How do people realize their dreams? What should they do to achieve these dreams? Why are some of them scared of making their dreams possible? And why do others quit on their dreams when hard times come?

People may have the same personality and dreams but they have different ways of achieving them. Some people dream for their own benefits while others dream for their family.

1) How do people realize their dream?

Some people realize their dreams at an early age, say, during their childhood. A child realizes his dreams from the things that he plays with or the things he does. For example, when a person says he wants to be a dancer, it may be because when he was younger, he danced a lot and watched many dancing videos while idolizing the person who was dancing. If he continues to be active in dancing by a certain age, that person will realize that he wants to be a dancer, perhaps around the age of seven when a child starts to dream. But this dream may change by simply experiencing and learning things outside in the bigger world, like when he goes to high school. No matter how much he loves dancing, once he learns something new, he could change his mind. When he learns about history or writing, he might realize that dancing is just a hobby and being a researcher or a writer is probably now his dream. His dream can also be based on the person he looks up to. For example, when I was younger, I always looked up to my grandmother who was a teacher. I’ve always wanted to be like her and I wanted to be a preschool teacher because of my grandmother. But as years passed by and I learned new things, I’ve changed my mind. It’s not that I don’t want to follow my grandmother’s footsteps; it is because I got into the art field and want to be a graphic designer. During my high school days I’ve participated in art classes and I find it really enjoyable. It’s really something I want to do in the future and I know I can do it.

2) Why are there some people scared or unwilling to make their dreams into reality?

Sometimes people dream big but they are scared to go after it. Why, you may ask? - It’s because dreaming is simple but making it into a reality isn’t. People are afraid to go through suffering, in other words to go through hell. Of course, to be successful, you have to learn the hard way and you must work hard to achieve that dream. To be a graphic designer is not easy; you can’t just go to school and graduate, then expect to suddenly become a professional designer. It doesn’t work that way. Yes, you go to school and learn the things you need to learn to be a designer, but before you get to design or make your art, you must do some reading and writing etc. Indeed, a designer needs to learn how to read and write to be able to communicate well with costumers. Math is also required in the designing industry because of the measurements in your designs. Then you have to learn how to design, all about colors, tones and composition, the industry itself and so much more. Some people don’t want to go through all of that but they do love to design. They are just scared to go through obstacles, or even face competitions from many potential designers out there. Making your dreams into a reality is, undeniably, not an easy feat but it is up to you to decide whether you want to go after it or not. No matter how big or small your dreams are, I believe you can achieve it if you work hard.

3) Why do people quit on their dreams when hard times come?

Like what I’ve said earlier, reaching your dream isn’t easy. But why do people give up? There are many reasons why many quit on their dreams.

Firstly, they don’t have the passion for it. They think what they’re doing is fun and enjoyable, but when things get tough they just give up easily. They tend to throw their dreams away even if they are half way through it already. Some people will get driven by money; therefore, without the passion for their dreams, it’s easy for them to give up. For example, a person wants to be an artist but he’s aware that some artists don’t get paid enough. Therefore, when another opportunity strikes, they grab it and let go of the dream they once had.

Secondly, they start to encounter struggles in school. From my own personal experience, I know that there have been countless trying times that have made me want to give up because I was tired of struggling and I wasn’t getting enough support from people around me. However, I didn’t give up because I have the passion to be a designer someday.

Thirdly, people tend to live other people’s dream and leave their own dream behind. This happens especially in the world of rich people. For example, when they’re a family of lawyers, the pressure to be a lawyer too is there even if you dream to be something else. In the old days, most are forced to follow their parents’ footsteps. And such a thing applies to some people even today! They give up their own dream for the sake of their loved ones, which I think it is a very altruistic thing to do.

4) How do you achieve these dreams?

Well when you have a dream, you have to visualize it. It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small, the important thing is you believe you can do it and picture yourself doing it when you get into a professional career. Make your dream into reality and don’t be scared to face struggles. Dreaming comes with challenges; it will be hard reaching your dreams but when you have the guts to make it happen, you will succeed. The challenges you encounter are there to help you learn from your mistakes so that you can apply them when you’re already living your dream. If you want your dream to come true, have a passion in it. Having passion towards your dream will really help you make your dream into a reality. You have to know what you want and don’t throw it away when another opportunity comes; because in the end, you’ll see that sticking with your dream was worth it. Have patience and remember this motto: “You have to work your way up to success because success doesn’t come by itself to you.”

A Dream too far away?

You have all these dreams about wanting to do this or that, and someone just so happens to walk into your life saying that he could help you achieve those dreams. Without hesitation, you accept the offer. A few years later, when you are finally done with learning everything you should from this savior, it’s time to embark on another journey. You think you have what it takes to survive out there on your own now. But soon enough, you realize that it’s just nothing but a bubble. The world outside is filled with many harsh conditions and is not a blissful place to be in. You try every possible way to move forward but nothing seems to go your way. Do you continue on to pursue this dream of yours or do you give up and return to where you first started out?

In every person’s life, he/she is bound to have encountered difficult situations where he/she has to make mind-numbing decisions about his/her future, and once this decision is made, he/she has to stick to it for the rest of his/her life. Are you able to hold onto this one decision that will determine your fate?

What matters to you the most?
Are you really interested or passionate about the particular subject or career you would like to pursue? Or are you more interested in the monetary part of it? Or, perhaps, is it some other factor that prompts you to believe that this ultimately, is what you really want to do for the rest of your life?

Whichever you choose, it’s your decision. Nobody can stop you. The people around you can only give you advice and recommendations but they cannot force you into a corner to choose something that you are not interested in. However, humans make mistakes. You may think you have made the right decision, that this is what you really want, but after a few years of delving in this career, you realize that this is not what you want: you can choose to give it up and pursue something else that sparks your interest, but you can also choose to believe that nothing matters more than the pay.

Decision-making is something that is really nerve-wrecking. Sometimes it just makes you sick in the stomach, or gives you one of those migraines that can go on for hours, or even days. Yet, it’s one of those things in life that is inevitable. We cannot escape it, but we can try to avoid making unnecessary mistakes. But of course, one would never realize the mistake until he/she has gone through it before, and from there, he/she would then learn from it and never make that same mistake again.

Regrets hurt, that you wish it didn’t happen, but whatever the case, it belongs to the past and all you can do is to move forward in life. If there’s anything that’s worth your time, it is your future and your happiness - enjoying what you do on the job is probably something that is really rewarding and satisfying.

The Future
The road ahead is difficult, yet challenging. Who’s path isn’t? Determination is what you need, and passion is what you have. Never falter when faced with rough criticisms or harsh challenges. You have a goal in mind, work towards it, whether it takes years or even dozen of years, you will eventually reach it one day.

For some bachelor degrees, there are still licensure exams that a degree holder must take and pass before they’ll be called professionals. Medicine, Nursing, Law, Architecture and Engineering are just a few examples of the degrees that require a licensure exam before they can practice their professions. I’ve just graduated last March 2009 with a bachelor’s degree of Electronics Engineering from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines. Now, I’m preparing to take my licensure exam in Electronics Engineering at the end of October, 2009.

Licensure exams aren’t that easy. They’re examinations about all the subjects you had from the first semester to the last semester of your whole career in college. All topics and lessons you acquired from years back will be asked again and they will test you to see how well you remember everything that your school has taught you over the last five years, in my case.

So what’s the best way for you to prepare for the exam? I’ve already done some preparations and future plans on how to make my review work. You may try it and see if it’ll work for you as well.

MAKE YOUR ROOM REVIEW-READY
If you’re like me who spends most of her time inside her room, then this is a must. To start with, you should first clean your room. Remove all the clutter and vacate your room from anything that can distract you from studying. Laptops, hand-held consoles (e.g. PSP, NDS), musical instruments, and the television are some of the things that can distract or tempt you. Next, make sure you have a study table. I love to study and read on my bed too, but I know the risks that it may cause – falling asleep!

FIND SOME REVIEW BUDDIES
Some may prefer to study alone, but from my experience, having a study buddy has its good points too. It works when you encounter something that you can’t understand and have to ask someone for his/her opinion. Of course, like what they always say, two heads are better than one.

FORM A STUDY HABIT
For your review to be effective, you should study on a schedule. Since this is a big examination, the procrastination-technique won’t work the way it used to. You should study regularly, and if you can, study everyday! You shouldn’t just study because you feel like it and then decide not to when you’re not in the mood. Also, don’t forget to take a few 10-minute breaks every now and then.

ASK FOR GUIDANCE
If you do believe in the higher power, I think it’s the best for you to pray and ask for guidance whether you are religious or not. Nobody can help you the way He can.

Whatever this examination may come up to – pass or fail – it is more important for me that I did my best in preparing for this. Ask yourself if you really want this and if you do, do what is necessary for yourself to achieve it.

When I say play testing jobs, I’m talking about ones that really pay you, not one of those beta testing for online games in closed beta. That’s a voluntary thing and you don’t get paid for contributing.

I recall sitting in front of the computer doing the same thing over and over again in the wee hours of the morning. Logging myself in at 2am sharp, starting my daily 4-hour shift and sometimes when something unexpected happened, an 8-hour shift on the roll. No naps in between, just a 5-minute break occasionally, otherwise it just would have been one of those major grinds where you concentrate on your job and nothing else. Fortunately my friend and I were in the same boat so we were able to chat throughout the shift via MSN. Other than that, it was one hell of a taxing, yet at the same time, interesting job. And guess what? I actually got paid for this.

Managing rooms, interacting with other players from the other side of the globe (hence the time differences and late shifts), testing mini-games, reporting bugs to the technical team (based in the US) and a couple of other tasks - was what we did for every shift. It was literally the same thing, nothing new. Before, there were only three workable mini-games instead of four, and the fourth only worked for some but not for others. In my case, it didn’t work, so unfortunately I was stuck with just the three games - all of which weren’t all that “exciting”. Each mini-game’s playtime is short, about 3-5 minutes per round. In my job scope, I’m supposed to keep playing the games throughout the 4-hour shift. Any long breaks in between, the “Boss” would know.

During those times we were speculating about the future of this community. Population and mini-games are scarce, and not to mention, lots of bugs here and there, and occasionally lots of other problems. For example, every time there’s a new update to the server client, the players (including us testers) have to re-download the mini-games one by one.

A year later, the site’s revamped, and the server is now fully established. Several other mini-games are born, with a population of at least a million players. When we were still testing it out at the beginning, there were barely 10 players altogether. But look at how much it has grown since then? And now, instead of having the players downloading the mini-games one by one, all they need to do is log in onto their accounts and they can start playing away.

So before you decide to jump into this whole play testing “profession” (it’s hard to find such job openings here, it’s also rare to find one that pays a good salary, though it does exists) and think it’s all fun playing games as part of your job, you should probably consider taking your future into account. Low pay, long grinding hours playing the same game repeatedly, picking out bugs and technical issues, searching for solutions and testing it all over again. Not really a good job in the long run, and it’s also a threat to your health. You don’t need a degree, neither do you need to know programming. However, knowing some minimal programming is a great plus. You need to be someone who plays all sorts of games, and knows how games work. Maybe good for students looking for holiday jobs, but if you insist on going into this direction as a long term job, perhaps it would be wise to get yourself a college degree to back you up.

All in all, it’s fun to do something like this once in awhile, but not in the long run; you’d probably get really sick of its monotony and its tough hours. However, the rewards can be really satisfying.

With that said, it’s your choice to make. Just remember not to forget maintaining a healthy lifestyle on your part and spending time with your family!

A week before the day of departure, it would be sensible to check the weather forecast at your destination first, in my case: Hokkaido. While you might think that spring is neither too hot nor too cold, when you finally get to experience what Hokkaido is like in spring, you would probably regret not bringing some warm clothing. Spring in Hokkaido is almost like winter in Australia. It’s freezing cold, definitely not your typical spring, and this also depends on which part of Hokkaido you are heading to. For example, Asahikawa is located in the center of North Hokkaido and can be really cold when dusk arrives, especially when you’re driving through the mountains. For someone like me who has been living in the tropics all her life, it’s relatively hard to adapt to the drastic weather change. In the early morning and late afternoon, the weather feels like spring; at noon it feels like summer and in the late evening until the next morning, it feels like autumn/winter. And when it rains, it feels like you have just walked into the freezer, not to forget the frequent winds that constantly messed up my hair.

What to Bring?
Warm clothing’s a must, in addition to a neck towel and a cap. Gloves are optional but it would be better if you bring them along as well. Next, lip balm, skin moisturizers, any skin-care products to protect your skin from excess dryness. In this season, there are frequent strong winds that constantly blow into your face, occasionally causing your eyes to feel really dry and itchy. If your eyes are very sensitive to irritation, do remember to bring along your eye drops or lens solution - it’s not worth to spend your money on eye drops over there because things don’t come cheap. Also, Hokkaido is known for its beautiful landscape – mountains, forests, farmlands and flowers. Hence, don’t ever forget your camera!

Others
If you’re ever going to bring scissors or any sharp objects, please remember to keep them in your main luggage. The security system is extremely tight, with the fear of terrorism on the rise. Recently, there have been reports with regards to the Swine Flu. Though in my opinion, it isn’t really that serious, it’s still recommended to take the necessary precautions while you’re away from home. You may bring a few masks along if you’re afraid of catching the flu bug, and you need not worry about people isolating you because it’s a rather common sight to be seen. If you’re one of those who are always getting frequent headaches, please do not forget to bring your supplements, medication and ointment.

If you’re planning to bring water, please remember to have it stored in a clear plastic bottle, and take it out for a scanning when going through the security scanning at the airport terminal.

Add-ons
Do bring along a travel guide just in case you get lost while traveling alone, or in a group. However, if you’re going together on a tour, you need not worry about getting yourself lost UNLESS you go out on your own, especially during the free time you have, e.g. a walk around the city after dinner. Generally, it’s not hard to communicate with the Japanese, though of course, you can’t assume that all will understand what you’re trying to say or ask. It would be best to pick up the basics of the Japanese language but it’s not really necessary if you are able to just communicate with them in simple English. However, it would be beneficial if you have learned the Japanese language or even the Japanese culture.

One extra note though, DO NOT forget your passport and cash! Depending on the currency ratings and the length of your vacation, it would be recommended to bring at least 55000yen ($800) for a 7 day trip. You can also bring your credit card just in case, but do note that in the suburb area, the stores might not allow credit card payment; you will have to pay for your goods in cash.

With all these packed in, you’re now all ready for your trip to Hokkaido. Have loads of fun and take lots of pictures!

Having graduated less than a month ago, it feels my life has ended. There’s nothing left for me to learn or to do anymore apart from the usual things like applying to the universities of my choice or sending my resume to companies, hoping to get called down for an interview. With the current recession going on, it makes finding an appropriate job or a job with a decent pay even harder.

Alas, after worrying much, I decided to just go with the flow. Why worry so much when the outcome is not yet known? So here I am, giving you a primer on what you can do, apart from the usual tasks mentioned above, while on a break like me.

Paving your Future
Take your time. Do your research. Think about what you want to do and whether you’re willing to do that for the rest of your life or not. You may have a great interest in design or even accounts, but having a great interest in a specific subject or hobby does not mean you want to do it for life. You may even come to hate it after a while because sometime later, you might realize that this was not what you really wanted. If you’re still unsure of what you are really passionate about, pay a visit to your local library and pick up a book of your interest, read it and see how long your interest in it will last.

Picking up New Knowledge and Skills
Is there anything that you’re still unsure of? Is there anything you wish to improve on especially on something you’re not really good at? Or is there anything you wish to learn but didn’t have the time to do so before? Now is the great time to pick them up. Leaving school doesn’t mean that you have to stop learning. Even when you start working, whether you’re a newcomer or a senior, you will learn something new every day.

However, don’t just read! If you want to learn something, you have to do some practice as well. For example, you want to learn how to do origami. Get your materials out, follow the instructions and have a go at it yourself. You will never remember something if you don’t do anything on your own.

Let’s Play!
“I should be working!”
“I should be looking for a job!”
“No… there’s no time to play… I have better things to do.”

Yes! You heard it right! Let’s play! There’s really nothing wrong with playing… just as long you have spent your time wisely for the past 8 hours. When I say “play”, I don’t necessarily mean that you have to literally play. I suppose I meant to say “enjoy yourself while you can”. Life is short and you don’t get to enjoy yourself this much. Go on a vacation or just hang out with your friends. Go to the gym to work-out or just take a stroll in a park, just anything rather than staying at home every day.

All these make me feel as if I haven’t wasted my life away. I’ve learned something new and I’ve spent my time wisely. Most importantly, my brain hasn’t stopped working. I’m constantly absorbing new knowledge and skills every day. Put your free time into good use and perhaps you will realize that life is not as quite boring as you may think.

Read “Birth: An Experience Too Great and Memorable to Forget” here.

Title: Restaurant City
Developer/Publisher: Playfish
Platform: PC
Genre: Casual, somewhat Educational
Application(s) needed: Facebook
Target audience: Everyone

What’s it like to manage your own restaurant and hire your own friends to work for you? Restaurant City might seem like just another Facebook application, but it has managed to be successful despite its many fallbacks. Still in its Beta stage, Restaurant City has already hooked in many players from across the world.

Restaurant City is a casual game that is targeted mainly at well… casual players or people who are just playing for the fun of it. Its cute, simple and colorful presentation is more likely to attract females than males, which seems to be reflected by my list of friends who are playing Restaurant City at this moment. Like its other partner, Pet Society, this Playfish hit game is a socially interactive game – you visit your friends’ restaurants to obtain new ingredients, or to trade existing ingredients. Apart from that, Restaurant City allows the game to run offline on its own, which means you can log off, do whatever you need to do, and come back again hours later. By doing so, you continue to earn revenue but if you remain logged off for too long, your workers will be overworked so you have to ensure that they are fully energized by feeding them before they start work again. Alternatively, you can close your restaurant by putting an object behind the door and send your workers to bed - which may end up to be cheaper because you don’t need to use money to buy them food (though you will lose the extra revenue of staying closed).

When you are given the rights to manage a restaurant on your own, you simply can’t miss out on the decorations. After all, there is a reason why the decorating options exist in the first place – to make your restaurant look more appealing, both externally and internally. Decide on a style you want for your restaurant and start heading in that direction by purchasing your wallpaper, windows, or rooftop; you can choose to mix-and-match any style you want. Apart from styling your own restaurant, you could also arrange your furniture any way you want it. Design the layout which you think is the most effective in allowing your workers to work efficiently.

In addition to these aforementioned features, there’s also an educational element in this flash game. There’s a daily quiz which prompts you with questions with regards to food. If you get it right, you get an additional ingredient, but if you get it wrong, you lose your only chance in getting another ingredient.

However, behind this secret success is probably just another disguise. You might feel that it’s a great game and all, but it has a couple of flaws that are hard to overlook, especially when they become a common chore that happen just a little too often. While you get to spend money to decorate your restaurant to make it look prettier and more pleasant-looking, it doesn’t give you any incentives… it’s just for the sake of presentation; but if you decide not to buy any of the decorations, your money would be deemed worthless because that’s what the money is for. In addition, apart from upgrades, like a larger restaurant or an extra employee, there’s nothing more to the whole upgrade system. There are no upgrades for stoves, for example and that is a rather painful fact to accept – an expensive stove means nothing. Ingredients are also unavailable for purchase. They are either obtained from the daily quizzes, from visiting a restaurant which you have not visited before, or by trading.

It allows your restaurant to run offline when you’re away… but many people don’t usually have the time to log onto Facebook everyday. When your workers become overworked, your popularity will eventually drop. If you haven’t logged in for a week due to a hectic schedule, don’t be taken aback to see your popularity level at zero. There are also lots of server breakdowns that can be annoying over time.

Nevertheless, this is a rather addicting game. Since Restaurant City is still in its Beta stage, it’s hard not to have flaws in the game. But hopefully, the maintenance staff will do a better job when undergoing maintenance (which can tick people off when it takes up to a whole day!).

Ratings: 7/10

The Birth Logo

“Birth” - it’s only held once a year, making it extra special. What makes it so special and full of mysteries? Well, hold on right there and allow me to unveil the secret! It’s the one event that happens only once (or perhaps not at all in most cases) in every design student’s lifetime. It’s the time when ALL graduating students from the same school join forces to organize their very first exhibition showcase that is opened to the public, the industry people, and most importantly, their family and friends to feel proud of what they have done over the past 3 years of course study.

By now you’re probably wondering what all of this has got to do with the term “Birth”… right? Well, as one of the many graduating students, I would like to proudly present to you why Birth is so meaningful to us. Birth means giving life to a newborn. And that’s what our theme is about – giving life to new creations beyond boundaries and possibilities… with our designs, imaginations, ideas and creativity.

Let me share with you my very own experiences of Birth. The Pre-production stage, also known as the Pre-graduation woes, was the most dreadful, if not, most taxing experience of all. Countless sleepless nights with overloads of caffeine, countering migraines on the left and right, aching neck and shoulders, braving tight and crazy deadlines… All of this for the sole purpose of making the graduation showcase a smooth-going process… Well, hopefully.

Next up, is the Production stage, in other words, getting everything ready and re-organized, contacting printing shops and sending everyone’s works over for mass-printing. But before that, everything has to be in the right shape, or else some poor guy has to pay for the extra printing cost because of a silly mistake one of the students forgot to check, which in turn delayed the whole process.

While it may seem like a very tedious process, it’s actually very simple. You just have to follow the steps carefully… but if you’re one of those people who don’t read instructions and just follow other people blindly, you’re more likely to get whirled up in the mess of having to re-do your part. And if time doesn’t allow it, you either have to send your work for printing yourself or have the managing committee do it for you… where the end-product is usually not what you wanted.

The Stage

So after the production stage, what’s next? Well… of course! How could I have forgotten about the most crucial part of the whole process? The Post-production stage! Not so creative, am I? Anyway, this is the most exciting part of the whole preparation process – gathering yourself at the venue of the exhibition at 6am in the morning; meaning you most likely don’t get any sleep the night before. Usually at such an early hour, the public transports like the trains or buses have yet to start operating. So, many students either take the cab or get their parents to drive them down. It was quite a dreadful morning for us. Everyone felt as if they had been dragged out of their comfy beds unwillingly and the worst thing that could happen? At least half of the cohort hadn’t arrived yet and we had to wait for them for a good whole hour. In the end, we got called in by the lecturers, who were there even earlier than us, to gather at the exhibition area.

Right after a short briefing, the works that had to be shipped were now there! By works, I mean A0 size display panels. So, time to get our bums moving - picking up our own panels. Fortunately it wasn’t as heavy as I thought, in fact, it was very light! Our first hands-on experience in setting our booths up – deciding where each panel should be positioned (I myself had to decide for my other teammates as well since they were missing in action), clipping our panels together, tying the strings and finally getting set on hanging the panels up, with the flashing spotlights constantly blinding our eyes. BUT… it wasn’t over yet. On top of hanging panels up, we had to ensure that everything was in the right order. And finally, picking up the shirts that we pre-ordered.

While waiting patiently for the other group to arrive, we took some time to get ourselves pumped up for the opening. If you think that setting up our booths was all that we needed to do… you’re wrong. We still needed to make sure that we were presentable, and to add on to that, we needed to man our booths – tackling members of the public while they bombarded us with question after question!

Graduates' Works

So what did we do for the three days? Let me sum it all up for you: Showcasing our works on laptops, panels, and in a physical hard-cover portfolio; entertaining kids and teenagers who have dreams of becoming the next aspiring designers; giving parents an idea what we do exactly, hoping to change their perspectives of things; doing our best to present ourselves to future job employers who were on the look-out for great potentials.

It’s such an irony that this marked the end of our years here. But has it really ended? Maybe there’s a hidden meaning behind “Birth” - while the graduation showcase marked the end of our 3-year journey here, it doesn’t mean our journey has really ended. It indicates the start of another journey down the road, into the future. What awaits us in this future are numerous possibilities and goals. One may feel nostalgic about leaving the three years of memories behind, but what’s more important is perhaps the future that lies ahead. You may forget all the horrible incidents that happened back then and continue to move on with life, but you cannot forget the great friends that you have made there and the life lessons you have learned.

Nothing screams of belonging to the “in” crowd more than a pair of Christian Louboutin heels or a limited edition Prada clutch. Or at least that was the case in the past. In recent years, belonging to the “in” crowd has been all about energy-saving and environmentally friendly everything. The staple of being environmentally friendly is the usage of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), commonly known as energy saving light bulbs.

In a world where climate change and global warming is on everyone’s mind, saving energy is a top priority. For any given light output, CFLs only use between 20-33% of the power of an equivalent incandescent light bulb. Although CFLs are generally 3 to 10 times more expensive than that of an equivalent incandescent light bulb, they also last 8 to 15 times longer. Their long life, paired with what you would save on your utility bill from using them, means that CFLs come out to be more cost effective than incandescent lighting in the long run. So far all of this sounds like a great deal right? Not only are you saving money, you get to play your part in saving the earth. However, before you invest in switching to CFLs (if you haven’t already done so), make sure you read all of the fine print.

Mercury Emissions
CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, causing it to be a concern for landfills and waste incinerators. If CFLs are not disposed of properly, mercury from the lamps can be released and this will in turn, contribute to air and water pollution. In the European Union, CFLs are subject to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) recycling scheme. In the US, The Home Depot provides CFL recycling options. If you reside outside of these areas, please check with your local recycling service to see how CFLs should be discarded. With respect to a household, CFLs can be a hassle to clean up if they break, and potentially dangerous if precautions aren’t taken. For a set of guidelines to follow on how to properly clean up a mercury spill, please visit the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dirty Electricity
Clean electrical power was originally intended to power homes and buildings at a safe frequency of 60 Hertz (Hz). Everyday electronic devices such as computer and electronic entertainment centers and CFLs tend to induce high levels of high frequency spikes and harmonics, which are multiples of the fundamental 60 Hertz frequency, back into a building’s electrical system, effectively polluting it. Studies have been confirmed that “dirty electricity” can be attributed to several health disorders including fatigue, muscle and joint pains, heart palpitations and memory problems. The obvious solution may be to remove any sources of high levels of radio frequency radiation such as all power bars and CFLs but dirty electricity is not confined to the source. The electromagnetic contaminants can contaminate an entire building and even other buildings and homes nearby. A simple solution was developed by Martin Graham and Dave Stetzer called Graham-Stetzer (GS) filters. GS filters are inexpensive and simple devices that shorten the high frequency radiation with a capacitor so that your home is again powered by frequency at 60 Hz.

Ultraviolet Radiation
The most recent and perhaps most serious adverse effect of CFLs is the discovery that some types emit ultraviolet (UV) radiation above the recognized safety limits. Tests done by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in the UK found high levels of UV-C radiation in nine of 53 unencapsulated lamps. Unencapsulated lamps have the coil visible, while encapsulated lamps look more like your regular light bulb with an extra protective cover. Of the 20 encapsulated lamps tested, all were well within the UV radiation guideline limits. UV-C radiation is used in hospitals to kill bugs and is known to cause more damage to DNA than UV-A or UV-B radiation. The highest level of radiation detected was equivalent to direct exposure to summer sunlight. As a result, the HPA has advised CFL users to stay more than 30cm away from unencapsulated CFLs and to try and prevent prolonged exposure to them.

While CFLs definitely have their beneficial uses and are unarguably definitely cost and energy efficient, make sure you know about the possible adverse side effects and how to deal with them. CFLs do contain mercury, but so do common glass thermometers. Most countries which promote the usage of CFLs also have recycling or disposal services in place to prevent mercury pollution. Dirty electricity is increasingly becoming a known health problem and effective technologies are being developed and promoted to help prevent energy pollution so that we can continue to use electronic devices such as CFLs. The recent discovery of UV radiation emitted by CFLs has prompted some to rethink their use of CFLs but the HPA has stressed that the UV-C radiation levels are not enough to cause cancer. At most, the worst effect is a short-time reddening of the skin, basically a sunburn. If you’re still concerned, switch to encapsulated CFLs which do not present a problem. I’m not advising you to immediately throw out all of your CFLs but you should definitely know all of the fine print that CFL manufactures aren’t highlighting on their packaging. Don’t give up on saving the earth, just make sure you take the necessary precautions to save yourself as well.

Ingredients:
- 200g Organic Smoked Salmon
- 2 Avocados
- 100g Low fat Cheddar Cheese
- 1tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 2pcs Fresh Perilla Frustescen Leaves (large)

Sauce:
- 1tbsp Italian Balsamic Vinegar
- 1/2tsp Olive Oil
- 1tsp Maple Syrup
- 1tsp Sashimi Soy
- 1/2tsp Wasabi

Method:
1. Combine all sauce ingredients in mixing bowl and chill in fridge.
2. Peel avocado, remove core. Slice avocado and cheese into pieces 2 inches long. Wash and wipe dry perilla frustescens leaves, then mince.
3. Slice smoked salmon into pieces 2 inches long, sprinkle ground black pepper and perilla frustescens leaves on both sides of each piece. Leave a little bit of black pepper and leaves for later.
4. Spread avocado and cheese on salmon and roll up carefully. Repeat the above step until all of the avocado and cheese is used up.
5. Sprinkle remaining black pepper and perilla frustescens leaves on top of salmon rolls. Wrap salmon rolls in microwave film and cook for 30 seconds in microwave oven. Serve with dipping sauce.

Perilla Frustescens leaf can be used to neutralize toxins from seafood, thus helping to reduce the risk of skin allergy.