Threading

I’m not sure there is any other way of describing the art of threading other than having you watch that video above, or looking up some other video on threading.  Its insane.

I chanced upon this ancient tradition in the mall the other day.  I couldn’t help but notice something a little off going on, and the pictures of women with perfectly shaped eyebrows couldn’t help but draw my eye when I had been pondering when to set up my own eyebrow wax appointment.  What was “off” was that at this booth in the middle of the mall where pictures of perfectly shaped eyebrows were hanging, women who appeared to be from India were laboring over other women with thread laced through their teeth.  Noticing my intrigue, one of the women approached me and told me all about it.

I had to try it, I mean, come on!  How often do you get the chance to try an ancient tradition for the first time??  Its supposed to be a great alternative to waxing for those with sensitive skin.  Yet, the process wound up making me bleed…something that had not occurred in all my years of waxing.  I can’t argue with the results though.  I have more finely groomed brows than I have ever worn.  Its simply worth trying it for yourself, as it already seems to be a trend that is slowly taking  over (in the US that is — elsewhere it is a deeply entrenched tradition :)).

Anywho, now I look perfect for the holidays!  So yay!

Study Break

I was perusing my last post and got to thinking about how every day of the year holds some sort of historical significance.  Google once again came to my rescue as I “googled” historically significant events occurring on December 13th.  I found one list that seemed decent, and found one that only raised questions for me.  Apparently on Tuesday, December 13th, 1949, “The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.”

First of all, what are the “Knesset”?  I apologize if this is insensitive in some way, but I profess up front to be totally ignorant of the meaning of this term — hopefully until now.  Using my wikipedia powers, I am informed that “Knesset” is the legislature of Israel and is located in Givat Ram, Israel.  (No worries, I also clicked on Givat Ram to figure out where that was exactly since it wouldn’t make sense for the legislature to make Jerusalem the capital if the legislature was elsewhere.  Turns out Givat Ram is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem).  Turns out the Knesset also first convened in February of 1949, same year they moved the capital to Jerusalem!

Okay, so where was the capital of Israel before it was in Jerusalem?

Turns out that may be a dumb question because in 1948 there was a War of Independence; the armistice wasn’t in effect til February of 1949, coincidentally the same time the Knesset was born.

Okay, so I am way out of my league in this area, and don’t have near enough time to delve into the many layers that are the middle east nations.  Yikes!  Definitely bit off more than I could chew for one little study break.  At least it served its purpose and gave me a little mental break.  Yes, that is how I give myself mental breaks, by trying to figure out something even more confusing than I was originally working on.

Luckily, I get to eat homemade spaghetti tonight with friends.  Maybe they can bring some sanity back to me!

Regency

I am a self-proclaimed Jane Austen addict.  A recent conversation led me to realize that I actually don’t know that much about the woman herself apart from her wonderful novels.  What I do know is shamefully from the movie Becoming Jane, which I think is partially accurate.  Then again, Hollywood does strive to add a small dose of truth to their biopics.  I became uneasy though when I realized just how little that amount of truth may have been.  So I took to the internet to research my favorite authoress!

For one thing, Jane Austen was born in 1775.  December 16th, to be exact.  For a little context, thats just a year before the United States Declaration of Independence was codified!  What an amazing period of history to be brought into the world.  It baffles me sometimes to think about what amazingly different histories were occurring simultaneously in countries like England and the US.  I mean, a country was being born around the same time another country was starting another chapter in its already overwhelmingly long history.  Okay, tangent over.

So Jane Austen was born into the world in 1775 to an already rather large family.  She had six brothers and one sister.  According to websites like wikipedia (I know, not incredibly reliable but I think I’m relatively safe on this subject), Jane and her sister Cassandra were extremely close.  Wiki also reports that Jane and her brother Henry Thomas were really close, and that he wound up being the one to help her get published later in life.  So at least that part of Becoming Jane was moderately accurate.  Neither Jane nor Cassandra ever married, and wikipedia doesn’t really have a lot to say about the reasons.  I guess a lot of Jane’s history is not known.  Her brother George was apparently sent away to live with a local family at a young age because he was “mentally abnormal and subject to fits.”  Two of her brothers became admirals in the navy, and her brother Edward was adopted by a fourth cousin, Thomas Knight.  Sounds like the family didn’t really get to stay together.  I wonder if families were normally that large back then?  From some of her novels it seems like it was a common practice for larger families to send their children away to distant relatives. (I’m thinking of Mansfield Park specifically at the moment).

I’m not going to go into a lot of other details of her life, because you can all look at wikipedia.  Something else that I’d been considering though was what period of time she lived in.  It seems that she lived in several.  Most of the movies I’ve seen that recreate her novels describe themselves as “regency-era” England.  So of course I looked that up.  Turns out that “Strictly speaking, the Regency is the period 1811-1820 when King George III was declared incapacitated (due to insanity), and the Prince of Wales (later George IV) acted as Regent.”  Muy interesante en mi opinion.  The thing is, it would appear that Jane Austen defies classification.  She can be labeled as “18th Century” or “Romantic” or “Victorian” but doesn’t totally fit in any of those categories.  Jane was not inspired by romanticism, and therefore can’t really be classified as a “romantic” author even though many of her stories have inspired my own romantic notions.  The regency period seems like the best fit, even though it didn’t start til 1811 and Jane died in 1817.  Still, that was around when she began publishing I guess.

Not a bad thing to defy classification.

The more I learn about Jane, the more fascinating she becomes to me.  I obviously haven’t shared a lot of what I learned about her because I refuse to be the captain of redundancy.  You are clearly connected to the internet if reading this and are capable of doing your own research if you want the full details of Ms. Jane’s life.

How can a woman who defies her own time period not be interesting?