အသိေပးျခင္း

ကိုယ့္လူ----
မင္း---ေရငုံ ႏႈတ္ပိတ္
တိတ္တဆိတ္နဲ႔ ေနတဲ့အခါ
တစ္စံုတစ္ခု
မင့္စိတ္ခုေအာင္
ငါျပဳမူခဲ့ေလသလား?
ငါ့စိတ္ထဲမွာ
အေတြးရြာလည္
အေနမေဖ်ာက္
သိပ္စိတ္ေနာက္တယ္။

ကိုယ့္လူ----
မင္း---မ်က္ႏွာထားသုိ
ညိဳတို စူပုတ္
ဖက္မလုပ္ဟန္ျပဳတဲ့အခါ
ငါ့စိတ္ထဲမွာ
ငါ့အေပၚနာက်ည္း
ေဒါသမီးေတြ ေလာင္ေနသလား?
ငါစဥ္းစာၾကည့္
ငါေတြးမိတယ္။

ကိုယ့္လူ----
မင္း---စကားပို
ႏႈတ္ဆို ယိုဖိတ္
မခ်ဳိ ၿမိတ္တဲ့အခါ
ငါ့မွာ ၀မ္းနည္း
အသည္းထဲထိ
ေနမခ်ိေအာင္
ပူေလာင္မိတယ္။

မိတ္ေဆြ အရင္း
သူငယ္ခ်င္းလို
ငါမင္းကို ခင္
ငါ့ဘ၀င္မွာ
အစဥ္ေလးစား
ေအာင့္ေမ့ထားခဲ့တယ္။

အတူေနတဲ့အခါ
အလိုမက်
စိတ္နာရေလာက္တဲ့
ကသိကေအာက္ဆိုတာ
ရွိေကာင္းရွိမွာေပါ့။

ဒီလုိပံုဖမ္း
စိတ္သရမ္းဟန္မ်ိဳးေတာ့
ငါလဲမလို
မႀကိဳဆိုခ်င္ပါဘူး။

ခဏႀကံဳရံု
ေတြ႔ဆံုရတဲ့
လူေတြအတြက္ေတာ့
မင္းအမူအယာ
စကားထာေတြဟာ
အေလးျပဳေလာက္
အထင္ေရာက္စရာေတာင္ မလိုပါဘူး။

ဒါေပမဲ့----
ေရရွည္လက္ဆဲြ
အလုပ္တဲြလုပ္
ပဲြထုတ္ရမည့္ အခါေတြ
ငါတို႔ေရွ႕မွာ
မ်ားစြာမ်ားစြာ
ရွိပါေသးတယ္ ကိုယ့္လူ။

ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္တစ္ခု
ဦးတည္ျပဳၿပီးေတာ့
ငါတို႔ေျမနဲ႔
ငါ့တို႔ေရစြန္႔
ခရီးတစ္ဓြန္႔ေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကၿပီ။

အမွားျမင္ေတြ႔
မင္းစိတ္မေမြ႔တဲ့အခါ
အျပစ္မေလ်ာ့
ခြင့္မလႊတ္ခ်င္လဲ
မင္းစိတ္ထဲမွာပဲ သိမ္းထားပါ။

ဒါေပမဲ့---
မ်က္ႏွာခ်င္းေတြ႕
ေရွာင္ေကြ႕လို႔မရတဲ့ အခါမ်ိဳးမွာေတာ့
ဟန္ေဆာင္စကား
အၿပံဳးမ်ားေ၀
မင္း ေပးဆပ္ႏိုင္ေစဖို႔
ငါေမွ်ာ္လင့္မိပါတယ္ ကိုယ့္လူ။

ေက်ာင္းသားဘ၀

မနက္ခင္း မိုးလင္းလို႔
အိပ္ယာထဲ (ဆက္)မလွဲႏိုင္
မ်က္ႏွာသစ္ အိမ္သာတက္
သြက္သြက္ လုပ္ကိုင္။

အၿပီးတိုင္
မနက္စာ အျမန္စား
လြယ္အိပ္အျမန္ျပင္လို႔
ၿမိဳ႕လန္ဒန္ယူနီဘက္ကို
ဦးတည္လို႔သြား။

အဆိုင္းမတ္ ေရးစရာအျပင္
အိမ္စာက အမ်ား
ဖတ္စရာ စာအစံုေပးပါလို႔
အခ်ိန္မွာတဲ့ မေလာက္ခ်င္
ဘေလာ့တြင္ ေရးခ်င္လွေပမဲ့
ေက်ာင္းစာနဲ႔ မအားတဲ့ျဖစ္အင္။

စေနနဲ႔ တနဂၤေႏြေတာင္
နားေပမဲ့ မအားတာေၾကာင့္
ေက်ာင္းရက္မွာ အမီွတင္ဖို႔ရာ
မပီလွ်င္ ျပန္ျပင္ရမွာမို႔
အခ်ိန္ညီ စာစီကံုးရတယ္
ေမာေပါ့ တအား။

အေဖသို႔ တမ္းတျခင္း

လြတ္လပ္ေရးဆိုတာ
လြတ္လပ္စြာ ေျပာဆိုခြင့္
လြတ္လပ္စြာ ေရးသားခြင့္
လြတ္လပ္စြာ စုရံုးခြင့္
လြတ္လပ္စြာ ယံုၾကည္ခြင့္ေတြ တဲ့။

သားတို႔ရဲ႕ ျပည္ျမန္မာ
လြတ္လပ္ခဲ့တာ ၆၂ ႏွစ္
ဒါေပမဲ့
လြတ္လပ္ေရးရဲ႕ အရသာ
ဘယ္မွာမွ မရွိ
လြတ္လပ္ျခင္းဆိုတာ ဗလာနဲ႔နတိၳ။

တိုင္းျပည္ကို ေရာင္းစား
ျပည္သူကို မသနား
ဘာသာကို ေစာ္ကား
ရထားတဲ့ လြတ္လပ္ေရး
စစ္ေခြးေတြ ၀ါးမ်ိဳ
တရုတ္ကို ဆရာတင္
သူထင္ရာ သူလုပ္
စစ္၀ါဒီအယုတ္ေတြေၾကာင့္
အေဖယူေပးခဲ့တဲ့ လြတ္လပ္ေရး
အခုေတာ့
စစ္ဖနပ္ေအာက္မွာ ပ်က္စီး
ေတြးမိရင္ ၾကက္သီးထစရာ။

ေအာ္-------
အေဖရယ္---ျမင္ပါလွည့္
အေဖ့ျပည္သူေတြအတြက္
ဂ်ပန္ကို ေတာ္လွန္
အဂၤလိပ္ကို ေခ်မႈန္းရင္း
ဟုိပုန္း ဒီေျပးနဲ႔
အေဖ့ဘ၀ မနားခဲ့ရဘူး။

အေဖ့ေနာက္ကြယ္
လြတ္လပ္တယ္ ဆိုတဲ့စကား
သားတို႔ၾကားခဲ့ရပါတယ္
ဒါေပမဲ့
အေဖေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခဲ့တဲ့ လြတ္လပ္ျခင္းမ်ိဳးမဟုတ္
ဆိုးယုတ္ညစ္ေထးတဲ့
စစ္ေခြးအုပ္စုရဲ႕ အရည္ျမျမ သြားစြယ္ေတြေအာက္မွာ
အေဖ့ျပည္သူေတြဟာ
ရရစားစားနဲ႕
ထမင္းနပ္မမွန္တဲ့ ရက္ေတြ မ်ားခဲ့ၿပီ။

လြတ္လပ္ေရးဆိုတာကို
အေဖ့ျပည္သူေတြ နားမလည္ၾကေတာ့
ထမင္းတစ္လုပ္ စားရေရး
လြတ္လပ္စြာလဲ မေတြးရဲ
ေ၀ဘန္ရင္ ေသဒဏ္
အေနမွန္ရင္ ေခ်မငံဘူးလို႔ အထင္ခံရတဲ့အျဖစ္နဲ႔
သားတို႔ဘ၀ အသက္ရွင္
ပ်က္အစဥ္ ျပင္မရေတာ့တဲ့ အေျခအေနပါ အေဖ။

အေဖ့ကိုေမွ်ာ္
အေဖ့ကိုလြမ္း
အေဖ့ကို တမ္းတရတဲ့ ရက္ေတြ
ေရတြက္လို႔ လက္ခ်ိဳး
ဒီေန႔ဆို ဇူလိုင္ (၁၉) ေရာက္ျပန္ေပါ့။

နယ္ခ်ဲ႕လက္ေအာက္
ဘယ္လို ဒုကၡေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကသလဲ
သားတို႔ မမီလိုက္ဘူး
ဒါေပမဲ့ အခုၾကည့္
အေဖ့ျပည္သူေတြရဲ႕ဘ၀
ေတြးမိရင္ ရင္ေလးစရာ
ေငးၾကည့္ရင္ အထင္ေသးစရာအျဖစ္မ်ိဳးနဲ႔
နယ္ခ်ဲ႕ထက္ ဆယ္ဆဆိုး
စစ္သူခိုးေတြရဲ႕ ႏွိပ္စက္မႈေၾကာင့္
“အေမေက်ာ္ ေဒြးေတာ္လြမ္း” ဆိုေစေတာ့
တကယ္ အခက္ကို ေက်ာ္ဖို႔ရာ
နယ္ခ်ဲ႕ကို ေမွ်ာ္လို႔သာ
ေနရပါေတာ့တယ္ အေဖ။

62nd Burmese Martyrs Day

Martyrs are patriots who love their country and ever ready to sacrifice even their lives for the nation against the invading enemies. Most of them are generally assassinated by their rival (political) groups who have politically bitterly opposed to them under the name of the power struggle. In this planet, every nation has by and large possessed such martyrs who are honored with due respects and memorials by their subjects.

Myanmar is one of such countries. There are many historical national heroes in the country since Bagan dynasty. The King Anawyathar is historically recorded as the first patriot who had fought the rooted cult adopted by the then devious religious images called "Ayeegyee", and re-established his land stable. Furthermore, one of salient historical features of the King Anuruddhar is that after the school of the devil cult was totally uprooted, the fresh religion was adapted. This religion is no doubt but "Buddhism". Since then, the Burma, now Myanmar, and its subjects have grown up in the cradle of the Buddha's teaching the 'Dhamma' by name. He is, therefore, recorded as the King who built the first Kingdom of Myanmar.

Then, his mysterious son, Kyan Sit Thar, was enthroned after the King Anuruddhar passed away under the same dynasty. Kyan Sit Thar was historically as well as mysteriously inscribed as the greatest warrior of Burma. The power of the King Anuruddha could be commented that it became stronger due to the fact that the great warrior fought against all enemies in the Kingdom for his King. He was courageous, brave, unselfish and loyal to the King. After the King Anawyathar, the stability of the country was well preserved. The King Kyan Sit Thar like his father loved his nation and subjects and several types of the welfare of majority was established as much as he could. Burmese reputation and history were enriched by the great warrior. He is the second national hero who won the enormous love, admiration and esteem of the whole country.

The King Bayint Naung and the King Alaungphayar are the patriots who re-established the second and the third King of Myanmar receptively. At the time of them, there were diverse wars civil as well as international including the World War First (WWI). They both at the each of their time tried to make the country united as established and preserved by the previous monarchs. They both were also great warriors like Kyan Sit Thar. The territory of Myanmar at the time of them was hugely extended even beyond the border of Burma. Burmese people are ever proud to have such heroes recorded in the history of the country. They are also the true winners of the national love and respect.

Apart from those mentioned Kings, there was one hero who had a mad love to his country. He knew nothing but loved his nation and his people. The Burmese history will ever proudly inscribe his name in its pages. He is Gen. Aung Sann, the father of Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi who is the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Party. Mr Aung Sann, whose life was growing up at the time of the World Word Second (WWII), since he had been a student at Yangon University, had fought against the country's multicolored enemies including Japan Fascists and British Colonists. He, on the one hand, along with other young fellows who are called later the "Thirty Comrades", went to Japan to have the the military training so that they could fight against the British colonists. On the other hand, he tried to be getting on with the English in order that the Japanese Army was expelled from the country.

The military strategy used by the young Aung Sann, though seemingly very simple, could persuade the minds of the majority in the country. The dream of winning "independence" was relied on Mr. Aung Sann. As a reaction, his mind had been obsessed by the dream of independence. He was fighting against Japan as well as English who had been manipulating the country for numerous decades or even centuries. However, he could not see when his nation won the independence from the British Government in January 4th, 1948. He and his six members during the meeting were brutally assassinated by the rival political group masterminded by Galon U Saw. It was today, the 19th of July, 1947.

Even though the event has been left behind for over six decades, whenever the 19th of July comes, the nightmare is ever renewed. The aftermath ever reminds our mind. Some people might be probably still shocked by that tragic assassination. We enormously love him. He is even regarded as the "Father of Burmese Independence". He is a true and historical martyr of the Burma. Therefore, he together with his political comrades assassinated then and there were greatly honoured and respected. Though there were historically many national heroes in the country, by the "Martyrs Day" in Myanmar is meant "the day when Gen. Aung Sann and his political members were gunned down.

Aung San Zarni

Born on February 13 was he
Born in 1915 to Lawyer U Pa Tha
In the City Of Blessed Meguay
Mother's name was Daw Su
The year 1947 died he,
On July 19th everyone weeped.
He is the cause of our Independence.
He is the father of this nation.
The blessings he had given us, the words he had uttered.....
How can we ever take those out of our minds......

(This poem is wholly copied from Wikipedia Website)

Teacher's Apology to a Student

"What must be used to avoid a "Plagiarism?" asked a class teacher to the students in the classroom. There were ten students altogether taking each of theirs seats and I was sitting on the nearest chair by her desk. I gave an immediate answer to her question without carefully thinking the answer correct or not. The answer I offered was that "Firstly a vocabulary has to be changed. All class including the teacher burst out laughing. But I didn't notice what's wrong with my answer.

I was still reading the course text book by ignoring their laughter and the second attempt was made to provide another supportive answer that "and a word order can be changed". At this time, all students seemed not to be able to stop laughing. Some, I think, might produce even tears. My head was upright and I was puzzled why they couldn't help laughing so violently. I looked at all them and asked what my mistake made them all to have such a laughter at me. Some students stopped laughing though some were in difficulty to do so. The teacher, trying to be serious, explained that she didn't mean to me. She might probably think that I was outraged at the way I had been treated. If so, it was absolutely wrong. There was something unmentionable in my heart dealing with why I was upset.

It was 12:00 pm when the morning class was over. My heart was till burning and there was something indigestible there. I set out the class without speaking to anybody and went down to the ground floor where I usually have my lunch. When the college post office was passed, a black men who is in charge there said "Hello". I replied him with the same word but with different mood. In fact, he looks a good man but I was still annoyed at the situation experienced in the class. I continued till I got at the college grocery where two bananas and one cafe latte were bought for lunch.

When I was standing up nearby the grocery taking the coffee and bananas in my hand, I suddenly happened to see my teacher coming to me. Taking me somewhere nearby, she apologized by saying that she didn't laugh at me to be upset and that she was very sorry for her behaviour. But I was really surprised to be apologized by the teacher. I didn't even know how I would reacted to her and I said that I was OK, no need to have such an apology to me. I had no an idea what to say more.

She went back and I climbed down to the lower ground for my daytime meal. I was alone and quietly having my lunch there by reckoning about something happened a moment ago. I was really pondering how British people respected others and human-rights. And I was reflecting back on the teachers in Myanmar whether they were ready to apologize their students at such a situation. May be some but most of them might not.

Poverty

The word “Poverty” is defined in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary in two senses: (1) the state of being poor and (2) a lack of something; poor quality. According to this definition, poverty is a lack of food, accommodation, education, powerlessness and insufficient for health care and the like. These consequences are caused by various types of reasons just as government policy, unemployment, lower wages, inflation, gambling, war and some natural disasters.This essay will fundamentally discuss on the causes and effects of poverty by taking some relevant examples.

Myanmar, for example, ranks (135) out of (179) countries in the world for quality of life. A half population of 55 million people is still in poverty line. Owing to the corrupted military government system ruling the country for almost four decades, the vast majority of people nationwide are ever facing with huge problems such as low income, unemployment alike. Many children from poor families living in suburb as well as urban areas cannot go to school.

Gambling is another big problem leading to several households deficient in living costs. Both men and women risk huge amount of money on the diversity of lottery dominating across the nation. As a result, many households become poorer and poorer. Some people lose even their residences encountering the lack of shelter.

Hunger is, although there is rarely seen and heard of such events like the death from starvation and famine owing to the abundance of the natural resources in the country, still a problem demanding for a better solution. In some part of the country, in Kayin state, for example, many households are hunger-stricken due to the civil war. They have to shift from place to another to avoid the war between the ethnic minority insurgents and the government army. In consequence, a number of families become homeless and stricken by the hunger.

Another inevitable cause of poverty is the natural disaster. Even though Myanmar is not a country often hit by disastrous storms, the lower part of it, the Irrawaddy delta was deadly devastated by the Cyclone Nargis, in March 2008, which resulted in over 100,000 deaths and left over two million people homeless, hopeless and hungry.

Moreover, the disaster caused thousands of children parentless and loss of their future. Besides, though some people did not die at the spot during the disaster there, due to the shortage of drinking water and deficiency of nutritious food, some health conditions like dehydration and diarrhoea broke out in the region and there was no an appropriate treatment for them. The consequence was most of them helplessly died leaving the rest family members in destitution.

The poverty in Myanmar, to sum up, though it is the result brought about by diverse causes in other different parts of the planet, has principally been the effects of the mentioned causes. However, except the unavoidable natural disasters, the other causes of this miserable condition might be more or less changed if the current ruling government system could be demolished.

Academic Success

Academic success is the aim of a student who attends a college or a university in his country or abroad. Many students around the world might not probably fulfill this purpose, especially students in under developed countries such as Myanmar (former name was Burma) are not fully expected to have such qualifications since the education system in such countries has been ran under the strict government control.

There are some criteria which a student must demonstrate if academic success is expected to achieve. A student must be able to analyse and evaluate information, able to effectively communicate with others, proficient in the information technology (IT), adequate for language skills and having global awareness.

Many students in Myanmar, for example, are deficient in the mentioned criteria for various reasons. There are two principal backgrounds why they are lack of those qualities. The first main reason is “poverty”. The other one is “corruption”. The vast majority of households, particularly in the suburbs are in need. Children born to those families could not reach their final educational gain which is to complete at least undergraduate levels, BA, BSc, for example. Only a small minority of families are wealthy enough to provide full support to their children. However, many of them have no the firm aim to achieve the academic success. To have a degree from a college is their final goal.

Furthermore, the students at the colleges in Myanmar largely seek for the right answers by memorizing them without analyzing whether they are logical or not. Studying by-heart is one of education systems which has been generally adapted nationwide. One of big problems is that most college teachers are there not well trained. In addition, if one of students fails the exam, the teachers are inquired by the government education officers by putting diverse questions. Consequently, the teachers being scared such questions let the students pass their exams without checking even the answers right or wrong. Thus, a number of students there could not well demonstrate their qualities to obtain the mentioned achievement.

By contrast, the students in the United Kingdom, particularly in the colleges and universities could be expected to have such an academic achievement because the second and the third stages, reported by Perry (1968) who scrutinized the intellectual development of Harvard undergraduates during four years at college, can be applied in the UK where the students are discouraged from seeking right answers to study by heart but heartened to think and analyse. The technical development is another supportive aid for them. As a result, global awareness, which is one of standards to have the academic success, could be demonstrated.

It is, according to my own experience, obvious that a student to obtain the full academic success needs to be at appropriate environments where all necessary facilities are available. To have a good educational system, which can produce the academic success of students depends on a good government who can equip all necessary facilities for the better education.

Gain and Fail

Without failure in life,

No success has taste.
Failure is a lesson,
If it is well assessed.
Success is a danger,
Unless it is preserved.

Gain and fail are teachers,
Ever going together.
Tears are not for the fail,
They're yet for the gain.
Either gives the lesson,
If we can find the reason.

The two faces in the life,
Even be seen at a night.
Why tears shed for fail,
Keep them t'shed for gain.
Never ever a loser,
Never ever a winner.

On My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday but I felt a bit shaky and unsteady having experienced some situations occurred around myself. When the house was about to be left, our big brother, Ko Tin Shway said "have a trip". In fact, it was not for a trip but I was setting out for the college with my friends. However, the situation was encountered as if predicted. The underground tube was taken at a quarter to nine (15 to 09: am) in the morning at Hounslow West Station. When the vehicle arrived at the Knightbridge Station, the announcement was made that the train would be suspended for sometime and stopped there. All commuters were astonished because this is unusual. Everyone at such time is hurried to their works. For us to our college. But no way. Another vehicle must be taken if the destination was to be seized in time.

Getting off the underground, passengers were in a hurry to look for the way-out and ask the staff standing up nearby which bus had to be taken to the directions they wanted to go. There was one of the Underground staff, a black girl, standing up expecting to be asked by the commuters as to their buses. Approaching her, she was inquired which bus went to the Russell Square where the SOAS College is located. She was puzzled and could not give an immediate answer and asked one of her senior staff, a black man standing near the machine door. A reply from him came quickly that the bus we should take was "No 10" which goes to King's Cross Station near Russell Square.

We went out of the Knightbridge tube station. It was almost 10 o'clock am when our class usually starts. We were in a rush to find a bus stop and in the middle of nowhere at the huge junction in the central London. Backing and forwarding from road to road, finally the bus stop was found. It took as good as ten minutes walk to get there from the station. At the stop, another ten minutes were wasted by waiting for the bus which arrived after 600 seconds. The bus was moving like a lazy tortoise as a long cue of buses were standing before it. In the central London, as usual cars, buses, taxis are always sandwiching between two huge blocks of tall buildings such as hotels, shopping malls, supermarkets, government offices alike.

We had already been late to get in time to the class. Farthermore, one anouncement was heard in the bus that it would go to other destination but not to the King's Cross station as usual and terminated on a half way, at the Warren Station. All passengers had to get off there. And so did we. We three again came cross anthor problem with finding the way to Russell Square. Fortunately, one of my friends knows how to get there as he the day-before-yesterday had lunch around those areas together with his classmates. He was heading the way and the rest two including me were following him. After about twenty minutes walk, we got at the college. It was already eleven o'clock which means we were exactly one hour late to the class. We had no choice.

As soon as went into the Main Building, one activity which cannot be avoided whatsoever being late had to be made. It was going into toilet. And the lift was taken us to the fourth floor where our classroom is located. When the door of it was pushed open, we both were astounded to encounter that there was exam. All other students had already been sitting at the examination room for one hour. The class tutor, Ms Catherine stared at us and gave a consoling smile to remove our tensions. She was appreciated for that. We went and took our seats to take the exam. As we did not know in advance we would have it today, my head suddenly became burning. I was at a loss what to do next.

However, a concentration was first gethered and established, and then focus was given on the exam question. It was to write an essay with (500) words for the topic "What must a student demostrate to achieve academic success". Again, I was bewildered. I did not know what they were. However, the best attemt was made in the exam though it was the first challenge for me at the London University. No one cannot be blamed for that. Situations in the natural world sometimes happen as we encountered yesterday. A thing which gose as wished is rarely found. Anyway, when we got back home, my birthday party was briefly celebrated by three of us. This is what was experienced on my birthday. Fantastic? Or fascinating? May be both. Enjoy!

Choose One, Leave the Rest

To be a student from other nations at one of prestigious universities--Cambridge, Oxford, London and so forth--in the Britain is not easy. Many investments such as time and money have to be deposited, especially a personal freedom has to be totally abandoned in a period of the term in a university. Nothing but study. It might be a bit sweeping statement to claim "Nothing" but for an inttellectually poor student like me it is a fact. Most of my time, personal freedom, money alike are invested in/on the study.

Students from other countries such as Myanmar, Thai, Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, France, Italy, Chili and so on come into the UK to study for variety of purposes just as to improve a language skill, to have an international experience, to achieve an academic qualification and the like. However, as the Nature does not allow a person to gain something free, a due attempt has to be made. Sometimes such a thought whether study abroad is worthy of such a great deal of investment might occur to a person. It should be understood that knowledge is unique and invaluable. To gain it, whatever valuable material belongs are to abandon deserves.

As one of sayings goes "A golden pot of knowledge cannot be stolen", a person's knowledge by no means can be taken away by others though it can be shared with. As a matter of fact, it deserves to deposit, to invest anything in the achievement of knowledge. A truly useful and helpful wisdom is not gained by/through cheap sacrifices. For example, a banker Sumedha, the-Buddha-to-be, left everything belonged to him for the sake of the knowledge and renounced even the world and so did the Prince Siddhattha. The ideals of them vividly reveal how powerful the knowledge is. When it is obtained, money, time, personal freedom and the like are automatically subordinate to it.

So, we are students. For us, what is the most important? And what is our main purpose? Money? Time? Personal freedom? Or knowledge? What would you choose? It's up to you. But be careful. Choose one and leave the rest.

Education in the West

It was 12:00 pm when the morning section of our class finished. All students, apart from I and my friend, Ko HMH, of our group (A) saying "good bye" to the teacher left the classroom. Ms Catherine Lewis was still remaining sitting on her chair googling and surfing something on the internet. We both were also prepairing to leave the room soon. Before going out of the room, I said to Ms Catherine "Good bye, teacher".

I got a sudden reply from her. 'No No No, don't say "teacher", she said, lifting a card on which her name is written "CATHERINE" in all block letters. I was astonished and asked why. Her answer is very reasonable and logically acceptable to the academics. She commented as below:
"we all are students who are learning something from each other. There are many things to learn from you all. From each one, something can be learned. So, I prefer to be called "Catherine" but not "teacher".

This is one of incredible ideas of an open society, the West. So, what about in the Eastern part of the world? We, easterners, have our own ideals and criteria. Especially, we Buddhists grow up in the cradle of the Buddha's teachings. Since we are young, we are instructed to obey older persons. If an individual is even one-day older than us, we must not show any disregarded manners to him/her. We have some traditionally respected admonitions:
"Pay respect to the older, regard to counterparts and sympathize with the younger"

Besides, some Buddhist teachings just as "garavo ca nivato ca" meaning : the blessings of respect and modesty are ever reminding us to pay due respect to our elders, teachers and whoever is respected. In the Buddhist world, if a student calls his/her teacher's name, it implies that he/she is impolite and shows his/her disrespect to a teacher.

However, there are always advantages and disadvantages in all cases as ever. Eeven thoug in the sense of that paying respect to teachers, elders is a blessing is beautiful and lovely, in the other sense, particularly in the educational eviroment, it is unpromising. In the east, usually in the Buddhist world, any question coming from who does not understand what a teacher says is not welcome to a teacher or a lecturer. Moreover, some teachers show even their aversion or unsavouriness to the students. Studtents have to be remaining silent shutting up their mouths though they have some doubts on the teacher's lecture.

This is a hugely unwelcoming disadvantage. Students trained in the way of above mentioned gradually become stereotypings. In addition, when they come to the West, they happen to encounter what they have not expected before. I am not sure for others but for me it is absolutely true. I have now to try to open my mouth as much as I can to ask any questions, on which I have a doubt, to a teacher by adopting a new culture.

I come to know that sometimes some stereotypical teachings such as religious admonitions, though not all, can hinder and deter a student from progress and improvement in the study, especially in the western world where a student's learning or study is provided with all necessary facilities including the admittance of opening their inner mind-door to all atmospheres. This is, I realize, the figure or the result of a democracy for which we have been fighting for decades in our country, Myanmar. One day, I hope, when we possess this system in our hand, our Burmese society also become disclosed for everything. But when?

A Castle On Our Own Attempt

The wind this morning was softly blowing and the weather outside was slightly chilly. Before I left my house, I had to take on some warm clothes to protect my sensitive body from a cold. Today's weather was forecast to be patchily raining in the afternoon. Grandpa told me to take an umbrella but I don't have that one. I won't take it even though I had as it is unusual to take the umbrella for men in the UK. The English weather, though changes very often, is very lovely for me. I like it especially the sunny weather because it is slightly cold though radiantly shining.

The three friends including me went out our house and walked to the station as yesterday. However, I and one of friends had to run back home as we left our phones forgotten. We both were hurried up as it is important to arrive to the college in time. When we walked back having taken our cells, a Malaysian old lady, who is on duty to stop all vehicles running on the road for pedestrians, asked us if we found what we had forgot. We replied her with our positive answers. She showed a smile on her face indicating that she was happy for us. We expressed our thanks to her. And both of our feet were speedy again to the tube station.

On an arrival at the Hounslow West, I was surprised to encounter that the station was crowded with commuters waiting for the Underground coming from the Heathrow Terminal 1,2,3,4 and 5. When the train comes into the underground station, all daily travelers to their each work get on it. Unfortunately, all seats were taken and I had to be standing up for about an hour in the tube. After two or three stations were passed, three middle aged ladies got on the train and like I did, they also had to stand up beside me. To my surprise, they were very talkative and speaking a bit loudly. I was reading there but no concentraton could be established. My book had to be kept into the school-bag.

One hour later, the tube arrives at the Russell Square Station where many commuters including three of us got off and chose our respective directions. For us to the SOAS. When we got at the front of the Main Building, one of my classmates was sitting on the bench under a tree outside the building. It was an Italian girl, Ms Francesca, who can speak three languages--English, Japanese and her mother tougue, Italian. Raising up one of her hands, she first greeted me with saying 'Hellow'. And my positive reply swiftly flew to her. I was waiting for her coming from her bench standing up at the staircases into the Mail Building where our classroom is in. I asked her if she had breakfast. She nodded her head and said 'yes'. It was the first conversation with her this morning. I think I was happy at that moment. Don't you think I should be so?

Our class room is in the forth floor that is the topmost one. Actually the building consists of six floors covering lower ground and ground floors. There is a lift but I didn't use it as I wanted to climb up together with my classmate by talking about this or that making an informal conversation and to have some physical exercises which is got free. When we both got there, there were other students sitting on chairs in a common room waiting for the time when the class tarts. I asked them if the room was found and one of them replied 'yes' but it was still locked. I set out to find where it was because I reckened that I had never been there. However, when I got there I discovered it was the same room where we yesterday had our class in.

At exact 10:00 am, Ms Catherine, a class teacher, came in and said 'Hello'. Our class today started with a book "8-Week Pre-sessional Student Course Book-2009" which is particularly issued for the students like us for the academic purpose only. The book renders us some ideas mainly for the academic writing. The students had to discuss on a relevant issue given in the book. A teacher's duty is just to correct or guide what we think. She did not explain a lot but was examining her class and listening to them. Thus, we were allowed to have self-improvement and self-confidence as well. It is my preference to have such a good guidance. I found that some students expected to have some teachings from her. But at our level, though not as high as others comparatively, we don't need to anticipate to get such a thing from exprienced lecturers who have already known our academic status to some extent. We must build our castle on our own attempt. Am I right?

My Memory

I saw a bird this morning,
Longing for his sweetheart,
Singing a sound in a tree,
Feeling lonely in the heart.

I feel sad seeing him,
Having a consideration,
Not to be like him pray,
Want to be not you away.

Like a dream be my life,
You are ever in my night,
Though I away from you,
You are near to me too.

(This poem was composted by My Heart for me to honor my birthday. Thanks a lot)

The First Day at the SOAS College

I hope, friend, this letter may find you are ironically healthy and ok with all conditions. Just now I came back from the SOAS College, the University of London. As I told you before, today was the first day at the college where the 8-week pre-sessional course is taken place for the international students like me whose language skill is insufficient for an access to their respective direct postgraduate courses.

I woke up this morning very early as I felt exited and could not soundly fall asleep. I was thinking what I would undergo on the day of orientation at the college. After having paid homage to the Lord Buddha and recited some protection Sutras, I had breakfast together with two of my friends who also might have the same feeling like I had. At 8:30 am when the morning meal was finished, we three set out directing to the Hounslow West Station where the Underground tube is taken. A 15-minutes walk is adequate to get to the station from our residence. We were not hurried since we knew that we were earlier enough to arrive at the University of London in time. 10:00 am was our dated time when all international students must be in the teaching room.

We got at the college which is located at Russell Square earlier than expected and went round here and there finding the room we must be in. When the room was found, I was surprised because there was no one inside. I glanced up the clock which is hung on the wall. A longer hand was pointing to 9 while a short one to 10. I realized that we all three were the first comers. We got there 15 minutes in advance. In due course when the longer hand was pointing to the No-12 on the face of the clock, all students, teachers and department staff concerned were gathering together in the room.

When all the students were seated, Ms Sue Yates who is a Head of Language Department made a speech on what the freshers should know. She is a very fast speaker. Some words could not be caught though most of them were understandable. She first introduced herself with the students and then her department staff. And each file which includes all information for the students was given to us and she explained about them. The second introduced person was a Foreign Student Adviser, I think, whose name was dim to my memory. She distributed some leaflets to us, whose cover has some pictorial figures some of who are short while some are tall some are disables whereas some are normal. All people in the picture are holding hand and hand which may mean all individuals from all over the world are welcome to the University of London without any discrimination if they are qualified on the media language, English.

And Ms Jenny, a young lady who is a student manager, gave some instructions on the information as to necessacity for visa extention. After that, the staff manager made a long speach about studends' situation at the SOAS by introducing with course teachers: Ms Catherine Lewis , a British lady and Ms Cher Di Boscia, a Canadian . And then, all 19 studends are two-grouped of which I am included in the first group consists of 10 members who are led by Ms Catherine. When general informations were provided, we had snack just in an opposit room where water, coffee and some cakes are available free. All students seemed to be excited at the fresh inviroment and so did I. We were introcing with each other. This was a happy and memorable moment for all of us.

Almost 10 to 15 minutes had been spent there, the second group consists of 9 students led by a teacher, Ms Cher Di Boscio left the room in order that her students were orientated (oriented) towards library and then our group set off. Ms Catherine was heading us to show some rooms just as the Lockers, Students Study Room we should be first familiar with before we went to the library. We were taken to the Students Union Building which is full of facilities for the students such as a big swimming pool, gym (Health Club) alike. We happen to know that our university provides all necessary facilities to its learners.

This time the teacher was taking us to the library which consists in the Main Building consists of the five floors. She postulated some instructions in detail and made the students introduce themselves. This event was very fascinating. All students looked very happy and pleased with the attractive moment. After introduction, we all moved to the library where one of librarians took the responsibility to explain about the library. She looked first one of very serious staff but almost everything we should know later was detailed to us. Almost about one hour was taken there. We get to know how to use our library cards, how to borrow books there and how to use computers in the library which is full of hundreds of thousands of comprehensive books, academic items, etc. The library is a really outstanding building and one of the salient features of the University of London. I am really proud to be one of education-seekers there. What about you, my friend? You too might be, I hope.

ေဆးလိပ္ျပာသက္ေသ

မင္းအေၾကာင္းေတြး
တစ္ေရးေရးနဲ႔
ေဆးလိပ္ေတြ ျပာျဖစ္
သိပ္စိတ္ညစ္တယ္
ဘာျဖစ္လို႔မ်ား ခ်စ္ခဲ့မိပါလိမ့္္?

ေတြးမရခုိက္
တစိုက္စိုက္ ရႈိက္ဖြာ
အေရအတြက္တိုးပြါး
ေဆးလိပ္ျပာေတြပဲ မ်ားမ်ားလာတယ္။

ရင္မွာ အေျဖမရွိသလို
အျပင္မွာ ေနမထိတာေၾကာင့္
ေနာက္တစ္လိပ္ ဆက္ဖြာ
ခြက္ထဲမွာ ျပာျပည့္
စဥ္းစားၾကည့္ေတာ့
အဲဒါ အခ်စ္သက္ေသေပါ့။

ႏွလံုးသား ဒုိင္ယာရီ

မျမင္ကြယ္ရာမွ
ဟုိး----အေ၀းက ခ်စ္သူ
ႏႈတ္မဆက္ ထြက္ခြါ
ေလာကကို စိတ္နာသြားသတဲ့။

မခ်စ္ခ်င္လို႔မွ ဟုတ္ပဲ
ရင္ထဲမွာ အၿမဲရွိ
မင္းသိေအာင္ မေျပာခဲ့တာကိုေတာ့ ခြင့္လႊတ္ေနာ္။

အခ်စ္ဆိုတာ
တစ္ေယာက္စာ အတြက္ပဲ
အသက္ဆက္ဖို႔
ဖန္ဆင္းခဲ့သလား?

ႏွစ္ေယာက္စာ အခ်စ္
ကိုယ့္မွာ ျဖစ္တည္
တကယ္လို႔မ်ား ရွိခဲ့သည္ျငား
မင္းအတြက္အခ်စ္
ငါေပးခဲ့ ခ်င္ပါတယ္။

ႏွလံုးသားအေဟာင္း
ကိုယ့္အေၾကာင္း သိမ္းဆည္းထားတဲ့ေနရာ
ဘာျဖစ္လို႔မ်ား
အသစ္နဲ႔လဲရစ္
ခြဲစိပ္ပစ္လိုက္ရတာလဲ?

ႏွလံုးသားအသစ္
ကိုယ့္အခ်စ္ကို နားမလည္ခင္မွာ
အေဟာင္းေမြခံ
အေၾကာင္းေတြဖန္ခဲ့ျပန္ၿပီေကာ။

မင္းခ်စ္တဲ့ ငါ
ေ၀ဒနာနဲ႔လူတစ္ေယာက္
ဥေပကၡာသားေကာင္လို႔ မမွတ္လိုက္ပါနဲ႔။

ႏႈတ္သေဘာမဲ့ အခ်စ္
ထုတ္မေျပာတဲ့ အျဖစ္ရယ္ေၾကာင့္
မင္းတစ္ေယာက္ နာက်င္
တသြင္သြင္စီးတဲ့ မ်က္ရည္ေတြနဲ႔ အတူ
ေနာက္တစ္ခါ ႏွလံုးအက္ကြဲ
အသက္ပဲ ေပးဆပ္လိုက္ရေလတယ္ကြယ္။

ငါဘယ္လိုေျဖေဖ်ာက္
ေျပေပ်ာက္မယ္ မထင္ပါနဲ႔
အၾကင္နာမဲ့သူမဟုတ္
ရင္မွာတဲ့ သူတစ္ေယာက္တည္းရယ္ေၾကာင့္
စိမ္းသေယာင္ျပဳ
တိန္းသေယာင္အတုေတြနဲ႔
ကိုယ့္ကိုယ္ကို ညာမိ
ငါသိလိုက္တဲ့ အခ်ိန္က်ေတာ့
မင္းတစ္ေယာက္ မျမင္
ေလာကရဲ႕အျပင္ ထြက္ခြါ
တကယ္က်န္ရစ္ခဲ့တာက
ငါပါ---ဟာ။

ခ်စ္သူသို႔

အနမ္း
သရမ္းတယ္ မထင္ပါနဲ႔
ရင္မွာ ခ်စ္စိတ္
တဒိတ္ဒိတ္နဲ႔
မ်ိဳသိပ္ဖို႔ခက္
ကိုယ့္အတြက္ေလ
တစ္သက္တာ သိမ္းထားမွာပါ။

အလြမ္း
စခန္း ဘယ္မျမင္ေပမဲ့
ဟုိယခင္က
ခ်စ္ခဲ့ၾကပံု
စိတ္အာရံုစြဲ
အသဲထဲထိ
အၿမဲ တမ္းတေနမွာပါ။

အနမ္းေၾကာင့္ အလြမ္းပို
အရမ္းကို ခ်စ္မိ
အျပစ္ရွိလား
မင္း စဥ္းစားၾကည့္
ကိုယ့္အမွားေတာ့ မထင္ပါ။

ခ်စ္တယ္ဆိုတာက
အျပစ္ရယ္ မျမင္ပါမွ
ထာ၀စဥ္ႏုပ်ိဳ
အိုသည္ မရွိ
အၿမဲ လန္းဆန္းမွာေပါ့။

ဒါေပမဲ့
အနမ္းရွိမွ
လြမ္းမိတယ္လို႔ေတာ့ မထင္လိုက္ပါနဲ႔။
ကြ်မ္းရိတဲ့ အသဲ
ရင္ထဲမွာ ငို
အၿမဲလိုပဲ
အပိုမေျပာပါဘူး ခ်စ္သူ။

အၿမဲပဲ လြမ္းေနမယ္
အသဲပဲ ကြ်မ္းေစရယ္----လို႔
ခ်စ္မိသည့္၀န္တာ
လြန္တာရွိရင္လဲ ခြင့္လႊတ္ပါ
မေတာ္တာရွိရင္လဲ အျပစ္ေလွ်ာ့ပါ
ခ်စ္---ခ်စ္သူရယ္။