Addiction to the movie An Education

I absolutely love movies, anything from the 1930 to today. There are certain movies where I just keep watching over and over again, sometimes back to back in one day. When I first saw Stand By Me I watched it 7 times in a span of 3 days! There are just those movies that you can't get out of you head, whether it's because it has stricken emotion or just reasons unexplainable. For the past half year I have been obsessing over the 2009 Academy Award nominated film An Education starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard. I was captivated, after first watching it I couldn't get it out of my head. I immediately watched it again the same day.
An Education is about a school girl named Jenny living in 1960s London suburbia who meets a very charismatic 30 something year old man named David. She lives in a world where her parents and her teachers stress the importance of an education and going to Oxford. David lives in a world or art, musical concerts and trips to Paris, very different from Jenny's. The two begin a budding romance going off to Oxford and Paris together, Jenny losing her virginity to David. The once school girl turns into a sophisticated young woman experiencing life, culture, and love in this coming of age film.
Carey Mulligan's acting is amazing along with Peter Sarsgaard. While the plot is nothing original, the film is still very enjoyable and relateable. You can't help but fall in love with this film. It has a spark that I haven't found in many movies in the past year.

Kim Kardashian Singing?

Well I guess anything is possible. Kim Kardashian has a song coming out. She premiered her song which is said to be called "Turn It Up" at Tao nightclub in Las Vegas at the New Years Eve celebration. A YouTube video shows the partyers jumping and dancing while the song is playing. The video's sound is not totally clear, but what from I can tell it's very auto-tuned. You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. It doesn't even sound like her. The reality star has tried her luck in movies and well lets just say she is no Sandra Bullock or Angelina Jolie when it comes to acting. Even actresses of Lifetime movies are better. I'll admit I do watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but for the most part its because I love watching Khloe Kardashian and her spitfire personality. I do see the public fascination with the Kardashian clan, but there are certain things they should stick to: their reality show and fashion. Singing and acting eh not so much.

Beyond Starving Student

I am currently a freshman at a top private university in Texas, which means I am completely broke. Yes, the majority of college students are broke hence the overly used phrase "starving student", but if there was another phrase describing a student more broke than that of a starving student, you would have me.

I absolutely love the university I go to. Being private school the classes are small, my first semester I had a class of only 7 people including myself. The teachers know your first name and actually want and do help you a lot, even meeting you in the schools coffee shop. The only downside to a private university is the cost. For me to live on campus the cheapest way and with the cheapest food plan cost some where around $34,000 excluding the cost of textbooks and supplies. While it is very costly I have received nearly $28,000 in grants, scholarships and loans, but that still leaves about $6,000 I have to pay. While $6 grand doesn't seem like a lot to some people, but coming from a poor family that's a lot. Luckily my school doesn't make me pay all of it up front, they have a payment plan where I can pay for it monthly. Each month I pay around $600. The summer before I started my first semester I persistently looked for a summer job where I could save money up to pay for my monthly payments. Nothing. No one was hiring. I felt hopeless, how was I going to pay for my school. I was already behind one payment, going on two since my payments started that summer. Luckily my grandmother stepped in and paid for my first month and by some miracle my parents way able to pay for the second month. By this time I moved into my dorm and started school. Still unemployed I started looking for jobs very close to my school since I didn't have a car. I was able to find a hostess job at a restaurant directly across my school. I was being paid $7.25/hr and by the end of the month with the help of my grandmother I was able to pay my monthly bill. A couple of months passed and my hours were significantly cut back to where I would be only working 3-5 hours a week. I decided to quit my job and work on Ebay. I have happily been doing Ebay for the past months. I love being my own boss and being able to work in my pajamas. While I do make a decent amount of money on Ebay I am still struggling to pay for my monthly payments.
I am hoping to find a summer job so I can save every penny possible to help pay for my college education. I know there are cheaper schools out there, but none have exactly what I'm looking for, not to mention that there are few schools in Austin that offer a Criminology degree.