Jennifer Small bio picture

Jennifer Small




I am a freelance writer and copyeditor living in the Bay Area.  I have expereince in editorial, web content, and marketing communication.  Here you will find a varitey of my writing samples and some of my photography projects.


Editing Excerpt from Chapter 5: Teaching in Japan

Keiko Fukuda Sensei

I arrived in the port of Nagoya after traveling to Japan on a cargo ship named the Teinsin. I traveled by train to Tokyo Central Station where Kitaoka Sensei greeted me warmly with a beautiful smile. After getting my luggage into a taxi, Kitaoka Sensei took me to a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese Inn, just across the road from the Kodokan Judo Institute.

I first met Keiko Fukuda Sensei in 1964 and I will always remember her kindness when I arrived in Japan. We established an immediate rapport. The morning after I arrived, Keiko Fukuda greeted me and introduced herself. I was extremely honored to meet her. She assisted me while I moved my luggage by taxi to a boarding house ran by Donn F. Draeger, then the Chief Instructor of the Foreign Students Division of the Kodokan. The boarding house was located in the Ichigaya district of Tokyo.

As fast as I could catch my breath and grab my judogi, Fukuda Sensei whizzed me off to the Kodokan Judo Institute. After a quick introduction to several instructors, she proceeded to enroll me and take care of all formalities. I could not speak or write Japanese, so Sensei filled in the details for me. Soon after, I found myself bowing in for the commencement of Shochugeiko: the summer training course conducted on the hottest, most humid days of the Japanese summer.

The women’s division area was packed to capacity with female students from all prefectures of Japan and two foreign students: myself and Sheila Mainland from Canada. I was extremely pleased to meet Sheila and have someone to speak English with. We soon became good friends. Sheila was kind enough to brief me on the rules and regulations at the Kodokan, such as dojo etiquette, or Reigisaho, which is the first essential training for students aspiring to become black belts, also called Yudansha…

Written by Pat Harrington

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Orange is Green! April 2009 Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Gene X. Hwang (415) 255-7478 x820

Just In Time For Earth Day:
Orange Is Green!

San Francisco, CA – On April 13th Orange Photography was officially certified
“green” by the San Francisco Department of the Environment’s Green Business
Program, making them the only recognized “green” photography studio in the city
and county of San Francisco.

The process began in 2008 when founders Gene X. Hwang and Jack Huynh
applied for their green audit. The criteria include compliance with environmental
regulations, conservation efforts, and pollution prevention. They also had to show
green initiatives that benefit their employees, clients, community, and the growth of
their business:

• 80% of the studio’s employees walk or bike to work.
• The Orange workplace is anti-waste and environmentally friendly.
• By going green the company has lowered costs: two examples include
green transactions (e.g., online paperless (and postage-less) billing)
and online image galleries.
• Clients reduce their environmental impact by receiving “digital
souvenirs” such as free-image downloads for event attendees and web
slideshows.

“Our photography is cutting edge, as is the way we do business and address
social responsibility as a company,” says CEO Gene Hwang. Along with their green
campaign, the company also has a Social Photography program that has served 60+
non-profit organizations in the Bay Area over the past eight years.

About Orange Photography
Orange Photography is a full service agency providing corporate, wedding, and
lifestyle photography. They have been serving the Bay Area for 8 years, and are
located at 1261 Howard Street.

Supporting Website Links
Orange Photography
San Francisco Green Business

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Orange Photography Success Story: Louise Jardell, Events Manager for the San Jose Museum of Art

Taken by Team Orange

taken by Team Orange

Challenge

Event Manager for the San Jose Museum of Art, Louise Jardell, was brought on board to create a revenue-generating department to promote the Museum as a special events venue. She needed a portfolio that expressed the ambiance of the space, as well as photography that complimented the Museum’s contemporary presence in the art community.

Louise first worked with Orange Photography in 2004. At that time a client personally hired Orange to shoot an event held at the Museum. While working with Orange at this and future events, Louise saw how Orange was capturing the Museum, and recognized that she could collaborate with them to convey exactly what she was looking for in regard to creating a promotional portfolio for the Museum. From there the relationship took on a new depth and dimension.

Solution

Promotional Portfolio
Orange’s solution was to produce a promotional portfolio from the archived images of previous events held at the Museum, delivered in the form of an elegant Asuka Coffee Book. Now used by Louise to sell the Museum as a venue, she explains, “It is the main tool that we use, other than the site visit, to sell the client on the use of the facility. It’s very much an integral part of our sales process.” Louise also sends her clients an Orange Photography produced CD compilation of images.

Event Documentation
Another form of collaborative work Orange does for the Museum, is documentation of the design and production of specific events. When Apple Computer used the Fairmont Plaza and Museum to host 1,200 people for an employee appreciation event, Louise shares, “We used Orange to document the set up and the actual event. We now have that as a record to show other clients who are interested in using that space, just how we orchestrate the production of that type of a large event.” (more…)

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INTESCI: Journal of the College of Science & Engineering


NASA Expeditionary Learning for San Francisco State Pre-Service Science & Mathematics Teachers

Each night, strong winds crashed against the loose window frames of an adobe-style dormitory building in a remote section of the Mojave Desert.  A series of Pacific storms pushed cold fronts across Southeastern California, reaching this desert setting as chilling, arid blasts. The Zzyzx Desert Studies Center, located 60 miles east from Barstow on a winding dirt road, is a field station of the California State University system that accommodates up to 75 individuals. It sits just west of a desolate lake bed called Soda Dry Lake, framed by flat terrain ringed by parched mountains that appear purple in the distance. This stark setting served as a backdrop for a lively field tip, the Spaceward Bound Mojave 2008 expedition, attended by the top planetary scientists, biologists, and geologists in the nation and by future science and math teachers from San Francisco State University. Their goal? To study life in extreme environments while inspiring better science education for California’s children.

By day 14 SFSU students—each working in a certificate or degree program to become a math or science teacher—met with a variety of specialized scientists whose work is supported by NASA. Dr. Chris McKay, for example, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames in Mountain View, lead the expedition. Dr. Penny Boston, a microbiologist from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, came to collect samples of microbial life living in extreme conditions. Together, the 33 Spaceward Bound members hiked up extinct volcanoes, explored a ‘field’ of ancient lava tubes, and collected samples of heat-seared crust from the desert floor. Both the researchers and their student counterparts were carrying out “Mars analog” research for our nation’s space agency. They used the extreme Mojave environment as an analog for extraterrestrial habitats and studied the adaptations of earthly microorganisms for clues as to how life may once have lived on Mars. Armed with such information about our planer’s toughest survivors, NASA scientists hope to design better remote experiments for their Mars missions.

On day two of the four-day expedition, April 7th, 2008, in the unforgiving midday sun, scientists and students sat at a crustal site on the desert floor trying to come up with a remedy for a malfunctioning device. Ashley Gam, a student in the science teacher credential program, recalls, “The device was supposed to measure the thickness of the crust, and to quantify that, it measured the amount of force necessary to break the crust.” Unfortunately, the device proved too weak for the task. In the spirit of ingenuity everyone tossed out ideas and searched around for makeshift materials to add weight to an attached bucket; sand, rock, even quarters from their own pockets. “The bucket they had wasn’t big enough,’ Gam continues, “so they tried using rocks, but they couldn’t fit them in the bucket. They partially solved this problem by using sand, which used all the space in the bucket. They then bagged the sand in zip lock bags and weighed it back at the camp.” (more…)

by Jennifer

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realize3D | Legal Overview

realize3dPresent effective and complex evidence with realize3D models and strengthen your next case. Our physical models help tell your story.

A physical representation of complex legal arguments creates a clear, persuasive, and memorable foundation that elucidates the heart of the evidence.

Compelling evidence that is viewable and tangible for the court, sends a strong message to opposing counsel and decision makers that you have prepared a competent case.

People learn better when a visual representation compliments the verbal explanation. Seeing a model of the evidence work -or fail- augments understanding of the issue. Models can be used to take witness ‘theory’ and either prove, or disprove, credibility.

Visual demonstratives help produce successes in legal briefs, Markman hearings, focus groups, settlement hearings, and trials. Whether you are consulting with experts, or litigating a class-action case, models have a large range of applications. realize3D models are cost-effective and compliment images, animations, photos, text, and depositions.

As our client, you have access to your product anytime, anywhere, via our secure, password-protected website. All work is quickly within your reach for real time review, and downloadable to your office or trial war room.

realize3D works to make your evidence understood.

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Yoga Bear Grant

yogabeartitle_stretched

Note

This document was created during Yoga Bear’s inception. The contents no longer reflect the current organization’s goals or intentions.

Executive Summary

Yoga Bear is a volunteer based non-profit 501(c)(3) that incorporated in December 2006 in San Francisco, California. Founder and Executive Director, Halle Tecco, envisioned a synergistic way to bring yoga studios and instructors together, with cancer patients and survivors, to offer free yoga instruction in the Bay Area. Yoga Bear has provided on-site classes to constituents at Kaiser Permenante, The American Cancer Society for events such as Relay for Life, and at Shanti’s L.I.F.E. Institute. Currently they work with 22 Bay Area yoga studios. To date, approximately 300 participants lives have been touched by this program. Yoga Bear also volunteers assistance for studios creating their own programs that offer free non-registration, on-site yoga classes for cancer patients and survivors. Yoga Bear is creating a supportive community for its constituents through their devotion to the well being of cancer patients and survivors during and after cancer treatment.

Yoga Bear’s efforts to bring yoga studios in contact with the cancer community not only enhances the quality of life for the constituents, but also helps studios become exemplary role models within their own communities. Providing yoga instruction to those with limited incomes due to treatment costs, is Yoga Bear’s top priority. Because of the success of the program, Halle Tecco is seeking funding to hire a Program Director with prior non-profit experience, particularly in the field of cancer and wellness programs. On behalf of Yoga Bear, she is seeking funding of $$$ to fill this part-time position.

Organizational Information

While interning at Columbia Hospital – St. Luke’s Roosevelt, Halle Tecco, Yoga Bear Founder, read an article about research concerning how yoga could benefit cancer patients. Now a financial analyst, Halle explains:

I naturally thought about the marginal costs involved in studios offering free spaces to those who could, or would not have participated otherwise. It would cost a studio virtually nothing, yet make such a difference in someone’s life!

Because wellness programs like yoga are not covered by insurance; because of the heavy financial burden of cancer treatment; and because of the ease with which yoga studios could get involved, Halle created Yoga Bear.

The Bay Area proved to be the perfect location to start this innovative organization. Most recently Yoga Bear has extended to include two sister chapters in New York City and Washington D.C. Within a year it established 20 participating studios in the Bay Area and four studios in the newest addition in Washington D.C. By creating a collective of participating yoga studios, Yoga Bear offers convenient locations for its constituents. (more…)

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Mains Associate Project: Joan Vernikos Bio

g-connectioncoverDr. Joan Vernikos is a published author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant. She is the former Director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division (1993-2000) and President of Thirdage, LCC.

Based on the international success of her first book, The G-Connection: Harness Gravity and Reverse Aging, she again is pursuing her passion for communicating the social and health benefits of space research to the general public with a follow up “how-to” guide. This sequel provides readers with ways of adapting their lifestyle by using gravity efficiently to stay healthy and maintain an active life.

Dr. Vernikos also writes editorials and columns about her research on stress, space, and gravity for various magazines like Muscle & Fitness and Popular Science. Her writings and lectures focus on her 30 years of pioneering NASA laboratory research at California’s NASA Ames Research Center, dating from 1964 when she was recruited as the first scientist to explore the effects of stress on astronauts.

She later studied the effects of gravity reduction on healthy men and women who volunteered for a long-term bed rest research project. Vernikos reflects, “It seemed to me that the countermeasure treatments to spaceflight effects we were testing on astronauts, and our bed rest volunteers, could also be applied to all of us to delay, prevent, or even reverse many of the symptoms we commonly associate with old aging.”

Dr. Vernikos’s uniqueness in her field as a sought after public speaker is based not only on her highly regarded research, but on her charisma and ability to communicate complex science into understandable terms. She speaks to an array of audiences from the informed public to Congressional Representatives. Examples include Stanford’s Café Scientifique; The National Academy of Science’s Space Studies Board Town Hall Meeting in Washington D.C.; The Aerospace State Association Conference in Denver, Colorado presented to 450 science teachers; several American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) group functions; the 1995 World Economic Forum; and the Executive Women’s Roundtable.

Dr. Joan Vernikos is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, The Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, The Advisory Committee for Human Spaceflight, and The Microgravity and Exploration Board of the European Space Agency. She is space editor for Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, and holds several patents including one for the human-powered centrifuge.

Originally published July 28th, 2008

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Orange Photography Brochures | These are from the 2008 wedding season and are not representative of current pricing.

Orange Photography Brochure Cover
Orange Photography’s photojournalistic approach
to wedding photography stunningly captures the
documentation of your special day. After looking
through our photographers’ portfolios, you choose
the person you feel best represents your personal
style. You then have the advantage of working
with a Creative Team devoted to providing unparalleled
customer service and world-class photography from start to finish.

Download entire wedding brochure >>

Download entire retail brochure >>

Download entire photobooth brochure >>

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