Mysterious solder joint illustrations (PNG image file)
I've run into these two images, one showing a good and the other a bad solder joint, in multiple different slide shows, as still images in how-to videos, etc. and am wondering whether anyone here might know anything about their original source.
Forrest Mims's work came to mind but a fast skim through those parts of the Mims canon that I can easily check didn't turn up either drawing.
Thanks in advance!

05/05/24 107.4 kg
12/05/24 104 kg
On Friday 03 May 2024 a FB Spam message catches my eye from MedExpress about several products including Mounjaro (MJ), the latest GLP-1 agonist. This offers benefits for NIDDM and weight loss and intuitively feels like something right for me. I read a little about it and complete their online questionnaire. Shortly afterwards I decide to order it. £149 for a month’s supply seems good value to me. The side effect profile looks good and my risk of a thyroid tumour which the lab rats got doesn’t feel very high! I do nevertheless note the things to keep an eye on for the weeks ahead. Later that day they ask me for proof of ID and a head to toe full length Selfie to confirm I am as obese as I say I am. Taking a full length Selfie proved logistically difficult but the large upstairs mirror saved the day. I am pleased that they take their Clinical Governance seriously having previously chaired the Trust’s CG Committee and my confidence in the online medication provider increases. Of note some online platforms confirm a minority of people who want to take these drugs for a couple of weeks before their summer holiday to shed a few pounds.
Royal Mail Special delivery arrives early on Saturday morning and I decide I will take my first dose on Sunday. Gabi and I share our dinner on Saturday and we enjoy sharing a nice bottle of red wine. I have had an interesting relationship with alcohol for most of my life, drinking more than was good for me. I have no idea what impact MJ will have on that but I am curious to find out.
First thing Sunday I weigh myself. I decide to weigh myself once a week to keep an objective record of my weight loss. Whilst I am hopeful of a number of health benefits, weight loss is top of the list. I don’t initially have a specific goal in mind but weighing in at 107.4 kg it is clear that I have plenty to lose although I am pleased to note I don’t feel under any pressure to have to lose it quickly or by a specific date. The clinical trials with MJ quote data up to 72 weeks and that helps set a realistic idea that this will take many months as a minimum.
The starting dose is low at 2.5mg which I inject in to my ample belly easily and with no pain. The instructions are clear and come with some helpful diagrams which allow me to inject myself with confidence. That might sound odd being a doctor by training. Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly I don’t recall ever giving a SC injection to a patient let alone myself. Secondly I want to get it right; a natural anxiety I suspect many people have when they undertake a new adventure and especially when it is one of great importance to them.
The first thing I notice is an almost immediate suppression of my appetite. I no longer feel hungry. Can this be possible I ask myself? This kicked in within an hour or so of my injection. The doctor in me wonders if this is a Placebo effect. Surely it can’t work that quickly? I quickly drop this thinking and simply embrace my gratitude for a new perspective on things and accepting that I am not hungry is all that matters to me.
I am pleased to report that not feeling hungry continued for the next five and a half days. On Friday evening before dinner I started to feel hungry for the first time that week. Nothing serious, just a healthy “normal” hunger which didn’t overwhelm me or tempt me to snack on my old favourites such as cheese or bread and butter peanut. No this was just an acknowledgment that it was time to eat something and I was glad when dinner was ready an hour or two later. A similar thing happened on Saturday evening and again this passed peacefully without any drama.
The second thing I have noticed all week is how quickly I feel full once I start eating. I am eating approximately half of my usual portion and if and when I have put more food on my plate than I need I have chosen to leave it. Significantly this again has been effortless, natural and has not attracted any conditioned thinking about wasting food, the starving children of the world or what by long deceased grandmother might have to say on the matter. My diet hasn’t changed radically and was always healthy. Everything is cooked fresh, very little processed food and very little sugar. I just ate too much before. I never had an off switch. MJ seems to have moved that internal switch for me and for that I am again very grateful. Are some people’s brains wired differently?
As an illustration of this Gabi wanted a BBQ on Saturday night. The menu consisted of Wagyu beef burgers, grilled halloumi, grilled avocado, grilled sweetcorn and vegetable kebabs. I cooked the dinner and we sat outside in some welcome sunshine. Despite being good beef, I found the meat greasy and unappetising so I left half of it. I had already decided not to have a bread roll. I enjoyed the avocado, some vegetables and one piece of halloumi. A few bites of the sweetcorn was enough. I was full and just stopped eating. There was left over cheese. I can assure you that has never happened before!
Another thing I have noticed is the sensation of feeling bloated, even after eating what for me are small portions. In reality my belly has already begun to shrink but nevertheless the sensation is there. That agin seems to have helped with my portion sizes as I feel physically full quickly as well as emotionally satisfied. Feeling full most of the time including for example when I wake up has meant I have been eating less often. Typically that has meant eating twice a day, usually a late morning brunch and then dinner around 6-7. I have found myself drawn to a high protein, low carb diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, seeds and nuts. On the odd occasion I was a little hungry mid afternoon, a few raw nuts or a piece of fruit hit the spot nicely. In general though my desire to snack has gone. I used to have a habit of wandering in to the kitchen for no apparent reason. I would literally catch myself in there looking for something to eat. I wasn’t hungry and sometimes I don’t remember how I ended up there but before I knew it another slice of cheese and bread with peanut butter would have been cut and quickly eaten. The aimless kitchen grazing has thankfully gone too.
Many people on the forums I have read talk about the absence of “food noise.” I don’t know what they mean by the term but I can guess. My own experience is that I no longer think about food. A ridiculous amount of mental energy was previously spent on all things food related. That is no longer the case. The internal chatter has gone. A second benefit for me is the lack of “alcohol noise.” I am not thinking about alcohol which again could and did occupy far too much bandwidth. I am curious to see how this develops. I haven’t committed to going alcohol free again at the moment but given how little I am eating, I wonder when a nice glass of wine is offered will I say yes? If so how will it taste, how much will I drink and crucially will it counteract the MJ and increase my appetite for food in general and/or the foods I am no longer interested in such as cheese?
Put more simply, having no food or alcohol noise has allowed me to live an even bigger percentage of my life with a quiet mind and beautiful feelings.
A quick note on side effects. Basically none. A slight change in bowel habit but nothing worthy of comment.
My relationship with food has changed. My relationship with my body feels different. My appetite feels very different to the extent that sometimes I have had to remember to eat. For the first time I can recall, food is just a thing in my life. It no longer has a hold over me, it is not bestowed with special powers it is a fuel to keep me alive and crucially I am drawn to the foodstuffs I know are good for me not simply because that’s what every Sunday newspaper tells me but because my own Wisdom and intuition guides me every day, moment by moment.

I've been trying to make math worksheets for students I tutor in 3.5. But all I get are descriptions of images.
I want to create math worksheets where students can calculate perimeter, area of composite shapes (pictured).
Or even trigonometry calculations of pictured triangles.
Is this possible on GPT4? I would like to know before diving into subscribing for it? TIA

TL;DR class descriptions/info to help underclassmen know about classes thru personal experiences. Add to it with extra info or questions!
To all the incoming freshmen or other underclassmen - you’ll prolly hear it a lot, but the time really does go by so fast. Enjoy it, soak it in, and step out of your comfort zone. Someone posted their classes thru Purdue to let other students know how those classes were (in case it was a niche/high-level class or it wasn’t on RateMyProfessor). That was pretty helpful to me so Imma do it too. I’ll let u kno how the courses went and what I can remember. I’m graduating from the College of Ag with a B.S. in Animal Sciences with a concentration in Biosciences and minors in Biotechnology and Real Estate. I came into Purdue with AP and Dual Credits, so some things I didn’t take. Anyway, here are the classes I took.
Anyone who’s taken any of these, please add on/say smth else if it has changed! Underclassmen, feel free to ask about them!
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FRESHMAN YEAR
AGR 101: Intro to Ag & Purdue (Multiple lecturers)
This course was THE intro course to Purdue and Ag (duh). It was a 1/2 semester course so I was done with it by week 8 and there was only a quiz. We were told the purpose of Purdue being land-grant and were just intro’d to the different parts/departments of the college of Ag + different success tips. This was also the class where u begin (already) thinking about your 4-year plan and create a LinkedIn. Easy A, just show up and learn about the college of Ag
AGR 114: Intro to ANSC Programs (Ashley York)
Also a 1/2 semester course that was done by Oct. This class just went into depth on what to expect as a student in the department. You may start work on a resumé, continue with planning or LinkedIn. Again, easy A, just show up. Also, Ashley was a saint helping me each year to make sure I was on track, even tho she wasn’t my advisor.
ANSC 102: Intro to Animal Ag (Elizabeth Karcher)
This class was the first “real” class of college. It was just an intro to different domestic species and the operations tht are part of animal ag. I think there was also a lab with the class where u were introduced to animals. Dr. Karcher also was a pretty good professor. Just pay attention - it’s sort of memorization for random facts about animals/common sense depending on what u took in high school/home life in a rural area. Should be easy A.
CHM 115: Gen Chem (Multiple lecturers)
Was never a fan of chemistry, so this class I went into with dread. I didn’t want to take AP Chem, and just dealt with it in college. Honestly, if u took honors/were a good student in hs chemistry, there should be no problem - was basically just like a high school class. There was a lab that went with this course, but because of COVID, I just had an online worksheet to do every week for pre-, in-, and post-lab so I can’t speak on it. If u aren’t inclined to chem, it might take a bit of extra studying, but I was never worried.
PHIL 110: Intro to Philosophy (Taylor Davis)
To be fair, I never exactly wanted to take this exact class. I came from a small town in the Midwest, so I wanted to be sure I wasn’t dumb or anything to the people, cultures, etc. around me. Told my advisor I wanted to take a class to give me more of a “world” perspective, so she suggested the class. It honestly was not bad at all. The professor knew what he was talking abt and very accepting of questions. We learned how to tear down an argument and build it up in several ways and talked about cool things like if we have free will, does God exist, etc. The only assignments that counted for the sem were a midterm and 2 papers - 1 small and 1 large philosophical essay over any topic from the class. Definitely changed my outlook, would recommend taking it. The first part of class was harder - making sure u understand why/how an argument does or doesn’t work - but the rest was fun/easy as the topics were just presented and talked about.
AGEC 217: Economics (Larry Deboer)
I found Econ as a topic in and of itself to be quite boring. Supply and demand, money, etc. The class kind of turned out that way. Its presented as basically supply/demand and reasons for changes to the them were slowly added throughout the semester. We had several assignments, but they were nothing terrible. Gotta give props to the professor, tho. He knew the class wasn’t great but made it fun. Also, the class is flexible for schedules as in some situations it can count for credit in place of ECON251.
POL 223: Intro to Environmental Policy (Tara Grillos)
When I first started, I thought the route I wanted was ANSC with some focus in environmental issues. That’s why I took this class. I don’t understand the “intro” part, really. The whole class was presented as just case studies for things that have happened that impacted policies from the late 1800s/early 1900s until recently. Some of the info was cool. I don’t remember much for assignments, but there was a group project/paper where u had to decide on an environmental issue, state how u plan to fix it, on what level of government, etc. It wasn’t a crazy class to be in as a freshman, but it was not what I was expecting for a POL class.
ANSC 181: Orientation to ANSC (Elizabeth Byers)
Another 1/2 semester course. This class, as far as I can remember, was just for showing u the possibilities available to u in ANSC. This was specifically ANSC. It went over every concentration and what jobs/salaries there were. This was also a class where we were assigned to create our resumés (professionally) and start networking. Just as, if not easier than the other 1/2 semester classes so far.
ANSC 221: Principles of Animal Nutrition (Dale Forsyth)
Sorry but not sorry for anyone in ANSC. The class is boring, but Dr. Dale Forsyth is such a sweet old man. This class is the intro for nutrition in ANSC. U will learn the different required nutrients, food stuffs (supplements and stuff too) that have these nutrients, what happens when animals are given too little of these, and how to balance/create rations for animals (ruminant and non-ruminant). As long as u are okay/good with algebra, there shouldn’t be a problem. U just need to solve systems of equations in Excel to get the right weight of a food stuff. Homework was balancing rations. Exams looked at that + nutrients and their deficiencies. Dr. Forsyth also talks fast and doesn’t slow down because he has a lot to get thru. Come into the class knowing it prolly isn’t going to be very fun, but u need to know it. Try to find something interesting in the whole.
BIOL 111: Fundamentals of Bio II (Sean Humphrey)
Not sure how this class really is. I came into college loving biology and being (not to sound like an ass) great at it. To me, it was easy and relearning biology from high school for a bit. To others it may be a bit more difficult. There is just a lot of memorization. The professor was nice and answered my questions when I had them and explained in great detail if I was confused. I can’t remember any assignments I turned in, or anything about exams. Overall, I thought it was an easy class, but be the judge urself.
CHM 116: Gen Chem (Multiple lecturers)
Just a continuation of CHM 115. It picked up where it left off. Got a little harder, but it was nowhere as hard as TV or anything makes it. There are definitely topics that show up from hs again, but a lot is new. Wasn’t fun for this class switching lecturers every few weeks since they each had their own lecture style. Again, there was a lab section, but because of COVID, it was a worksheet. Not the worst class, but a meh class.
MA 16020: Applied Calc II (Alexandros Kafkas)
The first and only time I had to take math here. In hs I took MA 165 and thought it was a breeze (prolly bc it was hs). To anyone wondering, MA 165 SHOULD count in place of MA 16010 in college of ag. With that in mind, I went into the course knowing what Purdue math is known for, but still keepin an open mind with my abilities. I’m really proud of the grade I got, too. I think a lot of the course depends on the lecturer - mine was good at teaching us new concepts. Learn all you can about the lecturer beforehand, find out if they are good, and see it for yourself. We had quizzes in class every week (MWF) over the previous lecture and homework thru LON-CAPA that was usually due the day aftebefore (Tues, Thurs, Sun, I think). The quizzes and homework were good starting problems. The exams were tough and harder than quizzes/hw. If u’ve done well in math, but aren’t a prodigy or someone who can put in hrs of work, don’t expect to get likely higher than mid-70s on exams. It was common to get around a 50-60%. They do curve “if it’s necessary” but it is ALWAYS necessary.
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SOPHOMORE YEAR
AGR 201: Communicating Across Cultures (Pamala Morris)
To start…BOO. Was not a fan of this class. Felt like it was a money grab and busy work. It was required for some international understanding credits. The content wasnt interesting but for sure important. We were taught to basically be good ppl and about the different types of hardships that groups of ppl could go thru (ageism, sexism, racism, classism, etc.). We were required to buy the book, which was $50, but written by the prof and from what I assume was her website. I don’t recall ever using it unless it was necessary for an assignment. The class helps u relate and think critically, but is done in a piss-poor way. It could hv been the COVID aftermath where lecture was done virtually but we had a class later on with other students for a “lab”. Quizzes were easy, and overall easy, but so bad too.
SPAN 201: Spanish III (Nancy Reyes)
I know I’ve said this already abt other courses, but this still applies. This course was 100% a high school class. I did a placement test into this course (after 3 years in HS Spanish - Fr. to Jr. - with a 2 year gap of not learning) and got all credit for Spanish 1 and 2. Took it for international understanding credits. This course made sure u knew the basics again, spent a lot of time in past tense, then ended w maybe a month in subjective and future tense. There were a few speaking assignments and cultural readings/lectures. Was encouraged to speak Spanish for class, but the prof knew that couldn’t happen but still helped us all. Exams included MC, writing, and listening. Not sure if this is the same for other languages, but hopefully it is.
CHM 255 + 25501: Orgo + Lab (Elizabeth Parkinson)
Dreaded this class, but went in confidently. The class sucks, no other way abt it. It was a lot of memorization and practice. A lot of the “basic” stuff started sticking about halfway thru the semester. It doesn’t help that I stopped going to lecture about 3/4 thru the sem. It wasn’t as hard as expected, but it was still quite hard. The prof was amazing at making the content interesting. Labs were ran by GTAs. Depending on the section your GTA may not kno anything. The labs also did not go along with the lecture - they are 2 separate courses that can individually be passed or failed. Exams were as you would expect with the course - a few high spots among a crowd of C’s and D’s. The lab had multiple things due every week w the semester started. It was expected to do ur pre-lab at start of week, turn in ur in-lab immediately after finishing lab, then the previous week’s post-lab/final lab was due. The lab also holds the policy that if u don’t show up dressed right or sleep late, if you don’t show up within 10/15min of start that u can’t show up and will receive a 0 for the lab.
ANSC 230: Physiology of Domestic Animals (Rod Allrich)
This class taught me a lot. Each week was a different body system and learning info regarding animals individually. Things were taught in general as overarching concepts, but then things were applied as necessary for individual species of animals. Everything was brought up from the digestive system to the endocrine system. The class met 4 days a week and had a quiz once a week. There was no lab when I took the course. The specific professor I had was also interesting to say the least. Dr. Allrich is a funny, good man, but he does not use or create slides. Instead he uses his own website to post info (usually from Merck veterinary) abt whatever it is he wanted u to learn. In class he would just ramble on about what he thought was important. ANYTHING he said could be test material - no matter what (I was told by an upperclassman to remember that his favorite pie was sour cream and raisin pie bc it was a quiz question they had). Now, there is a lab that goes with the course. Also, if u hv Cabot the course material and class are much harder than with Rod. There are expectations, lectures, and more. Regardless of the professor, the information that was taught was useful, remembered, and interesting. In any class, Rod typically will have this structure but will grade easily. Quizzes will be to write statements of fact and exams won’t exist or will be take-home with only having 5 paragraphs to write using a word bank
ABE 226: Biotech Lab I (Kari Clase)
This was the first course I took for my minor in Biotechnology. I did not know what to expect going in as I didn’t grasp the scope of biotech. The course was ran well. The whole class is a wet lab where u are in the scientific process trying to find a new species of bacteriophage. U dig in dirt, do some pipetting, use beakers, make plates, isolate DNA, and send it off. Any research u do/finding a phage gets put into a national database for phage research. U do hv lab notebooks that get checked, but hv an outline to go off. There were several quizzes and deliverables that had us learn about phage more, or aseptic technique. It was a good class. U do have to buy a lab coat (which is kinda cool). Easy class that kickstarted my interest.
CHM 256 + 25601: Orgo II + Lab (David Thompson)
This class was disastrous. It was me, the content AND the professor as to why that was the case. This was just a continuation of course and lab. The new content was harder to wrap my head around, + I stopped going to the lectures about halfway thru the sem. To make matters worse, the class was early and the prof was speaking in mach turtle. I would listen to the lectures a day later so I could 2x speed thru them and the man was sounding like a normal person talked. This class was harder than the previous course. If u didn’t like CHM 255, sorry this is worse. The lab was just the same as the previous sem, but the GTAs changed. Again, labs didn’t go with the lecture and are 2 individual courses to be passed or failed separately. I passed but the class made me rethink my life once or twice and was potentially the worst class I ever took.
STAT 301: Elementary Stat Methods (Spencer Hamrick)
I did not enjoy this course a single bit - besides the professor. The course throws, what I felt like, was the entire concept, terms, rules, designs of statistics at u. It was a lot at once for me. I felt like there was a disconnect between what I was learning and in what ways it applied to me. It wasn’t too difficult, but the class was boring. There was also a lab section that was not great either. We were forced to use SRSS. There were homework assignments on a different software/website that equally were boring. The exams were harder than expected - there were some sections with questions with such small disparities that the answer came down to a difference of 1 word in a sentence. Overall, there’s a lot to learn and it’s all pretty basic to give a general understanding, but it was done poorly. If it was done better, it likely would have been an easy course. This course tho is also one of the worst classes I took.
AGRY 320: Genetics (Joseph Anderson)
There’s not much to say about this course. It was genetics. It felt like another continuation from the end of BIOL 111. It built a foundation for DNA, chromosomes, and went from there. There was a lot of higher thinking and content that was build upon thru the semester. It was a bit of memorization, but the content was fun. There were hotseat/iclicker questions for each lecture. Prof. Anderson was also really good at presenting the info.
AGRY 321: Genetics Lab (Aneesha Kulkarni)
This was the lab that went with AGRY 320. It was separate from the lecture. I do not believe it ever followed along with the lecture. The semester was spent with Arabidopsis. From the plant, we extracted DNA, did PCR, did mutant analysis, etc. The whole semester led up to a final lab report for what had been done that semester. There were also some small lab assignments that needed done. The class was also serious about attendance which could have made a major impact on grades. It is also typically ran by a GTA. It was fun and I enjoyed it. There was never really any work that needed to be done outside of class and at times it let out early.
ANSC 333: Physiology of Reproduction (Jonathan Pasternak)
This was a good class. The content focused on female anatomy/physiology first, then male anatomy/physiology, then on interactions and changes to the body through hormones and development. I found the class to be interesting as there is a lot more that goes into reproduction that u think. It’s a lot of cool info thrown out, but in a manageable way. Notes can go fast n there is a lot of terms and items to pay attention to. There was also a lab portion to this class. The lab went with what we learned in lectures. It was hands-on learning and doing things. It might sound gross but we had a lab where we took fetuses from a pig uterus to weigh and look at. We also looked at pig semen under a microscope. The professor was obsessed with histology. Expect to look at many slides of different tissues and know how/why they differ, where they are from, etc. I don’t remember assignments, but there was a lab practical that involved many things. Overall, it was a fun class.
ABE 227: Biotech Lab II (Kari Clase)
This class was busy. There were lots of things that needed to be done often (oddly no true deadlines it felt like). This was the dry lab portion. After ABE 226, any DNA that was collected sufficiently was sequenced and the data came back. That’s essentially what the semester was for. With the DNA from a phage, u must make entries to find out the start/stop site of genes, gene function; BLAST the genes, gather evidence there is truly a gene, and more. There were some small assignments with deliverables. There was also a larger project that was put into the undergrad research symposium. From the DNA, a small group chose a gene and researched. A lot of busy work and nights up, but there was a final genome announcement and research went into real life.
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JUNIOR YEAR
HIST 33805: History of Human Rights (Rebekah Klein-Pejsova)
This class was a requirement for an upper level humanities course. This class was easy and interactive. There were some readings that had to be done outside of class, but not much else was required. U would read, then come to class, fill out a discussion, and talk. The content started back in history and moved all the way to just beyond the Holocaust. There were a couple writing assignments that were like a paragraph. The final was to write a paragraph on when u thought the history of human rights began. Again, easy and almost no work required.
BCHM 307: Biochem (Barbara Golden)
I loved this course. Dr. Golden was soft spoken but she made sure u got the info u needed. The content felt like a mix of genetics and chem. The course was biology-sided for those that hate chem. This course went back to the central dogma and such, but then included a lot of metabolism and inner workings of cells. There were parts involving the Citric acid cycle and other “basic” biology concepts that went into further explanation from a different perspective. I believe there were also hotseat/iclicker questions. If u liked biology or genetics, u should like this course, too.
BCHM 309: Biochem Lab (Orla Hart)
Just like the genetics lab, this lab did content that led up to something big at the end. The lab was spent learning basic lab technique, then focused on isolating and purifying LDH from a Bradford assay. There were lab reports/assignments, but they all help and lead to the big lab report. It was a fun time. Dr. Hart was a fantastic prof for the course as she fully knew the topic, always helped out, and had high expectations. She would also joke and talk with us. She shared about her family (she’s Irish), her cats, n more. + she would talk with you in her office, where she had Ghirardelli chocolates to eat. There was a written midterm + u are required to wear a lab coat and goggles during lab.
ANSC 311: Animal Breeding & Genetics (Donna Lofgren)
This was another class that I liked a lot. For anyone interested in this topic, it is not what u expect. The class is not punnet squares and seeing what traits u can see. This class was a lot of math. You had to find the allelic/gene frequencies, var, covariance, selection intensity, generation interval, EBV, etc. I cannot stress that this class is a lot of math (prolly 75/25 to 85/15 for math/concepts). It is, however, one of the few genetics restrictive selectives for ANSC (if I remember right). There is other content too, learning about how to breed animals, components of breeding and genetics, etc. There is a lecture and lab. The lab is when homework was intro’d and we were given time to ask questions/complete it. The lab lasted 2 hours, and usually there would be several homework problems left. There was also a large project that used a sim (mine was beef, other years used lamb/sheep). I would have to cull and breed to get better genetics, get rid of disease, etc. The better the offspring the better. This sim was paired with an arrow chart and written report. Lot of work, but a lot of fun.
ANSC 326: Applied Non-Ruminant Nutrition (John Radcliffe)
This class was boring. Unless u love animal nutrition, it’s hard for it not to be. This was like a continuation of ANSC 221, but only focused on (essentially) pigs. Once again, just learning the background/basic info for feeding animals, providing nutrients, and balancing/creating rations. Also, this class also uses a lot of Excel - more than ANSC 221. There was a final for the course, but it was only a 1/2 semester course. There may have also been a lab section, but the work typically finished quickly.
ANSC 446: Companion Animal Mgmt (Rod Allrich)
Another course with Rod. It was basically nonsense. U learned what it took to keep companion animals healthy and managed. Specific diseases/interests were looked at for animals during class + issues/problems with animal clinics, shelters, etc. There wasnt much to learn. Since it was Rod, there were no slides. Anything written could be tested. Students had to present some issue with companion animals for points twice in the semester. There was also an animal business plan due at the end of the semester. It was required to describe the location, services, employees, their benefits, etc. There were no exams, but there were his quizzes - u were provided movies to watch and write a 1-page summary/reflection on what u saw. Once u get used to Rod, his classes are some of the easiest to ever take.
MGMT 200: Intro Accounting (Terra Maienbrook)
This was my first class for my Real Estate minor. If u have taken any math class at college u should be fine. This course is an intro. U learn the accounting equation, debits, credits, depreciation, and interpreting it through balance sheets. It can get a little confusing when things are broken down further, but as long as u pay attention there shouldn’t be trouble. Just remember what debits and credits do and u should pass the course. There were assignments that helped understand what needed to be done and how the content u are learning works, but it turns into busy work later on. If u get 1 small error as ur doing ur balance sheet, then the whole problem will be wrong and it probably won’t tell u what the error is. The professor also used hotseat/iclicker for attendance, so make sure to show up. She did let u come to any section at any time and still do the attendance. Exams weren’t difficult if u pay attention and do well in lecture and homework. If u do well, the prof would even email saying that u did well.
MGMT 304: Intro to Financial Mgmt (Phil Baeza)
This class was okay. Part of it could have been it was the prof’s 2nd semester teaching here. The class was a lot of basic info for management/econ and was also a requirement for the Real Estate minor. U are taught corporate finance + the goals of it, cash flows and a bunch of math with related terms (NPV, PV, NWC, NOI, etc.) None of it was exactly difficult to figure out. The class itself wasn’t bad content-wise. Once u learned the information, it was there. There was a lot of Excel for solving problems. If u aren’t good with Excel - make that a priority. The course also had exams, but you were allowed a typed cheat sheet for each. Besides the exams, there was also a case competition (so many of these in MGMT classes). Info was gathered about a company and with a group had to decide to approve or disapprove of their loan request. Overall, not terrible, but hard to sit thru.
ANSC 303: Animal Behavior (Marisa Erasmus)
This was an interesting class to take. It was pretty fun (and I ended up as a TA, my last semester). The course is essentially psychology in animals. You learn conditioning, scientists who contributed to the study, types of interactions, and types of behaviors (maintenance, maternal, social, play, sickness, etc.) and how they are in animals. The course also has a lab section with it. The lab section is essentially to allow for time for the zoo project, although there were some labs that went to the ASREC to observe those animals. For the project u are provided an animal at the zoo to research, go to the local zoo, and observe them. When ur back you create a presentation for the research you did involving the animal and enrichment provided by the zoo. In class, there were several quizzes over lecture content plus a midterm. There were also assignments, but many of them had some involvement with the zoo. The class also had no final, but there was a final quiz. The professor did talk fast sometimes, but as long as you typed or rewrote notes later, there was no issue.
STAT 503: Stat Methods for Biology (Yan Xing)
Unsure of why, but I loved my grad level stats courses. They were much easier and fun to learn than STAT 301 (so if u hate STAT301, give 503 a try). This course basically started at the beginning. The content started with learning sample vs population, statistic vs parameter, plus sample unit, size, variables, and variable types. The course became harder as time went on, but nothing was super difficult. The topics included basic stats (mean, stdev, var, types of distributions, unions/intersection), marginal probability, tree diagrams, binomial distributions, chi-square, ANOVA, hypothesis testing, and multiple comparisons (like bonferonni). The information was always presented in a way catered to life sciences (crazy). The lectures not presented in class, but expected to be watched beforehand. I did not go to lecture, but watched the lecture videos on my own. That was enough understanding to easily pass. There were homework assignments that were due every other week. Start them sooner than later, you’ll need the time! This class was also my introduction to coding in R. I had no experience in any coding beforehand but easily got the hang of it, especially since the professor provided tutorials. It was used for every homework, basically. There were also quizzes that weren’t too difficult. The class was not easy, but it was fun.
ABE 512: Good Regulatory Practices (Keri Clase/Stephen Byrn)
This was the final class I needed to get my Biotechnology minor. It was terrible. The professors were nice, but there was no structure. The lectures were about regulatory science and dealt a lot with information from the FDA. The course went over the good and required practices required for the creation, testing, passing, and distribution of medical equipment and/or drugs. Every small detail and information that was not in lectures was required to be known. There were quizzes and assignments that all got turned in through Gradescope. The quizzes are where random information was expected to be known. The assignments were deliverables which asked some question or inquired about a part of the process and write about them. The final was a final deliverable that had to effectively be a conglomeration of the other deliverables (but not just copying and pasting). The class wasn’t hard, but very poorly set up.
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SENIOR YEAR
CSR 103: Intro to Personal Finance (Wookjae Heo)
I just needed a filler class in my schedule. I figured it could help learn some “real world” stuff that maybe I wasn’t sure about. The class was completely online with provided lecture videos. It was very easy and what would be expected. Topics went from how to manage debt and make sure you can get loans, to being informed about credit cards and insurance. All the information was easy to get through. There were writing assignments to be done basically every week. The professor would have you read a paper that 50/50 he had a part in writing, and answer questions. Some things were interactives that just needed to be completed (regardless of how well). Not a bad class. It will definitely pad your GPA - everything taught should be common knowledge.
MGMT 370: Real Estate Fundamentals (Lindsay Relihan)
This course was quite informative. It was an average level of difficulty. There was a lot of information that went into it - I mean it is a fundamentals class. Topics that were talked about included foundations of real estate, what is real estate, valuation of property, lending, time value of money, multiple financial ratios, and taxation. There were multiple assignments - some writing and others math. The writing was for discussions (5 of them) about certain papers provided or certain book chapters. The math assignments were problem sets to get done for what we had learned. They gave plenty of time to finish them. Beyond that, there was also another case study/competition. For this a company was selected and given potential locations to move to. You had to decide if it was worth it for the company to move locations.
ANSC 345: Animal Health Management (Rod Allrich)
For this class, I just needed to take another ANSC course. This class was practically the same as any other Rod Allrich course. We learned how to keep animals healthy and basically many different common diseases of animals. From his website, we would get brought to a page talking about some disease or medical problem that could potentially happen and have to write a 1-page summary/reflection. This happened each week. He still did in person quizzes with statements of fact. Once again, students had to make videos/presentations for the class to present on some problem. There was no final exam. Did not learn too much from this one, but it was a great space filler and GPA booster.
ANSC 481: Contemporary Issues in ANSC (Barry Delks)
This is essentially the final push for ANSC students. As seniors, you take this course to prepare you for the real world. Lectures were given by guests who the professor brought in. They would talk about their specific company, career, or niche and any issues they were seeing there plus how to stop them. The professor would then have groups get together to discuss ways to fix the problems and have the guest comment on what was said. There were also assignments to be done, but they were very easy. They were just things to make sure you were on track for a job and/or graduation (having a 30-sec intro, making a cover letter, redoing your resumé). Part of the class was also just attending the career fair.
STAT 512: Applied Regression Analysis (Tiantian Qin)
Like my other grad level stat course, I absolutely loved this one, too. This class was a DIST course. This class solely focused on regressions (simple linear and multiple linear regressions). Topics for the course started with the basics (terms of regression like betas, Xs, SSE, SSR, SST, and diagnostics) and moved to more difficult content (lack-of-fit-testing, global f-testing, transformations, ANOVA, marginal effect, coefficient of partial determination, multicollinearity, and more). I found the content interesting and it was fun to learn about. Nothing was too difficult and could always be asked about through office hours. There were homework assignments that corresponded with the lectures that were due every other week. Again, take the time. The course also used R coding for everything that was done. The course also had a couple exams to do. But the biggest thing was the regression project. This required a group of students to get together, find a set of data, and use it to form a regression analysis. There was a lot of coding involved, but it was fun parsing through and wrangling data.
MGMT 375: Real Estate Law (Cecelia Harper)
This course has been super personal and fun to take. This is one of my last courses for the Real Estate minor and I am glad to have taken it. The course goes over any and all laws that relate to real estate in some way. The course talked about property rights, subsurface rights, common laws, easements on land, financing/lending, prenuptial agreements and other contracts. Most grades come from exams, though. There were 3 during the semester plus the final. All exams (except the final) were open note and book. The final we were allowed a 1-page cheat sheet that was front and back. The only grades that did not come from exams were from the contracts we drafted. You create your own lease agreement and purchase agreement, then pair with someone to mesh them together for a new one of each. I think the course is particularly made tho by the professor. She is a practicing real estate lawyer who knows what she is talking about. She would set it up so the class was very personal and we each asked her questions. It was interesting because she could have stories about clients to connect things from class. She would always entertain questions. There was no extra credit, except for when she would randomly do attendance. The course structure could be changing quite a bit now, tho.
MGMT 43901: Real Estate Investment & Development (Michael Eriksen)
The other last course for my real estate minor. This class was a step away from what I thought it was going to be. This course is geared toward commercial development and the business side, as I felt. There was nothing really said about personal/residential property. The course topics included an overview of real estate, ways/types of investment, estimation of cash flows for commercial real estate and finance terms associated, providing loans/financing, the roles of a developer, and taxes. The course didn’t have many plain assignments. These were Excel files with attached questions and instructions. If you could follow the instructions you did well, plus the assignments built on each other, except the last one - this one used ARGUS software. The majority of the work was spent on a case competition (go figure lol). Students were put into groups to select a plot of land to develop for some commercial purpose and provide the financials, timeline, and reasoning for the decision. There were several required tasks to be done for this assignment, plus a presentation at the end. There was no final exam, but there were 2 midterms. You could use an excel sheet with notes throughout, tho. The professor was good. He catered to his students and asked questions about how we thought the class was going. A good class to take.
BCHM 421: R For Molecular Biosciences (Pete Pascuzzi)
I took this class because my previous classes had made me really like working in R. I took the class to continue on with that. If you do not have a basic understanding of R, it may be a slight learning curve. The class only met on Wednesday and Friday for 2 hours. There wasn’t a lecture every class, but there was usually some work to be done. All assignments were done through R and could typically be finished in the class period. If this wasn’t possible, it could usually be finished the next class. The class just showed different things in R, from graphics and data wrangling to how to process gene ontology. There were homeworks and labs, with labs being more involved. There was a midterm that was open resource and a project. The project was done at the very end with groups who put together code from previous lectures/labs to create an RShiny document. The class did have a final, again open resource, but any graduating seniors did not have to take the final. There was an opportunity for extra credit by creating an R notebook for all your notes for functions and lines of code. The professor was also nice, helpful, and willing to put in effort to match you.
ANSC 351: Meat Science (Yuan Kim)
This class is basically just biology plus some extra info for meat processing. If you have taken muscle biology (or just bio) you will do well. The class does have some busy work, tho. The first part of the class was solely muscle biology. After this, the class went into meat quality (including analysis, factors affecting quality, etc.), parts of production (packaging, freezing, heating), slaughter and that process, then into meat safety. The content was interesting to learn and easy to take in. The class did have several assignments. After every class was a lecture quiz, each week there was a reflection, and every so often there was a case study. Case studies involved reading a case and providing a response to address the cause of a problem and fix it. The whole semester, there was a project involving some topic in meat science (novel tech, meat in diet, lab-grown meat, alternatives, etc.). Groups got together at the beginning of the semester to make a decision on the topic. Then, throughout the semester, groups met with TAs, wrote drafts of a paper, critiqued other student papers, and made a presentation to show the class. Throughout the semester, you have to work 2 shifts at the butcher block or write a giant essay on a book, too. The class also required 4 exams and a final. If you showed up to every class, you were able to skip the final. Dr. Kim loves the topic and wants you to learn, but most of the grading will be done by TAs.

First Previous Wiki
Admiral Tenrah returned to the battle map, looking at all the various icons and routes to and from star systems. So far, the Sennes Armada was keeping its pace mostly on track. The delay due to the diplomats from the Misan Li Heptarchies no longer would matter.
King Siran had pulled back from the battlefront against the High Federation in an attempt to pivot to the Hive Union. He had won the battle, but the stragglers included the remaining leadership of the High Federation anyway, so they could continue to remain somewhat organized. The massive civil war would soon spill into a more international affair, due to the King's rhetoric. But that was entirely his fault when he so strongly advocated for the deaths of Cawlarians who had lived on planets for generations that he happened to desire.
And he would not let his name be stained with even the suggestion of a loss. The Battle Planner and Fleet Commander Annabelle Weber were also now on their way to the front, and the diplomats from the Heptarchies were tagging along. Phoebe was in discussions with them now, and supposedly there'd been a few breakthroughs on that front. Whatever she'd promised them or get them to agree to, the fleet buildup along the Hive Union's border with the Heptarchies was slowing.
The Interstellar Gathering seemed to have realized no amount of bluffing would get the High King out of war. Even if he was a proxy force aligned with them, King Siran was not valuable enough for them to risk a wider war. It was just as Tenrah had expected and had told Eyahtni, Kawtyahtnakal, and the Patriarchs when he'd met with them several days ago. Just as a young hatchling couldn't be allowed to stray too far from the nest, there was simply no sense for the Heptarchies to risk economic ruin.
Orith and those who ruled over him would shift their tone while pretending it was a natural decision, not one they'd been forced to make to align with reality.
"I must commend your tactics in the latest training exercise," Tenrah said, ruffling his feathers slightly before respectfully nodding to Annabelle.
"I am pleased to hear such high praise from you, Admiral," the woman said. She was fully dressed in her regulation spacesuit, meaning most of her face was obscured. But Tenrah wouldn't complain since it was more than prudent to be ready for anything. The next unknown ships might not be friendly.
He had also looked into the parties responsible for the lack of communication or warning of the Misan's arrival. As it turned out, general incompetence was to blame. A receiver hadn't been properly calibrated, so the transmission signal had just been noise. He'd given the officer in charge of that an earful before eventually letting up and telling him to do better. A personal visit with the Admiral was one thing. But a second personal visit was quite another.
Tenrah drew a vector toward some of the outer systems controlled by the High King. A few garrison forces were there, but they would be swept away almost instantly. What most concerned him was the shipyards in the region that received most of their metals from a select group of planets in those systems. They were rich in the metals required to forge the alloys needed in the High King's fleet.
The High Federation had been something of a dumping ground for either overthrown species or other alien species that had been deported from their homeworlds before the war broke out. This was reflected in the number of species inhabiting the worlds, each with unique names, traits, and temperaments.
"We plan on taking this path, and then splitting to conquer these systems and disable their metal exporting abilities," he explained. "Then we will move to this system."
He zoomed in more and drew a new vector from where the previous one ended. "We have intelligence that they have at least four planet crackers there. Brey will send FTL suppression satellites through portals on the outer edges, with her portals boosted by our psychic amplifier fields. we will be able to take over the system quickly, and begin the process of either disabling the planet crackers or moving them back to our territory."
"We will need to know the angles the superweapons are at before committing to the battle," Annabelle said. "Otherwise, judging by the trajectory cone you have, we can bypass them entirely and reach Siran within two weeks."
"And that is an interesting proposal. Can you lay out your plan, in that case?"
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Annabelle did so. She and Tenrah discussed the strategy's risks, and they eventually decided that such a tactic, while bold, wouldn't do what they set out to do: ensure the safety of the Cawlarians near the border. They were already trying to evacuate from the coming war front, but cities and planets were large things that took a lot of time to completely empty.
And more garrison forces, whether they were androids from Phoebe or specialized and highly trained defenders from the Union, were still moving in as the civilians evacuated. Kawtyahtnakal had established a fund for them, but many people were too stubborn to leave. Despite the looming threat of war and possible massacre, they still refused to board the passenger ships. Annabelle could respect their tenacity and courage, though she personally believed it was counterproductive.
A few encroaching splinters of Siran's fleet had already struck the evacuation forces. He'd sent around 2% of his ships away to harass all the border systems within reach in an attempt to get the Armada bogged down in defense. But with such small forces and the Union on such high alert, all of the important stations with weak shields were well within the protective layers of planetary shields in the area.
Larger garrisons than necessary were still required, of course, but Tenrah had managed to navigate the desperate concerns of the Feathers and those like them in charge of governing their planets with his natural political skill. He didn't need to ask them for favors because, as an Admiral, he alone held power over how his portion of the fleet would respond. Annabelle had witnessed that loyalty and control well within the organization of his fleet. Even at his advanced age, she continued to be impressed with his adaptability and skill at monitoring three-dimensional battle planes and fields.
She pointed to the cone of possible directions Siran was expected to take. They were generally adjacent to the border, though they would head around the left side of the territory he claimed from the Union. If he reached it, millions of lives would be lost every day. Once he broke the shields entirely, the planets would be utterly glassed down to their mantles.
She'd read up on his methods and had seen videos of them in action. Despite all her training, it still was haunting. The hivemind helped to soothe her when the unpleasant parts of command sizzled up to meet her in the middle of the night.
But they would not impede her on the field of battle. When she went to war, the hivemind suppressed all that wasn't necessary for the mission. It was their agreement, one which she'd asked of it. And being a node of the network meant that her stability was paramount, even more so than her title as Fleet Commander. For if she fell, others could take her place. Protocols ensured and demanded that.
But her place in the hivemind was what allowed it to have any strength this far out. It could form avatars and help with long-range communications, though the main mind back on Earth and Luna obviously remained disconnected from this distance.
"I would normally agree with you, Fleet Commander, but I am reminded of your tactic to use decoy hard light holograms."
"They will suspect that any ships heading right for the barrels, or close enough, are either not valued enough or are the decoys."
"Then all you have to do is make them impossible to ignore," Tenrah said. "I can lend you bombs capable of remaining armed and capable of being triggered inside of hard light holograms, even with jamming involved. Then, they will be unable to ignore them, and the explosions generated would destroy the shields in place around the planet crackers. If they fire the weapons, then the residual magnetic interference will allow us to destroy them, since the shields will be far weakened."
Annabelle could see the potential brilliance of the strategy. But it was just that- potential. In space, there were no obstacles. Without stealth fields, there was no hiding. And with hard light holograms, stealth was obviously off-limits.
They would be left approaching from angles that they would be unable to adapt to. She had her VI plot several routes but was unsatisfied, so she had Edu'frec link into the network to do it. Phoebe had been replaced after contacting a Sprilnav network to ensure she could scrub any programs that may have gotten through to her without distraction.
It would be a terrible thing for a Sprilnav AI to make it to her dreadnaught, for sure.
"We will likely need a threefold diversion at least," Annabelle said. "Maybe fourfold, if we can spare the forces, and brave any minefields that may exist."
"Well," Tenrah began. He pulled up a few schematics of the weapons her dreadnaught carried. "I believe you can solve the minefield issue from a distance, even with the lightspeed limit. After all, they can't move easily. As for the actual attack? I suggest a sixfold flower formation, with a twisting wings accent."
"You will have to show me a diagram of that," Annabelle said, grasping uselessly at the unfamiliar words. Before their integration had begun, there had been a limit to how much doctrine she could memorize.
Tenrah pulled up an image of an alien flower blooming with six petals. And then the image faded, overloading with a stylized ribbon of red shapes. The ribbons spun on their sides every thirty seconds, like corkscrews that were flatter.
"And in this case, the ribbons represent the drone formations. I can send a few carriers into the battle with fighter escorts, though we will need to keep them spread out to avoid any direct lines of sight from the planet crackers."
"I heavily doubt they will waste such shots on carriers," Annabelle said. "And if you commit more, you will overwhelm their defenses. I believe your drones are highly reflective, so only missiles and bullets can deal sufficient damage at the involved speeds and numbers we are working with here."
She tapped the diagram, shifting it by about 45 degrees.
"I believe I can fit a stealth force here, which will engage the back defenses of the planet crackers once they focus their shields frontward. I can likely get a full battlecruiser group in, and if you can press in as a wedge around 10 million kilometers above me from where I come in, and around 30 million kilometers below," Annebelle paused to draw the vectors with her hands, "Then it will aid in my ability to subdue them. It would likely shorten the battle time from a week down to four days."
"Assuming their detection satellites are not capable of seeing it."
"And we will target those too. I believe the first strike can fall on those, since the planet crackers will interfere with their ability to scan behind themselves, and such large power signatures can be noted."
"There is one more problem," Tenrah said. "We are generally working on the assumption of trying to capture these ships, yes?"
"Yes," Annabelle said.
"Then will we board them?"
"Yes, but no. Edu'frec and Phoebe's commando androids will open up the beach heads on the physical surfaces of the planet crackers, while our specialized mental warfare agents will take the fight to them in the mindscape. I assume you have your own plans in that regard?"
"It depends on how we will split the planet crackers. There are 12 in the system. Half and half?"
"That seems prudent," Annabelle replied. She selected the ones that would be most advantageous for her various gambits and strategies to work. They were closer together, which meant more capacity for coordination, mutual aid, and shielding. But it also meant a larger target, one which she could hit from many vectors without worrying about each enemy ship having a wide field of view. Some battlecruisers and cruiser groups were scattered around, but they were not enough to resist the Armada. And once Siran was robbed of a quick way to end the war, the Union would hold the upper hand, capable of committing devastating power to a fleet that remained in a system for a long time.
Yet the same was true for the Union and the Alliance. If the battle took too long, or their command positions were located, then the terrible might of the planet cracker beams would be turned upon them instead. Annabelle's dreadnaught was powerful. More so than all the ones before it. But that didn't mean she wanted to test her shields against alien planet crackers.
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Penny was talking to a group of freed slaves on Justicar. These were recent ones who still held quite a bit of trauma. They'd taken to calling her 'Liberator' despite her never identifying herself as such. It was oddly endearing and did make her feel quite a bit better. It was good to just be able to go out and help people.
She felt some perturbations in the mindscape but ignored them. Right now, she needed to ensure that the gangs couldn't continue their horrific industry. She'd taken out most of their heavy equipment and was now waiting for the Guides to finish searching.
Sirens and alarms echoed in the distance. Penny sent psychic energy into her eyes, but she was too far underground to see anything without using the energy itself instead of light to see. Justicar's mind seemed busy, so she couldn't connect with him. As time went on, Penny felt that something was wrong. It was a gut feeling that she couldn't place. But because of that, she was on edge. She made a large shield of psychic energy above them.
She held it for several minutes. Nothing happened, but Penny wouldn't let it down that quickly. Justicar still didn't respond. Her communicator rang. Kashaunta was calling.
"What's going on?" Penny asked.
"The Grand Fleet is-"
Light and heat smashed into her, easily breaking through her shields. She briefly saw tens of thousands of Sprilnav burning before the light overwhelmed her eyes. Her communicator was destroyed. The onslaught was accompanied by a monstrous level of sound. Shockwaves drilled Penny into the melting and fracturing ground, forcing her lower and lower into expanding pools of magma and liquid metal.
The city's upper layers fell upon her, crashing with great and terrible force. But Penny was now fully reinforced with psychic and conceptual energy. She erupted furiously from the rubble. The air around her burned with heat as she continued to accelerate. The armor plates now surrounding her glowed cherry red, but they were white by the time she'd reached space.
She reached the first planetary shield.
"Displace," Penny growled. She forced reality to move as she willed and to place herself where she saw fit. The Grand Fleets were high above, firing upon a small group of ships that had detached from Azeri's fleet. They seemed to be directly attacking the broken-off contingent and not Justicar itself.
So Penny increased her eyesight and analyzed the battle in both real space and the mindscape. Nilnacrawla helped her identify Justicar's targets. The massive Elder was angrier than she'd ever seen him, and his size, which was even larger than Tetelali, made that incarnation of him appear more like a god of wrath. She saw him brutally tear through groups of minds desperately running to avoid him.
She could faintly see spheres of psychic and conceptual energy area denial fields. From this distance, the flagships' strength was truly impressive. Both of them were at least ten times as powerful as Azeri's had been during their battle. It was clear both Kashaunta and Valisada had ordered upgrades.
Then, her attention came to the dreadnaught, which seemed to be at the head of the attack. Penny explored the ship with her psychic power, pushing aside all resistance. Several lasers struck her, but she ignored them, denying their impact in reality against her own.
It glowed with the fury of weapons firing. Missiles and fighters flowed out of its bays. Bullets, nukes, and lasers streamed from red-hot gun barrels. A nuke hit her but didn't explode. She ripped it apart, using the materials to add energy to her reserves.
Justicar continued to go in inside the mindscape. He tore at them like a shark at a school of minnows in a coral reef. His ravenous anger and hatred were frightening, but Penny rapidly got used to it. Calling up her own memories of the innocent people who'd been killed for no reason, Penny wrapped herself in energy and began to erase her signature from the area.
Fighters flew past her, no longer hitting her psychic shields with bullets. Lasers stopped firing at her since she'd moved from her last position, and there was no longer anything for them to track. Penny floated in the stars, with bright blooms of white fusion explosions blossoming around her. And so she moved forward. She reached a cruiser. She reached forward, teleporting past its shields, and shut down the ship's reactor by teleporting all of its fuel into the void.
Soon, a missile from Kashaunta's Grand Fleet found the vessel, and it vanished in another sphere of heat and light. Of course, it was all silent in space. Penny could only hear her heart beating and occasional warnings from Exile or Nilnacrawla at incoming attacks. Exile occupied the area in her ears, which felt weird, but it allowed him to speak without showing himself in the mindscape. Given his nature and the fact that the Grand Fleets likely had detections for speeding space entities, it would be a terrible idea for him to appear there. Nilnacrawla continued to help Penny with the mental aspects of the battle.
He processed the energy input and output that Penny was giving off in the hopes of keeping her off the sensors of the dreadnaught battlegroup. She didn't want to attract the full focus of one of those massive guns. The explosions on Justicar would have been capable of cracking apart a mountain range if not for the extensive dampening Justicar's shields had done. And she'd withstood them only because she could shunt off most of their impact into reality, leaning into her conceptual nature and the nature of Cardinality to escape certain death.
Even with her power, as high as it had ever been, the blow she was taking were the most powerful physical impacts she'd ever endured.
She also suspected Yasihaut's work in this, though she had nothing to prove. She also had to remain vigilant about the Judgment. She couldn't take overly hostile actions, so she didn't just teleport the Sprilnav in the area out of their ships. She tried it on a smaller scale, and a weak pressure from the dreadnaught made her power fail to affect them.
But those Sprilnav were still doomed to die by their commander. But Penny didn't wish to doom the Alliance and herself by taking their deaths into her own hands. And she was stained with enough blood, metaphorical and literal. The ashes of the people she'd freed had fallen away with her ascent into the atmosphere, but the gritty memory and feel of them never would.
Once again, she'd been powerless to save those who'd needed her. And if she'd had that power, what could she have really done? Would she have been forced to stand there and take it? Or could she have really fought back in a way that wouldn't be turned against her in the Judgment? And was she wrong for considering all of that during such a horrendous time, when she'd literally seen thousands of people turned to slag and ash before her very eyes just ten minutes ago?
Penny burned with shame and grief. She hated this. She hated that things always turned to this. Why couldn't the galaxy just leave people alone? Why did there have to be so much suffering? Her anger threatened to overwhelm her, but with a herculean effort from her, Nilnacrawla, and Cardi, it was beaten back.
Penny felt Justicar getting close to breaking through the shield. She sent a small jolt of power to its underside. A thick bolt of psychic lightning infused with rage leaped from her arms, shattering the shield completely and taking roughly half her power. In the dreadnaught, the antimatter reactor she could sense radiating its energy suddenly lost all coolant access.
She pushed her psychic energy into herself and her conceptual energy into words that she harmonized into existence with the force and might of her will.
"Cardinality: One to zero. Reversal."
A heap of her energy left her instantly, stopping a budding explosion from ripping the dreadnaught apart. Justicar absolutely ravaged whoever was inside that ship, including what appeared to be a leader figure in the mindscape. Penny watched Justicar smash the Elder's corpse in his jaws and tear his soul from his body before shredding it violently with a contraption that looked straight out of a horror movie.
She let the explosion go, and so it went. The dreadnaught cracked in half. The Grand Fleets, which had never stopped firing, finally broke through the shields as the circuits failed to supply them with power. Hundreds of thousands of lives winked out instantly, torn to subatomic particles by beams coming from two different flagships. Penny went straight to Kashaunta, appearing on the ship's bridge still in stealth. To their credit, her guards noticed immediately and bared their weapons at her.
The guns that were powerful enough to blast holes in skyscrapers and sturdy enough to withstand a fall from orbit with hardly a scratch unloaded their payloads into her. Penny opened her mouth, and strings of psychic energy writhed outward, wrapping themselves around the guns and wrenching them out of the claws of Kashaunta's guards while the impacts' explosions were contained by thick shields.
Kashaunta herself had already drawn her sword but hadn't moved an inch.
"Penny," she said dryly. "Welcome to my ship. I apologize for your reception."
A new shield came down on both of them, preventing their words from reaching the ears of Kashaunta's subordinates.
"Think nothing of it, Elder Kashaunta. What punishments will be given to the Grand Fleet Commander?"
"Well, technically I am not the Grand Fleet Commander of this fleet," she said. "So that is not really something I can enforce. However, the Grand Fleet Commander of the 85th Grand Fleet does wish to talk with you, Justicar, and myself about what just occurred."
"And you believe him?" she exclaimed.
"He sent transcripts of the message he sent to one Elder Solei, asking him to cease his actions before it was too late."
"Even the Alliance can make deepfakes," Penny said.
"And do you think I would be ignorant of such things, child?" Kashaunta asked. "We have ways around those. That is why we still have a society after billions of years of time to screw it all up. Deepfakes are a problem of less advanced species and cultures, not those with the tools to handle them."
"Which are AIs, which you also ban throughout the galaxy."
"Yes."
"Isn't that hypocritical?"
"Yes, it is," Kashaunta said. "You can go and complain to the Judges who decided that if you wish, though asking them to think of the children instead of preserving the power of the entire Sprilnav species will get you laughed at by a billion mouths."
Penny felt something in her mind take offense to Kashaunta's wording. It didn't feel like it was part of her, but it also did. The shock of all the lives lost hit her again, making her scowl.
"So there will be nothing done?" Penny growled.
"No. Prepare for a neutral and level-headed discussion. If you wish to have any seat at a table such as this, you will conduct yourself with decorum. You will not accuse Elder Valisada of being responsible for whichever fool did this, and you most certainly will not baselessly claim that Yasihaut is at fault for this, even if it is likely that she or her backers are. It is time you learn the lesson that all Elders have: there are always more Sprilnav. Recognize that this was a strike against you without casting aside all of your goodwill among those that matter."
"Those that matter," Penny mused. "Sometimes I forget what you are."
Kashaunta stepped forward, eyes narrowing. She let out a hiss.
"You saw a few thousand people die, and now you're back to the racism again? Grow up. People die all the time in this galaxy. You complain about the status quo. I would respect that, if you could stomach what is required to change it. Death will continue to run rampant, and you will be the reason more die no matter what you do. 760 sextillion Sprilnav, Penny. And you cry over ten thousand?
During the Source war, we sent two years olds to war. You don't get to slide back into comfortable dumb hatred of our species because of a few stupid people. Rest assured, if you ever get this Alliance-based order, you or your successors will become tyrants. There will be a human who has the power and will to start wars, and enact genocides, for functionally no reason. Need I remind you of World War Two, and World War Three? If you multiply the population of Humanity by a trillion, that means you'll get a trillion Pol Pots, or Hitlers, or Genghis Khans.
And a hell of a lot more dumb idiots in power, which ascribes most of the history of nearly every species in the galaxy. Notice how Valisada and I both fired on Solei once he decided to be an adult daycare nominee? Notice how Valisada has not fired at us, or Justicar, and is trying his best to start a constructive dialogue? People die in war, Penny. This is reality. And you cast your disdain onto me, the only Sprilnav keeping you alive in this place, because I happened to be born an Elder. But no. I'm still some alien, right? Just another dirty animal for you to kill when the Judgment ends."
Kashaunta's fury caught Penny off-guard. The Elder truly meant her words. Penny had deeply offended her, cracking open the facade she usually maintained. The smug feeling at having made Kashaunta go on such a tirade faded when she considered the circumstances. Maybe she had acted like a child. But she hadn't said anything truly deserving of such a furious tirade, had she?
Not unless her proclamation that she remembered 'what Kashaunta was' had an implication that she didn't understand. Kashaunta was a mass murderer, one who was more than willing to justify it when necessary. And she downplayed the fact that this attack was on Penny herself and on thousands of innocents on a Sprilnav planet where she was meant to be safe. This wasn't a pair of assassins in the night, slipping poison into water or dropping snakes into a bed. This was a much more insidious and terrifying evil. Penny had been powerless to stop it.
Penny knew she was right, but Kashaunta did not. Could she truly weigh her scant decades against Kashaunta's billions of years of age? Perhaps. Age was not wisdom, though it certainly could be experience. Kashaunta turned around and started to walk away. Sadly, Penny still needed her.
"I'm sorry, Kashaunta. I am... incredibly charged. I am very pissed right now. I am not apologizing for how I feel about this attack. I have every right to be upset, and I will remain so. I will not be bullied or cowed into submission, even by a thousand more tirades. There comes a point where something must be done. But if you are upset over what I said, then I would at least like an honest clarification why."
"Because you had showed me you could think like a person should. That you didn't see people's species anymore. That you were becoming less racist. And yet, when you are cut raw, you still see me as a Sprilnav Elder alone, and therefore complicit in this massacre I literally did everything I could to do stop before it worsened. You said you knew 'what I am' as if you'd forgotten that. And it is clear that you meant that you'd forgotten your belief that I am some dirty criminal Sprilnav, who deserves to be slaughtered in the dark for the crime of being born in her species.
You care more for the ash on Justicar than you do for what I have given you. Your simplistic view of reality would mean that if you could push a button to kill us Elders, you'd do it, robbing countless families of their loved ones, because you now remember 'what we are,' and are again regressing away from your previous growth."
"I am one person, Kashaunta. I don't understand why you care this much about me. But I can recognize that the message you received is one of terrible bigotry. I am suffering, every day, every week, that I remain in this god-forsaken place. It hurts for you to dismiss the people I care about, even for a moment, dying just because there are many of them. But that does not excuse what I said to you despite the death toll you carry on your own head. It was a half-truth."
Kashaunta laughed. "Do you know why I care so much about what you think, Penny? It is because you are the other aliens. All at once. The Alliance is the face of all things 'alien' in many places. Remember what conceptual energy is? Lecalicus told you, I believe. You represent more than just your own views. And if you're able to forgive a speeding space entity, but not me, then it shows that we will never have peace. That no matter what, this cycle of hatred will continue, and I will need to either build a new galaxy with aliens that don't hate us for our ancient crimes, or just figure out another way. You are the face of the rest of the galaxy, Penny. And you have just told me that you still hate me for being an Elder. After I thought you had changed."
"And you believe you are undeserving of such hatred?"
"Penny," Kashaunta said. "The Alliance didn't exist when many of these events happened. Some of your grievances are older than the mountains on Earth. You say you hate us for genocides that happened so long ago that they no longer hold any meaning. There is no compensation we can give to dead species on dead worlds. What you want is an alien species to hate and blame for all the universe's problems. Because it is easier to hate us than to confront reality. And we are the ones you have been told to hate."
"They were not small things. It was the deaths of trillions of people, Kashaunta."
"Yes. And it was wrong. I can understand that. But what do you think will happen when your Alliance, filled with people who hate us, takes over? You will see humans bombing Sprilnav schools, and the hivemind will do nothing, for it will share that hate. Acuarfar will abduct and torture us. Knowers will devour our children. And in the face of that? You would turn a blind eye, because it is too hard to solve with a simple fix. You will only propagate generational hatred, just as all the Alliances and Galactic Republics and Peace Unions did before you.
Because underneath your message of equality for all species is oppression and genocide for us, the villains in your little story. That is what happens in reality, once the benevolent dictators die. And you, who have lived with us, eaten with us, and talked with us, will sit upon your golden throne, and when I am brought before you, naked, bleeding, and in need of support, you will throw me away, because all I am to you is an Elder. That mindset is exactly what stands in the way of peace. It is why I stopped giving you aliens chances for so long. And having to argue this with you at all makes me think you may no longer be worth my effort."
More manipulation. Penny was ready to shout at her, but Nilnacrawla pulled her thoughts away from blind anger. And it did feel unnatural for her. Alien.
"This is not peace," Penny said. "This is war. And we are circumstantial allies. I will not become what you claim."
"I have sown the seeds of a thousand despots," Kashaunta said. "I recognize them when I see them because I have reaped the heads of a million more."
Penny sighed. She wanted to resist and continue arguing, but it wouldn't get her anywhere. Now that she had thought about it, she was unlikely to overturn a viewpoint set in a billion years of experiences. Perhaps Penny could explore this later, when she had time to properly process it all.
"Very well. I will go to this meeting of yours, and I will conduct myself with decorum. However, while I refuse to belittle or forget thousands of deaths, I am sorry that you feel this way."
"But you are not sorry about making me feel so."
"No," Penny replied. She suppressed her emotions more, taking the time to carefully consider her words. Kashaunta was wrong and oddly sensitive right now. Saying the wrong thing could damage far more than their mutual feelings. As much as she wanted to win this argument, Kashaunta was who she was. She was the alien dictator keeping the Alliance alive.
"We are both right in some ways, and perhaps we might be both wrong, too. This only shows how tough the road will be. We at least are consciously trying to come to an understanding. But for the billions of Alliance citizens, quintillions of aliens, and sextillions of Sprilnav? It is a gargantuan task. And... right now, I don't think it is possible."
"It isn't," Kashaunta said. "And it won't be for thousands of years. But we don't get some neat little time skip to wait and solve all of our problems for us. Change will start only when we make it."
Kashaunta was throwing her a bone, then. They both knew the argument couldn't continue right now.
"So we have an understanding, then," Penny said. "Hatred will remain, but it must be minimised. That way, cultural and social pressure will eventually stamp it out, and we may have peace."
"No. We will have a truce, which will only become peace with much more work. The Alliance is a nation that is 24 years old. Only a single generation has grown up within it. Negotiations will be hard with so many who remember the hatred. But Valisada is not like other Sprilnav. He will seek to bring a hybrid war to you and the Alliance, unless you can convince him that you truly mean to bridge the divide. You are clearly misguided, but have a genuinely good heart. That will make life hard for you. Your words today would have spelled the death of you and the Alliance, had I not established this shield around us to hide them. Out of the spirit of our friendship, I will not request a favor in return for this boon."
"Thank you, Kashaunta. Though I'm not sure I can consider you a friend."
"The fact that you bothered to listen to my side of things, in this limited aspect, despite the hurt you must feel right now, proves otherwise. I am well aware of my past crimes, Penny. I know that my emotions today were a weakness I should have been able to seal, and that you will still see me for who I was, and not who I am. I know how it sounds for me, a killer and a ruler, to be upset at being confronted. But that is how I am. I still have my pride as an Elder, and there is only so far it can be pushed. Who I was certainly would qualify as beyond evil. But to remain at the top, there are limits to how far you can swing into benevolence.
I cannot atone. Do not try to make me repay debts that you don't own. If you are ever to have more Elders on your side, whether Progenitors or otherwise, you will need to learn to deal with this. There will be people with death tolls higher than the population of the Alliance, who were once the heart of evil and are now at least acceptable. The first step will be recognizing that, yes, we are in fact friends, despite my history. Because only from friendship and understanding can hope come."
"I will think about this more. My feelings about this, and about you, have not yet solidified."
"I was wrong for what I said to you, Penny. We are both on edge, and said things that we didn't properly express. We should get our heads in order before re-entering this argument with logic instead of emotions."
"I agree. I will go and see who I can save. And I will think more about this. I freed people from slavery, and watched them die today. Respectfully, I must spend some time away from you for now."
Penny left the ship. In something near her subconscious, anger remained. When she landed in the rubble once again, she missed a small but steady stream of conceptual energy wafting into her from below.

How can I manifest money? is a commonly asked question for manifestation..
I have compiled a table of commonly used methods. Experiment and discover which ones resonate with you look through. Research your favorites online to dive deeper. Good luck!

 Technique Name Description Steps to Manifest Money ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vision Board A collage of images representing desired wealth outcomes. - Gather images of wealth symbols
- Place prominently in living space
- Visualize daily Affirmations Positive, present-tense statements to foster a prosperity mindset. - Write or print statements
- Repeat daily
- Post in visible areas Financial Meditation Using meditation to focus and manifest wealth. - Meditate daily on financial goals
- Use guided wealth meditations Money Manifestation Spells Using rituals or ceremonies to attract wealth. - Find suitable spells
- Create a calm ritual space
- Perform regularly Creative Visualization Mentally picturing yourself achieving wealth. - Practice daily visualization
- Use strong, positive imagery
- Focus on feelings of success Manifestation Box Placing written desires in a box to focus intentions. - Decorate a special box
- Write desires on paper
- Review and visualize regularly Energy Clearing Removing negative energy regarding money. - Use sage or incense
- Cleanse home and workspace
- Practice positive thinking Gratitude Journaling Writing about things you are grateful for to attract more. - Keep a daily journal
- Note financial wins
- Reflect on progress 3-6-9 Manifestation Method Using number patterns and repetition to focus intentions. - Write your financial wish 3 times in the morning
- Repeat it 6 times in the afternoon
- Write it 9 times at night Scripting Writing detailed scenarios of your life as if they have happened. - Write journal entries from future self
- Include specifics of your financial success
- Read regularly Positive Environment Surrounding yourself with positive influences and wealth signs. - Decorate with inspiring artwork
- Join wealthy networks
- Attend uplifting events Feng Shui Arranging your living space to attract wealth. - Apply Feng Shui principles
- Place wealth symbols
- Maintain clutter-free environments Charity and Philanthropy Giving to attract more abundance through good karma. - Choose causes you care about
- Donate time or money
- Believe in reciprocal generosity Abundance Checks Writing checks to yourself to manifest financial abundance. - Write a check to yourself on the new moon
- Specify an amount you want to manifest
- Visualize receiving that money Mirror Work Using affirmations while looking into a mirror to boost confidence. - Look into a mirror daily
- Speak affirmations about wealth
- Feel the emotions of having wealth Crystal Healing Using stones and crystals that promote financial prosperity. - Identify crystals like citrine or jade
- Place them in your wallet or purse
- Meditate holding them Mind Mapping Creating visual diagrams of your path to wealth. - Draw your financial goals as a central idea
- Branch out methods of achievement
- Use colors and symbols for emphasis Lunar Cycle Manifestation Leveraging the phases of the moon to enhance manifestation efforts. - Start new projects on the new moon
- Set intentions during the full moon
- Release negativity on the waning moon Water Manifestation Using water as a conduit for intentions, inspired by its flowing properties. - Write financial goals on paper
- Place in a flowing stream or river
- Visualize goals flowing into reality Color Visualization Incorporating specific colors associated with wealth and prosperity. - Wear green or gold clothing
- Decorate areas with these colors
- Use colored lights for meditation Sound Frequency Meditation Listening to specific sound frequencies believed to attract abundance. - Use frequencies like 528 Hz or 639 Hz
- Meditate with these sounds daily
- Combine with affirmations Aromatherapy for Prosperity Using essential oils that are thought to increase wealth attraction. - Diffuse cinnamon or patchouli oil
- Apply oils while setting intentions
- Inhale deeply during financial meditations Digital Vision Board Creating an electronic version of a vision board for constant access. - Use apps or software to design the board
- Include images of wealth and success
- Review and update regularly Prosperity Dance Ritual Combining physical movement with intentions to manifest money. - Create a playlist of uplifting music
- Dance regularly while visualizing wealth
- Use symbolic gestures or steps Planting Seeds for Prosperity Literal planting of seeds as a metaphor for financial growth. - Plant seeds in a garden or pot
- Associate each with a financial goal
- Nurture regularly as you would your finances Future Self Visualization Engaging in deep visualizations where you meet and learn from your future, wealthier self. - Engage in guided meditations
- Imagine conversations with your future self
- Embody lessons and advice received 

Source
​

Stories in reading order. Standalone stories can be read in any order (or not at all), although significant story arcs may mention and be built up from standalone stories. However, the end of certain arcs may require knowledge of characters and events from certain Standalone stories.
Welcome to the thrilling finale of this arc of Aster Mills! There will be more soon- but this brings the four part centerpiece to a close- and sets up a new, terrifying villain!

Whalesong I: Aster and the World of Brilliant Light

Aster and the False God of Stories (Standalone)
Aster and the Whisperling Storm (Standalone)
Aster and the Harpy King (Part One) - Ogland Bridge Arc
Aster and the Harpy King (Part Two) - Ogland Bridge Arc
Aster and the Numerology of Dead Gods (Standalone)
Aster and the Belly of the Whale (Part One) - Corpse Sea Arc (Standalone)
Aster and the Belly of the Whale (Part Two) - Corpse Sea Arc (Standalone)
Aster and the Harpy King (Part Three) - Ogland Bridge Arc
Aster and the Harpy King (Part FouFinale) - Ogland Bridge Arc

Whalesong II: Aster and the Death of the Ether

Aster and the Lord of the Forest - Standalone
Aster and the Child of Grain (I: Burial Rites) - Child of Grain Arc
Aster and the Child of Grain (II: Poison and Pesticide) - Child of Grain Arc
Aster and the Sa Aterro Tomb (Part One) - The Remnant Arc (Standalone)
Aster and the Sa Aterro Tomb (Part Two) - The Remnant Arc (Standalone)
Aster and the Child of Grain (III: Open Flame) - Child of Grain Arc
You're Reading: Aster and the Child of Grain (IV: Consuption) - Child of Grain Arc
IV: Consumption
“We are assuming the target is the main Verne and Sons Logging operation downstream,” Julian began, an enchanted clay model depicting the location. “Several temp buildings here.”
Thylum shook his head and folded his hand. The clay model changed, zooming out nearby, so that we viewed an entirely different set of buildings. “There’s also this mining operation run by Verne and Sons,” Thylum informed. “This may also be a target.”
“This is true,” Quint added, “but does the Free Orchard have the numbers to attack and neutralize both?”
Matt looked up from his notes. “I saw about twenty, maybe thirty people at the meeting earlier. Assuming that Verne and Sons does not hire magicians it is an easy victory for the Orchard.”
I realized something- we’d seen Kryse Family diplomats at the Free Orchard meeting. I did a quick google search on their family. “The Kryse’s are stakeholders in Verne and Sons,” I said, speaking up. “They will defend their interests.”
Quint muttered something rude to himself, then spoke. “The Kryse’s don’t get along with us.” This was true. The Kryse’s were attuned to the ether, but they seemed to care more about their family’s interests in control and money more than the natural order.
Julian nodded along. “I can extend a message to the Kryse Family,” he offered. “Though I fear they could use this opportunity to wipe both us and the Free Orchard off the map.”
“Best not,” I decided. “Has Fern contacted us yet?”
Fern had stayed behind, an agent within the Free Orchard, so that we could plan ahead of time, know their plans.
“Not yet,” Quint told. “And night quickly approaches- we must ready our people.”
It was time to draw battle plans. Assuming that both targets would be attacked by the terrorists, we needed a dual defense. The sites were less than a few miles from each other.
But it was quickly settled. Julian’s people- followers of the New Gods would attack the mining operation, where their powers, stemming from the reflection of mankind would be strongest.
Quint and the Wanderer Society would combat the Free Orchard at the logging site, where the woods met machines. There, at the frontier of man and nature we would be strongest.
And then Fern called in, out in the woods outside the museum. The sun was setting, and the Orchard prepared.
We discussed our plans with her. She confirmed our suspicions. “The Child is leading the attack on the logging operation,” she started, “and the Father is taking on the mine- 20 people each.”
We had vastly underestimated their yield. “They outnumber us two to one,” Matt murmured. “I do not like those odds.”
“And where are you heading?” I asked.
Fern looked around, afraid. “The woods.” I nodded and told her we’d meet there. And so it began. There was no time for quips, for jokes- this was a time of dark tidings.
We sat in an inconspicuous car now, traveling the road, watching it all pass by. A caravan of cars, Julian’s people ahead of us, and mine leading the group.
We needed to get there before the Orchard, to set up our own defenses. Thylum readied himself, practicing shape signs upon a rock. Matt nervously cocked his rifle and checked it.
I slipped on my Whalebone gloves, attuning myself to the true world. The universe resonated with me, and I felt the presence of all things.
Quint steadied his driving. And in the blink of an eye, we were there.
I got out and steadied myself, feeling the pain of the earth. Four temporary buildings, large and rectangular sat in the distance. Workers ate and laughed, entering each- two housing units, a storage building, and a little cafeteria and gathering place.
Two people approached the group of us, in business suits.
I recognized one from earlier. “I am Ellie Kryse,” she introduced. “If you are here to strike down this operation-”
I shook my head. “We’re here to stop the Free Orchard.” She and her partner whispered something. “If they win here- they will prove they can win everywhere.”
The man nodded, to this. “I thought the Wanderer Society would support the goal of the Orchard.”
Quint shook his head tentatively. “In environmental restoration, yes,” he answered. “But not through senseless violence. We’ve had our differences-” I knew the Kryse Family had routinely been messing senselessly with the ether before, “-but we cannot let the Free Orchard succeed.”
I personally had only read up on the Kryses, but I’d never fought with or against one. But I knew they were inextricably intelligent, manipulating individuals.
Ellie shook her head in disgust. “The thought of working with a Mognis sickens me,” she murmured. “But this is a necessary alliance.” The man beside her nodded.
“And will you people stop trying to open a door into the Other Side?” Quint remarked, half joking.
The Other Side was a concept- the world where all the creatures of magic were beginning to cross over to, returning home. “Not our division,” the man replied, a smile on his face. “Sworn enemy or not, this will make us even.”
“What does he mean?” Thylum asked.
Quint smirked. “Not important- I’d helped them out before, and we’ll take this as a return favor.”
“Any other favors you’d like to cash in?” Matt suggested. He checked his phone, an app Julian had made us download. “Fern’s tracker shows them arriving here in ten minutes.”
“We’d best get started,” Ellie decided. “Basil- inform Anacoretta of this new development- I want resources as soon as possible. Oh,” she looked over at two workers eyeing us, “send all the workers to their quarters and lock it- we can’t have more loose threads.”
“I thought Anacorreta died,” Quint pointed out.
Basil turned around as he went to do his bidding. “You have your secrets. We have ours.” Quint shrugged and nodded. He turned to us then, and began instruction. “We’re going to make a shield!”
“Which ritual?” someone asked. In the distance, workers walked over to the large white building that housed them. Basil closed the doors, and with a prick of a knife, cast a spell, locking them in.
Quint thought a bit. “None you guys know- an old trick of mine.” He continued quickly- we worked together, spreading out and pressing our hands against the dirt.
“Why lock the workers in?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be safer to send them to town?”
Ellie shook her head. “These workers know too much- my family must not lose them.” That sounded shady. But this was the cost of our alliance.
Quint chanted something, and a line encircled the camp, a slight haze in the air- a barrier between the site and the outside world.
Ellie clapped slowly. “The Mognis half of the Zhi Vernysis.” She nodded, approving. “Let me and Basil complete the second half- the Shi Matyreo.”
There was clearly something more to these people and their relationship with Quint, and by extension- the Mognis name.
But now was not the time for questions. “Three minutes!” Matt shouted, readying his weapon.
Ellie and Basil held hands and chanted something- the skies seemed to darken, and the barrier reinforced itself, hastily vibrating with power. Thylum folded his hands, and the small rock he’d been carrying flung itself at the barrier- and it vaporized.
“It works,” Quint hoped. “We end the ritual now.”
“Agreed- anymore and the Knowing One will witness all,” Ellie murmured. Whatever their connection- it was a question for another day.
“They’re here,” Matt informed, pointing behind us- the woods. The shield perimeter wrapped around and remained strong as we moved to view them.
The Child, now older, fourteen, fifteen by the look of it drew closer, until he was right at the edge of the shield wall.
“You join us, Whale Worshipper,” he smiled, gently speaking. “Do you join us in victory?”
I shook my head. “I have a name. Aster.”
The Child studied the shield, his followers gathering behind him. I saw Fern too, eyeing me. “I do not,” the Child confessed. “They say I will bring calmness to the world. Peace.”
“When all things die, there is silence,” I responded. “That is no calm prayer.”
The Child pressed his hands against the shield and winced in pain- or was it annoyance. “I am that which would bring calmness to the world. There is no change without action. And this action will teach us to be tranquil, one with nature. It will-” he removed his hands, “bring a state of peace.”
I shrugged, “Still not a name,” I informed. “The Child that Will Bring Peace just isn’t speakable.”
The elderly woman who joined him gave me a look. “Do not tease the Child,” she warned.
The Child waved her away. “It is alright. Perhaps that will be my name,” he decided, “a name that is a state of peace.”
“What’s that?” I asked, talking through my teeth.
“I am Zen,” he decided, both a declaration of name and state of mind. He was irredeemably peaceful as he spoke, even as his words carried the ideas of death. “And you will not succeed tonight.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Even with your spy in our midst- do not worry for her safety. She is attuned- and thus worthy of safety.”
With that, Zen stepped back and ordered for his people to attack.
And so they did- the old woman sent fiery salamanders conjured from the mind onto the shield- which vaporized it completely. A younger man reached to the skies- and birds, now enchanted, came crashing down- blood erupting over the perimeter.
The folk elements crashed onto the shield- but it held strong.
Zen held up a hand and his people stopped. “You use the beginning of a ritual and use its energy for defense,” he inspected, declaring this to all. “I applaud the ingenuity- but,” he stepped forward.
I readied myself, walking back. Matt raised his rifle and chose a target. So did the rest of our people. The two Kryse’s began to invoke the name of something ancient.
“The invoked remnant of a god is nothing compared to one born of the Ether.” And with that, he reached through the barrier, wincing in pain, and wrenched a way in- practically snarling.
And then cracks appeared in the barrier- and with a thundering snap it shattered- sparks of energy crackling around us.
Zen smiled as his people, small in number as they were, advanced. “Let us cleanse this rot from the Orchard.”
Matt struck first- a bolt of purified ether bursting from his rifle. Zen reached out and the bolt stopped midair- then transforming into a thousand seeds. The elderly woman drew breath, and drew a symbol in the air.
A circular projection diagram appeared- and fire burst forward- aiming at me and Quint.
I crushed my sea marble and water defended me- nullifying the flames. Quint elected for a more brazen approach- reaching into the flames and returning it to its sender.
A Fen-Masked servant struck forward from the smoke that had come from the fire, charging and pouncing like an animal at us. Thylum clasped his hands and mimed a slashing motion- the earth drew up and sent his assailant flying.
“We will handle the God-Child,” Ellie announced. “Basil- with me!” And the two spoke in tongues, then drawing forth blood from their fingertips.
“I will join you-” Quint drew forth his knife, and whispered vile words into it.
And so the three danced into battle, surrounding Zen. The God-Child smiled and drew forth the ether itself, sending hissing daggers at the three.
Three Orchard members set their sights on me- the elderly Firebreather and her two aides, a man and a woman. Their tattoos glistened and burnt with ancient folk magic.
I had dealt with rogue Salamander Worshippers before. I looked around- both Matt and Thylum were preoccupied with their own battles. Everyone else too, was locked in war.
Water against fire- the three drew up triangular diagrams- and a concentrated pillar of fire drilled against my water layer. I felt the ether course through me-
-and with a decisive push I collapsed my barrier into my own diagram- a six pointed hexagram.
Theirs was a pillar of fire- mine drew forth spirits of water beyond our world- strange liquid beings now at my aid. But I had to be quick- invocation was not my strongest suit.
I left the diagram to defend itself. Now I drew another weapon- a book. For the Whale was the god of storytelling- and the ink drew itself to life. It was a record of my travels- and I drew forth its words.
The spirit of the whale washed over me as serpentine ink dragons erupted from it, coiling and snapping at the Firebreathers.
The diagram I’d made melted away as I drew my attention to the ink, collapsing back into a marble. But it had done its duty- the water had extinguished and weakened the flame.
The ink swirled and in my mind’s eye I saw the stories of the three- and the loss of their ancestral home when the companies of oil and gold found what they sought.
The ink had exhausted them now, replaying their darkest memories- I raised a hand to their head and whispered softly, giving them the gift of sleep and story in dream.
Three down. I looked up to see how the battle fared.
Matt fired and dispatched the Fen-Follower I’d seen. Thylum warped the clothes of a fleeing man, incapacitating him. Our people pushed back against the terrorists, drawing forth the sleeping names of ancient deities.
A bolt of lightning struck near me- but Fern stopped it with a strange sandy liquid- she had given up the act and fought with us now.
We were on the verge of victory.
And then Ellie screamed in agony, and I saw her on her knees, Zen pressing his palm into her head. Quint and Basil went cast aside, quickly scrambling to get up.
But it was too late- Zen smiled grimly and he pushed the Kryse woman away. She got up and tried to strike back, but failed. And then she gasped in horror as flowers began to bloom on her arm.
And then her chest. Her wrists, her knees- and suddenly from within her throat, now choking. And then she backed away and fell- then freezing in place as her entire body was transmuted into a flower-filled tree.
The Kryses, working with Quint, were powerful. But the child of a god would always make them seem small. But her fight and sacrifice had bought us enough time to turn it into a victory.
Quint practically hissed and leapt from the earth- strange serrated knife plunging into Zen, who snarled in pain.
The carvings on the knife began to glow- draining Zen away. Quint plunged it out and recollected himself.
Zen backed away, not terrified, but oddly calm. “My children,” he began, coughing, “we cannot win like this- regroup!”
His words were less honeyed now, instead blunt, crushing. I was almost tempted to walk with him. His followers obeyed, and they retreated to a distance.
“Ellie,” Basil whispered, a tear in his eye. “He killed my sister!“
Quint reached for him and brought him up. “And he will kill many more if we don’t act now- we need to create another barrier.”
Basil shook his head in defeat. “He’ll just break it again like the first time.”
“No he won’t- the poisons carved into this knife is Gu from the five noxious creatures- its toxins will keep him at bay- for now,” Quint informed. He sighted me and nodded.
I relayed the information to our people.
“I recall that knife being an heirloom of my people,” Basil hissed.
“Before it was Krysian the knife belonged to the Adyr,” Quint insisted. “Now cast the damn ritual!”
We drew to the earth.
Quint and Basil chanted- and the shield perimeter emerged again, smaller- we had been pushed back towards the worker quarters, who banged at the doors, confused.
Quint and Basil focused themselves. I took the lead. “How many dead?!” I snapped. “Injured?”
Thylum counted- so did I. “Two- three dead,” he murmured. “All of us have suffered injuries- one unconscious.”
I checked myself- I’d suffered burns, but nothing that couldn’t be erased with a spell. “Our enemies?”
Matt appeared with a binocular. “We’ve taken six prisoner- three of which you dealt with,” he answered. “Three more of them dead outside the barrier- we’ve both faced major losses here.”
Fern handed me a piece of paper. “Took this from them when I had the chance- don’t know what language, though.” I stared at it- I didn’t understand it either.
I swore in Whaletongue and walked over to the barrier. Zen was tending to a dying follower, speaking sweet words as the follower passed from our world into the next.
“Zen!” I shouted. He closed the eyes of the dead and walked over. “Do you not see how violence brings only pain?!”
Zen looked oddly repentant now. “You appear to be correct,” he confessed. “I feel the pain of my followers- and yours. Perhaps violence begets only more pain and chaos.”
I was taken aback- I assumed he’d stay steadfast in his belief. “Then stop this! We can work together and find another way!”
Zen sat down, cross legged. I joined him. “I shall formulate a different plan to cleansing the earth,” he murmured. “But the world must be shown the true path- to reject the great machine and embrace the natural world once again.”
“And we can do that,” I replied. “But not through blood. Crushing those who stand in your way will only create martyrs and create another divide between those who can see beyond, and those who remain ignorant.”
Zen nodded solemnly. “The Father is wrong,” he realized. “Violence begets violence.”
He was more receptive than I’d thought. “Then stop this,” I insisted. “Join us instead.”
Zen closed his eyes and thought. “No,” he murmured. “This win would be a call to action,” he answered. “This is the only violence necessary- a sacrificial statement that will rouse the sleeping to my cause.”
He was right. “But those are still human lives!” I argued. “Just because it will remind the Attuned we need to fight for cane doesn’t make it moral!”
“Precisely so,” Zen said. “They’re human. Not attuned. Not like us- more than human. Their lives only ruin the earth-” he raised a hand to silence me, “but they do not deserve senseless pain.”
He was thinking now. “Then leave this!”
“They must die for our people to walk across the earth once again,” Zen decided. “Be ready, Whale-Follower,” he warned. “Masuya Daran will be here soon.”
He began to rise, to walk away. “What does that mean?!” I called.
Quint, exhausted, approached me, watching the demigod leave. “I’ve received word from Julian,” he started. “Their team has been defeated. They say an eighty percent casualty rate on our people and the miners.”
“And,” I continued, “I assume the Father is on his way here now?”
And then the skies lit up as a divine meteor pummeled the wall. We turned to the opposite side, the one facing the road. “I would say,” the long-lived man and his people, bloody drew outside, “he’s arrived.”
I readied myself, joining the rest of the group in the middle. We regrouped ourselves and cast a quick healing spell.
“If we die here,” Matt began, half joking, “I want you to know that your macarons are really not that bad.”
“What are you even talking about?” I wondered. Ahead of us, the Father began uttering a spell- and carvings began to be etched into the barrier, slowly weakening it. “I didn’t make any macaroons.”
Fern’s face went an odd shade. “I think he’s talking about mine.”
“I’ll have to try some,” I murmured. “Provided we win this.”
And then Zen emerged and shattered the weakened barrier, sparks once again erupting through the air.
And then it began again- we raised our weapons and made our stand- the few against the many.
My sphere was extinguished, so I opted for something deadlier. A little triangular chip, one which I bit- the power of the salamander coursed through my veins.
And then we fought- I breathed fire onto a man made of insects- he sent ants erupting all over be, stinging and devouring at me. Matt’s rifle was cut in half by a man with a sword- but he sent a punch to the throat.
Another Fen follower was locked in battle with Fern, slashing at her with claws. She drew back, and with the utterance of a spell, invoked snakevine from the earth around the fey-worshiper.
Basil Kryse and Quint Mognis, in unlikely alliance fought as a pair- their ancient knowledges working as two parts of a whole- there was more to their lore, I was certain.
Basil struck and uttered half a spell- and Quint concluded it- and three members of the Orchard erupted in black flame.
But this duality was met by Zen and the Father- the two pushing their people aside as they injured our people. The Father raised a knife to kill an old friend- but Zen stopped him, instead choosing to put him to sleep.
Our victories were minimal.
All around us there were too many of them- without the other team this stand meant nothing. And with the victory the Free Orchard had seized, every cut, every injury on both our sides was a sign they were right.
Zen and the Father sealed our fates- within minutes our agents were down- Fern too, and then Thylum.
Matt attempted to rush forwards, but Zen, with a flick of a finger, sent him sliding across the debris. “Father,” Zen began, “deal with the star-blooded. But do not kill them.”
“I will do so,” he answered, walking over.
Quint and Basil fought wildly- but they had extended their power too much, and fell quickly.
I backed away and found myself against the quarters of the workers. I had one option- to let them free and hope they’d live. Whatever secrets the Kryse’s were digging into here could be free, for all I cared.
Better than death.
I began to unlock the spell holding the door. “You will not let them free,” Zen ordered, behind me. “They must perish so that the ether may be restored.”
I ignored him and unlocked it. I opened the door to see terrified, confused workers. I turned to Zen and readied myself, ready to buy time. “If your call to action begins with blood-”
He cut me off and reached into the ether, dragging me aside through the dirt. The workers scrambled to run, but stalks of thorny field blocked the exit. “But this call to action will save so many- by bringing the Attuned to actions- we can fix the world.”
“How?!” I snapped. “You say you agree that violence is not the answer- but you haven’t explained yourself?!”
Zen knelt beside me. He snapped and fire burst through the field, unnatura fire that quickly spread across the building. And through screams he spoke in whispers. “Because you wouldn’t agree either way,” he murmured. The screams grew louder- he had won. “But it is the only option. Our forests are not bathed and grown blood- so we should not feed it blood and expect regrowth.”
“Then what?” I attempted to stand, but he pushed on me through the ether, holding me in place.
He began to speak of something else. “If there is anything to seek so revenge it is the seed of the earth. It is buried alive, but its persistence drives it forward.” He was the seed. A parable. “It is poisoned with pesticide and death. But it becomes stronger than ever. Then it is milled and burned in ovens and mills. And then what has it for its actions? For living?”
“It’s eaten,” I answered. “It’s grain.”
The screams began to die now- whatever otherworldly fire he had used was violently fast. “Humanity abuses the earth- my kind like this, but you, in the short words we have spoken have taught me more. Violence will forever cause persistence, cause divide.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
Zen sat down, crosslegged again and nodded to himself.
He recited the parable from earlier.
"Does a rotted apple not poison the barrel? Should we not then cleanse the Orchard and ensure it is healthy and restored to order? Humanity is very much like an unkempt orchard- only those who respect the earth, connect to its very essence, ether should be kept.” It was different now.
“I,” he continued, “would not bring this about with violence- I would sterilize the Human Race in secret- save one- those connected to the true earth. We would end climate change- racial genocide, and restore the world to environmental balance- to natural order! For does a worm not remain in the ground? Does a bird not cling to the skies? Should humanity then not return to its natural place and respect the earth once more?”
“That’s-”
He silenced me. “Hush now, child of the free earth,” he assured. “I am patient. Our people would repopulate the earth. Father is not patient enough. His ideas of violence need to be proven in the Now. But why choose violence when you can elimate the enemy without shedding a scale of blood.”
Father approached us now, admiring the flames. “Child,” he began.
“My name is Zen,” he informed.
“We’re spreading our flyers everywhere,” he told. “I think our next target is the Paracell Oil-” and then he stopped, wincing. Zen stood up, matching his height. The Father coughed now, and petals drifted from his mouth.
“Your ideas are too violent,” Zen added. “They would cause- like here today, the bloodshed of our people too.”
He choked. “I summoned you!” More petals drifted. “A little sacrifice-”
“Hush now, child of the earth,” Zen whispered. I felt my own vision fading as Zen’s influence affected me. “You have lived too long, heard the song of the dead, too far. Your violence can only blossom.”
“I can change,” he coughed, dying, falling to his knees. “I will follow your lead.”
“I see all futures of my people,” Zen claimed. “And you would lead your sect into pain. Hush now, free child,” he assured. “You will rest in my Father’s domain.”
And with that, the Father blossomed into a thousand strange orchids. Zen looked at me, and with a clasping of the hand, sent me into dream.
When I awoke, it was morning. Quint was up, and so was everyone- though not for long.
“They’re all alive!” Quint shouted. I looked over, standing to see our people who had died- had risen with the sun. “Impossible.”
But the workers were all dead.
“It was Zen,” I murmured. “I think I’ve made him worse.”
Quint checked his phone- Julian’s team was fine, revived as the sun grew brighter.
“Don’t worry about it,” Matt spoke up, hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
I shook my head. “I know we will,” I answered. “But the world may not.”
I picked up a poster held to the ground by a rock, drifting in the wind. My eyes looked over its manifesto, its call to action. They settled on the apple tree in the center of the page.
I focused on the two words below it. Two words that filled me with both hope and terrible disgust.
I read them aloud. “Free Orchard.”
​
Next Time: Aster and the Exorcism
Later Next Song: Aster and the Free Orchard

Last-Minute Studying

Ever pull an all-nighter fueled by coffee and desperation while doing a last-minute studying? Yeah, we’ve all been there. Studies say 80% of students cram, but results often stink.
There’s a better way! Spaced repetition is a brain-training technique for learning smarter, not harder. It works with how your brain forgets things. By strategically reviewing information at specific times, spaced repetition helps you remember it for the long haul.
Ditch the all-nighter! Spaced repetition turns last-minute cramming into memory-boosting sessions. Get ready to ace that exam and maybe even sleep!

The Science Behind Spaced Repetition

Forget the all-nighter blues! Spaced repetition isn’t just a fancy term, it’s backed by science. Our brains forget information over time, following a steep curve called the forgetting curve. Cramming might seem to work short-term, but that info vanishes quickly.
Spaced repetition tackles this head-on. Imagine strategically spaced reviews, like spaced seeds growing into strong memories. By revisiting information at increasing intervals (think minutes, days, weeks), spaced repetition strengthens those connections in your brain. This translates to several benefits:

• Stronger, Long-Term Memories: Spaced repetition helps information transition from short-term to long-term memory, making it readily available for exams and beyond.
• Deeper Understanding: The act of spaced repetition forces you to actively recall information, leading to a deeper grasp of concepts, not just rote memorization.
• Retrieval Strength: The more you revisit information with spaced repetition, the easier it becomes to retrieve it later. Imagine effortlessly pulling out that perfect formula during your exam!

Science backs this up. A 2013 study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that spaced repetition was significantly more effective for long-term learning compared to cramming. So, ditch the outdated cramming methods and embrace the science-powered approach of spaced repetition!

Implementing Spaced Repetition for Last-Minute Studying

Spaced repetition takes the chaos out of last-minute studying. Here’s how to transform those frantic cram sessions into focused memory-building exercises:

• Craft Powerful Study Materials: Flashcards are your best friend! Focus on key concepts, formulas, and challenging topics. Keep your flashcards concise and clear – think bite-sized knowledge bombs! You can also use digital tools like Anki or Quizlet for added features.
• Schedule Smart Reviews: Don’t just cram everything in at once. Spaced repetition relies on spaced-out reviews for optimal memory retention. Start strong with a review session shortly after creating your flashcards (like 15 minutes later). As you answer correctly, gradually increase the interval between reviews (e.g., 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day). Spaced repetition apps will manage this scheduling for you, so you can focus on learning.

Tools and Resources for Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition can be done with pen and paper flashcards, but why not leverage technology to supercharge your studying? Here are some popular spaced repetition apps and online resources:

• Anki: A free, open-source powerhouse. Highly customizable, allowing for flashcards, images, audio, and even cloze deletion (where you remove parts of a sentence to test recall).
• Quizlet: A user-friendly option with a vast library of pre-made flashcards on various subjects. Offers different study modes like “learn” and “test” to cater to your learning style.
• Brainscape: An interactive platform that incorporates spaced repetition with spaced retrieval, where you answer questions in different contexts to solidify memory.

These digital tools offer several advantages:

• Automated Scheduling: No need to manually track review intervals – the app takes care of it, ensuring optimal spacing for knowledge retention.
• Multimedia Magic: Go beyond text! Use images, diagrams, and even audio recordings to create engaging and memorable flashcards.
• Customization is King: Tailor your study sessions to your needs. Adjust font sizes, backgrounds, and even create different decks for various subjects.

Setting Up for Success:
No matter which tool you choose, take some time to explore its features and customize it to your learning style. Experiment with different card formats (text-based, image occlusion) and see what works best for you. Remember, consistency is key! Schedule regular spaced repetition sessions and watch your knowledge grow!

Overcoming Challenges and Optimizing Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition sounds great, but let’s be real, there will be hurdles. Here’s how to navigate them and become a spaced repetition pro:
Challenge #1: Review Timing Blues
Finding the right time for reviews can be tricky. Life gets busy! The key is to be flexible. Maybe you squeeze in a quick session during your commute or dedicate a focused hour before bed. Remember, consistency is better than cramming a giant review session once a week.
Challenge #2: Motivation Meltdown
Let’s face it, flashcards aren’t always thrilling. Here’s a hack: track your progress! Seeing those “easy” cards pile up is a great motivator. Reward yourself for completing review sessions – a fun activity, a coffee break – anything to keep you engaged.
Optimizing Your Spaced Repetition Journey
Spaced repetition is powerful, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Here’s how to personalize it:

• Adjust Intervals: Pay attention to your progress. If you’re consistently getting something right, extend the review interval. Conversely, shorten it for trickier topics.
• Mix it Up: Spaced repetition works beautifully with other study methods. Try active recall exercises like summarizing concepts in your own words or explaining them to a friend. This creates stronger neural connections.

Consistency is Key!
Remember, spaced repetition is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t get discouraged if you miss a session or two. Just pick yourself up and get back on track. The more consistent you are, the more your long-term memory will thank you. So, ditch the cramming, embrace spaced repetition, and watch your exam scores soar!

Struggling to retain information for exams?WritersABC got you

Forget the all-nighter blues! Spaced repetition offers a powerful alternative to cramming, transforming last-minute studying into effective memory-boosting sessions. By strategically reviewing information at spaced intervals, you can solidify knowledge in your long-term memory.
Ready to transform your studying and unlock your academic potential? WritersABC is a valuable resource for students of all levels. Explore our website today and get help with your schoolwork. From custom coursework help, and essay help to exam help, we have something for every student. Place your schoolwork with us today and watch your exam scores soar!

5 weeks pp, c-section, in tge hospital was exclusively breast feeding but LO had issue regulating his blood sugar so had to switch to formula to make sure he was getting enough to eat. He was able to regulated blood diagram by tge time we came home, was combo feeding and supplementing with formula. He started unlatching himself during feeds so I switched to exclusively pumping and supplementing with formula. My problem is that when I pump(every 2-3hrs), I only pump 1oz-2oz. I lfeel like I have tried everything: herbal supplements, brewers yeast, flax seed, calcium rich foods. I am keeping myself well hydrated, and my flange and all fits well, and use a lansinoh pump and he tried a wearable pump as well.
Does anyone think I will ever have enough supply to feed him exclusively breast milk?

Is there a way to generate the parts of an XOR with dice rolls? If you create an N part XOR split the N - 1 parts are all supposed to be completely valid random seed phrases, right? The only way I can think is to generate the parts each as it's own wallet with the import dice rolls option and then wipe the seed phrase from the device each time. Then when you have your N parts you load each as a part in the wallet recovery and also verify the math with the worksheet. Maybe this is too paranoid even for the paranoid setup guide.