NIU

Modeling auditions

Posted by Stacy on Friday, March 28, 2008 3:19 PM

Around where I am from in Minnesota, there are not many modeling schools at all. So yesterday when I saw an ad for some open casting calls, I was really surprised. I saw the ad by the mailboxes on my school's campus. A modeling agency was advertising for auditions to be some sort of model. Perhaps nude. Ha… then they definitely do not want me! I am completely kidding… I think they just want attractive looking, young, athletic college kids who are willing to work for little pay. I wonder sometimes what exactly these modeling jobs are… they could turn out to be a little shady, so someone should definitely know what they are getting themselves into. But, I assume that most of the modeling agency around here are working for casting directors looking for people to put in local TV and print advertisements.

Maybe I could be model. Maybe. I mean, I am not that bad looking of a guy. At least, I think so! I am not really much of an actor, so I would probably be better as just a model who does not really have any lines. They just hold whatever the product is and look cool. Or, maybe a modeling agency would hire me to be the guy in the foot powder commercial, explaining how the itch went away the minute I tried the new anti-itch, special formula foot powder! Now that would make me famous! And, I could totally do that!

I would definitely not mind doing some sort of advertisement that gave me free stuff, either. I would totally do a car commercial if it meant getting a free car. Heck, I would even do a Ramen commercial for free noodles… it is all I can afford to eat anyway! My dream, though, would be to be in a commercial for Junior Mints! I would request a lifetime supply of them and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day! THAT would be a good life! Sign me up for the casting call for that job!

Coming to a casting call near you, one hot blogger… will work for Junior Mints!

Herbal tea

Posted by Stacy on Thursday, March 27, 2008 8:15 PM

There is no better way to begin or end your day then with a relaxing up of tea. I started drinking in tea back in high school, my mom always drank it, so for me it was a right of passage. I find it a very relaxing drink, very soothing. I learned since I got a little older, that tea is not only a great tasting drink, but also has many benefits to my health, which makes it even better.

I like all different kinds of tea, I really enjoy a cup of green tea, in the morning and I prefer a nice herbal tea before bed. I recently was introduced to oolong tea and really enjoyed it. It was little like green tea without the bitterness. I like raspberry tea, chamomile tea, and even white tea. Whenever anyone comes over for a visit, I always offer tea as one of the choices, and have gotten a few of my friends hooked on tea as well. Although, some still prefer ice tea or soda, many will sit and sip tea with me.

I read an article recently that said that "in the last four years foodservice tea (including foodservice iced tea) sales have risen 47% The environment in the foodservice market changed very little during the last year." They feel the main reason for increase in foodservice ice tea sales is a more health conscious world. People who are trying to regain control of their health are looking towards tea as a possible answer. They have even found that more people are buying wholesale tea. Trying to save money and planning to drink lots of it.

I am not sure what health benefits come from drinking tea, I just know that there is nothing more calming for me, than sitting on my couch and sip a nice warm cup of tea. It is one of the few times left in a day, where I really just sit and relax for a few minutes. Between going to classes and working and studying, it is truly hard to find any me time. I will never give up my tea, for me it is not just a drink it is a special moment in time to just be.

Italy

Posted by Stacy on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:59 PM

I've been really thinking about what I am going to be doing next year. With my degree in business the options are really wide open. It's just a matter of doing all of the appropriate research and trying to figure out where I may be the happiest living and working in the world. The other night I was at the bar with some of my friends who are engineering students. We ran in to these guys who were from Italy and I tried to ask them about living in Italy. I had done an internship over the summer where we worked with students from a bunch of different countries. We were trying to manage and grow a business online by working with people from all over the promote worldwide. Basically we were selling software developed by an independent publisher and we did weekly video conferences with these other students to help brainstorm and plan advertising moves and different ways of improving packaging and shipping options because the designer is in america. So, long story short, I talked with all of these different kids at some point about the business sector in their countries. The Italian students had peaked my interest because they were from the south of the country, around Rome, and I have always wanted to live around there. Anyway, the guys in the bar the other night were Italians. When I found this out I asked them a little bit about apartment prices. They told me about all kinds of Italy apartments and Italy villas which all seemed reasonably priced. They also said that if I wanted to live in the south, I might also want to look in to Sardinia apartments. One of them lived in a Sardinia villas and said he worked online. He would commute over to Italy once a week by ferry and then do his meetings there in Rome. Ever since then I have been thinking a lot about what it would be like for me to do that. I could find some cool IT job and just work from the beach, go to the office everyone once in a while and enjoy myself.

Bill consolidation

Posted by Stacy on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:48 PM

When people incur debt they never realize what the consequences will be. Everywhere you go, someone is offering you a credit card. After awhile, it seems that to accept it is the natural thing to do. Every check-out clerk asks if you will be using their credit card. If you say you do not have one they immediately offer you a store credit card. This has become an acceptable practice but is not the least bit consumer friendly. Why should I have to be subjected to this sales pitch every time I shop in their store? The motivation behind this hard sell is profit. Interest rates on these credit cards are extremely high, sometimes crossing the line to astronomical. Who wouldn’t want to finance purchases when the profits are so great? It is more profitable than the merchandise sold in the stores which explains why every sales clerk is instructed to question your charge account choice and told to advise you of the great advantages you are passing up by not signing up immediately for their credit card.

People who succumb to these sales pitches are often the same ones who find themselves eventually in need of financial counseling and debt consolidation. If you accept these offers on a regular basis because of all of the enticements, you will accumulate numerous credit cards and all of them will probably have balances. Some of the offers include 12 discounts a year plus an additional 20% off of today’s purchases. If you are buying a large ticket item, this could be a great savings and one which you feel you can not afford to miss. I, too, am tempted when making a large purchase. After all, 20% off a $300.00 purchase is a $60.00 savings. Why would I want to spend an additional $60.00 for an item if I can fill out an application and save that money for something else I would like to purchase in the future? This is how they reel you in and get you to agree to complete the application. They tell you it will only take a few minutes. This is a lie. Only once did I agree to do this when I was Christmas shopping many years ago. I completed the short application as I was purchasing between $400 and $500 worth of merchandise and this seemed worthwhile to me at the time. The salesperson took my information and then proceeded to call a credit office. They ran all of my information as I waited. This took approximately a ½ hour and I was definitely not happy with this “quick process” which I was promised. When the application was approved and my purchases ware entered into the register, the salesperson informed me that the items I purchased were excluded from the discount offer. I cannot tell you how upset I was. I went home and immediately cancelled my new credit card and will never again accept a credit card offer of this nature. I have learned my lesson the hard way.

Many people, however, do accept all of these offers and have cards in many stores. They have cards for Kohl’s, Target, Macy’s and Wal Mart, etc. In addition to these, they have a Visa, Master Card, Discover and American Express. How many cards can an average household manage? The answer is probably, not this many. Trouble is most likely just around the corner. Charges are made on all of these cards and, eventually, it becomes necessary to consider debt consolidation. 

Bill consolidation is a means of paying off your existing debt in a manner that will eventually make you debt-free. This is not easily accomplished but, if you work hard at it and are diligent with your regular payments, you can eventually become debt free. One of the secrets to debt consolidation is to obtain the lowest rate possible with the highest credit limit. Sometimes these offers are mailed to you unsolicited. If this is the case, consider applying for one of these cards. They want your business and you can use their offer to your advantage. This is the answer to your problems. 

Backgammon

Posted by Stacy on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:33 PM

In some of the online backgammon games that I was playing, whenever I'd be playing against a particularly strong opponent, I would realize that, despite the fact that we both seemed to be rolling pretty poorly each game, they would beat me soundly, over and over. This makes sense, since my sense of backgammon strategy was essentially nil. My first attempt to look up backgammon strategy yielded pretty poor results, but when I kept losing over and over in games where I thought that I was, in fact, getting somewhat better rolls than my opponent, and therefore had to have a good chance of winning, I figured there must be something I was missing. I started looking.

A somewhat difficult concept, that I don't yet grasp, but one of the most interesting, is called "duplication." The basic idea is that you need to lay your pieces out in such a way that your opponent's best moves all require the same number. That is, make it so that all of your opponent's good moves require, for example, a five. It can seem relatively simple and elementary. If you have to leave two unguarded pawns ("blots," they're called - a single pawn placed on a pip that your opponent can hit and knock out of the game for a little while), leave them so that in order to hit either of them, your opponent would need the same number. This will reduce the number of good moves that your opponent can make. There are trickier applications of the strategy, though, and those ones I have not yet mastered in any comprehensive way. They involve considering a great number of your opponent's possible moves given a certain number rolled in combination with any other number rolled, and seeing what number always yields his best moves. You can use duplication there by making your vulnerable spot open only to a number that already would yield a good move for your opponent even without that extra vulnerability. That's a kind of duplication.

The problem with the subtle applications is that they clearly require a much more comprehensive understanding of backgammon strategy as a whole. Descriptions of them allude to a lot of moves as "obvious" that I would never guess were the obvious move at all. So of course, like learning to play any game well, strategies are all intertwined, and just learning about duplication hasn't improved my backgammon game that much yet - but it's a start.

test

Posted by Stacy on Saturday, March 22, 2008 5:40 AM

A test post.