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My Favorite Five Dishes That My Mom Makes

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Mother’s Day is just around the corner and today I am not writing about a restaurant I’ve tried , but instead I would like to share with you seven dishes that my mom makes that I absolutely love. My mom is one of the best chefs I know because she really does put a lot of heart and soul in cooking and the food. When we have a feast to honor our ancestors, mom is always the one that cooks and every time the feast is always delicious.  Although I know how to cook already, I want to be as great as my mom is.

white dish of food

This is my mom’s Pan-Fried Salmon with Tomatoes that I absolutely adore. This is really my favorite salmon dish and full of flavor and deliciousness. I thought it was a complicated recipe, but apparently it’s very simple and I have tried making it before and it’s easy!

Chinese food

This is Zongzi or Joong and it’s a traditional Chinese food made with glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped with bamboo leaves. My family and I typically make and eat these during the fifth month of the lunar calendar. My mom always makes these and adds a lot of fillings and makes her own salted eggs. Her joong is always number one to me.

white plate of six pastries

These are Fa Gao and it is a Chinese cupcake-like pastry, mostly consumed on Chinese New Year, but my mom does make these when she has the time. I truly enjoy eating the Fa Gao my mom makes versus the ones from the Chinese bakeries because it’s usually colored with food dye. My mom doesn’t use food dye at all and she uses brown sugar instead of white sugar. They are extremely fluffy and moist!

noodles and vegetables

This is my mom’s famous Vermicelli with dried shrimp and she makes this just about every Chinese holiday or for our birthdays or whenever we request for it. It’s extremely tasty and it never gets tiring to eat. This dish also represents longevity.

stewAnother food that my mom makes during December for a Chinese holiday is called tong yuan which can be eaten savory or sweet. We often eat the savory version for breakfast or dinner. For the savory version, my mom usually adds mushroom, cabbage, shrimp, chunks of dried scallops, scallions, and chicken or pork. It’s really an enjoyable food and soup to have especially during winter.

These are some of my favorite dishes that my mom makes.

What are your favorite dishes that your mother makes? What do you like most about it?

Never Give Up – You’re Closer Than You Think

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a drawing of two men underground, digging for diamonds with pickaxes

Most successes are not overnight successes. They take time to achieve and while life can be hard, staying the course will increase your chances of being successful. You should be proud that you are trying and stay positive. Remember, a positive attitude yields positive results and you are closer than you think.

Yet, I know it’s not easy. As a mature student who has taken a very long road to graduating, with one more semester to go, I can truly say that it’s worth pursuing.

But see below for tips from wikiHow on never giving up:

1. Develop a more positive attitude. Though you may find it nearly impossible to be positive if you feel like you’ve tried everything and nothing is working for you, it’s important to stay as optimistic as you can if you want to never give up. Being positive makes you see all of the good things in your life that you may be missing out on because you’re focusing on the negative things. It will also make you more open to more opportunities and possibilities because you’ll be looking at life with a “can do” attitude.

  • It’s true. Being more positive will not only make it easier for you to deal with challenges, but it will help you embrace new ones. If you’re bitter or focused on all of your failures, then you won’t be able to move forward.
  • If you catch yourself complaining or whining, try countering your negative comment with two positive ones.
  • Though you shouldn’t feel like you’re faking it when you’re acting positive while feeling sad on the inside, you should know that the more you fake it, the more you’ll slowly begin to see the brighter side of life.
  • One way to be more optimistic is to surround yourself with happier people who make you appreciate life more. If all of your friends are negative and discouraging, then yeah, it’ll be hard to have a positive mindset and to feel like you shouldn’t give up.

2. Learn to embrace change. If you want to work on developing the right mindset for not giving up, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and to not only accept change, but to thrive in it. Sure, you might have been thrown for a loop when your boyfriend broke up with you out of nowhere or when your family announced you were moving to a new city, but you have to learn to adapt to a new situation, to focus on whatever aspects of it exist, and to make a game plan for thriving in a new situation.

  • As Sheryl Crow once said, sometimes “A change will do you good.” Even if you’re shocked or thrown off guard, tell yourself that this could be the very best thing for you.
  • Look at change as an opportunity to learn something new, to meet new people, and to become a more well-rounded person. Though you may not see any positive aspects of the situation just yet, you should be proud of yourself for handling it with grace and for moving forward.

3. Learn from your mistakes. If you want to be able to not give up, then you have to get into a mindset that allows you to come to terms with the mistakes you’ve made and to learn from them so you don’t keep having the same old problems. Though you may feel only discouraged or embarrassed when you first make a mistake, you should take a step back to understand what you did wrong and make a plan for not making the same mistake the next time.

  • Though nobody wants to make a mistake, mistakes help you learn how to avoid future problems. For example, you may feel like you really messed up by dating a possessive boyfriend who ended up breaking your heart, but this mistake earlier in life may save you from picking the wrong husband in the future.
  • Don’t be in denial about the fact that you could have acted differently. If you’re so focused on looking perfect all the time, then you won’t ever learn.

4. Know that there will always be more opportunities for success. If you want to work on never giving up, then you have to have the mentality that there will always be more ways to succeed in the future. Though it’s important to live in the present, you should work on getting excited about the future instead of thinking that it has nothing to offer you; if you have the attitude that you’ve missed the boat somehow, then good opportunities will never come because you won’t be able to see them.

  • You may feel that, because you didn’t get the dream job you’ve been on three rounds of interviews for, that you’ll never find a career that suits you, but in the long run, you’ll see that you’ll be able to find plenty of jobs that also feel like that perfect fit, even if it takes a while to get there.
  • You can also work on opening up your definition of success. Sure, you might have thought that true success would be selling your novel when you were 25, but at 30, you may see that success can also be found in teaching literature to eager high school students.

    I hope these tips are inspiring to you and help you to never give up. Feel free to add your comments on never giving up.

NY Hangout: A Raceway in our Backyard

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"Pole Position" race sign

I am a proud uncertified sponsor of the term All Work and No Play Will Make Anyone Dull. This weekend was no exception. On Friday I went to a bar in Queens with my coworkers to celebrate the promotions of two Sistas (non relation black women who are sisters by national blood), I ordered tons of appetizers. On Saturday I was headed to Atlantic City on the whim had to turn back and then enjoyed a party celebrating the life of Kai before heading to a Queens Bowling Alley with my cousins for my uncles Lodge. And finally on Sunday my cousins, friends and I enjoyed the Pole Position Raceway in Long Island.

Signs for a race

Upon entering we was a little confused. It seemed like so much to don and although the cashier wasnt friendly or giving us information we needed we managed to figure out that we had to register on iPads before purchasing the tickets. It was $30 per adult for a few rounds and you only race with your party. Kids are have the price and there were other packages and memberships.

a table with chairs

While we awaited our race we played games at the arcade which outlined the indoor road.  They also had great sitting area with refreshments but we BYOB’d

Procrastination – Breaking the Habit

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"Procrastination flowchart: do something right now: No"

Now that it’s spring break, I decided to use it to get ahead of my studies. Even though I am guilty of procrastinating at times, I really try my best to overcome the habit. But I am not alone and many people have the same habit. So how do we overcome it?

a green keyboard key that says "Tomorrow"

What I usually do is create two to-do-lists. The first one is a daily list with everything that I have to do for the entire day. As I go through the day, I check off each item on my list. It feels good when I am able to cross things off and see my list getting smaller. Sometimes it’s even necessary to set a time for things to be done. This prevents me from putting things off until later. I also make sure that the important things get done first. If there is something that does not get done that day, it goes on the following day’s list.

A boy playing with a lizard, and the words "There are no limits to what you can accomplish when you are supposed to be doing something else."

The second list is the long-term list. This is an ultimate list and as I accomplish things, I check them off. I get a sense of accomplishment knowing that I have done what I needed to do. I know it’s easier said than done, but force yourself to do it. It’s a good habit that, if developed, will give you clarity. Your list will be large at first, but will eventually grow smaller as you complete your tasks.

cartoon of a man looking at a computer, with the words "I'm very busy doing things I don't need to do in order to avoid doing anything I'm actually supposed to be doing."

The main thing to remember is that no one is perfect and everything takes time. But be your own motivator and reward yourself when it’s done. Maybe give yourself a special treat because we all need reinforcement. And just like I do, have positive people in your life who can encourage you to stay on task. Telling someone what you plan to do further confirms your commitment to doing it.

Lastly, don’t worry about the distractions. Believe me, they will come. Just practice doing one thing at a time and don’t overwhelm yourself.

I hope this has been helpful and if you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

We can do this!

Emotional Intelligence – Why Is It So Important?

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the cover of a book called "Tom Norman: Emotional Intelligence" with a photo of a woman from the back in a cornfield, her arms raised

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Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. What I find so amazing is that some people are born with it and some people learn it along the way. Although some researchers say you either have it or you don’t.

The following excerpt by Jessica Cambridge and Tom Norman discusses the importance of emotional intelligence:

Chapter 1: An Overview on Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence (also known as EQ) is the person’s ability to manage, use, identify and understand emotions in optimistic ways to overcome struggles, have compassion with others, resolve conflict, relieve stress and communicate effectively. EQ creates an impact in various aspects of our lives, such as the way we behave and interact with other people.

If you have a high EQ, you can recognize your own emotional state as well as others. Your EQ serves as your level of understanding the emotional aspect of relating with people in order to establish genuine relationships, achieve greater success at work and live a more fulfilling life.

Why EQ Is Very Important?

As we all know, it’s not only the smartest people that are the most fulfilled and successful in life. Perhaps you know someone who is 100% academically-inclined but he or she doesn’t know how to value personal relationships. Having intellectual intelligence (or IQ) is not enough to become successful in life. An above average IQ can get you to college – true! But in the end it’s your EQ that will help you handle the emotions, anxiety and stress of college life especially during examinations.

Emotional intelligence affects:

Your relationship with others – By controlling and understanding your emotions, you’ll be able to express how you understand and feel the emotions coming from your family, friends and work colleagues. Also, this allows you to communicate with them more effectively and develop a meaningful work and personal life.

  • Your mentality – Unmanaged stress creates impact in your mentality, making you susceptible to depression and anxiety. If you cannot manage or understand your emotions, there is a good chance that you will suffer from mood swings which can ruin work or personal relationships and leave you feeling isolated.
  • Your physical being – If you are unable to overcome stress, this can lead to severe health problems. Unmanaged stress speeds up the aging process, contributes to infertility, raises blood pressure, suppresses the body’s immune system and increases the risk of stroke and heart attack. In line with this, the crucial step to improving your EQ is by learning how to manage stress levels in your body.
  • Your work performance – Having an EQ helps you shove the social complexities of your workplace, lead and encourage workmates and most importantly, excel in your performance. Today, most companies view emotional intelligence as important as their employees’ technical ability hence they require EQ tests when hiring.

Personally, I think that emotional intelligence can be developed and that we can train out minds to think in a rational way. That means, taking time to think things through before acting.

Healthy food vs Junk food

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The obesity epidemic that’s increasing exponentially in America has sparked interest in an array of programs to establish initiatives for Americans to become serious about their health, especially in terms of their weight. It has also led to a variety of commercials that are currently airing, to explain the negative effects that unhealthy junk foods can wreak on our bodies. It singles out many food brands as contributing to people gaining weight by consuming their products. These commercials graphically describe the effects by displaying visuals of heart disease or other health issues in order to frighten viewers into being more health conscious. While many doctors will tell you to eliminate junk food from your diet completely, that is somewhat impossible, we all get a sweet tooth sometimes and it can be difficult to turn down your favorite junk food weakness. So instead it can be better to be more physically active by way of exercising extensively in order to burn off the calories that were put on by way of delicious yet fattening food.

Now, in an effort to be more honest with consumers, companies are highly considering adding new labeling to processed food products that will clearly indicate exercise equivalents that can be done to burn off the calorie intake of that specific food item. This will enable consumers to understand the severity of the amount of calories they are ingesting on the daily basis.

kid having trouble decide between healthy foods or junk foods

Image by: Nancy Ripton

It will help them see how much junk food that they are eating because an apple naturally would not have a warning label but a bag of potato chips would. While the potato chips essentially have no nutritional value, the apple, despite it still having a sugar and calorie index, has vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals that will consequently benefit the body to have the energy to run efficiently. The new labeling that the potato chips would have would describe exercises to do to counteract the calories of it, for example; the label could possibly read that it would take 35 minutes of walking to burn away the calories. However this can still be a tad bit misleading because in order to know how to burn off a specific amount of calories, you have to calculate that person’s body mass index. So a person who weighs 100 pounds will have to walk or run twice as long as a 200 pound person.

Overall though it would be an encouragement for all consumers to be more attentive to labels and will hopefully help them make better educated choices when purchasing food for themselves or their families as in theory it will help you to consider buying foods with a lower calorie index in terms of sodium and sugar content which would overall be healthier. Many consumers have said labeling is difficult to understand and it would be more beneficial to make the labeling more consumer friendly. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently considering redesigning labels on packaged foods to highlight the ingredients that you should avoid or that are healthy in the food item.

 

Victory, The Victorious

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a young man in a red hooded sweatshirtThis weekend I spoke with the underground musical artist, Victory. A awesome jaw dropping lyricist, with an interesting hobby. Check it out:

a man wearing large black headphones, in front of an image of the word "Victory"

How did you get your name? Actually the way I got my name is because my rap name use to be Flawless Victory but I just shorten it to Victory

How’d you describe you musical style? / What sets u apart from the artist out there? I would describe my musical style as fun and energetic and what sets me apart is that I won’t rap about what typical rappers rap about because I’m not a trap type of rapper so it forces me to be creative

I  a lot of your music can be comical and jaw dropping… Do you think most lyrical artist sell out from their original genre and fall to mainstream artist? I don’t think most lyrical artist sell out to maintain stream but I do think that they try to go with the times because you don’t have to change what you want to say you just have to update how you say it and most artist don’t realize that

 

What else do you do? I also make clothes and I edit videos also

a man on a tv screen

I love your designs and I watched the amazing growth… How did You get into fashion / what sparked your interest? I originally got the idea by making a shirt to promote myself as a artist and people liked the design and started requesting it then that’s when we really started getting into the clothing aspect

a man in sunglasses and a T-shirt

Is there anything you’ll like for the listeners to know? I would like my listeners to know that I’m working there’s a lot of good music coming with some great visuals so stay tuned

seven young men and women of colorthe back of a man wearing a black sweatshirt that says "Just Us II" in white letters

I wish him good luck on all endeavers.

Preparing for Interviews

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the cover of a book called "the essential guide for Hiring & Getting Hired"

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As I get closer to graduating, I know how important it is to prepare for interviews. In fact, I was reminded that interviewers make judgements within the first five minutes of an interview. It’s been a long time since I went on an interview and I have so much depending on me getting a job. So I came across this checklist as a place to start my preparation and maybe it can help you too.

Adler, L. (n.d.). Essential guide for hiring & getting hired.

Preparing for the Interview Checklist

  • Be Prepared. Don’t wing the interview. Prepare as much as you would for any important management presentation.
  • Don’t look at your resume during the interview. Looking is a sign of nervousness or fabrication. You need to know everything on the resume without hesitation.
  • Use the SAFW format to answer each question. A complete 1-2 minute answer is the sweet spot for length and content.
  • Get the interviewer to describe real job needs. Force the interviewer to ask about relevant topics.
  • Focus on the opportunity, ignore the compensation.  Compensation increases will follow great performance.
  • Demonstrate interest and acts about next steps. Get the interviewer to commit to something, and if he or she hesitates, find out why and respond.
  • Demonstrate how you develop solutions rather than giving the solution. Most problem-solving questions are designed to understand how a person develops a solution, rather than the actual answer.
  • Practice, practice, practice. Everyone gets a little nervous during the interview. To get through the initial two minutes of discomfort, practice getting nervous by answering questions to a friend or family member.

My biggest takeaway is that it is important to be in control of the interview. That means, answering in such a way that you feel in control. Also you should make sure that you absolutely know what is on your resume and know all your accomplishments. Who knows you more than you know yourself?

How To Sew A Handbag

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Can you sew? Would you ever try creating your own hand bag?

There was a time where I, Amoni B, did seam-stressing and designing. I self taught myself to create handbags, purses and more. Being an activist of sustainability, I started creating bags from reusable, recycled and second hand materials. Today I’d like to teach you guys how to create your own bags. Below are two videos, for the beginner and intermediate. You can use your own materials, I sometimes even use old jeans and dresses, which can be seen HERE.

Video 1: Yankee Tote | Video 2: Motherland Scrunch Clutch

 

QUESTIONS TO THE AUDIENCE: Do you have a hobby, trade, or interest? What is it? | Have you ever created anything? What?

The Fear of Criticism

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a green chalkboard with the word "FEAR" written and crossed out, in white chalk

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“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things” Frank A. Clark.

“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving” Dale Carnegie.

For a recent class topic, I wrote about criticism, or rather, the fear of criticism. This got me thinking about how to handle criticism in a professional environment. Criticism means to find fault with someone or thing and remark or comment about it. There are two types of criticism – constructive criticism and destructive criticism. It is true that both forms are difficult to deal with and can hurt our feelings, but learning how to cope with criticism can reduce the fear and discouragement we often feel.

Constructive criticism is motivated by a desire to help us improve and grow and destructive criticism is intended to be harmful and can lower our self-esteem. But the truth is that we all make mistakes and criticism will never stop. There will always be both destructive and constructive criticism and we can either use it in a positive or negative way. Whether at school or work, criticism is a part of life. The first step in dealing with criticism is to evaluate the person delivering the message. Who is the person and how was it given?

It’s difficult for us to accept criticism when it’s coming from someone who is not credible in our eyes. So, you should determine if you value their opinion. What is the intention of the person who is criticizing you? Are they judgmental? Do they mean well? Is it someone you like and respect, or is it someone you would rather keep away from? Or maybe it’s a boss who you have to take seriously because it could cost you your job. Once you determine the value of the person, it becomes easier to detach the criticism from the person and the environment.

The second step is to deconstruct the criticism. Look for something—even if it is just a grain—that you can take from what is being said to better yourself? You can’t grow and improve if you can’t take criticism. So the key thing to do is to step back and look at what’s being said and focus on the parts that are most useful. You may find that there is some truth to what is being said.

But regardless if criticism has any basis or not, at the end of the day, what really counts is our attitude towards it.

Questions:

How do you cope with criticism?

Has it ever held you back and how did you get over it?

Are you still struggling with it?