Friday, January 31, 2020

Week 3 Story: The Soiled Examination

Updated Story
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Like Rama, we all have important tests that determine our paths
"You may begin the examination."  The instant Peter heard these uttered words, an intense determination filled the whole of the room.  This was the moment that he had been waiting for his entire life.  If he passed this test, he could finally fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer.  Rumors of this very test haunt the students of the department.  "Not more than even one out of 100 students are expected to be able to pass the exam." whispers a student.  Despite all the discouraging thoughts floating about, Peter had studied long and hard for this test.  Countless nights of sleep surrendered.  Peter knew, deep down inside, that he was ready to pass this exam.  He blazes through the first section; confident that the nights of lost sleep were worth it.  The second section comes, and he has no hesitation in his answers.  After the second section, he is ahead of schedule and decides to take a quick drink.  As Peter reaches to set his water aside, a slip of the hand causes the bottle to tip over onto his desk.  The examination pack is ruined beyond repair. The loudest silence fills the air of the room.  Peter feels the gazes of the students behind him.  The proctor, Mr. Jackson glares at Peter with the most disappointed look.  Mr. Jackson gets up from his chair,  "Peter, come with me."  Peter follows Mr. Jackson to a small office.  Mr. Jackson begins sighing, "Peter, I am upset that you would have so little care in your work.  Go home.  You're done for today. Come to my office tomorrow."  The next morning, Peter came to the building and stared longingly at the front lobby board.  "Congratulations to the graduates of 2020!"  A few of his peers had seemed to pass the examination.  Peter walked to Mr. Jackson's office.  "Hello, come in Peter.  I have just cleared it with the department.  You may take this make up alternative examination."  Easily racing through the exam, Peter gives the finished exam to Mr. Jackson.  Waiting patiently, Peter sits on the chair outside of Mr. Jackson's office.  A voice echoes from behind him.  "Congratulations Peter."


Author's Note:  This story is loosely based off of the test that Rama had to overcome to win the favor of King Janaka for his daughter, Sita.  Rama must bend the bow of Shiva, which is a feat that has been unsuccessful for many before him.  Unsurprisingly, Rama is able to bend the bow, however, he also ends up breaking it.  As a result, Parashurama comes angrily, and gives Rama another test: to bend another bow.  Rama succeeds in this trial and is given the weapon to keep.  I chose this story because it felt the most applicable to me in terms for a modern example.  We've all had to overcome different tests and trials, and so I think that the story can be empathized by any person.  For Ramayana part A, I would argue that this point is one of the most important moments for Rama.







(Extra Credit) Reading Notes: PDE Ramayana, Part A

The story begins with two kings, Dasharatha and Janaka.  Dasharatha was father of Rama.  The capital was very prosperious and wealthy.  Although Dasharatha had everything, he still had no son.  Dasharatha performs a horse sacrifice to have a son.  Many brahmins (similar to a priest) witnessed the ritual.  The gods promised four sons unto Dasharatha.  Vishnu was divided and was born as each of the four sons of Dasharatha.  A rishi (enlightened person), Vishvamitra, gathered the two of sons of Dasharatha to battle against rakshasas.  They battled a rakshasa, Thataka, and Rama shot her with an arrow and killed her.  Vishwamitra chanted mantras, and Rama received celestial weapons.  Vishwamitra tells Rama of a few stories.  Rama and Lakshmana wanted to see the city, so they left Vishvamitra.  Rama meets Sita and they fall in love.  As a test, Sita's father, Janaka, has Rama bend a bow.  Rama breaks the bow and there is a loud thunder. Parashurama (Axe-Rama), tests him with another bow.  Dasharatha chooses Rama to be his heir among his sons.  Manthara, a nurse of prince Bharata (one of the sons), is unhappy at Rama's instillation.  Rama is banished and he goes to the jungle of Dandaka.  Sita and Lakshmana plead with Rama to accompany him.  Dasharatha remembers his curse due to his karma and dies.  


Parashurama, or Axe-Rama

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Tech Tip: Dual Boot Operating Systems

This tech tip may not exactly be pertinent to this course, but I think that it's a very technological tip useful to have at your disposal.  For my last tech tip, I wrote about text editors, and this tech tip will be slightly related. 

If you're familiar there are many operating systems: Windows, MacOS, and Linux are the main ones floating around.  I'm sure that the first two, Windows and Mac, are fairly known.  However, not many people are familiar with the Linux operating system.

For a quick summary of what the Linux operating system entails, essentially, Linux is a open-source freeware operating system as compared to Windows and MacOS which are commercial products entailed towards consumers.  Essentially a public library compared to a book store.  Linux is used for professional use in many technical areas. So it's good to be familiar with the system if you're involved in a particular field (although it has a learning curve compared to Windows and MacOS).  I am a big advocate for the use of Linux systems due to the fact that it values public and free information of its use.  The Linux system is free online, and any person can view the source code to see what exactly makes up the Linux operating system and see what they are installing on their computer.  In this day and age, both Windows and MacOS come preinstalled with software that allows Microsoft and Apple to track your information.  Linux will always be free to install and secure. It's extremely fast and memory&CPU efficient.

On to the tech tip, the Linux OS does have its caveats.  It's a bit difficult to ease into:
  1. You must be comfortable without a graphical user interface and be able to type in a command line terminal (There are resources online). 
  2. It does not have many of the commercial products and software available on Windows and MacOS (However, there are many open-source free alternative software available that fall in line with Linux's free mission statement.

 My tech tip is to dual boot (or even tri-boot) multiple operating systems.  You can have multiple operating systems installed on the same computer and use each one accordingly to which particular function you need at the moment.  There are many resources online that you can search up that instruct and guide through the process of doing this.  However, if you don't know what you're doing, there's possibility to accidentally erase your data, so it's a good idea to back up (That's also a really good tech tip. BACK-UP YOUR DATA!).

Learning how to install multiple operating systems is also useful because you get to be more proficient on working with the computer BIOS.  I would say that doing this sort of stuff with computers is similar to working on a car.  You gain so much knowledge about the specifics.  The next time your hard drive fails, you can diagnose and fix the issue just like changing your own oil or switching a tire in a car. 

Even if Linux is not attractive to you, there are many software that are on Windows but not on MacOS (and vise-versa), so a multiboot is still very useful.  However, a caveat on MacOS is that MacOS can only be installed on Apple products.  So "theoretically", Apple products are the only devices that can "tri-boot". 

Tech Tip: Text Editor

Since I have previously taken the Myth. and Folklore course a few semesters ago, it seems that I have exhausted most of the recommended tech tips.  However, luckily, I have a few tech tips that I use that are not listed. 

Text editing is extremely important and useful to do when working digitally.  Not even overstating it, tech files are the most used and useful types of files for any use on a computer.  Virtually every file is derived from a text file in some form of shape. 

The standard text editor is notepad for windows and textedit for macOS.  However, both are fairly function-deficient in terms of use.  A few recommendations I have are: vi/vim/nanovim (different forks of vi), emacs, and notepad++.  Personally, I use vim on my Linux device.  I will admit that vi forks and emacs have a steep learning curve since there is no user interface.  However, when you learn it, you will never have to take your hands off the keyboard since there are so many hotkeys that allow you to traverse the text file in an instant (much faster than using a mouse).  As for Windows, I'm not entirely sure if vim is supported, but I know that notepad++ is available (and fairly easy to use). 

As for purposes of this class, I think that using a text file in order to write for the assignments is very useful.  You don't have to pull up any online writing site (similar to the writing in webpage tech tip) such as Google Docs or Blogger.  The text file is local to your system.  It's extremely fast and you don't have to rely on any other factor.  Personally, since I have to deal with many text files, it's very efficient to learn these text editors in order to increase my productivity. 

Monday, January 27, 2020

Tech Tip: Firefox

I've used Mozilla Firefox on multiple occasions.  While I like Google Chrome for its sleek and simple design, its memory efficiency is a hot mess.  I'm not entirely sure what it is, but its memory management is very poor.  I would say any of the other browsers is better in terms of memory.  However, out of the other browsers, I would have to say that Mozilla Firefox has the most features as well as having great memory management compared to Google Chrome.  I carry around an old laptop with me for classroom purposes.  I upgraded it to 8Gb of memory and it's a necessity for me to use Firefox on it.  While 8Gb of memory is a decent amount (I have around 40 tabs open on average most of the time.  Don't ask.  I don't know what's wrong with me), it's not enough to fuel Google Chrome.  Firefox is quite snappy with it though. 

Feedback Thoughts



Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt in Creative Work:

I completely agree with point #2.  There's a point where you have to abandon perfectionism.  My philosophy is that if it's something that you don't have a passion for, then it's completely okay to be so persnickety with it.  Where's the joy in life if you spend so much energy on something you don't care about only to be left feeling exhausted and burnt out.  Instead, find hobbies that you're more passionate about and immerse yourself in the perfectionism of it.  In some of my hobbies, I enjoy doing them so much, that I spend hours chipping away aiming to be perfect in it.  When you aim to be perfect at a tedious task, you lack confidence in it.  That's self-doubt.  However when you aim to be perfect at something you're passionate with, you end up having pride in it.  That's confidence. 
I also like point #5: "Setting attainable goals".  It's always the same story where somebody aims for the stars only to be let down so hard.  I hear about a few different methods of applying attainable goals.  One is: while you have an overarching large goal, keep sub-goals with it.  Make it a step by step process that makes that unattainable large goal into something that seems possible.  Another method is to just have an additional goal to be less discouraged.  While you have a difficult large goal, also set a separate achievable goal.  When you feel like you don't get anything done, it's very discouraging and easy to quit.  But when you have a large and small goal simultaneously, you always have that simple goal to fall back to and keep confidence.  Meanwhile, as that's going on, you can  always chip away at the large goal. 

Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head:
This is also a interesting thought. In a sense, criticism is always a form of persuasion.  It's a persuasion to have a change of thought.  We as humans, for some odd reason, also seems to have a pessimistic viewpoint when dealing with criticism aimed at ourselves.  However, persuasion always has its positivities and negativities.  When dealing with criticism, we just have to filter out the negativity that we can't deal with.  There's always a way to frame a negative as a positive.  We just have to rewire our brain to think that way.  It's like a glass half empty is a glass half full. 
File:Glass half full or half empty.png
A Glass of water can be either be half full or empty depending on your mindset

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Week 2 Reading Overview

For the Ramayana choice, I am picking the public domain version.  I'm just a big fan of open source material.

Rama: Retold from the Ramayana: This one is interesting to me because I'm a fan of summaries.  I'm not an amazing reader, so reading summaries helps me keep on track.  They just make reading easier in my opinion.
Artwork for the Rama comic

Hanuman: The Epitome of Devotion and Courage
: I also like a good variety to read from.  So I would be interested in something that has an overview of Hanuman who is a follower of Rama.  It allows to me see a different view of Rama in a different story. 

Ancient Technology: Atlantis and India: It's interesting to hear about ancient technology from India.  I always hear about ancient technology from other cultures and societies, but India isn't too popular.

Sanskrit in 60 seconds: Also with this one, in High School history, you always hear random phrases and terms thrown around.  Sanskrit is one of them.  I always knew it existed, but I never knew what it exactly was and how it was important.  I didn't even know it was related to India. It's just interesting to me to further solidify knowledge that I've previously acquired and clear any misconceptions I've had in the past. 


Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Time Strategies

For the most part, the schedule seems good.  However, the schedule plans for me to be finished by Thursday, but sometimes my week gets fairly hectic.  So it's nice that I still have 3 and a half (with the grace period) days to finish the assignments in case I'm too swamped to be done by Thursday.  For my time management articles, I read the two articles:
"The Myth of Too Busy" by Tim Grahl and "4 Questions to Help You Overcome Procrastination" by Peter Banerjea. 

For the former article, I can see myself falling into the traps that the article talks about.  Sometimes, I just don't do the things that I prioritize.  Which is a pretty strange thing to do.  So I just have to ask what I really prioritize in my life. 

For the latter article, I feel as if I ask myself those four questions subconsciously every time I need to get something done.  So that's a good start.  I just have to begin asking these questions more concretely to myself in order to further prioritize the fact that I need to get some things done. 

A calendar helps plan out the week to have an organized time strategy

Technology Class Tools

For the most part, the class tools are already familiar to me.  As for the browser tune-ups, I actually prefer a 3rd party website for spell checking and word count.  There's a bunch to use online that you can google. For me, there's just something off about using a browser for writing.  I would rather use a dedicated specific source for it, but that's just me.  As for bookmarking, I have so many bookmarks, this reminds me that I need to clean my bookmarks now.  I probably have almost 50 bookmarks and it's not getting its purpose done (to be organized).  

Bookmarks are very useful when reading both books and the internet

Assignments Overview

Since I am a returning student, for the most part, I am familiar with the assignments.  There were some extra credits that I did not do often last semester.  However, for this semester, I will probably try to do more since my other classes in this semester are getting difficult.  So for the most part, the plan is to simply try to finish as much as I can for the semester.  In the past, I liked how flexible the assignments were. 

Rubber Bands symbolize the flexibility of the course assignments

Friday, January 17, 2020

Growth Mindset Week 1

As I've taken the Mythology and Folklore class before a few semesters ago, I am familiar with the Growth Mindset.  I find myself to be a fairly big procrastinator, so I think that the Growth Mindset may not be as potent as it should for me.  I think that in an ideal world with an ideal person, the growth mindset works well.  However for somebody like me, I would have the notion that I haven't reached my goal "yet".  The main problem with that is that the  subconscious in my head will tell me that it's okay that I haven't reached that point yet, because I will get there eventually.  Then my subconscious will lead me into believing that the goal is less pertinent than it is.  Overall, my courses at OU have been fairly difficult to me.  If I went on believing that I will learn everything in time, then success would have been really difficult.  Sometimes, instead of being patient with yourself, realistically, you have to go and deal with the stress by overcoming your goals.  I honestly don't think that stress is a bad thing.  It's similar to a "fight or flight" reaction.  Stress is a natural instinct that helps you overcome challenges.  With that said, I also do not believe that the growth mindset is a bad mindset.  Previously, I said that I believed that it could work in an ideal world.  The main problem is that this is not an ideal world. There's real life deadlines and real life competition to deal with.  However, I also do believe that the growth mindset is a necessary mindset to have in order to keep yourself sane and also to grow as an individual.  I think that the growth mindset is applicable to things that are not time sensitive to the moment.  I believe that keeping hobbies and other activities on the back burner is a really great way to employ the use of the growth mindset.  You won't fall behind in your career or school, but you also don't deal with stress and are able to grow a hobby of yours.  Then sometimes, when work or school isn't pertinent, you can swap between hobbies and work.  Honestly, I think that a good mindset is to get what you need to get done, and enjoy doing the things that you love.  I think that the best mindset is to get what you need to get done, and enjoy love doing everything you do. 

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Stress is one of the biggest motivators that gets work done

Introduction to a Computer Engineering Student

Hello, my name is Nathaniel Vo.  I am a Junior Computer Engineering student here at the University of Oklahoma.  One of my favorite things about Computer Engineering is that it is basically 50% Computer Science and 50% Electrical Engineering, so the courses never get too stale.  One of my favorite things to do is to cook food.  I pride myself on cooking low-cost good food.  I am by no means a good cook, I just enjoy doing it in my spare time because I think it's really fun to do, it's a good skill to have, and it lets me express myself to other people.  I love to cook for my peers and loved ones because it displays my love for them.  I really enjoy listening to music in my free time.  I find myself usually mainly listening to Christian music, but whenever I listen to secular music, I listen to indie rock and alternative rock.  I like to play the bass guitar; back in my hometown of Broken Arrow, I played in the worship band for my church.  I really enjoy watching television shows and movies.  Some of my favorite TV shows are: "The Office", "Parks and Recreation", and "Freaks and Geeks".  Right now, I am currently catching up on a lot of anime that I haven't been keeping up with for a while.  I've also been reading One Piece manga.  It's been going on since 1997, but I'm pretty sure that it's ending soon, since all the pieces are finally coming together.  I like to eat healthy food as much as I can, but I find myself really loving a nice steak on the occasion.  I enjoy a good steak.  I also really like to eat bananas.  They're almost like a dessert to me.  I actually really love mathematics.  I've always had a knack for mathematics ever since a young age.  I've finished all of the Calculus Classes, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations.  However, a few semesters ago when I took Calculus 3, it was so terrible that I questioned whether or not I even liked math anymore.  However recently, I relearned Calculus 3 from one of my professors and he made it more intuitive.  So I have a deeper appreciation for the subject now, and I think it's actually much more interesting now.  My career goals are to just get a stable job and settle down for adulthood.  I'm not much of a book person.  I  My grades were pretty bad because of this, but I still made it!  Someday I'd really like to learn the guitar.  I've messed around on guitars, but I've never owned my own guitar and hope to do so someday.
This is a picture of one of my favorite foods, the banana.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

StoryBook Favorites

Flood Stories
I really thought this one was good because it provided a "quick" introduction to Epics of India for me.  I do not have much background in the subject so the stories helped give a quick insight.  I really liked that the stories for this storybook were relatively short and easy to digest.  Then at the end, it gives a background of the topic that was written about.  Personally, I would have liked to have the "Author's Note" at the beginning of the page so that whenever I read the story, I already have the background of the setting of the story. 

Syrup, Sand, and Stories
I really liked this one because, come on, who doesn't like Waffle House.  But jokes aside, the stories use a common theme of Waffle House as a humor device in order to convey the stories of the Egyptian gods.  I also thought that it was really cool that they edited the pictures for their stories.  In each of them, while there is a picture of Egyptian art, they also added bits and pieces of Waffle House items. I actually thought that it was very clever to include a youtube video at the beginning of each story as a sound clip.  It gets you even more in the story while listening to the music. 

Jake's Story
I would have liked to see an "author's note" for the first story.  Reading the first story, it felt like a quick summary of one of King Arthur's Journeys ( I don't know if it was actually one of his journey's or this was an original story by the author of this storybook).  So the author's note should detail the background behind the story informing if the story is original or just a summary.  I wasn't necessarily a fan of the fact that the first story had a different font compared to the rest of the stories in the story book.  But despite the criticism on only the first story, the rest of the stories are really great.  The stories are all original and creative.  They all follow the same theme between Arthur and foxes.  I really like the Author's Notes for all of them since they really give a good background. 


Picture in the "Intro" story from "Syrup, Sand, and Stories" storybook

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Favorite Place

File:Norman, OK, USA , University of Oklahoma - Evans Hall - panoramio.jpg


One of my favorite places in the world is the University of Oklahoma Campus.  I spend most of my time at the campus, and it's a really beautiful campus.  There's a lot of activities to do here.  It's a pretty special place.

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