Give Something Back To Society

GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO SOCIETY

This is the 2nd time the Bucky Group offered help to the lower income old people living at Bukit Merah.

On 20 Feb 08, Wed, the Bucky Group sponsored an eight course dinner at Kia Hiang Restaurant for 68 senior citizens, mostly living in a one-room flat at Bukit Merah. The first dish is what we called Lo-Hei in Singapore or Yu-Sheng in Chinese which means raw fish.

We also gave out Mandarin oranges and Hong Paos that evening.

Appearing in the above photo (top) are Joo Hock, Anna, Monica and May. They are busy preparing to give out oranges. The next photo showed Sunny Leong giving out Hong Paos (red packet containing S$). The Hong Paos are sponsored by Sunny's friend.

Below are the people who has helped in one way or another to make this event successful.

Are they happy ? The answer is shown on their face. Money spent in acts of charity, is the only kind that will be remembered after you die. Giving gives me an indescribable sense of happiness. It has always been meaningful to be able to help others, and I'm proud to be a part of it. Of all the successes of the world, nothing compares to the spirit of giving freely from the heart.

VERY GOOD

"VERY GOOD"

I received about 9 visitors a day on my blog. I like to share an interesting article I read in a local Chinese newspaper on 10 Feb 2008. It is called "Very Good".

There is an old man who use to say "Very good ! Very good !" Over time, this has became his habit. If it rains over a few days, a lot of people will be grumbling about the bad weather. But this old man will say "Very good! If this downpour was to happen in just one day instead of spreading over a few days, then there will be flood everywhere. Isn't this worth to celebrate ?"

In another occasion, his wife was very ill. This time, his friends were thinking, he will not say "Very good !" will he ? So his friends decided to pay him and his wife a visit. As they enter his house, his friends began to ask him whether his wife is serious or not. But to their surprised, this old man said "Very good!" His friends were annoyed and asked him "This time you are wrong, your wife is sick and suffering on her bed, yet you said Very good, this is too much !" The old man replied "You all do not know, I am old already, from young till old, it is my wife who is looking after me. Now that she is not well, it gave me opportunity to look after her properly. I can repay her for what she did for me, isn't that good ?"

Optimistic can reduce the impact of unfortunate things by half, pessimistic can amplify unfortunate things that happened.

In Arab, there is a saying : Do not blame the thorns in the rose shrub or bush, you should be thankful of the roses among the thorns. Most people will blame the thorns of the rose, but few will thank the creator because of the thorns, that is why we have roses. Rose and thorn are like fortunate and unfortunate. Do you choose to blame on something or be thankful instead ? Do you choose to say Very good or terrible ? It is all up to you.

There are two friends who have not met each other for a long time. One day, they happened to meet at a special occasion. One of the guy asked the other guy how is he getting on. The other guy replied Very good. Then the guy continued to ask if his family members are well and good. The other guy replied this time, "Both my parent and my children are good." Then the guy asked "How about your wife ?" The other guy replied "She is also Very good. Since she passed away 3 years ago, she is still Very good. She will be Very good forever."

How you find the above article after reading ? Very good ?

Why I Love My Bucky Group ?

WHY I LOVE MY BUCKY GROUP ?

USUAL SUNDAY MEETING AT MACRITCHIE RESERVOIR

Exercise

It is the 4 th Day of Lunar New Year 2008, Year of Rat. As per most of the Sunday morning, I got up at 5:30 am, prepare myself and go to MacRitchie Reservoir. A few of my Bucky Group friends will meet at our usual meeting point at 7:15 am before proceeding for our 5 km walk/jog.

Learning

After our walk, at around 8:30 am, we will sit around to read a part of the book entitled Utopia or Oblivion (you can call it Heaven and Hell) by Bucky. This morning I learnt :

1. It takes a minimum of 12 spokes to make a wire wheel - to keep the hub from oscillating as a drumhead or twisting in any way. So we discover that there are always only 12 fundamental vectors which converge as the angular degrees of freedom in the universe : 6 positive vectors and 6 negative, which, when symmetrically interacting, represent the 6 edges of the positive phase of the tetrahedron and the 6 edges of the negative, or vertexially inside-outed phase of the same vectorial tetrahedron.

2. Children using their own bodies can learn how to :

a. roll

b. spin

c. orbit

d. inside out by sticking their tongues out

e. oscillate, ie how to converge and diverge by inflating and deflating their lungs

f. precession. It is the reaction motion of the earth when they rolled or orbited. It is the motion effect of a body in motion upon any other body in motion. It is precession when, for instance, you drop a stone into the water. You will always get eccentrically developing waves in beautiful circles.

These 6 motions each have their opposite motion -ergo our ( 6 positive, 6 negative) or total of 12 fundamental angular degrees and vectors of freedom.

We were fortunate to have a very good facilitator, Joo Hock. You can ask him anything about Buckminister Fuller.

Social

Bucky Group is a group of people who meet every weekend to learn & share their experiences, air their views/opinions and talk anything not just under the sky, but above the sky as well. This morning turnout was good, there are 16 of us plus 2 dogs.
You can see the smiling faces of the Bucky Group as in the photo everytime when we meet.

If the above do not make you love to be part of the Bucky Group, I do not know what will.

Do you like to be part of the group ?

Should We Know Each Other ?

This is where I live in Singapore.

We only have 36 units within our enclosed private apartments. We also have our own private pool and BBQ pit for us to use. I must say I know more than half the population living in this apartment as I am here since year 2000 and I like to get to know more people each day.

Every time during festive seasons, we will have a poolside gathering for the residents. It is a good time for residents to get to know each other. And every year we have residents moving in and out of the apartments. So we get to new faces. Some are tenants, so they usually stay here for one or two years and some will stay shorter and some longer than 2 years. Rental rate is flunctuating so tenants normally do not stay here for long.

I am not one of the MC member this term and we do not have any gathering for residents so far in the new term (Jul 07 - Jun 08). We usaually celebrate mid-autumn festival, Christmas and Chinese New Year in the past at the poolside. About 2 weeks ago, I asked one of our council member whether there is a gathering for residents in this coming Chinese New Year. Guess what I received ? The answer is below :

From: council member [mailto:council member@singnet.com.sg]
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:44 PM
To: Yeo Chao Loy

Cc: council members

Subject: Social Gathering Function

Yeo,

For your information, council has decided not to have social gathering function organised in this council year.
Note: From past experiences, these functions are mostly attended by "regulars", a minority of the Hillview Apartments residents' population.

Instead, we would focus our attention to what most residents want, that is good upkeep of common property.
We plan to have a "spring cleaning" of common property before this CNY.
The works in brief will include dusting of cobwebs in every floor, polishing of lifts and floor, cleaning of rubbish chute doors, general improvement in landscaping inside and outside of building.

Regards,

Council Member

My thoughts are :

It is quite disheartening to receive the above e-mail. For People who do not want to mix around, we cannot force them to. For new comers, I think we should make an attempt to let them mix around and know the people living in the same apartment. We are such a small community here, but we do not know who is living within the same apartment, except for some. Chinese has a saying : Distance relative is not as good as our near neighbour or immediate neighbour. This is because in time of need, who can help you ? Is it your overseas relatives or your neighbour ? But the fact is your neighbour may not want to help you if they do not even know who you are. As foe me, I always try to buy something for my neighbours whenever I go overseas.

We are living in such a small apartment, we are living in such a small country, if every one aim to get to know each other, instead of just keep within their 4 walls, this place and this country will be a much better place to live in.

On a separate note, each time I step into a lift and see someone in there, I usually will give a smile. But if the other party treat you as if you are transparent, worst still, show you an unhappy look, I just have to smile to myself and stay happy and be thankful for what I have and what I do not have. I have heard that in Germany, if you enter a lift and there is someone inside, you are supposed to wish that person or he/she will not close the door especially if it is in the morning. Because they do not want to be with someone "they do not know or unfriendly" in the lift for that few moment in the morning and spoil their day.

The above are solely my own views and meant for sharing.