Friday, July 22, 2011

Border's going out of business

Read the email from their CEO today and i find it sad. From what i saw, the company did fight hard to stay in business. Even after the bankruptcy thing they sorta "redesigned" themselves to not just stay afloat but also, to keep up with the modern reading era of ebooks and more online retail. it redesigned it's rewards program and what not. I know Border's has some loyal customers who stayed with the company through it all.

I have to say it's a cutthroat world of business now. It's not just a matter of being able to keep up with the latest trend. it's also about being able to launch, keep up, and invent and reinvent latest trends or else you fall behind. I have to say this depends on advertising and marketing. There were ebook readers before amazon launched the kindle but most people own the kindle now or a nook. I own a kindle myself. Amazon's kindle was expensive at the beginning and i considered it a luxury product for me but once it hit the $189 and $139 range, i was sold. The bad economy hasn't helped. Consumers want to pay less for products. Retailers are left to either cut costs at the expense of profit or make up those lost profits some other way. Heck, nokia was a premier cell phone company and now we're in a world of apple or android. Palms and blackberries are also becoming history. 5 years ago if you'd told me google would be a giant in this phone business, i'd have thought 'ha'. Barnes and noble has managed to keep up with amazon and i think their ebook reader is doing well. In fact they have a $139 black and white version now. They've also moved to more online retail but they still have the stores. I wonder if the starbucks inside these stores contribute to them holding up. I know i wouldn't walk into a stand alone starbucks but with Barnes and noble having that are where one can study, i find myself buying stuff when i sit there. I don't like the Starbucks drink. Even their hot cocoa doesn't taste good. Lately, I've resorted to their cookies and other cheesecake factory deserts.

Point blank, more businesses are going to fail. Sad, but true. Giants who weren't are rising. Only thing i wonder is will we have bigger giants rise up in the future and take down these seemingly unbeatable giants?
Nothing is permanent. My heart goes out Borders - management, staff and all. I feel for those who've lost their jobs in the brick and mortar stores. I'll always remember sitting at their Avenue of the Arts store and reading books. I'll remember the coupons i used. I ordered the nclex 3500 from them. Oh the memories...

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Another roommate situation

So i moved in with someone i knew. Bad idea. Knew that but i thought, oh, let me help a fellow sister out. in fact i'd found a similar deal of a house for less money. Not sure why i got stupid and chose to move in here instead. Anyway, prior to moving in, this person had said, you can use the closet in other room. I'd looked at another place where i'd have my own room, bath and that other person had also said you can use the closet in this room because i just have a desk in here and i don't use it. After adding everything up, i realized i'd pay more living with a fellow african but i thought let me help out. How stupid of me!
A week after moving in, this housemate tells me a friend is moving into the room next to mine, blah, blah, blah. Point blank, i need to move my clothes from that closet. i had my tall shoe rack in there. As a matter of fact, i have some clothes in that big tub i bought from walmart and i've 3 boxes of shoes sitting in my room. anyway, housemate goes on to say "how may rooms are you renting" blah, blah, blah. i remember after i moved in, she remarked, i should've charged you $900 considering all the space available to you. What space??? i barely have any space in the kitchen to put my stuff. Oh, and this room is smaller than what i moved from and i paid less rent. My utilites never hit $100 so techinically, i never even paid $700 for rent. I'm pay way more here and i've one little room.
the whole new person moving in was annoying. Now, there's another visitor here and this person is intruding in my space it's driving me CRAZY. she just takes my stuff and i barely talk to her. she doesn't say hello so i'm not sure why she just gets up and takes my stuff.
So i'm paying more rent than i've ever paid and the irony is that living here is worse than livin in a co-op. It's really annoying. I signed a 6-month lease. wish i'd signed a 3month one cuz i'd have moved out the end of this month and paid for next month without staying. Anyway, I really wanted to give this a try but i've to the conclusion; living with africans, bad, bad, BAD idea. It's just not me. Caucasians are more respectful of your space. I respect people spaces a lot and i hate it when someone intrudes into my space. I was supposed to have that drawer and i hate that i came home tonight looking to have my soda and it was gone. She took one yesterday as well.
This is ridiculous. I can't wait to submit stuff in october and get out of here.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

kaplan diagnostic

So I went to kansas to have the peace and quiet to study. How did that go? i was studying amines before i left and i came back at the same exact spot. Absolutely no studying done.
So i came back here and woke up to a harsh reality: I HAVE TO get this done THIS year.
So, 2 days after getting back, i buckled down and i've been doing a good amount of work. Granted i've had some brief "periods of laziness" but for the most part, I've been freaking out and having some mild anxiety periods of "O God, i can't make this".

Anyway, i saw on friday, while almost signing up for kaplan's class that they had some free events. I decided to sign up for the practice test and see how that goes. Honestly, i've been pushing the date when i start practice tests back on my schedule but knowing how people say they usually score the teens and low 20s on these things and that kaplan makes it hard so people can score low, i decided if if i score a 22, it's because kaplan has made the exam super hard.

The PS section was hard. it covered topics i haven't even covered in my phase 1 of studying such as electrolytic cells, optics and what nots. Bio was either superhard or my brain was so tired at that point i so wasn't reading for understanding. Or it was a little bit of both. Either way, verbal was ok.
I scored an even 10 in each section although i did worse in bio. Verbal was my strong suit. I guess practice makes perfect(re: my reading lab). I'm surprised i did better in PS than BS. I was really nervous starting the exam and honestly, i wasn't thinking at certain points. I even ran out of time in the PS section and had to just guess on the last passage questions without reading the passage itself.

Kaplan is offering a $400 off deal. I have seen $50, $100, $150 and $200. I may have even seen a $250 off but i can't recall ever seeing a $400 off deal so after seeing that this afternoon, my goas was to sign up for the course either way.

Now that i've done this good on the diagnostic, i'm wondering if if it's worth signing up. Can i improve with TPR, TBR and EK stuff alone over the next 3 weeks?

But then again, with a price this low, i'd hate to look back and say i wish i'd done everything i could for this. I did the math and the actual cost to me will be $1000 tops. after selling the books, i'm down to 1400 and considering i was going to spend $400 on the emcat tests and the qbank, it boils down to a grand. Now i can spend 800 at VS in a single week so yeah, it's not that much.

Besides, one thing i thought off when i was wating to start the test was how i feel like i don't know anything because i can't remember anything and that's because i'm not constantly doing questions. I knew stuff like the back of my hands in SSS and at drexel because i solved questions daily for the previous and for the latter, i had nclex 3500 where i did questions daily so i knew the concepts like crazy. while EK does provide that and while TBR also provides that, i feel like i may want to accustom myself with doing questions on a screen, like i did with nclex 3500.
Again, i'm in delimma because i could random pick passages from the science workbook.

For now, i'll sign up for the aug one. should i improve, then i can call to cancel.
Was taking the kaplan test worth it, i think so. it's removed a fear and made me aware that i need practice in addition to review. Also, while i haven't done myreading lab in over 2months, it looks the stuff i learned did help. In fact, i scored a 10 on my EK 101 test which is a 3point improvement. i do plan on working on it 30min daily till the time comes. I'll prolly jump the advance section after doing the basic stuff in the intermediate.

it's late, i've the clinic tomorrow and this is long. so long...