Week 13 Reading Diary: Grimm (LibriVox)

For this week I decided to read one of the Grimm's unit. These were my favorite parts.

The Frog Prince (source: wikipedia)

The Frog Prince

• a princess went for a walk with her favorite ball. She couldn't catch it and it rolled away.
• the frog helped her out.
• she forgot about the frog.
• the frog found the palace and the king said that since she promised it, she has to keep her word and let it live with her.
• after 3 nights, the frog turned into a prince.
• he was cursed by a witch. It will be broken once he is helped out of the spring, allowed to eat from the princess's plate, and sleep in her bed for 3 nights.
• they got married. 

Rapunzel

• the man and woman had trouble conceiving. 
• one day the queen saw rampion in the neighbor's garden and wanted some. The man climbed over the wall to get it for her.
• when he went back the next day, the enchantress caught him. She allowed him on one condition: that she have the child.
• once the child was born, the enchantress took her. At the age of twelve, she was locked in a tower.
• the prince came by Rapunzel's tower.
• Dame Gothel found out and tricked the prince. She pushed him off the tower.
• Rapunzel found him, and her tears cured him.

The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean

• the straw, coal, and bean all escaped from their death.
• they all died anyway.
• they came to a stream, and the straw stretched itself to act as a bridge. 
• the coal got to the middle, got scared, stopped, and burned the straw in half. The coal also fell in and burned out.
• the bean laughed so hard it burst.

Week 12 Famous Last Words

Reading This Week
I read Aesop's Fables this week. They were again, very interesting and short. It is very interesting how the author comes up with these stories.

My Best Writing This Week
I think I did a pretty good job for my new story for my storybook this week. I chose to retell Hansel and Gretel, modernizing it a bit. My storybook is in the form of a chat show, and I had a little trouble at first figuring out which format I wanted to use. I ended up with using the initials and then colons to indicate who is talking. This week's was a bit hard, since there were two "guests" and I had to decide who spoke which part. I would lose track a bit in the middle of who's saying what, but I think I fixed all my errors in the end.

My Other Classes
I had an exam this week, and it was horrible. It was for MIS Field Project, which is essentially the capstone for MIS majors. I was kind of glad though, because EVERYONE else also thought the test was awful. It is kind of reassuring that it is supposed to be hard, because 65+ is a B on the exams. We also get next class to argue our point for the multiple choice questions, so there's an opportunity to gain some points. I personally did not argue the points, I had a friend do it for me, but I got an additional 8 points after that class. It kind of shows that I was on the right track, that my answers weren't all completely wrong.

Outside of School
This is not completely outside, but my parents are coming for graduation in a month! I haven't seen them (physically, since we FaceTime most nights) since Christmas break, so this will be nice. I still can't believe that I'm graduating, although not really, since I'm going to grad school, so I'm not totally done with school yet.

Tech Tip: Hashtag and Retweets

I retweeted this tweet because I think the caffeine cycle is real. I personally don't normally drink coffee, but I have friends that do, and this causality loop definitely exists.

The hashtag that I looked up was: #ratchanok. I looked to see if there was a hashtag for the Thai female badminton player that is now ranked #1, and there was. She competed yesterday against China and won 2-1 sets. She's quite impressive.

Week 12 Storytelling: The Cat and the Man

"Hello, it's me, Venus. For those of you who don't know, I am the Goddess of Love. I have made many people fall in love before, but for some reason, those don't end particularly well. I have about a 90% success rate when it comes to couples staying in love. I can make them fall in love just fine, but I can't figure out quite yet how to make them stay loving each other forever, which is why you have divorce in your world. I am not here to talk about my success rate though, and those of you who are thinking, 'You have been alive and doing this for forever, how couldn't you know?' There are a lot of elements when making a relationship work, alright? And it's complicated.... Which leads me to the tale I have for you today.

"One day, this beautiful cat came to me, asking for me to change her into a human, so that she can marry a human man. It was already an odd request to start with, and I did wonder how she fell in love with the man. Turns out this man has been feeding her, taking care of her when he can, and recently just rescued her from the side of the street. She fell in love with his kindness and wants to marry him!

"I tried to explain to her, I did, that me changing her form wouldn't change anything else. Everything about her would still remain the same. She didn't care, only as long as she was a human. So I helped her out.

Wedding (source: ruffledblog.com)

"The couple met each other as humans and instantly hit it off. They soon got engaged and were set to marry... Nothing could go wrong. I was quite ready to run my data again to recalculate my success rate, when a disaster happened on their wedding night.

"Everything was going very smoothly. The ceremony went off without a hitch, the selected food were great, the band was awesome, and everyone was having a good time. Somehow, this mouse made it past the pest control and started running around the venue! Now, when I told her that me changing her into a human won't change anything, that included her basic instinct.

"What would you do if, on the day of your wedding, you see a mouse run by, and a split second later your wife is out of her seat, chasing the mouse around the venue, finally caught it, and devoured it right there in front of everybody?

"Sadly, my recalculated success rate is 94%. That darn cat."

Author's Note
I based my story off of one of Aesop's fables, which was short, so I had quite a bit of expanding to do. In the original story, this cat goes to Venus to asked to be changed into a human so she can marry the man. Venus does it, and on their wedding night there was a mouse, which the cat/human the proceeded to chase. The man broke it off afterwards. It was easier to expand on this than the Robe of Light story (Week 10), and I had quite a bit more fun with it. The man still ended up breaking off the marriage after seeing his wife eat a rat.... I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to change that haha.

Bibliography: This story can be found in the Aesop's Fables (English) Unit, under The Gods chapter.

Week 12 Reading Diary: Aesop's Fables (English)

I chose to read from the Aesop's Fables Unit this week.

The Gods (Davies)

• the gods laughed at the baby but everyone sees beauty differently
• Jupiter accepted Apollo's challenge to archery but Jupiter can step as far as Apollo can shoot, so what's the point
• people worship Hercules, but he can't really help since he's not a god. You have to help yourself.
• a cat asked Venus to change her to a woman so she can marry the man she loves. On their wedding night, a mouse ran past and she pounced on it. Her nature wasn't changed even though her form did.
• man is to carry his burdens on his back. It's easy for us to see others' burdens but not our own.
• the peacock goes to Juno about his jealousy of the nightingale's pretty voice.

Goose that lay the golden egg (source: wikipedia)

Fables about People (Boothby)

• the man cut up the goose who lay golden eggs to find nothing
• people abuse power; if people saw the wolf eating a feast, they would complain, but it's normal for humans.
• the trumpeter tried to get out of fighting by saying he never killed anyone, but he gets excited when fighting happens. Got shot anyway.
• the satyr questions the traveller when he blows: on his fingers to warm and his soup to cool.
• the child refused to cry A, because then they'd make him cry B too

Apes (L'Estrange)

• an ape had twins, and she favors one of them. While running away she grabs her favorite and swings the other onto her back. In her haste she slams against a stone, killing the favorite, but the one on her back was perfectly safe.
• there is an Ape training school where the final is a dance. Someone threw the apples at the apes and they all abandoned everything and dove for them. Nature is always stronger.

Foxes (Smart)

• the fox tricked the crow into giving him the cheese
• the fox poured soup into a dish, the stork cannot drink. The stork served the fox soup in a long-necked bottle, the fox cannot drink from it either.
• the fox tricks the goat into going down the well and leaving it there while he escapes

Growth Mindset: Practice

Practice cat (source: growthmindsetmemes)

I have always had difficulty with writing, whether it be papers or stories. This class forces you to write most of the time, such as writing your reading diary, comments, and most importantly, the storytelling and storybook projects. Because it's forced me to write a lot more than I am used to, I think I have improved due to the practice throughout the semester. It still takes me a bit before the ideas come together, but looking back at my first storytelling, I think I have definitely improved.

Tech Tip: Twitter Follow

I use twitter to follow my favorite YouTubers and actors. I have notifications turned on for some of them, since a few of the YouTubers do live shows now and again and I always missed them before.

Week 11 Reading Diary: Alice in Wonderland

This week I decided to read Alice in Wonderland.

Down the Rabbit-Hole

• Alice was bored out of her mind sitting with her sister when a rabbit in a waistcoat ran by.
• she followed it and went down the rabbit hole.
• it was a long fall. She passed several things on the way down.
• the fall was very long, and she started talking to herself.
• the white rabbit was hurrying down a passage, and Alice quickly followed it. 
• she came upon a room with doors all around, but they were all locked.
• on the three-legged table made of glass was a key, but either it was too small or the doors too big, it didn't work, until she came upon a door about fifteen inches high.
• she couldn't fit through the door.
• on the table, she found a bottle with the words DRINK ME printed on it. 
• she was now only ten inches high.
• when she went to the door, she had forgetten the key on the table. 
• she then spotted a little glass box containing a cake with the words EAT ME on it.
• it made her grow enough to get the key. 
• she went through the door.

Advice from a Caterpillar

• the Caterpillar asks who Alice is.
• she argues back and forth with the Caterpillar about her identity crisis.
• her arms, shoulders, and legs disappeared so she had to slither on the ground like a snake. 

Cheshire cat (source: quotesgram)

Pig and Pepper

• a footman delivered a letter from the queen to the Duchess to play croquet.
• she came to knock upon the door.
• she finally went inside. There was too much pepper in the soup, and she meets the Cheshire cat.
• If everybody minded their own business, the world would go round a deal faster than it does.
• Alice was handed the pig-baby to take care of.
• she set the pig- baby down and it trotted off into the woods.
• she decided to go the direction of the March Hare's house. 
• the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur.