Reality for most people today is unbearable.

We are surrounded by a polluted world. It is polluted not only by toxic waste that has affected the soil that grows our food and oceans where life had its origins, but it fills the air we breathe. Noise invades our solitude. Radio, telephone, mobile phones, television, computers, microwave, low frequency military H.A.A.R.P. (Brain Washing?) signals and ultraviolet rays constantly bombard our space.

There is no peace. It is impossible to spend a few minutes of quiet meditation without climbing a mountain, dropping deep down into a cave, or surrounding our bodies with metal and sound proofing materials thick enough to stop the assault. Try it and somebody will start up a power lawnmower, send you a text message, a siren will go off, a vehicle with a loud muffler will pass, or dogs will bark.

We live in pain. It can be physical pain, which comes from disease, physical combat or accidental injury. It also can be mental pain, from the effects of our daily contact with other humans, our schooling, our jobs, and all of the problems listed above.

We live in fear. Most of this emotion is of our own making. We have created a religious system that generates fear. We live among alien life forms that feed on the emotions generated by fear. Thus it is that we are programmed from the time we are little children to be afraid.

We fear the unknown. We fear darkness. We fear failure. We fear each other. And most of all, we fear death. The older people get the more fear-bound we seem to be.

A most sorry lot we have turned out to be.

The few moments of splendor that make the adrenaline rush, the dopamine pump and the hearts race don't come very often for us, but when they do, we suddenly know that enduring all of the suffering is worth it, just for these moments.

We wish for more great moments in our life.

Many of us resort to artificial ways to get it. Some people buy expensive new things like cars, boats or houses, but that rush only lasts a few hours before the reality of the payments they are committed to sinks in.

This is the reason narcotics and alcohol is so popular. We go to any lengths to get these things, while at the same time the social programs our society has created go to great lengths to take them away from us. We make laws making the possession and use of the pain killing effects of marijuana, the cocoa leaf, certain mushrooms and the poppy flower punishable by jail and stiff fines. An attempt to ban alcohol in the 1930s was such a failure this law was repealed, but the punishments for consumption of this brain-killing drug in public places can be steep.

The argument by the church and righteous social "do-gooders" is that these drugs harm our physical bodies and make us dangerous to our fellow man. Therefore, they reason, everybody must suffer during this walk through life without an artificial means of escape. They even went so far as to put Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the so-called "suicide doctor," in prison because he was offering people with incurable illness and pain an early way out.

In our creativity, however, it seems that mankind has either discovered (or been purposefully furnished) an alternative and still legal way of hiding from reality. Instead of breaking the law by smoking marijuana, sniffing cocaine, or feeling the rush of amphetamine, we are opting to make our escape by having our doctors prescribe rose colored glasses.

You know what I mean. We are all rushing to the pharmacy to buy antidepressant drugs. They are called Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lovan, Luvox, Effexor, Serzone and Anafranil to name a few.

Pop just one pill a day and suddenly everything seems cheery. The little things don't bother us anymore. And big problems seem very little in their scope.

George Orwell predicted the arrival of this pill in his prophetic novel 1984. Those of you who read this book remember that the people had to take their daily dose o

You Are Chinese If:

• You were/are a good student with very high GPAs.
• You majored in something practical like engineering, medicine or finance.
• You have more than one college degrees, especially more than one Master's.
• If you play a musical instrument, it must be piano.
• You have a vinyl table cloth on your kitchen table.
• Your stove is covered with aluminum foil.
• Your kitchen has a sticky film of grease over it.
• You beat eggs with chopsticks.
• You always leave outdoor shoes at the door.
• You use the dishwasher as a dish rack or extended cabinet.
• You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times.
• You boil water before drinking.
• You eat all meals in the kitchen to keep your dining room clean.
• You don't use measuring cups when preparing foods.
• You save grocery bags and use them to hold garbage.
• You have a rice cooker.
• You're a wok user.
• You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
• You wash rice 2-3 times before cooking it.
• You make sounds when you have a bowl of soup.
• You don't dry-clean clothes, even if they need to be dry-cleaned.
• You iron your own shirts.
• You like congee with thousand year old eggs.
• You always cook yourself, even if you hate it.
• You use credit cards, and pay monthly bills in full.
• You keep most of your money in a savings account.
• You buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.
• When you hand wash dishes, you only use cold water.
• You hate to waste food - (a) even if you're totally full, if someone says they're going to throw away the leftovers on the table, you'll finish them, (b) You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or on leftover chicken wing.
• You don't own any real Tupperware, only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed margarine tubs, takeout containers, and jam jars.
• When toilet paper is on sale, you buy 100 rolls and store them.
• You have a collection of miniature shampoo/conditioner bottles and little soap bars that you took every time you stay in a hotel.
• The condiments in your fridge are either Costco sized or come in plastic packets, which you save every time you get take out or go to McDonald's.
• You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
• You spit bones and other food scraps on the table.
• Your dad thinks he can fix everything himself.
• When you go to a dance party, there is a wall of guys surrounding the dance floor trying to look cool.
• Your house/apartment is always cold in winter, and hot in summer.
• Your Mom drives her Mercedes to Costco, or SuperStore regardless how far it is, even if Safeway or Co-op is next door.
• You only make long distance calls after midnight or during weekends.
• You prefer your shrimp with the heads and tails still attached.
• You never call your parents just to say hello.
• You drive a Japanese car.
• You use a colored face cloth every morning.
• You starve yourself before going to all-you-can-eat places.
• You've joined a CD club at least once.
• You never discuss your love life with your parents.
• You seldom ever owned new clothes if you were a second child.
• At least one person in your family owns or knows how to use a sewing machine.
• You don't have matching hangers in your closet
• You never really bought a calendar in your life; you always got the free ones with movies stars or nature scenes from grocery stores.
• You're amused when Americans think Chinese fast food is good.
• You dilute your dishwasher soap with water when your running out so it'll last a little longer.
• You don't really own Tupperware, you store food in bowls or pots covered in plastic wrap.
• You feel awkward when someone asks you to leave your shoes on in their house.
• If you have

Credit goes to Setsuka Neometa Kawasaki

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term exam. The answer by one student was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (Gives off heat) or Endothermic (Absorbs heat)? Give proof

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (Gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets into Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these Religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls are all going to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure the Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct... leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting Oh my God.