BECOMING A CHILD ADVOCATE
These days there are so many kids just caught up in the system. Many come from abuse and neglect and they need someone to protect their rights. Someone who is looking out for them and who is on their side. A child protective services lawyer can do this and their job is extremely important. To help those who can't help themselves is an incredible responsibility and one that is by far one of the biggest and most important jobs on the planet. A friend of mine has had a law degree for several years, but when she decided to get into the system as a child protective services attorney, I don't think that she realized how difficult a job it would be. It is a job that requires a huge amount of determination and drive. One where you can only guess whether you are representing the child's best interest or not. In some cases, the truth is very clear and obvious and this makes the job a lot easier, but in some cases trying to determine the rights and wrongs of the situation can be quite taxing. My friend says that one of the best things that they are doing now in the system is using volunteers to check out the home life, school and teacher information, and to meet with the child. These volunteers have a great responsibility and they need to take their job very seriously. They work as the eyes and ears of the court and represent what they feel is in the best interest of the child. She told me that becoming a CASA volunteer, a person who gets to advocate for children, is really easy. She told me that they do give you a course about the courts and things to look for, and then when they have a case involving a child this person asks around and does the leg work and interviews the child to help bring an overall picture to the court of what this child's life is like.
I think this is a very noble way to volunteer your time, and so I have personally begun the process of becoming a CASA volunteer. I do have the time, and I feel that those of us who have, need to give back to those who don't. It is our responsibility to stick up for those who can't stick up for themselves.
Posted by Jen on Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 9:30 PM
SAVE MONEY AND RECYCLE YOUR INK CARTRIDGES
Lately my big things are save money and save the planet. Both have become really important to me and I am really dedicated to this cause. I guess I never really thought about how unkind we were being to the planet until I tried to start saving some money, and going on line for money saving ideas. I found it really ironic that saving money, in many instances also meant doing something that was helping the environment.
I have since started being really conscientious and trying to do things that will save the planet, even in the rare case that they don't save me money. For instance, I really never knew that the ink cartridges for my Cannon Bubble Jet printer were recyclable. I just recently found out that when you use all the printer ink out of your printer ink cartridges, you have a few options as to what you can do. First, you can take the old cartridge back to the store and have it recycled. Some stores, depending on the brand of your printer ink, may even give you a few dollars off the purchase of a new one. Secondly, you can actually purchase do it your self refill kits, that basically allow you to reuse the same cartridge and refill it with ink yourself. This of course saves you some money, while also helping not to fill up our landfills any more than necessary. You can these ink refill kits at stores, online, and even sometimes you can a good deal on Ebay on these kits. It is always a good idea to shop around and try to save some money. The internet can help you in this process.
Saving money on printer ink cartridges is just another way that you can find to perhaps stash away a few extra dollars while helping stay green. We all need to be more aware of staying green and keeping green. Isn't it ironic that they call environmentally friendly stuff green, and that money is also green? Staying green (environmentally friendly) can also help you hang onto your green (your money). The great thing about it is that you can help save the world and help save yourself all at the same time.
Posted by Jen on Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 3:37 PM
Distance and Friends
It is weird to be away at different schools than your friends from high school. Two of my friends (they're twins) go to the University of Iowa, which happens to only be about 3 or 4 hours away from home, but about 7 hours away from me when I am at school, so visiting them is a big deal, and a plane ride. Freshman year, most of the trips I made were home because I was homesick and anytime that I had free to travel anywhere I went straight home to my dad, and sophomore year I had a car and usually went places that were close like my boyfriend and best friend go to university of Illinois which is only about 2 and a half hours away. This year however, I decided that it was weird not knowing where they lived, or what their school looked like. I felt like I had known all of their roommates and friends for my whole life, however I had never even met them face to face, I had just heard so many stories over the years, I felt like I did. So this year I booked a flight on a 3 day weekend and left Thursday and returned back to school Sunday night. It was a lot different than I imagined at Iowa, I had visited it once when I was a sophomore in high school, which right now seems like a really long time ago, but I had looked more at the campus than the apartments and night life. So this was basically all new to me when I went to visit them. But even though the town was much more different than I had imagined their apartment was not. I walked in and instantly noticed the bar stools that surrounded their fully decorated and stocked bar. I would have known those stools anywhere, we had spent so many nights in high school and over the summer at their bar at home (where they had obviously taken the stools from). It brought back so many memories.
As I walked around I could tell that they really hadn't changed much at all. They had counter stools, almost the same ones I had, in their kitchen. We had always had basically the same taste and sometimes ended up with the same stuff without even knowing. Like Kelly, one of the twins had the same bed sheets as I did and even the same dresser. Katie had the same bathroom decorations basically as I did at home.
It is weird to see how much people evolve when you leave for school and go your separate ways, but at the same time we don't really change. We still come home and see each other and just pick up where we left off, even after spending months, almost a year, apart. I think after knowing someone for so long, it is easy to know who they really are even though they are constantly changing.
Posted by Jen on Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 3:11 PM
Getting Six Sigma training
As part of my business class I have been asked to look in to a few business models and then look at efficiency models to get some ideas for what might work to make certain companies more productive. It is the first time I have every really been asked to critically analyze a company's function as condensed down to effective or ineffective. I sort of like having the position of being the judge of this but it is quite difficult to put some real recommendations forth on to multi national corporations. Part of me is even a little bit put off by the thought that some day one of these same companies might see my paper and that might cost me a job interview or something. That last thought is pretty irrational though I know.
At this point in all of my research I have not gotten to the point of being able to actually make critiques. I am still sifting through the information on their various business models and applying the very first efficiency model. The six sigma training is the first series that I am working out and for all of them I think it would have a positive effect on efficiency within the system and general productivity coming out of the systems. After this I will be looking in to the application of lean within the manufacturing departments of certain branches in order to increase their production or shipping speeds.
I think that this is probably the most intense and interesting course i have had to take yet. I have been waiting all of my years of school to feel like a professor actually expects me to apply myself and come up with an original idea. All of the other projects i have ever done has felt like I am just doing the same thing as everyone else with minor language variations due to our differing backgrounds and origins. This one feels like I am being asked to take hold of the world and look at it with the eyes of someone who will be changing it all very soon.
Posted by Jen on Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 2:34 PM
In need of some parenting advice
Have you ever noticed that people who don't even have any children of their own, want to give you parenting tips and parenting advice? Why is it that they believe that it is so easy? Perhaps it is the fact that they don't have any clue how difficult parenting a child truly is. They really don't know, because making a child act appropriately or do the right thing, or listen, is not an exact science. Maybe it does seem simple to those who don't have any kids, but those of us who have them know that there is no rule book, no parenting guide, and no exact science to making kids listen to you. You can tell them what to do. You can coerce them. You can punish, take things away, smack them, threaten them, or put them in their room, but it doesn't mean they will listen. The fact is that doing all these things is no guarantee that your kids will listen. I have 4 kids, 2 who will listen and two that will fight me tooth and nail, doing whatever they want when they want without regard for consequence. They have what I call the iron will. For the most part they are pretty good kids, but when that iron will is flaring, you had better watch out. There is no telling what they will say or do and there is certainly no way of "making them" if they really don't want to and they now know this and tell me to my face that I really can't make them do it if they don't want to.
It may be easy for people who don't have children to look at us and our kids and judge us, but as parents we know that it is not a simple task to raise a child from baby to teenager to adult. It takes a lot of work, tears and heartache to get from one end of the spectrum to the other, and honestly for those of us who have done it, we wouldn't have it any other way. Because for all the tears, there are the moments of joy and pride that never fade. Those moments, where they make you so glad to be a parent, and I am sure that those moments will stay with us a whole lot longer and make the whole process worth it.
Posted by Jen on Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 1:48 PM
Differences in Health Care
After recently doing a project in school about different health care plans including looking into difference and similarities of difference states like comparing Illinois' to the Georgia health insurance plans, I have found out that there is way too much information out there and not enough people who really know what is going on with it. So many people just trust their companies to provide their health insurance for them, or, the other day for example I was talking to my dad about why we have All State car insurance and he said that his parents had it and he had no problems. While we also have had a great experience with that particular insurance provider, we didn't look into other options. Maybe a different provider has better benefits or a less expensive plan, maybe not?
Medicare is something that people need to look into as well. It is amazing how many people do not understand it (including me). But mainly adults who have health care and just do not know anything past the dollar amount on it. Like what kind of benefits you are receiving or what health care providers accept your insurance. It is hard to look into a subject like health care because there are so many options and most people do not have the time to go through papers upon papers full of medical and legal terms and sort through it. It is sad, but I also think that I can be fixed. I feel like people need to be educated on subjects like healthcare. We have consumer Education classes that are mandatory in high school, why not make a health insurance class? It is subject that almost everyone will someday have contact with and need to be informed.
I went onto a website for Blue Cross Blue Shield and I saw that they do a pretty good job of breaking it down for consumers. They have information on how insurance works and how much things cost medically and payment wise. They even have a section on things that you can do, like maintaining your weight and practice safety and prevention, or saving the emergency room for emergencies only. By doing these thing you can avoid having to pay expensive or co-pays. The website even has a glossary of terms.
We need teachers and schools and the internet and news to teach us about these important topics so that we can be informed and make good decisions for ourselves and one day for our families.
Posted by Jen on Saturday, September 27, 2008 @ 10:36 PM
Ontario auto insurance
Coming to college in America has probably been the most exciting and obligatory experiences of my entire life. I mean I did make it through high school and family life in Canada, but this whole year has been a hugely different experience for me. There are a lot of things about American culture that I would never have known about, or wanted to, had I not come here for school. The culture of young people I have found to be much the same in that it is all currently driven by the global changes of the Internet. Social networking, fads, and infectious videos are all present around the world and so I didn't need to jump a big hurdle there. The big problems for me have been primarily surrounding the process of financially setting myself up here in this country.
One of the biggest issues for me has been the process of getting myself some insurance. I am currently covered by my parents' health insurance back in Canada and would just go home to see a doctor if needed. I had also assumed that since I had Ontario auto insurance that I would also be covered here in the States, but I was wrong. I got a speeding ticket last weekend was given another citation for having driven a whole year without ever changing my drivers' license or my auto insurance. This led me to two new experiences that I didn't necessarily want to have before I came here. I first got to go to the Department of motor vehicles and stand in line for an hour till I could get my new license after much talk about paper work and photo ID's which I didn't have in my possession. Then I got the privilege of seeing the inside of my first American Magistrate's office. I paid my fine and left quickly because I have a general fear of American law enforcement, I think from watching too many movies, but it certainly was an interesting week for me.
I hope that none of my foreign friends out there have had to experience these same aspects of American life so early in their stay as I have. But if you do just try to see the bright side of the fact that you have learned a good lesson, whatever it may be.
Posted by Jen on Saturday, September 20, 2008 @ 7:29 PM
salsa dance
This probably sounds really random, but I have always wanted to salsa dance. It just seems so sexy and exotic, plus a friend of mine took up dancing last year and she has been shedding the pounds ever since. She said that dancing is the greatest thing that she has ever done, and I really want to give it a whirl, but I am a little embarrassed and also I am afraid that if I go to learn to dance without a partner that they will give me some wacko to salsa with and I will be so grossed out that I will actually not get anything out of the lesson. My friend said that I should come with her to her salsa lessons and see that this group is really great, and the guys aren't creepy at all, as a matter of fact she said that some of them are really hot. So, on Thursday night, I went with her to dance class and saw that it really was a lot of fun. I was just there to observe, and the men there weren't all creepy as I had imagined in my mind. At the very end of the lesson, the instructor, a very hot guy, came over and asked me if I wanted to learn a few moves and I said sure, so he showed me a few things and this guy was incredible. Needless to say, I immediately agreed to sign up to learn salsa dancing, only now I am not really sure whether I am going to learn to dance, or whether I just want to go and see if I can dance with this instructor again. I found out what nights he holds classes and those will be the nights I will be attending. My friend says that she doesn't think that he is that great, but I really think that I am head over heels for this guy. Maybe, I can not only learn to salsa, but get myself a boyfriend as well. That would make this whole thing amazing!
Posted by Jen on Thursday, September 18, 2008 @ 8:36 AM
Ontario insurance
Now I am almost in my second month here at school and so far I have been sort of overwhelmed with all of the aspects of the experience. Since I had only seen the campus online I had to first of all figure out where on earth I have to go every day and what kinds of landmarks exist around here. I still haven't had a chance to go out and explore the surrounding areas of the town since I have just been so busy trying to get myself organized and in to some sort of a pattern that I can sustain for the rest of the semester. I have also been unfortunate enough to have chosen classes that demand a good deal of work every single week. The first week of class I bought around seven hundred dollars worth of books and study packets for this semester alone. These two things have sort of stuck me in a position where I have been basically stuck in survival mode for the last month. Now that I am beginning to feel things let up a little bit I have been trying to relax a little bit and get some of my own writing done.
This week my goals outside of class focus still on the process of integrating myself in to the area and to do that I have to talk to people back home. Before I left I had talked with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario about various ways in which I could finance my education. They helped me to get lots of scholarships and grants so that it has eased my burden just enough that I don't have to work a lot outside of schoolwork. This week I will be sending out my thank you letters to the organizations that sponsored me. I will also be dropping my Ontario insurance and my Ontario auto insurance and switching over to an American policy to use for the next four or five years. Wish me luck because I am going to need it to get all of this stuff done while I am studying for my first set of exams and writing my second and third papers.
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 @ 8:41 AM
natural diet pills
I just heard about natural diet pills and to be honest I had no idea what that meant when they called it natural, so I looked it up online. I found out that natural diet pills do not contain caffeine, chemicals, gum or any other harmful products. I'm not sure how much of this I believe though because the article goes on to say that there are no side effects to taking this natural diet pill in particular. How can they say that? How can they possibly know that I won't or someone else won't have a reaction to a pill? Every person is different and therefore has a different reaction to everything.
A different article goes on to say that there are several health benefits to taking a natural weight loss pill including; no side effects, no prescription, safe weight loss, confidence and lastly, happiness. I guess they have every right to advertise that you don't need a prescription to get these pills or that you may have a safer weight loss if that has been proven to be true medically, but how can a weight loss pill promise happiness and confidence? I could be the skinniest most beautiful person in the whole world and still be unhappy with myself and have self-esteem issues. It seems unreal that part of their advertisement for a weight loss pill is that you will be happy from taking their product. Is it an anti-depressant? No, it isn't, but even when advertising an antidepressant, they can't promise happiness and certainly cannot promise you confidence. I think it is outrageous to even say that.
I believe that people should really research and look into a weight loss pill, natural or not, and talk to their doctor before jumping into a diet that includes one. It seems risky to take pills without knowing completely and understanding fully what is in them or what side effects you could experience. I know that today we feel that we need to see results instantly and plain old healthy eating and exercise alone won't do the trick, but dealing with diet pills can be risky and without really researching them you can get yourself and your health and future into a lot of trouble. So hopefully if anyone is looking into a diet including a weight loss pill they will be extra careful in what they are doing.
Posted by Jen on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 @ 7:18 AM
Littman stethoscopes
Trying to choose a career path can be a hard choice. I have, for many years wanted to be a lawyer, but I am not sure I want to have to deal with defending people who are guilty, I just can't see myself being able to do that. I love to help people and recently my father has been pushing me toward a medical career. I am really not sure what area of study is for me and my procrastination is absolutely driving my parents mad. In any case, I decided to spend this past summer doing some volunteering at local businesses to see what jobs really interest me.
I spent some time in a vets office and I really thought that was cool, I actually think I enjoyed that better than the regular doctor's office that I spent some time in. I really didn't like all the insurance paperwork in the doctor's office, and in a vet's office, you don't have all that and I liked it. I have always loved animals, and the truth is they are the same as a doctor. They get to wear a stethoscope and I really think that the Littmann stethoscopes that I saw in the vet's office may have been even nicer than the Cardiology stethoscopes that I saw in the MD's office.
I also went to a lawyer's office and did some paperwork and got to see a lot of behind the scene's stuff which was really neat. I did ask them questions about having to defend someone that they knew was guilty and they said unfortunately that is what you sign up for when you agree to become a lawyer, and I asked them about their experiences with that and they said it can be very difficult, but you find a way to push through it. I told them I didn't know if I could do that, and they said then perhaps I should consider a different career.
Now, I really think that I have my heart set on going to veterinary school, and learning more about caring for animals. I think it would be great, then I could move to a farming community and go to farms around town and do house calls, deliver calves, and take care of injured horses. Also, I love horse back riding and that would mean I could have a farm full of animals of my own. I think I have finally found the right career path for me.
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 @ 2:38 PM
pbx technology
A friend of mine was so excited, when she first opened her own business they didn't have much money. They did everything to the bare minimum. Now business has been doing so well that they just upsized to a bigger place and she got to really do the office just the way she wanted it. I went over and took a look and the place is amazing, she says it is just the way she pictured it would be, so she must have a better imagination than I do. Well, in any case, when I arrived her husband was toying with getting their phones set up, he said that they were upgrading to pbx technology, which he says is kind of like voip for big business. Quite honestly, he must be really into the latest technology trends, because it was quite a few years ago now that he told me all about the latest voip telephony news and convinced me to switch my home phone service. Later I did really thank him for because it saved me a bundle and the service is great. Anyway, so there he is working on the phone system and she is giving me the tour, the place was so incredible and they were both so excited about the venture, I am really glad they are nice people and really deserve good things. We went out to dinner to celebrate, and they said that they will be up and running in there new space by the end of the week. Not only that, but they have so much business coming in the door that they are looking to expand and they offered me a job working for them, part time to start, but they said if it works out then I can get on there with them full time with benefits and everything. Well, this is a great opportunity for me, and the new space will be great to work in, lots of windows and beautifully decorated, I just had to say yes. I am a little worried about working for friends, but I am really honored that they asked me and I am really hoping that it will work out well for all of us. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 @ 2:01 PM