text:
Schlegel structure and manufacture a lovely and hugely purposeful self-contained balancing system effective at maintaining the equilibrium of a sash window at any position within the vacation from the sash.
I endeavor to order a sash window channel balance from Home Depot On line. The channel balance element did not incorporate the top and bottom nylon guides.
Sash Windows are a well-liked form of glass window which permit for efficient ventilation and a standard glance towards your windows. Sash Balancers are required to help from the seamless and fluid motion with the sliding of the top and bottom window panels.
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For more quickly provider, be sure you take advantage of the CHAT option located in the reduce suitable-hand corner within your display screen, in which you can quickly be linked to a agent for assistance. Normally, you are able to Make contact with the producer immediately along with your thoughts regarding this product, or another merchandise manufactured by Key-Line Goods by calling their toll no cost selection at (877) 649-9740, or by contacting them by email at firstname.lastname@example.com Answered by: primelineProductExpert
Although this balance is packaged and sold separately, it's our suggestion that both equally balances from the window get replaced concurrently. This tends to restore the sash to some near new affliction, and extend the life of the window.. Aspect Quantities Versions: FA2730 Normally ships in 24 hours.
If you must switch the locating guide on your own window channel balance, utilize a cordless drill plus a 3/32-inch little bit to drill from the crimped aspect of the existing rivet. Remove it, and then make use of a rivet tool To lock The brand new locating guide in place.
The easiest method to figure out what size of balance you require If you don't have already got an outdated section, is always to simply call up the company, give them the general size of the whole window, and they're able to let you know what size you would like. We endorse replacing each balances at the same time so they have got equal rigidity, and makes it possible for the window to vacation evenly. In the event you substitute only one facet, the window may well experience lopsided and hard to slip.
Item images revealed are of the actual product or a detailed representation. ColorsColours may vary determined by your Personal computer's movie card and on how your keep track of's colorcolour is adjusted.
In the event the window stops are painted, use a razor knife to cut in the paint movie together the road the place the stops satisfy the jambs. To stay away from breaking the stops, use a skinny pry bar, pry only at nail areas, and work diligently.
D.I.Y. Guidance Lights Choosing the ideal inside light The right selection of inside lighting could make a huge distinction to the appear and feel of your Room.
Orders fewer than $twenty five incur a $5 small purchase dealing with charge.
Every package deal contains the balancer, leading and base stop brackets (pre-connected) together with installation Guidance. To buy in this article on the web just click the aspect number to the chart. The aspect figures are made up of your current balance number and end type code.
A spiral balance is encased for most of its duration in a very metallic or vinyl tube. Twisting The underside from the balance will enhance or lower The strain.
(your e mail tackle is going to be saved non-public and is just utilised to inform you each time a response has long been produced)
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For the reason that painting channels or the sides on the sash may lead to them to stick, don't paint any uncovered bare wood.
We utilize a Particular rivet machine to connect the appropriate plastic guides for this series so They are really All set to set up by the point They may be sent to you.
Pull the sash cord out with the groove in the edge from the sash. Often, the knotted end is held in position by a little nail. If this is the situation, pull out the nail to eliminate the sash cord.
Now take the bottom of The strain rod and drive it approximately a degree about two" down below The underside on the sash. It is going to spin while you do this. Then hook your balance tool into the hole on The underside of the tension rod and wind it inside a clockwise path. The quantity of turns that you should wind it depends on the read more size of your sash. The smallest of sashes (18"-24" large) will often take 6-10 turns dependant upon the top in the sash and irrespective of whether it's a single-pane window or simply a double-pane window.
This will likely free the shoe to slip up and down in the channel. Commonly You will find there's cut in that channel at the top with the window which allows the shoe to generally be pivoted out of the channel. New shoes set up in reverse buy from removing.
Choose new balances by matching the tube size, rod length, tube diameter and color of nylon bearing towards the product within our catalog.
five. Use these tools and details to take to your local Home Depot, or to simply call in to Key-Line Products the place we are going to be pleased To help you with the channel balance replacement project. Answered by: primelineProductExpert
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Note: top and bottom guide shoes aren't incorporated with this particular merchandise and have to be purchased independently check with installation Guidance connection below for proper choice of parts
Take your terminal clips and location them in the sq. holes at the very best of your jamb. Carefully thrust down around the balance and insert the take-out clip. Make this happen for both sides of the window.


text:
I love mosquitoes. Yes, you read that right. Mosquitoes have always fascinated me, from the time I was a kid. I mean, every person on Earth wants to drive mosquitoes to extinction. But mosquitoes aren't just still around — they're prospering. How do they do it?
I've done various experiments in my own yard. I've come up with many theories, unscientific as they might be, and I like to think I've learned a thing or two from my studies.
For starters, a mosquito missing two of it's six legs can function just as well as mosquito with all of them. How do I know this? From counting the legs of mosquitoes who bit me, and by carefully tearing the legs off the mosquitoes with all six. Losing a limb doesn't even slow them down.
The lesson? Go for the wings, not the legs. Or just squash the insect — that works too.
Mosquitoes evolve fast, much faster than humans. A subspecies of mosquito has been discovered in the New York subways — it lives in the subway tunnels and only in the subway tunnels. A new subspecies — that's huge.
I think I may have discovered a new subspecies myself — though, not being a scientist, I may be wrong. See, theres a forest near my house. I often go for walks there. There are no paved paths, and it's not unusual to run into a herd of deer, or an angry moose. The shadiest part of the forest is close to a pond.
Mosquitoes love shady areas. They also love ponds. But one of the mosquitoes there wasn't like the ones I usually saw — it was huge, by mosquito standards, and incredibly slow — a blow any other mosquito could've dodged squashed this dude flat.
It was later that I noticed the swelling on my ankle. What looked — and felt — like a giant mosquito bite, two inches square. I'd never had an insect bite that bad before. I thought of the mosquito I had squashed in the forest. Was it possible another one, just as big, had caused this bite.
It took several days for the swelling to go down. I soon figured out that the giant mosquitoes could only be found in the forest, the place where I'd been walking when I got the bite. Could it be that one of these giant mosquitoes was responsible for the swelling on my ankle?
To test the theory, I let one of the giant mosquitoes bite me. Not a long bite — the mosquito only got a few seconds before it was interrupted. The bite did swell up, and it was unusually large, but no where near the size of the one on my ankle.
What if the amount of time was a factor? A bite that only took several seconds might swell up less than a bite that took an entire minute.
I came up with a plan to find out. I went back to the forest, and waited for a giant mosquito to land. I didn't squash it, even though it would have been easy. I let it take what I call a 'full bite' — as in, when the mosquito finally flew off, it was because it was full of blood, not because it was disturbed.
I'd let the normal mosquitoes give me full bites before. They'd been slightly larger than normal, and slightly itchier as well, so I knew the length of the bite had something to do with it.
The giant mosquito's bite grew. Within a few hours, it was the size of the largest normal mosquito bites. By the next day, it was two inches square, itchy and raw. Like the first bite, it lasted for several days. I came to two occlusions from this experiment: 1), the giant mosquitoes were responsible for the giant bites and 2) I was never doing another experiment this stupid again — not with the half week of itchiness that followed.
By this time, I was certain that the giant mosquitoes were a separate sub-species. So, being very scientific, I decided to give them a proper sub-species name: 'beaters'. If I ever discovered another sub-species, I'd call them either 'chasers' or 'keepers'. What can I say? I love Harry Potter.
I have several theories about beaters that I am currently unable to prove.
For starters, their size. It slowed the beaters down, to the point they couldn't dodge a human. They were easy to spot and squash. How could any species survive like that?
Well, what if it was the forest — or, more specifically, the animals that lived there? Not many humans went to that part of the forest.
But there were deer and moose — I often found their prints along the path. It would make sense if these were the beater's prey. Deer and moose can't easily slap a mosquito that lands on them.
Maybe a bigger proboscis helped beaters get through the animals fur? Did it help them carry blood? Or was it just that, with deer and moose as their main victims, there was no reason for the beaters not to be big?
Mosquitoes are horrible. They're also amazing. The next time I see one, I'm killing it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Esophageal manometrical assessment after esophageal circular myotomy for wide-gap esophageal atresia
We treated 3 children with wide-gap esophageal atresia by a circular myotomy of Livaditis technique, after which no postoperative complaints, such as heartburn, vomiting or dysphagia, were seen. Esophageal manometry, performed to evaluate the postoperative esophageal motor function revealed; (1) that lower esophageal sphincter pressure (LESP) increased gradually with time, (2) esophageal contraction waves (ECW) were evident at the site of the circular myotomy with swallowing, though these contractions were simultaneous; and (3) relaxation of the LES with swallowing was evident. These findings, as determined by the esophageal manometrical assessments, indicate that there is no difference between the postoperative esophageal function after either repair with a circular myotomy or primary anastomosis for esophageal atresia.
Key wordsLivaditis' technique circular myotomy esophageal atresia esophageal manometry
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
- 1.Livaditis A. Esophageal atresia: A method of overbridging large segment gaps. Z Kinderchir 1973; 13: 298–306.Google Scholar
- 2.Rehbein F, Schweder N. Neue Wege in der Reconstruktion der kindlichen Speiserohre. Dtsch Med Wshr 1972; 79: 757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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- 4.Lind JF, Blanchard RJ, Guyda H. Esophageal motility in tracheoesophageal fistula and esophageal atresia. surg Gynecol Obstet 1966; 123: 557–564.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- 5.Duranceau A, Fisher SR, Flye MW, Jones RS, Postlethwait RW, Sealy WC. Motor function of the esophagus after repair of esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula. Surg 1977; 82: 116–123.Google Scholar
- 6.Whitington PE, Shermata DW, Seto DSY, Jones L, Hendrix TR. Role of lower esophageal sphincter incompetence in recurrent pneumonia after repair of esophageal atresia. J Pediatr 1977; 91: 550–554.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
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- 12.Eraklis AJ, Rossello PJ, Ballatine TVN. Circular esophagomyotomy of upper pouch in primary repair of long segment esophageal atresia. J Pediatr Surg 1976; 11: 709–712.PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
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text:
Choose your room
Europa House 2*
Free Wi-Fi
Free Wi-Fi in public areas
24-hour reception
Exercise gym
Spa and relaxation
Poolside snack bar
Bar/ Lounge area
No Smoking
Non-smoking rooms
High chairs
Kids club
Children's pool
No pets allowed
Air conditioning
The lovely Europa House Hotel offers 20 bright guest rooms as well as a designated smoking area, a safe deposit box and a luggage storage. This royal building was refurbished in 2008.
The property lies within 15 km from Hyde Park . The hotel offers perfect location 4 km from the center of London.
Rooms at Europa House Hotel feature modern touches such as individual climate control, high-speed internet, a safe, a private balcony and a DVD player. They also comprise en suite bathrooms appointed with a bathtub, a shower and a hairdryer.
The small snack bar offers a terrace and Wi-Fi. The property is a 5-minute walk from the brasserie Mimos Cafe Bar.
London City airport is 25 minutes' drive away from Europa House Hotel.
Guests can rent bicycles and cars on the premises.
The beach facilities include sunbeds, sun loungers and umbrellas.
Hotel Policy
- Children and extra beds
- Older children/adults may stay at the price of GBP 20 per person per night in an extra bed.
- All children under the age of 2 may stay for free in a cot.
- All children under the age of 5 may stay free of charge when using existing bedding.
- There are no extra beds provided in a room.
- Non-smoking rooms
- Safe deposit box
- 24-hour reception
- Luggage storage
- Multilingual staff
- No pets allowed
- Free Wi-Fi in public areas
- Lobby
- No parking
- No smoking on site
- No wheelchair access
- Mobile phone network
Food & Drinks
- Restaurant
- Poolside snack bar
- Electric kettle
- Restaurant with air conditioning
- Buffet breakfast
Leisure & Activities
- Exercise gym
- Massage
- Sun terrace
- Sun loungers
- Garden area
- Entertainment
- Beach umbrellas
- Leisure/ TV room
- Car rental
- Bicycle rental
- Bell staff/Porter
- Shops/Commercial services
- Medical facilities service
Room Amenities
- Ironing facilities
- Heating
- Air conditioning
- Tea and coffee facilities
- AM/FM alarm clock
- Rollaway beds
- Dressing area
- Playground
- Children's pool
- Kids club
- High chairs
- Individual air conditioning
AmenitiesShow All
- Non-smoking rooms
- Safe deposit box
- 24-hour reception
- Luggage storage
- Multilingual staff
- No pets allowed
- Free Wi-Fi in public areas
- Lobby
- No parking
- No smoking on site


text:
Emigration From Childhood
If the answer was" A gentleman," my mother would be justified to assume that the maid had asked him to take a seat in the spacious foyer. Then mother would go immediately to ascertain the gentleman's identity and the purpose of his visit. Depending on the circumstances, she might ask him to join us for dessert and coffee.
If, however, the maid's answer was "A man," my mother could be sure that the maid had left him standing outside the door. In that case my mother would order the maid to get the man's name and ask him what he wanted without ever permitting him to enter. In most cases the man turned out to be a poor Jew who had been sent by the Jewish welfare agency to ask for money. The maid would be asked to bring Mother's purse and, with a facial expression which people assume when they smell a bad odor, Mother would take a sizeable bill out of the wallet and hand it to the man-carefully, touching it with two fingers only, as if the bill itself would be covered with the repugnant dirt associated with poverty.
A similar course of events would take place if the visitor turned out to be a female. Then the question would be: "Is it a woman or a lady?"
Apparently there were no borderline cases, since the maid never hesitated when answering these questions.
Thus I learned that there were gentlemen and ladies who are fully human and are to be treated as such. And then there are the common people, men and women, who are to be supported by charity if necessary, but are to be viewed as lower forms of Homo sapiens. Among these lower' forms there was a further hierarchy. Poor Jews were a wee bit lower than poor Christians, and among poor Jews there was a caste of "untouchables": the orthodox Jews with long beards, sideburns and caftans who had been driven out of Poland or Russia by cruel persecution and who sought refuge in the Jewish district of Vienna called Leopoldstadt. They often could not speak any language other than Yiddish or Hebrew. Some of these tried to live on meager profits from selling "sundries," which they pushed through the streets on carts. Mother warned me never to touch these wares because they were full of germs.
Father, by contrast, did not share Mother's snobbishness; in fact he tried to teach me values in direct opposition to her artificial ones. He tried to teach me to love and respect all people and to honor God. Father never joined us on our trips because he was too busy. Although he worked long hours as an attorney to support Mother in the style which she enjoyed, he managed to spend time with his daughter, whom he loved with a bashful intensity. We used to take walks in the Vienna Woods and engage in long and serious conversations which my father skillfully adapted to my changing age.
He often said: "The most important thing is to be a good person." And seeing my questioning look, he would elaborate: "You must not only think of yourself. You must love your mother, and your teachers, and your friends. And, above all, you must love God."
One time he had told me about the meeting between Moses and God on Mount Sinai and how God gave Moses ten commandments which every human being must obey. "What are the commandments, Daddy?" I asked, and Daddy stated one or two commandments which were easy to understand when I was little, and more complex ones as I grew up, until he had covered all ten.
When I reached the age of fifteen, he reiterated the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," and asked me whether I thought it was all right to kill the enemy during combat. I said, "Yes," and Father looked at me very sadly.
I wanted to be moved by his words, but I could not do it because I felt the image of my mother looking over my shoulder, and like Mother, I thought Daddy was old-fashioned. Why couldn't he be smooth and elegant like she was? I would even imagine hearing her say during our long walks (a familiar say,ing of hers), "Herb, don't you know that one doesn't talk to children like this?"
When they went to a restaurant or to a resort hotel, Mother would always correct Daddy and say things like: "Herb, don't put the tip on the tablecloth, put it on the silver tray and add another schilling."
It almost seemed that Moses and the Ten Commandments had lost their power over me because the man who taught me the words of God did not have good table manners!
But later the seed that Father put into my mind began to disturb my peace: A rumble of this disturbance became faintly audible to me in the first part of the 1940s, when World War II was raging: when I taught middle-class students rather than debutantes from upper-class families; when blacks became my students as well as my colleagues; when Gustav Ichheiser, a friend of mine, made value-laden statements which demanded agreement or disagreement. The rumble became louder and louder until it turned into the song, the march, the hymn of my existence. I found that I could not stand in front of students whose eyes are asking whither with such urgency, and teach them what is without suggesting what ought to be. My thoughts began to wander more and more towards moral and spiritual values and towards the man who had instilled me with these values long before I was mature enough to understand. And, as I emulated Father's fierce sense of fairness and justice, I finally could love him. But it was too late. How happy we could have been if we had shared this love when he was still alive. Then, one day, my feelings became so strong that I felt compelled to write a letter to him, a letter which I finished fifty-three years after his death.
Dear Father,
My first remembrance of you goes back to when I was four years old and you visited me in the hospital in Vienna. My head was wrapped in white bandages covering both ears, which hurt badly from a double mastoid operation. You had been drafted into the Austrian Army to help fight World War I. My mother called you long-distance to tell you that I had to be operated on and that I might be deaf for the rest of my life. And then you came back to see me!
I remember so well. I remember how you looked in your uniform, which was all blue-not light blue and not dark blue, but something inbetween. Your jacket had a stiff, navy-blue collar that went up to your chin; and there was a soldier's cap on your head-and now the most important thing: you wore a belt with a long, shining sabre attached to it. And somewhere there was something red on your uniform, but I can't remember what it was. I believe you were a lieutenant. Oh, and then there was the moustache-so beautifully groomed-and when you kissed me it tickled.
I felt as if Saint Whoever had descended on a cloud to visit. I was so proud, Vati (a diminutive of Vater, meaning Father)-that you would leave World War I, where you were supposed to smash the French, the British and the Russians, just to come and worry about whether I could hear or not. Well, it turned out I could-the surgery had not damaged my hearing.
Then you disappeared and all there was left was Mother and my two brothers. It was hard being in the hospital and knowing you were so far away. When you were home I always felt protected, but now I was scared to death that my big brothers would take my toys away and that Mother wouldn't help me because she always sided with the boys.
I have no memories covering the next four years of your life. You must have written letters to Mother, which she must have read to us, but I cannot recall any such letters.
We children were very patriotic, and that might have been in part because we thought that the side on which our Vati fought must be the right side. We sang some wild songs against Charlie (Charlie was a slang word we used for the Americans; it means the enemy against whom we fight a war. But now I am getting all mixed up because you and I and all pf us, the Austrians and the Germans, we were Charlie in World War I.
But most of our wild songs were not directed against the Americans, because we knew little about them and because the songs had been made up before the States entered the war in 1917. Here is an example of our songs:
Jeder Schuss einen Russ,
Jeder Stoss einen Franzos,
Und die Flotte ist nicht faul,
Schlagt den Britten um das Maul.
(Every shot a Russian,
Every hit a Frenchman,
And the Navy never rests,
Hits the mugs of the British pests.)
We also played war games with tin soldiers and, of course, our side always won.
I guess it was the governess who made us do these nasty things (at least they seem nasty now). She created patriotism in us by what psychologists call conditioning. It worked this way: there was a fortress named przemysl, located in what is now Poland. The fortress belonged to us. Then it was conquered by the Russians; that day the governess did not give us any dessert for dinner: Soon we reconquered the fortress and received one of our favorite desserts: strawberries with whipped cream.
Other fortresses were conquered or lost, and accordingly, we received an outstanding dessert or no dessert at all. It did not take too long until we became bloodthirsty patriots.
Toward the middle of the year 1917, Mother received a telegram from the war department saying that you had been captured by the Russians and had become a prisoner of war. From then on we spoke about you, Vati, from morning to night, and usually in great fear that the Russians would mistreat you.
Then, in 1918, only a few weeks before the armistice, an event of such enormous power occurred that it has reverberated in my memory ever since.
On that day the doorbell rang. It might have been morning, afternoon, or evening. It was the maid's day off, and I was asked to see who was there. I opened the door without removing the chain, as I had been taught to do. I looked and saw one of "them," one of those Jews with long caftans, beards and sideburns: "ein Polnischer."
There was a strap around his shoulders that held a large wooden tray filled with pens, pencils, small notebooks, thread, needles, toothpaste, toilet water; candy and other merchandise. I stammered: "Just a moment," slammed. the door, and ran to find my mother. "Mutti (diminutive of Mutter; meaning Mother), Mutti, a man is outside, not a gentleman at all, a dirty Polish one."
"Did you close the door?"
"Yes, of course."
"Quick, get my purse."
And with that facial expression of superiority, which I had seen so often, she took a bill out of her wallet, handed it to me, and said, "Be sure not to remove the chain. And don't touch his hands when you give him the bill."
I ran back to the door, opened it a tiny bit, threw the bill on his tray and was about to slam the door when I felt resistance. The Polish Jew held the door open with his right hand. Is he going to tear the chain? Is he going to enter by force, to burglarize, to kill… ?
He did not move. He looked at me with a big smile. "Bist Du die Edith?" (Are you Edith?)
"Yes," I whispered.
And then you said, "I am your father!"
I had to get used to you very slowly, so slowly that the process of acceptance was only half completed in 1926, the year of your death-eight years after I had contemptuously thrown money on your tray as if you were a beggar.
Acceptance became somewhat easier when you told us, in daily installments around the dinner table, the story of your escape. You were determined to escape because it was the duty of every prisoner. Your determination to do your duty was in no way influenced by your belief that the end of the war was very close. You risked your life by creeping underneath a row of half-a-dozen trains, anyone of which could have started its journey and crushed you to death.
And, most important as far as I was concerned, you were not really one of those contemptible Polish orthodox Jews who were so far beneath my poised and elegant mother. No, you were not. You had to assume the disguise of a Jewish peddler so no one would recognize you as an escaped prisoner. And it never occurred to you, Father, to change your disguise before you came home. For how could you have known that your family had turned against their own people, against their roots?
During the years following 1918, you caused me much embarrassment. The day after your return, you went to the barber and had him shave off your beard and your sideburns. After that you tried several kinds of moustaches, all of which looked a bit ridiculous, especially the waxy one that turned up on both ends. Why could you never look like other people?
And why could you never behave like other people? You wanted to know and see everything your little daughter did. November 29, 1919, was my ninth birthday. You insisted upon coming to the school of calisthenics, where all the kids from good families went, to watch me do exercises. I was using golden bars, like all the kids did on their birthdays.
You came with Mother and sat in the balcony watching me. She was so poised and never attracted my attention or anybody else's. But you, by golly! You turned around and said to the people behind you: "Watch her, the one with the golden bar; she's my little daughter." Then you waved to me. How could you embarrass me so much?
Why couldn't you be smooth and elegant like Mother? Why couldn't you have been born in glorious Vienna like mother and us children, instead of that Bohemian village that no one ever heard of?
And why did you give me never-ending sermons about being good, dutiful and loving? Why did you have to teach me the Ten Commandments and ask me-one by one-if I obeyed them? Didn't you know that only unenlightened people believed in God's existence?
Later you did a few things I liked. You started to make our dinner conversations really interesting. You were then a judge in some court; and you made up trials, between two feuding parties, for us children. Then you asked us to be the judges, to state our verdict and to explain how we arrived at this verdict. At the end of the "trial" you often said to Mother: "The little one always hits the nail on the head." I enjoyed the game and was flattered by your praise.
Then in 1926 you came down with pleurisy. You were lying in bed with a high fever, and the perspiration was running down your face. I was standing by your bed with many towels wiping the perspiration off your forehead. I was then sixteen years old.
You pleaded over. and over: "I want no one else to do that for me. Only my little daughter." Even though Mother was not present, I still felt as if she were looking over my shoulder and saying to you, "Don't you know that you shouldn't speak like this to a sixteen-year-old girl?"
Then you went to the hospital for surgery-they didn't have any antibiotics at that time. And after the surgery you died. The doctors said it was a heart attack. Your heart had been weakened through the strain of combat, imprisonment and escape. You, a full-blooded Jew, died for Germany!
But before you died I sat at your bedside in the hospital, and you said, "You must promise me . . ." And I promised.
For most of my life I forgot what I had promised.
Forgive me, Father.
Forgive me for having looked down upon the Jews with caftans, beards and sideburns. Those Jews with their sad eyes who are a part of me, a part which I could not accept.
Forgive me for having looked down on you because you came from poor and lowly parents.
Forgive me for having eyes that could not see how much you loved me.
Forgive me for having ears that could not hear the voice that taught me truth and faith and justice.
Forgive me that I could not love you.
After you died there was no pain, just emptiness, an emptiness that lasted many years. And then, from the tiny seed that you had planted in my growing mind, sprang a green twig, first small, then bigger, and finally the twig grew into a tree. The tree is strong and firm and straight; it is the tree of life, the tree of kindly, compassionate values, the tree of my own new life.
Look at the tree, Father, and answer the one burning question in my heart:
Father, have I kept my promise?
Two more ahead of me and then it is my turn. I will not let them cure me. I will not return to the bland and trivial world of normal people.
The line gets shorter, and I see it is a liquid. I take the little plastic cup and put the small amount of yellowish liquid into my mouth. I then put my hands around my neck, go into contortions of nausea and spit so that it looks like puking. (I learned this as a child when I had to take cod liver oil.) I figure that when they see my delicate stomach cannot take the smell and taste of Thorazine they will give me capsules, right?
Wrong. The two boxers who did not like my Catholic devotion appear again in a split second and hold me down while the nurse gives me the medication by injection.
I have five hours until the next installment of Thorazine will be due. This gives me time to practice holding a liquid in my mouth without swallowing it and looking natural while doing so. It's real easy as long as you don't speak, but suppose someone asks you a question?
Try it, Dream Reader. Try to fill your mouth with water and say "Testing, one, two, three, testing" and see what happens. Thus, I have to drink my potion after each meal and at bedtime.
Thorazine and similar drugs have been praised because they have emptied mental hospitals and permitted "those less fortunate ones" to resume their,proper place in the community. My foot!
Let me tell you how this medicine affects me. I become drowsy, indifferent and depressed. I welcome it at bedtime because it makes me sleep so well, but who wants to sleep during the day, especially in the middle of a revolution?
I notice the change most drastically when we (the ward ladies) go down to OT. My coordination has become very bad, and even getting there is quite fatiguing. I look around the workshop. Is this the place that I viewed as a magician's lab only a short time ago?. Now I see a sad-looking assembly of wool, wood, paint and cloth with dismal-looking people slowly stitching and carving like robots or slaves.
The teacher says, "You have finished two oil paintings, do you want to do another one?"
"No, I would not know what to paint. I am on medication and I don't think I can do anything," I whine.
"Yes you can. Let's start with something easy."
She brings me a hook, colored wool and a large cloth that looks like burlap. Then she explains what to do.
First I have to draw, in pencil, a design or a picture on the burlap. I draw a little house, a tree, a fence, a lawn, a path, a sky, and clouds. Exactly the same picture I drew when I was still alive. It is impossible for me to think of something new.
Then I start the hooking. It is difficult. It takes me ages to thread the wool. It is also hard to push the hook right through the burlap, to fish for a new strand, and coax it upward through the hole.
I get exasperated and humiliate myself by asking the teacher for something still easier.
I end up making pot holders. I take the wool and needle to the ward and make one after the other so as not to have to think. Life has gone out of me. I get no treatment beside the Thorazine, hook therapy, watch bowling, and the like. Dr. Dalton speaks to me from time to time, right on the ward in everybody's presence, for five minutes. I tell him, "I felt so good, but since I started Thorazine I am depressed and barely living."
"Your ward behavior surely has improved," he remarks casually. Now I understand! The antischizophrenic drugs are meant to cure you, not by making you happy, creative and loving, but by making you tractable. The hospital is satisfied, since sitting in a rocking chair and making pot holders is a sure way of avoiding trouble.
And soon, the doctors think, I will be able to live in the community, where, filled with Thorazine, I can score tests and compute IQ's instead of reenacting the Revolutionary War.
My Jesus delusion is gradually fading. The other patients are just patients, not figures from the gospel; and the beautiful woman whom I called Maria because I thought she would play Jesus' mother is just a housewife from Fort Wayne named Edna.
But within me is still a glowing sun, now buried and invisible, waiting for the moment to erupt and shine. Perhaps the Thorazine does more than change you into a robot. Perhaps it gives you rest to heal inside until it's time, until it's time.
The flock of geese (of which I am one) goes to the snack bar several times a week. So do the doctors, nurses, aides, et cetera, et cetera. Patients stand in long lines to get coffee, soft drinks, milk shakes, candy or toothpaste. The staff lines up in shorter lines. Then we sit around heavy tables, patients with patients, doctors with doctors, aides with aides, except that one aide sits at every patients' table.
I don't like candy bars, milk shakes, soft drinks or coffee, and if I would buy toothpaste every time it would be viewed as a perversion. I do force down some gooey stuff so that my chart won't say REFUSES SNACK.
One day I sit at a table alone with my required Hershey bar, expecting other patients and an aide to join me. Then something unexpected happens. Dr. Sorcy joins me. He is the counterculture doctor who spoke on my behalf during the trial. .
"How are you, Dr. ]oelson?" He is the only one who calls me doctor. "I am much better since you spoke during the staff meeting. Did you get flack?"
He smiles. "Oh yes. But does it matter?"
And now both of us smile. Since Tobey left there has not been a flow of love between another person and myself (except my ex-husband, some students and some colleagues)
"What a glorious vision to play the role of Christ!" says Dr. Sorcy. The tears stream from my eyes, and Dr. Sorcy says quickly, "Let's change seats."
Now I face the wall and he the snack shop. No one can see me cry. I use my napkin so as not to dig into my bra in Dr. Sorcy's presence. Finally I recover my composure, and a flash of that familiar high zigzags through me. Sorcy and Joelson versus Thorazine.
And like a fish back in the water, I want to tell him, tell him, tell him about the wonders I have seen.
I start excitedly, "Everyone thinks it is so dreadful to have hallucinations or-as you call them-visions. But it is one of the most beautiful gifts I ever received-the gift to see the world quite differently than I saw it all my life-I couldn't believe that such transfigurations really happen. "
Dr. Sorcy does not say anything, instead he laughs and laughs and laughs. He does not laugh about me. He seems to laugh as if something obvious, hidden for centuries, has suddenly come to light.
Then he seems to speak more to himself than to me: "It was like a miracle. You could transform the world in which we live into a passion play. You walked on the streets of a small Midwestern town and transfigured it into holy ground. As it were, you walked where Christ walked 2,000 years ago."
"But why that horror in the faces of people at St. Mary when I told them?"
"Your rapture is not accepted in the world in which we live. You know that Faulkner wrote, 'Craziness ain't so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it,"'
I interrupt, "Oh yes, of course!"
"And then we cured you. Now a small Midwestern town is just a small Midwestern town and nothing more."
"Yes, the world is cold and empty."
He whispers consolingly: "But you'll recover! Then you will not want to transform the world into a passion play, but you will have moments when you can look at the real world with rapture, when everything around you becomes enthralled and glorious. There'll still be many mysteries for you to solve."
I venture, "Perhaps my 'vision' was not a breakdown but a breakthrough? "
And he says weightily, "Oh yes, perhaps it was."
Then I complain, "I felt so holy, but now I'm told it's a disease."
"It doesn't matter what you call it. I studied your transfigurations of reality quite thoroughly. You have a longing for oneness. At Valley View every single thing had to fit your notion that people wanted money from you. Even Tobey, whom you loved dearly, became suspect. Then the patients' poverty and your wealth vanished completely from your mind, and every single thing was caused by pills. And later,", at St. Mary, you were not satisfied until the convent, the town and the entire world had one prime mover: Christ, reenacted by yourself. You must be nostalgic for the centuries when everybody believed in one prime mover, in Providence."
I am intrigued. "How come you are so different from all these doctors?".
He blushes and explains, "I took a class which made me see the world of mental illness in a new light."
I ask with great surprise, "A class?"
"Yes, I took a class."
"A class in medical school?"
He shakes his head.
"Then where?"
"In the Department of Psychology."
I am almost too surprised to speak. "Psychology? But where?" "In Indiana, at Purdue University."
My heart pounds heavily. "What class was it, what was the name?" He whispers,
"Abnormal psychology taught by Dr. Joelson." My lips begin to tremble.
He fumbles for his wallet and fingers awkwardly until he finds a photograph. He hands me the picture over the table and explains, "'This is how I looked without a beard and with short hair."
I exclaim, "Tom, is it really you?"
He answers with tears in his voice, "Yes, Dr. Joelson."
Then we walk silently back to the flock, the two' of us, once teacher and student, now student and teacher. He says, "So long," and I sit down to finish my pot holder before we go to supper.
Today something incredible happened: I was called to the telephone. It raised my status enormously that someone from the outside world wanted to talk to me-not to my doctor, no, to me in person.
Dream Reader, I'd like to blurt it out immediately and tell you who it was, but there is something that you have to know so you will understand. When I found out that I was to play the role of Christ, I resigned from my tenured position as a full professor at Purdue, where I had worked for about eleven years with utmost dedication. Who wants to work at some old school if she can travel with a passion show from town to town, from state to state as Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself?
I hold the receiver to my ear with my right hand, clenching the pot holder in my left fist.
"This is Dr. _, chairman of psychology at Duke University. We would like to offer you a position as a visiting professor at Duke for this next school year beginning in September." (It is late July.)
I say with trembling voice, "I can't decide so quickly."
"We have to know by August 10."
"I'll get back to you," I stammer.
Now I am sitting on a bench, speechless and numb. What if the doctors won't permit it? If they will keep me imprisoned in this Thorazine bar? Might it be better not to tell them now and try my best to speed up my recovery? Then on August 10, I shall face my judges and demand my freedom. And this is what I decide to do.
Next morning, after breakfast, I try to write my journal again. But Thorazine does not approve; it holds the still unfinished pot holder before my eyes. Mazie agrees with Thorazine and says, "Finish your pretty pot holder, Miz Joelson. Mrs. Fender will be here at 9:00 and bring new wool in different colors to make another one."
"Yes," I yawn. But I know that sweet Mazie's mind wanders far and fast and she will never notice if I don't finish the execrated pot holder.
Thus I get some paper and an envelope from the unknown aide who guards the counter and write:
To: Dr. Tom Sorcy
From: Edith Joelson
When I was mad I flooded the outer world with
my inner life until the world disappeared and
everything became dream, wish, and fantasy. But
if the mad person does not become too fearful of
this ocean of inner life, she will be able to withdraw
the flood slowly and lovingly and see the earth
again, an earth which is no longer withered and
dry, an earth which is now bathed in the nectar of
the human soul.
Now the reply:
To: Dr. Edith Joelson
From: Tom Sorcy
Yes. I agree.
Therefore you must get well. You have a lot
to do. You have to teach and write. Those who go
into madness and are able to return from it bring
treasures with them which they must share.
Withdraw the flood and see the earth again!
My life has changed so much. I know I'll soon be well.
A few days later I sit again with Hershey bar and much anticipation in the snack room at an empty table. Soon Dr. Sorcy joins me saying he has spoken with Dr. Dalton, who has agreed to let him work with me under supervision on little projects.
"Stop all this silly stuff-pot holders and hooked rugs and whatnot. What do you really want to do?"
"To play the role of Christ in a passion play."
"Then play the role of Christ."
"But how?"
"What is it about Christ you want to emulate?"
"He was a teacher and a preacher and said things to people which are true and cleansing."
"Then teach and preach."
"Here on the ward?"
"No, not here on the ward. But isn't writing a form of teaching, too?"
"Yes, but the Thorazine . . ."
"Oh, you are stronger than the Thorazine. You wrote a beautiful little essay just a few days ago."
I gave in and started to write. One paragraph or two a day, then I got scared and tired. It took me sixteen days to write what I needed to say. When I finished, I sealed the manuscript and sent it to Dr. Sorcy.
I was released from Pineville Mental Hospital in time to start teaching in the fall semester of 1966 at Duke University.
A Letter to My Unborn Schizophrenic Son
My Dear,
After daydreaming much about you, I finally decided not to conceive you. This decision occurred a long time ago, when I was still young enough to bear children.
Today I should like to speak to you, my unborn son. I should like to explain to you why you are unborn. I should also like to tell you today, my dear unborn child, how I have experienced a gradual changing of heart and I wish, at last, you had come into the world.
I made my decision not to give birth to you because I was a different kind of person and feared that I would pass my genes of differentness onto you. I feared you would be born "schizophrenic." My expectation of such a dreadful tragedy, as many would perceive it, was based on two considerations.
First, there is some evidence that a disposition to become schizophrenic can be hereditary. I began to notice at a very early age that I was unusual in many ways. This observation persisted into adulthood and is still with me today during this summer evening which I am spending with you. When I started to study psychology, I began to realize that an overwhelming number of these differences between myself and others were warning signals of schizophrenia. My suspicion did not prove unfounded since later, at the age of fifty-two, I did suffer what psychology calls a "schizophrenic episode."
I also began to recognize that these differences could make me the kind of mother who, I have read, allegedly-contributes to the development of a schizoid personality in her child. Thus, I decided not to pass on to you genes that might have channeled your life in a direction which society and the world have called "evil" and "ill" as a condemnation without the possibility of redemption.
Today, as a mature woman, I ask myself, What is good and what is evil? Would you now call schizoid evil or ill? I would not. Who is to say what is healthy and what is sick? As a student I gullibly accepted the words of my professors, physicians, and the books I read, as the final authority on these matters. But now I wonder if all these learned people have considered asking "evil" and "ill" people why they find it so difficult to understand their differentness. The schizophrenics' way of looking at life, the objects and goals they value, the styles in which they live, differ from those professors, physicians, and authors-the mainstream people in society-to such an extent that the two species just cannot understand each other.
When I was an adolescent, I valued the aspects of my personality which resembled those of others, while I was ashamed of and tried to hide the aspects of myself which did not conform to the norms. Only now, in my fifties, do I recognize that often those parts of ourselves which distinguish us from others are the ones which help us find the unique roles we are meant to play in life. I now believe, my unborn son, you would have been a unique person in this difficult world in which you would have lived.
What would you have been like if you had been born? For one thing, you would have been a "stranger" to life, a schizophrenic among so-called normals. There are so many different societies-an inhabitant of the United States who is liked by his peers would be considered quite odd among a tribe living off the shore of eastern New Guinea.
The degrading term "schizophrenic" makes it difficult to consider that we may be of some use to society. Therefore, why not call ourselves Strangers? Then we would call normal people, to whom the mainstream of society seems to be their oyster, Natives.
Strangers and Natives do not represent two separate groups. Instead, they represent a continuum of people, most of whom possess characteristics of both kinds-of both Natives and Strangers. It is for didactic reasons only that I am speaking of Natives and Strangers as two separate groups rather than as points on a continuum.
Those Natives have much to say about us Strangers, especially those Natives whom society has told to label us, study us, explain us, care for us, and use us.
While many of us are popular, friendly and sociable, we find it difficult to form truly intimate and lasting relationships with others. Perhaps those who judge us are trying to say that we cannot love. Many of us Strangers can "love" quite well. Many of us are sexually and emotionally skillful and competent. But they say we cannot love. This accusation hurts me most. For it is impossible to interact with Natives without noticing that emotionally intimate human relations are one of the things that keeps them alive. Thus, in this respect your life would have been a hard one. Unless you were a handsome and intelligent young man, your distant, foggy look would have challenged others to get close to you, to love you, and teach you how to love.
Strangers can love intensely, even if it is a "love" Natives call "immature" and "inconsequential." These Natives don't understand that we Strangers have an overwhelming ability to develop a kind of love which might be called infatuation. We become easily infatuated with individuals whose private lives are mostly unfamiliar to us and then can be filled with our own dreams. Teachers, actors, and athletes are those public personalities we will often become infatuated with.
We also become infatuated with our psychotherapists. And we "sick" Strangers often find ourselves under their care. Sigmund Freud called the love of patient for therapist "transference" and predicted we Strangers could not be analyzed because we are too narcissistic, or self-loving, to enter into this necessary and beneficial transference. We now know that Freud was mistaken. We "fall in love" with our therapists all the time. In fact, many Strangers need to worship someone who does not quite exist in our reality, someone who is half-known and half-unknown, half-real and half-dream.
We Strangers have converted psychotherapy into something quite creative to our existence-something it was not originally meant to do. While less unusual patients might undergo therapy to help them live more fully outside the therapy situation, many Strangers find that the psychotherapeutic session itself becomes their whole reason for living. When they get the first taste of a transference relationship, they realize immediately that this is the elixir which they have been yearning for alltheir lives. And their lives become acceptable, happy, even blissful when they bring the fantasy figure of the therapist into their personal lives. And now it does not matter anymore whether life's realities are dull or bright, for there is always a presence which transfigures their world into a place of enchantment. Thus, many Strangers do not have the desire to be changed by the therapist. Instead, they desire to incorporate the therapist into their lives.
And it is only now that I come to my point. Many Strangers are the real religious devotees of our time. Many Strangers have an insatiable yearning to worship a metaphysical figure, to seek God. They have skipped centuries of our history, have rejected pure empiricism, and have never accepted the death of God. Indeed they will secretly transform into a God any human being who offers love but remains veiled in mystery. They must indeed be thirsty for worship if they can worship a psychotherapist who may not even be an especially admirable person, who may not show any real love for the worshipper, may feel vastly superior to the Stranger, and may abuse the Stranger's thirst for worship by selling himself for a high price as an idol.
In contrast, many "normal" Natives of our time do not even admit or recognize their religious needs. These needs often remain unconscious or veiled: what Viktor Frankl calls "religious bashfulness." They deny a profound and essential part of their real nature as human beings:
Thou has made us for Thee
And our hearts will not be at rest until they rest
in Thee. -St. Augustine
Accepting this, then, we can see that of all people in our contemporary society-empirical, scientific, materialistic and manipulative as it is-those Strangers who tirelessly seek their God offer a glimpse of a creative model for existence.
Those Strangers in society find those potentialities which the Native has neglected.
Let me tell you about a conversation between a Stranger and her Freudian analyst. The Stranger had very limited finances. She earned a small salary which she used to support herself, to contribute. to the support of her mother; and to pay for her analysis. She was content with this arrangement as a temporary condition and viewed the goal of becoming more affluent as a side issue rather than as a main goal. The therapist considered her lack of economic ambition "neurotic." He said, "The fact that you are content living in a furnished room eating in cheap restaurants, and owning a minimum amount of clothes shows that you get all your satisfaction from your fantasies rather than from reality. Other people desire to buy a house, a car, pretty clothes, and they care about owning nice silver rather than the dimes tore forks and knives which you bought yesterday." In order to understand the significance of this statement, you need to know that this Stranger's life was taken up with highly fulfilling activities. First, she was being psychoanalyzed, which means that her life was filled with worship. Second, she had a highly fulfilling relationship, which reached an unusual degree of affection and compatibility, with her lover. Finally, she experienced her teaching as a calling, and her positive influence on her students indicated that this perception was not fantasy, but reality. But, according to her analyst she was sick because her life did not conform to the materialistic values of mainstream society. My son, you must have guessed that this Stranger was I.
A conventional life with conventional goals rarely appeals to a Stranger. When he is told what he is missing by not pursuing money, permanent friendships, lasting sexual relations, family fun, and other American activities, he tends to wonder whether all such goals are enough to give up his mad, searching, unpredictable life with all its adversities. His life may be painful at times, but it is uniquely his. He has a deep conviction that this is the way he is meant to live.
One author, a psychotherapist, describes the Stranger as being willing to give up everything beyond the bare necessities of life. He then continues by saying that the Stranger would even go so far as to lower his social status and to associate with people of a lower socioeconomic level. Is it not shocking that a psychiatrist considers it the ultimate sacrifice to associate with people of lower status? Is it not true that people of lower status with regard to income and education are often people of higher status with regard to friendship, love and faith? Jesus must have been a Stranger, for he said: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). Thus, we are at times confronted with the remarkable situation in which a Native attempts to "cure" a person of a higher spiritual and moral nature than he. Is it not that at these times the blind attempt to lead the one-eyed?
My son, had you been born we would have spent much time talking together, trying to help each other understand the nature of Strangers and Natives, wondering how the two can communicate with each other. For, after all, it is important for us to know what kind of people we Strangers are and what we can give each other and to Natives. But things being as they are, I have to do my studying alone, with only the shadow of your eternal presence shimmering by my side.
My studies at the university were often painful because my teachers were Natives; their words and their books described us as crippled and diseased. And, on the one hand, they were right, because there are so many things we cannot do which seem to come so easily to the Natives. But then, there are often things which come quite naturally to us which Natives find extremely hard to do. In so many ways, some of which I mentioned earlier, we Strangers seem to compensate for features which are missing in the world of Natives, and, in turn, Natives emphasize the aspects of life which are alien to us. It would take many volumes to elaborate on all the aspects of life in which this is the case. But the most important contrast between our hosts and us is perhaps their emphasis on the drama of life which occurs in the external world versus our emphasis on me drama of life which occurs within us. Perhaps all other differences are only special aspects of this main one.
Unfortunately, in almost every case the Native's ways tend to be viewed as valid, realistic, healthy, and constructive, while the Stranger's ways tend to be viewed in a negative light in the society at large. This is only natural, since Natives are in the majority.
Thus, you, being a Stranger, would have found yourself frequently pushed to the outer fringes of society. You probably would have found yourself rejected and misunderstood in a great variety of ways. There are two manners in which you might have responded to your minority status.
First, you could have repressed or denied everything in you that is mad, irrational, childish, and dreamlike in order to pretend to be like the Natives. Then you might have led a life undistinguished from many other lives and you might even have attained a considerable amount of success, such as I have. But as you grew older, you would gradually-at first only faintly, then strongly, and later unbearably-become haunted by the feeling that you have played a role rather than lived a life. This is the first thing you might have done with your life as a Stranger. This is what I have done with mine.
But, there is a second way in which you might have lived. You could have become a revolutionary. You could have actively worked to overthrow the views of those Natives who call us evil and ill. Like Blacks and women in my day, you could have joined hands with your brothers and sisters and marched in peaceful rebellion against those who would reject us, scorn us and use us. And like monks in a religious order, you might express, in the world that you were part of, an order too-one which preserves the dreams, the values, and the ways of life which Natives have lost, and which we would most willingly restore to them. We can accept their scorn, my son, or we can march. And I would have marched with you-had you been born step by step, myself a Stranger and the mother of a Stranger. I would have marched right by your side down the liberating road of life.
Here ends my letter to you, my unborn schizophrenic son. It is dated the Fourth of July. The Day of Independence is a good day to write to you. To spend time all by oneself, writing to an unborn son, while other mothers take their born sons out to play, is strange indeed. It may be strange, but it is neither sick nor is it evil. It is just different, but filled with purpose and meaning: if thousands and thousands of voices would tell the world that we are their sisters and their brothers, then someday you will be born. Not to myself, for I am too old. But of a lovely and determined young woman, who will be proud to be the mother of a Stranger.


text:
"We will let them know that there are clinics that provide HIV testing anonymously and for free." Of the 185,000 MSM population in Bangkok, 1/3 are at high-risk of HIV – they are young, have multiple partners, and often don't have safe sex. "Sex workers generally understand the importance of protection. It is why we must work beyond this circle and reach MSM as well," says Chamrong.
Using Innovation While community-based outreach remains at the core of SWING's activities – they hold workshops in bars before they open, walk along popular stretches to distribute pamphlets and encourage health checkups – more innovative ways are now being used to reach MSM.
Thailand's favorite social networking and international dating site claims to have created over 100,000 relationships in the last seven years in Thailand and over 190 foreign countries throughout the world.
TLL in Thailand is Thai Love Lines.com, one of Thailand's largest websites and Thailand's No. Based on the outskirts of Bangkok within the Muang Thong Thani complex, the Thai dating site is particularly popular for Thais seeking international dating or Thai singles looking for relationships in Thailand and throughout the world.
Today it spins money off its no-holds-barred reputation and its most successful sex workers earn anywhere between 70-150,000 baht (-4,400) a month, as much as ten times the national average wage."I make good money here, for me and my family," May told AFP as she touted for clients near 'Walking Street' ?
- a mile-long drag festooned with bars and clubs pouring out ear-crushing EDM music. s reputation have spurred authorities to act, while frequent reports of underage sex workers, drug abuse and mafia operations further muddy Pattaya? May, who is transgender, said the strip has felt more subdued in recent weeks as police and soldiers conduct frequent patrols as part of a clean-up ordered by the censorious ruling junta.
As he spoke, lines of women stood behind him in revealing outfits enticing punters into bars with names like Taboo and G-Spot as well as Fahrenheit -- a nightspot boasting "The Hottest Girls in Pattaya"."The lady boys and women working there, they are not involved in the sex trade," said Pattaya's police chief Colonel Apichai Kroppeth, echoing the kind of Thai police rhetoric commonly divorced from reality."They work as waitresses, sit and chat with customers, some dance in shows," he said.- Bar fines, short-times -For many residents of the city the latest moral outrage fits a familiar pattern: negative overseas headlines prompt authorities to launch high-visibility -- yet limited -- crackdowns on an industry that pays the bills for everyone."You're expecting the poachers to be the gamekeepers?
One variation is that taxi drivers or tuk tuk drivers will tell you that the grand palace is closed today for some special/Buddhist ceremony while you are still on the cab/tuk tuk.In a daring nautical themed outfit, sex worker May confidently predicts the survival of Thai sleaze town Pattaya despite a junta attempt to tame the kingdom's "Sin City".She is bullish because she, like tens of thousands of others in the industry, have no plans to give up their jobs.The success of the Thai dating site is due to its ability to innovate and develop new and imaginative communications facilities allowing Thai singles to find friends and develop relationships on the web.Initially set up in 2007 by two foreigners, the TLL dating site is owned and run by a Thai company which also operates other internet based media ventures proving news, dating and entertainment services.


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I love these colorful and easy table settings for summer entertaining. Makes you want to throw a party right now! From Country Living.
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text: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (New Mexico) is one of the most tranquil spots on earth. Awaiting me each time I go there is an array of wild life, and there's always something different. Peacefulness permeates my spirit as I slowly move through the preserve. The colors of reeds and grasses are pastel and the sunsets usually shine soft pink on the water filled with snow geese and sandhill cranes. The sandhill cranes, pictured here, are exemplary of the delights that treat the eyes and lift the spirit. The warmth carried home with me is priceless.


text:
Our Southern Hospitality Tip this week is:
Dress Your Best To Impress- It is very important to dress your best. Image leaves a lasting impression upon others. One of our Southern Hospitality Polos will help help your image and help you spread hospitality!
I hope everyone had a great weekend, and for those that went to the Carolina Cup I hope you had a good time down in Camden!
We at Port Southern love our horse racing, as Im sure you have noticed with some of our events that we are going to, including one that we will be talking more about this week.
Today, orders continue to go out and with the Spring weather approaching here in North Carolina we hope more of you get your Spring Port Southern products.
Look forward to our next blog about an event that Port Southern will be attending this weekend, and before I go our good friend Chris D'Alessandro from Virginia Commonwealth University sent in the following photo of one of our Camo Port Southern Croakies at the Richmond Monument 10k race.
Thanks for the photo Chris, and if anyone else wants to show their Port Southern pride with a photo then just email it to us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Your Friend,
Fine Clothing With Southern Hospitality
For more information please visit our website at www.portsouthern.com!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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My house smells lovely!
June 2017 - Tampa, FL
The cleaning and professionalism we're perfect in all other respects except for the floors. I have changed my mind on the rating, please increase my rating by 1 so it is just one less than amazing. Thanks.
June 2017 - Tampa, FL
Arrived early. Great communication. Great job! House was super clean and smelled amazing. Our family is super happy. Thank you.
June 2017 - Tampa, FL


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Peer reviewed
ERIC Number: EJ560130
Record Type: CIJE
Publication Date: 1996
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: N/A
Reference Count: 0
Two Case Studies of Artistically Gifted Down Syndrome Persons.
Klager, Max
Visual Arts Research, v22 n44 p35-46 Fall 1996
Reviews two long-term case studies examining the art produced by two artistically gifted Down Syndrome patients. Their work shows a unique personal style characterized by flat, nonperspective compositions, canonical and mixed profile shapes, and symmetry. Both artists depict androgynous persons in their untutored drawings. Includes drawing samples (MJP)
Descriptors: Adult Development, Adult Education, Art Activities, Art Education, Art Expression, Art Therapy, Case Studies, Cognitive Development, Downs Syndrome, Freehand Drawing, Gifted Disabled, Individual Development, Mild Mental Retardation, Perceptual Development, Self Expression, Skill Development
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A


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Sunday, March 9, 2008
Entrecôte Béarnaise & Pommes Pailles
this is by far, one of our finest culinary experiments. I wandered blindly into the world of emulsions, and emerged with a bowl of béarnaise as silken as banana cream pie, minus the banana and well, the pie. This perfectly smothered rib-eye was accompanied by a petite and crispy mountain of shoestring potatoes -- remarkably well-engineered with minimal mess by the accomplished Sous Chef, and some simple sauteed spinach. Merci de cette délicieuse soirée!
Posted by Lauren at 8:00 PM
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Her gurgles grow more animated and I am guessing she isn't about to put herself back to sleep. I come down to be greeted, as always, with a radiant smile.
I change the diaper, re-swaddle her and cross my fingers.
I leave the window open, listening for her shouts, murmurs or cries and go outside, seeking out the flower of the day. I'll show you ones that are just at the cusp of a full bloom: the gentle, affable Baptista (blue wild indigo) and, of course, an iris:
Indoors again. Snowdrop is still moving, dozing, articulating, eyes closed, open, closed. It's not even 9, but I decide to get our breakfast together now. Ever so quietly.
The morning meal would have been on the porch, even if I wasn't trying for the impossible -- keeping Ed quiet while the baby (I hope) dozes. It is that warm of a morning. I set the table, put out the fruits, honeys, flowers and listen. All quiet inside. Ed and I sit down to eat.
Not for long. Through the open window I hear her chatter. It's strong and lovely and insistent. She's not sleeping. She wants to be up.
(by Ed)
(by Ed)
As I sit there and she grins with utter joy (Ed: why is she so happy?), I think about how adaptable children are. As the stand-in caretaker, I try to replicate to the letter the rhythm and routine of Snowdrop's life at home. But the rhythms of the farmhouse are beginning to seep in. I can't really name the factors that gently swayed her in our direction: is it that the light comes in strong and loud here, begging all those inside to come out and enjoy the day? Is it that our energy is lower in the evening and so she starts to wind down along with us, far earlier than she would at home? For any number of reasons, she has slowly moved closer to a farmette life (and I'm sure, within a day will ease back to her habits at home).
I bathe her in the kitchen sink again. This time she knows the tub and understands that here, too, she can play.
After breakfast? Oh, you know. The sitting up (which she has grandly mastered... except when she topples!):
The romping and twisting and playing and laughing.
Too, we feed the cheepers. Oreo rewards us with many loud vocalizations. (Yes, grandma, at the farmette, a rooster crows!)
But the day begs for a bigger adventure. It's my last big fling with the little one! Oh sure, there are the daily encounters, but once or twice a year I get to really know her in this special way. She has no choice -- I am the recipient of her moods, her pouts, her laughter, her triumphs and mishaps. And every bit of it is, for me, thrilling. Somehow, we must finish grandly.
I tell Ed that perhaps an outing to the Olbricht Gardens might be lovely. He asks to come along and so the three of us set out to this sixteen acre treasure trove of plantings.
It's getting quite warm -- hot, in fact. I know Snowdrop prefers cooler air even as we're in the thick of a heat spell. Keeping her out of the sun isn't too hard -- the stroller has an awning and, too, there are plenty of shady trees in the gardens.
The last time I was here with Ed, I was disappointed. I felt more could be done in this showcase of perennial beds, bushes and trees. But this time, I am enthralled. It's Snowdrop's fault!
(by Ed)
This is wedding season and so a section of the garden is closed off for ceremonial purposes, but there's plenty left for us to see -- including the Thai pavilion which looks especially splendid and regal from the perspective of what I gather is the naturalizing bulb fields.
On a shady path, between birches and forget-me-nots and hostas, I take Snowdrop out (again? -- asks Ed, who thinks I should just let her sit back and chill...) to see if she is willing to stand up and take a step or two.
(by Ed)
And she is! As if overnight, her legs have gotten stronger and she can support herself without me having to take the weight of her increasingly tall frame.
There were many milestones for me in the four days that she was here. So many of them showed off her strength and determination that it seems fitting that I should end with the hug that I could share with her after this brief little "walk" in the gardens.
(by Ed)
In the evening the deliriously happy parents come to pick her up and take her home.
After supper, Ed and I go out to weed the veggie patch. In pulling up one root after the next until it is too dark to see much of anything, I think back to my four days with my granddaughter. What was the biggest challenge? Keeping Ed quiet in the morning and, too, keeping her relaxed and content in the evening. The greatest joy? Oh, you know -- all of it. The package. The fullness of each day, each minute. The smiles.


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"The AXILE G8 brings to the UK market a new dimension of high-end, high-speed, five-axis machining at competitive prices," says Ward CNC Managing Director Simon Whitworth.
"Our customers now have access to a machine with a proven track record in industry sectors that include aerospace - where it is efficiently and effectively machining turbine blades and other complex workpieces, for example. Crucially, the machine's price-competitiveness will enable UK companies to enjoy similar success but at a price for capability that few will match."
The announcement that Ward CNC – which is based in Sheffield and Redditch - is handling the machine manufactured by Buffalo Machinery in Taiwan on an exclusive distributor basis in the UK and Ireland, complements and enhances its already well-established ranges from Hyundai Wia, Hartford, Takisawa Japan, Takisawa Taiwan, Soraluce and Hankook.
Buffalo Machinery has been manufacturing machine tools since 1997 (the company was established in 1979) and it applies this long-established expertise in the AXILE G8's construction.
The G8 model incorporates a Kessler (Germany) 800 mm diameter table for workpieces weighing 1,300 kgs and X, Y and Z axes capacities of 670 mm by 820 mm by 600 mm.
The machine's positioning capability of 0.008 mm and repeatability of 0.004 mm are provided via direct servo-driven double roller-type linear guideways and linear measurement feedback scales (0.0001 mm resolution) on the X, Y and Z axes with pre-loaded double nut ballscrews. The Y axis has twin LH and RH linear guideways, drive and measurement system, and the Z axis incorporates a three-guideway design for enhanced rigidity and cutting performance. Available feed rate in X, Y and Z is 60 m/min.
Oil-cooled rotary torque motors drive the rotary C axis with dual torque motor drive on the swivelling A axis (+/- 5 secs of arc rotary scale feedback). The 360 deg C axis positions at 100 rev/min and the A axis (+/- 120 deg) has a positioning speed of 80 rev/min. Hydraulic brakes are incorporated in every element to enhance cutting capability when static. The 800 mm diameter tee-slotted table platen is prepared with three 80-bar hydraulic ports and a 6-bar pneumatic port for fixture and workholding management.
The G8 design incorporates many features, such as 24 individual temperature sensors throughout the entire machine to feedback operational thermal status to the CNC system, for accuracy performance enhancement and specialised coolant delivery, flushing and swarf management.
Two Kessler HSK A63 synchronous motor spindles options are available incorporating air/oil lubrication - 39 kW, 15,000 revs/min, 187 Nm and 35 kW, 20,000 revs/min, 130 Nm. The spindle has 20-bar through-spindle coolant as standard, with options up to 70-bar pressure and higher, including stepless programmable pressure, cartridge and paper band filtration plus additional coolant management features.
Twin automatic tool exchange carousels with 32/64, 48/96 or 60/120 tools are mounted in the machine behind the spindle, offering an automatic toolchange capacity up to 120 tools to facilitate sister tools, complex parts machining and unmanned operation.
Two laser toolsetting options are available – U-type table-mounted for high accuracy or wall-to-wall type with auto protection covers for enhanced protection.
The G8 is ergonomically designed to provide good user-friendly features for the operator, such as automatic sliding roof to facilitate loading and unloading by overhead crane, and close access to the worktable and spindle.
There is a choice of CNC system – Heidenhain iTNC 530 or TNC 640, Siemens 840D or Fanuc 31iMB5 – and innovative Smart Technology control functionality is embedded in the machine's Industry 4.0 strategies.
Standard features include Kinematics, Dynamic Collision Monitoring, Tool Centre Point Management, Tilted Working Plane, Collision Avoidance, 5-Axis Transformation and much more. Additional AXILE features include:
TPC - Tool-tip Positioning Control – real-time direct displacement measuring/monitoring for enhanced accuracy;
SVS – Spindle Vibration Supervision – spindle vibration monitoring and real-time control technology offers three levels of spindle vibration monitoring;
MRRO - Metal Removal Rate Optimisation – chatter-free machining via cutting force monitoring;
AAC - Axial Accuracy Control – thermal monitoring and compensation provided by 24 strategically-mounted thermal sensors.
Options include automatic workpiece measurement, and automatic compensation of linear and rotary axes displacement via Heidenhain Kinematics functionality. As standard, the machine is supplied with chain-type chip conveyor.
The result is a first-class machine tool offering exceptional performance, accuracy, quality and a range of features at a price range that offers exceptional value.
The latest AXILE G6 model, which offers a design that accommodates full factory automation capability, can be viewed soon at Ward CNC – but the G8 model can be seen being put through its paces at Ward CNC's Sheffield head office showroom, where several open house events are being planned.
Call Ward CNC's sales team on 0114 276 5411 to register an interest in attending one of these demonstration days, where details will also be provided of available tailored finance packages, and preventative maintenance and extended warranty packages.
AXILE G8 - 5-Axis Overhead Gantry Type Vertical Machining Centre
Hyundai-Wia HD2200C FANUC 0iT
Takisawa Taiwan FX-800 - Slant Bed, Y-Axis CNC Lathe, Twin Spindle & Twin Turrets
Hartford PBM135A - Cross Bed Type, Live Spindle Horizontal Boring & Milling Machine
Hartford Super HCMC1682 - Open Fronted Vertical Machining Centre
Takisawa Taiwan FX600 - Slant Bed, Y-Axis CNC Lathe, Twin Spindle & Twin Turrets
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Today's Lenten devotional by N.T. Wright (Week 2, Wednesday), focusing on Matthew 11:1-19, explores the character and mission of John the Baptist, and the love of our Lord.
Two Gospel writers (Matthew and Luke) relate the account of John the Baptist sending his followers to ask Jesus if He was indeed the true Messiah. So John had doubts when the heat was on. Got it—he was human.
In response, Jesus cited His miracles as proof of His messianic authority. (You can't get away from the purpose of miracles in the Bible.) But Jesus went further than merely answering the question—he set John the Baptist apart as the greatest man born of women. He recognized John's doubt, addressed it, and restored John's reputation. That grace in the face of doubt reveals how much God really loves us.
But left to the three synoptic Gospel writers, we would have an incomplete picture of John the Baptist. The apostle John, writing much later than the other Gospel writers, is filling in details that do not appear in the first three Gospels. Approximately 92% of the content of the Gospel of John is unique, and those later details help complete the portrait of John the Baptist.
So much of the Bible is told from different perspectives, often by different writers describing the same people, events, or circumstances. It takes the whole breadth of Scripture to get a complete picture. The repetition is not contradiction, it's completion. And so it is with the apostle John—his love for details to fill in the gaps completes much of the history of the New Testament.
Here's a video that demonstrates using the Glo Bible to explore John the Baptist in the Gospel of John. It shows some of the historical sites associated with John the Baptist, including the most plausible site for Bethany Beyond the Jordan (where Jesus was baptized by John), Machaerus (where John the Baptist was beheaded), and evidence recently discovered by credible archaeologists suggesting that John performed baptisms in this particular cave.


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MyLO - My Learning Online
Intelligent Agents
Intelligent Agents can assist instructors, administrators, and students by providing an automated notification when defined activity occurs in a course or when there is a lack of login or course entry.
Based on criteria/conditions that you specify (e.g. performance above or below a nominated score on a particular quiz, login inactivity for X days – see below), the agent releases a pre-prepared email to students who meet the specified criteria. You compose the text for the message during set up of the agent with the Intelligent Agents tool. You can set the agent to run automatically according to a schedule (e.g. once a week) or you can manually trigger the agent.
The email is also sent separately to you, giving another avenue to monitor student progress, particularly of those that may be at risk. [Other avenues are by viewing student progress through the Classlist tool, and Class Progress through View Student Progress, accessed through Edit Unit.]
Agent criteria
Criteria cover student log-in activity for the unit as well as more specific performance and activity conditions. The majority relate to students meeting milestones or hurdle requirements ('achievement' criteria); the remainder relate to students not meeting specified requirements ('non-achievement' criteria). The main ones are as follows:
|MyLO area
|Achievement criteria
|Non-achievement criteria
|Log-in (unit) activity
|When students haven't been active in the unit for a specified time period
|Learning objective
|Score/grade equal to or less than X (if a grade item – see below)
|Grade value on a Grade Item (equal to or less than X; between/not between)
|Score (equal to or less than X; between/not between)
|Score/grade equal to or less than X (if a grade item – see Grades above)
To access the Intelligent Agents tool
- From your Unit Home pull down the Admin & Help menu and select Unit Admin
- Scroll down the page and click on Intelligent Agents
- Refer to the D2L intelligent agents documentation for further details.
- For details on best practice for intelligent agents check out this article from the Brightspace Wiki.


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This hotel is located at 150 km from the capital Skopje and a short 10-minute leisurely stroll from the centre of the city of Prilep. Part of the "Markovi Kuli" sports and recreation centre, it features an Olympic-size swimming pool, a soccer field, a tennis court and a fully equipped gym, so sports enthusiasts will have more than enough facilities to work on their physical health and appearance. Each morning a tasty complimentary breakfast is served in the hotel restaurant, which can also host a variety of festive events. Guests can try a rich variety of traditional dishes and beverages in an airy and pleasant setting.
Фото Из
- Парковка
Услуги в Отеле Hotel Dion


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The Art of the Start
Full story here.
Condensed version below:
From Scott Allen, former About.com Guide
Guy Kawasaki made a name for himself at Apple in the 1980s as the evangelist who helped launch the Macintosh computer. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested and proven his ideas with dozens of startup companies. He is the author of over half a dozen business books, including Rules for Revolutionaries, Selling the Dream and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy.
I had the privilege recently of attending a presentation by Mr. Kawasaki on his latest book, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything. He's a tremendously entertaining speaker – funny, irreverent, and above all, insightful. He built his presentation around his top ten tips for anyone starting anything – entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, non-profit ventures. I share them with you here, along with a few of his choice quips that you won't find in the book.
1. Make Meaning
Focus on making meaning, not money. If your vision for your company is to grow it just to flip it to a large company or to take it public and cash out, "you're doomed". Kawasaki says that great companies are built around one of three kinds of meaning:
- Increase the quality of life.
- Right a wrong.
- Prevent the end of something good.
2. Make Mantra
Kawasaki recommends coming up with a simple mantra, preferably three words or less, that succinctly describes your core values. Some examples he gave:
- Wendy's: "Healthy fast food"
- FedEx: "Peace of mind"
- Nike: "Authentic athletic performance"
- Guy Kawasaki: "Empower entrepreneurs"
3. Jump to the next curve
Great companies aren't created when a book retailer says, "We're going to change the way books are sold. Instead of carrying 250,000 titles, we're going to carry 275,000." Great companies are created when you say, "Instead of 250,000 titles, we're going to carry 2.5 million." Then you have Amazon.
He offers three tips for how to do this:
- Reboot your brain.
- Kill the cash cows.
- Polarize people.
4. Get going.
Don't get caught in "analysis paralysis". Some tips to keep you moving forward:
- Don't type, prototype.
- Don't worry, be crappy.
- Find soulmates.
5. Niche thyself.
Ideally, you create something that is both of high value to customers and that few others are doing. If you consider uniqueness and value creation as the two parameters, you have four quadrants:
- High value, low uniqueness
- Low value, high uniqueness
- Low value, low uniqueness
- High value, high uniqueness
6. Let a hundred flowers blossom.
Your best customers may not be who you expect them to be, and no matter how good you are, no matter how much market research you do, you can't perfectly predict what will happen in the real world. Kawasaki suggests the following:
- Sow fields, not window boxes.
- Look for agnostics, not atheists.
- Don't be proud.
7. Follow the 10/20/30 rule.
When making presentations to clients or investors, use:
- 10 slides
- 20 minutes
- 30 point font
(If you do a lot of presentations, be sure to check out The Seven Deadly Sins of Powerpoint Presentations)
8. Hire infected people.
Hire people who are as passionate about your product as you are (or at least close to it).
- Ignore the irrelevant.
- Hire better than yourself.
- Do the shopping center test.
9. Lower barriers to adoption.
Make it easy for people to buy and use your product:
- Flatten the learning curve.
- Don't ask people to do something you wouldn't do.
- Embrace your evangelists.
10. Don't let the bozos grind you down.
Thanks to Texchange, the organizers of the event. To learn more about Guy Kawasaki, including a free book excerpt, an entrepreneurial IQ test, and more, visit GuyKawasaki.com.


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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time of Transition
Then I realize: a.) AS IF you all are just sitting around unable to function because you are so consumed with curiosity over how my household is doing with no naps, and also: b.) it's only been three days. Two, really, since we're only in the middle of day three right now. TWO DAYS, PEOPLE. Does it surprise you to hear it feels like a million years? Especially right at about 2:30 in the afternoon. That's when it really feels like a million years, people.
No, no, I'm kidding. (Sort of.) Operation No Naps is not all bad. We've had two good-to-great bedtimes, one for each day of no naps, which was obviously the goal of this whole project. (Last night at bedtime Genevieve threw an overtired tantrum about a coloring book and cried for half an hour, but she was still asleep by eight. Monday night she went to sleep immediately with no problems at all.) And my girls are touchingly excited each day as they go up to "quiet time," thrilled to discover what quiet games/activities I have laid out for them that day. (Note: I predict the novelty of that to wear off in less than a week. I can hear it now: "Mama, I'm TIRED of those puzzles! I did those already!" But for these first few days of no naps, they loooooove it.)
Both girls have followed the rules perfectly so far. (Play quietly; no coming out or calling for me unless you have to use the bathroom or are bleeding; I will come get you when it's time to be done.) Also, I now have greater freedom in the afternoon if I need to go somewhere, because our afternoon "starts" at 2 p.m., not 4. Today, for instance, we had a park playdate with friends all morning so could not run errands, but this afternoon we can still go to the bank, pick up photos, and grab a gallon of milk, all before dinner. (Although dinner has now reverted to our former, early time since bedtime is back to 7:30.)
But. People, our afternoon "STARTS" AT 2 P.M. AND NOT 4. Did you get that? The clock strikes two and we embark on an entirely new portion of the day, a whole additional stretch of time for things like bike rides, park visits, the splash pool, arts and crafts projects, the library, the grocery store. All of which sounds just fine, until you remember that up until three days ago, I filled that stretch of time with, oh, SITTING STILL AND INGESTING FOOD AND DRINK NOT FIT FOR SMALL CHILDREN WHILE SURFING THE INTERNET. OK, I cooked, cleaned, and sometimes even exercised, too, but by and large I conserved energy after a busy morning of kid-wrangling. Just as it should be.
Also, quiet time is only an hour. I do know moms who enforce longer quiet times--even up to two hours--but that seems like a stretch to me, and so far I've begun with the more conventional one-hour limit. And this is painful, I won't lie. One hour? Are you kidding me? What, you answer a few e-mails, return a phone call or two, and start dinner prep, and it's over! What kind of a "naptime" is that? (Oh yeah: it's not. Forgot.) It's bringing back traumatic memories of Julia's early infancy, when she never napped more than 20 minutes at a time, a torturous, vicious loop of racing to get even one tiny self-care task completed before the baby cried again: shower? eat? go to the bathroom? Ready, set, GO! GO! GO!
But guess what? I know this much is true: the time during which my girls are home during the day is limited, anyway, and, though it seems weirdly impossible right now, "naptime" will no longer carry any meaning, will no longer be a defining label in our household, an iconic part of our days and our lives. Kids grow, and naptime--or no naptime--doesn't matter anymore, because they're not home at "naptime" anymore anyway. It will be one more stage we've passed through, like nursing, like night-waking, like finger foods.
But I have a feeling that Mama will always need some quiet time.
Gotta run: my hour's up. Go! Go! Go!
2 comments:
So glad to hear it's working out! (And while I'm not up at night wondering when your next post will be up, it is always nice to see a new post when I open your blog!)
It is a time of transition, but isn't that the way of parenting? I always tell people that the only thing you can count on is that things will change. (Does J's school have naptime?)
It gets easier. My son has figured out that 'quiet time' is just as much (or more?) for me as it is for him. The other day, I was working from home in the afternoon and he 'got it' and never bothered me once - just played independently.
Though, it gets harder in other ways, too. And that's why you have the blog, right?
- Mnmom said...
I have a friend who was in the National Guard during her children's early years. She used to LOVE to get called up and function as a flight nurse in Iraq for several weeks.
Get that??
To escape the rigors of motherhood she would GO TO WAR!!!


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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have "called off" their divorce, according to reports.
A source has claimed that the two A-listers, who separated last summer, have stalled their legal separation and are currently not moving forward with proceedings to end their marriage.
Speaking to Us Weekly, an insider explained: "The divorce is off. They haven't done anything to move it forward in several months and no one thinks they are ever going to."
It is thought that Brad's decision to give up drinking is what has triggered Angelina's change of heart, with the Hollywood actress filing for divorce in September 2016.
The source continued: "He got sober to try and win her back.
"He knew he had a problem that he had to take care of and that's all she ever wanted.
"Everyone thinks they are going to get back together. It wouldn't be surprising if they announced that they're calling it off and trying to work things out.
"She's still so in love with him."
Angelina, who has 16-year-old Maddox, 13-year-old Pax, 12-year-old Zahara, 11-year-old Shiloh and nine-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne with Brad, recently opened up about her and Brad's separation for the first time, admitting that she was "thankful" they'd been able to remain civil.
Speaking to Vanity Fair at the time, the star shared: "[Our lifestyle] was not in any way a negative, that was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children… I'm very proud of them.
"They've been very brave.
"It's just been the hardest time, and we're just kind of coming up for air."
Speaking about Brad, Angelina added: "We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal."
Yahoo Celeb UK have contacted Brad and Angelina's reps for comment.
Follow Yahoo Celeb UK on Twitter and Instagram for all of the latest celebrity news!
Read more:
[ Angelina Jolie admits to 'crying in the shower' amid Brad Pitt split ]
[ Brad Pitt has moved back into his and Angelina's family home ]
[ Angelina's adoption papers for son Maddox were faked ]