Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Heartbreak Leave wins. XD

I wish we had heartbreak leave at work too, but right now what's more important is that I don't and won't actually need heartbreak leave. ^_^

Thanks to a batchmate of mine from high school, Ada Yao, for posting this. Originally taken from Yahoo! Headlines. XDDDDDDDDDDD

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Japanese firm offers "heartache leave" for staff

Mon Jan 28, 4:48 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more "heartache leave" on offer as they get older.

Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. "Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick," CEO Miki Hiradate, whose company of six women markets cosmetics and other goods targeted for women, told Reuters by telephone.

Staff aged 24 years or younger can take one day off per year, while those between 25 and 29 can take two days off and those older can take three days off, the company said.

"Women in their 20s can find their next love quickly, but it's tougher for women in their 30s, and their break-ups tend to be more serious," Hiradate said.

Hime & Company staff can also take two mornings off twice a year as "sales shopping leave", so they can race to stores to hunt for bargains.

"Before, women could take half-days off to go to sales, but you'd have to hide your shopping bags in lockers by the train station," Hiradate said.

"But with paid leave, we don't have to feel guilty about bringing our shopping bags to work, and we can enjoy the best part about sales shopping -- talking about our purchases afterwards."

Monday, January 07, 2008

Microbes pwn my soul.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope your holidays were good. X3

As if my growing addiction to Charmmy Kitty is not enough, a friend of a friend introduced me to the most ridiculously cute and hilarious sci-fi/slice-of-life anime comedies to come out of Japan this past fall season: Moyashimon, Tales of Agriculture.

It's about this freshman at an agricultural university whose talent is seeing and communicating with micro-organisms. By this I mean bacteria and germs mostly, but I guess this extends to virii, amoeba, fungi and others like it. If you name it, I guess he pretty much can talk to it. And he sees the microbes in cutoid glory, so lovingly drawn, animated and voiced that it's difficult to remember that many of them are actually disgusting (and even dangerous) little creatures. XD There's even a Microbe Theatre 5-minute short at the end of each TV episode where the microbes interact with each other and discuss their raison d' etre very cutely and comically.

As my greatest frustration is that I am so far removed from my doctor, dentist and pharmacologist relatives because my eyesight is so bad and my entire personality is better suited in the arts and geared towards cute things, this satisfies my latent geekiness for biological things quite nicely. It's obviously very educational, and succeeds in being so especially because it presents the subjects of micro-biology and agriculture with an interesting slant. The facial expression of the girl who showed this to me was quite priceless once I began talking (originally to her, but as it was to no-one in particular) about showing this to my pharmacologist aunt and cousin, who've done work with bacteria until recently (our family owns a drugstore, and they used to produce our own medicines until the bacteria and other ingredients were too expensive to cultivate and purchase). XD;

True to form, the labjunkie animanga fans are spazzing over this, and an increasing number of them have even provided highly informative yet very digestible notes and discussions. Here's one by Riuva (a Food Sciences and Technology major) and a whole slew by ~cerulean88 of Livejournal (a Biology major) to enhance your enjoyment of the show.

Alrighty, back to work. Will scour for more Moyashimon goodness sneakily in between. XD;