FreeRice.com

A fabulous little website that tests your grasp of English vocabulary while simultaneously donating food to impoverished nations aorund the world. Also, slightly addictive; I somehow managed to get up to level 50 and have now spent almost a half hour failing to accomplish that feat again.
Seriously, though, it is a much better use of the ten or fifteen minutes that you might be tempted to waste on celebrity gossip. And now that my SAT days are firmly in my past, I can almost enjoy the vocabulary lesson.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Do it.

People Watching

On the train into the city yesterday, I realized that I have become quite the people watcher. Right off the bat like that, that statement does have a stalker-ish ring to it, but I do not mean staring people down in an intimidating and frightful way. Instead, I really find myself fascinated with just watching people. It astonishes me how different people are. In the same country, in the same city, on the same train car, there were a myriad of different people, all looking like they were off to do very different things with their evening. I find myself occasionally trying to work out these unknown faces' life stories in my mind as I sit a few feet away from them or watch them walk by. I have a wonderful image of an older woman sitting knitting what looks like it might one day become a jumper, and I can imagine her hurrying off the train, eager to get home to a nice hot cup of tea and a distinguished little husband in herringbone slacks who sits, reading, waiting for her. It tickles me to no end when this same older woman turns to the surly looking teenager seated next to her with a pursed expression on his face and his head bopping to the music playing in his earphones. She leans into him a bit and starts brushing some lint off his shoulder. I would not have guessed for all the world that they were any more closely acquainted than that they happened to be sharing the same seat together. People surprise you, and I like that. People offer so much, continually keeping me on my toes, forbidding me from lethargic complacency and amusing me when they turn out to be quite different than you think they are.
And so, I think that, thus acknowledged, I will continue with this delicate little people watching habit of mine. It certainly makes train rides pass more quickly.

Daring ... You either have it or you don't

Somehow I got sucked into watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model this past weekend when I was really supposed to be preparing for finals. As I watched some very annoying model hopeful dissolve into tears when she was told she was going to be attached to a wire cord and hoisted up in the air so that photographers could snap pictures of the girls in karate poses, ala Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, I realised that daring is one of those things that you either have or you do not. It's very hard to tell someone that they have to buck up and act daring. I realise that models acting on a painfully contrived show are not the best example for this kind of thing, but I think it is pretty common across human nature. It's either naturally part of a person's personality, or one is just not that type of person. That is not to say that the daring among us are daring across the board. I would have absolutely jumped (no pun intended) at the chance to flit around in the air striking martial arts poses, but there are quite a few things I cannot picture myself doing with ease. I will probably end up sky diving at some point in my life, but it will be the result of a great deal of nerve and mental work. I do not suppose that I could simply get on board the aircraft, cooly fly to 10,000 feet, and then walk over, cross my arms, and fall out of the plane. So if I have daring, it is of the rather timid variety, I'm afraid. I have to work a bit to bring it out, but it is there, hidden beneath the surface. But there are those people who just exude it. People you can imagine energetically going after anything they wanted, or doing anything they got into their heads -- these are the truly intrepid. More than blithely doing stunts that make it onto network reality shows, they have a "just go for it" mentality when it comes to all sorts of things. It's curious; they often know and appreciate all the dangers involved, but the risks do not phase them. I envy it really, this unabashed view of life, but I cannot imagine taking that mindset and implanting it successfully in the mind of someone who did not already think that way. So, again, you either have daring or you do not, and more power to the people to whom it comes so easily.