HnG

So, I was doing homework and decided to work on my HnG (history and geography). Just the sight of is long and small words makes me want to close it straight away. But after awhile it gets pretty interesting, I get to learn about how the United States constitution protects the freedom of religion, expression, press, public assembly, and petition.

But my favorite part is in the part explaining about the trial by jury. One of the elements of a trial is that “the verdict should be unanimous”.

“The unanimous verdict is designed to remove any doubt as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. It is founded on the idea that although several guilty persons may go unpunished, not one innocent person should ever be unjustly convicted.” –taken from my HNG book.

Do you get it? I think it’s really good. :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh my darling Starbutt Chong Dee Dee! :D

Jerboas and Whipsnakes :D

OH WOW GUESS WHATTTTT!!!

I want to Ikano's Pet Safari yesterday and I saw this awesomely weird animal called, jerboa. It looks like a mouse that decided to copy a kangaroo!

I also saw a whip snake! Its so coooooll!

Look at it! Look at it!

I really want it as a pet, its small, its green, and its not poisonous! What more can you ask for a snake as a pet?

Did you know that many MANY other min schnauzers in google are named dee dee? Pfft, copycats. Bet they don’t have one named STARBUTT!!! :D TEEHEE

WWJD!

As I have said, the camp was awesome, but what is even more awesome is what is happening now. My head feels like it is in a muddle, it keeps asking questions, it bugs me even when I want to sleep but at the same time it feels really good, like I can learn more from the same passages that I have already read in the Bible over and over again. My journal is quickly filling up.

Melinda Wong lent me a book called ‘In His Steps’. I have only read half so far, but it’s about a pastor who challenged his some of his congregation to make a promise that for the whole year, they would not do anything without asking “what would Jesus do?” The main characters did what they thought Jesus would do even if it meant losing business or getting bankrupt. Because they believed that their money wasn’t theirs but lent to them by God, like the Parable of the Talents.

The characters asked themselves this: What would Jesus do if He was in my, ______(name)’s place as a ___________(occupation, example: businessman)?

I think that this is a really good question to ask, even though I am just a student, and can’t make such drastic changes or decisions as them. Besides, this year is ending and I think I should ask myself this question so I can do it next year.

What would Jesus do if He was in Maelodee’s place as a student?

1. Respect and obey authority, no more criticizing Teacher Evelyn. (oh uh I hope she doesn’t read this)

2. Be tidy!

3. No complaining.

4. Pay attention during Chapel, or suggest different ways to run it.

5. Not shy away from responsibility or doing it last minute.

6. Love ALL my school friends and pray for them.

I wrote down 6 things and I’m already moaning, “This is going to be so hard.” Even doing one of them for a whole year is going to be a challenge for me. But anyway, I WILL TRY MY BEST

GOD PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

R U SERIOUS

Camp… was AWESOME!!!!

Our camp’s name was “R U SERIOUS” and the theme was Apologetics.

On the starting day Ps. Dan said that God says it’s okay to argue (reason) with Him (somewhere in Isaiah). During the camp he gave us the evidences and arguments for whatever questions we asked. For example, “Is the Bible real?” or “Why is there so many different denominations of churches.” Some questions we learn by going to different interesting stations.

I have learned a lot.

Anyway, I WANT *whoa! am I serious?!* to go study now, and see whether I can hopefully study for SAT or whatever the same time as my other friends are studying for SPM then I wouldn’t feel so alone. I’m going to study like crazzyyy starting now!

Funnnnnyyy :D

Newlife and Alphaaaaaa~

What is Newlife & Alpha? Part of the requirements of becoming a member is to go through a whole bunch of courses. Two of these courses are Newlife and Alpha. These past two years (or so) Zara kept asking me to go but I kept avoiding it. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to do it until maybe 2 or 3 years later because it sounded boring. However; Ps. Dan said that to come for camp this year we must go through the courses, and camp is one thing that I always look forward to each year. So oh well, I went for it, and found that…..

It’s not so bad after all! :D it is actually quite interesting and informative (and they provide milo). My only problem is trying to stay awake in the morning. I suggest you bring coffee or something.

It has helped me in getting more out of doing devotion, memorizing verses, and writing my own testimony! :D:D Yay!

Flowers for you! :)

And more by the same guy :)

singer is Sam Tsui

Got to see this :D

GAH SO AWESOME!!! =3

I used to play this song last time :D

Suicide story

a true story.

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President Dr Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death.

Thus the story: -------- On March 23, 1994...... The medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus, and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency.

As he fell past the 9th floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the 8th floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned. 'Ordinarily,' Dr Mills continued, 'Someone who sets out tocommit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide.' That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a "homicide" on his hands.

The room on the 9th floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun! The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr Opus. When one intends to kill subject 'A' but kills subject 'B' in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject 'B.'

When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant, and both said that they thought the shotgun was not loaded. The old man said it was a long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, assuming the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It also transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty ofthe murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of RonaldOpus.

Now comes the exquisite twist: Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the 9th story window.

The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

A true story from Associated Press

I wanted to search for murder pictures to match the story above but didn’t want it to be too gruesome so I typed ‘murder sketch’ and found this picture.

Doesn’t this picture just make you feel like crying? After all, who gives us the power to send people to execute others? Do you think that when the Bible tells us that Jesus forgave our sins he meant only those who steal, or lie, but left out the murderers?

Today in class, some of my classmates were talking about this guy who got imprisoned for I think 12 years should be killed instead. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew it was wrong. My thoughts went to the book that I just read, called ‘Taming the Tiger’.

‘Taming the Tiger’ is an autobiography (an autobiography is when you write about your own personal life) and the author (who is also the main character) was a dangerous criminal, and when he was caught and sent to jail, struggled with his sins and felt like he could never redeem himself. Until a pastor started visiting him in prison, finally after a few weeks, the author accepted Jesus into his life and found that all the weight of his sins were gone. Later on, he has a great testimony to share and brought many souls to Christ. Think what would have happened if someone had wanted to play god and decided to end his life?

Okay, enough, my thoughts have been expressed.

Cat with wings

Meet the cat that has wings! From China.

The owner says its from the stress of the mating season.

But my opinion, is that it is from the milk that has been said to give babies breasts. =0

how sad. :P

Me spaceship :)

click the photo to enlarge:)

Fried Egg

My brain is fried and sizzling like an tamago (egg). Mmm,I love eggs.

Why? You ask? Because, thanks to the USELESS Awards Night practices, my laziness, and a few other factors, I had to rush to finish my final lifepac today. A lot of pressure there but to add to it, we had (in my opinion) a boring art class from morning till tea break (I studied for my lifepac while art class). Immediately after the break instead of doing the lifepac, I had to sit for a math test. The teacher that composed this quiz said that the point of the quiz is “to do what you can as fast as you can” and gave us 10 pages. After the math quiz which I did not have time to finish completely, we went for lunch. During lunch Angelina, Jamie, and me were studying for our lifepacs and getting all stressed. After eating, we headed back to the classroom to find that we needed to do a L.A. quiz (language arts, English) before we could sit for our lifepacs. This time the teacher gave 12 pages. Learning from my mistake with the math, I rapidly answered the questions until my fingers hurt :(. Knowing that I would not be able to finish my last lifepac if I ended the quiz too late, I decided that my lifepac was more worth it, and handed in my L.A. quiz. Sitting for my final lifepac was a tremendous, overwhelming, RELIEF. Having studied the whole day form my lifepac, I knew all the answers except for one careless mistake and the details of the definitions.

I got 92% and completed a total of 8 lifepacs this month with 6 of them over 90%

Sorry Teacher Daniel, no offence meant, I dislike art not you.

Look! Isn't this pretty? :)

20-10-2010

This was the picture from SMILE 101

from left, Isaac, Isabella, and Yi en (I hope its the correct spelling) and me

Smile :)

I don't know whats wrong with all the people in fb, complaining that they are bored at home. I never get bored at home. Oh yeah, I have my Dee Dee! :D

Flip the ship.

FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform) is the US Navy's oldest, and most unusual, research vessel. FLIP's unique design is like a baseball bat, and it allows it to be the only vessel in the world that can operate both horizontally and vertically.

Scientific instruments are built sideways into the wall so that as the buoy flips, the instruments flip into a usable position as well. Most rooms on FLIP have two doors; one to use when horizontal, and the other when FLIP is vertical. Bunk beds, toilets, and stoves are built on swivels and gimbals, so they will turn along with the buoy, but the things that would not rotate so well, like sinks, are built both horizontally and vertically in each room.

FLIP was created in 1962 by scientists Dr. Fred Fisher and Dr. Fred Spiess, who wanted a more stable space than a normal research ship to study wave forms. FLIP can operate equally well in shallow water or depths of over 2,000 fathoms.

Smile 101

Last Sunday I went for a course in my church called “Smiile 101.” I was hesitant when my dad wanted to sign my whole family up for it because I thought it would be like the church membership course. But WHEEEEEE! It was Pastor Victor! Basically we learned how to share the Gospel and write a personal testimony. Smile stands for, S-Scan M-Move I-Initiate L-Linger E-Exit.

Halfway through his teaching, he asked us (in groups) to go to different shopping malls, approach a stranger, buy them a drink, talk with them and maybe slip in the personal testimony. Apparently this was supposed to be training to be friendly. I was in the same team as my two brothers and we were told to go to Bangsar Shopping Center.

When we reached there I made David talk to someone, and he approached the receptionist, and offered to buy him a coke. The guy refused, saying that he had just come back from his break. So we headed off to Cold Storage and we bought a Gatorade and a Coke. We gave the Gatorade to the receptionist, learned his name was Harry, talked for a very short while, and got a picture with him.

After taking the picture, I took the Coke and started talking to a pregnant lady named Yi En (I hope that’s how you spell it) with two little kids and a maid. She gave it to her little girl called Isabella and started talking to me. Apparently she used to go to SIBKL, but left it. Anyway yeah, then we took a picture and went off.

Soon David and me were bugging Michael to talk to someone. After trying Sony, and almost talking to a guy standing around, he finally started talking with this Scottish guy named John (or Jordan). David and I stood at the back cheering. :P

Soon it was time to leave, and we have decided that it wasn’t so hard to talk to a stranger after all. Now I know something I can do if I’m bored in a mall :D:D

A picture may speak a thousand words,

but a paragraph can give you a PERFECT picture.

-Maelodee

More poems :D

Yesterday, (Saturday) I started making poems and at the same time watching Zara make something on the Windows Media Player. THANKYOU ZARA! It'll probably save me a LOT of time from using only the powerpoint thing.

Anyway the poems:

Poem I am to make

It is as hard as cake

Zara says "ah"

Malaysians say "lah"

This is for boredom's sake.

Blue and yellow,

Red and green,

Are the feathers,

Parrots preen.

Then Zara suggested that I do a sonnet. Which had 9 syllables in each line. I'm not sure whether this is correct, but, every line has 9 syllables and end in 'est' :)

Down flew the happy bird from its nest.

Snatching many midnight snacks with zest.

Poor little worms a survival test.

Back into the hole no time to jest.

*pause*

Back to your nest for a time of rest

Rest littlte bird then give your best

Babies temporarily are pests

But later proudly you send them west.

DeeDee

I bought Dee Dee a dress! :D

Different Views

Different views

I’ve been wanting to write this post for quite some time, but It got delayed due to a LOT of stuff.

I was reading a C.S.Lewis book, ‘Out of the Silent Planet.’ It is really good, and his English is superb, however; the pages were filled with so many long tiny words and complicated descriptive sentences that I almost gave up before finishing the first few pages. But after awhile, I got used to it and managed to finish the whole book. Wow, it is amazing.

Anyway there was this part on page58 where he was describing an alien.

“Then it became abominable-a man seven feet high with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have-glassy coat, liquid eye, sweet breath, and whitest teeth- and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.”

This is what I’ve been trying to say since, a long long time ago! It just depends on your view of things. One of the common examples is whether the glass is half empty or half full. If a girl asks me whether her hair is messy, to me it probably wouldn’t look messy, and to another person it might look extremely messy.

Yeah, anyway, my L.A. made me do an essay on Connotative Differences. Basically I had to think of a situation, and make two reports, one good and one bad.

Here’s what I wrote:

John Smith is said to pick up and cook dogs, cats, or even racoons that have been run over by cars. Living next to a highway, John often finds his lunch right outside his house. There’s nothing wrong, as it is after all, free meat.

John Smith has been spotted scraping up animals that have become roadkill and eat it. This uncivilized act is horrible and sooner or later, bring disease. Eating roadkill is a barbarous action that stains the wonderful image of our country.

Yeah, there you see, the same situation, just viewed differently. Look how easily words can mislead someone, so be careful not to believe everything you read.

I just woke up from a dream where my mother gives me a jacket. :(

It looked really nice, too bad its not real.

I really like this jacket too.

The price is? $69.90

DOLLARS!!! X4

$280 ringgit

So. If anyone happens to see a jacket like this, that is super cheap. TELL ME!

Thankyou :)

Amazing Race.

Amazing Race.

Hahaha.

I will start off saying that, it has always been my dream to go on the Amazing Race. When I was just a little kid, probably only half of my current height, I begged(nagged) my brothers to take me to go on the Amazing Race. But they wouldn’t take me, saying that half way I’ll probably get them to carry me, which is true. They then said, “You go with your boyfriend lahhh.” So I made up my mind that I would. :D

A few weeks ago, my teacher reminded us that we had to do an essay, the tittle “How I Spent My Holiday.” The holiday was a long looooong time ago, and I couldn’t remember what I did, so teacher said that it could be fictional. I started by writing about a robbery in my house, but then I thought to myself, “How am I supposed to catch the thief within 2 weeks?” So I changed topic, it became, “I went to the Amazing Race with my brother.”(which I posted unto my blog. Btw, change the word brother to boyfriend)

When I found out that nst had organized an Amazing Race, obviously I signed up. But I couldn’t go with my boyfriend as my brothers have suggested. (cause I haven’t gotten one yet, hahahaha J, proud of myself) Anyway, for the Amazing Race, we were supposed to sign up in groups of 4 and one person was supposed to be non-Christian, or the other option was to tick a box that said “I don’t have a group.” Since I was a bit too lazy to form a group, ( I’m not sure why I don’t like forming groups. I don’t pick the person that I want to sit with in the bus the day before the field trip. I don’t deliberately pick who I want to sit with at lunch, that just became a habit after awhile.) and I don’t have any non-Christian friends, I ticked the little box.

On Sunday morning, I went to the church wondering who my race partners were. I soon found out, that two of them were siblings, Rebecca and Timothy. The first thing I heard Rebecca say to Timothy was, “There, she’s in our team, the one who complained very loud yesterday.” Which was true, hahaha oops. After that they kind of ignored me when I talked to them, so I don’t think they liked me.(I don’t blame them.) Soon, the committee realized that our 4^th member, a person with a Chinese name, wasn’t going to show up. So they transferred me to another group that had Hao Yen, Li Jin, and Clement. *relieved* It was kind of ironic, as the past few weeks, Hao Yen was asking me whose team I was going to be in, and I had to tell him again and again that I ticked the ‘no team’ box, but in the end I ended up in his team.

For the first clue, we got the J=2 thing but we couldn’t guess the word. The whole ride to the zoo we were trying to figure out which animal had _I_ _O_O_A_U_. Only at the entrance of the zoo, Hao Yen pointed out to the statues and said, “Look, turtles.” Then I said, “Look, hippopo--- ohhhh…” and that was how we managed to figure out our first clue, quite funny if you were actually there.

Then Basically, the rest of the Amazing race went like this,

-Rush to Amphibian and Reptile House

-Find Sasha

-Show her picture of us with the animals in the clues

-Get our next clue

-Figure out the riddles

-Try to find the animals

-Walk

-Laugh as we get lost and have to backtrack

-Take picture with all the animal plates

-Walk, walk, walk

-Laugh at the international school accents, go wrong way, backtrack

-Walkwalkwalkwalkwalk

-Rush around looking for groups to do the intersection

-WALK

-Find Sasha

-Get our next clue.

X5

And so on… We walked (running was against the rules) for 3 hours only stopping to drink water for a little while, ate lunch for half an hour, then walked again, hardly stopping, for 1 ½ hours. We walked a lot, laughed a lot, and backtracked a lot. Since we didn’t win, I so so regret not taking pictures of the animals and my team.

My legs hurt, good job committee. (: haha

Facebook and meat!!! :D

Propaganda

Imagine, if your company sold toothpaste, what methods would you use to convince the consumers to buy your toothpaste brand instead of the others? The methods you would use to advertise your product is called propaganda. Propaganda is a way of communicating opinions or beliefs through using many methods or tricks of advertising. It is very interesting and there are so many techniques that it could fill a book. A few of them are:

1. To belong

2. Black or white fallacy

“Look! Everybody has a Smart watch, join them, visit ‘toys r us’ today!” This is an example of the method, to belong. It is a simple and yet very effective method. Most people want to belong to something, a group, or just to fit in with the crowd. “To belong” simply tells the consumer that “everyone is having it; therefore if you want to belong, buy it”. Many times the quality of a less advertised brand is equally as good, yet people will pay dollars more for the name brand because it implies they belong.

Transfer, the reader is urged to accept something because a famous or well-known person’s name is associated with it. In other words, sometimes a company pays a famous person to say something on their commercial so that the fans would feel an urge to buy that product. Sometimes it can be really dumb, I think there was one where a famous guy was asked to advertise pads, and what’s worse is some girls really did buy it. -.-‘’

Cita-cita saya

Let me ask you a question. If a teenager friend said that he really loved computer games, what would be his ambition?

A game maker?

WRONG.

It would probably be a game TESTER! Definition? A computer game tester is a person whose profession consists of testing video and computer games in order to find bugs, errors and possible conflicts as a quality control process. It’s easy, you get money, plus you get to enjoy it, waayyyyy before anybody else. Thus, this is a dream job for many teenage guys. (Was for my brother as well. haha)

Do I want to become a game tester? Definitely not. I cannot even make it through an RPG game without the help of cheats and a complete and thorough walkthrough. Most of the time even with those helps, I get stuck and give up.

My ambition is, *drumrolls*... to be a BOOK tester! ( I’m not sure whether there’s such a term as I made it up.) My definition: A book tester is a person who reads unpublished books, reject them if they’re not good enough, and get paid. Basically getting paid to read books. Why Books? Like the guys love computer games, I love books. Fiction, mystery, adventure, romance, comics, inspiring books, and, of course, the Bible, almost all have been read for at least 3 times. Most of them dumped into 2 large cardboard boxes, as I have used all my cupboard space to keep the more precious and important ones.

No, this is not mine, just a random picture found on Google.

Reasons why I want to be a book tester?

1. Not enough money to buy the books for myself.

2. Stop other people from paying money and then becoming unsatisfied with some books. (like I was)

3. I can “work” at home with 3 large dogs to keep me company. (:

I want to be a book tester! :D

Poems

I have been practicing my rhyming skills. (:

I made one to Jamie Ke.

Jamie is a friend,

Who stays until the end,

Of a movie, or a game

It is very much the same.

She hurries to call

Others for paintball.

Always she is sighing

When I cant go rock climbing

She wants to be a chef,

And no, you're not deaf,

Magically she makes,

Wonderful, wonderful cakes.

Jamie-aah~!

Make cupcakes for me lah!

Make that two,

Already made a poem for you.

I also made one for Michael for his birthday :)

Dear Michael,

Blessed birthday!

You're worth more,

Than I could ever say.

Twenty-four already!?

How fast can you grow?

Lets go travel,

too bad you hate snow.

What kind of present,

Would you like?

An iguana?

Or maybe a bike?

Anyway, blessed birthday!

May God bless you!

Don't ever forget,

We all love you!!! :)

Fictional essay on Amazing Race

This is a fictional essay on how I spent my holidays.

I spent my holiday going on the famous television show, the “Amazing Race” with my brother. Before the race, we met the other contestants and found out that we were competing against 7 other couples. My brother was so enthusiastic that when our host said we could start, he was the first to reach and tear open the clue.

London

Our clue ordered us to take the first flight to London and head towards the London Bridge. After a little trouble with our taxi driver, we reached the London Bridge and found that we were supposed to bungee jump off the London Bridge together. Scared but excited, we counted to three and jumped off together, screaming the whole way down. Our next clue told us to go to Big Ben, and count all the steps. We counted the 334 steps and got it right the first time. We hurried to the pit stop which was at the Buckingham Palace and arrived in third place.

Amsterdam

The next day we were ordered by the our clue to fly to Amsterdam, and collect our the next clue at Poezenboot. Poezenboot is an unusual flea market and is home to an incredibly large number of homeless cats. Our clue told us to clean at least 10 cat cages. Wow, did they stink, my brother and me were utterly disgusted after just 2 cages. But we finished it and headed to where the next clue told us to go. We were instructed to row our own boat down the Brouwersgracht, one of the beautiful canals in Amsterdam. Finallly, we headed to the Old Center for the pitstop. We reached there in first place! We earned free tickets to New Zealand for free!

Antananarivo

Waking up early in the morning we headed for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Reaching there, we visited the Tsimbazaza Zoo, where we were given the tasks to spot a fossa and feed a group of lemurs. Spotting the fossa was easy, but while we were trying to feed the lemurs, they became aggressive and started attacking us. My brother and I ran but I stumbled and broke my ankle. The zoo keeper reached us in time to drive away the lemurs, but I could not walk. The Amazing Race host sent us back home with extra free holiday tickets and a lot of cash. Probably hoping we won’t sue them for sending us into a dangerous environment.

A fossa :)

Too bad I can't put pictures into my real essay.

Big Ben

Big Ben.

I was searching for information on it online, (to write my Amazing Race story), and I stumbled on this great article. It’s interesting and contains facts, (everything I find missing in the STAR). I would gladly be a journalist if I could write like this. But anyway, if I cant write like this, I’ll just be a book tester. :D

For 13 years Brian Davis was the official clock-tower guide for the Palace of Westminster. Recently retired, in his working life he took more than 7,000 tours up the 315ft Gothic tower that is home to the bell called Big Ben, climbing the 334 spiralling stone stepsfive times a day. In the process he took more than 5 million steps up and down, clocking up the equivalent of 76 ascents of Everest.

"I was smoking 80 cigarettes a day at the time, too," he says. "But when I had a medical the doctor said I had the blood pressure of an 18-year-old. Once I got all the way up to the belfry and dropped the keys, which meant going all the way back down and up again. My best time was one minute 26 seconds."

Mr Davis never ceases to be amazed that most people seem to know so little about Big Ben and its tower and the fact that they can apply for a tour through their local MP. (Parties are restricted to 16 and children must be over 11.)

He has escorted the blind and deaf, a man paralysed from the waist down who crawled the entire way for charity, and a man who had just had open-heart surgery. One person had a turn at the top. He soon recovered but the ambulance man who had to climb the steps after him was in a terrible state by the time he reached the top. And, of course, it's not just a physical feat. Vertigo can strike at any time. From the top, the bottom of the stairwell looks like a postage stamp. The most terrified man he ever encountered, Mr Davis says, turned out to be a jumbo jet pilot.

When asked about any famous visitors, he says: "I once took Prince William and his school class up, and the former prime minister James Callaghan came up with his grandchildren in crash helmets and a hoist."

He was always surprised to see people walk past Big Ben every day and check their watches by it, without a thought for its history. "Beyond telling the time, people don't know much about London's most famous landmark."

Which is not something anybody who spends an hour or so in Mr Davis's company could ever be accused of. He has a head for facts and figures, as well as heights. Big Ben, he tells me, reeling off the numbers, weighs 13.5 tonnes, is 8.8ft in diameter and 7.2ft high. Designed by Edmund Denison, MP QC, and the Astronomer Royal Sir George Airey, and made for £1,800 by EJ Dent, the first bell was even bigger, but was scrapped after it cracked during tests. The second, cast at Whitechapel Foundry where America's Liberty Bell was cast, first sounded on 11 July 1859. It was first heard on radio on New Year's Eve in 1923 (the microphone was inside a football bladder) and made its first television appearance in 1949.

The tower is made from Cornish granite, Caen stone and Yorkshire Anstone stone, and each 23ft-diameter clock face contains 312 pieces of pot opal glass. The copper-sheet minute hands are 13.7ft long and their tips travel 118 miles in a year. Until 1913 the clock was wound by hand, which took 30 hours a week, but this is now done by an electric motor. Until 1900 the dials of the four faces were illuminated by gas burners.

Mr Davis's enthusiasm for his subject is infectious, and he found his true calling as Big Ben's guide. Born near the Tower of London, the son of a policeman, he had a variety of jobs before finding his niche. He started his working life as a newspaper copy boy, moving on to become a soup deliveryman before taking the post of warden at the Science Museum. In 1968 he became a general dogsbody at the Houses of Parliament.

As he outlines the history of Big Ben, his anecdotes add colour. It turns out it was named after either a famous heavyweight Victorian boxer, Benjamin Caunt, or the Commissioner of Works, Sir Benjamin Hall. The bell, which arrived by river after very nearly sinking the boat, was dragged to the site by 16 white horses.

Don't be hot-tempered be coooool-tempered :D

This morning, in the car and on the way to church, my dad was forcing me to listen to the 101 principles by Mr. Idontrememberhisname, and I’ll just call him Blah, because he talks a lot.

Moving on, Blah was telling a story of how a lady driving her car stopped at the traffic light but then her engine died and it was pretty embarrassing for her. While she tried her best to start the car, the other cars moved around and used the other lanes except for the car right behind her. The man inside that car started honking at her. After a while, the lady paused, rather vexed, and walked over to the other car. The man wound down his window in surprise. The lady leaned over and said, “Why don’t you help me start my car while I sit here and lean on the horn?”

Well, it’s a good story with a good lesson; “Put yourself in the shoes of others before you get angry or impatient with them.”

But let’s think, what if you were that lady. Your car died in the middle of the road and you’re trying to restart it, and someone is honking irritably behind you. Do you get down and say “Why don’t you help me start my car while I sit here and lean on the horn?” Is that reasonable? What will you accomplish by doing that? What will happen while you scold the person behind you?

Here are 7 simple things that might have happened if you stopped to get down of the car and scold the man.

1. The man would open the window and swear at you, possibly in some other language you don’t know.

2. The man would say “no thanks” and drive away laughing.

3. The man, suddenly getting it into his thick head that it’s easier to just go around your car, drives off while you stand there with your mouth open.

4. After you finish scolding him, you return to your car hot, sweaty, angry, and still not able to start the engine.

5. A man on a motorcycle snatches your hand bag ( if you had carried it down from the car)

6. People will see you and get angry that you stop in the middle of the road to talk, and they will start honking at you.

And my favorite,

7. A thief comes, restarts your engine, and drives off in your car.

Moral of the story of the story?

Sometimes it’s better not to get angry and scold others.

-cheers =) I realize I like typing a lot when it is on Microsoft Office Word.

Blogger doesn't allow me to put indentations. :(