Little girls break my heart

I recently went to an Iaido seminar in New Plymouth. Sometime before dinner time I asked my Sensei if he could only have one child, would he rather have a boy or a girl. Now the trick to this question for him was that he has had trouble having children and took him and his wife a while before they had twins! One boy and one girl even. He said that with all the trouble they went through and having both come at the same time, he couldn't possibly answer. 

I retorted that if someone had asked me that same question 3 years earlier, I would have said definitely a boy. Now I would say definitely a girl. 

I think I have wanted a girl for about a year. My reasons are that boys are fun and great, but when they grow up you can't really act the same way with them. Girls, even though their physical appearances change a lot, their demeanor to you doesn't change too much. I would love to have a daddy's girl.

Working at some childcare centres has really confirmed this for me. A little girl called Nikki attached to me the first time she laid eyes on me. I'm not sure why she did but all my paternal instincts just come out when she holds my hand, asks me for a cuddle or just talks in that baby voice. She literally breaks my heart, but so do a lot of baby girls.

It breaks my heart that I don't have a baby girl now.

It breaks my heart because I will have to wait to have one (I need to have a stable income and way of life, otherwise it won't be fair on her)

It breaks my heart because I have a 50% fail rate of getting a girl (could be more, the male gene is strong in my family)

It breaks my heart because the pinhole in my heart cannot hold off the poring love.

Word of the Day #13: Gossamer

I think the sound of this word is very beautiful. It sounds eloquent and exotic.

I thought it was mostly used as an adjective but it is more of a noun.

Pronounced: Gos-sa-mer

Meaning: 

(Noun) Any thin, light fabric; a thread or a web of the substance.

(Adjective) Thin and light

Example sentence: The faeries had tiny gossamer wings that looked too delicate to hold them aloft.

So much easier if it was causation

When I was younger I remember being at school and had messages like, keep it green and be a tidy kiwi. 

These days those same messages are being used but others that have seeped in are keep nz beautiful (a stolen phrase from Max clothing), reduce-reuse-recycle  (used at the latter end of my school years).

I am sure that there are quite a few of us out there that make a consciencely effort to at least not litter or recycle. But the matter of fact is that it really is 1 rotten apple spoils the lot. If 10% of the population litter then that is 10% too much. It is much easier to destroy than build. 

What amazes me is that New Zealand wants to be seen as this clean green environment but doesn't have big laws against doing the opposite of this. If you look at Singapore, there are heavy fines for spitting (I think like $500), chewing gum is banned (I'm totally for this), and littering is a huge fine too.

We have places like Wellington and Waitakere where rubbish bags need to be purchased so we can throw out our rubbish. My question is...why aren't wheelie bins used? Both require the use of a big truck to come and take our rubbish away but wheelie bins don't require loads and loads of plastic bags to be produced (isn't reduce one of the big R's?). Sure they could be biodegradable recycled bags but is recycle/reuse better than reduce?

It is easy to ignore a big faceless company (or city council) when they do things that in essence litter our country. But it is much harder to ignore it when people do this. I myself was a non-conscience litterer several years back and I was very embarrassed when a very good friend told me off about it one day, and I thank him very much for doing so. I now very consciencely try not to litter. 

The people that I really want to focus on is actually smokers. These people in my opinion are the biggest litterers in our society. How many times have you seen one of these people flick their cigarette butt into the gutter, the road, out of their cars...everywhere. Sure the butts are quite small but how many times do they do this per day. If they can consciencely do this, what about normal litter? I think that a huge portion of litterers are smokers. Could we ever prove this? I don't think so, smokers being litterers is only a correlation, it isn't causation because we all know that non-smokers litter as well. 

I'm just sick of seeing people litter....consciencely too!

Tiny Purple Orchids

"Do you believe in fate?"

I read on someone else's blog. I replied with a defiant "NO!"

Then today while I was off to dinner with gf and flatmate. My flatmate exclaimed..."isn't this yours?" picking up a dainty bookmark off the ground. 

Unbeknown to her...I had lost that bookmark not 1 day ago.... ZOMG...Like totally FATE.

However, I think it was through a series of luck and not so scientific explanation, I will break down the process.

* Yesterday was a very calm day. That means no wind....yes it is possible in Wellington.

* It was a Sunday, so trash pickers are probably not working.

* I lost it outside a non-child friendly cafe.

* The surrounding area to this cafe is also not child friendly and perhaps people around this area are not in to petty things.

Therefore with no wind, no people after petty things, no children and no trash pickers. It is only sensible to assume that the bookmark would not be more than 20 feet from where it was lost!

It is a bit scratched now (sorry Max and Ruby! I'll take better care of it this time I promise!) but I didn't hesitate to plonk it into my book.

Fate? 

Yeah nah

Hot n Cold: Katy Perry

I've always been asking people...rather be too cold or too hot?

I've never noticed but people actually answer this question wrong.

The typical cold answer is, oh I rather be too cold because I can just put on more clothes.

The typical hot answer is, too hot, because I don't like the cold.

First off, why doesn't anyone say...oh I rather be too hot, cause then I can go have a cold beer, find an air conditioned room and chill.

But my main point is people who typically answer I rather be too cold because I can just put on more clothes is actually not answering the question. 

Isn't the idea of the question, which one you could suffer more? Not what are ways you can get around being too cold/hot?

My answer to my own question is I rather be too hot because I feel that the cold is more attuned to suffering, while being too hot is like the after effects of a big work out or sports, so I don't feel like I am suffering (tho if you put me in the middle of the Sahara.....)

Whats this to do with Katy Perry? 

nothing...

she's hot tho

Word of the Day #12: Bucolic

A word that I will rarely use I think, but good to know.

Pronouced: bue-co-lic

Meaning: sugguesting of a rural life, pertaining a country life style

Example Sentence: I would love to have a bucolic lifestyle.

Who is your daddy and what does he do?

I wonder when a father stops seeing their son/daughter as a child (as oppose to seeing them as an adult). The thing is probably never.

Now you can look at it at the reverse and ask, when does a child stop being a child in their own eyes when their father is involved. I want my father to respect me and take pride in what I do. I also want to not present myself as a child and be reliant on him.

However I find my self wanting to sit a little lower in the car, so I can look up at my dad. I want to feel that nostalgia. When I get sick I want my dad to come and take care of me, to feel my head, to give some small words of comfort.

I'm not sure if others feel this way and I wonder when this 'want' will go away. Is it when I have children of my own? Will this also affect the way my father perceives me?

Word of the day #11: Hitherto

Very interesting word in my opinion and another word I would never have come across until I read fantasy books. It sounds so knowledgeable to me when you say it.

Pronouced: hith-er-to

Meaning: up until now

Example sentence: Who knew hitherto, that I liked to book blog.

India was last seen tapping two blue mana

I'm not too sure about the politics in the sub-continent. India and Patkistan have been at war since the time of stupid, and who knows what they are fighting about now. Most likely the conversation went something like...

"Hey my toes aren't fat!"

"Well my legs aren't chubby, Mohan said you said my legs are chubby!"

"..."

"arrrgghh, let go of my hair......"

"arggghhh my eye..."

But the fighting isn't just between those two countries, there is civil war in Sri Lanka and leaders are getting capped in Pakistan every year so it seems.

But one thing that all these countries have in common is that their number one sport is Cricket. The sub-continent is practically half the world's game and to think that anything to put that sport into jeoprady is insane.

Well the insanity has happened and a few days ago the Sri Lankan cricket team got shot at while en route to some venue. 

The problem now lies in, why did they target a cricket team? Do the terrorists want some retaliation? Did they disagree with an LBW decision during their innings on a sunday game? Are they anti-cricketers? Were they picked last in school every day? 

Word of the Day #10: Nice

Yeah...nice....like we don't know what that means.....your such a moron Enchante.

Thats what I thought! But I think we have a lot of misconceptions of this word. yes we all know that it means good or pleasant. 

Example Sentence: That was a nice hug.

But it also has other meaning. 

Pronouced: Nice (Rhymes with mice!)

Meaning: 
1) accurate

2) subtle

Example sentence:
1)That was a nice shot. 

The misconception we have here is that we think that nice here means good, like good shot. But what it actually means here is that it was an accurate shot.

2) That was a nice distinction.

The misconception here is that we think nice here again means good. Like that was awesome how you picked out that difference there. But what it actually means, was that it was a subtle distinction between say, two jackets with the only difference being the cuffs on them.

So you see, such simple words that we didn't know how to use properly!

Frozen Yoghurt, I call it Fro-ghurt

Being sick is ass. You feel terrible. (thats bad)

However, I don't have that guilty feeling of not having done anything today. (thats good)

You look terrible (thats bad)

You get to take pseudophedrine (thats good)

Gives me cotton mouth (thats bad)

I get to watch TV all day (thats good)

I don't get to read cause I can't concentrate (thats bad)

Ignorance is bliss

You are the fastest person at your school. Then you had to high school and you are the 7th fastest.

This was such an awesome meal of Vietnamese, then you go to Melbourne and everything tastes worse.

This is the greatest book ever, until you read more than 5 books.

Seriously, there have been so many times in my life where I say something which is seemed so meaning and/or passionate, but then days/weeks/years later I realise what a fool I had been. Bigger than a fool sometimes.

Other times I look back on life and how things were so much easier. Your days were a constant cycle of happiness. Eat, sleep, play, eat, shit, play, sleep, eat, eat, eat, sleep, shit, play.

Now I eat less, sleep less, play less but funny enough shit more. Sometimes it come from my mouth, ranting on about useless stuff that gets me into a bigger pile of shit.

Ok, should probably tone down the swearing. 

It is so much happier to be ignorant and yet we strive to make ourselves richer in both wealth and mind. We try to educate others to stop them from being stupid essentially. Yet are we denying them their happiness? Let crappy coffee taste good to them, don't take them for a real coffee. Let them dream of bad books and do not direct them to Borders or Amazon. 

We are dream killers, happiness devourers. One are the ones that bring the shit to the ignorant.

Word of the Day #9: Simulacrum

For so long I had thought this word meant robot or some sort. And perhaps the picture of this card misdirects us to think so. 

But actually finding the real meaning has made me appreciate the card even more.

Pronouced: sim-u-lay-crum

Meaning: 
1) superficial likeness

2) image or representation

Example sentence: This magic card is a simulacrum of Jens Thoren.

Probladox (My made up word for a solution that causes more problems)

I remember when I was younger, I didn't read very much. I'm not sure why I didn't. I think perhaps it was because I wasn't good at reading, but then I remember reading some books that I liked and I never thought to myself "oh this is too hard."

I think that text based computers games helped me a lot with my reading and with those text based computer games came the internet. At the beginning stages of the internet, it was all very much fun, there was no internet lingo, ICQ was just starting to become big and all was fine. 

I guess one of my first internet acronyms was a/s/l (age/sex/location). Yeah you know the one. 

ah oh

Around this same time, cellphones were being more readily available to the wider market. I remember my first phone, it was an Alcatel and it was pretty much a brick. But when I first got it, it was one of the latest models and the kids at school were like oooo.... a little history on cellphones during this time was that most phones could not text in lower case letters and only the network provider would text you in lower case. So when I got a text saying "please tell your momma to move her ass, as she is blocking our satellite. vodafone." I had to really laugh.

I think that it was hard to meet people back in the days. The only ways to really meet people were school, work, social clubs. To meet with people you would have to ring them as well and talk....actually talk, we know how awkward it can be, how do we not sound like a dork, what do you say? I think that the internet has really helped the former problem. There are so many social networking sites, or websites to meet people. The cellphone via text messaging helped with the latter problem. However both of these solutions creates more problems. You would have thought that programs like ICQ would help people type more and thus get better at it and thus be able to spell better. [insert Tui Billboard here(New Zealand joke...sorry!)]. Instead what it created was internet acronyms and abbreviations; text language with cellphones. Both of these can create massive inabilities to be able to communicate with the other person. 

I cbf xplanin evythg 2 u nw, bt maybe ltr. 

It can lead to the inability to read a decent piece of text properly too, especially if any government in the world wants to legislate that text language be made into an official language even for a school test/exam. Jesus, who was smoking some serious shit when they put that idea forward. Then you get to the point of, god yes, this guys is terribly boring, what the fuck is he saying? Is he some kind of social dork? Is he trying to text me right now?!?!?! He seemed so interesting during texting (that's because we never get to practice speaking to real people much now do we?). 

Or more recently, you get some psycho dude from the South Island who fakes things on the internet. Then when you get here from Germany, takes your passport away from you! Ok, that one is an extreme case, but you should get the picture.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem. Is there a solution....is there a problem?

Some of my friends would tell me to gtfo or stfu.

But seriously, in the world where we want to push and push for education, is the internet and cellphone more benefical or more harmful?

Beyond 2000: The medical edition

For those of you that remember the Beyond 2000, I bet you are laughing now. Those of you that don't know what it is, it was simply a TV Program that would have "advanced" technology. The program would "promote" these new technologies that could/would be avaliable to you beyond the year 2000! What the program didn't know was that technology would advance exponentially. Things that were unfathomable, like decoding the human genome that was said to finished decoding in around 2025 was decoded in 2003...why? Because technological advancement in computers was so dramatic. 

That leads me to my actual topic. Resveratrol.

Resveration is a new compound. Place most commonly found? Red Wine.

The compound is actually found in the skin of grapes. This compound functions by activing the longevity gene in animal bodies. This longevity gene helps us to lose weight, to fight off disease, to live longer. Study using overfed rats showed that those that were given resveratrol ran faster than other overfed rats and ran twice as far. Another factor was that, those that were given resveratrol gained less weight. WOW.

Then I think back, a while ago broccoli was the big find because it helped to prevent cancer! Where has that study lead?

Stem Cell research was the big thing, it got scrapped and now Obama is just reviving it. 

I am just so skeptical now about these programs even though they are promoting such great and wonderful things. Don't get me wrong, I hope they succeed, I hope I proven to be an idiot, but my brain says, no.

The scientists in the program says that in around 5 years time reservatrol will be on the market in pill form. Definitely in our life time.

Tune in next time to Beyond 2000: The medical edition where we look at the pill that prevents diabetes.

Word of the Day #8: Austere

I can't believe a word can have that many meanings, but this word "austere" has many meanings. The meaning I'll write down will be the one I'll use most frequently.

Pronounced: aw-steer

Meaning: lacking of ornament, grave, solemn.

Example sentence:

The was were no artifacts, no enchantments and no creatures, making his board feel austere.

Before they are hanged

It is very ironic and sad that while New South Wales is flooding, that Victoria was emblazoned with wild devastating bush fires. I think the total number of dead has past 200 and around 1000 homes are gone. The worst thing? That perhaps there were multiple arsonists at work. What are these people thinking? What possible gain do they have for doing something like this? The good thing to come out of it is even though we are in a heavy recession, New Zealanders and Australians (especially) are donating a lot of money to help out the cause. Red Cross NZ has pledged more than 1 million dollars and are not deducting costs of admin and bank fees. 

It is going to take years for those broken families to get over it, the land will be unusable for at least 6 months (could be a lot more, I'm not sure).

So far they have caught 2 arsonist, but they only caused small fires apparently (still killing 21 people). I hope they caught all the bastards, and then I hope the families forgive them...

But not before they are hanged.

Split personality

Decided to move my book content to another blog. So if you want to get up to date on what I have read or my reviews or comments about books, you need to move to

sleeping-with-books.blogspot.com

20 Random things not about me

It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own blog, erase my answers, enter yours.
Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name : Enchante

2. A four Letter Word : Emit

3. A boy's Name : Eddard

4. A girl's Name : Erin

5. An occupation : Educator

6. A color : Electric Pink

7. Something you'll wear : Embroidered Jacket

8. Something you'll do : Eat

9. A food : Eggplant

10. Something found in the bathroom : Earrings

11. A place : Earth

12. A reason for being late : Essay assignment night before

13. Something you'd shout : Easy

14. A movie title : Eagle vs Shark

15. Something you drink : Eggnog

16. A musical group : Everclear

17. An animal : Eel

18. A street name : Egmont Street

19. A type of car : Echo

20. The title of a song : Everlong

Word of the Day #7: Sycophant

I thought this word meant preacher, how wrong I was.

Pronounced: sic-oh-phant

Meaning: A flatterer, a fawning parasite, an ass kisser

Example Sentence:

I don't want to sound like a sycophant, but your awesome.