Good evening. Welcome to Girls Inc. Thank you so much for spending your evening here with us today to talk about the pressures of being perfect, breaking the super cycle. My name is Rhonda Williamson and I am the president and CEO for Girls Inc. of San Antonio. Our mission is inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold, which we put our mission into practice through what we call the Girls Inc. Experience. This experience equips girls to navigate social, gender, and economic barriers and grow into healthy, educated, and independent adults, which are things we want for all the children's lives. That experience is rooted in our fundamental belief in girls' rights and abilities, and the girls' bill of rights is depicted behind you, painted by our girls. It is our conviction that girls themselves must leave the work to advocate for a more equitable world. At Girls Inc., we have a vision for a world in which every girl values her whole self and her special strengths, has opportunities and access to develop her potential, to break past serious obstacles, and lead healthy, educated, and successful lives. The lasting difference that we make for girls, make with girls, is what sets us apart. Last year we served 3,000 girls, I mean last year we served 3,000 girls aged 6 to 18 in the Alamos City. Girls who now have the opportunities and access to develop their special strengths, to break past barriers, and most importantly achieve their full potential. These girls that help others as they were helped, all along the way, thereby creating positive change, breaking the cycle of limitations for their families, communities, institutions, and all of us. So why are we here? In 2002, Girls Inc. National conducted a nationwide study of school age girls about the mounting pressures of expectations. This study created a report called the Supergirls a Woman. What they found was that girls experience intense pressure at every younger age. To be everything, to everyone, all of the time. While stereotypes about girls' leadership capabilities and math and science abilities appear to have diminished in the past decade, expectations about physical perfection and dressing right and being thin seem to have increased. Stereotypes about girls needing to speak softly, not to brag, and to play caretaker roles seem to persist. Girls can do anything as long as they also conform to traditional notions of femininity. Girls feel it is their job to please the people around them. This creates constant pressure on girls to silence themselves, to act as if they have no feelings or that their feelings don't matter, and to learn to please everyone but themselves. Eve Ensler is one of my very favorite writers.  I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please, to please, to embody the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please the fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please boys, we push ourselves when we're not ready. To please the popular girls, we end up acting mean to our best friends. To please our parents, we become insane over achievers. If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? I think the act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop buttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We wait to be rescued. We forget what we know. We make everything okay rather than real. This is the pressure to be perfect that our girls face. If they're trying to make everything perfect, we make everything okay rather than real. I think we can all relate to the pressure our girls feel. And you're here tonight because you care about helping to make that better. I'm sure you've noticed our incredible friends back here in the back. NowPassSA is here live streaming tonight's event. So when that moment of oh wow I wish I could watch that again happens and it will with this incredible group of panelists you can visit NowPassSA.org and watch that video. NowPass is your local public television but on the internet. NowPassSA's mission is to promote and facilitate an inclusive civic conversation by empowering neighbors to identify common issues and store information through education, training, community news, events, and multimedia. It's now my privilege to introduce you to tonight's distinguished panel. Charlotte Ann Lucas is right here. She is the NowPassSA managing director. She was selected to lead NowPassSA in 2009. Charlotte Ann wrote her first news story on a manual typewriter and has taught online journalism, web design, digital storytelling, interviewing, and content management systems at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, St. Mary's University in San Antonio, and Texas A&M University San Antonio. She worked for newspapers in Philadelphia, Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco, and San Antonio and her freelance freelance writing has appeared everywhere from the New York Times to the Auckland, New Zealand Herald. Her journalism has earned her dozens of awards including being named the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1997, she became the first woman business editor of the San Antonio Express News. Charlotte Ann is also an all-star advocate for girls and girls, teaching them how to run equipment and manage a live stream as well as good media literacy, the importance of a digital footprint, and interviewing skills. Next we have Cindy Stinchula. Cindy is president founder of Stinchula & Associates. She's a nationally known trainer, inspirational speaker, and consultant. Her clients include Fortune 100 companies, not-for-profit organizations, and small businesses. Cindy grew up in a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania. After college, she moved all by herself to Texas to build her career. It was during this time that Cindy learned the importance of figuring out who she was, what was important to her, and how to live up to her values, even if they didn't agree with what others wanted for her. For the last 17 years, Cindy has owned her own business called Stinchula & Associates. She speaks, coaches, and facilitates for companies and not-for-profits to help them figure out what they want to stand for, and then she walks beside them as they achieve it. Next we have Maria Barrett. Maria was born and raised in San Antonio. She is the youngest of six children and was lovingly raised by her mother in single-parent home. Early on, Maria developed an understanding that every day brings within choices which shape who we become, how we face pressures, and the positive or negative mark we leave upon the world. For nearly 20 years, Maria has been in marketing for professional service firms. During this time, she has helped each company build its corporate brand while assisting its team members with building their own personal brands. Maria is passionate about giving to others, and she is currently a big sister for Big Brother's big sisters. Last we have Leafa Harrelson. Leafa is Security Service Federal Credit Union, honored Leafa Harrelson as Central Region Manager of the Year 2013. She currently serves as Business Development Manager for the Credit Union, and she has led countless efforts to expand financial literacy and education through the Credit Union's market in three states. Her efforts helped the Credit Union receive the Dora Maxwell Award for Outstanding Social Responsibility and Honorable Mention for the Dayhart Dean's Youth Financial Education Award awarded by the Credit Union National Association. Leafa is a Girls' Inc. of San Antonio board member and the force behind the newly expanded Girls' Inc. Girls Empowerment Conference Girl with a Purpose. All of the panelists were chosen because of their ability to relate to our girls and their unique personal stories that won't appear in their professional bios. These are all women who have achieved great things and accomplished their goals. But, but they learn to listen to who they really are and what they really want instead of being perfect or that super girl that others wanted them to be. They became amazing and real instead of perfect and are happy because of it. We work every day to inspire strong, smart and bold girls in San Antonio. As part of this, we also get to work with incredible young women every day. We have a group of 13 to 18-year-old girls who are truly dedicated to the Girls' Inc. Mission. These girls are known as MVPs, mentors, valuing peers. This group of girls gives thousands of hours of service to our community each year. They participate as advisors to our program and learn about leadership, all the while acting as leaders themselves. The MVPs are the ones who put forward this topic, did the research on it, crafted all of the questions, and I have two of our incredible MVPs who are going to be your talk show hosts for the evening. It's my privilege today to introduce you to two of our MVPs, Elise Charles and Maxine Sanchez. Maxine and Elise will be your moderators tonight. Together with their MVPs sisters, they have developed a list of questions that they care deeply about, proposed to our esteemed panel. To begin our town hall, I'd like to turn it over to Elise Charles and Maxine Sanchez. Hello, my name is Elise Charles and one thing I like to do is cook and pressure that I'm currently facing. It's probably school and getting new grades. Okay, hi, I'm Maxine. I go to Highlander High School. I'm a freshman.  Do our speakers have any pressures that you're currently facing? You know I was preparing for today's presentation and I didn't have enough time to do everything that I wanted to do and that just seems to be an ungrowing pressure for me. There is so much that I want to do and there just aren't enough hours in the day and on top of that I've had to surrender that there's so much I want to do and I'll never do it all perfectly. I think we're all under pressures of different kinds. My personally is pressure on health, taking care of myself and not trying to be skinny and the supermodel and all that but just having good health, good cholesterol, good blood pressure and making sure that I get enough sleep and active because you know when you're passionate about things you want to do so much that you have to realize your limitations and set what is the most important and sometimes you have to give up a few things. You know I agree with what both of you said I mean there's never enough time and there's never there's always way too many things on my to-do list. Right now my pressure is to make sure everything is on my to-do list so it doesn't wake me up at four o'clock in the morning but the hopes I forgot to put that on my to-do list. And one of the other things that's kind of out there on my to-do list is and if you don't get exercise and take good care of your heart you're not going to be here to finish that to-do list. That's good. Now that's actually a very good one. For me I am actually a single parent raising two boys on my own and just balancing the demands of the expectations of having a corporate career where the hours are long and can go into the evenings or the weekends in addition to making sure that my children see enough of me and have that quality time is always something I struggle with because for me I realize that I'm going to blink and both of my boys are going to be young men off on their own and I just have such a desire that when they look back at life that they still remember that the best part of growing up was that their mom was there. So that's always a constant struggle for me. So what keeps you motivated to be yourself? So really it's actually my mistakes that I've made along the way that keep me most motivated. I think when anybody makes mistakes in life and you feel that pain of I didn't like what I did or I didn't like the choices I made or I didn't like what perhaps I did to somebody else unknowingly or knowingly that starts to build something in you that makes you realize I don't want to do that again. That's not a road I want to cross again and so oftentimes I find that my motivation is don't go back down that path. If you didn't like the path then go back down the path and that's a great motivation. It's interesting you talk about motivating motivates me to stay as myself because I've experienced my life like peeling an onion. Just when I think I figured out this next level of me and this new exciting aspect of my personality or my life another layer is peeled and I go deeper and so I think my motivation is to continue to do that deeper journey into who I am in relation to the world as it is today and and what I have to offer the world. I'm going to agree that Cindy mine is passion finding something that is very passionate to me and giving back to others. That is so motivating to me because then I get to see the benefit things that I do to help others. What motivates me to stay true to myself is that it's a lot easier than trying to be somebody else because then I don't have to remember who I was trying to be. Very true. Very true. There's wisdom. When did you decide you want you wanted to be yourself and how? I'll start that one. There was a couple of times in my life. One was in high school when I was practicing to be the cheerleader and run for cheerleading. I had three brothers who were big football players and I could have been the cheerleader but like a week before tryouts I just knew it wasn't me so I quit and decided that was not a route I wanted to take and the second one was during my career I was trying to be this manager I thought everybody needed me to be and what the book said it is to be a manager and realized you know I was wearing a mask and not just really being who I was and until I took that mask off and really looked at myself and realized what strengths I brought to the table and what values I bring and how I could help others then I realized you know what it was that I needed to do. How do you speak up to teachers when they are treating you unfairly or disrespectfully? Now I have to go old school on that because I calculated and it's been 36 years since I've been in high school okay so I started when you know I graduated when I was two but in any event you know a couple things that come to mind for me one is teachers are human too so we have to realize that they're not always going to be right and they're not always going to do the right thing. I think the other thing too is you know part of finding your voice is in those moments where you have the opportunity to speak up and stand up for yourself and it's how you respond in those moments to me that makes the difference in your life story for you so to me I you know I think that it's about you knowing when it's time to take your voice and also to be able to speak to your teacher one-on-one in truth I think going one-on-one with your teacher is important the first time and to speak to them from your truth I think the second time around if nothing changes and the second time around you take a friend with you you take a friend with you to have the conversation so you've got somebody else to support you and then the third time to me it's just about giving them grace and forgiving them and moving on because I don't know about the rest of you but I've had several bad teachers in my life and I can't even remember their names today so remember that it's not forever it's just for a semester. I actually was going to make a comment but I think Cindy just you put it completely in a bet shell I mean that's that's very true it's very true you've got to remember that it's okay to be vulnerable you've got two choices you know I think who I was in high school my first reaction probably honestly would have been to try and step up and fight back publicly because they I felt like they were attacking me as you grow up in life and you mature what you realize is that's not a great tactic because that's only going to immediately put them on the defense as well and it is wise to have vulnerable conversations and respectful manners at the right moment with someone so I think that's what Cindy was touching on was you can take that conversation and you can take the truth of how you feel and when you're telling the truth of how you feel that's the vulnerability that I'm talking about you're opening up and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to this individual by just being honest and in most instances what you find is the person recognizes that what you've just done wasn't an easy thing to do and so then instead of fighting you back because you attack them and they attack back instead they start to show in most instances empathy back because they recognize that it took a lot of maturity to do what you did and you end up getting a lot further than if you try and and fight it out because then nobody wins and in most instances when you're putting an adult with a child the child rarely wins even if the child is absolutely right just because of the way it was managed I would add that it continues after that conversation to take a parent or counselor and have a conversation with them as well yep yep agreed what do you do when milky teachers treat you in inappropriately what do you mean by inappropriately treating you different from other girls by body wise like these days the teachers are much younger so I think it goes back to what we were talking about before where you have to have the conversation with that teacher but if it continues you do need to take a parent or counselor report it and it's really inappropriate and not continue to take it and and you know one of the things that comes to me is it is so easy to take on shame around that thinking that you did something that's making this male teacher respond to you in that way don't hide don't hide from the truth because otherwise later in life it does catch up with you you wear this veil of shame that really just exactly so you know two words I want you to remember is don't hide you have nothing to be ashamed of and it is important once again that you find your voice and you take care of what needs to be done does that help yeah yeah I think Cindy's right we all have both men and women if somebody is crossing into a zone that makes us feel uncomfortable we have every right to say you've crossed the line I'm not comfortable with that type of behavior I'm not comfortable with the way you're making me feel and I'm going to ask that you not do that again because now you've spoken up and you established the line if they continue to cross the line you know if that ever spirals into something that becomes more serious and you had to end up talking with police and so forth that would be a question they would ask you was did you establish the line did you tell them that you didn't accept it and then you can honestly say yes I confronted them and I said it was making me in the feel uncomfortable and I felt it was inappropriate but they did not cease the second you say that you took that action it now pushes it back on that individual because you were vocal you expressed your your your absolute of you can't come past here let me add to that just a bit what what they were talking about both of them talked about earlier was saying I'm not comfortable with that this makes me feel uncomfortable as opposed to attacking that person by saying you're a jerk for looking at me like that right which puts it in a hole another crazy land but when you're saying I'm not comfortable with that behavior or you're making me feel very uncomfortable when you do that you're talking about your feelings and you're not labeling them and sending it into a really unconstructive conversation and to take your life story zoom ahead a couple of years call it 30 years you may still be faced with the same inappropriate behavior no matter where you go so the skills that you are going to challenge yourself to learn today are going to be something you're carrying your toolkit throughout your entire life am I right ladies absolutely absolutely when you were our age in school what would you say to someone who tried to put you down because you are a girl when I how old are you you're 15 I'm 14 14 okay I had big brothers I would beat them up so nobody really messed with me yeah I'm gonna have to say I probably would have pushed back at that point in my life you know just trying to prove you can't push me around type thing but like we've talked about there's some maturity that comes with life and life lessons and I think what you learn is now I actually look deeper I have found and this applies to both men and women I have found when someone is ridiculing you or demeaning you and making you feel bad about something in your life you got to go a little further and you've got to understand that there's something driving them to be like that and it's probably has nothing to do with you and it probably has to do I mean I've seen beautiful women criticize other women and and the other woman thinks well she's criticizing me because she's beautiful and and I'm not as pretty as her and I always think no no no no no no no she would find the beauty in you too if there wasn't something insecure in her I recently saw a show on you probably aren't familiar with a program called TEDx but they get some of the most powerful people around the world to come and speak to individuals and so they actually had a supermodel come and speak and these individuals only have about five minutes to just really empower you with something and all this supermodel said was if you ever went to a runway shoot the day that there was one happening and you went to the dress room where there was all those supermodels you've just entered a room of some of the most insecure women in the world there will always be a driving force behind why people ridicule someone else girls or guys well and it's interesting because like like I grew up with brothers so it was just a lifestyle choice okay the girls would be put down it wasn't until I moved to Dallas after college and I was working in an office building in the 36th floor the Brian Tower in downtown Dallas woohoo every farm girls dream and I worked myself from a position where I was just a secretary typing on a typewriter you may not remember those it was an electric typewriter but typing on a typewriter and I can remember the first meeting that I was invited to participate in with the other with officers in the audience that they all happen to be white men who wear suits and ties and I can remember going into the meeting and I know I'm a participant and one older a gentleman came into the room he was also participant in the meeting and he looked at me and said honey will you make sure we get some coffee in here and that's when I realized wow people have different lenses based on gender or whatever and and like Maria said I was a student enough to know that this was about him it wasn't about me so I excused myself and I left the room talked to the secretary who takes care of that and came back in and the man stopped the meeting and said where's the coffee and I said I made arrangements with the person who's responsible for that to bring it in the room now where are we on the agenda I think sometimes we just have to extend grace when comments like that are made and just take care of things in a way that doesn't make a big scene about it but in the moment they go why did I misread that and so that would be my challenge to y'all I would just want to say or add to that is if you do talk to someone who is really beautiful and has everything you think you want and you really ask them about how they feel about how beautiful they are they would want to be taken seriously for something else not based on their beauty because everybody's always saying how beautiful they are and beauty only lasts for so long in life does saying no get easier as y'all get older and half no it does not get easier to say no other than you realize that if you don't say no when you need to say no you're going to end up places you don't want to be and you know like I said earlier how do you get motivated to stay on track and it's I said you don't want to repeat the same mistakes and so you know it doesn't get easier you just gain a stronger wisdom of the importance of it and so that's it really becomes a driver of yeah if I don't say no I'm going to end up places I don't want to be doing things I don't want to do actually just to almost finish that sentence so what happens more and more the older I get is that I think it all the way through and say well if I say yes then what oh yes I was there before no I don't want to do that so it's that I don't want to repeat it and I don't want a bad outcome and I'm more able to at least pause to say what if what I found interesting when you gave us the questions in advance you said just say no this saying isn't as easy as it is saying this isn't as easy as it sounds whether we're talking about drugs sex alcohol or anything and I have to tell you the the older I got as that onion lair came off and I dig deeper in it is so much easier to say no to drugs and sex and all of that kind of stuff my my heart always wants to say yes because I grew up a people pleaser and so I want to be there for anybody who says they have a need when the reality is my mind is saying and how are you going to do that going back to my initial what my pressure is I don't have enough time to do everything that I want to do so getting back to your context around saying no to drugs and sex and things like that one of the things that I really wish that I had in my mind and heart when I was your age was that I need to say no at least three times before I even think about saying yes I think that that gives you an opportunity to just see reactions and see who your real friends are because when I think back at times where I said yes to some of these things these people weren't my friends they were just lonely or needed somebody to come along so say no three times and see what happens I don't think it was on but we heard I think it's easier to say no it's easier to say no now because of our experiences we have probably have said yes to some of those things when we were your age and have learned from those experiences but I will tell you things have changed drastically from when we were younger to where you are now when you say yes to drugs now it could turn you into an addict immediately if you say yes now to sex you're a mother without a husband and you have a lifetime of responsibility you never thought of just by saying yes you know the same thing with alcohol everything is so different now the drugs are stronger the liquors stronger you know sex is everything everybody wants it now now now and I think you have to realize it's not worth all that responsibility at your age you you will say yes to something that you will say in 20 years I should have said no because we all know how do you not judge others based on their actions you know um safe is a big part of the driving factor for the core and ethics of what really helps me decide what to do each and every day and I always see the judging component as the not judging is probably more for me than them because of the fact that when I judge them I have to stop and ask myself is there anything in my life that could be judged and the answer is there's probably something in everybody's life that others could judge us for but um I always remembered my mother telling me so if you treat them the way that they treated you if you lash back out because they misjudge you they started alive they had a preconceived notion about you aren't you just ending up in the muck in the mire with them and I can remember thinking I have no idea what she is talking about but in essence what she was saying was as soon as I did it back to them I judged them because of their bad actions either to me or to somebody else that I saw them do it to and I acted as badly to them then I just made the same bad choices they did and when you look at life and think is is the situation or is that individual worth me coming down to their level and doing that and changing how the world sees me from perhaps respectful trustworthiness or things of that nature then it starts to become much smaller what the impact of their judging is it's like I said earlier it's almost like you take it a step further and you think why are they judging you know or why am I going to judge or why are they having the bad actions there's always a driver behind it do you want to end up right there with them because you judged them how do you how do you get your parents or other adults to not judge your friends until they get to know them okay yeah first of all let's accept the reality that our parents are going to judge our friends we've got parents in the audience right you're going to judge them my daddy used to tell me the story that if one person tells you you have a tail like a doggie tail on your rear end that you can tell them your craze second person that tells you you have a tail you might want to think twice about it third person that tells you you better look behind you because it's hanging there okay all of that to say that if you're hearing from a lot of different people some concerns about your friends take a moment and do yourself the favor of finding out if there's any truth to what they're saying just step back and see if there's any truth to it that's one side of it the other side of it is realizing we can't make anybody do or think anything that we want them to think in other words you have no control over what anybody else thinks or does and if you remember that I've saved you a lot of therapy bills in the future okay because the reality is our parents are going to think and say whatever they want about our friends I think the key is once again for us to model or let our parents see what's good about this friendship and just through our behavior words aren't going to mean anything our behavior is so I know that one of the things that both of you said is you're struggling keeping good grades because of all your activities do you think your parents would quit complaining about who your friends are if all of a sudden she saw you studying with your friends and your grades went up I think that would send the signal to a parent that these are good people that I want my girls to hang with so you know I think it's the double-edged sword find the truth in it and then secondly do what you can to show that this is a good friend for you sorry I'm going to shut up I actually was going to add I had this conversation recently with my youngest son and he was asking me about the fact that there's something that I've always said no you're not ready for it you're not ready for it you're not ready for it and he asked me could we have just an open conversation and I said sure I always am going to welcome you to have an open conversation with me well the open conversation was but you've raised me well you always role model what I need to see so do you not believe that I'm going to make the same wise choices you've got to give me space to prove to you that I can make those choices and so where we where we ended up at the end of the conversation was I said that was a very mature conversation for someone who is in sixth grade and I appreciate that and so you're right because he also mentioned did you not learn some of your best lessons in life by stumbling and falling and I said I did so we came up with an agreement of giving him a little bit more space but him also understanding I wasn't just going to give him free reign because of the fact that as we grow older and you will too you gain wisdom and out of that gaining wisdom and out of the love for your children I am going to stop and stand in the way of my child and a disaster if I can see that that's a disaster but he was right he deserved a little amount of space to show to me that I have raised him well and was learning the lessons now if he doesn't prove it that would be another discussion but until that it was a very valid point I had one more thing because I think it never stops about parents and our friends and there have been times when my father traveled from New Jersey to Dallas to visit me because he really really really wanted to go out to lunch with one of my friends Molly Ivan's one of the great writers of Texas and he wanted to have lunch with her and you know was like please can I go out to lunch with her friends which is really awesome and and then just just a few weeks ago I persuaded him to take another look at one of my friends actually it's a family member who I said hey you know don't don't prejudge her I think that you might look again actually what she's done with her life is very similar to what I've done with my life even though she was in a completely different career she was spent her life trying to help people and he did and it was really awesome so I just want to add to that I would say to your parents is what is it that you see that I don't see what is it that you're fearing with my friendship with this person so that you can really understand where they're coming from and I think it's very important to have those kind of conversations with your family your father your mother whoever's raising you so that you get their perspective and you're not just upset because they told you not to have this person and then I would also question you as to why are you defending your friendship what is it that you're thinking they're going to see that you're worried about that one every once in a while when it comes to experiences such as drinking trying to judge and having sex it is easier to just get it over with what would you say to these girls I would go I would get back to that initial conversation I had before is when you just say yes and get it over with yes could be having a child in the response way of raising a child the drugs could be becoming addicted or ending up in a hospital killing yourself drinking could turn into just numbing and trying to escape so to just have that pause a attitude about something could lead to financial burden emotional physical and long-term emotional therapy therapy one of the things that I think it's important for all of us as girls and women to keep in mind is we've all said yes when we should have said no and it's part of who we are today because we made that decision then and hopefully we've learned from it I think there is an element of if for some reason you do say yes and then you go why did I do that you have to learn to forgive yourself and learn from those mistakes because nothing is so bad that it's the end of your life there are always people who are around to help you work through if you've said yes and you meant to say no girls Inc this is a great place to be because there are people here who understand you know we've got the MVPs here at 14 and 15 years of age who are here to help support you through those kinds of things as well as adult women but I think it's just real important to remember that no doesn't I mean yes doesn't change everything about your life and your life is over that you have to learn to forgive yourself learn from it and move on I think it also you mentioned earlier sometimes we encounter things that become a little bit of a test of where your good friends are and where your your friends are that you probably can go ahead and let go and move on to better friends I can remember back in our age it was cigarette smoking because you weren't supposed to have be able to smoke until a certain age but you know so many people did it and you know I can remember saying yes when I probably should have said no and immediately decided okay that was the worst experience ever I don't want to say yes even though you know I had friends who continued and so forth I just simply said I don't want to do it either you could accept that I don't want to do it or you know I would have I would have stopped hanging around them what I found was I had loving friends that through a situation such as that realized that when I said I'm not comfortable with that I don't want to do that you guys can do that I don't want to go there I don't want to do that you know over time it was just that they understood that I had things that didn't make me feel comfortable but they loved me for me and I can say that those same friends were in our late 40s and we still hang out with each other because we've learned to love and exhaust each other but it was a process that we began when we were in middle school and that's a long long time and I think sometimes when you say no that other people who are along with it will then go okay well I don't want to even do it yet so you may start a tradition where you're going no no no we're not going to do that but just stepping up and in saying what you value and what you believe in what values have helped you overcome and drive through high pressure sticky situations I'd say one of my values that happened to that is friendships and family because when you're in that kind of pressure and challenges with some of the things that life hits you with those are the people who help you through it and those are the people who will call you out right your good friends will call you out in a nice way not in a mean way they'll just tell you hey okay you shouldn't be doing that or that's not good for you or hey that's great we need to take that and run right so that's mine I don't know what yours is Maria mentioned values and you know I have to tell you it wasn't until I was maybe 39 40 years old that I finally got grounded in something I mean I just was going along with life and whatever came my way I would bend with it without really having a firm foundation and it was through my acceptance of Christ as my savior that I came to find what grounded me I needed something in my life that was bigger than me and in addition to that I found a group of girlfriends and we are a community that walk beside each other we have been there for parents deaths for our own illnesses and surgeries thank you and you know whether whether if children that's right and whether it's whether you choose to find who you are through a faith experience or you do work on values the audience that's here how many of you were here for the girls conference that we had when was I think in october 5th they did this really cool activity with values cards where you sorted through and you found the top five values that were most important to you there are a lot of activities I know we've got card decks available so any of you that want them please make sure you get them when you leave but I think it's it's a really good effort get a girlfriend and do this together and figure out what's important to you you don't have to agree everybody has their own values and that's what makes you unique when I was your age I wish that I would have had an experience something like this to challenge me to think about that because to me it's all about where you're grounded and and what's your true north what was one major mistake you made in your life and how did you learn for it learn from it Jeff all that question I thought one which one yeah I was going to say we'd have to be here for a few hours and that'd just be on mine you know for for me probably one that was pivotal and and I took the question as you know what did I learn from it I'm still learning from it today and it was something that actually happened to me in college I come from a very very analytical family and so my whole family is filled with CPAs and bankers and aeronautical engineers and so math comes easy for all of us right and so math came easy for me as well and so I thought for sure when I entered college that I was going to be some type of finance major because you know that just seemed to be the thing that was in my family but I got to that point in my college career where you had to make the last decision so that you could take all the specialized courses and I struggled as a matter of fact I struggled so much I got lost because I looked around and I assumed that every single one of my friends and my whole family that somehow magically they knew what they were supposed to be the rest of their lives and I just didn't and the reason I didn't was because every time I imagined myself being the age that I am right now being a banker or putting financial numbers in a box I would hyperventilate because I would be like I just I can't see myself doing that for the rest of my life and so I knew it was not for me and so I actually went to my counselor at college and I said I don't know what to do and his answer to me was nobody can answer this question for you but you and so I felt defeated I absolutely felt defeated and I felt extremely lost and so I made the choice and today I would say it was an absolutely wrong choice I've said it for many years but I dropped out of college and I said I'm going to go figure it out instead of just trying to still stay the path and kind of stumble along until I could get there even if even if I did have a degree in finance that didn't mean I had to be in finance for the rest of my life and so the reason I said it was a mistake is what ended up happening was I then for the rest of my life had to work twice as hard everywhere I was to prove that I was an intelligent woman because I didn't have a degree it's just the way that the world works you know you walk in and you say I graduated from here and I have this degree and you immediately get a different viewpoint than someone like me but you know I I do now have a respected career but nobody knows but me how many lunches I work through just to teach myself stuff you know that was when computers were just coming out I literally took a manual for computer and I read the pages and taught myself how to work the computer you know I went into people's office who had a lot more power and position than me and simply said I find you amazing and you're really good at this can I just ask you some questions because I admire you and that was how I had to learn I learned it that way and slowly slowly but very very hard worked my way up to to a career and a solid reputation and so forth now I'm blessed that I work with people who they don't see that I have a career don't have a career they just see my expertise but I had to work very very hard for that and so I I always tell my boys college you know I know it's not for everyone but it does open some doors it does so mine has to do with men I come from a large Polish Catholic family from the Appalachia southwestern Pennsylvania and I've never married went to college I was the first to move out of the zip code so that was a big deal and when I would go home I have five five that many other cousins who are the exact same age as I was all married like all within one year and I'd go home for a family reunion and they'd be like when are you getting married when are you getting married I mean because you're not complete until you're married and that kind of eroded myself confidence every time I heard that it said to me something wrong with you something wrong with you and the reality is I have a bad picker I pick the wrong guys okay it's not that I'm not lovable I just have a bad picker so I'm going to outsource I'm going to lethap pick them for me but anyway my biggest regret is that I spent probably two decades of my life desperate to get married and I missed so much because my focus was on that now granted ladies we got a challenge because our hormones drive a lot of that it's true we have a biological clock that makes us want to have children and do all of that kind of stuff it was an uphill battle for me and and looking back on it now I'm exactly where God wants me to be and I was supposed to go through that journey so today I can sit before a group of young beautiful women like you and say let it go I mean if you've got a bad picker like I did doesn't mean you're not lovable you just got a bad picker accept it move on and and make sure that you're listening to the right messages you had a question about that how do you deal with those pressures of family and everybody when are you getting married when are you going to have a kid la la I don't know for me I had to wait until I got old enough that I could look back on it and say how insane was that that I wasted all those years wanting and thinking believing the lie that I wasn't whole unless I had somebody else in my life you know I wanted I want to tell you that the first my first marriage I picked and I was wrong and and my second one which is almost 30 years ago my best friend picked and good for you I highly recommend your pick I think I would have her pick your guy I actually was raised in a family where the girl gets married as children and the husband takes care of and so I got married not even really knowing what it was to have a marriage and a relationship and then I had two children and then I got divorced and I'm a single mom with no high I graduated high school but no education and raised two children on my own I never remarried but I did date and but I took care of my kids I learned the responsibility of taking care of kids and building a career because if you look at me now a lot of people don't know that I'm more introverted than extroverted but through a lot of self-discovery I've learned what I bring to the table and how to use that to raise a family make the money I need to do and I have two daughters who are married I have three grandchildren they take care of themselves so that's an accomplishment to me but I can tell you I didn't know what I was doing and to get married just because that's what everybody's telling you is the wrong choice you have to live your life we each have unique skills abilities talents if every single one of us on the earth was exactly alive then one of us would be essential and the rest of us would be a waste I mean it's really the truth be yourself and I know that that's what girls eat talks and teaches you guys about there could be no more truth than that that is really it live your life don't worry about somebody else's expectations for your life only you know the best path listen to your heart listen to your instinct let them guide you because you will get high roads low roads that you will get there and it's the journey ask ask any of us if we're done and the answer is no no we're far from done I will add you know I did some research on on the topic when I was asked to do this and I went to YouTube and looked at the videos and the one thing that just really kept bothering me was you know the girls were always saying I didn't like my hands my legs my eyes but I wanted to ask them what do you like what what do you like about yourself why is it always what you don't like what do you like have you ever looked into me and say wow I really like that or wow I really like that you know I have gray hair a lot of people look at that as oh my god you're old you're over the hill all this other stuff and my mother had the worst problem with it and I did but it identifies me it's your brain there's nobody else like me and I challenge each of you women in the audience to go home tonight and tell your parents what's good about you not what's bad but what's good final question what is the best advice you receive when you are our age okay oh mama's talking all those same things we're giving you now that we didn't listen to you know it is a combination answer um for me from um with your other one the biggest mistake you made because I I used to joke and and it was it was a big mistake to joke about it that my dad wanted a boy because he had me help him um when he rebuilt the engine in the car and he had me help him when he reads the brakes on the car and he had me um actually asked me to sew um a jib sail for his um his sailboat and I did and and he took me hunting and he did all these things and when I finally decided okay I want a car he handed me a car that needed its engine rebuild and said when you rebuild the engine you can drive the car and and I said yeah you you always learned a boy first right and he didn't get it until my little brother and he said no I wanted you to be able to figure it out I wanted you to be able to do it yourself and he said you can and that's the advice that he gave me he gave me all of my life you can do it you can figure it out mine actually came from my mother and she said in the gazillion times that was enjoy today and stop trying to grow up so fast because the only thing that happens is you keep thinking in your mind okay when I'm at that next point when I'm here and I can do these things oh life's going to be so much better well yeah you might be able to do those things but what you don't realize at that moment is all the other things that come with that point in your life like when you grow up and it's like okay so yes we we do make money and we can take vacations oh but we also pay all the bills and we have to do all the chores and make sure there's groceries and kids are at school on time she always said just enjoy this because this is only here for a moment and when you get to that you can enjoy that because you'll be ready for that but stop trying to grow up so fast my the best advice I got was from my favorite teacher in high school Mrs. Jean Bash taught at dairy dairy high school my graduating class was 365 people biggest class ever that graduated out of that high school in any event Mrs. Bash for my graduation gave me a book of impressionistic painting and on the inside cover what she transcribed to me was get out and experience the world and that was such a gift in so many ways because it came from Mrs. Bash and then also because what she stood for in my life I would say from where I sit today the best advice I can give you is choose who you walk this journey with carefully because I have got girlfriends that surround me in my life now that without them there are days where I couldn't get out of bed and these are girlfriends that love me enough to tell me the truth who are willing to go above and beyond we've seen each other without makeup sometimes without the correct undergarments as well but we do what we need to do to help each other so be real selective about who you do take this journey with I love Maria's got people she's been with since middle school I don't have that that kind of luxury but I do have friends that have walked this journey with me so far and I'm going to keep them close I think I would challenge you to have these same questions ask the same questions of your mom and dad and ask them to be honest with you because when I was raising my two daughters I expressed a lot of things I went through when they were experiencing it so that it wasn't me just telling them they they could understand why was saying what I was saying so I think if you open up to your mom and dad and you ask them these same kinds of questions and ask them to be honest with you and and parents I would suggest you open up to your children because that's when the real reality comes together and you have the relationship that you need and you get the answers you need any questions from the audience at this time my dad used to have a saying that he would I think my dad used to have a saying that he was notorious for telling me and that is that the perfect is the enemy of the great and done is better than perfect because you spend a lot of time focusing on what you need to do what you should be doing how it should be done when done and being proud of what you've accomplished is what's most important I think you've heard that message from these women stated a lot more uh approachably thank you all very much for being here tonight and thank all of you for being here is there if you have one final closing comment today what would it be find out find out how you're doing and oh believe in something bigger than yourself that in trouble for being too kind I was going to be similar love cannot feel a thousand wounds so go love the world and love yourself thank you all very much have a great evening yes you did a great job


Now, another way around this is what I will now talk about, it is what are called augmented Lagrangian methods. Now, the augmented Lagrangian method does something slightly different in the sense that it is not just looking for a minimization of a penalized problem, it is doing that, it is looking for the minimization of a penalized problem, but then it is not just doing this blindly, it is minimizing, it is looking at a certain type of penalized problem, it minimizes that penalized problem, but then the penalty associated with it is not going to be increased blindly, rather it is going to be tuned very carefully to the way we are getting solutions of solutions from this particular penalized problem. So, the effort is to eventually start mimicking these KKT conditions of the constrained optimization problem and at the same time making sure that you get feasibility at a finite value, even for finite values of the penalty parameter. So, let me give you, I will explain to you now what the augmented Lagrangian method is. So, recall what we know about, what we had used as what was called the Lagrangian, the Lagrangian was a function of X and the Lagrangian multipliers associated with it. So, I am going to look at a problem where the, so let me first try it out the optimization problem. So, let us first look at a problem where with simply an equality, with only an equality constraint, so you are minimizing a function F subject to say for simplicity, let us have these, only these equality constraints at J of X equal to 0 for J equals 1 to P. Now, the Lagrangian is defined in this way, so the Lagrangian was of X and here if these are Lagrang multipliers theta, so we define the Lagrangian as F plus summation theta J H J of X. The augmented Lagrangian is this particular quantity, the augmented Lagrangian is L of X, theta which is F of X plus this was summation from 1 to P, this again summation from 1 to P, so you have continue to have this particular thing theta J J of X plus you also include in this your quadratic penalty and outside you can put a penalty parameter C. So, you have your quadratic penalty added on top of the what is the usual Lagrangian, that is why this is called an augmented Lagrangian, so you are augmenting the Lagrangian with this additional term. Now, what we would do is that the algorithm would what it would do now is you can notice that you do not have just the primary variable X, but you also have the dual variable or the Lagrangian multiplier theta present here. So, it will continue to adjust X and theta at each step, so but and at the same time it will and it will keep increasing C k as well. So, actually to make the dependence on C explicit, let me write this as this given C. So, let us suppose we take the so what it the whole idea is to start to have an is to is to adjust your X and theta in such a way that you start with an initial estimate of X, you start with an initial estimate of theta and then as the iteration go along you start refining your estimates. And the goal is to get and is to refine them in such a direction that eventually at convergence you would end up the minimizing this augmented Lagrangian would amount to the same as minimizing the true Lagrangian and hence solving the KKT condition. So, let me explain this. So, suppose we have for sake of argument suppose we have fixed to motivate this suppose we have fixed C at C k. So, C equals suppose I fix C equal to some C k and I fix theta equal to some theta some theta k at iteration k. And now if we end up if at iteration k now with this suppose I minimize the augmented Lagrangian. So, then that would make that if I minimize the augmented Lagrangian to get a value X k the X k is obtained.  Now, this would mean sorry augmented Lagrangian. So, now this would mean that the gradient of the augmented Lagrangian with respect to X must be close to 0 or exactly 0 if you come to the exact solution. So, we would need that at X k this theta k given C k should be approximately equal to 0. You calculate the gradient of the augmented Lagrangian that turns out to be gradient of f gradient of f plus summation j goes from 1 to p theta k j minus C sorry plus C k times H j of X k the whole thing times gradient of H j evaluated at X k. Now, if you look at if you if you compare this with your KKT conditions what you would want is that eventually this term here which is in the bracket this should start resembling we want that this should start resembling your optimal Lagrange multiplier. So, suppose this is so suppose theta j so suppose theta j star are the optimal Lagrange multipliers then in that case we would want this quantity the one that is that I have that I have put an under brace below that quantity should start resembling or start approaching theta j star. Now, I can rearrange this and write this in the following way. So, write this as theta j star to be approximately equal to theta k j plus C k times H j of X k or equivalently I say H j of X k is approximately equal to theta j star minus theta k j the whole divided by C k. Now, what this means is that if somehow I am able to get this the consequence of this little calculation is that it tells me that if I am somehow able to get this term here the numerator to be close to 0 that means if I have my Lagrange multiplier correctly figured out that means if theta k is close to theta star then even when C k is finite I should still be able to make this get close become feasible make my H j of H j of X k close to 0 that means that should approach feasibility even for finite values of C k. Recall now this is exactly what we were trying to achieve when we introduce this non-differentiable penalty function with the non-differentiable penalty function we were able to do this by keeping we were able to use a finite value of the penalty parameter and yet get to the true solution and get to a feasible solution here is something similar is happening with the finite value even with the finite value of the penalty parameter we are able to get feasibility. Now, this particular equation also gives us a hint on how exactly should one update how exactly one should one update the penalty how sorry the value of the theta k. So, what we did right now was we fixed a value of C k we fixed a value of theta k and we said we let us minimize the augmented Lagrangian to get to get X k and then what we are saying is well if we were at nearly at the true solution the way it should behave is that this should become equal to theta this should become equal to the to the next to the next to the optimal Lagrange multiplier. So, thinking from this what we the way we update now are Lagrange multiplier. So, the Lagrange multiplier update Lagrange multiplier update is simply this that I do theta k plus 1 j equals theta kj plus C k times nj of X k and does this for all j going from 1 to p. So, this is basically the idea. So, the overall augmented Lagrangian method is then to do the following you let you consider you consider a sequence of penalty parameters consider C k that increases an increasing sequence of penalty parameters. And so this can I have taken this to go to infinity but it is basically simply an increasing sequence alright. So, you choose an increasing sequence of penalty parameters for and start off with some value of theta theta 0 which is your initial guess about the Lagrange multiplier start off with some value of X 0 which is your initial guess about the primal solution and then you iterate by doing the following you minimize the at each iteration you minimize this overall X. And alongside after once you get the X you also update the update theta theta k plus 1 as theta k for the jth constraint plus C k at j of X k and you do this now in infinite loop. So, what are what one is doing effectively is one is simultaneous one is doing pipe doing these two things you are increasing the penalty for a parameter and you are all you are simultaneously adjusting the primal and the dual variables. So, this sort of a method is what is called a method which this sort of a method is what is an example of a primal dual method. Why is this a primal dual method because it is not just simply searching in the primal space it is searching in the primal space and also at the same time using the using what which is learned from the primal space to also inform or update the current guess about the dual variables. So, effectively it is you if you think about it it is operating in some sense simultaneously in the primal dual space though priority is in some sense given to the primal space and the dual space is treated almost as a parameter. So, one of the big lessons in optimization is that optimization is best seen you know through neither the primal space nor the dual space, but rather the jointly the primal dual space when we did when we did a study of optimization of duality in optimization. For example, the way of addressing that problem was through the cost constrained pairs that that could be attained by an optimization problem. So, that object was an object that lied jointly in the in the objective and the constrained space. So, analogous to that in the decision space is the that is in the value space. So, in the decision space the analogous thing to do is to get primal variables as well as simultaneously the dual variables. So, this we are the augmented Lagrangian method is so effective because of this because because one because at its heart it is trying to play with both both variable that one. So, it and is therefore attacking the problem in the in you know using all the levers available. Although it is not a full blown primal dual method a full blown primal dual method is an example of a full blown primal dual method would be an interior point method that is the method I will talk to you about next. But this is this this method come is sort of a stepping stone towards interior point methods. So, the main theorem that we can we can we have for this for an augmented Lagrangian method is that if essentially if so let X star be a local minimum of the constrained optimization problem constrained optimization minimize f subject to h j of X equal to 0 for all j going from 1 to p. Suppose, suppose LICQ holds at x star and second order sufficient conditions are satisfied theta j equal to some theta j star. Then there exists exists threshold or let us say a finite threshold finite threshold c bar such that for all c greater than equal to c bar X star is a strict local minimizer. So, it is a strict local minimizer of this augmented Lagrangian. So, from this theorem so this is now not a complete theorem of convergence of the augmented Lagrangian method that that takes a little bit more to state it is quite a mouthful to state that. But essentially from here what we are seeing is that if I fix the Lagrange multiplier at the optimal value then it is enough for me to keep a finite value of the finite value of the penalty parameter. And with that finite value of the penalty parameter I can I my original the solution of my original problem can also be obtained by minimizing the augmented Lagrangian function. Now what one can do is from build on this and then work with not the exact value of the Lagrange multiplier but rather a value of the Lagrange multiplier that is approaching the optimal. And then from there you get you one can conclude the convergence of the convergence of the augmented Lagrangian method to a KKT point of to a KKT point of the constrained optimization problem. So, this basically brings us to a close on this particular topic of augmented Lagrangian methods but there is an before I move to interior point methods there is another type of method which I wanted to highlight and wanted to teach you about which is what is called a cutting plane method. Now this sort of method actually relies on convexity and makes you know very clever use of the convex analytic geometry of the problem. So, but it is it is not a very general method but it is it is it is probably it is a very elegant method. So, I would say the let so I thought I will just talk to you about it.


Statistics and Excel. Normal distribution calories example part number two. Get ready, taking a deep breath, holding it in for 10 seconds, looking forward to a smooth soothing Excel. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay because we basically built this from a blank worksheet, but we started in a prior presentation, so if you want to start from a blank worksheet, you may want to begin back there. However, if you do have access to this workbook, there's three tabs down below. Example, practice blank. Example, in essence, answer key. Practice tab, having pre-formatted cells so you can get to the heart of the practice problem. Blank tab is where we started with a blank worksheet, having just our beginning data on it, so we can practice formatting the cells within Excel as we work through the practice problem, and we're going to continue on with that now. Quick recap of what we have done thus far. We had our data on the left. We had our calorie counts, which were counted by day. We made a table out of it so we can sort by date or by calories if we so choose. We calculated the mean or average standard deviation, median mode, the mean being close to the standard deviation, as well as graphing the actual data and having it look somewhat like a bell curve as well as just basically having an assumption about the types of data being calorie counts, which you would assume would probably hover around a center point. Otherwise, you would think someone would get heavier or lighter over a time frame and would give us an indication that a bell curve might be something that would be useful. We then wanted to plot the bell curve. Now to do so, we took four standard deviations below and above, and then we ran into the issue of do I really want to plot one calorie at a time? If we do that, it would be great because then our percentages over here would basically add up to 100% about because we have four standard deviations, and that's nice. But if we go four standard deviations below, we end up with these negative numbers, which is something that is impossible in actual practice because you can have the negative calories. And also, we end up with very small units of data. So when I plot this out, we get to these small percentages. And if we compare that then to our actual count, then we can compare the actual count in terms of we can take these percentages times the count, meaning the number of calorie counts in days that we did, and it's going to be difficult to make a comparison between that and the actual data because again, the actual data is going to have to be when each of these calorie counts will have to be a whole number instead of this fraction of a number. So whether we do it by whole numbers or by or trying to do the count or by a percent, we end up with this issue. So we have to basically the next thing we want to do is say, OK, let's add some buckets and see if we can do this with our buckets. And also, just note that if we were to plot our actual data, like if I tried to plot my actual data as we have seen in the past on top of this graph, it's not going to work quite well because I have too much, you know, there's going to be a lot of blank space in the actual data. So if I tried, so this is in terms of percentages, you can see if I tried to say, I'm just going to add my actual data in terms of percentages on top of it as we've seen in prior presentations to try to see the comparison between the two. We're going to run into an issue. Let's just show that charts. We're going to go and say select data and I'm going to say, OK, let's add the percent of total this column. I'm going to delete what's in here thus far, hit this little button and then select from here, control shift down and enter and then OK. So there we have it. I'm going to say OK. And so now if I scroll on back up, we're going to see, so now it gets all messed up, right? And that's because, again, we have this issue with the too many units of data, so it's not going to line up. Let's undo that. And before I continue, I should have changed the X's down here last time. So let's do that now. I'm going to go to the chart design data and let's go to the edit and select this item. And I want to pick up my calorie counts here on the X's shift up so I don't pick up the total and OK. So there it looks like it's picking it up. I'm going to say OK. So now we have it goes on down to the zeros, obviously in practice it's going to stop at zero because we're not going to have those negative numbers. But if you want to see the full bell curve, it's going to give you that information. Now the other thing to just keep in mind is remember that because we had so many counts, we have pretty slim slices of data. So when you think about like integral calculus, usually you think of it as an infinite area of these lines, right? Well, we're getting pretty close if we were to sum up all of these lines because we have such small amounts, right? So we'll take a look that'll come into play possibly shortly here. So now let's say that we're going to say let's make a skinny L and say, alright, how can we kind of compare this data? I'm going to pull this to the side, get it out of the way, get out of my way, man. I'm doing stuff here. I'm doing stuff here. Let's make an X and a Y or let's make an X and then let's say that the X is going to be from zero to let's say like 400, 400. And these will be kind of our buckets and then to 800 and so on. And I'm going to go, I'm going to select those three, control or the fill handle and bring it down to 5600, our upper limit. So it brings it down to 5600 because that's our upper X so it's greater than our...


Assalamu alaikum 안녕하세요 다와뚜키입니다 오늘 지금 해방촌에 나와있거든요 오늘은 여기 왔어요 제가 자히드브라더와 함께 먹으러 왔어요 그래서 제가 너무 기대되네요 사실 이제 라마다니 얼마 남지 않았는데 마지막까지 파이팅 하도록 하겠습니다 파이팅! 배고파 배고파 안녕하세요 오랜만에 다우드팀이랑 다시 만났네요 진짜 오랜만에 만났다 잘 지냈죠 잘 지냈어 잘 지내고 있긴 한데 요즘은 라마단 때문에 조금 바쁘게 살고 있죠 아 여기가 해방촌 해방촌이 거리에요? 그래서 여기가 이제 파트너가 여기 산 집인데 자 브리안이 냄새나요? 어 그래 완전 드디어 왔어요 다우드 왔어요 Assalamu alaikum Assalamu alaikum How are you? I'm fine It's in the mountain We liked it Yes We liked it We eat Pakistani food today Yes yes Pakistan is going to cook Oh I'm so excited Yeah man Artist You're Pakistani too? No no All of us? Yes In Europe Hello What's your name? This is me, Negerish Negerish? Mohamed Hussain Negerish You're from Pakistan? I'm from Pakistan Same region from Zahir then the Asif Yes I'm from Piyat, Ibtari I'm making fruit chaat And Asif is making Biryani Pakistani famous food Oh Pakistan Biryani Pakistan is Biryani Finally Finally Hello How are you? What's your name? Asif Ali Asif Ali You're also from Pakistan?  Yes What are you cooking now? We're trying to cook Biryani So for that we're making some chicken now Chicken masala preparing here So we're making the rice separately And then we later mix it up Okay okay Oh I'm so excited I hope you like it I heard you are a great chef Yeah I'm a great chef today But today Zahir didn't bring all the ingredients This is Ruafza One of the most famous drinks of Pakistan Ruafza It's special for Ramadan We have Shamik ebab Shamik ebab? Like brine pulses Thongkasal It's not thongkasal It's Shamik ebab Mixed with dal and meat and some vegetables It's really delicious It's Ibtari Ibtari and we call it Ibtari also Pakistan we call it Ibtari Okay I will write Ibtari There is a region called Peshawar in Pakistan Chaplik ebab is famous in KPK Chaplik ebab Oh my god One of my most favorite kebabs in the whole world Chaplik ebab Chaplik ebab I want to try Yes yes Chaplik ebab And when we go to Pakistan We'll definitely try Chaplik ebab Oh Oh nice to meet you See you next year So for one month you just stop eating? Not like for one month It becomes like your things get a little bit stronger So sort of meditation Kind of like a food meditation You can drink water? No we can't No nothing What? Nothing goes down No way Nothing goes down You can't even do water? No water No smoking Nothing Nothing nothing Nothing So today is kind of the celebration then? You guys are hungry Yeah I've been eating all day Wow look at this fruit salad Yes that's really good It's amazing This looks delicious Nates Nates Do I just eat one right now? Yes just eat All right so these cucumbers Do I eat them with anything? We'll have a lot of very super Ruabza Ruabza Yeah with the red magic drink Red magic drink And with some basil seeds Yeah yeah Is it good? It's pretty good It's pretty good Very good So should I say happy Ramadan? Yeah Nates Or happy Ramadan Ramadan Ramadan Mubarak Ramadan Mubarak Ramadan Mumbarak Okay guys let's start numbers? No no You win the samosa Samosa it would be good Okay This is the name This like white sauce is kind of like tzatziki Tzatziki sauce I took a video with David's Lovens A week ago Oh really? Yeah in Italy Oh what did you guys do? Like David Lovens tried best for one day Did he do it?  What is your name? I'm David Lovens You and him did a video reacting on Pakistani actors and actresses And that was really viral You got really viral in Pakistan like So the actress sent me a message Actress? Yeah as an actress I forgot the name I want to know about that Okay we'll talk about it later So how was your first feeling For the first rhoda? Ramadan? This is really hard Hard yeah the first one Yeah it's hard but it's okay But I think I can do it But it's hard Like one day to Three days is really hard But after that I'm getting used to it So even water No water? Even no water That's really hard But it is pretty easy I did one It's pretty easy He did one Out of 30 he did one If you're sick you don't need to fast So the religion gives you This relaxation that If you're sick or if you're traveling Or even having a hard time You don't need to force yourself in this But if you're healthy If you're in a good shape You can manage, you're not traveling Then you can fast And we can extend Like if I didn't fast two days Then after Ramadan I can do You can do it like After the month Very cool So how many like prophets are there In Islam Many prophets These are including Jesus Jesus is all prophets in Islam So Islam has like 124,000 prophets No way Yeah Starting from Starting from Adam Till all the way to Muhammad Muhammad was the last prophet And Adam was the first Adam was the first human And he was the first prophet from God To guide the human so And then Jesus Like Jesus is one of the most Special prophets in Islamic culture And Muhammad is like the second? He's the last prophet I mean He's like the second? So we don't compare Like who is the best or who is not They're all prophets But because Muhammad is the last prophet So his teachings are more related to us Or more like important for us So that's what we call Sunnah Sunnah That's why we call Sunnah The things he did We follow the same So today when we were breaking the fast We started with the dates Because he did that That's why we follow it In the religion So this kind of thing Islam is just a prophet As a human Yeah But in Christianity It's just like a human And God Yeah You know Trust, right? So Muhammad is not like Yeah, she's just human He's just a prophet Yeah Just a human See, in Islamic culture We don't say that God has a son or a daughter Or a family or something like that Like he's just one And like the prophets are just His special Selected chosen people To guide the humans So all of them are humans You know, if they're not humans How they can guide humans Sure, sure, sure That's why we That's why that's how we Like the Islamic culture tells us So can like Non-believers go to Go to the mosque Yeah Of course Is it on Sundays? No, no, it's Fridays It's every day We pray five times a day You can go anytime, every day What day is it on? What time? A Friday in the Early afternoon Like 1pm Or 1.30pm It's called Juma It's very special It's very Arabic Yeah Like Sunday in Christmas It's like basically It's just like up there Yeah Sure A scholar gives a sermon So they're called scholars Not pastors Yeah Yeah They're called Imam Imam Imam Like they read the Qur'an The Bible The Qur'an is pretty big It has 30 chapters 30 chapters Yeah, 30 parts Actually 9 chapters It has 114 chapters And also about your daily life How to live How to be a good human being Everything is explained in the book How to treat your neighbours How to treat your friends How to treat your family And how to pray It's like the Ten Commandments, right? Yeah Actually Ten Commandments are also like Confirmed in the book In the Qur'an They say like Bible And other books Other holy books For other prophets They're also confirmed in the book That they are the holy books Interesting Because I know there's like two types of Islam They're Shiite and Shia We have all different types here today Really? And you guys are all like chilling Of course That's cool That's again a political The things that we hear like they're fighting That's a political thing We don't do that Normally Things are pretty similar That's cool Nice Thank you so much for fighting on today No worries man I hope you like the food Pakistan이 브리안이? 네 브리안이 라면은 다른 맛이예요 한국 라면이 많아요 이 라면이 바스마티 라면이예요 바스마티 라면이예요 이 라면은 Pakistan에서의 라면이예요 이 라면이 브리안이 최고의 Chef 한국에서 아, 진짜? 그니까 얘가 좋은 Chef 그래서 이렇게 먹으니깐? 네, 이 라면이 최고예요 이 라면이 최고예요 정말 좋은 시즌입니다 정말? 네, 이 라면이 최고예요 이 라면이 최고예요 왜냐하면 이 라면이 최고예요 이 라면이 최고예요 네, 이 라면이 최고예요 Bismillah Bismillah Bismillahirrahmanirrahim 드디어, 이 라면이 브리안이 이 라면을 어떻게 먹는지 모르겠어요 이 라면이 최고예요 아, 최고예요 처음에 최고 아쉬움이 있는데 한국에서 최고의 Chef가 아쉬움이 최고예요 고마워요 아쉬움이 ruined 딱! 식감? 잘 먹 your feeling 잘 먹어 It's a chicken biryani And there is imli imli? imli imli, 이게 뭐예요? 이건 뭐예요? 이건 핫스에 먹는 거야 Oh, raita ragaanda It's sort of sauce for biryani raita Only if it is too spicy for you It's yogurt Kya la flat biryani 레지 에스 팬에 아픈요 아 오늘 초대해 주셔서 감사합니다. 아이고 오늘 와주셔서 감사하죠. 진짜 아마딴 시간에 저녁에는 진짜 힘든 시간인데 아, our our company시장.com invited him today. It's a company we recently built for foreigners, especially Muslims, to sell our products. And it's a company we recently built for foreigners, especially Muslims. And it's a company we recently built for foreigners, especially Muslims. to sell grocery online, especially halal food. So thank you for coming, buddy. How was the biryani? Oh, really, really nice. I love Pakistan biryani. Yeah, you love it? Very much, very much. Okay, so I want to taste in Pakistan. Of course. We decided in February we had decided to go to Pakistan in May. And we didn't tell anybody because we wanted to keep it secret and then a surprise. But unfortunately, right in May. And then because of Corona virus, we couldn't make it. But please wait for us. Dawood and I will be coming to Pakistan as soon as Corona thing is over in Korea and Pakistan. ASAP, right? So please wait for us. And then Dawood wants to try biryani in Pakistan. The real biryani in Pakistan, you know. My name is Dawood Kim. I am from Korea. And I will be coming to Pakistan soon. Thank you very much for coming. Allah Hafiz. Allah Hafiz. Love you guys, everybody.


Introducing the IBM Quantum System 2, the building block of quantum-centric supercomputing. Quantum System 2 isn't just a standalone system. It was designed to be extensible, supporting up to 4,158 qubits with additional control racks added. It was also designed to be modular, so multiple Quantum System 2 can connect cryostats with long-range couplers connecting the processes, supporting up to 8,316 qubits and with three System 2s, a remarkable 16,632 qubits. In a data-centre environment, classical or AI racks can be swapped out to extend the computational capacity of the system. We will be unveiling our first working system at the Quantum Summit in late 2023. Thank you.


Hello, beautiful souls. This is Ono with Art of Awakening and the universe just gave me an awesome pep talk that I wanted to share with you. It may not resonate with all of you, but I think for a lot of star seeds it might and that's why I wanted to share. And so just a little backstory. You may know that I've had a struggle with adrenal fatigue over the past few years and it's really gotten better over the past few months, but in the last week or two it I had kind of a recurrence. And so I sat down and did some journaling and some Akashic inquiry. What I was shown was they showed me some memories that I had from being a really, really little kid and I remember really clearly just trying to communicate telepathically and just not understanding why people couldn't couldn't, you know, pick up on what I was trying to relay. And then also they kind of showed me throughout my life where I've sort of operated from this place of just giving and not always receiving in kind. And I think these are experiences that are pretty common to star seeds. But when they told me that the physical symptoms that I've had was related to some deep-seated emotions around these experiences of not being heard or these experiences of, of, you know, my good intentions not being reciprocated or people not seeing my needs, right? Because as star seeds we came from a place where all our needs were met, where people just automatically, everybody kind of just helps meet each other's needs, right? But now we come into this earth plane and it's just not the way it is, right? So what they told me was that I had some deep-seated anger for one around, you know, this and also grief and feelings of grief associated with just not feeling that connection. For me, this was a really kind of an aha moment because I've been doing a lot of work, right? I've been doing a lot, a lot of work over decades and these were emotions that were so deep that I really wasn't even aware that they were still there and what they were, right? The deep anger especially, I think it was just something that I hadn't processed, right? And didn't even want to at some level admit that that anger was there. And so this, I just found it to be really, really eye-opening and also really healing because after I became aware of these, it was just enabled me to just sort of take a really more compassionate look both at myself and at the people around me, right? Because we're on this earth and I'm sitting out here in the garden because this earth is, originally, it's the Garden of Eden. That's what it's supposed to be but it is, you know, we've come to this 3D density on the earth and even in nature. Nature is very cooperative and at its core it's incredibly high-vibes, right? But there's still things on this planet in nature. There's parasites, there's predation, there's all the stuff that kind of helps to make it work at this, you know, level that we're at right now. And so just incarnating onto a 3D planet, you know, that is part of the package. And it just sort of made me realize it's like, okay, I incarnated here so that I could be here at this time. And so did all of you, right? And to bring our light. And again, I was reminded of, you know, there's no coincidence that we're called star seeds because we are seeds of light that are, you know, incarnated on the planet in a darker space, right, in a darker vibration. And so it just found it just a really helpful epiphany for me to realize that I still had these emotions that I hadn't processed them. And as soon as I became aware of them, I fell asleep for like, I took like this 3-hour nap. And when I woke up, I had been invited to this party where I knew there would be people there that really didn't see eye to eye that were not vibing the, you know, the same level that I'm at. It was family, it was old friends. And I decided, you know what, I am just going to move in there with compassion and realizing that I too have done a lot of things in this lifetime, just in the process of trying to understand this world and to acclimate to it, right, and to survive in this world. I've done things that were pretty low vibe, right? You know, I think maybe we all have, right? And so it helped me to come to a bigger place of compassion with myself and I actually went to this party and I had an okay time. I just found that I was able to relate to these people even though we had sort of drifted apart. I was able to kind of relate in a way that still helped me to realize the connection there, right? Because we are all connected. So anyway, I'm just sharing this in the hopes that maybe you'll find it helpful. If it doesn't resonate with you, just leave it.  They said, you are a work in progress. Do not fret about the outcome. They said, you are to experience and to remember, you are the light within the stream because they had shown me the stream water, right? You're the light within the stream. Allow yourself to be carried forward and shine. We're here to shine and we're here to be the light and to be this, you know, these little seeds of light that we bring with us. And of course we have shells, right? Each of us has a shell. We're a star seed, but we have this shell of ego and the shell of whatever it is, right? But inside we're light and that's what we're here to really shine forth as. So just wishing you all the love in the world and remember, you were born to be free.


And it was a battle of top 10s today in the High School Boys Hockey Circuit. Class A's eighth ranked Greenway Nashua Q-Watton Raiders travel to Hermontown to take on the second rake defending national class A champion Hawks. And 19 seconds in, the home team strikes. Ryan Sandolin lights the lamp in the stead that stands that kid that isn't impressed. He has pizza. A minute 45 later Tyler Watkins doubles the lead with the Rister 2-0 Hawks. And then later it's 5-1 Raiders in the power play. Shot on net gets deflected. Credit that to Dylan Carlson. 5-2 Hawks. They run away with it though winning 11-2 tonight over Greenway Nashua Q-Watton. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


So in a nutshell, the keyboard layout would be single notes, percussion from C6, some sound effects, okay, and then some chords, which can be assigned to get that major to minor transition, which happens a lot in the concerts also, okay. So that's about four parts you could say for your keyboard.


You know I could not be happier this year with pre-season. We had a great fall. We didn't have the length of pre-season that we're typically used to starting starting practice when classes were starting with the adjusted schedule this academic schedule this year but I can honestly say after two weeks I cannot believe how far we've come. We are doing beyond my expectations. I am over the moon with how unbelievably hard-working coachable and how quickly this team picks up strategy. Their IQ is just getting better and better every day. I'm blown away. They have so far exceeded expectations that I cannot wait to see what they bring to the game schedule or the regular season. We're going to have to get better at two things. One we're going to have to get better at either a zone defense or some sort of high pressure defense. That's going to be really important for our group to be by the time conference rolls around to be really comfortable in that set. I think that we can make a real difference. We're going to need to create a lot of opportunities for our young attack to get the ball. We want to create a situation where our attack has the ball. The majority of possessions we want to get the draw to give them more possessions because it's a young attack and they're still finding the way in working together. We know we're going to need to take a lot of shots and the only way that you can do that is if you have possession of the ball. And this is a year where young everybody's going to play and that commitment is so huge with the team that your role is not ever going to be backup player. It's going to be I'm getting into the game. I need to be ready to get into the game. And that's how we practice right now. University of Rochester is new to the schedule. They're a solid team from upstate New York and we're excited to play them for the first time. It's a very different style of play up there. So it's going to be something that kind of gets our wheels turning and helps us with our IQ. So we're really looking forward to that. River Falls is a team that we have never played here and I just love having gaming the girls those those experiences. We love playing Salisbury right straight out of the gate. It's such an eye-opening experience for our team. They are athletic and they are aggressive and it really shows us a lot on how we're going to handle that. You know, are we going to crumble under the pressure or who's going to step up to the pressure. And we learn about each other in that game and we really can't wait to play that. They have some significant players returning. So how we match up with that and how we work this week with Salisbury Focus is going to be really telling about this group and how they game prepare because we haven't been there yet. We haven't had to game prepare yet with this group. So we're looking forward to it.


If you compare the artery function of those who don't eat meat to those who do, the healthy ability of arteries to dilate and let more blood flow is significantly better among those eating vegetarian, and not just by a little. We're talking four times better. Well, duh, vegetarians tend to be younger, smoke less, be slimmer, and have lower rates of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease. But the researchers control for all that. They only let healthy non-smokers into the study and recruit a group of meat-eaters who are just about as slim on average and have about the same blood pressures, even practically the same cholesterol, a really healthy cohort of omnivores, yet they still got their arteries handed to them by the vegetarians. And the longer someone was meat-free, the better. The degree of superior artery function correlated with the number of years eating meat-free. Instead of their artery function worsening over time as they aged, it got better the longer they ate that way. This suggests that vegetarian diets by themselves have a direct beneficial effect on an artery function and may help to account for the lower instance of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular mortality. Since researchers were able to control for other known risk factors, they figured it must be the food. But what aspect of the food? Is it simply the lack of the deleterious effect of meat? Or could it also be because the vegetarians may simply be eating more whole healthy plant foods, for example, up to serving a day more vegetables? When researchers compared two crappy meals, sausage and egg McMuffins to frosted flakes, and found that the fatty meal impaired artery function within hours, but the sugary meal didn't, they blamed the fat. But it may just be the animal fat, since high-fat whole plant foods like nuts don't have the same effect. In fact, if you look at a systematic review of all the randomized controlled trials on the effect of nut consumption on artery function, you find that nuts actually make things better over time. Enough to counter the artery crippling effects of a salami sandwich? Let's find out. And the answer is yes for walnuts, but no for almonds. Just like there are some fruits that are better than others, like blueberries over bananas, there are some nuts that are better than others, and walnuts appear to be the blueberries of nuts. What about the blueberry of berries? Blueberries themselves are randomized controlled crossover trial of cooked blueberries, raw blueberries, or no blueberries at all. If you feed people buns made of white flour, eggs, butter, and salt, and fill them mostly full of sugar and eggs, you get a gradual drop in artery function over the next six hours. But add the equivalent of a cup of wild blueberries to that same bun, and instead get a big boost in artery function, almost as if you would just mix the blueberries with water. By the same amount of strawberries, failed to rescue artery function from the likes of two cheese blinces with whipped cream, a sugary syrup, egg, and bacon, but that is quite the heavy load to bear. What about acai berries versus a meal with a similar amount of fat? One and a half frozen smoothie packs with half a small banana in water were able to significantly rehabilitate arterial function compared to a control smoothie with the same banana and water colored to look like the acai one, though obviously would have tasted differently. This group of researchers went all out, though, and performed a double-blind randomized control trial with raspberries, measuring artery function after two hours, then 24 hours after drinking about three quarters of a cup of frozen red raspberries blended with water, or about a cup and a half versus a placebo drink meant to match both color and taste. The fake berry drink had no effect on artery function, but the other two did. Note the three quarter cup dose seemed to work just as well as the cup and a half dose, which is what you see with blueberries. The benefits plateau after about a cup. The bottom line is that consumption of dietarily achievable amounts of red raspberries acutely improves artery function for up to 24 hours. You say, yeah, but by the end of the day you're only up like 1%. Ah, but at a population level each 1% increase is associated with a 12% reduction in risk of a cardiovascular event like a heart attack or stroke, all from just having a berry smoothie. What about berry juice? Five different concentrations of cranberry juice were used, along with a placebo control, evidently indistinguishable in color and taste. The 25% cranberry juice drink gave a little bump at two hours. The 50% juice was still working eight hours later. The 75% juice, the one that was nearly pure juice, and the ultra-concentrated juice also improved artery function within hours of consumption. But this, like that last raspberry study, just involved straight berries without some artery-crushing meal. Would berry juice be able to stop artery dysfunction caused by a high-fat meal this unhealthy? Squeezing down artery function within hours? Researchers created a cocktail of grapes, lingonberry, blueberry, strawberry, and black aronia berry, and were able to turn this into this. No significant change after the high-fat meal. Of course, if you had just drunk those berries alone, you'd probably get an improvement, but it's better than nothing.  What about OJ? Participants were provided a high-fat meal of ham and cheese croissants, along with either a cup of water, orange juice, green tea, or red wine. The arteries didn't much like the croissants, and OJ was useless, as was the green tea and red wine. So it's probably best not to eat ham and cheese croissants in the first place. In fact, drinking orange juice with a fatty meal could actually make things worse. If you give people bacon and cheese muffins with or without orange juice, the OJ can lead to a prolongation of elevated fat in the blood, as your body preferentially burns for energy all the rapidly absorbed free sugars in the juice, meaning sugars not encased in cell walls, as in those in whole fruit.


We have two spares, nothing in a Charlie Zero one, so long runway as well as the poppy lights out there. Weather. But what do you guys think about that? Because you guys have gas to be in that. Yeah, you're right. And then that's why it's all the same. Yeah, super. It might not be close enough, yeah, like within a mile, but it might be... I'm gonna be your plane captain today. I'm not supposed to touch it. Gotcha. Thanks. Okay, so you're supposed to... We'll be armed in the line? Yep, and de-armed on the taxiway. Sweet. Cool, easy enough.