ACTUALMENTE LES ESTOY PRESENTANDO LECTURAS SOBRE DIVERSOS TEMAS, SIN RELACIÓN ENTRE ELLOS PORQUE UNA DE LAS CONDICIONES PARA LA COMPRENSIÓN DE LECTURA ES LEER LO MÁS QUE SE PUEDA, PROCUREN BUSCAR EL SIGNIFICADO DE LAS PALABRAS QUE IMPIDAN QUE USTEDES OBTENGAN LA IDEA PRINCIPAL DEL TEXTO QUE ESTÁN LEYENDO, NO OLVIDEN ADEMÁS QUE EXISTEN COGNADOS FALSOS (PALABRAS QUE SE ESCRIBEN IGUAL ENTRE LOS IDIOMAS PERO QUE NO SIGNIFICAN LO MISMO) EN LA SESIÓN DEL DÍA 26 DE ABRIL HAY UNA LISTA DE COGNADOS  FALSOS, DEBO AGREGAR TAMBIÉN QUE ESTAR SEGUROS DEL SIGNIFICADO DE UNA PALABRA NOS DA MÁS VENTAJA PORQUE ENTONCES NO ESTAMOS ADIVINANDO.

LA ESTRATEGIA DE "ADIVINAR" EL SIGNIFICADO DE UNA PALABRA VALIÉNDOSE DEL CONTEXTO SE APLICA PERO NO SE DEBE APLICAR INDISCRIMINADAMENTE PORQUE ENTONCES INVENTARÍAMOS EL SIGNIFICADO DE MUCHAS PALABRAS, CORRIENDO EL RIESGO DE TERGIVERSAR EL SIGNIFICADO REAL DEL TEXTO.

PARA FINALIZAR RECORDEMOS QUE HAY PALABRAS QUE TIENEN VARIOS SIGNIFICADOS DIFERENTES ENTRE SÍ Y EN ESOS CASOS SE TOMA EL SIGNIFICADO QUE MÁS SE APEGUE AL SENTIDO DEL TEXTO QUE ESTAMOS LEYENDO; LES CONVIENE SABER EL SIGNIFICADO DE LAS PALABRAS QUE DESCONOCEN  PORQUE VAN ACRECENTANDO SU VOCABULARIO Y ADEMÁS LAS PALABRAS SE VUELVEN A ENCONTRAR EN OTRAS LECTURAS Y DE ESA MANERA SE AFIANZA MÁS EL CONOCIMIENTO QUE TENEMOS DE ELLAS.

 

EN ESTA SESIÓN LES PRESENTO UNA LISTA DE REALIDADES, NO LES PRESENTO LA FUENTE INICIAL PORQUE NO LA ENCONTRÉ, TAMBIÉN LES PIDO UNA DISCULPA POR LA PUBLICIDAD DESAGRADABLE QUE APARECE PERO ESO ESTÁ FUERA DE MI ALCANCE

Fuente: 50 INTERESTING FACTS tell me a joke/riddle/fact in return and give a star?

1. If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side.

2. If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. For when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.

3. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

4. Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.

5. The Mercedes-Benz motto is “Das Beste oder Nichts” meaning “the best or nothing”.

6. The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.

7. The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.

8. The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

9. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

10. The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

11. Dalmatians are born without spots.

12. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

13. The ‘v’ in the name of a court case does not stand for ‘versus’, but for ‘and’ (in civil proceedings) or ‘against’ (in criminal proceedings).

14. Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left.

15. The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.

16. The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee.

17. Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.

18. The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to release calming hormones.

19. Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.

20. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

21. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

22. When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.

23. When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.

24. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor.

25. The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney.

26. Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.

27. Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.

28. It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

29. The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.

30. There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

31. The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.

32. Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.

33. It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.

34. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

35. Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.

36. The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.

37. Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die.

38. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it
is smiling).

39. Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself.”

40. The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.

41. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

42. The average person laughs 13 times a day.

43. Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are:Mizaru(See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru(Speak no evil)

44. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

45. German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.

46. Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump.

47. Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

48. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.

49. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.

50. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!

1)The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.

2) A cheetah can run 76 kilometres per hour (46 miles per hour) - that's really fast! The fastest human beings runs only about 30 kilometres per hour (18 miles per hour).

3) Did you know Sailor, Dead Leaf, Paper Kite, Blue Striped Crow, Julia and Great Egg Fly are all names of BUTTERFLIES

4) No two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike. Zebras enemies include hyenas, wild dogs, and lions. Male zebras are called stallions. Zebras usually travel in herds.

5) The Blue Whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal.

6) The fastest human swimmer can swim at 6 miles per hour. The fastest mammal - the dolphin - can swim up to 35 miles per hour.
7) Did you know fishes talk to each other? Some of them communicate by making noises in their throats by rasping their teeth, others use their swim bladders to make sounds

8) A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew.Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.

9) According to a study by the Economic Research Service, 27% of all food production in Western nations ends up in garbage cans. Yet, 1,2 billion people are underfed - the same number of people who are overweight.

 

 

 

 

 

HELLO INDIA

Review of the Best Foods Rich in Vitamin B12 | Eating Healthy at Home

Did you know you can buy foods rich in vitamin B12 in your grocery store?  Quite a few people assume that you need to take vitamin supplements to get all the daily vitamins that your body needs.  Most of the time, you can get all the vitamins that you need just by eating healthy foods.
Vitamin supplements were originally designed to help people who are on the go get their nutrition, or worse, don’t have food available.  In the United States, most of us really do have the time to eat healthy, even if we don’t want to believe it.  Getting food rich in vitamin b12 and other healthy vitamins isn’t as hard as you may think!

Best Foods Rich in Vitamin B12

When many of us think of healthy foods, we typically think of foods that we dislike.  Usually when our mothers said the word healthy, it was an interesting vegetable casserole from a magazine claiming that kids will love (which they usually don’t).  While that may not have been to your liking, there are various foods, mostly fruits and vegetables that are filled with rich vitamins.   If you need to find foods that are rich in vitamin B12, you will find that finding these foods are easy, especially if you like meat!  The most well known foods rich in vitamin B12 are:

• Seafood
• Eggs
• Cheese
• Chicken
• Beef

Getting your daily vitamin B12 is easy, especially with lean meats that are great for nearly any diet!

Best Foods Rich in Vitamin B12 & Other Important Foods

Getting foods rich in vitamins is easy, especially with how convenient most grocery stores are today.  You may be surprised to find how many foods you eat now are rich with certain daily vitamins.

Foods Rich in Folic Acid	Lentils Spinach Collard Greens Whole Grain Foods
Foods Rich in Vitamin E	Spinach Almonds Tomatoes Soy
Foods Rich in Niacin	Nuts Seeds Milk Eggs
Foods Rich in Folate	Spinach Eggs Beets Black Eyed Peas
Foods Rich in Vitamin B6	Peppers Peanuts Meat Potatoes Nuts
Food Rich in Vitamin D	Mushrooms Seafood Eggs Orange Juice
Foods Rich in Vitamin C	Broccoli Tomatoes Oranges Kiwi
Foods Rich in Magnesium	Okra Seeds Broccoli Wheat Bread

Who knew that meeting your daily vitamin need could be this easy?

Too Much Vitamin B & Other Vitamins on the Go

Instead of taking vitamin supplements, you may want to consider carrying fruits and vegetables with you on the go.  Instead of having that cheeseburger on the go, pack a healthy salad mixed with a variety of vegetables.  While it may seem like a lot of work, your body will thank you for it later!
Fuente: http://www.naturalcuresmentor.com/foods-rich-in-vitamin-b12/?utm_source=zemanta&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=naturalcures

Top 15 Strangest Coincidences Published on 4/17/2006 It was written Mark Twain was born on the day of the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, and died on the day of its next appearance in 1910. He himself predicted this in 1909, when he said: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." Oregon's Columbian newspaper announced the winning Pick 4 lottery numbers for June 28, 2000 in advance. The newspaper had intended to print the previous set of winning numbers but erroneously printed those for the state of Virginia, namely 6-8-5-5. In the next Oregon lottery, those same numbers were drawn. In 1979, the German magazine - Das Besteran - ran a writing competition. Readers sent in unusual stories, but they had to be based on true incidents. The winner, Walter Kellner of Munich, had his story published . He wrote about a time when he was flying a Cessna 421 between Sardinia and Sicily. He encountered engine trouble at sea, landed in the water, spent some time in an emergency dinghy and was then rescued. This story was spotted by an Austrian, also named Walter Kellner, who said that the German Kellner had plagiarized the story. The Austrian Kellner said that he had flown a Cessna 421 over the same sea, experienced engine trouble and was forced to land in Sardinia. It was essentially the same story, with a slightly different ending. The magazine checked both stories, and both turned out to be true, even though they were nearly identical. Morgan Robertson's 1898 novella Futility had many parallels with the RMS Titanic disaster; the book concerned a fictional state-of-the-art ocean liner called Titan, which (like the Titanic) eventually collides with an iceberg on a calm April night whilst en route to New York, with many dying because of the lack of lifeboats. Various other details in the book coincide with the Titanic disaster. Later, she wrote a book, Beyond the Spectrum, that described a future war fought with aircraft that carried "sun bombs". Incredibly powerful, one bomb could destroy a city, erupting in a flash of light that blinds all who look at it. The war begins in December, started by the Japanese with a sneak attack on Hawaii. Death calls twice On July 28th 1900, the King of Italy Umberto I was having dinner in a restaurant in the city of Monza. It turned out later that the restaurant's owner looked identical to the king. The restaurant owner's name was Umberto, his wife's name was the same as the queen's and the restaurant was opened on the same date as the king's inauguration. The Restaurant-owner Umberto was shot dead the next day. So was King Umberto. Claude Volbonne killed Baron Rodemire de Tarazone of France in 1872. 21 years earlier, the Baron's father had been murdered by somebody else called Claude Volbonne. On February 13, 1746, a Frenchman, Jean Marie Dubarry, was executed for the murder of his father. Precisely 100 years later, on February 13, 1846, another Frenchman, also named Jean Marie Dubarry, was executed - for the murder of his father. On the 26th November, 1911, three men were hanged at Greenberry Hill in London after being convicted of the murder of Sir Edmund Berry. Their names were Green, Berry and Hill. Just in Time The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn't one to be had. Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. That in itself would have been coincidence enough but in fact it was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one - containing his own annotations - to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. 'Is this the one?' he asked, 'with the notes scribbled in the margins?' It was the same book. As the inhabitants of Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, were watching a scene in the film Around the World in 80 Days, where a hot air balloon was about to take off, their TV sets went off due to a power cut. Nearby, power lines had been damaged. A hot air balloon had crashed into them. Hernán Cortés' arrival in Mexico in 1519 coincided with the year in the Mayan Calendar when it was predicted that the pale-faced man-god Quetzalcoatl would return to reclaim the city of Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs therefore assumed Cortés to be the legendary man-god, which assisted him in capturing the city and thence Mexico. Lightning strikes back A British officer, Major Summerford, while fighting in the fields of Flanders in February 1918 was knocked off his horse by a flash of lightning and paralyzed from the waist down. Summerford retired and moved to Vancouver. One day in 1924, as he fished alongside a river, lightning hit the tree he was sitting under and paralyzed his right side. Two years later Summerford was sufficiently recovered that he was able to take walks in a local park. He was walking there one summer day in 1930 when a lightning bolt smashed into him, permanently paralyzing him. He died two years later. But lightning sought him out one last time. Four years later, during a storm, lightning struck a cemetery and destroyed a tombstone. The deceased buried here? Major Summerford. In 1899 a bolt of lightning killed a man as he stood in his backyard in Taranto, Italy. Thirty years later his son was killed in the same way and in the same place. On October 8, 1949, Rolla Primarda, the grandson of the first victim and the son of the second, became the third. D-Day: The Normandy invasion The date of the invasion June 6,1944 {6644} reflects the first great invasion associated with Normandy in 1066 In the first Invasion in 1066 Roger de Montgomery commanded portions of William the Conquerors Forces. In the second Invasion 1944 Bernard Montgomery commanded portions of Eisenhower's Forces. German General Rommel -Montgomery's adversary in an earlier Campaign in N. Africa Commits suicide on October 14, 1944 {101444} The Battle of Hastings took place on October 14 {101466} Eisenhower's Birthday was October 14 {101490} The first Norman invasion initiated the first major immigration of Jews into Britain. The second Norman invasion initiated the chain of events that returned the Jews to Israel A. Lincoln and J.F. Kennedy Life Both presidents had 7 letters in their last name. Both were over 6' feet tall. Both men studied law. Both seemed to have lazy eye muscles, which would sometimes cause one to deviate. Both suffered from genetic diseases. It is suspected that Lincoln had Marfan's disease, and Kennedy suffered from Addison's disease. Both served in the military. Lincoln was a scout captain in the Black Hawk War, and Kennedy served as a navy lieutenant in World War II. Both were boat captains. Lincoln was a skipper for the Talisman, a Mississippi River boat, and Kennedy was skipper of the PT 109. Both had no fear of their mortality and disdained bodyguards. Both often stated how easy it would be to shoot the president. Lincoln supposedly said, "If somebody wants to take my life, there is nothing I can do to prevent it." Kennedy supposedly said "If somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it." Note that both these quotes are each 16 words long. Death Both presidents were shot in the head, on a Friday. Both were seated beside their wives when shot. Neither Mrs. Lincoln nor Mrs. Kennedy was injured. Both wives held the bullet-torn heads of their husbands. In each case, the man was injured but not fatally. Major Henry Rathbone was slashed by a knife, and Governor John Connolly was shot. Lincoln sat in Box 7 at Ford's Theatre. Kennedy rode in car 7 in the Dallas motorcade. Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. Kennedy was shot in a Ford product, a Lincoln limousine. Mrs. Kennedy insisted that her husband's funeral mirror Lincoln's as closely as possible. The Assassins Both assassins used three names: John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. (It should be noted that Lee Harvey Oswald was known as just Lee Oswald prior to the assassination.) There are 15 letters in each assassin's name. Both assassins struck when in their mid-twenties. Booth was born in 1838, and Oswald was born in 1939. Each assassin lacked a strong father figure in his life. Booth's father died when he was 13 years old, and Oswald's father died before he was born. Each assassin had two brothers whose careers he coveted. Booth's two brothers were more successful actors and Oswald envied his brothers' military lives. Both assassins were privates in the military. Booth was a private in the Virginia Militia, and Oswald was a private in the Marine Corps. Both assassins were born in the south. Both assassins were known sympathizers to enemies of the United States. Booth supported the Confederacy and Oswald was a Marxist. Both assassins often used aliases. Booth frequently used "J. Wilkes" and Oswald used the name "Alek J. Hidell." Booth shot Lincoln at a theatre and was cornered in a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was cornered in a theatre. Each assassin was detained by an officer named Baker. Lt. Luther B. Baker was leader of the cavalry patrol which trapped Booth at Garrett's Barn. Officer Marion L. Baker, a Dallas motorcycle patrolman, briefly detained Oswald on the second floor of the School Book Depository until he learned that he worked there. Both assassins were killed with a single shot from a Colt revolver. Both assassins were shot in a blaze of light-Booth after the barn was set afire, and Oswald in the form of television cameras. Family and Friends Both presidents were named after their grandfathers. Both were born second children. Both married while in their thirties. Lincoln married at 33 and Kennedy married at 36. Both married dark-haired, twenty-four-year-old women. Both wives died around the age of 64. Mary Todd Lincoln died in 1882 at age 63 years and 215 days, and Jackie Kennedy died in 1994 at age 64 years 295 days. Both wives were known for their high fashion in clothes. Both wives renovated the White House after many years of neglect. Each couple had four children, two of whom died before becoming a teen. Each couple lost a son while in the White House. Willie Lincoln died at age 12 in 1862, and Kennedy's son Patrick died two days after his birth in 1963. Politics Both presidents were elected to the House of Representatives in '46. Both were runners-up for the party's nomination for vice-president in '56. Both were elected to the presidency in '60. Vice-Presidents Southern Democrats named Johnson succeeded both Lincoln and Kennedy (Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908. There are six letters in each Johnson's first name. Both Johnsons served in the military. Andrew was a brigadier general in the Civil War and Lyndon was a commander in the U.S. Navy during WW2. Both Johnsons were former southern senators. Both Johnsons had urethral stones, the only presidents to have them. Both Johnsons chose not to run for reelection in '68 Fuente: http://www.2spare.com/item_51964.aspx

101 Short Stories that Will Leave You Smiling, Crying and Thinking

 

Since its inception eighteen months ago, our sister site Makes Me Think (MMT) has truly evolved into a remarkable online community.  Every day, users share their thought-provoking life stories and vote on stories that other users have shared.  Some are happy, some are sad, and others twist your emotions, pulling them in several directions at once.

As stated on the MMT About page, sometimes the most random everyday encounters force us to stop and rethink the truths and perceptions we have ingrained in our minds.  These encounters are educationally priceless.  They spawn moments of deep thought and self-reflection that challenge the status quo and help us evolve as sensible individuals.

I believe the 101 stories listed below perfectly fulfill that description.  Of the thousands of stories that have been submitted to MMT in the last eighteen months, these are my personal favorites.

What do you think?

1. Today, after a 72 hour shift at the fire station, a woman ran up to me at the grocery store and gave me a hug.  When I tensed up, she realized I didn’t recognize her.  She let go with tears of joy in her eyes and the most sincere smile and said, “On 9-11-2001, you carried me out of the World Trade Center.”  MMT
2. Today, at the age of 70, my grandfather graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in business studies.  He’s been a successful business owner most of his life, but he told me he earned his degree to fulfill a promise he made to his mother before she lost her battle with cancer 50 years ago.  MMT
3. Today, my mom is a healthy 54 year old who successfully owns and operates a popular bakery downtown – a goal she had all her life.  15 years ago she was diagnosed with cancer.  In the face of death, she quit her store clerk job, opened the bakery, started chemo therapy, and succeeded on all fronts.  MMT
4. Today, after I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying.  And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.  MMT
5. Today, as a young ‘up and coming’ lawyer, everyone in the firm was congratulating me for winning my first big case this morning.  And all day long all I could think about is how I used a technicality in the law to help a murderer walk away a free man.  MMT
6. Today, on our 50th wedding anniversary, she smiled at me and said, “I only wish I had met you sooner.”  MMT
7. Today, after 2 years of separation, my ex-wife and I resolved our differences and met for dinner.  We laughed and chatted for almost 4 hours.  Then just before she left, she handed me a large envelope.  In it were 20 love letters she wrote me over the last 2 years.  There was a post-it note on the envelope that said, “Letters I was too stubborn to send.”  MMT
8. Today, when I slipped on the wet tile floor a boy in a wheelchair caught me before I slammed my head on the ground.  He said, “Believe it or not, that’s almost exactly how I injured my back 3 years ago.”  MMT
9. Today, someone else’s tragedy provided the miracle my family had prayed for.  Thanks to this stranger, my dad will have a heart.  It’s so odd to think that an accidental death just saved his life.  MMT
10. Today marks the ten year anniversary of the day when I slapped him and screamed at him remorselessly for not letting me in the bathroom after we ate breakfast.  That moment also marks the positive turning point in my battle with Bulimia.  I think he saved my life that day.  MMT
11. Today at 7AM I woke up feeling ill, but decided I needed the money, so I went in to work.  At 3PM I got laid off.  On my drive home I got a flat tire.  When I went into the trunk for the spare, it was flat too.  A man in a BMW pulled over, gave me a ride, we chatted, and then he offered me a job.  I start tomorrow.  MMT
12. Today, I was working in a coffee shop when 2 gay men walked in holding hands.  As you might expect, heads started turning.  Then a young girl at the table next to me asked her mom why 2 men were holding hands.  Her mom replied, “Because they love each other.”  MMT
13. Today, after the funeral, I went back to my parent’s empty house – the house I grew up in.  As I gazed around in awe of all the great memories we made in it, I noticed an old photo of my parent’s in their 20’s sitting on the coffee table.  In my father’s handwriting, across the back was written, “In this moment, we were infinite.” MMT
14. Today, as I walked away from the airport gate alone with my head held high and eyes beet red from crying, I knew at that moment what it meant to be a military wife.  MMT
15. Today, a lady walked up to me in the gym and asked me to give her some workout pointers.  She said, “You look incredible!  Watching you gradually tone-up and progress in here has become my primary inspiration to get in shape.”  It made me smile because I’ve struggled with my weight since I was 15.  MMT
16. Today, my grandpa died.  As I was crying and telling my grandma how sorry I was, she said, “Let’s stop being so sad and instead celebrate the 80 wonderful years he was alive… 60 of which he spent with me.”  MMT
17. Today, as my father, three brothers, and two sisters stood around my mother’s hospital bed, my mother uttered her last coherent words before she died.  She simply said, “I feel so loved right now.  We should have gotten together like this more often.”  MMT
18. Today, my richest friend growing up filed for bankruptcy and one of my poorest friends growing up purchased his second vacation home.  MMT
19. Today, I pulled into a small gas station in the middle of the desert in New Mexico and realized I had left my wallet at my girlfriends house 5 hours away.  I had no money and barely enough gas to make it another mile down the road.  The only other person that stopped for gas was a burly looking trucker.  I was a bit reluctant, but I asked him for some spare change for gas.  Instead he filled my tank and said, “Someone did this for me a few years ago.”  MMT
20. Today, I was all dressed up and waiting on my blind date to arrive.  He never showed up.  It made me feel ugly.  I thought he may have seen me from a distance and bailed.  Then as I left the restaurant alone, I heard a little girl ask her mom if I was a princess.  It made me smile and it MMT.
21. Today, while I was driving my grandfather to his doctor’s appointment, I complained about hitting 2 red lights in a row.  My grandfather chuckled and said, “You always complain about the red lights, but you never celebrate the green ones.”  MMT
22. Today in downtown San Diego, I watched a blue collar Mexican man get harassed for being Mexican.  It was a blatant act of discrimination.  And the man actually began crying.  As he left the office building, he took off his jacket. His t-shirt underneath read, “I love the USA!”  MMT
23. Today, at a jazz club in San Francisco I saw a man and woman enjoying a drink together.  The woman was a dwarf and the man must have been 6 feet tall.  Later in the evening they went out onto the dance floor.  The man got down on his knees so they could slow dance together.  They danced the rest of the night.  MMT
24. Today, I was the maid of honor in her wedding.  Four years ago she was declared cancer free.  Eight years ago, during our senior year of college, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and told she had eighteen months to live.  MMT
25. Today, I received a gigantic gift bag from one of my friends.  She said she appreciated me being there for her, and that I am one of her best friends.  She is mentally and physically handicapped, and I merely see her for half an hour once per week.  MMT
26. Today, my close friend died unexpectedly in a car accident.  A cab driver saw me crying outside the hospital all alone at 3AM.  He stopped, helped me into the cab, drove me to my house 30 miles away and refused to let me pay him.  MMT
27. Today, I kissed my dad on the forehead as he passed away in a small hospital bed.  About 5 seconds after he passed, I realized it was the first time I had given him a kiss since I was a little boy.  MMT
28. Today I met a 90 year old woman at Kinko’s who was getting her passport photo taken so she could go on a Safari in Africa next month for her 91st birthday.  MMT
29. Today, in the cutest voice, my 8-year-old daughter asked me to start recycling.  I chuckled and asked, “Why?” She replied, “So you can help me save the planet.”  I chuckled again and asked, “And why do you want to save the planet?”  “Because that’s where I keep all my stuff,” she said.  MMT
30. Today, I am thankful that my family has acquired enough wealth so that my parents can afford to live in their own house and send me and my siblings to college.  But I miss the days when we were younger and were all crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment and forced to play board games and eat supper together.  MMT
31. Today, my father’s mistress saved my mother’s life when she ran into our fire-engulfed house and pulled my mother out to safety two minutes before the roof collapsed.  MMT
32. Today, at a funeral reception, everyone had something kind to say about the deceased.  As they spoke through their tears, many of them admitted that they wish they had told John how wonderful he was before he died.  MMT
33. Today, after watching a violent horror movie, my little brother abruptly asked my grandfather how he wants to die.  “Like the sunset,” my grandfather replied.  MMT
34. Today, when I witnessed a 27-year-old breast cancer patient laughing hysterically at her 2-year-old daughter’s antics, I suddenly realized that I need to stop complaining about my life and start celebrating it again.  MMT
35. Today, as they teased me and laughed hysterically, I just wished they could see the world through my eyes.  MMT
36. Today, as I read my brother’s suicide note, chills ran down my spine because I was horrified by the fact that I could relate to everything he wrote.  MMT
37. Today, my son and I were in a car accident.  I came out of it with just a cut over my eye, but my son fell into a coma.  The doctor said if he doesn’t wake up soon his chances of a full recovery greatly decreases.  An hour ago he opened his eyes and said a word I thought I’d never hear again, “Mommy.”  MMT
38. Today, I interviewed a woman who is terminally ill.  “So,” I tried to delicately ask, “What is it like to wake up every morning and know that you are dying?”  “Well,” she responded, “What is it like to wake up every morning and pretend that you are not?”  MMT
39. Today, I was traveling in Kenya and I met a refugee from Zimbabwe.  He said he hadn’t eaten anything in over 3 days and looked extremely skinny and unhealthy.  Then my friend offered him the rest of the sandwich he was eating.  The first thing the man said was, “We can share it.”  MMT
40. Today, I told my mom that I feel like I’m failing with my alcoholism counseling and that I want to quit.  Then she said my 8 year old brother told her, “I really like the new Elliot so much better.”  MMT
41. Today, I met an amazing guy at a local diner during the breakfast rush.  He was sincere and handsome.  We agreed to meet back at the diner for lunch, but he never showed up.  I found out this evening from a mutual friend that he was in a fatal car accident on his lunch break two blocks away from the diner.  MMT
42. Today, for two hours I stood next to a 50 something year old, burly biker looking guy at a Lady Gaga concert while he sincerely sang his heart out.  MMT
43. Today, a boy in a wheelchair saw me desperately struggling on crutches with my broken leg and offered to carry my backpack and books for me.  He helped me all the way across campus to my class and as he was leaving he said, “I hope you feel better soon.” MMT
44. Today, I lost my mom to cancer.  My whole life I wanted to build an empire of wealth.  And now that I’m relatively wealthy, all I want is my mom back.  MMT
45. Today, after telling my grandmother that I didn’t want to risk making such a huge mistake, she looked at me and said, “Looking back on it all, there are so many mistakes I wish I had had the courage to make when I was your age.”  MMT
46. Today, while everyone else was complaining about the overbooked flight, I smiled and joked with the gate agent about my willingness to sit in the belly of the plane with the luggage.  15 minutes later, the gate agent found me sitting in the gate area and hand delivered a first class ticket to me.  She winked and said, “Thanks for being so patient.  As you know, the coach cabin is full.”  MMT
47. Today, the evening news report forgot to mention that I was driving home from work five miles an hour below the posted speed limit and that he was an intoxicated drug addict with suicidal tendencies who deliberately jumped out in front of my vehicle.  MMT
48. Today at 3PM my wife checked herself into an alcoholic rehab clinic all by herself after our son showed her bruise marks and belt lash welts on his backside that she couldn’t even recall giving him.  I don’t even know how I feel right now, angry at her or proud.  My head is spinning, and it all MMT.
49. Today, I swore to her that if she followed through with it, I’d do the same.  And she slowly pointed the gun away from her forehead and toward the floor.  Then she handed it to me and cried in my arms for almost three hours.  MMT
50. Today, a 12 year old boy died in a house fire near my neighborhood.  After he pulled his mom to safety, he ran back into the burning house for his 5-month-old baby sister.  MMT
51. Today, my electric wheelchair broke down as I was rushing across campus to take a midterm exam.  Two female joggers noticed I was stuck and asked if I needed assistance.  When I explained my dilemma, they both pushed me simultaneously all the way to my class and got me there just in time.  MMT
52. Today, I was in line at the store behind a man holding a dozen roses.  When he got up to the cashier’s counter, he realized that the cashier looked sad.  The man smiled and said, “I’m buying 11 of these roses for my wife.”  And then he handed the cashier the 12th rose.  She smiled from ear to ear.  MMT
53. Today, I asked my 6 year old son what he wants to be when he grows up.  He said, “Mommy, all I want to be is happy.”  MMT
54. Today, as I watched my 75 year old grandmother and grandfather being silly with each other and laughing in the kitchen, I felt like I got a short glimpse of what true love feels like.  I hope I find it someday.  MMT
55. Today, we were supposed to meet in the park.  But instead I met her in the hospital’s intensive care unit.  And as I sat beside her bed and staring at her unconscious body hooked up to all the breathing equipment, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the diamond engagement ring, and cried.  I’m still here waiting and hoping.  MMT
56. Today, when I told my 8 year old son that all of our dreams are within reach as long as we follow our heart and take action, he asked me if it was always my dream to be a waitress.  MMT
57. Today, after spending the last year working 60 hours a week in an attempt to give my family a more comfortable life, I forgot about my son’s 14th birthday.  My son told me what the family really needs is more of me at home.  MMT
58. Today, I was diagnosed with a malignant tumor and given 3 to 6 months to live 10 minutes before the hospital realized they mixed up my biopsy results with the patient in the next room.  MMT
59. Today, as my son cried in my arms, he said, “What nobody realizes is that it’s torture.  Every day of my life I wish I wasn’t gay.”  MMT
60. Today, my blind friend explained to me in vivid detail how beautiful his new girlfriend is.  MMT
61. Today, my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer.  My best friend lives 2000 miles away and called to comfort me.  While on the phone, he asked, “What would you do if I showed up at your house and gave you the biggest hug in the world?”  “I would surely smile,” I replied.  And then he rang my doorbell.  MMT
62. Today, the main girl who bullied me in high school came into my office apologizing and pleading for a job. I’m still thinking about it.  MMT
63. Today, I was stopped at a traffic light when a mid-aged homeless woman asked me for change.  I usually I don’t give out dollars to the homeless because I assume they are going to buy booze.  But I saw her 45 minutes later at 7/11 buying bread and peanut butter.  She was so happy to see me.  MMT
64. Today, my sister told me a student of hers turned eight years old on Friday.  When I realized he was born on September 11, 2001, I said, “How horrible for his family.”  My sister explained that his grandfather worked at the Pentagon and skipped work that day upon learning his daughter was in labor.  MMT
65. Today, I was driving to a job interview when I saw a businesswoman standing next to her BMW on the side of the road.  She had a flat tire.  I pulled over and helped her put on the spare.  When I arrived to the interview, the woman who I helped ended up being the CEO of the company.  I got the job.  MMT
66. Today at the Atlanta airport, as I walked off a plane dressed in my Army uniform, a little girl grabbed my hand and asked me if I would be going back overseas soon.  I told her I would be in 6 weeks.  She smiled and said, “Can you please tell my daddy that I love him.  My mommy told me he’s never coming home from over there.”  MMT
67. Today, I waited on an elderly woman at the local restaurant where I work.  She left me a $90 tip on a $10 tab with a handwritten note that said, “I’m 86 and I can’t take this money with me.  So please spoil yourself with it.”  MMT
68. Today, I met an elderly man at a bar in Miami.  When I asked him if he was vacationing, he handed me a photo from his wallet and said, “Today would be our 50th anniversary.  And although she’s been gone 10 years now, this bar still reminds me of her smile - when we shared our first laugh here so many moons ago.”  MMT
69. Today, another cancer patient of mine cried and begged me to let her die.  MMT
70. Today, my father told me, “Just go for it and give it a try!  You don’t have to be a professional to build a successful product.  Amateurs started Google and Apple.  Professionals built the Titanic.”  MMT
71. Today, as soon as my 5-year-old baby brother came into my room, I yelled at him to get out without even looking up at him.  When he didn’t listen and I turned around to yell again, I noticed he had a bowl of cherries (my favorite) in his hands.  He said, “Sorry, I just wanted to share these with you.”  MMT
72. Today, when I got home from dropping you off at the airport, I sat at our kitchen table and stared down at my wedding ring and then up at the photo of my dad hanging on our refrigerator, and then I cried. I just hope the war doesn’t take you away from me too.  MMT
73. Today, after spending the last 3 years viciously bickering with the college kid who lives next door, I found myself crying in his arms and thanking him repeatedly for saving my son’s life.  MMT
74. Today at the diner where I work, an elderly couple came in for the 4th time this week and requested my table.  I asked them what kept them coming back.  They told me that I reminded them of their granddaughter who passed away 6 years ago.  Then they told me her name.  She was my best friend at the time.  MMT
75. Today, my dad told me and my little sister that we might lose our house. I was sad, angry, worried and stressed.  My 14 yr old sister asked me what’s wrong.  When I told her, she said, “It’s just a house.  I don’t care where we live, as long as we’re together.”  MMT
76. Today, I read countless articles about the slain soldiers at Fort Hood.  And it occurred to me that if these soldiers had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq and died there, their deaths wouldn’t have made the front page of the newspaper.  MMT
77. Today, I was walking past a group of homeless men who live near my complex.  A cab pulled up next to the men and the driver opened up the rear door and pulled out two huge grocery bags full of food.  He set them down next to the group of men, got in his cab and drove off without saying a word.  MMT
78. Today, for the four hours he was breathing, his father and I loved him for a lifetime.  MMT
79. Today, as I watched my oldest daughter graduate at the top of her class from Harvard Medical School, my wife reminded me that we had her when we were only seventeen.  MMT
80. Today, I stopped to chat with the office janitor like I do every Monday morning on my way into work.  And at the end of our conversation he grinned and said, “You know, you’re the only one who ever stops to talk to me around here, and you’re the President and CEO.”  MMT
81. Today, exactly twenty years ago to the hour, I risked my life to save a woman who was drowning in the rapids of the Colorado River.  And that’s how I met my wife - the love of my life.  MMT
82. Today, I’m in Iraq on my third tour of duty fighting for a cause I no longer believe in.  And I want to go home.  But ever since I caught my wife having an affair 6 months ago, I’m not sure I know where home is anymore.  MMT
83. Today, as I stared down blankly at the $750,000 life insurance check, I couldn’t help but wish it had been me instead.  MMT
84. Today, my wife checked herself into an alcohol rehab clinic after she glanced up at me while she was eating her breakfast and asked how I got a black eye and fingernail scratches all over my face.  MMT
85. Today I found out that my high school friend I’d been meaning to get in touch with for the last year died last week.  MMT
86. Today, I asked my mentor – a very successful business man in his 70’s – what his top 3 tips are for success.  He smiled and said, “Read something no one else is reading, think something no one else is thinking, and do something no one else is doing.”  MMT
87. Today, after spending the last ten years serving liquor to alcoholics all day every day I looked in the mirror and felt disgusted.  I’ve concluded that I am, in fact, a failure, even though all my friends call me a successful business owner.  MMT
88. Today, as my grandfather (a military doctor, war hero, and successful business owner) rested in his hospice bed, I asked him what his greatest life accomplishment was.  He turned around, grabbed my grandmother’s hand, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Growing old with you.”  MMT
89. Today, it’s just the six of us.  One was raped when she was fourteen.  Three come from abusive households.  Two were orphans.  Like me, one spent almost two straight years in a psychiatric facility as a kid.  But I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for all the perfect friends in the universe.  MMT
90. Today, I was walking home from work in the pouring rain without an umbrella.  I was walking just behind an elderly man who had an umbrella.  As we both passed under the overhang to an apartment building, he stopped, turned around and handed me the umbrella.  He said, “This is my stop and you look like you need an umbrella.  Pass it along someday when the opportunity arises.”  MMT
91. Today, my friend told me she didn’t mind being legally blind, with only 12% of her vision.  She said, “After it rains there’s usually a dew left on the grass.  And because of the way my eyes refract the light, I see rainbows in the grass.”  MMT
92. Today, at a neighborhood BBQ my neighbor’s son - a 25 year old Marine – dropped to the floor and started crying when one of the other guests lit off a round of firecrackers.  MMT
93. Today, the teenager I scream at almost every day for driving too fast in the neighborhood because it worries me that he’s going to run over my kids, ran across the street from his driveway to ours and grabbed my son off of his tricycle in the middle of the street just before a swerving drunk driver ran over my son’s tricycle and kept going.  MMT
94. Today, I was in an accident that left me with a gash on my forehead.  The doctors wrapped a bandage around my head and said I have to keep it on all week.  I hate wearing it.  Two minutes ago my little brother walked into my room wearing a bandage on his head.  My mom said he insisted that he didn’t want me to feel alone.  MMT
95. Today, when I tapped the side of my wheelchair and told my husband, “You’re the only reason I want to be free from this contraption,” he kissed me on my forehead and said, “Honey, I don’t even see that thing.”  MMT
96. Today, I was jogging in Central Park when this lady started screaming for help.  Her husband was having a heart attack.  I ran over and checked his pulse.  He didn’t have one.  I gave him CPR and got his heart beating before the paramedics arrived.  I’ve done some bad things in my life, but today I saved a life.  MMT
97. Today, I met a powerful businessman who is worth 100 million dollars.  In conversation he told me he regretted never making it to his son’s hockey games or his daughter’s dance recitals.  It made me smile because my dad is probably only worth as much as this man’s last paycheck, but he made it to everything.  MMT
98. Today, at the food court in the mall, a beautiful girl about my age came up to me and hugged me with tears in her eyes.  Once she calmed down, I realized that I had pulled her out of a bathtub a month earlier, her wrists covered in slashes. I am an EMT, and her gesture of appreciation MMT.
99. Today, my fiancé was in a head-on collision car accident.  He is currently in a coma.  And all I can think about is the argument we had this morning.  I screamed at him for screaming at me.  It was a petty argument.  But if he could scream now, I wouldn’t say a word.  I’d just listen to the sound of his voice.  MMT
100. Today, I have two twin boys in my kindergarten class.  I have heard from other parents that they come from a very broken home in which their mother is in and out of rehab and their father is always away on business.  But their 16 year old sister never fails to get them to school on time or pack them a healthy bagged lunch with a smiley face on it.  MMT
101. Today, I interviewed my grandmother for part of a research paper I’m working on for my Psychology class.  When I asked her to define success in her own words, she said, “Success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile.”  MMT

Fuente: http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/12/27/101-short-stories-that-will-leave-you-smiling-crying-and-thinking/

Many of us fear death. We believe in death because we have been told we will die. We associate ourselves with the body, and we know that bodies die. But a new scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal event we think.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas. There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling – the ‘Who am I?’- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn’t go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

Consider an experiment that was recently published in the journal Science showing that scientists could retroactively change something that had happened in the past. Particles had to decide how to behave when they hit a beam splitter. Later on, the experimenter could turn a second switch on or off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle did in the past. Regardless of the choice you, the observer, make, it is you who will experience the outcomes that will result. The linkages between these various histories and universes transcend our ordinary classical ideas of space and time. Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting either this or that result onto a screen. Whether you turn the second beam splitter on or off, it’s still the same battery or agent responsible for the projection.

According to Biocentrism, space and time are not the hard objects we think. Wave your hand through the air – if you take everything away, what’s left? Nothing. The same thing applies for time. You can’t see anything through the bone that surrounds your brain. Everything you see and experience right now is a whirl of information occurring in your mind. Space and time are simply the tools for putting everything together.

Death does not exist in a timeless, spaceless world. In the end, even Einstein admitted, “Now Besso” (an old friend) “has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us…know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time without end, but rather resides outside of time altogether.

This was clear with the death of my sister Christine. After viewing her body at the hospital, I went out to speak with family members. Christine’s husband – Ed – started to sob uncontrollably. For a few moments I felt like I was transcending the provincialism of time. I thought about the 20-watts of energy, and about experiments that show a single particle can pass through two holes at the same time. I could not dismiss the conclusion: Christine was both alive and dead, outside of time.

Christine had had a hard life. She had finally found a man that she loved very much. My younger sister couldn’t make it to her wedding because she had a card game that had been scheduled for several weeks. My mother also couldn’t make the wedding due to an important engagement she had at the Elks Club. The wedding was one of the most important days in Christine’s life. Since no one else from our side of the family showed, Christine asked me to walk her down the aisle to give her away.

Soon after the wedding, Christine and Ed were driving to the dream house they had just bought when their car hit a patch of black ice. She was thrown from the car and landed in a banking of snow.

“Ed,” she said “I can’t feel my leg.”

She never knew that her liver had been ripped in half and blood was rushing into her peritoneum.

After the death of his son, Emerson wrote “Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature.”

Whether it’s flipping the switch for the Science experiment, or turning the driving wheel ever so slightly this way or that way on black-ice, it’s the 20-watts of energy that will experience the result. In some cases the car will swerve off the road, but in other cases the car will continue on its way to my sister’s dream house.

Christine had recently lost 100 pounds, and Ed had bought her a surprise pair of diamond earrings. It’s going to be hard to wait, but I know Christine is going to look fabulous in them the next time I see her.

Fuente: http://www.robertlanza.com/does-death-exist-new-theory-says-no-2/

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
Individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#1: Aristotle(384-322 BC)

Greek philosopher Aristotle can be considered the originator of a pro-reason, pro-this-world, pro-happiness approach to philosophy. In other words, his philosophy -- in terms of fundamentals -- is the philosophy of Western culture.

Aristotle's system has been the springboard for every major human achievement of the past 1,000 years. Without his ideas, the development of modern science, the Industrial Revolution as well as the creation of the United States could not have occurred. People have achieved unprecedented success using Aristotle's philosophy because, in its essentials, it is true -- making his system an exceedingly rare phenomenon in the history of thought.

Aristotle laid the foundation for reason—that is, for an explicit, consciously defined and objective method of acquiring knowledge. In particular, he established the basic principles of scientific epistemology: the role of the senses, the role of abstraction, the laws of logic, the types of reasoning, the basic rules of validity in deductive reasoning.

Further, he established principles of a naturalistic, this-worldly metaphysics: one reality, a world of particulars, of entities acting in accordance with their natures, lawful, intelligible and graspable by man.

In ethics, he laid the foundation for a this-worldly ethics, which states that man's goal is to achieve personal happiness and personal pride by using his intellectual ability to the fullest.

His errors are many and include but are not limited to an inadequate explanation of sense perception and the nature of the mind. In addition, his doctrine of god, of teleology, of contingency, of prime matter, of the golden mean, of contemplation as an end in itself, his politics, his cosmology -- are all deficient.1

Aristotle's errors, however, were able to be corrected by later thinkers largely through the use of Aristotle's scientific epistemology. In other words, Aristotle's mistakes were often identified and rectified because of the fundamentals of his own philosophy. Further, it is difficult to fault Aristotle for his errors given the relatively primitive knowledge of his time and that he had to create his philosophy largely from scratch, i.e., there was no rational philosophy that preceded him from which he could build on.

Many individuals have made major contributions to the development of Western culture. But it is Aristotle who, more than anyone, deserves to be considered the greatest hero of Western culture because the clear majority of the culture's characteristics ultimately stem from his ideas.

 

OTRA LECTURA INTERESANTE

 

When Savannah Met Alida in a Vanuatu Village

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to write this post.
Savannah meeting Alida was one of the most touching moments I have ever experienced travelling and affirmed for me why travel with our children is the right choice for us.
It’s challenging to travel with kids and I worry about possible negative impacts.
This is the voice of mother’s guilt that arrives the minute your wriggling, crying new born is placed in your arms.
It’s a whole lot of love and responsibility packaged into one adorable bundle and sometimes the task feels so overwhelming.

“This moment in Vanuatu made me feel like I was somehow getting motherhood right”

Our friend, Jennifer, asked about the hugely popular photo we shared on our facebook page. I told her of my struggles writing about it.

“I just don’t feel like I can capture why it was so special.”

“You can. It’s there within you, just let it come out.”
So I’ll try.

Why did I start this travel blog?

Because I have a whole lot of love for the world and its people.
I’ve been so blessed to travel for the majority of my adult life. The greatest gift it has ever given me is to understand that people are all the same. It doesn’t matter where we were born or what we do with our lives, we all just want to be happy and to be loved.
I hate fighting, I hate people hating, I hate wars.
I desperately want the world to be full of peace, love and mung beans. Life is better when we get along and are happy.
I started the blog because I thought I could share the world and show people just how much we all are alike.
I know this concept of peace is crazy and probably never going to happen, but you can never stop hoping.

Larofa Cultural Village, Vanuatu

Ready for the show

On a sunny Vanuatu morning over a cup of coffee and a biscuit, my ideal world happened through the eyes of our children.
Children don’t see divides, they don’t see hatred, and they don’t see why you are better or less than me.
They just see love and joy and wonder.

Savannah meets Alida

The two girls couldn’t have been more different.
One with curly caramel hair and dark skin wearing a grass skirt.
The other, fair with snowy blonde hair wearing a blue singlet and white skirt.
Two babies enamoured with their differences, yet joined by the commonalities of laughter and wonder.
They eyed each other from afar.
Alidia slowly crept closer to Savannah. Savannah giggled and began crawling away before stopping and turning to stare, beckoning her to come play with a smile.
She jumped up and down and began creeping again, getting closer and then running away. The game continued just as the fire walking started, the main event our cruise tour group had come to see at the traditional Larofa cultural village.
Amongst my joy in watching the two girls interact, I felt sad and guilty because barely anyone was watching the warrior perform the amazing feat of walking over hot coals.
They were watching the two girls.
Like moths to the flame they became transfixed their hearts overflowing with joy because they each recognized what it was.
Pure love and honour for each other.
What we all really want.
They celebrated the differences by pulling hair, stroking faces and holding hands. They jumped up and down and giggled and squealed
They pointed and looked back at their families,

“Hey do you see my cool friend over here?”

Why I Travel With My Children

That moment encapsulates why I travel and why I make the sacrifices to travel with my children.
It’s what I really want for the world I live in.
What sort of people will our children be if they grow up knowing that we are all the same and that is all that matters?
What sort of world will we have when those children bring with them a world that accepts the differences as something to be celebrated and learned from, not feared?
I don’t ever want to stop hoping for that world. I don’t ever want to stop working towards it. For now, I’ll just have to rely on our children to remind me that it’s possible.




I have a favourite children’s book I love to read with Kalyra. She now knows all the words and I love to hear her sweet voice read it to me.
I hear it and I think all is right with the world.
It’s called Whoever you Are, by Mem Fox

“Little one, whoever you are, wherever you are, there are little ones just like you all over the world.
Their skin may be different from yours, and their homes may be different from yours.
Their lives may be different from yours, and their words may be very different from yours.
But inside, their hearts are just like yours,
Their smiles are like yours, and they laugh just like you.
Their hurts are like yours, and they cry like you, too.
……
Remember this:
Joys are the same, and love is the same.
Pain is the same, and blood is the same.
Smiles are the same, and hearts are the same, wherever they are, wherever you are, wherever we are, all over the world.” 

Have you ever experienced a moment like this before in your travels?

http://www.ytravelblog.com/vanuatu-village-savannah-alida/

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe           www.world-english.org

 

The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal--the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.

But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven--an imperial suite, In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extant is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the "bizarre." The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor of which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue--and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange--the fifth with white--the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes were scarlet--a deep blood color. Now in no one of any of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro and depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly lit the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or back chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. It was within this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. It pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and while the chimes of the clock yet rang. it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for color and effects. He disregarded the "decora" of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be _sure_ he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm--much of what has been seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these the dreams--writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away--they have endured but an instant--and a light half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays of the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers who venture, for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls on the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches _their_ ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in _blood_--and his broad brow, with all the features of his face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell on this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares"--he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him--"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him--that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth a hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and while the vast assembly, as with one impulse, shrank from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple--to the purple to the green--through the green to the orange--through this again to the white--and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddened with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry--and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which most instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the red death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And darkness and decay and the red death held illimitable dominion over all.

 

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