Jennka

What are some of the other qualities?

I think it's generally hard to have a heavily muscled torso without doing some major weight training and dieting. With the six-pack and its derivatives, the key for men is to lower one's body fat down to 5% or so (a low %, and pretty unnatural). This is pretty hard to do and requires a ton of cardio. Getting solid abs is usually attainable, though

I used to weigh around 195 pounds (very muscular) and my abdominal area was tight & chiseled, but I didn't have "the 6 pack". (even w/ lots of swimming for cardio)

So you like long necks on men? or just medium? I've always thought that long necks were feminine

If I were to list them all, it would probably take more than a thousand words and I don't want to do that especially not in Jennka's thread

No, no, I didn't mean long or medium neck specifically, it's just that some men look like they have no neck at all like their head is placed between their shoulders

Please, feel free to do so

I wonder if it's like that in many countries

Well, I don't want to sound too detail-istic but from what I know, or at least it is like that in my language that 'university' is a title given by government? I mean, no private school can be called a university, an academy, or a higher school of some arts yes, but not a uni. I think universities are donated more too, the medical university used to be an academy. I think the change in the name had sth to do with financial support from the government, although I'd have to read more about it to tell you how it is in 100%. Though there are still these state schools which aren't called universities so I guess I am lost at this point, with the whole terminology.... all I wanted to say is that no private school can earn a title of a university.

It's 'funny' how it used to be believed that higher education is a pass to a better job with bigger money, while nowadays... Ugh. Obviously it is annoying when graduated with MA or PhD titles have laughable salaries, but then again, the whole higher education structure is whack. There are lots of graduates of humanistic studies, like European studies or pedagogy, thus many of them have it diffuclt to find a job suitable with their degree, yet there are too little students at technical studies. Of course it is changing, as at technical specializations you can get bigger financial support and scholarships but still. It's like, even the biggest schools seem to not realize the needs of the market.

As far as I know, in Austria is the handicraft very well paid and respected

I think the state gives the grant to school to become an university and be able to give out titles. I call these "private" - they are new and expensive. There was this issue last year with these kind of universities - some grands were annulated and these "private" universities canceled.

Yeah, it´s said. People can be very short-sighed, blinded by the current flow of managers and other attractive studies I know lots of people who studied like anything just to get the title. I often asked them - what do you want to do with THIS specification? And they would always say - nothing, I just want the title.

So that´s like it.

And I'm with you Jennka that a university education is now devalued by virtue of everybody having one. Taking luck, money and nepotism out of the equation - all that it does is delay the inevitable: we are all sorted eventually...

Yes, sadly, yes. I think the change is inevitable (at leas here) in 10 years and less. They started to closing universities with very low quality of education now, we´ll see what´s gonna be next - because the corruption is high even in the oldest and most valued universities

I read only non-fiction, and this gets me into trouble all the time because I just can't talk to people about literature because I am so backed up with reading that I can't read any...

Well, I do buy 50 fun, thought-provoking books a year (no math or dryness) and use them as interdisciplinary reference for my work, so here is a sample of my last amazon (fun) purchases:

Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It

The New Industrial State

The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle

Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's age of discovery

Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations

Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning

Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy

In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington

Oil 101

Schwager on Futures: Technical Analysis

Understanding Arbitrage: An Intuitive Approach to Financial Analysis

The Aggressive Conservative Investor

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises

Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets

Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance

Stabilizing an Unstable Economy

As you know, I have a BS in Acct./Fin. and as an analyst I have to read a lot about accounting, finance, economics, management & strategy, investing/trading, statistics, etc. in my spare time to kind of plug the areas where I don't have much knowledge. I last read three books on the Federal Reserve (United States Central Bank), one book on the 1982-2004 stock market cycles, and one book on China and its government.

But what do I enjoy reading the most? Probably history, economics, sociology, and economic development (a subject that I barely studied in college). I like thinking about societies and their evolution.

lol, those are just so far from books I read but yes, I know it´s your life and work

I like thinking about evolution as a whole - and the evolution of society too, I agree it´s really fascinating. Guess you don´t have much time to read those book you really fancy? On history and sociology? Or?

Oh Ksenia

Hey, welcome back Baron!

Did you consume enough protein and calories to rebuild your body after your workouts? This is the most critical part, and where most screw up on. I personally think that a lot of male models probably use Creatine or some form of supplement to with it.

I am in the "middle" so to speak. Yeah, genetics has something to do with it. I can gain muscle very easily- probably @ around 5 pounds a month but I have to match very heavy exercise with a lot of intake. Maintaining 195 muscled body is a lot of work, and not worth it (unless you're David Gandy), LOL.

^Indeed!

No, I didn't do any of that sort of thing - just busy having fun. Didn't really think much more to it at the time other than knowing girls liked muscles! Maybe diet and nutrition could have helped, but I've always been far too much of an epicurean to bother about all that.

Just like my fl he used to exercise a lot, but then he grew somehow tired of it and did not have enough time - now it´s ocasional and mostly he does Kapap to stay fit - but he HAS the belly and says he could not be bothered

Really? sometimes I don´t buy even something I need when I don´t have the money I mostly just wear what I feel comfortable in. That´s the most important thing for me - to feel comfortable. The last thing that bothers me is if it´s trendy I can go on wearing the same thing for many years... until it is worn out.

I feel the same way with my clothes. I don't buy much and I don't chase trends either. I only wear my favorite pieces.

However, I feel that the quality and appearance of my clothes is very important- In that I want to communicate something with them, and do it accurately & at the right occasion.

But I love skirts. I really DO love skirts

I like skirts too, LOL :-D

really? I guess mostly guys do

Favourite pieces, yes. I can go on wearing some of them for years and even after they are worn out, can´t get rid of them And you´re right with the communication through clothes - I think people mostly communicate through their clothes, but not about who they are... but who would they want to be

.....

It´s way too complicated to speak generally when I think about it

I want to thank you for sharing, Jennka It is all very interesting to me. Economies and societies are so complex that they're beyond the ability of the most knowledgeable economic mind to comprehend all the variables. Human judgement, human understanding...are never adequate enough. :-p

It´s all too complex but I like a good conversation

My personal belief is that life and values were simpler & more straightforward in the US back then and the educational standard- at least from an "intellectual" perspective were lower. Young people back then were more innocent. They saw the world narrowly, ie. There were good guys and there were bad guys. There were good times and there were bad times. They trusted people and their government more. Life in the 1950s was much slower, and people spent more time with their friends and family (which tends to bring more joy than the pursuit of mammon). Economies were less dynamic, and there were rigid social structures that gave a certain predictability to life.

Their conception of reality was just much different.

I guess there may be been something of that sort in the East...at least while the Soviet Union and its client states were growing in the 1950s.

I see what you mean... it was something similar. The life was slower, calmer, not so hectic as it is now. Values were different... people thought differently.

Well, the experiences of the German soldiers on the Eastern Front indicate that Russian troops had a tendency to fight with aggressive, nearly suicidal courage. They would take massive risks and fight savagely. The average Russian soldier in the 1930s-1940s had a 6th grade level education and was functionally illiterate. By 1943 the training of Russian troops were at the same level as the Germans.

This was something that German Generals did not expect when they launched Operation Barbarossa- for the most part, the encircled Russian units usually fought until all ammunition ran out. To my understanding, Slovak divisions also participated with the Germans. The Eastern Front was a very savage theater- as savage as the battles the US army fought on the Pacific Islands.

Dunno if Slovak divisions participated with the German - I have really no knowledge here, so I won´t even guess. I have a friend who knows everything about this issue, I have to ask him he has studied it for a long time (in his own free time) - as a hobby. But yes, Germans occupated Slovakia. There are many stories about Slovak families who took care about Russian or German soldiers... oh, you should really hear my friend talking about it

There goes a joke around in Slovakia - something like "Germans may have technology, but here in Russia, we have the mud" - and it´s true. I know that German machine were in serious trouble when it started raining in Russia - the mud was unbeatable, their machine could not go on. Then there was the cold - Russian winters are known for their ferocity and sharpness. Russian soldiers are used to that, they live there - but not Germans. Many of them starved to death and frozed. I´ve seen a good document on it, but I don´t recall the name

It is written by the winners until the mid- 20th century..in my view. Before the 20th century gathering historical data was much more difficult, and there were fewer competing historians. For instance, WW2 is actually very extensively studied, and the achievements of historians in this area are very impressive.

What fascinated me the most? Growing up it was World War 1 (particularly about trench fighting tactics and the great Aerial combats), World War 2 (Eastern Front, Western Front), The Korean War, 20th century US politics, and the Vietnam war. I have familiarity with all these wars, and understand how they were fought- from the General's staff down the common man on the ground. I enjoyed reading about US history post WW1 in general, and being a US citizen I can see how the structures formed in the past still exist. I'm above all interested in economic and social history- in this case, the history of people..learning about how they thought and how they experienced things.

Understanding the past has been very useful for me for better understanding the present.

I am also interested in Chinese and Japanese history, but my knowledge here is less extensive. And some German/Russian history (Third Reich, Soviet Union)

Chinese and Japanese history is extremely fascinating but I also love to watch history documents on Roman Empire (great great great!!) and Egypt and all the kings and Gods... especially I do love the monuments they´ve built, or fightinh strategies they used. It always makes me just stare in amazement.

What Slovak heroes?

Robert McNamara is not considered a hero in the United States (in fact, he is hated by many Vietnam Veterans), but I feel like I can relate to his personality (We have similar physical presence, similar manner of speech, formal education, and...even his values are very much like mine. ). I think we have identical forms of idealism. McNamara played an enormous role in the war in Vietnam as the United States Secretary of Defense (he was president of Ford Motors before that, and a staff officer during WW2 "one of the Whiz Kids".) He was given a difficult mission and he tried his best to succeed at it. After his SoD role, he became president of the World Bank.

"If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles. Try to learn, try to understand what happened. Develop the lessons and pass them on.."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara

Slavic, not Slovak but we have few Slovak "heroes" - their existence is mostly very disputable, e.g. Janosik, more legend than a truth? No one knows He was supposed to be a bandit, something like Robin Hood - taking from the rich and giving to the poor

As for real historical heroes... I guess Milan Rastislav Stefanik was a real Slovak hero. Astronomer, politician, general of French army. He died by mysterious backround - many think it was a political murder. He was really very interesting person.

my lovely surprise for you jenks, enjoy babe

http://i51.tinypic.com/30vn8f5.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/2cq01vc.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/2n6x6s5.jpg

what the... oh my god, that´s just insanely gorgeous thank you dozen times hun she is... heart: that is one great amazing surprise indeed

welcome babe, since i cant bring deep discussion to your thread like everyone else, i can at least bring GIFS

That´s great I´m sure she is very beautiful from inside out and back (if that´s how you say it ).

Of course she is (inside out and back, that is a very good way of saying it), did I forget to mention that. A serious omission.

Majority of women - seriously? Like, you mostly can see woman without make up than with it? Is it some trend in the UK now? I can´t say the same about Slovakia

Mmm, maybe I'm just being an unobservant male again. I'll have to do some more serious observations.

Cult Icon, hun, I thought you could like this model her name is Karolina Mrozkova, from Czech Republic, and has this very sophisticated look you seem to like and her polas are really amazing

Very nice, cool and elegant. These polas ARE amazing.

Felt I just had to post this here. More pictures in the link at the bottom of the post. Not sure about the art work, to be honest, but I love the idea.

Just like my fl he used to exercise a lot, but then he grew somehow tired of it and did not have enough time - now it´s ocasional and mostly he does Kapap to stay fit - but he HAS the belly and says he could not be bothered

Does your boyfriend drink beer regularly? He could try limiting simple carbs (white bread, sugar, beer). Those foods tend to increase body fat for some people. bodybuilders tend to eat a high protein, high fat diet (and cut out as many carbs as possible).

#1: If you want to really learn something, you can teach it yourself. Use the internet, buy textbooks, buy everything on a college syllabus..put in your time..outside of the time commitment, it's almost free.

#2. The idea that we should stratify society by education titles is a fiction, and is part of University marketing and political design. There is, indeed a degree of mindless credentialism based on the logic that education is correlated with expertise. It can be the pretext of having greater expertise while in practice merely producing barriers of entry.

#3. We need to respect all different types of people- blue collar, white collar, intellectual..- for their unique skills and abilities & what they contribute to society.

...........

Many people who do humanities do so for self-improvement....which can have certain potentials...and not necessarily to build an immediate career out of it. Secondly, people who have studied humanities or MA in so called"useless" philosophy tend to have first rate critical thinking capacities (as well as being first rate human beings), which can be valued by an employer.

Overall, I like the Canadian educational system. In the US our Ivy league and Tier I specialized programs (Law, business, medical, engineering, etc.) do a good job in setting up students. Anyway, the Tier II/III unis don't even try. I did a good program and I had a good experience- my classmates were all picked students...very smart and highly motivated. We had a very hectic four years.

There are a lot of big problems with all universities, though.

1. I think your college degree (and even grades, for that matter) is just a minor part of your application. You have to be doing a lot of other things on your own to supplement it and be developing your own set of marketable skills. What matters is the skills, experiences, and knowledge that can be imprinted on your long term memory bank. You need to find a realistic set of goals and throw yourself into them 100%.

2. There are indeed big problems with the way subjects are taught in a formal setting as they are often geared toward training people to move into graduate studies. There is also the major problem of focus: Test taking, class projects, and other gradables DISTORT the REAL learning process badly. You have to be really proactive and teach yourself..and realize that you will be teaching yourself a lot more than the courses themselves.

3. There is a certain commonality in programs: Important subjects are often not emphasized enough while the useless is often overemphasized. Perhaps 2/3rd of the things I did in college courses were a waste of time. This is a huge problem.

Other than that, I believe that all people entering into society in the 21st century...as today we live in a era of global labor markets...really do need to do at least 16 years of formal schooling. But definitely not the way that it's being done today.

1. We would have a massively boring society if all young people did functional specialties.

2. The typical graduate from a dental, medical, business, etc. school lacks liberal arts education, and it shows up very badly. Liberal arts and culture needs to be emphasized more in general to maintain a more civilized society with higher consumer tastes & better psychological health.

3. Basic business skills need to be taught to everybody.

4. We need to do a much better job in teaching second or third languages and interdisciplinary skills.

5. North America and Europe have been very soft in education for too long....

............

Besides that, I would advise Congress to adopt industrial policies, labor/tax changes, and to quit en masse, but they would assassinate me for not being sufficiently establishment.... :magic:

Dunno if Slovak divisions participated with the German - I have really no knowledge here, so I won´t even guess. I have a friend who knows everything about this issue, I have to ask him he has studied it for a long time (in his own free time) - as a hobby. But yes, Germans occupated Slovakia. There are many stories about Slovak families who took care about Russian or German soldiers... oh, you should really hear my friend talking about it

There goes a joke around in Slovakia - something like "Germans may have technology, but here in Russia, we have the mud" - and it´s true. I know that German machine were in serious trouble when it started raining in Russia - the mud was unbeatable, their machine could not go on. Then there was the cold - Russian winters are known for their ferocity and sharpness. Russian soldiers are used to that, they live there - but not Germans. Many of them starved to death and frozed. I´ve seen a good document on it, but I don´t recall the name

Well, from the broadest perspective the Germans lost the war as soon as they declared war on the United States. In Russia, they were finished by the winter of 1942. In contrast to stereotypes that still exist today- with the Nazis being incredibly efficient & monolithic.. the Nazi government and political economy was in fact very byzantine and disorganized. For instance, Himmler and Goering each had their private armies that competed with the German army for resources...and Nazi Germany was effectively a kleptocracy with many internal inefficiencies.

The Soviet Union had not only a better functioning government but also more rationalized production capacity. They had far more human and material resources.

What the Germans were good at was in producing high quality soldiers and fighting units. But they held this advantage for only 2 to 3 years. In terms of technology, the Germans were mostly equal or worse than the United States. They made some "Gucci kit"- ie. Very powerful, large tanks. But these tanks were very limited in number, and played no significant role.

The Soviet Union matched the Nazis in military technology in most of the places that really mattered.

And Germany's war making potential on the ground was less than the Soviet Union's. The United States' war making potential was about three times that of Germany's. The Nazis had no rational reason to be fighting the Western world. They lacked military and economic power.

When the Germans invaded Russia, they achieved great victories at first but as they advanced in the SU their logistics and supply chain started to collapse. They couldn't maintain their army in the field well enough. They planned their invasion very poorly and they completely underestimated their enemies.

By 1943, the Soviet Armed forces were basically kicking their a$$, so to speak..

Amat Victoria Curam

Victory Loves Preparation

Please, feel free to do so

I agree wholeheartedly with Jennka on this one, Layla

lol, those are just so far from books I read but yes, I know it´s your life and work

I like thinking about evolution as a whole - and the evolution of society too, I agree it´s really fascinating. Guess you don´t have much time to read those book you really fancy? On history and sociology? Or?

I don't read much outside of stuff related to my areas of focus- so I don't have time to read entire history or sociology books and so forth. I just browse through them, of course

Slavic, not Slovak but we have few Slovak "heroes" - their existence is mostly very disputable, e.g. Janosik, more legend than a truth? No one knows He was supposed to be a bandit, something like Robin Hood - taking from the rich and giving to the poor

Do you feel that income equality is an important issue? As you can see, I do. I prefer a world that is guided by true merit and individual & group achievement.

really? I guess mostly guys do

Favourite pieces, yes. I can go on wearing some of them for years and even after they are worn out, can´t get rid of them And you´re right with the communication through clothes - I think people mostly communicate through their clothes, but not about who they are... but who would they want to be

People even judge other people through clothes and physical appearance- at least initially :-p I have a lot of old clothes that I still wear. I have a nice wool coat that hasn't really aged much in the 9 years that I've had it.

Oh Ksenia

Whow, what is her whole name? She looks wonderful!!

welcome babe, since i cant bring deep discussion to your thread like everyone else, i can at least bring GIFS

Not only deep discussions, but also some lightening is always welcome