Thursday, November 17, 2005

On the line live

Yesterday (Wednesday) was officially the day when I started dialing out to Arcadia Stores' customers promoting them a product of GE Money. It went on for 40 minutes as a teaser trial for most of our batch are still new and fresh from training and very much still afraid to "go live".

It wasn't really so bad for the first time, however, we got a taste of what we'll be expecting to face as we go along. There were some red-neck customers of whom we classified them as irate customers. Not very welcoming, though. Surprisingly, I managed to pull off one successful sale. My first and only for that evening. Overall sales for the evening totalled three (3).

Today, I made two sales and I'm very happy with it. Our trainer awarded me a bottle of Sainsbury's white wine as recognition. We got a total of eight (8) sales today. Not too bad a figure for beginners and dialing for 2 hours.

As for Vivian, she's been working so hard and her extra hours been wearing her out. It's big sales day for Debenhams yesterday, today, and tomorrow; and she was awarded with 2 bottles of wine for opening the most store card accounts of the day. There's no doubt that she's good at this.

Yesterday's morning, I got a wake up call from Vivian that surprises me as it was not a normal call. She told me to check outside to see for myself a bomb threat that's happened and and around where I live. Found out later that, according to an employee working in Halifax building which is adjacent to Aspect 14 flats, there is a suspicious looking package in the building and just before 10am, the building security called for an emergency evacuation and the bomb squad arrived at the scene by 10:45am. If you see the inset picture, you'll notice police tape lines already set up their perimeter. No one was allowed to go in or out of the perimeter, and I was still in my flat taking this picture on my balcony. I was still quite oblivious as to what was happenning when she called as I just woke up. I therefore did not know how to appreciate the dangers of a bomb threat, which was why I was still able to grab a camera and shoot a scene outside.

It was a false alarm. Nothing happened that day and both building, Halifax and Aspect 14 flats, are still intact. Thank god.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Coffee doesn't raise risk of high blood pressure

Soda might, however...

Relax ladies and, possibly, gentlemen. Have that second cup of coffee. The largest study to date concludes that the caffeine won't raise your risk of high blood pressure.

However, too much soda pop, sugared or diet, might.

Harvard researchers set out to test the idea that a lot of coffee isn't good for your circulation. They followed 155,000 female nurses for 12 years, questioning them regularly about their caffeine-drinking habits and their blood pressure. No connection was found between their coffee intake and a risky rise in blood pressure.

In fact, results went the other way. Women who drank the most coffee seemed to develop some protection against the problem. The investigators continue to look into this possibility.

"A new study concludes that lots of coffee drinking doesn't cause high blood pressure, but soda drinking might. The study was done on women. (Staff photo Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office)"

Caffeine may not be the reason, however. The researchers found that things went the other way when women drank copious amount of caffeine-containing colas. Sugared or diet, the soft drinks increased their risk of high blood pressure by as much as 44 percent, compared with those who drank very little soda.

Tea drinking produced mixed results. That beverage increased hypertension risk in younger but not older women. The study did not collect information on that warming winter favorite - hot chocolate.

"Given that coffee and other caffeinated beverages are among the most widely consumed in the world, any detrimental effects of caffeine on health could have enormous public health implications," notes Wolfgang Winkelmayer, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "High blood pressure is a silent, but extremely dangerous disease that impacts at least 50 million people in the United States alone."

And the numbers are increasing. That's the bad news because high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and lethal kidney disease. The good news, says Winkelmayer, is that "we can dispel the myth that habitual coffee drinking leads to hypertension in women."

What about men?

Can men also enjoy their daily coffee rituals without fear of upping their risk of heart disease?

"We currently do not know whether these findings also pertain to men," Winkelmayer answers. "The only long-term evidence comes from a recent study of about a thousand men, which found no suggestive association between caffeine intake and an increased risk of hypertension. We are currently investigating this issue. It's a work in progress."

Meanwhile, without any good evidence that they would react differently, men probably shouldn't worry about it.

Winkelmayer worked with colleagues from both Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health on the study. For these researchers, the big surprise was finding a link between consumption of soda and high blood pressure risk.

As they report in the Nov. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, older women, ages 43 to 71 at the start of the study, had the biggest risk of developing high blood pressure. Those who gulped four or more cans or glasses of caffeinated sugared cola each day had a 44 percent greater risk of hypertension compared with those who drank less than one a day.

Things were better for younger women, 26 to 46 years old. Those who sipped four or more cans of sugared colas increased their risk 28 percent compared with those who drank less than a can a day.

Things went even better for diet-soda drinkers. The risk for younger women rose 19 percent. The risk for older women increased 16 percent with four or more cans of diet colas.

Since the researchers found no increased risk of danger with either regular or decaffeinated coffee, they speculate that "it is not caffeine but perhaps some other compound contained in soda-type soft drinks that may be responsible for the increased risk of high blood pressure."

"At present, no biological explanation exists for the association between soda and hypertension," Winkelmayer admits, "therefore, no recommendations about soda drinking can be made."

Women concerned about the effects of drinking soda on their health may want to cut back on the fizzy stuff, but those who believe that life would not be as pleasant without several cups of coffee a day can relax and enjoy the popular beverage.



Article Extracted from: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2005/11/08-coffee.html


Monday, November 07, 2005

Sore

I'm down with sore throat again. Yeah, again but compared to the first one last year, this time's not so bad. I looked up at Wikipedia for an article on Bird Flu (a.k.a Avian Influenza) and to my horror, I thought I caught the flu because it's symptoms fits what I had and still having.

Commom flu has the same symptoms and I couldn't get bird flu unless I am a bird. I thought why else would it be called as such. But then the H5N1 strain could infect people and have infected people. I should rule this out. Perhaps I'm just going through a normal phase of the body's immune cycle and should be fine in the next few days.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Halloween Night

We brought back a lot of memories, knowledge and information pertaining to AIESEC, made quite a number of people/friends, and most importantly grown in confidence and self-esteem, at least to me.

I have had some time to reflect on what I actually gained from the conference and contrasted the outcome to a potential situation where I did not attend. I must say I was surprised to see there was really a dramatic positive difference. I owe it big time to the people who ran the entire conference as they have duly inspired me in a lot of ways, especially one of our guest speakers named Marcus Orlovsky... and also because it is AIESEC.

There will be pictures of the Walsall AXIS 2005 in Birmingham as well as last night's Halloween party, where I creatively decorated myself as Darth Maul wannabe (who is a pod racer)

While waiting for the pictures of the conference to be available to me, I'll put up the pictures from last night. It was my first 'dressed up' Halloween party (at Carolyn's place) and thanks to a gentleman who made it possible. He brought with him a complete set of face painting and I had the privilege to them. When asked to guess what I am, most answered Spiderman. It was fun.

I had trouble getting the paint off my face later when I arrived home. The red paint smeared to my hands and the colors still stubborn and for a moment I thought I couldn't face any of my classmates tomorrow. At least, I will be getting stares and glares a lot... perhaps I'll just tell them I got a terrible sun burn in Birmingham! It was really hillarious getting it off... it took me about 45 minutes and felt like ripping my face off like 'The V' (TV series of the 80's).



Vivian dressed up as a cute pinkish bunny sporting a furry bunny tail ball and a bow tie. Since witches carry broomsticks, devils wield trident, fairies magic wand, so I thought I should complete the cute bunny with a piece of huge bright carrot. Creative, huh?

I'm missing my double-sided spear and a black trench coat. I will be better prepared for Halloween next year.