NASA Satellites Creative Writing Self Published Books with Izolda T

I am so happy to be here. Kyriaki thank you so much for having me.
Definitely. You are a rockstar amazing person, and I just want to, you know, take moments to shine your light and spread your Joyce soul and positivity with, you know, all my listeners.
Wonderful. I'm so glad that we're getting a chance to talk. We met under the best of circumstances while learning together, so it's just great to get a chance to really talk and communicate. And I'm so grateful that you've actually been on my podcast before to my podcast called the creative mindset. While we were taking a standup comedy class together, it was so much fun and we learned a lot and we've kept our friendship and our partnership going and growing. And that's great.
Yeah, definitely. And since then, you're from Russia.
Well, yeah, I I'm actually not from Russia as much as I was born in the former Soviet union and the country that I'm actually from is called Moldova. It's a little south of.
Okay. And then are you keeping up with current times how the communities are doing there right now?
Actually, I'm not. I left when I was super young. I left when I was six years old, my family left the Soviet union and took a year long journey to get to the USA. We lived in a number of different countries while doing that. And because I was so young and when we came over, I don't know if your family had this when they came over to the USA. But when we came over, we were told that we should assimilate that She, that we should become as American as possible, as quickly as possible. So a lot of the sort of traditions and cultural phenomena that we might've kept up with, we really didn't. And on top of that, and this is going to be a little weird for anybody who's sort of a younger and the Internet's been part of your life, the whole, your whole life.
When we came over, just getting a phone call through to another country was a huge deal and letters took months to get anywhere. And there was certainly no email and there was no video conferencing. So
Around what year was this?
This was 1974. So it was a long time ago and none of that existed. So, so staying in touch, wasn't something we really did. And because of that, it's not really something I do now because I'm an American, you know, this is where I live and, and the culture that I'm most familiar with. And most part of is this one right here in New York city. Cool.
Cool. Okay. So yeah, after you went all over the place, literally you landed in Detroit, Michigan.
Absolutely. Right there in Detroit. My father was a mechanical engineer type person. And when were immigrating, what happens is they, they ask you, you know, what are your skills? And his skills were in mechanical engineering. And so they said, you have a choice. You can go to Denver for the oil industry or Detroit for the auto industry. And so he chose the auto industry. And so that's how we wound up in Detroit.
Very cool. So yeah, that's like one of our connections too. We're both European and we're both, you know, I was born and raised outside of Detroit, Michigan, so we have that deep connection and then I find out you do voiceovers too, which is really cool. And I love voiceovers. I'm obsessed. And so, yeah, it's just, it's so cool. Like we're connected in so many ways and I just think you're so fascinating and smart. And you are self-published you have multiple books, not just one. I mean, you have multiple books.
Yes, actually I do. I have six books that I have that I've released two to fiction and for non-fiction and I'm in the middle of working on Books, seven, eight, and nine right now. So there's, there's a lot going on. Yeah,
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just think it's so cool. Like I'm obsessed with books. Are you on the overdrive app or the hoopla app through the library where you can get free books, audio books, and eBooks are your, are your books in those databases to
Sure. Fran in the hoopla database, but I am in some library. So it's possible that my eBooks are check outable. They are, you can get them on Amazon and things like that, but both the print versions and the eBooks, but overdrive, maybe I actually, honestly I haven't checked. I should probably do that. It's funny how you can be in creative mode and create, create, create. And then you can be an editing mode where you're editing everything you've written or created, but then you have to switch sort of hemispheres of the brain. You have to put on a different hat and you have to do the business part of being a creative person. And I found that, that we, we artists break up into different categories and seldom is someone really great at all of those.
So that one, if I, if I have a something that I'd love to learn more about is how to do the business part of being an artist. Because I think as artists, you know, there are no patrons anymore. There's no one who's just like here create, I'll just pay for everything. So we have to know the business, we have to be businesses ourselves. In addition to being artists and creative people, we also have to know the business side. And that's something that, that frankly I would like to learn more about and explore more so I can get better at it.
I understand, I understand the, they say the left brain, the right brain developing both sides. I actually did that at a young age. I don't know something within me at a very young age. I just, I just knew, like I had my creative, passionate side, but I just knew like certain things that I wanted to know that I didn't know. I knew I was going to only be limited unless I went out there and just learnt it myself. So it's like, I was just like a self initiator when it came to certain things, which is how, one of the reasons I got like, I guess my go getter attitude, people can just go to the Amazon prime and Google your name and find your books. If they're interested in reading more about those topics, what are the titles of some of your, oh
Well to backtrack just a little, there are, there are lots of different places to find the books. You can certainly find them on my own website, which is Izolda T dot com where all the books are listed or writer dot Izolda T dot com is the fastest way to get to the books themselves. The first book I wrote was all about, and this one is one you might be particularly interested in giddy because it's about the ancient Al chemical elements, earth, air, fire, and water. And it's a self-transformation book. How to use the ancient old chemical elements to buoy up, to lift up the parts of you that may not be as strong. So if you're a very analytical person, that means you're strong in the air element.
And if you're a very sort of intuitive and emotion oriented person, that means you're strong in the water element and there are fire and earth and they have different characteristics. So that one, that book is all about how to bring up the other elements, the ones that you're not as strong in so that you can be a really focused and well-rounded person that one's called Life Elements. The next one is called Win The Day. And it is a really interesting book because it's interactive. Actually. It's all about how to focus your day. You it's interactive in that there are seven selector pages and they all have 78 numbers on them. And you close your eyes on, pick a selector page, pick a random number.
Let's say you pick 23 for the day with your finger. And then you go to entry number 23, and it tells you what you want to focus on and the call to action that you want to take so that you can win the day. And the third book is called Speak From Within. And it's all about how to communicate, how to inspire and motivate audiences, whether you're in an interview or a meeting, or if you're talking in front of 500 people, some of us get nervous. Some of us have trouble with it, but we can all learn to be better communicators. And that book is all about how to do that in an easy substantive way. And then
Greek to me
That you're a terrific communicator. And so, so yeah, so a lot of the books that I've written are there about trying to help people, you know, from very esoteric ways, like the elements to the last non-fiction book I've written is called get your stuff done. And it's a very simple, basic method. How to, yeah. It breaks everything down super easy. It's kind of like a journal as well.
I know, I know. I know people who need that book who need all the books you're talking about. So,
Well, there you go.
You have audios on them as well.
Actually. It's funny that you say that I've done audio books for other people being a voice actor, but I've never done my own. And that's one of the things that I'm doing. I know, I know. I
Mean, literally will it take, can you do like two in one day or like a day a book? I mean, that's something you should get done is definitely do the audio immediately.
Yeah. That's, that's actually on the plan for this time when we're all sort of self isolating, that's part of the plan in between other voice acting jobs that I'm doing. I'm actually recording. I've got the first eight chapters of Speak From Within done, and then I'm going to be just going through and getting all the other ones done so that the audio books are out. The eBooks are out, the paperbacks are out and the audio ones I hope to have done by the end of April so that all of them are done.
Okay. End of April. End of March girl, get it.
They're not short books. Unfortunately. Short books. Yeah. One of them short, but what about the other
Director?
Yeah. And the fiction books, you know, it's funny, nonfiction is much easier for me to do audio for fiction. Books are a little harder. You have to create the characters vocally and in your mind and figure out, you know, who, who you connect to as far as what the characters are. And there are a fair number of characters in the two fiction books I've written. So those I really need to sort of hunker down and really focus in on. And that's, I think going to take a little while, and it's been a while because the books came out a couple of years ago, the fiction books. And I haven't gotten myself to the point where I feel truly capable. And I know you're a writer too. And I wonder, do you have this feeling? Do you sometimes go, I hope that I'm a good enough writer to write this book, you know, to write this piece because
Yeah, definitely. Of course, of course, definitely in, in sometimes that has kept me from writing like any, any poems or just like anything. So it's important to have friends like yourself so we could get past those kinds of things and just turn off the mind and just start writing and, or even, even getting an audio and just start talking and just getting out of the head. Yeah, definitely. I know what you mean. So when you're feeling that way, just call me and I'll give you that extra push girl.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's really funny because I, you know, I'm a singer and no, no one is asking me. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love to sing and I I'm comfortable, fully comfortable with my abilities as a singer. So I never think to myself, wow, I hope I'm singer enough to sing this song. I just go out and I sing, write, and I teach other people how to sing. I've been teaching people how to sing since the early nineties and yet with writing, I've written six books and I'm in the middle of three more. And yet there are still times I go, wow. I hope that I'm a good enough writer to, you know, to do this peace justice, whether I'm writing for thrive global. Cause I'm one of the writers I know you are to you, right. For, for Arianna.
Huffington's thrive global. I love
Her. And she's my little Greek icon.
I know she's fabulous. I love her. I want to sleep more that every time I think about her, I'm like, I should sleep more because I know that's her thing. Nowadays
Sleep last night, I had two bowls of soup and I was in Bette by like 8:30 PM and yeah, and I, I had some voiceovers due this morning, but I, yeah, I just slept. It was so nice.
No, it's just interesting because that weird sort of self doubt, it's not whether or not it's not whether or not I'm a good writer. It's whether or not I have the skills to pull off what my imagination has envisioned. You know, I feel that way about drawing too. I know that I will never be able to put down on paper what I see in my mind, because I just don't have those skills. And, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with not being able to do that. But with writing that, that vision you have of the story you want to tell as a fiction writer, or even as a non-fiction writer, whatever it is, you've decided to, to tell I need to break it down. And in fact, that's one of the things that I've done is I've created a worksheet all about how to start writing your book, you know, because I needed it and it turns out other people needed to.
So I just made it available on my website. I'm like here, take it because I think we all have stories to tell and our stories are important. It's how, before there was actual written word, we told our stories for the oral tradition and being able to do that is crucial to us as
Yeah. And that's on Izolda T dot com. And the thing is, since it's a fiction book, sometimes, you know, it, you have to just let it sit on the back burner because you just need to download more information or just let some experience happen for it to come up. Sometimes it takes Writers, you know, a decade or more to work on one book. Maybe some are released sooner and maybe some others you take your time with. And that's how musicians are too, like producers and artists. Like I know, you know, a lot of artists that I've worked with in the past, they're like, oh, they'll like pull up their beats. And they're like, yo, I made this five years ago. Or, you know, and you know, Nicky, Nicky Scorpio, he he'll pull up something.
He's like, oh my God, I recorded this three years ago. And it's still relevant to the time. Or maybe it wasn't relevant then, but it's relevant now. So, so as artists, we, we all, we all have that. So you're not alone. I know like hit record. I love hit record and they have like collaborative. So I don't know with the Writing realm, if you would want to be collaborative, you know, some writers are isolated and it's like alone solo road just for them. But yeah. I mean, I don't know how it would be like collaborating with someone if you still feel stuck or having a, now an online writers' room or something like that for certain subject matters just to kind of brainstorm, you know? So that could be possibilities as well.
Sure, absolutely. I think that for me as a writer, it's, it's just about sitting down and doing it. You know, what I tell my students when I teach writing is sometimes you have to face the blank page or the blank screen. And don't start with the first sentence you want to say, start in the middle somewhere, start with the third sentence, start with the second sentence, because that first sentence, the beginning starts being so frightening for many people. And I'm like, don't be afraid of the first sentence, but the first sentence off till later, start in the middle. And I do that to myself. Sometimes I'll go instead of writing the first sentence of whatever it is, I'll go, Ugh, I don't know. And I'm literally typing, oh, I don't know what to write, blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. Right. And then I go onto the next thing and all of a sudden I'm writing, but I had to start.
And the key for me with any creative endeavor is beginning, you know, is just starting. You might not end up anywhere near where you thought you'd go. You might not end up anywhere near where you started, but that's okay. Because the creative process is going to take you exactly where you're supposed to end up.
I love that. Definitely. Definitely. Yes. Yes. So your podcast, the creative mindset, is that why you have that title, the creative mindset, because it sounds like it aligns with who you are and what you teach.
Absolutely. That's, it's funny. My podcast took, took on a few different names if you all. But I think that idea of the creative mindset, the one I ultimately settled on is because I think that's how we solve problems best. That's how we create best. That's how we live best is from that place of wonder and that place of curiosity. And I think you cannot have creativity without curiosity. And I don't know that you can have curiosity without creativity. You have to have that spark of inspiration to start something, whether it's a scientific experiment or it's a painting or sculpture or a song or a book or, or a dance, whatever it is that spark of inspiration is what puts you in that creative mindset.
And that's what I explore on the podcast. And I explore how to really sort of deal with some of the fears and the issues that come up that keep people from being creative so that we can all live in that creative space. Because I think that's where solutions to major problems come from is when we allow ourselves to have that curiosity and to follow where the creative mindset leads us.
That's how it's always been. That's exactly what it is. And now with, you know, the social distancing and isolation, more than ever, maybe people will take that to heart deeper and Deere and be able to, you know, beyond that journey of creativity, I think there's going to be a lot of great transformation out of this, you know, devastating time that we're all, you know, experiencing together as a collective whole.
Absolutely. I think you're completely right. I think after the first little while of holy crowd, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? People are going to go, okay, this is a, this is a different way of living now. And I'm sort of placed in the circumstance of being with myself, you know, the other day, you and I were talking about that about being alone with yourself. And when you're alone with yourself, you start thinking about all the things you wanted to do, but haven't had time to do. And suddenly a lot of us anyway, whether we like it or not are going to find ourselves with the time to explore some of these topics and issues and creative pursuits. And so I think you're absolutely right. We're going to have an upswell of creativity and people being out there with what they love, because why not?
You know, why not start you're here, I'm here, we're all in this together. So we can start and we can share, you know, both the joy and the sorrow of our creativity because the creative process has both in it. And I think that's great. I think that's a way for us to really reach out and connect with others who are in the same boat, even if they're thousands of miles away,
I noticed, and just yesterday I was on a community call. It was like a zoom community call with some voiceover friends. And it's going to be like a weekly thing. So, you know, people are doing that now to, you know, be isolated, but then come online and like share, you know, the creative process of like, this is where I'm at, or this is what I've discovered. This is what I'm doing. And so we can talk about it too, you know, not just be like isolating, keeping it to ourselves, we can discover what's going on and then, you know, connect and share that with one another in a healthy way. Okay.
Absolutely. And, and I think people are finding and joining communities about things that they might otherwise not. Yeah. Because yeah, because we have that opportunity now we are in chartered territory, you know, it's unchartered waters.
Yeah. I wrote, I wrote like Jason Silva, like I am obsessed. I, I love like, what he's saying is messages. Like, we'd be home. He's we friends. It's like, he's an older brother or something, but I haven't like met him or like talked to him yet. But I, I, I saw something he posted, I just, I decided like, why not? And I reached out to him, I wrote him an email. I'm like, yo, like, I would love to have you on my podcast. We aligned. And because of the times, and everyone's slowing down, people are actually like, you know, seeing things they normally wouldn't see or responding to things they normally would have respond to just because we're open and shifting and in new ways. So that can apply to everything.
And it also that openness allows for tenderness and kindness. And we can all reach out in that way. And, and I'm watching people help each other in some tremendous, tremendous ways. I just joined a group called invisible hands deliver. For example, these two college students started it like three days ago where it started here in New York city and people who are able, who are, you know, symptom-free, for example, can, can go and deliver things to people who are at risk and in need like groceries or prescriptions and hundreds of people. I think it's even in the thousands now are doing this because we have the opportunity to be kind to one another and people are taking the opportunity and running with it.
It's incredible to see that happen. So if you reach out to someone and you are open, like you are Kyriaki, I mean, you're one of the most open and wondering people I've ever met when you do that. I'm sure people will respond in kind because you approach people with kindness and compassion, so they will respond to you in the same way.
Ah, you're so sweet. Yes, definitely. Definitely. It's a practice. It's definitely a practice. So I've, I have a, a question. So we just chatted about like your amazing books and being a writer and stuff. So for the listeners who are advantageous, who are new to writing, or they have stuff sitting around, but they're frustrated because they don't have the means and the next steps, what are some steps and people can take to self publishing online while home.
Oh, wow. Okay. So there's a, there are lots of different things that you can do. It depends a little bit on what you're trying to achieve. You know, do you want to try and release a tall, huge market? Do you want to do what they call vanity publishing, where you publish it for a few people to, to purchase it? It depends on what your goals are. So I have a friend who's a book of poetry just came out last week and she did what is called a virtual launch. In other words, she got printed copies of the book done. She has them. And instead of trying to put them in stores, she did a virtual launch. So online on her website, she's got copies of the book that you can buy and then her people send them to you.
So you can do it that way. The one thing though, is that it, that will by necessity be a smaller group of people that you reach. If I were going to be starting from scratch and trying to publish a book first, I would write the book. Then I would put it aside. As soon as you finish that first draft. And by the way, when you're writing your first draft, don't edit, you use a different part of your brain to write. Then you do to edit. And as soon as the editor comes in and starts, you know, knocking you upside the head, then you slow down and eventually stop writing because you start analyzing, they're two different parts of the brain. You can't do both at once. So sit down and write the whole book, then leave it for a couple of weeks and don't do anything with it.
Then come back to it. And there's a wonderful book that I love that I've recommended to people. And unfortunately, I cannot see a copy of it right now. So I can't give you the name of the author, but perhaps you'll put it in the show notes. It's called self editing for the fiction writer. And it's phenomenal. It's a wonderful book that takes you through. Step-by-step how to edit your own book because no writer is going to write a perfect book, no Writers, it's never going to happen. So you need to set it aside. And then two weeks later, come back to it and approach it as if you were not the person who wrote it and then go through and really work on editing the book as if you are not the writer. And if you can't afford to pay an editor or a professional editor to write it, there are places there are groups like on Facebook, for example, where there are people who are willing to, to trade editing duties.
So they will edit your book. And perhaps you can edit theirs. Do you edit
So people can reach out to you if they need help with a Editing or the writing and stuff?
Absolutely. Yeah. The best way to reach me is his old at Izolda T dot com. And I'm happy to help. It's the thing you want to do though, is you want to make sure that the person who is editing your book, edits the edits, those kinds of books. So for example, if you will
Definitely the subject matter. Exactly.
You know, if you wrote a mystery, you don't want an editor that has never read a mystery because they don't want them or something. So yeah. So then once you've done that, there are a number of different ways you can, you can, if you wanted to do the whole thing, bare bones, you trade off editing, you, you get the book finished. And then I, you know, I love Amazon for this. They have provided a way for people to self-publish your own books from soup to nuts. So you go to amazon.com and it's called KDP, which is the Kindle direct publishing. You can do a Kindle version of the book without ever getting a printed version. But I happen to really like holding printed copies of my book in my hands. So I,
A lot of people do, but I really appreciate the audio and the digital because of saving trees and papers. If you're just going to throw the book away, you know, or value the books. So maybe like a limited edition amount of books, but with the social distancing and isolating, like a digital version may be the best to start for now, you know, and then like having kindness, compassion to not keep the shippers out there, shipping things around and not spreading anything. So maybe now is obviously not the best time to be shipping books around, but so maybe a digital version would be best. And then doing, you know, that other option later, if there was actually
Printed versions. Sure, sure, sure. And that's, and that's a really good way of thinking about it, like having the, having the digital version available first. Yeah. And you can always go back to the printed version, but once you've gotten the book written and edited, you need to format it so that it can go into a book. Right. And, and there are actually like on, if you go to, and I'm going to use Amazon as the knee, as the example, there are other ways to do this, but I'm going to use Amazon because that's the one I'm most familiar with. Once you do that, you go to Amazon, you download the template and you just stick your book in and you modify it to make sure that it's got everything that, that Amazon needs to fulfill the book to make it a Kindle version. You you're going to upload that book and then it'll be, it'll go through the Amazon process and it'll be available.
The thing that I didn't talk about was the cover. And if there's anything there, if there are two things that I would say you really need to get a professional to do, I think professional editing is really worth it because they'll help you catch things that you might not have otherwise caught. And I also think a professional graphic designer to create the book cover and the back matter is also really good. And do you do that as well? I don't, I mean, I can, for the last, what three books I wrote, I did my own covers and I just went to canva.com has wonderful book templates, and you can download images or you can take images if you have them. And you know, it will create the, essentially the PDF for you of the size book that you want.
And then you can upload it right into Amazon and it will, it will just be the cover that you need. But, but you know, I, I don't want to say that it's easy. It's not, this is something that if I have the money, I will always go to a professional to do it. You can go to something like 99 designs.com and you essentially hold a contest and people give you potential designs. And then you choose the one you want to work with. And then they give you the design. You want it there, you can do five or two, but I personally wouldn't, I have not found design on Fiverr to be as, as good as I want. And, and, you know, looking at this, like imagine going into a bookstore, if you see a bunch of books and the covers are all drab and not very good, you're not going to pick up those books.
The ones you're going to pick up are the ones with good covers
Designed cool
Colors. Exactly. So having someone who's got a good knowledge of design to look at and design the cover of your book, I think is a good idea. But if you are really going, you know, sort of bare bones with it, I would go to canva.com. They have a template for book cover, and you can just create a book cover, but then you also have to create the back matter of the book, which is sort of the what's this book about stuff. And that's the kind of thing where the last few books I've written, frankly, I have done it crowdsourcing. I have put up as Google surveys for my friends and colleagues to let me know which image do you like best, which covered you like best. The one that people responded to the most was ultimately the one I used for the cover of my most recent book.
The same thing goes for the back matter. I'm, I'm very lucky in that I have what they call Beta readers. Beta readers are people who are in your friend circle, or sometimes they're, you know, there are Facebook groups for this too, where they will actually go through and they will read your book and give you notes. They'll just go, I didn't understand this. What did this mean? You know? And so I, I have all of my books beta read because I, as much as possible want to make sure that just because it makes sense in my head doesn't mean it makes sense in everybody else's head. So I give it to a whole bunch of people to read for
Where do you get the Beta readers?
Oh, you asked, I asked people, there are, there are groups on Facebook where people like, like Editing. You can, you can actually get people who want to be Beta readers for your book and
Heard about barriers.
Yeah. And, and you can do that with Facebook. You can be a beta reader. And then at the same time you can have other people be Beta readers for you. I, I also did it with my friends group on Facebook actually is how I started it.
And how much is that for someone to do a beta read or is it more of a trade thing or about,
Well, I'm, you know, again, Beta readers don't get paid for this. It's something that they want to do because they want to help you out. It's really amazing. I have several friends who are really good at telling me when I'm doing things right, and really good at telling me when I'm doing things wrong, as far as the stories I'm writing. And no, it's great because the whole point is I don't, I want it to make sense. I want it to be compelling. And they read all of my books before my books come out and they tell me what made sense and what didn't and what works and what doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, and when you write your book, you can do the same thing. People I'll be a beta reader for you. It'd be, you know?
Sure.
Thank you. So kind of you, no problem. Oh, wait. Speaking of friends and growing up in Detroit, you got a two friends that you were in plays with and they've, you know, grown to be very successful in life. And let's talk about those people. One was the producer of Hamilton, right?
Hamilton and Brent and avenue Q and In the Heights. He's, he's a prolific producer. Yeah. His name is Jeffery Cellar and he and I did musical theater together in high school. We were in high school plays together in Michigan, in Michigan and Oak park, Michigan. Yeah. Wow.
Where I'm from. Woo. Yay. That's so cool. That's so cool.
Yeah. Well, there are, I ha I'm very lucky in that. I have a bunch of friends in the arts, but from Detroit,
From
The, from Detroit, from that area is Andrew Lippa. And he wrote the music and lyrics to the musical, the Adams family. And he's done a lot of other composing. He's wonderful. He's a dear friend and he he's fabulous and terrific. And he was my leading, oh, thank you. He was my leading man all through high school. We, we, you know, when we did a Midsummer night's dream, he was over on, I was Titania. When we did down in the valley, he was, he was the lead and I was the lead, you know, he was Brack Weaver and I was Jenny Parsons. We did HMS Pinafore. He was refrack straw. And I was Josephine. So we were the, we were the leads in all of the high school plays together.
When we started doing, he was a year ahead of me. But when we started doing theater together, we were, we were always sort of the romantic leads. It was really a lot of fun.
That's so cool. That's so cool. Amazing. I don't know. I probably shouldn't even say it, but I haven't seen Hamilton yet. Wow. I know. I really want to, but I'll get there. I'll get there.
Yeah. I mean, it's one of those shows that, you know, once Broadway opens back up, it's going to be around for a while. You've got time. So, and I just found out Lin Manuel Miranda posted on Twitter. I think he tweeted something that they did a recording of the original cast. So they have the actual video recording of the original cast doing Hamilton. And they were trying to figure out when they were going to release it. And it turns out September of 20, 21, they're going to release the entire thing of the original cast doing Hamilton. Yeah. So if you don't make it to the actual Broadway show before September, 2021, you're going to be able to just watch the video with the original cast and it's going to be amazing.
Awesome. Awesome. So, oh, you're really big into NASA too. Let's let's shift gears and go there because I think it's so fascinating that you worked at NASA
Did for a good number of years. Yeah. I worked down in DC at Goddard space flight center, actually in Greenbelt, Maryland, right outside DC for, well, from 1994 to just about 2015 off and on, I was a NASA consultant for a long
Time. And what does that mean? What did you do as a NASA consultant?
Well, when I first started, I was working with computers and then I moved into doing, I was, I was a master trainer for NASA, so they sent me all over the world to teach environmental science and
Then cute.
Well too, I worked for this program called the glow program, which is still in existence. It's a globe.gov and what it is globe stands for global learning and observations to benefit the environment. And what it is is it's an international partnership of students, scientists, and teachers, where the scientists come up with the science experiments, the science protocols, and teach them to the teachers. So the teachers can teach it to the students. And then the students go out themselves and do science on their local environment. Like they test the pH of the water in their local system, like where they are, or they'll do air measurements or temperature measurements are cloud measurements.
What kind of clouds are in the sky? How many clouds are in the sky? And then they take all of those experiments and the data that come from them and they enter them into a central database that's housed in Colorado. And that database, all of that science data is available to anyone in the world to do any kind of scientific research they want. And it's all designed to help benefit, to help improve our, our ecosystem, our biosphere. That's why it's called to benefit the environment. It's interesting. The entire program was envisioned by Al gore in his book earth in the balance. He said he wanted some way to take the science, to take this data that would then be available to anyone to use and scientists can't go out just Willy nilly anywhere in the world.
You know, there are only that many scientists, so why not invite students to participate, make the science very stringent so that the students will really have to follow these, what they call protocols so that the data are valid and sound. And the scientists don't have to go there to do. They don't have to go to ID Saba, Ethiopia to take that, to take those measurements, because there are students in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia taking those exact measurements and then the data are available for anyone to use for their own research. Isn't that the coolest thing? I think that's so amazing that they did that.
Yeah. I'm on the website now. I'm actually, I just followed them on Instagram too. Oh,
Very cool.
Yeah. And I'm going to turn my 11 year old Nissan to this cause they're my niece and nephew. They're really into science, so that's great. Yeah. I think maybe there's something in Michigan or something. There's probably probably a program there,
There are lots of schools in Michigan that participate. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Also schools are involved as well. Oh, that's
What the teacher portion of this is. Yes. Not just for individuals
At school schools.
Yeah. So there are lots of schools all over the USA, but also in, you know, in Bolivia and in Mexico and in, in England and Australia and you know, just everywhere in the world, over 110 countries, our globe countries,
You went around you in Maryland. When you went around, you went into this.
Sometimes, sometimes I was trained students how to do it. Sometimes I would train teachers how to do it so that they could then train their students. So it just depended. And when I traveled the world, I went to places like South Africa and Astonia and kurgastan and you know, California. So, so I got to travel all over the world to teach these protocols, to teach how to do the science, to anybody from students, to teachers, to diplomats, to other scientists so that they could then take that, that information and teach it to others. And that, that way the measurements could then be spread out all over the world because having that kind of a huge data set that's taken in real time is incredibly valuable to the entire, not just the scientific community, but the world, because then we know what are the temperatures doing?
How much rainfall are we getting? You know, what is the, what is the temperature, the pH of our water body. It's really good to know because when you know the pH of the water body, you know, what kind of fish and, and other aquatic life are going to be okay to live in that water body. Because if the pH goes too far up, or too far down, animals are going to die. So knowing that helps, you know, what you need to do to keep the ecosystem thriving and healthy.
Definitely. It's been raining in LA for like a week and this will still rain for like the next week. It's just like nonstop rain. But every time it rains, I'm like, oh, I love rain. You know, I just, I love when it rains. And it's just like, it's, it's a great way just to like be cozy inside watching movies and Netflix, you know? Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that information with us and water. Water is life, literally water is everything.
Water is life.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's wild because when I think of mass, I think just of like rocket ships, you know, and like scientists and it's just so cool to hear another element and angle of NASA.
It's really interesting actually, because a lot of people think, oh, NASA only studies the stars. Well, NASA studies, the stars, they all NASA also studies the star. That's closest to us, which is our son, NASA also studies planets. Well, you know, earth is a planet. So it's not just that we're interested in studying Saturn or Jupiter. We're also interested in knowing Mars and Venus. And most importantly, the one we call home. Right? So, so looking at the earth and looking at planetary science, and that framework means that we, because we're down here can study our planet the most and having that access, you know, a lot of, a lot of the rockets that go up, aren't just, they're not just holding like the James Webb telescope, which is going to be looking out way far into outer space.
A lot of the things that go up there, Satellites are coming right back down to look at our planet. And there there's a satellite that can, that is currently measuring the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. There's a, there's another satellite that's currently measuring how much cloud cover we have. And there's another satellite that measures what the slow moisture is. You know, because knowing that from way up high gives us an, a big overview, but then that's the genius of the globe program because knowing it from down on the surface gives us what they call data validation. So imagine if you will, you've got a satellite, that's looking at cloud cover, right? It's looking at how much cloud cover there is over the earth right now.
And it's going over the earth orbiting and doing that test constantly. Well, let's say it goes over Detroit, Michigan, and it says, well, we can look and see that there are Cumulus clouds and there are Cirrus clouds over Detroit, Michigan right now. Well, wouldn't it be cool if there were kids right down below where that satellite takes it, measurements who were looking up right at that moment and going, we see Cirrus clouds and Cumulus clouds. Ben, we have what they call data validation. Or if the Satellites sees, let's say 40% cloud cover over a certain area, again, the kids could be right down on the ground under where that satellite was going and say yes, at 12:00 PM today, we had 40% cloud cover or the kids go, well, actually, no, we had 55% cloud cover.
Well, that's different than what the Satellites said. And that is really valuable information because then you can make sure that you calibrate either the student's eyes or the satellite data. And that is invaluable information.
Yeah. Are you familiar with the Hubble space telescope or of course, oh my God. Have you seen images online of the Hubble space telescope?
I have. Yeah. In fact, I almost worked for them. They actually asked me to come work for them back in the nineties. And I said, no, because I was more interested in studying the earth, but all my stars, those images are incredible. That the, that is about that. Yeah, absolutely.
Mindblowing. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He's amazing. I'm just like so fascinated by him. This is just been a wealth of information and I am so honored to have you on she's all over the place. And literally I would love to have you back as soon as possible. If you're available,
I would love to do that. Anytime. This has been so much fun and such a pleasure to get to speak with you and to reach your listeners. It's really thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, definitely. Any last words of wisdom that you want to share with us during this time?
You know what I've been saying to everybody? My new way of saying, I love you is wash your hands. I don't even sign, you know, like I might say that to my husband when I go love you. And instead I go wash your hands. So yeah, I think that, I think to me, the most important thing we can do again right now is to be kind to one another and to be kind to ourselves right now, some people are, frankly, they're freaking out. And if you take a step back and take a few breaths and allow yourself to sink into who you are and to take care of yourself and your loved ones, we're going to get through this together. I really think so. So really that's it. I think that if I have any kind of words of wisdom, it's be kind to yourself.
And if you want to start something creative and something wonderful, the best way to do it is to begin today. Don't wait to start the thing you want to start. Start right now.
Literally right now. Yeah. We're in an w just like us. We're in action, right? We're in action. We're on this podcast. We're being creative. We're just doing it. We're like, okay, let's do it. And we're doing it. We didn't, we didn't know what we were going to talk about or what was going to happen. Or we had ideas or brainstorm of bullet points where we're like, let's just do it. There's no script here. We're just like, here we are. So, you know, we're here cause we love to be inspired and we're here because we love and live to inspire holistic. You're rocking and rolling. All right, cool. We'll see you next time.
Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Kyriaki, over and out.