Book Review - Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


This might be the worst book I have ever read.



View all my reviews

6 Random scholarship opportunities

American Fire Sprinkler Association Scholarship - Potential recipients have to read the “Fire Sprinkler Essay” about automatic fire sprinklers and take a 10 question open-book test, for each question answered correctly, students can enter into a drawing for one of 10 $2,000 scholarships.

National Beef Ambassador Scholarship - Create a presentation about the importance of beef nutrition or production, answer presentation and interview questions from a panel of judges and $1,000 could be yours. Scholarship winners will join the National Beef Ambassador Team and could speak at designated engagements.  (Although this sounds like a lot of work for a thousand dollars)

Vegetarian Resource Group College Scholarship - grants two students that promote vegetarianism in their schools and communities $5,000 each. The scholarship requires an essay and documentation of public promotion of vegetarianism

Tall Clubs International Student Scholarships - allots up to $1,000 to students under the age of 21 to those who fulfill height requirements (5’10 for women, 6’2 for men). To apply for the scholarship, you must contact a TCI member for sponsorship.

Dr. Suess’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” Scholarship - Random House created a scholarship based on the prospects of new directions and adventures. To be eligible for the scholarship, high school seniors must submit an essay in the form of a letter to someone who “needs inspiration in his or her life” based on the themes of the book. The applicant with the best essay wins $10,000 toward the university of their choosing

Sammy Scholarship - If students demonstrate excellence in academics, athletic performance, leadership, community service and and like to sport a milk mustache; this is the scholarship for them. $7500

Timeshare - to Buy or not to Buy

I know a lot of people are down on them, but I am not one of them.  We own two timeshares and that is how we do a lot of our traveling.  We are able to exchange the units we own in Vegas though an exchange company (RCI.com)and stay where ever we like.  We have been able to use ours to go to Hawaii, Canada, and a whole assortment of places in Orlando. 

Knowing what I know now I would never buy one through the actual resort.  I would go to the presentation and get my free gift, but I would not under any circumstances buy from them.  Instead find an individual seller.  That same unit that the resort is selling for 30,000 you can probably get for 5,000.  There are tons of people out there that bought them and never use them.  We use ours, but after the upgrades they did to our resort it was worth more points in the exchange company so we don't need both units any more.  As soon as I have time I will be listing one of ours with a resale company.  That unit sells for around 25,000 at the resort now, but when we got it, it was much less.  We will probably sell for around 12,500.  This is a savings of 50%.  I am betting that if you love a resort and look around hard enough you could probably save even more! 
At this time the only resale company on the internet I trust is redweek.com.  If I happen to find others I will add them. 

If you are looking for somewhere to buy I suggest you keep several things in mind. 
Location!  Can you get there easily?  If there is not a cheap airline to get you there or it is a reasonable drive, you will never go.  It will have been a waste of money. 
High Demand!  Is there high demand to stay in this area?  The higher the demand is for the area the more exchange points you get through an exchange system.  For example our two weeks in Vegas often exchanges for 3-5 weeks each year in different parts of the world.  So, instead of two vacations we get 3 - 5. 

Some of the things I like about staying at a timeshare is having your own kitchen.  We save a ton on food when we are traveling because we have the ability to make a pot of spaghetti.  I like having a two bedroom unit so we have enough space for all of us!  I especially like not sharing a room with my children.

8 Great Websites for kids

I thought I would share some of the websites my kids enjoy.

http://www.poptropica.com/ - My kids enjoy making their own funny characters and playing around in this virtual world.

http://www.starfall.com/ - This is good for younger kids who are learning to read.

http://www.janbrett.com/ - Jan Brett is an author and illustrator that my kids learned about in kindergarten. They enjoy looking at her website, which has games and coloring sheets based on her books.

http://www.funbrain.com/ - All kinds of learning games.

http://www.pbskids.org/ - This has lots of games based around their tv shows. I really like the different themes that they have each month. This month my kids have been learning about conservation through the various games.

http://www.nps.gov/goga/forteachers/onlinegames.htm - These games are by the Nation Park service and have unique games for learning about geology and many different species.

http://reading.ecb.org/ - This is a very neat website that bring book to life for the kids through different methods. Such as reading one page at a time and drawing a picture of what you saw in your mind and then putting it with music.

http://www.tickettoread.com/ - This is a fantastic website that has lots of activites to get your kids reading and keep them learning more and more.

My husbands F15 flyby at Talladega

This picture was taken by a photographer that was at Talladega.   Paul happened to find his website with pictures http://www.blogger.com/ .

This is Paul!!!!
Paul is the one the far left.
Paul is the bottom one.
Again he is in the plane at the bottom.

Since I have mentioned several times that he is in the Air Force and  pilot I thought I should actually share some photos of him in action!