August 29, 2005, 12:15am

Just done with my physiotherapy exercises. Very tired. Still working on my 9lb schedule. Perhaps I should try 10.5 lb tomorrow. Hope things wo well and I won't develop swelling.

This morning I was in the Chinese church again. We were somewhere in the Proverbs about mothers to discipline the children and children will not make the mother be ashamed.

Then the mothers talked a lot about to get their kids to do their assignments. That they want to watch TV and go out with friends, then scream and yell when the mothers don't approve until they finish the assignments.

So, I rasied the question about primary motivation and secondary motivation. Well, in my humble understanding, primary motivation is that, you enjoy doing what you're doing. It's rewarding to do what you do on its own. E.g. enjoy doing assignments and learning. Whereas secondary motivation is that, you enjoy the rewards after doing what you may or may not enjoy doing. E.g. Grades, candy, going out with friends, fame etc etc.

Then, Shirley said, but when the kids just don't enjoy doing homework, secondary motivation works. I said, "I don't know. It's the theory."

I really don't know. Just that, educational psychologists seem to want to see kids to enjoy learning, intrinsically. I only remember the textbook to say that primary motivation is better but don't remember why it's better.

Then Shirley said, "It's the theory. You don't have any children." Then we all laughed. That's right. I just don't know. I already said that.

After that, we're in the New Hope Church. Steve, the pastor said, UF has knee experts. They study football players and they're one of the best experts. True. football is really a big thing here.

I said, "Yes, everybody is interested in football and they may not be interested in me. I don't play football."

Anyways, I was looking around the gym, swimming pool... last Wednesday. I wanted very much to hop into the squash court... Well, the only things I can do are stationary cycling and swimming (Well, my attempt to learn swimming in the last month before I left Hong Kong was not successful).

Should be fine with light weight and more repetitions with cycling. But swimming, the minimum depth in the pool I investigated is 1.4m. Very frightening. I need to think 200 times before I dive into it.