Month: April 2023

News, Events, and Happenings on the Marinette Campus

The Driftwood is our student-centered e-newsletter for the Marinette campus. We’ll bring you tips for navigating life as an on-campus or online student, as well as entertainment suggestions.

• Northern Lights: Submissions Wanted! 
• Gamers’ Choice: Top-Rated Games
• Analog Games: Get-Together Games
• Music Reviews: All That Jazz
• Movie Recs: A Top Pick for Movie Night
• Podcast Picks: Spooktacular Podcasts
• Recommended Reads 1: Dark Academia
• Recommended Reads 2: A Dark Manga
• Recommended Reads 3: Our Librarian Recommends…. 
• Horror Hovel: Horrifying Anime
• The Trash Vortex: Food-Based Stories
• Local Favorites: Antique Shops
• Outdoor Fun: Ice Skating at Marinette REC Center
• Gear Up Your Garden: Bell Peppers
• Ultimate Hobbies 1: Birdhouse Building
• Ultimate Hobbies 2: Needle Felting
• Self-Care Corner: Music to Study By
• Faculty Profiles: Professor Rebecca Stone Thornberry, Theater
• Featured Poetry: “Soft” and “You”

The Driftwood is published by UWGB’s ENG 224: Practicum in Literary Publishing class.

Analog Games Editor: Ariel Rutten
Book Reviews Editor: Syd Morgan
Gardening Editor: Grace Desotell
Hobbies Editor: Grace Desotell
Horror Editor: Kana Coonce
Local Favorites Editor & Photographer: Kayu Brooks
Movies Editor: Jasmine Puls
Music Editor: Andrew Wiegman
Outdoors Editor: Syd Morgan
Podcasts Editor: Emma Krueger
Profiles Editor: Aidann Woodcock
School Tips Editor: Ariel Rutten
Trash Vortex Editor: Kana Coonce

Driftwood Advisor: Tracy Fernandez Rysavy

Interested in being on the Driftwood staff? Enroll in ENG 224: Practicum in Literary Publishing, available every spring.

Questions or News Items? Contact The Driftwood‘s advisor, Tracy Fernandez Rysavy.

February 22, 2023

— © 2023 by Jasmine Puls

You
With a voice that melts me in seconds
Your laugh a bright melody bringing with it a smile that outshines the sun
Lighting up my day with just a glance
Your touch electrifying
Sending shivers down my spine

— © 2023 by Jasmine Puls

Jasmine Puls is a sophomore at the main campus of UWGB. She is currently thinking of majoring in Psychology and minoring in Communications. She has been writing poetry from a young age and greatly enjoys English and writing. Jasmine says she found her passion for poetry from her mother, and the love only grew stronger while attending Renaissance High School for the Arts.

Submit your poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction to the 2023 Northern Lights! Click here for more information.

February 22, 2023

Humanizing Our Professors:
Rebecca Stone Thornberry, Ph.D., Theater

Flash! The lights illuminate the stage as the audience’s chatter is hushed. All eyes are drawn to the stage as the curtain starts to part, revealing the actors that stand in their disciplined roles. Sitting in the back row, Professor Stone Thornberry watches on proudly as the show is about to begin. Hours of rehearsal and arduous work have led up to this moment. It is one of her favorite parts of the theater: “I really like helping actors figure out their characters and watching the play come to life.”

Professor Rebecca Stone Thornberry is an associate professor at the Marinette and Green Bay campuses. At the Marinette campus, she teaches World Theatre and Performance classes. She has earned multiple degrees. Professor Stone Thornberry has a Ph.D. in Theatre Studies, a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. Before coming to the campus, she was an editorial assistant for a publishing company while simultaneously performing on the side, then later, moved to Colorado to study for her Ph.D. There, she wrote her dissertation, directed plays, and worked for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

Professor Stone Thornberry has the balanced experience of working in theater and completing her degrees, but her time on campus has been anything but uneventful! She described her life at the campus as “rather chaotic and unsettled.” Like a shift in the story, Professor Stone Thornberry went through a lot of changes since starting her job in 2011. She was the Artistic Director for Theatre on the Bay at the Marinette campus (the only female Artistic Directorin the theater’s
history!) from 2011-2020.

Currently, she is working on a new play for World Premiere Wisconsin and research on theater direction. This includes
‘intimacy direction,” which is a new field about setting boundaries and creating a safe and professional environment. Dr. Stone Thornberry hopes to attend a workshop about the subject.

With those years of experience, Professor Stone Thornberry has developed a teaching style that is warm but disciplined. She believes that student participation is helpful in a classroom setting, and you can bet that it is essential in a theater where participation is needed. Putting in that extra effort can elevate the group’s performance. Though, if other teachers are trying to develop their own teaching style, Professor Stone Thornberry recommends reading about teaching and interacting with other teachers. She also suggests doing workshops and professional development to help strengthen teaching styles.

Though she may move around between campuses, she certainly has the passion to play the role of leader and professor. As she described it, one part of her career that she enjoys so much is “how close you become to the actors and technicians working on a play. Everyone becomes a tight-knit group, and you really get to know people in a more personal way.” 

Top pet photo: Professor Stone Thornberry’s cat Tootie. Bottom photo: Her cat Delilah and dog Rigby. 

February 22, 2023

Music to Study By

If you’d like to be more focused and less stressed while you study or do homework, try listening to music. Generations of students have sworn that certain types of tunes can put you in a more academic state of mind, and research seems to back this up. But not just any old tune will do. To lift your mood and increase your homework output, try listening to the following:

• Classical music: A 1993 study famously purported to show that babies who listened to Mozart and other Baroque composers were more intelligent than those who did not. It has long since been debunked. However, in the immortal words of Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast, if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it. Classical music can help you focus on simpler assignments and other tasks, according to CNET’s Amanda Capritto. In addition to Spotify and similar platforms, you can find plenty of classical options free on YouTube, including this six-hour Mozart extravaganza.
• Ambient music with a pop-culture twist: When you have more complex studying to do, opt for ambient music, which blends background “white noise” with simple, tonal melodies. Ambient-mixer.com is a free site, recommended by past Driftwood editor Jasmine Hanson, that provides an array of ambient pieces with pop-culture themes. Do your math homework while listening to sounds from the “Gryffindor Common Room” (without giving the increasingly problematic J.K. Rowling any royalties). Read your English textbooks in the middle of “The Drawing Room at Pemberley” (inspired by Pride and Prejudice, of course). Complete your chemistry in the middle of a “Star Wars Jedi Temple.” The options are nearly endless, as budding composers add new mixes daily.
• Ambient sounds: If music tends to distract you, you might try ambient sounds, which provide “white noise” that drowns out background interruptions. The Nature Sounds Playlist on Spotify currently has more than 350,000 monthly listeners who turn to it for ocean or forest ambience. And a search for “ambient sounds” on Spotify or YouTube will pull up numerous options.
• Space music: Want something a little different? The free YouTube streaming channel Space Ambient Music provides 24/7 “space music,” combining ambient noises with futuristic spa music that might have you feeling like you’re floating among the stars as you complete your coursework.
• Movie soundtracks: While I’m still stuck on the rather mesmerizing space music channel as I write this, I usually listen to various movie soundtracks while grading or writing. Study-friendly options, all available on Spotify, include: The Living Sea (the soothing soundtrack for an IMAX film about the ocean, composed by Sting); Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (While I normally pretend the prequels never existed, just try not feeling as productive as a Sith Lord with a double-sided lightsaber when “Duel of the Fates” comes on.); and Gladiator (Oddly enough, songwriter Lisa Gerrard made up her own language to sing in on this lovely collaboration with Hollywood stalwart Hans Zimmer. Weird? Probably, but it also means you won’t get distracted by the lyrics.).

February 22, 2023

Needle Felting

Do you like poking things into other things until they ultimately make one big thing? We do, too! Needle felting is a fairly simple idea made into a fun hobby, and you don’t even need experience with knitting or crafts to take it up. Here’s the run-down:

What is it? Transforming wool into 3D objects using a barbed needle.

What do you need? Just three things: Roving wool, a felting needle (not a tapestry or sewing needle), and a felting surface like a sponge or foam pad.

How do you do it? Tear off a piece of your roving yarn, roll it into a ball of the desired size, and place it over your felting surface. Use the needle to poke the ball in a straight up and down pattern until the fibers start to bond and the felt begins forming. NOTE: You’ll know you’re getting there when your ball has shrunk up a little.

What can you make? Anything you’d like, but for beginners, we recommend something small that can fit into the palm of your hand, like a mushroom (consisting of two colors) or felted animals heads with less complex shapes (a bear head with one big circle as the head and two smaller circles for the ears.)

What is the cost? If you’d prefer to buy everything at once, a typical needle felting kit that comes with a spectrum of roving wool colors averages around $18-$30 online. If you’d rather start with just the needed pieces, the individual needles are typically $3.50 for a pack of two, the roving yarn anywhere from $8-$15 depending on how much of it you purchase. If things are getting serious with you and your newly acquired hobby, consider buying a needle grip, average cost varying between $10-$25.

February 22, 2023

Everyone has that one thing they enjoy more than anything to pass the time. It might be knitting, clothespin art, or even painting. For those of you looking for new or more challenging hobbies, we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ve picked out ultimate, step-it-up activities to push your perseverance and boost your creativity.

Birdhouse Building

Did I mention my grandparents are creative people? The idea of birdhouse building comes from my grandpa, who built many birdhouses for my family over the years. My family still has a few scattered around the yard, though not many birds seem to prefer them to the surrounding patch of woods and swamp. However, these are a great idea for open yards, gardens, and urban environments where trees are not as plentiful.

According to carriagehousefurnishings.com, these miniature homes were first created in Belgium and Holland sometime during the 15th or 16th century. Instead of wood, they were made of clay and styled like vases. However, these houses weren’t used to shelter birds from bad weather conditions and predators at the time they were first made; they were used to collect eggs—and sometimes the birds themselves—as a food source.

It’s also worth noting that North America had a version made of birch bark, which the First Nations people taught to the English and German immigrants during the 18th century. These houses were used for sheltering a variety of birds, and colonists of Williamsburg, VA, later used them to entice their flying friends into hunting pests. Today, birdhouses come in as many shapes, sizes, and materials as people can think up.

Do you have an idea in mind that will make this your ultimate hobby? Check out this tutorial to get started:

February 22, 2023

It may feel like the winter weather will never let up, but planting season is just around the corner! And whether you have a green thumb or have never grown a thing in your life, this is the perfect year to gear up your garden with some new gardening know-hows.

Gear Up Your Garden: Bell Peppers

Did you know that peppers are tropical plants? How about perennials? They’re a fruit, too, in case you were wondering. Fear not! We’ve got all the tips you need for growing bell peppers in our cold little climate, right here:

1. Get a head start. Bell peppers take a long time to germinate and produce mature fruit, so starting the seeds in pots in your house or greenhouse will give you that extra bit of growing season you need. Do so eight or ten weeks before your growing zone’s final frost, and sow them in the ground two or three weeks after that.
2. Be careful about placement. These guys are susceptible to the diseases left behind by other members of the Nightshade family (tomato, potato, eggplant), so be sure to transplant your pepper seedlings in a new area with roughly 12″-18” between each plant.
3. Make a comfy patch in the garden. Peppers prefer full sun for six or eight hours each day and require nighttime temperatures to be no colder than 55°F. Soil should be well-drained, sandy, and loamy with compost for nutrients. When watering, dampen the ground up to six inches deep, but never leave it soggy or muddy.
4. Harvest promptly. As soon as the fruit reaches mature size and color, pick it to avoid animals or diseases from taking hold. However, leaving it on the plant will add more sweetness, as long as you’re willing to fight off any unwanted guests.. When picking, use scissors to ensure a clean break.

Growing Ideas

• The Best Friend Method. Peppers will grow in pots very well as long as they have proper sunlight, soil, fertilizer, and water levels. They make great best friends for people who are without kitties to cuddle, puppies to kiss, and backyard space to grow bigger plants in (a.k.a. a good portion of busy college students). Please be advised, eating your best friend is only acceptable if said friend is a bell pepper!
• The Square-Foot Garden Method. This style of gardening serves as an alternative to planting in rows, utilizing as much space as possible regardless of what you are growing. While you can certainly be creative, most people build a square or rectangular raised garden bed with wood or stone walls, which is sectioned off in 12″ x 12” beds that are 6 in. to 3 ft. in depth. Soil is composed of a peat moss, vermiculite, and compost mix, underlaid with a plastic tarp for extra weed protection. Because bell peppers require a lot of space, only one plant can be placed in each section, though they will get along very well next to carrots, tomatoes, and leaf lettuce.

For more information regarding square-foot gardening, go to squarefootgardening.org.

February 22, 2023

Ice Skating at the Marinette REC Center

As winter winds down (or maybe, knowing our area, as first winter winds down and makes way for second winter), now is the time to get in the cold-weather sports you haven’t yet had time for. The Marinette Community REC Center’s ice-skating rink might be just the thing. It’s not strictly “outdoor fun,” as the arena is enclosed, but you’ll enjoy plenty of wintry air and exercise! 

Now through the end of March, you can rent skates and glide away on the REC Center’s expansive rink during the following hours:

• Adult & Family Skate: Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
• Open Skate: Tuesday, 3 – 4 p.m., Friday, 3 – 8 p.m., Saturday, 5 – 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, 4 – 6:30 p.m.

Cost to skate is $3, plus $2 skate rental, if needed. The Marinette REC Center is located at 2501 Pierce Avenue. Call 715/732-2006 or visit their website for more information.

February 22, 2023

Antique Shops

Looking for a personalized gift or a unique addition for your home on a budget? These antique stores contain homemade treasures, rare vintage finds, and local goodies. Each location is exceptional in its own way, including features that make them all one of a kind. Whether the store is organized by booths, which are designated sections with items that are from one individual, or organized by category, the stores below offer something to be found for everyone. I visited both, and I noticed some common objects, such as typewriters, records, and old-school board games.



Marinette:

Main Street Antique Mall (715/901-3315): This antique shop is located on Main Street, with eye-catching window displays that showcase vintage items, including a beautiful piano. There are aisles full of well-lit glass cases that contain endless shelves of valuables such as tableware, books, jewelry, handmade artwork, and collectables including cars, dolls, clothing, and sports cards. This store is also organized with booths that hold items such as glassware sets, rare vintage cameras, books, holiday decorations, and furniture such as couches, office chairs, tables, and dressers. In addition to the booths, there are pantry-like side rooms that have themes, for example, a room dedicated to Christmas and another filled with antique tools. I discovered a wall of clocks, which shows an example of the intriguing categorization and a reflection of the aesthetic of the store, as pictured here. Visit the Main Street Antique Mall Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Green Bay:

Allouez Cottage (920/639-6111): Located on South Webster Avenue, this antique shop has an upper and lower level and contains a wide variety of new and second-hand goods ranging from home and yard categories to fresh, locally made products. This store is organized by individual booths and rooms and areas. A large category displayed throughout the store is home décor, including signage, hand-painted stones, stained glass, vintage framed pictures, kitchen cookware, and glassware sets. Some rooms have their own theme: the garden room, the basement library, the toy area, and the winter and holiday section. In addition to the garden room, the outdoor theme is prevalent throughout the store with unique pots, lawn ornaments, and plant shelves. A great feature of this antique store is that it is age inclusive; for example: a toy section boasts Barbie dolls and action figures, vintage cars, and children’s books, and a significant section contains new and used Pokémon cards. Also, the area that displays the clothing and jewelry is categorized by type: there are racks of everyday clothing, a separate section for cold-weather accessories, and jewelry cases filled with rings, necklaces, and bracelets. There is a kitchen section that holds the locally made products: Amish Country popcorn, Maple Buzz maple syrup, Door County Coffee, and Artison olive oil. One of the most fascinating features that I noticed when I visited this antique store was the area of vintage photographs of either portraits, family photos, or candid shots that were for sale and also available as postcards. I saw several photos that dated as early as the 1940s. I enjoyed the stunning displays and coordinated themes, the support for locally made products, and the friendly service. Stop by the Allouez Cottage Tuesday through Friday from 12 noon to 6 p.m.