Wrath

I may not be the best chef but I know enough of cooking and know how to cook for you, to sooth your tastes,
Now I will never cook for you and you shall never fulfill your desire of tastes or hunger.

I may not be the brightest, but I have enough knowledge and when I did your assignment you topped your class,
Now I will never help you and you shall never complete your studies or pass your exams.

I may not be most honest person but I am truthful to you and never ever lied to you,
Now I will never tell a truth to you and everyone shall betray you.

I may not be the ‘sex guru’ but I know enough, plus I loved you and gave you what I had in the limits of our relationship,
Now I will never even look into your eyes and you shall never fulfill your physical need.

I may not be the fairest of all but I look good enough and when I am with you I complement your looks,
Now I will never come even near you and you shall never have a companion or life partner.

I may not be able be to sit in my exam cause of my attendance but I still bunked classes just to be with u,
Now I will never even spend a single second for you and you shall spend your life in loneliness.

I may not be the person you loved but you will never find a person who loved you with heart, soul and everything they have,
Now I feel wrath for you and you shall never find true love.
I will never forgive and forget you.

I am the best and you cannot have me ever!

Coincidence

2007 - Chinese year of the Chicken - Bird Flu Pandemic devastates parts of Asia

2008 - Chinese year of the Horse - Equine Influenza decimates Australian racing

2009 - Chinese year of the Pig - Swine Flu Pandemic kills hundreds of pigs/humans around the globe.

It gets worse........

Next year......

2010 - Chinese year of the Cock - what could possibly go wrong?

Note: A mail from a friend

why DO people marry?

In looking for a partner for life there are a lot of aspects to consider. I don't think it's just love but that is of course the main thing. You have to have chemistry with someone in order to even begin to be interested. After that you have to share some of the same values and view on certain subjects. And Of course for all the shallow reasons like looks, personalities, interests and things like that but there are other reasons that are deeper also. Let me elaborate some of those.

Religion: We are living in a 100% Muslim country, so the obvious is that you marry because of the Religion. Your religion enforces you to fulfill the physical desires after marriage. As of now living together is not allowed in the Country. Not only that. But there are moral and religious ties that marriage is sacred and that it is God's plan for bringing families into the world. Not to mention the absolute security of knowing that your spouse is committed to only you and you to them.

Love and Commitment: People marry because they are truly in love with one and other and want to be committed to her/him forever. They embrace the differences, as married to an individual, not a yes man. One of my friends describes his marriage, ‘I love my wife dearly, my wife can't have children and adoption may not be an option, we both want a family desperately, but gave that up to be with each other forever.’

Social Pressure: One of my friends just returned after her Masters (25 year old girl). Her parents, relatives and friends constantly ask her “When are you going to get married? You’re not getting any younger”. When you feel this kind of Social Pressure, a lot of times when you meet someone or have been dating someone for some time but you’re still not sure about them, an internal light switch decides to turn on convincing yourself that this is Mr. or Mrs. Right now, automatically speeding up the process to get married. Were before you were just fine and content with the way things were. Now she herself asks “Am I marrying this person because it’s about time I settle down? Is it because I have wasted a lot of time with this guy (3 years)? All my friends, brothers and sisters are already married, having kids and I’m the only one left.” This is SOCIAL PEER PRESSURE talking.

Materialistic goals (security): With the high cost of living conditions in Male’ and with more than 90 percent renting out, the costs are still on an upward trend. In this kind of scenario, people can’t help but think about financial synergies that will bring if you marry someone who earns a lot, have a car or have a house. In addition to that you're splitting all the bills. The financial benefits are incredibly tempting. Apple-in-the-garden-of-Eden tempting, if you will.
Security, knowing that that person will take care of you if need be, could support you if something went wrong and you were unable to work, knowing they'll be a good parent, etc.

Centre of Attention: Some are in Love with the thought of getting MARRIED, not so much the person. For them it doesn’t really matter who they are marrying but the fact that they are getting married and they will be the center of attention, as well as having a fancy sparkling ring they can show off to all their friends.

Pregnancy: "I got married because I was pregnant. So there was no option, I had to marry." Someone told me. When a girl gets pregnant outside of marriage, she is looked upon with shame. In drastic cases, her parents would either whisk her off to an abortion clinic or force her boyfriend to marry her.

To start an own family (children): A large number of friends told me that they got married or plan on marrying because they want to have children. Also having kids is an enormous responsibility that should not be taken lightly. A friend said “My parents say I need to hurry up and get married to have children because my biological clock is ticking”.

Avoid Loneliness: Everything from scared of being alone, dying alone and no one to take care of you when you’re older, having no one to share the holidays with. Just the fear that they will always be alone or that they will not find someone else to share their life with leaves some people marrying.
-Fear of Losing Someone: You don’t want to lose this person, so even though you’re not 100% sure that this is want you want; you marry them so they don’t leave you.

Incongruent Beliefs: Some believe that marriage will be the savior off all their problems. Somehow by getting married, everything in their past will be erased and they will be able to get a fresh new start. Whatever problems they were running and hiding from in the first place, will somehow go away on its own when they marry.

Arranged Marriage: Some opt for an arranged marriage I if I hadn’t had met my own husband by chance. It’s not just culture or tradition, its handing over a bit of responsibility to parents or guardians to choose and find you someone compatible and who will treat you well and be your best friend etc etc

There are reasons why you should not get married and also in the process of courting you will find your partner giving ridiculous excuses to avoid marriage too.

So no it's not just love there are a ton of things that people look for in the opposite sex. Without most of these things you can't love someone but there are some that can split up the most in love couple out there.

Drink Up!

I have observed that whenever, we (me and my friends) go for snacks, most of them leave out the glass of water without drinking. This also happened with my roommate when I was studying, I had to keep her literally at gun point to make her drink water.

I don’t know why people make it a hassle to drink water. Everyone talks about the importance of taking at least 8 glasses of water everyday but how many of us do. Water is an important requisite for the body. Will people drink if they really know the specific benefits of drinking water. Hence, let me elaborate the benefits drinking up!

Stay in Shape: If you gain even few pounds, you try to shed those extra pounds. But in zeal to have perfect shape most of people forget the important requisites. People start skipping food as well as drink less amount of water. But it leads to increase in problems. There are more benefits in ’beautifying’ you physically;
- Water acts as excellent appetite suppressant
- You never feel hungry as your stomach is full, if you drink enough water
- Water is calorie free so there is no harm in drinking water as you are not adding calories
- Water helps the body to metabolize the already stored fat
- Water helps keep our skin healthy and glowing
- Water helps in the reduction of wrinkling, and aids in our ability to flush fat, toxins, and any other unwanted or foreign substance from our bodies.

There is no proven fact that drinking water leads to increase in weight instead directly or indirectly it leads to decrease in weight.

Brain Function: Our brain tissue is actually 85% water; it is not difficult to conclude that water is essential for the optimum functioning of the brain. Plenty of water keeps our thought processes and brain function at optimal levels, and prevents headaches that are caused from not enough hydration.

Regulates Body Temperature: Water helps in regulating body temperature (act as thermostat). This is extremely important if you have fever.

Prevents Dehydration: Lower content of water in your body results into dehydration reducing the level of energy generated in the brain. Studies have shown that with prolonged dehydration, brain cells actually begin to shrink. Prevents dryness of the skin and facilitates the excretion of toxic substances such as urea, ammonia, uric acid, plus the fringe benefit of a healthy looking and youthful complexion.

Carry Nutrients: Water is responsible for carrying the nutrients along with oxygen to cells.

Shock Absorber: Water cushions and protects tissues, organs and joints thus acting as shock absorber.

Remove Toxins: Water helps in detoxifying human body by removing toxins and waste, this prevent frequent headaches which are often times due to such substances.

Constipation and Digestion: Adequate water intake also promotes regular movement because it prevents the formation of dry hard stool. It also helps in absorption of food. Increased water along with high fibre content is known to put end to constipation problems as constipation is regarded as main symptom of dehydration.

Reduce Gastritis: Water is also known to reduce gastritis, ulcers and even heart burn.

Clean Kidneys: Many Maldivians experience, kidney stones and other urinary tract infections (especially girls). Water helps in removal of wastes from kidneys which if accumulated can impair the functioning of kidney. Water protects the urinary tract from infection and stone formation. Bacteria could hardly succeed in colonizing the urinary tract for frequent urination washes away the bacteria, as well as the sediments (preventing the formation of stones).

What can You Do: Drink one half glass of water every hour (waking hours) and two glasses after each principal meal. If you forget to drink after one hour, take one glass of water the succeeding hour. This excludes your intake of other liquid. Eight glasses of water per day is definitely not enough.

Widen the Virtual Friends Circle

Did you ever worry about your limited circle of friends? Today’s high technology and has provided us with the so-called Globalisation effect, where we can connect with anyone anywhere anytime. Thus, Social Networking plays a major role is this? Online social networking involves connecting and sharing information with other like-minded people via the Web.

When deciding which social networking site you should join, consider the features you'll need and the audience you hope to reach.

Do you want to meet your lost friends/classmates/colleagues, meet new people or just keep in touch with people? Be interactive and generate new ideas? Start/Sell a business? Learn new things? Socialize?

I am a person who is weak in the area of writing mails. Actually I am not very into writing long mails. But the social networking sites now provide an opportunity to maintain the relationship even via long distances. The following is a list of some of the more popular FOAF social networking applications.

The sites below are commonly used in the Maldivian Youth society and all offer free memberships, though some provide extra functionality if you pay for a subscription:

Facebook: This is the most widely and commonly used one in Maldives, which is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region.

Flickr: This is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. In addition to being a popular website for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. There are special groups for Maldivians or people who share similar interest.

Twitter: This is also a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. The 140 character limit on message length was initially set for compatibility with SMS messaging, and has brought to the web the kind of shorthand notation and slang commonly used in SMS messages.

Netlog: Similar to Facebook, in Netlog members can create their own web page, extend their social network, publish their music playlists, share videos, post blogs and join groups.

hi5: This is another similar website as FB and Netlog. Here, users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments. Hi5 also allows the user to create personal photo albums and set up a music player in the profile.

Bebo: Bebo stands for “Blog Early Blog Often”, where each profile must include two specific modules, a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user's friends.

Zorpia: Lets you to share unlimited photos, post journals and make friends. It gives a customizable look and style.

Top 7 Exam Study Tips

It is time for my students to get ready for the exam. So I wanted to write some tips that will help them to 'be ready’ for the exam. Here are some 7 most important things you can keep in mind when you prepare for your exams.

1- Pray
One of the important aspects of life is to allocate time for the prayers. Prayers not only help you to feel good and closer to God but prayers also help to improve your concentration skills. It helps you to relax and be content. Praying helps you to be organized and do things at the right time in the right way. God is in every aspect of your life, and without god’s will there is no success. Praying can bring you closer to God and make you feel a little stronger and relaxed going into test time. As the saying goes, Do your best and God will do the Rest.

2- Build Positive Stress
Stress is an unsettling emotion every individual experience. It can be divided into positive and negative stress. A stress is referred to as negative when you take an action that is incongruent or brings the worse effect. For example: Due to exam stress, you do not prepare and watch television to calm yourself. But positive stress on the other hand enforces and pushes you to more achieving actions. For example: Due to exam stress you make a study schedule and stick to it for your revision. This in the end gives you better results in the exam.

3- Eat Well
You will notice that when you study, you require a lot of energy. Hence, most students are drawn to junk foods like chips and cookies. However, you may find that those foods are not very helpful to your study habits. These foods make you lethargic. High sugar foods may give you energy at first, but then it plummets pretty quickly. Try to eat healthy "brain foods" high in protein like nuts, fruit, and fish. If you really need a boost of energy, try a diet coke or sugar free energy drinks.

4- Plan You Way
Study, Study, Study and Study. It is important for you to have all the information and examples you can use in your exams. Study and read not only the manual but it are important to listen to current news, read magazines or papers relating to the subject. The most important thing when you do these is to have a schedule to fit all the things you have in mind. Prioritize the subjects, focus on the weak areas, and get assistance from a classmate or the lecturer if needed.

5- Find a Study Group
Whether you study at home or at the institution, having a study group can be very supportive and helpful. It adds to your knowledge and you can share real life examples when you that is relevant to the study area . Your study group can also take turns quizzing each other. You can provide insight into certain topics for one and other. Sometimes you can just laugh and do something together to blow off some steam when the pressure gets to be too much (this makes a strong group). Just be sure your study group is actually focused on studying.

6-Individual Study
Some students may find it easy to study rather than a group. Also the group you attach yourself might not be into studies but may want to involve in other activities. Then it is time for you to do individual studies. Do past papers, talk to senior students (who have done the same exams before) and also read/highlight/make your own notes of the chapters. This will help as a last minute skim and scan resource. You can also make your own exam paper based on the previous papers and try to time yourself and answer it.

7-Have Fun
When you look back at a later stage of your life, you will remember how you cope up with the panic attacks and the stress of the exam. Exam is a stressful time but it is also one of the important times of the study life. Having fun at group studies, meeting friends and family, going for a bite to eat and just taking a break every now and then to energize yourself is as important as studying itself. This bring more vigor and enthusiasm for your studies.

This article is dedicated to my students. Another article will be published here on Exam Tips in near future.

Help Yourself: Be Kind

When I set my goals I try to set separate goals for my personal development. I believe personal development comes when you raise and challenge the outside world. Doing a social work, volunteer work and/or just simply being kind gives a good feeling. We have been conditioned within our society today to be filled with mistrust of other's motives. As the saying goes in Dhivehi ‘No one will gift without an ulterior motive (my translation of a proverb).

But it is time we get out of this nutshell and narrow thinking, be open and make the social dilemma our own problem to solve. Simple gestures can contribute to make a better life for us. I ask myself;

Why do most people stare at an individual who is struggling in market?
Why not just walk over to them, and offer to assist them?
Why do most people keep a secret when your colleague smells but back bite about it?
Why not advice on being more hygienic?
Why do most people laugh when someone fall? And make it more embarrassing for the person?
Why not the assist them to stand, you never know, the person might have a serious injury?

In today's world, too many people hesitate to help someone they see struggle, too many are afraid to get involved. People with altruistic characters, can perhaps put it forward; others may "catch on" to this mindset as well. There are many things you can do for others but actually in the process you are helping yourself to become a better person, making the Earth a better place to live.

Just Practice Random Acts of Kindness

Strange BUT mostly true!

The muscles in your heart have the strength to shoot your blood 10 meters in the air

Multiplying 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump

The body's strongest muscle is our tongue

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes!!

Statistically, people are more afraid of spiders than they are of dying

All polar bears are left handed

Crocodiles cannot stick out their tongue

Butterflies taste with their feet

A cockroach can live 9 days without its head. It only dies because it cannot eat

Humans and Dolphins are the only animals that have sex for pleasure

A duck's quack has no echo, and nobody knows why

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

Starfish have no brains

The word "cemetery" comes from the Greek koimetirion which means dormitory

It is impossible to suck your elbow

Mosquitoes have teeth

Gastroenteritis or Gastric Problems or Vai Hedhun

Almost all of my friends have/had Gastroenteritis at some point of their life. This is commonly known as gastric problems or 'via hedhun' (in Dhivehi). Most of us (including me) don’t know how we get infected with this disease and how to avoid and/or recover. I have had this problem over the last two years.

I found that a viral infection is often considered the main cause of gastroenteritis.

My friends and family have suggested and advice a lot of things about this issue. Some, of course are contradictory with one and other. But based on my bad experience of gastric problems I can assure that anyone can recover within a short time by drinking fluids and following the prescribed diet/should do’s.

Tonight is one bad night, I even feel vomitish. I am guessing the reason for tonight’s discomfort is eating out, from restaurants. Commonly, when I have gastric problems you get a digestive problem in which the stomach and the intestines are inflamed (swollen). Also, there may be other symptoms such as,
-Diarrhea (not happened to me yet)
-Excessive vomiting
-Nausea
-Abdominal cramping, bloating or pain

Anyone suffering from gastric problems has to avoid certain foods, until s/he feels better. One can easily recover from this disorder by following a proper diet that prevents fluid loss.

Should do's:
-Take a lot of liquid: as diarrhea causes dehydration. Excessive vomiting and frequent stools reduce the quantity of water and electrolytes in the body.
-Drinking clear fruit juices or other beverages.
-Drink strong tea: this is a traditional method to cure gastric problems. It can help relieve the patient's pain.
-Eat foods like white rice, apple sauce, white bread and bananas.
-After the symptoms subside, one may include solid foods (white toasts, dry cereal).
-Prefer home cooked food and avoid eating outside.
-Have frequent small meals that are spaced evenly throughout the day.
-After few days, the patient can start eating cooked vegetables, fruits and low fat milk products in small amounts.

Avoid:
-Greasy and citrus foods: they can aggravate the condition.
-Dairy products such as ice cream: can aggravate diarrhea.
-Consumption of caffeinated beverages such as coffee: they can make matters worse.

Waste: Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

There is an environmental ‘hungaamaa’ these days. Everyone is ‘so’ into sea, swimming, diving or snorkeling. People are more into cleaning and cleansing. This is only a small part of what we can do about the environment. The question is how many of us have actually given a thought about this serious problem of waste management.

Waste is something that will accumulate, become a trouble and problem in the long run if we don’t pay enough attention to it. The different types of waste we generate in Maldives fall into three main categories.

Solid Waste Disposal: Solid wastes include domestic and industrial wastes of organic and inorganic origin and variable size, ranging from small tins to whole cars. Waste quantities in islands and in the Maldives will generally increase as the population increases, but will also increase on a per capita basis as the standard of living improves. Higher percentages of paper, plastic, glass and metal can be anticipated in future.

Sewage Disposal: Sewage poses a series of potential problems depending on the mode of disposal; discharge of raw, untreated sewage into the marine environment causes nutrient enrichment, algal blooms, and deoxygenating and human health problems depending on the siting of the outfall. Such conditions adversely affect coral growth. Sewage-related problems are of concern around the densely populated islands and some tourist resorts.

Waste Oil Disposal: Waste machine and lubricating oils associated with small-scale machine shops present a problem in some islands; current disposal seems to be simply into the ground around the workshop concerned, resulting in contamination of groundwater supplies.

Any waste can be dealt in simple steps and things each one of use can do individually. This will then, act as a cumulative force to manage waste. The important steps are the 3Rs;
Reduce- Reuse-Recycle

Develop Lazy Efficient Projects

My work requires me to use several software packages every day. And I have loved them all, because it makes life easy. If software or a computer can do it, why should I do it manually? Hence, MS project is one I used mostly. But I find that most of my friends are not very familiar with MS Project. The following is dedicated to my very close friends Sofi and Hamyd.

10 BENEFITS of MS Project;

1. Develop and maintain project: It allows you to plan, control and oversee all phases of a project. You can start off with establishing a project calendar which dictates the working hours of the project. Resources can be assigned to the tasks to control the effort and duration for each task.

2. Use Templates: Like all other software MS Project allows you to use templates. Even though, every project or business has different needs, common needs are addressed in these templates.

3. Use existing data: Use a list of tasks written down in excel, word or any other program, with few tabs/strokes and copying them into MS project. This can, then be developed to a project and maintained in MS project.

4. Generate Reports and Charts: Overview of the activities, progress and many more reports can be generated with only a few clicks (overview, current activities, workload, costs, assignments and also customized reports) if the data is entered properly. This allows tracking the status of all the activities/tasks.

5. Estimate Timelines: When a timeline is required, by focusing on the creation of tasks with either a low, medium, or high level of effort, you can quickly provide an estimate based on what you feel is the work required for the particular project.

6. Generate Mind Maps: This is very useful for facilitators and people with visual learning skills. When an MS Project file is opened using ‘Mind Maps manager’, a mind map (visual diagram) is generated which helps in facilitation.

7. Effectively communicate information: Easily present information in various formats according to the needs of stakeholders. You can format and print one-page schedules or other reports. Use the Copy Picture to Office Wizard to smoothly export Project data into MS Word for formal documents, Excel for custom charts or spreadsheets, or MS PowerPoint for presentations.

8. Track projects according to your needs: A predefined set of tabs helps you to track data (percent complete, budget versus actual, earned value, and the like) relevant to your needs. You can track project performance over the project lifespan by saving project snapshots in up to 11 baselines.

9. Manage scope of projects: MS Project can help avoid one of the major problems, Scope lags. When your project Sponsor/Customer approves your plan, you can save a Baseline for the project. This Baseline can be compared to the actual progress reports during the life of the project. MS Project draws attention to any lagging tasks and allows you to deal with them appropriately.

10. Comparison with other project: MS project has the ability to make apples-to-apples comparisons of the status of multiple projects and budgets.