Thursday, May 27, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend!


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That's right, a holiday weekend is approaching so that means we can all kick our feet up and relax! Sounds like a solid plan to me!

I just finished up some assignments for my online classes and feel good that it's finally all out of the way. I still can't believe that there is only 4 weeks left. I actually need to get a head start on ordering my books for next quarter again since I will be in Florida and will need my books for when classes resume, since I won't be home! That will have to be tomorrow's mission of emailing the bookstore and also calculating how much I can get back for my books this quarter! Money, money, money for the book fund!

This week in my Principles of Finance course, we are focusing on bonds and stocks. Part of our discussion board was to look at a stock of our choice and provide its current market price, it's yield, and why we decided to choose that stock. I actually took a look at Walmart, because who hasn't ever bought an item from there? They are so widely known and can offer such great prices to the everyday consumer. Just a quick example, my mom buys coffee from Walmart instead of from our local shopping center, Shoprite, because there is a huge price difference. In Shoprite it costs about $8 and in Walmart, I have seen it as low as $5 for a decent size tub of it. You can save so much money and it's totally worth it!

I saw some students that selected Google, which is another big stock that is one to watch. With all the search engines available out there, Google is by far my favorite. My boyfriend and I always have this argument. He refuses to use Google and will only use Yahoo! Everyone has their preferences though so I can't complain.

So as the holiday approaches, get ready to kick back with friends and family!! I hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Good Morning!

Again, I have been MIA! I am finally unraveling since the play came to an end on Sunday and now I just need to get back on track. We had a successful Spring Festival and we couldn't have done this without everyone's support. I want to say thank you to everyone who came out, those who donated, and to everyone else who made this possible!

As of right now we are on hold for the summer quarter, but have something in the works that everyone can look forward too. As that time approaches, I will keep everyone posted of course.

I have been slacking a bit and didn't load up the rest of the pictures from our little cast party and then the taking down of the set, but I will soon enough! I also have some more of the professional pictures coming in on a CD so I will have to go through those as well and post several of them.

My best friend also came home on Saturday with her little baby, Madison Danielle, and she is so adorable! I have been spending everyday so far with her so I'm a little distracted from my school work. I did work on some of it yesterday morning, but I still need to get it all completed. I can slack a little bit, considering I was going non-stop for the past few weeks!

Other than that, not much is happening. Looking forward to these next 4 weeks to pass by and then it's Florida time for me! I will be visiting family and helping them out down there, so I am pretty excited.

Also, classes were posted 4 weeks ago, but if you have not yet registered for your classes, you need to do so. Then you also need to be cleared financially and all that fun stuff! Get it done because many of the classes you want to take may be full or unavailable. If that's the case, choose others or visit an advisor to help you with the process.

Well, it's off to work for me! Have a great day everyone!!!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Week 7 just about complete!

Happy Thursday everyone! Time sure is flying! Hope you're having fun though! Anyways, we have all made it to week 7, which means another 5 weeks and we can enjoy a week off or for some of you, the whole summer!

I have been continuing to help at the Open Door Theatre of Berkeley College and we are coming down to our final shows. I do have a cancellation for Friday May 21st. The Shaw on Film festival is canceled and also the showing of the Arms and the Man has been canceled Friday evening as well. There is a show tonight at 7, Saturday at 2, and our final show on Sunday at 2! If you have yet to come out and see the play, please do so. Again, it is on the Garret Mountain Campus in the Knuppel Community Room! We will also be accepting donations for JDRF!

I have a lot to look forward to these next couple of days. My best friend who gave birth to her beautiful little girl Madison, will be coming home on Saturday! I haven't seen her in what feels like forever, so it will be nice to see her again, this time without the huge belly!

As for my classes, everything is going smoothly. I do need to start looking into a final project already. It's a 3-5 page paper that has to do with a company or individual who declared bankruptcy, where it was controversial. I have to analyze the case and then write the paper in the form of persuasion to make my point valid to other people. I need to find something not in NY,NJ, or PA and can even write it based on famous people who declared bankruptcy. My options are open!

That has been our main focus in my Business Law class. I am going to share my post I made this week in regards to bankruptcy because I feel that everyone has different views about it, but in some way or the other, we see some people declaring bankruptcy as an excuse. If your lazy and choose not to get a job and just rack up your bills, you are solely to blame! I don't understand how people think it's ok to declare bankruptcy like it's nothing!

Here was my post for this week....the question posed was: Are bankruptcy laws currently in effect in the US too lenient?


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Bankruptcy laws in the US are definitely too lenient. I actually have a friend who told me he had to file for bankruptcy, and the bank had already came in and took possession of his car. On several occasions I told him to go look for a job, at least do something, and his reply was always “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” There are people who will listen and others who just don’t want to hear what you have to say because it’s their life. As a friend, I was just trying to help, but then he ended up getting mad at me. That was a pretty stupid reason to get mad at me, but you can’t make an excuse just to get out of debt when you’re not even trying or willing to help yourself by going out and finding a job.

Everywhere we turn, there is someone filing for bankruptcy and mostly for the fact that they want to use it as an excuse to get out of debt. For this very reason, there needs to be stricter guidelines and rules for filing bankruptcy.

I looked online and found some insightful information.

“Researchers analyzed nearly 4,000 bankruptcy petitions filed in 13 U.S. cities. Their report says that more bankruptcy petitioners than previously thought have the ability to repay at least a portion of their debt, but choose not to.”

“The study found that 44% of debtors who filed Chapter 7 bankruptcies could have repaid some of their debt over a five-year period while maintaining mortgage or rent payments. In fact, five percent of the petitioners had the ability to repay all of their debt, and 10% could have paid off up to 78% of it.”

“For petitioners under Chapter 13 -- a reorganization of debt and the commitment to a payment plan of three to five years -- an estimated 70% of debtors had enough income when they filed to repay two-thirds of their non-housing debt over five years. Fifty percent could have paid off all debt.”

^^http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2635_v126/ai_n27522801/

I also just found this website that shows a graph of filings from 1980-2008. It’s very interesting to look at. Thought I would share this with everyone!

http://www.bankruptcyaction.com/USbankstats.htm
Based on that graph, there has been an upward trend in bankruptcy filings. People get happy, start spending all their pennies, and then realize, hey, I’m in a vast amount of debt now! It’s sad, but people need to realize that they can’t go spending all they have and then get lazy, not work, and have to file for bankruptcy as an excuse to pay off all that debt that they initially caused.


The links I have provided in there are insightful so if you get a chance either visit those or type in on any search engine you prefer anything about bankruptcies. There is a lot of information and it's really interesting to read up on.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and make sure you come out and see Arms and the Man!!!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

More Photos To Share from The Arms and the Man!


As promised, here are some other photos from the play. The photos of the actors during the acts are courtesy of Tracey Diamond from PostNet in Clifton, NJ. Thanks Tracey for these great shots!!

Today, The Arms and the Man will resume for it's 5th showing at 2PM in the Knuppel Community Room on the Garret Mountain Campus! Seating will begin at approximately 1:45, so please arrive early to get the best seat you can!

Here we are at the weekend already. Time sure has flown right on by. The scary thought, well actually scary fact, is that we are already in WEEK 7! That means 5 more weeks until we are done! Hopefully everyone is keeping up with their grades and understanding all of the material that they are being taught.

I was talking to my boyfriend's brother the other day because I brought my homework over to their house to work on. I pulled out my laptop and he started to ask me what classes I am taking. We both had very different views on classes. He absolutely hates the English courses and all the writing that comes along with it, while I hate the math aspect! He then proceeded to ask me about online courses and how I feel about them. The main question in this conversation was "Are they a lot harder than the on-site classes?" I can't tell you how many times I have been asked this question. My answer is still the same. It's not that they are hard, it's just a matter of how well you can teach yourself the material and how much time you can dedicate to learning the material. My best advice I can offer is to not take an online class if you are not willing to do the work or not willing to devote the time to fully comprehending the concepts.

It's just something to keep in mind if you ever think of taking an online course. It takes a lot of dedication, but you have to keep in mind, you can always get tutoring online as well. That's one of Berkeley's Advantages!!!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! The weather has been a little crazy but hopefully it will clear up and not be so cold!!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I'm Back!

Where in the world was Lyndsay, right? Kidding! What a hectic week and it's still not over. As you all know, the show opened on Saturday so it's been show, show, show! I have been in charge of house managing since Saturday so my schedule has been kind of full with all the show biz.

Today we have a rest and will resume show biz on Saturday at 2. Originally there was suppose to be a one night showing of Dear Liar, May 14th, but unfortunately that has been canceled. The Shaw on Film day has also been canceled. The Arms and the Man, will still be playing and I will repost those dates once again.

*May 15th at 2PM
*May 16th at 2PM
*May 18th at 7PM
*May 19th at 7PM
*May 20th at 7PM
*May 21st at 7PM
*May 22nd at 2PM
*May 23rd at 2PM

8 more performances to go, so I hope to see you there!

On Tuesday night, we had about 11 ushers to help out. We also were asking for donations for JDRF, and two of the ushers made it into a competition as to who could get more donations. We decided that whoever won, would be able to keep the Open Door of Berkeley College T-shirt! Our winner was able to raise just about $60, which will go so far for JDRF!

Last night was a full house and I really could have used those 11 ushers again, but unfortunately, I only had 2, so it was a little crazy. All went smoothly though and everyone had a good time!

As far as my other classes, things are going very well. I actually have a day to myself today to catch up on everything, so that is what I will be doing. I have some homework to get done and then get myself back in gear.

I will have pictures up from the show soon. Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

It's Show Time!!!

As everyone knows from my continuous posts, today was opening day for the Arms and the Man! What a success! The Shaw festival is now well underway and we all couldn't be more excited! We had a very successful first show and I am looking forward to the rest of the performances as well. Due to Mother's Day tomorrow (Yes, this is a reminder for everyone to get out there and make sure you get your mom a gift), the show will resume on Monday, May 10 at 7PM. You do not need a reservation, but if you feel that you would like to make one please call the Open Door Theatre of Berkeley College at 973-278-5400 ext. 1453 or send me an email at lyndsay-wright@mymail.berkeleycollege.edu

I am in charge of reservations, so emailing me is probably your best bet!

Anyways below are some pictures from today before the performance started. I will have some photos up of the actual performance soon! There are many of us taking pictures so we are going to put everything together and see who has the best shots, so look out for those!








Anyways, don't forget about your mother's tomorrow and enjoy a nice day with them!

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Till next week...Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

One more day...then WEEKEND time!

Good Evening Ladies and Gents! I really can't seem to understand why time is going by so fast! SLOW DOWN PLEASE! It's been another hectic week for me and the excitement isn't over just yet! Shaw Festival....2 days away!! I have been reserving quite a few seats so I am looking forward to seeing everyone!

I wanted to bring up a topic that we are discussing on my discussion board for Principles of Finance. It's in regards to the lottery and whether or not we would take the lump sum or invest it into an annuity. Now, some of you may be like, an annuity? What? So let me first fill you in with a brief description that I used in my post! Annuity, as defined in the text, is a series of equal dollar payments for a specified number of years. Annuities make frequent occurrences in finance and the two basic types are ordinary annuity and annuity due. A specific example that I know of is life insurance since I work part time at State Farm. The two most common types of life insurance policies are term life policies, either 10 yr term, 20 yr term, or 30 yr term. Depending on which one you select, and also some other little details your insurer will ask you, you will need to make monthly payments. Let’s say you chose the 30 yr term, depending on what your monthly payment is, you would have paid however much into the annuity. Once you stop payment, I believe you have to live more than 30 months, in which you would then start receiving the benefits of a good investment on your behalf. 401K’s are another example of a beneficial annuity.


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Now that you have background and example to support it, let's think about the lottery. Honestly, it's a lot more involved than you think. In terms of winning the lottery: What it comes down to is the interest rate that you will get on the annuity. You will either be able to make more money on your own or make more on the annuity. As far as the taxing goes, you are going to be taxed either way so you can take the lump sum and then pay the taxes off right off the bat, instead of paying them over the course of however many years in the annuity. I really feel that it depends on the state’s laws for the lottery winner, and also what type of financial position the person who won the lottery is in. It seems like it could be an easy decision, but it’s really not since there is lots that you need to consider.

With that being said, how would you approach your lottery winnings? Take the lump sum or put it into an annuity and hope that you don't lose any money?

My professor responded to me and said, well if you do win the lottery don't forget about your professor and supply me $1 for my knowledge, I'm cheap! So I responded and say hey I'll give you the dollar and maybe even $2 if you give me an A! Of course I'm not really bribing her, but if she did take $2 for an A, I would take it! Haha!

I hope everyone had a terrific week! Remember to schedule for next quarter and don't forget to prepare yourselves for mid-term week! I know it came up so fast, but just be prepared! Good luck and I hope to see you all at the Shaw Festival that is beginning this Saturday!!!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Countdown to the Shaw Festival!

Only 5 more days until we kick off the Spring Shaw Festival! I apologize in advance because I was unable to snap some photos over the weekend during our tech day. My brother took my camera and our spare camera was dead, so I didn't have any luck with that. I can however fill everyone in that everything is coming along just fine. I met a lot more people who are involved with the show on Saturday, which was really cool and even got to watch part of their rehearsal. You are all in for a treat!

I am going to post the dates once again, just because I want them to be stuck in your head! COME SEE THE SHOW!!!


For Arms and the Man:

*May 8th (Opening Night) at 2PM
*May 10th at 7PM
*May 11th at 7PM
*May 12th at 7PM
*May 15th at 2PM
*May 16th at 2PM
*May 18th at 7PM
*May 19th at 7PM
*May 20th at 7PM
*May 21st at 7PM
*May 22nd at 2PM
*May 23rd at 2PM

There will be a ONE NIGHT ONLY show, Dear Liar, which is a biography in 2 acts, starring Margaret Biner as Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and Thomas Farrington, as Bernard Shaw!

This ONE NIGHT ONLY viewing of Dear Liar will be on Friday, May 14th at 7PM!

There will also be a Shaw on Film Marathon on Friday, May 21st. Here is the following schedule of times and films to be shown.

*10AM: Mrs. Warren's Profession
*12:30PM: Major Barbara
*3:30PM: My Fair Lady


If you are interested in reserving to one of the above dates, please send me an email at: lyndsay-wright@mymail.berkeleycollege.edu

OR Please call the Open Door Theatre of Berkeley College at 973-278-5400 ext. 1453.

Admission is free to Berkeley College community; others may wish to make a donation to JDRF!

Week 5 is among us, so let's kick it off and end it with a show! I really don't know where these past weeks have gone because it definitely does not feel like it should be week 5, but I am not complaining. Just makes me think that graduation is coming so much closer. I am almost there, and it scares me! I was telling my friends at work, only one more year till I'm gone and they all told me that I can't leave. State Farm does have internships so who knows? State Farm Marketing department could be in my future.

I also want to remind everyone to get your schedules done for next quarter. I will be switching to the online campus for the summer because I have some family things going on out of state that will prevent me from being able to access campus, so it's for the better. Also, make sure that if you have not taken oral communication yet, that you take it, since I was told it will not be offered after next quarter. I am not sure why, but just make sure you take it. I will be taking it online because I really don't have a choice, so make sure you check with your advisor and take it if you need it!!

How did everyone enjoy the summer like weather this weekend? My family actually bit the bullet and put the air conditioning on and let me tell you, I am SO glad they did. It's suppose to cool down, so I really hope it does! I hope everyone enjoys their week and I promise to have more photos up ASAP!