A group of Seniors who met during the Vietnam Tour meet for a Christmas lunch in Singapore, as imagined by me, by the sea, in an al fresco cafe surrounded by butterflies and pretty blossoms. ChatGPT created this image.
In real life, we will meet in Woodleigh Mall! No sea, flowers and butterflies.
23.12.24. I used ChatGPT to create a serene Christmas Eve when three wise men, guided by a big shiny star, visited the infant Jesus in a stable in Israel. Mother Mary and father Joseph were present.
ChatGPT created Mother Mary but father Joseph was a young lady. Above is the best of 3 images.
. Vet Case Study. Cat with left eye perforated corneal ulcer.
19 Nov 2024:
Hi, Is this Toa Payoh Vets?
Yes
Hi, I'd like to make an appointment to seek 2nd opinion for my cat's eye condition.
Please phone 6254 3326 for appointment.
Also send 3 images of eye.
According to the other vet, she has a ruptured eye and the injury can't be seen without a light source.
She recommended to surgically remove her eye.
20 NOV 2024:
SINGAPORE - 20 NOV 2024: The left eye of the 17-year-old cat has a PERFORATED cornea causing pain and thick watery eye discharge. Veterinary healthcare is needed.
7 Dec 2024 Performance at Gateway Theatre by Pei School of Dance.
I am a grandparent.
I enjoyed the performance very much especially those of the first-time younger dancers.
No videography or photography is permitted during the performance is permitted so that the audience has clear views of the dances.
Is there a possibility of purchase of a segment of the dance by parents?
I attach a photo at 3,000 pixels (printing 10x8-inch photo) of the end of performance in case parents and grandparents are interested in printing 'memories' of the participants.
PHOTOGRAHY TIPS:
Canon R5, 53mm, 1/1000 sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000. Shutter priority.
BOOK - Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'En
Translated by Julia Lovell
Pg 122.
So Boqin (hunter) and Tripitaka went up the mountain a second time, hauling themselves up on creepers. At the summit, they found a square stone slab, haloed with golden light and mists, bearing the gold inscription OM MANI PADME HUM. Facing west, Tripitaka kneeled next to it and prayed: "If this monkey is fated to be my disciple on my journey to te west, permit me to lift this stone and take him with me to Soul Mountain." He then lifted the stone with perfect ease, and a moment later a scented wind snatched it into the air.
"I am the jailer of Monkey," intoned a disembodied voice. "His punishment ends forthwith. I will return this seal to the Buddha." After kowtowing to Heaven, Tripitaka and Boqin made their way back down to the stone casket beneath the mountain to tell Monkey the good news. "Best keep your distance while I break out," Monkey warned them.
Pg. 129.
"Tripitaka didn't appreciate me. When I killed a few robbers who got in our way, he fussed and nagged at me. I can't be dealing with that sort of nonsense. So I decided to return to Flower-Fruit Mountain. I thought I'd drop in on you* on the way there to cadge a cup of tea."
*dragon king of Water-Crystal Palace
An elderly Caucasian bird photographer in Singapore's secondary forest on an early sunny morning. He wears a shirt and luminous vest with multiple pockets. He places his camera on a tripod and zoom lens focused onto a hornbill in the tree branch far away.
Dec 2024.
An attractive image of the Ella Coffee machine at Sengkang Hospital, Singapore. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra phofo by Anthony Chan
6.3mm, 1/100 sec, f/1.7, ISO 320
1. An oil palm produces fruits 3 to 4 years after it has been planted. No income for grower.
2. TO MAKE AN OIL PALM PLANTATION TAKES MONEY.
Worken to clear the site of the plantation and removing tree stumps - flat land.
Buy seedlings and fertilisers
Pay workers to look after young plantation. Weeds removed. Trees protected from damage by rats and agoutis.
3. GROW OIL PALMS TAKE A LOT OF WORK.
Clear the forest, remove tree stumps.
A lot of time to sow the cover crop, dig holes in the plantation, take seedlings out of nursery, carry to plantation to plant them.
Put wire netting around the young trees, spread fertiliser and keep watch over the plantation.
Fruits must be harvested at the right moment.If it becomes too ripe, many clusters will drop and fruit quality will not be good.
LIFE CYCLE OF THE OIL PALM.
The oil palm may have a very long life.
Seeds germinate only after several years if not taken care. In research stations with very hot rooms, germinate after 90-100 days.
The seedling stays in the nursery for 1 year. When it has about 15 green leaves, it is planted in the palm grove. It will be 16 - 18 months old when it is planted in the palm grove.
The oil palm has no btanches. it has a trunk and leaves. The trunk (stipe) is the stem of the plam. It has only one bud at the tip of the stem. This is the growing point.if it dies, the tree dies.
The growing point of the adult oil palm produces 20 - 25 leaves per year. There is a flower at the base of each leaf. Many leaves - many flowers - many clusters of fruits.
Very hot, sun very strong and rains a great deal - oil palm grows very well. A hot temperature all year round (25 - 28 deg C( - oil palm make many leaves to produce may clusters of fruits. A lot of sunshine, plentiful rain soil is flat, permeable and rich. Presence of oil mills, extension services to the grower.
THE FRUIT5 OF THE OIL PALM YIELDS OIL.
The clusters consit of spikelets. Spikelets contain the fruit. The fruit must be separated from the spikelets.
The fruits - Pulp, Seed, Kernel.
Pulp is crushed, it yields palm moil.
Seed - inside the shell of the seed is the kernel which contains the germ. Kernel crushed - palm kernel oil.
There are different varieties of oil palm
1. dura palms have kernels with a thick shell
2. pisifera palms have kernels with no shell.
3. tenera plams have kernels with a thin shell.
To get a lot of oil, each fruit must contain a lot of pulp, a shell that is not very thick and a big kernel - produced by research stations. These are selected oil palms with big yields grown in modern oil palm plantations.
OIL MILLS. The machines extract all the oil in the pulp and kernels.
The growers earn money by raising beef cattle.
Cattle fed with the green fodder from the cover crop grown in the palm groves, palm-kernel oil cake (left over after extraction of the palm kernel oil.
HARVESTING
Only those fruit clusters which are cut at the right moment yield a lot of good-quality oil.
long-armed sickle, chisel, machete
For oil palms 4 - 7 years old, cutg the clusters with a machete.
Older than 12 years, use a long-armed sickel.
Too high up, use bamboo ladders or else climb up the tree with a belt, wear spiked shoes.
Loose fruits or dropped off to the ground, should be collected and put in the basket.
In Malaysia oil palm plantation, early morning sunny day, a 15-year-old boy wearing long sleeved shirt and long pants stand below a tall oil palm tree. He uses a long-armed sickle to cut off the leaves and the red fresh fruit bunches.
---------------------
A healthy oil palm tree produces approx 26 Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) per year for 20-30 years, using less land than other oil yielding crops.
Once the palm fruit ripes, it turns reddish gold in colour and must be harvested immediately and sent to the oil mill to ensure that oil produced is of the highest quality.
1. Fruit: Oil for food and non-food products, fertilisers, fuel, fibreboard.
2. Trunk: Furniture, recycled as organic matter.
3.Fronds: Animal feed, fibreboard, recycled as organic matter.
-----------------------------
SCYTHE - a tool used for cutting crops such as grass or corn, with a long curved blade at the end of a long pole attached to one or two short handles.
A sickle is a hand-held tool with a curved blade and a short wooden handle that is used for harvesting crops, cutting grass, and other tasks:
Five regrets on the deathbed
1. 'I wish I hadn't dedicated so much of my life to working so hard.' Bronnie says that one of the most common pangs of conscience that those that are facing their own mortality have revolves around their careers and working lives. She says it's especially true of men, given how the generation that's elderly now used to see more men assuming the 'breadwinner' role. While money is important, so many people regret spending so much time at work, time that could've been allocated to family, friends and pleasure
2. 'I wish I'd lived my life the way I wanted, not how others expected me to behave.' A second great lament of those on their deathbeds is around being 'true' to oneself. This, says Bronnie, is the most common of all the regrets she ever heard uttered on her patients' final beds. It is, she interprets, people's sadness at never achieving - or even attempting to achieve - their personal dreams
3. 'I regret losing touch with so many of my friends'. When people look back over their lives toward the end of them, a surprising number feel somewhat contrite about having let friendships fizzle out. Friendships, like all relationships, require maintenance. It's easy to let them slide and die out. Most of us forget about old friends until we're afforded a chance to reflect on our lives. Then, many of us cast our minds back and have regrets that we didn't do more to keep in contact with those people we met along the way and felt great affection for
4. 'I wish I'd been brave enough to express my feelings more'. 'Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others,' says Bronnie. 'As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result'
5. 'I wish I'd let myself be happier'. Bronnie's final top lament of the dying is a poignant one. And, again, a rather common one. Whether it's a fear of change or a fear of letting others down, so many folk take the easy route, or even the seemingly selfless one. Time and time again. Over a lifetime, this can lead to unhappiness. 'Life is a choice. It is YOUR life,' Bronnie is keen to tell people. 'Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness'
Write A Short Book Fast - Writer's Digest Aug 22, 2023 by Nina Amir
NinaAmir.com.19-time Amazon bestselling author of How to Blog a Book, The Author Training Manual, Creatine Visualization for Writers and e-book writing guides.Short books 15-100 printed pages or 2,500 -35,000 wirds kibg, 10-135 typed manuscript pages.
WHY WRITE A SHORT BOOK FAST.
1. Long-form book feels overwhelming.
2. Want to increase your income or platform. One well-received book leads a reader to purchase another.
3. Claim title "Author".
4. Need a book for an event.
5. Create a product (a book).
6. Build your mailing list/
7. Jumpstart your writing career. Do this for every chapter, compile all short books into that big book.
8. Want to promote a book. Sends readers difectly to book sales pages or mention your books in the content.
--------------------
10 SHORT NONFICTION BOOK STRUCTURES.
1. Tip Book.
2. List Book.
3. Quotation Book.
4. RX Book. Often called handbooks, guidebooks, rule books, step books.
eg. better relationships, build your business, guide to container gardening, provide steps, proceses, rules or ways to solve a problem, answer a question or ease someone's ain.
5. Anthology. 10-25 contributors.
6. One-concept book. One "big idea."
7. Q&A Book.
8. Benefit books
9. Problem/Solution Book
10. Essay Book. Several essays on one topic or related tops e.g. motherhood, jogging, gardenly. 2-5 printed pages or fewer short essays.
---------------------------------
TIPS FOR WRITING A GOOD SHORT BOOK FAST.
1.Write an outline beforehand.
2. Find a model to imitate
3. Set a short deadline
4. Write short chapters
5. Keep track of your word count.
6. Decide how to publish - printed, e-book, booklet, workbook, etc.
7. Have your book professionally edited and proofread.
8. Get a professional cover.
Write your short book fast by employing one of these 10 short-book structures, building confidence for writing your "big" book soon. Or, if you like writing short books, knock out several each year.
