i am sarah kohl

Page 9 of 14

Dear White People

September 18, 2015 / Sarah / 1 Comment

You might think it’s 1950 with how often the issue of race has come up in the news and media. I have been waiting for Dear White People to come to Netflix and this weekend I was happily surprised to find it showcased in my suggestions. I am always curious to hear the perspectives of society from a new and different angle so this film was a treat.

I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood where one or two minorities became race-ambassadors for the whole school. It wasn’t until college where I started to meet a more diverse group of people. [More]

September 15, 2015

My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want? – Writer

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Highlights from Good to Great

September 12, 2015 / Sarah / 2 Comments

This book has been floating around my “must read” lists for years now. Finding a copy available at my favorite library was just enough to sway me to reading it. The book itself is short so I’m not sure if summarizing it in a review would do anyone any good. Instead I’ve decided to pull out a few things that resonated with me.

The Bus Analogy

I’ve heard this one time and time again. The advice being that you have to know WHO is on the bus before you can decide WHERE the bus is going. I’ve had trouble with this one. [More]

September 10, 2015

Let everything that’s been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. -Stalker

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The Silicon Valley Work Culture and Millennials

September 8, 2015 / Sarah / 4 Comments

Hundreds of articles and first person accounts have been written on the work life balance (or lack there of) in the Silicon Valley culture. We are familiar with leaders being revered as gods, people missing out on their family, and companies filling the basic needs of workers as compensation for their dedication. My question is how long will Millennials buy into these corporate cults?

(Wait, you don’t think these are “corporate cults?” Let’s quickly look at the characteristics of a cult for kicks and giggles…)

The group has a zealous and unquestioning commitment to it’s leader (Steve Jobs or Elon Musk perhaps?)
People who question or doubt the organization are discouraged from the group or ostracized (Ever been told you weren’t a “cultural fit” for a job?

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On Trust, Friends, and Teachers

September 6, 2015 / Sarah / 2 Comments

This weekend I spent some time with friends whom I haven’t see much the past few years. We have started to reconnect and it’s good to have them back in my life. I’m happy they are all healthy and doing well and truly enjoy hearing about where life has taken them since we last were close. As we would talk memories bubbled up good and bad. Some were confessions of guilt, while others were simply the reminiscing of childhood memories.

We were around the campfire drinking wine and enjoying the evening when the topic of our language teachers came up. [More]

September 6, 2015

Weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win. – Stalker

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Evangola State Park

September 3, 2015 / Sarah / 2 Comments

I’ve been living in New York for over 25 years now yet I continue to be surprised by the beautiful parks we have. This weekend I spent some time at the Evangola State Park for a car show.

The WNY Mopar group organized the show as part of the tomato festival and it was a great day for it. Cars showed up all the way from Canada! They had food vendors, live entertainment, and of course the beauty of the beach.

The park was expansive and had playgrounds, sports fields, and did I mention the beach? I grew up outside of Buffalo and always considered Lake Erie to be a second-rate waterfront, but where the Evangola State Park sits it’s absolutely beautiful. [More]

September 1, 2015

You know what’s great about the internet? You can make a name for yourself pretty much anywhere in the world! Christina Calph grew up not far from where I did and it’s great to see yet another fellow Western NY’er achieving success. If you follow Stan Lee’s blog you may have already seen this, but I think it’s worth sharing.

What I like about Burp Girl:

Burp girl seems to be the start of a great (dare I say feminist friendly) main character. She is not your typical over-sexualized female comic character
Christina Calph is a good actor.

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Why GMO’s are Good, Safe, and Delicious

August 19, 2015 / Sarah / 2 Comments

Over the years there has been a lot of debate about what is healthy and what we should be eating. Now more than ever, we have access to this information making us responsive consumers. However, it’s possible that with an increased access to information, we focus on teaching people how to navigate content more than we teach them how to qualify it. Either way, some innocent bystanders got dragged into the issue of “healthy food,” and among them are GMOs.

If you’re unfamiliar, GMO’s are organisms, in this case crops, which have been modified by genetic engineering techniques. [More]

Why Target Making Gender Neutral Kids Clothes is Smart

August 14, 2015 / Sarah / 2 Comments

I know some people saw this in the news recently and cringed while others praised their forward thinking. Everyone has been focused on what this means from a societal view, and how this will impact the delicate psyche of children, but let’s be honest for a moment. This gamble should end up making more money, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what we really care about?

The retail business is tricky. You have to be thinking one step ahead because shopping just isn’t like it was 25 years ago. [More]

Loyal3 Investing For Fun Without Fees

I don’t usually mention products on my blog, but I started using Loyal3 in January and I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. Loyal3 is a great introductory tool for someone who wants to play around with a few stocks. If I was a high school economics teacher I would probably make my students invest in something through Loyal3. It’s very easy to use and the best part, no fees of any kind.

Now, because they do batch buys when you choose to buy and sell the transactions aren’t immediate. That’s okay really. [More]