Catherine Lim....a great writer..

Biography
Catherine Lim grew up in Malaysia but resides and works in Singapore where she lectured in Applied Linguistics before turning to writing full time, speaking regularly on cruise ships and at International Seminars. Among her published works are eleven collections of short stories, (two of which have been used as GCSE texts by Cambridge University), four novels, a book of poems, and countless articles. She contributes social and political commentaries to local and foreign newspapers and magazines. Her latest novel is The Bond Maid, which was published in the UK in 1997 to critical acclaim.

Catherine Lim has a very interesting way of narrating...I love her stories as it reflects our real life situation, the reality that we are facing. I have read her collection of short stories and they are very interesting. Deadline for love and the shadow of a shadow of a dream, for example, are 2 of her collections of short stories that i had fallen in love with..the stories are mostly on women who are being cheated and how they are treated by men...these are all the things that are happening around us.

They Do Return, is one of her collection of short stories that is quite ok. Her horror stories are not very scary but because of her very unique way of narrating, makes me want to read all her works.

The conclusion is..she is just amazing..

the search for traditional stories...

I found that this is a very interesting website..do check it out..
http://www.writespirit.net
There are a few sections that i found interesting..they are: inspirational quotes, inspirational people,inspirational talks,spiritual poetry, and stories and tales.
There are many stories that you can find there and thjey are very interesting..
The one that i like the most is under stories and tales; under tales of wisdom, A well of wisdom..

A Well of Wisdom
There was a miserly man whose wife was very generous. But the wife did not have access to her husband's money. They had so much money that they could easily have helped their village. For months people suffered from drought and famine. Because of the drought there was not enough food and people were dying of starvation. The wife begged the husband to dig some wells so that at least their neighbors could have water. But the husband did not want to spend money to dig wells.
The wife said, "Who knows, by digging in the ground, perhaps even I can find water."
So she asked their one servant to help her dig a well at a particular place. The wife herself, a respectable lady, joined the servant in digging. Every day they dug, but they found no water. The husband laughed and laughed and said, "Yes, you can dig for a year and there will still be nothing. Only the well of your stupidity is getting deeper."
One day the servant had a clever idea. He said, "Mother, we are working hard, but your husband is being so unkind and cruel. Let us play a trick."
"What kind of trick?" the wife asked.
The servant said, "Every morning your husband comes to laugh at us. Let's put some oil on the ground where we are digging. When he sees the oil, he will get very excited. He will employ many workers and servants, thinking we have found oil here. They will dig and, who knows, perhaps there will be some water here."
The following day the husband came and saw the oil on the ground. He was excited and said to himself, "I want to take credit for discovering this oil." Then he said to his wife and servant, "Will you do me a favor today? Can you bring me something from the market? I'll give you anything you want if you do me this favor."
They went to the market to buy what he requested. The wife was totally innocent; she had forgotten about the oil trick. in the meantime, the husband brought 20 workers to continue digging at the same place so that he could take credit for discovering oil. They worked for a few hours and finally hit water.
The workers were thrilled to find water, but the owner of the house was disappointed. He said, "Who wants water? I wanted oil so I could sell it and become richer. How can I sell water? I can only give it to my neighbors."
The wife and the servant came back from the market and were delighted to see the water. The husband said to them, "How can it be? This morning I saw oil on the ground. I hired workers to dig for it. This morning there was oil, but now there's only water."
The wife said, "Money and power surrender to the well of wisdom."
"What are you talking about?" asked the husband.
"This is a result of our servant's wisdom. We tried so hard to find water but we failed. Then he had a brilliant idea. He knows how miserly you are. He knew that if you saw oil on the ground where we were digging, then you would start digging for oil. God wanted you to help the needy. God didn't want you to become richer by discovering oil."

There are many other stories that are interesting and there are values that we can learn for the stories..

traditional stories...

Dr. Edwin had asked us to read one of Mahabrata's story, King Shantanu..

the story was quite interesting...it was about the greed of a man for beautiful women who is willing to sacrifice almost everything to get them until one day, he refused to agree to accept the agreement because he doesn't want to sacrifice his beloved son...

In my opinion, it is our nature, the desire to like beautiful things...we usually will sacrifice a lot of things in order to get them..but whatever it is, we have to think rationally before we agrre with any thing.

i found an interesting website on this story, King Shantanu...it is quite different from what i've read, but, it does have a different ending...I think that you should visit this website..it is an interesting webpage...we can use the stories for teaching secondary school students...

http://www.boloji.com/mahabharata/03.htm

the fall of Icarus

This picture is very subjective to me...

At the first look, I was not aware of the legs in the sea...

Daedulus and Icarus is a story on a father and son relationship..the father who is trying to escape with his beloved son...

the moral is..listen to your father and do not get excited too easily..

Ovid-Metamorphoses

I went to this webpage to read on oved-metamorphoses..
http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/xeno.ovid1.htm
This webpage is quite interesting as it provide a lot of information.
this quotation is taken from there..

Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC - 18 AD). Ovid seems to have believed in art for pleasure's sake, having no ethical agenda for his writings, unlike his predecessor Virgil, who wrote for the betterment of Romans. Ovid's other works include: Medea (a tragedy, no longer extant), Heroides (letters to legendary heroes from their wives; read them here), The Art of Love (advice on how to seduce a woman; scandalous in Augustus' time, one possible reason for Ovid's banishment in 8 AD), the Fasti (a poetic calendar of religious festivals). Ovid offered something of an apology for his immoral reputation (Tristia 2:354): "My life is respectable, my Muse is full of jesting. A book is not evidence of one's soul."

"My life is respectable, my Muse is full of jesting. A book is not evidence of one's soul."
This line is the line that catches my eyes..a book is not evidence of one's soul..Before this, i have this belief that writers will be writing in what they belief in. this line makes me wonder...is that a statement or just something to cover himself?