Some 46 verse 10 says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Verse 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Be still and know that I am God. So this being still is seizing from all action or all activity and knowing is experiencing the truth that he is God. Be still and know that I am God. So it means to comprehend. It is to know certainly and more importantly experience. It's not just knowledge, but it's experience. Experience the truth that I am God. So that's what the Lord says, be still and know that I am God. And if you read the verses before that, verse 8, verse 9 says, come behold the works of the Lord. He has made desolations on the earth. He talks about what God can do. And therefore it seems to be like an exhortation for someone who is worrying, for someone who is agitated, for someone who is constantly fretting and being anxious and thinking, okay, what shall I do? What shall I do now? Just in worry and anxiety. Say that be still, calm down, be still, don't be agitated and don't be in a flurry of activity. Be still and experience the truth that I am God. So that's the instruction and exhortation. So whenever we calm down, whenever we seize from anxiety and worry and activities related to that and activities as an outcome of that, many times the source of our activity is not really a good source. It's because of fear, it's because of anxiety and we are doing certain things or we are stirred up to do certain things. So when we seize from that and come to a place of being still, acknowledging who God is and the Lord says that and experience the truth, which means experience, meaning maybe the love, the joy, the peace, the power and His voice which calms everything, calms the storm. Be still and know that I am God. So let's pray. Father, we just want to thank you Lord for this day. We thank you for the exhortation from your word in Psalm 4610 to be still and know that Lord that you are God. Yes, Master, we just quieten ourselves today. Lord, we bring all the frantic activity, your frantic thoughts, everything that we might be not meditating on in the wrong way God, we bring that to a close, we bring that to an end. Yes Lord, so that we might know that you are God, that you might experience that you are God in all these circumstances that are causing us to react in certain ways in all these circumstances that are causing us to, drawing us Lord to behave in certain ways to respond in certain ways, to react in things God, whether in thought, word or action, God we pray maybe experience the truth of who you are in all these circumstances even as we Lord continue to be still and continue to know that you are God. We thank you. We give you all praise and glory in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Okay, so, oh, okay, I just thought we'll have a quick quiz. Okay, not on the subject, but just a general quiz. Okay, so I think most of you know, so if you can just, you can type in the answer in the chat. Okay, so this is who said to whom? Okay, ready? Who said these words? So, I'm just asking you to type in, okay. The first answer which I get will be, so prophetically you can even type in the answer even before I pose the question. Okay, so here's the question. Who said to whom? Okay, who said this and to whom? You can put it in the chat. Who said this and to whom? Okay, the quick thing is when? Okay, no answers yet. Okay, king to Daniel. Okay, which king? David, okay, the king to Daniel. Yes, so John Paul is the first response, so that's good. So just, you know what I'm saying, Nebuchadnezzar, no, sorry, it's not Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, it's actually King Darius, the mead, and he tells Daniel, okay. So the question is, who said to whom?  So King Darius tells Daniel, and just before they seal Daniel in the tent with the lions. Okay, one more. Okay, ready? This is an easy one. Okay, so who said to whom? Indeed, now I know, it's a testimony. No, there is no, sorry, I think there's no God. One second, just correct that. No, there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Wow, Naaman to Elisha. Divya, fantastic. Okay, so Naaman, commander of the king's army. So King of Syria, so he says, please take a gift from your servant after he's healed of leprosy, right? Okay, that's in 2 Kings 5. Okay, here's, this also should be fairly easy. Last one, okay, ready? Okay, there we go. Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. But some time ago Theodos rose up claiming to be somebody, et cetera, et cetera. So, Gamaliel to the council, yeah, excellent. So that's Gamaliel the Pharisee was part of the council, so this is regarding Peter and John, right? So they are in the temple. Like they've been imprisoned, now they've come out, the angel has set them free, they have come out. So, yeah, Divya is actually very fast typing. Good, good. Okay, I think that those are the only three questions I have. So maybe next class I can have some more. Yeah, that's very interesting. I just thought you guys are now in the third hour. So, I don't know, instead of diving right in, let's have some quiz. Okay, so last class we were looking at the conquest of the mine. And finally, we were looking at how our perspective is very important. We were looking at developing a positive mindset despite challenges, despite trials, despite problems, which will always be there. So to develop a positive mindset despite all that, to look at problems as opportunities. So, like a classic example is that of the 12 spies and they saw the same thing. They saw the same giants. They saw that they were, it's not like any different. They saw, you know, how powerful they were and how big and tall and strong they were. They saw the same thing. But with regard to Caleb and Joshua, the only thing that was different was that the word of God, the promise of God, that was fresh in their minds. So that seemed to have painted a bigger picture. That seemed to have a bearing on what reality was for them. So they were not moved by or intimidated by the situation, by the circumstance. Rather, they saw the same things, but their mindset was actually framed or formed by the word of God, the promise of God, which far overshadowed the reality of the circumstance, like what was actually happening. For them, it was like, you know, the others were saying, we are like grasshoppers.  Now we consume them. So that's it. So we saw that last class. That's what we ended with. Okay, so today, let's look at, let's just continue to look at, that is, I mean, the eighth topic in the same subject about conquest of the mind. Let me just share the screen. Okay, so that's about crucifying the flesh. Okay, crucifying the flesh in the sense that we know as new creations, we have been crucified with Christ. Okay, so that is what we see, that as part of our identity, as new creations, this is also part of our identity. Okay, so woman six verse three, do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Okay, we look at verse six, Roman six verse six, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Okay, so this is what had happened. Then he goes on to say in verse 11, of course, you can read through the entire chapter verse 11, likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. But alive to God in Christ Jesus. And it goes on to say, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, right, for sin shall not happen. So the truth is that this is what happened to us that our body of sin, figuratively called as the old man, right, the old Adam or the old, you know, whoever you are, your name, you know, just saying. The old man was crucified. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, you know, that's the identification that happened, right, the substitute as part of the substitution in our place he died, but the identification is that our old man was crucified with him. Okay, so when we say crucifying the flesh, we're talking about the evil desires or the inappropriate desires of the body, and also the unrenewed part of our mind, right. So this is which is referred to as a flesh over and over again in the New Testament. So we see that that flesh which is already crucified on the cross. Now, it needs to be a continuous thing. Okay, it needs to be, we need to reckon ourselves dead to sin. We need to reckon ourselves, which means come to that conclusion. And that needs to be fresh in our mind. Because, you know, in James, we saw that we were drawn away by our desires. And these desires are desires of the flesh, which are unchecked, right, which are not kept or which are not put to death. We think about them, we give life to them by meditating on them, and they take over. So James was very clear that we are drawn away by our sinful desires, these desires of the flesh. So what is the answer in order to walk in wholesomeness, in to walk in healing and health for our emotions? We need to reckon these desires to be dead. Okay, we need to come to that conclusion. So, you know, this is what we see in 1 Peter 2 and verse 11 says, Bethlehem says that, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts. Abstain, stay away from fleshly lusts. Or in other words, don't give in to the draw of a fleshly lusts. Okay, don't give in. Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. Okay, there's a battle and it's a war and it's a tick on your soul. So it's good to look at it that way. This fleshly lust, which seems very fascinating. Okay, if our mind is not renewed, that's how it's going to be. Because otherwise for a renewed mind, it will seem, you know, it will seem unactive because you don't want to displease God, right? But for a renewed mind, it's seem active. And so, consider that this drawing of the flesh, this fleshly lust is actually an attack. It's an internal attack. It's an attack on our mind. So whatever, you know, faculties that you have in our as part of our soul, where it could be thinking, it could be analysis, it could be reasoning, it could be creativity, imagination and all those things, it's an attack on that. So we need to understand that. It's an attack. Where without our knowing, this fleshly lust, when we give into, it attacks and it destroys. And there is definitely, since it's a war, there is definitely some kind of casualty in all those areas. It attacks our soul. So when our attack, when the attack is on our soul and when our soul is damaged, right? When our actions are also damaged, right? Because actions follow through, our actions are also damaged, which means that, you know, our response to people, even our work, our relationships, our relationship with God, relationships with people, relationships with people, relationships with God, everything, you know, gets tainted because of this attack, because of the damage of this attack. So fleshly lust war against the soul. So it enabled us to, you know, have a very different perspective of everything that seems to be drawing us, right? So it's an attack. Then, so giving in to these desires, damages, harms, our mind, our emotions, everything. Galatians talks, gives a list, you know, Galatians 5 all gives a list of the works of the flesh, or the fruit or the end result of the work of the flesh, right? Now this is what it is. Now the works or acts or deeds of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, sexual impurity or sex before the covenant of marriage, uncleanness, lewdness, you know, you see the list and this is the works or this is the end result or a maturity of the works of the flesh, right? Idolatry, because it's about the self. Idolatry could be in different forms. Sorcery, because there is the drawing to the dark side. You know, there is a spiritual hunger, but it's giving vent to different avenues, like sorcery, witchcraft, magic, hatred and, you know, contentions. So it's not something that's holy and pure, hatred, contingent, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, right? Verse 21 talks about envy and murders and drunkenness, revelries and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice these things or such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he talks about the fruit of the spirit. Okay, so this is the manifestation of the flesh, a result of the work of the flesh. And then he talks about the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is just totally contradictory to what we see there. You know, this is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And against such, there is no law. Okay, so this fruit and fruit of the spirit, those fruits of the flesh, it's an outcome of something that's happening within. And that is what the next topic is about. It's an outcome of seeds. It's an outcome of where our roots are. And as a result of the seed and the root, it forms the fruit. It's an outcome of giving in to the desires of the flesh. And like we said earlier, these damage us personally, and that damage just continues to erode on everything that we might have built up. We train the spirit, we edify ourselves, we read the Word of God, and renew our mind to the Word of God. And so many good things happen to the believer as a result of engaging, encountering with God, engaging with the Holy Spirit and with the Word. So many good things happen. So many things are built up that we don't even realize it. And we realize it only when these things are eroding, or when these things have been taken away by damage. So the thing is that there is a damage that happens when we give in to the loss of the flesh. So the importance of these we reckon, we need to reckon ourselves dead to these things. So the minute we face some kind of a suggestion or there is some kind of an invitation where we sense that there is a drawing to this thing. I know that it's not of God. I know that it's a thing of flesh. We need to be alert and say, okay, this is damaging to me now. This is unhealthy, this is damaging. This is going to, for my mental health, it's not going to help. It's not going to help in any way. So that's why when we see addictions, people who are in various forms of addictions and hardcore addictions, what is the thing that is messed up? Of course, their body. Of course, the body is messed up because as a result of abuse of whatever, chemical or whatever, the body is messed up. But you will also see that the mind is really messed up. The mind is damaged, not able to think clearly and not able to say a definite no because the will is broken. No to things that are, that you know for very sure are damaging to yourself. The mind gets so damaged to that extent where it's just like clay, just in the hands of the enemy. We say whatever the enemy wants to. So it's, you know, that's the end result of it. So we know that, you know, giving into the flesh damages, it destroys. So we need to understand, okay, am I sowing seeds? Am I sowing seeds which actually result, will result in these kinds of fruit? By my actions, by my, whatever, my attitude, my motives, am I sowing these kinds of seeds? Okay, if you look at the list again, right, Galatians 5, what kind of seeds am I sowing which might lead to this fruit? It's a good thing to reflect and see.  It's not a pretty list, right? And when we look at these things, we are like, oh wow, I'll never do that. No, I'm not doing it. I'll never end up in those kind of things. But to the best of us, you know, even for the best of us, even though we might have the best of intentions, right? If you're not actually careful what kinds of seeds that we are sowing, right? What kinds of desires are we entertaining? Then, you know, it is, it is possible that these kinds of fruits are what we actually bear, right? So we need to, we need to ask ourselves, am I sowing to the spirit or am I sowing to the flesh? Because if I sow to the spirit, I will reap life. But if I sow to the flesh, then I will reap death. I will reap death. I will reap the consequence of it and that's the, it's a matter of time, right? If I'm continuing to sow to the things of the flesh, then it's just a matter of time before things get out of hand.  They didn't think that, that they will end up like this. They didn't, they definitely didn't want life like that. But the fact is that they continue to harbour these kinds of seeds. They continue to harbour these kinds of seeds and in a split moment, they made that decision because, you know, it was the seeds that born fruit and things went out of hand. So, yeah, so we see that the seeds, the roots result in fruit. Okay. So, what, okay. So this refers to whatever things that are there in the present. So we can be, we can be alert to those things and we can actually alert to those sowing of those kinds of seeds. So what we mean is, like, those kind of desires, those kind of thoughts, those kind of temptations that we don't entertain that, knowing fully well that if I'm going to, you know, give in to the act or given in to the deed but I'm somewhere in the corner I'm still entertaining that thought. You know, entertaining that suggestion. Then we need to be aware that that is going to lead, you know, to some action. So don't entertain that. You know, don't actually nurture that seed. So that is fine. Okay. In the present, we're alert. We do that. Okay. And also, you know, Matthew chapter 7, the Lord Jesus talking about identifying false prophets and about their about their life, right? Saying, a good tree bears the fruit, but a bad tree bears that fruit. So it depends on what kinds of seed is sown. It kind of depends on what kind, where the roots are, right? So, so that's, that's a thing. By their fruits, you will know them. So that we can do in the present, but what about some seeds that were already sown in the past? Like, in a sense, these were some things that even before you, you know, came to Christ, these were some things that were already there in your life. Okay.  It was part of your lifestyle. It was part of your life. That also, you know, we need to be aware of saying, this is what I used to do. And I know that it's, if I leave that unchecked, it could lead to what we see in Galatians 5, 19, 20, 21. So, even though, you know, I was not a believer. I wasn't aware of this truth. It happened in the past. So I need to be, you know, equally or doubly careful about these things, right? Okay. Okay. Hebrews 12 talks about a root. Okay. Hebrews 12, 14 and 14 to 17. Yeah, let's read through. First you peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause, trouble and by this many become defiled. So, and of course, I'll talk about other things, but it's talking about the root or something that is causing a fruit. We looked at the seeds and we looked at, you know, the seed causing the fruit to happen. But we see a root here. Okay. So he's saying ensure that no root of bitterness goes up cause, trouble and affect others. Okay. So the root is something that we need to be aware of as well. You know, what is it? So the root talks about where is it that we draw our nutrition from? Where is it? You know, when you look at the root system of a plant, that's what it is. It's drawing its strength, drawing its nutrition through the root system. And also, the root system stabilizes the plant. It just establishes the plant. It makes firm. So, some of these roots are very, very strong. Did this go deep into the ground? So, it's almost impossible to pull it up to pull up or uproot the plant because the roots are so, so strong. So, in Matthew 3, when John the Baptist was talking or introducing the Lord Jesus, he talks about this is what he would do. Okay. He says, I indeed baptize you with Oh, sorry, before that. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I therefore baptize you with water which is what he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I'm not worried to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And also, verse 12, he's knowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather what weeds into the barn.  Referring to the refining, work of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Whom the Lord Jesus is ushering in, he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. So, the axe is need to be laid to the root. Okay. Because the more we are rooted in the wrong things and if we just leave it unchecked, it is causing problems in the emotional brain which is leading up to wrong behavior and wrong thought patterns and wrong thought patterns first and then wrong behavior which is leading to wrong action. Okay. So, the root needs to be cut so that it does not affect. So, figuratively when we're saying, you know, root so this is what it is, you know, where are we drawing our strength from? Where are we drawing our strength from? You know, whatever is keeping us going and what are we established in? Right. Just, we need to maybe think about it. What am I established in? Am I established in certain ideas, certain philosophies? Am I basing my life on certain things which are not the word of God but the truth of the word of God? Am I, is my life rooted in the culture of the day? Right. The values of the day, the superstitions of the day is my, am I rooted in that? Or do I, do my roots go there? So, it's, and when the Holy Spirit enlightens us, when he actually, you know, when we when he exposes these things, it can be a surprise to us. You know, why am I rooted in these things? Oh yes, the problem with my behavior or the problem with some of my thought patterns is because I'm rooted in this. My roots are going there and in other words these are some lies that I'm believing. These are some lies that I'm holding on to. So, when the Holy Spirit exposes and God, the Holy Spirit exposes us, exposes these lies, which are part of our lives, where we are rooted in then these need to be cut. You know, these need to be removed. So, figuratively we are saying cut, but what we're saying is that these need to end these things need to end. We need to bring these two things when these things should not be part of our life and they should not be our support system. They cannot be where we are drawing life from. So, some of these outcomes are about our self, where our life just involves around our self, about our needs and so on. Then also jealousy and pride and lust. So, laying back to the root, I think all of us have gone through that in the initial period, but it's going and looking at it again, playing the ax to the root of self, to the root of jealousy, to the root of pride and lust. I can download this book. So, even as we think about these things, the crucifying the flesh, bringing an end to the invitation, the drawing, the things of the flesh, knowing fully well that these are damaging to our soul, our thoughts, our emotions, everything to do with our mind. These actually damage us. We think of maybe some traumatic events. We think of maybe some upheavals which cause damage to our souls and we forget that the lust of the flesh actually war and create damage to our soul as well. So, we need to be mindful of that. Then we look at the seeds. What are the seeds which were sown earlier? What are the seeds that we are sowing intentionally in our lives? So, the seeds cause fruits to happen. They bear fruits and Galatians 519 talks about certain fruits of the outcome of the flesh or the work of the flesh. Whereas, we need to be bearing the fruit of the spirit to be rooted in the things of the spirit. So, the third thing we looked at was the root. What are we rooted in? What are we established in? What are we basing our life upon? So, those things. The thing is that we need to move forward. We need to walk in the spirit, live in the spirit. And again, Galatians 5, the entire chapter talks about how we can walk in the spirit. And that word walk simply means to order our lives, to conduct our lives, to walk in like almost like a soldier and it's a military term, like a soldier would walk in formation, would march in formation without breaking the row or rank or file or rank. Right? So, to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, to order our lives with the Holy Spirit. So, that's the picture. So, for our minds, you know, for us to walk in we walk in the spirit or live in the spirit. So, as prompted by, as guided by the Holy Spirit as invited by, guided to all these films that we use to the Holy Spirit. So, we are called to that kind of a life.  Sometimes we think, oh, am I really designed for that? Am I designed to live that way? The thing is that as human beings we were born and sinned.  Life as in the way God kind of life. And then we came to Christ. We came to Christ, we were born again. And for the first time, we could actually pray and be heard and hear the voice of God, hear or be sensitive to what God is doing in our lives. And we come to a position of being sheep who can hear the voice of the shepherd. Right? So, we are exposed to the life of God. Right? We are so used to living in the flesh. We are so used to living as dictated by the flesh or only, you know, with our reason, our mind and so on. That for us to live or walk in the Spirit, that is something that we need to learn again. But if you look at how we are designed for the Spirit of God to dwell in us and for the Spirit to be drawing on the wisdom the life of the life of Jesus, so that is what we are designed to be. Right? So, this walking in the Spirit is what we, as children of God, this is what we are designed to be. This is something that should be natural for us. Okay? So, even as we learn to walk in the Spirit and there could be some thoughts, you know, is this even natural? You know, is this even something that we should be thinking of? Is it making me weird? Right? I'm not like anyone else or like the majority. Like, is it it's even, it's weird. Right? Is it weird? But the fact is that this is what we are designed to walk as. Right? As new creation to leave us. So, we must walk in the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Okay? So, the walk is not just one step. It's a series of steps. It's not just a one step and pause, but a series of continuous steps. Right? So, it's not I, you know, it's not something that we do as an event and then stop, but it's something that we do in union with Christ and it's a journey. So, Galatians 5 16, very important as we walk in this way, as you live in this way, as you walk those series of steps in this way, the assurance is that you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Okay? Again, why are we studying all this? Why are we looking into this the conquest of the mind so that we can stay in that place of wholeness? We can stay in that place of emotional health and wholeness. Right? So that it can be part of us. It doesn't have to be something that comes and goes and we constantly fight for. It can be part of us. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. I just want to add that these lusts of the flesh would damage things of the soul. So, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You will not fulfill your soul if you walk in the Spirit. But the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish to do. Because the flesh is contrary to the Spirit and even though you might have desires, okay, I want to do this but then the flesh is unwilling there's not less, let us. So, when we walk in the Spirit the fruits are in the Spirit. When we sow to the Holy Spirit we will reap. Our walk will be back as ordained as designed by the Spirit of God. Okay. Right. So, when we walk in the Spirit so it just goes on to make some of these things visible when we walk in the Spirit we can expect to see the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace long-suffering kindness, goodness, faithfulness relations 5, 22, 23 gentleness, self-control so we can expect to see the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit of God is against or is contrary to the things of the flesh. So, we can expect to see the fruit of the Spirit 24 and 25 since those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires so if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit. Okay. So, we produce this kind of fruit. Romans 8 also talks about the same thing. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God but you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ look at verse 10. If Christ in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit gives life to our mortal bodies. That is what we see in verse 11 and if you live according to the flesh verse 13, you will die but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live relations Romans 5, 13. If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you bring to an end these desires of the flesh which means that there is a will involved, there is a decision involved, there is our choice involved. So, if by the Spirit which means by the leading, empowering warning of the Holy Spirit you bring to an end you put to death the deeds of the body you will live and that is nothing but walking in the Spirit So, walking in the Spirit as exciting as that is is also putting to death things of the flesh and then this is life this is life even as we even as the Spirit of God leads us. So Colossians 2 verses 6 and 7 talks about something that we consciously need to do. We talked about the root, we talked about where we are established where we are drawing our strength from drawing our identity from and all that Colossians 2, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him rooted and built up in him established in the faith as you have been taught a bounding in it with Thanksgiving. Okay. Rooted and built up in him the Amplified Bible says have the roots of your being firmly and deeply planted have the roots of your being firmly and deeply planted in him fixed and founded in him. So again when we say rooted it's again a figure of speech but you know it's referring to something our lives becoming stable. Okay. Being rooted in him brings stability to our lives being established in him brings stability to our emotions. So our roots need to go deep in the person of Jesus. So what do we mean by that? You know it's nice to say I'm rooted in him. So what do we mean by that? Practically. How do I apply that? Which means that my strength the source of my strength, the source of my identity, the source of my life should be Christ. Our life should be Christ. Right. So we there's no plan B there's no you know a different agenda if we want to experience this to be rooted and built up in him. Just read that verse again. Rooted and built up in him established in the faith abounding in it with Thanksgiving. So this is an exhortation for all of us as believers. Let's just look at the verses prior to that. Okay. So Colossians 2 and so if you look at verse you know verse 6 is saying okay therefore having received Christ walk in him. Look at verse 8 is talking about being swayed by empty deceit or philosophy according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. Okay. So this being rooted in him, being firmly established in him is very important because then we will not be swayed right. One thing is walking in him, walking in Christ is going to definitely put an end to the things of the flesh right. We will not fulfill or we will not give in to that invitation. Okay. But also we will not be swayed by empty deceit okay. Or philosophy of man according to the traditions of men, according to the principles of the world. Now these are equally you know equally important or we need to be discerning about because these also sway us. These also take our life in a different direction. Okay. Slowly and steadily. And so Paul is reminding you know in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead body. So there is no you know there is no question of nurturing another Aedal and a philosophy can be an Aedal you know tradition can be an Aedal which is contrary to the word of course right. So he is saying you are complete in him with the head of all principality and power. So he is saying you know you don't have to doubt dacing your life on Christ because everything flows out of him you don't have to doubt whether it will be beneficial for us. It will be a blessing for us or not. Will that result in me somehow not experiencing life in its fullness? No. Because you are complete in him. Who is the head of all principality and power? In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead body. Okay so we don't lose out we don't. We are not short changed if we base our life on Christ who is the fullness of the Godhead body. So let our roots be deep established in Christ. So we see that these things don't happen automatically. These things don't happen automatically. Okay I mean it can. It can it just depends but these things definitely don't happen automatically. There is our intention involved and there is our it's not the one time thing there is there some of us are like okay just once we just grab on to it hold on to the truth and our mind could be like and that's it. But some of us we need that reminder we need that reminder we need that read and it's fine like how Peter writes and he says by way of reminder I'm just writing this to you that you already know this that you're already walking in the truth but I want to tell you this right. So that is also fine as believers if we are reminded over again we need to be reminded that's fine but the fact is this that we know that this being established, being rooted, being walking in the spirit is something that we need to pursue intentionally and this is something that we need to walk in daily and it needs to become a part of us. So yeah we'll stop here and then we'll talk about as we are talking about rooted in Christ also severing something you know uprooting certain things. Let's we look at that in the next class. Okay so yeah thank you have a great weekend God bless. Bye bye.


I'm often asked in lectures if microwaves are safe, to which I respond, not if you drop them on your foot. But otherwise, it matters what you're putting in them, sweet potatoes and broccoli, or hot pockets and pop tarts. Similarly, when I was exploring the safety of hot sauces, giving their potential for lead contamination, I had the same reaction. It matters what you're putting it on. When I think toxic pollutants, the first thing I think of is the aquatic food chain. We know, for example, that giving people even just a 7-ounce portion of a high-mercury fish, like tuna or swordfish, once a week, that's about a can and a half of tuna's worth a week, can quadruple mercury levels in the blood within a few months. What about lead? A dietary intervention with not one but five portions a week significantly increased blood concentrations of toxic metals, including lead. Even though the background intake of lead was found to be disturbingly high, the seafood intake increased it by about a quarter. But from a public health perspective, it's important to recognize that the amount of seafood that they use in that study far exceeds the intake of most populations. Lead can also biocumulate in other animals, but half of our dietary exposure to lead probably comes from plant foods. Animals shot with lead ammunition, though, may present a special case. We know lead is toxic and banned for most household items in developed countries, except for lead ammunition, now likely the greatest, largely unregulated source of lead that is knowingly discharged into the environment in America, but not just discharged into the environment, but into the meat itself. People generally reject the idea of injecting toxic substances into food, except what involves hunting wild game, 80% of ground venison was found to contain lead. No surprise, given the hundreds of metal fragments end up in deer carxes after being shot with standard lead-based rifle bullets. An impossible number of fragments to pick out by hand, especially because some of these fragments are microscopic. Using x-rays, researchers have shown that during penetration, expanding lead core bullets typically release hundreds or thousands of fragments or even millions, tens of millions of microscopic lead particles per gram. So, one servant could have a billion particles, though they were nanoparticles, extremely tiny about the size of viruses. The only good lead, though, is no lead. Even very low levels of lead exposure can result in brain and nerve damage. Most hunters may not be aware about the health risks related to consuming meat from animals killed with lead ammunition. Children may be at risk for losing IQ points, which could reduce their future prospects. A common response from hunters, though, when confronted with the risks of lead exposure, may be, oh, look, I've been hunting for years, and I'm fine. To which this physician responds, ah, but just imagine how smart you could have been.


Good afternoon, you need to be clean. What was happening was I would have lots of people like hanging out on the couches talking and We'd be doing science and I only had like like like this much space to write and draw and doodle and it became a nightmare So it was time. It was time to clean house. I have designated a spot on the chalkboard that is only for doodles Today is a perfectly average day. I am working on a paper I went to a really awesome talk by a former undergrad here He gave a really awesome talk about our galaxy and how the chemical abundances of stars are different and how we might track the evolution of our galaxy and how it was formed By looking at the different chemical signatures in each and every single star really really cool We thought of some cool ideas. I think there might be a cool collaboration there tonight I've been invited to come speak at the astronomy on tap Event Brett Morris asked me to come talk about Gaia, which if you've watched this channel, you know I have no shortage of cool things to say about Gaia, so No problem. So right now I'm working on slides for my talk, which will be a highlight reel of how Gaia does its thing and the awesome stuff That it's found It should be about 20 minute talk should be kind of fun. Let's see another news The design of my office space is finally coming together I finally moved all my stuff out of my other office at Western and other than a hard drive and a couple odds and ends I am basically fully moved in here I find that my productivity is really tied to The environment that I'm in I need times when things are quiet so I have good headphones that can block out the noise And then I need times when I can talk to people and I can sketch ideas on the board and we can dream and think and And write and that's what this whole space behind me is all about so right now We have a couch we had like the love seat and the chair and the little coffee table but this whole space is meant to just be a place for me and other people to talk and Be productive and come up with ideas I'm really excited about this coffee table as well I get lots of stickers at conferences I mentioned this at double s that I love to collect stickers at conferences But I don't like putting them everywhere I like things sort of tidy and sleek and so I gave myself a restrained piece of real estate to just go nuts with stickers It's mostly astronomy, but there's also like a few coffee shops. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's kind of cool I'm excited about it it also actually is a stool and so you can sit on it and It means you have an extra chair Worrying about space worrying about areas to collaborate is all part of my mission here at UW I have funding to be here for about the next four or four and a half years right now Which is great Which is a level of stability and sort of a runway to get things going but at the same time It's only three or it's only four and a half not infinite amount of time to do things So I got to think a lot about what I want to actually be working on and what I want to be doing in five years So I'm at sort of an interesting transition moment in my career where As part of that I'm thinking a lot about What am I good at? What am I what do I enjoy doing? What are the things in my job that bring me meaning and that I actually want to be working on? And a big part of that for me a huge priority for me is mentorship. It's working with people. It's collaborating It's empowering people to do science and to do projects and to better themselves in their careers So I've been trying to like set myself up To be a mentor to be a collaborator So I've been having coffee with people as many like the graduate students and people around here as I can to get to know them To hear what's working. What's not working to see if there's things that we can work on together Or if there's ways that I can make their work better I'm also thinking about organizing meetings and maybe a recurring group meeting that I lead That talks about various astronomy topics that I'm interested in but also like puts an emphasis on productivity and collaboration and grant writing and writing papers Talking about sort of the discipline of doing astronomy the practice of astronomy as a discipline and not just the actual science itself But talking about the writing talking about the productivity talking about the career trajectories and decisions that we have to make I have a lot more to say about this, but it boils down to a human-centered project and Mentorship design. Hopefully I'll be able to explore this a little bit more in these videos All right, I gotta finish making this talk The addition of astronomy on tap. I am talking at about a Half hour. It's time to get a quick drink relax talk some people and then talk about science All right, it's filling up. Let's say it's gonna be a full event tonight exciting Number 39 We've had a lot of astronomy on tabs. Yeah, that's a lot of success. It's a full house I'm pretty pleased you can never quite tell based on Facebook RSVPs But it it looks good this week and it turned out Do you get nervous? I don't get nervous speaking. I do get nervous that people won't show up. Yeah, that hasn't happened yet So I think I should learn by now. It's been three years. We're doing okay Proud of you man. You ready for your talk? I'm ready. You're going on in 15 minutes. 15. I go on now Welcome everyone to astronomy on tap. Welcome back


Looks like I'm going to have to actually fly out to Vegas to deal with this problem and I am not looking forward to it whatsoever. In this video, I'm going to tell you guys how I lost over $1,600 selling Bruno Mars tickets all because I made one simple mistake. Stay tuned, find out what it was and how you can make sure you don't do it too. Let's get started. What's up guys, welcome back. My name is Shrazz. Here on Thumbs Up Run where we talk about buying tickets, selling tickets to make sure that you have all the fun with your tickets. Today's story though is unfortunately not that fun, but to tell it properly, we're going to start all the way back at the beginning of October 21st, 2021. This was the day Bruno Mars was going to have a presale for a bunch of his December shows and I decided, hey, I'm going to go and try and buy some of these tickets so I can make a little bit of money, have a great time. I took this information that I had, I found the presale code, I posted it in my ticket discord group. Details down below if you guys are so interested and that's kind of where it all began. I bought some tickets. I actually bought over $2,600 worth of tickets. I spent a total of $2,963.65 for Bruno Mars. Nothing too exciting here. Tickets said they're going to be shipped via hard stock. So I said, okay, fine, I'll get them probably about two weeks before the event takes place, ship them out when they're sold. It all seemed very standard. So I went ahead, listed the tickets, sold a bunch of them in the next coming weeks and then it was just a matter of waiting for them to come in to fulfill those sales. At this point, we're at the end of November. We had sold all of our tickets for a total after fees of $3,736.33, bringing us to a grand total of just over $777 of profit. You know, I thought that was pretty much the right way to do things. Didn't even think about it until we got close to December. So as we got to December 1st, waiting in the mail, checking the email box, didn't see anything there. I said, oh, you know, that's fine. Maybe it'll be there tomorrow. December 2nd rolls around. Check the mail box, nothing. I figure maybe on the Monday it'll show up. So I checked the mail on Monday, December 6th, nada, nothing. Started to get a little bit worried, but again, you know, these things, they can take some time to get shipped, especially coming from the US. Things aren't always super fast.  Nothing, nothing wrong with that. And so I waited a bit more, waited a bit more. We get to Friday now, December 10th. Tickets, nowhere to be found. And now things are getting a little dicey now. We're getting a little bit nervous. There's no tickets yet. We've got a week before the event takes place, December 17th. And if I can't deliver these tickets, I'm going to be out a lot of dollars. So what did I do? I reached out to a few other brokers that I know who had also bought tickets for this event. Just ask them, you know, did you get your tickets yet? As we got to the end of the week, December 10th, a bunch of people were saying, yes, I was receiving tickets. I did get them in the mail. And I'm thinking to myself, well, if they got them, maybe I'll get them on the Monday. You know, I'm in Canada, events all the way in Vegas. It takes a while for tickets to travel that far. Maybe they'll show up on Monday. So Monday rolls around December 13th. Nothing. Still nothing. Everybody else I've talked to, they already have their tickets at this point and I'm getting nervous. I only got a day left. Make sure these tickets actually get out in time or else they're not going to make it to the buyer. And I'm going to be out a lot of money. Now, I give myself one more day, December 14th. If I can get my tickets by December 14th, then there's nothing to worry about. I'll give myself one more day, 24 hours for those tickets to show up before we go into panic mode. Ask my family to go check the mailbox. Nothing. Nothing's in the mailbox. There's nothing there. And now we're almost really screwed at this point. So, okay, let's troubleshoot you. Today, we are not having a lot of fun because we have some problems. Problem we ran into is that I bought some tickets for Bruno Mars. I sold some tickets for Bruno Mars and then the tickets never showed up for Bruno Mars. As you may or may not know already, if you sell some tickets and you cannot deliver, generally there is a 100% to 200% penalty, potentially even higher, if tickets cannot be fulfilled in the sections that you sold those seats for. So, it can be pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Be expensive if you cannot fulfill those seats. And we got to figure out how to get those 11 seats from the box office to the buyers. Therefore, we're going to be doing something called special delivery. Special delivery is basically an option that a seller has when they're listing their tickets. If they're unsure of what delivery method they're going to have to be able to get those tickets to the buyer. Sometimes, tickets may come as hard stock. Other times, it can come as mobile delivery. Other times, they might have to be picked up at will call. There's a whole bunch of different options that are available for sellers when they are listing tickets. And so, special delivery kind of covers all of them, just in case tickets aren't going to show up until the last possible second. And a lot of different ticket exchanges, they offer this because they know there are sellers who sometimes are buying tickets from all sorts of different places and they just don't know when they're going to get enhanced. So they got to give themselves an option just in case it takes, you know, a hand-delivered ticket to make sure they get to the buyer in time. But it's up to the seller to make sure that they cover all those expenses at the end to get those tickets to the buyer. So if you have to fly all the way out to Vegas to deliver those tickets in person, you got to do it. What are you doing? I am trying to solve this Bruno Mars problem. And then I contacted Ticketmaster and Ticketmaster was like, hey, we can change the wheel call for you. And then I'm like, no, you have an option to change the mobile tickets. They're like, no, we're not going to do that for you. We're going to be difficult. Looks like I'm going to have to actually fly out to Vegas to deal with this problem. And I am not looking forward to it whatsoever. Oh dear. Oh dear is right. Looking through my sales, though, I realized I only had one order that was through StubHub. The others were all through other exchanges that did offer special delivery. And so I contacted all the other exchanges say I'll hand deliver them in person in Vegas. And they all said, yeah, sure, no problem. Not a worry at all. That's 100% fine. Go ahead, set up your orders that way. Here's all the information, contact everybody, arrange to meet up close to the venue and everyone will be happy. So we averted the major crisis, but we still had one more exchange to deal with and that was StubHub. StubHub is very, very particular, I would say, with ensuring that they maintain their standard delivery options. UPS delivery, mobile transfer, mobile screenshot. Those are generally what StubHub allows. StubHub does not allow will call delivery tickets. They are very much anti anytime the buyer and seller have any communication and meeting up in person. And so what did I do? I contacted StubHub. I called them. I pleaded them. I said, hello, hello, please help me. I am desperate here. Okay. I don't know what else I can do. Tickets are not going to be available in time for me to deliver by the UPS delivery date, which was that day, December 14th. What are my options? Is there anything I can do?  Here is the buyer's email address. Go ahead, contact them directly to arrange delivery of the tickets. Again, the agent at StubHub, whom I called, said, contact the buyer directly. And here is their contact information.  StubHub has never allowed this before. Why would they change their policy all of a sudden? So I basically go back to the agent and say, hey, are you sure this is what you want me to do? You want me to reach out to the buyer directly to arrange delivery of the tickets? And they just said, yes, yes, of course. At this point, I did not question anything. I reached out to the buyer. I sent them a quick email. I said, hello, here is all the information I received from StubHub. They said to reach out to you directly to arrange for delivery of the tickets. Let's meet up in person in Vegas to get these tickets to you. And they said, OK, I'm not 100% sure on this, but let's roll with it in this case. And I said, all right, fantastic, wonderful, excellent. Let's book a trip to Vegas. So then I scurry on over to the interwebs, go on Air Canada, book some tickets on points, book a hotel, get all that sorted out. And next thing you know, in two days, I'm flying off to Vegas, trying to get these tickets to those buyers. Had to get my COVID test. Had to get all that other travel-y stuff sorted out before I could get out there. But, you know, nothing, nothing too wild.  But then I just went into my phone and I said, OK, let's put in Las Vegas. Take a look at what the weather is like. How is it possible that Vegas is colder than Toronto and Ottawa? Like, what, what, what is this? What's happening? I don't understand. So as you can see, it is now the next day, nice and early, still around 7 AM. We got ourselves a trip to get started on. So let's go to Vegas. Let's learn a few things to try and make sure this doesn't happen again. But maybe we kind of want to happen again. Who knows? Let's find out. Next thing you know, I'm actually in Vegas, December 17th. I arrived there around 1 PM and I'm starting to find out where my hotel is, find out where the venue is, get in contact with everybody, arrange for all the delivery of tickets. Who wants tickets at this place? Who wants tickets at that place? Who's going to show up on time? Who's going to show up early? Who's going to show up late? All that jazz, I had to sort it all out on that one day. The fact that we were able to even pick these things up, get it all done with, I mean, it's, it's, it's a miracle in and of itself. But time to breathe for a bit, one more delivery to go. And then we are done. So finally we are done 9, 10 PM. They cut it a bit late, to be honest. So they're maybe at 8. They got here by 9, 10.  No, I promise. All tickets are delivered. No more Bruno Mars for me. Let's get out of here. I need some sleep. Instead of now making about $770 profit after all my travel expenses, we made about $470 profit at the end of all this traveling, running around, running around with my head cut off. But you know what? At the end of the day, we did it. And I wake up the next day basically ready to head home. And this is where we run into the next major issue. You thought this was over? No, no, no. Not yet. We just got an email. It's currently 5 AM. Okay. I got an email. It says my order was canceled because I never delivered it. Well, I mean, I'm here. Tickets are gone. I know I gave it to the person. So now we got to do some investigations when we get back because I ain't about this traveling and not being paid life. It's looking at my phone just now. It looks like they've already even charged me. I can't, I can't deal with this right now. I got to get to the airport. I'm going to call some people. We're going to get this resolved. This, I have no words. No words. Just thinking about it just again brings back all those infuriating feelings. I'm too tired at that point too stressed out to even think about it. I just got to get to the airport so I can, you know, breathe and relax just a little. Just want to relax just a little bit before I can actually kind of deal with this issue. It is way too early to be outside. Also cold. I don't understand. When did Vegas start getting so cold? Was it always like this? Prompt for another day. Back to real cold, I guess. So I'm like, okay, fine. I get to the airport. I get to the lounge. I get some food in me, feeling a bit more zen, a bit more calm, a bit more relaxed. And that's when I then approach the idea of calling StubHub back to say, hey, what's going on with this order? Why was it canceled? I want my money. So I contact StubHub and they say, okay, here, send us all your information. And then we'll get back to you either later today or later tomorrow, sometime in the next, you know, 24 or 48 hours. I'm like, fine. This is all after they put me on hold for about 30 minutes while I was waiting for them to tell me this information. But besides one, this is why it's so important to always keep notes of everything you do, proof of everything you take pictures of things, keep records of all your stuff. Cause then when you're trying to run into problems like this, it can save you a lot of hassle when things start going wrong. Should all be resolved, but we'll see once we hopefully land in Montreal. So I send them all the information I have. I say, yeah, let's put the buyer. Here's what I did to drop off the tickets. And I just kind of left at that. I said, okay, here you go. Send my money. I'm just laddy dot that point, head to my plane and hop on a flight to Montreal, where I'll catch my next flight to Toronto and eventually be back home. End of story. Unfortunately, not so simple. I landed in Montreal. I checked my phone once I've landed. And it says that unfortunately, after reviewing all this information, you left these tickets at will call. And unfortunately, because will call is a non delivery method with stub hub, it violates our terms of service. Therefore, we cannot reverse this penalty that we have charged you and you will not be paid for the sale at all. Thank you and have a great day. And I am now, again, I'm, I'm starting to lose it now because it's like, what do you mean? You want, you tell me I can do this. Then you say I can't do this. Then you say send me all information. Then you say, no, your permission is no good. I decided not forget it. I can't even think about this right now. I just got to just get home and then we could talk about this because it's too much. It was just, it's too much now. And this is what I come back to. Oh God. This is miserable. Yeah. And then I get back home. Realize my car is covered in snow because when I left, it was, you know, about 10 degrees. And when I got back was like minus 10 degrees with like 15 centimeters of snow in my car because that's normal apparently. So I get back home. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm sick of everything. And I just, I just don't want to do anything. So I decided, okay, fine.  We're not going to look into this issue today. We're going to do it tomorrow because I don't have the bandwidth in my mind to even think about this right now. Next day rolls around. I finally said, okay, let me call Stubhub and see what's the matter. So I call Stubhub, I get an agent. They say, okay, you know what? Let me call the buyer directly. See if they receive the tickets. And if they did, we'll go ahead, reverse the penalties or reverse the charges and we'll get you paid. And I say, you know what? That's awesome. Go ahead, do that. I'll wait on the phone right now for you to go ahead call them directly so that we can get this sorted right away. It puts me on hold. There's some phone calls. There's some phone calls. There's some phone calls. Sends an email. It goes back to me and says, hey, you know, I called them three times. They didn't pick up. I sent them an email. They haven't responded yet. Let me call you back in the next couple of days once we hear a response. And I'm thinking myself, okay, you know what? That's fine. I can live with that. I can live with getting a response back in a couple of days. Everything else has, you know, been a mess already. What's another couple of days on this whole thing? And I just kind of, you know, let it pass my mind because at this point I'm thinking, okay, I think we finally got to the root of the issue here. Things are going to get dealt with. Nothing more to worry about. Let me remind you that this day, when I had called some of that last time, December 19. December 21st rolls around, 24th Christmas. We're now, you know, December 28th, December 29th, December 30th, December 31st. Still no response. Now, as we're getting, you know, December 31st, getting a lot of people starting to ask me about, you know, what's the status of this situation? What happened? Because I had actually been posting this all on Instagram live as it had been happening. So if you haven't followed me on Instagram, just go ahead and do that right now. They were all asking me now, what was the status? What happened? And at this point it's been over a week and a half. I haven't heard back and I have to tell people, you know, I haven't heard back from some of them yet, but I still feel confident they're going to get me my information, they're going to get my money back because it's been, I've given them everything. I've followed all their requirements. I contact them a million times. I don't know what else I can do, but I feel like it just took a matter of time. Let me just call them back one more time and we'll hopefully get this all sorted out. And now it is currently New Year's Eve, 7.25pm. And I'm on hold with StubHub once again. This saga is never going to end. I've been on hold already for 15 minutes so far and counting 35 minutes. And I just got hung up on after an hour and an hour and three minutes, it just hung up. So let's call them back and see what's happening.  Here's the information. Please look into this. Let me know what you need to do. I say, okay, put you on hold and we'll get back to you. 10 minutes goes by, 20 minutes goes by, 30 minutes goes by. Line dies again. Now I'm losing. I'm beyond living at this point. I call back again. I basically lose it on the first guy that picks up. I say, I can't deal with this anymore. You guys hung up on me three times already. I've called you 4,000 times already in this last couple weeks. I need this sorted and I need this sorted now. I need some supervisor to look into this immediately and get me a response on this issue. I cannot deal with not having this not paid out any longer. So the agent says, okay, I'll take about 24 to 48 hours to review all the phone calls, go through all the notes, figure out what happened and I'll get back to you with an answer.  I go, that was fast. I pick up the phone, ask them, hello, what's going on? What is the status of this order? And the agent says to me, unfortunately, you delivered these tickets as we'll call tickets. This goes against our policies. Therefore, this order will stand as is. I hear that and I basically just tell the agent like, what do you mean? I don't understand why this order isn't counting. I followed exactly what you told me to do. The agent said, contact the buyer, arrange delivery and get the tickets to them, which is exactly what I did. And the agent comes back to me and says, yes, you did. However, you aren't allowed to deliver the tickets via a we'll call method, which is what I ended up doing. I ended up dropping them off at the box office. I left them at we'll call for the buyer because that was the easiest way for them to arrange for a ticket delivery. And that's exactly what I tell them. I say, I followed the instructions that you gave me. I contacted the buyer. I got the tickets delivered to them. We'll call was the only option that was available to me. And so that's what I did. And when I contacted you guys before, you said, go ahead, contact them, arrange for it and make it happen. And the agent comes back and basically says, yes, the agent did tell you to contact the buyer directly, but it was to arrange physical delivery of the tickets via UPS, not via we'll call or any other method. And now I'm just, I'm the, the blood is starting to boil. I tell him, you know what, what do you mean? The agent specifically said to me, arrange for delivery. How am I supposed to interpret what arrange for delivery means? Am I supposed to then just automatically know that it only has to be UPS delivery? I can't do anything else. I just, I can't take basically the word that was taken from the agent and use that information to make sure that I get the tickets to them in a manner that is, that is valid. And the guy basically says yes. Unfortunately, because you didn't follow a policy, we cannot refund the penalty that we've charged you. Basically you're saying, if I get an agent on the phone, they tell me to do something and I follow it, even though I know internally that it's not the thing to do, it's my fault. And the agent basically says yes, that's the way it is. The agent told you to contact the buyer directly. I said, I'm not even supposed to contact the buyer directly. I'm not even supposed to have any contact with them at all. You guys are supposed to do that for me. The agent was supposed to. I had requested for them to arrange for a different method of delivery. And the agent actually gave me the contact information for the buyer to go and reach out to them directly. What do you mean I'm not supposed to contact them and then arrange for a delivery? And they just keep saying back to me. So they say, you know, it unfortunately that agent was in the wrong, but you should have known better because you will agree to the terms of service that are set up within StubHub and not contact the buyers directly and do not deliver tickets via will call. And this goes back and forth for another 20 to 30 minutes, basically going in circles. I'm saying I followed what was told by me and he's saying it doesn't matter what you were told, you can't do things that aren't in the terms of service. And after 30 minutes I was defeated. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't argue with the guy anymore. We weren't getting anywhere. Basically it always would come back to him saying you didn't follow policy. We can't change the outcome. This is what it is. Very sorry to hear that. We'll contact our agents and make sure that they get better trained to do a better job next time. But because you didn't follow policy, this is what we're going to do. There's nothing else we can do about it. Have a great night. I never told you how much that penalty was, did I? The penalty was for $1,141.72. And that's on top of the payment that I did not receive from StubHub for the sale of another $980.54. With that all that in together, I ended up losing $1,645.59. All because one order wasn't filled according to the terms of service. The worst part is that, yes, I knew that will call was not an option for StubHub for delivery. I've known this for years. And yet, for some reason, in the back of my mind, I thought, if the agent said I can contact the buyer directly to get these tickets fulfilled and that was the only option they gave me, it must be true. And that, my friends, is unfortunately not the case. My mistake was not following the terms of service. Because at the end of the day, an agent can tell you whatever they want. Customer service is only there to help you, but they are not the end-all be-all. The terms of service always are. Just like with any other contract, whatever is in the terms, that is final. I just get hit with the penalty because I didn't follow basic protocols. And that, my friends, is the main lesson from today. You have to follow the terms of service. Regardless of anything else, if you don't follow those, the exchange could always fall back on saying, as a seller did you follow everything you needed to do? The answer is no. There's generally going to be some financial penalties on you, regardless of what happens. Regardless of what they tell you, otherwise through customer service, through emails, through anything, if you don't follow the rules that are laid out, exceptions aren't going to be made. And as a result, these are the hardships that you're going to have to deal with. So what did I learn? One, read the terms of service as a seller. There are quite a few rules that you do need to follow. And two, if you ever doubt anything, you could always go back and ask again. There's no harm in calling back again. It might always be the answer you want, but it is the answer that is right. That's the worst part. I knew that I shouldn't have been able to do a will-call delivery, but I thought, oh, my account is in good standing. I've been selling with them for five, six, seven years now. I've done hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales with them. I thought I could qualify for an exception. But unless they specifically put that in writing, it means nothing. So at the end of the day, you got to make sure that you understand all the rules that are required of you when listing and selling tickets, because if you don't, you'll be facing a lot of penalties for not following the rules. With all that being said, though, there is one good thing that came out of all this, and that was the arrival of this. Merry Christmas, guys. So I know what's inside here. She does not yet know what's inside here. I have absolutely no idea what's inside. Look at her face. You can tell she has no idea. No idea what's inside. So with that, I'm going to let you do the honors. Okay, well, this thing is way too long, Maria. Yeah, yeah. I can just open it from here. Just pull it out. Ooh! That's his? And that's mine. Look at our twins. I love it. I love getting these fan cutouts. They're always so much fun. Just looking at them is hilarious. So, you know, it's a nice boost on that day of an otherwise unfortunate, unfortunate event. Didn't make up for, you know, losing over $1,600, but, you know, you got to take the wins when you can. Looking back at it all though, it's nothing more than an expensive less than the end of the day of an otherwise very, very successful ticket selling year. Now, if you guys stick around to next week's video, we're going to be talking all about how much money I made selling tickets in 2021. So if you aren't subscribed already, you should go ahead and do that. Hit the bell notification so you don't miss out when that video drops. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, definitely hit that like button down below and see you guys next time. Don't forget to subscribe.


Hi, this is Dr. Don. I want to give you a review of exponential smoothing, doing it both using basic Excel functions as well as using the data analysis tool pack. Many students make a mistake when they're doing exponential smoothing and I don't know for sure whether it's because they don't recall the formula or whether they're using the data analysis tool pack. Let me show you how to approach the problem. Here we have some time series data for two years, 15 and 16, and we need to forecast a value for January of 17. To do that using the exponential smoothing, we use this formula. The forecast for time t is equal to alpha, our smoothing constant times the actual for time period t minus 1 plus 1 minus alpha times the forecast for t minus 1. If alpha is set up to be 0.2, then here's how we would build our forecast. We have to start with a seed value because the formula is looking back one period, so you can use a number of ways you can do this. I just like to use my first actual period there to start. Now for my first forecast, I want to go equal my alpha times my actual from t minus 1 plus 1 minus alpha, close the parentheses, times my forecast for t minus 1. And that gives me, as you will see, it's the same value and that makes sense if you just go through the algebra. You can see that we're taking, in this case, 20% of this plus 80% of that added together, which of course gives you that. So then what we need to do before we drag this down, we need to lock it so we're always referring back to alpha. So I'm going to go up here to D1, hit my function 4 key to lock that down. There's my other D1 function 4 key to lock that down. Now I can drag this formula down to get my forecast for the actuals and I'm going to drag it one more place to get my forecast for January of 17. Pretty, pretty straight. If we look at the formula here, up here you can see it's alpha, which is D1, times B3, B is my actual column, 1 minus alpha, which would be 0.8, times C3, my forecast column, which is what we want. Now let's do it using the data analysis package. We go up here to data, data analysis, bring this up, and there's our dialog box and we pick exponential smoothing. I'm going to click OK and it'll sometimes offer up stuff. I want to delete that and I want to make sure that I have my actual values there in the range. Here's the problem that I see a lot of students get into. Excel here is asking for a damping factor and many students will plunge ahead and put in alpha there, but that's not right. The damping factor is equal to 1 minus alpha, so if our alpha that we're interested in is 0.2, 1 minus 0.2 is 0.8, so that's the damping factor we want. We do not have labels this time included. The other mistake I see students make is where to have the output range. You want it to parallel the other data there, so you should select D3 in this case. I'm not going to get the chart output to standard errors here, but I'm going to click OK and you can see that it enters data there. I'm going to format that so it looks the same, so it matches. You can see that the forecast are the same. I forgot to change that one. As we have with the manual method of calculating this, we have an NA put up here in that first cell instead of just copying over the seed forecast. The reason for that when we calculate our error metrics, our mean squared error, root mean squared, our mape, we don't want to use that first row anyway, so that's the reason Excel just puts the NA in there because we're going to ignore that first value. But anyway, that's how to do it using both methods and I forgot I've got to drag this down to get my forecast of January 17th. That's how to do an exponential smoothing using both the native Excel as well as the data analysis tool pack. Hope this helps.


This is the VOA Special English Health Report. We recently told you about a study which found that more than 10% of all babies worldwide are born too early. A common problem in preterm babies is respiratory disease. The lungs are the last organs to develop. But a medicine called surfactant can save babies struggling to breathe. The story of this life-saving medicine begins with a discovery in 1959 by a researcher named Mary Ellen Avery. She told this story in 2005 to children's news at Children's Hospital Boston where she was the first woman to serve as physician-in-chief. She had been doing research at the Harvard School of Public Health. She was asked to find out more about the foam that forms in the lungs of people with a condition called pulmonary edema. At night she worked in a hospital delivery room. She saw many premature babies with a disease now called respiratory distress syndrome. She examined the lungs of babies who had died. She found there was no air in their lungs and she discovered why. In her words, the material that was important, the foam, was missing. And they were struggling to reinflate their lungs. Nature put this foam, or surfactant, in the lungs to lower surface tension. You cannot keep air spaces inflated without it. Babies usually develop this coating while they are in the womb, but many premature babies do not. Finally, in 1980, a Japanese doctor, Tetsuro Fujiwara, published a study about an artificial surfactant. It could be given to a baby and within minutes the baby could breathe. The medical community had taken years to accept Dr. Avery's discovery. But she told Harvard Medical School in 1982 that she never gave up. In her words, knowing what you want to do is important, especially in research. Dr. Anne Hansen at Children's Hospital Boston remembers the first time she heard about Dr. Avery. It was in 1990 when the government was in the process of approving a surfactant called exosurf. The doctor she was working with had some exciting news for her. She said it was the last night before the hospital would start giving exosurf to all its preterm babies.  Dr. Avery was 84 years old when she died late last year. For VOA Special English, I'm Mario Ritter.


TEFL jobs in Guatemala TEFL in Guatemala Sign up for our intensive TEFL international training courses in Guatemala and take a journey, though the land of the ancient Maya. With your internationally recognized TEFL certification in hand, you can start your career as a qualified English teacher in Guatemala, Central America or virtually anywhere around the world. Bordered by Mexico in the north, Belize in the east and Honduras and El Salvador in the south, Guatemala is the ideal stepping stone for your career in Latin America. The demand for English language teachers is high in the region and securing a suitable teaching position after the completion of your TEFL course should be no problem. TEFL Guatemala Guatemala is the land of the ancient Maya, which means it is home to a truly unique culture and historical artifacts from the ancient people. Mayan pyramids and temples can be found throughout the country. Guatemala is bordered by the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Gulf of Honduras in the east. This means, the country also offers splendid beaches with crystal clear waters. TEFL courses in La Antigua, Guatemala. Our training center is located in La Antigua, which once served as the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala and is UNESCO World Heritage Site today. The city is located in the central highlands of Guatemala and is especially famous for its unique Spanish Baroque influenced architecture and its many colonial churches. Tourism is the main driver of the economy here and the region is also a major coffee producer. If you decide to spend a month in La Antigua to train to become an English teacher, you will get to experience the city like a local. Shop at the many street markets and enjoy the local food at the numerous restaurants around town. On the weekends, take advantage of the public transit system and take a bus or train to the surrounding areas. Here, you get to go on adventurous trekking tours on volcanoes or enjoy some wild water rafting in the jungle.  Be sure to visit the Mayan Ruins at Teichel, explore a coffee plantation or take a boat trip down the Rio dels to the Caribbean coast. If you want to earn your TEFL qualification in Guatemala, sign up for our intensive course at our center in La Antigua. Upon completion, you will not only hold in hand an internationally accredited certification to teach English, but our staff will also help you to find your first position as a teacher. Many of our TEFL graduates enjoy life in Guatemala so much that they decide to stay. Others move on to neighboring countries in Latin America and some work across the globe.


EFNN, The Tiger, Financial News Network. Good morning, everyone, Basel Chapman here on this Tuesday the 20th of September. We're looking at the Dow down 373 points at 30,643, still above the low of three days ago, but it's really struggling. It's way underneath the nine-period exponential moving average of 31181 and the MACD's still weak, the stochastic is down 11 percent, unbalanced one is very poor. We're also... No, I cannot do that surely. We're looking at the S&P, the S&P is down as well. This is going to be very interesting because the S&P is down 45 points, if I just type that in right there, and it too is above the low of three days ago. Yesterday made a fractionally higher low, and today we'll see what happens. But at 3855, if this stays down to the 3830s in the next day or so, that's really very poor action and we're waiting, of course, for the Fed tomorrow at 2 o'clock to come out with the Fed speak, whatever the book says. We're looking at down 2.20 in the QQQ down at the 288 level. They're all in exactly the same situation. If they take out the lows of three days ago significantly, that is going to be quite something and looking at the IWM, the Russell 2000. And of course, yesterday it had a very good session. Today it's giving back a huge chunk down to 90 and 177. Now, it's going to be very important because gold is attempting to come back a little bit. It's down six at 1672. It is not acting very well. You can understand why, because the dollar is trading up 63 ticks at 110.25. This is very strong action. We'll see if tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, where the dollar is. That's going to be very important because if you're looking at the TLT, can you believe this TLT just got smashed again down $1.30 at 106.02. So rates are screaming to the upside. And if you're looking at Crude Oil, there's no help there because Crude Oil is down as well. And that's suggesting that this kind of an economic slowdown. I'll be back for the Tiger Technicians Hour in a few minutes. Time to forget Larry Persevento's got his all day webinar going on right now. I'll be back in a moment for the Tiger Technicians Hour. Hope you can say check out my opening called Daily News Together.