A Shakespeare Story: The Tempest

Retold by Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross

Dear Prospero,

     Hello, I am Timothy who has just read the Shakespearean story, the Tempest.  It was about you who to fix wrong into right.

     When I first meet you you seem to be an evil magician because of you using magic to raise a storm and wreck a ship. You also enslaved the spirit, Ariel and the monster, Caliban.

     Gradually, I learnt that you do not seek for revenge but justice.  You used love to put right the great wrong that was done before by your brother and old enemy.

     It’s also great for you to free Ariel and Caliban, destroy the magician staff and the books of magic and rule Milan again with your brother who had overthrown you before.  You are a kind, generous and mighty man after all.

Yours sincerely,Timothy

 

德蘭修女

書名；一雙溫暖的手 ---- 德蘭修女

作者；錢莉

出版社；景行出版

出版日期；2007年

對角色的評價；

德蘭修女放棄當教師，選擇終生為貧病交迫的人無私地服務。她走遍加爾各答的街頭，把被遺棄、奄奄一息的病人帶回垂死病人收容所照顧。德蘭修女不辭勞苦，自我犧牲服務他們，終於在一九七九年獲得諾貝爾和平獎。但是，她竟然無條件地把所有獎金捐出，用作興建新的痳瘋病療養院。德蘭修女真是一個有愛心、憐憫別人和能感同身受的人。

Roald Dahl: The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

Gist

     Billy made friends with the Giraffe, the Peel and the monkey of the Ladderless Window Cleaning Company.  He was surprised

     With his marvellous friends, he hand an adventure in the Duke’s palace.  They did a great job for him and saved the say. He felt excited.

     For the award, Billy finally owned a thrilling sweet shop.  It was his big dream and he became famous.  Billy was happy.

Four Seasons

I am in the school strings.  Our conductor is Woo, who is also the soloist and conductor of the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra. On Saturday night (19 November 2011), it presented Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at the St. Margaret’s Church in Happy Valley.  My parents and I attended the concert.

The St. Margaret’s Church is a beautiful old building, sitting on the top of a flight of stairs.  It is pale in colour and western in style.  There have been four occasions when I came across similar buildings.

The Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra composes of roughly 30 musicians.  That night they played a number of songs, including the Orchestra member, Austin Yip’s Psalm 61, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the fifth season – the Angry Bird tune.  They put up a very good performance.  The songs lifted up my soul.

Well done, Woo!

南丁格爾

書名；南丁格爾 -- 戰火中的護理先鋒

作者；林文月

出版社；突破叢書

出版日期；2008年

對角色的評價；

南丁格爾生於非常富有的上層社會家庭，受到父親悉心裁培，精通多國語文、哲學、歷史、數學。十七歲起下定決心要從事護理工作 ---- 一項被當時人視為低下卑微、不受尊重的工作。南丁格爾的父母強烈反對她做護士，勸她嫁給上流社會的富家子弟，享受舒適的生活。可是，她當護士的決心從未動搖。在這兩個例子可以知道南丁格爾很勇敢、有決心和對自己有信心。

Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill

Tonight, my family, my grandma and I had dinner at Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill.  It was in a shopping mall called Pacific Place at Admiralty.  We ate sumptuous American dishes there.  It cost six-hundred dollars!  However, the food was yummy.  After dinner, we went to Upper House Hotel because Dad’s winning photo was on display.

Excellent for My Writing Class Work

Excellent for My Writing Class Work

  

My Writing On YCPS’s Front Webpage

http://www.ycps.edu.hk/report/2011-09-27.pdf

Macbeth the play

In the evening of 14 October 2011, my family and I watched Macbeth the play performed by TNT theatre Britain at the Hong Kong City Hall.  After a sumptuous meal at the Maxim’s Cafe on the second floor, we moved over to the theatre beside it.  The theatre is not really big but just big enough for roughly 400 seats.

The play started pretty soon.  It is an exciting and disheartening story about Macbeth turning into the bad guy.  I read the play and the performance was as good as what is written in the original play.  The best part of it was the scenes when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth plotted and carried out the murders.  Those were quite scary scenes.

What surprised me most was not found in the play but at the intermission when I ran into three of my teachers.  It was an enjoyable night.

The Shakespeare Collection: Macbeth

Retold by Anthony Masters; Illustrated by Stephen Player

Background of the Story Plot
Event 1: After fighting a war, the two Scottish generals, Macbeth and Banquo met three witches who soothsaid that Macbeth would be King of Scotland in future.
Event 2: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth murdered the King of Scotland.  Macbeth was made the king.
Event 3: Macbeth wanted to secure his throne, so he killed Banquo and Macduff’s wife.
Event 4: Macdull and Malcolm sought revenge and killed Macbeth in a war. Malcolm became King of Scotland.

Characters
Hero: Macduff
Heroine: No
Villian: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth
Other Characters: the three witches, Duncan, Donalbain, Malcolm, Banquo, Ross

Setting
When: The story took place a long time ago when Scotland was ruled by a king.
Where:  Scotland

Theme
The story is about ambition. Ambition is natural.  It can be good or bad. If one is too ambitious, it may be bad.  If being too ambitious is added with a bad method, it will be very disastrous.

. But if one is too ambitious, or one uses wrong ways to achieve the ambition, it can be very bad.

Talent Pool Writing: First Lesson

On the Friday a few weeks ago, some students of grades four and five were chosen to have the Talent Pool lessons.  I am one of them.  We had to go to the hall at the last hours before the school day ended.

When we arrived at the hall, we were asked to play "call out your number” and “make a guess”.  For "call out your number”, we formed into four columns and had to call out our number one by one.  However, all fifty-six of us mumbled slowly rather than  calling out our number.  It took us five minutes to finish.  Luckily, all of us got focused at last and managed to finish it in less than a minute.

Then it was "make a guess”.  Miss Wong used a projector to show us an enlarged image of a thing in a Japanese restaurant.  As I was wondering if it ought to be some chopsticks on a plate, a kid shot her arm up,“A sandal rack?”  In the end, Miss Wong pressed a button and a picture of an old Japanese lock appeared.  Oohs and ahhs filled the hall at once.

At last, the grade five students grouped into groups with the students from grade four.  Miss Wong invited all the groups to observe any creative and interesting new things in their daily lives.  However, I don’t have any clever ideas yet.  I hope lots of ideas will spring to my mind later so that I can have a wonderful presentation with my group.  Before dismissing the class, Miss Wong announced that we would pick a president, two vice-presidents and other officers in the future soon.  Also, the Talent Pool will visit the Museum of Coastal Defence.  It was a rather great beginning of the Talent Pool.

Swimming

This swimming gala, I won a gold medal of both back stroke and relay race.  I was just gonna to grab the freestyle bronze medal when I slowed 0.01 second!  My brother also got a gold, silver and bronze.  In the early morning, my family and I went to the indoor swimming pool in Kowloon Park.  My mum’s best friend, Sally had attended to watch my brother and my races too.  Mine were 50m freestyle, 50m back stroke and my brother were 100m freestyle and 50m back stroke.  beside, we had a 4 x 50 relay race with our two classmates.  After the swimming gala of more that seventy races, the YCPS students were rather happy.  But more happy, my family and I had a buffet lunch in Marco Polo Hotel with Sally.  Sally likes dessert, Dad likes bread, Mum likes seafood and my brother and I like every food.  However, I’m found of Japanese food and noodles especially. 

Tuesday was another day for my brother and I to swim.  My classmate, Timmy’s Mum appreciate that if we could go to Timmy’s outdoor swimming class.  That was because his coach was better than the YMCA’s.  The coach helped me to swim the butterfly two second faster and corrected my freestyle posture.   After class, my brother and I played water judo.  I spent two ‘aqua’ days.

12th September, 07 ；Wednesday (sunny)

It was the date of my first day to write my Timmy’s Tibits.  Until now, I had written for five years!  There were about 1400 people who had watched my blog.  Thank you all for giving the comments.

Shatin Regency Hyatt Hotel

My family and I had a break after two schooldays of P5 at Shatin Regency Hyatt Hotel with my cousins’ family.  the new Regency Hotel is near the University.  When we just arrived, we strammed straight to the tea buffet hungrily.  In the middle of the tea, my cousins and I pretended that we were goofy sheep.  We munched some grassy seaweed and sipped glasses of goat-milk-like chocolate milkshake.  It tasted quite good.  When we were almost full, my cousin found a big black ant.  We tried to feed him with sesame.  However, it struggled weakly instead of eating.  At last, the ant died when we played antball.

We also did some sports like swimming and cycling.  My bike broke down twice unfortunately.  Luckily, a kind staff carried another bike a long way for me.  So, I can still cycle enjoyably.  At night, we Long Wah Restaurant nearby.  I blew many colourful balloons after dinner.  I also watched a dozen of Cartoon Network Cartoons.  I had a pleasant weekend.      

Back to YCPS Is Cool

Today was the very first day of class E in grade five.  Although my brother and our old friends weren’t in class 5E, I didn’t care a lot.  That was because we can pay more attention in the lessons.  At the assembly, I heard some good news.  Headmistress Ho said, “Good morning! Had you students noticed there were air-cons in the covered playground!?  There were also some plastic  curtains and blue soft lining.  The most exciting was the library had transformed into a ‘space station'!  The canteen had ‘Greened’ too which is still renovating now.  Have your first school day great!’’  My class teacher was Miss Wong.  She was a student of YCPS then and, an instructor of an indoor camping which I had joined when grade one!  Miss Wong always calls some students in a funny way like Little Car and King of Leaving the Seat.  At recesses, my brother and I played a game which we had to walk on the tracks and lines of the basketball and football court.  We called it the BFTL.  It was so exhausting that I sweat all over my body like I had just swum.  I had a really great day which Headmistress Ho said exactly. Certainly, I had happy moments too the days after.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Background of the Story Plot
Event 1: Five main characters are having a conversation.  The time traveller told them about his time machine.
Event 2: The time traveller travelled into futurity where he saw the human beings in future and explored the place.
Event 3: He came across the Morlocks and had a fight with them.
Event 4: He travelled further into the futurity and saw the end of the world.

Characters
Hero: The time traveller
Heroine: Weena
Villian: The Morlocks

Other Characters: His four friends

Setting
When: I think maybe the story took place some 100 years ago.  Also, the place which the time travelled to was 800 thousand years into future.
Where: It happened in one of the European countries because of the ways the characters dressed and appeared in the illustrations. 

Theme
The story’s theme is time travelling and the future of the earth.

Summer holiday II (Beijing)

2011 is the centennial anniversary of Hong Kong Scout.  It planned to have a grand celebration in the capital city of China, Beijing for six days.  The Hong Kong Scout Orchestra which I joined this year was also a section of Hong Kong Scout.  I was pleased to have a great week with it.

    

27th July (Wed.)

At ten that morning, Mum and my brother waved goodbyes to Dad and I as we got on the car of the dad of my classmate, Timmy.  Timmy was also a member of the Hong Kong Scout Orchestra.  The car started off to the Hong Kong International Airport. 

After three hours flight on the Dragonair plane with other scout members, the Hong Kong Scout arrived at Beijing.  As we went in the arriving hall of the airport, two reporters from the Xinhua News Network came for us.  On that tiring night, I did not remember things clearly except for the cold dinner with the extra spicy soup and the meat soaked in soya sauce….

28th July (Thu.)

At first, we all had to go to the Tiananem Sqare for the national flag raising ceremony in the wee hours that day.  However, the little ones were too tired for that.  So, only the older members had to go.  Dad and I could sleep as late as we wished.  When we got up, I could even enjoy some good movies in our cosy room at the Beijing International Hotel. 

After the group came back from the ceremony, it was already noon.  All of us had lunch and then went by seven coaches to a park full of attractive and lovely cedars.  There were also some bright red bridges crossing the crystal clear river flowing through the park.  Afterwards, we went to Tiantan, also known as the Temple of Heaven.  At Tiantan, we took a group photo holding a long banner after which we walked along the Tiantan Park.  At last, Timmy’s mother gave me several bottles of icy cold water because we were blasted with hotness.

At night, we went to a restaurant near the Bird’s nest.  There were some woman dancers performing for us.  The most special dish I ate was the sticky rice wrapped in bamboo sheets in the shape of a cone.  We were originally supposed to meet the Chinese government leaders and visit the Bird’s nest and Water Cube today, but the scout leaders cancelled it for some unknown reasons.  What a pity.

29th July (Fri.) am

Today might be the second most important day on the itinerary.  We went far away from our hotel to a well-known middle school called Zhongguanchuan Middle School for exchange and rehearsals.  As we were on the coach, a conductor said it would hail, but it didn’t.  There were also two brothers who sang silly impromptu songs.  Plus, they chanted, “Star! Moon! Sun! The girl…”  Someone thought their behaviour was annoying but some thought it was hilarious.  The orchestra administrative secretary even took a video of them. 

When we just got there, the school staff and students and us watched videos about both Zhongguanchuan Middle School and Hong Kong Scout in a medium-sized hall.  It was quite fantastic.  Then, our performing parties partnered with the respective counterparts  from the middle school.  We, the orchestra went into a room where their woodwind orchestra practiced.  The conductors gave a brief talk and we had a good practice.

At lunchtime, the scouts paced to a canteen where we had a mini buffet.  The food were quite okay.  After lunch, we headed for a small museum which belonged to the middle school!  I observed the amazing animal specimens.  The animal species I like best is the small cat.  And of course we watched other things but I like the animal specimens best.

29th July (Fri.) pm

This night, the leader relented and let us have a stroll along Huangfujing Pedestrian Precinct.  However, Dad and I went to Qianmen main street by the underground.  It looked exactly like the Chinese version of Main Street USA of Hong Kong Disneyland.  At last, we saw our orchestra members welcoming my piano teacher, Emas to join us after her wedding yesterday.

30th July (Sat.)

After the heavy rain just yesterday, the lovely blue sky appeared.  This sunny day was our performing day.  In the morning, we rode the coaches to Pinggu.  It took us two dreary hours.  My orchestra practiced, ate, then practiced and practiced again.  At breaks in the backstage waiting room, I played Angry Birds and watched others matching one another for Fruit Ninja.  I like the Angry Birds Seasons of Saint Patrick’s Day.

At night, we ate McDonald fast food on the audience seats at the theatre.  The junk food was okay.  The celebration performances that night were so varied and excellent that they were beyond words. But I can say there were a lot of good performances, for examples, dancing, singing and Chinese lion and dragon dancing.

This was the best night!

 

31st July (Sun.)

In the morning, we went to the headquarters of Xinhua News Agency where visitors are by invitation only.  We watched a moving video made by the Agency about our tour.  At lunchtime, we had a yummy feast.

The next stop was the incredibly beautiful Bird’s Nest.  First, we waited a long time on the square.  Feeling too hot, some members swallowed ice-lollies bought by the conductor.  However, I didn’t.  After we got into the Bird’s Nest, we took a few group photos on the audience seats.  In the stadium, I noticed some people flashing past coolly on the Segway transporters which only had two wheels!  They were usually used as police transporters.  After that, Dad and I bought a Soffie Mixed ice- cream.  Mine was vanilla and his was chocolate with vanilla.  It was the smoothest ice-cream I ever had.  As I almost finished my ice-cream, I took photos with my favourite Fuwas Jing Jing, Ni Ni and Ying Ying, mascots of the Olympics 2008.  They were simply cute.  At last, we bought the souvenir.  Still, Dad said the Fuwa stuffed toys I wanted were too big to carry back to Hong Kong.  Actually, all kinds of Fuwa stuffed toys I found there were either too big or too expensive.  We also went to the wax exhibition showing waxes of the Olympics Committee leaders.

At night was the farewell dinner of Hong Kong Scout with some guests like the Zhongguanchuan Middle School headmaster.  Unluckily, I was not even hungry.  Timmy and I watched performances besides the table.  The most hilarious was the fat guys playing the drum in an extremely rapid speed, wearing bathing cloaks and sandals from the hotel!  Everyone burst out laughing.  Timmy’s Mum then gave me a box of glass key rings of the whole collections of Fuwas!

At the late night, Timmy came to my hotel room.  He lent me his iPad for playing angry birds while he watched the Transformers 2.

1st August (Mon.)

After the buffet breakfast, Dad and I went to the small lawn outside the breakfast hall.  I stroked the dainty rabbit.  There were ducks and swans too.  Then, Dad took Timmy, Timmy’s mum, Justin, Justin’s dad and I to the Tiananmen by underground.  I felt faint at some moments.  The most special after the last lunch was that I took photos of everyone of the Hong Kong Scout Orchestra with Dad’s camera.

At last, the afternoon of the last day came to an end.  The Hong Kong Scout flied back to Hong Kong.  I don’t understand why that flight was especially short.  Dad and I arrived at our lovely home at last.