My days & nights

Why I miss her?

2010-01-28T11:56:00.002-06:00

I dont know why I miss her...but every day...and every moment I crave her voice, her phone call...I was never this alone before...I know I never will be!
O Allah forgive our sins...and bless us with your people...those who love you!

IQ quiz

2009-11-21T20:03:00.001-06:00

Quiz

HELP YOUR CHILD BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE

2009-11-21T19:28:00.001-06:00

12 WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE

Developing Your Emotional Intelligence

2009-11-21T19:25:00.000-06:00

Top Ten Suggestions

1. Become emotionally literate. Label your feelings, rather than labeling people or situations.	Use three word sentences beginning with "I feel". Start labeling feelings; stop labeling people & situations "I feel impatient." vs "This is ridiculous." I feel hurt and bitter". vs. "You are an insensitive jerk." "I feel afraid." vs. "You are driving like an idiot."
2. Distinguish between thoughts and feelings.	Thoughts: I feel like...& I feel as if.... & I feel that Feelings: I feel: (feeling word)
3. Take more responsibility for your feelings.	"I feel jealous." vs. "You are making me jealous." Analyze your own feelings rather than the action or motives of other people. Let your feelings help you identify your unmet emotional needs.
4. Use your feelings to help make decisions	"How will I feel if I do this?" "How will I feel if I don't?" "How do I feel?" "What would help me feel better?" Ask others "How do you feel?" and "What would help you feel better?"
5. Use feelings to set and achieve goals	- Set feeling goals. Think about how you want to feel or how you want others to feel. (your employees, your clients, your students, your children, your partner) - Get feedback and track progress towards the feeling goals by periodically measuring feelings from 0-10. For example, ask clients, students, teenagers how much they feel respected from 0 to 10.
6. Feel energized, not angry.	Use what others call "anger" to help feel energized to take productive action.
7. Validate other people's feelings.	Show empathy, understanding, and acceptance of other people's feelings.
8. Use feelings to help show respect for others.	How will you feel if I do this? How will you feel if I don't? Then listen and take their feelings into consideration.
9. Don't advise, command, control, criticize, judge or lecture to others.	Instead, try to just listen with empathy and non-judgment.
10. Avoid people who invalidate you.	While this is not always possible, at least try to spend less time with them, or try not to let them have psychological power over you.

More Tips

- Ask others how they feel -- on scale of 0-10

- Make time to reflect on your feelings

- Identify your fears and desires

- Identify your UEN's (Unmet Emotional Needs)

- Express your feelings - find out who listens, understands, validates you and cares.

- Develop the courage and self-confidence to follow your own feelings

- Work on managing your negative feelings

- See the list of feeling words to practice improving your emotional literacy

Useful Things to Remember

- Your "negative" feelings are expressions of your unmet emotional needs (UEN's)

- Each negative feeling has a positive value

- Awareness of your feelings increases self-knowledge. Self-knowledge aids self-improvement.

- Actions and behavior are motivated by feelings. We can often choose how we respond to an emotion. Remembering this helps us feel in control, which is empowering. Taking responsibility for meeting our own needs is also empowering.

Managing Your Negative Feelings

Ask: why something bothers you.

Look at the relationship between your unmet emotional needs, your childhood, and your beliefs.

Consider the possibility that some of your beliefs might be dysfunctional and remember that beliefs can be changed.

Remember that accepting responsibility helps release resentment.

Re-frame the situation as an opportunity for personal growth.

Change some of your demands and expectations into preferences to make them less emotionally powerful and addictive.

Emotional intelligence

2009-11-21T19:20:00.001-06:00

Emotional intelligence for leadership.

THE MOSQUE OF CORDOBA

2009-07-12T14:25:00.001-05:00

The cycle of day and night [is] the engraver of events.
The cycle of day and night [is] the essence of life and death.
The cycle of day and night is a two-colored thread of silk
with which the being weaves its attire of traits.
The cycle of day and night [is] the lamentation of the musical-instrument of the origin
through which the being shows the vicissitudes of possibilities.
It tries you, it tries me;
the cycle of day and night is the examiner of the cosmos.
If you're impure, if I'm impure
[then] it leads to your funeral procession, it leads to my funeral procession.
What else is the truth of your days and nights;
a surge of the time sans day and night.
All the marvels of the skills are transient;
the existence of world is ephemeral! The existence of world is ephemeral!

[The fate of] the beginning and the end is death, [the fate of] the unseen and apparent is death.
Be it an antiquated imprint or the latest one, its last destination is death.
Yet there exists a hue of eternity in this imprint;
the one that has been completed by some man of God.
The actions of the man of God get accelerated with [the help of] love.
The essence of life is love; death is forbidden for it.
hough the gush of the time is intense and fast
love itself is a tempest that restrains [other] tempests.
In the calendar of love, besides the contemporary age,
|there're other ages too that don't have names.
Love is the mainstay of Gabriel, love is the heart of Mustafa.
Love is the Messenger of God, love is the message of God.
The flower looks dazzling because of the intoxication of love.
Love is the undiluted wine, love is the wine-cup of a munificent drinker.
Love is the jurist of the Shariat, love is the commander of the army.
Love is the traveler because of which it passes through thousands of stages.

The lifeline streams out of the plectrum of love.
The radiance of life is due to love; the fire of life is because of love.

O Mosque of Cordoba! Your existence [too] is because of love.
Love is infinite time that's beyond the cycle of transient time.
Be it painting, architecture, music poetry or calligraphy,
all these arts thrive on the intensity of love!
The intensity of love turns a stone into a heart
[and] it's love that bestows depth of feeling, exhilaration and melody to the voice.
Your environ is charming, my songs are poignant;
you make the hearts bow before God, I make the hearts capacious.
The bosom of man isn't inferior to the empyrean throne of God
though his body is made of earth and is mortal.
Though the angels [also] prostrate before God
but their prostration lacks poignancy.
[Though] I'm an infidel from India, behold my earnestness
[that] my heart prays benison for the Prophet, my lips do the same.

The zeal is in my tune, the zeal is in my flute;
the hymn of God is in my essence.
Your grandeur and beauty manifests the man of God;
he too is eminent and handsome, you too are eminent and handsome.
Your foundation is stable, you've countless pillars
[which look like] the rows of palm trees in the oasis of Syria.
The radiance of Sinai valley is spread over your nooks and corners;
this tall minaret of yours is the place of manifestation for Gabriel.
The pious Muslim can never be eliminated, for
his calls for prayers reveal the mysteries of Moses and Abraham.
His land is limitless, his sky is boundless;
the surge of his sea is spread over Tigris, Danube and Nile.
His reigns have been awe-inspiring, his tales have been extraordinary;
it was he who commanded the antiquated epoch to perish.
He's the cupbearer to those who have taste, he's the cavalier of the field of passion;
his wine is pure, his sword is of high trait.

He's the soldier whose armor is [the belief in] one God;
under the shadow of swords his refuge is [the belief in] one God.

Through you the mysteries of the pious Muslim,
the warmth of his days, the poignancy of his nights,
his lofty position, his exalted thoughts,
his exhilaration, his passion, his humility, his dalliance, have been revealed.
The hand of God is the hand of the pious Muslim,
which is triumphant, effectual, resourceful [and] skillful.
[He possesses] the traits of both man and angel and the attributes of the Lord;
his heart, though carefree, is richer than the two worlds.
His expectations are few, his objectives are sublime;
his style is irresistible, his sight is captivating.
[He's] soft while conversing, passionate while in action;
be it the battlefield or a social gathering [he's always] pious and orderly.
His faith is the focal point of Truth
and the rest of the cosmos is illusion, sorcery and unreal.

He's the destination of reason, he is the output of love;
he's is the warmth of the assemblage in the circuit of cosmos.
You're the Mecca of the designers, the apostle of the grandeur of Islam;
by virtue of you, the land of Spain has become as hallowed as that of Mecca.
If any other model, as exquisite as you, exists in this world
it is in the heart of a Muslim and nowhere else.
Alas! Those men of Truth! Those Arab cavaliers!
The possessors of 'inspiring character', the followers of truth and faith;
their rule has revealed this simple mystery
that the State ruled by the faithful is pro-poor, not monarchical;
their insights have trained the East and the West;
their reasoning was the guiding force in the darkness of Europe.
It is because of their blood that, even today, the Spanish people
are friendly, hospitable, simple and handsome.
In this country, even now, [people's eyes] look like those of gazelle
and, even today, the arrows of their sights are enchanting.
The aroma of Yemen, even today, is mixed in its winds;
the tunes of Hejaz, even now, are fused in its songs.
In the eyes of the faithful your land's estimation is equal to that of sky.
Alas! Your environ has not heard the call for prayer for centuries.
In which vale, at what destination,
the strong caravan of the zealous lovers [of God] got stuck up.
Germany has witnessed the Reformation
that has erased all the imprints of antiquated faith;
because of which the piety of the Pope has become an erroneous term
and the subtle ferry of reason sailed on its course.
France too has experienced the Revolution
that has changed the world of the Westerners.
The Roman nation that has been submerged in retrogressive culture
has, once again, become powerful because of the new ideas.
The soul of the Muslim nation too is experiencing similar unrest;
what lies ahead is a mystery of God that I can't reveal.
Wait and see what spurts out of the seabed;
the blue dome [of sky] changes to what colour.
In the vale, surrounded by the mountain range, the cloud is swallowed up by the redness;
the sun has set leaving behind the mounds of rubies from Badakhshan.
The song of the farmer's daughter is simple and poignant;
youth is like a tempest to the vessel of heart.
O stream of Kabeer! On your bank
someone is perceiving the dream of some other age.
[Though] the coming world is still covered with the curtain of destiny,
before my eyes its beginning is uncovered.
If I remove the curtains from the face of the [future] thoughts
the Western people won't face up to my songs.
The life that has no place for revolution is death
[for] the spirit of the nation lies in struggle and revolution.
The nation, which takes stock of its actions in each age,
develops into a sword in the hand of death.
All the imprints are incomplete in the absence of love and endeavor;
melody is like a crude insanity in the absence of love and endeavor

Baby, it's all good! - A modern hijab poem

2009-07-11T01:04:00.001-05:00

Baby, it's all good! - A modern hijab poem

Author unknown

What do you see when you look at me
Do you see someone limited, or someone free
All some people can do is just look and stare
Simply because they can't see my hair
Others think I am controlled and uneducated
They think that I am limited and un-liberated
They are so thankful that they are not me
Because they would like to remain 'free'

Well free isn't exactly the word I would've used
Describing women who are cheated on and abused
They think that I do not have opinions or voice
They think that being hooded isn't my choice
They think that the hood makes me look caged
That my husband or dad are totally outraged
All they can do is look at me in fear
And in my eye there is a tear

Not because I have been stared at or made fun of
But because people are ignoring the One up above
On the day of judgment they will be the fools
Because they were too ashamed to play by their own rules
Maybe the guys won't think I am a cutie
But at least I am filled with more inner beauty
See I have declined from being a guy's toy
Because I won't let myself be controlled by a boy

Real men are able to appreciate my mind
And aren't busy looking at my behind
Hooded girls are the ones really helping the Muslim cause
The role that we play definitely deserves applause
I will be recognized because I am smart and bright
And because some people are inspired by my sight
The smart ones are attracted by my tranquility
In the back of their mind they wish they were me

We have the strength to do what we think is right
Even if it means putting up a life long fight
You see we are not controlled by a mini skirt and tight shirt
We are given only respect, and never treated like dirt
So you see, we are the ones that are free and liberated
We are not the ones that are sexually terrorized and violated
We are the ones that are free and pure
We're free of STD's that have no cure

So when people ask you how you feel about the hood
Just sum it up by saying, 'Baby its all good'

Shaheed e hijab

2009-07-07T17:32:00.001-05:00

Egyptians angry over German court slayingStory Highlights

2009-07-07T17:30:00.000-05:00

•Sherbini killed in courtroom as she prepared to give testimony against man

•The man was convicted of calling Sherbini a "terrorist," "bitch" and "Islamist"

•Many Egyptians shout hostile slogans against Germany during her funeralJuly 7, 2009 -- Updated 0502 GMT (1302 HKT)Next Article in World »
(CNN) -- Hundreds of Egyptians took part Monday in the funeral of Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death last week in the German city of Dresden in a crime believed to be racially motivated.

Egyptians take part in the funeral of Marwa Sherbini, who was murdered in Germany last week.
Sherbini, 33, was stabbed to death Wednesday in a courtroom as she prepared to give testimony against a German man of Russian descent whom she had sued for insult and abuse.

The man, identified in German media as Alex A., 28, was convicted of calling Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, "terrorist," "bitch" and "Islamist" when she asked him him to leave a swing for her 3-year-old son Mustafa during an August 2008 visit to a children's park.

He was fined and appealed the ruling. The two were in court Wednesday for that appeal when Alex A. attacked, pulling out a knife and stabbing Sherbini 18 times. He also stabbed her husband three times and attacked another person.

According to Arab media, police officers tried to intervene to end the fight, and a number of shots were fired. One hit the husband, who fell unconscious and is currently in intensive care in the hospital of Dresden University.

Sherbini was three months pregnant at the time of her death.

Hundreds attended Sherbini's funeral in Alexandria, Egypt, her hometown, among them government officials, including Egyptian Manpower Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi and Telecommunications Minister Tariq Kamel, Egyptian media reported.

Many shouted hostile slogans against Germany and called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to take a firm stand on the incident. Egypt's grand mufti, Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, demanded the severest punishment to be issued against Alex A.

Berlin witnessed angry protests on Saturday, when hundreds of Arabs and Muslims demonstrated after a funeral prayer that called her killing an outrageous racist murder against Muslims.

In a phone call with Al Arabiya, Marwa's brother, Tariq Sherbini, said, "Extremism has no religion. My sister was killed simply because she wore the veil. This incident clearly shows that extremism is not limited to one religion or another and it is not exclusively carried out by Muslims."

"We are only asking for a fair punishment," he said, adding that his sister was not a radical. "She was a religious woman who prayed and wore her headscarf, but she was killed because of her belief."

Anger about Sherbini's death smoldered online, as Twitterers and bloggers pushed the cause.

"She is a victim of hatred and racism," tweeted Ghada Essawy, among many other Arab twitters and bloggers. Essawy called Sherbini "the martyr of the veil."

Various videos circulated on YouTube calling on Egypt to take action and urging Germany to address what their makers saw as a new wave of hatred against Arabs and Muslims in its community.

One video showed various pictures of a young happy Marwa saying that "The woman stood up for her rights and she was killed. May God bless her." The English font in the video presentation asked "when will Egypt cares for its citizens' rights inside Egypt and abroad."

Sherbini and her husband moved to Dresden in 2003, after the husband received a grant to study genetic engineering in the renowned Max Planck Institute. He was scheduled to present his Ph.D. thesis in the coming day

Merwa Sherbibi 'headscarf martyr'

2009-07-07T17:25:00.001-05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8136500.stm

Egypt mourns 'headscarf martyr'

Marwa Sherbini is being hailed as the shahida, or martyr, of the Hijab
The body of a Muslim woman, killed in a German courtroom by a man convicted of insulting her religion, has been taken back to her native Egypt for burial.

Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Axel W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder.

Husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife.

Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a "terrorist" because of her headscarf.

The case has attracted much attention in Egypt and the Muslim world.

German prosecutors have said the 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Axel W, was driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims.

'Martyr'

Medics were unable to save Ms Sherbini who was three months pregnant with her second child. Her three-year-old son was with the family in court when she was killed.

Axel W and Ms Sherbini and family were in court for his appeal against a fine of 750 euros ($1,050) for insulting her in 2008, apparently because she was wearing the Muslim headscarf or Hijab.

Newspapers in Egypt have expressed outrage at the case, asking how it was allowed to happen and dubbing Ms Sherbini "the martyr of the Hijab".

Senior Egyptian officials and German diplomatic staff attended the funeral in Alexandria along with hundreds of mourners.

Media reports say Mr Okaz was injured both by the attacker and when a policeman opened fire in the courtroom.

How to Start a Revolution

2009-06-29T11:33:00.002-05:00

by JONATHAN on May 21st, 2009

I’ve found the secret to being excited about waking up every day; and I’ll tell you what it is right now. It’s starting a Revolution. I didn’t always think in these terms though…
I used to ask: What can I gain? How can I turn this into a business that will support me?
I focused on helping others by sharing my perspective, but that was the extent of it. When I did that, working on this blog would be exciting sometimes, and at other times it would feel like just a chore.
Now, I can’t even contain my energy for the work I’m doing. I feel like there’s electricity in the air. I’ve changed my mindset and made the decision to do something epic. Now I’m focused on creating a social movement of people living on their own terms. Because of this, I’ve moved from ego-centric to collective-centric.
It’s bigger than me now.
Guess what happens when you make something bigger than you? You get plugged in. You become connected to this amazing source of energy that was never previously available to you.
Now I ask: How can I take action that will support this vision? How can I create momentum to further ignite this revolution?
Waking up excited
The biggest benefit to working on a revolution is that it gives you an insane amount of energy. Working on a revolution will make you want to wake up. You might even have a hard time falling asleep at night, because you’re so motivated to take action on your vision. This is how I feel when I’m laying in bed thinking about all of the awesome stuff I’m doing with this blog and with Project Mojave, and my plans to expand this project into something even bigger.
So if creating something worth remembering is likely to make you a thousand times more productive, why isn’t everyone working on something like this? I think more people would devote themselves to something greater, if they just knew how to do it.
I often spend a lot of time talking about perspective and cultivating an authentic state. While that’s all good, I want to switch gears here to practical and logistics of the application of these perspectives.
First, we need to define what it takes to create a Revolution…
It has to be something you care deeply about and would be willing to devote your life to.
It should be something that will help other people.
It should have a long term impact.
It has to be remarkable; it has to be worth sharing and bigger than you.
Working toward a revolution often involves the pursuit of being an ordinary radical.
Your revolution must have a distinctive quality to it that is caused by you working in it. It wouldn’t be the same if someone else did it. But it is definitely a collective movement created by similar values.
Secondly, how do you discover what Revolution you’ll start?
This is probably the most difficult question to answer and where 99% of people get stuck. It’s impossible for me to completely guide you in this pursuit, because you’ll have to do a lot of exploring.
You’ll probably start some projects and have to let them go, because they didn’t work or they weren’t a good fit for you. This can be difficult to do when you’ve invested a large amount of time in them, but ultimately it’s necessary to throw away a lot of good ideas, if you really want to find what bigger purpose you want to devote yourself to. Mediocrity must be sacrificed in the wake of greatness.
Creating a meaningful revolution demands the habit of quitting a lot of things.
I currently have 30 drafts in my blog admin area. At least 28 of those won’t see the light of day.
I’ve gotten really good at throwing away ideas, because I care about producing only things of remarkable value. I feel that if I’m not supporting something compelling, all I’m doing is contributing to the noise. I would rather not water down my content or pollute the already congested content sphere.
So the best advice I can give in this area is to fearlessly walk your path. Generate lots of ideas and be willing to throw most of them away. Practice. The more you practice the more you’ll be able to refine and shape your vision. This might sound odd, but it’s only really through the constant movement in the direction of what you might think your vision is, that you’ll find what your true vision is.
It might start out with something that you’re kind of, sort of passionate about. You like it enough to work hard at it. Then a few months later, you’ve gained enough experience working on it to have explored other possibilities. Now you decide that part of what you originally set out to do still applies, but it looks different than it did at first. Then another few months of work go by and your vision is refined even more.
It’s only this kind of walking the path that brings clarity. Don’t wait for clarity or your “one true purpose” before you start. Please, please, don’t do that. It will never happen. Epiphanies are found in the dirty, messy circuitous routes of practice.
Other than practice, there is an awesome, invaluable tool to help you figure out what your revolution will consist of. And that’s asking questions.
I think asking ourselves questions is one of the most powerful, overlooked things you can do. If you can develop the habit of initiating these kinds of conversations with yourself on a daily basis, you will achieve greater things you could have otherwise envisioned.
Here are some potent questions to get you started:
What do you teach others simply by being you?
What would you spend your time on, even if you didn’t get paid to do it?
What do you find yourself researching and can’t stop yourself from learning more about?
Is there anything you would consider yourself an expert in? If not, is there anything you’d like to be an expert in?
What gifts do you have that you’d like to make available to the world?
What do you want to change?
What lessons do you often find yourself repeating in life?
How does your purpose impact your local community? How does it impact your family? Your friends? The world?
What does your tribe (the people you most connect with) look like? What do you identify with on a collective level?
What legacy do you want to leave behind when you’re gone?
All of these questions aren’t meant to come up with the one-true-answer; they’re simply an impetus for getting your mind moving. Try combining asking these questions with mind-mapping. Have conversations with people, get their feedback. Connect with like-minded people and use them as a sounding board to explore your ideas. Just remember to stay true to yourself.
The most important thing is not holding back. Allow yourself to be ridiculous and completely authentic.
Now it’s time to start creating.
Moving from thought to action.
Once you’ve figured out what your project will look like, it’s time to start taking action. It’s time to stop thinking about it and start cultivating.
Just like discovering what to work on, a lot of people get stuck on how to start. It seems daunting when you’re staring up at a mammoth of a project from ground zero. There are so many things to do, so many approaches you could take, so many options.
But there is a reach, I promise you. And there is even that elusive grasp. But it only comes from starting. It only comes from not caring about what step you’ll take next, but just caring about the fact that you are taking a step.
The necessary ingredients to every revolution:
A revolution can be big or small. Whether you’re trying to change the education system or change the way people look at folding underwear, what matters is that you are passionate about it.
Rally your tribe. No revolution is a revolution without a group of people that share similar values. If you get really clear about your cause, you will easily be able to spot these people and make connections with them. Before long, you will likely not even need to seek them out. They will come to you.
Tap into your outrage. Most revolutions involve some kind of outrage or anger. This is a good thing. Your anger can be a gift if you use it wisely and don’t let it consume you. Use your outrage and your passion to fuel your action for change.
The cause rules. Movement and direction of your revolution should be dictated by the demands of the cause. Guru worship or leader exaltation results in the cause becoming obscured. Avoid these things so the movement is centered on the mission, and not a single individual.
Break down actionable steps. What change needs to be made and how will those changes best be accomplished? If the status quo needs to be interrupted, how will you deal with the resistance? Are you willing to stay true to your cause despite the protesters you will be faced with?
Keep the end in mind. It’s easy to get side-tracked with things that might seem to benefit your mission, but are really just distractions. In order to be effective, you must learn to cultivate an unshakable focus on your ultimate aim. Triage ruthlessly. Anything that does directly or indirectly benefit your cause, is a weed suffocating and diluting your objective, and it must be pulled.
Once in a while you’ll question whether or not you’re up to the task.
But something else is even scarier: what you left behind.
The ordinary, conventional, safe, secure, default life that you could have chosen instead. That’s what’s really scary. Remember that and you’ll be okay.
Everyone’s project will be vastly different, all I can offer are the necessary ingredients I’ve found. So instead of offering more practical advice, I’ll tell you about…
My Revolution

Since I wrote this article about work being sacred, I’ve given a lot of thought to creating something bigger than me. (Chris Guillebeau’s post Creating a Legacy Project and Charlie Gilkey’s Do Epic Shit, also spurred me to think more deeply about this.)
I’ve always aimed to be remarkable with my writing and this blog. Actually, there’s never been a time in my life where I’ve really pursued something in the hopes of being just okay.
So reaching to be uncommon and exceptional wasn’t a challenge for me, but the idea of creating some bigger than me was. Being unconventional and providing value is one thing. Creating an entire social movement, now that’s nothing to shake a stick at.
That is my reason for waking up. That is something I live for. That is something that gets me excited about being alive.
Thinking in terms of leading, or at least stimulating a collective revolution, really made me rethink what I’m doing with this blog. It made me think about something bigger than just me and my ambitions.
Thinking about this forced me to crystallize how all of the stuff I do fits into a universal picture. I still have the same plan, I still have the same style, that’s not changing. What is changing is a deepening of community and purpose.
So this is my revolution:
To create a movement based on authentic action. A social revolution of people liberating themselves through living on their own terms.”
That’s it. That’s my reason for waking up.
How this revolution will take form is something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to.
The plan
As you can probably guess, the medium for my revolution is mainly, this blog. But it’s also the ebook, the liberation manifesto, my work with Project Mojave, and the other products that I’ll later release (that are currently in development). I plan to develop a collection of products (some free and some for sale) aimed toward creating personal freedom that will outlast me when I’m gone. Some of my ideas may seem dissimilar, but they are all related to stimulating a social movement of living on your own terms.
Some of this collection of resources will come in different forms. Obviously there will be blog posts, but there will also be ebooks, physical books (later down the line, when I become famous, of course), and possibly some audio and video courses.
The best part about this is I now have a crystallization of one underlying intention behind everything I do. The way my action manifests might be different, but the purpose is unified.
All of the stuff I’m creating revolves around a similar theme: unconventional methods for improving your life and living more authentically. I want to help promote this revolution in an unconventional way. My aim is to create a wealth of resources for people that are easily bored with the same approach and crave something different. I want to appeal not just to the typical self-help typecast, but to punk rock kids, iconoclasts, recovering lawyers and cubicle-dwellers, people living off the grid, and people that aren’t satisfied with the status quo. I want to connect with those that question supposedly unquestionable belief-systems, and those that want live on their own terms.
My message is personal and collective liberation, my style or medium is an unconventional, renegade kind of approach. The message is my core passion and purpose, the medium is the style that I most resonate with.
My project isn’t about prostrating myself as a guru and saying “follow this one true way.” I simply aim to say “Hey, this seems like an interesting idea, and it’s worked well for me. Plus it’s a pretty interesting and uncommon way to live.” Not a lot of people are killing their goals, giving up caring and embracing ADD.
My project is to create an abundant wealth of information and resources for people interested in non-traditional modes of living. That’s it. That’s my legacy. And I think it absolutely kicks ass. It keeps me up at night, and makes me excited to wake up the next morning.
Others may think that this project is totally lame or downright silly. And that’s okay. It’s my legacy, not theirs.
I’ve found a meaningful pilgrimage to devote my life to, in the service of this cause and the service of others. Knowing that, I’m no longer perpetually searching. My actions are guided by a coherent mission.
Keeping perspective
Creating a revolution to me is something worth living for. But it’s also important to remember that the little things in life are what really makes a difference. You can be fighting AIDS in Somalia, but if you’re an asshole to your sister, it kind of negates the rest of it.
Remember that even if you’re thinking big, it’s the small things you do every day that make a difference.
Massive change and working toward social change is awesome, but it’s also how you live your life on a daily basis that matters most. It’s how you interact with people you meet on the sidewalk waiting for a bus, or in line at a cafe. It’s how you treat your loved ones and family that makes a difference. It’s the small things that create the possibility for huge change.
In short, it’s not just having your eyes on the future and how things will be when your aim is realized.
Because it’s right here, right now. That change is possible. It’s this moment that we must live in.
That’s where transformation culminates.
It’s in this moment that the revolution takes place.

Deen_ki_khidmat

2009-06-15T19:09:00.018-05:00

Pop Culture in the Name of Islam

2009-05-27T09:53:00.000-05:00

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Written by Yvonne Ridley
Monday, 24 April 2006
I FEEL very uncomfortable about the pop culture which is growing around some so-called Nasheed artists. Of course I use the term ‘Nasheed artists' very lightly. Islamic ‘boy bands' and Muslim ‘popsters' would probably be more appropriate. Eminent scholars throughout history have often opined that music is haram, and I don't recall reading anything about the Sahaba whooping it up to the sound of music. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people letting off steam, but in a dignified manner and one which is appropriate to their surroundings. The reason I am expressing concern is that just a few days ago at a venue in Central London, sisters went wild in the aisles as some form of pop-mania swept through the concert venue. And I'm not just talking about silly, little girls who don't know any better; I am talking about sisters in their 20's, 30's and 40's, who squealed, shouted, swayed and danced. Even the security guys who looked more like pipe cleaners than bulldozers were left looking dazed and confused as they tried to stop hijabi sisters from standing on their chairs. Of course the stage groupies did not help at all as they waved and encouraged the largely female Muslim crowd to "get up and sing along." (They're called ‘Fluffers' in lap-dancing circles!) The source of all this adulation was British-born Sami Yusuf, who is so proud of his claret-colored passport that he wants us all to wave the Union Jacks. I'm amazed he didn't encourage his fans to sing "Land of Hope and Glory." Brother Sami asked his audience to cheer if they were proud to be British ,and when they responded loudly, he said he couldn't hear them and asked them to cheer again. How can anyone be proud to be British? Britain is the third most hated country in the world. The Union Jack is drenched in the blood of our brothers and sisters across Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Our history is steeped in the blood of colonialism, rooted in slavery, brutality, torture, and oppression. And we haven't had a decent game of soccer since we lifted the World Cup in 1966. Apparently Sami also said one of the selling points of Brand UK was having Muslims in the Metropolitan Police Force! Astafur'Allah! Dude, these are the same cops who have a shoot-to-kill policy and would have gunned down a Muslim last year if they could tell the difference between a Bangladeshi and a Brazilian. This is the same police force that has raided more than 3000 Muslim homes in Britain since 9/11. What sort of life is there on Planet Sami, I wonder? If he is so proud to be British, why is he living in the great Middle Eastern democracy of Egypt? Apparently the sort of hysteria Sami helped encourage is also in America, and if it is happening on both sides of the Atlantic, then it must be creeping around the globe and poisoning the masses. Islamic boy bands like 786 and Mecca 2 Medina are also the subject of the sort of female adulation you expect to see on American Pop Idol or the X-Factor. Surely Islamic events should be promoting restrained and more sedate behavior. Do we blame the out-of-control sisters? Or do we blame the organizers for allowing this sort of excessive behavior which demeans Islam? Or do we blame the artists themselves? Abu Ali and Abu Abdul Malik, struggling for their Deen, would certainly not try to whip up this sort of hysteria. Neither would the anonymous heroic Nasheed artists who sing for freedom; check out Idhrib Ya Asad Fallujah, and you will know exactly what I mean. Fallujah is now synonymous with the sort of heroic resistance that elevated the Palestinians of Jenin to the ranks of the resistance written about in the Paris Communeand the Siege of Leningrad. The US military has banned the playing of any Nasheeds about Fallujah because of the power and the passion it evokes. If those Nasheeds had sisters running in the streets whooping and dancing, however, the Nasheeds may be encouraged because of haram activity surrounding them. Quite frankly, I really don't know how anyone in the Ummah can really let go and scream and shout with joy at pleasure domes when there is so much brutality and suffering going on in the world today. The rivers of blood flow freely from the veins of our brothers and sisters from across the Muslim world. Screaming and shouting the names of musical heroes drown out the screams coming from the dungeons of Uzbekistan where brothers and sisters are boiled alive in vats of water. How many will jump up and down and wave their arms in the air, shouting wildly for justice for our kin in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine, and Iraq? There are many more killing fields as well across the Asian and Arab world. Will you climb on theater chairs and express your rage over Guantanamo Bay and other gulags where our brothers and sisters are being tortured, raped, sodomized, beaten, and burned? Or will you just switch off this concerned sister and switch on to the likes of Sami Yusuf because he can sell you a pipe dream with his soothing words and melodic voice? Oh, Muslims, wake up! The Ummah is not bleeding; it is hemorrhaging. Listen not to what is haram. Listen to the pain of your global family.

USMLE STEP 1 schedule

2009-05-17T02:12:00.002-05:00

1st Week:
BIOCHEMISTRY
June 8-13

Monday Chat:
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Nucleic Acid Structure and Organization
DNA Replication and Repair; Transcription and RNA Processing

Tuesday Chat:
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (cont)
The genetic Code, Mutations, and Translation
Genetic regulation; Recombinant DNA; Genetic testing

Wednesday Chat:
MEDICAL GENETICS
Single-Gene Disorders
Population genetics
Cytogenetics
Gene Mapping and Cloning
Genetics of Common Diseases
Genetic Diagnosis and Gene Therapy

Thursday Chat:
METABOLISM
Hormones
Vitamins
Overview of Energy Metabolism
Glycolysis and Pyruvate Dehydrogenase
Citric Acid Cycle and Oxydative Phosphorylation
Glycogen, Gluconeogenesis and the Hexose Monophosphate Shunt

Friday Chat:
METABOLISM
Lipid synthesis and storage
Lipid mobilization and catabolism
Amino Acids, proteins, and Enzymes
Amino Acid Metabolism
Purine and Pyrimidine Metabolism

2nd Week:
ANATOMY

June 15-20

Monday Chat:
EMBRYOLOGY:
Gonad Development; Week 1; Week 2; Weeks 3–8, Embryonic period

Tuesday Chat:
HISTOLOGY AND CYTOLOGY
Cell components
Nervous Tissue; Muscle tissue
Lymphoid Organs; Integument
Respiratory System; Gastrointestinal System
Renal/Urinary System; Male/Reproductive System
Female/Reproductive System

Wednesday Chat:
GROSS ANATOMY AND ORGANOGENESIS
Back and nervous System
Thorax; Abdomen, Pelvis and perineum
Upper Limb; Lower Limb; Head and Neck

Thursday Chat:
NEUROSCIENCE:
Peripheral Nervous System
Central Nervous System
The Ventricular System
The Spinal Cord
The Brain Stem
The Cerebellum
Visual Pathways
Diencephalon
Basal Ganglia
Cerebral Cortex
The Limbic System

Friday Chat:
(Begin Physiology because short week for Thanksgiving)
GENERAL TOPICS
Membrane Transport
Body Compartments

EXCITABLE TISSUE
Ionic Equilibrium and Resting Membrane Potential
The Neuron Action potential
Synaptic Transmission

3rd Week:
PHYSIOLOGY (cont)
June 22-27

Monday Chat:
PERIPHERAL CIRCULATION
General Aspects of the Cardiovascular System
Regulation of Blood flow

SKELETAL MUSCLE
Excitation-Contraction Coupling
Skeletal Muscle Mechanics

CARDIAC MUSCLE
Electrical activity of the heart
Heart muscle mechanics

Tuesday Chat:
RESPIRATION
Lung Mechanics
Alveolar-Blood Gas Exchange
Transport of O2 and CO2 and the regulation of respiration
Four causes of Hypoxemia

RENAL PHYSIOLOGY
Renal processes
Clearance
Regional transport

ACID BASE DISTURBANCE

Wednesday Chat:
ENDOCRINOLOGY
Mechanisms of Hormone action
The Hypothalamic anterior Pituitary system
Adrenal hormones
ADH and regulation of Osmolarity and ECF
The Endocrine pancreas
Growth Hormone
Adrenal Medulla
Hormonal Control of Calcium and Phosphate
Thyroid Hormones
Male reproductive system
Female reproductive system

GASTROINTESTINAL PHYSIOLOGY

Thursday Chat:
Off for Thanksgiving

Friday Chat:
Off for Thanksgiving, or review of Physio

4th Week:
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
June 29-July 4

Monday Chat:
Epidemiology,Statistics
Social Life in the US
Substance Abuse

Tuesday Chat:
Human Sexuality
Learning and Behavior Modification
Defense mechanisms

Wednesday Chat:
Psychologic health and Testing
Child Development
Sleep and sleep disorders

Thursday Chat:
Organic Disorders
Psychopharmacology
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV)

Friday Chat:
Ethical and legal Issues
Physician-patient relationships

5th Week:
PATHOLOGY by Goljan
July 6-11

Monday Chat:
1. Cell Injury
2. Inflammation

Tuesday Chat:
3. Fluids/hemodynamics
4. Neoplasia

Wednesday Chat:
5. RBC and WBC
6. Lymphoproliferatives

Thursday Chat:
7. Coagulation
8. Blood Bank

Friday Chat:
9. Cardiovascular
10. Respiratory

6th Week:
PATHOLOGY by Goljan (cont)

July 13-18

Monday Chat:
11. Gastrointestinal
12. Hepatobiliar / Pancreas

Tuesday Chat:
13. Renal/ Lower Urinary
14. STD / Gynecology

Wednesday Chat:
15. Endocrine
16. Musculoskeletal

Thursday Chat:
17. Skin
18. CNS/Special senses

Friday Chat:
Overall Goljan review

7th Week:
IMMUNOLOGY
July 20-25

Monday Chat:
INTRODUCTION
Innate Immunity
Acquired (Adaptative) Immunity
Immunoglobulins and T-cell Receptors
Immunoglobulins and T-cell Receptor (TCR) Genes

Tuesday Chat:
Antigens and Immunogens
Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)
The Lymphoid System
The Immune Response
T cell subsets and Interleukins
Cell-mediated Immunity
Complement

Wednesday Chat:
Failures of the Immune System: Hypersensitivity
Failures of the Immune System: Immunodeficiency
Failures of the Immune System: Autoimmunity
Regulation and Tolerance
Transplantation Immunology
Immunology Laboratory Procedures

Thursday Chat:
Off

Friday Chat:
Off

8th Week:
MICROBIOLOGY
July 27-August 1

Monday Chat:
General Microbiology
Medically Important bacteria

Tuesday Chat:
Medically Important Fungi
Medical Parasitology

Wednesday Chat:
Medically Important Viruses

Thursday Chat:
Microbial Genetics/Drug Resistance
Clinical Infectious Disease
Comparative Microbiology
Flow Charts/Clue Sheets

Friday Chat:
Off

9th Week:
PHARMACOLOGY***
AUgust 3- 8

Monday Chat:
GENERAL PRINCIPLES**:
Pharmacokinetics;
Pharmacodynamics
AUTONOMIC PHARMACOLOGY**:
The Autonomic nervous System;
Cholinergic Pharmacology;
Adrenergic Neuroeffector Junctions;
Autonomic Drugs: The Eye and Cardiovascular System;
Autonomic Drug Summary

Tuesday Chat:
CARDIAC AND RENAL PHARMACOLOGY***:
Fundamental Concepts;
Antiarrythmics Drugs;
Antihypertensive Drugs;
Drugs for heart Failure;
Antianginal Drugs;
Diuretics;
Antihyperlipidemics

Wednesday Chat:
- CNS PHARMACOLOGY***

Thursday Chat:
- ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS**:
Antibacterial Agents;
Antifungal Agents;
Antiviral* Agents;
Antiprotozoal Agents and the Antimicrobial Drug List
- DRUGS FOR INFLAMMATORY AND RELATED DISORDERS

Friday Chat:
- DRUGS USED IN BLOOD AND ENDOCRINE DISORDERS:
Blood Pharmacology; Endocrine Pharmacology
- ANTICANCER DRUGS*
- IMMUNOPHARMACOLOGY
- TOXICOLOGY: Anticancer drugs; Immunopharmacology; Toxicology

___________________
once we have a destiny we have acquired the reason of life, but life can press us to keep ourselves away from it. a strange force comes to keep ourselves limited. It is determination which keeps limitations away and turn the table around. it is imagination which makes us infinite.

Urdu tarana

2009-04-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

Zindagee ka safar

Footprints in the Sand

2009-03-06T08:19:00.000-06:00

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,
"You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied,
"The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you."
Mary Stevenson

You can clean Masjid!

2009-03-04T17:01:00.000-06:00

Clean masjid !

Islamic empire

2009-03-04T07:15:00.003-06:00

██ Expansion under the Prophet Mohammad, 612-632

██ Expansion during the Rightly Guided Caliphate, 635-680

██ Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661-750

Ibn Seena

2009-03-04T07:08:00.001-06:00

Ibn Seena

Avicenna

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For the lunar crater, see Avicenna (crater). For the mountain peak, see Ibn Sina Peak.

Persian Scholar

Name:	Alī Sīnā Balkhi (Avicenna)
Title:	Sharaf al-Mulk, Hujjat al-Haq, Sheikh al-Rayees
Birth:	approximately 980 CE / 370 AH
Death:	1037 CE / 428 AH
Ethnicity:	Persian^[1]
Region:	Central Asia and Persia
School tradition:	Avicennism^[2]
Main interests:	Islamic medicine, alchemy and chemistry in Islam, Islamic astronomy, Islamic ethics, early Islamic philosophy, Islamic studies, logic in Islamic philosophy, geography, mathematics, Islamic psychological thought, physics, Persian poetry, science, Kalam, Paleontologist
Notable ideas:	Father of modern medicine and the concept of momentum, founder of Avicennism and Avicennian logic, forerunner of psychoanalysis, pioneer of aromatherapy and neuropsychiatry, and important contributor to geology.
Works:	The Canon of Medicine The Book of Healing
Influences:	Hippocrates, Sushruta, Charaka, Aristotle, Galen, Plotinus, Neoplatonism, Indian mathematics, Muhammad, Ja'far al-Sadiq, Wasil ibn Ata, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Muslim physicians
Influenced:	Abu Rayhan Biruni, Omar Khayyám, al-Ghazali, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Abubacer, Averroes, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Ibn al-Nafis, Scholasticism, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Jean Buridan, Giambattista Benedetti, Galileo Galilei, William Harvey, René Descartes, Spinoza

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā Balkhi', known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi^[3]^[4] (Persian: ابوعلی سینا بلخى) or Ibn Sina (Persian: ابن سینا) and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (Greek: Aβιτζιανός, Abitzianos),^[5] (born c. 980 near Bukhara, contemporary Uzbekistan, died 1037 in Hamedan in modern Iran) was a Persian^[6] polymath and the foremost^[7] physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist, and teacher. ^[8]

Ibn Sīnā wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine.^[9]^[10] His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and The Canon of Medicine,^[1] which was a standard medical text at many medieval universities.^[11] The Canon of Medicine was used as a text-book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain as late as 1650.^[12] Ibn Sīnā developed a medical system that combined his own personal experience with that of Islamic medicine, the medical system of the Greek physician Galen,^[13] Aristotelian metaphysics^[14] (Avicenna was one of the main interpreters of Aristotle)^[15], and ancient Persian, Mesopotamian and Indian medicine. He was also the founder of Avicennian logic and the philosophical school of Avicennism, which were influential among both Muslim and Scholastic thinkers.

Ibn Sīnā is regarded as a father of early modern medicine,^[16]^[17] and clinical pharmacology^[18] particularly for his introduction of systematic experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology,^[19] his discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases,^[20] the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, the introduction of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials,^[21] randomized controlled trials,^[22]^[23] efficacy tests,^[24]^[25] clinical pharmacology,^[24] neuropsychiatry,^[26] risk factor analysis, and the idea of a syndrome,^[27] and the importance of dietetics and the influence of climate and environment on health.^[28] He is also considered the father of the fundamental concept of momentum in physics,^[29] and regarded as a pioneer of aromatherapy for his invention of steam distillation and extraction of essential oils.^[30] He also developed the concept of uniformitarianism and law of superposition in geology.^[31]

George Sarton, an author of the history of science, wrote in the Introduction to the History of Science:

"One of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning was Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037). For a thousand years he has retained his original renown as one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His most important medical works are the Qanun (Canon) and a treatise on Cardiac drugs. The 'Qanun fi-l-Tibb' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine. It contains some of the most illuminating thoughts pertaining to distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments."^[20]

Focused! :)

2009-02-27T12:26:00.000-06:00

When working on a major project, do you ever find yourself procrastinating? Of course you do! We all do! Whether you have attention deficit disorder or you are a polychrone or you simply suffer from information overload, it can be difficult to keep your mind focused on one project.

What follows is a guide to help you gain control of your focus so that you can make productive progress on your project.

How to Focus

Eliminate Distractions. Even one distraction can bring your house of cards down, so be complete about this. This means:
- Clear your desk. If you need to, clear it all off into a pile on the floor to deal with after you are done.
- No internet or computer programs open that are unnecessary for your project.
- No TV or Radio unless it is instrumental or unless you are doing art work and you work best with music.
- No noise. If you have other people nearby that make noise on a regular basis, consider getting a pair of noise canceling headphones.
- No phone. That's what voice mail and caller id are for. Don't answer it. If you think it might be important you can listen to the voicemail and decide when will be the best time to call back. Imagine that you are in a meeting and can't be interrupted.
- No email or feed reader.
- Just you and your project.

Visualize

Planning

Today Plan

Breaks & Rewards

free online timer

Take Action

Creative Projects

Writing: Write your outline and then just start writing. Don't be afraid of a bad first draft. Once you have that then you can edit into a masterpiece. The first draft is most difficult. The editing is much easier. If you get totally stuck then you probably need either more time, more information, or a break. Figure out which. You may also need to re-examine the assignment. Walking and/or meditation breaks (with closed eyes) are very helpful.

Arts: Get your "rough draft" in place: sketching, outlines, basic form, etc. For certain types of art such as logo design, it is good to do many iterations to get the right one. Make sure you understand the assignment well. Look at it from different angles to help get your creativity flowing.

General: Remember to slow down. Nothing stifles creativity more than trying to rush it. And remember to have fun. Even if it is not a "fun" project, find ways to make it fun and things will move along easier for you.

Savor a Reward

W.Mitchell

2009-02-24T22:43:00.003-06:00

http://www.wmitchell.com/video.html

The man who won't be defeated!

Randy Pausch!

2009-02-23T09:48:00.001-06:00

Time managment by Rand Pausch

Acieving your dreams

perseverance

2009-02-17T22:51:00.000-06:00

Perseverance Quotient

2009-02-17T22:50:00.000-06:00

Perseverance and failure cannot coexist. Failure happens when you quit. When all is said and done, perseverance, commonly referred to as "stick-to-itiveness," is the ultimate success insurance. Nothing can take its place.
Like the old adage of getting up just one more time than you have been knocked down, "Staying with it" applies to so much that is good and healthful in life! From learning to walk to riding a bicycle, our childhood teaches us that failure only occurs when we stop trying. It's a lesson many of us need to revisit in our adulthood. Then we need to consciously apply the techniques and principles that keep us on the "perseverance track."
For example, the world is full of those who "tried" to get a business going. After meeting with difficulty or rejections, they quit. They accepted failure, and faded back into the crowd never to be heard from again. The worst part is not that they quit their business, but that they quit themselves.
Why should succeeding at a business be easier than learning to ski or to play the piano? We are likely to stumble at first. It's part of the learning process. Ultimately, the people who persevere through the stumbling process learn enough to become successful. It's "staying with it" that separates the successful from the "wanes." Remember the words of Vince Lombardi, "We never lost a game, we just ran out of time."
Let's examine this valuable, yet elusive character trait, to see how we can enhance our own level of perseverance in life.
How are you currently equipped to persevere in pursuit of your dreams?
Give yourself the following quiz. On a scale of 1 -10, one being not all and 10 being perfect, rate your level on each of these factors that play a key role in your ability to persevere:
1. Self-confidence and self-image (Do you believe in you?)
2. Independence in thought and action (Can you go against the crowd when you know they're wrong?)
3. Clarity of purpose and intensity of passion (Do you really know what you want? How hot is your fire?)
4. Integrity (Do your actions align with your professed beliefs?)
5. Honesty with yourself (Are you willing to acknowledge and address areas about yourself with which you're dissatisfied?)
6. Ability to focus (Do you finish projects you start?)
7. Resilience (Can you bounce back quickly from disappointments?)
8. Adaptability to change in circumstances (Can you quickly adjust to surprises?)
9. Health (How is your stamina? Energy level?)
10. The supportiveness of your family, social and career environment (Do the people who surround you add to, or detract from, your willingness to do what's necessary to achieve your goals?)
Total Score
What Does Your Score Reveal:
Below 55
Take a complete inventory. Your positive assets first. Then your areas of opportunity (lowest scoring categories).
55 - 69
You're honest, and that's a good start! Which is what you should do---start!! Also, what can you do to bring up your lowest score?
70 - 84
You're in great shape to go. Maybe a little fine-tuning along the way
85 - 94
Excellent---just don't get too comfortable
95 - 100
You are a Perseverance Machine. Keep up the great work!

11 Ways To Raise Your
Perseverance Quotient:
1. Be grown up, which means, be independent, take responsibility for yourself. When you step out, take risks, and succeed some people may be envious or fearful that they're "losing" the former you. This can cause them to be critical of your new aspirations and plans. They become "dream stealers." When you are overly concerned about what your family, friends and acquaintances might say, you might lose your drive to persevere and let your dreams fade away.
This may be a great time to develop new friends who support your goals and gladly celebrate your achievements. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to abandon the old ones. But let them know how you feel. Just give them a little room to catch up with the new you!
2. Intentionally select positive re-enforcement. When you purchase books and tapes, movies and other media for your entertainment, seek those with strong, uplifting themes. Select those which nurture your spirit. Avoid as much negative messaging as possible, including other outside influences that bring you down. For instance, why would you choose to read a magazine article or watch a news program that leaves you depressed or angry? For those times when negativity unavoidably invades your space, find something to learn from it or something humorous about it. When someone hands you the thorns, find the roses!
3. Live healthy. Energy and stamina are musts for perseverance. You need them for focus, resilience, optimism, self-confidence, clarity and intensity. You have seen from the above quiz how much each of these effects your Perseverance Quotient!
4. Ask, "What is true?" not "What do others think is true?" To make effective decisions, you must take the responsibility of perceiving reality as accurately as possible. Decision-making is not a popularity contest and there's definitely no guarantee that what the majority thinks or believes is compatible with the truth. This includes the people the majority regard as experts.
When you seek the truth, you're being true to yourself. When you're true to yourself, you nourish your will to persevere.
5. When getting advice, consider the source.
If you want to shorten the distance from perseverance to achievement, you want to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than repeating them yourself. And you want to use the methods that have brought others the success you seek.
If you're planning to climb Mt Everest, who will you look to for advice? The best source is someone else who has done it!!
If you want to pilot an airplane, would you listen to advice from Aunt Matilda who has never done anything in her life more demanding than entering a Bridge contest? Would you ask your accountant? Your best friend? Or would you seek advice from someone who is a successful pilot?
If you wanted to start a small business, would you seek advice from someone at work, your minister, a university professor, a corporate person, or from someone who is already successful in the business?
And here's a fascinating corollary: if you are looking for a way out, an excuse to quit, you need go no farther than Aunt Matilda, your accountant, the folks at work, etc. You'll get all the negative encouragement necessary to put your dream back on the shelf.
6. Avoid the "no action" alibi. We've all been guilty from time to time of using convenient alibis for not persevering.
Eric Hoffer, who had spent much of his life as a "simple" longshoreman, is a great example of someone who didn't let other people's stereotypes, which he could have used as no-action alibis, prevent him from becoming a best-selling philosopher-author.
And Eric Hoffer says it well: "There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday.
"But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything, we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book and not painting a picture and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement."
The important thing is to be totally honest with ourselves; recognize the alibi for what it is and not make alibis a way of life.
7. Identify counterproductive habits or thoughts you would like to discontinue. Then dump them!
Being mentally or emotionally rigid means that you hang on to habits that no longer serve you, habits that can make you unproductive, frustrated, unfulfilled.
Examples of counterproductive habits that may reduce your will to persevere:
---Grousing about politics, work or the neighbors with friends
---Blowing small aggravations out of proportion
---Dwelling in the past
---Worrying about stuff that may not even happen, or that you cannot control
---Viewing yourself as a victim
---Worrying about what others are doing or what others have.
"Be true to yourself."
Focus on what you can do, not what you cannot do. When you focus on what you cannot do, you get more of it!
Keep YOUR pace. It's different from the pace of others. Forget the Jones's, and don't feel guilty about moving ahead of some of your contemporaries. Remember the story of "The Hare and the Tortoise." Live the life YOU want to live; earn what YOU want to earn; do what YOU want to do. Don't be too concerned about how others are living their lives.
8. Willingly forgive yourself and others. Do this for your own sake, your own peace of mind. Carrying around the emotions of grudges, disapproval, hatred, or disappointment is toxic to your spirit of perseverance. Whether the subject person is someone else or yourself, you are the one feeling the wound. You don't hurt others when you hold hatred toward them; you hurt yourself. And you can hurt yourself seriously by allowing hatred to fester in your consciousness. You can't experience anger and joy at the same time---so leave plenty of room for the joy!
9. Take reasonable risks. Without risk, there's no reward. Risk avoidance dampens the spirit, undermining the will to persist in the face of obstacles and reversals. The choice not to choose is probably one of the riskiest choices you can ever make, with zero upside potential!
10. Get support. You deserve to be around folks supportive of your aspirations. All good psychologists, counselors, coaches and teachers will tell you that you must have exposure to a positive environment. Napoleon Hill called it a Mastermind Group.
11. Don't quit.
When you feel yourself slipping, remember Sparky. School was all but impossible for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics, Latin, algebra and English in high school. He didn't do much better in sports. Although he did manage to make the school golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the year. There was a consolation match and he lost that, too.
Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. He was not actually disliked by the other students; he wasn't considered consequential enough for that! He was astonished if a classmate ever said "hello" to him outside school hours. He never found out how he would have fared as a "date." In high school, Sparky never once asked a girl out. He was too afraid of being rejected.
Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates, and everyone else knew it, so Sparky simply accepted it. But one thing was important to Sparky: drawing. He was proud of his own artwork. Of course, no one else appreciated it. In his senior year in high school, he submitted some cartoons to the editors of his yearbook. They were turned down. Despite this particularly painful rejection, Sparky had found his passion.
Upon graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some samples of his artwork, and the subject matter for a cartoon was suggested. Sparky drew the proposed cartoon. He spent a great deal of time on it and on the other drawings. Finally the reply from the Disney Studios came. He had been rejected once again. Another loss for the loser.
Sparky wrote his own autobiography in cartoons. He described his childhood self, a little-boy loser and chronic under achiever. He was the little cartoon boy whose kite would never fly, who never succeeded in kicking the football, and who became the most famous cartoon character of all, Charlie Brown!
Sparky, the boy who failed every subject in the eighth grade and whose work was rejected again and again, was Charles Schulz.
Charles Schulz persevered. He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. He earned and deserved that success. He had failed at everything else he had tried. He endured rejection. It took a lot of trial and error to finally find out what it was that he was supposed to do. But he never quit. Because Charles Schulz persevered, the world is richer.
Perseverance is the insurance policy and common denominator for success. So powerful is perseverance that failure cannot exist in its presence. As Edison observed when after thousands of efforts to make the electric light bulb produced no illumination, "I haven't failed. I've identified 10,000 ways this doesn't work" By accurately viewing it as a learning experience, eventually Edison succeeded, leaving the critics and nay-sayers one of mankindÂ¹s most important inventions.
Charles Schulz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colonel Sanders, Thomas Edison, Ayn Rand and the endless list of other persistent great achievers found that success inevitably arrives for every person who perseveres. Learn from the people who did it: Let perseverance keep your goals alive. And your dreams real.
Do what you love to do. Stand up for what you believe in. Make it a part of your life. Work toward it every day. Remember with every "No" you are that much closer to a "Yes" And by learning from each defeat and staying the course, success is inevitable.
http://www.topachievement.com/persevere.html

Being Focused in Life

2009-02-16T21:45:00.001-06:00

What does it mean to be focused?

"I'm pretty focused," you say. "I go to work and I concentrate on getting the job done well. Ha! I know about focused."

That's great! You apply yourself so that you can feed yourself and your family, and keep a roof over your head. It shows that you take your responsibilities seriously towards other people.

That's good.

Now let's think about you for a minute. Think about what you need and where it is that you're headed. You want to be living a rich and fulfilling life experience; you have dreams of where you want to be and you have a real purpose in life.

Do you sometimes find that because daily life gets in the way your attention is distracted from that purpose? Sometimes the road feels rocky and your determination and commitment fall away just a little. The challenge becomes just that little bit too challenging.

Wouldn't it be easier, you think, to ease off for a bit? Even just to turn away and get back to the way things were before? It was easier then.

These are signals. They're a way of your old self trying to come up with reasons for not continuing with the challenge. They are reminding you of that old worry about this being all new and untested. It is uncharted waters.

Scary.

Even worse, you may find that you're listening to other people who might not want you to continue on that course because they themselves find such a journey too challenging or haven't understood why you have chosen the path that you have.

Being focused means being able to ignore those distractions that tempt you away from your path, but remember that the last thing you need to do is beat yourself up about it. It's just a slight pothole in the road.

You can allow yourself to feel these insecurities and these doubts, and learn from them. To recognise them for what they are - mere distractions - and turn your heart once more to the path of your life's journey.

Welcome the falterings and the doubts. Welcome them with open arms, because they strengthen you by your overcoming them. Learn from them.

And keep your eye on the path in front of you. That is being focused.

A Simple Tip for Finding Good Ideas

2009-02-14T07:22:00.001-06:00

By Donald Latumahina , February 2, 2009

Do you want to have good, high-quality ideas? In this age of knowledge, having good ideas can separate you from others and put you ahead of the pack.

But how can we get high-quality ideas? As it turns out,a great way to get high-quality ideas is to have a lot of ideas. The Medici Effect (here is my review) says it clearly:

The strongest correlation for quality of ideas is, in fact, quantity of ideas… Pablo Picasso, for instance, produced 20,000 pieces of art; Einstein wrote more than 240 papers; Bach wrote a cantata every week; Thomas Edison filed a record 1,039 patents.

Here is a study cited in the book that proves the relationship between quantity and quality of ideas:

Simonton verified that the relationship between quantity and quality indeed holds true. The number of papers a scientist publishes, for instance, is correlated with the number of citations the scientist receives for his or her top three works. In other words, the best way to see who has written groundbreaking papers is to look at who has published the most.

So here is a tip for finding good ideas:

Produce more ideas

Simple, isn’t it? The more ideas you produce, the more likely you will find high-quality ones.

Here are several ways to produce more ideas:

1. Capture all ideas

A basic way to increase the quantity of ideas is simply to avoid losing ideas. Don’t let an idea slip by once it comes to you. Whenever you get an idea, capture it as soon as possible. Write it down or record it with a recording device. Read 4 Simple Ways to Never Lose Your Ideas for more tips about it.

2. Don’t filter your ideas

By definition, filtering your ideas will reduce the number of ideas you have. Even if an idea doesn’t look good, let it sit for now. Later you might see it from a different perspective which shows the usefulness of the idea. If it doesn’t, you can always trash it later.

3. Find more ideas than you need

If you need five ideas, find ten. If you need ten ideas, find twenty. Finding more ideas than you need is good because you can then choose the best out of them.

4. Produce ideas consistently

Keep producing ideas regardless of your mood. If you are a blogger, keep writing posts. If you are a designer, keep creating new designs. If you are a programmer, keep writing codes. Allocate time for it and make it a habit.

5. Set an idea quota

Related to the previous point, one good way to ensure that you keep producing ideas is to set a target for your output. A writer, for instance, may aim to write at least 1000 words every day. A designer may aim to create one new design each week. Setting a target pushes you to be more productive.

6. Avoid perfectionism

One thing that may hinder you from producing a lot of ideas is perfectionism. If it takes one week to take an idea to 80% quality, it may take one month to take it to 90% and one year to take it to 100%. This is the law of diminishing returns at work. Perfectionism could make you spend the whole year on just one idea while you can actually produce 51 other ideas. It’s better to produce a lot of ideas first, test them, and only then devote more resources to improve the winners.

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org

2009-02-08T10:19:00.001-06:00

Concept of Leadership

Reading strategies

2009-02-04T11:50:00.001-06:00

Before beginning to read, think about the purpose for the reading. Why has the teacher made this assignment? What are you supposed to get out of it? Jot down your thoughts.

Survey the reading. Look at the title of the piece, the subheadings. What is in dark print or stands out? Are there illustrations or graphs?

Read the introduction and conclusion, then go back and read the whole assignment. Or read the first line in every paragraph to get an idea of how the ideas progress, then go back and read from the beginning.

Scan the entire reading, then focus on the most interesting or relevant parts to read in detail.

Pay attention to when you can skim and when you need to understand every word.

Write as you read. Take notes and talk back to the text. Explicate (explain in detail) and mark up the pages. Write down what interests or bores you. Speculate about why.

If you get stuck in the reading, think and write about where you got stuck. Contemplate why that particular place was difficult and how you might break through the block.

Record and explore your confusion. Confusion is important because it's the first stage in understanding.

When the going gets difficult, and you don't understand the reading, slow down and reread sections.

Break long assignments into segments. Read 10 pages, then do something else. Later, read the next 10 pages and so on.

Read prefaces and summaries to learn important details about the book. Look at the table of contents for information about the structure and movement of ideas. Use the index to look up specific names, places, ideas.

Translate difficult material into your own words. Create an alternative text.

Answer the questions at the end of the chapter.

Answer these question in your own words: What's the author talking about? What does the author want me to get out of this?

Read the entire piece, then write a one paragraph or one sentence summary.

Transcribe your notes in the book or handwritten notes into more formal notes on the computer. Turn your first notes into a list of ideas or a short essay.

Review the ideas in the text after you finish reading. Ask yourself questions to determine what you got out of the reading.

Mark up the text, bring it to class, and ask questions about what you don't understand.

Post an email to the class Mailing List and ask for responses from the teacher and fellow students.

Consult another source. What does another author have to say on the same topic?

Disagree with the author. Become a devil's advocate. Remember, you don't have to believe an idea to argue about it.

Think about the text in three ways.

1. Consider the text itself, the basic information right there on the page. (This is the level of most high school readers and many college students.)

2. Next think about what is between the lines, the conclusions and inferences the author means you to draw from the text.

3. Finally, go beyond thinking about the text. What creative, new, and different thoughts occur as you combine your knowledge and experiences with the ideas in the reading?

The PQRST Method of Studying

2009-02-02T23:04:00.000-06:00

PREVIEW an assignment by scanning it. Read the chapter outline at the beginning of the chapter. Pay attention to the headings of the sections and subsections. Read the summary. The point is to get an idea of the main topics and sections of the chapter.
(Numbers 2, 3, and 4 are done at the same time)

QUESTION yourself by making questions of the headings of each section and subsection.

As you READ the assignment, look for the answers to the questions you have made.

SELF-RECITATION requires that you try to remember the main points of each section and that you say them out loud (if possible) to yourself.

You TEST yourself after you have finished the entire chapter. How many of the main ideas from the chapter can you remember?

Now you are really starting to store your studies into long-term memory!

2 supporting emails, one from my non muslim friend, and one from very good muslim friend!

2009-01-30T08:59:00.002-06:00

Hello ,
When I went back to school, I gave myself tests. I read one book or chapter.
Close the book, then think about what I read, then test myself by asking
questions. Then double checking the answers I wrote. (writing helps me
remember; others learn and remember other ways). I also did the same for
topics not covered in the course, in case there were surprise questions.
After cramming each day, I'd declare a holiday and just relax or "play". Then
get good sleep and then continue the next day. So break it up into smaller
sections, to work on.

If you go blank on a question, theink about related topics/; (make notes0
might trigger correct answer. Don't stall too long.
Get the others done; then go back and write what's in your mind even if it's
not the exact answer they're looking for. You might get points for "going
beyond " what they've asked.
(won't work if the questions are True or False or circle the correct answer;
but might help on open-ended questions.

I think you have more knowledge than you realize. It will no doubt help you be
an excellent doctor and maybe even reading here will help you with the tests.
So stay positive; keep working at it. And the very last night, take a break,
have a relaxing meal, do something nice for yourself and have a restful sleep.

We're pulling for your success. You're more than you realize. Stay positive.
J

Assalam u alaikum, ----- behn,

Sorry I wasn't very helpful for you, maybe because I always think you are calling me for my benefit.
But I realize later that you need some comfort too.
You know that for every thing we do it becomes a good deed depending on our niyyah, and for best niyyah we need to do lots of duas with infinite hope.
Getting a medical degree looks like a very worldly thing, but if our goals are high, and our niyyah is to serve Islam through this, inshallah it would be a best means to get Jannah.
It's also good to establish economic situation, for a muslim family to benefit muslim umma.
Sooo be happy & study.

wassalam

If Prophet Muhammad (peace be upone him) Visited You...

2009-01-29T15:58:00.002-06:00

Just for a day or two,
If he came unexpectedly,
I wonder what you'd do.

Oh, I know you'd give your nicest room
To such an honored guest,
And all the food you'd serve him,
Would be the very best,
And you would keep assuring him,
You're glad to have him there,
That serving him in your home,
Is joy beyond compare.

But ... when you saw him coming,
Would you meet him at the door,
With arms outstretched in welcome
To your visitor?
Or ... would you have to change your clothes
Before you let him in?
Or hide some magazines and put
The Qur'an where they had been?
Would you still watch the same movies
On your T.V. set?
Or would you switch it off
Before he gets upset?
Would you turn off the radio,
And hope he hadn't heard?
And wish you hadn't uttered that last hasty word?

Would you hide your worldly music,
And instead take Hadith books out?
Could you let him walk right in,
Or would you have to rush about?
And, I wonder ... if the Prophet spent

A day or two with you,
Would you go right on doing the things
You always do?

Would you go right on saying the things
You always say?
Would life for you continue,
As it does from day to day?

Would your family squabbles
Keep up their usual pace,
And Would you find it hard each meal
To say a table grace?

Would you keep up each and every prayer
Without putting on a frown?
And would you always jump up early
For prayer at dawn?

Would you sing the songs you always sing,
And read the books you read?
And let him know the things on which
Your mind and spirit feed?

Would you take the Prophet with you
Everywhere you plan to go?
Or, would you maybe change your plans
Just for a day or so?

Would you be glad to have him meet
Your very closest friends?
Or, would you hope they stay away
Until his visit ends?

Would you be glad to have him stay
Forever, on and on?
Or would you sigh with great relief
When he at last was gone?

It might be interesting to know
The things that you would do,
If Prophet Muhammad, in person, came
to spend some time with you.

by Anonymous
This poem was published in the June 1997 issue of the Islamic Journal.
--------------------

Four things

2009-01-29T15:56:00.000-06:00

The Holy Prophet (SAW) Said:

1) Four things that make your body sick:

a) Excessive talking
b) Excessive sleeping
c) Excessive eating and
d) Excessive meeting other people

2) Four things that destroys the body:

a) Worrying
b) Sorrow (Sadness/Grief)
c) Hunger
d) Sleeping late in the night

3) Four things that dry the face & take away its happiness:

a) Lying
b) Being disrespectful / impudent (insisting on something wrong knowingly)
c) Arguing without adequate knowledge & Information.
d) Excessive immorality (doing something wrong without fear).

4) Four things that increases the wetness of face & its happiness:

a) Piety
b) Loyalty
c) Generosity (being kind)
d) To be helpful to others without he/she asking for that.

5) Four things that stop the Rizq (Sustenance) :

a) Sleeping in the morning (from Fajr to sunrise)
b) Not Performing Namaz or Ir-regular in Prayers
c) Laziness / Idleness
d) Treachery / Dishonesty

6) Four things that bring / increase the Rizq:

a) Staying up in the night for prayers.
b) Excessive Repentance
c) Regular Charity
d) Zikr (Remembrance of Allah / God).

The Holy Prophet (SAW), Also said to communicate to others even if you listen One Verse (Ayaah) & this one verse will stand on the Day of Judgment for intercession.

The Holy Prophet (SAW) said, Stop doing everything during the Azaan, even reading the Quran, the person who talks during the Azaan will not be able to say the Kalima E Shahada on his/her death bed....

Please pass this message to Muslims...

**READ THIS DUAA FOR BETTER LIFE**

Allahumma- inni- ala- Zikr-ika -wa Shuk-rika wa husni-Ibaadatik

2009-01-28T07:43:00.000-06:00

Procrstination ,real picture :)

HOW TO OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION IN 8 EASY STEPS

2009-01-27T12:48:00.000-06:00

By Kingsley Tagbo

The Procrastination Problem

As a career coach, one of the biggest hurdles I have to overcome when working with my clients is procrastination. An example is a client that I will call Ryan. Ryan acknowledges that even though he has a degree in Information Systems, he is stuck in a dead end job in Help Desk Support. Ryan would love a great new job as a computer programmer. I have worked with him to create a plan of action that includes updating his skill set while simultaneously putting his resume out there to see if a potential employer will nibble on it.

However, no matter how many pep talks and reminder emails I send Ryan, I can't get him to take any action beyond putting the plan on paper. Why? Ryan is a master procrastinator just like many of us out there who just can't seem to get started on the projects that mean so much to us and our future. If Ryan does not overcome this problem, he will never gain the fulfillment of moving into a new career, nor will he enjoy the benefits of doubling his salary which becoming a computer programmer will undoubtedly give him.

So, What Makes Us Procrastinate?

Why does Ryan or anyone else procrastinate? There are different reasons, but the most common are:

A perception that a task is unpleasant or overwhelming

Fear of the Unknown

Fear of Change

Perfectionism

Fear of Failure

Disorganization

The Cost of Procrastination

While procrastination seems to be a benign human fault, it can eat away at the quality of your life with devastating results. Like my client, Ryan, huge benefits that are just at your fingertips will slip away from you. Opportunities to be all that you can be will pass you by.

Not "getting round" to your annual medical or dental check up can result in death if beginning symptoms of a deadly disease are overlooked. Not "getting round" to balancing your checkbook can result in huge overdraft fees and ruin your credit report. Not "getting round" to purchasing life insurance can leave your young children destitute if anything should happen to you. Not "getting round" to your car's oil change can shave years off the life of your car and result in major repair costs or constantly having to purchase a new vehicle. The list goes on and on.

What's on your "Put It Off List"?

A New Year is a good time to dig out all the things you have left undone and begin to tackle them right now. The good news is that with this article in your hands, you will have proven strategies for success in actually completing these tasks. Here's your very first task. Right now, before going on, make a list of five things that you've been planning to do, but haven't. DO IT NOW. Just grab a pen and paper and make a list of five things that you've been putting off. Then read the rest of the article. You will be able to start applying these tips to accomplish them right now.

How to Overcome Procrastination

Step One: Visualize the End from the Beginning

First, create a vivid image of what it is like to have completed the project. Bring all your faculties of imagination to bear on it. Visualizing the completed task ? the benefits you are reaping, the feeling of success or the admiration of your spouse will help you anticipate the achievement you are striving for. After visualizing the completed task, visualize the process of actually working on the task. Imagine sitting at your desk and turning your computer on, opening up your textbook and reading the assigned chapter, gathering notes for your article, purchasing the tools for building your deck etc.

This visualization will change your attitude toward the task and invigorate you with the energy you need to overcome any inertia you feel.

Step Two: Count the Cost
When procrastination sets in, sometimes it is because we have bitten off more than we can chew. One of my clients once set a goal of studying for her IT certifications so that she would be ready to return to work when her children started school the next year. As time went on, I noticed that she was not making much progress with her study and was on the verge of giving up. On further investigation, I discovered that she was trying to study while her two toddlers were at home with her in the same room! I finally convinced her to accept the cost of hiring a baby sitter for a few hours twice week so she could study. She completed her certifications with flying colors and went on to get the job she wanted at the salary she wanted.

Before putting a task on your list, be realistic about the time, cost, interest and expertise that the task will require. You may need to hire a professional or ask for help or raise more money to complete a task.

Step Three: Brainstorm
If you feel like you are stuck on a project or task, brainstorming is a great way to introduce new energy and break the "block" that is facing you. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and a pen and simply write down all your ideas and possible steps for the project. Browse through books and magazines related to your project and glean ideas from them. Don't criticize any of your thoughts and don't stop until all your possible thoughts have been put on paper.

Step Four: Make a Public Commitment
We tend to improve our performance when we know that we are being watched. Tell your spouse or your boss what you plan to achieve. Sometimes telling your enemies or catty friends can work to motivate you because you'll do whatever it takes to avoid failing with them watching.

Step Five: Gather Material
Buy a box and begin tossing in any and everything that it related to your project: Books, articles, news clippings, tools, fabric, color swatches etc. This process will give you the feeling of having gotten your project underway. You will have also overcome another project-killer: disorganization. Because you have all the material for your project together in one spot, it will be easier for you to find what you need when you need it instead of stalling because of an itty-bitty item that has mysteriously disappeared.

Step Six: Break it down ? Do it One Step at a Time

Now you are ready to tackle your project, but wait, don't dive in yet. You need to break down the entire process into small, simple and doable steps. Having these steps written down on paper creates a kind of automatic action trigger when you look at them. You know that each day you work on your project, you only have to focus on one of the steps at a time. This will prevent procrastination from being triggered by the feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the project.

Step Seven: Sweat It Out For Ten Minutes
When you find yourself not working on a project and continually putting it off, a good way to get yourself jumpstarted again is to set a timer and work on the item with your full item for ten minutes. No matter how unpleasant or stressful you find the task, you can bear to do it for ten minutes at a time. When your ten minutes are up, you can stop and go do something else. More often than not, you will find that just ten minutes of focused work will get you on a roll and you will want to continue the task to completion. For the days that you are still stressed after ten minutes, stop and proceed to another task and return for another ten minutes the next day.

Step Eight: Set the Bar Low
When an otherwise talented and ambitious person is also a chronic procrastinator, the cause is usually a deep seated tendency toward perfectionism. This perfectionism creates an expectation in the individual that he or she must do the job perfectly the first time around. This expectation creates stress, anxiety and the fear of failure. The individual is likely to put the task off indefinitely so that he never has to evaluate his performance and can keep his imagined perfection rather than improving his actual performance. The solution to this is to set the bar low for the initial results of the project. Remind yourself that you can revise your article as many times as you need to once you get your thoughts down on paper. Remind yourself that you can always paint a room over if you botch the job the first time.

Final Thoughts
Apply these steps to your to-do list and you will find that the things you've wished for are easier to obtain than you formerly thought. You will win more victories than defeats just by showing up. You will increase your performance and your ability to create excellence in your life and work. You will decrease anxiety, stress and depression and watch your self-esteem rise. Overcoming procrastination will also earn you a reputation for being dependable and successful.

Last year!

2009-01-27T02:48:00.000-06:00

I m back from KY.
My friend passed away this Thursday morning!

I went to see her last time, her funeral was on Friday noon.
I saw her face, she was smiling, her face was not blank but filled
with happy expressions.
There was this amazing dignity around her, I cant explain that
feeling.
When I saw her, I thought she had so much to tell me.
Her face was telling me that she won! She is winner... I cant explain
what i saw on her face, it was like her closed eyes were looking at
something very special. She was more than smiling, her shinning front
teeth were showing.

I want to call her, I want to talk to her, I want to know what
happened, but I have to be like her to be with her.
I was taking her for granted for years, she was my support, my friend,
my sister, my leader and my mentor.
She taught me how to live this life to achieve the eternal pleasure.
I am praying that may my life will be like her.

Time Management Video Clips

2009-01-27T01:22:00.002-06:00

Time Management Video Clips

Return to Home

The following list of titles will allow you to see video clips of selected time management tips by world-renowned time management expert, Peter "The Time Man" Turla.

Simply click on the text of any segment title that sounds interesting. You don't have to proceed in any order.

Enjoy these Time Management Videos of Time Tips by Turla

Solutions: How to Set Priorities (10 minute video interview)

Solutions: How to Set Priorities (10 minute audio version of above interview. Interview follows one minute of music)

The segments that follow are about a minute in length. The high speed connection is higher quality than the low speed connection.

http://timeman.com

Are You Losing Focus? Use These Time Management Tips To Get It Back

2009-01-26T13:46:00.001-06:00

By Gregg Hall

We all have the same 24 hours to work with and unfortunately depending on our individual requirements we lose six to eight of those hours to sleep. Knowing that we have already given up that many hours we don’t have any more time to waste so it’s important to focus on what you need to get done during your waking hours. Learn to manage your time properly and you will be able to focus and be more efficient.

The first thing that must be done before you can learn the proper time management skills is to identify the things you are doing wrong that eat up your time and make your activity unproductive. Look back over the last week and remember how you spent each day. Split the days up into five categories.

The first category is negative productivity or tasks that should have already been completed. This is the area that kills the schedules of most people and gets them off focus.

The second category is allowing your planned tasks to be interrupted by activities that are less important or not important at all. Don’t let others influence you to change your priorities.

The third category is things you have completed. These are the tasks that you actually planned and completed to fruition. You might just find after categorizing in this way that you are getting more done than you think.

The fourth category is the time that you work alone. Even if you are not working on the exact tasks that you should be if you are truly working then this can be deemed positive.

The fifth and final category is your down time or time off. I am not talking about short coffee breaks. This is true leisure activity such as working out. Having down time is crucial to success; if you try to work around the clock you will eventually get burned out.

Now that you have identified the areas where you are spending your time it is important to reduce the items that are eating away at your productivity and causing you to lose focus. Here are a few tips to help you.

First you need to plan your work and everything you need to do. Divide a sheet of paper in half and on one side write the tasks that must be done in order of priority with deadlines. On the other side write down the tasks you would like to see done but aren’t crucial. Focus on one task at a time then cross it off as you move down your list. You should take time to do this each morning.

Next you should have an effective time management system whether it is a desk calendar or an electronic system on your computer, laptop, or cell phone you need to use it daily. Have schedules for tasks and stick to them.

The next thing you need to do is to learn the meaning of the word, “no”. Saying no to something doesn’t mean you will never do it, it just means that you can’t do it now. If you are working on something that absolutely has to be done then you have to say no to the movie or the ball game. You have to be able to find the balance between work and leisure.

Get More Things Done with Ultradian Sprint

2009-01-26T13:30:00.000-06:00

By Donald Latumahina, April 28, 2008

Are you satisfied with your current level of productivity? I’m not. I’m always looking for ways to increase my productivity. The challenge, of course, is to get the most results within a certain period of time.

Recently I learned a technique to do exactly that called “ultradian sprint”. I read it in an article entitled Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time in Harvard Business Review:

Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another - stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance - increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25%, a phenomenon known as “switching time”. It’s far more efficient to fully focus for 90 to 120 minutes, take a true break, and then fully focus on the next activity. We refer to these work periods as “ultradian sprints.”

While the ideas of “do not multitask” and “block the time” are not new, I’m interested with the word sprint. It describes the level of intensity required in such work periods. You should not just walk or even run; you should sprint. If you make it a sprint instead of just running, you will be able to accomplish much more in the same amount of time.

While I’m still learning to do ultradian sprints, here are some tips I can share to get more things done with ultradian sprints:

1. Set a clear goal

A sprinter needs a clear finish line to run to. Similarly, doing ultradian sprint requires you to have a clear finish line. Set a goal for your work period. The goal acts as a finish line that helps your mind focus on only one point so that you can run as fast as possible.

2. Kill distractions

Can you imagine a sprinter who is being distracted by someone or something while running? In a race where 0.1 second makes a big difference, even the smallest distraction is not tolerable. That’s why you should kill distractions before you begin. Here are some ways to do that:

Listen to music to tune out outside noise
Of course, the music itself should not be distracting. Instrumental music could be good here.
Unplug the Internet connection (unless your work is related to the Internet).
Unplanned browsing is a major cause of black time.
Tell your colleagues not to disturb you
Switch your cell phone off or put it to silent mode
Use distraction-free tools
For instance, if you are writing you can use tools like Writeroomor Dark Room. They give you a blank screen with only your writing and nothing else.

When you are tempted to allow distractions, just remember: 0.1 second makes a big difference.

3. Set a timer

Using timer has a lot of benefits to increase productivity. In the case of ultradian sprint, timer helps you:

Focus your attention
Since you know that you work for only a limited amount of time, it will be easier for you to focus within that period.
Create a sense of urgency.
Using timer gives you a form of deadline that creates sense of urgency. This sense of urgency helps you increase your work intensity.

I use Cool Timer, but there is a lot of other timer software you can use.

4. Determine not to stop before the time is up

For me, this is where the difficulty lies. There is often temptation to stop before the time is up because I feel that I can’t concentrate. Often I do stop in such moments, but recently I try not to stop.

I think the word “sprint” gives us a tip on how not to stop. If you sprint,your mind is fully focused on the finish line that you can’t possibly think of something else. Similarly, if you do ultradian sprint, your mind should be so focused that you can no longer think of something else, stopping included. If we still think that we want to stop, it means that we are not focused enough. Perhaps we just run but do not sprint.

5. Aim to accomplish as much as possible

The word sprint means you should run as fast as possible. It is not the time to relax and work at a comfortable pace. Instead, you should push yourself to accomplish as much as possible within that period.

6. Take true break

After you completed a work session, you should take true break. It means that you should not do something work-related like reading emails. Let your mind be fully relaxed. Depending on your preferences, you could meditate, lie on the bed, take a walk in the park, or chat with colleagues over non-work topics. During this break periods, try to clear your mind and refresh your energy so that you are ready for another sprint session. The break periods might not seem important, but the quality of your next sprint session very much depends on it. So not only you should have quality sprint, you should also have quality break.

***

Stay positive

2009-01-26T13:19:00.001-06:00

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.

Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.
Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
Look at the content of what people say to you for somethingpositive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.
Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.
If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.
If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.
Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.
Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

from : http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/

What is time boxing?

2009-01-26T12:48:00.000-06:00

Time Boxing is an Effective Getting Things Done Strategy

July 26th, 2006 by Dave Cheong

Given a task, there are essentially two ways we can approach it. Either, we can work as hard as we can until it is “done” or we can fix the amount of time we have available and do the “best” we can. The latter approach is known as “Time boxing“.

Time boxing is a very simple technique we often use in software development. It is an effective technique for tracking progress and simply getting things done. From a planning perspective, time boxing is useful, especially when things appear complex or daunting initially and we are unsure of how to begin.

From a personal management perspective, I’ve found that time boxing can greatly improve our productivity and effectiveness. Because it’s simple, anyone can do it - including you. I use it when working on open ended tasks, like writing, where neither the scope or the quality is well defined.

This article briefly discusses how we can apply time boxing to our daily lives and get things done.

What is time boxing?

Time boxing is about fixing the time we have available to work on a given task and then doing the best we can within that time frame. So instead working on something until it is “done” in one sitting, we only work on it for say 30 mins. It is either marked as done at the end of this period or we commit to another 30 mins at a later time or another day.

In software development, an agile team releases new versions of a product to the customer for testing in fixed length iterations, say weekly. The customer and the development team work together to identify the features to be included in each release based on the relative priority and complexity of each task.

What’s special about Time boxing?

There are always several things competing for our time. At any moment, each of us could have hundreds of outstanding things to do. This question immediately become important - How can we ensure we get as much done as possible?

I believe time boxing is special for four reasons. Firstly, by consciously being aware of time, it allows us to focus on doing the things that matter most. Secondly, it serves as a reality check on how much time we spend working on open ended tasks. Thirdly, because of the fixed time constraints, it can be an effective tool against procrastination. Finally, it allows us to work on things during the free gaps we have between our commitments and appointments.

Focus on doing the things that matter most

If the time available we have is limited, a rational person should immediately think about prioritising their outstanding tasks based on what’s important and urgent.

By using time boxing and ranking our outstanding tasks, we make ourselves consciously aware of how much time we have available. This allows us to focus our energies towards things that matter most. In this way, we get things that matter most done first.

There are many techniques for ranking tasks and I won’t go into them in this post. However, it’s worth mentioning “Quality Function Deployment” - which is a technique we use in software development and engineering to translate customer requirements into engineering specifications. In the simplest sense, for each feature, we multiply a number representing a customer’s perception of its importance by another number representing an engineer’s estimation of the complexity. The final result is ranked and the relative ordering gives us an indication of what we should implement given a certain time constraint.

Limiting the time spent on open ended tasks

Do you know people who are perfectionists? Those who are constantly tweaking things to make them incrementally better or just different? To a certain extend, I suffer from a perfectionist personality which is why I find working on open ended tasks difficult. I’ll use some examples relating to my writing to illustrate: Should this sentence be structured in a passive voice? Does this paragraph look ok here? Are there enough anecdotes in this article?

Because by their nature there is no distinction between done and not done, an arbitrary open ended task can take anywhere between 1 min and 3 weeks. Time boxing is particularly useful as a reality check when working on open ended tasks. By limiting the time we spend on a given task, as long as it is complete though not perfect, we can objectively decide when something is done. This frees us up to work on the next task.

Effective tool against procrastination

In my experience, people procrastinate for two reasons - firstly, when faced with a complex task they are unsure of how to start and secondly, the prospect of having to do something they’re not particularly interested in doing.

As a tool against complex tasks: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to work on complex tasks over several iterations or in bite sized chunks. For example, writing a good article is a complex task for me and it is rare to be able to find one block of time in which I can write an article from start to finish. For me, it is more effective to write as best as I can within a fixed period, constantly refining and repeating this process until I finish.
As a tool against uninteresting things: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to commit to an undesirable task for only a limited amount of time. It’s a lot easier to start working on something we don’t like if we knew we only need to work on it for the next 30 mins. For example, if you have to clean a messy house, instead of trying to get through the entire house in one go, try only doing as much as you can for 30 mins. When you have another 30 mins to spare another day and feel so inclined, you can continue.

Using free gaps between commitments

The composition of a day from person to person and day to day is different. For some of us, our calendars are completely filled with appointments and meetings. For others, our days are relatively unstructured. Irrespective of our calendars, we often have what I call “null” time. That is, gaps between commitments in which we are either waiting for something or have free brain cycles.

Examples of “null” times are: At the station minutes before the train comes. In the car on a winter morning whilst waiting for the engine to warm up. At the desk, after you have kicked off a full compile on a complex codebase.

Time boxing can be immensely useful during these “null” times. If you knew the train will come soon, the car will warm up in moments or the code will compile in a few mins, you can choose to use that time effectively and work on a relatively simple task you know can be done within that short “null” time.

In conclusion

Time boxing is an effective way for getting things done. By fixing the amount of time we spend on a given set of tasks, we can focus on doing the things that matter, give us motivation to start, prevent overruns and use our “null” times effectively. In contrast, if we worked on things until completion in one sitting, we’re less likely to start on complex tasks, more likely to overrun on open ended tasks and leaves us with less time and motivation to work on the next set of tasks.

From http://www.davecheong.com

Helping Gaza: From baby steps to further actions

2009-01-05T22:04:00.000-06:00

Helping Gaza: From baby steps to further actions
To members of What Is Islam? What does it teach? An invitation to Islam.

Asalaamalaikum,

One of my friends posted this and I wanted to share it with you guys. I hope this helps you guys. Remember that everything has to start off at baby steps and then lead into other things. Use these steps to build a foundation inshAllah.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

As many of you know, this past week, Israel has been bombing Gaza and has now moved in with troops. I've spoken with numerous people who want to help, who want to make it end, but are frustrated because as much as they want to do, they can't do anything to do what we all want - to stop the massacre.

Yet even if you can't stop what is happening, does that mean we abandon doing anything we can to help out? Do we simply turn our heads and say, "Well, there are wars everywhere, there's people dying everywhere, I can't do anything."

If you believe that, then you're deluding yourself for two reasons:

1. You Have More Power to Affect the Situation Than You Think: Although you cannot stop the situation, there are other ways you can provide help, help that reaches those people directly. You simply have to either learn or recognize how.

2. Something is Better than Nothing: A common mistake people make is that when they cannot accomplish something 100% to satisfaction, they abandon trying to accomplish that goal even partially. That's a huge huge mistake. The 10% - 15% of help you can provide will insha'Allah be magnified in ways you don't even realize.

So let's get to it - what can you do? MuslimMatters.org has created a post located here:

Actions You Can Do to Help the People of Gaza

This post is a one-stop shopping area for all the things you can do in 60 - 90 minutes. They include:

Du'aas you can make to Allah subhaanahu wa ta'aala for the brothers and sisters of Gaza.
Links to all relief organizations you can donate to
A Special Facebook group dedicated to DIGG'ing stories that need to get out that the mass media ignores (we've found DIGG to be useful in spreading news to 100s of thousands of people)
A How-To of how to call the people of Gaza and offer them support!
…And a whole bunch more, if you want to write congressman, sign petitions, write letters to the editor with talking points listed.
Don't wait to do it - do it now, and spread it out to anyone you know (that's another thing you can do) so that they too can learn what they can do, and insha'Allah, as an Ummah, if we build up enough resources and help, we can bring an end to this crisis and bring help to our brothers and sisters.

If you want to see change, it starts with you - here it is again:

Actions You Can Do to Help the People of Gaza

A Final Note
One thing that needs to be made clear - as much blame as we can put on the Zionist Israelis, or the US government, or the West, or corrupt Muslim governments that stand idly by, realize very clearly that nothing can harm us unless Allah allows it, and nothing can benefit us, unless Allah allows it.

If Allah has given our enemies authority and power over us, it means that as a community, our own sins, our own evil, our own heedlessness of our Lord and Creator whom we are to obey is the #1 reason and root cause for this entire mess.

I know, I know, a lot of you will say, what about technology, what about education, what about political involvement, what about this and that? I say to you, how can you be successful in raising yourself up in any fashion when your Creator, who controls everything, is disappointed with you?

Open up the Qur'aan, and read in Surat al-Baqarah about what happened to the Children of Israel, those whom Allah allowed to escape with Musa. They were the chosen people, but even after being saved, even after seeing all the miracles of Musa, they still disobeyed, and Allah punished them. And after the punishment, they sought forgiveness, and then after a while they sinned again, and were punished, and repented, and then they were given relief again.

These stories are not just to criticize the believers of Bani Israel for their own mistakes, no - it's also a reminder which can be encapsulated in a famous adage I'm sure you've all heard of - "Those Who Fail to Learn History are Doomed to Repeat It."

How bad do things have to become for Muslims worldwide before we return ourselves back to Allah subhaanahu wa ta'aala, return back to the primary purpose of our creation, to worship Him? To obey Him? Should we wait til the oppression, repression, and suppression of Muslims becomes a local phenomenon, or can we finally say, "Enough already, I'm going to change myself, not only for myself, but for the greater good of my ummah."

This is the first step of what you can do for the long-term to prevent genocides, rape camps, oppression, and petty 3rd-world dictator governments. After that, we can look at all the other means (media, education, technology, etc).

Remember, change starts with you.

ISLAM IN FOCUS

2009-01-05T21:20:00.000-06:00

The 'first true scientist'

2009-01-05T05:21:00.000-06:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7810846.stm

The 'first true scientist'

By Professor Jim Al-Khalili
University of Surrey

Artist's impression of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham (BBC)
An artist's impression of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham

Isaac Newton is, as most will agree, the greatest physicist of all time.

At the very least, he is the undisputed father of modern optics, or so we are told at school where our textbooks abound with his famous experiments with lenses and prisms, his study of the nature of light and its reflection, and the refraction and decomposition of light into the colours of the rainbow.

Yet, the truth is rather greyer; and I feel it important to point out that, certainly in the field of optics, Newton himself stood on the shoulders of a giant who lived 700 years earlier.

For, without doubt, another great physicist, who is worthy of ranking up alongside Newton, is a scientist born in AD 965 in what is now Iraq who went by the name of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham.

Most people in the West will never have even heard of him.

As a physicist myself, I am quite in awe of this man's contribution to my field, but I was fortunate enough to have recently been given the opportunity to dig a little into his life and work through my recent filming of a three-part BBC Four series on medieval Islamic scientists.

Modern methods

Popular accounts of the history of science typically suggest that no major scientific advances took place in between the ancient Greeks and the European Renaissance.

But just because Western Europe languished in the Dark Ages, does not mean there was stagnation elsewhere. Indeed, the period between the 9th and 13th Centuries marked the Golden Age of Arabic science.

Great advances were made in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, chemistry and philosophy. Among the many geniuses of that period Ibn al-Haytham stands taller than all the others.
Prism (BBC)
Ibn-al Haytham conducted early investigations into light

Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of the modern scientific method.

As commonly defined, this is the approach to investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge, based on the gathering of data through observation and measurement, followed by the formulation and testing of hypotheses to explain the data.

This is how we do science today and is why I put my trust in the advances that have been made in science.

But it is often still claimed that the modern scientific method was not established until the early 17th Century by Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes.

There is no doubt in my mind, however, that Ibn al-Haytham arrived there first.

In fact, with his emphasis on experimental data and reproducibility of results, he is often referred to as the "world's first true scientist".

Understanding light

He was the first scientist to give a correct account of how we see objects.

Jim Al-Khalili (BBC)

It is incredible that we are only now uncovering the debt that today's physicists owe to an Arab who lived 1,000 years ago

Prof Jim Al-Khalili

He proved experimentally, for instance, that the so-called emission theory (which stated that light from our eyes shines upon the objects we see), which was believed by great thinkers such as Plato, Euclid and Ptolemy, was wrong and established the modern idea that we see because light enters our eyes.

What he also did that no other scientist had tried before was to use mathematics to describe and prove this process.

So he can be regarded as the very first theoretical physicist, too.

He is perhaps best known for his invention of the pinhole camera and should be credited with the discovery of the laws of refraction.

He also carried out the first experiments on the dispersion of light into its constituent colours and studied shadows, rainbows and eclipses; and by observing the way sunlight diffracted through the atmosphere, he was able to work out a rather good estimate for the height of the atmosphere, which he found to be around 100km.

Enforced study

In common with many modern scholars, Ibn-al Haytham badly needed the time and isolation to focus on writing his many treatises, including his great work on optics.

An unwelcome opportunity was granted him, however, when he was imprisoned in Egypt between 1011 and 1021, having failed a task set him by a caliph in Cairo to help solve the problem of regulating the flooding of the Nile.

While still in Basra, Ibn al-Haytham had claimed that the Nile's autumn flood waters could be held by a system of dykes and canals, thereby preserved as reservoirs until the summer's droughts.

But on arrival in Cairo, he soon realised that his scheme was utterly impractical from an engineering perspective.

Yet rather than admit his mistake to the dangerous and murderous caliph, Ibn-al Haytham instead decided to feign madness as a way to escape punishment.

This promptly led to him being placed under house arrest, thereby granting him 10 years of seclusion in which to work.

Planetary motion

He was only released after the caliph's death. He returned to Iraq where he composed a further 100 works on a range of subjects in physics and mathematics.

While travelling through the Middle East during my filming, I interviewed an expert in Alexandria who showed me recently discovered work by Ibn al-Haytham on astronomy.

It seems he had developed what is called celestial mechanics, explaining the orbits of the planets, which was to lead to the eventual work of Europeans like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.

It is incredible that we are only now uncovering the debt that today's physicists owe to an Arab who lived 1,000 years ago.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili presents Science and Islam on BBC Four at 2100GMT on Monday 5, 12 & 19 January

The Brutality of the Evil and the Silence of the Good

2009-01-02T20:33:00.000-06:00

The Brutality of the Evil and the Silence of the Good

It stated, "The Islamic Circle of North America condemns the brutal air assault on the poor and oppressed people of Gaza. The violence by Israeli army has taken the lives of about 280 people and many more have been injured by these barbaric attacks.

As reported by BBC on the website, a doctor at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City described a desperate scene, with essential medical supplies, fuel and water all running out. Dr Khamis El Essi told the BBC that many people had been admitted with multiple injuries, such as head and back wounds. Some patients had had limbs amputated.

It is astonishing to see that the world powers are not pressing Israel to stop the aggression but rather they are silently watching the murder of innocent people of Gaza and thus giving a supporting nod to the Israeli leaders.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The tragedy is not the brutality of the evil but rather silence of the good people."

We ask our government to take immediate action and make Israel stop this terrorism."

Press Contact: Naeem Beig

Secretary General

Islamic Circle of North America

e-mail: sg@icnait.com

Office: (718) 658-1199

Cell: (917) 202-2118

What you can do immediately:

1. Make Dua, and remind others to make special supplications to Allah(swt) for the safety and immediate resolution to the crisis.

2. Speak up against the injustice. Prophet Muhammad(saw) commanded us to stop Evil by our hand, speak up against it, and at the least feel bad about it.

a. Call your elected representative. Below is a list of Chicago area representatives.

b. Join the rallies with other interfaith and antiwar groups and voice your disapproval of the injustice. There is one this Friday January 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 PM. At Tribune Plaza, 435 N. Michigan Avenue & then march to the Israeli Consulate. Buses are leaving from all major masajids after Jumah Salah.

3. Donate: www.helpinghandusa.org, www.zakat.org, www.irw.org.

Contact your representative: Always be polite and courteous and ask them to publicly condemn Israel’s “disproportionate and excessive” attacks on the Gaza Strip. Ask for:

- An immediate end to Israel’s killing of Palestinians, and its attacks and siege on Gaza, and the withdrawal of Israel’s military from Gaza’s borders;

- The opening of Gaza’s borders to humanitarian aid, international observers / protection, media, the United Nations, etc.

- An end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine;

- Support a just and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that takes into account the rights and responsibilities of all parties.

U.S. Congress:

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 224-2152
Chicago Office: (312) 353-4952
Website: www.durbin.senate.gov

U.S. Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL 9th District)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-2111
Chicago Office: (773) 506-7100
Website: www.house.gov/schakowsky

U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL 3rd District)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-5701
Chicago Office: (312) 886-0481
Website: http://www.lipinski.house.gov/

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL 1st District)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-4372
Chicago Office: (773) 224-6500
Website: www.house.gov/rush

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL 4th District)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-8203
Chicago Office: (773) 342-0774
Website: www.luisgutierrez.house.gov

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL 2nd District)
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-0773
Chicago Office: (773) 734-9660
Website: www.house.gov/jackson

Find your representative:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

U.S. State Department:

Phone: (202) 647-6575
Website: http://www.state.gov

The White House:

Phone: (202) 456-1111

Email: comments@whitehouse.gov

President-elect Barack Obama:

Website: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/

Write a Letter to the Editor:

Chicago Tribune: ctc-tribletter@tribune.com
Chicago Sun-Times: letters@suntimes.com
Daily Herald: fencepost@dailyherald.com
New York Times: letters@nytimes.com
Washington Post: letters@washpost.com
Los Angeles Times: letters@latimes.com

Inform your fellow American: The Palestinian situation is not just a Muslim issue, it is a humanitarian concern, and this requires us to inform fellow Americans of the issues, in order to develop a broad based opposition to our governments biased support of the atrocities being conducted by Israel. Below are some talking points provided by ADC:

- The Israeli air strikes represent serious violations of international law, including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law.

- This is not a war between two countries with armies; it is a war initiated by the fourth most powerful army in the world against 1.5 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza.

- The U.S. is complicit in the Israeli violations, and this statement from the White House—“[the Palestinians] are responsible for breaking the ceasefire. We understand that Israel is reacting to the hundreds of rockets that have been fired on the innocent people of Israel over the last few days”—is another example of how our U.S. government DOES NOT play the role of an unbiased peace broker.

- The timing of the air strikes has far more to do with U.S. and Israeli electoral politics than with protecting Israeli civilians; i.e., to strengthen the campaign of certain candidates for Israel’s upcoming elections, and to take advantage of the fact that the lame duck Bush administration is in its final days.

- This serious escalation proves that Israel does not want real peace with the Palestinians.

- For more information click here.

mle studies by June

2009-01-02T19:57:00.000-06:00

I have to complete my mle studies by June, I just have to!

First thing is,

Let me finish patho first, with the first aid Pharma, and 50 qs each day, If I do 50 questions daily it will take 40 days to finish them, but If I do 20 qs daily it will take 100 days, so I should do 25 qs daily, which will end 80 days.

I have total 180 days, Parallel

Pathology Jan 1^st - Jan 10^th Pharmacology Jan 2^nd - 30^th Jan

Microbiology Jan 11^th- Jan 30^th

Immunology Jan 31^st - Feb 15^th Anatomy Feb 1^st - Feb 20^th

Physiology, Feb 16^th - Feb 28^th Behav Feb 21^st – March 15^th

Biochemistry, March 1^st- March 20^th

Genetics, March 21^st to April 7^th

Histology, April 8^th - April 15^th

April 16^th to May and June for second read, and July, August 3^rd read September exam

Three hrs a day patho 9,10 11

Two hrs for qs 1to 3

Two hrs for pharma 7 to 9

And two hr for revision.

3 to 7 for kids.

GUIDELINES FOR ISLAMIC WORKERS (excerpts)

2008-12-24T14:44:00.000-06:00

Abul A'la Maududi

GUIDELINES FOR ISLAMIC WORKERS (excerpts)

CONTENTS

Ta'alluq Billah

Meaning of Ta'alluq Billah

How to increase Ta'alluq Billah

Means of growing Ta'alluq Billah

Measure of Ta'alluq Billah

Preference of the Akhirah

Means to develop concern for Akhirah

Avoid Takabbur (Arrogance)

Attend to your kith and kin

Mutual Islah (Betterment)

Collective Ihtisab (Criticism)

Sama'a and Ta'at

Advice to the local heads

Devotion and Sacrifice

Advice to Women

Collective lhtisab (Criticism)

Mutual criticism is also a fruitful way of collective reform. Bring to the notice of your fellow workers their faults and shortcomings in a very polite and sincere manner. But be careful as

it may prove disastrous if the etiquettes of sincere criticism are not duly observed. The etiquettes of fair criticism are as under:

1. Critiscism should not be made every time and everywhere.

2. Before criticising anybody first examine your own heart considering Allah as a witness whether you are criticising out of sincerity and for the well being or it is motivated due to

personal impulse. In the case of the former, the criticism is indeed fully justified otherwise you should hold your tongue and try to get rid of this impurity from your personality.

3. Your words and manner of criticism should make everyone feel that you really want reform and betterment.

4. Be sure that your complaint is based on real and hard facts before criticizing anybody. Baseless criticism without getting sure of its facts is a sin and create disorder.

5. The person who is criticised should give a calm hearing to the complaint, then ponder over it without any prejudice. He should concede to the truth plainly and counter the wrong with

impassive reasoning. To get annoyed on criticism shows arrogance and vanity.

6. The criticism, and its rebuttal should not prolong and turn into a permanent altercation. Discussion is worth while till both the viewpoints are duly elaborated but if the matter is not

settled, postpone discussion and let both of them reconsider the whole matter coolly and separately.

The criticism within such limits is not only helpful but also necessary to set right our social life. No Islamic Jama'ah can keep itself on right direction without such constructive

criticism Nobody in the Jama'ah should be above criticism. I regard it indispensable for the stability of the Islamic Movement and I am sure that the day this healthy criticism is stopped,

the Movement would succumb to various ills resulting in its destruction. That is why I had always been convening a special meeting after the general meeting of the Jama'ah ever since

its inception, to critically assess the whole work of the organization and its structure. In such special meetings I offer myself first for criticism, so that any objection or complaint

against me or my performance should be brought openly before all without any hesitation. Either the criticism will correct me, or my explanation will clear the misunderstanding of the

critic as well as all those whose thinking are identical.

Advice to Women

Much of what I have already said is common to both men and women. Now, I will say something exclusively for the women who are in any way attached with the Islamic Movement.

The first and foremost requirement for you is to acquire as much knowledge of Islam as possible. Study not only the Qur'an but also Hadith and Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) with full

understanding. Limit not yourselves only to the basic knowledge of Islam and requirements of faith (Iman) but try to know Islamic injunctions regarding your personal life, family life,

and general social living. One of the main causes of un-Islamic customs and practices becoming common in Muslim families is the ignorance of our women folk about the teaching of

Islam and Islamic injunctions.

Next thing for you to do is to try to mould your practical life, your morals and your character as well as the life and atmosphere at your home according to your knowledge of Islam.

Muslim woman must be so firm and strict that she should stick to what she considers right despite the opposition and hurdle from her family or other relatives. She should not concede

to anything wrong under any sort of pressure. No doubt, the parents, the husband and other elders of the family deserve obedience, respect and regard and they must never be treated with

insubordination and arrogance, but the rights and will of Allah and His Prophet (p) reign supreme. Whosoever presses you to adopt the path of disobedience to Allah and His Prophet (p)

flatly refuse to obey, be he your father or your husband Never bow to anyone in this respect. Rely on Allah and bravely face the worst of the consequences, even if it leads to the

destruction of your worldly life. The stronger your determination to adhere to Islam, the better shall be its effect on your family environments by the grace of Allah. You shall, thus, get

a golden opportunity to reform your homes. On the contrary, if you yield to unwarranted and anti-Islamic demands, your own personal life will be deprived of the blessings of Islam, and

you will set a bad example of weakness in faith and morals for the people around you.

Your third responsibility is to give priority to your near and dear ones in the matter of reform and improvement in Islamic way of life Those of our sisters, whom Allah has gifted with

children, are in fact appearing for a test in which if they fail, no other success can compensate this failure. Their own children deserve their best attention. It is their prime responsibility

to train their children well in Islam and with its etiquettes. Married ladies also have the responsibility of keeping their husbands on the right path and to assist them in remaining steadfast

in their march if they are already on the right path. A daughter can also convey the truth to her parents observing due respect and regard for them. The least she can manage to do is to

offer them Islamic books to read.

Fourthly, spend as much time as you can spare from your household duties to convey the knowledge of Islam to the women folk around you. Impart education to young girls and

uneducated elderly women . Provide useful Islamic literature to ladies who are literate. Arrange women gatherings and explain the taching of Islam to them. If you cannot speak in public,

just read out relevant and useful extracts from literature to them. In short, try your level best, using all possible ways and means to eliminate ignorance and illiteracy in the ladies around

you.

recitaion soorah muzzamil

2008-12-23T12:40:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXzziqUWUws&feature=related

2008-12-22T04:23:00.001-06:00

http://www.jasarat.com/graphic/smag_detail.php?smagdate=21-12-2008&newsid=01.gif

study plan

2008-12-21T14:28:00.001-06:00

One patho chapter daily, till Jan 4th.
First aid: one hr daily
Q bank: one hr
1 lec video
Goljan lecture daily

Today

2008-12-21T14:19:00.002-06:00

A new day:
Today's schedule: Just studies till night:
DH is taking care of everything, I am doing Red blood cell disorders.
I have to regularly fill my daily evaluation form... (will report tonight inshaAllah)

My very first blog

2008-12-21T04:32:00.002-06:00

Salam peace,

I am starting my personal very first blog.
It will be my diary, it will be my log, my daily journal, which will keep me focus, it will make the self evaluation and personal accountability easier for me.
It will also provide an easy way to communicate with my family and friends, they can come here and see how are my days n nights.
Lots of prayers!

SA

A nice poem:

2008-12-21T04:30:00.000-06:00

"Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!"

Saying of my beloved Prophet (pbuh)

2008-12-21T04:29:00.002-06:00

"Acquire knowledge,

because he who acquires it, in the way of the Lord, performs an act of piety;

who speaks of it praises the Lord;

who seeks it, adores God,

who dispenses instruction in it, bestows alms;

and who imparts it to its fitting objects, performs an act of devotion to God.

Knowledge enables its possessor to distinguish what is forbidden from what is not;

lights the way to Heaven;

it is our friend in the desert,

our companion in solitude, our companion, when bereft of riends;

it guides us to happiness;

it sustains us in misery;

it is our ornament in the company of friends;

it serves as an armor against our enemies.

With knowledge the creatures of Allah rises to the heights of goodness and to noble position, associates with the sovereigns in this world and attains the perfection of happiness in the next."

Peace

2008-12-21T04:27:00.001-06:00

With every breath that we breathe, may we be ever aware of the Divine Presence, the Source of all that we receive.

With every step that we take, may we always honor the Light which guides us, the Source and Nourisher of all of creation.

Every moment of this life is filled with your eternal radiance my Beloved, You are the Beneficent One who endlessly showers all of creation with nourishment and blessings, and the One who generously rewards those who live in harmony with Your Divine Will.

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Time Management Video Clips

Time Management Video Clips

The following list of titles will allow you to see video clips of selected time management tips by world-renowned time management expert, Peter "The Time Man" Turla.Simply click on the text of any segment title that sounds interesting. You don't have to proceed in any order.

Enjoy these Time Management Videos of Time Tips by Turla

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study plan

Today

My very first blog

A nice poem:

Saying of my beloved Prophet (pbuh)

Peace

The following list of titles will allow you to see video clips of selected time management tips by world-renowned time management expert, Peter "The Time Man" Turla.

Simply click on the text of any segment title that sounds interesting. You don't have to proceed in any order.