Not For Children

Please if you have a weak stomach, are under 16, or are really sensitive please don't read this okay? Believe me this is not something you really want to read and I don't blame you if you don't. Thanks




I am currently in a WWII history class at school. And I know that there are many many atrocities that happened then (e.g. Nazis) so really another post like this might happen in the future but still... Right now we are reading a book called The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. It is all about what the Japanese did to the Chinese and more specifically what the Japanese did to the Chinese capital of Nanking in 1937, before WWII had technically started. It is really heavy reading, believe me. It really is amazing though because very few people know about what happened in Nanking in the late 30's. It is rarely taught in schools in the US and in fact I know that when I had Global History in tenth grade we very quickly went over this but we did not really get into the details, we were more focused on the whole Chang Kai-Shek (sp?) issue. Still that is apparently rare for my school to have taught me that.

Anyways for those of you who haven't been taught about this here we go... The Japanese wanted more territory than they had so they decided to start taking over China. Many different battles happened and eventually the Japanese made it to the capital of Nanking. (That is the really short version, I am not a history major) Once there the army did terrible, terrible things. We are talking about things that were worse than some of what the Nazis did. They killed over 300,000 people in Nanking (about half the population at the time). Well I say killed but really they murdered them. They would torture the people that they captured. They buried some in dirt and then ran over them with tanks, they would decapitate them, they mowed them down with machine guns, they had killing contests, they burned people alive, and they tortured relentlessly. That was mostly for men. And for women? Rape. They raped any and all women that they found. From 8 years old to 80 years old if you were a woman you were raped. Many were killed after the rape or they killed themselves. Many women were gang raped Rape occurred at any time and in any place some were raped in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Some were raped using foreign objects such as bottles or bamboo. It was terrible. There was some hope for those in Nanking in the International Safety Zone. There some foreigners helped out the Chinese and did all they could. In fact there were Nazis that helped out the Chinese citizens and tried to get the Japanese to stop the horrors. Unfortunately the horrors continued. I am not done with the book yet but still it is very difficult reading. The worst part is that very few people know about these atrocities. In fact the Japanese government today denies that it happened and very few Japanese people know about it. This is in sharp contrast with the Germans where if you do anything that could be considered Nazi-esque you can be put into jail for up to a year. In fact many Nazi leaders were either punished or are in hiding in fear for their freedom/lives. The Japanese that committed the Nanking atrocities? Very, very few of them have been punished for what they did. They are not in hiding either, they are free to go about their daily business.

I am sorry to put all of this on you but I had to do something. This type of thing is just wrong. If you want to know more, I suggest The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang or really any of the books on it. All we can do about this kind of thing is to learn from it and prevent it from happening again. Again I am sorry and hopefully the next post I put up is a bit more optimistic then my last couple have been. I also will put something about knitting in my next post. Sorry but this one just cannot have that in it. Thanks for listening and please think about what I put up here today, thank you.

Chemmy

Oh the Joy...

I'll tell ya what, so far I really like college but every once in a while I just want to smack it in the face. For instance today I got an email saying that I never sent in my master promissory note which I did. I gave it to the financial aid office at the end of last semester (April), they were supposed to send it in to the bank but apparently they did not...Either way I got an email today saying that I had to send one in because next Friday is when they are disbursing the loans. So I got to fight with that for an hour because I couldn't find my log in info and they took forever emailing to me. Finally I got that done and so now I am just waiting on approval which I really hope I get, otherwise I don't know what I will do. Grrrr...

Overall this week has been good and bad overall. I had to keep reweighing crucibles for my Quantitative (Quant) Analysis lab because they were not at constant mass. Then I was feeling really sick to my stomach with pains in my right side so I had to go to the clinic on Wednesday. Turns out it's not anything serious, probably dehydration maybe a touch of the flu. So happily I am feeling better now. Then on Thursday in Organic Chemistry lab the stupid Mel-Temp was messed up! (A Mel-Temp helps you figure out melting point ranges for substances, we had to identify an unknown substance using the melting point range.) It would not do what it was supposed to, instead of getting hot fairly quick and then slowly when we turned the dial down, it got hot and then started to cool down rapidly when we turned the dial down. We asked the teacher about it but all he said was that it was interesting/funny and then eventually he said that the thermostat was probably broken. We ended up using different Mel-Temps and we were the last ones done. It took forever and I was so frustrated by the end. But after that my friend and I went to Wal-Mart and we got tiny things of Ben & Jerry's ice cream for 98 cents and they had tiny spoons in the lids! That brightened up my day! hehehe

Then there was today. It went okay for a while, we had the first Chem Club meeting of the year. That was a lot of fun, I get to be treasurer this year so that should be interesting. I really do enjoy Chem Club because it is really fun. Then I got back to the room and found out about the whole loan thing. Then I got to do homework for three hours and I am not quite done yet (I mean it too, it was from about 7:00 til about 10:30 ish) so I have to finish it up tomorrow. Also for the second year in a row I don't get to go to the steam show which is really sad for me. The steam show is this huge old tractor/craft show/flea market that a big part of my family camps at so I am kind of bummed to miss out on it but there is always next year. Well all in all I hope that tomorrow goes well because I am a little tired of all this up and down junk.

I guess I should try to put in something about knitting huh? Well right now I am working on a pair of socks in a pale green Red Heart baby yarn. They are going to be for me and I am really liking the pattern so far, it looks really cool. If I had a digital camera I would put some kind of pictures of it in progress up on here but sadly enough I do not have a camera. *sob* Anyways the socks are from the pattern called "Lady Grey" from guardian.co.uk. The exact address for the socks is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/26/26 so check it out! Of course so far I am only up to the heel on the first sock but hopefully I will have some time to work on them soon. In fact I might go work on them a bit more after I am done with this! hehehe

Anyways it's been fun for tonight and thank you for listening to my rant but right now I want to go and knit on my socks! :)

*heart*
Chemmy

Hello

Hello everyone! This is the first post on Knitting Up Chemistry! This blog will mostly be about pretty much whatever is happening in my life at that point in time but with a special focus on knitting and chemistry, those being two major interests in my life. It might veer off into books as well though, just to warn you! :) Well anyway I hope to post on this a little more often then once every three months but I guess that we will have to wait and see! hehehe Still please feel free to comment on whatever you see here but please be nice! (or if not nice then at least try to keep the vulgarity to a minimum!)
*Heart*
Chemmy