Nizwa teacher’s song strikes chord with hundreds of young Omanis
Debut single Desire Burning by Tammy Eyole Monono draws a wider audience by the day A song, a tune, a musical offering with its genesis in Rustaq could be just the sound to put Oman on the global...
The new technologies: Are they just today’s Trojan Horse?
Have you ever felt helpless in the face of the new technologies, like I often do? Are you aghast at the significant intrusions into our personal lives that the new technologies allow, like I am? Or is...
Low tech solutions to high tech issues not the answer!
I’m not an ‘inactive’ guy. I’m just getting on a wee bit, and after a lifetime infatuation with sports, I’m starting to wind down a wee bit. However, if there’s one thing I don’t need...
Don’t let the grass grow under your feet!
There could be little worse than getting passed over for a promotion that you had your heart set on, and it happened recently to the son of a colleague. However his reaction to the setback was...
Looking after little things, your employees, is the answer
As an educator, I’m always on the lookout for ways to stimulate my students towards higher level learning, and consequently, greater opportunities to achieve their maximum potential, whether it be...
Eid Habta Market - A Bonanza
The Eid Habta Market, traditionally a strong one ahead of the observance of Eid Al Adha, this week offered a diversity of traditional wares for the religious and cultural occasion ahead and has again...
History calls: Demanding wise counsel and respect
Ray Petersen - petersen_ray@hotmail.com - Every society, for millennia, has looked upon itself as the one that is right in its beliefs, traditions, societal structure, and behaviours, and why not?...
When you’re smiling, the world smiles with you
Most of you, or most of us, don’t laugh enough, and take yourselves, or ourselves, way too seriously. Life challenges us often and without warning, so we should revel in the release that laughter,...
I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list!
That’s what Susan Sonntag wrote some years ago, and I like it! I’ve been fortunate, during these last ten years, to escape that oppressive, debilitating, heat of the Gulf region during the height...
Accept change and achieve your full potential
Charles Darwin once wrote, “It’s not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most open to change.” In this, I am confident that he was many years ahead of...
Mother Nature’s amazing sights and sounds!
How incredible is Mother Nature? And how incredible it is that her wonders are laid bare to us every single day, and yet we so often take them for granted. Plants and flowers grow, sometimes in the...
Electric vehicles could become a genuine alternative
There is a delicious irony, isn’t there, in the absolute fact that whether the global price of oil is going up or going down, the price of petrol continues its inexorable rise? In response maybe, I...
Compassionate response to society needs a blueprint
I was absolutely delighted two weeks ago to see my home country, New Zealand, seek to take a new path in terms of its emphasis and priorities in the presentation of the annual government budget. In...
Game of Thrones ends: What next?
I was never really a Game of Thrones fan in its earliest days, but then my daughter kept shortening our phone calls to her in the UK with, “I’ve gotta go… Thrones is on soon,” or “Hi Dad,...
Harat Al Saybani: Heritage management at its best
In 2014, a Ministry of Culture and Heritage initiative saw Nottingham Trent University, from the United Kingdom, conduct research that culminated in a strategic plan for sustainable tourism in Birkat...
The quest of becoming a better person in Ramadhan
It is a certainty that we will worry about our world, about what we will leave for future generations, and how the current generation of the Sultanate sees their faith and their future. Sometimes we...
Impulsive thoughts and positive thinking... and fun!
Impulsive thoughts can be seen as a positive or a negative I guess, and a group of budding teachers and I had a discussion recently concerning reflective and impulsive learners. What? You...
#RunWithUs Initiative for 2020 Muscat Marathon
MUSCAT, MAY 15 - Event Global Ambassador Paula Radcliffe laid out a clear challenge for Omanis to get involved in the 2020 Al Mouj Muscat Marathon on January 17 and 18 next year, saying “2020, I’m...
Housewives, teenagers or oil executives: decisions
We, the man (or woman) on the street have very little knowledge and understanding of the oil and gas industry that is so important to the Sultanate, but I have been fortunate in recent times to...
Ramadhan thoughts of a new young mother
As if recently completing her Higher Diploma in Education at the University of Nizwa on top of an earlier BA in English Language and Literature from Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat wasn’t enough...