Bhutan has always fascinated me. In some ways, they are rather archaic, almost Amish -- the king lifted the ban on TV and the internet only seven years ago. But, they also are rather progressive: the king can be impeached by the National Assembly.
In my youth, two facts remora-ed themselves to my brain: their largest export was stamps and everyone celebrated their birthday on same day -- New Year's. Sadly, both of the these facts are not true -- though the former was true until 1974 when tourists were first allowed into the country; I blame my beloved National Geographic Atlas, printed in 1974. False the latter fact may be, it still resonates with me in some way. Why should one's own New Year not start on one's birthday? One's entry into the world surely must be considered new.
My own birthday was last Wednesday, the 25th of October -- savvy readers who will do/have done well at Geekfest know that this is the same day as the Council of Elrond -- so I set about to write a set of resolutions. They are as follows:
Respond to friends/family within 24 hours
Do 100 push-ups and crunches per day
Read one Shakespeare play per month
Take one photograph to be proud of per month
Find 5 restaurants worthy of taking friends/family
Go skiing in the Alps
Go hiking in the Alps and Jura
Watch 10 Best Picture winners
Memorize two poems
Learn to drive stick
Save $200 per month
Make one recipe from each cookbook per week
Read Paradise Lost
Blog at least once per day
Read 5 Booker Award winners
Read 5 Pulitzer Prize winners
Bike around Lake Geneva
Work through Peskin
Some are for fun, some are for self-improvement (all you Tyler Durdens out there can just keep your opinions to yourself), some are ambitious, some less so. Some of you will note that one resolution is to blog once or more a day. In the spirit of this resolution, I've started a new blog.
Some may ask why I've started a new blog when I had one already. One word: tagging. I've always wanted tags, so I signed up with Blogger's beta to get my hands on them. I also want to have a bit more focus on physics -- both for friends and family who keep asking the nagging question "so what exactly do you do?" and in the spirit of autodidactism -- so I've tried to reflect that in the design. If you faint when people start discussing the Standard Model, fear not, for I bring tidings of great joy: I'll also be posting about food, ex-pat culture, movies, TV, photography, sports, books, and anything else that strikes or tickles my fancy.
I'd also like to engage friends and visitors, so if you have a comment, a question, or whatever, please post it. If it's a question, I'll see what I can do about dedicating a post to answer it. As an aspiring teacher of physics, I hope to refine my pedagogy a little here, too. If you have a blog of your own, feel free to respond to me there, too. I think dialogues between blogs can be a lot of fun, so I'd love to engage in some -- just make sure I know about your blog.
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