Finite

We live in a world have haves and have nots. Some have what other don't have and other don't have what others have. Each one of us has the choice to make a difference in the quality of the planet we call home. It is our choice to choose how we will use the finite resources that God has provided planet Earth with. There are billions of hurting people who would give what they have to have what the don't have.
The individual choice of each man, women, and child influences the health of the planet. We live in a complex world where humans have a God-ordained supremacy- let us not abuse that power, but rather use it in stewardship to the planet to protect  biodiversity and habitats that God has created and man is destroying.
This world is alive. This video is a tribute to those that have died trying to protect her.

Sayonara

Nineteen years. It's my final day to be this age, and most significantly, the last day I'll be a teenager. When I look back at the ideas I had as a little kid about one day being twenty, I'm so glad that dreams don't always come true! At 6 I knew I was going to be married by twenty (hardy har har!), and I thought I'd be done with school. Yeah, and I was going to be running for president pretty soon after twenty (apparently the president of the USA didn't have to have a lot of education...). Or was I going to be a famous opera singer? I don't remember exactly.
Obviously I had some far out ideas. I had some good ones too. Thankfully, with age comes an ever expanding mind. I've learned so much in my 19.9999999 years that I thought I wouldn't learn until I was old. The decade of twenties is going to require a lot more maturity, but hopefully I'm up for the character challenge.
Nineteen has been a good year for me. I got my drivers license (oh yeah!) and thereby acquired a level of independence which I think has been really good. In the long run, I've made my own choices about my education and scholastic plans (we're not going there right now!). I've had to say goodbye to some people that I've been really attached too, which has taught me the valuable lesson that there's the time and season for wonderful teen years growing up with wonderful friends and family and then there's the reality that one day we do have to make up our own minds and move on. I've learned not to get depressed about that very fact. Nineteen has taught me that life is an adventure and that when directed and guided by wise counsel, it's exciting and can be used for the benefit of mankind.
But hey! I still have a lot of life to go. I don't know much! I'm not very old! Sometimes I feel like I'm about 15 still. :-) This is a blog post to just toss some of my brain's considerations out. I like looking back over my life and doing some analysis on my choices. Just the same, I like to look ahead and evaluate my future goals. Remember, THINK BIG! God has great plans for each one of us, let's not be afraid to let Him direct us to being the BEST that we can be!
Sayonara. Au revoir. Cheers. 

Final Field Trip

In Environmental Science this last week we went on our final field trip lab. It's not gross, it's really neat: We went to the Colville Waste-Water Treatment Plant. When something costs twenty million dollars you know that the product is going to be good. That means that the city of Colville has a very effective mean of getting rid of all that waste-water. The process is pretty fascinating, especially when it's a biological treatment plant. Let the microbes rule! If it hadn't been that I love the human body so much, microbiology would have been my favorite of all the biology classes I've taken yet. So, the lab at this place was really awesome. The whole thing is state-of-the-art and just mind-blowing in efficiency and technology. Talk about using our affluence in America for the good of our environment. Makes me so wish other places could enjoy what we are blessed to have here in the US.
These pictures are from my cell phone.

Isabel and Amanda- two of my good friends at school this year :)

Cayce and Isabel walking to next site on tour

No one needed it

Aeration basin holds 1.2 million gallons. Pretty amazing process. Enjoy hills of Colville in background.

Clarifier

I think I'll abide by the rules on this one! :-)

Sisters, Leaves, and Autumn

Fall photos of the two girls that live at the Martin's house.

Autumn in northeast Washington State is very pretty. Western Larch, Water Birch, Aspen, Columbian Maple, Red-Osier Dogwood, and the list goes on. Beautiful in it's own way. We're blessed to call this area home.

Going Environmental- Energy for Kettle Falls

Today, Thursday October 20, 2011, my environmental science class toured the Avista's Kettle Falls Generating Station for our lab today-- seeing how our community gets electricity. I can see the condensation from both the stack and the cooling towers from my house, and have always just considered it to be some way of making power. I never stopped to think about how it works. I gained a new respect for the people that provide the power for my community and for their environmental concern and standards. Touring this amazing engineering feat was definitely a privilege!

Copied off Avista's Website
 
The plant burns wood waste to produce steam, which runs a turbine and generator that can produce a maximum output of 53 megawatts of electricity. The plant also operates a natural gas-fired combined-cycle combustion turbine that produces 8 MW, bringing the electricity output of the entire plant (including biomass and natural gas-fired operations) to 61 MW; enough electricity to power nearly 46,000 homes.
The plant was the first electric generating station of its kind constructed within the United States for the sole purpose of producing electricity from wood waste. 

How the Plant and Biomass Works

• Wood waste – called “hog fuel” – is fed into a seven-story furnace/boiler and burned, creating heat. The walls of the furnace/boiler consist of pipes filled with water that are heated by the burning hog fuel. The optimal burning temperature is 2,000 degrees, resulting in a steam temperature of 950 degrees. The heated water generates stream and pressure that drives a turbine, which turns a generator, creating electricity.
• The term “biomass energy” refers to the organic matter in trees, agricultural crops and other living plant material burned to create energy. Avista’s focus has centered on wood waste of various types.
• The plant burns 70 tons (140,000 pounds) of wood waster per hour during full operations. That amount of fuel would fill two fully loaded semi trucks.
  The plant removes 99.9 percent of particulates from flue gas prior to leaving the stack. (.052 pounds of particulate is released per ton of fuel burned.)(Cami inserts: That's about 3 lbs an hour- could fit in your cupped hands!)

 And--- My pictures!

This picture shows the generating station in flow form

The class going out to see the receiving hopper

You have to admit that this is a pretty slick way to empty the trailers!

Wood biomass behind the conveyor belt

Cooling towers

Inside

The burning!

Formula For Success: Solve for X

Success = Right Attitude + Hard Work + Best Effort + X

Solve for X

X stands for the key component to success. While the other three of an integral part of the formula to success, you won’t truly get ahead without X.

Let me compare the stories of the two great men that I mentioned in my previous post, Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. William Foege. Both men have individually made a mark on the world and their names will go down in the history books of medical advancement. Both are alive and actively seeking to do whatever else they can do make a difference for the present and coming generations.

Dr. Paul Farmer is a brilliant Harvard anthropologist, public health expert, and infectious disease specialist. His success story is inspiring, fascinatingly described in “Mountains Beyond Mountains”. Multiple Drug-Resistance Tuberculosis; Famer is an amazing man who is making a difference in how thousands upon thousands of patients are treated and stopping resistant strains of TB. He is an intelligent human being working in the height of modern medicine and seeking changes in the world of health.

Dr. William Foege has changed the world. He has left a mark that removes marks - he eradicated small pox, a disfiguring and life threatening disease, from the face of the globe in the 1970s. As did Farmer, Foege received his masters in public health from Harvard University, after completing medicine at the University of Washington (a graduate from Colville High School, FYI locals!!!). His passion for making a difference sprang from being a missionary to Africa. Even today Foege is actively pursuing research and working with big names in America and the world to positively affect many helpless people around the world.

These are what we all consider success stories. Both of them followed principles that I outlined in my previous posting. Anyone can apply them and find success. What is the difference between these men? What can guarantee you success? 

X. Some of you have already guessed it. Paul Farmer does not have X but William Foege does. Two brilliant minds trained in the same institution; one succeeded on his own, while the other succeeded to a far greater scale, and not alone. Farmer does not claim to know about, or ignores the factor X that Foege relies and trusts in. 

X is God. 

God is the Omnipotent force that granted Dr. Foege the wisdom to eradicate a disease, changing the world. Foege claims Christ. Farmer has succeeded by man’s standards and has done a great deal to benefit mankind, but his success is not half of what it could be if he but had Christ’s infinite wisdom behind him.

When you ask God to give you the right attitude, help you work hard, and you do your best for His honor and glory alone, then you will succeed.

How to Excel and Be a Successful Student

What is successful learning? How do I become a super-star student? How do I excel?

These are questions I’ve pondered a various points in my higher education pursuit. In the last nearly two years I’ve come up with what I believe are the answers to these provoking questions that good-grade-crazy students like myself ponder. However, I can’t say that the answers I have experienced or deduced are the keys to becoming a 4.0 student, but they are the keys to doing the best possible job you can.

Learning is a lifelong process; the lessons I learn in general biology pave the way to greater and higher-level things, such as understanding respiratory physiology or understanding how to explain the defenses of gram-negative bacteria against antibiotics as a test essay question. College is all about building blocks to advanced knowledge. It doesn’t just happen in four years, but likely between seventy-five and eighty years. I can’t expect to learn critical thinking overnight; instead it comes from the process of mind-stimulating classes and real-life applications of class principles.

Success is subjective. To a student who struggles in mathematics, scoring a 90% on an exam is something to buy a burrito at Taco Bell over, while to a perfectionist or idealist, life has just unfriended you. Rather than calling success a 4.0 cumulative grade point average, call it studying to your utmost ability with the best job you can do in mind. For example, I’m not naturally gifted in being able to retain math for longer than a few weeks at most. Since I excel in the sciences I have set myself up for feeling crushed when I am the one that scores 90% on my first math test of the year rather than 99% in Anatomy and Physiology. Just because I can’t pull a high grade in math doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a student. I just have to pick myself up again, maybe re-adjust my definition of success, and go for my goal of doing my best.

Success is about attitude. You can choose your battles when it comes to school. Rather than a pity party with your feelings, why not invest that time into studying for next time? When my emotions begin building over a test score I feel is inferior to my ideals, I have to remember that my success isn’t about the end of the semester class grade, but rather about making the subject my own. I can succeed when I set my attitude in line realizing that I am a failure up until I do my best. Once I try my best I need to have peace knowing that I can’t do more than that. Often times putting an honest effort into a subject is just the ticket you need to do well with your classes, not only emotionally but also scholastically.

Excelling as a student is a great goal, but make school real for you. The world has lots of smart people. India alone has more brilliantly gifted students than America has high school students! No matter how good you are or want to be, there’s always someone smarter. That’s not to put your goals down at all or to sell yourself short of your potential. You should shoot for the moon, but if you don’t get into NASA don’t feel badly. Maybe that kind of success isn't for you. Don’t focus on the college transcript; focus on setting your goals straight. Forget the GPA! I’m telling you! Dump it! Make the information your own. Learn that physics like your life depends on it (guess what? It does!), seek to make understanding the concepts of ecology applicable to how you dispose of your garbage, and apply the principles from communications class to your daily conversations with your family. In short, by focusing on real-life application of learning you will grow in your thinking, reasoning, studying, and yes, even testing abilities! Just as some types of bacteria scavenge around picking up stray genes and incorporating them into their own DNA, you can take the class materials presented you and integrate it right into your every day life!

Excelling as a student means excelling as an individual. Be the best person you can be. Just because there are all those smarter people that doesn’t mean you can’t be smart too. If you set your mind to it, you can do anything. Men like Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. William Foege have dreamed big and changed the world. If learning doesn’t coming easily, step back to analyze your attitude about success and grades. If you can make the material your own the grades will fall into place. A friend recently told me “We to remember that life isn't always going to give us what we want. We can work hard at something, but in the end, we get what we get”. That means that even if the grades still aren’t great, it’s working hard that counts. Cultivating characteristics that will improve your day to day life and future will be of more value than all the accounting and inorganic chemistry you will ever study!

Success is trying your hardest to do your best.

Let the rest of the school stress be still. It’s not going to get you a better grade. Don’t be afraid of some elbow grease or tear stains on your textbook. Dig in hard, be the person you feel you can be, and don’t give up. Make learning your life goal, and sharing wisdom with others a byproduct of your attempts do make facts experiences.