This is not my experience but that of dinup ( My friend and class mate).I really thank him and everyone reading this too should for this incredible writing and helping mentality.

Post: Probationary officer (2yr probation & 3 yr bond)

CTC: 3.6 lacs p.a

Venue: Rajagiri School of Engineering & Technology and Federal Towers.

Federal Bank recruitment was conducted by Ma Foi Management Consultants Limited. The initial phase of recruitment comprised of an objective type test, group discussion and an interview. All the candidates had to appear for all the three sub phases, since the performance of the student in each of the sub phases was considered as a criterion for selection into the next phase.

Objective Type test: The test had three sections: Aptitude, General Knowledge & Psychometric test. The aptitude test was quite simple, while the General Knowledge part was a bit difficult. The questions were mainly based on banks, Income tax slabs, Bank interest rates etc. The questions where like “Which is India’s first private bank” and so on. Psychometric tests aim to measure attributes like intelligence, aptitude and personality. They provide a potential employer with an insight into how well you work with other people, how well you handle stress, and whether you will be able to cope with the intellectual demands of the job. The best way to tackle such questions is to give honest and consistent answers.

Group Discussion: We were split into groups of twelve. Once the topic for discussion was announced, we were given two to three minutes to think over it. Then each of us were asked speak for a minute in order to express our views. Our topic for discussion was “The effect of films on Youth, Good or Bad?” Then an open discussion was conducted for about 5 minutes. At the end of the discussion, a few of us concluded the discussion, taking into account all the points discussed by each and every one of us.

Interview: The interview was a very friendly one. He initially asked me to introduce myself. When I said that I stay at Kalamassery, he asked me about the various industries situated in Kalamassery and scope of more industries coming up in Kalamassery. He then asked me some questions like “Which is your industry”, “Who is your favorite Industrialist” etc. Since I said Ratan Tata is my favorite Industrialist, he asked me about the advent of “Tata Nano” and whether it will be a success. The interview lasted for about 15 minutes.

The result of the first phase of recruitment was announced a week later. Almost 75% of the students were selected for the next phase. The second and final phase of recruitment process was conducted at the Federal Bank Head quarters, “Federal Towers”, Aluva. We had to reach “Federal Towers” by 9 am. Initially an officer verified all the mark lists, and once they were verified successfully, we were called for the interview. The interview was conducted by three senior officers in Federal Bank. They asked a few questions to test our knowledge on banking. They asked me to explain the term GDP, inflation and its consequences. I was a few General knowledge questions like “Who is Mayawathi”, “Where is she from etc”. The interview was a friendly one, and it lasted for about 25 minutes.

A week later I came to know that I was selected for the post of Probationary Officer in Federal Bank.

This seemingly contradictory yet true quote still resonates with me to this day.  I first heard it during my freshman year of high school and only until recently do I see its impact on pursuing success.  

First, what is being "on time." If you are in high school/college, its the simple act of arriving 1 microsecond prior to the lecturer uttering their first words of the class.  As much as people in this age group (myself included) will tend to disagree with this definition, we all know it to be true and live by it as we prioritize our lives.  This leads me back to the point that you are either one of two things: early or late.  I've found that being "on time" doesn't cut it anymore.

I've listed the consequences of being "on time" to a business meeting:

1. I am not prepared.  If I sit down as people are talking, I've missed any handouts, preliminary conversation, and the chance to organize my notes and thoughts.  This is detrimental to myself as I will not get the most out of the meeting or be able to contribute my ideas.

2. I will delay the meeting. Because most people will wait until everyone is situated, I will have essentially wasted other people's time.  Others will be waiting for me to "catch up" to what everyone was doing earlier.  In general, people don't like their time to be wasted!

3. I will not be in control. This is probably the most detrimental to one's success.  If I show up "on time"/late, I obviously didn't schedule my day, prioritize, or manage my tasks well enough.  Although this is sometimes unavoidable, it hurts to lack control over a situation.

This leads me to a story of a friend of the family that was interviewing for a job.  She's worked in various fields throughout her life, has a presentable resumé, and landed an onsite interview with a nearby company.  She *assumed* she knew where the location was and how to get there.  When the day came for her interview, she arrived "on time"; literally walked in the door at 8:30 am for an 8:30 am interview.  Do you think she was ecstatic that she made it in time?  Of course not.  The secretary told her that if she couldn't make the effort to arrive early for an interview then she obviously didn't care enough about the job.  The secretary was right! If you show up late for an interview, you might not be dependable with a project or task that needs to get done.  Being "on time" is being "late".

Lets take my story from this summer's internship.  We [the intern class] were told to meet at a particular location at 8 am.  What time do you think most people got there?  If you guessed between 6:30 am and 7:00 am, you'd be correct.  Especially if you are not familiar with the area, you should give yourself enough time to find the location and travel there if you're lost.  If time permits, you should try to visit the site a day in advance to judge the time it will take to get there.  A point I will leave you with: what if you were the only person to show up at exactly 8:00 am?  How would you feel?  I suspect that it will coincide with the 3 points I listed for being "on time".

I've found that being punctual and organizing my time has helped me take proper steps to success.  Refer back to my post on JP Morgan to help prioritize your schedule and maintain timeliness.

[dailymotion id=x615ix&related=1]

This interview was made in 2002, right after the release of the album "Almost Seventeen". Crystal Kay talks about her career. It's all in english.

Esse vídeo foi postado no YouTube por neptunesoul

Volte sempre para ver as novidades!!!

Click here to see the video: Wolf Answers the Phone

Here's a little Wolf trivia:  "Hollywood Yates is starring in a hilarious new movie called Fancypants, the story of a professional wrestler  who's afraid of conflict in real life.  Hollywood is playing a character called 'The Darkness' - the hot new wrestler who's taking the league by storm.  Will he fight the undefeated "Leo the Blue Lion"?  Fancypants wraps shooting last week of June.  Look for it in 2009."

Click here to view a clip of Wolf on the runway at the 2008 Country Weekly Fashion Show. He dances, he howls, he does his thing. Click here to view an interview with him. 

Related:
Grandma Got Run Over By Crush
Hellboy and Wolf
Scoop on American Gladiator Panther

The j-pop singer Crystal Kay interviews the r&b singer Alicia Keys about her methods for writing songs. This is a very nice interview all in english. I hope you enjoy.

Esse vídeo foi postado no YouTube por azncglysxi

Volte sempre para ver as novidades!!!

Not necessarily, says author Shawna Kenney, who in her book I Was A Teenage Dominatrix  reveals a deeper, darker, and far funnier truth about these men leading lives of unheard yearnings and unspoken secrets. Many - in the immoirtal words of Iggy Pop - want to be your dog.

"Get paid for being a bitch" was what the ad in the paper said. Kenney, a punk heavily involved in the Washington DC scene, stared at the words. Like so many of us, she'd been struggling to survive financially in college, working one dead-end job after another. She'd had a little experience as an exotic dancer, but now wondered, why serve other people, when there were people out there whose deepest desire was to serve only... her?

She answered the ad, and soon began training in the art of the dominatrix. Shawna proved more than proficient in making men undress, beg, plead, and confess before her, all to the sweet sound of around $200 an hour (before tips).

There was never touching, only training. Never sex, just suffering. "Thank you, Mistress," they'd murmur softly after, either desiring to please her, or perhaps hoping they didn't, looking for more attention still. They'd never get it, because torture is what a dominatrix does.

Kenney completed college, honing her journalism skills along the way by writing about punk luminaries like Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye. Then, needing new challenges, she packed up her world, and headed out west.

She went to California and continued writing, interviewing anyone doing anything interesting in music or art. She hooked up with Whap! (Women Who Administer Pain) magazine, and went on to write what might be one of the purest, funniest memoirs about the sexual fringe that's ever existed.

Interview by Will Tupper

Near the beginning of I Was A Teenage Dominatrix you write, "By the time I got to high school, punk rock saved my life." As I read the rest of the book, I wondered if your roots in punk influenced your attitude about becoming a dominatrix?

I think being involved in punk - something anti-establishment - definitely made me open to many things. So, when the idea of spanking someone for money came along, I wasn't appalled or anything. I'm not saying I was an expert, either. My sex life had been pretty vanilla - as they call it in the fetish scene - and pretty limited by any standards. I didn't believe that worlds like the S+M underground existed, but was intrigued by the idea, once introduced to it. I guess being punk made me open minded about the whole experience.

Were you planning and composing the book while you were living the life?

Far from it. When I lived in DC, I was not very "out" about what I was doing for a living. It's a conservative city and as great as the punk scene is there, I always felt it was prudish regarding sex. I felt like people would judge me negatively if I told them about my job. Even my best friends didn't know until I was about a year into it! Later, I moved to California, and worked a bunch of shitty production and temp jobs and finally landed a gig as the editor at Whap!, a "fem/dom" mag whose publishers I'd met at a zine fest. They hired me on, and as I began to talk more freely around the office about my past and old job, they started suggesting I write these stories down. I hadn't even thought of it before! I'd written and sold one piece of fiction to one of Larry Flynt's magazines before that, but I used a fake name. When Whap! came to me with a contract for a book, I finally realized they were serious! I wondered if anyone would even care to read about this silly job I had.

I didn't know how to go about writing a book, and I had no idea who would read it, or what it would do for me. I wished I'd taken notes. When I look back at my journals from college, I'd barely mentioned my "new employment." I think I was more worried about grades, the future, boys, and other "normal" college-girl stuff, rather than analyzing what I did every night for money. Weird, I know. Humans have a great ability to compartmentalize.

What was your work background before you became a dominatrix?

I waitressed at bars & restaurants, worked in retail, all that shit. But I did some interesting work, too. My friends always said I had the weirdest jobs. I was a hotline operator at America's Most Wanted for a while - I even got a "hot tip" that caught a criminal once! That was pretty fun. The weirdest people would call and just tell their life stories - while all of us operators plugged into one another's calls and laughed our asses off. I was a live-in nanny for a while - once for a good family and once for a not-so-great, self-centered, rich-friends-of-the-Clintons family. I'm still in touch with "my kids" from the nice family.

How closely do you think someone's political beliefs relate to their feelings about sex and various sexual practices?

Some of the most liberal people I know are so uptight about sex, or are so busy worrying about what's PC that they can't let go - which, I think, makes for bad sex. When I was a dom, most of my submissive clients were conservative Republicans. In fact, the more conservative of a job or lifestyle they had, the kinkier they usually were!

I'm assuming from what you just said that you feel the new Presidential administration is going to aid business for doms in DC?

Oh, hell yeah! Get ready, girls! Those guys are the most repressed and the ones with the most money to spend on making their fantasies a reality.

Let's discuss another aspect of DC, the punk scene. You grew up there, and got into writing about it rather early. To start, how'd you get involved in it all?

Some people play insturments and do bands, some do art, some book shows, some start record labels or T-shirt businesses or organize protests. I grew up thinking everyone could be part of "the punk scene" by contributing their own thing. That made it different from the mainstream music scene, where everyone consumes and a seemingly elite few produce. I booked shows for several years in the DC area, played bass for a while, and did a zine on the side throughout high school and afterward. Writing was my favorite thing to do, and what I was best at. In college I missed my zine, started writing for the school paper, and found the only thing I was really interested in writing about was rebel music of any sort - mostly rap and punk. I never wrote short stories or poetry or anything like that. I just like covering real people / things that I think deserve recognition.

Do you feel there's still a double standard in punk? A sexual equality in ideals, compared to a still strong sense of discrimination that seems to exist in many circles?

Yes! As happy as I am to see more girls at shows when I go these days, I'm still disappointed in to see them being more like consumers rather than producers. I liked hardcore music too, but something about the scene was it's fraternity-like jock mentality. In the 80's I remember wishing there'd be a popular gay hardcore band. For all their "end racism" stickers and professed open mindedness, many were still sexist and homophobic.

What's been your take on reactions to that, such as the riot girl movement, and shows like Ladyfest?

It's interesting. It's awesome if it makes it easier for girls and women to feel like they're a part of something. I'm all for enpowerment, of course. But labels are just weird. They didn't have that term when I was doing shows and zines. I thought of myself as "punk" more than a girl, I guess. I grew up with all guys - most of whom I'm still friends with - and I remember when they introduced me to a new girl in our town that liked punk, we hit it off and I was so thrilled to have a "girlfriend" into what I was into, too. I wish there had been a riot girl scene then. The gals getting into it now are lucky to have that.

When you got done with college, you moved out west. Have you found the punk scene out there far different than the East Coast?

Oh my gosh, yes- I always loved the Cali sound so much as I liked Dischord bands, so it's been a trip to see Keith Morris do live spoken word, or be assigned interviews with bands like the Vandals, or seeing DI and Youth Brigade play, since moving out here. My boyfriend and I have loved that the most - thought he's a little more excited to see his aging metal heroes sauntering down the Sunset Strip! It's really interesting how the scenes are different. From what I gather from punk friends here, straightedge was never a big thing here - it was always more of a party scene. And there wasn't as much activism involved with being a punk as there was on the East Coast. A lot of California punks aren't vegetarian, either, which is so surprising to me too, since it's so much easier to be one here! There are also a lot of homeless kids here who look punk, but aren't doing things I associate with being punk, so that's weird, too. I 've met mainstream types here who find out I listen to punk and they're like, "But you look so... normal" and I have to explain how it's more than a "look."

Once you got out there, what was the biggest transition that you had to make?

Going from being worshipped for a large amount of money per hour to a shit job for somebody's disrespected assistant for $12/hr was not easy. I learned I wasn't submissive enough to work my way up through the film industry's food chain, and I learned I didn't even like the film industry, period! I thought about domming again, but really felt it would be a step backward into a world and lifestyle that didn't fit me anymore. I finally settled at an acceptable mindless job while pursuing my freelance writing fulltime on the side.

The other thing that was hard was leaving a scene where I felt welcomed and comfortable. I grew up there, had tons of friends, and knew the place like the back of my hand. It was hard to leave all that. But, I wanted a challenge - and warm weather - so I had to do it. Now I have some good friends here, too. Plus the good thing about having punk friends is that a lot of them travel in or with bands, so lots of people come through and stay at my apartment all the time, and I love that. I see many DC and NY friends once a year while they're passing through.

I read somewhere that there's talk of a possible movie based on your book. That's pretty crazy. Even if nothing comes from it, just knowing the fact that one of "our numbers" has lived to tell a story so well - and through an indie publisher no less - that it might make it to the big screen. Not that that's a desirable end-goal or anything, but I still find the possibility to be incredibly enpowering.    

Thanks! Yes, my book's movie rights are up for sale. I wasn't trying to get an agent or anything - someone gave him my book as a b-day present, he loved it, and he happened to work at ICM, one of the biggest agencies in the world. I guess I just live in the right place for that sort of thing. I can't say who's looking at ir right now, but whatever happens, happens. Everything beyond the book is gravy on my mashed potatoes, you know? I never expected anything like that. The best thing about the book and its success is that it has forced me to take myself more seriously as a writer. Writing went from being my hobby to the way I make my living and express myself.

(my answer): Take off all my clothes, wedge them between the blades and the floor to prevent it from turning. Back up against the edge of the blender until the electric motor overheats and burns out. Using the notches etched in the side for measuring, climb out. If there are no such notches or they're too far apart, retrieve clothes and make a rope to hurl myself out.

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Und ein zauberhaftes Lächeln. Ist garantiert!

Und wer mehr zum Wintersport, den Wintersportlern und etwas drumherum wissen möchte, der ist im *Wintersport-blog* ganz gut aufgehoben. Und kann ja auch selbst mitmachen. Also, einfach klicken oder bookmarken. Thanx! :cool:

The online community Bebo recently had an interview with N.E.R.D. which didn’t really feature much pressing matter aside from discussion of their video conceptualization but just fun to see Pharrell, Chad and Shae all acting suspiciously friendly…

Q: What made you decide to do a podcast?

I was switching to the Mac and I wanted to share my experience of learning about Mac, Apple and to do it in a way that I would be a contributor not just a consumer of information. The show allows me to continue to learn and grow while I learn about all things in the Apple community, software, hardware and how “The Cult of Mac” is about people coming together and sharing their knowledge. That fits perfectly into my life and how I can contribute to it.

Q: Despite the name of your podcast, you are not a typical user. Can you tell us a little about your IT background?

Well I was very “Typical” when I started the show, and although I may not be “Typical” today, I still tend to very much relate to the early days of my switching to the Mac and what things baffled me, and what I wanted to learn. My IT background goes back about sixteen years where I have been anything from a systems administrator, a developer of IVR’s and Automatic Call Distributors to a Director of development, QA\QC. This experience in IT, managing and teaching have served me very well in doing the podcast and in delivering a show that I would want to listen to.

Q: With so many episodes completed, do you have any long-term goals for the podcast?

Well to have the willingness to keep on doing it. It’s sometimes difficult because there are so many wonderful Mac related podcasts. I often have to really wonder and reflect as to whether I’m contributing something unique or just repeating what other do. I try to inject my personality and experience to the podcast in order to keep it unique. I’ll keep it going as long as I enjoy it. Of course another goal is to continue to grow sponsorship, as the money I make from the show all goes into new gear, software and all things show related. I have been able to start a business Typical Media Group LLC, because of the podcast, and that allows me to provide consulting services on all sorts of new media related content.

Q: Audience participation is a game-changer. How have the live-streaming programs been for you?

I  recently had to put the live aspect of the show on hiatus while I look for another way to do the live shows. They have been super fulfilling and I miss doing them. There is nothing like two way interaction in new media, I’m so much more interested in what all of you have to say, than hearing my own voice. I will find a different way to do live content again. Perhaps not every week like I did for 18 months, however it’s too much fun to let it go. For now I UStream myself almost every weekend and lately I have been doing some almost daily videos called Victor’s Mino Moments, to keep in touch. I call it that because they are done on a Flip Mino camera in my car while I drive home. I post them on the blog and they have gotten great reaction. I’m such a dork <wink>

Q: After WWDC I see MobileMe as a potential break out service. “Exchange for the rest of us” is a major boost to iPhone sales. What are your thoughts on MobileMe (was .Mac)?

I think if Apple has the proper infrastructure to keep it available then it will be great. I have always been a dot Mac member, however the dot Mac service is not always available. Apple has to make that service completely solid so that it can be yet another gateway for people who don’t use Apple products today (other than the iPhone and iPods). If they can pull off Mobile Me with the ease of use, and dependency that is associated with other Apple products it will be yet another tool in the “Halo Affect” to draw more people into Mac computers and all things Apple.

Typical Mac User Podcast <www.typicalmacuser.com> The latest podcast, TMUP 136: It’s all about MIDI with David Sparks, was released Tuesday, July 1, 2008. To listen, visit the site and either use the web player or, better yet, subscribe in iTunes.

Part 2

Translated by thientin@24h Rafa FC

Friday, 4 July 2008

Rafael Nadal def.Rainer Schuettler 6-3, 7-6, 6-4

Q. Anh cảm thấy hôm nay anh chơi như thế nào ?

RAFAEL NADAL:
Oh , Như bạn đã biết , trận hôm nay ko bằng trận tứ kết , trong trận tứ kết tôi đã chơi 1 trận đấu tốt nhất , nhưng bạn biết đấy trận bán kết luôn là 1 trận đấu khó khăn

Tôi nghĩ Rainer có cảm giác mệt . Tôi bắt đầu trận đấu một cách dễ dàng , tôi thắng set đầu . Nhưng thời điểm khó khăn , bạn ko thể lkúc nào cũng sẽ chơi tốt trên sân . Nhưng dù sao đi nữa , điều quan trọng nhất là tôi cũng đã có mặt trong trận Final , tôi rất hạnh phúc khi có mặt ở đó 1 lần nữa .

Q. Bạn nghĩ rằng chất lượng của trận đấu final phụ thuộc vào điều gì ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Bạn ko bao giờ biết đâu , no ? Tôi nghĩ là tôi đã chơi rất tốt tại giải này . Well , Tôi nghĩ cả Roger cũng vậy . Ngay thời điểm này Roger nghĩ Anh ta sẽ có một trận đấu khó khăn với tôi , bởi vì chúng tôi đã gặp nhau rất nhiều lần và những trận đấu đó rất quan trọng , và trận ngày mai sẽ quan trọng hơn nữa . Tôi đã thua 2 nămanh ấy tại đây và tôi muốn thử hết sức mình một lần nữa để đánh bại anh ấy.

Q. Anh có cảm thấy rằng mình đã chơi trên sân cỏ hay hơn năm ngoái ko , bằng chứng Anh đã chiến thắng trong giải khởi động Queen's Club ? Bạn có cảm thấy tự tin ko ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Tôi cảm thấy ko có vấn đề gì trong việc tôi chiến thắng ở Queens hay ko , tôi đến đây với sự tự tin nhất . Tôi đã rất tự tin trong mùa giải đất nện , trong mùa giải sân cứng ở Mĩ , và sau đó là chiến thắng ở Queen rất quan trọng . Tôi đến đây với sự tự tin cao nhất bởi vì tôi cũng đã có mặt ở trận chung kết 2 năm trước . Tôi nghĩ tôi đã chơi tốt hơn bình thường , nhưng trên sân cỏ thì khó khăn bởi vì tôi ko có nhiều thời gian để luyện tập.

Q. A few minutes ago Roger Federer said your victory at Roland Garros was more or less irrelevant, a long time ago. He says it was on clay a month ago, and it doesn't affect him now. Does it not affect you either? Does it not give you extra confidence?

RAFAEL NADAL: I think it's totally different court, different surface. Everything is different, no? You know, I think doesn't matter. I prefer have the victory, but... I think don't will be important for the Sunday.

Q. Anh luyện tập với John ngày hôm nay , anh thấy sao ?

RAFAEL NADAL:Oh rất tốt , thật là vinh dự cho tôi khi dc luyện tậpp với 1 nhà vô đich như John . và chắn chắn rằng đó là điều rất thú vị khi tôi dc luyện tập với anh ấy

Q. Chân của anh có vẻ bị đau , lieu nó có gây vấn đề gì rắc rối cho anh trong ngày chủ nhật ko ?

RAFAEL NADAL: What?

Q. Your leg is quite heavily strapped up.

RAFAEL NADAL: No, is nothing.

THE INTERPRETER:
Nó có vẻ bị bong ra và thâm tím .

RAFAEL NADAL: Is nothing. Is nothing.
Oh , ko có gì

Q. Bạn sẽ chơi 100% phong độ trong ngày chủ nhật chứ

RAFAEL NADAL:
Tôi hy vọng sẽ được như vậy

Q. Bạn muốn thắng trận này với tỉ số bao nhiêu ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Giống như những trận đấu khác khi tôi có mặt trong trận đấu quan trọng Final . Để chiến thắng tại đây , tôi phải chơi 3 trận final tại đây . Nhưng chiến thắng hay thua rất khác nhau , đ85c biệt là trong trận final . Và nếu tôi chiến thắng tại đây thì sự nghiệp của tôi có thể thay đổi một tí xíu và hơn nữa

Q. Fed nói “ tôi biết cách để dánh bại Rafa , tôi biết phải làm gì “ , vậy bạn có nghĩ cách gì để đối phó với Roger trên Grass chưa ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Ko ko , tôi chỉ chơi với sự cố gắng hết mình , đi ra sân và chơi một thứ tennis tốt nhất của tôi , cố gáng giữ nhịp trận đấu và điều khiển theo ý mình . Sau đó nếu anh ấy chơi tốt hơn tôi , anh ta sẽ thắng tôi và tôi sẽ chúc mừng cho anh ấy như mọi năm

Q. Anh đã có sự hợp tác với người chú Hlv Toni trong thời gian dài . trong khi Roger thì lại ko như vậy , anh ta có khi ko cần Hlv , diều này có làm cho bạn ngạc nhiên ko ?

RAFAEL NADAL:Oh , mỗi người ko giống nhau , tôi nghĩ có Hlv rất quan trọng nhưng ko có thì cũng chẳng sao

Q. Would you describe what, if anything, carries over from the experience last year in the final? You said that the French Open this year doesn't make any difference for this surface. What about having played Roger in that great match at the end of last season?

RAFAEL NADAL: Well, every year is different and every match is different. Depends of the moment. I say always the same: depends how you arrive to the final; how you feel in the moment; how you are playing. The match can change a lot. Last year I was very close. I hope on Sunday be at the same performance, a little bit better, I have my chances for win. I say, well, if I have the chance, I hope win this time.

Q. Trên sân đấu tôi thấy bạn rất tập trung . Còn lúc ngoài sân đấu thì bạn thật sự thoải mái . Bạn có thể nói về hai điều này ko ? Nó như thế nào

RAFAEL NADAL:Tôi cũng ko biết nữa , đó là cá tính của tôi , Nhưng bạn muốn nghe về điều gì ? 

Q. Tôi nuốn biết cảm giác của bạn về 2 sự khác nhau đó

RAFAEL NADAL: Trên sân , đôi lúc tôi cũng thả lỏng . Tôi nghĩ tôi ko bao giờ nói tôi ko có giò . Lúc nào tôi cũng cầm vợt . Bạn biết đó , tôi nghĩ tôi điều khiển được trận đấu

Q. What would it mean to you to win the title on Sunday?
Chiến thắng tại Wim năm nay sẽ mang lại ý nghĩa gì cho anh ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Như tôi đã nói trước , chiến thắng tại giải này năm nay rất quan trọng trong sự nghiệp của tôi , tôi buộc phải chơi hay nhất để dành lấy cơ hội chiến thắng . VÀ khi tôi có dc danh hiệu trong tay rồi thì bạn có thể hỏi tôi tiếp là cảm giác tôi lúc đó sẽ như thế nào

Q. If you do win on Sunday, do you think that confirms you as the best player in the world once you've beaten Roger on grass?
Nếu bạn chiếnt hắng trong nàgy chủ nhật , điều đó xác nhận rằng bạn là tay vợt chơi tốt nhất trên Grass khi đánh bại Roger ko ?

RAFAEL NADAL:
Tôi sẽ cố gắng , Nếu tôi dành được danh hiệu trong ngày chủ nhật , thì ngay ngày hôm sau tôi cũng là No 2 . Tôi sẽ cố gắng dành dc vị trí thứ nhất trong tháng sau
Q. Có phải có một chút khó khăn gì với đôi giaỳ trong nàgy hôm nay ? một đôi mới đã gởi xuống sân cho bạn ?

RAFAEL NADAL: Oh , đó là do lỗi của tôi , trước trận đấu tôi đã ko chịu đổi giày . Một phần của đế giày đã bị mòn . Nhưng ngày mai sẽ có đôi mới ngay thôi và ko có vấn đề gì trong ngày chủ nhật.

Q. Bạn có nghĩ rằng Roger là tay vợt vĩ đại nhất trên sân cỏ ko ? Bạn nhìn những kỉ lục của anh ta , 5 lần lien tiếp vô địch tại đây , bạn có nghĩ kỉ lục sẽ bị chặn đứng hay ko ?
RAFAEL NADAL: Đối với tôi , Anh ấy là 1 tay vợt hay nhất trong lịch sử , tôi ko biết anh ta có phải là ốtt nhất trên sân cỏ hay chưa bởi vì Sampras có đến 7 danh hiệu tại đây. Và anh ấy cần pohải có them 2 danh hiệu nữa để sánh ngang với Sampras , Nhưng tôi nghĩ anh ấy là tay vợt hay nhất . 

[audio http://www.ideafarms.com/download/SM_Interview_Lunar.mp3]

And yes, the keen-eyed, dedicated fans were not only posting pics of the full article - but even typing out a transcript for the ease and breeze of bloggers like me. Oh, they are wonderful.

If you haven't checked out my TANK Vodcast interview with Tim Minchin, on skepticism, science and belief, it is featured right here.

From the article (in full here, thanks to Horse Hannah):

Heath Ledger was arguably the most successful actor Perth ever produced.

He had the lot – beauty, and amazing voice, wonderful stillness, great instincts, powerful physicality and that passionate dedication to his craft that not only brought him great rewards but probably contributed, in the end, to his tragic death.

Surely he had only just scratched the surface of his potential and I am sad that we won’t benefit from the performances he would have given as he matured.

The naming of Perth’s new theatre after Heath has drawn criticism for three main reasons: the “he didn’t act in theatre” objection, the less interesting and highly predictable “he’s a bad role model ‘cos he took some drugs and drugs are bad” moan and the non sequitur "Carpenter's doing it for political reasons, therefore it’s not a good choice.”

First, these days “film actors” and “stage actors” are not two distinct groups of people. Sure, theatre and film involve the application of different specific skills but I have never met a stage actor of my generation who is not also a film and TV actor or does not aspire to be one.

Perth has produced many wonderful performers and because of the sparse film and TV opportunities in WA, most of those who stay are predominately stage actors. But I would be surprised if any of them would pass up a role in a film for reasons of loyalty to theatre.

...Judge away ye righteous folk but remember that thing about the mote(?) of dust and the log in the eye of the whatsit… you know, from that book you all love so much.

As for Alan Carpenter’s motives – who cares? How he arrived at his decision does not have a bearing on the validity of the choice.

It is wonderful that a new theatre is finally being built and I reckon it is just fine that it has been named after an extremely talented, hard-working, much-loved and greatly missed Perth born and bred actor.

Oh - if you want to know where Tim Minchin is performing, he's popping up updates on his Facebook page about the tour (yes, there is a new DVD out soonish! ) with all the dates here.

Next Sunday 13th July, he's performing alongside Jo Brand, Jo Neary, Jo Enright, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones, Steve Merchant, Mark Steel, Mat Holness, Dan Antopolski and the great Robin Ince to raise money for the Childhood Cancer Research Fund. There's also four previews of his Edinburgh show, “Ready For This” at Soho Theatre in late July. Tickets here.

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.

Check out these graphics and how wonderfully John Lennon treated this kid:

Click here to have a read!

Muhammad Yunus is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize or his path-breaking work in bringing microcredit (tiny loans for small businesses) to millions of impoverished Bangladeshis through the creation of the Grameen Bank.

The idea for microcredit began in the early ’70s, when Yunus — an economist from Bangladesh’s Chittagong University — led his students on a field trip to a poor village, where they interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools. Yunus learned that she had to borrow money at rates as high as 10 percent per week for the bamboo she used — a cost that left her with only two pennies a day as her total income. Had she been able to borrow under fair conditions, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and rise above a subsistence level.

Realizing there must have been something terribly wrong with the economics he was teaching, Yunus took matters into his own hands. His students surveyed the village, compiling a list of 42 victims of usurious money-lending practices. Yunus then provided them with loans out of his own pocket. The sum total of his investment was the equivalent of 27 U.S. dollars. This modest experiment succeeded in putting the women on a self-sustaining cycle of business growth, lifting them out of poverty. It was also an epiphany for Yunus, who realized that tiny loans could make a huge difference in the lives of people trying to eke out a livelihood with small business ventures.

Against the advice of banks and government, who uniformly wrote off such people as unacceptable credit risks, Yunus started giving out microloans and in 1983 formed the Grameen (“village”) Bank, based on principles of trust and solidarity. Because women (far more than men) could be counted on to invest the loans in business and repay them on schedule, they became the overwhelming participants in Grameen Bank, where they receive 97 percent of all credit. According to its Web site, Grameen today has some 2,468 branches in Bangladesh, with a staff of 24,703 people serving 7.34 million borrowers from 80,257 villages. Grameen’s methods are applied in 58 countries — including the United States. And Yunus’s belief that women could be trusted to repay the loans was fully vindicated: Default rates for Grameen Bank (2 percent) are lower than for any other banking system.

In this interview from December 2007, UCSB Professor Richard Appelbaum (Sociology and Global & International Studies) and Professor Yunus discuss the origins and reasons for the success of the Grameen Bank, as well as Yunus’s call (in his latest book, Creating a World Without Poverty) for the creation of “social businesses” where profits would go not to investors but for poverty reduction.

Professor Yunus will give a free public lecture, Creating a World Without Poverty: How Social Business Can Transform Our Lives, on Wednesday, January 16, at the Arlington Theatre.

Your current work — which envisions eliminating world poverty through the creation of what you call “social business” — builds on the foundation of Grameen Bank, which you founded some 30 years ago. So let’s begin by talking a bit about Grameen, before moving to a discussion of this new form of business organization.

Courtesy Photo

This Bangladeshi woman weaves a bolt of Grameen Check, a cotton fabric native to that country.

Grameen Bank started as a tiny little project in one village in 1976 and in 1983 became a formal bank. It is comprised 97 percent of women — many of these are near-destitute women, who rely on tiny loans. Yet despite the poverty of its borrowers, 64 percent of the borrowers have moved out of poverty during the last five years, according to our in-house survey. In other words, 64 percent have moved on — and we are hoping that eventually all will move on. Grameen Bank is owned by the borrowers themselves — it is owned by the poor women who rely on the microcredit loans for income generation. It is therefore tied to local money; each branch has to be self-sustaining. Local branches get no money from outside — there is no borrowing from the head office. The profit all goes back to the borrowers, some seven million poor people in 78,000 villages in Bangladesh. Since it first opened, Grameen’s loans have totaled the equivalent of $6 billion, and virtually all are repaid, despite the initial poverty of the borrowers. And Grameen is no longer the only microcredit institution in Bangladesh. There are a number of others, such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Microcredit today reaches four-fifths of all poor families in the country, and we expect to reach all of them within five years.

One of the key ideas behind Grameen Bank is the notion of “social collateral.” Could you explain how this works, and how you came up with the idea? Is this a way of assuring that the loans are used for business rather than personal consumption, and are eventually repaid?

Although the bank gives loans to poor women, there are no formal guarantees the loans will be repaid: There are no legal documents, no lawyers to assure repayment — no one can be sued. This is “trust-based banking” — each borrower is responsible for her own loans. There is a group of five women who work together as a group, primarily so they can inspire one another, discuss common issues, deal with common problems. But they are not responsible for one another’s loans, although they do help one another if there are family or business difficulties. This is a human relations form of banking. Collateral is not a necessary condition of our form of banking. To emphasize: This is based on trust, and it works. Repayment rates run 98-99 percent. In addition, all our borrowers have savings accounts so that when they reach old age they will have enough money.

The loans are used for income-generating activity — to start a business, to raise cows, etcetera. The idea is you use the loan to start generating income, so you can then pay it back, usually within a year. We also lend money to young people who are pursuing their education. We have 21,000 students with student loans, studying in medical schools and elsewhere. We also give some 30,000 scholarships to the children of our borrowers each year. We have a brand-new generation coming out! We even give loans to beggars — poor people who go door-to-door, who we call “struggling members” — so they can stop begging and generate income through selling such things as food, toys, or household items. We currently have 100,000 “struggling members” in the program. Ten thousand have become self-sufficient in their sales, and most of the rest now only have to beg part-time. Grameen provides them with small interest-free loans, which can be repaid in any fashion that works best for them — and about two-thirds of the money we have lent under this program has been repaid.

‘Poor women have many skills. What they need is a small amount of capital to invest so they are able to draw on those skills. — Muhammad Yunus

As I understand it, Grameen requires its members to receive only basic training in financial matters, while some other microcredit programs require more substantial social and skill development guidance — in effect, using lending to improve human capital. Why doesn’t Grameen do the same?

All the programs in Bangladesh are similar; there is not much difference. We don’t provide any training. We believe the women already have the necessary knowledge, and they have the spirit. Poor women have many skills. What they need is a small amount of capital to invest so they are able to draw on those skills. Skill training is not a condition to get a Grameen loan.

But don’t you think it is important to provide some training as a requirement for entry into Grameen? For example, the positive effects of microfinance are often overwhelmed by population growth. Why doesn’t Grameen make family planning an explicit condition for lending?

Actually, population growth in Bangladesh has declined sharply throughout the years, and one reason for this is women are becoming confident about their future. And, in fact, we do encourage them to be aware of issues of family size. All our borrowers have to pledge what we call the “16 Decisions.” The 6th Decision reads in part, “We shall keep our families small.” Of course, many of the women cannot read or write, so they have to listen to others recite the 16 Decisions, and then have to memorize them. This has become an extremely important part of our microcredit program.

Courtesy Photo

A paramedic from Grameen Kalyan, a spinoff company created by Grameen Bank in 1996 to provide health and welfare services to members and staff of the bank, consults with a villager who might otherwise have little opportunity to receive healthcare.

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of Grameen? Do you measure it in purely economic terms — number of loans, repayment rates, etcetera — or do you have other measures of its success?

According to a World Bank study of Grameen, 5 percent of Grameen borrowers get out of poverty every year. We do our own surveys as well, and as I mentioned earlier, according to our figures, nearly two-thirds [64 percent] of borrowers who have been with Grameen for five years are now out of poverty. And our indicators of poverty are much more stringent than those of the World Bank, which defines poverty as earning less than a dollar per day. We have 10 indicators, and all must be met before we say a family is no longer poor. Our indicators include such things as housing quality, adequate nutrition, access to safe water, school attendance by children, certain minimal savings, etcetera. We look at all aspects of a person’s life before determining that they have been lifted out of poverty.

In your new book, Creating a World Without Poverty, you cite a number of impressive statistics that show how Bangladesh, despite its many challenges, has in fact improved during the past 30 years: Poverty has dropped from 74 percent to 40 percent, the rate of population growth has halved, the economy is currently growing 3-4 percent per person each year, more children are going to school. How much credit can Grameen take for Bangladesh’s improvements?

It is very difficult to say — these changes are the result of many factors. Many things have contributed. No study has ever been done that isolates the various causes of these improved conditions. But there is no question that Grameen Bank plays a positive role.

Grameen has been replicated around the world. Could you talk a bit about where this has been done, how effective it has been, and where you see it going in the future?

This idea has spread around the globe, and today there are many institutions that provide microcredit. Although Grameen itself, with a few exceptions, operates only in Bangladesh, we provide advice and technical assistance to others who request it. At the third Global Microcredit Summit in 2006, we estimated that 100 million families worldwide receive microcredit and other financial services, a number we hope to increase to 175 million by 2015. We also have the goal of lifting 100 million families out of poverty this way. If we assume there are roughly five persons in each family, this means half a billion people during the next decade — a number consistent with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.

Every place in the world has a microcredit program. We have programs in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Poland, Spain, the U.S.; microcredit is everywhere. There are 6,500 borrowers in Costa Rica, 3,000 in Guatemala — in programs run by Grameen Trust. These are beautiful programs that will be expanded to 30,000 in Costa Rica and 10,000 in Guatemala. We are even starting programs in China — Hainan, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia.

And it works. Everywhere the basic principles are the same: loans for income-generating activities, women as the primary recipients, loans repaid through installments, etcetera. In this worldwide movement, we have created the Grameen Trust to provide technical assistance in setting up microfinance institutions — training programs, workshops, consulting, evaluation, monitoring. What we call its “Build-Operate-Transfer” program actually goes in, sets up and administers the microfinance program, and runs it until it becomes self-sustaining, at which time it turns the program over to the local people.

You have been critical of the ability of national governments to lift billions of people out of poverty. Yet others have criticized microcredit as ultimately being too small-scale to do the job that only governments are equipped to handle. What should be the proper role of government?

You don’t need government for microcredit; government money destroys microcredit. Once the money comes from the government, politics gets involved with the credit program and this compromises its quality. People say if this is government money, why should I pay it back? Where microcredit is concerned, keep the government away. Government should be a supporter, provide the framework, but it should not be directly involved in the programs.

Let’s move on now to a discussion of “social business,” the central topic of your new book. What exactly is a “social business,” and how does it differ from traditional free enterprise?

Ordinary businesses are aimed at making money. There is a bottom line. Technically, they should be called “profit-maximizing businesses.” There is no consideration of how people benefit; it is all about making profits. Social business, on the other hand, is all about social benefits, not personal gain. Profits are important to social businesses, which seek to sell products at prices that make it self-sustaining. A social business is not a charity. But profits are not the ultimate goal. When the social business turns a profit, the original investors are repaid, but the rest of the profits stay with the company in order to achieve its long-term social goal of helping the poor. Unlike a profit-maximizing business, the profits of social businesses are not paid out as dividends to shareholders or investors; they are always reinvested in the business itself. So a social business can best be defined as “a non-loss, non-dividend business.”

There are two kinds of social business. The first kind, which I just described, is aimed at providing a social benefit rather than maximizing profits, and can be owned by any business or corporation, so long as this goal is realized. The second kind is the sort of microenterprise we were talking about earlier: profit-maximizing businesses owned by the poor. In this case, the social benefit is realized directly — by elevating the owners of the business out of poverty.

This certainly sounds like a noble idea. But why would a businessperson invest in a company that pays no dividends and therefore provides no return for investors?

Why do people create a foundation and give away their money? Because they want to do something good with their money. The world is not divided into two kinds of people, those concerned with profit maximizing and those concerned with doing good for people and the planet. People are multidimensional — they have many interests and goals. Social businesses are based on this fact. Moreover, with a social business, the money doesn’t disappear like it does with a foundation. When a foundation makes its grant, the money is usually gone forever. If the foundation puts its money into a social business, however, that money has an unlimited life: It generates income, is repaid, and can be used to generate more income with other borrowers.

Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR], when done by ordinary businesses, suffers from the same problem: The money may be spent on something good, but then it is gone. If you can do CSR in the form of a social business, the money will stay in the business, continue, and grow. Others will be attracted, and other social businesses will result. People want to do good things; what they need is a means to do so. That is why I think, for example, that a social stock market will work, as a means of raising capital for social businesses. People want to help others. Some future sources of funding for social businesses might include existing companies that want to do good; foundations, which could create social investment funds; successful entrepreneurs who have social concerns; international and bilateral development donors; governments; wealthy individuals; and of course young people, fresh out of college, who want to see a better world.

Remember, we are not saying social businesses are required of everyone. Social businesses are an option, after all; everyone doesn’t need to invest in one. All we are saying is that if you want to do this — here it is.

In your new book, you describe an impressive number of business ventures that grew out of Grameen, addressing everything from solar energy to healthcare to cell phones, all aimed at serving the poor. Could you talk about a couple of your successes, and the role played by microcredit?

Grameen Danone. We have an investment from a major yogurt company [best known in the U.S. as the makers of Dannon Yogurt], which is partnering with us to make yogurt as a social business. A state-of-the-art factory has been built and is now operating in Bogra, a town in northern Bangladesh. The yogurt is fortified with all the nutrients the local children are missing, so when the children eat it they gain their required nutrition. And Danone is doing this not to make a huge profit — it is structured as a social business so profits are not distributed as dividends — but because the company wants to have a positive impact on the health of the children. The factory, which has been producing yogurt for less than a year, is now widening its supply chain so more and more people can get to it.

It takes time to sell the idea to the local poor people. We know we could sell it in the city market any time we want, but our target market is the children. Our hope is to make 50 such plants all over Bangladesh, to widen our supply network. The plant was kept intentionally small so the yogurt could be kept local, in the neighborhood. Otherwise, refrigeration systems would be needed in order to transport the yogurt to other cities, and this would add to the cost. Under our current plan, we do not need to spend money to keep the yogurt cool; we simply sell [it] locally within 24-48 hours of manufacture. This, along with the social nature of the business, enables us to sell the yogurt profitably at prices the local people can afford.

There are numerous other examples of successful social businesses discussed in Creating a World Without Poverty. These include 30 Grameen Energy centers promoting solar homes and biofuel systems; a partnership between Intel and Grameen to set up a WiMax network in Bangladesh and bring personal computers into the high schools; a Grameen-supported fish farm and livestock program; 33 health clinics, each affiliated with a Grameen bank branch, which provide basic health services to Grameen families for $2 a year.

A group of us in Santa Barbara just launched the Chad Relief Foundation, a nonprofit currently working with refugees from the conflicts in the Central African Republic who live in camps in southern Chad. How would we go about setting up a microcredit operation there?

There are two ways. Grameen could train you in the area; you could work with the Grameen Trust. Or you could hire someone who is familiar with microcredit programs, perhaps in a neighboring country. By now there are many people who have experience and training. They will teach you how to identify poor women — to distinguish them from women who are not poor but are just looking for the money, how to bring them together, how to develop trust. Find out how it is being done elsewhere and replicate it. It is not difficult; the important thing is to get it

Published in Santa Barbara Independent on January 10, 2008

USAupload

credits: wonderholic & cutegiurl

This clip was on YouTube years ago and I wore it out - but then it got pulled and I had to find better things to do with my life :D .

However, some zexi person has uploaded it again for all to see and embed - and I have not been more than 6 feet away from my computer since :mrgreen: .

So enjoy the next 6 minutes of pre-plastic surgery PHARRELL being hit on by a horny-arse TYRA, while I have a cold shower.

Written By - TheLostGirl ONLY for TheLostGirl’s Blog website - Accept no imitators.

Please let me know if you are reading this post ANYWHERE other than http://iamthelostgirl.wordpress.com. I, TheLostGirl, have NOT given permission for my post to be reproduced in full elsewhere - excerpts only please, people.

Thoughts? Please leave a comment. No registration or name required!

Below please find what Andy Budd has to say - I find it remarkable and somewhat re-assuring that he is stressing design to be first and foremost about problem solving which is exactly what was rammed down my throat during my degree and emphasized in Bob Gill's lecture in Leeds quite some time ago.

Interview with Kelley Eskridge

Would you mind introducing yourself?

I'm Kelley. I write fiction, screenplays and essays. My novel Solitaire was a New York Times Notable Book, a Borders Books Original Voices selection, a finalist for the Nebula, Endeavour and Spectrum awards, and is currently being adapted for film. My short fiction collection Dangerous Space is out from Aqueduct Press. The stories in DS include an Astraea award winner, a Nebula award finalist, Tiptree Honor stories and a story adapted for television. I live in Seattle with my partner, novelist Nicola Griffith ( http://www.nicolagriffith.com).

When did you first consider yourself a serious writer?

I knew I was serious about writing when I was still in single digits. I wrote poems, and one day I wrote something that made me feel... bigger inside. I just kept wanting to feel that way.

I started believing I was a serious writer when I went to the Clarion workshop in 1988 and realized that my work could make other people feel that way too.

How would you describe your writing style?

In its best moments, transparent and ecstatic.

Who are your strongest influences?

Every human being I've ever met.

What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Character and relationship. Big feelings. The psychology of identity, relationship, love, hope, fear, and joy.

What is your biggest weakness?

My constant temptation to believe that writing about big feelings is enough.

What is your favorite piece out of everything that you've written?

My novella "Dangerous Space." Music, sex, love, identity, speculative technology that plugs into big feelings... It was so much fun to write that I didn't want to leave, which is of course what the whole story is about. Very meta that way.

As a woman, have you ever experienced sexism, bias or exclusion in your chosen field?

Sure, there's sexism in writing -- as there is racism, heterosexism, and every other way to exclude each other based on difference from cultural norm. Have I experienced individual exclusion? I don't know: one of the ways in which these biases work most effectively is to be so systematized into our culture that we -- those who act from bias and those who receive it -- are often unaware of it on an individual basis. And I've also experienced the privileges and benefits of being white, well-educated, and hearing, so this is not a zero-sum game for me by any measure.

There have been about a million online discussions (many of them unpleasant and unproductive) about this issue. An interesting one is going on right now over at SF Signal ( http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006846.html).

In my everyday writing life, the bias I experience most often is the disdain which many self-described literary writers and readers have for genre fiction. I find these people and their prejudice deeply silly, but there's no denying the impact it has on those of us who want to wander around the playground rather than stay in our own little sandbox. I also see a lot of sexism in the movie industry on both the business and content level -- women have a harder time breaking in, and women characters "should" be certain ways in movie stories in order to be likeable. There are some seriously retrograde gender assumptions underneath many film folks' Hollywood hipness. I'm fortunate that my executive producers and director are smart, adventurous people who don't subscribe to those notions.

Do you think that there are some common barriers that all writers who are women face?

Theoretically, maybe...but I'm not big on theory as a way to categorize experience: I find universality reductive, and I resist being reduced. We all face individual barriers to our own learning, growth, opportunity, goals, dreams, success, and those barriers are built both from the culture around us, and from a lifetime's personal experience of family dynamics, class, race, gender expression, education, the list goes on. We have to work on these things together, but we experience them alone.

Are there any common strengths that women bring to the craft of fiction?

Not in my opinion. Some of the best writers I know are women, and so are some of the worst.

Historically, women have been driven by circumstance or necessity or training to focus their art on a particular set of concerns, and some people see the ability to produce art under those limitations as a strength of "women artists." But again, art is something we do alone, and all the other things we are as people influence that art, if we understand that this is possible and allow it in ourselves. That's as much true for straight white Christian Republican boys as it is for me, although the art itself is usually pretty different.

The public distribution of that art is another story. I'd love to poke everyone in the eye who's ever said Well, then, where were all the great women writers in history? They were all making art that no one would publish, doofus, that's where they were. Or they were giving up making art because no one would publish it.

Over all, do you think that the writing and publishing communities are healthier, worse, or about the same for women writers?

Healthier than 400 years ago, for sure.

But if by 'communities' you mean commercial publishing, then we're back in the tension of public distribution of art, the tension between the cultural change that we can all certainly see and the personal experience that we ought not deny. Women writers are published every day. Women don't only have to write about "women's concerns" in order to find an outlet. But that doesn't mean every woman writer now has access. There are still systems of exclusion that present difficult barriers to individual women writers -- Nicola did an analysis of her own experience with this in a post called "Girl Cooties" ( http://lbc.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/girl-cooties.html) for the LitBlog Coop. And there are still systems of benefit that a lot of men writers really don't want to acknowledge.

But publishing is changing radically. What does it mean to publish commercially when anyone with internet access can put a PDF and a PayPal link online? When independent presses with humanist sensibilities like Aqueduct and Small Beer are changing the publishing landscape? When trade imprints like HarperStudio are exploring new paradigms for the business? When writers are building their own virtual communities with each other and with readers, and bypassing traditional notions of publicity and publisher control?

What are your longterm career goals?

To write fiction and screenplays and essays that make me and you feel bigger inside, that make us dream and burn and bring us closer to ourselves. The rest -- the big money, the glam, the pretty prizes -- either comes or it doesn't. I can't control who buys my books or my scripts, but I am totally in charge of what I write and how I feel about myself as a writer. That's the career I want.

What are you working on now?

A film based on my novel Solitaire is in development, and I'm rewriting the screenplay. It's terrifying and exhilarating and hugely fun, and I have a truckload of ideas for more films -- I have a couple of those in planning now.

I've also been approached to write a young adult novel, so I'm in the thinking stage of that. And I have another adult novel in mind, but I suspect that's pretty far down the road right now. We'll see.

Where can we go to learn more about you?

I have a website ( http://www.kelleyeskridge.com) that includes a blog, free stories and essays, audio and print interviews, and information and reviews about my work.

Where can we read your work?

You can read the first chapter of Solitaire ( http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/solitaire/solitaire-chapter-one/) or the Tiptree Honor short story "And Salome Danced" ( http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/dangerous-space/and-salome-danced/) from Dangerous Space.

Solitaire is out of print, but there are used copies floating around everywhere, and it's in most library systems in the US. Dangerous Space is available at online bookstores, through your local bookstore, or directly from Aqueduct Press.

You can also read essays and articles ( http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/essays/

).

The floor's all yours: is there anything else that you'd like to say?

Story connects us to ourselves. So don't ever let anyone tell you what kind of stories you should read or write, what you should like or dislike. Don't let anyone tell you what "should" move you to the deepest places of yourself. The cool thing is, whatever moves you is out there somewhere. Someone's writing it. The great adventure is to go out and find it.

And that's the other pleasure and power of story: it connects us to each other. Story brings us into common space -- the human space, where difference becomes territory to explore with curiosity or hope or even joy... I think it's one of the ways we stay human, by listening to each other's stories.

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