Learning Challenge: Time memes

For this week's Learning Challenge, I decided to do "Find a favorite time meme." I found several that I really enjoyed, but these were hands-down my favorite!

Procrastination Flowchart

This one is great because of its simplicity. I love it because this is the thought process that I have sometimes and so it really clicked with me.

Field Guide to Procrastinators

This one is again fantastic because of its relateability. I'm often not just one of these procrastinator types, but several all in one study session. It gets the worst during finals season, so I expect a lot of these roles to come out! 

My favorite type is probably the Cleaner or the Sidetracker because they're my most common excuses for procrastinating. Usually I know what I'm doing is putting off assignments or studying, but if I'm doing something else that is productive (like a future assignment or cleaning up my apartment), then I feel very justified in my procrastination. 

Growth Mindset: Life Lessons from Creative People

Today I decided to watch Julie Burstein's TED talk called "4 Lessons in Creativity."

Unfortunately, I didn't feel as inspired to pursue any creative endeavors or to find ways in which to insert creativity into my life from this talk. It was really interesting to listen to because the stories that she told were about some pretty interesting people, but I found that her "4 Lessons" were kind of vague. She showed how they applied to artists in specific stories, and I could see it, but when she said that they applied to all of us without really explaining what we can do in our lives to add creativity, I was really disappointed.

Letting go, embracing challenge, pushing limits, and loss - these are all good lessons for us to learn in life, but I think her explanations of the lessons were kind of specific to creative people and not universal in the way I was hoping.

Tilted Spheres, a work by 

Richard Serra (artist discussed in one of Burstein's stories)

via Wikimedia Commons

Tech Tip: Google Reverse Image Search

For this week's Tech Tip, I decided to learn about the Google Reverse Image Search function. I've never actually used it before, but I heard it was possible. As a result, this exercise was a lot of fun!

Here's the original image I searched for:

Small, unknown image

And here's the larger image that I discovered after using Google Reverse Image Search: 

Encounter between Robin Hood 

and the greedy Bishop of Hereford

I highly recommend people check out this Tech Tip!

Reading Notes: Russian Folktales, Part B

The Witch Girl

I have to agree with Mr. Cossack - what the heck kind of question is that? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to stay the night at someone's place who said that to me.

Clever guy.

The Headless Princess

Hmm. I'm surprised that the king believed the priest's son. Clearly he wasn't familiar with the son because he didn't even know he existed, but he believed him about the very strange events that had occurred. Maybe the king knew there was something strange about his daughter - even that she was a witch, like the old woman did?

I really wish the story would have described the horrors that the priest's son had to witness. I think it would have added another dimension to this story and really make the reader feel scared and appreciate the son's task a lot more.

The Warlock

Uh oh. There are a lot of instructions on what not to do, so that probably means that one of the three (probably the third and youngest one) will disobey the orders.

WHAT. Why would they send the second daughter after the first one had been strangled to death????

The Fox Physician

Must be one fairly strong sack!

Well, I mean he probably should have known that his teeth wouldn't be the most reliable way of carrying such a heavy sack...

Oof! That's sad...

The Fiddler in Hell

Three again. What's the obsession with this number?

Haha at the the fiddler jinxing himself..

Weird... another story where a lot of random events not really related to the main narrative happen at the end. Like why did the child need to be born and then abandoned? So strange.

The Two Friends

"It was not to make any difference whether he was alive or dead." - pretty obvious foreshadowing and such an unrealistic thing to be discussed between two friends.

Hmm... sounds kind of like a Futurama scenario, but without the futuristic world. I could see a story where this happens, but instead there is much more description of the world after the man returns to it. That could be fun to write.

The Shroud

I like that this story uses the word "lazybones." I'm not sure why, but I always thought that was a more modern word that wouldn't be used for a story like this one, so it took me off guard!

Well, I guess it was deserved...

This sounds a lot like some sort of horror story that could be modernized to be some teenage girl's sleepover or something, maybe with rich, inattentive parents to add some resentment to the mood.

The Coffin-Lid

Lots of grave/dead/coffin stories in this unit.

Man, the townspeople in these stories are so strange. First they want to kill the man who saved their sons, then they just believe his story right away after calling him a trickster?

The Two Corpses

The Dog and the Corpse

And the dog should be upset! The master easily could have helped him fend off the corpse, but his selfishness shined through.

Oh - that ending.

The Soldier and the Vampire


What a strange form of regeneration this warlock has...

Well, this time the man who cured the unjust death wasn't questioned at all. Was it due to him being a soldier?

A lead coffin

via Flickr user Thomas Quine

Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralton. Source.

Reading Notes: Russian Folktales, Part A

The Dead Mother

"He did what was best" - seems odd to me, but I guess this was the culture. Mothers apparently were the domestic figures to the point of the father needing a motherly figure to take care of his child.

Woah, that was a creepy ending! Gotta love it though.

The Treasure

It seems like the old man's fortune is turning pretty quickly. I wonder if it'll stay throughout the story? (Probably not :/)

God, it's disgusting to see the pope's behavior change towards the peasant once he realizes he has money to pay him.

Well, this has certainly taken a turn for the weird. But weird is good.

Yay, happy ending with the bad guy being punished. I wasn't expecting it though.

The Bad Wife

Hmm. Sounds like this "bad wife" is pretty susceptible to reverse psychology.

I wonder why she keeps calling him thief... maybe it is the reason she disobeys every order her husband gives?

Okay, surely there's some sort of trick. Maybe the bad wife is actually this demon?

Huh! I was pretty sure that the peasant was going to get punished for leaving his wife - even though she was labeled as bad - in the pit, but it turns out he's the hero of the story. Surely people will find out his secret the next time someone gets sick though?

The Three Copecks

Wow, greed and money is such a huge factor in these stories. I wonder if that's because poverty has played such a huge role in Russia especially?

That was a very strange story. It seemed to shift perspectives all the time and lead down pointless paths to get to where the story was headed. I guess that's maybe the point?

The Miser

I'm glad the wife is enabling her husband's terribly greedy plans. I guess she's just obeying though...

Wow... I don't like that Marko got away with not paying the poor man, but I guess that's what happens sometimes..

The Water Snake

Uh oh, something tells me that this poor girl is going to have to marry that snake.

That's simply terrifying. I can't imagine one snake crashing through my window, much less a whole troop of them.

Another strange, random ending. Are the birds symbolic or something?

This story wasn't about money per se, but it did involve deception.

Friday

Okay that escalated quickly. What a horrible thing..

I'm not sure what the meaning of this story is. Is Friday something special in Russian culture?

Wednesday

Strange, I guess Wednesday is the complete opposite of Friday in the minds of the old Russians who wrote these stories..

I was pretty surprised everything went according to plan.

The Leshy

I like how casually time passes in these stories. "Three years went by."

It's interesting that the girl was so aware of her situation - that escape wasn't on her mind, but only that the Leshy was needed to provide her with food and drink for survival. I wonder how long she was on her own? It also could have just been brainwashing..

Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina

Emilian the Fool

I wonder why he couldn't just wish for wood to make its way to the home? Seems a lot easier than going yourself.

Oh, well no harm done then I suppose.

Pike

via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralton. Source.

Famous Last Words: A Week of Much Needed Laziness

I guess I'll actually cover two weeks of review, since the week for this class actually spanned 2 weeks.

This week I went really hard on the assignments and extra credit because I wanted to put myself in a good position to finish out the semester a week early. Well, I did that during the week leading up to Thanksgiving break. This week, I planned on doing all of my assignments + extra credit before the break but that didn't happen.

It also didn't happen anytime during the break even though I stayed away from my family. Instead, I spent a lot of time playing video games with my friends and just relaxing. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was a little upset that I didn't do any homework, but then I realized that just doing nothing productive for a few days actually was really nice.

I should be able to finish out this semester pretty strongly. I don't have any major projects, just three midterm exams to finish up. Oh! And the final story for this class, which should be challenging but fun to write. Which, to be completely honest, is probably going to haunt me all week. I have NO idea how I'm going to finish the story... and I upped the ante majorly in story 2 by bringing a more sinister element into Miles' adventures. I honestly don't think it was the right decision from a story perspective because it completely changed the tone of the blog and was pretty difficult to write. Anything with a more darker, complex narrative takes a lot more time and pages to turn into a good piece of writing, so I'm not exactly optimistic about my ability to turn this one around (and still be satisfied with the result).

For the rest of this class, I'm going to try to finish up the extra credit assignments for the week (minus the reading) and hit tomorrow pretty hard. The goal is to finish everything except for the Project story by Friday, which should leave me plenty of time to mull over how I'm going to decide Miles' fate.

Image from GoodFreePhotos

Wikipedia Trail: From San Jose Sharks to George W. Bush

To start this Wikipedia Trail off, I decided to read about the NHL (National Hockey League) team the San Jose Sharks.

San Jose Sharks

The Sharks are a relatively new team to the league, starting in 1991.

They struggled a bunch early on in their franchise career, and they still hold the record for most losses in a season with 71.

However, they outsold every other NHL team in merchandise sales in 1992.

They actually made the playoffs and put up a pretty good fight in their next year, which is pretty good for such a new team.

From the Sharks article, I found a link to Seek & Destroy, a song by Metallica.

San Jose Sharks logo

ti's fvia Flickr user PMell2293

Seek & Destroy

Wow! I've listened to Metallica a bit in my day, but I had no idea that this song was such a historic one for them. It was the first song that they EVER recorded in studio, and to date it's their third most played song of all time. That's pretty cool!

From here, I decided to read about Clear Channel, which later turned into iHeartMedia.

iHeartMedia

I haven't heard of this before, but Clear Channel actually was a public company for a long time (35 years!), but in 2006 it actually sold its investors shares (with their permission, of course) and became private. I guess $26.7 billion really talks.

This article actually wasn't as interesting as I was hoping it would be. It just goes into detail about the different types of programming that the station has done over the years and some of the typical controversies that every major company seems to face at one time or another.

To end this Wikipedia Trail, I will read about the former US President George W. Bush.

George W. Bush

It's funny how opinions change about someone, particularly public figures. Bush was beloved when he first took first office, but it seems that it was only because of the 9/11 attacks. I've heard the same thing said about Rudy Giuliani, specifically because of his fervent support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

Tech Tip: Google Timer

I'm so glad that this Tech Tip is available, because it's actually super useful. I use it all the time. Not only can it be used for popular timed work session techniques like Pomodoro, but it's also great for everyday things, like laundry or an oven timer. The best part is you can just have it in your web browser while you're doing something else, like homework, playing video games, or just general web surfing and it will still alert you when you need to do something.

It's also super easy, you can just time in the address bar (if you're using Chrome) or in Google web search "timer 20 minutes" or however long you need it for. You can also pause and reset the timer, which are pretty useful.

It would be cool if they let you add the task that you need the timer for, just in case you have multiple timers or if you're REALLY sleep deprived and need to be reminded (I know this has happened to me on occasion!)

All in all, it's a great tool!

Learning Challenge: I would vote for a political candidate who ran on the platform of "Reading Day"

For this week's Learning Challenge, I've decided to look through a bunch of the reading images on the Learning by HEART site because I want to remind myself to pick up a good book today. 

Especially in times of great stress or weakness, like I sometimes feel towards the end of the semester, reading seems to be such a good way to relieve my woes. 

I like this one in particular because of how amazing I think that would be! Not that it would be enforced, of course, but who knows, maybe we all could use a full day of reading in our lives? I know for sure that if any of the presidential candidates were in favor of a National Reading Day, this year's ballot would have been a lot easier to cast! 

Reading motivational poster from

the Learning by HEART website

Growth Mindset: Motivation for the end of the semester

For my growth mindset this week, I decided to watch Dan Pink's TED talk called "The puzzle of motivation." I figured it would be pretty applicable to me because I always find my motivation towards schoolwork much lower during the end of the semester.

The talk was funny and Dan Pink is a great speaker, but the advice was very business-focused. He used a lot of good examples based on research that had been conducted on motivation and performance of certain tasks which were very convincing and insightful. The main point that he tries to make is that if you want people to be creative, don't incentive them with external rewards (like bonuses, vacation, promotions). These rewards seem like they would motivate people, and they do for very clear, easy to follow tasks, but not for tasks that require a lot of critical thinking or creativity.

I found all of this very interesting, and if I were running a business, I would definitely try to apply these principles, but as a student, it wasn't super motivating. Schoolwork sometimes aligns with my personal interests and passions, but not always. Studying for final exams is definitely a soul crusher.

So what if it doesn't apply? What can I learn from this and apply it to my own life?

Another big point that Dan Pink brought up was the idea that workers need autonomy in their lives to have motivation. Well, how could I create that? What if I came up with new ways to study for exams, or studied with new people? I think there are ways to do it, and I've just got to try things out and see what works.

Motivation

image by Flickr user Jeff Djevdet

Reading Notes: Grimm Brothers (Crane), Part B

The Six Swans

Hmmm... While I understand that the step-mother was pretty cruel turning the sons into swans, I can also understand her anger at the King for hiding the children from her. That kind of dishonesty in a marriage isn't healthy.

That's an interesting arrangement..

Ah, beauty is such a curse! Couldn't they see she was on a mission??

What the heck? People in this time are so scheming it's crazy.

Yay! Happy ending!

I really like the idea of transformation for some reason, so it's cool to see it appear in so many stories from this time.

King Thrushbeard

Well that's not very nice. She should ridicule people like that!

I don't know about that sort of punishment, but she definitely shouldn't have people lining up to try and marry her if she's such a rude person.

Oh no, not menial labor! What a terrible thing to have to do! It's really hard to feel bad for this character...

Huh. I actually didn't expect that ending, but it's good to see that a character be given a second chance to right their wrongs. Hopefully now she will be more appreciative of her life in royalty.

The Three Spinsters

Oof. First the mother lies to the queen, then her daughter does the same. This can't end well...

Uh oh, here's another opportunity for the daughter to mess up! She better remember to invite them to the wedding..

Oh wow, she got away with it! That's actually crazy and a nice twist on the narrative I was expecting.

Snow-White

Okay, hold on a second. The queen wanted to EAT Snow-White's heart??? That's really insane, but kind of cool.

A lot of similarities to Goldilocks actually in how she first interacts with the Dwarves' house. Pretty neat.

That's an interesting way to try and kill someone. I've never heard of being laced to death!

Snow-White is pretty dumb. I guess she is a child though...

I wonder if the queen had hunted down every woman who was deemed more beautiful than her by the mirror, or if this was the first time.

The ballad-singer

via the UnTextbook

Bibliography: Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm translated by Lucy Crane and illustrated by Walter Crane. Source.

Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm (Crane), Part A

The Fisherman and His Wife

Well, that was quite the sudden end. I'm not sure that I liked it. I guess I expected the wife to be punished or something for being too greedy, but I they were only returned to their former state. Hm.

I really liked how the weather/ocean got more intense as the extravagance of the wish grew more and more. It was a good, although obvious form of symbolism. Additionally, it was cool for some reason to see the wife want to be the dominant, traditionally "male" role (king, emperor, pope) despite the fact that she was female.

I could see a story idea being modernized like... a kid asking parents for increasingly more expensive or more advanced form of technology, until he/she asks for something that is too demanding and loses it all!

Aschenputtel

Huh, so that's where the name "Cinderella" comes from. I like that the translation was kept close to the original name, even though the Disney version didn't include the parts about ashes.

Oh, I didn't fully comprehend the part about Aschenputtel being forced to pick lentils out of the ashes. That's actually horrible.

It's not like the step-mother is even giving her useful things to do! She's making it obvious that she doesn't like Aschenputtel and doesn't want her to go to the ball and enjoy herself. So cruel.

So the father is Aschenputtel's father? It seems weird that he would want to cut down the tree even if it wasn't his daughter in it! Crazy.

What the heck?? That's some desperation... You would think she would at least wait until the bleeding stopped.

Also I never thought about this before, but it's crazy to think testing every woman's foot in a shoe was a good plan. The chances that the shoe would only fit one woman would be so low. Also - could they really just not recognize her?

Okay birds... I don't really think that was necessary!

The Robber Bridegroom

Another talking bird who attempts to advise a human. A Grimm Brothers favorite, apparently.

This story moves very quickly. And creepily.

Hmm. That story was kind of lame, honestly. Nothing really exciting happened after the initial shock of the house of cannibals.

The bride of the Robber bridegroom

via the UnTextbook

Bibliography: Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm translated by Lucy Crane and illustrated by Walter Crane. Source.

Week 12 Review: Happy Birthday, Neil Gaiman!

Well, this past week sure was a full one! And in all the craziness, I missed a birthday of one of my favorite writers: Neil Gaiman!

I know I already wrote about Neil Gaiman this week, but  I really feel like he deserves to be known! His writing is so interesting, so dark and yet somehow very human as well, despite the fact that he pulls from all sort of magical and mythical inspirations.

The last book I read by him was Anansi Boys, so I think it's about time I read some more of him, at least in honor of his birthday this week.

Link to the post.

Neil Gaiman's signature

Famous Last Words: Bouncing Back

This week

This past week, I found out that I did pretty terribly on one of my midterm exams. It's the only midterm for that course too, so the blow hit me pretty hard. I'd done pretty well on the homeworks, but I will admit that my class attentiveness wasn't as good as it could have been.

I felt so embarrassed, even though I will be the only person to ever see it. I don't want to face my instructor in class next week, and I didn't really feel good about myself at all. Instead of just accepting it, I felt my face flush with heat and I got a lump in my throat. This doesn't usually happen to me, and even when I do worse than expected, it usually doesn't hit me this hard.

I can still pass the class, but I really need to step up my game and work hard to ace the final exam. Though I don't pride myself on being a grades person, this really hit me hard.. The culture is so ingrained in me that it's tough to shake, and this time I was the one shaken up.

The future

When you're a senior, everyone expects you to have it figured out. Classes should be easy because I've taken so many of them, so when something like happens I can't help but feel badly about myself.

For the next few weeks, I'm really going to hit the books hard. I don't want to just pass all my classes, or just do the minimum in order to get the grade that I want, but rather I want to decimate the rest of the semester. I want my teachers to question whether or not it was me putting forth an assignment because the quality is just so damn good. That is the way I should approach everything, but it's really hard. That doesn't mean I can't do it. I'm going to. 

Basketball player rebounding

Growth Mindset: Neil Gaiman's Commencement Address

Wow. I always knew Neil Gaiman was a pretty incredible writer, but I didn't know he was such an inspiring speaker. I'm not nearly as artistic as I want to be, but I don't think his advice was only for the artists. I think when he says that we just need to "make art", he really just means that no matter how bad things get, the best thing to do is to keep doing something.

This is so powerful because so many times in life we feel as if something we encounter is insurmountable, that we're failures and won't ever succeed, that we're not living up to our potential, but these are all really mental things. If we continue to just do things instead of trying to think our way out of situations, we're be able to heal better as a result.

I really connect with this because I'm in a difficult point in my life: searching for a job. It's frustrating, and when you receive no response for a while, it makes me feel really bad about myself and my accomplishments. However, Gaiman's advice will help me carry on into a better future.

Neil Gaiman, image from Flickr user Stanislav Lvovsky

Learning Challenge: Audiobook Experience

I've used audiobooks a lot in the past. I started using them pretty regularly when I was in Europe, because I had to pack lightly and couldn't bring physical books around. I really got used to them because of all of the downtime that comes with travel, like long train rides or even just walking to the grocery store. They're super convenient, but I will admit sometimes I would get distracted and forget to pause the tape.

I hadn't tried Librivox before this semester, and I think overall it's a pretty good resource because it has so many audiobooks available. My only gripe is that sometimes the audio quality isn't very good, so it's hard to listen to or understand the story. If you don't have this problem, then Librivox really is great!

Audiobooks by Flickr user Nicola Einarson

Tech Tip: Add an HTML Box to Sidebar

For this week's Tech Tip, I decided to add an HTML widget box to my sidebar. In this box, I added one of my favorite quotes, by the American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's one that a lot of people have heard before, but you should check it out anyway!

Reading Notes: Turkish Fairy Tales, Part A

Fear

The concept of this story is really interesting. Though fear is something natural, this story presumes that it is learned by showing how a young person goes on adventures in search of fear, but is able to not even notice situations where others would have been shaken with fear.

I wonder what else could be done in this way? A lot of things are taught, so it would have to be something that we just feel naturally.

Hm! I wonder what so significant about that fear that caused him to become afraid. Maybe it was more just surprise than actual fear, because I assume that the other things that happened to him (like the hand in the cemetery) were also shocking.

The Wizard-Dervish

Woops, guess Pops didn't tell his son about the Dervish! That must be pretty startling.

Interesting! This Dervish guy has some strange practices.

"...who was a witch." uh oh...

I wonder how hard it was to follow the instructions of the maidens. Clearly, this has been done before, otherwise how would she know what the son needed to answer in order to earn one of the daughter's hands in marriage?

How strange! I guess this is the kind of arduous test you need to pass in order to marry into a magical family.

A dervish 

via Wikimedia Commons

The Fish-Peri

Mahomet - that's the name of my hometown! I wonder how the French name for Mohammed got in this story...

Typical power-hungry king trying to take from his subjects...

That ending was weird.

The Crow-Peri

A lot of stories have similar events (father dies - son is born without knowing his occupation), (three birds - turn into maidens), (40 days to accomplish a task), etc.

The Parishah is also very demanding of the boy. A lot of these stories center around young people who are able to do great or seemingly diffucult tasks. Story: society ruled by adults, but have children that have supernatural abilities who do all of these ridiculous tasks for their parents / elders.

Huh, I didn't think that magical creatures could get sick.

Bibliography: Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos. Source.

Wikipedia Trail: From Suspiria to Louisiana Creole French

I decided to start this Wikipedia Trail with a random article because I wasn't sure what I wanted to know more about. This took me to an interesting article, one about the Italian horror movie Suspiria.

Suspiria

Huh! Apparently this movie is the first of a trilogy called "The Three Mothers". The other two debuted in 1980 and 2007, which is a LOT of time between films.

The star of the film was also American, which I thought was interesting but also not too shocking once I thought about it. The American film industry was really ramping up during the 60s and 70s, so it makes sense that even international directors would want our stars.

Also, it got an 8.4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes! Maybe I'll have to see it.

From here, I decided to learn more about black magic.

Black magic

Huh, I had no idea about the black magic vs. white magic thing. Black magic nowadays is a little removed from its original meaning, which is defined in this article as magic that is used selfishly.

This is interesting, because a lot of magic would then be considered black magic, even something like altering one's appearance using magic, or bringing one's pet back to life (another selfish, but "good" endeavor).

To contrast, the article says white magic is much more spiritual.

From here, I read about Louisiana Voodoo.

Louisiana Voodoo

Voodoo comes from African spiritual practices and beliefs and was brought over in the African slave trade and mixed with French, Spanish, and Creole cultures that passed through Louisiana.

 It actually is its own religion in Louisiana and has a liturgical language called Louisiana Creole French.

What was interesting to me is that this type of Voodoo is actually pretty different from the other strains of Voodoo that you find in Haiti (Vodou) and South America (Hoodoo)

Voodoo dolls also aren't really a main feature in any form of Voodoo culture as they are represented in popular culture. They just happened to be associated with the dolls when their culture was commercialized in the 20th century.

From here, I wanted to learn more about the Louisiana Creole French because I've studied a lot of French over the years!

Not-so-threatening Voodoo doll

via Flickr user Scott Joseph

Louisiana Creole French

Apparently the language came to be when French-speaking slaver owners needed to communicate with the African slaves that they had brought over to Louisiana.

After slavery ended, the language lost a lot of popularity publicly because people were ashamed that it was associated with slavery. Additionally, since English became the dominant language in the United States, many people were forced to learn it and started speaking LCF less.

The tables showing the differences between LCF and standard French were fascinating! I had to hear someone so I watched a view Youtube videos. I could understand some of it, but it was tough!

Story Planning: Ollie and Roberta

The source story:

There were a lot of things I liked about this story, in particular that the king, despite being of royalty, was an avid hunter and he did so with his lifelong companion, his goose.

Normally royalty at this time doesn't really do this, unless they are well protected by their knights or some other sort of military force. I know in ancient times, the kings were the strongest warriors and that's why they got to rule over everyone else, but since then things have changed.

Another key aspect I want to focus on is the main conflict of this story: the goose's death which forces the king to desperately take the mysterious man's offer to bring him back. Not only is the relationship touching, but it shows a normally very powerful man at his weakest point. It was also a big theme in the story, that the king was grower older and thus weaker.

For my story: 

1. The main character needs to be someone who normally has a great position of power, but also has a soft spot for some sort of animal companion who partakes in one his/her dearest hobbies. This tight bond is crucial. (Business leader, politician, Military head, Professor, etc.)

2. The main conflict doesn't have to involve aging, but something needs to change that forces the main character to experience loss of her companion. The pain needs to be so strong that she does something desperate to regain the companion. (Toxic environment, malicious human, violent animal fight, complete gunfire accident, etc.)

3. The resolution doesn't have to end as well as it did for the king. If I kept with the original plot, then the main character would make some sort of deal, give up something else that is valuable to him in exchange for some magical healer / wizard healing / reviving his companion. Otherwise, the king's misfortune could never be relieved despite him trying to give up / act in order to save his companion. This is much darker than the original tale, but it's more realistic and relateable.

Initial idea:

Roberta is a powerful CEO now, but she's been with the company since its inception. She's well respected by all of her employees, and she's won countless awards from the most prestigious of business journals and magazines across the world. However, she has a secret hobby that she rarely reveals to anyone. On the third weekend of every month, Roberta goes geocaching, an activity where adventurers seek out treasures left behind by fellow treasure hunters around the world. She's not alone in this endeavor, however! She also brings along her most loyal of friends : her golden shepherd, Ollie. They've been doing this ever since Ollie was a just a little pup, and its Roberta's favorite thing in the world, even better than tripling her company's stock value every two years.

Good things can't always last though it seems. One day while in the middle of a particularly tricky geocache hunt, Ollie runs ahead like he normally does, but this time he seemed a lot more anxious to get to the prize. Roberta finally catches up to him, unfastens the rope that surround the box that Ollie had been clawing incessantly, and reveals some doggie treats. Before Roberta can snatch them away from him, Ollie snatches one in his mouth and swallows it without hardly chewing.

From there, Ollie suffers some kind of breakdown, poisoning that Roberta is unable to do anything for. (She's very far away from her car).

From there, it could again go two ways: Roberta realizes that one of her business enemies is behind this and somehow found out about her hobby.

OR it could introduce a magical person of some sort, who desires Roberta's company, or shares, or position, or something else valuable. She only is able to get Ollie back after giving a lot up.

A candidate for Ollie's role in the film-version 

of this soon-to-be story

Bibliography: "King O'Toole and His Goose" from Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Source.

Reading Notes: Celtic Tales, Part B

King O'Toole and His Goose

Wow, getting old sucks. It's so sad to see someone have suicidal thoughts, but I guess maybe it's something you think about when your body starts to fail you.

"I'm an honest man" - in disguise, haha.

I really liked the dialect in this story. It made reading it fun!

As for a story idea, I could imagine some sort of man/woman who participates in their livelihood with some beloved pet of theirs, then something happens to the pet, and then a mysterious creature or person comes to offer a cure.

The Shee An Gannon and the Gruagach Gaire

Well, that must be some daughter of his if so many people are willing to risk their lives to be with her...

I'm really confused.. why did Gruagach let that happen to him and his sons? Why didn't he just leave with them after he was mistreated?

It also seemed pretty obvious what those loops were for... but he didn't realize it (or else I don't think he would have sacrificed his twelve sons).

I'm thinking Gruagach just isn't that capable of defending himself. He was easily caught and forced to speak by Gannon.

Yay, Gannon saved the day! I'm not sure why he had to kill the daughters though... that seemed a bit cruel (even if was "fair").

Wait, so the son of the king of Tsean lied to the King, and he believed it? Wouldn't the other 11 men who had tried to figure out why the Gruagach stopped laughing have at least tried to lie?

Crazy.

Beth Gellert

Awww, poor Gallert :(

I can't really say I blame the prince because the evidence was horrifying and seemingly everywhere, but he did act just a little too rashly.

The Tale of Ivan

He just left his wife for three years?

That was a nice story. Impressive how Ivan was able to follow all of the advice even in moments when it would have difficult to do so (social pressure!). He also did it without having to explain himself, so good on him.

It would be fun to craft a story like this one and come up with the three pieces of advice and also the events that force the character to follow the advice in a difficult time to do so.

Andrew Coffey

That story contrasted well with the Tale of Ivan because Andrew Coffey wasn't very good at following any of the directions given to him by Patrick Rooney.

Also, the ending wasn't expected! For some reason, I thought I couldn't be fooled by things that were just dreams because that trick has been done a lot, but this one took my by surprise.

Brewery of Eggshells

Aha, that was a weird one. Glad the mother got her children back though!

The Shee an Gannon via

Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Source.

Reading Notes: Celtic Tales, Part A

Connla and the Fairy Maiden

This story was interesting because of the world it took place in, but the actual plot was pretty dull. I like that there are magical creatures on both sides of this battle for Connla, but that's about as far as it goes for me. I might have missed the point, but that's just what I took from it.

The Fields of Boliauns

I like how even in these stories from hundreds of years ago there's still the same sort of reaction to seeing something as mythical as a leprechaun. It's neat to see how culture hasn't changed in that aspect.

Geez, I didn't think the Leprechaun would be the calm, innocent one in this story. He only tricks Tom after Tom threatens his life and spills his homemade beer.

Was pretty foolish of Tom, and I don't think people nowadays would have fallen for that trick, but it's a good story nonetheless.

Also, crock of gold was NOT at the end of the rainbow!

 The Horned Woman

That was a really creepy story, but definitely one that I could see being told by families and the reason an heirloom is kept. It's these sort of superstitions that make people do things that appear strange.

Throughout the story, the woman doesn't really have control of what happens. She listens to whoever asks things of her, and eventually, the good wins out. I'm not sure what exactly that's supposed to tell us, maybe that there are just good and evil forces, both of which can seem like practical things to follow.

The Shepherd of Myddvai

I don't like the character of the Maiden. The "three strikes" could hardly be called strikes at all. Maybe in olden days it as different, but tapping someone on the shoulder is a common, social interaction in today's society.

Although, nothing really that bad came from this. Sure, the shepherd lost his wife, but the foundation for their marriage was so thin (he didn't even bake the bread that "won" her heart) that it couldn't have been that meaningful.

The Sprightly Tailor

"he discovered a few stitches were somewhat long" - haha, this part was great. It was going to be a pretty standard fairy tale, but this little line at the end made it really enjoyable.

Munachar and Manachar

It seems like a rather extreme thing to hang someone just for stealing raspberries! Maybe they were pretty delicious..

The heck? That ending was weird. I was half expecting Manachar to have come up with a plan to keep Munachar from accomplishing his very drawn-out task, but I guess he ended up just exploding from eating too many raspberries.

Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes.

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

For some reason, I really like the names Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree.

WHAT.

:(............. poor Gold-Tree! She didn't ask for this.

I can't believe nobody thought to remove the object from Gold-Tree's finger..

Well, a happy ending I suppose! Odd that a mother would be so dedicated to being the most beautiful queen that she would kill her own daughter.

Murderous Silver Tree

via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Source.

Famous Last Words: Hackathons and the Election

This class

I haven't done one of these posts before, so I'm going to reflect on the entire semester instead of a past time period.

For this class, I think I've done a pretty okay job with the work that I've done so far. I've had some not-so-good work ethic at times, but the work that I have done for the class (stories, storybook, and critiquing others) has been good effort on my part.

One mistake that I made was depending on Canvas to check my grade. I thought, since some assignments weren't graded properly, that I was getting a high-A this whole time, but as it turns out I should have hit 300 points at the end of this week to be on pace for an A, but after doing all of the extra credit assignments this week, I will be just short of 300 at the end.

In the next few weeks, I'm going to work really hard to do every assignment well and also finish this extra credit. I want to finish the class by Week 14, so it's going to take a lot of work!

Outside of this class

This weekend, I went to a Hackathon, which is an event where a bunch of students work on developing programming projects. It was a really neat experience actually. They have them all year long, and I definitely want to attend as many as I can. There were a lot of people there who were more experience than I was at programming, and that makes me really want to improve as much as I can.

Additionally, the election is coming up this next weekend. I'm not really in favor of either candidate because both scenarios, to me, suck. Trump is clearly a bad choice. He's incredibly offensive, inexperience, and doesn't have any real plans with details. Hillary is a seasoned politician, one that has done some rather shady stuff, including breaking the law with her private server. Though I am more of a democrat in terms of policies, I really also despise political corruption so it makes me hard to vote for her.

Students at a Hackathon

Week 11 Review: Punctuation and Taco Cat

In this week's announcements, I found two images that  I really liked an wanted to share!

Punctuation comic

This first image comes from the Saturday blog post. Cyanide and Happiness is already one of my favorite web comics, and one of the main reasons is that they do silly stuff like this all the time! Goes to show just how important punctuation really can be!

Taco cat

Not much to really comment on this one, but I just thought it was neat! (Plus this cat dressed up in a taco suit is really adorable). I told my friend about this and he told me that this image was actually from a few years ago, but it's always cool to see things you've missed!

Wikipedia Trail: From Charles Perrault to Compadre

For this Wikipedia Trails, I decided to start with one of the authors that I'm studying for my Storybook project - Charles Perrault.

Charles Perrault

For one, I didn't know that he wrote Puss in Boots or that it was even a real story! I thought that the Shrek series made that one up. Like many great French writers, Perrault also served in politics as an assistant to the famous finance minister Jean Baptiste Colbert. From there, I decided to read the article that contains one of his works, Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty

It was interesting to read the differing versions of the Sleeping Beauty story. Both Perrault and Basile's narratives are much darker than the Disney version of the tale, but to me that just makes them more interesting!

From here, I followed a link to Godparent.

Sleeping Beauty by Henry Meynell Rheam

Godparent

In this article, I read a lot about the different forms or roles that a godparent can take in the various Christian denominations, but there are also a few non-Christian godparents that surprised me, like in Judaism or in China.

After reading about godparents, I ended my trail with Compadre.

Compadre

It turns out the term "compadre" comes from Spanish and Portuguese and means "co-parents." It is used to link the parents and godparents of a child in a shared role. I didn't actually know this, but probably should have (I took four years of Spanish).

Learning Challenge: I Thought I was Paying Attention

Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4svQ-CGpII

For this week's challenge, I decided to do it a learning challenge on attention because I feel like I've been having a lot of trouble focusing lately. While this video didn't really help me with that in general,  I did find it to be very interesting! I have seen the gorilla video before, so I thought that I wouldn't be tricked this time around, but because I was focused on the counting and the gorilla walking through, I didn't notice the other seemingly obvious changes. 

I suppose there's then an upside and a downside to attention: if we're tuned in to the wrong things, we can miss out on rather obvious stimuli that could actually be important for us. 

People who definitely need to be 

paying attention

Growth Mindset:Creative Confidence

Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16p9YRF0l-g&list=PLrWYQjLLbXcinSlIDzuKWSxh_XzkZP0_b&index=16

For this Growth Mindset exercise, I decided to learn more about the ways in which I can apply the mindset to my life. I watched David Kelley's TED talk on "Creative confidence" and really liked it. Not only do I feel exactly as afraid as the people that he talks about in the video, but he also said a lot of things that resonated with how I think about creative processes.

For one, I'm really afraid to label myself as a creative. I like reading books and short stories, but I'm a computer science major. Most of what I have learned in courses is black and white, logical mathematical principles and how to apply them. But there is a yearning for me to be a writer as well. When I read a great story or I watch a movie or TV show that makes me feel like my whole world has been flipped upside down, it inspires me. It makes me want to create things as incredible as what I've just experienced. And I want others to experience them too.

However, I also am really afraid of criticism. This is probably one of my greatest weaknesses, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that, like Carol Dweck mentioned, I was told I was smart when I was a kid. Even throughout high school, my friends and family put this label on me and so I felt like I had to live up to their expectations. It's hurt me a lot in college, and I'm trying to grow out of it, but it's not as easy as I would like it to be. Hard is good sometimes though.

In these next few weeks, I'm going to try to do something creative once a week outside of class. Maybe I'll make a blog with my creative pursuits! Showing my work to people more often would help me overcome my fears.

Overcoming fear via Flickr user Vic

Tech Tip: Canvas App

Permissions

I'm not sure why Canvas needs permission to use my microphone or camera. Not that I think the app will be spying on me, but I don't like to give unnecessary permissions if I can avoid it.

Setup

I really like how it asks you about notifications right away. Normally a lot of apps don't want to disrupt the user experience by delaying them from accessing the core content of an app, but I get so annoyed by unwanted notifications that being able to select which ones I receive right away was nice.

Usability

I had no trouble navigating the app. It seems like most of the features on the Canvas web application are reproduced in the mobile app, including the grade viewing / testing.

User Interface

The interface was pretty standard. There are two navigation bars so it was a little hard to figure out at first, but overall not bad.


Conclusion

I probably won't use the app much unless I receive a notification and want to check on a grade or due date or something, but I'm glad that I have the option to do all the things I need to on the app!

Reading Notes: The Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, Part A

The Boatwoman and the Monks

From this story we can already tell that this is a feminist writer by showing clever women as the main characters, but also it's a religious work. It might be a criticism of religion because the two priests were the evil men trying to take advantage of the boatwoman.

The Lady From Milan

This story was pretty okay for the most part except for the ending comments made by the narrator of the story, which was a very old way of thinking about the pursuit of women, despite the fact that some people still think of it this way.

The story itself wasn't that interesting, even the test that the lady gave the man by having her servants come to the door.

A Villager, His Wife, and the Priest

I guess the impurity of priests is a big motif in these works, because here again is another classical example. This time, however, the wife is consenting and also helps the priest in his lie.

I didn't really care for the dialogue at the end. It seemed to talk down on "simple people", but I assume that it was more acceptable back then than it is now.

The Virgin with Child

This tale was deeply religious, even the commentary afterward echoed heavily the sentiments of the story's characters. Again it involved a priest committing sins. I'm not sure if this is meant to criticize religion or just to reveal some of the hypocrisy that occurs within the religious sector.

The Monks and the Butcher

This was a nice change of pace to the other stories since it was very, very different. It had both a comical ending and different main characters, as well as a clear, message at the end that wasn't religious in nature.

The President of Grenoble's Revenge

The was a really good story! I love very long, drawn-out plots, especially if they have a dark twist to them. The dialogue at the end was also appealing, because it simulated well the different reactions that people might have to the story and the debate that would surely follow.

A boatwoman

Bibliography: The Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre translated by Walter K. Kelley. Source.