In doing floral arrangements, florists use an assortment of buds and flowers. One bouquet could have several themes of flowers, from fillers up to the main blossoms, in order to achieve the desired effect and capture the look that they want to have.
There are four main flower themes and each has different kinds that are frequently used. Spring flower is a theme that comes into bud during cooler seasons. These flowers need a freely drying soil with a balanced amount of moisture and heat. Another theme is called the rose flower which has diverse types of species that are by and large thorny shrubs, climbers and trailing plants. Normally, rose flowers grow from two to five meters in height although there are some species that can reach 20 meters. Tropical flowers, an additional flower theme, came from plants that survive during dry weather. Most of the tropical plants develop in temperate regions for the reason that humid conditions allow them to grow. The last theme is described as rare and extraordinary. Exotic flowers are unusually looking flowers which grow in the wild. Arrangements that make use of exotic flowers lasts longer that any other flower themes.
There are a lot of techniques and strategies that can be employed in floral arrangements. Combination of flower themes or a unique selection of each class could result to brilliant and striking presentations which mainly depend on the florist’s taste. What is important is to determine the purpose that the arrangement will be serving so that you can choose the best blend of perfect flowers.
Aaliyah Turner used to light up the scoreboard for the Emmanuel College women's basketball team - even while observing the Islamic month of Ramadan. She would go all day without food and water until halftime, when the sun set. So during this year's observance, playing a pickup game of basketball with a youth team organized through her mosque seemed to be no big deal.
"If I weren't fasting, I'd feel like I'd probably miss more shots because I'm out of sync," Turner says.
Muslims in the United States face special challenges in celebrating their holy month, which this year began Sept. 23 and ends Oct. 22. While Muslims in the Islamic world revive the daily rhythms of Ramadan - streets empty at sunset, families congregating for Ramadan dinners, or iftars, and later heading to the markets to drink tea until the wee hours of the morning, comfortable in the knowledge that they can sleep late because others will, too - Muslim-Americans have to adjust Ramadan to the beat of American life.
In the process, they're creating Ramadan traditions with a distinctly American flavor - whether it's fasting in the heat of competition, eating takeout for iftar, or breaking fast with Christians and Jews.
"The Muslim experience in America is one of trying to conform to the way society around us runs," says Shahed Amanullah, who runs zabihah.com, an online guide of restaurants that conform to Islamic dietary restrictions. "In a Muslim country, everybody breaks their fast at the same time, so business conforms to that. But in America, we have to conform to a different schedule."
Omar Ahmad, for example, a technology worker in Silicon Valley, is often still at work at sunset. So he drives to the nearby Yaseen Center mosque in Belmont, where iftar is served, and gets his meal to go. He eats it at his office - a ritual performed by dozens of Muslims who work in Silicon Valley.
"That's when you can tell who all the bachelors are," he jokes, adding that mosque officials don't mind the eat-and-run.
Saira Sufi grew up in Topeka, Kan., accustomed to home-cooked iftars with family, but had little trouble adjusting to breaking her fast when she took a job on Capitol Hill, mainly because she could share the experience with Muslim colleagues. But since taking a job two years ago with the Civil War Preservation Trust, where she is the only Muslim, Sufi confesses to missing the sense of community. "I love breaking fast with other Muslims, but if you can't, you just accept it."
Rather than lamenting, however, Sufi has turned her solitude into an opportunity to contemplate God - another practice encouraged during Ramadan. "When you're on your own, you reflect a little more," she says.
While Muslim-Americans like Sufi have adjusted Ramadan to American life, more Americans have also become increasingly aware of Ramadan, and have sought to accommodate Muslims. For example, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., the prayer hall stays open late to accommodate students praying Taraweeh, special prayers performed only during Ramadan. And many employers are letting Muslim employees slip out at sunset so they can break their fast.
Many Muslim-Americans, meanwhile, are using Ramadan as a chance to reach out to the larger community. Since the 1990s, Sufi's father, Ashraf Sufi, has frequently invited non-Muslim neighbors to his home for iftar. After the 9/11 attacks, the need for interfaith dialogue became more urgent, and Dr. Sufi and his colleagues expanded the iftars through the Islamic Center of Topeka. The interfaith iftars have since become "like a tradition," Sufi says, drawing about 70 people, including Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Bahais.
"If you don't meet people, you stay in your own shell, and that just breeds suspicion," he says.
Indeed, according to the "Fatwa Bank" at IslamOnline.net, a conservative Web site, Muslims are encouraged to share iftar with non-Muslims. In response to a question from Pakistan, the Fatwa Bank said: "It is an intelligent and impressive idea to organize iftar with non-Muslims."
Along with diversity, the nation's penchants for volunteering and technology have also influenced the way Muslim-Americans observe Ramadan. For example, Nabila Mango, a San Francisco social worker, says the annual iftar she has organized for the past six years for the city's Tenderloin district, draws some 100 volunteers. "The volunteers are really a picture of the Bay area: Muslims, Jews, Christians, straight, gay, everybody," Mango says.
And Omar Mozaffar, an Islamic studies student at the University of Chicago, has taken up blogging to reflect on the meaning of Ramadan. It also helps overcome a typically American dilemma: "In our society, Muslim or not, we are alienated from each other, and blogging helps people connect and share ideas," he says.
Jamil Abdullah, who coaches a basketball team sponsored by Masjid Al-Quran, a Boston mosque, believes Ramadan in America is too diverse to be labeled an American Ramadan.
"I wouldn't say it's our own unique Ramadan. I would say everybody's Ramadan is unique," he says. "There's not this Ramadan, or that Ramadan. It's just Ramadan, your Ramadan."
Slow bicycle race is one of the popular traditional Indonesian independence day.
Game mode
The participants prepared with each bike in the beginning of the line and raced to reach the finish line in each lane. However, different from and opposed to racing bikes, slow bikes winner is the most recent participants reach the finish line.
Since the bike only has two wheels, the slower bike dikayuh, increasingly difficult to maintain balance, and if participants can not balance the bike (fall or one of his feet touch the road), participants would otherwise fall.
