Administrative Professionals Day is April 21.

You can always use this day to make it a point to appreciate those who have helped you in your travels both at work and at home.

Secretary Day

Secretaries accomplish near-to-impossible feats such as juggling our schedules, keeping track of all the work we need to do, and generally making sure that our lives run as smooth as possible. All secretaries who do their job well are invaluable assets to any company, and yet they are probably some of the most under-appreciated professionals around. It might be because their work does not produce obvious successes like winning a major contract for the company or having the most number of sales in the last quarter. They say that behind every great man is a woman -well, they forgot to specify that behind every successful businessman is a good secretary.

It was Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam (a marketing agency) who realized the tremendous importance of secretaries. Together with the National Secretaries Association (now known as the International Association of Administrative Professionals or IAAP), Klemfuss created Secretaries Day in 1952. The first period of the secular unofficial holiday was first proclaimed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Charles Sawyer, and named it “National Secretaries Week.” It was held on June 1-7 in 1952, with Wednesday, June 4, appointed as National Secretaries Day.

In 1955 however, the date of National Secretaries Week was changed to the last full week of April, Wednesday being Secretaries Day. Eventually, the name of the event was changed to Professional Secretaries Week in 1981. In 2001, Administrative Professionals Week because its new name in order to cover the wider responsibilities and job-descriptions of administrative support staff, widely acknowledged as “secretaries”. This year (2008), the Administrative Professionals’ Day will be celebrated on April 23.

How does one celebrate Secretaries Day or Administrative Professional’s Day though? Here are some helpful tips.

1. Buy your secretary flowers. There are many males currently in the profession, but more often than not, women are the ones taking up secretarial posts. If your secretary is female, giving her roses is foolproof. But don’t get your signals wrong! Give her light pink roses, which say that you admire her, or deep pink roses, which say “Thank You!” Peach roses, on the other hand, convey admiration and appreciation. Have your roses delivered straight to the office or to your secretary’s house. Delivery is stress-free so you don’t have to worry. The roses will be delivered fresh too, especially if you order from Island Rose, so your secretary will get only the best to show how much you value her.
2. Write a card! The card may come with the flowers or not, but make sure to pick a unique one and to personalize it by writing a heartfelt message inside.
3. Take your secretary out to lunch. Make this an opportunity not only to bond, but to talk about problems at work or with each other. This will definitely improve your communication which will in turn make your secretary understand your needs and be more efficient in his or her duties. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!
4. Get a small gift. An elegant planner, pen, or notebook is the perfect gifts to give your secretary on this non-official holiday. But don’t limit yourself to these things -be creative. Think about what your employee needs and appreciates. Make that a guide in giving gifts.

So, don’t forget Secretaries Day or Administrative Professional’s Day! This is the perfect excuse to thank your hard-working secretary, so don’t let it pass.

This article was written by Timothy Spencer for Island Rose -Philippines Flower Delivery. We hope you enjoyed this article and encourage you to visit our website. Through Island Rose, you can Send Flowers to Philippines or simply browse through our blog for more informative articles.
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Sometimes you have good dreams, sometimes not so good dreams. But why dream at all? Do we have control over our dreams? This article will give you a different perspective on your dreams. Dream on!

Why Do We Dream?

Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school.

Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep. During this phase of sleep, our closed eyes dart rapidly about, our brain activity peaks, and our muscles suffer temporary paralysis.

The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.

Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the first two or so years of one’s life, the most formative ones for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines measuring the brain’s electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake. This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.

Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves that we are unaware of.

Connections between dreams that the human psyche have been made by many people over thousands of years. The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle wrote in his “Parva Naturalia,” over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams, waking experiences, and emotional needs.

Others have delved into more complicated explanations for dreams, such as the prophetic nature of dreams written of in the Bible, which was and is a belief held by many cultures. Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed dreams to be symbolic of any number of things buried deep within our minds and our memories.

Until someone proves or disproves one of these theories, or poses an alternate one, we are left at square one. Our knowledge as to what causes us to dream is limited to the fact that we do dream, and that dreams occur during the REM phase of sleep. Sweet dreams!

Beliefs are very important and need to be honored. However, nothing stays the same. It’s important to be open to new information and ideas.  When your beliefs no longer serve you maybe you want to reevaluate them? There is nothing that says you can get yourself a new belief. What are your beliefs leading to? Read and find out.

Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky?

One of the most commonly held superstitions in our so-called civilized, educated society is that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day, and since, in this equation, each is held to be unlucky, added together, their sum can only equal double trouble.

The modern basis for the aura that surrounds Friday the 13th stems from Friday October the 13th, 1307. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome in Conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant against “the Knights Templar”. The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long. There Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, was arrested and before he was killed, was tortured and crucified.

Superstitions swirling around Friday as being lucky or unlucky have existed since ancient times, beginning with the northern nations. Ancient Romans dedicated the sixth day of the week to their beautiful, but vain, goddess Venus, so, when the Norsemen adopted the Roman method of naming days, they naturally adopted Venus as their name for the sixth day of the week. Their closest translation for Venus, Frigg, or Freya, eventually evolved into Friday, a day they considered to be the luckiest day of the week.

From a religious standpoint, Muslims tout Friday as the day Allah created Adam, legend has it that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the apple, on a Friday, and later died on a Friday, and Christians consider Friday as the day on which Christ was crucified by the Romans.

The Scandinavian belief that the number 13 signified bad luck sprang from their mythological 12 demigods, who were joined by a 13th demigod, Loki, an evil cruel one, who brought upon humans great misfortune. The number 13, in the Christian faith, is the number of parties at the Last Supper, with the 13th guest at the table being the traitor, Judas. When Christians combine this day and number, the combination can only hold special significance.

Whether or not a person considers Friday the 13th as unlucky, he or she must understand that this superstition, as well as others, merely stem from beliefs or practices man used, and continues to use, to explain, and to protect himself, from events beyond his control in his complicated world. He worked, and works only with the bag of knowledge he has on hand.

Only when factual, scientific bases for these beliefs are unearthed, and people do not dispel the beliefs, but instead cling to them, the beliefs become superstitions. Today’s beliefs may very well be tomorrow’s superstitions. Until then, however, don’t step on a crack!

In these tough economic times you might be looking around to see what you can sell and how much you can get for it. Well, here’s an option that few may have considered. Remember, you’re not a renewable resource, so once you’re gone, that’s it.

How much is my body worth?

You’re worth more than you think!

A great number of people have spent a great deal of human and financial resources calculating the composition of, prior to the decomposition of, and the worth, or worthlessness of, the human body.

When we total the monetary value of the elements in our bodies and the value of the average person’s skin, we arrive at a net worth of $4.50!

This value is, however, subject to change, due to stock market fluctuations. Since the studies leading to this conclusion were conducted by the U.S. and by Japan respectively, it might be wise to consult the New York Stock Exchange and the Nikkei Index before deciding when to sell!

The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body, which breaks down as follows:

• 65% Oxygen
• 18% Carbon
• 10% Hydrogen
• 3% Nitrogen
• 1.5% Calcium
• 1% Phosphorous
• 0.35% Potassium
• 0.25% Sulfur
• 0.15% Sodium
• 0.15% Chlorine
• 0.05% Magnesium
• 0.0004% Iron
• 0.00004% Iodine

Additionally, it was discovered that our bodies contain trace quantities of fluorine, silicon, manganese, zinc, copper, aluminum, and arsenic. Together, all of the above amounts to less than one dollar!

Our most valuable asset is our skin, which the Japanese invested their time and money in measuring. The method the Imperial State Institute for Nutrition at Tokyo developed for measuring the amount of a person’s skin is to take a naked person, and to apply a strong, thin paper to every surface of his body. After the paper dries, they carefully remove it, cut it into small pieces, and painstakingly total the person’s measurements. Cut and dried, the average person is the proud owner of fourteen to eighteen square feet of skin, with the variables in this figure being height, weight, and breast size. Basing the skin’s value on the selling price of cowhide, which is approximately $.25 per square foot, the value of an average person’s skin is about $3.50.

Caffeine is an addictive drug, affecting 90% of all Americans, which alters the brain’s natural state, and stimulates it in a manner similar to the amphetamines cocaine and heroin.

The mechanisms employed by caffeine, cocaine, and heroin, are to close blood vessels in the brain, so the brain and body cannot sleep, to cause the release of adrenaline into the body, so the body remains active and alert, and to manipulate dopamine production in the brain, so the person experiences a temporary “high.”

Caffeine may be found in its natural state in many plants, including tea leaves, coffee beans, and cocoa nuts. The pure form of caffeine is a bitter, white, crystalline powder derived from the decaffeinating process of coffee and tea. The vast number of products in which caffeine comes, range from coffee, to tea, to colas, to milk chocolate, and to pain relievers, just to mention a few.

Most people are unaware of caffeine’s addictive properties. Those who consume 300 mg. or more per day, suffer from withdrawal symptoms if they abruptly cut off their caffeine supply. Most users will suffer from symptoms of fatigue and depression, irritability, tremors, jumpiness, deprivation of deep sleep, and vascular headaches, as the blood vessels in the brain dilate. Caffeine, however, can be medically useful as a cardiac stimulant, and also as a mild diuretic used to flush the system.

One of the mechanisms that caffeine addiction, cocaine addiction, and heroin addiction share, is that they block an adenosine’s ability to slow the nerve cells’ activity in preparation for sleep, and instead increase the speed of their activity and of the neuron firing in the brain. The caffeine causes the blood vessels in the brain to constrict, because it has blocked the adenosine’s ability to open them to allow sleep. The ability of caffeine to close the blood vessels is why many pain relievers contain caffeine. If a person has a vascular headache, the caffeine in the medicine will shut down the blood vessels, thus easing the pain.

The increased neuron firing in the brain triggers the pituitary glands to release hormones that tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline, also known as epinephrine. Adrenaline, the “fight-or-flight” hormone, gives the user’s body a boost, and heightens the person’s alertness.

One final mechanism caffeine, cocaine, and heroin share, is their ability to manipulate dopamine production. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter, activates the “pleasure centers” in certain parts of the brain, and simply makes a person feel good. Naturally, the pleasurable effect produced by dopamine manipulation plays a prominent role in caffeine addiction.

The short-term effects resulting from caffeine consumption, such as alertness, renewed energy, and pleasure, may not necessarily outweigh the longer-term effects of caffeine addiction. Caffeine, despite its similarities to amphetamines, has side effects that are not nearly as severe, and withdrawal symptoms that are, generally, not life-threatening.

The bears do it, the squirrels do it, and now we know the birds do it.  Do you wish you could do it? Check this out to see if you want to do it, too.

Why do some animals hibernate in the winter?

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Grizzly black bears, hummingbirds and squirrels hibernate in the winter because a long, chilly season of little food and warmth is no picnic for these animals.

Unlike the warm seasons of spring and summer that provide an unlimited amount of food for these critters, the winter season only provides a cold, frozen ground where food is extremely scarce.

In addition, the wintery days are frigid and short while the hours in the dark night seem to drag on for a chilly eternity. Searching for grub often leaves the stomachs of these animals empty because by the end of their search their bodies end up burning more calories than the animals get back from the food when and if any is found. So instead of starving or freezing to death, these animals decide to pack in all in for the long haul and hibernate during the winter months.

Hibernation helps these animals survive in the roughest and toughest conditions. By hibernating, an animal decreases its body.s energy needs to a bare minimum. Hibernation is a process of lowering an animals body temperature and slowing down its heartbeat into order to conserve energy during times of scarcity and stress.

Every animal hibernates in different ways. While squirrels can wake up every four days to grab a bite to eat and take a trip to the bathroom, black bears can stay dormant, or inactive, for up to seven months with no food, water, or visits to the bathroom.

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Got a headache? Read this article and give thanks.

Aspirin’s history is a lengthy one, from its discovery in the fifth century BC, to its use as a bartering tool in World War I, to its newly discovered benefits and uses.

A person could get a headache thinking about all of the detours aspirin has taken on the road to becoming today’s common, inexpensive, cure-all medication.

Aspirin’s roots are deep, and reach back to Hippocrates himself, the Greek father of modern medicine, who held the recipe for a pain reliever and fever reducer made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree. The key the Greek father of modern medicine held from sometime between 460 and 377 BC, was buried with him, and was not rediscovered until 1758 by an English clergyman.

Scientists, now aware of the pain relieving properties of willow bark, struggled to strip it down to the exact ingredient responsible for its powers, and finally did so in the 1820s. They narrowed their search to salicin, an early form of the family of drugs named salicylates, of which aspirin is a member.

Severe stomach upset from the salicylic acid extracted willow bark posed a problem for scientists. They attempted to remedy this side effect by combining the acid with sodium to neutralize the acid, but it failed to reduce the belly aching.

A French chemist, Charles Frederic Gerhardt put an end to the dilemma in 1853, by adding acetyl chloride to the sodium salicylate mixture. He published the results of his findings, but did not pursue his creation past this point, even though it upset the stomach less than the currently available compound. Mr. Gerhardt saw no future in the time-consuming preparation of his recipe, which he felt did not improve much upon the original medicine. His decision left people grabbing their guts, and stomaching the old standby, sodium salicylate.

Salvation came in 1897, in the person of an eager, young Felix Hoffman, who sought, and found, a drug to help relieve the painful symptoms of his father’s arthritis. This driven chemist, an employee of the Bayer Company, found and dusted off Gerhardt’s old publication, mixed a batch of the recipe, and discovered that it actually worked.

Hoffman used his connection with his employer to pitch his idea, and Bayer reluctantly agreed to produce the medicine they named Aspirin. They invented the name Aspirin by combining the initials A from acetyl chloride, the SPIR from the plant they extracted the salicylic acid from, Spirae ulmaria, and the IN, because it was the common ending for medications at that time. Bayer launched Aspirin in powder form and as a tablet in 1915. Aspirin was an instant success.

Aspirin’s success ended up costing the Bayer Company a great deal of money, when the U.S., England, France, and Russia forced it to surrender the trademark to them, as part of Germany’s war reparations at the close of World War I. Bayer gave up the trademark in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles, which explains why the aspirin, stripped of its trademark, is now written in the lower case.

Today, aspirin holds the title of being the most widely used drug, one that is no longer solely used as a pain reliever and as a fever reducer. Physicians have shown aspirin to be effective in combating arthritis pain, in reducing the risk of heart disease, of death following a heart attack, of cancer, if taken two times weekly, and of developing preeclampsia during pregnancy. It is doubtful that aspirin will ever again be lost to the annals of history.

Did you know?

Bayer also held, and had to give up, its trademark to heroin at the end of World War I?

Twelve midnight A.M. and twelve midnight P.M., or 00:00 A.M. and 00:00 P.M., mean nothing at all. They are simply the midpoints that divide the day into two equal halves.

Each and every day begins exactly at midnight, and each A.M. begins precisely thereafter. Similarly, each P.M. begins immediately after noon. No meaning can be assigned to 12:00 A.M. (00:00 A.M.), or to 12:00 P.M. (00:00 P.M.). They are merely reference points meant to simplify timetables for us.

Along the same line, the Universal Day, established by the International Convention in 1884 in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., operates according to World Time, or Universal Time at Greenwich, England. The logic regarding Midnight and Noon also applies to Greenwich Mean Time, commonly referred to as GMT or Zulu time; Midnight and Noon represent markers, or “page breaks” in the day and in the night, and may be represented by 00:00 o’clock.

Greenwich, England also holds the distinction of being at the point of zero longitude, where East meets West. The 1884 international agreement also recognized this line of zero degrees longitude as the prime meridian, a point from which all points on the earth’s surface are measured.

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Natural laughter is a two-part, spontaneous, response to humor, that has physiological, psychological, and physical benefits.

Most agree that we laugh when we find something to be humorous, yet different reasons exist for what we find to be humorous. Additionally, different things are humorous to us at different stages of life.

Laughter, a physiological response to humor, can be broken down into two parts.

The first is a set of gestures, and the second is the production of sound. The brain forces to conduct both responses simultaneously. From a physiological standpoint, a “sensor” in the brain responds to laughter by triggering other neural circuits in the brain, which, in turn, generate more laughter.

Oddly enough, laughter is an orderly response, and almost occurs “spontaneously” during pauses at the end of phrases, earning it the name the punctuation effect. Human beings are the only species capable of laughter, and the average adult does so approximately 17 times per day.

Good health is one of the many benefits of laughter. Laughter reduces our stress levels by reducing the level of stress hormones, and also helps us cope with serious illnesses.

Physiologically, laughter promotes healing, by lowering the blood pressure, and by increasing the vascular blood flow and the oxygenation of the blood.

Physical fitness stemming from laughter is a benefit known to few. Scientists estimate that laughing 100 times is equivalent to a 10-minute workout on a rowing machine, or to 15 minutes on a stationary exercise bike. The mere act of laughing exercises the diaphragm, as well as the abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles.

Another benefit of laughter is that it improves our over-all mental health. Pent up negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and sadness, can cause biochemical changes in our bodies that can produce a harmful effect.

Laughter provides a harmless outlet for these negative emotions, and provides a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult or stressful situations. 

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Today, approximately 500 billion matches are used each year and about 200 billion of these come from matchbooks.

In 1669, an alchemist, one who mistakenly believes that he can change base metals into gold, mixed up a batch of something which was, surprisingly, not gold, but a substance he named phosphorous. Since his recipe did not produce the gold he desired, he tossed it onto the heap of history.

Next was Robert Boyle, an English physicist, after whom Boyle’s Law was named. He cleverly coated a piece of paper with phosphorous and, armed with a splinter of sulfur-coated wood, bravely bulled the wood through the paper, which burst into flames.

Much later, in 1826, John Walker stumbled upon a chemical concoction that produced fire. After stirring together a mixture of chemicals, which did not contain phosphorous, John removed the stick he used, only to find a dried lump at its end. When he scraped the stick against the floor to rid it of the lump, the stick ignited. His mixture of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch could produce fire. In his rush to demonstrate his discovery to others, John bypassed the patent office.

In no time, a person at one of John’s demonstrations, Samuel Jones, spotted an overlooked, golden opportunity, and patented the invention under his name. Mr. Jones produced matches he named Lucifers, which produced phenomenal sales. The widespread availability of the matches actually led to a significant increase in smoking.

The dark side to Lucifers was their ungodly odor, and the fireworks display they gave when ignited. In fact, Lucifers carried a warning label stating that they, not the cigarettes they lit, were dangerous to one’s health!

In the 1830s, Charles Sauria, a French chemist, decided to improve upon the existing formula by adding white phosphorous to do away with the stench of the matches. What Mr. Sauria did not know, was that white phosphorous was lethal to those who came into contact with it.

Unknowingly, he created a deadly monster by adding the white phosphorous. The phosphorous was responsible for a nearly epidemic disease known as “phossy jaw,” match factory workers developed poisoned bones, and children who sucked on the matches developed infant skeletal deformities. Even the amount of white phosphorous contained in one pack of matches could kill a person, and actually did, through numerous suicides and murders.

Finally, by 1910, the general public’s awareness of the dangers of the white phosphorous in these matches led to a worldwide campaign to ban them. Thankfully, Diamond Match Company obtained an U.S. patent for the first nonpoisonous match, which used the harmless chemical sesquisulfide of phosphorous in place of the deadly white phosphorous.

So critical was Diamond Match Company’s discovery to public health, that U.S. President Taft made a public plea to the Company voluntarily to surrender their patent rights to the invention. Despite the enormous moneymaking potential of the patent, Diamond Match Company granted President Taft’s request on January 28, 1911. Congress followed suit by passing a law that raised the tax on white phosphorous matches to a level so high that their production soon ceased.

Discussion of the match would be incomplete without mention of the matchbook. John Pusey, in 1892, invented something he named the matchbook. He had the right idea, but had it backwards, as he placed the striking surface for the match on the inside of the book of 50 matches, so when one match was struck, the remaining 49 also ignited!

Once again, Diamond Match Company intervened and saved the day, by purchasing the patent to the matchbook, by moving the striking surface to the outside of the cover where it belonged, and by marketing the revamped match as the “safety match.”