Thoughts beyond my life & my travel - Bel

Hong Kong government proposed to have a sex offender registry some months ago, mainly to keep a record of cases of high risk offenders. Records will only be checked by child-related institutions such as schools and child care centres. Employers can only obtain such information upon applicants' consent. I didn't realise such registry was so powerful till I saw 20/20 last night. How come the US makes use of the registry in a wrong way. Its registry does not only include high risk offenders but also those teens who are reported to have sex with their girlfriends who are under the age of consent. The police makes home visits to your neighbours to warn them if you're listed in the registry. The public can also have access to the registry and know you're on the list but do not know what kinds of offences you committed. So logically they will assume you commited a crime like rape or molestation. It is always a pro and con in certain systems like this one. It's not surprisi...

All in a sudden, I wanted to go to a park nearby just to get some fresh air and kick my bad luck away. I read the articles on my friend's blog talking about how much compromise we had to do at work and felt bad about it. The only blessing was to meet some friendly nurses from Singapore in the afternoon, feeling that people did care about what you worked for. After all, it seems like I didn't have any luck. The waterfront park was knocked down completely. I hope it's the government plan to extend and link up different waterfront parks together. It is pity to miss the chance to be in the park again and enjoy the breeze and see the view. But the view from the bridge is not bad at all. Is the light of dusk giving people as much hope as the ray of light in the morning? The view did please me a bit at least.

I did write a lot about diseases and surgery for patient information. Like any healthcare workers, my work is meant to encourage people to care about their health, have health checks and eventually enjoy quality of life and stay healthy. It sounds pretty good till I realise my dentist told me that I need a CT Scan. It's nothing scary about and imagine I wrote things about CT Scan before and saw patients doing it. It's just never good to be a "patient" yourself. I start to think what if I can those diseases that I wrote about before like sciatica, back pain, diabetes and cervical disease, etc. Of course, I won't have BPH. It's just not very pleasant to write about such disease.

My mother and her friends used to claim that they're older as they wanted to start working earlier. Those were the days when you couldn't receive a lot of education especially you're girls in a family. Imagine you've got 8 or 9 siblings, how possibly your family paid all the food and education expenses in 1950s. How cruel it was when your family had to give your brothers or sisters to other family 'coz they couldn't raise so many children. Now, the economist blams us for being too conservative to have any child at all. It's a shock when the news said some Chinese gynmists were accused of claiming they're 16 in order to compete. I wish I could claim I were younger but never older. I remember how sad I felt when I turned 30 and I don't want any big birthday celebration anymore. But my mom is still hoping that she can be older as one cannot enjoy minimal elderly benefits till the age of 65. Oh my, I couldn't imagine myself becoming a senior one day...

It's the travel season and I received quite a few gifts from friends who were back from their travel destinations. Most of them were back from Japan as its currency was not as strong as the others. I hate to carry gifts back to Hong Kong as I always want to travel light. But when I look at the gifts that I got from these friends, I almost felt I shared the the joy of their travel in Asia and even Europe. So, you can always spread the joy with the others.

There are a lot of arguments regarding cost benefit analysis especially the matter of human life. Should we give out free medication without topping the limits? Will you give up money for safety against 1-millionth chance of King Kong attack? I did a research paper on the cost benefit analysis of rotavirus before and already found such calculation was not easy and could be controversial. Should we calculate human life equivalent to US$5 - 10 million? How could we justify the amount? Now, the China government decided to motivate their athletes by awarding so much prize money to reach their Olympics goals. Does it worth to invest $500 million for 50 gold medals? The poor might probably feel sorry about the government's decision as they probably don't have the TV to watch the games and share the glory. I would rather see it giving out half of the award money to rebuild the earthquake area.

I used to be doing well academically and decided to give myself a break once I was admitted to university. My degree result was a disappointment but I love that university and I'm proud to be a graduate there. After some years, I finally graduate from the Master's degree course in another university. The two-year hard work harvest with flying colours. While I'm pondering whether I will go to the congregation, I am asked if I will accept an invitation to speak at the congregation on behalf of other graduates of the business school. Should I give a speech which has totally no meaning at all? It will be just an ego thing if I'm gonna do it. I'm sure my parents will be happy seeing me to give a speech but they will absolutely know nothing about what I'm talking about in English. If I graduated in my previous university, I would consider it an honour and definitely say yes. It's not an easy decision to make, anyhow I should feel happy whether I gonna accept the ...

Have you noticed there are so many charming winners at the Olympics? I'm surprised how gorgeous and charming they are. They may not be Miss Universe or Mr Handsome but these atlethes have been practising for years and giving much of their efforts to earn the medals. They have high energy level, embrace a perfect body, possess endurance and power to win the support from the audiences. They radiate their charm with their smiles when they are waving to the audiences and receiving the medals. The Olympics games definitely have a lot more "good-looking" people than any beauty pageant.

China and Hong Kong were so close to win in basketball, volleyball or table tennis games in the Olympics. We were always leading the games but somehow the other teams like Spanish and Japan didn't give up at every single point and strike to the end and win. Such a disappointment when we're lost to the Spanish team in basketball, then lost to Cuba and the USA in women's volleyball. Did we the Chinese do not have the perserverance like the other teams or we need to work further on our sports psychology? We have strong wills and excel in many individual games like diving and gymnastics. But China ball teams do not have any luck in those ball games which need team work, extraordinary power and outstanding physical fitness. However, I still want our Chinese audience could show some gestures while other teams are playing against China. After all, it's not a fight or war. It's just a competition.

My feet is so tired after working at the fair for just two days. You can sometimes feel like a long day standing next to the exhibits and speaking to the public. So, we tried to entertain ourselves in different ways, like having little "competition" on how many steps we walk here and there every day. I couldn't believe that we walk so little every day and we do not walk a lot more even outside the office. It is believed that we have to walk 10,000 steps per day but many walk less than the "healthy level". While we're studying the flat foot model, a helper volunteered to take off her shoes and show other helpers her "flat foot". Interesting to learn something LIVE. Last but not the least, our executives delivered us yummy donuts to boast our energy. I bought chocolate and snacks that we need to enjoy our time a lot more. :)

I was a fan of Culture Club and that's when I first heard about the Virgin music label. What a name! My parents probably thought I was something wrong to love those new romantic bands but somehow I persuaded them how good looking Boy George was in those music videos. I thought Virgin record company should be something big at that time and I didn't know that Virgin Altantic and Virgin megastore were all under the Virgin Group. These businesses are all unrelated and somehow they're all under the control of the same guy Richard Branson. Is this CEO charming? He is. But how come his realty show was a bit boring. I don't know if the American contestants are better off at those realty shows than the Brits. I almost finish reading this book but somehow there are still a lot of controversary points of views about this guy according to this book. Is he a control freak or is he the liberalist? He's like the dream boss of every PR but at the same time can be a nightmare for ev...

The grocery store staff caught an old housewife stealing food and it made quite a drama. I didn't bear to watch the scene but you couldn't avoid hearing both of them arguing. The woman wanted to pay to settle while the man made a threat to call the police and kept swearing. Could it be handled in a more civilized way? It won't happen in a supermarket, at least, not full of swear words. But it's a grocery store and storekeeper was less educated and civilized, I suppose. Somehow, I didn't want to shop a lot more and only desire to walk away from this uncivilized place quick.

Awesome. I couldn't stop saying "wow" here and there when watching the Olympics opening. It's like magic. It's full of brilliant ideas, impeccable execution and wits. Audience from other countries may not have the clue of how the scenes are meant to be. The fireworks, the painting, the scrolls...they are all parts of our ancient culture and achievement. The lighting of the caultron was particularly smart. I never like to watch those opening ceremonies. This one really changed my point of view. The success of the opening night did win the supports from people. I almost forgot what it did to suppression the freedom of the press.

Have you ever been feeling sorry that you lost your friend because of some silly things? While I'm clearing up and filing up some old emails, that reminds me some friends I used to be really close but not seeing anymore. So don't get your friend work in the same company as yours. Don't ask your married friend to hang out with you if you feel something wrong. Don't make your tempered friend mad by insisting to go to your preferred restaurant. Reading those mails just remind me people could be strong walking in front of you but they're fragile and just hide things they don't want to tell. They don't cry but they're under stress. Somehow you find people having a happy life but they might not. Are we showing different faces in front of people?

The weather is really moody this year. Extended long winter followed by almost two months of rainy days. I was almost feeling down as those Londoners. Finally there came the sun and it's fiercely hot. So, it may not be that bad when the rain comes visit us again. It's only early August that we have 2 typhoon no 8 signal already. Sometimes I feel sorry for our next generation who have to bear more unpredictable and unbearable weather. How could they go to those university orientation camps in such a heat. How can you bring your kids to the parks seeing flowers? Or is that I who is more vulnerable facing these weather changes?

I never have the luck when gambling, not even playing the slot machines. So I seldom play cards or buy any lottery tickets. You could imagine how I felt the luck when I won little money the very first time with this lottery ticket. It's almost like once in a lifetime.

Who don't mind people touching their bellies? Pregnant women. There were quite a lot of bellies for me to touch these few months. My friend, my colleague and my reporter friend. They all don't mind and ask me to touch their bellies. I probably will jump if someone touch my belly but pregnant women always attract people or even strangers to pet their bellies. I guess they welcome people to make friends with their babies before they're born. Congratulations to my friend who is finally pregnant after over a year's wait! It makes me and few of us strange when getting together for chat-chit. It seems like we're the minority who are not having children or babies. I'm probably the extreme minority who is still single. But I don't care and let's meet more moms and babies.