Have you felt the same way before?

You are among the few lucky ones in your generation who enjoy an undisturbed childhood blessed with precious friendship and free of love troubles. You may have dated a few girls at times, but love is something you have always dreamt of but too noble to understand.

As time goes by, you and your circle of friends have grown up so quickly yet quietly without your noticing. Witnessing your friends settling in relationship one by one and starting their own little families, you also feel like getting a girlfriend yourself. It is not long before you meet a nice girl that you like. She's got every quality you dream of and you can't believe how lucky you are to win the love from a girl like her.

However, you find something missing in the relationship that stops you from going further. However hard you try, you just can't commit yourself. Even though people around you keep telling you you two are a perfect match, for some reason, you don't feel right.

You leave the girl who loves you and go from one girl to another to search for that missing something. Yet, you can't find it. You feel lost.

Until one day you meet a boy. A very special boy.

He is different from your childhood friends and the girls that you dated. He is just... different. His smile can erase your worries and his words can sooth your emotions. You find it easy to unfold yourself to him. You don't want to put on any mask or armor yourself because you feel safe to be just yourself in front of him. You are so surprised that he can actually fill up the emptiness inside you that others can't. And when he looks deep into your eyes, you can feel warmth and... and a flicker of something that enchants you. You know that something mystical and unusual is going on between you two. And you are puzzled. You are not supposed to feel this way towards a boy.

Deep down the whole world of yours gravitates towards his but your rational mind tells you to resist. The two opposing forces within yourself are tearing your mind and heart apart. You have never felt so much anguish in your life.

That afternoon when you two chat at a cafe as usual, he puts his hands on yours accidentially on purpose. All of a sudden, you feel an electrifying rush of excitement and a bump of heartbeat. That nearly takes your breath away. Time seems to stand still for you two while the rest of the world is flowing. But your rational mind wins. When you finally manage to withdraw your hand, you believe you notice disappointment flash his face.

Yet, the magical feeling has been haunting you since then.

You try to escape from him but the more you want to hide from him, the more your thoughts are occupied by him and the stronger your desire to be with him.

After a week of hide-and-seek, destiny brings him in front of you. This time, your feet feel rooted and you know you can't hide anymore. He looks at you in an expression you can't read. Without saying a word, he pulls you towards him and press his hot, moist lips on yours. For an instant, your whole self melts in an anonymous wave of passion. And at this particular moment, your clouds of confusion clear and a sense of acceptance rushes in. You have finally found the answer.

This is love.

Have you felt this way before? I have.

This is how I feel about my religious beliefs these days.

Who is the queen of the classroom?

The Japanese drama Queen of the Classroom has stirred quite a controversy when it was launched in Japan and Hong Kong. The story is about an elementary school teacher, Maya Akutsu, who talks and moves as gracefully and magnificently as a queen, so to speak, but treats her students in a devilish way.

Akutsu has her own unique teaching philosophy. She wants to show students the stark realities of life before they enter the society, which are slavery for low-achievers and disobedient students, betrayal of friends when it comes to comflicts of personal interests and insatiable demand of hard work.

Despite waves of complaints among teachers and parents, the drama has topped the TV ratings chart. And it's not surprising to find that many Gen-Xers do identify with Akutsu's debatable teaching philosophy.

Being a Gen-Xer myself, I still remember the old school days when teachers were really kings and queens in the classroom and absolute obedience was a must. I still remember my swollen, redden hands when they were slashed by plastic rulers because of my poor handwriting (corporal punishment was not yet banned during my first few years of elementary school. Of course that was unjust as I was sure my handwriting was easily comprehensible), the numerous recesses I spent standing in the playground or outside the staff room because of failures to hand in homework or bring back textbooks, the copying punishment given to the whole class because a few students chat in lessons, the loads of homework having to finish within a short period of time and the sky-high demands of work from my high school English teacher.

I'm sure my experience does not sound novice to other Gen-Xers and I'm sure they have more exciting stories to tell. Those school days thick with strict school rules and demanding teachers have formed our collective memories.

Deep down each of us lies our own version of Ms. Akutsu--be her the OCD-ish discipline teacher who couldn't even accept a dress 1 mm shorter than the standard, the strict English teacher who kept hurling reading and writing assignments at you, the poker-faced principal who wouldn't talk with students, the demanding PE teacher who required students to run miles in sweltering heat or the finger-snapping class teacher who couldn't tolerate a tiny buzz of noise.

Yet, when we look back, we have no more hard feelings and some do feel blessed about the tough training we received. We were trained to deal with harsh situations and were shown the standard necessary to reach if we wanted to excel. I'm not an advocate of corporal punishment or even corporal mortification. And I don't believe in the extreme practice as Akutsu does in the drama. But I do believe in tough training and the value of hardship. I do believe, to certain extent, pain is good. (Of course, I also believe in positive reinforcement. I'm not an extremist.)

Every one of us knows how a vaccine works--a weakened strain of viruses or bacteria is injected in our bodies so as to provoke the production of antibiotics. The same mechanism applies to the development of qualities like strength, determination and endurance--they are nurtured in hardship or even mildly painful experiences.

But now, the tide has turned. Teachers are no longer the kings or the queens in the classroom. Students are.

A couple of days ago, a small piece of news caught my attention. Some parents complained that a school imposed 'corporal punishment' on their Form one children during the orientation camp as their dear sons and daughters have to do 10 push-ups if they fail to observe the rules.

With free-falling population and schools struggling to survive in a competitive market, schools cling to life on parents' and students' comment. That's why school principals have a hopeless fear of complaints from parents and negative publicity.

In an era during which corporal punishment is defined as 10 push-ups and mental torture as having been told to produce a piece of English writing every week, it's not surprising to find the next generation more and more fragile.

Standing in class because students fail to bring the necessary textbooks?
'Oh no, that's definitely a torture to my boys and girls as they will probably break their legs after standing long time.'

Copying school rules because students fail to observe them?
'That's outrageous! Copying is meaningless and harm the vulnerable hands of my child!'

Poor academic results because the students don't work hard enough?
'You should have told me earlier that my kids are not doing well at school! It's your responsibility to get me informed of my kids' every single movement at school.'

Conduct mark deduction because students instigate a verbal fight with others?
'My kids are angels. They would never do such things.'
'It is your responsibility to teach my own sons and daughters. They are your students.'

Ok, parents don't really say these things, but they mean it. Believe me, these are what is happening at school. Many children of this generation are over protected and leading sedentary lives. Do you believe that some don't even know how to peel a banana?

When I was still a secondary student, I was always told my generation was slacker than the previous one. I thought it was crappy as we were doing well. Things have been changing after all.

Now at my mid-twenties, when people say the next generation is getting slacker, I can't agree more.

Well... the older one gets, the more grumbles one has over the youngsters.

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Had 12 hours of sleep and an hour of afternoon nap today.

Feeling fully energized and gratified when I woke up ^u^

I'm the kind of person who needs lots of sleep to fuel my days and would spend half of my life in sleep if I'm allowed to. Just can't imagine how I survive the 5-hour-of-sleep days when school starts a week later...

I'm back

北海道 + 東京 15 日 travel log 「一個人在途上」連載中

http://adakuku.blogspot.com/

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I was still in post-travelling ecstasy and vacation laze in the past couple of weeks, that's why I didn't update my blog until now. I have started my Japan travel blog and hopefully I could have it finished in a week as I have to formally start my work after that.

I tried to personalize the travel blog a bit--adding some background images and modifying the layout, things like that, but it took me a large amount of time and mighty effort with my limited java/html knowledge. So after nights of trials and errors, I lost my patience and ended up using one of the blogger templates.

No matter how much I love a foregin place, I always feel excited about returning to Hong Kong. I know from the deepest part of my heart that I love this place. Even though I was just away for 15 days, I could sense that Hong Kong has changed a lot and it is another journey for me to catch up with what's been going on here--and I pretty much enjoyed that :)

One thing I enjoyed most in my trip is, I could free my soul from the world that knows me. I was completely free of mobile phone calls and SMS and had no obligation to return any emails or icq messages or things like that. Technically speaking, I have disappeared for 15 days on the surface of the earth.

And now I'm back home, even though I am still on vacation, I could feel the tingle of stress with phone calls from students, colleagues and my financial planner. Actually, my students just wanted to have casual chats on phone or ask me out, but I could feel some kind of pressure. And I'm always alert when my phone rings (or when I think that's my phone ringing but actually it's not) and will check whether there's a missed call or a message for me at times.

A friend of mine always turns off his phone during day-offs. At first I thought it's a bit weird as even his friends can't reach him, but now I can understand how free it is--you can truly relax yourself.

Sometimes, it's not so bad to become an invisible man.