Back of the Class

Well, you may not have been accepted this fall, but you can always apply for next year!!

Rank Name of University Country
1 Harvard University USA
2 University of Oxford UK
3 University of Cambridge UK
4 Stanford University USA
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA

6 University of California, Berkeley USA
7 California Institute of Technology USA
8 Princeton University USA
9 Yale University USA
10 University of Chicago USA
11 Columbia University USA
12 University of California, San Diego USA
13 Cornell University USA
14 University of California, Los Angeles USA
15 University Pennsylvania USA
16 University of Wisconsin, Madison USA
17 University of Washington, Seattle USA
18 Tokyo University Japan
19 University of California, San Francisco USA
20 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA
21 Kyoto University Japan
22 Imperial College London UK
23 Johns Hopkins University USA
24 University of Toronto Canada
25 University College London UK
26 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign USA
27 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich Switzerland
28 Washington University, St. Louis USA
29 New York University USA
30 Duke University USA
31 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities USA
32 Northwestern University USA
33 Rockefeller University USA
34 University of Colorado, Boulder USA
35 University of California, Santa Barbara USA
36 University of British Columbia Canada
37 University of Maryland, College Park USA
38 Utrecht University Netherlands
39 University of Texas, Austin USA
40 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center USA
41 Pennsylvania State University, University Park USA
42 University of California, Davis USA
43 Vanderbilt University USA
44 University of California, Irvine USA
45 University of Paris 06 France
46 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh USA
47 University of Southern California USA
48 Rutgers State University, New Brunswick USA
49 University of Manchester UK
50 Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Sweden

It looked like something out of a movie on Friday evening, watching local TV stations air a hot air balloon on fire and then crashing to the ground at Hazelmere RV Park & Camp in South Surrey. As the balloon was ascending, something caught fire with 13 people on board.
Screaming passengers jumped out, with their clothes in flames, and suffered broken bones and burns. A mother and daughter were not as fortunate, perishing in the fire. As the balloon ascended it exploded in a fireball and shot up into he air, and then shortly after, plunged to the the ground. A mother and daughter, perished in the fire.

Three mobile homes were engulfed in flames and completely destroyed, leaving the families homeless, when the balloon came crashing down. Other homes and cares were also damaged.

Can you begin to imagine what it must be like having a category 5 hurricane slam into your city or town? This is the most intense Atlantic storm to make landfall in two decades. Fortunately for many Mexicans, it made landfall in a sparsely populated coastline that had mostly been evacuated. It avoided most of the tourist towns too, and within hours had wakened to a category 2 storm.

Aren’t these pictures incredible? Must be a real distraction on the roads, but so cool to see!

Canvas Tote Bag

Pepsi cases stacked on the ceiling, and it looks like the bottom of the trailer is empty.

The windshield facing the back, and a driver has been painted so that it looks like he’s driving backward.

An aquarium with fish swimming in it.

A bookshelf with books lined up and a post-it note.

The inside of the trailer looks as though its been in a fire.

The bottle appears to be sticking right out of the truck.

Who would not like to be more organized and achieve more in a day? So many peopl are hooked on TV shows like “Mission Organization” and the like. It’s great to see how other peoples homes are messier than yours!

I found some great ideas for getting organized.

1. 3 Most Important Tasks. Write down the top 3 tasks to get done for the day. Everything else seems to fall into place after that.
2. An easy and workable task list, or to do list. Make a simple to do list in one place eg your computer or daytimer.
3. Do one thing at a time. Don’t jump from one task to another, no matter how tempting it may be.
4. Do it now
5. Use the recycling bin/trash basket. Get rid of outdated articles you’d like to read “someday,”
6. A (good) place for everything, and everything in its place. Find places that are easy to get to for all the things you use most often.The place for things you never use is elsewhere (trash can, place that accepts donations, etc.).
7. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
8. Put it away now. The single, simplest thing I do to stay personally organized is to put whatever tool, item, clothing, bag, hairbrush etc., away immediately after using it. I always know where everything and anything is so I never waste time looking for something. Very efficient. I could tell a stranger where to find anything in my home.
9. Keep a to-do list that syncs with your mobile phone (so you can add stuff as and when you remember it). And make sure every item has a due date.
10. Change It obsoletes unimportant things. It brings down any method or idea that isn’t timeless. It brings up newer and more important things that you and others can’t resist anymore. Best of all: it’s an organizing tool that operates itself. You simply have to embrace it.

With over 110 million iPods in circulation today, its easy to spot the person with their ear buds in, music cranked up, oblivious to who or what is going on around them. In this zoned out state, its easy for a petty thief to push them over and grab the iPod. Now some guy has started a website to help people find their missing iPods. Having looked at the website, it seems like quite a commercial venture, but possibly a worthwhile one.

The site redirects the visitor to unloseit.com, and they claim that if you register your item with them, such as cell phones, PDA’s, camera, iPod etc, it will significantly increase your chance of recovery, when the item is lost or stolen. Once someone finds the item, and visits their website to track the serial number, they will immediately know who to return it to. $4.00 USD per item lifetime protection is all it will cost you.

Seems a cheap price to pay for your $450 iPod video!

Want to break out of your comfort zone and do something different with you time? We all dream about doing something weird and wacky, or wish about things we think will never materialize. So often we get bogged down with the reality of life and never fulfill even a few of them.

Comedian and Talk Show host, Ellen DeGeneres calls it a Life List, and swears by it. She says if you write it down and look at it regularly, its easier to achieve the goals, than just thinking about it occasionally.

Here are some ideas to do in your lifetime. Choose the ones that appeal to you. Put as many things as you wish on your Life List - it could be 10, it could be 100!

Grow a herb garden
Learn sign language
Fly First Class
Walk the Great Wall of China
Go up the Eiffel Tower
Visit the pyramids of Egypt
Make a scrapbook of your childhood
Swim with a Dolphin
Go on a cruise to the Caribbean
Forgive someone you love
Make a donation to a charity or organization anonymously
Drive across the country
Win an award in your field of interest or work
Create your family tree
Adopt a child
Complete a marathon
Learn a new language