Eight Tips For Maintaining Friendship


1. Use Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. One of the biggest obstacles to keeping friendships going is time. It takes time to email, to call, to make plans, to send holiday cards, to remember birthdays. For that reason, I love social media. Some people argue that technology hurts friendships, because it encourages people to stay tapping behind a computer screen rather than see people face-to-face. At the extreme, this is a bad thing, but for me, at least, technology lets me keep in touch with more friends in a wildly more efficient way. I feel more up-to-date, I feel a stronger sense of connection. At the same time…
2. Show up. Nothing can replace seeing someone in person. Go to a party, go to a wedding, go to a funeral, visit a newborn baby, make a date for lunch, stop by someone’s desk. Make the effort. But because it can be tough to make time for friends, one strategy can be to…
3. Join or start a group. I’ve joined or started eleven groups since I began my happiness project, and almost all of them (particularly mychildren’s literature reading groups) have been huge engines of happiness – in large measure, because they’ve allowed me to make and maintain new friendships. It turns out that seeing a person once every six weeks is plenty to keep a friendship alive. Meeting in a group is efficient, because you see a lot of people at once; it also means you’re creating a social network, not just a one-off friendship. It’s a lot easier to maintain friendships with people if you have several friends in common.
4. Think about what's fun for you. People like to socialize in different ways. Maybe your friends like to go out drinking on Friday nights, or to go to the movies, but if that’s not fun for you, suggest different plans. Take charge of shaping your social environment. Some social people become exhausted by their desire to keep up with all their friends; some less-social people find it hard to get motivated to make plans at all. Think about what level and type of social activity brings you happiness, then make the effort to make it happen.
5. Be wary of false choices. Sometimes people say, “I want to have a few close, real friends, not a bunch of superficial friends.” But that’s a false choice. There are all kinds of friends. I have intimate friends and casual friends. I have work friends whom I never see outside a professional context. I have childhood friends whom I see only once every ten years. I have several friends whose spouses I’ve never met. I have online friends whom I’ve never met face-to-face. These friendships aren’t all of equal importance to me, but they all add warmth and color to my life.
6. Make the effort to say “This made me think of you.” We’re all busy, and keeping in touch can feel like a lot of work. One strategy that works for me is to write “this made me think of you” emails whenever I see something of interest to a friend. “Congrats, I saw the piece about your book deal!” “I was in New Haven -- had a Greek salad at Yorkside and thought of senior year.” “You must read this review of New Moon(caution: explicit!).”
7. Cut people slack. Except in the face of overwhelming evidence of bad intentions, try not to take it personally if a friend is late, cancels plans at the last minute, forgets about something important that’s important to you, don’t answer an email, says something thoughtless, etc. Thefundamental attribution error describes the fact that we tend to view other people’s actions as reflections of their characters, and to overlook the power of the situation to influence their action. Don’t assume your friend is thoughtless and uncaring; maybe he’s just overwhelmed by the demands of a new boss. This is particularly true if you’re feeling lonely. Perhaps surprisingly, lonely people tend to be more defensive and judgmental than non-lonely people.
8. Don’t expect friendship to happen spontaneously. As with many aspects of happiness, people often assume that friendship should flow easily and naturally, and that trying to "work" on it is forced and inauthentic. Sometimes friendships naturally arise, but sometimes they don’t.

Jeyedeswaran A/L Ganasan(16732)

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT GIRLS

1. When a girl says she's sad, but she isn't crying, it means she's crying in her heart. 

2. When she ignores you after you've done something wrong, it's best to give her some time to cool down before touching her heart with an apology. 

3. A girl can't find anything to hate about the guy she loves (which 
is why it is so hard for her to 'get over him' after the relationship's over.) 

4. If a girl loves a guy, he will always be on her mind every minute of the day, even though she flirts with other guys. 

5. When the guy she likes smiles and stares deep into her eyes, she 
will melt. 

6. A girl likes to hear compliments, but usually not sure how to react to them. 

7. When a particular guy flirts with a girl very often, a girl would start thinking the guy likes her. So if you treat a girl just as a friend, go easy on the smiles and stare ok? 

8. If you don't like a girl who likes you, break it to her gently. 

9. If a girl starts avoiding you after you reject her, leave her alone for a while. If you still treat her as a friend, talk to her. 

10. Girls enjoy talking about what they feel. Music, poetry, drawings and writing are ways of expressing themselves (which explains why most girls like writing journals). 

By: MUHAMMAD HAFIZ BIN ZULKAFLY
ID: 17564

7 Weird-But-True Facts About the Human Brain

Intellectual curiosity is one of humankind's most admirable traits. We're fascinated by what we don't fully understand. Were this not true, we'd have no ongoing preoccupation with black holes, or what really happened to Amelia Earhart, or why you can't eat just one Pringle.

We search for mysteries at the far reaches of outer space, yet there are a great many strange and unknown things going on within the finite space of our own brains. Small wonder, really, when there are as many neurons in our brains as there are stars in our galaxy: about 100 billion, give or take a few million. Though in each brain there are some 100 trillion connections made among all of those cells, not a single neuron physically touches another.

Just by virtue of the enormous numbers, the human brain is beyond our comprehension.

And that's not even the weird stuff. Check out these mind-boggling facts.

1.Your eyeballs are an extension of your brain.
If someone were to open up your skull and remove your brain (carefully, please), your eyeballs would come with it. That's because your eyes are hardwired to a lobe at the back of the head responsible for sight information. Bundles of optic nerve fibers connect the retina, where images are received, directly to the brain's occipital lobe. The other four senses send their signals through convoluted pathways and nerve networks, but vision has a straight line into the brain, like a keyboard connected to a computer.

2.Brain surgery can be conducted while a patient is awake.
Patients suffering from brain tumors or epileptic seizures may undergo surgery while awake. Rather than relying exclusively on brain-imaging technology, a neurosurgeon can speak to an awake patient to mark or "map" critical areas of the brain that control vision, language, and body movement, ensuring the procedure's accuracy and safe outcome. The patient is anesthetized during the portion of surgery when doctors make their way through the cranium to the exposed brain.

3.The brain knows everything but can't feel a thing.
The brain itself has no receptors for pain. It has no sensory nerve system of its own to detect temperature, pressure, or even tissue damage. In the awake-surgery mentioned above, a surgeon could poke the exposed matter with a needle and the patient would not feel any sensation in the brain. When cysts or tumors cause headaches, the pain results from pressure on nerve tissue and/or blood vessels surrounding the brain.

4.Brain freeze is a mystery.
Nobody's quite sure why a fast gulp of Slurpee can leave you feeling like a vice is crushing the inside of your head. We call it "brain freeze," but the sensation is actually felt around the temples and the mask of the face; remember, the brain itself has no pain receptors. The best guess among scientists is that a cold drink, when rapidly consumed, shocks the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for sensation to the face and head. The brain's hypothalamus gets a message to create warmth and responds by dilating vessels around the nerve to heat the area with blood flow. But the sudden dilation causes pressure and a stunning wave of pain.

5.The brain is an oxygen hog.

"Although the brain constitutes only 2 percent of our body mass, it uses 20 percent of the oxygen," explains Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, Ph.D., of the Semel Institute's Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity at UCLA. In other words, the brain uses up a fifth of the oxygen we breathe. This leaves the brain highly susceptible to damage during anoxic episodes; after about four minutes without oxygen-rich blood, brain cells start to die.

6.You can't tickle yourself.

Well, you can try, but you won't laugh. The body's sensory nervous system is active all the time, allowing us to hear our own breathing or feel the weight of our body on our feet. Yet, these are background sensations; our sensory attention is reserved for signals from the external world such as a honking car or a kiss on the cheek. Neuroscientists believe that the cerebellum, a small area responsible for coordinating movement and motion, predicts our own sensory actions and differentiates them. Says Molnar-Szakacs, "The cerebellum warns your brain/body that the 'tickle' movement is coming, and so the sensory part of the brain essentially knows to ignore the sensation."

7.The brain is terribly smart, but it can be fooled.
In the image shown here, the squares marked A and B are the same exact shade of gray. Really. No fooling. The checkershadow illusion plays on the way the brain's visual system uses contrast to determine light levels. (A complete explanation of the illusion by its creator, professor Edward H. Adelson of M.I.T., is available here.)

One thing that's great about that last experiment is that it underscores the confidence, even the blind faith, we have in the brain. With just a few scant clues about how that gelatinous mass works, we're absolutely certain that it does. We can imagine challenges beyond the capacity of other organs and body parts: a load we know is too heavy for our arms, a meal our stomach won't tolerate, a pitch too high for our ears to detect. But a challenge to the brain's reliability and accuracy? Do you really mean to tell me those hundred billion neurons are not doing their job? Them's fightin' words.

99 facts about guys that girls should know!! :))

Here with me, I’ve got 99 facts!

1. Guys don’t actually look after good-looking girls. they prefer neat and presentable girls.
2. Guys hate other flirts.
3. A guy can like you for a minute, and then forget you afterwards.
4. When a guy says he doesn’t understand you, it simply means you’re not thinking the way he is.
5. Are you doing something?” or “Have you eaten already?” are the first usual questions a guy asks on the phone just to get out from stammering.
6. Guys may be flirting around all day but before they go to sleep, they always think about the girl they truly care about.
7. When a guy really likes you, he’ll disregard all your bad characteristics.
8. Guys go crazy over a girl’s smile.
9. Guys will do anything just to get the girl’s attention.
10. Guys hate it when you talk about your ex-boyfriend.
11. When guys want to meet your parents. Let them. …….dont think so
12. Guys want to tell you many things but they can’t. And they have one habit to gain courage and spirit to tell you many things and it is drinking! but do not generalise
13. Guys cry!!!
14. Don’t provoke the guy to heat up. Believe me. He will.
15. Guys can never dream and hope too much.
16. Guys usually try hard to get the girl who has dumped them, and this makes it harder for them to accept their defeat.
17. When you touch a guy’s heart, there’s no turning back.
18. Giving a guy a hanging message like “You know what?!..uh…never mind!” would make him jump to a conclusion that is far from what you are thinking.
19. Guys go crazy when girls touch their hands……yeh rite – Whatever.
20. Guys are good flatterers when courting but they usually stammer when they talk to a girl they really like.
21. When a guy makes a prolonged “umm” or makes any excuses when you’re asking him to do you a favor, he’s actually saying that he doesn’t like you and he can’t lay down the card for you.
22. When a girl says “no”, a guy hears it as “try again tomorrow”. So true.
23. You have to tell a guy what you really want before he gets the message clearly.
24. Guys hate gays!
25. Guys love their moms.
26. A guy would sacrifice his money for lunch just to get you a couple of roses.
27. A guy often thinks about the girl who likes him. But this doesn’t mean that the guy likes her.
28. You can never understand him unless you listen to him.
29. If a guy tells you he loves you once in a lifetime. He does.
30. Beware. Guys can make gossips scatter through half of the face of the earth faster than girls can.
31. Like Eve, girls are guys’ weaknesses.
32. Guys are very open about themselves.
33. It’s good to test a guy first before you believe him. But don’t let him wait that long.
34. No guy is bad when he is courting
35. Guys hate it when their clothes get dirty. Even a small dot.
36. Guys really admire girls that they like even if they’re not that much pretty.
37. Your best friend, whom your boyfriend seeks help from about his problems with you may end up being admired by your boyfriend.
38. If a guy tells you about his problems, he just needs someone to listen to him. You don’t need to give advice…….very true.
39. A usual act that proves that the guy likes you is when he teases you.
40. A guy finds ways to keep you off from linking with someone else.
41. Guys love girls with brains more than girls in miniskirts. ……..sumtimes.
42. Guys try to find the stuffed toy a girl wants but would unluckily get the wrong one.
43. Guys virtually brag about anything.
44. Guys cannot keep secrets that girls tell them.
45. Guys think too much.
46. Guys’ fantasies are unlimited.
47. Girls’ height doesn’t really matter to a guy but her weight does!……very true.
48. Guys tend to get serious with their relationship and become too possessive. So watch out girls!!!
49. When a girl makes the boy suffer during courtship, it would be hard for him to let go of that girl.
50. It’s not easy for a guy to let go of his girlfriend after they broke up especially when they’ve been together for 3 years or more.
51. You have to tell a guy what you really want before getting involved with that guy.
52. A guy has to experience rejection, because if he’s too-good-never-been-busted, never been in love and hurt, he won’t be matured and grow up.
53. When an unlikable circumstance comes, guys blame themselves a lot more than girls do. They could even hurt themselves physically.
54. Guys have strong passion to change but have weak will power.
55. Guys are tigers in their peer groups but become tamed P**** with their girlfriends…..sumtimes depends wen they want sumat.
56. When a guy pretends to be calm, check if he’s sweating. You’ll probably see that he is nervous.
57. When a guy says he is going crazy about the girl. He really is.
58. When a guy asks you to leave him alone, he’s just actually saying, “Please come and listen to me”……sumtimes.
59. Guys don’t really have final decisions.
60. When a guy loves you, bring out the best in him.
61. If a guy starts to talk seriously, listen to him….very important.
62. If a guy has been kept shut or silent, say something.
63. Guys believe that there’s no such thing as love at first sight, but court the girls anyway and then realize at the end that he is wrong.
64. Guys like femininity not feebleness.
65. Guys don’t like girls who punch harder than they do.
66. A guy may instantly know if the girl likes him but can never be sure unless the girl tells him.
67. A guy would waste his time over video games and football, the way a girl would do over her romance novels and make-ups.
68. Guys love girls who can cook or bake. ….they love u regardless.
69. Guys like girls who are like their moms. No kidding!……true but only wen the guys are ready 2be settled down.
70. A guy has more problems than you can see with your naked eyes.
71. A guy’s friend knows everything about him. Use this to your advantage.
72. Don’t be a snob. Guys may easily give up on the first sign of rejection.
73. Don’t be biased. Try loving a guy without prejudice and you’ll be surprised.
74. Girls who bathe in their eau de perfumes do more repelling than attracting guys.
75. Guys are more talkative than girls are especially when the topic is about girls.
76. Guys don’t comprehend the statement “Get lost” too well.
77. Guys really think that girls are strange and have unpredictable decisions but still love them more.
78. When a guy gives a crooked or pretentious grin at your jokes, he finds them offending and he just tried to be polite.
79. Guys don’t care about how shiny their shoes are unlike girls.
80. Guys tend to generalize about girls but once they get to know them, they’ll realize they’re wrong.
81. Any guy can handle his problems all by his own. He’s just too stubborn to deal with it.
82. Guys find it so objectionable when a girl swears.
83. Guys’ weakest point is at the knee.
84. When a problem arises, a guy usually keeps himself cool but is already thinking of a way out.
85. When a guy is conscious of his looks, it shows he is not good at fixing things.
86. When a guy looks at you, either he’s amazed by you or he’s criticizing you.
87. When you catch him cheating on you and he asks for a second chance, give it to him. But when you catch him again and he asks for another chance, ignore him.
88. If a guy lets you go, he really loves you.
89. If you have a boyfriend, and your boy best friend always glances at you and it obviously shows that he is jealous whenever you’re with your boyfriend, all I can say is your boy best friend loves you more than your boyfriend does.
90. Guys learn from experience not from the romance books that girls read and take as their basis of experience.
91. You can tell if a guy is really hurt or in pain when he cries in front of you!
92. If a guy suddenly asks you for a date, ask him first why.
93. When a guy says he can’t sleep if he doesn’t hear your voice even just for one night, hang up. He also tells that to another girl. He only flatters you and sometimes makes fun of you.
94. You can truly say that a guy has good intentions if you see him praying sometimes.
95. Guys seek for advice not from a guy but from a girl.
96. Girls are allowed to touch boys’ things. Not their hair!
97. If a guy says you’re beautiful, that guy likes you.
98. Guys hate girls who overreact. ……sumtimes.
99. Guys love you more than you love them IF they are serious in your relationships.

Posted by , 

The spiderman guy,

MUHAMMAD HARITH BIN ZULKAFLI

17535

10 Personality Traits Men Find Attractive In Women

1. Understanding. Men fall in love a lot quicker with women who are more understanding about who they are why they do the things they do. If you lack the ability to understand the men you date then you will most certainly not have a large pool of men to select from. The more understanding and accepting you are of the man you are dating, the more he will love and accept you for who you are.

2. A good sense of humor. Men can be serious sometimes, but they also love to kick back and joke around with their woman as well. The more playful you are the more they will tend to want to being around you.

3. Directness. Men do not like women who play games or never say what is on their minds. The more direct you are and the less you man has to guess about what is on your man the better.

4. Confidence. Men like women who know what they want and are not afraid to go after it. The more comfortable you are with yourself the more attractive men will find you.

5. Dedication. Men want women who are dedicated to something, not flaky girls who have a lot of drama and switch boyfriends at the slightest whim.

6. Flexibility. The more adaptable you are to situations the more men will like you. Be spontaneous. Men will be more attracted to you if they know that you can get up and go at anytime without much notice.

7. Caring. This is one of the best personality traits men find attractive in a woman they want to marry. Men want you to show that you care about them and those around them -- their friends and family members.

8. Warmth. Like caring, men want a woman who is willing to show some emotion. The more affectionate and warm you are the more attractive they you become to men.

9. Intelligence. This is one of those very important qualities people do not talk about very much. Men frequently breakup relationships with beautiful women all the time because the women had only their beauty going for them. Men are attracted by women that are intelligent.

10. Honesty. This is the big one when it comes to romantic relationships that are fulfilling. Men want women who are honest, trustworthy, and sincere about their intentions.

posted by the amazing
right-hand-man-of-class-rep
Miel
17025

JACKIE CHAN

In childhood, he suffered terrible poverty and the most painfully rigorous of educations. In his early career, he was almost cast aside as just another in a long line of failed Next Bruce Lees. In perfecting his craft, he's broken his nose three times, and also cracked his ankle, most of his fingers, both his cheekbones and his skull (patched together with a steel plate). You can't say Jackie Chan hasn't paid his dues. But finally, after nearly 40 years in the business, the guy's reached worldwide stardom. As he always wanted, pretty much everyone knows his name.

Jackie Chan was born Chan Kong-Sang (meaning Born In Hong Kong) on the 7th of April, 1954, naturally enough in Hong Kong. He was the only child of Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, having, reports say, spent 12 months in the womb, finally being removed surgically and weighing 12 pounds (his mum nicknamed him Pao-Pao, meaning Cannonball). Charles borrowed money from friends to pay for the operation, turning down the doctor's offer to take the child in payment. The family lived in a mansion in the exclusive Victoria Peak district. Not that his parents owned the mansion - Charles worked as a cook for the French Ambassador, while Lee-Lee was the housekeeper.

Jackie attended the Nah-Hwa primary school on Hong Kong Island, often spending his travel money on food and walking home, fighting on the way with Caucasian kids attending special schools in the area. He was not academically bright, failing to pass Primary 1 as his peers moved on to Primary 3. This was noticed by Charles, who decided to enrol the boy, now 7, at the Peking Opera School, operated by Shu Master Yu Jan-Yuen. Walking in with his dad, Jackie saw tens of kids, between 7 and their early teens, somersaulting and playing with swords and sticks. He recalls that he felt like kids must feel today on entering Disneyland. He would never return to academic education. Though he speaks 7 languages, he still cannot read or write with great proficiency, and has someone else write his scripts for him.

It didn't stay like Disneyland. Charles now moved to Australia to work at the Chinese Embassy, and Jackie, now named Yuen Lo, saw the true nature of the Peking Opera School. The training in music, acrobatics and many martial arts lasted 18 hours a day. Exercises were brutal, the kids performing headstands for hours on end. Beatings were commonplace, both at the hands of the Master and the other boys. Eventually, Jackie's mother left too, to join Charles in Australia, Jackie being adopted by the single-minded Master.


MUHAMMAD ZAKWAN BIN MOHD ISA


17616

>.< chocolate~~~~ (health benefits of chocolate)

Why is Dark Chocolate Healthy?:

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production ofnitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

• it tastes good
• it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn't Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news -- some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

• Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
• Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
• Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 - Balance the Calories:

This information doesn't mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around 400 calories. If you eat half a bar of chocolate a day, you must balance those 200 calories by eating less of something else. Cut out other sweets or snacks and replace them with chocolate to keep your total calories the same.

Chocolate Tip 2 - Taste the Chocolate:

Chocolate is a complex food with over 300 compounds and chemicals in each bite. To really enjoy and appreciate chocolate, take the time to taste it. Professional chocolate tasters have developed a system for tasting chocolate that include assessing the appearance, smell, feel and taste of each piece.

Chocolate Tip 3 - Go for Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate has far more antioxidants than milk or white chocolate. These other two chocolates cannot make any health claims. Dark chocolate has 65 percent or higher cocoa content.

Chocolate Tip 4 - Skip the Nougat:

You should look for pure dark chocolate or dark chocolate with nuts, orange peel or other flavorings. Avoid anything with caramel, nougat or other fillings. These fillings are just adding sugar and fat which erase many of the benefits you get from eating the chocolate.

Chocolate Tip 5 - Avoid Milk:

It may taste good but some research shows that washing your chocolate down with a glass of milk could prevent the antioxidants being absorbed or used by your body.

# NUR HAFIZA BINTI YAHYA #

# 17691 #

# CE #