Advancing Birthday Quotes

My 30th birthday will be arriving in a few months. It’s not arriving unexpectedly, I just wish it would have given me more of an advance notice, say another 30 years.

Suddenly I remembered something Daddy told me once when I was angry at my mother. “You know how Mom arranges orange slices on a plate for your soccer team and has activities planned for your birthday parties two months in advance?” he’d asked me. “That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.” Why was I thinking about that now? I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was talking to me from the backseat of the car. That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.

Birthdays, like women named Bertha, are not named after great Aunt Natalie. But you, Natalie, just might be. I’m named after my uncle Birthday, who never had one since he died in the womb.

Marry her if she hasn't announced her birthday 2 months in advance to the whole society & going all rangeelo mharo dholna about it.

On his thirty-first birthday, Lewis wrote, in a famous passage, “This day I completed my thirty first year. . . . I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.” He resolved: “In future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”5

6. Sleep with a bra on every night in fear of your boobs dropping should you forget. Intermediate: Don't wear a bra in the daytime. Advanced: Forget bras and wear the Hear Comes Trouble T-shirt you got for your eighth birthday. Act offended if anyone stares at the new shape of the word Trouble. Wear the shirt until your mother asks what smells.

For quite a long time I have been examining myself concerning the pertinence of Birthdays, while the date and time is linear, What is the point of celebrating it every year over and over once more, and afterward I understand we invested the vast majority of our energy in attempting to substantiate ourselves the best on the boundaries, all set by others, be it kids, soul mate, guardians, companions, seniors and so forth, and in this journey we will generally fail to remember what initially we needed with ourselves. Birthday is one day which offers us a chance to make a huge stride towards the directions we at any point needed to set out for ourselves. It ought to be made consistently, as the principal right stride, towards your own objectives to provide guidance to every single further advance. I pray that you will actually assemble your entire existence today to take a step towards your own objectives, without blending your objectives in with the objectives of others. Enjoy more than ever and never later. Have an Extraordinary Birthday!!!

Death had come frequently to the bleak village where the family lived. Indeed, death had been a regular visitor in their own house, taking seven of Chase’s twelve brothers and sisters before their fifth birthdays. Whenever, he thought of these children, it was to imagine an inexorable shadow advancing over their tiny forms, at length to darken hearts and eyes.

The United States is also losing the rugged pioneering spirit that once defined it. In 1850, Herman Melville boasted that “we are the pioneers of the world, the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World.”7 Today many of the descendants of these pioneers are too terrified of tripping up to set foot on any new path. The problem starts with school. In 2013, a school district in Maryland banned, among other things, pushing children on swings, bringing homemade food into school, and distributing birthday invitations on school grounds.8 It continues in college, where professors have provided their charges with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.” It extends to every aspect of daily life. McDonald’s prints warning signs on its cups of coffee pointing out that “this liquid may be hot.” Winston Churchill once said to his fellow countrymen, “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”9 Today, thanks to a malign combination of litigation, regulation, and pedagogical fashion, sugar-candy people are everywhere.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

Hello, little man,’ I said and kissed his cheek. ‘Urgh.’ He wiped the kiss off. ‘I hate lipstick.’ I laughed as if he were joking and kissed him again. ‘You’ll love it when you’re older.’ ‘When I’m older,’ he asked, ‘will you be dead?’ Though there was nothing in his tone but interest, the question floored me completely. Stunned, I opened my mouth to reply, but could think of nothing to say. ‘The mum of one of the kids in Ben’s class is dead,’ Red said, his tone neutral. ‘Ever since he found out, he’s been obsessed.’ ‘Will you?’ Ben pressed. ‘Mummy will die when she’s old,’ his father answered, and I had to bite my tongue, because I knew better than anyone that death did not pre-book appointments decades in advance. Its approach was random, based on whimsy, often violent. I came from a line of women who bore a single child and were dead before its eighteenth birthday. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Red said.

Look at that ship. That clipper cost me a queen’s ransom, even with the Kestrel thrown in the bargain. But it was the fastest ship to be had.” He took her hands in his. “Forget money. Forget society. Forget expectations. We’ve no talent for following rules, remember? We have to follow our hearts. You taught me that.” He gathered her to him, drawing her hands to his chest. “God, sweet, don’t you know? You’ve had my heart in your pocket since the day we met. Following my heart means following you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to.” He shot an amused glance at the captain. “Though I’d expect your good captain would prefer I didn’t. In fact, I think he’d gladly marry us today, just to be rid of me.” “Today? But we couldn’t.” His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, but we could.” He pulled her to the other side of the ship, slightly away from the gaping crowd. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, “Happy birthday, love.” Sophia melted in his embrace. It was her birthday, wasn’t it? The day she’d been anticipating for months, and here she’d forgotten it completely. Until Gray had appeared on the horizon, she hadn’t been looking forward to anything. But now she did. She looked forward to marriage, and children, and love and grand adventure. Real life and true passion. All of it with this man. “Oh, Gray.” “Please say yes,” he whispered. “Sophia.” The name was a caress against her ear. “I love you.” He kissed her cheek and pulled away. “I’ve been remiss in not telling you. You can’t know how I’ve regretted it. But I love you, Sophia Jane Hathaway. I love you as no man ever loved a woman. I love you so much, I fear I’ll burst with it. In fact, I think I shall burst if I go another minute without kissing you, so if you’ve any mind to say yes, I’d thank you to-“ Sophia flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard at first, to quiet the fool man; then gently, to savor him. oh, how she loved the taste of him, like freshly baked bread and rum. Warm and wholesome and comforting, with just a hint of spice and danger. “Yes,” she sighed against his lips. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Yes, I will marry you.” His arms tightened about her waist. “Today?” “Today. But you must let me change my gown first.” Smiling, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You even shaved.” “Every day since we left Tortola.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve a few new scars to show for it.” “Good.” She kissed him. “I’m glad. And I don’t care if society casts us out for the pirates we are, just as long as I’m with you.” “Oh, I don’t know that we’ll be cast out, exactly. We’re definitely not pirates. After your stirring testimony”-he chucked her under the chin-“Fitzhugh decided to make the best of an untenable situation. Or an unhangable pirate, as it were. If he couldn’t advance on his career by convicting me, he figured he’d advance it by commending me. Awarded me the Kestrel as salvage and recommended me to the governor for a special citation of valor. There’s talk of knighthood.” He grinned. “Can you believe it? Me, a hero.” “Of course I believe it.” She laced her fingers at the back of his neck. “I’ve always known it, although I should curse that judge and his ‘citation of valor.’ As if you needed a fresh supply of arrogance. Just remember, whatever they deem you-gentleman or scoundrel, hero or pirate-you are mine.” “So I am.” He kissed her soundly, passionately. “And which would you prefer tonight?” At the seductive grown in his voice, shivers of arousal swept down to her toes. “Your gentleman? Your scoundrel? Your hero or your pirate?” She laughed. “I imagine I’ll enjoy all four on occasion. But tonight, I believe I shall find tremendous joy in simply calling you my husband.” He rested his forehead against hers. “My love.” “That, too.

With scientific knowledge, humans have created both life-saving vaccines and body-obliterating atomic bombs. With what we know about human psychology, we have healed one another's wounds and exploited one another's weaknesses. With advances in technology, we can both wish our great-aunt a happy birthday from thousands of miles away and call someone we've never met a "bed-wetting feminazi" on Twitter. Even our knowledge of Scripture has been used to advance righteous and noble causes as well as to justify all sorts of violence, oppression, and exclusion.

The most basic human instinct i sto survive. Evolution got us this far. From hunger-gatherers to men on the moon. From spear fishermen to people who sing "Happy Birthday" to one another, across continents, on Zoom. Humans are wired to advance. Humans do whatever it takes. And yet, nuclear war zeroes it all out. Nuclear weapons reduce human brilliance and ingenuity, love and desire, empathy and intellect, to ash

The most basic human instinct is to survive. Evolution got us this far. From hunger-gatherers to men on the moon. From spear fishermen to people who sing "Happy Birthday" to one another, across continents, on Zoom. Humans are wired to advance. Humans do whatever it takes. And yet, nuclear war zeroes it all out. Nuclear weapons reduce human brilliance and ingenuity, love and desire, empathy and intellect, to ash.

The most basic human instinct is to survive. Evolution got us this far. From hunter-gatherers to men on the moon. From spear fishermen to people who sing "Happy Birthday" to one another, across continents, on Zoom. Humans are wired to advance. Humans do whatever it takes. And yet, nuclear war zeroes it all out. Nuclear weapons reduce human brilliance and ingenuity, love and desire, empathy and intellect, to ash.

Botox" In a friendly exchange with a shopper in a grocery story line, she joyfully declared: “Today is my 50th birthday!” I said, “It looks like the hands of Time have touched your face gently. Happy birthday!” “The hands of Time weren’t gentle on me, my dear. What you see are the wonders of botox,” she said. “They say it freezes face features and expressions. Is that true?” I inquired half-jokingly. “At this stage of my life, it makes no difference. I no longer need any expressions. There is nothing worth smiling for or frowning upon. I spent decades expressing in every physical and verbal way possible, all in vain,” she said. Her words were followed by a hopeless giggle that reminded me of the philosopher who wrote that as we advance in age, our fears are replaced with giggles. She then continued, “There is a time when you discover that all verbal and physical expressions are futile. In everyone’s life, there’s one defining event that freezes everything in their lives. Anything that happens after that event is no more than desperate and hopeless attempts to pretend that we are okay.” Before I managed to find the appropriate words, the cashier called on her. The timing was ideal as words froze on my tongue just like the botox freezes features and expression in a world in which words and expressions are of no use anymore. [Original text published in Arabic on October 14, 2024 at ahewar.org]

45. Remember that advanced placement doesn’t necessarily have to mean early graduation. Our two older children were talented in math and science, and easily completed more than the required number of secondary credits in sciences and humanities well before their peers. We drove our oldest son two hours away to live in a dorm at a state university the week before his 18th birthday, and our second-born graduated from high school when she was 15. Her college adviser mapped a plan where she could have finished her PhD in nursing by the time she was 21! Academically, they were fine. But socially and emotionally, it was tough to transition to the rigors of full-time college life (even junior college) one or two years before their traditionally-schooled friends. Because of that, their younger brother, a scholar in his own right, was not given the option to graduate early. Although he was frustrated with this limitation, it has alleviated a lot of pressure the other kids were forced to deal with before they had reached appropriate emotional maturity.

Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. In it, he notes a well-documented Canadian study that shows kids born in January tend to make better grades and score more goals in sports than those born later in the year. The reason, he deduces, is that grade-school kids who were born just after the cut-off date for the school year (January) are always a year older than the kids who were born just before it (December), thus having a full year of mental and physical advantages.   The January kids aren’t naturally brighter and more physically capable than kids born in November and December. They’re just a year older. In elementary school, one year is a lot.   The school system doesn’t see that, so the January kids get labeled as gifted, while the December kids are called slow. Once established, those categories are hard to break out of. The gifted kids get enrolled in advanced classes, increasing the pace of their education and making the gap between them and the December kids bigger.   The physically larger January kids are recruited by better PeeWee teams, then better High Schools and colleges. That’s why, as shown in Gladwell’s book, professional sports leagues – and hockey leagues in particular – have an inordinately high percentage of athletes that were born in the first three months of the year and a much lower percentage of December birthdays.

At one point when I was in the middle of the first season, I asked myself why I would want to watch a conservative Democrat destroy teachers’ unions and have joyless sex with a woman who looks like a very young teenager. I still had not answered the question when Claire pushed things to the next level in a scene so intensely creepy that it might count as the most revolting thing I have ever witnessed on television. A longtime member of the couple’s Secret Service security detail is dying of cancer, and Claire goes to visit him alone. On his deathbed, he reveals that he was always secretly in love with her and thought that Frank wasn’t good enough for her. Her response is almost incomprehensible in its cruelty—she mocks and taunts him for thinking he could ever attain a woman like her, and then puts her hand down his pants and begins to give him a handjob, all the while saying, in true perverse style, “This is what you wanted, right?” Surely Claire doesn’t have to emotionally destroy a man who is dying of cancer—and yet perhaps in a way she does, because she uses it as a way of convincing herself that Frank really is the right man for her. Not only could an average, hardworking, sentimental man never satisfy her, but she would destroy him. By contrast, Frank not only can take her abuse, but actively thrives on it, as she does on his. Few images of marriage as a true partnership of equals are as convincing as this constant power struggle between two perverse creeps. Claire is not the first wife in the “high-quality TV drama” genre to administer a humiliating handjob. In fact, she is not even the first wife to administer a humiliating handjob to a man who is dying of cancer. That distinction belongs to Skyler White of Breaking Bad, who does the honors in the show’s pilot. It is intended as a birthday treat for her husband Walt, who is presumably sexually deprived due to his wife’s advanced pregnancy, and so in contrast to Claire’s, it would count as a generous gesture if not for the fact that Skyler continues to work on her laptop the entire time, barely even acknowledging Walt’s presence in the room. In her own way, Skyler is performing her dominance just as much as Claire was with her cancer patient, but Skyler’s detachment from the act makes it somehow even creepier than Claire’s.

group) because when the ages were checked on January 1, you were still fourteen years old. An extra year of play against players younger than you is a huge advantage. Your body becomes bigger, stronger, and faster every day, giving you an opportunity to truly stand out from your birthday-handicapped peers. This extra developmental time predisposes you for selection onto more elite teams, which in turn leads to more ice time and better coaching, which advances your abilities even further.

Happy Thirty-Third Birthday On your 33rd birthday, go to your local gas station and pick up the newspaper. The classified ads will have a small segment commemorating your birth and asking you to turn around. Upon looking behind you, a man dressed in a black cloak will be advancing in your direction. If you choose to run away, he will hunt you for the rest of your life, eventually killing you. However, if you await his arrival and show no intent of fleeing, he will give you a small package. Inside, you shall find the object you most desire.

Ever wonder exactly how much time you've wasted posting--and poring over--photos and status updates on Facebook? So did we. In advance of the social network's 10th birthday on Feb. 4, TIME's Chris Wilson created an interactive calculator that lets you find the precise number of days, hours and minutes you've logged since joining. Check it out at time.com/wastebook

An extra year of play against players younger than you is a huge advantage. Your body becomes bigger, stronger, and faster every day, giving you an opportunity to truly stand out from your birthday-handicapped peers. This extra developmental time predisposes you for selection onto more elite teams, which in turn leads to more ice time and better coaching, which advances your abilities even further.

At the beginning of 1944, the fate of the war seemed to be decided. Romanians started to send furniture back to the Regat. High officials, who had enriched themselves by robbing and stealing all Jewish property, wanted to insure and secure their ill achieved gains. Once we saw them panicking, we knew that another upheaval was ahead of us, namely the abandonment of the territory by the Romanians and Germans and the return of the Soviets. Nobody could foresee whether the Germans would defend the area or abandon it, once the Russians advanced North of us, around Lvov On March 10, 1944, on my 24th birthday, the siguran ta commissar Andreescu and his wife came to congratulate me on my birthday. They brought me a bottle of French chocolate liqueur. It was a matter of weeks before they would run away and the Soviets would return.

Inconsistencies are as definite an indication of the presence of conflicts as a rise in body temperature is of physical disturbance. To cite some common ones: A girl wants above all else to marry, yet shrinks from the advances of any man. A mother oversolicitous of her children frequently forgets their birthdays. A person always generous to others is niggardly about small expenditures for himself. Another who longs for solitude never manages to be alone. One forgiving and tolerant toward most people is oversevere and demanding with himself.

Later in the day, Holly frowned at her reflection in the mirror. “This can’t be right!” Holly muttered to herself. She looked like a cross between a panda bear and a raccoon. She had tried to apply a more advanced version of makeup than she was used to, and it was not going well. “Smokey eye, my foot! I look like I have two black eyes.” She had not done the proper shading with her eye shadow, and now her large green eyes were encased with a deep black color that spanned her entire eyelid. “Maybe I should try a different one,” Holly mused aloud. She sat in William’s bedroom at his dresser. She already had on her pretty crushed velvet black dress and a small heart-shaped diamond pendant. It had been William’s birthday gift to her last year. “Let me re-read this article again to see if I can make sense of these instructions.” Holly read her magazine article out loud. “Which Greek Goddess are you? Athena, Venus, or Aphrodite? Check out our makeup tips below to turn heads at your next event!” “Hmmmm, that sounds soooooo good, if only I was better at applying makeup.” She had decided to try their Aphrodite look and had been trying to apply the eyeliner to give her a smoky eye effect. Holly had to wash her face four times already and start over because each time was worse than the last. “Concentrate, Holly, or you’ll be late for the gala. This is your last chance; it’s do or die time!” she warned her reflection in the mirror. “So, it says to put the light grey eyeshadow on the inner one-third of my eyelids. Hmmm, maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know where the inner third is.” She got an idea and went to William’s desk. Looking around, she found a ruler. “Ah-ha! Eureka, I got it!” She went back to her position at his dresser and closed her eyes for a quick, small prayer, then held the ruler up to measure her eye. “Ah-ha! Twenty-one millimeters. So, that means the inner one-third of my eye must be from my nose out seven millimeters . . . right about HERE!” Holly expertly applied the light grey eye shadow to the inner third of her eyelids. “What a big improvement already! Wow! I’m not a panda bear anymore! Ok, one-third down, two-thirds to go . . . I can do this!” Reading further, she said, “Ok, now apply the dark grey eye shadow to the next third of your eye, finishing with the dark brown eye shadow on the outer third of your eyelid.” Holly expertly followed the instructions and sat back in her chair, stunned. She looked beautiful! She had achieved the desired effect, and now her green eyes were enhanced to perfection. “Wow, wow, wow!” Holly felt encouraged to keep going. She read the next instructions. “‘Now, apply blush to your face with an emphasis on contouring your cheekbones.’” “‘Contouring my cheekbones? Who do they think I am, Rembrandt?” Holly said with a groan. Holly gingerly picked up her blush container as if it were about to bite her. She decided another quick prayer wouldn’t go amiss. With a deep breath she muttered, “Ok, I’m going in!” She glanced nervously at the picture in the magazine and tried her hardest to follow it along her cheekbones. “That turned out pretty good!” Holly turned her face this way and that, examining it. It may not have been exactly as in the picture, but the blush now accentuated her beautiful high cheekbones. “Whew! Only the lip left, thank goodness! You got this, Holly!” She encouraged her reflection in the mirror.

Emergency savings can be used to pay for unexpected emergencies only, which include: ➔Unexpected home repairs and replacement of essential items ➔Unexpected essential car repairs ➔Unexpected medical/dental bills ➔Bills and household costs in the event of an unexpected drop in income. Examples of expenses that cannot be funded by emergency savings are: ➔Christmas and birthdays ➔Routine or advance-planned medical/dental treatments ➔Budgeting fails ➔Impulse purchases ➔Non-essential repairs/replacements ➔Holidays.

As early as November 1966, the Red Guard Corps of Beijing Normal University had set their sights on the Confucian ancestral home in Qufu County in Shandong Province. Invoking the language of the May Fourth movement, they proceeded to Qufu, where they established themselves as the Revolutionary Rebel Liaison State to Annihilate the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius. Within the month they had totally destroyed the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, the Cemetery of Confucius (including the Master’s grave), and all the statues, steles, and relics in the area... In January 1967 another Red Guard unit editorialized in the People’s Daily: To struggle against Confucius, the feudal mummy, and thoroughly eradicate . . . reactionary Confucianism is one of our important tasks in the Great Cultural Revolution. And then, to make their point, they went on a nationwide rampage, destroying temples, statues, historical landmarks, texts, and anything at all to do with the ancient Sage... The Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao’s death in 1976. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) became China’s paramount leader, setting China on a course of economic and political reform, and effectively bringing an end to the Maoist ideal of class conflict and perpetual revolution. Since 2000, the leadership in Beijing, eager to advance economic prosperity and promote social stability, has talked not of the need for class conflict but of the goal of achieving a “harmonious society,” citing approvingly the passage from the Analects, “harmony is something to be cherished” (1.12). The Confucius compound in Qufu has been renovated and is now the site of annual celebrations of Confucius’s birthday in late September. In recent years, colleges and universities throughout the country—Beijing University, Qufu Normal University, Renmin University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Shandong University, to name a few—have established Confucian study and research centers. And, in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Committee welcomed guests from around the world to Beijing with salutations from the Analects, “Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?” and “Within the fours seas all men are brothers,” not with sayings from Mao’s Little Red Book. Tellingly, when the Chinese government began funding centers to support the study of the Chinese language and culture in foreign schools and universities around the globe in 2004—a move interpreted as an ef f ort to expand China’s “soft power”—it chose to name these centers Confucius Institutes... The failure of Marxism-Leninism has created an ideological vacuum, prompting people to seek new ways of understanding society and new sources of spiritual inspiration. The endemic culture of greed and corruption—spawned by the economic reforms and the celebration of wealth accompanying them—has given rise to a search for a set of values that will address these social ills. And, crucially, rising nationalist sentiments have fueled a desire to fi nd meaning within the native tradition—and to of f set the malignant ef f ects of Western decadence and materialism. Confucius has thus played a variety of roles in China’s twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times praised, at times vilified, he has been both good guy and bad guy. Yet whether good or bad, he has always been somewhere on the stage. These days Confucius appears to be gaining favor again, in official circles and among the people. But what the future holds for him and his teachings is difficult to predict. All we can say with any certainty is that Confucius will continue to matter.

Emotional Labour: The f Word, by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox "Work inside the home is not always about chores. One of the most onerous roles is managing the dynamics of the home. The running of the schedule, the attention to details about band practice and sports training, the purchase of presents for next Saturday’s birthday party, the check up at the dentist, all usually fall on one person's shoulders. Woody Allen, in the much-publicised custody case for his children with Mia Farrow, eventually lost, in part because unlike Farrow, he could not name the children’s dentist or paediatrician. It’s a guardianship role and it is not only physically time consuming but demands enormous intellectual and emotional attention. Sociologists call it kin work. It involves: 'keeping in touch with relations, preparing holiday celebrations and remembering birthdays. Another aspect of family work is being attentive to the emotions within a family - what sociologists call ‘emotion work.’ This means being attentive to the emotional tone among family members, troubleshooting and facing problems in a constructive way. In our society, women do a disproportionate amount of this important work. If any one of these activities is performed outside the home, it is called work - management work, psychiatry, event planning, advance works - and often highly remunerated. The key point here is that most adults do two important kinds of work: market work and family work, and that both kinds of work are required to make the world go round.' (Interview with Joan Williams, mothersandmore.org, 2000) This pressure culminates at Christmas. Like many women, Jane remembers loving Christmas as a child and young woman. As a mother, she hates it. Suddenly on top of all the usual paid and unpaid labour, there is the additional mountain of shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, card writing, present wrapping, ritual phone calls, peacekeeping and emotional care taking. And then on bloody Boxing Day it all has to be cleaned up. If you want to give your mother a fabulous Christmas present just cancel the whole thing. Bah humbug!

having specific things to look forward to massively increases your enjoyment of them. “It extends the experience,” says Cassie Mogilner, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who specializes in happiness research. “The whole time you’re looking forward to it and anticipating it, you’re getting some of the benefits of the experience itself.” This is one of the reasons why people love vacation travel. You generally have to figure it out at least a few days ahead of time. Indeed, research published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010 found that vacation anticipation boosted happiness levels for eight weeks—an argument for planning more shorter trips rather than a few longer ones. Plan a four-day weekend every other month and the happiness boost could last all year. I know this anticipation factor is why I always have great birthday weeks. Not only do I think ahead of time about what I’d like to do—meeting up with friends, taking the kids somewhere fun, getting a massage—I plan these activities in advance and then enjoy seeing them on my calendar, knowing that tickets are purchased and babysitters are booked.

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