Reading List

Those are books I read and enjoyed. They are also perfect for book clubs and discussions because of their short-story format.

1. The Ice at The Bottom of The World- This collection of short-stories by Mark Richard captures the life of troubled people living in the South. One of the short stories was supposed to be made into a movie. It is still in development. 
2. In Praise of Island Women and Other Crimes- Our very own Brenda Flanagan wrote this collection of short stories depicting the reality and dreams of Caribbean women. It is indeed humorous and witty. 
3. Let The Great World Spin- This book by Colum McCan is made of interconnected short stories taking place in the Big Apple. 
4. Demian- This is a great book for independent thinkers! I love it! Hermann Hesse, who wrote this book, was also considered someone in search of self-knowledge.
5. The House on Mango Street- This collection of vignettes by Sandra Cisneros is one of the best books I read in high school. 

Naomie Labaty: Nan Yon Ti Kay Pay

New uploaded video in Naomie Labaty's youtube channel

A Snippet from the Book

Photo provided by Evan Wright

Please enjoy this snippet from Evan Wright's book, The Art of Saving. You can also follow him on twitter by clicking here.

As a society we celebrate our differences. We all come from different family backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, and different financial backgrounds. Another difference that we have is in the way we approach the buying process. Use this buyer zodiac to evaluate what type of buyer you are.
Directions: Read the following descriptions of buyer behaviors, and then see some of the template descriptions referring to different types of buyers to get an idea of where you stand.
Suggestion: This refers to how easy you are to convince as a buyer. If you refuse to buy something until it has been on the market for a long time and you have been able to thoroughly evaluate it, then you are less susceptible to the power of suggestion while buying. If you find yourself considering a product or service the first time you hear about it, then you could be more open to suggestion.
Gatekeepers: The gatekeepers refer to salesman, store employees, managers, etc. Basically, it is anyone who plays a role in getting you to your product or service. You can interact with them as little or as much as you choose. If you interact with gatekeepers at a high level, you will pick the brain of any salesperson for details about products, and you may be known on a first name basis with some of the employees of your local stores. If you interact less with gatekeepers, you tend to gather all knowledge about a product yourself, and you may be a fan of the self-checkout line at your grocery store.
Push or Walk Away: It is inevitable that all buyers will eventually have a sour experience when making a purchase. The important part is how you deal with this adversity. If you have a problem during a purchase, are you understanding and civil, or do you get angry and end up “causing a scene”? Once the issue has been resolved, will you find yourself saying, “I will never set foot in there again”, or are you more willing to give them another chance?
Speed of Shopping: When shopping, are you content to browse and pay attention to every aspect of the buying process, or do you aim to get in, get out, and get going? This is referring to your buying speed on an average day in a familiar store.
Patience: Buyer patience refers to how long you are willing to wait to make a purchase. If you are generally impatient, you will be out the door to buy something the instant you make a decision to purchase it. If you are a patient buyer, you have a less itchy trigger finger and will spend more time researching and waiting for the perfect price and time to buy.
Brand Preference: A buyer with high brand preference usually purchases the same brands from the same stores. If you think you rate high in this you usually have a definitive answer to Pepsi or Coca-Cola, and you only ever buy one make of car. A less habitual buyer is not very loyal to a single brand; he will change what he buys based on other factors such as price or availability.
High or Low: It is very easy to decide if you prefer high or low-end. If you have a preference towards higher-end brands you will save in order to make an expensive purchase for a single item. A buyer who has no problem buying some low-end goods will consider “Oat Circles” when he was initially looking to buy Cheerios.
Buying Enjoyment: A buyer who looks forward to trips to the mall to shop for bargains finds enjoyment in the shopper experience. These buyers may consider shopping to be a hobby and treasured leisure time experience. Buyers who have low shopping enjoyment see shopping as a chore that they rank with mowing the lawn and cleaning the bathroom.
Evaluation
Give your estimate for your rating in each of the different buyer characteristics. Use a scale from 1-5 with one meaning that you are least like that description, and a five meaning that you are most like that description. For poll based characteristics such as push or walk away, or high versus low quality, use 1 for low or push, and 5 for high quality and walk away.
1. Suggestion _____
2. Getkeepers_____
3. Push or walk _____
4. Speed_____
5. Patience_____
6. Preference_____
7. High or Low_____
8. Enjoyment_____

The Art of Saving (The book remodeled)

Photo provided by Evan Wright

Evan Wright just released a new version of his book The Retail Jungle. The book is now titled The Art of Saving: How to Create Your Money Masterpiece. New chapters and picture sections were added to this edited version of the book.
"[The new chapters] are about how different item can be more or less valuable," explained Wright. "I also created a system where people can look at their buying tendencies."

The new cover of the book

Although Wright's kickstarter project was unsuccessful, with the help of fiverr.com, he was able to remodel the book cover, edit and rearrange the content and so forth for only five dollars each. He chose the title of the book based on the book The Art of War.
"I wanted to make it like The Art of War, a well-known book about combats and tactics," said Wright. "The Art of Saving is like a book of tactics, a different way of combatting bad spending habits."
To market the book, Evan Wright writes on Hubpages.com, where he frequently makes references to the book in his article. Click here to be directed to his page.
http://fanfantwins.blogspot.com/2011/10/evan-wright-retail-guru.html

How to be a musician and a professor- Heather Pinson

Photo provided by Heather Pinson

"In American culture, it's very important to have [kids] involved in as many different things as possible," Heather Pinson explained on the many activities she was involved in as a kid. Her parents enrolled her in different sports, music and ballet classes. Nevertheless, she quitted many of them out of a lack of interest.
"I was nine when I started playing violin," she went on, also admitted jokingly to being a late starter. "I started reading Sherlock Holmes, and he played the violin. I wanted to be like him so I decided to keep up with it."
she went on to study music in college with an emphasis in performance making the violin an even bigger part of her life.
"I practiced a lot in college," she narrated. "We played music about seven hours a day from orchestra to string quartet to chamber music."
That's when she started experiencing excruciating pain in her left wrist, which led her to see a doctor and realize she had Keinbock's disease, a disorder of the wrist.
"It is a disorder where your bones don't grow the same length, which causes pain when you turn your wrist around to play the violin," Pinson explained. "They had to remove part of the bone to make them the same length."
"I had to take a year off of playing," she said. "I lost my voice. I still went to college, but I couldn't play classical music."
"I still went to orchestra and chamber music, and I just sat there. I couldn't play. That's when I started learning jazz."
... And thus began Pinson's journey in jazz, regaining her voice from this genre of music. Jazz gave her more control over the musical notes, and therefore she could alternate the notes she couldn't play, an exercise impossible in classical music.
"Jazz was to me like a beautiful exotic woman I didn't know anything about," Pinson cleverly illustrated. "I would go to jazz clubs wondering why they are clapping in the middle of the song. That's what you do in jazz. You clap after the soloist plays his or her performance."
"It was so odd and fascinating because it was so different from anything I grew up with, and I learned it in the clubs," she added. "My teacher would be the guy playing the horn in the house band. He would show me a couple of notes here and there every night. They were very patient with me and told me what I was doing wrong."
After graduating college, Pinson moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana  to attend a graduate program in music history in Louisiana State University. One of her teachers who understood her love for jazz, let her join his jazz band.
"He didn't know where the hell to put me because there's no violin [in jazz]," she said between a chuckle.
He let her play the part of the third trumpet on her violin, which gave her freedom to improvise on the notes. She joked about how horrible she was at the beginning, yet her determination led her to other gigs in country, rock and zydeco bands.
Nowadays, Pinson plays in two bands, Antz Marching band, a Dave Matthews cover band and The Fabulous Gunslingers, a country band she joined a month ago.
"I have to learn their music," she said referring to the latter band. She held up three sheets of paper with a long list of songs for me to see.
She is also the interim department head of communication at Robert Morris University and a faculty member.
During the time she is not teaching, administrating or playing music, Pinson volunteers as a board member for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. She also works with "poetry reading, the art group and the music group in Pittsburgh."
"It takes a lot of time, but you build up [your network] that way," she confessed.
She does her best to juggle between all of those obligations.
"I can do this with the amount of energy I have right now. The music is my relief from work."
"I think music is important because it enriches one's life," she stated.
She advised aspiring musicians to be flexible and to have a backup plan. For instance, her first years as a musician, Pinson taught violin to support herself.
"In music, you have to be able to teach, compose, perform and play in all venues," she concluded.