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We must take our hats off to all the spambusters who've helped to make MyEC a pleasent place. They are active members here. They read all the blogs by other members and always try to leave a comment on what they just read. When they find an inappropriate blog by a spammer, they will try to go to the spammer's page and click "Report Member", and they will warn other members of the spammer. I really appreciate the excellent job our spambusters have done so far.

Tara just came back from her vacation

This is another famous fable among children. It is a story about the crow and the peacock. 

The Story of a Crow and a Peacock

Once upon a time, in the deep jungle, a crow and a peacock were the very best of friends. During that time, both of them were just plain white birds. They will scavenge for their food together, play together, and even build their nests next to each other.

One day, while both of them were looking for food near the border of a village, the Crow suddenly stumbled upon a bucket

Hello friends!

It's been quite a long while since I haven't had written a blog on MyEC. When I was preparing for my exam a few weeks ago, I had lots of ideas to blog. However, the moment I logged into MyEC after my exam, all seemed to vanish into thin air ! Naturally, I was looking for something to write about because I had come back to MyEC and also because I had only a little time to stay here, for I had to prepare for another exam.

Today, while browsing through the net, I came across birth flow

I was reading an article about how Prince Harry visited Angola and how he was sad that after 25 years there are still a lot of landmines left scattered in Angola. He was irritated that the Companies that supplied those landmines in the first place did not do enough to help clearing them.

Reading this article made me read more on the work done by the HALO Trust. The HALO Trust had work tirelessly and endlessly in destroying various landmines in many countries devastated by wars. These countries fa

I read this interesting article in BBC news about "Moser Light" which was invented by Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian mechanic. Mr. Alfredo Moser uses plastic bottle with water and bleach to invent the most amazing light without the usage of any electricity. The Moser light is based on principle of refraction to light up a dark room during the day.

Mr. Moser had been using plastic bottles filled up with water and a splash of bleach, to avoid algae, to illuminate dark rooms since 2002 and now the idea

I think I have been dragging this Did You Know? series as far as it can goes. I have been thinking of ending it a few times, and hence the reason of this blog talking about swan in general. This may be the last of the series, or may be just an interlude, but what ever it is going to be, it is really fun writing the series so far. And I would like to thank to each and everyone of you for reading and commenting on the Did You Know? blogs.

Did You Know?

1. All Swans in England are belong to the King

I

I am writing this blog as to celebrate my own milestone. This is supposed to mark my 50th blog. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, my 50th blog is posted earlier which is a blog dedicated to my dear friend Noora; Wake up Soon, my Dear.

I never knew that I would be able to write a single blog, let alone my 50th. As I said in my previous blog "Practising English Online", I was one of those people that "don't do blogs, don't read blogs". It all started to change when a friend asked me to read

As mentioned in my previous fables, the story about mouse deer is very famous among children in Malaysia. There are various stories which show the brilliance and cleverness of this mouse deer when facing some difficulties. It seems it always can think on its feet when it needs to be. In this blog, I want to share with you another funny story about how a mouse deer tricked the mighty Tiger. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

I want to dedicate this fable to my little EC Grand daughter Noora. I hope

This blog is dedicated to my Grandiest Granny WMW and her torturing companion AH_TK. LOL. Don't ask me the story behind this dedication.

As part of my Did You Know? series, in this blog, I am going to dedicate in writing about idioms and phrases relating to punishment.

Did You Know Series:-

1. Did You Know?  2. Did You Know? - Continuation   3. Did You Know - Another Continuation   4. Did You Know - Not Another Continuation!   5. Did You Know? - Gosh! Will it Never Ends?   6. Did You Know? - Oh No!

I love reading. As far as I can remember, I will always have a book in my hand where ever I go. I can even read when I was travelling either by bus or car, which most people cannot do because of the jostling about. But I have to admit, I do not like reading those inspiration or motivations books, self help books, or biographies. Most of the time, I just read fictions. So, maybe my bookprint is not as profound as some other members.

I used to read two to three books at one go and within a week, I

This week I came across an interesting section on the Scholastic website about celebrity Bookprints. Scholastic defines a "Bookprint" as "a list of five books that leave an indelible mark on our lives, shaping who we are and who we become". 

Do you agree with Scholastic that "You are what you read"? I do. I also believe that books sometimes choose their readers. 

This month I want to know which books have helped shaped you. We don't have to be celebrities for our bookprints to be interesting! Let'

I know you guys are counting the series, and thinking when this will end. So lets us count together, shall we?

Did You Know? series:-

1. Did You Know?  2. Did You Know? - Continuation   3. Did You Know - Another Continuation   4. Did You Know - Not Another Continuation!   5. Did You Know? - Gosh! Will it Never Ends?   6. Did You Know? - Oh No! Not Another One!   7. Did You Know? - Here Comes Another One!  8. Did You Know? - Another One?

1. Baker's dozen

Baker's dozen simple means thirteen, or someti

                                                 I got this picture from here.

I am a shy person. I had never sang before. However, from the birth of Karaoke Group, I sang. The funny thing is I do not even have  proper voice to sing. I even hated to listen to my voice. Listening to my voice was frightening. However, I realized everybody has this feeling. No one likes to listen to his or her own voice especially on the Internet where everybody can listen to them. I tried to ignore this feeling and

My wife and I are moving to a different part of the world to teach.

We will be teaching engineers Advanced Business English, Academic English and Technical English in Japan.

Our home in Japan will have much lower temperatures than Saudi Arabia.  It gets 4.78 meters of snow fall in an average winter.

We will live in the city of Aizu-wakamatsu. This is a very old city in the Fukushima Prefecture. I am including some photos from the Wikipedia Commons, such as the famous Tsuruga-jyo Castle. 

I am also a

I have added a few idioms about monkey from my original blog, since there are a lot more and interesting idioms about them. The additional idioms are highlighted in blue font. LOL. I was writing this during the EC upgrading period. The chat had been disabled, of which was good for me. LOL. I have a better time in researching more obscure facts.

Did You Know? Series:-

1. Did You Know?   2. Did You Know? - Continuation   3. Did You Know? - Another Continuation

4. Did You Know? - Not Another Continuat

Another school year passed and the same questions cross my mind :

-How can we apply the four skills of learning English at schools ?

-How can we change the old ways  to  better ones if the number of the students is large and the textbooks should be finished during the school year ?

The teachers in most countries still practice the traditional teaching method which is :

"Chalk and Talk ".This phrase often used to describe traditional teaching.  It describes  the teacher in front of the group of learn

I was writing this fables because Bala asked me about cats' fables. Though this fables didn't give a good view for a cat, I like to share with all of you. This was a story about a cat and a tiger.

The Story of a Cat and a Tiger

Once upon a time, a cat and a tiger were the very best of friends. In fact, the cat was more of a teacher to the tiger. The cat would teach the tiger on how to hunt in the deep jungle. He also would teach the tiger to art of stalking its prey. The tiger was well know to hav

Hahaha .. you thought that I have had enough torturing you guys with all those obscure and maybe needless facts? You thought wrong. LOL. Here comes another one in the Did You Know? Series.

1. Did You Know?

2. Did You Know? - Continuation

3. Did You Know? - Another Continuation

4. Did You Know? - Not Another Continuation!

5. Did You Know? - Gosh! Will it never ends?

6. Did You Know? -Oh No! Not Another One!

Did You Know?

1. Why happiness is always associated with animals?

There are many idioms/expressions

This story is nearly forgotten among the Malay children. It's not as popular as other fables that involves tiger, mouse deer or even crocodile. I still remember this story which I read when I was a small kid centuries ago. I was surprised that when I tried to find this story online, I hardly find anything about it. Therefore, I would like to share this story with everyone, to keep it alives.

When writing this fable, it reminds me of one EC Member that I always teased by calling him "Python". I do

Change will happen. It can not be avoided in life. People are usually afraid of change because it means they will have to do things differently and learn something new.

Are you afraid of the changes on your web page? Will you learn how to see your recent comments instead of those from when you first came here?

Sometimes people surrender to change and other times they fight it. We should try to relax and watch the changes at MyEC.  We will learn the new ways to do things if we relax.  If we are afr