Senior Projects

Hello!

Lately for language learning and math I have been using the app Anki. You can use it to write down words and their meanings on digital flashcards. It has been helpful to have an app that basically quizzes me over and over on the words I don’t know until I can get them down.

Thanks to the Señoras and grace, I am able to get twelve hours of back credit if I get a C or higher in the Spanish class on writing and communication!

I am writing a story about the metaphor of “finishing the race” from the the Bible’s teachings. It has been good to learn and think deeply about that.

I have also enjoyed researching more health questions that I have, looking up medical vocabulary that I don’t know, writing quite a few things involving the field.

Monday through Friday, I watched videos from a channel called Gross Cutting Room. (Yes I know the name can be interpreted as comedic but I assume the Gross actually refers to gross in the medical sense, meaning something you can see without a microscope, as the channel only focuses on that part) It features dissections of various single organs or parts of organs, some from the dead and some removed from the living. I had watched two of these videos for the third week of the project as well.

Each day, I would watch two of these videos. In order, I watched (listed as what they are titled as):

Lung Wedge Dissection (I forgot to finish the full thing from last week)

Kidney Dissection

Foot Amputation Dissection (the dissection of the amputated foot, not featuring the actual amputation)

Thyroid Dissection

Small Bowel Dissection

Gallbladder Dissection

Sigmoid Colon Dissection

Appendix Dissection

Esophagus Dissection

Hemorrhage Dissection

My favorite was probably the foot dissection, as I’ve never seen anything like it. There were so many problems with the foot: a huge ulcer, a lot of necrotic tissue, a huge abscess, hollow bones, and other problems.

As for note taking, I am in about to finish the whole notebook which should happen this week.

This week I felt inadequate as a leader. Sometimes I beat myself up and think everyone else on the team would be just as capable as the director, if not more. But my team members and friends assured me and reminded me of everything that I have done right, and they made me feel like my hard work is worthwhile.

We recruited three new members. We have eleven people on our team right now. I tried my best to show them everything we are doing and help them to adjust to the environment without overwhelming them.

There was miscommunication between teams and I learned some important lessons about how to articulate my thoughts and consider others’ feelings. This magazine is only able to exist because of the collaboration of every team. For example, if one of my team member misses a blog deadline, the art & website design team wouldn’t be able to complete the cover on time.

I wrote a blog post titled “How Humans Became ‘Domesticated’,” discussing social constructs. We also recorded another episode of our podcast discussing racism and COVID-19. I attended my writers group meeting via Zoom, and it gave me a sense of normalcy.

I really want to read more during the rest of my senior project. My friend enjoys Jeanine Cummins’ writing and lent all her books to me. I finished The Crooked Branch, and I plan to read The Outside Boy next week. Although her style is drastically different from mine, it nevertheless inspires me to write more.

I also worked on The Reader a little more. After talking to some of my teammates, I realized how different the process of publishing a literary magazine at other schools is, but I’m grateful for my unique experience.

Hello! Sorry I haven’t written an update yet! I keep forgetting or getting distracted.

All of my weeks have been canceled except for one which is the last week, but I am assuming it will be canceled soon. It’s very disappointing because I have been looking forward to this since first grade when I’ve watched the older kids present their projects but it’s okay because I have had a lot more free time and am cooking, cleaning, and learning more 🙂

I have been doing pretty much the same thing everyday for the past few weeks. I babysit Frank (my little brother) for the first half of the day (he naps most of the afternoon). I do this because both of my parents work full time jobs. Since they are both working from home Frank and I often leave the house and go for hikes or walks. In the afternoon I am working at Papa Murphy’s. During the school year I work 2-3 days a week, but now I am working 6 days a week. I’d prefer not to work this much but we only have three employees left (we normally have eight) and if we have to close the owners wouldn’t be able to re-open because of the financial situation.

Apart from this usual daily schedule, I run lots of errands for my mom in the mornings. I am dropping lots of things off at people’s houses or going grocery shopping. I am taking some of my money that I am earning at Papa Murphy’s and using it for donations to food banks around the St. Louis area since they have all seen a large decrease in donations since quarantine started.

This week of senior project, I continued watching videos and taking notes. I have about 30 pages front/back now.

On Monday, I watched an autopsy of an obese woman and it showed many problems that can occur when one is obese and also gave some statistics about obesity. What was most surprising to me was how the excess fat was distributed; the woman even had a diaphragm covered in fat which was very interesting to me.

On Tuesday/Wednesday, I watched an autopsy video that was double most of the rest of the videos I have been watching, hence why it took two days. The video went into a lot of new territory, such as the different methods of removing organs and some pros to some of them. The organs in this video were removed en masse, or all together (minus the intestines from the jejunum – the second of three sections of the small intestine – onward. This was a method I hadn’t seen before and it made a lot of sense as to why they did it that way (which I will explain later as it’s probably going to go in the fun facts section).

Thursday, I watched two videos, one which showed a dissection of the heart and part of the dissection of the lungs all by themselves, and one showing a brain dissection. I am watching videos on individual organs, as information on the individual organ dissections was minimal (the one on the thorough heart/lungs dissection alone was  just under 30 minutes alone, so it makes sense as to why the general autopsy videos do not go more into detail on the individual organ dissections other than brief clips, as the videos would be very long if they didn’t). 

Friday and a bit of Saturday/today I watched two more individual organ dissections: One of a colon that had been removed from a living person due to there being polyploid masses on it (which are potentially cancerous) and part of a lung removed from a live person due to certain cancer.

Next week, I want to continue to watch more dissections of different individual organs to fill in all the holes/as many as I can of what I’ve seen about autopsies.

I have already learned a ton so far and look forward to learning even more.

This week, I spent most of my time on preparation for my webcomic. If you didn’t see my last post, that’s what I’m planning to make my focus now for my project.

I’ll be using a story that I’ve been planning for a long time. I’ve tried to write it a few times in different forms and I’ve never gotten far, but this time I’m gonna really dedicate myself to it. As far as the story, I’ve spent a lot of time this week editing it and fixing plot holes. (I originally came up with the idea when I was in middle school, so there are a lot naturally). I will have to spend a lot of time fixing the plot as I go, but I find I work better when I just start writing, rather than planning it all out completely.

At the moment the general premise is that it’s a fantasy story about a prince whose kingdom gets taken over and he has to leave to get help. The story will follow him as he travels looking for help and his journey back home. There is obviously a whole lot more to the plot (including two or three other main characters who will have lots of spotlight on their own stories) but that’s the base for the story.

The other main part of making a comic is visual design. All of the characters have to have a purposeful design, which is a very different process than designing a character for a non-visual novel. I’ll attach some concept art and designs that I have for characters. I’m also going to have to do some setting designs. I’m taking a class on Blueprint on concept art that is really helping me with all of that.

In this next week I’m going to start actually putting the comic together, and I hope to have a couple pages to show you guys next week! I will also let you know where I’ll be posting the pages (other than on this blog: I’m not sure how much of the comic I’ll share on here).

The last thing to mention is that I’m not working on this alone. A couple of my friends are helping me out. I’ll be the one doing the actual writing and drawing of the comic, but they’ve created some of the characters and their designs, and have been central in shaping the plot. They’ll be helping me out as I bring our story to life. Finally, here’s some images of my work. (The paper sketches are works in progress using the techniques from the class I mentioned)

Hello! I hope everyone is holding on.

This week I wrote a news story on how teenagers are contributing to the community during COVID – 19, for example, grocery shopping for senior citizens, teaching them how to stay socially connected via Zoom, volunteering, etc. I don’t have much experience with journalistic writing and my first draft wasn’t substantial enough, so I did more research with the guidance of my team. I felt a little defeated at first, but then I realized this doesn’t say anything about myself. It only means that I have a lot to learn, which is never a bad thing. I also wrote down ideas I have for future posts so I won’t have to start from scratch every time.

Monday was the first deadline for our team. As usual, it was a struggle to get everyone to submit on time. Especially during this pandemic, I want to be understanding and check in with people just in case they need some support. But I also need to hold people accountable. We had a couple of more meetings and finalized the posting schedule. I made sure everyone can log into the website and that the editors’ works are manageable.

On Tuesday night, we recorded the first episode of our podcast. It was honestly really fun. We discussed how coronavirus is affecting people, our experiences with online classes, and advice for fellow teens who are stuck in quarantine. We also messed around and made jokes to lighten the mood. I like the dynamics of team, and I am glad get to know my teammates more.

I enjoyed getting to know people in The Incandescent Review in general. None of them is my close friend from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to build deeper relationships with them. We stayed up talking about politics, religion, and mental health and kept each other company during quarantine.

We are launching our first issue tomorrow! I strongly recommend you to check out our website, the art/design team put a lot of work into it. Link: https://www.theincandescentreview.org/

In the past week, I also tried to implement what is happening right now in my novel: in a fictional world, there is also a global pandemic going on, and my protagonist is trying his best to keep his school safe. I have also been journalling a lot. I tried to focus on the positives and be extra kind to myself.

Stay well and have a great weekend!

For week three, I decided to do a bunch of different things. I started my Kahn Academy lessons starting with Pre-Calc. It’s been a while since I’ve done any Pre-Calc work, so I thought that would be a good place to start. My entire senior project has now been canceled. I was waiting to hear from SFW Partners (an accounting firm in Des Peres), and this week I heard back with the news that they have closed as well. I’m super bummed about this because I want to study forensic accounting in college, and I was excited to start learning the basics of accounting. On the bright side, I did find an online accounting study course, which teaches me the basics of accounting! I enjoy it and it’s super nice that I can still do some accounting work from home. After some math and accounting, I crocheted! I worked on another scarf and I decided to make a blanket for my dorm room. The yarn that I’m using is super thick and very hard to work with, so it’s taking me a while. It uses a size 11 crochet hook, which is one of the larger sizes. My mom was working a lot this week, so I decided to clean up the kitchen and clean the oven for her. I never want to clean the oven again. It was not fun at all.

Right now I’m up at Lake Ozark to get a change of scenery. There aren’t that many year-round citizens up here, so all the grocery stores are super stocked. This weekend we’re getting all the wood for when we start construction. The lake is super dead, there’s nobody on the water which is super weird to see.

This last week was fairly similar to what I thought it would be. I have completed all the mask that I could get out of the fabric (55) and I work another week at the Food Pantry excluding Thursday and Friday due to Passover. On Thursday I spent most of the day sewing and about an hour and a half exploring my neighborhood. On Friday I impulsively made Apple Turnovers, Blackberry Turnovers and Peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies. As you can see, the Blackberry Turnovers decided not to cooperate.

This week, I have been assigned the same 9-12 hours at the pantry Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, so during my off days I will bake and get more materials for masks. I will continue to branch out with recipes, starting with a relatively spicy Tater-Tot casserole I will make tomorrow.

Cheers!

Hello! This past week I have not accomplished as much as previously. However I have seen marked improvement in my language skills. I have also seen increase in passion as I do more research about what it means to be a medical missionary.

Along with Arabic, I am learning more about etiquete and culture in the Middle East. I have looked for answers to questions and objections Muslims have raised against Christianity.I have read about medical missionaries such as Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael.

My subjects are starting to mix together, but I think that is natural. I am considering continuing this project into the summer.

I hope you are all well!!