royby.comthe RSS feed of royby.comchanging values...- April 8, 2008 Last night I began re-reading Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It must be at least 12 years since I last read this book, and it was one of the books that I decided to bring back from Australia with me because I want to find out how I relate to the story at this time in my life. Pirsig describes the tale as being "An Inquiry Into Values" and, because I consider that my perceptions of life and life's values have changed so much over the...http://royby.com/royby_comments.php?id=1068_0_2_0_C bad traffic events...- April 8, 2008 We all have bad days, or bad parts to our days. It's how we deal with the aggravation those bad things engender that makes the difference. Today I began my day with a "bad traffic event". Usually I can drive my motorbike in the peak hour traffic and not worry too much about the congestion, pollution, impatience of other drivers and the dozens of other niggles that add to the driving experience here. Basically, most people on m'bikes here realise we are all in the same position...http://royby.com/royby_comments.php?id=1067_0_2_0_C too true...- April 1, 2008 we males don't really stand a chance... At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies. - PG Wodehousehttp://royby.com/royby_comments.php?id=1066_0_2_0_C language is culture, culture is language- April 1, 2008 Since moving to Viet Nam 4 years ago I have enrolled in 3 Vietnamese language courses, 1 in VN and 2 while back in Australia. I also own 4 different self help learning kits, have 5 electronic Viet-English dictionary programs for laptop and Palm Pilot and 2 reasonably large hard copy dictionaries. But I have to admit that, until now, I have not been completely serious about learning the language. However, I decided that I needed to adopt a more positive attitude toward learning Vietnamese if...http://royby.com/royby_comments.php?id=1065_0_2_0_C |