Still here Travelers

Wow.. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I wrote anything on my blog! I’m finally back after a crazy crazy couple of months of work/politics/etc. Hopefully I can start writing again about my experiences in Africa, Europe, Asia and N. America. I guess I’ll have wanderlust in me forever and the passion to talk about it to anyone who’ll listen. Almost hand in hand with any kind of travel, goes photography. So I’ll be writing more about that. I know I only have one article so far.

Big Exam!!

Dear World!

I have a really big exam (one the will probably determine my fate for a few years to come) tomorrow and am scared to death that I won’t pass. I know this kind of belief goes smack bang against the Law of Attraction, but, like most of the world’s population, I tend to worry about such stuff. SO ANYONE READING THIS, PLEASE PLEASE PRAY THAT I PASS. I WILL VERY SINCERELY BE THANKFUL OF YOUR HELP. I know it probably sounds a little selfish, but I feel like I’m at the bottom of the career pit right now, and I really want to get out of it and get back to making a difference in other people’s lives asap. That’s all I ask, PLEASE PRAY FOR ME.
THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR PRAYERS!

Ah! Perfection.

While on this sudden pilgrimage to perfection (no this isn’t a religious one - “not that there’s anything wrong with that!” as Seinfeld would have said), I realized one area that needs continuous improvement is that big (hopefully) grey amorphous mass in my noggin - i.e. my dear brain. This of course is more important as I get er… wiser. The whole reason behind my mental quest may, I think, be traced back to my Boss, for better or for worse. I ended up feeling so hopeless, I succumbed to what I normally would have passed off as baloney, but ended up stumbling upon the Law of Attraction. See the link for more details. Does it work? I’m not sure, its probably too soon to say. Either way, its something to think about.

Many of us have heard of the saying “you are what you eat” and many researchers agree with that. The majority of the focus though, has been below the neck, as the effects of eating convenience foods are easily translated into, well, for lack of a better word, fat! Fret not though, if you’re “big-boned” and are eating the healthiest of meals and still not seeing dramatic improvements - this may not be your fault (or whoever fed you), because there is a so called “fat gene” that has been identified and hopefully some day people will find a way to turn it off.

Since a majority of research/money/advertising is focused on areas below the neck, the rest then must be on our brains. Yes we do need to exercise our brain and feed it right - this is no longer just something mom said to get us to eat right, but perhaps as factual as the existence of water. So as I was digging up some information on turning myself into an overnight genius phenomenon (well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit), I found some useful things at this website:

New Scientist

If you have iTunes, you should subscribe (its free!) to the BrainReady BrainCast (just search it from within iTunes. This is a podcast with very useful mental exercises you can perform just about anywhere.

Also, when you need the daily caffeine boost after lunch (yes I’m guilty of that too and I ironically I’m sipping on a latte as I type this!), you should apparently try instead, eating a little bit of unsweetened dark chocolate (if possible get 100 % cacao). If its too bitter for you, powder it and turn it into hot chocolate with a bit of sugar. You could also eat walnuts with that. Super healthy, both of these things.

There is indeed an almost infinite amount of websites that’ll give you tips on exercising and eating right for your brain, some though, sadly are a little too “out there” for me, with seemingly ridiculous claims. So, really, if you’re going to discriminate anything, be smart and make an educated guess as to whose claims seem reasonable and whose don’t and you’ll be on your way to brain bliss (minus the pot). With your brain, it really is a case of “use it or loose it”, as you get older.

It Works?!

Well, maybe, although its certainly too soon to say. I’m actually referring to my previous post about the so called “Law of Attraction“, which essentially says that if you keep thinking about something/circumstance, that is indeed what will manifest. So the claim is that if you’re thinking about avoiding something, you will actually manifest what you’re trying to avoid, whereas if you think about yourself enjoying success over something, then that is what will manifest (yes I know it sounds really new-agey and nebulous).

So the whole reason I decided to try out this interesting (and seemingly unrealistic) mindset really was to get myself out of the crapshoot I’ve been in for a few months now (refer to previous post for juicy details). I am very skeptical about any claims that have no tangible/measurable evidence (which is probably why I’m working on being a scientist), but I really was at my wits end and was willing to try anything (legal of course). Therefore inspite of being a skeptic, I am open minded to most ideas (except for McDonalds on the Moon!), so I decided to try this Law of Attraction thing, give it a chance and see if there is any truth beyond the advertising and new age garbage. I really do want to believe in it, really - I’ll be happier than most if it does work!

Basically what I’m doing is some form of visualization/psyching myself up and “feeling” like I’ve achieved what I want to already - but I try to do this for a little while everyday, and not mope about why I’m constantly pissed at my boss and recurring circumstances. I’ve been doing this for little situations for the last couple of weeks and it seems like things are getting better (on the surface at least) and I’m feeling less stressed out (fewer hairs falling). If this does work, I want to find a logical reason as to why it does and try not to relegate all responsibility and power to “the universe”.

Has anyone else used this? Lemme know!

Law of Attraction? What?? How??

Hello world!

I’m back after a long long hiatus of not blogging. It turns out the last several months my life was in the crapshoot and I’ve been trying my best to salvage what I have left of my sanity and move forward towards something more productive and hopefully more gratifying. Things got really annoying for me at work and I wasn’t sure how to deal with what I (and apparently a whole lot of other people) thought was a psychotic boss (see separate blog entry on that). Anyway, pain in the behind aside, I happened to be shining in all my sad glory one day and surfing the web at the same time and came across this so called phenomenon. There’s this DVD called The Secret, that I’m sure many of you have heard of. Of course, I hadn’t heard of it at all because I was wasting all my energy bitching about my boss.

Without too much detail, in case you haven’t heart of The Secret, its essentially a self-help type of movie where at a basic level you’re told to keep thinking positive and visualizing no matter what and you’ll eventually manifest what you were thinking about. Its all summed up as the “Law of Attraction”. It doesn’t seem like anything novel per se, but oh well, they had a viral ad campaign, so I guess now the secret is no longer secret. I also found some useful information on StevePavlina’s blog.

What I would like to know first of all is, does this mindset really work? Is it pragmatic or just wishful thinking and saying everything will be fine and the world will be a better place if we think it will? How many people can honestly say that it worked for them and have proof to show it did? I’m not talking about people who’re just now saying it works because they want it to work in the future. I’m asking about people it has ALREADY worked for. The reason I’m being so anal is because I want it to work for me, I truly do, because I need to get out of my current predicament (and don’t go saying I should start by forgetting about my predicament). I want to get my career in order and communicate better with my boss who, in my opinion is extremely hypocritical amongst many other things. I don’t want to switch jobs either right now because if I do, it will set me back at least 4 years to where I want to be soon.

Well, I’d love to hear from anyone for whom this “Secret” way of thinking has worked (or not) and also PRACTICAL ways of making it work.

Thanks in advance!

Flock Browser & Blogging

I just downloded Flock, a Gecko-based browser that allows one to blog from within the browser. This is my first post using Flock, hopefully it’ll workout fine.

There’s also supposed to be a picture I pasted in here. The picture’s from a show I went to a few weeks ago.

Where are my posts?!

I can’t seem to find my latest posts on wordpress using the tags I put on the posts. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I checked to make sure that their status was “published” and that they’re all public. Any help?

Zanzibar

Zanzibar, often times also called the spice island, is such a beautiful place. I was lucky enough to live there when I was a kid and miss it so much now. Zanzibar is probably about 75 km or so (from Dar - es - Salaam) off the coast of mainland Tanzania. It has a very rich history (you can obviously look it up elsewhere).

How to get there:

You can either fly or sail, period - not to complicated! From mainland Tanzania, there are a lot ( I mean a lot!) of flights (both commercial & chartered) that fly to Zanzibar. The island has an international airport, so there are also many flights from major hubs in Europe, the Gulf and Asia that go through. As for sailing, there are fast Hydrofoils (which have economy & first class seating!) and huge Catamarans and several other types of boats that people normally use to get across the channel between Dar-es-Salaam and Zanzibar.

What to Do/See:

Well, genius, first of all, its an island, so there is a lot of water (the Indian Ocean in this case) around. This obviously means you can do a lot of “water stuff”, especially considering the waters are pristine.

Diving/Snorkeling: I absolutely love diving or snorkeling near resorts a little further away from the city. Zanzibar has one of the busiest ports in the region, so you might get run over by a ship - so long SpongeBob! There are a few dive shops around the island too. If you do end up staying at any one of the resorts, they might even have some gear they’ll loan to you - just ask. You can also of course, go fishing around the coast, but if you want bigger game, you need to get to deeper waters north and east of Zanzibar.

Stone Town: This is essentially the old city (from the days of the Sultanate) center. What you’ll see here are narrow cobbled streets lined with buildings that have what laymen call “Zanzibar Doors”. These are elaborately carved wooden doors that have been around for hundreds of years. The design is an intricate mix of Arab, Indian and African. There are also many little “hole-in-the-wall” shops selling just about anything from small trinkets to gold to electronics - funny huh? I think there is also an old fort or two that will give you some great photo-ops.

Beaches!: Zanzibar has loads of these, real nice ones too. Some are hidden, secluded, but do your homework and you’ll find them! Many beaches have nearby resorts so you can just stay there, instead of staying downtown (though that really isn’t too far from most beaches). The plus-side of staying downtown maybe that you’ll get cheaper hotels. I don’t know about you, but I could spend a whole day just relaxing on the beach doing a whole lot of nothing (even if I had a million dollars!). The beaches in Zanzibar are ideal for that - so idyllic.

Wildlife: Apparently there is some wildlife on the island. All I saw when I was there were a bunch of monkeys (including a few rare Colobus monkeys). But I’m told that there are some leopards, etc too. Well, I wasn’t really looking for them when I lived there - I just went to school and did kid stuff!

Well, that should summarize the major categories of things to do in Zanzibar - hopefully I’ve wet your appetite (for travel and food) enough to go visit the island. Speaking of food, I’ve got to admit, the food in Zanzibar is just excellent, because it is a combination of food from several geographically diverse regions in the world - just fantastic. Enjoy!

Disappearing Posts, One & Bono!!

Recently I posted some info on Bono making an appearance (well apparently he didn’t) on American Idol, with a link to the One Campaign. Somehow, that post disappeared (my “nondexterous” fingers probably deleted it by mistake). Well, either way, what I was really getting at was to have people think about the One Campaign to end poverty (no, its not just some douche-bag tree-hugger’s dream) and look through the net of ways to do so.

While you guys (general statement at all sexes, for any sod that might throw a fit) are out on the net looking up ways to “make the world a better place” (not a-la miss whatever pagent), you should also try to find out about Micro-Lending and what you can do to help (really, its probably cheaper than 5 happy meals - period!). You can find more here or here.

Alternative Energy - why give a crap?!

What the f@!? is alternative energy and who gives a s@#!? Good question - but before we get into what it is, why not answer the second part (who gives a s@#!). I think everyone should give a s@#!, because it does and will at some level affect us all either now or soon enough. Heck, you might end up paying less for gas, your home electric bill, and even your medical bills or health insurance!! So although money doesn’t translate to happiness (yes, I agree with the hippies too man), its one less thing to worry about if you have less of it disappearing every month.

So what do we mean by “alternative” energy? What makes it alternative and not conventional? Typically, burning of fossil fuel is considered as conventional (although some argue that nuclear and hydro are now conventional too). One of the biggest problems with fossil fuels is that they are non-renewable - our little blue planet will run out of the good stuff at some point (which is not too far in the distant future, based on current consumption rates). The other huge problem is Global Warming! Burning fossil fuels leads to the release of vast quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. This ultimately leads to dramatic weather pattern changes globally and everybody (and any lesser creatures) ends up real pissed off (or in some cases, dead!), because of floods, droughts, hurricanes, too much snow, glaciers melting (see my previous post on Kilimanjaro - I’m pissed off!!), etc etc.

There are many so called alternative energy technologies out there, some commercialized, some still experimental and some just plain weird (see cartoon above). But most people would feel safe using solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric power, geothermal energy, biofuels, wave energy or even blended fuels which contain ethanol. Each one of these sources obviously has its pros and cons and people are working to make them as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible. There are of course more experimental methods too.

So why did I write about this? Well, the purpose of this post was to get you thinking about alternative sources of energy and how/why they would affect you and why the whole idea (well its more than an idea, especially since millions of dollars are being invested into it) isn’t just a “I want to save the world” statement by a tree-hugging pothead. Hopefully once you read this post, you’ll do some more digging around on your own, talk to other people etc etc. The reason for this is that if you know how a certain problem affects you directly, you can get a better grasp of whats going on globally. So when somebody says that there was a severe drought in an impoverished region (where 20 years ago there was temperate weather) and a good chunk of the population died, you can start thinking not just about how global warming might have caused that drought, how your local coal plant (or the bazillion vehicles on the road) contributed to it, but more importantly, how YOU as an individual can start making small lifestyle changes that would help you and everyone else.