i watched the first presidential debate today. very enlightening i must say. Kerry defnitely had better speech and debate skills. Bush did a lot of "ummming" and long pauses and stumbling. im not saying that makes him a bad president (even though i don't like him), it's just an observation i made. but i shouldn't be surprised...bush is known for not having the best speech skills. all of his speech-writers write everything he says. so anyways, if you all didn't watch this debate there's still two more, so tune into those!

mr.vargas was in vietnam. and he got SHOT. i learned that in class today. wow.

Someone in class made a crack about vargas being poor or something. And that launched us into a discussion about the Roth Ira account. Apparently vargas isn’t some broke-ass teacher. The Roth Ira account is basically a TAX-FREE retirement account that withdraws a certain amount of money from your paycheck every month. It’s not like a checking or savings account. You can only use the money for education, a family emergency (like a medical operation), or retirement.

Vargas just randomly mentioned the Roth Ira account, but then we got into a huge discussion about it. I think the class became excited when vargas mentioned that just by saving 25 dollars a month (starting with your fist job) you’d end up with something-million dollars by your retirement. Impressive. And the money never touches your hands. It just goes into the account, so as long as your consistent you have a nice retirement. Two out of ten Americans, when they retire, live at a lower standard of living than when they had a job. So I think that appealed to the class. Haha. So now he can send his kids to whatever college they want to and he can do all this good stuff when he retires.

Hm…im definitely getting one of those accounts. I thought that a person starts a Roth Ira account when they get their first job as an adult, but vargas said it can be ANY kind of job. Getting an allowance for doing chores is considered a job. Pretty snazzy. So once he gets all the info for that I’ll start one up. I love teachers who teach us about more than just the subject – they actually teach us about life.

Time to walk on my workshop with laura, Hannah, and anita. Later all.