MeTe0R'$ W0rLD

The New Conclusion

2009-07-28T17:26:00.003+04:00

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. Before, I had an excuse which I was busy with studying, where I had a deal with myself to update the blog when I start my 3-months holiday. Holiday started and it’s about to finish and I only updated the blog once. This is a point where I ended up concluding that when a person wants to do something will do it regardless of how busy he/she is and when they don’t, they won’t even if they are free all time. It’s just about finding sometime to start and then according to the law of flow you’ll find yourself going on doing it. The hardest stage in a plane’s journey is always taking off but keeping flying is just easier. :)

Never ever buy a keyboard with 5 octaves

2009-06-30T12:54:00.001+04:00

An octave in a piano is the eight notes that could be counted from a C to a higher C ( C D E F G A B C). Having a keyboard with 5 octaves gets really frustrating whenever you are playing a piece and living the feeling of it and want to go lower with your left hand or higher with your right hand >>> ( you can’t even play fur elise complete, love story, unfaithful and billions more :$ ). So, if you are thinking of starting to play the piano and you are serious about it then you should take that in your consideration and spend more money and buy yourself a full-size piano with 88 keys rather than the one with 61 keys.

For more tips on buying a keyboard, you may visit this shawn cheek’s link on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcwrld07Ejs

He offers lots of wonderful easy piano lessons that will help you a lot if you are interested.

and let the rhythm take you over :)

Be a smart student

2009-04-30T21:37:00.004+04:00

Have you ever taken a class with an instructor whose aim in life is to screw his students up?
Well i have. In one of my physics lab sessions and while we were busy doing the experimental calculations, the doctor came and told me ‘where is your paper?’ so I gave him my paper and I was surprised that he wrote a mines five (-5) sign on mine and my mate’s paper. She was like ‘why? He said with his very soft voice that doesn’t suit his size ‘because u didn’t disunite the apparatus?’ we were like ‘OK, we are still working!!!’ then I just decided to act cleverly and here is the -5 sign:

Well i added my own touches and it looked no more as a (-5) sign. The paper then was returned to me without subtracting 5 marks taking in mind this doctor is kind of doctors who never forget and would do whatever to defeat us ( the students)

we all will face antipathetic teachers in our studying journey, so always be a smart student :)

was tagged for the first time

2009-03-30T21:32:00.003+04:00

Well it’s been a while since I got my first tag by faith, after the marvelous test today I have the time to answer the tag

1. List down 5 things people probably didn't know about you

Mmmmm well

I used to eat walls paint ( don’t ask me about that).

I like traditional food and Baploo is my fav, generally I’m in love with food whatever was that ;P

I have the genetic property of bending my thumb.

I’m kind of people who are misunderstood by others a loooooot, and I just ended up that it’s me who has a problem because can’t be all of them mistaken :$ LOL

Before I discovered the idea of death, I thought that when people get old enough they return to their mothers’ abdomens. This was the human cycle to me. But then i got stuck in if the mother was back to her mother's abdomen and her kids get back to hers, will they be reborned? Well, thank god i discovered the idea of death finally (I formulated this theory to solve the population density problem if people just kept reproducing just to make sure it doesn't get crowded) this was when I was about 4 years.

I got my driving license from the sixth try or more precisely from the first after five failures. ( anyway I did the manual that's why)

This is all I got and I mentioned one more just in case :)

2. Tag at least three people

I’ll pass this tag to spot and the horizon ( sorry, I don’t have a third person to pass this to)

SQU law students realized their object

2009-02-10T19:18:00.000+04:00

In a previous post I blogged about the movement of the SQU law students to change the streaming system they have at college.

Well, after that sit-in in SQU they corresponded with some authorities. And finally, the aim they were working on is reached. The decree of adjusting the streaming system was issued on Sunday and now they have a choice of a comprehensive law program in addition to the old streams.

This was the prize of their willpower, their insistence and determination to get what they fought for. I really see it as something historic, according to what we hear of bureaucracy and while everyone was telling them there’s no use of what you are doing and you are just wasting your time and putting yourselves into troubles bla bla bla. They just proceeded and converted the wishes to something real by putting negativism away and move. This is a story of success, where we learn to take action rather than sitting and criticizing.

Congratulations law students and a special congratulation to SawChen

Workshop II: most enjoyable class for this semester

2009-01-25T16:30:00.007+04:00

One of the courses that I should take in my IE program is workshop II, which is the second part of workshop I, the course taken by all engineering students in SQU.
Workshop II is a one-credit course but 2 actual hours and is taken in the Engineering Workshop. In general, the aim of these two workshop courses is to make students able to read the drawings properly and make them familiar with safety rules and basic workshop tools and machines.

first going to introduce you how does this workshop look like :)

In this workshop II course students are asked to do three projects: the Majmar, tongs and carpenters square.
When working with any project you have to follow the drawing and covert it to something perceptible and you can create your own design to add some artistic touches to your projects that make them distinct from others'.

This is my majmar

In Arabian countries it's used for frankincense (boukhoor ), but of course this can not be used :P
It consists of four parts: the main body, stem, grill and the wooden base. You work on each of them separately and then assemble them.
Well, it's my favorite

i wished if i could show you the process, but unfortunately couldn't picture every step

but i got this shot, which is before drilling the body

And these are the tongs

They're used to pick up the coals from the majmar. Well, this was my worst. I created a terrific design BUT then it turned to be hard to achieve. I drilled it to make the filing part easier but it ruined my whole project so had to change lots of stuff and here they are

The carpenters square

Well it's not a WOW project as the previous ones

I enjoyed workshop II more, because we had more freedom while working without the instructors on our heads (but of course they helped us a lot, especially with fixing the second project, so lots of thanks to them) and it's more machines work, which is more fun unlike filing which was the only outcome of workshop I. the most amazing thing with this workshop course is that it doesn't have any exams or quizzes, nothing related to studying and memorizing yupee :P and when you walk of the workshop, your work is done and nothing more to do XD.

Safety rules are the most two words heard from the instructors. You have to wear safety shoes and the lab coat before working and safety glasses before operating any machine. In spite of this, I just don't know why some students refuse to abide by the rules :$

What can two physics courses do?

2009-01-25T16:14:00.004+04:00

Having two physics courses this semester has infected my mind. For some whiles the only images I see whenever I close my eyes were free body diagrams,beams, trusses, cables, gears, machines, in every movement I take i.e. opening the gate, an image of force analysis jumps to my mind analyzing the forces in the system.

I see every thing thrown as a projectile and for anything dropped from high altitudes the terminal speed and the drag force are things I consider. Whenever holding an object I look for the centroid and when driving in any curvature way, I feel the centripetal acceleration. I think physics laws are dominating my thoughts. :$

ADVISE: never ever take two physics courses in the same semester, though for me they helped each other and saved my time and efforts for studying because of almost same topics in both. The only difference was that one of them was theoretical physics and the other was more practical.

and the dream came true

2009-01-18T17:04:00.007+04:00

Finally, the dream came true. The dream that we've awaited for more than three decades and specially in the last couple of years where our national team has evolved a lot and started to compete the big teams in the region.

Congrats Oman, congrats to all Omani, Oman residents and all red lovers.
It's our day, our moment!

Huge THANK YOUs to the heroes who played with passion, insistence and dedication during this tournament and specially in the final, which truly I see it as the best match they performed in this tournament, to the Omani Football Association particularly Al-Syed Khaled Bin Hamed, to our super coach Claude Le Roy who set the suitable tactics for each match, to our loyal audience who cheered and roared like lions until the last seconds.

This time i sensed it, I saw the victory in the players' eyes. I think the world conspired to let us win!

We did it and we deserve it.
I just hope this to be the start of the Omani sport era.
The gulf cup is just the beginning and we'll go beyond.

وستظل عمان نبض واحد

Khaliji 19 on Doors

2008-12-30T19:49:00.004+04:00

Cars with red accessories, houses with flags hung on, people with red scarves around their necks. This is the commen scene these days. It seems that we already started to live the atmosphere of the competition.

Unfortunately our exams were postponed because of the three-days-holiday, and will finish on 13th of Jan when about half the competition is finished. I’m just wondering, when we were at school our exams were synchronized with gulf cup and university student were always the first to finish. When our turn came to be college students it just became the opposite. School exams were brought forward and ours backward. Is it a misfortune chasing us?

Back to khaliji

For this edition of Gulf Cup we don’t want only to win but to be entertained watching our national team presenting wonderful shows as well, that makes us enjoy the winning and remind us of that marvelous performance back in khaliji 17.

Hoping all the best for our Omani team.

And let’s forget the exams & live the atmosphere of the competition!

SQU law students on sit-in

2008-11-07T11:26:00.002+04:00

On Monday this week, SQU law students carried out a sit-in in front of the administration building in SQU campus in groups of both males and females coming from their college in Watiya ( the only college based out the SQU campus) seeking to meet the Vice Chancellor of SQU Dr. Ali Al-Bimani to hand over their requests to re-systemize the degree plan of their program and cancel branching out into specializations of ( general law, private law and commercial law) and requesting to graduate with the degree of general law program that combines the three together as it is applied in some other law colleges.

After researches and interviews with law people, those students came out with the fact that according to the program they follow now and specializing in one of the branches mentioned above will result insufficiency in their knowledge and skills of their field. And will decrease the opportunities of hiring them after graduation. In one of the interviews they were told explicitly by a manager of a firm “I’d better hire one Sudanese or Egyptian general law graduate rather than three Omanis”.

Anyway, their claims to meet the Vice Chancellor did not succeed, instead they met Dr. Said Al-Yahyai SQU Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Community Service who convinced them that there is no use of what they are doing and there is no chance to change anything in the degree plan as it’s approved by the board of trustees, and they should better educate themselves on their own if they find any insufficiency in their program.

Law students were not convinced and getting ready for the next step.

It’s nice seeing young Omanis taking such actions when it comes to their future.

I guess I'm back... with IE

2008-10-30T14:39:00.003+04:00

Ok I know that I haven’t been blogging for a while. And what I’m sure about is that people who used to follow my blog lost hope to find updates in my blog and apparently I lost those followers( If ever I had any). OF COURSE I have no excuse and being busy with university stuff wouldn’t be convincing at all, since everyone has ones’ own busy life and still blogging from a while to another.
GUESS WHAT?? This time It’s university which gave me the idea to write this blog.
Since I specialized, the worst question I could ever be asked is “what did you specialize??!!” because when I reply “industrial engineering” people go like “ARE YOU GOING TO WORK IN FACTORIES??!! With large machines??!!!

And I remember that when my brother told daddy that he decided to major in IE ( Industrial Engineering) daddy's response was "cool. The industrial area is just minutes away from here". It could be because the name is a bit misleading but after the new-students meeting with the department our doctor Hamdi Basheer (one of the amazing doctors I've ever seen. Likes ones profession like nothing else ) interpreted that it was named Industrial Engineering because the demand of it occurred after the industrial revolution.

In brief Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of systems, products, systems of people, processes, information, equipments.

The aim of IE is to make processes better in the following ways:

Make efficient and more profitable business practices.
Better customer service and product quality.
Improve efficiency.
Increase ability to do more with less.
Making work safer, faster, easier, and more rewarding.
Helping companies produce more products quickly with high quality.
Making the world safer through better designed products.
Reducing costs associated with new technologies.

An IE can hold the following positions:

Project Engineer

Production Engineer

Systems Engineer

Quality Engineer

Operations Engineer

Safety Engineer

Manufacturing Engineer

Ergonomics Engineer

Standards Engineer

Maintenance Engineer

And may work EVERYWHERE: industries, services, companies, education and research.

It's strange when reading the qualifications of a vacancy of one of the positions mentioned above to be a mechanical or an electrical engineer, while it's more the IE's field of work. This was an obstruction for the first graduates, where companies were not aware of what an IE is. If companies are not then commoners are excused!!!

This is my first semester with IE and this is the way I understand IE now and my understanding may clearify more as I proceed in the major so, I’ll be posting things related to my profession to clearify the image for me and you followers and information mentioned here may help those young school youths when choosing their career.

The aim of this blog is just to inform you what is IE, so that you don't give that stupid look when someone tells you he\she is an IE or when your son\daughter comes to tell you that they want to be Industrial Engineers.

Over 18, Under 20 … and Responsibilities

2008-08-28T13:34:00.002+04:00

18 is special to every one of us from ones own view. For me, I was eager to be 18 just to DRIVE!!!!. Secondly, to feel that I do really exist in this society.
Before driving and getting my license, I've been repeating the promises to daddy … I WILL DO bla bla bla and daddy's response was always nodding.
I was always known at home as the responsible member, despite my young age. I was in charge of some things at home and was happy for that. I became 18, finished school, started taking driving lessons, got my driving license. Logically the level of responsibilities will increase after this evolution. I was extremely happy for that evolution in my life. I enjoyed doing these responsibilities, as I always liked to help at home and feel my belonging to this family. These responsibilities varied from buying house stuff, attending the school meetings for my younger sis, being in charge of her school stuff and picking her when there's no bus, driving my grandmas and my mom as well, though she drives but she doesn't like to. I was happy as I learnt lots of stuff, new places and how is life out there. I really feel that I grew up, but despite all this deep inside I'll always be a child.

It's been a year now since that real responsibilities thing started. In the past three months (since my longest holiday ever started) under some circumstance these responsibilities increased to a level that I don't want. Specially for the social duties ( some social duties we had to attend as my mother was ill). Anyway, I was ok with that. But these what I call responsibilities increased and started to be almost daily. Recently, I'm just feeling that I'm FED UP. I WANT SOME TIME FOR MY SELF to think about MY OWN LIFE. Sometime during this I just felt like I'm in my forties while I'm not twenty yet.

Here where just I have a wish. University PLEASE START I'M BEGGING. Not because I'm bored, not because I'm eager to study but to rescue me.

I don't know why we are eager for these evolutions in life, while we are happy with our peaceful life!!!

This week I just discovered that schools are starting next week 30th of Aug and not on 6th of Sep as I was programmed and I have a sis who is still at school, will I be in charge to pick her to school in the first week until they find her a bus and destroy my sleeping in the last week of my holiday before I start to get up early?? I hope not.

Registration battle ends with V

2008-08-26T18:40:00.001+04:00

Yesterday was our registration battle. I was well prepared. Set my mobile alarm to wake me up at 4:30, half an hour before the battle. You are probably wondering why do I call it a battle??? Because it's a battle. The registration is electronic ( thank god) and starts at 5 am. It's a battle cuz seconds make difference and could ruin your whole schedule. The day before, I memorized the courses codes, so that when registering and typing the code I don't waste seconds looking at the papers around me. The registration starts at 5:00, I succeeded to get some courses and when entering the code at 5:08 it says (this section is full, try another section) I entered another section, which I put in plan B. But this way, I'm gonna have 5 hours of continuous lectures. I was comfortable anyway, cuz deep inside I knew I'll get that math section I wanted, because I know the math people trick.
By 5:20 all sections were almost full. By 6:00 zeros were the remaining seats. Went to complete my sleep. Got up again at 9:00 and by 9:30 I was online ready to play the add and drop game ( I love this game. It's so much funnn). I was waiting for the trick. The math people trick is that they wait until all the sections are completely full, then they get requests to add more seats so they add 5 seats to each section. I was waiting for that moment and it didn't come until 12. I quickly dropped the former and I added the one I awaited, told my friends to add and in seconds it was full again.
I won the battle. I got what I wanted and it was a miracle when I got a department course that was registered by students the day before. In the first time of my life I experienced how seconds make differences.
It was a victory.

The electronic registration system at SQU facilitated the whole registration thing for the students, instead of standing in queues for hours and getting irritated and annoyed. I experienced that in the first semester when we ( people who passed the exist test and started credits immediately) had to register manually at the deanship of admissions and registration, standing in the queue for hours and when its my turn the sections I wanted were already full. And I heard the experience of manual registration from other colleges' students, and how bothering is that.
(Though this registration system had some errors, which caused problems to some students and made them miss some courses or mixed up their schedules.)

Switching to electronic transactions is what we need. The population is increasing and the style of life doesn't bear to waste time in standing in queues for hours.In Oman we have many successful experiences like Higher Education Admissions Center (received an award for the quality of the service it provides) and we are hoping for more.

Shelfari ... the book lovers network

2008-08-23T16:40:00.000+04:00

Shelfari is a technological gift to all book lovers. It's the premier social network for people who love books. On shelfari you can make your virtual shelf, divided to status sections ( I plan to read, Reading, I've read) which makes it well-arranged for you to know the books you've finished or what you still reading and your future reading plans. Also you can mark the books as favorites, owns, wish list. The (owns ) makes it easy for people you know to know what books you have in case they want to borrow something. The wish list could give your friends good suggestions of books to give you as a present. Additionally, there's a feature to put your shelf on your blog.

As a social network you can have friends there, see what they are reading, recommend them books and they can do the same to you, post them notes or any member on Shelfari asking them about a book they've read or telling them what ever you want. Of course, you can invite your e.mail contacts to Shelfari. There are groups as well, that you can join and discuss the books with members or discuss any related issue to the subject of that group. If you liked the group you can invite your Shelfari friends to it.
I think the most amazing thing about Shelfari, it lets you discover new books that may interest you. They offer an editorial review that describes the book and if it doesn't help you can read the reviews written by the members to decide if you are going to read that book or not. The tags of the book may also help to determine what kind of book is that. After reading the book you can write your own review of what you think about it, add the tags and rate the book.

Lots of Arabs and Omanis are there on shelfari, which could mean that reading popularity is increased and this is a good indication. So far, the Arabic book still absent from Shelfari for some reason, which I guess is that it doesn't support ISBN numbers of the Arabic books, because Shelfari connects to databases of English books and few other languages, but this may be fixed soon.

Shelfari is an encouraging environment for reading, which could help to raise reading ratio in our countries.

It just makes reading more fun, that's why I liked it :)

آراء فنية ... حلقات فنية 1

2008-08-21T12:37:00.001+04:00

كم مرة أشوف دعاية لفيلم أو مسلسل معين تستهويني فكرته فأتابعه و لكــــــــــــــــن
ما أن أبدأ أتابع حتى تعرض لقطات (ما تنشاف ) تضطرني لتغيير القناة للحظات ثم العودة و هكذا و في مرات ( يمسخوها صانعين الفيلم لدرجة تتعب من التغيير فتقرر بكل بساطة عدم إكمال الفيلم
و اللقطات هذي قد تكون مشاهد مخلة بالذوق العام ( خاصة لو كان في قصة عاطفية في الموضوع،،،، و اصلا حتى لو ما في بيدخلوها رغم أنف المشاهدين) أو لقطات عنف بطريقة في قمة قمة الوحشية حتى تكاد لا تجدها في عالم الحيوان من سوء وحشيتها ... بس طبعا لقطات النوع الأول هي الأكثر حضورا
تخيلو إن الأفلام أو المسلسلات هذي يطلق عليها أعمال فنية !!!!!

بس طبعا أنا من المنادين بأهمية الفن لدى الشعوب و أؤمن بدوره في بناء الحضارات، فالفن يعبر عن مستوى و رقي الشعوب، و هو مقياس للتطور الحضاري للشعوب من خلال الأعمال الفنية التي يقدمها أبناء تلك الأمة أو الشعب، و هو أداة التعبير عن مكنونات النفس و عن أحاسيسها و مشاعرها و تطلعاتها و آمالها
الفن يهذب الذوق الجمالي و يسمو بالذات الإنسانية من خلال ما يطرحه العمل الفني.
بإلقاء نظرة سريعة على الفنون الموجودة حاليا نجد
فنون مشاهدة: سينما \ مسرح \ تمثيليات و مسلسلات
فنون مسموعة: موسيقى \ أغاني \ أناشيد
فنون مكتوبة: رواية\قصة\ خواطر\ سير
فن تشكيلي\ تصوير\ نحت

لكن هل كل الأعمال الموجودة تستحق أن يطلق عليها عمل فني ( خاصة الموصوفة أعلاه)؟؟؟؟
في أي تعريف للفن لابد أن تكون كلمة الجمال حاضرة..... إذن فالجمال شرط في أي عمل حتى يطلق عليه فني و كل ما لا يحوي قيمة جمالية ليس فنا.
ثم تظهر نقطة جدلية فيما يقدمه الفن
فهل مهمة الفن أن يقدم رسالة ذات صبغة مثالية ( أخلاقية تربوية قيمية ) أم لابد أن يعكس الواقع و يكشف خفاياه بحلوها و مرها؟؟ وهل يبرر عرض مشاهد إباحية و مخلة بالذوق العام بأن هذا جزء من الواقع لا يمكن إغفاله أو التغاضي عنه، و هذا ملاحظ في أفلام و مسلسلات و روايات كثيرة سواء عربية ( إسلامية) أو أجنبية هذا ناهيك عن اللقطات المقحمة التي لا تخدم العمل و تستغفل المشاهدين و كل الهدف منها ( في رأيي) استثارة المشاهدين و جذبهم و بالتالي تجميع فلوس
عربيا لو اطلعنا على آخر الأعمال نجدها تحاول طرح القضايا الساخنة ( و هي على حسب رأيهم: قضايا الشذوذ و العلاقات الغير شرعية و اللقطاء .... الخ)
هناك مزاعم بأن العمل الفني لابد أن يطرح ما هو غير عادي حتى يحتوي على عنصر الإثارة و التشويق
اوكي فلو تقبلنا طرح هذي القضايا على أساس إنها واقع موجود ( رغم إيماني أن الواقع يزخر بقضايا و قصص أخرى كثيرة.. كله يعتمد على ما نركز عليه) ففي رأيي ما في مبرر لعرض مشاهد تقزز المشاهد فقط حتى يحصل العمل على لقب (جرئ)، لا يقنعونا بأن هذي المشاهد كانت ضرورية لتوصيل الفكرة فهناك عدة طرق أخرى لتوصيل الفكرة و المشاهد ما غبي يفهم ما يريد العمل إيصاله
ففي رأيي كل عمل لا يحترم الإنسان .. ليس فنا
و كل ما لا يحترم القيم و المبادئ و الذوقيات العامة .. ليس فنا
و هنا لا أقصد الأعمال الي من بدايتها لين آخرها ( قلة أدب ) ( لأن المشاهد يعرف ينتقي ما يشاهده) و لكن ما أقصده الأعمال الي أساسها فكرة جيدة و لكن محشوة بما لا يليق
و أنا من أنصار الرأي الأول: في أن كل عمل فني لابد أن يحوي رسالة ذات قيمة إنسانية، و هنا ننتبه بان هذه الرسالة ما لازم تكون على شكل وعظ مباشر ( يملل المشاهدين ناقصين محاضرات هم ) و لكن تكون رسالة خفية يلتقطها المتذوق من متابعته للعمل، و في النهاية ينتهي المشاهدون كل بحصيلة مختلفة اعتمادا على مستوى تفكيره و خبراته و خلفياته.

و لا شرايكم؟؟؟

نستكمل موضوعنا في بلوغات أخرى

Flexibility>>> the characteristic of the 21st century

2008-08-21T11:43:00.000+04:00

It's unbelievable how the world got change in the past few years that I lived.
After this technological revolution, we've been facing new things and ideas in every field of our lives: intellectual, social, cultural, political….etc
These developments make you fall in a state of conflicting between your principals, values and the inclination to comply with the age and stay contemporary and updated.

That's why I think for now the real challenge is to formulate our principle and values in a way that allows us to acclimatize with the age.

The life style changed and is changing and will change. The problem is that sometimes we just like to stick to what we are used to and what we were raised doing which could be exterminated by time. That's why we need to RENEW ourselves and our lives from a time to another.

And in this opened world where you got to deal with many types of people. You meet the bad-tempered, the arrogant, the stingy, the spoiled, the evil, the wicked, the antipathetic, the rude, the telltale….and the list goes on. Unfortunately, sometimes you're required to deal/negotiate with these kinds of people for a work, study or social reason, so to win the battle you just got to be flexible and never disturb yourself.

Being contemporary and updated are characteristics of the successful person. And to achieve that we should start that by being FLEXIBLE

Autumnal Breeze

2008-08-08T19:40:00.000+04:00

I've just added a new habit to my habits, which is :
Leaving the window opened while working on the net or reading and enjoying this fascinating autumnal breeze, the chilly breeze that hits your cheeks. This affected everything I do, read and added more feelings to them and made me live what I do.
I'm just feeling that I'm living that wonderful autumn we see in movies and we go like "how lucky they're" cuz of the wonderful weather they have. I'm feeling that we are so in a classical movie.
I've always thought that my favorite season is winter but I can say now Nooo It's autumn.
I think Omanis should take advantage of this charming weather instead of complaining every moment about how hot it is

Oooo I love you Oman
Unfortunately. I'm leaving this country today and fling to Thailand. Anyway I'm excited for the vacation as well