Author: Stephanie

Angry Birds Trilogy

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angry birds trilogyFor those of you unaware, Angry Birds is a game that was released by Rovio in 2009 as an app downloadable on your smartphone or tablet. In this game, you use your finger as a slingshot to catapult angry different shaped birds at green pigs hiding within flimsy makeshift shelters. The less birds you use to knock down those shelters, and most importantly destroy the pigs, the more points you receive. Once the pigs are gone, you can advance a level, earning yourself achievements and even trophies. Said pigs seem to laugh at you if you fail a level, making defeating the game all the more important in your mind.

In 2012, Activision released the Angry Birds Trilogy, a videogame available across multiple platforms, that allowed people without smartphones or tablets to revel in the glory of wiping the smug look off those little pigs’ faces when you knocked down their structure and were finally able to advance a level. Angry Birds Trilogy brings together three different Angry Birds games: the original Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio for a total of 19 different episodes, which, to make each game different than the downloadable app, gives players an exclusive new level within each game.

Don’t have an Xbox 360? Never fear! This game is available on multiple different platforms accessible through the library’s catalog. Angry Birds Trilogy is available on the following platforms: PS3, Wii, WiiU, and 3DS. Be sure to click each link to find out at which library the game is located. As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the reference librarians.

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg

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girl onlineSitting at the reference desk affords me the best opportunities to figure out what the people who visit any of the three Davenport Public Libraries like to read. Reading selection catalogues is good for finding what reviewers think my patrons will like to read, but actually sitting at the desk and talking really gives me a solid idea about what our patrons want to see on the shelves.

My newest reference desk plug comes from a string of junior high and high school girls who, within the span of two to three days, all requested one book: Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg. This book can be found in the young adult section and while that alone might throw some of you off and also send some of you wondering why there is a young adult review on this blog, let me tell you that while there are themes of first love and heartbreak and friendship within this book, there are also adult themes that I found resonated with me, even though I had to venture into teen land to find it. So let me tell you this: Instead of “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” maybe we should switch that handy motto to “Don’t judge a book by its call number”.

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg chronicles a short bit in the life of Penny, the girl behind the popular blog, GirlOnline, an anonymous blog that she runs online after she finds out that it is easier to share her real life and real feelings online than it is to face ridicule with everyone she knows in real life, or maybe a better way to word what she is doing online is to say that she is unsure whether or not others are feeling the same way as she is, so she posts her feelings and interactions only to be surprised that there are other people out there who feel the same way as she does. Penny, who is suffering from panic attacks after going through an accident with her parents, is supported through her online escapades and real life encounters by her best friend, Elliott, a gay boy struggling to get his parents to understand his homosexuality who lives right next to Penny and is able to knock on her wall with a secret code to let her know that he wants to come over and visit.

Well, Penny’s parents just happen to own a wedding planning business and, more specifically, a wedding dress store where they specialize in designing somewhat off-the-wall and different weddings. As the plot rolls on, Penny and her parents, Elliott included, are invited to New York to help plan a Downton Abbey themed wedding just around Christmas time. Could anything be more perfect?! Of course because this is a young adult novel!!! Once there, Penny meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming, tall eighteen-year-old boy who just happens to be the grandson of the chef for the wedding. This. Is. Awesome. They travel around New York together and have picnics together on a roof top and just when you think they are going to be parted, Penny’s mom gets asked to design another party, which means they get to stay together for a whole other week! Sweet!! Penny and Noah fall in deep like, but alarm bells kept going off in my head because it seemed like Noah had a secret too. Can’t spoil everything for you. Read the book and let me know when your alarm bells start going off. Mine were right when they met. (And all the while, Penny is blogging about her encounters in New York, anonymously of course). Anyway, Penny comes home and THINGS BLOW UP! Not actual bombs and stuff, but metaphorical “her life is over because she’s a teenager and no one else will love her”. Sugg’s writing was so good in this part, I actually could not put the book down and read it all the way through breakfast.

The reason why I am blogging about this book is because it shows people just what happens when you put your life all over social media. The consequences, the interactions between your real and online life, and the inevitable collision between the two are what really makes Sugg’s writing shine in this novel. Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, is a vlogger, someone who, like bloggers, posts videos online to diary and document what is happening in their lives. Sugg does this through her YouTube channel. If you visit the about page on her YouTube channel, there are multiple links to her other various social media platforms. She is a social media QUEEN, winning awards and such for her presence online!

We Sing 80s

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we sing 80sI love karaoke, but I’m not fond of the whole “getting up in front of other people and embarrassing yourself” part of karaoke. Let’s be honest: when you go to do karaoke, you’re stuck in front of people in a semi-awkward situation, and unless those people are all your relatives or you are a professional singer in disguise, you’re going to be nervous. Conquering these nerves can be accomplished through practice. A new way to practice, besides spending money on lessons or singing in the car or around the house, is to play a singing videogame. My favorites are the ones similar to Rock Band that show you note length and highlight varying changes in pitch, so you’re essentially learning the songs without having to pay for sheet music.

Some of the most popular songs to play on karaoke nights are songs that almost everyone in the audience is familiar with. I have noticed that songs from the 1980s seem to be picked a lot, so I was excited when I found We Sing 80s, a videogame available for the Wii, that provides players with 30 of the biggest songs of the ’80s (21 worldwide No. 1 hits!) along with their music videos for the ultimate 80s experience. Players will be able to play three different modes, from solo to party to karaoke with up to four people jamming together. If you’re unsure how a song goes, you can even take singing lessons and figure out how to add different effects to your voice. You can also change the level of difficulty to make everyone comfortable. So grab your friends and get ready to rock out to a night of Queen, Culture Club, Tears for Fears, Cyndi Lauper, and many more.

Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now Edited by Ann Imig

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listen to your motherAs most children will tell you, the phrase “Listen to your mother” is something that you hear from a young age to even adulthood. After all, mother knows best. But how do all those mothers seem to magically know about all those mothering tricks? Read this book to find out. Ann Imig has brought together a wide variety of essays in her book, Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now that draws opinions and experiences of motherhood and, more widely, from parenthood in general from the point of view of children, parents, and grandparents.

The title of this book may be “Listen to Your Mother,” but the views presented within this collection range from surrogacy to LGBTQ parenting to adoption to first-time moms to being empty nesters to special-needs parenting and many, many others. Some stories are heart-breaking, some are happy, while others still seem to be a mixture of both. Imig and the writers are voicing their tales of motherhood, the ones that they feel are uniquely their own, but have come to realize that the underlying tales of family are relatable across age, race, and family type. One son speaks of how he was raised by two mothers, two men discuss how it is to raise their children without a mother, while another discusses how her mother raised her to be strong and independent and how she hopes to raise her daughter the same way. Check out this book to read the hilarious and intriguing stories presented within.

Some of the essays in this book have come from the Listen to Your Mother movement, a speaker series with a Youtube Channel and a website put together by Imig with the mission to support motherhood by giving voice to motherhood and celebrating the diversity present within motherhood by live, original reading performed onstage.

The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers by Nicholas Irving with Gary Brozek

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the reaper

With the release of American Sniper(both as a book and movie), there has been an increase both in requests for military nonfiction and in new releases of books available to the public. We have many available for check out at the library! My newest military nonfiction read was The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers. Just like any specialized nonfiction book, be they medical, military, science, or sports, I approached this one with caution as I was expecting to be hit almost immediately with acronyms and terminology specific to the military that can be overwhelming to civilians. Irving does a fairly decent job of explaining what each acronym means, which I found to be a relief.

In this book, Nicholas Irving details for readers the many operations that he went on as a sniper that allowed him to garner 33 confirmed kills, while also spreading in details about his life and just how he eventually became the 3rd Ranger Battalion’s deadliest sniper. Irving focuses mostly on his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, where he gathered the majority of the kills that earned him the nickname, the Reaper.

What I found most interesting in this book were the descriptions that Irving laid out about just what the entire unit went through during those specialized combat missions and how he was able to notice changes within himself as he became more comfortable with the job that he had to do. Among the revealing descriptions of their operations, readers gain a behind-the-scenes look into day-to-day life in the military, Irving’s life before he joined the military, and the lives of the many men and women that he interacted with on a day-to-day basis. I found this book to be an informative read that allowed me to catch just a tiny glimpse into the stories of combat and brotherhood that many special operations forces are going through during war.

Irving discusses everything from the decision to take a life to protect another, dealing with the loss of fellow soldiers during battle, and how the bonds of brotherhood within the military as a whole, his specific unit, and with the different people he came into contact with throughout his military career helped form the sniper that he became.

If you’re interested in other military nonfiction, check out the books below. Click on the covers to learn more information about the book and to place a hold on the item. If you are looking to walk the shelves, the Armed Forces fall around the Dewey number of 350, while specific battles or moments in history can be found in the 900s.

navy sealslone survivor bookseal team sixno easy daythe outpostblack hawk down

 

Internet Safety

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In the last year, there have been a number of internet hacking scandals that have the whole country wondering just how secure the information is that they are putting onto the internet. The most recent attack being on Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, Established Men, and Cougar Life. The group responsible, the Impact Team, brought to light the fact that the company was charging Ashley Madison users a $19 fee to have all of their data completely scrubbed from their servers. The Impact Team said that this was not the case, that the users’ information was still accessible. The hackers are demanding that those sites be shut down or the personal and financial information of their clients will be released onto the web (As of now, they have begun releasing the information of some). Many other websites, companies, and organizations have been hacked, from celebrities’ accounts to other retail companies. Each article published releases information to consumers about how to beef up their online security and to protect their identity, as the information that they post online can be used to track down to them in real life, as illustrated by the previous hacks.

Here I’ve gathered my some tips about how to make your online identity even more secure. (There have also been a number of security breaches of financial information of people who do not shop online, like Target, Neiman Marcus, and Michaels to name a few, but this blog is going to focus primarily on internet safety.)

fingerprint face

In order to keep your identity safe and to use the internet safely, you need to utilize as many layers of protection as possible. Just being aware of what could possibly happen and taking the necessary steps to help prevent that will not necessarily guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you online, but will certainly make it harder for someone to gain access to your information.

Here are some handy tips to help you use the internet safely:

1. Be careful what you post online. Everything you post online will be there forever. Even if you delete your account, certain websites, like the Wayback Machine, save websites over time and allow users to pull up a web address and pick any date in history to see what that page looked like on that specific date. Most social media sites allow you to make your page private, so look for the safety or security settings within that account. Share only what you are comfortable with everyone seeing and don’t accept friend requests from strangers.

2. Create a secure password. Change your passwords often and make them at least 8 characters long with a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid easy to guess words and personal information.

3. Think before you download an app. Most apps request access to your personal information, ranging from your pictures, contact lists, phone book, and friends list.  On certain mobile devices, you can deny the app access to your personal or financial information and still be able to download the app.

4. Make sure you have a secure location and you leave the internet secure. This involves making sure that you have an https:// connection at the top of the browser and locking for a padlock up at the top, meaning that the site you are on is encrypted. If you are accessing a website that requires you to log-in, make sure that you are logging out before you close out of the browser or someone else can easily access your account. Never give out your credit card information without checking to make sure that the site is secure. You can buy a disposable credit card through your credit card company or through a retailer that you can load with a preset amount of money, so that if you are hacked, your personal information is safe and the only thing that is compromised is what is on that card. Use all the security options present on your device. Many computers, tablets, and phones offer lock screens, passwords, and sometimes even fingerprint lock options.

5. Be on the alert for scammers. Don’t give out your personal information online to somebody that you do not know! Scammers will try to steal your information, so don’t give it out over text messages, phone, mail, or the Internet, unless you are 100% sure you know who you are dealing with. If you are even the slightest bit unsure, close out of your email, open a new browser, and type in the company’s web address to contact them through their customer service.

6. Install security software. Run the virus checks and make sure that everything stays updated. Most businesses recommend virus, malware, and firewall protection. Some examples of these are AVG, McAfee security scan, Microsoft security options, and ZoneAlarm free firewall. There are other options available online. Do your research to figure out which one is the best for your needs. Some new computers come with free antivirus software as well.

7. Dispose of your personal information. If you are planning on recycling your old computer, make sure to wipe the hard drive; just erasing it will not do the job. Your hard drive stores all of your personal information and a not wiped one is a scammer’s dream to find! Make sure to recycle your electronics and shred any personal documents as well.

Check out some resources the library has available to help inform you on internet safety, online security, identity theft, and identity protection, as well as some real-life stories. Click on the covers for more information and to put these materials on hold!

internet safelyis it safeart of intrusionprotecting your internet identity50 waysstopping identity theft

Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, M.D., and T.J. Mitchell

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working stiffWarning: this book is not for the faint of stomach. Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, M.D., and T.J. Mitchell goes into detail about the many years of training and hundreds of autopsies that Melinek went through to become a forensic pathologist trained in death investigation. Melinek began as a surgical resident, but during her fellowship, she came to the realization that surgery was not for her. As a result, she switched to forensic pathology, a subject she had always enjoyed in medical school, taking a residency position at UCLA. She and her husband bounced between LA and New York where she eventually took on a year long fellowship commitment at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Background out of the way, I found this book to be a fascinating read. It is slightly gory, I’m not going to lie, as Melinek goes into sometimes graphic detail about the autopsies that she has performed and how they helped shape her as a forensic pathologist. The science that she presents throughout the book as well as the reasons for her becoming a forensic pathologist allow readers to see just why she is able to look at even the most decomposed bodies and the bodies of children in order to do her job. As she repeats throughout the book, it is all about the training. Her training added not necessarily a level of detachment to her work, but instead a level of understanding and skill that allowed her to treat every new case as an opportunity to learn something new about the human body.

Melinek was also working at the OCME when the planes struck on September 11th, so reading her input as her office was tasked with identifying the thousands of victims in the initial eight months after the tragedy was jarring, but at the same time, I was awed at the behind-the-scenes look that readers were granted regarding the rescue and recovery effort, as well as the volunteer and first responders’ stories. This book shines a light on all of the hard work and training that goes in to figuring out the mysteries of our deaths.

If the above description interested you or if you are looking for something similar, check out the books below. Click on the covers for more information and to be directed right to our catalog.

Mary Roach has written several medical nonfiction books, as well as Atul Gawande.

stiffcomplicationstrue nyrseon call traumareal doctor

Hot for Scots

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Summer is my romance novel/vacation read time. This summer’s romance pattern: kilts. Rugged Scottish Highlanders tearing up the countryside as they fight with claymores and dirks, display their clan colors with pride on their kilts, and fight to save their damsel, even when she’s capable of saving herself. That description may sound like the plot to many, many different Scottish Highlander romance novels and I tell you, yes, yes it is. But when that plot line lands in the hands of certain authors, it twists and molds itself into a beautifully crafted story involving love, fealty, family, and fierce Scottish loyalty. Here I’ve gathered my most recent Scottish Highlander reads. Enjoy! (If you’re looking for more information about romance novels, check out the Romance LibGuide put together by one of our awesome librarians!)

outlanderDiana Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander series, a total of 8 books with many novellas and other books added to the initial 8 books. She is currently working on the 9th book in the series. The first book in the series, Outlander, introduces the character of Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, who is reunited with her husband Frank as they reconnect on a second honeymoon in the British Isles. As they are exploring their surroundings, Claire and Frank stumble upon an ancient stone circle containing several plants that amateur botanist Claire is very interested in. One night, Claire is back looking at the plants when she walks through the stone circle and finds herself thrust into a different world. Dazed, confused, and lost, she becomes a captive of a group of Highlander men in 1743 Scotland. Forced to deal with circumstances thoroughly out of her control, Claire soon finds herself in the pleasure of a young James Fraser, known to his acquaintances as Jamie. Claire and Jamie soon are forced to rely of each other to survive. Gabaldon weaves the Outlander story around the delicate balance between Claire’s old and new life and the balance between her truth and the lies she must tell to survive. (If this interests you, this book/series has also been made into a television series – which is also available for checkout.)

My most recent Highlander romance series read was the Scandalous Highlanders series by Suzanne Enoch. I just finished mad, bad, dangerous in plaidreading Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid, the third book in this series with a fourth due to release in October. I picked this book up not realizing that it wasn’t the first book until I was about halfway through and by then I was too hooked to start the series at the beginning. In this book, we find Rowena MacLawry has escaped the Highlands and run away to London to have her debut season after her brothers have expressly told her she could not. She returns home to the Highlands with a large number of her sophisticated English ladies and lords in tow to help plan the wedding of one of her brothers. Rowena, or Winnie as she is known to her brothers and to the dashing Lachlan MacTier, has brought along these sophisticated men to hopefully find a husband and to prove to everyone that she is over her 18-year crush and obsession over Lachlan. As soon as Winnie expresses her disdain for Lachlan, he realizes that maybe he doesn’t want her giving up on him just yet. A humorous and disastrous mix of complications plague the wedding preparations and Winnie and Lachlan are forced to come up with a rather ingenious plan to make sure everyone ends up happy. I recommend that you check out the first book in the series, The Devil Wears Kilts, and the second book, Rogue with a Brogue, before reading the third. Also keep an eye out for the release of the fourth!

There are many, many other Scottish Highlander romance novels, but these are just my memorable ones from this summer’s reading, so if you’re interested in more Highlander romance novels, check out this list that collects from all three Davenport Libraries and contains some of the Highlander romance novels we own.

(Handy tip: If you’re reading a romance novel and aren’t sure whether it is the first in a series, check to see if there are siblings to the main character and whether or not any of them are married or in a serious relationship. If this is true, you most likely are not reading the first in the series. This is a generality and is not always true. Just something I’ve noticed. When in doubt, contact us at the library and we can check.)

The Dreaded Summer Slide

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Since we’re deep in the midst of summer vacation and hopefully none of the kids that you know are stuck in summer school, everyone is free to explore and run and, most importantly, not have to worry about getting up early and going to school. This break brings a conundrum to light as both parents and teachers begin to worry about the summer slide, also known as the time when kids start forgetting the important things they learned in the school year while they are on summer vacation.

How do we, as educators, parents, librarians, babysitters, etc, combat this? By making learning fun. Sure, we could bring home big tomes from the library and tell our kids that they have to read a certain set of pages before they can go outside and play, but the resulting struggle will instead leave everyone frustrated and angry and wishing they had something to bash their heads against. Let me help you avoid the agony and present you with some exciting and less injurious options. Let’s focus today’s blog post on history and alternative methods of learning, shall we? Read on!

hip-hop us historyI don’t know about you, but my difficulties in remembering things in school, and especially over summer vacation, always revolved around history. Blurgh. Textbooks made me fall asleep, I was always mixing dates around in my head, and THEN I discovered Hip-Hop U.S. History: The New and Innovative Approach to Learning American History. (I had found other similar works, not by the same authors, ranging from mixing poetry and music to math and music, but this, by far, was my favorite.) Blake Harrison and Alex Rappaport created Flocabulary, a website for teachers and school districts to find ways to teach anything ranging from social studies to languages arts to math and science to kids of all ages, but I particularly enjoyed this book. Number 1 reason: It has a CD of all the songs inside of it AND has an actual list of the lyrics! Each song has its own dedicated chapter with the lyrics broken down and explained in better detail. Be still your heart if you think this book is still boring. It’s not! Pictures are also added with quotations from that time period, perspectives pieces, and little biographies of the important people. You learn without actually realizing you’re learning! (And you’ll also have a few catchy songs stuck in your head to help you remember those pesky dates and important historical details!)

crashcourse

Let me share with you my most delightful learning find. This is the Crash Course YouTube channel, put together by none other that John Green, his lovely brother Hank, and two of their friends, Phil Plait and Craig Benzine. If these names sound familiar, yay! If not, let me introduce you to John Green, a writer of young adult books with works such as The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He and his brother, Hank Green, also have another YouTube channel called Vlogbrothers, where they send videos to each other, but these are far less about learning, so let’s focus on Crash Course. Here you will find videos on literature, ecology, biology, world history, US history, chemistry, and psychology, and many more. I got hooked on the literature ones, where John discusses anything from authors to books to poetry and adds his own unique spin. Each video is animated and punch filled with learning and facts and humor and keeps you on the edge of your seat wanting to learn more. I highly recommend you check them out for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments below.

This blog post gives you a glimmer of some of the things I’ve found that have helped with my own learning. I’ve got more ideas rolling around in my head, so keep checking back. If you’re looking for different ways to engage the kids you know or are maybe curious for yourself about new ways to learn old things, contact us at the library and we’d be glad to help you!

Trinity Test and the Manhattan Project

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bomb2July 16, 2015 marks the 70th Anniversary of the Trinity Test. What’s the Trinity Test? This was the first successful test of the atom bomb at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. This site was flat and located relatively close to Los Alamos where the bombs were designed and produced. This section of land was given the code-name “Trinity” and thus July 16, 1945 was known as the Trinity Test. (Interesting fact: The Trinity Test Site is open twice a year for visitors, once in April and once in October. This is the article discussing this year’s visits. )

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret research and development project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. President Roosevelt signed the order for the initial research committee in 1942 which eventually went through many iterations to become the core Manhattan Project group. Major General Leslie Groves was put in charge of the project from 1942 to 1946 and was the person who brought on Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist who was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the site that designed the actual bombs.

Secret facilities were popping up all over the country with the express purpose of manufacturing different parts of the bombs, for researching different aspects, and for trying out different methods. Everything was top-secret. Oppenheimer recruited the top scientists in their fields without being able to tell them what exactly they would be working on, except that it had a possibility of helping them end the war.

With so little information to go off of, many scientists packed up their families to move to Los Alamos, where they lived and worked in isolation, not even able to discuss their work within their own families. Everything was kept secret and compartmentalized.

This blog is just an introduction to the Trinity Test and the Manhattan Project. If the description above interested you, check out the resources below.

trinityTrinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm gives a detailed history, not just on the Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test, but the very beginning of atom research, in laboratories of nineteenth-century Europe all the way to the Trinity Test.

This graphic novel goes into incredible detail about all the people involved in the history of the atom and its discovery. While most histories of the atomic bomb tend to focus on and use more scientific terms, Fetter-Vorm is able to include pictures and drawings through the graphic novel format that allow for a better conceptual understanding of a nuclear reaction and how atoms split. Readers are transported into the labs and lives of Major General Leslie Groves, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the other brilliant scientists who brought to life atomic bombs and ushered in a new era of warfare.

After the successful test of the atomic bomb, Fetter-Vorm then goes on to illustrate the decisions behind the dropping of the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This graphic novel is an excellent depiction of what life was like for those directly and indirectly involved in the making of the first atomic bomb.

manhattan season1What initially reminded me of the Trinity Test’s anniversary was when I started watching season one of Manhattan. This television series follows the many scientists as they work to build the world’s first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico and the struggles that their families go through moving to the middle of nowhere, being cut off from everyone outside the community, and being kept in the dark about what their family members are doing.

This show really hooked me because in addition to all the science and descriptions of the different models they were building, it also deals with the bureaucracy of this governmental entity, how they have to finagle getting supplies since where they are is only a P.O. Box and not an actual address, and how secrets and gossip run rampant through the entire community, fueling the suspicions that multiple people are spies and that others are committing treason. Tensions run high, both between the individual families and the two different science camps, each competing against the other to have the first successful atomic bomb design and then test.

Check out this television show to gain a better understanding of the complex secrecy of the Manhattan Project and how the segmentation of their lives, in addition to bringing immense tension, in the end allowed work to secretly flourish and bring together an explosive ending.