PresentaPhobia

Yep, I just made up that word (I think). I did have such a big fear of presentation, not because I don't know the material but because I'm such an introvert by nature so being the center of attention, all eyes on me as I utter every word makes me perspire at the mere thought of giving a presentation.Anyhow, I'm proud to say that I'm over it now. Thanks to my new employer who perhaps thought that my strength is giving presentations when it was actually unexplored.

The first was when I had to lead the monthly performance forum and didn't know anything more than my slides. It didn't go as well as I would have hoped it to because I lacked historical data so I couldn't really compare, I could just be factual about the Now results.I was then asked to lead a teambuilding event for the Finance department. Of course, I didn't get any sleep due to high levels of anxiety and stressing about it going all wrong since I've never done something like this before. I'd keep changing the slides to the very last 5 mins before the beginning of the event. I even changed slides during the breaks.

My first day, I suffered from terrible anxiety but funny enough my nervousness was displayed as enthusiasm and excitement. I usually stuter or talk fast. Everytime I'd stuter, I'd probe a question and everytime I'd talk fast, I'd quickly skim through some relevant material.What I'm meaning to say is after the first day of the teambuilding event, I realised, I could do this again without going through all the anxiety and nervousness. Strangely, the next day, I was so at ease and actually enjoyed leading the presentation for over 8 hrs! The weird thing though is when I get into my material, I could only stare at one person for a period of time (endless mins at times) - they were certain faces I'd selectively feel comfortable starring at as I presented which is weird because I know I made one of the guys uncomfortable, he actually thought I was about to have a dig at him.

Today, the Finance Director showed me the video and I was so shocked to see myself. I almost couldn't identify/relate to myself. Amazing huh? how we could just evolve/change into something else when we're not comfortable doing it. I think I'm over my Presentation Phobia now and strangely, I'm eager to do more presentations - of course so long as I know I could challenge the audience, teach them something new and keep energizing them through out the presentation which I did in the event. I wish I could post pictures but that just wouldn't be fair on them.

The Theft of 2004 US Presidential Election

No paper trail left behind
More votes than registered voters

On election day the early-day voters picked up by early exit polls (showing Kerry with a wide lead) were heavily Democratic instead of the traditional pattern of early voters being mainly Republican.

Florida computer programmer claimed that his employers asked him in 2000 to create a computer program to undetectably alter vote totals.The National Election Pool’s exit polls13 were so far off that since their inception twenty years ago, they have never been this wrong, more wrong than statistical probability indicates is possible.

This is just the tip of the ice-berg, to read more, refer to this article http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

Church decorated in bones????

"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction" A small town called Sedlec lies about 70kms east of Prague. There lies the Boney Church and don't undermine these bones, they are real human bones.

A little history: back in 1218, a man made a pilgramage to the holy land and brought back a jar of soil from the cemetary which he spread over the church. The church was then regarded as more sacred and turned into a popular burial spot. 100 years later, more than 30,000 bodies were buried there. 200 years after that, it was necessary to remove the older bones to make place for the new ones.

These later became the material for the macabre creations. Much later, a local woodcarver was hired to decorate the inside of the church with the human remains (approximately40,000 sets of human bones). The pics gave me the creeps. I can't imagine how one can worship in such a church, it's disturbing.

Monotonous tone

Isn't life just like that, we get caught up with things and time flies right before our eyes?

Yesterday, I felt so down, felt like Im wasting my life away here between work and family. I sometimes feel I'm watching myself as opposed to living inside myself and the events of my days repeat itself again.

I cant stand this monotonous tone in my life and yet Im hesitant to make the next move.. where ... how... when?.... but hey, I carry on - I try to laugh about little things at work, at home, in the kitchen... and just carry on by...

Lakshmi Mittal

Mittal is the Richest Indian Man. Last year, he was the 3rd richest man in the world just behind Bill Gates. Lakshmi has a Steel Producing business which is the largest in the world.Mittal is now offering a surprise 18.6-billion euros takeover bid for the rival company, Arcelor in Luxembourg (2nd largest Steel Producer).

The Shareholders seemed a little keen about it, just the mention of the takeover made the share prices of Arcelor go up. The Govt of luxembourg has opposed this claiming job cuts but we know it's way beyond that, aye? I suppose it is really hard for Europeans to feel/know that an Indian can take over. I hope this materialises by June 2006.

Sufi Music

An Afghani friend of mine introduced me to Sufi music sung in urdu. Amazing stuff. I want to marry the singer, his voice is so soothing and the lyrics are breath-taking. .

Valentine's Day over-rated/over-priced?

Isn't it too much pressure to designate a day to stage your love for a person? Evidently, in the past decade or so, it's been extremely commericialized. I was just reading the paper and in India there was a widespread vandalism denouncing the western concept of romance, they went around destroying v-cards etc...or in China, the more edgy thing now is plastic surgery for him/her to torture the couple's pocket and fatten the pockets of greeting card companies/flower shops/jewelry shops. The saddest part is when those who don't have a loved one actually feel bad! over what? a fake holiday! ohhh dear, the broken hearted listening to sad love songs and crying about it today more than any other day. Boohoo, insularity fever spreads.

What has our world come to?

Anyhow, I can't deny that I felt on top of the world today when my younger brother left me a card this morning. Not because it's Valentine's day but I suppose the timing and the fact that I didn't expect it is what colored my day with joy and the 'aww, I love you my baby bro'. I would've felt the same way any other day too.

Oh well, just ranting really. I know I'm going to end up buying a nice big box of chocolates for my baby bro - he loves them and he appreciates me all year round :-)

Valentine's Day Over-rated?

Isn't it too much pressure to designate a day to stage your love for a person? Evidently, in the past decade or so, it's been extremely commericialized. I was just reading the paper and in India there was a widespread vandalism denouncing the western concept of romance, they went around destroying v-cards etc...or in China, the more edgy thing now is plastic surgery for him/her to torture the couple's pocket and fatten the pockets of greeting card companies/flower shops/jewelry shops.

The saddest part is when those who don't have a loved one actually feel bad! over what? a fake holiday! ohhh dear, the broken hearted listening to sad love songs and crying about it today more than any other day. Boohoo, insularity fever spreads.

What has our world come to?Anyhow, I can't deny that I felt on top of the world today when my younger brother left me a card this morning. Not because it's Valentine's day but I suppose the timing and the fact that I didn't expect it is what colored my day with joy and the 'aww, I love you my baby bro'. I would've felt the same way any other day too.Oh well, just ranting really.

I know I'm going to end up buying a nice big box of chocolates for my baby bro - he loves them and he appreciates me all year round :-)

Self Critical

Let us take a moment to be self-critical.
Is it ok for us to publish offensive cartoons?

$592 Million US Embassy in Iraq

FKTC, a construction firm in Kuwait has been accused of exploiting employees and bullying low-paid laborers to work in Iraq to build the new $592 mln US Embassy in Baghdad. Apparently, it will be the largest most equiped diplomatic compound in the world. The walls will be 15 feet thick or more and all of this will be completed by summer next year.

What a lucrative business - 3 yrs ago, the Kuwaiti construction company only had $35 mln in assets, today, it is well past $1 billion mark. I think it is so evil of this firm to actually give the workers an ultimatum that they either work in Iraq or they would be released on the streets of Kuwait City. Obviously, they don't have the resources to fly back home.

What a cruel world we live in. More money, more greed, more cruelty.

Source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021206D.shtml

Confusion

Confusion is my permanent state of mind, like a difficult jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces and you know what, it doesn't bother me that much because who really decides what's normal, acceptable and what isn't? I'd never under estimate how confused people around us are and many times, they are the cause of our confusion. Very normal people are contradictory, oblivious to our feelings or darn right rude. Sometimes we are amused and other times confused.

At the end of the day, what really matters is what your perceptions are - not what others see or feel because quite simply you don't feel what they feel, you feel what you feel.

A woman came into my life when I least expected it, she pointed out every flaw/problem/issue I displayed without realizing that I did that and she said to me 'the solutions are there, I'm not going to help you, when you make those changes, come back to me'. I would argue with her, accuse her of being judgmental, harsh and insensitive. Now, I look back and I see the pride in her eyes, the joy in her voice because she had a very positive impact just by pointing out a few things and of course hearing me out. Remember, you said your good deeds are just a payback - well same here really. She lost her job, her visa was invalidated, had to leave San Francisco, from a great paying job to bankruptcy, moved to another country, got robbed, got into an abusive relationship, failed at starting up her own business, got sick one day and called 911 and next thing, she found herself at a mental institute, nobody visited her or knew about her whereabouts. This woman never believed in owning a cell phone but she bought one when she was admitted and of all people in the world, she called me and You know what? I didn't do anything. I just picked up her call and talked to her like I always did without making her feel crazy although deep down, I knew she was at the very bottom of depression and was very confused. One year later, she calls me and tells me that all it took for her sanity to come back was to talk to someone and say all the crap she was saying. She doesn't stop thanking me and little does she know that this is the very least I could do because the crazy confused person is the one who changed my life in many ways. So see, confused people can help one another. One thing she advised me is to blurt out what I'm feeling instead of trying to fight the incoherence of my thoughts, even if it doesn't make sense, at a later point, it's so easy to put the pieces together.

...rambling away in silence now....

Highlights of Oman

This week's highlights:
- Discovery of four new oil fields boost PDO’s reserves
- Combined net profit of our banking sector has increased by almost 60%
- MSM adopts a new electronic trading system which is state-of-the-art Atos Euronext system.
- Oman fixed its official crude oil price at $58.94, the highest ever in history.
- Crowne Plaza Salalah was awarded top honours by the Intercontinental Hotels Group for the ‘Best Renovation’ in Europe/Middle East and Africa.

Arab Media

This is the first debate I've watched on BBC on the 'DOHA DEBATES'. It was a great constructive discussion without any hostility as most debates on TV have been terribly loud and hostile . Thanks to 'Manj' for reminding me to watch it.

The subject of the debate itself was about: "Should Arab journalists should learnfrom the Western journalists?"; meaning whether we should basically get as close as possible to the truth of what we report without the self-censorship and state control.

I was pleased to watch them openly discuss the reality of self-censorship and state control over journalism and how our current media can be misinforming the Western world about the Arab world as being violent/fanatical etc with the choice of topics/story coverages that Arab Media chooses to cover and broadcast. Our current state of our Arab Media was praised as breath-taking when compared to 15 years ago; said an American Media specialist.

Numerous issues were discussed starting from Al-Jazeera broadcasting Qaeda tapes suggesting that they sensationalise the video tapes for viewers just like when the Danish paper were sensationalising the Danish cartoons for readers. A very good point was made when Mona El-tehawy, a columnist for sharq al-awsat suggested that it was self-critical and that it was a result of what we broadcast on al-jazeera or other arab channels e.g. 'allah akbar' and chopping off heads etc or the other violent acts we broadcast as being Islamic. Mona added that Arabs don't know much about how Palestinians live or that some Palestinians live in Israel with Israeli passports etc. She stressed the importance of broadcasting the right topics without or with very little self-censorship.

At the end of the debate, 68.3% voted against the motion: 'This House believes that Arab media needs no lessons in journalism from the West'.

I wish I didn't miss the first part of it. If it's on BBC again, don't miss it. I'm very impressed by the initiatives Doha is making and making space for people to discuss/debate issues in the Arab/Muslim world. In the GCC countries, Qatar appears to be the first one at attempting to embrace true democracy.

Bank Muscat

Our biggest local bank has reported net profit growing by 33% in the amount of RO45.5 million at the end of 2005 which basically breaks the history record in the Omani banking sector.

I also read about a plan for 10-1 split of shares to make it more affordable for investors to buy because the last time I checked, it was over RO 10.My question: is it worth investing after the split?

After what happened with my shares at NBO (pretty much crashing), I'm hesitant but I'm also prepared to measure my risks and decide that a little exposure may be worth the try.

Monsieur Ibrahim and the flowers of the Koran

A french movie with a graceful and charming performance by Omar Sharif and the boy is simply and incredibly adorable.

Ibrahim (Muslim Sufi from Turkey), a grocery shop owner and Moses (Jewish) who lives in the neighbourhood befriend one another.

This is a beautiful film, deeply affectionate and displays a deep relationship between the old man and the young boy. Although one is Muslim and the other is Jewish, the discussion of religion in itself is minimal and passive which makes it all the better.

I'd love to write about the story but that would spoil it for those who would like to see it. I give this 8/10 which is really good because I tend to be very critical.