Can you go an entire 24 hours without using any electronic device (lights excluded)?
This I wonder (mostly about myself).
I've also recently pondered our innate ability to react. How that reaction will alter and change with even just 5 minutes of hesitation and contemplation.
Example: Girl gets schedule. Schedule has her working in the morning and again at night. Nothing like her regular schedule. Girl gets upset. Writes furious email. Goes to make a phonecall. Then pauses. Phone battery is dead. Saves the email as draft. 5 minutes later, she is calm and reasonably okay with it all. No harm done.
I wonder what the world would be like if we all paused before every reaction. That's yoga, right there (yoga thought, not stretchy-like poses). Interesting interesting.
So... Rybot and I will be going to Thailand in November. $300 return flight. 10 days. Another Asian country visited by this dynamic duo. Making a grand total of two. Woo woo! So far the plan is to go to Ko Pha Ngan, a small island 1/2 hour ferry ride away from Ko Samui (big tourist island). Ko Pha Ngan has huts on the beach that rent for 100-250 baht per night (100 baht is about $3 CAD). We hear that it's a fairly rural place. Electricity doesn't run all day long. But the beaches are gorgeous and not over-crowded with tourists. Sounds good to me. We're planning on spending the last 2-3 days in Bangkok. Visiting temples, doing a little shopping, experiencing the madness that is. Tickets have been bought. The Lonely Planet Thailand has been underlined and highlighted. I'll keep ya' all posted.
Other things to share...
A friend was telling us about her brother. He recently came to Taiwan and is working in their school system. Apparently he was given his curriculum for the day. The topic: money. The activity: to listen to and discuss the lyrics of a couple songs. The first song? "Mo money, mo problems" by Notorious BIG. Dead rapper/gangster. Um, huh?! Please feel free to read the lyrics here. Now THAT is education. Ah ha haaaa...
I'm still reading "Dominion" by Matthew Scully (mentioned in a previous blog). Current chapter: whales.
*girl steps onto soap box*
Did you know that approximately 2% of the whale population remains since modern whaling ships were designed (around 1910-1920). TWO freak'n PERCENT!!!
"Add it all up -- or rather, subtract it all away -- and mankinds' total stock depletion in the modern era comes to somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 million great whales... Our grand totals living today: 2000 southern right whales, 300 northern rights, 5500 humpbacks, 47,000 finds, 21,000 grays, 40,000 brydes, 7500 bowheads, 10,300 sei whales, and at most 3000 blue whales in all the seven seas."
Though there are bans on whaling, countries such as Japan and Norway continue to kill thousands of whales per year. In the name of science (read "science" as commercial use such as delicacy meat, blubber, etc.). Japan has a large dolphin hunt on an annual basis, where they trap them in a bay with nets and then harpoon and skewer them out of the water. Gah!
So why am I sharing this with you? Am I suddenly turning into one of those annoying hippy-dippy girls that harasses folks about recycling their plastic bottles and not eating tuna because they might be killing dolphins... Yes, probably. But is that really something new? Ah ha haaa... No really, the reason is because I didn't actually know a lot about this specific topic.
Can you imagine being so arrogant as to think that the entire planet existed for YOUR commercial use? That you should not be inconvenienced in any way, even if it causes suffering to other beings... even complete species extinction?! Okay I'm almost done... you just have to read this... So here is a quote from a Mr. Eugene Lapointe, once the general secretary of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species:
"These people trying to stop hunting don't understand elephants. A hunter's bullet spares the elephant from the suffering of natural mortality. It's for their own good, to be hunted and used. The problem is misinformation. The reality isn't what we see on television. The reality is that's an animal that has to be contained. That's an animal that has to be controlled... You have to give it economic value. You have to use them."
Enough of that noise. I've been hyping Greenpeace because they have campaigns for protecting whales, dolphins and the like. A friend pointed me towards to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which you can check out if ya' like. Or something.
*girl steps off of soap box*
I watched Sisterhood of the Travelling pants on our lovely Mandarin cable last night. It made me ball my face off for NO REASON. Man, I'm a sucker for sappy movies. I think Taiwan is making me into a movie-watching sissy.
Alright kiddies... I'm done. I hope you are all doing well. I haven't heard from many of you in a little while. *Ahem* Mom. But I'm guessing that no news is good news. If you're hang'n out near your computer, reading this, feeling bored or even a little bit lonely... well feel free to send me an email. I will reply with words of love and someone else's wisdom. We (Rybot and myself) miss you lots. Been thinking of home lately. We miss Sheena. Love love love. x. -n.
3 comments:
where did you get that quote from? the one about elephants and stupid nonsense.
The quote is from the Matthew Scully book "Dominion". He's interviewing the gentleman at the IWC conference about hunting, whaling and endangered species. Lovely, isn't it? Sheesh.
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