I was ready to sink into the earth with shame Getting hideously drunk at a dinner party and embarrassing yourself is certainly nothing new. As far back as the 9th Century, the beautifully named 'Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette' insisted that local officials use the following letter template (dated 856) when sending apologies to offended dinner hosts. The guilty party would copy the template text, enter the dinner host's name, sign the letter and then deliver with head bowed. The letter was discovered, alongside thousands of other documents, in a sealed cave library in western China. To read more - and I suggest you do - visit the incredible International Dunhuang Project. The entire scroll, filled with Form Letters adapted for various situations, can be seen here. Translation follows. Recommended reading: Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road. Translated Transcript Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state.
8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert When Mike decides to start writing his History essay, blood rushes to his anterior prefrontal cortex. Phase 2: Find and Execute
Novanet: A Consortium of Libraries :: Authentic Happiness :: Using the new Positive Psychology 10 Helpful Websites You Have Never Heard Of It’s easy to get lost on the internet among the millions of useless websites and the couple dozen or so good ones. Unfortunately, some of the few good ones go way under the radar, and you’ve never even heard of them, let alone visit them. Ranging from practical and educational to just plain fun, these are sites you’ll want to bookmark. 10. Zeer If there was a website that could save your life, it’d be Zeer. 9. Wikipedia’s overrated and about to become outdated. 8. 5min Forget Ehow, Wikihow, or any other how-to website out there. 5min is your “one-stop shop for instructional videos and DIY projects.” 7. You can test drive a car, why shouldn’t you be able to test drive a phone? 6. Google News is an amazing source of news. 5. Despite popular belief, many people do actually enjoy reading books, but they just can’t find any time to set aside for this underrated hobby. 4. Traveling is a hassle. 3. 2. Think of the copious amounts of videos that exist all across the vast World Wide Web today. 1.
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature. Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals. Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something. 1. 'Lord of the Flies': Social Identity Theory The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders. Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Turns out that it's all about framing.
Wakerupper - The Web's Easiest Telephone Reminder Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we’re aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble. Here are the first 5 of the most harmful of these traps and how to avoid each one of them. 1. “Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? Lesson: Your starting point can heavily bias your thinking: initial impressions, ideas, estimates or data “anchor” subsequent thoughts. This trap is particularly dangerous as it’s deliberately used in many occasions, such as by experienced salesmen, who will show you a higher-priced item first, “anchoring” that price in your mind, for example. What can you do about it? Always view a problem from different perspectives. 2. In one experiment a group of people were randomly given one of two gifts — half received a decorated mug, the other half a large Swiss chocolate bar. 3. 4.
MapCrunch - Random Google Street View 70+ Google Forms for the Classroom If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting! Google Forms is a great tool for the classroom and this post from 2008 has always proven popular on my blog. I hope you continue to be inspired by the ideas here. I have created example forms for each of the different topics, follow the links in each of the ten sections. 1 ) Get to know your class Use this form to gather some indication from your new class about their likes and dislikes, their favourite lessons or after school clubs they enjoy. 2 ) Emotion graph An emotion graph is a simple line graph comparing a range of happiness to sadness against different points (time) in a story or film. Use a Google Form to gather the children’s responses to different parts of any type of linear narrative, written or visual. 3 ) Spelling test Steve Kirkpatrick had this brainwave a while back so check out his excellent post for more information about setting up the spreadsheet. 4 ) Comprehension questions