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Which Side Do You Use?

2008-10-20T17:10:55+02:00

Which Side Do You Use?

You responded as a right brained person to 12 questions, and you responded as a left brained person to 6questions. According to the Hemispheric Dominance test, you use your right brain the most. The summary briefly describes your dominance type. Remember, this only represents half of the picture. After you read the description, click on the link at the bottom of the page to find out how to use this information to improve your study strategies. Do not forget to print your results, if your instructor has requested you to do so.

Some of the traits associated with the right side of the brain are listed in the table. Not all of the traits will apply to you. Remember, we use both side of our brain, but your right sides gets the most exercise.

Type of Cognitive Processing

Brief Description
Holisitc Processing information from whole to part; sees the big picture first, not the details.
Random Processing information with out priority, jumps form one task to another.
Concrete Processes things that can be seen , or touched - real objects.
Intuitive Processes information based on whether or not it feels right know answer but not sure how it was derived.
Nonverbal Processes thought as illustrations.
Fantasy-Oriented Processes information with creativity; less focus on rules and regulations

http://www.web-us.com/brain/LRBrain.html

10 Ways to Find Time to Follow Your Dreams

2008-08-12T10:35:59+02:00

What would you do with an extra half-hour a day? Is there a “One Day Novel” in you (as in, “one day I’ll write a novel”)? Have you been thinking of learning a new skill but don’t know how to free up the time? Or would you just spend a few extra minutes with your family, really sharing?

No matter how busy we are, most of use can free up a half-hour a day. We may have to make sacrifices, but they’re not big sacrifices – a TV show, the freedom of driving your own car, the freshest possible food every night, stuff like that.

A half-hour doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up – even if we just count weekdays, that 250 half-hours a year, or 125 hours. That’d over five days of free time a year, straight through, or three-plus full-time working weeks. What could you get done if you could take three weeks off and work 8 hours a day on your own projects?

Here are ten ways to “rescue” a half-hour a day (at least). Not all of them will be feasible for everyone, or have the same return, but at least one of them should be what it takes to give yourself a little extra time.

1. Cut out a TV show every day.
Eliminate TV altogether if you can – I promise you won’t miss it – but I know some people need that bit of mindless entertainment at night, and it might be the only time you can get your kids to sit still with the rest of the family. Fair enough, but surely you can cut out at least one show. Whatever filler is on between your comedy and your crime procedural, for instance.

2. Ditch your car.
The average commute in the US is something like 25 minutes. If you carpool or take public transportation, you gain an average of 50 minutes each day (maybe every other day or two out of every three days if you have a driving turn in your carpool). You lose some time for “overhead” – finding a place on the bus, changing trains, exchanging pleasantries with your carpool partners – but you should be able to squeeze 15 minutes of productive time each way out of your commute. Get a PDA or smartphone and you can be writing, doing research, or filling out spreadsheets on the go.

(Personal note: I worked full-time all the way through graduate school, and wrote dozens of papers on a Palm Pilot hanging from a strap on the NYC subway. I deeply miss that hour-and-a-half of productive time now that I live too far out from town to make public transportation an option.)

3. Wake up earlier.
Getting up at 6 instead of 6:30 (or whenever) can give you a good half-hour of quiet time before your day gets going – perfect for writing or working on other personal projects. The idea here is not to sleep less, though – you’ll pay a cost in lost productivity as your lost sleep adds up, and be back where you started. Instead, cut the last half-hour of TV or whatever else you do at night and shift that time to the morning, when everyone’s still asleep, there’s nothing tempting on TV, and you can start the day with a half-hour well-spent behind you.

4. Batch chores.
Instead of responding to household clutter as it arises, let a little clutter build up and take care of it all in one fall swoop every few days or on the weekend. This will be especially painful if you’re a particularly committed neat freak, but the daily cleaning never gets done, and in the end, you’re not going to regret not picking up the kids toys nearly as much as you’ll regret not having written a few more pages or not having spent more time on your studies.

5. Go to your kids’ practices.
Instead of dropping the kids off at soccer, karate, or gymnastics, driving home, and driving back an hour later, find a nearby place (the bleachers, a coffee shop, even your car) to sit and work. Get a small laptop or PDA, or carry a notepad with you. You’ll save the drive time and the slack time in between where, let’s face it, you were just going to clean house or watch TV.

6. Cook in advance.
Just like you can batch housecleaning to save time throughout the week, you can batch your cooking and save 20 minutes or so of meal preparation each night. Cook large quantities of food on Sundays and freeze them, or cook food whose leftovers can provide several nights meals. For example, I make a big pot of chili that will last two nights and leave enough leftover for chili dogs the 3rd night.

7. Reclaim your lunch break.
Bring your own lunches to work, find a quiet place, and eat and work during your lunch break. Make it something with little preparation – a sandwich, chips, celery or carrot sticks, or similar foods are great. You’ll save the time of walking or driving somewhere, ordering, and walking back – and you’ll eat more nutritiously and save money to boot.

8. Have a YOYO night.
Another way to save time on food preparation is not to prepare food. This won’t gain you time every day, but can gain you an evening for yourself. Instead of cooking and sitting down for family dinner, make one night a week for “You’re On Your Own” (YOYO). Kids and spouses make their own dinner (using leftovers or food chosen in advance – obviously you need older kids for this to work) and entertain themselves while mom or dad gets to work undisturbed. Don’t do this every night, though, or your kids will forget who you are and will be frightened if they ever accidentally meet you in the hallway!

9. Use slack time.
Set yourself up to make use of those little scraps of time that come along when you’re not expecting them – standing in lines, waiting for a meeting to start, while on hold with your power company, whenever. It might only be 5 minutes here, 8 minutes there, but it adds up.

10. Shop with a list during non-peak times.
Grocery shopping after work can easily suck up an hour-and-a-half as you fight through crowded aisles and wait in interminable lines to check out. Make up a good, solid list that’s organized according to the aisles in your grocery store, and go early in the morning on the weekend or late at night when the store is empty. You’ll walk in, walk up and down empty aisles, hitting each aisle only once, and waltz through the checkout. I can do the same shopping trip on Sunday morning at 9 am in 45 minutes that takes me over 90 minutes on a weekday evening. And having a good list with everything you need for the week – make sure you plan out your menues! – minimizes those “short” trips to the store throughout the week to pick up a gallon of milk, an extra loaf of bread, or whatever else you ran out of. We all know that a “short” trip is at least a half-hour!

You’ll need a little bit of discipline to make any of these tips work, or the time you save will just get filled with something else. Just keep telling yourself that what you’re giving up isn’t nearly as important as what you’re gaining – the time to move yourself closer to the fulfillment of your dreams!

Boracay

2008-08-01T03:34:03+02:00

From a frd's blog on our trip:

Jul 24, 2008

This is my third time to the Philippines and it yet again, marks another positive and happy experience (we recommend Boracay but not the airline we went for) for my trip to this country with 7,101 beautiful islands. This time we went in a party of 7 (quite a large group) for 5 days 3 nights. We left Hong Kong for Manila late at night last Friday, arrived at midnight, stayed at a local popular restuarant called Aristocrat (highly recommended) in Manila downtown from 1am to 3:30am and then went on our connecting domestic flight from Manila Domestic Airport to Caticlan. We went by Cebu Pacific (a no-frill airlines which had a really slow system, but really had the cheapest airfare). We arrived Caticlan at 6:10am, our porter from our resort (Escondido Resort in Station 1 Boracay, little off the 4km White Beach) greeted us at the airport and took us to the Boracay Island. We recommend this hotel to everyone who's looking for a budget resort with excellent service and an additional Filipino taste to the room decorations. We had two rooms of 4 girls and 3 guys. We left Boracay on Tuesday afternoon.

The island itself was awesome. Although the island attracted many foreign investors and added some kind of commercial influence to the island, the island still somewhat kept it's authenticity and peacefulness. Everyone (according to my personal experience in The Philippines) is nice and cheerful and as their airport banner suggests, they add "an extra smile" to everything and everyone they encounter.

We did several easy dives on the first 2 days in the morning. We recommend Friday's Rock if you want easy diving and lots of fishes and Yapak and Camia Wreck if you want to raise your bar in your diving skills. We recommend our diving operator, Lapu Lapu to all. We did some island hopping on the second last day and took some spectacular pictures of the different beaches. We also recommend taking a Paraw during sunset out from the White Beach to absorb some of the most beautiful views of the island and this is certainly ideal for couples. We then did some island shopping at D'Mall (they have lots of seashell products). If you would like Filipino authentic food, try Smoke in D'Mall. If you would like to have some Western style dining, try "Lemon Cafe" just in the D'Mall center Plaza. For grilled Pinoy food, please try Gastof (fresh grilled seafood but bit more expensive than the other restaurants, this restuarant is at the entrance of D'Mall). The D'Mall Palenke is full of locals buying fresh meat and vegetables off the small stalls alongside the road. If you want some late drinks along the beach at night, try "Bamboo lounge", it's between Station 1 and 2, facing the beach, they even have soft cushion seats and table placed on the sandy beach after 8pm.

I could just go on and on...but we thought it was the best experience we ever had in The Philippines. Despite the flight and ferry transits could be tiring, it's really worth the time and effort.

Would recommend a one-night stay in Manila if you've got time. Could visit some of the largest shopping mall in Asia. Try Asia Mall of SM (Shoe Mart). For regional local food, try "Mangan" (next to Fully Book Bookstore, and opposite to the Shoe Mart Department Store) inside the mall.