StarBulletin.com

Brief asides


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POSTED: Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Army's top athlete runs with it

Talk about a wonder woman.

Capt. Kelly Calway of Schofield Barracks' 500th Military Intelligence Brigade seems able to do it all: Keep fit, nurture career, focus, mentor. The military intelligence officer, 25, is the Army's 2008 female Athlete of the Year. And while being deployed in the hotbed of Iraq has had its grueling rewards, it has been tough, especially with her daughter and husband Christopher, himself an Iraq veteran, back home in Mililani. Ever the role model, though, Calway reflects: “;We chose to make that sacrifice. It's tough being away from my little one, but that's the sacrifice we make for freedom.”;

Aloha, you're hired

Editors at U.S. News magazine list Honolulu among the 10 Best Places to Find a Job.

They note Honolulu's jobless rate below 7 percent and the relatively minor drop in housing prices. And this might interest college students mulling a career path: The editors predict the most in-demand jobs over the next 10 years to be in retail, higher education and nursing.

A tisket, a tasket, stick to task at hand

Employers, especially, would be wise to ponder the findings of Stanford University researchers who found that people who multitask the most are the worst at it. In today's economic climate, the understandable instinct to have fewer employers juggling more work may eventually backfire, resulting in reduced productivity or inferior customer service.

That multitaskers were more easily distracted, less able to ignore irrelevant information and slower to switch from task to task “;totally shocked”; the researchers, who assumed experienced multitaskers would be adept in those areas. The study has major implications at home, school and work.