I was told my disability is relevant, so I will say I have a spina bifida. Today I have been given what I consider to be a real honor. I have been asked to introduce Isabelle Martin. Isabelle is a truly remarkable individual that has my admiration. Isabelle is currently finishing her senior year at the University of Kentucky, majoring in art history and visual studies. Her research primarily concerns issues of racial and cultural identity in contemporary art with special emphasis on the politics of representation and visibility. In the fall she will attend graduate school with the hopes of eventually pursuing a PhD in art history. Her talk today is titled Visions of Infinity, Singularity, Polyforation, and Transcendence in Yeyo Kusami's Infinity Mirror Rooms. The subject of her talk is Japanese contemporary artist, Yeyo Kusami. Kusami has long suffered from sinistapathy, which results in hallucinations and anxiety attacks. Her use of the polkadot is not only a way for her to visualize her hallucinations, but also an example of the physical commitment she has to her work. Her repeated application of small motifs onto expansive services is at once both therapeutic and manic. I would ask today that you would please do me a favor, please refrain from using local chat or voice during the presentation. Helping me today translating my Australian to English as the voice is Suelen Mahogany whom I wish to thank as well. Thank you all and please welcome Isabel Martin. Okay, thank you Betty for that very sweet introduction as I thought I'm so excited to be here. And as Betty mentioned my talk today is titled Visions of Infinity, Singularity, Polyforation, and Transcendence in Yeyo Kusami's Infinity Mirror Rooms. Since beginning her career in New York in the 1950s, Japanese contemporary artist Yahya Kusama has continually utilized the concept of the infinite throughout her work. Through the repeated use of infinitesimally small motifs in her work, Kusama conveys the total surrender of the individual, namely herself, to the world as she perceives it. In doing so she projects her own role as a Japanese female immigrant in the white Western male-dominated art theme in which she became established. This projection explicitly calls forth her identity as the other and appropriates it as a major theme of her own work. Since childhood Kusama has been afflicted with a hallucination inducing anxiety disorder associated with a condition called depersonalization, a phenomenon of experiencing a loss of personality. This condition, combined with a tumultuous relationship with her mother, drove Kusama to flee to New York in 1957 in desperate pursuit of creative freedom and personal liberation. She did find success though it cost her time, sleeplessness, and even starvation in a city she described as, in every way, a fierce and violent place, increasing and intensifying her neurosis. The proliferation of particles expresses the surrendering act of what Kusama calls self-obliteration, an aesthetically welcoming visualization of her struggle with mental illness. This accumulation of minutia signifies the overwhelming visions of neurosis that have long played Kusama. Though her work has long expressed her feelings of alienation and resistance, it is far from oppressive to the viewer, instead producing the opposite effect of enveloping them in her spaces, which create opportunities for personal interpretation and moments of self-reflection. During her time in New York, Kusama came to associate with a number of artists, one of whom was up-and-comer Donald Judd, a self-proclaimed empiricist who had been trained as an art theorist and critic, and was only just beginning to create art himself. Judd, who had studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Columbia University, was interested in the concept of credible art, that which creates possibilities from realities. As such, he used algorithms and numerical sequences in his work, appealing almost exclusively to a learned Western audience. He was highly influenced by a long list of Western philosophers, like David Hume and John Locke, and artists like Jackson Pollock, Joseph Albers, and Constantine Brancusi. In his established style, Judd often created works that occupy a fixed reality, with regulated structures that retain the particularity that shapes reality and discredits nonsensical concepts. Kusama and Judd, who passed away in 1994, entered the art scene at the same time and even spent several years as neighbors, developing a close and at times intimate relationship. The two share their early endeavors as artists, supporting and influencing one another. Although the particular works I will address were not necessarily contemporaneous, both Kusama and Judd were consistent in their styles and objectives throughout their careers. Examining Kusama's infinity room installations and Judd's sculptural and three-dimensional work reveals a relational model outlined in philosophers Jill DeLuce and Felix Cattari's theory of the minor. First addressed in 1975, the theory of the minor expresses the idea that within a major system, there is a minor figure utilizing the same expressive elements put forth by the major. However, these elements are in a displaced or altered context with no standards or regulations. The minor, according to DeLuce and Cattari, moves away from the attempt to offer itself as a sort of official language in favor of emphasizing oppressed qualities. The minor is identified by three foundational characteristics. First, it must be territorialized. Second, it is always political. And third, it is always collective. The fact that Kusama was on the scene during the development of movements like late surrealism, pop art, and minimalism and subscribe to none of them attests to the minor artist's quality of existing simultaneously within and outside of the dominant system. In their respective styles and objectives, it is clear that Kusama was a minor artist as an outsider Japanese female artist in the masculine Western environment of New York in the 1960s. Conversely, Judd, whose career was rooted in Western philosophy and art theory, adhered to the very standards and formulas that Kusama aimed to defy. In doing so, he represents the major dominant system and the movement within which Kusama's minor art practice operates. Kusama's work expresses de-territorialization by manipulating depictions of reality in order to express visualizations of her minutia-driven neurosis. The minor artist displaces these forms or elements by bringing them into three-dimensional space as in performances or happenings or as with Kusama's particular practice, rooms. The forms then become reconfigured or reinterpreted in a new lens put forth by the minor art practice, familiar enough to be recognizable but manipulated in order to push up against the edges of representation. Kusama's 2002 installation, Obliteration Room, elucidates this notion of manipulating existing forms. An ostensibly average room, furnished domestically with an assortment of chairs and tables and decorated with phases and flowers, is made canvas with one simple but staggering detail, the stark whiteness of absolutely everything in the room. As viewers enter, they are able to contribute by placing colorful adhesive polka dots, which collectively amass a kind of filter through which one is able to imagine the accumulation regularly experienced by Kusama. The 2000 installation, I'm Here But Nothing, similarly expresses this realm of reality made slightly unrecognizable by the proliferation of colorful dots. The setting resembles a typical home, but Kusama's use of light and glow in the dark particles evokes a more hallucinatory and uncanny environment, causing the viewer to struggle to feel at home in an otherwise familiar place. Infilled with the brilliance of life from 2011, as with the rest of her infinity mirror rooms, Kusama's use of mirrors and pools of water confronts the viewer with their own immediate reflection, which is at once innately familiar and yet strangely unreal, mystically separate from the viewer themselves. Here, the reflection becomes the other. The infiniteness of viewer's reflections in the mirrored walls, ceiling, and floor call to mind a sense of displacement and other worldliness, expressing Kusama's experiences as an outsider in the Western world. Conversely, Judd's creation of inhabitable space acknowledges and in fact emphasizes the existing world. In untitled DSS-221 from 1970, a room installation seen here at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, rubber frames from presenting a deliberate expression of reality. 18 slabs of galvanized iron are set up around three sides of the room, the material evoking the aesthetics of industrialization. Instead of the total envelopment provided in Kusama's spaces, Judd's work here feels more resolute, more temporal, balanced, and algorithmic. Additionally, instead of materializing reality or a sense of displacement, Judd allows reality to be completely present in leaving the fourth side open and allowing the yelp and spotlight of the gallery space to be visible. His interest is primarily in the space that already exists, handled matter-of-factly. In providing material connections between spaces, he extends them. With scale, space, and surface as his variables, Judd creates sculptures that are seemingly immovable, to find flight and de-territorialization in favor of stagnation, weight, and resolute presence. The second characteristic of the minor is that it is always political. It's politics, which are not necessarily bureaucratic, calling to question the power dynamics between the dominant and resistant, and according to art historian Simon O. Sullivan, they connect art to the wider social milieu. Kusama's politics in particular address power relations between the other and the dominant society, which for her would have been the masculinist west. In I'm Here But Nothing, familiar signifiers of gender and class are almost obliterated into abstraction, as the pattern of stationary dots of light accumulate, forcing one's eyes to adjust to the colors. Even the title evokes a sense of suppression to the point of invisibility. The presence of colorful dots in obliteration room also reinforces these notions of absolute suppression through obliteration, but instead the west, the dominant, is objectified. Again, the installation begins with the caricature of a room where everything is completely white, a signifier of the west. Visitors filter through, adding their color dots throughout the day, and eventually the room is awash with color. If any of the oppressive white background remains, it is nearly indiscernible amidst the accumulation of dots. In continually refusing to subscribe to one artistic style, Kusama has instead committed herself to the polka dot, thus ensuring that her work refrains from being associated with and confined to a larger program or artistic intention. Though the polka dot represents the intense self-obliteration that has plagued her throughout her life, she has come to reclaim it in her favor, not only embracing it and creating spaces for it to proliferate, but also allowing it to envelop her beyond her infinity rooms. With this allowance of people into her world, and the manner in which she has closed herself in the polka dot, thus disappearing into it, Kusama comports herself as perpetually indomitable, alluding desire and defying objectification. In revealing herself completely, she vanishes. Judd, who created works that he believed had political implications, tended to respond more to institutional politics. However, he was openly political mostly as a theorist and critic. While his sculptural art championed local order, it refrained from coinciding completely with his political views, as he did not believe art to be a viable platform for potential social change. He expressed that any art that strongly advocated a political agenda risked becoming illustration instead of being an attitude stated directly. There is therefore a disparity between Judd's art and politics. Although both advocate for self-government and the individual, Judd's work seems to reflect dominant power ideals of masculinity and Western philosophy in attempting to resist solidarity. While Kusama addresses identity and body politics regarding race, sex, or class, Judd and said relies on the resistance of bureaucratic qualities, government, and institution-based structures. In using materials that evoke industry and austerity, he comes to express them in his work, as with Untitled 1984, a series of 15 concrete monoliths on a former military base in Marfa, Texas. And that is the work shown here on the projector. The final characteristic of the minor is that it is collective. This element of collectivity manifests itself in a shift in focus from the individual artist to the creation and collaboration of the collective. The art Kusama creates from her own hallucinations and experiences remains highly personal but not exclusive. Her rooms in particular bring her hallucinations into fruition. But by inciting opportunities for participation and reflection, she refrains from alienating her viewers. In exploring her own infinitesimally small life, she hopes to unearth truths that can be projected onto others' lives as people, like polka dots, cannot stay alone. Viewer's ability to contribute to the proliferation of polka dots in a obliteration room creates a sense of collectivity through interacting directly with the installation. Kusama's use of mirrors in her infinity room installations proliferates ad infinitum, not only my new particles but also the viewers themselves. In what lecturer Basia Sloinska refers to as relational participatory spaces, viewers' own reflections of themselves proliferate and evoke the experience of a community. Viewer presence and participation is in fact essential to the room as fulfilled with the brilliance of life. Sloinska writes that the insertion of subjects into sculptural environments and installations activates the political dimension of Kusama's art. Even the title of the work expresses the necessities of bodies of life. However, Judd's work provides a contrast to the collective in that it is external. His work is mainly comprised of solid, massive, minimalist structures that are stationary and reflect masculine or dominant ideas. Judd's 1982 to 1986 untitled permanent installation presents a series of 100 aluminum units in former artillery sheds at Marfa. Each unit's reflective aluminum exterior and dimensions are identical. Though they evoke a sense of proliferation, their resoluteness and reflectivity create feelings of exclusion and control. Additionally, each interior has a unique design, further reinforcing the controlled exteriority of Judd's emphasis. The persistent square calls to mind industrial and military austerity, inherently oppressive and intolerant of transcendence. Judd's sculptural structures, based on singular forms, exude a silent strength, a power in their stateliness. Though many of them have semi-reflective surfaces, these only seem to further increase the sense of isolation. Judd's are primarily concerned with relationships of forms to space and not relationships between himself and viewers. Far from attempting to establish solidarity between minor groups, Judd was politically interested in decentralization and localized self-government. While his writing emphasizes a disdain for authority structures in favor of individual power, his work expresses a standardized impersonality that evokes this very sense, whereas Judd's art is, from the start, adamantly distant, provides insight into her own experience. Her representations and manipulations using proliferations of dots parallel her encounters with emigration, transcendence, and oppression by both the major Western environment and her own hallucinations. By constructing her work around the polka dot as a way of both fixating on and overcoming these hallucinations, Kusama continues to examine the endless possibilities that stretch between the infinite and the infinitesimally small, along the way inviting viewers to become the minutiae she proliferates. Her infinity rooms explore the politics of her own identity as a non-Western female, a minority, and a minor artist, channeling her feelings of alienation and obliteration into intimate spaces that create moments of singular reflection and opportunities for collective experience, circumventing the various art movements that have developed during her career. Kusama retains a prominent place within major history while still remaining on the outside, a single particle among billions. Thank you very much. And thank you, Isabel. I think it's really important to look at mental illness from perspectives other than the medical perspective, which is what we've got mostly today. And it's really great that you were able to show us Kusama's work. This was a fun presentation. Thank you all. And very, very fun art with dots on most paintings is called pointillism. That's right. Pointillism, though, is it? It's not. And Luke has a question. She said, did Kusama have any favorite colors in this journey of depicting her total surrender to the world? I'm not sure that she had any favorite colors. She, in addition to creating these rooms, she also created infinity nets, which were paintings. And she used a broad range of colors, but she fired by the sea when she was actually flying from Japan to New York. Just experiencing this broad expanse of the sea totally inspired her and marked a really serious transition for her from her homeland of Japan moving to New York. And so that sort of soft blue appeared in one of her first infinity nets and really sort of started this whole series. Joyce is saying that she wants more clarification about why this isn't pointillism because she thought in college that was what they called it. Yeah, so pointillism started in the, I guess, around the 19th to 20th century with artists like George Saras and Paul Zingak. And pointillism is really characterized by figural representation. So it's people, landscapes, seas, but they are painted in the style with dots, whereas Kusama's work is more abstract and there are no figural, there are no representations. And actually in her paintings, you can see dots, but the way she creates them is by painting lines that reveal negative space. So they really become nets and that for her is also a therapeutic practice. And would you define negative space please, Isabelle? Negative space is really just the absence of paint or the absence of a material. So sort of drawing or painting these lines that create U shapes that then accumulate to express a net. James has a compliment for you. He says, thank you. Has a relatively non-visual person.  He says, for the first time, I seem to have actually gained a bit of understanding of the art you've shared with us today. Now, if only he could remember it. Oh, thank you so much, James. That's a really kind comment. Now, Ice Guy says, the funny thing to her is that Judd's art seemed devoid of emotion, very mathematical and logical or Kusama seems very emotional. That's a great observation. That does seem to be very present in the contrast between their work. And also Judd, I think really tried to refrain from applying any of his own ideas or theories to the way his viewers received his work, which is why all of his works are untitled. He didn't want to influence the way they would be received. So in a way, he really is trying to refrain from applying his own emotional experiences, whereas Kusama is welcoming people into hers. Now, Mooc had an observation that you may want to reflect on. She said to her, Kusama's polka dots not only suggest fragmentation and disintegration, but also remind her of blood spatters and spotting, such as that which you might get at violent crime scenes. And she says, especially in the obliteration and infinity rooms. I'm just gonna go back to one of the obliteration rooms. I think that's a really interesting observation that I have never thought very much about. Thank you, Mooc. There is definitely a feeling of discomfort and sometimes even violence that comes with some of Kusama's earlier work, especially when she first arrives in New York, as I mentioned, it was very difficult for her to become acclimated with the New York art environment and the city itself, as I'm sure anyone who's been to New York can attest to, is very fast paced and can often be really oppressive. And a lot of her early works deal with the sort of shock that she experienced coming to this Western environment that was so commercial and chaotic and so very different from what she was used to. So yes, thank you, Ice Guy. There's a lot of culture shock. And I don't know to what extent that continues throughout her later work, but that is a really interesting observation. Orange had a rebuttal, I think I would call it. He said he sees both of them, both Kusama and Judd, as being emotional, but Judd's work is more of the control others requirement. That's an interesting observation as well. And I think that maybe one of the things that makes Judd's work so powerful is that it really opens up to all different interpretations like that. I think definitely with some of those works that take up almost all of the space that you're in, it can seem very oppressive and very controlling. And I certainly wouldn't say that he has a totally hands-off approach to his art. And Ice Guy says, culture shock, adjustment period, she doesn't think that Kusama ever adjusted. I might actually agree with that because she didn't stay in New York. She actually lives in Japan now in a mental institution that's very close to her art studio. So it's very possible that the environment in New York was just too much for her. And then Ice Guy said she found her own place. Yes. Orange says, I think perhaps it's more the splattering of ideas against the background of her experience. Interesting. I like that. And of course, all these people are jumping on my question, which I wanted to ask.  I'd like to ask the audience the same question about this artist. How does she tell you about her identity as a person with mental illness through her chosen style of artwork? Let's ask the audience that. That's a good question. Okay, I started out by saying she was definitely fragmented. Orange disagreed. He said, overlaid. Her perception appears layered or obscured. Ice Guy said to her, I am here but nothing. She really speaks volume to Ice Guy. I think she expresses the fragmentation, the loss of self amidst crowds and multitudes. So Ellen says, I think she's letting people enter her own world by allowing them to create what the dots they add, giving a bit of their own lives into hers without actually letting them in altogether. And James wonders if she may be using her feeling of powerlessness but making much of her art dependent on others who participate. And I don't know, those two people, they were the ones who did the readings for poetry but they anticipated my question. I wondered about her invitation to the audience to place dots. What does that say about her identity as a person with mental illness? They're reading our lines today. This slide just says, being overwhelmed to me or sensory overload or too much to do anything with it. Yeah, that comment that Luke just posted is really interesting, especially when you remember that this slide, the obliteration room is blank and then people can add their own stickers. So it might really be saying something about how it feels for other people to sort of push themselves onto you, push ideas and opinions and sort of suppress you. And that whole accumulation covers things up and makes it very chaotic. That's really interesting. And then suddenly Sue wondered, do the colors they selected have a meaning? I think she really just likes many, many colors, the multicolored aspect of it. I don't know that the colors in this installation have any particular meaning. They're just very bright. I just wanted us to notice where the dots are most concentrated. They seem to be concentrated sort of adult level, standing level. Oh, Emmy says she knows nothing of art. I think she is underestimating herself, but this seems childlike and maybe she was frustrated as a child and wanted to share that. That's a great thing to point out, Emmy, because she did have a really difficult childhood and it was when she was a child that she started her art practice. But growing up in Japan, there is a traditional more government-oriented art style called Nihonga, I'll type it out. And that's what she was trained in, but she always really felt a lot of pressure from it and never felt that it allowed her a lot of creative expression, but she was having hallucinations from when she was a child. We have some more observations about that question. Ice Guy says it seems the natural tendency for people to put things on walls. Notice it was concentrated in a corner. And Luke noticed there were one or two, seven footers in that room because there are some stickers up on the ceiling.  And BET says, I feel sorrow. You wanna say more about that BET? And when BET is typing, Matilda said those are the aquariums that put them on the ceiling. And Orange said, because people are more likely to paint a wall than paint furniture. BET is picking up on isolation. Isabel, do you have questions for us? What can't you do, Bebe? I was curious if anyone has seen either of these artists' work before in pictures or magazines or in person even. Looks like a preponderance. And we do have an art gallery on Cape Able Island. And that art gallery, we feature only works by artists with disabilities. And I'm thinking maybe to see if we can get her to be exhibited there if anybody wants to visit it. That would be really cool. Yeah, I would. We do have a branch of the R.L. Fenimore Museum right across the island from the... Any other questions? And Ice Guy says, imagine her coming up with a three-dimensional version of one of her art installations, all the possibilities. And Mila says, this would be excellent for the Second Life Environment. She's glad to have been introduced to this work. Right? I have not. I have actually never seen one of her works in person. But I imagine it'd be overwhelming. I imagine it would be. Because these rooms are quite small too. But I mean, you could walk into those rooms, right? You can. At museums, I mean, the lines are really long because people are really interested in her work. But you only get a really short amount of time in the room about like a minute because it's so small. James says he knows a Japanese artist. The only thing he's familiar with is his brother-in-law. He had the misfortune to be confined in one of the American prison camps during World War II. His art is pottery. And James says he's blessed to have a couple of his pieces, which he uses often. That would be very special, James. Wow, yes. I agree. The room installations would be interesting as virtual reality pieces. Some interesting thoughts here. Well, if the audience doesn't have more questions for Isabel, we should probably let her go with many thanks. This was great. High opening. I mean, when you have an audience that not one single person has heard of your topic before, that's pretty fantastic. Yes.


burgers, fries, and apple pies, machine guns, and really big buns. It's the only country in the world where you can use a flamethrower while riding a tiger, while dying of a perfectly curable medical condition because you don't have enough money to pay for health care. My people, the day has come. You asked for it. You got it. It's how to study in the United States of America. But before we begin, I would just like to say a big thank you to all of our new subscribers. Since we embarked on this glorious road to one billion subs, we have seen 1.14 new subs per day, which means in 2,379,397 years, we will have reached one billion subs. So you can literally speed up time and make that happen faster by hitting the subscribe button. So let's talk about the United States. In the United States, you're supposed to graduate in four years. But because we have this thing called freedom, you can kind of do whatever you want. And there's no rule that says you can't take longer to finish university. So that means a lot of times people might graduate in a little bit longer. This is why a lot of universities show you their six-year graduation rate instead of their four-year graduation rate. And it's another one of the reasons why college rankings are totally broken. I really need to fix that thumbnail. Another cool aspect of the university system in the United States is, again, freedom. Because of all the freedom that we have, you can essentially enroll in whatever courses you want. Of course, if you were admitted to a specific faculty or school within a university, they're going to expect you to take courses from that faculty. But what about the rest of your time? Your major is only 50% of your courses.  You can study all kinds of different electives. Choose a foreign language, for example. And many universities require you to take some different courses in different areas. A lot of students will take these general electives and general education requirements in their first and second year of university, which means that the United States is by far the best country to study if you have no idea what you want to do with your life. You can experiment a little bit in those first couple of years and settle on a career from there. The U.S. is also easily the best country in the world when it comes to modern education. There are degrees in blockchain technology, digital art, and even eSports. Or you can study all three of those and just sell NFTs of your Twitch streams for Dogecoin. So when do you need to apply? University deadlines come in three flavors. There's the early admission, regular admission, and then rolling admission. Early admission typically comes due around November or December of the year before you're going to study. So that means that here in 2021, if you're planning on studying in the United States in 2022, you need to have your application ready by the end of this year. Regular admission typically takes the first three months of the year that you're going to study, so that would be January through March. And then after that, there might be opportunities for rolling admission. Rolling admission is just how universities fill in the blank spaces that are left after their early and regular admission deadlines. Top schools that have lots of demand generally don't even have rolling admission because they're full months in advance. Now don't get confused between early admission and early decision. These are two very different things. Early decision is when you commit to enrolling into one university if they accept you and provide the financial aid you need.  You can't give more than one school the option to be your early decision school. So choose wisely. So with that out of the way, what are you going to need to get in? Let's go to the pre-rex. Because of our infinite freedom, you really don't have a lot of pre-rex per se when it comes to universities. Universities can set whatever standards they want for entry. And generally, as long as you have a high school diploma from somewhere, you can get admitted to university. It doesn't have to have 12 years of education like European countries require. Now you'll hear a lot about the GPA or the grade point average. US high schools measure your grades from 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. And those four years are what the US is going to consider for your GPA regardless of where you come from. Now converting your country's grades to the US GPA can be a little bit confusing because the GPA is a scale out of four, even though most US high schools use a scale out of 100. I would say that's strange, but then again, this is the same country that thinks 12 inches that equals a foot and 5,280 feet equals a mile is a logical way to measure things. Why are we, why are we like this? Why do we do this? The OECD website actually has a handy little conversion table that you can use. It's not an exact science though. A lot of universities are just going to want you to submit your transcripts and give them an estimate.  But grades and your high school, they really don't matter. The thing is, the United States universities don't really know what your school was like in another country. They don't know how rigorous your system was or how strict your country's curriculum is because in the United States there's really only one country that matters in the world. Guess which one it is? You guessed right, America! History began on July 4th, 1776. Since most Americans can't even find other countries on a map, can you name a country on this map? Everybody does Africa?  That test? The SAT. If you need help preparing for the SAT then you definitely want to go to prepwithscore.com because we're preparing for another round of group classes for the upcoming SAT right now. Now some programs, especially STEM programs, will often ask you to take AP courses or have AP exams. AP stands for Advanced Placement and these are classes that are basically like entry-level university classes. American high schoolers can take these programs when they're in high school. But what about international students? Well, you might have a United States-based high school in your local area and they might sit the AP exams. So look around and see if there's any American high schools near you that could offer you a place to sit the exams. Of course, that means you're going to have to teach yourself about the AP courses but there's a lot of online course material for free. You can also buy textbooks and study on your own. If there's no way for you to take these AP exams, don't stress because universities understand that that's outside of your control and you can generally get an exemption if you can show that there's nowhere in your country for you to take those tests but at least you've tried to learn the content of the courses. So you've got your GPA, you've got your AP exams, you got your SAT scores. What comes next? Now you gotta go to the Common App. The Common App is the United States Central Portal for Admissions. Almost every university uses the Common App. One of the things you'll have to do is make the Common App personal statement. From there, each university may ask you for additional essays which means that you're going to have to check back in the Common App around August or September to see what the essay requirements are. Some universities won't ask you for anything. Others will ask you for lots of things. Be prepared. You're going to need help and if you need that help, go to preposcore.com. So when all of your essay requirements are done and all of your information is in the Common App and you've got your transcripts and your SAT scores and your AP exams, you're ready to apply. Almost ready, actually. You're still going to deal with the language barrier. American universities are going to ask you for an English exam if you're coming from a country where English is not the first language. We often say that the TOEFL is the exam of choice for the United States, but that's kind of starting to change. Even though the TOEFL is widely accepted across the United States, so is the IELTS. And generally we recommend that students take the IELTS over the TOEFL these days. You can also look at the Duolingo test if you want some tips for how to kill the Duolingo test and check out my video from a couple of weeks ago. So most universities are going to ask you for an IELTS score of at least six, probably closer to 6.5 or 7, and a TOEFL score in the high 80s or low 90s. Overall, the English requirements for entry to universities are not that bad. And if you come up a little bit short, a lot of times universities will simply give you the option to come a little bit early and study English for a while. What about the social side? Now, a lot of people will read and hear horror stories of discrimination and people being given crap for speaking other languages in public. But let me be the first to tell you that in the United States, we are used to dealing with people who do not speak English as their first language. I cannot tell you how many times I interacted with people where people were not able to speak English as fluently as I could. It was never a problem. The United States is a country of immigrants, regardless of what some people say. And it's totally normal for people to not speak perfect English. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. So all in all, what's the language barrier of studying in the United States? I would rate it just one KFC double down out of five. The double down. I really don't think there's a better example of American culture than the double down.  Try finding that in Kyrgyzstan. Why do you do this? Why do you add lib things that are not in the script and then force me to do? Now I gotta go online and I gotta search for KFC in Kyrgyzstan and see if they have anything like the double down on their menu just to make sure. Turns out looks like they do not have the double down. So this statement that I made in the video is perfectly admissible. But still, why do you do this? Why do you make it harder on future meacham? Alright, let's get back to editing. Oh my. I wouldn't normally do this, but the United States is just such a massive country brimming with freedom that we have no choice but to break it up into two parts. So come back next week Thursday and you'll see the second half of how to study in the United States, complete with information about finances, visas, and more. We'll see you then.


In the modern world, we are surrounded by squared, straight, and level edges everywhere. But in the natural world, such things are kind of rare to find. Slap holds is kind of a unique challenge. You might not think about day to day. If you don't have modern tools like a ruler, level, or set square, how do you keep things from being completely lopsided? Well, let's look at and then make some of the tools that ancient Egyptians used to build the pyramids. Everything we use comes from 8,000 generations of collective innovation and discovery, but could an average person figure it all out themselves? And worked their way from the Stone Age to today? That's a question we're exploring. Each week I try to take that next step forward in human history. My name is Andy, and this is how to make everything. Be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next step in this journey. Thank you to Simply Safe for sponsoring this video. For today's sponsor, Simply Safe, YouTube can protect your worldly possessions from break-ins or gray robbers, just like the pharaohs did. Simply Safe is a comprehensive security system taking the place of all of our various security cameras, door locks, and sensors. Clean them all under one service that is monitored 24-7 by Simply Safe Dispatch Team. It can protect your space and keep track of who comes and goes, remotely give access to guests and visitors. They have sensors that cover everything, forced entry, smoke and carbon dioxide warning, even water and free sensors. End of triggered, visual confirmation via Security Cams means Simply Safe calls get three and a half times faster police response than other calls, and it'll still work if you lose power, Wi-Fi, or if the system is attacked. For 50 cents per day, with no contract, Simply Safe is an easy and cost-efficient way to protect your home or studio. We're excited to start using it in our studio to keep all the haters out. To learn more, visit simplysafe.com slash howtomakeeverything. First up, let's take a closer look at what these tools can build. The first pyramid was built around 2630 BCE, with the largest one of Giza, 2580 BCE. The Great Pyramid of Giza stood at over 481 feet when completed, and remained the tallest building ever built for almost 4,000 years. Aligned to True North within one degree of accuracy, they are measly precise in their measurements. The four sides are equal within inches, and the base of it is level within almost half an inch. Measuring precision like that requires an accurate way to make straight lines, parallel lines, squared edges, and measuring level. So those are the challenges I'll need to overcome. The tools I have available to me right now are the hammer I previously cast, the knife and the dagger, as well as the twine I previously spun. To help us find woodworking, let's cast a few more varieties of wood chisels and a bronze saw. My attempts at the saws ended up working out, so I opted to turn my knife into a saw blade using a chisel. So the first challenge I face is getting a straight line. In nature, things like curve. So getting an actually straight line is a little bit of a challenge, and one solution the Egyptians used was to take a piece of string, hold it tight between two points, and that would be a perfectly straight line. And then to mark it, they would dip it in chalk, coat it in ash or colored dye, and then snap it. And it'll transfer that dye onto the surface, and you have a nice little guide. So I have a little bit of chalk from Dover, I can try crushing up, but I'm thinking black might be a little bit more effective for what I'm working with.  Let's give that a shot. Go play with the string. So now I figured out how to make a straight line. Next I want to find a good way to measure and compare distances and make parallel lines so I can cut straight objects pretty easily. So the tool I'm going to make is called a marking gauge. I can't even be able to find much information on its history, so I don't know for sure if the ancient Egyptians would have used this, but it's such a simple tool, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't have. Basically it's just a stick that one end has a little marking spot apart that slides back and forth and you can set to whatever distance you want. Most of them today use a screw to tighten it and lock it in place, but we haven't invented the screw yet, so we're going to use a wedge to lock it in. So it's just going to be three pieces, going to be the rod, the gauge, and then a wedge. So first up we're going to make a straight line using our chalk line and use that as a guide for carving up some wood. Try and get some straight pieces, the gauge can slide down. For the marking needles of the gauge, I cast a small blade using wax and cob. So now thanks to the chalk line, we're able to make pretty straight lines. To help the measuring gauge, I can pretty easily make parallel lines. So now if you want perpendicular, probably the simplest way that it might have been done is you just kind of eyeball it, get it as close as possible, brace it so it doesn't move or anything, and then you just do one side, flip it, and do it from the other side. That way if it's off from 90 degrees, you kind of take the average between the two and it should be pretty close to right angle. However, there's a few other possible ways to do it. Anyone who's taken algebra, like sixth grade or whatever, they will be familiar with the Pythagorean theory. Pythag- Pythag- Pythag- Pythagoras. Pythagoras theory of A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Simple math, you get a triangle with the right angle. Pythagoras came a lot later, so it's not entirely certain that they would have known that math. But I know the possible option they would have done is using concentric circles that will help you find a perpendicular. So let's do that and try and get a perpendicular line that I can then use to make a set square. So I have a kind of very crude compass. I'm going to mark two spots on the line to go over roughly right here. So I'm going to do two overlapping ones. So try and do like right there and right there. Just enough room. Now I have the two circles where the intersect at the top and bottom straight through them should in theory be perpendicular. So let's get the chalk line and draw that line in. There we go. I would say that's pretty spot on. Next, dig some lumber and attempt to mill it into straight and square blocks to make the set square. Now to connect them, I'll use a mortise and tenon joint. A former wood joinery was actually found in some of the works in the Giza pyramid complex and has been found to be used since at least 5000 BCE. To make a wood glue, I've boiled some leftover gear hide from the book I made a few years ago. Once fully boiled and dissolved, it makes a nice hide glue. That was a common wood glue for many centuries through to today. I have these set squared all glued up and I can use markings I made before with my geometry to confirm that it should be square. Next up, I can turn this into a plumb bob that will measure levelness. The plumb bob gets his name from the Latin word for lead, plumbum, as that's the material they were first made of. But I'm going to use bronze. The plumb bob is also very good at terms like plumb, meaning straight and vertically level. So first I cast this guy. This is Bob. He's just basically a pointed weight. This could be added onto this and we're going to tie it to a string and that will give us a vertical level. The challenge then is to go from vertical to horizontal, which is why we needed a right angle. I went through and measured the center point to drill the hole for the plumb bob, put the hole in there in the string and then I can also find center here and then I use this to find a vertically level edge and a horizontally level edge. And then if you want to use it this way to find if a surface is level, I measured out the two edges from here using a piece of string, marked them the same, then drew a line across and sawed them and then I can hang the weight here and put a mark wherever perfect level is and use it as gauge. Spread on, that's level. And also allows us to do some math if we wanted to figure out different degrees. So if we are building say a pyramid and want to add a certain angle, you get that marked and then have a consistent gauge for every slope. All right, so I have my completed plumb bob here and it's all calibrated and should be able to show both vertical and horizontal level. Yeah, so this is kind of the standard tool up until at least 17th century and even today it has some use for a variety of different things for surveying and such. Basically a tool set the Egyptians would have had. So I'm going to put these to the test and see if I can measure out accurately the dimensions of one average block for the pyramid. So I introduced a unit of measurement called the qubit, which was a standard measurement used for Egyptians, the royal qubit, which was a specific length, middle finger to elbow. This is my own personal qubit. I'm going to use it as a reference. An average block was, they tended to vary a lot, but I'm going to do about two and a half by two and a half qubit and then one and a half top. See how well it all stacks up and double check it with some modern tools and see how close I can get it to see if I can finally experience true low. All right, so we have the kind of reference marks now if we were to carve a brick, we have a theoretically perfect square on the floor of two and a half by two and a half qubit. Then we have the one and a half qubit mark here that is theoretically level. So here's a projection of our fancy technology of what that block would look like. This would be several tons of limestone. Let's just measure it up using some modern tools and see how close I got using these ancient tools. My suspicion is that these can be pretty accurate, but I haven't been able to calibrate them perfectly. So I'll see how close I got it. This is the one I didn't measure. That one shows some inaccuracies there. Let's say the three I measured turned up pretty good. It's the one I didn't.  Carpentry trick to make sure you have something perfectly square is to measure the diagonals. And if they're equal, then it should be a perfect square. So we're about 72 and a quarter, 73 inches. So we're a little askew. All right, I got the laser level. Drill it to the test until it's a little bit of inaccuracy there. So overall, it wasn't the most accurate in my results. And part of that is just the refinement of these tools themselves. They're still not perfectly straight, learning how to use them. Their sensitivities a little bit better would probably help too. And I imagine also when they were using these tools, they would often use multiple methods to double check and confirm it. When they make a square, they weren't just going to measure three angles and hope the fourth lines up. They would measure that and probably also measure the diagonals. They're close, but not accurate. The surprising thing about this is just how difficult it was to get kind of the starting point of milled wood and getting wood that's actually square. A tool like this will definitely be useful in the future for especially milling larger logs and such to be able to know if it's perfectly square. And speaking of useful tools, unit of measurements. We talked about the qubit. It's kind of a standard in this era. A lot of different civilizations had their own version of it. I'm my own civilization. I'm building from scratch. So I'm going to invent my own standard units of measurement. I don't know if I'm going to necessarily stick to the qubit and other standard forms.  Should they be human anatomy? Leave that in the comments. Then you might be wondering, when are you going to build your pyramid? The theories of how exactly pyramids were built and how long it took, most commonly believed is about 25,000 laborers over the course of roughly 20 years. So to do that myself, assuming I could move the stones and all the work myself, everything scaled, it would take half a million years. So that'll be coming out in the year 50, 2020. So stay tuned for that. If I wanted to actually hire somebody to do it, the most commonly held theory right now is it wasn't slavery necessarily, but agricultural workers in their off season were available and they were paid in bread and beer. And so far I've already made bread. And next up, I'm going to make my own beer. That's actually going to be the next video. So stay tuned for that. Thanks for watching. Thanks again to Simply Safe for sponsoring us. Give it a try today at simplysafe.com forward slash how to make everything. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics. Also, if you've enjoyed these series, consider supporting us on Patreon. We are largely a fan funded channel and depend on the support of our viewers in order to keep our series going. Thanks for watching.


My name is Danette Niren-Giebord and I'm the Field Placement Coordinator of Criminology at Carleton University. One of the biggest drawing cards of our program is the fact that students can do a placement in the field in their third or fourth year. We have in the nation's capital close to 90 different places that students can do a placement. I encourage the students to let me know where they end up and many of them either get jobs through their placements or end up working in the criminal justice field. And I think for Carleton that is a huge success in terms of our program.


Contingent observation, which is a timeout procedure. The big thing about this one is You're keeping the person in the setting. You're not removing them from reinforcements. See timeout But they're not gonna gain reinforce or a reinforcement is still lost for said behavior So you're gonna have an ongoing activity say you have your 17 year old daughter who is in deep love with said senior and it's really awkward and Kind of a felony and it shouldn't happen and well guess what you Establish the rule that if you close the door while he's in your room. I'm going to take your door off and watch you So that's what you do.  They're still in the same position But now they're being watched like a hawk and they no longer have a door Another example would be let's see here Yeah, that's kind of a great one another.


Five ways to start investing with little money. There is a myth that you need to be rich to start investing or investing is for the rich. Guess what? That's not true. Anyone can invest, everyone should invest and there is never a better time to start than now. Robert Kiyosaki, an American businessman and author, said, It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you and how many generations you keep it for. So even if you earn very little, there's still no excuse for you not to invest. Maybe we should talk a little about the importance of investment before discussing ways to invest. Investment means to allocate money in the expectation of some benefit in the future. It is the act of putting money, effort, time, etc. into something to make a profit or get a return. Carlos Slim, a Mexican business magnate, engineer and investor, said, Anyone who's not investing now is missing a tremendous opportunity. 1. Invest in your money allows you to grow it. The return you get on your money allows your money to build up, creating wealth over time. 2. Investment also tends to offer the opportunity to earn higher rates of return than savings account. 3. Investment also allows you to reach your financial goals easily. This is only logical since it offers a higher rate of return than a savings account. Investment is one of the best and legal ways to accumulate wealth. So, if you dream of becoming a millionaire one day, investment is an option you should consider. In 2018, Warren Buffett, an American business magnate and a popular investor made $1.5 million per hour on his investment without needing to trade any of his time for that money. You're right. Wow! In this video, we'll be sharing with you 5 ways to start investing with little money. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you won't miss other interesting videos like this. 1. Stock Market Either you call it stocks, shares or equities, it doesn't matter because they all refer to the same thing. A stock is a share of ownership in a company. So when the company profits, they may pay you a portion of those profits in dividends based on the number of shares or stocks you own. When you share ownership with a company, it means that you are entitled to part of that corporation's earnings and assets. As the company grows, the price of your shares increases as well and you can eventually choose to sell them at a profit at a later date. Depending on the company you're dealing with, stock can range from a single digit to a couple of thousands of dollars. 2. Investment Bonds Governments and companies borrow money and issue IOUs or guilds. A bond is essentially a loan to a company or a government entity which agrees to pay you back with interest in a certain number of years. Bonds include municipal bonds, savings bond, commercial bonds and treasury bonds. The thing about bonds, however, is that they are typically considered less risky than stocks because not only are you guaranteed an interest rate, you also get a date on which they will be redeemed. Hence, their potential for returns is much lower as well. 3. Mutual Funds A mutual fund is a mix of funds. It's like this. Rather than buying stocks in one company, a mutual fund allows you to buy a basket of stocks in one purchase. The stocks are however chosen and managed by a mutual fund manager. Scott Cook, an American businessman, said mutual funds were created to make investing easy, so consumers wouldn't have to be burdened with picking individual stocks. As an investor in mutual funds, you can skip the process of picking individual stocks and bonds and instead purchase a diverse collection in one transaction. As a result of this diversification, it is less risky to invest in one. Ron Chenow, an American writer and journalist, said that mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks. The downside of this investment option however, is that most mutual funds investment managers charge a percentage-based fee when you invest in their mutual funds. 4. Property Investment Property investment is one of the best ways to invest your money. Andrew Kanage, a billionaire industrialist, said and I quote, 90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate. Also according to Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, real estate investing even on a very small scale remains a tried and true means of building an individual's cash flow and wealth. You see, the value of housing rises faster, rents also rise year by year. Yet people still keep purchasing or getting these things because they require shelter. Hence, they'll have to do what so ever it takes to get them. You can start investing in property by participating in a crowdfunding project. However, be sure to find a credible and trustworthy company to work with. As your income increases, you should then consider purchasing bigger properties. Physical Commodities Certain physical commodities such as gold and silver can serve as a form of investment. Although an investment like this takes time to build profit, so you don't get to enjoy the immediate benefits. However, they can serve as a safeguard against hard economic times. By now, I'm sure you agree that investment isn't as difficult as you once thought. And now, you can easily start investing with little money. Thank you very much for watching our videos. We'd like to give you another interesting video for you to enjoy next. But before then, our team will be very happy if you can like this video and share it with your friends on social media. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss other interesting videos like this. Look at your screen now to see two other videos we handpicked for you to enjoy next. We love you!