The first thing I was ever taught to say in French at school was ‘ou est le singe?’ which means ‘where is the monkey’.  Understandably the response was ‘il est dans l’arbre’. He’s in the tree, which I guess is where monkeys tend to hang out – no pun intended there. I’ve since forgotten most of the French I studied, except for that single phrase, which is a problem when heading to France on holiday.

If you’re keen to learn French, here are ten top ideas that will help you remember much more than the location of a monkey.

Rent a French Film

Invite your friends round, rent one French film, like Amelie or Au Revoir Les Enfants. Switch off the subtitles and see how much you understand. It will take a while but with lots of time and even more patience you’ll forget you ever needed subtitles. Eventually.

Sing in French 

Download some tunes by French artists (yes, there are some), learn the lyrics and sing along in French. The great old classic ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ by Plastic Bertrand is a starting point – or ‘Joe Le Taxi’ by Vanessa Paradis. You’ll soon be humming them all day and eventually you’ll know what they are talking about – which will be more than the singers ever did!

Buy a French Phrasebook

Learn all the key French phrases like ‘je t’adore’, ‘je m’apelle Bob’, ‘un bier s’il vous plait ‘ and ‘ou est le singe?’. Carry it around with you at all times and you can check up every time you here a new question or comment that you’ve not heard before.

Get a French Girlfriend or Boyfriend

You can easily find a foreign girlfriend or boyfriend. Ask them out on a date (go on, be brave) and spend the entire evening speaking only in French. Actually, it may be easier to visit a French restaurant with some friends and refuse to speak in anything but French, much less embarrassing.

Head Out to a Summer Camp

If you can’t actually afford to live in France then a holiday at a summer camp, in somewhere like the French Alps, is a great way of meeting new people and immersing yourself in all things French. Make sure you take your phrase book and watch lots of your rented DVDs before you go. Plus you get to learn lots of new activities.

Play Games in French

Whatever it is, bingo (easier to start with numbers) crosswords or computer games – play them only in French for at least a week. At the end of the week you’ll be ready for the ultimate challenge:  French Scrabble!  You might need to find a French Dictionary to go with your phrasebook.

Overwhelm Your Mind with French!

Label every single item in your house with its French name, from the cutlery to the bathroom accessories and your dog or cat. Use brightly coloured labels so you can’t miss them (and nor can anyone else). Before long the whole house will be speaking in French and – depending on what sort of people you live with – asking where the monkey is. At last!

Live in France!

What better way to learn a language than to actually live in the country where it’s spoken? You won’t find the soaps and reality shows with English subtitles there. Throw yourself in at the deep end and live like the French. If the prospect of living in France is hampered somewhat by your lack of budget, why not apply for a summer job at an adventure camp where you can have fun, earn some cash to cover your costs and learn to speak French.

So that’s it, I’m off to buy the book, watch the film, sing the songs, label the house and get some extra points at Scrabble – before I book my holiday of course. The best time to start learning is now so whatever your preferred method the key is consistency. Even ten minutes a day will make a difference. Allez then – and bonne chance!     

Biog: Kate Smedley will be off to summer camp in the French Alps this year.

Reading.  We can do reading from books, articles on internet, newspaper or magazine. We can choose a reading as our interested. May be about technologies, economic and health.  Reading in our room, garden, library, and public places like city parks.

Here are some benefits of reading:

1. 1.       Enhanced Smarts. it turns out that reading helps in almost every area of smarts. No matter what you’re wanting to do or become, you can’t do it without more knowledge. Reading is an excellent way to get where you’re wanting to go.
2. 2.       It reduces stress. a book can easily distract me. My favorite books are “heaven is so real” by Choo Thomas, “Become a better you” by Joel Osteen, and “Good Morning Holy Spirit” by Benny Hinn-The contents in Bahasa Indonesia. And every day book is Holy Bible. Of course, we also must read  textbook that we get from our school or university. Sometimes we spend the times for hours, the book gives wondered in the next page.
3. 3.       Increased vocabulary. It’s no secret that reading increases your vocabulary and improves your spelling, but did you know that reading increases your vocabulary more than talking or direct teaching? Reading forces us to look at words that we might not have seen or heard recently at the pub.

Singing. there are people who have the gift to sing, generally they like singing. Singing could provide a peaced. They may singing on pop, rock, blues, R&B, dangdut (a kind of Indonesian music), and classical. not always the person who has a good voice singing as a hobby.

Adventuring. Do an adventuring for some people is very exciting. they can spend lots of money for it. Adventuring in overseas or in local state. They climb mountain, being on the beach, rowing, or may be skydiving. Wow…

Photography. He  has a camera hanging around his neck. suddenly, he photographs the neighborhood without we aware. he can tell you as an object picture. You can be accepting or rejecting. Hm… unique

man must have a hobby. My hobbies are singing, reading, listening the music and fishing. How about you?

1. Be playful.  You don’t need to act dumb just to be playful.  Go for a walk in the rain or dance in the kitchen.  The most important thing is, show him that you have a fun side and you aren’t afraid to show it.

2. Be romantic.  You don’t need to cover the living room floor in rose petals- just put on a movie and rub his back, or make him his favorite meal when he gets home from work once a week.  Do things that show him that you know what he likes.

3. Smile.  Enjoy your time with him.  He gets an ego boost every time you smile-especially if you are smiling at him. 

4. Wear something sexy.  You don’t have to dress like a harlot, but take the time to wear something cute and confident when you two go out.  He will feel more confident and happy that he can show you off.  You’ll feel more confident too.

5. Take interest in his hobbies.  Take interest in his life and his friends.  Don’t be overbearing.  Just try out some of the things that he enjoys.  It will help him feel closer to you.

Well, try out some of these tips and see if his attitude toward you becomes more romantic.  These may seem basic, but if you put the time into actually applying these to your relationship, you will find that your relationship will infact improve.  And my most important tip of all: listen.  If you listen to him, you will learn about what he likes and what he loves about you (or doesn’t like about you at all), and will improve the communication in your relationship.

It is time for extreme financial change and preparations for the future. The economy is sinking further each day and the government debt problem is creating problems all over the world. What happens when the government decides to stop sending out social security checks to retirees? Did everyone notice that politicians are not going to miss a paycheck or have to give up their limo service. None of them have ever mentioned switching from limo service to small hybrid cars to save gas, the earth or set an example to others.

Their life will have no change at all, but the American people who do not get a say in the budget plan for the country are the ones that will have to suffer. If this happens there should be a grass roots movement to impeach or fire every single one that the debt problem does not effect. They are fired! The laws the prevent them from having to live in the normal financial world should be changed and if we suffer, they suffer! No retirement for government politicians. Once they are out of office, they go back to their original jobs.

Begin your extreme finance change by paying off all credit cards if you have not already paid them off. Keep them for the coming emergency. Do not charge on them. You will need them for rent, mortgage, gas and food. Use sparingly and use them as seldom as possible. Pay them off as quick as you can find the cash to do so.

Change your home mortgage plan. If you have not refinanced your home for lower point, interest and payments, then do it now. Do it right away and take advantage of every program to lower your payment so you can afford to live in your home. Times are going to get even harder. Cut back on everything you can now.

Change your thought process from the American dream of days past to the new American dream of making it from month to month without going bankrupt. Face the possibility you may lose your home in the coming year and try to prepare now. If you do not want to lose the home, think about taking in a room mate or another family. Even if you limit your own living space to the master bedroom and bath. It is survival now.

If you live in a large home you may have to learn to live in a much smaller space. Get rid of the clutter you have now. Sell it, give it away, throw it away, but get rid of it so there is less to move. It may provide a little extra income in the meantime. Stick away every cent you can and some that you can’t.

Grow a garden. Grow just one thing. Anything will taste good when you are hungry and broke. Food banks are great, but they are beginning to go broke and having a hard time providing enough. Everyone is poor at the moment and the food banks are strained. Begin collecting for your personal food stock. Learn about the food you have put away and how to make soups, pastas and every filling meals with only a few ingredients.

Think about investing in a small trailer house in case you end up losing your home and have no money for a rental or someone to move in with. You may be able to keep your home if family members lose theirs and move in with you. They need to provide enough money so the home is saved and the utilities stay on. Do things together, but find time apart so you do not annoy each other too much.

Look for a second income source right now. It can be a second job, whatever you can sell, a new part time career, working for someone else on a part time bases, writing, online businesses, hobbies and most of all offer hope for everyone you know. Put away the cents for the hard times to come.

It is going to get worse. The prediction is for over 4,000 state workers to be laid off and government workers at the lower level where normal people work. The hard working are the ones that will suffer. Unemployment is going to run dry and no one will have an income. Tent cities will become standard and in the cold winter month it will be a disaster for the human race.

Crime will increase, people will die, children will die, money will disappear and the government will take over complete control. It will be called a rescue, but you will never again be free to make your own decisions.

Which brings me back to the title, there is so much information out there and even if you lived thousands of years, you still couldn’t learn it all. I would suggest learning a little bit on lots of topics and widening your horizon. By checking out some things you never heard of, you might actually find you like it.

I’m sure you know lots of stuff and you have some hobbies that you could tell me lots of stuff about, but how many hobbies could you write a page on. 10, 20, 50, maybe even 100? Well guess what, there are thousands of hobbies out there. Heck, make up your own. If it’s something you like doing and you do it regularly, it’s a hobby.

Go do something. Learn lots. Knowledge is power. Honestly, I’m sure you’ll find things you like or are interested in. You’ll be better off anyways.If you spend your whole life doing the same thing everyday, it’s not living, you need to have dreams and hopes. If you don’t have goals for the future, then your life can become a sad daily routine.

Get out there and learn something new, thanks for reading and please comment, like and add me as a friend.

Image via Wikipedia

What do I mean by creating a job for yourself? It’s fairly simple. It deals with the idea of self employment. I was listening to one of my favorite hip hop artists named Hezekiah, and he stated the following in one of his songs; “My hobby becomes a job”. This is exactly what I’m talking about in this blog post. Many people are taking their hobbies, or passions and turning it into a steady source of income for themselves. So what are some of the options you have for creating income for yourself? The easy answer to that question is that the options are limitless. It can be anything that you are good at, or passionate about. 

Many people are using the Internet to create income for themselves. Whether it’s blogging, selling products on Ebay, Etsy, or writing for sites such as this one, there is always money to be made. Whether it’s online or offline, creating income for yourself is a possibility. The idea is to be practical and realistic about what’s available to you. Look for services that need offering. Many of the jobs that have been lost in America are not coming back. It also appears that the job market in America isn’t going to get better anytime soon. With jobs being so scarce and hard to come by, finding other ways of income is important. Like that old saying goes; “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. 

Enjoy!

1st Discard all irrelevant numbers, including age, weight and height.
Let the doctors worry about them. For this we pay them.

2nd Keep only cheerful friends. Grouchy people pull you down.
(Keep this in mind if you are one of those grouchy).

3rd Keep learning: 

Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, people, yourself, whatever.

Never let the brain idle.

“An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”

A devil’s name is Alzheimer’s!

4th Enjoy the simple things.

5th Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
And if you have a friend who makes you laugh,spend lots and lots of time with him / her.

6th Tears happen:
Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Live while you are alive.

7th Surround yourself with things you love:
Whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, sex, whatever.
Your home is your refuge.

8th Cherish your health:
If it is good, preserve it.
If it is unstable, improve it.
If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9th Do not go to guilt trip. Go to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country but NOT to where you feel guilty.

10th Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

Share this thoughts with someone who is dear to you.

Image by GE Healthcare via Flickr

As nearly all of the people my age and older, I have had a job in my lifetime. In fact, I’ve had a couple of different actual jobs, as well as a number of smaller service jobs that I performed simply on my own in my neighborhood.

And I hated each and every one of those jobs.

Now, that hate didn’t stem from the jobs themselves. Even the “worst” job that I had– working in a warehouse during two summers after the school year–was not a bad job. Although the pay left a little something (or maybe quite a bit) to be desired, it was a job in which I could easily meet the requirements, I was guaranteed forty hours a week, and there were plenty of people that I could at least talk to during the day. I made about $2000 each summer, with about $200 or $250 coming back to me when I filed for my tax return. That is not a bad amount of money for someone who is going on seventeen or eighteen years old.

And as for the other jobs, I’ve worked on a farm managing the property, I’ve shoveled snow from driveways, I’ve mowed lawns. In short, I’ve done the usual outdoor chores that anyone does during their adolescence to earn a little extra scratch. My negative feelings didn’t stem from the activities. Quite the opposite, really, as I enjoyed doing such tasks to an extent. I get satisfaction from manual labor and from completing a project I had been working on.

Why, then, do I talk about hating my jobs?

What it comes down to for me are two different intellectual screws that are twisted into my gray matter. The first is the act of turning time into a commodity. The second is the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual decay of an individual that results from devoting oneself to a job.

The first point was shepherded into society by the industrialization of major countries and the prevalence of capitalistic tendencies. This isn’t a rant against capitalism by any means (not that it is a support of capitalism, either ), but capitalism did seem to cause this phenomenon, at least in part. With the advent of commercial super-efficiency, every business has for the past century or so has tended away from any kind of waste– not that I protest a lack of waste, but rather the more indirect effects which I’m going to try to detail here.

As businesses have become leaner and leaner, they’ve increasingly looked for more ways to improve efficiency, more ways to slash waste and therefore costs, and as many ways as possible to increase profit. A large part of this practice is the science of efficiency. Everything involved in the business at every point and every level is measured, weighed, and judged necessary or wasteful. A number is applied to all these different actions, in terms of how much money it costs the company to do something in a certain amount of time. Less time per action = more actions in a given time = more money made in a given amount of time. This is where we run into problems with having a job.

When companies become this concerned with how much money they are making in a certain amount of time, we start changing the old saying “Time is money”. There’s nothing wrong with that– time is money, and if you want money you have to use some of your time to create something of value. However, with the air of efficiency, the saying becomes “____ time is worth ____ money”.

This is the attitude that determines part one of why I hate jobs, and why having a job is terrible. Someone has put a number to your time, the worker’s time, and decided how much it is worth.

Why does that make sense?

Suddenly, according to some goon at the top of a corporate food chain, your hour of time is worth $8.25. Eight dollars and twenty-five cents. That hour of your life, that you spent in a warehouse, or behind a cash register? It was worth 33 gumballs. That’s right. Empty a few out of that machine there, and you work for me for an hour, doing what needs to be done to make me some money. Meanwhile the owner of this company, or even the manager of a branch of the company, is making how much more than you?

What makes your hour less valuable? Why (other than the obvious economic rules for making a profit, of course) should your hour be worth $8.25, when an hour of the manager’s life is worth some other, greater, number? Your heart still beats, your lungs still breathe, your brain is still firing away, and you’re still an hour closer to death.

Someone has literally put a cash value on doing something you don’t wish to do while still drawing closer to your death.

Now, while that’s unacceptable just in terms of human interaction, the second point really is more dire overall, and that’s the degradation of one’s aspirations and life which comes from having a job.

Let’s take the average Joe just out of college before the recession hit: he’s in his 20’s, has a degree, but hasn’t yet found a job that deals with the profession he’s chosen. Okay, that’s fine, he’s just going to get an entry-level job to help tide him over until he can get that really great job his college degree was obtained for.

To that end, Joe goes to work for some big corporate business. McDonald’s, Target, WalMart (shudder), Wendy’s, Payless Shoes… most businesses you can name will do here. He goes through training, gets his uniform together, and starts work. Joe is looking at working forty hours a week, at $8.25 an hour (the current minimum wage, though it would have been a tad lower before the recession), with the possibility for time-and-a-half over forty hours, and receiving little-to-no benefits, especially in the first year of employment.

Think about the costs involved for Joe. To use an example, he’s working a 9-5 job, every Monday through Friday. Supposing he sleeps eight hours and wake up at seven each morning, with an hour to get ready for work each day, Joe has seven hours to himself each day. To speak nothing of preparing meals, interacting with family, dealing with finances, staying informed in some way (watching the news, reading the paper or articles online, etc.), Joe has little time for himself. Joe is alloted seven hours per day in which he can do the things we all want to do. Joe has seven hours in which to have fun, improve himself, visit others, do community service, visit his church/synagogue/mosque/unitarian place of meeting/meditation chamber, and even commute back and forth from work. When we factor in all the different time-sinks that come from the different parts of our lives, it starts to show that a job is one of the ultimate inhibitors to living a fulfilled life.

What could all of us be doing with forty hours a week? For most of us, that would mean a whole lot of positives being fulfilled that are otherwise neglected. We could get enough sleep at night– because most of us don’t get even eight hours, as Joe does, though the average adult needs anywhere from 7.5-9 hours. We could spend quality time with our significant others– because though Joe is single right now, he might not be in the future, and though the relationship expert Terri Orbuch says only 10 minutes of quality interaction are necessary, many families don’t even have time to eat dinner together. We could exercise more– because Joe is young and relatively fit now, but if he doesn’t exercise for a significant amount of time he’s liable to become part of America’s obesity epidemic. We could express our creativity and our skills– because most 9-5 jobs don’t allow us to use our creativity and skills meaningfully, but being able to use those skills is an excellent way of leading a fulfilling life.

Joe from our scenario isn’t even in the worst-case situation. Many jobs are even more deadening, due to terrible hours and commute, labor or an environment which causes long-term harm, or any of a myriad of reasons.

Think about it. How many people do you know who are fulfilled by their job? This isn’t to say they aren’t content with their positions, because they may be. But how many jobs actually lead to self-growth and fulfillment? Now, how many people do you know who hate their jobs? How many people do you know who are constantly wishing they could quit their job and walk away to something better?

Compare the numbers. Isn’t it odd that having a job, which is supposed to be the accepted norm in our society, is such a negative in the lives of most people? The best position it occupies in the lives of most people is that of a necessary evil. There are a lucky few who manage to avoid such a necessity, but they again are a rare few.

I’m not offering a solution here. If I knew exactly what to do to make a few million and live comfortably for the rest of my life, I’d be doing it. I know there <em>are</em> things which can be done. A book can be written, a business started, any of a number of things.

All I’m speaking against is the accepting mindset. The idea that a job is not only necessary, but good for an individual! That idea not only seems wrong to me, but disgusts me in that it prevents so many people from reaching their highest potential.

How many skills could you learn, were your time not devoted to a job? How many different things could you accomplish? How could your relationships differ, or be strengthened?

What would the world be like, if we had back the forty hours a week, 2080 hours a year?

When I think of the mind, I sometimes think of the mainframe of a computer. Our minds are constantly changing and learning. The thoughts and ideas that we put into our heads, becomes part of who we are. When a person is consistently thinking negative thoughts, it spreads like a cancer. Eventually this type of thinking consumes your mind. The next thing that comes with this is a person who always thinks, believes, and assumes the worst in almost all situations. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would assume that’s not that way that most of us want to live. Many times it’s our friends and family who bring negativity towards our way. The statement, “you are a reflection of the company you keep” is a true statement. 

There is a way help to cure negativity in our society though. The best way to do this, is to get away from any and all negative factors in your life. If it’s friends in your life who are bringing you down with negativity, get away from them. If it’s a spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend, do the same. If it’s a situation that you are dealing with in life, do your best to get away from it. Find other hobbies and activities to keep your mind active. This can help prevent you from thinking too much, thus reducing the likelihood of negative thoughts. You don’t want your mind to get consumed with negativity to the point of no return. Having your sanity and a stable mind is priceless. What do you think?

An immense wooden ship flies a sinister skull and crossbones flag while sailing on the open seas, searching for profitable target ships. The pirate ship strikes fear in the hearts of all who see her, and many ships steer clear of them. When people call up an image of a pirate ship, a wooden vessel flying the ominous jolly roger symbol on its flag is the most common. Modern day pirates are vastly different, and usually operate on speedboats. The old fashioned pirate ship is a symbol of romanticism and adventure on the high seas at its finest. 

Pirate ships for sale are exorbitantly precious and rare. Pirate ships for sale are commonly model ships and not full scale, though full scale pirate ships are in the possession of maritime museums around the world. Pirate ships are charming pieces that inspire the onlooker to dream of swashbuckling journeys in search of great treasure. Gifts of model pirate ships are particularly loved by children or those who are young at heart. Many will appreciate these kinds of ships for their outstanding historical accuracy and build. Pirate ships for sale take on a variety of names, ranging from meaningful to simple to already-used names of ships past. 

Pirate ships that one can find for sale have different flag emblems as well, but the skull and crossbones of the jolly roger is the most commonly seen. Three-sailed schooners are the most common variety of boat that most pirates traditionally chose as their vessel, and the sails were usually starched rigorously. Sailboats like schooners are highly valued for speed and agility on the water, and are oftentimes made of wood or metal, with wood being the predominate material on a pirate ship. Schooners in early days were renowned for their reliability and speed, and were used in both navies and renegade fleets. Until the conception of the steam engine, schooners were, without a doubt, occupying the seas in great number. New steam engine powered boats were a lot faster than their schooner counterparts, and soon surpassed the schooner as the favored boat by both pirates and everyday sailors. 

Port towns furthest from large cities were chosen as ports to dock in and get repairs for pirates and their wooden ships, and costs were sometimes too expensive for pirates to cover completely. This made the state of pirate ships usually in some sort of disrepair, and long term damage to the hull or other parts was unmistakable and often the only indicator a ship belonged to pirates if the flag was down. Authenticity remains in the small indents and flaws, and pirate ships for sale are prone to not have a single scratch on them, including model pirate ships and restored pirate ships on display in museums. For many, the iconic crow’s nest on the top mast is the most unique part of a pirate ship. Lookouts used the crow’s nest to keep an eagle eye on any changes on the sea. Pirate ships for sale are well built and full of charm.