The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her... - StumbleUpon

The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her... - StumbleUpon:

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

The best and worst cities for unpaid internships : Bundle

The best and worst cities for unpaid internships : Bundle: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"


It's spring, which means college students from around the country are on the hunt for summer internships, many of which will be unpaid. Students shouldn't be putting themselves into debt to get work experience, which is why we set out to identify the best cities in the U.S. to get an unpaid internship based on low cost of living, and potential opportunities with Fortune 500 companies (rankings included).

We dove into our data and examined how much 18 to 24-year-olds earning less than $20,000 annually were spending on dining out, groceries, gas and entertainment each month in cities with internship opportunities. We also looked what students would pay in rent in those cities using data from real estate site hotpads.com. Here's what we found.

Carnival TV

Carnival TV: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Finally Trinidad Carnival 2011 in spectacular HD, online and free.

Loic Le Meur Blog: How You Can Start A Business With Passion

Loic Le Meur Blog: How You Can Start A Business With Passion: "Each edition of LeWeb inspires more participants to start a business and it is one of its main purposes. I am always getting many questions about how to start a business after LeWeb, years ago I had written a series of posts, 'create a company' that I should have continued, but instead of doing that I started other businesses. To help the few friends who are dying to start their businesses in 2009, here are some very quick thoughts that could help them get started. This is NOT a comprehensive post, just sharing a few top of mind ideas that I would tell you if you asked me how you should get started.

-just throw yourself in the water and swim, stop thinking. Most people I know hesitate too much to start, they think too much, just do it and learn as you go
-it is not where you start that matters, it is where you take it that matters, as Jason Calacanis says, not where you start
-stop waiting for the idea of your life, just focus on something easy to explain and that delivers a service people will like
-identify 'empty space' that is a service or product that does not exist or badly delivered by your future competitors
-remain in your area of expertise, it is generally what you have the most passion about and where you are the best
-do not spend months on the business plan, do something simple and start selling it as soon as possible, your business plan will be wrong anyway
-do not spend time on market research, it is useless. Just search the web for who is doing it or not, read blogs about it, search on twitter, etc
-got your idea? good, just start. Do not spend months writing it in details or doing the best powerpoint ever, it is pointless. Just write it in bullet point format.
-share it as much as you can to friends and other entrepreneurs, on your blog (start blogging if you don't) and get advice. They will only care about the bullet point, short executive summary.
-do not be afraid that anybody 'steals' your idea, there are hundreds of people who have the same idea right now and probably some already working on the same. If you do not do it, you will only have to complain when someone else has done it, and it will be useless as they will always say they had the idea before (and it will probably be true, maybe not, who cares).
-repeat after me 'ideas have no value, only execution matters'. When you are done repeat that again. -try to start without resources or if you can, raise some money with friends and family, do not go and spend time see VCs at start, especially in difficult times
-start building as soon as possible, don't wait. Ship anything you can, a simple website, even with bugs, call it alpha :)
-you are not a developer? go find one, you can either give him enough shares for him to be cofounder, or just go to elance find resources generally for not much. You can have an entire site done there very cheap
-once shipped, get friends and family using it and giving you feedback. Blog it, tweet it, share on Facebook, any means to get the initial community going is the best
-don't do marketing, do a better product first
-use a feedback tool such as uservoice or getsatisfaction and ask your community to give you feedback and vote on the most important features they want
-just deliver the most popular features your active users want and deliver often, don't try to make the perfect product, it will not happen.
-run as fast as you can as being transparent implies that competitors will also read your community feedback and often copy cool ideas, sometimes deliver them faster than you do
-once your product is ready enough, start selling something, find real customers. This does not mean it should become entirely paying, the community would not like that, rather ship a 'pro' more feature packed product, or start adding some non intrusive advertising but in recession times, do not count too much on advertising revenues...
-write a weekly or monthly newsletter, email marketing is far from being dead, use one of the tens of free tools around, make sure you let people unsusbcribe easily if they like, avoid spam.
-keep in touch with the community as much as you can with events (can be virtual events such as questions, challenges) every week or even every day
-keep improving the product regularly, do not let too much time in between two versions
-if you have some friends and family or better seed or VC money, 'hire slowly and fire fast' as you will read very often, it is always good advice. As tough as it can be, it is a question of survival, always make sure you 'have enough runway' ahead of you. If you don't, your team is too big.
-success takes time, give it the time it needs. LeWeb, my conference, took 5 years to gather nearly 2000 participants and establish its brand (that can even survive some logistical issues, or at least I think!) and I did not even think about it as a business when I started it
-don't think you will never be able to execute your idea with almost no means, there are solutions most of the times and great 'bootstrapped' companies are the living proof
-in the current tough market conditions when it is extremely tough to raise money with crappy valuations, the best is obviously to work on ideas that generate revenue as soon as possible.
-have passion about your business. Do not sleep much and focus only on your business. Do not do anything else, except taking some good two hours lunches from now and then.
-work like hell. Be always on. Know your space and focus focus focus.

Obvious? Yes. All the above is obvious. But you cannot imagine how many friends I know who never start because they do not follow the obvious. I forgot things? Of course, this is why there are thousands of books about entrepreneurship. I did not talk about human resource for example. I just tried to gather a few quick thoughts. I wish you all to start a business in 2009 and will be happy to help as much as I can, just keep in mind that I am very busy trying to make mine, Seesmic, a great success. Fortunately I have some runway ahead of me as the most 'new' and 'innovative' a product is, the longer it will take to find its use, but the more exciting it is! If you have any motivation issue, just watch Gary Vaynerchuk at LeWeb and you will 'just crush it'.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

This article is causing a huge uproar online. I applaud her for writing about her parenting style. She sounds like a West Indian parent. No sleepovers, big deal. High expectations? More parents should set the bar that high for their kids. That's why the drop out rate is sky high. She took her kid's educatio...n into her own hands when she said she hated math. She created study sheets and drilled her till she got it. Maybe some of her methods were a little heavy handed but definitely not child abuse as some are claiming. Parents who make their kid athletes practice for hours on end at the expense of good grades are never criticized but she is vilified for expecting academic excellence from her kids, something many parents should require. She's courageous for writing about her parenting methods.

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?

By AMY CHUA

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

View Full Image

Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal

Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

Ideas Market

The Tiger Mother Responds to Readers

Ms. Chua answers questions from Journal readers who wrote in to the Ideas Market blog.

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.

More Parenting Videos

Teaching Math to Spark Creative Thinking

Can Bilingualism Make Preschoolers Smarter?

Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

Journal Community

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

View Full Image

Chua family

From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

Chua family

Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)

View Full Image

Chua family

Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in 2007.

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.

Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

Read More

• A Cartoonist on Tiger Parenthood
• In China, Not All Practice Tough Love
• The Juggle: Are U.S. Parents Too Soft?

Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

Ideas Market Blog

What's new and hot in the world of ideas, brought to you by Review.

• A Prison for Parents?
• Those Tough Chinese Moms

Write to: IdeasMarket@wsj.com.

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

Journal Community

• discuss

“ I am in disbelief after reading this article. ”

—James Post

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.

New Zodiac sign dates: Don't switch your horoscope yet

I am a Scorpio, always have been, always will be!!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/01/new_zodiac_sign_dates_dont_swi.html

By Melissa Bell

So, you've spent your whole life happily smug in your star sign. You're a fish! Swimming in two directions! You're intuitive, imaginative, unworldly! And then today's Web is aflame with the news: You are not a Pisces. You are an Aquarius. Your star sign has been wrong your whole life. All along, you've been a freaking water carrier. This is not cool.

According to Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, cool or not, it's written in the stars. Star signs were created by ancient Babylonians some 2,000 years ago by tracking where the sun was in the sky each month. However, the moon's gravitational pull has slowly moved the Earth in its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment, reports the Minnesota Star Tribune. Now, during what we think as the month of Pisces, the sun is actually in the sign of Aries.

The new dates would therefore be:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11
Pisces: March 11-April 18
Aries: April 18-May 13
Taurus: May 13-June 21
Gemini: June 21-July 20
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23-Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20

Is this the dawning of a new age of Aquarius? Well, Kunkle is an astronomer who is not too keen on the practice of astrology. When asked by telephone if the new star locations now require us all to switch our loyalty to a new sign, he demurred. "I can tell you what the science is, but I'm not going to tell you what your personality is based on the location of things."

Commentators have also responded to the initial article, saying the new location of the earth does not matter. One wrote, "Oh for heaven's sake (oops), how can people with Ph.D.s be so ignorant? Of course astrologers know about precession -- they've known since about 200 BC. Horoscopes always take it into account... Sheesh."

The commentator is correct that this is not new information. Live Science reported on the role of "precession" on astrology in 2007. Precession is the phenomenon of the moon causing the earth to "wobble" on its axis.

Other astrologists say the ancient system was merely a practice used as a helpful hint for diviners. Blogger Jamie on Darkstar Astrology writes, "It is the planets moving across the backdrop of the stars which influence our lives, not the planets moving through imagined 30 degree divisions on a piece of paper."

So all those hapless men and women who rushed out in college to get a scorpion tattooed on their back don't need to now rush to sign up for laser remover. If you're going to believe that all the people born on your birthday are imbued with certain traits similar to your own in some mystical, ancient manner, you might as well believe it does not matter where the stars are in the sky to begin with. On the flip side, if you've never liked your sign, here's your chance to switch.

Update: Well, strike that, you don't get to switch your sign. At least reader StarJack says so: "The stars are markers that drift, but our main points of reference are not directly the stars. They are the equinoxes (both spring and vernal) and the solstices which altogether make the four cardinal points of the zodiac which in turn determine the signs. The stars help us locate those points which define the SIGNS of the Zodiac which remain constant in relation to the equinox point. The CONSTELLATIONS do move about and we take that into consideration when locating planets."

Updated at 4:46 p.m.

2011

01

13

12

15

By Melissa Bell | January 13, 2011; 12:15 PM ET

Barnes & Noble enters textbook rental business: Should you use it?

No doubt inspired by the success of sites like Chegg.com and BookRenter.com, Barnes & Noble has entered the textbook rental fray.

In a press release, the company announced that "Barnes & Noble College has made the program easy for students, enabling them to rent their textbooks from the comfort of their dorm or home simply by logging into their campus bookstore's e-commerce site. They can also rent from their campus Barnes & Noble bookstore. This innovative rental program gives students the added flexibility of paying for their rentals using any form of tender, including campus debit cards and student financial aid."



Renting textbooks can be a good way for financially strapped students to manage cash flow: even when buying the book and then selling it at the end of the semester will result in a lower net cost than renting, renting requires less up-front cash.

Renting may be a smart option for brand new titles that are not yet available second-hand. Still, here are a couple alternatives to renting that will likely yield better results for students:

* Before you buy anything, email the professor and ask if it's OK to use an old edition of the textbook. For many classes, this will work just fine. . . and can save you literally 90% or more off of retail. For the fall semester of 2008, I bought an old edition of a legal studies textbook on Amazon.com for 1 cent -- saving 99.9759268%! For that class, the old book was every bit as useful as the new edition, but no one else in my class had thought to ask the professor whether it would work.
* Buy your books used on Half.com or Amazon, but never trade them back to the bookstore at the end of the semester. Sell them on Half.com yourself, cut out the middleman, and keep as much of the money for yourself as you can.

Zac Bissonnette's book College on a Dime will be published by Portfolio in the fall.

Top 10 Black Friday tech deals | Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews

Top 10 Black Friday tech deals | Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews:

Here are the deals for the rest of us.

Commencement Challenge

Maritime & Science Technology Senior High School – MAST Academy
Miami, FL

MAST's 100% graduation rate is only one measure of student success. Our school's strong core curriculum, which includes a variety of Advanced Placement and dual enrollment courses, complements the unique electives that truly set MAST apart. In Solar Energy class, we learn about kilowatt-hours, then construct solar ovens and spread environmental awareness by monitoring school energy usage. Cadets in the nation's only Coast Guard JROTC program earn boating licenses on the surface, while underwater, engineering students test their remotely operated vehicles. Culinary classes prepare feasts using produce from our "edible garden," while woodshop students construct everything from dining tables to CO2-powered cars. We express creativity through steel drum band or ceramics class, while required internships provide hands-on experience in fields ranging from marine biology to architecture. As a testament to the dedication that MAST instills, the majority of our diverse student body stays beyond the bell to participate in activities like water polo, ocean conservation, multicultural dance and independent research in our greenhouse and artificial reefs.

MAST's 100% college acceptance rate proves the effectiveness of well-rounded, interactive learning. Here, students, teachers and parents take initiative to build a culture of success that propels us into college and beyond.

VOTE MAST ACADEMY--Bring Obama to 2010 graduation

MAST Academy recently became a finalist in the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, one of six schools in the running to have President Obama speak at their 2010 graduation. And now we need your help to get the vote out. Please vote for Mast Academy at www.whitehouse.gov/commencement beginning on Monday, April 26, 2010 at 8:00 am. The voting period will end at 11:59 pm EST on Thursday, April 29, 2010. The public can view a video profile for each school on the site. The three schools with the most votes will be presented to the President and he will select the winner. The result will be announced on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, and MAST hopes to be in the Final Three.

Mast has a diverse student body that includes many students of Caribbean descent (several appear in the official video on www.whitehouse.gov/commencement ) and has a 100% graduation rate with over 90% of our graduates attending 4 year universities. We have a full steel band open to all students which is also featured in the video profile.

WSVN-TV - MAST Academy needs votes to host President Obama

WSVN-TV - MAST Academy needs votes to host President Obama
MIAMI (WSVN) -- A South Florida magnet school is one of a select few nationwide that could be welcoming the president on the United States on campus.

Maritime and Science Technology High School, also known as MAST Academy, was picked as a finalist to host President Obama as a graduation speaker, but students need your help to get him there.

The excitement could be felt at MAST Academy, after the school received the word from White House staffers that they are finalists in the national Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge. The prize: a graduation speech by President Obama.

"The White House is calling. Oh, my goodness. You get on the phone, it's almost too much to wrap your mind around. You're like, oh, my goodness," MAST Academy Principal Thomas Fisher said.

MAST students wrote and produced a video, which they submitted in February, and three senior girls pulled a few all-nighters to get the essay portion of the competition ready. "We started literally jumping up and down and screaming because it was really nice to know that all the hard work paid off," said Tosca Lichtenheld.

To be in line for the presidential seal of approval is a thrill for them all. MAST Academy teacher Lynn Paisley said, "Can you imagine what kind of a story to tell your grandchildren or your children, that you put together this application to have the President of the United States to come speak at your graduation."

Videos of all the finalists will soon go up on the White House's website, where the American people will vote for the top three. President Obama will choose the winner.

"If the president wants to come to see the best school in the United States, he'll be here to see us," Fisher said.

(Copyright 2010 by Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

By H. Groschel
Key Biscayne Times

Everyone affiliated with MAST Academy on Virginia Key is still abuzz: How did they do it? How did MAST become one of six finalists nationwide in the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, where President Obama will speak at the winning school's commencement ceremony?

The answer is easy: Because of five seniors who worked day and night to answer the call. Entrants had to submit four essays describing how their school is helping prepare students to meet the President’s 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. MAST also sent in optional materials: a 2-minute video about their public magnet school and supplemental academic and demographic data. Tosca Lichtenheld, Margaux Herrera and Chelsea Westra wrote the four mandatory essays at home and at MAST before classes, during their jam-packed days and after school. Tali Burger shot the video footage with a video camera checked out from MAST’s Media Center. Michael Ronzetti edited the video footage.

When the Final Six were officially announced on Friday, April 9, 2010, three of the five students were out of town on senior-year college visits and other travel. However, everybody heard the news in a flash because of old and new communications methods: school PA announcements, phone calls, texting and Facebook. This reporter interviewed Tosca Lichtenheld via phone while she was at an airport to return home to Key Biscayne from a college visit.

Tosca, who recruited her classmates to work on the application package, recalled, “Ms. [Jennifer] Fernandez, the MAST Activities Director, found out about the competition after the White House announced it in early March. The senior class officers were asked if they wanted to participate.” Tosca, Senior Class Vice-President, took charge of the effort after several days went by without action, and asked people she knew could do the job to participate. The next step was to get information about the Challenge from Principal Fisher and Lead Teacher Dr. Haun.

The essays were essential. “Margaux and Chelsea are excellent writers, and they have immersed themselves in the MAST experience”, Tosca recalled. Margaux is the Chief Editor of Mako Fuka, the MAST yearbook. Chelsea is Editor-in-Chief of The Beacon, the MAST newspaper. “We did [the essays] in about a week, and pulled all-nighters to finish the application. We reread the essays dozens of times” and were supported by teachers who also reviewed the essays: Ms. Paisley (Yearbook and Spanish), Ms. Sutton (Newspaper and English) and Dr. Scanlon (English).

The three young women did much of the work at home but Tosca recalls that they wrote and edited during “any free school time we could get – if we finished a test early we would meet. I missed many lunch periods. We put the essays online in a Google Document so that multiple people could edit them simultaneously. We highlighted items with a color-coded system to identify what to cut or change. At the same time we sent Instant Messages to each other” within the Google software. In this way they communicated on weekends and after school even though everyone lives in various part of Miami-Dade County.

Tosca’s friend Tali captured the footage for the optional video. The team had 2 minutes to tell the story of their school and its people and to sell it to the application reviewers. “A Day in the Life at MAST” came in at 1:55 minutes after Mike spliced and edited the footage. “Mike is very good with computers and videography and has experience with editing software Final Cut Pro”, Tosca added. Other students played key roles in the movie. Andrew Mead(e), a senior who plays in the unique steel drum school band, performed pieces that were recorded as background music. The video began with a voice over: “Welcome to MAST Academy – Here is a look at a typical day at a non-typical High School”. Student classroom work and activities were featured, followed by participant commentary. Tosca gave examples: “Andrew Wach was building a CO2 powered car in Wood Shop. Another segment showed sophomore girls in Chemistry Lab, and another featured two student government representatives.”

Three data supplements were included in the package. Tosca explained that President Obama said this “was optional, but we thought we could strengthen our application by showing that MAST’s diverse student body is united in academic excellence.” Dr. Haun and Principal Fisher provided the information in areas such as graduation rate, test scores and Advanced Placement test pass rates.

The Commencement Challenge application had to be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. on March 15. The team took a jump drive with all the information to Principal Fisher’s office to submit MAST’s entry only to be denied. The school’s Internet security firewall prevented a direct upload of the video to YouTube. Ms. [Melissa] Fernandez, the school’s IT specialist/English teacher, was able to put the video on the school server and the upload was completed.

What happens next for MAST Academy and the other five finalists? A professional production company will come to each school and, with student input, film a showcase video. When this will happen is unclear. The six videos will be placed on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov/commencement), and the public will vote to select the top three schools. President Obama will pick the winner.

Students, faculty, alumni, parents and other school supporters will be pulling out all the stops to get votes for MAST via social media and person-to-person appeals. Having the President speak at the June 7 Class of 2010 graduation is an incredible prospect for this high school in the nation’s 5th largest school district. For Tosca, the journey to the Commencement Challenge Final Six was important as well. “Hard work and teamwork pay off. I believe this is what President Obama would want us to show other students.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/12/1575436/mast-students-behind-effort-to.html#ixzz0l8ki8jJF

Wayman Tisdale "Way Up" EPK

Wayman Tisdale "Way Up" EPK

RIP Wayman Tisdale. He was a giant in jazz in many ways. He stood 6'9" which made him stand out but his warm smile and his bass playing just floored you. I'm glad we drove to Tampa to see him perform. We've lost a truly gifted musician.

It's That Time Of Year AGAIN … The Latest GHETTO PROM PICS Just Came Out!!!! - MediaTakeOut.com™ 2009

It's That Time Of Year AGAIN … The Latest GHETTO PROM PICS Just Came Out!!!! - MediaTakeOut.com™ 2009

Ghetto prom pics!!!

Steelpan Music 24-7 Without Compromise - News, History, Business and Entertainment - When Steel Talks - Panonthenet Radio

Steelpan Music 24-7 Without Compromise - News, History, Business and Entertainment - When Steel Talks - Panonthenet Radio

Pan for you 24/7

YouTube - HOT HOT HOT Birmingham School of Pan

YouTube - HOT HOT HOT Birmingham School of Pan



Is this in Birmingham UK?

YouTube - Drinks Reach (Problem Child & Skinny Fabulous - Vincy Soca 2009)

YouTube - Drinks Reach (Problem Child & Skinny Fabulous - Vincy Soca 2009)

Bacchanal by Destra Garcia - blip.tv - Truveo Video Search

Bacchanal by Destra Garcia - blip.tv - Truveo Video Search

Obamas Host Speakers, Musicians for White House Poetry Jam - washingtonpost.com

Obamas Host Speakers, Musicians for White House Poetry Jam - washingtonpost.com

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Perhaps for the first time ever, the White House jammed and slammed last night.

Poets and playwrights, actors and musicians packed the ornate East Room, delivering cool jazz and glorious spoken-word poetry, sprinkling a bit of hip-hop and a bit of the heroic couplet. And through it all, the president and the first lady watched -- and applauded.

"We're here to celebrate the power of words," President Obama said. Words "help us appreciate beauty and also understand pain. They inspire us to action." He introduced the first lady as his poet.

Michelle Obama told the gathering that the event was a way to open up the White House and invite in diverse voices. "I have wanted to do this from day one," Mrs. Obama said. "The notion of standing in this room and hearing some poetry."

Some called the event the first White House poetry jam in history. Technically, it was not a "poetry slam," which is a competition among poets -- a form of contest that began in the 1980s in Obama's home town of Chicago. A slam pits poet against poet as they stand before a crowd that provides instant, not-always-supportive judgment. That, of course, would not befit proper White House decorum.

The spoken-word evening, however, did showcase precisely what the best poetry slammers do: Bring their verse to life so that the poem becomes a performance, recited in a rhythm that is almost sung, allowing the speaker to ride words to the deepest valleys of emotion and then scale verbal heights.

James Earl Jones, in that voice that could make a phone-book reading sound like Shakespeare, performed from the tragedy "Othello," towering over the lectern, raising his arms, casting his eyes on the audience as he evoked Othello the Moor of Venice and his torment. Obama sat at a center table next to his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson. Director Spike Lee watched from a table up front. The room was still.
ad_icon

Two jazz musicians, acoustic bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Eric Lewis (a.k.a. ELEW), opened the show with a funky arrangement by Lewis titled "Love Letters." Filling the room with a lovely melody, they played as if the White House were a blues joint. Later, Spalding performed "Tell Him," delivering lush vocals as she plucked her bass.

The jam featured young, rising stars in theater, jazz and spoken-word poetry in addition to established actors and writers. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon stood onstage with his wife, "Bad Mother" essayist Ayelet Waldman. They talked about the power of words.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony-winning creator of the salsa/hip-hop-inspired musical "In the Heights," performed. Poetry slam champion Mayda del Valle, a native of Chicago's South Side, delivered a personal narrative to the cadence of a hip-hop beat.

Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, a young spoken-word poet from Hawaii, asked in an emotional poem: "What happens to the ones forgotten?" Next up was Joshua Brandon Bennett, who -- like Osorio -- has appeared on the HBO series "Brave New Voices." Bennett performed an ode to his elder sister, who is deaf. "Tamara has never listened to hip-hop/never danced to the rhythm of raindrops," Bennett recited.

Spalding and Lewis provided what they called the musical transitions between the spoken-word performances.

Spalding was first invited to the White House in February by Stevie Wonder, when he received the Gershwin Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress. "As they were making the lineup for this poetry event, they realized they wanted some people to represent the music," Spalding said in an interview prior to the event. "They called and said, 'Can you come?' I said: 'Don't finish talking. The answer is yes!' "

Desirée Rogers, the White House social secretary, is a huge fan of Lewis, a music industry source said. Rogers saw Lewis perform at HR-57 jazz/blues club on 14th Street NW (the club's name comes from a congressional resolution that designates jazz a "rare and valuable national American treasure"). Rogers saw Lewis again in New York in February at a Donna Karan fashion show, where Lewis played live on the runway. (Lewis can also count Oprah Winfrey among his fans.)

Lewis has received critical praise for his improvisation of jazz, which he calls "rock jazz." But he has also received heated criticism from some camps. He said an invitation to perform at the White House was like a validation for his music.

"I just met the first lady and I gave her a purse, a red clutch," Lewis said in an interview prior to the performance. "She loved it. She said she saw some videos of me where I reached inside the piano and played the strings. She wanted to make sure I do that on [this] performance. It was nice to receive her okay. She told me to rock the house and do my thing on the piano.

"I can't tell you how special it is that Michelle Obama asked me to go inside the piano," said Lewis, who performed "Mr. Brightside." "For her to be that cool and open-minded to request it shows me some people get it, and some people don't.

"The one that got it happens to be the first lady."

YouTube - Pepsi Max - Interview

YouTube - Pepsi Max - Interview

Cool Pepsi Max ad.