Donate to UNICEF

On my flight back from Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific Airlines, I was given an envelope by the air hostess.

I usually did not give it my 2-cent thought because I used to have this mistrust attitude towards charitable organisation supported by big corporations. I felt that why can't the corporations themselves fork up a $ for each customer they get and give it to charity instead of asking the customers to do it.

But of late my attitude towards charity has changed. I now view charity as plain charity.... doing your bits for the less fortunate. Why bother to debate what the big corporations should or should not do since there is nothing you can do about it!

"Just give la" and thats what I did..... I gave; not much; just a little more than my loose change. I felt good about giving. Its a nice feeling that whatever you won't miss much will be giving some 20 kids ice cream they have been yearning for........

Free Rice

My niece introduced me to this site ~Free Rice~ and from what I gather it is a site where you can learn from the following topics and can trigger donors to donate rice to feed the hungry. Indirectly you are also contributing to charity while learning.

There are a few categories for your learning ~~ see below ~~.

Have fun......

Art: Famous Paintings
Chemistry: Chemical Symbols (Basic) & Chemical Symbols (Full List)
English: English Grammar & English Vocabulary
Geography: World Capitals
Language Learning: French, German, Italian, Spanish
Math: Multiplication Table

Transference of kindness

One of the many chores of a mother is to drive your children to school. It was pretty routine while I chauffeured my daughter until I started to notice a particular man walking by the side of the road with a walking stick; a blind man walking stick to that.

It became a morning conversation between my daughter and I ... we guessed he might be out looking (hypothetically) for breakfast or just out for a walk or even maybe just wondering around aimlessly.

Until one day we saw a motorist and a few cars stopped in front of us and the motorist stepping off his bike to take this blind man across the road.

We then consciously try to be on time to perform our act of kindness everyday but we were only lucky once in a while.

Then one day, upon spotting the blind man from afar, I applied on my breaks to stop while the person driving behind me was taken by surprise and started to honk at me. I just muttered to my daughter "Its alright, this person will understand when he sees the blind man."

Miraculously, the teacher in my daughter's class, Mr Bee announced that he had a confession to make.He told the class that he felt bad as he had honked at a car in front of him which stopped for a blind man. My daughter was very excited and wanted very much to scream out loud that that was her mother he had honked at but she did not want to embarrass the teacher further so she kept quiet. But she couldn't wait to get back to relate the story to me.

We were both very happy as we knew that the teacher will then be looking out for this blind man in the future to stop for him as well.

Kindness is actually contagious and you just might want to carry out an act of random kindness everyday and transfer your kind act along ... the world will be a better place through your kindness.

Gandhi once said ~~~~
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."

Noah's Ark

I watched this show "Evan Almighty" and found it to be interesting.

Noah's ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah and his family. At the command of God, according to the story Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family and a lot of animals, all in pairs. The boat had to be big and had to be constructed to endure the divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth.

I learned something from Morgan Freeman who played "GOD". He (God) said that when we prayed for patience, God cannot give us "patience" which is intangible so God gave us the opportunity for patience. If we asked for something we want, God will give us the opportunity to allow us to achieve that we want. How true indeed!! True to the old adage "God only helped those who helped themselves"

Here are 11 things we can learn from Noah's Ark story (from forwarded email):-
1. Don't miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead - it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit - someone might ask you to do something really big when you are 60 years old
5. Don't listen to critics - just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high grounds.
7. For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn't always an advantage - the snails got on board with the cheetahs.
9. When stressed, float awhile.
10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals.
11. Weather the storm because there is always a rainbow waiting.

Start Them Young

"Charity begins at home" ~~ I heard this statement very often when I was young because wealth was scarce in the 70's and 80's, and I still hear it albeit not so often. I guessed people are more understanding about giving.

I had this wrong concept of waiting for the right time to do charity; wait when I have more time; wait till I get richer; wait, wait and wait.

I learned that we should not wait to be charitable and should educate our children to start them young.

One day, my family and I decided that we should bring cheers to some orphans and we just did it. We collected some money from everyone including children, bought some goodies, packed them up into bags and we visited The Agathians Shelters. My 3-year old nephew was given the great honour of distributing the goodies. The orphans were happy and we were even happier seeing the joy and appreciation in their expressions.

We were truly grateful for the orphans who were there for us to do some good. A simple act of kindness goes a long way......

A Kind Act A Day!!

"Carry out an act of kindness,
with no expectation of reward or punishment.
Safe in the knowledge that one day,
someone somewhere might do the same for you."Princess Diana

An act of random kindness is a selfless act performed by any person wishing to help any living being. With no vested interest and generally there is no other reason than to make an individual happier. It can be planned or spontaneous. One good example would be to put in coins to an expiring parking meter of a total stranger.