Feb 22
Mark SingleyCareer, Creative Professions, Student Advice culinary arts training
If you do not watch the Food Network very often, you probably know at least someone who does. Cooking shows use to be a bit bland, even if the foods created on them were not. Today, thanks to channels like the Food Network, cooking is cool again. Both men and women want to try to create the things they see on television, and cooking at home with your family is known to be good for your family dynamic. If you truly love to cook, you may find culinary arts training might be something you want to look into as a career option.
Learning how to cook and bake through culinary arts training is more than learning how long to cook a roast or how to make a good gravy. Cooking and coming up with your own recipes is not as hard as you may think, but it does come from some very simple skill sets. You do have to have a talent for it, but almost anyone can go through culinary arts training as a passable cook. Quite often, you do get out of it what you put into it. If you find pleasure in cooking, this type of course will be a breeze.
Some of the basic lessons in culinary arts training will be about base sauces. These are very important in cooking. You will learn the right way and the wrong ways to make gravies and sauces. You will learn a few simple bases on which you can build almost any sauce you can imagine. These are so simple you will see them in recipes you have done before. You just never knew why you were cooking as you were. Now, with basic cooking training, you understand why many recipes are written as they are.
Cutting is an important part of culinary arts training. It may not seem like a big deal, but learning how to do different chops and cuts is very important in cooking whether it be vegetables or meats. How you trim a cut of meat or how you fillet a fish could mean the difference between a great dish and something that is just ‘okay.’ You will use the best knives and learn the techniques to make quick work of whatever cutting chore you have so that you are not spending hours on end to make one recipe. You learn speed as well as how to properly prepare whatever you are going to put into a pot or pan.
Another key in culinary arts training is learning how to use different types of foods to come up with more complex recipes. You learn about how to classify foods and what tastes work together in unison and also in contrast to make amazing dishes on your own. Knowing what each herb or spice adds to any food is important, and then how to successfully blend your ingredients with them will soon be something that comes easy to you with the right culinary arts training. Whether you take a few classes locally or enroll in a college program, any cooking class will enrich your recipe collection and make your weekly menu a lot more exciting.
Nov 02
Mark SingleyCreative Professions, Journalism and Writing
If you are an impassioned budding young author, natural writer or a small to medium creative corporation seeking to share your smart conjectures or maybe bring some imprint upon today’s extreme world then maybe more traditional publishing can often be a bitter stumbling post to revealing your carefully crafted innermost thoughts out and about, into the public eye. Take heed the discouraged, there are also clever digital and ground-breaking online options existing which can often take the bother, crushing sadness and a reasonable amount of the exasperating difficulty out of publishing your textual efforts. No doubt you might well be extremely please to hear that one might elude the editors, sub-editors and egotistical publishers with adopting your own confident actions to broadcasting your very own work.
So you have a fabulous tale which you have been working very hard on for an outrageous amount of time, or highly important facts which you just know many users would more than happily their souls to acquire. You can have fascinating data from a research analysis, or perhaps even an assortment of imaginative photographs, great pictures or additional inspired artwork that you’d like to gather as a unique anthology of ingenious works to display your artistic ability or possibly to get publicity to the exclusive services you provide and to get your niche products recognition. How about only having your remark concerning the things that really unsettle you; infuriating people, arranged politics, vacillating society, fickle culture and distributing your judgement with other concurring folks.
Nowadays it is possible that you find yourself in a wonderful position where you have put in the incredibly hard effort and have got the produce; a terrific piece of creative work which is uncommonly valuable, nevertheless you could will still need to parley with a publisher and satisfy them that your lovingly created handiwork are also worthy to be forever eternalised in print. Unfortunately this may generally be the end of the line for loads of enthused authors, wordsmiths, poets, scribes, reporters and biographers. Even if the publisher has been won over another testing tripping block will be brought to the fore. The prices of all all of the extras; editors, designers and other resources essential to convert a marvellous design into a completed reality could fall outside of what it is possible that you feel is reasonable or it is possible that you may not be able to give good reason for the expense.
The money needed in publishing is not the only prevention or wearisome stumbling post, for many authors the turn around times for traditional publishing are somewhat too long. This is often the case in the instance of stories, data or facts and figures that are also particularly fresh, regarding hot trends or subject matter and can regularly devalue as time passes and the window of opening for impact starts to close up.
Modern technology comes to the rescue once again, offering you a fast track alternate option. In our chaotic, technologically advanced fanatical world a huge array of services that have usually been offered offline are fast making the incredible migration into the ethereal original online sphere, making these services far more accessible to any who needs to use them and often at a much smaller cost to the user too. Sharp digital publishing is just one of those services and it provides you, the budding young author, with the capacity to publish your life’s pieces yourself without the annoying hindrance and charges associated with the more “historical” mediums.
Digital broadcasting can often also allow you the flexibility that you could be hopeful for in terms of the uncomplicated nature of updating information, data or even adding entire sections to an already published work. Then there is the increasing attraction of rich media such as; interactive applications, animations, videos and widgets. With an online or digitally published product this adaptability is fully likely and an extensive variety of extras and rich media are simply integrated into the magazine, article, or e-book.
In summary, a budding composer, small research corporation or photographic studio no longer needs to kiss up to conceited publishers or hold up a small bank to see their labor out and about in the public eye. We live in the digital age and today’s weird world of digital has come to rescue to help you realize your publishing dreams. The online magazine is fast becoming one of the most popular digitally published formats.
Feb 22
Mark SingleyCareer, Creative Professions, Extra Money for Students extra money, make money
Do you want to make money and live comfortably??? One key to making more money is to begin to really welcome the idea that money can come from anywhere, and anytime. Whether you have millions now, or whether you are down to your last penny, the basic principle is the same: Be open to multiple sources of income.
For the wealthy investors, the typical word for this philosophy to make money is: Diversification.
But the same principle holds true for those with little or no money. For instance, if you are looking for work, consider the possibility of getting two or three part-time jobs, instead of just one main job. This is entirely possible nowadays, thanks to online resources such as craigslist, or the ease of being able to create your own website.
Get more than one money making gig going!
Here is one possible scenario: You could get a 15-20 hour/week job as an office assitancnt, for example, (a temp agency is one way to get such a job, word of mouth is another, or you might also try college campuses, or try posting an ad on health food store bulletin boards). This part/half-time job can be your base.
Then, you might put the word out that you are available for house sitting. If you have never done house sitting before, you might be surprised how rewarding it is. It can be like going on vacation! You could be surrounded in luxury for a few days, and you will be getting paid for it!
You could also walk dogs, be a caregiver for the elderly, or tutor a few kids in math to make money.
Then, amidst all these jobs, you would still have time to build your own website/business, and make money doing what you really want to be doing. Why not start that hat making business you always wanted to start? Or sell things on Ebay? Or start teaching piano lessons, or become a workout coach?
Put yourself and all your energy into more than one area, and you can make money from more than one source. This is the basic principle that many people are using to create more meony, and have more fun in the process.
If you don’t know where to start, just keep your eyes open. Ask people if they need part-time help. Tell all the people you know what you are wanting to do. Let your voice and your email list go to good use.
Before you know it, you will have a diversified way of making money, variety in your days, and a little more free time. It sure beats working for peanuts at one job you do not even like.
Feb 21
Mark SingleyCreative Professions, Extra Money for Students, Journalism and Writing article, blog, column, how to write a
Most budding journalists or authors thing that paper and publication is the only way to be a legitimate author, but I always counter with “why not a blog?” To that I often get furrowed brows and hazy looks. A Blog! That’s not writing!
I recall criticism of Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs and their practice of typing out stream of consciouness. One critic said “that’s not writing, its Typing!” I wonder what the beat authors would have done with blogs!
But blog or not, there are ways to write for any publication and topics that will always garner readers. Like Jennifer Garner? Bad pun.
There are as many methods or advice columns as there are disagreements, it seems, but suffice it to say that with the internet as the up-and-coming publication of the millennium, how to write a piece for an online publication is a safe place to start.
HOW to WRITE a SIMPLE ARTICLE
There are rules and competitive strategies for learning how to write a keyword-rich article, so I will save you the advanced details and possible advancement of a headache…and launch into how to write a simple article for an online database, one that accepts and offers its readership free articles, for example. In addition, I will focus solely on the genre or type of article that is typically most accessible, or useable/readable.
Every website (or almost every website) has a general theme—a connectedness of topic or concern. So imagine you are going to write for a kitchen cabinet design firm. The company needs ten articles to start. (Again, this is just a hypothetical scenario; most sites are looking at building a database of 300+ articles….) Just as many of us experienced in college classes where the numbers of students were auditorium-sized and the instructor therefore gave loose assignments to write, say, a ten-paged paper on anything to do with California history, the web master or mistress will ask for ten articles related to kitchen cabinets. This is where you get to be imaginative, or at least inventive.
Stand in your kitchen and stare at your kitchen cupboards. What are all the ways to say cabinet? What parts, tools, and techniques are involved in designing and crafting and installing this handy closed-in structure or component? What are all the kinds of materials used in building one? What is the oldest cabinet you have ever seen? (I saw one on Craigslist the other day that was an apothecary cabinet, circa the 1920’s, made of steel and glass.) So, for starters, you can see how to write a piece on cabinets, one would consider origin, materials, and designs/types/styles. That is, you can see how to write a few paragraphs in variation you might approach as follows:
*Use a/a number of Definition/s- define the terms used in cabinetry. A glossary is most informative and helpful to the potential buyer, user, or even beginning/apprentice carpenter.
*Try a Bulleted List- post specifics/details as a readable and easily scanned list of facts or trivia.
*Do a Survey of X – write an article that covers the history of the thing, concept, event, experience, person, or place….
*Cover Style/Type Variations – with many products or items comes a string of time periods (history), and with these come new movements, new styles.
Further, how to write a piece includes what this very article purports to do: show readers how to X—in the case of cabinets, how to choose, how to decorate, even how to build, install, clean, upgrade, etc. would work nicely.
In addition, here are a few more popular formats:
The Q and A – use existing questions and make up your own, then answer them.
The Narrative – people love stories.
Try Quotes and Trivia – if applicable, quotes are as interesting as tales and discussions of trials and tribulations and success—with, in this last case, cabinets.
This ought to give you a start with how to write a publishable/saleable article. You could start with your own web site and see what responses you get. Or you could create pages for a friend. Just get practicing…and have fun doing so.
Feb 16
Mark SingleyCareer, Creative Professions, General
There is much debate among people new to the advertising community over whether advertising schools are really essential if you want to go far in a program of advertising career. While advertising schools can really help you get started in the field, as long as you are a hard worker, interested in psychology, management, sales, and all of the other advertising field related aspects, you really can go far on your own without formal training, however, advertising schools can really give you the boost you need to jumpstart your career in advertising.
This is because advertising schools provide advanced training that would take years to get on the job in the normal career world. They can show you advanced aspects of psychology which will allow you to more effectively help your clients in marketing, which you wouldn’t necessarily learn otherwise. You’ll learn to develop your instincts and your nose for a good strategy on the job of course, and much better than you can in advertising schools (there is really no substitute for on the job training), but the formal theory of advertising is best learned in a school environment, and can later provide all kinds of help and reference in finding out what will sell for your clients.
Advertising schools really are not, in my oppinion ultimately worth it if you are bright and creative and willing to work hard and do extra research when required. One year of outstanding employment in a reputable advertising firm will do more for your career than a degree in an advertising school. This is because advertising is all about being cutting edge and discarding tradition. No one cares if you have the formal training really. They care only if you can get the results. Advertising firms are not always likely to hire people with business backgrounds – they hire people with backgrounds in English, languages, sociologly, psychology – bright people who can bring in unique skills and perspectives that can be used to more effectively sell the products.
As a matter of fact, according to some experts, advertising schools account for only a small proportion of those who enter advertising, and by no means are all of them successful. There is really no substitute for on the job experience, and unless you really feel uncomfortable going into a field without being fully trained in all of its aspects, you’d be better going through college and getting a liberal arts education which will teach you to think and observe the society around you – two skills which will serve you well as a future advertising executive.
Recent Comments