Image by Emery Co Photo via Flickr
Have you winterized your home yet? How about change your aged single pane windows into the updated double pane and keep your home a little warmer and in the meantime obtain a tax deductible amount up to $1500 for your federal tax?
If so, you need to hurry to do so before December 31, 2010. For details please visit
Source from: C.A. R. Newsline
Thank you for checking in with me.
If you have a child at 8th grade like I do, you should be busy helping your child to enter his appropriate high school. Most parents like myself have already got some help from the school counsellor or teachers or administrators of your child’s current school. Having made a mistake with my elder son in choosing his high school, this time, I am spending more time to do my research. Usually we (my son and I) can check schools through 3 ways:
1. To check the websites of different schools
2. To go to the school Open House
3. Shadowing – shadowing means let your child shadow one student of the high school and join all the daily school regular activities including attending classes, go to recess, taking lunch etc.
There are basically 3 types of schools that all parents should consider.
1. Public school – in San Francisco, Lowell High School ranks academically way higher than all other public school and will only consider straight A students application in their first round of “lottery” and then open to the second round of lottery which will include students from ALL – basically giving chance to those “handicapped” financially, academically, socially, racially. There are also other highly favored public school boosted by their good academic results or other specialties. For example, School of the Arts hold a very high Arts standard requirement beside academic results. All candidates has to passed their board of examiners to study their chosen Arts area. If your child plays piano very well and choose piano as their arts subject, then your child has to play one prepared piece (by memory) and then another piece by sight but was given by the examiner with no advance preparations allowed. I have more insight of School of the Arts because my elder boy is graduated from there last year.
2. Charter Schools – Charter Schools are public schools but have an independent administrative power to run their school in their own ways. It is like an experimental school and usually starts from a small one. For example, my younger boy’s current school , Rooftop, can also be considered as a Charter but it is named as alternative. It is different from other public school in many ways. First, the size is very small. Each grade only has 60 students and at kindergarten and elementary level, each class has 20 students. The students come from every where throughout San Francisco. In addition to “standard” academic subjects, there are gardening, sensory motors and many different arts which usually integrated into the academic subject as well. Rooftop originally starts from the roof only. The recent Hot charter school is Gateway High School. This year, Gateway also introduce its middle school. However, if you are interested please check www.gatewayhigh.org.
3. Private school
Each student can apply separately public school, charter school and private school. In this way, your child will have at least 3 choices. For me and my son we are still in the process of investigating different public and charter schools. We have opted out private school for financial reasons. Although there are scholarships or grants could be applied for students who like to attend private schools, I would not like my son to feel inferior. By looking at the questionaires of the private schools and also Gateway High School, I feel that my son is not applying school, instead he is more like applying a very important job in the adult world. The way both Toby and I interpretate the question is how can Toby and I contribute to Gateway so they may consider accept Toby. What is good about Toby so that Gateway should take him as his student. It sounds so ridiculous. Also I do not believe the so called “lottery system”. Lottery is just an excuse for the school to turn down one particular student’s application.
Schools play an extremely important role in the house price when the enrollment is giving priority to local residents but this had been slightly changed in the past few years. I am a full time real estate agent and truly understand how the parent feel and will do for their children. If you have any questions regarding schools or real estate, please contact me so that we can discuss.
Thank you for checking in.
Tina To
Cover of Plácido Domingo
Thanks to Rooftop School and being a proud parent, I have the opportunity to join my son Toby to see the Cyrano De Bergerac. Honestly speaking, my son who attends 8th grade is not too interested in opera and so are a lot of his schoolmate. I myself am also very green in this area.
The major lead is the famous Placido Domingo and of course, I am attracted. It is a final run down performance and so it is free to all students and chaperons. It is of course of the first class quality of everything: performance, voice, music, story.
I would encourage everybody to take this opportunity to see. It will be held in San Francisco Opera as follows:
Sunday October 24, 2010 at 2pm
Wednesday, October 27 at &:30pm
Saturday, October 30 at 8pm
Tuesday, Novermber 2 at 8pm
Saturday, Novermber 6 at 2pm
Tuesday, November 9 at 7:30pm
Friday, November 12 at 8pm
Audiences are not allowed to take picture, so excusez-moi that I have no picture to post. My personal opinion is when compared opera to Eastern opera (Chinese traditional one), I prefered the Chinese one because I feel it is more musical and the dance is very unique.
Please feel free to let me know how you feel if you have a chance to see the one I mentioned.
Image via Wikipedia
What is APR, why it is different from the interest rate that my loan agent/bank representative disclosed to me?
Almost all the time APR is higher than the actual interest rate that the loan agent quote you. APR is actually a sophisticated jargon that the Bank wants to intimidate/scare you? Just joking.
Let me demonstrate how APR comes up and you will understand.
If I say I loan you $100 and you pay 5% interest so your interest payment is $5
But what if you pay $5 interest but I am giving you $90 because $10 is your closing cost, then now your interest rate will be: 90 divided by 5 x 100% = 5.5%
This is exactly how the bank calculate your APR. But then you say I even pay points to lower my interest rate and how come my APR is even higher? It is because then your closing cost is higher. Instead of $10 closing cost, maybe now you are paying $20 closing cost so your interest rate is still 5% but your APR will be 6.25%.
Thank you for checking in. I am a real estate agent specialized in San Francisco and Peninsular area and will be happy to help you buy or sell your house.
Last week I made use of free family pass again to go to Cartoon Arts Museum which is located at Mission and 2nd Street. The standard charge for adult is $8 and for kid is $6. It shows a good cartoon history and have a good deal of collection. However, there is nothing hands on and not really too fascinating for the young kids.
However, it is free. So have you tried yet? If you live in San Francisco, go to any public library and see what is still available for the free activity that you can enjoy with your family within this week.
Go to http://www.sfkids.org/checkoutSF for detailed information.
Thank you for checking in with my blog.
I am a real estate agent who specified in San Francisco and Peninsular area. I would like to share as much as I can all the interesting local information with you.
Friday, June 11, 2010 | Comments Off
“Oh , we are experiencing the worst depression!” ARE WE? ? ?
If you are Jewish and aged over 50, your parents may had been ran away from the Nazi Camp or forced to run away from homes. If you came from China and aged over 50, you should have experienced the Cultural Revolution. The point is if you asked those people, which period is worse, now or then? What is your hinge?
Yes, we have a high unemployment rate. Yes, a lot of people lost their homes because of foreclosure. Yes, the government is keep on cutting budgets. Yes, our economic growth is a negative figure or close to zero. But how many years have our ancestors live a “simple” life before the Industrial Revolution kicked in? Could we call those years the worst? Would our ancestors said so?
During the 1929 depression, a lot of people hid themselves in the theaters and enjoyed the extra low ticket fee. A lot of family actually felt those were the time they felt the closest as parents were jobless and had plenty of time with their children. Can we still enjoy some of those side “benefits” today?
So, cheer up. This is not the end of the world. We are not at our worst period and so will not be tomorrow.
Thank you for checking in with my blog. By the way, if you are thinking of making use this golden chance of low house price, low interest rate in San Francisco or Peninsular, feel free to contact me. I have over 20 years experience helping people acquire their first home.
最近當我去借書時，無意間發現三藩市居民可以憑有效圖書証去取一個免費旅遊紙，圖書館職員會告訴你有什麼參加的單位尚有位讓你一家人（二位大人，四位低於１８歲小朋友）一起免費去的勝地。地點包括有：免費船河﹑科學館等。。詳細情形請上以下網頁www.SFPL.org/checkoutSF
Recently I checked into the San Francisco public library and got a free family pass to enjoy an one hour boat ride to sail along the City’s waterfront. It was spectacular to cross under the Golden Gate Bridge with my family. The cool part is it is absolutely free and the pass would have cost $70.
Here is the deal:
Visit any San Francisco Public Library
Choose a Participating Attraction
Use your San Francisco Public Library Card to check out a Family Pass
Confirm the days and hours the selected Participating Attraction is open
Take the Family Pass to the Participating Attraction
Enjoy free entrance for 1 to 2 adults accompanied by 1 to 4 children
Program Valid through December 31, 2010
To check the availability of pass and participant attractions, please go to:
http://www.sfkids.org/content.aspx?id=12432
Important things to remember, each family can only get one pass per week and each library only carries one of each of the above attractions and it is of course on a first come first serve purpose.
So hurry and enjoy your free trip once a week with the whole family.
In case you are thinking of what you want to send your girlfriends/ motherfriends
you may like to send this one. I recieved this one from my friend and I think it is amazing. Please click onto “rising mother of the year” to see.
