Thursday, October 29, 2015

Week 10 Storytelling: Coming Home

Don came home from work after a long day sorting and selling prescriptions. The patients that morning were more irritable than normal, especially since it was flu season. He went straight to his room and took a shower to wash off the stress of the day. Half-way through his shower he suddenly realized... his house was empty.

Normally, there was the sound of children playing and running about. They would greet him as soon as he opened the door. The smell of dinner would also be wafting out of the kitchen. But there was nothing to greet him when he came home today. No wives. No children. No food.

Worry settled over him and he tried to quickly finish his shower. Once he was dressed, he ran downstairs to investigate. As he rounded the corner to go into dark the kitchen, he suddenly kicked something. It was probably another one of the soccer balls the boys left out. A wet soccer ball too. Looks like Grizelda and Jane will have to do some extra cleaning tonight when he finds them. He found the light switch and turned on the light.

To his horror, the soccer ball was not a soccer ball at all. It was Jane's head. As well as blood smeared all over the kitchen. The rest of her body was nowhere to be found and the head looked as if it had been burnt. It also looked as if someone had chewed her head off with sharp and jagged teeth. On the table, however, there was a plate of food. He cautiously came closer and realized that the food was in the shape of little bears. They were not just any bears, though. They were two of his little boys.

He ran out of the kitchen while being overcome with shock, despair, disgust, and sadness. He drove straight to the police department and told them of what happened. They didn't believe him at first, but he brought them to his home. A couple of them ended up having to go outside to hurl.

The police confirmed that the body parts found were of his first wife and children. But they didn't know he had another wife and another pair of twins. He couldn't really tell them that because polygamy isn't really a thing these days. So while the police investigated, he set off in hopes of finding the rest of his family.

He searched all night and was about to give up until he drove across a river and saw a body floating on the river. The shape looked familiar and he hoped it wasn't true. But it was. It was the body of Grizelda floating on the stream. She had drowned in the river.

He looked around for his children, but they were nowhere to be found. The children rarely left the sight of their mothers and they should have been around the area. Oddly, he came across a bridge and there was a woman named Elaine guarding it. He asked her if she saw two little deer children come by. She denied seeing anyone. He continued to search for days for the boys, but the search came up fruitless. Where could his children be?


Two fawns.
Photo by Erin Shipley. Source: ErinShipley.

Author's note: For this week, I retold the story of Marriage: Bear-Woman and Deer-Woman. In the original story, there were two wives: a bear and a doe. One day, they were out and the bear wife decided to kill the deer wife by biting her head off. She brought the head home and threw it into the fireplace while watching it burn. One grotesque detail was that the heat caused the eyes to pop. The children of the deer wife realized that it was their mother's head and decided to kill the bear children. They brought the bear corpses home and gave it to the bear wife and she unknowingly ate the children. A chase ensued with the bear wife ending up dying with the help of a crane.

My story was sort of a continuation of the original story. The father was nowhere to be found in the original story, so I decided to have him come home to find his home in a disastrous state. I also gave the wives names: Grizelda was the the bear wife and Jane was the deer wife (because Griz- resembled Grizzly and Jane Doe resembled Doe). I also gave the Crane a name, Elaine. I wanted to show a dramatic, yet modern scene of what would happen if this had happened in the human world.

Bibliography:
"Marriage: Bear-Woman and Deer-Woman" by Stith Thompson from Tales of the North American Indians (1929). Source: UN-Textbook.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Week 10 Reading B: Native American Marriage Tales


READING B:
So the girl and her dog had some puppies together. As a result, the family decided to leave her for dead, but a crow saved her. Then she found out the dog babies could turn into humans and taught them how to hunt. They got really good at it, and the village people decided to return. Wow. 
There was a deer hunter who had wives and children. He came across some tracks and met a woman who basically forced him to be her husband. How does that happen? So he left his wife and kids for a deer woman. Then he went and hunted for his deer family. It turns out the deer are cannibalistic and eat their own kind. But wait.. they revive back into deer at the end. 
The stories continues and the couple decide to return to the land of people. They had a son and he became a great hunter and taught the people how to hunt deer. 

A deer and its young.
Posted by Halie Barton. Source: Pinterest.

There was a really poor girl who had some turkeys and told them of her problems. The wonderful turkeys understood her and wanted to help her. 
This part of the story is similar to the story of cinderella. Except the turkeys were the mice. This part was quite cute. I hope that she will not betray the love of her turkeys in the end. 
It turns out she did betray them. Sort of. She ended up coming back too late from the festival and they left her. She was reduced to what she was before. 
So there was a girl who had an evil stepmother. She ventured out and wanted to run away but ran into a lodge with four men who were her relatives and they gave her some strawberries, new clothes, and the power to spit gold. The stepmother sent her own daughter to try to get the same, but the girl was stuck up and so they gave her the power to spit out nasty toenails. LOL! 
So she who spat gold got married to the chief's son and got pregnant twice. Both of the time, the stepmother was the midwife and she killed both of the infants and gave the girl a cat and a snake as her "babies." How twisted. Then she told the husband to kill his wife and he agreed.
The bride's children had actually survived because her dog ended up rearing them. However, the stepmother found out and poisoned the children. The dog then went to the sun to try to revive them. 
He managed to save the children and they revived. One had a sun mark on his forehead, and the other, a moon mark. Then the truth was revealed in the end and justice was served! I'm glad there was a happy ending. 

Week 10 Reading A: Native American Marriage Tales

READING A:
So what happened here was that a young man "took advantage" of a cow/buffalo and she gave birth to a son. I'm unsure as to whether the son is a cow or a human or both because how could he talk to humans if he was just a calf? It looks like the man eventually came to love his family so much he died to get them back.
This story was extremely dark. So the bear killed the deer wife. Then the deer children killed the bear children. Why were there two wives? Where was the husband in all this? I think I can write something about this. Maybe have the husband come back wondering where in the heck his family went.
Okay... so some guy's leg gave birth to a child. Then this bull comes along and wants to marry the child. After a few tries, he got her.
This part tells us why bulls have shorter horns (than they did before?) and why they are hunted by humans. So the wife ran away from the bull and got up on a tree. He found her and started ramming the tree with it and breaking his horns. Then he got stuck in the tree and died. The rest of his herd ended up with short horns because he made them ram the tree so much.
So then an evil moving rock wanted to marry the girl. The girl and her family escaped by using a ball to bounce themselves to the stars. This tells the reason as to why rocks no longer move.
There were two girls who each wanted an eagle and a whale husband. They got their wish and found out that it wasn't the best life and abandoned ship.
There was a man who had some random person taking care of his house. Which is kind of creepy and weird if you ask me. He then spied to see who it was and it turned out to be a fox who told him she was his wife. Then over time, she started smelling bad and he asked about it and she up and left.
A man was fishing and happened to kill a killer whale. Then the friends of the dead killer whale took revenge by capturing his wife. The man got help from a shark to get his wife back. 
So many things happened in this story. The wife was cheating on the husband with a giant snake. I don't even know how. Then the husband killed his wife and fed her to his children. He left the head there and the children ran away after realizing what they did. Then in the end, they made some lions kill him. What did I just read?
A woman fell in love with a bear. Her little sister saw what happened and told the family, causing them to kill the bear. The older sister made her little sister get the flesh of the bear and all was well after that... then one day they were playing and big sis got touched in the wrong place by little sis and big sis ended up killing a ton of people. 
This story basically finished with the older sis getting killed. Then it was tied with the constellations
Constellations.
Source: Starryskies.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Extra Reading Diary: Chinese Fairy Tales


READING B:
  • there was a scholar who hated being around people, so lived in a Buddhist temple
  • awww this story was so cute yet so sad
  • so the little tiny knights left behind a tiny dog that kept gnats from annoying the scholar at night
  • then one day while the scholar was taking nap, he accidentally squished it to death. 
Fox-Fire
  • a man caught a fox preparing the elixir of life using fox fire
  • the man caught the ball and swallowed it, giving himself the ability to connect to the spirit world
  • he used his ability to help people and he gained many gifts from it
  • thirty years later, the fox came and took back its ball
The Talking Silver Foxes
  • the silver foxes had the form of a normal fox, except it was yellow/red/white colored and could talk
  • there was a fox that liked to toy with wanderers and one day, a man managed to whip the fox
  • the fox spirit ended up possessing a woman and said the only person who it feared was the man who had the ox-tail whip
  • so the villagers went and got the man and he killed it
Retribution
  • there was a young boy named Ma whose father accidentally killed another man 
  • once the young boy grew up, he saw the spirit of the dead man coming back and became born into a wealthy family 
  • when the little boy grew up, he threw some rocks at some birds and accidentally struck Ma
  • this story was about how karma will always get you in the end
The Night on the Battlefield
  • this story was about a merchant who came across a small in late at night
  • it turns out the inn was full of dead spirits
The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away
  • an ogre who was masquerading as a young scholar captured a young maiden and placed her at the top of a pagoda
  • she couldn't escape
  • however, she saw a wanderer who happened to be her neighbor and caught his attention
  • he couldn't tell who she was, but he was suspicious she was his neighbor's child
  • so he went to the family and the youngest brother managed to save his sister by killing the ogre
The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge

  • there was a great sorcerer who was quite cruel to his pupils
  • he had them do various mundane tasks that were related to his journey
  • when the families of the pupils inquired about them, they found out that the sorcerer kept them there
  • so the father of one boy asked the city official to capture the sorcerer and put him and his family into jail 
  • however, the people how were transporting the sorcerer got tricked and the sorcerer got away

The Three Evils

  • there was a young man named Dschou Tschu who was strong yet was a savage of sorts
  • the people called him one of the three evils 
  • a new mandarin came to town and told him about him being one of the three evils
  • D.T. went and killed the other two evils
  • then he offered himself as a soldier and killed himself in battle 

Yang Gui Fe

  • Yang Gui Fe was the beautiful wife of the emperor, Ming Huang. 
  • the emperor loved her so much that he did whatever she said
  • she wanted to bring in her cousin, who brought many troubles to the monarchy
  • soon the emperor was cast out and the soldiers wanted Yang Gui Fe and her cousin killed
  • the emperor had no choice and had the two killed
  • then he heard of a man who was able to speak to dead people
  • the man went to look for YGF's spirit and found her as a blessed fairy
  • YGF then gave him her half of the ring that matched the emperors and promised to see the emperor soon
Yang Gui Fei

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Week 9 Storytelling: The Legend of the Great Coyote

Once upon a time, when Earth was young and newly created by Old Mole, there was a tribe of Indians. They were humans. Humans created by The Great Man. The Indians were different from the other animals. Unlike the other animals, The Great Man created humans with a thin layer of bare skin, with no fur to keep them warm or protect them from the elements. However, the land scorched their fragile bodies. This was because up in the sky, there were nine glowing orbs that rained rays of heat down onto Earth. They were smaller than the Sun we see today. They orbs were the nine Brother Suns and they were very close to the Earth. They were created by the Great Coyote so that there would be light on Earth. 

As the days went by, the temperature became hotter and hotter to the point where, if the Indians ventured out of their homes, they would be scorched to death in only one hour. The Great Man saw what had happened to his precious humans and wept, for he had made a mistake. He should have known better than to create the humans with no way to protect themselves from the heat. All of the other animals were fine because they had hair on their bodies that shielded them from the sweltering heat. 

The Great Man then thought of a solution for he knew he did not have the power to take down the Brother Suns. He sought out the Great Coyote and asked of him to kill eight of the nine Brother Suns in order to maintain the light, but reduce the heat. At first, the Great Coyote was unwilling. He had exerted great efforts into putting the Brother Suns into the sky and did not want to go through the trouble of destroying them when they were his own creations. The Great Man then made a deal with Great Coyote. In exchange for the salvation of his people, they would worship the Great Coyote as their savior. As their savior, he would be presented with offerings of food, meaning that he would no longer have to hunt for his meals. 

The Great Coyote agreed to the deal. He then crouched down very low onto his haunches and leaped high up in the sky, grabbed one Sun with his paws, and used his teeth to crush it. He repeated the same motion seven times in order to get rid of eight of the nine Brother Suns.

 The last Sun feared that he would be subject to the same fate and tried to run away. He did not get very far, but far enough that The Great Coyote could not reach him. However, The Great Coyote's job was done. The Sun did not have to worry because The Great Coyote had intended to leave one Sun left. However, because the remaining Sun was so far away, its light was weak. To fix that problem, The Great Coyote gathered the shattered pieces of the Sun's brothers and threw them at the Sun. The pieces of his brothers merged with the Sun and made him bigger, which made his light grow stronger and it reached the Earth without burning it. 

The Great Man cried tears of joy as his people ventured out of their caves, some for the very first time. From then on, the people worshipped The Great Coyote as their hero. 

Coyote Portrait.
"Coyote Portrait" by Kyoht Luterman, 2004. Source: DeviantArt.


Author's Note: For this week, I retold a small part of one of the Three Coyote Creation Stories, "Coyote and Old Mole." I wanted to spin a tale based on the nine suns rather than write about the entire story itself. 

In the original story, there was an Old Mole who created the Earth. Then The Great Man created the people. The Indians were cold, so the Coyote got them the White Fire stone that brought them heat. Then there were nine suns that were so hot that the Coyote had to destroy eight of them in order to save the world from burning up. There also happened to be nine moons that brought coldness into the world. The Coyote also destroyed the eight moons to prevent Indians from freezing at night. The story then shifts to telling us about a boy who died. Due to his death, the people wept so much that it created a flood, killing everyone except one couple. 

My story differs in that I did not use the entire story, just a little bit of the beginning and the part about the nine suns. I wanted to give more background information regarding how the people were made as well as how the suns were made as well as make up why the Coyote is worshipped by many Native American cultures. Then I wanted to tie it to real life somehow by telling how the sun is much bigger and much further now than it was before.  

Bibliography:
"Coyote and Old Mole" by Katharine Berry Judson from Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest (1912). Web Source: UN-Textbook.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Week 9: Reading Diary B


READING B:

Origin of the Sierra Nevadas and Coast Range
  • this story explains why the sierra nevada range is larger than the coast range
  • Hawk and Crow took mud from a dead duck's mouth to create the mountain ranges
  • Hawk thought Crow stole mud from him since Crow's mountain range was larger, so he put his where Crow's was
Legend of Tu-tok-a-nu'-la (El Capitan)
  • tutokanula means measuring worm
  • the story is about why the rock is called tutokanula
  • two boys fell asleep on the rock that is continuously growing
  • as a result, no one could go and wake them up to bring them home
  • so various animals tried to jump up, but only the measuring worm was able to climb up and get them to wake up
The Children of Cloud
  • this is the story of two twin boys who had the power of the cloud: thunder and lightning
  • they did not know who their father was and so their mother sent them to go see him
  • once they met their father, he was skeptical and had them go through various trials to make sure they were his children
  • he finally accepted them, but after they lived to him for a while, they wanted to see their mother
  • he sent them on their way and told them to not talk to anyone, but they got caught by a wolf and turned into agave plants
  • there was a priest with a beautiful staff who bestowed the people with 4 eggs: 2 blue and 2 red.
  • he told them the blue would give them good fortune and happiness and the red would give them cold hard winters, so essentially, misfortune
  • the stronger people took the blue egg from the weaker ones
  • the blue egg ended up to be a raven 
  • the red egg was a beautiful macaw
Coyote and Hare; Coyote and Fawns
  • in the first story, a hare gets caught by a coyote and uses its wit to get away. 
  • it does so by saying that all of the things that can kill it are its 'friends' whereas the weak stuff was harmful
  • in the second story, the coyote wanted its children to be beautiful like the deer, so it put it in a cave of fire and accidentally burned them all to death
  • the deer misled the coyote. so sad.
Coyote and the Quails
  • some quails stole some meat from the coyote's body without him noticing
  • he woke up and stole that meat from them and ate it
  • they told him he was eating his own meat
  • he finally noticed they had cut meat from him, so he went after them
  • they disguised a cactus to look like them
  • he bit the cactus and died
How the Bluebird Got its Color
  • the bluebird used to be an ugly color, but it bathed in a river for 4 days and come out blue
  • the coyote wanted the same, so he followed its instructions
  • but he was so busy wanting to see if people noticed him that he ran into a stump and got covered with dirt
  • as a result, all coyotes are the color of dirt
Coyote's Eyes
  • I didn't really understand this story
  • it seems there was a bird that could take out its eyes and throw them up and back into its sockets to make them "brighter" 
  • the coyote wanted the same, so he copied it, making the bird do it for him
  • the first time, it worked, but later one, he lost his eyes
  • then the bird found some gum on a tree and used them to fill his sockets
  • that's why his eyes are no longer black, but yellow
Coyote eyes.
Source: Larry 1732.

  • the rattlesnake was known as the soft child because all it could do was rattle its tail
  • other animals would poke it and bother it in order to hear its tail
  • so the rattlesnake was given teeth with poison made from hair
  • the rabbit bothered it and got bitten and died
  • the others tried to cremate the rabbit without letting the coyote know, but fail and the coyote ate its heart
  • but the coyote also got burned from the fire in its mouth, which is why it is black

Monday, October 19, 2015

Week 9: Reading Diary A


READING A:

Three Coyote Creation Stories
  • In the first story, it looks like the coyote did much more than the eagle when the world was created. 
  • Why were his methods more lethal or had a bigger impact on what became of the world? 
  • The second story also put more emphasis on the coyote's helping hand in creating the world
  • Something important is the 9 suns and 9 moons being destroyed
  • maybe write a story on how the fragments from the destroyed sun and moons brothers came together to be one big sun and one big moon. 
  • In the third story, everything was wiped out instead of the coyote and due to his benevolence, he grabbed feathers from various birds and recreated the world
  • In this story, the Earth Doctor plays the role of the god that creates the earth 
  • It almost seems like he plays around with various elements to create the earth
  • like throwing the sun or land back and forth
Spider's Creation
  • In this story, the spider was the one who created the world
  • the name was Sussistinnako
  • It sang and thus created the animals of the world
  • it also separated people in to different clans according to animal names
The Great Fire; The Origin of Light
  • For the first story, a man who was ridiculed by the two women he wanted to marry got angry and destroyed the world
  • In the end, the world was saved by the coyote
  • In the second story, it tells of why the moon isn't very bright
  • it is because the moon is a ball of tule reeds made by the coyote and the hawk
Creation of Man
  • It tells about how the cunning coyote created man
  • all the other animals wanted to make man into a creature that resembled their own species
  • however, while the other animal were sleeping, coyote destroyed all of their clay models and gave life to his own and beat the others to it, so he was able to use his own model
Old Man Above and the Grizzlies
  • this story tells about why grizzly bears are the way that they are
  • the Old Man Above had a daughter that got swept to the land of the grizzlies
  • as a result, she married a grizzly and had children who became men 
  • Old Man Above was furious and punished grizzlies by taking away their voice and then making them walk on all fours instead 2 legs
The Creation of Man-kind and the Flood
  • this story also talks about the Earth Doctor as the creator
  • he created animals, but because there were too many of them to handle, he had to kill them all in a flood
  • then he went and recreated animals and continued to kill them in the flood if they got out of hand
  • how did elder brother become the ruler of the world if earth doctor was the creator? why did earth doctor try to create something that would eventually become stronger than himself?
The Great Flood
  • I wasn't too sure how the turkey bears the mark of the water
  • this story talks about how the spider from the previous stories saved the people from the flood and how the constellations were made
The Fable of the Animals
  • In this story, Kareya is the god figure
  • coyote wanted to be the most powerful animal so he sent out to not sleep to meet kareya in order to gain more power, but his plan backfired
  • as a result, he was the last to meet kareya and was to be the weakest but kareya felt sorry for him and gave him more cunning power than any other animal
The Course of the Sun
  • this story explains why the sun goes from rises in the east and sets in the west
  • the sun went various directions and didn't like them before he settled from east to west
The Theft of Fire
  • the karok people were cold so coyote set out to steal fire in order to warm them for this story
Coyote, Tortillas, and Mesquite Beans
  • I think the story warns about the dangers of eating mesquite beans because the coyote ate them and died. 
  • In both stories, the coyote died..

Week 8: Growth Mindset


Here is an Automotivator image I made for growth mindset this week. Without hard work, I find that things generally amount to nothing. 

Week 8: Review

My favorite item from the current announcements page this week is: Procrastination Flowchart from Thursday, October 15.
Procrastination Flowchart.

I love this!! I went through the entire chart!

Week 8: Famous Last Words

There was no reading for this week, so yayayay! I felt that this week in this class went breezily, which allowed me to focus on my midterms more. I'm quite thankful for that. I didn't do much writing for this week, but I did go over the first story in my portfolio. I don't know if it's just me, but when I first write a story, I tend to hate my work. But as I read and reread them, the better I feel about the stories I write. For the Cupid story, I wasn't too sure where I was going with it, but after looking through all of the comments from my classmates as well as the comments from Prof Laura, I feel like I could add this story to the short list of good stories I have ever written. I've been looking at some other stories my classmates have written and they are so sooo creative. There was one with a love story between a human and a faerie and one that was very impactful in regards to the its underlying message. The more I think about it, the harder it is for me to explain the success to writing stories since I don't know how people manage to spin something so amazing from something so simple. These days, I find it hard to get inspiration for my stories, which is kind of sad because I want to write something that others will enjoy reading. But I will try my best for the storytelling this coming Wednesday.  As for my other classes, I'm still trying to stay afloat on my little boat as I going down the rough river that is school haha. My midterms are over with at this point, so I am a little relieved.. that is, until another wave of exams comes. I'm going to try to enjoy my one stress-free week before more work piles up again as we finish the second half of this semester. 

The higher you climb, the more you can see. 

Tech Tip Theme

For this week's Tech Tip, I chose to use my old storybook site as an example. When I was originally telling my story, I wanted to go for a creepy looking theme in order to make it more realistic, but yet be feminine since I was going to write my story from a woman's perspective. As a result, I chose to go with this green background with a black tree with some cherry blossom style flowers on it. 

Here is a screenshot of the theme I chose.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Portfolio Guide

The Chronicles of Cupid
An inside look at Cupid's thoughts while he writes about his adventures with the beautiful Psyche.

Stay Gold
This is a story about a woman that had a lot to learn about greed and a goose with a heart of gold. 

Two Lessons
Alex's father teaches him two of the most important lessons in life. 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Week 7: Review


This picture was from one of my favorite post on the announcements page from Sunday, October 11. I think this really stood out to me because it applies to me in one of my classes this semester. This class was said to be extremely hard, from a large number of my peers as well as professor rating websites. But the pro about this class was that it was extremely relevant to my field as well as a good precursor to medical school and would help in my efforts in taking the MCAT. So, I took the leap of faith and took it, even though I knew that I would be struggling to keep up with the material just because this class is so challenging. Right now, I am only holding on to the fact that a lot of people said it would be worth it in the end. My future success (and by success, I mean the prospects of me making an A in this class) looks pretty dim right now but I'm going to keeeeeep holllddinngg onnnn! :) Enough of my rambling, have a nice day! 

Week 7: Famous Last Words

My reading for this week. 
The reading went really well. I especially liked reading the Tibetan Folk Tales unit. Out of all of the multi-story fairy tale units I have read, this has to be my favorite just because there is a moral and the stories are more developed. The characters are dynamic as well. Unfortunately, I missed the Monday assignment, so I did the first part of the reading for Tuesday and then I read the rest of it for my extra reading diary assignment. I am okay with my reading diary. I think this time, I will try to keep it nice and short since I noticed that I write a little too much. 

My best writing for this week. 
I did my best writing for this week in this class. All of my writing in my other classes pale in comparison because it is technical writing. I don't have a chance to be as crazy and creative with my imagination. :) I really liked my story for this week because it seemed so... for lack of a better word, crazy. This is just because I don't know where I got the plot for the story from because the original story was about a man faking murder but mine was about a man robbing a bank haha. It was very weird for me to think about after I wrote it, but I do have a sense of accomplishment once I read it over because it's so different for me. 

My Other Classes.
In my other classes, there is SO much going on. In one of them, I have not seen the teacher in 3 weeks. That's mostly because we only meet once a week, but she has been out due to illness. Unfortunately, it was during the time frame of when we had a bunch of assignments due, so we could not reach out to her for tips, advice, or any general questions about the assignments. In another one of my classes this week, I had an exam that I kind of stressed about, mostly because I left it on the back burner for a while. I ended up getting an A on the exam, however (so yay!). Then in two of my hardest classes, I am struggling to catch up with the workload. You would think it would be easy to read 30-40 pages of a chapter a day since reading is my forte, but it's nearly impossible if the material is dry and the writing style of the textbook is too wordy. But I am optimistic about the future of this semester! 

Something that intrigued me this week was that Microsoft announced some new gear that invented! I saw the Surface Book and it blew me away! It's pretty cool, but too expensive for me at the moment. :(

Microsoft Surface Book on display. 
Source: PCAdvisor.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Reading Plan

My reading plan for the second half of the semester goes as follows: 

Week 9: American Indian Tales

Week 10: Inuit (Eskimo)

Week 11: More English Tales

Week 12: Faerie Queen

Week 13: Inferno (very excited for this one)
Dante and Vergil, by Delacroix. 
Source: UN-Textbook.

Week 14: Russian

Reflections: Looking Forward

For the second half of the semester, I would like to work ahead more often. I would also like to delve into more writing styles. I feel like I am mostly writing stories that are from another character's perspective or stories with lots of dialogue. I want to make my stories more enjoyable rather than stories that people would rather skim over. I would also like to be able to give more critiques regarding other peoples' stories. This is because sometimes I feel as if I were to give critiques, they wouldn't be credible since I am not a good writer. But I realize that anyone can give critiques as long as they are relevant and can help build up another person's skills or talent. 

At this point in time, I have 267/450 points available in the class (and that is without me finishing the last 2 assignments I have from week 7 since I will be doing them tomorrow!). I should have 191 at this point in time, according to the chart. It seems that I am doing pretty well with my point accumulation (yay extra credit assignments!!). I am on track! I would love to finish early because that gives me more time to study for my other finals! Hopefully I can get finished by mid-November; that will be my new goal. :) 

Puppies racing to the finish line. 
Source: PoundingtheRock.

Reflections: Looking Back

Writing:
I would say that one of my favorite stories that I have written this year has to be from Week 3. I retold the story of Adam and Eve in the form of a poem for this one and I feel like it's something to be proud of because I hardly write poems. Even in high school, poetry was a challenge. My project is going okay, I suppose. However, I am trying to think if I want to switch it to a portfolio just because I feel like there are some works in my weekly storytellings that I am already rather proud of.

Reading:
My favorite reading so far had to have been from the previous week: Tibetan Folk Tales. This is because I felt like the stories were more developed than the other ones I have read and there are so many short stories within the unit. There wasn't really a character that stood out to me, but the theme that stood out to me the most was the moral lesson about greed and how it will bring about your own misfortune in the end. I found that I like to read the short stories a lot more than the longer ones. I also like stories that are easier to read. For example, I had a hard time reading the Adam and Eve story because of the language and I had to look up a lot of words to make sure I was making sense of what I was reading.

Interactions:
I am doing fine with this class being fully online. Interaction is alright in this class through the comments and such, but because we don't meet face-to-face, I don't get to connect with my classmates as much. However, I like that I can just go to a classmate's blog and glean some inspiration for my own work. I like that I don't have to ask to see it because I'm not good at asking for help, so the examples help. In a way, I suppose that I do get to know more about my classmates through their writing styles. Like, if someone writes a fun and playful story, I can assume that they are also fun and playful!

Time:
I normally try to do the reading and storytelling during the week it's due or the weekend before, depending on how busy I am that weekend. Then I leave the Fri/Sat/Sun work to be done on the weekend. In the beginning, I wanted to get ahead as much as possible, but over time, my schedule was so packed that I just follow the current week's work. If I have a test the next week though, I do try to finish up beforehand so that I have more time to study.

Location:
I do my work for this class at home normally. That way, I can focus on reading and writing without having to worry about distractions. It's also easier that way because I like to keep everything on my own computer just in case.

Growth Mindset: 
Yes, I have been doing almost all of the growth mindset challenges. I think this class has been an excellent opportunity for me to practice the growth mindset just because I am thinking about it each week and that helps me exercise it even more. It's helped me academically because I am pushing myself harder, especially since I am in one of THE HARDEST classes I have ever taken at OU.
Curation:
I have been doing curation posts for extra credit. I do try to save the most interesting things I see that pertains to this class when I am surfing the web, but sometimes I do forget haha. With the avid use of bookmarks, I am able to find things a lot easier. I used to just bookmark things that I thought I couldn't find again. But now, I bookmark the sites that I use frequently so that access is much faster. For this class, I learned how to keep up with a blog, which is something I never thought I would do. 

This is me right now: 
Meme. 
Source: FindMemes.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Week 7: Curation

My TOP THREE favorite items from this week are:



Image of JorĹŤgumo
Source: Pinterest.

This is a Japanese demonic spider that can take the form of a human woman! 




Look how big the family tree is!! WOW!



This is so cool to look at!! 





Week 7: Growth Mindset

LEARN MORE ABOUT MINDSETS

A resource that I found on the growthmindsetmemes blog was: 

If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don't have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.

- Carol Dweck

Image taken from Growth Mindset memes blog.



I found that this is really important. When I was a kid growing up, I loved to hear praise from my parents and teachers. So much so that once I didn't get the praise that I wanted to hear, I ended up feeling unsure of myself and wanting to give up on what I was working on. Thinking back, I wish that I was taught to accept more challenges as a kid rather than having to learn on my own how to challenge myself. I feel like when I have my own children, I would like to instill this into them!

Tech Tip: Blog Profile

For this tech tip, the only change I made was that I removed my name from posts. I wanted to try it out since my fellow students will be able to see my name on the main blog page anyways. I have not thought too much about my online identity. I try to keep myself from posting too many things online because I feel like it's a little unsafe to post so much about yourself on the Internet where everyone can access your information.


I may think about it a little more as I graduate and look for jobs, but there is so little of my information out there at the moment that I don't really have to worry. The key ingredients of my online identity shall just be my name, birthday, and maybe some social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn that will help me look for jobs!


A screenshot of my blog layout.



Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Week 7 Storytelling: The Two Lessons

Lesson number one: Don't trust entrust any girl you date with all of your secrets until you are married. 

Lesson number two: Never choose a friend with light eyes. The inner corner of the eye has to be red, the sclera has to that the inner corner of the eye is red and that the white of the eye is pure white and not brownish or yellow, and the colored part has to be black.

~~
Alex woke up abruptly from his dream.  It had been a long time since he last dreamt of his father, but it was always the same dream. Perhaps his father was trying to tell him something all the way from the afterlife? 

He rolled over in bed and saw that the other side was empty. His girlfriend, Jane, wasn't there, which was a first. She was always the one that would sleep in as late as possible. He hoisted himself off the bed and got ready for work. 

As he made his way down the stairs, he heard some rustling. He stopped at the foot of the stairs to see his girlfriend going through his safe. What was she doing going through his safe? He hadn't told her the passcode. No one knew his passcode. He thought back to his dream and felt his palms become a little sweaty. He couldn't just ignore what he found her doing today, but he couldn't just let it go. He slowly and quietly walked back up the stairs and tried to make his way back down as loudly as possible.

He came down to find her casually lounging on the couch and asked her what she was doing up so early, and she responded "I just wanted to get in some morning exercise!" But he knew that wasn't what she was doing.

He dropped by his friend's apartment to tell them about what his girlfriend was doing this morning, but just as he was about to tell them, he realized something. Jason had green eyes. Mark had yellow eyes. Adam had brown eyes. And Josh... he had black eyes. His revelation stopped him mid-sentence and he suddenly got up to leave, to the bewilderment of his friends.

On his way to work, he heard that a bank was robbed just last night and he concocted a plan to test the integrity of his friends and girlfriend. After he got off work, he went to the store to buy a ski mask and some suspicious looking black clothing.

Once he came home, he tried to act nervous and shaken up. Jane ask him what was wrong and he told her that he had robbed a bank across town that morning and that the people who helped him do it were after him because he took all of the money. He saw her expression change quickly--almost indiscernibly--from concern to something that looked oddly like... contempt... and then back to concern. She smiled sweetly at him and told him not to worry and that she would help him. They decided to sleep at a hotel that night. The next morning, he found himself waking to the sound of "POLICE. OPEN THE DOOR."

The police arrested him and said they had witnesses testifying that he was the robber of the bank the other day. He found out that the witnesses were Jane, Jason, Mark, and Adam. Josh was the only one who barged into the police station adamantly claiming he would do no such thing. At that point, Alex knew it was time to reveal the truth. He told the police officers that he had proof he wasn't the robber. In fact, it was his girlfriend and his three traitorous friends who were the robbers. Jane had made the mistake of using his car as the escape vehicle and it turned out that he had a surveillance system installed. He had a recording of their faces and their plan on a flash drive in his pocket. The police saw the evidence and immediately put the four traitors in jail. 

From then on, Alex always thought twice about who would be his friends and who he would trust with his secret.

Rainbow iris.
Source: HudsonAlpha.

Author's Note: For this week, I retold the story of The Man with Five Friends from the Tibetan Folk Tales Unit. I felt like I could write a good story from it and make it slightly dramatic, so I did! I like that there were two lessons that I could go off of. 

In the original story, there was a man whose father told him before he died that there were two things he should always remember. "The two things were these: first, when you are married never trust your wife with your secrets until you have ten children; second: choose your friends by their eyes. "Never choose for a friend a man with a light colored eye," he said; "see that the inner corner of the eye is red and that the white of the eye is pure white and not brownish or yellow, and that the colored part is black." He grew up and ended up having friends with eyes that were the colors that his father told him avoid. He wanted to test his wife and his friends by buying a hog and killing it and pretending as if he killed a man. It turns out his wife reported him to the authorities and he was put in prison. The only friend who came and tried to help him was the friend with black irises. After that revelation, he told the truth and got out of jail. 


My story differs in that the first lesson was to not trust your girlfriend because I felt like having ten children in this day and age is kind of ridiculous. I also changed the eye colors of his friends and gave them a name. I changed his "crime" to robbery instead of murder as well. Overall, I wanted to give this story a modern touch. 

Bibliography: 
"The Man with Five Friends" by by A.L. Shelton from Tibetan Folk Tales (1925). Web Source: UN-Textbook.

Extra Reading Diary: Tibetan Folk Tales



  • the lesson: the tall strong pine is a great help, for with its support the weak vine may climb as high
  • this Khuden tigers kinda funny
  • I GUESS I'll eat you, but you're kind of pitiful. Who are you again?
  • he got scared of the frog and ran away
The Cony Who Got into Bad Company.

  • a cony = rabbit
  • the lesson: if you are without kindness, you will meet no kindness in return
  • there was a rabbit and a rat who was friends with a lama
  • they decided to steal stuff from him and were caught by him and had their ears and whiskers cut off
  • the rat tried to get its king to get revenge, but the king of conies knew the truth and denied to help
  • the king of conies then told the cony that it should not hang out with rats because they have always been thieving folk
The Story of the Donkey and the Rock.
  • the lesson: between iron and brass there is union if the welding is skillful
  • there were two men who worked to take care of their mothers
  • one day, the man with the donkey accidentally knocked over the other man's pot of oil
  • they brought the issue to the king
  • which decided to hold a trial for the donkey and rock
  • people came to see and were forced to pay money
  • in the end, the man who lost is oil was paid back and no one was sentenced for the incident
How the Fox Fell a Victim to His Own Deceit.
  • the lesson: between the official and his people is confidence if the headman is skillful
  • there was a tiger with a son
  • she found a calf and a fox to be his friends
  • after she died, she told them to always be friends
  • the fox, however, was jealous of the calf and wanted to get him out of the picture 
  • he told the tiger and the calf individually that the other was going to kill them
  • they found out and killed the fox
The Ingratitude of Man.
  • the lesson: whatever you have promised make it not as changeable as a loop in a string, but as firm as a line on a crack
  • there was a man, a crow, a rat, and a snake who were friends
  • they fell down in a hole in the road and were rescued by the traveler
  • the crow wanted to repay the traveler by giving him the queen's necklace
  • the rescued man betrayed the traveler by turning him in to the king and saying he stole the necklace
  • the traveler was imprisoned and then saved by the snake 
Covetousness.
  • the lesson: as hail leads rain, so a quarrel leads relatives apart
  • in the mountains, there was a pool where all the animals drank
  • a hunter set a trap and killed a bear
  • a fox came along and accidentally killed himself on the hunter's bow
  • an elephant then thought he could jump like a rabbit and needed up killing himself
  • everyone just died in this story...
The Wise Carpenter.
  • the lesson: for men there is no hope, except to find happiness in the worship of the gods
  • i didn't really like this story
The Story of Drashup and the Goddesses.
  • the lesson: in birth and death there is no fear, and in fear there is no doubt
  • a man named drashup lived alone because all of his family was dead
  • some goddesses foretold that a baby girl that was just born would die eating the shoulder of a sheep and that drashup would marry her
  • he overheard them and was angered
  • he went to the girl and tried to kill her
  • he met her later on and fell in love with her 
  • and her fate continued as they said
From "The Story of Drashup and the Goddesses" 
Source: UN-Textbook.

The Man and the Ghost.
  • the lesson: as you desire the sun, so you desire your friend's return
  • there was a man walking and he saw the ghost
  • the ghost passed through the water without making a sound and was confused as to why he was making so much noise
  • the two became good friends
  • the ghost stole the soul of the king's son and put it in the sack
  • the man disguised himself as a holy lama with the bag and healed the king's son, granting himself riches

Week 7: Reading Diary A

Week 7 Unit: Tibetan Folk Tales

  • the lesson: to your foe do not give a promise, for he carries a sword
  • meaning: don't trust your enemy because he will stab your back in the end (?)
  • long ago, the sun was so hot that it melted the mountains (yikes)
  • the lion was the king of beasts (it still is)
  • the lion was kind of like a tyrant, wanting everyone to pay respects to him
  • the rabbit didn't want to kowtow to him so it made up a lie about a devil chasing it and that it wanted to fight the lion
  • the lion saw its reflection and wanted to fight it in the water
  • it ultimately drowned
  • the lesson: be the work good or bad, we cannot tell what may be said of it, nor how far its result may spread
  • there was a family of 3 brothers and their wives
  • their sister lived with them
  • they only gave their scraps to the sister, but she was able to make delicious food out of it
  • the wive got jealous and conspired against her to kill her
  • the youngest wife did not want to partake in anything
  • on the way back from the hunt, the brothers found a bird and thought it sounded like their sister
  • they told it to hop on their hand if it was the sister and it did, meaning she was dead
  • they eventually found out the two older wives killed the sister and thus, the brothers killed the wives
  • the youngest wife was shared between the 3 brothers (.... what?)
  • the lesson: for a foolish official to speak skillful words is as difficult for lightning to split a lump of bronze
  • there was an old man who made his living by hunting
  • he was about to drink out of a stream before a raven knocked the cup from his hands
  • he got angry and shot the raven
  • turns out the raven was trying to save his life bc the water from the stream was from the mouth of a snake
  • the lesson: the shepherd will protect his flock of sheep and without power can save a hundred lives
  • there lived two men in the mountains who had gardens
  • one was inherently good
  • the other wanted to be rich
  • the inherently good man saved a bird and it gave him a seed to plant in his garden
  • the seed turned into a giant golden squash, which helped him become very rich 
  • he used his wealth to help others in need
  • the other man tried to copy what the IG man did by shooting the bird then "saving it"
  • the bird brought a seed that housed a devil
  • the devil cut off the man's neck after "weighing him"
  • i'm not sure what his weight has to do with his usefulness though
  • the lesson: a man who can succeed is always sent; if there is nothing to be done, it doesn't matter who goes
  • there was a man whose father taught him to never trust his wife until they had 10 children and to choose friends by their eyes
  • they have to have eyes that have a red inner corner, a white sclera, and a black iris
  • the man was very nice and had friends with different colored eyes
  • he then wanted to test his father's theory by killing a hog and pretending as if he killed a man 
  • he told his wife, who ended up calling the police on him and his friends found out
  • all of them abandoned him except the man with black irises
  • the lesson: when the robber arrives, it is very difficult for the traveler to string his bow and carry tea and wine at the same time
  • there was a family who had 3 sons
  • the youngest son was sent away because he learned how to play the violin, which was a beggar's trade
  • on his journey, he stopped a fight between two snakes
  • turns out one of them was the king of hell's son
  • the violinist was gifted with the king's daughter, who was very beautiful and had powers that gave them whatever they wanted or needed
  • he wanted to give a feast to the king but the king stole his wife
  • he used his wife's gifts to trick the king and trapped him in hell
photo of ruddy shell duck.
source: tibetbirds
  • the lesson: when life ends you may arise and have peace with drama, but nevertheless it's a great calamity when the rock rolls down the mountain and takes your life
  • a frog sound a golden pot and the rabbit wanted to fight him for it by racing up a mountain
  • the frog used some doppelgängers to trick the rabbit
  • the frog won and couldn't bring the pot down, so it asked a duck and gave the duck half
  • the duck then smeared it on its chest and that's where the beautiful golden breast came from
  • the lesson: an arrow aimed straight will find the heart of your foe. but if you have no foe it does not matter about the arrow.
  • there were two cats who were looking for salt with their tea (ew)
  • they ran into a handre and ran away from him and met a cow, a dog a crow, and a snake
  • each of the animals helped them get away from the handre
  • the lesson: when an evil man gets mad at his enemy, he beats his horse on the head
  • a fox, wolf, and rabbit tried to steal stuff from a wizard
  • they got some bread, boots, and a bell
  • the rabbit tricked the others and took the food
  • the others ended up either dying or accidentally scaring their children to death
  • the lesson: the voice of the wolf is a sign to the sheep
  • there was a family of bears and rabbits
  • the mama bear killed the mama rabbit and the baby rabbit saw and swore revenge
  • he shot the baby bear with an arrow and killed him
  • the rabbit was helped by a tiger. he ate some roots and gave the tiger some
  • the tiger thought it was eyeballs and wanted to eat his own, making him blind
  • he killed the tiger and went to the shepherd to tell him to get the carcass
  • then he told a wolf to eat the sheets
  • then he told the ravens to poke the wolf's babies' eyes out
  • then he ran away after causing as much chaos as possible
  • the lesson: the male deer from the top of the hill can see afar off. but the goose on her nest thinks only of the egg she covers
  • there was a man who came upon the garden of eden and fell into a lake
  • the monkeys rescued him
  • he then killed them all
  • the god of monkeys punished him by turning him into a snake and swallowed him

Monday, October 5, 2015

Week 6: Review

My favorite announcement this week was:

A World of Languages, from Saturday, October 3



It's so fascinating to see how many people speak which languages! Look how huge Chinese is compared to English. I never knew!