India: Secrets to A Bright Future

To start off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of blog posts over the last week. I've been extremely busy with homework, 7 AM basketball practices and sleep. This past week has been disastrous especially because I came down with a cold, a stuffy nose and sore throat.

Anyway, a few days ago, I read that many teenage girls in India are forced into prostitution. India isn't the only country that encourages this practice: Thailand, Cambodia, and many other Asian/Middle Eastern countries are all involved in the trade. But the girls are not abducted and then forced in by some mysterious trafficker, they're forced in by their own family. Their mother, father, brother and sisters. This has long been the tradition passed down by their ancestors, they see it as a way to increase the family income, as a way for the family to live better off the prostitution of the girls.

A red light traffic area in India

The girls enter during their teenage years, and work until they're in their late 30s. In a country like India, where work for women is far more harder to find than in North America, a daily income of 1000-1500 rupees ($12-$15) dollars by serving 10 - 12 customers a day seem like a irresistible deal. I mean it's understandable, there are so many unbelievable things that people would be for money. Especially in a country where money doesn't come easily.

Many prostitutes in the trade find it hard to quit, mostly because of they're so used to the daily massive income. Therefore, the only possible solution would be for the girls to never enter the trade in the first place. Education, education, education. It is the key. The girls need to learn there ARE other options than just prostitution.

Note: The girl is not Priya

A mother, who's in the trade right now named Meena, had called her experience hard work. She sometimes defends the industry but blames her family for the burden that she now carries. She has to support her family, as well as her sister and brother's family.

Meena herself has a daughter named Priya, but she does not wish that her daughter follows in her footsteps, but rather receive a better education and follow her dream, which is to become an actress. Girls need to achieve equality. The movement began in North America in the late 1900s, hope will continue a long time down the road in the future.

"Forest Boy" Found in Berlin

A seventeen year old teenage boy has been wondered into the city saying that he has lived in the forest for five years now.

He speaks English and a little big of German but has no memory of anything whatsoever except for that his name was Ray.


His dad and him has retreated into the woods since his mother died and had lived there ever since. But the duo had never made their own shelter but lived in huts and tents they found. The boy started walking in August and walked for two weeks

Police are now looking and searching for information within Europe to find his identity and background information.

But tons of questions rush to my mind. Why did he and his dad retreat into the woods after the boy's mother died? Was it that much of a devastating blow to the father and son? After being born in the wild how are they able to adapt to the wild life? What did they hunt and eat? In times of emergency, how did they get help? They've forgotten themselves so much that they lost their everything except for their first name? Everything just seems too strange, but it's far too early to jump to any conclusion, only time will tell...

A Day to Remeber

Today's date: 2011/09/11

Does that look familiar to you? It's been a decade since the terrorist attack happened on 2001/09/11. 

8:46AM - The North World Trade Centre Tower was struck

9:03AM - The South World Trade Centre Tower was struck

9:37AM - The airplane landed in Pentagon, Washington

10:03AM - The airplane crashed into Shankville, Pennsylvania

Many around United States and worldwide paid tribute to the victims that had their lives taken away in the three attacks in New York (lower Manhattan), Washington and also Pennsylvania. The tragedy claimed the lives of 2,977 people in total, that includes workers and visitors of the twin towers, the victims of the Pennsylvania and Washington incident and the first response rescue workers. 

Present Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, previous president George W. Bush all paid a visit to the recovering site of the World Trade Centre today. George W. Bush read a paragraph extracted from a letter that President Abraham Lincoln had sent to a mother that had lost five sons in the Civil War, citing his deepest apologies and highlighting that they gave their blood for a country that thrives because of them.

Obama Bin Laden, the master mind behind the attack was killed in Pakistan in May, it does give comfort to know that he is dead, but that doesn't even fill up a quarter of the emptiness and loneliness that the victim's family and friends have lived for the last ten years of their lives.

But obviously we should remember there are no faults that are committed without a trigger. United States must have somehow dismayed the Al Qaeda by giving "help" to their countries that they did not want. Perhaps in the future, before we give further help, we should negotiate with those countries to prevent anything similar from ever happening again.

A decade marks great changes, good ones, bad ones, and hopefully better ones. Prayers are sent out for the pricks of the heartaches that thousands of families feel on a day to day bases to end. 

Fashion Week at School?

Many Canadian students have been going back to school this week, particularly students that live in Ontario have been slowly trickling back after their long extended holidays.

Back to school week was supposed to be one of those intense fashion weeks. Everyone usually wears their best clothes to show off who they are. But the weather has been too cold to dress up, so I've been bundling up to keep warm. I just can't risk the chance of catching a cold, as I take extremely long to recover from them.

Lookbook.nu is one of my favorite websites to visit if I want to get interesting and creative ideas for my outfit, so I'm going to pick out some outfits that I think fit into the first week of the school. These are outfits that I would have loved to wear. (They're more on the summer to fall transitioning because it's getting quite cold here in Canada.)

The outfits that I would have chosen:

Tuesday: First day of school. Don't want to be trying too hard, pick something comfortable that you can walk in to find your way to your new classes, meet some old friends and have a few hugs here and there. Baggy sweaters are in for the winter and fall, (even though this is more of a long sleeved shirt you could also substitute this for a baggy sweater) But you can curl your hair or straighten it if you have curly hair to make it seem fancier. 

Wednesday: The slightly warmer day of the week. Simple, simple, simple. Sometimes simple things are the best. This is the casual sheek look, paired with a tank top, some sweats and converse.

Thursday: High waist shorts are really popular for the summer, so make the transition by wearing tights under to add warmth, black leggings under shorts also makes your legs appear thinner. A baggy old looking 80s sweater adds a pop of color.

Friday: Feeling feminine? No problem, a pretty up-do, along with a pretty little dress from summer, a thin belt to make your figure look more womanly, black leggings, a cardigan over and a pair of boots finishes your first week off!

Hope you guys have all had a great and warm first week! 

Dolly the Sheep

I remember the days when cloning was just a dream, something that I'd watch from a Doraemon episode, somewhere down the road in the future. But that was made possible in July 5th, 1996, the day that the first ever cloned mammal Dolly was born in Scotland.


Now that we've mastered cloning, some are aiming for a new kind of technology. Using stem cells to revive animals near extinction. One of the probably candidates is the Northern White Rhinoceros. Only seven of this species are alive now. This never fails to amaze me to what we have done to our planet, this is the fate that many animals will endured or have already endured, like the popular known passenger pigeons.



The stem cells will be used as a last resource, but I hope we will rarely need to use that kind of technology again. The whole aspect of using stem cells and cloning gives me the chills and feels entirely unnatural. I hope that we will never have to stare at the stuffed corpse of the animal in some museum but we will be able to touch the living animal's hide or fur and remember what a beautiful creature that it is to share this Earth with us.

Rainy Days

Does anyone ever have those days where it's raining and humid outside and you just want to sit in your air conditioned homes and scroll down to the newest news feed from Facebook?

Those days where I feel like my hands are just glued tight to the keyboard or the mouse.
Those days where I replay songs over and over again until I could sing it fluently even though I don't speak the language.
Those days that I just lie in bed and let my mind run wild, often surprised about my head comes a stop to.
Those days that I just have a light migraine that isn't enough to bother me, but lowers me to a mood level where I don't feel like doing anything productive.
Those days that I could just stare outside my window forever.
Those days that I want to talk to someone but can't find the right person.

Well, I am having one of those days.

Shell

Wongfu Productions is a ever-so-fast growing production company composed of Philip Wong, Wesley Chan and Ted Fu, who met in 2004 and kept in touch while completing their university education at University of California, San Diego.

The trio has wonderful ideas and perspectives about many aspects of life. The one that I wanted to share today is a short film directed and written by Wesley Chan, called Shell.

The story explores the concept between reality and imagination. Somehow near the end, the two strands intertwines to form the ultimate imaginality, a word that I made up just to describe this situation. I guess it's also kind of like deja vu.

I love their photography, story lines, concept and most of all their humour. Enjoy!