"We shouldn't teach great books. We should teach a love of reading."
- B. F. Skinner
Am currently reading the book "Everything Bad is Good for You: How Popular Culture Makes Us Smarter" by Steven Johnson. Well, it's an interesting enough book, and hardcore gamers will find a lot of reasons to justify gaming other than just improving motor co-ordination. The part that arrests me the most, however, is where the author compares gaming to reading (seeing as reading is often viewed as "good" and gaming as "bad") and argues that perhaps this perception might be different if games are invented before books:
Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of game playing - which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements - books are simply a barren string of words standing on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices.
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new "libraries" that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers.
Many children enjoy reading books, of course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The reading craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans who suffer from dyslexia - a condition that didn't even exist as a condition until printed text xame along to stigmatize its sufferers.
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion - you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today's generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they're powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, pariticipatory process; it's a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learnin to "follow the plot" instead of learning to lead.
__
I thought that was a very well-written paragraph that would cheer many a non-book lover hahaha.. As for me, well, it made me think of how even people who do not like reading view reading as some sort of sacred intellectual activity.. Especially parents of non-readers!! Growing up, it's pretty weird how my mom's friends would tell her "I wish my son/daughter likes reading as much as your daughter.." and she'd be kind of proud.. They didn't know I used to spend a disproportionate amount of reading time on comics! Guess I got lucky, I was born with a love for books.. Once, my mom asked me, "Please help make your brother love reading too! He needs it for his English!" I was stumped.. How does one make a reader? I think it's no exaggeration to think that it's like trying to make a boy behave like a girl, for these things just cannot be imposed upon someone!
"Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can."
- William Feather
Showing posts with label books ^^. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books ^^. Show all posts
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Project RLH: April Book List
"Books are for people who wish they are somewhere else."
- Mark Twain
That Mark Twain quote can't be truer.. Hahaha.. Anyway, here are the books finished in the month of April.. Not as many as I would like to due to submission and exams, but still there are really good books among them.
- David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- Mark Twain
That Mark Twain quote can't be truer.. Hahaha.. Anyway, here are the books finished in the month of April.. Not as many as I would like to due to submission and exams, but still there are really good books among them.
1. The Man Who Loved China - Simon Winchester
2. Chicken Soup For The Soul: My Resolutions - Mark Canfield & Jack Victor Hansen
3. The Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
4. South-east Asia : The Graphic Guide - Mark Elliott (must read for backpackers!)
5. In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan (very interesting book which I wanna write about but haven't gotten the time.. Soon..huhu..)
6. Cambodia - Rough Guides
7. The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten
8. Unkown Capoeira - Mestre Ricardo Cachorro
9. Why The Chinese Don't Count Calories - Lorraine Clissold (It's about Chinese food culture and it's a very good book to curl up with during rainy days..haha.. and now I'm so proud about Chinese food =p )
10. Thailand - D.K Travel Guides
11. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
12. Edible Aroids -S. Chandra
13. Aroids - Deni Brown
14. The Cultivated Aroids - Monroe Roberts Birdsey
- David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Monday, April 26, 2010
All the world's a page!
Stair-y eyed! *.*
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how my house stairs will look like when I get to design my own house =D
View from above:
Ain't it grand?
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Library Hotel
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Ok I needed to get that out of my system.. Was randomly browsing useless websites as usual, when I came across an article on Library Hotel....
I mean....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! DREAM COME TRUE!!!!!!
Always wanted to stay in a library hahaha.. so perhaps this can be somewhat a fulfillment of that wish.. Here's a piece of the review:
"Do you like books? Do you really, really like books? Then the library hotel is where you’ll want to stay if you visit New York City. Every floor and room is dedicated to a different category in the Dewy Decimal system. Each room is full of books from its category and is decorated specifically to match the theme. With sixty rooms in all there’s something for every guest, from philosophy to mathematics to erotic literature."
To be able to stay there and book a room-full of architecture books? or fairy tales? or adventure? or detective novels? Waaa....
Oh well it was recently crowned Best Luxury Hotel in the United States though, so even if I get to New York I'll need to have made it as a landscape architect hahaha... Still, it makes me really happy to know that such a place exists.. Who knows, they might decide to open a branch in Singapore! ;p
Here's the link to check out their rooms if you're interested:
http://www.libraryhotel.com/photo-gallery/index.cfm
___
"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
- Jorge Louis Borges
Ok I needed to get that out of my system.. Was randomly browsing useless websites as usual, when I came across an article on Library Hotel....
I mean....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! DREAM COME TRUE!!!!!!
Always wanted to stay in a library hahaha.. so perhaps this can be somewhat a fulfillment of that wish.. Here's a piece of the review:
"Do you like books? Do you really, really like books? Then the library hotel is where you’ll want to stay if you visit New York City. Every floor and room is dedicated to a different category in the Dewy Decimal system. Each room is full of books from its category and is decorated specifically to match the theme. With sixty rooms in all there’s something for every guest, from philosophy to mathematics to erotic literature."
To be able to stay there and book a room-full of architecture books? or fairy tales? or adventure? or detective novels? Waaa....
Oh well it was recently crowned Best Luxury Hotel in the United States though, so even if I get to New York I'll need to have made it as a landscape architect hahaha... Still, it makes me really happy to know that such a place exists.. Who knows, they might decide to open a branch in Singapore! ;p
Here's the link to check out their rooms if you're interested:
http://www.libraryhotel.com/photo-gallery/index.cfm
___
"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
- Jorge Louis Borges
Sunday, October 4, 2009
On Hell and Pigs..
Me: "I just read a book today, The Gargoyle, and inside there's this Icelandic character that talks about Icelandic Hell...and the concept is that Hell is bloody cold.. It just struck me as pretty cool.. Maybe if you've spent your whole life in bloody cold weather then a hot hell doesn't seem so scary after all hahaha..."
D: "Surely the whole heat thing in Hell is allegorical.. so yeah.. guess wherever you consider your worst nightmare should be hell.. It's also permanently dark for Icelanders, cuz a friend who went to norway said he became very depressed there because it's so dark.. Maybe it's the same in Iceland.."
Me: "If there's a hell what would yours be like?"
D: "Good question.."
Me: "Mine..hmm... without books at all, no musical instrument, no way of entertaining myself.. I'd go nuts with boredom, except I can't go nuts because it's hell.."
D: "and maybe there should be a permanently empty fridge.."
Me: "Just to torment me further... ok I guess it is the common idea of hell.."
D: "Have you ever seen those videos of pigs in pig sheds?"
Me: "Just photos, and read about it.why?"
D: "They have no stimulation at all cuz they're in the same pen all their life and they just go insane from boredom.."
Me: "WHOA REALLY???"
D: "They start chewing on the metal bars to get some sort of stimulation...."
____
Most enlightening conversation I had today... Am just thankful I don't believe in the Buddhist concept of karma because right now I would be dreading being born as a farmed pig in my next life huhuhu..
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Westerner? Me?
I'm a Westerner now. Yup, you read that right. Am a Westerner because I just moved to the Central part of Sg to the Western part, near Jurong =D
ok, since the lame joke is outta the way... am gonna write about the moving out process.. It's been years since I really moved house and it feels like a lot of fuss... but am done! The new place is pretty cool, on the 21th floor, n most importantly just 15 mins from school. Quoting a friend, "Now you can go back more often to take a shower...." No, no. I am determined to sleep well this semester, which means no staying in studio!
That aside... these are the stuff I brought in the moving process:
- 1 big luggage of clothes, toiletries, electronic stuff (laptop, camera, chargers), towels
- 2 small boxes of food stuff
- 1 plastic container of drawing materials and paper
- 2 small luggages + 2 big plastic container + 2 backpacks of books...
....I realize I really have a problem moving with all my books huhuhu.. and I didn't even bring half of them! Left some at my old place and sending about half back to Indonesia...
During the selection process where I was sorting out which book to send back, I had lotsa difficulties... Classic bookworm-with-little-time syndrome.. "Send this back to Indo? But I really want to read it again.. this is my favorite book...." Huhuhu... In the end I had to get though and decide to send almost all my fiction books back to Indo, the argument being, I can easily borrow fiction from the library, and there are always tons of new titles for fiction anyway..
That leaves me with non-fiction books, art and architecture books, and indonesian fiction books (difficult to find in library! I have a good reason!).... Well...and some fiction books that I really, really like...
After the sorting I piled them high in my room and suddenly was struck by a thought: "What if I send them back and the cargo got lost in the middle....? After all, I'm sending these to Indo so they will be handled by an Indonesian agency at some point or other.....*yea I totally don't trust Indo post office*... What if I lose these books? And some of them are like, really really my favorite..and some are really meaningful gifts, and like, some are really difficult to find now... What am I gonna do if I lose them...?"
In the end I resorted to photographing the books pile by pile so at least I'll know just what are the stuff I'm sending back huhuhuhu...
Farewell, my little darlings... Be brave, and be safe.....
Friday, April 3, 2009
Me: "Hey I'm supposed to think about the meaning of my life today! Man.. I wonder where did my 23 years go..."
L: "Haha..how would I know...."
Me: "Yeah....well most of it went to reading books and telling jokes, actually...Is it kinda wasted..?"
L: "Well at least you've mastered the art of freezing people....."
___
I shall refrain from doing a pseudo cool-and-deep post just because I'm 23 now...
Learnt something from my birthday: that nothing beats Facebook as a social networking tool!
I'm long past the tradition of celebrating my birthday, so usually it's a totally calm day with me
L: "Haha..how would I know...."
Me: "Yeah....well most of it went to reading books and telling jokes, actually...Is it kinda wasted..?"
L: "Well at least you've mastered the art of freezing people....."
___
I shall refrain from doing a pseudo cool-and-deep post just because I'm 23 now...
Learnt something from my birthday: that nothing beats Facebook as a social networking tool!
I'm long past the tradition of celebrating my birthday, so usually it's a totally calm day with me
thinking how I can tell more lame jokes
But this time, just having my birthday date on Facebook actually generates so many birthday wishes, including those from people I haven't kept in contact in, in more than 2 years...
I mean...wow...I personally think it's nice that it's easy for people to just drop in a wish like that, to take a minute of their day to make my day...
Everyday I discover that Life, happiness and meaning are indeed closely linked to the people in your life.
I'm glad I decided to retire from being a loner. =)
Monday, March 9, 2009
The City of Dreaming Books
Well, this is supposed to be a busy time in design, but thankfully my design is kinda coming nicely along, allowing me to steal some time to read storybooks.... One that I've just finished reading is "The City of Dreaming Books" by Walter Moers, and I love it if simply because the whole book is concerned with books and reading..hahaha... Imagine a place where people sell drugs to intensify a reading experience.. ("Five drops and you will hallucinate whole novels!"), where there are creatures who feed on reading...(books have different nutritional values, and tastes differ from classics to cheap novels... but above all: you can get fat from reading too much!!! HORRORS! ), where Bookhunters kill and destroy each other in the hunt for rare books, where there are Animatomes (books that are alive, courtesy of Bookemists, which are kinda like Alchemists in our world), and Toxicotomes (poisonous books)...a world where the capital city is called Bookholm and the wealthy folk orders special perfume to impregnate their collection, so they'll always know which books are theirs.. The measure of a brilliant story for me: if it succeeds in conveying another world so well I feel like I experience that world, and when I'm not reading the book, not experiencing it anymore, I wish with my whole heart that the fictional world could really exist....
Anyways, it's now one of my favorite all-time fiction hehehe.... Below are quotes taken from the story:
"This book tells of a place where reading is still a genuine adventure, and by adventure I mean the old-fashioned definition of the word that appears in the Zamonian Dictionary: "A daring enterprise undertaken in a spirit of curiosity or temerity, it is potentially life-threatening, harbours unforeseeable dangers and sometimes proves fatal." Yes, I speak of a place where reading can drive people insane....."
"Reading is an intelligent way of not having to think. Writing..a desperate attempt to extract some dignity from solitude."
"Curiosity is the most powerful incentive in the world. Why? Because it's capable of overcoming the two most powerful dis-incentives in the world: common sense and fear. Curiosity accounts for why children hold their hands over candle flames, why soldiers go to war or scientists venture into the Cogitating Quicksand of Nairland. Curiosity is the reason why all the heroes of Zamonian horror stories 'go inside' sooner or later."
Anyways, it's now one of my favorite all-time fiction hehehe.... Below are quotes taken from the story:
"This book tells of a place where reading is still a genuine adventure, and by adventure I mean the old-fashioned definition of the word that appears in the Zamonian Dictionary: "A daring enterprise undertaken in a spirit of curiosity or temerity, it is potentially life-threatening, harbours unforeseeable dangers and sometimes proves fatal." Yes, I speak of a place where reading can drive people insane....."
"Reading is an intelligent way of not having to think. Writing..a desperate attempt to extract some dignity from solitude."
"Curiosity is the most powerful incentive in the world. Why? Because it's capable of overcoming the two most powerful dis-incentives in the world: common sense and fear. Curiosity accounts for why children hold their hands over candle flames, why soldiers go to war or scientists venture into the Cogitating Quicksand of Nairland. Curiosity is the reason why all the heroes of Zamonian horror stories 'go inside' sooner or later."
Friday, February 27, 2009
Dear Readers.,,,,,
.....meet the Kindle:
As much as I wanna finish reading Emile Zola's Germinal, I can't resist blogging about this. K, so the Kindle is hailed as the iPod of the literary world... It's a...well...it's a digital gadget designed to keep e-books... And as a person who doesn't mind lifelong imprisonment inside a library...Well of course it catches my fancy...
I guess the question that immediately comes to mind is: will it be able to replace books? Hmm... I still love the feel and smell of paper books, the browsing amongst beautiful hardcovers in bookstores, and above all, I still need to be surrounded by a roomful of books to feel that a room is truly my own...
That being said, the Kindle has lotsa cool stuffs:
1. You can "carry" 200 books around with you at anytime. (This will eliminate the need to stuff my luggage with english books everytime before I go back to Indonesia...)
2.E-books are cheaper than paper books (though you can't lend the digital copies because of copyright issues.)
3.It is, of course, extremely environmentally friendly, and I think it can become popular based on this strength alone...as a book lover I probably shouldn't say this, but the amount of trees cut down to produce paper for wussy chick-lits is scandalous..
4.You can read while eating because turning pages take just one click...Fantastic!!! It's irritating to keep alternating between flipping pages and holding your spoon....
5.You can change the font size..which is really useful for those with bad eyesight.
6.You can read in the dark.
7. Amazon is in the process of building a digital library where if you subscribe you can ideally access ANY BOOK EVER PRINTED. How cool is that..
One part that I still have doubts on though.....because the Kindle can be connected to the Internet, reading a book can become a community activity... e.g. a "book club" can meet virtually and chat about a book while reading it at the same time, readers can add footnotes disputing/ agreeing with authors on the e-book (which is admittedly quite neat, say if you read a book about Christianity, it'll be interesting to read footnotes written by people of other religions, even atheists... and people can discuss biases or propaganda inside history and political books....) Furthermore, there is the possibility of subscribing to a book...As in, the author has access still to the e-copy of the book so that he can change the ending if he changes his mind, or even ask readers' opinion on how he should continue the chapter...
Wow...I mean, at least now when I re-read my favorite books I don't have to worry about the ending having been changed huhuhu... And for me reading a book cannot be a community activity... after reading, yes, it's great to discuss books amongst friends, but when reading it...I expect to be transported to another world where it's just me exploring the authors' mind, watching the characters at play...
Plus, it's not funny if someone hacks into my library and, say, turns Harry Potter into a gay.
Nope, so not funny.
Ah well, for now it's still in its infancy (and have I mentioned that it costs $359? Wa...shucks...)
Oh but they recently unveiled an even sexier version...Meet the Kindle 2:
...just in case some friends who are going to the U.S are wondering what to bring back for me... hehehehe...
As much as I wanna finish reading Emile Zola's Germinal, I can't resist blogging about this. K, so the Kindle is hailed as the iPod of the literary world... It's a...well...it's a digital gadget designed to keep e-books... And as a person who doesn't mind lifelong imprisonment inside a library...Well of course it catches my fancy...I guess the question that immediately comes to mind is: will it be able to replace books? Hmm... I still love the feel and smell of paper books, the browsing amongst beautiful hardcovers in bookstores, and above all, I still need to be surrounded by a roomful of books to feel that a room is truly my own...
That being said, the Kindle has lotsa cool stuffs:
1. You can "carry" 200 books around with you at anytime. (This will eliminate the need to stuff my luggage with english books everytime before I go back to Indonesia...)
2.E-books are cheaper than paper books (though you can't lend the digital copies because of copyright issues.)
3.It is, of course, extremely environmentally friendly, and I think it can become popular based on this strength alone...as a book lover I probably shouldn't say this, but the amount of trees cut down to produce paper for wussy chick-lits is scandalous..
4.You can read while eating because turning pages take just one click...Fantastic!!! It's irritating to keep alternating between flipping pages and holding your spoon....
5.You can change the font size..which is really useful for those with bad eyesight.
6.You can read in the dark.
7. Amazon is in the process of building a digital library where if you subscribe you can ideally access ANY BOOK EVER PRINTED. How cool is that..
One part that I still have doubts on though.....because the Kindle can be connected to the Internet, reading a book can become a community activity... e.g. a "book club" can meet virtually and chat about a book while reading it at the same time, readers can add footnotes disputing/ agreeing with authors on the e-book (which is admittedly quite neat, say if you read a book about Christianity, it'll be interesting to read footnotes written by people of other religions, even atheists... and people can discuss biases or propaganda inside history and political books....) Furthermore, there is the possibility of subscribing to a book...As in, the author has access still to the e-copy of the book so that he can change the ending if he changes his mind, or even ask readers' opinion on how he should continue the chapter...
Wow...I mean, at least now when I re-read my favorite books I don't have to worry about the ending having been changed huhuhu... And for me reading a book cannot be a community activity... after reading, yes, it's great to discuss books amongst friends, but when reading it...I expect to be transported to another world where it's just me exploring the authors' mind, watching the characters at play...
Plus, it's not funny if someone hacks into my library and, say, turns Harry Potter into a gay.
Nope, so not funny.
Ah well, for now it's still in its infancy (and have I mentioned that it costs $359? Wa...shucks...)
Oh but they recently unveiled an even sexier version...Meet the Kindle 2:
...just in case some friends who are going to the U.S are wondering what to bring back for me... hehehehe...
Thursday, July 3, 2008
The Fringe Benefts of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination - JK Rowling
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. I found this a very inspiring read. It's rather long, but well worth your time.
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.I wish you all very good lives.Thank you very much.
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.I wish you all very good lives.Thank you very much.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Three-minute Rule
One of my favorite books, 5 cm by Donny Dirghantoro, tells about a group of friends that implements "the three-minute rule" among thmeselves. That means, if they need to talk about the negative side of friend who is not currently present, they will limit it to only 3 minutes, and only talk about the main points, for the sake of finding a solution or discussing how best to confront the related friend. So, no anyhow speaking for half an hour about someone else's flaws.
I think it's a very good principle and am gonna try to implement it, in line with my church's desire this year to "eliminate evil report" (and personal desire to reduce, if not eliminate, tendency to gossip..huhuhuh..).
In any case, pastor taught a good thing, that we have to commit to the church even if it's not perfect, cuz only then we can grow up. Just like when we are dating we have less commitment and hence can change partners but in a marriage we don't right away divorce a spouse when we find some aspects not to our liking.
Gotta stop "dating'" the church.
I think it's a very good principle and am gonna try to implement it, in line with my church's desire this year to "eliminate evil report" (and personal desire to reduce, if not eliminate, tendency to gossip..huhuhuh..).
In any case, pastor taught a good thing, that we have to commit to the church even if it's not perfect, cuz only then we can grow up. Just like when we are dating we have less commitment and hence can change partners but in a marriage we don't right away divorce a spouse when we find some aspects not to our liking.
Gotta stop "dating'" the church.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Visit to Bishan Library - at last!!
For someone who's a self-confessed library buff, I can't believe the time I took to finally visit the new library at Bishan. But finally!! Spent last night browsing rows and rows of non-archi books...ah, bliss....
Anyway, the new library is very unique because of a feature: tinted glass block cubes that are used as reading rooms! Here are photos of the exterior and interior:
See the cubicles? What's quite cool about it is that when you're inside it feels private because really, it's a very nice small space just for you, but the kicker is that actually you are kind of being "showcased" through the glass cubes for the pedestrian below...hahahaha... And people use them despite that fact! Which means the architect is successful, because often architects create spaces that are too complicated or too weird for people to use and as a result the spaces just get ignored.
This glass cubicles are continued on the inside:
And voila, my dinner yesterday night:
Cheese and mushroom sandwich accompanied by a stack of random books for browsing, and most importantly, topped with a very nice feeling of having all the time in the world....ahhh.... it's the time of the year to slowly savor beautiful words and poetic sentences, instead of the usual very visual diet I get from archi books.
Hm...but this really doesn't mean I like archi any less. Know what's the secret of staying happy throughout the whole academic year? Study something that's so fun and yet so demanding, hence when holiday comes we'll be happy to get away temporarily from demands and pressure, yet when school starts we'll be happy to have fun again!
Ah...ma vie c'est vraiment bon!
Anyway, the new library is very unique because of a feature: tinted glass block cubes that are used as reading rooms! Here are photos of the exterior and interior:
See the cubicles? What's quite cool about it is that when you're inside it feels private because really, it's a very nice small space just for you, but the kicker is that actually you are kind of being "showcased" through the glass cubes for the pedestrian below...hahahaha... And people use them despite that fact! Which means the architect is successful, because often architects create spaces that are too complicated or too weird for people to use and as a result the spaces just get ignored.
This glass cubicles are continued on the inside:
And voila, my dinner yesterday night:
Cheese and mushroom sandwich accompanied by a stack of random books for browsing, and most importantly, topped with a very nice feeling of having all the time in the world....ahhh.... it's the time of the year to slowly savor beautiful words and poetic sentences, instead of the usual very visual diet I get from archi books.
Hm...but this really doesn't mean I like archi any less. Know what's the secret of staying happy throughout the whole academic year? Study something that's so fun and yet so demanding, hence when holiday comes we'll be happy to get away temporarily from demands and pressure, yet when school starts we'll be happy to have fun again!
Ah...ma vie c'est vraiment bon!
Friday, October 26, 2007
(Tentative) list of my favorite books...am sure will grow longer and longer...
Am listing it to review just how many favorite books I have and what are those..In actual fact It's probably more than 50, but I chose 50 who made the most impression on me. Oh well...I really grew up with books...They're the ones that mostly taught me how to think, how to view the world, what to know, what to care about...I've friends who told me learning form books is wrong, in a sense that they cannot replace real experiences. I agree, but books for me is a way to communicate with people past, great people long dead, or who stay so far away..books truly are the windows to the world. Alright, dear reader, do count how many of those listed here you have read and drop it as a comment. will appreciate tt =)
1.The Bible (not putting it here just to be politically correct, but because it is the most complex, far-reaching, and personally life-changing book amongst those I've read. AND i haven't even finished reading it!)
2.Bridge to Terabitihia - Katherine Paterson
3.Matilda - Roald Dahl
4.The Little Prince - Antoine de St. Exupery
5.The Silmarillion - J.R.R Tolkien
6. LOTR trilogy - J.R.R Tolkien
7. Derai-derai Cemara - Chairil Anwar (a compilation of his poems)
8. Supernova - Dee
9. Akar - Dee
10.Freakonomics - Stephen D.Levitt
11. Building Construction Illustrated ( yea i think so ;p ) - Francis D.K Ching
12.Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
13. The Red Queen -Jared Diamond
14. Sherlock Holmes series - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
15. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
16. Catatan Seorang Demonstran - Soe Hok Gie
17. "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman?" - Richard Feynman
18. "What do you care what other people think?" -Richard Feynman
19. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank - T.E Carhart
20. Biology 6th edition - Campbell & Reece
21. content -OMA
22. The Screwtape Letters - C.S Lewis
23. Mere Christianity -C.S Lewis
24. The Great Divorce -C.S Lewis (ok, basically anything by C.S Lewis, though I hve yet to rfinish reading all his works)
25. The Case for Faith -Lee Strobel
26. 5 cm -Donny Dirgantoro
27. Kambing Jantan -Raditya Dika
28. Tetralogi Laskar Pelangi - Andrea Hirata
29. Romeo and Juliet -William Shakespeare
30. The Speed Reading Book - Tony Buzan (I owe my current reading speed to him..a must read!)
31. Let Me Be A Woman - Elizabeth Elliot
32. Passion and Purity -Elizabeth Elliot
33. I Kissed Dting Good-bye- Joshua Harris (Basically the book that shaped my view towards BGR)
34. Thinking Architecture -Peter Zumthor (even though it's an architecture book, it's so beautiful that it calms me down when I read it...simply an architectural classic. Plus it's rather thin!)
35. Atmosphere - Peter Zumthor
36. Don't Eat This Book - Morgan Spurlock
37. Sabriel - Garth Nix
38. Shadow of The Wind -Carlos Ruiz Zafon
39. The Lotus and The Cross -Ravi Zacharias
40. Stories for The Extreme Teen's Heart
41. Clutter's Last Stand -Don Aslett
42. How to Have 48 Hours A Day - Don Aslett (It works! Too bad one needs more than 48 hours a day in archi..)
43. Jesus Freaks -d.c Talk
44. Diet for A New World - John Robbins (It's about vegetarianism. John Robbins is actually from the family who owned Baskin Robbins, but well..he converted into 100% vegetarian - meaning no ice cream too...)
45. Total Truth -Nancy Pearce (MUST read!)
46. Nodame Cantabile comic series
47. Idiot's Guide to Drawing (Read this when I was quite young, thankfully. It's a useful book for those who alwys think you just cannot draw!)
48. Biomimicry -Janine M. Benyus
49. The Golden Compass series -Philip Pullman
50. Harry Potter series -J.K Rowling
Hm...that's 50 for now...bu it doesn't include my favourite poets and short stories. By the way, aside from the Bible at no.1, and maybe the Bridge to Terabithia at no.2, the rest of the books is in no order of preference. I just list them as I remember them.
1.The Bible (not putting it here just to be politically correct, but because it is the most complex, far-reaching, and personally life-changing book amongst those I've read. AND i haven't even finished reading it!)
2.Bridge to Terabitihia - Katherine Paterson
3.Matilda - Roald Dahl
4.The Little Prince - Antoine de St. Exupery
5.The Silmarillion - J.R.R Tolkien
6. LOTR trilogy - J.R.R Tolkien
7. Derai-derai Cemara - Chairil Anwar (a compilation of his poems)
8. Supernova - Dee
9. Akar - Dee
10.Freakonomics - Stephen D.Levitt
11. Building Construction Illustrated ( yea i think so ;p ) - Francis D.K Ching
12.Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
13. The Red Queen -Jared Diamond
14. Sherlock Holmes series - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
15. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
16. Catatan Seorang Demonstran - Soe Hok Gie
17. "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman?" - Richard Feynman
18. "What do you care what other people think?" -Richard Feynman
19. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank - T.E Carhart
20. Biology 6th edition - Campbell & Reece
21. content -OMA
22. The Screwtape Letters - C.S Lewis
23. Mere Christianity -C.S Lewis
24. The Great Divorce -C.S Lewis (ok, basically anything by C.S Lewis, though I hve yet to rfinish reading all his works)
25. The Case for Faith -Lee Strobel
26. 5 cm -Donny Dirgantoro
27. Kambing Jantan -Raditya Dika
28. Tetralogi Laskar Pelangi - Andrea Hirata
29. Romeo and Juliet -William Shakespeare
30. The Speed Reading Book - Tony Buzan (I owe my current reading speed to him..a must read!)
31. Let Me Be A Woman - Elizabeth Elliot
32. Passion and Purity -Elizabeth Elliot
33. I Kissed Dting Good-bye- Joshua Harris (Basically the book that shaped my view towards BGR)
34. Thinking Architecture -Peter Zumthor (even though it's an architecture book, it's so beautiful that it calms me down when I read it...simply an architectural classic. Plus it's rather thin!)
35. Atmosphere - Peter Zumthor
36. Don't Eat This Book - Morgan Spurlock
37. Sabriel - Garth Nix
38. Shadow of The Wind -Carlos Ruiz Zafon
39. The Lotus and The Cross -Ravi Zacharias
40. Stories for The Extreme Teen's Heart
41. Clutter's Last Stand -Don Aslett
42. How to Have 48 Hours A Day - Don Aslett (It works! Too bad one needs more than 48 hours a day in archi..)
43. Jesus Freaks -d.c Talk
44. Diet for A New World - John Robbins (It's about vegetarianism. John Robbins is actually from the family who owned Baskin Robbins, but well..he converted into 100% vegetarian - meaning no ice cream too...)
45. Total Truth -Nancy Pearce (MUST read!)
46. Nodame Cantabile comic series
47. Idiot's Guide to Drawing (Read this when I was quite young, thankfully. It's a useful book for those who alwys think you just cannot draw!)
48. Biomimicry -Janine M. Benyus
49. The Golden Compass series -Philip Pullman
50. Harry Potter series -J.K Rowling
Hm...that's 50 for now...bu it doesn't include my favourite poets and short stories. By the way, aside from the Bible at no.1, and maybe the Bridge to Terabithia at no.2, the rest of the books is in no order of preference. I just list them as I remember them.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Boy Who Lived
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE LAST OF HARRY POTTER BOOKS)
Juz finished reading it...and AAAAAHHHH.... This glorious feeling of having been in a most satisfying, though admittedly rather long journey! Of growing up together with tales of The Boy Who Lived..of spending time creating a Hogwarts of my own with what imagination I have...Of letting loose my inner child, enraptured and gripped by words so captivating they are almost magical....
I've never been a fanatic fan of Harry Potter, but having said that, I hold the opinion that J.K Rowling is one of the finest storytellers alive... oh my...not many authors can weave and link plots as good as her, and if there's one thing I have to say about the Potter series, it's that despite being churned out over a long, long timespan, having complex narratives and so many characters, Rowling's books have formed an unbroken thread that HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE. Who would've thought the way Harry caught his first golden snitch could play a part! Who would've thought of the 7th Horcrux! So that's what happened with Snape! So that's why!
As I walked through Harry's story, question by question was answered, doubt by nagging doubt resolved, no plot twist was left dangling, and a few pleasant surprises were encountered as well...by the end of the book I am immensely satisfied, positively beaming..Aaaahhh.....
Well, I'd have to say that though I don't call myself Muggle and queue together with legions of Potter-philes to grab hold of the book, I do have my fond memories over it.. The first Potter book - The Philosopher's Stone - I read with a great deal of difficulty..My copy is battered with plenty of highlighted words and definitions from Longman's Dictionary scribbled on it. The 2nd and 3rd copy were no better...But I remember starting from the 3rd my English is good enough to read Harry Potter in one sitting and not be exhausted by the amount of English it contained =) Hey, I was an amateur that spoke Javanese-English back then! (My accent was so thick you could probably slice through it...)
The books are amongst some that spurred my imagination to grow to the state it is right now...And back then when I still needed to sleep a 9 p.m. , Harry Potter was the only guy that could keep me awake till the wee hours of the morning.. (For the sake of reading him in one sitting...)
Took me just one afternoon to savour the last book though..what a pity, since it's not as long a journey as I've wished....but there's also a sense of achievement and wonder, as I remember the sheer difficulty I had reading the first books, and the ease with which I finished the last...
Just discussed the book with a hostelmate also..quoting her, "Now I can live in peace since I now the ending of the Harry Potter series.."
Hm....Whatever it is, I hope Rowling will not be resting on her laurels...Though admittedly it's difficult to fill in Potter's shoes (The size of Hagrid's?)
Here's to The Boy Who Lived..May he lives on in the hearts and imagination of the children round the world!
Juz finished reading it...and AAAAAHHHH.... This glorious feeling of having been in a most satisfying, though admittedly rather long journey! Of growing up together with tales of The Boy Who Lived..of spending time creating a Hogwarts of my own with what imagination I have...Of letting loose my inner child, enraptured and gripped by words so captivating they are almost magical....
I've never been a fanatic fan of Harry Potter, but having said that, I hold the opinion that J.K Rowling is one of the finest storytellers alive... oh my...not many authors can weave and link plots as good as her, and if there's one thing I have to say about the Potter series, it's that despite being churned out over a long, long timespan, having complex narratives and so many characters, Rowling's books have formed an unbroken thread that HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE. Who would've thought the way Harry caught his first golden snitch could play a part! Who would've thought of the 7th Horcrux! So that's what happened with Snape! So that's why!
As I walked through Harry's story, question by question was answered, doubt by nagging doubt resolved, no plot twist was left dangling, and a few pleasant surprises were encountered as well...by the end of the book I am immensely satisfied, positively beaming..Aaaahhh.....
Well, I'd have to say that though I don't call myself Muggle and queue together with legions of Potter-philes to grab hold of the book, I do have my fond memories over it.. The first Potter book - The Philosopher's Stone - I read with a great deal of difficulty..My copy is battered with plenty of highlighted words and definitions from Longman's Dictionary scribbled on it. The 2nd and 3rd copy were no better...But I remember starting from the 3rd my English is good enough to read Harry Potter in one sitting and not be exhausted by the amount of English it contained =) Hey, I was an amateur that spoke Javanese-English back then! (My accent was so thick you could probably slice through it...)
The books are amongst some that spurred my imagination to grow to the state it is right now...And back then when I still needed to sleep a 9 p.m. , Harry Potter was the only guy that could keep me awake till the wee hours of the morning.. (For the sake of reading him in one sitting...)
Took me just one afternoon to savour the last book though..what a pity, since it's not as long a journey as I've wished....but there's also a sense of achievement and wonder, as I remember the sheer difficulty I had reading the first books, and the ease with which I finished the last...
Just discussed the book with a hostelmate also..quoting her, "Now I can live in peace since I now the ending of the Harry Potter series.."
Hm....Whatever it is, I hope Rowling will not be resting on her laurels...Though admittedly it's difficult to fill in Potter's shoes (The size of Hagrid's?)
Here's to The Boy Who Lived..May he lives on in the hearts and imagination of the children round the world!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
2nd Update on Project RLH
'It was Alcoholics Anonymous that gave the founding fathers the idea... Our methods are frankly borrowed from theirs. When one of us feel the urge to take a woman out to dinner becoming too strong for him, he seeks the other members of the circle and tells them of his craving, and they reason with him.. Calm succeeds turmoil, and the madness passes...'
(PG Wodehouse, "Bachelors' Anonymous")
(I recommend the book cuz i'ts hillariously unmushy n the humour is witty, wholesome, clean old english stuff. PG Wodehouse rocks!)
Well, these are the books read so far (for some of them I didn't include the author cuz I did not take it down before I returned them to the library.) Overall it's a varied and satisfying diet, but I'm behind by a few days..and school's starting soon which means I can hardly spend time reading!!! Aaaaaaaa.......!!!
Oh well...here goes....
1.The World is Flat -Thomas L. Friedman
2. Romantic Voices -Kahlil Gibran
3. Lelaki Terindah -Andrei Aksana
4. Singapore Architecture -Robert Powell
5. The Chinese Diaspora -Johannes Widodo
6.Totto-Chan - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
7. From the Meadows of Gold -Mas'Udi
8.Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
9. Doa Sang Katak - Anthony de Mello
10. Bachelors' Anonymous -P.G Wodehouse
11. The Devil Wears Prada
12.White Papers of Sustainable Architecture
13.Burn Marks -Sara Paretsky
14. The Long Road Towards Recognition: Indonesian Architecture
15. Crimes Against Nature - Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
16. Asian Architecture
17. The Meaning of Flowers -Scoble & Field
18. Black Market : Inside the Endangered Species Trade
19. Design in Japan
20. Every Young Woman's Battle - Shannon Ethridge
21. The Shadow of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books..... This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens... In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody's best friend..."
(Sempere, from "The Shadow of The Wind")
"Once, in my father's bookshop I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later - no matter how may books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn to forget - we will return. "
(Daniel, from "The Shadow of The Wind")
The first book that finds its way into my heart? A children's book , amongst the first English books I read when I was 13, titled "The Bridge to Terabithia". The story, the words... just absorbed me completely and I forgot the real world round me..I think that was one of the defining moments that got me addicted on reading...hahaha... ufh...I wish the Cemetery of Forgotten books is for real....
(PG Wodehouse, "Bachelors' Anonymous")
(I recommend the book cuz i'ts hillariously unmushy n the humour is witty, wholesome, clean old english stuff. PG Wodehouse rocks!)
Well, these are the books read so far (for some of them I didn't include the author cuz I did not take it down before I returned them to the library.) Overall it's a varied and satisfying diet, but I'm behind by a few days..and school's starting soon which means I can hardly spend time reading!!! Aaaaaaaa.......!!!
Oh well...here goes....
1.The World is Flat -Thomas L. Friedman
2. Romantic Voices -Kahlil Gibran
3. Lelaki Terindah -Andrei Aksana
4. Singapore Architecture -Robert Powell
5. The Chinese Diaspora -Johannes Widodo
6.Totto-Chan - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
7. From the Meadows of Gold -Mas'Udi
8.Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
9. Doa Sang Katak - Anthony de Mello
10. Bachelors' Anonymous -P.G Wodehouse
11. The Devil Wears Prada
12.White Papers of Sustainable Architecture
13.Burn Marks -Sara Paretsky
14. The Long Road Towards Recognition: Indonesian Architecture
15. Crimes Against Nature - Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
16. Asian Architecture
17. The Meaning of Flowers -Scoble & Field
18. Black Market : Inside the Endangered Species Trade
19. Design in Japan
20. Every Young Woman's Battle - Shannon Ethridge
21. The Shadow of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books..... This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens... In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody's best friend..."
(Sempere, from "The Shadow of The Wind")
"Once, in my father's bookshop I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later - no matter how may books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn to forget - we will return. "
(Daniel, from "The Shadow of The Wind")
The first book that finds its way into my heart? A children's book , amongst the first English books I read when I was 13, titled "The Bridge to Terabithia". The story, the words... just absorbed me completely and I forgot the real world round me..I think that was one of the defining moments that got me addicted on reading...hahaha... ufh...I wish the Cemetery of Forgotten books is for real....
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Update on Project Read-Like-Hell (RLH)
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find fault and discourse; but to weigh and consider." (Francis Bacon)
Arrgh, I'm behind schedule!!!! :'( Thanks to church camp, vacation, typhoid fever, friends' invitations to movies etc, n my own inability to resist the temptation that is the Net...
Newae, here are the books I've read so far:
1.Customs of Ancient Kingdoms of India - Marco Polo
2.One for the Money - Janet Evanovich
3. Surat- surat kepada Philip - Charlie W. Shedd
4. Snowfall - K.M Peyton
5. 5 Cm - Donny Dirghantoro
6. Sang Pemimpi -Andrea Hirata
7. The Great Divorce -C.S Lewis
8. The Four Loves - C.S Lewis
9. Can A Guy Get Pregnant? Scientific Answers to Everyday (and Not So Everyday) Questions - Rich n Bill Sones
10. D'Bijis - Adhitya Mulya
11. Choosing God's Best - Don Raunikar
12. Discipline -Ellisabeth Elliot
13. Passion and Purity - Ellisabeth Elliot
14. The Effective Student: A Guide to Learning for The NUS Student (ok, i ws curious and felt I had lots of time..)
Am halfway through these books:
1.The Question of God: C.S Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life - Armand M. Nicholi Jr.
2.The World is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman
3.Jesus in Beijing - Aikman
(Bad habit of mine: I always read several books at one go, since actually my concentration span is too short to stick to one book. Then, in the middle of reading these books I'll get distracted by even more books...so I never know when actually I'll finish the books..)
On top of those, I read 4 New Scientist magazines (I usually read science magazines as a "break" in between reading books. Fun! cuz the articles are short n usually interesting.) and 60 over comic books...No I'm not kidding...it was mainly in my cousin's house in Jakarta - he had tons of comics - and at the beginning of my typhoid fever days..I was so frustrated at having to stay at home that I didn't feel like reading anything intellectually heavier than comics...(oh n I admit that I also read 8 teen-lit novels...so mushy!!!! gah..again, it's because I wasn't in the mood for proper books...)
Of course, comics and novels aren't counted as books, so yeah, I'm below target. In a reading diet, those are counted as "junk food" , since they contribute nothing to the expansion of the mind, and I'm not even entertained reading them... (Why did I read them again...?)
Well, read something that rings true for me: "The man who doesn't read has no advantage over the man who can't read." (Forgot who said it though..)
Arrgh, I'm behind schedule!!!! :'( Thanks to church camp, vacation, typhoid fever, friends' invitations to movies etc, n my own inability to resist the temptation that is the Net...
Newae, here are the books I've read so far:
1.Customs of Ancient Kingdoms of India - Marco Polo
2.One for the Money - Janet Evanovich
3. Surat- surat kepada Philip - Charlie W. Shedd
4. Snowfall - K.M Peyton
5. 5 Cm - Donny Dirghantoro
6. Sang Pemimpi -Andrea Hirata
7. The Great Divorce -C.S Lewis
8. The Four Loves - C.S Lewis
9. Can A Guy Get Pregnant? Scientific Answers to Everyday (and Not So Everyday) Questions - Rich n Bill Sones
10. D'Bijis - Adhitya Mulya
11. Choosing God's Best - Don Raunikar
12. Discipline -Ellisabeth Elliot
13. Passion and Purity - Ellisabeth Elliot
14. The Effective Student: A Guide to Learning for The NUS Student (ok, i ws curious and felt I had lots of time..)
Am halfway through these books:
1.The Question of God: C.S Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life - Armand M. Nicholi Jr.
2.The World is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman
3.Jesus in Beijing - Aikman
(Bad habit of mine: I always read several books at one go, since actually my concentration span is too short to stick to one book. Then, in the middle of reading these books I'll get distracted by even more books...so I never know when actually I'll finish the books..)
On top of those, I read 4 New Scientist magazines (I usually read science magazines as a "break" in between reading books. Fun! cuz the articles are short n usually interesting.) and 60 over comic books...No I'm not kidding...it was mainly in my cousin's house in Jakarta - he had tons of comics - and at the beginning of my typhoid fever days..I was so frustrated at having to stay at home that I didn't feel like reading anything intellectually heavier than comics...(oh n I admit that I also read 8 teen-lit novels...so mushy!!!! gah..again, it's because I wasn't in the mood for proper books...)
Of course, comics and novels aren't counted as books, so yeah, I'm below target. In a reading diet, those are counted as "junk food" , since they contribute nothing to the expansion of the mind, and I'm not even entertained reading them... (Why did I read them again...?)
Well, read something that rings true for me: "The man who doesn't read has no advantage over the man who can't read." (Forgot who said it though..)
Monday, April 30, 2007
Project "Read-Like-Hell"
Well, the title about says it all...during the semester I read mostly on Architecture and had my reading diet supplemented with very little non-archi stuff. So yeah, since the holidays are here.. it's time for revenge!! Muahahahahahah!!!
I name it "Project Read-Like-Hell", which is basically using my every waking moment when I'm not playing piano/playing guitar/strolling in nature reserve/studying some plant/drawing/ogling at buildings/exploring remote parts of singapore to read. Based on rough calculations,given 3 mths holiday, I should be able to finish anywhere between 50 - 60 books of varying thickness and "chim-ness" (chim = profound).
The project has already started..finished "The Customs of Ancient Kingdoms of India" by Marco Polo (Penguin the publisher has this cool series "Around the World in Twenty Books" which is abt adventure. Check it out!), and "One for the money" by Janet Evanovich (funny detective novel).
Currently reading "The World is Flat" and "Jesus in Beijing". Will update every 1 or 2 weeks on books i've read,I guess. Do recommend me books u think are must-reads!
I name it "Project Read-Like-Hell", which is basically using my every waking moment when I'm not playing piano/playing guitar/strolling in nature reserve/studying some plant/drawing/ogling at buildings/exploring remote parts of singapore to read. Based on rough calculations,given 3 mths holiday, I should be able to finish anywhere between 50 - 60 books of varying thickness and "chim-ness" (chim = profound).
The project has already started..finished "The Customs of Ancient Kingdoms of India" by Marco Polo (Penguin the publisher has this cool series "Around the World in Twenty Books" which is abt adventure. Check it out!), and "One for the money" by Janet Evanovich (funny detective novel).
Currently reading "The World is Flat" and "Jesus in Beijing". Will update every 1 or 2 weeks on books i've read,I guess. Do recommend me books u think are must-reads!
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