ACCORDING to Chinese astrology, 2008 will be a great year because it is the Year of the Rat, the animal which is first on the Chinese astrology kingdom. Not only that, 2008 is supposed to be a great year because the numbers 008 are all written facing up. But sadly though, January 2008 has been marred with calamities. There were the deaths of Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger. There is a writers’ strike in Hollywood, canceling the Golden Globes. The worldwide market is tumbling down and there is an imminent recession in the United States causing the Federal Reserve to make the longest interest rate cut in its history. There is also an imminent bird flu pandemic and one Australian futurist says that an Ice Age will sweep the globe 40 years from now. All that calls for drastic measures and we cannot definitely rely on astrology alone. We need education.

Whether you like it or not, values education is still education. Sleeping pills are supposed to make people sleep, not as depressants or stimulants. That is what Heath Ledger learned too late. It was a pity because he’s got family already, a very young daughter with actress Michelle Williams. Ledger’s death is not isolated. It has just been underscored because he is famous. However, thousands of young people in the United States and in the developed world today are hooked on drugs. And it’s not cocaine that they’re after anymore because it’s illegal. They’d rather prefer over-the-counter drugs like sleeping pills because they’re easier to obtain. That’s where values education comes in. Whether you are in the United States or Spain, if you’re high school curriculum puts emphasis on values education, it is more likely that the drug problem will subside. Colombia will soon definitely lose its market. And that is why I admire Barack Obama. In a recent appearance before the Tyra Banks Show, he said that he will give emphasis on values education going true to his slogan that his campaign is banking on change.

If Obama wins, he is surely taking off what the No Child Left Behind Act signed by President Bush in 2002 has missed. The No Child Left Behind Act was certainly noble. It made English mandatory in public high school curricula nationwide for our non-English speaking youngsters. And there are certainly lots of them – the French-speaking parts of New Orleans, the Hispanics all over the union and of course, and the children of immigrants from various continents. The No Child Left Behind Act also has a provision to forgive college student loans to those who can go to two tours of duty to Iraq and Afghanistan, to those who will be teaching in public schools and to those who will be employed in accredited charity institutions. That was really groundbreaking. Sadly, they have failed to account for values education. And it is certainly what we need in today’s world.

JANUARY is really a fresh start to learn a new endeavor. To those whose lives are flexible enough and would like to work at home, taking courses online can be a very enviable hobby. For example, if are from the Philippines and you know how to cook, you may want to hone your culinary skills and take an online course in New England cuisine. If you enroll in an online school, you will receive a login account where you will get the daily lessons as well as take the dialy quizzes. There are no practical laboratory tests in online courses so every grade must be relied on your quiz answers. In a New England cooking course in particular, you will know how to cook clam chowder, lobsters, sea scallops, oysters, blue mussels, soft shell clams and razor shell clams converged together in one traditional dish called clambake. In clambake, these shells are steamed and are mixed with really nutritious and yummy ingredients such as carrots, potatoes, corn cobs and sausages. Of course, sausages in New England are not your usual pork sausages which are high in fatty content. Oftentimes, New Englanders add some beer into the steaming process. Beer has an alcohol level which is good for the heart.

Aside from shells, New Englanders also love to eat cod and baked beans. For desserts, there are a lot of homegrown fruits there such as grapes, maple, apple and cranberries. You will learn all of these stuff in a cooking course online whether you’re from the Philippines or from Spain. Then later on, you can transfer to a really profitable job as a chef in any of the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Vermont.

It is not just their yummy and nutritious cuisine that New England is known for though. It is also known as a haven of models. Casting agents from Hollywood oftentimes go to New England to look for models whether they are in their teens or in their 60s. No, don’t raise your eyebrows there. The geriatric models are used for television commercials for geriatric products. Did you know that Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl was discovered in New England? You too can be a model by simply enrolling in an online modeling course. And after six months of grueling online tests, you can now pass yourself off as a model. So whether you’re located in Connecticut or in Hawaii, you can be a natural model if you’ve completed diligently the online course in modeling and you can later be discovered.

Or maybe your forte is in grasping the nuances of the English language. You simply enroll online all the stages of the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) – basic, intermediate and advanced – and you can be an accredited English teacher in countries where English is not the primary language. These are just a few of online learning opportunities for 2008.

AFTER graduating from college, if you are hurrying up to cultivate the family farm and supervise workers from Mexico and Chile, then you can always study online and acquire an agronomy course. Or if your family business is a ranch, then you can always take a bachelor’s degree in animal science. Online education may not involve laboratory drills and actual trips to a farm but you can already apply what you have learned in your own family farm. However, in online colleges, you are still required to have an internship.

Choose a reputable online school. Anyway, the tuition is not that much because you don’t need to pay for laboratory fees and other miscellaneous expenses. And there are lots of advantages as well. You don’t need to be away from home and stay in a dormitory where utility expenses can be expensive. And it’s not just the money that I’m talking about. In the farm, your whole family can monitor your whereabouts but in a boarding college, you may be influenced by fraternities who are up to no good at all. At least, if you get a girl pregnant in the farm, then the situation doesn’t get out of control because all you’ll do is commit to the girl and to your yet-to-be-born baby.

The expenses in a boarding college border to that of being hellish. Aside from the rent and the usual expenses such as food, transportation going to the school campus, more extra food, electricity, water, cable television and Internet bills, you will most likely acquire on such gadgets as a Wii. That can entail lots of money whereas in the farm, you will only eat what’s on the refrigerator and you already have your own appliances.

Now let’s go back to the internship. It’s not just taking a degree in agronomy which leads to an internship. It’s encompassing in all fields of education actually. For example, if you’re enrolled in a Swiss hotel school and you live in New Jersey, you are most likely directed to a semester of internship at a casino in Atlantic City. If you are enrolled at the online extension of Johns Hopkins for a degree in medicine and if you live near a Mayo Clinic, you may be enticed to have your internship there. If you are enrolled in a degree in international relations, you may have your internship at Foggy Bottom. If you are enrolled in an online course in teaching, you may end up having your internship at one of the Montessori or Waldorf schools in your area or even in a public school system.

Another advantage of online education is it doesn’t take up your entire time yet you can still achieve the same number of units. All you need to do is log online but if you catch the professor being online too as well as the other students in the same course, then take time in a video conference with them. In this way, you can learn more.