Week 8: Curation

I'm a sucker for tables and reference charts, and finding them for chakras has been fun! I'm a fairly habit-driven person, and I like having things to do with my hands to keep my mind occupied sometimes.

 

This pin is a quick guide to feudal nobility--which will be handy if I write for that time period in the upcoming weeks! It links to a chart on Dan Koboldt's website, that has a lot of useful facts about titles for people of status in nobility.



Look at this elephant. How happy is this elephant! I'm enjoying including elephant pictures in my curation assignments. So here he is.

Week 8 Review

Logo from the Great Language Game

While I've been working on my assignments for the class, I wanted to take a break, so I used five minutes or so to play the Great Language Game! I got up to 400 points in three lives- I was doing alright until they started giving me four and five options to pick from! Definitely going to bookmark this and use it as a stress reliever for the next week.

Week 8: Reading Plan

Image of The Palace of Illusions book from the Indian Epics reading page

Tentatively, for my reading plan, I'd like to choose several shorter books that allow me to get the most variety out of reading. That said, I also just stumbled upon some books that look really interesting. Maybe I'll have to keep this page bookmarked for future even when I'm not in the class anymore!

I'd like to start with the Ideal Indian Women book, by Sunity Devee. There are at least two weeks in there, and they focus on a couple different women, so I think it would be a good pick in terms of my storybook.

I think The Missing Queen by Samhita Arni would be a good choice too! I really enjoyed reading the Ramayana, and would like to delve deeper into more retellings of it. This would be another two weeks, and while I've already written about Sita in my storybook, I think the material from the previous reading would be enough to keep me going while I read this.

Lastly, The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Divakaruni seems really interesting and like something I would enjoy reading. This is four weeks worth of material, but I think I could keep reading on it after the class ended! 

Between those three, I think that will serve me well for the rest of the semester.

Week 8: Reflections: Looking Forward

Personal photo of me signing our studio's dance floor after my last class. 

There are a few more things I'd like to accomplish in this class going forward, and several that I think I can do better.

First, I'd like to get assignments in before the grace period more often... I abuse it a little too much, I think, but sometimes with projects and homework assignments and tests, I tend to put this class off until the last second. I've started doing better with the grace period, but I think there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Second, I'd like to put a little more time into the reading and writing. Sometimes I wait until late at night and don't always get my best work in, but can usually get up and edit the next morning or a couple days after.

I think I've done a pretty good job of keeping up with the class as a whole, making sure to at least do a little bonus each week, even when I'm swamped.

I would really like to finish this class early, and I think I've plotted out my finish time to be somewhere in the middle of week 11. That would mean I had about four weeks to dedicate purely to my other classes, and that would be a huge help. I really love the structure of the class because we're allowed to finish early, and there are tons of ways to facilitate doing so.

My motivational picture is of myself signing my dance studio's floor, a tradition that all seniors (high school) got to take part in the night of their last dance class. I chose that as my motivational picture because it was something that I had worked hard at for a really long time, and was excited to put a 'completed' bow on. I can't wait for that feeling in May.

Here's to the rest of the semester!

Week 8: Tech Tip

This week for my Tech Tip I added the weather widget to my blog! I've carefully thought about my favorite weather for a long time, and I've decided that the ideal weather is when it's a tiny bit cloudy but mostly sunny on slightly chilly days in the spring and fall. It's specific, but it also happens two seasons out of the year, so I get double the favorites! My least favorite type of weather has to be when there are tornados--not because they're scary or anything, but because they're serious enough to either wake me up at two in the morning or interrupt any plans I had for that evening.

Week 8: Reflections: Looking Back

Screenshot of my new and improved bookmark bar!

Week eight, halfway through already! I think this is like the montage episode in a long running sitcom. Here's some montage music (Diner by Martin Sexton) to accompany you if you read this post. Here we go!

Writing: I've written a couple stories so far, but I think my best work yet was the Week 4: Storytelling, which detailed Sita's last moments on Earth. My favorite story to write, however, was the story I wrote just last week, Week 7: It's Only Fair. The first one elicited a fairly emotional response from me while I was writing it, and after that I tried to write some lighter stuff. I finally succeeded with a light story three weeks later, which was cool! I tend to gravitate to the heavier stuff, so it was nice to try and flex my comedic muscles a little.

Reading: Oh, hands down, my favorite reading was the graphic novel in week four, Sita: Daughter of the Earth. I think Sita's been my favorite character so far, closely followed by Draupadi.

Interactions: One thing I know I've really failed on so far is replying to comments- I want to have conversations with people, but that's one of the things that gets pushed and pushed until I forget or really don't have time. I might try to go back and reply to the ones that asked questions before the year is out! I love getting to know people through their writing and comments, though, it's one of my favorite parts about the class!

Time: As the semester goes on, I'm getting better at using this class as sort of a 'break' between assignments, instead of doing it as the last thing of the day from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., and that's been going well! I just finished up an assignment for Computer Architecture, and before I start on my next math-intensive project, I'm writing this to let my brain decompress a little. The quality of my writing is far better when I'm not falling asleep while typing...

Location: I usually write for this class at home, but have started writing more at the Engineering Practice Facility (EPF), generally because those are the two places I frequent. I do most of my work at the EPF, so it follows naturally that I'd work on this class here too!

Growth Mindset: I started Growth Mindset back up next week with a fairly low-key meme post, and I'm looking forward to doing more! I've really been trying to incorporate the new Mindset into how I work, and it's actually been helping me. Onwards and upwards!

Curation: Okay. I was a TOTAL bookmark non-believer until this class, and now bookmarks have become an integral part of my life. Go figure. I have everything set up nicely, exactly how I like it... I've been converted, and I love it.