Senior Projects

Since my last post, AJ Fontana- the Vice President and head of Client Services at Elasticity Marketing- reached out through Aaron Perlut- the Partner and Co-founder- to offer the ability to talk to some employees virtually. Elasticity Marketing is a marketing agency based in St. Louis, MO which strives to create elastic brands that withstand digital change. The schedule that was set was very similar to Dardenne Prairie City Hall where I would have shadowed a different person on their team each day. However, unlike my time at City Hall, Elasticity is running their company from their homes. This opportunity doesn’t compare to the experience and connections that would happen in person however, this would provide me with a more in-depth understanding of how their business is run from an employee’s perspective. I have seven scheduled meetings on Zoom to different parts of their agency for about 30 minutes per person. They will go over how they got to where they are in their careers and what their job looks like today. I am especially interested to learn how their careers started, like what experience they needed to get jobs instead of internships, because a goal of mine for the summer of my freshman year in college is to get an internship in my field of study.

Since I only have one to two meetings a day, I have decided to learn how to code a website. Along with finishing scholarship essays and filling out potential job applications I want to make an effort to visit this beautiful Australian shepherd mix named Kota. My Dad just adopted him two days ago and he is, so far, a perfect fit for the golf course. He’s super loving, energetic, and when the weather gets nicer, an excellent muse for building my photography skills. I prefer taking pictures of people and animals rather than landscapes and objects and through my experience of taking yearbook photos I’d rather have someone that wants to be photographed rather than them being put in a position where their emotions feel forced and not genuine.

In the beginning of the week, I became the Critical Writing Director of The Incandescent. This means I make the final call on which pieces to publish on our blog, and more importantly, that I will be constantly thinking about how to improve our non-profit. I am honored to lead a team of six wonderful people, and we are in charge of cultural reviews, news stories, podcasts, editorials, and many more. I attended several Executive Board meetings and planned all my team meetings.

I also lead the podcast team, and our first episode is about COVID & wellness. We researched about the best apps for recording remotely, and decided on Anchor. After about an hour of testing and practicing, we are ready to record our episode in the next few days. I take hosting this podcast as a chance to improve my public speaking skill and (literally) use my voice to make people less alone.

There is a lot more communication involved in leading two teams than I imagined. I have to keep in touch & report everything to the executive board, check in with my team members to make sure everyone sees the announcements and understand what we are doing, and get the journalism editor to approve our podcast topic, etc. During the past week, I’ve grown a lot as a leader, and I’m super excited for the next weeks to come.

I attended our history class throughout the two weeks, though I am not participating for grade. I am very interested in the discussions about the relationship between materials we studied last semester and the corona virus. For example, how this pandemic is/will affecting the economy and the politics in the near future.

I decided to join Camp Nanowrimo for my writing project! That means during the month of April, I’ll be writing 20,000 words in total. It will be a challenge with the other projects going on, but it’s a challenge I have completed before. As a writer, I feel a sense of duty to record what is happening for the generations to come.

I have also been reading and writing lots of poetry. At this confusing time, it is important to pay attention to what we consume for the sake of our mental health. I have been reading/watching mediums that bring me hope and creating art that brings hope to others.

I take a hour-long socially-distanced walk every day outside. The outdoors air keeps me sane. The nature goes on even when our life is disrupted, and it never fails to inspire me.

A non-related update: I shaved my head! I think quarantine is the exact right time to try something you wouldn’t normally do. For me, I know I want to do it at lease once when I’m young, so why not now? I’m not quite used to the look yet, but I’m glad that I tried it.

Stay safe everyone! 

This week, I was a bit unorganized, but I still got some stuff done!
The two major things I did this week was work on art/drawing classes through Blueprint, and work on finishing a short story I’ve been working on for a few months

Unfortunately, life doesn’t like to stick to a schedule. Twice this week, my entire morning study time went totally out the window because of the dog bolting out the door and running as far as she could. One of those times she decided to run across the highway. Dad caught her and she’s safe, but that was stressful. We’re being more careful when we open the door now.

I did manage to get some done, though. The two drawing classes I’m working on right now are an Anatomy class and a class on concept art. I’ve found them both to be very helpful and I hope to keep improving my drawing skills.

For reading this week, I didn’t get much done, but I started the next book of the Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan, The Tyrant’s Tomb. I’ve always loved the Percy Jackson series, so I am enjoying this book a lot.

For anyone who’s interested in the short story I’ve been working on, here’s a link that should give you access to the google doc. I’m pretty proud to have finished it. It’s not actually very short though, so be warned, it’s actually 9,000 words. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11sYiWx0Sw6UaK78zzaVWqK17qEQrdaK2GA-hEgLTZ6o/edit?usp=sharing

I am also planning to make another major change to my senior project: I’ve decided I’m going to put all of my art and writing time together to work on a comic! I’ve wanted to make one for a while, so I’m going to use the classes to help my drawing improve and do concept art, and my art project time to work on the comic. It will be a webcomic, so when I find a platform to share it on I’ll give that to you all.

I’ll update you all on how the prep for the comic is going next week!

Grace

I did not do an entry last week because I took that week off due to shadowing the week before. Thus, this is still my week two as well despite not posting last week.

This week, my plan was to pick either a system of the body or to pick one autopsy video and to research things about either of the two that I chose, and with that information produce anatomical artwork, as I had done a fine job with creating such works in the past. I would do multiple works for whichever video/system I chose that week. But after drawing a questionable looking thymus (to say it in the most appropriate way as possible) as well as having trouble focusing on the project, I decided to change it a bit, and the change was carried out on Thursday.

On Thursday and Friday of this week, I began watching videos showing parts of autopsies. On Thursday, I watched two videos showing the general removal of most organs and some details as to how those organs are examined as well. It was interesting to see the slight differences in procedures between the two videos, such as *ok I’m going to be describing something very slightly graphic here and I guess I’ll do a break in the text after I’m finished to let anyone who doesn’t want to read it know that I’m finished despite it not being an optimal place in my narrative to put one* how in the first video, the skull cap was removed by making an outline with a manual saw and then was actually removed by using a hammer and chisel, whereas in the second video, an electric saw was used. The first video also did a straight line cut across the body rather than a Y-cut, whereas the second used the latter. Getting to the heart was also different in the first and second videos, and I could go on and on about the minutiae as per my personality type, however I can save the minutiae for those who would like to hear about it. I have plenty of notes on all of it.

Both of these videos I watched Thursday were more about general procedures of an autopsy and did not go into detail on the patient’s cause of death very much. There was mentioning of when an organ was abnormal, and the second video mentioned what the original guess of the woman’s cause of death was before the procedure. Omitting that kind of information may have been for privacy reasons as well as the point of the videos being to show what a general autopsy looks like rather than to show/mention every detail.

Today/Friday, I watched a video that covered information about different types of wounds/means of killing. It used images/footage of wounds from various autopsies. Things specifically covered were:

• How to determine the general range of gunshot wounds and the characteristics of contact, close range, and distant shot wounds. Also mentions the variation of these things due to the type of gun and ammunition as well as any irregularities that can happen.
• The same set of information as the last point for shotguns specifically, as their many projectiles and wadding (or even the ones that fire single slugs instead) make the variables very different.
• What the types of bunt force wounds are (contusion, abrasion, laceration), what types of instruments are likely to cause them, how they are caused, and how much they can tell about exactly what occurred before death.
• What the types of sharp force wounds are (incised and stab wounds) as well as the rest of the types of information in the blunt force section. Also distinguishes between blunt/sharp force and explains how sometimes it can actually be hard to tell between the two and the best ways to do so.
• What causes asphyxia (hanging, strangling/throttling, choking, and general suffocation – which is what asphyxia is. The video goes into detail on how to tell if each of these things is a result of suicide, homicide, or is a general accident (depending on which of kind of asphyxia, of course; certain motives don’t apply to all types of asphyxia) and mentions what things to look for in each case.
• A brief section on Battered Child Syndrome which mentions what types of injuries are most common in this situation and brings up many things from each of the past categories and apply them to this situation.

In these two days after the project change, I have already learned a lot of fascinating information, such as the usage of different equipment for the same tasks depending on the doctor as I mentioned in the slightly graphic part. I learned many fun facts (fun here being used as not literal of course, as a few of them are gruesome but fall under what is outstanding enough to be considered one) and am denoting them in my notes by putting an x symbol by the bullet point of the fact in question. I will share one more for today, however. Apparently a death by choking on food is sometimes referred to as a “café coronary,” which is honestly a bit comical. I figured someone would appreciate that.

About my notes though, I have filled up eleven pages front to back so far in these two days (six today) and at this rate, I have a feeling I will have the whole notebook full by the time this is over. It is a bit smaller than a typical one but is perfect for this, as it featured anatomical art of a brain on its cover. I have my notes organized in symbolized bullet points which I will continue to do throughout the project and will explain during the presentation if it feels noteworthy/I have time to talk about minutiae like that.

As for what I plan to do these next weeks, I have found plenty more videos to work with as well as people who actually livestream autopsies which I may utilize. I also have plenty I can read as well if I need to, though I am sure video material will be all I need as well as some possible interactive autopsy material I could work with. Next week, I plan to watch videos on causes of death similar to the one I watched today, except with causes like disease rather than by weapons or force. At any rate, I plan to take plenty of notes.

I will also be compiling a page with all the links of the videos I have watched just in case anyone has any interest as well as a general way to keep track of my sources.

Here are photos of my notebook and how far I’ve gotten at this point. I am not sure why they turn sideways, but that seems to be a common theme with all my photos on this website.

Week two started with some yard work on Monday, and on Tuesday, it became a crazy mess! I woke up Tuesday to a couple of tiny bugs on my blankets. Long story short, my mom and I found that two of the windows in my room weren’t closing all the way, and tiny carpet beetles were coming in. My room was never the most organized, but I’ve never had problems with bugs coming in. I was so creeped out, so I spent the entire week deep cleaning my room. I washed all the windows, cleaned all the pillows and blankets, and sanitized anything that could have bugs on it. Carpet beetles are 3 mm in size, and they like hanging out in areas with lots of fabrics. I don’t even have carpet in my room, but I guess the beetles wanted to hang out in my blankets. Now it’s Friday and my room is now clean and bug-free! Week two was super exhausting and I know wayyy too much about carpet beetles, but at least my room is clean. 🙂

This past week was not super planned out, as I am still trying to adjust to being in quarantine and the things that come with it. Also this post is a little bit late, as it is not last week, but later is better than never. I plan to post another post about the end of thus week probably on Sunday.

First of all, I have decided to continue taking two online classes at Fulton: Modern American History, and Spanish 5. I picked them because first I think I may study Spanish in some capacity in college, and I think it is good to retain my memory of the language. I picked History as well because I want to have a fuller understanding of our country and it’s history, as I intend to vote in the next presidential election, and it is important to know this country’s roots before spreading the branches. That sounded a bit metaphorical but I think this will broaden ,u education of the nation which is always good. I decided to only take two classes because I want to do other things on the side.

Things I have done this past week:

• Completed my calculus assignments for Dr. Urbano that we agreed upon
• Math tutoring
• Class homework and attendance
• Two School of Rock zoom meetings for the shows I am in
• Attempted to make waffles with my brother
• Reached out to my mother’s co-workers to schedule interviews for this week to ask about what their experience has been in business (Well this was basically my mom’s work but I am very excited to learn more about people in business!)
• attended two virtual admitted student days (CU Boulder and University of Vermont)
• Gotten back into playing piano. My piano has been kind of untouched since middle school and I wanted to play more and make use of it!

I hope to get back to you all at the end of the week auto tell you about my interviews! I’m sure they will make for a more interesting read.
I hope everyone and their families are healthy and well!

Ellie Frank

Week two started yesterday and so far I don’t have a set plan. I’ve been crocheting a lot (surprise surprise haha) and I’ve been doing lots of yard work. I think I’m mainly going to do house and yard work this week because my mom just got a new job and she’s been working a lot. One goal that I do have this week is starting my Kahn Academy lessons. Before summer orientation, I have to do a math placement test for college, so I want to make sure I’m super prepared. I don’t think I’m going to vlog this week because I don’t have a set plan, and vlogging yard work is much harder than vlogging scarf making. Next week I’m doing a cooking and baking week, so I will vlog then.

For my project this week, I am learning how to knit, taking a math class, and making masks. For some reason one mask takes me about 4 hours each!! I’m still going to continue what I’m doing. Here are some pictures..

This past week I have been working 9am-2pm at the food pantry in Creve Cour. Then When I get home, i would spend 2-3 hours on mask making. This process has been slow. I have made about 25 total and still have some close to completion.

Now, for this week I will work at the same pantry from 9am-12pm and I will be spending 4-5 hours on masks, to hopefully speed up the process and get more masks out. I have also either been taking two 30 minute bike rides or 1 hour walks each day just to get out of the house.

Other than that, not much has been going on. I still hope to get some time to write and cook this week and the next following weeks. Welp, I’ll have to play all of that by ear.

Hope everyone is ok!

Hello everyone! I miss you.

I have not heard anything yet from one of my organizations, so it seems like I will be continuing to study on my own.

By now I am starting to be able to correctly pronounce words, having finished up memorizing the alphabet. Today I listened to the names of the numbers. My phone is in Arabic, which is a technique I would say is pretty effective.

I have learned about some systems of the body, nutrition, and exercise, as well as what it means to be a doctor.

A new plan I am thankful for is to be less regimented about how much time I do each thing and just aim to accomplish 5 hours every day generally involving the four plus subjects, while leaving time and energy for other pursuits in my life.

Cheers friends,
Eleanor L.