Monday, January 14, 2008

Pressed on Time However Lets Write About Qassia and Mails

There are times that I am so up to date, and there are times that I am not. Right now, I am behind with some of my own projects, that it is time to resume my old system - the things to do list. I usually have one all the time, and once everything is rolling, I don't need one, but when things go out of order, it is time to write one. Enough blobbing, and lets see what I have to present for you today.

Firstly, there is this new intelligent article submission site Qassia.com. It is at the beta stage, but I kind of like it. Right now you can earn money, not real, just virtual, to have your articles submitted to the 'world'. So the more money you accumulate the better chance is to get on the top of the search engine. However, I have not figure out how it really works, but by submitting some of my articles and reading other articles and rating, I generated some credits. However, most of all I learned something too by reading. So enjoy and explore Qassia.com - not to hide anything, this is my referral page, and like someone said, I will say it to, yes I get some credits if you sign up. No pressure you are free to do what you wish.

Secondly, I want to quickly write about mail versus email. Couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the old friend of mine - how nice to receive the old fashion mail. The letter was from pan pal friend I met in elementary school over 20 years ago. We never met in person yet - but I am hoping one day. All our correspondences happened through the regular mail, and even now. I am sure that she has the access to the Internet, however, some how we still write to each other the old fashioned way. I remember in the old days, to receive a letter in the mail was a big thing. We all loved it, especially for occasions like Christmas, Easter, name days, and chain letters. Yes, name days in Europe were more popular than birthdays, I guess that way you were able to acknowledge anyone you wanted to send a card just by looking at the calendar. And yes chain letters existed then, and it wasn't easy, as there was no photocopier, and there was no typewriter, only your hand needed to re-write the letters about five times or more. So that was fun and practice.

Now we have emails. The communication time among us changed from weeks to minutes or even seconds. We can write, send pictures, send videos, publish on line pictures and videos. We not just letting our friends know about our life, but any stranger may some times drop by.

So tell me, do you still like to receive old fashion mail or do you think it is not practical anymore. Just ignore the cost, because we all know that emails are somehow free. Myself, I like the old fashion mails, the fact that they are hand written makes is even more authentic.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Kids are Fun, Kids are Grown Ups

I am always fascinated what the one year old, two year old or three year old can do. There is a difference between me and my younger sister and my younger brother, five and ten years, respectively. So I have some memories of some funny moments, and some not so funny. I remember that very first word I thought my sister was a parrot. I don't know what I was thinking then, but she loved it - may be that is why she is into breeding birds now. She also loved going into the barrel full of potatoes and water, and take a bath - and that was quite a scenario. Because my older sister and myself had to take care of both of my younger sister and brother, we used to do crazy stuff when playing. We had to entertain ourselves because we had one or two occasions when we received toys, and we only had one TV channel. Going back to the story, we used to build these snow walls between neighbor kids and then play war. Well few times the curiosity of my younger sister earned her few bruises in the head from snow balls, at least we did not need any ice for compressions. The best was also racing streets with my sister in the stroller. Accidents always happened, but lucky no injuries. Lucky there were no cars, but there were light posts to which we always happened to run into. We lost our sister few times upon the impact, no injuries as she always safely landed on the grass. She was only one and a half years old, and I was about seven years old.

Then five years later my brother was born, and so more kids on the street. My brother loved horses, and he had huge collection of them by the age of four years old. So what did he do? Well there was this kid across street who just started to walk at one, and somehow he by himself always made to our backyard. Well my brother then two, soon as he saw him, he always wanted to ride him. It looked funny, but we always had to separate them just in case the one year old's mother showed up. I think the idea came from horse collection.

And now thirty years later, do I have the same experiences with kids in family, and I do find that kids are talking much more and much more like adults. The latest, my cousin's three year old daughter was really entertaining us this holiday season. We had dinner together, and the little girl decided to be at the head of the table. She would converse with all of us, and her vocabulary was just amazing. The best line of the year was when mother offered her a cup of tea, with puzzled face she responded - 'How can you give your own child a hot tea' - very clever for the three year old.