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Source: http://boglarputki.blogspot.com/2012/12/renting-tools-for-your-home-improvement.html
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When it comes to travelling, there are many modes which you can choose to be at places. If you are thinking of travelling slow and want to enjoy the ride then trains and buses are for you. Otherwise, if you are considering traveling fast and want to save your time, it is wise that you choose to go with air travel. You would find that there are a lot of fine providers out there which can help you with your needs. And if you are thinking of travelling on time with comfort British Airways is what you should be after.
For getting an international air ticket for your travels, you need to choose from various dealers out there and you would easily be able to get discounted air fare. Your travel planner can be of immense help and you would find them to be the best in planning your travel itinerary as well. So when it comes to saving money, it is wise that you choose to visit your travel dealer and discuss your needs with him. Otherwise, the travel sites are a great option too and you would be able to make the most of them in need.
British Airways is one popular airline which makes people travel around the world. If you are thinking of travelling to England or any other location, you can book an international air ticket and reach your destination. Travel websites like Makemytrip are a great choice for you and you would find that there are a lot of fine deals available on them for you to pick. All you have to do is go online and choose the best offer. Those who are thinking of saving their money on travelling should certainly book their international air ticket on such sites and enjoy their free time.
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About the Author:
The author books international air ticket on the web. He chooses to travel with British airways and enjoys going around. For more information please visit http://www.makemytrip.com
Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Avail-Year-End-Offers-On-International-Air-Ticket/4354349
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Three of Alberta?s newest members of the Order of Canada may also be its most surprised and humble.
?I was a bit taken aback, to put it mildly. I didn?t think that I had done anything in particular that warranted it,? said Fred Martin, a lawyer who splits his time between Edmonton and Salt Spring Island, B.C. He is receiving the order for working in support of equal rights, and in particularly his work with the M?tis Settlements General Council.
Ninety-one new additions to the Order of Canada were announced Sunday, three from central Alberta. In addition to Martin, Edmonton physiotherapist and professor David Magee was named to the order for ?advancing the field of sports medicine in Canada as a physiotherapist, professor and scholar,? and Vegreville?s Elsie Kawulych was given the recognition ?for her contributions to preserving and promoting Ukrainian culture in Canada and for her volunteer engagement in her community.?
The Order of Canada is given by the Governor General to acknowledge ?a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to community and service to the nation.?
agee said he was ?flabbergasted? to find out he had been named to the order for his longtime work in the field of physiotherapy, which has included working with elite Canadian athletes and writing a popular textbook. Magee said he doesn?t know why he was nominated or by whom, and Googled the order to find out what it was.
?I didn?t feel like I did anything special, but I guess somebody feels I have,? he said. ?I really appreciate that somebody has done this for me, and it?s very humbling.?
Magee said receiving the order is ?a great honour,? and that it will find a place with to some of the other recognitions he has received through his work, including three Stanley Cup rings and a Grey Cup ring.
?I?ve been fortunate when I look back on my life,? he said. ?I guess I consider myself being at the right place at the right time for things, and I consider myself very lucky.?
Martin echoed the sentiment, and said the order made him grateful for his experiences working with the leaders of the M?tis Settlements as they fought for recognition of the M?tis Nation.
Martin said he will accept the order on behalf of everyone involved in that movement, including some of the leaders who have since died, such as Maurice L?Hirondelle, Adrian Hope, and Richard Poitras.
?I feel very good because I feel like finally their efforts have been recognized,? he said. ?They put in a lot of work, and their names don?t always get recognized.?
Martin said he will take the order to the M?tis Settlements General Council office after he receives it, so it can be displayed there.
?That?s where it belongs,? he said. ?I think of it more as a recognition of a team than as an individual.? Kawulych, a previous recipient of the Alberta Order of Excellence and the Queen?s Golden Jubilee Medal, said she was touched by the honour, which recognizes her longtime work as a devoted community volunteer and her promotion of Ukrainian heritage and culture in the province.
Finding out about the award, Kawulych said she thought, ?Oh, what an early Christmas present.?
?It was such a nice feeling.?
Kawulych said she has been guided throughout her life by the words of her dean?s speech when she graduated with a home economics degree in 1955.
?The dean said, ?Whatever you have learned, if you do not pass it on, you should not have come into our program?,? Kawulych said. ?I?ve always thought of that.?
At 80, Kawulych still volunteers extensively, shovels snow and gardens for neighbours, and sews and makes perogies and cabbage rolls for friends in need.
She said her mother, a Ukrainian immigrant, did a lot of volunteering, and instilled its importance in her children.
?My mother was so grateful to come to a free land,? Kawulych said. ?She told us to always take care of it, and make sure it stays the best country in the world.?
jpruden@edmontonjournal.com
twitter.com/@jana_pruden
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Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F264/~3/-d7KpNddmjg/story.html
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CHICAGO (AP) ? Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says the city has logged its 500th homicide of the year.
McCarthy issued a statement Friday calling the milestone a "tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods."
The police department went back and forth Friday, first verifying the 500th killing, then backing off and saying an earlier death was still being investigated.
By late Friday, police confirmed 40-year-old Nathaniel Jackson had become the 500th homicide victim when he was fatally shot in the head outside a convenience store on the city's West Side.
The last time Chicago reached the 500-homicide mark was in 2008, when the year ended with 512 killings. City records show Chicago had 435 homicides last year.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tragic-number-chicago-reaches-500-homicides-011444750.html
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MOSCOW - Russia's Interior Ministry says two people have been killed in the crash of a passenger airliner at Moscow's Vnukovo airport.
The plane, a Tupolev-204 twin-engine jet, went off the runway at Russia's third-busiest airport on Saturday afternoon; it broke apart and caught fire.
News reports said about a dozen people were aboard and that several of them were seriously injured. Ministry spokesman Gennady Bogachev said on state news channel Vesti that two people died.
The plane belonged to the Russian airline Red Wings.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-dead-airliner-goes-off-moscow-runway-catches-141607774.html
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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Happy New Year! I hope you get to celebrate the coming of 2013 the way you want, with the friends and family you treasure most.
Do your best to savour all the good things that have happened to you this past year, and all of the progress you have made toward your long-term goals. Make a list of the things for which you feel grateful.
For this exercise, you have permission to ignore any shortcomings or mistakes, and to simply use them as a learning tool. Do not dwell on them.
This approach opens up your brain (and your heart) to being receptive to new plans, stimulates creativity, ideas and strategies, and gives you a specific list of items on which to build.
For example, your goal might have been to pay off all debt. Let's say you didn't make it. Celebrate the progress you have made and use that as your starting point this coming year.
It's also possible you slid backwards on some things. If that's the truth, then acknowledge it, and also find the areas where you have moved forward. Make that list as long as you can, including all areas of your life, not just money.
Now, how do you make 2013 even more successful than 2012?
You start off by deciding what you really want to accomplish this year... and what you want to eliminate.
You might start with two lists:
1. Things I always wanted to do...
2. Things I never want to do again...
If you have a life partner, have that person complete these lists as well, and compare. Get excited about any areas of common ground and also get excited about your partner's unique hopes and dreams.
What did you find out that you didn't know? How can you help that person progress?
Now comes the fun part, freeing yourself to dream about what you want your life to be like in one, three and five years, and beyond.
Just start thinking and write things down as they come to you. Don't worry about being too structured; that can come later. The job right now is to make your future vision as real and compelling as you can. Add in lots of details to make it come alive.
What does your ideal future look like? How does it smell? How do you feel? What are your activities? Who is with you? Walk your future self through a perfect day and write down as much detail about it as you can.
When your future vision is sufficiently gripping and undeniable, it is time to turn it into specific, measurable and time-bound goals. These are the first steps and future milestones that will help you design your financial and life plan, and then allow you to measure your progress and success.
Writing down specific goals is vital for several reasons. When you write them down, your brain goes to work on them immediately in the subconscious, finding ways to accomplish them. Writing your goals down several times is that much more effective. So, re-write your list and your plans as often as you can, refining them each time.
Remember, it is the execution of the plan that will actually get you there.
Making your vision powerful and important to you is the most important step. The next is to write down a specific plan and the daily or weekly steps you need to make it happen.
Research suggests when you combine this detailed planning with writing down specific goals, your chance of success goes up to about 90 per cent from three per cent.
Getting specific also helps you set priorities because we all have to make choices. The key is to make the right ones for YOU.
Make your life a conscious decision. Write down what you want and craft your plan to get it. Then start today... and make 2013 your best year ever!
David Christianson is a financial planner and advisor in Winnipeg, and author of Managing the Bull -- A No-Nonsense Approach to Personal Finance.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 28, 2012 B13
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KINGVALE, Calif. (AP) ? Finding a lost wedding ring along a snowy highway is hard enough. But a Good Samaritan in Northern California also has to track down the man it belongs to.
Douglas Benedetti says he met the man but doesn't know his name or phone number.
Benedetti says the man was searching for the ring on the shoulder of Interstate 80 near Kingvale in the Sierra earlier this month. He told Benedetti he'd lost the ring while putting chains on his vehicle.
Benedetti, who installs chains for people on the highway, decided to return to the area hours after the man left. After a little less than an hour of searching, he came across the ring in the snow next to a semi-truck.
Benedetti wants to return the ring. But all he has to go on is its inscription: "Lisa, 5th June, 2010."
Associated PressSorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50312403/
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'Tis the season ? to return all the gifts that didn?t work out. For many recipients, those gifts will be clothes. Even if you are lucky enough to have an aunt who understands and appreciates your style, you still may not get that coveted reindeer sweater in a size that fits. In part, that?s because America?s clothing size system is rather confusing, as the following article, first published in January 2012, explained.
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
If you are like me, you may have had the following deflating experience: After confidently selecting a pair of jeans in your size from the rack, you find yourself alone in a tiny dressing room, desperately in need of heavy machinery to get them onto your body, wondering why, oh, why clothing sizes don?t make sense.
Cheer up! You?re in excellent historical company; people have been moaning about sizes for the better part of a century. ?I don?t know who the mythical size 36 is who forms the basis of sizing,? complained one indignant retail executive in a 1927 New York Times article, ?but average, tall, short, thin and plump women come into a department store and the 36 size fits none of them.? A young Katharine Graham reported for the Washington Post on a similar subject in 1948: ?As most harassed mothers know,? Graham wrote, ?size 5 in a little girl?s dress can mean almost anything.? It?s enough to make you wonder: Was there ever a time when sizes were standardized?
The federal government did take a stab at it in the early 1940s. That was when the Depression-era Works Progress Administration commissioned a study of the American female body, an effort to instill a method to the sizing madness. At that point, the ready-made clothing industry was in its infancy. If your clothes are made-to-measure?as they were in an earlier era, particularly for wealthy women?there?s no need for a standard set of sizes. But as European couturiers were hobbled by World War II, an American fashion industry developed, with New York as its capital city. New York?s all-star cast of designers, among them Claire McCardell and ?Sophie of Saks,? specialized not in couture but in ready-to-wear. And as wealthy women began to purchase premade clothing, pressure mounted to ensure that it fit in a consistent way.
The ready-to-wear sizing system that existed prior to the ?40s was first developed for menswear. Scholars have found evidence of standardized men?s sizing as far back as the Revolutionary War. By the War of 1812, the Army was in the practice of holding stocks of ready-made uniforms sized according to a single measurement, of the chest?based on the assumption that you could deduce from it a proportional understanding of the rest of a man?s body. So, when manufacturers in the early 20th century began to produce women?s clothing, they based women?s sizes exclusively on a single measurement: the bust.
The only problem? Bust measurements on their own are not particularly accurate indicators of a woman?s size or of the rest of her proportions. As we all know, some small women have very large breasts, and some large women have very small ones. This sizing conundrum was particularly irksome to the Mail Order Association of America, which was well aware by the late 1930s that women often returned clothing because of poor fit.
In an attempt to resolve this problem, the Works Progress Administration gave two statisticians, Ruth O?Brien and William Shelton, a grant to conduct a nationwide survey of women?s measurements. O?Brien and Shelton sent more than 100 trained operatives out into the field, where they measured almost 15,000 women, taking 59 distinct measurements of the female form. When the data came in, O?Brien and Shelton hoped to determine whether any proportional relationships existed among measurements that could be broadly applied to create a simple, standardized system of sizing.
Sadly, the data didn?t cooperate. The best system O?Brien and Shelton proposed was based primarily on height and weight. But the statisticians wisely recognized that women might balk if a sizing system forced them to confront?or tell a sales clerk?their own exact poundage. As an inferior alternative, they imagined a system based on a single measurement of the upper body and combined that with a height index (regulars, longs, and shorts), and a lower body girth index (regulars, stouts, and slims). ?The nomenclature adopted would probably have to be on some arbitrary basis, as is the present system of shoe sizes, rather than representing the numerical values of some anthropometrical measurement,? O?Brien and Shelton wrote, summing up what is perhaps the pair?s most lasting contribution to modern sizing: Even though a measurement can be extrapolated from a size, the actual numbers we use in women?s sizing are not, themselves, measurements.
?It was pretty impressive, what they did,? says sizing scholar Lynn Boorady, noting that they devised something like 27 different sizes. But, she says, ?It was an obscene number, and obviously not useful for anyone manufacturing.? It wasn?t until almost a decade later that the National Bureau of Standards* (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) reanalyzed the O?Brien/Shelton data and came up with an official system?one that has served as the basis for all future systems. Women?s sizes were derived from bust size?with all other measurements based on the proportions of an hourglass figure?and represented by even numbers from 8 to 38. These basic sizes were combined with a T, R, or S, to indicate height, and a plus or minus, to represent lower body girth. The system was published as a commercial standard?a recommendation, legally required only for the pattern-making industry?in 1958. The industry was at first enthusiastic about these recommendations, and major mail order companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward started to adopt these government sizes. But enthusiasm eventually flagged. By 1970, the NBS downgraded its Commercial Standard to a Voluntary Product Standard, and by 1983, the government withdrew the standard entirely, damning future generations to inconsistent fits and many, many mail order returns.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=6c74edf52f6a7c45415f4d6f28dbafae
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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA?In October, we did a post that talked about the hidden camera investigation NBC?s Today Show did this summer on New Jersey air conditioning and heating companies. They wanted to find out if the reputation the HVAC industry has of overcharging and misleading consumers had any truth to it, and the sad result was that all six of the companies they investigated lived up to the bad reputation.
Although the report was disheartening to honest HVAC professionals who do strive to offer customers high-quality services, it is a great opportunity to teach homeowners what they need to know to combat this epidemic.
?Education and research are the two tools you need to equip yourself with to protect against companies that want to rip you off,? says Gabriel Carini, who provides heating and air conditioning services in the San Diego area.
Find companies with good reputations for customer service and quality repairs. (http://www.cariniair.com/tips-for-hiring-a-heating-and-cooling-service-repair-and-installation-expert/) Research is the best way to do this, so don?t wait until you have an air conditioning or heating emergency to find one. Start by gathering recommendations from friends, family and acquaintances, then look several of those up online. Look at their website, read Google+ reviews, check Yelp and Angie?s List for reviews, and make sure they have a good rating with the Better Business Bureau.
?Some review sites like Angie?s List require a small membership fee, but when you think about how much you?re likely to invest in a new HVAC system or large air conditioner or heater repair the cost is well worth it,? says Carini, who started his San Diego, CA heating and air conditioning company in 2003.
The type of person a company puts on their front line lets you know a lot about how they do business, so call the companies that looked the best after your online research to get some general information from the office. You can ask about certifications and licenses and get references. Talking to previous customers is a great way to find out if a company if worth your money.
?If you?re having a big job done like a full HVAC installation, get estimates from two or three companies,? says Carini. ?It?s always good to have some frame of reference for prices and the extent of the work included in the job. A lowball estimate could be a sign of a company that will cut corners on installation.?
This checklist from the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, a non-profit association for the HVACR industry, is a great way to help identify good companies in your area. (https://www.acca.org/consumer/home-choosing)
Familiarize yourself with your unit and its main components. Sometimes people overlook the fact that a heating and cooling system is more than a thermostat and box outside that can be turned on or off to control your indoor temperature. No one expects you to be an HVAC expert, but knowing the basics about your system will give you the ability to maintain it and understand what the technician is talking about when they?re diagnosing the problem during a service call.
?Don?t be afraid to ask questions,? says Carini. ?Sometimes people are reluctant to ask because they don?t want to seem dumb, but we?re there to provide you with a service. Our technicians are always more than happy to answer questions or explain how to maintain a customer?s unit.?
A heating and cooling system impacts the comfort, health, durability and energy efficiency of your home and, of course, your wallet in the form of utility bills each month. It may not be glamorous or thrilling reading, but flip through the unit?s manual to find out what type of system your home has and its main components. For example, a forced air heating and cooling system has two parts: the equipment and the distribution system. The equipment might include an outdoor condenser unit and an indoor blower, while the distribution system would be referring to the ductwork that connects everything and carries it to different portions of the home.
?Learning about this big part of your home will help you protect yourself from dishonest HVAC companies and keep your home and family healthier and safer,? says Carini.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles.
The company said the deal will resolve hundreds of lawsuits from Toyota owners who said the value of their cars and trucks plummeted after a series of recalls stemming from claims that Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally.
Steve Berman, a lawyer representing Toyota owners, said the settlement is the largest in U.S. history involving automobile defects.
"We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation," Berman told The Associated Press.
The proposed deal was filed Wednesday and must receive the approval of U.S. District Judge James Selna, who was expected to review the settlement Friday.
Toyota said it will take a one-time, $1.1 billion pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the estimated costs of the settlement. Berman said the total value of the deal is between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Toyota since 2009, when the Japanese automaker started receiving numerous complaints that its cars accelerated on their own, causing crashes, injuries and even deaths.
The cases were consolidated in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana and divided into two categories: economic loss and wrongful death. Claims by people who seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration are not part of the settlement; the first trial involving those suits is scheduled for February.
As part of the economic loss settlement, Toyota will offer cash payments from a pool of about $250 million to eligible customers who sold vehicles or turned in leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010.
The company also will launch a $250 million program for 16 million current owners to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit about 3.2 million vehicles with a brake override system. An override system is designed to ensure a car will stop when the brakes are applied, even if the accelerator pedal is depressed.
The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies.
"In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles," said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel.
Current and former Toyota owners are expected to receive more information about the settlement in the coming months. Some information is also available at http://www.ToyotaELsettlement.com , a website created for Toyota owners affected by the settlement.
"We are extraordinarily proud of how we were able to represent the interests of Toyota owners, and believe this settlement is both comprehensive in its scope and fair in compensation," Berman said.
Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid. The automaker has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and stuck accelerator pedals for the problems.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have spent the past two years deposing Toyota employees, poring over thousands of documents and reviewing software code, but the company maintains those lawyers have been unable to prove that a design defect ? namely Toyota's electronic throttle control system ? was responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly.
Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA were unable to find any defects in Toyota's source code that could cause problems.
The company has been dogged by fines for not reporting problems in a timely manner.
Earlier this month, NHTSA doled out a record $17.4 million fine to Toyota for failing to quickly report floor mat problems with some of its Lexus models. Toyota paid a total of $48.8 million in fines for three violations in 2010.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda appeared before Congress last year and pledged to strengthen quality control. Recent sales figures show the company appears to have rebounded following its safety issues.
___
Online:
Settlement website: http://www.ToyotaELsettlement.com
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/settlement-reached-toyota-acceleration-cases-221610395.html
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MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? The ghetto called Aroma reeks of putrefying trash collected by its residents for recycling. Half-naked children with grimy faces play on muddy dirt roads lined by crumbling shanties of tarpaulin walls, cracked tin roofs and communal toilets.?
From this Manila slum of garbage collectors emerged an unlikely Cinderella: ballerina Jessa Balote who at the age of 10 was plucked out of her grubby life by a ballet school to prepare her for a life on stage.?
In four years since her audition in 2008, Jessa has performed in various productions, including Swan Lake, Pinocchio, Don Quixote and a local version of Cinderella. She rode a plane for the first time in August to compete in the 2012 Asian Grand Prix ballet competition for students and young dancers in Hong Kong, where she was a finalist.?
The 14-year-old Jessa's unlikely success is as much a celebration of a unique effort by the Philippines' most famous prima ballerina, Lisa Macuja, to help slum kids of Manila by providing them a scholarship and classical ballet training for six to seven years. ?????
More than a quarter of the Southeast Asian nation's 94 million people live in abject poverty, many in sprawling and unsanitary shanty towns like Aroma in the capital city. Despite a reecent economic upturn, there are not enough full-time jobs. Education skills are lacking and incomes are low. At least 3,000 Filipinos leave their families behind every day to seek employment abroad.?
Jessa, who would have likely followed her family to a life of garbage picking, had not much of a future to look forward to.?
"I used to tag along with my father and mother when they collected garbage in the evening," Jessa said in her home about the size of a shipping container with a small attic.?
Her family would gather trash from houses in the nearby Quiapo district or rummage for scrap metal in the huge garbage dump not far from home.?
That was until her successful audition for the Project Ballet Futures dance scholarship established by Macuja, founder and artistic director of Ballet Manila who is married to business tycoon Fred Elizalde.?
The outreach program of Ballet Manila ? which runs a dance company and a school by the same name ? initially accepted 40 students from Jessa's charity-run school in Manila's Tondo district dump site. Some dropped out, but new batches have been accepted.?????
Today, the program has 55 scholars, aged 9 to 18, from five partner public schools such as Jessa's. They train daily after school along with 60 paying students.?????
"I can help my parents more with what I do now. I earn money from ballet," said Jessa, sitting on a plastic bench in her shorts and t-shirt, her long hair loose. The slim teenager, perhaps so used to dancing on her toes, would often have her toes pointed at the wooden floor even while sitting during the interview.????
Behind her, the plywood wall of the family shack was adorned with pictures of her in gossamer tutu on stage. Sharing the space were frames of ballet certificates and a newspaper clipping about the garbage picker-turned-ballerina. A pair of satin pointe shoes lay on top of a gym bag, a few meters (yards) from sacks of used plastic bottles and other garbage piled up outside the door of her cramped home.? Jessa and other kids are trained in the rigorous Russian Vaganova ballet and are required to keep up with their academics in school. They are provided a monthly stipend of 1,200 pesos to 3,000 pesos ($30 to $73) depending on their ballet level, as well as meals, milk and ballet outfits. They also receive fees of 400 pesos to 1,500 pesos ($10 to $37) for each performance.????
Pointe shoes alone cost $50 to $80 a pair ? a fortune for someone eking a living on $2 a day ? and wear out within weeks or days, said Macuja.
The daughter of a former senior trade official, Macuja was 18 years old when she received a two-year scholarship at the Vaganova Choreographic Institute (now the Academy of Russian Ballet) in Saint Petersburg in 1982, where she graduated with honors.
She was the first foreign principal ballerina for the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg before returning to the Philippines, where she worked as artist-in-residence at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and a principal dancer at the Philippine Ballet Theatre.
Macuja, 48, founded Ballet Manila in 1994 with the aim of making the high art of classical ballet more accessible to common people. The dance company has held performances in malls, schools, town halls and remote villages of the archipelago. She set up the scholarship program in 2008 as a way of paying back for her good fortunes.
For Jessa and the other slum children, it opened a whole new world. Literally so, when she flew to Hong Kong for the ballet competition.
Her glee while on a roller coaster in Disneyland was captured in a photo in her humble home.
During the competition in Hong Kong, she said she often felt nervous and shy to be dancing among well-off peers. But she overcame her fear, remembering Macuja's advice "to persist despite the odds and to not let poverty hinder me."
As a company apprentice she makes around 7,000 pesos ($170) a month, sometimes more, from stipend and performance fees. The money is not enough to lift her family from poverty, but ballet has given her a choice in life.
Her father, Gorgonio, works part-time as a construction worker besides collecting garbage. His meager pay is insufficient to feed his large family of six children and two grandchildren. One son works in a factory while another daughter collects garbage.
Jessa's childhood dream is to become a school teacher. But she also wants to dance as a professional ballerina. She says she is challenged by the feisty acting and difficult dance turns of the Black Swan character in Swan Lake and aspires for that role.
For Jamil Montebon, another Project Ballet's beneficiary, the scholarship was a life saver.?
The troubled 18-year-old has left his broken family in a violent slum community not far from Aroma.?
He became a ballet scholar at 13 but then dropped out of high school and ballet last year after a fight with his mother. During his time off from ballet and school, he collected garbage and worked in a junk shop. At night he would go drinking with other kids who often clashed with rival gangs, then sleep in a church where he got one free meal a week.?
He was later accepted back into the program, which demands that children keep good grades and stay out of trouble. After shaping up, he moved into Ballet Manila's dormitory.
"I think that the key really is that these kids have been given hope, and that hope will transform their lives," Macuja said.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/manila-slum-emerges-unlikely-ballerina-054810130.html
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MedSmart Patients is about making better healthcare decisions. But the ?Med? in ?MedSmart? concerns not just medicine ? where it stands for ?Minimum Effective Dose? ? but a modified ?Mediterranean? diet and ?Meditative? lifestyle as well.
The companion volumes to MedSmart Patients ? MedSmart Living and MedSmart Diet ? will include in-depth discussions of these and other lifestyle behaviors that set the stage for your healthcare decisions.
But in real life, it often happens in the reverse order ? medical decisions often serve as catalysts for a host of further treatment and lifestyle decisions. Preparing for your healthcare decisions requires doing some homework and evaluating your treatment choices ? and realizing there are always treatment choices that should all be considered.
This is how best to avoid the ?shock and awe? that often accompanies a fateful diagnosis.
Being well-prepared, in other words, in both your knowledge and your behaviors will prove to be your best defense against medical passivity and victimization.
Doing your homework positions you as a healthcare consumer to ?push back? with informed questions that dig deeper into the pros and cons of your medical decisions.
It also allows you some emotional distance from the trauma of a life-threatening diagnosis that enables more clear-headed decision-making.
Healthcare decisions should be dispassionate decisions powered by facts and probabilities, not burdened by exaggerated fears and irrational expectations that distort your thinking and compromise your choices.
Just as informed consumers generally make better customers, informed medical consumers make better patients.
Example: When a car salesman boasts how fast the car he?s selling goes from zero-to-60, smart consumers ask about crash test results, braking distances, and electronic stability control.
They look for the downsides to faster zero-to-60 speeds and satisfy themselves those downsides are addressed. Translated into your healthcare, this would make it a pre-condition to ask about the risks of any drug or treatment you?re prescribed.
It also means understanding that 15% or more of diagnoses ? or roughly 1-in-6 ? are wrong, making it essential to get a second opinion and possibly a third opinion if the first two are inconclusive. Second opinions should become second nature.
This may mean challenging the diagnosis ? not to promote a state of denial, but to rule out factors that could cause a misdiagnosis.
Could your medications, for example, be causing the symptoms you?re experiencing? ?Or could it be something in your diet?
These are likely prospects that physicians are known to dismiss or disregard altogether.
Once you?re certain your diagnosis is correct, it means challenging the treatment plan you?re prescribed by your physician(s).
Americans have a strong bias in favor of using every test, procedure, or medication they can lay their hands on in the na?ve belief that more is always better. It isn?t.
Our Healthcare Sucks goes into detail about American medicine?s abysmal track record for medical errors and disregard for patient safety.
Simply put, this is no environment for ?jumping in with both feet?. With such a high-risk, low-performing industry, ?dipping your toe in the water? is the smarter consumer mindset.
None of this is to suggest rude or combative behavior ? quite the opposite, as the old adage about ?attracting more bees with honey than vinegar? generally applies.
But it does mean learning enough about your medical needs to get only the care you absolutely need ? because treatment risks often rival the risks of the disease being treated.
This is why MedSmart patients weigh treatment risks as carefully as disease risks before making major healthcare decisions.? ?
The above is excerpted from MedSmart Patients ? the next eBook in the MedSmart series soon to be published.?It is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice nor should it be relied upon as such.
Decisions for Medical Treatment ? Risks vs. Benefits
http://spirfit.blogspot.com/2009/12/decisions-for-medical-treatment-risks.html
As a health and fitness professional certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine with a nutrition science degree from UC Davis, I would like to ?
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Alumni Networking Social Invitation 2013
Re-connect with your local fellow Spartan alumni and enjoy a great basketball game between MSU and Iowa. Here?s your opportunity to socialize, network, and show your Spartan Pride.
Where: The Townsend Hotel ? The Corner Bar
Phone: 248-642-7900;?Hotel website: www.townsendhotel.com; Address: 100 Townsend Street, Birmingham, MI 48009 (Corner Bar ? On the corner of Pierce and Merrill);?Parking: Pierce Street Parking Structure (across from the hotel ? see attached map, 2nd page)
When: Thursday, January 10, 2013: Event begins at 5:30 p.m. Enjoy complimentary hors d? oeuvres, courtesy of The Townsend. Cash bar. Stay for the big game which begins at 7 p.m.
Attire: Business casual
What to bring: Admission to the event is a suggested donation to our annual 2013 Auction to support The School of Hospitality Business. Suggested items include certificates for a free hotel stay, restaurant gift certificates, or airline miles. Print off and fill out the attached auction donor form and bring it to the event. Cash donations in any amount are graciously accepted as well.
R.S.V.P:? Email Mike Rice (BA ?91) at mrice@haymanco.com before January 4.
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Load up your new device with these geek-centric apps
Image: Courtesy of WeWantToKnow
DragonBox
Compatibility: Apple iOS and OS X, Google Android, Microsoft Windows
Cost: $6
Scientific American says: ?A game that teaches the concepts behind algebra without being intimidating or ?mathy.??
Description: Developed by WeWantToKnow, the goal of DragonBox is to create an app that?s fun and at the same time teaches players to solve difficult mathematical equations.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b38518057646108a9e8676fc34932970
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New Orleans is the Number One City to Visit for New Year's Eve
More National Travel Awards for our home town
We are very?excited to?share that, in addition to?the previous 21?awards presented to New Orleans from?travelers in 2012,?subscribers of Travel & Leisure magazine named us the number one city to visit for a New Year's Eve vacation.? Here in the historic Garden District, we couldn't agree more.
It will also come as no surprise to anyone?sitting?in on?our breakfast conversations, New Orleans was named as a top holiday getaway for foodies,?citing our traditional Reveillon dinners and other Christmas in New Orleans events during the festive season. CNN Travel listed New Orleans as one of the world's eight most romantic?cities in December; the only?U.S. city listed along with?other destinations such asSource: http://blog.gvbb.com/2012/12/new-orleans-wins-more-traveler-awards.html
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Suicide bombers in Afghanistan have shown little restraint: Wedding parties and even mosques and children have witnessed gruesome targeting by the Taliban against civilians.
But as attacks soared in the summer and fall, killing scores of civilians every week ? including at least 40 Muslim devotees at a mosque in late October ?public revulsion has turned into unprecedented condemnation.
For the first time in late January, Muslim scholars and clerics from around the world will come to Kabul specifically to condemn suicide bombings as un-Islamic. The conference will be the first to focus on suicide bombing, and its framers hope the result will reverberate beyond Afghanistan.
"Many times, scholars in Pakistan and Afghanistan have made statements but had no influence," says Mufti Shamsur Rahman Firotan, a religious scholar in Kabul. "This one will have influence, and will give the idea to the people that suicide attacks are forbidden. The message is for all: in Iraq, in Pakistan, all these [militant jihadist] groups."
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Senior United Nations officials have challenged religious officials to speak more loudly against attacks carried out in the name of Islam, while Afghan religious scholars have long decried suicide attacks, with little response by the ultra-conservative Taliban. An official gathering this summer resolved that suicide attacks "have no legitimate foundation in Islam."
It had little effect at the time. But those declarations have now been further bolstered. Saudi Arabia?s Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam and respected by the Taliban, explicitly condemned suicide bombing.
Yet since Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh issued such a high-profile public statement in late October, Taliban suicide attacks have continued, some with multiple bombers. But Afghan religious scholars say momentum is building against them.
One reason is because Mr. Abdulaziz ?does have influence on the Taliban," says Mr. Firotan, who is a member of Afghanistan's Ulema Council of Islamic scholars, which has long campaigned against civilian deaths.
"The Taliban think we are their enemies, so they don't respect our declarations," says Mr. Firotan. "But Mufti Aziz is respected by them, and all around the Islamic world?. It has influence."
INVOKING MUHAMMED
The newsletter of Afghanistan?s religious scholars, called Al-Islam, publicized the Grand Mufti?s high-profile pronouncement against suicide bombing.
Invoking the Muslim prophet Mohammed, Abdulaziz noted that killing innocents has been forbidden for 14 centuries. He said justifying suicide attacks in the name of religion was a "misuse" of Islam.
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"Attacks, suicide attacks, and killing of the innocent have no place in Islam, and whoever conducts these are not just deprived of Paradise, but they will go to hell," Abdulaziz said according to Al-Islam. "There is jihad in Islam, but it is very different from killing of the innocent and suicide attacks [which does] not benefit the people and humanity."
The Taliban claims it has not "officially" received Abdulaziz's fatwa (or religious decree), says Firotan, but only heard about it.
'THIS IS NOT THE WAY'
The Quran makes clear that self-defense is acceptable, says Firotan, providing "there is no other way to live, but that is not the situation now."
For those who want to fight US forces, says Firotan, there are methods. "But this is not the way ? to go to mosques, banks, bazaars, or shops. There, are 100 percent, some Taliban who are [also] against these actions."
As the Taliban has waged its insurgency in recent years, it has also increasingly targeted civilians, along with US and NATO military forces, Afghan security, and the government. By early summer, the toll caught the attention of the UN Special Representative Jan Kubis, who lamented in a speech that every morning started with ?very sad news? of civilian deaths.
Addressing an Islamic cooperation conference in June, he said the previous ?typical? week had 200 civilian casualties, with 57 dead. The week before registered 244 casualties, with 90 killed. One day saw three suicide bombings; another single day left 107 casualties.
Such a soaring toll was "unacceptable," Kubis said. "We keep hearing reports of suicide bombings, intimidation, targeted killings, assassination of elders, religious leaders, teachers, and scholars, burning of schools ? all done in the name of Islam."
Yet Kubis noted that different interpretations are also heard, based on the Quran, that show such acts to be un-Islamic. The result has been confusion and questions in the minds of many Afghans.
"They are not anymore sure what is the truth, what is right, what is wrong, what is Islamic, what is non-Islamic," said Kubis. He challenged the religious scholars to magnify their voices: "You have a major role, a major responsibility to help."
That message has been transmitted many times by many religious scholars and officials, over many years. But it has yet to break through to those who favor such attacks, as ?religious? as their ideology is meant to be.
EASIER SAID, THAN DONE
Even the writ of Taliban chiefs is limited, as shown by the example of fugitive leader Mullah Omar. In 1998 he condemned the use of anti-personnel landmines as "un-Islamic" and "anti-human."
Despite that, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) notes that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) placed by Taliban operatives are "by far the biggest killer of civilians" in Afghanistan. In the first nine months of this year, they caused 340 deaths ? a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period the previous year.
Likewise, suicide attacks remain a pernicious killer, despite the volume of religious scholarship against it.
"Practically every family has suffered some form of attack by these suicide bombings or IEDs, and they don't look at it very kindly," says Massoumeh Torfeh, the director of strategic communications for UNAMA in Kabul.
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban ambassador to the UN who is now a member of the High Peace Council, tasked by the government of President Hamid Karzai with talking to the Taliban, says the opinions of religious figures can have an impact.
"Afghanistan is a religious country, and absolutely the majority are listening to their religious scholars," says Mr. Mujahid. About the Taliban, he says: "They are human beings, and also they have their religious scholars."
Mujahid quotes the Quran, saying: "You have to fight against those who are fighting against you. But do not cross the limit."
That limit is beyond "proportional reaction," says Mujahid: "It means that when someone is fighting against you with their fists, you should not use a Kalashnikov."
The Taliban see themselves as "being attacked, that war is being waged against [them]," adds Mujahid. The High Peace Council is "trying our best to convince them that war is not to the benefit of any party [and to] settle everything by negotiations, not by fighting."
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-scholars-clerics-suicide-bombings-un-islamic-130011435.html
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By Agence France-Presse
Monday, December 24, 2012 20:30 EST
?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez could be sworn in before the Supreme Court even if his cancer treatment keeps him out of the country beyond his January 10 inauguration date, his vice president said Monday.
Nicolas Maduro said the constitution will be applied, without indicating whether Chavez would be sworn in from Venezuela or from Cuba, where he is recovering from his fourth cancer operation since June 2011.
Amid a swirling debate across the nation sparked by the uncertainty of the ceremony, opposition leader Henrique Capriles said he was ready to accept a possible delay in the inauguration.
?If the president cannot be present on January 10 to take the oath of office before the National Assembly, the constitution has the answers,? said Capriles, who lost the presidential election in October to Chavez.
His remarks put him at odds with other opposition leaders eager to call new elections if Chavez is unable to return to the country on time.
Chavez supporters claim that their leader can be sworn in late in accordance with Venezuela?s 1999 constitution approved by socialist ex-paratrooper Chavez in his first year in office, even though opposition leaders will likely insist on holding a new presidential vote.
Analysts say Chavez could not take an oath of office abroad, even if it is at a Venezuelan embassy with members of the Supreme Court present.
?If his permission needs to be extended beyond January 10, the constitution would go into action and he would have to take the oath before the Supreme Court,? Maduro said on state television after a Christmas Eve mass in Caracas to pray for Chavez?s speedy recovery.
All Chavez cabinet ministers joined Maduro and clergy in the mass at San Francisco Church to pray for the leader?s health and his return to the country, with some even making offerings before the altar.
Under Venezuelan law, if Chavez resigns before the inauguration or the president otherwise has an ?absolute absence,? National Assembly head Diosdado Cabello would temporarily take office and elections would be held within 30 days.
In cases of the president?s ?temporary absence,? the constitution says the vice president shall fill in for up to 90 days, and the National Assembly can extend that for a further 90 days.
Before flying to Havana, Chavez designated Maduro ? a former bus driver and union activist ? as his political heir.
Chavez, 58, is experiencing a ?slight improvement? in his condition as he follows doctors? orders to rest, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said in a radio and television address.
He said the president is in touch with his closest relatives and has been analyzing the results of regional elections on December 16 in which the ruling party won 20 of 23 governorships, snatching four states previously run by the opposition.
The face of the Latin American left for more than a decade and a firebrand critic of US ?imperialism,? Chavez asserted before embarking on his arduous re-election campaign earlier this year that he was cancer-free.
But he was later forced to admit he had suffered a recurrence of the disease. He returned to Cuba, a key Venezuelan ally, for surgery and follow-up treatment.
Venezuela, which sits atop the world?s largest proven oil reserves, has never confirmed the president?s cancer type, nor which organs are affected, but doctors removed a tumor from his pelvic region last year.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
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Editor's note:?Yvo Schaap is a 27-year-old?entrepreneur from?Amsterdam?who loves data and code. TechCrunch has always been the most authoritative news outlet on what's hot in Silicon Valley regarding startup trends, early and late investments, product launches, celeb founders and of course geeky drama. I've developed research focused on analyzing TechCrunch's editorial posts, with an aim to expose this year's trends in tech.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/aTi4lKltMYY/
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um, Mexico is considered to be one of the most beautiful areas in the Riviera Maya. It is located 60km away from Playa del Carmen, and 131 km from Cancun Intl. Airport. Tulum is a natural haven which hosts a multifarious array of natural wonders and ex? Read > Travel-and-Leisure An Introduction to Guadalajara, Mexico 01st May 2009 Guadalajara is the capital of the state of Jalisco. It is the origin of some of Mexico?s best-known cultural exports: tequila, mariachi music, the sombrero and the ubiquitous ?Mexican Hat Dance. Guadalajara is located on the central part of Mexico, offeri? Read >
?????? ??? Travel-and-Leisure All About Acapulco 01st May 2009 Acapulco is a diverse city that offers the many benefits of a large city with a population of over 2 million, yet in many areas of the city Acapulco retains the feeling of a small town atmosphere. Located 300 km south west of the national capital, Mex? Read > Travel-and-Leisure Actions in Tulum 04th April 2009 Located deep in the Mexican forests on the Caribbean coastline, Tulum holds some of the most awesome Mayan ruins to be seen. Mayan Ruins of Tulum are a fantastic site to behold. Its setting on the beach is a true place to declare Heaven. The stunning turq? Read > Travel-and-Leisure Exclusive Tulum 03rd March 2009 Tulum was built by the ancient Maya on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea.
Tulum?s supreme attraction is its location. It is located in the Quintana Roo peninsula, in East Mexico along the Caribbean Coast and gulf of Mexico in the Northern part of the ? Read > Travel-and-Leisure Tulum Nightlife Attracts Varied Crowds gnsdi1s0sa 20th January 2009 We cracked the shutters to let the beautiful Caribbean sun into the bedroom. It was somewhere around ten in the morning after a long night of watermelon margaritas and beach tunes at Mezzanine club in Tulum, Mexico, that we realized where we wanted to spe? Read > Travel-and-Leisure Tulum in September 06th October 2008 Tulum, Mexico is a great place to visit, especially during September when a number of different factors combine to make a great vacation window. If you are considering taking a vacation to Mexico or anywhere else during this time, it?s a good idea to chec? Read > Reference-and-Education Benefits of Being an MBA in India 18th October 2011 With the growing demand of managers in various corporate companies and organisations, the institutes offering MBA degree has also gone up in the last few years. MBA in India is one of the most prominent career choices of students for pursuing their post g? Read > Reference-and-Education Information on CFA Training Course 23rd August 2011 These days, it is very crucial to have a good training for the CFA course, if you want to succeed and pass the entrance test with flying colors. Only dedication, hard work and disciplined schedule would make you reach the top. A number of individuals are ? Read > Reference-and-Education Are the placement records of MBA colleges in Delhi good criteria to judge its standard?
?????? ??? 07th June 2011 When you begin the hunt for the MBA colleges in Delhi, you check out the different criteria for ascertaining their standards. While there might be some which are undisputed in their reputation which these have built over a period of time, there might be m? Read > Reference-and-Education Why people take up MBA education rather than the other professional courses? 1
6th May 2011 When it comes to deciding which is the best course of career to take up after doing the graduation, the choices might be restricted largely by what course of study have you pursued in graduation. But, post graduate MBA course is not dependent on what all ? Read > Reference-and-Education CFA: A much desired finance course for professionals 11th April 2011 When it comes to courses in finance being offered in India, no other course invokes so much controversy as the CFA, or the Chartered Financial Analyst. The original CFA course is a program of study of the US and is recognized world over. The course is a s? Read > Reference-and-Education Decisions to be taken for any MBA aspirant 21st March 2011 You would have heard people say that MBA is really tough going. The fact of the matter is that the going is not only tough when you are in the institute but also when you are thinking to take admissions in the MBA institute. There are many dilemmas in the? Read > Career The requirements of a CFA course. 17th January 2011 This could be a CFA, a CFP or even a CPA. The difference among these is more than that of a single alphabet. A CFA is Chartered Financial Analyst who focuses more on analysis. A CFP is a Certified Financial Planner whose job is to devise the best possible? Read > Career What does the CFP course entail? 22nd October 2010 There are some courses in finance which are recognized world over as the benchmarks to measure the suitability of the candidates for the finance jobs. One such exam is that of the Certified Financial Planning (CFP). The course is administered through a bo? Read > Finance Objectives You Could Obtain with a Refinance Loan 24th November 2010 People may have handful logics to refinance a home mortgage. Just
?????????? ???2012?2013???? now the most well-known one is to take advantage of low interest rates. Some of the other grounds for home loan refinancing are to pay back high interest credit cards and home improvement. ? Read > Finance May Last Quantitative Easing Lower Refinance Home Mortgage Rates Slightly? 09th November 2010 Simply qua
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There you are. Sitting in your chair, reading the headline of this blog post, wondering ? ?Really, do I even need a cover letter anymore?? And, the short answer is: Sometimes. There are some hiring managers that still want to read cover letters and require them as part of the screening process. You see, many people get assistance in writing their resumes, but the cover letter is often left up to the job seeker to write. Unassisted.
Cover letters give the reader insight into your personality, achievements and writing skills. So, just like your resume, be sure that your cover letter is free of grammatical errors. Here are a few other tips for writing your own killer cover letter.
When possible, address your cover letter to an actual person, then begin with a strong opening statement that demonstrates your interest in a specific job. I also like when candidates tell me where they saw the job posting, as it helps me gauge the ROI on advertising sources.
Dear Ms. Smith:
When I read ABC?s posting for a Human Resources Business Partner on LinkedIn, my interest was immediately sparked.
The cover letter is a great place to highlight some of your significant career accomplishments. Can you name three to five things that make you an awesome candidate? Good. Include them on your cover letter. Entice the hiring manager (or recruiter / HR generalist) to want to read more.
As a motivated human resources professional with more than XX years of experience working at DEFG Co., I contributed to the company?s success by:
Really significant accomplishment
Quantifiable career highlight
Huge project that put your name on the map
Major kudos received for doing this
Since you are essentially selling a company on why to choose you, your cover letter and resume become your most important marketing tools. Like any pitch, you want to close strong.
During my last review, the vice president referred to me as ?a key member of the DEFG team ? that delivers results and builds cohesion along the way.? As you can see from my background, I have the experience you are looking for in an HR Business Partner. In addition, I am very interested in becoming a key member of the ABC team and in speaking with you further. I can be reached at 301.XXX.XXXX.
1. Keep it short and sweet. No one wants or has time to read through a novella.
2. Include your heading at the top, similar to the one you use on your resume.
3. Read over it aloud a few times to ensure everything reads well.
4. Proofread it again and again; don?t rely on spell check to pick up all errors.
Have any other cover letter tips? Feel free to share them below.
Get more resume writing and cover letter tips, by downloading Blogging4Jobs? FREE career toolkit including resume and coverletter templates. ?Click here. ?
Photo Credit.?
Shannon Smedstad spends her days leading HR social media and employment branding at GEICO and has more than 12 years of recruiting experience. She?s a work@home mom raising two awesome girls who also enjoys reading, yoga, traveling and her morning coffee. You can connect with her on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. (Opinions are her own and not those of her company.)
Like this post? Want more from Blogging 4 Jobs? Subscribe via RSS to get updated with all the latest content.
Source: http://www.blogging4jobs.com/job-search/how-to-write-your-own-killer-cover-letter/
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MUSCAT (Reuters) - Hoping for jobs and democratic change, voters in Oman cast ballots in their first municipal election on Saturday, a sign of modest reform in response to protests inspired by the Arab Spring.
The small Gulf oil producer, ruled since 1970 by Sultan Qaboos, sits opposite Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for nearly a fifth of globally traded petroleum.
Its only other elections are for the Shura Council, a body that has some limited legislative powers. Increased democracy was a main demand of protesters in Omani cities during the Arab uprisings last year, along with jobs and an end to corruption.
"We feel the change is coming with this new election that will give us the opportunity to ask officials to openly explain their actions and admit their mistakes," said voter Harib Khalfan in the Seeb district of Muscat.
At the polling station in Seeb, set up in a schoolhouse, about 50 people queued to cast their ballots while others stood in the shade and discussed which way to vote.
Voting in the capital and nearby coastal town of Barka appeared quieter than during last year's election for the Shura Council. Activists from last year's protest movement welcomed the election but cautioned that it was too early to tell whether it would lead to meaningful change.
"It's good. This is what we've been protesting for, but it's too early to celebrate. Let's wait and see," said activist Ismail al-Rasbi.
Some 1,475 candidates are seeking places on 192 local councils in the country of 2.8 million people. There were no reports of protests or other incidents across the country on Saturday afternoon. Each polling station Reuters visited had a police car parked outside to prevent trouble.
ARAB SPRING
Protests erupted in several Omani towns early last year inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, as demonstrators blocked major roads and went on strike demanding better pay, more jobs, action against graft and some democratic changes.
But Sultan Qaboos remains a popular figure in a country that was mostly undeveloped and faced war in its Dhofar region when he seized power from his father.
After the demonstrations, he swiftly reshuffled his cabinet and the government promised to create thousands of jobs, announced plans for municipal polls and granted the Shura Council some legislative power, with the right to approve or reject draft laws. The sultan, however, retains the final say.
Two of the Shura Council members elected last year were activists from the industrial town of Sohar, the site of the biggest protests. Nine council members now sit in the 28-strong cabinet
"I am here to vote because I feel the elections will eventually create a government that will entirely consist of an elected cabinet of ministers," said Maryam Shariff, a 32-year old university lecturer, as she waited to vote.
Although municipal councils have only limited powers, some voters expressed hope they might spur job growth via their influence over local businesses.
"I am here on the guarantee that the person I am voting for will work hard to find us jobs," said Badr Saif, a 24-year old school dropout from Barka.
Oman says it created 52,000 public sector jobs in the first 10 months of this year, and at least 22,000 in the private sector, cutting the number of registered unemployed by three-quarters to just over 17,000.
(Reporting By Saleh Al-Shaibany; Editing by Angus McDowall in Riyadh and Mark Trevelyan in London)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/omanis-hope-first-local-vote-stepping-stone-towards-191232664.html
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