Cornell Kappa Sigma

There is nothing to joke around with when it comes to managing the stress level in your life. The amount of stress that you endure has a direct impact on your health and overall well being. Pay close attention to the tips provided in this article for how to manage your stress.

It has often been said that laughter is the best medicine. This saying is true, especially when it comes to dealing with stress. Laughing reduces stress hormones in the body, causing an overwhelming sensation that makes you feel good. If you are having a hard time laughing, then at least try to crack a smile.

Look for ways to make everyday responsibilities and obligations less stressful. For example, planning meals for the week can eliminate the stress of deciding what is for dinner, and creating a list of household chores (and delegating them to specific days or family members) can help to make housework less stressful.

Gastrointestinal distress is a common reaction to stress. Acid reflux, a persistent feeling of nausea, and even problems with elimination can be our body’s outward reaction to stress. Reduce the level of stress you are feeling and symptoms such as these will often be greatly minimized or even disappear entirely!

Create a peaceful saying. Many people use a positive saying or affirmation that they say repeatedly when they begin to feel stressed. By repeating the affirmation, you can silence the more critical thoughts you are having about the situation. Next time you are feeling stressed, try saying the affirmation ten times in a row.

In conclusion, it is extremely important to know how to best manage stress in your life. Hopefully the advice in this article will prove to be beneficial to you in how to not only identify but also reduce the amount of stress that you have in order to life a happier life.

Travel is one of those rare human endeavors that can be either recreational activity or obligatory. Sometimes you want to travel and sometimes you have to. Whatever compels you to hit the road, the sea, or the sky, you can have a better travel experience if you educate yourself on the smart ways to travel.

Carefully check out any travel package deals before you book them. Many airlines and websites put together flights, hotel accommodations, meals and activities and offer them at one price. This is designed to benefit the companies, because they can book flights and rooms without mentioning their bottom line. Some of these packages can be steals, but you should always look into the cost of each piece of the deal to make sure you are saving money.

If you are traveling with children, purchase disposable cameras for them. They do not cost a lot of money, and they will keep your child busy throughout the trip. Ask your kids to snap pictures of anything they want to remember from the trip, and you may end up with some pretty interesting pictures.

If you do not know the language of the area you will be traveling to, try to learn a few basic phrases before you go. If you can ask if someone speaks English, in their language, they may be more likely to help you out or help you find someone else who can help you. Also, a smile goes a long way. Don’t be an obnoxious, English speaker.

Some people love to travel, regardless of their motivation. Others endure traveling at best. The difference between the two is not just a matter of temperament, though. When you take in smart travel advice like that found here, you can shift yourself towards being the former sort of person instead of the latter.

by: Cornell Kappa Sigma  

–”giving you tips on how to study and achieve student success“

In this day and age many people are looking for ways to manage their personal finances better. Since many people are barely making enough money to survive and trying to save money they are looking for ways to manage it better. This article contains ways you can better manage your finances.

Set up your bank account to transfer a predetermined sum of money from your checking to your savings once a month. You will forget you even have this money or see it as a bill, just like any other expense. Your savings can add up quickly by doing this.

To help you improve your personal financial situation, use direct deposit to ensure your paycheck goes directly into the bank. If you decide to cash your check immediately instead of depositing it, it will be more tempting to spend the money instead of saving it. Direct deposit will ensure you save more money and improve your personal finances.

If your employer offers a match to your 401K, make sure you’re contributing at least the amount they match. When an employer offers to match your funds, they are essentially giving you free money. The money you contribute will help you reach retirement goals and is tax free. It’s a win-win situation, all around.

If you are saving for your retirement it is recommended that you save 10-15% of your annual income when your are just starting out. Obviously, if you are older you will need to save more. You also need to save more if you will not retire with an mortgage free home. The sooner you get started the more you will have when you need it most.

Since money is tight for a good majority of people, they are looking for ways to manage their finances better so they can save for their future or just try to survive for now. After reading the article above you should know ways to better manage your family’s money for a better future.

by: Cornell Kappa Sigma  

–”giving you tips on how to study and achieve student success“

You know how important books are to children’s education. You can help children in need of new books by donating at FirstBook.org.

Let’s give these children access to books. Go to FirstBook now!

Some people are naturally more inclined to feel stressed out than others, but stress is something that can happen to everyone depending on the situation. You do not need to feel hopeless if you’re currently feeling the strain. Check out the tips in this article and work to fight that stress that’s bogging you down.

To handle stress in your life, start by minimizing stress in your life. Something as simple as laying out your work clothing for the next day can give you a better start in the morning; it may give you a few extra minutes to relax as well, instead of running around looking for a stray shoe or favorite blue sweater.

Smile to help lessen your stress levels. The act of smiling sends nerve impulses to the part of your brain that processes emotion, which slightly changes your internal neurochemical balance, making you feel happier. This might be because your body remembers that you smile when you’re happy–so if you smile, you must be happy at that moment.

One great way to deal with stress is to be sure that you are not projecting your stress upon somebody else and taking them down with you. This is important because you need to deal with your own stress yourself and not assert blame on anybody if they are not responsible.

In order to reduce stress in your life, avoid bottling up your feelings. Instead, say what is on your mind in a caring and respectful way so that people know how your are feeling. Keeping your feelings to yourself can often lead to resentment and anger, whereas open communication can help you find solutions to even the most complex problems and situations.

Even if you only deal with stress on occasion, the tips you’ve just read here can help you to eliminate it altogether. Please, if you do have problems with stress, use these tips to fight it before that stress takes hold of you and causes bigger problems. Your emotional state is nothing to trifle with.

Stress can affect our lives negatively in many ways. If you have a lot of stress in your life, it can affect your relationships, your ability to focus and be productive, and even your health! That’s why it’s so important to learn to relieve and reduce stress in your life. Read on to find out how.

A great tip that can help you keep your stress levels down is to eliminate caffeine from your diet. Even though drinking coffee has become so popular these days, getting too much caffeine can have serious side effects. Cutting out caffeine will help you feel much less anxious.

If you often find yourself feeling overwhelmed, work on saying no. You may want to please others, but taking on too many responsibilities is a surefire path to stress. If people ask you to do something, be honest and say that you’re too busy. They may be disappointed, but it’s the right thing to do for yourself.

A great tip that can help you feel less stressed is to go back and finish something that you started. We all know the lingering feeling of leaving something unfinished. By going back and completing something that you left unfinished, your stress will go down and you’ll feel much better.

A great tip that can help you when you’re feeling stressed out is to do some cleaning. Part of the reason you’re stressed out might be due to the fact that your home is so unorganized. Doing a bit of cleaning around your house can help you out and get you in a better state of mind.

Remember that stress from all areas of life can negatively impact you in many ways. If you practice the tips from this article, you can improve your job, your family life, and your emotional, mental, and physical well being. Remember to recognize symptoms of stress in yourself and take a step back if you need to.

You can use social media sites as a way to market your business, services or products. However, there are things that need to be done a particular way in order to prevent failure. The article that follows will help you learn the best methods to use in social media marketing.

When working with social media marketing, you should always remember that you are speaking to individual people, and not the masses. The tone of your postings should be directed towards personal level for maximum success. It takes some practice to develop the right voice, but over time and with practice you will be able to communicate effectively.

When you are creating your ads that will be placed on a social media page, you must be sure that it will be flashy and attention grabbing. If you do not do this, it is likely that your ad will be glimpsed over with out a bit of acknowledgement. Make it flashy and people will notice it more often.

Social media marketing is a great way to reach more customers and new customers. If you have a business which is located in New York City and your advertising is focused in the New York area, try experimenting with sending ad copy thought social media to New Jersey as well. That way you increase the reach of your company.

If you send out periodic newsletters, always provide a link to your website’s Facebook page within it. This provides those people who receive your newsletter but might not realize you’re on Facebook to “like” you or follow you. The more opportunities you provide for people to connect with you, the more likely they will.

You now have knowledge of the best proven methods of social media marketing. Use the tips that you were provided, and write a marketing plan that you can work from to make the social sites on the internet your new marketing domain. They really can help to grow your business quite rapidly.

by: Cornell Kappa Sigma  

–”giving you tips on how to study and achieve student success“

Jan 3rd, 1995
I have long heard of the lives of the privileged classes, and now I have prepared myself to experience life as a member. Tomorrow, I will don the the uniform of the academic and re-enter society, NOT as I once was, a worker and pawn of the educated classes, but as a peer of those very people. Tomorrow, I shall become an academic!

Jan 4th, 1995
Dressed in a pair of green slacks with shortened legs, red cardigan and egg-yolk-stained tee-shirt; sporting a scraggly beard and armed only with a pipe, I stepped onto the University Campus. Immediately upon mumbling some incomprehensible gibberish, I was greeted on with respect and awe by my fellow academia. Applying for tenure was simple. The questions were very direct:

They: Do you know what you’re doing?
Me: This is Belgium, right?
They: You have a masters in English?
Me: I have a Red Volvo!
They: And you’re applying for a position in the department of Physics?
Me: I think sometimes, therefore I am illogical!

I was appointed immediately and released to an unsuspecting student population.

Jan 5th, 1995
Today was my first as a lecturer. I prepared concientiously by drinking heavily, watching lots of television and going to bed very late the preceding night turning up at my lecture the prescribed 1 minute late, I spoke of Yeats and the passion of his poetry. The first year Physics students were left speechless.

Jan 6th, 1995
I did not go to work today, due to my thinking it was Saturday.

Jan 7th, 1995
I did not go to work today, due to my thinking it was a Wednesday.

Jan 8th, 1995
I went to work today and was distressed at the lack of attendance.

Jan 9th, 1995
Being conscientious in the maintenance of my diary, I take a well deserved holiday knowing that in three more days I will be eligible for a six month sebattical.

Jan 12th, 1995
My lecture this morning was a landmark effort. I launched into the explanation of the right-hand-rule, then, remembering that I was an academic, subverted myself into discussing of the right-hand-rule of hitch-hiking, the dangers of hitchhiking, the dangers of hitching in South America, my Holiday in South America, the woman I met in South America, the place she worked at, their physics department, then to finish off, what their physics department said about the right-hand-rule. I think I was well received

Jan 13th, 1995
A minor peice of confusion here in that I brought my Telephone book instead of my lecture notes. I improvised the basic electrical safety section of the course with the aid of two paper clips, a student and a handy power point. I feel sure the class now appreciates the dangers of electricity. Attendance dropped by one.

Jan 14th, 1995
Being a Friday, I decide to excite my first year pupils with an experiment in wave theory. I walked into the lab, waved, and left. I’m sure my students appreciated the humourous content.

Jan 16th, 1995
Having now mastered when weekends occur, I turned up to receive confirmation of my sebattical, taking it, on full pay, immediately.

Jul 17th, 1995
Back from sebattical I realise that I did not make arrangements for a stand-in lecturer. In an attempt to catch up for the lost time, I set the students some homework, pages 1-375, read and do all exercises.

Jul 18th, 1995
Attendance was exceptionally low today with only one student in class. When I asked him how his homework was going as his entire coursework depended on it. He screamed and left. I marked him absent and informed the grants department that no-one was attending my courses.

Jul 21st, 1995
My students are all back having received the letter informing them that grants are only paid to attending students. Scholarship students, with a far harsher attendance policy, are openly weeping.

Jul 24th, 1995
I am now eligible for three months extra-curricular sebattical, which I decide to take immediately, warning my students that the exam will be held the day I return, covering all aspects of the course, including the last minute addition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Book List. I expect all students to have a copy.

Oct 24th, 1995
Exam day.
Having no preparation time, I use last years exam and substitute different values for the equation. I randomly appoint a student from another class to work out the answers and mark the exams.

Oct 27th, 1995
I receive the results of the exam which indicate that 89% of the class passed the exam. Lauded as an academic genius, I am awarded 6 months further paid sebbatical to study the effects of alcohol on the mind. Starting the third day of term next year. I think I’m on a winner here.

Source: AHA Jokes

GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Allen Clinton and Jackie Kiernan

Florance Kwinja picked up her basket filled with corn meal and beans and headed to the market outside of Goma. It’s a bus commute the widow and mother of eight never used to think twice about. It was just another chore she did to earn money for her family. But it was anything but routine as the memories of the last time she made the trip two years ago come flooding back.

“We were ambushed by a group of combatants,” Florance says. “They held me down and began to rape me, one by one. I was convinced I would die that day. I stopped living.”

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rape is routinely used as a weapon of war. Help and justice are hard to find in a country with one of the world’s worst poverty rates and mass corruption. To cope with the terror, families regularly flee their home villages. Separated from their families and livelihoods, women and children turn to rummaging for scraps of food and a simple roof to sleep under. Extreme poverty and a loss of dignity have damaging effects in their lives.

Florance, 48, became a widow in 2003 when her house was ransacked and husband, a successful merchant, was killed. Having no savings, she and her children fled their remote village to the town of Goma. Florance worked tirelessly for the next few years to make money to feed and clothe her children. Then the rape happened and she fell into deep depression, an event all too common for women in the Congo. People who Florance considered her friends no longer greeted her. Shamed and scared to return to work, the once proud woman says she could no longer look people in the eyes. When things couldn’t seem to get worse, two of her eight children went missing. After three years, Florance didn’t think she would ever find them alive.

To understand what is happening here, you have turn back the clock to 1994, when the genocide that claimed nearly one million lives in neighboring Rwanda spilled over into Congo. Since then, the Congolese army, rebels and home-grown militias have been fighting over power and land, which is rich in gold, diamonds and coltan, a sought-after mineral vital to the manufacture of mobile phones and other popular consumer electronics. The result has been the deadliest conflict since World War II. Nowadays the most frequent casualties of war are women. Because women farm the fields and care for children, it’s not uncommon to hear that when a woman is raped, her entire family and community are destroyed. Over 82 percent of displaced people turn to host communities and organizations like CARE for support. Only a fraction of families make it to under-funded cramped camps, where they depend on basic aid from the United Nations and other humanitarian groups.

“Women here are in deep pain,” says Yawo Douvon, country director for CARE in the Congo. “But it’s not just the type of physical pain that can be repaired in a hospital. It’s psychological pain that you can’t see that takes more time to heal.”

Despite there being a constitutional law condemning rape and sexual violence, and newly formed mobile courts that help convict perpetrators, more work is needed to foster representative government and rule of law to bring more perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and ensure the protection of all women. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 44 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence in the Congo are now civilians.

As women seek support for their plight to overcome gender biases, there are organizations trying to help vulnerable people get back on their feet, including rape survivors and demobilized male combatants. CARE’s Espoir de Demain (Hope for Tomorrow) project organizes support groups and teaches people how to make shoes, how to cut hair – skills they can use to earn money and a chance for a whole new life.

Florance jumped at that chance. She signed up to learn to be a hairdresser, a trade almost exclusively reserved for men. Whatever difficulties she would face to break gender barriers, she knew things would change for the better. “It was as if someone had thrown me a rope to help me climb out of a deep, dark hole,” she says, explaining that her children would be able to have a “normal life” once she launched her own business. “It’s a good business to be in because people always need haircuts.”

More importantly, Florance says she chose this trade to stay in one place and not be as vulnerable to potential attackers.
After finishing the training, Florance opened her own business in June, 2011 CARE provided her with a generator, hair cutting supplies, mirrors, lamps and other necessities to get her started. Nervous, with clippers in hand, she says she remembered to cut up instead of down like her instructor showed her when cutting the hair of her first clients. She charges 30 cents for most haircuts but favors braiding hair.

Hope is not something you’d expect Congo’s rape survivors like Florance to still cling to. But they do.The boy sitting in her chair today was extra special. He is one of Florance’s two eldest sons. Both boys had been reunited with her by the Red Cross after years of separation. They have also received skills training through CARE to become a carpenter and plumber.

Looking at Florance today you could not recognize her past suffering through the proud smile on her face. She says, “I’ve had a lot of deception in my life. Clients, visitors and CARE are my new family,” People in her neighborhood have begun greeting her again. And Florance, looking them in the eyes, greets them back.

by: Daniel Fava

-CARE. Defending dignity, fighting poverty.

Travel, no matter where and when or for what purpose, is a very exciting recreational activity.. especially for college students who are always under a lot of stress. But you can’t forget about all the things you must consider, as you are preparing for a trip. If you are going abroad, there are cultural issues to consider, including culture shock and others. With tips like these, you can will be better prepared for successful and fun travel.

While packing, try to keep your belongings as light as possible to reduce the amount of tension on your back. The last thing that you will want is to have to transport heavy bags from one place to another with items that you do not need. Stay practical to optimize your traveling experience.

When booking your trip online, be sure to enter your name exactly as it appears on your government issued identification. Extra security measures have been added in recent months and one of the requirements is that your reservation match your ID. If there are any discrepancies between the two, you might be delayed or your travel ticket could even be completely voided.

If you’ve ever traveled with young children you’ve undoubtedly been asked far too many times how much further it is. One way of solving this is to get each of the children a map and instruct them how to read it. They’ll be entertained, and you’ll be teaching them a skill that they will use the rest of their lives!

When traveling to a foreign country, become familiar with local law enforcement. Find out how to call police in the event of an emergency. Also look for the closest police station to your temporary place of residence. If you should need help, taking these steps will help you to get it quickly.

Traveling safely and with all the considerations that are important, in mind, relies on your ability to prepare the right way, even for those cultural differences you will encounter. As you prepare for a trip, no matter where you plan to go, make sure that you read these tips to start.

by: Cornell Kappa Sigma  

–”giving you tips on how to study and achieve student success“