Student Essay: A look into the eyes of James “Rhio” O'Connor

James "Rhio" O'Connor
“If I were given a dire cancer prognosis;
A look into the eyes of James “Rhio” O'Connor a synopsis”

By Jamila K. Smith, Phoenix College Student Spring 2010

James “Rhio” O'Connor was diagnosed with Mesothelioma cancer. The correct definition of Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer in which cancerous cells are found in the mesothelium a protective sac that covers most of the body's internal organs. There are two main types of Mesothelioma – pleural, which involves the sac that covers the pleural cavity around the lungs, and peritoneal, which involves the tissue that covers the abdominal area.

If given a dire cancer prognosis, I would first begin by choosing my path of research based upon the type of cancer I had been diagnosed with. Then with this information, I would begin extensive research on the disease, to make myself familiar with my situation. Like when given any situation in my life, I would first sit and make a list of things to do, in order to begin thorough research on the cancer. This would ensure no steps were left out, or no stones left unturned, seeing as though this would depend on my life's expectancy.

Step one: would involve doing epidemiological research (gathering data by human participants, data, biological samples, an include obtained important new knowledge from any an all obtain resources).

Step two: would be to start clinical research involving extensive research in experimental medications and their long and short-term effects on current and past patients. With that data, I would begin my own process of elimination on what would work best. Deciding factors in my research would include but not be limited to my current age at the time of discovery of the disease. I would use the time line given to me by doctors.   Also, I would get more than one opinion when being seeing by doctors, exploring different methods including conventional ways of medication, as well as unconventional methods. I would explore new uses for approved drugs that are considered more than minimal risk, and therefore cannot be reviewed by the expedited mechanism.

Two situations call for somewhat different solutions. The first situation is that of repeat occurrences of the spread or outbreak of the disease. I would treat myself with what doctors call the model protocol as well as add in unconventional methods obtained through my research adding and subtracting methods as I deem necessary. I would move forward with the proven methods gathered from my research, taking notes as I go, with hopes that the information and notes taken might help another individual in my situation. This would prolong the takeover of the disease (By using and including several treatment protocols and doing various clinical trials). Adding proven diet and exercise to my clinical research if this is a proven way of improvement.

Step three: would be to draw conclusions about the proven methods that have helped sustain or prolong the weakness in my health, based upon time lines an the length of how much time to put into each researched method.  I would give each method an equivalent value of time. Also, I would be adamant in exhausting all possibilities in each method to properly rule out any unproven methods being used, or even to know when to properly use a method, or when to include a method, sequencing each trail in a manner to work for each individual person.

Step four: would be to check references to studies and any research already done prior to my diagnosis.   I would note the references, for example checking into chemo, radiation and surgery. Noting where this reference was found and its conclusions and proven and unproven facts. I would note the time given to each reference in-particular study and again note trail and error in each reference. I would begin to narrow down proven working and non-working methods in references as also done in steps one, two and three. 

Based upon my notes, proven methods, epidemiological research, clinical research and checked references, I should be able to properly draw a conclusion to all my research with proven facts that would eventually help someone else down the line and prolong or even find a complete cure to the disease.  Not giving up and realizing that in this process trail and error is going to happen and there will be relapse in methods; this is a part of the recovery process. Any discovery weather big or small is exactly that.  A discovery that has been made where one wasn't one before.


Note: This is being published at the request of the student as a scholarship application requirement.

Gift Ideas for Gadget Lovers

At this time every year, IT tech people get many questions regarding which gadgets make good gift ideas for last minute shoppers. As the Dean of Information Technology at Phoenix College, I’ve asked some of our technical people to send me their best—and I’ve listed these for our Phoenix College users. There are only a few guidelines to consider:

• IT does not endorse any of these products, so check to see if the item will meet your needs.
• The items listed are for your personal use and are not associated with Phoenix College.
• Although a website is listed with the item, do check around for a better price or availability. I tried to pick Amazon.com as a central place to start looking for things, but definitely look at competing sites.

Many thanks to the following people for their creative ideas:
Mike Poplin, Davin Traylor, Raymond Wolfe, Geof Eroe, Albert Sockel, Bruce Knaphus

Item	Price	Description	Picture
Roll-Up Electric Piano	$59.00	A small roll-up piano with 100 tones and rythms.
Car Computer Mouse	$25.00	A computer mouse that looks like a Porsche with lights.
Projection Clock	$39.00	A clock that projects the time, date and temperature on any wall or ceiling.
VuZix Icuiti iWear AV920 Video Eyewear Glasses	$352.29	Computer displays built into a pair of glasses equal to 60" screen.
Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen	$150.00	A digital pen that captures over 200 hours of recorded audio or 32,000 pages of notes. You can replay any lecture/speaker notes by just touching the page where you wrote it.
Bushnell Image View 8x30 Roof Prism Binocular with 3.2 MP Digital Still Camera	$151.00	Binoculars with built-in digital camera that takes pictures of whatever you are viewing.
Balanzza™ Luggage Scale	$25.00	Electronic luggage scale so you don't have to use the bathroom scale to read the weight of your bags. Avoid extra charges for overweight bags
Yoostar Entertainment System	$161.00	A simple entertainment system that lets you place yourself into movies and perform your own dialog with known characters. Yoostar software lets you seamlessly put your performance into existing movie, TV or game footage.
Sling Media Slingbox Solo Internet TV Broadcaster	$178.00	The Slingbox Solo Internet TV Broadcaster from Sling Media allows you to watch live television streamed from your home cable or satellite connection via the Internet on a laptop or cellular telephone. Connecting to your television and broadband Internet connection, the Slingbox Solo streams live television over the web and allows you to view it anywhere with Internet access.
Flip Ultra Camcorder 2nd Generation, 120 Minutes	$115.00	Pocket size, kiss-simple, no moving parts camcorder. 3 buttons, connects directly to your computer. PC or Mac.
Ollo robotics kit	$30.00	Robotics is a quickly growing field, and this kit for children of ages 8 and up will help them get excited and interested in the technology used to create a wide variety of motorized creatures and contraptions. Also, the instructions don't have words, just pictures!
Microcontroller experimentation kit	$150.00	For those tweens and young teens that have access to a computer running Windows, and are a little advanced , the microcontroller experimentation kit might prove to be a sound investment. This is a pretty serious array of tools that can be used to learn beyond beginning electronics circuitry techniques and programming.
JumpStart Advanced 4th-6th Grade School Essentials	$20.00	The JumpStart series are very well rated children's education software where nobody dies in the process. If you want to give constructive software to young children, these titles will suit your needs.
SPY FOX software series	$9.00	Inexpensive, interesting software for young children.
Kindle Wireless Reading Device	$259.00	One of the best e-reader types of devices, thin, light, wireless. Receive books and newspaper subscriptions over the air without a computer. No contracts or extra fees. Many bestsellers at $9.99.
Nikon Coolpix S1000pj	$445.00	A 12 megapixel camera AND a built-in video projector.
PICO Pocket Projector	$219.00	A very small pocket projector to display movies or pictures from anywhere and from most devices. Projects images up to 60".

Posted by Tim Murphy, EdD

Dean of Information Technology

Facebook Introduces New Privacy Features (www.collegenews.com)

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, introduces new privacy features but eliminates regional networks

Paige Maynard

With 350 million users on the site, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, has been working towards better security and privacy options within various regions. For example, last summer Facebook introduced an option allowing its users to publish and share content with “everyone.” And we do mean “everyone.”

After millions of users switched over to Facebook, ditching their MySpace accounts in the process, Zuckerberg always had exponentially better privacy options to boast, which is what brought in millions upon millions of users. To this day, Facebook is choosing privacy over real-time numbers, according to techcrunch.com

In the most recent development for making Facebook a more secure site for its users, Zuckerberg sent an open letter to the community outlining the changes to expect within upcoming months.

“We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings,” said Zuckerberg in his open letter to the community.

Zuckerberg and his staff figured the best way to tighten privacy on the site would be to eliminate regional networks. In the beginning, Facebook was a social network for college students only.

Regional networks made sharing content with others in your hometown possible, but now that a certified school email address is not required to sign up for the community, Facebook has seen regional networks expand to huge numbers—especially in places such as China.

In the endless social networking battle, Twitter and Facebook battle it out to see which can get the higher numbers.itworldcanada.com discusses the disadvantages Twitter has to Facebook, many of which have to do with Twitter’s start-up engine slowly running out of steam when Facebook is still going strong.

Facebook’s Head of Strategy and Planning, Trevor Johnson, told TechRadar, “Applications make up a huge part of Facebook. There are over 90,000 applications. 69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that’s more users than Twitter."Zuckerberg sure knows how to till the crops of the internet world.

With more people using a single application than those that belong to one website alone, Zuckerberg had to feel the pressure to get his privacy policy and security options up-to-par. Since July he has been working with user suggestions, and in the new year he promises some big changes to the website. For the better, of course.

“Twitter” may have been the word of the year, but Facebook is still clearly on top. “Facebook is not just about adding photos and gaining friends, it’s integrated in lives,” said Johnson.

Johnson couldn’t be more correct. Recently, at his own wedding, a groom tweeted and changed his Facebook status to “married” while standing at the altar. Can’t wait to read the Honeymoon updates.

In the end, we can all thank this Harvard grad for creating a phenomenon in his dorm room that allows us stay in touch with those that we would have eventually lost contact with.

“It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected,” concluded Zuckerberg.
12/02/09

FREE H1N1 Vaccine Clinic Monday, December 14 from 7:30 am -11:30 in North Staff Dining Room

We will be hosting a FREE H1N1 vaccine clinics provided by Scottsdale Healthcare. There will be no insurance needed or billed. The clinic is open to everyone (students included). The clinic will be able to accommodate a maximum of 200 people on a first come first served walk-in basis. At these clinics, the seasonal flu vaccine will also be available as supplies last (please bring MCCCD insurance card or $20 if you plan on receiving the seasonal flu vaccine)

Scottsdale Healthcare will continue to strictly follow federal, state and county guidelines and distribute vaccine as follows:

1)Anyone who qualifies for the FluMist form of the H1N1 vaccine will not receive the injectable H1N1 vaccine.

2)Qualifications for FluMist include:

– between the ages of 14- 49
– not pregnant
– no underlying medical conditions
( i.e. asthma, cardiac conditions, diabetes, certain muscle or nerve disorders that can lead to breathing or swallowing problems),
– no previous severe reaction to flu vaccine or egg allergy

3)Injectable H1N1 vaccine will only be given to those who do not qualify for FluMist (pregnant women and those with underlying medical conditions, including the morbidly obese). Those who do not qualify for FluMist by virtue of age alone will receive the injectable vaccine.

4)Consents will be required for all receiving vaccine.

Distinguished Teaching Award NOMINATIONS due February 5, 2010

One of the hallmarks for excellence in two-year colleges is the recognition and reward of excellence in teaching.  Phoenix College has established the Distinguished Teaching Award to recognize teaching excellence by its faculty.  Recipients receive a plaque, have all expenses paid to professional conferences or seminars (up to $1,500), and share their methods and techniques with other faculty.  Also, they award a $250 scholarship given in their name to a qualified PC student of their choice.  The recipient of this award is chosen by a committee of peers, based on a screening process, submitted supporting paperwork, and classroom observation of the nominees.

To be eligible for the Distinguished Teaching Award, nominees must demonstrate a sustained contribution to the students and the college.  Therefore, before being nominated, nominees must be current residential (full-time) faculty and have completed three or more years of residential (full-time) teaching at Phoenix College.   

Any student, employee, alumnus of Phoenix College, or any member of the community may make nominations for the Distinguished Teaching Award. 

On the form below (or pick up a paper copy), explain, to the best of your knowledge, why the nominee is a Phoenix College Distinguished Teacher.  Consider how the nominee demonstrates any or all of the distinguished teaching criteria listed below.  Address only those areas about which you have knowledge.  Do not feel that you must address all of the established criteria.

1. With Students

• displays a high degree of respect for attitudes and values of the students
• interacts effectively in formal and informal situations
• concentrates on students’ needs
• allows students to explore ideas effectively
• encourages life-long learning
• demonstrates enthusiasm for teaching and for subject area
• invites independent thinking

2.  With Subject Area

• stays current with new information
• develops classroom techniques and/or materials that reflect new concepts in subject area, and/or new concepts in the presentation (or teaching) of the subject area

3.   With Course Learning Materials

• has thorough knowledge of subject
• develops and/or maintains learning materials for particular courses (syllabi, learning packets, supplementary handouts, media, etc.)
• stimulates student interest about the course subject.

4.  With College/Community Involvement

• contributes to institutional vitality
• represents the college in the greater community
• involved in campus activities beyond the classroom, such as developing new courses, writing grants, etc.

Nominations are due February 5, 2010.  Send or bring to:

Phoenix College

Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology

Fannin Library, Lower Level, Room 023

1202 West Thomas Road

Phoenix, Arizona  85013

602-285-7444

I nominate ____________________________________________________________________

for the 2009-2010 Phoenix College Distinguished Teaching Award.

Write an approximately 250-word essay that explains what you feel distinguishes this instructor from other instructors.  Provide specific examples that illustrate this person’s teaching excellence.

H1N1 Vaccine Clinics in the Valley

Upcoming H1N1 vaccine clinics:

? Thursday, Dec. 3.?Community H1N1 vaccine clinic for children and adults, ages 6 months to 65 years, 7300 Building (7300 E 4th Street, Scottsdale AZ 85251), 4-8 p.m.

? Saturday, Dec. 5?Community H1N1 vaccine clinic for kids only, ages 6 months -18 years, 8 a.m.-12 p.m., 7300 Building (7300 E. 4th Street, Scottsdale AZ 85251).



Important reminder for parents/guardians: Children under 9 require a booster dose of vaccine four weeks from the first dose of H1N1 vaccine they receive. As this is a free clinic, please be prepared for the long lines.

During all of the above clinics, Scottsdale Healthcare will continue to strictly follow federal, state and county guidelines and distribute vaccine as follows:

1. Anyone who qualifies for the FluMist form of the H1N1 vaccine will not receive the injectable H1N1 vaccine. Qualifications for FluMist include:

? between the ages of 2- 49
? not pregnant
? no underlying medical conditions ( i.e. asthma, cardiac conditions, diabetes, certain muscle or nerve disorders that can lead to breathing or swallowing problems),
? no previous severe reaction to flu vaccine or egg allergy

2. Injectable H1N1 vaccine will only be given to those who do not qualify for FluMist. This means pregnant dependents and those with underlying medical conditions, including the morbidly obese.

3. Those who do not qualify for FluMist by virtue of age alone will receive the injectable vaccine. However, those who are pregnant or have underlying medical conditions are first ?tier.?

4. Consents will be required for all receiving vaccine.

Information from:
Bianca Rodriguez
Coordinator of Wellness Education, Wellness Maricopa
480.731.8086(P)
480.731.8263(F)
bianca.rodriguez@domail.maricopa.edu

First Friday at PCDT: The Art of Finding

What:
PC Downtown gallery will feature The Art of Finding, the culmination of a semester's work by students of Joe Willie Smith. The students collected materials from our urban environment and constructed artistic statements about themselves, the materials, and our definition of art.

At First Friday, you can enjoy conversation, refreshments, entertainment, and great art.

When:
Friday, December 4, 2009
6:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Where:
PC Dowtown
640 North First Avenue

Admission:
Free and open to the public

More Information:
Contact Gallery Director Tim Hernandez at (602) 285-7283

Phoenix College Presents A Choral Holiday Tradition

Get into the holiday spirit with an evening of hope, peace, and joy! Come and listen to the Phoenix College Choirs perform both old and new seasonal music with piano, organ, brass quintet, and percussion. At the same time, you can share the holiday spirit with others and help fill the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry by bringing a donation of canned goods.

What:
Tis the Season: A Choral Holiday Tradition
Presented by The Choirs at Phoenix College: A Cappella, McConnell Singers, and the Phoenix Community Choir
Directed by Dr. Kenny Miller with Dr. Emily Helvey, piano, and Ellen Brown, organ

When:
Saturday, December 5, 2009
7:30 p.m.

Where:
St. Gregory’s Catholic Church
3424 North 18th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85015
(19th Avenue & Osborn)

Admission:
Suggested donation of $5 and/or canned goods for St. Vincent de Paul food pantry

For more information:
Call 602.285.7876 or 602.285.7297