Drops In the Bucket . . .

To the world, Americans are ignorant when it comes to world affairs. I get this impression from conversations with friends from other countries and from news outlets outside this country. World news should not be a ten minute segment that follows talk of another celebrity getting arrested for a DUI. In truth, the news covers pop culture and disaster more than they do social unrest and conflict - abroad and at home. At the core of this disconnect is the American educational system and the political machine. We are not taught in school the current events of other countries, the history behind these events, the country's socioeconomic and political status, and how they impact the global community. At best, we get a cursory instruction on the ancient world, and then if we wish to learn more, we can take courses at the university level. From where does American complacency and ignorance of the world stem? How can it be changed? The problem with finding out where the this ignorance come

I started clicking on the 360s on the pages of my friends. People i did not know. Soon, I was in a sphere of chat friends that was foreign. They had testimonials, references to the same events, and it kept going farther and farther away from the chat world that most of us have here. I have 360 friends from 3 places, and some of those friends overlap for a lot of us. I have seen friends I had in Books and Literature many years ago on the pages of the friends I created in Professors Chat in the past year or so. I also have friends from the Classical Music room, and some that I developed through 360 itself. It is very strange to contemplate the spheres of friends that are going on all over Yahoo and other social networking sites. They exist and are chatting and are messaging each other. Of course, I knew this was happening. There are so many other rooms in Yahoo chat and groups and so many other Yahoo communities that it would be foolish to think otherwise. But to actually venture into

The phrase Mariposa Pensativa itself means Pensive Butterfly. I use the term butterfly not because I like to flit around but because my name, Vanessa, means butterfly in Ancient Greek, and more commonly known as a genus in the butterfly kingdom . The actual etymology of the name is disputed. The website Behind the Name says that the author Jonathan Swift invented the name Vanessa by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. But the name Vanessa could be derived from Phanessa, a feminine form of Orphic Phanes (which, by the by, is also a genus of butterflies), a primeval, golden-winged hermaphroditic god, meaning "appear." Yet some naming sites say that Phanessa is the ancient greek goddess of brotherhood. *shrugs shoulders* When I was 9, my best friend Marcia gifted me a phone book with my name on the cover and a stamp of my name. The cover of this book said my name meant butterfly and this is what I have

I was sitting on the corner, looking across the street ....Nov. 14, 1995

As the minutes tick off in a day, there is a constant dialogue in my brain; a narrator and judge that constantly screens my actions and thoughts. The desire to blog about these thoughts surfaces every once in a while, but it sinks down again and the thoughts are forgotten or stored in the rolodex that fits neatly inside my cortices. A major fear is that if I sat down to write, I might not get up for a few days. While at the San Francisco airport, awaiting my flight home, I began to write about my stay. Within one hour, I had about 3-4 pages of words-- too much for a blog post. Writing was much easier when I had a physical journal. I would write in my journal, draw pictures of things I would see. I was guileless and pretentious enough as a child to think that some future scientist would find my journal and actually gain insight into the world I was living in. The world is too large for that now. So many people are writing down their observations that many of those words will get lost i

My recent trip to San Francisco was life-changing. I went touristing around the City by the Bay, walked to the Golden Gate Bridge, took a cable car, visited Chinatown and Golden Gate Park, went to the opera, and just marveled at the sights and smells of the City. I was composing a long blog about my experiences, but I feel I must wait a bit because that beautiful bay I walked along was marred when a container ship was damaged in the bay and dumped 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel into its water . There were so many birds there. So many diving birds, pelicans and seagulls. There was a moment when they all took flight and I captured the moment...the Golden Gate Bridged displayed prominently in the background. Those poor birds will now have to fight to surviv e, including the sea lions of Pier 39, the fish and other sea life. I sincerely hope that this ecological disaster is responded to promptly or the Bay that I saw just scant days ago will accessible to those who live by the bay and j

Being in a chat room exposes one to many people. The majority of chatters congregate in the same room because they share like interests and enjoy the same topics of conversation. I like to believe that most of us go there to relax, share stimulating ideas, share music, talk on voice chat, and yes, to laugh and share the minutiae of one's day. I am a veteran chatter. I say this because I have been chatting since I was 16. I have made good friends with the people I converse with. These friendships sometimes extend into my day-to-day existence via phone calls, text messages, and the rare meeting. In fact, one of the first posts I ever wrote on Yahoo 360 (with my now dead 360 account) focused on the fact that I considered the friends I made in chat to be just as valid as the friendships I held with people I can see every day. In retrospect, I did not have true friends until I started working, so my chat friends were my only friends for a long time. Yet, there are those

My aunt mentioned a few days ago that my cousin needed help with her algebra. She is a very bright, thirteen year-old, who normally gets A's in her classes. Algebra has been the only class she has had trouble with. Last night, my aunt arrived around 9pm with my cousin to receive help with her math. Sitting with my cousin and explaining to her not only to reach the solution but how to apply it to other problems was really satisfying. There were several moments where I could literally see her eyes light up with understanding. This experience brought back memories of being a tutor. When I was in high school, I was a tutor for a program called AVID. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. I was trained in tutoring my peers in mathematics and English. The satisfaction I received from tutoring almost steered me into the teaching/professing field. I had actually wanted to be a teacher throughout elementary school and junior high. It was only my fascination with compute

The American pronunciation of schedule .

The Chaos by G. Nolst Trenité, a.k.a. Charivarius 1870 - 1946 Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye your dress you'll tear, So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written). Made has not the sound of bade, Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid. Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague, But be careful how you speak, Say break, steak, but bleak and streak. Previous, precious, fuchsia, via, Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir, Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.

[sitting in my hotel room overlooking the alive Geary & Polk intersection, watching a love-scene on a movie for which I don't know the name] words have so much power.. the way we pronounce them.. the way our lips move as the syllables fight for existence . . . the impact they have upon delivery.. words are life

[sitting in my hotel room overlooking the alive Geary & Polk intersection, watching a love-scene on a movie for which I don't know the name] words have so much power.. the way we pronounce them.. the way our lips move as the syllables fight for existence . . . the impact they have upon delivery.. words are life