There is an excessive amount of traffic coming from your Region.

#EANF#

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Chicago Art Schools – Are They Worth Attending?

Chicago Art Schools – holy cow! Who wouldn’t want to go to art school there?! Chicago has everything: galleries, studios, art centers, museums, fine architecture, not to mention about 3 million people all crowding into 222 square miles and, according to Wikipedia, the third busiest airport in the world. Also there’s Chicago’s lovely weather (they don’t call it the Windy City for nothing,) and an organized crime syndicate that a Sicilian Boss would envy. Who couldn’t be inspired and motivated by that?!In all seriousness, third-ranked after New York City and Los Angeles are Chicago art schools, too numerous to mention. It should be noted that Chicago is also home to Columbia College, not to be confused with Columbia University in New York City, (where no one seems to remember a student by the name of Barak Obama – but that’s a whole different topic.) Columbia College boasts an impressive art department however, and a degree from Columbia on your resume should make a good impression, especially with anyone who doesn’t know the difference. (Your best bet for that would be pretty much any part of the country except for the east coast.)With a prevalence of art schools comes a prevalence of art centers and museums. I was particularly drawn to investigate River East Art Center, because I thought it a very clever way of playing on the notorious East River reputation…you know, where all the bodies get dumped.As it turns out, though, REAC, as it is known, is primarily an event center with an impressive collection and focus on fine art; specifically, sophisticated fine art. I’m guessing the addition of “sophisticated” on their website includes some art that the average person on the street might not appreciate. In the art world this is called “sophisticated”, whereas on the street it is often referred to as “crap”. It’s a very important distinction. That being said, I liked what I saw and REAC still looks like a really cool (if not expensive) place for an event.Chicago ‘s Lillstreet Art Center is one of several art schools for the “everyman”. Children and adults have access to hands on art training at a fraction of art school prices. And frankly, the student art samples rival those of Chicago art schools. This only confirms to me that dedicated art students everywhere bring passion to their craft regardless of how much they’re paying.Deciding whether or not you need the piece of paper with the impressive embossed school stamp on it really comes down to where, how, and possibly if you plan on making a living from your art. For some, the freedom to work their craft without the confines of employer parameters can be truly liberating…that is until the rent comes due. A day job may or may not solve that problem. With a day job, you’ve got an employer limiting the time you can spend pursuing art.While a degree from almost any of the Chicago art schools will make you a standout in the profession, you might consider how much happier you’d be, in the end, not having to deal with a boss OR rent, and there’s only one way I know of to do that – live at Mom’s. And that’s probably not the best choice.

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How to Monitor Your Health When You’re Busy

When life begins to be busier than you think, your health may move to the back of your mind. After all, you have more important things to think about: family, work, and school. But when your health begins to suffer, you realize just how tenuous your relationship with your body might be. In order to keep track of your health along with everything else in your life, you need a simple system of monitoring your health, one that works with your active and your busy schedule. Thankfully, the wonders of technology are allowing this to be simpler than ever.Your Healthy Habit Is Health MonitoringIf you want to go back to the basics of health monitoring, it can help to keep a journal of your diet and your exercise behaviors. In doing so, you can begin to see the effects of the choices you make, while also noticing the way that bad habits affect your health. A diet journal is a good place to start and there are a variety of programs available online or via your cellular phone. Many people, however, prefer old-fashioned pen and paper to give them a hard copy of their health records. When keeping a diet journal, make sure to list all of the foods and the drinks you are consuming. This can be tricky at first to remember everything during the day, so keep the diet journal close and write everything down as soon as you eat it, this would help monitoring your health. You will also want to include the amount of exercise you engage in each day, while also keeping note of your stress levels. After all, stress affects your health just as much as bad habits can. Your health assessments will reveal that.Listen to Your BodyMany of us are so busy that we forget we are often our own best health monitoring system. Instead of doing daily health assessments by simply stopping to think about how we feel, we can begin to see whether we are ill or healthy. If you’ve been feeling more tired as of late, it might be time to consider looking at your health habits to see if you could improve anything. In addition, you will want to think about whether you’ve been sick more often than usual – another sign that your body is not as healthy as it could be. Take some time each day to journal about how you feel and about whether you’ve noticed any changes in your health. You might find that you are closer to being ill than you realized before you made yourself aware.Look for Health Monitoring Software ProgramsBut the truth is that we all lie to ourselves sometimes. We tell ourselves we feel fine, that we really aren’t as unhealthy as we seem. In order to find a more objective viewpoint of your health, it can help to look at software programs to measure your health levels. These health assessment programs will measure your health without regard for your personal feelings about health. This allows you to have the most unbiased view of your health and how you might need to change your habits as a result. Since the testing can be done in just minutes as well, you can also test your health as often as you like without the inconvenience of a doctor’s appointment and a battery of tests. It is very important to start monitoring your health. You may want to see your doctor if there are major concerns on the test, however.

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