Dams - Don’t Take them for Granite

The Army Corps of Engineers is farther along than you may think in breaching or removing the dams on the Lower Snake River, such as Lower Granite Dam and the other dams on the Snake River. They have already completed a study on the feasibility of the Lower Snake dams. The 2010, Lower Snake River Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report described how the Lower Snake River dams could be breached if it was determined that the benefits of breaching outweighed the negative effects dams have on the environment. For the Corps to consider dam breaching as an option, some species of endangered salmon need to drop below a certain benchmark number. But, dam breaching is not the first option. Dam breaching is the option only if the other options do not work. The first option is “adaptive migration” which is major improvements to fish passage at the dams, which has happened at two of the dams, or maximum transport of juvenile salmon. The purpose of this blog post is to explain how the dams would be breached if that option were selected.

To breach the dams on the Lower Snake, they would remove the earthen section of the dam and leave the concrete section. All the dams on the Lower Snake have an earthen section. To remove the earthen section the Corps would lower the reservoir levels and then slowly work to remove the earthen section until the water level is below the level of the cofferdam. The cofferdams were built to divert the water during the construction of the dams, and they are still there. They would then finish removing the earthen section and breach the cofferdam. They would then remove the rest of the cofferdam. They would keep the concrete in place, in case they decide to build the dam again, and to save money. The picture shows how the dam would look after they remove the earthen section.

Overall, I think that dam breaching is a good option. This publication provides a wealth of information on what needs to be done to remove the dams and how they would go about removing them. The cost of removing the dams would be $19.8 million for removing all four dams.  There are many benefits to removing the dams, such as there will be higher salmon returns and the ecosystem will rebound. So, the breaching of the four Lower Snake Dams is the right thing to do to protect the salmon runs and help restore the Snake River ecosystem.

~Patrick

CTE: The NFL’s Headache

So, as promised, I’ve done some more research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, (I can pronounce it now!), or CTE, and concussions in general, and I think I have a more accurate mental picture of the head trauma issue in football.

Before I begin, I must say that there is one huge obfuscating factor in the whole business - the topic of long-term brain damage in football is a very political one. (This was my big takeaway from Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru’s League of Denial.) On one hand, there are the giant professional leagues, collegiate leagues, all associated networks, etc., standing to lose mounds of money. On the other hand, there are opportunistic scientists and investigative media – mostly the latter - looking to capitalize on the concussion media craze.

So what is CTE? CTE is a long-term degenerative brain disease that affects cognition, mood and behavior, and progresses toward dementia. It was first known as dementia pugilistica, because it had only been observed in boxers. Later, when it became clear that the condition was present in individuals outside of the boxing community, the term “chronic traumatic encephalopathy” was adopted. In addition to boxers, CTE has been found in football players, hockey players and professional wrestlers.

Although the direct linkage between traumatic brain injury and CTE has not been discovered, everyone who has been diagnosed with CTE has had a history of repetitive head trauma. Fortunately for people with a history of concussions or who play contact sports, CTE is not present in all with a history of repetitive head trauma. People with CTE also usually have been exposed to repetitive head trauma for a long period of time, so it is very rare to find the disease in high school or college athletes*.

NFL players, who may play football for up to a quarter century, are at a much higher risk. However, since diagnosis requires special testing of the brain of a deceased person (which requires consent of the player or immediate family), fewer than a hundred former NFL players have been tested, and most of them were already expected to have CTE. Consequently, the incidence of CTE in NFL players is unknown. Many NFL players appear to be – and likely are – CTE-free.

Though CTE is in many ways similar to Alzheimer disease, it usually affects its victims much earlier. The symptoms of CTE typically set in during a person’s forties or fifties. In the early symptomatic stages of CTE, a person will begin to have problems with short-term memory, impulsive behavior, depression, and apathy, among other symptoms. As time goes on, symptoms will gradually progress to the point where the affected individual is prone to violent outbursts, has difficulty with executive function (planning, multitasking, using judgment), and everyday tasks such as finding the grocery store, expressing complete thoughts, and walking. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors, as well as drug abuse, are also relatively common. These later symptoms tend to severely inhibit the ability to function normally in social and occupational settings. Prominent players who have tested positive for CTE include Junior Seau, Mike Webster and Dave Duerson. Seau and Duerson both committed suicide.

I could probably bore you with some more details, but these are the essentials of what I’ve learned about CTE. I wish I could tell you everything I’ve learned, not only about CTE, but also about concussions, second impact syndrome, and traumatic brain injury… Oh wait, I can! Come to my presentation, eh?

*This is because of the shorter length of amateur athletes’ careers, not because brain injuries have a lesser effect on younger people. Research indicates that younger people are more prone than older people to traumatic brain injury.

~Jared

Another Kind of High School Remodel

The final goal for my ELI originally had to do with something like “the sociological/psychological and cultural aspects of progressive schools,” a pretty vague topic that would probably have been difficult to research, especially by as big a procrastinator as I’ve been this semester. I created those initial goals with the facts in mind that 1) several people had suggested I apply my research on progressive education to designing my own method or classroom, and 2) I was way too intimidated to try to do that. But as I moved forward in my research, I started to realize that with everything I was finding (and not finding) about my topic, a description of my own idea of the ideal classroom would be the perfect way to finish off this project, although that doesn’t mean I’m any less intimidated now.

I’m a little behind in terms of actually starting to work on this design, but as preparation I’ve been thinking about the goals that have been set forth by different educators I’ve talked to, read, and researched this semester, and that would need to be included in any progressive classroom. They are, essentially:
-To respect each student as an individual

-To ensure that learning is lifelong and goes beyond the classroom

-To encourage original thinking and creativity

-To give equal focus to the arts and the sciences

-To maintain an equal relationship between teachers and students, and

-To give each person a voice in his or her own learning.

These goals are pretty much summed up in my personal definition of progressive education, which I have ready now, after keeping everyone in suspense for it with my last blog entry: “Progressive education is a movement that aims to determine the most effective way to educate an individual while maintaining individuality and creativity, and to ensure that learning is not confined to the classroom.”

So, hopefully sooner rather than later, I’ll be remodeling the school in a very different way from what we’ve all been putting up with this year. I won’t be using any hammers or saws, but I might end up taking my time on this. (One thing I already know for sure is that my ideal school will have bathrooms.)

~Clare

Why Tame the Beast?

I know what a lot of people are thinking when they read the title of this ELI and my previous blog post. “Well, Kristina, I get that you like horses and all, but what does it benefit?” What a lot of people don’t really realize is that training a horse is very similar to raising a very weird, very large child. The way the trainer acts and reacts to the horse’s behavior directly affects the horse’s mental state and attitude toward humans in general.

I know, it sounds really confusing. “Wow Kristina, I’m sure that a horse can’t pick up on all of that. It’s just an animal!” Well, reader, you are right, they are animals. But have you ever watched those shows where those “animal cops” go and rescue the poor, abused animals from scarring and neglectful situations? Well, those animals have to recuperate mentally and physically from the abuse that they suffered, which is why they go through training and obedience and are really never quite the same afterwards.

If you think about it, it’s really the same with people, and especially kids. Kids, when put in scarring and neglectful situations, react the same way as animals. They are scared of the abuser and likenesses of the abuser, and they are overall unsure. (Mady’s ELI is a better source of this kind of stuff.) Children and adults must go to counseling for something like that, right? And so do animals.

That’s why this style of training is so important. It is also a type of therapy for abused and neglected horses. Natural horsemanship is a trust-building method that allows the horse to not be afraid of humans, but see us as a handicapped, bald lead horse. And that is also what is so cool about this style; you get to see distrusting horses terrified of human touch transform into these cuddly little cuties that follow anyone around and will risk their lives to protect anyone that gets in the way of their human. And honestly, that’s pretty cool.

So what I am trying to get at here is this program isn’t just a training process to better your horse, but a type of confidence- and trust-building journey for the horse, kind of like therapy.

~Kristina

OCD: Have You Ever Had Strep Throat?

Winter is beginning to take hold, and strep throat is being spread around like holiday cheer. Sudden fevers, chills, sore throats, and a loss of appetite are all symptoms frequently associated with strep throat. But what about the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder as a result of strep throat?

The concept of strep throat causing OCD symptoms is actually not as silly as it sounds. In recent studies, a type of bacteria, Group A beta-hemolytic streptococci, has been linked to the onset and worsening of OCD symptoms. This same bacteria is the cause of streptococcal infection, which often takes the form of strep throat. It is believed that the antibodies in the person’s blood react with basal ganglia structures as a result of the infection. This is the very same basal ganglia network known as the “OCD circuit” due to its associations with OCD symptoms. The infection can worsen or even begin the symptoms of OCD; when the body is fighting off the infection, it can potentially confuse healthy cells with the bacteria and cause damage to itself. These attacks are sometimes directed to the nerve cells in the basal ganglia. As a result of the damage in the basal ganglia, individuals without OCD may begin to experience symptoms while those with OCD may have their behaviors exacerbated. Symptoms will usually manifest within one to two weeks.

What does this mean for the readers out there who suddenly feels a lump in their throat? Probably not much. While cases have been documented by researchers, these cases are exceedingly rare. If OCD symptoms do occur, there has been some research collected that states the symptoms may not exist for very long and will eventually subside and disappear.

~Wilson

The Book That Became Nell’s Life ~ The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

There is not a single chapter in this book, written by Thomas Kuhn, that hasn’t been of the utmost importance to my first goal. This book has practically become my first goal, besides a few articles, two of which being interpretations of this book. It really holds all the basic tools to analyzing historical events, in the field of science anyway. Through my reflections of each chapter, I have been able to summarize and make sense of this intensive and knowledge rich text and taken away from it the ability to recognize the causes of and events leading to a paradigm shift, or revolution, as well as learned the importance or cultural influence and the relevance of the period in time of the discovery. I mean quite literally that I spent months analyzing  this book.

This is the Khun cycle below, and it basically summarizes how history changes over time.

I think it’s pretty fascinating that Kuhn found a way to summarize history in a six step loop. I know that everyone who is reading this wants me to explain it, but hold your horses! I need an audience at my ELI presentation, and if I reveal too much here, you might just assume you know enough to analyze science history  without hearing my talk, and I would be sad.

This isn’t the only tool I have acquired. Analyzing this book has also allowed me to come up with some rules to keep me in check.

My Rules

1. Study in cultural context
2. Study in context of time period
3. Look for the cycle

These rules might not make total sense out of context, but they can be very useful to someone looking through historical documentation. Briefly, the first rule suggests that it is possible that culture may have influenced a scientist to study something, try something, or even think of something that led to a discovery or experiment. The second would ask the historian to consider the values of a time, the politics of a time, and any other major events. Finally, a third rule is to always look for the cycle, as illustrated above   Another rule, that I don’t have listed because it didn’t actually come from Kuhn, is to look for signs of “bad” science and “good” science.

So, this is a brief description of what I got in return for selling hours of my life to Thomas Kuhn’s book. A hard read perhaps, but chock full of the fundamentals of science history. I must conclude that the deal was a bargain.  

~Nell

Keeping Score: The Judging Process

Since my last blog post, I finally took and passed my judging certification test. This means that I am technically now able to judge all compulsory USA Gymnastics levels. Although, I have the knowledge to judge, I am lacking practical experience. Gaining this experience is the final part of my ELI.

The day after taking the test, I had the opportunity to shadow-judge at a small intersquad meet. Doing this allowed me to talk with and get insight from other judges and to put my knowledge to the test. I was happily surprised with the result! While judging, it was not hard to recall the deductions, and my scores were within range (with the scores of the judges) most of the time. I found beam and floor easiest to evaluate. My scores were pretty good on bars but I was not able to write the deductions and the symbols simultaneously, and I really struggled to judge vault simply because it goes so fast.

The experience of jumping right into judging was great, but what I learned from just talking with the judges was also invaluable. When judging you write the symbols for the skills performed and deductions underneath. The purpose of writing the symbols is to ensure that the athlete met the requirements, and also to have some record of the where mistakes occurred. Since efficiency is so important in judging, the other judges gave me some tips for writing deductions such as writing a + for a 0.05 deductions and using a T for “text” errors (errors in choreography). Once the routine is over the judge then adds up all of the deductions and subtracts that number from the starting value. The starting value is the perfect score gymnasts can receive for the skills they perform. A perfect starting value is a 10.0, but if athletes do not meet the requirements of their level they will have a lower starting value.

After the judges calculate their scores, the scores are averaged. To do this the outliers (high and low scores) are dropped, the two middle scores (in the case of a four judge panel) are averaged, and the score range is checked. The score range is the acceptable discrepancy between the two scores. For example, it is not acceptable for one judge to give a routine a 9.5 and one judge to give the same routine an 8.0. To resolve any score range issues judges discuss any major errors, such as falls or missing elements and adjust their scores accordingly. Once the score is averaged and the range has been checked, the score is flashed and it is on to the next routine!

~Rachel

Make Your Money Work for You

My father has told me ever since I was a little girl that the best way to make money is to invest what I have into making more of a profit. It’s a simple loop that shows gratifying results.  I’ve always had a mindset to save what I had for a rainy day, and when I started making enough to grow my savings account, I realized my money was just sitting there and doing me no good.

Perhaps the biggest motivation for investing is that in some cases it’s low maintenance and allows you to not have to work for the entirety of your income. You can either work and be a slave to your money or have your assets work for you. For example, with my current practice of putting money into my savings account, I’m basically never going to have more money than what I put away. But if I take that money, and put it into a safe investment of my choice, it’s just like having it untouched in a saving account, but this route allows it to slowly but surely grow.

By investing money, you are getting your money to generate more money by earning interest on what you put away, receiving dividends or by buying and selling assets that increase in value. The method you choose doesn’t really matter. If you decide that you like investing, you can take higher risk and maybe make greater amounts of money in a short amount of time. However, if you simply want to make a little bit of a profit off of what you’re already making, you can take safer routes and put your money into something less volatile that almost guarantees that you won’t lose out, but still gain a little bit of money along the way.

There’s a never ending list of different types of investments to choose from and they all reap different benefits. No matter what you chose, the overall goal for an outcome remains the same: generate more assets for yourself for the future. As they say, "Money isn't everything, but happiness alone can't keep out the rain." Whether your end goal is to live in a mansion, or put money away for a rainy day, investing is an essential tool that everyone should take advantage of.

~Hannah V.

Practice and Performance -- More Than Just a Musician’s Worry

Since I have entered into the exciting but hectic world of high school, I’ve found myself chronically short on adequate violin practice time. I realized before the semester started that a full hour or two of relaxed practice probably wouldn’t be a frequent reality for me in the next couple of years. I knew that it was now important for me to develop efficient practice techniques that can help me get the greatest gain from smaller time investments. Making music myself makes me happy, but an even greater source of happiness for me is sharing music with others, so I decided to not only study how to practice but also how to perform. Though my semester has been spent with violin as the clear focus, the information I have learned about practice and performance are applicable to nearly any musician, athlete, or student.

One of the first things I learned in my research of practice was the argument about what played a greater role in success, hard work or innate talent. After sifting through quite a bit of research from either side, I came to the conclusion that success is reached through a balance of the two. This balance is encouraging to the hard workers and motivating to the innately talented, in any activity, from music to athletics. Once I had established this, I moved on to discover what kind of practice would best lead to my growth as a violinist. The first skill I learned was to mix old and new material in practice. For example, I might play a piece I have already perfected and performed, and in the same practice session work on new music. Another useful practice tip I have learned is to avoid the trap of “mindless practice.” This can include repeating the same task again and again or playing carelessly through the piece. As a wise music teacher once told his student, “Practice with your fingers, and you need all day. Practice with your mind, and you can do as much in 1.5 hours.” Finally, I have learned that performance itself - playing under pressure - is a very valuable form of practice. These are the most useful pieces of advice that I discovered in my study of practice, and ones I have tried to utilize. But while I apply them to music, many of these tips were given as advice to anyone trying to perfect any skill, be it violin, piano, soccer, volleyball, vocabulary words or writing. The (nearly) “perfect practice session” is invaluable not only for myself as a developing violinist, but for athletes and students striving for success.

Much more daunting to me, at least, than hours of practice is the idea of performing. I set a goal to perform all the pieces I’d learned and practiced at the end of the semester, and as that date approaches, and I reflect on past performances, I realize that this time something has to be different. In the dozens of small and large recitals I have played in, I can count on one hand the number I came away from happy with my performance, and confident in my skills. My sensitive musical ear is something I consider more of a strength than a weakness, except when it comes to performance. In a recital, it is as if that sensitivity is multiplied by ten, and suddenly every flaw, nonexistent or trivial as it may be, becomes a humiliating mistake and a failure to perform up to my practice standards. As an athlete and student myself, I am sure that many people who practice and then perform any skill (in a game, or on a test, for example) have experienced a similar feeling.

I have completed some research on the topic of performance psychology and have discovered a few helpful strategies and tips. One of the most interesting has come from Noa Kageyama, a PhD and author of The Bulletproof Musician blog. Kageyama suggests that our self-talk largely determines how we do in and feel about our performance. The subconscious is always listening, and it does not filter through positive and negative self talk. In the end, it will start believing what it hears most often to be true. So, if you constantly tell yourself you’ll never get a passage right, or that something is too hard for you, that is exactly what your subconscious will believe, despite the facts indicating otherwise. Another strategy I have considered is identifying my purpose in performing. If your next performance is a large test in school, you might decide why you want to do well. Whether it is for a good grade in your class or so you can qualify for a scholarship, do it for the right reasons for you. In my case, performing music is about giving.

I have come to realize that in my life, music brings relatively small personal satisfaction. Practice is hard and often frustrating; my instrument doesn’t always do what i want it to; and the whole process is time consuming. So why do keep going? I keep going for all of the times  another person's music has changed my life and touched my heart, in the hopes that one day I can share that with someone else. I keep going for the few times that I feel I have done just that...when music comes from me and goes right to the soul of someone else, and transforms us both. With this mission in mind, and after deliberate and diligent practice, my performances can be more fun and more successful than before.

~Emma E. C.

The Amazing Drop Ball

I have looked in depth at several different softball pitches this semester. The pitch that I have enjoyed learning the most was the drop ball. I love how it feels when I throw it successfully and the end results of it are beneficial.

The drop ball is a breaking pitch, usually learned by intermediate pitchers as one of their first pitches after the change up. Its purpose is like the names says; it drops. This means that it looks like it is going to be a fastball and then starts to move, or break, down. It is a good pitch to throw for a pitch because it is hard to track with the eyes and so is harder to hit. Another benefit is when it is hit, it usually results in a ground ball and the batter can be thrown out.

There are many different ways to throw the drop ball. I have only focused on one because it works for me and that’s important when pitching. Nobody is the same and everyone has different techniques, so something that works for one person might not work for somebody else. The mechanics I use are more difficult than some ways of throwing it but are not too complex. A down spin is needed so that the ball will break, and I achieve that by rolling my hand over the ball and releasing while doing so. The follow through is down and out. Many coaches teach that a pitcher lands with more weight on her front leg to create an angle facing down so the ball will break that way, but I can achieve the drop without this, so I have not adopted this technique.

The drop ball can be one of the most dangerous pitches on the arm if done incorrectly and can hurt the elbow and shoulder. To avoid that I just have to make sure I am only turning the ball over with my wrist and not my shoulder. I have not had any problems with this yet, and if I continue using the mechanics I have been, I should be okay.

The drop ball is one of my favorite pitches. I love how it moves and has so different results with only a minimal change to my pitch.  Just like any pitch I have ever learned how to throw, if I do it right I get this euphoric feeling and that makes me feel really good about myself like I have achieved something. I think my catchers hate the pitch because it is hard to track and catch, but they are still willing come to practice, so I do not think they hate it that much.

I love the drop ball and am kind of proud of myself for having learned it so quickly this semester. There is still work needed on it, and I can not wait to keep improving. This softball season I will have one more pitch I can use to strike people out.

~Leah T. D.

We Will Go There

Mayan mythology says that we have had four different suns. Each one has been a god who was chosen to climb into the sky, and each one has been destroyed by the fighting of the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca (gods of the evening star and shadows, respectively). Our sun, the fifth, will follow the same path and eventually be knocked out of the sky in a destructive battle. Today, we know our sun is not in danger of ever being knocked out of the sky by anyone or anything, but the Mayans did get one thing right; the sun will eventually die and it will take our world with it.

Over the next five billion years, the sun will slowly turn its remaining hydrogen into helium. When it runs out, it will becomes a red giant and eventually a white dwarf. First, fusion in the core will stop and gravity will start to compress the core of helium and a surrounding shell of hydrogen until the hydrogen gains enough thermal energy to reignite. The shell will actually fuse at a higher rate than the core did, so it will create a pressure buildup that will push out the surface of the sun. For around a billion years, the sun will continue to grow in size and luminosity, while the core and the hydrogen shell will continue to be compressed and heated until the previously inert helium core gains enough thermal energy to ignite. The sun will release a huge amount of energy in what is called a helium flash and the core will expand with the new thermal energy. The sun will actually contract after this as fusion rates stabilize. Though, as it uses up its helium, the sun will start to go through thermal pulses because helium fusion is not as stable as hydrogen fusion. When all the helium in the core has been fused to carbon, the core will start to condense, and a shell of helium fusion will drive the surface back out, just as it did with the hydrogen shell, except this time the sun will expand to a much larger size. Once the helium and hydrogen in the shells are used up, the sun will begin to collapse again. The carbon core will heat up, but degeneracy pressure (the repulsion of electrons) will stop it before it gets to the 600 million Kelvin that is needed to start carbon fusion. In this last stage, the sun's gravitational pull on its outer layers is weak enough that most of them will be carried away by solar winds to form a solar nebula. The leftover core of carbon will become a white dwarf at the center and spend the rest of eternity there radiating away all of its remaining thermal energy.

This is a process that can destroy the earth several times over.  The sun will increase in luminosity near the end of its life and that combined with the greenhouse effect will bake the earth; the temperature will  rise to 1000 K as the sun expands into a red giant. Then powerful solar winds will rip into the atmosphere, causing great damage. Eventually the sun’s outer layers will grow big enough to engulf the earth totally, and what's left of Earth will freeze over.

Clearly it is not a question of “if” but of “when” we will be leaving Earth. If we could wait for the sun, we would have nearly 5 billion years, but humankind will leave Earth long before that. Factors like overpopulation, resource depletion and pollution that are already becoming problems today will drive us.

Two of the main ideas that scientists and engineers have looked at for interstellar travel are ramjet fusion and antimatter reactions. Fusion is one of the most powerful reactions we know of, but it is only about 1% efficient (Kaku 287). Antimatter reactions are 100% efficient. When a particle, such as an electron meets its antimatter equivalent, a positron in this case, they annihilate each other, turning completely into energy. It is estimated that 4 milligrams of antimatter could fuel a rocket to Mars (Kaku 287). Today antimatter is too expensive to be economically viable, but in the future we could create particle accelerators specifically designed to make large quantities or the cost might be worth it for the more wealthy to escape Earth.

The other option, ramjet fusion, works similarly to regular ramjets today, which scoop air from in front of them, mix it with jet fuel and ignite that to give them thrust. Fusion engines would harvest hydrogen and compress and heat it inside the ship until it fuses and creates thrust. Since hydrogen is almost everywhere in the universe, this design would theoretically enable travel forever. Robert Bussard in 1960 calculated that if a fusion ramjet could create enough power to go 32 ft/s/s. (This is equivalent to the force of gravity felt on Earth.) Then it could get up to 77% lightspeed in a year. That means it could reach another solar system in 23 years (as felt by the astronauts; it would be longer for observers on earth) (Kaku 285).

Be it in a hundred years,  or a thousand, or maybe billion, it’s inevitable that we will one day fly to other planets, and then other stars, and then other galaxies. Even if there were no other reasons, curiosity would not let us stay here, because every time we looked at the stars, our sense of wonder would not let us forget that there is more out there than we can possible imagine.  Other galaxies, other worlds, other life, even. We won’t be able to stop ourselves until we know everything, and we won’t be able to know anything until we go. Biology is important, and geology, but astronomy studies more. It is the study of everything in our known world, while biology is the study of a phenomenon found only once, that we know of, on a tiny rock. The heavens are the realms of sun gods and dreams and science fiction, and soon they will be the realms of humans and science reality.

~Sarah P.

Breaking Free of the Normal Garage

Messes! Chaos! Have you ever wondered why dirty rooms aren’t fun to be in or why we don’t feel like hanging out in them? This overwhelming feeling seems to be our mental response to the clutter around us. Personally, I can’t stand it when things aren’t organized. That is why, when my family moved to Moscow again this fall, I decided that I was going to help turn our chaotic garage into a reading area. Not only would we get it organized, but I would be able to practice my newly aquired interior design skills.

What do you think this garage could become? ...To start off turning my garage into a reading room, I helped to unpack the towers of boxes that filled our garage. Once the boxes were unpacked, I started to organize books, toys, crafts, tools, and food storage. There is still more organizing to be done, but once this is done I will begin to decorate. Hopefully, I will be able to paint the garage door with chalkboard paint! I think this would be a fun place for my siblings to draw and be creative. Other than that, I won’t be able to change this room much because it is a rental, but I will be able to do a bit of dreaming as I re-create the garage on a concept board.

I can’t wait to come up with more ideas on how to make my garage a better place to be.

~Shaelyn

Capturing the Spirit of the Wild West

The Wild West has always been an interest of mine. Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to ride the range with the cowboys of old and sleep under the stars. I guess that this love was fueled by my location growing up. To me, Idaho was the center of the Wild West, and I can see that in the landscape of rolling hills and expansive prairies. I always wanted to travel back in time, to go to that historical era.

Two summers ago, I attended a writing camp called Writers at Harriman. At Harriman, I took in creative writing sessions. One day, some other campers and I were tasked with writing a story about a journey. I wrote about a young woman named Virginia Dare. In this piece, Virginia was running from the U.S. cavalry. This assignment inspired me to write more about Virginia in another workshop. In that class, I had to write a life story for a character. No surprise, I chose Virginia.

Virginia’s fictionalized life story was a crazy one. Her mother died giving birth to her and having her father be a cavalry officer didn’t lend itself to a solid homelife. She found solace in her friends, Billy Cavendish and Rebecca Reid. They became involved with outlaws, and a lot of bad stuff happened. (I don’t want to be spoilery.)

I wanted to work on expanding this story for part of my ELI. But after an extensive conversation with the ELI advisor, I decided that historical fiction was too much to do in a semester. I had no historical research to back up my story or to make the world I wanted to create believable. Instead, I chose to create a plot-based outline of the story and put the writing of it on a backburner. I don’t want to do a bunch of research at the moment. Fortunately, the outline lets me see what I want to put in the story, and I can pick it up anytime and write it once I have completed the research. Below is an example of one of the points I wrote for the outline:

• Billy and Virginia are married
• They (Virginia, Billy, Rebecca, outlaws) all went back to Cavendish’s hideout
• Cavendish had a kidnapped preacher there to officiate the ceremony
• Rebecca is in pain (the whole getting shot thing)

The whole outline was written like this. I started with the black bullet points; each pretty much represent a scene. Then, I added the sub-bullet points. These points add detail about what is happening in each scene. The bullet points got sassier and more sarcastic the more I worked on it. But as irrelevant as the points may seem to others, I will use them to inform my writing and make sure that I tell the story I want to tell.

I am a little disappointed that I did not get to write my story as a part of this ELI, but I am glad that I got to lay out the plot. I have another story to write. I am going to focus on that one now. (It’s a fantasy, so I can write without having to worry about historical accuracy.) I don’t think I will be able to finish that story, but at least I can focus on writing it.

The time of the Wild West may be over. And I may never live it, but I will always have Virginia and company as a window into that world.

~Leah N. D.

A (Not So) Twilight-Esque Vampire

Almost all cultures have some sort of monster tales, regaled to small children to warn them against bad behavior. On a scale from Santa Claus to the Pale Man (from Pan’s Labyrinth), the soucouyant falls towards the more malicious side of boogeymen (or in this case, boogeywomen).

Make sure to keep your salt or grains of rice handy in the off chance that you happen to encounter a soucouyant. This traditionally Caribbean vampire-hag appears as an old woman by day, but at night she flies around as a ball of fire, looking for helpless victims so that she can suck their blood.  As soon as night falls, the soucouyant sheds her skin and tucks it away in a mortar jar. After removing her encumbering human appearance, she transforms into fire. The soucouyant can creep through niches, through cracks and crannies, and I’m sure that she could slip down a chimney.

The soucouyant’s skin is her downfall; once it is shed and placed in the mortar jar, she can be stopped. This is where you might want that rice. By sprinkling plenty of grains around and on her skin, she will be unable to return to a humanoid form. Whether it destroys the skin or simply preoccupies her (the drive to count every grain would be overwhelming), no one knows. Without her skin, she will perish at dawn. On the other hand, if you kill the soucouyant, how can you coerce children into going to bed on time?

The origin of the soucouyant comes from a blend of West African and French language, as it is with most things Creole. The name of the monster most likely comes from the French word sucer (to suck) and the Fula/Soninke word sukunya, meaning a “man-eating witch.” So put them together, and we’ve got a misandrist witch who sucks blood. Yuck.  The attributes of the hag are likely to be a blend of cultures as well. The obayifo is an Ashanti monster who kills children by sucking their blood. One of the obafiyo’s most distinguishable traits is the phosphorescent light emitted from it’s armpits. I speculate that this would give rise to the soucouyant’s ability to turn into flame. The blood-sucking aspect of the soucouyant could also be attributed to a typical European vampire. A British hag who is similar to the soucouyant is named Baba Yaga. She, too, appears as an old lady and eats children. Ugly, old women seem to be a cause for suspicion, although the leap from lacking in looks to sucking blood is quite a large one. Baba Yaga could probably be good pals with the soucouyant. They could eat naughty children together, probably even saving good ol’ Saint Nick a bit of time.

~ Celine

Works Cited:

Friedman, Nancy. "Fritinancy." 'Fritinancy' N.p., 1 July 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2014. <http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2013/07/word-of-the-week-soucriant.html>.

O'Neal, Eugenia. "Eugenia Writes!" : The Soucouyant. Eugenia Writes!, 13 June 2012. Web. 18 Dec. 2014. <http://eugeniaoneal.blogspot.com/2012/06/soucouyant-caribbean-vampire.html>.

From the Writer to the Reader

Everyone has read a book. Everyone has picked up a book, turned it over, held it in their hands. The book, however, wouldn’t be there without the writer. The writer created it out of nothing but ideas. Neither would it be there without the editor and publisher. The editor took the story from the writer and smoothed out the blemishes and mistakes until it was perfect for the reader, and then the publisher took the story from the writer and put it onto paper and got it into the reader’s hands. This is why publishers and editors are important. Without them, there would be no books.

For most people, the process involved in the publication of a book may appear rather dull. They don’t need to know how the book came to be in their hands. For writers, the opposite is true. An understanding of and ability to navigate through the editing and publishing process is essential to getting their books out into readers’ hands, which is the ultimate goal.

The process starts when a writer has a finished manuscript.  She has planned and sketched and written and revised and edited herself. She has a solid copy, something she can be proud of, something that she’s willing to show to other people. This is when she makes her first choice, between traditional publishing methods or self-publishers. Should she choose self-publishing, there are still many different choices that she must make along the way concerning publicity, self and peer editing and, of course, which publisher to choose. But self-publishing is relatively new and fairly straight-forward process. Let us assume that our writer chooses traditional publishing.

Her next choice is whether to hire an agent or not. Some smaller publishers will work directly with a writer. For a new writer, this might be the best course to take. Finding an agent who will accept a new writer is as tricky as finding a publishing house to do the same. Agents are of more help to established authors wanting to negotiate a better deal with their publishers. We shall say that our writer does not choose to find an agent but instead sends her manuscripts directly to the publishers that she has chosen. The one thing that all writers have in common is having their work rejected. Publishing companies must reject a majority of the work they receive as they weed out the weak and badly-written pieces and decide which ones they want to publish. It may take several tries, but eventually, our writer’s manuscript is accepted by a publisher. The editing process has already started.

The first editor to handle any piece of work is the acquisition editor. This editor chooses the pieces that the publishing houses accept. He choose the pieces based on audience, relevance, skill of the author, and many other elements of the piece. This editor does not change the piece in any way, simply makes sure that it is what it is supposed to be. Once the acquisition editor has chosen a piece, it goes to the development editor.

The development editor reads the piece and begins to decide what is good and what is bad in the piece. She must know how the piece fits in with the audience’s interests and what should change or could be improved to better fit the demands of the audience. The development editor sits down with the author of the piece and has a discussion about what should change, and together they decide how the piece will be changed and improved. The author then gets her piece back to make those changes. When she is finished with her new and improved manuscript, it is next taken to the line editor.

The line editor is in charge of structure, grammar, fluency, voice. Like the title implies, he will read the piece and go over it line by line. He will help the author reword and rewrite the parts that need it. He will make sure that there are no inconsistencies with the voice, and no distracting or awkward language to interrupt the fluency of a piece. He will work with the author to make changes directly to the writing. When the author has made the changes that she needs to, and the line editor is satisfied with the piece, it will then be given to the copy editor.

The copy editor deals with the language used. He makes sure that the language used is correct and, more importantly in some cases, consistent. When it is needed, the copy editor checks the facts in the manuscript to make sure they are correct. He also formats the manuscript so that it is in the correct form to be published.

When the copy editor is done with the manuscript, it is ready to be published. The publishing house will print, market and sell the book. Someone will see it somewhere in a bookstore and will pick it up and buy it and take it home to read. The process is complete.

~Jill P.