Week 7 Famous Last Words

I almost forgot to to write about my week! This week has been more relaxed than last week, but that's because next week will be another tough week. More paper. More lab reports. More open lab. I'm glad I have a close-knit capstone lab group who keep going when I feel discouraged. I'll be honest. I let my imagination run wild and thought about dropping all of my classes except for capstone (I still need to graduate). Of course my friends told me that was a ridiculous idea. I knew it too. I just need to finish this second half of the semester. The eighth semester is almost done. I can do this.

In other news, I went to Riverwind Casino for their seafood buffet this past Friday with a few friends. It was expensive, but so worth it. Endless crab legs, catfish, oysters, and shrimp as far as the eye can see. I thought I died and went to seafood heaven. I must have eaten double my recommended calorie intake but, hey, seafood is healthy right?

Crab legs are the best legs. Source.

I only worked one day this week which is great! I was able to spend time with my brother and my dad today which is a rare occasion. Oh! And my dad fixed my trunk! I forgot to mention that I was involved in a hit and run on Wednesday morning near Lloyd Noble. I was turning into the parking lot when all of the sudden a car rear-ended me. He/She sped away before I could not the license plate number. Now there's a huge dent in my bumper and my trunk couldn't close. Later that night, I had my friends look at it, and we spent an hour trying to close my trunk with zipties and rope. Good news is that my dad is the master when it comes to auto-body, so he was able to fix the trunk.

Things that I'm excited for in the future: Stan's 21st birthday party! One of my best friends is turning 21, and, as tradition, we plan to throw him a party that he probably won't remember. Also, Dawn of Justice is coming out soon, and I'm pumped! I've been waiting for the release of that movie for ages. Spring break should be fun! I don't have any plans except catch up on homework and maybe work if I can. Other than that, all is swell!

Week 8 Blog Ideas

I decided to browse through the class directory to find some unique blogs. After a few tries, I found three blogs that had a unique layout.

Matty Williams Blog

I liked Matty's blog because of the scenery. She chose a calming mountain-skyline as her background, and I thought that was really neat. It reminds me of the mountains in California when I used to live there.

Duoaa Alkalaani's Blog

I liked that Duoaa's Blog had the weather widget incorporated into her blog. I feel like that would be very helpful to know. Too many times have occurred where I have walked outside without a jacket because the sun was shining, yet it was 40 degrees F.

LaDawn Beckman's Blog

LaDawn's blog caught my eye because she used a really fun font! It made me want to read everything! I thought about changing my font for storytelling so that it would match the mood of the story. For example, using a bubbly font for a funny story or a dark, dripping font for a scary story. I might experiment with that.

Week 8 Time Schedule

Review: In the beginning of the semester, I started my week on Monday. From Monday through Thursday, I planned to devote at least 2 hours of study time to this class. Originally, I planned that schedule because I work Friday through Sunday. Since I have more free time from my cut hours at work, I've been able to squeeze some time on the weekend for homework. I do plan to keep my schedule the same in case I pick up shifts on the weekend. My science classes are causing some serious stress, so I've been trying to escape the science world and focus on this class (which would explain my 3 -4 hours of reading and blogging on Monday nights). My main goal is to stay ahead of the class so that I can shift my focus from online homework to open lab. For the most part, my schedule has been working out pretty well.

Procrastination at its finest. Source.

Week 7 Tech Tip: YouTube Playlist

Now, I have no idea why I haven't looked into this tech tip ages ago. I'm on YouTube all the time. Whether its to listen to music, find funny videos, or watching a scientific animation, I'm ALWAYS on YouTube. In fact, I'm on YouTube right now listening to music. I used to just listen to the YouTube mixes that are provided, but I finally customized my perfect playlist for each occasion. So I created a playlist called Soul Music which contains some of my favorite soul music videos:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd6UAn61wxLIQt89RQcqZzPTD4yF-lJL6

This is usually my playlist when I walk around campus or if I have tons of homework to do. It's really soothing and powerful at the same time. In the future, I'll make more playlists for running, parties, sleeping etc. and it'll always be perfect because I made it.

Week 7 Learning Challenge: Attention Memes

Half-way through the semester, yet graduation seems so far away! With that being said, classes are becoming harder and projects are piling up. Sometimes things become out of my control and that creates more stress. I found this image and it made a good point. It's posted below:

Attention meme. Source.

There are things that matter, things that I can control, and only a silver of things fall between in the middle. I should make my priority over the things that matter and are in my control. For example, I can control my grades. My grades matter because I need to graduate. I should focus on my grades rather than worrying about what other people think about me or other trivial things. In this way, I won't feel like I'm wasting my time. Instead, I'll be redirecting my attention to more important matters.

Week 7 Growth Mindset: Learning about Growth Mindset

I was browsing through the articles about growth mindset, and I found one that seemed to relate to me. The article was called "Learning about struggles of famous scientists may help students succeed in science." In this study, freshmen and sophomores of a low-income high school were divided into three groups. One group read about scientists' struggles while the other group only read about scientists' successes. After a six-week period, the students who read about scientific failures showed a grade increase while the other group showed a grade decrease. The part of the article that really stuck me was this sentence: Many students don't realize that all successes require a long journey with many failures along the way. I can't stress this enough to my friends that failure is part of the learning process. In fact, sometimes I forget that! Recently, I haven't been receiving the best grades for my capstone assignments, and it becomes frustrating knowing how much hard work I put into each paper. I have to remind myself constantly that I can't succeed at everything. It's not failure. It's a lesson to be learned.

Moreover, it's sometimes difficult to be a science major and to see failure when you're taught about every scientists' successes. In comparison, I felt stupid and inadequate. Sometimes it seemed useless to continue studying science because I believed I couldn't never reach their level of success. However, everything came into perspective in my history of science course when I learned about the hundreds of failed experiments or the years of research to finally reach the eureka moment. Science is hard work. Life is hard work. There would never be any progress if no one failed. In fact, the world be plain and boring if we didn't fall every once in awhile.

Failure doesn't define anyone. Source.

Week 7 Extra Credit Reading: Saints and Animals

For this week's extra credit reading, I skimmed through the Biblical unit, and I found the Saints and Animals Unit. The most interesting chapter to me was the Ballad of Saint Felix.This story is from the Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farwell Brown (1900).

The Ballad of Saint Felix

 I liked the way the story was formatted. Since it was a ballad, the story was written like a song. There was a rhyming scheme with perfect paragraph breaks. I actually read the ballad out loud, and there was a nice rhythm to the ballad. Overall, the story of Saint Felix was quite interesting. An emperor was slaying all the Christians in the land. Being a Bishop, Felix was a target in the Emperor's persecution. To escape the Emperor, Felix dressed as an old beggar and pass through the soldiers undetected. He runaway as fast as he could until he couldn't run anymore. He then found a hiding place in a crack of a wall. Luckily, a spider saved Felix's life by creating a thick web that covered the crack. The soldiers never found Felix. Felix survived in that wall because everyday a Christian lady would pass bread through the web until the persecution was over.

I liked this story mostly because it deals with the persecution of Christianity. It's unbelievable to think that people were jailed, tortured, and even put to death because of their religion. Even more unbelievable is the fact that persecution due to religion still occurs today.

Saint Felix. Source.