Xanadu $4.50 Unavailable on CD in the U.S., this is CBS’s 1989 reissue ofMCA’s top five & double platinum 1980 soundtrack to directorRobert Greenwald’s 1980 musical starring Olivia Newton-John at a high point in her career and Gene Kelly at the bottom of his. The album features 10 tracks, five each from E.L.O. & Olivia Newton-John, including the #1 smash ‘Magic’ by Newton-John, the top 10 title cut by both her…

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Orienteering-Why It Is An Adventure Sport For All Ages

Orienteering is an adventure sport for all ages and types of people.
The aim of orienteering is to navigate between control points which have been marked on a unique orienteering map.  Good orienteers will plan the best route so that they can finish the course in the fastest time.  It is a fun outdoor sport which uses both body and mind.

When doing an orienteering course you can run, walk, or jog it as you please.  Although fitness can be an asset knowing how to cooly and calmly plot a course is extremely important.

Orienteering takes place in lots of different terrains.  The most challenging orienteering courses are done in demanding terrain where there are a small amount of paths.  Courses can be in parks, forests, school playgrounds and the country side.

A Brief History Of Orienteering

In the military orienteering was used as a training exercise but we cannot say for exactly how long.

It was in 1886 that orienteering was used for the first time to describe crossing land with the aid of a map and a compass.  By 1897 the first public orienteering event was to take place.

Major Ernst Killander was known as the Father of Orienteering.  He was a Swedish youth and scout leader.

Below is a time line of the progression of orienteering:

• In 1918 the first large scale orienteering meeting happened close to Stockholm, this was attended by 220 athletes.
• In 1925 the first women’s orienteering competition was held in Göteborg, Sweden.
• In 1925 the first women’s orienteering race was  held in Hungary.
• In the 1930s  the progress of more reliable compasses helped orienteering to grow in popularity.
• In 1932 the first international orienteering competition took place.  It was between teams from Norway and Sweden.
• By 1934, orienteering had spread to Finland, Switzerland, the Soviet Union and Hungary.
• In 1936 the first national orienteering society was founded which was the Swedish national orienteering society, Svenska Orienteringförbundet.
• During the Second World War growth slowed down.  During a break in the war NORD, a Nordic body for co-operation was set up and Swedes and Norwegians and they started to produce multi-coloured maps for orienteering.
• In 1959 an international conference was held in Sweden with delegations visiting from 12 different countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, DDR (East Germany), Hungary, Switzerland, West Germany, Yugoslavia and the four Nordic countries.
• By May 1961 the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) was founded at a meeting in Denmark.
• By 1969, the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) was made up of 16 countries, including the first two non-European member societies Japan and Canada.
• From 1967 to 2003 orienteering competitions were held bi-annually.

These meetings are now held annually.

Tips To Be Good At Orienteering

Teach Yourself Good Map Reading Skills-When orienteering reading a map is central to the process.  Apart from familiarising yourself with the colour meanings, the idea here is to glean as much information as possible when you look at the map.  You should be keeping contact about once every 10 seconds or so with your map.  You will be using your compass at the same time.

Train Yourself To Look Around And Recognise Land Features-Imagine yourself without a compass and train yourself to focus on land features so that you can recognise them.  Even though you have a compass and a map this will make you far more fluent when orienteering.

Take It Slowly-Don’t be overly concerned with speed especially when you are new to orienteering.  As you learn other skills like recognising land features and working fluidly with your map and compass speed will come.  It is much better to make wise decisions slowly than bad decisions quickly.

Do An Analysis After The Race-There is a lot you can learn from post race analysis.  Think back over where you did well and where you could have been better, this is an important part of the learning process in orienteering.

About the Author

Jackie did orienteering as a child and has started again, even though she is many years older now!  It is a great sport for families and people of all ages.  If you decide to try orienteering she recommends orienteering clothing from Team Colours. To learn more about orienteering visit the orienteering hub.

What woudl be the reason why someone would repeatedly try to question a person’s sexual orientation many times?

and not get tired of it at all? What is teh psychological dynamics inside a person who is obsessed about pointing out a person’s sexual orientation?
For an example, I know one guy who keeps on fingering a particular guy and saying, “omg, he’s sooooo gay! he must be gay” and he can’t shut up about it. He brought it up for the 1000th time every time he sees him. What’s wrong with him?

Perhaps the guy who is repeatedly questioning other peoples’ sexual orientation, has problems with his own sexual preferences… and by questioning others, he is taking the attention from himself?

Or maybe he think it’s funny and that other people find it funny… or he could be homophobic… or a bully… or just a plain old moron?! There’s a whole host of reasons!

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Importance of Team Management

What is Team Management

The term team management or team work has been borrowed from the sports terminology, where all members of a team, strive together to have a common goal. Individual strength and commitment of each member of a team is very essential to continue as the member of the team. Each member at the same time work for himself as well as for his/her colleague to success and grow together. They share the problems and success, nobody blames on other if there is any mistake or failure, but they try to find out the reason of failure, and seek a solution for the problem collectively. Now this concept is rapidly flourishing in academic organization to improve and develop the quality of work to managing the organizations effectively.

Importance of Team Management

Managerial success is primarily built upon the accomplishments of subordinates. As a result successful managers are, in a manner of speaking, carried by subordinates who are motivated, know what is expected of them, have access to appropriate resources and technologies, and are well trained. Managers who create such a work force increase the probability that they will achieve high performance results. However, to state that successful managers are carried by their subordinates does not tell the entire story. As we move further into the modern era the successful managers are increasingly turning their energies to team building to regain the competitive edge. The team nature however is not limited to large manufacturing organizations. It is alive and growing in both small and large organizations. It is alive and growing in both small and large organizations and has spread to health care organizations, government agencies, and other service-related organizations.

Team once formed, act to focus subordinates efforts and help to ensure subordinates commitment through employee involvement, creativity and mutual support. At the very least, team involvement increases employee satisfaction, acceptance of change, and facilitates creative problems solving.

The importance of team can be best understood by considering the following high-performance equation:

Performance = ability × effort × support     (A ×E×S)

Individual performance can be maximized when above performance equation can be met. Each of these activities directly affects one or more of the independent variables listed in the performance equation A, E and S.

With the work group, individual performance is enhanced when support comes from two sources namely from the manager responsible for the work group and from other group members. In the traditional sense managerial support occurs when managers fulfill their role as leader, administrator, coach and adviser. When these roles are not adequately carried out, it becomes increasingly difficult for subordinates to effectively perform their job responsibilities. Managers who do not clearly set their goals and state expectations increase the probability that subordinates will behave in ways inconsistent with preferred behaviors. Managers who fail to bring together the correct equipment, resources and people cannot expect subordinates to perform at peak levels. Last, managers who do not coach, encourage and advise are likely to limit the growth and development of their staff.

The second area to support comes from the together members of the individual’s work group. When a work group develops into an effective team, this type of support is maximized.

Types of Team Management

Team can be classified on the basis of their objectives. It can do a variety of things. It can design products, provide service, negotiate deals, coordinate projects, offer advice and make decisions. The six most common forms in an organization are following:

• Planning Team
• Functional Team
• Problem-Solving Team
• Self-Managed Team
• Cross Functional Team
• Virtual Team

Planning Team

Forming a team which is responsible to sketch out a road map for an organization to way forward is called Planning team. This is the most important team of an organization. This type of team usually comprised of five or more experts of a same discipline sit together and discuss various ways and modes of constituting an organization. They are likely to be very vigilant in the current trends and contextual needs of a function vis-à-vis the manifesto or the goals of the organization to which they are planning for.

Functional Team

Functional teams are also called as the operational teams; this kind of team is usually composed of a manager and the employees in their organization. They are responsible to manage field related operations and functions.  Under the patterns of functional teams, mainly issues, such as authority, decision making, leadership, and interactions among the members are relatively simple and clearer.

Problem Solving Team

A team from same department or functional area that’s involved in efforts to improve work activities or solve specific problems is called problem solving team. These teams are also responsible for trouble shooting and on the spot crises management. Almost twenty years ago teams were just beginning to grow in popularity and the form they took was strikingly similar. These teams typically were composed of five to twelve hourly employees from the same department who met for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.

In problem solving teams all the members of teams share ideas or offer suggestions on how work processes and methods can be improved. In this type the members are expected to be very creative and innovative to seek alternate solutions for emerging problems in the day to day functions of an organization.

Self-Managed Team

An other type of team commonly being used in organization is self-managed team. It is also called self-directed and automatic team work. It is formal group of employees that work without a manager and is responsible for complete work process that delivers a product or service to an external or internal client. This kind of team has control over its work pace, determined work assignments and inspects its own work. Self-directed teams even select their own members and have members evaluate each other’s performance. Even they do their own hiring, scheduling, rotate jobs on their own, establish production targets and set pay scales that linked to skills.

Cross Functional Team

This is also very important type of team management. Cross functional team, in which employees from different work area related to same hierarchical level works together in various tasks in the organization. Workers are brought together to achieve their targets. Many organizations have used cross functional team, however, the popularity of cross functional work teams exploded in the late 1980s. Cross functional teams are also effective ways to allow employees from diverse area within an organization to exchange information, develop new ideas, solve problems and coordinate complex task with each other. But cross functional teams can difficult to manage. This difficulty with diversity however can be turned into an advantage and can help to identify creative or unique solutions. As a result, team member become familiar with one an other, they form a more organized group, but the positive aspect of this decline in diversity is that a team bond is built. It takes time to build trust and teamwork.

Virtual Team Work

Virtual teams are teams that use technology to link physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal. In virtual team all the members are linked through media; such as teleconferencing, fax, email, or websites where the team can hold online conferences. Virtual team can do all the things that other teams can share information, make decisions, and complete tasks; however they miss the face to face meetings and discussions and team members never meet each other.

Characteristics of Team Management

It is strongly believed that the performance of team effects on the progress of work. Good teams show good results in their organization. It enhances the capacity of workers in the team. What can be the common characteristics which effective team has? These are:

Figure 1.1

High- performance work teams have both a clear understanding of the goal and a belief that the goal embodies a worthwhile or important result. Moreover, the importance of these goals encourages individuals to redirect energy away from personal concerns and towards team goals. In high performing work teams, members are committed to the teams’ goals know what they are expected to accomplish, and understand how they will work together to achieve those goals. Effective teams are composed of competent individuals. They have relevant technical skills and abilities to achieve the desired goals and the personal characteristics required to achieve excellence while working well with others. Effective teams are characterized by high mutual trust among members. That is members believe in the integrity, character, and ability of one another. They are willing to do anything that has to be done to help their team succeed. Unified commitment is characterized by dedication to the team’s goals and willingness to expend extraordinary amounts of energy to achieve them.

Effective teams are characterized by good communication. Member conveys messages, verbally and nonverbally, to each other in ways that are readily and clearly understood. Also feedback helps to guide team members and to remove misunderstandings. Problems, issues and relationships are regularly changing in teams if the members have ability to confront and reconcile differences this ability in members is called negotiating skill.

Effective leaders can motivate a team  follow them through the most difficult situations by clarifying goals, demonstrating that change is possible by overcoming inertia, increase the self-confidence level of team members and helping members to more fully realize their potential. More and more all the time, leaders act as coaches and facilitators. They always guide and support the team like leader of geese.

Internal and external support for an effective team create supportive climate. Internal support of team should have sound infrastructure, proper training of team members, clear and reasonable measurement system that team members can use to evaluate their overall performance and incentive program which increase the moral of team and a supportive human resource system. In external support of team, manager should provide the team with resources needed to get the job done.

Stages of Team Development

One of the greatest challenges a coaching manager has is in moving his or her team though the various team development stages. If a manager has no or little experience of teams and team dynamics then taking over a team and then leading that team can be a very stressful experience. Every manager should know what the various growth stages are of a developing team and they should know how best to move the team through these stages with the minimum worry and stress. Unfortunately, many managers do not get the necessary training or coaching in this area of team development and as such teams go through a lot of stress and anxiety when perhaps this could be minimized quite considerably.

In the next paragraphs, I will take you through a simple team development model, which I find the most useful of all the models I have studied. The names of each of the stages sum up perfectly what you can expect at each stage.

Psychologist, B.W Tuckman in the 1970s, developed this model and Tuckman suggests that there are four team development stages that teams have to go through in order to be productive. Along with the Tuckman four team development stages I have also included a preparation and maintenance stage. These stages are as under:

Stages of Team Development

Figure 1.2

Preparation

It is important that managers prepare for their team-building activities. It is during the presentation stage that managers collect relevant information, analyse their environments, and develop strategies that will guide them through succeeding stages. During this stage managers also want to consider the behaviors and strategies that will ensure each remaining stages are successfully completed. In short, preparation stage presents the blueprint of all remaining stages of team development.

Forming

At this stage team members are usually optimistic but hesitant and tentative as they begin to get know to one other and define themselves as a team. During this stage group member define who they are, what the group is, and define in their own minds what everyone else is supposed to doing. In this stage manager play an active role in creating the environment in which group members obtain a clear picture if what is expected of them and why. Manager can complete this process by carrying out many activities so that process may complete successfully. These activities may be:

• Orientation Programs
• One-on-One goal setting
• Group discussion
• Team pairing

These activities can build a good rapport between the team manager and team members.

Storming

After forming stage every group will then enter the storming stage in which different ideas compete for consideration. The team addresses issues such as what problems they are really supposed to solve, how they will function independently and together and what leadership model they will accept. Team members open out to each other and confront each other’s ideas and perspectives. In some cases, storming can be resolved quickly. In others, the team never leaves this stage. The maturity of some team members usually determines whether the team will ever move out of this stage. Immature team members will begin “acting out” to demonstrate how much they know and convince others that their ideas are correct. Some team members will focus on minutiae to evade real issues.

The storming stage is necessary to the growth of the team. It can be contentious, unpleasant and even painful to members of the team who are averse to conflict. Tolerance of each team member and their differences needs to be emphasized. Without tolerance and patience, the team will fail. This phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation if allowed to get out of control. Supervisors of the team during this phase may be more accessible but tend to still need to be directive in their guidance of decision making and professional behavior.

Norming

Norming is characterized by acceptance. Whereas in the storming stage, people were apt to rebel very quickly, this is now not the case and if someone has a grievance, complaint or suggestion then the proper processes are used and people tend to be listened to. The role of the coaching manager in this stage is to ensure that this calm continues and that any behaviors that arise that may threaten the calm are channeled in the right direction. Also the coaching manager has an important role in conveying information particularly in relation to the successes that are starting to occur within the team. The coaching manager should be spending a lot of time with individual team members coaching them and supporting them to develop their capabilities that relate to the individual’s team role and the tasks that they have to perform in relation to the team goals.

Performing

It is as though that team is comfortable in this stage and does not want to progress further for fear of returning to a storming stage, a stage that probably was very uncomfortable for most people. It is at the performing stage where team members really concentrate on the team goals. They are determined to work towards them, as they know what rewards are available to them on completion. They are also aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the team, and they appreciate these, and also work towards developing the weaknesses. This is a period of great personal growth among team members. The coaching manager at this stage will play very much a nondirective role, concentrating on strategy to plan the next way forward. The team will be in many ways, self-directing, perhaps even self-appraising with the manager taking very much a back-seat role. Again the manager’s role will be to facilitate communication and ensure that the successes are communicated and rewarded.

Maintenance and Renewal

After performing stage the maintenance and renewal stage come which is the last stage of team development. At this stage, it is compulsory for team manager to organize and keep the last five stages in good condition by checking or repairing it regularly. If the manager of the team think that there is any guilty or disturbance in team, he can start the work again after some pause. Manager can called the meeting again and search the solution of described problems. Manager can use different type of methods which can be associated with successful team renewal. These are:

–Self-assessment

–Shared leadership

–Action oriented renewal strategies

There are also situations where the manager, or the other team member, recognizes that the group is not exhibiting normal levels of output or enthusiasm. This may occur even though other renewal strategies are in place and operative.

Team Leader/ Manager Role

Team leader role in organizing and forming a team rapport is very crucial. Leaders play a ladder role in development of team. Critical to development and maintenance of any work team is the behavior and the general philosophy manager’s bring-subordinate relationship. More over, team leader, for managers to effectively contribute to the team-building process they must be able to influence group members. Rosen describes four factors likely to result in the manager having influence over subordinates. They are as follows.

• They (leaders) have superior knowledge about the group’s task and how it ties in with the larger organization.
• Group members feel the manager has a right to tell then them what to do.
• The group members think the member is just like them.
• Group members find both the manager’s apparent personal motives for being in the job and the process by which he or she was selected acceptable.

Although each of these factors plays an important role in determining the level of managerial influence, it to the perceived motives of the manager that we now turn out attention. The following characteristics are important elements of leaders when they interacting with subordinates.

• The manager has will to manage
• Looks out for more than “number one”
• Balances internal and external pressures
• A leader act like one
• Uses power judiciously
• Treats staff as a group rather than as individuals only

How can Leader shape team behavior?

There are several alternatives available for leaders whom they can try to turn the individuals into team. Most important ways of improving team behavior are as under:

• Proper Selection
• Employ training
• Rewarding the appropriate behavior

Proper Selection

Many individuals already possess personal skills to effective team players but some candidates don’t have any personal skills to effective team. So, hiring team members, in addition to checking on the technical skills required to successfully perform the job, the organization should ensure that candidates can fulfill their team roles.

Employ Training

After proper selection of team members, now there is need to train those employs whom manager has selected. It is very necessary that training should be purposeful and result oriented. Training specialist can conduct exercises that allow employees to experience the satisfaction that team work can provide. The workshops usually cover such topics as team problem solving, communications, negotiations, conflict resolution, and coaching skills.

Rewarding the Appropriate Behavior

Reward play an important role in shaping behavior according to the own will. The organization’s reward system needs to encourage cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones. Reward and appreciation can build a good rapport between leader and member. Reward can be given inn the shape of promotions, pay raises and other form of recognition should be given to employees who are effective collaborative team member.

Prerequisites for Team Success

It is necessary for teams’ manager that during team building, he/she must consider that which kinds of factors are most important for building effective team. Team manager must keep in mind that such kind of environment he/she provide to worker that can be work oriented. Team leader should focus following steps during development of team. These are as under:

Figure 1.3

Culture

Each organization or an institution member is affected by the existing culture and behavior and there is need to attempt it to behave in acceptable manner. Consequently, the over all organizational culture will affect the degree of team supporting behaviors likely to show either by the managers or their subordinates. Three levels of culture are usually describes:

• Patterns of behavior
• Values
• Norms

Organizational Context

The organizational context that surrounds a team has an important consideration of work team effectiveness. It articulated the need for broaden team research to look beyond the interactions and processes between team members and to include the relationships between teams and the organization they reside in. Improvements in group effectiveness can best be obtained by changing the circumstances in which groups work.

Thus, when attempting to predict behavior within an organization, it is important ot consider contextual variables. These are also called team supporting behaviors. These are:

• The Reward System
• The Education System
• The Information System

Team Climate

Good climate is essential for good team. If the climate of team will be good, it will work properly. Teams will achieve their goals in short period if the coordination among team members is appreciate able. McGrgor and Likert have described 12 characteristics or behaviors that he believes differentiate ineffective and effective teams. These 12 characteristics or behaviors are listed under:

• Clear Purpose
• Participation
• Civilized Disagreement
• Open Communication
• Listening
• Informal Climate
• Consensus Decision
• Clear roses and work assignments
• Share leadership
• Style Diversity
• External Relationship
• Self Assessment

Focus and Agreement

There is an increased probability that group members should have exhibit a desired level of focus and agreement. In other word, the member should jointly agree on where they want to go, understand what needs to done to get there, understand and accept who is responsible for what and committed to team goals. There is however a high level that the group must reach to be considered a true team. When group extra power is reached, group members move in concert and the group becomes more than the sum of its parts. Our normative model indicator that the performance level reached by a group will primarily be a function of three factors. These factors are:

• Group Synergy
• Existing Abilities of Group Members
• Environmental Constraints

Effective Performance

At some point the manager must evaluate the performance of his or her team Hackman describes three criteria of team effectiveness that can be used by the manager to assess his or her group’s effectiveness. The three levels deal with the groups actual output the group processes, and the impact of the team experience on individual members. Specially, Hackman describes his criteria in three following manners:

1)      The productive output of the work group should meet or exceed the performance standers of the people who receive and review out put. If a group out put is not acceptable to its “client” and to managers who are charged with evaluating or are responsible for its performance, it can not considered effective.

2)      The social process used in carrying out the work should maintain or enhance the capability of members t work together on subsequent team tasks.

3)      The group experience should on balance satisfy rather than frustrate the personal needs of group members.

When these criteria are satisfied, the team will achieve his goals with in short period, if these three criteria are dissatisfied the team will never growth.

Impact of Team Management on School organization

The above discussion on the importance of team management and team work reflects that organizing and managing teams for an organization has a huge impact on the quality and productivity of the outputs of the institution/organization. The same concept could effectively be applicable and useful for the improvement and development of a school organization. Instead of working individually and focusing on routine responsibilities,  the head teacher, teachers and other staff members can develop different teams to perform various tasks of the school organization so that they all would work together to achieve their common vision and goals of the school. They can perform more successfully by sharing their individual strengths and skills. Each teacher and staff member must have special skills according to their subject and past experiences, if they jell together to work as teams, definitely it will have a multiplier effect on the output and quality of the school organization. Not only the teachers and principal, but successful school organizations always involve parents of their students, community and other stakeholders of the school in team building and team management process. The potential parents and community members can play a vital role in problem solving functions of a school organization.

Reference

About the Author

Working as Lecturer at Federal College of Education H-9, Islamabad, Pakistan

Could someone critique my resume’s personal profile for me?

Results-oriented (left out on purpose) graduate seeking a position that requires excellent business-related analytical, problem-solving and research skills in an office environment. Motivated self-starter with a desire to contribute to a firm’s intellectual capital and be a valued team member. Recognized for ability to think independently and solve problems with a high standard of accuracy.

It sounds really good, you say what you’re looking for and what you’re good at.
Later in the resume you’ll have to back up “Recognized for ability…” recognized by who and why/what situation.
I would shorten this bit to: “Motivated self starter with a desire to become a firm’s intellectual capital and valued team member.”

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Washington D.C.: Our Nation’s Capital

Washington DC is the capital of the United States of America. When in a new area, we find it beneficial to get the lay of the land. We knew were not going to attempt to drive into Washington, DC with Boss.(Remember that Boss is a one ton dually with an extended bed and wide hips. Finding a parking place is difficult. We have heard the horror stories of the Beltway, not to mention the traffic in DC proper. The beltway is an Interstate highway system, which encircles the city: well known for major traffic jams.

We found out that DC has a wonderful Metro, train/subway, system which will take the traveler almost anywhere in the general area. First we had to find the stations near us and check out the parking. The station at College Park is convenient, but has a postage stamp parking lot. Mostly students from the University of Maryland use this depot via their shuttle bus. The other station, the terminus of the Green line is Greenbelt, the planned city built after W.W.II. The parking lot there has its own shuttle bus to assist the patrons from the far reaches of the lot. Nearby is Greenbelt Park, a hidden gem in the National Park Service. Even though the park is officially closed at this time, dry camping is still allowed in one of the areas for only $14.00 per night (half for Seniors with the Golden Passport). A dump station is available for the necessary. The campground is less than a half mile from the College Park train station.

Our goal today was to scale the Washington Monument for the aerial view of the city and then visit the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. To enter the Washington Monument, you need to have a ticket, picked up for free at a nearby kiosk. To get a ticket you have to be there by 8:00 AM. We arrived about 11:00 and all were taken.

We headed to the Lincoln Memorial via the Vietnam Wall, a moving sight with the flowers, wreaths, and letters laid at the base of the monument.  At the South end are two books with the names of the dead in alphabetical order. The names on the memorial are chronological. Look up the name of the individual in the book and you will be directed to the panel on which his/her name appears. Across a small green are two more memorials dedicated to the survivors of the war: one of three soldiers, the other of the women who served.

What can be said about the Lincoln Memorial which has not been done before. These days barricades and fencing restrict the tourists’ movements. You cannot walk completely around the Memorial on the upper level. On the ground floor, however, is a museum which chronicles the construction of the Memorial and the events which have taken place at the site, such as the freedom marches, Marion Anderson’s concert, and Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a Dream” speech. Once again the NPS has scored with a wonderful movie relating the importance of Abe Lincoln’s life through his words and pictures and the impact throughout the history of our great country. The musical background is Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait.

Down from the Lincoln Memorial, opposite the Mall from the Viet Nam Memorial, is the Korean War Memorial. Make sure you have a ranger tour to derive the utmost from the experience. The purpose of the memorial is to involve everyone, the living and dead, into the experience. Originally there were to be thirty-eight(re: 38th Parallel) life-sized statues of soldiers climbing the rugged hill to freedom. The number was halved to nineteen.

Approaching from the road the one soldier is looking over his shoulder signaling to the troops massed in the woods behind to come out into the clearing, filled with juniper and rocks. As you climb the hill to the US flag, the symbol of freedom, you see at the end etched in stone that over 53,000 men lost their lives and more than 8,000 were MIA. At the top is a reflecting pool with a triangular wall jutting into it (the Korean Peninsula). Not to be overlooked is the dark wall on the other side of the hill. Into the wall are carved 2,500 photographic images of men and women who were ancillary to the combatants. You cannot see the faces from afar, only up close. Drawing near the wall the real faces can be seen staring out at you, and you yourself are also reflected in the wall along with the nineteen soldiers climbing the hill to freedom. You become part of the memorial and memorial becomes part of you. This is an eerily haunting feeling which lingers throughout the day.

Across the road to the tidal basin we walked. The thousands of Japanese Cherry Trees were in full bloom. In the distance stood the Jefferson and the Washington Memorials. Along the way lays the memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt. This consists of four outdoor rooms of writings, water and statuary, each one dedicated to a term in office. The monument is a lovely tribute to a great president who led us out of the despair of depression and the horrors of war. The tribute pales in comparison to what we had just experienced earlier.

The Jefferson Memorial is another on the must see list in Washington DC. Dedicated to reason and enlightenment, this makes a fitting end to an emotion filled day.

Some impressions of Washington and Washingtonians. The city looks like Illinois in the summer: construction everywhere you look; cranes, chain link fencing, barricades. Police presence where ever you look: on foot, in cars, on bicycles, motorcycles and horses. Joggers, I mean many joggers, not just a few pass by no matter where you are; in the park, on the tidal basin paths, on the street. People out in great numbers, either seeing the sights in small groups or large tours, or individually. A calliope of people, scents, sights, and sounds fill every pore of the body.

The early bird catches the worm, or breakfast with our Senators. Every Thursday morning at 8:30, while Congress is in session Senators Dick Durbin and Peter Fitzgerald hold a continental breakfast with their constituents in one of the subcommittee rooms in the Dirkson Building. We were also given passes to the Senate and House of Rep galleries. Check with your Senators, if they do the same.

A tour of the Capital is given only by Senate or House personnel. You have to know someone to visit your building. What has our country come to when you can’t even visit your capital building? Luckily we had gallery passes.

Our first stop was the Senate. What a marvelous place to see government in action.. We were disappointed by the paucity of gallery occupants. Less than ten percent of the gallery was full. The ones who came in were mostly school groups. Granted no earth shaking votes were being taken, but we heard Sen. Barbara Boxer of CA argue for an amendment to add antiterrorist devices to commercial airlines. This was supported by Sen. Evan Bayh from IN who also spoke. Sen. John McCain of AZ spoke in rebuttal. Sen. Kennedy came into the Chambers later. Every hour the President Pro Temp of the Senate changes. Every fifteen minutes, the court reporters rotate. What is missing is modern electronics. There are no tote boards, cell phones. The only computers we saw were one on the secretary’s desk and the ones operating the television cameras.

From the Senate to the House of Representatives. Whereas the Senators had individual desks and chairs, the Reps. sit in pew like seats with dividers between them. They have no desks. If they want to speak , they must go to one of the tables on either side of the center aisle and be recognized. One representative was giving a speech about bringing the troops home from Iraq. He finally withdrew his amendment, but got his anti-war point recorded in the Congressional Record.

Went to the Rayburn Building, where our Representative, Jesse Jackson, Jr. has his office. We still vote in Illinois and keep up with the local politics. He was out of the office, but his little daughter, Jessica, was in charge and had the staff running around looking for a lost soccer ball. His staff is in process of setting up a tour of the Capital for us.

To complete our day on “The Hill”, we visited the Supreme Court. They were not hearing any cases that afternoon. So we were able to visit the courtroom and receive a lecture (tour) of the building. When they are in session, you have to get into line very early to listen to each case. When all of the seats are taken the rest of those in line are allowed to sit on wooden chairs in the rear of the Chambers for three minute periods. The plaintiff and defendant lawyers have only one half hour to plead their case. Did you know that there is another court above the Supreme Courtroom? It is a basketball court. Both courts cannot be in session simultaneously.

We tried to see the Ford Theater, where President Lincoln was assassinated. The line was very long for the guided lecture. We are not allowed to bring backpacks into the theater. But after 12:00 you can go for a look see inside for a few minutes.

On our way to the theater we passed the new International Spy Museum. The price of entry was slightly steep, $12.00 per senior. I was expecting to be disappointed and ripped off. Much to my surprise, I was neither. The museum is high tech and delves into the many aspects of espionage, from Biblical time to modern surveillance devices and techniques. The museum is divided into different sections with many hands on activities. We spent over two hours there and could spend more time watching all of the videos and programs. Yes, Agent Maxwell Smart, they had your telephone shoe too. There were many replicas from the cold war, even the poison injecting umbrella. Did you know that Julia Child was once a spy?  Maybe that’s how she got all of her recipes.

Off to the Ford theater we went (only a block away). Lincoln saw part of “My American Cousin”. Today “1776″ was on stage. Unlike 40 years ago, Lincoln’s box is now off limits. A picture hangs in from of the bunting where Boothe caught his spur and thereby broke his leg. The museum downstairs and the house across the street, where Lincoln died are closed for renovation,

On the way to the department of the Interior, we passed by the Willard Hotel, a strikingly beautiful edifice, where final negotiations were held to keep the Union united in 1861. We passed by the White House. Guess what—under construction—many blockages. The closest anyone can see of the White House these days is by watching West Wing. Another beautiful building is the Old Executive Office Building (one of the largest in Washington), next to the White House. This is also closed to the public. Interesting is that on the other side of the White House is the Treasury, close enough for the President to keep an eye on the money.

Finally we made it to the Department of the Interior. The building is more than two blocks long. Anne James gave us a wonderful tour of the facility. There is a large museum in the building depicting the history and various aspects of the department. The Interior was formed in 1849. The primary foci of it today are Land management and Indian Affairs. On the seventh floor is the old cafeteria with murals painted by artists from various Native American tribes. The windows give a beautiful view of the city.

All of the government buildings are closed on Saturday. Off to the Smithsonian we went. Everything is free.  The first museum we wanted to see was the National Air and Space Museum. Get there early to avoid the long lines. The museum is two floors tracing the history of flight and space exploration. Some of the original aircraft include Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis, Yeager’s Bell-1, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules, V-1 rockets, Steve Fossett’s balloon capsule, and many others. The Enola Gay is in storage. Later this year the museum will open an addition near Dulles International Airport and display much more of its collection.

We had a short time to visit one of the lesser museums of the Smithsonian. Next door is the Hirshhorn Museum specializing in modern sculpture and paintings. The museum, itself is a work of art, circular in design with a beautiful center atrium with a fountain and surrounded on the outside with elegant sculptures. They had an exhibit of Gerhard Richter, an East German escapee. His paintings depict either a bad case of myopia or an unwillingness to say openly what he wanted to say. Many of his paintings are blurred, but photographic in nature. He loved the use of the color gray.

Today we planned as a day off. I had wanted to do a little genealogical research. So I figured that today would be a good one to find out information about my relatives. The National Archives are located in Washington DC and they have a branch in College Park, MD.  Arriving at the Archives, NARA, I registered and received a photo ID to do research. Sadly, all of the records I was seeking were at the downtown office. The gentleman said that there was a free shuttle bus, which runs every hour on the hour between the two facilities. I scarcely believed my ears. Noon came and I hopped on the promised shuttle. I thought that this would take some time due to the horror stories of Washington DC traffic and the blockades everywhere. Taking the main roads, we passed through Hayettsville, Catholic University with the Basilica, many ethnic neighborhoods. Within thirty-five minutes, we were at NARA, on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the heart of downtown DC. We had hit the mother lode again. Free transportation without the hassle of finding a parking space at the METRO and the same travel time from College Park to DC proper.

NARA is the repository of federal records more than thirty years old (72 for census). The exhibition hall, closed for renovations, has the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on display. Showing my registration card I was allowed complete access to the microfilm sections and later to the main reading room, where original records are pulled for the researcher by a very helpful staff. One note of caution: be sure you leave enough time for the record pulling. It takes some time to retrieve them. I took the four o’clock shuttle back to College Park.

We took the NARA shuttle downtown and went to the National Gallery of Art, a mere two blocks away. This is an incredible series of beautiful buildings with two main structures: East Wing and West Wing. Inside are fountains, gardens with live flowers, and, of course art. Their collection of Impressionists is not as extensive as other museums, but they do have something special: the only Leonardo Da Vinci in the US, Ginevra de’Benci. We spent the entire day immersed in the beauty provided by the great master artists and sculpturers. There were special exhibits by Gainsborough, Kirchner, Vuillard, and Matisse. Next week begins an exhibit of Remington’s Night paintings. We want to go back.

At the entrances of many of the exhibit rooms, there are boxes with information cards in different languages about the works in the specific hall. The visitor reads the card and then replaces it in the box for others to use. I have not seen that type of information at other galleries.

We finally got through to Andy Wilson, the intern for Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and had a tour of the Capital. His staff was happy to see us again. A staff led tour opens doors for the tourist not available to the ordinary gallery viewer. We were able to go through hidden stairwells and go into the rotunda with a magnificent view of the capital dome. Today the Senate was discussing the Budget, which it later passed. The House was discussing natural gas drilling. We were on the way back to the Rayburn building, when the House called for a vote. Bells kept ringing in the corridors, and the Representatives we hurrying to the House chambers. It was exciting to see our government in action.

Because it was lunchtime, we were shown where the cafeteria was in the House complex. If you are ever in the area, I recommend eating lunch there. The cafeteria resembles a food court. The prices are reasonable and the portions ample.

Our next stop was the Library of Congress, the Jefferson Building. Self-guided tours are offered, but the docent guided ones are better. The paintings and statuary in the great hall are allegorical. Everywhere you look, you see the thought that went into the construction to one of the greatest libraries in the world. On display are one of the three complete Gutenberg Printed Bibles in the world and the last hand illustrated written Bible. The main reading room is dedicated to the different subjects of knowledge. The Library of Congress has its own web site, www.loc.gov. Here you have access to their card catalogue and to other information offered by the library.

Today we journeyed to The Holy Lands, a.k.a., The Franciscan Monastery. The facility was built so that people could visit the Holy Land Shrines, without having to spend all of their money to go to the Middle East. The shrines are replicas of Golgatha, the sepulcher, the manger at Bethlehem, etc. There are also replicas of the catacombs. Tour guides give insights into how the sites were authenticated. Even being a skeptic, I was impressed by their knowledge and the significance of the shrine. This is a highly recommended stop for any Christian visiting Washington.

A few blocks away rises the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. The church dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, was started in 1920s and is still under construction. The architecture is a combination of Byzantine and Roman: the dome fashioned after the Capital dome and the Campanile after the Washington Monument. Besides the main upper Nave and the Crypt nave, there are numerous side chapels and oratories sponsored by different groups of people in the world. Each one is dedicated to Mary. The predominant manner of expressing the artwork is via mosaics. The sheer amount and quality of the mosaics ranks it among the top cities of the world.

On to the Natural History Museum. What we liked about the museum was the use of skeletons to classify the various species of animals, from prehistoric times to the present era. Some areas are under construction: namely the mammals Hall and the Native American exhibits. The geological collection of stones, especially the Hope Diamond, salivates any woman who loves to wear beautiful gems. The myriad colors of the different types of geological formations are a delight to the eyes.

The staff at the museum do a lot of things right. Comparing this museum is like comparing apples and oranges with the Chicago Natural History Museum. Each one has its strengths. Overall, I would have to rate the Field Museum in Chicago a higher grade for extensiveness of its collection, except for the geology department.

Visited the Holocaust Museum in DC. This is a moving experience. I have done extensive research on this black spot in World history. I was impressed by the lack of bias in the exhibits. The self-guided tour takes you up to the fourth floor, where the history of the rise of Hitler and Nazism is told in visual pictures and short videos. The lesson learned on this floor is that much of the prejudices, feeding upon ordinary people’s fears, and the manipulation of the media are still with us even seventy years after the events leading to this tragedy. Moving to the third floor, one encounters the solution to the Jewish Problem: the ghettoes, slave camps, death compounds, etc. Not only were Jews hunted down, but also Jehovah Witnesses, gypsies, Polish and Russian Intelligentia, and anyone deemed inferior to the Aryan ideals. On display are mounds of footwear from the prisoners, many of their personal artifacts, and one of the boxcars used as transportation to the camps. From my readings of the atrocities committed in the camps, many of the exhibits were understated. The second floor exhibits emphasize the resistance to Nazism by the Jews and many citizens of occupied countries. Also recorded, in a muted way, is a condemnation of the silence of many allies denying knowledge of the genocide, which was known to be occurring.

On a lighter note, we visited the US Forestry Service. How do you say Smokey Bear? We found useful information about our national forests and resources for camping and visiting them.

On the way back to the Archives, we stopped by the Smithsonian Castle, so named because of the architecture of the building. The main floor is open to the public and acts as a welcome center, complete with a video, explaining the various museums of the Institution. The Commons at the west end of the building is used as a banquet hall. It reminds me of the nave of a medieval gothic chapel, without the stained glass windows.

The path back took us through a butterfly garden. Most of the plants were not in bloom, yet. There were many signs describing the various plants and trees and the type of butterflies which they attract. This was a beautiful ending to a cathartic day.

The National Zoo boasts the home of the giant pandas. On the whole, we were disappointed with the treatment of most of the animals. No zoo is perfect. Each one puts their energies and resources on specific species of animals. From our observations, it seems that the National Zoological Park has a lot to learn from other institutions. Most of the animals, especially the more advanced animals are separated from each other. We did not speak with anyone and find out if there any extenuating circumstances for our observations. Even the great apes were secluded from each other. We thought about what would have happened at the Brookfield Zoo a few years ago, when the gorilla saved and cared for the child who fell into their exhibit, if they were not allowed to socialize and live naturally as a troop.

Took a trip to Walter Reed Army Hospital today. This the place where presidents get their annual physical exam. On campus the AFIP (Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) has a museum dedicated to medical research and history. They have an extensive microscope collection, beginning with the primitive ones of the 17th century to the modern electron microscopes of today. They are presently exhibiting the cycle of life from the hereditary stage to birth. They use many different forms of photography, from MRIs and X-rays to normal photos. Many are surreal.

After spending a couple of hours at the museum, I wanted to visit Georgetown and embassy row. Driving in DC can be a real challenging experience. Not only do you have the diagonal streets intersecting the grid patterns, you have creative signage, or the lack thereof. Maggie was getting more upset because of the labyrinth we were traversing. We finally found Embassy Row, on and around New Hampshire near the Dupont Circle. Off the circle is M Street, which is the main drag of Georgetown Heights. We got a great view of the stores and the throng of people on the streets, because traffic moves at a tortoise’s crawl.

Crossing the Potomac River, we wanted to avoid traffic to get back to College Park. I knew there was a highway which runs along the front of Arlington Cemetery. Eventually this would take us to I 95 and College Park. Cruising down the highway a police officer flagged me over and told me to follow him. I did not think that I was the millionth vehicle to travel the road. I was also sure I wasn’t speeding: just keeping up with the Jones’s. I found out that duallys were not allowed on this road since 9/11. Other pickup trucks, SUVs, etc. are allowed. He took down my vital information and then tried to take a mug shot for the FBI. After breaking two cameras he was finally successful. Look for my photo at your nearest post office. Now that we are wanted by the FBI, we will just have to flee the country.

On Monday, April 21, 2003 we toured the Smithsonian American History Museum. We spent five hours there and could have spent an additional five hours. Some of the highlights include Louis Armstrong’s first trumpet. The crinkled bell of the horn reminded me of my trumpet in grammar school. The exhibits on the American Presidency and of the First Ladies were exceptional. I especially enjoyed the traffic control through the exhibits. There was usually a specific entrance and exit. This made traveling through them easier. The first floor was devoted to various industries: agriculture, maritime, railroads, information, transportation, and Julia Child’s Kitchen . The museum has something for just about anyone. Having been to Fort McHenry, we were happy to see The Star Spangled Banner undergoing restoration.

The numismatic collection of coins and money is very extensive. What I never realized was the variety of currencies, both foreign and domestic, in circulation during the beginning of our country’s history. Each colony printed and minted its own currency. British, French and Spanish currencies were also considered legal tender. It was worse than the problems the Europeans have with the Euro. A common currency was a necessity to have a real country.

Went to The National Building Museum. The building’s beautiful atrium soars fifteen stories and is supported by large pillars. On the first and second floors are exhibit halls surrounding the atrium. Some of the exhibits are semi-permanent. You never know what will be shown. The atrium was a buzz with people setting up for the greatest craft show in the country. The Smithsonian Institute holds an annual contest for craftsmen and the winners exhibit their work at this museum. The items on display are also for sale.

A few short blocks away is the Postal Museum, a part of the Smithsonian. This museum explores the history of mail service, from blazing trails from New York to Philadelphia, to Ben Franklin’s appointment as Postal chief in the mid 1700s by The Crown, to the Pony Express, RFD, and Air mail. The building itself is impressive. It is in the Old Post Office with a magnificent main hallway with many cages lining both sides.

Next door is Union Station. It is still a pretty impressive building, having undergone extensive restoration and now housing many food courts and different shops to pick up last minute items before going home.

Today we visited most of the rest of the Smithsonian Institute: the Freer Museum of Art, the Sackler Gallery, the Museum of African Art and the Arts and Industry building. This sounds like a lot of walking, but the museums are small in area. The first two emphasize Eastern art from China, Japan, India, and Islamic works from different countries. Some of the pieces from early China and from the Islamic World are exquisite. Not to be missed in the Freer Museum is the Peacock Room by James Whistler. He got carried away with a commission to decorate a dining room. He took the peacock motif to the maximum extent. Even the ceiling is painted peacock feathers. The room is breath taking and is a perfect receptacle for the Chinese Porcelain collection of the owner.

The African Museum has many old pieces from ancient Nubia, which is South of Egypt in present Sudan. There are also many 20th Century pieces reflecting the culture of the people of Western Africa.

Not to be missed is the Arts and Industry Building, the host for many Presidential Inaugural Balls. The atrium is spacious and shaped like a cross. The building hosts special exhibits, which change on a regular basis.

One other exhibit was of a tropical butterfly house.  Enclosed in a closed environment (temperature 90°, humidity, 85%), hundreds of butterflies from Central America flew at will. I seemed to be a particular favorite, because they kept landing on my head. Maybe my animal attraction has been lost on the wrong species. Or perhaps they like gray hair. They were very beautiful.

Went to the tower of the Old Post Office: a different building than the Postal Museum. Washington DC has had a series of Post Offices as the demands of the Capital increased. This building has an eight-story atrium with an additional three-story bell tower. On the twelfth floor an open observation deck gives a birds eye view of the city below. Within the tower are the Congress Bells. These change bells are still rung by hand by a special group of ringers. They practice every Thursday evening to perfect their skills. They hold the record for pealing. A peal is a series of over five thousand rings of the bells according to a set pattern, which is never repeated, for the three-hour duration of the peal. The group has a conductor who directs the ringers in the precise patterns. If they miss a beat, they have to begin all over.    

About the Author

John Pelley is a Geriatric Gypsy.  He is retired from the rat race of working.  He is a  full-time RVer, who ran away from home.  He began our travels on the East Coast and, like the migrating birds, seek the warmth of the seasons  He has discovered volunteering with the National Park System.  Hae has a CD he has recorded of Native American flute music., A Day with Kokopelli. For pictures, links, and more information visit http://www.jmpelley.org.

Asian tradition of choosing a relic?

in many asian cultures there is a tradition where a baby shortly after they are born is given various relics that has special meanings that the baby can choose one- like a pencil would mean they will grow up to be smart etc. what is this called? i know where im from (s.korea) i did it at my first bday. i need to know what this is called and maybe the list of items that are used and their meanings…
thanks

Doljabi (Doljanchi)

The baby is propped up at a table of various foods and an assortment of objects and urged to pick up one of the items. It is believed the item the baby picks up symbolically foretells his or her own future or would influence his or her fate.

On the table are usually money, a large bundle of thread, rice, and a pencil. If the baby picks money, it means he or she is going to be wealthy. Rice means the baby will never have to go hungry throughout life, which was a very important aspect when people often suffered from famines. The baby will live a long life with thread and be a scholar by picking a pencil.

Now some parents put a computer mouse on the table, which means the success in the high-tech field, or a toothbrush, hoping that the baby will be a dentist.

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Teaching English in Singapore: Lucrative and Rewarding Jobs Await

For too long Singapore has been dominated by its larger cousins in the global market for TEFL/ESL destinations. It is natural to head to Thailand and Vietnam, completing ignoring this inspiring compact island. No more should the Lion City just be a refuge to teachers from Thailand looking for some civilisation while on a holiday break. Lucrative TEFL/ESL opportunities exist that allow teachers to save and provide for a lifestyle teachers in Thailand and Vietnam can only dream of. Salaries are high, classes involve mostly adults, and schedules are usually done in blocks – all highly rated in any TEFL/ESL job.

Singapore has a lot to offer which other countries don’t. Firstly, in the region of South East Asia, TEFL/ESL salaries far outstrip those of neighbouring countries. Teachers can expect to start at USD 2500 a month, most likely beating the USD 3000 mark. While the cost of accommodation may seem high on this small island, other costs such as transport and food are incredibly cheap when compared to the Europe, and even the US. This provides for a very comfortable lifestyle indeed, where teachers can experience the world famous diverse cuisine, spend money travelling, and of course save.

The job search in Singapore is undeniably best done on the ground when you get there. This is convenient as Singapore is a major international flight hub, and visitors from native English speaking countries can enter freely for stays between 30 – 90 days. While arriving with nothing may worry some teachers on a shoe-string budget, it is important to remember that unlike Japan, costs are low, and the market isn’t already saturated by other English teachers in the same boat. Some jobs are advertised online, mainly on TEFL.com and ESL Cafe’s international job board. However, these may not necessarily be the best deals, and the on the ground job search allows you to negotiate an all round better deal.

Who will employ you when you get there? For an island with a population of around 4 million people, Singapore has a high density of Educational colleges and private institutes. There is a palpable feeling in the air of everyone trying to better themselves. This means business and money to the TEFL/ESL teacher. A CELTA/Trinity TESOL candidate’s best bet, like elsewhere in the world, is to contact the major private language chains; Berlitz, The British Council, Cambridge Institute, GEOS, Linguaphone, Shines Education, Wall Street Institute and many more that are dotted along Orchard Road. Job opportunities can also be had in the Straits Times online job classifieds at st701.com. The benefits of turning up on the spot are obvious; it will look like you’re in it for the long(ish) haul, you can impress with a professional appearance and demeanour, and more importantly, you can negotiate your salary with your future employer.

It will please many aspiring applicants to know that TEFL/ESL job seekers in Singapore don’t necessarily need certification in CELTA/Trinity TESOL, although it will drag down your salary. More important is having a recognised, three year degree, which the government requires for immigration purposes. Don’t let this worry you though. Obtaining the necessary Employment Pass is a very simple process, merely requiring some forms to be filled in. This can be done in Singapore and you don’t have to leave the country to complete the process at a High Commission of theirs. It may be of interest to note that if you earn above SGD 4000 a month, you don’t need to undergo a medical examination.

Who will you teach is an often underestimated question and it is very important to note that teachers are extremely unlikely to be actually teaching native Singaporeans. Having been a colony of the United Kingdom until 1963, and having English as the official language, means English is very well established there. This may not be reflected in standards of local English, but for the most part, this is dealt with by the government during a child’s education. You are far more likely to be teaching (in quantity order from my experience) mainland Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino, Japanese, Thai, and even Burmese citizens. This provides for a very enjoyable experience because, more than likely, you’ll have multilingual classes to teach.  Furthermore it may be exciting to note that Singapore has far less kids’ classes than the rest of Asia. Naturally, this is due to the fact that English is the language of class in state schools.

Moving on from just the aspect of work, Singapore as a destination for expats, offers a very comfortable tropical lifestyle. The weather is characterised by two distinct seasons; wet and dry, and every day is hot! The vast majority of schools will employ air conditioning though to make the teaching experience far more comfortable. Singapore is renowned for its multi-ethnic cuisine. The real joy of living there is being able to choose from Chinese, Malaysian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and European cuisine every day. Food is incredibly cheap, with amazing outdoor (but covered!) food courts providing for a fiesta of food to brighten any day. Fresh fruit juices and exotic cut fruits at rock bottom prices will make you feel great.

Accommodation on the island is where serious thought must be considered. Occupying a relatively small island with 4 million people naturally means rents are high – far higher than neighbouring countries. The vast majority of people occupy an apartment in a block of flats. These come in two levels of quality; HDB (a form of public housing provided by the government) and condominiums (high quality private apartments, usually but not always, with shared facilities like swimming pools, gyms etc). HDB flats are generally older and of lower quality (and sometimes without air con), but are of course cheaper. Condos can be anything from satisfactory to breathtaking. Rents for HDB flats start at around SGD 800 a month, with condominiums starting at around SGD 1500. Obviously, costs depend on a lot of factors, location being a major one. My own private recommendation would be to look for a refurbished HDB flat, rather than a cheaper, lower quality condo. I would also strongly dissuade anyone from seeking an apartment around the long Geylang Road, being the red light district, as it is extremely seedy.

In terms of cultural and leisure activities Singapore has somewhat to offer. Firstly, let’s deal with the common derisory remark that Singapore is one large shopping mall. This is true to an extent, and there are very many malls. This will obviously be music to the ears of those who like shopping, and potentially nightmarish for those who don’t. Sampling new food at food courts and restaurants is a very special Singapore experience, as is exploring the different quarters; Chinese, Indian, Malay, Korean, and Thai. The centre of the island is still virgin jungle and ideal for trekking, most notably Bukit Timah and Macritichie Reservoir Park being the most authentic jungle. Beaches are OK in Singapore, but the sheer amount of large boats out in the harbour may discourage you from swimming. An array of smaller islands around it are also great for exploring; particularly Kusu, Ubin, Lazarus and haunted Hantu. The island resort of Sentosa is usually very busy and a bit overrated in my opinion for leisure and entertainment.

In conclusion, for an aspiring teacher looking for a place to start, or for an experienced one seeking a fresh start, I would strongly recommend Singapore. Reasons of income, food, and climate make this a very attractive destination for TEFL/ESL. Flexible immigration makes this a good place to make your TEFL/ESL debut, while the above factors make the city a great place to linger for a few years. Singapore offers enough of the great things about Asia while low on the downsides that make other countries harder to live in such as crime, pollution, begging/touting. So, when considering Asia as an English teaching destination, don’t rule out the Lion City.

About the Author

Will Pearson taught in Singapore from 2007 to 2009 at Shines Education and the Cambridge Institute. After completing his stint there, he returned to the United Kingdom to devote his time to developing supplementary TEFL/ESL materials. In October 2009 he set up http://www.handouthub.com; a site where English teachers can subscribe to download photocopiable TEFL handouts and ESL worksheets for use in their classes. Will currently lives in Madrid, Spain.

Is Korean Language taught at any highschool?

I want to learn Korean very badly, and I have a chance to enter a persuasive essay about adding Asian languages to our schools curriculum. My main argument is the significant population of Koreans at my school, and I think it is a useful language. I need to know if other high schools even do this. I’ve heard of Chinese and rarely Japanese at a high school, but it doesn’t seem like Korean is spoken enough to be added to a high schools curriculum. Do you know if high schools teach Korean?

im sure there are a few in california I bet, with the significant korean populations there. I live in Georgia, where there is the second largest population of koreans, and we have none in this state.
but having korean people in your school prolly isn’t a good reason to have a Korean class in school…
because, most korean kids…know how to speak korean..and would only take it for an easy A or…not take it at all!

i’d come up with a more valid reason if i were you.

And if you really want to learn the language, try looking up local korean consulate and inquire a place where you can learn korean. Its a great thing to do! thats what i did (:

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• ABRAHAM LINCOLN  -”If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
• ABRAHAM LINCOLN –”Am I not destroying my anemies when I make friends of them?”
• ABRAHAM LINCOLN –”The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
• ABRAHAM LINCOLN –”To sin by silence when they shouil protest makes cowards gl men.”
• ABRAHAM LINCOLN –”With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
• ADI GRANTH –”Caste and dynastic pride are condemnable notions; The One Master shelters all existence. Anyone arrogating superiority to himself shall be disillusioned; Says Nanak, Superiority shall be determined by God, crediting such a one with honour.”
• ADI SHANKARACHARYA –”Neither sin nor merit; neither pleasures Norpain Neither sacred formulae nor sacred places Neither Vedas Noryajnas I am neither the eaten nor the eater nor the act of eating I am the ever blissful One; One without a second. Truth, Goodness and Beauty.”
• ADIIN SINCLAIR –”Success is a welcomed gift for the uninhibited mind.”
• ALBERT CAMUS –” Do not wait for the last judgment it takes place every day.”
• ALBERT EINSTEIN –”It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished-just as in the case of ants and bees.”
• ALBERT EINSTEIN –”Maybe, by raising my voice, Ican help the greatestof’all causes— goodwill among men and peace on earth.”
• ALBERT EINSTEIN –”The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
• ALBERT EINSTEIN –”There are only iwo ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The otherIs as though everything is a miracle.”
• ALBERT SCHWEITZER –”You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others somethingfor which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.”
• ALEXANCTRE LEDRU-ROLLIN –”He said two things, but called them by wrong names.”
• ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN –”Of course God is endlessly multidimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.”
• ALEXANDRE BARROS –”He would inherit an economy m full working order, so he could do good things without having to even go into austerity.”
• ALFRED HITCHCOCK –”In feature films the director is God; in documentary films  God is the director.”
• ALFRED PAINTER –”Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.”
• AL-QHAZALI –”Only that which cannot be lost in a shipwreck is yours.”
• ANAIS NIN –”The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.”
• ANAIS NIN –”We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
• ANATOLE FRANCE –”You learn to speak by speaking to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”
• ANCIENT JAPANESE SAYING –”There are many paths up the mountain, but the view of the moon from the top is the same.”
• ANONYMOUS –”Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.”
• ANONYMOUS –”Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. Plan more than you can do, then do it.”
• ANONYMOUS –”Faith is like electricity. You can’t’see it, but you can see the light.”
• ANONYMOUS –”I am the sweet fragrance in the earth. I am the heat in thefire, the life in all living beings, and the austerity in the ascetics.”
• ANONYMOUS –”Life is a handful of short stories, pretending to be a novel.”
• ANONYMOUS –”What you love, you empower and what you fear, you empower and what you empower, you attract.”
• ANONYMOUS –”Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
• ANTHONY DE MELLO –”What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.”
• ANTHONY DE MELLO –”When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”
• ANTHONY EDEN –”Corruption never hah been compulsory.”
• ARISTOTLE –”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
• ARISTOTLE –”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
• ARTHUR KOESTLER –”If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.”
• ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER –”The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.”
• ASHTAVAKRA SAMHITA –”You are neither a varna, such as the Brahmana, nor do you belong to an ashrama, nor are you perceived by the senses. You are non-dual, formless and witness of the universe. Thus contemplating, be happy.”
• ATHARVA VEDA –”A devotee, who spends his time in austerities has nothing to worry about as God fulfills all his needs.”
• ATHARVA VEDA –”May we unite in our minds, unite in our purposes, and not fight against the divine spirit within us. Let not the battle cry arise amidst many slain, nor the arrows of the war-god fall with the break of day.”
• ATHARVA VEDA –”The five senses are linked with the five elements. The five seasons are like the five breaths of the mind. The five directions are the five organs of cognition controlled by the soul. These organs are located in the head and connected with the soul.”
• ATHARVAVEDA –”Who knoweth Him, knoweth himself, and is not afraid to die.”
• AUNG SAN SUU KYI –”Fear is not the natural state of civilised people.”
• AWDESH SINGH –”Just as physical exercises eventually strengthen the body, mental exercises help strengthen the power of the mind. Scriptures say that every person evolves from body to mind to soul to spirit. So once we take care of the body and mind, we need to set a goal to strengthen the soul so that we can love the world and lead a life of peace.”
• AZIZ IBN MUHAMMAD AL-NASAFI –”Self-knowledge is the shortest road to the knowledge of God. When Ali asked Mohammad, ‘What am i to do that may not waste my time?’, the Prophet answered, ‘Learn to know thyself.’”
• BABATUNDE OLATUNJI –”Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”
• BASAVANNA –”Unless the mother has a flow of blood There is no place for the embryo to lodge; The function of the seed is the same for everyone. Greed, lust, anger, joy: such passions are common to all. What is the use of your learning and erudition? Where is the proof for your claim to be highborn? You are a blacksmith if you heat, You are a washerman if you beat, A weaver if you lay the warp, A Brahmin if you read the scriptures. Is anyone in this world born through the ear? Therefore, whoever realises the divine nature is high born.”
• BAYARD RUSTIN –” To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.”
• BERNIE S SIEGEL –”Don’t do things to not die, do things to enjoy living. The by-product may be not dying.”
• BESS MYERSON –”The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.”
• BETTY SMITH –”Look at everything as though you  were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”Arjuna said: “This yoga of equanimity taught by thee, 0 Krishna, I do not see its steady continuance, because of the restlessness of the mind. The mind verily is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding, 0 Krishna; I deem it as difficult to control as to control the wind.” Krishna said: “Undoubtedly, 0 mighty-armed Arjuna, the mind is difficult to control and restless; but by practice and by dispassion it may be restrained. I think yoga is hard to be attained by one of uncontrolled self, but the self-controlled and striving one can attain to it by the proper means.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”As in this body the embodied soul passes through childhood, youth and old age, in the same manner it goes from one body to another: therefore, the wise are never deluded regarding it… As man casts off worn-out garments and puts on others which are new, similarly the embodied soul, casting off worn-out bodies, enters into others which are new.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”He who acteth, placing all actions in the Eternal, abandoning attachment, is unaffected by sin as a lotus leaf by the water.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”He who has no ill will to any being, who is friendly and compassionate, free from egoism, and self-sense, even-minded in pain and pleasure and patient, who is ever content, self-controlled, unshakable in determination, with mind and understanding given up to Me-he is dear to me.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”Out of compassion for them, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness bom of ignorance.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”Perfection is characterised by the ability to see the Self by the pure mind and to “elish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, me is situated in boundess spiritual happiness, realised through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the Lruth, and upon gaining this, thinks there is no greater gain. Being so situated, one is never haken even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”The conditioned being must be delivered frorr material nature by the realised mind. The conditioned being must not become degraded since this very mind is the friend as well as the enemy of the conditioned being.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”The inverted tree’s form is not perceptible in this world. No one can understand its beginning, end or middle. But determinedly one must cut down this strong tree armed with the weapon of detachment. And then one must seek higher places that when achieved one must never return from but surrender to the Supreme, who is the eternal source of everything.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”The serenity of mind, gentleness, silence, self-restraint, and the purity of mind are called the austerity of thought.”
• BHAGAVAD GITA –”Those who remember me at the time of death will come to me. Do not doubt this. Whatever occupies the mind at the time of death determines the destiny of the dying; always they will tend towards that state of being. Therefore, re- member me at all times… Remembering me at the time of death, close down the doors of the senses and place the mind in the heart. Then, while absorbed in meditation, focus all energy upwards towards the head. Repeating in this state the divine Name, the syllable OM that represents the changeless Brahmn, you will go forth from the body and attain the supreme goal.”
• BILL MCGLASHEN –”Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead.”
• BOB DYLAN –”A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
• BRAHMAKUMARIS –”Unclutter the day and create windows of silence for the mind. Windows which catch the light of peace and clarity. Windows which let oxygen into the mind.”
• BRIAN TRACY –”Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”
• BRIAN WILLIAMS –”A person starts dying when they stop dreaming.”
• BRIGITTE BARDOT –”If only every man who sees my films did not get the impression he can make love to me, I would be a lot happier.”
• BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD –”When he (the embodied self) comes to weakness whether he come to weakness through old age or through disease – this person frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back to life.”
• BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD –”Where there is separateness, one sees another, smells another, tastes another, speaks to another, hears another, touches another, thinks of another, knows another. But where there is unity, one without a second, that is the world of Brahmn.”
• BUDDHA  -”Awake. Be the witness of your thoughts. You are what observes, not what you observe.”
• BUDDHA –”All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”
• BUDDHA –”There is no way to ; happiness; is the way. Happiness.”
• BYRON KATIE –”This is the time. This is the place. This is the vastness. Right here is paradise. Always. Always.”
• BYRON KATIE –”You move away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
• BYRON KATIE –”You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
• C S LEWIS –”If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
• CARL JUNG –”As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
• CARL SCHURZ –”My country! When right, keep it right; when wrong, set it right.”
• CHINESE PROVERB –”Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”
• CHINESE PROVERB –”It is easy to dodge a spear that comes in front of you but hard to avoid an arrow shot from behind.”
• CHINESE PROVERB –”One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
• CHRISTOPHER REEVE –”We all have a voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God. But if we shut out all the noise, clutter from our lives and listen to it, it will tell us the right thing to do.”
• CHUANGTSU –”I do not know whether i was then a man dreaming i was a butterfly, or whether i am now a butterfly dreaming i am a man.”
• CHUCK PALAHNIUK –”If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and comeback as a new character… ould you slow down? Or speed up?”
• CHUCK PALAHNIUK –”We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
• CICERO –”Natural ability without education  has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”
• CONFUCIUS –”I am not bothered by the fact that am unknown. I am bothered when do not know others.”
• DADI JANKI –”Judge whether your thoughts, words and actions are beneficial to the scene in which you find yourself. Focusing on your own part is more useful than passing judgment on thers.”
• DALAI LAMA –”If you want others to be happy. practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
• DALAI LAMA –”There is ho need for temples or complicated philosophy. Our brain and heart are our temples; the philosophy is kindness.”
• DAN BROWN –”I am fascinated with the ‘gray area between the good and the evil.”
• DAVID BRIN –”It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
• DAVID R HAWKINS –”Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually, it is a state of awareness.”
• DEBBIE FORD –”Unforgiveness is the poison you drink everyday, hoping that the other person will die.”
• DENIS WAITLEY –”Don’t ever let economic alone determine your career or how you spend the majority of your time.”
• DOMINIQUE BOURG –”Sustainable development is like God in negative theology. Beyond slogans and a few sacred formulae, we cannot say, tangibly and for certain, what it is. On the other hand, we can see much more clearly what it is not, and could never be It is not, for example, the indefinite continuation of our society’s present habits. Sustainable development involves nothing less than building a new civilisation.”
• DOUGLAS MACARTHUR –”Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.”
• DREW CAREY –”I don’t miss the economic insecurity, the living paycheck to paycheck.”
• E O WILSON –”Destroying rain forest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
• EDITH CAVELL –”I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
• EDITH CAVELL –”I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
• EDMUND BILIARY –”It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
• EDMUND BURKE –”There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.”
• EDWARD FITZGERALD –”‘Tis all a chequer board of nights and days, Where destiny with men for pieces plays; Hither and thither, and mates, and slays.”
• EDWARD JOHN PHELPS –”The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything”
• EKNATH EASWARAN –”The widest possibilities for spiritual growth lie in the give-and-take of everyday relationships.”
• EKNATH EASWARAN –”To enjoy anything, we cannot be attached to it. What we usually try to do is capture any j oy that comes our way before it can escape. We try to cling to pleasure, but all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But ifi am willing to kiss the joy as it flies, i say, ‘Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won’t grab it. I’ll let it go.’…If we don’t cling to past or future we live entirely here and now, in’eternity’s sunrise’.”
• ELBERT HUBBARD –”A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the mark of true greatness.”
• ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON –”The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.”
• ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS –”People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”
• ELIZABETH TAYLOR –”Everything makes me nervous except making films.”
• EPICTETUS –”Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they .take of them.”
• EPICTETUS –”When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your failings. Then you will forget your anger.”
• ERIC BERNE –”The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.”
• ERIC HOFFER –”You can’t get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.”
• ERICH FROMM –”Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself.”
• ERNEST HEMINGWAY –”The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.”
• ERNEST HEMINGWAY –”The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
• Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.”
• F MCKINNEY HUBBARD –”I haven’t heard of anybody who wants to stop living on account of the cost.”
• F. SCOTT FITZGERALD –”Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
• FELIX ADIER –”Love of country is like love of woman – he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.”
• FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT –”The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”
• FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT –”In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up— or else we all go down.”
• FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT –”When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
• FREDDIE MERCURY –”I wont be a rock star. I will be a legend.”
• FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE –”         The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
• GEORGE ARUNDALE –”Our business is to stand strongly for principles, but never to attack persons, about whose lives we can know but little.”
• GEORGE BERNARD SHAW –”Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.”
• GEORGE LUCAS –”Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.”
• GEORGE SANTAYANA –”A man’s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”
• GEORGE SANTAYANA –”To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”
• GEORGE W BUSH –”He can’t have it both ways. He can’t take the high horse and then claim the low road.”
• GEORGE WASHINGTON –”Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
• GEORGE WILL –”The future has a way of arriving unannounced.”
• GK CHESTERTON –”A tragedy means always a man*s struggle with that which is stronger than man.”
• GRAHAM’S PADDOCK –”Over the years i have learned to deeply respect God, both for who He is and what He has done. I have a healthy reverence for His standards, and His right to judge each of us. I admire His attributes, such as power, patience, love, mercy, and the way He respects our free will. I have also learned He can be trusted, even when it’s not easy to do this. All of this more or less sums up, for me, what it means to fear God.”
• GRO BRUNDTLAND –”Sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations meet their own needs.”
• GURUNANAK –”All the world is liberated, ONanak, by embarking upon the Boat of Truth.”
• HARRIET BEECHER STOWED –”The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
• HARRY JOHNS –”It has been difficult to get attention from global health organisations, because they often focus on reducing deaths rather than on treating disability.”
• HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA –”When the breath wanders, the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.”
• HENRIK IBSEN –”These heroes of finance are like beads on a string; when one slips off, all the rest follow.”
• HENRY BEECHER –”Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.”
• HENRY DAVID THOREAU –”
• HENRY DAVID THOREAU –” If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
• HENRY DAVID THOREAU –”Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”
• HENRY DAVID THOREAU –”We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”
• HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW –”The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
• HERACLITUS –”You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.”
• HONORE DE BALZAC –”Power isn’t revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true,”
• HORACE –”Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which. in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”
• HOWARD THURMAN –”During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.”
• HW LONGFELLOW –”Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act,-act in the ‘living Present! Heart within and God overhead.”
• INDIAN PROVERB –”For the friendship of two, the patience of one is required.”
• ISHAVASYA UPANISHAD –”They per vade everything from within and without.”
• J KRISHNAMURTI –”Society is the relationship between people – the relationship between one person and another… Suppose i depend on you for my gratification, for my comfort… how can I ever be free?… There is freedom in relationship only when there is no fear. So, to have right relationship, i must set about freeing myself from this psychological dependency which breeds fear.”
• JACK KORNFIELD –”In spiritual life there is 10 room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter us. A lukewarm yearningfor awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.”
• JALALUDDIN RUMI –”I am part of the load Not rightly balanced I drop off in the grass, like the old Cave-sleepers, to browse wherever i fall. For hundreds of thousands of years i have been dust-grains floating and flying in the will of the air, often forgetting ever being in that state, but in sleep I migrate back. I spring loose from the four-branched, ! time-and-space cross, this waiting room. I walk into a huge pasture I nurse the milk of millennia Everyone does this in different ways. Knowing that conscious decisions and personal memory are much too small a place to live, every human being streams at night into the loving nowhere, or during the day, in some absorbing work.”
• JALALUDDIN RUMI –”Out beyond the ideas of right-doing or wrong-doing there is a field; I’ll meet you there.”
• JAMES ALLEN –”You are where your thoughts have brought you; you will be where your thoughtiilake you.”
• JAMES LUTHER ADAMS –”Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.”
• JAMES M BARRIE –”God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”
• JAMES RESTON –”Americans have always bean able to handle austerity and even adversity. Prosperity is what is doing us in.”
• JAMESYEE –”An act of terrorism, the taking of innocent civilian lives, is prohibited by Islam, and whoever has done this needs to be brought to justice, whether he is Muslim or not.”
• JAWAHARIAL NEHRU –”A moment comes when we step out from the old to the new, and when the sound of a nation, lo suppressed, finds utterness.”
• JEAN INGELOW –”It is not reason which makes faith hard, but life.”
• JEAN-PAUL SARTRE –”Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.”
• JERRYGARDA –”Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life.”
• JESSE JACKSON –”Go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.”
• JESSE JACKSON –”Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than pushed by our memories.”
• JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI –” Pain itself destroys pain. Suffering itself frees man from suffering.”
• JIM MORRISON –”Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws.”
• JIMI HENDRIX –”I’m the one that has to die when it’s time for me to die. so let me live my life, the way I want to.”
• JOANNA MACY –”Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it’s uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing – resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.”
• JOHN –”I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you Spiritual leadership involves humbling yourself and doing the tasks that no one else wants to do. In Jesus’s time, the act of washing feet was to be assigned to the lowest of servants. However, at ths last supper, Jesus humbled Himself and washed the disciples’feet. Afterwards he declared, “Do you understand what I have done for you? . ..You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”
• JOHN F KENNEDY –”We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world – or to make it the last.”
• JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH –”The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
• JOHN MAXWELL –”
• JOHN RUSKIN –”There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
• JOHN UPDIKE –”The artist brings something into the world that didn’t exist before and he does it without destroying something.”
• JOSEPH CAMPBELL –”The function of mythological symbols is to give you a sense of “Yes. I know what it is, it’s myself.”
• JOSEPH P KENNEDY –”Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.”
• JOSEPH ROUX –”Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today, it is the reverse.”
• JOSH BILLINGS –”One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.”
• JULIA ROBERTS –”I wouldn’t do nudity in films. For me, personally… To act with my clothes on is a performance; to act with my clothes off is a documentary.”
• KABIR –”Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. When you really look for me, you will find me instantlyYou will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.”
• KAHLIL GIBRAN –”I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, i am ungrateful to those teachers.”
• KAHLIL GIBRAN –”The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”
• KAHLIL GIBRAN –”You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
• KALIDASA –”Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendour of beauty for yesterday is ‘but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision; but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
• KATHA UPANISHAD –”The self-existent Lord pierced the senses to turn outward. Thus we look to the world outside and see not the Self within us. A sage withdrew his senses from the world of change and, seeking immortality, looked within and beheld the. deathless self.”
• KATHERINE WHITEHORN –”The rule is not to talk about money with those who have much more or much less.”
• KEN WILBER –”True pluralism… is always universal pluralism.. .you start with the commonalities and deep structures that unite human beings… we are all open to a Divine Ground, by whatever name. And then you  add all the wonderful differences… But if  you start with the . differences, and never make it to the universal, then you have only regressive catastrophes.”
• KHALIL GIBRAN –”Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. Arid the self-same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?”
• KHAWWAS –”All wisdom can be stated in two lines: What is done for you allow it to be done. What you must do yourself – make sure you do it.”
• KURT COBAIN –”I’m so happy because today I found my friends — they’re in my head.”
• LAO TZU –”In the pursuit of learning, everyday something is acquired. In the pursuit ofTao, every day something is dropped.”
• LAO-TZU –”Don’t change direction, and you may end up where you’re heading.”
• LAURA STRICKLAND –”Life is so precious, And each day is a gift. So enjoy every minute, As it were your last to live. Cherish your loved ones, Hug them tight, Share with them your heart, And your time. Nothing is forever, And life goes so fast, Each minute that passes, Is one you can’t get back. When troubles arrive, And knock you off your feet, Stand up and smile, And remember life is too sweet. Every morning when you wake Decide right from the start, That “Today will be A good day” And let it all in with an open heart.”
• LEONARDO DA VINCI –”Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose your power of judgement. Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.”
• LEVITICUS –”When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
• LICE WALKER –”Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.”
• LOA TZU –”He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
• LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD –”if the truth does’t save us what does that say about us?”
• LORD ACTON –” Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are always bad men.”
• LOTUS SUTRA –”The Dwelling of the Tathagata is the great compassionate heart within all the living. The Robe of the Tathagata is the gentle and -forbearing heart. That Seat of the Tathagata is the “spirituality of all Existence”.”
• LUDWIG VON MISES –”The attainment of the economic aims of man presupposes peace.”
• LUKE –”So i say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone that asks receives, he who seeks finds and to him that knocks the door will be opened.”
• LW ROGERS –”Great things are possible only to strong souls and it’s from the trivial events of daily life that strength is won.”
• MADAGHISHLOKA –”The self is the maker and non-maker, and itself makes happiness and misery, is its own friend and its own foe, decides its own condition good or evil, and is its own river Veyarana (the river in which hell- beings are tormented).”
• MAE WEST –”Now I think censorship is necessary; the things they’re doing and saying in films right now just shouldn’t be allowed. There’s no dignity anymore and I think that’s very important.”
• MAHALIA JACKSON –”I hope to bring people to God with my songs.”
• MAHATMA GANDHI –”Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today.”
• MAHATMA GANDHI –”Immature love says: “liove you because I need you.” Mature love says: “I need you because I love you”
• MAHATMA GANDHI –”There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.”
• MAHATMA GANDHT –”If we are to respect others’ religions as we would have them respect bur own, a friendly study of the world’s religions is a sacred duty.”
• MALCOLM FORBES –” Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.”
• MARCUS AURELIUS –”To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”
• MARCUSAURELIUS –”Be content to seem what you really are.”
• MARGARET THATCHER –”There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.”
• MARIANNE WILLIAMSON –”In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.”
• MARIO PUZO –”Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.”
• MARK TWAIN –”Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
• MARK TWAIN –”Deep down in me I knew jtwas a lie, and He knew it. You can’t pray a lie – I found that out.”
• MARQUIS DE CUSTINE –”What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain?”
• MARTIN FELDSTEIN –”To finance trade deficit, the US has to borrow from the rest of the world or sell its assets to them.”
• MARTIN LUTHER KING –”Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free.”
• MARY OLIVER –”Telime, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
• MAYA ANGELOU –”Among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”
• MEDIA REPORT –”Dementias (of different kinds) will afflict 35.6 million people in 2010, about 10 per cent more than previously estimated because of a higher number of cases in developing countries than doctors realised, researchers said in a report released by Alzheimer’s Disease International.”
• MERTON MITILI –”You need to make oni Big score in finance to be a hero forever.”
• MICHAEL JACKSON –”But I will never stop helping and loving people the way Jesus said ito.”
• MICHAEL PORTER –”Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.”
• MICHELANGELO –”The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low. And achieving the mark.”
• MILAREPA –”If ye realise the Voidness, Compassion will arise within your hearts; If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be; And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me; And finding me, ye shall attain Buddhahood.”
• MK GANDHI –”Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviours. Keep your behaviours positive because your behaviours become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”
• MOTHER TERESA –”Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness.”
• MUHAMMAD –”Asking good questions is half of learning.”
• NAPOLEON HILL –”Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”
• NATIVE AMERICAN PRAYER –”Oh, Great Spirit/ Whose voice I hear in the winds,/ And whose breath gives life to alUhe world,/ hear me, I am small and weak,/ I need your strength and wisdom./ Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold/ the red and purple sunset./Make my hands respect the things you have/ made and my ears sharp to hear your voice./ Make me wise so that I may understand the things/ you have taught my people./ Let me learn the lessons you have/ hidden in every leaf and rock./I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,/ but to fight my greatest enemy – myself./ Make me always ready to come to you/ with clean hands and straight eyes./ So when life fades, as the fading sunset,/ my Spirit may come to you without shame.”
• NEALE DONALD WALSCH –”All attack is a call for help.”
• NEALE DONALD WALSCH –”If we win, someone else loses. But if someone else loses, we lose. Which is a point we’re not getting.”
• NELSON MANDELA –”As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
• NEW SCIENTIST –”Growth graphs are stark reminders of the crisis facing our-planet Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more sus- tainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? . ..Personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth… If we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.”
• NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ –”When i see i am nothing, that is wisdom. Wheniseeiam everything, that is love. And between these two, my life flows.”
• NONYMOUS –”We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.”
• NORMAN VINCENT PEALE –”The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.”
• OG MANDINO –”Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow.* Now. Now! Not tomorrow!”
• OG MANDINO –”Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. No talent, no selfdenial, no brains, no character are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish person can pull it to pieces.”
• OLIVIER POUTEAU –”It is high time for a serious dose of austerity.”
• OPRAH WINFREY –”Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”
• OPRAH WINFREY –”What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.”
• ORACLE OF SUMIYOSHI –”I have no corporeal existence, but Universal Benevolence is my divine body. I have no physical power but Uprightness is my strength. I have no religious clairvoyance beyond what is bestowed by Wisdom. I have no power of miracle other than the attainment of quiet ,   happiness.  I have no tact except the exercise of gentleness.”
• OSCAR WILDE –”A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
• PABLO CASALS –”The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”
• PARAMAHAMSA –”As many faiths, so many paths. Ramakrishna”
• PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA –”It does not matter whether or not one fully comprehends the day-to-day enigmas of life. What is important is to be resolute inthe search for the True Happiness, the Joy that is the origin of one’s being.”
• PATTIE BOYD –”Oh my gosh, that’s scary,… Just lock up all the time and keep the door locked.”
• PAUL FARMER –”The only way to do the human rights thing is to do the right thing medically.”
• PAUL SIMON –”Like abridge over troubled water,! Will ease your mind.”
• PAULO COELHO –”Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he’ll never move.”
• PAYNE STEWART –”I’m going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I’m here.”
• PEMA CHODRON –”It’s said that when we die, the four elements – earth, air, fire and water – dissolve one by one, each into the other, and finally just dissolve into space. But while we’re living, we share the energy that makes everything, from a blade of grass to an elephant, grow and live and then inevitably wear out and die. This energy, this life force, creates the whole world.”
• PEPPER GIARDINO –”Weather is a great metaphor for life— sometimes it’s good sometimes it’sbad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.”
• PHILIP MASSINGER –”Death has a thousand doors to iet out life: I shall find one.”
• PRINCE CHARLES –”The trouble, I think, in today’s world is we abandon so many things unnecessarily, so often in the name of efficiency.”
• PUBLIUS CORNELLUS –”The more corrupt the state, the more laws.”
• RABBI ARTHUR HERTZBERG “We have a responsibility to life, to defend it everywhere, not only against our own sins but also against those of others. We are all passengers together in this same fragile and glorious world.”
• RABBI ERIC YOFFIE –”Our view is that there is truth and holiness in other religious faiths. Our view is that there are many paths to God.”
• RABBI NAHMAN OF BRATSLAV –”If you won’t be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?”
• RABINDRANATH TAGORE –”Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.”
• RABINDRANATH TAGORE –”Do not say: “It is morning,” anddismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”
• RABINDRANATH TAGORE –”Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God, First fill your own house with the Fragrance of love… Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God, First remove the darkness of sin fromyourheart… Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer, First leam to bow in humility before your fellowmen.. . Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees, First bend down to lift someone who is downtrodden Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins, First forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you.”
• RABINDRANATH TAGORE –”Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.”
• RABINDRANATH TAGORE –”Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free Where the world has no been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and actionInto that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”
• RALPH W SOCKMAN –”The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.”
• RALPH WALDO EMERSON –”Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?”
• RALPH WALDO EMERSON –”We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of disiovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”
• RAM DASS –”It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
• RAMDASS –”It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”
• RANDY PAUSCH –”It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself; The dreams will come to you.”
• RICHARD ROSE –”A man who thinks it and lives it will touch others’ intuition.”
• RICKTHIGPEN –”At a time when the governor will be promoting austerity, it would be inappropriate for him politically to spend a lot of money.”
• RIG VEDA –”Truth is one, sages call it by different names.”
• ROBERT W SARNOFF –”Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears. ”
• ROBIN LEACH –”It is usually people in the money business, finance, international trade who are really rich.”
• ROGER MILLER –”Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.”
• RONALD REAGAN –”Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”
• RUDOLF NUREYEV –”Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration.”
• RUDYARD KIPLING –”They will come back again, Come back again, As long as the red Earth rolls. He never wasted a leaf or a tree Do you think He would squander souls?”
• RUMI –”Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
• RW EMERSON –”Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in;forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
• SADHU BHADRESHDAS –”To understand the per vasiveness of an omnipresent entity further we can look at its subtleness and magnitude. That which can become even subtler than the subtle can pervade everything. That which can accommodate everything within itself can pervade. Such are Aksharbrahmn and Parabrahmn. They, being even subtler than the subtle, pervade everything, and by pervading they accommodate everything within themselves.”
• SAINT BASLL –”Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.”
• SAINT EXUPERY –”One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things bom.”
• SAMUEL JOHNSON –”Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”
• SANDRA BULLOCK –”I have been in enough films where the studio wanted that extra little cuteness to make it sellable.”
• SATHYA SAI BABA –”Embodiments of love! There is love in every one of you. Develop that love. Share it with the people. You also experience with your fellow people. This love is not one-way traffic. It is two-way, give and take. We don’t need to go anywhere, if you have love.”
• SENECA –”Begin at once to Iive, and count each separate days as s separate life.”
• SENECA –”No man ever became wise by chance.”
• SENECA –”There is no delight in owning anything unshared.”
• SHANKARA –”I am the nature of Pure Consciousness. 1 am always the same to beings, one alone… the highest Brahmn, which, like the sky, is all-pervading, imperishable, auspicious, uninterrupted, undivided and devoid of action. I do not belong to anything since i am free from attachment. .. ever-shining, unborn, one alone, imperishable, stainless, allpervading, andnondual .. I am forever released.”
• SHEIKH ALT ZEIN EDDIN –”Nature is the closest thing to religion, and religion is the closest thing to God.”
• SHEIKH MOHAMMAD HOSSEIN FADLALLAH –”Not only do we have to respect the lives of human beings, but Islam says that human beings should not use what they don’t need. And that they should plan their resources for a future use.”
• SHIAN –”Samsara is essentially not any fixed place or realm – for it is any state ofmindfilledwith attachment, aversion and delusion.”
• SHIHN DILJIT –”When you attain the thought of Truth, that thought starts dissolving all earlier thoughts that you have already developed and confirmed in your present life. Gradually, you become free from all those thoughts. This-will simultaneously remove all your tension, worries and diseases.”
• SHIMON PERES –”I worked with a group of people who argued day and nightprofessors, officials, the minister of finance – but there were decisions that I had to make.”
• SHUNRYU SUZUKI –”When you say, ‘Wait a moment,’ you are bound by your own karma; when you say, ‘Yes I will,’ you are free.”
• SOGYAL RINPOCHE –”The beginner’s mind is an open mind, an empty mind, a ready mind, and if we really listen with a beginner’s mind, we might really begin to hear. For if We listen with a silent mind, as free as possible from the clamour of preconceived ideas, a possibility will be created for the truth of the teachings to pierce us, and for the meaning of life and death to become increasingly and startlingly clear.”
• SOREN KLERKEGAARD –”Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”
• SPIKE MILIIGAN –”Money can’t buy friends but it can get you a better class of enemy.”
• SRI CHANDRASEKHARENDRA SARASWATI –”The different Upasanas are all aids in the path to the ultimate goal, namely, understanding Reality. Scriptures prescribe Upasana in order to train the mind to concentrate. Upasana is the affair of the individual; there is nothing collective about it.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”As you smell the fragrance of a flower by handing it or the smell ofsandalwood by rubbing it against a stone, so you obtain spiritual awakening by constantly thinking of God.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”Do not demand anything from those you love. If you make demands, some will give you more and some less. In any case you will love more those who give you more and less those who give you less. Thus your love will not be the same for all. You will not be able to love all impartially…”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”God is one’s very own. It is the eternal relationship. He is everyone’s own. One realises him in proportion to the intensity of one’s feelings for him.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”I am the mother of the wicked, andJ am the mother of the virtuous. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, just say to yourself, ‘I have a mother’.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”If you want peace, do not find fault with others. Rather see your own faults. Learn to make the world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”One must be patient like the earth. What iniquities are being perpetuated on her! Yet she quietly endures them all.”
• SRI SHARADA DEVI –”You see, it is not a fact that you will never face danger. Difficulties always come, but they do notiast forever. You will see that they pass away like water under a bridge.”
• SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR –”Dharma is universal, it transcends race, religion, gender and even species. Human beings have the unique ability to follow dharma or negate it. Negation of dharma inflicts misery on the planet while following dharma brings fulfilment to life.”
• SRIDHARA SWAMI –”Krishna emphasises the changing nature of the mind. When the mind is freed from attachments one becomes lucid and clear and the mind is like one’s best benefactor. When the mind is disturbed by attachments it becomes distracted and distorted and the mind becomes one’s worst malefactor.”
• SRIMADBHAGAVATAM –”Truly wise is he who is unstirred by praise or blame, by love or hatred. He is not moved by the oppositesoflife. Verily does he delight in the blissful Self.”
• ST JOHN OF THE CROSS –”Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved. The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of Divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for until the cord be broken, the bird cannot fly.”
• STEPHEN COHEN –”Critics of the war have no reason to regret their views.”
• STEPHEN R COVEY –”If you plant two plants close together, the roots co-mingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated… The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more. The challenge is to apply the principles of creative, cooperation, which we learn from nature, in our social interactions.”
• STING –”The acceptance of death gives you more of a stake in life, in living life happily, as it should be lived. Living tor the moment”
• SUFI APHORISM –”When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul for what it has found.”
• SUFI PROVERB –”I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.”
• SUFI SAYING –”For every sin but the killing of time there is forgiveness.”
• SVETASVATARA UPANISHAD –”He is the one God, hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self within all beings, watching over all works, dwelling in all beings, the witness, the perceiver, the only one, free from qualities.”
• SWAMI RAMDAS –”When we feed, clothe and attend on anybody, we feel like doing all these things to our own body, for which we do not expect any return or praise or commendation, because all bodies are our own: for we as the all-pervading Atman or spirit reside in all bodies.”
• SYLVIA PLATH –”I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.”
• TAO TE CHING –”He who knows others is wise; He who knows himself is enlightened.”
• TAO TE CHING –”He who regards the world as he does the fortune of his own body can govern the world. He who loves the world as he does his own body can be entrusted with the world.”
• TEILHARDDE CHARDIN –”We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
• TENZIN GYATSO –”Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”
• THE BUDDHA –”All that we are is the result of what we . have thought.”
• THE BUDDHA –”The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
• THE BUDDHA –”Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
• THE BUDDHA –”To awaken, sit calmly, letting each breath clear your mind and open your heart.”
• THE DHAMMAPADA –”Happiness or sorrow- whatever befalls you, walk on untouched, unattached.”
• THE LION KING –”And blinking, step into the sun There’s more to see than can ever be seen More to do than can ever be done There’s far too much to take in here More to find than can ever be found But the sun rolling high Through the sapphire sky Keeps great and small on the endless round It’s the Circle of Life And it moves us all Through despair and hope Through faith and love Till we find our place On the path unwinding In the Circle The Circle of Life.”
• THE PLURALISM PROJECT –”Jains regarded both Buddhist ‘nihilism’ and Hindu ‘eternalism’ as correct and yet incomplete. Instead, they advocated holding simultaneously to the eternal, innate purity of the soul and to the reality of the soul’s connection to karma and, hence, suffering. Likewise, contemporary Jains reject the absolutist ‘either/ or’ that characterises much of traditional western logic, taking instead the relativist stance that for every question there are many ‘right’ answers that reflect from different angles and in varying degrees the one truth, satya.”
• The right to lead certainly isn’t gained by election or appointment. Having position, title, rank, or degrees doesn’t qualify anyone to lead other people. And the ability doesn’t come automati cally from age or exper. ence, either. No, it would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead. The right to lead can only be earned. And that takes time. The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow. You must become someone others can trust to take them where they want to go.”
• THE TALMUD –”He gives little who gives with a frown; he gives much who gives little with a smile.”
• THE TALMUD –”When a man has compassionfor others, God has compassion for him.”
• THICH NHAT HANH –”As we cultivate peace and happiness in ourselves, we also nourish peace and happiness in those we love.”
• THICH NHAT HANH –”In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.”
• THICH NHAT HANH –”People have a hard time letting go oftheirsuffering. Outofafegr of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
• THICHNHATHANH –”I am breathing in and liberating my mind. I am breathing out and liberating my mind. One practices like this.”
• THICHNHATHANH –”My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which i stand.”
• THOMAS HARDY –”Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”
• THOMAS HARDY –”Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”
• THOMAS SZASZ –”A child grows up when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.”
• TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD –”0 nobly-born…the body which you have now is called the thought-body of propensities. Since you do not have a material body of flesh and blood, whatever may come sounds, lights or rays are, all three, unable to harm you; you are incapable of dying. It is quite sufficient for you to know that these apparitions are your own thought-forms. Recognise this to be the Bardo (the intermediate state after death).”
• TOM DASCHIE –”We need real campaign finance reform to loosen the grip of special interests on politics!”
• UMA & KS RAM –”What is that ultimate memory that Krishna quickened in Arjuna to inspire him towards right action? In the typical paradox of cosmic truth, ultimate memory is the same as original memory that, in turn, is the same as eternal memory. This relates to the truth of the essential unity of creation, non-duality, advaita. Sustenance, guidance and positive energy flow from the renewal of the memory of oneness and unity.”
• VEDIC PRAYER –”God is the Supreme Spirit who enlightens us and gives us spiritual strength. The Supreme Power who gives us physical strength, , Who wise persons worship, pray to and meditate on, Whose commands even the wise and the physical forces of the universe follow, God, whose shelter and protection is bliss and immortality, Lack of whose shelter is misery and death, To that Blissful Master who gives us everything, We worship with selfless service.”
• VICTOR FRANKI –”The last of the human freedoms Is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
• VICTOR HUGO –”There is nothing like a dream to creat the future.”
• VIKTOR FRANKI –”When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
• VINOBA BHAVE –”A country should be defended not by arms, but by ethical behaviour.”
• VISHNU SAHASRANAM –”That One is called prana, The supreme force that controls and regulates everything. He gives the power of breath to every creature, Master of all living beings, Container of all creation, He can be known through silence, meditation, and the practice of yoga.”
• VOLTAIRE –”He was a humanitarian, a great patriot, a loyal friend – provided, of course, that he really is dead.”
• VOLTAIRE –”Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
• VOLTAIRE –”Man isfreeatthemomert;he wishes to be.”
• VOLTAIRE –”What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity.”
• WALTWHITMAN –”Henceforth, i ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.”

About the Author

please

What is your all time favorite blink-182 cd??

I like take off your pants and jacket but then i reeeeeaaaally like their old stuff like dude ranch buddha and cheshire cat

self titled for sure i mean all of the albms are good

but the self titled one is more serious and its just got really good songs

Being wise is the sole prerogative of mankind. No animal can be said to be wise even though all animals have intelligence. All human beings also cannot be said to be wise even though they have the intelligence of similar degree as intelligence is not same as wisdom. Everyone is intelligent but not all intelligent people are wise.

Wisdom is not simply accumulation of knowledge because more knowledge often creates confusion. Excess of knowledge is same as excess of food which instead of causing nourishment to the body causes obesity. Obese people often have more physical power than the people of normal weight yet their excess muscle power is not an asset but a liability which they must shed to lead a healthy life.

Power and Wisdom

Power means the capacity of a person to perform work. We all need power as without power we can’t perform any task. When you are powerful, nothing is difficult for you. A physically strong person can easily defeat a physically weak person. A powerful king can enslave thousands of common people and even take their lives. A powerful man is often treated like God since His will is always done. No wonder, God is often called “Omnipotent” since He is All Powerful.

Yet no powerful person has ever being wise. All kings and dictators were man of average intelligence and less than average wisdom.

The reasons are not difficult to ascertain.

Wisdom is the need of the weak and a weapon of the common man who fear power and plan to lead a happy life despite having no power. Man is wise since he is not the most powerful animal of the world. If you are weak, your survival is always at stake as a strong man would try to destroy you and use all your possession to make himself even stronger, Therefore the weak people have to constantly find methods to make themselves artificially strong so that they can defeat the strong man.

A king may be the most powerful man in his kingdom, yet he may not be the strongest person. His power comes from the assimilation of the power of many other persons who follows his command. His goal is to create fear so that no one can defy him. However, the very act of creating fear in the minds of other makes him fearful as he too fear for his death as other people. A fearful mind can never be wise as it has no time to analyze the knowledge that has been acquired over period.

Thus the first thing which a wise man does is to discard all power. It is only by discarding the power; a man can overcome his fear as he had then nothing to lose. Gautam Buddha did the same when he discarded his kingdom and became a monk. A monk has nothing to fear as he has nothing to lose. He can easily focus all his energies in finding the soul of the knowledge acquired by him which we call wisdom.

Knowledge and Wisdom

Knowledge is not same as wisdom. Knowledge can be compared with individuals who look different and seem to be disconnected with each other. However, we still see millions of people living together happily with each other through some common association which is physically not visible. You cannot see this connection. You can realize it only through intuition and experience.

Wisdom too is the knowledge of all knowledge. It means a wise person is able to see the interconnection between divergent forms of knowledge and use the knowledge of one field into a different field. He can solve the real problem of the world not by the conventional methods suggested by experts and scholars but from the knowledge of other fields unknown to the experts.

The Danger of Power

As a man becomes wise, he also becomes more powerful since he is able to help others solving their own problem which earns him faith and trust. His words are taken as orders due to the faith people have in his wisdom. This gives him a sense of power and he can perform even more difficult task by the combined power of many men. However, as he grows powerful, the need to discover wisdom reduces. Thus his wisdom become outdated as it fails to replenish knowledge. Only if a person remains powerless, he has to constantly find new methods to perform the task with least power or the power of a common man.

Life is a mystery which can not be explained either by science or by scriptures. Truth has a body and a soul which we call science and religion. Contrary to popular perception, they are not opposed to each other but complement each other like body and soul. In fact, they can not exist without each other.

I am the founding member of The Science of Soul Foundation in India which works for the synthesis of the diverse disciplines of knowledge like science, religion, philosophy and arts. The website of the foundation is http://www.scienceofsoul.com

I am working for the creation of a synthesis between science and religion through my articles. I believe that everyone can understand this Truth by the use of intuition and reason. You can contact me at aksinghirs [a] yahoo.com if you wish to know more about the mystery which we call life.

A Gift Called Life.wmv

Take Me Home, Country Roads – John Denver