This is my final entry. I will miss tuning in every week to sell my concoction. This week I sit in shanti as I pen down my deepest thoughts about trust. Initially i wrote a paragraph on assimilation. But i deleted it. This is a new one:) TRUST... a five letter-ed word we hardly ponder over. The reason why i believe the world goes round. The sun trusts the moon to show up after it sets. A student trusts the alarm clock that would wake him up each morning. A restaurant owner has trust that his customers would show up even before he sets up his restaurant. An angsty boss may never love his subordinate but he would still trust that subordinate to turn in the expected work in the nick of time. Yes, we all preach trust. We may not love the world but we do know that we have no choice other than to trust along the way. Be it bffs, bfs or siblings who betray us, we would still issue them that tiny winy morsel of trust. Trust is paramount. Agreed. But how do purveyors communicate trust? It makes me wonder why we are taught to be trustworthy but never taught to trust? Seems like 'trust' has an insidious nature. Well, actually not. Many of us hardly trust people easily because we had our fair share of healing wounds on our backs. We then stereotype groups of people according to our prototype of grass and experience. This prototype of grass is passed down to friends, family and generations. They communicate this over in the form of jokes, set backs and bed time stories even. Having said in intricate detail about the hand-me-downs of negative trust.. I shall now reveal the secret to communicating trust. This is solely my interpretation and shall not be proclaimed the only formula per se. "Never promise what you can't deliver!" "Do not preach something you don't practice" and adopt a positive attitute towards people who can't deliver something they promise. If it's something minute though intangible and voluminous to you.. "Don't sweat the small stuff." It's unhealthy:) 

So here's wishing you a healthy lifestyle...:)

Kudos to COMMUNICATION!

Long live COMMUNICATION!

"Just a game"... hah!

A 45-year-old Granite Falls, Snohomish Country, man was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment because he arranged to have sex with a 14-year-old girl. Geogory Charles Dolle enticed the minor after watching the TV show, 'To Catch a Predator'. He reportedly claimed to have gone online after watching this show to see if the police were baiting him or entrapping the predators. Dolle mentioned that it was "just a game" to him. The Portland "minor" that Dolle assumed he was alluring was in actual fact an undercover FBI agent. Dolle was arrested when he showed up to meet the "minor". 

Our world thrives on computer mediated communication. And cases like Dolle's are one of it's predominant features. The interaction between unknown identities in the virtual world is like catastrophe looming in the dark waters. Many parents act as bulwark against such crime by supervising and restricting their children. Yet, cyber crime is rampant. 

Perpetrators of fraud are creating new ways to scam Internet users every day. It is impossible to know all the scams that are occurring on the Web. There are several precautions that an Internet user can take to protect themselves from becoming a victim of Internet fraud. And you can get vigilant too. 

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1043923552558

Cyberspace is full of deception. Though it's part of our everyday life, CMC differs from face-to-face communication. CMC limits the level of synchronicity of interaction, which may cause a reduction of interactivity. Furthermore, CMC can overcome time- and space dependencies. The anonymity in CMC makes it very difficult to identify or guard against recalcitrants. So to predict or prevent CMC effects... that's going to be a difficult one considering how essential CMC has become:) 

Let's share... fill the air with your deep and sweeping vistas.

Templates for living

The etiquette observed while dining sheds many connotations. The protocols of cross-cultural dining, differs across various cultures and, is very obviously a form of intercultural communication we should be mindful of. 

Dining Etiquette in Germany: 

. It is good etiquette to remain standing until shown where to sit.
. Table manners are continental - fork in left hand and knife in right.
. Do not begin eating until the host signals to do so.
. It is bad etiquette to rest elbows on the table.
. Try and cut food with the fork as it compliments the cook by showing it is tender.
. Everything should be eaten on the plate.
. Indicate you have finished by lying the fork and knife parallel across the right hand side of the plate.


Dining Etiquette in Japan:

. An honoured guest sits at the centre of the table furthest from the door and begins eating first.
. Learn to use chopsticks - never point them, never pierce food with them, rest them on the chopstick rest when breaking for drink or chat.
. It is good etiquette to try a bit of everything.
. Conversation is subdued.

Dining Etiquette in Turkey:

. Meals are a social affair. Conversations are animate and loud.
. The head of the family or honoured guest is served first.
. It is good etiquette to insist the most senior is served first instead of you.
. Asking for more food is a compliment.
. If taken to a restaurant, Turkish dining etiquette has strict rules that the one who extended the invitation must pay.

Dining Etiquette in the USA:


. The fork is held in the right hand and is used for eating.
. To use the knife, the fork is switched to the left hand. To continue eating, the fork is switched back to the right hand.
. If you are more comfortable eating in the Continental manner it will not offend anyone.
. Foods or drinks can be refused without causing offense.
. Many foods are eaten by hand.

Dining Etiquette in the Middle East:


. Guests are honoured with prime choice of meats - head, eyes, etc.
. Eaten with right hand only.
. Meat is torn by holding down the piece against the dish and ripping off a desired amount with forefinger and thumb pressed together
. Rice is scooped up.
. Do not be afraid of making a mess.
. If you are finished leave food on your plate otherwise it will be filled immediately.
. It is proper etiquette to compliment the host on the food and his hospitality.

Our florishing economy is very inter-reliant yet culturally diverse. Individual or organisational, every form of communication either positively or negatively influences your dealings. A lack of cross cultural awareness may spell misinterpretations or come across as offensive. Cross cultural appreciation is vital for today's globe trotters if they want to avoid such negative repercussions.

Reference: Neil Payne, Director and Middle East Consultant for cross cultural awareness company, Kwintessential.

Fashion is public opinion

People find any situation exciting, and often inspiring, when they are part of a crowd. Infact, being part of any crowd produces elation. Does this feeling of belonging arise from phylogenetic roots, from a state of security and strength, because the individual is liberated from fears of isolation?

"No one has succeeded in making clear how the relation of the individual consciousness to the collective consciousness is to be conceived," wrote the British social psycologist William McDougall in The Group Mind (1920-21, 30). Sigmund Freud thought that collective stuctures like the "group mind" and the juxtaposition of individual and society were unnecessary constructs.

Fashions are ways of behaving which, when they are new, one can exhibit in public without isolating oneself but at a later stage one must show in public to avoid isolation. In this manner, society safeguards its cohesion and ensures that individuals will be sufficiently ready to compromise. 

Fashion's playful charecter makes it easy for us to overlook its great seriousness, its importance as an integrating social mechanism.

It is always touching to read in market analyses how wistfully consumers answer the question of what, above all, they aare looking for when they buy a new dress: "It should not go out of style," Here, if anywhere, we witness a genuine resentment against the "coercion to consume,"an anger about having to compromise one's own inclinations to the demands of fashion in order not to be ridiculed or rejected by contemporary taste as a scarecrow clad in the clothes of yesteryear. But the reasons for this "coercion to consume" are misjudged. It is not the storekeepers who pull the strings of these processes, as angry consumers tend to believe. They don't set the stage, steering the trend of fashion in one direction or the other. If they are successful, it is because like good sailors they know how to trim their sails to the wind. The outward garment is too good a means for expressing the signs of the time, too good a medium for the individual to exhibit his obedience to society.

Taken from, The Spiral of Silence by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

By the way, "coercion" is using force or authority to make a person do something against his or her will.

Valentine's

Anyway, here's a tangible depiction of Knapp's model:

Coming Together 

Initiating:  "Hi, how ya doin'?" "Fine, you?"  

Experimenting:  "Oh, so you like to ski...so do I." "You do?! Great. Where do you go?"

Intensifying:  "I...I think I love you." "I love you too." 

Integrating:  "I feel so much a part of you." "Yeah, we are like one person. What happens to you happens to me." 

Bonding:  "I want to be with you always." "Let's get married." 

Coming Apart

Differentiating:  "I just don't like big social gatherings." "Sometimes I just don't understand you. This is one area where I am not like you at all." 

Circumscribing:  "Did you have a good time on your trip?" "What time will dinner be ready?"

Stagnating:  "What's there to talk about?" "Right, I know what you're going to say and you know what I'm going to say." 

Avoiding:  "I'm so busy, I don't know if I'll be able to see you." "If I'm not around when you try, you'll understand." 

Terminating:  "I'm leaving you...and don't bother calling me." "Don't worry."

Knapp's model is useful to apply in all situations in which interpersonal communication occurs. It is relevant for romantic as well as platonic or same-gender relationships. The model also helps couples understand why there are discrepancies in what each partner is wanting from the relationship. It is also quite intuitively credible because it is practicable and usable. Another reason this model appears to be more humanistic is in the vagueness of the stage identification.

Let's talk... fill the air with your deep and sweeping vistas.

Visual Inveiglement

mon cherie,

(In response to your comments)

The images speak for themselves hence the absence of any text initially. And yes perhaps you're right I may be using them to portray the upcoming trend. But better still, the images are meant to be equivocal and I definitely intended for double entendre. So kudos to everything you make out of them 0:)

...nope those Barbie dolls are NOT modelled after The Pussycat Dolls, neither are the models from PCD (they are advertising for M.A.C.)

À la prochaine

Virtue of silence

"Well timed silence hath more eloquence than speech." 

-Martin F. Tupper