Sara sans "h"

1. The candles on the Kinara represent things by color: black for the African race, red for African blood shed, and green for African land. My fourth grade teacher brought in a Kinara once and explained the holiday to us, but I don't recall her explaining what the candles represented. I always thought each individual candle stood for its own ideal or value. Instead, each day of Kwanzaa represents one of the seven values honored with the holiday.
2. The twelve days of Christmas actually fall after Christmas and go through January 6th. 
3. President Truman received a Menorah from the Prime Minister of Israel in 1951, the first link between the White House and Hanukkah. 
4. Freezingman is a winter art and music festival held in Colorado in January as a winter counterpart to Burning Man.
5. "Holiday Heart Syndrome" refers to an irregular heart beat, normally appearing after vacation or time off from work (generally associated wit binge drinking).
6. Boxing Day is kind of the equivalent of Black Friday for the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and parts of Australia. It tends to be the highest day of revenue for commercial stores.
7. Some people believe the 25th of December falls about 9 months after the Annunciation (when the archangel Gabrial informed Mary she would give birth to God's son). Annunciation is celebrated March 25th. So it lines up. (I put my money on the theory that the day was chosen because of the overhaul of significant dates in other religions)


There you have it. Happy Chrismahanukwanzadan.(even though Hanukkah and Ramadan are over. I hope they were happy for you)
Have a safe and happy holiday season. :-)

I don't have consistent internet access, as Knox has let out for winter break and that is normally where I go for internet. But between that, holidays, moving/not really moving yet (but will be soon!), visiting the boy (and meeting his parents in Washington DC), and lots and lots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it is safe to say that I haven't exactly been a reliable blogger. Though, when have I ever really been that consistent with stuff like this? You should see the diaries I have started, the knitting projects left un-knitted, and the NaNoWriMo novel I got 400 words into before I realized that I had to study for the GRE for the first week-and-a-half of November. 


Anyway, without further adieu: 
Seven Things I Learned This Week:
1. Philadelphia is the fourth largest city in the United States. 
2. Jon Stewart was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz.
3. Don Henley was inspired to write the song Witchy Woman while he had a high fever and was reading a book about Zelda Fitzgerald.
4. Snapple fact #658: New York City is made up of 50 islands.
5. Joe Louis used to drink cow blood fresh from slaughterhouses right before big boxing matches.
6. Zorillas are the smelliest animals in the world.
7. George Washington University has a "J" street in their student union, thus making up for the fact that Washington D.C. does not have a "J" Street. Sesame Street would be proud. 


Bonus Fact: Otters are very sensitive about their fluff bedding and where it goes. I personally saw some of them fight over where to put it in their habitat at the National Zoo. 


Tada! Learny things! Isn't it wonderful?

I think it's ten, at least. It's been a couple weeks. I have excuses! I swear!
I had to move my parents two weekends ago, which culminated in taking the GRE that Monday. Yeah, my life sucked that week. And last week I was sick.
See, I have reasons!
And I have lessons!
1. The phrase "had issue" means that a couple (normally of royal or some other official entitlement) had children.
2. Netflix has interesting genres, including "Dramas about Royalty based on Real life" and "Cartoons for Grown-ups."
3. NaNoWriMo is impossible to catch up on once you skipped the first week to study for the GRE.
4. The computer-based GRE is one of those predictive tests that gives the test taker the next question based on whether or not he or she answered the last question correctly and predicts your score based on that.
5. Washington D.C. is exactly 854 miles from Galesburg.
6. Facebook has freindship pages outlining as much of a relationship as possible through facebook. Kind of creepy...It's like Facebook decided to start scrap-booking for all of us.
7. The BNSF railroad was Burlington North and Santa Fe before they merged. They only crossed in Galesburg, Illinois.

1. Rod Stewart had a daughter (more, his girlfriend at the time did) he (and she) put up for adoption when he was 18. 
2. Rod Stewart is now preparing for another child at age 65.
3. There has never been a panda born in the United States. The Atlanta Zoo is preparing for the first.
4. Myanmar has adopted a new flag. 
5. 85% of women who received the birds and the bees talk from their mother or grandmother wishes they had received said talk from their father.
6. Related: Over half of the women in a study that had the same talk with their fathers were likely to have had less sexual partners, have waited longer to lose their virginity, and were significantly less likely to have a marriage end in divorce.
7. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.


#9 (#9...#9...Yes, I have waited to do that Beatles joke for nine weeks.)
8/1. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
9/2.The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
10/3. Snapple fact #35: Elephants only sleep two hours a day.
11/4. Snapple fact #300 Pennsylvania is misspelled on the Liberty Bell.
12/5. The fist product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum.
13/6. Lip impressions are like fingerprints: no two are the same.
14/7. The unofficial mascot of George Washington University is the hippo. I kind of sort of really want to be a hippo.

1. I am very sleepy the day after driving to and from Chicago and not getting home until 2:30 in-the-morning.
2. When I am as sleepy as I am now, I make up words like learny.
3. Goldfish are not a breakfast food, but they sure do entertain me when I am tired.
4. I can't count or deal with the caps lock key when I am tired.
5. My hands are cold.
6. Grad school is a terrifying concept.
7. I will be doubling up 7TILTW for next week. As I have learned lots of things, but can not put them into coherent and non-stupid sounding phrases and what-not.

1. You are more likely to hit a deer while driving in West Virginia than in any other state.
2. It took Germany a full 92 years to pay off the reparations from World War I, which they just paid off last week.
3. Snapple Fact #855: Vultures can fly for six hours without flapping their wings.
4. Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving Day on Columbus Day.
5. Jackie Kennedy did her Under-grad at George Washington University.
6. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader and senior Senator from Nevada, went to George Washington University for law school (can you tell I'm researching grad school?)
7. Norway is ranked as the most developed country in the world by the United Nations.

1. Apparently, if female frogs are pregnant, you can squeeze the eggs out of them if you want to. (there was more to this one, but Sam was explaining it really late last night and there was a train going by so I couldn't really hear him. But what I did hear was very interesting (read: gross))
2. Snapple Fact #772: Male moose shed their antlers every winter and grow a new pair the next year.
3. Today is the 20 year anniversary of Germany becoming a fully united state for the first time since World War 2. I knew this one before, but I think it is super cool.
4. There is contention regarding which river is the world's shortest: the D River in Oregon or the Roe River in Montana. Apparently the D River changes with the tide and can be measured at different lengths throughout the year, but at its shortest it is 120 feet long. The Roe River is consistently 200 feet long.
5. The woman that currently holds the record for the world's largest breasts (cup size M) might lose her title because her last breast implant surgery gave her a staff infection and she had to have the implants removed. She's getting them put back in ASAP, though, so she can keep her title.
6. The cartoon show Inspector Gadget only ran for 2 seasons. It felt like way more.
7. Ginko trees are on the endangered species list.
BONUS! Frontierville is a very addictive facebook game. I can't stop playing.