A lot of people ask me why soccer isn't more popular in America. I have collected some materials on that but recently came a cross another comment that I found really interesting:
"Soccer is what kids do until their fathers can convince their mothers that they wont get hurt playing football. I respect the sport and the athletes, but it is never going to be big here."
This statement (from a guy on a football web site) shows the relationship between the two sports in America. Soccer is just not considered as masculine as football.
I thought this number, 2/3 of graduates have student loan debt, was pretty shocking. The average is about $19,000 in debt.
The article I linked to recommends consolidating federally backed loans as soon as possible and long before July 1.
For consolidating other loans, they give several useful web sites and remind people that they can consolidate with any lender. They recommend looking beyond a school's list or preferred lenders to all the controversy (lenders paying schools to get on the preferred list).
If you need help paying off student loans, whether it is through a dedicated student loans service or some sort of other debt consolidation for non-homeowners, make sure that you use the Internet as a resource before deciding how to consolidate student loans debts uninformed.
My wife and I talked to some people from Seoul Customs Office about bringing a car from America to Korea. Basically you pay for shipping and pay 36% tax to bring the car into Korea. They said shipping would be aroun $1500-$1800.
This article says that shipping is more like 2.5 million Korean won and that you end up paying 4 million to get tests done and to register the car. They also say that the FTA might decrease the tax you pay by 8% - the import duty would be abolished leaving people to "pay taxes totaling about 20 percent, including a special excise tax, education tax, and value added tax."
After some internet searching I haven't been able to find any more decent information so I'll try asking around on various forums. I know people do this - I guess they never talk about how on the internet...
In my classes at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies I have several current translators and hopeful future translators. However, I don't know all that much about translation services. I do know they can be pricey since my wife once made $300 for an hour or so interpretation job. And I once helped the Korean National Tax Service with a speech translation (I took the translation and edited it for style, clearing up confusing parts by talking to the tax guys to figure out what message was really supposed to be conveyed).
I guess I know what interpreters do, but translators? Even this case study doesn't paint a very clear picture. I think that's why it's hard for a place like Monterey to publicize itself as a city for language learning and translating.
Schools in the US are finding that giving kids laptops to fool around with doesn't make them smarter - it just makes it easier to find porn and practice hacking:
"After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none," said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands. “The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process."