This is Eliana showing off how she gets in and out of her playpen. We have been away from the house due to renovations so been living in this temporarily. She has good form… just her dismount and landing needs work.
Interesting article written in the International Herald Tribune on China’s growing obsession with Ivy League schools. I had a teacher at Tsinghua who was studying English who wanted to go to Harvard. She didn’t just want to go. She HAD to go. This was her life’s dream.
Now, eight years after the publication of “Harvard Girl,” bookstore shelves here are laden with copycat titles like “How We Got Our Child Into Yale,” “Harvard Family Instruction” and “The Door of the Elite.”
Their increasing popularity points to the preoccupation – some might say a single-minded national obsession – of a growing number of middle-class Chinese parents: getting their children into America’s premier universities.
Because government policy allows families only one child, many parents feel immense pressure to groom their sons and daughters for success and, in the process, prepare a comfortable retirement for themselves. They fervently mine the expanding volumes of child-rearing manuals – “Stanford’s Silver Bullet,” “Yale Girl,” “Creed of Harvard” – for tips on producing what the Chinese term “high-quality” children.
The one part of the inauguration that caught my attention was the music played by Yo-Yo Ma, Perlman, McGill and Montero. I recognized the tune but couldn’t place exactly where it was from.
The part I recognized was an old Shaker hymn entitled Simple Gifts(composed by Joseph Brackett in 1848). I sang a song in college called Lord of the Dance (composed in 1963 by Sydney Carter) which used the same melody.
Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he.
Anyways, it’s always a good feeling when you recognize music.
Congrats to Pres. Obama.
Well, we stayed home, but I knew people in that 1.8million crowd. Didn’t see it live but it’s all good. I watched it on C-Span and enjoyed the coverage. It looked really cold. Heard from people that it was good… historic… and probably life changing.
Anyways, glad everyone is excited and desires to be more responsible. I hope this will last, but the realist in me knows otherwise. But until then, let’s be responsible together. :)
Being at Mama Geezlouie’s family’s house has allowed me more time to entertain myself with television. Last week I had the choice of watching American Idol or The Biggest Loser. Of course we watched AI for the majority of the time and switched to TBL during commercial breaks.
Each time I saw a contestant on TBL I am reminded of the baggage we all carry. Though these people on TBL carry it all physically and can be seen by others… we all have baggage (whether we admit it or not) and we try to hide them until they show up at the most inconvenient times. Continue reading
I was on my way to work and picked up one of those free Washington Post Express papers they hand out at the metro. Front page had a picture of the plane that landed on the Hudson River. It was one of those weird surreal feelings you get when you see something you don’t see every day.
“The captain said, ‘Brace for impact, because we’re going down,” Kolodjay said. He said passengers put their heads in their laps and started saying prayers. He said the plane hit the water pretty hard, but he was fine.”
I wrote this blog entry “Joseph and Economics” almost exactly five years ago. At that time, I was re-reading Genesis 41-47 which was a narrative of Joseph and his life. Back in 2004, the economy was booming, housing prices were rising, we were in the midst of war and little did we know that in just a few years we would be in a major recession, fighting corruption, major foreclosures, bankruptcies, and other unfortunate accidents. Continue reading
Be warned… this year end review is a flow of random thoughts. It’s more for me than anyone else. It helps me to see where this year has gone.
This is a list compiled by John Piper gathered from the New Testament on what to pray for. A lot of times we get into a rut so this can be a good guide on how to pray. Check out the link here.
This was compiled for the new year in 1995. Let this continue to encourage you to pray this coming year.
