still beautiful

What song has held a special place in your heart lately? I'm curious to know and listen to them all!

The astrological transits must be heavily influencing my emotions because lately, I've been listening to a lot of songs that make me cry. A very special song that's been on repeat every week on my playlist is 'still beautiful' by SOLE, a Korean R&B artist (R&B is my favorite genre of all time). Singing behind a piano melody, SOLE cherishes self-love by embracing her spirit through tough times. 

In the music video, the animation starts as her going on a journey to reach the goal to success with a group of friends and at each checkpoint, someone eventually gives up. In the end, she reaches success alone but finds that there are still more challenges ahead, which leads to her sadly giving up. In the midst of crying, she notices that all her friends are at the bottom waiting for her, and with even more tears in her eyes, she joins them. 

The message I got from the story is that everyone has a breaking point and what truly matters is to look after yourself when life knocks you down and enjoy the small things. It's okay to not be okay. After reading the translated lyrics in English, I bawled. Music is truly the universal language of mankind! 

Songs like this help me through moments of anxiety and stress. To serve as a daily reminder, I have "standing still can also be a beautiful thing" as a text widget on my profile. I look forward to having children one day so I could sing this song as a lullaby. They'll have to excuse my horrible singing voice 😜

standing still can also be a beautiful thing

Now that my presentation is done and out of the way, I'm able to reflect on my performance. It's actually been a long time since I had to do a presentation of any kind and I was looking forward to see if I've improved with public speaking because I used to be so awkward. 

I wasn't nervous but as soon as I walked to the front of the class, I became so self-conscious over everything. On the way to school, I made sure to sing my heart out in the car because I tend to have stubborn vocal cords and I wanted to sound as clear as possible. I even practiced my speech in the parking lot before heading to the classroom and my voice was still so hoarse. I wasn't confident with how I sounded so I definitely noticed that my voice was shaky during my presentation. However, that wasn't even the worst part. My brain was yelling at me to move my hands around and make eye contact, and my body responded by doing the stiffest hand movements ever. No one probably noticed but I took mental note of everything.

I really appreciate Tiffany telling me good job as I walked back to my seat because it helped me recover quickly from my nervousness. In the end, this experience was fun and it guided me in stepping up my communication skills because I want a career someday where I can be in the public eye. It sucks I wasn't able to make it to class to be able to watch the presentations of Rui, Saul, Kevin, Mayra, and Tiffany because I would have been intrigued to learn about their topics. I'll do my best to show up to class to see the remaining presentations! :) 

I won't beat myself up over the small imperfections and I think it's healthy to laugh at yourself time to time! At least I share similar experiences with my favorite R&B artist, Summer Walker, of standing/being awkward.

3.1.5 Beyond the Ribbon

Some features that had me navigate beyond the ribbon stressed me out when it came to skills & challenge labs. A big feature was the dialogue box launcher in the bottom right, which was a completely new concept to me. I have never used Word in the past since I own a MacBook. Even so, I tend to only utilize Align, Text Size, and Font. My eyes couldn't believe all the things I had to click! I'm surprised I managed to pass MO-100 with a higher score than I expected because I suddenly forgot the skills I learned.

2.1.7 Peripheral Devices

LabSim provides examples of peripheral devices including keyboards, mice, scanners, digital cameras, speakers and microphones, printers, and external storage devices. Many of these devices can either be connected to a computer through a wired or wireless connection. My first experience with wireless devices regarding computers was Apple's Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse for the iMac. It was a dream come true because I hated tugging on the wires with USB keyboards and mice. A wired peripheral device I'm required to use is a digital camera. Last semester, my biology professor wanted everyone to buy an external webcam for exam recording purposes to make sure no one cheats. A built-in webcam on my MacBook Air wouldn't suffice since the camera cannot fully capture the view around you. Since my Windows laptop doesn't have a built-in webcam, I found another way to put my external webcam to use! I now use it for WebEx meetings along with wireless earbuds for microphone connection. 

1.5.1 Online Searching

1.5.1 shares tips on how to navigate your browser to find and evaluate online information. Even as a child, I've always had the instinct of shortening my words when using the search bar. For example, "my copy and paste is broken, how do I fix it?" can easily be turned into "copy and paste broken" because there are most likely tons of websites that tag specific keywords in their publishings. Plus, it would be tedious typing in every single word. The most useful advice I've received from my English teacher in high school was to always look at the date of publishing for the most recent information. When going through search results, I always make sure to find recently updated and popular links depending on the circumstances to obtain the most accurate information. For instance, if I wanna learn how to hook my iPhone to my MacBook Air, I wouldn't want to watch a video made in 2015 because system updates can completely change the locations of different programs and such.