A couple nights ago I went to a meditation class led by my new psychiatrist, something he calls psycho-dharma.  It was pretty awesome, in retrospect, although at the time, I was a little at a loss.  Sitting Indian-style, eyes closed, legs falling asleep and lower back increasingly aching in a room with twenty other strangers for forty-five minutes is really weird at first.

I’ve had several meager attempts at meditating in the past — consulted with a Japanese-Zen master (told me to start out staring at a white wall for an hour a day), been to a meditation class at a Thai Buddhist monastery (incomprehensible chanting, prayer, incense, and trance-like “walking meditation”), spoke with a yogi in India (gave me some books on role of yoga and meditation in love, family life, and everything up to world peace) — but nothing specific ever clicked. As interesting as it was, I found the process quite frustrating and with various people thrusting more religious beliefs on me, often intolerable.

But seriously, what’s the point of meditation?  Every religion, spiritual path, faith, etc, seems to advocate reaching some higher plain of consciousness. There have been these medical  studies on the power of prayer, and they’ve proven that the brains of a Buddhist monk and a Catholic nun (in the program I watched) have significantly altered brain waves and blood pressure when they are meditating or praying.

So…if this process, some process, alters our brain function for the better, puts us in a healthier more peaceful place, yeah, attempting to get there can only be good.  Right? Right.

Especially for people with chronic psychiatric issues?  Hopefully.

After we meditated (after I tried to focus, fidgeted, panicked, became overwhelmed with emotion, and then tried to focus again), we spoke about the experience (a too-long discussion comparing human meditation to our pet cats’ and dogs’ here-and-now existence and what the difference is), and then read a text.  The Heart Sutra (full text; Wikipedia page).  It’s supposedly a very important Buddhist text, as well as one of the shortest.  And it’s far out.  Here’s an excerpt:

“See first all five heaps—all five parts to a person—as being empty of any essence of their own. Your body is empty; emptiness is your body. Emptiness is nothing but your body, and your body is nothing but emptiness. The same is true of your feelings, and your ability to discriminate between things, and the other factors that make you up, and all the different kinds of awareness that you possess: all of them are empty. And thus we can say that every existing thing is emptiness.”

It’s my homework to contemplate this text this week.  You know, it never ceases to amaze me how advanced and (if I can even say) ahead-of-its-time ancient Eastern thought was.  While most of us were still illiterate pagans, living in mud huts, eating muddy roots, and just getting by, all of this was happening in India.  Everything that exists is emptiness.  Well, golly gee.

Whether this works or not, it’s nice to be putting together a schedule.  Meditation on Sundays, Scrabble Club on Mondays, Yoga on Tuesdays (or Wed or Thurs, haven’t figured that out yet).

Have a great day folks!  I’m trying…

As we segue from the season of harvest to the winter holidays, may you enjoy the blessings of Sanctuary. A few days ago, when my daughter was home for the Thanksgiving holidays, we reminisced about our long-ago annual retreat to one of the great rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.

When she was a youngster, we’d go to a lovely lodge on the edge of the forest and enjoy a few days of quiet before the rush of the holiday season. Beside the warmth of the fire in the main lodge, we’d play cribbage, Scrabble, and Yahtze… and spend long hours writing letters and cards to family and other loved ones to honor Christmas and Kwanzaa. As my daughter grew older, she’d take her cello and practice in one of the rustic gathering rooms. We even played their old piano… serenading the staff and the few other guests who, like us, had come to pause and unwind.

That’s what Sanctuary is all about.

During this season of festivities and frenzied shopping, it’s important to pause, reflect on who and what’s important in your life, and take time to care for yourself.

Here are a few simple ways to pause for Sanctuary this season:

- Embrace the holidays with an open heart, mind, and spirit.

- Look at this season through the eyes of a child—filled with joy and excitement.

- Give the gift that keeps on giving—your kindness and a heart-felt smile.

- Reach out to others with a word of encouragement… or a simple prayer, to help them feel better and you feel more connected and joyful.

I hope you enjoy the blessings of Sanctuary and of the season—Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.

Pass It On!

Three weeks left in the semester. Add some fire and these next few weeks might literally be hell.

So what am I doing to cope with the stress? Playing “Words with Friends” (aka Scrabble) on my phone, duh. Of course what was once beautiful has been turned into an execrable activity.

Once I finally got myself to put down the phone, I started perusing the internet, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, dictionary/thesaurus.com. What can I say? I just really love words.

At least I am kicking Lizzie B’s butt (whoever that is).

To avoid writing 2 papers and a presentation for tomorrow, 150 questions and an exegetical for next friday, and  two art finals, I will tell you some GOOD news. There is about a 95% that a new, beautiful, lovely piece of equipment, known as a Nikon D700, will be mine in the next monthish. I’ve been saving, y’all. (If you know me, you know that’s next to impossible for me to accomplish).

Even though you won’t be seeing many new photos in the next couple of weeks, just wait, because it’s about to get mega-crazy….!!!!

google9ece6b38e986eb4e

Q35A7EK4BSTMQ35A7EK4BSTM

MAILLER ÉMAILLER DÉMAILLER EMMAILLER
MAILLAGE ÉMAILLAGE DÉMAILLAGE
MAILLANT, E
MAILLURE ÉMAILLURE
ÉMAILLEUR, EUSE
ÉMAILLERIE
CHAMAILLER REMAILLER RIMAILLER REMMAILLER
REMAILLAGE REMMAILLAGE
CHAMAILLEUR, SE REMAILLEUR, SE RIMAILLEUR, SE REMMAILLEUR, SE
CHAMAILLERIE
Lexique DEMAILLER, v., détricoter.
MAILLANT, E, adj. (filet de pêche) qui laisse échapper les petits poissons.
MAILLURE : tache dans le bois.
REMAILLER, v. (= remmailler). Réparer (un tricot) en reconstituant les mailles.
RIMAILLER, v., écrire en mauvais vers.

sauf exception, les verbes météorologiques ne
se conjuguent qu’à la 3e personne du singulier, à tous les temps.
Ils ont un participe passé, mais pas de participe présent.

Sont dans ce cas:

BROUILLASSER, BRUINER, BRUMASSER,
BRUMER, CRACHINER, DRACHER, NEIGEOTER, NEIGER,
PLEUVASSER, PLEUVINER, PLEUVIOTER, PLEUVOTER,
PLUVINER, RENEIGER, REPLEUVOIR, SURVENTER,
VENTER, VERGLACER. PLEUVOIR admet en plus la 3e
personne du pluriel et le participe présent PLEUVANT

Pour optimiser vos scores, concentrez-vous sur les cases Prime, c’est-à-dire les cases Lettre Double, Lettre Triple, Mot Double et Mot Triple.

Un bon conseil pour les cases Lettre Compte Double et Triple : cherchez la lettre de votre chevalet qui a la plus forte valeur et trouvez un mot qui la place sur l’une de ces cases.

Essayez de combiner les cases Lettre Double et Triple et les cases Mot Double et Triple : c’est le moyen idéal de réaliser un score très élevé sans pour autant placer 7 lettres et marquer 50 points de bonus. Par exemple, si vous placez un mot de 5 lettres qui finit par un Z sur une case Lettre Triple, et que ce mot passe par une case Mot Double, vous marquez 60 points rien qu’avec la lettre Z.

Vous pouvez aussi obtenir le même genre de score en posant une lettre de forte valeur sur l’une des cases Lettre Double des bords extérieurs du plateau, et en jouant un mot de 4 ou 5 lettres qui passe par une case Mot Triple.

* The failed Obama presidency: If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency.

* FiveThirtyEight.com considers the states where high unemployment could hurt Obama in 2012. Look alive, NC!

* Sarah Palin simply has no sense of Scrabble strategy.

* The Geography of Obesity. This maps onto the red/blue state access fairly directly; the partisan political implications are left as an exercise to the reader.

So I haven’t blogged in a while (as usual) so here’s a little update on my life.

• Im addicted to scrabble application on facebook, tis bad.  I should be doing uni work not learning random new words that I never knew even existed (and now I can’t even remember them to expand my vocab with – story of my life).
• In the wee small hours of Thursday morning whilst walking home from town I discovered a Tesco trolley, and much to Anthony’s ammusement I proceeded to push it home claiming it would do for taking the bottles to the bank.  (Anthony wanted to drag it up to my actual flat, I refused and left it in the passageway.  Then Antz dropped his phone and hopefully lost the video of me pushing a trolley.  Then I shut the door in his face, oh fun).  But anyway, back to the trolley… I eventually took the bottles and jars to Tesco under the cover of darkness tonight (with the help of Becki [well I didn't want to be a fool on my own]).  It was sooo embarrasing, the paths all bumpy so the trolley rattled a lot, and rattled even noisier due to all the bottles in it.  We got so many hacky looks off people who probably thought we were right alkies (the bottles were actually mainly from last year, just no-one had bothered to take them away).  I totally wish you got paid like 50p for each bottle and jar you recycled.  I’d probably have at least £20 out of it then….there was a lot of bottles!
• I went to see New Moon last Sunday.  It was well good but I really can’t be bothered to blog on my opinions or my laughings at the fools in the audience (I really should at somepoint, give you a laugh).
• I wrote my xmas list, its very dull and sparse.  It even has a book for uni on it, thats how crap it is.
• Spotify is working again :] so I’ve been listening to the New Moon soundtrack <3 (its on my xmas list) and Kill Hannah’s latest cd (also on my xmas list, I normally download their stuff but decided to give them some money seeing as they got their van stollen with all their shiz in it).
• I’m addicted to Misfits on e4.  I love Nathan, he has the best lines ever!  Though Simon has the nicest blue eyes ever.
• I’ve just watch season 1 of the Big Bang Theory for like the 5th time since I borrowed it off Chris.  This time I remembered to pause it at the end to read the Chuck Lorre vanity cards.  Most where pretty funny and interesting, though the 2 that said click to play dont seem to do anything, I even tried it on my laptop :[
• I'm going through a boardgame fetish at the moment...but I have no one to play with and I cant afford any new ones (I still really want Cat Attack, The War On Terrorism and Munchkin Land [think thats what its called]).
• Speaking of fetishes, someone has stollen our green wheelybin as it wasnt brought in in time (I took it out therefore I refused to bring it in).  It has our address written on but its now vanished.  The council guy said they have problems with bins vanishing round our area.  Either it’s been locked in the alley behind the chinese and laundrettes or somewhere nearby there is a person sitting in their house rubbing their hands together and laughing manically whilst gazing lovingly at their large collection of green wheelybins.  (I prefer the later option).

So I can’t think of anything else to write at the moment, my life’s not that exciting I guess

les « commandements du joueur de scrabble :

1 ) – Pour participer au jeu , à ta place t’installeras , dans le calme , évidemment ! 2) – Attentif à l’annonce des lettres , tu seras , les vérifiant au tableau , certainement ! 3) – Ton bulletin lisiblement rédigeras , en vérifiant ton compte soigneusement ! 4) – Le temps imparti respecteras , en levant ton bulletin au commandement ! 5) – Silence, entre les coups tu feras , étudiant ta grille , intelligemment ! 6) – De toute réclamation , t’abstiendras , la réservant pour la fin , uniquement ! 7) – Avec tes voisins , ne communiqueras , sous peine de sanction , autrement ! – Aucune documentation , ne consulteras , pendant la partie , naturellement ! 9) – Les sanctions des arbitres , tu accepteras , te référant à la règle , très justement ! 10)- De ton classement final , ne t’offusqueras

WAD      WAP      WU     DAW      KWA     WAX     WEB     WOK     WON     BIWA     DAUW     EWE     IWAN     KAWA     KAWI     KIWI     NEWS

Mots avec la lettre « Q »sans « U » :

BURQA COQ QAT CINQ/ QANUN QIBLA PAQSON QASIDA QATARI (E) QATARIEN …. IRAQIEN… IQALUMMIUQ QARAÏTE MUQARNAS. NUNAVIMIUQ NUNAVUMIUQ . Mots avec la lettre « Q »sans « U » : BURQA COQ QAT CINQ/ QANUN QIBLA PAQSON QASIDA QATARI (E) QATARIEN …. IRAQIEN… IQALUMMIUQ QARAÏTE MUQARNAS. NUNAVIMIUQ NUNAVUMIUQ . BURQA COQ QUE/ QUI/ CINQ/ QUAD QUAI QUEL… QUIA/ QUID/ QUIZ QUOI/ ARQUE+ ASQUE BIQUE BUQUE+ CAQUE+ COQUE DUQUE+ EQUIN… JAQUE LAQUE:+ LOQUE MAQUE+ MOQUE+ NIQUE+ NUQUE ORQUE OSQUE PAQUE PIQUE+ POQUE+ QANUN QIBLA QUADO QUAND/ QUANT/ QUARK QUART QUASI QUETE+ QUEUE QUEUX QUICK QUIET… QUINE… QUINT… QUIPO QUIPU QUOTA RAQUE+ ROQUE+ SAQUE+ SQUAT SQUAW TAQUE+ TIQUE+ TOQUE’+ TUQUE VAQUE+ BURQA COQ QUE/ QUI/ CINQ/ QUAD QUAI QUEL… QUIA/ QUID/ QUIZ QUOI/ ARQUE+ ASQUE BIQUE BUQUE+ CAQUE+ COQUE DUQUE+ EQUIN… JAQUE LAQUE:+ LOQUE MAQUE+ MOQUE+ NIQUE+ NUQUE ORQUE OSQUE PAQUE PIQUE+ POQUE+ QANUN QIBLA QUADO QUAND/ QUANT/ QUARK QUART QUASI QUETE+ QUEUE QUEUX QUICK QUIET… QUINE… QUINT… QUIPO QUIPU QUOTA RAQUE+ ROQUE+ SAQUE+ SQUAT SQUAW TAQUE+ TIQUE+ TOQUE’+ TUQUE VAQUE+

KA     KAN    KHI    KID    KID     KIF   KIFE+     KIL    KIP   KIT     KOB    KOP    KOT+   KSI/    KWA    KYU      LEK    OKA    SKA    SK1+     TEK    WOK     YAK   AKAN    AMOK    ARAK    BEKE     BERK/     BOCK    BOOK     BRIK     CAKE     COKE    CREEK DESK    DOCK     DUNK    DYKE      FOLK     FUNK     HAKA    HAÏK     IKAT     INUK

JACK   JERK+     JUNK    KADI    KAKI    KALE    KALI    KAMI    KANA     KAON    KAPO     KART    KATA     KAVA      KAWA  KAWI     KEPI     KEUF    KEUM     KHAN     KHAT    KHÔL     KICK     KIEF     KIFER+    KIKI     KILO     KILT     KINA     KINE    KIWI     KOKA     KOLA     KORA     KORE     KOTE+    KOTO      KRAK     KSAR     KUNA     KURU     KVAS     KYAT     LACK    LAKH     LOOK     MAKI     MARK     MOKA     MOKO    NAKFA    NECK  OKA   PACK     PUCK     PUNK     RACK     RAKI     ROCK  SAKE    SAKI    SIKH    SKAÏ     SKAT     SKIE+     SKIF    SKIN     SKIP     SKUA     SOUK   TAKA     TANK     TECK    TEK    TREK   TIKI  YAK     YACK     YUKO     ZOUK+

JE     JAB    JAM    JAN      JAR    JAS     JET     JEU    JOB    JUS    AJUT     DEJA/  DOJO    EJET     HADJ    HAJE     JACK    JACO    JADE     JAÏN…    JAIS    JALE

JARS   JASE+    JASS+  JAVA    JAZZ    JEAN     JEEP    JERK+     JETE+    JEUN/

JEUX    JEZE     JOIE    JOJO    JOLI     JONC     JOTA    JOUE+   JOUG    JOUI+  JOUR     JUBE    JUDD   JUDO    JUGE+  JUIF…    JUIN   JUMP+    JUNK    JUPE    JURE+    JU R Y     JUTE    FEUJ    MAJE    NAJA    PUJA    RAJA    SOJA     TEJU

Today would be the start of my blogging episode and I am starting it here, right here in wordpress.com. This excite me so much because starting this day, I can now put into writing what I feel and think about anything and everything. I can also blog in here my idea about what is current and the upcoming happening or event. It maybe about my personal life, the society, politics, showhiz and everything under this earth worth the talking.

I crossing my fingers that someone will follow me here in wordpress and on twitter and give comment on my blogs. I am aiming a significant number. I know this means a lot of work, a lot of ideas to burst into writings. And I mean good writings.

So guys, keep in touch and stay updated by constantly visiting my new place.

Click here for more of Jebra!

Thank you very much in advance.

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge. -Albert Einstein
1879-1955″

Liste des mots de deux lettres

Les mots de deux lettres constituent la ration de base du scrabbleur. Ils sont rarement utilisés en tant que tels (sauf ceux à lettre chère ou en fin de partie), mais ils permettent de jouer en pivot. Connaître tous les mots de deux lettres est crucial ; pour les apprendre, il suffit pourtant de jouer des parties. Leur fréquence d’apparition suffit pour les retenir. La liste que nous proposons est étoffée des mots de trois lettres formables à partir d’un mot de deux lettres (AH => BAH).