Issue 16

Hold Me

You’ve been anticipating this appointment all week. Since your last appointment, when the woman with the bobby, curly hair held you gently and changed your mind— convinced you that you weren’t crazy. Or like your mom said, hormonal. Or like your dad said, bored. Your dad, an immigrant from the Bengali region who worked for…

Improving Computerized Charting in an Intensive Care Unit

Abstract The purpose of this study is to look deeper into an electronic medical record (EMR) system to find inefficiencies within the overall charting process. Along with collecting observation data on nurses within the University of Missouri Hospital Intensive Care Unit, EMR activity log data was gathered from the EMR system through a real time…

Freedom

You must wish I was still broken, Cracked...and slipping through your fingers.   You must loathe at the curve of my smile, now that it isn’t dependent on you.   The lies and deeds of this world don’t hold me captive anymore. I said, your lies and your deeds...they don’t hold me captive anymore.  …

A Technological Invasion

Technology is a very important part of our lives as almost every person with a cell phone would probably say. We live in a world where we rely on technology so much that in a way it controls us. Authors like Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov could portray this concept in the 1940s and 50s…

Meating Expectations: Challenges of Meat Production and a Growing Population

As the human population grows, the task of producing enough food for everyone becomes increasingly difficult; by 2050 we will need to produce enough food for 2 million more people. To meet current food demands, an industrialized agricultural system has been created including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Concentrated animal feeding operations make it possible…

Siren: Based On The Painting “Nocturne”

Black. White. You can’t seem to have one without the other. It is their contrast that brings out their beauty.   Clouds on a spring afternoon, the dandelions in the pasture out back, the warm milk Ma brings us before bed. White has always been a sign of comfort and beauty in my eyes.  …

Can You Hear Me Now?

Modern technology and media have changed how we communicate with one another as human beings. Where does our need for intimacy fit into this new communication formula? This essay analyzes how romantic relationships and digital intimacy function – particularly in the context long-distance and military relationships. It begs the question of how our connections have…

Dogs In The Laundry Room: Mental Health Treatment in Humans and Animals

I rarely think of the tornado. Sometimes, I forget it happened and am reminded by something small: a drizzling rain, the smell of the air in May, Pizza Rolls, a map of Oklahoma, barn swallows. Sometimes I tear my bedroom apart in search of some long-lost possession only to remember that I have not seen…

Nature of the Beast

I’ve always been a glutton; there’s no denying that. I’ve always licked my plate clean, not out of obligation to use what I’ve been given, but to bring about a bliss that only eating can elicit. While I tear through a steak, snap into a carrot, or chew up a turnip, I feel as if…