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Being Poor - Whatever - 0 views

  • Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
  • eing poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.
  • Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
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  • Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
  • Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
  • Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
  • Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
  • Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.
  • Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.
  • Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
  • Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
  • Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
  • Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
  • Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
  • Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
  • Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
  • Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
  • Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
  • Being poor is staying with a man who beats your kids because you can’t afford to keep them out of foster care without his salary.
  • Being poor means making decisions like “is stealing food a sin” outside of an ethics class.
  • Being poor is realizing that heating and eating will probably be mutually exclusive this month.
  • Being poor is discovering that that letter from Duke University, naming you as one of three advanced students in your class invited to test out of HS early into their scholarship program, is just so much firestarter because the $300 it costs to take the test may as well be $3 million.
  • Despair is finally realizing, at nearly 36 and with a barely-afforded AA in English from a community college, just where you could have been by now had you had $300, and what that missed opportunity has truly cost you.
  • Being poor is understanding that the lowest, poorest, starvingest time of the month for anyone on public assistance is exactly when Katrina hit.
  • Being poor is taking a cash advance from the credit card–to pay the credit card minimum bill.
  • Being poor is trying to decide which one of you gets to eat today – the one of you that is pregnant or the one of you that can work.
  • Being poor is a sick, dreadful feeling of your stomach dropping out when the phone rings, because you know it’s a bill collector and you know you’ll pick it up anyway on a one in a million chance someone does want to hire you.
  • Being poor is laying down because it hurts to breathe and you are pregnant, but you can’t afford to go to the hospital.
  • Being poor is crying when $50 bill you didn’t expect gets taken from your paycheck.
  • Being poor means never forgeting that the bills aren’t paid.
  • Growing up poor is spending the rest of your life trying to escape (and never realizing that you have)
  • Being poor means looking at life in such a different way that most people can’t imagine it.
  • Being poor means being grateful that you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
  • Growing up poor means you feel guilty when you escape, because your siblings didn’t.
  • Being poor means saving the plastic containers and jars from yogurt or spaghetti sauce so you can take milk with you to school in your lunch after they lower the income limit for free lunches and your mom makes $3 more than the limit.
  • Being poor is choosing between the lesser of two evils and not realizing it.
  • Being poor is a motivator to never be as poor as your parents.
  • Being poor makes you appreciate everything you’ve earned.
  • Being poor gives you the ability to look at supporting your still poor mother as an honor not a burden.
  • Being poor is worrying that someday you will wake up, find yourself lying beneath a blanket in the back of that station wagon and realizing that your escape and rise was just a dream.
  • Being poor is a month with 28 spaghetti dinners, 2 invitations over to eat, and a day without.
  • Being poor is carrying your fiancee to the hospital to miscarry, then using their phone to call around for someone to take you back home, since there aren’t beds for Medicare patients.
  • Being poor is wondering what sort of fool drops a penny on the ground and doesn’t pick it up.
  • Being poor is wondering what to say when your friends ask you to join them for coffee in the campus coffee shop, and you can’t because you thought you had a couple bucks cash but you must have left it in your coat at home, and so you have to use all the change you dug up from under the seat for gas to get home after classes.
  • Being poor is pretending to any major, religion or career interest to get free pizza on campus.
  • Being poor means dreading getting a Christmas present from the Fireman’s Charity, because you’ll end up on TV and everybody at school will find out.
  • Being poor is wearing the same dress to school every day for four months, then getting “new” clothes from the church for Christmas and changing your clothes three times in one day because you can.
  • Being poor means not being able to take a better job because the shift ends are after the busses stop running, and you don’t feel safe walking the two miles home after dark.
  • Why is is so hard to remember poverty once you get past it, if you get past it? Why is it so hard to empathize with poverty if you have never had it? What the hell is wrong with us?
  • Being poor means learning firsthand the meaning of words like “eviction,” “garnishee,” “repossess,” and “transient motel.”
  • Being poor means paying a premium on food and goods at local stores that jack up prices for being in a poor neighborhood, or simply because they can.
  • Being poor means buying bread at the “day old store” even though it’s a lot older than one day.
  • Being poor means paying high prices for exprired meat at the bodega, because there isn’t a supermarket chain willing to open a store in your neighborhood.
  • Being poor means your 10 cent an hour raise is almost negated by the 25 cent increase in bus fare.
  • Being poor means watching your disabled child get worse and worse because you can’t afford the therapies.
  • Being poor means having your life gone over with a fine tooth comb to see if you’re bad enough to help.
  • Being poor is feeling ashamed when your ‘peers’ slam WalMart, and talk about buying organic, and the horrors of driving gass-guzzling cars, all while wondering why you repeatedly find ways to not join them at $15/plate social dinners.
  • Being poor is avoiding spending time with people you care about, because you don’t want to have to answer “how are you doing?”.
  • Being poor is having your best friend’s mother compliment her for hanging out with you–shows good moral fiber, don’t you know.
  • Being poor is having your mum scrimp and save to get you the latest “in” thing, just as it goes out of style. (But you wear it anyway, so she doesn’t feel bad, and then all the kids at school make fun of you.)
  • Being poor is being the family that everybody knows it’s okay to pick on.
  • Being poor is having your house egged and a firecracker tossed through your front door because some kid thought it was funny.
  • Being poor is losing your special lunch card and seeing the snotty kid across the street find it, chop it up with scissors, and return the pieces to you.
  • Being poor means going to a church school on a Pell grant and trying to get your associate degree in one year, because you know your sibs are close on your tail, and your family has barely enough money to send you.
  • Being poor takes time. Time to wait in line for the reduced-price clinic while gathering all your paperwork, and hoping you have it in order so you won’t be sent home to get one little slip of paperwork. Time to wait in line at the food bank, where people fight to get to the one box of expired Entemann’s first. Time that you spend walking back home or waiting beside your POS car because it broke down for the umpteenth time. Time that you spend at your minimum wage fast food job after hours because you really don’t want to go home, and the manager might just feed you.
  • Being poor means that if you pull yourself up and stop being ‘poor,’ you will still be struggling and behind, because a large chunk of your money will go toward cleaning up all the stopgaps, mistakes, and overcharges you accumulated when you were poor.
  • Being poor is everything gets washed by hand in the bathtub with the smallest amount of dollar-store detergent.
  • Being poor means choosing between a cup of coffee, a newspaper, or a load at the laundrymat. You can’t have all three, or even two of them. ever.
  • Being poor is everything must be mended, pinned, taped, glued or stapled for a little more use.
  • Being poor means two or three jobs, and never enough time, sleep, or money. never.
  • John, thanks for this. This is so spot-on it hurts. And I don’t have to do any of these things any more, but you really don’t ever forget what it’s like to do them.
  • Being poor is really, really pushing your two-year old during potty training, because diapers are really, really expensive.
  • Being poor means that you laugh hysterically when you watch the financial planning segments on the Today Show, because the thought of starting a college fund for your child is so far beyond the pale that if you don’t laugh, you’ll start to cry and you’ll never stop.
  • Being poor means that three years after you’re not poor anymore, you still know exactly what everything costs; you still feel like a dinner at Chili’s or even Wendy’s is a huge splurge; and you still feel like you can’t afford to buy a six dollar belt at Target. And you still buy ramen.
  • Being poor is obviously your fault, even though the biggest, fattest reason you had to file bankruptcy in the first place was because your husband frivolously got cancer while laid off. How silly of him! And then he couldn’t find a new job until he was done with treatment because oddly, employers are shy of hiring bald, vomiting people with IV ports taped into their arms.
  • Being poor is being horrified when you see a very young person from your area with an arm, neck, or hand tattoo, not because corporate America generally bans such things… but because fast-food and retail America does, too.
  • Being poor is being bumped by somebody carrying a Prada tote bag on your way to pick up your paycheck… and instantly realizing, without having to calculate, that in terms of actual cash value, the tote bag is worth far more than the paycheck.
  • Being poor means selling blood plasma and signing up for every medical experiment they’ll let you into, and breezing past the disclaimer form because, really, are you going to give up $100 just because you may be risking injury or death from whatever they’re giving you?
  • - Being poor is spending money you know you don’t have on a candybar because you need something to cheer yourself up enough to get out of bed.
  • Being poor is sleeping everyone to one bed so you’re a little bit warmer.
  • Being poor is having friends who’s parents won’t let them sleep over because you live in that part of town.
  • Being poor is not caring that starchy carbs are bad for you, rice and pasta are cheap, and it’s either that, or nothing at all.
  • Being poor is the lunchlady feeling bad for you so she sneaks you leftovers from after all the classes have eaten, for you to take home for dinner.
  • Being poor is learning to like skim milk because it’s a nickel cheaper than whole.
  • Being poor means your husband is working – when he can get work – at Labor Ready, and you’re at the food bank. Being poor means your husband is sharing his main meal of the day with someone who hasn’t eaten for three days.
  • Being poor is rejoicing the fact you miscarried
  • Being poor is becoming a stripper just to make the rent, and hating yourself for it.
  • Being poor is washing up in public bathrooms and sampling fragrances at the department store so you don’t smell bad.
  • Being poor is sleeping in stairwells.
  • Being poor means mom and dad do not sit and eat dinner with you. They eat after the kids are done with what’s left. Dad’s dinner is wiping clean the bits from the frying pan with a piece of bread.(He still does that out of habit just like grandpa.)
  • Being poor is not having sex because you can’t afford birth control and you’re smart enough to not get pregnant
  • Being poor is rejoicing in the fact that after five years, the color of your expired vehicle tags has cycled back around, and there’s less of a chance of getting pulled over for your 2001 tags.
  • Being poor is counting your food money for the week and knowing you will have to walk the two miles to the grocery with three children under the age of six.
  • Being poor is hearing your daughter tell you twenty years later that she finally realized that ‘Mommy already ate, sweetie’ was a lie.
  • Being poor is not being able to afford to pursue the ex who owes you child support.
  • Being poor is having a judge give him custody because HE isn’t poor.
  • Being broke is making a meal and sitting the kids down at the table, and sipping a glass of watered down powedered milk while they eat.
  • Poor never seems to leave us completely. No matter what we do or have done, we will always be haunted by the tears and shame of poverty. The worst part: even if our kids escape, THEY REMEMBER forever. A legacy we’d rather not give.
  • Being poor is having someone tell you that if you own _____ (A car, a TV, a bed) then you really aren’t poor, & realizing they’re either stupid, or worse off than you
  • Being poor means a 4 hours of commuting for a 6 hour shift.
  • Being poor means putting a beloved pet to sleep because you can’t afford the vet bill.
  • Being formerly poor means that your never-poor spouse resents the hell out of the fact that you still give your mom and siblings money – money that could have gone to “our” family. It means your spouse never quite thinks of your family as her family too because the resentment is there.
  • Being poor is throwing up six times a day because you are pregnant and don’t have health care. Being poor means that you can’t even scrape together enough change to ride the bus to the neonatal clinic, and it’s the middle of summer and too far to walk. Being poor means pondering an abortion because you know everybody around you is equally strapped for cash, you only get one meal a day, and you don’t see that changing in the immediate future. Being poor means after much tears and thought, when you finally decide to have the abortion, you have to borrow the money to get it done. Being poor means that if you’d kept the baby, some rich people would accuse you of abusing the welfare system. Being poor means that by getting the abortion, some rich people accuse you of murder. Being poor means weeks of crying and hating yourself.
  • being poor is mom and dad being humiliated saturday and sunday to pay your failed attempt at the american dream, because first you’re not american, second you are not rich, third you are not america educated, and all those dollar-master slavering world wonderpeople can tell you, making fun, is: born in the wrong country pal, hahaha.
  • being poor is working hard and never had worked enough.
  • Being poor makes you appreciate the value of free napkins, plastic food utensils, matches, condiment packages, plastic bags, or any other giveaway item of use in the home.
  • Being poor means never having leftovers.
  • FYI: Nick Mamatas has a few additions to the list (from an international perspective) here.
  • pictruandtru: you, more than anyone else here, need to read John’s article over and over again, until you get it. It was you he wrote it for. Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
  • Being poor (or having been poor) means you know that if there is a devistating economic crisis, you will know how to survive when those who never were poor are paralized with fear. Being poor is knowing you are strong and resourceful.
  • As a born-and-bred welfare kid raised by TV and cheap supermarket off-brands, I see my mother in many of these statements. She worked so hard to raise herself out of crushing poverty, with little or no useful help from the government or well-meaning “liberals” with social-science degrees that I can only shake my head and wonder how it was I got out of the poverty trap at all. I think I was just lucky. I also happen to be white and male, and I’m reasonably sure in today’s world this is a certain advantage.
  • Being poor means that someone who has never been poor will never really understand what it’s like.
  • Being poor means you no longer have to fill out the forms at the ‘payday loan store’ because they have your information memorized.
  • I joined the military so they would fix my teeth. I brushed everyday. And flossed. But never had dental insurance. Only got cleanings maybe once in my childhood.
  • The point is when something goes wrong, for whatever reason, being poor means your options are limited, and what options you have are often likely to cause you pain.
  • Being poor is not having any margin for error. The problem is that life only rarely lets people get through it without error.
  • When you’re middle-class or well-off, you can absorb a certain amount of the crap life throws at you. When you’re poor, you really can’t.
  • Being poor means understanding that Internet flamewars are a tragic waste of time better used bettering yourself. Use that time and effort to build yourself up rather than tear a stranger down- you’ll feel better afterward.
  • Being poor means being stuck around people who want you to continue to be poor.
  • Being poor means not being able to take advantage of all the really great sales that come along — because they only seem to happen when you don’t have the money in hand.
  • Being poor is having the grocery store checker give you dirty looks and make comments to the next customer about “my tax dollars being wasted” when you use food stamps to buy a day-old cake on sale and a package of birthday candles for your child. Being poor is being overwhelmingly grateful that the next person in line says to the checker, “I can’t think of a better use for my tax dollars than to pay for a poor child to have a birthday, you heartless prick.”
  • I still use tea-bags twice. I won’t eat ramen, because I ate far too much for too long. I consider myself well-off because I have a lot of books and I never skip a meal. I know exactly how much things cost, and shop at two supermarkets because one has cheaper prices on produce and meat, and the other has cheaper canned goods. And I know the usual price of everything I buy on a regular basis, so I know whether the “sale” price is really a good deal. And when it is, I stock up, just in case.
  • I worked for a bank for a while after finishing my bachelor’s degree, and here’s what I learned: Being poor means the bank doesn’t want you as a customer. Being poor means you will pay the highest fees for every service. Being poor means you will pay the highest interest on any loan. On the other hand– Being rich means all service charges will be waived on your accounts, because you’re a preferred customer. Being rich means never waiting in line, because the bank manager greets you when you come in and takes you to a customer service representative who handles your transactions.
  • Being poor is knowing how to sew.
  • Being poor is having a lower Social Security number than your classmates in high school, because you had to get one young to get welfare.
  • Being poor is finding prostitution a valid way to pay the electrical bill, and then lying to your spouse about where the money came from.
  • Being poor is exploding at the old lady who has taken all the 20c bread at the day-old store to feed to the fraggin’ SQUIRRELS.
  • Being less poor is living close enough to work and the store and the library to walk and NOT have to buy gas.
  • Being less poor is 10c for a packet of seeds that produces zucchini in your yard all summer.
  • I tell you this not to display my saintliness, but to put into perspective a conversation I have not infrequently with other members of my profession: ME: …no, I’m really tense about this case. If we lose, Mrs. Smith and her nephew have nowhere to go. She’s on a fixed income. What if I screw up and it costs them their apartment? OTHER LAWYER: Wow. Well, it could be worse. I mean, what if it were a big commercial-litigation case, and you screwed THAT up, and lost twenty million dollars for the client? At least the pro bono cases are over, what, five hundred dollars or something? (Pop Quiz: do you think the Other Lawyers who make such remarks have ever been poor?)
  • Being poor means you don’t count (unless you are pretty).
  • Being poor is never looking down on a man begging for change, mainly because you have seriously considered doing it.
  • Being poor is having the luck and luxury of growing up rich and having no resources whatsoever when you are tossed out of your parents house with no money for “the gay thing” because it’s an embarrasment to daddy and his ilk.
  • Being poor is making the rent and bills by six dollars and not having any left over for grocery shopping that week because that six dollars is for gas to get to work.
  • Being rich to poor means your parents make too damn much for you to get student loans so you have no way of getting any help, whatsoever.
  • Being rich to poor means that you can’t fathom how your family of two that you no longer live with lives in a 5500 square foot house.
  • Being rich to poor is your dad telling you it’s strange you don’t have a car, when you are paying for college on your own and he has just bought your younger, non-gay sibling, a BMW.
  • Being rich to poor is when your father visits your new apartment – the one you’re making it all on your own in – and tells you to move because you’re living “in a ghetto” as he drives home in his Mercedes.
  • Being poor means burning in shame because this is the most you could afford and you spent hours cleaning before he arrived.
  • Being rich to poor is being too ashamed to leave my name on this.
  • And being poor means you will probably be punished because you *did* leave
  • Being poor means teaching yourself to not notice feeling hungry.
  • Being poor means people making fun of your weight and calling you “anorexic” when you’ve been unable to have more than one meal a day.
  • Being poor is knowing you’re always under a microscope: Human Services, Housing Assistance, Social Security…but also, your friends, your family, and strangers who seem to think you’re lazy, unmotivated, or stupid for being in the situation you’re in.
  • Being poor is scraping enough money to go home to your family for Christmas and not having any gifts for them.
  • Being poor is using your stamps to buy pints of milk in glass bottles, then sitting outside of the supermarket, drinking the milk, rinsing out the bottle, and trading it in for a dollar cash so you can afford the co-pay on your prescriptions.
  • Being poor is never being able to afford to see a doctor for monthly cramps so bad they make you miss work; spending month after month for years hoping they just go away; and then finally getting seen and told you’re going to be infertile for the rest of your life, and that you could have avoided this had you come in sooner.
  • Being poor is sitting on a dusty brick sidewalk with a cheap recorder and a Goodwill hat, enduring snotty yuppie tourists, high school boys who make innuendos or say “get a day job”, police officers saying “You’re not doing anything illegal, but…”, and threats of physical violence from drunks, all in the hopes that someone will deign to put a dollar in.
  • Being poor is realizing that you will do just about anything necessary to feed your kids, including giving a blow job to a guy for $10.
  • Fifteen years ago, when I started in at a school, the packed that home room teachers got contained for each kid on opening day: 1 schedule, 1 emergency info form, 1 student handbook, 1 athletic dept. handbook 1 insurance form (AD&D plus emergency med. for school-related activities) and for a class of 20, three or four free/reduced lunch forms. You were supposed to give these to the students who asked for them, and get more if they weren’t enough. No one understood why I threw a hissy fit and made sure that there was one form per kid, just like all the other paperwork. Sometimes things do get slightly better. We now have cafeteria swipe cards, and the free kids and paying kids both just swipe their cards. The difference is that the paying kids have to top off their card balances with cash periodically.
  • Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about a utility bill that is the cost of your rent.
  • Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about half your years wages that he made in a week’s time.
  • Poor is living next to a crack house, being on a first name basis with the local prostitute, having murder weapons tossed in your back yard, and running from gangs.
  • Living in a house that’s literally falling apart. I used to get snow in my bedroom and water during thunderstorms.
  • By Katrina standards, however, my family was rich. We would’ve been able to evacuate. We had credit cards and family that would’ve helped us.
  • America, the land of opportunity, so long as you aren’t poor.
  • Being poor is hoping your bike doesnt break during your one hour cycle to work.
  • Being poor is walking for 3 hours to get to work because your bike broke.
  • Being poor is coming up with a different excuse every day why your not going to lunch (& dont eat any).
  • Being poor is thinking about the man who propositioned you while you were walking home some time back, and wondering just what he wanted to do to you or have you do to him, and how much he might be willing to pay for that.
  • Being poor is eating government commodity white rice with salt and pepper from packets that you kept from the last time you had fast food, and telling yourself that you actually prefer it that way.
  • Being poor is thinking of job benefits not in terms of health care, vacation, or retirement plans, but in terms of leftover or past-expiration-date food.
  • Being poor is being furious at the job interviewer who tells you that they won’t give you the nine-to-five office job because they don’t think that you can “adjust” from scrubbing out toilets on the graveyard shift.
  • Being poor is being furious at the manager of your rooming house for throwing away your bicycle because it was in such bad shape that he thought it had been abandoned there; surely no one would actually ride that thing.
  • Being poor is when people tell you that they think that you’re wasting your time and effort trying to get a better job, and they think that they’re doing you a favor.
  • Having been poor is weeping with joy and gratitude when you can afford an apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom of your own.
  • Having been poor is being amazed when you make it to the next paycheck with ten dollars in your bank account from the last one.
  • Having been poor is reading about thousands of people who used to have the comfortable middle-class existence that you have now, and have suddenly fallen through the cracks just as you once did, and really understanding for the first time what Satchel Paige said: “Don’t look back–something might be gaining on you.”
  • Being poor is not having eyeglasses until age 13 when you have needed them since age 4 and your grasp of the basics, like mathmatics, is without foundation, thereby closing the glorious door of science forever
  • Being poor is at age 14, using your entire first real paycheck to buy clothing for your younger siblings
  • Being poor is from age 14 on walking home three miles in the dark everyday after working after school because your family can’t survive without your paycheck
  • Being poor is making absolutely sure that you serve yourself last at all meals so that the younger kids can get their full share and so that you can be sure that your Mother gets to eat something as well
  • Being poor is watching your Mother die a slow agonizing death from cancer at home because your state doesn’t provide nursing home or hospice care for the indigent patient.
  • Being poor is not being able to escape watching your Mother die for even a minute because you don’t have a TV or a car or the price of a matinee movie ticket. Or money to hire someone to watch the young kids you are now responsible for.
  • Being poor is having, at age 18, to bath and clean your mother like an infant because the cancer has robbed her of her arms
  • Being poor is something you are inside forever.
  • Being poor, is having to share a bed with your three sisters in a house thats covered by tin and hoping it doesnt rain.
  • Being poor is being scared to take out the trash for fear of rats in the alley.
  • Being poor is hoping there’s not another drought so you have food to eat from the farm.
  • Being poor is rushing home so you can do your homework before nightime comes so you dont have to do it by candlelight instead.
  • Being poor is taking 5 years to finish high school because you have to work to pay for your private schooling.
  • Being poor is waking up your four year old at 3:30 in the morning to catch the bus in time to drop her at a seedy daycare, then make it to work on time.
  • Being poor is using your child’s piggy bank of dimes and nickels to pay for the ridiculous gas prices when you finally afford that car.
  • Being poor is walking up to your mom when you’re four, holding a toy and prefacing your request to buy it with “When you have money…”
  • Being poor is when your dinner consists of juice boxes because that’s all there is.
  • Being poor is being beat around by a baby-sitter you keep going to b/c they’re free
  • Being poor means learning by 7 that one meal a day is decent and real hunger doesn’t hit until at least the second day
  • Being poor is people asking you why you bothered to pick up that nickel on the ground
  • Being poor is never being liked by your friends’ parents because they think you must be a bad influence because you’re poor
  • Being poor is being bounced back and forth between different households who don’t really want you because your parents can’t afford to keep you.
  • Being poor means that holidays are no different than any other day: your mom is still working and there’s still no food in the house.
  • this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.
  • this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.
  • What’s the problem with me saying that there’s a difference between not having funds, and living like white trash? Because you’re ignoring reality in a desperate need to find somebody to step on–oh yes, we may have been poor, but we weren’t white trash, you see. And it’s a very handy way to see oneself as permanently beyond the reach of all those horrors of poverty: People stay poor because they are bad; I am good; therefore I will never be poor again. Your “brush your teeth” comment is a good example of this kind of magical thinking. The notion that people might have dental problems despite being diligent about dental hygiene is not one you can entertain, because that would deflate the whole “poor people deserve it” argument. (And, of course, it all rests on the fallacy that all poor people are adults.) Instead of focusing on self pity and hopelessness, I think it’s a lot better focus on what can be done to fix what’s broken. As somebody who didn’t grow up poor, Brian, let me give you a big suggestion as to one of those things that can be done, and it’s not telling poor people to shut up and work harder. It’s extending the same safety net, social support and benefit of the doubt we give wealthy people that we give to poor people. Believe you me, it’s quite an eye-opener to find out that things you took for granted when you were a kid–you know, like the cops showing up when someone calls 911, or having a functioning lab in your science class–were not available to everyone.
  • Being poor means not having a working stove, good pots and pans or decent food to eat and having to skip a meal or two a day.
  • Being poor means no asthma treatment and gasping for air in Emergency Rooms praying to stay alive where you know youll be getting thousands of dollars in bills you wont be able to pay.
  • Being poor means being looked at with a mixture of disgust and pity by so called “loved ones” who shop for recreation who have endless money to waste.
  • Being poor can lead you to depend on God, because there is no one else that is going to help you. I am a Christian today because of the poverty I faced.
  • Being poor makes you realize what a sick and shallow society we live in.
  • people seem take out of this list what they put into it. You seem to want make this list examples of how people can’t, don’t or won’t help themselves. Interestingly, this is one of the reasons I put this one in the list: Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.
  • being poor means wondering if the lights will come back on
  • Being poor is one meal a day, if that.
  • Being poor is worrying about appendicitis every time you ovulate.
  • Being poor means always the library, never the book store.
  • being poor is feeling all the eyes judging you, measuring you, and coming to the conclusion that you don’t belong; when all you want is to be away in the comfortable place you don’t have.
  • being poor is being exploited by rich people while you smile, not to be fired.
  • being poor is paying a debt to the rich for being born in their world.
  • The problem is people who aren’t poor or who have never been poor often don’t grasp why it’s difficult to escape poverty — you can do everything right in terms of trying to improve your life situation (and there are many people who are poor do), and yet just one thing going wrong can mess the whole thing up.
  •  
    Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
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Main - Malaysia - Viral video reveals varsity 'brainwash' tactics, says student @ Wed J... - 0 views

  • Follow kopite 131p kopite has not yet written a personal description. View IntenseDebate profile +133 Vote up Vote down kopite 131p · 11 hours ago Freedom of speech means cutting off others and bullying? Freedom of speech means belittling and humiliating others? Freedom of speech means avoiding a valid question and went to a defensive mode of equating real problems with animals? Freedom of speech means asking others to leave if they don't like it? Geez.... are you Sharifah?
  • ponu299 126p · 5 hours ago The students who were all vocally supporting this BITCH are equally responsible for the state of affair of this country. To think that we have student of this mentality, where they don't support their own uni mate, who was bring the topic of free education. To the student this was just a argument between a Muslim and a Hindu. WHAT 1MALAYSIA IS ABOUT.
  • · 5 hours ago Typical of Big Brother- UMNO - I speak you listen. No questions allowed. Just follow what I say. Only Big Brother is right. Also - whenever there is a seminar or forum organised by them, it only addresses the muslim crowd. To them, the other races do not exist and they are not bothered.
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  • hailamkiak 146p
  • ummNO 158p · 12 hours ago Exactly. How can universities teach such blatent behaviour, and they seem to condone it. When I help a person, it does not need to be an indian, malay or chinese. It cannot be based on race or religion. Yet, UiTM Melaka allows it's students to protest against intake of non-muslims. And the authorities and current govt adminstration does nothing. It's as though they condone such behaviour. It's not good for nation building. By their actions, they are making themselves to be exclusive to one race only.
  • Follow worried22 82p worried22 has not yet written a personal description. View IntenseDebate profile +40 Vote up Vote down worried22 82p · 8 hours ago An Indian student standing up and speaking about free education whereas most of the Malay students clapped in support of that Listen Listen lady when she asked her to leave the country if she is not happy with the government's policies. What an irony!
  • karulann 130p · 10 hours ago not every malaysia have the "privileged" of getting grants. Loans are just burdening the graduates. I say we MUST advocate for free education, regardless of anyone income or place of living, education should be free at any level. Let us stop with the speculation that Malaysia does not afford to provide free education, but now the BN goverment are able to dishes out billions of ringgit for the BR1M, and have "janji" to continue giving every year IF they win and probably MIGHT increase the amount to RM1000.. You do the calculation of how many billions is wasted just like that.. and you get how much? Give me free education instead of RM500 yearly
  • Malaysian 154p · 10 hours ago WHO WANT SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE BOOK!!! What kind of forum is this.
  • Hobbesianism 166p · 11 hours ago We are not angry mind you. We're simply astounded at the fact that there are such people like Ms. Sharifah in what you called the one-sided, barisan friendly forum. In fact, its freaking funny! Is that how you respond to a question, i.e. if you don't like, get out, my education is better than yours, you cannot compare with others, must always listen to elders, animals also got problems? Haha! No wonder you are still sad.
  • ankmlysia 153p · 13 hours ago ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’
  • AaronID 156p · 12 hours ago What's even scarier than the dozens, if not hundreds, of these roadshows are the obvious fact so many, so young, are already too far into being brainwashed by BTN/BN! The video of Sharifah belittling and humiliating Bawani is made worse by the cheerleaders, cheering Sharifah, on! Poor kids...
  • VJK001 177p · 13 hours ago Why is Sharifah with one sided views allowed to mediate in Universities of Malaysia? No wonder our universities are going down in ranks compared to rest of the world. How can a mediator asked a fellow Malaysian to go to countries of her choice if she don't agree with policies in Malaysia? Imagine the other students clapping and supporting Sharifah! That shows the true strength of our Malaysians university students? The only one outstanding there is little Ambiga Bawani! Syabas Bawani..
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Talking about disability: A guide to using appropriate language - 0 views

  •  
    Life for most people with mental or physical disabilities is vastly improved over what it was twenty or thirty years ago. The Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal and state laws assure that people with disabilities have the same basic rights as people without disabilities. Some things have been slower to change; namely, attitudes and perceptions about people with disabilities. Ignorance and discrimination can be serious impediments to achieving integration, productivity, and independence for people with disabilities. The use of outdated language and words to describe people with disabilities contributes greatly to perpetuating old stereotypes. No longer should we view people with disabilities as helpless or tragic victims. Awareness is the first step toward correcting this injustice. If public opinion about people with disabilities is to be brought up to date, the public needs to hear and learn to use appropriate language. It is especially important for the media, elected officials, public speakers, and others in leadership positions to portray people with disabilities sensitively and realistically. This is a guide to using descriptive words and language when talking to or about people with disabilities.
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Psychology Facts | Psychology and Handwriting Analysis: Margins - 0 views

  • left represents the past
  • right represents the future
  • The ideal adult margins, based on graphology, would be to have the left margin a little wider than the right margin. This would be a healthy left/right balance, meaning you have a healthy relation to the past & future. 
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  • A. Margins Even All Around
  • Someone who is controlling his/her right margin must write more slowly.
  • people who keep their margins even all around are most interested in the visual effect. They actually see the paper as almost like a work of art. They are extremely appearance-conscious and interested in beauty, design, symmetry, order, and balance.
  • very detailed-minded, and, of course, to give up spontaneity in the process. Such people plan everything ahead to a great degree.
  • B. Overly Wide Left Margin
  • the person who has a very wide left margin is subconsciously putting up an imaginary barrier between himself and the past. This trait is almost always an indication of someone who’s had a terrible past from which he is eager to flee.
  • C. Overly Wide Right Margin
  • When you are moving to the right, you’re moving towards your goals and the future. When you stop too soon at the end of your lines, somewhere in your subconscious is a little voice saying, “Uh-oh. I have to stop. I have to return to the left, to the past and the familiar. This is as far as I can go.”
  • D. Margins Too Wide All Around
  • Writing with margins that are too wide all around is abnormal
  • . This sort of person needs to be protected by four solid walls. He cannot make it on his own. He doesn’t relate to his environment in a normal manner or fit into society in an average way. 
  • E. Left Margin Widening as It Descends
  • rapid and spontaneous writing. If you’re writing quickly and spontaneously, you will leave wider and wider left margins as you descend (down) the page.
  • F. Left Margin Narrowing as It Descends
  • a tendency to start out brave, going towards the future, but eventually retreating to the past and what is familiar.
  • G. Narrow Margins on Left & Right Side
  • Some people write all the way to the side on both the left and right, leaving no side margin whatsoever. This trait indicates one who leaves no room for other people. Such a person doesn’t see things from other people’s point of view
  • He takes up all the space and doesn’t see himself properly in relation to his environment, leaving no room for the rights and opinions of others. 
  • H. Uneven Left Margin
  • . The left margin represents “the line of society.” Thus, each time we return to the left, it’s up to us whether we’re going to align the next word, or we’re going to get “out of line.” That small percentage who do not have a straight left margin are those people who cannot conform to society’s standards. These are also people who, quite expectedly, would not do well in a strict nine-to-five job
  • I. No Margins at All
  • With no margins, filling every inch of the paper, indicates someone who feels he must fill every waking moment of his life with an activity. It means compulsively busy, leaving no stone unturned. Very such people have miserly natures as well. This person also leaves no room for the rights or opinions of others
  • J. Wide Upper Margin
  • The lower you start, the more you tend to have formal, respectful feelings toward the person to whom you’re writing, such as a letters/papers to teachers, businesses…etc. You waste more paper to show respect, and you “lower” down on the paper. 
  • K. Narrow Upper Margin
  • a narrow upper margin means you are feeling more familiar than formal toward the person to whom you are writing. By starting high on the paper, you don’t “bow down” or “lower yourself” to show respect.
  • L. Narrow Lower Margin
  • writing until there was no room left - until the writing is crushed. This means someone who delays the inevitable. Such a person is so eager to express himself that he feels it would take too much time to turn the paper over or get another sheet. 
  • M. Crushed Right Margin
  • dangerous impulsiveness. People like this bash their heads into the wall and do it again and again - (They don’t learn from their mistakes.) They don’t have the sense to say it to themselves, “Hey, wait a minute. You know, the paper ends, and I have to accommodate.” They don’t say it because they don’t care or think about it
  •  
    A blank piece of paper represents life itself, and what you do on that blank paper represents how you interact with other people and with life around you. 
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Statistics: how many people have autism spectrum disorders? - | autism | Asperger syndr... - 0 views

  • The latest prevalence studies of autism indicate that 1.1% of the population in the UK may have autism. This means that over 695,000 people in the UK may have autism, an estimate derived from the 1.1% prevalence rate applied to the 2011 UK census figures.
  • Emerson and Baines (2010) in their meta-analysis of prevalence studies found a range of people with learning disabilities and autism from 15% to 84%, with a mean of 52.6%.
  • Around a third of people with a learning disability may also have autism.
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  • The NHS Information Centre, Community and Mental Health Team, Brugha et al.(2012), found between 31% and 35.4% of people with a learning disability have autism.
  • Baird et al (2006) found a male to female ratio of 3.3:1 for the whole spectrum in their sample.  The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey looked at people in private households, and found a prevalence rate of 1.8% male compared with 0.2% female, (Brugha et al, 2009). However, when they extended the study to include those people with learning disabilities who had been unable to take part in the APMS in 2007 and those in communal residential settings, they found that the rates for females were much closer to those of the males in the learning disabled population, (The NHS Information Centre, Community and Mental Health Team, Brugha et al., 2012).
  • For over 30 years, Sula Wolff, in Edinburgh, has studied children of average or high ability who are impaired in their social interaction but who do not have the full picture of the triad of impairments
  • more than 50 years since Leo Kanner first described his classic autistic syndrome
  • The specific pattern of abnormal behaviour first described by Leo Kanner is also known as 'early infantile autism'. Kanner made no estimate of the possible numbers of people with this condition but he thought that it was rare (Kanner, 1943).
  • autism spectrum disorders are under-diagnosed in females, and therefore the male to female ratio of those who have autism may be closer than is indicated by the figure of 5:1. The under recognition of autism spectrum disorders in females is discussed in Gould and Ashton-Smith (2011)
  • the clinical picture overlaps with Asperger syndrome to a large extent. However, these children represent the most subtle and most able end of the autism spectrum. The majority become independent as adults, many marry and some display exceptional gifts, though retaining the unusual quality of their social interactions
  • they often have a difficult time at school and they need recognition, understanding and acceptance from their parents and teachers. The approach that suits them best is the same as that which is recommended for children with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism.
  • Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network Surveillance Year 2008 Principal Investigators (2012) Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders - autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, 14 sites, United States, 2008. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Surveillance summaries, 61(3), pp. 1-19. Available to download at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm  [Accessed 15/05/2013]
    • izz aty
       
      http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/myths-facts-and-statistics/statistics-how-many-people-have-autism-spectrum-disorders.aspx The word 'autism' was first used by Leo Kanner in the term 'early infantile autism' which was used to describe a specific pattern of abnormal behaviour. 
  • The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network in the USA looked at 8 year old children in 14 states in 2008, and found a prevalence rate of autism spectrum disorders within those states overall of  1 in 88, with around five times as many boys as girls affected (Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network Surveillance Year 2008 Principal Investigators, 2012).
  • The National Center for Health Statistics in the USA published findings from telephone surveys of parents of children aged 6-17 undertaken in 2011-12. The report showed a prevalence rate for ASD of 1 in 50, (Blumberg, S .J. et al, 2013).
  • 2.64% was found in a study done in South Korea, where the researchers found two thirds of the ASD cases were in the mainstream school population, and had never been diagnosed before., (Kim et al, 2011).
  • both the increase in estimates over time and the variability between countries and regions are likely to be because of broadening diagnostic criteria, diagnostic switching, service availability and awareness of ASD among professionals and the public, (Elsabbagh M. et al, 2012).
  • The Department of Health then funded a project to build on the APMS study and look more closely at the numbers of adults with autism that could not have been included in the original study. This included people in residential care settings and those with a more severe learning disability. The study was led by Professor Terry Brugha of the University of Leicester, who also led on autism research for the APMS 2007.  Combining its findings with the original APMS, it found that the actual prevalence of autism is approximately 1.1% of the English population, (The NHS Information Centre, Community and Mental Health Team, Brugha, T. et al., 2012)
  • Blumberg, S. J. et al (2013) Changes in prevalence of parent-reported autism spectrum disorder in school-aged U.S. children: 2007 to 2011–2012. National Health Statistics Reports, No 65. Available to download at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr065.pdf   [Accessed 15/05/2013]
  • Emerson, E. and Baines, S. (2010) The estimated prevalence of autism among adults with learning disabilities in England. Stockton-on-Tees: Improving Health and Lives. Available to download at http://www.improvinghealthandlives.org.uk/projects/autism [Accessed 10/05/2013]
  • Idring, S. et al. (2012) Autism spectrum disorders in the Stockholm Youth Cohort: design, prevalence and validity. PLoS One, 7(7): e41280 Available to download at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3401114/ [Accessed 15/05/2013]
  • Elsabbagh, M. et al (2012) Global prevalence of autism and other pervasive developmental disorders. Autism Research, 5 (3), pp.160-179. Available to download at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.239/pdf [Accessed 15/05/2013]
  • World Health Organisation.  (1992). International Classification of Diseases. 10th ed. Geneva: WHO.
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How to Write about Autism (or any other group, for that matter) | The Autism Anthropolo... - 0 views

  • how (not) to write about autism (or any other group, for that matter)
  • Quite often, the mechanisms of degradation to do with ‘help’ are infinitely more subtle. This doesn’t excuse us from our obligation to be mindful of them.  The goal should be to balance, as much as possible, the unequal power relations between those in a position of privilege and those in a position of need. How is that done? By acknowledging that those who are disadvantaged, disenabled or marginalized have their own idea of who they are, what led to the position they’re in, and most importantly – what should be done about it.
  • quite often, ‘help’ is merely used as a means of earning influence or respect, or just as a way to make money. I’m not saying that profiting from helping others is necessarily immoral, mind you. I am saying that it’s not necessarily unselfish. The details – e.g. who’s helping whom and in what way – matter.
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  • There are many political and social implications to ‘help’ that we should constantly be mindful of as well. When someone in a position of power – political, financial, social, whatever – decides to help someone disadvantaged, the inequality between them, the same inequality that led to their respective positions in the first place, is both strengthened and made painfully visible.
  • when offering our help, even to those who seem to greatly need it, we need to be conscious of how we use the power that we just won over them.
  • Every group of people has differences of opinion among its members. These might be subtle differences, or they may be huge and insurmountable. It’s easy to mistakenly think that if you heard one perspective, or indeed ten perspectives, then you know the whole story, but that is never the case
  • Forcing one’s own idea of what another person or group of people need is not help. It is arrogance and audacity
  • Autism Speaks is actually a terrible source for information about autism, for various reasons, but in order to know that, one still has to do some amount of research. He would only then learn that quoting it as “the leading organization advocating for people on the autism spectrum” is so grossly inadequate as to invalidate all his further claims almost instantly
  • Never assume the group you’re writing about is homogenous
  • You want to help people? Help them on their own terms
  • If you’re going to write about a large population, you must assume that such differences exist, and – this is crucial – you must actively seek out these differences. Don’t stop researching until you find a controversy, and then try and determine how deep rooted and widespread it is.
  • His attack is based on the premise that his critics represent a small few, an insignificant minority; that they were driven to criticise him under a false pretence (namely that his article was poorly sourced; an accusation that was a) absolutely true, and b) not even the main issue); and therefore can be – if not completely ignored – swiftly brushed aside. Let us look beyond his arrogance and unshakable self-conviction. Here’s the important thing: You don’t get to choose who represents the group you’re writing about. You’ve come across members of the group who feel you’re completely wrong in everything you say about them? They’re probably right. If you couldn’t anticipate their angered reaction, you’re obviously just not sufficiently familiar with the field to write about it.
  • “enough with this political correctness already! I should be allowed to call people what I want”. No you shouldn’t. And if you don’t understand why, you haven’t done your research, and you shouldn’t be writing about this group of people in the first place.
  • When a person with Asperger’s identifies as an Aspie, he or she is making a conscious choice – a political choice – to adopt the label of Asperger’s in a very particular way.  To raise certain connotations. To emphasize some aspects of their neurology; indeed of their being. It’s not up to us NTs to impose this label on everyone with an AS diagnosis. This is a discourse from which we are more or less excluded, and for good reasons. Similar (though different) examples exist in more or less every other minority group.
  • Do not take liberties in defining the people you write about
  • it’s been my experience that by far more people are offended by “person with autism”, than by “autistic person”. This is because the former implies that autism is something external to the person, while the latter implies that autism is an important part of who that person is. There is no consensus in this matter; but I’ve been given the impression that while some find “autistic” distasteful, few are offended by it. However, a great many people find “person with autism” extremely offensive, and I’ve been repeatedly told this was, in most cases, preferable. See, for example here and here
  • Do not mention prevention or cure for autism as desirable technologies
  • regardless of whether autism is seen as a disability or not, it is nearly always experienced by autistic people as an inseparable part of their very being, of who they are. To say autism should be prevented, is telling them you wish they had never been born. To hope for an autism cure, is telling them you would have chosen to have them killed and replaced by someone else entirely – if only you had the technology to do so. It is categorically hurtful, insulting, immoral and cruel. So… Just don’t do it.
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Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability - GOV.UK - 0 views

  • Avoid medical labels. They say little about people as individuals and tend to reinforce stereotypes of disabled people as ‘patients’ or unwell. Don’t automatically refer to ‘disabled people’ in all communications – many people who need disability benefits and services don’t identify with this term. Consider using ‘people with health conditions or impairments’ if it seems more appropriate.
  • Everyday phrases Most disabled people are comfortable with the words used to describe daily living. People who use wheelchairs ‘go for walks’ and people with visual impairments may be very pleased – or not – ‘to see you’. An impairment may just mean that some things are done in a different way. Common phrases that may associate impairments with negative things should be avoided, for example ‘deaf to our pleas’ or ‘blind drunk’.
  • Words to use and avoid Avoid passive, victim words. Use language that respects disabled people as active individuals with control over their own lives.
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  • (the) disabled disabled (people)
  • able-bodied non-disabled
  • an epileptic, diabetic, depressive, and so on person with epilepsy, diabetes, depression or someone who has epilepsy, diabetes, depression
  • fits, spells, attacks seizures
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Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) - 0 views

  • Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a term used to describe a number of symptoms and behaviours which affect the way in which a group of people understand and react to the world around them. It's an umbrella term which includes autism, Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorders. All of these autistic spectrum disorders have an onset before the age of three
  • Recent research by the Learning Disabilities Observatory indicates that around 20-30% of people with learning disabilities have an ASD.
  • Being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome does not constitute having a learning disability.
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  • All children and adults with an ASD will have the following core symptoms in what is known as the ‘triad’ of impairments:
  • 1. Non-verbal and verbal communication People with an ASD have difficulty in understanding the communication and language of others, and in communicating themselves. Many children are delayed in learning to speak and a small minority do not develop much functional speech. This does not mean they cannot communicate, as they use other methods to communicate their needs. People with an ASD tend to have a literal understanding of language, so the use of metaphors such as ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ should be avoided.
  • 2. Social understanding and social behaviour People with an ASD have difficulty understanding the social behaviour of others and can behave in socially inappropriate ways. People with an ASD have difficulty empathising with others, and as a result are unable to read social contexts. Children with an ASD often find it hard to play and communicate with other children, because of their difficulties with empathy.
    • izz aty
       
      60-70% of ppl with ASD will have LD 20-30% of ppl with LD also have ASD
  • 3. Imagining and thinking/behaving flexibly Children with an ASD find it difficult to engage in imaginative play, so they tend to spend more time in solitary play. Children with an ASD can have an excellent memory concerning toys or activities they are passionate about. People with an ASD tend to have particular interests in specific topics or activities, which they may pursue obsessively. People with an ASD often find change difficult to cope with, and have a preference for routine. They may also struggle to transfer skills to other activities.
  • Approximately 1% of the population has an autistic spectrum condition. The prevalence rate of autistic spectrum conditions is higher in men than it is in women (1.8% vs. 0.2%). 60-70% of people who have an autistic spectrum condition will also have a learning disability.
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Is Marijuana a depressant? - Yahoo! Answers - 0 views

  • Alcohol is a depressant, but caffeine, cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy are stimulants. Marijuana is not really classified as either because it has a mix of effects. Depressant does not mean it causes depression, it means that it slows down certain metabolic processes. For marijuana this is primarily manifested by muscle relaxation and lowered blood pressure, or basically the relaxed or drowsy feeling most people experience when on this drug. Stimulant is basically the opposite, it stimulates certain metabolic processes. This is why people who are on cocaine or meth or ecstasy are generally energized, and addicts are frequently very thin because stimulants suppress the appetite and speed up metabolism. Some people who smoke marijuana have almost the opposite effect than most people - they get very anxious. It causes increased heart rate (and low blood pressure, that was intentional in case you are questioning that), and that can make people feel anxiety. That effect is considered a stimulant effect.
  • All stimulants and depressants alter brain function, usually temporarily but if abused or overused can cause a permanent change in brain function. Stimulants are more known for causing permanent chemical imbalances when abused, even permanent psychosis (hallucinations, or general misperception of reality). Many people have the misperception that prescribed stimulants (amphetamines like Ritalin, Adderal, Focalin, etc.) are completely safe because of their use as a pharmaceutical. While they are safe if used as prescribed, they still have potential to cause the same side effects as illegal stimulants if they are taken more than prescribed or in different ways (like snorting, or breaking a capsule, or injecting).
  • The other problem with lumping marijuana into these categories is that unlike most of them, marijuana is not chemically addictive. Drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine cause a chemical change in the brain which causes a chemical addiction in addition to a physical addiction. Though many will try to tell you that it is chemically addictive, they are really mistaking physical addiction for chemical addiction. If it makes you feel good, you want to keep feeling that way so you keep doing the drug. Chemical addiction includes severe withdrawal symptoms with abrupt discontinuation of the drug. While there are some withdrawal symptoms associated with it's use, they are usually restricted to people who smoke a lot for a long time, and the symptoms are not medically dangerous. If a cocaine addict were to stop abruptly, that person risks death from withdrawal symptoms if not properly taken care of. A more practical explanation would be: you don't see very many people lose their job, house, family, and belongings because of pot, but that situation is frequent among cocaine or meth addicts. The other complication of marijuana is that there is a legitimate medical use for it, while cocaine, meth, ecstasy, and alcohol have no medical use. Just in case someone tries to argue this, cocaine and heroin used to be used in hospitals about a century ago, but are no longer used because the health risks of their use far outweigh the benefits.
  •  
    "I was just wondering because all other drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and even caffiene are depressants and the drug basically causes a chemical imbalance in the brain. Can marijuana cause chemical imbalances? I never heard ever in my life of THC being a depressant. But like all drugs I could only imagine so thats why I came here to question it. Is marijuana a depressant? if so why and how does it cause depression? what does it do to your brains chemical structure in the long run?"
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Two-thirds of the world can't pass this basic financial literacy test. Can you? - Quartz - 0 views

  •  
    "We could all use a crash course in personal finance. Two-thirds of people around the world failed a short test of basic financial concepts. The five-question test-created by Standard & Poor's, Gallup, the World Bank, and George Washington University-was posed to 150,000 people in more than 140 countries last year. It tests understanding of risk, inflation, interest, and compound interest. To pass, people had to demonstrate competency in three out of four topics. Yet just 33% of people were able to do that. See how you fare on this slightly modified version of the quiz. After each question, we'll tell you how various countries did on it, too."
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Inclusive Education in Finland: A thwarted development | Saloviita | Zeitschr... - 0 views

  • Finland differs in the amount of segregated education from its Nordic neighbours Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, where the proportion of segregated education is very low.
  • statistics collected by the European Agency of Special Education (2003), Finnish numbers are more comparable with the situation in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium.
  • A simple explanation for the large percentage of segregated education is the models of financing. In Finland local authorities receive extra money for each student removed into special education. It has been shown that this kind of financing explains best the international differences in the number of students in special education (Meijer, J.W., 1999).
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  • second reason is linked with teacher professionalism. If a teacher can have a difficult student from her class removed, she can secure for herself a less stressful future in her work.
  • Finnish teachers have got a strong union, and it has taken a very negative stance towards educational integration (OAJ, 1989). Teachers, like all other professional groups, have step by step achieved more power in the affairs of local municipalities at the cost of local political process (Heuru, 2000). This has given teachers more influence in guiding schools in the directions they want schools to go.
  • third reason for the large proportion of segregated education lies in the Finnish set of values. In Finland, the shift from an agricultural to an industrial society occurred internationally quite late, during the late forties. The industrial phase remained brief, and the new post-industrial society began to emerge during the late sixties. This means that the traditional values of agricultural and industrial societies still prevail in Finland to a greater extent than in many other countries. These traditional values stress overall conformity and tend to reject people who are considered socially deviant. The Finnish traditional set of values also manifests itself in the internationally high proportions of past sterilization of people with disabilities, high proportion of disabled people in institutions, or in the exceptionally high frequency of fetal screening (Emerson, et. al., 1996; Meskus, 2003).
  • Traditional Finnish sets of values combined with strong teacher professionalism together explain the high legitimacy of segregated special education in Finnish society
  • increasing numbers of students in special education are interpreted by representatives of the government as a healthy answer to increasing pathological conditions of children.
  • nternational discussion on inclusion (UN, 1993; Unesco, 1994) was first met in Finland by silence, which continued for several years (e.g. Blom, et al., 1996).
  • At the political level, inclusion is not raised as a goal to be sought
  • it is understood as a state that has already been achieved, because all that is possible has already been done.
  • The main focus of special education policy is localized in the neoliberal philosophy of “early intervention”, where problems are found in the pathological conditions of individual children (Plan for Education and Research 2007-2011 by the Ministry of Education). This focus is evident also in the Special Education Strategy report of the Special Education Committee of the Ministry of Education (2007). Furthermore, none of the political parties have raised the issue of inclusive education, outside of the small left wing party, The Left Alliance.
  • Since the rehabilitation committee of 1966, the official documents of the National Board of Education have repeatedly stated that integration is a primary choice which, however, is not always possible to achieve. What is “possible” depends on the abilities of the person himself, and these limits are decided by teachers.
  • A popular scapegoat for the lack of integration is found in deficits in teacher education (Special Education Committee, 2007). According to this explanation integration is not possible because teachers have not acquired the necessary skills in their education. Antagonists of this explanation underline that current teacher education is fully adequate in this respect and gives readiness for all teachers to include students with disabilities.
  • The academic world of special education has traditionally taken a conservative stance towards inclusion
  • Very recently there has been observable some change in the discussion
  • First, some large disability organizations, e.g. the Parents’ Association for People with Intellectual Disabilities, The National Council on Disability, and the Finnish Association on People with Physical Disabilities have presented critical statements, not heard previously, on current policy which favours increased placement of students in special classes. These organizations have begun to refer to international goal statements on inclusive education, like the Salamanca statement.
  • Second, the academic field of special education has begun to experience some polarization in the question of inclusion, and more positive sounds are being heard in favour of inclusion. This argument is observed, for example, in a recent addition on special education of the Finnish educational journal “Kasvatus” (2/2009). Additionally, a current textbook written by leading special education professors (2009) refers to inclusive education in a cautiously positive tone of voice, even if traditional special education is in no way criticized. It also gives space to the presentation of the international inclusion movement and international statements.
  • More radical changes could be expected from a different direction. The preparation of new legislation concerning the state funding of local municipalities is currently taking place
  • If the change happens it, in all probability, will mean a free fall in the number of special class placements. Inclusive development may thus become materialized as an unintended consequence of a bureaucratic funding reform
  • Finland is a black sheep in the international movement on inclusive education.
  • The legitimacy of separate special education is strong and unquestioned. Since the mainstream in most other countries is towards inclusive education, the situation of Finnish school authorities is not always comfortable.
  • There is a continuous threat of a legitimacy crisis in special education. Until now the threat has been successfully handled first through the means of ignoring the international discussions, statements and policies, and lately by changing the meaning of the concept of inclusion. Instead of inclusion meaning desegregation it is increasingly defined by educational authorities to mean some kind of good teaching in general (Halinen & Järvinen, 2008; Special Education Committee, 2007).
  • In opposition to inclusion, the official policy promotes early intervention as a main area of development in special education.
  • There are no visible interest groups questioning this ongoing development.
  • The high legitimacy and constant growth of segregated special education can be understood as a consequence of the individual funding model, teacher professionalism and the Finnish value system originating from the late modernisation of overall society.
  • The idea of integration, or the principle of the primacy of mainstream class placement in the education of students with special needs, was first expressed in Finland in the report of the Rehabilitation Committee in 1966
  • the late sixties were, in many ways, an exceptional point in time. In the parliamentary election of 1966 the left wing parties achieved a majority in the parliament. This political change coincided with a turning point in Finnish society as a whole.
  • The process of modernization and urbanization had led to the point where the economic structure of the country was shifting that of an industrial to a post-industrial phase.
  • The shift was manifested in the numbers of people working in the service sector, which superseded the numbers of those working in industry. The concomitant cultural change was expressed in the upheaval of societal values seen in many “cultural wars” of the time.
  • The construction of a welfare society meant the widening of public services. A widening professional sector sought new customer groups as clients. One of these groups was people with intellectual and mental disabilities who, until that time, were mainly treated in institutions
  • ideas of “rehabilitation” launched during the fifties by the International Labour Organization (ILO) now found breeding ground in Finnish society. The change in ideology was revolutionary, and was also noticed by the contemporaries. For example, the Rehabilitation Committee characterized the ideological change as expressing “a new conception of civil rights and human value” (Rehabilitation committee, 1966, 9).
  • The structure of special education at this time contained two types of special classes: auxiliary classes for students with learning difficulties and other separate classes for students with emotional and behavioural problems. Additionally, there were a few state schools mainly for students with sensory disabilities. The number of students in special classes remained under two percent.
  • During the educational reform which took place from 1972-1977 the previous dual educational system was superseded by a unified and obligatory nine year comprehensive school, called “peruskoulu”, for all children
  • School began at the age of seven and continued until an age 16
  • School began at the age of seven and continued until an age 16. After completion of comprehensive school the voluntary school path continued either in vocational education or in a three year upper secondary high school.
  • Special education achieved great attention in this reform. The special education division was founded in the National Board of Education and two committee reports were published on the organisation of special education in Finland.
  • The forms of traditional special education were secured but, additionally, the principle of integration was launched. On one side the new concept expressed positive content of the occurring paradigm shift from institutional care to rehabilitation. On the other side it very early expressed its ideological nature as a concept that helped to legitimate the exclusion of disabled people. Integration was considered conditional and depended on the “readiness” of the person.
  • A new profession of special education teachers, professionals without a grade level class responsibility, was established.
  • In this so called “part-time special education” students received individual or group-based support without formal enrolment into special student status. This led to a conflict with the professional union of teachers, OAJ, which declared a lock-out for those positions in the schools which offered them. As a compromise it was at last agreed that the new profession was not allowed to influence reductions in the number of relocations into special classes (Kivirauma, 1989).
  • The number of special class students in the seventies had increased to about two percent of the overall student population in comprehensive schools (Statistics Finland, 1981).
  • From 1983 onwards, a new law concerning comprehensive schools changed the field of special education
  • The two older forms of special education classes, the auxiliary school (Hilfschule) for students with learning difficulties and the “observation classes” for students with emotional and behavioural problems were now superseded by a system which could be characterised as principally a non-categorical system of special education. Local municipalities were now allowed to categorize their special education classes as they wanted, though most of the older terms still survived.
  • There was not, however, a true change from categorical to non-categorical special education.
  • First, strong categorical features came from state funding, which portioned out state support on an individual basis in accordance with the level of disability.
  • Second, local municipalities began to develop new, more medical, special education categories.
  • Third, the special teacher education programs continued to use categorical labels such as “special teacher for the maladjusted”, “adapted education” or “training school education”. Training school education referred to students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities which were now at last entitled to enter comprehensive school.
  • During the eighties the proportion of special class students in comprehensive schools grew approximately from two to three percent (Statistics Finland, 1989).
  • One consequence of the liberation from special class categories was the sudden emergence of new types of special needs categories.
  • For example, the proportion of students with dysphasia increased from 10% to 20% in just six years.
  •   Disability category 2002 2008 N % N %
  • Autism and Asperger syndrome 679 2.0 1408 3.0
  • An important characteristic of these new popular categories was their medical nature. New diagnoses such as “dysphasia”, “autism”, and “ADHD” attained popularity at the expense of older categories such as mental retardation
  • A common feature of the new popular diagnoses was their obscurity. Instead of a clear-cut collection of symptoms they resembled more vague metaphors.
  • This medical turn can be seen as the late fruit of the rehabilitation paradigm which was adopted twenty years earlier.
  • The new categorizations were more merciful as compared to the older ones because children were no longer seen as “bad” or “stupid” but as “sick” and in need of rehabilitation (Conrad & Schneider, 1980/1992). This change in perception from “badness” to “sickness” also helped to give new legitimacy to special education.
  • proportion of comprehensive school students transferred into special classes now grew up to four percent (Table 2). Students with severe and profound intellectual disabilities were now also accepted into comprehensive school in 1997 as the final small disability group thus far marginalized to the outside.
  • The last ten years have witnessed a rapid growth of segregated special education in Finland
  • Year   Total   SEN total % SEN total % Full time in mainstream class % Full time or part-time in special education class
  • 2008 561 061 47 257 8.4 2.3 6.1
  • 1998 591 679 21 826 3.7 0.3 3.4
  • Now the proportion of students in special schools and special classes has increased to over six percent, maybe the highest percentage reported anywhere in the world at the present time.
  • Other supports, such as the increasing use of part-time special education have not been effective in reducing this development
  • During the school term of 2006-2007 of the students in comprehensive schools, 22.2% received part-time special education (Statistics Finland, 2009)
  • the number of integrated students has also grown. This was due to a change in funding legislation in 1998, which also guaranteed additional state support for those special education students not removed into special classes.
  • The relative proportion of students in special schools was 2.0% in 1998 and 1.4% in 2007
  • The slight fall in special school placements seems to be mainly technical: many special schools have been administratively united to mainstream schools. The number of special schools has dropped to about 160. Most of them probably were schools for students with mild disabilities (former auxiliary schools).
  • Large towns slightly more often use special class placements than rural schools
  • While in 2005 a total of 5.6% of students were moved in special classes in the country as a whole, the average proportion in larger towns was at a higher percentage, 6 - 9%
  • Large towns also relied more on separate special schools (Memo, 2006)
  • In contrast, in sparsely inhabited areas, such as Lapland, special class placements have remained rarer than elsewhere.
  • The least number of placements are in the Swedish speaking part of Finland. This may indicate a cultural influence from Sweden where special class placements are much rarer than in Finland
  • The significant distances in the countryside of Finland explain why integration is more common in rural areas.
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hot chocolate and mint: Being Sensible - 0 views

  • There’s nothing wrong with being angry. In fact, there are times when we should be angry; when people lie to us, when someone abuses our rights, when someone forces us to do something that is against our belief, when people disrespect us, and so forth. But being angry is right when released in the right way too. Just like how there’s the right way to talk to people, there is also the right way to express our anger; with grace.
  • when you’re really angry at someone, try to keep it between just the two of you. You don’t have to take people down in front of everyone just because they made you crazily angry for that very minute.
  • People make mistakes, and there are reasons for them. So listen to them first, then judge and evaluate.
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  • The moment you take it public, you are putting someone’s life at risk. Because you never know how one impulsive tweet or announcement can change a person’s life. Have the sense to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Life’s not always about me, me and me
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    One of the easiest things to do in life is to "be angry". Somehow, for some people, being angry seems to be  far much easier than being happy.
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Raising a Polite Child | Parenting With Love - 0 views

  • I’m not trying to ‘train’ him to have good manners, but if I want something from him, I always say ‘please’, and when he gives me something, I always say ‘thank you’. When he is older, he will automatically do those things too.”
  • Do as I say or do as I do?
  • trying to ‘train’ children to be polite can be counter-productive, especially if we begin when they are too young to do it naturally
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  • if we treat children with politeness and respect, and if they see us treating each other the same way, they will imitate us as they grow. They watch everything we say and do, and are learning, “Oh, so that’s how people are supposed to do it”!
  • “Said without feeling, these can be empty words. How often do we say thank you to the person at the supermarket checkout, without even thinking. It has simply become a habit. Rather we should teach children how to show genuine appreciation to people who give or share something with them. We can help them do this in age-appropriate ways right from the beginning, especially if we understand that young children show their feelings in non-verbal ways”.
  • each child shows their appreciation spontaneously in their own unique way
  • Positive non-verbal behaviours young children use to show appreciation: A smile A nod Direct eye contact Playfulness A physical touch they initiate Excited behaviour A shout of joy Skipping or jumping up and down
  • we should allow children to communicate their appreciation spontaneously. As they grow older and watch how we show appreciation to them and to other people, including words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, doing the same will come naturally
  • Though prompting children to be polite can be counter-productive, we can facilitate them showing appreciation by involving them when we are being polite or friendly to someone. “Lets go and wave goodbye to Granny”, doesn’t put the child on the spot like, “Say goodbye to Granny now”.
  • If we make it fun, the child will probably enjoy participating.
  • Rather than formal words like “Thank you, we had a lovely time”, he encouraged each child to share something they had done with the aunt or uncle at the beach-house, and draw a picture of it to show appreciation of something that was shared and enjoyed.
  • parents who prompt their children to say things they consider polite, are really feeling anxious. They see their children as an extension of themselves and want their children to act as they would, in case another other adult assumes they are not raising them with good manners. Thinking fast, I looked at the dad, smiled at him, and said, “Don’t worry. Big people find it easy to speak to little people, but little people find it hard to speak to big people”. He looked visibly relieved that I didn’t see him as a bad father.
  • Teaching children good manners begins with us showing them respect.
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    "Every parent wants to have polite, respectful children with good manners. Fortunately nature is on our side. Children learn by copying what we do and love to do everything 'just like mommy and daddy do', as it makes them feel they are being 'big'."
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"We're the future - YOUR future." | Psychopomp - 0 views

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    Riots in London have everyone talking today, although violence and disorder have been going for days according to reports. Causes and motivations are still unclear, and as with most crises they will probably remain so until after the fact. Whatever the reasons, youth in London and increasingly across England are tossing aside any sense of citizenship they might have had in favour of selfish, violent behaviour against a society which, judging from the quotes that are emerging, they perceive as having abandoned them. Why is this spreading so far and so fast? Riots of this magnitude erupt when people are pushed to their limits, unhappy with a government which has betrayed them or does not represent them. We applaud when people demonstrate their desire for democracy with this kind of passion, and comdemn police who silence them. In London, however, the police seem to be determinedly holding to their responsibility not to hurt citizens - and in pro-democracy protests, rioters do not upload photos with themselves and the commercial goods they have managed to steal.
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School System Part 2 By Sheikh Hamza Yusuf - YouTube - 0 views

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    5:02: "Without teaching people meaning, without teaching people purpose, you create monsters, you create the disease known as 'civilisation'. This is what happens when you divorce education from the sacred." 6:10: The prophet Muhammad said "One of the signs of the end of time, is that people will study for other than the sake of God. They will build a school for other than the sake of God. " 6:30 "Every civilisation... understood that learning was to make a better human being, learning was not to make more money... it was to make a better human being; not for learning's sake, but for the sake fo Allah SWT."
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What People Don't Realize About Publicizing Their Sins Online - FiqhOfSocial.Media - 0 views

  • “The internet is a reflection of our society and that mirror is going to be reflecting what we see. If we do not like what we see in that mirror the problem is not to fix the mirror, we have to fix society.” Vint Cerf, one of the ‘fathers of the internet’
  • Islamically, there are two hadith of the Prophet (s) that govern the publicizing of sins.
  • Principle 1: Don’t Publicize Your Own Sins
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  • Principle 2: Don’t Publicize the Sins of Others
  • Privacy Settings Are Not a Veil
  • Who Do You Follow? It’s really awkward when you meet a brother at the masjid who is married with kids, follow him on Instagram, and then see that while he posts normal pictures, he is following 200 swimsuit models on Instagram.
  • Unseen Consequences In the book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, the author makes a point about how teens consider their public spaces private. In other words, if they’re posting goofy photos with their friends and leaving comments, they can’t fathom why a random adult who has nothing to do with them would view it. While logically that may be true, it’s just not the case. The internet is forever.
  • Your profile is not limited to just a Facebook page. Your profile encompasses the sum of what you post, people you follow, and pages you’ve liked. Two questions that are great points of introspection: Would I be ok with how my social profiles look if I were to suddenly pass away? Would I be comfortable with my profile if I was “friends” with the Prophet (saw) online? Or if he was to see my Snapchat story history?
  • go out of your way to cut off even the smallest of doubts about your behavior.
  • Societal Pressure
  • Embarrassing Others
  • Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you do not know (24:19).
  • We have a natural curiosity to find out what others are up to, but it is part our faith to leave this alone. There is a story about the Prophet Musa (as). During a drought, he went out to the desert with 70,000 people and supplicated for rain. Nothing happened. Musa was expecting the supplication to be answered, and then Allah (swt) revealed to him that among them is a person who has been challenging Allah with sins for the past 40 years, and to call out on that person to repent because the rain is withheld due to him. So Musa called out to the people for this sinner to repent. The sinner looked around and saw no one coming forward, and he realized this was about him. He did not want to go forward and expose himself. So he put his head down and said, “My Lord I have disobeyed You for 40 years and You have always given me respite. I come to you in obedience so accept it from me.” He had barely finished this supplication when a cloud appeared overhead and rain started pouring down. Musa then called out to Allah confused – no one came forward, yet the rain was sent down. Allah (swt) told him, “O Musa, I did not expose him when he was disobeying Me, then do you expect Me to expose him while he is obedient to Me?”
  • A Muslim is a Muslim’s brother: he does not wrong him or abandon him. If anyone cares for his brother’s need, Allah will care for his need; if anyone removes a Muslim’s anxiety, Allah will remove from him, on account of it, one of the anxieties of the Day of resurrection; and if anyone conceals a Muslim’s fault, Allah will conceal his fault on the Day of resurrection (Abu Dawud).
  • “Oh you who have believed with their tongues yet faith has not entered their hearts! Do not back-bite the Muslims, and do not seek to discover their faults, for whoever seeks after their faults, Allah will seek his faults. And if Allah seeks after someone’s faults, He will expose him even (what he committed) in his home.”
  • Every one of my followers will be forgiven except those who expose (openly) their wrongdoings. An example of this is that of a man who commits a sin at night which Allah has covered for him, and in the morning, he would say (to people): “I committed such and such sin last night,’ while Allah had kept it a secret. During the night Allah has covered it up but in the morning he tears up the cover (sitr) provided by Allah Himself (Bukhari and Muslim).
  • The meaning of this Name is that Allah (swt) is aware of our sins, and yet He covers them up. He does not allow our embarrassing actions to become known to others. He protects us by keeping our faults from becoming public. He keeps even our largest sins hidden from those closest to us.
  • He is Al-Sitteer, and He covers your sins, asks you to repent, and He loves that you cover the sins of others
  • O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well being in this life and the next. O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well-being in my religious and worldly affairs, and my family and my wealth. O Allah, veil [sitr] my weaknesses and set at ease my dismay. O Allah, preserve me from the front and from behind and on my right and on my left and from above, and I take refuge with You lest I be swallowed up by the earth.
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Lesson Plans: Using pictures - 0 views

  • save every picture from every magazine, calendar, and newspaper. I have my student aide cut them out and then I laminate them. I sort them into big manila envelopes into 1. people 2. animals 3.landscape scenes 4. single objects 5. situational scenes in whichpeople may be talking or laughing or crying..... (can't think of the others). Then I use them for EVERYTHING.
  • Materials Required: pictures cut from calendars, magazines, newspapers
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    1. Kids get into groups and are given a stack of pictures into which I have put pictures from each of the above category. I usually put around 15-20 in each stack. When we do nouns.... I will place big signs on the board with "common" "proper" "abstract" "concrete" "plural" and any others we are studying. Their group has to go through their stack and find one to correspond with each topic AND they have to have a justification for each. 2. When I do prepositions, I give each student a situation picture and have them list as many preps. as they can find in each picture. I give a prize for the most found. 3. When we study characterization, I give each student one picture from the "people" envelope and have them write a brief character sketch based on what they perceive. 4. When I do verbs, I will give each row ONE picture. I tell the students in the first seat of each row to take out one piece of paper. When I say "GO", the first person looks at his picture and comes up with one action verb. Then very quickly writes it down and passes it back. The next person has to write down another action verb and pass it back to the next. It just keeps going. The person in the back runs the picture up to the front person. I usually start another picture back as soon as the first person passes it to the next. In about 4-5 minutes, I stop and the row with the most and the most accurate verb list gets a prize or pig points. 5. When we do short stories, I give each person an envelope in which I have put 2-3 people (characters), 1 place picture (setting) and 1 picture from the situational. After we have discussed the "elements",they begin to write their own short story based on what they have in front of them. 6. When I teach a vocabulary word that is a little more difficult, I always go to my stack to find one that illustrates it. For example, I found a perfect picture of a clear blue lake with not one ripple to show them "placid". They never forgot that word. 7.
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Pros and Cons of Facebook - 0 views

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    There are obviously two sides to this argument, and it all depends on what your opinions are. People who like Facebook can spend hours on it browsing through other peoples profiles, whereas some people cannot even stand the sight of it, even though they know how to use Facebook wisely. Here are some of the well known pros of Facebook.
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Adult ADHD: 50 Tips of Management « Dr Hallowell ADHD and mental and cognitiv... - 0 views

  • the single most powerful treatment for ADHD is understanding ADHD in the first place. Read books. Talk with professionals. Talk with other adults who have ADHD. You’ll be able to design your own treatment to fit your own version of ADHD.
  • It is useful for you to have a coach, for some person near you to keep after you, but always with humor. Your coach can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement or remind you to get back to work. Friend, colleague, or therapist (it is possible, but risky for your coach to be your spouse), a coach is someone to stay on you to get things done, exhort you as coaches do, keep tabs on you, and in general be in your corner. A coach can be tremendously helpful in treating ADHD.
  • ADHD adults need lots of encouragement. This is in part due to their having many self-doubts that have accumulated over the years. But it goes beyond that. More than the average person, the ADHD adult withers without encouragement and positively lights up like a Christmas tree when given it. They will often work for another person in a way they won’t work for themselves. This is not “bad”, it just is. It should be recognized and taken advantage of.
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  • it equally if not more important for those around you to understand it–family, job, school, friends. Once they get the concept they will be able to understand you much better and to help you as well.
  • Try to get rid of the negativity that may have infested your system if you have lived for years without knowing what you had was ADHD
  • Listen to feedback from trusted others. Adults (and children, too) with ADHD are notoriously poor self-observers. They use a lot of what can appear to be denial.
  • Consider joining or starting a support group
  • Give up guilt over high-stimulus-seeking behavior. Understand that you are drawn to high stimuli. Try to choose them wisely, rather than brooding over the “bad” ones.
  • Don’t feel chained to conventional careers or conventional ways of coping. Give yourself permission to be yourself. Give up trying to be the person you always thought you should be–the model student or the organized executive, for example–and let yourself be who you are.
  • what you have is a neuropsychiatric condition. It is genetically transmitted. It is caused by biology, by how your brain is wired. It is NOT a disease of the will, nor a moral failing. It is NOT caused by a weakness in character, nor by a failure to mature. It’s cure is not to be found in the power of the will, nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain. ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS. Try as they might, many people with ADHD have great trouble accepting the syndrome as being rooted in biology rather than weakness of character.
  • External structure. Structure is the hallmark of the non-pharmacological treatment of the ADHD child. It can be equally useful with adults. Tedious to set up, once in place structure works like the walls of the bobsled slide, keeping the speedball sled from careening off the track.
  • Make frequent use of: ◦    lists ◦    color-coding ◦    reminders ◦    notes to self ◦    rituals ◦    files
  • Color coding. Mentioned above, color-coding deserves emphasis. Many people with ADHD are visually oriented. Take advantage of this by making things memorable with color: files, memoranda, texts, schedules, etc. Virtually anything in the black and white of type can be made more memorable, arresting, and therefore attention-getting with color.
  • try to make your environment as peppy as you want it to be without letting it boil over.
  • Now that you have the freedom of adulthood, try to set things up so that you will not constantly be reminded of your limitations.
  •  Make deadlines.
  •  Break down large tasks into small ones. Attach deadlines to the small parts. Then, like magic, the large task will get done. This is one of the simplest and most powerful of all structuring devices. Often a large task will feel overwhelming to the person with ADHD. The mere thought of trying to perform the task makes one turn away. On the other hand, if the large task is broken down into small parts, each component may feel quite manageable.
  • Prioritize. Avoid procrastination. When things get busy, the adult ADHD person loses perspective: paying an unpaid parking ticket can feel as pressing as putting out the fire that just got started in the wastebasket. Prioritize. Take a deep breath. Put first things first. Procrastination is one of the hallmarks of adult ADHD. You have to really discipline yourself to watch out for it and avoid it.
  • Accept fear of things going well. Accept edginess when things are too easy, when there’s no conflict. Don’t gum things up just to make them more stimulating.
  •  Notice how and where you work best: in a noisy room, on the train, wrapped in three blankets, listening to music, whatever. Children and adults with ADHD can do their best under rather odd conditions. Let yourself work under whatever conditions are best for you.
  • it is O.K. to do two things at once: carry on a conversation and knit, or take a shower and do your best thinking, or jog and plan a business meeting. Often people with ADHD need to be doing several things at once in order to get anything done at all.
  • Do what you’re good at. Again, if it seems easy, that is O.K. There is no rule that says you can only do what you’re bad at.
  • Leave time between engagements to gather your thoughts. Transitions are difficult for ADHD’ers, and mini-breaks can help ease the transition.
  • Keep a notepad in your car, by your bed, and in your pocketbook or jacket. You never know when a good idea will hit you, or you’ll want to remember something else.
  • Read with a pen in hand, not only for marginal notes or underlining, but for the inevitable cascade of “other” thoughts that will occur to you.
  • Set aside some time in every week for just letting go
  • Recharge your batteries. Related to #30, most adults with ADHD need, on a daily basis, some time to waste without feeling guilty about it. One guilt-free way to conceptualize it is to call it time to recharge your batteries. Take a nap, watch T.V., meditate. Something calm, restful, at ease.
  • Many adults with ADHD have an addictive or compulsive personality such that they are always hooked on something. Try to make this something positive.
  • Understand mood changes and ways to manage these. Know that your moods will change willy-nilly, independent of what’s going on in the external world. Don’t waste your time ferreting out the reason why or looking for someone to blame. Focus rather on learning to tolerate a bad mood, knowing that it will pass, and learning strategies to make it pass sooner. Changing sets, i.e., getting involved with some new activity (preferably interactive) such as a conversation with a friend or a tennis game or reading a book will often help.
  • recognize the following cycle which is very common among adults with ADHD: Something “startles” your psychological system, a change or transition, a disappointment or even a success. The precipitant may be quite trivial. This “startle” is followed by a mini-panic with a sudden loss of perspective, the world being set topsy-turvy. You try to deal with this panic by falling into a mode of obsessing and ruminating over one or another aspect of the situation. This can last for hours, days, even months.
  • Plan scenarios to deal with the inevitable blahs. Have a list of friends to call. Have a few videos that always engross you and get your mind off things. Have ready access to exercise. Have a punching bag or pillow handy if there’s extra angry energy. Rehearse a few pep talks you can give yourself, like, “You’ve been here before. These are the ADHD blues. They will soon pass. You are O.K.”
  • Expect depression after success. People with ADHD commonly complain of feeling depressed, paradoxically, after a big success. This is because the high stimulus of the chase or the challenge or the preparation is over. The deed is done. Win or lose, the adult with ADHD misses the conflict, the high stimulus, and feels depressed.
  •  Use “time-outs” as with children. When you are upset or overstimulated, take a time-out. Go away. Calm down.
  • Learn how to advocate for yourself. Adults with ADHD are so used to being criticized, they are often unnecessarily defensive in putting their own case forward. Learn to get off the defensive.
  • Avoid premature closure of a project, a conflict, a deal, or a conversation. Don’t “cut to the chase” too soon, even though you’re itching to.
  • Try to let the successful moment last and be remembered, become sustaining over time. You’ll have to consciously and deliberately train yourself to do this because you’ll just as soon forget.
  •  Remember that ADHD usually includes a tendency to overfocus or hyperfocus at times. This hyperfocusing can be used constructively or destructively. Be aware of its destructive use: a tendency to obsess or ruminate over some imagined problem without being able to let it go.
  •  Exercise vigorously and regularly. You should schedule this into your life and stick with it. Exercise is positively one of the best treatments for ADHD. It helps work off excess energy and aggression in a positive way, it allows for noise-reduction within the mind, it stimulates the hormonal and neurochemical system in a most therapeutic way, and it soothes and calms the body. When you add all that to the well-known health benefits of exercise, you can see how important exercise is. Make it something fun so you can stick with it over the long haul, i.e., the rest of your life.
  • Learn to joke with yourself and others about your various symptoms, from forgetfulness, to getting lost all the time, to being tactless or impulsive, whatever. If you can be relaxed about it all to have a sense of humor, others will forgive you much more.
  • Make a good choice in a significant other. Obviously this is good advice for anyone. But it is striking how the adult with ADHD can thrive or flounder depending on the choice of mate.
  • Schedule activities with friends. Adhere to these schedules faithfully. It is crucial for you to keep connected to other people.
  • Find and join groups where you are liked, appreciated, understood, enjoyed. Conversely, don’t stay too long where you aren’t understood or appreciated.
  • Pay compliments. Notice other people. In general, get social training, as from your coach.
  • Set social deadlines.
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Rafeef Ziadeh - We Teach Life, Sir! - YouTube - 0 views

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    Today, my body was a TV'd massacre. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response. And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions. But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don't you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children? Pause. I look inside of me for strength to be patient but patience is not at the tip of my tongue as the bombs drop over Gaza. Patience has just escaped me. Pause. Smile. We teach life, sir. Rafeef, remember to smile. Pause. We teach life, sir. We Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky. We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies. We teach life, sir. But today, my body was a TV'd massacre made to fit into sound-bites and word limits. And just give us a story, a human story. You see, this is not political. We just want to tell people about you and your people so give us a human story. Don't mention that word "apartheid" and "occupation". This is not political. You have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story which is not a political story. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre. How about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication? How about you? Do you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun? Hand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in one thousand two hundred word limits. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood. But they felt sorry. They felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza. So, I give them UN resolutions and statistics and we condemn and we deplore and we reject. And these are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied. And a hundred dead, two hundred dead, and a thousand de
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