Prepper's Web

‘Queen of Halloween’ Heidi Klum announced Thursday that she has officially started prepping her costume four months ahead of the spooky holiday.

The German 49-year-old shared a time-lapse video of a Prosthetic Renaissance staffer holding some sort of body scanner as she sat in a chair with her hair in a stocking cap while clad in a bikini top.

Using the hashtag #heidihalloween2022, Heidi – who boasts 21.4M social media followers – captioned her Instagram post: ‘…and so it begins.’

Last year, Klum – who canceled her last two parties due to COVID-19 – posted several spooky videos of herself recreating some of her favorite horror movie tropes including a shredded back.

In 2020, the Emmy-winning host – who relies on Oscar-nominated make-up artist Mike Marino – did two more subdued looks of herself blending into wall and a bedspread.

In 2019, Heidi debuted her most grisly costume – an alien with an exposed brain – for her 20th annual Halloween bash held at Cathédrale New York.

‘I start thinking about it on November 1. I usually have two or three ideas that I’m playing with and then I decide on one thing,’ Klum told DailyMail.com in 2019. 

‘So the next morning, I start thinking, “Maybe next year, I’m going to do that one that I didn’t do this year.” And then, obviously, throughout the year new ideas pop up because maybe I’ve seen a new or old movie, or was inspired by my travels.’

The America’s Got Talent judge continued: ‘I put a lot of pressure on myself to come up with something better and better every year. I don’t want to let the costume lovers down. 

‘I know there are so many creative people out there and fans that are excited to see what I do each year.’ 

In 2018, Heidi dressed up as Princess Fiona while her third husband Tom Kaulitz dressed as Shrek.

In 2017, Klum transformed into the werewolf from Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller music video.

In 2016, the Making the Cut producer-host had her team transform five women with similar 5ft9in figures into her clones by putting wigs and prosthetic faces on them.

Heidi was sultry torch singer Jessica Rabbit in 2015, a butterfly in 2014, an old woman in 2013, Cleopatra in 2012, a chimpanzee and skinless Hellraiser character in 2011, and an alien transformer in 2010.

Klum currently judges the 17th season of America’s Got Talent – airing Tuesdays on NBC – alongside Howie Mandel, Sofía Vergara, Simon Cowell, and host Terry Crews.

Maryland Democrats are making their pitch later this week to have more say in the presidential nominating process with an earlier primary in 2024.

Party leaders are scheduled to address the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and By-laws Committee on Thursday afternoon, as the DNC looks to shake up the nominating process across the nation and allow different regions to be represented at the start of the primary season in 2024.

Maryland is one of 17 states looking to get in on the early action, with the anticipation that some of the traditional early states in the nominating process — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — may be forced to hold their primaries or caucuses later in the cycle.

In a statement provided to Maryland Matters, Maryland Democratic Party Chair Yvette Lewis said the state would be an “asset” to the national party if it’s allowed to go early in the nominating process.

“We’re the big-tent party and Maryland is the most diverse state on the East Coast — it’s an ideal match,” she said. “Candidates would get a chance to campaign in the backyard of D.C., with a strong media market at their disposal and a chance to canvass a state that offers Marylanders from all walks of life. And our support from our leaders in the state legislature ensures that we could quickly and effectively move the election date to align with a new schedule.”

Lewis is scheduled to make the pitch to DNC leaders along with former Maryland Secretary of State John McDonough, Maryland Democratic Party Executive Director Eva Lewis (no relation to Yvette), and Brandon Stoneburg, the state party’s political director.

Other states will be touting their bids to go early at the DNC meeting later this week. State party representatives will be given 15 minutes to make their presentations, then will be expected to answer questions for up to 20 minutes.

Maryland has traditionally held its presidential primary in the spring, often after the nominating contests have been decided. One notable exception was in 2008, when Maryland, D.C. and Virginia held a “DMV primary” on Feb. 12, and it played a critical role in adding to Barack Obama’s momentum for the Democratic nomination.

Iowa officials are going to aggressively try to preserve the state’s status as the first-in-the-nation caucus, even though the 2020 caucus was plagued by technical difficulties that delayed the full count of results for three days.

But Iowa is 85% white, and that’s problematic in the eyes of many Democratic leaders. Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chair, said the state is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, and that it already represents different variations in America’s population. Brennan pointed to economic diversity, and the variety of rural, urban and suburban voters who participate in caucuses.

With Democrats struggling to appeal to working-class rural voters nationally, Iowa is a good testing ground for candidates who hope to win in a general election, he said.

“We can’t just glom onto a pile of votes on the coasts and a couple big cities and hope that’s enough,” Brennan said. “It isn’t enough.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to make a recommendation for the primary calendar in early August, then the full DNC will vote on that recommendation at a meeting in early September.

A big endorsement for a political tyro

Is it time to start taking Republican Matthew Foldi seriously as a possible challenger to U.S. Rep. David Trone (D) in Maryland’s 6th District?

Foldi, a 25-year-old former journalist and conservative provocateur with The Washington Free Beacon, won the endorsement Tuesday of U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the man almost certain to become speaker of the House in January barring some unforeseen GOP train wreck.

“Matthew Foldi’s campaign for Congress is critical to taking back the Republican majority and stopping the disastrous Biden agenda,” McCarthy said in a statement. “His experience as an investigative reporter will be crucial in helping our new majority hold this White House accountable. Matthew’s strong campaign has expanded the map and I’m confident he can oust another do-nothing Democrat.”

In response, Foldi wrote on Twitter: “Leader McCarthy has spent his entire career getting Republicans across the country elected to stop the radical left. I look forward to working with him to take our country back.”

Foldi has yet to show any campaign finance information, so the size of his war chest won’t be clear until mid-July. But at the Free Beacon he was good at drawing attention to himself, and his first 30-second ad of the campaign, which began airing last week, was also provocative.

“Meet Matthew Foldi, conservative reporter and outsider,” a narrator says at the top of the ad. “When D.C. Democrats and Joe Biden tried to cover up their failures, he exposed them.”

“Like this,” Foldi says, with an open laptop showing an appearance he made on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the hit Fox News opinion show.

The ad also spotlights Foldi’s work spotlighting Trone’s decision to keep his district offices closed for extended periods of time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ll stop this madness and I’ll actually show up for work,” Foldi says.

The ad ends with several young people cheering Foldi on as he walks down a street.

Meanwhile, Del. Neil Parrott (R-Washington), the 2020 GOP nominee against Trone who is trying again this year, announced Tuesday that he has been endorsed by the Family Research Council PAC, the political arm of the evangelical activist group and think tank.

The PAC called Parrott “a staunch defender of life, family, and religious liberty.” It praised the lawmaker for pushing “for the right of chaplains and business owners alike to fulfill their duties according to their deeply held religious convictions without fear of government repercussion.”

Robin Opsahl of the Iowa Capital Dispatch contributed to this report.

Launched in 1967, Upward Bound is a federally funded program that is intended to provide students with the tools and support to get into college. The five-week residential program allows students to get the academic support they need and helps build skills with a variety of workshops.

Rod Wallace is the program director.          

The program works with 90 kids and provides academic support, career and college counseling, and helps break down barriers to achievement.

Wallace says 75-80% of his kids without a college graduate in their family enroll in college, which is nearly twice the statewide average.

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Pam Young, a member of the Chorus of Westerly and Chorus Music Librarian, follows a schematic diagram as she sets up chairs onstage for the performers, in preparation for The Chorus of Westerly’s 41st annual Summer Pops in Wilcox Park, Friday, June 17, 2022. | Tim Martin, The Westerly Sun

WYOMING — As a food distributor serving a large swath of the country, Gordon Food Service Inc. is closely involved with the pain points facing restaurants and food service operations.

Labor availability is one persistent challenge that has led to GFS’s recent partnership with Dexai Robotics.

The Boston-based company has developed a robotic system for commercial kitchens called Alfred, which consists of a flexible robotic arm surrounded by several receptacles for food ingredients, all controlled by a tablet and app. Users are able to program their own recipes into the system ingredient by ingredient.

Once installed, pressing a few buttons prompts Alfred to assemble a wide variety of food and dishes, from burritos, pasta, ramen and salads to Mediterranean power bowls or even topping a pizza. The robot cuts down on the dull and repetitive task of simply combining ingredients to create a dish.

“It’s changing what it means to work in a kitchen,” Dexai founder and CEO David Johnson told MiBiz during a recent visit to GFS’s headquarters in Wyoming, where he demonstrated Alfred for the campus’ entire staff. “Fifty years ago, a dishwasher wasn’t that common and now you think of it as an appliance you have to have. We see Alfred the robot as exactly in that same vein. It’s a new appliance, a new type of thing that will become just as commonplace as a dishwasher or a microwave.”

Dexai has deployed three Alfred robots out in the field to date. The first was installed at Travis Air Force Base in California, where it works in the cafeteria to create grab-and-go salads. 

Another Alfred robot was put to use at a corporate cafeteria, while the third helps with operations at a Mediterranean restaurant in Dexai’s home city of Boston.

BFFs with GFS

Now partnered through GFS’s corporate innovation arm Relish Works Inc., Dexai looks to grow by leveraging the food distributor’s mammoth network and resources.

“Knowing the clients and also understanding the client needs is a big part of why we like working with (GFS),” Johnson said. “And they’re also a very innovative company. They’re always looking to find the newest thing, the best in class, what’s out there and then reaching out and partnering so we can grow together. Gordon can then bring the product to their customers and show them that they’re innovating.”

Through the partnership, GFS representatives can point to Dexai’s robot as one of many solutions for restaurants and food services grappling with workforce shortages.

Right now, the Alfred robot works at roughly half the speed of a human, making it ideal for some environments, but not yet ready for the big leagues of fast food.

“One thing that we like, especially with our partnership with Gordon, is that we can work with different customers with different needs,” Johnson said. “We can roll it out, and have it start working in the back of the house, where it doesn’t have to be quite as fast. Then we put it in front of customers and it’s got to be faster, and then we go to fast food and that’s the fastest, most demanding environment.”

Down the road, Dexai looks to create comparable robots that take on other tasks, such as preparing beverages, frying and cooking in an oven.

Kitchen aids

Johnson said he expects — and welcomes — plenty of competition flooding into the market based on the workforce shortages in the food business. 

“I think that’s great,” he said. “What that means is operators are able to have a lot of choices and it shows the mindset is shifting. We’re really seeing that this is the right way for operators to address the challenges they’re having during the pandemic and post pandemic. I think we’re going to see a lot more digitization of the entire restaurant and food service.”

Relish Works is tasked with scouting out innovations in both food and food technology to help GFS forge and leverage partnerships.

Relish Works also operates the Food Foundry, an accelerator program that welcomes startups specializing in both food and food technology innovation.

The accelerator, which wrapped up its fourth cohort this spring, has hosted startups like EZ-Chow, which developed a multi-channel digital ordering and marketing platform for restaurants. That cohort also featured Forever Ware, which has created a system of reusable takeout containers and cups that customers borrow and return in order to provide trash-free takeout.

The most recent eight-company cohort focused on health, sustainability and social impact, including tenants like Confetti Fine Foods, a maker of vegetable and mushroom chips using rescued produce.

“Our role is to be out in the world finding best-in-class companies so that GFS can continue to innovate and be a leading distributor in North America,” said Tyler Booth, investment lead for Relish Works. 

“We found Dexai knowing that labor was an issue in restaurants even pre-pandemic. Labor was an issue two to five years before the pandemic. We really went out there and saw robotics are coming, so who is the best-in-class company that can really help our customers from independent food operators to regional chains? Dexai really rose to the top from that research and outreach.”

As part of growing together, Dexai will gain significant exposure through participating in GFS’s series of six food service shows this fall.

Through partnerships with companies like Dexai, GFS is able to effectively remain on the cutting-edge of food, even as a 125-year-old company, executives say.

“We’re seeing different points or hot zones in a restaurant’s four walls where innovation will happen but it will always happen in coordination with humans,” Booth said. “Humans will be the conductors of the robots, but all that creativity and emotional intelligence will still live in a human.” 

A 12-day shutdown on the Green Line’s B branch begins Monday, kicking off a series of MBTA maintenance projects this summer and fall that will take each of the four Green Line branches offline for extended periods of time.

The T will halt above-ground trolley service from the B Line’s endpoint at Boston College all the way to Kenmore, where riders will still be able to access downtown-bound trains, from Monday, June 20, through Friday, July 1. Shuttle buses will replace trips along the route at all stops except Warren Street, Allston Street and Packard’s Corner.

During that time, crews plan to replace 3,000 feet of track, replace segments of special trackwork, and upgrade the Fordham Road pedestrian crossing and the Linden Street intersection. MBTA officials said the shutdown will accomplish work that would have taken six months of weekend-only closures.

Workers will also install equipment for the Green Line Train Protection System, an automated anti-collision technology. Federal officials first recommended more than a decade ago that the agency deploy that system on the Green Line, but the MBTA still has not completed the project. T leaders moved the timeline up by a year last summer after a crash on the B branch that injured more than two dozen people, and now expect the protection system to be online by 2023.

The MBTA, which faces new orders from the Federal Transit Administration to make immediate changes to address glaring safety issues, also plans to halt train service and run shuttle buses instead on the above-ground segments of the three other Green Line branches.

The C branch will go offline from July 11 to July 22; the E branch will close from Copley to Heath Street between Aug. 6 and Aug. 21; and the D Branch will shutter for three different nine-day bursts: Sept. 24 to Oct. 2, Oct. 8 to Oct. 16, and Oct. 22 to Oct. 30.

The curmudgeonly but charming female lead is a tough niche to fill, but Hannah Einbinder has it covered. After spending years shopping her deadpan absurdist standup around Los Angeles, Einbinder landed the lead role in HBO Max’s Hacks—a dark comedy that propelled the 27-year-old L.A. native from cult figure in the local comedy circuit to bi icon splashed across every other billboard on Sunset Boulevard. On Hacks, Einbinder plays Ava, an upstart TV writer who falls from grace after an untoward tweet. The mishap leaves her an industry pariah, and she’s banished to Las Vegas to write stale jokes for an aging comedian (Jean Smart). But Ava’s career nihilism is no match for her own ego—a combination which makes Einbinder’s ability to endear audiences to her prickly character all the more remarkable. In fact, some of that nihilism may be Einbinder’s own. Here, the actor and comedian dropped by the home of her friend Reggie Watts for a chat about the end of days, AI’s imminent takeover, and the problem with pool parties.

———

REGGIE WATTS: So, what do you think the future of media is, for TV shows and movies?

HANNAH EINBINDER: Well, I hope that storytelling lives on, but so much of what reality television has done to media is put the storytelling, quote unquote, in the hands of truly anyone who can record themselves or who’s just kind of aimlessly living. And I think with YouTubers and bloggers and this generation sort of staying in that zone in terms of what they consume—I mean, kids of a certain age really don’t watch TV, from what I can tell.

WATTS: No, for sure not.

EINBINDER: They’re online, they’re on TikTok, they’re-

WATTS: They’re working. That’s what it feels like.

EINBINDER: Completely, yeah. But I think that signals to me that it’s just going to be bite-sized, very little narrative. I truly think the end of the road is people watching a video of someone sleeping. Like, cut to the Emmy’s 2055, and Best Drama is just someone sleeping. It’s really, I think, heading to a crazy bizarre place. But here’s the concrete idea: Life itself is such a nightmare. The reality of life in our country is so unbearable for kids who know no normalcy whatsoever. For this group of kids who are coming up at a time where there is just death all around them, media will be sort of ASMR. They will watch people living life in a calm and peaceful way, making their meals, cutting fruit, taking a shower, walking a dog, doing simple things, and will get pleasure from experiencing a caricature of human life that is not achievable.

WATTS: If it actually ends up happening exactly like that, and there is no other form of storytelling, that would be kind of dire—but possibly not dire as well. Possibly just what it is.

EINBINDER: It is what it is, and it will be what it is, if that is what it is—really there’s no cleaner way to say that. But I do believe that if that is how it ends up, then it is out of necessity.

WATTS: Yeah. In Idiocracy the highest grossing movie was called Ass, and it was just a shot of a man’s naked ass for two hours straight.

EINBINDER: Absolutely. That’s 2022, we’re there. In fact, that’s 2018.

WATTS: But at the same time, we do have these incredible TV shows and movies. And also AI is making such progress that it can possibly start to generate films. 

EINBINDER: And with that comes the conversation of, who gets to make movies? Is AI included in the community? Is that work valid? Can it compete against human work? And that whole conversation obviously extends beyond movies. But we see it so much right now in the media and culture and art and cinema. Like in Her—we’re already starting to examine it. What constitutes life? Does it have anything to do with our current political divisions?

WATTS: I don’t know. My hope is that AI progresses far beyond the trivial idiocy of human beings—the things that we get hung up on, all the categorizations and whatever fragmented fences and barriers we put up to delineate each other. Those things are so stupid and just so truly unnecessary and easy to avoid. The correct answers to how to create a better world, to create a better quality of life for as many human beings as possible, are all there. The information is there, all the solutions exist. But it’s all just in the hands of a few assholes that have resources and have access to things that can determine who lives or dies.

EINBINDER: It’s so simple.

WATTS: Super simple. At the same time, progress is undeniable. I think there will be a time when we’ll have an unlimited source of generating energy. Then every country will be able to produce its own.

EINBINDER: And surely the men on top will find a way to make that a war.

WATTS: They’ll try, but at a certain point, I think people are just going to get tired of it and be like, “I’m kind of done with this.” You know what I mean? Because it’s outdated. It doesn’t work anymore. It’s not interesting. It’s the same thing with Generation Z or Generation Alpha and what they’re interested in, what is important to them, like issues of gender, binaries, and how the world is built around that, what it means. It’s that generation’s way of creating counterculture, on one hand. It’s a true, interesting topic for human beings to talk about for sure, the traditionalism of binary systems and the way that applies to gender, to the way that people are treated, and the way that one identifies themselves through that lens or that spectrum. So it’s a conversation, but it’s also a counterculture movement. It’s a movement that delineates itself differently than an older generation. It’s a way that a generation is seeing itself and asking questions. For my generation, Gen X, the counterculture was to be, like, punk rock. It was being contrarian and doing seemingly violent things—things that had the appearance of violence and the energy of violence, but weren’t actually violent.

EINBINDER: I saw a meme that I loved so much, it said, “Hippies are bad people pretending to be good, and punks are good people pretending to be bad.” Isn’t that so funny?

WATTS: Oh my gosh. That’s so true. I know some mean hippies.

EINBINDER: I mean, the word “hippie” in LA is so hard to even conceptualize because it’s like, does that mean “new age”? Does that mean it’s rooted in, like, a wellness practice? 

WATTS: Is it just kind of crusty living?

EINBINDER: Yeah. And that’s something that I don’t even ascribe to L.A. really. It’s more Portland, Vermont.

WATTS: Right, yeah. But what’s interesting about all of that is I think we’re all trying to find our way back to ourselves. Our world makes it seem as though everything is so compartmentalized. We have different eye color. We have different hair color. We have different aesthetic tastes. We drive different vehicles. Just think of whatever makes a person who they are—the attributes of where they were born, how they were raised, what they had access to, and so on. All that makes an individual feel different from those around them. But at the end of the day, everyone just wants to have a good time. In general, we all just want to feel safe and secure and to solve problems. I think people really love helping—they love having a place in the world and being useful. 

EINBINDER: Yeah, completely.

WATTS: So we get a better understanding of who we are as beings by asking questions like, “Where are we going? What do we mean to each other? What am I doing when I’m working all the time for these numbers that appear in a bank account that I never actually see?”

EINBINDER: That don’t exist.

WATTS: That don’t exist! And I get it, I understand how it works. But is that the best we get to be? Is that it? Did we pinnacle?

EINBINDER: I think we’ve reached a breaking point where counterculture today centers around asking the question, “What do the most basic, internalized ideas about human society even mean?” The answer is, “Nothing.” Everything is meaningless, including the oldest fucking ideas about what man is and what woman is. It’s over. That is the beginning of blowing the lid off the whole fucking thing.

WATTS: Yeah, I hope so. It’s an opportunity for us to evolve beyond the petty—stirring up controversy on purpose to keep people occupied, and all that. That’s just a misuse of gifts and powers and opportunity.

EINBINDER: I feel like I’m most aware of this when I’m on a walk and I pass someone and hear a snippet of their conversation. Hearing that random person makes me feel like a random person.

WATTS: Right.

EINBINDER: Everyone is just some guy. Period. Guess what? If you’re reading this, your dad—sorry, baby—is just some guy. You are some random fucking guy. I am some random fucking guy. And that is so freeing.

WATTS: It is freeing. It enables you to walk up to strangers and just immediately comment on something as though we’ve known each other a long time. I love that. It’s not a huge effort to talk to someone as though they’re your friend. It’s like we’re all one being, and you can access that if you hit it at the right angle.

EINBINDER: Absolutely. And what you’re talking about is such a beautiful way to shake someone awake, because it can be jarring. Sometimes they’re a person who’s kind of resistant to that familiarity so they’re awkwardly laughing it off or whatever. But when you keep going and you look them in the eyes and they join you, it really is like shaking someone awake.

WATTS: It’s the most rewarding feeling in the world, isn’t it? When you do have that moment. And obviously some of us are more able  to do that than others. I love going into a party where no one’s dancing and then I start dancing with my friends, we start having a good time, and suddenly everybody’s on the dance floor. It’s like, “I want more people to be dancing and having fun, so let’s just make a reality.”

EINBINDER: The party analogy is so incredible, and specifically a pool party, right? Pool parties when you’re 12, yeah everybody’s in the pool. Pool parties now, it’s like, “Why is there a pool here? No one is in the pool. No one is going to go in the pool.” 

WATTS: The American prudishness.

EINBINDER: Oh my god. Correct.

WATTS: We pretend, “Oh yeah, we’re so hot.” But only if you’re ultra-hot do you have no fears. So anything less than that ideal is like, “I’m a work in progress”

EINBINDER: Right. Because in America, real bodies are so not normal whatsoever.

WATTS: Oh no. Forbidden.

EINBINDER: Yeah, like a “no diving” sign. “Normal bodies forbidden.”

WATTS: Totally. “Elite bodies only.”

EINBINDER: Because America revolves around the entertainment industry and celebrities are expected to be stunning and beautiful and perfect. We are all shamed when we are not that.

WATTS: But now that’s changing. 

EINBINDER: And that rocks! Look, there’s a girl with cystic acne on billboards all over this city, and it’s me! But yeah, when somebody gets in the pool at a party, it just elevates things. I remember being at this party at the Roosevelt with two of my little sisters and they were the only ones getting in the pool because it was this Hollywood shindig and everybody was so cool. But they got in the pool so then I was like, “I’m going to get in the pool, too.” And I did, and then other people started getting in the pool and the party became—

WATTS: A fucking party.

EINBINDER: A fucking party! People’s guards went down and it went from shitty Hollywood pretentious bullshit to handstand competitions, and it was fun. Getting in the pool at parties is totally counterculture.

WATTS: Oh yeah. Actually taking advantage of the thing that generally is only a symbolic attractor. It’s almost like the pool party is more of a conceptual idea.

EINBINDER: “It will be stunning to look at the pool at this party.”

WATTS: “It is a pool party because there is a pool.”

EINBINDER: “The pool’s coming.”

WATTS: “It’s the idea of a pool and a party.”

EINBINDER: “The pool determines the attire for the party.”

WATTS: In general, when there’s a dance floor or there’s a pool and they’ve set up this stuff for people to interact with, it needs to be activated. As you say, it changes the dynamics. And then everyone’s like, “What a blast. We weren’t obsessing over our insecurities, or masking them with our various strategies. Instead, we just embraced the situation.

EINBINDER: And you transition from being an individual to being part of a whole. Anxiety is real, I have it and I understand it. Part of the work that I am to combat is it reminding myself of this idea that we are all part of one thing. Even just knowing that you can say something to the person in the elevator—why does it have to be so fucking quiet? 

WATTS: Totally. There’s a lot that’s coming to a head, culturally right now, and the only antidote I see is to live like the world is the place you dream it to be—storytelling is a huge part of that. All of these categorizations—Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, whatever—need to go away, because they’re not useful tools anymore, they don’t solve a problem anymore. So now they’re no longer tools, they’re just things that perpetuate problems. So we need to go beyond that language and way of thinking and say, “How can I connect with you as a human being?” If people immediately approach each other just as a person, it’s amazing. By the way, are we still recording this? We are, oh my god.

EINBINDER: We’re still rocking and rolling. Just an author’s note: When we moved to the kitchen, shit really started to fly.

WATTS: Yeah. Kitchen talk: good. Couch talk: okay.  Not totally us. This is us.

EINBINDER: This is us.

WATTS: A great show.

EINBINDER: On ABC. Eight, seven central…I actually don’t even know if it’s on ABC.

WATTS: What if this whole thing just turns out to be us trying  to convince people to watch that show. [Both laugh]

EINBINDER: Please entitle this interview, “Reggie Watts and Hannah Einbinder Want You to Watch This Is Us.”

WAKE FOREST, N.C. — Eye fixation exercises are a technique Marissa Santiago teaches her students who are prepping for college admission exams. 

 

What You Need To Know 

• Marissa Santiago is the regional director at the Sylvan Learning Center

• The SAT and ACT exams help determine college admissions and award merit-based scholarships 

• Both the SAT and ACT are timed, standardized tests for post-secondary education

 

“It’s going to help you increase your effective reading rate, increase the speed in which you read and help you locate key information on the SAT and ACT,” Santiago said. 

Santiago is the regional director for the Sylvan Learning Center. She specializes in research education, and part of her job is to help provide students with strategies to succeed on standardized tests and reduce testing anxiety. 

“Learning how the brain works, the best way to teach students. We work with K-12 students. This has given me the opportunity to apply that and show parents, coordinate with parents, what strategies work best since it’s not that one size fits all approach,” Santiago said. 

While some colleges and universities are steering away from requiring standardized tests for admissions, there are some schools that still require an SAT or ACT score for admission. 

The SAT and ACT determine a students readiness for college and are used to make admission decisions and award merit-based scholarships. 

Both exams are timed and include topics in reading, math, writing and language. The ACT also tests students on science reasoning. While one test is no more difficult than another, Santiago says deciding which exam is best for a student comes down to their individual goals. 

Santiago says the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted students’ testing scores. 

“A lot of the times, coming out of COVID, students are placing lower on entry level math courses and reading strategies. Also, since that was the time for virtual, it’s a huge indicator that learning for some students didn’t start until they got back into the classroom,” Santiago said. 

Santiago says at the Sylvan Learning Center she teaches her students who are coming in for ACT or SAT prep specific strategies to improve their time management on the exam. 

“Students who typically complete this program double and triple their effective reading rates,” Santiago said. 

Jedidja Andovie began seeking homework help at the Sylvan Learning Center in Wake Forest when he was in eighth grade. Andovie is now a 2022 high school graduate and preparing to begin his first year at Wake Tech. 

“In my case, even though I wasn’t very studious, I was still able to pick up on life changing lessons and skills that I use on a daily basis, and as I learned those things and got better, the motivation came and now I would say I’m a better student,” Andovie said. 

Santiago says for students who struggle with testing anxiety, it’s important to know the resources that are out there to build a tool box on test day. 

“I think a lot of the time parents and students don’t know the resources they have and how they can work ahead and focus on their interests in the school system, so it’s really important to advocate and learn those things while you are in school,” Santiago said. 

While the SAT and ACT play a role on college applications, it’s not the only factor to determine a student’s admission. Some tips Santiago suggests is to make sure students focus on having a well-rounded application, which includes managing a high GPA, getting involved in extracurricular activities at school and participating in volunteer opportunities outside of the classroom. 

A local group is helping students continue education through generous donations presented at a ceremony this weekend.

Butler Elks is hosting an Awards Day on Sunday at Elks Lodge #170.  This year the Elks will be awarding 23 local Butler County high school seniors with a $1,000 scholarship each for a total of $23,000 which is the highest amount of scholarship awards they’ve ever given.

In addition to the scholarships, the Elks is partnering with Butler County Veterans in Need program and will be providing needy veterans with home goods such as utensils, dishes, pots/pans, blankets, sheets & things they need for their homes. BC Vets In Need will provide needy vets with furniture.

The Elks will also be awarding Butler Health System with a Certificate of Honor for “Properly Flying the American Flag”.

The Western PA Chapter of Folds of Honor and several Elks dignitaries will be in attendance and there will be a high school Color Guard performance as well.