So, I made the executive decision that in 2024, we are going to step into our productive princess era. In this video, I share tips on how I stay productive because it's just not come naturally to me since I'm a lazy girl at my core. Anyways, I hope you princesses enjoyed today's video and get some inspiration from it. Good morning, you guys. It is currently 5.55. It just turned to 5.56. I am so tired today because it is Monday morning. I just couldn't fall asleep last night because I kind of threw off my sleeping schedule on the weekend, but we got to persevere because we are a productive princess. I'm creating my own aesthetic, not Pilates princess because I don't do Pilates every day, so we're going to be productive princesses today. I'm gonna show you how you can be one too. It's not easy to be a productive princess because we're fighting against our lazy girl nature.   I can't reiterate that enough. It's really not easy for me to wake up than it is for you. It's an even playing field for almost everybody. It's hard.  It's not as easy as it sounds, but that's what's gonna set you apart from everybody else. I have this everyday affirmations book that I recently got for Christmas from Joel's parents and it's so cute. So I'm gonna start reading these affirmations every day and there's a new one for every single day, so I'm gonna read today's. Don't let perfection stop you. Perfect is the enemy of completion. It's noble to want to achieve your goals perfectly. To want to be perfectly good or perfectly capable, but it's not possible. Don't let a desire to pursue total perfection stop you from moving forward. Our imperfections are what make us human and what build bridges between us. They are useful in their own way. You cannot shed them entirely. So look for ways to embrace them as an asset. I love this so much. Oh my gosh. You can screenshot that if you want. That was so good. And it's funny because I have been saying that recently, being a perfectionist often really stops people from doing things because if it's not like 100% perfect or if they're not 100% perfect, they don't wanna do it. But like this book just said, that's what sets you apart from everybody else and makes you different builds bridges between us. So I'm gonna get up now because I'm gonna get ready for the gym. So let's get our productive princess day going and off to a good start. So one of my goals recently has been to take better care of my hair because it's been getting really long. I just feel like when your hair is long or thick, it's just a little bit harder to take care of. My hair, for some reason, I feel like it's damaged so easily. So I have been sleeping in this silk nightcap and I got it off Amazon. I actually got this tip off of a few hair girls on TikTok who show how to take care of your hair properly and so I ordered it and it's been the best thing ever because every single night I put on oil on my ends and then put this on and it contains the frizz. I noticed less hair fall out.  So separating my hair, putting it back from my face and my skincare is night and day for me because my hair is completely out of the way so it doesn't get all of the grease from my skincare because my hair was getting greasy so fast but ever since I started using this, it hasn't. So this has been like a lifesaver. Yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know because I got a couple questions about this in my last video. It's all my hair perfectly and it kind of makes me feel like a princess in it and I just feel like I'm doing the most self-care when I wear this. So anyways, let's brush our teeth. I still have my retainer in. So every morning I've gotten into the habit of taking my ritual essential for women multivitamin. Right now, ritual is having a 40% off New Year's sale. This is a crazy deal. This is the first time I've seen them have this big of a sale. Research shows that only 9% of people who make New Year's resolutions actually completes them but that's why at this time of year it's not only important to set goals for yourself and also set resolutions but it's even more important to form those into actual habits. So you can implement them and actually make them realistic for yourself and then they'll actually end up sticking in your life. So if this New Year you made the goal or you wanna start a health journey, this is the easiest and most perfect way to start. This essential for women multivitamin is clinically backed and formulated with key high quality nutrients. It's vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free. It's formulated with things like iron, omega-3, vitamin D3, magnesium, the list goes on. The thing is, is no matter how balanced of a diet you eat, you can easily be missing out on key nutrients that your body needs to actually feel good and function properly. This essential for women multivitamin is actually made to fill those common nutrient gaps in your diet. They also offer happiness guarantee and so if you get your order and you don't end up liking it, after 30 days they'll refund your money entirely without any questions asked. So yeah, get 40% off your first month with Ritual. The sale that they're having is only for a limited time so you can scan the QR code and use my code right on the screen here as well and the link will be in the description along with everything else. This is usually $33 but it's on sale for $19.80 with my code. Just a side note, the capsules are mint flavored and they smell so good. How cute is this little princess house mug? I got it as a gift and I'm obsessed. It comes in a little set. I'm just so obsessed with it and it fits the vibe for today. I'm going to start this new little journal today, Notes to Mindfulness and there's a page to do every day with prompts. It's kind of similar to the five minute journal but they just encourage you to write a little bit more. So I'm really excited to start this. One thing that I would suggest to make your routine more desirable week to week, month to month is to implement some new things in it that make you a little bit excited and I've been writing in the five minute journal for a long time now so I'm gonna switch it up for a bit and start writing in this one instead and just doing little things, switching things up in these ways really do make a big difference in the long term and they just spice things up in your routine without making too big of a difference. That's like one of the best productivity tips I have is just to really spice things up for yourself to encourage you to keep going and do more and do your best and it could be just as simple as just switching up your journal prompts. And when you look your best, you feel your best, you perform your best and so if that means putting on some gym makeup to be a productive princess, there is nothing wrong with that. I feel like when I wear a cute workout set, when I look good going to the gym, I just feel like I have the best workouts to be honest. When I go to the gym and I just like don't feel confident in the way that I look, I tend to hold back a little bit and I just always don't end up having the best workout which is okay but I'd rather put myself together a little bit before the gym and have the best workout that I can. I don't put on makeup every single time I go to the gym but I always do make sure to put myself together somewhat and make sure that I feel confident in the way that I look. So it really just depends day to day but don't hesitate to put on a full face of makeup if you even want to go to the gym because if that's gonna make you work out better and feel more confident going, then just do it. So I'm gonna do a little bit of makeup just to make myself feel a little bit more confident going to the gym today. It's gonna be very, very simple and light. I'm just gonna put some concealer on. I have a couple pimples that just appeared. I definitely don't do any makeup when I go to my needed workout classes because obviously you don't want your forts to get clogged when you're sweating but that doesn't mean you can't do it even if you still want to. So do whatever you want at the end of the day. Honestly, nothing makes a bigger difference to me than just like combing my eyebrows in place. No matter what I do, if I do makeup or if I don't do makeup, I always make sure to comb my eyebrows because I wake up sometimes and they're like sideways.  This is just the elf putty blush. I know a lot of people have troubles actually getting theirself to go to the gym and workout classes because of confidence issues. That's why I think it's just really important to do what makes you confident before you go and workout no matter what you should be doing according to society.  Like everybody is just in their own zone and if they do focus on you, then they're weird and just ignore them. Okay, I'm just gonna go in and curl my eyelashes. I think that just makes me look 10 times more awake as it is. I'm gonna do a little lip liner because I just need to have lip liner on if I put any sort of makeup on. And now we're gonna finish off the look with my summer Fridays lip balm. This stuff is so good because it's perfect to wear to the gym, running errands and honestly whenever because it's not a lip gloss. Kind of looks like a lip gloss, but it's a lip balm. So it's just like the perfect medium. That is my little gym makeup look for the day. It makes me feel more like a productive princess. Do whatever makes you feel like a princess whether that's putting on makeup, doing your hair, putting on a cute workout outfit, not putting on a cute workout outfit. Do what makes you happy regardless of what anybody else thinks in general in life. I swear to you, just putting yourself together though for me personally makes me feel a hundred times better. It makes a huge difference. So let's get our workout set on. I just picked out my workout set for the gym. I picked out these pink princess Aritzia butter leggings. Aritzia's butter line for workout clothing is the softest material ever and I will never wear any other material from them again because it's just amazing. And they're in a really cute pink color because pink is a theme for today because we're being a productive princess. And then I also picked out to go with that this Halora long sleeve top. And this material is also super, super, super soft. So I'm gonna be super comfy and I don't know, I just feel really cold today. So I want it to be in a long sleeve. I didn't really wanna wear a sports bra. So this is the vibe for today. It's my cute little set. Even though working out is pretty hard, getting in the car and actually driving there is even harder mentally because it's so easy to quit. Motivation is very, very important when it comes to productivity but determination is even more important. I don't have motivation all the time. I only have motivation like 30% of the time maybe. That's why it makes it really, really hard to actually wake up and to actually go do that workout. I talked about this more in my video that I made of how I wake up at five a.m. every day. So you can check that out. But I'm feeling good right now about the fact that I'm this close to working out and that I essentially accomplished my morning routine. So that's why I say it's really important to feel good when you go to work out and when you wake up. Treat yourself to some pajamas that you're gonna feel really cozy waking up in and cute. This goes for all areas of your life. Just romanticize everything. Maybe ask a friend to work out with you if that helps you go to the gym or go to a workout class. Romanticizing things in your life is key and there's so many different ways to do that. That's how you just make the little moments in life more pleasurable and more enjoyable because it's all about enjoying the present moment. Even though it may seem really tough mentally to get out of bed and do your morning routine. And sometimes it's important to like just go through the motions to get it done. But it's also really important to make sure that you're appreciating and integrating things that really make you happy into your morning routine and you're romanticizing it. Because essentially you don't wanna just like fast forward time until you're done your morning routine. Some days it's gonna be like that and that's okay. But for the majority of the time try to appreciate every single present moment. And I know it could be hard sometimes but that's why romanticizing your life and just things really helps. Yeah, that's also one of my New Year's resolutions for this year is just to try to be super present in my day-to-day life and make my day-to-day tasks and things just more enjoyable. That's why I'm renovating and making an office for myself because I just feel like I need a romanticized working more and having that space I feel like is really gonna help me be creative mentally and everything. So anyways little things like that really, really do help. It snowed last night, just makes me so happy even though it sucks because it's after Christmas I'm still really grateful for the snow because it's just the coziest feeling ever. But anyways, I'm gonna get going to the gym and I will see you guys when I'm there. Just finished shop at the gym and it is pouring snow. I'm gonna head to the grocery store now and I think I'm gonna make super dinner tonight to be a little bit cozy.  I need to get them done at the beginning of the day because it just makes me feel just so accomplished and I can't not do them at the beginning of the day. I just don't understand people who go to the gym in the evening and do everything in the evening. I get it if you have like a job and you need to work around those hours but for people who just leisurely make their way to the gym at five to nine p.m. I don't get that, like once it hits five, my brain shuts off and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna put on Love Island and just watch TV and make dinner and relax and unwind. So props to you if you do that but if you guys want to be productive, trust me, getting your errands done and also your biggest daunting tasks done at the beginning of the day makes it so much easier for you because then they're just out of the way and you can enjoy the rest of your day. I like to wake up and really put myself in the flow of things so I like to wake up, work out right away, you know, have a healthy breakfast. If I need a grocery shop or grocery shop, if I need to do errands, I'll do that. And it just puts me in such a good flow to start the day and then it kind of continues on and it does die out by the end of the day but starting your day off with like a good flow, I feel like it's so important and you have to find your own flow. Maybe it's not the same as my flow but for me personally, just getting everything done at the beginning of the day is immaculate and it's just such a good feeling by five p.m. I know that I got everything I needed to get done done. I don't need to go out of the house. I can stay in, put a movie on whatever it is but it's just such a good feeling and that just really does make you feel like a productive princess. So let's head to the grocery store. My camera battery's flashing. I just got to the grocery store. I'm just gonna make a quick list now so that I'm not so disoriented in there. I like having a list when I go shopping because I will forget something if I don't have a list and even when I do have a list, I still forget things. So I have this ongoing grocery list on my notes app that I like to keep and I just uncheck and check things when I need them again. So it's really easy, makes it really convenient. Yeah, before I go in, I'm just gonna check the list and then add some things for dinner that I need to pick up. Then we're gonna go inside. It is my little grocery haul. I didn't get too much but I just needed a couple things for dinner and just to restock the fridge a bit. So we love ZVAs in this house. I got two packs. These are the creamy root beers, our favorite. And then I got some turmeric tea just cause I know turmeric has so many benefits. Got some raspberries, some peppers. I really like just snacking on peppers. I was gonna buy ranch, I completely forgot cause that wasn't even on my list. But anyways, I got chicken broth for tonight's soup, kale for tonight's soup and I ended up getting this Stan Pellegrino bubbly water because I wanna start making little cute drinks at home. So I also bought this organic lemon juice and it's just 100% squeezed lemons. So I don't need to squeeze a lemon every time.  I'm gonna be doing some bubbly lemon water often. Then I just got some plain white vinegar. I got some mushrooms, some actual lemons, some avocados, coconut milk, some sausage for tonight's soup and then some yams. And then I got some nooch pop. This stuff is my favorite. It's so good. So highly recommend. But yeah, that's a little haul. I'm gonna put this all the way. Right now I wanna make a matcha but I ran out of my homemade milk so I'm gonna make some more. And I've shown this recipe in one of my videos before but I have to show it again because homemade nut milk is so underrated, so easy to make. It doesn't even take that much time. When you get milk from the stores, there's most likely additives in it, gums, probably canola oil or even worse. And it's just like three simple steps to make it at home and it's so easy and it tastes so much better than the store bought milk. I just can go on and on and on about how you should make your own nut milk at home. And it probably ends up being cheaper as well. I've never really calculated but you could do the math and see. If you can carve out 15 minutes of your week to do it, I would 100% suggest to do it because it's just so worth it and it's just so much more fulfilling making a latte with my homemade milk cause I know it's so much more healthy and it's so much more flavorful. I will never drink an almond milk or something like a glass of it from the store but I would drink a glass of my homemade milk just out on its own cause it's so good. But yeah, I'm gonna make it right now and show you guys the recipe. If you've already seen it, you could skip this part but this is for the people who haven't seen it yet because trust me, it is amazing. So these are the basic ingredients that you need. I soaked half a cup of cashews and half a cup of almonds overnight. I'm just about to strain them and rinse them. I use dates to sweeten my milk. You can also use maple syrup or honey but I'm just gonna put two dates in and that's like the perfect sweetness for me and then also just a pinch of salt as well. About a quarter teaspoon. Now I'm just adding four cups of water. This is just room temperature. Look at my milk. I just blended it until it looked blended. About maybe like two minutes, I'm not sure but just blend it until it looks good enough. I'm gonna take this milk bag. This was like $10. I bought it at the grocery store. You can order them on Amazon cheaper. I'll put one link down below but you can pretty much find these at any grocery store I think. I just called the milk bag or a nut bag. Now I'm just gonna pour the mixture in the bag and close it up and just squeeze out the milk and then what will be left in here is the pulp. So you wanna just discard or you can even make cookies out of it or something. Okay, so now we got the milk in here. It's so creamy and good and I'm just gonna transfer it over to this jar. This was an old milk jar. This is the final product. It lasts in the fridge for I would say about a week, maybe a week and a half but I ended up drinking this whole thing within the week anyway so I'm not sure but putting salt in here is a really good way to preserve it and also enhance the flavor so you can always taste this and you can even add vanilla, cinnamon, whatever you want to add to it. I just don't have vanilla right now. You can also just the salt obviously depending on your liking or even the sweetness. I've been drinking this now and making this for I wanna say about like half a year and it's a game changer.  It doesn't have any additives and you're literally just drinking almonds and cashews and that is it. You can even play around with what kind of nuts you like and it doesn't have to be my exact ratio but from experimenting this has just been my favorite way to make it so I'm gonna make a matcha now. I just put one teaspoon in, a heaping teaspoon. Now I'm gonna put maple syrup. I'm just gonna eyeball the amount but it's about two teaspoons I would say. I love using maple syrup to sweeten it because it's a lot healthier than like using real sugar and it's just more natural. It acts kind of like a syrup instead of sugar so this is my go-to for making my drinks. Usually I would put boiling water in here so that it mixes the best but I mean you don't need to put boiling water. It could just be kind of room temperature. I'm just gonna take this whisk. Now pour this little shot of the matcha and maple syrup in. That's so satisfying. And that is how I make my homemade matcha. It's so good and you can obviously adjust the sweetness to how you like it but I'm obsessed. Matcha is supposedly really good for your hormones and a lot of things. Apparently if you drink one matcha a day it's really, really good for you so I also feel good drinking this. I'm gonna be going to bed very soon but before I go to bed I have my iPad here and I'm going to download some books. Books help me stay motivated and really do help me be productive. When you surround yourself with that motivation it just really inspires you to do more things and to accomplish more. I swear when I'm reading a motivational book I am never more of a productive princess. So I'm gonna share some book recommendations with you guys for like I guess the self help genre of books or motivational books. I have actually never read these two but one of them is called The 5am Club and the second one is called Miracle Morning. Apparently those are two very short reads but they're very inspiring to help you form a really good morning routine and be productive throughout the day. So I'm actually gonna go download these right now on my iPad. Another really good recommendation is Atomic Habits. You guys have probably already heard about this book because it's gained so much popularity but it is really really really good. It's so worth the read. You don't even have to read an absurd amount of pages per day of these books. You can literally just make a goal of reading 10 pages a day and that's good enough to motivate you. They're also very very educational so it's gonna help you kind of grow your productivity mindset if that makes sense. So another book that I've read is The Settle Art of Not Giving an F and that one's really really good. I've never read this one but I have it to read. It's called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind and I've heard of another one called The Power of Now. I'm pretty sure that one's really good too. Another one called 101 Essays that will change the way you think. I have never read this one as soon as it might too read list so I'm excited to get that one started because apparently that one's really good. And then this one's more spiritual but it's called The Fundance by Deepak Chopra and I really wanna read that one too. So I have a lot of books I wanna read and I'm gonna make a goal of at least reading 15 pages a day. I think that is very attainable because I think that's probably about 20 minutes of reading maybe less I'm not sure but depends how big the pages are. But what I like doing usually is reading nonfiction in the morning so a motivational book or throughout the day and then at night if I read in bed I read a fiction book just because I feel like it's more so of a story and I really do love reading fiction as well but it just doesn't feel as right to read that as my motivation in the morning because that's not motivating but I like to have a balance between the two genres kind of a book. Yeah, that is one of my biggest productivity tips. I'm definitely gonna get in my reading era this year and my iPad is perfect to do that with because it's literally probably the size of a Kindle. If you have an iPad you can download books on the book app or you can get the Kindle subscription. This is an iPad mini so that's why it's kind of the perfect size. You can also get a Kindle or one of those Amazon books or you could just even download them on your phone or get the physical copy so there's so many ways that you can make books attainable to you. I will make sure to link all these books that I'm talking about down below so you guys can check them out. But yeah, I'm gonna go download some books and do some reading now before bed.


This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont and today we are going to be exploring the world of pets and how to adopt the pet, how to support pets and pet friendly activities and all that good stuff with the folks from the Humane Society of Chittenden County. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. And my first guest here is Aaron Alamed, the Director of Volunteer and Community Outreach for the Humane Society of Chittenden County and Diana Hill, the Director of Development of Humane Society. A wonderful organization and really something that we hope you'll learn a lot about during today's program. So tell us a little bit about yourself, each one of you, how you got involved and what you do for the Humane Society. Well, I've been with HSCC for just over a year now. I keep pinching myself. I'm very, very lucky to be able to be working for this organization and this role with Aaron. Before coming to HSCC, I worked for some other animal welfare organizations and it just really instilled that this was the work that I wanted to do. But my task at the Humane Society is fundraising. 75% of our annual revenue comes from charitable donations. So that's just support from the community. So I just work each day and I get to be involved with community supporters who help really make HSCC all that it is. Aaron's got a fun role too. Tell us about yourself. Yeah, so I actually have been with the organization for over five years. So I started as a volunteer actually and I loved the organization so much that I really wanted to work there and I got that dream come true. And so yeah, it's been a really amazing experience. So I head up the volunteer program, which is 200 strong and 200 people help us every day. We only have a staff of about 15 people. So it's a small staff so our volunteers are a crucial part of how we do our jobs every single day and take care of the amount of animals that we take in each day and care for. And then I also head up our educational programs and some other programs and services too and do a bunch of community service outreach as far as with community groups like schools, veterans groups, things like that that really want to get involved and help us whether it be donating their time or doing an event or so on. So there's a lot of different hats that all of us wear in order to get the job done. That's great. I see from your website which is a very interesting website and we published the reference that the society was founded in 1901. Tell us a little about the history and the mission as it has developed and what you do today. That's great. I know. We've been serving in Chittenden and Grand Isle County since 1901 so 118 plus years. It's pretty remarkable and our building used to be when you drive up to the Humane Society you'll see our big dog yard where we have adopters meet dogs that they could potentially be taking home and that's where the Humane Society used to be until the early 2000s when we had this big capital campaign and we put the new building. It's really beautiful in the site that it sits there now. But our mission has changed a lot. We really tried to meet the demands of our community. Now surrender prevention is one of our biggest initiatives so we work with community members to help keep their pets at home with them. We have a couple programs that really worked in this effort but one of them is our rainy day pet fund so we will work with community members if they have a pet who has an emergency that's come about and they needed a surgery. They've just torn their ACL and it's $3,000 and they can't afford that bill. Whether or not their animal came from the Humane Society they can apply through a grant for us and we will step in and try to help cover that cost. We really want to keep pets in with people that love them so surrender prevention has definitely been something that's become who we are now. It's the Humane Society in 2019, almost 2020. Just tell me so we can be clear because what do you classify as a pet? What types of animals? Because a lot of people are getting kind of exotic with things. Just give us a list of dogs, cats, whatever. Yeah, it's mainly companion animals so dogs, cats, small animals is what we like to kind of bracket the ferrets, chinchillas, bunny rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats, gerbil sponsors. So furry companion animals is really what we're directly helping and then we do have a Humane Investigator on staff that investigates those animals. Any report that comes in as well as livestock and those other animals too. So we do touch that kind of community but mainly we're dealing with the companion animals, the legal companion animals in our community. Tell us about some of the statistics about the course of the time you have been with the society or even in its history. How many people have been served? How many animals have been saved, rescued or put out for adoption? Give us some idea of that because I know particularly legislators and people involved with organizations like to see what the numbers are. The numbers are great and we're really fortunate to report that in the last decade we've re-homed over 9,000 animals. In 2018 we celebrated 974 adoptions but so far this year, the year is not even over yet, we've celebrated over 1,200 adoptions. And people are connected, we help people just as much as animals because there's always people connected to the animals that we care for. We have an emergency pet food shelf so everyday people come in and utilize that. It's free for the public to use that may need extra food to support their animals. It's hard to put a number on the amount of people we've served because an animal is usually touched by multiple humans on either side of their care. As well as animals that aren't even coming into us as well as the groups that we give tours to and help out in our community with their animals. So it's hard to put a number on that, we hope it's a grand number because I think we do help almost everybody in our community whether it be when they're following our Facebook page and seeing all the great animals go home and they're feeling good about that or giving them advice over the phone as far as having issues with, people just call us up with issues like hey my cat's peeing outside the litter box, I can't handle anymore, I think I need to relinquish my animal, they're super upset about it. We feel for them and we give them a couple tips like if you want to keep your animal maybe add an additional litter box or have you tried to go to the vet to get some blood work taken to see if there's anything wrong with the animal and they never even thought about that and then they're able to keep their animal. So we help so many different people in our community on so many different levels. That's amazing, the numbers are really fantastic, how many families and homes and individuals have been impacted by that. That's huge, the public awareness, so you see a lot of people walking around and you know their dog and there might be a service dog, there might be a dog that it's not looking too well at the moment and all of a sudden next thing you know the dog is all over the place jumping around. I guess that's part of education too. Absolutely, it is totally part of education and we have so many different programs to educate the youth in our community about animal care and about the different ways they can get involved with animals. Animals are a huge part of us and I think in Vermont and especially in New England animals are really part of the family and they really help us through hard times and so all of us that are in the building whether we work there or volunteer there just coming in we all have something in common and that is because an animal has touched our lives in some way helping us through a hard time or what have you so I think it's really impactful what we do and we are really passionate about what we do. That's great, tell us a little bit about the process from just the point that someone will probably watch this program or sees the website and how does the adoption process work? We try to keep it pretty simple. It used to be if any of you are out there who adopted from us ten years ago or even less we used to have a pretty strict adoption policy. We used to do you know background checks as far as you know calling your landlord and we did reference checks and we made it really hard to just get these animals into amazing homes. We trust the people that are coming into our building so they simply fill out an adopter profile and it's just that it's asking you about your life so it could be questions like we ask one question which is is your life like the Champlain Valley Fair like a library so that way we're matchmaking so we're all about matchmaking we want to have conversations with adopters to make sure that we're suggesting or they're interested in the right animal for them. So for example if they're interested in a cat named Callie who's super shy really kind of afraid of loud noises we have a history that she gets a little bit more nervous and say it's a family of ten people and they have constant parties and family reunions every day. We might suggest a different animal for them to make sure that it's a really good it's a good match. So we just have a conversation with people and just say this is what the history of the animal is. Are you okay with maybe this medication that they might be on or this prescription food or maybe it's just as simple as are you okay with that they might need a dental in the future. You know we give them all the history that we get from them whether it be from the finder whether it be from their previous owner and then if we feel that that is they can be an amazing owner of this animal and they're okay with what they've heard about the animal then we make the adoption appointment and send the animal home as soon as possible. And it can be same-day adoption so people may come in and they fall in love and it's a click and it works and we can go home that day. I'm trying to visualize this. Do you have the animals on display or are they on a certain area? How does that work? Do they look at the animal first and you do the profile? Does the profile come first or maybe you do a combination? Well a lot of people I will say they'll go online so we keep our website up to date.  You can go in and meet the cats. We have cat rooms where there's a couple cats that are together where you can actually go in and visit with them and we have our cat condos all of our smallies are out. We also have an area called our camp take me home where you can go see some of the dogs that are available to go home. If you're interested in meeting with them you'll talk to the counselor and then like for a dog they'll actually bring the dog out to you in the dog yard or in the classroom and you'll get to have that one-on-one time with them where they can really show who they are and maybe play some fetch and with the cats you really get the time to really just to be with them and see what are they like, what could this really work. It's really fun. A lot of parents will come in first and then bring the kids after. I think you get familiar with your scent and everything else and how the touches are and stuff like that. Because you have the image maybe of somebody going to a dog thing and the dog's there on occasion so you have a little more interactive kind of stuff. And we try to make it positive too so we really encourage people to take the dogs out for walks and really interact with the animals. And then there's some people that walk through our door and say, I want Fluffy. Nope, I just want to get counseled on Fluffy and that is it.  So it just ranges. It's different every time. Let's also explore from the other end. Again, you're familiar with all these issues that are going on right now and the whole thing nationwide. But what about people who can't deal with their pet anymore? Do you take them for adoption? How does that work? And that's really where we come. We're your local humane society. So when the community has needs and they have an animal that they love but it's just not going to work. Either it doesn't fit with their family or they're moving or they need to leave, relocation, that's where we are. And so the community does call on us and says, you know, I need to relinquish this animal to you. And we welcome that animal and we work with the animal and we place it for adoption and looks for another home that would be a better fit. But that's a big part of what we do as the local community humane society is we do take in animals that just, it doesn't work. It's not a perfect match. And even with our adoptions, as much as we want every adoption to be great and for the animal to stay with the person. If it doesn't work, that's okay. That's why we're here, too. So you can bring them back. We want to have a great relationship with adopters or people who may need to relinquish so that they know that we're always there, whether they're adopting or asking us to take in that animal. It's really a judgment-free zone and that's what we just try to be there for community support. We take in animals by appointment only for the most part. So that way we don't over-crowder our shelter and overwhelm our staff and that way we have enough resources for all the animals in our building. Now that's not to say there's not emergencies that come through our doors that we definitely try to make work and take those animals in. But if anybody is out there needing to re-home their animal or just has questions, it's a conversation we have with people first when they need to relinquish their animal. We ask why and what the issues are. And if it's some issue that we believe our Surrender Prevention Program can help, we try to suggest those. And if it's something they really just don't want to deal with and that is okay, we'll go ahead and make the appointment. But we really try to have conversations with our community and to be a resource, like Diana said. That's great. Tell us a little bit about some events you have coming up in the next month or so, even beyond. We have awesome events. And I'll let Erin take the wheel on this one, but I will say it's our first event of the new year. It's one of our biggest annual events. And it's called Purses for Pause. So this will be at six year. So it's on February 6th, 2020. And it's a live and silent auction of new and like new purses that have been donated from members from our community. Whether it be, you know, your aunt Sue at home who has a million purses who gets rid of half of her collection. Or, you know, Red House, which is a local purse maker who donates, you know, brand new purses, beautiful bags. Or some people from our community that go to, you know, purse outlets in New York City and purchases like a new Kate Spade for our live auction. So all of these, this event benefits the Humane Society directly. We have a goal of $60,000 to raise. Last year we raised $54,000. So it's a huge help to basically raise the money that we need to care for the animals that we do every year. But it's a really fun event and tickets are now on sale and it's on our Facebook page. We have an event page for it and on our website. So it's just a really fun event. We have three major events every year. One to raise the money, but also more importantly to get the word out about what we do and really engage people that may not normally be involved in our organization otherwise. So that way they can have a fun experience while also benefiting what we do. But again, purses for pauses are really amazing event and I can talk about the next event, which is huge. And I will say for purses, it's not just purses. So if you're interested in coming, we have some interesting tropical vacations and a local jeweler donates a ring each and every year. After midnight jeweler. After midnight jeweler. So it's just move locations and it's a dog friendly venue. But it's beautiful. But following purses for pauses is our Walk for the Animals and 5K doggie fund run. This year will be our 26th annual walk in 5K and we're going to have a new location this year at the waterfront. So it's really fun. It's Vermont's largest dog friendly event and it's just a great way to kind of get out there, get exercise with your dog and support the humane society. Can't ask for more. What about on your website? Do you have any gear that people can get or any of that kind of stuff that's associated? People might want to get it for Christmas or? Well, holiday gear is better. I wish we had hats and vests. We don't necessarily have those but we do have opportunities for people to make gifts to humane society as a gift for a loved one or a friend. We have a couple of naming opportunities. We have these little tags that we put on our dog yard but they're called memory fence tags. And they can be made in memory or honor of a beloved pet or a friend, relative. And we'll put those up and they stay on our fence forever. And so you and your family can see them. You could put a little note in a stocking or something fun saying, look what I got you for the humane society. 100% of the proceeds go to us thanks to pet food warehouse who engraves them for free. We also have guardian angel tiles. It's another great opportunity to like leave your mark at the humane society. And kind of a message and it stays up in our lobby. So you get to come right in and see, look at this gift I made and it goes to support the humane society. You can also sponsor an animal in our care. So we like to say for those who have room in their heart, if not their home, you can symbolically sponsor an animal for just $30 a month. And you can do it for one month to a year. And if that animal gets adopted, which we hope the sponsorship will just move to support another animal. That's very clever. And then we also have a retail too. We have a retail, yes. We have a little store so items that are donated that maybe we don't have the room for or really can't use that are brand new we actually sell in our retail store. So we have an overabundance of really amazing items for pets at home.  That's where I do all my shopping. That's really good. That's really fantastic. There's a lot of attention now I've heard in the media recently about, you know, pets are just not gifts. And people are doing this thing or getting pets or maybe getting pets and it's not working out and the pets are being heard in addition to the people. Can you talk a little bit about that? You know, the idea of it's sort of self education and what to do in that situation. Yeah, it's hard. A lot of people want to get a pet for their loved one on a holiday for Christmas, which I totally understand that sounds, you know, you see all those ads with the puppy jumping out of the box under the tree. So I totally get it. But really, as I said before, we're matchmakers here. So we really want to talk directly to those people that are going to own the pets and live with the pet day in and day out to really make that connection because as much as maybe your daughter really connected with that cat or dog, you know, the parents could actually have a different way, you know, a different direction and like a different kind of animal. So we really, if they want to do that, maybe come in with them and say I'm going to cover the adoption fee for you. So just, you know, go in and visit the Humane Society and chat with the counselors there. So we really want to make sure that one, the person knows what they're getting into adopting that animal, if they do have special needs and two, that they know the amount of care in general it takes and if they're ready, you know, maybe they're not ready during the holidays. Holidays are a really busy season for a lot of people, a lot of family get-togethers and also, you know, sometimes a new animal that's coming into a home with a large party isn't the greatest idea either. So not to say the adoption isn't great to do right now, but we really try to make sure that those adopters are seeing our face and they know that we're a resource for them too. That's great. I mean, it's really amazing in the education part, the donation part. It really sounds like a wonderful thing for everybody concerned, including the pets. But I just like, I've had with me on Positively Vermont today, Erin Alamed and Diana Hill from the Humane Society of Chittenden County. I just like to close with giving you the opportunity to say something to my viewers. Oh, closing remarks. Well, I would just say, if you have adopted from us before, thank you. If you've supported us, thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you. And if you haven't yet, it's a great time to get involved. We're here, we're open and we're, since 1901, and we hope to be here long, well into the future. That's just with your support. Yeah, it's just a really great place to volunteer and to support and to adopt from, but also just to get involved and come visit and come meet some of the animals that you help support, especially during the holiday season before the new year. Perfect time. You want to say something? Not really. I mean, we love what we do, and if anybody does have questions or just wants to chat about their animals, give us a call. Check out our website, and we're always listening to our community. So, developing new programs and services to help everybody in Chittenden and Grand Isle County. So, we're listening if you guys want to talk. That's great. And tell us your location, because I think that's important to emphasize. 142 Kindness Court in South Burlington, right off Queen City Park Road. So, right behind kind of the old post and where Kmart used to be. So, come on down and visit or give us a call. Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Erin and Diana. This is Dennis McMahon, and thank you for watching Positively Vermont.


I am Dr. Hemant Kalyan. It is quite possible that any one of us or our family members or neighbors can test positive. At the moment, there is a rapidly changing situation in Bangalore. We had 1235 cases today and we are climbing. As a result of this, there is a growing pressure on hospital beds and ambulances. And logically and rightly so, the government is moved towards home quarantine policy for mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. This is necessary because so far the beds have been allotted to all COVID positive cases. But now we need to rationalize it and let the people who need them the most be allotted the hospital beds and do supervised home quarantine treatment for the mildly symptomatic and the asymptomatic cases. So let us say that you are one of those or I am one of those who receives a result saying COVID positive. The first thing and most important thing to do in this situation is to stay calm and be positive. The chances are that you will recover from this and it is proven that panic actually worsens your parameters. Panic will increase your heart rate. It will increase your respiration rate. It will decrease your oxygen saturation. You may feel confused. You may feel body ache and that panic is likely to transmit to your family members and your neighbors in the community. As a community, remember that we are all here to stand by you. The problem is not the COVID positive patient. The problem is the virus. The virus is the enemy and it's a common enemy. At this stage, I have every confidence that windmills being a mature community with people with broad minds and educated minds. We would support you rather than stigmatize you and hold your hands not literally but virtually every step of the way. The first thing that will happen after the test comes positive is a triage by the healthcare worker. The healthcare worker either from the private setup or from the government setup would come for a physical inspection of the premises and I'm sure that all our homes in windmills whether apartment or villa would qualify for having enough physical space for home isolation. The next thing they would do is to test the eligibility of the COVID positive person and the primary caregiver for home quarantine. So the most important criteria are age below the age of 60 and generally healthy before they were afflicted by COVID. If you are diagnosed as COVID positive, it is even more important that we follow the SMS rule, the social distancing, the mask wearing and the sanitization. This is to protect your primary caregiver at home and the other members of the family from getting the virus and testing positive. For this, I would suggest the preparation should begin now. At this stage we should give a thought to designating a room in the house as a potential isolation room should be test positive. We should designate a caregiver. We should make a list of things to procure which is important when on home quarantine. It's important to monitor certain key parameters to detect early red flags of deterioration. And it has been shown in the world experience that people who recognize the red flags early would not land up into serious complications of COVID. Besides the temperature which you're going to monitor by using a digital thermometer which I must say should be for your exclusive use, the other important thing to monitor is the pulse oximeter readings every four hours. If your pulse oximeter reading goes below 94% that's the time that you need to alert your monitoring doctor. You would be under telemonitoring with your treating hospital and this is the importance of having a fever clinic assessment before you have the COVID test. Chances are that anyone of us who becomes COVID positive would recover uneventfully. The association, the residents, your neighbors are all here to support you with the process. They are working on detailed information, SOPs and various types of information which will help you which will be circulated to you in due course. I would finally like to thank the COVID advisory board for giving me the opportunity. I would also like to thank my dear wife Biraj because she has been my great support has helped me crystallize. Thank you very much. Take care and stay safe. All of us will come out of this together.


My friends have been telling me I look like a sheep wearing this jacket, but it is super comfortable It's for minimal like I mentioned in one of my previous videos But today we're talking about last-minute college tips I know that deadlines are coming up my little brother is applying right now So last time I was just helping him and I realized like oh crap There's a lot of things that still can be done to you know best prepare yourself to you know kill that application And just kind of put yourself in the best position now before this video begins I do want to say that there is a sale on my ebook crash course college coaching If you've been watching the channel for a while now You know that over the summer I took several months to write up an entire ebook about everything about the college applications all the way from Starting of getting letters recommendations to picking out your classes to you know writing the essays and what to do while you're waiting But I will have a link in the description down below But it is on sale for 40% off right now. It is a huge saving. So if you haven't picked up a copy I highly recommend it especially in this last month as you guys are getting into that final stretch I guarantee and promise that everything in that book is so beneficial and will be so worth it Because there's also a section on the college part itself all the way up until freshman year of like getting acclimated Picking out your courses adjusting to the college life like all the experiences that I've had over the past few years I wanted to share with you guys and just put it in an easy to read format. It's designed very well I promise that it's gonna be so beneficial for you Even if you guys aren't applying for colleges right now and this is the perfect time to pick it up So it will be on sale down below You know, thank you guys so much for the support if you've already bought it I know I've getting tons of comments saying everyone has loved the book And it's just so nice seeing that the work that I put into it has finally paid off But if you haven't already definitely go check it out You can also download a free sample just to see what it's gonna be like within 10 pages So definitely check that out and on to the video now before you hit submit on any type of application Please please please make sure you double-check everything This is a critical very important tip because that could literally be the difference of you getting into school versus not getting Into school like because if you copy and paste one of your short answers saying Oh, I would love to study in the beautiful city of Boston at Harvard for your printer application That's immediately going in the trash like there's no doubt about it If you mess that up because you copied and pasted and forgot to change with your school names Like so save yourself a lot of trouble in time I recommend printing out all your copies go through with a highlighter rent pet and just mark everything up You know, whether it's typos or grammatical mistakes or you know The indenting is wrong with how it looks on the application like printing out the whole common application We'll just give you an easier way to see everything that's laid out for number two is confirm your teacher recommendations Make sure you've reached out to the teachers well beforehand The deadline is due and go in a few days before and be like hey Have you submitted the letter of recommendation chances are if they're on top of everything then they will have already submitted it for you And you can see it in the common application website, but the more likely chance is that teachers are busy, too They have their own schedule so it needs to be your priority to make sure you go in and talk to them and say Hey, it's really due in a few days. Can you please submit it and they'll be happy to do it? They probably haven't already written they just have forgotten to upload it So make sure you go in and ask about that number three is ask your friends and your peers to look at over I think a huge beneficial thing for me when I was applying was just ask my friends Hey, do you mind just reading over the short answer or this essay and having someone else give you critiques and feedbacks of oh Hey, the sense doesn't flow really well Why are you using this word choice instead of something else or the content isn't right for this specific application having someone else Who hasn't been behind the computer writing that application for hours and hours and having a fresh set of eyes We'll just give you a new perspective and kind of give you a new idea of what it's gonna work And what isn't and at the end of the day like it's still your essay It's still your own application So I don't recommend you know changing everything because they told you to do so but really like take it to heart and ask yourself Okay, is that the right change that needs to be made or is this something that's a personal, you know Grammatical effect or style effect or whatever that I want to keep in for this certain reason Number four is submit portfolios resumes any type of cool shit that you've done I know that a lot of the schools they'll have a separate part of the application where you can actually upload a portfolio So for what I did I actually did multiple I think I did a music and an art portfolio So I went to my high school auditorium You know set up a camera recorded a concerto and a few atudes for my music portfolio and then for my art portfolio I had a compilation of images over the past few years that I've taken that She kind of really exemplified the best of my best work And I think that that was a huge thing that kind of like Helped me stick out from any other applicant was that I was you know talented not only music but also art but also had the academics To back everything up So if you have some kind of talent whether it's graphic design or a website illustration or whatever the case may be for you Definitely check out the school you're applying to has some sort of space for you know additional information or portfolio Or even if you want to upload your resume like that wouldn't be detrimental to your application either number five This is a big thing like figure out your financial aid ahead of time Don't wait until the last minute to get your fast fulfilled out have your parents Taxes you know filed and everything because the more you wait on that the less money you're going to be getting And especially if you need a lot of financial aid to attend whatever school it is the earlier you do it The better because that school is just going to have more money that they can be able to give to you Luckily for me my mom was able to focus on that side of it and she handled everything about financial aid While I was able to spend all my time focusing on the actual applications and just splitting that that task up and dividing it And conquering was super beneficial and I highly recommend it for you guys as well Number six, please please please do not wait until the last minute to submit everything You do not want to be in the case where it is 11 58 You're literally typing your last few words hitting submit and realizing oh crap My internet failed or oh crap the teacher recommendation wasn't submitted Like there are literally dozens of variables that could go into some kind of mishap happening up on your application To your dream school and waiting until the last minute when it can't be fixed and the school's not going to say Sorry, your wife. I went out. We can still accept your application Like that's a you problem and not a them problem. So make sure you submit it You know, hopefully like even a day ahead or a few hours ahead of that deadline I promise you like I'm speaking from experience because I literally submitted my Harvard application Like five minutes before the deadline and that is stress that you don't need or don't want to be in your life Now number seven, this isn't the most important part of your application But it is a pretty beneficial aspect if you do it well, and that's your interview So if a school reaches out and offers you an interview with someone in your area, then I highly recommend you take that up I've actually made a video on how to do a college interview and everything you need for that So check it out if you haven't already, but make sure you you know Just talk calmly have a nice conversation with them Make sure they'll be able to write a strong recommendation on your behalf for that university and say oh I had a great conversation with Nicholas. He'd be a great candidate for your school number eight If you have the opportunity like I've always mentioned is I really recommend visiting the campus before you actually submit your application Or get accepted or accept your offer because seeing a school in person Is going to be 100 times better than seeing any type of youtube videos or campus tours online Like being on that campus and asking yourself am I going to be able to be a student here? Am I going to be able to grow intellectually and morally as a person? Like that's something that you can't be doing anywhere else except on the actual campus So if it's close by a road trip is highly recommended, especially over winter break You know plane tickets during the off season when it's not peak time, you know during a few school days It's not that expensive and I'm pretty sure most schools will allow two or three days for you to visit colleges So definitely take that up and you'll just be able to get a much better perspective of whether or not That school is going to be the right fit for you if you actually go and visit. Okay. That was a quick run through of some last-minute college tips I know that a lot of you guys can be stressing right about now Especially with only a month left and then you're just home free You know, my brother is not having his best time right now, but he's getting through it as well So I understand because I'm helping him out with that But I hope these tips were helpful for you guys and that you guys were able to take something away from me If you guys enjoyed this video, please leave a comment down below I do appreciate all the support like for more videos and I will see you guys next time


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards. We're doing the random for the Mike Schmidt Dynasty autograph patch card black parallel. This is a random to all I did find out from Forest Lane and Matt all like triple Told me what to do. So again, we're gonna random to everybody who is in the break Let's roll the dice gonna go eight times. These are the eight or the ten participants in that break This is again from number eight the last left side serial dynasty one Two three four five six seven eight going to David K David K picking up the Mike Schmidt so congrats again David appreciate it man Appreciate it everybody. Thanks for your patience. I'm gonna get this uploaded right now


Hello, in this lecture we will define Federal Insurance Contribution Act FICA. According to Fundamental Accounting Principles, Wild 22nd Edition, the definition of Federal Insurance Contribution Act FICA is, taxes assessed on both employers and employees, social security and Medicare programs. When we're talking about FICA, we're not talking about just the social security, we're talking about both social security and Medicare. These are generally thought of as payroll taxes, taxes that are going to be withheld from the employee pay, at least half of them, and the other half of them will be paid by the employer based on the employee's wages. So we're going to have half of the social security and Medicare that the employer is going to have to take out of the actual paycheck, out of the net pay with holding that money and then paying it to the government. Then they're also going to have to basically match that and put in the other half of it from the actual employer that's not coming out of the employee wages. The rate for these taxes are generally going to be more of a flat tax rate. So we're not talking about a progressive tax rate, it's going to be more of a flat tax rate. If we're looking at the W2, then we see that we're going to have the social security and Medicare as items that have been pulled out of net pay and have been reported on the W2 here. These are not withholdings that have to do with the federal income tax that is going to be the bottom line of the 1040, the payments on the 1040. These are added tax that are pulled out of the employee wages, only the employee portion of the social security and Medicare that have been pulled out of the net check reported in this way. If we look at the corporation's reporting forms, they have to report quarterly a form 941. This is 2016 941. We've got the information statement up top. We've got which quarter we are talking about. Then we're going to basically have the total wages for all employees that we're going to report here. And that will be similar to all the wages reported on all the W2s or the W3 if we were to add up all the wages. But it's going to be a bit different when we get down to the social security and Medicare because there's some bit differences. There could be a cap in terms of social security. So we'll have a little bit different in terms of total wages for that reason. But once we have that number, we're going to have more of a flat tax rate. So we're going to take that number multiple times a flat tax rate to give us the social security taxes, the Medicare taxes. And then we're also going to have to add up all the withholdings we made for federal income tax, not the federal income tax for the company made on the company's net income, but the federal income taxes that the company had to withhold on the employees wages. So we're going to report that as well. And then basically add all that up. And then the bottom of the form 941, we're going to compare that to what actually has been paid. And this is going to be similar reporting to like a 1040 where we already made all the payments and we're just reporting the liability at that point in time and comparing it to the payments that we have made, we've taken that out of our paycheck. And usually we get a refund in terms of the 1040. In terms of the 941, it's a similar process and that we've already made the payments, hopefully, we're supposed to have already made the payments. And now we're just comparing that to the actual liability. But the difference is that because it's a flat tax, we should be pretty much exactly right on. So if we did things correctly, we have the ability to be exactly right on the ability that we don't have with the progressive tax system for the 1040. So hopefully, this is just a reporting document saying, Hey, this is the liability. This is what we have then paid. And we don't owe anything more at this point in time.


Welcome to the ITU Studio GSR23, the Global Symposium for Regulators being held in Shamash Sheikh in Egypt. We've got the great pleasure of being joined in the studio now by Emilia Nikim Bua, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Communications Regulatory Authority in Namibia. Mr. Nikim Bua, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much for having me. Now I just wanted to ask you really about, let's start off by talking about GSR23, about your presence here, why you think it's an important event and what you hope might come from it. So we came obviously as the Regulatory Authority of Namibia to participate. We find that GSR is a valuable initiative in that it sort of sets the tone for us regulators in terms of the guidelines that we must follow, the best approaches, but also because it creates a platform where we can share experiences with other regulators, share opportunities, share knowledge. So it's really a learning experience for us as regulators and it gives us a great platform to be able to just reinvent ourselves and ensure that we are focusing on the right stuff. So in addition to that, we will also be participating in the discussion on affordability of devices, which is very close to the work that we are doing because we believe that universal connectivity is not meaningful if consumers are not able to afford the devices to enjoy the transformation that comes with ICTs. Exactly. And what are the major challenges at the moment and opportunities as well in Namibia regards to telecommunications? So with Namibia, we currently enjoy 89% 4G coverage, which is great. But what we have realized is that out of the 2.2 million active subscribers that we have, only about 27% actually utilize data. And this is because there is a limitation, both in terms of the price of data, but also the affordability of devices. So we are really exploring that as a challenge to see how we can bring both costs down if digital transformation is to become meaningful for our citizens. So many people have got devices that are very limited in terms of their data. Is that right? Yes. That's particularly because of the cost of the devices. It's not affordable for many of our households. And this is why we've started working with our minister to see how we can bring down the cost of not only the data, but also the devices to ensure that our citizens are able to be part of digital transformation. Absolutely. And what about youth and gender? So there's a little bit about what the situation is with regards to young people and access to computers and to, obviously, to smartphones, et cetera. And also about the balance, you know, is there a gender imbalance in terms of connectivity there as well? Not so much. I think the imbalance comes in when you speak about the utilization of the technology and this is why we currently started an initiative on digital literacy so that we can focus particularly on young people to educate them not only how to utilize the devices, but also on the opportunities that exist within the ICT ecosystem for them. Our countries face a lot of unemployment challenges and we just believe that some of these can be resolved if the focus is really on digital literacy and highlighting the opportunities that come with the ICT ecosystem. What about access to government services? Are they mainly online or they still require a physical presence? Some of them are online, like we recently just launched with our Ministry of Home Affairs where the passports and the IDs can be applied to and the visas. You can do those applications online. The government also has a big drive on e-government services collaborating also with the public sector and the private sector to ensure that they really understand the benefits of digital transformation and that we complement that drive by our government to ensure that we have as many services online as possible. And investment in infrastructure, how is that going with regards to particularly rural communities that obviously tend to be the ones that are the hardest to reach? Over the past two years we have seen a huge decline in the investment into infrastructure but what we have done from the beginning of this year is we have started to release spectrum to the operators but we are imposing conditions with that spectrum for them to take services to their rural communities and we hope that that initiative will actually take off quite well so that we can see more and more of our remote areas becoming connected, especially because Namibia is a very vast country but we are also densely populated so it's a huge challenge to ensure connectivity. We've also started looking at utilizing satellite to bridge some of the gaps especially for those areas that are very remote and we are very excited because we have entered into some agreements with satellite operators where it's the same device but it hands over from terrestrial to satellite and we hope that that will really assist us to bridge the gap. Looking at the future in terms of the landscape, what do you think that will look like in Namibia let's say in ten years now or what would you hope it will look like? We are actually very excited about the future because we believe that if we are able to implement a lot of the initiatives that we are working on right now we would see Namibia becoming a real digitized society in terms of having the right skills but also in creating the content and the services that are required in order for Namibians to enjoy a full online experience so we are very very positive about the future and we believe that if you visit us in ten years you'll be very amazed at the opportunities that we'll have on the ground. Well we hope to visit you well before that but certainly absolutely we wish you all the very best for the future. Meenilik Abur, thank you very much for joining us in the studio today and hopefully we'll catch up with you very soon indeed. You're very welcome, thank you so much for having us. Thank you. And don't forget we've got plenty more interviews on the ITU YouTube channel as well as our podcast channels and for further information go to www.itu.int. Thank you very much.


So remember that Fermat noted that if n is prime, a solution to a to the power x congruent to 1 mod n is a divisor of n minus 1. But what if n isn't prime? To answer this, we introduce what's known as the Euler-Phe function. This was introduced by the mathematician Leonard Euler in 1763, and works as follows, let n be any whole number. Phi of n is the number of numbers less than n that are relatively prime to n. For example, let's find phi of n. We want to find the number of numbers less than 9 that are relatively prime to 9. In other words, these are numbers that have no common factors with 9. And so the numbers less than 9 are... So of these, 3 and 6 have a common divisor with 9. So we'll get rid of them. The remaining numbers, however, are relatively prime. They have no factors in common with 9, and so we find that phi of 9 is equal to 6. Similarly, we can find phi of 15, the number of numbers less than 15 that share no common factors with 15. The numbers less than 15 that share no common factors with 15 are... There's 8 of them, so phi of 15 is equal to 8. Now it's tedious to list all the numbers less than n, especially if n gets large, say, phi of 23. So we want to be able to compute it, and in fact we can compute phi of n if we have the prime factorization of n. And there's two important results to begin with.  So let's find phi of 9, and we'll use the fact that 9 is 3 squared. Now since 3 is prime, then we can use our theorem. Phi of 3 squared is 3 to the power 2 minus 1 times 3 minus 1. And we compute, and we find that phi of 9 is equal to 6, which is what we found before. And a useful thing to keep in mind, anytime you have a new method, make sure it gives the same answer, in a case where you already know the answer. So we've already calculated phi of 9, we want to make sure that our formula gives us the same result. Now we know how to find phi of a prime number and phi of a power of a prime number, but what if n is not a power of a prime? And this leads to an important result. Suppose m and n are relatively prime, then phi of their product, mn, is phi of the individual values, phi of m times phi of n. So if I want to find phi of 15, we note that 15 is 3 times 5, and 3 and 5 are relatively prime. There's no number except 1 that divides them both. And so our theorem says that phi of 15 will be phi of 3 times phi of 5. But wait, there's more. 3 and 5 are actually both prime, and we know phi of a prime number is one less. And so we can compute phi of 15. And again, this is the same result we determined earlier, which is a good check on this result. So let's try it in a case where we don't already know the answer. How about phi of 20? So we begin by finding the prime factorization of 20, which will be since primes are automatically relatively prime to each other, we can write phi of 20 as phi of 2 squared times 5, and then split the prime factors, phi of 2 squared times phi of 5. We know what to do with the power of a prime, so phi of 2 squared, that's 2 to the 2 minus 1 times 2 minus 1. And since 5 is prime, we also know how to find phi of a prime number, it's one less. And so that gives us, and let's check this out one last time. So the numbers less than 20 that are relatively prime to 20 are, and we see that phi of 20 is actually 8 as computed. The importance of the Euler-Phi function is that Euler extended Fermat's result to the following, suppose a is relatively prime to n, then the least power x that solves a to power x congruent to 1 mod n is a divisor of phi of n. So for example, suppose we want to solve 18 to power x congruent to 1 mod 1,081, and we'll take a hint here that 1,081 is 23 times 47. So the least solution will be a divisor of phi of 1,081. So we find phi of 1,081, using the hint that 1,081 equals 23 times 47, we find. Now 23 and 47 are both prime, so we can find these values. And since we want to find the divisors of this number, it's convenient to leave it in prime factored form. So 22 is 2 times 11, and 46 is 2 times 23. And so by taking some or all of these numbers and multiplying them together, we can find our divisors. So if we take a single number, our divisors are 2, 11, 23. If we take two numbers at a time, we get the factor 4, 22, 46, and 253. If we take three numbers at a time, we get 44, 92, and 506. And if we take all four numbers at once, we get 1,012. And the important thing here is that the least solution has to be one of these numbers. And so we try them out, 18 to the second, fourth, eleventh, and so on. And we find 253 is our least solution. And let's see why this is important. When we solve this congruence, we use the hint that 1,081 was 23 times 47, and this allowed us to solve by trying out a few possibilities. Without the hint, we'd have to try out every possibility. We'd have to find 18 to the second, 18 to the third, 18 to the fourth, 18 to the fifth, 18 to the sixth, 18 to the seventh, and so on, and eventually we'd get to our solution 18 to the 253rd. And it's worth comparing these. Instead of testing nine numbers, which is what we did when we had the hint, we need to test 252. And the value of that is that solving 18 to the power x congruent to 1 mod 1,081 is a hard problem that's easy if you have a hint. And what's important is that these are exactly the types of problems we use when we create a cryptographic system. Hard problems that are easy with one additional piece of information.


Microalgae and high-rate algal ponds, HRAP, can convert nutrients from wastewater into biomass and bioproducts, with temperature and photoperiod significantly affecting biomass productivity and water treatment efficiency. This article was authored by Liliana Delgadilla-Mercas, Felipe Lopez, Behnam Tidy and others.