Welcome to Creative Excellence. I am your host, Davina Lee, and we are coming to you from the studios of the Government Information Service. This show seeks to give a better understanding of the artist's experience in St. Lucia. We discuss the work, the balance, the successes and the aspirations. My guest today knows a thing or two about balance. She's a forensic scientist, a beauty queen, a mother, an author, and the creator of customizable interactive cards. At this intersection of science and art, there is joy. A big welcome to my guest, Mrs. Joy Matty Quinlan. Welcome, Joy. Thank you. I'm happy to be here with you. Okay, we're happy to have you. Joy, the one question, the first question I ask everybody who comes to this show is, what do you call yourself?  So when somebody says, Joy, what are you, how do you respond to that? Joy. I'm thankful for the name my mom gave me. So I don't think I necessarily put a label on who I am, but if I'm asked what my career is or what I do, the first thing I say is forensic scientist. Okay, yes. So you do forensic science and you do art. Yes.  Is there this major switch that must happen in your brain? Not at all. I don't think so. So is it not as different science and art as different as people think? I don't think so because I think what I rely on in science is curiosity. And I think the same thing has to happen with art. You have to be curious. You have to want to explore. And I think that is the way, I guess that's where the intersection is for me, the curiosity and being curious about things. Okay. So we will talk about the art now. Why? But I want to talk a little about yourself as a forensic scientist. You have a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. Right. And you also work in DNA analysis. I mean, that is like when you think of brain. So what is that like? What is what is that like? Forensic science and what do you do in terms of forensic scientists? Okay. So I guess the best way to explain it is looking at what we do as forensic scientists is looking at evidence that is brought to us and trying to make a connection between what we see and if we can connect it to someone. Forensic science and anything science based, again, it all goes back to being curious, asking questions and being open because especially for science, forensic science, you have so much, there's so much banking on you. You need to be as objective as possible. You can't have any bias. And so you're not going in trying to pinpoint anyone. That's why you have to be open. And so you led by the evidence and you're not led by anything else. Okay. Because when I watch documentaries of cold cases or I watch, you know, CSI and so on, it's always a DNA that gets the guy. It's always some forensic evidence and that gets the culprit. So have we been able to apply those methods in St. Lucia and how we've been able to get the guy based on forensic science? Yes, we have. We have several examples. But the thing is, it's not very well publicized. And that's something I wish we would do. There's not a lot of courtroom reporting. So a lot of the time the public feels like, and I hear that question all the time, there's a forensic lab, you do forensics here. I'm like, yes, there's a lot of work being done. A lot of people behind the scenes working and working really hard and doing a really good job. But it's not well publicized. So a lot of the times you have, and I think some of my best days at work is caring something from the police saying, hey, this case is actually completed in court. And yes, we were able to. And I'm like, yes. That fulfillment at the end of the day, it really does spark joy for me. I think that's why I do it. Congratulations for that. Thank you. So now we're moving on to the other side of joy. The artist. So you make customizable cuts. What exactly is that? People just playing with people and trying to see how far I can stretch it, how far I can get it to do something. For me, how I got into it was I've always loved art. I painted before I drew. But when I had my boys, all of that time, trying to balance work and my children and home and everything, that my art took a backseat. And I needed an outlet and I needed to create something. I cannot be there not doing anything creative. And that is when I got into paper engineering, basically. Playing with people. I remember playing with pop-up cards, not pop-up cards, but pop-up books when I was a little girl and loving how that surprise element is really cool. And so I had already done work playing with people before, but it just never explored it in depth. And so I said, let me do that. Because that is so specific, I find. This is very specific. And you said it's paper engineering. So is that part of your science? Because then it's the math? That's like, right? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. There's only the math that's in there. I guess there is a lot of math because you have to measure precisely. And what's interesting is thinking of a concept and then trying to make it happen. My most recent card, one of my most recent cards, someone said to me, I would like a card with a kick. I want to open it and I want to have a kick. And I'm like, a kick? Because she wanted a karate card for her daughter. Okay. All right. Let me see what I could do. And just, I like that part of it, trying to figure out how to make it work. Yes. So let's take a look at me. So we have some cards here. And we're going to look at this one I absolutely love. Guys, can you see this one? So I'm going to take up the top and then it opens up like this. And so I guess it was for a wedding. It was a birthday.  And then there are the photos and it pulls out. There's a card. There's a card within a card, within a card. All right. This is really amazing. I love this one. Put it down. Then we have this one, which was created for our very own Herba. And we put it up like this. It's really amazing. So there's so much, like I don't know, is it physics? Mathematics in this? This one is, what I like about that one is that you don't expect all of what's inside. Right.  It's just, yeah. It's like a little step. Yeah. And then we have this one, guys.  Can you see a rainbow? Can you see a rainbow? This is so nice. Man, this is really cool. Her birthday this year was rainbow colored and she wanted this. And then this one, I guess this one is like a photo album.  It's really nice. Really, really nice. So tell me, and this one is nice too. Very nice. Man, that was at Father's Day. Nice. Very cool. Yeah, very cool. This looks like a lot of work. Is there also back and forth like, okay, this is not popping the way I wanted to pop? Sometimes. Sometimes it takes a bit of conceptualizing or drafting. Right. But I think that's where the fun is, that and choosing colors and you know, design. That's where the fun is. So what sparks the idea? Is it just from the persons asking you, from somebody asking you for a card? What sparks the idea? Is it based on them as a person or what? Sometimes it's the person.  Right. Or I'm sitting there and I'm like, what if I could make this and then I would go make it. But a lot of the time, if somebody asks for a card, I like to know who the person is that's getting the card. So it's really personalized. Yes. So it's really personalized. The colors they like. What are their hobbies? I've had a card. Somebody asked for a card that was, that one just pops up. It's just a simple Christmas one. Somebody asked for a card to incorporate dominoes and volleyball. Right. And they wanted it in a box. Okay. Something like this. They wanted something like this and I'm like, dominoes and volleyball. How do you put it together? Right. Okay. So sitting down and figuring out how to put those two together. That's interesting. So take me for the process of that. So from the beginning is like, I want dominoes and a volleyball. Volleyball. Right. How was the process? So I would go, okay, so you want dominoes and a volleyball. Is there anything specific that you wanted to see? Is there any colors that you want? So I'd ask that. And I also ask what kind of card is it something? How interactive do you want to go with it? And if so, for example, with the box, there's several different ways you could go. At first, I wanted to make a matchbox looking card to open and then the volleyball's would have kind of spill over. And then she's like, no, I really want dominoes involved. And then I was sitting, I remember this because I was sitting at home and my husband had a friend of his over and he was playing dominoes. And I looked at the little table and I'm like, ah, I know what I'm going to make. Right. So I looked at the dominoes table and you know how it, you know how a locally made table. Yes. I literally made the box look like that. And so when it opens up, I thought of, okay, for the ball, you have the balls, you have the net. So I created like a little net with the ball smashing, kind of a ball smashing through. Oh, wow. So yeah, that's how it Okay.   So this show is a lot, there's a deal, a lot of balance. Right. Right. This is really what the show is about. So how do you balance your nine to five, which is very demanding? I can imagine with something like this. Yes. So this happens in the miracle morning at two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning when everybody's asleep and everything is quiet and peaceful. That's when I go to work. I feel like a little elf that gets up and then makes the car sometimes because some people don't know what I do. And so they probably figure that this is, this is it. They don't know me. And then when I tell them or somebody's like, can I get a card for tomorrow? I'm like, no, you can't get a card tomorrow because it takes, you know, it takes time.  Yeah, but it's a two in the morning. So making a two. So is there any way does your art in any way influence your science work? Or does your science work influence your art in any way? Let's see. I think, I think they do. Because my science work gives me what it gave me, especially all the experience that I've been science, gave me, I think a well-roundedness. I think that's what science gives you. And I think any scientist will tell you that as you tend to have to think, especially as a forensic scientist, you have to think outside of the box.  You don't have a lot of information because you don't really want a lot of information too.  You have to think like a scientist. You have to kind of think and think, okay, so if this is the case, then I need to look at this. If this isn't the case, you know. So for me, that is where science is influencing my art because I am open to questioning everything and looking at. So if I have an idea, I never have one idea. I probably have about five that I have to choose from. So that is what it does for me. And I think my art now influences my work, not necessarily through examining evidence, but putting systems in place. Because I also do quality management at the lab. And thinking through systems and thinking, okay, how does this affect that is really important. And so I think that's where the art influences the work that I do in science. Yeah. A lot of people I talk to, even some of the guests that are on this show, they're artists and they have a nine to five. But the nine to five is really to support the art. And if it was financially possible, they would not be doing the nine to five. They would just be concentrating on the art. So for you, what is it? Is it just that you would like to do both? Or is it that if you had a choice between one? Marie, I don't know if you know who Marie Folio is. Marie Folio is she's the internet personality also. She has her own business and she's an American, but she uses the term multi-passionate. Okay. And I think that's what I am. I would not give up my nine to five. Either one. No, I would not. I love being a forensic scientist. I've wanted to do this from the time I was 14. That's the one thing I can tell you I knew. Right. But I knew for sure that I wanted to do. Okay. Yes. But I don't think I would give it up. Okay. So at the lab, you deal with quality management. You describe yourself as one that's obsessed with quality, healthy obsession, right? How does one ensure quality in an area like art, which is very subjective? Okay. What would you think? What can you apply from quality management in art? And you know, what do you think you can take? There's a lot you can take. I think quality is, it's part of everyday life. A lot of people probably think of it as just, you know, a product kind of thing, but it's not. It's, you can apply it to your relationships. You can really apply it to art. For art, I think, again, it comes back a lot of what quality management is about. It's about customer service. So, again, listening to who your customer is and not necessarily where somebody asks you to do something for them, but just think of who you're doing it for. So you're a painter, you know, really knowing what you're painting, what your niche is, and then also having for, I can give you an example of my work. Sometimes I make a card and there's a smudge and nobody else will see. Well, you can see it. I can see it. That card does not go out. Right. No. And there are times when my husband goes, I cannot even see what you're talking about. And I can see that it's not too straight. I'm like, I have to scrap that. Yeah. Yeah. So those details, you know, that they say the devil is in the details, that's what it is. For me, like I really need to make sure that what for me, it's if I would not accept it or if I wouldn't want it for myself, then I wouldn't give it to anybody else. So when somebody gets a card from you, they're getting your best. Yes. Okay. That's a good deal. Yes. They are getting my best. Okay. So you're not, you don't just make cards. You're also an author. Yes. Bilingual children's book. Yes. Tell me about that. Like what, I mean, like you're not doing it now. Well, it's not published. I'm really hoping to get it published. I'm working on that. But it's, it's a love affair for our culture. Okay. I have always loved the Senmushian culture. I think that it's not highlighted enough. Okay. And so when I was younger, my mom, I remember any time there was no electricity, my mom would tell us Coppelapé stories. Okay. All of the crazy things Coppelapé did, right? And I, I love books. I love story. So I, I don't know. I just, I'm like, no, Mike, and I want that for my kids. I want them to experience that. So I wrote a book called La Chilape. Okay. And it's about Coppelapé and how he lost, how his tail got shot. Okay. And so that is, it's just a fun story, but I wanted Creole featured. I didn't want it to be an English story, because I think, I feel like we don't even know our own Creole. And some, most people don't know how to read it. Most people don't know how to spell. And so I figured if it was a children's book and it's bilingual, they can make that. Okay. It's almost like teaching the Creole. Yes. In the book. Yes. In the book. Okay. So then how do you mentally make space for a project like that mentally? How do you mentally make space? I mean, with work, with the cards and to write a story, it's, it takes time. Yes. Let's see. I honestly, some, some of the things I can tell you, I don't feel like I do with them. I feel like I'm again, a channel that, you know, God is saying, oh, well, I really want this into the world. So I need you to do it. Because there are times for that story, it nagged me for years, literally years. I always had that story. And like every time I think it, I'm like, okay, it's gone. It keeps, it comes back. And I'm like, okay, I have to put it down. I just need to do it. And there are several other other stories that I want to work on. And that's what it is. It's nagging. It's like, you have to do this. You must put it down. So you're just a channel. Yes. So not even with the cards, there are times when I have to make a card and I have no clue what I'm going to make. How am I going to do that? I think I'm going to tell the person I can't do that. Right. And I sit down and it comes. I'm like, okay, well, I kid you not. Every time I do that, I'm like, thank you, God. That was all you, not me. Because you're having a competition if our last gets a rose. And we were speaking about that.  I think it's important to recognize that it's not you doing. Well, I don't think that it's you doing the work. It's your channel for it.  I would imagine it's sort of a small community. But have you found your tribe? Have you found those people who? My tribe is diverse. It's not specific to just- No. I think I need that too because I am. I think every artist has a little crazy. And you need people to ground you. So a lot of the people around me ground me. They are the Bussans. They're the more logical people. Like my husband is a totally logical person. I would think you'll be quite logical. Very logical. Logical scientifically. But otherwise, when the artist, I think the artist comes out, I am dominated by the artist or anything. And in my personality for sure. So I am, a lot of the people in my life are very logical people. They tend to ground me and say, and guide me in that sense. And I have a very small circle. So it's important to find for you those grounding people or people who are like-minded, such as yourself. Do you look for both? Although that look, I guess they come into your- Yes. I think I attract them for some reason. I don't know why. I have a specific kind of person. I tend to attract them like, how did you get hair? I guess it's the same with the spiritual elements of like, you know, it gets downloaded into you. The people around you, it's the same thing. So do you have somebody that you look to for guidance? A mentor? Even if it's in your work as a scientist, your work as an artist, is there somebody that you found as a mentor that you've looked to? I've found a mentor for quality. And that's Ms. Fetticombe. She is amazing. Yes. In terms of science, I don't, I can't, I think, I always say this, and it might seem strange, but I think my mentor is a fictional character with Nancy Drew. Because that is the way the love for science came from and being curious and this whole detective-like thought process. In terms of art, I do think I have one person that I look to. Okay. Well, let's take a look at some of Joy's work. We're gonna take a look at some photos right now. Okay, let's kind of roll that Roger. Thanks. Okay, so that was Joy's work. The amazing stuff, Joy. And so if you want to see more of Joy's work or if you're interested in getting some a card from her, you can, these are handles and you can log on. So, so Joy, tell me what advice would you have for someone who is in the uncommon position of having this love for art and for science? What kind of advice would you give to them? Because it's not many people I would think, unless there are and I don't know. Maybe. For me, how I would answer that is not necessarily just for science and art, but just in general. When I was younger, I think still now a lot of the advice is just to focus on one thing, stick to that. And what I've recognized is that I can't just stick to that one thing. I need to make that shift. And so for persons who have that experience, because I think a lot of people probably do and just feel like something's wrong with them. Because I felt like something was wrong with me. Like, do you think people said like, okay, she can't focus? She can't. Yes, I was always too restless in school. My mom always said, sure, you need to focus. Settle down. I was always a very restless person. And I think that what's important is for you to recognize what you're good at, recognize what your strengths are, recognize what you love, and go after that. Stop putting yourself in a box and trying to figure, okay, this is what I have to do. But really step out and take control of what you owe. You know, really take charge of what you love and what you like and do that. That's what I, when I heard the two multi-passionate, I was like, yes. Okay, that's me. That's me. I like that. I'm going to just grab hold of that and stick to that. Right. So then how does one achieve excellence in the chosen field? Do you think there is a specific formula, like in terms of like your science and all? Is there a specific formula, a bit of this, a bit of that? What is it, do you think in terms of achieving excellence? In terms of excellence, for me, excellence is giving your best. And I got that from my mom from very young. I was always told, no matter what you are going to be, give your best. You can be someone picking up garbage on the road. You can be somebody walking a dog. You can be a teacher, a doctor. Just give your best. And for me, that is what excellence is. You, whatever you do, put your best into it. Don't do it in a half, like half. Don't give half for me. And I struggle with this in all areas of my life, because I'm an all-nothing kind of person. I give my all and it affects a lot of who I am. So, for example, in my work, sometimes I don't know when to stop and say, okay, Joy, you've done enough and you don't have to, you know, have to keep picking at it. And I think for me, that's where quality has helped me, because I've recognized that it's all about improvement. It's all about progress. Instead of trying to make it perfect, you know, just always making it better every time. So, how do you know when you hit the mark? Because if you're making a cut, how do you know when you hit the mark? For art, well, it comes naturally for me. For art, I know if I put anything more on something, that's too much. For everything else, that's not tangible, is where I kind of lose focus. I have to stop myself. That's where the people that you spoke about help me. They ground me. They're like, hey, you've done enough. You don't have to do any more than this. So, that all-or-nothing kind of thing, kind of, it's a good and a bad thing. Because the question I ask a lot of my guests is, do you think that we settle, we settle in this country? Do you think that we settle for mediocre?   I'm always judgmental. I feel I am. Right, right. But generally, is that your experience that you think that people are settling for mediocre? Like, I can see where you can push more and you're settling in this. I don't think that they're settling for mediocre. I just feel like, for me, sometimes I wish we had that. What's the word? Not standard, but I wish we had more pride. I feel like we don't have, when I think of, and I say this a lot, when I think of Jamaica or Trinidad or Barbados, they have this pride that you can't talk about.  And they, they have the, you just meet them and they just have that sense of pride. I honestly don't think that we have that. It's not a knock. I'm not trying to knock anybody, but we don't have the national pride that being a Saint Lucia and this is who I am. And for me, that is where we're lacking. But in terms of giving and doing, Saint Lucia has so much to offer. I've met loads of people in the arts in other areas. I'm like, wow, like this exists and nobody knows about it. And so for me, that is the way I feel that we can do better. And if we instill that pride or if we recognize all of this wealth that we have, we probably would, you know, cultivate that pride in our people. How do you think we could reckon? How do you think it is still something that can be taught? How can one recognize what we have? And I don't know if it's something that can be taught. I think it's just not out there enough. I feel like it's still, people still have everything like, oh, well, yeah. Right. This is, this is, this is it. It's not an apologetic difference. Right. This is not. I don't feel like it's enough. Like you, and I make this example of Jamaicans. They don't apologize for who they are. They're like, this is me. This is, they put their green and their gold and that is it. You don't see that with, well, for me, I don't see that with sanctions. I'm like, on Independence Day, we do this or National Day, we do this, but it's not, yes, it's not unapologetic. This is me, take it or leave it. Right. Yeah. And with me, like we have that. So for me, that is where we're lacking. Okay. So is, do you have an ultimate goal? Is there an ultimate goal for you that when you, when you get to that point, then you can say, not just I have arrived, but I no longer need to pick at this. This is it. You know, it's like quality assured. Right. I have arrived. Do you see, do you have an ultimate goal of something? And what, what will, what is that thing when you get to it that you'll know I am satisfied with that? Funny enough, I know how to answer this question and I don't know how to answer this question because I am a person who is very purpose driven. I am not, my family and my husband always laughs. They're like, I don't understand how you're not, I'm not fueled by wealth or like I do like, I don't necessarily need material things. And I'm always confusing them like, but like I said, at the end for me, when I can give back or for example, one of the reasons why I love my job so much, especially when I know, okay, this victim got justice or this family got justice. I kid you not, if I get that, that information at 9am or 8am, that whole day, you can throw anything at me and my day is made. You cannot take that away. So for me, I don't think there's anything tangible, like there's nothing tangible for me. It's really a feeling, a purpose that I feel like if I once that is met, I am good. So it's a continuous thing? Yes. Even with the cards, I make the cards and what brings me the most joy is hearing somebody had a great experience with them. I remember I made this card. It was a makeup. I was told the person is very girly and they wanted something, you know, really girly. So I made a card that looked like a makeup palette. Okay. And when the recipient got it, she was like, literally touching it, thinking that it was makeup. Right. And that alone, I was like, really? She was like, my God, she really loved the card. And I'm like, a card did that great. So for me, that is what sparks everything for me. It's not necessarily putting the work out there and recognition or money or anything like that. Okay, nice. So have you ever, like anybody ever said, can you teach me how to do this? Have you ever mentored or? I have, I've done a class, but it's a couple of years ago. But I like, nobody has ever said, oh, I need to learn how to do this. I would love to teach it. I have no problem teaching it. Joy would love to teach. I would love to teach it and get people understanding how they're made. Okay. So is there anything, I mean, we, I feel like we've covered most aspects. What, because, okay, there is something, beauty queen. How did that one come into the mix? Because you're the author, the artist, the scientist. And how did beauty queen get into this? You were Miss World, our Miss World representative. Yes. In 2005, I represented in St. Lucia for Miss World. That is a good story. That one, I think that was few out of, from my need to become a scientist. And I think if, when I think about my journey, a lot of what I do, even if it's unconscious, it's purpose driven. Yes, it's purpose driven. So I can tell you that I was a total tomboy, total, I've never been a diva. I've never been that person. And when they made that casting call, they were like, you know, and the prize for that was a scholarship in France. And I was like, Oh, I want that. That is what I want. And I'm getting it. And I remember meeting all of the other girls and I was quite intimidated. And I'm like, Whoa, okay, I need to learn how to do this and that. But I think once I've set my mind on something, that's it.  And I'm going to get it. That's great. So you went to school in France. What was that like? And amazing. First of all, it did all French. It did molecular biology. Biology, molecular biology. Biochemistry in French. So you had to learn French first or did you already know some? I did French first. I did French and Spanish first. But that was it. That was my baseline for French.  My brain literally hurts. I am very adventurous. Thinking about the stuff Joyce is doing. So what was that to learn the scientific method? It's not that different. It's not that different. And that's what's great about science. I mean, if you think about how we categorize species, remember that we have a name for any animal so that it can be recognized on an international scale. So science is, I mean, yes, you have to learn the language and apply it, but it's not so different. So you see the science is a language of its own? Yes, I feel like that. And so it's not, it wasn't, I mean, it was scary. It was a new culture, but it's a beautiful culture. And I'm very adventurous. I like new things. I want to try new things. Let's see something new. So it was something that I was willing to try and do. And it's, I like experiences more than anything else. Like I said, material things are not a rather the experience. So that was an excellent experience. Even in the beauty pageant, that was an experience on it. That is something that I was like, oh, okay, I'll take that from it. So what advice would you have for Tyler? Because we are Tyler, Theo Fan, she's our Miss Fool representative. Right. What kind of advice would you give to her when she gets there with the other girls at the pageant? Have fun. That's just basically it. Have fun, enjoy it, represent the country. And really, you don't take it too seriously in terms of not that you don't give your best, as in don't take yourself too seriously. And just really enjoy the journey because you learn so much. And that's something I tell a lot of people when they say they want to do pageantry. It's, for me, it was a learning experience. It was, it really taught me a lot about myself. Like I said, I was a tomboy. I was, I didn't understand how wonderful it was to be a woman, to be a, you know, to be feminine. And that journey gave me a lot of confidence. It taught me about myself, what my strengths were, and you need to just be open with everything and really enjoy. Okay, enjoy that your only beauty pageant. It was my only beauty pageant because I had the cold in mind. Right. So you got what you wanted. So if another one comes up, it'll be like, okay, so that's how I'm going to get this. Yes, I wasn't, I was, I've never been somebody who loved the spotlight and liked to be in the background and like to work in the background. You don't necessarily know my name. Right, right. But yeah, for, for the purpose, I, yeah. Very interesting story about that because most people will say, probably from young, they were into the beauty pageants and modeling and so on. But it's like, no, okay. The goal, forensic scientists, make sure I do science, make sure I do forensics and that was the avenue. All right.  Yes. So what is that? Like, because that, that is really brings up balance. Yes.  Yes, two boys. There is no time. Everything, your whole, all the time is, all your time is there. But what motherhood has taught me, I think motherhood is a journey in itself and it teaches me about myself more than anything. My boys have taught me so much. They've taught me how to chill. They taught me how to have fun. Have patience. Yes. Patience. Sometimes I'm like, how, how, where, how do you do this all? Sometimes I'm like, why again did we decide that we needed to work as women? Right? But it's a lot. But when I first became a mother, I remember telling my mom, I now finally understand God's love. I finally get it. You know, it was very abstract.  And I'm like, yeah, yeah, he loves us unconditionally. But you know, you never really had nothing to compare it to. And I feel like that is what they gave me, that connection, because having a child, being a mother, and just being able, having to take care of that person and knowing that no matter what, you have that, like, they could do anything and you will love them.  But you love them. And I could not understand that until I became a mother is, you know, you do something bad, and you're like, how you can like that. Right? But then you're like, no, it's just unconditional. You just appreciate it. Yes, it really is. Yeah. So do you say your faith because you speak out about God and, and even like, I would say a motivation, but what helps you, even when there is nothing, what helps you speak again about the love? Do you find it's a driving factor in all aspects of your life? Faith? Are you a religious person? Or you would say that you just have a few feel that you do have a connection? Yes, I'm not a religious person, but I am definitely, I believe that there is a higher power. And what's interesting is that this is interesting. Thanks for the question. In, in when I studied, especially in France, you think France is this really religious country, right? And lots of Catholics. But when I, when you study science, a lot of scientists are not the either atheists, so they don't mean even a higher power. But I tell people what my science has grounded my faith. There is, you, you, no scientist can explain to you how the heart starts beating. Right. Okay. They know that it's an electrical impulse. It starts, but at four weeks, it starts. They don't know what triggers it. They don't know what it is. And there's so many different things that we are still exploring that we still trying to find out. And for me, that is what grounds it's like, there must be a higher power. If we didn't do this, it has to happen. And even with art. So for me, that is again, another intersection for art to beauty. And just sometimes I sit and I just see the sunset. I'm like, my God, that is majestic. Like, wow.  And for me, there must be a higher power. It cannot be that this just happened. And he is creative or she is creative, you know, it's there. Yeah, this is such a well, I think this might be a great place to end. On that note, the higher power, the higher power. And so thank you so much, Joy. This was a really enlightening experience, this interview. Because when you think of the scientists, you do not think that the scientist, you know, is an artist. Because it just seems, and I think very special because I don't think many people can be that. So thank you so much for being our guest. And guys, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Creative Excellence. And my guest, Joy Quinlan. Thank you, guys.


The cylinder dredges up mud from the seabed in the form of long cores. The types of tiny fossils found at different levels in the core shows the sea temperatures of the past. Geologists have collected enough sea cores to form a detailed history of climate during the last million years. Dr. James Hayes leads the research. This record in these deep-sea cores tells us that there have been eight ice ages in the last 700,000 years. It also tells us when they have occurred. There are many enigmatic, astonishingly well-executed ancient ruins found all over the world, with some regions in particular displaying overwhelming masses of evidence supporting the posit of a past highly advanced builder. These areas often littered with displays of incredible ancient feats. Yet our next place of interest possesses some of the most incredible rock-cut chambers to be found anywhere, and just like that of the Giza Plateau or the Inca Trails of Peru, Turkey, along with its ancient counterpart Lebanon, still contains a smorgasbord of ancient uparts, mystifying masonry skills, and gigantic stone trilathons, found within what would appear to have been a major settlement of this now lost civilization. The reason why we attest to many of Earth's ruins, having once been the work of a past now lost civilization, is the number of unexplainable features nearly always discovered at these puzzling ruins. Therefore, to understand that all the knowledge utilized to build such sites, with its forlifting such stones conveniently forgotten, is to suspect that they were instead the work of an equally forgotten civilization. It appears to be a logical hypothesis to pursue, one which we indeed have been, which we have found, bared much fruit. We believe we have now amassed enough evidence to support our claim beyond any reasonable doubt, subsequently discovering a far more fitting tale of events in regards to the true origins of many of the world's largest of ancient ruins. Hattusa is a melting pot of baffling construction techniques and surviving ancient artifacts. Within permitted timelines, the site predictably has a well-explored period of inhabitation, yet any explanation as to how these more recent ancestors achieved its construction conveniently eludes modern academia. Hattusa was also known to have been the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age, added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986. The main focus of this video, however, is in relation to a rather curious anomaly at the site, a unique object which could be described as an out-of-place rock cut. Known as the Green Rock of Hattusa, this mysterious stone's origin, or perhaps more importantly, its past function, is unknown. The green stone was once so perfectly polished, it originally had a mirror finish, yet why this particular stone is here, why they chose this green stone specifically, or who brought it to the site is a complete mystery. There are many other impressive features found at the site, including holes bored through massive megaliths with seemingly laser-like precision. It also has the ruins of what has been confirmed to have once been a sphinx. All of these characteristics indicate that at one time in the very distant past, Hattusa was a place of significant importance, sharing an uncanny amount of similarities in build technique and layout to many sites of South America, yet its green stone is unique to this site only. The question is why? Why was this green stone quarried, cut, place where it lay, then polished to perfection? Was the stone merely a gift from an Egyptian pharaoh, as modern academia would have you believe? Or did the green stone of Hattusa once serve a more profound purpose? One day we will find out. It is an object which we find highly compelling.


So guys what you are seeing on screen now is probably the biggest fail. I've done in outriders yet I mean it's absolutely Embarrassingly hilarious. I wasn't gonna actually upload it, but who the heck cares? I mean, let's be honest with ourselves now I'm pretty sure we've all failed at one time or another and I'm gonna give you guys a good laugh That's exactly what I'm going to do. So this was basically based on a new Cyclone build This was actually the end of the video gameplay of me showcasing the build that video though An actual gameplay showcase of the build will come either tomorrow or the day after but I thought I'd upload this earlier for your guys Entertainment and I hope you enjoy if you do leave another crew that helps out and hopefully people I will see you on that next one Let's do this P Pope So that's basically what this build is all about Anomaly based Cyclone Swiping slashing and as you've seen the skill tree already Kind of get the gist of how it works And how I explained it But I use my melee ability quite a bit as well me like I said I think it's underrated and with this bird as well. It works absolutely incredibly And another move I take is I will throw my ventilator's knife Then drop my two temporal blades then do either a slam or a melee and then do this cyclone slice And absolutely a bit away, but obviously I'm getting slapped all over the shop here This isn't a perfect demonstration, but you'll see how quickly on a challenge here 15 It just mounts things. It's unreal. And like I've said already No twisted runs. I mean, I've got a shotgun on on because high firepower Well, and I've got the fortress mod on it like I explained earlier Absolute must have and then any anomaly build. I mean people people I mean if you skip to this part of the video and you didn't see what I just said Fortress is absolutely only or probably the best TF3 mod in this game without a shadow of a doubt 100% on my phone's vibrating but gotta ignore that gotta ignore that people we got games to be playing Gather up gather up. I mean I could quite possibly Do expeditions with no weapons at all. I mean not firing a single weapon. I mean Not really what this bill is all about. Anyway, like I said my Anomaly effigy is only in place because high firepower We have on the fortress mud on it. And that's all what we use it for I mean, like I said, you see that it just tickles enemies. It don't do anything unless you got top tree tricks So I don't actually feel Shotguns are even that great.  I mean, I've made a middle tree build You've probably seen my my sniper with the scrap grenade on which is super fun. Isn't efficient in terms of DPS This is way way better But uh, yeah, I've gone middle tree. This is bottom tree anomaly build. I just like to be a little bit different I know every trick straight out. I know one played with a gold top tree shotguns Teleport behind the enemy do maximum DPS to 300 million at the end of expeditions. I mean Don't really hit that to be honest I mean with my scrap grenade build. I'd probably get about 110 million with this one playing solo on certain expeditions and get way over 200 But yeah, it's it's a decent build It's way way way better in terms of DPS and it's not allowed to ourselves here people these expeditions These endgame expeditions are basically made for speed running the more DPS She can do the better the more chance you've got to get in that gold the more chance You got to get notice the legendaries. So yeah, it's basically It's built for DPS in my opinion these endgame expeditions. They ain't built for Anomaly builds ain't built for support builds I mean you can get away with a support build if you've got two people we've been playing in a squad I got crazy DPS builds but I mean Three DPS bills is gonna do just get things don't wait way quicker. Let's not large ourselves here So yeah, I mean, I think I average this on my My scrap gonna build my other tricks to build I was probably getting it around 15 minutes Like I said that wasn't made for DPS basically shooting the floor blowing things up. I think I can do it 11 minutes Fastest I think I've done about 11 minutes 15 seconds with this build solo. So not too bad I could probably get it done a little bit quicker I mean there's a few mods still that could make this build even better Like the legs to this gear set like I mentioned that make the cyclone slice give me an extra 10 seconds on this Cyclone size extra 10 seconds. You just spinning for days people spinning for days people Yeah, like I said the combo I normally do is our slam Throw my Venator's knife or I'll throw my Venator's knife melee then use the temple blade To slices and then I'll do another melee attack and then I do my cyclone blade by it or cyclone slice when I come out of that My other abilities are basically back I can use my venus's knife again do another melee do my two temple blade slices Then use my cyclone slice again, and we're good to go. It's just a One big rotation of abilities. I mean there's a slight slight delay between I'm using my two temple blades and getting my cyclone slice back. Well, that's where the melee and the slam comes in Just like that people and you'll see it now. My venus's knife is already back my My temple blades are back now both of them two charges as you know as you can see so I'll throw that slice Slice that's out of the way because I'm probably gonna get smashed on here. Just use it I'm not even gonna I'm gonna risk it out when a good example people that when a good example Another protective golem is glitched as well. I mentioned earlier, but it's still Super efficient for this build. It's still super important for this building my opinion. I Mean even when they fix it It's still gonna be super super super important for this because use that odd occasion We have drops below 30% and that that just that a little bit more resistance really does help It really helps.  We get a slight delay So yeah, it's good to have that it's good to have that kind of back up I mean, I've already I've tried of a perks here I've tried of a mods here and there's been an odd occasion where it would have definitely helped me well failed so yeah Spin spin for days and when you in this like I said the two Mods I've got on my build as well Which just reflect bullets and make me take way less damage well in that I'm more or less invincible as long as I'm hitting something Which is great And you know it is more than anything.  I'd rather be just spinning on the spot just taking out groups of enemies Just put my controller down one I'm spinning for 10 seconds could be 20 seconds Like I said could be even longer Maybe have a drink pick my controller back up and I think around me is dead. That's what we like paypal. That is what we like people 1720 Little I'm a little bit slow here.  I'll probably do this Hope take me about 11 and a half minutes. I'd say from here It just depends out of this course sometimes the flying bugs at the end can be super annoying to chase them around the map I hate that. I hate that Hadouken Now this is it. That ain't even necessary.     I hate it.    Did I see that? Yes, I did Didn't even need to fire my shot from there Didn't need to fire my shot from there these things May they slice slice The spin just being in the health is a low and you get an attacked the spin Especially when there's tons of little as around you the spin your way out of their people boom Come out look on my house. I'll tell you that that golem effect is super important man It's super important.  They just can't do anything. You just hitting them So consistently this gets staggered. So I love about it And the temple blade away just paralyzes enemies. It's just unreal. Jeez. I didn't I wouldn't even look at his health Wasn't looking at his health Come on. Come on.  I can't my shotgun just tickles Where's he gone?


Ydw i'w bwysig chi'n gwybod i gweithio i gŵr rôl? Felly dyna o'r cyfraniad llun o'r ddaeth, fe wnaeth hi'n gwybod i ddaeth gŵr o gŵr y ddechrau. Felly dyna o ddatblygu'u GBS. Felly dyna o'r ddod gyfraniad llun o'r ddaeth, fe gael a'i gŵr y bigfiol a'u gŵr y llist i'r ddaeth iddyn nhw yn cael ei bod i fan y gallu ar gyfer wneud. Ac y gallwch chiant yn gwybod i gŵr i'r gŵr? Os wedi'i bwydrych chi'n gynhwys gyd, nid ydych chi'n gynhwys gyd am gylwyr gwneud iddyn nhw, amdrwy'n chyf Mystery. Os ydych chi'n gynhwys gwirgylau gwirgyllustydd sy'n gwybod yn gynhwys cyffredinol o'r gysylltu sy'n gwybod dweud amdano'n gwneud. Mae ddwych yn gwahanol! Os ydych chi'n gwahanol, mae ti'n hawdd. Rhyw gydag ddwy yw'r gŵl. Fe ddweud! Ddwy roedd y ddych chi'n gwahanol in various different formats, which I thought you could all see earlier, and we've got our gene model with our different kinds of consequences, where our variants might be falling, and you want to get, so in ensemble we use what are called sequence ontology consequence terms, so these are a kind of standardised vocabulary of consequences that might result from your variants. We also give you, you might also be interested in getting sift and polyphen scores, so these are scores for changes in amino acid sequence. They're based on how well conserved the protein is and the chemical change in the amino acid, and I really think that the people who created sift and polyphen must not have been talking to each other because they both came up with scores out of one and gave us completely opposite scales for them, which is very confusing and I never remember which one is which, which is why I have a slide for it, and also why they helpfully give predictions as well, so sift score out of one, everything between 0.05 and 1 is fine, protein is going to work, don't worry about it, everything between 0 and 0.05 is deleterious, it's going to damage your protein, it's not going to work. Polyphen is the opposite way round, they have probably damaging, possibly damaging and benign, and 1 to 0.1 is probably damaging, 0.2 to 0 is benign, so it's slightly confusing the way they do things. You also want to know if your variant affects transcription factor binding, so we have our transcription factor binding motifs, we have these Jasper matrices showing us how strong our transcription factor binding is, how strong our motif is based on the frequency of the different possible bases within the motif, and if we take this T in the middle we switch it for a C, we can see that the score, the strength of this transcription factor binding has changed, so this is something we also might want to know about our list of variants. We also might want to know if it's known, is this a variant that exists, that has been written about, that has been put it found by 1000 genomes, that has been put into DB SNP, that has been identified by the GWAS catalogue and associated with phenotypes, all of these different things. And the way that you can find this stuff is using the VEP, which sounds like a variant effect predictor. There's a web interface, which I'm going to show you how to use. There's also a standalone Perl script, so the web interface is all pointing and clicking, it's nice and easy. The Perl script does not involve any kind of coding on your part. It is simply a script that you can run. There's extensive documentation on how to run it, telling you exactly what commands to put into your command line to make it do all the things that you need to do. You don't need to look at the code or read the code or whatever, it does that itself. You can also set up caches, so caches are a way to speed up the VEP, so if you've got whole genome variant calling, if you've got millions and millions of variants, that's going to take quite a while to run. You can speed that up by running it completely within your own system, rather than over the internet, rather than communicating with our database, and you can do this using an offline cache. There are pre-built caches available for ensemble species. They contain all the data that is needed to run the VEP, or you can make your own. You need a GTF and a Fast Day file, which means that you can run it for any species. It doesn't matter if the genome is not an ensemble, which means if you, for example, had a T-Rex genome with genes annotated on it and a bunch of variants between different T-Rexes, where you would have got all this data from, you could do that. So I'm going to show you how it works. I've got a list of four variants, and I'm going to show you what genes they hit, how to find out what genes they hit and what effects they have on them, as well as some regulatory features. So I'm just going to select this list. There are different formats of data that you can put into the VEP. This particular format is what we call ensemble default, which is a simple format that consists of chromosome, start coordinate and end coordinate, which in the case of SNPs is the same thing. Then the alleles, the strand, and the name. The strand and the name are optional. If you don't have the strand, just put, if you put nothing, it will assume it's positive. The name is helpful for tracing it back. So if I just copy that, I go back to ensemble, I go back to the home page, and I'm going to go to the variant effect predictor using this link on the home page. I'm just going to go into launch VEP, and because I've done, this was from a conference I was at just last week, because I've done jobs before, it gives me this jobs table, which is again allows you to save the data to your account, share the data with other people. If you haven't done a job before, you'll go straight to this page that looks like this. I got here by clicking on new VEP job. So this is my input format, and so the first thing is I'm working in human, which I'm going to leave as it is. You can give your data a name, which is a really useful thing to do, because as I showed you in the jobs table, you can list, then it makes it so much easier to find what's what, so I'm just going to go encode demo, and I'm going to paste in my data. One of the sort of quick tricks that I can do is I've got this button, instant results for first variant. If you're really, if you, this is a quick check to make sure you put it in the correct format. If you haven't put it in the correct format, it'll give you garbage here. So if you're not sure, this can be a quick check to make sure it's all worked. We do actually have examples of the different possible formats, so you could click on each of these to see what they look like. There's also, in the documentation, there is a page that lists all the formats as well, but this can be a quick way. So I've just pasted the data in, but you also have an option to upload a file from your system or to provide a URL for a file. So it's going to look at the, on symbol transcripts. You've got these output options. These might be shut down when you go to them, but I've just opened up all these menus. So we've got identifiers and frequency data. So it's going to get me gene symbols. It's going to find out whether these variants are already known. It's going to get me frequency data. The extra options, the thing to point out, is it's going to get me regulatory region consequences, which is what we're particularly interested in here. There's also filtering available here. So if you wanted to do filtering, if I go into advanced filtering, I can exclude or include variants with a minor allele or frequency greater than or less than any number I like in some of the thousand genomes population. So depending on what kind of study you're doing, whether you're working with finding maybe common variants that contribute towards common diseases or rare variants or whatever, you might want to use these filters. We've only got five variants, so I'm going to go with no filtering. And now I'm going to hit run, and you'll see we'll get back to that little table I had before. It's telling me that my job is queued. It's going to refresh for me every 10 seconds. And now I can see as well as the job that I did at another conference last week that it's there. And now it's done. I can view results. And I can see the consequence. So it's telling me I've done five variants. I didn't do any filtering, so there's still five. One of them is novel, was not already known. Four of them were known. I've overlapped two genes, seven transcripts, and one regulatory feature. And I've got summaries of the different consequences. You can see that it's now listing because all of them will hit multiple transcripts. It's listing the variants, their consequences, what genes they've hit, and what kind of effect they have. And the one I want to show you is we've also hit transcription factor binding sites. So this one is a transcription factor binding site variant. And if I scroll across, so it gives me the Jasper ID. If I scroll across, these were my misstants that are giving me sift and polyphen. It tells me, so this column here is motif score change. So it's telling me that the change, that the score of the motif has changed. This is now minus 0.085. It is a less powerful motif than it was before. It's likely to reduce the amount of transcription factor binding, possibly. We don't know. You would have to then assay that in that particular cell. But there's lots and lots of information that you can find out about the genes and about how it affects them. For the ones where we've hit coding sequence and it's changed coding sequence, we have quite a lot of information about the genes as well. There is, where are we time-wise? I want to tell you a few bits and bobs before I hand over to Jill. And I think we'll have about five minutes to maybe have a go at using the VEP yourself. I just want to tell you you can host an ensemble course. We will come out to your research institute. We will not charge you a fee, although we will expect you to pay our costs. And we can give you browser workshops. If you email me, I am Emily at ebi.ac.uk. We can arrange to set this up. And we can do normally a day course where we look at all the aspects of the ensemble browser. There is absolutely tons of help and documentation available. Ebi train online, I cannot emphasise enough how awesome Ebi train online is. There are loads and loads of free training courses that you can dip into at will that will take you through different kind of resources in the Ebi as well as kind of general bioinformatics topics. We have loads of online tutorials. We have a YouTube channel. We've got loads of little videos like that one I showed you a clip of earlier, which take you through different pages and different kinds of actions. We also have a help desk. We are helpdesk out ensemble.org. Anything that you don't understand that you think might be incorrect data, anything like that, you send us an email. We will do what we can to fix it or to help you understand what you're looking at. If you're working with our APIs and things, we also have a dev list, which is more of a public main list. So the help desk is private. So again, if you're working with sensitive data, you might want to email help desk. Whereas dev is public and you can get help from our developers as well as other people who are also using our APIs and things. The announced mailing list will just tell you about news. You can follow us. We have Facebook. We have Twitter. We have a blog. The blog's quite nice for when we've put out new data, we'll often have an article describing the rationale behind it, how we went about doing it, things like that. We also produce publications. You'd be amazed at how many people think they don't need to cite databases. You do. These are some of the papers. This is the team at our most recent retreat about a month ago. These are the people who pay for the project as well. Again, we've got names of the team and we get funding mostly from the Welcome Trust, but also from a number of other smaller grants as well, who we are eternally grateful to. I think we've got five minutes where you could have a quick go using the VEP or ask me any questions before I have to hand over to Jill. There's an exercise there. There's also a file that you need, which is this one, if you just take the URL of that file rather than, no, I think I put it correct in the input, but if you just take that file and you can use it to have a go at using the VEP, and now we've only got about three minutes, but that gives an opportunity for questions. Do you want to ask a question for the group or just to me? I will run over. Maybe we won't do an exercise then. So for the analysis of variants, do you have to assume that it is on a current region? You have to assume that it's in what? On a current region, like a coding on a gene? No, we don't assume that at all. We're using genomic coordinates. It might fall within a coding region. It might not, and we will give you data about it, whether it is coding or whether it is not. Because the scores that you presented, it was based on amino acid substitution, that's why I thought... Sifton polyphen scores you can only get for coding regions, but there are other bits of data that you can get for non-coding regions. So something like the motif scores, for example, you would only get for a transcription factor binding motif. Sorry? I have eight minutes. Oh, excellent. I thought I had less than that. Any more questions or would you like to have a quick go? Oh, over here. How do you know if the motif score change is significant? I don't know. That's something that we haven't analysed, but I could talk to our guys and see if that's something we could work in. The general question, what are the major differences between this encode data and ensemble? So what's the major useful difference or similar? The major useful difference between ensemble and encode and the ensemble. Okay, so we have encode data available and accessible in ensemble, but we also do that processing on top of it. So we're processing the data to predict activity from it. So instead of just saying, here's some histones and here's some other stuff, we're saying, okay, because of these histones and all this other stuff, we think this is a promoter, and that's the major difference. Can you point on changes that are available, for example, on ensemble that are not available in UCSC and vice versa, maybe not vice versa, but just one ensemble? Oh, I love that question, don't you? Like advantages, for example, in ensemble compared to UCSC or? So a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Most people start using one and get used to it, and whichever one somebody has started using, they always say, well, that's the most intuitive. And I've heard both sides, and it really is just which one you use first and which one you get used to. I would say the major thing that we have is programmatic access that is kind of our big seller, and I believe that the heavy bioinformaticians love us. Okay, I'll give you five minutes, then, to have a go with the exercises, and then we'll hand over to


Now this is a quote from the late Dolores Cannon. She said, the side effect of doing something you love, what you're supposed to be doing is perfect health. When you're in tune with what you're supposed to be doing, you don't get sick.


You don't have enough goals. And Brian Tracy said, all successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day towards their distant vision. That goal or purpose. As we fight to overcome this ongoing pandemic, only a set of people will come out stronger and better after all this. Those who choose to never cower under the pressure of this pandemic, those who choose to become their best in spite of the challenge the world is presently faced with. If you want to join this group of people, here are three very important goals you must set and achieve during this period. 1. Charming to keep learning John F. Kennedy said, leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. Those who are constantly willing to learn will constantly find the kind of growth they need to become better. As Brian Tracy is reputed to have said, when you increase your learning, you increase your earning. Learning doesn't only increase your earning ability, it also reduces your level of ignorance. I watched a live video of a presentation made by the governor of my state and by the time the media reported it in the papers, the news was slightly twisted. I imagined if I had not been curious enough to watch what the governor would say, I would have gone ahead to believe the rubbish published by the media. People perish because they lack knowledge. I have seen men who complain so much about poverty but yet have never read a book about money. Young man comes to my office often not to learn what I do, which I'm always willing to teach him, but to watch movies on my laptop.  Now is the best time to immerse yourself in learning. Keep reading, keep increasing your skills, keep growing in what you're doing because one day you would wake up and will find that this is over and you're left with the results of how you maximized it when it was still around. As BB King said, the beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you. 2. Determine to become a better person This period someone showed up on my list who became much more than a thorn in the flesh. There was always much to do for her and there were always crazy deadlines to meet and with it all she was unwilling to pay as much as she was supposed to. Instead I observed I was constantly complaining and getting angry without ever letting my vexations known to this person. Until recently I realized I had been viewing the situation wrongly. Charles Swindoll said, life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. I realized my reaction to the situation had been very poor. So I changed and found in it instead lessons I could learn to help me become a better person. Even as I did I discovered very serious lessons that will benefit me in future. One day this pandemic will come to a close. Two sets of people are going to emerge after this pandemic. People who lose themselves to bitterness and frustration and people who chose to become better in spite of the trauma that's brought upon us. Those second group of people will not only enjoy the best of life but they will also have so many opportunities waiting for them to take from. Both circumstances can be viewed two ways, an opportunity or a disaster. You can sit and mope over what's happening now or you can look upon it as an opportunity to become a better person. 3. Determine to make the most of this year. Starting Now Yesterday I read a book titled The Art of Work. In it the author highlighted the fact that doing our very best may not be good enough for us. When he was little he would feel sad when he sees even a C in his report card. But his father would encourage him by saying, you did your best, that is all that matters. Although this statement was innocently made the author grew up to use this as an excuse to always give up on things before he had even tried hard enough. I read the retweet of a tweet on Twitter yesterday. The writer had some great goals for the year 2020 but because of this COVID-19 pandemic had cancelled his goals and replaced them with staying alive. I think 2020 still has more to offer, wrote Kemi Aditiba. My dad once said to me, what you lose on the stretch you gain at the curve. The world has survived worse than this before. One day, just one day, all this will be over. You will wake up one day in this year most likely to see on the news that COVID-19 has been overcome. You will realize that all the world's fears and complaints have suddenly dissipated. For you, you will realize that the free time you have in your hands now is no longer. You have to join the rest of the world to start to work hard to rebuild all that we have lost. Then, you will only be reaping the result of what you have sown now. So, don't join the band of people who think it's over for us because of the long stretch of time. This COVID-19 pandemic is taken to leave. Don't believe the concept that staying alive is now all that matters. While you should stay safe, you should equally determine to make the remaining period of this year better because great things can still be done. You can still achieve the great things you plan to achieve.  Don't ever forget that tough times never last but tough people do. When this pandemic is over, where would you be? Would you be grateful for what it helped you achieve? Because what you lose on the stretch, you will eventually gain at the curve. If this video inspired you, share it with your friends. We love you.


By now, the numbers and scenes of people disappearing as they attempt to cross political borders to reach safety and better opportunities in other countries have become common in the news. At least 40,000 people have died or disappeared on migration routes worldwide, according to the Missing Migrants Project, which is based at the International Organization for Migration's Data Analysis Center in Berlin. The project has documented these tragedies since 2014, but those who are not talked about as much are the mothers, fathers, siblings and friends of those who have died or gone missing. Their lives are immensely affected by these disappearances. In this episode of Living Without Them, Stories of Families Left Behind, we hear about the families of the missing in the UK. So I live and I work in London. The UK in general is a very multicultural society. I don't think you can come to the UK and not find at least one person from a country or territory from somewhere in the world. This is Sia Konde. She lives in London, where an estimated 35% of the population is foreign born. Sia too has a migration background. I am a diaspora myself. I migrated to the UK as a child. So being who I am as a diaspora and the work I do on migration and development with diaspora communities in a city that I live in, in London, a city of nine plus million people with over 180 nationalities. I see my work in my everyday. For example, in the Portuguese person from whom I buy my lunch and when I walk into a cafe, for example, owned by a Syrian experiencing new art from Yemen and listening to sort of music from the South Asian community in the UK and maybe even learning more about say Ethiopian cuisine from visiting an Ethiopian restaurant. And so these three different areas of my life, my identity, my work, my daily experiences sort of merge in my everyday. She works at the International Organization for Migrations UK office. Where among other things, she undertakes projects and research on migration and development. In the past year, she also researched the policy and legal structures in the UK relevant to people who have missing migrant relatives. At one point, I had about six or seven interviews lined up on one day, which I couldn't complete. So I was indeed surprised by the number of people affected by this issue. This is Dr. Samuel Okiere, senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Bristol, who led the research with families in our study. The project sought to learn from people who are in the UK and who have missing migrant relatives. We wanted to learn how they research for information leading to their loved ones, how such a loss impacts their lives and how they can be better supported. Despite the UK's long standing history of migration and extensive laws and procedures related to the search of missing persons, this issue of people going missing on migration journeys to the UK is barely considered in public and policy discussions. There is very relatively so little understanding of the fact that there are many families here in the UK who are searching for lost or missing migrants. We don't know how many people have relatives who went missing on migration routes to the UK. What we can say is that nearly 300 people are believed to have died directly on the UK's border since 1999, including 13 last year in 2020. Another indicator is that in 2019 the British Red Cross, who actively conducts tracing on missing migrants in the UK, opened 1,571 tracing cases related to people going missing as migrants either in or en route to the country. Why do I even go ask questions? The police in the UK or Ghana can't help because we lost touch with them on the journey. And I am someone who can read and write but I am still struggling, so imagine someone who can't do that. This is a quote from Cindy, a Somalian woman who lives in Nottingham, who is missing her sister. Cindy is not her real name, it is a pseudonym chosen by her. The quote, like all other quotes from family members in this podcast, is recorded by an actor in order to protect the identity of the participants. At present there aren't any government protocols in place for people who are in the UK but whose family members have gone missing during migration. So in practice, how do families of missing migrants in the UK search for their loved ones? How families go about searching for their missing loved ones, migrant loved ones, will depend on a number of factors, such as whether they know for certain that their loved one has arrived in the UK as they are physically here in the UK or whether they are en route to the UK. It could also depend on whether the person being looked for the missing migrant is an adult or is an unaccompanied migrant child. Usually or normally the first step would be to, in reporting a missing person in the UK, would be to engage with a formal UK process. So that would involve reporting a case of missing to the national emergency help line and then the missing person's unit within the national crime agency in the UK would get involved in the case. However, this system is aimed at people who go missing within the UK. It is not available for people who may be missing outside the UK, except from our understanding in situations of say abduction. In almost all of the cases, our participants were not sure, 100% that their missing migrant was either alive or had simply gone out of touch. And that sense of not knowing, you know, leaves many in limbo and in grief and worry, just sheer anxiety about what's happened.   If you know that they are dead, you'll be more comfortable. But the problem is when you don't know whether they are alive or not. That's the main problem. I can't even explain it. The psychological and emotional impacts felt by families and friends while searching for or awaiting the return of their missing loved ones can be insufferable. This is particularly the case when they themselves have precarious immigration status. It can go unaddressed and people can fall between the cracks. A case which has stayed with me really since the research is that of a young man from Sudan who witnessed his friend Govinanda when they were crossing the Mediterranean Sea. And so he was one of the few who acknowledged the fact that his friend probably has perished because he saw him drawn and they were in a boat and they sort of slipped to the side and his friend did go under. He was saying they left their village together. They were friends back home in their community. The families knew each other. They were travelling together and any time he calls home his friends family have gone to ask his parents to find him and ask him of what's been done or whether their son's body has recovered. All of that pressure really had become unbearable for him. And he was one of those who had taken to drug use and in his case and in a few others they were we found also at risk of being sort of taking advantage of by, you know, for want of a better word, criminals here who, you know, try to entice those who are sleeping rough, those who are facing economic hardship here in the UK to become, you know, drug mills or to help themselves with drugs.  A lot of people in the UK who have missing relatives are migrants themselves. Some have been living in the country for years while others may have recently arrived. In any case, most of the families we spoke to were facing their own economic, social and legal difficulties. This means that despite knowing their loved one is missing, they may be hesitant to start searching for them. If you are struggling to survive yourself, you can't find someone unless you settle down. You can't look for them unless you have some way to live.  That's when you can really focus on finding them. But when you are not independent or you're in a strong position with your papers or socially or economically yourself, you cannot do anything. Joseph waited nearly two years after arriving in the UK before starting to look for his sister. She went missing during her journey from Agadez in Niger across the Sahara Desert towards Libya. Joseph feared that starting a search would jeopardize his application to remain in the UK. When people have their own pending asylum cases in the UK, we found that those with missing migrant family members were reluctant to approach authorities. A lot of the families, for example, would not want to bring information about their families who may have just arrived in the UK or who may be en route to the UK. To the attention of authorities, it may be considering that there is a risk in terms of whether or not their families will be able to enter the UK or in terms of accessing the formal systems in the UK. So unless they feel that the person with whom they are speaking can empathize or understand at least their issue, it can be hard getting access to them. Because of that hesitation from families, there's always gaps in sort of data, available data about missing people or inquiries from families. Tasha, a Somalian woman who lives in Bristol and who is looking for her father, told us, I was completely afraid of asking anyone else for help because I was an illegal immigrant and didn't want just anyone at all to know. I didn't even dream of opening up about this problem I was having until I got my papers. You feared they were coming for you any time you saw a police car. Even when people want to approach authorities about a case, they may not know where to go or who to ask. A lot of families start the search by engaging their own informal networks. So this might be people who they know in their informal networks have already gone through similar routes or journeys on routes to the UK and may have experience of how to go about the search. They may also involve their own diaspora community and utilize sort of wider diaspora networks, both in the UK and diaspora contacts elsewhere, say in countries along the routes like within the European Union or maybe in the North of Africa, et cetera. People trying to find their family members who went missing on a regularised migration journeys often rely on organisations or middle people who have been living in the country for a while and who know the systems better to act on their behalf. Where participants were in touch with such groups or religious bodies, for instance, this was the first port of calls. So many, even for the search itself, relied on these semi-formal, informal support structures, religious leaders of various sorts. Mainly Christian and Muslim were relied on for counselling and psychosocial support of various sorts. Community groups who had suitably qualified counsellors could also support with the search, but also trying to help participants deal with the law or lost loved ones. Because some of our participants themselves came from areas where there was socio-political conflict. They were fleeing wars. They were fleeing quite traumatic issues themselves. And sometimes they felt that, even when they had been referred to a professional counsellor, or psychologists, they felt the person wasn't really understanding the complexities of their issues. So having specialists to deal with this as an added support to the funding availability was also very important. Some also reach out to formal civil society organisations in the UK. In particular, the British Red Cross. The British Red Cross carries out tracing services through its networks of offices around the world, including for people who are missing on migration journeys. But even when the people are registered with the British Red Cross or in government systems, reunifying them with their family members who are looking for them or vice versa can be difficult. This is often connected to the existence of firewalls between different authorities in the name of data protection. Because the systems just do not speak with each other. So, for example, if a child, a migrant child, goes missing from one local authority that they've been placed in as a looked after child of the state, and they have found a few weeks or months later somewhere else in the country, you'll be surprised to find that they would not be easily identified as the very same child that was reported missing a few months back. And we've also come across examples from stakeholders where the families searching and the migrants being searched for are in the same city, but in different local authorities. For example, London has 32 different local authority boroughs. And so the family might be in one borough in London and the migrant being searched for in another borough. But because of this firewall, they're not being supported to find each other or reunify with each other. And in addition, we also found that adult migrants are less likely to be found than child migrants because they are less likely to have direct contact with some of these systems, like the local authority systems as looked after child or like the education system as a migrant child would because they registered it with the schools. The families we spoke with, along with other experts interviewed, suggest that no one actor, whether in government, civil society or the families themselves, can improve the situation alone. One thing which families think could help would be to establish a working group of relevant actors on the topic. This working group would include families of missing migrants but also community international organizations and government representatives. It could design procedures for how families and those investigating on their behalf could navigate cases of missing migrant family members. While such cooperation could start at the country level, the aim should actually be to build networks with other actors regionally and beyond, both to share best practices and to help solve particular missing persons cases. One recommendation will be for a dedicated body in the UK that would be responsible or has the responsibility for facilitating everything or things to do with the search for missing migrants. And this would include being the central body for managing or facilitating how the data from families and the data from disease are collected and processed and utilized and stored. And in addition, we also found that existing expertise within the broader missing persons focus in the UK could be further enhanced to include components that speak specifically to the circumstances of migrant families and missing migrants themselves and how these actors engage with migrants' families in advocacy and providing things like psychosocial and trauma support, et cetera, for these families. And a very important component involving the families, giving the strong experience of families in terms of conducting the search themselves and the fact that they are able to utilize their wider networks, so their diaspora networks and migrant community networks. The recommendation from the research and stakeholders is for them to be actively included in this space, for them to be formally present and represented, to advocate for their own voices to be heard, to advocate for them to be key actors to collaborate with civil society, with academia, with the state and state institutions on this. One thing that is clear is that all efforts to assist people who have missing migrant family members should recognize the expertise, knowledge and well-being of families and put them at the centre. This means addressing their needs rather than focusing on the security and criminal aspects of how a person went missing. The definition of family in cases involving missing migrants should also be flexible and take into account emotional dependency and be in line with cultural and other contexts. So we know that in the UK it's really quite hard to begin the search or to know where to search when you arrive. But also, as you said, there are lots of laws and protocols and services for searching for migrants and anybody who goes missing in the UK, really. But as you identified, when it involves someone who is in the UK but searching for a loved one or a missing person outside the UK, that is where the biggest problems are. So one of the other things which they told us would be really helpful, would be a sort of system or structure of organisation or body agency, whatever you want to call it, which deals specifically with helping to search for migrants, loved ones who have gone missing outside the UK. So this body, they felt, or this agency or this system which will help in terms of providing access to families and other stakeholders, will also help in to add more attention to the issue they felt would be really important. In the absence of specially designed protocols and policies providing guidance to families with missing migrant relatives, grassroots NGOs and civil society organisations are trying to help families find answers. So a lady came up to me once at an event to explain the circumstances of a child or girl who was looking after, she was a foster carer and this girl from Eritrea was looking for her missing brother. The brother had gone missing when they were both on journey, under the journey, migration journey, they had both arrived in Libya together and she got resettled onto the UK and her brother had gone missing. The last time she had heard of her brother was when she heard he was in detention in Libya and so she reached out to this lady, her foster carer for support to see if she could help or IOM could help to identify or find her brother and to facilitate communication between the brother and the sister. Unfortunately, just as the very week actually that we were trying to facilitate or reach out to our colleagues in Libya to see how they can help, Libya spiralled into an incident and the brother was lost so we still don't have information about what became of the brother to this day. Overall, there is a need for more safe legal migration routes to the UK and elsewhere so that people aren't forced to risk it all on migration routes that can lead to disappearances or even death. But also linked to this, you know, the availability of work someone who has a class, that sort of humanitarian contract and humanitarian visas so that other relatives back home in the destination areas who are searching could also maybe travel to the UK to help continue the search or to help with the search if need be. Unless the significance of the problem is made more obvious, the amount of resources, human material, financial and others that are allocated to it would also be similarly limited. Some people may have a hard time thinking about why this matters to them. But someone's missing brother or sister is also connected to a bigger picture. Well, I think the issues we're talking about are basic fundamental human rights. They relate to international norms and standards which all countries, well most countries have signed up to. And if you believe in the principles of liberal democracy, these sorts of things are what supposedly separate, you know, humane societies from archaic barbaric ones. We care for each other. We don't watch people perish in anguish and, you know, I think ultimately it has a wide societal global impact. Living without them, stories of families left behind is a podcast series produced by IOM's Data Analysis Center in Berlin.


share a couple of screens And we go perfect. All right. Good see you all. Good morning, everybody couple of things that are making some crazy moves this morning All right I'm gonna bring up just the the CLSN that we've been trading so far this morning looks like it's ready for it It's got a nice little fowl to flag first of all what the hell's going on? I'll tell you like the reddit guys Okay, the reddit traders. It's just a wake-up call. It's just showing you that You know that everybody wants to get into trading now And it was even more funny is that you hear the story about like these these the reddit traders went to get all that money from the Stimulus so it's funny. It's like that. They're putting it back into the stock market and they're trading with the like Oh, yeah, give me some free money. I'll just trade it's like it's like going to the casino and they says hey You come to our casino will give you a couple of couple thousand dollars for free So it's been working out great.  Just move it everywhere. I'll tell you I mean All morning all morning by the way, this thing was like it's ready to pop anybody in it because I still have it During that pop when we called it out around 830. So that thing is ready for some type of a tear right there Couple of things I'm moving pretty decent. All right, so we're gonna go down check them out But first of all a couple of really good moving stocks I want to talk about first of all all the pot stocks were just ridiculous yesterday Did I not tell you the pot stocks are doing pretty good now that they're taking a crack right now They're starting to take a little bit of a hit. I'm looking here a couple of them is now starting to reverse but um, But on the swing trade we did phenomenal yesterday. I want to start off with the TL our why It's starting to reverse now, but look at the long-term trade. Everybody here that was trading with us should have been in when we all got in right Around twenty five twenty dollars. I mean we watch this thing was breaking out of ten. This is all a short squeeze They do not supposed to go this high. Okay.  So pot's doing great. So that one did really well How about this one SNDL? Oh my god, this thing was literally Was it sixteen cents? I mean just the other day It was literally at fifty cents just in the ending of ending of January the thing shot up to four dollars and fifty cents This stock is trading look almost 350 million shares are they trade in pre-market? How does that even happen?  Now here are you being in the cyber group room? You already know this because yeah, that's why you're here But there are some of you here watching maybe this recording maybe watching live right now You don't need people come up to me and ask me sis Fausto. Why can't I not trade in pre-market? How do I do that? You know how you do that get in my trading room I'll tell you exactly how to do it because obviously you got the wrong brokerage account You're asking the wrong questions because some of you like I Want it like you know what people right now are in this position like TLR why you like I want to book my profit I got a book like I want to sell the eight o'clock. Oh my god. I'm getting crushed right now I bought it last night yesterday and now it's down to 54 Why can't I get out? This is what you got to do. Okay?  I'll show you exactly how to do it because if you're not in it You're gonna lose a great another run here. All right, by the way CL CL CLSN is doing pretty good told you probably did that little nice little Fausto flag right there Let me just draw a couple of trend lines right here. Look at that. Look at that beautiful Look at that right there. Look at that trend line. Boom Fausto lot Fausto Fausto flag pop right there exactly what we train for. All right, so that one's doing pretty well So we're doing pretty well on that one. All right You get back to my arrow. Let's go through some of the watch lists So anyway, there was a couple of things that popped this morning I did post up a couple of stocks there a couple of them didn't move But we're gonna talk about the Pinterest you guys hear about the news on Pinterest great little shrink trade I told you news came out that Microsoft actually was interested in buying the company. Okay, where they added a hundred million traders in it So listen, we don't this is very hard stock to day trade. Okay, very hard stock to day trade But we're doing unbelievable on a swing trade on the stock. So that's the really good news on Pinterest So anyway, so if you guys got in it, we're doing great on that one I'm only in about like five swing trades Okay, right now, but that one break all time highs actually we're looking at RCM T another big pop Oh, look at that. She's starting to make a big move Damn it. So I missed it You know what is sometimes when you're doing this webinars and you like and I started at a clock You kind of miss it. But anyway, that was another one. That's on the watch list and make a nice little pop right here What else we got here that I got on my wall. Um, that's gonna be on our watch list Judy and Norman made some nice money on the CLSN. There you go, Judy. You're in from 220.  Awesome. We're going to check that up. Way to go. All right, Judy. There you go That's exactly what we're talking about. Anyway CLSN looking pretty good Why can't I not type on my fat fingers? yo I get so excited to get it type Alright, there we go.  Alright, so that one looking pretty good Looks like a nice little pop right there. We got to do a little bit of long-term trading on that stock Look and see what's happening. So when I looked over here on my other chart just to show you what I got going on here so stock looked like it was a gap filled right here and Right now we're hovering You know, it's got it's it's got test this resistance levels right here at 65 I was checking over here on level four and I was watching it, too And I'm gonna bring that over here when I looked over here level four. You could see it It took a lot of these um, it took a lot of these iceberg orders out right here and it kind of broke out So it looks like it's starting to make I don't know if it's making a higher high But it took a lot of big block orders out.   How does the FBI bus people? They follow the money. How does the SEC bus people? They follow the money Okay, how do they crack down on Ponzi schemes? They follow the money. What are you doing?  At 12 o'clock. I got an open house.  You just thought they don't work Okay, you while they work if you're worried about the past we'll worry about the past you want to worry about the future Okay, that's where it comes down to follow the money a couple of the stocks on this watch list STRM Other stock very inexpensive stock cheap. It's kind of flat level one Beginner stock this stock might be pretty good for somebody that just starting out NX TD also came up on my radar this morning. She's starting to back off right now So maybe I'm not too a bigger fan of it She was good at eight o'clock this morning. She ran from a dollar eighty to two twenty But looks like she's starting to make lower lows. I'm seeing some orders thought she'll appear on level three ten thousands 17,000 share sellers right now. That's probably the reason why it's pushing it back down You keep an eye over here. Hold on. They got my chart over here There we go. All right couple of the stocks. I want to look at what else we got we got. Oh my god the zoom That was pretty cool this morning. What's going on with the stock the stock has obviously been a really good swing trade This stock was literally look at us in November. This stock was literally like it was five cents incredible, right? So anyway, she's moving pretty strong, but be careful. She's up a lot You want a consistency here when it comes to these stocks right here? All right, a couple other ones that are on my watch list GTE Another one maybe a scratch just went out. She was good this morning, but I'm gonna. She looks like she's crap right now Okay, so some of you guys are probably asking what's going on with all the Crypto stocks looks like they popped early, but they kind of flat So they moved early at eight o'clock this morning went from 39 to 43 Really huge fans of crypto go to the old videos. I told you about this a while ago That they're all gonna be moving But how do I know this? I just follow the orders. That's it just follow the order So those that's where that's really coming about Skip says house to just pop the RC MT like it wrong RC MT. Yep. Look at that. That one really popped. Okay, so we know that one really moved pretty good It just made a big move at 9 a.m. Remember that there are There are four moves. There's one at 7 a.m There's one at 8 a.m There's one at 8 30 and one at 9 and then obviously there's a fifth and that's at 9 30 So that's why we do a lot of our trading and pre-market you kind of deal with all the smoke it rid of all the the amateurs and We see where the where these market makers are setting and plotting and planning to get their trades Seeing how many orders out there, and that's why we love trading a pre-market anything else. I'm missing First-ever stock CT RM on on YouTube. Well, congratulations. Hope you guys enjoyed it She started back off a little bit. She's got it. She's got an iceberg order right now around 325. I see right here CL me bring it up CLS