Upon a recent journey to the Library of Congress to do some research, I made the wonderful discovery of find the actually article that John Rice wrote to The Republican, in hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. My elation was quickly tempered when I saw the date: 1886.   Not, 1866, as I had originally thought, and portrayed in the current version of my film.  In my defense, 1866 was a very reasonable guess.  All of the Union armies congregated in Washington, D.C. for a Grand Review after the war was over.  D.C. is relatively close to Prince William County so I thought that perhaps John Rice had made a detour before he traveled home. Apparently not.  Apparently he waited 20 years to get around to it.  Which means that my John Rice and Amos Benson actors, who did a very wonderful job and who are both college age, should have been middle aged men.  The lesson I have learned is that if I don’t know a date for sure, I shouldn’t use one.

So, the battle becomes do I give in to the historian side and refilm the whole scene with men who look the appropriate age, or, do I just change the voice over and say “After the war” and leave the footage, which does still portray the general story? 

I am going to be giving this topic more thought but right now I think it will be determined by whether I can realistically dedicate any more time to that scene when I do still have two other segments to worry about.

In other general news, I have been able to set some dates for filming a couple of interviews in July.  I am also looking forward to being able to film an event that is taking place out at the Ben Lomond site on July 18^th.  In the works is a possible trip up to Pennsylvania on July 5^th to film some of the Gettysburg reenactment that is happening there. This would be my first real endeavor into witnessing a large organized reenactment…we’ll see how it goes.

Here’s my list of things I’ve learned and things I wish I knew at the start of this project:

Tip #1: First off, I want to say that I recommend undertaking an honors thesis to anyone…but only do so if you find something you’re interested in, or someone you’d truly like to work with.  If you’re considering it just for credits or for prestige, forget it.  I don’t fault you for that, but take it from me - it HONESTLY is not worth the effort if that’s all you plan on getting out of it.  Remember - if you’re doing an honors project, realize that it will consume the better part of your senior year, when most of your fellow students will be out partying and taking easy classes.  Because of this, if you’re doing an honors project, choose a topic you care about deeply, that way you’ll have the drive to keep going.  Find something that you’ll be interested in reading - after hours, out of the classroom, on weekends when you’ve finished homework.  That kind of academic curiosity is the only thing that will propell you through deadlines and committee meetings and caffeine-fueled nights in Swem when, really, all you want to be doing is to sit at home and watch sitcoms on Hulu.  Believe me.  I’ve been there.  (Note: Swem cafe?  Not just for show.  Delicious for 2 AM study sessions.)

Tip #2: With that said: Swem.  USE IT.  I’m not kidding when I say that it’s one of the nicest university libraries I’ve ever seen, and the collections are HUGE.  If they don’t have a book or article, they’re very good about ILL-(Inter-Library-Loan)-ing it.  The librarians are friendly, the student workers are very well trained, and they offer free courses and free accounts for resources like digital databases and RefWorks.  (<–Tip #2.a: RefWorks is the most amazing citation software ever, and because it’s online, you can use it anywhere as long as you have an account.  Ask a reference librarian to set you up and show you the basics…you won’t regret it.)  Oh, hell, more tips, because this is such a great topic.  Tip #2.b: you have an insanely long check-out period for books, now that you’re an honors student.  Abuse the privilege.  Read everything you can get your hands on.  Tip #2.c: the Swem printers are a godsend when you’re printing out your THIRD draft of a 50 page paper, due to three committee members in an hour, and your personal printer is slower than anything AND has decided to malfunction.  And they’re only 5 cents a page, AND you don’t have to pay until you get your IT bill later on.  Tip #2.d: I don’t know who came up with the Copy Center idea, but at this point, I owe them my first born.  Not only will they print things on acid free paper (necessary for your final title page and archival copy for Swem) and photo paper, but they’ll also bind theses for you when you’re totally full of yourself and want a personal copy to show off to your 5 year old cousin and your neighbor’s dog (because, believe me, you’re going to want to!).  It’s cheap, accessible, and right there in Swem.  Don’t ignore this resource.  And, finally: Tip #2.e: there are free scanners in Swem (first floor).  Any time you see something that’s helpful, scan it to .PDF and send it to yourself, even if you’re not sure you’ll end up using it.  That way, you can go back and read it any time in your own dorm room, instead of walking all the way back to the library and having to find the call number again.

Tip #3: They taught us this starting in Kindergarten, and here I am, with a B.A., STILL unable to follow the cardinal rule: Don’t Procrastinate.  It’s a good rule, though, so even if you’re like me and have a chronic inability to do things in measured doses instead of saving them all up for 10 sequential all-nighters, try to build up this skill.  Believe me, it will make you so much happier in the end.  Procrastination, in small doses, is fine.  Take a weekend off here; go to sleep early there.  But for the love of god, START your project in some form (even if this just means taking notes) in the first week of school, and CONTINUE it weekly, even if that just means reading one article (though I suggest setting a regular writing goal, as well).

Tip #4: Find committee members well before the deadline to declare them.  Because, unlike us, teachers don’t plan (or enjoy!) staying up until 4 AM, and aren’t sitting by their emails the night before the deadline, waiting excitedly for your frantic request to come to them.  They’re not going to know - or care - about your committee unless you ask them, and even then, they may take their sweet time getting back to you.  Plan accordingly.  Remember, you’re accommodating to THEIR schedules, not the other way around.  They’re doing you a favor.  (Because, really, unless you’re The Golden Child, no one is absolutely dying to read a 50 page paper on top of their regular work.  That said, if you tell them a little about your project, they might find themselves really interested, and that will make everything easier in the long run.)

Tip #5: This one comes in three parts - 1) set weekly/monthly/regular meetings with your advisor; 2) set deadlines for every little bit of the paper (”the outline will be done by XXXX”; “the bibliography will be done by XXXX”; “I will have a progress report for you on XXXX”); and 3) tell everyone and their mother about these deadlines.  Especially your advisor.  That way, you’re (shamed into) holding them, at the risk of losing credibility.  (Works wonders, believe me.)

Tip #6: The Charles Center is your friend.  For that matter, so are your individual departments.  The Charles Center has tons and tons of research grants and scholarships - for travel, for housing, for classes, for research.  And your departments may even have their own competitions, maybe even tailored specifically towards honors students.  Believe me, without those grants, I could not have done this thesis.  A side benefit of scholarship competitions is a) they look good on your resume, and b) depending on the grant, they may enable you to start research the summer before, making your senior year that much less stressful.

Tip #7:  Have you noticed that these tips are totally out of any logical order?  Yeah, well.  Tough.  Anyway.  In retrospect, I think it’s very weird that I’ve never done this before, but it was a life-saver here…I suggest making a rough table of contents (or outline) early on in the process, and building your paper out of that.  You can always change sections later, but it breaks the task up into much more manageable portions, and lets you know exactly what you’re supposed to be writing about at any given time.

Tip #8: If you’re at a loss for what a thesis should look like, you’re not alone.  Browse D-Space, or ask your department for copies of old theses…seeing what other people have done (and done well!) can really get you motivated, and help you model your own after things you liked.

(Tip #9: Read my thesis.  What?  You didn’t think I was going to do all this work and not self-promote, did you?)

Tip #10: It’s cliche, but true.  Enjoy what you’re doing.  Stop to consider the opportunity: not only do you have tons of resources at hand to explore something of interest to you, but you’re actually getting class credit for it (TONS of it - 6 credits over the course of the year, and if you do well, they’ll likely be As!), and one-on-one time with professors.  The writing and defense aspects are great for grad school prep or, even, any career, because you’re going to need to be able to defend your work for the rest of your life.  And the sense of accomplishment you’ll feel at the end is phenomenal.

So, congrats.  Get out there, pick a topic, find a mentor, and spend a year reveling in your own nerdiness.  Because, believe me, at this college?  You have plenty of company.

As surmised, I found that there is very little migration out of Tibetan settlement camps in Ladakh. The main reason for this seems to be due to Ladakh’s isolation and the fact that most young Tibetans in Leh, despite the usual lack of job opportunities, seem to be much more content in their exile situation. This also may be due to the similarities between Ladaki and Tibetan culture. I was able to draw many comparisons between the two cultures as well as between the Tibetan exile experience in India and Nepal.

During my time in Ladakh, I explored the Tibetan camps in Leh and took a trek through the areas surrounding the small city. Not surprisingly, I found many similarities between Ladaki and Tibetan culture, especially in regards to religion and language. The Ladaki and Tibetan languages are so close that I was even able to use my Tibetan to communicate with Ladaki people and to hold basic conversations with Ladakis whom I met on on the trail. In a way, I felt like I experienced Tibetan culture as it used to be in Tibet…and to think I was only a stone’s throw from the border!

My time studying the exiled Tibetans in Nepal and India was an incredible experience. I hope to use my acquired knowledge and results of my research as the basis for future study. I plan to visit Charlottesville and Washington DC to interview Tibetan youth who have migrated from their settlement camps to inquire about their experience in the United States and their first impressions of the West.

I want to thank all who assisted me during my research, especially the Charles Center for granting me this opportunity through an international research scholarship and to YOU, the reader, for following my blog! Thanks so much. JELA JEYONG!

 Again, sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but research has kept me very busy. Anyway, as the designated “water girl,” the first week of research was spent collecting water samples and processing them by different methods of filtration. The overarching goal of the filtration process is to concentrate viruses from eight liters of raw water to two milliliters of viral concentrates. It’s an astounding feat that more often than not leaves me excitedly stammering, “Cool.”

The first step of this process involves collecting eight liters of water from the Inlet, Keck Pier and Spillway sites, as denoted on the previous graphic. These samples are then run through dead-end filtration. A series of filters measuring 10um, 5um, 1um and 0.22um in pore size are connected by piping. A peristaltic pump (It is called a peristaltic pump because it functions using peristalsis, a series of contractions that force the water through the piping. This same process is what pushes food through the digestive tract of the human body.) Each filter registers a decrease in pore size. This essentially screens out smaller and smaller particles that may be in the raw water. For instance, the bacteria in the water, which tend to be bigger than 0.22um in diameter, get stuck on the 0.22um filter. This filter can then be saved and bacterial DNA can be extraced from it. Viruses, however, are much smaller than 0.22um and pass freely through the filter. The water collected after this step in the filtration process has only viruses in it - along with proteins, heavy metals, etc.

The virus water gathered in the first step of the water filtration protocol is then further filtered in a Vivaflow Tangential Flow Filter. Tangential flow filtration involves the passing of water through a filter block. The application of an “out” tube that is smaller in diameter than the “in” tube causes back-pressure to build in the filter block. This forces the water through a 30 kilo-Dalton filter (30 kilo-Daltons is the diameter of most proteins). Viruses get stuck on the filter and virus-free water exits the filter block as waste. After all eight liters of water has passed through the block (taking about four hours), 50mL of virus-free water is flushed backwards through the filter. This frees the viruses from the filter and allows for 50mL of virus water to be collected.

This 50mL is then filtered through a Sterovex filter of 0.22um in diameter. Essentially, a filter is attached to the end of a syringe and the 50mL of water are forced through the filter. This filtrate is then placed in a Centricon filter. This final step of filtration occurs in the centrifuges. The Centricon filter is another 30 kilo-Dalton filter that is designed to trap viruses in the filter when centrifugal force is applied. After centrifugation, the filters can be flipped over and that same force pulls the viruses off the filters. The viruses are concentrated in two milliliters of water. This concentrate can be used for abundance enumeration, DNA extraction and much more. It’s a day long process per sample taken, but it is well worth it!

 Dana

 Again, sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but research has kept me very busy. Anyway, as the designated “water girl,” the first week of research was spent collecting water samples and processing them by different methods of filtration. The overarching goal of the filtration process is to concentrate viruses from eight liters of raw water to two milliliters of viral concentrates. It’s an astounding feat that more often than not leaves me excitedly stammering, “Cool.”

The first step of this process involves collecting eight liters of water from the Inlet, Keck Pier and Spillway sites, as denoted on the previous graphic. These samples are then run through dead-end filtration. A series of filters measuring 10um, 5um, 1um and 0.22um in pore size are connected by piping. A peristaltic pump (It is called a peristaltic pump because it functions using peristalsis, a series of contractions that force the water through the piping. This same process is what pushes food through the digestive tract of the human body.) Each filter registers a decrease in pore size. This essentially screens out smaller and smaller particles that may be in the raw water. For instance, the bacteria in the water, which tend to be bigger than 0.22um in diameter, get stuck on the 0.22um filter. This filter can then be saved and bacterial DNA can be extraced from it. Viruses, however, are much smaller than 0.22um and pass freely through the filter. The water collected after this step in the filtration process has only viruses in it - along with proteins, heavy metals, etc.

The virus water gathered in the first step of the water filtration protocol is then further filtered in a Vivaflow Tangential Flow Filter. Tangential flow filtration involves the passing of water through a filter block. The application of an “out” tube that is smaller in diameter than the “in” tube causes back-pressure to build in the filter block. This forces the water through a 30 kilo-Dalton filter (30 kilo-Daltons is the diameter of most proteins). Viruses get stuck on the filter and virus-free water exits the filter block as waste. After all eight liters of water has passed through the block (taking about four hours), 50mL of virus-free water is flushed backwards through the filter. This frees the viruses from the filter and allows for 50mL of virus water to be collected.

This 50mL is then filtered through a Sterovex filter of 0.22um in diameter. Essentially, a filter is attached to the end of a syringe and the 50mL of water are forced through the filter. This filtrate is then placed in a Centricon filter. This final step of filtration occurs in the centrifuges. The Centricon filter is another 30 kilo-Dalton filter that is designed to trap viruses in the filter when centrifugal force is applied. After centrifugation, the filters can be flipped over and that same force pulls the viruses off the filters. The viruses are concentrated in two milliliters of water. This concentrate can be used for abundance enumeration, DNA extraction and much more. It’s a day long process per sample taken, but it is well worth it!

 Dana

Field at Bristoe Station :I was excited to find that the elements of nature on the battfield are not noticabley landscaped…I forsee some great shots of soldiers running through the high grass…

Hill at Bristoe :This is the hill where McIntosh’s guns were located and subsequently captured, if I can aquire an actual gun that is where the scene will be depicted, if not then maybe I’ll just have to pretend that Petersburg = this hill.

A lovely pond :Perhaps supplied some drinking water to passing soldiers…

Lamb’s Ear : …aka Civil War soldier’s toilet paper.  The question of what Civil War soldiers used for this purpose was raised in my Civil War Era class this past semester so since I knew the alternate use of this plant with soft fuzzy leaves I was excited to find it growing naturally on a battlefield.  Too much info?  Maybe…

Luckily for me it happened to be a wonderful, picturesque day so maybe some of these will become film stills?!  You saw it here first my friends, a special sneak peak.

A lot of my research has mentioned or discussed the Asian rice crisis in 2008, which was when the fragile bubble created by increasing population and stagnated agricultural growth popped. In a nutshell, there was not enough rice last year to feed Asia, specifically the Philippines since they are the world’s biggest rice importer. I’m still unclear about whether there was actually enough rice in supply to meet demand and it was just being smuggled or stored away, resulting in the price being too high for people to afford, or there simply not being enough rice available. In any case, the country is still recovering, and prices may not stabilize until 2010. Despite this crisis, the Philippines is still very dependent on imports (especially from Vietnam), and really needs to reinvent it’s own agricultural system in order to have sustained domestic production to feed its own people. I came across one article basically ranting about how the government’s NFA (National Food Authority) is trying but has been largely ineffective in investing in and creating a sustainable rice policy infrastructure throughout the country in order to grow enough rice, and store and transport it effectively. There are multiple routes this reinvention can take - moving towards a more industrialized, mechanized, and Westernized system is not really the route I’d like to see due to the singular focus on high yield. The high input/output mindset essentially eliminates viewing the farm as an ecosystem. [sidenote: part of the survey will be attempting to determine exactly what the traditional perspective on farmland is, anyway]. A lot of the articles I’ve read call for the need for modern hybrid varieties being made available to small farmers, currently being researched all over the world, specifically by the International Rice Research Institute. I’ve also run across a few regional surveys similar to what we will be conducting determining past and present usage of industrial fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals. These charts and tables are filled with a lot of nitty-gritty numbers that will be helpful to me in the final writeup, but now is not the time or place to share this with y’all. I’ve also hit on a few news articles explaining why some local governments are urging farmers to go organic, mainly to be more independent from fluctuating worldwide fossil fuel prices, which fuel machinery and are used to create chemical inputs (neither of which are used much or at all in organic farming).

Josh and I have a few pretty rough versions of the survey in progress, but I want to finalize it before sharing.

 Wish me a safe trip, and I’ll be in touch after hiking, scuba diving, and beaching in Hawaii!