SP: English Study Group

This column appears in the March 25 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/do-women-like-child-care-more-than-men/

Once during a disagreement with my husband, I complained that he wasn’t helping enough with our daughter, and I gave him a long list of the parenting chores I was shouldering on my own. “But you like doing all that stuff,” he blurted in his defense. I don’t recall how the conversation ended (probably badly), but I thought of it while reading a new study about the more 1.mundane responsibilities of parenting. Researchers asked 181 2.heterosexual college professors who had children 2 or younger to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, the pleasure they experienced from child care.

On 16 out of 25 child-care tasks — like changing diapers, taking a child to the doctor or getting up in the middle of a night to attend to a child — women reported statistically significant higher levels of enjoyment than men. The only parenting issue that gave women less pleasure than it gave men was having to manage who does what for the child. Over all, women’s scores were 10 percent higher than men’s.

Source: http://travelkit.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/18/10552477-15-international-food-etiquette-rules-that-might-surprise-you

You have good manners, right? After all, you (usually) keep your elbows off the table and say "Pleasepass the salt," right? But when you head abroad, things get a little more complicated. Case in point: Rest your chopsticks the wrong way, and you might remind a Japanese friend of their grandmother's funeral (Rule 2). But knowing what the etiquette rules are won't just save you from some awkward situations, says Dean Allen, author of the "Global Etiquette Guide" series. It can also help you make friends. "It's really a statement of your openness and awareness of the fact that the people you're with ... may in fact see the world differently," he says. "It's simply going to get you out of the tourist bubble." Sound good? Then here are 15 rules to keep in mind.

Instead, when eating a dish with cooked rice, use your fork only to push food onto your spoon. A few exceptions: Some northern and northeastern Thai dishes are typically eaten with the hands — you'll know you've encountered such a dish if the rice used is glutinous or "sticky." Also, stand-alone items that are not part of a rice-based meal may be eaten with a fork. But, says Leela Punyaratabandhu, a food writer who blogs at SheSimmers.com, the worst thing to do at a traditional, rice-based meal would be to use chopsticks. "That is awkward and inconvenient at best and tacky at worst," she says.

source: http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/how_one_second_could_cost_amazon_1_6_billion_in_sales

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/03/12/2003527597/1

* * *

With four grown-up children, ample savings and her own house, Lee Hua thought she could live out her golden years in modest comfort. Now, the 77-year-old collects recyclable garbage to make ends meet.

In a slow and frail voice, Lee explained how she was forced out of her home and now lives in a shabby rented house outside Taipei, has no money left in the bank and has all but lost contact with her three daughters and one son.

“I’ve cried so much that my eyesight has become really poor. Now I try not to think too much about what happened,” she said, sitting amid the piles of used cartons, plastic bottles and milk powder cans she has picked up from the street.

a video from TED, talking about trying to do something new in the next 30 days

here is the question

1. what's your plan for the 30 days challenges?

2. share about any of your habits, no matter it's good, bad or weired XD

Here is a video clip from SNL (Saturday Night Live) about Harry Potter after ten years. Here are the questions you can think about. Are you a big fan of Harry Potter? Are you familiar with all of Harry Potter series? What do you think about this video clip? Can you understand all the punch lines in the video? What character performed the best in this video?  Do you have the glorious time that you still think of frequently? What will your life be like in ten years? 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnr55t_yyyy-yyy-yyyy_fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO9A5pfSUX0

This discussion comes from my another study group.

Here is a short clip:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17200704

Why the Rich Are Less Ethical: They See Greed as Good

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/28/why-the-rich-are-less-ethical-they-see-greed-as-good/#ixzz1o6mBaMFY

While 1.stereotypes suggest that poor people are more likely to lie and steal, new research finds that it’s actually the wealthy who tend to behave unethically. In a series of experiments — involving everything from dangerous driving to lying in job negotiations and cheating to get a prize — researchers found that, across the board, richer people behaved worse. But, rather than class itself, the authors suggest that it’s views about greed that may largely explain the difference.

In the first two experiments, University of California, Berkeley, psychologists positioned observers at San Francisco intersections to watch for drivers who didn’t wait their turn at lights or yield for 2.pedestrians. The researchers noted the make, age and appearance of cars — a marker for the drivers’ socioeconomic status — as well as the drivers’ gender and approximate age.

Since no article is posted on the blog, we are going to host the meeting in a different way

Q1: Every please share what u have done in the past weekend, where were u going, what did u do.  Please prepare something to say when it's your turn.

Q2: Tell us what's the best thing you experience recently. It could be a meal, a friend, an event, an activity and so on. PLease describe it and tell us how fun it is.

Then, it's board game time if we have spare time.

 sorce:http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/full-moon-myths-leave-skeptics-howling-38434/

Full moons appeal to our imaginations and contribute to our mythologies, but ascribing too much power to them appears to be a continuing form of lunacy. 

By Peter M. Nardi 

A stock image of the holiday season is a night scene of Santa and his reindeers silhouetted across a full moon, his sleigh packed with presents ready to be delivered throughout the evening. While this joyous image fits some of our romantic notions of being moonstruck, it contradicts some widely held beliefs about the negative effects of full moons. (And never mind that the odds of experiencing a full moon on Christmas Eve itself are very small: the last one was in 2007 and the next may not appear until 2026.)