MAGNETIC FIELDS CAN HELP YOU HEAL

ALL NATURAL LASEROLOGY

There are times when our job, boss, spouse, kids and life get on our nerves. Please don’t respond in anger or frustration. Instead, take a few minutes for yourself. Find a quiet place to contemplate the situation. Think about where you are and where you want to be. Then make a step by step plan which will allow you to achieve your goals. Keep in mind that immediate results are not likely, but if you stick to the plan eventually things will improve. Need a plan? Let us help. Comment here. 

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Aku dah tembam. Literally chubby at various parts of my body, i.e hips and face.

Need to slim down or else I won’t fit into my kebayas anymore!

Thanks to the medicine that I had taken for the past 2 months, my weight increased spectacularly.

Owh well, it is the side effects of taking that kind of medicine, if you know what I mean.

Probably I’ll buy a treadmill, owh macam la kaya sangat kan.

In the wake of Wired’s stunning exploration of how the Internet is really grounded in the physical realm, TEDIndia’s Pranav Mistry demoed his SixthSense device, which allows the physical and data worlds to interact with each other.

Watch the actual demo of SixthSense at around the 6 minute mark in the video – you can use any surface as your interface, and even do the snapshot gesture outside and actually take a picture.  Check out the video, seriously no words can do justice to how FREAKING COOL this is.

I love the gestures in Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and MacBook trackpads – because they’re intuitive, not just pre-set shortcuts.  And that’s the key that Mistry and Jobs both see – the future of computing is that intuitiveness: making things easy to use without sacrificing power.

Mistry makes another excellent point: most people aren’t interested in computing, but in information. Even most geeks ironically love our gadgets more when we barely notice them at all.

via Om Malik

I love this time of year…time to re-evaluate who we are, where we are going and what we want to be doing…just in time for the new year! My journey is moving toward trying to figure out how I gained 2.0 lbs per year for the past 20 years and ended up now where I am ….overweight…and just not happy about it!  With more and more literature out there about how fat is toxic to the body,  my mind says, “It’s time to do something about this” but my reluctance to get started stands in my way. Oh, I have given it the half hearted attempts at going to the gym “to get in shape” but never really getting serious about losing 40 lbs!  Today I am SERIOUS about weight loss!

To get started, three things must be in place for success:

1). I know something MUST change today!

2). I understand to my core that I MUST be the one to change it!

3). I believe I CAN change it and will change it.

My blog, beginning December 1, 2009-April 30, 2010 will be the outline of the ALPO DIET!  This  blog is my way of keeping myself accountable and by sharing my thoughts, ideas and outlined plan, I will keep myself on track!

What is the ALPO Diet you ask?

The ALPO Diet is the diet that if I don’t succeed in losing the 40 lbs by April 30, 2010, then I will EAT a can of ALPO DOG FOOD on May 1, 2010!!!!

The ALPO can is sitting next to the frig to remind me that horse-chunks don’t taste good and by using a little leaverage (the ALPO can) I  can keep myself on the path to success. Using leaverage to accomplish  goals helps intensify the negative (pain) and increase my desire for pleasure (feeling when I lose the weight).

I am going to specifically focus on the number 2 on the list below however, we will be working on the other four areas also!!!

The Five Things That I Believe WE MOST want in Life:

1). Emotional Mastery: Control over our thoughts and emotions.

2). Physical Mastery:  Eating for health and wellness, not for security and comfort.

3). Relationship Mastery: Feeling valued and creating value in the relationship with others.

4). Financial Mastery: Knowing how to generate income in an up or down economy and the security and comfort of knowing I live below what I generate in order to become financially secure.

5). Time Mastery: Utilizing my time wisely to create efficient “operations” in my daily life. Do things once, the right way and eliminate ineffective efforts and misuses of time. This is also the concept of using “time” to my advancement and gaining MY time on a daily basis.

More later….on my way to the gym right now for an easy, long workout to get started. I will be running only for 1 minute this week and increase it by a minute a day so that my January 1, 2010 I will be up to 20 minutes per day.

I am working out Monday-Friday for 1.0-1.5 hours per day and resting on the weekend. On the weekend it is my JOB to walk the dog (which I love) so I will do that but not go to the gym. That’s why after 31 days I will only be up to 20 minutes per day on the treadmill!

Onward and Upward…won’t this be exciting to accomplish this goal! Finally, no more procratinating…setting the goal and staying focused! Love it!

If I were in a conscious state but unable to communicate, resist outside forces, or assist in my own care… and if I had spent more than half my life lying in a hospital bed, listening and thinking… and if someone finally noticed that I was actually awake… and if I regained my ability to “speak” through the assistance of a physical therapist and modern technology… I’m pretty sure my first words would be, “Jesus, get me a fucking cheeseburger. And tell that turd-chewing brother of mine that I heard everything he said about ‘pulling the plug.’ Oh, and hey… don’t tell that redheaded nurse that I’m awake. Something tells me she’d stop coming in at night and giving herself the bowling-ball grab. Good thing she wasn’t looking for ’signs of life’ if you know what I mean!”

According to the medical community, this highlights the difference between a vegetative state and a consciousness disorder. According to this guy, whom I have no reason to believe, the line between tomato and minimally-aware tomato is the presence of intermittent responses that appear to be responses to stimuli (and not just a reflex). Now, I’ve seen a chicken play tic-tac-toe, and I’m guessing that the distinction is completely subjective.

But that’s not the thorn behind my balls. No, it’s the idea that a minimally-aware state constitutes life that has me scratching at my bleeding taint. This guy lived inside his head – and probably on the public dime – for 23 years. Weigh that against actual death after the ‘83 crash that started all this shit. It’s like Gianna Jessen. Yeah, she survived abortion, but only so she could struggle with cerebral palsy, multiple surgeries and lifelong reliance on others because she can’t do basic math. Sure, she can speak, but she can’t put buttons in a row. Plus, she’s part of the monotheistic fear machine that pushes for quantity over quality. Better off in a steel pan? I’ll let you decide… but if your decision is “no,” I’m breaking your jaw like the guy from the Reach commercials and mounting a toilet seat to your teeth.

Surviving solely to serve as an inspiration to others is bullshit. Do you really think anyone wants to be the guy that everyone points at and says, “thank god I’m not that poor bastard”? It’s the PC equivalent of a freak show. The only way to ensure that everyone gets to maintain their dignity, both in life and death, is to accept that there is such a thing as “technically alive, but totally not worth it.” Smash them in the head, turn off their ventilators, herd them into meat grinders, send a Sandman to track them down. Whatever. Just leave the living to the people who can actually live.

Caveat: Before you yank the feeding tube from my gut, make sure my 3 life goals are fulfilled. I want to meet David Bowie and listen to him play Bewlay Brothers and The Gang. Then I want to eat seven entire cheesecakes in a variety of tasty flavors. And lastly, I want to be the wrinkled, unresponsive track upon which the longest gang bang train in the history of humanity rides, each one signing a ledger as he drags his flaccid bloodbag from my overflowing knothole so that Guinness can verify the record. Then play Taps on a kazoo and light a match. Believe me; with all the booze I drink, the cremation will be short and sweet.

Seth Cluett (b. 1976, Troy, NY) is an artist, performer, and composer whose work ranges from photography, and drawing to video, sound installation, concert music, and critical writing. Engaging the boundary between the auditory and other senses, his work is marked by a detailed attention to perception and to sound’s role in the creation of a sense of place and the experience of time. Cluett’s work has been performed and exhibited by numerous institutes, galleries, and labels throughout the world. Cluett also maintains an archival collection of materials related to the exhibition of sound as art and provides access to these documents as a curatorial and research consultant. For comprehensive info please visit www.onelonelypixel.org

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ER. In your forthcoming essay for Bypass Magazine called A phatic topography: two recent works with sound, you write about familiarity, in a way ’spending time’ with a sound work may create ‘objects of an aesthetic nature.’ How important is duration in your works? Do you think an extended listening experience can somehow physicalise sound?

SC. Duration is hugely important to me. Sound mediates the experience of time, and can deliver content or context or both, which can have a big effect on how time is experienced. Sound is also physical, but for me it is precisely more a question of how this physicality is experienced in time. In particular, the notion of ‘time spent’ is super-interesting. I’ve always been fascinated by the role of the site in the production of a subject or its contribution to a sense of self, but lately I think I’ve been working more and more on making the subject the site-specific condition of a kind of site-engaged work. In this situation, time becomes increasingly important, or maybe it’s the importance of attention span over time.

ER. What about our everyday, environmental sound and time?

SC. So much of everyday life these days consists of shorter and shorter, small chunks of narrative. I think this emerges from the so-called 24-hour news cycle, rss feeds, the micro-updates attached to social networking, playlist-shuffle listening, and the immediacy of texting and cellular communication. It seems to me that these pervasively technologized and mediated forms of communication do a very specific kind of work on our consciousness. The dominant mode of our social experience is becoming an atomized, massively parallel series of state change observations that deliver constant notifications of the ground conditions in our social circles at any given moment. I don’t think this situation is inherently good or bad; it’s just a condition. But I think the tension between this fragmented mode and the odd freezing of time is presented in social space of cultural venues – galleries, museums, concert halls, what have you – has gradually become another subject of my work. I think that there is something fundamental about sound that is very effective at highlighting these kinds of shifts in perception. Sound cannot be turned away from, and in an exhibition space the decision to spend time with a fixed visual work can easily become subject to the most flitting, first-sight judgments so I’ve been creating a kind of visual object, which is mediated by sound that reaches you before you can (fully) see the work.

It’s a kind of semiotic avant-garde for the kind of details I’m interested in exploring about the boundary between urban and rural space and between public and private experience. Shifting the tenor of the space from an environment whose mode is one-work-after-another to a place that can be explored and discovered is difficult. I’m not trying to mirror something from nature, or reproduce environmental effects, but rather present a situation in which the experience rewards exploration in the same manner that any new place might unfold when one is given time to spend. In a strange way, time is becoming a form of currency in the microeconomics of this installation space.

ER. Going back to the idea of physicalising the phenomena of sound. Having worked extensively with gallery based sound installations do you think such an environment demands a certain awareness/appreciation of a visual/physical anchor?

SC. I don’t think that the gallery or museum environment demands a visual anchor, this trope shows up a lot actually and I think it’s a bit of a myth that speaks more to the practicalities and financial needs of gallery culture than it does of work. There are a number of artists whose work is successful in the absence of any visual element (save the room) Michael Brewster sculptures from the 1970s that consist only of sound and Mark Bain’s work with sound and architecture come to mind. Both of these artists have suffered from an undocumentableness though, and this I think is a shame given the strength of their work. If you’ve ever been in one of these pieces you can speak to the effects of the work, but the career of someone like Brewster has developed far more on hearsay than on the distribution of catalogues. I think this is because these pieces present a very particular problem for the curator and historian. The work itself is palpable, sensorially enormous, and embodying, but most available means of representation and documentation are inadequate to the nature of the work – it becomes ephemeral and renders photography, audio recording, text, and video, alone or in combination, insufficient to prepare (pre-exhibition publicity) or document (post-exhibition archive) the work. These pieces don’t “lack” a visual element; to suggest that would imply they aren’t complete without it, in Michael’s case the works are about the materiality of sound on par with Turrell or Irwin’s contemporaneous interrogation of light. In Bain’s work it is about architectural volume and spatial conditioning similar to Olafur Eliasson but his pieces also explore power relationships. In my own it’s about patterns of social movement and the paths of people who inhabit a space of familiarity. Any visual element has to be treated very carefully because many people will search for the easy connections and then most will stop searching.

ER. Do you think sounds aloof nature has led to a lack of acceptance and understanding in terms of curatorial awareness and nuances?

SC. Because of my archival work I’ve had occasion to speak with a lot of curators about the particularities of curating sound as an art practice. There is quite a bit of curatorial anxiety about the criteria for the legibility of a sound work. What I mean to say is that I think some curators feel less literate about how to read the content or implications of sound in a work of art – their training for this is most likely in the purely visual domain. The vocabulary for discussing sound is messy: language is sound, but gunfire, music, bird songs, and wind are also sound. Because of or alongside this perhaps overwhelming variety, there are a host of artistic practices that employ sound in so many different ways, ranging from acoustical phenomenon, social by-product, to emotional/nostalgic placeholder and everything in between.

ER. Regarding your archive, do you classify its contents as ‘sound art’?

The bulk of the archive has to do with the exhibition of sound as art, broadly conceived. This was my point of departure, and it continues to be the main criterion for my information-gathering efforts. It is very possible that some people see the distinction I’m pointing out as identical or a non-distinction. For me, though, the latter (sound as art) includes the former (sound art), and the former (sound art) is very often separated from the latter (sound in art) in our theorizations of most sound practices in the art world. Two simple examples would be Bruce Nauman’s 1969 Acoustic Wall or Jean Tinguely’s 1955 Relief Meta-Mecanique Sonore, both artworks that consider sound as a material (granted, in different ways) but which both occurred before a notion of ‘sound art’ as such existed. It is the broad idea of the treatment of sound as artistic material that I’m interested in, and I prefer to not limit myself by engaging in the process of reduction or pruning that often accompanies theoretical naming and classification.

ER. When did you start to build an archive and has collecting always, to some extent, been ‘in the blood’?

SC. The archive started 2001 in the nascent stages of a now-defunct book project. For some years before I had been developing a bibliography related to the topic, and collecting grew out of my searching and compiling. Rene Van Peer’s Interviews With Sound Artists (Het Apollohuis, 1993) and Dan Lander and Micah Lexier’s book Sound By Artists (Art Metropole/Walter Philips Gallery, 1987) were some of the first texts I came across on the subject and both are really wonderful resources – so wonderful that I really couldn’t wait to see this kind of work expanded and so I started doing it myself. There are terrific essays by practitioners in the Lander/Lexier book, but I think the really amazing thing about it is the catalogue essays it reprints. The Van Peer was a product of the second edition of the Echo – Images of Sound group exhibition at Het Apollouis. I began collecting the catalogues themselves and haven’t stopped since. I collected rocks when I was 8, comic books at 12, model trains, sounds, lists of the best sandwich shops in New Jersey… you get the idea.

ER. Do you have a physical collection of materials? If so, how conceptually, and practically do you go about the process?

I do have a physical collection, around three hundred catalogues and between seven hundred and one thousand pieces of ephemera, including but not limited to exhibition postcards, gallery information sheets, posters, pamphlets, press releases, periodicals, cds, and dvds. Conceptually, I mentioned above that the focus is on the exhibition of sound as art. That is a fairly broad category that I’ve yet to exhaust and keeping it open in that manner means that I’m constantly surprised. Practically…well, I’m a bibliophile and an obsessive collector generally, so I hunt for the rare catalogues while picking up new things as they come out. I really enjoy the searching/sleuthing part of collecting and have out of necessity become rather good at finding things. It is also important to mention here that I rely heavily on and am immensely grateful for donations from artists, publishers, curators, and galleries. Well over half of the catalogues and around three quarters of the ephemera has arrived in envelops from generous individuals who I’ve solicited directly or who have otherwise heard about the project.

ER. Two fundamental issues for archives in general consist of preservation and access, lets start with access. Are there any plans, in so far as exhibition opportunities for future public engagement?

SC. This collection is meant to be a resource for researchers, art-goers, and audiences. A number of institutions have expressed interest in possibly housing it and I’m in the process weighing the options at the moment. Next year, a small sampling of the materials will accompany an exhibition curated by Micah Silver at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York in the States. It is important to me to develop exhibitions of some of the more rare catalogues and ephemera because this work is very much alive and these documents help frame it – it’s helpful for building a collective literacy for how to talk about sound as a medium or material within art practices. These things have proven to be a marvellous pedagogical tool… when I’ve been a guest in art classes and unpack boxes of catalogues, students light up. It’s not just a textbook or their sound-obsessed teacher; it’s a four-decade history of fascinating work.

ER. In terms of preservation, is the collection of materials in any state of fragility or degradation?

SC. There are some older postcards that are beginning to yellow and fade. The acquisition of archival sleeves and boxes is gradually taking care of that, I hope. At the moment, the cassettes are the biggest problem. There is some urgency in getting them digitized, because unlike reel-to-reel tape, which has some resiliency, cassettes were never meant to last and the ones from the 70s in particular are beginning to degrade to a point where I’ll have to do something about it within the year.

ER. Do you see your collection as part of your own artistic output or a separate entity? Can you see its influence upon your work?

SC. The collection is more a part of my tendency to collect. I have collections of collections – shingles, photographs of water, hinges, recordings of rain, streams, waterfalls, children’s’ books illustrated by Arthur Rackham, springs, interesting rocks. I’m a hopeless collector, it just happens that the research archive is useful to other people, and that makes me happy.

ER. Can you remember what drew you to sound as an artistic medium?

I think that my approach to sound as a material for making art was a slow and natural outgrowth of the way I’d been hearing since I was very young. I grew up in a very, very rural part of upstate New York. My parents’ house is built in a clearing on a very large bit of forested land that borders 700 acres owned by the Boy Scouts of America. Sitting on our back porch, you could hear the wind coming from a long way off. When you finally felt the wind on your face you had been listening to it for quite a while, it was amazing. This tangible, strange experience has been with me no matter what I’m making. Also, I think there is a certain ambiguity possible with sound that I really like when I’m working. Text and image can be read quite literally and that can make ambiguity a real challenge. It isn’t that sound can’t be literal, it can rather easily, but it is much easier for me personally to limit the possible ways of reading a sound element or allow it to simply suggest an open reading. As an artist that aspect of sound is very attractive to me.

ER. And finally as always Ear Room asks, what does the term sound art mean to you?

SC. As I said before regarding the archive, I don’t see ’sound art’ as a very productive term. That said, what the term does suggests to me is a community. Painters are not paint artists, they’re painters. When they speak with one another they are part of a community of people who draw on a similar set of references, techniques, histories, influences, materials. “Sound artist” is the closest thing we have to that kind of community-marking moniker.. As an artist who works with sound, I find it very helpful to feel like I’m part of a community of people who, whether they share my particular concerns, understand (in a very real way) the vocabulary with which I work, and the problems and joys I encounter in the studio. For better or for worse, I think that there is a certain kind of translation necessary to talk to people who don’t work with sound as their medium. This has become less and less of a problem in recent years, but it is still refreshing to be able to speak natively to other practitioners. The gathering of artists under the banner of ’sound art’ is an easy way to locate those conversations.

FIN                                                                                                                          Download printable version here

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Ear Room would like to thank Seth once again for his considered and insightful words. For comprehensive information please visit www.onelonelypixel.org

I may sit with tea on a pleasant wintry day,
steam curling round my lips.
with warm comfort i may be at ease,
and all this physical kindness enjoyed,
enjoyed all the more in gratitude–
it seems a gift,
this welcome quietude.

I might have run a gauntlet of hard times,
may be in it still,
yet still there are still moments to enjoy,
moments of grace,
when i catch my breath,
when i feel the love of living–
moments to remember how blessedly wondrous is existence.

I may finish my tea on a wintry morn,
the day stretching out before me,
and i am rejuvenated through quiet reflection,
restored by loving meditation–
i go out again in the wild rush,
confident love waits for my return.

On Saturday I presented a new work at the Stanley Picker gallery during the Writing Exhibitions symposium. Here’s an outline of my work, which I called Genuine Smiles:

A sheet of paper is attached to one wall of the gallery, and attached just below it is a long piece of string with a sharpened pencil fixed to the other end. Visitors are invited to hold a pencil and do whatever they need to do to muster a genuine smile. As soon as the smile is on their lips and before it vanishes they should begin to draw a line from the smile to the piece of paper, without allowing the pencil to leave the surface, until the line from the smile reaches the most convenient edge of the paper.

The picture above is the piece of paper, which I removed from the wall and kept. Below is the paper on the wall of the gallery, continuous with its lines which also continue onto the floor:



Genuine Smiles follows on from the book of line drawings I made over the summer (more here) in which I recorded places and times by drawing lines from the pages of the book to nearby things. Once a set of lines has been drawn and the book has been put away again, the objects, furniture, walls, floor are still marked with lines, all of which converge about a single rectangular gap.

There are lots of these rectangular gaps lying around the house now. The gaps mark places in the room where the book can be reinserted, with the appropriate pages spread open, to reconnect the detached elements of the record.

The lines drawn in the book are like deictic words, which have a fixed semantic value but a unfixed denotative value (words in English like ‘you’ or ‘here’). The semantics of each line is the way it looks and the way it runs off the edge of the page, and the denotative value of each line is the thing it points at. Taken as a self-contained book, separate from the pencil marks drawn around the room, the references of the lines on the paper are frustrated. You don’t know what they’re saying other than that they mean to say something. Not waving but drowning.

The book that fills all the gaps is safe drowning on a shelf in the hallway at the moment. But even if it returns to one of its rectangular gaps and connects up to each line correctly, the other ends of the lines – the lines touching the objects I wanted to record – are still precarious. As things get rearranged, put away, tidied, nudged, so the lines that reach them splinter and rotate and move until they are pointing somewhere else, or end abruptly, or dissipate in angular ways through the house.

This dissipation returns as the failure of writing as witness that led to the biro line I drew in September, and it comes up again in a different way in Genuine Smiles.

In Genuine Smiles people are invited to draw a line from their smile to the piece of paper on the wall, using a pencil attached by a long piece of string to the paper itself. The line should be drawn continuously along whatever surfaces it takes for the pencil to reach the paper without ever leaving some ground or other. I’ve written before about my intentions for this work, and another day I look forward to writing more about how my intentions affect the work and its participants. But for now I want to focus on the movement of the line itself as it is fractured and carried apart.

I want to think about the line as a visible rendering of the relationship between a word and the thing it describes. The line is constructed from the same stuff writing is constructed from, and because of this the line feels something like an unravelled word. But it stretches and attenuates the possibility of being a word: it doesn’t occupy the same space as a word because it travels to and touches its object, and travels to and touches another object too, which is the piece of paper. At the moment the direction of travel seems less important than the fact that movement takes place. I’m not sure what to make of the piece of paper yet.

The piece of paper stuck to the wall at the Stanley Picker gallery was the place people were asked to draw their lines to. As a result it felt as though the smile was only ‘written down’ once it had touched the paper, and indeed people generally stopped their lines as soon as they’d passed the edge of the page.

Once the line was on the paper the smile was ‘kept’, and while the line was just on the wall, floor, foot, trouser leg, arm, chin or mouth, the smile was still precarious and at risk of evaporating. The line doesn’t change in quality when it reaches the paper, but something changes.

The paper is special because it is temporary and is removable and is the one part that can be kept once the event is over. The wall will be washed over, the people will go home and the lines will be cleaned from their skin and clothes. Perhaps the paper is special because pencils go with paper, so a pencil line is resolved when you conclude it on paper. It’s special also because it’s shared between all the smiles: all of them end there, and so the paper is where all the smiles go to be collected up.

I want to think more about what’s left in the gallery once the people have gone and the paper has gone too. The pencil lines remaining are tethered neither to their endings on the page nor their beginnings at our lips. Just the middle part of the deixis – the blank fact that something’s referring to something. Just smiles in passing.

Water prevents and helps to cure heartburn.
Heartburn is a signal of water shortage in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract. It is a major thirst signal of the human body. The use of antacids or tablet medications in the treatment of this pain does not correct dehydration, and the body continues to suffer as a result of its water shortage.

Not recognizing heartburn as a sign of dehydration and treating it with antacids and pill medications will, in time, produce inflammation of the stomach and duodenum, hiatal hernia, ulceration, and eventually cancers in the gastrointestinal tract, including the liver and pancreas.

Not recognizing arthritis and low back pain as signs of dehydration in the joint cavities and treating them with pain-killers, manipulation, acupuncture, and eventually surgery will, in time, produce osteoarthritis when the cartilage cells in the joints have eventually all died. It will produce deformity of the spine. It will produce crippling deformities of the limbs. Pain medications have their own life-threatening complications.

Not recognizing colitis pain as a sign of dehydration will cause persistent constipation. Later in life, it will cause fecal impacting: it can cause diverticulitis, hemorrhoids and polyps, and appreciably increases the possibility of developing cancer of the colon and rectum.

Not recognizing asthma as the indicator of dehydration in the body of a growing child not only will sentence many thousands of children to die every year, but will permit irreversible genetic damage to establish in the remaining 14 million asthmatic children.

Not recognizing hypertension as one of the major indicators of dehydration in the human body, and treating it with diuretics that further dehydrate the body will, in time, cause blockage by cholesterol of the heart arteries and the arteries that go to the brain. It will cause heart attacks and small or massive strokes that paralyze. It will eventually cause kidney disease. It will cause brain damage and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Not recognizing adult-onset diabetes as a complication of dehydration will, in time, cause massive damage to the blood vessels all over the body. It will cause eventual loss of the toes, feet and legs from gangrene. It will cause eye damage, even blindness.

Thanks to Think and Grow Rich and As a Man Thinketh. I came to realize some very important things in my life. Upon reading them, I came up with concrete plans to improve several aspects of my life. I covered 6 of them namely:

Spiritual,  Social,  Physical,  Recreational,  Financial, Intellectual,

Spiritual

By November 2011, my family and I will be experiencing a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. We will as well be sharing this good news with others. In return, I will set a good example to my family and others. I will encourage them to attend church. If possible I can invite some pastor to our house to conduct bible study and share the gospel with us. Since papa always reads the bible, he can also lead the family to start going to church. This takes time and God will make a way for this to happen in its own time. I believe this will come to reality. My faith is so strong that I can see our family going to church together and sharing God’s word with each other. This just takes time and faith in God. I will obey and trust God’s leading me.

Social

By December 2010, I would have developed a deep relationship with several close friends. Friends whom you can really depend on and trust with your experiences, disappointments etc. I will also have found the right girl for me. Simple, honest, God-fearing and nice to talk with. She is strong-willed yet submissive. In return for this, I will stop looking for flaws in people, I will start appreciating them for their positive aspects. I will not seek perfection since noone is perfect. People are just people. They will inevitably hurt us at some point. This will not be an issue. I know this is normal. and to forgive is divine. This is already happening and will continue to happen as time goes by.

Physical

By December 7, 2009, I will be toned (with around 19% remaining body fat) weighing 175lbs and waist 33-34inches. By Jan 11, 17% body fat, 171lbs 32-33inches. By Feb 8, 2009, 14% body fat, 165lbs 32-33inches waist. By March 15, 2009 , 11%body fat, 160lbs and 31inches waist. In return for this, I will devote myself to proper nutrition and eating. I know I should intake only what I use up (or even less). I will do gym visits 4×45min/week with at least 30min of cardio. This is not a short term change but rather a lifestyle change. I will be eating healthy with occassional eating for pleasure. I will also incorporate badminton/marathon to further help me with this goal. I can already see myself looking good wearing my clothes and feeling good about myself. My target again is not to bulk up but to tone down and get cut (have define muscle and 10%body fat which is the body fat level of healthy athletes 8%-12% is for healthy athletes).

Recreational

By June 2010, we will be having a nice vacation with the whole family (+kuya Jake). This will be in Palawan or Malaysia. In return for this, I will save Php10,000/month and start looking for accomodation and early-bird flights. By Feb 10, just before valentine’s day, I will be a very good photographer, I would have mastered photography concepts even winning in many photography contests local and international. In return I know this takes practice and I should be practicing with my camera at least 1 hour/week. By Dec 15, 2009, I would have found a worthwhile and enjoyable hobby that I can do for self-improvement (maybe music, arts, sports). In return for this I need to evaluate in a weekly basis what really makes me happy and what hobby I can pursue to make use of my time.

Financial

By May 2010, I will have Php10,000/month passive income Php100,000 in savings account. By Dec 2010, I will have Php20,000 monthly and Php200,000 savings account. By Dec 2011, I will have Php50,000 monthly and Php1M savings. By Dec 2012, Php80,000 monthly and Php5M in savings. By Dec 2013, Php100,000 monthly and Php50M in savings/investments. In return for this, I will be vigilant on good investments, practice living below my means. I will eliminate unneccessary monthly spendings (mobile phone, any installment plans, eliminate debts). Also take a look at the possibility of doing great business venture while staying employed for 2-3 years more. I will be reviewing my finances on a per week basis. My faith is so strong that this can be done through hardword and dedication. It just takes a good planning and stategy and help from other people to be a success.

Intellectual

By May 2010, I will have a very strong English vocabulary. This will really be a big advantage in many aspects of my life. By December 2010, I will be very very good in English. On top of that, I will be a fast reader. In return for this, I will work hard on improving these skills. I will take every opportunity to learn new words, explore their meanings, their roots and their correct usage. My faith is so strong that I can already see myself making the most out of this skill. Reading technical papers very quickly with full comprehension.

My Short and Long-Term Goals

• Plan my life, concrete plans by Dec 31, 2009

• “Failing to Plan is planning to fail!”

3-months goal

• Apply abroad (New Zealand, USA, Australia,  Malaysia, Singapore)
• Improve vocabulary
• Start business
• Improve photography
  

6-months goal

• Relocated already abroad
• Physically fit (12% body fat)

1-year goal

• Family Salvation : Gospel preached to them
• Business Stabilization
• Relocated abroad (if not yet after the original 6 months)

2-years goal

• Start family

5-years goal

• Start helping community (gospel and community work)

Indeed a very depressing week for everyone. Good thing I am enjoying my week long vacation now. I am able to reflect and plan my life. I do recognize some improvement areas. I also need to be able to face my fears and get out of my comfort zone.

Reality Check

Improvement Plans

To sum up my first month’s work on helium will be exciting because I will get to look through the first things I’ve written on helium.com and see my growth and progress through a critical lens and then share it with you!

Please enjoy!!

Always and forever

Based on three separate poems, I’ve created this poem which is basically what I consider to be an engagement, newlywed or recommitment poem about marriage, being together and loving each other always and forever and the prospects of this new way of life. Helium has rated it 2/37.

How motherhood changes a woman

A friend of mine laughed at the fact that when I started on helium, most of the articles I had written were in their Parenting & Pregnancy channel, even though I am not a mother. I just wrote to titles that stuck out to me when I joined helium and this was one of them. I found that this was a title that was part of a writing contest helium was writing and it placed me at #14 in the list of publishers who wrote for the selected titles of the contest in the topic of Parenting & Pregnancy. I don’t quite recall how I first even found the title but I want to say that through rating, I came across many titles that stuck out to me, which I then would look up in order to write for.

This article has been 1/51 but the ratings went down and I could not understand why but when I was honest with myself, I knew that the couple of typos I’d corrected weren’t the only thing wrong. I realized my article was missing key information when it comes to physical and when it comes to professional, occupational and career changes that motherhood has on a woman. So, I “leapfrogged” the article (revising, adding to and editing an article and submitting it to be rated by the helium community as compared to your original article for the approval to, ultimately, leap over and literally replace the former article), which actually resulted in it going from two pages in length to four but all I knew was that I was making sure I put what I needed to say there in order to reflect my real take on the title. Needless to say, it reclaimed its rightful place in rating!

Should teachers have a right to deny a students need to use the bathroom?

Now, I came across this title and saw that it was a debate title, meaning you can come on the page and vote yes or no and can write an article relaying your argument for your side and your stance. A writer who wrote for the “No” side had a post on her blog/helium zone with a link to vote to “protect” children in public schools. Even though I actually loved her article [even added her to my favorite helium writers list on my profile] as well as her heart, I wrote for the “Yes” side. After writing, I learned that the channel category was for Secondary Education so I leapfrogged this article as well in order to ensure it reflected high school students and high school life at a more in depth capacity than it had previously. The article is rated 1/2 for the No side. In case you’d like to know and would find it to be valuable information, there are currently 4 articles on the yes side as compared to the 2 on the no side.

The impact of father-mother relationship on children’s well-being

This is something I’ve felt extremely strongly about and am glad to have gotten off of my chest exactly what and how I feel about it. Now, others can see and learn from it and they obviously appreciate since it is rated 3/14.

Is there too much sex on television?

I definitely had no choice but to write to this title. Everyone who I know who has read the article I wrote has thoroughy enjoyed it and thought it to be accurate and insightful as well as humorous and very debate-worthy. It is fact-driven and shares personal accounts as well as it challenges and raises questions. Enough of that, though, because what I want to say to you is that it shouldn’t be a question and I think that whoever wrote for or even just believes in the No side should “go spank themselves,” as someone I know says from time to time. Needless to say, I wrote for the Yes side and all I can say now is to just, please, read it yourself. Formulate an opinion if you have not yet done so. Lastly, fight for what you believe in because change does start with one man…every one man makes things how they are and every individual man is needed for things to change, so why not just go ahead and start with you?!

This article was numer 1/54 and was leapfrogged after a while because new information arose. It still sits at the top!

So, there we have it — a poem, two debates and two parenting articles and that sums up the best of  eDITORcHRIS/Christina Bernice’s helium.com writings from October 2009.

It is good that we take the time to connect with others
with family and foster connection
relationships based on love
it is necessary in healing who we are as a whole
it is necessary in expanding our experience of love individually
it is for the best and highest benefit of both the whole and the individual
where there is separation, resentment limitation and lack of love
there need be forgiveness and expansion
moving out on faith with pure love
knowing that source will heal what needs be healed
if we act as vessels of this love
forgiving and seeing all without fault
yes
this is the love we are sending out throughout the world on a daily basis
this is the love we are focusing your attention on each day
to remind you of how powerful you are
how amazing and beautiful your love can be
how easily you can heal the world by healing yourself
by forgiving yourself
and extending that same love and compassion to others
it may seem easier to forgive others however
true forgiveness starts within and extends beyond
it is hard to see the resentment
the lack of love
for yourself so it is just as hard to see where you hold resentment
or withhold love from others
once you begin to go within and dissolve the blocks the resentment the body holds on to
the pain and frustration
pressure and dis-ease that your body stores that your mental physical and emotional bodies store
you will allow love to flow freely
allow source energy to expand within you and move outside of you
through you within you and heal all around you
for those who are willing
this path exists and it is a rewarding
fulfilling path indeed
know that you may be this vessel whenever you choose

it is a matter of practice, discipline and commitment
focus attention
all the things we have spoken many times before
it is simply a matter of you deciding now to dedicate your focus from moment to moment to being love
to growing and expanding
yes this is the path of fulfilment the path of abundance the path of a truly rewarding life on all levels
rewarding to your mind body spirit
to your soul
know that you are called to be a light not because you must but because you have the opportunity to experience real love
the only truth that lasts
and so it is

- Morning stream of consciousness writing from John Stringer

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I have been feeling a bit restless lately.  I have narrowed the cause down to a few areas…

1. I am physically UNFIT.
I need to focus on my physical health and get it in check…period.  That means going to the gym, eating healthy, and getting adequate sleep.

2. I am not where I need to be spiritually.
I have let a lot of positive habits slide over the last six months.  I need to set aside the time necessary to cultivate my relationship with Christ.

3. I am being lazy relationally.
I need to invest more in the the most important relationships in my life.

SO…what do I do about all that?  I honestly have been kicking that around for a week or two when I watched Carlos talk about what he is doing. (Go check it out…go…seriously, I’ll wait.)

I’m in…this is what I have been waiting for, the kick in the booty that I need.  So starting tomorrow, I am going for it.  Will you join me?  Let me know below or by tweeting it!

1 Corinthians 9:27 “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

We are a society of consumers. Our entire Australian society is built around serving the needs, wants and appetites of the consumer. This mindset has brought with it an over indulgence of the flesh. Per capita we are the most obese nation on earth and our medical bills and booming fitness industry is evidence that our over indulgence is having a negative effect on us.

Some people might think health and fitness is not a spiritual matter but it actually is. The Apostle Paul did comment once that bodily training has some value… Paul understood that his flesh, given free reign, could disqualify him from the race of faith. He saw the need to keep it under fire and in check not just for his physical well being but for his spiritual well being as well.

Many moons ago I used to be a personal trainer and run my own business, as well as working in fitness centers throughout Melbourne. As well as this I trained and competed as a track runner and competitive powerlifter among other sports. I have always valued my physical well being, seeing it as a spiritual issue as much as anything else. I actually feel closer to God when I am physically fit and healthy. 

Simone and I work out together on a Saturday morning in our home gym set up in our garage. We have a treadmill, free weights (barbell, dumbbell), chin up and dip bar, bench press, squat rack, swiss ball, skipping rope, step up box, mats and machine weights set up ready for a workout any time. We can be found in the ‘House of Pain’ most early mornings of the week because we see the value of keeping our flesh under fire and not allowing our physical bodies to become a spiritual weakness.

I understand that Paul’s words in Corinthians goes beyond just physical health and fitness to our thought life, words, motivations and actions of our sinful nature but I also see the need for Australians to keep their flesh under fire and take dominion over their physical well being. I want to be fit and healthy for anything that God brings my way to do and I don’t want my body to become the point of weakness in my faith journey.

What about you? I encourage you to get serious about your health and well being. Spend approximately 20-30mins each day working on your health and fitness – walk, run, go to the gym, swim, bike, lift weights, stretch, play a sport… Do something and start to rule your flesh or it will rule you. People who discipline themselves in their physical well being are also able to discipline themselves in other areas of life. It’s a principle that carries through to the spiritual.

Lead the Change!

I want to reach out and know, caress, and touch you

To remove the barrier of clothes, of time, of distance

And explore your mind, your body, your heart

I mean to possess you

Not just a temporary knowledge and not just skin deep

But touch you, all of you, and press in

Press into you

And I’d have, I’d take, I’d own a little bit of you

But I’d give you all of me, all of me

Body, mind, soul

To touch

3017211    สรีรวิทยาสำหรับนักกายภาพบำบัด    Physiology for Physical Therapist

สรีรวิทยาของเซลล์ ระบบกล้ามเนื้อ และระบบประสาท ระบบหัวใจและหลอดเลือด ระบบการหายใจ ระบบทางเดินอาหาร ระบบขับถ่าย ระบบต่อมไร้ท่อและระบบสืบพันธุ์ การควบคุมอุณหภูมิของร่างกาย ของเหลว และอิเล็กโตรลัยท์

(Physiology of cell, musculoskeletal, nervous, cardio-vascular, gastrointestinal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems; regulation of body temperature; fluid and electrolytes balance.)

(3017211 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

3017213    ปฏิบัติการสรีรวิทยาสำหรับนักกายภาพบำบัด    Physiology for Physical Therapist Laboratory

การสาธิตและฝึกปฏิบัติการพื้นฐานทางสรีรวิทยา

(Demonstration and laboratory practices on basic physiology of cells, musculoskeletal, nervous, cardio-vascular, gastrointestinal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems.)

(3017213 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

3018301    สูติศาสตร์-นรีเวชวิทยาสำหรับนักกายภาพบำบัด    Obstetrics and Gynecology for Physical Therapist

การตั้งครรภ์ กลไกการคลอด ศัลยกรรมทางสูติศาสตร์ นรีเวชวิทยา รวมทั้งสาเหตุ อาการ อาการแสดง และการรักษาทางนรีเวชวิทยาที่เกี่ยวข้องกับทางกายภาพบำบัด

(Pregnancy, mechanism of labor, surgery in obstetrics and gynecology including cause, signs, symptoms, and treatments in gynecology related to physical therapy.)

(3018301 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

I am in a fitness challenge that will begin on Wednesday. For 30 days I am going to track my progress, and do two workouts per day. I know I got injured the last time I was doing multiple workouts, but I am wiser now. My goal is to shoot for a caloric deficit of 500-750 via my diet, along with 700-1,000 additional calories being burned from exercise. I feel that is very doable, without straining myself to the point of injury.

We will see. I also need to find out about these CCNA classes because the company never called me back. As for my religious growth I am at a standstill. That stuff is soooo boring. Did you see me?? I just yawned when I wrote that. But I did make a commitment that I would make a good effort to grow in that area, so I will try to find something that I can do to bring my interest back. So I will pick that up again, as soon as I run though this 6-pack and the hookers I paid for…

Someone once told me that the definition of “crazy” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result. This holds true in a struggling marriage. The argument topics may change, but our reactions stay the same day after day, month after month, and year after year. Next time you get into an argument, why don’t you try reacting in a different way? For example, guys, act in a loving manner toward your wife and ladies, act in a respectful manner toward your husband. Then watch what happens. Comment here.

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