Why do men fall asleep after sex? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg M.D.

This is exactly the type of book you need when you are trying to raise intelligent children. My husband frowned at the title but he was chuckling along as I posed the questions to my two boys and all three of them fought to answer.

Why do older people fart more than younger people? My husband was the first to answer, “Because they have no more control.” My 9 year old supplemented, “Because the butt muscles is loose, mom!” hahaha….they got that right on. Anal spinchter muscles are loose.

Can bald men get lice? Eeeww….the kids said. Only body lice since head lice has nothing to hold on to but body lice are small enough to stay on.

Do humans really use only 10 to 20% of their brains? My husband said it’s only 2% that we use. But the researchers studied brain activity and believe that is the minimum they use.

How does aspirin find the pain? It doesn’t, but the aspirin stops cells from making prostaglandins, chemicals that send messages along the pain fibers to the brain to tell you you are in pain.

Can animals be gay?  8% of them are gay.

Artist block when confronted by His Glory

Recently, I have been having a hard time putting images on paper and the more I dwell in His Word and the bible, the more constrained I feel.  Today, I wrote to Deborah Secor, a renowned pastelist, founder of the Pastel Journal, author of painting manuals and a long time instructor for her advice.  I hope that anyone who feels the same way would find our communication useful.  Thank you, Deborah, for allowing me to share your encouragement with my readers.

Deborah,

We don’t communicate a lot but once or twice, I posted in gouache and some other threads we happened to be at together.

The reason I am writing is because last November, I’ve been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer and they gave me 3-4 weeks. Since then, with a targeted drug, and the Lord’s Grace, I am improving daily and my cancer cells are lower. My art has always been monsters, created mutants, landscape that are dark atmospherically and now, after throwing out all the books that have bad influences, except James Gurney’s, I am at a loss what else to draw.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Welcome to the new blog.  It has been 15 years ago that I discovered the internet at the height of full time motherhood with three young babies and since then have logged in over 43,000 hours of my valuable time looking at virtual novelties, celebrities, Asian pop culture, daily events that are of fleeting importance.  Not everything was aimless and mindless.  Some of those hours clocked in were to research on how to build websites, forums, how to type in Chinese, and translate song lyrics from various languages into English, and as my kids grew, finding striking conversational pieces for the dinner table.  With so many hours behind me, I should have earned a Ph D but in what? Temporal Studies.  When cancer struck in November 2012, I realize immediately that all I did so far was in vain.

Listening to…

Mandisa – Overcomer – You all got to read how she put Simon Crowell in his place when he criticized her on her weight.  I love it.  We should continue to be glorious examples of love as Jesus taught.

Audio Adrenaline – Believer – This song was inspired by a young blind surfer.  It’s incredible to see someone blind surf.  So inspiring and the video is very touching.  I almost cried.  Here’s is the lyrics video without the intro and sea waves.

Matt Redman – Endless Hallelujah

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest To Become The Smartest Person In The World by A.J. Jacobs

Yep, these are the type of non-fiction books I like. I turned to the first page and read how this guy wants to become just that…by reading Encyclopedia Britannica from A-Z.  His intro was very funny.  I was reading it while we waited for the food at the restaurant (yeah…we are not terribly sociable within the family…everyone with a book…hahaha) and I laughed so hard I kept tugging my daughter and took her away from Artemis Fowl in the far off galaxy.

Do you know abalone have five assholes?

Scripture of the Day

Last two weeks, my right elbow has been hurting and so couldn’t do a lot of art and a few days ago, I hurt my right thumb while cleaning windows so I’m out of commission again.  But I get to spend so much time to explore the scriptures and am enjoying it so much that I think the Lord engineered all this.  Last night, I was watching on youtube War of End Times Part 1 and 2 by David Reagan and it tells of the 9 wars that would happen before the end of the world.  For a Christian, it’s an exciting time to see the prophecies come true.  For non-Christians, they will just shrug it off as political instability and natural disasters. There’s no need to argue with each other who is right or wrong or why God is so unforgiving.  So at 3 am, I came to these verses.  Love this site that gives us comparisons of different versions to read.  I prefer Revised Standard Version which is not listed but is very close to English Standard Version.  Below is the New International Version which is used by 40% of English readers.

 

Wounded by Ronald J. Glasser, M.D.

I picked up this book because on the cover, it showed Vietnam and Iraq. I wanted to know the different effects between the two wars.  I glimpsed through the first half but it’s the second half that gripped me.  For those who are overseas, you may not know that the American army has shrunk from 4 million of the Vietnam era to a total of less than 1.4 million today.  For the war effort in Iraq, this country for the first time has to activate the Reserve and National Guard troops, which now account for 40% of the active duty troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s a volunteer force fighting in the name of American democracy, including many middle aged man who are overweight and single moms who have to worry about their children and bills and have to return to society to make a living if and when they return.

Did Marco Polo Go to China? by Frances Wood

This is definitely an eye opener type of book.  In almost all the history books on China or Italy, Marco Polo was always included be they for adult consumption or my children’s picture books. 

So why did Dr. Wood try to write Marco Polo out of Italian history?  Because based on his source studies in China, she, as the head of the Chinese Department at the British Library, tried to find Marco Polo in China through all the historical annals of the places Marco Polo said had visited but there was not such a person whether she looked it up the Mongolian way, Persian, Arabian, European, or Chinese pronunciation.  Marco Polo said that he has escorted a Mongol princess Princess Kokechin’s voyage to Persia to be married and while there were records of such a trip, neither the Chinese/Mongol analects nor the Middle Eastern sources revealed an Italian escort.

A Man With No Talents: Memoirs Of A Tokyo Day Laborer by Oyama Shiro

I have never really read a book written by a homeless person, let alone one from Japan.  But this is exactly what it is.  Oyama Shiro graduated from a second tier university in Japan, worked for a while in a corporate but because he didn’t fit in, he quitted his salarymen job and went on to become a day laborer in his 40’s in San’ya, the busiest place for day laborers.  But recession hit and jobs became fewer by the year, until he finally decided to not spend money on a sleeping berth and become homeless.  In the 12 years, he wrote about his life and one day submitted his manuscript out of whim, and won one of Japan’s top literary awards, the Kaiko Takeshi Prize.

On reading his reluctance to go to soup kitchen and missionary handouts, you could feel how principled he is despite his poor conditions. Sigh…very good book. Haven’t read one so good in the past few weeks. His words are so well written, so eloquent I feel an ache reading how he wants to continue his itinerant life.  It’s such a pity that someone so literary would be homeless. You could read another review here. 

Reposted from previous blog entry dated August 21, 2006.

Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran

Xinran is a journalist who ran a radio show in China in the 80’s in China and in 1994, a listener called her to tell her of a Chinese woman who was wandering in Tibet for 30 years and just returned to China. She flew to meet her to learn of her story and 10 years later, she produced this story Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet.