“Always be a first rate version of yourself

instead of a second rate version of somebody else.”

– Judy Garland

Worrying about the distance between your laptop screen and your eyes or what angle your back is when leaning over your portable device seemed trivial. I held this belief until one day the Human Resources department at my previous job insisted I use an ergonomically friendly chair. I honestly didn’t understand how a new chair would help me do better at my job, but I was given no choice. So I opened the box and pulled out all the parts. While bending over to tighten screws with an Allen Key I pulled a muscle in my ribcage and missed a day of work, but I digress…

My new chair did make a difference — and so did the tips on how to work on my laptop in an ergonomically-friendly way. Whether at the office or at home, your comfort is important — being unproductive because you’re neck and back aches from hours of bad posture is no help to anyone. Here’s some inexpensive and easy tips for working on your laptop:

Keep control: You’re the boss, not the laptop! Adjust your body so the laptop in effect comes to you  — don’t sit so far away that you are reaching forward for the keyboard. Keep your arms at your side and bent at the elbow. Attach a keyboard tray to your desk if need be so your hands will easily touch the keyboard.

Height matters: One of the reasons you’re slouching is because the laptop is so much lower than your line of sight. If you like to work somewhere other than your office this is a real problem. Purchase a laptop stand or put something solid underneath the laptop — like a phone book — to raise the laptop to a better angle with your eyes.

Be one with your chair: You can adjust the height or tilt by pushing on the levers under the chair. Adjust the tilt until you’re feet are firmly on the floor and add a back support cushion to support your spine if need be.

Unless you own shares in a chiropractic practice, you need to quit slouching and slumping while working on your laptop. Then the only pain you will have is your daily commute and doing your taxes!

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.

Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.

 – Daniel Hudson Burnham

Gone are the days when a guy would nervously go up to a girl, when her friends aren’t around, and meekly ask her out. We’ve even (thankfully) moved on from popping the question via text message. That doesn’t mean there’s any less pressure though. In fact grads are upping the ante — or maybe it’s the antics — when it comes to delivering the invite.

Teens are now taking their cue from elaborate wedding proposals and as a result a new word is being introduced to our language: Prom-prosal.

There’s YouTube prom-proposals, serenading young ladies and even planes that fly over schools towing a banner with a message on it for a particular student. One student even got down on a bended knee and pulled out a box with a ring in it at the end of the school play. The audience gasped, thinking they were witnessing a marriage proposal.

While it seems school administration is generally OK with this idea, students can go too far sometimes. In Shelton, Connecticut, student James Tate was suspended and banned from going to prom after he prom-posed to another student by pasting large, cardboard letters on their school entranceway.

While it’s good to see romance blooming in the younger generation, this new practice raises a few questions, at least for me. While everyone likes that special feeling when they are “wanted” can such a public display of affection be embarrassing? What about those who don’t get asked? Or the chronically shy that just can’t take the step to ask anyone, in any format? What does seeing these very public invitations do to their self-esteem?

While the elaborate promposals may not help the shy-guy, if you’re on a budget you can still be creative. For example, there’s flash mobs where a group of people assemble in a public place and without notice (to the unsuspecting people around them) start to dance and sing. In this case, the scene is carried out in a mall or department store. There’s also old-school proposals like using marking pens to write on the student’s locker or vehicle’s windshield and the ever-popular sticky notes that spell out words.

Not everyone likes promposals, but I say let the romance bloom! It’s high time the boys crack the stereotype that we are too macho to show affection. Now…pass the tissues!

“An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as two peas in the same pod”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Already other countries are leveraging technology to help streamline voter registration, including fingerprint technology. Gahana’s general elections are taking place and biometrics like fingertip scanning will help verify the voter’s identity. Other countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have already implemented similar voting procedures. These countries share Ghana’s frustration with disputes about election results, which come largely due to problems such as people voting multiple times.

Using fingerprint technology to verify identity would give elections iron clad security in that it would ensure that those who can vote are voting, and that they do so only once. But technology doesn’t resolve all the issues and in some cases presents new ones. For instance, some people fear these high-tech tools cause cancer, which was quickly refuted by Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC).

It’s those fears that prompted election officials to expand their social media presence. In an effort to inform voters on biometric voter registration and the registration process in general, election officials are posting messages on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr daily until the election ends on May 5.

Checkout the hashtags #iRegistered and #GhanaDecides to see how Ghana is informing its citizens and encouraging more people to register as voters. And if you want updates on online elections and software check out our twitter feed.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.

Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

- Gloria Steinem

“When I have to choose between voting for the people or the special interests, I always stick with the special interests. They remember. The people forget.”

– Henry F. Ashurst