I learned, early on in my education that, including a bibliography was an important part of research papers. The first one that I wrote did not include a bibliography, as I did not feel like writing it and didn’t think that one small page could really affect the final mark that much. And, really it didn’t.

So, when it came time to hand in my second essay, to the very same teacher, I decided to try this again. This time it blew up in my face. Because I had been too lazy to do this, she gave me an incomplete mark and I ended up getting a big fat zero for the assignment. I decided then, that maybe it was important to do all the work after all.

All of the term papers that I have written since then, have included the bibliography. The funny thing about this is that it really only takes about five minutes to do this and I ended up with a low mark in a class because I was too lazy to do five minutes worth of work. It doesn’t make sense after spending ours writing the actually paper. I will never take something like this for granted ever again.

Sometimes, someone tries something that hasn’t been done before.  Today, I came across End of this World.  Their site is a creative writing project with a twist.

You see, they are in the process of writing a novel.  But, it is a little different than you would expect.  Instead of having just one author, anyone can contribute a chapter for review.  They take the submitted works, and vote for the best one, which becomes the permanent next chapter for the book.

Even though the writing is done by different authors, it is amazing to see the seamlessness of the story up to this point.  In fact, if you didn’t know that there were different authors, you really couldn’t tell.

Now, it is going to be awhile before the story is complete, but from what I have read so far, it looks like it will turn out to be a masterpiece.

As a professor, I am not at all happy with the fact that it is so easy to go and buy term paper assignments. I know that there is very little that I can do about it, as it would be very hard to prove anything, but I know it is a lot more common than any of us want to admit. It is a little bit fishy when you have a struggling student who hands in a perfect paper.

I have brought up the subject in my ethics class. I posed the question both ways. I wanted to know if there were people that would never pay for a custom written essay, but that would write it because they wanted the money. It is interesting that there are many students who feel it is more wrong to hand one of these in than it is to actually do the writing for someone else.

As an added piece for this class, I gave them the assignment of writing book reports. One would be handed in and the mark given to the student who wrote it. The second report would be marked and the mark would be given to a different student. I was curious to see how the quality of writing would differ. It was an amazing experiment, as they took very little care in the reports that were being graded for other students.

My niece just turned eighteen and that makes me feel old.  But it never really sunk in until she told me that she was having problems choosing from the many college student credit cards available.

College?  Credit cards for students?

Back up for a minute - I had to ask her if she was in college.  When I found out she was, I had to shake my head - where had the past year gone?

Well, I guess since she is in college, has a job, and is looking at her first credit card, I could help her out.  Out of all the student credit card applications, we picked out the ones that would be the best for her.  She has applied for a few of them and we will have to wait and see how things turn out.

I just can’t believe she is old enough for her first credit card - boy have the years flown by.

Just like every day in our lives, we are faced with choices.  You can choose to walk across the street at the corner, or jay-walk and hope you don’t get hit by a car (or get a ticket).  These choices that we make on a daily basis shape who we become and can influence the choices we make later in life.

A good example is of my good buddy Chuck.  You see, he just about didn’t get into college because of the quality of his college application essay, so for the four years that he attended school, he would just go online, and order essays.  I honestly don’t think he wrote one of his papers that he submitted in college.

But, another good friend of mine, Sue, she is currently working on her MBA essay, and she has never cut corners on anything.  She gets good grades, but she sure works hard for them.

The biggest difference between the two of them is that Sue was accepted into the MBA program, but Chuck was not.  The reason Chuck wasn’t accepted was that even though he submitted a great essay, he couldn’t defend his ideas or opinions, but Sue could.

So, the next time you are faced with the decision of whether you should do your own work, or just pay someone to do it for you, be sure that you consider the consequences on your future - it may not be worth the risk.

When you work all the time at any office, there comes a time when you need a change.  Perhaps you have some old office chairs that just don’t work so well anymore.  Perhaps you need a change to help you feel inspired.  But whatever the reason, there just comes a time when you need to make a change to move forward.

That is exactly how I felt about my home office furniture.  I have been using the same desk and chair for more than five years, and I am really starting to hate them.  They are old, worn out, and show signs of wear.

The problem for me is that when I have clients over, I need to make a good impression.  My worn out office furniture just tells the customer that things are not going well, and I am too poor to buy a new desk.

So I am on a quest to remodel my home office - but I have just started.  I feel the final product will make life at work better and more enjoyable.  I can’t wait.

I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was bittersweet.  I had to both face the most difficult news that I had ever received. It was also the day that I found out how strong I could be when it was important. This was the day I found out that my three year old had leukemia.

The doctor was very optimistic that she could be cured and I decided that I was going to learn everything that I could about the disease and how to help her overcome it. The first thing we decided to do was to check into our medical insurance to see what kinds of treatments were covered. The second was to take her to a naturopath for his advice on a holistic diet.

This was six years ago. We did put her on a natural diet and skipped the chemicals altogether. She is a very healthy nine year-old and lives a completely normal life. In fact, she barely remembers ever being sick. She is a whiz on the soccer field and loves to read. She is my little girl and will be for years to come.

When my sister was diagnosed with cancer last year, she decided that she was going to try and fight it with diet and vitamin intake rather than with chemicals and drugs. A friend of hers gave her a bottle of liquid vitamins and now, cancer free, she swears by them.

The vitamins are from GBG and it is a mixture of many different vitamins. She is probably the company’s biggest promoter now, and I must say that I am a fan as well, because they played a part in me still having my sister around. I can’t say anything bad about them because of it.

I guess if there was anything negative to say about them is that it is sold through MLM companies. I am not a big fan of this, but when it is a product that I can totally stand behind and be able to give real accounts of how great it is, I figure I may as well share the news with the world. Everyone has been affected by cancer and so this product is for everyone.

I will be the first to admit that I am really good at making websites - but not so good marketing them.  In fact, I would have to say that I really detest the amount of time it can take to market a website properly, so I try to avoid it as much as I can.

But without proper website marketing, your site will not perform as well as it should - and usually not well at all.  So, instead of complaining about getting the word out about my site, I have hired a professional advertising company to do the marketing for me.

They will take care of my search engine advertising and make sure I get the amount of traffic that I need to make the sales targets I have come up with.  I don’t need to know the exact details on how they are going to do it, but I am more interested in the results.

And the best part is I won’t have to do website marketing anymore.  That alone, makes my day.

It seems whatever relationship book you ever pickup and read, they always say that the first impression is the most critical.  It is in those first few moments that you decide if you are going to keep looking or move on.

What really caught my eye with my current boyfriend was the Men’s diamond ring he was wearing.  Not only was it the most shiny piece of jewelry that I had ever seen, but I would argue that it was also the most amazing.

My eyes moved from his ring to the other pieces of Hip hop jewelry he was wearing.  He had gold chains, diamond encrusted pendants - basically the whole nine yards.  He sure did look fine with all the jewelry - and that is how we ended up dating.

Later on, I found out that he sold wholesale jewelry, and that what he was wearing on the day I met him were loaners from the store he worked at.  I was shocked, but if he hadn’t worn that jewelry that day, I don’t know if I would have taken a second look.