More than 260 million people suffer from an anxiety disorder worldwide, with 40 million in the U.S. alone—18% of the American population. And that label includes everything from Social Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder to phobias and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Thus, people with anxiety may not have a singular cause for their worry, but a myriad number of them that influence every aspect of their lives. And, that doesn’t include people who’ve never been formally diagnosed and don’t receive proper medication or therapy.

Unfortunately, medication has many possible side effects, and both medication and therapy are often expensive. However, there are alternatives for someone dealing with anxiety. This book proposal offers a range of solutions for anxiety management, from do it yourself techniques like guided imagery and yoga, to biofeedback devices like HeartMath, to research trials on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, as well as Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. The idea was not to outline every potential solution for anxiety, but to educate people on available opportunities and empower them to take control.

Though anxiety can be managed and reduced, there is no cure. That’s because anxiety is a normal part of life, and in most cases a helpful evolutionary tool to keep people on track. But, when this anxiety becomes a burden on someone’s life, there is a plethora of alternative solutions available. Understanding anxiety and learning to manage it is not an impossible task. This thesis provides an introduction to the idea and then allows the reader to move forward on their own path as they choose.

In a cross memoir and essay format, I examine what connection barriers veterans face when communicating with civilians. I interviewed veterans after adapting an interview schedule and model release form. Additionally, I researched creative nonfiction, guided autobiography, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I chose to focus mainly on soldiers returning from recent conflicts. Once I collected my interviews, I synthesized the stories I heard with personal memoir. The thesis focuses on three parts: coming home, communication barriers, and connection. Weaving in both my personal reflection and the voices of the soldiers I interviewed, I evaluate possible ways veterans and civilians fail to connect. I address the discrepancy between the apparent warm reception of soldiers and the feelings of disconnection soldiers express by noting the ways in which both the solider and the civilian struggle to communicate. Looking at reintegration struggles, I briefly note the transition difficulty post deployment soldiers face. From the responses I received, I reflect on how empty gestures, perceived ignorance, and an outsider effect contribute to communication barriers between soldiers and veterans. While I address how ignorance can be broken down into misunderstanding military jargon, detaching from war, hearing euphemisms, and having expectations, I also consider the ways in which situation and vagueness surrounding the war contribute to communication barriers surrounding perceived ignorance. From my reflection of communication barriers, I offer tools for soldiers and veterans making connections. I recommend that both soldiers and civilians stay informed about the military engagements as best they can, deconstruct expectations and generalizations, use empathy and active listening, and start being direct. Knowing the nuanced complexity of war and communication, I weave in my own reflections in contribution to the larger conversation.

My grandmother, Mickey Gilbert, is the daughter of Italian immigrants, Clemente Saulino and Anna Moccia, who married in Italy and moved to a small mining town called Lynch, Kentucky in 1928, the year before my grandmother was born. Her family moved to an apartment in Cumberland, Kentucky where Clemente started a dry-cleaning business. Grandma's sister, Berenice, was born in 1931 and then her mother had a child every five years for 15 years, adding Joanne, Joe, and Tom to the family. Her family was religious and attended church every Sunday and holy day. Grandma went to a Catholic boarding school called St. Camillus Academy in Corbin, Kentucky from third grade through high school, spending holidays and summer vacations at home in Cumberland. She graduated in 1946 and attended Villa Madonna College in Covington, Kentucky that fall. She lived with three girls \u2014 Mary Catherine, Sara Lou, and Eulalie \u2014 at St. Joseph Heights, which was run by nuns. She spent a good amount of her holidays at Mary Catherine "Juggie's" home in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky which was closer than her own home in Cumberland. That is where she met my grandpa, Colly Gilbert. She graduated from Villa Madonna in 1950 with a B.A. in history and a secondary education teaching certificate. She married Allen Carlton "Colly" Gilbert, the youngest of seven children and a World War II veteran, in 1951 and they moved to Phoenix, Arizona where they had seven children: Anne, Carlton, Kelly, Monica, Marydith, Eileen (my mother), and Mark. Unfortunately, Colly lost a battle with kidney cancer in 1971 when their youngest child, Mark, was only ten years old. Grandma raised their children on her own after that and never remarried. She kept busy even after her children moved out by taking up gardening, knitting, and volunteering. She also spent time playing the piano and reading books. All of her children married, and all had at least one child except Carlton. Grandma has thirteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren who all adore her. Anne, Carlton, Kelly, Monica, Marydith, and Mark eventually settled in different cities or states. My mother, Eileen, was the only one that stayed in Phoenix. She actually bought the house that her dad had built \u2014 the house that she grew up in \u2014 from my grandmother in 1992, and my grandmother moved to a patio home at Arcadia Green, less than a mile away. My grandma is an inspiration to our family. She taught us all the importance of enjoying the simple things in life and doing what we can for people. The values that she has passed on to us and the activities that she has inspired us to love make us healthier and happier people. Her parents instilled in her a love of family, friends, and life that she passed on to her children, and her children passed on to their children. Our family is close because of her \u2014 she is our lifeline. Her legacy is the tight bonds our family has woven.

This is a book proposal for a Study Abroad Survival Guide entitled "A Guide to Conquering Study Abroad: My Experience in Western Europe." It includes both a proposal and manuscript. The proposal is directed at Avalon Travel, a large publisher. The manuscript follows the book proposal and would also be sent to the publisher. My book highlights key things that students must know about going abroad before they go, while they are there, and when they get back. This information will be presented in a hard copy and an eBook. This book's purpose is to encourage students to study abroad and help prepare them for the adventures ahead. While studying abroad in Rome for a semester, I realized I wanted to help persuade students that studying abroad is an unbelievable opportunity, and wanted to help answer their questions that arise before and along the way. Distribution for this book will begin locally at Arizona State University before moving to other college campuses. The marketing focus will be on other Pac-12 Universities. Scouring the internet and library databases reveals no book that fills this niche of advising college students thinking about, or already studying abroad. Part of the reason I am the best person to write a study abroad survival guide is because I went abroad and had a very successful trip.

This guide book was written for Arizona State University students, and focuses on teaching the importance of balanced, holistic, and preventative approaches to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The main purpose of formulating this guide was to help students achieve a realistic balance between academics, health, and various responsibilities beyond school. The project itself consists of a complete manuscript of the author's guide book, entitled Be Well: A Briefish Guide to Thriving at ASU, framed within a book proposal. There are five main chapters, including information and tips for various aspects of physical and emotional health. Included at the end of the manuscript is a list of referenced material. The information contained in the guide is evidence based, and reflects the research the author has done into each topic covered.

The compelling idea of this thesis is to create a cookbook that will serve college students as a fun, smart, relevant resource for recipes and cooking insights. This thesis discusses the process of writing a nonfiction publishing proposal for my college cookbook, American College Kitchen. It includes an explanation for why I wanted to write the proposal and details the creative evolution of the original idea. Research is presented on the positive and negative aspects of self-publishing versus traditional publishing. Primary research was conducted on current Arizona State University students in the form of a Qualtrics survey. The survey ascertained students' cooking habits, how much time they spend cooking, where they get their recipes, and how often they cook, among other statistics. The results were analyzed using IBM SPSS predictive analytics software. This thesis concludes with a personal reflection on the knowledge gained throughout the process.

A research review was conducted on the practice of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST), along with the individuals involved in this issue, and various prevention and awareness programs currently in place. Also explored were the evaluations of such programs within the context of dating violence in order to understand which prevention and awareness approaches might be most useful, and what techniques should be utilized in order to create an effective program. A 120 minute prevention and awareness program was then created and implemented with 19 participants, and data was collected prior to the training and after the training to evaluate the impact. Of 25 items measure, significant increases were found for 7 items relating to the participants' general knowledge of DMST and also positively affected some of the attitudes held by those individuals regarding certain aspects of the issue.