. sang 2. rose 3. recited 4. drew 5. noted 6. stood 7. unity 8. was celebrated

9. historic 10. feels 11. was festooned 12. swung 13. greeted 14. followed 15. featuring

Vocabulary 1. slender 2. homegrown 3. a magical night 4. heartland 5.riding high 6. recession 7. rebound 8. take advantage 9. exceptional performance 10. simultaneous celebrations 11. featured 12. live feeds 13. scorching heat 14. wowing the crowds 15. dismal rain 16. convoy 17. symbolised 18. tribute to the nation 19. a sea of twinkling colours 20. dazzled 21. festivities 22. a riot of colours 23. vibrant 24. cutting-edge 25. sleek 26. streaked 27. manoeuvre 28. execute 29. showcasing 30. multi-faceted costumes

LET THE GAMES BEGIN - YOG

2010-08-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

Let the Games Begin

To commemorate the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore this month, Reader’s Digest and the National Library Board of Singapore organised the Youth Writers Awards Asia on the theme “Dare to Dream: Stories of Imagination, Passion and Sporting Excellence”. This is one of the winning entries, “The Moment”

By LOIS CAPON, KING GEORGE V SCHOOL, HONG KONG

I am flying, Soaring through the air. Looking up to the clouds, I hold my breath. Can I do this?

In that moment, my life 1. ________ before me. It has all come down to this.

My parents have spent 2. _________ and hours driving me to and from training. The money they could have 3. __________, the time they would otherwise not have wasted, sitting through all types of weather, encouraging me through failures and 4. __________ alike.

The first time I got selected to compete in a real competition, not just at school – that odd feeling of 5. __________ and excitement, the rush of 6. __________.

Meeting my coach for the first time, he said to me, “You’re good, Lois. You could be great, but do you really, really want it? Are you hungry enough to be the best?”

Friends came and went. It’s not much fun when you can’t go out when you have training, when you have to be in bed early to travel to a competition the next day, or when dinner becomes a bore because you have to watch what you eat to ensure 7. _______ physical fitness, in time for the start of the season.

The physiotherapist who had reassured me and worked patiently on my ankle after that fall in training – I’d thought my career was over before it had even begun. I cried for hours, believing my 8. _______ had been shattered, but he coaxed me through the pain of 9. __________, daring me to believe in my dream again.

Then there were the failures and the 10. __________. To start with, there were always one or two competitors better than me. I’d trained hard, I’d 11. __________ my technique, everyone said I had it in me to be a winner, but on the big day itself, something would always go wrong. Was it nerves? Was I overly confident? Or was I just not good enough?

Then this past season, things started going right. At our first meet, I beat the hot favourite. I didn’t just beat her; I 12. _________ her – as well as the rest of the field. Some said it was a fluke, others said I was finally coming into my own, that I was about to fulfil my potential.

But it wasn’t a 13. ________. She and the other girls, they were fantastic, but something had changed, something inside of me. I finally realised that I had what it takes. I began to really believe in myself, and was finally ready to take on the biggest challenge of my life. This was my time.

So I’ve been focusing. I set myself the goal, and I’ve had help, support and encouragement. Now it all comes down to me.

The 14. ________ of the sun as we enter the stadium blocks out all the distractions. Not even watching the other girls go before me will help or hinder me – nothing anyone else does right now will.

A few more minutes to go. I’m prepared, mentally and 15. _________. I look into the crowd. My parents look like they are about to be sick. My coach is writing something on his scorecard, but everything else is a blur. I run through my final routine.

This is it. The crowd gets 16. ________ me. The steady clap, clap, CLAP, CLAP becomes louder and louder. It helps to have the 17. ________ crowd behind you.

London 2012, women’s pole 18. _______ final. I am the odds-on 19. _________, having broken the world record in the heats. Can I do it now? Will I be Olympic 20. _________?

I am flying, Soaring through the air.
ANSWERS

1. passes 2 hours 3 saved 4 successes 5 nerves 6 adrenaline 7 peak

8 dream 9 rehabilitation 10 frustrations 11 perfected 12 annihilated

13 fluke 14 glare 15 physically 16 behind 17 home

18 vault 19 favourite 20 record

YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES- inspire admiration for your character by IOC president

2010-08-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Youth Olympic Games

GRAMMAR

Aug 15, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

'Inspire admiration for your character'

IOC president tells young athletes to strive to be role models for others

By Leonard Lim

Cheering along with the spectators were (from left) IOC president Jacques Rogge, President S R Nathan, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, at the start of the opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games last night. --PHOTO: SPH-SYOGOC/BRYAN VAN DER BEEK

GRAMMAR

Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the given word.

The world's future sporting heroes 1. _________(issue) a challenge last night: to win with character.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge's speech to mark the 2. ________(open) of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) was not the usual spiel about 3. _________(breach) personal barriers and setting records, but about striving for a more noble ideal.

It was in line with the Belgian's vision for 4. ________(institute) the YOG, an idea he 5. _________(moot) back in 2001.

The former sailor said of the YOG in his speech: 'You will learn the difference between 6. _________(win) and being a champion.

'To win, you merely 7. ________(be+ to +cross ) the finish line first.'

But it entails more to be a role model, and the 3,600 athletes 8. ___________(be+only+look) to look over their shoulders for a glimpse of some in the audience. Pole-vaulting legends Sergey Bubka and Yelena Isinbayeva were among the sporting celebrities present.

Dr Rogge could well 9. ____________(be+describe) the multiple Olympic medallists when he said: 'To be a champion, you have to inspire admiration for your character, as well as for your physical talent.

'You have 10. __________(to+ compete) in the spirit of fair play, respecting your opponents and the rules, without doping or any other unfair advantage.

'If you can reach that pinnacle, if you are ready to serve as role models for your generation, then you will all be champions irrespective of your rankings.'

The YOG, which caters to athletes aged between 14 and 18, aims to prepare them for the future, he said.

It includes a simultaneous culture and education component alongside the sports programme, where the athletes come together for workshops and forums on issues such as sportsmanship and the danger of using drugs.

'The experience here 11. ________(be+help) prepare you for life beyond the field of play,' DrRogge said.

Organisers hope the interaction among athletes from the 204 National Olympic Committees - possibly the highest number at any IOC events in recent history - through the workshops 12. _________(be+ lay) the foundation for better understanding among different cultures.

It was a topic 13. __________(broach) by the Games' organising committee chairman and IOC vice-president Ng Ser Miang as well, in his speech just before Dr Rogge's.

Mr Ng hoped the athletes 14. _________(be+ bring) home more than just their medals and memories of Singapore.

'We hope they will build strong and abiding bonds of friendship, and learn that the power of sports and the ideals of Olympic values can help us build a more united and peaceful world,' he said.

Fittingly, more than 100 white balloons shaped like doves - a symbol of peace - were released into the air by performers in an item which had ended minutes before.

The parallels were not lost on Brazilian rower Tiago Braga.

The 18-year-old said with a smile: 'I'm hoping that through the Youth Olympics, with so many young athletes 15. ________(come) together, that all countries in the world will be unified

ANSWERS

GRAMMAR

1. were issued 2. opening 3. beaching 4. Instituting 5. had mooted 6. Winning 7. Have to cross 8. had only to look 9. have been describing 10. to compete 11 will help 12 will lay 13 broached 14 would bring 15 coming

The Singapore dream, The 5 Cs

2010-08-22T20:26:00.001-07:00

Aug 8, 2010, STRAITS TIMES

Chasing the SINGAPORE DREAM

Follow these investment rules to achieve 5Cs responsibly and wisely

By Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent
GRAMMAR

We all know the five Cs that many Singaporeans see as signs that they have made it - cash, credit cards, condo, car and country club membership - but escalating prices are pushing the dream away from many.

But they can still be 1. ________(attain) responsibly and wisely if you follow some sound investment rules, as The Sunday Times highlights.

1 Cash

One misconception many people 2. __________(be) is that getting rich is primarily an outcome of investing, noted Mr Christopher Tan, chief executive of wealth management company Providend.

He 3. _________(belief) that the road to wealth does not start from investing but from earning a good income, 4. ________(set) aside an amount for savings every month and keeping expenses low by living within your means so you can have a surplus for investment.

It all takes discipline.

Ask yourself: Do you spend first, then save or save first, then spend? It helps if you inculcate the habit of paying yourself first, said financial experts like Mr Ben Fok, chief executive of Grandtag Financial Consultancy, and Mr Dennis Ng, author of Mastering Your Personal Finance.

One way is to arrange for automatic 5. ________(month) deductions out of your pay to a special savings account.

Mr Ng believes that most people make the mistake of having all their money in one account, which makes it 6. _________(tempt) to spend it all.

'Have at least two bank accounts, one for common trans-actions and another just for the 'pay yourself first' purpose,' he said.

It 7. _____________(recommend) that you save at least 10 per cent of your salary each month, excluding Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions.

Mr Tan said 8. __________(be) a good budget will help and once you get it going, you should stick with it, even if you receive an unexpected sum like a bonus.

In addition, you should set aside an emergency fund that can take care of three to six months of your expenses.

2 Credit cards

These can be double-edged swords. You can benefit from the cash rebates and reward points they bring, but they can also make you poorer and even bankrupt in some cases.

It is prudent to use credit cards for their convenience, to earn reward points and as a tool to

leverage on your cash flow because you can take advantage of the

interest-free period of about 55 days. The golden rule is always to pay off your credit card bill in full every month.

And do not fall into the habit of 9. ________(roll) over balances, said Mr Ng.

This 10. ________(attract) a 2 per cent monthly interest or a 24 per cent interest per year.

'There is no way you can get a return higher than 24 per cent by investing your money, so if you owe a credit card debt, you're heading towards financial disaster and further and further away from financial freedom,' he said.

Mr Patrick Lim, associate director at financial advice firm PromiseLand Independent, also warns that consumers should never allow themselves to be lulled into signing up for any interest-free instalment scheme.

This is because there is a risk that the supplier will not be able to continue delivering the services. A recent example was the closure of several spas, leaving customers stranded.

And the longer the period for the interest-free payments to be fully paid off, the higher the risk of not being able to pay the monthly instalments should you lose your job.

If you lack the discipline, a safer alternative is a debit card. It looks and works like a credit card in that you have the same convenience of cashless payment, but minus the reward points and you are not spending future money.

You can use your debit card only up to the amount you have in your account.

It can also be used as an ATM card and for Nets transactions.

3 Condos

This is a big-ticket item, so you have to be very clear on why you want one and whether you can afford it. Don't chase the condo dream just because others are doing so, said Mr Tan.

The prudent way to buy a condo or any home, said Mr Fok, is to pay at least 20 per cent downpayment. The higher the downpayment, the better to buffer you against a decline in home prices, mortgage rates creeping up or the loss of a job.

This will prevent you going into negative equity - a situation where you owe more than the property is worth. If that happens, the bank may force you to reduce your loan by coughing up cash.

Before signing the mortgage agreement, calculate your debt service ratio. This is the percentage of your monthly income needed to service long-term liabilities and it should not exceed 35 per cent.

Another yardstick is your debt-to-asset ratio, which should be less than 50 per cent.

Mr Ng said that if not for status or security reasons, buying an HDB flat might help one become richer because of the lower costs compared with living in a condo.

And you get more square feet of space for every dollar you pay. For the same size, condos could be 30 per cent to over 200 per cent more expensive than HDB flats, depending on the location.

'It is not exactly 'upgrading' one's lifestyle if one sells a five-room HDB flat that is 1,100 sq ft to move to an 800 sq ft condo,' said Mr Ng.

4 Cars

Cars depreciate in value over time, so they should not be considered an asset. Mr Tan noted that on average, you need to set aside $1,000 to $1,500 per month just to pay off the loan of a car, pay for petrol, parking, maintenance and so on. This may not leave enough surplus cash to invest towards your future.

If you really want to own a car, buy one that is reliable enough and that you will continue to like for about five years.

'This is because the first few years of a car's life experience the highest depreciation. So if you sell a car just one to two years into your purchase, the depreciation and the bank loan repayment will cost you quite a bit,' said Mr Tan.

Bear in mind that the effective interest rate of a car loan is about 5 per cent, said Mr Ng.

So if you take a car loan, you suffer both ways in terms of a falling asset value and paying higher interest over time.

In fact, some financial experts question if you really need a car given Singapore's efficient public transport system.

Taking public transport is definitely cheaper if you live near your workplace. For instance, Mr Ng travels by taxi 90 per cent of the time and spends about $800 a month on transport.

This is a saving of $700 a month assuming the cost of owning a car is $1,500. Grow this at 5 per cent and at the end of 10 years, you will have $109,150.

5 Country club membership

Before signing up, ask yourself how likely you are to use the club facilities.

Mr Tan recalled buying his first country club membership when he was in his 20s just because he wanted to make a good impression on his friends.

The club's car decal looked impressive on his car windscreen but he is not a golfer, prefers running outdoors than in a gym, and the club was far from his home. He ended up not visiting it and sold his membership a few years later, $15,000 poorer from his decision.

Mr Fok advises people to be mindful of the other costs associated with clubs, such as paying a service fee every month and a transfer fee when you sell.

'I don't see country club membership as an investment and I do not advocate borrowing money to buy the membership. In fact, this is my last priority out of the 5Cs,' he added.

But if you do need the facilities, there are more affordable club memberships, like the NUS/NTU Alumni Club, where membership costs $10,000 and comes with low monthly fees of around $50

VOCABULARY ONE – Choose the correct word.

Aug 8, 2010

SM Goh recasts the 5 Cs

Don't gripe; focus on career, comfort, children, consideration and charity, he says

By Zakir Hussain

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong last night called on Singaporeans to 1. ( gripe/ roll/ spin) their own Singapore Dream and live it, rather than focus on what he termed the Singapore Gripe.

While gripes about current 2. ( outcomes/ interests/ concerns) such as floods, high home prices, crowded trains and distance-based bus fares were understandable, he urged people to not lose sight of the many more things which are going well for Singapore.

'For instance, we have rebounded with a vengeance from last year's recession. Take a walk along Marina Bay and soak in the beauty and 3. (vibrancy/ juiciness/ trend).

'Look at the 4. (bright / dull/ grey)side of things and live your dreams. This is far healthier than to live the Singapore Gripe and drone on like vuvuzelas,' he told more than 1,000 residents at a National Day dinner in his Marine Parade ward.

Today, many young Singaporeans are well educated and have a good chance of 5. ( receiving/ stretching/ attaining) the five Cs of cash, credit cards, car, 6. ( HDB flat/ bungalow/ condominium) and country club membership, provided there was good economic growth and they worked hard, he said.

But Mr Goh challenged them to go further, to dream larger not only for themselves but also for their 7. ( neighbourhood/ constituency/ community).

'At this stage of Singapore's development, should we still be spinning this same dream of five Cs? Should we not rethink our priorities? Should our young not aim at something different, something more meaningful, a life more fulfilling?

'I am not suggesting that material goods are not important or that there is anything wrong with chasing after the five Cs. But the five Cs should not be our end goals.'

Many Generation Y Singaporeans have begun seeking more rounded lives, he observed, which 8. ( include/ embrace/ exclude) sports, the arts and a good work-life balance.

Some left well-paying jobs to 9. ( delete/ pursue/ give up) their passions. Others were active in non-governmental organisations, such as those involved in humanitarian and green issues.

While happy about the trend, Mr Goh said he worried that along the way, many had dropped family from their dreams.

'In my view, having a family is a vital part of a fulfilling life. It should be at the 10. ( root/ core / centre)of every Singapore dream,' he said.

He also proposed his version of the Singapore dream, where the five Cs would stand for career, comfort, children, consideration and charity.

Career means striving to be better in one's 11. ( given/ ordained/ chosen) field and to realise one's full potential.

Comfort encompasses both material and emotional comfort, while children are key to 'home and family and a new 12. ( bicycle/ cycle/ carriage) of life'.

The last two Cs, consideration and charity, are essential to living harmoniously, especially in a place like Singapore with potential divisions inherent within society, between different races and religions, locals and foreigners, and the young and the old.

Mr Goh said that the Government, on its part, would create the fertile soil Singaporeans need to sow and grow their dreams, by growing the 13. (people/ plants/economy) and providing a quality education system that would reach out to every Singaporean and at every level.

The Government would also 'always put Singaporeans first', even as it welcomed workers of all 14. ( races/ creed/nationalities) and backgrounds to be present, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said in his National Day speech in Tampines.

With the entry of large numbers of new citizens, 15. ( resident/permanent/ temporal) residents and foreign workers, Singaporeans are understandably concerned about competition for jobs, housing, schools and even seats on buses and trains.

But the Government's policies, whether in housing, health care or education, would always put Singaporeans first, he said.

Mr Mah urged Singaporeans to welcome foreigners who 'want to join us and play for Singapore'.

He also urged newcomers to 'join the rest of Singapore, learn our languages, our cultures and traditions, and become integrated with us'.

VOCABULARY TWO

Match the following words with the correct word in the passage

1. merged , combined with other things _______________

2. initial deposit _______________

3. rising prices _____________

4. complaining _____________

5. fulfilling two objectives with the same action __________

6. the way to achieve an objective ______________

7. expenditure _______________

8. fall in value of money, a property or an asset ______________

9. strongly persuaded _______________

10 important, essential _______________

11. an expense object ___________

12. balanced lifestyle ______________

13. recovered greatly from a setback _______________

___________________________________________________________________________

ANSWERS

Grammar – 1. attained 2. have 3. believes 4. setting 5. monthly 6. tempting 7. is recommended 8. having 9. rolling 10. will attract

Vocabulary One- 1. spin 2. concerns 3. vibrancy 4. bright 5. attaining 6. condominium 7. community 8. embrace 9. pursuit 10. core 11. chosen 12. cycle 13. economy 14. nationalities 15. permanent

Vocabulary Two - 1. integrated 2. downpayment 3. escalating 4. gripe 5. double-edged 6. the road 7. expenses 8. depreciation 9. urged 10. vital 11. a big ticket item 12. rounded lives 13. rebounded with a vengeance

Speech by Bill Gates

2010-07-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Remarks of Bill Gates, Harvard Commencement 2007

Text type: SPEECH
Thursday, June 7, 2007, http://www.cnbc.com

Bill Gates

Part One: Vocabulary matching
(Text as prepared for delivery)

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning. That’s how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world’s first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: “We’re not quite ready, come see us in a month,” which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out.

Match the sentences below with the correct word in bold in the passage.

Write your answer on the lines provided.

1. Something that gives pride or pleasure . ___________

2. To be in or continue after a pause or intermission. ___________

3. A short account of your education and work experience, often used when you are applying for a new job. ______________

4. Deserving to be praised or accepted. ____________

5. To clap your hands in order to show that you line something. _________

6.To find out where you are, to be familiar with a place. _________

7. Unusual because it is so good or so great. ___________

8. To overcome difficulties or obstacles. _____________

9. To make us feel very happy or excited. ____________

10. To frighten somebody in order to make a person do something. ________

11. To change completely. _________
12. Shocking or terrible. _________________

13. Feeling desperate. _________

14. Reveal, made known to all ______________

15. Terrible and very poor condition. ____________

16. The student usually with the highest rank in class who delivers the address in commencing exercises . _______________

Part Two: Grammar

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we 1. ________(be).

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who 2. _________(be) dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I 3. __________(be+never+see)or even 4. ________(hear) of, rotavirus, 5. _______(be+kill) half a million kids each year – none of them in the United States.

We were shocked. We 6. ________(be+just+assume) that if millions of children 7. _________(die) and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.

If you believe that every life 8. _______(be) equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it 9. _______(deserve) to be the priority of our giving.”

So we 10. ______(begin) our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How 11. _________(be) the world let these children die?”

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both.

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, 12. _______(serve) people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.

This task is open-ended. It can never be 13. _______(finish). But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

I 14. _________(be) optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: “Inequity 15. ________(be+ been) with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just … don’t … care.”

I completely disagree.

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

Part Three: Further Vocabulary related to Helping The Poor

Circle the correct word.

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human 1. ( suffering/tragedies/evils) that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have 2. ( danced/ fled/acted).

The 3. ( journey/problems/barrier) to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

To turn caring into 4. ( presentations/action/words), we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

Even with the 5. (advent/invention/instruction) of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

But if the officials were 6. ( crudely/ bluntly/brutally) honest, they would say: “Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the 7. (ideas/ lives/ fate) of the one half of one percent.”

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of 8. (stoppable/ laudable/preventable) deaths.

We don’t read much about these deaths. The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so 9. ( simple/ worldly/complex) that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is 10. (simple/ conclusive/essential) if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks “How can I help?,” then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

ANSWERS

Part One: 1. timely honour 2. resume 3. applaud 4. orientation 5. graduation 6. phenomenal 7. odds 8. credit 9. exhilarating 10. intimidating 11. transformed 12. appalling 13. despair 14. exposure 15. unspeakable 16. valedictorian.

Part Two: 1. have 2. were 3. had never seen 4. heard 5. was killing 6. had just assumed 7. were dying 8. has 9. deserves 10. began 11. could 12. serving 13. finished 14. am 15. has been

Part Three: 1. tragedies 2. acted 3. barrier 4. action 5. advent 6. brutally 7. lives 8. preventable 9. complex 10. essential

Useful Phrases for Sensational Writing: Feelings- Fear

2010-07-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

Useful Phrases for Sensational Writing

Theme:   Feelings- Fear
adapted from the book in Popular Bookstore" Phrases for Sensational Writing", Casco Publications.
Part One: Underline the phrases related to FEAR.
CONFRONTED BY BULLIES
The bullies closed in on the pair of siblings. When cornered by the bullies, Tom felt nauseous and gagged frenziedly. Confronted with impending danger, Tom behaved cowardly as he hid behind his younger sister, Jane. Jane turned pale with terror but she stood up to the bullies who were extorting money from them. Cold perspiration broke out across her forehead when she saw she was intimidated by the bullies. Yet she refused to give in. her fearful heart was pounding very fast as she racked her brain for an escape for her brother and herself. Just as the bullies reached for her collar, Jane screamed, “Police!”

The bullies’ attention was diverted for a moment. Jane grabbed her brother’s hand and ran to the nearest police post. They reported the case and heaved a sigh of relief. It was a nerve- wrecking experience that left her trembling in fear all over.
Part Two: Underline the phrases related to fear.

• Appalled at the deplorable conditions, she stood aghast totally flabbergasted.

• A foreboding premonition came to mind when the grandfather clock sounded ominously at the stroke of twelve midnight.

• Confronted with impending danger, the boy behaved cowardly as he hid behind his younger sister.

• Mother was petrified and her face froze momentously.

• Father was startled by our nasty prank and his smile faded the instant he saw us.

• Mother felt her throat go dry when she saw the grim expression on the doctor’s face.

• When confronted by his phobia for heights, brother’s lips would turn into a deathly grey and he would gasp and pant involuntarily.

• It was a nerve wrecking experience that left her trembling in fear all over.

• The darkness swamped out any spot of light, sending an icy chill down his spine.

• The frightened boy bit his fingers fretfully.

• The hysterical crowd screamed and went amok during the escape from the fire.

• She freaked out and screamed hysterically when red gigantic ants crawled all over her schoolbag.
Part Three: Underline the phrases related to fear

FEAR OF BEING CAUGHT
The darkness swamped out any spot of light sending an icy chill down his spine. His breath was caught in his throat as he tried to steady is breathing. It was his first time. He held the heavy metal lock in his hand shakily. He glanced around nervously, his lips turned into a deathly grey as he gasped and panted involuntarily. His palms were drenched with sweat as he fumbled nervously as he picked the lock. The scraping sound was sending anxiety down his back. His face was stretched thin with fear. Suddenly the door slammed shut behind him making him jump out of his skin.

Part Four: Fill in the blanks with a suitable answer.

manically    breath      freaked       nerve-wrecking     terrified      trembling

phobia    deathly      pasty         nauseous

It was a 1. __________ experience that left her 2. ___________ in fear. When the lights finally came back on, her 3. ___________ was caught in her windpipe as she tried to steady her breathing. She thought she was already dead in the lift. Jane was 4. __________ of the dark.

It happened very suddenly. One moment Jane was alone in the lift humming a cheery tune; the next moment the lift just stopped moving and all the lights went out. Jane 5. __________ out and screamed 6. ___________. In the face of her fear of darkness, the timid girl felt 7. ___________ and gagged frenziedly. Her lips turned into a 8. ____________ grey and she started to gasp and pant involuntarily when she came face to face with her 9. _____________. In her terror, she rained her fists against the metal door and begged for help.

Jane was quivering all over when the rescue workers got to her. She looked 10. ___________ and her eyes were devoid of life. Fear was written all over her face. Her mother pulled her into a tight hug and reassured her that everything was fine.

Part Five: Fill in the appropriate sense( Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell or Taste) that best describes each underlined phrase.

The weird sounds from the backyard were inducing fear (1. _______) in the two boys. “There could be a burglar!” the elder of the two boys gushed. The younger sibling was so frightened that he bit his fingers fretfully (2. _________). Their suspicion sent an icy chill down their spines. (3. _________). Taking matters into their own hands, the elder one ventured into the backyard to investigate. His fearful heart was beating deafeningly against his ribcage (4. __________) as he went closer and closer to the source of the weird sounds.

ANSWERS

Part Four

1. nerve-wrecking 2. trembling 3. breath 4. terrified 5. freaked

6. manically 7. nauseous 8. deathly 9. phobia 10. pasty

Part Five

1. sound 2. taste 3. touch 4. sound 5. sight 6. touch 7. touch

8. touch 9. sight 10. taste

Remembering Reeves- Superman

2010-07-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

Remembering the Reeves

Vocabulary, Grammar, Comprehension

A family friend's intimate portrait of a remarkable love

By Ken Regan as told to Alanna Nash

Part 1: Vocabulary Cloze

Fill in the blanks with a suitable word.

I met Christopher Reeve when he was about to become 1. _________ than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to 2. ____________ tall buildings in a single bound. It was 1977. He was 25 and filming Superman, a role that would make him an American 3. _________; I was a photographer shooting celebrities for magazines and stills on movies. Working on Superman, I came to like this tall, strapping actor. He and I got together for dinner one night, but I had no inkling then that he'd have such an impact on my 4. _________.

The following year, when Superman was released, I was assigned to shoot a magazine 5. __________ on him, and we hung out for five days. He was great to work with – unassuming and fun. When he showed up later at a July 4th barbecue at my home, none of my friends could 6. __________ it was Christopher Reeve, Superman.

We had lots of common 7. __________ – sports, literature, film, plays and TV. He was always curious about my work because, in addition to shooting movies, I covered wars and world events. But what really brought us 8. ___________ was the fact that Chris trusted me. He knew that I would never release a photograph of him unless I asked first.

In 1980 Superman II came out, and I shot another story on Chris. By then, he had a son, Matthew, with modelling executive Gae Exton, and two years later, daughter Alexandra arrived. I came to know Chris's family well, often sharing holidays or downtime with them.

Warner bros. sent me to western Canada to shoot for Superman III. While scouting 9. ___________, I had a chance to go sailing and white-water 10. __________ with Chris. I got an idea for a spectacular shot and asked Chris if he'd ever been up in a 11. ____________. ''I've always wanted to, but my contract says that while I'm making Superman, I can't fly my plane,'' he said. He paused, then flashed an impish grin. ''But it doesn't say anything about a balloon!''

The next day, the balloon pilot picked us up late. It was pitch-black when we landed – on a tree stump in a field. Chris and I flew out of the basket. Dazed, I stood up and yelled, ''Chris, Chris.'' There was no 12. __________. I thought, I've killed Superman! I heard moaning. ''Oh, God, I think I broke everything in my body,'' Chris said, sounding terrible. I ran as fast as I could, and, in a tiny shaft of moonlight, spotted him 13. _________ on the ground. As I knelt down to help him, Chris looked up and began laughing hysterically. I could have slugged him – he was absolutely fine.

It was sad when Chris and Gae broke 14. _________in 1987; they'd been together for about ten years. He was 15. _________ and worried about the kids; he and Gae shared joint custody. Then, that summer, Chris met Dana Morosini.

She was singing in a cabaret. After their first meeting, Chris told me he knew she was the person he'd been looking for all his life. When I met her the next day, I asked Chris, ''Does she have a sister?'' She was so lovely and fun – and she gave the best hugs.

Part Two: Vocabulary. Underline the correct word.

They married in 1992, and after their son Will was born, moved to Pound Ridge, New York. I'd stop by to visit on the way to my summer home. Their life seemed 1. (tranquil/ traumatic/ perfect). Then in May 1995, their world collapsed. In one dizzying moment, Chris injured his spinal 2. ( column/ bone/ cord) in a horse-riding accident and was paralysed from the neck 3. (up/ down/bone).

A couple of months later, after Chris was transferred to a rehab centre, Dana called me. ''Chris wants you to come,'' she said. ''Bring your cameras.''

When I saw my friend, 4. ( upright/ happy/ paralysed), it took everything not to break 5. ( up/down/off) in front of him. It was difficult for Chris to talk then, but he made it clear that he wanted me to photograph him for a book he was 6. ( deciding/planning/selling). So I returned to his bedside many times.

Chris worried about the toll his condition would take on Dana. He told her, ''It's not fair for me to put this 7. ( idea/ fortune/ burden) on you.'' And she said, ''You have love for me, I have the same feelings and love for you, and you're still you.''

I think the only reason Chris didn't pull the plug 8. ( under/ off/ on) himself was because of Dana's love and her belief that they could make a 9. ( living/ life/ career) for themselves. When Chris got home, Dana became more than his wife and lover and the mother of his child. She was his nurse, his driver, his exercise therapist, his 10. (all/ hope/everything). She took care of him 24 hours a day, feeding him, helping him blow his nose, anything – gladly, with such joy. And she maintained her sense of humour. One night, when we were having a barbecue at their house, Dana, grasping an 11. ( stalk/ bag/ ear) of corn, announced, ''Watch ‘Jaws' in action!'' She held the ear in front of Chris, and he went across it in two seconds! Once, while doing a shoot for a women's magazine, Dana threw her leg over him. ''Let's get a little racy,'' she said.

Part Three: Grammar

I was an only child; my dad 1. ______(die) when I 2. ________(be) two. Watching Chris and Dana show Will how much they loved him often made me think, I wish I could have had parents like that. Chris would go to Will's hockey games, and that was an ordeal. They 3. ________(hook) him up to all these machines, transport him in a specially equipped van, and Dana 4. _________(bundle) him up, because his body temperature 5. _________(can+not+go) below a certain point. It was all worth it to Chris. When Will scored, Chris's face would look like one of those yellow smiley faces, 6. ________(magnify) ten times.

Chris started the Christopher Reeve Foundation to find a cure for spinal cord injury, and it 7. ________(raise) more than $65 million. He 8. ________(begin) his political fight to hasten stem-cell research in hopes of 9. _________(reverse) paralysis, and 10. ________(travel) the world to learn about scientific advances.

Part Four: Fill in the blanks using the helping words given below

Doubling setback photojournalist memorial adversity enthusiasm

Foundation devastated compromised quadriplegic

He never gave up hope that he would walk again, even though he kept having 1 _________. In the summer of 2004, while in New Orleans directing a TV film about a 2. _________ teen, Chris landed in the hospital. One of the pressure sores that he was so prone to had become infected and 3. _______ his immune system. When he got out, he invited me to go to dinner. ''It's such a beautiful night, let's just walk,'' he said.

Dana pushed Chris through the streets, and traffic stopped for him. People got out of their cars, shouted, ''Welcome to New Orleans!'' I never imagined it was the last time I'd see him and Dana together.

On September 25, 2004, Chris celebrated his 52nd birthday. Fifteen days later, an infection stemming from another pressure wound raged through his body and stopped his heart. 4. _________, I met with Dana, and we just embraced for a long time and cried.

Dana became chairwoman for the 5. _______ and carried on Chris's fight for stem-cell research. She also picked up her acting and singing career.

Often I would stop by the house to see if she was okay. In June 2005 she called, excited to tell me she'd gotten a cabaret gig in New York City and needed photos for the promotional posters. She came down to my studio, and, my God, she looked gorgeous. We shot all day. Her 6. _________ was infectious, even though she didn't feel well. She kept coughing, and said, ''I've got this cold and can't shake it.''

A couple of weeks later, however, she was still coughing. I said, ''Gee, Dana, you ought to go see a doctor,'' and she said she had an appointment scheduled.

It was the next month that she told me she had lung cancer. I was speechless. ''Don't worry,'' she said. ''I've never smoked a day in my life, and we caught it early. I'll have treatment. Probably in six or seven months, I'll be clear of the whole thing.''

Dana had had so much more than her share of 7. ________. To me, it was as if she were caught up in a ferocious avalanche of bad luck. In February 2005, four months after she lost Chris, her mother died after ovarian cancer surgery. That November, while her

father was visiting for Thanksgiving, he suffered a stroke. It seemed unfair each time something terrible happened to this giving, beautiful person.

Dana called me early in January to say she was going to sing at Madison Square Garden for Mark Messier, who was retiring from the Rangers. I watched on television and thought, She's really beating it!

Three weeks later she took a nosedive. Over the phone, Chris's eldest son, Matthew, levelled with me. ''She's in the hospital, Ken,'' he said. ''I don't think she's going to make it.'' A week later, Dana died, on March 6, 2006, at the age of 44.

I asked myself, Can there be someone up there who let this happen to two people who did not deserve it? But I also had this feeling that Dana was called to be with Chris. Maybe she did too. At her husband's 8. ________, Dana had looked up and said, ''I'll be there with you one day, Chris.''

A few months before she died, Dana taped an introduction to a PBS documentary called The New Medicine. She told viewers, ''For years, my husband and I lived on – and because of – hope. Hope continues to give me the mental strength to carry on.''

It has given me strength as well. As a 9. _________, I have had an extraordinary life, travelling the globe and meeting the newsmakers of our time. But one of the greatest experiences of my life was becoming close friends with Chris, then 10. ________ that by meeting Dana too.

Part Five: Comprehension
Basic Comprehension

1. What is Reeves famous for?

2. What was his injury?

3. How was he injured?

4. Who took care of him?

The Vocabulary Question

5. “Hope continues to give me the mental strength to carry on.” Explain this in your own words

ANSWERS

Part One: 1. faster 2. leap 3. icon 4. life 5. story 6. believe 6. story 7. interests 8. together 9. locations 10. rafting 11. balloon 12. answer 13. sprawled 14. up

15. upset Part Two: 1. perfect 2. cord 3. down 4. paralysed 5. down 6. planning 7. burden 8. on 9. life 10. everything Part Three: 1. died 2. leap 3. icon 4. life 5. story 6. believe 7. interests 8. together 9. location 10. rafting 11. balloon 12. answer 13. sprawled 14. up 15. upset Part Four: 1. setbacks 2. quadriplegic 3. would hook 4. would bundle 5. couldn’t go 6. magnified 7. raised 8. began 9. reversing 10. traveled.

A LOVE STORY by Lee Wei Ling

2010-07-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

STRAITS TIMES, 19 Iune 2010.

A love story

Love at first sight is romantic but may not hold a candle to love that lasts a lifetime & is for better or for worse

By Lee Wei Ling
n advertisement for the 'Sassy Miss 2010 Workshop Series' in The Straits Times caught my eye recently. The headline was: 'The Power of First Impressions.'

The text claimed: 'It takes just 30 seconds for your first date or prospective employer to form an everlasting impression of you. So flash your X-factor, from the way you look to the style in which you carry yourself. Come uncover all the trade secrets of image-making at this power workshop!'

I was amused. If I want to make an impression, it would be to show my competence, sincerity, pragmatism and willingness to fight for what is right. My appearance and how I carry myself are highly unlikely to make an impression in a 30-minute encounter, let alone a 30-second 'flash'.

As for assessing someone on the first encounter, it would take me at least five to 10 minutes to appraise a person. I do not base my judgment on whether the person is good-looking or how he carries himself. Instead I would focus on his facial expression and body language.

If these contradict what he says, I would be wary of him. Body language and facial expressions are rarely under voluntary control and hence are better indicators of the true intent of a person than speech.

I am fairly good at sizing up people. There have been quite a few instances when I have accurately assessed someone at the first brief encounter. But even then, I seldom depend solely on first impressions. I will reassess the person on subsequent occasions. Only if I observe certain traits repeatedly would I be confident in my assessment.

Some people do indeed judge others on the basis of first impressions. Their judgment may well be strongly influenced by the person's appearance, how well he carries himself and how eloquently he speaks. I think such people are shallow. In life, we have to interact with people; and the more accurately we judge people, the fewer mistakes we are likely to make about them.

Research on interpersonal relationships between strangers shows that physical appearance does influence first impressions. But this does not explain why people stick together in long-term relationships. Commitment is a key variable in sustaining such relationships.

The one remarkable relationship I have personally observed is the one between my father and mother. Theirs was certainly not love at first sight. Nor were looks the main factor in their mutual attraction. Rather, it was personality and intellectual compatibility.

They are not only lovers, they are also best friends. There has never been any calculation about how much each had invested in the relationship. Theirs is an unconditional love.

Before my mother suffered her first stroke in 2003, she lived her life around my father, taking care of his every need. The stroke and the resultant disability made my mother quite frail.

From that point on, my father lived his life around her. He was still in the Cabinet, first as Senior Minister and then as Minister Mentor, but he tried his best to arrange his working schedule around my mother's needs.

He also took care of her health, strongly urging her to swim daily for exercise, and supervised her complicated regime of medication. He would also measure her blood pressure several times a day, till I got in touch with Dr Ting Choon Ming who had invented a blood pressure measuring equipment that is worn like a watch. Next day, when Dr Ting came to take the watch back to analyse the recorded blood pressure, my mother said to him: 'I prefer to have my husband measure my blood pressure.'

After my mother's second stroke in 2008, she became bed-bound and could no longer accompany my father on his travels overseas or to social functions here. Every night after returning home from work, my father now spends about two hours telling my mother about his day and reading aloud her favourite poems to her.

The poetry books are rather thick and heavy, so he uses a heavy-duty music stand to place the books. One night, he was so sleepy, he fell asleep while reading to my mother, slumped forward and hit his face against the music stand. Since the music stand was made of metal, he suffered abrasions on his face. He cursed himself for his carelessness but still carries on reading aloud to my mother every night.

I have always known my father was fearless, willing to fight to the bitter end for Singapore. When Vietnam fell in 1975, it looked for a while as though the domino hypothesis - which held that other South-east Asian states would also fall to the communists like dominoes - might turn out to be true. My father knew how ruthless the communists were, but he was determined to stay on in Singapore, and my mother was just as determined to stay on by his side.

I began this article because I was reading an article in a psychological journal on 'love at first sight versus love for a lifetime, for better or for worse'.

Love at first sight is rare and often does not endure. The affection my parents have for each other is also rare. They are each other's soul mates; their happy marriage has lasted beyond their diamond anniversary.

But they have never made a show of being a loving couple in public. Even in private, they have rarely demonstrated their love for each other with hugs or kisses. It was only after my mother's second stroke that I saw my father kiss my mother on her forehead to comfort her. They don't seem to feel the need for a dramatic physical show of love.

I have great admiration for what my father has done for Singapore - and at age 87, he is still promoting Singapore's interests. But he being the first-born son in a Peranakan family, I would not have suspected him to have been capable of such devotion as he has shown for my mother, taking care of her so painstakingly. My admiration for him has increased manifold because I have watched him look after my mother so devotedly over the last two painful years.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute

2010-05-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Rickshaws Reinvented

The ancient transportation takes a modern turn

By Dina Modianot-Fox , Smithsonian.com, March 01, 2007

Part One – Vocabulary

From London to Anchorage, New York to Hanoi, it seems as if people everywhere are catching a ride on rickshaws. Surprised? Thought that those human-pulled carts, century-old symbols of exploitation and poverty, were obsolete?

As of last December, they are—at least in the stereotypical form of a man in rags and a straw hat running barefoot through crowded Asian streets, drawing a cart carrying one or two obviously better-off passengers. That's when the government of West Bengal banned man-pulled rickshaws in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta)—the last place in the world where they were in widespread use. Explaining the ban at a press conference, Kolkata's Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, "We can't imagine one man sweating and straining to pull another man." An estimated 18,000 rickshaw drivers have since taken to the streets to protest what they see as the removal of their livelihoods.

Though traditional rickshaws might have made their last trips, the concept of one person using his muscle to pull a cab with people or goods remains very much alive. Companies with names like "Cleverchimp Rickshaw" and "Orient Express Rickshaw," have sprung up across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, offering an environmentally friendly way to shop, avoid big city traffic, sightsee, deliver packages—even return home after a night on the town. Several dozen companies operate in the United States alone.

Modern-day rickshaws vary in style from country to country, use bicycle pedals (often assisted by small motors), are primarily three-wheeled and can be canopied or completely enclosed. A few are resplendent in neon colors; some look like space vehicles, others show off the handiwork of their cultures, still others are as covered in advertisements as NASCAR entries. Universally known as rickshaws, they're called velo-taxis in most of Continental Europe, cyclos in Cambodia and pedicabs in Britain and the United States.

While they might carry the same genes, these new-age old-school vehicles differ substantially from their infamous ancestor—a two-wheeled cart with a collapsible hood and two long shafts.

"When technology met the rickshaw, everything changed," says Peter Meitzler of New York's Manhattan Rickshaw Company. "The modern pedicabs have hydraulic brakes, suspension, complete lighting systems, seat belts, full weather canopies, steel frames and fiberglass bodies."

Meitzler, whose title Person in Charge betrays his innovative spirit, is one of literally hundreds of entrepreneurs around the world hooked on pedal power as an alternative to gas guzzling. "You experience the urban environment differently when you're riding in a rickshaw," he says. He used "rickshaw" in the company name because it was internationally known.

The term is actually a shortened form of the Japanese word jinrikisha; literally, human-powered vehicle. There are conflicting theories about its inventor—the most prevalent is that Jonathan Scobie, an American missionary in Japan, designed it in 1869 to transport his invalid wife—but there is no question that Japan was the first country to use it widely. By the late 1870s, the rickshaw was that nation's main mode of transport, with an estimated 40,000 of them operating in Tokyo alone.

From there it quickly spread to other Asian countries. Peasants migrating to cities in search of work saw in rickshaw-pulling a quick, if exhausting, way to make a living. Several books and films, notably City of Joy, based in Kolkata, and Rickshaw Boy, the unenviable first Chinese Communist movie shown in American theaters, have chronicled the lives of rickshaw pullers, the very image of the downtrodden.

Historically, most rickshaws were rented, and the drivers had to work 17- to 18-hour days to survive. They ran in a single file at about five miles an hour through the mud and grime of teaming streets, with the front driver calling out warnings of any road hazards ahead. The rickshaw was not only their livelihood; it was also where they kept their few belongings, where they slept and where they ate.

Regarding them as a capitalist evil and a sign of China's subjugation to the West, the Communists banned rickshaws shortly after taking over that country in 1949.

All across Asia, pedals replaced the shafts and the pulled rickshaws became reserved as a unique treat for travelers visiting tourist spots. Today, they often serve as backdrops for posed souvenir photos, happy reminders of an unhappy past.
Part One- Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks with the correct underlined word in the passage.
1. The children were ______________ and used for child labour.

2. The people live in deep __________. There were hunger and starvation.

3. The ________________ passengers traveled in the luxurious first-class cabins while the poor squeezed like sardines in the dirty, smelly and overcrowded third class cabins.

4. The trishaw riders worked hard and earned little and they represented the _______________ group of people in the country.

5. She held the _______________ position of the discipline mistress, having to explain how the terrible accident started. No one wanted this type of dirty job.

6. They walked through the _________________of the streets, in search of their lost brother, but their efforts were in vain. He was nowhere to be found.

Part Two: Comprehension
1. Find another word in the passage with the same meaning as “human-pulled”.

2. Find another word in the passage with the same meaning as “prevalent”.

3. How useful was the trishaw to their owners?

4. Describe the modern day trishaw.

5. How is the trishaw used in the modern era?

Part Three- Reading for Ideas

1. What do you think it is like to be poor?

2. What are the ways to become rich?

3. What would you do if you win a million dollar lottery?

4. The MRT system in Singapore is convenient and safe. Do you agree?

5. Suggest ways to control the number of cars in Singapore.

ANSWERS

1. exploited

2. poverty

3. better-off

4. downtrodden

5. unenviable

PUFFIN COMEBACK

2010-05-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

A Puffin Comeback

Atlantic puffins had nearly vanished from the Maine coast until a young biologist defied conventional wisdom to lure them home

By Michelle Nijhuis

Smithsonian magazine, June 2010

Grammar, Vocabulary, Editing and Comprehension Questions

Part One – Grammar-Tenses

Impossibly cute, with pear-shaped bodies, beak and eye markings as bright as clown makeup and a wobbly, slapstick walk, Atlantic puffins were once a common sight along the Maine coast. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries people 1. ________(collect) eggs from puffins and other seabirds for food, a practice 2. __________(memorial) in the names of Eastern Egg Rock and other islands off the coast of New England. Hunters 3. _________(shoot) the plump birds for meat and for feathers to fill pillows and 4. _______(adorn) women’s hats.

By 1901, only a single pair of Atlantic puffins 5. ________(know) to nest in the United States—on Matinicus Rock, a barren island 20 miles from the Maine coast. Wildlife enthusiasts 6. ________(pay) the lighthouse keeper to protect the two birds from hunters.

Things began to change in 1918, when the Migratory Bird Treaty Act 7. _______(ban) the killing of many wild birds in the United States. Slowly, puffins 8. ________(return) to Matinicus Rock.

But not to the rest of Maine. Islands that puffins 9. ________(be) once inhabited 10. _________(be+ become) enemy territory, occupied by colonies of large, aggressive, predatory gulls that 11. ________(thrive) on the debris generated by a growing human population. Though puffins endured elsewhere in their historic range—the North Atlantic coasts of Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Britain—by the 1960s the puffin was all but forgotten in Maine.

In 1964, then 18-year-old Stephen Kress was so smitten with nature that he 12. ______(sign) up to spend the summer washing dishes at a National Audubon Society camp in Connecticut. There Carl Buchheister, president of the Audubon Society, 13. _________(entertain) the kitchen crew with stories about his seabird research on the cliffs of Matinicus Rock. Kress, who had grown up in Columbus, Ohio, 14. ________(go) on to attend Ohio State, where he 15. _______(earn) a degree in zoology; he then worked as a birding instructor in New Brunswick, Canada, where he visited islands overflowing with terns, gulls—and puffins.

Part Two- Vocabulary. Underline the correct word.

When, in 1969, Kress 1. (discovered/landed) his dream job, as an instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Camp on the Maine coast, the islands he visited seemed 2. ( dull/desolate), with few species other than large gulls. He 3. ( reflected/ wondered) if puffins could be transplanted so the birds might once again accept these islands as home. No one had ever tried to 4. ( place/ transplant) a bird species before.

“I just wanted to believe it was possible,” Kress says.

Though a handful of wildlife biologists supported him, others dismissed the idea. There were still plenty of puffins in Iceland, some pointed out; why bother? Others insisted the birds were hard-wired to return only to the place where they had hatched and would never adopt another home. Still others accused Kress of trying to play God.

Kress argued that bringing puffins back to Maine could help the 5. ( special/ entire) species. As for playing God, Kress didn’t see a problem. “We’d been playing the Devil for about 500 years,” says Tony Diamond, a Canadian seabird researcher who has 6. (collaborated/ argued) with Kress for decades. “It was time to join the other side.”

Kress went to work preparing a 7. ( cave/ place) for puffin chicks on Eastern Egg Rock, a seven-acre granite island about eight miles 8. ( on/ off) the coast of Bremen, Maine. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shot dozens of gulls and drove off many more to make the island 9. ( better/ safer) for young puffins.

In the summer of 1973, Kress, a research assistant named Kathleen Blanchard and Robert Noyce, a sympathetic summer neighbor (and the founder of Intel), went to Newfoundland’s Great Island, one of the largest puffin 10. ( enclave/ colonies) in North America. It was the first of 11. ( fewer/ more) than a dozen trips that the Audubon-sponsored “Project Puffin” would make to Great Island.

During each trip, Kress and his team, accompanied by Canadian Wildlife Service staffers, 12. ( climbed/ clambered) up the island’s steep banks and 13. ( put/ plunged) their arms into the long, 14. ( tight/ narrow) burrows that puffins dig in soil. Sometimes they 15. ( pulled/ extracted) a chick, but often they got only a nasty nip from an adult puffin. In total, they collected hundreds of chicks, nestling each in a soup can and storing the cans in carrying cases made for the journey. Making their way past amused customs officials, they flew home to Maine, and, in the wee hours, headed out to Eastern Egg Rock or to nearby Hog Island, where they deposited the chicks in hand-dug burrows.

Part Three- Editing- Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives. There are 20 errors. Write the correct word above the errors.

Kress and his assistants became 1. dutyful puffin parents, camping on the islands and leaving fish inside the burrows twice each day. Nearly all the chicks survived their 2. internal adventure, and by late summer were big enough to fledge. At night, Kress hid behind boulders observing the burrows, sometimes 3. glamping a young puffin as it hopped into the water and 4. puddled out to sea.

Because young puffins spend a few years at sea before returning home to nest, Kress knew he was in for a long wait. Two years passed, three, then four. There was no sign of 5. humecooing puffins.

Kress also knew that the birds were 6. xtremly social, so he decided to make Eastern Egg Rock appear more welcoming. He got a woodcarver named Donald O’Brien to 7. creation some puffin 8. decays, and Kress set them out on the boulders, hoping to fool a 9. life puffin into joining the crowd.

Finally, in June 1977, Kress was steering his powerboat toward the island when a puffin 10. lands in the water nearby—a bird wearing leg bands indicating it had been transplanted from Newfoundland to Eastern Egg Rock two years earlier.

But no puffins nested on Eastern Egg Rock that year, or the next. Or the next. A few of the transplanted birds nested with the existing puffin colony on Matinicus Rock, but not one had accepted Eastern Egg Rock as its home.

Shortly before sunset on July 4, 1981, Kress was scanning Eastern Egg Rock with his telescope when he spotted a puffin, beak full of fish, scrambling into a rocky crevice. The bird hopped out, 11. empty-beak, and flew away, while another adult puffin stood by watching. It was the long-hoped-for evidence of a new chick on the island.

“After 100 years of absence and nine years of working toward this goal,” Kress wrote in the island 12. longbook that evening, “puffins are again nesting at Eastern Egg Rock—a Fourth of July celebration I’ll never forget.”

Today, Eastern Egg Rock hosts more than 100 pairs of nesting puffins. Boatloads of tourists chug out to peer at them through binoculars. Kress and his “puffineers”—biologists and volunteers—have also13.re- introduce puffins to Seal Island, a former Navy bombing range that now serves as a national wildlife refuge. On Matinicus Rock, also a national wildlife refuge, the puffin population has grown to an estimated 350 pairs. Razorbills, a larger, heavier cousin to the puffin, also nest among the boulders; common and Arctic terns nest nearby. In all, a century after Atlantic puffins almost disappeared from the United States, at least 600 pairs now nest along the Maine coast.

Today seabirds around the world benefit from techniques pioneered by Kress and his puffineers. Bird decoys, recorded calls and in some cases, mirrors—so seabirds will see the movements of their own reflections and find the faux colonies more realistic—have been used to restore 49 seabird species in 14 countries, including extremely rare birds such as the tiny Chatham petrel in New Zealand and the Galápagos petrel on the Galápagos Islands.

“A lot of seabird species aren’t willing to come back to islands on their own—they’re not adventurous enough,” says Bernie Tershy, a seabird researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “So in the big picture, Steve’s work is a 14. kritical component of protecting seabirds.” With more and larger breeding colonies, seabirds are more likely to survive disease outbreaks, oil spills and other disasters.

Despite these successes, seabirds are still declining more quickly than any other group of birds, largely because of invasive predators, habitat loss, pollution and baited hooks set out by longline fishing fleets; many species will also likely suffer as climate change leads to rising sea levels and 15. skipier food supplies, says Tershy.

Project Puffin tactics are already deployed against these new threats. For example, the Bermuda petrel lives on a group of tiny, 16. low laying atolls off the Bermuda coast, where it is vulnerable to mere inches of sea-level rise or a single powerful storm. Scientists recently employed Kress’ techniques to relocate petrel chicks to higher ground, a nearby island called Nonsuch where the birds had been driven off by hunters and invasive species. Last summer, a petrel chick hatched and fledged on Nonsuch Island—the first to do so in almost 400 years.

Eastern Egg Rock has a human population of three, 17. minimel electricity and no plumbing. Thousands of gulls swoop over the island, their cries combining into a near-deafening cackle. Terns, their narrow white wings angled like 18. airborn origami sculptures, dive for human heads, the birds’ shrill scolds adding to the cacophony. Underfoot, gangs of 19. chuby tern chicks scuttle in and out of the grass, testing their wings with tentative flaps.

On the boulders that rim the island, more seabirds loaf in the midsummer sun, gathering in cliques to gossip and preen—looking for all the world like an avian cocktail party.

A puffin in 20. fly, stumpy wings whirring, careers in for a landing. Orange feet spread wide, it approaches a boulder, wobbles in the air for an instant, and—pop!—hits the rock, a fish shining in its striped, oversized beak. The puffin hops into a crevice between two rocks, presumably to deliver the fish to a hungry chick, and bounds back up to mingle with other puffins before its next expedition.

Part Four – Comprehension Questions

Each puffin pair raises a single chick. Once the young bird fledges, it heads south, but no one knows exactly where the juveniles spend their first two to three years. Though puffins are speedsters—they can reach 55 miles an hour in flight—their greatest talents are displayed at sea, where they use their feet and wings to maneuver expertly underwater.

“Never let it be said that puffins are awkward,” says Kress, who is director of Project Puffin and affiliated with Cornell University. “They can dive more than 200 feet in water, they can burrow like groundhogs and they can scamper over rocks. They’re all-purpose birds.”

On Eastern Egg Rock, Kress sits in a cramped plywood bird blind on the edge of the island, watching the seabirds toil for their chicks. Even after countless hours hunched behind binoculars, he’s still charmed by his charges.

Kress once imagined that he could one day leave the islands for good, the puffin colonies restored and the project’s work complete. He was wrong.

It became clear that two large gull species—the herring and black-backed gulls that prey on puffin chicks—weren’t going away. Kress had to play God again, this time to give puffins another ally in their battle against gulls: terns.

Terns look delicate and graceful aloft, but they are fighters, known for pugnacious defense of their nests. Working on the island, Kress wears a tam-o’-shanter so that angry terns will swipe at its pompom and not his head. Scott Hall, research coordinator for Project Puffin, wears a baseball cap fitted with bobbing, colorful antennae. Kress believed that the terns, once established, would drive off predatory gulls and act as a “protective umbrella” for the milder-mannered puffins. Unlike gulls, terns don’t prey on puffin eggs and chicks.

He and his colleagues used tern decoys, as they had with puffins, and played recorded tern calls through speakers to attract the birds. Again, their tricks worked: well over 8,400 pairs of terns, including 180 pairs of endangered roseate terns, now nest on the Maine islands where Kress and his team work, up from 1,100 pairs in 1984. But gulls continue to hover on the edges of the islands, waiting for an opportunity to feast on puffin and tern chicks.

Only one species, it seemed, could protect the puffins, the terns and the decades of hard work that Kress and his colleagues had invested: human beings. “People are affecting the ecosystem in all kinds of profound ways, underwater and above water,” Kress says. “Just because we bring something back doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way.”

So each summer, small groups of puffineers live as they have for almost 40 years, in the midst of the seabird colonies on seven islands, where they study the birds and their chicks and defend them against gulls.

On Eastern Egg Rock, Juliet Lamb, a wildlife conservation graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, is back for her fourth summer of living in a tent. She says she thrives on the isolation and even turns down occasional opportunities to visit the mainland for a hot shower. “I’d probably live out here all year if I could,” she adds with a laugh. She and two other researchers spend hours each day in bird blinds arrayed on the perimeter of the island watching puffins and terns feed their chicks. As the supervisor of island operations, Lamb also divvies up cooking and outhouse-cleaning duties, maintains the propane refrigerator and makes sure the island’s single cabin—which serves as kitchen, pantry, lounge and office—stays reasonably uncluttered. When her chores are finally done, she might climb the ladder to the cabin roof, French horn in hand, and practice until sunset.

Some days are decidedly less peaceful. When the biologists arrive in Maine each spring, they go through firearms training at a local firing range, learning to shoot .22-caliber rifles. In 2009, with permission from state and federal wildlife officials, Lamb and her assistants shot six herring and black-backed gulls, hoping to kill a few especially persistent ones and scare off the rest. Because of a worrying decline in roseate terns, they also destroyed the nests of laughing gulls, a smaller, less threatening species that occasionally eats tern eggs and chicks.

Kress and his colleagues are still dreaming up ways to replace themselves as island guardians.They’ve experimented with a “Robo Ranger,” a mechanized mannequin designed to pop up at random intervals and scare gulls off. The souped-up scarecrow wears a yellow slicker and a rubber Arnold Schwarzenegger mask. To teach the gulls that the mannequin is a serious threat, the biologists sometimes dress up in its costume and shoot a few. But mechanical problems have felled the Robo Ranger for now, leaving people as the puffins’ and terns’ only line of defense. The puffineers’ work is never done.

1. What is the puffin’s talent?

2. What is ‘Robo Ranger”?

3. Why must the biologist learn how to shoot?

4. What are the functions of the single cabin on the island?

5. What is the job of a puffineer?

6. What is the predator of the gulls?

7. “They’re all purpose birds” What are the birds? What are their abilities?

8. Why are puffins described as “speedsters”?

Part Five- Writing

Write a letter to your classmate or pen-pal about your favourite pet.

_________________________________________________________________

ANSWERS
Part One

1. collected 2. memorialized 3. shot 4. adorn 5. was known 6. paid

7. banned 8. returned 9. had 10. had become 11. thrived 12. signed

13. entertained 14. went 15. earned

Part Two

1. landed 2. desolate 3. wondered 4. transplant 5. entire 6. collaborated

7. place 8. off 9. safer 10. colonies 11. more 12. clambered 13. plunged

14. narrow 15. extracted

Part Three

1. dutiful 2. international 3. glimpsing 4. paddled 5. homecoming

6. extremely 7. create 8. decoys 9. live 10. landed 11. empty-beaked

12. logbook 13. reintroduced 14. critical 15. skimpier 16. low-lying

17. minimal 18. airborne 19. chubby 20. flight

CAMPING

2010-05-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

Name _________________( ) Date _______

READING ARTICLE, COMPREHENSION, VOCABULARY and WRITING

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1. Why is camping a favourite pastime?

2. Where are the places we can go camping in Singapore/

3. What are the activities students can enjoy during the school holidays?

______________________________________________________

ITE Simei student Nur Safura (centre), 19, playing a game of Twister with her cousins at Pasir Ris Park. Their extended family of more than 50 members pitch 12 tents when they go camping. Tasks such as food, games and trash duty are split up among the family, the youngest of whom is two years old and the oldest is 65. -- ST PHOTO: VERONICA KOH
Instead of letting his seven-year-old twin sons stay at home playing computer games, Mr Ivan Lim has got them clicking with nature. He takes them camping at East Coast Park.

Along with his wife and parents, he heads to the park once a month to show the boys how to pitch a tent, cycle and swim too.

Mr Lim, a 36-year-old project director who lives in a condominium unit in Yew Tee, says: 'It started out as a family outing earlier this year, but my kids had so much fun that we made it a routine.

'I get them to try new activities and they're also picking up survival skills.'

His wife Esther, 35, an accounts manager, says: 'Our jobs prevent us from taking long vacations. Camping provides a quick getaway to spend time with the family.'

Increasingly, more Singaporeans are in Mr Lim's camp, as camping takes off. Since April last year, the National Parks has allocated 21,000 camping permits to campers, which works out to 57 permits a day.

Suppliers of camping equipment which LifeStyle spoke to agreed that camping is becoming more popular.

Sports and camping equipment shops Adventure 21 and Camper's Corner reported an increase in sales in the past five years. Sports Connection's camping gear sales have risen 100 per cent from 2008 to last year. The shops declined to give figures.

Campers have a choice of heading to the parks at East Coast, Pasir Ris, West Coast and Changi Beach if they have a permit. They can pitch a tent without a permit on Pulau Ubin, although they must inform the police.

Go to East Coast Park over the weekend and you will see a sea of tents along the shoreline, sometimes numbering up to 50.

However, Singapore-style camping is not exactly roughing it out. Camping areas come with stores and toilet facilities.

Some campers bring their own food from home or go to nearby eateries, especially if they are at East Coast Park where there are plenty of choices, or Changi Beach Park, where Changi Village Food Centre is a 15-minute walk away.

Today's tents are a breeze to set up compared to old-style heavy canvas, multiple tent poles and hammering in pegs.

Camping instructor Winnie Tan, 19, who goes camping at East Coast Park, says: 'My friends and I can go camping and not worry about food or forgetting a toothbrush because we know the food centre and convenience store is nearby.'

Camping permits here are free, which appeals to bigger groups on a budget.

When it comes to organising a camping trip, no one does it quite like sales coordinator Suzi Sairi, 25, and her extended family of more than 50 members. The youngest is two years old and the oldest, 65. Pitching 12 tents at a go, her family shares tasks such as food, trash duty and games. They have a Facebook group for their camping trips at various parks.

She said: 'For a big family like ours, camping is less restrictive than being cooped up in a chalet. There may be problems such as rainy weather, but it's going through these experiences that helps our family to bond.'

Marketing coordinator Nur Khamisah Dawood, 51, is also into family camping. She goes with her extended family of over 30 relatives.

She says: 'Chalets cannot fit everyone and overseas holidays are expensive. Camping is a vacation at a lower cost.'

The activities of Pasir Ris Park spurred engineer Tan Choon Liang to take his two daughters, aged seven and 10, camping instead of spending the weekends at their five-room flat in Hougang. They enjoy playing at the park's extensive playground and feeding the ponies at the park stable.

Mr Tan, 45, said: 'Instead of just lying around in a tent, it's good that the park has attractions to keep my children occupied.'

For businessman Terrence Lim and his wife Fanny, it is never too early to start camping. They take their 16-month-old son Elliot every weekend to Pasir Ris Park, pitching tent near the beach so that he can play in the sand.

Mr Lim, 37, said: 'We don't want him to merely watch TV, so we started this as soon as he could walk.'

Camping is also popular for couples seeking a romantic getaway.

Student Veronica Neo, 19, goes camping with her boyfriend whenever they can. They pack a picnic and spend the night at the beach. She said: 'People always associate camping with roughing it out, but they forget that the beach is a very romantic place as well, especially at night.'

Once a fortnight, pest control operator Azman Sahlan and his wife head to a remote area of Pasir Ris Park, where they pitch a tent and fish together.

Mr Sahlan, 40, said: 'It's just us, the sea and the fish. It gives us a chance to spend time together without the distractions of the outside world.'

Some, such as 18-year-old student Adeline Wan, pitch a tent just to study. 'It's a refreshing change from studying at home or at the library,' she said.

Student Melissa Chua, 20, combines her love for camping with her passion for photography. Once every few months, she camps at Changi Beach Park and spends the day taking photographs.

'I take whatever captures my eye... aeroplanes, boats, the sea, the sunrise.'

Some campers venture beyond Singapore and actually rough it out.

Once a month, insurance agent Ngoh Seh Suan, 31, goes on an overnight cycling trip with his friends to Johor, covering up to 220km and going as far as Kota Tinggi and Jason Bay.

They take their own stove and mess tin to cook, buying oil and eggs from nearby villages. He relies on a GPS device to find his way around.

Adventures have included having to hide food from wild boars.

'It's hard to have a quiet getaway in Singapore as the camping areas are overcrowded. I enjoy discovering new places overseas and the challenge of seeking out good camping spots.
Apr 25, 2010

Pitch your tent here

Campers need to apply for a camping permit, which are available from an AXS machine or go to www.axs.com.sg

Designated camping areas

• Changi Beach Park: between Carpark 1 and 4 and Carpark 6 and 7

• East Coast Park: Areas D (near Carpark D) and G (near Carpark G)

• West Coast Park: Area 3 (near Carpark 3)

• Pasir Ris Park: Area 1 (near Carpark A) and 3 (near Carpark D)

• Sisters' Island and Pulau Hantu at Sentosa: Overnight campers have to notify the executive management of Sentosa by sending an e-mail to administrator@sentosa.com.sg for a camping permit.

• Jelutong, Noordin and Maman Beaches at Pulau Ubin: Camping permit not required, but campers should inform officers at the Pulau Ubin Police Post on the day that they are camping.
Apr 25, 2010

Some types of tents

I-TENT (BIBLER'S RANGE)

This single-layer two-man tent is made of special ToddTex fabric that can withstand strong winds and storms.

The fabric is resistant to the sun's ultraviolet rays and is coated with a finishing that prevents moisture build-up. Weighing only 2.2kg, it is suitable for mountaineering and backpacking. Comes with setting-up instructions.

Price: $1,084.30

From: Camper's Corner Outdoor Outfitters (tel: 6337-4743), #01-13 Capitol Building, 11 Stamford Road
MTB

This two-man single-layer tent is made of aluminised waterproof polyester and is great for cycling trips as it is lightweight and easy to set up. Comes with a mosquito net and setting-up instructions.

Price: $209.90

From: Adventure 21 (tel: 6535-0232), #02-03A Chinatown Point, 133 New Bridge Road
OVERLAND SIX-MAN TENT

This has two openings and two windows, with a waterproof flysheet. Has insect-free netting that is non-see-through for privacy. Suitable for the beach and comes with setting-up instructions.

Price: $139

From: Sports Connection at Compass Point, Causeway Point, Shaw Leisure Gallery and West Mall
CARREFOUR TWO-MAN TENT

Just nice for a couple, this tent is suitable for beach use but is not waterproof. Comes with setting-up instructions.

Price: $12.90

From: Carrefour at Suntec City and Plaza Singapura
_____________________________________________________________________
.
Vocabulary
Underline the correct word.
1. Mr Sahlan, 40, said: 'It's just us, the sea and the fish. It gives us a A. (mistake/ disadvantage/ chance ) to spend time together without the B. (attractions/distractions/ protection) of the outside world.'
2. Student Melissa Chua, 20, combines her love for camping with her C. (talent/ mastery/ passion) for photography. Once every few months, she camps at Changi Beach Park and spends the day taking photographs.

'I take whatever D. (captivates/ motivates/captures) my eye... aeroplanes, boats, the sea, the sunrise.'
3. Camping is also E. (unpopular/ popular/ liked) for couples seeking a F. (standard/ easy/ romantic) getaway.

Student Veronica Neo, 19, goes camping with her boyfriend whenever they can. They pack a G . (attire/party/picnic) and spend the night at the beach. She said: 'People always H. ( connect/ rebate/associate) camping with I. (living/ writing/ roughing) it out, but they forget that the beach is a very romantic place as well, especially at J. (day/ dawn/night).'

___________________________________________________________

WRITING

1. Write a composition on A CAMPING TRIP.

2. Write a letter to you pen pal, inviting him/her to a camping trip.

_________________________________________________________

ANSWERS

A. chance B. distactions C. passion D. captures E. popular F. romantic G. picnic H. associate I. Roughing. J. night

CURSE OF THE BLACK GOLD

2010-05-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Curse of the Black Gold : Hope and betrayal on the Niger Delta

By Tom O'Neill

National Geographic staff

February 2007

PART ONE

VOCABULARY CLOZE and COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Helping words

taints   self-sufficient     get        importing       fire       poor      possible     wrong     slums    smoke potholes     beggars     huts        better      poorer    surviving       sabotage     kidnap     shacks   outside nothing     grievances      poisoning       without     scarce    stains     siphon     children     adults   earnings populous      recent       report      twist       lives     ruin        scarce

Oil fouls everything in southern Nigeria. It spills from the pipelines, 1. ________ soil and water. It 2. _________ the hands of politicians and generals, who 3. ________ off its profits. It 4. __________ the ambitions of the young, who will try anything to scoop up a share of the liquid riches—fi 5. __________ a gun, 6. _________ a pipeline, 7. __________ a foreigner.

Nigeria had all the makings of an uplifting tale: 8. __________ African nation 9. _________ with enormous sudden wealth. Visions of prosperity rose with the same force as the oil that first gushed from the Niger Delta's marshy ground in 1956. The world market craved delta crude, a "sweet," low-sulfur liquid called Bonny Light, easily refined into gasoline and diesel. By the mid-1970s, Nigeria had joined OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), and the government's budget bulged with petrodollars.

Everything looked 9. __________—but everything went 10. _________.

Dense, garbage-heaped 11. ___________stretch for miles. Choking black 12. ___________ from an open-air slaughterhouse rolls over housetops. Streets are cratered with 13. __________ and ruts. Vicious gangs roam school grounds. Peddlers and 14. __________ rush up to vehicles stalled in gas lines. This is Port Harcourt, Nigeria's oil hub, capital of Rivers state, smack-dab in the middle of oil reserves bigger than the United States' and Mexico's combined. Port Harcourt should gleam; instead, it rots.

Beyond the city, within the labyrinth of creeks, rivers, and pipeline channels that vein the delta—one of the world's largest wetlands—exists a netherworld. Villages and towns cling to the banks, little more than heaps of mud-walled 15. ____________ and rusty 16. __________. Groups of hungry, half-naked 17. __________ and sullen, idle 18. __________ wander dirt paths. There is no electricity, no clean water, no medicine, no schools. Fishing nets hang dry; dugout canoes sit unused on muddy banks. Decades of oil spills, acid rain from gas flares, and the stripping away of mangroves for pipelines have killed off fish.
Nigeria has been subverted by the very thing that gave it promise—oil, which accounts for 95 percent of the country's export 19. __________ and 80 percent of its 20. _________. In 1960, agricultural products such as palm oil and cacao beans made up nearly all Nigeria's exports; today, they barely register as trade items, and Africa's most 21. ___________ country, with 130 million people, has gone from being 22. ___________ in food to 23. ____________ more than it produces. Because its refineries are constantly breaking down, oil-rich Nigeria must also import the bulk of its fuel. But even then, gas stations are often closed for want of supply. A 24. ___________ United Nations 25. _________ shows that in quality of life, Nigeria rates below all other major oil nations, from Libya to Indonesia. Its annual per capita income of $1,400 is less than that of Senegal, which exports mainly fish and nuts. The World Bank categorizes Nigeria as a "fragile state," beset by risk of armed conflict, epidemic disease, and failed governance.

From a potential model nation, Nigeria has become a dangerous country, addicted to oil money, with people increasingly willing to turn to corruption, sabotage, and murder to get a fix of the wealth. The cruelest 26. ________ is that half a century of oil extraction in the delta has failed to make the 27. ___________ of the people 28. __________. Instead, they are 29. _________ still, and hopeless.

"It's not fair," Felix James Harry muttered in a meetinghouse in the village of Finima on the western end of the island, close to the oil and gas complex. "We can hardly catch fish anymore. 30. ______________ is very hard." Harry, a 30-year-old father of two children, should have been in his canoe this afternoon, throwing out nets to snare crayfish and sardines. But he was sitting in an airless concrete-block shelter with half a dozen other fishermen, none of whom had much to do.

Houses in the new village are tightly packed, leaving little room for gardens. Windows look out on walls. In this claustrophobic setting, the men talked about nature. "The forest where the gas plant is protected us from the east wind," Solomon David, the community chairman, said. "Now, the rain and wind 31. ___________ our thatched roofs every three months. They lasted more than twice as long before." Another fisherman mentioned how construction and increased ship traffic changed local wave patterns, causing shore erosion and forcing fish into deeper water. "We would need a 55-horsepower engine to get to those places." No one in the room could afford such an engine.

The meetinghouse had no electricity, but a battery-powered wall clock, the only decoration, showed that another day was ebbing away. Forced to give up fishing, the young men of the village put their hope in landing a job with the oil industry. But offers are 32. _________. "People from the 33. __________ get all the jobs," Harry said, alluding to members of Nigeria's majority ethnic groups—the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Fulani—who are the country's political and economic elite. "We have diploma holders, but they have 34. ___________ to do."

35. __________ crowded the dim room. Bernard Cosmos, a strapping young man in a striped polo shirt, spoke out: "I have a degree in petrochemical engineering from Rivers State University in Port Harcourt. I've applied many times with the oil companies for a good job. It's always no. They tell me that I can work in an oil field as an unskilled laborer but not as an engineer. I have no money to get other training."

"I can say this," Osuoka said firmly. "Nigeria was a much better place 36. __________ oil."

Optimism is as 37. __________ as blue sky in the sodden delta. "Everyone was sure they would be blessed with the coming of the black gold and live as well as people in other parts of the world," said Patrick Amaopusanibo, a retired businessman who now farms near the village of Oloama. He had to speak loudly to compete with the "black noise," the hissing and roaring of a gas flare near his cassava field. "But we have nothing. I feel cheated."

Nigeria's oil money won't keep coming, of course—perhaps another 40 years, the experts say. Natural gas is a fallback. Nigeria's reserves are estimated at 184 trillion cubic feet (five trillion cubic meters), good for an estimated 240 years of production at current levels. In the meantime, Antony Goldman says, "The government is following a simple plan for oil extraction - get everything out, as much as possible.”

FISH

Isaac Osuoka remembers the first time he saw frozen fish. It was the late 1970s, and he was five. A peddler caused a stir as he entered Osuoka's delta town of Oeliabi (now Akinima) with a carton of what he called ice fish. "We never had fish brought in from outside," said Osuoka, who now lives in Port Harcourt. "We had no idea what frozen fish meant. There were rumors that this fish was kept in a mortuary."

Frozen fish was a harbinger of the changes that would traumatize Osuoka's community. "As a boy, I could stroll to the rivers or back swamps with a rod and a net and come back with enough fish to feed my family," he recalled. "There was usually enough left over to sell, providing income for us to go to school." This bounty would not survive the coming of oil. Leaks from pipelines and wells, and the building of roads and canals, have disrupted the wetlands. "The degree and rate of degradation," the UN report warns, "are pushing the delta towards ecological disaster."

"Today, there is not a single person in my community you could describe as a fisherman. We depend almost totally on frozen fish." At market stalls, a piece of frozen croaker or mackerel, most of it imported, goes for almost a dollar, unaffordable for most villagers.

Comprehension Questions

1. What does “this bounty” refers to?

2. “The degree and rate of degradation” What does this refer to?

3. Explain why the people depend on frozen fish for food?

4. Explain why fish is unaffordable in the village?

5. What is “ice fish” ?

Vocabulary

Rank the following words according to its degree of seriousness on the line scale below:.

WORDS related to disaster

Disaster    degradation     traumatize      ebbing      blessed     bounty     claustrophobic     corruption sabotage    hopeless        murder
Scale:
Positive                        average                             very negative
_________________________________________________

WORDS related to Sound

Groan     hissed        thundered      roared       mumbled        spoke
Scale:
Positive                           average                               very   negative
____________________________________________________

ANSWERS

1.poisoning 2. stains 3.siphon 4. taints 5.fire 6. sabotage 7. kidnap 8. poor 9.possible 10.wrong 11. slums 12.smoke 13. potholes 14. beggars 15.huts 16. shacks 17. children 18. adults 19. earnings 20. populous 21. self-sufficient 22.importing 23. recent 24. report 25. twist 26. lives 27. better 28. poorer 29. surviving 30. ruin 31. scarce 32. outside 33. nothing 34. grievances 36. without 37. scarce 38. get

Vesuvius- Asleep for Now. National Geographic

2010-04-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Vesuvius

Asleep for Now

September 2007

National Geographic

By Stephen S. Hall

When the first thunderous boom echoed across the plain of Campania, quickly followed by a blistering hail of volcanic rock, the man and the woman hastily abandoned their village and made a run for it to the east, up a gently sloping hill toward what must have seemed like possible sanctuary in a nearby forest. She was about 20 years old; he was in his mid-40s. A violent downpour of rubbly pumice mixed with incandescent rocks capable of crushing skulls and scalding skin obscured their escape. To their uncomprehending minds, the calamity descending upon them must have seemed like the end of the world.

Thousands of other people were at that same moment running for their lives, marking the soft ash and wet volcanic mud with footprints of human desperation that would remain undiscovered for millennia. The people whose footprints led to the north or northwest chose a path that probably saved their lives; those who set out to the east, like the young woman and the older man, toward the present-day Italian town of Avellino, unwittingly chose a path that led to certain death. They headed, by ill luck, smack into the middle of a fallout zone that would be swiftly buried under three feet of pumice.

Battered by the fallout as if stoned by the gods, weary with the effort and terrorized by the darkness that descended around them, each breath more labored than the one before, the couple—surely united in their desperation if not by any ancient form of matrimony—began to slow down. After struggling part way up the hill, a hill that rises toward a promontory now called Castel Cicala, they finally collapsed and fell to the ground, in the final throes of asphyxiation.

"They couldn't have seen more than a few feet in front of themselves," Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo was saying. A volcanologist at the Osservatorio Vesuviano in Naples, Mastrolorenzo stood in a small, well-lit room in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Naples, leaning over a display case containing the beautifully preserved skeleton of the young woman extended on a bed of pumice, just as it had been found.

"In the eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, the deaths were instantaneous. People didn't know what was happening to them," added Pier Paolo Petrone, the anthropologist who had excavated and analyzed the woman's skeleton. "But her death was more tragic because it wasn't sudden." In one final, futile gesture of self-protection, the woman and the man raised their arms to shield their faces—and wore that fretful salute into eternity.

The bones lay where the couple fell until December 1995, when Italian archaeologists, digging a test hole for a future gas pipeline outside the small town of San Paolo Bel Sito, about ten miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Vesuvius, discovered a human skeleton nested in the roots of a hazelnut tree. It was the woman. Soon after, they uncovered a second skeleton, the man, beside the first.

Organized crime has made a lamentable comeback in the squat, dusty towns surrounding Naples, and when workers stumble upon human remains, it's sometimes a tough decision whether to call in an archaeologist or a homicide detective. Not in this case. The skeletons' final resting place, a bumpy bed of volcanic rock covered by pumice, provided a precise geologic time stamp for the moment of death. All that was required was a volcanologist to read the layers of rock. That process was set in motion when Petrone and Mastrolorenzo got news of the discovery. Petrone rushed to the site; authorities granted him exactly two afternoons to extract the bones. "It was a miracle that we were able to save this," Petrone said.

The skeletons of San Paolo Bel Sito—frozen in terrified flight, their choice of a mistaken escape route immortalized in their weary, ossified repose—offered Italian scientists clues in a project that has combined volcanology, archaeology, and physical anthropology into something like a CSI: Vesuvius. Over the past decade the project has rewritten the story of the nearby volcano, adding ominous fuel to scientific debates about the danger of future eruptions.

The man and woman were not doomed refugees of the famous A.D. 79 eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. Rather they were Bronze Age inhabitants of one of the dozens of prehistoric villages that dotted this beautiful, fertile plain during an earlier—and, it turns out, more violent—eruption of Vesuvius. The Avellino eruption occurred approximately 3,780 years ago, and researchers now argue that it represents the nightmare blueprint for a future calamity that could envelop Naples itself.

Since 1995, Petrone and Mastrolorenzo have roved the countryside of Campania, the region that surrounds Naples, a bit like the archaeological version of storm chasers, hustling to newly discovered excavation sites before the evidence can be removed or covered up. They have pieced together an anthropological and volcanological picture of the Avellino eruption—from thousands of fleeing footsteps of its victims, preserved in volcanic ash, to a spectacularly preserved prehistoric village (since dismantled) that was practically abandoned with dinner on the table—that has redefined the volcanic might and environmental toll of Vesuvius. They have not only given eloquent voice to the skeletons of San Paolo Bel Sito, but their enterprising research has turned that voice into a stark warning: Beware, modern Naples and surroundings, with your three million inhabitants, because an eruption of this magnitude is likely to happen again, and perhaps (in geologic time) very soon.

Ancient peoples gravitated to the plain of Campania for the same reasons we do today: clement weather, access to the sea (and sea-food) at the present-day Gulf of Naples, fertile volcanic soil, and perhaps even the beauty that has captivated writers from Virgil to Stendhal. Long before Aeneas returned from his travels, more than a thousand years before Greeks settled in Cumae and ruled the Campanian plain, prehistoric settlers came down out of the nearby Apennines and began to tame the land, growing cereal crops and tending flocks.

Later the Greeks moved east from Cumae to Neapolis, the New City, a little farther along the coast where modern Naples now stands. We have a very good idea what life in this sun-splashed land was like during the Roman era because of the recovered splendor of Pompeii and Herculaneum. But as the well-trod earth of Campania continues to yield ancient secrets, Mastrolorenzo and Petrone, with their colleague Lucia Pappalardo, have put together a rich view of an earlier time and what may have been humankind's first encounter with the primal force of Vesuvius.

Almost all has come to light by chance. In May 2001, for example, construction workers began digging the foundation for a supermarket next to a desolate, weed-strewn intersection just outside the town of Nola. An archaeologist working for the province of Naples noticed several traces of burned wood a few feet below the surface, an indication of earlier human habitation. At 19 feet (6 meters) below, relicts of a perfectly preserved Early Bronze Age village began to emerge.

Over the next several months, the excavation unearthed three large prehistoric dwellings: horseshoe-shaped huts with clearly demarked entrances, living areas, and the equivalent of kitchens. Researchers found dozens of pots, pottery plates, and crude hourglass-shaped canisters that still contained fossilized traces of almonds, flour, grain, acorns, olive pits, even mushrooms. Simple partitions separated the rooms; one hut had what appeared to be a loft. The tracks of goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs, as well as their human masters, crisscrossed the yard outside. The skeletons of nine pregnant goats lay in an enclosed area that included an animal pen. If a skeleton can be said to cower, the bones of an apparently terrified dog huddled under the eaves of one roof. What preserved this prehistoric village, what formed a perfect impression of its quotidian contents right down to leaves in the thatch roofs and cereal grains in the kitchen containers, was the fallout and surge and mud from the Avellino eruption of Vesuvius. Claude Albore Livadie, a French archaeologist who published the initial report on the Nola discovery, dubbed it "a first Pompeii."

During May and June 2001, provincial archaeological authorities oversaw excavation of the site. Mastrolorenzo hurried out to Nola, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) east of Naples. He and Pappalardo took samples of the ash and volcanic deposits, which contained chemical clues to the magnitude of the eruption. But then the scientific story veered off into the familiar opera buffa of Italian archaeology. The owner of the site agitated for construction of the supermarket to resume or to be compensated for the delay—not an unusual dilemma in a country where the backhoes and bulldozers of a modern economy clang against the ubiquitous remains of ancient civilizations.

Government archaeologists hastily excavated the site and removed the objects. As it turns out, the supermarket was never built, and all that remains of a site that miraculously captured one of civilization's earliest encounters with volcanic destruction is a hole in the ground on a vacant, weed-choked lot, the foundation walls of the huts barely visible. A small, weathered sign proclaiming the "Pompeii of Prehistory" hangs limply from a padlocked gate.

The sad archaeological scenario of Nola has repeated itself several times. In 2002, an Italian construction company under contract to the U.S. government to build a support facility for the large U.S. Navy base in the southern Mediterranean uncovered another ash-covered village near the modern town of Gricignano di Aversa; it was, according to Mastrolorenzo, even more extensive than the Nola site, with traces of numerous Copper and Bronze Age huts. "They spend a short time 'documenting' the site," Petrone said sarcastically of archaeologists who examine construction sites, "and then it is destroyed."

In the summer of 2004, during construction of the new high-speed railroad line between Naples and Rome, thousands of human footprints were uncovered near the town of Afragola. Geologic analysis established that they were the footprints of Bronze Age inhabitants fleeing the Avellino event. The threesome rushed to photograph the vivid residue of that ancient terror.

Despite the loss of these sites, Mastrolorenzo, Petrone, Pappalardo, and American volcanologist Michael Sheridan triggered worldwide fascination when they summarized these findings in the spring of 2006 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). But their research went beyond mere archaeological documentation. The Avellino event, they wrote, "caused a social-demographic collapse and the abandonment of the entire area for centuries." The new findings, along with computer models, show that an Avellino-size eruption would unleash a concentric wave of destruction that could devastate Naples and much of its surroundings. In the world before Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami, these warnings might have sounded as remote and transitory as those prehistoric footsteps. Not anymore.

There are many ways for a human being to die after a volcano erupts, and a blast like the one Vesuvius unleashed in 1780 B.C. provides a grim inventory of almost all of them. "In the first hours of the Avellino eruption, material like this fell," Mastrolorenzo explained, dropping two transparent bags of volcanic material on the desk in his office at the Osservatorio Vesuviano. One of the bags contained a fine white powder, the ash that blanketed the fallout zone; the other was full of small rocks, no more than an inch or two in diameter. Some of the rocks were pumice, pebbles honeycombed with bubbles and nearly as light as Ping-Pong balls; others were dense and hard. "These are lighter than water; they float," he said, picking up a piece of pumice. "But these," he continued, picking up one of the harder rocks, called lapilli, "these were falling at about 90 miles (145 kilometers) per hour."

The first hint of the Avellino eruption of Vesuvius emerged in the early 1970s when volcanologists identified pumice deposits underneath the A.D. 79 residues. But in recent years Mastrolorenzo, Pappalardo, and their colleagues, analyzing everything from meters-thick ash deposits visible in road cuts to micron-thin slices of volcanic crystals viewed in a scanning electron microscope, have reconstructed the Avellino event in harrowing detail.

Some eruptions ooze lava in picturesque, slow-moving streams. But in an event like Avellino, the conduit of the volcano is so tightly corked by solid rock that it takes an enormous amount of pressure building up from below, in the magma chamber, to blow a hole to the surface. When it does, the violence of the explosion—the boato, Italian for the enormous roar—propels liquid rock into the air so fast that it breaks the sound barrier, unleashing a sonic boom. During the Avellino eruption, the boato accompanied a blast that hurled nearly 100,000 tons a second of superheated rock, cinders, and ash into the stratosphere. It reached an altitude of about 22 miles (35 kilometers)—roughly three times the cruising altitude of commercial airliners. As this incredible cloud of material rose, it spread at the top, assuming the classic shape—classic ever since Pliny the Younger first described it in a letter to the Roman historian Tacitus about the later eruption that buried Pompeii—of an umbrella pine tree, the iconic feature of a plinian eruption.

Prevailing winds out of the west carried the bulk of the initial fallout in a northeasterly direction, toward Nola and Avellino, where pumice and lapilli deposits piled up as high as nine feet (three meters) near the volcano in several hours. The column of ash may have hovered in the air for up to 12 hours. Then it collapsed, producing an apocalyptic sequence of events that makes a plinian eruption one of the most lethal natural disasters on Earth.

When a plinian column falls upon itself, it creates a pyroclastic surge—a boiling, turbulent avalanche of debris that shoots out sideways from the slopes of a volcano. This searing cloud can travel for many miles, initially at great speed. Not too many humans have seen (much less survived) a pyroclastic surge at close quarters, but many of us have an image of its horrifying power burned into our memories: It shares many physical properties with the huge clouds of powder and ash produced by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in 2001.

Unlike the collapsed towers, the material in a pyroclastic surge is baked in a subterranean magma chamber to temperatures of up to 1650°F (899°C). The initial surge of the Avellino eruption, especially in the zones closest to Vesuvius, was instantly lethal. Hot, choking wind, advancing at about 240 miles (386 kilometers) an hour, reached temperatures of at least 900°F (482°C), and retained enough heat to bring water to a boil ten miles (16 kilometers) from the vent. "Below 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93°C), you can survive for several seconds, perhaps, if the wave passes quickly," Mastrolorenzo pointed out. "But even if you survive the temperature, you will suffocate on the fine powder in the air. The entire countryside surrounding Vesuvius was covered by foot upon foot of this powder, 65 feet (20 meters) deep at a distance of three miles (five kilometers) from the crater to about ten inches (25 centimeters) thick at a distance of 15 miles (24 kilometers). Eight inches (20 centimeters) of ash is enough to cause modern roofs to collapse."

The sizzling temperature of a Vesuvian surge has emerged as a key factor in explaining what happened at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the next great eruption, 1,900 years later. Petrone and Mastrolorenzo, with colleagues in Italy and England, published a paper in the journal Nature in 2001 demonstrating that hundreds of fugitives who gathered in 12 seafront fornici, or boathouses, facing the beach of Herculaneum died instantly from a pyroclastic surge that reached temperatures of 932°F (500°C), vaporizing clothing and flesh within seconds.

In a grim bit of forensic paleoanthropology, Petrone and Mastrolorenzo reconstructed a parting picture of the victims huddled inside fornici 5, 10, and 12. The heat would have boiled their brain tissue, which would then have burst out in small, scalding explosions that left blue-black burn marks on the bone. Moisture from vaporized flesh and blood combined with volcanic ash in the surge to create a protective, plasterlike material that preserved the bones, and from the posture of the skeletons they could determine that victims in the fornici died instantly. (Petrone keeps samples of the bones, along with the San Paolo Bel Sito skeletons, in several large shopping bags in his office.)

The pyroclastic surge is just the first part of the one-two punch delivered by the collapse of a plinian column. When the vast amount of solid ash and debris mixes with steam fed by underground aquifers, a violent microclimate of pitched thunderstorms and torrential rains occurs, producing great mudflows. Ash falling into rivers creates more mudflows, known as lahars, that fill river valleys long after the eruption is over. "There are more victims from the mudflows than from the eruption itself," Mastrolorenzo says. "These mudflows travel with a force that moves houses hundreds of meters."

Blast, fallout, column collapse, surge, flow: In this classic sequence of plinian fury, the Avellino eruption disfigured the plain of Campania as rudely as if the gods had scraped, gouged, and reshaped the landscape with a giant trowel. The pattern of its deposits, the swirl of its volcanic signature in layers thick and thin, has allowed volcanologists to conclude that Vesuvius unleashed at least six cycles of pyroclastic surge and flow in that single eruption—six bursts of searing winds followed by six rampaging rivers of mud—that destroyed everything within about nine miles (14 kilometers) of the volcano. The immediate cataclysm probably lasted less than 24 hours, but it turned an idyllic landscape into a monochromatic desert, uninhabitable for 300 years.

The road that snakes up from the Gulf of Naples to the summit of Vesuvius reveals one more way a human being can perish on the slopes of this volcano: getting hit by one of the countless tour buses careening around the tight turns along the route from Ercolano to the 4,203-foot (1,281 meters) summit. Long gone are the days when brawny Neapolitan youths hoisted chairs bearing celebrities like Goethe and lugged them up the steep path to what the German writer memorably called "this peak of hell which towers up in the middle of paradise." Paradise nowadays is finding a free spot in the crowded car park.

After buying your ticket (the top of the volcano is now part of a national park), you hike along a path zigzagging over the rusty, iron-rich cinders of the cone. You pass several souvenir shops as well as the abandoned concrete piers of the funicular cableway that replaced the broad-shouldered youths (the original 19th-century version of this conveyance inspired the famous Neapolitan song "Funiculì, Funiculà"). And finally, you arrive at the rim of the crater, where the view on a clear day takes in everything from Capri and the Sorrentine Peninsula to the south, to modern-day Naples to the northwest, to Pompeii and Herculaneum, victims of the geophysical power momentarily contained beneath your feet.

After an enormous sub-plinian eruption in 1631, Vesuvius has adopted a more benign personality. It produced copious streams of lava during frequent eruptions in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries (when Mastrolorenzo was a child, his grandmother used to describe the time his grandfather swept ash and cinders off roofs in Naples following an event in 1906). But since its last eruption in 1944, the conduit has been plugged, and no one younger than 63 years of age has experienced an eruption. The occasional reminders that the volcano is still active produce a complex state of philosophical denial among people who live on or near Vesuvius. They tend to pooh-pooh the danger and, perhaps more than in many other parts of Italy, live for the moment in a gracefully fatalistic way.

Few people spend more waking hours, day in and day out, in close proximity to Vesuvius than Gennaro Cardoncello, a stolid and friendly young man who tends the last outpost of commerce on the crater rim. As he stood behind a truly astonishing array of curios carved from volcanic rock (Buddha, the Pietà, frogs, owls, the Three Graces), he was asked if he ever feels the small earthquakes or tremors that are believed to signal the run-up to an eruption.

"Maybe a few times, but it's not a big deal," he said. With that sloe-eyed look of indifference that has been elevated to performance art in Naples and environs, Cardoncello shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject, producing a bottle of Lacryma Cristi, the local white wine whose grapes draw on Vesuvius's rich soil to produce their intense taste.

Streams of tourists clamber up the steep path to the crater, oohing at the postcard-perfect vistas in every direction, aahing as they peer down from the rim of the crater 800 feet (244 meters) to the floor, where several fumaroles barely manage to etch the air with their noxious breath. Few of these volca-tourists pause to think about the vast reservoir of molten rock about six miles (ten kilometers) below or contemplate the curving remnant of the larger, more ancient Monte Somma crater that funnels the view—and more important, would funnel any future pyroclastic surges—in a northwesterly direction toward metropolitan Naples. When Vesuvius had its last plinian eruption, the plain below was inhabited by thousands of sybaritic Romans; now it is inhabited by upwards of one million people in Naples alone, and hundreds of thousands more in the towns between the city and the crater.

On a clear day, with even modest binoculars, it is possible to stand on the crater rim and make out the massive 13th-century Angevin fortress in downtown Naples known as Maschio Angioino. Also known as Castel Nuovo, it is where the French Angevin monarchy first settled, and it marks the geographic and, in some ways, the emotional heart of the city. Several days after I visited the summit, Mastrolorenzo led me deep into the fortress's foundation, two floors beneath the elegant chamber where until recently the Naples City Council held its weekly meetings. He pointed to a deposit of volcanic pumice and ash roughly two and a half feet thick. It came, he said, from the Avellino eruption.

Michael Sheridan, a volcanologist at New York's University at Buffalo who collaborates with Mastrolorenzo, is an expert on catastrophic eruptions near densely populated urban centers. Sheridan has studied the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique, which devastated the town of St. Pierre, and has been closely watching Cotopaxi, an active volcano that threatens more than a million people in the Andes highlands of Ecuador. He was unaware of the Castel Nuovo deposit until I mentioned it to him. "That's really damning," he said. "St. Pierre was destroyed by eight inches of that stuff, and everyone died. There would be no survivors in that part of Naples."

Scientists know from geologic records that Vesuvius has unleashed catastrophic plinian eruptions with a ragged but disquieting rhythm over recent geologic time. Since an eruption 25,000 years ago, major eruptions have occurred 22,500 years ago, 17,000 years ago, 15,000 years ago, 11,400 years ago, 8,000 years ago, then Avellino 3,780 years ago, and then the A.D. 79 Pompeii eruption nearly 2,000 years ago. Based on an interval of about 2,000 years between these larger eruptions, Sheridan and Mastrolorenzo have calculated that there is a greater than 50 percent chance of a major eruption each year now, the odds rising incrementally as the time since the last big plinian event grows longer year by year.

When Mastrolorenzo, Petrone, Pappalardo, and Sheridan published their research report on the Avellino eruption in March 2006, it sparked controversy with its blunt prediction that Vesuvius was due for a major eruption that could be powerful enough to threaten metropolitan Naples. Naples isn't even part of the current planning. The Italian emergency plan, introduced in 1995 and last revised in 2001, is based on a smaller, sub-plinian eruption and calls for the priority evacuation of the residents living in the immediate vicinity of Vesuvius—the 600,000 people who live in the so-called Zona Rossa, or Red Zone, defined by the boundaries of 18 municipalities on the slopes of the volcano.

The Vesuvius emergency plan has not been significantly updated in more than five years. When the PNAS paper came out last year, laying out a much more dire scenario for Naples, the president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Enzo Boschi, denounced Sheridan's risk analysis as "alarmist and irresponsible," and flatly declared "the evacuation plans will not be changed." Some volcanologists at the University of Naples referred to the report's warnings as "scientific terrorism."

Predicting an impending eruption is an imprecise science at best. Although Mount St. Helens gave signs of increasing restlessness preceding the 1980 eruption, according to a U.S. Geological Survey account, it "showed no change from the pattern of the preceding month," and monitors on the morning of May 18, 1980, "revealed no unusual changes that could be taken as warning signs for the catastrophe that would strike about an hour and a half later."

If Vesuvius showed signs of rousing itself again, volcanologists believe they could predict that it was about to erupt in breve tempo, soon. When I asked Mastrolorenzo what exactly "soon" means, he replied: "This is the problem. We don't know—not in the way you can predict when a hurricane is likely to arrive." That imprecision could wreak havoc in a major metropolitan evacuation.

It's not nice to needlessly scare people, but it's much less nice to contemplate what happens when lots of scared people try to do the same thing in a big hurry at the same time. This thought occurred to me one afternoon as I sat, motionless, in a huge traffic jam on the Tangenziale, the expressway that threads around downtown Naples and leads to the main autostrada that heads north toward Rome.

What would happen if Vesuvius suddenly gave signs of becoming seriously restless? There would be, as there always is with probabilistic predictions, confusion and uncertainty. "It's hard to imagine what it would be like in the days leading up to an eruption," Mastrolorenzo said. "It would be worse than the eruption itself." Some Neapolitans might flee at the first hints of seismic indigestion, others might resolve to stay, still others might leave, grow disenchanted with weeks or months of seismic uncertainty, and then return. There simply is no modern precedent for an urban evacuation of this magnitude.

On the Tangenziale, cars inched along at a crawl; four lanes of cars jockeyed to squeeze into two northbound lanes. It took me about an hour to traverse a mile, and the most urgent thing on anyone's agenda that day was getting to the beach. Traffic like this makes any emergency evacuation plan seem hopelessly optimistic. Indeed, during a Red Zone evacuation drill in October 2006, traffic on the nearby Napoli-Pompeii autostrada ground to a halt; an overnight thunderstorm seriously complicated the exodus; and one of the 18 towns, Portici, participated under protest. Government officials pronounced themselves pleased with the results; news accounts described "delays and chaos." And this was just a minimalist exercise, involving only a hundred citizens from each of the 18 Red Zone towns.

In any event, a massive evacuation would have to be well under way prior to an Avellino-size eruption. Once the event began, once the volcano disgorged possibly billions of cubic feet of ash, rock, and debris into the air and sent it raining to the ground, all forms of transportation would become useless. Airplanes could not fly. Trains could not run. Neither cars nor buses nor scooters could function in even four or five inches of gritty ash. In fact, the only likely means of escape would be . . . by foot.

Four thousand years after Avellino, the inhabitants of Campania would be reduced to leaving their footprints in the ash.

Living In The Shadow of indonesia's Volcanores - National Geographic

2010-04-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Gods Must Be Restless

Living in the shadow of Indonesia's volcanoes

National Geographic, January 2008
By Andrew Marshall

All hell is about to break loose, but Udi, a 60-year-old farmer from the village of Kinarejo on the Indonesian island of Java, will not budge. Not even though a mere three miles (five kilometers) separates the smoldering peak of Mount Merapi from Kinarejo. Not even though columns of noxious gas and the nervous tracings of seismographs signal an imminent explosion. Not even though the government has ordered a full-scale evacuation. "I feel safe here," he says. "If the Gatekeeper won't move, then neither will I."

Merapi is a natural-born killer. Rising almost 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) over forests and fields, it ranks among the world's most active and dangerous volcanoes. Its very name means "fire mountain." An eruption in 1930 killed more than 1,300; even in less deadly times, plumes drift menacingly from the peak. Some of the surrounding area, warns a local hazards map, is "frequently affected by pyroclastic flows, lava flows, rockfalls, toxic gases and glowing ejected rock fragments." As the volcano's rumbling crescendoed in May 2006, thousands fled the fertile slopes and settled reluctantly into makeshift camps at lower, safer altitudes. Even the resident monkeys descended in droves.

Not Udi and his fellow villagers, who take their cues from an octogenarian with dazzling dentures and a taste for menthol cigarettes: Mbah Marijan, the Gatekeeper of Merapi. Marijan has one of the more bizarre jobs in Indonesia, or anywhere else, for that matter. The fate of villagers like Udi and of the 500,000 residents of Yogyakarta, a city 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the south, rests on Marijan's thin shoulders. It is his responsibility to perform the rituals designed to appease an ogre believed to inhabit Merapi's summit. This time, the rituals seem to have fallen short. The warnings grow more urgent. Volcanologists, military commanders, even Indonesia's vice president beg him to evacuate. He flatly refuses. "It's your duty to come talk to me," he tells the police. "It is my duty to stay."

Marijan's behavior might seem suicidal anywhere else, but not in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,500 islands that straddles the western reaches of the hyperactive Ring of Fire. It's a zone of geophysical violence, a juncture of colliding tectonic plates that loops more than 25,000 miles (40,200 kilometers) around the Pacific. Geography has dealt Indonesia a wild card: Nowhere else do so many live so close to so many active volcanoes—129 by one count. On Java alone, 120 million people live in the shadow of more than 30 volcanoes, a proximity that has proved fatal to more than 140,000 in the past 500 years.

Death by volcano takes many forms: searing lava, suffocating mud, or the tsunamis that often follow an eruption. In 1883, Mount Krakatau (often misspelled as Krakatoa), located off Java's coast, triggered a tsunami that claimed more than 36,000 lives. The name became a metaphor for a catastrophic natural disaster. For Marijan, though, an eruption is not so much a threat as a growth spurt. "The kingdom of Merapi is expanding," he says, with a nod at its smoldering peak. In Indonesia, volcanoes are not just a fact of life, they are life itself. Volcanic ash enriches the soil; farmers on Java can harvest three crops of rice in a season. Farmers on neighboring Borneo, with only one volcano, can't.

On a less earthly plane, volcanoes stand at the heart of a complicated set of mystical beliefs that grip millions of Indonesians and influence events in unexpected ways. Their peaks attract holy men and pilgrims. Their eruptions augur political change and social upheaval. You might say that in Indonesia, volcanoes are a cultural cauldron in which mysticism, modern life, Islam, and other religions mix—or don't. Indonesia, an assemblage of races, religions, and tongues, is riveted together by volcanoes. Reverence for them is virtually a national trait.

If the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, the government agency that keeps eight seismograph stations humming on Merapi, represents modern science, Marijan, the Gatekeeper of Merapi, is Indonesia at its most mystical. When a Dutch hiker went missing on the volcano in 1996, Marijan reportedly made the thick mist vanish and found the injured hiker in a ravine.

It is often hard to distinguish the kind of volcanic spasm that builds toward a convulsion from the seismic restlessness that settles back into quiescence. But monitoring technology has grown more sophisticated. Overnight, government volcanologists have raised the alert to its highest level. The lava dome might collapse at any moment. Hasn't Marijan heard? The entreaties leave Marijan unimpressed. The alerts are merely guesses by men at far remove from the spirit of the volcano. The lava dome collapse? "That's what the experts say," he says, smiling. "But an idiot like me can't see any change from yesterday."

INDONESIA'S MOTTO, "Bhinneka tunggal ika—Unity in diversity," speaks to some 300 ethnic groups and more than 700 languages and dialects. The government officially recognizes six religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism, but mysticism riddles all faiths and bares their animistic roots. Sumatra, the vast island northwest of Java, is home to the Batak people, converted to Christianity by European missionaries in the 19th century. Yet many still believe the first human descended from heaven on a bamboo pole to Mount Pusuk Buhit, an active volcano on the shores of Lake Toba. The Tengger, Hindus who live around Mount Bromo in East Java, periodically climb through choking sulfurous clouds to throw money, vegetables, chickens, and an occasional goat into the crater. On Flores, the Nage, Catholics like most on that island, are buried with their heads toward Mount Ebulobo, whose cone fills their southern horizon.

Likewise, on largely Hindu Bali, volcanoes are sacred, none more so than 10,000-foot (3,000 meters) Mount Agung, its highest peak. It is said a true Balinese knows its location, even when blindfolded, and many sleep with their heads pointing toward it. In 1963 a catastrophic eruption of Mount Agung killed a thousand people. Others starved to death after ash smothered their crops. "The very ground beneath us trembled with the perpetual shocks of the explosions," wrote an eyewitness. Yet what once was spoken of as divine wrath is now seen as a gift. The rock and sand thrown up by the eruption built hotels, restaurants, and villas for hordes of foreign tourists, who started arriving in the 1970s. Despite attacks by Islamic terrorists in 2002 and 2005, which killed more than 220 people, tourism remains Bali's biggest industry. And by the grace of Agung and its neighbor, Mount Batur, houses that once nestled in fields of chilies and onions now overlook quarries filled with workers shoveling volcanic sand into trucks. Not everyone has been lifted by the rising tide of tourism. Seven hundred people in the village of Trunyan squeeze into a mountain stronghold near Mount Batur. Their ramshackle houses cling to a sliver of land along a lake in a vast caldera. The villagers fish in dugout canoes and grow crops on the steep shoulders of the caldera. The village's creation myth explains its isolation, telling how a wandering Javanese nobleman fell in love with a goddess who lived in a giant banyan tree. She agreed to marry him, but only if he covered his tracks so nobody else could follow him from Java.

While tourism has brought breakneck development to the rest of Bali, Trunyan's cherished isolation now spells economic marginalization. Elders watch helplessly as a younger generation traces the same path to Bali's towns and cities as Batur's rock and sand. "There are no jobs here, no opportunities," admits Made Tusan, a teacher at Trunyan's only school.

As if economic malaise weren't enough, a recent catastrophe added to the litany of woes. A giant banyan tree that had shaded the village for centuries crashed to the ground during a storm, flattening the village temple, though miraculously sparing the holy statue of Dewa Ratu Gede Pancering Jagat, the local deity.

A village elder, I Ketut Jaksa, blames the disaster on Balinese politicians and businessmen. He "won't name names," he says guardedly, but he insists they angered the volcano deity by praying to advance their careers while ignoring Trunyan's growing disrepair. Others blame the new road, which recently connected the village to the rest of Bali, destroying its isolation and leaving it open to spiritual contamination.

IN INDONESIA, it's a given that human folly can trigger natural disasters. Eruptions, earthquakes, even a toppling banyan tree, have long been regarded as cosmic votes of no-confidence in a ruler—a fact of which the country's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is painfully aware.

Two months after the president's inauguration in October 2004, an earthquake and tsunami struck Aceh Province on Sumatra, claiming 170,000 lives. A quake hit Sumatra three months later, killing perhaps 1,000. Then Mount Talang erupted, forcing thousands of villagers to flee their homes. A chain text message flashed across cell phones, imploring Yudhoyono to perform a ritual to stop the calamities. "Mr. President," it read, "please sacrifice 1,000 goats." Yudhoyono—a former general with a doctorate in agricultural economics—publicly refused. "Even if I sacrificed a thousand goats," he announced, "disasters in Indonesia will not end."

They didn't. There were more eruptions—a statistical certainty in the volcano-studded country. One catastrophe followed another: a quake, a tsunami, floods, forest fires, landslides, dengue fever, avian influenza, and a mud eruption. Trains derailed, ferries sank, and after three major plane crashes—one at Yogyakarta airport—an editorial in the Jakarta Post advised air travelers to pray. The streak of tragedy haunting the president could be explained, it was said, by his inauspicious birth date and by the name of his vice president, Jusuf Kalla, which bore an unhappy resemblance to that of a man-eating monster called Batara Kala. Amid renewed calls to perform a ritual to dispel the run of bad luck, President Yudhoyono and his cabinet joined a mass prayer at Jakarta's grand mosque. "Nothing unusual," insisted his spokesman, but the high-profile gathering was clearly meant to allay national fears.

Other politicians appeal directly to the spirits. Before running for vice president, one candidate sneaked off to worship at a volcano near Lake Toba, where there is reportedly a helipad for visiting VIPs. The spirits must not have been listening: He was defeated. Another time, members of the Indonesian National Unity and Fusion Party gathered high on Merapi's slopes for a ritual-laced political rally, even though the volcano was on the brink of erupting. Led by Arief Koesno, a portly ex-actor who believes he is the reincarnation of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, the ceremony started with the slaughter of nine goats and ended with party members dancing wildly in a circle.

"After this ceremony," Koesno declared, "I am certain Merapi will not erupt." Three days later, it did. In the smoking caldera of Indonesian politics, belief in the supernatural persists among even the most modern, high-ranking leaders. "Indonesian politicians are hypocrites," says Permadi, a professional soothsayer and member of parliament. "They say they believe in Islam, in the Holy Koran. They also claim to be rational, because many are educated in America. But in their hearts, they still believe in mysticism."

Even President Yudhoyono, claims Permadi, has conducted a ritual atop Mount Lawu, a revered Javanese volcano. The persistence of mysticism also explains why, when campaigning for office, many politicians make it a point to pay their respects to Mbah Marijan, the well-connected Gatekeeper of Merapi.

AS THINGS HEAT UP around Merapi, dozens of reporters flock to cover the standoff starring the immovable Marijan, Merapi's first media-age Gatekeeper. Soon, his face and the words "President of Merapi" adorn T-shirts all over Yogyakarta. To raise funds for his impoverished Kinarejo neighbors, he appears in a television advertisement for an energy drink.

Marijan, who inherited his job as Merapi's caretaker from his father, is paid the equivalent of a dollar a month by the kraton, as the sultan's high-walled palace in Yogyakarta is known. In traditional Javanese cosmology, the kraton sits on an invisible line between Mount Merapi and the nearby Indian Ocean. The sultan, a palace publication explains, is a "divinely chosen person" whose coronation is preceded by "a supernatural message." Along with the everyday business of governing Yogyakarta, the sultan is also responsible for placating a powerful sea goddess called Ratu Kidul, and Merapi's guardian ogre, Sapu Jagat.

One morning, soldiers arrive. "I don't want to leave," Marijan tells them with all the firmness his creaky voice can convey. "Maybe I'll leave tomorrow. Maybe the day after tomorrow. It's up to me." Then he heads for the village mosque. Marijan's duties may include mollifying a volcano-dwelling ogre. But he is also a devout Muslim who prays five times a day. Two days later, the lava dome collapses. Traffic grinds to a halt in downtown Yogyakarta as motorists gape at the scorching avalanche of rocks rushing down Merapi's western flank—away from Marijan's village. Thanks to the timely evacuation, nobody is hurt.

Antonius Ratdomopurbo, director of the Volcanological Research and Technological Development Agency in Yogyakarta, is visibly relieved. "Merapi isn't a big volcano, but it's heavily populated. Many people were killed in 1930 simply because they were too close." Marijan has just been lucky, he says. A month later, the lava dome collapses again, this time to the south, and two rescue workers perish under six feet (two meters) of hot ash. Again, fortune—or is it the volcano deity?—spares Marijan's village. Does the Gatekeeper understand anything about the science of volcanoes? "I don't know," replies Ratdomopurbo with a tight smile. "You ask him."

In his stubborn adherence to duty, Marijan has gone head-to-head not only with the authorities but also with his own boss, Hamengku Buwono X, the sultan, who backed the government's call for an evacuation.

Hamengku Buwono X—the name means "sustainer of the universe"—heads a dynasty that dates back to the 18th century. His official portrait shows him in full Javanese court attire, a curved dagger tucked into his magnificent batik sarong. His everyday wear is an impeccably tailored dark suit—preferably Armani. In his office, during an interview, he puffs on a fat Davidoff cigar. A large painting of a volcano hangs on the wall behind him. "Not Merapi," he says dismissively. "Fuji."

Though tradition requires he employ Marijan, Hamengku Buwono X, a law graduate, does not believe in volcano-dwelling spirits. He is a progressive Muslim who has urged Yogyakartans to consider Merapi's eruptions from a scientific perspective. "A great nation cannot be built on pessimistic myths," he believes.

The relationship between the sultan and Marijan is uneasy, to say the least. The two inhabit opposite poles: the modern sultan versus the mystical Gatekeeper. Marijan tells reporters he will evacuate if ordered by the sultan—but he doesn't mean the current ruler. His sultan is the much loved Hamengku Buwono IX, father of Hamengku Buwono X, who appointed Marijan as Gatekeeper and who died almost 20 years ago. "I follow the ninth sultan," he says. "He was the man in the kraton last time I visited."

In Marijan's opinion, the current sultan's biggest mistake is allowing businessmen to strip Merapi of millions of cubic feet of rock and sand. "He is not the sultan," says Marijan witheringly. "He's just the governor." Marijan is not alone in his disapproval. Some in Yogyakarta accuse Hamengku Buwono X of turning this cultural capital into a city of shopping malls and of spending too much time on the golf course. They yearn for the comfort of ancient rites and criticize the sultan for neglecting ceremonies his father routinely attended. In 2006, the sultan was conspicuously absent from an annual ritual to bless offerings for the ogre Sapu Jagat and the sea goddess Ratu Kidul. The offerings—which include food, flowers, cloth, and clippings of the sultan's hair and fingernails—are meant to ensure the sacred alignment between the volcano, his palace, and the Indian Ocean, and thus the safety of the people.

Less than two weeks after Merapi's first major eruption of 2006, a powerful earthquake had struck south of Yogyakarta, killing more than 5,000 people. The palace and royal burial grounds were also badly damaged—an ill omen for the sultan, already the target of public outrage over the slow distribution of relief funds. Damage control was in order. Even a modern sultan can't escape the force of the old beliefs. With or without him, the annual ritual offerings had to be made.

So the sultan's staff laid out offerings in the quake-damaged courtyard for a brief ceremony, then sent them to waiting cars, which sped off in two separate directions. The first set of offerings was brought to Marijan's house. The next morning, the Gatekeeper hiked to a pavilion a mile from the volcano's peak where, amid trees snapped in half by the latest pyroclastic flow and the crash of tumbling boulders, he solemnly prayed over the sultan's offerings.

A second set of offerings was driven south to Parangkusumo, the Indian Ocean beach where, legend says, the sultan's 16th-century ancestor Senopati met the sea goddess Ratu Kidul. Thousands of houses lay in rubble amid the rice fields. At Parangkusumo, the sultan's staff buried his hair and fingernail clippings near the beach, in a walled-off compound where two flower-strewn stones marked the site of the ancient encounter. Other offerings were flung into the waves.

It is August. Three months have elapsed since the first major eruption of the year. Though still active, Merapi has settled down. Residents attribute the calm to Marijan's prayers and presence on the volcano. But calm in Indonesia is about as long lasting as a plume of smoke.

THE ANTAGONIST in the equation is militant Islam. Radicalized by events such as 9/11 and the United States invasion of Iraq, groups preaching a more austere version of Islam have gained strength and influence, fueled by the perception that Islam is the cure for Indonesia's ills, notably its poverty and corruption. Some local governments have introduced measures based on sharia, Islamic law, that call for the arrest of women not wearing head scarves or the public whipping of adulterous couples.

Militant Islamists have targeted mysticism in the conviction that such practices pollute the faith. Islamic relief workers who arrived in Yogyakarta following Merapi's first blowup in May 2006 vowed to disrupt rituals held on the volcano, while in Jakarta members of an Islamic youth group hacked branches from a sacred banyan tree to prove it had no magical power. "People used to believe that things like graves and big trees were sacred," says Muhammad Goodwill Zubir, a leader of Muhammadiyah, an organization focused on peaceful ways to purge the Muslim faith of pre-Islamic influences, including the "heretical" reverence for volcanoes. "As Muhammadiyah spreads in those areas, such beliefs have died out," Zubir says. His movement boasts about 30 million members and runs thousands of mosques, schools, and clinics to promote the orthodoxy. But how to explain a painting of what looks like Merapi hanging outside Zubir's office in Jakarta? "It's just art," he shrugs. Nothing more.

Still, there are men, like Satria Naradha, who believe that mysticism will not merely survive, it will flourish. Naradha owns Bali's top newspaper and television station. Locals admire the fortysomething media mogul for conducting the lavish rituals that President Yudhoyono so pointedly dislikes.

"Volcanoes are the thrones of the gods," he explains. "They are nature's greatest force, one which can sustain life or destroy it." Naradha is helping underwrite an ambitious program of building Hindu temples across Indonesia, particularly on active volcanoes. In addition to raising nearly one and a half million dollars to complete a temple on Lombok's Mount Rinjani, he has plans to build on Sumbawa's Mount Tambora, site of an 1815 eruption that was the biggest in recorded history. Naturally, he hopes one day to erect a temple on Mount Merapi.

Building Hindu temples in predominantly Muslim areas might seem a dangerous provocation in a country prone to religious and ethnic strife, but Naradha is undeterred. Temples help strengthen Balinese culture by harnessing the spiritual power of the volcanoes they're built on, he explains. Most of all, they help restore the harmony between humans and nature. "This helps all Indonesians, not just the Balinese," he says.

A happy thought, except that harmony seems hard to come by in a nation splintered by multiple beliefs and languages, and the incessant tug-of-war between the modern world and ancient traditions. Revivalist Hinduism, militant Islam, ancient mysticism: Which will prevail? Perhaps all. Perhaps none. Globalization is sweeping through Indonesia like a monsoon. A young Internet-savvy generation worships not volcanoes, but Asian boy bands and English soccer clubs.

But don't count the volcanoes out yet. Recently, Golkar, Indonesia's largest political party, held its annual conference in Yogyakarta. Its ambitious leader, Vice President Jusuf Kalla—he of the inauspicious name—is expected to run for president in 2009.

In the teak-paneled ballroom of the Hyatt Regency, Kalla introduces the guest of honor as a man who is "resolute and able to make decisions in any situation or risk."

It's Mbah Marijan, of course. Who better to launch a campaign for the nation's highest office than the President of Merapi?

Principles Over My Life by Lee Wei Ling

2010-04-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

Apr 18, 2010 , Straits Times

My principles over my life

Call me foolhardy but I won't fund someone's drug habit - even if my life were at risk

By Lee Wei Ling
In June 1996, I was in Cleveland Clinic learning about the surgical treatment of severe epilepsy.

The hospital had a 25m swimming pool but it was closed on weekends. I asked around and was told that there was a decent swimming pool at a nearby YMCA in a middle-class neighbourhood.

So I set out on Saturday morning, kickboard under my arm, and waited for the bus at the bus stop. When I boarded the bus, I told the driver which YMCA I wanted to go to. He said he knew the place and would tell me when we got there.

I noticed all the other passengers on the bus were African American, but that did not surprise me. After all, the majority of the people living and working in the area around Cleveland Clinic were African American.

Eventually, the bus driver told me where I should get off. But the moment I got off, I sensed that I was in a dangerous area. I stuck out like a sore thumb as the only non-African American around, and the kickboard under my arm attracted further attention.

There was indeed a YMCA nearby. As I approached it, two African Americans with dreadlocks walked towards me. I beat a quick retreat.

Out on the main road, a young African American woman approached me and asked if I was lost. Since there was no point pretending otherwise, I admitted I was indeed lost and told her that I had been mistakenly dropped off at the wrong YMCA.

'I will take you to the bus terminal and help you get the right bus,' she said.

As we were walking, she asked me how much cash I had with me.

'Fifteen dollars,' I replied and even opened my wallet to show her.

She then told me about her drug addict husband who was in jail, and how she was having a hard time paying for milk powder and Pampers for her children.

When we arrived at the bus terminal, she demanded: 'Give me three bucks to buy Pampers.'

I was certain the money was more likely to be spent on drugs. 'No, I won't,' I told her.

'I have a gun,' she threatened.

'Anyway, after giving me three bucks, you still have enough money for bus fare to get home.'

I said nothing but kept my eyes on her, ready to act if she reached for a gun. We stood there staring at each other for what seemed like five to 10 minutes. Then a bus arrived.

I jumped in, she grabbed my hand, I yanked myself free and ran to the front of the bus where the driver, an African American woman, was sitting. The potential mugger did not follow me onto the bus.

Suddenly my luck changed for the better; this bus was headed for the correct YMCA. It stopped in a suburb filled with bungalows with gardens - and very few humans in sight. And the few I saw were white.

I eventually got to the correct YMCA, swam the requisite number of laps, then took another bus to the motel where I was staying.

I was not particularly perturbed by the woman's attempt to extort money from me to buy drugs. I found it amusing that she thought I would give in to her so easily.

The next day, a Sunday, I needed to use the swimming pool at the YMCA again. This time, I boarded the right bus and arrived at the correct YMCA.

On Monday, I told the doctors and technicians at the Cleveland Clinic what had transpired. They were all flabbergasted and said I was mad.

They said it was highly likely that the woman did indeed have a gun, and if she had drawn it to shoot, no one would have lifted a finger to help me. Most said they would not only have given her the three bucks, they would probably have offered her their entire wallet.

I did not try to explain my reasoning. I doubted if anyone would have understood my sentiments on matters of principle.

I will not fund a drug habit - be it be $3 or $1 million. There is a Chinese saying: 'I will not bow for five bushels of padi.' Well, I will not bow or compromise my principles even if my life were at risk.

When I returned to Singapore, everyone who heard of the incident, including members of my family, thought I was either mad or extremely foolhardy. Some told me that they purposely carried around a few hundred dollars in cash, so in the event they were confronted by a mugger, they could appease him or her and not be injured or killed.

Perhaps I was foolhardy. But I was determined not to fund the woman's drug habit even if she did try to shoot me. I still don't think I made a mistake.

Of course, I would not advise everyone to act as I did. In 1996, I was very fit, and I had learnt karate up to the level of first dan black belt. Would I have been as determined to stick to my principles if I thought my chances of escaping unhurt were minuscule?

I can't be absolutely certain, but think I would have. My system of internal logic works that way. As a result, some people, including my close friends, consider me eccentric.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute

Countries

2010-04-07T21:18:00.001-07:00

Naples Pizza Protected By EU, BBC, Words In The News.

2010-03-17T02:53:00.000-07:00

Naples pizza protected by EU

Adapted from BBC, Words in the News, 5 February 2010

Reporter: Duncan Kennedy

Part A: Editing-Spelling

There are spelling errors. Write the correct word above the error.
Pizza makers in Naples are celebrating after gaining official European Union recognition. It’s the end of a battle that began 25 years ago and is aimed at protecting Neapolitan pizzas from imitations.
For 25 years pizza makers in Naples have been trying to get their product protected, and now it is, being 1. grented a TSG, or Traditional Speciality Guaranteed label by the EU. The head of the pizza makers’ association said the 2. tridemark was a great honour. The EU ’s agriculture commissioner said Neapolitan pizza was now part of Europe’s 3. food haritage.
It means that all 4. pezzerias aspiring to supply the real thing are, in future, supposed to be 5. vatted by a special commission that will check standards. They include using only San Marzano tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese.The Italian farmers’ association says that half of Italy’s 25,000 pizzerias currently use the wrong ingredients, like east European cheese or Ukrainian flour.Italy now tops EU chart for products that are protected. It has 180, more than Spain or France. Protected status enables producers to not only 6. baost about their exclusavity but also 7. charge a pramium. And now pizza makers from Naples will get their slice of the action.

Part B

Write TRUE or FALSE.

1. Pizza makers tried to patent their product. _______

2. The pizza is granted a TSG. ______

3. The pizza trademark is highly valued. ______

4. Neapolitan pizza is part of Europe’s cuisine. _______

5. A special commission checks standards of pizza made in England. _______

6. Three quarters of Italy’s pizzerias used incorrect techniques, including ingredients. ________
Part C: Vocabulary

Match the WORDS with the correct MEANINGS. Draw lines to match WORDS and the MEANIGS

WORDS                                                     MEANING

1. to get their product protected        a. put the price of something up because it is in some way special

2. granted                                   b. express pride in the uniqueness of their product

3. head                          c. checked or examined something carefully to make sure it is acceptable or suitable

4. trademark                     d. genuine ( not fake) things( here, Neapolitan pizzas)

5. food heritage            e. food belonging to the culture of a particular society which exists from the           which is important historically

6. pizzerias                     f. name or a symbol which is put on a product to show that it is made by a particular producer and cannot be used legally by any other producer.

7. the real thing                 g. given

8. vetted                     h. to have the same thing that they make ( here, pizzas) given special tratment

9. boast about their exclusivity                        i. boss or leader of an organisation

10. charge a premium                 j. places ( restaurants, cafes, etc) which make and sell pizzas to customers.

Part D Reading for Ideas
1. What is your favourite food?

2. Are food sold in the food court and hawker centres in Singapore healthy for consumption?

3. What is a healthy diet?

Part E: Contextual Clues

Underline the definition of the word given in bold.

1. The picture on the old television set was fuzzy so the outline of the people in the film was blurry and unclear.

2. No one liked the condescending man who always behaved as though he was superior to those around him.

3. I knew that James was in a pensive mood for he sat alone quietly and thoughtfully and looked a little sad.

4. Toby was a sincere man who said only what he truly meant and believed in.

5. Jane was an impetuous girl who often acted without thinking.

6. The ruthless dictator was harsh and cruel towards those who disobeyed him.

ANSWERS

Part A

1. granted 2. trademark 3. food heritage 4. pizzerias 5. vetted 6. boast about their exclusivity 7. charge a premium

Part B

1. true 2. true 3. true 4. true 5. false 6. false

Part C

1. h 2. g 3. I 4. f 5. e 6. j 7. d 8. c 9. b 10. a

Child Directs Air Traffic At JFK, BBC, Words In The News

2010-03-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

Child direct air traffic at JFK

Adapted for BBC, Words in the News, 5 March, 2010

Reporter: James Gordon

US officials are investigating how a child was apparently allowed to direct planes at JFK airport. Pilots heard the voice of a surprisingly young boy instructin them from air traffic control.

JFK Airport in new York is one of the largest airports in the country, handling nearly a thousand take-offs and landings a day. But just after 8pm on the 16th of February, there was somebody else in the control tower directing air traffic and giving instructions to pilots.

Recording from air traffic control:

Boy: JetBlue 171 clear to take off.

Pilot: Clear for take off JetBlue 171.

The boy was speaking to an airbus A320 heading for Sacramento. The child’s father, who us a certified controller, brought his son to work and then put him to work as well.

Recording from air traffic control:

Boy: JetBlue 171 contact departure.

Pilot: Over to departure JetBlue 171. Awesome job.

The young boy continued directing pilots for several take-offs, pilots appearing to be more amused than worried.

The federal Aviation Administration, which regulates Americas’ airports, hasn’t released the names of the controllers involved, as well as his supervisor. Both have been relieved of their duties.

Some are saying the incident is being blown out of proportion since the youngster was repeating standard, routine directions to pilots with the adults, presumably, alongside him. It’s been revealed the controller in question brought his daughter in the following evening.

The FAA has released a statement saying, “This lapse in judgment not only violated the FAA’s own policies but common sense standards for professional conduct. These kinds of distractions are totally unacceptable.”

Part A: Write TRUE or FALSE.

1. A little girl was in the control tower in the evening of 16th February. _______

2. The child was talking to the pilot of an airbus heading for New York. ______

3. The child’s father was not a certified controller. __________

4. The child directed only one pilot for take-off. ________

5. Pilots who heard the boy giving instructions were alarmed. _________

6. The FAA regulates America’s airports. ________

7. The pilot and supervisor were suspended from work . ________

8. The controller had his son and his daughter with him at work the next evening. _______

Part B: Matching.

Match each of the following sentences with the words given below.

A. the control tower B. pilots C. an Airbus A320 D. amused

E. his supervisor F. relieved of their duties

G. is being blown out of proportion

H. lapse in judgment I. violated J. distractions

1. Things that stop people from paying attention and concentrating on what they should be doing.

___________________________________________________________________

2. Broke the rules or guidelines.

___________________________________________________________________

3. Unexpectedly bad decisions.

__________________________________________________________________

4. Had their jobs taken away, are no longer allowed to work

___________________________________________________________________

5. The high building in an airport from where instructions are given to help people takeoff and land airplanes safely.

__________________________ _________________________________________

6. People who fly airplanes.

___________________________________________________________________

7. A type of airplane.

____________________________________________________________________

8. Thought of something funny.

____________________________________________________________________

9. His manager, the person who makes sure that he does his job properly, gets training to do it and that his behavior at work is acceptable. ____________________________________________________________________

10. Is being made to seem much more serious than it actually is. ____________________________________________________________________

ANSWERS

Part A

1. false 2. false 3. false 4. false 5. false 5. true 7. true 8. true.

Part B

1. distractions 2. violated 3. lapse in judgment 4. relieved of their duties

5. the control tower 6. pilots 7. an Airbus A320 8. amused

9. his supervisor 10. is being blown out of proportion.

Gold For Canada As Olympics Ends, BBC, Words In The News

2010-03-17T02:45:00.000-07:00

Gold for Canada as Olympics End

Adapted from BBC, Words in the News, 1 March 2010.

Reporter: Ian Gunn

The flame was put out and the organizers were praised as the Olympic games in Vancouver came to a close. But the real excitement was provided by Canada’s men’s ice-hockey team winning the final gold medal of the games.

The ceremony was marked by Canadians making gentle fun of themselves. In a nod to a glitch in the opening ceremony, part of the Olympic cauldron which couldn’t be lit two weeks ago was set alight to kick off the closing. The ceremony also featured a comic parade of Canadian stereotypes including Mounties, canoes and moose-antler hats for members of the audience.

In his closing remarks IOC ( International Olympics Committee) President Jacques Rogge called the games ‘excellent’ and ‘very friendly’ and said the Canadian organizers had done an outstanding job.

The head of Vancouver’s organizing committee received a deafening cheer from the 60,000 spectators as he acknowledged Canada’s ice-hockey team that won the final gold medal of the games shortly before the ceremony. John Furlong also said the games had lifted the Canadian mood in a way no one could have anticipated.

The Canadian officials handed the Olympic flag to organizers of the next Winter Olympics in Sochi who invited the world to Russia in 2014 with simultaneous performances inside the Canadian stadium and from Sochi itself.

Part A: Write TRUE or FALSE

1. During the ceremony, the Canadians were laughing and smiling at things about themselves. __________________

2. There was a small problem in the opening ceremony . ___________________

3. There was a parade of Canadian police officers. ____________

4. Jacques Rogge was the President of Canada. __________

5. Head of Vancouver’s organizing committee received a cold welcome from the spectators. _____________

6. The ice-hockey team won a silver medal. ______________

7. The audience wore moose-antler hats. ___________

8. The next winter games will be held in Sochi. __________

9. Sochi is in Russia. _____________

10. The next winter Olympics is in five years’ time. _________

Part B: Vocabulary Matching

Match the sentences with the words given below.

A. making gentle fun of themselves B. a nod to

C. a glitch in D. cauldron

E. to kick off F. Mounties

G. moose-antler hats H. a deafening cheer

I. lifted the Canadian mood J. anticipated

1. an acknowledgment of, in recognition of.

__________________________________________________________

2. smiling or laughing at things about themselves that others find funny.

__________________________________________________________

3. a small problem or fault.

__________________________________________________________

4. to start, to begin

_________________________________________________________

5. hats that have flat horns on them like those of a large type of deer found in

North America.

_________________________________________________________

6. Canadian police officers who are well known for their colourful uniforms and their use of horses rather than motor vehicles.

_________________________________________________________

7. expected, predicted

________________________________________________________

8. an extremely loud sound made by a crowd of people to show that they are very pleased.

________________________________________________________

9. made the Canadians feel happier

_______________________________________________________

10. very large, round metal pot that is used on fires, here, to hold the Olympic flame.

_______________________________________________________

ANSWERS

Part A

1. true 2. true 3. true 4. false 5. false 6. false 7. true 8. true 9. true 10. false

Part B

1. a nod 2. making gentle fun of themselves 3. a glitch in 4. to kick off 5. moose-antler hats 6. Mounties 7. anticipated 8. a defeaning cher 9. lifted the Canadian mood 10. cauldron

JOLLY JUMBO- decribing people

2010-02-21T06:48:00.000-08:00

Name ________________________ Class _____________ Date ______________

Feb 8, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES

Vocabulary and Grammar( Tenses, punctuation) Worksheet
Title: Jolly Jumbo

Good service, good food and GM Ang Kiam Meng's personal touch keep customers happy at Jumbo's restaurants

By huang lijie

Apart from its six seafood outlets, Mr Ang has added new dining concepts to the Jumbo Group. -- ST

PART ONE: GRAMMAR: TENSES

Seafood restaurateur Ang Kiam Meng is the last person you expect to 1. ________( be+concern) about what to wear for a photo shoot.

Yet the 47-year-old general manager of the Jumbo Group of restaurants, clad in a long-sleeved white shirt and dark trousers for an earlier office meeting, turns up for the interview at his semi-detached home off MacPherson Road, asking: What should I wear? Something casual or formal? Maybe both so you 2. ____________(be) a choice?

He 3. __________(pick) out a black Mandarin-collar shirt and a company T-shirt, and

4. ___________(change) outfits quickly during the photo shoot.

Those who do not know him better might think he is vain. But his friends will tell you such behaviour is typical of the unassuming man, who 5. __________( considerate) and

6. ___________(focus) on getting the job done well.

Indeed, he 7. ___________(skip) lunch after his previous meeting ran late, so that the interview can proceed as scheduled. He 8. __________(quell) hunger pangs during the three-hour conversation by 9. __________(nibble) on Nonya kueh.

He is decidedly low-key for someone whose six Jumbo Seafood restaurants in locations such as East Coast Parkway and Dempsey Hill, posted a combined revenue of $51 million last year.

The three-storey home where he 10. ___________(live) with his four children, aged between 10 and 20, and wife Jacqueline, 47, assistant general manager of the Jumbo Group, shows his preference for restraint.

The red cotton sofa set 11. __________(spell) comfort, not designer furniture. The glass dining table 12. __________(decorate) with sea shells. Family photos grace the walls of the living room.

His parents, Madam Nyeo Sai Joo, 70, and Mr Ang Hon Nam, 72, live next door while two of his younger sisters live opposite. He says: 'We 13. _________(be) a close-knit family and living on the same street allows us to take care of one another.'

The down-to-earth air extends to his favourite pastime - basketball. He 14. _______(perk + preposition) when talking about his recreational basketball team, the 88ers, which 15. _________(be) formed in 1988. The group is made up of friends and it used to meet weekly at community clubs until recently, when the members' heavy work commitments took a toll. Now, it meets once a month.

PART TWO: VOCABULARY

He also runs and pounds the pavement of his neighbourhood at least once a week, covering about 4km each time. It helps him relax and sort out his 1. (thoughts/ motives/money)

Besides Jumbo Seafood, the group also runs hotpot restaurant Jpot at VivoCity, Claypot Fun, a claypot rice restaurant in East Coast Parkway, and Yoshimaru Ramen Bar in Holland Village and East Coast Parkway. It also has shares in two Singapore Seafood Republic restaurants with 2. (headquarters/booths/outlets) in Shinagawa and Ginza in Tokyo.

He says: 'I always think of the business from the customer's point of view and what I would like if I were the 3. ( client/ student/customer).'

This is why he prices Jumbo Seafood's signature chilli crab and black pepper crab between $36 and $42 per kg, instead of the usual $44 per kg that other restaurants charge. He says: 'Chilli crab and pepper crab are our main draws and we believe in giving customers the best

4. ( quantity/ object/value) for their money.'

With this in mind, he 5. ( projected/launched/organized) the Jumbo Rewards card in 2004. Anyone can sign up for the card, which offers members a 10 per cent discount on meals and a 5 per cent 6. (rebate/incentive/gifts) that may be used to pay for subsequent meals or redeemed as dining-shopping 7. (vouchers/cheques/cash). About 17,000 cards have been issued so far.

Even the corporate calendar given to regular customers comes with discount 8.(coupons/letters/credits) for a special dish every month at each of its restaurants.

Mr Han Jin Juan, 57, managing director of Palm Beach Seafood Restaurants and a shareholder of Claypot Fun, Yoshimaru Ramen Bar and Singapore Seafood Republic, says: 'Kiam Meng is very hands on. Every time he opens a new restaurant, he is always around to help

9. (in/under/out) and serve customers. Not all restaurant owners as successful as him will go to this extent.'

As the president of the Restaurant Association of Singapore, which represents 2,000 restaurants, Mr Ang has done things differently.

He has been 10. (called/announced/nominated)to the post for two two-year terms since 2006 and says: 'When I took over, the association was fighting to stay afloat financially. So I made sure its day-to-day operations, such as organising activities for members, are financially self-sustaining. It is now financially stable.'

He developed the association's training centre into the Singapore

11. (Handicraft/Baking/Culinary) Institute in 2007. The institute teaches Asian culinary skills and it is supported by enterprise development agency Spring Singapore and the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.

His willingness to share trade information with its members, even if some are direct business competitors, helped to strengthen the industry too. For example, he tells members about reliable suppliers and contractors he has encountered.

He says: 'I regard other restaurateurs as friends because when the industry is faced with challenges, it is easier for us to come together and solve problems.'

This is why he has had no trouble working with other restaurants such as Palm Beach Seafood and Seafood International on new dining eateries.

He adds: 'We have our own market segments and we

12. (substitute/complement/compete) one another. Palm Beach caters to a corporate crowd, Seafood International is into fine-dining and Jumbo is more for the masses.'

Mr Han of Palm Beach Seafood says: 'He is very helpful and willing to share information that will benefit the industry. As a business partner, he is also very focused and detail-oriented.'

PART THREE: GRAMMAR

Yet, Mr Ang is an accidental restaurateur. Born the eldest of five children to a housewife mother and taxi driver father, he spent his early years living in an attap house in Aljunied.

The family's fortunes improved after his father started running a garment manufacturing business and they 1. _________(move) into a semi-detached home off MacPherson Road when he was seven.

In school, he 2. ________(be) always among the top of his class. He 3. _________(study) at Maha Bodhi School, Maris Stella High School and the then Hwa Chong Junior College. He was also active in sports and represented his schools in basketball and track and field.

Mr Mark Kuah, 47, owner of an insurance agency who 4. _________(be+know) him since secondary school, says: 'Even though he was a top student, he 5. _________(be+help) those who were weak in their schoolwork. He never behaved like a rich man's son. He was humble and friendly to everyone.'

Mr Ang 6. ________(graduate) with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Texas in Austin in the United States in 1985 and worked as a software engineer with Singapore Technologies.

PART FOUR : EDITING- Tenses. Phrasal Verbs, Infinitives

There are FIFTEEN errors. Write the correct answer on the lines below.

In 1987, his father and nine friends 1. buys in a failed restaurant at the East Coast Seafood Centre and 2. had given it the catchy name Jumbo.

He says: 'My father and his friends used 3. to entertained a lot for business, so they 4. think opening their own seafood restaurant was a good idea. But it was a big mistake because they knew nothing about running a restaurant.'

The manager hired to run it 5. do not do a good job and the business 6. falters briefly. His father and uncle, who were major shareholders, 7. take off the operations and 8. rolled in changes that made sense to them if they were restaurant customers.

Menus, uncommon at most seafood restaurants then, 9. is introduce so that their pricing was transparent. They also treated all diners equally, regardless of the size of the dining group or the amount the party 10. spends.

This combination of good service and good food - their chilli crab 11. was simmering to extract the full flavour of the crab - made Jumbo Seafood popular.

In 1993, his father 12. has feeling it was time to expand the restaurant and asked him 13. to joined the business as he was the eldest son.

He says, “I was 14. half hearted about leaving my software engineering job because I knew nothing about running a restaurant. But I was a bit bored with corporate life and my father 15. needing me.”

His first big task was to open Jumbo's second outlet, but it failed. Lured by good rental, he took over the space of a failed restaurant at the then East Coast Recreation Centre, now called Marine Cove.

But he was not careful with the tenancy agreement, which allowed the landlord to increase the rent 5.6 times when the tenancy was up for renewal after two years.

So the restaurant, despite doing good business, wound up in 1995 without recovering its investment of $1.6 million.

He says: 'It was a very stressful time and I used to jog around my neighbourhood at 1am to try to de-stress. But I am not the sort to quit so I persevered.'

Over the next 12 years, he grew Jumbo Seafood to six outlets. He says: 'We will expand only when we have the manpower and financial ability to grow. We also avoid rushing into prime locations unless the rental price is right.'

He adds: 'The Singapore market for seafood restaurants is limited so we have gone overseas and also opened different dining concepts.'

In 2008, it opened Singapore Seafood Republic in Shinagawa, Tokyo with Palm Beach Seafood, Seafood International and Kriston Food and Beverage after they were approached by Japan's Maruha Restaurant Systems to launch a seafood restaurant that features each partner's signature style of crabs.

The restaurant, which sells about 3,000kg of crabs every month, spawned a second outlet in Ginza, Tokyo last year.

Jumbo also added three new concepts to its group of restaurants last year.

Claypot Fun, a collaboration with other restaurateurs, came about because they love eating claypot rice and saw the potential for this type of cuisine. The restaurant, which cost $80,000 to set up, broke even in six months.

Similarly, its hotpot restaurant, Jpot, was opened to satisfy consumer demand for steamboat. It is on track to recover its $800,000 set-up costs in three years.

Yoshimaru Ramen Bar, started in Japan by Maruha Restaurant Systems, was brought in because of Singaporean's appetite for ramen.

This year, Jumbo will launch a casual seafood restaurant at Resorts World Sentosa in partnership with Tung Lok restaurant, Palm Beach Seafood, Seafood International and Singapore Seafood Republic.

Helping him grow the business are his sister, Mrs Christina Kong, 41, head of corporate affairs and human resources, and brother, Mr Ang Kiam Lian, 37, head of strategic business planning.

The advantage of working with family, he says, is that they are committed to the business, although he acknowledges they have to be careful to maintain a strictly professional relationship at work.

He adds: 'Sometimes, because they are family, I take them for granted. I have overlooked my wife's feelings and been quite harsh with her during discussions in the past. But I have since mellowed.'

Mrs Ang says: 'He has become more understanding and we have learnt how to come to a compromise on issues.'

He says: 'When I first started in this business, I kept wondering if I made the right choice. I struggled a lot and I had so little confidence in myself then, I did not dare to tell people I was a restaurateur.

'But I stuck with it and I have no regrets now, 17 years later.'

PART FIVE: GRAMMAR- PUNCTUATION
Punctuate the following .

1. This is a semi detached house.

2. Mr Tan is the forty year old general manager.

3. He wore a long sleeved shirt and a black bow tie.

4. He wore a mandarin collar shirt.

5. It was a three hour wait.

6. They live in a three storey house.

7. This is a close knit family.

8. His down to earth ideas won the audience to his side.

9. The day to day operations in the restaurant went on smoothly.

10. There are many fine dining restaurants along the beach.

11. He is focused and detail orientated.

12. We like to de stress by going to the Spa Resort at Batam every weekend.
ANSWERS

Part one

1. be concerned 2. have 3. picked 4. changed 5. is considerate 6. focused

7. skips 8. quells 9. nibbling 10. lives 11. spells 12. decorates 13. are

14. oerks up 15. was

Part two

1. thoughts 2. outlets 3. client 4. value 5. launched 6. rebate 7. vouchers

8. coupons 9. out 10. nominated 11. culinary 12. complement

Part three

1. moved 2. was 3. studied 4. was known 5. would help 6. graduated

Part four

1. buys over 2. gave 3. to entertain 4. thought 5. did not do

6. faltered 7. took over 8. rolled out 9. was introduced

10. spent 11. was simmered 12. felt 13. to join

14. half-hearted 15. needed

Part five

1. semi-detached 2. forty-year-old 3. long-sleeved 4. mandarin-collar 5. three-hour 6. three-storey 7. close-knit 8. down-to-earth 9 close-knit

10. day-to-day 11. fine-dining 12. de-stress

2010-02-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

Feb 18, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES

READING ARTICLE WITH QUESTIONS AND VOCABULARY

Punctual students get a reward

Schools come up with innovative ways to get students to be on time

By Leow Si Wan

What two schools have done

· MAYFLOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL

Results: About 30 students were arriving late at the start of last year. The number has shrunk by half.

Methods: A combination of rewards, technology, discipline and counselling.

From 2008, the school launched a reward system in which classes with the lowest rates of lateness and truancy, and high participation in school activities, were given certificates to be displayed on their classroom door.

The school seats latecomers outside the general office during morning assembly.

Teachers who encounter such students are required to speak to them about the school's values, such as having a positive attitude and responsibility.

This year, the school introduced a computer system that makes tracking easier.

Details of latecomers are keyed into the system, which teachers can log into from any computer terminal.

Vice-principal Sarawathy Varadaraju said: 'We try to affirm and promote good habits by using peer pressure and class spirit. The students really enjoy the recognition.'

· TAMPINES JUNIOR COLLEGE

Results: More than 80 students were late daily. This was cut to about 20 a day last year, a 75 per cent plunge.

Methods: Like Mayflower Secondary, Tampines enforced monitoring and preached the virtues of being punctual, along with paying attention and participating in lessons.

The students' overall assessment includes being prepared for and being participative during lessons.

To motivate students, those who exhibit good college values are recognised publicly.

The school also now starts its morning assembly at 7.40am, instead of 7.30am, so that students will not be caught in peak-hour traffic.

Principal Helen Choo said: 'Believing in the principle of tough love, the college uses a carrot-and-stick method to develop discipline and instil a good work attitude in students.'

Ping Yi Secondary students boarding the bus provided by the school near the Bedok Interchange. It helps them beat the morning rush and get to school on time.

SCHOOLS which have come up with novel ways to get their students to be on time have managed to shave tardiness rates by between 20 per cent and 75 per cent.

Instead of punishing latecomers, they reward students who are punctual or, in the case of one school, help them be on time by providing buses to ferry them to school from a pick-up point near the bus interchange.

It is not that latecomers are a major problem at these schools, but the teachers save time when all students are present at the start of classes.

Teachers need not waste time tracking the laggards, nor do they need to call the students' parents or set aside time to meet them to discuss their children's problem. Teachers also need not slow down a lesson, or repeat parts of it, for latecomers.

The time saved could go towards better preparations for lessons, and, hence, more effective lessons.

At Mayflower Secondary School, for instance, classes are recognised for punctuality and other achievements with certificates that can be displayed on classroom doors.

The school also uses technology: A computer is used to log the details of latecomers, and teachers can use this to track their students' comings and goings more effectively.

The school, which used to have 30 to 40 latecomers daily, now has half that number.

Vice-principal Sarawathy Varadaraju said: 'The late-coming situation was not worsening, but of course we wanted the number to be lower, so we introduced a multi-pronged approach. And things have since improved tremendously.'

Some schools have organised daily lucky draws to reward those who show up on time, while others offer incentives such as free meals to the most punctual classes or start their morning assemblies later (See report below).

Ping Yi Secondary School in Chai Chee started a shuttle bus service last year to ferry its students to school from a pick-up point near the Bedok bus interchange. A trip costs $30, and about 30 students use the bus service each day.

The service was started when the school realised that its students were jostling with pupils from East Coast Primary School and workers in the nearby factories to get on SBS service 222 - the only one serving the school - at the Bedok Interchange in the mornings.

Principal Shanti Devi said that besides saving teachers time from having to deal with latecomers, improving punctuality also saves parents the hassle of needing to take leave to meet their child's teacher on the matter.

About 40 students used to be late every day. The number has since fallen by 20 per cent.

Ping Yi also holds lucky draws to recognise students who make it on time for the morning assembly. Those whose names are drawn receive vouchers for use at the school's cafe.

Monthly awards are given out for the most punctual classes and classes that improve the most in punctuality.

Teachers also get students to reflect on why they are late, and to commit to arriving on time. Parents are sometimes included in these mini-conferences.

The students now feel more motivated to be on time. Poch Choon Yee, 16, who lives in Pasir Ris, used to be late at least once or twice a month because of the rush for service 222 - despite rising at 4.45am.

She said: 'With the shuttle bus, it is easier. The lucky draw every day also makes coming to school more fun. You never know when you will win.'

Serangoon Secondary School principal Yeo Kuerk Heng sees punctuality as a virtue that needs to be instilled from young, and one that will stand students in good stead when they begin working.

His school hired two teacher aides last year specifically to help form teachers take attendance and follow up on latecomers and absentees. From a dozen latecomers a day, the school now has half that number, and attendance has improved 17per cent.

Principals identified a lack of discipline as being at the root of tardiness.

Said Mayflower Secondary's Madam Sarawathy: 'There are some students who wait for their friends, others who want to skip the first physical education period and those who can't wake up in time. Ultimately, what we want to do through these measures is to instil the right values and attitude in a child.'

Psychiatrist Brian Yeo said such creative measures, instead of punitive ones, were a good move.

He said: 'I don't think it will lead to a sense of entitlement. Rather, it will encourage students to come on time and gradually develop habits of punctuality in them.'

siwan@sph.com.sg

QUESTIONS
1. What are some of the ways schools in Singapore get students to reach school on time?

2. Why are some students often late?

3. Why are some students always punctual or early?

4. What are the qualities of a good student?

5. How does punctuality affect studies and academic results?

6. Are Singapore’s MRT, bus and taxi system efficient and convenient means of transportation?

7. How would you like to be rewarded?

VOCABULARY
Use a dictionary or thesaurus and find the meaning of the following words
1. mini-conferences

2. punctuality

3. instilled

4. ultimately

5. multi-pronged approach

6. hassle

7. laggards

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