Time Strategies

Time Management

It's really important, and is something that I have struggled with greatly throughout my college career especially. I always tried to remember everything I needed to do. That is not inherently what the problem was; the main problem was that I tried to do this without writing anything down. This led to either completely forgetting to do somethings, or not leaving myself enough time to complete said tasks. Eventually I wound up getting a planner and actually utilizing it, and ever since then I have become far more in control of how I spend my time. 

The first article I read was titled "The Important Habit of just Starting". This was an interesting article to me. I did not necessarily learn anything new from this article per say, but it was a new way of looking at time management. The article mentions a formula for motivation that I thought was a different way of looking at the struggles of starting a task. This article reaffirmed the importance of starting tasks on time, and with a plan.

The Second Article that I read was titled "Increase your creative output with 14 time management tips just for creatives". I'm not going to lie, I clicked on this one because it called out to me. I would consider myself a creative, and wanted to see another person's perspective on increasing efficiency in content creation. I did learn from this article more so than my first article; it mentions taking purposeful breaks and starting with the worst part of the task first. These are two things i believe would help not only in any creative process but with any long-winded task you may set out on. 

The White Rabbit

Class Technology

I think it is pretty cool to get to utilize all the various resources online that one wouldn't normally associate with a class, for the sake of a class. I certainly never thought about utilizing a blog as a means of structuring a class, but now that I am partaking in this I feel like this is an effective means of sharing and learning with one another. I have never made a website before either, so I think that will be a cool learning process for me as well. It is also nice to have a new outlet for thought as I have never really taken to writing out my thoughts.

Technology is at our fingertips

Assignment Thoughts

                                                                  Mahabharata 

I thought this was a cool image

I think that the structure of this class is very unique. I have never had a class that followed a structure even remotely like this, and to this point I am enjoying it far more than I expected to be. I like the ability to pick and choose which assignments I am doing. I also like that this class is very self paced, and allows one to get ahead if they so desire. Not many online classes take advantage of the fact that there are no actual meeting times, so I am looking forward to that benefit. From reading the syllabus, it seems as though there is a massive time commitment to doing this every week, but after doing this on and off throughout today I am no longer worried about that. I am excited to continue on reading and writing throughout the rest of the class.

Discovering a Growth Mindset

A GROWTH MINDSET

Prior to this course, I had read about Carol Dweck and growth mindset. I originally discovered it through watching Ted talks on youtube a couple years ago. When I first read about the growth mindset I was interested in learning more. At the time I was struggling with school and organization. This type of mindset is not one that I have always embraced in all facets of my life. It is easy when you enjoy the area you're learning about to have a growth mindset in regards to your preferred subject. Since coming to OU I feel i have become better at learning because I paid more attention to the process of doing it rather than just on the outcome as I often did throughout my early life. So, on the spectrum of fixed vs. growth mindset I would place myself somewhere in the middle. I was never really challenged by anything until I got to college, so i never felt the need to prepare for things prior to arriving at OU. I am glad this topic came up in this course though, because it is always good to go at new situations with this type of mind set. I hope to actively learn as much as I can this semester in all of my courses.

Jedi Mind Trick

My Introduction

Hello World

I suppose it is a good idea to actually introduce myself, I mean not only is it worth points for this class, but it also allows us to gain a better understanding of the provider of the content that we are reading. So I guess I'll start with a brief synopsis from the beginning until i get to some of the more interesting stuff.

The Beginning:

I grew up in a military family, my Dad has been in the Army for my entire life. Fittingly, I was born in a very off the wall place to most people. That place is Alaksa, just outside of anchorage at Elmendorf Air Force Base. While I do not remember all that much about the state, I still enjoy claiming it as my place of origin. After about 3 years in Alaska the family packed up and moved to Ft. Irwin California (Do not recommend living here). Following Ft. Irwin we then moved down to Ft. Hood Texas, and that eventually led us to Lawton/Ft. Sill Oklahoma Where I grew up.

Growing Up:

I spent the majority of my life in a decently sized southwestern Oklahoma town named Lawton. The city gets a bad rap due to its high levels of crime and general lack of things to do, but it wasn't all that bad most of the time. I played soccer as a kid, and then began to play in the school band in middle school. This eventually became my biggest passion in life. I stopped playings soccer due to injury, and found my self enjoying playing my instrument (the euphonium) more and more. Marching band also became something that I put a great deal of time into, and i discovered Drum Corps for the first time. Marching at the highest level became a dream of mine. I graduated high school in 2013, and set out to OU to figure out what my next step in life would be.

College and Beyond:

A Pregame image from my final Year in the Pride of Oklahoma

I came to OU as a music composition major, but over the course of my time here I have changed majors multiple times. What I finally settled on was creating my own planned program that allowed me to take classes of my own interest with the end goal of being able to live comfortably and make a living writing music. I spend a great deal of time currently writing and listening to music. I would really like to write music for film in the future. If you have any interesting music recommendations for me, feel free to leave a comment with those, I am always on the lookout for new music.

Throughout my time at OU I have been a member of the Pride of Oklahoma Marching band for four years, as well as the Crossmen drum and bugle corps for two years (This was the accomplishment of a Dream). Because of the groups I have traveled to all but 7 states in the U.S and have performed for millions of people live, on television, and in movie theatres as well. I have provided a video of my last drum corps show for your entertainment. 

This past fall I helped with teaching at Norman High School's marching band, and that was a cool experience for me. Being on the educational side of this activity has truly made it come full circle.

I will continue to update this as I come up with more to include in it. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Story Book Favorites

After browsing through all of the story books for a little while I have found three that really popped out to me and gave me a little inspiration for my project.

https://sites.google.com/site/heroofkarma/introduction
This first link is really the storybook that provided most of the inspiration for my project idea. I enjoy how this one delivered its message as if you were the character going through the story yourself. The introduction did a great job of explaining the intent, but after wards the storybook kind of fell off. However, I feel that this storybook overall could have developed further into something that had a bit more continuity. Overall I found this design easy to navigate.

https://sites.google.com/view/tragicstories/home
After reading the introduction of this storybook I wanted to read more of the post. I thought it was a cool idea to look at a figure that was supposed to bring such joy to people in a tragic light.This storybook did a good job of filling out its content. This story book also provided some interesting images to look at at the end of each page in it. One of my favorite pictures from it is here:

A cool and creepy image from the tragic stories

https://sites.google.com/site/theravanadiaries/ravana-the-conqueror
This was the initial storybook that I clicked on. It helped me to understand what the project was exactly, as well as provided an interesting story to begin reading. I enjoyed the idea of providing such a major character his own outlet of sorts in the form of a diary. It really makes you wonder if they would have actually kept track of their own thoughts like that. I found this story book to be the most complete of the three that I have linked. It also stuck with its diary theme throughout in such a manner that it kind of felt Ravana may have actually written in this diary.

My Favorite Place

If I had to pick just ONE place to be my favorite place, I am not so sure that I could name one physical location.What immediately comes to mind as one of my favorite places is a Tour bus that made countless stops over the course of the two summers that I lived on it.

My Home for two of my summers

Not exactly the first thing that pops into most people's minds when they think about their favorite places they have ever visited. However, for me, this a bus like this was my home for two summers with some of the best people I have ever met in my life. During the Summer's of 2014 and 2016 I was fortunate enough to march with the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps as a baritone player.

Me in action

 A quick google search is all it would take to figure out some of what we did together those summers, but will really only provide a glimpse at all that went on. To be brief, drum corps are essentially professional marching bands, and they travel around the country competing with other top ensembles to crown a world champion. While all the music and marching aspects of that crazy activity were some awesome memories. The ones I truly miss the most now-a-days are the down time. All the crazy bus stories that I wouldn't imagine would have happened. Going to bed at 11PM in one city on your traveling home, and awakening 3-7 hours later in a completely new area ready to practice and work all day. Getting a day off and finding the closest place to grab a beer with my friends. It still doesn't make all that much sense to me how I could miss such an uncomfortable and difficult situation so much, but it was all worth it in the end. That Bus is still one of my favorite places in the world, and I hope it continues to create memories for all those future members.


When all else is gone...



Tour Bus Image