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July 10, 2004
Salut!
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn"
~Alvin Toffler, renowned futurist and author of 'Future Shock', 'The Third Wave', among others.
I came across this thought-provoking quote during my 6 months' stint studying in Singapore. It was highlighted in one of my General Paper lecture notes regarding issues on education. I liked it straight away and made it my current mantra. In the norm of mankind, there are many people who adhere to some sort of 'principles of life' as a guiding light through ominous encounters and doubtful hours. Sources of principles vary from religions to famous quotes by great men and women of the century. On a lighter note, even Stan Lee came up with the prominent maxim 'with great power comes great responsibility' for our web-spinning hero. So, is there anyone with interesting mantras? I would be most delighted to see them in the 'Comments' section below :)
'Salut'(i wonder if it is correctly spelled) means hello in French. It came by as a chance that I had the opportunity to snip some basic french words from my friends doing French Program in INTEC(International Education Center), UiTM Shah Alam. Max, my buddy since kindergarten is attending the 3-month preparatory course to further his study in France. He's taking Engineering. Honestly, it's fun learning a new language eventhough one has to painstakingly start from the basic like pronunciating 'beaucoup' as 'be-Koo' and 'au revoir' as 'Ar-Vuah'. To my surprise I learnt that the French language refers things according to gender, ie feminine and masculine. And different genders have different pronunciations. I heard that the same goes for German and Russian languages. Is it true? How different they are from English!(in awe)
Talk about English, yesterday I just had my first SAT I prep test. Imagine yourself walking into a chilly hall, sitting on a chair facing a stack of 40-something pages of questions, and then enduring 3 HOURS of mind-throbbing tough Qs ranging from maths, anologies, sentence completions and comprehension passages! And what the heck is 'precocious'(among other bombastic, low-frequency words)? Argh, to cut long story short, it's a nightmare. Can't believe that the teachers made us to sit for more prep tests every Friday afternoons since.. :<
p.s. Fyi, 'precocious' means 'manifesting or characterized by unusually early development or maturity, especially in mental aptitude'. Darn!
Posted by peixin at July 10, 2004 12:14 PM
Comments
And Italian too. As for Greek, don't they have SIX tenses for every verb! Welcome aboard!
Posted by: fishtail at July 13, 2004 08:07 AM
Thanx a lot guys! i still need to learn a lot from you all..
Posted by: peixin at July 14, 2004 04:32 PM
It's a pleasure to give you informal lessons of French. hehe...
Posted by: Durian at July 15, 2004 01:51 PM