Book Review: Sisters by Choice

Sisters by Choice follows the stories of three ambitious women, two cousins and one first cousin once removed, as they struggle with making their dreams a reality. Together on Blackberry Island in the Pacific Northwest, they learn from each other and grow– Sophie Lane, rebuilding her cat product company after a fire while dealing with her internal trust issues; Kristine, starting a new bakery while trying to save her marriage; and Heather, trying to move away from her abusive leech of a mother. Mixed in, you get a douse of romance as Sophie toys with the heart of local Tai Chi instructor Dugan with a mysterious past.



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Stradella Bass System

One question I always get asked about accordions is: “What is up with all those buttons?!?” While they look über complicated at first glance, they actually compact the piano (well, originally organ) to a simplified little squeezebox. On that note, pun fully intended, I just want to explain what all the buttons are for so that next time you see an accordion, you have an idea of what is going on behind the scenes. And hey, maybe it’ll come in handy for an Oktoberfest trivia round or if you ever find one in your attic and want to give it a go. 



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Book Review: Butterfly Bayou by Lexi Blake

As a kid, I used to be a voracious reader, devouring whatever book made its way into my hands. Then, when high school hit, I found that I could only muster up that type of an appetite for books during summer. Well, since starting college, I haven’t had any time truly off (summers meant studying for the MCAT, doing research, etc.), so reading was never made a priority. After a friend gifted me a book for Christmas and I found I was struggling to read it, I decided I needed to just read without any strings attached, like before. Just reading in any way I like, maybe books with no purpose other than to entertain, ya know? So, I picked up a book I started ages ago and let myself enjoy it. That book would be Butterfly Bayou by Lexi Blake (go ahead, judge me). After reading it, I made a Goodreads page and decided I’d also post my reviews on here, because why not? OH, link to the Goodreads here if someone is reading this and wants to friend me. I’m always happy to find people to get/give book recommendations. Anyways, here is my review, nothing special, but if you’re looking for a romance novel, here ya go!



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The *Feeling* of Getting Stuff Done

Productivity 
*orgasms*
​
I’d say there is nothing I like more than being lazy and relaxing, but really, I can easily say I prefer having a wildly productive day and then having a spot scheduled to be lazy and relax without imposing on my goals/progress/time for important things. For years I have been obsessed with planning everything to a tee, setting super unrealistic goals, and telling myself to be a mini superwoman without finding a healthy way to actually go about it. As I get older, I seem to be getting better with managing my time, namely with how I balance the most important things, like school and health. Yet, as finals or some other busy time roll around, I still trash those and re-engage in unhealthy habits. 



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Learning how to teach… myself?

Labas, labas (hello, hello). I have an interesting life update today.
About two weeks ago (EDIT: repost, this took place in June) I started an intensive 4 week TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class with the International TEFL Academy to get my certification and, well, just as it sounds, learn to teach English as a foreign language. I kinda expected that it wouldn’t be too difficult in terms of topic, given I have been tutoring for years and love to learn languages, but what I did not expect was that even only halfway in, I am walking away from it with a lot of really solid information. Sure, things like creating lesson plans and writing up skill assessments have been new for me, but the methods and guidelines to actually impart information to my students have been surprising and even pointed out a lot of flaws in my own practices.
I’ll explain why in a second, but first look below at a small list of the more popular language learning methods that have popped up over time, in no particular order:



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Vogelkop Bowerbird

I thought I’d share an interesting species today.

I was watching some bird videos from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and found one of the Vogelkop bowerbird (Amblyornis inornata). It primarily lives in Western New Guinea, Indonesia, which made me wonder if it was part of the “Lost World” findings that went on in that area. Sadly, it looks like the only bowerbird included in that was the golden-fronted bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons). Bowerbirds in general live in Australia and New Guinea, with twenty species, both individual and shared, between the both of them. Things like size and egg number range depending on the species, but fancy courtship efforts seem to be the common theme among all. I am not going to go into much detail about it, but there are different types of bowers they build, vocal mimics they do, special ways of arranging their chosen items, sabotaging other males’ bowers, and more. I read that some species even arrange the items to create optical illusions and forced perceptions. 



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Mejor, pero peor también

Durante mis años de escuela secundaria, he tenido clases de español que me enseñaban gramática y vocabulario. Constantemente, yo tenía tarea, exámenes y lecciones que me dieron nuevos conceptos y también me ayudaron a mantener mis capacidades en el idioma. 

Después de todo de eso, ahora en la universidad, yo trato de mantener mi español sin clases. Por ejemplo, yo escucho a 93.5 Latino Mix todos los días cuando estoy conduciendo a la universidad (pues, antes de coronavirus). Yo leí las noticias en la aplicación BBC Mundo. Y si tengo tiempo, puedo ver un video de YoutTube (especialmente ASMR or Luisito Comunica!) en español, o a veces un especial de humor/”comedy”.



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Resupinate & Non-Resupinate Orchids

Wanna hear something mind-blowing? There’s a good chance every orchid flower you have ever seen was actually upside down.

I recently learned about resupination, which is a term used to describe plants that rotate their leaves or flowers upside down… err right side up, technically? This is practically the norm for orchid flowers. I was going to post an orchid time-lapse video that showed this (as I originally thought they all have funky twisting patterns as they physically open), but I looked and looked to no avail. So, after doing some research, it seems that this step can occur before or during blooming. (It kind of reminds me of how humans can have situs inversus, although I’m sure those individuals with it are very glad it happened in the womb.) Now, what I want to know is if this occurs during bud development, or just in a stage before the blooming is outwardly visible to bystanders but after the bud is already developed. I can confirm that this does not happen after opening, though.



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A Brief Evolutionary Look at Psilocybin

Hello! I decided to share an essay I wrote for my Environmental Physiology class as I found the topic rather interesting.
The prompt: “Discuss the evolution of a toxin or toxin delivery mechanism in an animal, plant, or other group of organisms. Explain the potential adaptive value of the toxin and discuss its potential cost to the organism.”



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Concept of Fluency (& Some Methods to Try)

My first post (about language learning) was a little bit too rant-y for my liking. Oops. Moving on.

“You can become fluent in two months with ____ program/book/method/etc.”

I kind of want to talk about what I have seen with “fluency,” and why using one *insert method here* to learn probably won’t deliver the results all us language learners crave.

I.M.O. fluency is very situational. You learn the language you use. I would obviously argue I am fluent in English, but I’m sure if you maxed the difficulty to some wild level or discussed topics with highly specific vocabulary without learning it first, it would start to become less intelligible. Enough of that, though, what about just a general fluency, that everyday language use, maybe take an exam to prove it type? With that, most agree that there are four aspects to it (the first two for input and the latter for output):
-Reading
-Listening/Understanding
-Speaking
-Writing
To be fluent like a native speaker, you’d theoretically need to master all four of those. What this means for you is you need to find ways to practice each of them.



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