Found Not Lost

We don’t have mandatory operations to make us pretty as in the books I’ve recenty reviewed on this site, but we still all aspire to be more beautiful than our natural state. Call it vanity or just wanting to look your best, we all succomb to enhancing what we have through one method or another.

I, for one, wear make up. I don’t feel right when I don’t have at least lipstick on. It makes me feel better, and I think it makes me feel better. With three teen daughters, the subject of make up has surfaced in our conversations more than once. While I tell them that they are still too young to wear too much make up, I know it is only a matter of time before they will use make up whether I give my permission or not. Makeup, I tell them should be an enhancement of your natural beauty, not a mask to cover your true face.

MakeUpTip.com is a great resource for teens to learn about tips and tricks to applying makeup so that it is tastefull and not overly done. Here they can learn how to properly apply eyeliner, lipstick, eye shadow and blush. Most importantly though they also learn that your canvas, your face, has to be in good condition in order for all the tips to work. Taking care of their skin is probably the most neglected aspect of teen hygiene. It’s because their skin is still so perfect at this age. I tell them if they take care of their skin now, they will always have good skin into their adulthood.

Pretties is the second book in the Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfield.

In the first book, Uglies, all 15 year old Tally Youngblood wanted was to become Pretty. She couldn’t wait for her sixteenth birthday when she would finally get the operation to make her pretty and she can join her friends across the river in Pretty Town. But before she could turn pretty she follows her friend Shay who has run away to join the Ugly rebels called The Smokes. While there, she falls in love not only with the idea of living in the wild but also with the boy leader of the Smokies who was raised in the Smokes and never was indoctrinated with Ugly vs. Pretty propaganda. But, things went terribly wrong and Tally had to go back to Pretty town to get pretty.

Book two is about Tally’s life as a pretty. She had always dreamed of being pretty, of being with her friends again and going to parties all the time. She should be happy, but something keeps nagging at her. Something that is just bubbling under the pretty surface. She meets Zane who becomes her new boyfriend and together they found a new way of staying ‘bubbly’ or lucid. See, one of the drawbacks of being pretty is that your brain doesn’t always function fully or independently. The pretty operation creates lesions in your brain that keeps it from functioning.

As agreed on when Tally left the Smokes in the first book, she will subject herself to being pretty in order to test the cure for Pretty lesions developed by Maddie, a rebel physician who also happens to be David’s mother. David is the boy Tally fell in love with while in the Smokes. Tally and Zane, in their Pretty mode, find the pills left by the Smokies for Tally to take. They decide to take a pill each rather than one of them taking the full dose. They figured a half dose is better than nothing. That decision will cost them a lot.

Make sure you read the book to find out what it’s like to be Pretty, but first make sure you read Uglies first or this book will not make much sense.

Winter must be getting old because over the weekend, the girls asked if we can take them fishing when the weather gets warmer. It sounds like a great idea to me. Actually, to all of us. Any vacation that involves being near water is always a big hit.

That’s why The Coves at Smith Mountain Lake sounded like the perfect locale to get away from the hustle and bustle of city living. This private waterfront community is nestled in Southwestern Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s only a little over 100 miles from us, so it’s very accessible. And knowing how beautiful the Virginia and North Carolina areas are, I am sure this place will be breathtaking and 100% natural. The lake itself is surrounded by 500 miles of shoreline, making this one of the most popular VA Boating sites.

The Coves is the perfect setting for a quiet lakeside retreat. All the homes are built to blend in with the environment, making as little an impact as possible to the natural beauty of the lake and the surrounding mountain. A perfect getaway for families.

If you have a food blog and have a Filipino food recipe containing coconut as one of its ingredients, you are invited to the 24th edition of Lasang Pinoy.

If you just love coconuts but can’t really cook, you can still join! Memories, experiences and essays about coconut are welcome too. You just have to put a Filipino spin on it. This is, after all an event conceptuatized to promote Filipino Cuisine.

Haven’t tasted Filipino Cuisine? Well maybe it’s time you did. Pick up a Filipino cookbook, choose a recipe and try it out! You just might like it

Anyone who has been in the workforce quickly learn that the way to advance in most careers is education. Even doctors, engineers and lawyers, who you would think have reached a certain level of accomplishment have to constantly renew their certifications, licenses and most need continuing education in order to stay at the level they wish to be in.

One of the fastest growing fields, information technology, is also the fastest field to become obsolete in. New development and technology crop up almost on a daily basis and people in these careers have to constantly re-make themselves to stay competitive. The problem is, once you are ensconsed in a career, it’s not always easy to find the time to go back and take classes. Thankfully, with the advent of the internet, most courses can now be taken online and at your own pace and time.

QuickCert.com offers IT professionals self-study and training materials. There are courses offered in the following areas: Microsoft Certification, Comptia Certification, EC-Council and Cisco Certification. Courses are taught by industry experts and they guarantee that they will prepare you enough to pass all courses. Visit the website for free demos and to receive a price quote.

If you are unsure whether you need additional certifications, just compare the salaries of Microsoft Certified professionals and see where you fall:

Base Salary, Microsoft Certification
MCP, NT 4.0 $72,164
MCP, Windows 2000 $69,757
MCP, Windows 2003 Server $68,426
MCP, Developer $73,409
MCP, Other $66,765
MCP + Internet $73,536
MCSA, Windows 2000 $71,672
MCSA, Windows 2003 $71,250
MCSA: Messaging, Windows 2000 $66,667
MCSA: Messaging, Windows 2003 $58,333
MCSA: Security, Windows 2000 $68,452
MCSA: Security, Windows 2003 $66,944
MCSE, NT 4.0 $71,900
MCSE, Windows 2000 $69,905
MCSE, Windows 2003 $67,057

This is another book in the teen fiction category, borrowed from my daughter Jade. I had never read any of Scott Westerfield’s books before, and I didn’t even bother reading the synopsis or the back cover. I just dove right in. I’m kind of glad I did. It was like watching a movie without having seen a preview. I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

At first, I was a bit confused by the references to Pretty Town and being pretty versus being ugly in the first few pages. Then it dawned on me that this is of the fantasy genre. lol! Uglies introduces a world where there are uglies and there are pretties. In this world, everyone is required, at 16 years old, to undergo an operation which will alter their physical appearance to conform to a ‘pretty’ standard. Whatever imperfections or uniqueness that they were born with which doesn’t comply with the standards set by the ‘pretty committee’ is eliminated and they are in essence air brushed so that they look as pretty as everyone else.

Tally Youngblood is a typical 15 year old in temprerament. Her best friend just became pretty and now she is all alone in the ugly dormitories across the river from Pretty Town. She looks across the river and counts the days until she too will become pretty and be able to join her friends. That is, until she meets Shay, another ugly who has the same birthday as Tally and who has also been left behind by her friends. Unlike Tally though, Shay doesn’t want to become pretty. She wants to stay just the way she is.

And this is where the adventure starts…