potpourri 6

1.  I got an email from ICQ last evening. I now have an official ICQ number and was encouraged quite charmingly to start using it. They must think am a dinosaur.

2.  Got linked to this article :

Japan is suffering a crisis of confidence these days about its ability to compete with its emerging Asian rivals, China and India. But even in this fad-obsessed nation, one result was never expected: a growing craze for Indian education

and then this:

Its 2-year-old pupils are taught to count to 20, 3-year-olds are introduced to computers, and 5-year-olds learn to multiply, solve math word problems and write one-page essays in English, tasks most Japanese schools do not teach until at least second grade. 

Let kids be kids for goodness sakes!

3. Impression Management on Steroids. Quite the lofty title for all networking and dating sites that are out there.

In one study of online dating, professors at Rutgers, Georgetown and Michigan State found that in the absence of visual and oral cues, single people develop their own presentational tactics: monitoring the length of their e-mail messages (too wordy equals too desperate); limiting the times during which they send messages (a male subject learned that writing to women in the wee hours makes them uncomfortable); and noting the day they last logged on (users who visit the site too infrequently may be deemed unavailable or, worse, undesirable).

Yikes! For once am I glad I am not in any dating scene, nor did I have to go through it. It does pay to be born in the 70’s I suppose and on the flip side being a dinosaur is oh-so-relaxing. Stress-free.

4. It’s official. I am the shoe and the bag lady at work. After the fantastic colorful entertaining conversation starter display I have on my cube the last coupla months, a colleague was inspired to get me a one-a-day calendar that features, handbags.  So far the bags have been quite cute. Champagne bucket look from Anne Marie of 40’s, a pepto-bismol pink with Christian Dior initials, and a white mirrored evening purse.
Am waiting for the bizarre days. As the one pictured on the cover – corsets and the like.

5. Also, this is my first ever gift an getting from someone other than the obligatory husband, in a really long long time. Am thrilled beyond words. I know, am lame, but what can I say, being the giver almost all my life has made me appreciate the sparse rare little gifts I ever get. I tend to associate gifts with thoughts. When someone’s gifted you something, anything, it means you have been in your thoughts enough to warrant an action. That is a good thing. Gets some hope going that the world is alright after all. Balanced, still sane.

Going by that hypothesis, it also means that there aren’t really too many out there who either think that way, or in a more cruel sense, don’t have me in their thoughts enough. Oh, what a vain crybaby I am!

6. Kite Runner – is killing me slowly. I have yet to finish it though. Usually I chew pages at an incredible urgent pace, but this book makes me want to slow down. The daughter caught me blinking out the tears as I turned to stare outside the plane on our return flight, and she told me in quite the mommy tone “mom, it’s just a book, don’t be a baby now”. 

Some of the passages are strong, evocative, that it’s hard to not stop and let the meanings flow through you, visualize the descriptives, and perhaps even draw parallels of the characters in your own mundane life.