Just For Fun
20
Dec 10
Professional Santa Claus Training – Course of the Week
Source: NYDailyNews.com
Those who celebrate Christmas remember the joy of sitting on Santa’s knee in a shopping mall during Christmas holiday. Every year, thousands of men around the world are hired to be someone’s Santa for the season. Some veteran Santas with extensive CVs hired by shopping malls in the US can earn as much as $15,000 per season. Most Santa companies recruit Santas very carefully and will almost always ask what Christmas means to you. If you truly love giving gifts to others, spreading Christmas cheer, are good with small children and can smile for long periods of time, a Santa Claus job may be for you! Also, having a natural beard (dyed white or gray) is often a huge plus as well.
If you think you match the requirements but you’d like to polish your skills, there are several schools for Santa Claus’s that will provide you with appropriate training:
The Charles W. Howard (CWH) Santa Claus School in Midland, USA is a non-profit organization, established in 1937 and is the longest continuously running Santa Claus School in the world. The mission of the school is to provide students with the necessary resources that allow them to further define and improve their individual presentations of Santa Claus.
Professional Santa Claus Training provided by Santa School in Calgary, Canada will elevate your performance, sharpen your abilities and help you become the best Santa available. You will be trained in acting, voice, character development, presentation and scripting.
10
Dec 10
Cupcake Confection and Design – Course of the Week
Who loves cupcakes? Eveyone. And why not, they are delicious, mini, just-for-you, adorable little cakes that come in many flavors and colors. They are a perfect canvas for artistic creation and are relatively inexpensive to confect. Little cupcakes can be so pleasing to the eye that you almost don´t want to eat them…almost.
Over the last several years, cupcake shops have been springing up everywhere. Being a more fashionable food, they have become popular at parties, social events and have even started to replace wedding cakes. In light of this popular pastry, we decided to introduce a Cupcake Design Course of the Week.
Here are a few cupcake courses to try:
Cakes 4 Fun in London, UK offers a new course for chocolate-lovers, appropriately called Chocolate Cupcakes. You will learn how to make decorations from a variety of different chocolate mediums. It’s suitable for all skill levels.
The Original Cupcake Course is a day-long intensive course in Chelmsford, UK by The Gourmet Cupcake Company. This course includes: icing techniques, coloring and flavoring, piping perfect buttercream swirls and an introduction to sugarcraft and flower modeling.
Gourmandise Desserts in Culver City, USA offers Gourmet Cupcakes Baking Course. You will learn three simple and sweet cupcakes recipes, including instruction on fillings and the power-house smooth buttercream cupcake.
Yum!!
29
Nov 10
Tea Design: Course of the Week
Do you like tea? But, REALLY like tea? Do you give it a sniff and a swish, pretending its wine, while guessing the flavors and origins? Well if so, this week´s Course-of-the-Week may be just for you. A “tea designer” is someone with the artful knowledge of blending and creating tasty tea infusions. Tea blends may include, but are not limited to, spices, flowers, leaves, fruits and chocolates.
Legend has it that around 2737 BC Emperor Shen Nung was resting next to a wild tea tree, when a slight breeze stirred the branches of the tree, causing some leaves to fall into the water that he was boiling. The resulting infusion seemed delightfully refreshing and restorative, and that’s how tea was discovered.
This weeks course is offered at the Escuela Argentina de Tea, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is aimed at the general public (so you do not need prior tea knowledge) and offers a certificate of completion.
Enjoy.
15
Nov 10
Speed Reading – Course of The Week
Are you an efficient reader? Whether it be reading for school, work or pleasure, most of us wish we could read at a higher velocity while maintaining a high level of comprehension. If you feel you’re a slow reader, you read a lot on-screen or you are overwhelmed with all you have to read, we recommend taking a speed reading course!
Freedom Personal Development in Wisconsin, USA is convinced that reading training that we all receive in elementary school is appropriate for young readers but not for adults. Reading habits that we acquired in our school years doesn’t work well when it comes to processing loads of printed information every day. The Reading Smart Workshop might be a good choice for those who want to learn time-saving strategies to read faster, comprehend more, concentrate better and retain with greater ease.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA – offers Speed Reading and Study Strategies Program tailored for college and university students. The aim of this program is to double your reading speed in textbooks, and triple your speed in easier reading materials. You will learn how to concentrate better and remember more, even though you are reading on paper or on-screen much faster. The course brochure promises that you will learn the best way to study textbooks, take notes, prepare for tests and develop your vocabulary.
How fast did you read this post?
8
Nov 10
Motorsports Engineering – Course of the Week
Who doesn’t admire the cutting-edge technology and sophisticated design of Formula 1 race cars? The fastest race in the world represents innovation, superlative performance and style. There are thousands of people involved in creating the show – from vehicle and engine designers, vehicle and engine testers, motorsports race-event managers and race-crew management. The number of mechanics in one race exceeds 6,000!
There are various career opportunities for those interested in high performance vehicles:
The Old Dominion University in Virginia, U.S. offers Bachelor in Motorsports Engineering Technology. This program involves conventional lectures in classrooms and practice in laboratory facilities, including the driving simulator and chassis dynamometer. Motorsports Engineering program consists of such courses as: Ground Vehicle Aerodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Race Car Performance, and High Performance Piston Engines.
The Master in Science Racing Engine Design in Oxford Brookes University is offered in the UK. This program provides exposure to design, simulation, modelling and analysis of performance road cars, through rally, IRL, Kart and F3 right up to F1. The analysis elements of the modules include structural optimization, dynamics, engine performance and tuning.
Auto racing is not only an entertainment event, but also a real opportunity to test vehicles, their power, safety and aerodynamics in extreme conditions.
Formula 1 Technology facts:
6,000 – the number of Mechanics in one race
100º F – temperature of tires when it is driven
600 kg– weight of the machine with driver
10 million USD - the presumed value of a machine
4
Nov 10
Generation M2 – Teens Addicted to Social Media?
Recent research by The Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 8-18 year-old Americans spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) using entertainment media daily.
It is mainly linked to the increase in use of mobile devices among youth: from 39% to 66% for cell phones, and from 18% to 76% for iPods and other MP3 players over the past 5 years. In fact, today kids spend more time texting, listening to music, playing games and watching TV on their mobiles than actually talking on them. They use their cell phones constantly, from texting to tweeting to updating their social media profiles like facebook. American teens send as many as 100 texts per day.
The Kaiser study also found that the more time kids spend with media, the poorer their grades and levels of personal satisfaction. Heavy media users spend more than 16 hours a day using some form of social media. An overuse of media has become a social concern, and some believe that it is becoming one of the biggest non-drug addictions of the 21st century.
The full report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, the large-scale survey about young people’s media use, can be found here.
1
Nov 10
Make-Up Artist – Course of the Week
Bobbi Brown for Erin Fetherston Make-up
Make-up artists apply makeup to models, actors and other stage performers, as well as brides and other clients for special occasions. Professional make-up artists must understand and interpret make-up expectations of clients and to produce accurate visual result. This field also can include designing wigs, using makeup to produce visual effects such as aging, illness, scars and bruising – very often under time-pressure.
There are various schools where you can study:
The London School of Beauty & Make-up offers Course – IMA Foundation /Fashion / Photographic / Media Make-up Diploma where supervised by a professional make-up artists you can create your own looks. These skills come into practice in a professional photo shoot using a model with clothes supplied by leading British Designers. These pictures will help to build a portfolio.
The part-time Esthetics Ontario College Certificate awarded by the Conestoga College in Canada offers a 39-hour professional make-up course. Topics of study include day, night and special occasions make-up, shading, contouring, colour analysis and product knowledge.
A Certificate IV in Make-up at the Chisholm Institute of TAFE in Dandenong Campus, Australia will prepare you to apply Period Make-up and Body Painting. You will also learn the difference between special effects, film and television make-up, as well as make-up for production.
Practice at home and apply makeup on various face shapes, eye shapes, skin colors, eye colors, and ages. Try different professional make- up products and sketch your looks. You can share your ideas on youtube and ask other amateur make-up artist to comment your work. That is a mean smoky eye…
29
Oct 10
Halloween: A Few Fun Facts
Halloween Origins
Halloween is on October 31st, the last day of the Celtic calendar. It was originally a pagan holiday, honoring the dead. Halloween was referred to as All Hallows Eve and dates back to over 2000 years ago.
Halloween Commercial Success
In the U.S., Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday after Christmas. During a “Halloween Season” Americans spend around $2.5 billion on decorations, costumes, candy and party goods.
Carved Pumpkin
A jack-o’-lantern is a carved pumpkin. It was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called jack-o’-lantern. The world’s largest jack-o’-lantern was carved in 2005 in Pennsylvania, from the world’s then-largest pumpkin weighing in at 1,469 lb (666.33 kg).
Trick-or-Treat
93% of American children, under the age of 12 go out trick-or-treating every year. An average Halloween trick-or-treat bag can consist of sweets containing as much as 6,653 calories. The tradition of trick-or-treating comes from a Scottish and Irish practice called “guising”. Children collecting treats would only receive the prize if they did a “trick” such as song or dance.
Candy
One quarter of all of the candy sold in the United States every year is purchased before Halloween. Chocolate makes up about 75% of it. Peanut and chocolate bars are among most popular candy for trick or treaters. Candy corn also popular around Halloween was created in the XIX century. The National Confectioners Association estimates that 20 million pounds (9000 tons) of candy corn are sold annually. Candy apple is made by coating an apple with a sugar layer and its popularity is associated with the fall of an annual apple harvest.
Costumes
Dressing up in costumes and going “guising” was popular in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the 19th century. The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s. Traditionally the most common costumes are vampires, ghosts and skeletons, but more recently pop culture-inspired characters are gaining popularity. The most popular 2009 Halloween costumes were Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin, Transformers, Hannah Montana and Barack Obama.
Source: Wikipedia
25
Oct 10
American Sign Language – Course of The Week
The "I Love You" sign
American Sign Language (ASL), a visual-gestural language with its own vocabulary and grammatical structures, is said to be the fourth most commonly used language in the United States. A universal sign language does not presently exist, and thus different sign languages are used in different countries. British Sign Language (BSL), for example, differs from ASL.
Sign Language is offered at many universities as a foreign language and has gained popularity among hearing college and high school students, since many American colleges and universities have accepted American Sign Language as an option to fulfill the language entrance and exit requirements. Sign Language can be useful for anyone who has contact with the deaf public in their work place or personal life. Fluency in ASL can also allow you to be an ASL/English interpretor, and is important if you aspire to become an educator, or social worker.
California State University at Fresno awards a Certificate in Conversational American Sign Language to students who complete the 12-unit program.
Deaf Studies Certificate Program at Hofstra University Continuing Education in New York is delivered by instructors that are both hearing and deaf. Courses may be taken on an individual basis without participating in the certificate program.
The American Sign Language Program at the Northeastern University in Boston will provide you with a wide array of course offerings as well as volunteer, internship and practicum opportunities.
Northeastern University’s Master of Science in Interpreter Pedagogy (MIP) is primarily offered online, using web-based courses. It will prepare you for interpreting, with a focus on reflective teaching and active learning.
Source: The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), USA
18
Oct 10
Enology – Winemaking – Course of The Week
Have you ever wondered what sort of magic is necessary for producing a fabulous bottle of wine? Perhaps you´ve dreamed of buying a vineyard somewhere out there in California or South Africa and making the wine yourself? Does that seem a little out of reach? No worries, the first place to start is with a little education. We recommend looking into an enology (wine-making) or viticulture (grape-growing) university program that will provide you with the strong background in all aspects of wine production, including site selection, planting material, vine management, harvest parameters, grape handling and fermentation chemistry. Some programs will also provide additional business and marketing courses to help you sell your wines.
Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga Campus in Australia offers Bachelor of Wine Business, which is designed to develop knowledge and skills in winemaking, wine science, viticulture, wine appraisal and business. Students can complete their studies while working in the wine industry, or by interchanging full-time study with distance education.
Students interested in pursuing a career in sustainable viticulture practices might take a Bachelor of Science in Viticulture awarded by the California State University, Fresno, USA. Their Viticulture and Enology Research Center provides world-class education, research, and outreach programs in sustainable and value added viticulture and enology.
For spanish speaking students, Centro Internacional de Estudio del Vino (International Wine Study Center) in Mendoza, Argentina (oh, Malbec!) offers a 6-week distance course in Elaboration of Wine and Wine Slyles. In a short time you’ll learn to identify the importance of terroir and the activities carried out in the vineyard.
You can brose our directories www.educaedu.com for more enology and viticulture courses in the wine regions around the world. You migh also be interested in one of our earlier posts Wine Sommelier – Course of the Week.
Enjoy!!
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