Why do ladies read Men's Health?

Here's one reason from Woman's Day:

"The Average American Consumes 12 pounds of chocolate a year. Get your fix...with Skinny Cow's new lowfat mini-fudge pops--they're just 50 calories." (July 10 2007, p. 1)

Mary Kay gets A- for marketing homework done in China

"Mary Kay has had to adapt its products to Chinese culture, which values smooth white skin as the essence of beauty, said Paul Mak, president of Mary Kay China. So no sunless tanners or bronzers. Instead, Mary Kay sells skin whiteners and is developing a line of botanical lotions that incorporate traditional Chinese herbs, Mak said."

“It used to be that the U.S. was the 800-pound gorilla that really determined the success and failure of Mary Kay. That is not true anymore,” CEO David Holl said. “Other than the U.S., China is by far now our largest market.”

The $2.2 billion cosmetics giant, based in Dallas, sold $1.2 billion in cosmetics in the United States in 2005 and has a sales force of 715,000 here, said company spokesman Randall Oxford.

The company, which operates in 36 countries, arrived in China in 1995 and has since recruited 400,000 Chinese beauty consultants. It brought in $300 million in Chinese sales in 2005, Oxford said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060804/news_lz1n4nowread.html

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Comments: Why only A-? While the marketing research and implementation strategies satisfied Chinese consumers, it leaves me with a heavy sigh. And a few resurfacing questions.

Why shouldn't we accept whatever skin color we have?* What are the reasons that propagate desires for certain skin tones in the East and West? Is this still the appropriate dichotomization?
Let's expand. If given the choice, the Asian choice would be a better "skin mentality" for America than its current" "bronze or die" habits in some places like LA. Indeed, the curiously Asian hesitation to "shai4hei1" (晒黑) encourages proactive skin cancer habits. Do Asian women age slower perhaps more for this nurture than nature? I would guess so, after comparing Asians who grow up in SoCal sun all their lives (40s) and those who stay relatively more sheltered on the East Coast.*

You are what you slather.

* The muser makes no apologies for the corniness in this statement.
**Disclaimer: Thoughts do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of Mary Kay skin care professionals.

Things 2 do before facing Death's sickle

1. Survive a drinking match vs. an Irishman
2. Survive a wrestling match vs. an amateur sumo wrestler (lightweight male: <187, heavyweight female: 176+; me, <120)
3. Win a local or regional hip-hop competition
4. Sleep alone overnight in a haunted house
5. Publish one or two books on how motivational drives alter individual norms over time, and have them completely ignored. Then watch book sales rise 2,000% on my next "The Flirting Games of Dolphins and Narwhales".
6. Learn to backflip off a hammock
7. Land a 1080 in snowboarding
8. Pick an ex-convict's brains over lunch
9. Secure the everlasting respect of my enemies and harshest critics, when I have 'em
10. Learn to thrive with my self-doubt
11. Win an argument against Mom
12. Wonder how I'm still alive halfway through the list

Motivation checklist

1. Wear Fear on your sleeves. Both of 'em.
2. Nurture a fire in your gut.
3. Showcase a 6-year old's irresistable twinkle in your eyes.

Hate, indifference and Chenango vending machines

"The opposite of love is not hate but indifference."

Three hours after leaving Ithaca, my bus stops @ a rest stop in Chenango, New York. I walk in for a soda.

A 25+ year-old in T-shirt and khakis fiddles with the vending machine. I notice he has put 25 cents in. He turns to me and asks, "Do you know how to work these things?"

I veil my slight disdain with a blase shrug: "As well as you." Help someone place coins into a vending machine? Maybe not today. By not today, like never.

"Huh." Fed this statement, he suddenly walks away.

Without blinking, I step forward and include his 25 cents in my Cherry Coke purchase. The first swig hits strong.

Later on the bus, I wonder whether the tingly sensation around my temples are horns sprouting from my head. Nah, probably just caffeine buzz.

On Graduating

Bring it on. Still...

1. Not ready because a) enjoy learning in classroom setting; b) comfortable in school niche; c) still too stupid to face real world; and d) enjoy learning in classroom setting.
2. "Alumna"? Me?! So we can no longer have 4-day weekends, wear mismatched outfits to class, dress up as runway models for library sessions, and snicker @ people who spend 1+ hours "studying" on FB (only to then log on ourselves after they leave)? Gah.
3. My predictions are always grossly wrong. Thought I would fail out of ILR 4 years ago. I'm still here. Didn't do too poorly either. I did endure food poisoning and one biting encounter with a midget in Beijing, China. Both felt interesting in different ways.
4. To what extent do I have to play the "responsible adult" facade now?
5. Long term plans: Who am I, now that LS isn't in the works? (RECS, GMAT, etc.)
6. Finances
7. Finances
8. Finances
9. Finances
10. Not ready to graduate.

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And this may likely be the last psycho-analytical post. But remember #3--my predictions are "always grossly wrong."

A little Obsession goes a long way

Obsession is passion in its best-distilled form. Prob is, what if you're 2 scared or lazy to get up and restart the process?



To be the best is to sacrifice other seemingly meaningful pursuits. 20-something year olds, often college graduates, falter when it comes time to bid farewell to the proverbial sacrificial lamb. My lambs continue to wonder why my knife has been frozen midair for the last 8 months.

Maybe that's why role models like Bruce Lee particularly fascinate me. Lee's Spartan lifestyle and extreme dedication to filmmaking led his wife to quip, often, that she wished she had married a more "well-rounded" individual. (Seth Godin says in The Dip that the worst thing school taught us was to be well-rounded; this strategy flops in life). Bruce would agree; his typical week consisted of 6 days of training; four hours per day. Nevermind the concurrent movie shooting and production.

Results? The fruits of his efforts still resonate even decades after he has left us. Fans, imitators and critics will agree that:

Bruce Lee > Jackie Chan
Bruce Lee > Jet Li
Bruce Lee > Chuck Norris

That Chan, Li and Norris are still alive and kicking remains insufficient reason for people to assert that Lee would still "kick their asses." A tombstone in the way? No problem.

Lee's advice to us? "Become the water." Minimize the importance of remaining well-rounded; meaning comes easier not with "life balance" but with "light-the-world-on-fire" "gee-how-the-heck-did-you-do-that" grit and savvy. On very few things. Preferably one.

Like H2O, we must first dare to obsess.