Dead leaves and the dirty ground

Draw here.

It's a start

Potatoes with green peppers and diced onions sprinkled with pepper.

How does the Affordable Healthcare Act affect students?

I’m a college student. How does the Affordable Care Act affect me?

"The first thing students need to know is that if they DO have student insurance through their college or university, that’s been deemed to satisfy the requirement that individuals have health insurance starting in 2014.

If you can’t afford the insurance your school offers or your school doesn’t offer coverage, you might fall into one of a few categories.

First, if you’re a full-time student and you’re not working, or if you’re working just part-time, you probably don’t earn enough to trigger the requirement to have health insurance. It applies only to people who earn enough to have to file income taxes; that’s just under $10,000 this year for a single person under age 65.

But what if you WANT insurance? Well, if you’re under 26 and your parents are insured, you’re in luck. One popular part of the law lets young adults stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26. In states that opt to expand Medicaid, that will also become an option for many college and graduate students. It’s for people who earn up to 133 percent of poverty, or about $15,000 a year for an individual. But only about half the states are planning to expand Medicaid."

Source: NPR

Guilty, guilty, guilty

Reddit Post:Girls of reddit, what are the 'signs' that most guys miss?

On a more serious note, here's a brilliant list of tips from /u/kite47 :

• If you're talking to a cashier and she tells you for any reason when she gets off work, she wants you to come back.
• If a girl gives you her number, on some level she is interested. Meaning she gives it to you without you prompting her first, though often if she gives it to you after you ask her it still means she's interested*
• If a girl repeatedly mentions how she wishes she had a nice guy to date, she is interested.
• If a girl asks about your relationship status out of the blue, she is interested.
• If a girl you don't know approaches you and asks for the time, but then lingers in your vicinity, she wants you to come back up and approach her because she is interested.
• If a girl who is not a best friend type suggests watching a movie when you two are hanging out alone, she wants something to happen. She is interested.
• If a girl says she "needs to talk to you", but then it ends up being something really stupid like "I don't know what colour to dye my hair", then she probably chickened out of telling you she likes you.
• Physical touching while a girl is having a conversation with you usually means she is interested.
• Any time a girl seems to giggle WAY more than she should during a conversation, it means she is interested.
• If a girl you're not very close friends with mentions the fact she broke up with her ex and is looking for someone new, by God make a move! She is interested. This could mean it's just a rebound relationship, but nonetheless she's interested
• A girl almost never talks about wanting a one night stand to a guy unless she wants to with him. (This is more on the topic of sex than dating, but I thought I'd include it anyway)
• This one blows my mind that some guys miss! If a girl asks to sit next to you somewhere where there are other viable empty places/tables to sit at, she's interested!
• If a girl starts talking about "how well you two get along", she is interested in you.
• If a non-best friend girl is with her friends and ditches them to hang out with you, she is interested in you.
• If a girl tells you she's lonely at home (by means of text, E-Mail, FaceBook, phone, etc. etc.), she wants you to come over! She most likely is interested in you!
• If a girl says she's really cold in an obviously warm environment, she probably wants you to warm her up (either through a hug or occasionally offering your jacket chivalrously). She's interested in you.
• If a girl starts complaining about how all the guys just want her for sex, and that she wishes she had a sweet guy, she's interested in you. However, I can't guarantee she'd really be the type most guys would want to date. At the same time, this can be one of the few less obvious hints, where she is testing how you react and judging your answer to see if you're someone she's interested in.
• If a girl says she's "new in town" and wants someone to show her around, nine times out of ten it's because she's trying to find an excuse to be around you one on one.
• If a girl seems to be smiling with you way more than she does when she talks to other people, she's interested in you.
• I know it's cliche, but a lot of girls still twirl their hair when flirting. Girls usually stop doing this by the time they're 21.
• A girl who keeps beating herself up on her looks, not only is she fishing for a compliment, she's fishing for YOUR compliment. Though this usually means she's interested in you, she could just be looking for attention. If she does it often to multiple people, it's probably the latter.
• In most contexts, if a girl asks you how her outfit looks, she wants you to check her out. She is interested in you.
• If a girl talks about how long she spent getting ready and then asks your opinion on how she looks, she did it to impress you. (If she does this when you and her had specifically made plans to hang out, it's even more explicit. Exceptions to this rule are weddings, parties, etc. etc.)
• Girls like confidence. If you think a girl is interested in you, go for it! The worst that happens is a no. If she has a worse reaction, she's someone you wouldn't want to be around anyway.
• If a girl is constantly leaving you to talk very briefly to her other female friends, then runs back to you to talk more. She is interested in you and is filling them in on all the details. This is especially true if it's accompanied by a lot of smiling.

Link to source.

Empathy vs. Sympathy

A Personal Code of Conduct

A great read over on Primer Mag (link). I think we need to open it up to every PERSON and not just men. We should all have our own code of conduct and hold ourselves accountable to it.

An example of an individual's code:

Now it's time to write my own.

Angry Birds Space

I was looking through my backpack for paper to take notes on a video for my final and I found this. Remnants of the past. One of my clients LOVED, absolutely loved to draw and he would use it as his escape from reality. On our first session, I used Angry Birds Space as my reinforcer if he would brush his teeth for me. Of course he obliged and then he played a few minutes. His mom later informed me that she didn't want to use it as a reinforcer because he would persistently ask her for it every day of the week( I was only in session with him on Saturdays). I never brought phone out during session to honor her request and from then on he would illustrate Angry Birds Space for me and ask me to contribute as well. Miss working with that little guy.