Masha D'yans

Some lovely friends from MD gave me the above farewell card a couple of months ago which I am in love with. It has been sitting on top of my bookcase and every time I look at it, I become light and happy. It is such a joyful image and the girl's hair reminds me of my own, which is kind of wild and never where it is supposed to be. I have kind of given up trying to appear neat.
Today finally I decided to see if I can find out more about the card (I've been looking at posters for our house - I'll write more later). Anyway, I found out that the artist is Masha D'yans. All her images are really lovely, fantastical and so light and happy. I never get tired of looking at them.
I found out Target carries her cards so I will have to check them out this weekend.
Let me know which of her images you like best.

How marriage works

This was an interesting article about a catholic priest's advice on who to marry and who not to marry - I guess it's mostly advice for women.
Here's a summary of what he said:

- Never marry a man who has no friends
- Similar attitude towards money
- Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours.
[this one was interesting because it's unusual but still true.]
- Is he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings?
- Does he have a sense of humor?
- Take a good, unsentimental look at his family — you’ll learn a lot about him and his attitude towards women.
- similar religious beliefs
- Does he possess those character traits that add up to a good human being — the willingness to forgive, praise, be courteous? Or is he inclined to be a fibber, to fits of rage, to be a control freak, to be envious of you, to be secretive?

It's funny he said that at the end of his lectures, people were left off wondering if anyone was left that satisfied his criterion! but i think a lot of what he said make a lot of sense. At least for me.
of course, just between me and you, I think i landed me a pretty good fish.

most valuable possession

I just read about this armed robbery that happened close to our house and you know what i was thinking... omg if that happens to me, i hope they don't take my computer!! it has all of my research files!
I am not sure what it says about me that this is the first thing I think about.

Maybe I need to get a back up!

tongue tricks mania

this is just weird... although.. the last one is kind of cute!

WRAPUP 5-Colombia rescues Betancourt, 3 US hostages

*Betancourt, 3 Americans, 11 other hostages rescued *Rescue operation tricked guerrillas *Betancourt, weeping, thanks Colombian military *Bush congratulates Uribe *U.S. ex-hostages en route to United States, Colombia says By Hugh...

read more | digg story

Our reality

In the midst of paper rejections from snotty conferences, it is good to remind of ourselves what reality is for some people. After 6 years of being a hostage, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt is finally rescued by the government forces. oh yes 14 others were as well.
It is a happy day after all.

Grave of the Firefly

Last night we watched the movie Grave of the Firefly, an old (1988) anime. It was an amazing movie, it played with your heart strings like a virtuoso. It is the story of the survival of a brother and a sister, made orphan by the firebombing of Kobe during WWII. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I don't know how much to write and what to say. Something I liked about it a lot was how nothing was totally good, and similary nothing was totally bad. Actually the only bad thing is war. I don't want to give away the ending but once you finish watch it, i recommend wiki'ing it and finding out more about the author of the story and the semi-autobiographical aspect of it.
Here is a trailer for the movie:

and here is a review of it by Roger Ebert with some interesting views.


ps now I have two favourite shows with the term firefly in them!