About a year ago, I saw this magazine in a bookshop and found it very informative and relevant to the syllabus of NSS Liberal Studies. With help from our librarian, our school then started subscribing to this monthly magazine.

Let me take the December 2009 issue as an example.  I like the article which is about the Community-supported agriculture scheme (CSA) in China.  You know, in recent years, many mainlanders, the middle and upper class in particular have become health conscious showing great concern for food safety, standards and overall quality. The CSA is a farmers’ market with a delivery service on the one hand and a community united by health concerns on the other.  Many of these farms are in Beijing and were started by young returned students.  They try to provide consumers with safe and organic products.

How does this scheme work?  Consumers have to pay the farmers in advance and then execute orders for healthy and pesticide-free vegetables.  Boxes of fresh peanuts, fresh-season vegetables like sweet potatoes will arrive at the consumers’ doorway every weekend.  In this way, consumers and farmers have direct contact with each other and establish friendly, trusting and loyal relations.  Does the story sound amazing?  If you want to know more about eco-farming, Super Rice man Yuan Longping and agribusiness, you should read China Today.

Perhaps some of you may feel a bit hesitant to read an English magazine.  I am sure S3 and S4 students should have no problem in reading through the articles.  Except for some jargon and specific terms, the magazine is simple enough for secondary school students. I really encourage all of you to come to the library during lunch break and borrow China Today Magazine.

The case that impressed me the most will be, a man leaving his wallet in the hotel. A kind-hearted staff phoned the man’s wife to get his wallet back. However, the man was doing something that he cannot let his wife know. This act of the staff unintentionally told the man’s secret to his wife and the truth made his wife very angry. Therefore, it is very important to keep privacy of the guests. We need to keep the things the guests lost and wait for the guests to came and take them back, but not trying to call the guests.

In THS lessons, I’ve learnt how to provide effective customers service to customers e.g. listening to customers and help them solve problems, understanding their point of view, being honest with ourselves to make every attempt to provide good services, etc. And in this book, I found that there are some points we should also notice when serving our guests.

Firstly, we should choose a suitable title to greet our guests. Use ‘Sir’, ‘Madam’ to greet them if we don’t know how to pronounce their surname. Use ‘Ms.’ instead of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs.’

Secondly, we should not touch our guests, especially when we meet lovely children, we can only give a smile to them. We shouldn’t give them sweets or snacks.

Thirdly, we should not ask the guests too private problems e.g. age, occupation, income, etc.

Fourthly, when cleaning and tidying the room, we must not touch and use their belongings, or to open the drawers, we should keep the door open.

Fifthly, different countries and nations have different taboos, e.g. Western countries think 666 is an evil number; Indians think that head is sacrosanct, we shouldn’t touch their heads.

In conclusion, the center of the model is still our customers, we want to have satisfied customers and workers. Leaders have to be prepared and sensible with new challenges and sudden changes, and keep on improving the services.

Individual Section Winners

Second-class Honour Certificate:   4D LAI Hon Kei

Third-class Honour Certificate:       4D WONG Sung Him

                                                      4D SHIAO Wing Yan

The Regional Winners (Hong Kong Region)

Position                                   School Name

Winner                                     St. Paul’s Co-Educational College

1st Runners-up                        HK Chinese Women’s Club College

2nd Runners-up                       Queen’s College

Congratulations!

Each year there are 20 awards for applicants across the undergraduate, post-graduate and sub-degree students of all 9 local tertiary institutions. This year there were over 500 applicants who had entered the selection round.

Will was also awarded the Dr. Tse Yuen Man Scholarship on 3rd February, 2010. The attached photo was taken in the Faculty of Medicine Scholarship Presentation Ceremony.

Congratulations Will!

This intriguing question is mentioned in the book 《概率萬花筒》 ,which introduces theories about probabilities. There are eight different chapters in the book, and each explains basic concepts of probability and expected value as well as their applications in our daily lives.

The content is closely related to the our lives so that you will not find it difficult to read. Some frequently asked questions are explained in great detail. For instance, ‘What’s the probability of a crackup?’ or ‘ Is there any difference between being the first one and the last one to take part in a lucky draw? ‘

A fascinating question is asked in the part of discussing the probability of a crackup - If the engine in the middle or the engines at the two sides are not out of order at the same time in a plane with three engines, accidents will not occur. For a plane with four engines, there will be no accidents if one engine at each side is still working. Here comes the question: Which plane is safer, the three-engine one or the four- engine one? When I first read the question, I was confused by the complicated description of these two planes. Nevertheless, if you follow the logic mentioned in the book, you can tackle the problem with less difficulty. The calculation shows that a three-engine plane will be safer. This is really out of my expectation.

Perhaps someone may have a perception that there are not many applications of probability. But this is not the truth. Applying the ‘Law of large numbers’, we can easily know the number of fish in a lake and the number of people with a certain amount of salary.

I have really learnt a lot from this book. It arouses my interest in mathematics and widens my horizon on various applications of probability. Having utilized a wide variety of examples to illustrate difficult mathematical concepts, it is simply a must-read book for those who have keen interests in Mathematics. This is the end of my book sharing, thank you.

Each element has its unique property and is determined by its number of protons, neutrons, and electrons. They not only give the properties of a pure chemical element, but also determine how each element behaves in a chemical reaction.

This book is perfectly a clear guide devoted to making information about elements easily available and understandable. It is a succinct compendium to all chemical elements. It begins with an introductory section that explains some of the basic concepts of chemistry and traced the history and development of the periodic table of elements. In clear, not-so-technical language, using historical anecdotes and everyday examples, the author makes complex ideas regarding element amusing and well-understandable. Each element is discussed in a separate article accompanied by photographs-many in full colour-of practical applications of the element.

Take Carbon as an example, the book introduces this element in around eight pages, giving the readers a comprehensive framework about the different forms of Carbon, like graphite, diamond and fullerene, as well as in molecular form of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The history of its discovery and reasons behind its special chemical and physical properties are also discussed.  Well, I enjoyed reading pages introducing those artificially created elements most. I have long been wondering how they could be created, in what way, and what the theories behind are. The creations of new elements are no less very meaningful as elements are the foundations of our livelihood, should new ones be formed and utilized, a whole new world may come. Perhaps, those scenes in movies may come true one day, I mean, maybe we can make objects disappear in thin air by altering the constituent elements!

I guess I have gone too far but to make these dreams come true, no doubt we have to start with this book. Only when we have a full picture with the existing elements, can we go further. Grand dreams aside, to tackle with examinations, students would find this book useful as this is truly an excellent look-it-up resource! Give it a try.