Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer 2

29 May 2012 13 Comments

by smkelly8 in Blogging Challenge, Chicago, travel Tags: , , ,

at the Chicago Botanical Gardens


New to The Daily Post? Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2012″ or “postaweek2012″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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Glowing Firefly Squid, Japan

29 May 2012 1 Comment

by smkelly8 in Uncategorized

Reblogged from Ode To Capitalism:

Click to visit the original post

I wish the word "awesome" weren't so overused as it fits this outstanding photo taken in Japan.

Why?

28 May 2012 2 Comments

by smkelly8 in culture, expat life Tags: , , ,

Somebody’s watching us

In China I often don’t even ask our handlers or students questions. It’s not like we get that many clear cut answers. So when they installed two security cameras with very eerie red LED lights, I didn’t as the school why. I guess they’d say the cameras and the motion detectors positioned by our doors were for our security. Yet I’m too skeptical to buy that. Isn’t everyone’s security important? Why aren’t there cameras by the other residences?

We also have sound detectors in our classrooms.

My big question is “Why?” “Why now?”

Some speculate it’s based on a case in Beijing when a British man allegedly attacked a Chinese woman. I don’t know much about that story, but there’s a good article on the BBC on the love/hate relationship China has with foreigners. The American French Fry Brother exemplifies the love and this attack the hate.

That is horrible that the woman was attacked, but would nationwide surveillance result?

It’s very weird walking by those lights.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

26 May 2012 22 Comments

by smkelly8 in Blogging Challenge, food, meme, travel Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Just the thing on a hot summer day, Ubud, Indonesia

New to The Daily Post? Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2012″ or “postaweek2012″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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The Last Enemy

24 May 2012 Leave a Comment

by smkelly8 in Review, television

Reblogged from Mixed Media:

Click to visit the original post

With Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch, Masterpiece Contemporary's mini series The Last Enemy was chilling and suspenseful. When Steven Ezard's NGO activist brother dies, the aloof mathematician returns to London for the funeral. For years he's been working in China where no one can bother him.* He doesn't recognize this "new" London with its national id's and tight, high tech security.

Read more… 233 more words

For those who crave some suspense.

American French Fry Brother

24 May 2012 1 Comment

by smkelly8 in Misc, musing, news, technology

My two cents on the buzz around the American French Fry Brother. I think it’s great that this young man was so generous. Yet I don’t think it’s necessary to use this incident to shame people into acting with more generosity.  I do think that connecting with the marginalized is the best way to help.

Just telling the story will spur some people to open their eyes and give when they feel the time is right. It’s good to see some foreigners getting credit for doing good.

This week we’ve been a bit under siege I feel since the school has installed cameras outside the foreign teachers apartment building and motion detectors by the new patio. The motion detectors don’t turn on lights so they have no use. I suppose they would detect a skirmish or intruder.

Term of the Week: Hot Waitress Index

24 May 2012 2 Comments

by smkelly8 in bad jobs, news

From Investopedia.com

The Hot Waitress Index is an index that indicates the state of the economy by measuring the number of attractive people working as waiters/waitresses. According to the hot waitress index, the higher the number of good looking servers, the weaker the current state of the economy. It is assumed that attractive individuals do not tend to have trouble finding high-paying jobs during good economics times. During poor economic times, these jobs will be more difficult to find and therefore more attractive people will be forced to work in lower paying jobs such as being waiters/waitresses.

When I read this in my inbox, I thought “you’ve got to be kidding.” It does make sense though.

Here: Chicago 1893

23 May 2012 Leave a Comment

by smkelly8 in Uncategorized

Reblogged from Here & Abroad:

Click to visit the original post

Photos from the magnificent World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago, 1893.

Source: Field Museum Library's Flickr page.

Read more… 4 more words

I'm still enamored of the World's Fair, the one in 1893. There's about zero news of the one in 2012.

From the National Art Museum of China

23 May 2012 2 Comments

by smkelly8 in art, China, culture, expat life, museum Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I spent a lovely afternoon last Saturday wandering through the galleries of the National Art Museum of China. The collection consists of paintings, drawings and sculpture from the 20th and current century.

If you’re in Beijing, I recommend this museum. It’s free if you show your passport or Chinese i.d. card, and it’s not so crowded, a rarity on the weekends.

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Water, Water Everywhere . . .

21 May 2012 Leave a Comment

by smkelly8 in China, news, warning

. . . but be careful what you drink. A friend told me that she recently edited a grad student’s thesis paper examining water quality in China. Bad news. Most of the drinking water people get delivered in jugs is impure. It contains pollutants and gets contaminated as it’s processed.

I was skeptical before since a big jug only costs 10 yuan while a small bottle costs about 2 yuan. You can find some for 1 yuan on the street, but I’m just a bit leery.

So if you live in China, it’s a good idea to boil the drinking water that’s delivered.

I also read that a lot of the tea here is contaminated. Yes, the tea for which China is so famous.

I read in City Weekend Beijing May 6 – 15th p. 14 that Greenpeace has found carcinogens and pesticides in Chinese tea. Tenfu, Lipton, and several other brands use a lot of pesticides. Red Iron #81 had 17 different pesticides causing cancer, infertility, genetic disorders and harms unborn children.

Where’s the Chinese Ralph Nadar?

Yes, I know that there’s fracking and bad water in the U.S. too, but I guess I see more things getting done about that. Where’s the outrage here? People seem to expect this sort of thing, which perpetuates the problem.

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