By Livinus Nnebedum
How you dress will determine how you will be addressed in any occasion, environment or public gatherings. Therefore it is good to dress very well to suit the environment you find yourself. Our youths – students in schools, campuses etc are advised not to dress half-naked. It is good to observe proper dress codes. There are dress codes for Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools. There are dresses for field and farm works. Do you wear suit and tie when you are working on the road constructing bridges or new roads? Do you wear coats to work in the farms? You may prefer to wear jeans with suitable jackets to work as a Civil Engineer or Agriculturists in the field. In the Banks and air-conditioned offices you may decide to wear coats with tie. This is ok and it suits the environment.
There is a dress code for office work and for attending promotion interviews. In this situation, you have to dress corporate. Therefore the type of dress you wear depends on where you want to go, hence proper dressing will give you proper recognition and treatment with attention.
The era of “African time” among Nigerians should be a forgone issue. Hence, need for all to be time conscious. Wise use of time is recipe for success. Time must be treasured, hence people often say that time is money. The diligent use of time produces a distinguished destiny. Any successful person on earth has a real value and appreciation for time hence there is a price tag to time. There is need to make effective use of every opportunity because time is limited. Where you invest time is where you get results. Invest time where you expect greatest results. Time lost can never be regained. There is need to spend your time wisely. Don’t allow people, events or even pursuit of money to rob you of your time. Use your time to draw up a schedule, allocate time for everything you need to do, such as prayer, study, exercise, work, traveling etc. Stop moving about carelessly and aimlessly. Invest your time today and you will be better tomorrow. Always remember that what one achieves in life is tied around how he used his time. Let us always keep ourselves busy. Don’t be idle, stop character assassination and gossiping and use your time well.
Time can be measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. Time refers to all the days of the past, present and future. The gift of time is the greatest gift God gave to mankind. Perhaps the earliest way of recording time was by means of the moon for the moon comes and goes once in every 30 days. This was discovered by the early Egyptians. From history we learnt that civilization began in Egypt over 6,000 years ago. But the Egyptians later realized that they ought to make the year the basis of time reckoning. Thus the year is the length of time (365 days) that it takes the Earth to go round the sun. It was the people of lower Egypt who worked out first calendar. The Egyptian calendar was introduced in the year 4241 B.C.
Nowadays we reckon time from the birth of Christ which is regarded as having taken place in the year zero. Years before that date are written B.C. (Before Christ), years after that date are written as A.D. (Anno Domini), which is Latin for “In the year of our Lord”. However people used different ways then dating their years by lines of great events e.g. 4.000 BC was the beginning of Civilization in Egypt, AD 476 was the fall of Rome and AD 1492 was the discovery of American by Columbus. The commonest unit of time is the year. The year is split into months, weeks, days etc. For instance, 60 seconds is equal to one minute, 60 minutes = one hour, 24 hours = one day, 365 days = one year. 7 days = one week, 30 days = one month, 10 years = one decade. 100 years = a century and 1,000 years = a millennium.
Scientific studies including geography had proved that the moon which is 384, 629km (238, 900 miles) away from the Earth revolves round the Earth once in every 27 days. Like other planets, the Earth has the natural Satellite which we call the moon. The first man that land on the moon was American Astronaut, Neil Armstrong, in a Rocket called Apollo in the year 1969.
In this present time we talk of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It should be noted that Greenwich is a suburb of London where there is an Observatory from which the movement of the Earth and other planets and stars are observed and measured. The Greenwich Mean Time(GMT) is also called World Time hence all countries in the World take or adjust their time from GMT.
Livinus Nnebedum is a visiting Lecturer at Federal College of Education (Technical) Umunze, Anambra State in CEP/weekend program.
