Ok, we’re rapidly approaching the end of year. And even though I’m not big on resolutions, I do give some thought to how next to improve myself. I don’t know yet what will be my personal project for 2006 but for those of you thinking about personal growth and development in the future, I wanted to share with you some tips.

I found this list of preconditions to personal development which I thought gave a pretty good picture of where you need to be at in order to really achieve growth in yourself. Of course, if you’re not there yet, then maybe one of these could be your area of improvement for the upcoming year.

According to the GoalsGuy, these are 10 Preconditions to Personal Development (paraphrased by yours truly of course):

1. Intellectual Curiosity - You have to know that learning is a process, and be ready to understand the forces that work around you.
2. Humility - Nobody knows everything, including you so be willing to learn from others.
3. Self-Criticism - Almost totally obvious, before you can change you have to be willing to question yourself.
4. High Tolerance for Ambiguity, Complexity and Change - Changing yourself is naturally an experimental process (see below) so be prepared for uncertainty.
5. Experimentation - Sometimes you’re just going to have to try something new and see whether it works or not.
6. Hunger for Feedback - To know if stuff works you have to open yourself to feedback from others (not just yourself) and be willing to listen to it and make more changes.
7. Learning by Doing - Speculating about how something will work won’t be much use.
8. Appreciation for Failure and Mistakes - You learn far more from mistakes than if you get it right the first time, so accept the inevitable mistakes as learning experiences.
9. Systematic Methods of Data Collection and Distribution - This one can be useful for future efforts by you, if you keep track of what you’re doing, write in a journal for example, you will be able to look back at what you learnt about the process and yourself.
10. Creative Self-Destruction - You have to keep changing, and sometimes that will mean changing things previously fixed to adapt to evolving circumstances.

I know so many people that are always saying that. Oh what they could do with more hours in a day, more days in the month, an extra week. Well, here’s their chance. This year they will get some extra time. All of… 1 second. That’s right, one whole second to spare.

It seems that the inconsistent rotation of the earth causes a disparity with the incredibly accurate atomic clocks of modern times and so occasionally “leap seconds” are needed to even things out. This year the procedure will begin at 23:59:59 GMT on December 31, when the standard-setting atomic clocks around the world will then show 23:59:60 GMT before moving to their usual 00:00:00 GMT, which will mark the arrival of January 1, 2006. So for us here that will happen around 7:00p.m.

• Yahoo News: Old year to stick around a second longer
• CBS News: 2006 Will Be Delayed By A Second

So what will you do with your extra second??

The other day I made a post about some of my family’s traditions at Christmas. Having done that, I ended up taking note of other traditions that happen in my family and how some of them have evolved over time.

• Decorating the Christmas tree has always been a family event. When my sister and I were much much younger, the tree was mostly covered in decorations we had made with our own little hands at school - handprint turkeys, those large ball things made from several little circles glued together - you get the idea. Combined with those were the decorations bought along the way, all of which had stories. We would get out all the boxes and sit around decorating the tree. As we got older, our personal contributions shrank and soon the homemade decorations were being left in the boxes because as cute as they were, there were no longer children in the house. Finally we all decided the tree looked a little sad with its minimal hodegpodge of old decorations. We started a new tradition - each year a colour scheme is chosen and the tree is decorated in full regalia. Does our tree look “commercial”? Probably, but it’s done with my family’s love.

  P.S. We also added the tradition of setting up the tree in a different spot every year. This is quite a task involving serious furniture shuffling.

• My family (immediate - me, parents and sister) always spent Christmas together, noone ever travelled at that time. If nothing else, the four of us could count on the fact that we would be together. Even when my sis moved to Trinidad (for school) we still managed to have her home every Christmas. But then she started working and it wasn’t always that easy. Nowadays, if she can’t make it home for Christmas, we have the update phonecalls where she gets to hear the details of what we had for breakfast, who got what gifts, what we did for Christmas dinner, who was there, who said what, etc. To me they get a little painful to carry out sometimes but they are the natural step for my family.

• When my sister and I were younger we used to have Christmas stockings at the foot of our bed(s) that “Santa” would fill with small stocking stuffers, usually not worth wrapping but providing great joy to us. The deal with my parents was we could open the stockings at whatever time we woke up, no matter how early, but everything else under the tree had to wait until everyone was up and had eaten breakfast (which we did together). Now we are older, the whole stocking thing has vanished (at least most years), but my family still waits till after breakfast to open presents, at which point it’s a whole ritual of present distribution with a careful selection process (all internal presents are unlabelled).

• Christmas Eve night used to find my family on the road, having finished the actual shopping but enjoying the excitement on the roads, the lights, the fever of everywhere being open late. We would come in when stores were closing to get ready for church, at which point my pops would have the ham in the oven so by time we came back from church there was warm ham to eat. My mother is the only one who attends church on Christmas Eve now, but the ham tradition lives on. I will usually fall asleep to be awoken on her her return when we gather in the kitchen to eat warm Christmas ham. Yum!!

There are more of course, but I will leave this list for now. It gives a good idea of how today went for me (with minor variations to allow for me bing sick with the flu this year :sad:).

I cried tonight
For the time lost
Shedding tears over
A love

I cried tonight
For a battle lost
That I never knew
Was fought

I cried tonight
For memories lost
Recalled with ease
And pain

I cried tonight
For a friend lost
A long time ago
I thought

I cried tonight
For a love lost
A familiar path
Long gone

Exasperating explanations
Exacerbating examinations
Exanimating excavations
Exceeding exaggerations
Exchanging exclamations
Excuses!! … Exhalation!

With a brisk night breeze,
Filled plates, carolling voices -
Christmas is now here

After taking this test to see how Monkish I am I shared with Adrian that it says I am “a little bit Monkish”. I was relieved because sometimes I worry about myself. Adrian shared some of his quirks so I said I would share mine (I know it’s a little overdue).

• When I buy magazines I must read them first. I absolutely hate anyone reading my magazines before me though I don’t mind with books.
• My daily reading of the newspaper in the morning needs to be done in an orderly fashion. I have to read the newspaper sections in order which tends to slow me down on Sunday mornings when for some reason, they sometimes rearrange the sections in their attempt to minimize the folding or rolling size of the entire thing.
• When standing or sitting near a collection of items, e.g. glasses, bottles etc. I often find myself lining them up or placing them in nice symmetrical patterns like squares or diamonds. Triangle or pyramid shapes are also possible tho rare.
• If I get a stick of gum, one of those nice (hygienic) individually wrapped bits, after unwrapping it and popping it in my mouth, I will inevitably neatly fold the wrapper in a symmetrical fashion into as small a package as possible and put it in my pocket until I am ready to dispose of the gum. Not sure what I do when I have no pockets.

Now for some reason I have a lot of food/kitchen-related idiosyncrasies:

• When serving out food into my plate, I need to have my meat on the right-hand side of my plate, with the rice on the left and any sides (corn, salad, etc) toward the top. This always has me doing some serious plate spinning when being served by someone else, especially in a buffet line.
• I always eat away from me in the plate, leaving space closest to me to rest my knife and fork. I think I get this one from my mother cause she does the same thing.
• If I am washing the dishes, then I will make sure to keep the cutlery types separated when in drying rack. So all the forks in one compartment, all the knives together etc.
• In the cutlery tray in the drawer, I like to ensure that the forks are grouped by size in their compartment. There are some forks with shorter tines which I will always place on the left with the longer tined ones on the right. Don’t even ask. It really bugs me when they are all mixed up.

I have no doubt there are more but this were the first ones that occurred to me. No need to say a word. I know, I am special.

I’m not sure what it is but Christmas is redecorating time in my house. For some reason, around this time every year, as the holiday season digs into our lives, my household decides the time is right for a new look.

Most of the time it doesn’t get too major (though this year we did toss around the idea of painting the entire house a new colour :???:). Our changes are more on the surface - new curtains on the windows, new mats on the floor, new shower curtains, new towels, new bathroom stuff, new sheets, pictures go up on the wall… and that’s my room alone.

A lot of people see the new year as a time for the new start, the spring cleaning, but my family seems to see the Christmas season as a more suitable time for this. I guess having new things in the home, everything looking all spiffy helps to stir up the joy. Especially since these redecorations are almost always a family affair. Each room requires a caucus to decide on colours, textures, styles.

Every family has their own traditions and I guess this is one of those that makes my family what it is. Gotta love ‘em.

It is amazing how life works sometimes. You can get yourself all worked up trying to “make” things happen and end up feeling like you are spinning in circles with no tangible results. And then with no warning, things may just start to come together and all you can say is “nothing before its time”.

A study conducted by AZE (Alliance for Zero Extinction) scientists working in collaboration with an international network of experts have so far identified 595 sites that must be effectively protected to prevent the extinction of 794 of the world’s most threatened species. The AZE aims to prevent imminent species extinctions by identifying and safeguarding the places where Endangered and Critically Endangered species are restricted to single remaining sites. The criteria for selecting sites are:

1. Endangerment - An AZE site must contain at least one Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR) species, as listed by the IUCN Red List.
2. Irreplaceability - An AZE site should only be designated if it is the sole area where an EN or CR species occurs, or contains the overwhelmingly significant known resident population of the EN or CR species, or contains the overwhelmingly significant known population for one life history segment (e.g., breeding or wintering) of the EN or CR species.
3. Discreteness - The area must have a definable boundary within which the character of habitats, biological communities, and/or management issues have more in common with each other than they do with those in adjacent areas.

AZE is first focusing on species that face extinction either because their last remaining habitat is being degraded at a local level, or because their tiny global range makes them especially vulnerable to external threats.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, it seems Jamaica has 5 such sites with 9 species that have made the AZE list. Only 2 of the sites are currently under protected status.

1. JM1 - Blue and John Crow Mountains (protected)
   • Eleutherodactylus alticola (Common name: Lynn’s Robber Frog) - critically endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus andrewsi (Common name: Andrews’ Robber Frog) - endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus nubicola (Common name: Portland Robber Frog) - endangered
   • Pterodroma caribbaea (Common name: Jamaica Petrel or Blue Mountain Duck) - critically endangered (last seen in 1879)
2. JM2 - Cockpit Country (protected)
   • Eleutherodactylus griphus (Common name: Trelawny Parish Robber Frog) - critically endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus sisyphodemus (Common name: Quick Step Robber Frog) - critically endangered
3. JM3 - Hellshire Hills (unprotected)
   • Cyclura collei (Jamaica ground iguana) - critically endangered
4. JM4 - Portland Ridge (unprotected)
   • Eleutherodactylus cavernicola (Common name: Portland Cave Robber Frog) - critically endangered
5. JM5 - St. Clair Cave (unprotected)
   • Phyllonycteris aphylla (Common name: Jamaican flower bat) - critically endangered

To find out more about AZE, see: http://www.zeroextinction.org and for the map of all the world sites: http://www.zeroextinction.org/aze_map.pdf.