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New Directions, and A Call for Help

A few years ago, J casually said to me, "You know, you should really make your blog more mobile device friendly." "But that might ruin the design! And you know how hard I worked on it. Besides, less than 1% of my visitors are using a mobile device when they browse on over." Did I mention that J is a software engineer and tester? That he not only once worked for the big G, he is always up-to-date (and most of the times, ahead of the curve) on the latest web trends and companies — e.g., signed up for Yelp and Twitter long before anyone else I knew even heard of them, correctly predicting that they would "blow up" — and is...

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Reverent Sundays: Food for Thought

Welcome to today’s installment of Reverent Sundays, where I write about an aspect of my faith. This can deal with recent books I have read on Christianity, my thoughts on religion and current issues, as well as particular messages I find touching and/or powerful. I am aware that most of my readers are not religious, and that is fine — you are more than welcome to not read these posts if they make you uncomfortable, enrage you, or bore you to tears. I am open to debates and discussions in the comments section as long as everyone remains respectful. Enjoy! This weekend is a crazy one for our household (and I'm not only talking about the Superbowl). For this reason, today's Reverent...

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Why Chinese is Hard

Most of my readers know that we have been teaching Claire three languages since she was born. And at this point, at 16 months of age, she understands Cantonese Chinese the best, and more than half the words she speaks are Cantonese. I have no problem with this. I believe that Chinese — regardless of the dialect — is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and that our children having a good foundation in Chinese will not only help them more easily learn additional languages in the future (because you use both hemispheres of the brain with Chinese and other tonal languages), it may also be benficial if they choose to study music. I actually took two semesters of Mandarin...

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Thrush!

Last night, I noticed that Aerin's tongue was green.  8-O Okay, so it wasn't that bad. She has always had a white patch on her tongue, which is common in many babies due to their milk/forumla-only diet. But last night, when she happily stuck her tongue out at me during her bath, I noticed that the white patch had taken on a green tinge. It didn't seem to be bothering her so I did not feel it warranted a visit to the ER. But I did take her to the doctor first thing this morning to have it checked out, and my suspicions were confirmed: Aerin has thrush. If you can remember, Claire had a stubborn case of thrush when she was young. In...

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The Psychology of Color [Infographic]

I have always known that color has the power to influence your mood — for example, did you know that when a certain prison painted its walls pink, acts of agression and physical violence decreased significantly? — and was pleasantly surprised by some of the facts presented in this infographic by PaintersOfLouisville.com. Case in point: you should not paint a baby's room yellow, because it makes babies more prone to crying. (I can't help but think of all the nurseries I've seen painted yellow.) Or, you should stay away from red before, and during exams because it is "associated with the danger of failure in achievement contexts and can evoke avoidance motivation." Find out more in the infographic below! (Click to view large.) Via Bit...

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