Lovely Nick's Space

Numerous times in the last few weeks I have received emails from various friends scattered around the world plugging a video by someone I had never heard of called Devon Gundry.  Usually I delete such emails, but after so many came through and I saw the video put up on facebook as well, I decided to check it out.

I'm glad I did.

The lyrics are:

"Armed with the power of Thy Name, nothing can ever hurt me, and with Thy love in my heart all the world's afflictions can in no wise alarm me."

These beautiful words are extracted from a Baha'i prayer which you can find the full text of by clicking here.

For me, the words mean that when we understand that our true purpose in this life is spiritual development and growth, and that events which transpire are for our education and benefit.  Ultimately we all die and our souls continue to exist and develop in the spiritual worlds, but nothing that happens here to us can damage our souls.  It is our choices and free will and how we respond to life's crises that determine our spiritual progression.  When we are "armed" with this knowledge, then truly nothing can ever hurt or alarm us.

Anyway, that's just my humble, personal understanding.  Maybe you have another?

Yeah, I know, I haven't written anything here for ages.  In fact, I'm really only tapping this out in a vain attempt to ensure this blog retains some sort of pulse.

So why haven't I written?  Well, partly because I like to do things properly, and I know I haven't properly written up my trip to Vietnam in June, nor my little island retreat in Malaysia in September... nor anything else in between. 

Also, I'm pretty lazy and I tend to save links and photos on facebook these days.  (If you know me, search me out there and send me a message.)

Finally, I've been unbelievably busy this term doing my CELTA-YL course, which built on my existing English teaching qualification, but this one specialises in teaching children, rather than just adults.  It really took a lot out of me, because I had to have my lessons observed almost every week, not just by other teachers, but by trained assessors.  This was made me very tense and stressed out, like I haven't been since I did my masters in 2005.

Anyway, I completed the course successfully and hopefully at some point next year I'll be receiving my well-earned certificate. 

At present I'm teaching the second of two weeks of holiday courses, which I volunteered to do in order to offset the vast loss of money I would suffer from not having any overtime for the next month.  This is my bi-yearly lengthy break.  I was thinking of completing my proposed Laos and Cambodia trip which I didn't manage to do in June, but restricted finances and the presence of two friends means I changed my mind and decided to do the simpler beach option.  Except that was going to be in Thailand which is currently suffering severe unrest in the capital.  I'm not sure yet whether this will be a good thing because it might mean the normally packed-out tourist venues in the south where I was planning to go are less busy... or it might mean they are more busy, as tourists head there in their attempts to escape.  The closure of the airports probably won't affect my travel plans as I was intending to go there by train direct from Singapore anyway. 

We shall have to wait and see what happens.

It's Friday lunchtime, and I was just checking my work email from home when I read this email from one of the students in my adult elementary level class I teach on Wednesdays and Thursdays:

Yes, I think that is a reasonable excuse for not attending class...

Congratulations!

I haven't written anything here for ages it seems.  I'm supposed to be writing up my Vietnam trip but I have just been so busy with work.  I suppose that sums up my life at the moment: work.  It's not too bad; although the kids' classes are absolutely exhausting, and I don't particularly enjoy the "Silent Death" that are my youth classes in the main, it's all a challenge, and I think I need to be constantly challenged.  If not, then I start to feel I am not progressing, and then I get depressed.

Right now I am teaching 24 hours a week, which includes 6 hours of overtime, and this is definitely a bonus for the bank manager (and me, naturally).  On the other hand, it does mean I am pretty exhausted by Sunday.  Many Saturdays I come back and simply collapse on my bed and sleep from 6pm to 10pm.  Today I can't do that because it is the Nineteen Day Feast which I should attend, but rest assured this time tomorrow I will assuredly be kipping!

What else?  Well, I've mainly been posting links to stories I am interested in on Facebook, and as I need to be in the exact right mood for writing, so this blog here has been getting neglected.  Anyway, generally I am happy with my life as it is.  I do need to start doing some exercise though, as I am developing an impressively/depressingly large paunch.  I fear it will be somewhat more difficult to remove than it was to grow.  The bald patch is still only a patch, rather than a fully-fledged disaster (rather unfortunate turn of phrase there, yes I know), and there are strands, rather than clumps of white hair appearing on my temples.  (Trying to look on the bright side of life.)

The fish tank is doing OK.  It has gotten a bit rundown of late, but some much-needed maintenance last weekend has given it a decent face-lift.  Unfortunately nearly all my shrimps have passed away, and my snails died when I was using some medicine in a (futile) attempt to cure my tetras of a mysterious face-tumour-disease-thing, so I need to get some more of those.  Also, the tube light has developed an annoying flickering fault, and I have been unable to find someone to fix it.  That is one of the major bugs in my life so I guess things are good.

I'm going to go and eat some ice cream now.  Feed the paunch.

Saw this school girl in Ang Mo Kio food court.  There's something not quite right with that school name...

Well, I'm back in Singapore.  In the end, I didn't make it to Cambodia or Lao; Vietnam turned out to be interesting enough to fill up about 3 weeks and I came home a couple of days earlier than I might have done.  It means I have seen nearly all of the major sights there are to see in Vietnam, and in my next travelling holiday, I can focus entirely on Lao and Cambodia.

I'm afraid internet connections in Vietnam were just too poor to be able to access and update this blog, however, I did manage to upload some photos on Facebook, so if you know me you can check those out there.  When I get some time, I will try and write up an account of my experiences and put some photos here too.  In the meantime, suffice to say I had a good time, though lonely on occasions, and I have many stories and anecdotes to recount.

But it's good to be back home.

A few weeks ago I devoted a blog entry to the wonderfully-titled Cardinal Sin, erstwhile Archbishop of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.  My Filipino friend has proven to be quite the treasure trove when it comes to titillating place names, and recently she brought to my attention the existence of Sexmoan and Satan, two very real locations in... the Philippines, naturally:

Now, I thought that it would be hard to top Sexmoan or Satan as place names.  Well, impossible, in fact.  Yet just a few days later, I came across the following headline in the Independent:

"Shitterton: The village that dare not speak its name"

Intrigued, I read on...

"For centuries, this pretty Dorset village has enjoyed a special place in the Gazetteer of Britain. But now, there’s a stirring behind the hedgerows, and some of its residents are (whisper it) rebranding their community. Things may never be quite the same... in Shitterton..."

So yes, it's true, there really is a place in England called Shitterton.  But how did the village come by this, well, rather colourful name?  According to a citation in the article, historically, the name is derived from a river called 'Shiter', which literally means a waterway where you, um, well, crap.  Quite an incongruity for a picturesque village, with a (clean) stream, and pretty house names, such as Honeycomb Cottage, Rose Cottage, Sunnyside and Merrydown.

Living in a place with such a name naturally causes problems that most people never encounter.  For example, imagine the difficulties you might have when ordering take-aways over the phone?  Or filling in your address on an online application form?  No one would believe you, and some might even become highly offended at your perceived insensitive manners!

"There are people who call it Sitterton," says Diana Ventham, who owns Shitterton Farmhouse and the internet domain name Shitterton.com, "but I really don't know why it bothers them. As far as I'm concerned, the only annoying thing about it is that the Shitterton sign keeps being stolen."

Apparently, Shitterton is one of three place names in Britain containing the word 'shit' - the remaining two being Shittlehope and Shitlington Crags, both are located in the north-east of England.  Other rude place names in Britain include Nob End, Thong, Ugley, Bitchfield, Crapstone, Upper Dicker, and my personal favourite, Pratt's Bottom.

NEW YORK (21 May 2008) - Allegations by Iran that six Baha'is were arrested last week "for security reasons and not for their faith" are utterly baseless and without documentation, said the Baha'i International Community today.

"All of the allegations issued in a statement on Tuesday by the Iranian government are utterly baseless," said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations, referring to statements made in a press conference given yesterday in Tehran by Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, at which he acknowledged the arrest and imprisonment of six Baha'i leaders last week.

"The allegations are not new, and the Iranian government knows well that they are untrue," Ms. Dugal said. "The documented plan of the Iranian government has always been to destroy the Baha'i community, and these latest arrests represent an intensification of this plan.

"The group of Baha'is arrested last week, like the thousands of Baha'is who since 1979 have been killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed, are being persecuted solely because of their religious beliefs. The best proof of this is the fact that, time and again, Baha'is have been offered their freedom if they recant their Baha'i beliefs and convert to Islam - an option few have taken.

"Far from being a threat to state security, the Baha'i community of Iran has great love for their country and they are deeply committed to its development. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that the vast majority of Baha'is have remained in Iran despite intense persecution, the fact that students denied access to education in Iran and forced to study abroad have returned to assist in the development of their country, and the recent effort by Baha'is in Shiraz to provide schooling for underprivileged children - an effort the government responded to by arresting some 54 Baha'i participants in May 2006," said Ms. Dugal.

In its coverage of Mr. Elham's press conference, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that the six Baha'is were arrested "for security reasons not for their faith." The IRNA report also quoted Mr. Elham as saying that the six Baha'is were somehow linked to "foreigners, the Zionists in particular."

Ms. Dugal addressed that issue also, saying:

"The charges linking the Baha'is to Zionism are a distortion of history: The Baha'i Faith has its world headquarters in Israel because Baha'u'llah was, in the mid-1800s, sent as a prisoner to the Holy Land by two Islamic countries: Ottoman Turkey and Iran.

"The charge that Baha'is are Zionists, which has in fact been made against Baha'is for the last 30 years by Iran, is nothing more than an effort by the government to stir animosity against Baha'is among the Iranian population at large. This is but the most recent iteration in a long history of attempts to foment hatred by casting the Baha'is as agents of foreign powers, whether of Russia, the United Kingdom, or the United States-and now Israel-all of which are completely baseless.

"The real issue, as it relates to Baha'is, who are committed to nonpartisanship and nonviolence, is the ideology of the government, which has undertaken a well-documented effort to utterly block the development of the Baha'i community not only through arrests, harassment and imprisonment but also by depriving their youth of education and preventing adults from obtaining a livelihood.

"We would ask whether issues of state security rather than ideology were involved in recent incidents such as the destruction of a Baha'i cemetery and the use of a bulldozer to crush the bones of a Baha'i who was interred there; the harassment of hundreds of Baha'i schoolchildren throughout Iran by teachers and school officials in an effort to make them reject their own religion; or the publication of dozens of defamatory anti-Baha'i articles in Kayhan and other government-sponsored news media in recent months," said Ms. Dugal.

She also noted that over the years, a number of government officials, clerics, and members of the judiciary have in fact made statements in private noting the nonpartisan conduct of the Baha'i community and the unjustified nature of government charges against Baha'is.

She added that the present government's ideology is based in large part on a belief that there could be no Prophet following Muhammad. The Baha'i Faith poses a theological challenge to this belief.

"Freedom of religion is the issue and Iran itself is a signatory to international covenants that acknowledge the right of individuals to freedom of religion or belief, including the right to change one's religion," Ms. Dugal said.

"What the Iranian government cannot tolerate is that the Iranian people are less responsive to the government's propaganda, because they see the reality - that Iranian Baha'is love their country, are sincere in their desire to contribute to its well-being, are peace-loving, and are law-abiding - and that these qualities stem from their beliefs. Consequently, there is growing sympathy for the Baha'is.

Increasingly, people at all levels of the society are coming to their defence both privately and publicly, and there is growing interest in and attraction to the Baha'i Faith amongst the population," Ms. Dugal said.

To view the photos and additional features click here:
http://news.bahai.org and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7409288.stm

A few weeks ago I was shopping in a French supermarket in the city centre when I saw these underpants:

That is quite possibly the worst pose any man has ever been asked to perform, anywhere, for any reason, in the history of the universe.

And what is going on with that weird sagging effect?  It just looks like a balloon stretching when you fill it with water from the tap.  As opposed to him having a well-stocked lunchbox <wink>.

Later on, (though in a different shop), I came across this washing basket packaging.  The idea is that it is a cylinder which collapses flat, so it's light and portable. 

But what is particularly unconventional (and therefore amusing as well), is the image inserted in the bottom right-hand corner, where there is a picture of a stuffed toy with the caption:

"This item is good for storing stuffed toy" (sic)

I think this is the first time in my life I have ever seen a product advertising a purpose other than that which it was designed for on the front of its packaging.