The Writings of an Illiterate Man Vol. 2

This week was pretty busy. I had 3 midterms to study for. I think all of them went well, but only one of them has been graded so far. The one that has been graded is for my understanding theater 1000 level course. That test was so easy. It was multiple choice/True-False. I haven’t had an actual multiple-choice exam since freshman year. It was really nice to not have to sink hours into studying for an exam. My robotics lab exam wasn’t so easy. That is partially because I didn’t study that much for it, but also because I felt like some of the questions were really dumb. Pretty much all of the short answer questions were over specific details and were more often than not trick questions. For instance, two of the questions were: what kind of light does an IR sensor use and what kind of light does a distance sensor use. Well considering in the context of this class they are the same thing, they both use IR light. So, I felt that was a bit unfair. I still think I did pretty well on it,...

Harvey sat down at the table. As he did so a middle-aged man in a suit came over and handed him a newspaper. “Ah, thank you, Winston.” Harvey said. “Of course, sir. And what will you have for breakfast this morning?” Winston asked. “Just eggs and toast this morning please, I am feeling something light today. Oh, and an orange juice as well as my coffee.” Harvey answered. “Right away, sir.” Winston said as he turned and walked toward the kitchen.  Harvey thumbed through the news section. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few thefts. Parliament in gridlock. Just another normal day. As he sipped his coffee, he heard a crash behind him, down the hall.  “What the bloody hell was that? Was that a window?” Harvey exclaimed, startled.  “Winston! Go investigate the cause of that noise.” He commanded, but was only met with silence. “Fine, I’ll just see to it myself!” Harvey got up and made his way towards the source of the noise. As he rounded the co...

Karna and Arjuna fight. They draw. Karna vows that either he or Arjuna will die the next time they meet. Karna runs into a different warrior and they also draw. Karna Source References Wilson. The Five Tall Sons of Pandu

While Pandavas are in exile, the eldest son of the king who exiled them comes to mock them. He eventually needs their help to escape some monsters. The wife of one of the brothers is in danger of being abducted. They rescue her. They visit wise men who tell them stories of heroes. The Pandavas spend their last year of exile in disguise in the court of a king. They take up inconspicuous jobs. The kings cattle gets stolen. The prince asks for a chariot to go into battle to take back the cattle. Arjuna offers. The prince thinks he is only a dance teacher, but agrees to let arjuna go. Arjuna takes the prince to the place the Pandavas have stashed their weapons. Ash, Misty, and Brock Using Fake Names Source References Wilson. The Five Tall Sons of Pandu

So I started with Hanuman since he is one of my favorite characters from out readings. One of the reasons I liked him so much was because he reminds me of Sun Wukong, the main character from the chinese novel Journey to the West . Wukong is also a playable character in Smite (where I was first introduced to him). Wikipedia lists Sun Wukong in the see also section. I thought it would be cool to read a bit about the character since I haven't read the novel about him and all of my knowledge of him is from a couple of video games. Sun Wukong Fighting a Wind Demon Source From there I went to learn more about his weapon, the Jingu Bang . The weapon itself is pretty interesting as it is able to grow or shrink to any size. I learned that the original use of the weapon was Yu the Great . I clicked on the link because anyone named "The Great" must have a pretty interesting story. It turns out he introduced flood control techniques to the chinese. Also, we aren't...

In the TEDx Talk : How to Get Better at the Things You Care About, the speaker highlights that it is important to identify when you are performing the skill, and when you are getting better at it. Identifying the times when you should focus on practicing the skill can make it easier for you to learn and to improve. One thing that this article confirmed for me is that focused practice is better than just practice. Focusing on something in particular makes it easier to improve at that aspect than if you just practice something and gloss over the areas lacking the most. For instance, if you are bad at playing riffs on a guitar, practicing songs that are mostly strumming isn't going to help you as much as if you just practice those riffs or practice your scales. One new thing that this article highlighted for me is that use of a skill can be divided into 2 categories: learning and performing. This was something that was kind of already in my head, but I could never really put into ...

The above image shows Susanoo (Shinto Storm God) slaying the giant 8-headed and 8-tailed dragon, Yamata no Orochi. Source