The Basic History of Gold

Gold has been one of the most sought after elements and precious metals since man has walked the planet. Gold is an element, that is, it is pure and not a compound of different chemicals (such as water which is hydrogen and oxygen, or silica (sand) which is a mixture of silicon and oxygen). The chemical symbol for gold is Au which is derived from the Latin word for gold, Aurum - this is the same base root for words such as "aura" and it means bright and shining.

Gold is bright and shiny when it is polished up and it does not rust, that is oxidize - react with oxygen. The reason for this is because pure gold is highly stable as a chemical element and not prone to reacting with other elements and compounds. This property combined with the fact that the metal is relatively soft has meant it is easy to work into decorative items and particularly jewelry. It is not simply jewelry which gold has been used for but also sculpture and building decoration - just look at the gold leaf covering of the majestic domes of the Islamic mosques such as Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.

Gold is found as nuggets in the earth or in veins within rock formations though the early Gold Rushes in California were actually primarily found in the river beds and alluvial deposits of flood plains as grains and dust. One tale has been handed down from those early gold rush times of how a gold miner walked into a bar and when asked how he was going to pay, he shook his beard and $20 of gold dust was shaken out of his face fuzz! True or not, but this tale simply reinforces the folklore which has built up around this attractive metal.

Pure gold is bright yellow and it does not react with air or water (as we said earlier it does not "rust") and the sheen or luster is universally considered highly attractive. Early coins were constructed of gold to set weight and purity - the value of the coin was in the gold that made the coinage up and not in the "promise" the coin represented as is the case with our modern currency. That said, currency today must still be backed by something of value and until 1971, gold was the standard by which a currency was valued (known as the Bretton Woods system).

Gold is obviously used in making jewelry but it also has many other uses; modern uses include dentistry and electronics. Gold is also an excellent conductor of electricity and because it is highly stable and un-reactive, this makes it ideal for use in sensitive electronics particularly for those going into space.

The test for gold is to drop it into nitric acid - nitric acid will dissolve silver and base metals but not gold. If the metal is not attacked by the nitric acid then it is gold and this test became the basis for the phrase, "acid test".

The best online resource to sell gold or sell gold coins can be found at Refinity.com

Adult Education - You Can Make a Difference

Getting an education does not depend on your age. Whether you are fifty or sixty years old, you can still get your education and that does not matter at all. Adult education is a perfect solution for you who might have never been getting a chance at younger ages or could not take the chance when you had it for many reasons.

A lot of people do not think much of adult education or they feel embarrass going to school at higher age and rather doing nothing than making a difference for their lives but I am sure that is not you. You know what is good for you and I am sure you will have enough courage to take it on and achieve your dream.

My neighbor became a professor when he was 53 years old. For all his life, he was working at an engineer and always regretted it. One day, he decided to make a change and came back to school to pursue his dream. He got it. It is just simple like that. If you seek it, you will find it. Age can never hold anybody back. The only thing that holds people back is their own minds.

If you keep on waiting and hoping for a miracle that could change your current then I will guarantee that never going to happen. Time never waits for anyone, it brings age with it. You have a dream, pursue it, take action now and grab your education. You can make a difference. That is for sure.

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Dealing With Difficult People and Tricky Situations in the School Environment

Sometimes they creep up on you or other times they jump into your life. You are grating your teeth and feel like hammering the computer to get rid of the anger you are feeling after encountering a difficult person. It may have been a discourteous email or an abusive parent or student or colleague that is pushing your buttons. Sitting at your desk you might be thinking this is a silly way to feel or there are no-one to discuss it with and your 'ill feeling' simmers. Discussing it with your partner at home or tearing your hair out will not solve the problem. It will not offer a new strategy to your tool kit for future similar situations.

With the understanding you cannot change anybody except yourself, any positive outcome of a tricky situation you encounter, is in your hands or rather your head. Whether it is face-to-face, via written communication or verbal over the phone, most school environments have these state of affairs.

Dealing with these circumstances successfully requires self-knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence. There are a few steps in the process to feeling empowered and ultimately it starts with understanding yourself. You can't change anyone else, you can only change yourself and there is an old saying - If it's to be - it's up to me!

If you understand your own personality and corresponding strengths and weaknesses you can understand another person. That is the first step to realizing the other person may not be difficult but merely from another personality.

One example is a maths teacher who classified the art teacher as 'difficult'. The maths teacher was systematic, quiet, early to appointments, organized, and very efficient filing all the important memo's when he received them. The art teacher who is a creative person is bright, colorful, flamboyant, unorganized often late and from his perspective---noisy. She hummed and would cheer everyone up in the morning when she arrived with a bright and bubbly 'good morning'.

Once I had explained the traits of different traits the maths teacher sighed with relief. Able to understand their differences he then learned some new communication techniques so he could interact more effectively and be more empowered.

However it is not always possible to categorize people into personality groups and that's not always the answer, you also need additional knowledge about win/win relationships.

Some people have the ability to talk down to you or point their finger and raise the hackles on the back of your neck. It is their manner that you find distressing and it could be over the phone via an email or face to face. These encounters leave you feeling not empowered, stressed or angry while they are generally not concerned. They are happy but you are not, hence this is a win/lose relationship.

Remember the only person you can change is yourself so having the knowledge to analyze the situation allows you to address it in the appropriate manner.

The types of relationships which you want at work are win/win style relationships. Often you will have these with friends and colleagues that you 'get along with' and happy to lend or share something with as you know it will always be returned. Whereas, other people will try and manipulate you and always want their way.

Understanding what type of relationship is important and you can rely on your feelings to let you know if something is not okay for you. You need to communicate assertively and express yourself using 'I' statements and 'No' when appropriate along with the line "I have changed my thinking" or "I'd like to help you but I'm sorry I will have to say No" is another phrase that may suit your personality.

Another example are the bullies who seem to gleefully manipulate people while appearing confident. One school principal had no idea that bullying was happening in his school office. Bullies are very clever at spinning the story their way, leaving the other party perplexed and undermining their confidence and self esteem.

However, it's not just in the office and classrooms, it's out in the school grounds where bullies are also rife. Both parties involved in bullying have one underlying common similarity, they both have low esteem. The bully reveals it by wanting to feel important and achieves this by bulling another person. The person being bullied has not the confidence and skills to react appropriately and ultimately the end result it they are bullied. This lose/lose relationship is underpinned by both parties wanting respect, acceptance and appreciation but don't know how to achieve this.

Walking away intact, emotionally and intellectually is a key to improved people relationships in dealing with difficult people and those tricky situations with both adults and students in our schools.

Janice Davies is The Attitude Specialist, who teaches people to be positive and empower themselves through Attitude Training. As a Professional Speaker, Success Coach and author Janice educates people at conferences, workshops and through books. Janice is the founder of the global movement International Self Esteem annual awareness day and features in the new True Happiness DVD. Email or call at Janice@attitudespecialist.co.nz Mb 021 514 511 or 09 424 8400 for other complimentary articles and tips.

Mummification - Religion and Spirituality

The ancient Egyptian mystic writings, The Book of the Dead, describes much of mummification. A lot of the ancient Egyptians followed the Book of the Dead, therefore mummification was needed when a person deceased to go on to the other world. This article will tell you some information that are fascinating about mummification. Now we know that mummification was very important for the individuals of ancient Egypt. Also, cats were mummified after death.

Maintaining ones, body of a dead person was needed and there was arranged a basic funeral practices in the world of ancient Egypt. If the corpse was not reserved, then the "Ka" would not can to come back and help the dead people. If the body had taken standard method and putrefied, it would become unrecognizable, therefore the "reception of the life powers" would starve and the life after death would be in jeopardy of the individual who passed away. Due to this thing the individuals of ancient Egypt used mummification for the purpose of prevent the dead body from putrefying.

Many individuals think mummification as just being a technical process in order to fill the corpse, the truth is that mummification was a ritual ceremony too. They were constantly looking into recreating Osiris, who was one of the most admired gods in Egypt thousands of years ago. The "Hery Seshta" was the man who was responsible of doing the mummification; he is the person who became the part of Anubis , the jackal god. The assistant of the mummification ceremony is the "Hetemw Netjer", the assistant embalmer priest. The individual who was declaiming the magic writings during the mummification was called as the "Hery Heb", the lector priest. The one who did the actual removal of the body's organs together with bandaging up the body was called the "Wetyw", the embalmer.

When somebody died, he would be moved to the place of washing and cleansing. This place is where a person would be rinsed in natron. When this was done, a person would be taken to the "house of loveliness", this is where the mummification would be completed. The insides of the deceased one were taken out, dehydrated, rinsed and then packed. The internal organs were placed in containers where they would be placed with the corpse. They would beautify the containers with the "four sons of Horus." "Hapy" is the god that had a baboon skull and he took care of the lungs, "Imety" sheltered the liver and he had the human head, "Duamutef" , the god with jackal head took care of the stomach and "Qebehsenuff" was the god with a falcon head that protected the bowels.

Lastly, the corpse was left for almost 6 weeks to dehydrate. After the dehydrating time the ancient Egyptian people steeped corpse with perfumed liquids. Also, maybe fake eyes might have been added. The mummy was ready to jump to the new world.

There are today some fascinating museums which have the famous exhibitions of mummies. Those museums are Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin and of course, the British Museum in London.

Juha Wihtahousu is the author of the ancient Egypt website Ancient Egyptians - Egyptiandiamond.com.

Learning Disabilities - A Blessing in Disguise?

I am a second generation learning disabled person.

My father has a learning disability.

Unfortunately, he never had the support to deal with his short comings in school.

My dad told me the stories how he would be punished by his teachers for not grasping the information at the right pace. He told me his story about Latin School. He finished last in his class. Most people would assume that he was less intelligent than his peers. Thus he would be less successful as well...

Yet, less than 10 years later he held two masters degree and a PhD!

What I have found is people with learning disabilities often start the road of education at a slower pace than their peers. But people with learning disabilities that are committed to figuring it out for themselves, out pace their earlier peer group.

The reason behind this is people who are success and have a learning disability have something to prove. For so long, they were judge harshly by the school system. So they had a decision to make: Accept this reality or prove them wrong!

What they develop is an internal drive that will stop for NO ONE!

The tough part about this story is not everyone develops this drive. They give before it can ever start. The systems in school presently focus on outward adaptations like a special class room, longer time on test rather than teaching the HABITS OF BEING SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE!

What can a parent do for their kid? First things first teach them to work hard by example. Show them that you are willing to work with them in over coming their challenges. Become an expert of yourself. Learning different methods for learning that would be better suited for your kid.

It all begins with you!

John T.S. Murphy is a 24 year world traveler. He has spent the majority of his life being the exception to the rule. He was told at a very young age to lower his goals; He probably should not plan on going to college.

Guess what happened? He graduated from college at the top of his class, has started numerous businesses, and purchased his first home at 20 year old.

He has started a company called Learning Disability Dynamics. He does speaking engagement, workshops, and conference calls. He just finished his first book.

Find out more to go:

http://www.LearningDisabilityDynamics.com

Boost Your Score on the Biology Regents

Doing well on the NYS Biology Regents Exam requires memorization. But, most people find memorization tedious and difficult. Additionally, memorization can actually confuse you. If you assign equal importance to every fact in the Regents Review Book, the sheer volume of data will drown out key facts and areas that you should concentrate on. The critical question in planning your preparation is: How do you decide what to focus on? Fortunately, the Regents gives you direction in the form of past Regents Exams. A number of questions and subject areas tend to frequently repeat. Of course, the precise question may vary slightly from one year to another. The key is to master the subject area and to familiarize yourself with the style of the question. Additionally, you can focus your preparation even more precisely because the questions on the Exam can be divided into several basic formats and questions which repeat, usually do so in the same format. Below are two formats in which questions are frequently repeated:

• Questions based on diagrams that call, either on your knowledge of facts or processes. Of the 75 questions on the Regents exam, every year, about 15 are based on an accompanying diagram.

• Questions accompanied by a chart. Every year, about 10 questions are based on any accompanying chart.

Questions based on diagrams that require your memorization of facts that frequently appear on the Exam include the structure of animal cells, the structure of plant cells, asexual reproduction by budding, human male & female reproductive systems, the organization of organisms into cells and tissues.

Favorite Regents topics for questions based on diagrams based on your understanding of processes include photosynthesis, respiration, DNA replication, the "lock and key" model of receptor-hormone synthesis, energy pyramids, food webs, fertilization at the cellular level, and osmosis.

A careful reading of the material in these areas followed by familiarization with questions the Regents has asked in the past with special attention to the diagrams the Exam has utilized, will maximize your chance to perform well on the Exam. Instead of walking into a testing situation where you have little ability to predict what will be asked, you will open an Exam in which you recognize a number of questions together with their accompanying diagrams. If you have prepared in this manner, not only will you get these questions correct, but you will gain confidence in approaching the rest of the Exam, knowing that your preparation for the Exam has been the correct one.

Joel Goldman is President of Summit Tutoring. He helps students in the NYC area improve their classroom performance and maximize their scores on NYS Regents exams. He can be reached at jsgoldman@yahoo.com or 917 528-0424.

Tiki Mythology

Most people today know what a tiki statue looks like. You can see tikis in every single Caribbean or tropical themed resort or bar, and tiki statues often decorate public building lobbies and private residences alike. They are so much a part of our American kitsch sensitivity, that we don't really stop to think about where they came from, even when we happen to stumble upon a particularly interesting tiki statue. But what is the story behind tikis?

As it turns out, the mythology of tiki statues is rich and ancient. It originally stems from the traditions of the native peoples of New Zealand, Hawaii and the Polynesian islands, all of whom share common aspects of tiki mythology.

In Polynesian mythology, Tiki was the first man, the equivalent of Adam in Christian theology, created by the god Tane. Tiki is said to have found the first woman, Marikoriko, in a lake. In Polynesian culture, tiki also refers to a spirit or god contained in a wooden or stone sculpture carved in the deity's image. This last is an element of tiki mythos that is shared by all native groups from which tiki culture originated.

In the North Island of New Zeland, the mythology of tikis varies somewhat from the mythology of the Polynesian islands. In New Zeland, it is said by some tales that Tiki was himself a kind of demigod who created the first human being by mixing his own blood with clay, an interesting parallel to the Judeo/Christian mythology of Yaweh having created the first man from clay as well.

In Hawaii, tiki mythology is even more extensive. There are four major tiki gods and a slew of minor tiki gods which have their own stories and are represented in countless statues and masks throughout the Hawaiian islands. The four major tiki gods are Ku, the ancient tiki god of war whose rituals called for human sacrifice; Lono, the ancient god of fertility and peace, in whose honor the annual Makahiki festival was held; Kane, the ancient god of light and life, who owned a small seashell that turned into a huge sailboat when placed in the ocean; and Kanaloa, the ancient god of the sea, symbolized by a giant squid.

For information on tikis or to purchase tiki decorations, please visit http://www.bambooandtikis.com/.