Home, Health & Style

What is Procrastination, and Do You Have Time to Read This Right Now?

I’ve been trying to write this article for a while, but, well. I mean, I’ve had the time, but there just seems to be so much else to do. Like rearranging my books or the clothes in my wardrobe into colour order. And yesterday, I just had to plait all the tassels on my blanket and look through all my old photo albums.

Sound familiar? Procrastination is the science, no, the art of doing trivial things whilst putting off something important, like doing your homework or, ahem, writing an article. But putting things off for too long can get you into trouble. It’s much better to get on with tidying your room or revising for an exam than it is to see how many two pence coins you can balance on your nose (I managed 5 yesterday).

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Art & History

What is the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos)?

On  1st and 2nd of November, Mexico celebrates its Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). This is a festival that begins on 28th October and ends on a public holiday on 2nd November. During this time, Mexicans believe that the deceased have permission from God to visit friends and relatives on earth, and once again enjoy the pleasures of life. It isn’t seen as a time of sadness and mourning but as a celebration of life.

 

Where Does the Tradition Come From? 

 

 

The Aztecs believed that death was just a part of the circle of life and offered gifts to the goddess Mictecacihuatl (“Lady of the Dead”) for deceased children and adults. This tradition was incorporated into the Catholic celebration of All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day when the Spanish conquered the country. You might know All Saint’s Day by its other name – Halloween!

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Home, Health & Style

Tomboys and Girly Girls

The mother of eight year old Isabella wrote about buying toys without glitter, and searching for ‘girl’ clothes in colours other than pink, which got us thinking about the term ‘tomboy’.
What do you call a girl who isn’t a girly-girl? Some people would say, ‘a tomboy’, but does that imply that the girl isn’t a real girl, and do we need a label for this anyway?
Perhaps we should let toys be toys, as this campaign demands, and sell clothes without ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ labels. What do you think?

 

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Art & History

Prehistoric Art

When we visit art galleries or learn about art in school, we tend to think of paintings on canvas, sculpture or photographs.  Often these will be clearly recognisable as people or objects like food and flowers, and we can relate to them as familiar in some way.
Art and pictures have been around ever since people first were recognised as human by historians, in pre-historic times.  Prehistoric simply means history which dates before written accounts are available to study.  The earliest humans did not have writing with which they could communicate and this means that art and pictures were even more important to them.

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