General Social and Dining Etiquette Rules

Make Your Friendship Last

Make Your Friendship Last

Learn to forgive. If you want your friendship to last, then you should be able to forgive your friend and to move forward. If you hold a grudge and let your bitterness and resentment build up, then you won't be able to move forward. Recognize that nobody's perfect and that if your friend is sincerely sorry and that if he or she didn't do something too horrible, that you should move past it.

• If your friend really did do something so unforgivable that you just can't get past it, then it's better to move on than to try to save the friendship when it's doomed. But this should happen very rarely.
• If you're angry at your friend but haven't told him or her why, you'll never be able to forgive him if you don't talk about it.

Accept your friend for who he or she is. To make your friendship thrive, you shouldn't try to change your friend or make your friend see the world from your perspective. If you're conservative and your friend is liberal, then accept that instead of trying to argue about it all the time. You should appreciate the fresh perspective your friend can bring to your experiences instead of wanting your friend to see everything from your perspective.

The more you are with one another, the less you idealize each other and the more you accept one another for who you really are. This is what being a truly good friend is really about –- caring deeply for each other, even if you know you're both full of flaws.

Go beyond the call of duty. A friend will wait while you do your homework. A great friend stays up all night helping. Remember that if you are a good friend, people want to be a good friend to you. Recognize the moments when you need to go above and beyond to help your friend and know that this will make your friendship grow, and that your friend will do the same for you in return.

 If your friend really needs you and keeps saying, "No, you don't have to do that..." learn to read between the lines and know that your friend really does need you.

 Stay in touch no matter what. As the years pass, people tend to grow apart. Maybe you and a friend will move to different places and only see each other every once in awhile. Sometimes years may elapse without much contact. If you never stop caring about your friend, speak up. He or she will be happy to hear from you. You were friends for a reason in the past, and you may find the same bond still ties you together.

• Don't let your location determine the strength of your bond. If your friendship is meaningful, then it should keep growing even if you're an ocean apart.
• Make a goal of having monthly phone or Skype dates with your friend even if you're in a completely different time zone. If keeping up with your friend becomes a routine, your relationship will continue to thrive.

 Let your friendship evolve. If you want to be a good friend, then you have to understand that your friendship won't be the same in high school, college, or in the adult world. Sure, when you were fourteen, you might have spent all of your time with your best friend, but by the time you went off to separate colleges or started your serious relationships, you naturally spent less time talking. This doesn't mean that your friendship isn't as strong; it just means that your lives are evolving, and your friendship is taking on a different shape over the years.

• Don't try to make your friendship be exactly the same as it was ten years ago. Think of it as elastic, not solid.
• If your friend is married with two kids or even just in a serious relationship and you're not, be respectful of the fact that, while your friend really cares for you, she won't be on call 24/7 like she used to be.
• Appreciate the changes your friendship has made over the years, and learn to grow along with your relationship.

 http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Friend

golden words

"Champions aren't made in the gyms.
Champions are made from something they have
Deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision."
~Muhammad Ali~

"Every day offers you 10,000 reasons to cry, but if you can find
Just one reason to laugh then you will be all right." ~Maya Angelou~
Some people are making such thorough preparation
For rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine. ~William Feather~
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to
Say and then don't say it." ~Sam Levenson~

Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear
Three kinds---

All they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.
 ~Edward Everett Hale~

"If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right,
You'll probably never do much of anything."
 ~Win Borden~

 

"What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me."
 ~Helen Keller~
 
"Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself." ~Doris Lessing~

Life is a glass given to us to fill;
A busy life is filling it with as much as it can hold;
A hurried life has had more poured into it than it can contain. 
   ~William Adams Brown~

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same.
 Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination."~Unknown~

Never give way to anger - otherwise in one moment you could
 Burn up the joy that you collected over a long period.  
 ~unknown~
 The most difficult thing I have ever had to do is follow the guidance I prayed for.~Albert Schweitzer~

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who
Face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."~Douglas H. Everett

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
 The whole aim and end of human existence.~Aristotle~

The Real Lessons of the Zimmerman Verdict

• By John McWhorter
• 
  

  

  Following George Zimmerman’s exoneration, I find myself on the other side of the line from the good-thinking crowd that sees the decision as evidence that America doesn't care about black lives. Just last night, I was at dinner with perfectly sensible people who thought that Zimmerman should fry. "Contrarian" though I apparently am, I am always looking for something that I might have overlooked in my thinking. But this time, I'm not sure what I'm missing. 

  It’s not that I can’t see that Zimmerman “started it.” I am well aware that Zimmerman set in motion the chain of events that led to Martin’s death, and for a reprehensible reason. The case clearly speaks to how black lives are routinely undervalued by law enforcement, as well as by other figures of authority such as schoolteachers — and even self-appointed neighborhood “watchmen." I was repulsed by the way the media treated Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel.

  Charles Blow puts it well in his decreeing upon Zimmerman – and this was before last night’s verdict — a cosmic kind of “righteous conviction,” declaring that “Martin will never be free from the grave, and Zimmerman will never be free from his role in assigning that fate.” Yes. Amen, even. 

  But there is a difference between these broader moral issues and jurisprudence, and I’m not sure the people who took to the streets last night – and will take to the columns all week now claiming that racism has proven its eternal vitality – are taking that into account.

  It comes down to this. Yes, if Zimmerman had stayed in his damned car – and hadn’t been packing heat – Martin would be alive. To many, this alone is supposed to mean Zimmerman belongs behind bars for 30 years. But the reason the law is complex is because sandbox logic like this isn’t always justice. It doesn’t even always feel like justice.

  Suppose Zimmerman had been a black man patrolling his mostly black neighborhood, and white teens from a couple of towns over had been coming through lately pulling off petty thefts. Suppose the exact same sequence of events had panned out, ending with a 30-ish black guy held down by a white teen good with his fists. Scared he’s about to be either killed or gravely injured, the black guy desperately fires his gun, and the white guy dies.

  I can’t help thinking that the people calling for Zimmerman’s head would not think this black man deserved to be sentenced to decades in prison – especially if the facts were as murky as they are in this real case. 

  More to the point, I suspect these same people would defend this black man because of a sense that the case had resonances for black-white relations in the larger sense – the black man would be seen as having tried to stick up for his people in the face of an age-old oppression. That would make it “different” – “you’re not seeing the context” would be a common objection. And let’s not even think about if the white boy had somewhere along the line called the black man an offensive name – or used that word in one of his tweets some months prior.

  Here, then, people perfectly capable of seeing how the law makes Zimmerman’s exoneration technically plausible are up in arms because of a deep sense that the verdict was supposed to be a statement about Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham, Kimani Gray, and Oscar Grant, shot dead while handcuffed in San Francisco and now the subject of the filmFruitvale Station, so widely discussed in part because of how aggrieved so many people are over the frequency of murders like the ones of those men.

  But criminal verdicts are not theater – we’re not in a movie like Fruitvale Station (and even that film offers no easy conclusions). When verdicts do become dramatic, the results tend to serve little purpose. The exoneration of O.J. Simpson was dramatic, the jury making a “statement” about the LAPD’s racism. But what kind of teaching moment is it when no one learns anything?

  The Trayvon Martin story is not a sign that racism never dies. Just twenty years ago, there wouldn’t have been enough public outcry around his death even to get Zimmerman arrested, much less bring together crowds of Trayvon supporters full of white people as well as black ones. Anyone who doubts that wasn’t there or wasn’t paying attention.

  Zimmerman’s exoneration, rather, is a call to revise the Stand Your Ground law, and is also as resonant an indication as the Newtown shootings that it’s too easy for people to get guns in their hands in this land. 

  Protest and indignation are well in order – but of a less ad hominem stripe than the kind that tars Zimmerman as a bigot, assails the jurors for coming to their decision because they aren’t black, and magnifies the whole episode into pretending Martin Luther King died for nothing. America is hardly perfect on race, but it has changed.

  Progress is getting ahead, not getting back at white people. This is one time when the usual suspects must acknowledge this, if Trayvon Martin’s death is to create anything but histrionics soon to be forgotten.
  http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/07/real-lessons-of-the-zimmerman-verdict.html?test=true
   

10 Tips to Manage Criticism

by Guest Author

 

Oh sure, you think you nailed that site architecture and that home page reads like pure poetry, right? After all, you wrote it. But that’s the problem. You wrote it. You designed the graphics. You created the keyword list based on those finely-honed intuitive instincts so it must be perfect. It’s your baby.
Fact: you aren’t always right. Fact: some of your ideas just aren’t practical. Fact: a second, third and even a fourth opinion improves even the best-thought-out plan – if you’re willing to listen and learn.

1. Just because you fall short doesn’t mean you failed.
Easy to say, but not necessarily easy to live with. No one likes criticism. No one likes to admit that there’s a better solution, but the fact is, there are always better solutions. Criticism is a tool. It provides different perspectives. It identifies steps that you missed during the first round.
Learn from others. Just because you get push-back from a new client doesn’t mean the client got it right and you got it wrong. It simply means the client has a different point of view – one from which you just might learn a thing or two.

2. Open mind, closed mouth.
This is going to come as a shock but you won’t get it right every time. Ok you’re good, but you aren’t perfect.
You also aren’t a mind reader. Be prepared to revise your thinking and to look at your professional and personal life from a different point of view. Keep an open mind when listening to criticism. And don’t defend your baby. There are a lot of ways to get it right. Acquiring knowledge from others is the best way to learn. It’s real-world, real-time learning, not something you picked up in a school classroom 10 years ago.

3. Become a stakeholder but don’t drive your stake through the heart.
You know, the only way to kill a vampire is to drive a wooden stake through the undead monster’s heart. And you may occasionally run in to a client or colleague that tries your patience to the point where driving a stake through the “idiot’s” heart sounds like a reasonable solution.
Okay, first, it’s not a solution. In fact, your negative reaction to criticism, regardless of the source, will only make a problem worse. It’s important to remember that things like site design, graphics and site text are 100% subjective and sometimes you won’t be 100% spot on.
Take a position. Become a stakeholder in any project or undertaking but don’t cling to your POV with your last breath. There are a million ways to get it right and listening to some constructive criticism from a client, a co-worker, family member or friend may actually move that undertaking in another direction. A better direction.

4. Consider the source.
Who’s criticizing? Does that person have authority? Is she better versed in the topic? Is he the one with the checkbook?
Clients want things done a certain way – even if you know they’re dead wrong in their approach. As a knowledgeable professional, you have an obligation to point out flaws in the client’s thinking. However, once you’ve pointed out the flaw and the client still wants it done his way, you’ve done your job. You provided the best consultation you could, you provided the road map to success, but if the guy with the checkbook wants black text against a black background – even after you’ve explained why that’s a problem – you’ve done your job.

5. Learn from anyone and everyone.

There will always be someone who disagrees with your point of view, your suggestions, your designs and your expertise. No problem.
Confident people learn from anyone simply by listening. You don’t have to accept the point of view. Your free will remains in tact. Your opinions remain unchanged.
The key is to have confidence in your abilities, professional and otherwise. With self-confidence, criticism isn’t a threat. It’s a useful tool.
Learn by listening. The more perspectives you see, the better equipped you become when similar circumstances come up next month or 10 years from now.

6. How’s your self-image doing?
Don’t take it personally.
Development is a process, a strategy, a goal or objective, but it’s not about you. Keep your self-image strong and you’ll keep you self-esteem in place.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is an asset that’s often more important than intellectual intelligence (IQ). Accept criticism and learn from it. The result is a collaboration that delivers the positive outcomes from which all stakeholders benefit.

7. Not all criticism is constructive.
We’ve all met people, or have dealt with clients, who are mean-spirited – men and women who actually enjoy tearing your concepts to shreds. So be it.
Consider the source of the criticism. Consider the value of the criticism. Consider the benefits derived from the criticism. Never stop learning, even from those who are totally clueless. There may be a pearl of wisdom in what these mean-spirited people have to say.
Find those pearls and use them. Learn from them – even if the intent of their criticism is to undermine your efforts. Keeping silent in the face of criticism isn’t easy but it is beneficial to you, the client, the project, the objective.
Accept what you can’t change. It’ll save a lot of sleepless nights, hassles and headaches – especially when you realize that the source of the criticism doesn’t have the experience and knowledge you have.

8. Learn to let go.
You have an idea or concept, a design or strategy that you know is perfect. Okay, maybe it is, but don’t marry yourself to any one way of doing things. Learn to let go. Learn to keep an open mind.
You’ll be a better person for your efforts. Even better, you’ll learn to be a quality service provider when you can let go of that perfect concept and follow a different path. There are lots of ways to achieve success.

9. Recognize your own limitations.
Each of us has different strengths. Each of us has different limitations (weaknesses). Take pride in your strengths and use them to your advantage and to the advantage of your clients, your family and friends.
Accept your limitations and learn from others to lessen the negative impact personal limitations have on your professional career or the growth of your client base.

10. A closed mind never welcomes criticism.
Too bad. If you close your mind to new ideas, differing opinions or points of view, you don’t grow. You don’t get better. You don’t learn.

Criticism is about managing your emotions. It’s also about learning how people think, determining their needs and meeting those needs. Always put the needs of others before your own needs. It makes you a better human being and a better business owner, whether you’re a one-man company working out of a spare room at home or the CEO of a multi-national conglomerate.

Welcome criticism. Even mean-spirited criticism. In the end, you’ll learn. You’ll become a better human being and a better service provider. Think of criticism as a lesson from which you can become better at whatever it is you do.

The development of emotional intelligence isn’t something that’s taught in school. It’s something we learn by living, working with a variety of personalities and adapting to the needs of others.
To grow your business or to grow as a human being, recognize criticism as a positive, not a negative, in your daily routine.

In the end, you come out ahead.
In the end, your business prospers.
In the end, you win.

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/10-tips-to-manage-criticism/

Gangnam Style Cover Dance By Black Queen

Psy - Gangnam Style Cover Dance By Black Queen ( Korean Dance Team )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85wh3QY1A0M

The Queen's Movement

The Queen's Movement Queen Movement Queen's Movement Diagram

The queen is, without a doubt, the most powerful piece on the chessboard. She can move as many squares as she desires and in any direction (barring any obstructions). In the diagram on the left, the blue dots indicate to which squares this particular queen may move. As you can see, she can cover 27 squares. This is a healthy percentage of the board, 42 percent. This is twice as much as the a rook. (However, performance will vary depending on the queen's position.) She captures in the same way that she moves, replacing the unlucky opposing piece that get in her way. (She must, of course, stop in the square of the piece she has captured - unlike the knight the queen may not jump other pieces.) The queen's power is so great that she is considered to be worth more than any combination of two other pieces (with the exception of two rooks). Thus it would be better, under normal circumstances, to sacrifice a rook and a bishop (for example) than to give up a queen. Strategy Note: The queen's power also makes her too valuable to casually risk. Against skilled players, the loss of the queen is nearly equal to losing the game. For this reason, it is generally thought to be unwise to bring the queen out too early. The cluttered board makes her more vulnerable to entrapment. http://www.learnchessrules.com/queens.htm

coconut pick up lines

Coconut Pick Up Lines

Hey, you have a lovely bunch of coconuts.
They say coconuts don't fall far from the tree, so that must mean your mom has big boobs too!

Like the hurricane said to the coconut tree;
hold on to your nuts

I'm gonna give you the blow of your life

source: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/foodjokes/coconutjokes.html

vampire woman

A real-life 'Vampire Woman'

Meet Ms Maria Jose Cristerna, a real-life 'Vampire Woman'. The 35-year-old ex-attorney started modifying her body after she divorced her ex-husband, who she said was "abusive". Her modifications include titanium horn implants on her skull, fangs, as well as large ear rings and facial piercings. According to online reports, Ms Cristerna said her tattoos and body modifications made her feel like a "warrior". The mother of three currently works as a tattoo artist and body modification specialist. She has performed previously at a tattoo exhibition where she was suspended from the ceiling from hooks pierced in her skin. (Photos: AFP, Reuters) Maria Jose Cristerna, better known as the "La Mujer Vampiro" or "Female Vampire", poses during a tattoo exhibition in Caracas, Venezuela. She recently made an appearance at the Venezuela Expo Tattoo 2012, where tattoo artists and enthusiasts gathered. The 35-year-old woman is a former attorney who began tattooing her body after her divorce. She is currently a tattoo and body modification artist. She also inserted body modifications into her body, resulting in horn-like protrusions from her skull. Online sources reported her as saying that her ex-husband was abusive and that the tattoos made her feel like a "warrior". Her body modifications include fangs in her teeth. The mother of three children, Ms Cristerna says she would like to send a message to people to not judge others by their appearance. Other modifications include big ear rings and nose rings. Online reports said Ms Cristerna has had body casts made of her for exhibition in museums around the world. Ms Cristerna, also known as "Mujer Vampiro" (Vampire Woman), is seen backstage before a previous exhibition in Guadalajara, Mexico Ms Cristerna performs during an exhibition in Guadalajara, Mexico. http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?109412-Crazy-angmor-choose-to-look-like-vampire-after-marriage-failed

what is LOVE

GOAL!! or Go?

Stop to Think

A friend of mine opened his wife's underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package:
'This, - he said - isn't any ordinary package.'

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

 'She got this the first time we went to New York , 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on , was saving it for a special occasion.

 Well, I guess this is it.

 He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral house, his wife had just died.

 He turned to me and said:

 'Never save something for a special occasion.

 Every day in your  life is a special occasion'.

 I still think those words changed my life.

 Now I read more and clean less.

 I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.

 I spend more time with my family, and less at work.

 I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through.

 I no longer keep anything.

  I use crystal glasses every day...

 I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.

 I don't save my special> perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I want to.

 The words 'Someday....' and ' One Day...' are fading away from my dictionary.
 If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now....

 I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she knew she wouldn't be there the next morning, this nobody can tell...

 I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends. She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels. 

I'd like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

It's these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come..

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.
Live for today, for tomorrow is promised to no-one..

The Worst Feeling Isn't Being Lonely

The Worst Feeling Isn't Being Lonely

I Just Want To Disappear

I Just Want To Disappear

Abraham Lincoln

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. - Abraham Lincoln

London 2012 organisers go for food safety gold at Olympic Games

Government to crack down on unlicensed food vendors and caterers seeking to cut corners to cash in on Olympic visitors

They may be the purveyors of the traditional – if notoriously greasy – staples enjoyed by millions of British sport fans, but the ubiquitous burger van could be hard to find at the London Olympics.
The government's food watchdog is cracking down on unlicensed vans selling burgers, hot dogs and fish and chips to the millions of visitors to the 2012 Games in an attempt to protect them from food poisoning and from being ripped off by rogue operators.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has released £1.5m to pay for an extra 14,700 food hygiene inspections from April to September, covering restaurants, pubs, stalls and vans across the country during the Olympics and Paralympics.
Inspectors face a raft of challenges from people trying to cash in on the Games, including an expected spike in bootleg alcohol, businesses stockpiling food due to delivery routes being cut and people serving food from their front gardens.
The drive will be led by hundreds of environmental health officials, overseen by 10 senior officers, providing advice and extra training to restaurants and caterers who fail additional hygiene and safety inspections.
Tough enforcement action will follow where public health is put at risk. Unlicensed street vendors near Olympic venues will have their vehicles seized.
Sarah Appleby, head of enforcement and local authority delivery at the agency, said: "London 2012 is about celebrating everything that the UK has to offer and food is an important part of this.
"We have so much fantastic food to showcase to Games visitors, and we want food business owners to ensure that everything they sell is the best it can be. It will be an exceptionally busy time for a lot of these businesses, and the FSA is providing extra support and advice to make sure they are well prepared to meet the challenge."
The move is likely to trigger fresh criticism of the stranglehold on Games food and drink held by sponsors McDonald's (its largest UK restaurant is in the Olympic Park), Cadbury and Coca-Cola. The latter alone will serve 23m soft drinks due to its near-monopoly at Olympics venues.
Airport-style security at the Olympic Park will prevent visitors from bringing their own food, though they will be able to refill bottles from water fountains.
In what is being dubbed the largest peacetime catering operation in the UK, Olympics organiser Locog is preparing to provide 14m meals – for 9 million visitors and 24,000 athletes and team officials – from the time the first athletes arrive at the end of June to the official shutdownafter the Paralympics in September, across 40 different locations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/apr/03/london-2012-olympics-food-safety-crackdown

NEFERTARI - Antique Beauty & Royality

NEFERTARI

Antique Beauty & Royality

The Queen Shared with Husband War and Peace

The dream has come true and the restoration works of Nefertari's tomb, the most beautiful and famous of all queens' tombs and the summit of art in Egypt, has been achieved...

This tomb has been a symbol of challenge. Since its discovery at the beginning of this century in 1904 by the Italian archaeologist Schiaparelli, it endured bad circumstances, and all rescue efforts were insufficient & hard to be carried out, but, there is will, there is way

Cooperation

In 1986, the Ministry of Culture and the Egyptian Antiquities Organization in cooperation with Getty Conservation Institute insisted to save the tomb thoroughly. But this time, the work was executed in the best manner utilizing the most modern technical and artistic internationally-adopted methods.

At first, work depended on direct treatment, then scientific experiments were carried out there. Since the development of the monuments restoration and preservation techniques in the second half of the 20th century, the restoration has been changed from traditional natural art to an extensive science.

Naturally in the light of this change, large field and laboratory studies and surveys preceded the work of treatment, restoration and preservation that began in Nefertari's tomb in 1986.

The Queen

Nefertari, the favorite Queen of Ramses II, is known from myriad of her representations in the temple reliefs and colossi of the great king The dedication to her, jointly with the goddess Hathor, of the small rock temple to the north of the great temple at Abu Simbel, shows how great her influence with Ramses II must have been.

Nefertari was not the only consort of Ramses II. Four other ladies are attested in the inscriptions of his reign to be his queens. She was not an ordinary queen, however and her situation excelled that of former ones. Her name has been rendered as "the Most Beautiful of Them"; a superlative which denotes her most exceptional position, while the designation "Hereditary Princess," listed for her in several instances, appears to be the indication of her high ranking origin in the society. Her participation in the affairs of the state is unparalleled outside the Amarna Period and is reflected in the titles assigned to her as "Great King's Wife". A political role is also reflected by the recurrent designation "Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt" and "Lady of the Two Lands".


Ahmos' grand-daughter & Ramses' wife

Origin

Some Egyptologists think she was probably a daughter of King Seti 1, and thus sister or half sister of Ramses II. Other Egyptologists, however, think that her designation as "Hereditary Princess" might be in some way connected with her being representative of the Thebais. The motive that would prompt such a thesis is the weak footing of the Ramssides in Thebes; their home was in the North and they made strenuous attempts to improve their situation in the South. These Egyptologists claim that nothing is known about her parents, but it seems that she was of royal birth. Others say she is Ahmos' grand-daughter...At Gebel El-Silsileh there is a shrine of Ramses 11 where depictions show him and Queen Nefertari performing religious functions before sundry deities. This shrine contains an indication that Queen Nefertari was already married to Ramses II at his accession (1290 BC). But she was not mentioned in connection with the King's First Jubilee in the year 30 of his reign and it seems likely that she died before it. We know that Queen Nefertari was neither the only nor the first bearer of this name. Its first bearer was Queen Ahmes-Nefertari, the mother of the Theban Eighteenth Dynasty who may have been the great-grandmother of our queen. Nefertari's bearing of the designation "god's wife" emphasized apparent emulation of Queen Ahmes-Nefertari, who was also the god's wife...From her name and titles it is apparent that Nefertari played a special role in her time. The fact that Ramses II was eager to show her accompanying him, a feature uncommon otherwise, suggests that she could influence his position in the country.

Most wonderful tomb in the Queen valley

Exclusive honors
Titles; "beautiful face" and "pretty with two feathers" could be taken as reference simply to the queen's physical appearance. Another describes her as "appeasing the gods". This expression is associated with kings; and states their adherence to and support of the ritual requirements of the cults. None of the Egyptian queens, so far as we know, had been held in such honor, for none had a temple dedicated to her jointly with a goddess, as was the case with Nefertari at Abu-Simbel..The temple facade has six statues, each 33 feet high, four of them representing the king and two belonging to the queen. The walls ot the temple are adorned with various scenes; some represent the pharaoh defeating his enemies while the queen stands behind him, others represent the king and the queen bearing offerings in the presence of the goddesses and deities, asking their blessings. The most interesting scene represents the coronation of Nefertari by Isis and Hathor. There, the figure of Nefertari stands at the side of the colossus of Ramses II and in the Ramseseum temple. She is represented dancing a ceremonial dance in front of the king during the feast of the god Min.

Her own tomb
Ramses II has a tomb for Nefertari hewn out in the Valley of the Queens called by the ancients "The Place of Beauty", this tomb is the most beautiful in the Valley of the Queens, and is on the whole worthy of her position in history. The decorative motifs on walls and ceilings are mythological and are concerned with life in the netherworld, meetings with gods, deities, genii and monsters, and the entry into the realm of eternity. In these scenes our queen is represented always wearing long, transparent white garments, with two long feathers over the vulture-like headdress of gold. She wears rich jewels, in addition to bracelets and a wide golden collar.

Description of the tomb

Outer doorway from entrance staircase into outer hall: the two lambs were inscribed with the name of Nefertari. The lintel over the doorway is decorated with a sundisk setting in the horizon flanked on both sides by Wadjet-Eye. The scene also included a depiction of Isis and Nephthys in falcon form. Left and right thickness of the door is decorated with the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet. The Outer Hall has an almost square format of 5.20m by 5.30m. A rock cut bench, with niches below it, designed to support part of the funerary equipment, projects from the western and northern walls. The long inscription above the bench is a rather garbled version of 17th Chapter of the Book of the Dead. The upper register is filled with various scenes, serving as illustrative register of the southern wall containing different scenes.

On the left, the queen is shown on a throne. In her right hand she holds a kind of wand, with the other she reaches for a game. The scene is placed in a kiosk made of reeds. Here the queen plays with her soul.

The next scene shows a bird with the queen's head, the Egyptian representation of the individual soul. The ba-bird is standing on a scale taking a shape of the tomb. The ba was a psychic force. The word was employed as a synonym of the manifestation of a god. Then the queen herself kneels in front of her soul, with hands uplifted in adoration of two juxtaposed lions, between them the sun's disk.

These scenes of the two lions mean "yesterday and tomorrow" or "the past and the future". Then, the graceful bird "benu" is the representation of the phoenix, the sacred bird of Heliopolis. The phoenix was regarded as the soul (ba) of Ra', but was also a manifestation of Osiris. The bird benu is followed by a multiple scene consisting of a shrine with a bier on which a prepared mummy of the queen is placed. This shrine is flanked on either side by representations of both goddesses Isis and Nephthys.  The next scenes consist of two figures, one squatted bearded deity who holds a palm branch, the other standing before him holding his two outstretched arms over two squares. Next is the seated figure of a falcon headed deity before a largescale "Sacred Eye". The decoration continues with the registers. They begin at the left with the scene of a cow resting on a support. The next illustration is a composite scene. Its center is a coffin with a jackal placed inside. It is surrounded on both sides by two mummiform figures. The right part of the upper register contains the four "Sons of Horus" accompanied by a fifth apparently Horus himself. To the right is the Jackal- headed Anubis, the god responsible for embalming. On the north side of the passage Osiris is shown in his shrineIn the recess the thickness of the passage is decorated on both sides with the representation of a goddess Selket (Scorpion). West inner face of the recess, the decoration consists of a Djad pillar, the symbolic representation of Osiris. North face of the recess, the scene shows the goddess Isis leading Queen Nefertari to the right, in the realm of god Khepri. South face of recess is decorated with a depiction of Harsiese (Horus son of Isis) holding Nefertari by her hand and introducing her to Harakhty and the West (Hathor)...The scenes decorating the west wall of the side room show the queen bringing linen offering to Ptah. Behind the shrine of Ptah is a large Djad pillar, the symbol of Osiris. The scene on the north wall shows Nefertari paying her respects to the god Thoth. The left part of the wall is covered with a text of eight columns. It is a copy of Chapter 94 of the Book of the Dead.

The east wall of side room is filled with two scenes separated in the center by an up-right standing fan. In the left scene the god Osiris is shown enthroned in the mummiform body, before him are the four "Sons of Horus". The queen is shown stretching her arm. The parallel right scene depicts the queen's offerings to god Atum. South wall of this side room is divided into three registers, the two upper being filled with seven cows and one bull. The bottom register shows four steering oars. On the following wall Nefertari with her raised arms in adoration is part of the adjoining last scene. The other panel on this west wall represents Ra' and Osiris united in the form of a ram-headed figure between Isis & Mephthys.

From the Outer hall a corridor, descending 18 steps continues the funerary designation of the tomb. The descent to the underworld is beautifully decorated. North thickness of upper part of West and East wall of corridor, the space is decorated with the Djad-pillar with two arms holding a scepters. Southern thickness of upper part of West and East wall is decorated with the goddesses Neith & Selket. Upper part of East wall corridor, the composition in the triangular space is arranged in the same way as on the opposite wall. On the left hand Nefertari offers two bowls of milk to goddess Isis behind whom sits Nephthys with Maat. On the right hand, Nefertari makes a similar offering to Hathor behind whom sits Selket, with Maat as before in the background.

Lower down there is a winged Uraeus, guarding two carts of the queen. The underneath, beginning about the kneeling figure of Maat, is another scene in which the Jackal Anubis stretched out on a tomb welcoming the queen. The bottom part of the east wall is decorated by the figure of Nephthys, while the parallel part of the west wall is decorated with Isis. The doorway lambs of the burial chamber are inscribed with the name and titles of Nefertari, while the sofas are decorated with a winged Maat. This corridor leads to that part of the tomb where the funeral ceremony was terminated and in which occurred the final transition to the burial chamber. The burial chamber is a relatively large rectangular room (10.40x8.50m) with four square pillars supporting the ceiling. Two side rooms and a small inner room are accessible from it. The entry walls to the burial chamber are adorned by four goddesses, while the walls are mostly decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead. The queen is represented passing through nine gates from the domain of Osiris, which are guarded by dreadful demons. On the northern wall of the chamber she is shown before Osiris, Hathor, and Anubis. The four pillars form a kind of shrine to contain her sarcophagus, now lost. The pillars are decorated with the Djad pillar and various deities. The two side rooms flanking the burial chamber on the west and east are poorly preserved. An interesting scene on the eastern wall of the western side room shows Nefertari in the shape of a mummy. The function of the small inner room and two side rooms is not yet known because of their great obliteration.

Last Updated: July 2nd, 2011
http://www.touregypt.net/historicalessays/nefertari.htm

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Musical adaptation: michael w. smith

Crown him with many crowns,
The lamb upon the throne:
Hark! how the heav’nly anthem drowns
All music but it’s own!
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of him who died for thee,
And hail him as thy matchless king
Thru all eternity.
Crown him with many crowns
Crown him with many crowns

Crown him the lord of heav’n:
One with the father known.
One with the spirit thru him giv’n
From yonder glorious throne.
To thee be endless praise.
For thou hast died for me;
Be thou, o lord, thru endless days
Adored and magnified

Adored and magnified
Crown him with many crowns

His glories now we sing,
Who died and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring
And...lives that death may die.

Crown him with many crowns

Having a bad day?

Having a bad day?
Think you are having a bad day ?
Fire authorities in California found a corpse in a burned-out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with scuba tanks on his back, flippers, and face mask.

A post-mortem test revealed that the man died not from burns, but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification. Investigators then set about to determine how a fully clothed diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.

It was revealed that on the day of the fire, the man went diving off the coast, some 20 miles from the forest. The fire fighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, had called in a fleet of helicopters with very large dip buckets. Water was dipped from the ocean and emptied at the site of the forest fire.

You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next, he was doing the breast stroke in a fire dip bucket 300 feet in the air.
Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. but keep reading....



-
Still think you're having a bad day ?
A man was working on his motorcycle on the patio, his wife nearby in the kitchen. While racing the engine, the motorcycle accidentally slipped into gear. The man, still holding onto the handlebars, was dragged along as it burst through the glass patio doors.

His wife, hearing the crash, ran in the room to find her husband cut and bleeding, the motorcycle, and the shattered patio door. She called for an ambulance and, because the house sat on a fairly large hill, went down the several flights of stairs to meet the paramedics and escort them to her husband.

While the attendants were loading her husband, the wife managed to right the motorcycle and push it outside. She also quickly blotted up the spilled petrol with some paper towels and tossed them into the toilet.

After being treated and released, the man returned home, looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He went into the bathroom and consoled himself with a cigarette while attending to his business. About to stand, he flipped the butt between his legs.

The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming. Finding him lying on the bathroom floor with his trousers blown away and burns on his buttocks, legs and groin, she once again phoned for an ambulance. The same paramedic crew was dispatched.
As the paramedics carried the man down the stairs to the ambulance they asked the wife how he had come to burn himself. She told them. They started laughing so hard, one slipped, the stretcher dumping the husband out. He fell down the remaining stairs, breaking his arm.


Still having a bad day ?





Just remember, it could be worse..
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.




Still think you are having a bad day ?
A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman.




STILL think you're having a bad day ?
Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany. Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two hapless protesters were trampled to death.




What ?! STILL having a bad day ??
Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with 'return to sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.





There now, feeling better?