Nov 7, 2019 | Exclusive |
Dam Turkey Day
The time to stuff our faces with turkey, stuffing, and pies is nigh. Images of a heaping cornucopia of steaming food can cloud our vision and financial judgment. Cooking a traditionally large, exquisite Thanksgiving meal can be enough to break anyone’s budget.
Before you decide what you’re cooking, set aside a budgeted amount of money. Setting a limit will steer you away from splurging and losing track of your food spending until the final item has been rung up.
The meat of a Thanksgiving meal is generally the most expensive item on the table. This may be controversial, but maybe you don’t need a whole turkey. Turkey’s breasts, thighs, and drumsticks will be cheaper and cook faster than a whole turkey, saving you time and money.
When it comes to vegetables and pies don’t shy away from canned or frozen goods. After it’s been cooked, the only noticeable difference will be in your wallet.
After completing your Thanksgiving budget, break out your phone and use a coupon or savings app to see what deals you can find on the items you’ve chosen.
On top of saving all that dam money, don’t forget to be thankful for the loved ones around you- they’re priceless. DM FinLit on Instagram at Umf_Finlit or send me an email at caleb.grover@maine.edu to set up an appointment.
Oct 24, 2019 | Bite Me Beaver, Exclusive |
Dear Bite,
When I shop for clothes, I like to keep up with trends and wear stuff that helps make me feel sexy. But lately my boyfriend has been telling me that my clothes are too revealing and that I shouldn’t wear them because they make me look skanky. Is he right?
-Fashionably Confused
Dear Confused,
Eat. Him. Roast him on a spit and devour the bastard. Be sure to have a drink with your meal as misogynistic slut-shaming leaves a nasty aftertaste. Problem solved.
Dear Bite,
My laundry and homework are piling up and tik tok really is taking over my life. What are ways to break my obsessive tik tok binges?
– Tik Tok Go My Deadlines
Dear Deadlines,
Bold of you to assume there’s a way out. Afterall, the birds work for the bourgeoisie and it’s all an elaborate scheme concocted under Reagan in 1986. . .The beavers are next.
Dear Bite,
I think it’s the end of times in FAB. I heard about that girl who found the snake in the elevator and twice now I’ve gone into the study lounge on the fifth floor and found black hornets in there. I just want to do my homework without the fear of death. Are these like omens of armageddon? Who do I contact about this?
-Bugging Out
Dear Bugging Out,
Yeah it’s definitely the end. And I think to really capture that end-of-the-world spirit, you should start capturing all the creepy-crawlies you find and once you have a plague-sized amount, release them like the biblical swarms of locusts. I think you’ll get facilities’ attention that way.
Want to ask Bite for some (not so) DAM good advice?
Want to anonymously appear in the Flyer?
Submit your questions to umfdearbeaver@gmail.com for the chance to hear back from a beaver who learned how to type!
Oct 24, 2019 | Exclusive |
Give Me My Dam Money!
Dam Credit Scores: How interest rates and credit scores could ruin your life.
Albert Einstein once said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”
Understand that interest accrued over the life of any loan is how banks and lenders make money off of us, the borrowers. And your credit score is the measure by which lenders decide what interest rate you will receive.
There is a stark contrast in the amount of interest you will pay when buying a car with a superprime credit score as opposed to doing so with a subprime credit score. For example, the interest paid on a car loan worth $20,000 with a credit score above 780 (superprime) will be roughly $1,000 over fours. However the interest payment on a car loan of the same amount and same repayment period but with a credit score below 600 (subprime) would be nearly four times as much. It doesn’t have to be a car, it could be a house or a boat, or any other large purchase.
Building a good credit score now while you are in college will make your life much easier after graduation and save you thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars.
Contact the Financial Literacy Peer Education Program to begin taking control of your credit today! DM us on Instagram at Umf_Finlit or send me an email at caleb.grover@maine.edu to set up an appointment.
Oct 24, 2019 | Exclusive |
Faith Diaz Contributing Writer
Post-Doctoral Fellow in Digital and Public Humanities, Stephen Grandchamp, will teach ENG 377: Hip Hop History and Culture, for the Spring 2020 semester. The course is offered as an English and Music History Course and will be an examination of the history of the genre and a cultural analysis of the music and its effect on American history.
Grandchamp also intends to explore the genre’s evolution. “You might get more misogynistic party tracks in there but then you might get tracks in there from more female assertive rappers like going back to MC Light or Lauryn Hill, up to contemporary rappers like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan the Stallion, City Girls.”
He wants to clarify the cultural understanding of the genre as he said, “We’ll put all these different treatments of a theme side by side and talk about how they are relating and making connections and try to figure it out. Because Hip Hop is not monolithic in that it has one take on everything.” He continued, “I want students to be aware of some of those voices that have been marginalized.”
Students will also be exposed to the voice of a local underground rapper, Chris Brown, whose stage-name is Yung Breeze, and who is also the younger brother of Vanessa Brown, a UMF senior and TA for the course.
“I first talked about my brother and his music to Steve last semester during the New Commons course, and from there I sent some of his music along,” Brown said in messages. “Steve thought it’d be a great idea to talk about my brother as a local underground rapper and to have him be a part of the curriculum.”
Vanessa Brown, TA for the Course (Photo courtesy of Vanessa Brown)
“I thought it was awesome that [Grandchamp] brought that idea up,” she continued, “mainly because my family and music are so intertwined, and to watch and celebrate my brother’s hard work in an academic setting is an accomplishment in itself.”
The course is intended to breed further discussion on the cultural effects Hip Hop has had on the American society as a whole. “One of my main arguments about Hip Hop,” said Grandchamp, “is that you need to view it as a regional United States genre where in the local scenes of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Memphis, all of these different places have really vibrant hip hop scenes that have unique characteristics that differentiate them from all of the other ones.”
To better understand the unique principles and craft of each scene, students will create their own Spotify playlists based off of those scenes that will serve as a one to two hour premier for the general listener. Students will submit an essay alongside the playlist to explain why they chose these songs, the implications of those inclusions, and key themes.
The course’s main challenge lies in altering students perceptions of Hip Hop and its place in modern academia. “I would say it’s as controversial now as it’s ever been because of its willingness to take on taboo subjects in a really direct way, so race, class, gender, and politics. These are issues that are at the surface of Hip Hop music and we are not going to steer away from that,” Grandchamp said. “You have to get students to buy in to applying literary analysis processes to contemporary Hip Hop lyrics.”
Grandchamp is excited overall for the course. “If you take the class, be ready to listen enthusiastically. One of the main tasks of the course is just to get students to listen to the primary text which are the recordings of the genre to better understand it.”
Another goal of his is to prepare students to, “meet the music on its own terms. In that, Hip Hop is an art form that was birthed out of African American culture. So its is inextricably linked to African American culture. So I am going to ask students to meet that culture on its own terms. To try to confront it directly, analyze it directly, and really try to figure out where this artistic movement came from and whats the engine behind it.”
Brown hopes to aid students’ engagement with the music and culture by acting “not only as a sounding board for thoughts, ideas, and other things. . .during discussions and projects,” she said, “but also engage and share experience and/or my music insight from the hip-hop world.”
This course is now available for pre-registration on My Campus.
Oct 10, 2019 | Bite Me Beaver, Exclusive |
Dear Bite,
Everyone. Is. Sick. And I am not about that right now. I am a Clef Notes singer so my voice is my baby and if I get sick it’s all over. I’ve already tried throwing crucifixes at people and screaming, “Ya germs need Jesus!” and I don’t think it’s working. So how else do I avoid the Farmington Plague?
-Got That Pocket Full of Posies
Dear Posies,
So in highschool, if any of us art-room nerds wandered into the sculpture teacher’s room while sick, she’d spray us full in the face with Lysol like a SWAT officer with a can of mace. It stung a little around the eyes but none of us died, so you can call it safe. But we’re in college now, you have to go big or go home. Roll up to class with Lysol cans on you like ammo- like the HvZ players with their Nerf guns in the heat of game play. If someone so much as coughs, crack a can and drop that sucker on the ground like a smoke bomb. Bonus points if you ninja-roll out before the fog settles.
Dear Bite,
There’s this guy at the gym that I think might be interested in me. He has this really weird way of showing it though: he usually throws a towel at the back of my head to get my attention and has more recently challenged me to a friendly competition to see who can calf-raise more weight. There have been instances of genuine flirting but how I do respond to his. . .unusual methods?
-Falling For Boys and Over Equipment
Dear Falling,
Calf-raise him? Or is that just like. . .a drop kick? Yeah, drop kick him. That’s how soulmates find each other.
Trust me! I’m a beaver!
Until next time…
– Bite
Want to ask Bite for some (not so) DAM good advice? Want to anonymously appear in the Flyer?
Submit your questions to umfdearbeaver@gmail.com for the chance to hear back from a beaver who learned how to type!
Oct 10, 2019 | Exclusive |
Financial Literacy Column
Every year millions of students fail to file the free application providing them with the financial aid necessary to continue their college education. That free application is the FAFSA, and it’s mandatory that students who will be returning to school the following year file the application.
The financial aid provided by the FAFSA includes grants and work-study eligibility, in addition to federally subsidized and unsubsidized student loans.
Grants, like the Pell Grant, are free money, meaning the student does not have to pay it back after graduation. Federal Student Loans, like any loan, must be paid back. They are the only student loans with six-month grace period after graduation, while other loans require payments to be made right away, making repayment much more difficult.
As of Oct. 1, students are able to file the FAFSA for the 2020-21 school year. If a student files a FAFSA with the Educators before Nov. 1, they will be entered to win a cash prize.
Students can reach out to the UMF Financial Literacy Peer Education Program by emailing caleb.grover@maine.edu or DMing them on Instagram @umf_finlit.
