“In the United States, you see all these beautiful skinny people on television, and yet Americans keep getting fatter anyway,” said Sasaki, the public health expert at Tokyo University. “Why is that?”

I started to do a series investigating how it is that certain cultures seem to be thinner than America on my other blog. Someone asked me if I would pick that up again here, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. But, I find it very interesting, so I think I will.

Today’s topic, the media’s influences on weight.

In America, we hear it all the time: society puts so much pressure to be thin. Thin women are glorified, seen everywhere in our tv showes, magazines, movies, and even music. We see headlines of celebrities like “Britney Spears’ huge body after having a baby,” or, “Best and Worst Beach Bodies,” as well as, “Is Nicole Richie too thin?”

In America, headlines like these give some kids mixed signals: we will be scrutinized for being big, but then scrutinized for being too thin? Oh, no, wait. You want us to be skinny, but just get there in a “healthy” way. I mean, forget that our bodies may not be able to get below 130 without some extreme dieting, because even though we must be skinny, we have to “healthy,” right?

My friend broke up with her long time boyfriend of two years. She felt that the two of them were not heading down the same path in life. She said there had been many things about him that disappointed her but primarily, it was not being proactive enough to getting a job. We were all college students at the time. So one day, she broke up with him much to his and everyone else’s surprise.

A few weeks later, her ex-boyfriend was now with someone else. My friend grew quite angry over the news. When I asked her to explain, she said there was a rule saying that the girl should always be the one to move on first. I had never heard of this “rule” and thought it was silly!! I didn’t understand why she was so angry because she was the one who ended the relationship. She goes on to say that guys and girls have different “rules” in relationships and break-ups and that a guy should “wait” or “mourn” over a lost relationship longer than the girl before getting into a new relationship.

Do you know any other weird relationship rules like this?

A few exciting announcements:

1. Personal Search is now on your private page! 

Now you can easily search all of your own posts, right from your private page… premium users can sneak a peek at the beta here:

• http://www.xanga.com/private/editaccount.aspx

Just change your “Your Home” setting, and click save… you’ll see the new search module in the upper left of your private page. 

Xangans on the market now =)

The final cover above is linked to the product details cover on amazon.com. We’ve kept the price low at $9.95 for 220 pages, 30 Xangan authors. 

I am in no way qualified to discuss the politics of kiddie pageants, but I’m nonetheless horrified by pictures of the little girls who participate in them. It’s so unnatural; it just freaks me out.

I realized that when I turned 13 I was expected to grow up and leave childish things behind. When I didn’t leave things behind that was considered for children like Pokemon, or the Spice Girls ( how are either of these just for children anyway?) I was told “You are too old for that!”

Or I was often laughed at. Now that I’m older I still haven’t stopped liking Pokemon, or the Spice Girls. If that’s what I enjoy, why should I stop liking it just because I’m an adult? 

I have changed a lot in two years. At 23, one year out of college and being out in the working world, I thought I knew everything – especially about relationships, love, dating, and men. I had theories about almost everything. Looking back, I’ve come to realize that I’m wrong about many things. The truth is that I didn’t truly understand or experienced a quarter of what I thought I knew at the time.

Karen at 23: The lifestyle of a young professional woman is supposed to be stylish and sophisticated – filled with evening parties, little black dresses, and mixed drinks with fancy names.
Karen at 25: It’s perfectly okay to just go home, eat, and sleep after work. 

I was reading this hilarious post about compliments men might want to hear. The author states that men usually don’t need to hear compliment since they’ve grown up learning to compliment the women around them and that perhaps men would be more receptive to compliments if they were called “mission-critical observations” or “man points.”

Sorry for the recent site problems – last weekend we moved networks, and this weekend we moved hardware.  But now that we’re on a new network and new hardware, the site should be much faster and more reliable!

Some details on the new hardware: we just bought a bunch of new servers: 

• Database server – We bought a faster database with more RAM (72GB ram vs. 64gb with previous db).
• Photo Storage: The new photo storage has 128 terabytes of storage (vs. 75.6tb on the old system).

In addition to being faster and better, the new drives are also more reliable, have faster transfer speeds, and are also faster at reading/writing.  Also: the new hardware is smaller and uses less electricity as well.  All good developments for Xanga! 

I forgot to tell an anecdote about my trip to San Francisco. 

We had gone into Subway to try their Chicken Salad/new Seafood sandwich thing (so good, so fattening), and while we were waiting in line, an elderly man walked into the store, waltzed up to the chips, grabbed two bags of doritoes, and commenced to walk right back out without paying.

The man behind the counter told him to stop — and the man turned and began to yell at the top of his voice, waving his arms — fists still clutching the chips — in a threatening manner.