Apparently, white folks like leaves of absence

A recent post on the Stuff White People Like blog takes a comical look at what young, middle-class white folks do when they want to "find themselves." It's quite funny, especially because I know many people like this and I myself hope to teach English abroad. I don't see as much pretention in my friends as he apparently sees in such people, but I totally get what he's saying and it's just plain funny. (Yes, self-important 20-somethings can laugh at themselves - can't they?)

An excerpt:

It is most common for the person taking the year off to use this time to travel (see Post #19 for reasons why). Generally, they will start off with a set amount of money that will use to travel for as long as possible. This explains why a white person with an $800 backpack will haggle with a poverty-stricken street vendor about a $2 dollar plate of food.

Got $8? You're a multi-trillionaire!

The NY Times recently reported:

Zimbabwe: A 10-Trillion-Dollar Bill
By Celia W. Dugger

The country’s stratospheric inflation rate, one of the worst in world history, entered a new, yet more incredible realm on Friday as the Reserve Bank introduced a new family of trillion-dollar bank notes, beginning with one for 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, which is worth about $8 on the black market. The state media reported the bank would also gradually release $20 trillion, $50 trillion and $100 trillion notes.

Seize your crisis

Stumbled upon this recently. Interesting.

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger, the other opportunity.

I hope my Chinese-speaking friends will tell me if this is even true. But in the meantime, what do ya'll make of that?

A lovely ray of hope

I found today's Daily Ray of Hope especially lovely.

"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

-- John Muir

Emerald Ridge along Wonderland Trail on the west side of Mt. Rainier in Washington, by Troy Mason