SISU!
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics: Men’s Ice Hockey Final:
Canada 3 USA 2 (“Sudden Death”)
Finland 5 Slovakia 3
So Canada (Gold) has a population of 34,017,000
U.S.A. (Silver) has a population of 308,372,000
Finland (Bronze) has a population of…5,356,500
Ratios: Finland is 1.73% the size of the USA and 15.74% that of Canada.
SISU!
I reckon the best way to tackle a new topic is when you get a new text book:
1. First flick through it very quickly. If you see anything interesting stop and read it, as you would any non-fiction book read for leisure. Why force yourself to read turgid stuff that makes your eyelids heavy?
2. Then, look down the contents page. If you see something interesting (who knows, “Internal Audit” might be of interest) then read that chapter first.
3. Next, instead of starting at Chapter 1 and boring yourself rigid by Chapter 3, start at chapter four, which will take you straight into the relevant part of the course. Chapters 1 to 3 are often mere “introduction” or “recap of assumed knowledge”. Easy to get bogged down at the start and wasting time on them so skip it until later, when you come to revise.
4. Have a quick read of the last chapter for an idea of the more obscure “higher marks”.
5. For an overview, best read the passnotes quickly first, before the textbook, to put the topic into context, then put away in a drawer until the exams as they are not much use.
BUT…I have just been looking at the new Kaplan cards and they are absolutely gorgeous: I have already spread them about in front of me on my desk at work. They are in “mind map” flash card style in different colours.
Anything that makes studying is more of a pleasure, has to be good.
From outer space?
“Astrobiology” Scientist Claims Human Life Came From Another Planet.
This gentleman’s theory is not so different from what some sci-fi writers have always maintained, e.g., Ron Hubbard – indeed, Scientologists to this day believe they are “Thetans” or whatever, the Ancient Egyptians believed that when a soul dies (albeit the soul of a king!) it went back to the stars it came from (Sirius and the Dog Star are the New Age theories). I myself am attracted to this idea as we live in a world of dual nature. Earth itself could be the inner space of an outer space. Our “soul” if you like is non-material but our bodily form is organic.
There is a view that psychoactive fungus came from spores from outer space, perhaps via comets or meteors hitting the earth. Once ingested, it imparted “the Holy Spirit” to developing homosapiens, and that most religions are actually founded on ingestion of hallucinogenic substances, e.g., the Ancient Roman rite of Elusysian (the Mystery Rites) may have involved psychotropic mead giving rise to religious ecstasy. Certainly we know that Native Americans used peyote – a succulent cacti native to the Americas – as part of their religious rites, as did the Incas and Aztecs.
Why would naturally growing plants and fungus impart this experience – could it be they are products of an alien life form only accessible by imbibing?
Jerome David Salinger has died aged 91 at his home in New Hampshire. Creator of the character Holden Caulfield, whose perception of the world as being full of “phonies” touched a chord with a whole baby-boomer generation, followed by Gen X and still sells well today.
His short stories, such as, For Esmé – with Love and Squalor were accomplished and intellectual. His younger brother who died young, and who drives the character Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye appears earlier here, in A Perfect Day for Bananafish, which first appeared in The New Yorker in 1948, and remains one of his best works. Salinger’s short stories were typically deep, intellectual and philosophical.
As one of the world’s best known recluses, many would-be biographers beat a path to his door, which resulted in strange half-bios, such as In Search of JD Salinger. His daughter recently joined in, writing a lurid biography of her father, which would not have pleased him.
Salinger was born in New York of a Jewish businessman father and a Scottish-Irish mother and grew up in Manhattan. ~ KrissyG1
[q/]In 1953, he bought a house at Cornish, New Hampshire, and retreated into seclusion, giving a rare and final interview in 1980.
Last year, Salinger took legal action to block the publication of a book by a Swedish author – 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye – that was billed as a follow-up to his classic novel.
He has taken legal action to protect his copyright on previous occasions, but has never appeared in court. He has also refused filming rights for his story.
His three subsequent books – including Franny and Zooey – were all best-sellers.
But no new Salinger fiction appeared after 1965 and he has done everything possible to try to thwart the efforts of biographers.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk[/q]
KrissyG's Eyes 