A Card From Home
Aug 18th
Today I received a lovely card from my mom and dad, complete with photos and updates from home. Oh how it made me homesick for a while!
But I wouldn’t trade studying here at Sagrado, I love it. Things are going really well with pretty much all my classes at the moment, and I really love the local people and environment.
So mom, glad to hear things are going well at home.
And dad, you’ve lost more hair… I’ll order you a pack of those hair growth vitamins I was talking to you about!
Please send my love to Rory and Timmy, I can’t wait to see you all when I visit in the next break.
Assignment Problems
Aug 11th
I’m having problems completing my assignments this week, it seems that my laptop has been infected with spyware. It took me ages to work out what was going on, and every time I tried to do anything, this message kept on popping up saying that I was infected, asking me to run a scan
But upon further inspection, I found that the spyware warning message that was coming up was actually spyware itself! So somehow this program had downloaded to my laptop, and was not pretending to be anti-spyware software. No wonder it was asking me to pay for a subscription, it was all a scam.
Anyway, it took me many hours to learn how to get rid of it. First I tried searching for the best spyware removal programs on the Internet, and eventually found one of them that worked. It seems that I am now clear of spyware, and can hopefully catch up on all my work!
My New Hobby
Aug 9th
I am currently taking electric guitar lessons, and loving it.
It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, and it gives me a great new outlet to do something artistic between classes.
The electric guitar can be learned easily if you already know how to play the acoustic guitar. It would be best to learn the nylon or acoustic guitar first if you are a total novice with guitar instruments as these instruments are less complicated and do not carry any special knobs and strings and can be used for playing as a stand-alone too. There are special features which accompany the electric guitar and these include the amp and effects box. These features allow the guitar player to mix, arrange and experiment with the sound and texture of a song in an effective manner.
Perhaps the most practical and important tip for people who want to learn to play the electric guitar can be summed up in a few words: practice, practice, and more practice. Like in almost everything, if you know what you want, practicing well to get it should not be difficult.
Wish me luck!
Thanks Mom
Aug 3rd
Thanks Mom for the Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses! I absolutely love them, and they were a wonderful surprise.
See you at the end of the term!
Media Advertising
Aug 3rd
One of my subjects this term has a slight media and business component, where we will be talking about the various media advertising mediums around the world, such as newspaper, television, and magazine subscriptions.
Tens of thousands of magazines are purchased every week at newsstands and shops. This is mostly impulse buying, as you see the stories, the glossy covers, the competitions, and you end up buying one. That’s fine, except there is a much more economical way of purchasing magazines, and that is through subscriptions.
Most magazines cost around $4.00 to $8.00 in price, depending on what you buy and where you buy it from. Sometimes there will be store discounts, or sometimes particular issues will have discounts or special bonuses. But generally speaking, the cost of purchasing a single issue in the shop is much higher than through a subscription. And yet it is exactly the same magazine.
Children’s magazines are better suited for subscriptions, that way they can collect issues and enjoy them longer. The content in a children’s magazine is designed to last longer than the story in a news related magazine anyway. Magazines that are geared towards adult issues or themed around your trade or interest are better suited for subscriptions because they can ebb and flow with the seasons.
Personally I think that magazines still hold a lot of power for advertising across a range of demographics.
Keep Those Flowers Fresh
Jul 23rd
While on summer break my room mate received a flower delivery from Flowers By Post.
They were beautiful, but we noticed that they started to droop and dry out very quickly. She had never received flowers before, so did not know how to keep them fresher for longer.
So we both phoned our moms (mom knows best) and between us we’ve put together this list on keeping flowers fresher for longer. Consider it a combined list of our mothers’ widsom!
- Cool Them In The Fridge! I know this sounds wierd, but the first thing you need to do when you get fresh flowers is put them in the fridge for about 5 hours. This will ensure they stay fresh for three times as long as usual.
- Trimming. Take care to remove all flowers and leaves below water level. Keep your flowers in cold water and trim the stems at the bottom every alternate day to keep your flowers fresh longer.
- Nutrition. Adding some nutrition to the water, like a cube of sugar, an opened multivitamin capsule or a quarter glass of soda pop, will make your fresh flowers last longer.
- Watch The Water Purity. Fresh flowers will start to wilt when the water in the vase is plagued by bacteria and fungi. To restrict the growth of these flower killers, some options are to add a copper penny to the water (it will act as a fungicide), add a crushed tablet of aspirin (to increase acidity in the water to reduce bacterial growth), or add 2 tablespoons of vinegar in a quart of water (to hamper bacterial).
- Watch The Temperature. You can increase the lifespan of fresh flowers by keeping them cool.
And if a certain someone is watching… ahem… yes I would like some flowers one day!
UPDATE (2 August 2010): thanks for all the suggestions about keeping flowers fresh! It’s great to know people are reading and interested. By the way, Julie referred us to this site, USA Flowers On Line who have some good information on there about keeping cut flowers fresh.
ANOTHER UPDATE (10 August 2010): also thanks to my friend Lisa who let me know about Flowers Australia which also has some good information on it.
The Gulf Of Mexico Spill
Jul 20th
What an absolute disaster!
The Gulf of Mexico where the recent oil spill happened is slowly turning out to be one of the most devastating environmental catastrophe of its kind. There have been innumerable remedial efforts made but nothing seems to be stopping thousands of barrels of oil getting spewed in the ocean daily, which has increased the risk towards the marine, environmental and economic factors of that region. It was earlier considered that the Exxon Valdez Spill which happened in the year 1989 was the most disastrous but now experts are of the opinion that this latest ecological disaster will be more pronounced.
This disaster is going to have very serious effects for all of us who live in the area, as well as for the environment, animals, and so much more. It’s so sad.
I think this should be a lesson for us all that we need to move from traditional fossil fuels to clean energy. All of us can make a difference, such as installing solar power kits in our homes, recycling, and just generally reducing our consumption.
Who’s with me?
I’m Becoming A Caveman
Jul 20th
One of the things I’ve looked at over the summer break is my diet, and I’m seriously considering something called the Paleo diet (als0 known as the Caveman diet).
Basically it’s a diet that is based on what our ancestors (“cavemen”) would have eaten. So in reality it means no processed foods, and it makes a lot of sense.
Each part of the food pyramid is covered, like fats, vitamins, carbohydrates, phytosterols, and so on. This diet features what has always been available to us during our human history, and nothing else. Humans have eaten fish, fowl, meat, leaves, roots, and fruits of lots of plants for thousands of years. Potatoes, grains, and beans have lots of energy, but cannot be eaten in their raw state since they have harmful toxins. We began to cook these foods several thousand years ago, making them edible. The grains were things like flour, barley, rice, millet, oats, and corn. Since this was during the New Stone Age, they are referred to as Neolithic Foods.
So anyway, that’s what I’m considering. I’ll let you know how it goes. Certainly doesn’t sound as tasty as a “normal” diet, but sounds a lot healthier.
Summer Break
Jul 19th
My summer break has been fantastic, and I am looking forward to studying again soon.
One of the things I have been doing over the summer break is writing. I have written a number of different articles on many different topics, and I hope to share them with you very soon. I like writing and sharing my opinion! I hope to hear your comments too.
Check back soon.
Hello world!
Jul 16th
Welcome to my blog!
I will be posting regularly on this blog about a variety of topics, most weeks. I hope you can join me!