I learned through twittermoms.com that Care.com is running a sweepstakes contest where the grand prize is a cash prize worth $12, 445. This amount represents what it would cost the average family  to pay for year’s worth of child care for two young children. Care.com offers “mom-reviewed” babysitters and nannies. Twittermoms is also running a contest in conjunction with Care.com to win a premium membership for one month’s service at Care.com. You can find more details here.

Good luck, everyone! I know how expensive childcare is, and I would love for one of my readers to win this terrific prize.

According to an article from WSJ.com published July 20, 2009, bookseller Barnes & Noble has taken a major step into the increasingly competitive e-book game to announce that they have started an e-bookstore with 700,000 titles that will be available to the consumer via their smart phones such as the Blackberry and iPhone.  They will offer a variety of classics and bestsellers for $9.99.  As well, B&N is including over 500,000 public domain titles for free download.

I find the development of the e-book market fascinating. With Amazon recently dropping the price on the Kindle reader, it seems that the idea of the e-book is starting to catch fire. No word yet if B&N plan on any textbook titles in their offerings, but I’m sure that many classic works of literature are already in the public domain for you English majors. The availability of e-book on the smart phone is a big game changer, since you don’t have to purchase a separate device to access your e-books. Talk about being portable! It will be very interesting to see what Amazon will do in response to this offering from B&N.

If you’d like more information on textbook options for students, including sources for e-book textbooks, please see my earlier post on the subject.

Ok, now I REALLY don’t want to hear anyone whine that they’re too old to go back to school. Ninety-six year-old Chao Mu-he just graduated from Nanhua University in Taiwan with a Masters in Philosophy. Chao chose to ignore my good advice not to pull all-nighters, and claims he competed with the younger students by doing that very thing. He said that he couldn’t remember as well as his younger classmates, so he would wake at midnight to study so the material would be fresh in his mind for tests the next morning.

Chao decided to return to the classroom after being told he was too old to continue in his volunteer position at a local hospital. He was too bored without his job, and had no other hobbies, so he signed up at the university. When asked about his future plans, Chao said he didn’t really have any, he “just wants to stay healthy.”

So let’s not ever say we’re too old for anything, especially to go back to college!

Source: “96-year-old graduate pulled all-nighters” by Annie Huang, Associated Press.