A Life Well Lived Is A Life Without Regret

I had an eventful day hopping from Hilton to Le Meridien Hotel along the same beach called Jumeirah. The first meeting held at Hilton was about calibration. It was not about instrumental calibration that I did back then in my school's engineering lab. Here we calibrated our judgment on the performance ratings of our associates. As a line manager, I was given 5 minutes to present my rating proposal for each of my subordinate's performance to a senior management team. I was supposed to make them see within the 5 minutes, all the work done and results achieved throughout the year for each of my subordinate. If they don't have anything else to say differently and they agree with my judgment, then we are calibrated. Unlike machinery calibration which requires precision per se, human calibration requires persuasion, good arrangement of words under good ambience with proper timing. It was a day with great weather, great coffee served and terrific traffic conditions. Nobody seem to be edgy, picky and moody to upset the calibration. So I was done there at Hilton by 10AM.

By 10:30AM I was at the Le Meridien, the other end of Jumeirah waterfront to indulge myself in upgrading my knowledge in chocolate history, properties, nutrition and packaging legislation.

The following points are the facts I have learnt today from the seminar.

1. Historically, chocolate was considered as aphrodisiac, exclusively for the ancient Aztecs men and was forbidden to women. Ironically, according to many current studies, chocolate is now the number 1 food craved by women.

2. Swiss people eat more chocolate from any other people in the world, particularly the dark chocolate, made of 70% cacao. They have the lowest BMI and the healthiest hearts.

3. Chocolate has natural components like flavanoids, polyphenols, trace minerals and vitamin E which are anti-oxidants, good for heart health and great for those with active lifestyle to take away free radicals in our system after strenuous physical activities.

4. Chocolate is a great snack in between main meals. Chocolate snacking helps to regulate blood sugar. It prevents us to become too hungry before the next meal. It prevents us to eat too much for the meal. This can prevent spikes of our blood sugar level.
5. Chocolate has been the victim of many myths. Scientific studies have proved with evidence that chocolate has no link with obesity, diabetics, migraines and acne. The real reason for all the problems is basically the modern living inactivity.

6. Here in the Gulf countries, Halal label is not required by the legislation to be part of packaging details and design. Here everything is halal except for those products intended and labelled 'for Non-Muslims'.

It was a good thing to learn more about chocolate, but it was better to enjoy the view of the Jumeirah Palm and the long beach from the 15th floor.

It was even better to taste chocolate samples from all over the world. There was one sample of dark chocolate wrapped with a message on the inside.

It is a good revelation from a piece of wrinkled wrapper that makes a lot of sense to me as the chocolate melts in my mouth.