Famous Last Words: The Final Week

This week was my last week because I did enough extra credit to end a week early! It's pretty exciting, but looking at the blog posts for next week, I'm actually a little disappointed I didn't skip some extra credit and do those instead. I know I still can do the posts for next week, but I'm just preparing to be super busying preparing for finals.

I feel pretty mixed about this past week. The readings were pretty excellent! I don't know what it is, but the past few weeks have been super interesting and I just flew through the readings for both days. They were super creepy and weird which is always fascinating to me. As for the extra credit assignments, I did extra reading which was helpful, but I had trouble getting through the other ones. It's always the end of the semester where I lose motivation to finish assignments, so it wasn't surprising. The most disappointment for me personally comes with the story I wrote for my storybook. I just feel like it was so subpar. I had a really hard time coming up with how I was going to wrap up all of the conflict that I opened up in the last story. Agh! I know I can do better, and reading over my first two stories, I know I could have improved those too, but I suppose this will have to do. I feel kind of guilty because I don't feel like it's my best work, but I suppose I'll see what the reception is like first.

Going forward, I'm not sure if I'm going to do any more assignments for this class. It really depends on how studying / the final assignments for my other classes go. I'll probably do a revision no matter what though!

Mixed feelings

via Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia Trail: From B1A4 to Ecstasy

For this final edition of Wikipedia Trails, I've decided to start out with the South Korean pop group B1A4 because my friend Sarah is a huge fan of theirs.

B1A4

B1A4 as a band is pretty okay from what I've heard of their songs, but the process by which Korean pop groups like them are created is pretty fascinating. Each group member can come from a variety of different backgrounds, and if they aren't perfect for the group immediately, the company will be willing to invest in them to train them to be the pop idol that they want. Pretty neato!

B1A4 performing on stage

photo credit to 와사비콘텐츠

From B1A4, I decided to read about South Korea's famous capital city, Seoul. 

Seoul

Wow, I had no idea that Seoul was such a population-dense city. I knew they had a lot of people, but they're only second in terms of pop. density to Paris. Crazy!

They also have the world's fastest average internet connection AND free Wifi in public places. C'mon USA, let's get our act together...

From Seoul, I jumped to the article on Muism, also known as Korean Shamanism.

Korean Shamanism

Korean Shamanism, known as Muism, is actually much more of a spiritual ideology. It is native to Korea but has a lot of similarities to other belief systems in East Asian, particularly Wuism in China.

It centers around a spiritual intermediary named the Mu, which can be a man or woman leader.

What's interesting is that there is so much life in this religion, from actual rituals involving dancing and chanting to a set of stories that have been passed down about the divine beings that the believers worship. Pretty neat, and it's still pretty active (several millions still practice in South Korea).

To finish this final trail, I am going to read about Ecstasy (the philosophy).

Ecstasy

Okay, so this article was very, very confusing to me and I'm not really sure what is the agreed upon meaning of this philosophy, but there is general agreement that it deals with experiences that involving feeling outside of yourself. I want to say that this is how you can describe "out of body" experiences, but in terms of the philosophy, I'm not sure at all if that's correct.

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.