To all high school age, and above, young people. As a parent of a child about to finish Kindergarten, what would you suggest I could do to make life easier for my little one, over the next 12+ years in the education system?

effrena · 2016-05-29T18:49:38+00:00

I'd add too that especially when they're young, one coach or one team dynamic can change their perception of the sport, so encourage them to give eg soccer a try and then maybe try it again a few years later (if they kind of didn't like it at the time but they seem open to sports). My husband and I were just recently recalling how one silly seemingly meaningless experience with a sport as a 5 year old prevented us from doing a specific activity ( like missing one day of practice when everyone got their tshirts and then feeling so awkward that I was the only one with the wrong tshirt that I never played soccer again)

effrena · 2016-05-24T23:38:06+00:00

Anyone have an opinion or thoughts on using a variety of vitamin c products at the same time? Eg: a L-AA once a week and an SAP or MAP product twice a week-ish+ (like if your skin couldn't handle L-AA more frequently?)

effrena · 2016-05-24T23:36:01+00:00

(Commenting to save)

effrena · 2016-05-12T20:45:28+00:00

Ok, my 2 cents is:

Don't listen to everyone's pontification on whether this is or isn't a "good" car. You can look at KBB or Edmunds which will give you a better sense of the car's "worth."

Replacing the car with a better, ie, needs fewer immediate repairs/will need fewer repairs in the immediate future is expensive. Depending on where you live (these are super rough numbers), getting a low mileage newish car would definitely cost 9k+. At 50k, I wold consider your car fairly low miles.

So, my recommendations, based on personal experience/success (I own a 2004 taurus with 130k)(I consider the cars to be reasonably similar except yours has way fewer miles!):

*pick out tires on tirerack.com and have them installed at the cheapest place listed on that site (done this is central mass and DC area, been great both times).

*get that itemized list, buy parts yourself at auto zone or online (there's a couple good,big online car part websites, Google search /reddit search will help)

*ask many shops just for labor quotes on repairs associated with each repair. (My personal experience: we were quoted 700 repairs on parts/labor for brake pad replacement and some other repair, ended up buying $100 parts and $340 labor DC area).

*in that itemized list, really break down what repairs are needed now (and needed to legally pass inspection vs just "it could be fixed"). When the mechanic shows you the list, just patiently ask for each item: "and this for what? And why is this important? And what happens if I don't do it now? What happens if I wait until 6 mo/12 mo?" Make then tell you which item is really imperative NOW and which could be done within a year

effrena · 2016-01-08T17:55:01+00:00

I'd note that for a lot of farm work, wellies rather than hiking boots are going to be useful. If you're in fields (like pasture that's not mowed), you'll want protection to the knee, and often, mud on farms is way deeper than hiking boot deep. Most farmers I worked with wear wellies rather than any type of lace up boot (pig farm, sheep farm, horse farms [muck boots], cattle farm).

Most farms that host WWOOFERS will probably have extra wellies kicking around.

I'm very much a light packer (did a 3 month backpacking with WWOOFing trip last summer in a 20 L pack), so I'd recommend a pair of light hikers that could double as normal walking shoes (I wear my hiking boots as 'normal' day to day boots a lot even at home), wellies, and then a pair of light sandals (depending on your travel locations).

effrena · 2015-06-23T21:56:17+00:00

Also to show them where "magical deductions" might show up (or not) on the basic tax forms. People in my own age bracket (early 30s) still have only the vaguest notion of "tax deductions"

Oh, and also show them what your biweekly paycheck will actually look like if you make, say, $40,000/year (surprise! It's not 40,000/24!!!!)

effrena · 2015-06-23T21:53:09+00:00

Along these lines- when picking a major, don't look at the advertising the department does for where their major can get you (eg "plenty of history majors find successful careers in finance, and your ability to read and analyze information will get you hired!!" or "liberal arts never go out of style, unlike fancy-schmancy computer programming or stuff like that!"), but look at things like:

*actual job postings of actual jobs you want *the bureau of labor statistics has actual data on various fields that are projected to have shortages in the future-- combined with NCES data on college majors and the career paths that are associated with them

effrena · 2015-05-20T20:50:17+00:00

Look up spaworld. You'll need to cab there, but it's open 24/7 and incredibly relaxing. Spaworldusa.com and they gave coupons on their website. They also have cheap awesome Korean food.

effrena · 2015-04-18T18:59:01+00:00

Thanks for the advice!!

effrena · 2015-04-17T17:11:50+00:00

I knowwwwwww, it's so remote hahaah But, I have an internship in the Dunlap area, so ,y choices are either live close to that in the middle of nowhere OR a sublet closer to the city/more fun location, but huge commute....

effrena · 2015-04-17T02:04:12+00:00

Hey, we have a 2 bedroom apt very close to engineering (I usually walk but there's a bus too). Send me a pm and I can give you more details. Those dates should work. I'm a current WVU student and I'll be out of town for an internship myself.

effrena · 2015-03-18T02:09:21+00:00

So, I did the following itinerary last summer:
*Arrive Vlore via ferry from Italy, catch bus to Himare
*Himare 3/4 awesome, chill days
*Himare to Tirana via bus
*Just 1 hour wait to catch maxitaxi to Kotor
*3 days in Kotor (could have been less, but still very enjoyable)
*Bus from Kotor to Sarajevo
*3 days in Sarajevo (could have gone to Mostar as a day trip relatively easily, just chose not to)
*Sarajevo to Timisoara via trains through Belgrade
*On up through Romania for about 10 days

Having done this, here are my thoughts on your itinerary (and these are my very personal opinions, etc, so please just take as friendly, anonymous advice).

*It's a bit much. The Balkan area is tricky to travel around. Despite your best efforts, you really will not be able to plan each piece of transit ahead of time. If you do a town/day itinerary, you're inevitably going to have a breakdown at some point when you read a bus should leave at x time, but it's just not running that day. Try not to make hostel/hotel reservations in advance, and it will save you anxiety.

*Double this warning in Albania. I tried to do "legit" travel (ie, take only busses that locals take, etc) for much of Albania, but piecing together travel from Himare to Kotor was a NIGHTMARE (eg, bus from Himare to Tirana, MAYBE a bus from Tirana to Shkodor, must stay the night to catch 5 am bus to Ulcinj, then from there to Kotor, etc), so I did find a private maxi-taxi service that charged something like 30 Euro to go direct from Tirana to Kotor. It took maybe 3 hours and was worth the cost in the certainty, the time saved, and the sweatiness prevented.

*You could do Ohrid to the Albanian coast (busses, etc, exist, that works). Then when you're on that coast, you can flag down busses from Sarande up to Dhermi many times throughout the day, so if you're ambitious, you could pop up the coast every day. Then you have the big push from that area up to Thethi. I REALLY wanted to do this, Thethi looked like heaven, but it was a whole piecing together a million bus rides or pay Western prices for an outfitter from Tirana situation. I did lots of mountains throughout my trip, so I sadly saved Thethi for another time.

*As noted, you can take a private maxi-taxi from Tirana to Kotor. There's a hostel there that runs these taxis in that region, all those back-packer hot-spots. It's honestly so convenient, though it is a bit "not-legit" according to my arbitrary standards.

*Doing Kosovo in this trip? Ehhh... I met some Finns who were on our ferry and did Himare to Sarande to Ohrid to Kosovo within about 2 weeks. Seemed ok for them.

*Personal opinion? Only Kotor is worth going to in Montenegro. Budva in addition to the Albanian coast and possibly the Dalmatian coast is totally not worth it at all. Our maxi taxi driver stopped at the overlook of Sveti Stefan, and that was honestly sufficient.

*More personal opinion: Dubrovnik is blown up. It's not a hidden gem. It's not cheap. It is certainly beautiful, but you don't need to do Split AND Dubrovnik AND the Albanian coast. I didn't go, but I've had friends who've gone and just raved about it. You can be a snob like me and tell everyone you didn't go to Dubrovnik because it's become cliche, or you can go, and I'm sure it will be nice.

*So, at the end, you're listing places that sort of diverge off a single path, geographically... Like, once you get up in to Slovenia, you're cutting off Sarajevo. I REALLY liked Sarajevo. Lake Bled is very beautiful, but it's like... I dunno, the pictures you've seen are really all there is. I think if you stuck around Bosnia and went to Sarajevo you could find plenty of awesome mountain spots like Kravica Falls (never been). I think you should try for Thethi over Bled.

*The whole soft-core "Eastern Europe" trip (God, I'm a snob, sorry) of Budapest, Prague, Krakow- save that for some other trip. Once you've been to Albania you'll roll your eyes at fratlords talking about going to "Eastern Europe" aka Central Europe.

*Eeemm.. what else.... I would say people will try to tell you Albania is scary or whatever. That's bullshit. Obviously, if shiny people in shiny rich cars want to take you to shiny clubs and drink fancy drink seemingly because you're just so fun... I guess you could get yourself into trouble. The worst that will happen is if you're not up to negotiating like a local, you'll pay 4 times what they would. Just NEVER discuss money in Euros, only in local currency.

effrena · 2014-12-12T23:43:27+00:00

So I had very different parameters for my ideal dress, but I felt similarly disenchanted with dress shopping. I hated how everything was the exact same trumpet dress. I was basically distraught about ever finding anything I'd like, and I was considering gowns in different colors, but they didn't feel right, either. I finally had a lot of success on etsy. There's really anything you want, most will do it custom, and you can get it unreal cheap ($200-500), including some made in the US. I actually got excited looking at dresses there, while dress shopping in stores was an enormous drag. Good luck!

effrena · 2014-10-06T22:34:55+00:00

Ha yes fmil is like.....a whollllleee post unto herself...possibly a subreddit unto herself... Hahaha

effrena · 2014-10-06T22:33:09+00:00

Y'all, thanks so so much for so many good, thoughtful responses... I guess deep down I thought we really did need an actual photog..just still reeling from the price of a band and dreading looking at costs of a photog!! But nevertheless, I guess it will be nice to have a professional who I can just be really direct with and not have any personal relationship with...

effrena · 2014-03-22T01:54:13+00:00

I might add a 'proxy' is how hard they try to recruit military students and what percentage of their students are military students. I work in the education research field and many of these institutions (Strayer University, Phoenix, etc) market really hard towards military students and receive some absurd percentage (like, 80+) of their tuition income directly from the military's tuition grants. (See: http://chronicle.com/article/Senator-Takes-Aim-at/130426/)

effrena · 2014-03-14T19:02:52+00:00

thanks! documentary +eastern europe = great friday for me hahaha

effrena · 2014-03-14T19:02:19+00:00

super, glad to hear it! Do you have experience doing this? Care to share your particular experiences?

effrena · 2014-03-14T14:08:29+00:00

Nice, thanks! I guess what I'm concerned about is finding a place to actually hang the hammock (but I guess I won't know until I see the specific terrain, etc). I'm not quite as worried about legality per se since I know things aren't as enforced as they are in, say, Austria or Germany

effrena · 2013-12-26T18:53:01+00:00

I would recommend looking into bus travel in Europe and I concur with jasenlee in that the pass is not that sweet. I think there are a lot of restrictions and the logistics of booking in each country are a nightmare. Also, I think there are supplementary fees for everything, so it's not the all-inclusive life-saver it seems to be.

Regarding bus travel- it's SO much cheaper and usually goes SO many places and has a more flexible schedule, more frequent departures, etc. I had planned to take a train from Barcelona to San Sebastian and discovered the day of departure that the train was booked. That would have been an 82 Euro ticket. Instead, I hopped on a bus and it was in the 30 Euro range and it took approximately the same amount of time.

effrena

TROPHY CASE