Saturday, March 24, 2012

Mail call...

I am still insanely busy, and thus not blogging as much as I should...sigh...  I've gotten even busier this weekend, if you can believe that!  I now work at a vocational college, tutor a group of three siblings, am finishing my MFA in writing, homeschooling my son, and I took on another private student!  Whoa!

Anyhow...here's a big Postcrossing up...

From Aachen Germany



The former British Consulate in Taiwan

From a seaside town in south Australia

From Russia

GORGEOUS card from China!

From Kornati, in Croatia

Actually not from Postcrossing...postcard from Biarritz, from my French penpal

Fun handmade card, and a little flag, from South Africa

From Breslau, Germany

Friday, March 16, 2012

Sugar coma...

I haven't been blogging much lately due to being insanely busy! I still tutor, still homeschool, am in my last term of graduate school AND I started a new job two weeks ago! Whew! I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

The new job is tutoring at a vocational college in Manhattan, and I have been loving going into the city three days per week! I get to eat my lunch at Central Park, enjoy seeing different aspects of the city everyday as I walk from Grand Central Station to my job (about a mile and a quarter each way!), and so much more!

On my most recent walk to work, I went by Rockefeller Center.  While most people were taking pictures of the ice skaters and the flags on display around the ice rink, I was busy taking pictures of the Lego store sign!  The boy and I adore Legos, and if you get up close you can see that the sign is actually made of little Lego people!
I also enjoy walking around when I have a bit of extra time, and seeing the little things that probably most people don't bother to notice.  If you are a fan of the early seasons of "Law and Order", then you will like the alternate name for West 53rd Street:

With this new job, I have decided that once per week I will bring home a treat for the lad.  This past Thursday, it was a treat for both of us, and it put me into a small sugar coma! Heeheehee...  Of course, later I had a horrible time sleeping!  Sigh...
I saw something on the news recently about Sprinkles Cupcakes...apparently favored by the rich and famous.  Well, I'm not rich, nor am I famous, but I thought I'd give Sprinkles a try anyhow!  Whooooaaaaa!  These cupcakes are so amazingly good!  They are expensive though, and super high in calories (like nearly 500 calories for some varieties!!!!), so they will not be a regular treat!  Super moist, super tasty, super good!  The young man and young woman working the counter during my visit were also very friendly and helpful.  I brought home 2 lemon cupcakes for JP, and got myself 2 vegan red velvet cupcakes (the only ones in the shop that are dairy free...).  WOWZA!  These were so good!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Why your children will fail to have a great career...

I absolutely love this TED talk by Larry Smith, an economist from the University of Waterloo.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Tutorial - Running Headers in MS-Word

Apologies for no regular blog posts this week!  I started a new job as a tutor at a vocational college, and it has kind of turned our schedules upside down, inside out, and all around!  I'm tutoring in the "LRC" - learning resource center - of a school for Allied Health (think dental assistants, medical assistants, etc), and all of my students are required to use APA formatting in their writing.  I'm used to MLA, so some elements such as a "running header" were totally foreign to me!  Turns out the running header is pretty foreign to most of my students too!

After doing some research, and playing around a bit with MS-Word, here is what I figured out...(note, these instructions are primarily for Word 2007 and 2010).


1. Double click in the very top portion of your document (this area is the “header”).  A dashed blue line will appear, separating the top from the rest of the page. 


2. In the command options, click on Insert.  Then click on Page Number.  Then, hover over Top of Page.  Click on the option for Plain Number 3. 

3.  Check the box for Different First Page.

4. Insert your page numbers.  This is almost a repeat of Step 2.  Again, click on Page Number, but note that it is now in a different location!  Hover over Top of Page.  Click on Plain Number 3.

5.  DO NOT delete the page number!  DO NOT add spaces.  Just type “Running Head: AND THEN THE NAME OF YOUR PAPER”.  Follow the formatting – “Running Head” should have only the R and H capitalized, and then be followed by a colon.  The title of your paper should be in all capital letters.  On the keyboard, hit the Tab key twice to reposition the words that you just typed for your header.

6.  Scroll down to the top of page 2.  DO NOT change the page number!  TYPE YOUR TITLE.  Do not type "Running Head" on any page other than the first page.  Then, on your keyboard, hit the Tab key twice to reposition the title.

7.  Scroll down to verify that the page numbers and title are correct on every page. 

8.  Double click in the body of any page to get out of the header, and back into your paper.