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A couple of years ago, if you had asked me "Could you work for yourself?", my answer would have been a no. I'm easily distracted, I procrastinate, and I've been told I can be quite the chatterbox. So when I made the decision to leap into the freelance world and become a Virtual Assistant, I knew that I was going to need some serious self-discipline and motivation.
Making the move from working in an office to working from home can take some adjusting to. You're now accountable for yourself; the looming monthly meetings and performance reviews have gone. Your working day is flexible; there isn't anyone making sure you're at your desk from 9am until 5pm. You don't get the social interaction you've been used to from your coworkers; I will admit, there are days when you're going to miss this.
In a generation where communication and connectivity is constant, working anywhere with internet access is becoming more prevalent. It's giving people the opportunity and freedom to not only work for themselves, but also provide the flexibility to decide where, when and how. That being said, it's still an extremely big transition to make but it feels oh-so-worthwhile.
I'd be lying if I said there hasn't been the odd time when I've stopped at the procrastination station, but I have picked up a few habits to keep me motivated, productive and accountable to my clients, as well as myself.
Make a Schedule
The last job I had before going freelance came with a regimented schedule; I had an early start, my breaks were predetermined and weekly trainings were always fixed in the diary. So when all of a sudden there isn't anyone telling you where to be and when, it is extremely tempting to stay in bed for an extra hour and maybe even watch an episode on Netflix during your lunch break. But believe me when I say, that extra hour can easily turn into two hours and one episode on Netflix somehow rolls into a series.
I have a love for all things organization (it's part and parcel of being a Virtual Assistant), so I take great joy in making a to do list and a schedule to go alongside it. I know it sounds self-explanatory but this is determined by what deadlines are approaching, projects I'm working on etc. A schedule gives my working day structure. It allows me to exceed customer expectations, completing work before the provided deadline as well as giving me time to work on developing my business. If there's any advice I can give, it would be to create and follow a daily schedule.
Get Out of the House
The majority of people that work for themselves usually work from the comfort of their own home. Although working from home comes with a very long list of benefits, it does take away the social interaction we often take for granted in an office environment. The day can quickly run away with you and before you know it, you've gone a full day without leaving the house.
When your workplace and home merge into one it can be hard to differentiate the two. Find a reason to leave the house whether that be going to the gym, attending to a networking event or simply walking to the local shop. Some time away lets your mind breathe for a minute, coming back refreshed and raring to go again.
Set Goals
Questions I always dreaded during interviews were "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" and "What are your long term goals?". At the time, I never knew how to answer. All I knew is that I wanted to be happy in my place of work. Since working for myself, these questions have become more important and relevant, especially when it comes to motivating myself.
I'm not saying that you need to have a 5-year plan, but setting goals (small or large) can really help to push you along. Some of my goals can be as small as ticking off 3 items on my to do list. Others are bigger goals of where I want my business to be by the end of the year. Reaching those goals gives me a sense of achievement that motivates me to set more, pushing myself and my business further.
Putting these above habits into practice has increased my productivity massively and kept me motivated to work for myself. It isn't easy and it takes hard work, but the end result is so rewarding you don't ever feel like going back to being another seat at somebody else's desk. If you ask me now "Could you work for yourself?". The answer will be a confident yes.

subset: commoncrawl


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When I got Heath's email about FC's BlogJam I felt a surge of excitment rush through me, followed immediately by the crushing weight of panic. In this tech-savvy business world, I'm afraid I feel like a bit of an outsider. I spend my days immersed in pictures of, for better or worse, pretty objects. I run a blog that's focused on uncovering trends and hot new products in the world of home design. You know- pillows, furniture, lighting, the things that make up the lighter side of life. So when I saw the guidelines for posts I figured I was screwed- what do I know about business and innovation? That on top of a need for minimal (or no) pictures left me feeling like a fish out of water. So I figured the best way to approach this was go about posting like I always do- examining a design, idea or movement from the bottom up, starting with what inspires a final product.
I spend a lot of time immersed in inspiration– what inspires someone to create a specific product, use a particular material, turn to a new technology or, in a larger sense, what inspires someone to leave a comfortable 9-5 and pursue a career in design. I think it's this tiny seed of inspiration that is the key to understanding why people go on to produce innovative products, companies or technologies. The more I talk to independent designers in the field, the more I find myself obsessed with figuring out what inspired them to create, and this trend in examining inspiration seems to be a popular one. When I added podcasts to my site the goal was to talk with indie designers about what inspires them as artists. These podcasts, and subsequent posts on inspiration, have been some of the most popular on my site. In fact, similar sites are now addressing the issue. One of my favorite websites, MoCoLoco has devoted their entire site to interviews about inspiration this week. They're posting video interviews with movers and shakers in the design field to find out what was behind their biggest and most innovative products. The examination of inspiration often reveals individuals who felt drawn to create a product that didn't exist in the market, or one that they felt could be improved upon with the use of new technologies or a fresh perspective. What I respond to most about this series (and examining inspiration in general) is the acknowledgement that why people do things can be as interesting as the things themselves. The thread that seems to connect all of these "inspired" people revolves around finding a way to apply new technology and new thought to old ideas. Much like Heather's post in which everything old is new again, it seems that product designers as well as business professionals are inspired by the idea of reexamining and improving upon the existing market.
Posted by designsponge


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S4 E05 Open House of Horrors
STORY 1: Scary Claire
It's Claire's favorite holiday, but a neighborhood petition bans the Dunphys from putting on a scary Halloween display. After Phil claims Claire isn't scary, she tries her best to freak him out at his open house.
Memorable Quotes:
Luke: "Why are there giant lollipops all over the front yard? And why do they taste so bad?"
Alex: "Because they're cardboard, mouth-breather."
Phil: "Hey! The world needs more dreamers, Luke. Never stop licking things."
Claire (on scaring a man into having a heart attack last Halloween): "That man had a pre-existing condition."
Alex: "Yeah, as a healthy 35-year-old."
Phil: "She's kidding, Claire."
Alex: "No, I'm not. I'm never kidding."
Claire: "What do you mean I'm not even scary? I literally almost scared the life out of a man."
Phil: "You literally scared a little saliva and a little urine out of him. That happens to me every time I see a monkey wearing people clothes."
Phil (to Claire): "You're the kind of person who can be twice as scary without wearing any makeup."
Claire (trying to lure kids to her doorstep): "Who wants some candy? Plenty of name brand, family-friendly candy right here!"
Parent (rushing his child past the house): "It's a trap!"
STORY 2: Princess Lily and Slim Cam
In a sleepy haze telling Lily a story at bedtime, Mitchell says that her real mother was a princess. Throughout Mitch and Cam's costume party, Lily tries to find her princess mom, while Cam tries to show off the pounds he's recently shed.
Memorable Quotes:
Mitchell: "Hey, Cam. I'm hearing rumor that you keep flashing our guests."
Cameron: "Oh, well not in a perverted way. I just want people to my body under this stupid costume."
Mitchell: "That's very close to what actual flashers say."
Mitchell (on Cam's fitted Mr. Roarke costume): "Well, someone decided to take a trip to Fantasy Island after all."
Cameron: "I'm tired of people not noticing my new physique. If this doesn't work, I'm breaking out the diaper and top hat and going as Baby New Year."
Lily (to a drag princess): "Do you know other princesses?"
Princess: "Trust me, I know a lot."
STORY 3: Aging Jay and Angry Gloria
When Jay can't smooth-talk his way out of a traffic ticket with a female officer, he begins to think he's losing his mojo with age. Meanwhile, Gloria is losing her temper with pregnancy.
Memorable Quotes:
Jay: "I'm no stranger to the police academy myself. I've seen all seven of them."
Police Officer: "Sir, no one's seen all seven."
Manny: "Lately you've been such a hothead."
Gloria: "I am not a hothead! I am Colombian! We get excited. My country is covered in coffee!"
Party Guest (wearing a baby carrier with a bag of sugar in it): "I love when people put some thought into their outfit. Illegal Alien? Sugar Daddy."
Gloria: "Why do you say illegal?"
Party Guest: "Because antennas are alien and..."
Gloria: "What? Illegal? Because of the color of my skin? Why don't I dump your baby in your gas tank?"


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Enter your e-mail beneath for the most recent Actual Property Fee information, board meeting information and updates. If an agent doesn't return phone calls, emails, or reply in a well timed method to your requests, this can be a sign that they lack the communication expertise wanted to represent your best interests. A knowledgeable dealer has the financial analysis tools and entry to information which is able to make it easier to consider the best actual property resolution to your company.
The ability to run a property administration firm is another excuse to get your broker's license. Nevertheless, not all real-estate investing seminars, or brokers are bad bets, after all. Whereas when a broker is working for a vendor, he ought to have the ability to promote a property on the highest worth potential. An unique broker can assist you in the selection and coordination of space planning and design firms.
By law, every actual estate agent and every actual estate company should be overseen and managed by an actual estate dealer. They're additionally the one actual property professionals who can open their very own brokerage or property management agency. When talking along with your potential Real Estate professional, it might be important to see how effectively they communicate.
Without an unique dealer you might be confronted with wasting your worthwhile time screening a mess of brokers, ownership calls and or proposals. Contemplate interviewing at the least three (3) brokers prior to the relocation venture. Another strategy to get an agent to take you critically is to supply a fast closing time. A dealer working for a buyer means that he should help the client acquire a piece of property at the lowest price doable.
Hiring an your personal agent will point out to the owner's and brokerage group that you are a serious prospect. They've to hunt out the individuals who want to promote and the individuals who wish to buy and then grow to be their broker. In addition to being educated in customer service, real property brokers will assist you right through the selling of your own home.


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by Jana Šulcová
we are interested in job in Brazil.
We will come to Brazil in January 2013 and we would like to work from February. Free accommodation and food without salary is good, at the begining we can work as volunteers.
We are two Czechs, 25 and 37 years old (woman and man), very communicative, interested in culture, nature and sport. We have experience from newspaper, hostel and restaurant.
Is it possible to inform me about possibilities?
Thanks for Your answer.
Nice regards,
Jana Šulcová
Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Jobs In Brazil.


text: You have to begin training based on where you are at today, not where you were 3 months ago or based on an older personal best time. It can be difficult to start back up when you are use to performing at an optimal level. When I started training for my October half-marathon, I wanted my tempo and track times to be the same times I had been running in March and April. My legs didn't agree with me! They knew it was too much, too soon. Over the past 8 weeks, I've built back up to my fast tempo times and my previous track times. I love this motivational quote because it reminds me, in the moment, to use what I have and do what I can. It's not always smooth going or happy sailing as you are building back up and training for a race, but recognizing where your fitness level is and drawing on your past will get you the results you want because you are doing it safely.


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follow friday is here and we are featuring one of my favorite bloggers deer circus aka bridget park! i feel like this girl and i live parallel lives. we both are wedding photographers & we have beagle puppies (and strapping men!). come on bridge, lets me real life friends! (plus, i am obsessed with bridget jones diaries and i have been wishing for a friend named bridget)
anyways. bridget, bridge... i am so excited to have you apart of the feel & flourish family! i so enjoyed this q+a and all the lovely photos she sent us as well! now.. get to know this lovely lady!
blog// deer circus
photography// http://www.bridgetfossedal.com
instagram //deercircus
photography// http://www.bridgetfossedal.com
instagram //deercircus
My college was in this quaint water-side town in Northern Washington where, on many days, it drizzled and drizzled the whole day long. I'd spend so much time squirreled away in coffee shops, writing (I majored in English), or editing photographs...and I wanted a place to start cataloging those things. That's also when I started reading more blogs, and I felt such a strong connection to so many photographers + writers out there.
3. what has been the most rewarding part of blogging?
I can't begin to say how humbling it is when someone reaches out to you -- leaves a comment or sends you an email saying you inspired them in some small or great way. I really believe in the power of owning your voice, and in using art (whether that's photographs or writing or film or fine arts or decorating or style or anything) to discover yourself, and to connect with someone else. If I've inspired just one person to take one photograph or write one sentence they really love -- then I'm happy with this ol' thing. : )
4. what inspires you?
Ah, everything! My husband and friends will always tease me for these poetic tangents I'll go one when just walking down the street. I swear, I'm, like, composing sonnets in my head about the moon or about a sweet smile from a stranger or the simple joy of watching my own two feet exploring. I take everything in.
Thank you! We are high school sweethearts! If you can believe it, he first asked me out at the lunch table. Haha! We've pretty much been joint at the hip ever since. After high school, we decided to go to the same college, and we got married a week after graduating. And then, another two weeks later, we went on our first big adventure -- moving to Denver for Robert to attend pharmacy school. And what all comes next...oh, we'll see! Hopefully a million (or a couple) babies!
6. what is your ideal sunday?
A morning latte, and spending time connecting with God. And then, records spinning all day, writing a letter to my pen pal, and a long sunday drive with my honey and our pups, into the mountains for a little picnic. If we can work a little rain into the morning and a little star-gazing at night...well then we are perfect!
7. if you were a flower, which flower would you be?
Well, I'd very much like to be a fluffy, pink peony -- because oh, they make my heart sing! But then also, on other days, I think I'd be a wildflower growing in a grassy patch overlooking the sea.
That's so sweet of you! Honestly, I just really, really believe in having fun with dressing! I read my mood in the morning, and let it take over! Sometimes that means I'll feel like a French girl -- very easy and feminine and vintage-minded -- off to sit in a cafe, and other times I'll feel bohemian and retro and free-spirited and ready to drive down the Highway One and never come home.
9. I see you are a wedding photographer too! What do you love the most about shooting weddings?
Love is just wonderful. It's amazing that we can all feel this intense drive to need to love and to be loved -- something so universal, but expressed and made evident so differently (so vastly differently) by every couple. There's always some special moment that lingers with you and sends you home thinking, was I really privy to that? I feel blessed to spend so many of my days in the company of people so, so in love.
I just always, always want to be creating -- in whatever way I can. I hope, more than anything, to be a mother -- and to be cultivating a home, to be world traveler, and to still be documenting life through photos and words. More than anything in my life, I just want other people to know that they matter and that they are loved -- so if I can always find myself in a position (through blogging, and encouraging others to share their voices, too) to give that to others, I'll be so very, very happy.
thank you so much bridget for being apart of follow friday!
we heart you!
x's +o's,
chelsea diane & kaitlin elaine
we heart you!
x's +o's,
chelsea diane & kaitlin elaine


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Ugh. Sorry, all, and especially to Toni, whose question I was due to answer on the blog tonight. I hate breaking commitments/letting people down. Been trying to persuade myself for the last hour that I don't have a migraine, but I'm losing the argument. Next week, Toni, and please accept my apologies.
Month: June 2016
For once, not a book blog
It's the eve of our Referendum. I know that so many of us are battered half to death with exhaustion over this issue. The debate has been acrimonious and terrifyingly costly. It's claimed a life – indirectly if you please, very directly indeed if you hold the right-wing press properly accountable for its relentless scaremongering. In the course of this campaign, I've seen good friends with genuine reasons to vote Leave called racists. I've seen good friends with genuine reasons to vote Remain called idiots. This has been horrendous to watch. I'm glad that we've reached the end of this part of our road, and no matter what happens tomorrow, I hope we will be able to heal the breaches torn between us during the campaign and pull forward together.
If you're voting tomorrow, I'm fairly certain you'll know which way by now, and one more opinion is the last thing you need to see on your timeline. Normally I wouldn't give it. I'm not extrovertedly political (though inwardly and in the expression of my life's basic principles, extremely so). Having said all that, this is my statement that I will be voting REMAIN. I very much doubt that this will influence a single vote anywhere, but I gather from people I respect that it may be important to vocalise my intentions in order to help balance vociferous outpourings from the LEAVE camp. I'm not so sure. I think maybe enough of us are yelling already. That's partly why I've put this post on my WordPress rather than my timeline: easier for the weary to ignore, this way, and I don't intend to start or engage in further wrangling. I don't do well in political debate. I am a slow thinker and can't marshal facts quickly enough in order to acquit myself honourably.
But here are my reasons, put simply. Every humanitarian and environmental-protection group to which I belong is asking its members to vote Remain. The brightest, kindest, most rational intellectual lights of our country are hoping we will Remain. Jeremy Corbyn, the sole political leader I have been able to respect in this country for decades, is asking us to Remain. Sadly, so is David Cameron, but there is always one duck in the bucket, as my gran used to say. (No, I don't know what it meant either, but you get the idea.) Scientists and economic experts of unimpeachable credentials want us to Remain. I have stayed on the sidelines of the campaign, but I have been watching, and I've been unable to find convincing arguments to refute the views of these organisations and individuals. For purely negative reasons, I can't bear to stay in the same duck-bucket with Farage: those waters are fouled beyond cleansing.
Those are my logical influences. I doubt the referendum will be decided on logic, though, and all I can trust is that the outpouring of emotion that carries the decision one way or another will be of a good kind. Will be hope and optimism, not hate and fear. The European Union to which we currently belong is deeply flawed and needs reform. The advantages that accrue to us from belonging to this flawed organisation, however, vastly outweigh the advantages of leaving it – and we certainly can't reform it from the outside. Tomorrow I will be voting on real, specific issues such as the protection of human rights and the best chances of protection for our environment, but also in a broader spirit of trust in the future. Quite simply, I cannot believe that any political steps of retreat, wall-building, isolationism and segregation can possibly be good for us in these hate-filled, rage-filled times. Tomorrow – rationally, emotionally, logically, illogically, in sincere truth of spirit and determined hope – I will be holding out my hands (I do have unnaturally long arms) across the Channel and the North Sea (both of 'em very recent innovations, if that kind of geological perspective helps), and voting Remain.
Buy-links for Priddy
Amazon caught me well short last night by unleashing Priddy on the world about eight hours sooner than expected. No complaints – the more mermen, the merrier, and sooner is better than later – but I then had to scramble to get the versions for All Romance eBooks and Smashwords uploaded. All done now, and here you are. $3.99 across the board for a tale which has already attracted the following fabulous review:-
This is a beautiful book and the story flows with power, excitement, joy, emotional recovery and a truly extraordinary use of language. It reads like an updated (and slightly naughty) mythical saga or folk tale and has that timeless quality I love. (Thank you very much to the reviewer!)
Fenrir to Juliana!
Welcome to the Sunday blog! This week Fenrir is answering Juliana's question. Juliana said…
I would love to talk to Fenrir! What would I ask him? Hmm… maybe I would ask if there was anything from his old life that he missed and what he is happy to be rid of!
Ah, I miss the raiding! Blóð ok sorg, and down we'd rush like a hot wind from hell upon our unsuspecting neighbours. I mean our internecine battles, not the shore raids over the sea: those were too easy, at any rate until we ran into the warrior monks of Fara.
No, winters were for viking around on our own unforgiving soil, expanding our Torleik territory and filling it with sheep, cattle and women by our glorious birthright of pure, unthinking savagery. Up would leap the neighbours, and then we'd all set to, hewing, smiting and slaying, left, right and centre. Grand times!
Or so I tell my Caius, on high summer nights like this, when the lights of sunset never quite fade from the sky, and only migrate slowly northeast until they become the lights of dawn. I tell him because I love to see the disapproving little crease slowly appear between his eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth – far too sensuous, even after forty summers (yes, we're both old men now), to suit a Christian abbot – turn reprovingly down. "Fen-rir," he'll say eventually, if I keep up the tease long enough, as if giving me my full name, second syllable a reproachful growl, should be enough to tame the wolf (ah, which it was, long ago and a thousand times over since then), "Fen-rir! All your learning, all your long years of civilisation! Can it be that you really regret such barbarity?"
And, "No, indeed," I will say to him, putting an arm around his shoulders by the remains of our hilltop fire, looking out over the land – Broccus's land, which he inherited, and which we visit now and again to make sure that the half-brother princes aren't quarrelling too ferociously over the huts and the mud. "No, indeed, just as you, my fine abbot, never regret your rollicking days here with old Broc, dashing about on his puddle-hopping war-ponies. Just as you never regret the day you first hitched up your cassock and led your so-called men of God into wild-eyed battle against the Vikingr. Yes, heaven forfend we ever look back!"
What a gift I have, even now, for making him flare up! It's as good as a trip back to old days indeed, to make him leap up, stalk around the fire, grab whatever dusty great tome he's managed to barter our good Dun Abbey lambs, calves or mead to obtain, and recite for me chapter and verse on the virtues of gentleness. Scratch the surface of my noble lord of Dun, and there's the guttersnipe still, Broc's firstborn, sparks in his eyes, blissfully unaware of the irony of teaching me Christian submission at the top of his lungs, calling as he does so on a whole savage pantheon of Broc's old gods to strike him down if it isn't all true. He keeps it up until I start to laugh, and then he drops the book (oh, so carefully, no matter how far I've incensed him), and then I have my work cut out to get away from him fast enough to give him the run he needs off down the slope, out of sight, sound and the range of prying village eyes, down to the brakes of ferny, moss-carpeted willows where he can catch me, tackle me down, and show me for himself just what a bloody gentle, civilised soul he is these days.
But when we're done, how glad I am to take him back to his fireside and his book. How willingly I listen to him reading through the night, puzzling out, one thorny ethical knot at a time, the thread of our new days and ways. Dun is a beacon, an island, and from its defensible heights (own well, rocky ramparts in three directions), we shine what light we can into a dark world. Abbot Aelfric and his kind won in the end, you see. The Christianity of lonely shores, of singing seals and beloved old hermits who were saints in their own lifetime – all that's gone now, dried up by the dogma and scorching moral torches of Rome. So, what Cai and I miss most from our old days – unthinking violence, the hunt, the chase, the kill – has to be, has to be the very thing we're most glad to leave behind. Unless we can master ourselves, how shall we dare seek to teach other men? How shall we dare say, "You must learn, learn all you can about yourself, your soul, the ways of other souls around you, the workings of the world you live on as it dances round its sun – yes, that is the dance, and let no Roman Churchman tell you otherwise, tell you that you and you alone occupy the centre of God's creation – or you and all other bright souls like you will fall into a black, appalling ignorance whose consequences may be eternal, and whose bitter message that you and you alone are right in your beliefs will prove a deadly harvest to those who come after you"?
No chance of that, in Abbot Cai's ministry.
Harper: mind if I put in a word, gentlemen? I had no idea that Fen had quite so much to say, but he, like many of us, finds himself compelled to speak out firmly and stand his ground these days. Thank you for that great question, Juliana, even if it did set him off.
Next week we're back off to Cornwall, where Toni will be meeting up with Lee and Gid. Toni says…
I would love to talk with Lee and Gideon. I don't think I could pick one or the other, since I love them both and I love them together. Not sure what I would ask them. Maybe just how they are, how they're doing with all the changes in their lives, how Tamsyn is, what's next for them.
Priddy's Tale – Release date at last
The regular Sunday blog is taking a break this week in favour of my next publication, Priddy's Tale, which I'm excited to announce will release on Monday, 20th June, and will be available on Amazon, All Romance eBooks and Smashwords (no pre-order, I'm afraid – I wasn't organised enough this time!). Here's the blurb and an excerpt. Would you like a win a free copy? I'm giving three away. Just leave a comment here or on Facebook, and I'll pop your name into a hat.
What doesn't kill you sometimes makes you wish it had…
Priddy's a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don't get to see. He's young, sweet-natured and gorgeous, but that's not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life.
He's a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn't his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub high leaves him fractured, hallucinating, too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse – nothing to do but press the occasional button and keep the windows clean – he gratefully accepts.
His plans to live quietly and stay out of trouble don't last very long. A ferocious Atlantic storm washes a stranger to Priddy's lonely shore. For a shipwrecked sailor, the new arrival seems very composed. He's also handsome as hell, debonair, and completely unconcerned by Priddy's dreadful past.
Priddy has almost given up on the prospect of any kind of friendship, and a new boyfriend – let alone a six-foot beauty with eerily good swimming skills – out of the question entirely. But Merou seems to see undreamed-of promise in Priddy, and when they hit the water together, Priddy has to adapt to Merou's potentials too, and fast. His lover from the sea might be a mere mortal from the waist up, but south of that line…
Far-flung west Cornwall has a hundred mermaid tales. Priddy's loved the stories all his life. Now he has to face up to a wildly impossible truth. Merou's life depends upon his courage and strength, and if Priddy can only find his way in the extraordinary world opening up all around him, all the ocean and a human lifetime needn't be enough to contain the love between merman and mortal.
His arms were empty, the rippling surface vacant. He whipped round, losing his footing, submerging under the weight of his soaked jeans. That was all right – he needed some ballast, something to keep him down here while he searched, because he was damned if he was going to let the sea snatch Merou now. He kicked off his shoes and dived.
The water was so dark! He lost his bearings instantly. Something was swirling around him, a heavy current or one of the vortices that occasionally formed as the tide combed the ocean back through the Hell's Teeth barricade. Priddy tumbled through it, blind, casting hopelessly around him for a floating limb, a handful of hair. "Merou," he yelled, wasting his last breath on the cry. Silver bubbles, soundless, shimmering away into the abyss…
Something bumped against him. He had a DNA-deep west Cornishman's terror of sharks, and he lashed out wildly. If it was a mako or a white, you stood a chance – a very remote one – if you could catch the bastard a hard enough thump on the nose. Christ, though – this felt more like a serpent, one of the giant eels that got caught in the nets and passed into infamy as grandfather stories, tales around a beach fire on Golowan night. A coil of it slipped around Priddy's waist and clamped tight. Bubbles and foam rushed past him and he broke surface with a breaching dolphin's force. Whatever had caught him just as suddenly let him go. On reflex he started to swim, coughing and trying to clear his vision. There were the stars and the bright heavens, bisected like Merou's unmarred belly with the silvery brush of the galactic rim.
Merou was swimming beside him. Priddy sucked an astonished breath and went under again. Again something caught him – coiled around him – raised him with supple, irresistible force. Not Merou, who was calmly swimming still, smiling incandescently. "All right there, then, blue-eyes?"
"Merou!" Priddy threw his arms around him, not caring if he drowned them both. Merou burst into laughter, not a bit inconvenienced by the attack: seized him joyously in return. Priddy's world turned upside-down once more, the Milky Way swooping down into the depths and the glitter-filled water soaring to the zenith. The eel, the serpent, was rolling him over and over, laughing all the time, and Priddy couldn't be afraid, because… "It's you," he cried out, the next time he could breathe. "You're back. You're alive. It's you holding me, isn't it, with your… with your…"
"With my tail," Merou finished for him, taking pity. "Keep still, wriggly landling, or I'll scratch you up. The scales are very sharp when they first grow back."
"Oh, man, what the fuck are you talking about? I've lost it, haven't I? This is a fucking dream."
"Feeling is believing, my handsome. Let go your stranglehold on my neck. Go on! I won't bite."
Heaving great lungfuls of air, Priddy forced himself to unlock one hand and slide it down Merou's back. The skin was warm as sin and toast, normal enough if normal meant bloody perfect, all the way down the groove of his spine to his waist, and then to the opening crease of his arse, which began right on time but then… "Shit!" Priddy snatched his hand back. "You've got scales. You really have got a tail."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. And you're sitting on part of it, so don't freak out too far."
Priddy gave a barking caw of laughter. Keeping one arm hooked safely around Merou's neck – the top end of him, the part that still made sense – he tried again, and this time dared to feel the great muscled curve that had swept behind the back of his thighs and was supporting him there. "How are you… How are you holding us still in the water like this?"
"Great big fluke on the end. Whale-style, not fish-style, perpendicular to my tailbone and totally flexible. Treading water, you could call it, only…"
"Only you don't have feet. Oh, God. Oh, God."
"Calm down, you infant. Even Jacques Cousteau wasn't as overwrought as this."
"You really did know him? So – wait…" Priddy tried to catch his breath and bring his voice down an octave or so. "What does that make you – immortal, as well as a mermaid?"
"Not immortal, no. I'd have died tonight if not for you. A change on land is one of the few ways to kill us. And… there's nothing maidenly about me, as you'll find out soon enough."
Priddy shivered hotly. "Sorry. I scarcely dare ask what's become of John Thomas."
"Oh, he's in there. Just tucked away behind an armoured wall of muscle and scales, like any sensible penis ought to be. Can you please pay attention? This has to be done in the proper, formal way."
"What has?"
"Just a short ceremony. Landlings can't be allowed to know about us, you see, not unless they've done us a great service."
"But… doesn't my dad know about you now?"
"Not at all. I'm just a drunken vision that will haunt him the rest of his life. But you, Jem Priddy… Wait. What's Jem short for, when it's a boy?"
"Yes, it is. You'd better tell me, or you'll go down in the annals as Jemima."
"Jeremy, then," Priddy growled. "And don't ever call me that. What annals?"
"Never mind now." Merou cleared his throat and raised his voice, as if something in the water or the diamond-blazing sky was bearing witness. "Jeremy Priddy, you have done a favour for a spirit of the sea. In consideration of such, I can now, by the powers of the Mer in Lyonesse, grant you a wish."
Priddy settled more comfortably on the great coil of tail. He'd been cold for a while, but now he too was sin-toasty warm. Maybe he was drowning, or in end-stage hypothermia, and somebody else's life was flashing in front of him. "An actual wish?"
"Yes. Just like in a fairytale, or…" The tail gave a teasing jounce beneath him. "…or when you were a little lad on Santa's knee in Trago. Come on – make it a good one. You saved my life."
"Technically I saved it twice. Once just now, and the other day – "
"Crikey, did you bargain with Santa like this? That one doesn't count. I only needed saving then because you turned me into a biped."
"I did? How is that supposed to have happened?"
"I tried to tell you at the time. You touched me. If a landling lays a hand on us, and if we like the hand enough, we can change. Sometimes," he said ruefully, tightening his grasp round Priddy's waist, "we like it so much, we don't get any choice."
"I'm sorry." Priddy didn't mean it: he was overwhelmed with pride, to have been the catalyst for such a transformation. "It didn't seem to hurt you then, though. Not much, anyway."
"It's fine if happens in the sea. It just feels like being… unzipped, or zipped up again, if I'm going the other way. Did you think of your wish yet? Would you like a speedboat? Your father's heart, liver and lungs served up to you on a silver plate?"
"Jesus, Merou." Priddy pulled a face, but the thought of old Vigo's entrails didn't really disturb him. What scared him was the power of his wish. I wish you'd stay with me forever, with your magic and your laughter, and your sweetness that makes everything else I've discovered in this world so far seem hollow and bitter and dry. But that wish wasn't fair. It involved someone else, and what if Merou didn't want to stay? If by some insane chance all of this was real, and the wish had binding force, he'd be trapped.
Priddy could only ask for something for himself. "I wish," he said faintly, leaning his brow against Merou's, "that I'd never taken those damn pills."
Merou became very still. Somewhere in the waters below, the great fluke was sculling, place-holding them against the tide, but he stopped stroking Priddy's hair and tipped his head a little, as if listening. "Ah," he said regretfully after a moment. "Can't be done. Would involve swimming in time with an unqualified person, and the inevitable paradox. If you hadn't taken the pills, you'd never have ended up here, so we'd never have met, and I couldn't be here granting your wish, or trying to. You see?"
"I do, but so far you're a pretty crap Santa, if you don't mind my saying so."
Gideon to Helena!
Welcome to the Sunday blog! Gideon is answering Helena's question this week, and it's a good one:-
Because I've just re-read the Tyack & Frayne series, I'd choose one of them. I'd ask Gideon how he feels about his increasing extra-sensory powers; he was always very understanding about Lee's but regarded him as exceptional, so is he able to be as calm about his own?
Gideon: That's a good, tough one to answer. The short answer is no.
No, not at all. Lee's were part and parcel of the man he is, once I got past my initial prejudices. You can't look into those silver-green eyes and not realise he's seeing worlds and layers of time and event wrapped around and interweaving through our day-to-day. Even when he's at his most switched off, sharing a pint with me after work or falling asleep with Tamsyn on the sofa, I'll sometimes see a twitch run through him, and I'll know that something's tugged his sleeve – some stray thought from a kid in the street, an echo or a shadow from what he calls the spiritual traffic of our home, by which he means our ordinary ghosts. Not hauntings, he says, just reverb from the countless lives that have passed here before ours. His gifts are inborn, though it took a monster to bring them online. He's a good deckhand, a talented barkeep, an outstanding husband and father, and a psychic: plain as that. And all of it was there when I met him (the husband-and-father bit latent, of course, and how lucky are Tamsyn and I to have brought those gifts online?), so I guess that, after the astonishment an ordinary village copper would feel when faced with the unexplained, I was able to be calm about him, yes.
Anyway, I hope you won't mind that I've brought you out over the fields to sit on the steps of Zeke's chapel! It probably seems an odd venue, but this was where I got Lee back after old man Fisher tried to dislodge his soul. In a way it's where I began to get my brother back, too. I was scared and repelled by his methods, but I realise now that Zeke's gifts as an exorcist – or, more accurately, I think, as a retriever of souls – are less to do with Christianity, with Methodism, than they are to do with Zeke himself. Zeke commanded Lee to fight off old man Fisher and come home, and Lee did. In fact, now I look back, these steps are where Lee first told me he loved me, and we sat in the snow, holding on to each other. I suppose I feel safe here. Sarah Kemp has kidnapped Tamsie for the afternoon, and Lee's taking Isolde for a proper walk, on vet's orders to try and work a pound or two off her increasing middle. I told Lee I wanted to talk to Zeke, but I don't. I just want to hear him rattling round in there, making sure the pews are mathematically aligned and knocking dust off the pulpit, or whatever the hell he gets up to between services on Sunday afternoons.
He'd pull my soul back if he had to. He wouldn't be pleased. He'd rant and rave about the powers of the occult, and the ineptitude of clueless, Godless men who mess around with it. Then he and Lee would put their shoulders to the harness like two great big beautiful shire horses, and they would drag me home.
Why would I ever need that? To be honest, I don't think I ever will. The things that I've seen – Beasts, ghosts, the projected mirage of poor little Kitto, caught in between life and death – they were all good things in their way. They meant good, at any rate: they helped me get my man. (In the way the Canadian Mounties mean it, not in the sense of persuading Lee to the registry office, although that happened too.) I could see why I had to see all those things. With a big stretch of the boundaries, they were almost in the line of duty.
When I stood in the garden of the farmhouse at Drift and watched the ghost – the echo, the reverb, whatever – of Sergeant Pendower's girlfriend, just standing there in the sunset light with her brown hair blowing and her tulip skirt rippling around her knees, I was frightened. She wasn't anything to do with me. If we hadn't just got Tamsyn back, if Jago and Mrs Ivy and Zeke and my ma hadn't been waiting for us inside, I'd have grabbed Lee and hustled him upstairs, because he has a great line in settling my perspective between the sheets. As it was, he knew I was freaked: cornered me in the kitchen while we were washing up and told me not to worry, that I'd bonded with Pendower more than I'd realised during the Dev Bowe case, that Amber had been powerfully real during her life and to see her now was natural and good.
I know that was true. The trouble is, for me, that one vision marked the beginning of what you've rightly called my extra-sensory powers. From then on I couldn't explain them away or rationalise them. I don't know what it means or why I'm waking up in this way now. I feel as if sometime in the future, very soon, I'm going to need to use these new gifts, and I don't want to – I only want my ordinary life, because who could need more than that? Lee is teaching me the rudiments of how to shield myself, so I won't be distracted at work, or jump up in the middle of a meeting because he's scalded his thumb on the kettle and inadvertently shot the signal halfway across Bodmin Moor. He sits with me for hours, showing me the breathing, the meditative techniques. I'm not a good student. If I hear him breathing deeply, reaching up that lovely graceful sturdy frame of his into a big stretch, our sessions tend to end in a grunty, sweaty mess on the floor.
So I like to come here, especially now the weather's so nice, and proximity to Zeke is great for quelling any thoughts of sex, magic or the twilight world of Lee's gifts. I feel as if Zeke is going to become tremendously important to us all – to me, Lee and Tamsyn – very soon, and the thought makes me uneasy as well as grateful. What monsters are waiting in the wings, needing to be scared off by that grim, starchy face?
Well, enough of such thoughts. It's good for me to define them to myself, and it's been good for me to sit here and talk. I can see Lee making his way over the field to me now, giving a wide berth to that hawthorn tree where Zeke and I found him, curled up around the hole old man Fisher had punched in him. I can't say that Isolde looks any slimmer for her walk, but Lee looks just about perfect: sun-burnished, intact for now in body and soul. For now I'm a man who has everything, and all I ask on top is the privilege – taken for granted by most of the rest of the world, but not by Lee, lengthening his stride anxiously as he gets close enough to see me, trying not to look as if he's hurrying – of taking one day at a time…
Thank you, Helena, for that great question. Gideon has a lot to think about, and so do I. Interesting times ahead in Dark, and I'm looking forward to chronicling them in due course. Next week we have an intriguing query for Fenrir from Brothers of the Wild North Sea. Juliana says…
I would love to talk to Fenrir! What would I ask him? Hmm… maybe I would ask if there was anything from his old life that he missed and what he is happy to be rid of!


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Asian Christian leaders have given their support to moves by Thailand to enforce the compulsory licensing of patented AIDS drugs in order to lower their cost by allowing the production or purchase of generic versions - writes Francis Wong.
"It is a basic human right to health," Prawate Khid-arn, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), told Ecumenical News International in a telephone interview. "Poor countries can't afford the expensive AIDS drugs."
In recent weeks, Thailand's public health ministry has sought international support for the country's plan to acquire less expensive generic versions of AIDS drugs through compulsory licensing. However, the US administration as well as some pharmaceutical companies have expressed serious doubts about the proposal.
"Among the 65 million total population, there are 800,000 to 1,000,000 people living with HIV and AIDS here; we should emphasise a human rights perspective in dealing with the issue," said CCA general secretary Prawate.
At the end of April 2007, the United States Trade Representative's office said it was placing Thailand on its "priority watch list" because of a deterioration in the protection of intellectual property rights in the southeast Asian country.
The office did not mention any medicines by name but analysts said the move appeared to be connected to the decision by the Thai government to issue compulsory licenses for certain AIDS drugs.
In a letter sent earlier this month urging Christian groups to support the Thai government's measures, the CCA was strongly critical of the US decision. "Their action serves commercial interest only, and disregards the right to basic health care and right to life," stated the CCA, whose headquarters are at Chiang Mai in Thailand.
Elijah Fung, the manager of the HIV education centre of the Anglican St John's cathedral in Hong Kong, said there needed to be a balance between intellectual protection and the basic right to health.
"In view of the fact that many people in developing countries can't afford the expensive AIDS drugs, authorities should consider case-by-case helping people to have access to cheap generic drugs, out of humanitarian reasons," Fung told Ecumenical News International.
The World Trade Organization permits compulsory licensing for national emergency and justified non-profit cases. Patent holders may then receive certain royalties after a patented item has been compulsory licensed.
[With grateful acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches]


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Ben Jones, that is. Coach Rodney Watson gave a shout-out to his USI basketball team's backup guard for what he did coming off the bench, particularly in the first half, at Lewis on Saturday. "Our unsung hero was Ben Jones," said Watson. "He had 14 huge minutes."
What made Jones play big? A 3-pointer he drained at the very end of the first half to put the Eagles ahead 43-26 by halftime, for one. His defense, for another. He helped keep Lewis' David Bryant in check in the first half, limiting him to five points. Bryant finished with 18.


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In The Alchemist in the Minivan: A Scientist's Experiment in Parenting, I'm reflecting on my life as a Ph.D. chemist and a single father of four boys. As I've pursued the alchemist's quest, I've yearned to convert the experiences of my daily life into the philosopher's stone–the mythical substance that ensures wealth, power, and immortality. I'm finding out, instead, that the experiences of my daily life are transforming me, revealing a world already full of riches and life.
This blog is a unique concoction of personal memoir and scientific essay. Here's my experimental method:
- I'll throw parenting anecdotes, work-family conflicts, chemistry demonstrations, and quirky metaphors into a big reaction vessel.
- I'll reflux this strange brew for several days.
- Finally, I'll distill off a few paragraphs to share with you.
I hope that The Alchemist in the Minivan will inspire you to reflect on your own experiences and find the philosopher's stone already present in your own lives.
Readers of this blog will, I expect, be parents, students of science, and those interested in everyday spirituality. However, as a scientist, I'm open to serendipity, and I'd be delighted to find readers in places I never expected.
Originally, I started writing down these ideas with the goal of publishing a memoir. (Actually, I was going to call it a "chemoir.") As new modes of communication and social networking have arrived, however, I've decided to use the blog format. Eventually, a book may re-emerge from this blog. In the meantime, your comments and contributions are most welcome.


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At the onset of our exploration, I asked the explorers to tell me something about Back of the Yards, and they said, "It's dirty, and there's alleys." I told them I was talking about the Back of the Yards neighborhood, not the back yard.
After a brief overview of the Stock Yard history, I told the explorers they should check out the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. It breaks down the sanitary issues of working in the stock yards in the early 1900s much better than I can.
When we arrived to the Back of the Yards neighborhood, the explorers commented about the smell in the air. I told them it's a mixture of the Tyson chicken plant and a manufacturing company that's creating cosmetic products from animal fat.
When we arrived to "the plant," the explorers took a tour of this refurbished meat packing facility that now hosts a salt water shrimp farm, kombucha brewery, mushroom farm and strawberry garden.
Kassie, our guide, asked the explorers if they knew what hydroponic means and then explained that it means plants growing in water.
Then we approached the next tank and pipes, where algae was being grown. The facility grows algae and uses magnets in the inside and outside of the fish tanks to collect it. One of the explorers asked whether too much algae is bad.
Kassie responded that too much algae in a fish tank at home is bad, but it has a purpose at the plant. The algae is growing off waste from their shrimp farm and grain from their brewery. The algae is then dehydrated and fed to fish. Then the fish can be eaten.
Kassie then asked the explorers if anybody knew what anaerobic meant. One of the explorers said flexible. Kassie said, "Not aerobic, anaerobic." She explained that anaerobic means without oxygen. The plant holds an anaerobic processor used at the water reclamation center to process waste. They use it at the plant to break down food waste and turn it into gas, and that gas is used to heat the building.
The explorers then learned about mushrooms and how mushrooms growing on a log break the log down and convert the log into mushroom. Mushrooms also breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide so mushrooms are closer to animals than plants.
On the way out, the explorers got to pick and eat fresh strawberries.
We ate lunch at La Internacional Supermarcado. It's a hidden gem restaurant in the back of a supermarket in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. They literally have the best tacos in Chicago. You'd never know it was back there because it fronts as a grocery store.
We passed by a nice house on their way back to school, and the explorers mentioned that the house shouldn't be in their community. It's too fresh.


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Every classroom involved with Little Green Thumbs has slightly different ways to incorporate the indoor garden into daily learning. Below are snapshots of some of the activities at our schools.
From Laura at Weinlos School: "Our garden is amazing this year; thanks for the adjustments. We ate some beans and are ready to try some more, maybe cooked this time. The tomatoes are tiny and green, getting bigger by the day. The students also tested the lemon balm and basil and had to find describing words for the smell. Some of the students' words were: strong, delicious, cool, awesome, sausagy, juicy, minty, fresh, green, bitter, complex, sweet and sour, spicy and lemonady."
At Elmwood School, the lemon balm, basil and lettuce were ready for harvest. The students enjoyed a salad the students made with lettuce, basil, oil and vinegar. The parent of a student who does not usually eat salad was thrilled that her son liked the classroom salad: "…to hear him say he liked salad is a highlight for sure. Can you tell us what the kids had so that we can duplicate it in the near future?" The class also enjoyed Lemon Balm Iced Tea.
Grace Martin School is growing barley, for students to learn where bread comes from. Check out the nice barley photo below.
A. Blair McPherson had a "share fair" for teachers visiting from other school districts. A very nice display of Little Green Thumbs plants and materials were set up in the gym.
At Ottewell Junior High in the Foods Lab, promising crops of kale, basil and lettuce are growing next to a "wall of beans".


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Key Content
- UNICEF: UNICEF Angola Humanitarian Situation Report July 2019
- UNHCR: Angola: Inter-Agency Operational Update (1 – 31 May 2019)
- UNHCR: Government & UNHCR cooperation on health to affected populations: Case of Lunda Norte, Angola
Appeals & Response Plans
- UNHCR: The Democratic Republic of Congo Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRRP) January 2019 - December 2020
Useful Links
Alerts/ Disasters
Most read reports
- Govt. Angola: Lunda Norte: Voluntary repatriation of refugees ends. 12 Sep 2019
- Govt. Angola: Over 200,000 children benefit from polio vaccine. 13 Jul 2019
- Govt. Angola: DRC refugees' situation worrying - Official. 5 Sep 2019
- Govt. Angola: Drought victims receive 320 tons of foodstuff. 12 Sep 2019
- Govt. Angola: Angola assumes responsibility on stay of DRC refugees. 31 Aug 2019
In Syria, fighting has intensified in October with the Government gaining control of strategic areas around Damascus and south of Aleppo. Meanwhile, while the number of Syrian refugees has reached almost 2.2 million people, parties to the conflict and international actors are increasingly focused on the Geneva II conference scheduled to take place in November after having been postponed several times.
Snapshot 15 – 22 October
In Syria, conflict is of high intensity in Rural Damascus, Dar'a, Aleppo, Idleb, and Homs, and Damascus city has repeatedly been under fire from opposition mortar rounds. Clashes between rival opposition groups have spread, culminating in a bloody battle over the control of some northern Aleppo neighbourhoods. While Government forces have made gains in Rural Damascus, the opposition has won ground in Dar'a, with both sides renewing efforts to gain a firm upper hand before the proposed Geneva II peace talks in November.
Snapshot 08 – 15 October
In Syria, heavy fighting is ongoing in Rural Damascus, Dar'a, Aleppo, Idleb and Homs, with government forces making gains in Rural Damascus while the opposition has won ground in Dar'a. Despite the call of al-Qaeda's leader for opposition fighters to unite, inter-group fighting has escalated in Aleppo over control for neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council announced that it did not intend to participate in the proposed Geneva II peace talks.
Snapshot 22– 29 July
In Syria, despite the start of the Holy Month of Ramadan on 9 July, large-scale operations have been ongoing in several major cities, including Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, and Idlib with regime forces pushing to extend the gains obtained over the past weeks with support of the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters. Infighting within opposition forces has escalated in recent days with clashes reported between various Islamist and more moderate groups, notably between Kurdish fighters and al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists near the border with Turkey in Al-Hassakeh governorate.
In Syria, the regime's offensive on Homs governorate and city is on-going with artillery and air strikes, displacing 400,000 and leaving an estimated 2,500 and 4,000 civilians trapped in and around the city. Some 2 million people in Government-controlled areas in Aleppo are affected by a siege of opposition forces that is blocking food and medicines from entering several areas. While the UN and the Red Cross have called for a truce during the month of Ramadan, the cease-fire was rejected by the Government.
In Syria, the regime's offensive on Homs governorate and city is on-going with artillery and air strikes being reported. An estimated, 2,500 and 4,000 civilians are allegedly trapped in and around the city. Meanwhile, the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries continues to increase and is now approaching 1.75 million people according to UNHCR.
Snapshot 24 June – 01 July
Snapshot 17 June - 24 June 2013
Food security levels are generally better than a year earlier in East Africa and the Sahel, with most areas facing either IPC phase 1 'minimal' or phase 2 'stressed' conditions, thanks to favorable agro-climatic conditions in 2012.
28.8 million internally displaced people worldwide in 2012, record high includes five-fold increase in Syria
GENEVA, 29 APRIL 2013: The number of people internally displaced by armed conflict, violence and human rights violations at the end of 2012 was 28.8 million, an increase of 2.4 million people on the previous year and the highest global figure ever reported by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).


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The Ink Pad, NYC/
There are only a handful of UPPERCASE stockists in the city. One of them is The Ink Pad, a unique shop specializing in rubber stamps, scrapbooking and paper arts. Located on 37th Seventh Avenue at the corner of 13th Street, the shop has been in Greenwich Village for over 18 years.
Thank you, Anna, for carrying UPPERCASE in your shop! If you're not in NYC, you can shop The Ink Pad online, too.


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Booking & Licensing
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Learning irregular verbs can be hard work, there's no easy way to remember them you just have to keep repeating conjugation exercises until you have memorised them all.
But it's worth it… there are over 400 million Spanish speakers in the world today.
Here are our tips for mastering Spanish yourself.
Irregular Spanish verbs, what are we talking about?
Spanish conjugation is irregular when the stem of a verb is modified in one tense or several or for one person or more.
You'll be happy to hear though that the endings for each group of verbs (3 groups of verbs ending in AR, IR or ER) don't change even for irregular verbs.
Spanish is spoken by over 400 million people worldwide (Source: Pexels)
A diphthong is when two vowels are pronounced as a single syllable. This changes the sound of the verb and only applies in the present tenses (indicative, subjunctive and imperative).
There are two forms of diphthongs:
For example, for the verb "pensar" (to think), we conjugate as follows: pienso, piensas, piensa, pensamos, pensáis, piensan.
And for the infinitive verb "encontrar" (to meet) and its pronominal form "encontrarse", is conjugated as follows: me encuentro, encuentras, encuentra, our encontramos, os encontráis, encuentran.
The weakening of the verbs follows the same logic as for the diphthong, but is found in the preterite in the third person singular and plural as well as the present.
This means that for certain verbs – such as pedir, repetir, elegir, seguir, perseguir, sentir, servir, vestirse – the "e" becomes "i" when the latter is accentuated.
To succeed in your Spanish exercises, take the conjugation tables of the verb "elegir" (to choose), for example, in the present and the simple past:
Remembering to change the "e" to "i" may seem difficult but there is no miracle recipe: you have to practice and revise these grammar rules so you don't go wrong.
Good revision techniques are vital ¦ source: Visualhunt
Now that we know all this, how do we really learn these verbs? Whether you're preparing for a test or for a holiday in Spain, you just have to put the time in.
Good news though, the Spanish alphabet is basically the same as ours so at least you'll be able to decipher the verbs!
Here are our tips:
Start by learning a small list of essential verbs rather than trying to learn them all at once.
Your brain can't take in all that information at once, so try a few words at a time and repeat again and again.
For example, try reciting 10 verbs in the morning, reread them at midday, recite 10 more in the afternoon and reread the whole lot before going to bed in the evening.
Test yourself by writing verbs down in English and trying to remember its equivalent in Spanish.
Once you feel like you have mastered the first set of verbs take some online tests to see where you're at. Then you can add more verbs to your list to learn.
Learning Spanish should become part of your daily routine.
Follow these tips and you'll have mastered the irregular verbs in no time!
Separate verbs into groups
Spanish verbs can be classed into 3 main groups.
The first group is verbs ending in AR, the second, ER and the third IR.
Then you can separate them even further by those that have diphthong or by grouping them by their longer endings: "-acer", "-ecer", "-ocer", "-ucir", "-uir" ("nacer", "hacer", "conocer", "conducir", "construir", etc.).
Then make a list of 'unclassable' verbs that don't fit any pattern and are irregular in every tense: "ir", "decir", "haber", "oír", "poder", "ser", "tener", "venir", "querer".
Learn with sentences
Learning Spanish by making up simple sentences will not only help with your grammar but will also build up your vocabulary.
Another idea: stick post-it notes around your room with different irregular verbs written on, every time you walk past one try to conjugate it in your head.
Many of the most commonly used verbs are completely irregular, like: "ser" (to be), "estar" (to be), "ir" (to go), and "haber" (to have).
Either Ser or Estar can be used depending on the context, whether it is definitive (ser) or temporary (estar), while the verb "haber" is used as an auxiliary verb and is used to form the perfect tense.
The verbs "haber" and "ir" are irregular for each person (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.):
Here is a list of some other 'unclassable' verbs to learn :
Verbs that change to "oy" in the first person :
Those that change to "go":
And others that are completely random!
Whether they are diphthong or there is a vowel change or they only become irregular depending on the tense there are a great multitude of irregular verbs.
We can't list them all in one article but here are some that can be grouped together to make them easier to remember:
When "e » becomes "ie" and "o" becomes "ue":
When "e" becomes "i":
"i" becomes "y":
And when "c" becomes "zc":
We know this is a lot of verbs to learn… but don't worry, the most important thing is to understand diphthongs and to know the most commonly used verbs.
Now to work, good luck!
See more on common Spanish verbs here.
Can you master Spanish conjugation with our guides? Take spanish lessons to get yourself on track!


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Enjoy a new way of playing video games by preventing annoying cord interference by using the B1 Mouse Bungee! Using a cord management system allows you to aggressively flick , swipe and fling your mouse without getting caught up in wires
The B1 Bungee comes with a highly durable silicone arm that bends and conforms to your gaming style allowing you to swipe your mouse more smoothly and naturally. By attaching your mouse's cord to the silicone arm , the cord is elevated and guided away from the mouse's sliding area
Along with keeping cord interference at bay , you can also consolidate and keep your electronics charged and organized using 4 active onboard 2.0 USB ports ready to charge or to transfer data! This highly versatile tool is finished with alluring LED lights to compliment any gaming rig for an aesthetically pleasing experience


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Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Windows Version 2.60b Windows
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (also referred to as simply Enemy Territory, ET, or W:ET) is a free and open source multiplayer first-person shooter video game set during World War II. It was originally planned to be released as a commercial expansion pack to the popular FPS Return to Castle Wolfenstein (also referred to as RTCW) and later as a standalone game. However, due to problems with the single-player aspect, the multiplayer portion was released on 29 May 2003 as a freeware standalone game. In January 2004, the source code for the game logic (not the game engine) was released to the benefit of its modding community. The game uses a modified Return to Castle Wolfenstein engine, itself being a heavily modified Quake III: Team Arena engine (id Tech 3, which has been open-source since 2005). As of the first day of the 2010 QuakeCon, 12 August the entire source code was released under the GNU General Public License v3.
Change log (2.60b Windows):


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Photographed for InStyle by Jan Welters
Viola Davis may be our favorite super woman on television and making history with Emmy Award-winning performances, but she is so much more heroic beyond the cameras and flashing lights of Hollywood.
The 50-year-old actress got candid in her cover story with InStyle magazine, opening up about the things we don't see on TV: her marriage, motherhood and how she's learned to release herself from the fear of aging.
We could all take a moment to hear her words of wisdom, which is why we're honestly a little envious of her daughter, Genesis, 4, who will receive that advice daily throughout her life.


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Bray Wyatt Works Pre-RAW Dark Match, Superstars Matches, Brock Lesnar To Respond To Triple H Next Week & MITB Participants Announced, Charlie Sheen: Celebrity Social Media Ambassador Of RAW's 1,000th Celebration, More
June 26, 2012 · 0 Comments
– It was announced on RAW that Brock Lesnar will answer Triple H's SummerSlam challenge next week on RAW. Footage was shown of Triple H punching out Paul Heyman last week.
It was not said if Lesnar will be live at RAW next week, but he will respond to the challenge.
— John Cena's "historic announcement" on RAW was that he will be participating in the WWE Championship Money in the Bank match at next month's pay-per-view. Cena said that he'd take out the Big Show (already announced for the match) and would win the WWE title again.
Chris Jericho, who returned on RAW and interrupted John Cena's promo, told Cena that he's also entering himself in the match – and Cena will have to go through him.
This week's General Manager Vickie Guerrero came out and declared that there will be two Money in the Bank matches next month – one for the WWE Championship and one for the World Championship.
Vickie announced the competitors will be all be former WWE Champions – and they are: Kane, Big Show, Chris Jericho and John Cena.
– In a dark match that took place prior to Monday's RAW went on the air, FCW wrestler Bray Wyatt (former NXT wrestler Husky Harris) defeated Alex Riley in approximately 5. Our live correspondent said that Wyatt got "tremendous heat" from the crowd and Riley got a good reaction as well.
— The following matches were taped for this week's WWE Superstars, airing this Thursday online:
* WWE Tag-Team Champion Kofi Kingston vs. Michael McGillicutty
* Darren Young vs. Epico
Actor Charlie Sheen will be attending WWE's 1,000th RAW Celebration on July 23rd and will serve as the Celebrity Social Media Ambassador for the three hour broadcast.
During RAW, Sheen will give his unique perspective in 140 characters or less about the action. WWE.com wrote about Sheen's role:
"During the three-hour milestone event July 23 at 8/7 CT on USA Network, the "winning" actor will entertain his 7.5 million Twitter followers and the WWE Universe all night long with his unique 140-character analysis of the action."
— Friday's episode of WWE SmackDown did a 2.0 cable rating, with 2.97 million viewers. Those numbers are both up big from last week's rating and viewership and were the most for both since March 9th. The show ranked #1 among the adult male demographics, #2 among male teens and was up big in all key demographics, according to PWInsider.com.
— It was announced on RAW that WWE will present a special Super SmackDown Live: Great American Bash show next Tuesday night July erd at 8/7c.
— WWE Charmion CM Punk will defend against Daniel Bryan at next month's Money in the Bank pay-per-view.
Despite being advertised for Monday's RAW, Kelly Kelly was not there. She Tweeted a message from Cabo, where she is vacationing with her boyfriend, NHL hockey player Sheldon Souray. Kelly is taking time off from WWE.
— The upcoming The Rock vs. John Cena: Once In a Lifetime DVD set will be released on September 11th, 2012.
— The main event of Friday's Smackdown show will be Sheamus vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. Dolph Ziggler in a Triple Threat match for the World Heavyweight championship. The show will be taped on Tuesday from Evansville, Indiana.
By Sue
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Last year Shiseido launched Synchro Skin foundation, it was one of my favourite launches all year. The texture is divine with perfect coverage that is build-able for anyone who like a more full coverage foundation. It also has magic inside…….. It adapts to each skin tone individually so your perfect match is really easy to find. You buy the shade that is closest to your skin tone and it magically adapts to your skin tone leaving no visible traces of any foundation anywhere. My one and only negative issue with it was that it had a velvet finish, I like skin to glow. So, the magic beings at Shiseido must have heard me and they are launching a brand new foundation with all the same technology inside but this one is called Synchro Skin Glow and the big clue is in the name. Yes this one creates glowly beautiful skin.
It will make it's way very quickly into my kit and will be used all of the time! Shiseido Synchro Skin GLOW is available Spring 2017, so should be on counter now. Available in 10 shades (30ml size) the recommended retail is €48. You will find it in Harvey Nichols, Arnotts, Shaws & good pharmacies nationwide


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lafayette beach
Location: Minnetonka Beach, MN
A collection of formal gardens adorn this English manor lakehome. Taking cues from the entry and patio garden form, a large shoreline garden composed of horticultural species arranged in large, flowing masses beckons visitors to the shore. The garden attempts to seamlessly blend with the other gardens of the property. Given it's use of horticultural species and distinct massing, this shoreline has become an progressive precedent for traditional shoreline restoration.


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the professional body for
whole life management of physical assets
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Explore asset management knowledge resources.
The IAM develops industry knowledge through collaborative projects, events and training, professional standards and publications. In this way, we can develop the asset management discipline and provide resources that are of benefit to professionals, organisations and ultimately wider society. At its best, asset management has a positive impact on the well-being of the planet and the societies within it.
Whether you are a newcomer to the discipline or engaged in the profession, use this section as a starting point to build your understanding of asset management.
If you're a newcomer to asset management and would like some context, we have developed key reference materials which give you an introduction to the asset management profession.
This publication introduces what asset management can achieve. Improve your understanding of the concepts and philosophy behind asset management, with international contributions from our members.
Explore the Anatomy
Consolidate asset management understanding among your staff, customers and wider stakeholders. This invaluable training resource for organisations aims to bring everyone up to speed.
View the Big Picture
The Landscape presents good practice for developing asset management structures from fundamentals, to measuring performances and making improvements.
Discover the Landscape
If you are an asset management professional, contribute to our collaborative knowledge projects and keep up to date with professional standards.
SSGs are a project in progress - to complete a series of publications designed to expand and enrich asset management knowledge, covering the 39 Subjects in Asset Management - an anatomy.
Explore SSGs
The asset management ISO 55000 is a major achievement of the IAM. This international standard consolidates management systems and is a key text for learning about best practice.
Read about ISO 55000
This guiance document provides practical advice for the development of a strategic plan for asset management.
Discover the SAMP guidance
IAM projects aim to develop different aspects of the asset management discipline, and we often produce knowledge in collaboration with industry professionals, professional bodies and other organisations.
Our major completed projects include shaping professional standards PAS 55 and ISO 55000.
Explore Projects in Development
The international professional body for whole life physical asset management professionals.
The IAM develops asset management knowledge and best practice, and generates awareness of the benefits of the discipline for the individual, organisations and wider society.
Vision & Strategy >
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This account is suitable for out-of school youths who seek financial empowerment and development.
Product benefits
- Affordable initial deposit
- Future financial freedom
- Attractive interest rate
- No monthly charges
- Free account statement
- Accessed freely at any of our branches country wide
Basic requirements
- Initial deposit of UGX 20,000/=
- 3 passport size photographs for both the child and the the
- Parent /Guardian
- Valid identification document, E.g. Passport, ID
- Driving permit, voters cards of the parent or guardian.
- Completed account opening forms
- An introduction letter from either employer or from any recognized local authority. If a parent is already a customer of PBU the introduction letter isn't required
- Valid mailing and physical address
- Referral by a known PostBank customer


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March Newsletters
Washington Youth Garden
Our Chipotle fundraiser! We have a Facebook events page for you to sign up and share with your friends. Mark March 29 on your calendars.
Arbor Day Fest: An information page and ticket page is now live for this event. Be sure to take a look at the panels and participating organizations.


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I hate cancer. All forms of it. It's touched our family in a bit of a different way. Both of our dogs were diagnosed with cancer on the same day almost 2 1/2 years ago. Kiara was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma and Kodi with a soft tissue sarcoma. Kiara passed away almost a year after her diagnosis on April 27, 2015.
Kodi has hopefully got one week left with us at the time of this post. We've scheduled his final appointment for October 1, 2016 at 9:00 am. How bizarre is it to think that this time next week, he's gone. We had his home visit THE DAY we moved into our home. He's literally been in our home as long as we have.
But it's time. In addition to cancer, he suffers from Cauda Equina and this spinal/neurologic disorder is also taking a toll on him. He's lost a bit of himself and it's only progressing faster and faster. He has good days, but his bad days are rough. He has had issues with potty time for awhile, but he now has some mobility concerns. He gets stuck and can't back out. He slips and can't get up at times without help. He pants constantly and often is confused. These are all neurological symptoms from Cauda Equina. It's a horrible disease that I didn't know about until our Kodi.
His cancer is of course an issue as well. The tumor continues to grow and has had a couple of small ruptures. He currently had another (see above) that is a bit bigger and is more of a bloody drainage than before. He doesn't appear to be bothered by it, but at the same time – I look at him and wonder how he isn't, you know. It's hard (to me, at least) to discern the amount of pain he's in.
So, if not before, Saturday it is. We'll send our very first husky across what many pet owners call the Rainbow Bridge. It's very surreal and difficult to think about as it brings back a lot of emotion about losing Kiara, but again – it's time. He deserves to go with dignity and as painful as it is for us, it's our duty to help him.
Soon, he and Kiara will be together again – wooing and playing together as they always did. This time, they'll both have no more pain and no more illness and will be looking down on us from above.


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I have been using yoga a lot this year with a wide variety of students. The benefits are wonderful. Not only are you teaching valuable skills, like calming, but you are making students aware of their bodies. I particularly like using it with my counseling groups that are focused on self-control. It takes self-control when you are doing yoga to do the poses correctly.
I found a site that has a huge array of yoga videos (and other movement videos). The videos can be using to energize the tired kiddos and calm the energized ones. Click on the link below to check it out!


text: Happy Friday, all! I would've had this up earlier, but blogger is ridiculous and will only upload untimely vlogs when I really don't care if they upload or not. What I found out from some good bloggy friends is that uploading videos through blogger is for the birds and all the cool .... or uh ... smart kids upload through an outside source like photobucket. So yeah, there's a little helpful hint for you! And here's another .... how to make bows for your presents!


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Decision delayed – time to bury R3 for good
The runway decision has been postponed until the autumn, at the earliest. What the country needs are political leaders who have the guts to say NO to a third runway at Heathrow and stick to it.
It's no surprise that Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has told Parliament that a decision on airport expansion will be put back until "at least October". British politics are in turmoil right now and a decision on which area to destroy with another runway is too important to announce at this time.
What politicians should acknowledge though is that the repeated cycle of imminent threat and temporary reprieve is taking its toll on communities around Heathrow. A third runway at Heathrow will never happen (they've been trying unsuccessfully for 70 years) so we need political leaders with the guts to say that.
There are numerous reasons why a third runway, and potentially a fourth, should not be forced upon the densely-populated areas in and around the capital city. That is understood. All the main political parties fielded London Mayor candidates who opposed Heathrow expansion. The elected Mayor, Labour's Sadiq Khan, knows that Londoners are dying early as a result of the city's polluted air. The most basic human right is the right to breathe air that won't shorten your life but that is a right denied to people inhaling the toxic cocktail of chemicals and particulates around them.
At a moment in British history when we can expect big changes, we need an end to the tired old proposals to expand Heathrow. There will never be a good time to destroy thousands of homes and blight vast areas with yet more noise and pollution from another 260,000 flights and associated road traffic increases


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Free Life & Career Skills Workshop Series
The Neighbourhood Centre is running a series of 6 Life & Career Skills Workshops in December and January for newcomers and job seekers.
The workshops are free and open all East Toronto-based adults. The venues are also wheelchair-accessible. Sign up for as many as you like. You will receive a Certificate of Participation if you attend 4 or more. Snacks and TTC tokens are available.
Contact Cezarita at 416-698-1627 to register.


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$15 in advance
$20 at the door
$5 student
Includes two beverages.
Felix Mendelssohn - Trio in D major
Fanny Mendelssohn - Piano Trio in D minor
C.P.E. Bach - Partita in A minor
J.S. Bach- Cello Suite
Nicola LeFanu- Miniature and Canon
Elizabeth Maconchy- Theme and Variations
Robert Schumann - Fairy Tales
Clara Schumann- Piano Variations
Johannes Brahms- Clarinet Sonata No. 2
Family Affair: Family is a dynamic force in all relationships and we explore this in music. What do father/son,brother/sister, mother/daughter composer relationships sound like in music? This program also explores the role of women composers in the 19th century, often held back by family and societal restraints, and this is juxtaposed with the only mother/daughter composer duo in history from the 20/21st centuries.


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Nestled in the Santa Lucia Mountains of idyllic Central California midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Paso Robles is California's fastest growing wine region and its largest geographic appellation. In the mid 1990's, Paso Robles was home to 35 wineries and 13,000 acres of grapes. Today there are more than 200 wineries, many are small boutique producers dotting the countryside amongst Paso Robles' 26,000 vineyard acres.
Although the region is largely known for its stellar Rhone varietals, there are more than 40 wine grape varietals and blends are produced – from
Spanish to Italian to Bordeaux and Rhône, including the area's heritage variety Zinfandel. This vast area boasts six different wine regions, each with their own distinct microclimate and terroir including the Back Roads Wineries, Far Out Wineries, Pleasant Valley Wine Trail, Downtown Wineries, 46 East Wineries and 46 West Wineries.
Wine lovers can visit a large variety of tasting rooms, many of which offer picnic areas and specialty winemaker dinners. Convenient transportation includes the Wine Line, a continuous hop-on, hop-off series of BioDiesel vans that run throughout the wine region, and Wine Wrangler offers a wide variety of wine country tours. For those who desire a hands-on approach to wine, First Crush offers wine making and blending classes. Or, book one of Steinbeck Vineyards' educational "Crash Courses" to learn about the history of the Paso Robles wine region, sustainable wine growing and more.
By Travel Paso Robles
Recently named Wine Region of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, Paso Robles, California is located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Highway 101 and is roughly a 20 minute drive inland from the Pacific Ocean. This small farming town boasts 250+ wineries, a charming historic downtown and town square, comfortable hotel accommodations, farm-to-table dining, art galleries, shopping, hot mineral springs and friendly locals. For more information about Paso Robles, CA visit www.TravelPaso.com.
Photo Credit: DAOU Vineyards & Winery


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Ethical Volunteering.
The plight of vulnerable children in the developing world is challenging and moving and stirs many good-hearted people to seek opportunities to volunteer within programs that assist children such as orphanages and shelters. Without careful consideration and awareness of the broader issues, our good intentions could contribute to the exploitation and vulnerability of the children we seek to help.
Before you decide to visit or volunteer in an orphanage we suggest you consider the following questions:
It is critical that children form a strong attachment with a primary caregiver for their cognitive, social and emotional development. Children in orphanages have been separated from their parents and often experience attachment disorders, which cause them to develop unnaturally close bonds with people they have just met. When volunteers take the role of caregivers in an orphanage the children quickly form these bonds. Each time a volunteer leaves, this bond is broken and the child once again experiences rejection. This is extremely detrimental to children and therefore only long-term staff should assume caregiver roles for children in orphanages.
Many orphanages rely on donations from visitors and volunteers. They often keep the children undernourished and in poor conditions to illicit donations from tourists who feel sorry for the children. There are cases of orphanages recruiting and trafficking children to fill their orphanages for fundraising purposes. This is a system that exploits children and is unfortunately perpetuated by volunteers who are genuinely trying to help.
When orphanages open their doors to well meaning volunteers, they also make a way for predators to gain access to the children. Predators are known for seeking opportunities to volunteer and work within orphanages to access children. Whilst good screening can reduce the risk, it is not always possible to identify a child abuser and therefore volunteering does expose children to risk.
Children in residential care have undergone multiple traumas, including being separated from their families. They need the assistance of trained, qualified and committed staff who are equipped to deal with their special needs. Most volunteers do not come with these skills or the local language to use these skills. They can therefore inadvertently compound the children's trauma out of a lack of awareness of how to appropriately deal with their behaviour.
In most of our own countries our government's child protection systems would not allow us to visit any kind of shelter or residential care home and most of us wouldn't consider asking. It would be considered a violation of the child's right to privacy and a risk to the children. In developing countries, children have the same rights but often child protection laws are weak or unregulated exposing children to risk. In the absence of strong local laws we should apply the same standards we would expect for our own children to children everywhere.
Volunteer in a program that seeks to preserve families and prevent family separation. Volunteers could work with whole families or parents to strengthen their capacity to look after their own children.
When done with thought and consideration, volunteering can positively contribute towards good outcomes for vulnerable children and their families as well as be a life changing experience for volunteers.
The Child Protection in Short-Term Missions Manual + Toolkit is a resource which is essential to any church, team and individual planning to go on a short-term missions trip. Sometimes good intentions are not enough to prevent children from being harmed, and this manual serves to fill this gap and inform best practice. It includes the Biblical framework for protecting children, how teams can run child-first STM trips, as well as practical case studies and toolkits to make your next missions trip a child safe one. If you're passionate about missions and engaging people in short-term teams, then this is for you!


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Our Philosophy
Since most of today's equestrians are amateur riders, VSH has tried to take some of the guess work out of selecting your next equine partner. Our horses are bred and selected for good conformation and good minds. They're athletic, easygoing, easily trainable and suitable for mature riders.
We maintain a wide inventory of draft and wbx geldings and offer a full service sales selection process as well as discounted internet and cash/trailer sales for professional and decisive clients. We have matched over a thousand riders with their horses. We have worked hard to build our reputation and our horses speak for themselves. VSH alumnae can now be found at most recognized hunts across the US, as well as competing in the hunters and eventing.


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Strategic partnerships are important to any start-up drug company.
If your interest is finding novel therapies that use untapped mechanisms of action to treat the untreatable, we are interested in working with you.
To better understanding how we operate and what we have discovered and developed, please contact us at email@example.com.