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

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. 

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.

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

Favorite Place

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.