You know how when you see somebody you sort-of know in the street and you do the old “hey, how are you?” “Good, fine, you? “Fine thanks,” thing without actually stopping because your lack of desire to catch up with that person is balanced perfectly by your desire for them not to think you’re rude? And you know if they say anything other than “fine thanks” you’ve got to bloody stop and ask them either what the matter is or why they’re doing so well? Round these parts, the opposite is true.

Case in point: yesterday. I’m embarking on the usual stroll home from my job at the video shop – another day, another £51.50 minus tax. I spy Suzette’s brother from the North side of the estate, most probably on the way to the Red Lion. Neither of us slows down, as is the norm, and we embark on the inevitable exchange.

“Alright Ed?”

“Evening, John. You alright?”

“Shite. Yourself?”

“Fine thanks.”

This is where it gets interesting. Ed looks at me like I’ve just sprouted tentacles, stares me up and down. Silence. Before -

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m fine!”

I smile, but apparently that’s not helping. Ed continues to gawp.

“In this place? Look around! I’ve just got turned down from the army for the ninth time, you work in a video shop, and we live in this fucking sty!”

I can’t help but smile now.

“Yeah, but it’s my fucking sty. And today I helped a couple of kids find The Rescuers Down Under buried underneath a load of old Disney tapes and I let this nice old lady off of a £10 fine because she’d been ill.”

“You know Shane from the East side? His sister’s just scored a crackin’ job at a recruitment firm in London. London, John! And you’re happy to just sit here? Where’s your ambition?”

“Ambition?”

“Yeah, ambition! She’s on £46.50 an hour!”

“Is that ambition? That’s just money, surely?”

“Whatever. You coming for a nifter?”

“Nah, it’s alright. I’m getting up early, I’ve got to open the shop.”

Ed looks at me like I’ve just insulted his mother. He looks at his watch.

“It’s 6:15.”

I smile. He shakes his head.

“See you later then.”

“Ciao!”

I put the little exchange out of my mind until I get home, when I can dwell on it. Ambition? What’s the point? Ed’s not gonna enjoy the army, Shane’s sister’s got to have a horrible stressful move to London and then she’s not going to be happy…me, on the other hand, I’ve got a Sainsbury’s basics lager – which is something you really learn to appreciate the taste of when it’s all you can afford – and I’ve got Coronation Street on – yeah, it’s in black and white, but the telly’s broken. Shit happens. And tomorrow I can get up at 6 and open the shop and do it all again. I’m loving my simple old life, ’cause my ambition is to be happy.

A minor ambition of mine is to get to at least see a NBA game of an NFL game. As much as it would never hurt me never to be able to do both I am really hoping I do get to a game. Being a sport fan in general I really am looking forward to the day(s) I am sitting in a stadium of at least one of my favourite teams. Do not know if it will happen this year,but it would be nice to experience.

I also want to lose at least 75 pounds of weight this year. I have put to much weight on over the past few years due to lack of exercise,and basically lack of doing pretty much anything. I really did get lazy with walking this year,but that was dues to stomach problems.

I am usually a positive person,and 2011 had been a bit of a less positive one,but today I feel a bit more positive. I feel ambition keep me focused. I have lost some ambition,but it is coming back,and God only knows how much I wish some things would hurry up and happen already. Another thing I have lost some of, and that is patience. Seems to be going quite quick with me,but I am trying to be more patient again.

I am not one for trying to step round people’s feeling to keep them happy,and as much as I like to see people happy, I know I nor anyone else can keep everyone happy all the time. As much as anyone else cannot keep me happy all the time. It’s just a part of life. But I am hoping we can keep each other as happy as possible for as long as possible. 

So here comes 2012. I look forward to it as I am on Gods side,and pray to him often enough. I am getting better in being with you God I think. I hope that we all can have a blessed 2012. Lets help each other move forward. I do not like being still,or moving backwards although it does happen. I want to move forward with my family,and hope that 2012 brings us a better life so we can help ourselves better. That is one main ambition I pray to God for a lot.

I hope everyone has a healthy,prosperous,loving,Godly 2012,and if you see someone in need help them as long as you do not hinder yourself in the process. What’s the point in helping someone if you are left short yourself? I am sure as much as we all would like to help everyone all the time,we need to step back and say SORRY we can’t help,but may someone else can? After all we do not want to see one another stranded. Even if you help put someone in the right direction that is a major help to. 

Role Arena if done Opening Doors

It’s absolutely altered for a man to acquaint her woman, abnormally if she’s too bourgeois and old- fashioned, accepting her to play pretend maybe abutting to impossibility. But don’t lose hope, you apperceive the cliché- “if there’s will there’s a way” it’s a fact, so never lose that will to ask your woman to do role arena with you. The a lot of applied affair you can do is to accept the timing and the appropriate abode area you can acquaint her what’s on your mind- the appropriate time and abode may be the two of you sitting in a couch in foreground of the blaze abode talking about candied nothings again try to admit your anxious for her in a role arena bold but don’t acquaint her all the data yet- it ability aberration her out.

It’s every man’s dream to do role arena in sex. Since men are calmly angry by beheld stimulation, role arena is one absolute actual to aroma up the sex life. It aswell excites the brace intellectually or mentally because you will be able to apperceive your partner’s abutting admiration and what absolutely electrifies him. We all ambition to play pretend amateur but the botheration is how to accessible it up with your adherent or admirer after the agitated acknowledgment of embarrassment or walking out or worse slapping you in the face. If you’re a woman and you ambition to play pretend, it’s easier to broadcast the bulletin to your accomplice after abundant anguish about the agitated reaction, appealing abiding he’ll be athrill to apprehend that you ambition to play pretend.

Try to activate your appeal with an assurance-like “you apperceive what honey, I adulation you so abundant and you beggarly the apple to me… and I ambition us to accomplish the a lot of out of our accord in every aspect.” Again abide with a flattery- “you are so hot and admirable that I can’t stop cerebration about you at times…” again you can bead the bomb in a attenuate manner- “ I can’t advice it, honey but in animosity of how continued we’ve been together, I can’t advice but to daydream about you all the time- how’d I ambition we can do this fantasy of abundance together, I’m abiding this is traveling to accomplish our accord added agitative and thrilling, you ambition that, won’t you?” You apperceive she’s accept with it if she’s traveling to ask you what do accept in mind.

It was on Dec. 8, 1911, that a five man Norwegian led by Roald Amundsen, having been sledding south toward to the South Pole for just over six weeks realized that their goal was in sight. With good going and high spirits, they knew that they were close to hoisting the Norwegian flag over the South Pole, and becoming the first to reach that goal.

Where Scott and his ill-fated team were experiencing real problems, only 200 miles further south,  Amundsen and his group were writing of very good conditions indeed, and by the evening of the 13th, they were camped only 15 miles from the Pole.

Amundsen wrote that he had, that night, felt the same things he could remember feeling as a little boy on Christmas Eve night. Next morning, they all ate breakfast quickly, were out of the tent fast, fearing all the while that Scott had got there first, as they forged doggedly onwards.

It was on December 14th, at 3 P.M. that Amundsen and his team became the first to reach the South Pole, even though to begin with it had been the North Pole the Norwegian had been drawn to, so that as he celebrated at the south pole, he will have been thinking about the north.

His life-time ambition had been achieved, even though he was honest enough to admit that he found himself in a position diametrically opposed position to his original goal centred around the North Pole, though his team did allow themselves celebration slices of seal meat for dinner, having joyously planted the Norwegian flag.

There was undoubtedly a fierce sense of national pride and affection as the flag unfurled itself, and waved over the Pole, an historic event in which this desolate spot had finally been conquered by man. Amundsen and his companions stayed in the area for several more days, expecting Scott to arrive but he never did.

The team spent time measuring, taking records of distances, and otherwise ensuring that they had proof of having reached the South Pole. Once finished, they erected a small tent beside the flag, in which they placed  a letter for King Haakon along with other items, before heading homewards, to be feted for their incredible achievement all around the world, while the unfortunate Scott party were sadly mourned.

            We always have some dreams and sketch of our future that we draw it after this questions(How we gonna be? How we want to be?)  And we keep trying to make ourselves in the safe way as warrior coz life is such a war, we have to be qualified with wisdom after knowledge and patient within each level we passed through.  And while everyone has his own aim that want it to have, still the techniques is the same (insistence and perseverance and defy) are the way to get the peace after war.   

I guess its repeated words!  

Well…we already started and we about to reach, but from time to time we need to see our scores, our done, our time that we spent it making our tomorrow.  to be with more vivacity, to do much more, to reach much more, to have much more, coz we are whom have unfinished ambitions we always insert a new expectation to the bottom of our list after we made a Nike mark next to the top one.

So are you ready to get more enthusiasm?!

I’m not gonna ask you to close your eyes!,, coz it’s not a dream that I want you to go to.  But it’s something real you have been through it before years ago,. so open your eyes very widely and let your vision take you bake to your zero point, the point of the start, the point of time when you had nothing to lose, the point that pushed you to be where you are now, that let you who you are now …just for few minutes to realize how could you reach and how far you’ve got.

let your vision follow your steps prints and your fingertips to see all the time..The worst and the best…The time of fall and the time of rising up..all the seasons the winter till the spring,, all your mistakes and all your solutions, each single step and each single moment you were trying to be someone who achieve what he wants.

You gonna see all the defeats and positive things that you have faced.

You gonna see how much you were doing something for your future which is now.

You gonna see how much is the days were running so fast and you’ll believe that you were fast than light and sound.

You gonna see that you have chosen the correct road with your all tactics and all faith that was telling you (you can be what you want to be, you can reach the place that you want to reach). 

You gonna see that you’ve learned a lot, and you became more wise than before

believe me…  you will be so proud, so proud of yourself with a raised head and arrogant nose coz what you have done is belong to you… only you.

And then after the imagination has taken you back to the reality of your past,   the day vision will turn you back to realize what you were dreaming about became fact, something you can touch it with your own hands…

Could you see?!  .. i guess you could coz you could be who your are.

Now The smile that fulls your face, it says thank you my Zero Point coz you let me see my today’s position and showed me what I’ll do for the unfinished ambition of tomorrow.

Cera

Reach For Your Star.

Do not take anything as being forever
because forever
is only as long as today.Know that the people who are richest
are not those who have the most,
but those who need the least.We are at our strongest
when life is at its worst,
and at our weakest
when life no longer offers a challenge.

It is wiser not to expect
but to hope,
for in expecting you ask for disappointment,
whereas in hoping you invite surprise.

Unhappiness doesn’t come
from not having something that you want,
but from the lack of something inside that you need.

There are things to hold on too,
and things to let go,
and letting go doesn’t mean you lose,
but that you acquire that which has been waiting
around the corner.

Most of all,
remember to use your dreams
as a way of knowing yourself better,
and as inspiration
to reach for your star…….

We all want ambition. Without ambition we get really really bored. Life doesn’t mean much without it. But without conflict our ambition will make little sense. Without hard times we will become uninterested and disengaged from our ambition.

The truth is if we want to grow we need challenges. Conflict makes us stronger. It provides us with opportunity for growth. Conflict gives us a chance at resolution. A chance to make changes.

However, conflict doesn’t force positive change. It changes external circumstances, and then provides us with a choice. We get to choose how conflict will shape us.

If we have ambitions we will want conflict, because it provides opportunity for growth. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t get to schedule our own conflict. When given the choice, how will you use conflict? Will you allow it to make you grow? How will you allow it to shape you?

Dreaming big things for the future:

How to dream big dream?

1. Conceive your dream- in the last days, i will pour out my Spirit to all people
    A.The process of pregnancy is very similar to holding and living out a dream
    B. As the baby is conceived by the seed of a man planted in the womb of a woman, so as dream is much like of a
      thought formed of a dream
2. Give birth to your dreams 
3. Overcome fears and failures-
    A. fear is what you pass on the way to success-it is impossible to ever find out what God has for your life
    without making a few mistakes on the way
4. Don’t abort your dream
    A. One rule for success—Never give up!

When I think of truancy rates in parts of UK being very high and children there saying “School is boring,” and being disrespectful to teachers it really does annoy me since these children have nothing and yet they apply themselves well to their studies under awful conditions and they want to excel. 

My friend Mariama from Lamin village works at a school smaller than this one and which has also very poor facilities.  She is also studying to be a qualified teacher though working as a teacher.  Schools like the one she works in at Lamin Daranka and the one in this video clip are common.  Children there really deserve to be educated in better conditions and they need all the help they can get. Here are some photos of her where she works:

This is the children’s toilet block being built.  What they did before then really was not satisfactory, but this is not a good toilet system either. 

Not all charity donations go where you want them to and some is taken up by wages, so it is sometimes better to get involved directly with a school and help them in a financial and practical way.  Sponsoring a child is also a good option to consider.  Countries like this need and deserve help.  Children are the future and education is a way out of poverty.

I believe it is natural to be fascinated by the dark side of life. Darth Vader is a much more interesting and complicated character than Luke Skywalker could ever aspire to be with his Weetabix complexion and dodgy 80s haircut; Hannibal Lector was a cold, calculating murderer yet people are drawn to the story time and time again, and not necessarily in the morbid curiosity way that Jigsaw (Saw) or Jason (Friday 13th) provides.

Cunning, intelligence, self-preservation, moral ambiguity and ambition are key qualities in Hollywood and, of course, literary villains.  To put the needs of yourself, or your people, in front of the needs of the majority is, for better or worse, an act that is said to go against human nobility.

I have always had a slightly skew whiffed perception of the heroes and villains. Heroes are boring. Villains are interesting; and therefore become the characters I find myself drawn to. When reading over some of my favourite Harry Potter related essays and topics, I found a particularly interesting list created by “Ms_Katonic” about the rules of being a successful Slytherin. (A funny yet informative read: http://slytherinrising.livejournal.com/21133.html)  I have never seen the Slytherins as the bad guys, nor have I ever been “sorted” into any different house. I have an affinity for these guys; I am highly ambitious and driven. I frequently lie for my own entertainment. I have a pet snake called Lucky. I would sell my grandmother if I could get a decent price for her. Business acumen, to me, is simply another word for Slytherin-ness.       

When JK Rowling was creating the world that so many of my generation calls a second home, these characteristics were given to the Slytherins to act as a polar contrast to the brave, noble and daring Gryffindors, who were obviously the clear heroes of the series. The message is clear; Gryffindor attributes are more valuable and sought after than the negative attributes given to the Slytherin house.

Respectfully, I disagree with this assumption, as I am sure many others do too.

The only interesting Gryffindor characters are the ones with Slytherin attributes, and the most interesting Slytherins are those with Slytherin attributes.

Hermione Granger, for example, is the epitome of what a strong, intelligent and resourceful young woman can do with her life. As a quiet bookworm myself, I could relate to her much easier than I could to any of the other main characters.  Brave, moral, honourable and decent; Hermione has many of the more prominent Gryffindor traits. However, is there another character in the book that could so easily fit into the other houses? Her formidable intelligence and cleverness would make her rise high in Ravenclaw; her loyalty to Harry and the resistance against Voldemort, not to mention her impeccable work ethic would allow her to fit easily into Hufflepuff. Nevertheless, it is her Slytherin tendencies that speak directly to me. She is able to easily lie, without letting the pesky moral streak get in her way. She demonstrated her skills at lying most effectively when leading Dolores Umbridge into serious danger, if not attempted murder, when taking her into the Forbidden Forest and using the centaurs as her weapon. She focuses entirely on her causes; ambition to gain rights for House Elves, for example, is the Slytherin ambition manifested. Hermione lies, manipulates and has very little scruples in following her own cunning.

Obviously, while she is very much a Gryffindor, she demonstrates constantly that the Slytherin traits are not far from her own personality.

Albus Dumbledore also presents some Slytherin quirks that undermine his credibility as a beacon of Gryffindor. He was said to have learnt lying from his mother’s knee; and there are ample examples of how he tweaked the situations just to suit his personal needs. The focus on the greater good at the expense of the individual, while denounced by himself following the death of his sister, was a highly ambitious and highly Slytherin plan.

And who wouldn’t want to be in Slytherin?

It is a scientifically proven fact that Slytherins are sexier than any other House. Slytherins rise higher and faster than their other classmates because of the traits that put them in the house to begin with. Imagine sharing a room with six of the sneakiest, manipulative, cunning and selfish people, picked out for your viewing pleasure, for at least seven years of your education. Slytherins learn quicker how to move in the world; the subtle twists and turns to enable you to get what you want out of life.

Then, imagine the isolation caused by the anger, resentment and, in some cases, violence directed towards a group of what can only be called children. Dumbledore’s act in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone where he allowed them to believe that they had won the House Cup, only for it to be taken away by exactly enough points to allow Gryffindor the victory, demonstrates the negative reinforcement by the world against these children. We are aware that the years leading up to Harry’s arrival at Hogwarts were marked with Slytherin victory in the House Cup and Qudditch cup – points are awarded for academic achievement, good behaviour and taken away for excessive rule-breaking and academic failure – obviously the traits of Slytherin allow for high levels of success, causing resentment.

 Eleven year old children who have been called evil before they have finished their start of year feast are punished just because they have a spark of ambition, an iota of self-preservation and a drop of cunning. We are told that in Slytherin you find your real friends; I argue this is simply because the other houses are too prejudiced against Slytherin to allow inter-house bonding.

The bastardization of Severus Snape’s sacrifice to the wizarding world with Dumbledore’s assertion that “sometimes I think we sort too soon” demeans the work that the man contributed to the downfall of Voldemort. It was Slytherin cunning that let him spy for Dumbledore and save the lives of countless numbers of individuals based on the intelligent he provided. Snape is the very epitome of Slytherin and to suggest that he would have been better in Gryffindor rings very negatively. It is equated to someone being shunned for being who they are by a popular group, but once they become useful, are told it would be ok for them to call themselves one of them. It undermines the individual’s immense strength of character and cheapens the sacrifice. Snape was the only Slytherin in the Order of the Phoenix and suffered constant suspicion despite proving his loyalty to the cause.

Snape also provides a different perception of what Slytherin ambition can be; his only known ambition was winning the heart and, post death, the spirit of Lily Evans. Everything in his life from the moment he met her to his death was tragic and beautiful ambition. It consumed him in a blanket of self-loathing, bitterness and anger, yet drove him to literature’s greatest self-sacrifice for it is easy to sacrifice your life in an instant, but to live with the guilt, torture, hatred and anger, and then your life is a greater price to pay.

Salazar Slytherin did not wake up one morning and create a House for evil children. Ambition is not an evil trait to have if it is directed and nurtured in a positive way, which is impossible due to the prejudice of the Wizarding World. The racist doctrine of Slytherin “Pure Bloods” is undermined by a number of non-Pure Blood wizards being sorted there, including Tom Riddle and Severus Snape. I believe it is adherence to tradition and conservatism rather than racism is a greater influencing factor in the Slytherin common room… although, obviously there are exceptions to the rules.

(Which can be argued for most Houses: Percy Weasley was an ambitious Gryffindor; Peter Pettigrew was a cowardly one. Crabbe and Goyle have nothing that suggests huge amounts of cunning; yet Merlin and Slughorn provide different examples of Slytherins)

I guess my own sense of self belief is tied in directly with these guys. I want to be successful and I want to find out how to achieve my goals with as much work and excitement as possible. I am aware that taking such things quite so seriously may hamper my ambition; but I have been shaped and influenced by the Slytherins. To overcome prejudice, to use my cunning to achieve my goals, to take a step back before rushing into a situation, and to do whatever it takes to keep the people in my life safe and secure. I would rather sit under a silky smooth snake than a garish yellow lion but, then again, I may just be slightly twisted.