Monday, May 24, 2010

Buy Japanese art Ukiyoe woodblock prints online

Buy Japanese art Ukiyoe woodblock prints online

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

CNN's news coverage

Oh, The Shock!! Horrors of Horror!!! According to the majority of my Thai friends on Facebook, CNN's news coverage of the protests in Thailand (Bangkok) was biased and Dan Rivers had no *bleeping* clue what he was talking about. My Thai friends are joining facebook groups with titles like "You are clearly only watching the biased coverage from CNN" and "We want more informed reporting from Dan Rivers and CNN" *Yawn* Jeez, my Thai friends. Where have you been hiding all this time? The mainstream media in the US, and I dare say most media in all countries around the world, are biased. They all have their own agenda. Do my Thai friends honestly think that CNN (and other media) have been reporting unbiased and accurate news all this time, but then all of a sudden out of the blue, started reporting biased news?

I did reply in the comments on their statuses to that effect. Oddly (or not), no one has yet to make any kind of replies to my comments.

Of course, we all should be demanding for accuracy and honest reporting from the media. That should already be the news media's job and their number one priority and the people deserve to be better informed. However, CNN is not the only culprit here and this news about the protests in Thailand is not the only biased news the media has ever reported. I hope my friends realize the reality of that.

I say we start demanding CNNNBCABCFOXCBS and other acronyms to start doing their job right. However, I think that in the end, it is us the people who will have to discern for ourselves what is truly going on in the world.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Go-gatsu-byo

"Go-gatsu-byo", translated into English, is "May Sickness". In a way, it is kind of similar to "homesickness" because what it is, basically, is when small children who have started preschool in Japan (in April) but didn't cry or seemed to have any kind of seperation anxiety, started to cry and refuse to go to preschool in May (especially at the beginning of May after Golden Week - the name of a week-long holiday in Japan starting from the end of April to beginning of May). I think my daughter might be having this May Sickness.

This little girl of mine, being an only child and having had 3 years of constant attention from both parents (since daddy works at home and mommy only works a few hours a week outside the home), apparently had no problem saying good-bye to me when I dropped her off at school that very first day of school. She seemed to enjoy herself immensely and looked forward to going to school each day. But then, the day after the holidays when I went to pick her up, she told me that she cried at school. I asked her why, but she just said, "I don't know." I asked if she had a fight with her classmates and she said no. Then, I asked if she was lonely and she said, "yes." The next day, which was a Friday, she started kicking her feet and screaming when I took her to school. I had to literally drag her and handed her over to her teacher that day. Poor thing :( She came home that day with a different set of clothes. Apparently, she had wet herself (she's 3.5 years old and have been out of diapers for exactly one year with only a few accidents in between, so that was odd).

Last night, she woke up at 2 AM crying about how she didn't want to go to school. She then told me that the reason was because she didn't want to use the toilet at school. My daughter doesn't really like using the toilet at home either (not sure why .. I think she just doesn't like the process of having to take her pants off and flushing and washing hands, etc, but I don't know for sure). So I promised her I'll talk to her teacher and see what we can do about it. I don't think there's really anything we could do about it, though. She'll just have to get used to it.

But anyway, this morning she was fine. I let her sleep in a little, tried not to rush her too much, gave her a small popsicle after breakfast and took her to school. She didn't cry and just smiled and waved good-bye to me as I took off. We'll see what happens when I go pick her up in an hour or so.

May sickness or just toilet sickness? Hmmm..