Blogs » Off the Clock

Increase your karma and vocabulary

By BETH WHEELOCK Monday, November 8, 2010 - 2:25 p.m.

As I casually flipped through the pages of my new Glamour magazine this weekend, I found a calendar of good deeds for December. This (along with the "Dos & Don'ts" and pages of new clothes) is exactly why I read Glamour.

But enough about the magazine.

Listed among the charitable donations on that calendar was freerice.com. You take multiple choice vocabulary quizzes. Each correct word donates ten grains of rice through the World Food Programme. It starts easy, with words like "teach". I missed "geophagy" (clay-eating). When you miss a word, it brings it back up a few questions later. So you improve as you donate!

About ten minutes in, I had donated 1500 grains of rice.

Advertising banners on the site pay for the rice.

Granted, I have no way of verifying that my knowledge of the word "periphrasis" leads to food for starving people. But at least it could help.

reader COMMENTS

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(8)

ren
Nov 22, 2010 at 3:59 p.m.
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it's totally addicting!

beeferer
Nov 9, 2010 at 11:26 a.m.
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karma at work? LOL Nice story Beth.

bwheelock
Nov 9, 2010 at 11:12 a.m.
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Ouch! Way to catch the ironic mistake!
I should have put "Increase your good karma". Thanks for the reminder.

Beth

beeferer
Nov 9, 2010 at 9:50 a.m.
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If the word "karma" is loosely defined as 'the process of cause and effect', then how can karma be increased?

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