#plus reading science articles and responding to emails

[prozach27]

.

[whiteantcrawls]

Resources for Home Schooling

✅The San Diego Zoo has a website just for kids with amazing videos, activities, and games. Enjoy the tour! https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/

✅Tour Yellowstone National Park! https://www.nps.gov/…/lea…/photosmultimedia/virtualtours.htm

✅Explore the surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover. https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/

✅This Canadian site FarmFood 360 offers 11 Virtual Tours of farms from minks, pigs, and cows, to apples and eggs.  https://www.farmfood360.ca/

✅Indoor Activities for busy toddlers https://busytoddler.com/2020/03/indoor-activities/…

✅Play games and learn all about animals https://switchzoo.com/

✅Play with fave show characters and learn too https://pbskids.org/

✅Travel to Paris, France to see amazing works of art at The Louvre with this virtual field trip.   https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne

✅This Virtual Tour of the Great Wall of China is beautiful and makes history come to life. https://www.thechinaguide.com/destinati…/great-wall-of-china

✅Math and Reading games  https://www.funbrain.com/

✅Phonics skills https://www.starfall.com/h/

✅This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/

✅ Read, play games, and hang out with Dr. Seuss https://www.seussville.com/

✅300,000+ FREE printable worksheets from toddlers to teens https://www.123homeschool4me.com/home-school-free-printabl…/

✅Geography and animals https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

✅Math practice from counting to algebra and geometry http://www.mathscore.com/

✅Fave kids books read by famous people https://www.storylineonline.net/

✅Crafts, activities, mazes, dot to dot, etc, https://www.allkidsnetwork.com/

✅High school chemistry topics https://www.acs.org/…/hi…/chemmatters/articles-by-topic.html

✅Math and reading games https://www.abcya.com/

✅Math and language games https://www.arcademics.com/

✅Hands on Elem science videos https://www.backpacksciences.com/science-simplified

✅Voice based learning... learn through Alexa https://bamboolearning.com/resources

✅Fun games, recipes, crafts, activities  https://www.highlightskids.com/

✅ClickSchooling brings you daily recommendations by email for entertaining websites that help your kids learn. https://clickschooling.com/

✅Math as a fun part of your daily family routine http://bedtimemath.org/

✅Games to get "into the book" https://reading.ecb.org/

✅Online history classes for all ages preteen through adults https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive

✅Biology  https://www.biologysimulations.com/

✅ Elem Math through 6th grade  https://boddlelearning.com/

✅Educational games K-12  https://www.breakoutedu.com/funathome

✅Digital archive of history  https://www.bunkhistory.org/

✅Test Prep for SAT, ACT, etc. https://www.bwseducationconsulting.com/handouts.php

✅Geometry https://www.canfigureit.com/

✅Resources for Spanish practice https://www.difusion.com/campus/

✅Chinese learning activities  https://chalkacademy.com/

✅Music is for everyone https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments

✅Science, Math, Social Studies https://www.ck12.org/student/

✅Grammar practice for middle grades  https://www.classroomcereal.com/

✅Daily free science or cooking experiment to do at home.http://www.clubscikidzmd.com/blog/

✅Chemistry  https://www.playmadagames.com/

✅Reading passages for grades 3-12, with reading comprehension and discussion questions. https://www.commonlit.org/

✅Vocabulary, grammar, listening activities and games in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Korean, and Latin.  https://conjuguemos.com/

✅35,000 pages of online content on the cultures and countries of the world. https://www.countryreports.org/

✅K-5th Science lessons  https://mysteryscience.com/

✅Tons of free classes from leading universities and companies https://www.coursera.org/

✅Free printable K-8 Reading and Math activity packs (available in English and Spanish) https://www.curriculumassociates.com/supporting-students-aw…

✅Digital learning content for preschool through high school https://www.curriki.org/

✅A wide range of math content from middle school through AP Calculus. https://deltamath.com/overview

✅Day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing. https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/…/learnathome.html

✅3 Free Weeks of Maker Stations to keep your children creating at home! Each challenge includes simple instructions using materials around the house, QR code video resources, and a student recording sheet. bit.ly/freemakerstations

✅Classes for older teens or adults https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/lp/t1/freemo…

✅Online homeschool platform & curriculum for Pre-K to 12th grade. All main subjects are covered, plus extra curriculum courses.  http://discoveryk12.com/dk12/

✅Printable board games, activities and more for phonics and reading all using evidence-based methods. Can be customized to any student's needs including creating flashcards for other subjects. https://dogonalogbooks.com/printables/

✅K-8 online math program that looks at how a student is solving problems to adjust accordingly and build a unique learning path for them. https://www.dreambox.com/at-home

✅Engaging reading game for grades 2-8 that combines strategy, engagement, and imaginative reading passages to create a fun, curriculum-aligned literacy game. https://www.squigglepark.com/dreamscape/

✅Higher level math series... online video series with detailed solutions to more than a thousand publicly-released College Board SAT Math, Subject Test Math Level 1, and Subject Test Math Level 2 problems.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbQoCpvYRYRkRRvsObOPHaA…

✅Foreign languages  https://www.duolingo.com/

✅Interactive video earth science based curriculum supplement. https://www.everyday-earth.com/

✅A safe research site for elementary-level readers. They are offering -- free 24/7 access USERNAME: read (case sensitive) PASSWORD: read (case sensitive) https://www.facts4me.com/

✅Resources for AP students including live reviews, live trivia, and study guides! https://app.fiveable.me/

✅Educational brain breaks to help students review essential literacy and math skills, while getting in some exercise. Find over 900 videos to help your child keep learning at home and burn off some extra energy. Our site is best used for ages 4-8. https://fluencyandfitness.com/register/school-closures/

✅Movement and mindfulness videos created by child development experts. https://www.gonoodle.com/

✅7,000 free videos in 13 subject areas  https://hippocampus.org/

✅Carmen Sandiego videos, stories, and lessons for all subject areas https://www.carmensandiego.com/resources/

✅Math Videos with lessons, real life uses of math, famous actors https://www.hmhco.com/math-at-work

✅Entertaining & educational videos for all levels and subjects https://www.izzit.org/index.php

✅Online education program for toddler through high school... https://www.khanacademy.org/

✅Free Printables for PreK-2nd Grade https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/…/Lite…/Price-Range/Free

✅Free printables library with activities for children 0-6 https://www.littlesparkcompany.com/printables-library

✅Free at-home kids yoga lesson plans  https://littletwistersyoga.com/online-store/

✅Magic Spell is a carefully crafted spelling adventure.  https://brainbox.games/

✅Resources for AP students https://marcolearning.com/

✅Enter your math problem or search term, press the button, and they show you the step-by-step work and answer instantly. 2nd grade through college. https://www.mathcelebrity.com/online-math-tutor.php

✅Elem Math games, logic puzzles and educational resources https://www.mathplayground.com/

✅Poetry and music  https://www.thewell.world/mindful-mu…/mindful-poetry-moments

✅3D printing projects and Coding projects, involving math and other K-12 subjects https://www.instructables.com/…/EdgertonCent…/instructables/

✅Introductory and intermediate music theory lessons, exercises, ear trainers, and calculators.  https://www.musictheory.net/

✅Scads of free resources, games, learning resources, and lesson plans for teaching personal finance  https://www.ngpf.org/

✅Improve your typing skills while competing in fast-paced races with up to 5 typers from around the world. https://www.nitrotype.com/

✅Illustrated recipes designed to help kids age 2-12 cook with their grown-ups. Recipes encourage culinary skills, literacy, math, and science. https://www.nomsterchef.com/nomster-recipe-library

✅Online curriculum that builds better writers.  https://www.noredink.com/

✅80+ do at home science activities https://elementalscience.com/…/n…/80-free-science-activities

✅Daily lessons and educational activities that kids can do on their own https://www.superchargedschool.com/

✅Adaptive curriculum in Math and ELA for Grades K-8 https://www.scootpad.com/

✅Novel Effect makes storytime a little more fun for kids (and grown-ups too!) As you read out loud from print books (or ebooks!) music, sound effects, and character voices play at just the right moment, adjusting and responding to your voice. https://noveleffect.com/

✅Quick & easy at home projects curated for kids 2 and up https://www.kiwico.com/kids-at-home

✅Teaches students how to write a paragraph through interactive online tutorial http://www.paragraphpunch.com/

✅PreK-12 digital media service with more than 30,000 learning materials https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

✅Curricular content hub specifically designed for K-3 students. https://pebblego.com/free-pebblego-capstone-interactive-acc…

✅Science and math labs and simulations  https://phet.colorado.edu/

✅An online physics problem and video bank designed for conceptual, standard, honors or AP1 physics.  https://www.positivephysics.org/home

✅Prodigies is a colorful music curriculum for kids 1-12 that will teach your kids how to play their first instrument, how to sing in tune & how to understand the language of music! 21 for free  https://prodigiesmusic.com/

✅Free videos from around the world from grade 3-12 https://www.projectexplorer.org/

✅QuaverMusic is offering free access to general music activities to all impacted schools, including free student access at-home https://www.quavermusic.com/info/at-home-resources/

✅For students to practice and master whatever they are learning. https://quizlet.com/

✅ReadWorks is an online resource of reading passages and lesson plans for students of all levels K-12.  https://www.readworks.org/

✅Critical Thinking resources for K-6 students https://marketplace.mythinkscape.com/store/redtkids

✅Music Based Spanish Learning  https://rockalingua.com/

✅Science simulations, scientist profiles, and other digital resources for middle school science and high school biology https://sepuplhs.org/

✅The Shurley English program for grades K-8 provides a clear, logical, and concrete approach to language arts.  https://www.shurley.com/

✅Sight reading and sight singing practice exercises. https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/

✅Music practice transformed  https://www.smartmusic.com/

✅Spellingcity is free right now with code VSCFree90 https://www.spellingcity.com/

✅Kid-friendly workouts — choose from Strength for Kids, Agility for Kids, Flexibility and Balance for Kids, Warm-Up for Kids, Cooldown for Kids, Stand Up and Move for Kids, OR create your own custom kid workout. https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts

✅A collection of hundreds of free K-12 STEM resources, from standalone models and simulations to short activities and week long sequences of curriculum materials. https://learn.concord.org/

✅Course sets (Levels 1–5) that combine and thoroughly cover phonics, reading, writing, spelling, literature, grammar, punctuation, art, and geography—all in one easy-to-use, beautiful course.  https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/

✅At home OT, PT, and ST resources designed to build skills in children through movement and play. https://www.theottoolbox.com/

✅Science projects that can be completed with or without Internet access https://sciencespot.net/Pages/classhome.html

✅Keyboarding practice  https://www.typingclub.com/ or https://www.typing.com/

✅Next Generation Science video game focused on middle school where students directly engage in science phenomena as they solve problems. https://www.tytoonline.com/

✅Short videos and readings that answer various burning questions for students. There are vocabulary challenges and comprehension questions. http://wonderopolis.org/

✅Math practice  https://xtramath.org/#/home/index

✅K-5 curriculum that builds deep understanding and a love of learning math for all students  https://www.zearn.org/

✅A quick start resource to help families pull together a plan for surviving the next 1-2 months at home with their kids, but it can also be a time of slowing down and enjoying kids as they learn. Preschool through 8th grade  https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/learning-at-home-everyth…

✅450 Ivy League courses that you can take https://www.freecodecamp.org/…/ivy-league-free-online-cou…/…

✅Spelling 1-4 grade https://www.spellingtraining.com/

✅2,500+ online courses from top institutions  https://www.edx.org/

✅22 languages to learn  https://www.memrise.com/

✅Learn to code https://www.codecademy.com/

✅Miscellaneous games for all subjects k-8  https://www.funbrain.com/

✅Phonics and learning to read https://readingeggs.com/

✅PreK - 5 games for all subjects  https://www.turtlediary.com/

✅Online digital coloring pages  https://www.thecolor.com/

✅Every course you could possibly want to homeschool preschool - 8 https://allinonehomeschool.com/

✅Every course you could possibly want to homeschool for high school https://allinonehighschool.com/

✅Phonics worksheets for kids  https://www.funfonix.com/

✅Free stories online ages 3-12  https://www.freechildrenstories.com/

✅National Geographic Young Explorers is a magazine designed specifically for kindergarten and first grade students. Children can listen to the magazine being read to them as they follow along with the highlighted text. https://ngexplorer.cengage.com/ngyoungexplorer/index.html

✅Learn all about earthquakes https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kids/

✅Learn all about the periodic table  https://www.chemicool.com/

✅Farmer's almanac for kids... Date, weather, moon phase, etc. https://www.almanac.com/kids

✅Guide to gardening for kids  https://web.extension.illinois.edu/firstgarden/

✅Website allows students to play basic games to reinforce math skills and compete against the computer or others  https://www.mangahigh.com/en-us/

✅Space science for kiddos  https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html

✅Math Games, Logic Puzzles and Brain Builders https://www.mathplayground.com/

✅Games, quizzes and fact sheets take kids on a journey through time. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/forkids/

✅NGAkids interactives offer an entertaining and informative introduction to art and art history. https://www.nga.gov/education/kids.html

✅News and more for kids  https://www.youngzine.org/

✅Randomly generates 356,300,262,144 story starters https://thestorystarter.com/

✅Immerse yourself in cryptography  https://www.cryptoclub.org/

✅Math games galore  https://gridclub.com/

✅Tons of science experiments that you can do at home https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/

✅An interactive way to learn history   https://www.mission-us.org/

✅Just explore, have fun, and learn some science along the way. https://thehappyscientist.com/

✅Interactive games based on the book series https://www.magictreehouse.com/

✅Work on the 8 parts of speech  https://www.grammaropolis.com/

✅Learn all about cells  https://www.cellsalive.com/

✅All sorts of learning here if you dig in https://www.google.com/earth/

✅Scratch draws students of all types into coding and lays a foundation for future learning.  https://scratch.mit.edu/

✅A wonderful, endlessly detailed way to get kids engaged in the world of art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/metkids/

✅Tests kids’ geography skills. Using images from Google’s Street View, it plops players down in the middle of the street and asks them to figure out where they are. https://www.geoguessr.com/

✅Allows students to type in any city, state, or country to view an archive of historical photographs and other documents. It’s a unique way to help them learn about history.   http://www.whatwasthere.com//

✅Short videos about numbers that help kids explore complex math topics and make math more fun.  https://www.numberphile.com/

✅A human visualization platform that allows students to explore the human body in really cool ways. https://human.biodigital.com/login?returnUrl=/dashboard

✅Helps kids learn to appreciate the arts by providing them with the opportunity to play games, conduct investigations, and explore different forms of art. https://artsology.com/

✅Lets kids play instruments online. Instruments include the guitar, piano, pan flute, drums, and bongos. https://www.virtualmusicalinstruments.com/

✅Crafts, activities, bulletin board designs, and finger plays for early education teachers and parents to use with kids. http://www.preschoolexpress.com/

✅A large selection of fun songs to help teach preschool and kindergarten students https://www.songsforteaching.com/preschoolkindergarten.htm

✅Resource section includes free flashcards, coloring pages, worksheets, and other resources for children, teachers, and parents.  https://supersimple.com/

✅Life skills curriculum for students in grades K-12. Their resources include strategies for teaching social and emotional skills. https://www.overcomingobstacles.org/

✅Coding for ages 4-10  https://www.kodable.com/

✅No need to travel to one of the Smithsonian’s zoos or museums — this website brings your child everything from live video of the National Zoo to the Smithsonian Learning Lab right to their screen https://www.si.edu/kids

✅Cool Kid Facts gives your child access to educational videos, pictures, quizzes, downloadable worksheets, and infographics. They can use these to learn about geography, history, science, animals, and even the human body.   https://www.coolkidfacts.com/

✅This interactive website, hosted by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, allows your child to see the ins and outs of the U.S. government by taking a series of learning adventures with none other than Benjamin Franklin. https://bensguide.gpo.gov/

✅This NASA initiative covers a wide range of topics including weather, climate, atmosphere, water, energy, plants, and animals.  https://climatekids.nasa.gov/

✅Ask Dr. Universe is a science-education project from Washington State University. Kids can send Dr. Universe any question they may have about history, geography, plants, animals, technology, engineering, math, culture, and more. https://askdruniverse.wsu.edu/

✅Your child can play games, learn fun facts, and find out how to turn coin collecting into a hobby.  https://www.usmint.gov/learn/kids

✅From rainbows to tornadoes and winter storms to tsunamis, meteorologist Crystal Wicker breaks down the fascinating world of weather. http://www.weatherwizkids.com/

✅Kids Think Design explores careers in fashion design, graphic design, interior design, book design, product design, film and theatre, architecture, animation, and environmental design. http://www.kidsthinkdesign.org/

✅This educational website hosted by the Smithsonian Museum takes a deep dive into ocean life. https://ocean.si.edu/

✅Brainscape offers over a million flashcard decks for every subject, entrance exam, and certification imaginable.  https://www.brainscape.com/

✅The Theta Music Trainer offers a series of online courses and games for ear training and music theory. https://trainer.thetamusic.com/en

✅Banzai exposes students to real-world financial dilemmas to teach them the importance of smart money management. https://www.teachbanzai.com/

✅Innerbody explores the 11 bodily systems in depth. With interactive models and detailed explanations, this website will help them learn more about the internal mechanics of the amazing human body.https://www.innerbody.com/htm/body.html

[darkestangel1326]

Prologue - This was real life. Right?

Hey lovelies. So I know it is likely no one is going to read this but me but I just had to write this anyway. For me. Posting for the same reason! Fic under the “Keep reading” cut, but here’s how I got here: 

This all started when I wondered what would happen if MC was a scientist. Or a science grad student. But then I thought, what would be enough to compel a scientist or science grad student to stop their sciencing realistically for any amount of time? Because as my previous PI says, every scientist becomes a mad scientist at least in one point in their careers for their research - this is especially true for grad students. 

Then, I just never understood the whole returning a phone excuse Unknown gave MC to lure her into Rika’s apartment. Like MC, with her own phone, is gonna return a phone she doesn’t even have, just because Unknown was persistent? He even says he’s a student in the States who will eventually return home so what was with the urgency to go to find the owner? If he really wanted to return the phone, he could’ve mailed it since he has the address right? We know he does because he sends MC there. It just always bothered me.

Finally, I wanted to slightly self-insert to make the MC (Emme C.) a bit more human so that it even if you couldn’t change her choices, it would still be entertaining. I heavily relied on second person, to help give it the mystic messenger vibe though I’m not sure it works.

This prologue is some character building for Emme C. (Actual name: Emme Cee), brief OC appearances and, for my sanity, this is all taking place in the US. TBH I’m not even sure how deep I want to go with this story. I just know I needed to write it. 

 So without further ado!

“My biggest fear and why? Hmmm,” you mulled it over and took another sip of your beer, after your lab mates glared at you for an answer. 

Or former labmates - you were leaving for grad school in a few weeks so this was kind of your farewell social. Even with your general distaste of beer, even you had to admit this one was really good. 

You closed your eyes and sheepishly rubbed your neck. “This is gonna sound weird but a time loop,” you answered hesitantly.  “It just makes me uneasy to be stuck in never-ending cycle, replaying the same scenario over and over again with no end in sight.”

“True but we are in academic research!” Marie answered, a teasing lilt to her voice that transformed into a chuckle. 

“Yeah you might have to deal with it during your Masters program, especially the thesis stage.” Whitney continued, joining in with a laugh.

“Don’t remind me,” you giggled as you took another sip - a longer sip - of your beer. “But that’s not exactly what I mean either” you persisted, a bit more seriously. 

I’m afraid of replaying the same day, the same events, the same interactions over and over again, not knowing why or how to stop it,” you finished more seriously. You took another sip of the fizzy drink and felt your equilibrium teeter a bit. 

“You mean like that movie Groundhog Day?” Aurora quietly inserted.

“I haven’t seen that movie but if it’s like what I said, then yes, that’s it,” you answered, your fizzy drink now gone. 

“Sorry wait. Why are you afraid of time loops? I think I missed that part. Wouldn’t replaying the same day and seeing how your choices change events be a good thing?” Sally asked. Technically, she was completely right - repeatability was one of the sacred ideals of science after all. Plus, If you really thought about it, you hadn’t actually said why you’re afraid of time loops, just that you are.

“I’m afraid of never moving forward - of never progressing, no matter how hard I try or work. A time loop means, yes, I’ll know what my choices would entail, but not how to escape or what the triggering event for my release could be. I could replay the time period of the same few weeks but for years without knowing how to escape and move on. And, I guess, since it took me so long to even start my Master’s and I felt like I might never be able to, this fear was just born,” you admitted, pouring more beer for yourself. 

I mean an actual time loop where every single thing happens the exact same way, down to the underlying rhythm of conversation. And where you can’t escape until you figure out the common problem then fix it. How would you escape it? And what if you mess up, in different ways, forever? Who would want that?!

—————————————————————————

You awoke with a sigh, realizing you had that dream again. Or was it a flashback since this happened a few weeks ago? You shrugged your shoulders and got to work sorting boxes. You were set to start on-campus work in a few weeks so you were just trying to do the bare minimum research wise. Plus, you wanted to really focus on decorating your new apartment and get acquainted with the town since you’d be living there for the next few years. 

After a few hours of scrambling and organizing, you sat on the floor (you were still in the process of buying furniture), and looked at your emails. 

One in particular caught your attention, so much so that you took off your glasses and rubbed your eyes, almost laughing at such a cartoony response. The subject line of this email was what confused you. It read “missing research paper - need citation”. It was an unfamiliar email, moreover, it was sent to your previous college email, which was linked to your past research publications.

Curious, you bit the inside of your cheek and read the email. 

“Dear Emme, 

Hope this email finds you well. I am a student from XXX University and have been working on a research project concerning XXX. Your research was one of the most recent and prominent examples as to why this area needs further study, however, I have not been able to access the paper I saved as a bookmark in my web browser. After extensive searching, I have been unable to find the original paper or even one of the articles that referenced it - almost as if the article has completely disappeared from existence! Is there a reason the research article is gone? If not, could you provide me with an idea of where it is and the proper citation for my research article?”

what. whAT. WHAT!?

Your research couldn’t be gone! This didn’t make any sense! Yes it was a few years old, but it couldn’t be gone from the web! There are research papers from the 1960s that are archived and accessible online for goodness sake!

You had to calm down. Take deep breaths. You continued trying to breathe as you pulled out your research flash drive. You looked for the paper on your there and found it, sighing in relief. It grounded you, reminding you that your work did exist. Just as you were set to attach the file and corresponding citation to the email, your internet stopped. 

Scratch that, your entire laptop stopped. 

You groaned. Yes, this was an older, refurbished model, but it’s been working fine. The screen distorted for a second, as if the extra pixel boxes emphasized the frozen nature of your screen. Before you even had time to process it, your laptop unfroze and you breathed a sigh of relief. 

Thank heavens. You had just moved and weren’t sure you could realistically afford a new laptop anytime soon. As you look over your screen, however, your relief shifts to panic. 

omg. oMG. OMG!

It’s gone. Your research files. The ones on your laptop and on your flash drive. The email is gone. Before you can refresh the page you get logged out. You can’t even log into your old email account - Error 404 Not Found. 

Your heart races. Then, it aches. You worked so hard on those projects. They were part of your scientific fabric and now both were just gone. Your years of work, gone in seconds. 

You felt like crying. But you decide not to, at least not until you’re in the shower where the tears can blend in with the cascading liquid as you sing emo music. 

For now, you decide a quick walk and some fresh air are what you need, so you grab your keys and head for the mailbox. You’ve only lived in this apartment for a week but you check the mail constantly in an effort to get in the habit rather than because you expect something. 

But today, you did get something. A small parcel with no return address. Curious, you take that and the grocery flyers to your apartment and open the package there. 

A phone? It’s from the same company as yours, just a slightly older model.

You blink at it, almost telepathically asking it what it’s doing in your mailbox. You decide to turn it in to the mail service and are about to put it back in its envelope when you notice a note. 

“Charge me” 

“What the hell is going on today?” You mutter as you pull out your charger and plug it into the phone.

You sit on the floor with this new phone in hand and sigh. “Why am I even taking orders from a mysterious note for anyway?”

Just then the screen lights up. There’s no passcode so opening the phone was super easy. The phone’s screen and minimal app selection almost made you think it was new, but the lack of setting it up told you that wasn’t the case. Who would buy this phone and not use it? And why did they send it to you? 

There is one app that calls to you, mostly because you’ve never seen it before. And because it was unlike the rest of the default apps on the screen.

RFA? What’s that?

Just then, the screen turns dark and green characters zoom up through the screen. You sucked with all tech but even you knew this reaction was abnormal. You swore you didn’t press the app but seeing the phone continue reacting, you become less confident. 

“Hello?” 

You stare at the screen. ‘Unknown’ was messaging you. 

You respond. Stupidly. Naively. And without thinking about the consequences. 

Because this was real life. Right?

What’s the worse that could happen?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m debating taking this next part a few routes...we’ll see what I decide...

If you, by any chance made it all the way down here, can you drop a reblog or something with your thoughts? Was Emme Cee likable? Did the flow make sense? Do you like where this is going? Let me know! 

[ucflibrary]

For the month of December, the UCF Libraries Bookshelf celebrates the favorite books of employees of the UCF Libraries. And you know a major thing about librarians? They love talking about their favorite books. The books listed below are some of the favorite non-fiction books we read in 2019.

Click on the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the favorite non-fiction titles read in 2019 by UCF Library employees. These 30 books plus many, many more are also on display on the 2nd (main) floor of the John C. Hitt Library next to the bank of two elevators.

And if you find someone has checked the one you’re interested in out before you had a chance, did you know you can place an interlibrary loan and have another copy sent here for you? Click here for instructions on placing an interlibrary loan.

 A Mind at Play: how Claude Shannon invented the information age by Jimmy Soni In their second collaboration, biographers Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman present the story of Claude Shannon—one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century and the architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded. Claude Shannon was a groundbreaking polymath, a brilliant tinkerer, and a digital pioneer. In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Soni and Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Battles for Freedom: the use and abuse of American history by Eric Foner In this collection of polemical pieces, Foner expounds on the relevance of Abraham Lincoln's legacy in the age of Obama and on the need for another era of Reconstruction. In addition to articles in which Foner calls out politicians and the powerful for their abuse and misuse of American history, Foner assesses some of his fellow leading historians of the late 20th century, including Richard Hofstadter, Howard Zinn and Eric Hobsbawm. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 Because Internet: understanding the new rules of language by Gretchen McCulloch Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Consider the Fork: a history of how we cook and eat by Bee Wilson Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious--or at least edible. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Bee Wilson takes readers on a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of objects we often take for granted. Blending history, science, and personal anecdotes, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be and how their influence has shaped food culture today. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Dopesick: dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America by Beth Macy Through unsparing, compelling, and unforgettably humane portraits of families and first responders determined to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows that one thing uniting Americans across geographic, partisan, and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But even in the midst of twin crises in drug abuse and healthcare, Macy finds reason to hope and ample signs of the spirit and tenacity that are helping the countless ordinary people ensnared by addiction build a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities. Suggested by Jeremy Lucas, Research & Information

 Elbert Parr Tuttle: chief jurist of the civil rights revolution by Anne Emanuel This is the first—and the only authorized—biography of Elbert Parr Tuttle (1897–1996), the judge who led the federal court with jurisdiction over most of the Deep South through the most tumultuous years of the civil rights revolution. By the time Tuttle became chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, he had already led an exceptional life. He had cofounded a prestigious law firm, earned a Purple Heart in the battle for Okinawa in World War II, and led Republican Party efforts in the early 1950s to establish a viable presence in the South. But it was the inter­section of Tuttle’s judicial career with the civil rights movement that thrust him onto history’s stage. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 Ex Libris: confessions of a common reader by Anne Fadiman This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. Suggested by Christina Wray, Teaching & Engagement

 From Here to Eternity: traveling the world to find the good death by Caitlin Doughty Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes. Doughty vividly describes decomposed bodies and investigates the world's funerary history. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico's Dias de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light. Doughty contends that the American funeral industry sells a particular -- and, upon close inspection, peculiar -- set of 'respectful' rites: bodies are whisked to a mortuary, pumped full of chemicals, and entombed in concrete. She argues that our expensive, impersonal system fosters a corrosive fear of death that hinders our ability to cope and mourn. By comparing customs, she demonstrates that mourners everywhere respond best when they help care for the deceased and have space to participate in the process. Suggested by Katy Miller, Textbook Affordability

 Human Compatible: artificial intelligence and the problem of control by Stuart Russell Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 In Pieces by Sally Field With raw honesty and the fresh, pitch-perfect prose of a natural-born writer, and with all the humility and authenticity her fans have come to expect, Field brings readers behind-the-scenes for not only the highs and lows of her star-studded early career in Hollywood, but deep into the truth of her lifelong relationships--including her complicated love for her own mother. Suggested by Katie Kirwan, Acquisitions & Collections

 Inside of a Dog: what dogs see, smell, and know by Alexandra Horowitz Although not a formal training guide, this book has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself. Suggested by Kimberly Montgomery, Cataloging

 Life 3.0: being human in the age of artificial intelligence by Max Tegmark This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn’t shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues—from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. This is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Suggested by Larry Cooperman, Research & Information

 Mindfulness: an eight-week plan for finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman

The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and is widely recommended by US physicians and the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical. Suggested by Tina Buck, Acquisitions & Collections

 Oh, Florida!: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country by Craig Pittman Florida. That name. That combination of sounds. Three simple syllables packing mixed messages. To some people, it’s a paradise. To others, it’s a punch line. As award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Craig Pittman shows, it's both of these and, more important, it’s a Petri dish, producing trends that end up influencing the rest of the country. This book embraces those contradictions and shows how they fit together to make this the most interesting state. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 Packing for Mars: the curious science of life in the void by Mary Roach The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. From the Space Shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule, Mary Roach takes us on the surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Shortest Way Home: one mayor's challenge and a model for America's future by Pete Buttigieg Interweaving two narratives―that of a young man coming of age and a town regaining its economic vitality―Buttigieg recounts growing up in a Rust Belt city, amid decayed factory buildings and the steady soundtrack of rumbling freight trains passing through on their long journey to Chicagoland. Inspired by John F. Kennedy’s legacy, Buttigieg first left northern Indiana for red bricked Harvard and then studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, before joining McKinsey, where he trained as a consultant―becoming, of all things, an expert in grocery pricing. Then, Buttigieg defied the expectations that came with his pedigree, choosing to return home to Indiana and responding to the ultimate challenge of how to revive a once great industrial city and help steer its future in the twenty first century. Suggested by Jeremy Lucas, Research & Information

 Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon, 1961-63 by Marcelino Truong This riveting, beautifully produced graphic memoir tells the story of the early years of the Vietnam war as seen through the eyes of a young boy named Marco, the son of a Vietnamese diplomat and his French wife. The book opens in America, where the boy's father works for the South Vietnam embassy; there the boy is made to feel self-conscious about his otherness thanks to schoolmates who play war games against the so-called "Commies." The family is called back to Saigon in 1961, where the father becomes Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's personal interpreter; as the growing conflict between North and South intensifies, so does turmoil within Marco's family, as his mother struggles to grapple with bipolar disorder. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it’s not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do. Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. Suggested by Brian Calhoun & Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 The Library Book by Susan Orlean On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Suggested by Rachel Mulvihill, Downtown

 The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit: Victorian iconoclast, children's author, and creator of The Railway Children by Eleanor Fitzsimons Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) is considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children’s adventure story. Award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit’s letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals “E.” to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism and shows how Nesbit incorporated these ideas into her writing, thereby influencing a generation of children—an aspect of her literary legacy never before examined. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson This classic work remains as fresh today as when it first appeared. Carson's writing teems with stunning, memorable images--the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans; giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface; and incredibly powerful tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in the Bay of Fundy. Quite simply, she captures the mystery and allure of the ocean with a compelling blend of imagination and expertise. Suggested by Christina Wray, Teaching & Engagement

 The Sex Lives of Cannibals: adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost This book tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life). Suggested by Katie Kirwan, Acquisitions & Collections

 The Source of Self-Regard: selected essays, speeches, and meditations by Toni Morrison The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass that are Toni Morrison's inimitable hallmark. It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer for the dead of 9/11; the second by a searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., and the last by a heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. In the writings and speeches included here, Morrison takes on contested social issues: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, "black matter(s)," and human rights. She looks at enduring matters of culture: the role of the artist in society, the literary imagination, the Afro-American presence in American literature, and in her Nobel lecture, the power of language itself. And here too is piercing commentary on her own work and that of others, among them, painter and collagist Romare Bearden, author Toni Cade Bambara, and theater director Peter Sellars. Suggested by Jada Reyes, Research & Information Services

 The Collected Schizophrenias: essays by Esme Weijun Wang An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the “collected schizophrenias” but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community’s own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang’s analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. Suggested by Jada Reyes, Research & Information Services

 The War on Normal People: the truth about America's disappearing jobs and why universal basic income is our future by Andrew Yang Yang imagines a different future--one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls "human capitalism." Suggested by Jeremy Lucas, Research & Information

 Trick Mirror: reflections on self-delusion by Jia Tolentino Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity. Suggested by Jada Reyes, Research & Information Services & Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Two Cheers for Democracy by E. M. Forster Essays that applaud democracy's toleration of individual freedom and self-criticism and deplore its encouragement of mediocrity. Suggested by Christina Wray, Teaching & Engagement

 Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: chasing fear and finding home in the great white north by Blair Braverman By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, this book brilliantly recounts Braverman’s adventures in Norway and Alaska. Settling into her new surroundings, Braverman was often terrified that she would lose control of her dog team and crash her sled, or be attacked by a polar bear, or get lost on the tundra. Above all, she worried that, unlike the other, gutsier people alongside her, she wasn’t cut out for life on the frontier. But no matter how out of place she felt, one thing was clear: she was hooked on the North. On the brink of adulthood, Braverman was determined to prove that her fears did not define her—and so she resolved to embrace the wilderness and make it her own. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. This book chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. Suggested by Pat Tiberii, Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

[kerbieaddis]

How I Got My Agent

Well, here's a post I never thought I'd have the chance to write.

After 6 years of writing seriously, several manuscripts, multiple contests, hundreds of queries, and a metric ton of determination, I am over the moon to announce I have an agent.

I can't even begin to tell you guys how happy I am. I have a long road ahead of me still, with revisions and going on submission, but having someone in my corner is such an incredible boost to help me fight through self-doubt.

My writing journey has been long and (literally) bloody, but for this post I'll just focus on the book that got me an agent. Before I wrote this book, I'd made up my mind to only write something if I really loved it. I was finishing up my master's degree, making plans to move to Philadelphia, and really didn't have time to write something new.

One night, after calming me down from an anxiety attack, my husband, Chris, said: "Don't you wish there was a machine that could erase all the bad memories?"

I thought on this for a moment. Part of me welcomed the idea of erasing bad memories, but as someone with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, it simultaneously terrified me. For that to work, I thought, it would need to be an artificial intelligence. Something that could sort the memories. I thought of my miscarriage from years earlier and how even though it was a terrible memory and had brought on several new anxiety triggers, it had lit a fire under me. Would I want to erase that? How would an artificial intelligence understand that I valued the bad memories?

I told Chris my thoughts. "But what if an artificial intelligence couldn't tell the difference between bad or good memories?"

"Sounds like a good science fiction idea."

But I can't write science fiction, I thought. I'm not smart enough. I don't know anything about science, how could I write science fiction? So I tucked the idea away as something that someone else could write. But not me.

And I didn't write anything on that book for a year and a half. But one day, when washing dishes, I heard in my head the voice of the villain. He only said one line, which is a spoiler, but it made the rest of the book suddenly click into place. I stopped washing dishes and scrambled for my computer, typing frantically with soapy hands.

Within an hour, I had my outline.

What I didn't understand about the science behind my plot points, I researched. I live near an academic library and spent many exhausted nights over quantum computing textbooks and articles about the ethics of artificial intelligences.

In one month, I had a first draft.

In three months, I had a final draft and a thumbs up from all my critique partners.

I started querying, knowing I had lots of rejection ahead of me. Previously, I had queried manuscripts for about a year before giving up, so I expected the timeline to be similar.

I had difficult classes, which was a welcome distraction from thinking about my queries floating in cyberspace. To finish a 25-page paper, I stayed up for two nights and finally turned it in, signaling my completion of that semester. Before passing out in bed, I checked my query email. I wasn't expecting anything, really, since I'd only been querying for a month and just a few people had responded so far.

I had one email. An agent wanted to talk on the phone.

I became lightheaded. I staggered down the hall and mumbled something to Chris about "someone wants to talk" which he found hilariously ominous. I was so sleep-deprived I could barely comprehend what was happening, so I asked my husband to read the email.

"They want a phone call," he confirmed.

It was Friday, which meant the phone call was scheduled for Monday. This agent's timing couldn't have been more perfect. I think if I would've gotten their email while still writing papers, I might have failed that semester because there was no way I could concentrate on anything else.

Monday came, finally, and we had our phone call. I vibrated with anxiety the entire time. Chris had "phone call duties" which involved herding our pets, keeping them quiet, and sitting by with a notebook to write down all the key points of the call since I knew I would be utterly useless to remember anything once the adrenaline faded.

It was an offer! The agent loved my book. They had ideas for revision, which I agreed with. They were kind and supportive and had great ideas. I got off the phone with my heart soaring. They were perfect.

But then I had the task of notifying all other agents. I only had out around 20 queries, so luckily that didn't take long.

More full requests came in. Each time, I nearly threw up with stress. One agent asked for the full, an agent I'd admired for a long time, but I didn't get my hopes up. I queried them because they liked my previous manuscripts, but I always assumed dark/horror wasn't their cup of tea.

A week later, when eating salad at a restaurant with my husband, I got an email from that very agent. They wanted a phone call.

I tossed my fork and grabbed a spoon, shoveling salad into my mouth. "They want a phone call in two hours," I explained to Chris, and he too, began scarfing down food.

We raced home and I panic-prepared for the phone call. Chris resumed his "phone call duties." Can I just say thank God for supportive spouses?

The phone call happened. Another offer! The agent was absolutely incredible. They talked about the themes in the book, themes I thought most people wouldn't catch. They wanted heavier revisions than the other offering agent, but as they explained what worked and what didn't work, I made a suggestion, and they added to that suggestion. I was suddenly overcome with an itch to work on the story again, because their enthusiasm and ideas sparked my creativity.

I told the agent I was surprised they liked the book so much, since I'd always assumed they disliked horror. "Pure horror, yes," they explained, "but not books with horror elements. Plus your book reminds me of Annihilation."

I swooned. Annihilation is one of my favorite books, and I had been trying to recapture the ominous unknown fear of that book in my own.

I got off the phone, shaking. Now I had a decision to make. I loved both agents, but I could only choose one.

I made a pros and cons list. I asked my friends their opinions on each agent and their agency. I did hours of googling. Each time a new email popped up, I was actually praying it wasn't another offer. I didn't want the decision to be any harder. My deadline was soon after Christmas, so several agents did email to ask for more time. More than one said they were leaning towards offering, but that they never offer without finishing a manuscript.

After lots of stressful crying, throwing up, and cramming chocolate in my face, I had my decision.

I officially signed with Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary. She was the agent I believed I had zero chance with, but in the end, she was the one who understood my book the most. Her revision ideas were so incredibly brilliant and they made me crave writing again, which is exactly what I want in an agent.

Anyway, I know when I read these stories, I loved to see statistics, so here's the querying stats on my sci fi:

Queries Sent: 20

Rejections: 8

No Response: 4

Full Requests: 8

Offers: 2

I think if there's anything I want other writers to take from this, it's don't give up and don't self-reject. I rolled my eyes when reading that on other "How I Got My Agent" stories, but it's true. I self-rejected a LOT. I even put off writing this book, which is probably the best thing I've ever written, because I assumed I wasn't "smart enough" to write it. You can do anything if you put the work in.

Maybe it won't be this manuscript, and that's okay. Maybe your writing isn't ready. Maybe the market isn't ready. But keep going, because with each manuscript you finish, it's another step on the journey.

Speaking of, I still have another journey ahead of me, and that's revision, so I should get back to it. If you got this far, thanks for reading, and good luck!

[page-of-tales]

Story: Life Donors

To the person who said they thought Exchangeable Parts would be about organ donation. Here comes something that will disappoint them. Feedback and comments are always appreciated

Word Count: 3575

---

(Distances, times, and proper nouns translated to their approximate human equivalents)

8 rotations (months) ago the homeworld of the Hilox had quietly entered into crisis mode. A lethal plague was sweeping through the population of it’s colony worlds. It was an old and familiar disease, dating to a pre space travel age, that had mutated into a deadlier form. Traditional treatments were failing to adequately treat the disease and only a heavily strained medical infrastructure kept the death toll from exploding exponentially. The media had labeled the new disease the Jinkor after a shapeshifting monster from old myths. Public disorder had been quelled, sometimes with force, and it was clear to those in power that the situation was teetering on the brink.

It is in this context that a report from a low ranking Xeno-Bio Department Tech was brought to the upper echelons of Hilox leadership and a coded request sent to the human embassy. What could amount to the saving grace for the Hilox constituted a forbidden curse.

---

Dr. Alexa Khatri sat reading an email on her Screen, finger scrolling through a long list of numbers. The results from the last assay had come in and the lab techs were running analysis on the data. It was a little frustrating to have been called away but the official looking people who had knocked at her domicile had stressed the importance of her presence. As it was she was currently seated in the human Embassy’s waiting room orbiting around the homeworld of the alien species, the Hilox.

The artificial gravity was a close match to that of the planet below, approximately a 0.9 standard G. Which was good for Alexa who had lived all her life on low gravity planets. It was part of the reason she had accepted the job offer to work on the planet below with its lighter gravity, that and the opportunity to work with aliens. Now several rotations later she still enjoyed her work and had a number of friends with her Hilox neighbors and coworkers, in addition to the fellow human coworkers at the research institute.

Why the Embassy requested her was still somewhat unclear. Given her expertise in Hilox biology, the obvious answer was they wanted a local scientist familiar with Hilox anatomy. Specifically a medical expert. She wondered how she ended up on that list. Maybe everyone else had said no.

The doors of the waiting room slid open and a well dressed woman of vaguely Asian descent walked through. Alexa turned off her Screen and stood as the stranger extended a hand.

“Doctor Khatri I presume. I am Ambassador Suwong.” Said the woman, a charming smile on her face.

“Yes. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The two women shook hands. The Ambassador gestured for Khatri to follow her into the hallway. Khatri tucked her Screen away and hurried to catch up.

“I hope your trip was pleasant.”

“Ah yes, the shuttle ride was very short.”

“Mm, sorry to call you on such short notice but the Hilox called for this meeting just yesterday.”

“So what is my role here?”

Suwong stopped suddenly and Khatri nearly ran into her

“You mean you don’t know? I thought someone would have briefed you already.”

Khatri shook her head. Once she had arrived on the station she had been shunted into the waiting room and left to her own devices with everyone rushing off to other duties. Occasionally someone had popped into the room and asked for someone and when Khatri shrugged they had ran off before she could ask them a question. And somewhat afraid to wander in a government building she had stayed put.

“Well I don’t know quite what exactly either.” Suwong replied bluntly. She continued before Khatri could respond.

“All I know is that the Hilox said they want to discuss a recent plague some of their colonies are suffering some, some sort of request of aid. That’s why I called on you. You are the closest expert on Hilox physiology we could reach. I”m going to be relying on you to give me some context and translation for the science aspects.”

Khatri nodded her head.

“That was what I was told, I just thought there was more to it.”

Suwong shrugged. Khatri was a little alarmed at how cavalier she was being.

“I’m nearly in the dark as you are.”

Suwong pulled up a memo on her wrist screen.

“It’s what they call the Jinkor, they quarantined Joulkoub it’s gotten so bad.”

The two entered into a meeting room. A meeting room in name only as there were only a few chairs and no table with a young man pushing in another chair through a doorway.

“Doctor Khatri this is my aide, Terrance.”

Khatri shook Terrance’s hand. And they exchanged polite greetings.

“We’re expecting a party of 3 soon. Hurry up before they arrive.”

Terrance nodded and dashed out of the room.

“Where is everyone else?” Khatri asked, earlier it had appeared the embassy was a bustling hive but they had not met anyone in the corridors.

“A mercy fleet is on it’s way to help the Hilox and coordinating with the logistics and legal aspects of that alone has been distracting. Plus we have a variety of civilian organizations also looking to contribute. Everyone is working overtime to handle those requests. But don’t worry, we’ll have a team outside to back us up here by the time the Hilox arrive.”

The meeting wasn’t for another 2 hours. In that brief window of time Khatri read all the recent news bulletins and articles on the Jinkor. Historically the illness had been a viral infection which in late stages of illness would cause paralysis of respiratory organs resulting in death. Treatments and vaccines for the disease had been around for centuries limiting its effect to impoverished regions. But this resurgence appeared to be the result of a mutated strain that was resistant to treatments and rapidly advanced to the late lethal stages in a quarter the normal time. Khatri tapped a finger against her temple in thought.

Immunology was not Khatri’s specific field of expertise, but she knew enough of Hilox physiology to know the basic mechanism of the Hilox immunological systems and some of the more general treatments they applied. The Jinkor virus in her mind drew a parallel to the human disease polio, an ancient disease long since eradicated. There was no question that the disease was worrisome, but Khatri figured it was only a matter of time before the Hilox found a working treatment. The Hilox were an advanced race, with significant resources and the means to create a viable treatment. Why the Hilox would call request an emergency meeting with humans was beyond her.

The same question was running unspoken through Suwong’s mind as well. In between answering Khatri’s questions and summarizing the procedure of intergalactic negotiations she was also looking over previous briefings. Trying to gauge what the Hilox attitudes or requests would be. Her report on the Hilox request had been processed by Central and they were in the dark as much as her. They didn’t say that in such terms but the phrased reply, “proceed cautiously and give continual updates”, certainly gave that impression.

The Hilox and Federation could be described as distant in relations. The Hilox existed in a region of space that had a number of other sentients and the Federation became just another in a long list for them to ignore. In the grand scheme of things there were certainly worse ways to be regarded. There existed peace, but it was a dull peace. Besides the usual trade, travel, and border negotiations there was little other official activity between the two interstellar civilizations. Private enterprises like that of Suwong’s company only retained a small fairly nominal presence in Hilox space. The arrival of the mercy fleet would mark one of the largest interactions to date. Central’s summarized position on the Hilox had remained the same since first contact, good neighbors. Suwong hoped that wouldn’t change today.

As the time of the meeting approached Suwong passed Khatri a screen from a briefcase Terrance had brought in when he had returned from another trip.

“I should have done this earlier, but it slipped my mind. This is a locked screen, protocol dictates we use them for any official business. Go ahead and transfer any data you have right now. It has a secure connection to the Internet so you can still look up things. As I’m sure you are aware the Hilox communicate with us via text and you should find the texting app on there already.”

Khatri took the screen. It was slightly heavier than hers and its lock screen emblem was that of the Embassy’s. Connecting the two she transferred the files she had saved and set her own screen away. Suwong set her screen on the table and turned to the two.

“As we discussed earlier. I’ll be taking lead for the discussions. I’ll ask Professor Khatri if I need clarification. Terrance, keep in connection with the others and follow normal protocol.”

Despite herself Khatri felt a slight tingling of excitement. Akin to when she was close to a breakthrough. There was an air of political intrigue beginning to permeate the air. She checked her reflection in the darkened screen and suddenly wished she had asked for a glass of water.

---

Acolyte of Xeno Biology J’Xun sat nervously in the atrium just outside the doorway to the meeting room. Besides him towered the much larger Praetor K’Gholun, who was eyeing the Marine guard at the door with curiosity. J’Xun understood the interest. Humans remained a rare sight in Hilox space and for the Praetor who had an extensive military background, seeing a human soldier in person was bound to be something of interest. The Praetor’s aide, J’Ryn was closer to his own age and was busily compiling some file for the upcoming meeting.J’Xun could feel his body heat rising with the pressure. Lives were at stake and he sincerely wished someone else was in his place. But it was his team that had made the discovery which ostentatiously meant he had earned the honor. The bigger question would be if the humans would be willing to hear them out.

The guard at the door must have received a signal because he held up a display with the words, “They are ready.” written in Hilox in front. The doors slid open and the three entered.

There were three humans sitting at a long table. 2 dressed in similar uniforms, the other dressed in a different manner of uniform. J’Xun hadn’t studied humans enough to determine any more than that. Though he could presume the center human was the equivalent to the Praetor. There were 3 long chairs set up for Hilox physiology. And J’Xun eased into the one facing the mismatched human. The human eyed him levelly, somewhat unnerving the reclusive scientist.

Praetor K’Gholun “spoke” first. The words appearing in between the two species on a glass pane in the middle of the table in language readable to both sides.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice. I am Praetor K’Gholun representing the Hilox government.”

The middle human entered something into a device and words now in a different color began to scroll across the glass.

“It is not problem, I understand it is a matter of great urgency. I am Ambassador Suwong.”

The other four introduced themselves the different colored text displaying their identity and names.

And so the meeting began. With the Praetor giving context.

“As I’m sure you are aware there is a significant health crisis on several of our worlds. The Jinkor as the media has labeled it. It is ravaging our populations and putting severe strains on our medical institutions. The situation is worse than we have let the public know. If things don’t turn around the collapse of the Hilox civilization will be inevitable. We believe the humans can assist us.”

Ambassador Suwong took a moment to remind the Hilox of their active efforts.

“I assume you are talking about more than physical aid. The mercy fleet we have volunteered is on it’s way, and some civilian organizations are already on the ground.”

“The charity given by humanity is greatly appreciated. But our request today is something more... controversial.”

The fact that the Praetor had typed out what the computer had translated into ellipses was not lost on the Federation Ambassador, her earpiece having gone silent as the other room listened in closely.

“I will let Acolyte J’Xun explain.”

J’Xun almost choked. The Praetor who had faced the Viscek hive legions and the Dark Spheres was balming in the face of the request. But then again, it was no small request, it was akin to asking the humans to sacrifice their lives. J’Xun gathered his thoughts, realizing that he would have to start at the beginning.

“Let me start at the beginning.”

---

Khatri perked up at the word acolyte. It was the Hilox equivalent to scientist. Suwong looked at her and gave a slight nod. It was likely her turn to step up.

The acolyte began to go on. Paragraphs of text began to scroll along the glass. Suwong gave up on trying to decipher the technical jargon and instead turned to Khatri. Khatri felt like a translator, converting the Hilox terms to human ones and then converting those into a simpler versions for the other two to understand.

The acolyte and his team had been running tests with the Jinkor virus with various alien cell cultures. The purpose of this common test to confirm that there was no compatibility that would lead to cross species infection. Since diseases evolved to target specific organisms cross species infections were exceedingly rare, but the mere existence of that chance demanded such tests. In every case mixing infected Hilox cells with alien cells resulted in no sign of cross infection occurring in the alien cells. However there was an unusual outlier with the human sample. In every other test the infected Hilox cells had been destroyed as time progressed, usually as the infection progressed to end stage within the cells. But in the human samples, portions of Hilox cells had survived.

Further examination had led the team to discover that the human cells had forced the virus into a stage of latency, or remission. Leaving the Hilox cells untouched of signs of infection. This was a breakthrough. The mutations of the virus had resulted in difficulties in creating a vaccine. A quick clinical trial confirmed the initial results, human blood injected into a host ceased the progression of infection. A possible treatment in lieu of a vaccine.The team had gone further by attempting to isolate the elements that led to the Jinkor virus remission. Initially they thought it was the human immune system, but though the human immune cells were capable of destroying the virus they did not spare the Hilox cells either.

However after some more trials they isolated hemoglobin as the target molecule. Hemoglobin better known as red blood cells.

At this point Khatri interrupted. Her text providing a sharp break to the long string of the acolyte’s text.

“Wait, wait, wait. How do red blood cells cause a virus to go into remission?”

“Red blood cells?” The acolyte’s text queried back.

“Sorry, hemoglobin. What’s the mechanism behind forcing the virus into remission.”

“We are still trying to figure that out. But so far our tests have shown that an injection of purified hemoglobin sends the virus into remission.”

“But you must have a theory? The iron core or maybe its oxygen affinity?”

“We haven’t yet been able to determine that.”

“Fascinating.” Khatri said aloud. Seeing that Khatri was becoming lost in thought Suwong leaned forward to type out question.

“So what you are asking for is blood.”

At this the alien acolyte froze, looking at it’s compatriots who looked uncomfortable. After a great length the Praetor typed out.

“Yes.”

Suwong leaned back.

“So they want blood.” She muttered under her breath. That would be a fun report to write later. Terrance looked like he was about to have an aneurism. Her own earpiece had gotten unusually silent as well.

The ambassador looked at Khatri speaking directly to her.

“If we gave them permission to produce human blood what would that entail? If I recall my high school biology correctly blood cells are extremely simple.”

“Blood cells come from stem cells. Giving them access would be incredibly controversial, regardless of intent.” Khatri said shutting that option down.  

Terrance spoke up as well.

“We also don’t have any industries that produce blood in the quantities required. It’s never been needed. But there are other options. The mercy fleet is still stockpiling supplies. We could ask them to pick up human blood, even filter out the white blood cells.”

Suwong nodded eyeing the aliens sitting across the table who were visibly becoming distressed with the ongoing discussion. She tapped a message into the Screen.

“We would be willing to assist.”  

Terrance immediately began tapping on his Screen, undoubtedly communicating with the others in the other room to get to work.

The aliens seemed to visibly relax, the aide appearing to quaver with emotion. The Praetor carefully typed a message.

“Your sacrifices will never be forgotten.”  

*Uh, what?* Suwong frowned. Even for a Hilox that phrasing was odd.

“It will not be a big sacrifice, humans give blood all the time.”

This seemed to startle the scientist alien who interjected.

“Is blood not vital for you to live? How can extracting blood not be lethal?”

Suwong realized that the Hilox had a poorer understanding of human biology than her.

“Blood is replaced continuously, and humans give blood all the time.”

After a second she added, “We don’t give all the blood, just about a half liter at a time. It’s a careful procedure which ensures safety of the donor.”

This seemed to shock the aliens, and Khatri suddenly recalled that they had no such medical practice. Humans were surprisingly lacking in diversity compared to other species, at a broad scale anyway. Even dogs had at least 13 major blood groups compared to human’s 4. Even just looking at the three Hilox in front of her she could see a drastic size difference and unique head shape between each of them. If she recalled correctly the acidity of Hilox blood could vary from  6 to 10 which would make the notion of standardizing blood transfusions quite absurd.

The aliens still seemed stunned. “Why would you take blood?” This time it was the aide who was asking.

“In case someone needs it.” Suwong said, somehow inserting a shrug into her line of text.

“Loss of blood as you said previously can be fatal to humans. Which is why having a storage of blood on hand is beneficial to us.”

Khatri interrupted, ignoring the aliens who silently grappled with the implications of what Suwong had just described.

“I was doing some research on that, the nearest sizable blood bank is over 2 months away. Blood can only be kept in cold storage for maybe 50 to 60. There are smaller ones that are closer, but I’m talking really small. We should look into a fresher source.”

“Getting rather vampiric aren’t we.” Suwong joked.

Khatri ignored her, and continued on.

“I would suggest we look into the Trident Warp Hub. Lots of humans funnel through there to get to this region. An impromptu bank could be opened there.”  

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” Suwong affirmed.

*We could also pull some blood out of whatever troops we have stationed in the sector.* She thought to herself.

The meeting closed with the cementing of details. Despite the Hilox’s somewhat awkward efforts, Suwong declined the their offer of compensation. The task of gathering the blood would be left for the humans to manage. Leaving the Hilox to prepare for the arrival of the mercy fleet. The Hilox delegate left feeling quite relieved, having evaded offending the humans, and buying their people more time.

And thus the crisis was averted. When the call went out people responded. Analysts estimated that combat efficiency in some units dropped 10% with soldiers competing to give more blood against doctor orders. The mercy fleet rapidly distributing the aid across the affected zones. In some cases the humanitarian workers gave blood on the field. Directly infusing with the sickened Hilox when they encountered shortages. The blood shortages didn’t last long. Khatri’s proposition was inspired brilliance. Nearly half a million humans went through the Trident Warp Hub daily. Every human who arrived received a message from the diplomatic office, requesting their aid. Alien travelers were greeted with the unusual sight of hundreds upon thousands of humans giving blood. Laid back on couches and benches with devices pumping them for blood. Like a macabre harvest. Appearances aside the result was fantastic. The tidal wave of deaths was stemmed by human blood. Regular donations of blood continued until the Hilox were able to create a permanent cure. It was an act of charity that the Hilox would long remember, paving a path for the induction of the Hilox into the Federation.

[edmondmoller]

How to Predict Eye Color (And When Do Babies Eyes Change Color?)

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How to Predict Eye Color (And When Do Babies Eyes Change Color?)

Have you ever tried one of those online generators to determine what your baby will look like before he/she is born? The results can be pretty hilarious when you see your nose combined with your partner’s 5 o’clock shadow. Unfortunately, these tools are just for fun—they can’t show you what baby’s smile will look like and they can’t answer questions like when do babies eyes change color?

When you just can’t wait to meet baby, any intel about what they’ll look like or what their personality might be like is welcome information, and luckily, eye color is something you can predict—to an extent! 

In this article, we’ll answer:

What determines baby’s eye color? When do babies’ eyes change color? Are all babies born with blue eyes? Plus, what eye color says about personality.

What Determines Eye Color?

Though eye color is an inherited trait, it is a bit more complex than Mom’s eyes + Dad’s eyes = Baby’s eyes. According to the latest research, 11 genes contribute to the color of those adorable peepers.

The genes associated with eye color are involved in the production and storage of melanin, which is the amount of pigment occurring in the hair, skin, and iris of the eye.

Brown-eyed people have a large amount of melanin in their iris, while people with blue eyes have a small amount. Several variations in the genes can either reduce or increase the melanin. And when these genes interact with each other, crazy things can happen. For example, it isn’t unheard of for two brown-eyed parents to have a blue- or a green-eyed child, or two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child.

The inheritance of eye color is more complex than originally suspected because multiple genes are involved. While a child’s eye color can often be predicted by the eye colors of his or her parents and other relatives, genetic variations sometimes produce unexpected results. (source)

But just like your baby, eye color research still has a lot of growing up to do—there are several thousand genes involved in iris development currently under investigation.

What Color Eyes Will My Baby Have?

There’s nothing like daydreaming about what your unborn baby will look like before he or she enters the world. Unfortunately, there is no way to know for sure what color eyes your little one will have.

Ultimately, the color of a baby’s eyes depends on two things: the parent’s genes and the way they mutate the moment baby is conceived.

Though recent research says there’s a lot more than parents’ eye color that affects baby’s eye color, these guidelines show some of the more likely scenarios:

Two blue-eyed parents are very likely to have a blue-eyed child. Two brown-eyed parents are more likely to have a child with brown eyes. If one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the chances of having a blue-eyed baby increase slightly. If one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, eye color is more of a toss up.

Love the guessing game? This chart can be a fun way to determine what color eyes your baby is most likely to have:

Are All Babies Born With Blue Eyes?

In the U.S., only 1 in 5 Caucasian adults have blue eyes, but most are born blue-eyed. (source)

Ever heard the term baby blues? That phrase makes a little more sense when you know that most Caucasian babies are born with blue (or gray) eyes.

Why? Special cells called melanocytes secrete melanin in our hair, skin, and eyes. And because melanocytes respond to light, the amount of melanin in the body increases as we are exposed to more light. When melanin increases, skin, hair, and eyes get darker. After spending more than nine months in a dark womb, baby has very low levels of melanin, and therefore, has very light skin and eyes. (source)

African American, Latin, and Asian babies can have blue eyes at birth, but it’s much less likely. If anything, they will have gray eyes, very dark blue eyes, or brown eyes.

“Darkly-pigmented individuals usually have brown-eyed babies, because the babies have more pigment to start out with.” — Norman Saffra, Chairman of Ophthalmology at Maimonedes Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

When Do Babies Eyes Change Color?

If your child is born with those baby blues, you’ll probably wonder when do babies eyes change color? Will they change color—or will they stay blue? 

It can take as long as 9 to 12 months for your baby’s permanent eye color to be determined and the change is so gradual, you might not even notice it happening. But by baby’s first birthday, you can be pretty sure whatever big eyes are staring down that smash cake are the ones they’ll have for life.

“Though some babies’ eye color changes rapidly with the onset of melanin, most infants undergo significant changes between six and nine months of age. This phenomenal occurrence happens once the iris has stored enough pigment to influence subtle changes like blue to grey, green to hazel, hazel to brown and so on.”(source)

Keep in mind that eye color generally gets darker, not lighter. Your brown-eyed girl isn’t likely to become blue-eyed later in life. But your blue-eyed boy may very well end up with green or even brown eyes.

Can You Tell if Baby’s Eyes Are Going to Change Color?

As noted above, if baby is born with brown eyes, he/she will almost certainly have those brown eyes for life. If baby has blue eyes, this simple (but not foolproof!) trick can help determine whether or not they’ll stay that way. (source)

Look at baby’s eye from the side to eliminate any light reflecting off the iris. If there are flecks of gold in the blue of the eye, your baby’s eyes will likely change to either green or brown as they grow. If there are minimal or no flecks of gold, it’s less likely your baby’s eye color will change much.

Another indicator? If baby’s eyes are clear, bright blue, they are most likely staying blue. If they are a darker, cloudier blue, they are most likely going to change to hazel, brown, or a darker color. .embed-pin margin: 0.5rem 0 2.4rem 2.4rem; padding-right:3px; float:right;

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Why Do Some Babies Have Two Different Colored Eyes?

There are exceptional cases where a baby is born with two different colored eyes, or one eye is half brown and half blue. Ever looked closely at Kate Bosworth or Mila Kunis’ eyes? Stunning, right? As exotic and beautiful as this trait is, contact your doctor if this is the case with your baby. This is called heterochromia, which can be a totally normal phenomenon caused by genetic changes, but sometimes, it can indicate a problem with eye development, or can be a result of a disease or injury to the eye. (source)

My Baby’s Eyes Say What About Their Personality?

As surprising as it may be, psychologists have connected colors and patterns in the eye to personality traits. Researchers at Orebro University in Sweden found that patterns in the threads that radiate from the pupil (known as a crypt) and contraction furrows (lines curving the outer edge) can predict a person’s character.

Those with densely packed crypts tend to be more warm-hearted, tender, trusting, and likely to sympathize with others. Those with more contraction furrows were more neurotic, impulsive, and likely to give in to cravings.

(image source)

How can this possibly be, you may ask? The genes responsible for the development of the iris also help shape the frontal lobe of the brain, which influences personality.

Since it may be a little hard for you to determine how densely packed your child’s crypt is, there are a few more correlations found in science that may help you predict personality. A study in Current Psychology showed that people with darker eyes are more agreeable. And another study found that people with very dark eyes tend to be better at sports that involve hitting targets. Why? Melanin acts as an insulator for connections between brain cells. The more you have, the quicker the brain may work.

Where does that leave blue-eyed babes? Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that women with lighter-colored eyes seem to tolerate pain better during childbirth and handle the stress better than the dark-eyed mamas.

How About You?

What color eyes did your baby have at birth? Did they change over time? What color are they now?

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[luninosity]

Hiii. You’re a professor , for what subject and can you explain what you did to become a professor ? I want to become an English professor one day

Yep, I am! I teach in the English department at my college - everything from our ESL/basic writing up through our research & critical thinking course, plus courses in comics and monster culture.

Basically (and I’m talking about the United States system - and a public, not private, state university system - here, other countries and private institutions are different) you’ll need to enter a PhD program in the field you want to teach in, in this case English (or related, like Comparative Literature). It’s very very difficult to get hired at a college/university level without a PhD - some creative arts programs will accept a terminal Masters + practical experience, and some community colleges will hire you with a Masters, but the sad truth is that the job market is more and more competitive and not getting any better, so honestly, you almost certainly need the PhD. (Really honestly, straight up, the job market’s fucked, and is gonna be for a long time. I’m not saying don’t do it, especially not if you love it; I’m saying know this going in: there are not enough jobs, particularly in the humanities, which are shrinking everywhere. Make an informed choice about your future and your quality of life and what you value and desire.)

In most programs the first 1-3 years will be coursework (seminars in various literary genres/fields/theories/time periods) followed by your Masters thesis or exam or portfolio, depending on your program’s requirements. At this point you’ll probably have figured out the 2-3 main areas you want to specialize in - for instance, I went with medieval literature, fantasy literature, and pop-culture adaptation. One of my friends opted for Victorian literature, rhetoric, and the role of editors in shaping periodicals and texts (a la Dickens). Another one of my friends looked at early pulp science fiction (of the 1930s/1940s), feminist theory/the female body, and androids and cyborgs and posthumanism. You can kind of see the pattern - usually there’s a time period, a genre of literature, and a specific focus.

At this point you’ll probably do one more year of coursework (and now you’re a PhD student, not a Masters student), followed by choosing your exam committee and your reading year, in which you work with your committee to put together your reading lists for your areas, as per above - the idea being that you literally spend the year prepping for your exams, no coursework, but be prepared to be asked about anything on those lists. Which will number in the hundreds of texts, both primary and secondary.

And then you do your exams. Which you will either pass, and advance to candidacy, or fail, or (in rare cases) retake one area. In general there’s both a written and an oral section; the rules have been shifting for how this works (in-person writtens over three days, take-home for 24 hours, etc) so it’ll depend on your program.

Assuming you pass, you write your dissertation. Which is where you show your expertise and ability to craft a book-length work of original research and contribution to your field. Some programs require a dissertation defense; mine didn’t, only signatures from the committee. This will likely take 1-2 years. Seriously. It’s a book. A roughly 200-300 page academic scholarly book. Which requires committee approval.

And THEN you have a PhD. And then you apply (or you’ve started applying when you’re nearly done writing) for jobs. Which is a whole other beast, highly competitive, and will demand things like teaching evaluations, writing samples, cover letters, teaching philosophy statements, and letters of rec, and interviews if you make it that far. At the end, if you are very very lucky and programs are hiring people in your specialty and you interview well and departments have the money, you will in theory have a job.

By the way, in order to have all those application materials, you will need to have spent a lot of grad school going to conferences, publishing articles, teaching or being a TA, applying for fellowships, doing some sort of campus service/involvement, and in general building your CV so that you look like a desirable asset. This can be a lot of fun, mind you! I love doing conferences, and I’ve made great connections and friends, and had two book projects come out of discussions after sessions.

Being an actual professor (at least, a decent one) also requires three things: one, you have to love (or at least fake it) teaching - you are here to teach students, many of whom won’t give a damn. You will be in a classroom and you will be grading work and you will deal with emails from students and you will have students, both the wonderful and the terrible. (I had friends who were brilliant researchers but hated every second of being in a classroom teaching, and they got jobs outside academia.) Two, you have to love (or at least force yourself to) research - you have to be committed to this thing you’re becoming an expert in. Your fields can shift slightly - mine have, into comics and popular romance, but still with that medievalist and fantasy link - but you have to be capable of that kind of sustained focus and passion for your subject, entering into scholarly conversations and reading and responding, bringing your work to conferences, and continuously producing new work. And three, you have to be a good colleague - departments want people who will enrich the life of the department and the campus, whether that means volunteering to help with the undergrad research program or being on a committee or hosting the end of the year party.

If you’ve read through all that and you’re still going, “yes! this sounds like my dream job!” then go for it! There’s not much more rewarding than watching your students grasp a concept, make a brilliant argument, really get a text - or, on the other side, seeing other scholars cite your work in print! Those parts are genuinely amazing, and I love feeling like I’ve really honestly made a difference, for scholarship and for students. :-)

[italianexotiicbeauty]

Mary Savarese / Phoenix Fire

[ A HAUNTING IN MYSTIC. ] // [ cameos: Kelly Savarese-Becker & Reuben Gimness! * with permission ] In ghostlore, a haunted house or ghost house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were otherwise connected with the property. Being in a different body with the exact same consciousness in another timeline sounded almost like it was science fiction, matter of fact it likely would seem to be an episode of at least The Twilight Zone. However, it was in fact a reality for one Mary Savarese - the fates did not think her job was done and manipulated not just TIME but SPACE as well to bring her consciousness into another body ( and her powers followed a few days later ). Suppose it helped they somehow mystically found a woman who had been in a coma for two weeks, but of course when she woke up whomever that woman had been did not exist. No, when she opened her eyes - guess who she had seen standing near her bedside? Her older sister, Kelly. How else did she know that she was herself and not the person she took over?! Plus, that reminded her of that one Stargate: Atlantis episode where Cadman was also trapped inside McKay, yes she literally asked in her own mind about twenty times if she was the only consciousness inhabiting that body. No response every single time answered that. Guess what she was also still fully aware of? How fragmented her memory was so when she asked Kelly why she had been in the hospital? The elder Savarese for a second looked bewildered before recollecting her younger sister's memory, "You fell into one of the tanks at Mystic Aquarium - they are not sure . . . how you even got in, all they found on you were your keys, wallet and those four bracelets." . . . Three for four, get you in the door. A voice in the corner of her mind seemed to whisper, making her expression crestfallen instead of shocked which alarmed her sister. "Mare? I know you had been at Katie's grave earlier that day, and then Nonna Rita's -- you weren't trying to join them were you?" Blinking a few times, a familiar look of anger made her sister take a step back at the suggestion. "Okay, my mistake for even thinking that. Don't . . . melt or burn anything." Thankfully, that did not happen nor did Kelly seem at all aware that Mary was currently without her powers. "I realize that my best friend since junior high has been dead for almost three years now, and Grandma Rita has been dead longer but we both know the only thoughts I ever struggle with? What to have for dinner." In this timeline, Mary did not seem to have her dogs - she checked her wallet and if they existed? There would be pictures of them in there but there weren't. "I want a dog." Kelly seemed genuinely taken aback by her sister's random statement, "What breed?" The nurse walked in with the release papers, Mary had to take it easy for the next few days and Kelly drove her back to the hotel she was staying at. For some reason, she had removed her wallet, keys, and the bracelets before dropping into the tank. Which tank? . . . The shark tank. With cuts on both palms, so they ruled out a suicide and somehow the camera feed was all wonky as well. Mary flopped, face first onto the bed with a groan before rolling onto her back. "A Greenland Husky, a Bernese Mountain Dog, a Doberman, a Beligian Malinois, a Corgi, and a German Shepherd - or just one of those." Carefully, Mary sat up as Kelly handed over her niece who cooed and babbled at her aunt - seems that in this timeline, Kelly still had both kids and her husband. "Question, before you go back home . . ." She was snuggling her niece before watching her crawl on the bed, dark eyes watching the little one before her mother picked her up again and put her back in the car seat. "Yes?" Both eyebrows raised as Kelly looked to her younger sister, then turning to smile down at her daughter. ". . . By some chance there was not a shiny gold wrist communicator like right out of power rangers found with me, was there?" Mary bit on her lower lip, feeling the familiar protrusion of her piercing when teeth reached the left corner of the flesh. Ooh! Still have that and likely all of my ink! She thought to herself while looking up at Kelly again. "Well?" "Thought my silence answered that question, that's a no." Shaking her head, Kelly leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her baby sister's temple before covering her daughter with the little blanket that occupied the car seat with her. "Just try and get some rest okay? Not sure why you were even at Mystic, but just go on home to Savannah." Forcing a smile and a nod like she was ACTUALLY going to listen, Mary waved as Kelly left the hotel room with her niece as well. As soon as they were out of the room, her expression changed and immediately she searched the entire room for either her phone, laptop or tablet. Thankfully, both her phone and laptop were locked up in the little room safe, so she plugged them both in and powered up her laptop to check something in an email. Clicking on one of the opened emails, eyebrows furrowing as she clicked a link and a news article popped up. SIX FOUND DEAD IN MYSTIC AQUARIUM MYSTERIOUSLY NEAR THE SHARK TANK. PALMS CUT AND ALL DROWNED. Not that anyone would see it, but her expression paled a little when she clicked on another link from the exact same email that brought her to a forum page. They found a Ouija board and black candles, a friend of mine works for the crime scene clean-up and they had them throw it out along with other known occult items! One user had mentioned, another responded. Sounds about right, like they are trying to not create a mass panic or some shït! Totally a haunting now. ". . . Son of a biaaaaaaaaatch." She rested her forehead on the palms of her hands before scrolling down a little more to read another comment, Guuuuuys! A well known medium in our community did a podcast the other night about thiiiis!! Her spirit guides are warning no one to go there, it's a W R A I T H! " . . . Oh jeeze, that explains so much but the fūck?! Why did I survive?! . . . O h." Dangling around her neck still, was the lone white angel feather which explained how she survived the attack. A wraith is an undead creature whose name originated in Scottish folklore. A type of ghost or spirit, wraiths were traditionally said to be the embodiment of souls who are either on the verge of death, or who have recently passed on. In modern times, the concept of a wraith is more likely to refer to an evil spirit, particularly one which has unfinished business in the mortal realm. They are typically depicted as skeletal figures draped in tattered rags, and are most commonly associated with graveyards or other haunted locales. The modern perception of a wraith is that of an entity which actively seeks harm to those that it encounters, no matter their motivation. ". . . About a thousand miles from noooooowherrrreeeee!" She softly sang to herself while looking something up, turning on her phone to take a few notes before turning off her laptop. WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT // 7:45 PM. the alley behind duffy's tavern. Leaning against the brick wall between the bar and another building, Mary checked her watch one time before a portal opened up behind her in the shape of a door. "Mary Savarese?" A dark voice called from within, she tapped her nails on the brick three times. The being spoke again, "What is it you require?" "Four silver bullets, and a silver stake just in case." The being made a noise in it's chest before a small box slid out. "Lovely." She waited until the portal closed again before picking up the box and opening it, inside sat the bullets and the silver stake. "Excellent, the bullets for the heart and throw the stake at the head just to make sure." The box snapped shut and she exited the alley for the lot across the street where her rental was parked, opening up the little backpack in the front seat and taking out the Beretta Px4 storm to empty the bullets from the magazine, as well as the round in the chamber in exchange for the four silver bullets. Once the gun was reloaded, she placed the stake inside the backpack as well and drove back to her hotel. She cringed as she noticed three missed calls from her sister and sighed, deciding to text her back instead. SMS: Kelly I know you wanted me to go home to Savannah but I got unfinished business here. Then I am hopping the first flight out but NOT back to Georgia. SMS: Kelly I'm heading to Virginia Beach an' locatin' an unsuspectin' ex of mine for cuddles after this. Pretty certain he won't turn me down. SMS: Kelly Still thinks I am cute. Turning off the phone, she packed up everything in the room save for the outfit she would wear tomorrow. The suitcase was left open on the floor as every light but the one in the bathroom was turned off, three of the bracelets were on and she could feel the familiar pull at her stomach - like getting ready to travel through a portkey or apparating - she stepped in the far corner of the room and within seconds was within the dark halls of the aquarium. Thankfully, she was near the same location as she had been during her last visit -- oh yes, she remembered which meant that access to the shark tank was just down the hall and behind a locked door. Within seconds though, she was on the other side of the door and half-way up the darkened stairs. The backpack was left hanging on the end of the railing at the top of the stairs, soon she became ignited from head to toe in flames before walking up the rest of the way. Seconds later, she was on the platform that was used by the aquarium staff to feed or check the marine life and it was obvious which tank was the shark one because it was now taped off. Or . . . SHOULD HAVE BEEN. The tape was cut in one section and she could hear voices coming from another area. One in particular caught her attention as a group of people - carrying flashlights and recording equipment - came into view. "Oh, hell has SOOOO frozen over - Reuben Gimness, who in the HÉLL let you investigate?!" At the sound of the familiar voice, Reuben looked over to the shark tank where it came from. "Holy shït -- Hey Mary! Uh, the good people on the board of this fine establishment?" He smiled charmingly, or tried to but started saying ow ow ow ow ow on repeat when she came over and grabbed his ear. "Oh, really? Did you just HAPPEN to leave out the part about bringing tarot cards AND a ouija board to the Opera house here and causing it to be further haunted? No? Yeah did not think so!" Giving his ear a more harsh pinch before letting go, her arms crossed her chest as she glared at him. ". . . Can't BELIEVE you still remember that, come oooon! I am capable!" "Yeah and you do not read texts from books that manifest demonic santa's to hunt us like wild boar either." Her tone snappy as Reuben rubbed the back of his neck, looking at his group of ghost hunters then back at Mary. "Why am I even surprised, a walking spirit box is exactly what this needs - it's a WRAITH Reuben. Or did you just leave that out from when you accepted this case, and enlisted the help of your spooky crew here? Hm?" Mary then tossed the silver stake at Reuben who caught it, "Since you are the tallest out of all these yahoos you decided to endanger - you get to stab it in the head to insure it will not be coming back." Reuben had caught the stake as Mary motioned for the others to hunker down for safety in the starways so they did not get flung around like ragdolls. Reuben had been about to say something when the lights flickered before going off, Mary heard one or two of the Ghostfacer's scream. "Turn off all your flashlights. " The flames around Mary illuminated the area brightly as she stepped away from Reuben, watching the shadows. Extending the light forward, she saw a flicker of movement before pulling Reuben down to the floor with her as the wraith roared in rage as it flew at them. "Seems round two is off to a good start." When she said that, Reuben stared at her. "Oh uh, another story to share over pizza from Pepe's and Foxon Parks I promise." Rolling onto her back, the familiar sound of a hammer clicking back echoed a little in the room."Would now be a good time to ask if you have a plan?" Thankfully, the floor beneath them was dry and the entire front of her body was now wreathed in flames. He could see her glaring at him, the Px4 Storm was lying beside her and her right hand was the only part of her not illuminated by a brilliant orangey-red hue. "I am going to ask you that same question, or better yet !! Watch your dumbass ask Sam or Dean Winchester that one. For the record, yes - four silver bullets to the heart and that stake through its skull to seal the deal." "Where did you learn that?" "You kiddin'? I troll a hunter's forum for advice." Reuben chuckled and then winced when she punched him. "Guuuys!!! It's coming baaack!!" Swearing under her breath, Mary raised the gun into the air as the wraith flew over them and took a gamble - opening fire just as it did, two of the bullets piercing the heart just enough to slow it down. Reuben scrambled to his feet and ran full speed ahead, jumping in order to drive the stake through the wraith's skull . . . which he succeeded in doing but got flung into the nearest wall as the creature began roaring during its final moments. The whole room shaking, Mary grabbed a hold of something when a pocket of air imploded and sent whatever wasn't nailed down flying as it disappeared from sight. The lights came back on and the mice hiding on the stairs raced over to see if their fearless leader was okay, Mary moved back down the stairs for the locked door - backpack in hand and disappeared into the darkness again. BRADLEY INTL. AIRPORT // HARTFORD, CT. 4:45 am. Tiredly, Mary settled into one of the seats near the boarding gate for her very early morning flight to Virginia Beach. She had returned the gun to her safe in Savannah since it was one of the unregistered ones, flying with that would be trouble. Just as she moved to take a sip of her iced latte from Dunkin Donuts, her phone buzzed a few times with texts from Reuben. THREE BODIES END UP MYSTERIOUSLY IN THE CONNECTICUT RIVER NEAR GILLETTE CASTLE. STAFF AND VISITORS REFUSING TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR THE LOCATION WITHOUT ARMED SECURITY. RUMORS OF A MASSIVE BLACK SHADOW WITH YELLOW EYES BEING SEEN . . Mary groaned faintly and just shut her phone off, not even bothering to respond and sipped her caffeinated beverage while waiting for her flight to come in.

[buzrushglobalcommunity-blog]

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Question & Answer Website: https: //community.buzrush.com/

[himachalrecruiter]

System Administrator in Maldives

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Salary Structure:

Sal - 600 USD to 800 USD Contract Period - 2 Years Food and Accommodation are provided by Company Read the full article

[bigyack-com]

Tesla Owners Try to Make Sense of Elon Musk’s ‘Red Pill’ Moment

Owning a Tesla, the luxurious electric car, is a major liberal status symbol. It signals nothing more than good taste — the perfect balance of wealth with care for fossil fuels. But the man behind the brand is crafting a very different persona online that may now prove to be a challenge for his fans.Elon Musk, the bombastic head of Tesla and SpaceX, exhorted his 34 million Twitter followers on Sunday to “take the red pill.” The comment was quickly embraced by his followers, including Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s elder daughter, who announced that she had taken the pill already.The exchange referred to a scene from “The Matrix,” the 1999 science fiction action film. But the meaning of “red pill,” and the idea of taking it, have since percolated in online forums and become a deeply political metaphor. And with Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump, the phrase is now lodged more fully into the mainstream.So Tesla owners are having to grapple with a car that carries a few new connotations.“Honestly, Musk is becoming a liability and the Tesla board needs to seriously consider ousting him,” wrote Markos Moulitsas, author of “The Resistance Handbook: 45 Ways to Fight Trump.” “And I say that as a proud owner of a Tesla and a SpaceX fanatic who truly appreciates what he’s built.”

So what is the red pill?

In “The Matrix,” the movie’s hero, Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is given the option to take a pill that lets him see the truth.The world he thinks is real turns out to be an entertaining lie; his body is actually trapped in a farm where people are being used as human batteries. Taking the blue pill would let him return to living in the ignorant but blissful lie, while taking the red pill would launch him into an arduous journey through a brutal but fulfilling reality.The idea of taking the red pill later grew to mean waking up to society’s grand lies. It was embraced by the right, especially by members of its youngest cohort who organized and spent their time in online forums like Reddit and 4chan.The truth to be woken up to varied, but it ended up usually being about gender. To be red-pilled meant you discovered that feminism was a scam that ruined the lives of boys and girls. In this view, for a male to refuse the red pill was to be weak.Red Pill forums were often filled with deeply misogynistic and often racist diatribes. The more extreme elements splintered into groups like involuntary celibates (“incels”) or male separatists (Men Going Their Own Way, or MGTOWs). Conferences like the 21 Convention and its sister convention, Make Women Great Again, sprang up to gather red-pilled men. Being red-pilled became a sort of umbrella term for all of it.As these conversations seeped into the mainstream, pulled along by a host of other internet language from message boards to establishment Republican conversations on sites like Breitbart, the meaning broadened and got watered down. To be red-pilled can now mean being broadly skeptical of experts, to be distrustful of the mainstream press or to see hypocrisy in social liberalism.

What’s going on with Elon Musk?

Mr. Musk has been pretty wild online for years now, which has made him a major internet celebrity with devoted fans who call themselves Musketeers. There are fan pages like Musk Memes with nearly 100,000 followers, and a Reddit page with 200,000 members in constant, extremely active conversation.The night before Tesla’s earnings were released last month, Mr. Musk tweeted an anti-lockdown rallying cry: “FREE AMERICA NOW.” He had a showdown with local lawmakers, threatening to move Tesla headquarters out of California and deciding to reopen a Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., despite the local county’s restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading. When State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez objected on May 9 with an obscene tweet, Mr. Musk responded, “Message received.” Defending his reopening of the Tesla factory, Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter that he would be on the factory floor and offered himself up to authorities. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he posted on May 11. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”This month, he and his girlfriend, Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, had a child and named him X Æ A-12. And Mr. Musk announced that Tesla shares were too high and that he was selling almost all his possessions to the point of owning no house.“We have a phrase, it’s E.M.M. — Elon Moves Markets,” said Bill Selesky, an analyst at Argus Research who tracks how Mr. Musk’s messages impact Tesla’s stock price. “People want to listen to him no matter what he says. He tends to be thought of as a great visionary.”Mr. Selesky said even Mr. Musk’s detractors parsed every tweet and utterance. “Plus, if you have a Tesla, nobody can ever complain about you because you’re good for society,” he added.This leads back to Mr. Musk’s message on Sunday, telling his followers to take the red pill.

Do ‘The Matrix’ creators like this?

No. Lilly Wachowski, a “Matrix” co-creator, told Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump in colorful language on Twitter that they could take a hike.

Is ‘red pill’ a Silicon Valley thing?

To some extent.There has long been a strain of men’s rights activism in Silicon Valley, exemplified by James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired after writing a memo arguing that the reason there are fewer female engineers is biological differences rather than discrimination.Mr. Damore became a folk hero for a simmering movement in the technology industry of people who thought the efforts toward 50/50 representation at tech companies were absurd. Cassie Jaye, who calls herself a former feminist, made a 2016 documentary about the Red Pill community and said it had flourished in the tech world.But the more common phrase in Silicon Valley to signal contrarian thinking is “narrative violation,” which is often used to describe an event that cuts against the mainstream media’s consensus on a topic. The idea is that there is a story being told about the world and how it works, but that the story is too simplistic to be entirely true and an event occasionally pops up to remind people of that.

Why does any of this matter?

Few products today are as deeply entwined with a person’s brand as Tesla is with Mr. Musk, and so his comments can feel personal for Tesla drivers.“As a Tesla owner, a 47-year-old male recovering from Covid-19, and someone very concerned simultaneously about the environment, the economy, my kids’ and my parents’ future, this ain’t great,” said Jeff Guilfoyle, a product manager at FireEye in San Diego. “This disease is no joke, and the long-term health impacts are unknown for survivors.”Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”“Tesla owner and Fan here, but this was a disappointing tweet despite the frustrations of and holdups,” added Alex Goodchild, a D.J. in Brooklyn. “Words are weapons especially when used during situations like the one we’re currently experiencing. You sound just like Trump in this tweet.”The debate has riven the Tesla community.“The last two months, there’s been this polarization in the Elon Musk fan club,” said Paula Timothy-Mellon, a technology consultant who moderates that LinkedIn-based fan club, which has 22,000 members. “There are those who are believers in these California guidelines and there are those in favor of his push to re-open Tesla.”Driving a Tesla often carries great symbolism for the owner (and observers).“If you own a Tesla, you feel you are directly connected to Elon Musk and people think that Tesla owners are directly connected to the politics of the C.E.O.,” said Sam Kelly, a Tesla owner and investor based in Spain who posts under the name SamTalksTesla.He added that he did not think the red pill comment meant any big new political awakening from Mr. Musk.Asked to explain his thinking, Mr. Musk pasted an image of the Urban Dictionary definition of red pill in an email. It read:“‘Red pill’ has become a popular phrase among cyberculture and signifies a free-thinking attitude, and a waking up from a ‘normal’ life of sloth and ignorance. Red pills prefer the truth, no matter how gritty and painful it may be.” Read the full article

[syntellisolutionsinc]

The Role of Big Data in Preventing Healthcare Fraud and Waste

Due to the complexity of medical procedures and the variety of goods and services available today, medical billing is prone to errors and waste. Mistakes in electronic medical records are common, and many patients don’t examine their monthly insurance Explanation of Benefits closely enough to catch them.

Fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) is the term used for both intentional and unintentional billing errors that end up costing insurers money. Although deliberate acts often target Medicare and Medicaid recipients, they are sometimes aimed at private insurers. Sometimes, the patients themselves are in on the fraud.

Fraud in the healthcare industry is not a new problem and eliminating it may be impossible. The National Healthcare Anti-Fraud Association estimates the cost of healthcare fraud to be $80 billion annually in the U.S. Other sources determine it is closer to $200 billion, or 3-10% of the total spend on healthcare.

However, big data can tackle not only deliberate fraud, but also unintentional input errors that staff make. Machine learning powered by big data can identify abnormal patterns and outliers from individual providers based on historical data that is continuously updated to provide more accurate results.

This can help insurers recover more losses, which research suggests is only 5% annually.

  Unintentional Waste

Medical billing codes are now seven digits long, increasing the likelihood of input errors. These errors are not only bad for insurers but can also result in inflated bills for patients. The resulting loss of patient trust and money can negatively impact their willingness or ability to seek future care.

Streamlining databases and designing artificial intelligence systems to detect input errors can help reduce unintentional waste and overcharging. By combining patient data systems and making CMS more efficient, medical providers can reduce the number of times staff must input data, therefore reducing the number of chances for errors to occur.

However, these errors are not nearly as draining as the money lost to deliberate fraud and abuse of insurance plans. Plus, insurance companies cannot force healthcare providers to implement better patient data systems. Insurance companies must make their own improvements to tackle every type of FWA and minimize their risks.

  Healthcare Fraud and Abuse

All types of insurance have to be aware of fraud and abuse, and health insurance is no exception. Physicians or other healthcare staff can submit false claims to get more money from insurance companies than would be possible through honest means.

Sometimes the fraud is subtle, such as charging insurers for a more expensive version of a procedure than what was actually performed. Other times, the patient never received a service at all or is given a false diagnosis that a physician then uses to rack up charges.

Another example of fraud involves fake diagnoses in an attempt to get patients approved for government disability payments. Although this is not as common as fraud for the healthcare provider’s own gain, it can happen with severe mental illness diagnoses. One case in 2016 involved a psychiatrist in Miami, Florida, whose false diagnoses resulted in over $50 million in fraudulent insurance claims and undeserved disability benefits being paid out to patients over a decade.

That physician was caught thanks to an FBI informant. Improvements in big data in the past several years have made it easier for companies to detect, investigate, and recover losses from fraud.

  Using Patterns to Uncover Waste and Fraud

Big data includes information ranging from patient zip code to physicians’ certifications. Insurers can examine and compare populations and providers to detect fraudulent trends manually, but modern data analysis programs can often identify fraud automatically.

Naturally, the larger a dataset is, the more useful it will be. Accurately detecting fraud and waste requires data that paints a full picture of a situation and includes all variables that may be influencing the data.

For example, simple numerical analysis of a surgeon’s costs may show that he is charging far more than his nearby peers, which could suggest that he is committing fraud. However, a more robust analysis may reveal that he is certified to do resource- and labor-intensive neurosurgeries that no one else in the state can perform.

Training big data to prevent false positives takes thousands of hours of work. Healthcare and billing practices are always changing, and historical data that worked a few months ago could suddenly become less useful if there are major changes in a particular specialty. However, experts in data analytics in healthcare fraud are more than up to the challenges of this ever-evolving field.

How Big Data Works

Crunching numbers and other data from healthcare providers nationwide requires massive amounts of computing power. Machine learning involves complex programs with AI that can use decision trees, outlier detection, data visualization, and other techniques to flag various forms of fraud and waste accurately.

These days, many big data analysis programs rely on data lakes stored in cloud computing for faster processing. Data lakes allow raw data to be stored and easily searched. The power of cloud computing enables insurers to access the computing power they need without having to invest in their own servers.

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Because of the amount of computer power and programming complexity required, big data analysis and machine learning for data as complex as healthcare fraud simply weren’t possible in decades past. Computer data analytics programs have evolved significantly, and fraud detection programs have been put to work in many financial sectors.

To maximize profit margins and stay competitive, insurance providers must use every tool at their disposal. Health insurance companies can work with data analytics companies that specialize in healthcare to design cloud computing solutions as part of a broader digital transformation for the 21st century.

  Tracing a Web of Bad Actors

Although most healthcare providers are honest and don’t abuse the system, providers who are engaging in deceptive billing practices often work together. Some doctors use fraudulent referrals to send patients to a doctor they don’t need to see, then receive kickbacks.

Other times, managers may train billing specialists to inflate patient bills by inputting codes for more expensive services. If all staff at a provider are submitting bills that are inflated, then it might not be noticeable to an insurer at first.

Big data analytics can uncover these broader schemes and connect the dots between fraudulent providers and staff. Even unintentional poor data management or inputting procedures at a particular facility could be revealed and reported when the right analysis methods are used.

If there is enough evidence to suggest deliberate fraud, criminal charges could be pursued, and insurance companies could recover some of the overpayments.

However, detecting fraud amidst millions of annual transactions can’t be performed without the right technology. Big data can revolutionize the healthcare industry and finally cut costs for insurance companies around the world.

Data Science Techniques for Fraud Detection

Data science-driven anomaly detection finds suspect behavior, even as fraudsters adjust their behavior. With data science techniques, the people working to prevent fraud have shifted the battlefield in the war against fraud. Read More

Multiple Skills for Fraud Prevention

Successful applications of big data to healthcare must use multiple levels of analysis to detect all types of fraud and waste. Since there are various ways providers may make errors, programs must be fine-tuned to respond to all possible scenarios appropriately.

Data must be able to be singled out individually with outlier detection and claim analytics. Following up on individual flagged transactions is relatively simple, especially when data is well-organized.

However, broader and more systematic attempts at fraud require deep AI machine learning.

Fraudulent referrals, for example, can be hard to catch among a sea of similar referrals between general practitioners and specialists. Analysis by zip code, income, patient diagnoses, provider type, and physician credentials requires complex text data to be read and sorted by a program that thinks similarly to a human fraud prevention specialist.

Both individual cases and broader trends require careful data management that keeps all data correct, accessible, and stored in a way that allows it to be analyzed in hundreds of different ways. Being able to accomplish both with the same data sets and systems is a unique challenge, but not an impossible one thanks to innovations in data science.

  How to Prevent Fraud and Abuse in Healthcare

Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it takes a large field of experts to put it all in context. Healthcare, in particular, is a complex field that requires specialized knowledge to analyze properly. Running data analysis, tweaking machine learning algorithms, and addressing false positives in fraud detection requires careful consideration of the thousands of variables affecting patients and providers.

  At Syntelli Solutions, we’ve established ourselves as leaders in fraud prevention, digital transformation, and other key areas of innovation for the healthcare industry. We can use open-source programming codes and platforms to create data lakes and programs that can be continuously improved and updated as the healthcare industry changes. Contact us to learn more about what we can do for you. 

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The post The Role of Big Data in Preventing Healthcare Fraud and Waste appeared first on Syntelli Solutions Inc..

https://www.syntelli.com/role-big-data-preventing-healthcare-fraud-waste

[anthonykrierion]

How to Get More Leads in 2020 [9 Proven Tactics]

Lead generation is one of the most important things you can be doing for your business in 2020.

After all, nurtured leads are significantly more likely to result in sales than from random strangers off the digital streets.

And while we all know that we should be prioritizing lead generation, the real question is this:

How on earth can we do that?

For companies who are new to lead generation, you might not be sure where to start, especially when there are so many lead generation tactics out there.

In this article, we’ll cover nine of the best ways to generate high-quality leads, and ones released since the start of 2020. Use these, and you’re sure to see your leads skyrocket.

How to Get More Leads #1: Optimize your website for lead generation

Ready to start generating leads for your business? Before you do, make sure your website is fully optimized.

The first thing to optimize is the website speed.

Over half of visitors will leave a site that takes more than three seconds to load. If you’ve brought visitors to your site, you don’t want a second or two to be the thing that makes them bounce. Those could have been new leads or sales!

Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool helps to ensure your website speed is fast enough on desktop and mobile:

(Image Source)

Your website needs to be optimized for mobile devices.

Did you know that half of your potential customers are more likely to purchase from a mobile-optimized site? That, plus you’ll lose even more as search engines penalize sites that aren’t mobile-friendly.

How to Get More Leads #2: Generate leads through site subscriptions

For this, you’ll need opt-in boxes that catch people’s attention. You can often build these within your email marketing tool. Otherwise, you can use a third-party tool such as OptinMonster or LeadPages.

And as much as you might roll your eyes at the thought of using a pop-up box to snag subscribers, data shows they’re successful. Pop-up boxes drive about 1375% more subscribers than your run of the mill sidebar opt-in.

Here’s an example of a pop-up box that deploys when the visitor is preparing to exit the page:

(Image Source)

The opt-in box is only half the battle when it comes to getting email subscribers. The other half is your offer. People aren’t likely to hand over their email for nothing — You’ve got to give them something in return. How about offering a free trial of your product?

Once you do get them to subscribe, keep the relationship going. If you solely reach out to them when you’ve got something to sell, it’s not going to be very effective.

Nurture your leads by providing value to them first. That way, when you make your sales pitch, they’re already a fan.

How to Get More Leads #3: Use SEO for lead generation

Search engine optimization (SEO) should be a central part of your lead generation strategy in 2020. Not only can effective SEO bring you free traffic, but that organic traffic is over five times more likely to convert than paid traffic.

Be sure to target the right long-tail keywords. Search engines like Google have their algorithms down to a science. They know what a searcher is looking for, and if your website isn’t it, they aren’t going to show it on the first page of results.

Another great way to boost your SEO is through link building. Backlinks show search engines that your website is trustworthy and a leader. This increases your chances of being featured on page one.

Even if you’re a brick and mortar business, you should keep local SEO in mind. 76% of individuals who use the “near me” function on their smartphone visit a related business. In other words, you want Google to know where you are.

This is what your potential customer will see when they find you via local SEO:

(Image Source)

After a visitor leaves your website, you can continue to nurture the relationship on different platforms – if you have tracking set up. Facebook advertising campaigns are one way to do this. You can then target ads at those visitors who bounced.

If you want to learn about the cost of SEO read our guide.

How to Get More Leads #4: Generate leads using Facebook ads

It should come as no surprise that social media marketing is one of the best ways to capture leads for your business.

Perhaps the best way to generate new leads on social media is through Facebook advertising.

Organic reach for Facebook pages has been on the decline, but paid reach is excellent. Facebook ads allow you to highly target your audience, so you know that your ads are being shown to the right people.

To generate leads using Facebook ads, you need to first figure out who your target audience is. Facebook allows you to hyper-target your audience, but that’s only valuable if you know who you’re talking to.

The next step is to create an offer your target audience wants. If you can create a free offer they can’t wait to get their hands on, turning them into a lead will be a lot easier.

For example, here’s an example of a company offering ecommerce email templates in exchange for an email address:

Finally, be sure to direct visitors to an effective landing page that makes it easy and appealing for people to turn over their email address for whatever it is you’re offering.

Here’s the landing page that same company sends their prospective leads to:

How to Get More Leads #5: Generate leads with content marketing

Do you publish blog posts on your website? If not, it might be time to start. Offering highly targeted informative content via content marketing is one of the best ways to generate and nurture leads.

First of all, content marketing has a remarkably high ROI — more than three times that of traditional marketing. And not only is content marketing cheaper than conventional marketing, but it also costs 62% less.

(Image Source)

The result of quality content marketing is more leads at a lower price tag.

Another reason to turn your attention to content marketing is that it allows you to show people what you’ve got to offer before they pull out their credit cards. And when you give away quality free content that gives people results, they’re more likely to purchase your products.

So how do you engage in content marketing to generate leads?

First, make your articles informative. If you’re not offering value to your potential customers, they’re going to leave. List and how-to articles are popular and keep people on the page.

Make sure also that the content you’re publishing is the content that your target audience wants to read. If your content is catching people at the wrong part of their buyer journey, then they’re less likely to stick around.

Once you’ve attracted people to your website using content marketing, you can capture their lead information with the promise of more valuable information. A great way to do this is by offering a content upgrade or a “Part 2” of the content in exchange for their email address.

How to Get More Leads #6: Generate leads by optimizing your calls to action

If you aren’t using calls to action on your website, now is the time to start. Research shows that in just about every context, using a call to action (CTA) is more likely to get people to take action than an offer without one.

It’s important, however, that you use just one CTA on each page. If visitors have too many options, they’re likely to take the easiest (leaving). If you give them a single CTA, they’re more likely to act.

One study, for example, showed that emails with a single call to action resulted in a 371% increase in clicks and a 1617% increase in sales.

Let’s talk about the best places to put CTAs. First, include them within each of your blog posts. You can even include the same CTA several times throughout the post.

Here’s an example of a well-placed CTA at the bottom of a blog post:

(Image Source)

Next, include a CTA in every email you send out. It doesn’t always have to be a link to a product. You can also throw in a link to your latest blog post, or even include a CTA asking people to respond to your email.

Finally, include a CTA in your social media content. People might be inclined to scroll on after reading your latest post. But if you add a CTA, they’re more likely to engage. One study found that including a CTA on Facebook can increase your click-through rate by 285%.

How to Get More Leads #7: Generate leads with video content

In 2020, it’s clear that video is here to stay. Publishing video content for your business has several serious benefits.

First, video marketing opens you up to entirely different platforms. YouTube is one of the largest search engines out there, and you’ll have access to those searches when you start publishing videos.

But once you get people paying attention to your videos, you’ve got to actually capture the lead. You can do this by using a program such as Wistia, which allows you to gate content and require that viewers enter their email address to watch it.

Here’s what a lead-generating video overlay from Wistia looks like:

(Image Source)

Another way to generate leads using video is to use links within your YouTube video profile and video descriptions to send viewers to landing pages.

And not only does video content help to generate more leads, but it also helps to convert leads into sales. More than 60% of people said that video content makes them more likely to buy, and a staggering 90% said video helps them to make their buying decisions.

How to Get More Leads #8: Generate leads through LinkedIn

You might be surprised to hear that LinkedIn is actually a great way to generate new leads through your business. Let’s talk about some ways you can do that.

First, you can generate leads through LinkedIn connections. If you’ve found a dream client or two, consider connecting with them to form a relationship (in a totally non-spammy way).

You can also use LinkedIn articles to generate leads. Provide valuable information to get people onto the piece. Then use a call to action to send people to your website or an email opt-in landing page.

Finally, LinkedIn comes equipped with lead generation forms that allow you to collect information from potential customers. Here’s an example:

(Image Source)

How to Get More Leads #9: Add a quiz to your website

Quizzes are a fun and interactive way to generate more leads for your website. First, let’s talk about the success rate of quizzes. With an average conversion rate of about 50%, they convert better than most other lead magnets.

Quizzes allow your subscribers to self-segment within your email list. Based on someone’s quiz answers, you can segment them within your list and ensure you’re showing them the best offers.

Tools such as Interact Quiz Builder and Lead Quizzes can help you to create quizzes for anything from personality assessments to telling your potential customers which of your products is the best fit for them.

For example, take a look at this quiz from a company that sells facial grooming products. At the end of the quiz, the company can recommend the best beard products for the quiz taker:

(Image Source)

Conclusion

Lead generation in 2020 is more critical than ever. You can drive millions of visitors, but if none of them are converting, then it doesn’t help your bottom line. Online lead generation is the crucial middle-man in turning those visitors into customers.

You already know that nurtured leads are far more likely to invest in your product, and now you have the information and the tools you need to help take your lead generation to the next level.

No need to try to tackle all nine lead generation strategies at once — start with the ones that are most relevant to your business.

How to Get More Leads in 2020 [9 Proven Tactics] was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[samuelpboswell]

How to Get More Leads in 2020 [9 Proven Tactics]

Lead generation is one of the most important things you can be doing for your business in 2020.

After all, nurtured leads are significantly more likely to result in sales than from random strangers off the digital streets.

And while we all know that we should be prioritizing lead generation, the real question is this:

How on earth can we do that?

For companies who are new to lead generation, you might not be sure where to start, especially when there are so many lead generation tactics out there.

In this article, we’ll cover nine of the best ways to generate high-quality leads, and ones released since the start of 2020. Use these, and you’re sure to see your leads skyrocket.

How to Get More Leads #1: Optimize your website for lead generation

Ready to start generating leads for your business? Before you do, make sure your website is fully optimized.

The first thing to optimize is the website speed.

Over half of visitors will leave a site that takes more than three seconds to load. If you’ve brought visitors to your site, you don’t want a second or two to be the thing that makes them bounce. Those could have been new leads or sales!

Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool helps to ensure your website speed is fast enough on desktop and mobile:

(Image Source)

Your website needs to be optimized for mobile devices.

Did you know that half of your potential customers are more likely to purchase from a mobile-optimized site? That, plus you’ll lose even more as search engines penalize sites that aren’t mobile-friendly.

How to Get More Leads #2: Generate leads through site subscriptions

For this, you’ll need opt-in boxes that catch people’s attention. You can often build these within your email marketing tool. Otherwise, you can use a third-party tool such as OptinMonster or LeadPages.

And as much as you might roll your eyes at the thought of using a pop-up box to snag subscribers, data shows they’re successful. Pop-up boxes drive about 1375% more subscribers than your run of the mill sidebar opt-in.

Here’s an example of a pop-up box that deploys when the visitor is preparing to exit the page:

(Image Source)

The opt-in box is only half the battle when it comes to getting email subscribers. The other half is your offer. People aren’t likely to hand over their email for nothing — You’ve got to give them something in return. How about offering a free trial of your product?

Once you do get them to subscribe, keep the relationship going. If you solely reach out to them when you’ve got something to sell, it’s not going to be very effective.

Nurture your leads by providing value to them first. That way, when you make your sales pitch, they’re already a fan.

How to Get More Leads #3: Use SEO for lead generation

Search engine optimization (SEO) should be a central part of your lead generation strategy in 2020. Not only can effective SEO bring you free traffic, but that organic traffic is over five times more likely to convert than paid traffic.

Be sure to target the right long-tail keywords. Search engines like Google have their algorithms down to a science. They know what a searcher is looking for, and if your website isn’t it, they aren’t going to show it on the first page of results.

Another great way to boost your SEO is through link building. Backlinks show search engines that your website is trustworthy and a leader. This increases your chances of being featured on page one.

Even if you’re a brick and mortar business, you should keep local SEO in mind. 76% of individuals who use the “near me” function on their smartphone visit a related business. In other words, you want Google to know where you are.

This is what your potential customer will see when they find you via local SEO:

(Image Source)

After a visitor leaves your website, you can continue to nurture the relationship on different platforms – if you have tracking set up. Facebook advertising campaigns are one way to do this. You can then target ads at those visitors who bounced.

If you want to learn about the cost of SEO read our guide.

How to Get More Leads #4: Generate leads using Facebook ads

It should come as no surprise that social media marketing is one of the best ways to capture leads for your business.

Perhaps the best way to generate new leads on social media is through Facebook advertising.

Organic reach for Facebook pages has been on the decline, but paid reach is excellent. Facebook ads allow you to highly target your audience, so you know that your ads are being shown to the right people.

To generate leads using Facebook ads, you need to first figure out who your target audience is. Facebook allows you to hyper-target your audience, but that’s only valuable if you know who you’re talking to.

The next step is to create an offer your target audience wants. If you can create a free offer they can’t wait to get their hands on, turning them into a lead will be a lot easier.

For example, here’s an example of a company offering ecommerce email templates in exchange for an email address:

Finally, be sure to direct visitors to an effective landing page that makes it easy and appealing for people to turn over their email address for whatever it is you’re offering.

Here’s the landing page that same company sends their prospective leads to:

How to Get More Leads #5: Generate leads with content marketing

Do you publish blog posts on your website? If not, it might be time to start. Offering highly targeted informative content via content marketing is one of the best ways to generate and nurture leads.

First of all, content marketing has a remarkably high ROI — more than three times that of traditional marketing. And not only is content marketing cheaper than conventional marketing, but it also costs 62% less.

(Image Source)

The result of quality content marketing is more leads at a lower price tag.

Another reason to turn your attention to content marketing is that it allows you to show people what you’ve got to offer before they pull out their credit cards. And when you give away quality free content that gives people results, they’re more likely to purchase your products.

So how do you engage in content marketing to generate leads?

First, make your articles informative. If you’re not offering value to your potential customers, they’re going to leave. List and how-to articles are popular and keep people on the page.

Make sure also that the content you’re publishing is the content that your target audience wants to read. If your content is catching people at the wrong part of their buyer journey, then they’re less likely to stick around.

Once you’ve attracted people to your website using content marketing, you can capture their lead information with the promise of more valuable information. A great way to do this is by offering a content upgrade or a “Part 2” of the content in exchange for their email address.

How to Get More Leads #6: Generate leads by optimizing your calls to action

If you aren’t using calls to action on your website, now is the time to start. Research shows that in just about every context, using a call to action (CTA) is more likely to get people to take action than an offer without one.

It’s important, however, that you use just one CTA on each page. If visitors have too many options, they’re likely to take the easiest (leaving). If you give them a single CTA, they’re more likely to act.

One study, for example, showed that emails with a single call to action resulted in a 371% increase in clicks and a 1617% increase in sales.

Let’s talk about the best places to put CTAs. First, include them within each of your blog posts. You can even include the same CTA several times throughout the post.

Here’s an example of a well-placed CTA at the bottom of a blog post:

(Image Source)

Next, include a CTA in every email you send out. It doesn’t always have to be a link to a product. You can also throw in a link to your latest blog post, or even include a CTA asking people to respond to your email.

Finally, include a CTA in your social media content. People might be inclined to scroll on after reading your latest post. But if you add a CTA, they’re more likely to engage. One study found that including a CTA on Facebook can increase your click-through rate by 285%.

How to Get More Leads #7: Generate leads with video content

In 2020, it’s clear that video is here to stay. Publishing video content for your business has several serious benefits.

First, video marketing opens you up to entirely different platforms. YouTube is one of the largest search engines out there, and you’ll have access to those searches when you start publishing videos.

But once you get people paying attention to your videos, you’ve got to actually capture the lead. You can do this by using a program such as Wistia, which allows you to gate content and require that viewers enter their email address to watch it.

Here’s what a lead-generating video overlay from Wistia looks like:

(Image Source)

Another way to generate leads using video is to use links within your YouTube video profile and video descriptions to send viewers to landing pages.

And not only does video content help to generate more leads, but it also helps to convert leads into sales. More than 60% of people said that video content makes them more likely to buy, and a staggering 90% said video helps them to make their buying decisions.

How to Get More Leads #8: Generate leads through LinkedIn

You might be surprised to hear that LinkedIn is actually a great way to generate new leads through your business. Let’s talk about some ways you can do that.

First, you can generate leads through LinkedIn connections. If you’ve found a dream client or two, consider connecting with them to form a relationship (in a totally non-spammy way).

You can also use LinkedIn articles to generate leads. Provide valuable information to get people onto the piece. Then use a call to action to send people to your website or an email opt-in landing page.

Finally, LinkedIn comes equipped with lead generation forms that allow you to collect information from potential customers. Here’s an example:

(Image Source)

How to Get More Leads #9: Add a quiz to your website

Quizzes are a fun and interactive way to generate more leads for your website. First, let’s talk about the success rate of quizzes. With an average conversion rate of about 50%, they convert better than most other lead magnets.

Quizzes allow your subscribers to self-segment within your email list. Based on someone’s quiz answers, you can segment them within your list and ensure you’re showing them the best offers.

Tools such as Interact Quiz Builder and Lead Quizzes can help you to create quizzes for anything from personality assessments to telling your potential customers which of your products is the best fit for them.

For example, take a look at this quiz from a company that sells facial grooming products. At the end of the quiz, the company can recommend the best beard products for the quiz taker:

(Image Source)

Conclusion

Lead generation in 2020 is more critical than ever. You can drive millions of visitors, but if none of them are converting, then it doesn’t help your bottom line. Online lead generation is the crucial middle-man in turning those visitors into customers.

You already know that nurtured leads are far more likely to invest in your product, and now you have the information and the tools you need to help take your lead generation to the next level.

No need to try to tackle all nine lead generation strategies at once — start with the ones that are most relevant to your business.

The post How to Get More Leads in 2020 [9 Proven Tactics] appeared first on HigherVisibility.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.highervisibility.com/blog/how-to-get-more-leads/

[aligarbawaukesha]

How to Find Internships (Best Websites, Tools, and Tips)

If you’re looking for internships, then this article is for you…

We’re going to go step-by-step through how to find summer internships for college students… including the best internship websites, plus some tips that most students don’t know! (so makes sure you read until the end).

Internship websites

Job search websites and internships websites are a great way to find summer internship opportunities, especially paid internships.

Here are the best internship websites for college students:

Internships.com

Wayup.com/s/internships

Chegg.com/internships

Youtern.com

Idealist.org/en/internships

USAjobs.gov

LinkedIn.com

Glassdoor.com

Indeed.com

Your university job listing page. Along with the internship websites mentioned above, your university may have a site with job listings, too. So ask your career center about that.

Note: For general job search engines like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, put “internship” into the search box.

Don’t stop here though, the following tips are often even MORE powerful (and faster) for finding an internship. So check out the tips below before you run off to search online.

Talk to your professors

Your professors often have industry connections and know employers that offer opportunities to intern in the summer.

They’re paid by the university to help you, so don’t be shy. Visit your professors during office hours and ask if they have any connections that could help you obtain an internship, or if they know of any internships themselves.

It’s best if you walk in prepared to ask about a specific type of internship (engineering, data science, etc.), or at least have some idea of what field would interest you. Don’t just ask for an internship without any type of specific guidelines.

Visit your university career center

After talking to your professors, talk to your university career center. The staff here have a different set of resources and connections (like recruiter relationships) that can help you find more internship job listings.

Also, ask them if your university has any industry associations, and find out about any alumni networks they have, too. These are additional channels that might be useful for landing a summer internship.

Talk to university classmates and peers

Next, talk to your friends/peers who have secured internships and ask how they did it. This will give you more information and leads that you can follow in your search for internships.

They can tell you about which tactics worked best for them, which websites they used, etc. They may even tell you that the employer they’re going to intern for has more spots open.

Career fairs

Your university may offer career fairs, or there may be other career fairs in your local area. Attending  career fairs is a good way to meet recruiters and find out about internship opportunities near you.

Make sure to bring a copy of your resume highlighting any work experience you have (including past internships, part-time jobs, etc.) and your academic experience.

Use recruiters (but find the right ones)

While most recruiters don’t specialize in helping entry-level job seekers or students, some do. You may meet them at career fairs, through your university career center, or through other networking activities.

If you decide to seek the help of recruiters, make sure they work in the internship space, and in the field or industry you’re interested in.

My colleague on LinkedIn summed it up very well when I asked for tips to find internships:

Campus organizations and clubs

You can also hear about more internships by becoming a part of clubs and organizations on campus. For example, if you’re an engineering student, join an engineering club.

This will expand your network and help you get to know even more people who can help you provide an internship through their connections and knowledge.

Contact employers directly

Next, you can go directly to company websites and check their “careers” page for internships. Consider sending them an email with your resume and cover letter, even if they don’t have something listed.

While this won’t always work out, it eliminates most of the competition that you’ll find on popular internship websites, etc. So it’s worth doing.

Plus, it shows passion and effort when you go research a company and contact them directly. So this will set you apart and get you noticed!

Think outside the box

All of the methods for finding internships that we’ve covered work, but everyone else is doing the same thing… so you’re going to have a lot of competition.

Along with everything above, get creative and think of one or two ways to do things differently. Try something that other students aren’t doing.

Contacting employers directly (discussed above) is one good method.

There’s also a lot more you can do. Here’s an example from a colleague of mine on LinkedIn:

Maybe you can find a way to use social media to find an internship, too. Start following and responding to a couple of your favorite companies on Twitter or Facebook and see if you can catch their attention that way.

Or maybe you have a family member who’s in an industry you’d like to intern in. Ask them who they know! People can’t help you if they don’t know you’re looking.

The “recipe” will be different for each student, but always try to find one or two things you can do differently to get a company to notice you.

This is true for any job hunt. The typical company receives hundreds of applicants for each job (the most recent studies I’ve read say that an employer gets 150-250 per corporate job). So you need to find a way to stand out.

Start your search early

With all of the internship search tactics above, it’s important to start early. Begin at least a few months before your summer internship would begin, if not more.

Start preparing your internship resume even sooner. Start networking earlier, too. That way, you’ll be ready to apply for internships when you’re 3-4 months out.

Local Internships: How to Find Internships Near You

One question I get asked a lot as a recruiter is, “How can I find internships near me? I only want to hear about internships in my local area.”

If you’re interested only in internships near you, you can use all of the methods above, but should focus on networking and talking to people at your university first and foremost. Your local network, university career center, and professors will be more in-tune with the local market.

Many online internship search websites will have filters for location, too. So spend time looking for internships opportunities on the web, but start with a local, networking-focused approach when looking for an internship in your city or local area.

How to Find Paid Internships

If you only want paid internships, you should mention this when meeting with professors, talking to your university career center, speaking to campus recruiters and/or recruiters at career fairs.

You can also add search terms like “paid” or “salary” to your online searches when using websites like Indeed and LinkedIn to find internships.

For some of the websites listed earlier, this isn’t necessary, and they offer a specific page showing only paid internships.

For example, Wayup.com has an option you can click to see only paid internships. So look for this option whenever trying to find internships online.

If you stay persistent and targeted in your search, you’ll find a paid opportunity. Not every internship is paid, but many high-quality companies offer a paid internship. You simply need to narrow your approach to find that type of company.

How to Write Your Internship Cover Letter

In general, a cover letter should be addressed directly to the hiring manager or person receiving it (“Dear Susan,” not “Dear HR Department,” and it should highlight information that’s not on your resume.

Don’t just repeat your resume info; no employer wants to read that. If you don’t have any further info to add in a cover letter, then you may not need to send a cover letter.

Or you could write about how you found out about the opportunity, why you’re passionate about the work you’d be doing in this role, how some of your class projects have prepared you for this, etc. That’s what I recommend writing.

This article has more tips on how to write a cover letter with no experience.

Conclusion (And More Resources)

Now you know how to find internships for college students so you can gain experience and gain a headstart in your career.

If you follow the tactics above, you’ll stand out and find a better job and company for your summer internship.

No matter what you do, though, don’t conduct your search only online. You’re going to gain far more opportunities and info by speaking with people – your professors, classmates, etc.

Every industry is a bit different, and each city/region in the US is a bit different, too. So what works for one person online might not work well for your particular search. This is why there’s no substitute for having real conversions, asking people what they recommend or what worked for THEM.

Additional reading to help you land a better internship or job as a student:

Questions to ask at a career fair

Questions to ask recruiters

How to find a job after college

The best jobs for new college grads

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