In your personal opinion...

I am beginning to notice a trend in my blog entries. That trend being the number of comments that I receive per entry. They are going down. While this may come as a great shock to some of you (myself included) while others (who probably aren't seeing this post anyway because you are clearly on a temporary hiatus from reading my spectacular blog-ness) didn't really notice one way or the other.

So my question to you is this... what changes do I need to make in my posts/entries to stimulate more feedback? I read a good number of other blogs. I see what kinds of comments people make and on what kinds of blogs and blogging entries. So I have narrowed down the options for my changes. Please select from the following choices or make up one of your own:

a) Status updates on my life and events

b) More details on my thoughts, feelings, and other such personal angst

c) Personal interpretations of current events/politics

d) Church/gospel-related topics

e) Book reviews

d) Group-participatory surveys/questions

I recently gave my mother a hard time for not reading my blog. I exclaimed with (some) joking tones that if I was posting pictures of my children/her grandchildren she would be more likely to read it. She agreed. So clearly that is one sure fire way to get more readers - have babies. I'll get right on that.

Aside from having children, I am currently looking for other ways to give my blog a bit of a kick in the pants. Give feedback if you choose but let's be honest, I'm probably still going to post on whatever the heck I want. I'm just bored of looking at the same post on my blog for the past week.

Casting Stones

I recently read the book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. My mother read it while we were at the beach last week. At one point while on the beach she turned to me in disgust and said "They BOUND the girls feet to make them 7 mm long?!?" This particular book takes place during 19th century China and follows one woman's life story. For those of you that weren't in Professor Walz East Asian History class or particularly versed in Chinese culture, for about one thousand years it was common practice in China for women to have bound feet. The practice has only recently (early 1900s) been outlawed and you can still find women in China with bound feet.

Why in the world would they bind women's feet? I will attempt to summarize. The origin of why this started is not entirely known. It is speculated that there was a prized concubine once upon a time that, by nature, had incredibly small feet. She grew in fame because of her beauty and favor with the emperor. From this, women, especially those in high class society, began breaking their feet in order to make them appear incredibly small. The goal was to achieve the "golden lotus" - feet about the length of a thumb. The bound feet were seen as attractive and symbolized class and good breeding. Large feet became indicative of lower class due to the need for manual labor. The process began around the age of 6-7 and didn't fully heal for about 5 years. One in ten girls died from the foot-binding process. The girls knew their responsibilities as women and accepted that the bound feet determined theirstatus for the rest of their lives. Yes, bound feet even determined how well they would marry.

While we (my mom, sister, and I) sat discussing this on the beach, we speculated how a culture could practice something so crazy - and for a thousand years - all for the sake of society, fashion, sensuality, tradition, and duty. When examing alone the reasons for foot-binding, we'd find that such concepts are not foreign to American culture. My sister stated this observation as we sat there, baking ourselves in the sun, (oiling and lotioning! lotioning and oiling!), damaging our skin cells all for solely aesthetic purposes.

Her comment reminded me of an article I read in college that I often go back to whenever an issue of cultural differences arises. It is called "Trying out one's New Sword" by Mary Midgley. If you are interested, I suggest reading the article. If you choose not to read it, the basic idea is as follows: There is a word in the Japanese language that means "to try out one's new sword on a chance wayfarer." The practice was to test a new blade on a human opponent, preferrebly not another Samurai, usually completely at random. This example is used to bring about the question of whether members of one culture can make a moral judgement upon members or practices of another.

I often think of this article. Not only when discussing other cultures but moreso when hearing or reading about my own. I am not without judgment. No human can claim as such. But the root of our judgments upon other cultures lies in the intolerance of those within our own. I don't necessarily mean cultures within cultures but also groups, individuals, opinions, friends, loved-ones. A position we hold, whether it be socially, intellectually, or professionally, should not be used as basis for a superiority complex. It only contributes to a pedistol of intolerance and closes our minds when we otherwise claim to be striving to open them. It's a lesson that I don't mean to imply that I have learned, just one that I think of whenever I read that article.

Moral and cultural judgments are a tricky thing. Reading that article after reading Snow Flower helps to put into perspective that every culture has a tsujigiri or a foot-binding. If anyone still has questions about whether or not bound feet are a completely crazy practice, read up on the definition of high heel shoes. Or people-watch at the state fair.

Door number 1 or door number 2?

Did anyone else out there read the Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid (aka CYOA for the truly devoted)? I don't recall reading many of them but what I remember most was my typical approach to how I chose my adventure. I read a couple chapters, made my choice when prompted, turned a few pages into the book and read my next stage, made another choice, turned about 15 more pages, read my next stage and then I swear mine always ended with something really lame. Boo! So what is the only thing to be done?!? Start over again and pick a different sequence of choices to get a cooler adventure. Am I right? Is there any other way to read a CYOA book??

What if we could live life like one big CYOA? Or rather the CYOA where you cheat like I did. On one hand, it could be pretty rad. I could get to the conclusion after my series of page turning and if it wasn't what I wanted it to be, go back and pick option B instead of option A and have a whole different set of adventures. Would you take more risks knowing that no matter how it turned out you could always go back and change things or would you play it extra safe? It was quite disappointing to feel like you were on a roll with the adventure only to have it abruptly halted by the page with the big stop sign at the bottom of the last paragraph. It'd be nice to have the option of turning back from the big ugly stop sign and starting back at the beginning. Man, I sure do hate that big stop sign.

On the other hand, part of what makes an adventure an adventure is the risk. The unknown holds a certain thrill that makes life interesting. I have tried to live my life with no regrets. That doesn't mean I haven't done some pretty ridiculous stuff. It just means that I recognize that life is too short to regret the "adventures". I don't have the luxury of turning back the pages and picking a different route so why waste time pretending like I can. Our choices in life are the source of much of our life lessons. Good or bad, they contribute to that wonderful gem called opposition. We can't appreciate the sweet without the bitter, joy without the sorrow.

I have a few of these cutesy conversation books with hundreds of questions for the game of life. One of the questions asks something like, "if you could find out everything that was going to happen in your life in the next five years, would you want to know?" This question gets more interesting the more you think about it. So go ahead, think about it. I have my answer...

How to celebrate the month of August

I don't know about yall but I am getting tired of looking at the same old post on my blog. I've had no blogging inspiration lately. Hence the lull. I thought about posting something every day for the month of August in honor of it being my birthday month. There are no national holidays in the month of August. It's the only month without one (for those of you that doubt, go here and see for yourself). Therefore I encourage all those in need of a holiday to celebrate in August, feel free to celebrate my birthday. I don't care about you sending me presents or anything. You can just take a moment on the 16th, eat a bowl of ice cream and that should be fine.

Birthdays are pretty fab. It's like your own taylor-made holiday. Anything goes cuz hey! It's your birffday! Over the years I haven't had too many big celebrations for my birthday. A couple of years ago, some friends threw a suprise party for a few of us that have birthdays on the same day or close to. I was excited to have my very first surprise party. Last year we had a big party at my house (again for the same group of August bday people). For my 16th birthday my brother bought 16 yellow roses and had all my friends deliver them to my one by one at a dance. That one was pretty memorable as well. Then there were those ones as a child that my parents spent in Hawaii and left us with a sitter for a week. I actually don't remember those. They have only been brought back to my recollection after recent visits to the therapist. (jk. love you!) You can read more about that in my memoirs.

In case yall need further reason to celebrate the month of August or August 16th, here are a few factoids about my date of birth:

Share birthday with: Madonna, Steve Carell, Frank Gifford AND Kathy-Lee (lucky!), T.E. Lawrence, James Cameron

Famous deaths: Elvis, Babe Ruth, Margaret Mitchell, Shamu

Unofficial Holidays:

August 2 - Friendship Day
August 15 - Assumption Day

August 19 - National Aviation Day

August 26 - Women's Equality Day

Days in History:

1777- American forces win Battle of Bennington (Revolutionary War)

1858- President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria
1954 - First Publication of Sports Illustrated
1982- (Time Magazine) Ongoing Lebanese Civil War

Magazine covers from August 16, 1982 and the first issue of SI from 1954

New York - part 2

I returned from my trip to New York City about a week ago. It was an educational experience. I learned the following in my 2+ days there:

1) The hot dog vendors in NYC sell Sabrett hot dogs - so do the Raleigh vendors

2) Don't talk to Chinese ladies selling things on the sidewalk. Just one word will do it. It's like feeding sea gulls at the beach.

3) Cars in New York have the turn signal replaced with an additional horn

4) People in New York are running from some kind of fire

5) Wall Street is tiny!

6) I have no desire to live in a big city. Country road, take me home.

7) Junior's is THE place to get New York cheesecake (found out after the fact).

Of the goals I had listed for my trip to New York, I managed to succeed at most of them.

• Statue of Liberty - check
• Buy a hot dog from a street vendor - check
• See a show - negative (the line was too long and the shows I wanted to see are coming to Raleigh anyway. no worries)
• See the big fountain in Central Park - check
• Not get anything stolen - check
• Make out on the top of the Empire State Building - negative (Mainly because we didn't even go to the top of the Empire State Building, just Rockefeller. Not to mention my make-outer of choice was not on my trip with me. No offense Lacey.)
• Visit Ground Zero - check (cool experience)
• Take some kick-a pictures - I think so.... Growing up I always said I'd take a B&W photography trip to a major city like NYC. Thanks to digital cameras, I managed to get a few that look pretty good in B&W.

Overall it was a fun trip and I was glad that I went. New York is a very cool place to see. I enjoyed the historical feel about it. I also noticed that there seemed to be an American flag on almost every building in Manhattan. It's a very American city, even though I heard English spoken around me only about half the time. It feels American because of its diversity.

I hope to be able to go back again, especially since now that I've already been once I feel like the planning and execution will be different. I've gotten the standard tourist stuff out of the way so now I can focus on more important things like the M&M World in Time Square.