Chinise Proverb

"Talk doesnt cook rice" ( Chinise proverb)

(Din's addition: It doesnt cook rotee either!)

SAFSPACE: Lofty expectations

SAFSPACE talks about lofty expectations we have of people when we meet them for the first time. I fully agree with her. Now and then, I see peoplegetting disappointed with other people. More often than not the disappointment is self inflicted.

In some cases, the people with the expectations don't hold themselves to the same standard that they expect other people to live up to---A case of looking outside the window before looking at your own reflection in the mirror. On the other hand, as a result of these lofty expectations you may assume that other people hold you to the same standard that you hold them to which can either result in over-self criticism and low confidence or it can lead to further criticism of people around you just to make sure they are not doing better than yourself in terms of meeting your self defined standard. Anyways read the article.

SAFspace » Lofty Expectations

In the beginning, you are enthralled. When you speak to her for the first time, she is all glory and fascination. So polished, so passionate, so clever – you are privileged to be in her company, so desperate to be her friend. So you meet her in a little café. How’re things going, you ask lightly, tempering your excitement for fear of frightening her away. And you sit down, order something sweet, and settle in for a good hour’s talk. And then she says something that surprises you. Out of character, you think.

South Asian Cooking

The Desi cookbook.

Found off DP.

A website with a variety of recipes of South Asian foods including rotee!!

Facing Facebook...the Din way....

Well. Over the past few months I have been asked several times: "Are you on Facebook?" My reply is : "no... "

The fact that more and more people ask me about my presence on Facebook, as if it is a given that I should have a presence on Facebook has made me think or evaluate as to why I am not on Facebook.

The reason for not being on Facebook is not my laziness, neither is it an anti-corporate boycott ( like it is in the case of Wal-mart). I guess part of the reason for not getting on "Facebook" is based on my 4 month ( approximate) flirtation with Orkut---another soical networking website back in 2004. I remember finding Orkut fascinating as I was able to instantly connect to several of my high school ( or primary school..) classmates ..with whom I had been out of touch for an extended period of time. In addition, I was able to connect to local freinds too. PLus I was able to familiarize myself with newer friends by looking at their, social circle and the groups they were signed up to on the social networking site ( i.e. Orkut). Given the above benefits, I loved logging on to Orkut and was fascinated by it.

However sooner then I could realize what I was doing, the reality of Orkut-addiction donned upon me. I was spending many hours exchanging messages and connecting with people far away, while I let higher-priority tasks slip away in my real (non-cyber world) life. Moreover, I was addicted to browsing people's profiles to see what they were upto, which also had no tangible positive impact on my daily reality. The positive impacts that I was achieving through orkut could also be achieved though email which was less time consuming than orkut. These factors made me reconsider my position on Orkut and eventually led to the deletion of my Orkut account soon thereafter.


I guess Facebook is similar in some ways to Orkut though I have been told that it is better in the sense that it allows you to choose people who can view your profile, etc , etc. In other words you control the privacy of your profile. Nevertheless my expireince with Orkut has
made me vary of such a site. And i do not wish to test the utility of Facebook given the risk of addiction that lingers with such tests.

Anyhow, I am not "against" Facebook per say. I am "for" a cautious approach when dealing with Facebook.


After all it is a tool and if you know how to control and use it properly thenthere is nothing wrong with it. Howver if the tool controls your life then you know it is not a tool anymore, it is a
monstor!!

Peace, love and ...cows

ANimals can be good teachers. I had a cat thoughout my youth and taking care of the cat taught me a few things about life and death ( when it died).

I never had a chance with cows. One of those things I missed out on I guess. For now I can learn from what someone else learnt from cows:

Peace, love... and cows | csmonitor.com

I was 12 when I started spending summers on my uncle's farm. That's when I took Cow 101. And those lessons have guided me through the past 60 years.

On that first day when I met Jenny, Jasmine, Janice, and Jackie, I fell in love. Those cows came wandering in from the field, walked right over, and put their heads into the stanchions. Then they looked up at me with those big tender eyes. I tell you, I could see love in their faces –and I felt the same way. As I got to know those girls, I learned five important truisms about life.

1. Cows don't hurry.

The girls never rushed into anything. In fact, getting milk cows to run is not an easy matter. I decided to try following their example and slowing things down myself. Nowadays you can't get me to hurry anything.

2. Cows live on the "grazing principle."

The girls followed the fresh grass – wherever it might lead. They didn't worry much about an exact route. They just went along until it was time to head for the milking shed.....READ ON

Web MD: What makes wives happy

Interesting....

What Makes Wives Happy?


What do wives really want? A new study shows that for the typical American woman a happy marriage combines both modern and traditional ideas of partnership.

In a survey of 5,000 married women, wives who felt that their husbands were emotionally engaged were the happiest in their marriages. But wives who worked outside the home were not as happy as wives who didn't.

Far more than financial status or equal division of household chores, the single most important predictor of marital happiness among the women in the study was the
level of their husbands' emotional engagement. Wives who shared the view that marriage is a lifelong commitment with their husbands were also happiest in their relationships.

A more controversial finding was that women in the survey were happiest when their husbands were the main breadwinners for the family and when they did not work outside the home..................READ ON"

PAKISTAN: Toxins from tanneries endanger Kasur's residents

Oshawa, my current place of residence used to have lots of tannerires and that fact is still considered something to be aware of when conducting environmental investigations. In Kasur the tanneries are up and running as this artcle elaborates:

KASUR, 1 May 2007 (IRIN) - For most of his adult life, Muhammad Rauf, 38, has worked at a hide-tanning factory in the Pakistani border town of Kasur. He applies large quantities of water and chemicals to raw animal skins as part of the laborious process that turns them into finished leather.

"I know my work well. It supports my family and two years ago I was made a supervisor," Rauf told IRIN in Kasur.

But at the same time, he is increasingly worried about the acute pollution problems caused by tannery waste, which has badly polluted ground water, impacted on the health of local residents and has also affected crops grown in the area. READ ON

Electronic Lebonan: Environmentalists urge quicker clean-up as oil-spill again threatens sea

Oil contamination is the worst kind of contamination there is. It can stay in the ground forever if it goos untreated..... 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of oil sends shiver down my spine:

Black slime coats beaches and oozes into rock pools in northern Lebanon, nine months after an oil spill led to international pledges to clean that stretch of coast. Oil clings to beach after beach north of Byblos, an ancient fishing port that is one of Lebanon's main tourist attractions.

Israel bombed an oil refinery in Jiyyeh, south of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, during its conflict with the armed wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah last July. The bombing caused the refinery to spew an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of fuel oil into the Mediterranean Sea. It was Lebanon's worst environmental disaster, say environmentalists. Read on

Toronto Star: Selfish desires taint altruism

Karen Zhou discusses the flip side of having activities which focus on the activity rathar than the purpose of the activity.

Actually in my later years in university a lot of development issues were beecoming a fad to arrange events about. which was good in one way but on the other hand some people would organize a lot of stuff without actually questioning the results of those activities....

anyways read the article below..

Volunteering is altruism in action. Based on the principle of altruism, volunteers are not motivated by any sense of selfish desire for something in exchange for their service.

Unfortunately, in contemporary society, I have encountered many people whose sense of altruism is questionable.

There are more people today whose service to the community appears driven by the expectation of an extrinsic reward rather than an inner
desire to help the needy.