Tags: anime, japan, love.
Categores: Culture, Emotions.
Ever remember watching a friend hit a piñata or maybe pin the tail on the donkey? What did you say? Were you the one that shouted, “NO, NOT THERE!!!”? Or did you say “OVER HERE! CLOSER!!” instead?
Aria (the cat), Alicia (the instructor) and Alice (green haired girl).
I was watching ARIA the ORIGINATION today, and one of the characters, Alice asked why the instructor, Alicia, would not scold her trainee when she made mistakes. Alicia replied saying that “when we play suikawari, if I were to shout “NOT THAT WAY!”, she would end up being too scared to move. So I always say “OVER HERE!!!” instead, in hopes that she would find her way.” (For those who are unfamiliar with Japanese culture, 西瓜割り suikawari is a game where the goal is to crack a watermelon with a bat while being blindfolded.)
It was such a touching line. People tend to forget that positive conditioning can bring about much better results than negative conditioning - that rewarding a child for his or her achievements bring far more results than hitting a child for his or her failures. Similarly, saying your ‘please’, ‘thank yous’ or even just a simple smile can go a farther distance than mindless indifference can ever hope to go.
It’s the little wonders of life that people tend to forget because they are too preoccupied to open their hearts. So, remember to be an “over here!” person, when you can.
I guess sometimes it takes a little fantasy to change our reality. 
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Nanyate Radio Updates! I added a few new songs including ARIA’s Spirale, Ally Kerr’s The Sore Feet Song and Jyu Oh Sei’s Deep in your Heart.
Tags: fun, politics, quiz, www.
Categores: Culture, Fun For Visitors, Internet Finds.
While doing research for one of my papers, I came across a quiz that ranks one’s political orientation on 2 spectra: Liberal vs Conservative, and Libertarian vs Statist. It is apparently revered by many journals and newspapers as quite accurate. I think liberal and conservative need no explanation. As for the other scale, a libertarian is one who believes that individual freedoms should be prioritized over socialist ideals, and a statist believes otherwise. A more commonly used word for statist is authoritarian (not to be confused with tyranny, since tyranny is a corrupted form of authoritarianism).
Red dot denotes my score.
Due to my nomadic upbringing, I’m naturally liberal. On the other scale, I lean a little closer to authoritarian than libertarian. From my position on the two axes, I think I would be classified as a social democratic.
How did I infer that from such an abstract graph? Because I’m a political theory student. Hahaha! For the rest of you: to find the label for where you stand on both axes, check out this political spectrum by Miguel Duarte. Duarte’s spectrum visually coincides with the one used on the quiz. I can’t say I agree with his labeling, because I am definitely not a democratic socialist but it’ll give you guys a rough idea about where you stand.
Take the quiz here, and let me know of your results!
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I apologize for my recent boring entries. I’ve been very sick with the (Singaporean) flu. My housemates’ parents came to visit and brought the flu along with them. I am absolutely impervious to the Canadian flu, but I am quite susceptible to the Singaporean one. Now, with my menstruation, the timing couldn’t be worse. I am sickly and feel shitty at the same time. Bah.
Hopefully, I’ll feel better before the next entry because there is something interesting I’ve been dying to blog about, (which requires a little more brain power than someone with a constant headache can produce.)