of dance and romance: choosing a dance partner

i'm looking for a dance partner.. but i'm worried about romantic repercussions.

i dun want to develop romantic tension with my partners.. i wonder if its possible. i mean i havent developed any romantic going-ons with ALL my dance partners (at least, not when i was dancing w them =p) but all dance partnerships had failed, i htink possibly because somehow i didnt manage to develop any chemistry with them. so now teh question is, if i DO manage to develop some chemistry with them, enough to have a successful dance partnership, will this chemistry also spill into the romantic realm??

i do have some idea of what i'm looking for in a bf/husband, and i wldnt want to get into a rship juz cuz there's chemistry. and neither do i want to deal with a dance partner who feels agony whenever he holds my hand. (because of "so near yet so far" syndrome)

but its an entirely different thing if my bf wants to dance with me.. haha i'll gladly welcome that..

is fuel finally beginning to be replaced by solar??

GENEVA (AFP) - - A Swiss engineer completed Thursday the first ever round-the-world trip in a solar-powered car after more than 17 months on the road during which he crossed almost 40 countries.

Louis Palmer, 36, arrived back in Lucerne in central Switzerland in his "solar taxi" after covering 53,451 kilometres (33,213 miles) over four continents.

Since his departure on July 3 2007, he travelled through eastern Europe, the Middle East and India before heading to New Zealand, Australia, southeast Asia and China and finally the United States.

He finished his trip after a detour through France, England, Scandinavia and Germany.

"We have achieved our first world tour without using a single drop of oil," Palmer rejoiced at the end of his trip.

The three-wheeler solar taxi, which towed a trailer packed with batteries charged by the sun, reached speeds of 90 kilometres (55 miles) per hour. It had a battery for travel in the night and in cloudy conditions.

"One of my goals was to persuade as many people as possible that renewable energy is ecological, economical and reliable," Palmer told reporters.

His vehicle only broke down twice during the tour, he said, and surmounted the extreme heat in the Middle East and the hazardous terrain in America's Rocky mountains.

The small blue-and-white vehicle carried around 1,000 passengers, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Palmer has previously said the prototype for the solar taxi could be mass produced but that it would need serious modifications.

He said he plans to travel around the world in 80 days for his next challenge, but in a faster car.

The Imperial Pomegranates

editorials and pictures taken from www.luxury-insider.com..

Meticulously sculpted by Piguet and Meylan to resemble pomegranate flowers, these twin pocket watches were reputedly created for a Qing Dynasty emporer in the 18th century.



The Chinese court's interest in European clocks began in the late Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644) in the reign of the Emperor Wanli (r. 1573 – 1620) when he was presented in 1601 with two clocks, one of which had a chiming mechanism. With this introduction, clocks became a favorite collectible in the Chinese imperial court and were considered highly valuable commodities by both the Kangxi (r. 1662 – 1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736 – 1795) emperors of the Qing dynasty.

Europeans, missionary or ambassadors, were soon alerted of this passion to grow the imperial collections of clocks, and elaborate clocks or pocket watches were presented as gifts and tributes to gain entry to the highest ranks of Chinese society.

This spectacular pair of identical watches was reputedly given as a tribute to Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736 – 1795) by the English royal family during the reign of King George III (r. 1760 – 1820). Legend had it that the pair of watches was taken to China by George Macartney (1st Earl Macartney), who was appointed the first Trade Ambassador of Britain to the Chinese imperial court. He led the Macartney Embassy to Beijing in 1793 together with Sir George Staunton, his second in command.

Emperor Qianlong was well-known for his personal passion of collecting and amassed vast collections of Chinese ceramics, ancient bronzes and seals as well as an impressive assemblage of European clocks. Allegedly, the Emperor loved these watches and considered them one of his most cherished possessions.

This pair of watches apparently stayed in the imperial collections within the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing until China entered a period of political turmoil which began with the Xinhai Revolution, a conflict in 1911 between the Imperial forces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), and the revolutionary forces of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance and ended with the abdication of Emperor Puyi (r. 1908 – 1924).

Chosen by Dowager Empress Cixi (b.1835 – 1908) while on her deathbed, Puyi ruled as the Xuantong Emperor between 1908 and 1911 and was the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty to rule over China. Apparently, on the day that Emperor Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924, amongst the treasures that he took with him on exile were the pair of fabled watches. Supposedly, the minor chips to the enamel work were inflicted on the watches during this tumultuous flight from the palace.

Legend or reality, does it really matter? What matters is the watches are a testimonial to the cultural and political history of China. These watches exemplify the cultural exchanges between the West and China in the Qing dynasty and the desire of the West to gain a foothold in this mysterious country by appeasing its rulers with these objects of great beauty with their elaborate cases of costly materials and tiny movements.

They also testify to the Chinese emperors’ desire to emulate the technology of the West and to better understand the scientific and religious aspects of European cultures that the Jesuits sought to introduce in their country.

Regardless of the perhaps mythical itinerary of these watches, they did in fact weather the passing of time, the rise and decline of the Qing dynasty and the crossing of continents. They bore witness to an extravagant and fascinating way of life in the Chinese imperial court that is now lost forever



More important, these watches have obviously been cherished and treasured since their creation in the 1820s by numerous owners who were delighted by the exquisiteness and beauty of the case and the skilled craftsmanship of its mechanism. For almost 200 years, collectors have been mesmerized by the extraordinary pair of identical cases. Both cases were sculptured to simulate the flower of the pomegranate with the petals emblazoned in rich translucent red enamel, covering a finely engine-turned background of decorative motifs, evoking the veins of the flowers.

No cost was spared in creating the cases which are impressive in their dimensions of 66 mm and thickness of 22 mm, and reputedly inlaid with nearly 1200 natural pearls of varying sizes. The beauty of the cases is matched by a mechanism of such complexity which is rarely displayed by a quarter repeating watch, and is to the best of Christie’s knowledge, used exclusively by Messers Piguet & Meylan.

A watch of similar magnificence with the same special repeating mechanism as the Pomegranate watches, also manufactured for the Imperial Chinese Market was sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong in the Important Watches on 31st May, 2005 for HK$ 3,032,000 (US$ 394,160).

US doctors hail near-total face transplant

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) - - Doctors hailed a groundbreaking transplant to replace 80 percent of a woman's face, saying Wednesday it is a means for the severely disfigured to "face the world" without humiliation.

It was the world's first near-total facial transplant and the fourth known facial transplant to have been successfully performed to date.

"We need the face to face the world," said lead surgeon and researcher Maria Siemionow of the Cleveland Clinic.

"There are so many patients there, in their houses, where they are hiding from the society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores. They are afraid to go to the streets, because they're called names, and they are humiliated.

"So we very much hope that for this very special group of patients, there is a hope that one day they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things which we take for granted."

Doctors released few details about the patient, save to say that she had been disfigured to the point where she could not eat or breathe on her own as a result of a traumatic injury several years ago which left her without a nose, right eye and upper jaw.

The hospital said the woman, who did not wish to be identified, had exhausted all conventional reconstructive surgery.

They hoped the operation would allow her to regain her sense of smell and ability to smile and said she had a "clear understanding" of the risks involved.

The woman is doing well and showing no signs her body is rejecting the new face, doctors said.

Facial transplants are controversial because they carry heavy risks and are performed to improve a patient's quality of life rather than as a life-saving operation.

There are also concerns that the operation could eventually be used for purely cosmetic purposes or as a means of altering someone's identity.

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic stressed that such operations should be limited to a medical context in order to free severely disfigured people from the suffering associated with social isolation.

"The relief of suffering is at the core of medical ethics, and provides abundant moral justification for this procedure," said the clinic's chair of bioethics Eric Kodish.

"A person who has sustained trauma or other devastation to the face is generally isolated and suffers tremendously. The damage to the quality of life cannot even be put into words."

Leading medical ethicist Arthur Caplan agreed that this suffering was sufficient to "risk possibly killing someone to improve their appearance for a better quality of life."

"If there is nothing else to be done, it actually makes sense for them to take a risk that involves death," Caplan, the director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told AFP.

"It's ethically justifiable."

Doctors in France performed the first partial face transplant in 2005 on a 38-year-old woman, Isabelle Dinoire, who was disfigured in a dog attack.

In 2006, a Chinese man underwent a facial transplant including the connection of arteries and veins, and repair of the nose, lip and sinuses. A bear had mauled the 30-year-old farmer as he looked for stray sheep.

A 29-year-old French man underwent surgery in 2007. He had a facial tumor called a neurofibroma caused by a genetic disorder.

The tumor was so massive that the man couldn't eat or speak properly.

The Cleveland Clinic became the first US hospital to approve the procedure four years ago.

The latest operation was the first facial transplant known to have included bones, along with muscle, skin, blood vessels and nerves.

"Multiple layers of tissue from the bone to the skin to the muscle, this all had to be - kind of like a jigsaw puzzle - fit into the appropriate position and put in," said plastic surgeon Daniel Alam.

The woman received a nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw and even some teeth from a brain-dead donor.

Doctors paid special attention to maintaining arteries, veins, and nerves, as well as soft tissue and bony structures, as they recovered the donor's facial tissue.

The surgeons then connected facial graft vessels to the patient's blood vessels in order to restore blood circulation in the reconstructed face before connecting arteries, veins and nerves in the 22-hour procedure.

Good cheer may be contagious

By MARIA CHENG,AP Medical Writer AP - Friday, December 5LONDON - When you're smiling, the whole world really does smile with you.

ADVERTISEMENT

A paper being published Friday in a British medical journal concludes that happiness is contagious _ and that people pass on their good cheer even to total strangers.

American researchers who tracked more than 4,700 people in Framingham, Mass., as part of a 20-year heart study also found the transferred happiness is good for up to a year.

"Happiness is like a stampede," said Nicholas Christakis, a professor in Harvard University's sociology department and co-author of the study. "Whether you're happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviors and thoughts, but on those of people you don't even know."

While the study is another sign of the power of social networks, it ran through 2003, just before the rise of social networking Web sites like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Christakis couldn't say for sure whether the effect works online.

"This type of technology enhances your contact with friends, so it should support the kind of emotional contagion we observed," he said.

Christakis and co-author James Fowler, of the University of California in San Diego, are old hands at studying social networks. They previously found that obesity and smoking habits spread socially as well.

For this study, published in the British journal BMJ, they examined questionnaires that asked people to measure their happiness. They found distinct happy and unhappy clusters significantly bigger than would be expected by chance.

Happy people tended to be at the center of social networks and had many friends who were also happy. Having friends or siblings nearby increased people's chances of being upbeat. Happiness spread outward by three degrees, to the friends of friends of friends.

Happy spouses helped, too, but not as much as happy friends of the same gender. Experts think people, particularly woman, take emotional cues from people who look like them.

Christakis and Fowler estimate that each happy friend boosts your own chances of being happy by 9 percent. Having grumpy friends decreases it by about 7 percent.

But it also turns out misery don't love company: Happiness seemed to spread more consistently than unhappiness. But that doesn't mean you should drop your gloomy friends.

"Every friend increases the probability that you're at the center of a network, which means you are more eligible to get a wave of happiness," Fowler said.

Being happy also brings other benefits, including a protective effect on your immune system so you produce fewer stress hormones, said Andrew Steptoe, a psychology professor at University College London who was not involved with the study.

But you shouldn't assume you can make yourself happy just by making the right friends.

"To say you can manipulate who your friends are to make yourself happier would be going too far," said Stanley Wasserman, an Indiana University statistician who studies social networks.

The study was only conducted in a single community, so it would take more research to confirm its findings. But in a time of economic gloom, it also suggested some heartening news about money and happiness.

According to the research, an extra chunk of money increases your odds of being happy only marginally _ notably less than the odds of being happier if you have a happy friend.

"You can save your money," Christakis said. "Being around happy people is better."

Entry from David's blog again.. a God who knows how to forgive...

Have you/ us ever thought about how much how much how much we actually need forgiveness in our lives? It's not just some Christian jargon or theology, but something that is so missing and desired for in our empty hearts.


we long so much for someone to tell us, "It's alright!"
we long so much for someone to tell us, "I just appreciate you for you who are, i don't care how much you screw things up!"


we never find ourselves good enough for someone or some people... in fact, we live our lives with this mentality that we're never good enough for ourselves.... deep within, an ache exists - an ache of loneliness, an ache of meaninglessness, an ache of hurt from long ago - something we choose to bury and refuse to acknowledge..


if there ever is a God in this world, He got to be one who displays the FULL range of emotions as His created beings, instead of being an emotionless (or most often angry) vending machine in which we desperately dump in coins at the correct amounts to obtain our desired wants in life.. This kind of supreme being seems..... flat... too flat to be REAL at all... do i desire to worship a vending machine? er.... not exactly...

and when i talks about this God who forgives - you know how wide the range of emotions this word (FORGIVENESS) covers? Just think about it!