Rae's blog

A friend of mine who teaches at a local elementary school was telling me about a presentation she had made about Fair Trade to her faculty in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season. I had heard of the term before but didn’t know exactly what it meant. So I dug a little bit deeper and found an overwhelming amount of information. Though I’ve only gone through a small percentage of the sources that cover Fair Trade, I’m starting to get a clearer picture on how it is tied to our global economy and how it has an effect on me as a consumer.

There are nine days left until my first marathon in Honolulu, Hawaii. I remember the first time I heard about this marathon three years ago while I was living on Oahu. I told myself then that I was going to run it one day. My plane leaves on Thursday and, literally, the only thing I can think of is this trip. I’ve been training for months now and there are many lessons that I’ve learned that I find are not only applicable to running, but also to life in general. They are reoccurring themes that have consistently popped up during my preparation and I wanted to share some of the top lessons.

The day after Thanksgiving is termed Black Friday. The Monday following is termed Cyber Monday. Both are geared towards sales and spending during the end of the year holiday season. But whether you're purchasing for Christmas, birthdays, or anniversaries, do you really know what resources were utilized to bring a present into a store? Does it even matter? This is the first blog in a 3 part content series that will take a closer look at the things we gift each other in hopes to provide some food for thought.

Today is Black Friday. While some of us will casually wake up at 7 or 8AM, an ungodly hour to be up on a day when many don’t have a regular work day, even more have been up since 2 or 3AM. What’s more extreme? Many have stayed up all night, camping outside of retail stores, hoping to purchase their coveted item at 50%. Well my friends, this post will not be about shopping, even though in the past this seemed more of my expertise.

So among the many articles on shopping deals and stories of Black Friday successes and disappoints, here is my blog post. Today, I’m going to write about a few heroes.

I was fortunate enough to complete my undergrad at the University of California, Irvine. I walked away with a B.S. in Computer Engineering, no debt in loans, and a few thousand in credit card debt. Both my parents worked to help put me through college while also supporting my two other sisters. My dad even took up a second job when things got tough. And even with my parents’ financial support, I worked a part-time job throughout college, even working full time the last quarter of my senior year. Looking at the recent vote by the UC Regents to increase tuition by 32 percent, I am glad that I got my Bachelor’s degree back then, because I’m not quite sure how we’d be able to afford it now.