Vitamin K

Today in nutrition class I met my teacher for the very first time, and we are over half-way through the summer semester! As I posted when I first started, our nutrition class is very different than any other class I have attended before. We attend class in the basement of our library in town, and we communicate with our teacher with microphones and cameras. So until today, she was basically a TV show to us. Sure we could talk to her, but it was still not the same as having the actual person there. I really enjoyed class today. It was nice to have a living breathing person in front of us instead of a slightly blurry TV screen.
The reason she came all the way to Harlan, was because today was the day we gave our presentations in class. There really would be no good way of doing that in our current situation, so she drove two hours to see us.
My presentation was on Vitamin K. As part of the presentation we were to create handouts for the entire class. The main part of everyone’s handout was a copy of our PowerPoint slides, but do you think that was good enough for me? Of course not! Some suggestions that were given to us for things to put into our handouts were a quiz, or a word scramble. I did both, and I reformatted my PowerPoint slides, so that it was basically a trivia list. The answers to the quiz came from this list. But of course, my quiz was no ordinary quiz. :)
Those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning, (Probably almost a year now! I should look up when my first post was…) may remember the questionnaires we had to make for speech class. If you don’t, you can find my first one HERE, and my second one HERE. I had a lot of fun writing those, and I thought I’d do something similar for my quiz.
I ended up having even more fun writing my “Vitamin Kwiz” than I did writing my speech questionnaires. I cracked myself up through the whole thing. As a classmate told me when I told her that, “That’s how you know it’s good.” :) Of course I will have to share it with you all, so you can see what I’m talking about. Who knows, maybe you’ll all learn something new about Vitamin K in the process!
Also, as part of the presentation we were to find a recipe that contained the vitamin we researched, so for the first time in months, I am posting a recipe! And it’s one I invented myself! No pictures though. So sad. Anyway, enjoy the Kwiz!

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Vitamin K!

By Jonathan North

 

Vitamin K is a family of fat soluble vitamins all known collectively as Vitamin K.
This group of vitamins got its name, “K”, from the Danish spelling of the word “Coagulation”.
Vitamin K was discovered in 1939 by a Danish biochemist named Henrik Dam.
He was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1943.
Vitamin K activates proteins in the blood and in the bones.
It is essential for blood clotting.
It is also essential for strong bones
As with other fat soluble vitamins, Vitamin K is absorbed in the intestines.
Females need 90 micrograms of Vitamin K per day.
Males need 120 micrograms.
Vitamin K can be found in plants and plant oils, as well as meats and fish oils.
The main sources of Vitamin K are Green Leafy vegetables such as Kale, Dark Green Lettuces, and Spinach; but you can also find them in Broccoli, Peas, and Green Beans.
Other food sources are Liver, as well as Soybean Oil, and Canola Oil.
In addition to the Vitamin K we receive by eating Vitamin K rich foods, some Vitamin K is also made in our own bodies, not by our bodies themselves, but by bacteria living in our small intestines.
There has never been an upper limit set on the amount of Vitamin K you can ingest, because there have so far been no known toxic effects from eating too much.
The main signs of a Vitamin K deficiency are hemorrhaging and fractures.
Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium, which is why it is essential for strong bones.
 

Vitamin K Edutainment!

Vitamin Kwiz!

 

1. What kind of prizes do discoverers of Vitamin K receive?

a. Oscars
b. Tonys
c. CMAs
d. Nobel Peaces

 
2. Jamie needs at least 120 micrograms of Vitamin K every day. What gender is Jamie?
a. Male
b. Female
c. Robot
d. Genderless Earthworm
 
3. Susan loves Kale so much she just totally pigged out! What going to happen to her since she ate WAY more than 90 micrograms of Vitamin K?
a. Three weeks of an itchy rash.
b. Cancer of the pinky toe.
c. Gasping, wheezing, and coughing, followed by possible lifelong asthma.
d. Absolutely nothing.
 
4. Bob hates absolutely every kind of leafy green on earth. He refuses to eat any vegetables, and he won’t even go near supplements. Liver makes him gag, and he only cooks with bacon grease. Obviously he’s not getting enough Vitamin K. If he falls down three flights of stairs, what will probably happen to him?
a. He’ll probably be OK.
b. He’ll drown.
c. He’ll be mugged by a feral herd of rodeo clowns.
d. He’ll break every bone in his body, and then bleed to death.
 
5. Bob does get a little bit of Vitamin K because something makes it for him. Where does Bob’s very limited Vitamin K supply come from?
a. The tiny Vitamin Fairy who lives behind his ear.
b. Jojo the tapeworm
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband. She sits at home all day watching her stories while he works in the Vitamin K factory.
d. Bacteria
 
6. The maker of Bob’s Vitamin K supply has to live somewhere. Where do they live?
a. Under his left big toenail.
b. Um, behind his ear, don’t you pay attention?
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband moved out from behind his ear three weeks ago. He lives in the men’s bathroom at the Vitamin K factory now, in the handicapped stall. He’s a pretty big guy and it’s a lot roomier than the other stalls.
d. In his small intestine.
 
7. Bob just got into a huge fight! That little girl just punched him in the nose! What will happen to him now?
a. He’ll black out, but in a couple hours he’ll wake up and be fine.
b. He’ll have a scarring memory of being beaten up by a little girl and need therapy for the rest of his life.
c. He’ll fall over backwards and crush an innocent street mime who was just passing behind him.
d. Death by bloody nose.
 
8. Bob drinks tons of milk, but without Vitamin K it is pointless. Why?
a. All of life is pointless. Vitamin K means nothing on a cosmic scale.
b. Vitamin K is like chocolate syrup or Capn’ Crunch. You HAVE to have it with milk, or the milk is just gross.
c. Duh, the Vitamin K has magics in it, everyone knows that!
d. Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium. Why else do you think falling down three flights of stairs would be a death sentence for him?

 

How Many Words Can You Make Using the Scrambled Up Letters in the Danish Name for Vitamin K?

K O A G U L A T I O N S V I T A M I N

_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
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_____________________________________________________
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BONUS “CHOCK-FULL OF VITAMIN K” RECIPE!!!

 

Asparagus Casserole

1-2 lbs. Asparagus
Cream of Mushroom Soup
French Fried Onions
Chop up the asparagus into bite size pieces. Prepare just like a green bean casserole, but bake for at least a half an hour, if not longer to make sure the asparagus is cooked through.

So, that was what I’ve been working on this week. Don’t you all wish you could go back to school and learn about vitamins now?! :D

EDIT: So mom informs me that you have to add milk to this recipe. I don't remember that I ever did, but she makes it more than I ever do, so you'd probably better go with what she says...  :)

Drawing 1 Presentation

In drawing one today we had to do a presentation of an artist of our choice that did a lot with drawing. Well, as usual I bit off more than I could chew and chose the company Pixar. Pixar uses drawings in every aspect of their film making process, And I thought it would make a good presentation to profile them. I didn’t think about the fact that Pixar probably would no let out many of those drawings onto the internet, and indeed they have not. So I was down to the wire with only a few days left before the presentation, and I’d only found about two pictures. I needed a new plan and fast. Then I came up with the idea of doing a report on the history of drawing. This eventually turned into a history of the uses for drawing. When I was finished with it, I was not very happy with it, but I didn’t have more time to work on it, and decided that was that, I wasn’t going to worry about it any more.
My teacher loved it.
I was shocked. I hated it. I did learn some interesting things along the way in researching for the presentation, I just didn’t think it was that good. But when I was finished, he told me it was one of the best ones, and he asked me for a copy of it. Out of the whole class he only asked three students for copies of their presentations. Joel was one of them, which I wasn’t surprised about, he had a good presentation about John Howe, one of the main artists behind just about everything in the Lord of the Rings movies. Joel’s presentation was even animated. Mine had nothing. It was a boring PowerPoint, along with me reading my report/speech that I wrote. But for some reason he thought it was great, and commented that it was like two presentations in one.
So, in case anyone out there would like to read what all the fuss was about, here is my presentation.

My report is going to be a little bit different. I started out doing a report on the film studio Pixar, but since a great deal of this report has to be a slideshow, I had to change my report due to a lack of pictures available on the internet. The reason I wanted to do Pixar was because I have always been fascinated by filmmaking, even though drawing has always been my medium of choice. Pixar always begins each film with drawings. That got me to thinking that drawings are integral to many things beyond just art and filmmaking, and drawings have always been a big part of human history. So I decided to do my report on the history of the uses for drawing.
Even though I am not one to believe in ape-like cavemen, there is no doubt in my mind that some humans thousands of years ago did indeed dwell in caves. And these cave dwellers drew on the walls. One of the most famous is a series of caves called the Lascaux caves in France. These caves have since been closed to the public to protect the drawings, but there are many pictures available to view, and a replica of the caves has been built for tourists. The use for these drawings is not clear but it is thought that this was a sacred place of worship, and there are even charts of the stars in the cave.
 
People have long used drawings to convey messages. The most obvious example is hieroglyphics. The ancient Egyptians used pictures instead of an alphabet. They used papyrus leaves to write on, as well as carving the drawing into stone.
The big step in the advancement of drawing came with the invention of paper, however paper was expensive and hard to make, so it was mainly monks and scribes who had access to it. When paper began to become more readily available there was a big surge in the number of drawings produced, and artists began to become famous. Drawing is the basis for most great art. It is much easier to start a painting, or plan a sculpture when you have an idea of what you want to do, and drawing is the best way to get these ideas in motion.


While art is the first use that one thinks of for drawing, it is not the only one. Drawing is also a requirement for just about any architectural project. When first planning a building one needs to draw out what they want the building to look like. When they have that idea finalized, they need to design the insides of the building and put together a floor plan. All these things require that drawings be made each step of the way.

Even after the building is completed one might draw out another plan for how they want the building to be decorated. And even though this may not be art in the usual way, the final drawing could be used as art, or even as the beginning of a bigger work of art, for example a painting of the building.

Another related use is in engineering. If one is to successfully invent or build something, you’ll need a plan to start with. If you are using your own ideas and inventing something, you will have to draw your own instructions, or it will be very easy to get lost in your own project.
Something interesting that I discovered while researching for this presentation, was that a drawing is needed when you go to get something patented. I had never thought about this before, but if you want to make sure that no one copies your invention, you need to explain to the patent office how the invention works. That’s where the patent drawing comes in.

Another kind of drawing is called a technical drawing. This kind of drawing is used to explain things of a technical nature to someone who is not technical at all. I think this would also cover things like instruction manuals, or anything where a reader would need to know something about an object that they couldn’t otherwise understand without seeing it for themselves. This goes back to architectural drawings, but it also covers civil drawings, electrical drawings and plumbing drawings.

The last use for drawings that I want to cover today, is the use that I had originally set out to study, which is the use of drawing in film making. I had planned to feature the art of Pixar to show how integral drawing is to the process of movie making. Drawing becomes necessary very early on in the process as the film makers plan out how they want the film to be. They draw pictures of key points in the story to show how important those points will be in the finished product. As soon as the script has been finished, drawing becomes the most important part of production.

The film makers use drawings to create a storyboard, planning out the entire film using just drawings.
Drawings are also important to every other aspect of the film as well, as costume designers draw what they want the characters to wear, set designers draw what they want the sets to look like, and make-up artists draw what they want the characters to look like. If the film is an animated film, especially if it is a sci-fi or fantasy film, concept artist will be required to draw out entire worlds for the film to take place in. And character design artist will need to draw out characters and animals.

Also within the realm of animated films, small details have to be designed. This means drawing out what every object in the film will look like. Everything from the plants, to the pieces of trash will have to be designed.

After everything is ready to film, drawings aren’t going to be needed as much, unless this is a hand drawn animated film, then every single frame of film must be drawn. This means thousands and thousands of drawings. As you might guess, this can take years to complete.

After the film is ready to be shown to the public, drawing once again comes back into play, as they will need to design posters to raise awareness of the film, and the marketing department will design ads and merchandise.
After the film has been released and has been in the public consciousness long enough, the film will be marketed on home video. Once again drawings will be needed as the packaging will need to be designed, and an ad campaign launched to help drive the sales of the DVDs.

As you can see drawings are very important to our society. Without them society as we know it simply couldn’t exist. There would be no plumbing and no electricity. There wouldn’t even be any buildings. Drawings are not only essential to great art, they are essential to life as we know it.

Tuna Salad/Cracker Dip

It has been a long time since I’ve posted a recipe. That’s mainly because it’s been a long time since I’ve cooked anything. One doesn’t have much time for culinary innovations when you’re trying to go to art school. I don’t think I’ve really creatively cooked anything since I went back to school.

Tuesday night was our speech class, and we had decided that since it was our last night, we were going to bring food. I wanted to make sure I brought something that was both good, and good for you, because, generally when people do these sort of get togethers, there isn’t much to choose from by way of healthy foods. I have recently started eating a lot healthier than I ever have in my life, and one of the things that I have started to buy at work is whole grain crackers and single serve tuna salads to spread on the crackers. I decided to invent my own version of that tuna salad to make a cracker spread to take along to speech class. When I started to open the tuna, I thought of my blog, and how long it had been since I had done a food related post, so I started taking pictures as I did each step, so I could share the recipe here.

It turned out really good, and it doesn’t have to be limited to a dip or spread, you could use this on a  sandwich or a wrap, or even put it in a lettuce or spinach salad.

Okay, first off, is the most important ingredient. Tuna. I used three cans.

Next I used one can of sliced Water Chestnuts.

These I cut up into little cubes before adding them into the tuna.

Then I added celery.

I used what was left in the package, which I suppose equaled around two full stalks, but I think it could have used a little more. I diced this up too.

Then to bind it all together I added salad dressing and sweet pickle relish. I don’t use exact measurements on ingredients like these, I just add some, and keep adding it till I get the consistency I want.

Once it’s all mixed I add black pepper. I didn’t add much, because you never know who might take offence to something overly spicy. Personally I would have added more than I did if it were for just me.

Mix that in and it’s done!

Yeah, you’ll have to forgive the photos, I’m not a professional food photographer.

I like Kashi crackers for this, but also any cracker that has herbs and spices in them. Garden Vegetable Wheat Thins, or Garlic and Herb crackers are also really good.

Enjoy!

A Bonus Video!

After I told mom of my plan to film my panel discussion for my blog, she said she wanted to see Joel’s panel as well. I decided that I would film his panel for her, and I’m posting it here for anyone else who would like to see it. Joel’s panel chose texting while driving as the subject for their discussion. This discussion is also 20 minutes, so make sure you have time when you start the movie.

 

Joel’s Discussion Part 1

Joel’s Discussion Part 2

My Final Speech Class!

Last night was a first for me in my journey back to school. It was the first last class. As of last night, I am officially done with my speech class! Hallelujah! It was not as horrible as I had feared, but I definitely would not want to have to retake it. For the final, we did not have to give a speech in the same way as usual. Instead we split the class into two groups and did group projects, where we picked a topic and discussed it in the same manner as they would on a show like “Meet the Press.” One student was chosen as the moderator, to keep the discussion flowing, and all students needed to study the topic so as to be able to contribute to the discussion. The topic that my group chose was actually my suggestion! I was very glad for this, because it is so hard to study something that you don’t care for in the least. Regular readers of my blog already know that I suggested cryptozoology for the topic. I have always been fascinated by animals and the idea that there are animals out there that no one knows about is so exciting to me.

As I have been chronicling my new life at school I have tried to post something from every class that I felt would be interesting to anyone reading this blog. The only exception has been my Psychology class, because there hasn’t been anything that I could write about here, It’s just reading, online discussions, and tests. For my speech class I have been posting my written speeches. These have ended up very different from the speech as I give it, but it ends up being the same information. This time however it would be much different. There would be no way to write my speech in advance, as this would be a discussion between 5 students. Instead I came up with the idea to film it, and post the video here.

A couple weeks ago I did a test video with our cats. I filmed them, uploaded the video to YouTube and posted it to my blog. After a bunch of trial and error, I got everything to work smoothly, and I now am pretty confident in my uploading abilities. Next thing I need to work on is my video editing skills, but first things first.

I ended up having to use my old camera instead of my camcorder, because after I got everything set up I saw a battery icon flashing on the screen. The last thing I wanted was to have the camera shut off in the middle because the battery died, so I opted to go with my camera instead. The video quality isn’t going to be as good, but it serves its purpose. I had to split the video in half because YouTube has an upload limit of 15 minutes, and our panel discussions were to be 20 minutes long. So now, after hours of uploading my videos are ready to go. So please enjoy our discussion of Cryptozoology!

 

Discussion Part 1

Discussion Part 2

One final note, I was not able to get this in during my part of the discussion, but in my research, I came across accounts of stories told by Australian Aborigines about a huge lizard that lives in the outback, far from any man. In the 1950’s Australian ranchers told similar stories, and some said that their animals were killed and they heard a terrible noise of roaring from the forest. The Aborigines, and the few ranchers that managed to see and not just hear it, all describe this lizard the same way. 20 – 25 feet tall, walks on its hind legs, and has very tiny front legs.

What does this sound like to you?

The Loch Ness Speech + Brief Art Update

Tonight we gave our persuasive speeches. I went over. I didn’t think I was going to be able to fill the 6 to 8 minutes, but I ended up going over 9 minutes. I was not happy. Anyway, for those of you who might be curious here is the speech as I wrote it. No pictures, because I used pictures from books instead of putting together a slide show.

Waves without wind,
A fish without a fin,
And a floating island.
These are the words to an old legend about Loch Ness, an enormous lake in the hills of Northern Scotland.
For centuries the people around the loch would see things in there. They would talk about it amongst themselves, but not with outsiders. After all, the notion of a massive creature it the water does sound a little crazy. But this all changed in 1933 when a new road was built. With all the new traffic around the lake, more people who did not live there started to see something in the water, and they weren’t quiet about it like the residents of the area. The first big news sighting was by a couple named Mr. and Mrs John Mackay who were driving home along the new road. Mrs Mackay was looking out over the loch when she saw a violent commotion out in the water and two black humps rise out of the water. The back hump was bigger than the front, and together they stretched about twenty feet. She grabbed her husband who slammed on the brakes, and they watched the creature until it dove beneath the surface making a huge wave that rolled to the shore. At first they didn’t want to tell anyone about it because they were owners of an inn, and they were afraid that they would be accused by people of inventing the story to get business for their inn. Eventually they did tell a friend of theirs, a man named Alex Campbell, the warden in charge of protecting the salmon fishing on the loch. Having the job that he did, he also had seen things out in the Loch, and a few days after he talked to the Mackays he saw it himself again. He described it as having a long tapering neck about 6 feet long, and a massive hump behind it that was about thirty feet long. After this, he decided that it was time to start reporting these sightings. Mr. Campbell was also a reporter for a local newspaper, so he wrote the story himself. His editor said that if the creature was as big as he and the Mackays claimed, then it was a real monster. And that’s how the Loch Ness Monster got its name.
If there is something in the loch, what is it? The most popular theory is that it is actually a plesiosaur, or rather, many plesiosaurs, since it would be impossible for one animal to survive all throughout the centuries. The many descriptions given for the creature seem to all fit this theory as most people who claim to have seen it describe a massive creature with a long neck that stretches out of the water. Others, who claim to have seen the creature exit the water and come ashore, have described a giant seal with a long neck, which is also the same basic shape as a plesiosaur.
But what if it isn’t real as so many people claim? What have all these people been seeing? The most common accusation seems to be that people just see a big floating log, and their imaginations run away with them. And as for all the pictures taken most are so blurry that it is very hard to tell what exactly you are looking at in the picture. The ones that are clearer are all dismissed as hoaxes. None can be proven one way or the other.
There have also been many attempts to locate the monster with sonar scanners, and some have indeed detected something down there, but people also refute this as evidence for a creature saying that it could just be a school of fish. In the late 1960’s there was an incident that gave skeptics further fuel for refuting underwater photographic evidence. According to Jeanne Bendick, author of “The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster, plans were put in motion to film a Sherlock Holmes movie about the monster in the loch. They had a fake monster which was pulled by a submarine. They never finished the film, because the monster broke away from the submarine and sank. They tried to recover it, but the monster was never found. Skeptics can now claim that underwater pictures and sonar contacts are not of the real Loch Ness Monster, but of the lost movie monster. The only problem is, this does not account for a picture taken on one of the Sonar research expeditions. The equipment detected a huge fast moving object, and snapped a picture of what appears to be a massive flipper attached to a body. If it were the missing movie prop, why would it have been moving so fast?
One good thing did come for Monster enthusiasts from this incident, the beginnings to an answer to the question of how creatures of that size could stay so well hidden for centuries. During the search for the movie monster they discovered an unexpected trench over 900 feet deep. Later side sonar scans showed evidence of caves in the steep sides of the loch. If there is air in these caves they would be the perfect habitat for these massive creatures. This survey also showed that there were massive channels in the bottom of the loch. With all these prospective hiding places it is easy to believe that Nessie can stay hidden as long as he wants.
Nessie may be the most famous, but he is far from the only monster to be spotted in a large body of water. In Their series “Strange and Unexplained Happenings” Authors Jerome Clark and Nancy Pear tell about many different “Monsters” found in large bodies of water. All over the world there are tales of other creatures living in swamps, lakes, and rivers. None of these creatures are recognized by science because, like Nessie, no one has been able to get a clear photograph of them. One of the most famous of these “Lake monsters” is a creature affectionately known as “Champ”. Champ is said to live in Lake Champlain, a one hundred mile long lake between Vermont and New York. According to cryptid researchers Halls, Spears, and Young, stories of a horned serpent living in the lake go back hundreds of years. Native American tribes from both sides of the lake had stories of a creature that lived there. Despite the ancient stories being of a horned creature, the blurry photographic evidence shows a creature similar to Nessie. The best photograph of Champ was taken by a woman in 1977. While swimming with her family Sandra Mansi saw a long neck rise out of the water and begin to look around. She ran to get her camera from the car and snapped a picture of it before she pulled her kids out of the water and fled. Fear of ridicule forced her to hide the picture for years, until she met Joseph Zarzinsky, a man who researched Champ. After speaking with him, she got up the courage to reveal the photograph, and in June of 1981 it was published in the New York Times. As a result, Champ’s popularity has since skyrocketed. Lawmakers in both New York and Vermont have even passed laws making Champ a protected species. No one knows if he exists, but if he does, they don’t want hunters and thrill seekers going out and killing him.
All throughout history sailors have reported seeing massive creatures at sea. Some of these, like the giant squid, have eventually been proven by science to be more than just a myth. There are many examples given in Monsters of the deep by Stuart Ross. While there is still not enough evidence to prove that Nessie exists, to write it off as just a story without proof, is just as foolish as believing something is there with no evidence to prove it. Even if no one ever comes up with conclusive proof, it is still exciting to think of the possibility of something there, deep in the Loch.

Next week is our very last speech class! This is where we will be doing our panel discussions. I am looking forward to this much more than any of my speeches, because instead of it being just me giving a speech all by myself, it’s going to be a group of us, and we are going to be discussing cryptozoology, one of my all time favorite topics.
Remember how I was all excited because I wasn’t going to have to do any more self portraits in my Drawing class? Well guess what our final project is for Design 1. That’s right, a self portrait. Yay. This one will be more than a basic pencil drawing. We are to pick a medium that we feel we need improvement on. I don’t know what I will pick yet. I hope I can make it look like me, because that is a requirement for the project. “It must be recognizable as you.” Wish me luck…

Collages, A Group project, and Speech Class

I got my collages back that I was working on a few weeks ago. To refresh your memories I’ll put up my rough sketches again before I show the finished products.



These were all to be done in black and white. We had black and grey construction paper and white cardstock.



For the one with the arithmetic symbols I wanted them to look 3D, but I wanted them to be white on a black background, so I cut out the symbols from a piece of black construction paper, and glued it to the cardstock. Then I used grey pieces to make it look 3D. For the last one I had to cut slits in the circles so I could link them into a chain, but I didn’t want the slits in the picture, so I glued them together in such a way so the slits would be hidden. It turned out better than I thought it would.
The project that we are working on now is a group project. Joel and I are thankfully together, and there are two others in our group. We were lucky to be allowed to pick out our own group members. Joel and I were a bit worried about it because there are a lot of people who just don’t show up for class. All the people in our group are people who are always there. The assignment was pretty broad. We can do anything we want as long as we each do a piece of art that goes together with everyone else's to create one composition. I suggested that since there were four of us we each do a different season. The girl in our group then suggested that we line up our drawings so that they make one long picture. I think it’s going to look really interesting, especially because the other guy is going to do collage. I am doing pens and markers, the girl is doing colored pencils, and Joel is doing pencils. We are thinking about having each medium sort of bleed into each other’s drawings, so it’s going to be interesting to see what it looks like when we finish.
It looks like we only have two weeks left of school! I’m not sure of the schedules for the other classes yet, but in my online Psychology, and our speech class it’s just two weeks. Next week we have to give our persuasive speeches. As you know I’m doing mine on the Loch Ness Monster. Last night I turned in my outline for the speech.

Jonathan North
11/23/10
Public Speaking
Topic: The Loch Ness Monster is Real!
Purpose: To convince the audience of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.
Central Idea: For centuries there have been sightings of a creature in Loch Ness, and in other bodies of water around the world. There is something out there. Science just doesn’t know what it is.
Introduction
I. For hundreds of years there have been sightings of a creature in Loch Ness.
II. Something is in there!
Transition: What is it?
Body
I. It could be a plesiosaur.
II. There have been some photographs taken of it.
III. It might be an elaborate hoax.
III. Nesse is not the only creature that has been seen in large bodies of water.
IV. There have been creatures spotted in lakes right here in our own country.
V. Going back even further in time, sailors reported huge monsters at sea.
Transition: Now that you have more facts, what do you think?
Conclusion
I. Even if no one ever comes up with conclusive proof, it is still exciting to think of the possibility of something there, deep in the Loch.
 
I’m still not looking forward to it. I like the topic, I just don’t like speaking in front of people. Thankfully I have gotten to know everyone in the class, so it’s a little easier, but I still wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.
The last week we have to do a panel discussion. I was really glad that everyone in my panel agreed to my suggestion that we do cryptozoology. It will make it a lot easier because it’s another topic I am really interested in. We divided up our topics into four categories of cryptids, Myths that could be real, Out of place animals, extinct animals that could still be living, and former cryptids/myths that have now been proven to be real. I got extinct animals that could still be living for my area of expertise. That is my absolute favorite branch of cryptozoology, mainly because I have loved dinosaurs since I was a little kid, and the possibility that one or more might still be living is really exciting to me. I am not sure exactly how I am going to chronicle the panel discussion for my blog. It’s different than my other speeches. I always write out what I want to say beforehand, and then post that, but for the panel discussion, it’s more of an off the cuff discussion between me and four other classmates. I might see if it’s ok to film us. It’s going to be a long discussion though. We have to fill at least twenty minutes. If I do film it, I’ll probably have to split up the video. I think you tube has a time limit, and twenty minutes would probably be too much. Hopefully I’ll be able to do something. We’ll just have to see what happens.