Grateful attitude good for health, happiness

In the midst of end-of-the-semester madness and with finals just around the corner, many can already taste the turkey and hotly anticipate Thanksgiving break next week.

But aside from near-toxic levels of tryptophan and football frenzy, there might be a few more reasons to be thankful this holiday season.

Dr. Jo-Ann Tsang, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, has done extensive research on gratitude and found grateful people are more forgiving, positive, have higher life satisfaction, and exhibit lower levels of anxiety, depression and envy.

"A number of experiments have shown that after writing about gratitude, individuals feel more mentally healthy," she said. "Individuals who engaged in a gratitude exercise showed significant increases in their experiences of positive emotion."

That effect was strongest, she said, in individuals who were instructed to think about another individual for whom they were grateful. Tsang also said research suggests writing down things which one is grateful for increases psychological and possibly even physical health.

People who experience gratitude more often tend to pray, read Scripture and attend religious activities more often than those who do not.

They also report having a closer relationship to God, Tsang said, but gratitude is not confined to any specific culture, religion or denomination.

"Every human being, regardless of their faith, can feel gratitude and thanks for what they have, no matter who they're giving thanks to," Dallas senior Hoda Said said.

Said is a Muslim, but she said her family always celebrates Thanksgiving the traditional way.

In fact, she said her family's celebration is probably closer to an original Thanksgiving because there's always a mix of American and Arabic foods like the meal the pilgrims shared with the Native Americans.

"(My family) never gets to spend quality time together, so Thanksgiving is really important to us," she said.

On the other hand, Said explained that for Muslims, gratitude is something to be expressed daily, a part of the five daily prayers known as Al-Fatiha.

The beginning words to this prayer mean "all thanks be to God."

"Everything we have is a gift from God. Thanking God (daily) is a part of worshipping," she said.

Krupali Patel didn't grow up celebrating Thanksgiving. She's from Ndola, Zambia, and she is Hindu. She said in her religion, Diwali, or the Festival of Lights, is the closest thing to Thanksgiving.

Diwali, she said, is a celebration of the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, and also marks the new year.

"In modern terms, it's more of lighting the lamp within yourself, and thanking God for destroying the evil within us," Patel said.

Since coming to Baylor to study, Patel said she has celebrated Thanksgiving in different ways with friends, but mostly it is a time for her to rest and catch up with school work.

"The international students are getting together, and even though I don't celebrate it, it's nice to come together," she said.

Said said she thinks the cross-cultural appeal of Thanksgiving comes from the fact that America has so many different groups represented within the population.

"I feel like it's so easily adaptable in every culture," Said said.

Although now usually celebrated with people's family, originally Thanksgiving was a community celebration.

From the earliest examples, Thanksgiving was time when people came together from different backgrounds to celebrate and give thanks for one another and for God's blessings.

"It's a beautiful thing when you can forget about differences and come together as a community," Said said.

Columbus junior Erin Schneider said her family usually travels to Louisiana to visit family during the holiday, but this year they plan to stay home.

"(We're having) a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, just appreciating each other's sense of humor and growing and being healthy throughout the year," she said.

Schneider, a Christian, said Thanksgiving is also a reminder of the great things she has in her life.

"So many times I just get caught up in life and school, and I forget that I have these great things in my life," she said. "God plays such a huge role in the families that we are born into and the things we have to be thankful for."

And Schneider said she agreed Thanksgiving can be a time for people to find common ground.

"We should be thankful for the support we have in the community, and that we are able to have these celebrations so freely.

Best spots you've never heard of

Ever gone on vacation and come across the most ideal spot that you had never previously heard of?

Users of travel Web site IgoUgo.com have come up with a list of the top 10 "Best Places You've Never Heard Of" based on their experiences, with reader comments for each place:

1. Amarante, Portugal - a magnificent little city

"During my first time in Amarante, I found it such a nice town to visit, a pleasant 'discovery,' the only thing I could complain about was the weather... The lovely city is bathed by River Tamega and Amarante's beautiful architecture by its margins and green streets reflect on its water."

2. Sigulda, Latvia - a beautiful little town

"As the Gauja National Park gateway town closest to Riga, only 50 km southwest, Sigulda attracts its fair share of tourists, and deservedly so because it is one of the nicest small towns in Latvia. It is located on the banks of the Gauja river that winds through the forested hills."

3. Avebury, England - a Stonehenge alternative

"Avebury may be a lesser-known henge sibling to the massive stones of Stonehenge in the south, but it is certainly no less impressive. "Although Stonehenge's stones are so much bigger, the scale of the circle here at Avebury leaves the former well and truly in the shade."

4. Sorata, Bolivia - a mythical Shangri-La

"Bolivians mention Sorata (a small village of 2,000 people) as one of the most beautiful places in their country. They compare it to a mythical Shangri-La, placed in a narrow, faraway - almost lost - valley in the mountains. "

5. Camargue, France - for a Spanish/Gypsy flavor

"It's an unusual corner of France with many Spanish and Gypsy influences, worth a day or two for those who enjoy outdoor activities or a touch of the exotic ... The Camargue is a national and regional nature park of marshes and wetlands encompassing the Rhone River delta, just south of Arles."

6. Victoria, Argentina - the "City of the Seven Hills"

"Victoria is known as the "City of the Seven Hills" and the whole landscape is beautiful. The Parana Delta starts here, and goes all the way down to Buenos Aires."

7. Budva, Montenegro - on a dramatic coastline

"Budva is a 2,500-year-old seaside settlement about halfway along the dramatic Montenegrin coastline. The immaculately cared-for old town juts out into the Adriatic Sea on a small peninsula and is surrounded by tall stone walls."

8. Bohol, Philippines - one of Philippines' secrets

"Bohol has numerous natural treasures that lure visitors to its shores. Although people usually go to its highly urbanized neighboring island Cebu, Bohol holds a charm of its own makes it distinct from other Visayan islands."

9.Cuyutlan, Mexico - black sand, green waves, sea turtles

"The beach is the reason to come to Cuyutlan. It is long and wide with black sand and rolling waves ... the seafood is fresh, abundant, and inexpensive."

10. Perthshire, Scotland - in the heart of highlands

"Blair Castle, the ancient seat of the dukes and earls of Atholl, has been awarded five stars as a visitor attraction by the Scottish tourist agency, its highest award. The castle enjoys one of Scotland's finest settings."

Bill Gates

William Henry Gates III, KBE, (born October 28, 1955), commonly known as Bill Gates, is the co-founder and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. According to Forbes magazine in 2004, Gates is the wealthiest person in the world, a position he has held steadily for many years.
Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr., a corporate lawyer, and Mary Maxwell Gates, board member of First Interstate Bank, Pacific Northwest Bell and the national board of United Way. Gates went to Lakeside School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school, and later on went to study at Harvard University, but dropped out without graduating.

While he was a student at Harvard, he co-authored with Paul Allen the original Altair BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 (the first commercially successful personal computer) in the mid 1970s. It was inspired by BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language developed at Dartmouth College for teaching purposes.

Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have three children, Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002). They live in a very large earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington. It is a very modern 21st century house in the "Pacific lodge" style, with advanced electrical and electronic systems everywhere. In one respect though it is more like an 18th or 19th century mansion: It has a large private library with a domed reading room.Also in 1994, he acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci; as of 2003 it was on display at the Seattle Art Museum.In 1997, Gates was the victim of a bizarre extortion plot by Chicago resident Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates testified at the subsequent trial. Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in prison.

n 1975, Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft Corporation to market their version of BASIC, called Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary interpreted computer language of the MS-DOS operating system, and was key to Microsoft's early commercial success.

In February 1976, Gates wrote the Open Letter to Hobbyists, which shocked the computer hobbyist community by asserting that a commercial market existed for computer software. Gates stated in the letter that software should not be copied without the publisher's permission, which he equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates's proposal was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by its ham radio legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations and knowledge were freely shared in the community. Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market prospects and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became one of the world's most successful commercial enterprises, and a key player in the creation of a retail software industry.

Microsoft's key moment came when in the late 1970s, IBM was planning to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was released in 1981. Gates licensed MS-DOS to IBM, which it had acquired from a local computer manufacturer. The story of how Microsoft acquired the original system (QDOS) has inspired much folklore, which often portrays Gates pouncing on a trivial mistake by Digital Research and stealing that company's lead in microcomputer operating systems. It is frequently cited by those who accuse Gates of unethical business practices. By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivalling IBM.