We were asked to select two areas of interest. I chose “Literature and Arts” along with “Finance”. Both are somewhat related to my major which is Ag Business/Animal Science.

Finance is about money and how you can manage it. When doing the finance exercises we were told to look up three different sites from a list. I chose E*Trade (Because of the baby commercials), LendingTree and Wells Fargo. I learned from all these sites about banking, and good ways to invest your money. I was told to look at the “Ups and downs” of the market, but all I saw where downs. NASDAQ and DOW where both down along with many other stocks.

We were then told to write a paragraph about Apple, Microsoft or other major software companies.

I looked up information about Apple on E*Trade. Though on 9/11/2011 Apple was down by 6.77%, the charts suggest it would be wise to invest in the company as they have a steady stream of profit. The current price for stock is $377.48, which is affordable to the everyday person (Considering it was previously $510). With Apple having a large control over major phone companies and internet providers I would invest if I had the money.

I was surprised when I looked up information on Microsoft. They were only down .48% and a share only cost $28.74. To me this makes me think that the company has a lot of investors which doesn’t make me think that a lot of profit is to be making if someone was to invest money into it. The charts suggest steady growth for Microsoft however in July, they had a major downfall, but bounced back up in August. That doesn’t make me feel secure about investing.

Art and literature are extremely important. They can tell our history which allows us to learn from our mistakes.

We were asked to look up four different literary criticism articles about four different authors and decide which author we liked best. I chose Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a genius! His stories of murder and mystery will always have a place in my heart. His style of writing and witty underplay keeps things interesting throughout his books. Reading literary criticisms electronically has its ups and downs. I personally like how easy it is to access information about a book on the web. It allows me to get my work done fairly quickly.

The American Quarter Horse Museum is currently hosting an exhibit called "America's Horse in Art". It is just a temporary exhibition which showcases art from all over the United States. The paintings and drawings are from many different artists including Steve Devenyns. All are equine based works of art. Permanent collections in this museum are the history of the Quarter Horse, which shows many pieces used by famous horses such as Dash for Cash, Impressive and Bar Link. The musuem store has many items for sale including shirts with the AQHA logo, coffee cups with equine art on them, and bumper stickers which also have the AQHA logo on them.