Life Improvement Tips For The Wise Few

Image via Wikipedia Today was the Grand Carnival Parade, it was very colorful and we even had a couple of participating Islands taking part this year. One group that always participates, the Guadeloupe straw and drum band style team, didn’t show. It could have been caused due to the fact that our Carnival schedule was changed to not have the parades passing through the streets for Ascension day.

Anyway, I have taken many pictures for the St. Maarten Carnival, this years Grand Carnival Parade had a whole load of Cruise Ships on St. Maarten, so Philipsburg was packed. Many tourists was watching the parade passing through frontstreet.

Many people from french Sint. Maarten also came over to watch the grand parade.

I have tried to organize them in groups to minimize the load time of the pictures, so here goes:

Here are our Queens:

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Antigua and Barbuda Mass Troupe (They were participating with us this year):

Also in this gallery is our old folks caravan, our famous DJ Electra, see if you can spot her and Pa Ben, I think he will be easy to find.

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Unleash The World of Serengeti by Carol Tackling:

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A little mixture, you can also see an up and coming star… ZEE, has a voice to kill, she was showing it off with the band.

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Gateway To Atlantis by Blue Point:

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Jewel Survivors… presented by GEBE

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A mixture…

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Another mixed group, I think I have mixed many of the picture from other groups together, forgive… I was under the calypso influence, not thinking clearly right now.

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Brenda Wathey presents Savage Garden:

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More Brenda…

I did have a picture of Brenda some where in the bunch, but I seem to have misplaced it. Or, maybe it’s here, she always has a costume that is very different from the pack, she should be easy to spot, I will have to go over these pictures. I do believe she was wearing a black costume, if you spot he, let me know.

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And the final set of pictures from the 2008 Grand carnival Parade of St. Maarten.

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Will redo the pictures, and give you another updated version. For now enjoy, you can still see the colorful displayed costumes and the jolly participants jamming their way through my little Island.

Oh, before I forget, my six year old daughter, Iovana, was shaking her booty this year, don’t know where she learned it, was not from her parents. She was also running into the parade and asking for picture, see if you can spot her. should be easy, look for a little cutey, with a bright smile, and no costume…

From a very young age, you have been told to go to school, get good grades, graduate with top honors and then land one of those big paying wonderful JOBS. It is all nice and dandy, and really makes a lot of sense, so tell me why so many people are unhappy where they work?

Didn’t they do the things I described above?

I am having a hard time understanding why this is happening and why this is going wrong for so many people, or better said; Let’s stop worrying about why, and start thinking about how to change this. I don’t know if there is any particular thing anyone can do to change this today, but, what you need to know is that it all starts with you.

First, let me just say that JOBS comes and goes, and so does life…

What I really mean with that sentence is that we seldom sit down and picture where our life is going, what we are really doing to change things for the better or how our health is really being affected by the adapted attitudes we have on our job, or even how to perform better under less stress. If you would spend a little more time analyzing the situation and a lot less time criticizing, you would see that your work environment and your boss would also change.

Sometimes the change needed to turn things around, starts with… you. Yes, your the cause of everything good or bad that happened in the past or is happening in your life at this present moment.

I have been a victim of this, and with victim, I do mean that I was on a mission with no end in sight. The moment I decided to stop focusing on me, to stop working so hard and to start working smarter, is when all things turned around.

Do you grasp what I am saying here?

The situation on your JOB can change, stop being a slave to your job, and coming to work with a bitter face. Let go of the trigger, and release the tension, your not at war. Stop being so swift to use your tongue and lash out at people, just listen, that is all it takes to make this happen once you understand that your not always right, and no one even cares if you are.. Before the break of dawn, you will start to see a turn around, not only on your job, but in your life as well.

How many of you can honestly say without thinking, I am working my dream JOB?

I know you paused for a brief moment there, as your mind wondered off to draw that perfect picture in your mind. Please allow yourself some extra time if you need, it’s important. I myself, can’t say that I am living the life of my dreams, because I had to go through a lot of organizational change as well as attitude changes.

Is this what I want to do for the next 20 years?

To be totally honest, if my writing was paying the bills and gave me enough to live an enjoyable life, then I would be doing this with a smile. But, it’s not, and that is why I will continue to do this part-time while I continue to put forward my best effort on the job, until that big day. It really motivates me and encourages me to press on with a big broad smile on my face when people tell me how much they enjoy reading what I write, and that I should continue to write and to never stop.

The way to go about life is to make sure you enjoy life, because life passes by with the wink of an eye, and I do hope you won’t be caught reflecting back on what you didn’t do, it will be too late. Your Job is just a meant to help you, it not an end to all means, so don’t fight about it, it’s not yours nor mines. So just enjoy your work while you still have life.

Image via WikipediaAlright, you all asked for pictures and that is what I did. I went and took pictures of the Children Parade. Please bear in mind that your personal photographer is not a genius, soon to be, but for now it will do.

I do hope you enjoy these pics, this is what we call the first draft and the pictures is not organize. i am also using a new program which I am not too familiar with, it’s “NextGen Gallery”, and you can download it an use it on your wordpress blog, if you got one. You can get the NextGen Gallery here…

The program is very simple to use, all you do is click on the thumbnail of the picture and it will open up, after that, just keep clicking next, and you will be able to see the pictures from the St. Maarten Carnival 2008 Children Parade… Enjoy, I must admit, it looks like our Carnival has improved somewhat to last year.

the Loading of all those pictures would have bogged down the system, so now with this Nextgen Gallery, you can see thumbnails, and when you click, the original pictures would load, it’s really neat.

Gallery of pictures from the St. Maarten Carnival 2008 Children Parade:

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As you can see I am no professional, the camera date is off by one year, thanks I know what your thinking…