The Origin Of The Leprechaun

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One of the first things people think of in association with St. Patrick's Day is the leprechaun. A leprechaun stands about two feet tall, is of the fairy breed, and looks something like a tiny old man. The name 'leprechaun' is derived from the old Irish word "luchorpan", which means little body. According to legend, leprechauns are cute, mischievous, and playful creatures who love to drink, dance, play music, and pass time making shoes. They are also believed to possess a hidden pot of gold. Many treasure hunters try to track down a leprechaun by the sound of his shoemaker's hammer, though catching a leprechaun is almost as rare and difficult as finding a four-leaf clover. If caught, the leprechaun must grant his captor three wishes. However, if the captor looks away for even a second (the leprechaun is constantly trying to trick the captor into looking away), the leprechaun will then have the power to vanish within the blink of an eye, taking its pot of gold with him.

Although modern-day drawings depict both male and female leprechauns, traditional Irish legend does not make mention of female leprechauns. But female leprechauns do exist! Many researchers believe a female leprechaun is the defective offspring of other fairies, or the product of unions between fairies and humans.

With that said, it is evident that leprechauns are not purely mystical creatures if humans can breed with them (so say the legends). It is said that leprechauns are considered to be partly real, physical creatures, and partly spirits.

Although leprechauns are always imagined as Irish beer-happy nymphs, legends actually show them as defenders of the fairie community (i.e. a type of palace guard to the fairie queen).

However, many leprechauns despise the humans' depicition (beer-happy nymphs) of them. Apparently, there is another creature called the cluricaun. It is said that cluricauns are cousins of leprechauns. They look just alike, except cluricauns have slightly pink-tipped noses, dress very dandily in garish colors, and have no desire to work (this writer thinks she has a tiny bit of cluricaun in her). They are almost always drunk and cheerful, have no money, no idea where their treasure is buried, and raid wine cellars and pantries. It is very easy to confuse a leprechaun with a cluricaun, and most leprechauns denounce cluricaun behavior, but it has been said that cluricauns just might be leprechauns on drunken sprees. Unfortunately, it will be very difficult to prove such a thing, since most of the time it is a treasure-hungry hunter who finds a leprechaun (or cluricaun), not a history buff.

But all legends aside, the ancient origins of what we know today as the leprechaun was a Euro-Celtic god named Lugh (pronounced "Luck"). Lugh was the Sun God of the Irish and Euro-Celtics and patron of Arts and Crafts. Many European cities were also named for Lugh. Such cities include London, Leon, Loudan, Lyons, and many others.

Interested in finding a leprechaun now? You might want to gather some treasure hunting equipment, practice keeping your eyes open for long amounts of time (so that you can keep your eye on the leprechaun, should you find one), purchase some shoe-making material with which you can lure a leprechaun, and invest in a good magnifying glass. The preparation for a leprechaun hunt might take a while, and you might need more time than just 17 days to prepare, but that's all right! Look out for the 13th of May, which just so happens to be Leprechaun Day!

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Are You A Coffee Addict?

You Know You Are Addicted To Coffee If...

* You sleep with your eyes open.
* You have to watch videos in fast-forward.
* The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.
* You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.
* The Taster's Choice couple wants to adopt you.
* The nurse needs a stop watch to take your pulse.
* You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
* You can jump-start your car without cables.
* You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.
* You've built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
* People get dizzy just watching you.
* Instant coffee takes too long.
* You channel-surf faster without a remote.
* You short out motion detectors.
* You introduce your spouse as your coffeemate.
* You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore.
* You answer the door before people knock.
* Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.
* You have a bumper sticker that says: "Coffee drinkers are good in the sack."
* You can type sixty words per minute... with your feet.
* When someone says: How are you? You say: Good to the last drop
* You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.

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Three Exercises To Train Your Internal Clock

One of the biggest mystery of life is this - Let say tomorrow we are going for a trip oversea and we have to wake up at least 6 am just to get that flight. And somehow, we manage to wake up precisely at 6 am, not a minute sooner or later.

This will happen almost everytime we are excited about waking up the next day. For example, first day at a job, or marriage. A theory suggested to explain this is that we have an internal clock built in to our subconcious mind. That will explain the accuracy of waking up time for some people, or the sudden nervousness when you forget an important thing to be done.

Here’s some exercise that you can do immediately to harness the power of your internal clock.

1) Be insanely excited about waking up
The secret to waking up exactly at the specific time you wanted is actually making use of your emotion.

How many time do you able to wake up early when you know there’s something fun for you to do. Or maybe you are nervous about that first date, or when you know you will be called up by your boss for some big mistake you’ve done. Every one of these has one thing in common. You go to bed with an emotion associated to your future waking up.

If you go to bed, with an intense feeling about waking up tomorrow at 6am, you will definitely wake up at 6 am. Try it.

2) Guess the time without using any clue
This is a training I come up with to use the internal clock. At any time of the day, I will try to guess the time. It must not be a wild guess, you must try to search for the answer in you.

Another rule you must abide is that you must not make a calculated guess. An example of calculated guess is as such “Peter always leave the office at 1pm, so I know now is about 1.30pm”. Try to avoid this kind of analysis just to guess the time. In the end we want to train ourselves to be able to rely on the accuracy of our internal clock.

3) Play with your timer.
There’s one in your cellphone right? When you have nothing to do, play with it. Set it at 1 minute, and without counting the seconds in your mind, try to guess when will your 1 minute will be up. Maybe do a 10 seconds countdown.

With practice, you will be able to tell without looking at your watch, how long is 1 minute.

Advantages of a trained internal clock:

* You will be able to wake up anytime you want.
* You will be able to take power nap (5 minutes nap that will energize you back).
* No more waking up at random hours.
* You will appreciate the time you have better.
* A giant leap in your time management skill.
* A more discipline you.

Just in case these exercises don't work for you or you feel more secure about using a real, live clock, why not check out the wall clocks below so you'll have a back-up clock for your internal clock...just in case it doesn't work when you need it.

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