Etsy

So, Etsy is an online store. (It has an app too). It is all about made and vintage things. There are a lot of really cool options and it is a great place to get unique and one of a kind gifts. And because a lot of it is hand-made, there are a lot of options for customization. I, personally, love this website and use it all the time to find gifts for people. At the end of this post I will include some pictures of things I got for people and who they were for. It will be using Paint, so it will not be a beautiful work of art, but it will be a good example of some of the things they have.

One of the things pictured is a pearl 'peas in a pod' necklace. This is a good example of how customisable things are. The pearl colors can be chosen based on birth months or personal preference. You can also choose the number of pearls. The one I got has 6. The first two are my parents' birthstones. Then there is the divider, like the one pictured. And then the birthstones of my friends, Ashleigh, Negin, Jessica, and Jalayna. But it could also be a gift for parents. With their kids with birthstones. It could be a gift for an anniversary with both people's birthstones. 

It is a great website for gifts, as well because it is handmade, it also means that a lot of things are fan made. Like the shirt pictured below that I got for my friend Negin. The picture and shirt were both designed by a fan, so not only is it kind of cute and funny. It also is not available in stores. 

There are a lot of things that are not available in stores. Even things that are very different from things in stores. And because they are personally produced, that can mean both more selection on style but also quality. 

My step-sister is a huge fan of Harry Potter, so I was going to get her a robe in her House. And they ranged in style and price. Some were lined with silk and in the $200-300 price range. Others were pretty standard and closer to the $60-70 price range.

All in all, it is a nifty place to shop for things for yourself or others. The app is also useful and pretty user friendly.

Post 128: #beCPE

I've been published on SFU's CSI blog.

Click here to read more....

http://www.sfu.ca/olc/blog/csi-blog/becpe-how-being-career-peer-educator-changed-my-idea-careers

Post 127: April Fools' Day!

Happy April Fools' Day all! I've got no 'just kidding' or 'April Fools' jokes for you I'm afraid. And it is hard to top some of the one's that have already been done. Which is why I want to dedicate this post to all the April Fools' Day jokes that cannot be topped (both fictional and real). Starting with the Spaghetti Tree.

1: The Spaghetti Tree. In 1957, BBC ran a 3-minute feature talking about how Spaghetti grows on trees. Some people took it so seriously, they called the network asking how they could grow their own Spaghetti tree. They also got less than enthusiastic calls from housewives who had gotten into argument with their husbands, because their husbands didn't believe them when they said pasta was made from flour.

2. On the show Family Guy, there was a fake dooms day joke. The local lews station reported that a meteor was hurtling towards Earth and they would all be dead in less that 24 hours. The joke itself was cruel. There were suicides and people quit their jobs and broke the law, but there was an interesting message to the whole thing. Though, perhaps, I am reaching. It was a local news show. If anyone had checked any other news station, ANY OTHER, they would have none it wasn't real. So, an extreme example of what happens when you rely solely on one source for the news.

3. The Mirror claimed that Fernando Torres was going to perform the ritual of “Dia de los Inocentes”, which would include him leading a goat around the Stamford Bridge pitch and then defecating in the goalmouths, to keep evil spirits form blocking his shots on goal. 

4. The iPhone. Yes, that's right, the iPhone was an April Fools' joke at one point. In 2004, Pocket-Lint announced that Apple was going to be making their iPod's into phones. In 2007, they did. Though, not exactly as was announced. Maybe that is where the idea came from, though I'm guessing it had been floating around for awhile.

5. CNET announced proof of the Force, as in the Force from Star Wars. They even quoted Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine. I wonder if anyone fell for this one like they did for the Spaghetti Tree. 

iStudiez Pro

I love this app. I really do. I mean, on Graduation Day if I am asked to give thanks, this would be the first thing I thanked.

So, what is this fabulous app? Essentially, a planner. You know, the kind you used in school to write down your homework. Except it is so much better than that. There are a lot of different features, but let me tell you a couple of the one's I've found most useful.

The most useful has been the schedule/calendar. I put in all my classes and it looks like this. (This isn't my phone, but an image I found.)

So, you see, it says what classes on a particular day, as well as the assignments for the class, the professor, the location, and the time. But then in calendar view you can quickly see when things are. What's even cooler, it pulls from your phone calendar, so if I have a Doctor's appointment it will show up on the iStudiez calendar.

It sends you a notification 15 minutes before class starts, as a reminder, which has been helpful. It is really helpful having easy access to class rooms.

But that is just one useful component.

It also has a section for instructors. This allows you to have a sort of separate phone book for all your TAs, instructors, and Professors.

I love this because it is easier than trying to track down the syllabus if I want office hours, and sometimes the TAs don't have an official syllabus, they write it on the board during the first tutorial and that's it. That's all you get. And if you lose the piece of paper you wrote it on, switch tutorials, can't read your writing, were absent, or didn't think to write it down at the time you are in trouble. 

The third, and last feature, I will talk about is the assignments feature. 

It lets you put in the assignment information, what course it is, if you have partners and who they are, it lets you set a priority, and set up a reminder of anywhere between a week or a few hours before. It then keeps them all in a list and lets you sort by date, class, or priority. And once you complete it, you select it and it saves it but takes it off the list. 

Also a week before something is due, no matter the priority or reminder date, a little number will appear in the corner of the app just as a subtle reminder. 

I have taken online classes and gotten in trouble, because I lost track of dates and then had to rush or missed something. I have forgotten about small assignments. I have lost track of professor information. I am kind of scatter-brained and this app keeps that scatter in line. 

I would definitely recommend this app to ALL students of EVERY grade. It is really useful as an University student, but I feel like there are features that are here that will help students of every grade. Who knows, there might even be features that will help non-students as well. 

Post 126: Is Spring Here Yet?

I really hope spring gets here soon. It certainly is starting to feel like it. It has been pretty sunny lately, even (dare I say it) warm. But I hesitate to declare Spring is on its way, for fear of jinxing it. Though, if I had that much control over the universe that I could jinx away a season, I'd have a superhero name and a cape.

Actually, I don't know how I feel about capes. The idea seems nice. And as a fan of swishy skirts and dresses, a cape seems like it would fit well with that category.

Except, just because I like them doesn't mean I like them for me. I don't really wear skirts or dresses much anymore. For a variety of reasons.

So, would I want to wear a cape?

Although, the fact that I, personally, wouldn't pick to wear a cape might mean that to protect my secret identity I should wear a cape.

I have a secret name or two for websites and the like, but it isn't akin to a superhero name. Though, sometimes my pen name feels like it.

I mean, you can say more under a pen name about what you think about people, the world, issues, etc. without having to worry about the consequences the same way. I don't mean how people use anonymity to trash people. I mean having the freedom to say things about social issues without having to worry about getting fired for addressing real issues in the work place.

That's really more of an example than anything, but you can see how it would be important to have a pen name if you were going to talk about things that your workplace might want to bury.

I am currently only volunteering, and have no access to such information.

But I have friends who work in places and sometimes complain to me about things that are going on that are serious, but that they aren't really supposed to be talking about (sexual harassment from supervisors/ legal issues) and for some of them, they really want to tell someone to keep it from continuing.

Anyway, I have gotten really off topic from talking about if it is Spring yet.

So, I guess, I will conclude with a general shrug like answer that Spring is a constant reoccurring thing. Is it Spring yet? I don't know. But it will be Spring eventually.

Post 125: Post Gap

There has been a relatively long gap between the last time I posted and now. Not to say I didn't sign in or start a post or two, I just haven't had the chance to post anything. I have, at least, two or three started blog posts queued up in drafts, I just haven't had the chance to finish them. And some of that is because I've been busy lately, but it is also been a loss of my train of thought.

One of them I started and then had to put on hold, but when I went back to continue it, I no longer knew what it was I wanted to say.

I am so behind, but I will catch up. I have reviews to do (some of which are done but just haven't been posted because they were hand-written or typed when I didn't have internet) and I am going to finish the drafts that I have saved, but I might not get to the drafts for awhile.

Waiting to remember what I wanted to say for them might take longer than writing new ones.

Anyway, just a notice that I am in fact alive, if anyone was wondering, and that I will be back to posting soon.

Chopped (TV Series - 2009)

Chopped is another reality TV Show, like Kitchen Nightmares, but it is much friendlier. The only reality TV shows I really watch involve cooking or kitchens. Another one I watch is called Cutthroat Kitchen, but it really isn't very nice.

Chopped is nice because contestants compete against the clock more than each other. In Cutthroat they are forced to sabotage each other, which means they are much more antagonistic. Sometimes in Chopped, they even help each other out.

I like the show because it is so amazing what these chefs can do with the ingredients they are given. Some of the worst ingredients they they've been given (in my opinion): durian, whole chicken in a can, pork rinds, bacon popcorn, a three-tiered vanilla fondant cake (for the appetizer round), pickle juice, and pickled pigs feet.

How the show is set up is that there are three rounds. The first round is the appetizer round, the second the entree, and the third is dessert. There are four contestants to start and each round the chef that did the worst, goes home. The last one standing wins $10,000 (or more - some rounds have money for charities or money for scholarships).

Somethings that I think people should really have learned by now:

Taste everything. A lot of people who get in trouble, get in trouble for not tasting things and making things too salty or too bland. If they had just tasted it, they would have known.

Include everything. There are four ingredients give to each contestant and they have to use all four. They don't specifically say in the rules that the ingredient needs to be highlight or transformed, but you lose points for not, so - that should be kept in mind.

And the one I think is the most important and most overlooked...

Check the equipment! Like every other episode someone goes to use something and it doesn't work! The ice cream maker doesn't always work. The meat grinders in the hamburger episode didn't work. And people will count on ice cream or something being apart of their dish and then, oops! Not going to happen.

I like the show because contestants show a lot of creativity. And it really is impressive what they can do with what they are given. But what is also interesting is how much variety there ends up being.

Four chefs given the same four ingredients and yet they can end up four completely different dishes. In one episode, the first round gave the contestants things like cotton candy, corn dogs, peanuts, and scallions - and the contestants created things from Pad Thai to Hot Dogs with Pesto and Cotton Candied Peanuts.

I'd recommend it to people who like cooking and people who like puns. Because Ted makes a lot of puns.

Post 124: Write-A-?

Today in Adv. Creative Writing, we tried an exercise where we were told to write (with specfic constraints) off the top of our head. First, we were given the constraint of a setting.

Off the top of my head for setting, I got:

Three years after the civil war's end Arena's border lands were still scarred by the fire's of war. Funeral mounds speckled the land between homes in disrepair. Fields that were once lush with all sorts of life, only just starting to show signs of re-growth. People, though few remained, scoured the land with harsh looks and dirty faces. There were no luxuries to this life of their's, only work and torn collars. It hadn't rained in weeks.  

Then, after setting, we were instructed to connect character. 

From that I got:

Not since the day Ava was born. "It's a curse. She's a curse, " the people thought, but never said. There was no time to talk, only time to work. Ava was born in the afternoon to two ambivalent parents. Her mother would have never known she had, had a daughter if it weren't for the sudden prescence of a tiny person in their home following her horrible stomach pains, she had previously attributed to the old beef she'd had for lunch. If they had known what their daughter would become, maybe they'd have paid better attention. 

Then we were instructed to introduce conflict. 

So from that I got....nothing. Literally, I came up with what I wanted the conflict to be, but couldn't add it to the story the way we were intended too. I decided I wanted her to go to the Capitol to see if she could raise awareness and get resources sent home, but she would only find corruption that would lead to her joining a rebellion. A rebellion that was fruitless, so when one of her fellow rebel friends are killed she and some others break from the main group and start a more violent revolution. Which one lead to another more secondary conflict, that is internal to the character when she sort of loses herself in the cause and forgets why she left home to begin with. 

But we only had like five minutes, how could I allude to all of that in five minutes, especially past the last line I had already created for character. 

It was a very different style for me. I usually have a character, then a conflict and then put it in a setting. It was hard starting with setting and then character. It would have been even harder if we had started with setting then went into conflict. Or conflict, then setting, then character. 

I probably would have completely frozen up. Or just come up with something really obscure. 

Post 123: Counterpoint - Hercules

I was trying to find plot holes for this series, and so many are truly impossible to fill. But this movie has a plot hole that I think with my background in Philosophy and old TV shows can be filled in no time.

Movie: Hercules

Plot hole: How was saving Meg what made Hercules a true hero when he had already risked his life on a number of occasions for more people who meant nothing to him. (i.e. when he went up against the Hydra to save the town's people even after they ridiculed him, when he saved Meg from the Centaur before he was interested in her, etc.)

Well, I think this goes back to my old TV show knowledge. ( Charmed ). More specifically the episode of Charmed on the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't remember the exact line, but it was something along the lines of "there is no selfless deed to pride".

Everything Hercules did before he saved Meg from the Underworld was towards his dream of becoming a hero, from saving her the first time to saving the town's people. It didn't matter that he risked his life or genuinely wanted to help them, because in the back of his mind every action was always attributed to his desire to prove himself a hero and gain glory. 

When he risked facing death to save Meg, it was fully selfless. He didn't think he would survive. He didn't care, so it was the first act where he was fully putting himself towards a selfless act. 

If he died, he would never be a God. But, even though it meant giving up on everything, he still put Meg before himself. 

So, I think that is what I have wrapped it up as. Not that what he did before wasn't heroic, but that because he only set off to be a hero and do heroic deeds to benefit himself and become a God, it wasn't until he made a choice that wasn't so much heroic as human that he was able to be truly selfless and prove himself a "true hero".

Post 122: Define Friend

In Phil of Ed. (what I will be calling Philosophy of Education from now on), we discussed necessary and contingents truths, which isn't as important as one of the truths the Professor put up as one he believed was necessary: "happy people have friends".

And it got me thinking, is that really necessary? I mean, I think that people need to form relationships, that is like a basic part of human nature, but does that mean they have to be friends?

Let's use a student as an example.

If the student has lots of good relationships with people in classes, (they talk, walk out of class together, laugh together), does that mean they are really friends? If they are friendly with every one in all their classes, they could fulfill the need for human interaction. But does friendly mean friend? 

There are a lot of people I am friendly with, but wouldn't classify as a friend. And I think that this is an important distinction and idea to think about, especially in the age of social media where anyone can "friend" anyone without knowing much, if anything, about them. 

I can "friend" a professor, TA, stranger, classmate, celebrity, etc. But that doesn't mean they are my friend. And I wouldn't really recommend "friending" your professors, maybe your TAs but that kind of depends.

Anyway, back to the student.

Let us assume that they have had Facebook for three or four years now, and they have had group projects in half their classes, and during each group project they have added their group mates. If they are a third year having taken four classes a semester, with no summer semester that is at least 6 "friends". Plus the friends they had from high school that they no longer talk to, so maybe "60". Then the friends of friends that come up as suggestions, "10". Then the people they have met at parties, who lived in their dorm, who they met on the bus, "60". Then the celebrities they follow, "10".

That is almost 150 people.

That is a low estimate. On average Facebook users (adults) have over 300 friends, the mean is about 200 friends.

So, that is a lot of people that sit there in their "friends" list. But how many do they talk to?

More importantly, how many of them are real "friends"?

I guess, it depends on the definition. I think that there are certain things required in a relationship between two people to count as friendship: like trust, loyalty, etc.

I mean, I have friends that I am very different from, but I know that I can trust them with a secret or count on them to help me when I am in trouble.

If all 300 and some odd number "friends" were real friends, then great!

But that doesn't really seem the case.

So, if the student has people to talk to and has formed relationships, do they have to be friendships?

I honestly don't know. I think it depends on what we define as "friendship", in this day in age where it extends to anyone with internet access, then maybe it does require friends. I don't know what a friend is, not in a way that can be defined, but I do know who my friends are and that is really good enough for me. It doesn't answer my questions, but I didn't really expect to find the answer. 

Post 121: Outside the Box

Well, out of all my classes this semester I didn't expect Philosophy of Education to be the most inspiring, but so far - it has been. Though, most of the inspiration that has come from it is the reminders of all the things I found most interesting about Philosophy.

One that did not link back to Philosophy, but rather Education, was the idea of out of the box thinking and kids that don't color within the lines. 

In an ideal world education would benefit everyone, would be suited for helping everyone. However, that is not always the case. There are abstract-thinkers, students that dance to the beat of their own drum and other similar cliches, who are not always receiving the education best suited for them. 

This has come up both in class and out of class. Both seem to hold the idea that education shouldn't stifle their creativity or individuality. But is that really the point of school? Can it even be done?

I actually don't think so. Schools have structured systems of grading so that everyone is graded by the same means, and this might benefit some students more than others, it doesn't mean that there are better options available right now. 

If every student was graded as individuals, on their own scale, based on their learning style and thinking style, it would be exhausting for teachers. And who would come up with each of the individual grading schemes? 

There are not really enough teachers in the field to do this. And it doesn't really prepare students for the world. 

When they go off to work, some might find jobs that are suited to a more loose performance scale, but a lot of employers aren't going to look at their employees' work and say, 'well they didn't get as much done, but they did do it in a very creative way'. 

I think that schools should have Philosophy classes and Art classes so that students are exposed to out-of-the-box and creative thinking. But, I don't think that schools should reorient themselves for everyone who thinks differently. Sometimes you need to think inside the box or stay in the lines, and it is important that students are taught how. 

I like creative thinking and I am an outside the box person when it comes to a lot of things, but I can think practically and linear if I need to. At least, that is my thought now. Change is slow in education and a lot of teachers who have been teaching for years and years aren't looking at changing. A lot would need to change to get this to a place where it would work as it should and I think that the time it would take to start getting it implemented would just be an awkward phase for those involved.