Jogging to Beethoven

I discovered something awesome today. I was in the gym upstairs and usually while exercising I have dance music on, to be able to jog intermittently and at the end of the 45 minutes I am dead. Since I am not really regular I always end up a pushing myself too hard and the result afterwards is body in trauma and head spinning. Of course the feeling of accomplishment is there and the endorphins are making their rounds but you come back to your apartment feeling anything but relaxed.

Today I was listening to WGBH's podcast of classical music on my iPod instead. They were playing Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, commonly known as the Kreutzer Sonata. One of his best-known sonatas written for piano and violin. After which more Beethoven followed. I can’t tell you how amazing the synchronicity between the mind and body that followed was. I was so taken by surprise. Jogging was easier it wasn't the frenetic pushing yourself to do 30 more seconds – it was as if the mind was orchestrating the body in perfect movements and there was a feeling of calm. I was so surprised because although my electronic selection for my exercise routine does give me the energy. It is a very different energy from the one that I felt today. That energy is like the artificial Red Bull effect, today it was organic flowing like good chi throughout my body. I exercised far longer than ever and far more intensely but felt no strain.

The entire day my state of mind had been like a disturbed ECG report with spikes of irritation and crankiness. But at the end of an hour of the treadmill today I felt what a very creased pair of trousers would feel, if it could have feelings, after a bout of thorough professional ironing. I was fascinated, of course it’s not the first time I had heard classical music, but it was the first time I had paired exercising with it. So I researched into sound waves, frequencies and our bodily reactions to it.

Low frequency sound waves make us uncomfortable. The lowest are called infrasound, sounds that emanate from machinery and stuff in the house like ventilation and cooling/heating systems. Low frequency waves can cause symptoms such as nausea, headaches, fatigue, insomnia, vibration of internal organs and a feeling of oppression.

This is what I found on the net in an ezine article by Tania Gabrielle French …

On the other hand, certain high frequency sounds literally energize your mind. Scientists have found that sounds from 5,000 to 8,000 hertz recharge your brain’s batteries.

If your CD collection includes music by Mozart, Baroque Music or even Tibetan Chants, keep listening. In numerous studies, these sounds have been found to charge the cortex of the brain and stimulate health and wellness.

At 120-125 hertz you begin to hear the kick drums and bass guitar common to rock music. These lower frequencies produce the opposite effect - they drain us.

Why is this?

Because they have wave-lengths longer than we are tall, which is why lower frequencies are FELT as well as heard. You can feel this low frequency full-body sensation at dance clubs and rock concerts. Or from listening to most FM radio stations.

Since we are mostly exposed to low frequency sounds in the media, I strongly suggest you balance your brain and body by listening to high frequency classical music at least once a day. It’s easy and effortless – and great for you.

So next time you are exercising forget your usual disco/hip hop/dance/electro/techno collection and pick up Beethoven instead!

Johari Window

Hey! Sorry have been AWOL recently - was really busy with college, it was the week before summer vacations and a couple of other things were on my mind. The last course we had was quite fascinating really - it was called 'Sustaining Superior Performance', I know it sounds like a title out of a self-help book and the course was a lot like that, but it was great fun. The teacher was good and the classes quite unique, a mixture of practical exercises, games and just a little bit of lecture. I learnt a lot about myself, for example I learnt that I am really very critical about myself - my own harshest judge.

There was this exercise in which we had a questionnaire of around 40 questions and we had to fill it out, then we chose a partner and had a talk with them for 10 minutes, of course since we have been together for almost two years now we knew each other quite well. After that we had to fill the same questionnaire for our partners. In the end we had the two sets of questionnaire with us one in which we had assessed ourselves and one in which our partner had assessed us.

Almost all the class realized the point that I have been making for a long time i.e. 'What I think of me is not necessarily what others see me as'. I got proof in class

The concept of Johari Window is basically an exploration of the different personalities we have, the ones that others see and the one that is private to us.

Johari Window, named after the first names of its inventors, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, is a communication model that illustrates human interaction - it is a way of looking at how our personality expresses itself.

A four paned "window," divides personal awareness into four different types, as represented by its four quadrants: open, hidden, blind, and unknown. Each quadrant represents different kind of personal information. The Johari Window is called window because the lines dividing the four panes are like window shades, which can move as interaction progresses.

The quadrant that is called ‘Open’ is our public personality, this is the face we portray to people and we know about it. The obvious things like ‘extrovert’, ‘talkative’, etc things that are obvious to everyone, including of course the physical aspect of it all 'fat', 'thin', 'pretty' and so on. All information that is open – things I know about myself, and that you know about me. For example things about me that you can siphon of reading my blog, the comments I leave, and of course all that I reveal about my feelings and my likes and dislikes. As we get to know each other better this ‘Open’ personality becomes more accentuated.

Known to self, unknown to others is the ‘Hidden’ quadrant; this contains things that are known to only me, the stuff that I don’t reveal to anybody. All of us while writing in our blogs decide how much we want to share and what we don’t want others to know. Things that we might be ashamed of, things we might want others to never know about ourselves. This quadrant we share with very few if any and even then there are things that we keep only to ourselves. The process in which I shift things from this quadrant to the ‘Open’ quadrant is called Self-disclosure, the process of opening the window wider, which to many of us is a very scary process.

For me the most fascinating quadrant is the ‘Blind Spot’, because this is where others know things about me that I don’t know myself, thus the name, 'blind spot'. I might think I am very introverted or socially challenged or whatever but others might think the opposite. I might think I am not a very good listener or I am lazy but others may have a totally different opinion. This is the quadrant that made me realize that I am just too hard on myself. And since this is knowledge or information that we don’t know about ourselves it’s not something we are putting on as a show for others, its knowledge about ourselves that genuinely shocks us.

The last quadrant titled Unknown also called Grey Areas’ quite frankly doesn’t make any sense to me, as it is knowledge that I don’t have of myself and neither do you. Maybe this is the root of all our psychoses the secret behind our actions – the unconscious.

If you want to see an interactive model and practice it a partner check out this website interactive johari

Oh Stewie - You Machievelli you

Did I mention how much I love Stewie Griffin who due to his great training and the 'peerless intrepidity' developed at testicular bootcamp won the race to the 'ovarian bastille' but found too late that it was a trap.

So he plans world domination.. stuck in a family that he wants to annihilate.

The cutest thing is that your ignorant family hears you but I don't think they understand your evil genius....but oh stewie I understand you

... you rock!!!

"The more I resist the more intriguing they become, I can't look away... yes, yes again, again" - Stewie in spite of himself, attracted to Teletubies and hating himself for it...




'Omnipotence... gotta get me some of that'.....indeed

PS: When the world is yours will my death be 'quick and painless'?

Nursery Rhymes - Simply Child's Play?

The other day I had gone to spend the day at a friend's and was playing with her one and half year old son who is truly adorable and we were singing all these old nursery rhymes and having a merry old time.

Most of us have grown up with nursery rhymes, such as Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, Georgie Peorgie or Baa Baa Black Sheep, and all the others. Although singing with kids we add effects and movements to make them cute and fun, most of these rhymes have historical connotations behind them some of which are downright sinister.

We still recite these stories without knowing the colorful history or gossip behind them as these rumors and stories do not affect us. The story may have disappeared but the music is still repeated each time we sing along with kids. So I thought why not create a post and try to re-create the past hidden in these inconspicuous sounding rhymes. So I did a bit of research and compiled a few nursery rhymes and the meanings that were supposed to be behind them.

Most of the popular ones came from British politics, in fact they were invented as a way of spreading gossip about royalty. Almost every nursery rhyme has a story behind it. Baa Baa Black Sheep was about taxation, The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe was referring to the British Empire trying to control its colonies.

Ring around the rosies,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down.

This one is the one I called sinister, its about the black plague- the symptom of which included circles around the eyes (ring around the rosies), and coughing up dried blood from the lungs, resembling ashes. The pocket full of posies was a medieval belief that posies held some curative measures against the plague, so carrying around that flower would keep you safe. Finally, the last line spells out the unavoidable ending to the story, of everyone falling down, dead.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

Humpty Dumpty was a powerful cannon during the English Civil War (1642-49). It was mounted on top of the St. Mary's at the Wall Church in Colchester defending the city against siege in the summer of 1648. (Although Colchester was a Parliamentarian stronghold, it was captured by the Royalists who held it for 11 weeks.) The church tower was hit by the enemy and the top of the tower was blown off, sending "Humpty" tumbling to the ground. Naturally the King's men* tried to mend him but in vain. * The "men" would have been infantry, and "horses" the cavalry troops.
- From the East Anglia Tourist Board in England

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.

Naughty "Georgie Porgie"of the Stuart era!
The origins of the lyrics to "Georgie Porgie" are English and refer to the courtier George Villiers, 1st duke of Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628). King James I took Villiers as his lover and nicknamed him "Steenie" (a reference to St. Stephen whom in the Bible describes as having the "face of an angel"). Villier's good looks also appealed to the ladies and his highly suspect morals were much in question!

Affair with the married lady - the Queen of France!
Villiers most notorious affair was with his liaison with Anne of Austria, (1601–1666) who was the Queen of France and married to the French King Louis XIII badly injured both of their reputations. This, however, was overlooked due to his great friendship with the English King, James I (1586 - 1625). He was disliked by both courtiers and commoners, not least for helping to arrange the marriage of King James' son to the French Catholic princess Henrietta Maria (1609-1669) - he later became King Charles I (1600-1649).

George Villiers ( Georgie Porgie )exercised great influence over the King who allowed him many liberties. Villiers private liaisons and political scheming were questioned and Parliament who finally lost patience and stopped the King intervening on behalf of "Georgie Porgie". The romantic elements of of George Villiers and Anne of Austria are featured in the novel 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexander Dumas.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after

A picture of a French Revolution execution Scene during the Reign of Terror

The roots of the story, or poem, of Jack and Jill are in France. Jack and Jill referred to are said to be King Louis XVI - Jack -who was beheaded (lost his crown) followed by his Queen Marie Antoinette - Jill - (who came tumbling after). The words and lyrics to the Jack and Jill poem were made more acceptable as a story for children by providing a happy ending! The actual beheadings occurred in during the Reign of Terror in 1793. The first publication date for the lyrics of Jack and Jill rhyme is 1795 - which ties-in with the history and origins.

Rock-a-bye-baby On the treetop
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

The author of this well-loved lullaby was reportedly a pilgrim who sailed on the Mayflower. The Wampanoag Indians, who befriended the colonists, carried their infants in cradleboards on their backs. In temperate weather, they suspended the cradles from tree limbs so that passing breezes could rock the babies while their mothers tended the maize and beans. With typical motherly indulgence, the cradles were decorated with shells, beads and porcupine quills. For sober-minded puritans, the sight of a birch tree festooned with such cradles must have been very memorable indeed.

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

The Mary alluded to in this traditional English nursery rhyme is reputed to be Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary, who was the daughter of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and the garden referred to is an allusion to graveyards which were increasing in size with those who dared to continue to adhere to the Protestant faith - Protestant martyrs.

Instruments of Torture!
The silver bells and cockle shells referred to in the Nursery Rhyme were colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The 'silver bells' were thumbscrews which crushed the thumb between two hard surfaces by the tightening of a screw. The 'cockleshells' were believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals!

The " Maids" or Maiden was the original guillotine!
The 'maids' were a device to behead people called the Maiden. Beheading a victim was fraught with problems. It could take up to 11 blows to actually sever the head, the victim often resisted and had to be chased around the scaffold. Margaret Pole (1473 - 1541), Countess of Salisbury did not go willingly to her death and had to be chased and hacked at by the Executioner. These problems led to the invention of a mechanical instrument (now known as the guillotine) called the Maiden - shortened to Maids in the Mary Mary Nursery Rhyme.

This drawing was created by the talented Scottish artist Shona Penny - was inspired by the origins of the 'Mary, Mary Quite Contrary' Nursery Rhyme.

Goosey Goosey Gander where shall I wander,
Upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

Goosey, Goosey Gander is a Rhyme with Historical undertones - an attention grabber for a nursery rhyme which uses alliteration in the lyrics designed to intrigue any child. The 'lady's chamber' was a room that once upon a time a high born lady would have her own chamber, (also referred to as a solar). The origins of the nursery rhyme are believed to date back to the 16th century and refer to necessity for Catholic priests to hide in 'Priest Holes' ( very small secret rooms once found in many great houses in England) to avoid persecution from zealous Protestants who were totally against the old Catholic religion. If caught both the priest and members of any family found harbouring them were executed. The moral in Goosey Goosey Gander's lyrics imply that something unpleasant would surely happen to anyone failing to say their prayers correctly - meaning the Protestant Prayers, said in English as opposed to Catholic prayers which were said in Latin!

ALTERNATE VERSION: The rhyme possibly could also refer to Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads. The first line is a reference to "goose-stepping" Roundheads who would search houses for Royalists. Anyone who refused to accept Puritan ways was arrested and thrown in jail.

There are many who will possibly have different interpretations to each and some who will even refute that this is actually what they mean, but still it's fun to read the stories and rumours circulating behind some of our favorite memories of oft-repeated rhymes from our childhood which we undoubtedly want to pass on to our kids.

Ode to colours [in prose]

I used to be a person who only loved black and almost all my clothes were black and then suddenly one day I just stopped finding black such a fascinating colour [actually black is the shade of objects that do not reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum. Scientifically black is not a hue (color); a black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them, this is sometimes confused with black being called 'a mixture of all colors' but that is not the case]

Colours affect many aspects of our life, our moods and perceptions and they have physical as well as psychological effects. Haven't you sometimes entered a room and immediately felt one with it or just fell in love with it? It's because colours vibrate at different frequencies and create a reaction in all of us.

The symbolism of colours in different religions and countries and how they affect health

PURPLE

• Purple is traditionally worn by priests for ceremonies
• Thailand: Color of mourning (widows)
• Western: Royalty

Positive: Encourages dignity and respect; helps to stabilize the hormones; can help with stress
Negative: Avoid if you lack stamina or are feeling sensitive

BLUE

• In Christianity the Virgin Mary is always shown wearing blue
• For Buddhists, blue represents the calm of the heavens and waters
• Cherokees: Defeat, trouble
• Iran: Color of heaven and spirituality
• Western: Depression, sadness, conservative, corporate, "something blue" bridal tradition

Positive: Calms tension and induces life changes; reduces swelling, heals cuts and bruises, and soothes burns and headaches
Negative: Avoid if you are depressed; it is not stimulating and can increase feeling of isolation

GREEN

• In Islam green is a sacred colour
• Western: Spring, new birth, go, Saint Patrick's Day, Christmas (with red)

Positive: Soothes the emotions and is good for general healing and restoring the body cells and lung problems. Dissolves blood clots
Negative: Can bring about stagnation, repression and feelings of jealousy [I guess that's why they call it he little green monster ;)]

YELLOW

• For Hindus, bright yellow represents light, truth and immortality
• For Buddhists it is a sacred colour - their monks wear saffron robes
• China: Nourishing
  
• Egypt: Color of mourning
  
• Japan: Courage
• India: Merchants
• Western: Hope, hazards, coward

Positive: Brings inspiration and good self-expression, beneficial for indigestion and inflammatory problems of the joints and body tissues

Negative: Can cause irritability and exhaustion and may cause further self-criticism

ORANGE

• In Japan and China orange is the colour of love and happiness
• Western: Halloween (with black), creativity, autumn

Positive: Helps creativity, relieves headaches and colds and improves the functioning of the heart
Negative: Not good if you feel frustrated or sad, aggravates feeling of nausea

RED

• Symbolic of the ancient Egyptian sun god, Ra.
• Buddhism regards red as the colour of creativity and life
  
• China: Good luck, celebration, summoning
• Cherokees: Success, triumph
• Russia: Bolsheviks and Communism
• Eastern: Worn by brides
• Western: Excitement, danger, love, passion, stop, Christmas (with green)
• For the Chinese, red is the colour of passion and luck and represents the sun and the phoenix; the red phoenix represents opportunity, luck, strength and immortality

Positive: Stimulates vitality and energy, helps when we are tired aids anemia and colds
Negative: Avoid if you are angry or have high blood pressure or flu

WHITE

• Japan: White carnation symbolizes death
• Eastern: Funerals
• Western: Brides, angels, good guys, hospitals, doctors, peace (white dove)
• A white wedding gown stands for innocence and purity

Positive: Gives insight into life and purifies body on all levels; can alleviate pain
Negative: Can increase feelings of isolation, bad for making decisions

BLACK

• In ancient Egypt black was linked to deities and black cats were sacred [I had 7 black cats!]
• China: Color for young boys
• Western: Funerals, death, Halloween (with orange), bad guys, rebellion

Positive: Helps to provide self-sufficiency, control and protection.
Negative: If you feel depressed or are in self-denial, black can make you reject help from other

Alexander McCall Smith

He is one of the most wonderful, funny, compassionate writers that I've had the pleasure to read. His tone is gentle & ironic, full of good humor, directed towards his spirited, intelligent heroines and their unique take on life. These novels take you into a warm and inviting world wherever they are set, whether in Scotland or Botswana, the characters embrace you and become a part of your life - more real to you than some flesh and blood people you know.

One set of his books is set in Botswana - 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' - it is a series of seven books now 8 and the protagonist is Precious Ramotswe, the cheerful 'traditionally built' African woman who is intelligent, perceptive with her flaws but oh so lovable, she sets herself up as her country's first female detective. She has an innate, self-possessed wisdom that, combined with an understanding of human nature, invariably penetrates into the heart of a puzzle. Precious Ramotswe is a remarkable creation, and and all the books following it deserve the praise and adulation that he has received from all his readers who love them as if they were real.


Mr Smith brings to canvas an Africa that is remarkably different to the ones painted in our minds - images of famine and privation, Mr McCall Smith' Africa is rich in tones, warm with beautiful people who welcome you into their hearts and hearth. The reader will be absorbed into Mma Ramotswe love for Africa and feel it pulsating within him/her, her wisdom her humor leap out of the pages as she uses her life experiences to bring light on others' problems. Her tiny white van, her love of bush tea, the apprentices and their vain preening, Mma Katusi and her 97% from the Botswana Secretarial College, are images that invariably bring a smile on the face. This series is as 'precious' as the name of its main protagonist.


And the other series I love by him are the 'Isabel Dalhousie Novels' in which the protagonist, Isabel Dalhousie, is the charming intrepid well-intentioned editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. She does not actively seek out trouble, but her inability to ignore those in need invariable draws her into peculiar situations. She finds herself constantly analyzing other people's problems, she is an altogether too morally sound woman, who sometimes becomes not a little annoying with her insistence on doing the right thing which leads her to get involved in affairs that have not much to do with her except she think 'moral proximity' makes it incumbent on us to do the right thing. We go through with her through a journey of what is right and what is wrong, her moral dilemmas when she falls for the much younger ex-boyfriend of her niece.


Set in Edinburgh, the 3 novels in this series take us through the streets of Scotland on sunny days and days with unpredictable weather and rain, just as we meandered in the dusty lanes of Botswana we lose ourselves in the quaint cobblestoned streets of Scotland with its bars and its art galleries as we walk with our heroine as she ponders over life's many philosophical issues, we are invited into her home where we meet Grace her outspoken maid with well-established views. And we fall a little in love ourselves with Jamie, the much younger bassoon player with his en-brosse hair, who Isabel falls in love with despite all efforts to the contrary. We sit with her in her niece's charming delicatessen and can almost picture her niece's timid assistant, Eddie who has had some traumatic incident in life which we never find out, we know intimately her niece's attraction to all the wrong sorts of men and of course we come to love Mr. Fox, a wild fox in Isabel's garden who forays for food and is subject to much contemplation by Isabel. These and more images stay with us the readers well beyond the final page. I could go on and on about these characters I have read and re-read the books

I have heard the audiobooks repeatedly, they are not just characters in a book they are people Mr McCall Smith has befriended us to and he faithfully writes about them regularly otherwise we would be totally bereft! Book 8 in the No.1 ladies Detective Agency called 'The Good Husband of Zebra Drive' was released this month and is fantastic to say the least and Mr Smith in his forum has said that the fourth Isabel novel will come out by Autumn. Yay!

The Myth of Sisyphus - Wow what a piece of writing

I had this book for a long time but somehow I used to find it a daunting task to start reading it. I had made up my mind that I wouldn't understand it. But one day I turned a page. And that was it. I think there is a specific time that you are meant to read a book and books are magical that way, until you are ready somehow or the other you won't read it. I read it and Camus' writing took my breath away.

Sisphyus was a greek hero who was punished by the Gods to ceaselessly roll a rock up a slope and just when he had reached the top after hours and hours of labour the rock would slide down. Imagine pushing up a heavy rock knowing that as soon as you got to the top it would roll down and you would have to start pushing it all over again. And you will have to do do this over and over.

We know the rock will inevitably roll down, and that when we come down after it, we will come to the moment of decision and consciousness when we have to make a choice... give in to the Absurd and let the rock rest or strive for our human dignity and begin rolling the rock up the hill again. So long as we are rolling the rock we are not defeated, and there is human dignity in the world.

Camus relates this to the struggle we face in life but what makes this struggle different is the hero's total acceptance of his fate, his rebellion of his very fate. The central conclusion is that just because life is meaningless does not mean that it is bad. Our salvation lies in our attitude.

"You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth." [excerpt]

The Myth of Sisyphus expounds Albert Camus's notion of the absurd and of its acceptance with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction". This is where Camus introduces the Absurd, and his equally famous image of life as a Sisyphean struggle.

"At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock". [excerpt]

To know that what one is doing will result in eventual failure yet to keep doing it because of the acceptance of one's fate and one's punishment, to be conscious of impending failure yet continue - and thats Sisyphus' crowning moment - his exultant defiance in the face of all odds. He is in control, he's been handed his punishment but he's not asked for mercy he's accepted and goes on, on the path of his destiny. The only master of his fate!

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days". [excerpt]

Ultimately whether you agree with the writer or not the essence of it lies in the total rebellious acceptance of life and all its toil and sadness and burdens. As Camus ends this particular essay...

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again.
But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He
too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy". [excerpt]

No matter how tough life gets the beauty and nobility of life lies in how we face it. It is possible to find joy and find God... everything lies in the struggle and how much truth and meaning we bring to it.

Myth of Sisyphus is written by Albert Camus. Albert Camus was a French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, writer of philosophical essays, and Nobel laureate. Through his literary works and in numerous reviews, articles, essays, and speeches Camus made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy – from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death penalty. In awarding him its prize for literature in 1957, the Nobel committee cited the author’s persistent efforts to “illuminate the problem of the human conscience in our time,” and it is pre-eminently as a writer of conscience and as a champion of imaginative literature as a vehicle of philosophical insight and moral truth that Camus was honored by his own generation and is still admired today

Rolls Royce - from the cocktail bible

Hardly surprising, several classic cocktails have been named after this classic marque. This version was created by author H.E.Bates in his popular novel, 'The Darling Buds of May'.

Serves 1
4-6 cracked ice cubes
Dash of orange bitters
2 measures DRY VERMOUTH
1 measure DRY GIN
1 measure Scotch whiskey

(1) Put the cracked ice cubes into a mixing glass. Dash the bitters over the ice
(2) Pour the vermouth, gin whisky over the ice and stir to mix. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass

CLASSIC CARS

Rolls Royce [second version]: Put 4-6 ice cubes into a mixing glass. Pour 3 measures gin, 1 measure SWEET VERMOUTH, 1/4 teaspoon BENEDICTINE over the ice. Stir well to mix then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

American Rolls Royce: Put 4-6 ice cubes into a cocktail shaker. Pour 2 measures brandy, 2 measures orange juice and 1 measure trible sec over the ice. Shake until a frost forms. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Bentley: Put 4-6 ice cubes into a mixing glass. Pour 2 measures Calvados and 1 measure red Dubonnet over the ice. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and decorate with a twist of lemon peel.

Golden Cadillac: 4-6 ice cubes into a cocktail shaker. Pour 1 measure triple sec, 1 measure Galliano and 1 measure single cream over the ice. Shake vigorously until a frost forms. Strain the mixture into a chilled cocktail glass.

Did you know?
Writer & cocktails seem to have an affinity
H.E. Bates invented other besides the
Rolls Royce; Raymond Chandler wrote
fondly of Gimlet; Scott Fitzgerald
evoked the glamour of cocktail
society in 'The Great Gatsby'.
Even Lord Byron said his inspiration
stemmed from gin and water

Aromatherapy - Lavender Essential Oil

I have exams in a couple of weeks and of course when one has an exam everything seems far more interesting then studying.
Anyway this post is about aromatherapy and how fantastic it is. Essential oils work, I've tried and tested them. They work as a beauty treatment, they work therapeutically and of course they are amazing mood relaxants [not sure about the spelling here]
After doing so many damn papers I'm so tempted to start with a paragraph introducing aromatherapy and its roots, but I am going to control myself.
Need a moment here!
Okay got the urge under control but it was tough. I am rambling again so I'm going to get back to the point of the post.
Out of all of the essential oils Lavender is the easiest to use and the most versatile one. One of the few that you can apply directly to your skin without mixing it with a base oil. It is a very good sedative and has antiseptic properties.
And for all my fellow insomniacs out there, a drop on your pillow or diluted in a bath, Lavender helps to sleep.
It is excellent as a headache remedy, my mom suffers from migraines and a massage with Lavender helps her a lot. It is amazing for burns and insect bites too.
If you suffer from acne add 8 drops of lavender to 20 ml of carrier oils [can be wheatgerm,sweet almond, soya oil and many other] and give yourself a face massage followed by a toner and a face mask.
Note: if skin is very inflamed then don't massage just dab.

Basic Toner:
Essential Oils
25 drops [you can choose from up to 4 oils]
Base
100 ml distilled or flower water
1. Pour the water into a large, sterilized dark bottle. Add the essential oils and allow to stand for a month shaking often.
If this seems too much work you can use any other gentle toner

Basic Fruit or yoghurt Face Mask:
Essential oils:
1 drop
For base:
You can use 1 tablespoon ripe fruit or 1 teaspoon plain yoghurt
1. Mash the fruit and sieve into a small bowl. If using yoghurt spoon it into a bowl
2. Add the essential oil and mix well
3. Apply the mask to clean skin avoiding the eye area.
4. Wash after 10 minutes

P.S. I have this mask on as I write