The time has come for we are at the end of the 2020-2021 school year and that brings us to our last batch of writers.
We have a small collection this month. Enjoy reading the How-Tos this month.
Your April comments are due Monday, May 10.
Please read all the submissions and leave comments for your faves---at least 3.
I will see you in class :)
Feed Your Soul,
Mrs. Solano
“And I’ll never let my son have an ego. He’ll be nice to everyone, wherever we go.” (New Day by Kanye West & JAY-Z).
Ever since I gained consciousness in the fact that I was alive and my existence in the grand scheme of affairs I started to tiptoe along the line of “right” and “wrong”. I would try and adopt good routines and stay away from bad habits and in the early stages of my life I thought egotism was bad. There’s a stigma towards having an ego and it is typically seen in a bad light, even when you look up ‘ego’ it even gives suggestions like “How do I kill my ego?”. Meanwhile, being humble is praised and admired even, on one occasion, I won a student trait of the month for being modest and bragging about it on this blog is the best part. Is it good to be modest? Is it bad to be cocky? Ego is the foundation of a better person. When you garner self-respect for yourself, you not only find yourself more prepossessing, but you find more appreciation in the life around you. So why is there a negative connotation with egos and their role?
There are multiple reasons as to why people think an ego is bad and the first reason is personal experience. There are always those people who are looking in the mirror too much or trying too hard to get attention, and while they are egotistical, they are more narcissistic if anything. Narcissism is when someone performs an action to get attention and admiration, but being egotistical doesn’t coincide with narcissism, since you can think you are great without ever wanting any attention at all. Take Kanye west for example, “‘Til I got flashed by the paparazzi. Damn, these n***** got me, I hate these n***** more than the Nazis” (Flashing Lights - Kanye West). Speaking of Kanye West, he is probably another reason as to why people don’t like the idea of having a big ego. Ever since the 2009 VMA awards, the incident where Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift during the award ceremony, people fortified the thought that celebrities have big egos and most do, like Madonna, Connor Mcgregor, and Alec Baldwin. Finally, the last major reason for the way ego is looked at in today’s world is the stories and themes that we read and grow up with. Take the “Tortoise and the Hare” for instance. The hare was too cocky and that got in the way of him winning. The Bible even has a story about humility with King Nebuchadnezzar. With all this evidence considered it seems like having a big ego is detrimental and hurts the relationships of those around you, but this isn’t all true.
Your ego is there when no one and nothing else is there for you, we ultimately rely on ourselves to get through the day, but situations are not always that hopeless. It’s easy to say having an ego is bad, but like many aspects of life; if you have it under moderation, then it can help you grow. There is a study by the APA that states that having a strong ego builds your willpower which allows for the dedication towards major projects, self-improvement, etc. A common notation is that cocky people are annoying to interact with, but people who constantly bring up their flaws and want constant reassurance are no better than the individuals who try to take the spotlight for themselves. Accepting and embracing your ego is part of accepting who you are because if you suppress it completely you cut out parts of yourself that set you apart. There are many people who struggle with self-confidence and boosts to an ego can help their lives immensely. In my eyes anyone can be an “Odyessus”, meaning anyone can be the main character of their lives and triumph, except not everyone triumphs all the time. As cliche as that may sound, prioritizing yourself without being a hindrance to others is a huge value and should never be looked down upon.
Works cited
“APA PsycNet.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F2333-8113.1.S.19.
Bellis, Rich. “Why Real Leaders Have Strong Egos (And That's A Good Thing).” Fast Company, Fast Company, 13 Jan. 2017, www.fastcompany.com/3067133/why-real-leaders-have-strong-egos-and-thats-a-good-thin g.
Bondy, Halley. “Why Having a Big Ego Isn't Always a Bad Thing: Executive Coach Liz Bentley.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 24 Dec. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/know-your-value/feature/why-having-big-ego-isn-t-always-bad-thing-e xecutive-ncna1104591.
Genius, 2007, genius.com/Kanye-west-flashing-lights-lyrics. Flashing Lights - Kanye West
Genius, 2011, genius.com/312725. New Day - Kanye West & JAY-Z
“If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
“I’ve never thought about it. What do you think I would be?” Mallory responds.
“Hmm,” Giselle spun around in her swivel chair while tapping her pencil on her head before coming to a stop and looking at the ceiling, “probably a koala.”
“Why a koala?”
“Cus you’re lazy.”
“Because I’m lazy?!” she shrieks in shock then smiles, “well you’re evil, like a crow.”
“How are crows evil?”
“Don’t ask me, I'm not a crow connoisseur.”
The girls laugh at the remarks and go back to work. They begin to discuss the gossip going on within their University and laugh some more. The conversation soon fell dead as the girls began to work on their homework again. Their hard work is disrupted by the text tone of Mallory’s phone in which she checks.
19:25, Thursday.
Maybe: mom
Come home now.
“Who’s texting you? Your boyfriend?” Giselle teases her with a smirk.
“It’s just my mom again. She wants me to come home.”
“I thought she didn’t want you home.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
A loud banging that came from the front door interrupts them. Both girls quickly whip their heads in that direction then exchange expressions. The girls look outside the window. It was dark outside with little to no light near the window area but they realized
they could see a figure. Mallory grabs Giselle’s hand and pulls her down to hide under the bed. Their hearts began to race and fear quickly filled their stomachs. The figure approaches the window and peers inside as if it were looking for something. Mallory kept her gaze on the thing while Giselle covered her mouth and put her head down. The figure begins to bang on the window. The pounding gradually got louder and harder until it stopped abruptly and the figure left. Both girls wait a few minutes before getting from under the bed just in case they hadn’t actually left. Mallory rubs Giselle’s back to comfort her while her mind is riddled with fear and confusion. She gets from under the bed and shuts the blinds immediately.
“It’s okay, G. You can come from under the bed now.” She tells her.
No response follows, nor any movement. Mallory bites her lower lip knowing Giselle feels unsafe. She walks back to the bed and looks under to help her come out, but Giselle wasn’t there. The fear that went away quickly rushes through her body again. She calls out to Giselle, but is met with silence again. She walks around the apartment calling out to her in confusion and worry yet there is no sign of Giselle anywhere in the apartment. Mallory quickly grabs her phone and begins to text her, spamming her with multiple messages before deciding to call her. The phone rings a few times, then a ringtone is heard from the room.
“Giselle?” She calls her name as she approaches the room cautiously. A pit in her stomach begins to rise. A feeling of negative energy radiated from the room. It was almost as if the room was on fire. Mallory grabs the door handle but gets burned by it. Smoke began to ooze from underneath the door and the heat grew hotter.
Help me! A familiar voice called from inside the room. Mallory recognized the voice as Giselle and began to try to kick down the door. The knob was too hot to touch and it seemed the harder she tried, the farther she got from understanding what was going on. An ungodly amount of heat radiated from the room. She kicks at the door one more time before it breaks open. Black smoke filled the hallway of the apartment quickly causing Mallory to cough and cover her mouth while swatting the smoke.
“Mal, help me!” Giselle cried again.
As soon as Mallory saw Giselle, she was also met with a black figure holding Giselle’s head and mimicking her. Mallory screams in terror and darts for the front door. The black figure follows her down the hall and to the front door where she gets thrown to the wall and knocked unconscious.
--
She wakes up in the woods, holding a book with READ ASAP written on it. She sits up, waiting for the raging headache to dim down. After collecting herself for a few minutes, her mind began to clear up and soon be filled with the memories of before. She quickly stands up and looks around. She had no idea where to start looking. On the floor there were crumpled up pieces of paper scattered in no specific form. Mallory begins reading the book in her hand and feels the same feeling in her stomach when she was by the door that radiated the negative energy. The first few pages were filled with tally marks and schemes or plans of some sort that ended up being changed or crossed out entirely. She continues to flip until she reaches a page with explanations.
If you’re reading this, you have to get out of these woods now. Find the tree with the animals on it and touch the crow.
Mallory looks around and notices almost immediately the tree the book referred to. As she walked up to the tree, she noticed all types of animals on the tree. Cows, dolphins, snakes. She looked around the tree and noticed the grow was red while the other animals were green and a dolphin was blue.
What is this thing?
She looks inside the book for notes and finds a page speaking on the dolphins.
DO NOT TOUCH THE CROW. If you want to get out of this hell, you have to touch the
In confusion, Mallory notices that it was the last page with writing on it. Before she could wonder anything, she feels the same heat as she did from the room radiating behind her. Without taking a look, she darts through the forest looking for an exit. The heat follows her and keeps up with her until she reaches a familiar street. It was the University. She ran to the apartment where Giselle stayed and ran to the door banging on it. No answer. She runs over to the window and peeks inside seeing nobody inside. Everything was normal. Giselle’s head wasn’t cut off, there was no smoke, and even their homework laid where they had last put it.
Am I going crazy? Mallory thought to herself.
She begins pounding on the window and calls Giselle’s name, but is still met with silence. The streets were empty and all the lights in the apartments around seemed to be off. Mallory turns around and sees multiple posters all over the area. Once she had gotten closer to read it, her heart sank into her stomach and she dropped the book.
I had seen meditation as a hobby hippies did in their free time but now I incorporate it into my everyday life because of the impact it has left on me. Meditation is used widely around the world and for a variety of purposes that can shape a person into their highest self. It can be used in your daily life to build resilience against stress and to center yourself when you are thrown off by anything that causes stress.While meditation is known universally, there are different practices and items to add onto meditation that will bring a better and more impactful outcome. Using my knowledge of meditation I want to give some advice and tips on how to meditate.
Like me, many people struggle to clear their mind when meditating because that is what they are told to do. Using a subtype of meditation called Mindfulness Meditation you do the opposite of clearing your thoughts and instead be mindful and focus on the present instead of your past or future. You first want to find a peaceful place and sit in any relaxed position with a straight back so you are breathing properly. You then want to clear your mind of any past trauma or thoughts and any worries you are overthinking about in the future and only focus on the good things that have kept you where you are now. By acknowledging and thinking of only the present you are able to ease and let go of negative thoughts that aren’t currently affecting you and have hold of you. Using this technique helps reduce fixation on negative emotions and improves focus and memories. This technique has personally helped me with a bad habit of negative thought patterns that currently don’t happen as often as they did before.
(credit: Damazen.com)
A certain meditation called Breathwork Meditation is the use of breathing exercises to increase the supply of oxygen to your brain which promotes a state of calmness and relaxation. To achieve Breathwork Meditation you first must sit laying down or in an upward position with
your back straight and hands on your lap or to the side. Once in the right position close your eyes and repeatedly breathe in and out of your nose while inhaling and exhaling your stomach with each breath you take. Once you get a hang of this technique you will feel a feeling of relaxation. Breathwork is also a good way to transfer into regular meditation because your mind won't be as clustered as it was before you started the breathwork. I have gone to some breathwork classes in the past months and all of my experiences have been very impactful on my emotional and mental health which introduced me to new people and promoted a lot of self love.
(Credit: Jessica Linderman)
A very life changing meditation that has helped me grow with others and all my loved ones is called Metta Meditation also known as Loving-Kindness Meditation. This meditation can be done by yourself but it is recommended to do with friends and family. You can lay in any comfortable position to your liking which then you start to recite a mantra-based meditation directing the positive energy towards yourself for example “I am healthy”, “I am lucky”, “I am loved”, etc.. You then link the energy towards the person you are with(unless alone) and go on to link it to people who you love, who you want to love more, someone who you have a difficult relationship with and concluding the meditation with the love for all beings. Metta Meditation is known to promote strong feelings of love and compassion with yourself and others. Doing this meditation with loved ones can greatly help create a better bond and help clear off frustration or resentment.
(Credit: BFJ Media)
All types of meditations are great practicing on their own but you can always incorporate different items into your meditations to help clear your mind and relax your body. When I usually meditate I burn different types of incense and cleanse the areas I am in to keep a positive environment while I meditate. Using different herbs like lavender, sage and mugwort can heighten different senses while meditating which helps stay in meditation. While these items are always good to have for meditating they aren’t necessary and I guarantee that practicing any type of meditation will always help you in a positive way.
From working at canes, I have picked up a lot on how they make their chicken, and today
I will be teaching you exactly that so you can follow the same recipe at home. Frying your own
chicken can seem daunting, but it's actually very simple and puts most fried chicken spots to
shame if you were to follow this recipe. If you've always wanted to try your hand at making
your own fried chicken, now would be the perfect opportunity!
Ingredients
- 1 chicken breast
- 7 cups of all purpose flour
- 3 eggs
- 2 tablespoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 2 tablespoon garlic salt
- 2 cups of water
- Cooking oil
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 4 cups fresh buttermilk
Equipment
- High sided skillet
- Thermometer
- Wire rack
Process
- Prepping
- Seasoning
- Brine
- Coating
- Cooking
Prepping: To prepare the chicken breast, we must defrost the chicken so it is nice and
warm, so we can cut it. You are going to cut the chicken breast into vertical strips by just eyeing
it and then once it is cut, you must wash it underneath hot water to make sure you are getting the
bacteria off, and your chicken is as clean as possible.
Seasoning: Seasoning plays an important role in every food, making sure you can
actually taste the flavor compared to non tasty food. To prepare the seasoning, we are going to
make two separate batches of seasoning, one for the coating part of the process, and one for the
brine. Believe it or not, but canes do actually season it chicken, by mixing 1 tablespoon paprika,
2 tablespoon pepper, 2 tablespoon garlic salt, 1 teaspoon of salt all together. Once that is all
mixed up, you want to eye it and split it amongst the different parts.
Brine: The brine is the most crucial part in cooking your cane's chicken. Canes use a
buttermilk brine, which means to prepare it, we must get 4 cups of fresh buttermilk, three eggs
and mix it with the seasoning we made in the step above. The next step would be to mix it all
together and leave your chicken in the brine for about one minute, making sure every strip of
chicken is fully coated in your buttermilk brine.
Coating: You must now make your coating, your coating must include seven cups of all
purpose flour and the other half of the seasoning we made in step 2. Once the minute has passed
of coating the chicken in your brine, you can now drop your wet chicken into the dry batter,
where you are going to coat your chicken until everything is covered with your dry coat.
Repeat: This part is a repetition of the second and third step, but this time we are going to
get our coated chicken, and drop it back into the wet brine, wait another minute, and then coat it
in the dry batter one last time.
Cooking: Congrats, you have made it to the last step of making your Cane's Chicken. You
are now going to turn your stove on high and get your high sided skillet ready, any pan or skillet
could work, as long as they are high sided because we do not want oil going everywhere. The
high sided skillet I am using, will now be filled with oil two / thirds of the up. You are now going
to use your thermometer to measure how hot your oil is , and it should be in that four hundred to
four hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit range. You are going to carefully drop your fully
coated chicken strips into the oil, as you can hear the oil starting to crackle and pop. It generally
takes about five to seven minutes to fully fry the chicken, but depending on how juicy to how
crispy you want it, ideally five minutes and thirty seconds is the best time to take your chicken
out if you want that perfect blend of both. You want to use tongs to move the chicken around so
they are not stuck in one place. Getting ready to take the chicken out, you are going to get a tray
which is covered with aluminium foil paper, and tissues to absorb all the oil, and then on top a
wire rack where we can place the chicken after you take it out. Once the chicken is on the wire
rack, you can see all the oil dripping down, and you must now wrap the chicken for one minute
to give it that softness on the inside, but crunch on the outside.
Congrats, again you learned how to make Canes fried Chicken at home for everyone. You
can now enjoy it with any type of dipping sauce you like.
I don’t know about you but I love food, especially desserts so let me teach you how to make Oreo Cheesecakes. My mom taught me how to make these, they’re really simple and easy to make, this might not be for everyone so i’m gonna make the instructions really easy for you. I hope you try and enjoy them as much as I do :)
Ingredients:
● 2 (8oz) packages Cream Cheese (softened)
● 1⁄2 cup of sugar
● 2eggs
● 24 Oreo cookies
● 24 cupcake liners (depending on how much you are making)
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350°
Beat cream cheese, 1 at a time, with the mixer until cream cheese is creamy. Add sugar and mix. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating on low speed after each just until blended. Then mix on high speed until all ingredients are well blended and soft.
Place 1 cookie in the bottom of each paper-lined muffin cup. Fill with batter (about 2 Tbsp).
Bake for 20 - 23 mins or until centers are almost set. Remove from the oven and let them sit in the pan for 30 mins and refrigerate in the pan for 1 to 3 hours. This method will prevent them from cracking since the mold will hold them together.
Then you may enjoy :)
Hello, everyone! I’m sure that we all know about how impactful computer science has been on our modern lives. From it be powering our mobile devices or being implemented in machine learning to aid our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m very sure that all of us had our lives impacted by computer science in one way or another. Unfortunately, though, not all of us had the opportunity to be properly exposed to it and learn about it. To give you an introduction to programming, here is how to make your first interactive program in Python!
What you Need
● A device that allows you to type (ex: computer and keyboard, laptop, phone, etc.). For this tutorial, I will be using my phone
● A Python compiler (in this tutorial I will be using an online compiler called repl.it)
The Steps in Making Your First Interactive Program!
1)
The first step to making your first interactive computer program is to find a good compiler that will follow the commands you send it with your code. In this tutorial I will be using the virtual compiler replit since it allows you to store all your programs on it, share it with who you want, and have the entire world see your program! Make an account by clicking on the top right hand corner and signing up
Once you make an account, click on the “+ New Repl” button, select the programming language to be Python, and name it whatever you want!
2)
3) In order to make this program interactive, we need a way to let the user know that he or she needs to input values into the compiler. To do this we use the print() function, which outputs anything you want onto the screen that is within the parentheses. Since we want to output a specific message onto the screen, we have to enclose what we want to output onto the screen in quotation marks. Here is the complete command: print(“Hello! I am Sal the virtual robot! What is your name?”)
4) In order to let the user type in his or her name, we need to use the input() function to allow the user to type in something and store the name somewhere. To do this, we store it in a variable. On the next line (which you get to by hitting the “Enter” key), call the variable “name” and set it equal to the input() function. Here is the complete command: name = input()
5) Since the program needs to respond to the user input, we will use the print() function again. On the next line, follow what you did in step 3 except we need to have 3 separate things in this output: the first part of the response, the user’s inputted name (which is stored in the variable “name”), and the last part of the response. To connect each part, put a plus sign in between each one. Here is the complete command: print(“Hello “ + name + “! What can I do for you?)
6) To let the user type in something again, simply type “input()” onto the screen.We don’t need to set it to anything in this case since the program will only have one response to the inputted command
7) To make the program respond to the user properly, we will use the print() function again like how we did in step 5. Think of a creative message that makes it sound like the program is reasonably responding to anything the user inputs. Here is my complete command: print(“Sorry, “ + name + “. I am not designed to carry out that command.”)
8) To see the program run and to interact with it, press the “Run’ at the top of the screen if you are using a computer and the triangle button at the bottom right hand corner if you are using a phone
Although this is a much simpler program than those that power modern society, I hope this tutorial at least helped you be introduced into and be interested in programming. There is much more to computer programming and artificial intelligence than just asking someone what he or she wants done and then immediately rejecting the request, but this at least gets you one step closer!