This actually isn’t recent news, but I thought I would post it here since I came across the information in a couple of places today and had never heard about it before. Student loans can be a pretty big burden after graduation, so finding other ways to fund a university education is always a plus. Here’s what Harvard says about their financial aid package:

I have seen similar announcements in other places with the figure $40,000 per year family income, but please note this is an older (2004) ceiling, which has subsequently been raised.

For more information, you can consult the full text of the press release. There is no need to make any special applications. Simply fill in the financial assistance forms in your Harvard admissions application. Eligible students will automatically be awarded assistance when they enroll at Harvard. The initiative applies as well to international and transfer students.

For those who require additional assistance, there are student coordinators available late-September to late-May. Call 617-384-8213. They have also prepared a 30-page PDF booklet called Shoestring Strategies for Life at Harvard. Even if you are not attending Harvard it might be good to get a copy and use it for ideas. It covers a lot of thinks like how to get affordable furniture and textbooks, which apply to university students all over.

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It’s mid-February. It’s -18°C with the windchill, and it feels as though spring will never arrive. I usually start to lose part of my winter “blahs” around the beginning of February, as the sun begins to rise a little earlier and set a little later. In my mind I know we’re only a few weeks away from spring equinox. But it’s still cold, and as hubby says there are sure to be a couple more good snow storms before I can toss my winter boots into the back of the closet for another year, and actually step outside with maybe just two layers of clothes to keep me warm.

The roads were fairly clear when I went out today, so there is some hope. And Environment Canada seems to have down-graded their earlier forecast of up to 30cm of snowfall (their web site says only 5cm tonight, and up to 10cm tomorrow.) It’s actually supposed to go up to 0° tomorrow, too. A bit of a reprieve!

Still, I long for spring….

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

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A while back I blogged about PayPerPost (PPP,) a service where ordinary folks can get paid to blog. I figured my reviews of the site wouldn’t be complete unless I followed through and actually wrote some blogs for them, so I signed up. But at that point my blog was too “young” to be approved yet. I had to wait until now to see how this experiment would work out.

So now I have the requisite three months and (way more than) twenty posts, and I’ve got my disclosure policy up on the blog. I was notified that I’m eligible to begin reserving opportunities, which I took the time to do today.

I was actually quite pleased with the selection of opportunities. It wasn’t really huge, but there were a good number of opportunities open to me based on things like my blog ranking and geographical location, and the subjects areas I selected when I signed up. Some of the offers didn’t quite fit with the focus of this blog, so I won’t likely be writing about those sites. But there were a few that at least touched on subjects of interest to me, and I was pleased to see that most of the open opportunities paid a moderate amount of money.

So my first few entries are up and awaiting review, and hopefully they’ll be approved by the end of the week. Then there’s the 30-day countdown, before the payment gets made. The first page you see when you log in as a blogger, shows the top earners at PPP. You can see the ratings for the day, month, or all-time. There are some folks in that list who have made close to $20,000 USD. I have no idea, at this point, whether the potential is that good for bloggers in general but so far it looks promising! If it tapers off I figure at least it will be enough to take hubby out to dinner one night. But hey, maybe it will be considerably more and I can make some serious financial plans…..

The main drawback so far has been that certain advertisers don’t accept bloggers with a WordPress blog, which is a drag when I could otherwise qualify for an opportunity. If this turns out to be worth pursuing longterm, I think I’ll be looking for a place to host a second blog. That way I can widen the scope of possible opportunities. Maybe I’ll blog about something a little different there, too!

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I got an email from my Dad this week. In it he talked about the work I am doing, homeschooling the girls. He made it a point to say that he’s proud of me.

As a kid, when your Dad says he’s proud of you, the reaction is one of contentment. Kids seek their parents’ approval, and when it is given in such a straight forward manner, it’s as though all is right in the universe. I don’t remember being at all shy of my father’s pride as a little girl. I hungered for it, as I did for that of my mother. When they were proud I was doing what I should be doing. Life was good.

Adults often find it difficult to accept praise. I certainly do, sometimes. We don’t want to gloat, don’t want to agree with the one praising us lest we should appear vain or not properly appreciative of the compliment. If this is so when the compliment is a mild one that refers to some one thing about us - “I like your taste in art” - we find it even more awkward when the praise is aimed directly at us. “I’m proud of you.”

At the same time, though, I am happy with what I’m doing. I know my girls are getting a better education at home, and that I’ve been able to help other homeschoolers by sharing the resources I discover in my own searching. What I’m doing feels right. This is what I was made to do. All is right in my universe, and yes, I do feel proud.

But if I am able to educate my children it is in good part because my parents gave me a good education too. No, I wasn’t homeschooled (much as I would have liked to be, at some times!) I attended the local public school, like all the other kids I knew. It was a classroom teacher who taught me how my geography and grammar, and how to do long division.

It was my parents, though, who taught me to love learning. It was Mom who read to us when we were too little to do it for ourselves, and who helped us plant gardens and go on long rambling walks on the abandoned golf course. It was Dad who gave up his Saturday mornings to drive us around for music lessons and baton twirling practice. Their interest in what we were learning about the world was always sincere, and their constant desire to give us whatever we needed to make the most of our schooling, to always connect the newly discovered to things we already knew was a greater teacher than anything or anyone.

In a letter to the Duke of Milan, Leonardo da Vinci commends himself “in proud humility.” It may seem to be an oxymoron, but this phrase has been used by others. Will Durant says of Martin Luther that “he performed the lowliest duties with a proud humility.” Eknath Easwaran says that the source of “‘proud humility’ is the awareness of the divine spark within our heart.” He then goes on to ask, “With that at our center, what can we not do?”

If I am proud of what I do in educating my children, it is a proud humility that recognizes what I am doing is remarkable not because I am the one doing it, but because I am striving to be led by that divine spark within. In so doing, I may occasionally appear to shine. It is but a glimmer, compared to the immense light that is within us all.

That light within my parents nourished me in my growth, as I now hope it will nourish my children. I am following my calling. All is well with me, because I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. I will continue to teach my girls in proud humility.

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I’ve been wanting to get one of these wonderful three-in-one jackets for a while now, and have just been putting it off forever. Today I found a great sale on North Face jackets and found myself wishing that I lived in the United States! Several women’s jackets and a huge number of men’s jackets (not just the three-in-one models, but also separate shells, base layers, hoodies, etc.) have been discounted for the end of the season. Shipping anywhere in the US is free, for purchases over $50.

Between the discount and the free shipping, it’s really worth going over to check out the sale. I love the colour they used on the Women’s Condor jacket! They call it Seahorse Green. How pretty!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. More on North Face jackets at The North Face Breckenridge web site.