Reality Matters

Over the course of our lifetime, we accumulate “stuff” that represents our history, experiences and the good and the bad events that have occurred during our journey through life.

I suppose I am overly sentimental and obsessed with ensuring my own children have keepsakes from their babyhood and beyond. Perhaps it is because I do not have momentos from my babyhood and toddler years that I place a huge importance on ensuring that my children do have treasures that they can appreciate as the years pass by. Call me a pack rat for my kids!

Photographs

Photos are a fabulous means of recording the life of a child.

For each photograph I take of my children, a copy is put into a special box for each of my child. The date and place is recorded on the back of the photograph in addition to additional names of others that may be in the photo. When my children turn 18, I will pass these photographs to my children for their own keeping.

Baby Gifts - Videos

A wonderful, realistic means of recording actions, words and developments of babies, toddlers and up.

The camcorder is an absolutely fantastic electronic device that I have become close friends with since my first baby. Not only do I take videos, but I also utilize video editing software to record music and sounds to the video clips to make it all the more personalized and interesting to others and my children. A copy of all videos is also put into safe keeping for each of my children.

Clothing and Toys

One cannot keep every single piece of clothing or toy, however, I have kept a piece of clothing and a toy from their newborn stage that has been given by a special person in their life such as grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles, mommy and daddy and other special family members or friends. As the years go on, I am sure the collection will grow with favorite toys that they have cherished through their childhood or other “stuff” that will bring back fond memories.

Baby / Toddler Record Keeping Books

Recording the particulars of baby’s birth, date of their first steps, the first word spoken, a clipping of hair from their first haircut or all the “firsts” will be a wonderful keepsake for children when they are older. Every person is curious to know what they were like as a baby, what their favoritie color or song was, etc. Remember, even parents forget such things and record keeping books are a great method of looking back and remembering your children.

Yes, I am probably Clean Sweep’s biggest nightmare but it is so important to me that I give my children a part of their history and I believe that they will be grateful when they are older and obtain these special treasures.

Personalized baby gifts and baby gift baskets are among our most popular gift items for newborn babies. Security blankets, baby blankets, plush toys and more embroidered with baby’s first name and birthdate are an excellent baby gift idea. Not only are they enchanting but are a fabulous keepsake gift that will last a lifetime. Baby gift wagons are also great for boys and girls.

Start your little blessing with a gift that will represent their babyhood and start in the journey of life.

The need to do well at school is something that is very close to the heart of Hong Kong people. Hong Kong is a very competitive place where the desire to win is a very strong motivating force for the young and old alike. This results in a very competitive education system for Hong Kong.

The competition starts at the kindergarten level. The entry into a good kindergarten can mean an increased likelihood of gaining entry into a good primary school. In Hong Kong many kindergartens have entrance exams. I recently had one of my friends explaining to me in shock that he had been called into his child’s kindergarten because his child had not been doing his homework!

Hong Kong schools are banded according to the quality of their student’s results. A band one school is a top school. A band three school is a school only attended by those who cannot perform academically well enough to get into a higher band school. The competition to get into the top schools is extremely difficult.

This is where many local Hong Kong tutorial schools play a role. A typical tutorial school catering for local students is a massive organisation which will have a class of 40+ listening to the tutor and hundreds of other students in classrooms around Hong Kong watching the lesson on closed circuit television. The value of this type of tuition is very questionable. The classes are meant to be teaching exam tips, techniques etc.

ITS Tutorial School is a very different type of tuition centre from these organisations. ITS is a fully registered school with the Hong Kong Education Department and mainly provides one to one tuition support or small classes (normally from two to a maximum of eight) to students studying a variety of different subjects and syllabuses. The tutor tailors the material to the student’s individual need and moves at the students pace.

Students find the individual attention allows them to fully develop ideas and content that they did not understand during their normal schooling. The interaction of students on a close basis with the adult tutors also helps the students gain maturity and do extension work on the areas of syllabuses covered.

ITS also can help the students in other areas as well such as helping them write their personal statements which are needed to get into top universities around the world. Many Hong Kong students attend universities in the UK, USA and Australia.

The school also helps students prepare for a variety of different exams such as the UK Common Entrance Exam 11+ and 13+, the SAT reasoning and SAT subject exams, the IELTS exam, GMAT, LNAT, SSAT and other different school and university entrance exams.

ITS also has been developing a wide variety of resources available on its website to help students, parents, teachers and the community at large achieve their academic goals.

For more information about ITS please visit our website.

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An increasing epidemic in the current financial climate, the issue of employees cheating on business expense claims is becoming a huge worry in the corporate world. A survey published by Personnel Today in late 2007 found that more than one third of employees admitted to cheating on business expense claims - with some even doubling the value of the original expense.

What Makes a Normally Moral Person Effectively Commit an Act of Fraud?

Firstly, the amount being added on to expense claims is typically fairly low. Most employees believe that adding a small monetary figure to expense claims will go unnoticed and also have very little impact on their employer’s bottom line. If it won’t make much of a difference, then why not tweak the figures in their favour?

Secondly, most employees simply don’t believe they’re being paid what they actually deserve. The art of fiddling business expenses is seen as an easy means of supplementing income and taking what’s ‘owed to them’.

Finally, times are hard and morale is low. The credit crunch is hitting employees hard - the price of products and services seem to be increasing at an exponential rate to salaries - and employees view cheating expenses as a quick way of reducing the burden on their bank balance. The person cheating on their expenses views the organisation as having the resources to cope with the small differences they apply - whereas the difference to them is far greater.

Examples of Expense Claim Cheating

What Kinds of Techniques are Employees using to Illegally Claim Expenses?

• Consistently submitting false claims for values lower than those requiring documentary evidence (e.g. £15 on a lunch/meal).
• Submitting claims over and above allowed entitlements by splitting individual expenses into multiple claims.
• Submitting claims for personal items under the guise of corporate expenses.

How Does This Impact the Employer?

The effect of one employee liberally cheating on their expenses will often go unnoticed and have little effect on the employer - However, once others see that a colleague is ‘getting away with it’ it can foster an environment where multiple employees undertake the same techniques (as this would only be ‘fair’ on them). Once a culture of illegal claims becomes engrained throughout the organisation, before the employer knows it the expense bill has become hugely inflated and they have a cost on their hands that hasn’t been either anticipated or budgeted for.

Addressing the Issue

Simple steps can be taken to ensure the issue of expense fraud never rears its head. Modern-day technology, such as expense management systems, can force all employees to adhere to the same system of claims, with in-built limits, process and managerial/finance approval. Instances of false claims can be flagged up using pre-defined rule-sets. Employers can then enforce a zero-tolerance policy by addressing any examples of expense fiddling through standard expense management reporting.

The finnish giants new Nokia N96 is one beast of a smart phone even by today’s standards. Most mobiles wished they were as feature packed, and had other manufacture’s scrambling to mimic its features. I’m going break down this mobile, and basically fill you in why this mobile should be in your pocket and not in the store window still.

Let’s start with the apparent, it’s form. The N96 is a candy bar slider design, having a hidden keypad, and also sliding it in the opposite direction shows a hidden media keyed key pad. So right from the start this mobile has 2 functions covered, phone calls and media playback, very easily accessed.

It’s very similar to the Nokia n95 in many ways and it also uses the same OS and thus N95 themes will work on the N96. So you’ll not be short of themes as there’s already thousands available.

The screen on this mobile is gorgeous, as it displays 16 million colors. Measuring in at 2.8”, its QVGA LCD TFT screen has a resolution of 240×320 pixels. So basically anything your doing on this mobile is going to be bright, vivid, and colorful. This is great for reading email, surfing the net, watching videos, and making it a real pleasure. Check out mmcforums where you can get Themes for N96 to further make use of the beautiful screen.

Now I’ll point out some of the best features we come to expect from a Nokia smart phone.

Its camera is a 5MP with dual LED flash. The camera is auto focus and auto correction enabled, and has a Carl Zeis Optics Tessar Lens. You can record video at 30fps, and the flash for the mobile doubles a light when recording video. Both camera and video mode offer a lot of options to set like brightness, color, zoom, etc making it a real rival to a standalone digital camera.

The N96 has AGPS on board as well. AGPS means Assisted Global Positioning Software. What that means it has regular GPS but is can pull map data, nearby information about local shops, rest areas, etc using your cellular data or WIfI connection. You can also install familiar GPS software on the N96 as well, like Garmin or TomTom. With its camera, you will also be able to Geo-Tag your photos with the physical location of where you snapped the photo at.

Wifi is also present on the Nokia N96. This feature really comes in handy if you are in an area with bad cellular reception, and you need to check your email, surf the web, or check in on a live news feed on your mobile. Some applications require a mobile broadband connection, this also helps out when you are not a 3G area as well. The phone’s speakers produce a beautiful sound with a great deal of clarity, listening to mp3’s, ringtones and movies is a pleasure. The dual slider with multimedia keys makes listening to Mp3’s an absolute pleasure.

Now to the interface, Series 60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. So it’s a smart phone at its core, through and through. Users can keep calendar events, notes, and reminders active on it, to keep them on a schedule. Using active standby on the home screen, lets you easily get to your most used features or apps in a snap. With 16GB of flash memory built in to the mobile, you will have plenty of space to fit your photos, videos, and saved multimedia messages without worry about having to remove something to make room for more. Nokia offers the Nokia PC Suite software for your PC or Mac, that lets you sync personal information like calendar events, notes, and also sync music and movies to and from your device. You can also back up your SMS and MMS messages for safe keeping, or to free up space on your mobile.

The N96 may be pricy but once you realize what all its capable of doing, and how many devices it can replace in your pocket or backpack, it doesn’t seem as bad as one might think. If you are looking for a one-in-one gadget that happens to be a mobile, I highly recommend the Nokia N96 with 2 thumbs way up!

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Isn’t Two years ago we found out Bob had lymphoma. When I was first told, a thousand thoughts bounced around in my head. How would Bob handle this? How could I tell our daughters? Who could I turn to for advice? Which hospital? Which doctor? Not once did I allow myself to think too far into the future. I kept my questions to now, tomorrow, next week. I’ve always kept calm in a crisis. Okay, we have a problem. How can we solve it? What’s next? I couldn’t allow the ramifications of what I had just heard into my thoughts, not even a little. One step at a time.

Bob’s reaction was what I expected. He’d been brought up by worriers. He broke down. His reaction was, “What I always feared has happened.” I felt so helpless. I saw his pain. I wanted to make everything better. I said I understood, but I really didn’t. I wondered how I would have reacted had it been me. I wanted him to be strong, to say, “We’ll fight this together,” just like in the movies.

Telling the girls was hard. Bob couldn’t. It was up to me. They took it badly. I had to be strong so they could lean on me. I called on my stoic upbringing-keep your guard up, hold your feelings in. If I broke down, it would have been too much for them to bear.

Norma, a close friend who had intestinal cancer the year before, recommended books by Bernie Siegel and other positive thinkers and relaxation tapes. They helped me. They reaffirmed my belief in positive thinking, never allowing the inner thoughts, the negative ones, to surface. Bob tried but finally rejected this approach. Imagery, affirmations-I put notes all over the house. He laughed at me kindly and let me “do my thing.” He even appreciated my efforts.

There were extra hugs and kisses, hand squeezing and holding, looks of love, sympathy, compassion. Not many words were exchanged. Was it that they weren’t needed or that they couldn’t be said? Bob took care of wills, insurance, stocks, and so forth. We talked about them matter-of-factly, never admitting why we were suddenly doing this.

Bob had a curable type of lymphoma. The odds were good. I maintained my positive outlook. He was hospitalized for his first treatment so his reactions could be monitored. Both girls were there. How important family is at these times! I still felt I had to keep up the facade, to play the role of martyr-everything will be all right. It was so hard to see the person I love, whom I’ve spent so much of my life with, helpless, weak, and frightened.

We received wonderful support from friends and family. The phone never stopped ringing. Bob spoke to everyone and cried each time. He seemed to like the attention. Did he enjoy the sympathy? The less I talked, the better I liked it. There was a point when I didn’t want to answer the phone. I wanted to scream, “Enough! How many times can you talk about it? Why go over it again and again? Stop wallowing and get on with it!” I had to stop myself. He was fighting for his life. How dare I tell him how to do it?

There were two Bobs-the one I saw and the brave face he put on for everyone else. He’d leave for work (part time) feeling cranky and tired and impatient, only to appear at the office cheerful and brave. I’d get calls telling me how wonderfully he was accepting this awful thing. To me he was grumpy, sad, angry, and at times unkind. We all have different faces for different places. I know that. But why couldn’t he try on that happy face for me?

He underwent sixteen weeks of chemotherapy as an outpatient. Those days were awful. One of the medications Bob was taking didn’t allow him to sleep, so I didn’t sleep. He managed to make enough noise to wake me and keep me up. His pills were all over the house. He jumped and yelled if I moved them. I confided in our daughter, who urged us to join a support group. Bob refused. He couldn’t face being with other cancer patients. Why couldn’t I understand? He was the one who had this awful sickness. What was I so mad about?

Halfway into Bob’s treatment, I had an accident.

Coming out of a driveway, I misjudged the speed of an oncoming car. My car was totaled. A few inches more and I, too, would have been totaled. How did this happen? Too much on my mind, overworked, overtired, and stressed out. In all the time of Bob’s illness, and even to this day, only two people have asked how I was. People wait until Bob leaves the room and whisper, “How’s he doing? He seems to be handling it so well.” The accident was my way of saying, “Here I am, look at me, I need attention too.” Fortunately, no one was hurt. I realized I couldn’t go on like that. Bob and I talked and talked about me, the things I was holding inside. We both knew we needed help. We had to face our mortality. We began to see a therapist.

I found a support group for spouses and caregivers of cancer patients. Thank heaven for those wonderful people. It was a small group, some men, mostly women. We could honestly tell each other how we felt. I could finally be open about my feelings. I felt safe there.

The sixteen weeks of chemo finally ended and all of the tests came back okay. He gained weight and began to feel like himself again. Did we go back in time to where and who we were before this thing? No. He says cancer is always on his mind. Every time he goes for a checkup he becomes withdrawn, angry. I understand. Every ache and pain makes him think the cancer has returned.

Has he changed? Yes. So have I. His feelings about life are different, his sense of what’s really important. I thought he’d take better care of himself. Instead he overeats. He loves good food but doesn’t exercise. He spends more money than he should. Doesn’t he care about me, about us? I’m tired of nagging. I’ve become more independent. Are we closer now? Sometimes I think so, sometimes I’m not sure. We sti1llove each other, but this experience didn’t deepen our love, which makes me sad.

How wonderfully romantic the storybook version is. In reality it doesn’t happen that way.

It hasn’t always been easy. There were times I felt trapped. There was never a time, however, when I wanted to get out of the trap. They say love grows stronger when two people have shared trials and tribulations, and I agree. I love you more now than I did when we were twenty. I love you more because I know you better, and you know me more than I know myself. Our love is easy. I know I can go off the deep end and you won’t leave me. You’ll eventually point out my failings, but you won’t leave. That’s comforting. You’ve made our home a nice place to be, you’ve made our children nice people, and you’ve even made me nicer.

It eventually dawned on me that you were trapped as well. We were trapped together, and we could escape together. And we have. So I’m glad I’m trapped. I love you.

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Many customers ask me how they can be assured that what they are purchasing is really a diamond. Don’t worry. Unless you are buying it from someone off the street this shouldn’t be a concern. As long as you follow my J.Q.S. you will have no problems.

Cubic zirconia is a diamond simulant that looks similar to a diamond. Now keep in mind there is a big difference between a simulant and a synthetic. A simulant is something that looks similar to a diamond-that’s all. It doesn’t have any of the same properties that a diamond has. It’s not as hard, it doesn’t sparkle the same, and it’s not as durable. A synthetic is something that has all the same properties as a diamond. It’s as hard, sparkles the same, and is durable. Don’t confuse a C.Z. with a synthetic gemstone; it is not. It is a simulant. There are no synthetic diamonds on the market that a consumer can buy; there are only simulants. And no matter which simulant you buy, because the stone does not have the same hardness as a diamond it will not last. A simulant is not forever; a diamond is.

The Vanishing Act

Now you see the carbon; now you don’t! There is a diamond enhancement process for removing carbon inside a diamond using a laser. The process is called laser drilling. This is how the process works: they take a diamond that has black carbon inside the stone, and then zap the diamond, hence removing the carbon.

The problem with this process is that a diamond that has been lasered will have a tunnel from the outside of the diamond to where the carbon used to be. Usually the tunnel is not visible with your own eyes, but it is visible with magnification. If a diamond has been laser drilled quite a bit, the stone’s overall durability can be affected. The advantage to this process is if you own a diamond that has a large black inclusion; it could be zapped out, making the diamond visually more attractive. The resale value of a laser drilled diamond is usually less than that of one that has not been lasered. The FTC states that it is an unfair trade practice to sell a laser drilled diamond without disclosing that fact to the consumer.

The Biggest Crime of All

What’s the biggest crime of all? Ignorance! Ignorance on the part of the jeweler and ignorance on the part of the customer. Over 80 percent of all jewelers who sell diamonds are not gemologists and know very little about the quality of diamonds.

Their philosophy is very simple. “Look at all the pretty diamonds and pick the one you like!” The only way to change this is for more customers to become educated, in turn forcing jewelers to become educated so they can compete. You might ask yourself, Why are good quality diamonds so scarce? It’s because there aren’t enough educated customers asking for good quality diamonds. When everyone becomes quality conscious, jewelers will be forced to carry good quality diamonds.

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