Everything Else – Page 7

My New Meta-Resume

The job search is funny. I recently had a potential employer let me know they use a keyword search as a first step in the review process. I then followed up asking, “So, if I used the wrong synonym, I’m out?” After a pause, she said, “Well, yeah, I guess.”

So, here it is! My new Meta-Resume enhanced with keywords.

Experience

Financial Aid Coordinator, Saint Louis University Mar 07 – Present
Counseled students on financial aid. I maintained the website using Dreamweaver
and Drupal. I instituted debt counseling and financial responsibility seminars. I
redesigned the website content to include aid calculators, podcasts and a
scholarship database.

Enrollment Management Intern, Saint Louis University May 08 – Dec 08
Researched podcasting and wiki use for higher education. I created an audio
campus tour. I developed training sessions for Adobe Captivate and Google Apps
(Mail, Documents, Sites and Calendars). I offered computer-based tutorials, inperson
training, and written instructions to best address individual learning styles.

Senior Financial Aid Assistant, Saint Louis University June 06 – Mar 07
Completed data entry and file maintenance. I wrote procedures for departmental
functions. I organized training seminars for the department regarding policy changes
and topic refreshers. I created the aid sessions held during student orientation.

Financial Aid Counselor, University of Phoenix Mar 04 – Jun 06
Counseled students on the aid policies and payment arrangements. I developed
training for new counselors, revised orientation materials, and created financial
management seminars. I performed audits of files, as well as compliance review of
other counselors.

Education
Master of Arts, Higher Education
Saint Louis University, May 09

Bachelor of Science, Foreign Languages and Literature
Southern Illinois University, May 06

Skills
Mac                           CSS                         Garageband
Unix                          JAVA                         Final Cut Pro
Linux                       HTML                        Adobe Premiere
Windows

iWork          Drupal                      iShowU
Google Docs          Ingenuix                   Screenflow
Microsoft Office    WordPress                Adobe Captivate
Google Sites

Professional Development
Apple Education Training, May 08
Author of “A Structure to Influence Student Development”

Keywords
Intelligent, Smart, Bright, Educated, Dedicated, Dedication, Creative, Creativity, Artistic, Analytical, Technical, Nerd, Geek, Team, Player, Team-player, Humor, Humorous, Music, Musical, Audio, Video, Edit, Editor, Editing, Podcaster, Podcasting, Mathematical, Logical

Everventure

This morning in the car, Chris was talking to me about telling stories. His dad always tells stories and he has quite the knack for it. Stories about long motorcycle rides, the Navy, Chris’ mom, etc. Chris feels he does not have any stories to tell, and that his life story would be uninteresting to anyone.

Well, I do disagree.

Life stories are the most interesting, regardless of if the adventures were found on a mountain or in the backyard. These adventures are your own. Own them. Love them. No one else is going to have your adventures for you.

I have this theory about knowledge. One cannot possibly know everything unless he or she has spoken to every single creature. We all contain bits of knowledge. Although they may seem small to us, they could be immense to someone else.

If you want to have an adventure, then have it. But don’t forget about all the small adventures that make up the one big adventure.

Coming Back Down to Self

I’ve been on somewhat of a hiatus since last December. The Rescue just began taking off and demanding much of my free time. Now that everything is in place, and I have an awesome team of volunteers working with me, I can breathe a little. So, I decided to write an update.

Recently Chris and I had to reinforce the chicken pen, as we have had so many foxes in the area, and one even dug under the fencing to get a poor hen. We lashed 36″ chicken wire all the way around the coop building and fencing to the ground, then put soil and grass seed over the top. The worst part was burying the wire under the landscaping blocks around the kennel panels – those things are 28 pounds each! Add in July heat (90 degrees + STL humidity), and we were pretty wiped out after the project.

Because of said foxes, my flock had been dwindling from 16 down to 8 with the last attack. I bought 9 new pullets and was given 4 pullets by a friend. So, I’m up to twenty-one now (6 Rhode Island Reds, 3 Buff Orpingtons, 3 Leghorns, 3 Black Australorps, 2 New Hampshires, 1 Barred Rock, 1 White Rock, 1 Black Star, and 1 Polish). Unfortunately, the girls can’t free range any longer, but they now have a 22′ x 30′ pen (we decided to expand from the 12′ x 20′ pen before renovating).

The garden had been doing well until July. All of the squash family plants were taken over again this year by stink bugs. I really need to work on an organic solution – I guess my concentration of Neem oil was too high again this year for the poor plants. We did get some great cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. Some melon plants have survived too! Just so sad we don’t get any great Connecticut pumpkins this year!

I have been sewing and crafting a little this summer (thank you cards for the Rescue, a few dresses for myself and Kari, painting and tie-dying shirts, making some new jewelry pieces, and knot blankets as a fundraiser). I enjoy making my own things, as I think it is so fun to have a piece no one else in the world has…and to be able to make it your own!

The Rescue is going very well – so far, we have rescued over 275 pets! We have adoption events several times each month, but by far, the Internet is the heavy hitter for adoptions!

After much flip flopping, I decided to make the jump to get the iPhone 4 from my 3G. Although I pre-ordered mine, I stood in line for 6.5 hours. And, yes, next time I am going to have it shipped. Turns out, I broke even with the upgrade as I sold my still new looking 3G on ebay.

Then, now that my computer demands have changed (video/design), I’ve become more taxing on a computer’s get-up-and-go, so I (after again much flip-flopping) sold my black Macbook and bought a new iMac. I had to calculate a method of making the upgrade financially responsible, then I was more comfortable with it (buying on tax free weekend, selling my computer first). And then, when the new iMacs were announced, I was all on board! I went Friday early so I could be sure to get my iMac. Friday also was the first time in my line waiting history that Chris (and Kari) actually waited in line with me! Kari was the line’s comic relief.

The Difference Between Telling and Imparting

Ever been in a classroom where you just cannot keep your eyes open? We all have. Mine was American history my sophomore year of undergrad (Spring 2002). No matter how much sleep I got or how fast I chugged that Coke, I couldn’t stay focused. Two things about this struck me: first, I love history and school. I feel lost without school and I am always eager to learn. Second, other students were crashing too. Eventually, the huge lecture class dwindled to fifteen alternating attendees, until test day, when the auditorium would fill up again.

Why was this? Were we all just poor students? We weren’t engaged. The instructor would walk up to the middle of the stage, pull his textbook out of his bag, and proceed to read aloud the chapters we were to read for this class session.

There was only one class where I was strangely awake. He was asking questions, and we were answering, discussing, and, low and behold, learning.

Engage them. Discuss. Activities. Scenarios. Something!

M.I.A.

So, I have been slacking on my own website. Sorry to my readership of 5.

The main reason behind my neglect is my rescue, St. Louis Pet Rescue. Chris and I spent our vacation caring for 2 rescue dogs, and getting the rescue back up and running.

All together, I feel running a non-profit is worth it. I enjoy helping others and a good quest toward changing the world. Make this your New Year’s Resolution: Do something in your community to change its world! Think Butterfly Effect. Start a little something and who knows where it could end up.

What I Want

I don’t know how many of you have articles from your RSS feeds that you just can’t get to in a day, but I certainly do.

Wouldn’t it be completely useful to have integration of your phone into your car to play music and read articles. Just say something like, “Read” as a title of an article you want to read comes up, and it’ll be read to you. It could even integrate with the feed reader used on your computer and have a “bookmark” section of articles you pulled up, but did not close during the day, and an “unread” section.

This would be awesome.

Help Find Jeff’s Phone!

Jeff's Phone is in Arnold, MO

My friend Jeff went to breakfast at Uncle Bill’s in St. Louis this morning and left his iPhone on his table. Someone picked it up and took it home! It is somewhere in the above circle thanks to Mobile Me. PLEASE repost, tweet or update your status message with a link to my blog post. With as many friends as I have in this region, I’d hope we could track this phone down!

Baby Videos Stupefy Children

One day during my maternity leave with Kari, almost 4 years ago now, a neighbor came over with some items her granddaughter had outgrown. There were some outfits, some blankets and one Baby Einstein DVD. I hoped she didn’t see my horror. Chris and I weren’t against television, just this type of television.

The Baby Einstein DVD sat for about a month on the bookshelf. Finally, Chris and I were curious about all the hype behind this stuff and popped it in one day. Kari was in her bouncy seat about 4 feet from the television, while Chris and I flanked each side of her. I don’t know what we were expecting, with the way we were bracing ourselves, you’d think we just committed a crime.

Our pediatrician explained about these shows and was adamant about no television until after 2 years, at minimum. She said infants have a defense mechanism – being alert to change. So, these children’s shows play on that with their changing images and colors. The babies can’t look away while watching because their defense mechanism is telling them to pay attention, and the parents misinterpret this as the kid loving it!

This story just came out for the local news. It’s only a half page, but if you couldn’t read the whole thing, here is my favorite quote:

“In fact, one controversial 2007 study suggested that “educational” videos and DVDs for the very young, such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, might even make them dumber by impeding word acquisition.”

These shows babble and use “baby talk” along with their flashing images. Again, something our peditrician warned us about: baby talk. She said to talk normally. So, we all did. And, guess what? Kari has been speaking in full sentences since 18 months and no one, strangers or family, has trouble understanding her.

It’s about spending time with your kids! Be practical folks! Education takes a long time. These videos aren’t going to make your kid a genius – you are! Invest in their education. Read to them always. Embrace their curiosity. The television didn’t teach Kari how to read, or speak German, or count and add. It was a lot of hard work by Chris, my parents and myself.

So, what happened after we flipped on the Baby Einstein video? After 2 minutes, the vivid images gave me a headache, and the noises were annoying, so we thought Kari might feel the same, if she could only talk. We ended up throwing it away.

Poisoning the Protein

I am a vegetarian. I have been for the past twenty-three years (for those of you doing the math, I decided to go veggie when I was 4 years-old). My parents allowed me to do this if I kept myself healthy, ate well and didn’t suffer any other adverse effects. When I was thirteen, I broke my finger, badly. Yeah, Katie Bachman sure could kick a soccer ball, but my finger shouldn’t have broken that easily. So, a diet revision was in order. Enter Morningstar Farms. And later Boca Burger. My new diet supplements were meat substitutes made of derived protein.

Over the years, these meat substitutes became more popular and expanded from just burgers to chicken patties, ground meat, sausage, brats, etc. In taste tests, kids even preferred the faux hot dogs – and they’re marketed to moms because they’re less fat!

Great, right? What could possibly be wrong with this great line of products?! Less fat? Nothing wrong with that! Expensive? Got over that a long time ago.

They’re made of derived proteins. That’s what’s wrong. Let me explain.

I workout daily doing cardio and weight training. I know to keep myself healthy, I need protein, but how much protein should I be getting? I looked up this nifty calculator. I need 86 grams of protein per day based on my height, weight and activity level – at minimum!

Here is a general chart to help you calculate how much protein you get in a day:

Protein Chart

Then I got curious about my meat substitute’s contribution toward my goal and whether or not I should look into protein shakes. I hit Google. Then I read ingredients lists on protein shakes. Whoa! Hydrolyzed proteins. Then I realized I hadn’t read the ingredients on my meat substitutes in a while.

Last Monday morning, I called Boca. After the question, “Do your products contain MSG?” left my lips, the line was silent. I repeated myself. The representative started a canned spiel about how Boca is concerned about the health and safety of its consumers. I cut him short. I told him I appreciate the script, but just want the facts. He then stumbled over some words I had heard before, so I recognized immediately what he wouldn’t say: their products do contain MSG. Hydrolyzed protein is one phrase. Wherever you see it, there will be MSG.

The Boca representative then went on to tell me that the FDA does not find MSG to be harmful in low levels and how their products do not contain more than the legal limit designated by the Federal government. Feeling saucy, and duped again by another company, I quipped, “So, if I eat multiple products during the day with the legal limit of MSG, would I then not be over the legal limit healthy for consumption?” He searched the script while mumbling, “uh and um”. Sorry, Jason, you had to get me that day. I thanked him and hung up.

I didn’t bother calling Morningstar Farms as the ingredients listed it clearly on their website: hydrolyzed protein.

What to do about protein? I’m not giving up on my search for food that doesn’t make me sick. And I hope you all realize MSG isn’t just harmful to those who are most sensitive. It’s like anything else. It’s not good for you, it is just the people most sensitive who recognize it. Try going MSG free, see how you feel – and you’ll know the next time you encounter MSG. Detox, as I joke, for a month. MSG can cause moodiness, depression, anger, headaches and I’m sure other internal damage. It is found in foods everywhere – and it isn’t always listed on the label, but hidden in hydrolyzed proteins, artificial ingredients, etc.

So, I’m on the search for healthy sources of protein. I immediately thought of making trail mixes with seeds and nuts, yogurt, drinkable yogurt, cheese, peanut butter, milk, bean everything, etc. But, I need to calculate protein intake. I need your help finding healthy, natural protein packed foods.