We all SCREAM for ICE CREAM !

I read this article in my apartment newsletter, wanted to share with you all.

But did you know that your favorite flavor can actually provide some surprising insights into your personality? A groundbreaking consumer study by Alan Hirsch, M.D. of the Smell & Taste Treatment & Research foundation conclusively links personality traits to your favorite ice cream.

Strawberry – You’re Nobody’s Fool

Savvy and wise, you’re a hard worker who knows what it takes to get ahead. Everyone admires your self-sufficiency, and when you let loose you’re ready to have some fun.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – You’re The Life of the Party

Just like your favorite flavor, you’ve never lost your sense of adventure. Friends say you’re cheery and easy going. You go with the flow and always try to consider others.

Chocolate – You’re a Romantic
Can’t resist the indulgence of chocolate cone? Changes are, you’re as seductive as your favorite flavor. You love indulging in yourself, your friends and especially romance!

Butter Pecan – You’re Always One Step Ahead

Your life is always perfectly organized. You know the secret in advance preparation and you opt for an ice cream that is as sophisticated and adult as you are.

Mint Chocolate Chip – You Always Come Out On Top

You thrive on competition and usually come out ahead. You have a unique talent for visualizing and the achieving goals.

Vanilla – You Enjoy Simple Pleasures

You don’t need some new flavor to add excitement to your life. You’re busy enough already! You demand the best form yourself. You thrive on a pressure –cooker life style.

Listen Please!

People often forget to it listen, but want to be listened. It is an art to listen to people. Most of us forget to listen and are preoccupied with our own thoughts whether it is at a meeting, with friends, at home etc. It is an Art to listen, you need to have patience, concentration, above all have interest and also limit your talking. We all love to be listened but we often forget to listen to others and hurt them. Though people don’t say it out, listening is very important in our day to day life. Here it goes..
- You talk to your friend and they in turn don’t listen and start rattling off about themselves and it goes on blah , blah, blah
- You give instructions for certain work to done, and they don’t listen and end up asking you again
- You don’t listen in meetings, trainings, classes etc…
- You don’t listen to your children or your loved ones.
- You say something and the other person doesn’t listen and cuts you off..



Listen it sure makes a difference in someone’s life.

Going to any length.........

I read this article in The OC Register, I was shocked. It seems the Chinese are having surgery to become tall. What crap I thought? people get all sorts of surgery done to look beautiful from Botox to now leg surgery….

But can they defy old age, now height as well. GOD created each person to be unique and have their own features and looks, if GOD has thought differently he would have created everyone to look alike. Each person is unique and has his/her own personality, to change the physical appearances drastically, it makes one wonder, for what people leap to such great heights to look beautiful. I don’t say it is bad, but anything in moderation is good, once it exceeds the limits, it becomes our own enemy.

A person getting a leg surgery to become tall, that is “THE LIMIT” ,has he/she thought about what will happen in the old age, I’m sure they cannot stop time.
Be thankful to GOD that you are unique!

Here is the column from The OC Register, I have put the article here since you should be member to get these columns online.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Chinese are going to any length to stand tall

ANH DO
ASIAN AFFAIRS
Register columnist
anhdo_2000@yahoo.com

I first heard it from my cousin who heard it from her friends. Then I saw the published reports: In China, more and more people are paying to be tall.
That's right, paying.
Cosmetic leg lengthening is a surgical procedure growing in popularity. And while the numbers are small, it's nothing less than mutilation.
Patients have been signing up because in the Asian culture, height is something to be proud of. Many believe that the taller you are, the better you look and the more likely you will find good jobs and love.
But what do these folks endure?
Basically, they allow doctors to break their legs and insert steel pins into the area from below their knees to their calves. These pins connect to a contraption that looks like a metal cage. For about six months, they wear this device, turning the screw a fraction each day to force the ends of the broken limbs to pull away from each other.
When new bone appears, the device pushes it apart again, and the result is more new bone to fill the gap. It sounds like torture, but stories abound of men and women stretching as much as 3 inches in half a year.
"I think it's disgusting," says my cousin, Audrey Pham. "For people to go through that, it's pretty sad. I would never do it if I were short."
But that's just it - she isn't.
Audrey, 20, stands 5 feet 7 inches in stockings. She favors heels, towering over Asian adults who often look up to her as she goes from department to department at the office or on campus. She's never lived in the newly competitive society that is now China, where being closer to the ground can result in being passed over.
I logged into Internet chat rooms to learn about Chinese youths - from actors to entrepreneurs - who spend nearly $6,000 to get this treatment, though it means taking a lot of time off from earning a paycheck or a university degree. They can't help themselves, they say, living in a country saturated with images of long-legged beauties, from fashion magazines to television, from villages to cities.
It's also a country where the height craze has spawned a huge market for everything from tonics to specialty exercise equipment, where the burgeoning middle classes emerge from a Maoist cultural legacy to take advantage of a boost in the economy to boost their own appearance.
Ben Lai, a businessman from Fullerton, just returned from China this week and he isn't surprised. Young men and women "see the West and they say, 'How can we be like them in education, in image and culture? What parts are we missing? What mistakes are we making?'
"Everywhere I went, they constantly asked me: 'How can I improve myself? They are children - they are looking for hope.
"And in their mind, to be tall is to be elegant," he says. "It attracts more attention."
Attention - despite the scars that these procedures can inflict, along with isolation and excruciating pain. It's considered a good investment in an environment where, for instance, should one apply for a post in the Foreign Ministry, males must be at least 5 feet 7 inches, and females must be 5 feet 3 inches. That's in contrast to the average Chinese height of nearly 5 feet 6 for men, 5 feet 2 for women.
Thus, shooting "up" is its own form of upward mobility.
I mention this to Audrey, and with the exuberance of youth, she answers: "There are other ways to get tall," citing the importance of being active, from swimming to ballet to yoga. "Exercise stretches us in many ways, if you know what I mean."
For once, I see eye to eye with someone much younger.
________________________________________
This column on Asian cultures and communities appears every other week in Local.
Please contact Do at nvdailynews@gmail.com.


Copyright 2005 The Orange County Register | Contact u

Chocolates….

I’m the odd one out in my family, they all crave for chocolates, ice – creams, candies, cakes etc. I don’t care much for any of these, my daughter has been spoilt by her grandparents and craves for chocolates at such an young age. Though I try to restrict, nothing works. But of late I notice she has high energy levels after eating them and never like to rest or sleep even around 12 in the night.

I strongly feel the chocolates and sugars are giving her the high energy level to keep playing endlessly. I searched the web for this information and found this article.
Excerpt from the article

There is a persistent urban legend that Chocolate contains caffeine. It would seem that this rumor is based primarily on confusion between two similar alkaloids: caffeine and Theobromine. Theobromine is the active ingredient in Chocolate and it occurs only in Cacao. The two stimulants are related and have similar structures, but are very different chemicals with different properties, effects and origins. There are of course, some Chocolate products that have added caffeine, but it does not occur naturally in Chocolate.

Effects of the two stimulants
Theobromine and caffeine are similarly constructed types of pharmacologically active chemicals metabolized by the liver. Both are stimulants but with very noticeably different effects:

Theobromine
gentle
mild effect
very slow onset
long lasting
50% in bloodstream after 6 to 10 hrs
increases feeling of well being
mild antidepressant
gentle, smooth, sensual stimulation
stimulates cardiovascular system
stimulates muscular system
mild effect on central nervous system
almost no one is allergic
not addictive
no withdrawal symptoms
mild diuretic
stimulates the the kidneys

CAFFEINE
intense
strong effect
fast acting
rapid dissipation
50% in bloodstream after 2 to 5 hrs
increases alertness
increases emotional stress
jagged, nervous stimulation
stimulates cardiovascular system
stimulates respiratory system
strong effect on central nervous system
many people allergic
physically addictive
many proven withdrawal symptoms
extreme diuretic
requires large intake of fluids to balance the diuretic effect

In both cases, smoking cigarettes accelerates the dissipation from the system.
Theobromine is a strong stimulant and was used by the Spanish to keep their armies going while conquering Central and South America. Chocolate (real Chocolate, not candy) can keep you up at night -- especially very young children (but that doesn't mean that it is caffeine). Nursing mothers who eat pure chocolate will find their children happy and wide awake several hours later.

Chocolate does not trigger Caffeine allergies. (Caffeine causes me an almost immediate migraine, while Theobromine, i have discovered eases (but doesn't eliminate, unfortunately) my migraines.) I have found that when i have tasted portions of a pure (70% or greater Cacao) Chocolate bar that is 100% from the Crillo variety i have had immediate, sharp headaches

There are a number of serious health problems associated with caffeine, most of which have not been associated with Theobromine:
• Large quantities of Caffeine have shown decreased sperm counts in rats.
• Well controlled studies have suggested that 2% of miscarriages could be due to Caffeine in coffee.
• Dehydration headaches -- Most headaches (estimates range from 50% to 90%) are caused by dehydration, and one of the primary causes of dehydration in the USA is the large quantity of Caffeine that most people consume. (Caffeine laden drinks like CocaCola and Coffee don't quench your thirst, they actually increase it!)
• Heart trouble
• Stress
There are several minor psycoactive chemicals in Chocolate as well as Theobromine: Phenylethylamine, Theophylline, Tele-methylhistamine Phenyethylamine, affects mood swings by causing an initial emotional high then a short time later an emotional low. It causes blood pressure and blood-sugar levels to rise, resulting in a feeling of alertness and contentment.
It was once thought that Tea contained large amounts of Theophylline, however it turns out that Tea contains significantly more amounts of caffeine than theophylline.

And the Power goes off…..

Last night we did not have power from 6p.m to 9p.m. Our whole apartment complex, just blacked out, not sure of the reason. In India when the power goes off we just need to worry about the sultriness and mosquitoes. But here, we need to worry about food as well. No power no food, for me an extra item no phone as well, since I have a Vonage phone connection. We have experienced this power failure twice, once it was during a snow storm and we with a 5 day old baby, no heater, no food, no hot water, it was a terrible.
Though the power never goes out here, but when it goes, it paralyses life. Imagine the East Coast power failure, thousands were stranded, here basic things like power, water are all in abundance and works so well, but once it fails, the system breaks, it is because they are over dependent on all this. In India though we lack with basics like power failure often, water scarcity, life will still go on.

Marriage is not a word, but a sentence...

Lately I have been hearing small talk around my circle, with regard to marriage and how long it lasts etc. I hear people saying, nowadays girls who are educated and working don't make the marriage last a long time and they just get a divorce so easily. Sorry I beg to differ, this is solely my opinion.

Marriages are made in heaven as the saying goes, but it has to be worked out in this earth. For a marriage to work, both have to put in an effort to make it work. The feeling that working, educated women get a divorce easily is not right in my opinion, why won’t the men be wrong at all. Are the men such saints and it’s always a women fault if the marriage does not work. It is just not the responsibility of the women to make things work even when things go wrong. Men own equal responsibility for it. Each person has to respect each others feeling, be sensitive and make life livable and not make it miserable.

Some Observations in UK

Last year around this time I made a stop over at London before going to Chennai, since my SIL lives there. I was not so much for UK, though I did not travel much, since I had a 6 mth old with me. There were few things I observed while comparing to the US or may be stuck me.

1. Hot water and Cold water taps are separate.
2. There is no dryer, all the places I saw did not have one.
3. They pay a permit fee every month to own a TV.
4. All the houses are identical. They told me that the govt builds it and then sells it. Is that right?
5. There is absolutely no censor to any of the programs. (May be I saw too much of Big Brother, UK folks would know about it). The ____ word is used just like any other word.
6. The “ROUND ABOUT” as they call it, was making me go crazy.
7. The small buggy cars.
8. People talking with a raagam “AAre uu sure”, for everything using “Bloody”.
9. Here in US people generally smile and say Hi in dept stores. Oops not in UK.
10. The cashier in the dept stores sits on a high stool while billing.
11. The London Airport check in lines is crazy.
12. Unfriendly airport staff, no one to help. Very slow service.

The UK folks should enlighten us more on this.