Go listen to This American Life: reap what you sow. The episode is very insightful and moving, but doesn’t guilt trip you into living in a teepee, or living in a hippie van and selling all your belongings, or moving to Portland and only eating chickens who lived fulfilling and happy view and had names and friends.
One example of the content follows:
Last week’s This American Life shined a spotlight on the working conditions in the Chinese factories where iPhones are made. Just one example of the hardships there: the men and women in these factories work very long days spent repeating the same motions over and over, which creates amped-up carpal tunnel syndrome in their wrists and hands. This often results in them losing the use of their hands for the rest of their lives. This condition could be easily prevented if the workers were rotated through different positions in the factory, but they are not. Why? Because there are no labor laws in China to protect these people.
fall in love with the world & it will swoop you up in its arms & smother you with kisses. you will get all your joy & excitement back a million times over…even when you feel hard & cold & angry, you have more love to give away than you could ever believe possible. it is infinite like galaxies. just give it away. imagine cartoon hearts in hot pink & vivid red floating out of your chest & popping over the heads of everyone, showering them with hope & blessings & encouragement, and your life will begin to change. it will become this sparkling carousel of magic & wonder.
Unknown on Note to Self
The island gleams in the distance, calling to me, as if a beacon of hope in the desolate sea. I push myself to keep swimming, recalling horror stories of people pausing to rest ‘for just a minute’, and dying because they couldn’t start swimming again.
As I near the island, I stand up, my numb, tender feet minced on the sharp shells and sand. On dry land, I let my body fall, sagging under its own weight. My skin prickles and peels against the hard, rocky sand. I have been in the sun too long. I have been sunburnt and burnt again before my skin had time to tan.
Lying there, eyes closed, I just listen, willing myself to sleep. The loud crashing waves remind me that, however hot and thirsty I may be, I am no longer stuck in the crashing roar that is this part of the Atlantic. I hear gulls in the distance, their cries falling off the back of nowhere. I think I fall asleep, but I’m not really sure.
I finally pick myself up, and stumble off the sand. As I stand, I see a jelly fish, and jarringly dodge it, knowing a sting would be too much. I look up at the island, dismayed at what I see.
The landscape speaks only of desolation. Dry and dying grasses lean in the heat, their sparseness filled in with sand. Trees, normally a blessing, here just remind me of the lack of nutrients, for they are small and limp, swaying in the small amount of wind. Jagged rocks heated by the sun, heated enough to fry an egg, fill in the gaping holes left by the dying grass.
The landscape, in short, provides me nothing that might actually help me survive this nightmare. I feel dismay creep deeper in as I realize I do indeed have very little to live on. I haven’t seen any fish, only small minnows, too small to eat. I have also seen gulls, but only few, far between, and never on land.
I inhale deeply, smelling only salt. I am not surprised. There is little here to produce a stench, either good or bad. As the salt-smell reaches my brain, my tastebuds pick up the smell, and I start salivating, my stomach smashing gasses together, reminding me of my hunger.
I walk toward the middle of the island, hoping to find a bit of the hope I felt when I first reached this place, but I have little hope of hope. My hope has been beaten by the brutal waves, mixed by the juxtaposition of dried grass and endless sand, lost like the cries of the hungry gulls in the distance, cut by the sharp stones, and swallowed like the bittersweet taste of tears.
It’s the Royal Fly Killer’s birthday.
So far, the flies have left her alone.
We’re all going to see the HMS stage production tonight.
You can expect a full review within the next week.
The question then remains, what shall my fluent writing occur as a result of?
I will tell you. My talented rhetoric and grandiloquence will come about because of National Grammar Day!
Mathematical story problems are a source of eternal amusement for me. The person who writes them probably has a ton of fun, probably almost as much as the guy who writes the predictions in fortune cookies.
A classic example of coincidentally hilarious results comes from a math test I (and many other children, both homeschooled and otherwise) took about two and a half years ago.
In this case it was a problem about four people who were running or something. There were five girls, all with beautiful names, in the problem.
It’s also important that you know of another family we know. They have… eleven kids, ten girls.
Now, coincidentally, each of these names in the math problem, was also the name of one of these ten girls. That‘s coincidence at it’s finest.
This year, I am working my way through Advanced Mathematics and this in of itself has it’s own share of unfortunately named participants. For example, a recent story problem started, “Lorijayne smiled, for she had purchased c cats for only d dollars.”
Another rather beautiful “‘coincidence’ occurred, for me, more recently, this afternoon.
The one really beautiful correlation that was overlooked occured in problem set 49, problem number five:
“Mugabee thought he was rich because he was paid $240 for a 40-hour week.”
To really get this effect, you must read it out loud:
“Mugabee thought he was rich because he was paid $240 for a 40-hour week.”
Here’s another sentence for you to read out loud, from a Wikipedia article:
“Zimbabwe today is in conflict over the reign of President Robert Mugabe.”
Apparently, my math book was written before all these problems in Zimbabwe. Apparently, it was written before the whole world new who President Mugabe was. Apparently, it was written before the whole world new it was cheaper to use Zimbabwe Dollars as wallpaper than as actual currency.
That quote about President Robert Mugabe continues: “Human rights abuses and economic mismanagment leading to hyperinflation and impoverishment have increased popular support for newly sworn in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai.” [emphasis added]
Conclusion?
You Just Don’t use ‘Mugabee’ as a name for some average guy who thinks he’s rich because he earned $240 dollars. Because my first thought was, ‘Wait, Mugabe uses ZWD… the one’s that have no value. Because 240 of them is only 3USD.’
Also, maybe we could just force these story problem writers to keep them selves updated on the news.
Foxtrot: Fibonachos
We have just recently watched The Pink Panther twice, and my new favorite movie one line part of a scene is most decidedly:
Inspector Clouseau is talking to the owner of all the casino’s and his cell phone rings the obnoxious little song that everyone has as their ringtone. Come on. You know the one.
Anyway, his cellphone rings, and he reaches to answer it (with a vase stuck on his hand), and as he does so, he says,
“It is my personalized cell-phone tone-ring.”
First, of course, is the fact that the ringtone is so not personalized.
Next, is the fact that he is calling his ringtone a ‘tone-ring’. Anyone who might have a personalized ringtone would have seen the word ‘ringtone’ often enough to know that it’s a ringtone, not a tone-ring.
*The stuffed eskimo might be able to stop laughing at some point, but not now.*
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