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. 

Setbacks

Finally, 25% of the 16-week semester is already completed! However, I don’t feel proud about the way I’m ending the 25% mark. 

This week (Sep. 19-24), I missed 4 out of 5 school days mainly due to a big lack of sleep. On Monday, I only got around 2 hours of sleep because it was a big day and I was very anxious. I sat at the DMV all morning for a standby drive test but it was worth the wait because I passed! After I got home around noon, I slept through the entire day like a baby. When I woke up late evening, I realized taking that nap was the worst decision in my life because I missed out on an entire day. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I didn’t wanna pull an all-nighter because that would put me at risk of falling asleep on the wheel. With regret, I decided to skip my Tuesday class and recharge. 

Although I was pretty energized to drive myself to school for the first time ever on Wednesday, the energy quickly died down. After missing Monday and Tuesday classes, I had to catch up with a lot of math and science, a.k.a. the world's most hated subjects (at least in my world). And accounting. Numbers on top of numbers. My Friday class was canceled so that gave me a lot more time to catch up, but I still have a lot to do. Of course, I did my best to stay on top of my work for this class no matter what! Yet, I couldn't bring myself to get up early and go to class in person today because there was just too much on my plate and I had to sort everything out. 

I know there will be much more stressful events in the future and I will have to learn to deal with obligations at a manageable pace when unexpected things happen, but I feel content moving forward with knowing I did something than absolutely nothing. 

One Day at a Time

Hi, everyone! If you don't mind sharing, what is something you do your best to keep at? Even if it's small as trying to show up to class on time, it matters just as much because of your effort! 

For me, it's fitness. I don't exercise every single day, but I have been diligently tackling personal wellness goals since this semester started, and a major goal includes being in shape. Recalling from my first post, I underwent immediate surgery in 2019 due to sustaining a hip fracture during military training that affects me to this day because I still walk with a limp. Even though I have done workouts to try and loosen the hip pain, I was simply too scared to continue the routine out of fear that I would sustain another injury, so I simply gave up. The nagging thought of having metal pins and screws to keep my hip together gave me the heebie-jeebies and contributed a big part to why I steered away from working out, but that ended up making the situation worse. 

During the Spring semester this year, I found myself being out of breath so easily when walking up just 1-2 flights of stairs—that's how bad being out of shape was. It hurt to walk on my bad hip because my body had never experienced this change. 2 weeks before the Fall semester started, I had an epiphany out of the blue and decided that enough was enough. After studying moderation in eating, protein intake, and different workout regimens through social media, I was able to build a solid foundation and go from there.

Fast forward to today, this week actually marks 1 month since I started being active again! Rome wasn't built in a day, so I don't expect to obtain drastic results overnight. However, I am very proud of the fact that I can now run for almost 2 miles nonstop.

Morning Rush

When I zone out in my classes, I often think to myself: "how does everyone prepare for the day at such an early time?" 

For me, my school mornings usually start by waking up around 6:30 to 7:30 A.M. to my favorite morning-time song which I use for my alarm tone, "Morning Call" by Hyolyn. 

While it is a favorite song, I don't wake up all sunshine and rainbows because I hate being forced to wake up, but I figured it would do since it's calming as opposed to the default Apple alarm tones. I like to give myself a motivation boost by putting on "makeup", which is just tinted moisturizer with SPF to protect my skin from harmful sun rays and slow down the aging process as much as I can. I only take 1 class on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays but I still make the effort to put myself together on most of those class days because I feel it prepares me for inevitable real-life situations that require me to get ready for quick gatherings. I think keeping a steady morning routine is what keeps me active and I hate the idea of just waking up and dragging myself from home to my destination without being productive.

How I Ended Up Here

Prior to enrolling in CSN, I had no direction where to take myself so I made the decision to aspire to be a nurse like my mother. (Being a nurse/Navy corpsman was my obligation in the military as well but I injured myself during training and got discharged, so I thought it was only right to keep the same goal in the civilian world). After failing Biology and almost other pre-requisite courses, I came to the conclusion that nursing is not the path I am destined to take. As of the Summer 2022 semester, I am now a Business major and I plan on advancing to International Business for my Bachelor's degree. 

I honestly have butterflies in my stomach thinking about my workload this semester, but in the best way. For once in my entire education, I am really willing to dive into IS101, HHP123, MATH124, THTR105, and ACC201. No offense to my past instructors and professors, but English, history, and biology are subjects I cannot get into at all. Especially biology. During lectures, I always zoned out because I don't want to learn about cells.