Monalisa's Smile

Smile

In physiology, a smile is a facial expression formed by flexing muscles most notably near both ends of the mouth, but also around the eyes. Among humans, it is customarily an expression of pleasure or amusement, but can also be an involuntary expression of anxiety. There is much evidence that smiling is a normal reaction to certain stimuli and occurs regardless of culture. Many studies indicate that smiling is an innate reaction, as children blind from birth smile; however feral children generally do not smile, perhaps lending evidence to the contrary. Among animals, the exposure of teeth, which may bear a resemblance to a smile, are often used as a threat - known as a snarl - or a sign of submission.
Smiling not only changes a facial expression, but can also make the brain produce endorphins which reduces physical and emotional pain, and give a greater sense of well-being.

Types of Smile

Researchers have identified a number of different types of smiles.

The "Duchenne smile", after the researcher Guillaume Duchenne, is the most studied, and involves the movement of both the zygomaticus major muscle near the mouth and the orbicularis oculi muscle near the eyes. It is believed that the Duchenne smile is only produced as an involuntary response to genuine emotion, and is therefore what one could call the "genuine" smile. However, some sources say that "pretending" to smile can eventually put you in a good mood, and therefore "fake" can be a good thing.

The "Pan American smile", on the other hand, is the voluntary smile involving only the zygomatcus major muscle to show

politeness; for example, by a flight attendant on the former airline of the same name. Considered "insincere", this type of smile has also been called the "Professional Smile".

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile

Now, let us observe the following smile and identify which one is genuine:

Notice the following facts about smiling:

• 72% of people think of those who smile frequently as being more confident and successful.
• 86% of people say that they are more likely to strike up conversations with strangers if they are smiling.
• Bosses are 12% more likely to promote people who smile a lot.
• Research shows that 65% of communication is non-verbal (many claim an even higher percentage).
• Non-verbal communication comprises facial expressions, eye movement, gestures, posture, and all other bodily signs-primarily facial expressions.
• The effects of a smile are so powerful that even a smile on the telephone produces positive results.
• When someone comes into a room, people are automatically drawn to their face, and a smile provides a warm greeting.
• Studies show that happiness is a by-product of smiling, not the other way around as most people assume.
• Research shows that when two people in conversation use the same kind of body movements and gestures (such as smiling), they will experience greater empathy for each other, which they may not even consciously notice.

The Value of Your Smile

Has anyone ever unexpectedly smiled at you when you were having a bad day or weren't in the best of moods? How did it make you feel? Didn't it make you feel better?

1. The following are a few points on why you should do the same, and share your smile with others:
   A picture is worth a thousand words. So also does a smile convey more emotion than words can.
2. Smiling makes others feel welcome, special and appreciated.
3. You can brighten up someone's day.
4. A smile has the power of melting away insecurities and troubles people may have.

Try it out and see for yourself! You will find that almost every person you smile at will return the gesture. The hardest part is usually being the first person to smile.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

SMILE AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL SMILE WITH YOU!

Danger: A Monster Teacher

Well here am I again, I have been so busy working at Korean School. Can you believe I'd just lost 2 kilograms in 2 months! I just can't keep myself silent when I saw the news at CNN and heard rumors at my school. It's about the Canadian pedophile Christopher Neil who happened to work at our school in 2005. I didn't see him in person but this issue shocked the English teaching not only here in Vietnam but also in Southeast Asia and South Korea. The Korean consulate in Ho Chi Minh City required all the teachers here at Korean school to have police clearance. I believe that this issue will make the ELT community more strict. This is not a simple case, we never know who these people are. They might be our neighbor or colleagues. They look gentle but behind them is roaring monster hungry for evil.

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Suspected pedophile was 'creative, dynamic'

'The kids loved him for his work,' colleague says of Canadian teacher targeted by manhunt
Oct 18, 2007 04:30 AM Bill Schiller Asia Bureau

BEIJING–Canadian teacher and accused pedophile Christopher Neil had a passion for drama and a flair for acting, his former colleagues say.
"He said he enjoyed being on stage," former teaching colleague Kia Pearson recalls.

Today Neil finds himself as the lead character in an international manhunt that has captured the world's attention.
Acting skills might also have helped him lead a dangerous double life, until he slipped away from South Korea last week and disappeared into Southeast Asia.

Fellow Canadian teacher Ray Fowler said Neil appeared utterly calm right up until the day he disappeared.
Fowler, like others on the staff, was shocked to learn of the charges against Neil, he said.

Staff learned of the allegations only last Friday when four members of Interpol's Korean contingent showed up to question them.
Fowler lived directly across the hall from Neil, in an apartment building in the town of Gwangju where the two taught together, a four-hour drive south of Seoul.

Fowler last saw him eight days ago – the day before Neil boarded a plane for Bangkok, Thailand.
The two walked home from Gwangju Foreign School at the end of a day of classes.

Neil gave no hint that flight was imminent.
"We chit-chatted along the way. I couldn't even tell you what we talked about," says Fowler. "But we came to our building and went into our respective apartments and closed the doors."
The next day Neil was gone.

"I've thought a lot about it," the Newfoundland native says in a telephone interview. "This man was right here in my apartment on several occasions and I never picked up a clue."
Fowler had taught at the school for five years, and his apartment acted as a kind of social centre for teachers, where they could let their hair down on Friday and Saturday nights.
"We'd have a few beers and listen to music and talk – but no shop talk," he said.

With a student population of 120 and a staff of just 18, the teachers tend to be a tightly knit bunch.

"We're a small group in a strange country and we work together, live together and socialize together," he says.

Fowler admired Neil's talents as a teacher of English Language Arts for grades 7 and 8.

"I can tell you that Chris Neil was a very good teacher," he says. "He was dynamic. He was creative. And the kids loved him for his work."
Fowler described him as a "positive person" who would leave his apartment every morning at 7:20 dressed professionally in a shirt and tie keen to get to school early.

When police showed up Friday after classes, he said, "everyone was surprised; everyone was shocked."

Fowler remembered Neil saying at a staff meeting in mid-August that he had previously taught in Vietnam and Thailand.

Yesterday, those claims were borne out when the Korean news agency reported the Vietnamese school at which Neil taught was Ho Chi Minh Korean School, District 7, and reports from Thailand said government officials confirmed Neil had worked at an international school there.
Both Fowler and Pearson said that Neil – a one-time Catholic seminarian – made no secret of his skepticism of organized religion.

"Conversation seemed to gravitate towards religion a lot," said Pearson. "He was dissatisfied with organized religion and how organized religion had lost God.

"He was disillusioned with religion in general."
Meanwhile, many Web surfers discovered Chris Neil's MySpace Web page yesterday, before it was removed.

The site, which Neil posted Aug. 15, 2005, begins with the sentence, "Been kicking around Asia for the past five years, teaching, and finding other forms of mischief."

A poem by Neil posted on the site begins: "I've got to get out of myself/ Free this slave, endure this trial no more/ I'm running as fast as I can."

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/268126

What a year!

Less than a month to go and we are saying goodbye to 2008. It's been a year full of hard work and laziness, joy and tears, trials and reward but most of all, I learned a lot this year. I also met a lot of people from different parts of the globe. I want to tell you guys more but I'm preparing for my final reports. I read an article from a blog of a friend's friend and I decided to post it here. It's very interesting and I absolutely agree about it.

Working to lose

I have been working out to lose weight since December last year. And I'm telling you, I've been pleased about the result. To date I have lost at least 3 kilos. I'm 68.3 kg from 71.5 kg. Well I became serious about it just early this month when I weighed myself and found that I'd lost about 1 kg. I am so happy about this change and decided to work more for my health.

I was 22 when I left the Philippines to work overseas. I weighed 54kg and was very thin. You might not be able to recognize me when you see the old photos of mine. Vietnam made me big. The food there was simply irresistible. I started to gain some weight. Little by little...more and more - until I become like this. When my father was diagnosed to have diabetes, I was very alarmed and scared knowing that some of my relatives died of heart complications. It runs in the family. 

When I was transferred to Singapore, I became bigger. It was just hard to discipline myself when there was plenty of food to eat. I enrolled to a gym but still wasn't able to curb some weight. 

When I moved here in Jakarta in December, I told myself 'this is the moment'.

Me at an aerobics class in Jakarta.

I want to share you my dear readers (as if there is someone reading my boring blog) my secret of losing weight and my journey to a healthy lifestyle. 

I can smell another award

Let us again support/vote @BroEliSoriano with your Twitter accounts for Shorty Awards (Education category).

But first, read how the voting works. http://shortyawards.com/rules
When you're ready to vote, sign in to your Twitter account and tweet your votes through this link http://shortyawards.com/broelisoriano
Example Tweet Vote: "I nominate @BroEliSoriano for a Shorty Award in #education because he's Open Web Awards' Most Educational to Follow"

What are you waiting for. Don't be left out. Follow http://twitter.com/BroEliSoriano

Survey: Philippine politics

Who is your favorite president among the three?
a. Erap
b. Ramos
c. GMA

For the love of ice cream

I’m not really a fan of ice cream, but when I crave, I devour.

Your vote counts!

Dear Friends,

Vote daily for Bro. Eli Soriano's blog on Mashable's 2009 Open Web Awards using your Facebook & Twitter accounts. Voting ends on December 13th. Let the voice of the only sensible preacher of our times be heard around the globe! Please follow the link below.

Good News to All OFWs!

Free Transport from NAIA - Ninoy Aquino International Airport


To my fellow Filipinos,

Good news from GMA. Starting January of 2010, Filipinos from all around the world will surely benefit from this one-of-a-kind service from the newly passed law by the government of the Philippines .

The service is entitled Hatid Kabayan. Any Filipino who has lived in any part of the globe for more than six months is said to be entitled and will benefit from this service. As soon as he lands at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, go to a special booth that has been set up for this purpose and fill up some forms, and all he has to do is show his passpot to confirm his status abroad and everything is all set. This also applies to all immigrants and non-immigrants.


Hatid Kabayan is a service where the Philippine Government has arranged a special ride for Filipinos from NAIA to any point in the Philippines or to any province. It will surely be a very memorable ride.

Hats off to GMA and the Philippine Government that inspite of this ongoing economic crisis, high fuel cost, perceived corruption, among others, they have managed to pay the returning Filipinos at least a respectable amount of gratitude and tribute for all their hard work abroad.


Specially-trained GMA employees will accommodate them and guarantee that they know every single route all across the Nation. So sit back and relax and let us be proud of what our Government can offer. Below is the Hatid Kabayan on its Test Run. Mabuhay ang Plipinas!


Mabuhay si GMA!!!




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Vietnam Oh my Vietnam!

Things to see and experience in Vietnam (according to my friend, Lisa).

• conical wearing hat ladies
• public nose picking
• flying cockroaches
• daily thundershowers that usually started right when we were about to leave the house
• durian and avocado smoothies
• horribly springy beds
• salons and massage parlor
• motorbikes (millions)
• babies on bikes
• teenage drivers, riding three or four to a bike, without helmets, weaving wildly through traffic
• karaoke lounges
• excellent international cuisine
• smog
• tiny ants
• tiny clothes
• tiny people
• maddening traffic
• parents and their children who they allow to run wild, screaming in all manner of public places
• public urination
• pho (Vietnamese noodles)
• poorly made products
• street side coconut selling lady
• Vietnamese bureaucratic hoops that make me want to pull my hair out
• vibrant neighborhoods, all so full of community, character, and life
• pig ear, hoof, snout, intestine, stomach and all other unidentified parts sandwich lady
• rats
• bun thit nuong (cold noodle salad)
• pushy xe om (motorcycle taxi) drivers
• tropical fevers that leave you sweating at 103.5 and don’t go away for a week
• massive trash pile on the sidewalk by our apartment massive trash pile on the sidewalk by our apartment.
• stinky, grey water canals
• copious numbers of sidewalk fruit stands and vendors.
• delicious, plentiful, always fresh fruit.
• street food vendors and all your delectable, ridiculously cheap wares.
• cyclos and good luck to the drivers.
• ou dai (traditional Vietnamese dress).
• mystery meats.
• fresh baguettes
• bargaining at the markets (or almost anywhere else).
• sappy Vietnamese teen pop.
• babies, babies, babies.
• pregnant women (half the city is pregnant).
• hilarious choreographed song and dance performances on TV and at every big event.
• hot, sticky weather.
• ugly clothes – you know who you are Rhinestone Bedazzled Jeans and half see through women’s shirts.
• ladies at the market who laugh at me (in a good hearted way) when I try to speak Vietnamese.
• incredibly difficult language that we utterly failed to learn
• to the flailing ladies in the park (strange Vietnamese aerobics classes)
• Vietnamese gyms, with your hula hoops, stretching sticks, and very comfortable lounges.
• sweetened condensed milk.
• Vietnamese coffee – the strongest coffee in the world.
• sugar, the Vietnamese use you far too often and in quantities no teeth should be subjected to.
• to feeling like a freakishly tall giant.
• small children crossing or riding bicycles on busy streets by themselves.
• seafood hotpots.
• district-wide, day long electricity blackouts.
• paydays where you get an envelope filled with a thick wad of cash.
• kids slowly riding several bikes abreast too involved in your conversations to notice that you are blocking all traffic.
• getting candy for change from the grocery store – who wants a 200 Dong coin anyways?
• inquisitive stares from children and old people alike
• friends from all over the world

What do you think?