Happy New Year 2012!

I would just like to wish all my family, friends and other readers, a very Happy New Year for 2012.

The year that has just passed has been a good one, in general, for us, on several fronts and the year to come promises to possibly be even better. I hope it is, too, for you all.

Best wishes.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 2010

I know this is a little late for Xmas, but it has been a busy time. Merry Xmas, all, for 2010 and a Happy New Year to come.

As I expect holds true for any of you who have children, our Xmas morning was marked by the very early waking of our excited sons. Fintan, in particular, said, touchingly: "I went to sleep as fast as possible, to wake up as soon as possible". He clearly wished to push a perceptual fast forward button on his pre-Xmas morning, night. Ainan, for his part, said: "I couldn't sleep!", so his sense of anticipation came out in other ways. Tiarnan was very excited, but didn't comment about his sleep.

Seeing them, so active, so early on Xmas morning, called to mind my own childhood, when I, too, along with my brothers and sister, would wake with early excitement, on Christmas morning - no doubt to the inconvenience of our parents. It was a multilayered experience, therefore, seeing them bouncing about. In a way, I was seeing my younger, inner self, again, through them. This time, however, I understood it in a different way: I understood how it must have been for my parents, seeing me, and my siblings, so excited on Xmas morning. Thus, the day had a greater sweetness, than it would have had, had I no such remembered experience to compare it with. The sense of an echo within, gave the passing moments a greater depth. They seemed, somehow, timeless - and I suppose they are, for ever since this tradition was first invented, of giving presents on Christmas day, children must have shared in the very same excitement that my children felt, this year and I had felt, myself, many years ago, when I was a similar age to them.

Though my children were and are unaware of it, they were participating in an age old tradition, that billions of children before them, have enjoyed throughout the ages. In a way, that gives Christmas morning a sense of importance, beyond anything that is directly perceptible or intelligible. Perhaps, when my children become parents themselves, they will sense, themselves, what I felt, this festive season. So, in turn, might their children feel the same, once adults - and so it goes on: a ripple of understanding and insight, passing through the generations, as each matures, in turn. Like much in life, of course, this is something which cannot and should not really be taught - it is something that must be lived, to be truly understood. Of course, when my children understand all this, I will understand something else: what it is for my parents, to be grandparents. That is something I look forward to. Strangely, it doesn't seem all that distant a prospect, perhaps because life doesn't seem as long as it used to, when I was younger. Now, it all seems a bit of a sprint to the finish line.

Anyway, they loved their gifts. Thanks, in particular, to the ones sent by my own mother and father, from the UK. The effort is appreciated and the kids were particularly taken by those gifts. Indeed, they are still playing with them, as I write.

Have a festive time, all.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

250,000 blog visitors and counting...

Today begins a new year...it also marks the crossing of a threshold, for me. This morning, my blog visitor count crossed the quarter of a million mark and, at 6.30 pm Malaysian time, on 1/1/10, New Year's Day, I have had 250,080 visitors to my blog, in total, since it began on September 19th 2006.

Now, to some a quarter of a million visitors may not sound like much. However, I would like you to think about it, for a bit. How many people do you think you will meet, personally, in your lifetime? No matter how gregarious you are, there is just no way it is going to reach a quarter of a million. How many people, in your lifetime, will you actually speak to? Again, no matter how gregarious you are, it is not going to reach a quarter of a million - unless you are a performer of some kind and take to the stage on a regular basis - and talk about yourself. However, on a personal basis, there is no way you are going to speak to a quarter of a million people. Thus, that quarter of a million people that I have communicated with, is a very significant number: it is many times more than the number of people I could possibly have communicated, personally, to, in a lifetime of random chatter.

So, even though I have not left my computer to do so, I have managed to "chat" to many lifetimes worth of people, in the three years since my blog began. I think that is an unexpected and worthy accomplishment since, when I began my blog, I had no idea how popular it would prove, or whether anyone would find it and read it at all. I was writing, expressing my thoughts at the time. I had no idea of the size of the audience I would reach.

By another scale of reckoning a quarter of a million people is a significant number, too. Imagine, for instance, that that represented the number of book sales, I had made. It is quite something to sell a quarter of a million copies of a book. So, compared to the typical sales of books, my blog has proven to be a "best seller".

I am conscious, however, that there are much more successful blogs in this world. Yet, I am not crestfallen to know this. Those other blogs are not, like my own, niche interests. They are usually focussed on a mass market interest - such as film star gossip, some young woman's love life, or the like. I cannot, therefore, expect to compete with revelations of Tom Cruise's private life, or Brad Pitt's kids.

I am happy to know that my blog is being read by people with an interest in what interests me - and that is enough. That there should have been so many of them, over the past three years, is quietly pleasing.

Thank you, for reading. If you have enjoyed any of my posts, do let others know about my blog, so that they can enjoy it, too.

Happy New Year.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Happy New Year

With a suddenness that is rather surprising, in a way, a year has passed, once again. Someone, somewhere, is surely shortening them!

Happy New Year, everyone, everywhere, however you chose to celebrate it.

This year is particularly notable for one reason: it is the last year, to the first decade of the only new Millenium any of us are likely to see. Not only did the past year zip by, but, from my point of view, the whole decade has almost zipped by, too. However, I can't say a lot hasn't happened since it began (how about three sons...?)

I hope we all have a better year ahead, than the one pundits say we all face.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Happy New Year, 2008, everyone.

I would like to wish everyone, everywhere, a Happy New Year for 2008.

I wish you all well, in whatever you hope to achieve in the coming year.