Thursday 28 April 2011
Monday 25 April 2011
Avoid tears
I did some housekeeping of my desktop and found that I had goggled for ways to hold tears. These are some of the things I copied down which I think may work for some of people out there. People who weep easily are sentimental and unable to control the emotion when it hits you. In some situation, we had to be tough for the sake of somebody. My sincere apologies that I have lost all the web links for these info and unable to do proper referencing.
- Put the biggest, grinniest smile on your face possible. Hold it. Really stretch those cheek and eye muscles.
- Try memorizing and reciting an abstract poem in your mind, or using your imagination to construct an abstract visual scene to focus on.
- Make a fist and press your fingernails into your palm. Or bite your lip hard (not so hard you make it bleed though, that won't help matters. Causing yourself a little pain to focus on can sometimes stop the tears.
- If possible, sip some water (or liquid of your choice). I don't know why, but it's very difficult to cry and drink at the same time.
- Step away from anyone who you're with so that you're alone. Squeeze your nose, take a DEEP breath through your mouth. Stare into your eyes in a mirror and assure yourself that you're going to keep it together.
- Look up and rapidly blink.
- keep their tongue pressed firmly against the roof of their mouth. This seemed to keep the tears at bay pretty effectively.
- I'm in the "bite the inside of your cheek" school. Or, I'll look away and focus intensely on something else ("oh, look, whoever painted this room got a drop of paint on the floor all the way over there in the corner. These walls are a bizarre shade of green. I think I'll have a tuna sandwich for lunch today. Etc etc etc).
- Someone told me once that if you focus on bringing your thumb and index finger as close together as possible without letting them touch, it will stop you from crying. I've had mixed results with it, but it's worth a try.
- they started down the aisle to keep their tongue pressed firmly against the roof of their mouth.
- Look around the room and silently name the color you're seeing. Don't think about what the thing is--that's too much work. Just name the color. Repeat until calmer, along with deep breaths.
Monday 18 April 2011
Wednesday 13 April 2011
Ms Access works wonder
I was stucked hours at xlUpdateLinksNever, trying to resolve the problem of Excel creating a dialog that prompts whether or not to update the links to other excel workbook (see the issue as in the pic). So, I sought for this IT expert’s advice. And only realized that, I can actually go without having this coding at all.
I learnt an important lesson today. Always try to generate output by using Ms Access Query and link function before any attempts to use Excel VBA Macro programming.
Excel Macro is not easy to troubleshoot and can only cater add-hoc functions.
Thanks to the IT expert’s advice that I am nearer to achieving my goal.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
The Star Online: Virgin boss to fulfil lost bet
PETALING JAYA: The new date has been set. Branson had lost a bet to Fernandes and was to serve as a stewardess on the AirAsia X flight from London to Kuala Lumpur on Feb 21.
Branson, who owns the Virgin Racing Team, had bet that his cars would do better than the Lotus Racing team of Fernandes.
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Someone has sent you a message from Heart Relationships
Choosing A Mate in the Second Half of Life--Part 2
- How emotionally open is your romantic partner? Relationships require us to open up and actually reveal ourselves. We can't remain emotionally hidden or private, and we can't keep things on a superficial basis if we want a deeper relationship to develop. So how cautious, held back or reserved is s/he? You don't want someone to be playing it too emotionally safe, because falling in love isn't emotionally safe.
- How pessimistic, cynical or jaded is s/he?
- Is s/he jealous or very possessive of your time? Does s/he repeatedly grill you about who you are talking to, what you talked about or where you've been without reasonable justification? Is s/he quick to accuse you of wrong doing or of having unfaithful motives without cause?
- Is s/he controlling or manipulative? Does s/he want to control the money, who you are with, what you do, what you say or what you feel?
- How insecure is your partner? Is s/he forever unduly taking things personally while assuming you are being mean-spirited? Is s/he defensive? Is nothing his/her fault? Does s/he have a hard time owning up to a mistake or accepting accountability for wrong-doing or poor decisions? Does s/he blame others instead of examining his/her role in what happens? Does s/he get argumentative or belligerent when confronted?
- How compassionate and empathetic is your partner?
- When tension starts to build between the two of you, is your partner able to talk about what is troubling him/her and identify what s/he needs?
- Generally how comfortable and satisfied are you with the way anger is expressed in the relationship, or with how disagreements are handled? How effectively does s/he work through disagreements and conflicts without destroying love, trust and good will?
- What activities, behaviors, stress reducers or substances is s/he addicted to? You might as well know now what you're going to be dealing with later on.
- What priority does your partner put on your relationship? Is s/he available to you emotionally, physically and with time?
- Have you been with the other person when s/he was sick, in a bad mood, depressed, discouraged, hurt, anxious and angry?
- How responsive is s/he to what you say is important to you?
- How willing is your partner to blend with you? Your lifestyle, your family and friends, the realities of your career and income, your children/grandchildren and your dreams?
- What's fun? What role does play have in your relationship?
- How important is neatness, cleanliness, appearance and personal hygiene to you?
- What assists you in feeling close, connected, loved, valued and cared for?
- How well does your partner communicate and express feelings? Good communication is reciprocal. It's more than just bombarding someone with your thoughts and feelings---it's about being an extremely good listener as well. It's about knowing the difference between "talking with" and "talking at" someone. It's about being interested in another person's emotions, needs and desires without being defensive, hostile or dismissive.
- What dreams or goals are the two of you shooting for together? Is there an agreement about what takes priority?
Someone has sent you a message from Heart Relationships
Trust and Betrayal 2
The subject is about trust and betrayal, and three different readers illustrate the point.
A woman from Brookfield, Wisconsin writes: "Please address how long it takes to get over the betrayal of a spouse after 21 years of marriage. He left me for another woman."
Sheila T. from Denver wrote in to ask: "There have been two instances that I know of when our relationship has hit rocky ground and my partner has had brief affairs with other women. In each case, he says that he thought our relationship was over, but then came back wanting to get together. He has vowed that it won't happen again. How do I mend the broken trust? It takes so long to build and it's gone so quickly."
Janet M. from Flushing, Michigan describes feeling betrayed in a very different way by her brother's suicide. "His life became too painful for him, so he killed himself last spring. [I am] angry with my brother. Do you have any suggestions in this particular case on forgiveness?"
In all three of these examples, one person, intentionally or not, misused another person's openness and vulnerability, and someone got hurt.
Regaining trust after a betrayal and forgiving someone who has deeply hurt you may take everything you've got. The majority of intimate relationships, in my experience, never recover from a major betrayal. Once trust is ruptured, it is very difficult to act like everything is normal again. People will say things to you like, "forgive and forget," which in my judgment is nearly impossible. You are not going to forget it. Forgetting it would be approximately equivalent to being brain dead.
You can forgive another person's transgressions, but not until the two of you have had an open discussion about what led to the betrayal, what you wish to do about it now, how you're going to prevent its reoccurrence, what changes need to be made in the relationship, what amends and apologies need to be extended, and what does the behavior say about each party's needs, wishes, longings, fight style, and sense of fair play?
I intuitively mistrust the explanation, quoted above, where one person says that they thought the relationship was over, so they then thought they were free to pursue others. All adults know that occasionally their relationships will hit harder times, and they will have a choice if they want to work through the problem(s) or move on. Someone who chooses to move on is in essence saying they aren't that attached, and that the relationship doesn't mean that much to them. When the affair then doesn't work out, they then figure it can't hurt to try anew.
What I am describing are differing levels of attachment and commitment; people are not necessarily emotionally committed and attached to each other to the same levels or degrees. People also have differing levels of conflict tolerance, and different skill levels in resolving disagreements.
In the case of someone who dies or who kills themselves, the sense of betrayal is especially powerful because of how final it is: there is no ability to talk, negotiate or come to any type of resolution, and the person who survives is left with feelings of powerlessness, guilt, hurt and anger. The surviving person needs to resolve these emotions alone, although a guide is enormously useful in such cases. The most important single step in forgiving someone's suicide is in understanding what led to their behavior.
Someone has sent you a message from Heart Relationships
Trust and Betrayal
Dear Neil: I have no real trust for anyone in my life and I never really have had trust for people. I grew up with no one to count on. My mother was verbally, mentally and physically abusive to me. I was always compared to other girls. I now work in a casino in Las Vegas, as does my husband of three years. He recently accepted a position at a new casino, and the thought of him making friends with new women and working with beautiful partially nude women makes me sick This is ruining my lifeâ€"and my marriage. I don't feel like I can ever trust because I feel so seriously damaged by my upbringing. Is there any way to save a marriage when one person (me) is so untrusting and the other person (my husband) is very outgoing? Feeling Threatened in Las Vegas
Dear Feeling Threatened: It sounds to me as if you are protecting yourself from the fear of possible loss or betrayal by assuming that your husband will find some other women more appealing to you and act on it. But you could be wrong. Your husband might love you, be attached and committed to you, be loyal and faithful. Here's how you can rescue yourself from your fear, jealousy, insecurity and low trustâ€"and hopefully rescue your marriage as well. Tell your husband of your jealousy, your fear of losing him, your fear of being betrayed, and your fear of being judged inadequate in comparison to others. Accept 100% responsibility for these emotions. Explain to him that childhood didn't teach you to have faith in other people, that you have very low trust to begin with, and that this is about your insecurities and fears and not about him. Then tell him what you would need in order to feel less threatened and fearful. You might, for instance, ask for the reassurance you needâ€"even if you need reassurance a dozen times a day. If the choice is to break up the marriage or to provide his wife with almost constant reassurance for awhile, your husband may have more to gain than to lose by honoring your request. If you don't give your husband an opportunity to show you he can be outgoing and loyal, social and monogamous, you will end up betraying yourself as well as your husband by sabotaging your marriage. You might offer your husband some reassurance as well, because I bet he would like to hear you are devoted to him, and that you want to trust him. Go through the phone book or search on-line for counselors or therapists that specialize in low self-esteem. Because I would guess that you secretly don't feel worthy of a love relationship because you feel so flawed by your childhoodâ€"and that genuine intimacy therefore frightens you. If your husband is indeed acting loyal and faithful, the problem then shifts to you, and your feeling that no one could ever really love you. That's one of the results of childhood abuse, and many adults secretly feel it. People abused as children often have difficulty trusting themselves. And if you don't trust yourself, you are going to find it very difficult to trust others. If your husband isn't being loyal and faithful, well, that requires a completely different discussion. One more thing. Might the two of you consider a different line of work? Or might you consider leaving Las Vegas and living somewhere else?
FW: Subsidy
The story about 'subsidy' :
A man called Maha owns a farm which can produce 10 apples every day. He has 5 workers to operate the farm. Each of them eats 1 apple daily and it is enough to keep them operating the farm normally.
The remaining 4 apples, the landlord sells them at RM10 each and he earns RM40.
He uses the RM25 to improve the farm operation and facilities.
He gives RM2.00 to each of his workers and he keeps the remaining RM5.00 as profit.
Day by day, the farm is well developed and all of the 5 workers are happy with the money they can save.
When Maha passed away, a new landlord, Abdul, comes to continue the farm operation.
He says to the workers: 'We need to improve the farm quality and redefine our way of thinking. From now on all of you only need to pay RM1.00 for each apple you eat. It is very cheap as the price is RM10 each outside the farm.'
The workers have no choice but to pay RM1.00 for the apple they eat daily. Their earnings decrease from RM2.00 to RM1.00 per person.
As usual, Abdul sells the 4 apples and he gets RM40. He uses RM25 for farm improvement and pays RM10 to his 5 workers. He gets RM5.00 as profit. On top of that, he gets another RM5.00 from the apples that he sells to his workers. In total, he gets RM10 as profit every day.
Now ... soon, the apple price increases to RM20 each.
The new landlord gets a higher profit as he gets RM80 for the 4 apples he sells daily.
Then, he decides to give the farming improvement contract to one of his close friend, Samy.
Samy says: 'Apple cost naik, improvement cost also misti naik.'
So, the farm improvement cost increases from RM25 to RM50. In actual fact, the improvement only cost RM30. The remaining RM20, Abdul and Samy share evenly between themselves.
Let's calculate how much Abdul gets daily:
RM10 (from farm improvement cost)
RM20 (Net profit by selling 4 apples: [Gross profit, RM80] - [Improvement cost, RM50] - [Wages RM10] = RM20)
RM5 (from selling apples to his workers)
In total, Abdul gets RM35 daily compare to RM10 initially when he took over the farm from Maha. His profit increases RM25 and the workers are still getting RM1.00 daily per person.
The greedy Abdul does not want to stop there :
One day, he says to his fellow workers: 'You see ah, the current market price for one apple is RM20 and you are only paying RM1.
See how lucky you are! I have to SUBSIDISE RM19.00 for each of the apple you buy. In total, I need to SUBSIDISE RM95.00 for the apples you buy.
This will greatly burden the farm and we might go bankrupt if we continue like this.
In order to avoid bankruptcy, I need to increase the apple price that you buy from RM1.00 to RM1.50 and I will bear the remaining RM18.50 per apple as my subsidy to you all. '
So, greedy Abdul adds another RM2.50 to his current profit and the number becomes RM37.50.
After you have read the story, I am sure you have already understood the meaning of 'SUBSIDY' given by the government.
The RM95 subsidy never existed in the first place and so was the RM52 billion fuel subsidy generously 'given' by the government
Cutting fuel subsidy is actually just a reason to steal money from your own pocket ..
Greed knows NO bounds .... ! ! !
