Life in United Kingdom

I was given a leaflet by an enthusiasitic brother at the 29 Bus stop, many of the words in the leaflet are familiar, such as Noah's ark, Pharaoh's lost army, Mount Sinai, The cities of Sodom & Gomorrah, but what's Armageddon? One of questions in the leaflet is: "Have you ever wondered if Nostradamas was right? He claimed that the next Pope to come will be during the time of Armageddon! " The Armageddon is a transliteration of the Hebrew "har megiddon", which means literally the "hill of Megiddo". Revelation 16:16: "Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon." Christian people use this place to symbolize the final great battle between good and evil. Many battles were fought at this location because the main trade route went through a mountain pass nearby.

I learned about the Great Ormond Street Hospital from the donation of the royalties from J. Barrie's Peter Pan . When a child's illness is so critical it can't be treated anywhere else, the Great Ormond Street Hospital is often the last hope for thousands of sick children. The hospital have some of the best paediatric surgeons and doctors in the world. The hospital also developed kinder treatments -- like the pioneering catheter technique which replaces open heart surgery. The incredible heart bypass machine can keep a child alive when he had no heart, the operation often last very long and as many as 5 specialists work on the risky operation on a state of the art cardiac theatre. If there is no cure, the hospital try to find new ones, like the breakthrough in the early detection and prevention of acquired heart disease. The NHS covers the basic running costs, but the extra support come from the donation. Those donation also used for extra beds for parents, because research...

Received a Parent/Guardian Declaration form of Child ethnic origin from Derby City Council. I have to fill this form whenever I applied a job for equal opportunity. But as for this form, it's being noted that I am not obliged to provide this data if I don't wish to. Totally 18 categories of ethnic origin. It's quite interesting that we can group them further into 5 larger categories: White Mixed Asian Black others But quite interestingly, traveller of Irish Heritage and Gypsy/Roma are treated as separate group, are there a lot of travellers and Gypsies in this area? It might be just a kind of political correct bureaucracy. In this world, mixed people might become majority, or become a trend. It seems that more mixed up of human genes, more ethnic characteristic gene information are lost. Chinese has 56 ethnic groups, but here all Chinese are treated as one. When we stayed in hospital, the hospital authority specially arranged Chinese midwife and nurse for us, hope to better...

We bought our mobile phone 4 years ago in Northern Ireland, never updated. And we threw away all documents when we moved to England. This is Sendo mobile, and Vodafone network. Last night, my wife were so bored that she play with the security options, and locked up the mobile phone. She totally forgot what she did to the phone. It seems to unlock by enter a PUK code. So how can I can I get my PUK code? I looked up in Vodafone website, and found this: If you are registered for My account, you can get your PUK code online. If not, then you can get the PUK code from automated services. Call 08700 77 66 55 and enter your mobile number when asked, then follow the prompts for your PUK code. I tried this service number, and got my PUK code, and then unlocked the phone, I can use this good old mobile again.

Derby City afternoon rain dampens the light dust. Walking alone on the green park, I am pondering on my life and humming a song, Too softly for anyone to hear, Except for the chirping birds. The autumn hills hoard scarlet from the setting sun. Flying birds chase their mates, Now and then patches of blue sky break clear -- Tonight the evening mists find nowhere to gather. Day after day we can't help growing older. Year after year the autumn leaves can't help seeming yellower. How long can one man's lifetime last? In the end we return to formlessness. How lonely are the travellers. Even the sun shines cold and white. [Make up from Wangwei's Poems]

I am not sure especially in the middle of melamine contaminated baby formula crisis, if you buy Toufu from supermarket which are made in China. The ingredients of Toufu is soybean, water, and coagulating agents. Traditionally the coagulant used is nigari, which is a sea water precipitate rich in minerals such as magnesium and calcium chlorides.My mum used to make Toufu by adding this kind of stuff, of course safe to eat. But there are reports that some individual Toufu makers use medical gypsum which are bought (or recycled from) medical gypsum bandages taken off from patients' broken legs or arms and thrown into the bins in the hospital. In China, there are also reports that people use human hair to make Soy sauce, too. I might have consumed this kind of soy sauce and eaten toufu made of medical gypsum, who knows, luckily I am still alive.

Recently, sometimes Brenda want to do it on her own, don't want me or her mummy help. I did it for her accidently, she wants to return to the original, and do it again by herself. And she seems to develop a very bad temper, she gets cross very easily. Aways go away, don't want to co-operate.

We received a notice from my daughter's nursery. It says one of Her Majesty's Inspectors(HMI) will be visiting the Primary school. The school was given a Notice to Improve after the Ofsted Inspection in February. This is the follow up visit by an HMI, the inspection will focus on the action the school has taken to address the key issues raised in the February report. As a Chinese, we feel strange of the word "Her Majesty", King, Queen, Prince and Princess, all the royal stuff has long gone since 1911 revolution, the last Qing Emperor Pu yi lived his rest life in jail. I can feel the morality and humanity inside the name of "On Her Majesty's Service", it seems the far echo of Confucius's "Kingly Way". Constitutional Monarchy should be ideal form of all future government, such as United Kingdom. My wife says, the Queen has no political power, Her Majesty is just a representative of the nations. But I think, in modern society, nobody should ha...

Except for Alice , Peter Pan must be the most thoroughly English of all invented legends. It was Friday night. Mr and Mrs Darling were dining out. Nana had been tied up in the backyard. The poor dog was barking, for she could smell danger. And she was right - this was the night that Peter Pan would take the Darling children on the most breath-taking adventure of their lives, to a place called Neverland, a strange country where the lost boys live and never grow up, a land with mermaids, fairies and pirates - and of course the terrible, evil, Captain Hook. Peter Pan is undoubtedly one of the most famous and best-loved stories for children, an unforgettable, magical fantasy which has been enjoyed by generations. The author James Matthew Barrie was born in Scotland, the son of modestly successful weaver. J. Barrie was the ninth child of ten (two of whom died before he was born). He was a small child, and he remained both emotionally and physically as a child, because he would only grow up...

I bought a Net-lynx wireless router and a Firewire cable from a local "Computer N Stuff" shop. As for a wireless router, I thought it can just plug and play, but unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to connect to the Internet for a whole day, no matter what I did, wireless network is seen but connection is for local only. I felt very frustrating and silly. After several phone calls for technical support, I realized that it will be much cheaper and hassle free to buy a wireless router from my broadband provider Virgin Media. Virgin Media doesn't support third party router, and the local shop staff almost know nothing about compatibility. My vista laptop is not include in the Net-lynx user manual. Some people say, to support this legacy device, we need to edit Vista Windows registry , or use static IP address and disable DHCP function . I tried both without success. Giving up trying the wireless router, I turned to my 1394 IEEE firewire cable, and couldn't help ...

I am reading Dorothy Garlock's On Tall Pine Lake. This is a fantastic story. My wife borrowed the book, and asked me how is it. I told her: Good, I was attracted to it after the first chapter. Some books, she said, will make you finish reading after the first sentence. She referred to another book she borrowed, Treason. The core suspense plot of the book was excellent, however the romance between Simon and Nona just didn't gel and was embarrassingly sickly at times. Nona is irritable, bad-tempered, humourless and at times just plain nasty. Simon alternates between being protective and sickly, sweet 'romantic', if you can call it the latter. I felt that the romance was very contrived and stuck in for the sake of it. This is author's 50th novels. It might be due to her age, whose passion for romantic has already decreased. You can feel she could manipulate better the middle-aged woman Mabel, whose response to a charming young man's flirt, and as an observer of dra...