Communication Skills In The Workplace

Communication based on wikipedia online is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs". Communication can be perceived as a two-way process in which there is an exchange and progression of thought, feeling or ideas towards a mutually accepted goal or direction.


Communication is very important in the average people's lives. People communicate with each other every day,from little things like asking the time to big things like discussions. Communication began from when we are children, and develops as we grow up. While basic communication skills are easy to obtain, not many know how to communicate professionally with others, especially with those whom they first met. These type of situations are often seen in the workplace. Good communication skills can help create a happy atmosphere in the workplace besides making a task easier to complete.

Here are some tips to good communication skills in the workplace :




1. Personal Contact
People relate to one another better when they can meet in person and read each other's body language. What's more, people can feel the energy the connection creates. A powerful connection can be created by just smiling or shaking someone's hand when you meet them.


2. Develop A Network
No one achieves success alone. Success in any company requires team effort. Therefore, make an effort to know your manager and employees in different departments within the company. Try to meet new people in professional organizations. Furthermore, be active in your company and join in their events like family day to strengthen the bonds with co-workers.




3. Always Be Courteous
Courtesy lets people know that you care. Words like 'thank you' lets people know that you appreciate them. This is important because if people know you are grateful, they will be more eager to help you another time.




4.Be Clear
Since people often hear things differently, it is important to speak fluently and with the correct pronounciations of words. People may hesitate to ask you to repeat what you said if they didn't hear your words properly. Therefore, you should ask, "did i explain this clearly?" after you end your talk or speech to confirm that people understood you.



5. Compromise
You can decrease the tension associated with conflicts if you always ask, "what is best for the company?". This gives people a different perspective on your requests, and they will be less likely to take any conflicts personally.



6. Be Interesting And Interested
Even though most of the work place communications will be about business topics, it is also important to share your personal side. Talk about your interests and your family to other co-workers and ask them about theirs. Telling a few short personal stories about your interesting experiences will make your team members feel more connected to you as a person. Read the newspaper or watch the news on television daily to know what's going on with the world and what personal concerns your members may have about them.




7. Listen
Listening attentively to what others say demonstrates respect. Listening properly is not as people's mind tend to wander to other topics. To help concentrate on your talker's words, keep a good eye contact, without staring and ask questions about the topic being discussed.


Improving communication skills is a process that increases gradually over time. However, there is a way to speed up the learning process. At the end of each day, take some time to review your communications during the day. Take note of what was effective and what wasn't. Learn from mistakes and continue to learn and also improve your communication skills.

Tan

Black Metal Culture

Black metal have become a popular trend in some country. Black metal is actually a type of music genre. It is an extreme heavy metal music that is typically abrasive and characterized by the use of fast tempos, high-pitched electric guitars often played with tremolo picking, high-pitched shrieking vocals, and unconventional song structures.

Blast beats, high shrieked vocals (as opposed to the more guttural growls of death metal) and heavily distorted walls of guitar are all common motifs, but the form has evolved since its inception. While there is much debate amongst fans about what does or does not constitute black metal, many bands have taken the sound in a more progressive direction or combined it with other elements to make strange hybrid styles.

The first bands to set the trend were mostly thrash metal bands that formed the prototype for black metal in the early 1980s. They are referred collectively as the First Wave, and consist of a few bands. Some of the bands are Venom, Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost and Bathory. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a Second Wave emerged, primarily of Norwegian bands like Burzum, Mayhem and Darkthrone. Although there is no well-defined Third Wave, modern black metal bands have incorporated new musical and lyrical trends into their music.

Black metal’s beginnings can be traced back to the early 1980s when a number of European bands, including the likes of England’s Venom, Sweden’s Bathory and Switzerland’s Hellhammer (who would later mutate into Celtic Frost) took the nascent thrash metal blueprint and twisted it into ever darker and more extreme shapes.



Although Venom’s dense, riff-driven rumble was arguably the furthest from the higher pitched tremolo picking and shrieking vocal approach that would come to define black metal through the 90s and beyond, the Geordie three-piece did bequeath the genre its name with their second album, 1982’s Black Metal.

Black metal has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly because of the misanthropic and Anti-Christian attitude of many bands. This iconoclastic ideology is typical of black metal bands. Additionally, a few black metal bands have been associated with church burnings, murder, and National Socialism(associated with Nazi). Black metal is generally seen as an underground form of music, in part because it does not appeal to mainstream tastes and because it's musicians often choose to remain obscure.

Black metal is generally opposed to Christianity. Instead, some black metal artists promote atheism, antitheism, paganism or satanism. In short, they promote religions that are related with devils or the belief that there is no God. They also support individualism, which means that they avoid society at most times. Nevertheless, there are black metals that worship ancient gods such as those in the vikings,celt or saxons. Examples of these ancient gods are Odin, Loki and Thor. They support things that have connections with war or the warrior's spirit. This explains the bullets and also war equipments like gauntlets worn by most black metal artists.




In terms of fashion, their style of clothing had it's roots in biker, rocker and leather subculture. Their apparel usually consists of leather jackets, hi-top basketball shoes, blue or black skinny fit jeans, camouflaged pants or shorts, denim jackets or kutte vests. The jackets and bottoms are adorned with badges, pins and patches. They also put images of ancient religions such as celtic cross, vikings and Greek mythical creatureson their clothing. Accesories worn include studded bracelets, nose chain ring, bullet belts, spiked gauntlets and various chains and belts criss-crossed over one another. Besides this, black metals keep their hair long and paint their faces to make it look scary.

In today's world, black metal is mostly followed in sense of fashion only. People wear leather jackets and tight pants with studded bracers and spiked shoes. The fashion of black metal followed by the community are not as extreme as the real members of black metal. Some are also taken to the music, but they are limited to listening only and do not participate in forming a band. They are not involved in activities like church burning or national socialism.



Some, especially teenagers, like to wear clothings similar to black metals artists without knowing the actual meaning or symbolic traits contained in the style of clothing. It is alright for those who do not have a religion, but very dangerous for those that have one. Most teenagers have little education regarding their religions and often adapt certain styles without knowing the wrong of it. For example, a teenagers who is Islam but have no knowledge of the religion may be attracted to wear a black metal jacket that have a celtic cross design on the back. It is not wrong to wear clothings in the style of black metal, but it is wrong to wear something that have an image of other religions for muslims.

Ashreen

Demography of primary and secondary school enrolment in Malaysia

Demography in general means the study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.




School enrolment is defined as the enrolment of the official age group for a certain level of education, expressed as the percentage of the population from the age group.



Our status of education between the year 1991 and 1997 is not well distributed.



Based on the graph, it is seen that from the year 1991 to 1992 there is an increase by 3%. In the following year from 1992 to 1994, the percentage of primary school enrolment gradually decrease by 1%. However in the year 1995, there is a sudden increase of percentage up to 4%. The graph plummeted from 99% to 90%. A year after 1996, the graph shot up 6%.

The graph of secondary school enrolment is much the same. The graph from year 1998 to 2001 is almost constant with slight increase or decrease. In the year 2002, the graph shot up by 9%, making it 72%. Later i the year 2003, there is also a slight increase from 72% to 80%. Overall, the graph increases over time due to certain factors which change throughout time.

Based on our discussion, one of the factors that effect the graph's increase is birth rate. The population of children aged 7 to 12 between the year 1991 to 1997 differ according to the economical status of parents. The second factor is death rate. Children may have died of various diseases due to weak immune system. Children may also be involved in terrible accidents like car crash.The third factor would be financial problems. Parents are too poor to afford the school fees and textbooks when their children enter secondary school.



Next is the factors for the increase in the graph. The first one is government. They are always aware of the importance of education and imposed a law that children must be sent for education at least at primary level. They also introduced the textbook loan scheme(SPBT) to help poor parents. The next factor is globalization. In the modern era, people realize that they need education because everyday life now is surrounded by technology. Requirements for jobs these days need good qualifications.



For our predictions in the future, there will be an increase in the number of students enrolled in schools because education guarantees a brighter future for them. The government will provide more support to the poor and unfortunate children to maximize the population of literate people so that they may be of use to the country.




In the early nineties, people in rural areas believed that children should be educated at home only. However, during the late nineties, the evolution of technology has caused people to realize the importance of education and prepare their children for the future. In the future, it is hoped that the graph will gradually increase over time.

Atikah

Hinamatsuri-a special day for japanese girls

Custom in our opinion is a habitual practice that is carried out through the generation. Every country has it's own unique customs. Out of all the fascinating customs, the ones from Japan has caught our interest.

If we speak about dolls, we usually think that it is a toy for children to play with. In Japan, however, they are not merely used for the entertainment of children, but also used for household shrines, formal gift-giving and especially for festival celebrations.

In Japan, they have a festival called "Hinamatsuri", which means the Doll Festival or Girl's Day. The festival is held on the 3rd of March. In this festival, ornamental dolls representing people of high status in traditional court dress of the Heian period are displayed on a platform that looks like a staircase. The dolls are arranges according to their status. The first platform holds the Imperial dolls, which are the Emperor and Empress dolls.




The second platform holds three court ladies dolls each holding an equipment for sake, a type of japanese wine while the third platform holds five male musician dolls.

The Minister or Daijin dolls are placed on the fourth platform while onn the fifth platform are arranged the three helper or Samurai dolls which serve as protectors for the Emperor and Empress. The lower platforms usually displays a variety of miniature furnitures, tools and carriages.




On Hinamatsuri, families pray for the happiness and prosperity of their girls besides to ensure that they grow up healthy and beautiful. The celebrations takes place both inside the house and also beside the seashore to ward off evil spirits from the girls. The families worked hard making the display between the middle of February to the 3rd of March. If the dolls are still displayed after the 3rd of March, it is believed that the girls will not get a good husband in the future. The Hinamatsuri dolls are all hand-made, explaining the details and beautiful compositions.



Families also serve special foods on Hinamatsuri. One of the delicacies is "Hina-Arare". Hina-Arare is a puffy snack that have a sweet taste. Each colour of the snack-puff is said to have a special or symbolic meaning. White is 'Earth', pink or red is 'Life' while green represents 'Trees'. They are believed to provide energy and also drive out misfortunes and also diseases.
These colourful snacks is placed on the dolls display and are oly eaten on Hinamatsuri.




"Hishi-Mochi" is a type of rice cake and are also placed on the dolls display.





Besides sweet things, "Hamaguri" or clams are also served on Hinamatsuri. They are cooked in a special way and are usually coloured to entertain the girls.




"Hamaguri Ushio-Jiru" is clear soup with clams floating in it. The japanese have a legend that each pair of a clam's shells is a slightly different shape than the other clams. Therefore, a single shell only fits it's original partner. If the clam have two matching shells, it means that the girl will have a good husband when she grows up.







There is also "chirashizushi" or scattered sushi. As the name implies, the contents inside the box are arranged in a random manner. They have a many ways to arrange the sushi, some of which are shown below. Prawns,fish, salmon eggs, crab meat, squid and beef are the usual ingredients used to make the sushi.





"Wagashi" is a traditional japanese cofectionary that is usually served with tea. It is mainly made using natural based ingredients such as plants and are sweet to the tongue. The japanese like to make artistic shapes such as rabbits or fruits when making wagashi. The filling inside the cake varies from red bean paste to strawberries and even ice-cream.





There are also Hinamatsuri foods that are already packed and neatly arranged inside a box that can be bought at the local store. These can be given as gifts if the family member lives far away from home. One of the examples of ready-made Hinamatsuri food is shown below.




The three balls on the stick are called "Dango". They are small, sticky balls of rice flour and are extremely sweet. The pinkish white ball at the bottom is called "Sakura-Mochi". Mochi is japanese rice cake made from glutinous rice. The four cute dolls at the upper left corner are actually rice crackers inside packets designed like dolls. These type of snacks are ideal for little girls who have a sweet tooth.

The Hinamatsuri festival is truly a special day for all girls at all ages in Japan.