This picture is taken from the Jan 27 Science Magazine. The woman is not sexy in the most fashionable way, and not a beauty by the traditional standard. But she has melancholy eyes, a distinctive trait once I liked.

The window to the heart is our eyes. Does the blue in her eyes tell us that her mood is not optimal, or is it merely a sign crying for love?

In the Jan 27 issue of the Science Magazine, its News Focus reported the problem of suicide in China. It is well known that China has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The suicide is as prevalent in the rural areas as in the urban areas, affects equally men and women, and those with high and low education. Nevertheless, the Science news report noticed a discrepancy. The high suicide rate was not matched by a high depression rate. Thus, it concluded that in China, many suicides were due to impulsive behavior rather than the endpoints of depression.

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Today’s New York Time runs a report on Shanghainese women selling their virginities to Chinese billionaires. It is a fascinating old story. I’ve knew that for years.

For a woman, selling her virginity is a privilege. Geishas, high class courtesans, and also street prostitutes sell their first times for high prices. In old time, a virgin can claim more dowries than a non-virgin do. It’s a tradition in both oriental and western societies.

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Being a left-handed person is a life at odd. My memories are full of frustrations and confusions which continue till today. Science may provide some theories about the origin of handedness but won’t help my daily life.

A lefty kid brings shame to the family. In my hometown, and in China generally, struggling chopsticks clumsily with your left hand is a sign of low family education. Parents believe that it is their negligence that kids become lefties. Thus they feel responsible to correct this mistake, often forcibly. One trick my grandma used was to let me use chopsticks to pick up beans in a bowl with my right hand. It was fun at the beginning but quickly went miserable after I couldn’t pick most of beans. Picking up beans is OK, but no-food-with-your-left-hand is definitely a punishment. Left hand being slashed to red during the dinner is a common experience most switchers have suffered.

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The state where I lived has a good reputation for its freezing weather. Even the first snow of this year looked formidable. The sliding snow flakes, the grayish sky, and piercing winds were depressing. In a winter day like this, something miserable might happen easily.

I was surfing the internet, reading news and killing my time. My head was full of thoughts, or more precisely, it was like hundreds of horses tramping my brain. I should do something to rein those horses.

Meditation! This should work.

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We sleep everyday for 6~8 hours, mostly during the night. Why do people sleep and sleep so much? It is always an intriguing question. Isn’t that nice if we can skip the sleep and play 24/7? Our lives would be a whole lot different, that’s for sure.

Well, every breathing human being knows that we need sleep to rest and to recover our energy and intelligence. Sleep deprivation is second to food deprivation to damage your health.

The critical question is how much we need sleep? 8 hours’ sleep makes you stupid, as Napoleon I once commented. But 5 hours seem too little. At least I can’t stand it.

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I am kind of at a loss. I don’t know what I am going to talk about in this post because I am treading in the troubled water. Well, let me get this thing straight (not the straight you are thinking of): it is about man having sex with man.

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It was Saturday night. Sue was the brightest star in the whole universe. Several netters were throwing a birthday party for her. Sue was particularly surprised and excited to see Leo, a humorous and matured gentleman. He was also younger than she thought. At the first sight of seeing him, she had determined to get close to him, really close.

Sue and Leo had been huddling together and flattering each other for a long time. Sue’s intelligence and gorgeous body impressed Leo. For better or worse, Sue was so open mind that she allowed him to “evaluate” her breast. The touch, like magic, broke down all the barriers between them. Sue felt a surge of urgency: she wanted to have him in whole, right now!

Sue completely lost her control. She ran around house naked, kissed Leo passionately, ignored all warnings from friends, and inevitably, had sex with Leo that night.

After Sue emerged from the basement the next morning, friends were mad at them. They reproached them openly. Adults, they accused, should be responsible for their behavior, let alone there were three kids in the house.

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In the morning of September 14, 1953, millions of American women felt uneasy and thousands of families were again in trouble, thanking to the shameless research by the sex professor–Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Many women suddenly discovered that their lives lacked one critical element–the sexual orgasm. Conservatives were also furious about Kinsey’s Reports. Rev. Bill Graham claimed that Dr. Kinsey had been grossly mistaken about millions of born-again women who had vowed for being chaste in their lives.

The notorious book–Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was in fact a serious academic monograph detailing about the sexual experience and behavior among American women. It was a dry book full of tables and arcane descriptions. Furthermore, men’s dark secrets had already been exposed to the public five years ago in the book– Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. These two books (the Kinsey Reports)were sold 300,000 each, a number which almost all academic writers would envy.

The 2004 movie–Kinsey– documented both Kinsey’s fascinating personal life and his controversial research. In the post-Monica era when people are questioning sex and morality, this movie was timely and also necessary. Human sexuality is not a taboo, and talking about it will not corrupt the society.

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Everybody, in a sense, is a “personal scientist.” For example, we enthusiastically try different recipes to make foods taste more delicious. Women are extraordinary self-experimenters. Every woman can tell you how many cosmetics she has tried and what is the best for her skin. Indeed, we do variety things to ourselves hopefully to fix some ailments. Many people constantly change their behaviors such as drinking water instead of coffee, replacing meat with vegetables, and listening to music to improve their moods, let alone many unfortunate souls hopelessly try to diet, quit smoking, or abstain from alcohol. We do experiments on ourselves all the time.

In fact, many scientific discoveries were made by self experiments. 1956 Nobel Prize winner Werner Forssmann threaded a catheter to his heart through a vein in his arm to demonstrate the vascular catheterization. Barry Marshall drank Helicobacter pylori to prove that the bacteria can cause stomach ulcers. Nowadays, all insulin treated diabetic patients have to do a little experiment on themselves to figure out the best dosage and timing to inject insulin.

Recently I am also very interested in self experiments. Three months’ ago, I started to exercise without restricting my diet. Physical activities have tons of physiological benefits which I don’t need to reiterate here. But I have another motivation to do this. I am used to sitting in the chair all day long. I had tried to increase physical activities several times but all attempts had failed. This time I wanted to see how long I could carry out my plan, how much pain I could tolerate, and what kind of physical and emotional responses I had along the exercise. In particular, I wanted to know why I could not adhere to the plan. I decided to make it a scientific experiment with only one observation–myself.

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Many years ago, when I first touched an IBM XT computer, I was mesmerized by the charming green text on its screen, the rhythmic stroke on the dirty keyboard, and the enchanting melody of fan noise. I knew this sort of thing would cost my life dearly. Now it’s time for a change. I want to go back home and say “Honey, I am a changed man”. But it takes time.

Behavior changes go through stages. They are precomtemplation stage in which people don’t even think about their problems, contemplation stage in which people start to realize their problems, preparation stage in which people are thinking of ways to correct their problems, action stage, and maintenance stage or termination. These five stages comprise the main idea of transtheoretical model proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente (1983,1994). Although exact time periods may be blurred by overlaps among these stages, it serves as a very useful guideline in the process of either self-improvement or coached therapy.

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