Nellie McKay sings "The Dog Song"

www.ted.com/talks/nellie_mckay_sings_the_dog_song.html

很可爱的歌曲，尤其是模仿小狗的喘气声，太像了！

Tedtalk : 施德明：设计中的快乐

走进一间屋子，天花板可以伸缩，你每天都能看到云彩。 在地铁里，提醒乘客地铁规则， 改变成让你开怀一笑，轻松一下的‘规则’。在路上，一个不同的广告，贴上了一个卡通形状的Speechbubble. 大家都能自由填写。

施德明的演讲是很有趣的。他列出一些令他快乐的事情，然后发现他们都和设计有关。 所以他很想去了解设计中的快乐。常常我们把设计和视觉享受放在一起，但是有没有一些设计，能让生活更快乐呢？他列出的三种不同的快乐设计，我听了也忍不住笑了。如果在每天生活里，都有一些令人快乐，无厘头的快乐设计，也许在那一分钟，那几秒，心情会特别愉快。我想，地铁的乘客，每天几百万人，有的是上下班，有的是要赶路。如果他们在地铁箱里，看到Ｔｒｕｅ　的开心乘客规则，　也许会改变他们那一天的心情。

广州水果, supermarket

很喜欢这里的苹果。很甜很好吃。今天早上吃了parkand shop买的蓝莓，比新加坡进口蓝莓的好吃。这里的水果和新加坡没有太多差别。不过这里有很多荔枝，到处都卖。

supermarket
每次出国，最喜欢的shopping place 就是超市。 因为可以观察一些很道地的土产，local brands。在广州看到了我很喜欢的vitasoy。 新加坡也有，但是这里很多口味新加坡都没有。vanilla , malt, coconut？！ greentea。。！ 也喜欢去看其他饮料的部分， 今天就喝了’康师傅‘的绿茶。在新加坡，绿茶要买pokka,菊花茶买yeos ，lemon tea 是Seasons！不知道广州有没有比较好喝的brands 哈哈。

tea house and the meaning behind tea philosophy

何谓茶道？ 在完全不知道茶道的情况下，我们一群学生去品茶。我们常常想了解的是如何正确的泡茶。有什么程序？怎样泡茶才对？ 但是现在我终于明白了。原来茶道的含义是在泡茶给别人的时候，心灵是充满的爱，和朋友分享茶的精神。开心的泡茶，才是比较重要的。老师也提到，这个和妈妈煮的饭特别好吃得道理是一样的。只要是用心准备的，品茶的人也能感觉出来。而且每个人在品茶时会喝出有不同的味道。

白云山

今天和yumi,tomomi,eunice和子骅去爬白云山。一路上大家非常疲惫，但是我很喜欢爬山的过程。因为大家一起聊天，拍照， 挺好玩的。从山顶往下看，可以看到广州的高楼大厦。往上看，一朵朵白云和天蓝色的天空。很美。喜欢一路上聊着我们不同国家的文化。 例如子骅告诉yumi他小学的时候在全班面前大唱日本的著名歌曲sakura,哈哈哈。还有我好想去tomomi和yumi住的osaka.因为他们说那里比东京便宜很多。路上我们看到一群阿姨叔叔们在跳舞。音乐不是粤语，而是福建歌曲。好奇怪！不过他们跳得很好。午餐就在白云上解决了，吃了猪血粥！只有eunice和我一样，看到猪血就不敢吃了。但是yumi超爱吃，子骅就不必提了。。 那可是台湾的美食。。对他来说，吃猪血可是非常正常的。

Tedtalk：Sugata mitra shows how kids teach themselves,Kiran Sethi: kids to take charge.

I feel that although the two talks have different content, the things they advocate is similar, which is to allow kids to be the ones learning and discovering possibilities.

For kiran’s talk, basically it is about a school in India which is spreading a contagious notion of ’ I can’. the school is getting children to be proactive and start their contagious spread of ideas and turning them into actions. One example mentioned was that the pupils were made to experience child labour themselves; and after experiencing it, they could put themselves into the shoes of children subjected to child labour. The children of riverside went to the adults and start to educate them about child labour. This reminds me of an article i read before when i was studying media studies. There is program that i read before that a child laptop is distributed to each child in a remote village and it had great impact on learning as the children begin to teach the adults there how to read. I think it is similar to Kiran's case where the children start to be the ones to spread their ideas to the adults which as mentioned. is a contagious thing.

Another talk by Sugata is amazing as his experiment showed how children can self learn themselves without any supervision in the remote areas. They managed to learn English in order to use the computer in the wall. Many a times i feel that we would try to make relations to resources like what Sugata did but he found out that there is no relation between the facilities available and the academic grades. He feel it is the teacher's enthusiasm which is the most important factor as he mentioned most teachers in remote areas prefer to teach in cities. He feel that a teacher which can be replaced by the computer should be replaced and also showed via his experiment how they managed to learn computer and english words by themselves. Perhaps his method would be useful in remote areas that do not have any teachers at all. However, i have questions as to how much can the children learn by themselves. How effective is this method in the long term? If everything is self directed with no adult supervision, how would people know how much and what have the children learnt using the computer?

no plastic bags

Most shops in guangzhou do not give free plastic bags to customers. This is so different from singapore where cashiers give out plastic bags for every single item. This practice in guangzhou has trained me to bring my own bag whenever i go out.

tedtalk

Benjamin zander on passion and music
I really enjoyed this speech, which I think because I learnt classical piano since young and could relate to the things he mentioned. The heavy impulses when I first start to play a piece and slowly the impulses became less frequent as I had more practice. Also, his frankness added spice to the speech he delivered. For example, his comment on the sleepiness one would feel when listening to classical was frank and humorous. Because I do feel that many pieces are like sleep inducing. But this is also the first time that I heard about the C note making the B note seems sad. I think it is very interesting, something not taught when I was learning piano. When I was learning piano as a child, I don’t like it as a phrase of notes have to be practiced for many times and it takes really lots of effort and years to learn a difficult piece. And C to B is just C and B, I didn’t think that it makes a sad sound. I like his explanation on how to appreciate the Chopin piece. His explanation has allowed me to understand why music pieces constructed in their way and now I believe I understand classical more than I used to.