Growth Mindset

The Growth Mindset that was discussed by Carol Dweck really stood out to me personally. I enjoyed listening to her story of the Power of Not Yet that was tested by the schools in Chicago, I liked this because that same performance grade has been given to me in my job. 

I work at a church in Oklahoma City, and we do assessments at the end of the semesters. In these assessments, we look into where we have grown and where we have lacked growth. My leaders would give me a "not yet" score on some of the areas of my work, so that I am encouraged to continue to grow each and every day. This has really worked at my work. I have been encouraged to get all my work to the highest standard and I have truly grown through the experiences in this way. At the same time I have taken it further into my personal life and have encouraged myself to grow when working outside work and school with answering "not yet" in order that I can continue to see myself getting further with everything that I do. This has truly been an incredible tool that I have been able to use in my life so that I can see true growth in my life. 

I believe that as I continue to go through this semester that my interest in the growth mindset will continue to grow. I believe that I will be encouraged to learn more and more about the growth mindset because of the way that it is used not only in school but outside of school as well. I have plenty of goals to learn more this year, in school, in marriage and work, I want to use the growth mindset in order that I can gain each of these goals and bring them to fruition. 

What Can I learn Next?

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Time Strategies

Time management and me are not the best of friends. At least not when I was really in college. Since I "graduated" I have become better at time management. I used to wait till last minute, usually meaning right before class to get everything turned in, but now I usually get all my work done with plenty of time. Time management for me now looks like planning everything out in my planner and making sure that I start working on things needed to be a few days before, and if I know it's going to be a harder project or assignment then I will start working even earlier than that. My distraction level is still high. I have a bad time with watching TV and working, so I try to turn my TV off and work. I read the article, The Important Habit of Just Starting by Jory Mackay. I thought that the model he gave of Motivation = expectancy x value / impulsiveness x delay was a very helpful model to understand. I find that my what I expect and value is important in my motivational standard. If I am expecting more and hold a higher value on what I am doing, I usually have a higher desire to to work on things. On the opposite end of that spectrum, I find the that impulsiveness and delay play a large role in how I use my time management. TV easily distracts me, and when I do, I tend to fall into the TV, if you will, so that I completely go to TV and not work. Overall I tend to do well with my time management. There are of course times when I fail to have good time management, but I try to keep that at a minimal and my production rate high.

Time Management strategy sheet that shows how motivation is produced. 

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Reading Options

Bharata requests Rama's sandals.

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Hinduism, Buddhism and the cultures that they are heavily involved with interest me hugely. They interest me so much that I decided to major in them. As I am a religious studies major and I have focused my major on Hinduism and other eastern philosophies. So this whole topic is very interesting to me. Learning more and more about the Hindu culture along with the Hindu religion is helpful for me to gain a better understanding of my major. This course will be helpful for me to learn a lot more about the things that I find most interesting. I have decided that I will be reading the Public domain edition of the Ramayana story. I chosen this edition based on the fact that I am a slow reader, so having an audio guide will help me immensely, also, I work nine hours at a desk and am allowed to listen to music, so I can pop in my headphones and listen to story at work if I so desired to. I think that doing it this way will help me out and I will learn much about the Ramayana story. I have learned this story before in my other Hinduism course, but there is so much more I can learn about it because of how vast these stories are and how in depth they can be. They can be confusing, so I am excited to relearn these stories and gain a better understanding of something that I have learned before. Hopefully through reading and writing about these stories I will be able to pull from my past knowledge and use it in order to help me understand where this course will be leading me in my continuing story of the Ramayana story along with Hinduism in general.

Storybook Favorites

The Greatest OU Football Player

This story was very interesting to me. I enjoy OU football so it was cool to see how he was able to intertwine Indian epic into the OU football story of winning the national championship in 2000. I thought that the topic was very clear and since I know some about both OU football and the story of Rama, I had fun reading this. The introduction was good and helped me to get hooked into reading it more. I thought that the pictures that were presented along with the way he opened the story made me intrigued in reading it. The design was well organized and simplistic so I could get around through it easy.

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Lord Rama and the new OU stadium with the OU Hall of Fame

Time Machine in the end zone

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The Heroic Hanuman

This story was quite boring to me. I did not get into it too well, not at all actually. I know nothing on the topic; so reading this introduction that was slow and full of long words did not help me out. I did not even know what some of the words meant so I could not get into the introduction too well at all. The design was more difficult to me as well. I could understand the more techy-like fonts because of what he is going for in this, but they were much harder for me to read. All in all, not my favorite.

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Hello, When Am I?

This story was very intriguing. I found myself going deep into reading it when I definitely was not expecting that. The introduction was a great start, leading with a story of the character and what he was seeing and thinking about. I had no former knowledge of the topic, so reading it helped me to gain knowledge. I was happy to read this one. The introduction was good and was helpful in learning about the topic, but a little long for my taste. I liked the design of the page, it was easy to navigate and the text was large and easy to read.

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Introduction to Someone Who Hopes to Travel Often

 Hello, 

My name is Tyler Edgin. I am a senior here at the University of Oklahoma and a Religious Studies major. I am a married man, and have been for almost 8 months now. My wife's name is Paige. She graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a nursing degree; she is now a nurse in Oklahoma City. I am working at a church called Frontline Church in downtown Oklahoma City. I also work another job at a Medical Billing office. After about 5 months of marriage my wife, whom has never had a pet before convinced me to get a cat… This was an absolutely wonderful idea! We now have a little kitten that is just lovely, and crazy, and sometimes evil, but we like her anyways. I am looking forward to graduating this year so that I can make it official seeing as I walked last year, then realizing that I did not actually finish, whoops. But now I am going to officially graduate and put college behind me. Woot Woot!This winter break my wife and I took a three-week vacation to Europe. We traveled from Oklahoma City to Boston, and started Europe off in Paris, France. Our other stops include: London, England; Dublin, Ireland; Rome, Italy; Manarola, Italy; Florence, Italy; Munich, Germany; and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. My travels have been an amazing part of my life and I am super thankful for them. I am hoping to travel often with my wife and I am hoping, definitely not expecting, my wife and I's travel and tidbits blog to take off, so that maybe somehow we can get paid to travel. It's looking doubtful, but I am very very hopeful. If you need help with places to go visit on your Europe vacation, pick Garmisch or Manarola, they are the best. 

New Year's Eve in Paris

Week 1 Story

Old King Cole was a jolly old soul who ruled a kingdom that was really quite large. His kingdom covered a large bit of land that stretched from sea to sea. In fact his kingdom was the largest of kingdoms in the age, bigger than any other king.

He lived for a long time as king of his land. 43 years he ruled his land and longer still he had. He loved to smoke his beautiful pipe that he received when he became king so very long ago. He smoked and smoked his beautiful pipe nightly as the king. Old king Cole also loved to listen to his fiddlers fiddle. He loved the music that they made and nobody could compare to it. Every night his fiddlers fiddled and every night he listened. They were so good and so charming their song that nobody could compare. They loved to play and dance around the fiddlers would all night. And Old King Cole loved their songs; in fact he danced along side them. He would dance and dance and the nobles would cheer and cheer for him, for they loved to watch him dance along sing alongside the fiddlers.

Old King Cole knew just how to throw a party. With his fiddlers and smokes he also would bring out the soup and wine. He always saved the best for last so fiddlers were the finale. The people would eat and drink while fiddlers would play and dance around. The nobles would come from miles around just to go to King Cole’s parties. They were the best parties of all time so everybody loved them. Fiddlers, soup, wine, smoke and dancing, what could ever be better. These parties are amazing and everybody came, even those uninvited. Old King Cole would never say no to anybody who ever entered. So in they came and in they stayed until the party ended.

Authors note:

I loved the nursery rhyme of Old King Cole, it was very fun to read. So I decided to continue to make this story as jolly as I could. I tried to throw in some rhymes but I did not want to make the entire thing that way.

Old King Cole
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Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy... My Favorite Place

 

Manarola Coastline at Sunset

My favorite place is Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy. Cinque Terre is a national park just outside of La Spezia, Italy. It consists of 5 different cities all with trails that lead to one another. These towns are built along the cliff sides of the coast. My wife and I made a stop in this town for 3 nights during our European backpacking trip. Together we have been looking at images of this city since high school with hopes to someday stand and see this same view for ourselves. Getting to see this colorful town with small flats built up alongside the cliffs with the sounds of the ocean waves crashing up along it was better than any picture could do it justice. This place is now my favorite because of the absolute beauty it really is. It also is my favorite because of the plethora of hiking trails available here for adventures alongside the ocean. I personally love the Italian culture and people. This small town was full of local Italians, delicious and authentic Italian food, and of course, good wine. I was so happy to have visited this town and plan to come back here again. It definitely is my favorite place I have ever been to! 

 

Hiking In Manarola

 

Manarola Coastline

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Cinque Terre Beach Stroll