There is no question about it: the earthquake in Japan was one of tremendous force and tragedy in our world.  I cannot say that I have ever heard of an 8.9 or 9.0 earthquake, but judging from how the Richter scale only goes up to 9, I can deduce that Mother Nature is truly a scary force to be dealt with, indeed.  Not only that, it brings up the question of the subsequent human ramifications.  How does this affect some of the man-made things in our world?  In this case, it’s about the nuclear power plants and the effects that the quake wrought on them, thereby releasing radiation into the air.  Many people are at risk of radiation poisoning, which is a very scary thing.

But then, how does one explain events like this to children?  Some children who are old enough may understand but others who are too young probably wouldn’t know what radiation was or why it is harmful.  Cue this video:

The Japanese explain the consequences of the earthquake to children and why the nuclear power plant (aka Nuclear Boy) could be bad for humans.  In short, it talks about how Nuclear Boy has a stomachache and that his poop is so stinky, no one wants to be near it.  It goes on to discuss how we would deal with Nuclear Boy and his stinkiness should he actually have to use the bathroom instead of merely farting.  It is really cute and quite fascinating how the Japanese would use a cartoon to depict this phenomenon.

It’s just another way of demonstrating how art pervades our world and is a perfect partner with just about every subject out there (e.g. science, technology, food, clothing, etc).

Rules of etiquette have been plaguing mankind for centuries. It can be a daunting task to navigate the subtleties and intricacies of gentlemanly or ladylike behavior. One man, however, seems to have managed to pinpoint the art of being a gentleman in a list of currently 43 rules on his website titled “The Rules of a Gentleman,” which you can access here. This website’s guidelines range from heartfelt advice about love to comical suggestions of classy smoking habits to old classics such as holding the door open for a lady. The charmingly lighthearted manner of this website makes it a very enjoyable read, which one can only imagine will remain entertaining and perhaps even instructive as the list increases.

As enjoyable as this list of rules for a gentleman was, I was disappointed to discover that I could not find a comparable list for ladies, so I decided to try my hand at beginning such a list. Below are my attempts at a few rules of a lady.

*Note – Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple decades, you know that smoking is bad for your health, so don’t do it.*

I would love to hear your suggestions for more “rules of a lady.” Feel free to post them in the comments below.

A

More Fun: If you try to navigate to a nonexistent page on “The Rules of a Gentleman,” this message will display.  I thought it was quite clever.

Update: “The Rules of a Gentleman” website appears to have been deleted.  Sorry everyone.

This week I would like to step back from the limelight and allow the spotlight to be directed towards a writer who I recently came across while burning some calories on my friend the elliptical.  I get extremely bored while on the elliptical, but I loath running outside and can hardly sustain a run longer that 10 minuets and 32 seconds, so I cut my loses and take my workouts to an enclosed, sweaty environment with other health conscious folks.

Where is this story going, you wonder?  Don’t worry, Ill get there.  So, I needed to pass the time while riding the elliptical.  My current distractions usually consist of other sweater and sometimes intense exercise companions to counting the tiles on the ceiling (but this one has proven dangerous).  So, I decided to bring along some reading material.  As you all know, if you are following my blog at all, that I am in the midst of reading Harry Potter.  Now, as much as I love Harry, he is not elliptical reading material.  I went to the next best thing, the New Yorker.  The New Yorker is perfect because it is light, bends easily, and includes various topics that sustain my short attention span.

I was flipping through the New Yorker this past week, which ticked off the time better than I thought, when I came across an article that was titled, Where I Live.  The title was not an instant eye catcher, but I noticed the article was only one page long so I decided to have a go.

The beginning paragraphs were mostly descriptive and could have lead to numerous story developments.  However, this story went from talking about her apartment to her love for cats.  I do not want to give too much away, because I think this author’s style of writing works well because of her subtle surprising details.

I will let you know though, that all of you cat lovers out there will definitely find this glued to your fridge upon finishing.

I have attached the link below for you.  I hope you enjoy!!

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/03/21/110321sh_shouts_ozols

A consequence of interweaving oneself with the world is the realization of how differently everyone perceives reality. The thought processes behind any particular work follow a specific pathway or logic that is simply intuitive to that person, and may be intuitive to that person alone. I often wonder at how others make sense of daily realities, how others ruminate, what other people’s thoughts even structurally look like. Are they as convoluted as mine? (Surely.) Do those that specialize in the same field have a different methodology than those in others? My attempt at looking in on the inarticulacy of something so common as a ‘thought’ is below, although I can only say this is true for my own experiences. (How would you describe a ‘thought’ in your own terms?)

For me, the unconstruction of my thought has always presented me with the challenge of projecting an idea. I have concluded, later to be re-concluded, that this stream of consciousness is not circular or linear like that of the stream, but spherical. Approaching and re-approaching the infinite points in space of questioning, understanding, ideas at various dynamic axes. The thought presents itself with an extreme clarity at the time but becomes impossible to revisit with any accuracy of what was before. The dynamic relatives constantly presenting themselves to me put my mind into a liquid state (very much like a stream) as well as a spherical state (very much un-like a stream). I have concluded my mind is in likeness with Europa. A large amount of water surrounded by a substantial shell of broken ice.

My roommate came in and she asked me, “Did you see the moon tonight?”  No, I had not, but it was, apparently, huge.

Sadly I personally missed this perigee moon as they call it, which occurs when the moon orbits at its closest point to the earth.  The last time this occurred was 18 years ago in 1993.  1993?!  I was barely four then!  After hearing about the super moon now I really wish I had seen it.  If it’s such a rare occurrence, then, man, I missed out…

Thinking about it, however, that is what photography is for, no?  So I proceeded to browse pictures on CNN that showed how the perigee looked all around the world, from our very own national capital in DC to places like Jakarta and the Philippines.  And looking at this, I thought to myself (note: this will sound cheesy, please beware), how amazing nature is.  Thinking about it, isn’t the world around us one of the best forms of art?  Oftentimes, people will ask– sometimes even condescendingly– “What is art?”  In the contemporary art world where so many different works are all considered to be “art”, when indeed it looks like an elephant painted a canvas with its tail, or as if a child had slapped together different planks and called it a sculpture, so many criticize the “easiness of art”.

But what is art, then?  It’s not what is found merely in museums or to be sold in galleries.  It’s what we find to be amazing, beautiful.  The things that we find so fascinating.  And more often than not, this falls under the realm of nature.  I can’t count the number of times I have looked up at the sky and thought it was so beautiful, that it warranted its own frame and space in a gallery.  And seeing how even the moon, which exists in our sky and is visible everyday, can in an instant “change” to captivate us and capture our attention, it goes to show how truly nature is a constantly changing art form.

Sigh.  But the great thing about nature is that most things repeat itself (though some things take more than a hundred years or so to occur).  Which means that hopefully I’ll be able to catch the super moon next time!

Jane Austen’s novels have been captivating readers for two centuries now (Sense and Sensibility was first published in 1811), and I, like so many before me, am an unabashed Jane Austen addict. So, you can only imagine my excitement when I heard the English department was offering a course on Jane Austen this semester. Of course I signed up, and on an average day, the Jane Austen class is fairly typical, though still extremely enjoyable, but yesterday, the entire class got to attend the English Country Dance lesson we had been promised on the first day of class.

If you’ve ever read one of Austen’s novels, the importance of balls and dance is obvious.  Many of the most important social interactions and connections of her stories either take place or begin at a dance, and a character’s dancing expertise has a tendency to correlate with some aspect of his/her personality.  For example, Mr. Collins’ foolishness in Pride and Prejudice is emphasized by his terrible dancing at the Netherfield Ball, and Mr. Knightley’s chivalry is exhibited at a dance. While reading one of her novels, the reader can sense that dancing was supposed to be second-nature to the people of the time and that to dance poorly was a sign of bad breeding or poor manners.

In several movie adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, English country dancing is depicted, and the actors always make it look so elegant and easy. This misconception is quickly combated, however, by just a few minutes of dance instruction. As a whole, my classmates and I managed to bumble our way through the dances we were taught, and even made it look like we knew what we were doing a time or two, but the truth of the matter is that though learning the dances was incredibly fun, they are nowhere near as easy as they appear in movies. The basic moves are fairly simple, but putting them all together and remembering which part you are supposed to play in a particular dance gets confusing very quickly.

Learning the basics of the dances that Jane Austen’s characters engage in so frequently gave me a new respect for this apparently simple social activity and since my own attempt at dancing was so atrocious, made me feel a little less judgmental of Mr. Collins’ poor dancing in Pride and Prejudice.