Friday, May 29, 2009

perfect attendance!

One word: WOW!!!


Stefanie Zaner, Iron Kid of Darnestown, is closing in on her 2,340th straight day of public school.
The 18-year-old is unlikely to get the standing ovation afforded Ripken for his streak when she arrives at Northwest High School on Friday for the last day of senior classes in Montgomery County.

But hers is a rare accomplishment. Not once in 13 years was Stefanie marked absent: not for a cold, a family vacation, a college visit or a senior skip day. She once went on a freshman trip to Shanghai with the school marching band and boarded the plane with her clarinet only after securing written assurance from the principal that the trip would not count as an absence. She has never broken a bone, thrown up or caught the flu or even a bad cough, she said.
"There were days in high school when I thought she was too tired to get up," said Debbie Zaner, Stefanie's mother. "But by high school, it was up to her. It wasn't up to me."
Perfect attendance for even one year is an elusive goal. Schools are germ factories. Kids play hooky. Families travel. Religious holidays sometimes require attendance elsewhere. Even conscientious students take the occasional personal day to prepare for a test or catch up on homework.
An informal survey of 20 local school systems turned up just one other graduating senior with perfect attendance since kindergarten (officially, 180 days a year, for 13 years, although the exact annual total hinges on snow days): Kristen Waddle, 18, of Brentsville District High School in Prince William County. A third student, Austin White of Mountain View High School in Stafford County, hasn't missed a day since first grade. There might be others.
Kristen's attendance effort in elementary school was nothing short of heroic: She showed up every day despite moving twice and changing schools three times. Staying home was boring -- or so she heard from her brother. There was a no-TV rule, strictly enforced.
"We could sit in our room and read. That was it," she said.
The Prince William senior remembers nearly ending her streak once or twice in high school from sheer exhaustion. An after-school job kept her out until 10 some nights.
"I have these days where I'm like, 'I do not want to be here,' " she said. "I'm just the kid who shows up on those days."
Austin, 18, thinks he knows the moment he decided nothing would keep him from school. It was about fifth grade, the night before a standardized test. "I was puking buckets, and my Mom asked, 'Do you want to stay home?' And I said, 'No, I've got to go to school, I've got to take the test.' "

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Mike Tyson's daughter dies

This is such a sad and devastating news. condolences to the family, my prayer goes to the Tyson family...RIP Exodus :(


PHOENIX (AP)—The 4-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson died at a hospital Tuesday, a day after her neck apparently got caught in a treadmill cord at her Phoenix home, police said.


Exodus Tyson was pronounced dead just before noon, police Sgt. Andy Hill said. She had been on life support and police have said their investigation showed her injury on Monday was a “tragic accident.”


“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus,” the family said in a statement. “We ask you now to please respect our need at this very difficult time for privacy to grieve and try to help each other heal.”


Police said Exodus either slipped or put her head in the loop of a cord hanging under the console. Her 7-year-old brother found her and told their mother. She took Exodus off the cord, called 911 and tried to revive her.


Responding officers and firefighters performed CPR as they took the girl to the hospital.


Former heavyweight champion Tyson was in Las Vegas at the time of the accident and flew Monday to Phoenix, where he was seen entering the hospital.


The family’s home is in a modest, quiet neighborhood. Neighbors say they saw Tyson there from time to time and the children played outside regularly.


Dinka Radic, who lives across the street, said Exodus would ask her if she had any chocolate. When Radic gave her some, Exodus would hug the woman’s knees and “kiss, kiss, kiss.”


“She’d say ‘hi’ to everybody. She was really friendly,” said Abdul Khalik, 53, who lives next door.


He said Exodus rode her bicycle in the neighborhood and often played with his two children and his niece. He said his 14-year-old daughter had cried all day after hearing of Exodus’ death.


Ben Brodhurst, 20, who lives across the street, said Exodus’ and her family went trick-or-treating at his house the last couple of Halloweens. She was “very lively, very enjoyable to be around,” he said.


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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news?slug=ap-tysonsdaughter&prov=ap&type=lgns

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Women in Japan: Highest Life Expectancy

Interesting fact...


GENEVA – The World Health Organization says women in Japan have the highest life expectancy in the world with 86 years.

WHO says men in San Marino have the longest life expectancy for their sex with 81 years.

The Geneva-based body says men from Sierra Leone are expected to live only 39 years. Women in Afghanistan will live to an average age of 42 years.

WHO says the figures are based on statistics gathered from 2007, the latest year available.

The global health agency says countries including Angola, Eritrea and Liberia have made remarkable progress while others including Botswana, Kenya and Lesotho have seen a drop in life expectancy since 1990.

The figures were among more than 100 health trends published Thursday by the World Health Organization.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

recent purchase


My Mom bought this very nice handbag for me. from Topshop. cost a lot tho. around Rp 999.000 if I'm not mistaken (yeah, just add another 500.000 and you will get a Longchamp bag!). actually I've promised her that we're gonna used this bag together. however, condition always forced us not to...lol
speaking of handbag...now I'm really not in the mood to buy such things...I'm definitely crazy to SHOES!!! ADDICTED!!! yes...even yesterday my Mom had to pull my hands away simply because I took very long time inside Nine West and Zara! man, that was so unfair! :P
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that's all for today. GBU :)

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Bedbugs causing big trouble!

Guys...this is soooo freakin scary...JFYI


WASHINGTON — The biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II has sent a collective shudder among apartment dwellers, college students and business travelers across the nation.
The bugs — reddish brown, flat and about the size of a grain of rice — suck human blood. They resist many pesticides and spread quickly in certain mattress-heavy buildings, such as hotels, dormitories and apartment complexes.


Two shelters have closed temporarily in Charlotte, N.C. , because of bedbugs, a Yahoo chat group dedicates itself to sufferers and countless bedbug blogs provide forums for news, tips and commiseration. State inspectors say that more emphasis may be needed to tackle the creatures.
Federal officials have taken notice of the resurgence. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency held its first-ever bedbug summit, and now a North Carolina congressman wants to take on the insect.


Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield just introduced legislation that would authorize $50 million that's already in the Department of Commerce budget to train health inspectors how to recognize signs of the insects.


The Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 also would require public housing agencies to submit bedbug inspection plans to the federal government. It would add bedbugs to a rodent and cockroach program in the Department of Health and Human Services . It also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research bedbugs' impact on public mental health.


Butterfield's letter to congressional colleagues about the legislation attracted lots of attention: It was topped with a full-color picture of the insect sitting on human skin.
"Unfortunately, in recent years, the United States has seen a resurgence in bedbugs," the letter reads. "That's right — they're back in the sack — and biting."


Bedbugs have hit hotels and homes in every state. The creatures are amazing hitchhikers, experts say, and easily travel in suitcases, boxes or packages. They can live for up to a year without food.


Apparently no state has a central reporting system for bedbugs, according to Butterfield's office, and since the bug carries no known diseases, many health departments don't consider it a public health threat.


That leaves the critters falling through the cracks among regulators, said Michael Potter , an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and one of the country's bedbug experts.
"Most health departments say, 'Hey, we don't deal with bedbugs,' " Potter said.


Those who've suffered outbreaks say that the anxiety it induces can be debilitating. Potter said many sufferers tossed out furniture and could spend thousands of dollars on repeated treatments from pesticide companies. They call him about anxiety, insomnia, shame and the incessant annoyance of itchy red welts on their skin.


"They're, like, ready to blow their brains out," Potter said. "It's emotionally distressing. Anyone that has never had a bedbug problem is not one to judge whether we're dealing with a medical, emotional public health issue."


In Congress , Butterfield first introduced his bill a year ago after hearing from a constituent who'd brought bedbugs into her home from a hotel trip. The bill died in committee last year, but Butterfield aides say they hope that higher attention will help the measure this year.


The co-sponsors include Reps. Don Young , R- Alaska , Ben Chandler , D- Ky. , Bobby L. Rush , D- Ill. , Betty McCollum , D- Minn. , Corrine Brown , D- Fla. , Steve Cohen , D- Tenn. , Brad Miller , D- N.C. , and Eddie Bernice Johnson , D- Texas .


Butterfield also has received support from the National Pest Management Association , which says that bedbug calls to pest control companies are up 70 percent in the past five years.
Greg Baumann , a Raleigh, N.C. , pest control expert and the vice president of technical services for the National Pest Management Association , said that a decade ago few pest control companies dealt routinely with bedbugs.


"Now it's everyone today," he said.


Baumann said companies could use pesticides on the bugs but that they also tried such alternatives as extreme heat, freezing and isolating the insects through mattress covers.


Since the EPA restricted the use of several effective pesticides in the 1980s, bedbugs have built resistance to the chemicals that now are on the market, said Potter, the University of Kentucky entomologist. Public education is important, he said, but the industry also needs a good insecticide.


"Whether that bill is going to solve the problem — certainly it's a start," he said.

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source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090515/sc_mcclatchy/3234191_1

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

mission accomplished!



picture taken from http://dezignus.com

Yay...Finally I had my Fashion Show presentation with my group. Thank God it's all over! except that too many mistakes here n there. oh well, at least I'd done my part! =)


PS: oh my, I think I'd fallen in love so badly w. that man. right now I have A LOT of pimples on my cheek..:P

Saturday, May 09, 2009

America's Most Overpriced Cities...phew!

hmmm...this is interesting...
Twenty metros where Americans have a hard time meeting expenses.

Vexed by gang wars and rising real estate prices, late rapper Tupac Shakur mused in 1996 that the overall cost of living in Los Angeles was so high that he would almost rather "live life in the pen[itentiary]."


Though East Coast-West Coast gang violence has since subsided, life in the City of Angels remains far from affordable. Thanks to bloated housing prices, lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation, the Los Angeles metro area tops our list of America's Most Overpriced Cities.


At least residents of Los Angeles and the third-ranked Miami metro get to enjoy balmy evenings and sunny days at the beach. Residents of the second-most overpriced metro area, Chicago, get sweltering summers and near-Siberian winters on top of a 9.4% metro area unemployment rate and a cost of living trailing only Los Angeles and New York.


The Big Apple ranks fourth on our list; it's weighed down by high costs and an 8.8% unemployment rate. Those factors overwhelmed the considerable earning power of New Yorkers with bachelor's degrees--$69,200 per year, on average, according to PayScale.com--a figure rivaled only by those in Washington, D.C., and Bay Area locales, including San Francisco. Still, it's not enough to bridge the price gap.


"For the average professional, New York's premium is not as high as you'd expect, given the cost of living," says Al Lee, director of Quantitative Analysis at PayScale. "The premium for a software developer in New York is actually less than it is in Seattle, and about the same as it is in Atlanta."


Even those in less-sprawling cities have it tough. Along with fifth-ranked Providence, R.I., Cleveland(No. 8) is one of the smallest metro areas among the 10 most overpriced cities. Though both boast low home prices and living expenses, they're dragged down by high unemployment and relatively stingy salaries of $56,000, on average.


Behind the Numbers

To compile our list, we looked at earnings potential and living expenses in the 50 largest continental U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan divisions--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics.


We ranked these metros using four measures: average salary for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher, with data from PayScale.com; annual unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; cost of living, according to Moody's Economy.com; and the Housing Opportunity Index from the National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo, which measures the number of homes sold in a given area that would be affordable to a family earning the local median income, based on standard mortgage underwriting criteria.


Far from Heaven

Los Angeles' troubles can be tied to many of the systemic problems currently plaguing the nation. With a whopping unemployment rate of 10.3%, the City of Angels and nearby Riverside, Calif., are among five of the country's 50 largest metro areas with double-digit unemployment.
Both have suffered as a result of the housing bust. Though neither ranks among America's emptiest cities, L.A. and Riverside have seen new residential building permit rates plummet 82% and 80%, respectively, over the last two years. The national unemployment rate for construction workers is now 21.1%, up from 12% a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


"The unemployment [in Southern California] is definitely driven by the housing bust," says Lee. "Prices are collapsing, but if you're looking at buying a house, it's still expensive."


Indeed, though the median home price in the Los Angeles metro area has dipped from $525,000 to $319,000 over the last two years, Angelinos still face one of the least affordable housing markets in the country. According to the NAHB/Wells Fargo's Housing Opportunity Index, only New York, Long Island, N.Y., and San Francisco are more expensive.


Of course, living well in Los Angeles isn't impossible, as long as you have the funds. The aforementioned Shakur probably wouldn't have any trouble making ends meet in L.A., or anywhere else, for that matter. The rapper makes about $15 million per year in residuals--despite the fact he's been dead for 12 years.

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source: http://realestate.yahoo.com; www.forbes.com

Thursday, May 07, 2009

food obsession

Oh my..I am dying for this delicacy...Soto Betawi and Bihun Bebek...O_O (I know I don't eat meat that much. esp. beef but please...dying for one now!!! lol)




pictures taken from jenzcorner.com and wisatanet.com

Monday, May 04, 2009

current mood: unthinkable

I have no idea what I'm gonna do w. all those music and dj stuff for the fashion presentation assignment. I mean, yeah I've found some suitable music but still kinda confused on how to write down into explanation..can anybody help me???


PS: oh right, haven't found the DJ address, company, vice versa..damn it!