Discontinuing

For now, I am discontinuing my blog. I’m thinking about starting another on blogspot.com and if I decide to do that, I will post the link on here!

New Obsession

Not doing a long post.. it is Saturday night.. but anyways, just wanted to share my new obsession: www.goodreads.com … add me as a friend if you have an acct =) I think mine is rachellee321.

The Truth About Rainbows

Well I completely realize this is pretty random, but rather than being an advice blog post, its more of an interesting fact post. In my about me section, I have this picture:

I was on my way to work one afternoon and saw it, and was trying to figure out why in the world the rainbow was only red. Or really, just what it was in general if it wasn’t a rainbow.

Well, it’s called a red rainbow (go figure). Basically, if you didn’t learn this in science class, colors are composed of different wavelengths which is why we see them as that particular color. The sky is blue because blues and greens “scatter” the most, so they’re scattered across our atmosphere. Because the sky is cloudy at the time (this can also occur at sunset), the blues and greens disappear all together, and only the reds make it through. Pretty neat huh?

This is a pretty neat blog I found by a man who has a gondola who also ran across a red rainbow one night. It’s a really gorgeous picture.

Also, here is more information about various types of rainbows. Who knew there were so many!

The Truth About College Costs

A while ago, my boyfriend was trying to convince his parents to let him go to a community college. Because I went to a community college, and long story short, was required to know almost virtually everything about it, I helped him figure out the cost difference between going to a community college and living in an apartment and going to a university and living in his own apartment.

This is what I did:
Went into his account and figured up the costs of his tuition, housing, and meal plan. I then went and looked up how much it would cost to live in an apartment for $500/month, how much tuition would be, and I went through my old bank statements and added up how much I spent on food when I lived in an apartment. (Now I live in a dorm… yeah.)

So anywho, here are the estimated costs from my end (I don’t have all of his data which is a little more than mine costs):

University 1 Year (Fall/Spring) Cost

Tuition: ~$4,000 (for about 16 hours/semester)
Housing (Dorm): ~$4,900
Meal Plan: $5,000
Fees and other various (like internet): ~$1,000

=$14,900

This does not include any of the times you decide to go out to eat, etc.

Community College, $300/month apartment, Own Meals for 1 school year (Fall/Spring)

Tuition: $1536 (for 16 hours/semester)
Fees: $50
Housing: $2700 (for 9 months, only including fall and spring)
Food: $720
Gas to and from school (since you’re probably not living on campus): $180
(This is MY estimate on food, about $80 a month. I cooked a lot and was a smart grocery shopper, and cut down as much as I could on going out to eat. If you are more than likely going to go out to eat a lot, I would make that $150 a month. Also note, the gas is adjustable depending on how close you live to the school, and I only estimated the amount it takes to go to and from school)

= $5,006

So basically, you could graduate from a (2-year) community college for less than the amount it takes for one year at a 4 year university.

If you are at a 4 year university, please don’t get me wrong. I am at a four year university and I have no regrets going here except for getting a dorm and meal plan because I thought they were going to be cheaper. There are so many degrees at a 4 year university that aren’t available in the 2 year form at community colleges, which is fine. Just note your spending habits and try to save.

So the jist is, if you can.. try to go to a community college to get the general requirements out of the way. You’ll save a ton of money and the classes are more personalized and a lot of times easier.

Also, help out your parents some: get scholarships. Here are some scholarship resources:
www.fastweb.com
www.scholarships.com

So basically, take what you want from this post, but there it is!

Quick Post Again

I’m so sorry for the delay in posting.  Beginning of the school year and it’s been hectic, but I promise I’ll post again soon.  In the meantime, if anyone would be so kind just to click on this picture and give my friend a quick vote for his amazing photograph, it’d be much appreciated!

My Favorite Photo (I’ve Ever Taken) 2 Brickfish

Quick Post

I have made a couple of posts about bullying, and here’s an anti-bullying poster contest for those who may be interested.

Also, I had to show off some of my friend’s photos that he took when he went to Mexico to look at butterflies.

The Truth About Food Servers

Sorry for the late update, I went to visit my boyfriend for New Years and haven’t really gotten online.

This weekend, while I was visiting my boyfriend, we rode up for a quick trip to his lake house with his parents.  On the way up there, we stopped at McDonalds (blah blah yes I realize I’m studying nutrition) to get some lunch.  His father has a way of… well… coming off rude sometimes when he doesn’t mean to.  I do like his father a lot, he just has a way of saying things sometimes, especially when he’s distracted.  Well anyways, he had ordered a double cheeseburger without cheese for himself, and when we received the bag, it had cheese on it.

So, it made me think, if he had come off a littler nicer, would they have taken the extra trouble to make one without cheese?  Realize now, that most McDonalds just have double cheeseburgers already made up to toss in a bag when they’re ordered.

Recently, I found this article about 20 things your waiter won’t tell you.  I myself was a waitress at a retirement community for a couple of years, then hosted at a Mexican restaurant for about half a year.

The retirement community is of course a little different, I saw the same people every single day, but I still learned a lot about wait staff habits when it comes to certain people.  There was one table that we would have the coffee set out for them before they would even sit down, and we knew that we needed to go ahead and get their order out of the way or else they would be pissed.  I have to admit, if one of the residents were rude to me, I would “forget” to get their dressing or something, and if a resident was extra nice to me, I would go out of my way to see if we had any extra good desserts left from a function the night before.

Hosting at the Mexican restaurant has some more everyday application.  It was a pretty popular restaurant, and we always had customers.  Anyways though, here’s a combination of things I realized from both the retirement community, Mexican restaurant, and just hearing it from friends.

1. Being nice to your waiter will go a long way. Me and my friends went out to eat recently at Olive Garden and we gave our waiter a pretty nice tip overall, especially for college students.  He came back with an entire salad bowl full of those yummy Andes mints that they give out.  Yum!

2. Being rude to your waiter, well… won’t be good. I have heard many a “oops!” from waiters when they’re bringing out a rude patron’s meal.  And many times, even if the patron yells at the manager, the manager is NOT going to get mad at the waiter, unless it is something serious.

3. The rating on the wall may not always reflect what’s going on. I’m not saying to scrutinize every restaurant you go into, but just be wary.  For instance, both at the retirement community and at the Mexican restaurant, the tea spouts (the big silver things) were only EVER rinsed out with some water, not dried out and just stuck back on a rack.  The chips came out of a trash can at the Mexican restaurant. The trash can had never been used for trash, but once that can went empty, it was just refilled without being washed out… and it wasn’t lined.  Also, E. Coli comes from undercooked meat, and while obviously it is not the restaurants fault if the meat has E. Coli, you want to make sure that you get it well done, and at the least, medium well.

4. Waiters DO remember you. Have a favorite restaurant you go to all the time? After a while I was generally able to recognize the regulars at the Mexican restaurant, and they definitely build up a reputation.  There was a huge family who would never call ahead, even though they had 15 members, then couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get seated immediately when they came in on a busy Friday night.  If you have a reputation of not tipping well, or simply being rude, you won’t get the best service as soon as you walk into the door.  Now, if you do have a good reputation, you’re going to get the best service there is.

5. If you ask the waiter what they recommend, they will more than likely recommend the most expensive item first. So to fix this, just ask “What else would you recommend?” and then they will give you their favorite dish.

Going out to eat is supposed to be a good experience, so don’t make it bad for everyone!

The Truth About Girls, 2

I received this comment on my blog about girls where I had left it open with the question “how do we stop bullies?”

“Bullies never stop. Their marks are always lasting and their negative mindset on their peers never leaves.

For three years now, I have been bullied to the point where I cut myself and attempted suicide. People encourage the battle, people followed the bully, just trying as hard as they could to enter the fray.

When they entered the fray, they had followers. It was 100 against one, I was far too outnumbered.

To this day, I’m afraid of what is being said, I have a panic attack when I open my email, and I’m fearful of arriving at school.

Bullying is destroying and people don’t take it seriously enough. It might just be a joke to someone, but to others it could be devastating. There needs to be more resources available to girls, especially with their fragile self-esteem at the adolescent age, to prevent serious mental health issues from popping up: cutting, suicide, burning, etc.

After a while, girls BELIEVE that what is being said is the truth and are not willing to accept anything else.

I refuse to believe. 3 years and counting of bullying. 21 days not cutting.“

Unfortunately, there really aren’t many resources for adolescent girls.  Sure, there are counselors in schools but how much have they helped you.  I now ask, what resources are out there?  Obviously there needs to be some help out there, and there has to be some.

The Truth About Video Games 1

I put 1 because I play a lot of video games, so I will probably make multiple posts about video games.  Anyways, I ran across this article and wanted to give my own 2 cents on it and the games they feature (I won’t go into every one).

1. Half Life 2

I actually just started playing this game today.  You can download it off of Steam which is super awesome if you don’t already have it.  It also comes in their Orange Box deal (what I got.. I wanted to play Portal too).

Anyways, after my shameless advertising, THIS GAME IS SCARY! Not like super ew gross guts scary, but god it makes you so jumpy!  It’s like watching thriller movie.  They cleverly designed the game in a way that makes you jump every corner you turn.  There’s one part in the very beginning that you have to jump out of a window while you’re trying to run from someone… and what did they put underneath said window?  A table that breaks and makes a loud noise! OUCH!

2. Bejeweled

Oh the hours of playing this on the plane ride from here to Germany… there are so many free rip offs of this game, it’s ridiculous!  But, I guess imitation is the best compliment right?

3. Guitar Hero

Now, everyone says that “oh, hey this is so original!” but… it’s not!  It’s sort of like a rip-off of Dance Dance Revolution isn’t it?  I’m not saying that Guitar Hero isn’t awesome, but by no means is it original.  Unfortunately, DDR was released in 1999 in the United States so it missed this list by a year.

4. The Sims

Oh how I loved the Sims!! I spent countless hours playing this game, placing me and whoever my crush or boyfriend at the time as husband and wife.  What I love is that when I was in middle school, I had me and my current boyfriend together… and now I have him again!

5. World of Warcraft

I have to admit… I got into this game.  This is my old character, that a friend is now playing since I quit.  Honestly though, my favorite thing is the WoW Freakout.

Anyways, the truth about video games, which I will say probably several times… is that when it comes down to it, they’re not as bad as people make them out to be!  I am very social and half because I play video games with my boyfriend and his friends.  I love it!

The Truth About Saving Money

I am constantly amazed at my friends and their spending habits, then having the gall to say they don’t have any money.  From my point of view, they’re essentially pooping out $100 bills.  So here are some of my money tips based on the mistakes I constantly see my friends making.

1. Plan ahead when you go grocery shopping.

I have one friend, who on a minimum wage job, pays about $100 per grocery visit (not just per month!). Grocery stores usually have a weekly circular out on their websites now.  I would normally plan my meals on what was on sale that week, cutting down my grocery bills to average $15 a week, and that would include my entire week of dinner meals plus leftovers.  I loved $2 bags of meatballs, and would buy the bags of frozen chicken when they had buy one get one free.

2. Cut down on things like make-up, haircuts, etc.

That same friend, while she didn’t have a job, got a $150 haircut!  But anyways, if you are going to Clinique, consider switching to Covergirl.  And start buying those box dyes and getting $30 haircuts if you really need to cut down.  A basic good cut and dye from a salon can cost anywhere from $60 to $200.  Hopefully you are already smart enough to do the lower end of that spectrum.

3. Starting going to the library.

I used to work at a library, and seeing how much money my mom spends on books a month, she could really use going to the library.  They usually have the new releases, and you usually only read a book once anyways don’t you? Not to mention, most libraries have their own DVD and CD collection (hello, computer ripping software).

4. Is there a cheaper gym?

I used to work at a gym too (haha, yeah weird) and it was rather expensive.  It was  a very nice gym, and I understand why it was expensive, but it seemed like people used the same equipment they could use at a gym that may be half the cost.  My boyfriend found a gym deal that if you signed on a one year contract, it was only $10 a month.  (If you have a Planet Fitness near you, look into it).  Really though, this applies to any subscription service.

5. College students, do you really need that house compared to a cheap apartment?

Chances are, you are only living there a year anyways.

6. Order water when you go out to eat.

Sorry waiters, I know you probably hate that. I still tip well no matter what drink I get… but drinks have gotten absurd lately.  One restaurant I went to recently charged $2.50 for soda.  Eh?  Doesn’t sound like a lot but when your bill is $12 originally… making it close to $15 doesn’t sound good.  Don’t forget to add in the tax!

7. Just be conscious!

Do you need to keep that light on?  Are you really watching the TV while you’re on the computer? Do you really need to go out to eat tonight? Etc etc.