Just For Fun
8
Sep 10
`Back to School´ Anxiety is Understandable
For many students both in Europe and in the United States, September means the sad end to summer vacation. ‘Back to school’ anxiety sets in. Many students may feel anxious about going back to school and some feel stressed about starting school or college for the first time. Whichever the case may be; the morning rush, the homework, studying, the quicker pace of life, it´s not something to look forward to after the summer break. It does not mean that a student doesn´t like school, but realistically there are few students who are not concerned about the new changes that ‘back to school’ time brings, including new teachers, new classmates and new study material. And there is the added pressure of fitting into a new social group.
Parents and teachers can try to help ease the transition, but the question is how to cope with and relieve ‘back to school’ stress yourself? First of all, you shouldn’t panic. Nearly every student starting school with you is feeling the same. Stay in contact with your old school friends and give it time. Soon you will have a new group of friends that you hang out with. Socialize, introduce yourself to people you don’t know and get involved in school activities like music or sport to meet new people with the same interests.
Look at the positives of being at a new school –more independence, more variety in classes, some choice in what you want to study and new challenges. And keep in mind, in a few months time there’s going to be a winter break!
Reference: http://www.cyh.com
6
Sep 10
Dog Obedience Trainer – Course of The Week
If you love working with and training dogs, you possess compassion for animals and a tremendous amount of patience then maybe you should become a dog obedience trainer. Dogs are social animals and if they’re not provided with proper training, they can become destructive: soiling a house, destroying belongings, fighting other dogs, barking excessively or even biting people. As a future dog trainer be prepared to deal with it!
Dog obedience trainers work closely with dogs to correct behavioural problems and to train dogs to interact socially with people and other animals. The aim of this job is to help to open up basic communication between dog and owner, and allow for a much better relationship between the two.
Learning to become a dog trainer can begin while you’re still in high school by taking courses in biology, psychology, English, and physical education. During summer vacation you could volunteer with an animal shelter to get some experiences with animals. Certificate programs in dog obedience training are offered through a variety of schools, where you will learn training methods based on positive motivation and reinforcement, appropriate for the specific breed of dog and it´s temperament.
Highland Canine Training Harmony – NC, offers dog training certification programs with specializations in basic or advanced obedience training, behaviour modification, police K-9 training, detection, search and rescue, competition, obedience or sport-dog training.
At K-9 Companions Riverside – CA, to become a Certified Dog Trainer the dog trainer must complete the book work, tests and hours, plus have 1 years worth of practical experience working with dogs and clients under the supervision of a professional dog trainer.
The Animal Behaviour College’s Dog Obedience Instructor Program is structured to offer each student the convenience of a home study with the benefit of working one-on-one with a professional trainer.
Completion of a course allows you to take a licensing exam through the National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors (USA) or its equivalent in your country.
3
Sep 10
Cooking Lessons to Become Compulsory in the UK
Chikara Kakizawa
A recent survey found that 75% of British children can’t boil an egg and in Australia obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness. Obesity in Britain has been rising since the 1980s, when ready-made and microwave meals as well as cake mixes became more prevalent in British supermarkets. It’s scary that today’s children don’t know how to cook at home, but it´s because their parents were never taught to cook. If you cannot cook properly it is impossible to know how to eat properly.
In Britain a 1 hour cooking lesson per week is, at least theoretically, compulsory for primary school children. In 2008 the British Government announced that cookery would be compulsory for 11-14 year-olds from 2011 . The Australian Government is now considering implementing cookery in schools too.
Many specialists agree that while cooking, children learn skills that benefit in other subjects, such as mathematics (measurements), chemistry (following instructions and chemical reactions) and language (through reading).
Cooking lessons at school teach the importance of a healthy balanced diet, nutrition and the importance of getting enough vitamins in an easy and fun way. They also make children more responsible and conscious consumers who know how to shop for food. The top five meal suggestions that a teenager should know how to prepare are soup, risotto, spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie and casserole.
As a result of the British Government’s decision, there is an urgent need to recruit more food technology teachers and to give further training to current teachers. Pursuing a career in cookery might just be an excellent choice, so get it while it´s hot !
30
Aug 10
Bartending – Course of The Week
Photo by Newsday
Do you remember Cocktail, the drama with Tom Cruise as an ambitious bartender who finds love while working at a bar in Jamaica? It’s no wonder why so many people wanted to become bartenders after that! But what exactly are the qualifications that a successful bartender has? It’s not all glamour and green, but rather lots of hard work. From memorizing drink recipes, learning techniques, handling glassware and money, maintanence and opening and closing the bar, there are lots of things a bartender needs to know. Your success also depends on your personality as this job requires exceptional social and interpersonal skills, listening skills, open-mindedness, and the ability to relate to many different kinds of people. To begin, we recommend enrolling in a bartending course where you can get hands-on experience behind the bar!
Here are some bartending schools to get you started:
National Bartenders Bartending School in Los Angeles offers a Certificate in Bartending/Mixology, where according to the school brochure, you will learn what it takes to become a successful bartender and the secrets to making great drinks that keep the customers happy. The school also offers additional bartending course options including Bar Management and TIPs Certification.
Bartenders Academy of New York is the only bartending school in New York to offer a separate Flair class within their Bartending Program . Flair is the act of flipping, spinning, throwing, balancing and catching bottles, drinks and various bar tools when you’re making cocktails.
Boston Bartending School of America gives their students access to over 96 other school locations throughout the country to receive training and job assistance at no additional charge. Each graduate of their Bartending Program is also entitled to free refresher courses at any location nation-wide.
After graduating from the Bartending Program at the Australian School of Bartending in Oakleigh, you will receive a certificate of attendance for fully attended modules in the short skills courses in bartending, introduction to wine, cocktail making, beer cellar operations and the Responsible Serving of Alcohol [endorsed by Liquor Licensing Victoria].
Some of you may have to wait to pursue a career in bartending however, as the minimum age depends on the legal-age limit imposed by different countries, and it varies between 18 and 21.
27
Aug 10
This Year´s Mindset List: Class of 2014
Class of 2014, you may or may not know who this is...
Every year professors from Beloit College put together a list of characteristics to descibe the incoming university student (this year it is those born in 1992). This list, known as the Mindset List, aims to reflect current and past popular culture shifts, and to give us all an idea what reality our current young adults are living in. The list highlights key cultural and political changes that have shaped this year´s generation, and reminds us how quickly references become dated. If you can believe it, the class of 2014 is a “post-email” generation; they don´t email because it is just “too slow.” Our recent high school graduates live in a world of fast technology and extreme multi-tasking. This list, while not scientific by any means, is a fun tradition at Beloit College to mark differences in generations, which when we stop to observe, pass us by in the blink of an eye.
Here are a few items from this year’s incoming freshman college students (born in 1992) that made the list.
1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.
18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.
27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
31. The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.
46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.
For this year´s complete Mindset List click here.
23
Aug 10
Astrology – Course of the Week
An astrology wheel
Have you ever wondered why so many of us read astrology columns? Most daily newspapers and magazines feature horoscopes and there is a huge selection of astrology websites to choose from on the internet. Many of us upload daily horoscope applications to our phones. We do it for fun and out of habit, but we are also looking for answers and guidance to apply to our lives. Astrology is actually a highly respected science and goes all the way back to ancient times. Even today most people know what their astrological sign is and this ‘sun-sign astrology’ is the most popular form, because only your birthday is needed to generate a horoscope.
Whether you believe horoscopes or not, astrology is without a doubt an interesting subject to study.
Kepler College in the USA is authorized by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board to award a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Philosophy and Transmission of Astrology. But if you’re just a beginner interested in learning the basics of astrological symbolism and how to apply that knowledge to chart interpretation, we recommend you to take their online Certificate Program in Astrology.
The London School of Astrology offers Foundation Classes of Astrology for beginners in central London. You will be introduced to the angles and houses of the horoscope, rulerships, the Sun-Moon cycle, nodes, eclipses and basic astronomy. Given that many astrologers nowadays use computers, you will also have the opportunity to discover the software available. The shool’s aim is that you will have a firm foundation of astrological principles upon which to build further understanding.
And who knows, maybe you’ll become a world famous celebrity astrologer, with your own column, radio program and a group of fans? Have you checked your horoscope to find out what it says?
16
Aug 10
Food Photography – Course of the Week
Photo by ccharmon
The title of this week´s Course of the Week leaves little guess-work as to the flavor of this course… have you ever driven past a huge billboard with a big juicy hamburger where you can actually see the pearls of dew on the taunt perfect skin of a ruby-red sliced tomato? Oh and the crisp lettuce that is so brilliantly green you can imagine the crunchy sound it would make as you…
Time to exit?
Visual images of food are so powerful that with the right tools food can be transformed into more than a life-sustaining grouping of carbohydrate, lipid and protein molecules…it can be art! With this course in Food Photography offered at the Brooks Institute in California, you will learn how to capture food at its best angle.
Photo by ccharmon
Blueberry muffin anyone?
9
Aug 10
The Truth About Animated Movies
Image from Toy Stoy 2
Summer (well for North America and Europe anyway) is the perfect season for big movie releases, and 2010 was the big come-back for animated films. The latest animated releases Shrek Forever After and Toy Story 3 were hugely successful at the box office, and what a lot of people don’t know is that taking them to the big screen is not as easy as it seems. Making animated movies requires a lot of effort and technological innovation, which not only takes a lot of time, but also costs a lot.
To give you an idea of the complexity of the process, technicians working on the second part of Shrek worked for months developing the animation that made it possible for the characters to have long hair. Things like recreating a forest or giving movement to the characters takes months to be accomplished. For Shrek the third, Dreamworks had to assign two animators per scene, when usually only one person per scene is required.
The software that most animation programs utilize is Linux, and the technicians that are part of this creative process have skills in 3D modeling, Maya, and Linux commercial package for 3D design.
So if you thought that computer-related careers were boring, maybe you should reconsider and explore this ever-expanding industry!
6
Aug 10
The Art of Walking – Course of the Week
Have you ever needed a moment to take a stroll and sort out a problem or reflect on a decision? Sometimes when we have something that puzzles us it is good to take a step back and think. This week´s Course of the Week is a philosophy-based course that encourages and practices walking as a way to help open the mind and reflect, while experiencing the surrounding natural beauty. The Art of Walking is offered at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, USA.
Photo by Prakhar Amba
Ken Keffer, the professor and creator of this course, focuses mainly on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. To prevent students from falling asleep and detaching from the conversation, he started taking them for walks. Through these walks he realized the students were more engaged and reflective. He noticed that they openly conversed on the subject material and the walking helped their thoughts flow.
Students are given required reading assignments as well as required walking assignments, which aim to help them reflect on what they have read at home and heard in class.
As Keffer explains, “Kant teaches intelligible and sensual design in inner and outer nature, his main theme is natural beauty. Our walks take us to that beauty—where we really meet ourselves.”
***
28
Jul 10
Applied Science, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology – Course of the Week
Does the thought of biochemistry and science take you back to high school classes, where you couldn´t wait for science to end and sports classes to begin? Well, maybe this course isn´t for you, BUT science can be much cooler than you thought it could. Did you hear recently that scientists have discovered that Australian Marsupials, such as the kangaroo, probably originally came from South America? A new study by the University of Munster in Germany, has found evidence that more than 80 million years ago the marsupials migrated to Australia from South America via Antartica, which back then was geographically connected and known as Gondwana. If you study science, you could be the one researching and discovering things like this!
Source: Flickr Creative Commons - Subhash Chandra
The key to this discovery was found analysing DNA strands, an important part in the study of biochemistry. So if you are thinking that science IS sounding a lot cooler than it used to, check out some courses you can take to get you on your way to the next big discovery in science:
Queensland University of Technology in Australia run a Bachelor of Applied Science (Biochemistry). In this course you will start by studying the different scientific areas including life sciences, chemistry, physics, mathematics and environmental science, and then move onto more complex molecular interactions, and experimental theory and practice in biochemistry.
The University of Westminster in London has a BA Molecular Biology and Genetics, which focuses on, you guessed it, molecular biology and genetics. As well as studying traditional sciences, these are applied to a modern context, such as how human life is controlled, the potential to generate great benefits in improved healthcare provision, as well as the connection with improvements in agriculture and the environment.
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