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May 2007 - Posts
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I'm a little bit bummed out about an article that I read today in the news. I saw a story that talked about how a wealthy alumnus of a university in Illinois pledged one hundred million dollars to his alma mater upon his death. Unfortunately, this particular alumnus died, God rest his soul, and as a result, this school will soon be receiving this sizeable chunk of money. The reason that I'm so bummed out is that the school that is going to be receiving the money is both a not-so-great university, and it is a notable rival to the school that I currently attend. Yeah, maybe that's me just being a little bit jealous, but it still gets me thinking about the possibilities for schools getting funding like that. One hundred million dollars is an awfully lot of money to throw around. Just consider how much money you've got to have in reserve to be able to take care of all of your final responsibilities, leave some behind to your family, a charity or six, and then still be able to give that amount of money to your old school. I can only hope in my wildest dreams to be able to give a gift of that amount to my alma mater when I've finished up my schooling. I guess that it is probably out of question in the line of work that I am going to do. I'm not going to have the money of a civil engineer, a lawyer, or a brain surgeon. Sure, I'll probably make some good money after everything is said and done. Maybe I'll even be able to live comfortably on what I make after all my student loans from undergrad are paid off. That's a long way down the road though. Is it bad to hope for someone to make a generous donation to my school so that graduate students like myself have a better chance to be funded for our education? I'm not even so worried about myself, at least not at this point, because I've been one of the very fortunate few who have been funded thus far in my graduate work. My fellowship has covered everything that I could possibly need both last year and in the coming academic year. I know however that there are many of my colleagues who continue to struggle to pay for their education due to lack of funding. They need to rely on student loans and their parents meager contributions in order to be able just to pay for school. On top of that, they can't devote themselves fully to their studies, because they need to constantly work whenever they have time in order to pay for a place to live and to be able to put food on the table. I think about all of my colleagues who have to do this, and I realize how truly blessed I have been thus far in my graduate school experience to have been funded how I have been. I wish I had the time and the energy to look into recruiting money for these people, but as Darwin has explained through his survival of the fittest, I really have to throw any altruistic feelings that I might have aside in order to make sure that I keep myself committed to keeping myself funded throughout my graduate school experience. The funny part is that there is money out there somewhere for graduate students. It just ends up in unlikely hands, kind of like this deal in Illinois. Some unsuspecting students are going to get a real treat when they learn that they will now be funded due to the generosity of this nice old man who wanted to give back to the school that apparently gave so much to him however many years ago. I hope that perhaps someday soon, my scholastic colleagues and I might have the good fortune to have our hard work come to some kind of financial fruition as we receive money from some unexpected source owing to the generosity of another thoughtful individual.
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As an amateur chef, there is nothing that I like more than finding a new, exciting, and functional little gadget or gizmo for my kitchen. When it comes to stores like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, or even Target, it's best to keep me away, because I can get lost for hours in the kitchen section trying to talk myself into or out of buying something new to play with in the kitchen. Having grown up in a large family of chefs, I'm pretty accustomed to having all kinds of kitchen supplies and tools all over the place at my disposal, but since I've moved away from home and gotten a kitchen of my own, I've had to build my own pantry of gadgets slowly but surely. I say slowly but surely, because I have no doubt that my inventory of gizmos will continue to grow, but the slowly part is what I was thinking about when I decided to write this particular blog post. The reason that I will have to continue to buy my kitchen toys slowly is because frankly, they are just way too expensive to buy all at one time. As with any type of specialty item, high-end kitchen gadgets really end up costing a pretty penny. For those of you out there who haven't had the chance to cook and prepare your meals with high-end kitchen supplies, you probably don't really know what you're missing. You might be happy using your dollar store paring knife to do all the cutting that you have to. Be it vegetables, chicken, or butter, I know several people who own one all-purpose knife for all their "cutting" needs. Spoons for ice cream scoops, that good ole paring knife to zest a lemon or lime, and a wooden spoon in place of a stand mixer...these are all kinds of ways to cut corners on the cheap in the kitchen. Not this guy though. I need my Wusthof, Henckels, and Chicago Cutlery knives, my ice cream showel, lemon zester, and of course my artisan kitchen aid stand mixer. These are essentials in my kitchen, if only to mention a few. Sometimes when I'm feeling a little down, depressed, or even overworked, I like to reward myself with a little bit of retail therapy, and that's when I usually return home with some new (likely expensive) kitchen gadget. I'm even starting to run out of places to keep all the kitchen things I have...I just live in a little apartment with a little kitchen after all. I just don't know what it is about the kitchen, but I feel like that is my domain in my apartment. I'm very at home there, and all I can think about for when I own my own house at some point in the future is that that house better have a huge kitchen for all my things. Since I feel so attached to my kitchen, I don't feel as badly about spending a lot of money on my various kitchen gadgets. Part of the fun is, seeing as though my family is full of chefs and food connoseuirs, a lot of the birthday and Christmas gifts that I end up getting are for my kitchen. If these gifts aren't kitchen gadgets, they will end up being one of my other guilty pleasures...Amazon dot com gift certificates so that I can go and buy more books to expand my academic library. I guess that everyone has to have their little thing that they like to (and don't mind) spending lots of money buying. Some people buy video games, DVDs, CDs, stereo equipment, and even knick knacks. I, on the other hand, love my kitchen gadgets and my books. What about all of you? What are your little money spending vices? Are you one of those people who spends a large chunk of your paycheck on collectibles? Maybe your paycheck burns a hole in your pocket until you can go out to the mall and buy yourself a new t-shirt and jeans every other week. Maybe you're somewhat of a foodie like I am and you prefer to drain your checking account and indulge in a fancy meal from time to time to reward yourself for a job well done. Whatever your particular brand of spending poison, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line and tell me how you like to reward yourself for working hard and getting your work done. Maybe even some of you like to troll around the kitchen section of stores like do, or maybe you prefer books. There has to be some others with similar interests out there! Let me know who you are, and we can chat it up. I look forward to hearing from you! GoOd NiGhT!
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Are any of you out there coffee fanatics like I am? I must confess that this obsession that I have with coffee is a pretty recent development in my life. I used to really despise coffee, and in truth, I still don't like the smell of it when it's brewing. The taste and effect on the other hand are where it's all at. I didn't develop an appreciate for the delicious and caffeinated treat that is coffee until about two years ago. My best friend Mike is a coffee fiend himself, and he and I started going up to our local Starbucks every night just to hang out and chit chat, and I slowly progressed from my iced chai tea lattes, to iced vanilla coffees, to iced caramel macchiatos, and final settling in on my iced vanilla lattes. Notice the trend there that all of my drinks are iced. I'm not a big fan at all of hot liquid beverages for some reason. I like my drinks to be refreshing, so the more ice the better. I have in recent times, maybe in the past few months, learned to deal with the occasional hot coffee, as long as there is a blueberry muffin or chocolate chip cookie in close proximity to dunk. OK, so why am I talking about coffee right? I know, I was just thinking that myself, and then I had to remind myself what got me on this coffee-induced kick. I realized I had to tell you all how much I love coffee or you would never understand why I'm so excited to write about it today. I was reading the Money section at CNN dot com, just like I do every day, and I happened to come across a headline about Starbucks. I decided to take a look, since they do get quite a chunk of change from me every week by the time things are all said and done. I was so ecstatic at what I read that I just had to share it with you. Starbucks is now changing its default milk for its espresso-based drinks down to two percent instead of whole milk. I've always wondered why it was that coffee chains use whole milk instead of two percent. They always have skim, but never two percent. Anyways, I figured that it was just one of those things that I never learned about the coffee industry or the art of coffee drinking itself. Anyways, I suppose as is the case these days with many food establishments, Starbucks is going to switch its default milk to two percent in order to cut fat and calories in its drinks. Don't get all nervous if you're stuck on your whole milk in your coffee drink. The whole milk will still be available for customers, but it will work a lot more like skim does...you're going to have to ask for it. If you don't ask or forget to ask, you're going to end up with two percent in your coffee. The article stated that the first market where this will be introduced is in New York City...surprisingly not in Seattle. Within the next several months, the new policy will be introduced to four other test markets across the US and Canada, and finally by the end of 2007, it is expected to be implemented all over the world. I'm so exciting about this, because it's always very bothersome to me that I have to get whole milk in my vanilla lattes. On occasion I will get a "skinny" latte with skim milk, but I have to add a whole bunch of Splenda in order to make it taste OK...and the color is a little bit funny too. Anyways, I drink two percent milk with my cereal and in a glass, so I'm glad that this semi-healthy or not-as-bad-for-you option is going to be implemented in Starbucks, so then I don't feel as bad about ordering refills to get me those those long days of studying. Hooray for Starbucks! Hooray for being healthier! And hooray for delicious coffee!
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Now that I've lived in this town for about nine months, I have finally started to develop my network of friends. Well sure, I've had friends since I moved here, but I'm talking about a real group of friends...you know, the kinds of friends that you don't mind hanging out with every day, because you have a lot of fun and it's no stress and no hassle. You can just get together and chat, have dinner, play a board game, even just watch television or a movie and have a drink...really low stress. I've got a few friends who are approaching this category. We pretty much get together consistently every day just for the sake of getting together. We have a great time and there are always plenty of laughs to be had. There is really only one problem with this developing friendship, but it's really not something that needs to be a problem. As you all know, I work a lot, and as a result I make a fair share of money, meaning that I usually have extra money in my checking account to do extra things and have fun. I can get dinner or buy non store brand groceries, you know...not the important essentials, but I get by comfortably. This is unfortunately not really the case for my two friends in particular that I've been talking about. They happen to be roommates, and share a lot of the financial responsibilities of having their apartment. They are several years younger than I am, still in their undergraduate years, and they just simply don't have any experience with financial responsibility yet. I can remember myself somewhat in the same situation back when I was their age...which was so so so long ago. Anyways, this financial discrepancy thing is not a problem for me and my roommate in the least. We never think of ourselves as having extra money. We just have what we have, and we spend it on what we need to when we need to. Since we usually have a little bit extra floating around, we like to take people out for dinner or drinks or buy cool things when we visit or get invited over. This is where we are running into the problems. Our friends who I was talking about above are a little "funny" when it comes to the fact that we have money. The other day I ended up bringing groceries for dinner over to their place to cook, and the whole time I heard one of them saying..."we're going to pay you back, don't worry", or "i promise we'll cook next time". Very unnecessary but sort of understandable things to say. I tried to explain that it didn't really need to work like that. If I didn't want to buy the groceries and cook, I wouldn't do it. I also explained that I am well aware of their financial situation, and I am not concerned in the least about being paid back or having my dinner-making night reciprocated. His response was one of concern, because he didn't want me and my roommate to think that they were looking for handouts. Of course I assured him that this was not a handout, but rather just something that friends do for other friends...I even said that he could think of the dinner as a gift or something...just anything that didn't make him feel guilty or bad. I'm sad to admit that the situation hasn't really improved all that much in the last few days. They have really made an effort to try to repay my roommate and I in their own little way. It is really very sweet and it is much appreciated, but I'm just at a point where I don't know what to do about it anymore. I don't want to make them feel awkward or insufficient, but I also don't want them to think that they have to repay us everytime we do something that costs money. So, as you see, at this point in our budding friendship, we have a slight awkwardness, but it's one that we are working through. The complicating matter of course is that our one difficulty relates to money...a subject mostly taboo due to the stigma and pride issues attached to have too much or too little money. I'm just praying that we all find a way to work out an understanding, because this issue seems to be the only thing holding back a really great friendship among the four of us from taking place.
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I thought that the title for this post was particularly appropriate since it probably applies to a lot of Christian students across America at this time of the year, much like myself. When the summer months roll around, and it's time to turn our focus ever-so-slightly away from school, we have to instead focus on earning a living for a few months before financial aid, loans, scholarhips, fellowships, and what-have-you kick back in. As some of you might already know, I'm fortunate enough to be fully funded by a fellowship for the academic year plus a nice stipend. One of the only downsides of this particular type of university funding, as opposed to teaching assistanceships, is that fellowship students don't receive any type of funding for the summer months. Truth be told, I could probably take what I have left over from my stipend over the last year and live off of the for the summer, but being the financially-minded guy that I am, I like to save money rather than spend it. As a result, I got my summer job at the store that you all have heard so much about. In addition to that job however, I also work at a publishing company through my department and do some other little odds and end jobs each week. On top of all that, I've also volunteered to work with a professor of mine on a very long and very time-consuming project this summer. It's an unpaid thing, which is not a problem since it's for my professional development and I'm really excited about doing it. It will also result in a publication, which obviously will look great on my resume. The only problem with this project is just the sheer amount of time that it takes to work on it. When I have so much going on already that I am being paid to do, finding time to work on unpaid things that I actually want to do becomes a problem. If only I had been able to find a job that required less time for more money...isn't that what we all hope for?! Anyways, I'm managing to juggle all these things with very little problem, at least up until this point. I just long for a day that I really don't have anything to do that I actually need to get done. Of course I wouldn't really relax and not do anything, but I would end up working on things or reading things that I actually want to do for myself and not for some job or some project. That would be my ideal summer day. As things have turned out, the project that I was working on with my professor, though I had originally heard that it was to be finished by the first week of August, has actually been bumped up until to the last week of June. Let me tell you that having a whole four weeks less time to work on something like I am doing is absolutely no fun at all. When I learned about this new timeline this afternoon, I had to sit back and totally reassess the remainder of my summer, or at least the next three to four weeks to figure out how I am possibly going to manage getting done the amount of work on the project that I still need to complete. I'm sure that I won't have any problem getting done what I need to, because I am very oriented to attaining my goal and I know that my hard work will be justified in the long run. I just have to keep reminding myself of this fact as I progress through the day. This is much of the same strategy that I use every single morning when I wake up to go to work. I just tell myself that if I get up and go in and get everything done, I can reward myself by taking a nap for a few hours in the early afternoon when I get home. Although this gets me through the first fifteen minutes or so of being awake in the morning, the idea of taking a nap as a feasible possibility has worn off by the time I actually get to work. I know that there is just no time to sit around and do something as ridiculous and wasteful for my time as taking a nap. That is valuable time that I need to be taking advantage of. In the long run, having to push this deadline ahead by a month will at least ensure that I get the work done, and then I will have a whole month where I can probably turn those possibilities for naps into reality.
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It's that time of year on campuses around the United States, and maybe even the world, that all currently enrolled students dislike. During the summer months, university and college campuses become flooded with thousands of new freshman with their parents in tow who have come to visit their chosen school and take their orientation tours and advising sessions in preparation for beginning classes for the coming Fall semester. These orientation mobs are far worse than the tours that one might see at other points during the year when students show up during the Fall semester to just visit the schools so that they have see if they like the place before they apply there. The mandatory orientation session I can understand, but this second college visit and tour that I've just mentioned baffles me. Allow me to explain. Back when I was applying for college, I will admit that I was extremely confused. I didn't know where I wanted to go. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't know the difference between good schools and bad schools. I basically just wanted to get away from the frigid winters of New York. The choices that I made for schools to apply to were, in some cases smart, and in others pretty dumb. I'm not saying that I regret where I went or what I did, but my choices weren't very educated. You see, I was the first person in my family to go to college right out of high school. Others in my family went to some speciality school, like my mother going to nursing school for example, or my aunt going to cosmetology school. No one had taken on the four-year university though. Therefore, no one had any idea of what was going on or what to suggest to me. I was pretty much on my own in the decision making process. I had read on the websites and brochures for various schools, in particular the ones that I wanted to apply to, that tours could be "arranged" for visitors. Well, if you knew anything about me in high school, you would know two things; 1) I didn't have any free time to be galavanting around the country touring schools 2) There was no way I was going to ask my parents to foot the bill to pay for me to travel all over the country touring schools. As a result, I read up the best I could on the various schools, reminding myself that just going anywhere was going to be a great thing, and I made my decision on a school based upon the information that I had available to me. I had all four schools to choose from, so it came down to financials. I still to this day don't know how choosing to go to Florida State University was the most economical option that I had based upon the amount of student loan debt I currently have, but alas here I am, and there I've been. I can't look back and regret going to that particular school, because if I hadn't played out my life exactly as I have, how can I know that I would end up as happy and fulfilled as I am right at this very moment with what I do, what I know, who I know, and what I study. If I could give any piece of advice to young students and parents out there from what I've experienced, it would be to find a way to make it work. If you get into a great school as opposed to a good school, and it's going to cost a little more...find a way to make it work. Take out the loans, because it's only going to work out for the best in the long run. You will take out the loans now in order to get the education that you need to make great grades, get a great job, and make money to pay off those loans. Now, if you're just going to go to school to screw around, then don't waste yours and everyone else's time, because you're just taking up a spot for someone else who is going to work hard. Secondly, I would advise people who are fickle or difficult to please to try and visit their potential schools. I put a little stipulation on this though. I think college visits are pretty ridiculous. I turned out just fine not having visited my undergrad school until orientation, and I didn't visit my graduate school until I moved up here to start a month before classes began. When you have your place, you'll just know it. On the other hand, if you can afford to take a road trip or fly around and visit the schools that you're thinking about, definitely do it. Just keep in mind the financial burden that comes along with it. Think of the travel costs, the hotel costs, the cost of food in an unfamiliar place...rentals cars, taxis, etc. etc. etc. Also think of what you're going to do when you visit the school. Are you going to go through a campus tour group? Keep in mind that these tours are designed to show you what they want you to see. Make sure that you go and explore. Try and meet a professor from the department you want to be in, or try to arrange to meet some other students who study what you want to study. Just be smart and be economically intelligent when it comes to decided about where you want to go to school and where you want to visit. It will all pay off in the long run. Good luck to all the new college and graduate school students out there!
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One of the big headlines today that I happened to see as I was browsing around the internet had to do with now-famous protesting mom Cindy Sheehan who has become well-known across the United States and the world for her adamant outrcry against the United States involvement in the war in Iraq as a result of her son's death serving in the military in our armed forces. Sheehan's name has often been in the news over the past several years owing to her protests, as well as the numerous times that she has been arrested as a result of her protests. I believe that I even remember an article about her stated that she had recently purchased a home in Crawford, Texas, which many of you might realize is not far from the Texas home of George W. Bush. Sheehan appeared to be a neverending force to be reckoned with regarding the war in Iraq. She has fought so diligently against the war that many people have begun to equate her with the entire anti-war movement. All that might change after today, when Cindy Sheehan announced that she would giving up the anti-war protest movement due to its various negative impacts the war has had on her life, on top of the death of her son of course. She cited that her efforts fighting against the war have, on top of the emotional devastation that she felt when her son died, also caused her mental and financial pains. She stated that it had caused her marriage to end in ruin and had left her in somewhat dire financial straits. The most powerful quote included in all the of the various renditions of the article that I happened to say said that her son had died for nothing. She went on to express her disappointed and disgust over the fact that even with a Democratic controlled House of Representatives and Senate, as well as anti-war Republicans in both houses, the government has failed to take any strides towards ending the war and brining our soliders back home safely. As we all know, there is a news headline nearly every day tallying the number of military and civilian lives being lost by various means each day as the war in Iraq rages on. Although I wholeheartedly agree with Sheehan's feelings about the need to end the war, I can not support the manner in which she went about accomplishing her goal. As a result of what she did, she made little progress besides getting herself arrested and getting her name in the news. Nothing has come of what she did besides the added heartache that she has felt on the levels that I have just mentioned above. With no one in the government able to challenge Bush and his policies, the situation will continue to stall out in a veritable stalemate until the next president of the United States steps up to bat. There is really much study of our government's system of checks and balances that needs to be done in response to this whole situation. How many vetoes does the president actually have the ability to issue? It seems that no matter what legislation that the house and senate attempt to pass, they cannot afterwards overcome the power of the veto. It appears to just be a dead that the government continues to travel down which gets nowhere and causes them only to circle back and try again, but not yet with any success. The Republican representatives seem all too worried to take a stand against the president, likely fearing what their non-alignment will do to harm the party, and therefore themselves, in future elections and negotiations. It has really become a horrible situation that we have little hope of recovering from, at least not for the next year and a half so. Once very involved in American politics myself, I have started to lose hope in the system and the situation. I hope that the Americans who voted for and elected Bush (and those who didn't vote that would have voted otherwise) see the error of their ways. This is not to say that Kerry would have assuredly done any better, but at least maybe we could look back and hope that we would no longer be in the situation we are now...or at least be in as bad of a situation as we are now. So sad...
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This afternoon I came across yet another great informational tool for all of us average Americans who are interested in learning more about how to get our financial lives on track and how to keep it that way. As many of you know, I like to check out the various websites for the news agencies each and every day, and I decided that today I would get my financial news from the business and money section of CNN dot com. I was browsing around the the site and ending up checking out the personal finance page and coming across a new feature that I've found since last time called Money 101. As you can imagine from the play on the term from undergraduate classrooms, this site is all about the basics of personal finance. The Money 101 page divides just about everything you need to know about money is twenty-three convenient lessons. I find this particularly helpful because you can learn new things about your finances on a day-to-day basis, learning a little bit at a time. That way you don't become especially confused or overwhelmed by the fact that there is a lot to learn about. These lessons range from setting your financial priorities in lesson number one, all the way down to setting up a successful 401k in the last lesson (number twenty-three). Other helpful categories for lessons include planning for your retirement, making the most out of your health insurance plan and benefits, and most importantly setting up a responsible budget for your everyday monetary needs. I've haven't yet gone through all of the lessons on the Money 101 page, but from what I can tell from the several that I've read, they really appear to be full of valuable information for any interested party. I'll bet even financial professionals could learn a thing or two from these pages, because they tend to cover little facts and intricacies that people might not think of on their own. The lessons are divided into sections, beginning with bulleted or numbered points about what are the most important things to know about any particular topic that you choose. After the main points have been described, the page contains links to additional subheadings in the category that allow you to learn more about the finer details of the subject. I've also found that the pages have a glossary of key terms included, as well as a quiz that covers the main points in the "chapter". Depending on the particular lessons, there are helpful links to outside sites that provide additional information. For example, on the "learning about stocks" page, there is a link to a page that discusses the top and popular stocks on today's markets. As you can tell from the few things I've mentioned, Money 101 covers a lot of detailed information on a diverse array of topics. This information can be helpful on many levels and to many different individuals. I would recommend reading some or all of the material you can find on the topics that interest you in order to better familiarize yourself with what you need to know in order to accomplish your goals and aspirations in your financial life. I wish you all good luck and happy reading. As always, please feel free to make any suggestions about sites and information that you find helpful in planning your personal finances.
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I just read one of the craziest articles that I have read in a while on Yahoo news (not one of my preferred news sources). After reading the short article, I was both astonished and amused at the situation that was described. As it turns out, there are some particular instances of small towns and villages in certain parts of the country that have strived for decades and in some cases centuries straddling the border between the United States and Canada. Only recently has this persistance of the status quo come under fire as the United States continues to tighten its border control operations. You will have to agree with the fact that if such a situation had existed at any point on our nation's southern border, the situation would have been nipped in the bud faster than you could blink your eye. Since illegal immigration, illegal drug trade, and any other of the host of problems straining ties between the United States and Mexico don't really apply in United States/Canada relations, things haven't been tackled quite the same way in these border towns. I'm sure that there are a bunch of places that are similar to the two border town situations that I read about, but these towns on the Quebec/Vermont border just happen to be the ones that this particular author focused on. The author described the situation in these towns where, in one case, the public library has their front door entrance in the United States but by walking across the main room towards the circulation desk, you can pass from the US into Canada...all without going through customs. Apparently the back entrances are somewhat guarded, but the situation has been characterized by some degree of leniency up until recently. There are now new proposals to deal with how patrons will handle the situation. This is, of course, only one of many potential border crossing issues to pop up in this particular town. A neighboring town just three miles away has tightened the ropes to a higher degree to deal with its position straddling the international border. The article I read describes a particular residential street in this town where one residents living on one side of the road are American citizens, with Vermont street addresses and Vermont license plates. The individuals living on the other side of the road are citizens of the province of Quebec, complete with Canadian addresses, etc. The international border between the US and Canada runs clean down the center of this street. The town in which the street is located has recently enacted a border guard station where you have to check in when crossing the street. Imagine the difficulties that poses when going to visit the neighbors or when driving to and from work. You would have to deal with border agents every day of your life. Talk about a hassle. Think of something as simple but potentially annoying as driving to the grocery store to get supplies to cook dinner each night after a long day at work. Once again, you would have to be troubled twice with border guards. That's quadruple the hassle all in one day. It seems to me like the whole situation is somewhat of a moot point, seeing as though border patrol can't possibly monitor every street and side street in the entire town. I can just see it now...the president having border patrol agents with automatic weapons patrolling the street making sure your children doesn't cross the road back over from Canada after visiting her friend across the way without being questioned as to how long she's going to be there, what domestic products she is brining back, and presenting a passport. How ridiculous can this possibly get? The funniest part to me, being the language scholar that I am, is the fact that the street signs on one side of the street say STOP, and on the opposite side of the road they say ARRET. Talk about crazy. I'm sure it's great for people who grow up bilingual being from this area, but I wonder how strong national language ideology plays into the whole situation. I just remember the hassle I had going to Quebec when I was in high school, being the only person in the group fo seventeen people who spoke French, since the people in the restaurants wouldn't dare speak English to us. Anyways, I just thought that rather than talk about something necessarily financial today, I would clue you in to an interesting situation between our nation and Canada. I think it's important that we recognize that such situations exist out there somewhere and that the actions being taken to monitor them "border" on ridiculous. After having read this article, I would really like to head up to these border towns (which aren't really too far of a drive from where my family lives) just to see how things happen up there. I'm sure that it's an interesting cultural and social experience to see how families, business, and other establishments have adapted their ways of life in order to accomodate their living situations. Do you or anyone you know live in a similar type of situation? I'd love to hear your stories. Drop me a line sometime!
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Over the past year or so, I've done my best to try and stop using my credit card for my regular purchases. This is kind of dumb for me to do in the long run, because I have one of those nice Citicards that gives you all kinds of rewards and points for this and that for every bit of money that you spend using your card. The problem is that I get stingy with what is in my bank account. If I could talk myself into using my credit card to make all my purchases to get those rewards points and then pay it off every month, I would be just fine. This just isn't the case with me. It's not that I go and pay the minimum amount due or anything like that, but I just can't fathom paying my card off each month. This brings me to the point of my post, keeping up on your credit...not your credit score necessarily, but rather having money out on credit in your name. Somewhere along the way I read a financial report about how to build and maintain good credit, and one of the top suggestions from whatever the company was that made the study, besides making sure you make your payments on time, was to make sure to always carry a balance. By not having a balance on your card, there is no credit extended to you, and therefore it doesn't look as good on your credit report. This company suggested making one or two purchases each month with your card and then paying the majority of it off, but still making sure to keep some outstanding balance. I guess that it makes some sense, and I tend to be the kind of guy who likes to do just that. I don't ever have a large amount out on my credit card. I tend to use it for big purchases for two reasons. Number one, I like to be able to get the rewards points for those big purchases, and number two, I don't have to have the cash in hand or balance in my checking account depleted right away. I'll have time to pay for the big purchase with my next several paychecks so that it doesn't seem like such a big blow to my finances. Since this is what I tend to do, I always have a couple hundred dollars or so on my credit card that I pay down and then build up a little bit over the next month or so. I'm really curious to see if that is really the way to go, because I remember that quite a while ago I had applied for a second credit card for the purpose of emergency use only. This was back when I was in school for my undergrad, hadn't really had the chance to build up my credit yet, and I didn't have a whole lot of extra money to save up. I thought that the most prudent thing to do would be to have a card for just such a purpose. Anyways, being the financially conscious guy that I am, I never ended up having to use my second emergency card, and within a year or so, I got a letter in the mail from the credit card company instructing me to cut up my card because my account have been cancelled due to non-use. I was really surprised since I didn't realize that such things were commonplace. I didn't want to go through the hassle of applying for another card to have for an emergency, since we all know that it doesn't look too good on your credit report if you have many instances of Company X pulling your credit report to see if they should extend credit to you. Since that time when that card was cancelled, I haven't bothered with a second card. Anyways, the whole reason that I got thinking about this cancelled card thing from probably four years ago was that I was reading an article saying how credit card companies really can stick it to the consumer, and it's been that way for years. I'm sure that the situation that I've just described about my card misuse wasn't exactly what the writers of this particular article had in mind, but it did kickstart my thinking about the subject. The article explained that the only real control that you have over your credit card is how much you're using it to charge things and how much you pay off each month. Things like service fees, maintenance, and even fluctuating interest rates are in the air much of the time, and are subject to change at the whim of the credit card company that you use. It's nearly one hundred percent out of our hands what happens with things like that. Also, due to the credit report related ramifications and the fact that it's such a pain in the toosh to reapply for cards, it's not like we can just go cancelling cards when the company changes things on us often. We just have to deal with it and hope that the change is in a positive direction for the American consumer.
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OK, hold up for a second here. Just this morning I was watching television trying to catch the news before I went in to work and I happened to catch a commercial that said something along the lines of "cingular is now the new AT & T." Pardon me if that strikes me a little bit odd, since I've been a paying subscriber to Cingular's cellular phone service for the last six or seven years or so. I didn't hear anything about this change, especially if and how it's going to affect me as a paying customer. I put it out of my mind until this afternoon when I decided to visit cingular dot com and find out what the story is all about. In all honesty, I wasn't all that surprised to hear about yet another cellular merger going on, but it's usually a lot of small companies just buying up other small companies. And if it is a bigger company, I recall that it's usually been cingular who is buying someone else up. Well, I'll tell you that after visiting the Cingular website, I'm still not all too sure exactly what has happened. I did learn a few interesting tidbits about the company that I pay eighty dollars to every month for my phone service though. So Cingular really isn't a company at all...surprise surprise...I had now idea about that. Apparently, Cingular is just a brand name that happens to have formerly been owned by both AT & T and BellSouth. Somewhere along the way, AT & T acquired BellSouth, and therefore the idea is that Cingular is now solely owned by AT & T because BellSouth no longer exists. So which is it? Is AT & T Cingular, or is Cingular now AT & T. Who is my cellular provider?...Cingular or AT & T? Do I still make out my monthly payments to Cingular?...or do I make them out to AT & T. See the thing is, I would have thought that I would have received some friendly email or mass mailing in my mailbox about the whole change. Maybe since they haven't made a customer-related effort to tell anyone about it, maybe that means that nothing on the customer side of things is changing. I'm hoping there aren't going to be any plans changes, coverage changes, rate changes, etc. I mean they already make people pay practically an arm and a leg every single month for phone service. The information about the merger and the new AT & T business is really cryptically described on the website, which honestly makes me a little nervous. I like to know what all is going on with a company if I'm sending them monthly payments. Is that so unreasonable? When you look up information about the merger on the Cingular website, where I go to do my online phone bill transactions each month, the link that they provide for "more information" is a link to the AT & T website. At that website, another short cryptic paragraph about the "benefits of the merger" is all that is provided, along with....you guessed it...more links, right back to the individual Cingular and BellSouth websites. I don't know what you think, but my opinion is that someone needs to pay their web developers more...or someone is getting the wool pulled over their eyes. Maybe the case is that they don't exactly even know corporately what has happened or will happen, so they are keeping it pretty hush hush so that customers don't expect anything right off the bat. All the sites keep promising is that the merger will benefit customers by providing a larger network with better coverage. Hey, I'm all for that, but I'd just like to know the hows and whys of what is going to happen...next week, next month,...I'd even settle for next year. And seriously, what other cellular phone companies are even out there anymore? Does Sprint still exist? I remember that not too long ago they were having big time problems. Hmm...I'm trying to think about what cellular phone companies are represent in those annoying commericals with "Chad" the Verizon guy. Hmm..Catherine Zeta Jones isn't on television any longer promoting whoever she was promoting formerly...was that Sprint?
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