Reading Diary B: Pacific Northwest

This is a Reading Diary that details my thoughts of the second section of the Pacific Northwest unit. Story source: Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).

• So the giant wants to eat with a little kid after murdering a few people?
• Anything can happen in these stories.  
• I can't think of Thunder gods without picturing Thor.
• The line "LONG ago, before the white man came," just makes me really sad.  
• If spirits tell you not to do something, then DON'T DO IT. 
• The Coyote is at it again.
• Is this the reason why grizzly bears and coyotes hate each other?  
• Grizzly bears are far more sensitive than what I thought.  
• Coyote is on a roll with killing villains right now.  
• If Trap doesn't want to work, he won't work. 

(Coyote from Pixabay)

Reading Diary A: Pacific Northwest

This is a Reading Diary that details my thoughts of the first section of the Pacific Northwest unit. Story source: Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).

• Well it looks like Silver-Fox doesn't like to share.  
• Silver-Fox is pretty bossy.  The coyote did everything he told him to do!  Let him enjoy the new world and have an opinion.  
• The coyote is seriously breaking my heart.  Just let him play with some people!!!
• Wait is the silver-fox a wolf??!!
• Chareya is establishing the food chain.
•  Nothing seems to go right for the poor coyote.  
• Chareya and the grizzly is kind of like Frankenstein and his monster.
• I wonder if the story with the beaver is referring to the ice age.
• So wait.  A hawk stole a tree's wives???
• Can fire be used as a form of ID instead of a driver's license?
• TO THE WINDOW TO THE WALLA WALLA.
• Wow don't ever piss off the Coyote or let him be your judge.
• Only summer and winter? No fall or spring?!
• I don't know any totem pole origin stories but I didn't expect them to be like this one.
• Oh my gosh poor the woodrat tale has a happy ending for no one.
•  I don't know where Takhoma is but now I want to go there.  

 

(Takhoma & American Bistort & Subalpine Daisies from Flickr)

 

 

Famous Last Words for Week 8

Well it's my senior year and midterm week is still the worst thing ever.  I don't even want to think about how many hours I did homework this week.  It was like all my teachers got together and coordinated their test schedules.  Like could just one of my professors have been like "Well I bet they have a lot going on around this time I'll push my test back."  

But thankfully, I survived and completed countless homework assignments, an essay, a storybook entry, 2 midterm tests and will be starting on a research paper later today.  

When the weekend finally came I was too tired to actually do anything fun so I basically just chillaxed the ENTIRE time.  I never got bored because this is just something that I simply never do.  I wanted to get some things accomplished this weekend and I got none of them done.  Honestly it was amazing.  

I mainly spent the weekend re-watching Park and Recreation (which was one of the best decisions I have made lately) and sleeping.  However, on Saturday night I attended an OU Musical.  They put on "Ragtime" the musical and it was amazing.  I was so moved by some of the performers.  As soon as I got home I started googling things about the show to learn more about it!  

If you’ve never heard of the show, it’s about three different groups living in the United States during the early 20^th century and features historical figures like Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington and J.P. Morgan.  The three groups are African Americans, Eastern European immigrants and upper-class suburbanites.  The cast at OU did such a great job.  It really pulled on my heart strings.  And unfortunately mainly of the problems featured in this musical still exist today. 

(Personal photo of " Ragtime The Musical's" playbill taken in October 2015.)

Reading Plan

Here are the stories I plan to read for the rest of the semester!!!  

Week 9 - Pacific Northwest: Pacific Northwest stories with a focus on the tribes of Oregon and Washington.

Week 10 - British North America: Tales from Canada, with trickster-heroes Manabozho, Raven & Coyote.

Week 11 - Canterbury Tales: Including comedy, romance, deceit, an animal fable, and a story about the devil.

Week 12 - Faerie Queene: Britomart disguises herself as a knight to seek the lover she saw in Merlin's mirror.

Week 13 - Heptameron: Renaissance love and gossip as told by Margaret, the Queen of Navarre.

Week 14 - Russian: Russian tales of princesses, heroes, witches, warlocks, ghosts, vampires, and more.

(Larkable.)

Reflections: Looking Forward

Looking at the points I've so far accumulated for this class, I'm on track to finish a little early.  After finishing Indian Epics two weeks before the final week, I know for a fact that it's awesome to get classes done early.  Especially around finals and dead week because that is the time when EVERYTHING gets hectic. 

In my future writings with this class I plan to do some cool things (well at least things that I think are cool) with my storybook.  It's hard to plan out exactly what I want to do because I really enjoy seeing where the my writing takes me.  But I plan to finish my storybook out strong and hope to be inspired by some of the reading material we will soon read. 

Psyche made a really big impression on me and basically provided me with the basis for my storybook.  So if any other characters can make the impression that she did on me in a short story or a supporting character in my storybook I would love that. 

I hope I'll be able to comment on more people's stuff in the future.  Lately life has been hectic but I really should do my part and provide more feedback on other people's post.  I really do like the comments I've been receiving on mine so I should return the favor. 

I don't think I need a specific time to work on this class.  The best thing about online classes is that they are flexible and I'm an organized person so I can keep up with assignments.  So I think in the future I'll keep using this work-as-you-go mentality. 

I think I'll change up the locations like I have been.  It's a digital world so it's possible to work on a digital fully-online class ANYWHERE. 

I plan to do some of the growth mindset and curation activities to help get ahead in this class.  Possibly sometime after midterm week! 

(Gif from Diary of a Fit Mommy's blog.)

Tech Tip: Weather Widget

Check out my little widget to the right if you ever want to know the weather in Norman, Oklahoma.  This could prove to be very valuable because if you're from Oklahoma you know that the weather changes every 5 minutes! 

Personally, my favorite weather is a cool, crisp autumn day.  Not too hot, not too cold.  My least favorite weather is the blistering cold days of winter.  However, I do like to enjoy snow from the window of a heated home. 

So of course I had to implement the weather widget during my favorite month of weather.  Long live Fall!!!!!!

Reflections: Looking back

I really think that this class substantially helps my writing.  Writing is just like anything else the more you do it, the better you get at it and this class especially helps me write because the posts vary in length and content.  Even the short tech tip posts can be super helpful because it helps you learn how to summarize important information.  That's a skill that can help you in the real world like knowing how to write short and summarized emails.

The materials I'm most proud of thus far include my week one story "The Travelers and the Tree," my week two story "The Captive Woman," and just the fact that I've been able to do a Famous Last Words post for every week.  I am excited to write more for my storybook but it still has a bit of a ways to go. 

I'm a big fan of the Turkish and Czech fairy tales.  I just felt they were so original and when I was reading them I had no idea where the story was going to end up.  One story that really stuck with me was the one that was based off of "Beauty and the Beast," it was just so unusual.  I was kind of intrigued at how far it deviated from the source material. 

I like reading other people's stories and seeing how they interpreted some of the material.  But sometimes I wish we could all read the same material.  Also, one thing that this class doesn't have because it's online is a group discussion about the literature.  That's the only thing I dislike about this being fully-online, because I feel like group discussions about literature can be so powerful!

I usually work on this class at my apartment, but sometimes (like right now!) I get some free time at work and I decide to hammer out some of these shorter assignments. 

This semester has been hectic for me, so unfortunately I don't have a specific time blocked off for this class.  But I do try to get it done in the mornings (doesn't always work out though).  Just with it being senior year and having an internship and preparing for job hunting/interviews I don't have a lot of free time in general.  That's why I haven't been able to do as much of the extra credit assignments as I would like to, so I haven't really done any of the growth mindset or curation activities.  I made a goal to do every Famous Last Words assignment to help document and preserve my senior year and that's about all I've had time to do. 

 

(Meme from Saint Rose blog.)