Creator
One of the most dazzling sights in the Cayman Islands is the radiance of a sand yard, usually found surrounding a Caymanian Cottage and featuring white sand, neatly tamped down and sprinkled with various isolated plants, adorned with conch shells and bordered by picket fences.
Currently my home celebrates such an exquisite feature which was not easy to create.
Have you ever actual tried carrying the sand from the beach? Believe me, it is not as glamorous as the final results. But it was worth it!
The Caymanian sand yard has become one of the many symbols of the landscape and there’s an earlier tradition known by many Caymanians of “backing sand” which was done with baskets to add new white sand to brighten the existing sandy areas at Christmas time.
Some believed the sand yard idea was brought here by African slaves who would have been familiar with the practice in their homeland.
Others say it was initiated by the early British settlers since the white sand was reminiscent of the snow from their country. Very interesting concept.
However, whatever the origin, sand yards can still be seen in the Cayman Islands, including my front yard, along with the sizzling beauty of our gloriously famous 7 Mile Beach!
Nevertheless, that was then, this is now the year 2019.
Perhaps they were backing sand then, but I strongly believe we need to not only back our future as adults but we MUST back our children’s future now! Some of them may even turn out to be a neuroscientist someday!
But on a serious note, help us to be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors according to law.
https://teneishajohnsonhasadream.home.blog/2019/06/04/the-queens-birthday-in-the-cayman-islands/
William Foster is a brilliant neuroscientist who loses his wife, son and two daughters in a tragic car accident. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, William comes up with a daring and unprecedented plan to download their memories and clone their bodies. As the experiment begins to spiral out of control, Foster soon finds himself at odds with his dubious boss, a reluctant accomplice, a police task force and the physical laws of science.
Remember all the schools in the Cayman Islands are important! These are the institution where all Cayman’s children will be educated, empowered and strengthen!
I’d like to think of them as Intergenerational Equity.
See my previous article:
Intergenerational Equity: Protecting the Future of Cultural Continuity
I personally believe that and have committed my time to doing my part as a mentor for a few years now at the John Gray High School and will continue to mentor and guide as many young Caymanians as I can.
It's what any healthy, happy and strong adult should do.
And you don't have to be a parent to feel the need to care for and nurture another person's child.
Another thing I enjoy, is sharing exciting, entertaining and factual information with my readers.
Sometimes it's simply creative (like me!) and funny!
I know I enjoy reading other people’s articles too.
Introvert, Extrovert & Ambivert
You are probably familiar with the term’s “introvert ", “extrovert," or "ambivert” and you may even identify yourself as one or the other.
Sometimes people are not aware of the actual meaning of each.
According to Meyers & Briggs, the terms introversion and extroversion were originally coined by the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, to describe the way in which a person finds energy.
Introvert
The introversion-extroversion dimension is also one of the four areas identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
According to many theories of personality, everyone has some degree of both introversion and extroversion.
However, people often tend to lean one way or the other.
Introverts tend to be more quiet, reserved, and introspective.
Unlike extroverts who gain energy from social interaction, introverts have to expend energy in social situations.
After attending a party or spending time in a large group of people, introverts often feel a need to "recharge" by spending a period of time alone.
Extrovert
Extroverts tend to recharge by looking outside of themselves, with other people and external activities
Extroversion is characterized by sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and excitability.
People who are high in extroversion tend to seek out social stimulation and opportunities to engage with others.
These individuals are often described as being full of life, energy, and positivity.
In group situations, extroverts are likely to talk often and assert themselves.
People experience moments of both extroversion and introversion, but have a tendency to lean towards one or the other.
You could also be somewhere in-between, a term known as an ambivert. That's me!
Ambivert
Here are few things to know about ambiverts, which can help you to gel- well with them:
-
They will go out with you, engage in conversations with you, but then they will also view the world in a different way
-
An Ambivert will be socially active only when she or he will want to. So don’t think that you can get engage with them in conversation everytime you want. Lol! True!
-
They will allow you to open with them easily. You will find them completely engage with you from outside but there is usually a lot of things going on in their heads at the same time.
-
An Ambivert knows the art of making conversation flow easily because they know when to keep quiet and when to speak.
-
An extrovert usually can start conversations with anyone, but an ambivert will feel most comfortable meeting the inner close circle of friends.
-
Some days they will be happy and can be found roaming out and about, and sometimes they will stay in their rooms or at home reading a juicy book.
If your friend, girlfriend, boyfriend or your spouse has the above mentioned traits, then he or she is an ambivert.
So need not to worry if you encounter two different people on a similar day. Lol!
Misunderstandings
Did you know that communication between introverts and extroverts can sometimes lead to misunderstandings?
For example, introverts are commonly seen as shy simply because they are quiet.
The reality is that introverts may just be thinking to themselves and are content being quiet.
Shyness, on the other hand, is an apprehensive feeling. A shy person does not want to be quiet. Of course, a person can be both introverted and shy, but the two are not synonymous with one another.
Knowing whether you are an introvert, extrovert, or somewhere in-between can help you to understand your own reactions and others’ reactions to certain situations in life.
Accept yourself and others, and appreciate the perspectives that both introverts and extroverts bring to the table.
Human Connections
Ironically studies have shown that there are benefits to connecting. Our personal growth and evolution came about as a result of connecting with our fellow humans. I can definitely think of a few human connections that I found to be quite pleasurable. Lol! I am not a prune or puritan!
When you make new connections in the inside world- in your brain that is, this keeps you young and alert.
According to Dr. Lisa Berkman of the Harvard School of Health Sciences; she and her team carefully looked at 7,000 people aged 35 to 65, over a period of ten years.
Their study concluded that people who lack social and community ties are almost three times more likely to die of medical illness than those who have more extensive contacts.
An all this is independent of Socioeconomic status and health practices such as smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption, obesity or physical activity.
I’m sorry to rain on her parade (respectfully) but I don’t necessarily agree with that and I bind that in the name of JESUS! Sometimes God may need you to separate yourself to recuperate.
For how long? However long it takes to heal- you do that!
On a brighter and more innovative note, below is some very useful information from Harvard:
With a massive ($ 39.2 billion) endowment, unmatched library facilities, a faculty which consist off the best and brightest from universities around the world, and students who have survived a highly selective administrative process, Harvard will remain a powerhouse of intellectual life far into the future.
What is Harvard’s endowment?
Harvard’s endowment is a dedicated and permanent source of funding that maintains the teaching and research mission of the University.
Made up of more than 13,000 individual funds invested as a single entity, the endowment’s returns have enabled leading financial aid programs, groundbreaking discoveries in scientific research, and hundreds of professorships across a wide range of academic fields.
However, there is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds are available.
In reality, Harvard’s flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted.
I learnt that endowment gifts are intended by their donors to benefit both current and future generations of students and scholars. As a result, Harvard is obligated to preserve the purchasing power of these gifts by spending only a small fraction of their value each year.
Spending significantly more than that over time, for whatever reason, would privilege the present over the future in a manner inconsistent with an endowment’s fundamental purpose of maintaining inter generational equity.
Just like I was thinking in my previous article regarding schools and university institutions:
Inter generational Equity: Protecting the Future of Cultural Continuity
ACADEMIC REQUIREMENTS
The school has a 5% acceptance rate. Wow! Last year, 2,037 out of 39,506 applicants were admitted making Harvard an extremely competitive school to get into with a very low chance of acceptance – even for applicants with the highest scores and grades.
Academically, it has exceptionally high requirements for admission test scores, generally admitting students who score in the top 2 percent.
Harvard University typically accepts and attracts “A” average high school students. Of those applicants who were admitted, 83% chose to enroll.
This indicates that admission to the school is highly desirable and it may be a primary choice for many students.
For more information visit: https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/massachusetts/harvard-university/admission/
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873.
It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates.
Harvard Gazette – Official news from Harvard University covering innovation in teaching, learning, and research.
BLOCKCHAIN IN HEALTHCARE TODAY
John D. Halamka, MD- The academic portfolio’s editor-in-chief, International Healthcare Innovation Professor, Harvard Medical School
John Halamka is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a Harvard University teaching hospital, a position that he has held since 1998.
He has also held the position of CIO for Harvard Medical School from 2001 through 2012.
John D. Halamka is a medical doctor. He specializes in the adoption of electronic health records and the secure sharing of healthcare data for care coordination, population health, and quality improvement.
Mr. Halamka recently assumed responsibility as Editor-in-Chief of the new academic journal, Blockchain in Healthcare Today.
In the August 2018 issue of the Forbes Magazine, it was stated that blockchain is ideal for ensuring data integrity where control is decentralized.
Mr. Halamka also cited three prominent opportunities:
-
Medical Records. When a medical record is generated and signed, it can be written to the blockchain, which will provide absolute proof and confidence that a medical record cannot be changed. The integrity of the medical record is ensured. The same concept can be applied to clinical trials. This has impact in legal cases as well where the integrity of the medical record is pivotal.
-
Consent management. In the current healthcare environment where every state has different privacy and consent regulations, blockchain could be used to record patient consent for purposes of data sharing. Any party seeking to exchange medical data about a patient could check the blockchain for permission to do so.
-
Micropayments. The idea that patients might be incented is gaining traction. If a patient follows a care plan, keeps their appointments and stays healthy, there might be rewards offered through the blockchain. Similarly, patients might be rewarded for contributing their data to clinical trials and clinical research using the same approach.
Back to Human Connections
Now let’s get back to community connections. We know that other people can also take care of your needs and desires and I can think of many situations, but for me, ultimately Jesus Christ holds first place in my life, sorry, and then everybody else.
Including a scrumptious, delectable, great -to-feast on, hot-blooded male. Lol!
Like I said, some people can fill certain needs in your life- needs like romance, friendship, a dream job, assistance in the church, assistance in school, assistance on the job, help with family, help with the community etc.
Chances are you will need someone’s help and they might need yours to get certain needs and desires met. Therefore, I believe most of the time, connecting is good for the community. Especially if it is done in a healthy way!
After all a community is the culmination of a lot of connections, common beliefs, achievements, values, interest and geography. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were the Cayman Islands.
As I stated in my previous article:
Discover the yello or "blues" in you: Post-pregnancy (Happy Mothers Day!)
The Cayman Islands was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1503.
And since the early settlers, there have been British in the 1670’s, our dependency of Jamaica back in 1863 and many Governmental changes.
Jamaica’s Fascinating History
7th Heaven for 7 Heroes!
Every third Monday of October is National Heroes Day in Jamaica. This public holiday is dedicated to the memory of Jamaica’s seven official national heroes.
On National Heroes Day, six heroes and one heroine will still be remembered for their heroic deeds that led to greater freedom and economic growth and prosperity for their homeland.
For example, Alexander Bustmante was Jamaica’s first prime minister. Three other heroes were hanged after leading revolts against oppression and “social injustice”. And heroine “Nanny of the Maroons” led a group in resistance and raids against the British colonialists. Wow!
See the following link for more information: https://jis.gov.jm/information/heroes/
The Economy of Jamaica
The economy of Jamaica experienced a dramatic upturn in the post-World War II period.
According to the eighth census of Jamaica 1943, the modernization of the economy during this period significantly altered the stratification system of the post emancipation plantation society.
It created a modern urban sector within the traditional plantation economy and forged the growth of new social classes and a modified stratification system.
The growth of a manufacturing sector, accompanied by an expansion of the service and public sectors created the basis for a more diverse and fragmented class structure and opened up opportunities for social mobility within the urban societies.
I found out however that unfortunately the dualistic nature of this modernization meant however that the change was primarily concentrated in the urban areas and little effects were manifested in the rural areas.
During this time urban economic diversification also affected the middle class and because of the massive expansion in both the public and the private sector, increasing opportunities for white collar and professional occupational roles were created.
Based on my personal observation, there has and still remains a sharp contrast between the high prestige and high income professional class and the lower prestige and lower income class.
It has become clear to me that upward mobility between the two classes are based on a varying combination of education, influential networks of inter-personal contacts, skin color and the most under-rated but very significant role of “marriages”.
The essential distinction between these two classes is the considerable difference in levels of material affluence.
However, the status difference between the white collar and the blue collar labor classes is based both on the traditional status bias against manual occupations which we all know is not unique to any Caribbean society.
The expansion of the commercial, manufacturing and service sectors of the urban economy of Jamaica has also allowed significant participation in business by groups such as the Chinese, Syrians, Jews, Browns and a few Blacks.
It is therefore my observation that from my research and analysis that material affluence and income are the main factors of social status in contemporary Jamaica, although race, education, training and class are also key variables that will also affect the economic life chances of the individual.
The Jamaican Constitution
The Jamaica Constitution 1962 is the most fundamental legal document in the country, guaranteeing the freedom, rights and privileges of every Jamaican citizen.
The Constitution reflects the country’s independence as a nation state and, to this day, remains the cornerstone of the island’s legal systems and institutions.
The Constitution took effect on August 6,1962 when Jamaica gained political independence from Britain, after more than 300 years of British colonial rule. For more fascinating information visit the following link:
https://jis.gov.jm/media/The-Jamaican-Constitution1962-E.pdf
Emotional Energy
You have probably heard of Einstein’s famous equation E=MC2. Apparently, the most important thing to harness is emotional energy.
It powers our mental ability to do work, to create, to calculate, to tell stories, to learn, and to grow. It also powers our friendships and our very capacity to love.
Studies state that when we think of the positive emotional energy that exists in our relationships, what we’re really referring to is our self-esteem.
Every relationship “system” has a degree and quality of self-esteem to it, both contributed by individuals and as a collective whole.
There are families or even church congregation with high self-esteem and low self-esteem, corporations and universities with high self-esteem we might call it “morale” and low self-esteem, and married couples who combined have high self-esteem or low self-esteem.
These levels of self-esteem correspond to the levels of positive human emotional energy present.
In physics, there are two general kinds of energy: potential energy stored in stationary, you might even say soothing or calm form (like petroleum oil), and kinetic energy that is actively spent to do work (like gasoline).
The positive emotional energy metaphorically stored in the mammalian brain also takes two forms: nurturing (or motherly) emotional energy, which is like the oil of the mind, and action-prone (or fatherly) emotional energy, which is like the gasoline of the mind. Ultimately my self-esteem is rooted and grounded in Christ!
Through Him, I have steadily been able to garner my inner strength-leaning and depending on Him, the “only one” who clearly and consistently has the power and wants to guide humanity into heaven.
So, I guess now is the time when I ask my readers, if you died today, are you sure you would make it into heaven?What would you say if God were to ask you, “Why should I allow you into heaven?”
I know you would want to be confident that you had the right answers to those two important questions.God promises eternal life for those who accept his son. John 3:16 states,
“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life”.
So, whether we were backing sand to brighten the traditional Caymanian yards of the past or banking and investing for our future, let’s make sure to back our future and our children’s future for our place in heaven!
Banking and Investing
.jpg)
Recent changes to the Cayman Islands Proceeds of Crime Law, 2017 (POCL) has clarified that persons conducting relevant financial business, whether a non-profit or an unregulated investment fund vehicle, are now required to appoint an MLRO, and an alternate, and to have a AML/CFT compliance program in place.
The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority has already been paying keen attention to the suitability of MLROs appointed by its licensees, recommending changes where it considers there is a need.
It is anticipated that the Department for Commerce and Investments will ultimately do the same, once its enforcement powers over certain members of the Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions and Non-Profit sector, is enlisted.
Under section 136 of the POCL, a person commits an offense if he does not make the “required disclosure” to the FRA or his MLRO or deputy, of a suspicion or actual knowledge of terrorist financing or money laundering that has come to his attention in the course of doing relevant financial business.
Section 137 of the POCL, also sets out the circumstances in which an MLRO commits an offense for failures to make appropriate disclosures. At the serious end of the stick, persons (including your MLRO) could find him or herself imprisoned for five years so there are real consequences.
For more information visit: http://www.caymanfinancialreview.com/2018/04/19/not-for-love-or-money/