About Home

“Staying Home … Again,” Ensign, Aug 2009, 18–20
After several years of being a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t think working two days a week would be a big deal. A year following the sale of our business, the buyers defaulted and ownership reverted to us. My husband had started a new company during this time and didn’t have time for both. Because of the current market, we were not in a position to sell the business again. We decided that, with the help of good management, I could oversee things two days a week.
I missed being home at first, but I hadn’t counted on how much I would enjoy my new position. The two days a week soon grew to three and sometimes four. Being at the office became more rewarding than changing diapers and looking for missing shoes. I shopped for nice clothes and found time to pursue my own interests during the hours I was away from home.
Over time I found myself annoyed that after spending all day working I still had to cook dinner, so I often picked something up on my way home. When I walked in the door, my children clamored for my attention when all I wanted to do was unwind. In response to the perceived ingratitude of my family, I became even more involved in the business, which wasn’t doing very well despite my attention.
One day while driving home I found myself searching for any possible reason to delay my arrival. Was there one more errand I could run? Had I left anything undone at the office? I realized with surprise that I didn’t want to be home. In fact, I wanted to be anywhere but home. Matthew 6:21 reads, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” I no longer treasured being home with my children—my heart was not in it.
I pulled into the driveway and sat in my car for a few minutes. Even with the realization of how far from the path I had veered, my attitude didn’t instantly change. I was overwhelmed with guilt, sorrow, and embarrassment, yet I still didn’t want to go inside. Feeling a little panicked, I felt the prompting of the Spirit to do the only thing I could think of—I bowed my head over the steering wheel and prayed.
I asked for forgiveness for straying so far from my divine role, and then I made two pleas: first, that I could rekindle my desire to be at home; and second, that Heavenly Father would help me find a way to return home full time. I felt confident that in time I could rediscover my joy of being home with my children, but I had no idea how the second request could be achieved. The business was struggling, and my husband was having to pay many expenses with the profit from his other business. I didn’t know what the solution would be, but I had faith that things would get better somehow. I went to bed that night with a heavy heart, but I was determined to do my part to make things better.
I repeated my prayer every day. I stopped pursuing personal business during working hours so I could be home more often. I took pride in making home-cooked meals again. My attitude didn’t change overnight and it was often frustrating to have to work so hard at changing it, but in time I learned to enjoy being home again. However, aspects of the business weren’t coming together the way I had hoped. In fact, things were getting worse.
A few months after my first prayer, we reached a point where we were no longer able to make our loan payments on the business. Eventually we had no choice but to close the business and allow it to go into foreclosure. The bank would sell the building for much less than it would get as an operating company, and we would be responsible for the difference, which would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It was impossible not to take the failure personally. We had made so many sacrifices and worked so hard, but the business had failed despite our best efforts. We had never faced anything like this and found the entire experience overwhelming. And yet, there was one element that was impossible to ignore. Once we no longer had the business, I would be at home again.
I had prayed to return home full time, and though I assumed it would be through the success of the business, not the failure, I received exactly what I had asked for. Matthew 6:20 reads, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” Through this experience I have come to realize just how important it was to the Lord that I be home with my children, regardless of the consequences. The power of prayer was also driven home as I realized just how well my Father in Heaven had listened to my pleas for help. He had first helped me to change my heart, and then He helped change my circumstances.
Being home again isn’t all enjoyment. I still spend a lot of time looking for missing shoes, and at times I long for the respect and satisfaction I found at the office. However, my heart is now back where it belongs, and I once again treasure my role as a mother. I lost sight of my true riches for a time, but through the help of my Father in Heaven I was able to come home again and stay there.
Illustration by Roger Motzkus

What is Forex?

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.
Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.
In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.
Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted, where is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.
Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.
Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.
Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.
This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).
Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.

Natural beauty

Natural Resources Buoy Chilean Biotech
Country’s Riches Could Be Used to Attract Much-Needed Capital and Technology
Robert Yuan, Ph.D.
click to enlarge
Grupo Bios comprises three companies: BiosChile, BiosWerfen, and Austral Biologicals, all focused on different aspects of human and animal health.
An article in the April 1 issue of GEN described the environment for biotechnology in Chile and the various government programs intended to promote its advancement. The main priority has been R&D that will strengthen the country’s major export industries, all of which are based on natural resources.
This article will focus on the companies that make up Chile’s biotech industry—some 70 companies, most of them small in size. Many of these firms are members of the The Chilean Association of Biotechnology Companies.
The Grupo Bios is composed of BiosChile, BiosWerfen, and Austral Biologicals. The Grupo, which reported annual sales of $13 million last year, is primarily focused on human and animal health. While the basic technologies in use by the three companies are similar—monoclonal antibodies and genetic engineering—each firm pursues a different business strategy.
BiosChile manufactures and markets a series of diagnostic kits, including kits for blood typing, pregnancy, Chagas III (a disease common to South America), and the salmon pathogen, Piscirickettsia salmonis. BiosChile also provides oligonucleotide synthesis services and has developed a salmon vaccine in collaboration with Fundacion Ciencia para la Vida.
BiosWerfen markets kits and reagents for clinical laboratories, including PCR kits, products for in vitro fertilization, and reagents for lab testing.
Faced with logistical difficulties and credibility issues associated with clinical reagents originating in Latin American labs, Grupo Bios established Austral Biological in San Ramon, CA. The nascent firm markets growth factors, cytokines, transcription factors, and monoclonal antibodies in the U.S. and other industrialized countries.

My muzik

Photo: Mauricio Alejo
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Next: Q&A: Jack Horner Wants to Re-create T. Rex from Chickens—What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Nobody expected the number-one-with-a-bullet rise of the music videogame—least of all the music industry. Armed with little more than crappy graphics, plastic guitars, and epic hooks, play-along titles like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have become an industry in their own right, raking in more than $2.3 billion over the past three years. Album sales fell 19 percent this past holiday season, but the thrill isn't gone—it just moved to a different platform.
The success of these games is good news for the music biz. They're breathing new life into old bands (Weezer, anyone?) and helping popularize new ones. They're even becoming a significant distribution outlet for new releases. So the record labels ought to be ecstatic, right? Nope. They're whining over licensing fees.
"The amount being paid to the music industry, even though [these] games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small," Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman told analysts last summer. The money Warner receives for the use of its songs is "paltry," he said, and if the gamemakers don't pony up more cash, "we will not license to those games." In response, Rock Band publisher MTV Games is now boycotting Warner artists, according to a source close to the negotiations.
This is a fight no one can win. Putting the brakes on music gaming would hurt everyone in the ailing music industry. Instead of demanding greater profit participation, Warner should be angling for creative participation. Thirty years ago, Hollywood took a similar threat—the VCR—and turned it into a new source of revenue, building customer loyalty in the process. The music industry could use new games the same way—but its track record suggests that it won't.
How does this play out? Gamemakers could respond by using cover versions of songs from the Warner catalog, but Bronfman already has that move blocked. He also runs the giant music publisher Warner/Chappell, and he could deny the game companies access there, too. From Bronfman's perspective, the record labels got ripped off when MTV was sold in 1985 for $690 million ($1.4 billion in today's dollars) on the strength of videos it received for free, and then ripped off again when Apple initially denied the labels control over pricing on iTunes. He won't get fooled again.
To be fair, Bronfman has a point. Game publishers generally sign low-cost synchronization licenses—as if the music were being used incidentally, in the background. Compare this to Electronic Arts' Madden NFL franchise, from which the football league collects some 30 percent of gross revenue, and you can begin to feel his pain.
But there's better money to be made by playing together. Music games are proven earners—Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero : Aerosmith than from any single album in the band's history. The labels ought to push for more such titles and integrate them into their promotional strategies. They might not maximize profit on the licensing, but who cares? With more entries to come in the play-along genre, and networked hardware to play them on, the games themselves could even become an online music retail channel to rival iTunes. Or what about a game for turntable artists? Labels could provide the stem tracks for songs (in which each instrument's recording is isolated) and let players mix their own versions. Users could vote for their favorites through online services like Xbox Live, and Warner could sell the winning mixes back to customers using the very platform on which they were created. Call it Wii-Mix.
If the company wants a case study, it need look no further than Universal Music Group. Rather than cavil over licensing fees, Universal parent company Vivendi simply bought Guitar Hero's publisher, Activision. Look, the labels know that recorded music is in irreversible decline. Warner has actually led the industry with a policy of signing bands to so-called 360 deals, in which artists give the label a cut of everything they sell, be it ringtones, merchandise, or concert tickets. On the strength of such foresight, Bronfman has styled himself as the man who will reinvent the music industry. But part of that reinvention must be an end to petty haggling over fees. Going PvP against gamemakers isn't going to solve the industry's problems. At this point, Bronfman still seems intent on dragging his business kicking and screaming back to the 20th century.
Contributing editor Jeff Howe (jeff_howe@wired.com) wrote Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business.

Dear teacher, what is your goal?

Dearest teacher , Hello! Do you know my name? I always think my name is unique. Is it in your notebook? Do you have notes about my family background?I have a great family,surely you have one,too. Do you know our family culture and bits and pieces of my heritage that is a strong influence in the way I am? Are you familiar with my family traditions? Are you even interested in some? By the way teacher, do you know what community I come from? Do you know what the good 2: Show And Tell Imagine a classroom busy with children, arriving one by one to attend a day's class or workshop, as in the home school set-up. At the door way, a child lingers and hesitates to come in while she or he hangs on to mom's skirt or dad's shirt. Teacher looks on, approaches the child and encourages the child to come in , hoping that the child will readily agree to enter the room, hoping that not too much time will be spent doing this. Ther3: Middle School Classroom Management: Behavior Action Plan (4.20/5)
by Adam Waxler One of the most difficult skills to master as a teacher is classroom management. Unfortunately, if you can not master this skill you are not going to survive as a teacher, especially as a middle school teacher. However, when the school year starts, many first-year middle school teachers are pleasantly surprised. All through their teacher training they were told how difficult classroom management at the middle school level can be and how important it is to have effective cla4: 5 Classroom Management Tips To Silence A Noisy Class (4.00/5)
By Rob Johnson 1. The first thing to remember is that you are the boss. Self belief is incredibly important in this job. You can’t expect pupils to respond positively to you unless you believe, really believe, that you fully deserve their respect and compliance. The thought that you are the leader in the classroom must be at the forefront of your mind. If you give any sign at all that you are NOT in FULL CONTROL, children will sense this and exploit your weaknesses. You MUST project str5: Effective Classroom Management Is About Getting Pupils To Follow Your Instructions Every Time (5.00/5)
by Rob Johnson When we are put in stressful situations the directions and instructions we give out to pupils who are annoying us are often very unclear and often impulsive. As such they virtually guarantee conflict when they are stated. Children become confused unless the instructions we give them are very specific - especially when they are in a state of anxiety themselves. Vague instructions give them choice, and if you want them to behave in a certain, specific way, you need to tell.

Show And Tell : Imagine a classroom busy with children, arriving one by one to attend a day's class or workshop, as in the home school set-up. At the door way, a child lingers and hesitates to come in while she or he hangs on to mom's skirt or dad's shirt. Teacher looks on, approaches the child and encourages the child to come in , hoping that the child will readily agree to enter the room, hoping that not too much time will be spent doing this.

Solving Algebra

Many people have trouble with Algebra for various reasons. Perhaps the teacher isn't doing a great job explaining concepts, the textbook is not so great or the student is not doing enough practice. Algebra is quite easy once you get the hang of it. In order to master algebra, you need to have a really good book or a few good books. There are also many resources online that can help you with topics you need extra help with. It is important to do a lot of practice immediately after learning a book.