On nostalgia -

"Once a things been done it's been done, so why all this nostalgia? I mean, for the 60's and 70's, you know, looking backwards for inspiration, copying the past. How's that rock and roll? Do something of your own. Start something new. Live your life now."

- John Lennon

"You should create your own icons and way of life, because nostalgia isn't glamorous. If I had one thing to say it would be, live your life now."

- Marilyn Monroe

At practice a new student said she couldn't figure out my accent and thought at times it sounded a bit Scottish. That's a first.

You know you've lived in the US a long time when you feel it's odd that people in Hong Kong are ordering orange juice with their DINNER (and hotels are charging over US$10 per glass). For me it's become a strictly breakfast/daytime beverage.

Better than bold statements are bold questions.

"How great life would be just to eat and sleep."

These are translated words from a t-shirt I saw in the Philippines. The sad thing is, a lot of people here think that. It's a perversion of the old-fashioned view that work is low and those with means would really want a life of leisure. I say perversion because 'leisure' encompasses so much more than eating and sleeping. The shirt promotes laziness as the ideal, which is bad. It's meant to be a joke but here in the Philippines the work ethic is already weak.

4 people are born every minute in the Philippines, a Catholic country where 54% of pregnancies are unintended. Are 4 jobs being created every minute? No way! This is extending the poverty and stunting socioeconomic growth. The government should make contraceptives more widely available, provide sex education, and make abortion legal - there are an estimated half million of them happening every year anyway.

Science/Tech jobs need to pay better for the amount of education & work they require. The fact they don't is why in the last 10 years, too many people have been interested in entering finance & consulting after college. Before that the hot trend was to study computer science and/or join (or start) a dot com. People take the path of least resistance, and, in the words of Jerry Maguire, paths that "SHOW ME THE MONEY"

I dislike it when I'm told about conferences or webinars that are really just sales presentations.

We spend a LOT of money to keep certain people out of society.

At regular prisons in the US, it costs about US$120/day to house each prisoner. At federal prisons, the cost is roughly twice as much.

Is it worth it? Is the prison system effective? Are we rehabilitating those people?

What does money buy? One of the things is venereal disease.

The tenfold growth in the number of syphilis cases over the past decade in China has been driven by the country's rapid economic growth.

Sexually transmitted diseases re-emerged in China in the 1980s after being virtually eradicated for two decades.

Prostitution, worker migration from the countryside to cities and poor health care systems means cases are now increasing 30 percent a year.

- From the World Health Organization's monthly bulletin

The #1 factor that determines how well you perform under stress is your ability to cope with it — not specific job conditions or the amount of pressure you face.

If you cut a starfish in half, both pieces will generate into a whole new starfish.

What's a spice? A spice may be the bud (clove), bark (cinnamon), rhizome (ginger), berry (peppercorn), aromatic seed (cumin), or flower stigma (saffron) of a plant.

What's an herb? An herb is generally defined as the leaf of a plant (rosemary, oregano, thyme, coriander) in cooking, but any other part of the plant, often drie, can be a spice.

One teaspoon of cinnamon has the disease fighting antioxidant power of a full cup of pomegranate juice or half cup of blueberries.

Red peppers, even milder sweet red peppers, boost your metabolism so you burn a few more calories.

Oregano has the highest antioxidant levels of the dried herbs because of its rosmarinic acid content. Used heavily in Mediterranean cuisines, oregano has antimicrobial powers that can help fight bacterial growth and may help inhibit the bacteria associated with ulcers.

- Carolyn O'Neil, registered dietitian

In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal.

- Seneca, from "On the shortness of life"

"Free range," "cage free," "natural" and "organic" are nearly meaningless when it comes to animal welfare.

Turkeys have been so genetically modified they are incapable of natural reproduction.

- Jonathan Safran Foer

In 2008 the number of people with a net worth of US$1 million or more in China overtook the number of people with a net worth of US$1 million or more in Britain.

To gain something we have to give something up.

Watching "Tsotsi" (2005) and reading "Disgrace" (by J.M. Coetzee) are probably bad ways to prepare for a trip to South Africa.

According to the US Census Bureau, the average commute time in the US is 25.5 minutes.

For people who work in New York City, it's 36.9 minutes - the second highest average in the country.

Mine happens to be the US average. If the subway system here in NY was better, it'd be shorter.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit organization of researchers, patients and health-care facilities, 20% of Americans reported getting six hours of sleep or less in 2009, compared to 13% in 2001. Similarly, 28% of Americans reported getting eight hours of sleep or more in 2009 compared to 38% in 2001. These findings, based on a telephone survey of 1,000 Americans, echo concerns about the economy as well, where about one in six (16%) reported that their weekly sleep was being disturbed due to financial concerns.