Week 12 Review

Finals are coming so soon and it is kind of terrifying! Just as equally terrifying if not more so, was Amy Burvall's mash-up of Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl called Black Death. Although this video was quite informative of the historical catastrophe called the Black Death, it mostly just caused me to have nightmares (kidding, kind of).

Here it is:

Week 12: Famous Last Words

As it is called the Famous Last Words blog post, I thought it was only fitting to include a quote for thought. This is one of my favorites by Roald Dahl:

Source: Uplift My Mind. 

"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." This is one of my favorite quotes because I truly believe that your thoughts dictate your actions and also those vibrations you give off, or your persona. It's the theory of mind over matter. Furthermore, some people believe that by manifesting your dreams or goals they are more likely to become your reality. Manifestation may not be for everyone. To be honest, I find it very difficult. But, it makes sense that if you really dwell on an aspiration, it is more likely to become a reality. That is not to say you can just sit around thinking about this goal you want to reach but if this goal is at the front of your mind as you go about your daily tasks, it shouldn't be surprising that you are more likely to prioritize with that end goal in mind.

I think I believe in this idea that your thoughts can change your reality so much because of the book that I read called Switch on Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I talked about this book in both my first Growth Mindset blog post as well as in my Deserted Island Books Learning Challenge post. It is an easy read and Dr. Leaf provides such revolutionary ideas supported by research that I would recommend it to just about anyone. The book proposes the idea that positive thinking leads to growth, while negative thinking hinders growth, and I couldn't agree more! This isn't to say that I am positive 100% of the time but I do try to think positively and catch myself when I start to have negative thoughts.

Learning by H.E.A.R.T. Challenge

I am always trying to do one thing a day to make myself a better person or just for my own well-being. This could be as simple as enjoying a mug of warm tea. Some days I will practice yoga - this is one of my favorite options but this semester has been too busy for me to get to do it often. And sometimes, I volunteer, which is always so fulfilling. You can even try the whole "pay it forward" idea where, for example, you could buy the person in line behind you at Starbuck's coffee and hopefully they will in turn do something nice for someone else. And even if they don't, at least you made someone else's day a little better. So when I ran across this image on Professor Laura Gibbs' Learning by HEART blog, I was very excited.

Source: Learning by HEART.

I just love everything about this picture: read books, limit television, stay close to friends and family, let your heart be your guide. And I am a HUGE advocate of exercise. I have to exercise or else I get so cranky - it's actually crazy what I big difference it makes in my life!

Growth Mindset: Resiliency

For this week's Growth Mindset challenge, I read an article from The New Yorker called How People Learn to Become Resilient by Maria Konnikova. One reason I believe that resiliency is so important is because of its role in emotional intelligence. According to Management by Angelo Kinicki, emotional intelligence is "the ability to monitor your and others' feelings and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions." Furthermore, recent research shows that those with high emotional intelligence are more likely to be associated with:

1. Better social relations for children and adults
2. Better family and intimate relationships
3. Being perceived more positively by others
4. Better academic achievement
5. Better psychological well-being 

All of these byproducts of high emotional intelligence are traits that employers look for in their employees, because, to name a few reasons, with these traits you are more likely to get along with your fellow employees and also because if you are not distracted by your emotions, you can work more efficiently. Resiliency plays a huge part in emotional intelligence because if something negative does happen to you, it is important to be able to bounce back quickly and not let your emotions get the best of you.

Perception is key to resiliency. Source: The New Yorker. 

How do you perceive everything that happens to you? As my mother always says, you can look at your glass half empty or half full.

Tech Tip: Reverse Image Search

For this week's Tech Tip, I used Google's reverse image search where you can upload an image and google will give you its source. This tip could be very handy in the future so I am glad that I learned about this neat tool. Here is the image that was provided by Professor Laura Gibbs to practice the reverse search:

A scene from The Ramayana. Source: V&A Collections.

Google also provided me with a source for this from Pinterest where I learned that this image (circa 1820) depicts Rama sending Hanuman to Lanka.