List *31 - about April Fool's Day

I've gotten through the whole month of March, with posting a list every day for the month for the NaBloPoMo Challenge. It's been quite a time, trying to think of a new list every day, but it has stimulated my creativity. Right now, I'm in the drainage state of my cold, which is keeping me up. So since it is the 31st, I'll list some facts about April Fool's Day.

1. I had always believed that the day started because Europe had changed its calendar - the old calendar, which did not have leap years had gone so wrong that the days no longer matched up with the seasons. So in the 1500's, when the calendar was reset, people were still celebrating the beginning of the year on April 1st. Anyone who celebrated New Year's on 1 April was therefore called an April Fool.

According to the article on April's Fools Day on National Geographic this is not quite true. France and many European countries had been celebrating New Year's on 1 January for long before that. This was the legally accepted start of the year.

2. Now, anthropologists believe that April Fool's Day, being in the spring, was a holiday of renewal, so people would wear costumes and play pranks on each other.

3. In 1983, one scholar played his own prank by announcing that the holiday grew out of a practice in the court of Constantine (3 - 4 century AD) of allowing the court jesters to be king for a day. King Kugel was the King for a day, and declared the day to be a day of absurdity. The scholar's friend just happened to have a craving for Kugel that day, so this was the true origin of the story.

4. According to Boese, of the Museum of Hoaxes, "Good humorists are basically secular shamans—they both heckle society on one hand and heal it on the other." He also said that it's also a day for evening up social inequalities - street urchins used to play pranks on London gentlemen in the 1800's.

5. Famous Hoaxes can be found at this link. Both this site and the Wikipedia article have a great list of great pranks played on April Fool's day. Might give someone some ideas about something.

6. Wikipedia entry on April Fool's Day has a variety of stories that may be true or not. In France the person fooled is known as poisson d'avril (April fish) because people would stick fish on the back of people's coats because the sun crosses the zodiac at the time of equinox in the constellation of Pices, the fish. This has developed into a child's game of attaching paper fish on the backs of unsuspecting friends.

About 20 years ago, I was doing some work in the cooperative pottery studio I belonged to. We were all listening to the local public radio station when there was an announcement that the US had invaded Canada. One of the other potters came from Canada, and she got really upset and was ready to call home when we reminded her what day it was.

Anyone else have interesting April Fool's stories?

Dok Khun

Dok Khun, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

One of the ways that we know that hot season is upon us - other than feeling stifled by the heat all the time - is that the Dok Khun tree starts to bloom. Tuk-tuk drivers tie them to their vehicles for color and good luck. They are also used in blessing ceremonies for the Lao New Year (13 - 15 April), where the flower is dipped in water blessed by a Buddhist monk and then sprinkled on people attending the ceremony. The monk also splashes water on the building and on vehicles that people would like to bless.

The common English name is Golden Shower Tree.

List #30: Major Cities in Laos

Laos is a small country, about the size of California. Along the eastern half of the country, it's very mountainous. The central part of the country and the lands bordering the Mekong are flat and this is the major rice growing sections of the country.

Vientiane
is one of the most laid back cities ever. The name of the city is actually pronounced "Vieng Chan". Some people believe that it means "Beautiful sandalwood tree," which is supposedly taken from the Pali language; however most people will say that the name means "Beautiful moon." Wiki-travels has information on the major sites and getting around for tourists at Travel in Vientiane

Louangprabang is the capital of the former Kingdom of Louang Prabang. In spite of tourism, the city is still very laid back. About eight years ago, they tried to enforce a rule that Lao women had to wear traditional sinh, Lao silk tube skirts, in keeping with its UNESCO status - but while you can preserve buildings in time, it's more difficult to do this with people.

Phonsavanh is a relatively new city. The old capital of Xieng Khouang Province was originally 30 to the southeast. Known as "Xieng Khouangville," it was totally destroyed by bombing in 1968-9, leaving one enigmatic Buddha sitting among the rubble of the building surrounding it. Phonsavanh became the new capital as it was closer to the main highway linking Route 13 to the west to the Vietnamese border on the east. Although it is about 100 miles from the VN border, it is an active commercial center as well as the main city near the Plain of Jars sites.

Xam Neua
is the northeastern most large city in Laos. During the war, it was the center of resistance against the old regime. To escape bombing raids by the American backed Royal Lao Airforce, people lived in caves in the natural limestone cliffs about 40 kms from Xam Neua town, in the district of Viengxai. The main military hospital was established in the cliffs. As many of my friends who grew up in the caves told me, living in the caves was cold and difficult but the bombing and loss of friends strengthened their resolve.

Tha Kaek is the main city in Khammouan Province. One of the sleepiest places around, it is across the river from Nakhorn Phanom in Thailand. Right now, tiny ferries cross the river, but it's like that a bridge will be built within the next ten years.

Savannakhet is one of the main trade centers in southern Laos. Across the river from Mukhthahan, Thailand, it's also not too far from Route 9 to the Vietnamese border. A new bridge was opened last year and trade has been running through the city to Vietnam, making Laos a land-linked rather than a land-locked country.

Pakse was the old capital of the third independent kingdom, Champasak. In 1946, the separate kingdom was merged into the "Kingdom of Laos." While it was once a desolate city, the opening of the bridge across the Mekong and improvement of the road from their to the Thai border and the city of Ubon Ratchathani have made it a major commercial and tourist hub. Several tourist companies promote eco-tourism and village visits, though most of the Thai tourists come in large groups on tour companies visiting the main attractions in the area - the four thousand islands (Si Phaan Dohn), the Khone Falls on the Mekong, Wat Phu and Pha Suan resort (a very peaceful resort set up by a Thai businessman).

Salavan was totally destroyed during the 'Vietnam' war because of its location near the series of footpaths that made up the Ho Chi Minh trail. While there is a lot of trade going on and building up of the city, it's still basically a small town that's growing into a larger small town.

List #29: My favorite foods

There are a lot of weird foods in Laos, many of which started off as foods of necessity but ended up becoming the high cuisine. I can eat most of it, some of it is a little gross, but when I have a chance, I like to eat the following:

1. Real ice cream.
2. Cauliflower and broccoli - for some reason, they're difficult to find outside Vientiane. Asparagus I can find in Xieng Khouang, because a crop substitution program got people to stop producing opium and plant asparagus and plums instead.
3. Napong yogurt - there really is a dairy which sells milk and they make great yogurt. My favorite flavor is mulberry.
4. Cheese - of any variety. There's a foreign food store that sells all sorts of cheeses.
5. Brown rice - people in the remote areas don't over pound their rice so it retains vitamins; however people in the cities prefer polished white rice. If I can't get brown rice in the countryside, I can find it in a few stores in Vientiane.
6. Fresh tofu - people in the north, particularly Hmong, make tofu but it's difficult to find in the south. Sometimes I can find it in Vientiane. Fresh tofu is stored in cold water, and wrapped in banana leaves.
7. Fresh whole wheat bread - there are several stores that bake bread fresh, though some upcountry towns make great crusty French bread.

Skywatch Friday

Two views of hazy skies this week:

bodhi tree2, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

This is the Bodhi tree near my house at dawn. It shed all its leaves about two weeks ago and the new buds are starting to come out. The sky was very pink at dawn; a few minutes later, it displayed various shades of gray.

roof decoration and flowers, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

I took a long walk during lunch time earlier this week and caught a picture of the roof of the temple behind my office, framed by frangipani flowers.

This picture is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, hosted on Welcome to Wiggers World

March Books update on my TBR challenge

I read about this book challenge on Names Have Been Changed
Anyway, since I'm always trying to read at least one hundred books per year, I'm giving it a shot as part of the The TBR Challenge

March: Somehow I end up reading the books that are in front of me, and forgetting to read the books on this list. I just finished Farthing by Jo Walton, which gets five stars and rates a separate review.

I've also read this month:
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin
Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge


My list of twelve books is:
1. The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk read in Feb
2. The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa - XK
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - currently carrying around with me
4. Mortals by Norman Rush read in Jan
5. Carnival by Elizabeth Bear Vte
6. The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi - XK
7. Was by Geoff Ryman SLV
8. The Biographer's Moustache by Kingsley Amis
9. Brasyl by Ian MacDonald Vte
10. The War of the Nerves by Ben Sheppard SLV
11. Baghdad Burning II by Riverbend SLV
12. A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski read in Feb SLV


Alternative Books:
1. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
2. The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
3. Shriek: an Afterword by Jeff Vandermeer - XK
4. Ammonite by Nicola Griffith SLV
5. The King of Torts by John Grisham XK
6. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes Vte
7. Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury SLV
8. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West XK
9. The Terrorist by John Updike Vte
10. Farthing by Jo Walton - read in March
11. Wandering through Vietnamese Culture by Huu Ngoc Vte
12. Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith SLV


I'm going to see if I can keep pulling this entry through the months as I read the books.

List #28: Places I like to watch sunsets

I like watching sunrises and sunsets, though sunsets are probably more realistic since I'm already awake.

1. From the top of the Pakse hotel, with all the city at my feet and the light glittering off the Mekong River.

2. At Wat Meuang Wa in Vientiane - I stay near there so its a ten second walk to the levee by the river. While the river can be just plain brown or gray during the day, when the sun sets, it takes on all the colors.

3. Somewhere in the rice fields in Salavan. If there's water in the fields, it reflects the colors of the sky.

4. At the Plain of Jars in Xieng Khouang. Every time I go there, the sky is a different color and textures.

5. Lumphini Park in Bangkok - this is the biggest park in the center of Bangkok, where it's easy to forget you're in such a polluted metropolitan area.

List #27 and Thursday Thirteen #6: Fruits you find in Laos

Thirteen Tropical Fruits Fruits in Asia are amazing and people eat a lot of fruit. At the end of a meal, hosts offer fruit for desert. During the long hot afternoons, people will buy small sour fruits and berries which they eat with sugar and powdered chile peppers. Some fruits can be found in the US, but they have to be eaten fresh before you really can experience them. Some of the following pictures are mine; some I found on wikipedia. 1. Lychee - usually found in cans in American supermarkets, they grow abundantly in the tropics. And fresh lychees are nothing like the poor specimens drowned in sugary syrup that are sent to the US in cans. The first reference to lychees was in a Chinese text in the Tang Dynasty, where the emperor's concubine craved them and he had them delivered by fast horse to keep her happy. 2. Longan - a little smaller than a Lychee with a brown tough skin and black pit. They are also called 'Dragon's Eyes.' The rind is thin and you can peel it back a little to pop out the fruit, which is white, and with the dark seed inside, it lives up to its nickname. 3. Rambutan - On the outside, they are red and green with soft spines. They are like burrs but bigger and red. I can't imagine how they evolved to look the way they do. Once you open them up, the fruit is sweet; the outside of the seed often comes off and it tastes a little nutty. 4. Mangostein - is a very strange fruit, very fleshy rind on the outside with a multisegmented fruit inside. It is the most sugary fruit imaginable and can only be taken in small doses - but very intense doses they are. Apparently the wood is very hard and can be used for spears and rice pounders; the rind can be used for tanning leather. So there's more to this fruit than meets the tongue. I couldn't find any pictures I liked for this fruit. Maybe I'll have to buy some and take my own. 5. Custard Apple - This fruit just about had a texture like bread. Again, very sweet. Originally from South America, somehow it has gotten around the world. And if you don't want to eat the fruit, the leaf juice can be used to kill lice. The seeds are very hard but don't kill you if swallowed - which is good because they are toxic, and also can be used as an insecticide. 6. Dragon Fruit, also known as Pitaya is actually a cactus. The fruit grows on the end of spindly cactus stalk, and surprisingly, it grows well in tropical climates. Around SE Asia, Cambodia and Vietnam grow and export a lot. The red skin pulls away from the fruit easily. The inside is white, a little crunchy and sugary tasting - the black seeds are crunchy and although I expected them to taste like poppy seeds, they don't. 7. Guava I love guavas. There are so many varieties and you can eat them either ripe or green. The most common variety we get here is the apple-sized type in this picture, which is eaten green - it's slightly sour with a lot of seeds. There are smaller and sweeter varieties in the north, which are just wonderful. As I write this, I'm craving one right now. The leaves of guava can be used as traditional medicine. Cambodian friends tell me that the tea can be drunk to cure diarrhea. Several years ago, my landlady had cut herself badly with her machete when she was weeding. The wound looked awful so I insisted that she see a doctor friend of mine. She didn't want oral medicine and certainly did not want an injection - so he told her to boil the leaves of guava, wash her leg several times a day and stay off her feet. I kinda of rolled my eyes - but I was the one to be surprised when I returned from the province a week later and saw that her wound was healed. 8. Of course, everyone knows and loves mangoes - however, here mangoes are something else. There are 300 hundred varieties grown in Thailand. There are about 50 varieties that are commonly available here - and they all have their unique taste. Most SE Asians like to eat them green; they are crunchy and sour. A common dipping sauce is made from honey (or cane sugar), mixed with fish sauce, roasted rice powder and hot chile peppers. Another treat is khao nieo mak muan, mango with sticky rice and covered with a sauce of sweetened coconut juice. When I first worked in Thailand, we could only get ripe mangoes and sticky rice between February to May, so it was like having something that you'd really wait for. In fact, some variety of mango ripens somewhere in the country but during the 1980's, they were not shipped outside the region where they were grown. Now, there's a lot more long distance shipping so even in Laos, some varieties of mango is available all year round. I took the picture on the right last week. The light color of the mangoes makes the tree look like it's decorated with Christmas ornaments. 9. Jackfruit - the taste for Juicy Fruit Gum comes from Jackfruit. It's a strange looking fruit; when I first saw it, it reminded me of the pods from the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The things are big - Wikipedia says they can weigh over 30 kgs. and it's the largest tree borne fruit in the world. Inside, there are yellow fruit sections which look like they're made out of plastic - the fruit is good (though it tastes like a certain gum) but the sap is very strange. It's like latex and coats your fingers. The Mughul Emperor Babar said, "The jackfruit is ugly and to some people is bad tasting. It looks exactly like sheep intestines turned inside out like stuffed tripe. It has a cloyingly sweet taste." I wouldn't go so far in my description - but it is an acquired taste! 10 Papaya Papayas that you buy in the US are nothing like the papayas grown here, which can reach epic sizes. Some people find that the smell of ripe papaya is rather disturbing. OK, let's say it - it smells like vomit. However, it's very good for helping digestion and its aftermath. Most Asians prefer to eat green papaya, and make spicy salad by pounding grated papaya together with fish sauce, chile peppers, lemons, tomatoes, and sometimes raw cane sugar and lemon juice. Another kind of Vietnamese salad is fish sauce, dried shrimp, lemon juice and a little sugar topped with grilled beef and peanuts. Green papaya is supposed to be good for high blood pressure, the seeds good for inflammation and stomach problems and the fruit can be applied to fungal skin problems. One of my favorite Vietnamese films is The Scent of Green Papaya. It takes place in the early 60's as the Vietnam War is heating up, also a time of social upheaval in Vietnam. The movie takes place in the small lane and house of one middle-class family, who hire a girl name Moui (which means 'salt'). The wife in the house is very kind to her, because she remembers her own deceased daughter who would have been Moui's age. The grandmother in the house prays all day in front of the family shrine - which she had done continuously since the death of her husband many years ago. The feeling is the house is half-dreamy with ghosts of deceased relatives and memories, and filled with desperation, of people living out destinies that would not have been of their choosing. When Moui is 17, she goes to work for a young pianist and they slowly fall in love. A new life starts to open for her. Throughout the film, Moui is mystified by human relationships and the natural world. Preparation of food and of cutting and grating the green papaya symbolizes freshness and a new life. It's a very powerful film. The picture on the left is green papaya salad. I didn't follow the advise from my last list, on taking pictures of food and had not wiped off the smudges on the edge of the plate. The papaya salad, eaten with sticky rice, was delicious. 11. Coconuts - There are a myriad variety of coconuts and they can be used in so many ways. Of course, there is the method of just drinking fresh coconut juice. One of the best type of coconuts are the roasted ones - they are young coconuts, where the outer husk has been chopped and then burned away. The juice is very refreshing, and the coconut meat inside is very tender. The large coconuts can be very sweet - though if left for too long, the juice can be tasteless. Coconut fiber has so many uses - compressed fiber is even used in beds. 12. Pomelo - While it looks like a grapefruit, it's not as juicy or as sour as a grapefruit. The rind is about 2 inches thick and it takes skill to take it off. The inside is segmented like a grapefruit and you peel off the thick skin on the segment and pull out the pulp to eat it. I like them much more than grapefruits. 13. Tamarind - come in seed pods, which when opened, there's a brownish paste with seeds in it. The paste itself is sour and has the consistency of mashed prunes. It's great to eat by itself, if you can stand the sour taste, but also dipped in sugar and powdered chile peppers. And tamarind paste is used for so many wonderful dishes - sour soup, chutneys, a sauce for shrimp. The one fruit I can not stand is Durian Most of my friends love to eat durian, and will even eat an entire one in a sitting (kilogram size!). I can't get close enough to even try to eat one. All the major hotels in Thailand have signs with a big red X across the fruit - once the smell of a durian (which may be due to hydrogen sulfide) attaches itself to the walls, the room always smells of Durian. I guess it's one fruit that proves the saying: To each his own! There are certainly plenty of other fruits to keep one happy here.

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My walk at lunchtime

Park, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

I was hoping to get up early enough to go for a walk this morning. Everything conspired against me, so after a morning of meetings, I drove back to my office and walked from there to a restaurant for lunch, taking photos along the way.

This park across the road from Haw Kham, the presidential palace, and very close to my office. It has a distant view of the river, across the tip of Don Chan Hotel, but it becomes more of a riverside park during the rainy season.

List #26: How to take better photographs of food

I get e-mails from Photojojo, which sends out a twice weekly e-mails on off-beat photography tips. From the most recent e-mail:

Ten Tasty Tips for Photographing Food

1. Setting - choose a plain background, and make sure there are no distracting items in the background, like utensils or trash.

2. Lighting - natural lighting is best for food. Using the flash flattens out the contours and moist areas on the food reflect the light too much, making for shiny spots.

3. Color balance - use the color balance on the camera, otherwise food will look unappetizing if it looks too blue or yellow. Some adjustment can be done on the computer afterwards. On my camera, I can change the color balance to red, green or blue, as well as balancing for different kinds of light. I think the best bet would be to take several pictures in natural or ambient light and see what looks best.

4. Don't move - since it's best to use ambient light, make sure you're either using a tripod or have the camera steadied on a chair. Sometimes the exposure will have to be quite long.

5. Shoot a lot - as I said above, use different color settings and also take the food from different angles.

6. Zoom in - use the macro setting on the camera. The food should fill the field of the camera.

7. Preparation - they suggst that taking pictures of the preparation of the food can be interesting.

8. Be Quick - get pictures of the food when it is first served so you're not getting nauseating images of congealed fat or wilted lettuce. I laughed at this. I often forget to take pictures of meals with friends until the end of the meal - when there are scattered fish bones and splotches of food on the plates.

9. Details - wipe away smudges from the edges of plates, get in close for textures and even garnish the plates with a sprig of parsley or slice of lemon.

10. The last tip had me laughing - also know when not to shoot food. The meal may be delicious but if it's all brown, it might not look appetizing. The article likes to a picture of hagis to prove its point - you'd have to be a real artist to make it look delicious!

Photojojo has lot of interesting photography tips. It's worth checking out - and the twice weekly email updates are fun to read (the subscribe box thingy is right on the home page).

Etta

Etta, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

Way early in the morning, my black kitten ran outside and into a spitting fight with another cat three times her size. After I separated them, she flew up a tree and couldn't get down - so brilliantly, she climbed even higher and really couldn't get down.

Her eyes in the camera flash make her look like she has superpowers - so I went off to work, figuring that she would be able to get down by herself. She managed all right.

List #25: World's Biggest Cities

Map of the 20 largest metropolitan areas, from Wikipedia

I did the important rivers of Asia a few posts ago. Today, I got into a discussion about the population of various cities around the world - and guess what? An idea for a list.

However, it's not an easy answer to the question of what are the ten largest cities in the world. One answer could be to define it as the population of the metropolitan area, which includes people relying on the city for resources and employment and the number of people who can commute into the city. And in these days of urban sprawl, where the areas between smaller cities are filled up... with more cities till it forms a big city, metropolitan areas can be very big.

Ten largest metropolitan areas. It's amazing that there is only one city from a developed country on this list, and that India has two cities on the list.
1 Tokyo 32,450,000 people
2 Seoul 20,550,000
3 Mexico City 20,450,000
4 New York City 19,750,000
5 Mumbai 19,200,000
6 Jakarta 18,900,000
7 Sao Paulo 18,850,000
8 Delhi 18,600,000
9 Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto 17,375,000
10 Shanghai 16,650,000

This is the list of biggest cities, if you think about city proper
1 Mumbai 13,073,926
2 Karachi 11,608,000
3 Delhi 11,505,196
4 Istanbul 11,174,257
5 São Paulo 11,016,703
6 Moscow 10,654,000
7 Seoul 10,421,000
8 Shanghai 9,838,400
9 Lagos 9,229,944
10 Mexico City 8,658,576
22 Bangkok 6,593,000

I'm really surprised that Bangkok - which seems so gigantic to me - is not on any of the top ten lists. It has a feeling of being much larger than NYC - but that could be because of it's so unorganized! It's not even on the list of 20 biggest metropolitan areas - but I guess that makes sense because there are very rural areas just outside Bangkok, where there are rice, vegetable and fruit farms.

List #24: Haiku List

1.
One time was enough
Desire etched forever, inside
a flower opening

2.
Two faced off, ready,
circling, alert, aware
Opposite - the same

3.
Breeze shakes the rose bush
Bee takes the nectar; life passes.
Three petals fall down.

4.
Horse stamps through mud and
stone. Snorts and stamps four feet hard.
Sparks sing out power

5.
Work week of five days
Rest for two, repeat. Cat knows
there's a better way

fruits for sale

fruits for sale, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

Fruit vendors by the Fah Ngum statue, near the Novotel. I stopped to buy some oranges and mangoes.

List #23: The Carnivals I like

A. Carnival of Space #46

It includes
1. Ten Things You Don't know about the Milky Way
on the Bad Astronomy blog.

2. The site Invitation to ETI site is interesting I can't decide if it's for real or tongue in check. The well known science fiction writer, David Brin, wrote a letter of invitation for alien lurkers who may just be following humanity via the web, acknowledging some of the reasons that they might not want to contact us. Just in case they are out there in the US or in northern Laos (huh, maybe not here, sometimes the internet connection isn't too good).

3. Actually I got the above link from Centaur's Dreams contribution - If the phone doesn't ring, it's me, admittedly a line from a Jimmy Buffet song. He links to several sites about why we haven't been contacted yet. Is it because space-faring civilizations have a non-interference policy (have they been watching Star Trek)?

The discussion reminds me of the wonderful Terry Bisson story They're Made out of Meat, where two aliens discuss the future of humanity. (Terry Bisson's official site) Check out the award-winning film based on the story

4. New resources to follow up, such as the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and Invitation to ETI site.

5. The space elevator was one of the technological ideas that Arthur C. Clarke thought up and developed in his fiction. The post on the New Frontiers blog, discusses the current work.

6. Astroengine has a mind-blowing piece on Cosmogenesis. Sit down before reading.

B. On the more physical plain, Polite Dissent hosted the Internet Grand Rounds, Volume 4, #26 on 18 March. His theme is Western - the Grand Round-up and includes posts:

1. Only Two Prayers on the blog Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good Susan Palwick is a science fiction/ fantasy writer who is a volunteer chaplain in a busy hospital. I visit her blog often because she has insights on many issues about health, illness, faith (and the questioning of it), life and death. All of her posts show the real grit, the dirt in the corners of the emergency room, and the true heights that people can rise to.

2. Diabetes Mine is one of the best blogs on all aspects of Diabetes. In this weeks contribution, she ponders Car Insurance vs. Health Insurance

3. I have lots of problems with back pain, so this post on Spotting Back Pain was interesting, after all the abdominal exercises I've done. It says that maintaining consciousness on the position of the spine and maintaining a neutral spine during daily activities is more important than doing badly done abdominal exercises, particularly crunches, the Gold Standard of abdominal exercises ( Good Life better than Bad Ab Exercises ) I clicked on another link and it promotes a book - but I do know that when I change my position when walking, I do feel better so maybe there's something there.

4. Another blog entry on promoting healthy brains is The Brain Virtues of Physical Exercise. Again it reminds me that I really have to exercise every day, no matter how hectic work can get. In the long and short run, it helps mental attitude, sharpness and new ways to look at problems. And it can prolong both longevity and quality of life.

5. In very well-written post, Chronic Dose , a young woman with a long list of chronic illnesses, writes about Writing Well - how writing helps people with chronic diseases. She point to an article in the New York Times, The Power of Words for Cancer Patients.

6. The blog, Canadian Medicine, writes about several literary internet-based discussion groups for health professionals. Several years ago, a doctor at Bellevue Medical Center in New York, Ruth Charon, had started to encourage her students to write. It developed empathy for their patients and allowed them to view their work in perspective. And the field of Narrative Medicine has developed.

7. The Health Concerns of Prostitutes points to an Australian study - prostitutes have 80x the number of STDs in illegal settings than in legal brothels. The author notes that there are prostitutes who are working in this profession because they want to, and those who are forced. In the legal settings, there are periodic health checks and condoms are manditory - with good results. However, the author of Health Line Connects questions - One aspect of the health care needs of prostitutes I would like to see addressed, though, is the psychological effect - long term and short term. Is it a high stress occupation? Are workers at risk for PTSD? Clearly, further study is needed.

8. Pain Management in nontraditional settings concerns managing pain in developing countries. Answer: make due with what you have. Ice packs for broken bones, whatever pain medicine is available and try to keep a positive face for the patient. Feeling frustrated in a situation of poor infrastructure and poverty is a normal feeling but medical staff still have to act professionally and try to do what they can to help patients.

List #22: What I did today

I try to catch up on life on the weekends. This week, I've got several papers for my distance learning program, plus I have to clean up the mes from the thunderstorm that swept through Vientiane this week. And some work-related stuff.

So what did I actually do?

1. Played with the kittens. This is pretty easy. I can't walk into the kitchen or to the back of the house without getting stalked and attacked.

2. I did respond to the local flooding in my house - moved all the furniture outside and pushed as much of the water, that had collected in the low spots of the house, outside with a mop. Finally I decided that it was flowing backwards into the corners at the same rate I was pushing it.

3. So I turned on the fan and got on my bicycle to go downtown. I realized that I had left my camera in the office and I can't bear to be separated from it for too long.

4. Returned via 'Korea-town', a section of town just east of the downtown area. It's a densely populated area of shopshouses, where people's businesses are in the downstairs living areas.





People also have carts, where their businesses are more portable. Because there's so much activity going on in this area during the evenings, vendors rush in to get the best spots along the street.

5. On my way back home, I stopped by a nursery located near the Northern bus station. This bypass road used to be a dirt track, but now it has been built up - hotels, heavy machinery shops, the Chinese mall, more restaurants and hotels. The nursery is a nice piece of wilderness in the middle of all this. I spent some time deciding that I really did need some new plants while walking around the cool, misty forest - then decided I really can't balance a tree on the back of my bicycle.



6. When I returned home, I moved the furniture back inside and tried to tidy up the main room of my house. I didn't take any pictures of this mess!

sri meuang temple

sri meuang temple, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

It's the full moon day, as well as the festival for Pra Thawaet at Sri Meaung temple, which houses the foundation stone for Vientiane.

Sunset through bamboo

sun in bamboo, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

This picture was taken on Tuesday evening in Pakse in southern Laos. I walked along a road which parallels the Xedon river, about 10 kms. from its confluence with the Mekong river. Although there are houses built all along the riverside, I went into the yard of a Buddhist temple where I took a bunch of pictures of the fading light on the buildings. I ran back and forth to get this exact placement of the sun before it disappeared!

This picture is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, which is being hosted on Welcome to Wiggers World. Please come back, leave your link and comment on the skies from many locations around the world.

List #21: The Four Noble Truths

The full moon days mark the main Buddhist holidays, and always a good time to meditate and think about the teachings of the Buddha. After his long meditation under the Bodhi Tree, the Buddha realized the nature of suffering, the subject of the Four Noble Truths:

1. The Nature of Suffering (Dukkha) Everyone suffers, but the nature of suffering is its impermanence.

2. The Origination of Suffering (Samudaya) The cause of suffering is craving (what the Lao call tanya) The origin of suffering is not realizing the nature of impermanence, so we try to cling to pleasant states of being and avoid unpleasant states of being. Craving drives us and suffering comes from desiring what we can not have.

3. The Cessation of Suffering (Nirodha) refers to the realization that all compounded things are impermanent. When we understand suffering, we view everything with equanimity - not embracing the things we want and not fleeing from the ugly things.

4. The Way (Marga) Leading to the Cessation of Suffering - the Eight-fold Path is eight states that we should strive for.

Thursday 13: #6 and List #20 - Books by Arthur C. Clarke

Books written by Arthur C. Clarke I felt very sad to learn of the death of Arthur C. Clarke on 19 March. Like many people, I grew up with his books. I was born in 1952, the year that he wrote .http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif As a tribute, here are some of the other books that I grew up with, and shaped my mind. Some of these books are out of print, so even though I read them when I was a child, it was so long ago and my brain is leaky! 1. Childhood's End - Written in 1953, it really blew my mind. I think I was in junior high when I read it. I remember putting it down after humanity has ascended to a pure-mind, non-physical realm in the Overmind, and thought, "Is this where it's all going?" Clarke himself thought that this book was one of his best. 2. Against the Fall of Night was originally a novella about Earth one billion years in the future, when humans are in their twilight. Clarke expanded it, and later rewrote it. 3. The City and the Stars was a rewrite of Against the Fall of the Night. Both books explore the drives and the fears that make us human, as Alvin - a unique - fights against the limits that the elders say exist. 4. 2001, A Space Odyssey is probably Clarke's best known work because of Stanley Kubrick's film; Clarke had worked on the film, which was actually based on some of Clarke's earlier short stories. 2001 itself was not published until after the film came out. The book and film explore so many areas - the nature of exploration itself, evolution, the relationship of man's creation - the AI Hal - with man himself. Every few years, I watch the film again and it still makes me shiver. 5. Rendezvous with Rama is a believable scenario, which we all fear and hope for. An alien space probe travels through the solar system, and a group of humans travel to it to probe its mysteries. 6. takes place in the past and the 'present' Sri Lanka. In this book, Clarke proposes how a space elevator could work. 7. 2010: Odyssey Two is the first sequel to 2001, however, it doesn't have the same mystery of the original. 8. The Light of Other Days was a collaboration between Clarke and Steven Baxter, an engineer turned science ficiton writer. This book explores a wormhole technology, the technology of which gets out of control. While it fist gets used for research of the past, it ends up getting used to find out secrets. There is no such thing as privacy, where people can observe others, or themselves be observed, without knowing. 9. Expedition to Earth I know I read it but I can't remember any of the stories! 10. The Nine Billion Names of God is a book of short stories, the lead story being another mind-blower - a religious group hires a computer firm to put together all the possible names of God. 11. A Fall of Moondust about people who get trapped on a colonized moon after an earthquake. I remember reading this when I was a kid but not much else. 12. Imperial Earth. This book, written in 1975, is one of the first science fiction books that not only has a main character who is black, but also bisexual. It also explores the issue of cloning, which was newly discovered at that time. 13. Earthlight is another oldy, about the colonization of the moon, where tension between the earth controlled moon and the needs of the colonists is the center of the book.

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