“Men are pigs and women are sheep.” This was a favorite saying of a man I worked for for just under a decade. We worked for an industry that is a sort of subcategory of the entertainment biz, training exotic animals for appearances in movies and television and performingRead More

As many of you may know, the United States Men’s Soccer team failed to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1986. At first glance, this looks tragic. We’re a country with over 300 million people and we lose to a country with a population of roughlyRead More

I first started playing with makeup and skin care when I was in junior high.  I can clearly picture my Bonnebell lip gloss, my Clinique Happy perfume and St. Ives Apricot Scrub lining my shelf in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Two years ago when I first saw the Jessica Melody’sRead More

The most common question I’ve been asked about me after being in college for a couple months is, “Where are you from?” Now, I’m not from another state, but some are, so I thought I’d write about why I’m proud to be from Iowa, known for farming, livestock and Casey’s,Read More

Ankeny, Iowa is the “biggest small town” in Iowa. I’ve lived here all my life in the same house. I was the first graduating class from Ankeny Centennial high school. Since I’ve been here, the population has hit one of the top in the state. Back in 2000 there wereRead More

I gripped the armrest of the seat on the airplane as we banked hard left circling the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, entering one of the most dangerous airports in the world. Looking to my left to get a better view of what country we were about to land in, IRead More

In mid-September of 2017, ProPublica launched a study attempting to see whether Facebook users could be categorized and targeted for advertisements based solely off of ideological views – particularly, hateful or racist viewpoints. Using Facebook’s algorithms, ProPublica was able to target an ad directly at “Jew Haters,” causing a lotRead More

I’m definitely not a world traveler. In fact, I’ve never traveled out of the country. But I’m curious. What does it take to travel internationally? I’ve enlisted the help of my peers, the internet, and Stacy Amling (a DMACC instructor and avid traveler) to pull together a list of tipsRead More