Wikipedia-ing

During my spare time at work (which is now, until next monday when I have students coming in to practice for their English Speech Contest), I bring my MacBook to work, 2 thick books, one bottle of water and one cup of tea to keep myself busy. An afternoon coffee is sometimes needed if I didn't get enough sleep like today - I watched RAY with Wei last night, didn't get to finish it yet though.

So today, after half an hour of Yahoo News, I added some cool features to my Google homepage, and then briefly scanned through some works by John Keats and Shakespeare. I gave ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE and AS YOU LIKE each a 15 minutes try, but then got caught up in Dictionary.com due to to many unfamiliar terms. Words like THICKET, COPPICE then led me into a FLOWERS quest on Wikipedia. And then, one thing led to another, I re-learned Pollination, and stumbled upon an interesting piece on FLORIOGRAPHY.

Other than Roses being the symbol of Love, there's a massive list on all kinds of flowers with different meanings attached. Apparently it stemmed from Victorian Era, where love couldn't be expressed as freely and FLOWERS (along with their useful symbols) assisted in making romantic feelings known.

For instance...

LAVENDER (violet) = love at first sight


FORGET-ME-NOT = true love


SUNFLOWER = pure and lofty thoughts

GRASS = submission

THYME = thriftiness

WHEAT = wealth and prosperity

..........Now, ain't that something?

And, just thought it'd be worth mentioning - Holeless doughtnut is actually a symbol for the sponge used for Jesus at the Crucifixion, while Pretzels signifies Jesus's bonds, and STOLLEN, a German Christmas cake originated from the image of Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Wikipedia-ing on a Thursday afternoon.