Jall's Blog

Squirrels are everywhere on campus. I don’t think I’ve ever not seen a squirrel while walking on campus or anywhere really in this area... They do a lot of interesting things like one time I was walking to school, and I saw a squirrel sitting on a bench eating a bowl of Chipotle. I wonder what the story was there…Well anyways I decided to read a book all about squirrels (Squirrels by Steven Otfinoski) to learn more about them and here are some cool facts I learned: Tree squirrels’ tails are very important as a defense against predators. For example, if a rattlesnake were to attack the squirrel, it can raise the temperature of its tail which can trick the rattlesnake into thinking the squirrel is a larger animal than it actually is. Also, if a predator grabs a squirrel by its tail, the tail can break off which can give the squirrel a way to escape. There are at least 260 species of squirrels that live on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. I’m not surprised that there aren’...

Apologies, I’m tardy, just a bit. But maybe you’ll enjoy the meter that I wrote this simple post in as a skit to also practice sonnet-writing, stat. You see, I read through Shakespeare’s many sonnets. Enjoyable, for sure, but lengthy too. Some resonated more than others, honest. I’ll illustrate my full thoughts out to you. One hundred fifty four works Shakespeare wrote, with many storylines hidden within. I see why one may call Shakespeare the GOAT. I truly feel as if he went all-in. With that, I’ll highlight some that I find cool, for honestly, I think that sonnets rule! To start off, Sonnet 20's fascinating: “A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted.” I think the work describes a man, conflating his femininity and self, untainted. The speaker lies attracted to this fellow, but feels deep loss, sayin’ “me of thee defeated,” For mother nature built the man but mellow, yet still, a man the speaker needs to treat him. “But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure;...

Bob and I (and Derek) recently shared our lap day, when a dog’s age in human years is the same as their human’s, Bob and I are both 15. It got me curious about Bob’s breed, the Coton de Tulear, and I ended up reading a lot of interesting things I wanted to share.  When my family was thinking about adopting a dog, we wanted a cute, low energy-dog that we could travel with on planes. After months of searching through sketchy websites and visiting Amish families with puppies, we found Bob from a trustworthy place in Oklahoma. Bob’s litter consisted of two male puppies: Bob (of course) and Otto. Their litter had a palindrome theme, meaning their names are read the same forward and backward. Some palindromes are ‘ tacocat’ , and ‘ No sir, away! A papaya war is on ’.  Bob at Target Coton de Tulears are fluffy, velcro dogs. They are mostly white, but sometimes have tan (champagne), black, or tri-colored markings. When Bob was about three months old, he had a slight hint of brown aro...

                    Binti is a science fiction novella written by Nnedi Okorafor. It follows main character, Binti, who is the first person from her community to be accepted into Oomza Uni, an extremely prestigious university that is in space. Although Binti was immensely eager to go to this university, her family and community disapproved of her leaving home and going there as the Himba traditionally don’t travel far from their home. Despite this, Binti secretly left home to pursue her academic dreams even though she knew her family and community would not be happy and would talk bad about her decision.              After departing from Earth on the spaceship that would take the students to Oomza Uni, the Meduse, jellyfish-like aliens, attack the ship and kill almost everyone on it including Binti’s new best friends and her crush right in front of her eyes. The only people who survived t...

The more I reflect on my reading, the more I appreciate my 3rd grade teacher for his book choices!! Another book I recalled reading in his class was The One and Only Ivan , a book about a silverback gorilla named Ivan who lives in a run-down mall circus. I remember finishing the story before my teacher revealed to the class that it was inspired by a real gorilla, which was a fact that surprised a lot of people. I still have my copy of the book from more than 6 years ago now, so I took the opportunity to reread it. The story is told from Ivan’s point of view and the basic gist of the book is that Ivan has been living in this small glass cage and has grown used to life in captivity. Soon, a baby elephant named Ruby arrives, causing Ivan to view their situation in a different way. Determined to protect Ruby, Ivan uses his talent of drawing to try to change their future and seek a better life outside of their cage.  There’s also a few things I’ve noticed on a reread that I’d like to po...

Minute Cryptic by Angas Tiernan and Liam Runnalls was published in September of 2025. It’s a puzzle book, and in my very professional opinion, the best puzzle book for puzzlers.  While scrolling online, I kept coming across videos of zencryptic solving minute cryptic puzzles, and I was hooked. I love all puzzles: minesweeper, blockblast, wordle, logic puzzles, zen word, find the hidden object, etc. I had never heard of minute cryptic prior to these videos and I immediately wanted to learn how to solve them.  Minute cryptic puzzles are made for overthinkers. It’s not like a normal puzzle; you really have to decipher each part of the clue, while still looking at the whole picture to be able to solve it.  I will give 3 examples of my favorite beginner friendly puzzles with hints and explanations, hopefully, you’ll enjoy them too. Reading my blog should only take about 5 minutes, so take time to figure out each puzzle SCROLL SLOWLY!!!! ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Puzzle #1: Puzzle:...