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Showing posts from October, 2019

Reading Notes: Alaska, Part A

Today I'm taking notes on The Raven Myth: Raven's Creation from Myths and Legends of Alaska by Katharine Berry Judson . This is a creation story, where man comes out of a pod and wanders the earth for a bit. Eventually, Raven comes from the sky and turns into a human. He had planted the pea pod but did not expect man to come from it. Raven brought food, showed the man to water, and collaborated with him to keep creating aspects of life from clay. Eventually, Raven made a companion similar to man to accompany him, a girl. The aspect I like most about the story is the accidental creation, and then how the Raven is inspired by his creation to keep creating. (Illustration from Judson's book)

Famous Last Words: Midterms in Full Swing

This week, although I enjoyed the Native American unit, I actually enjoyed my extra credit reading more. I'm not sure if it's because of the HEART post I did with it that required me to read it aloud, or if it was the subject matter. The moral dilemma of the Chinese story of the fake sacrifices to the river god is really sticking with me. I'll probably end up doing my story retelling this upcoming week over it. I didn't really do any writing for this class this week, as I did a StoryLab and revisions instead. I have to say, I feel a lot better about my story after completing revisions and looking at comments from classmates on what I have so far. I'm thinking I might try to get the next two completed in one go before my other classes pick up too much speed, and while I'm feeling good about the story as a whole. I feel like I've read some really excellent writing this week in class, and most of them had to do with choosing unexpected narrators. While I ca

Learning Challenge: Reading Out Loud

For this week's H.E.A.R.T. challenge, I decided to combine this and my extra credit reading and read it out loud. I read about a Chinese civilization's sacrifices to the river god . I happened to be with a friend, and she said it was okay for me to read it out to her. I noticed that as I read, I definitely took longer since I felt more like an active storyteller than a passive reader. I felt I was contributing to the experience of the story. I also noticed more details and I remembered more of the story once I had finished. A couple of downsides were that it took longer, and also that if I got caught up on a word or phrasing it was hard to refocus back on the story, whereas if I was reading it I likely would've glanced over it. Overall, it was fun and having an actual audience made it even more fun. ( Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac )

Growth Mindset Cats

( Moon cat ) I chose this one because I like how inspirational it is! I would consider myself a very creative person and sometimes I think it's beneficial to remind ourselves where thinking outside of the box can get us. ( Meandering kitten ) I chose this one because I think it's easy to fill our time up with things that are "important" or serves some sort of defined purpose, when oftentimes the breaks and detours are what we need most. ( You can do it ) Honestly, I just thought this one was really cute.

Extra Credit Reading Notes: Chinese Fairytales, Part B

I never did Part B of the Chinese Fairytales unit because I was sick that week, so I decided to make it up this week! I'm focusing on How the River God's Wedding Was Broken Off from The Chinese Fairy Book by R. Wilhelm . For those who lived by the Yellow River, it was custom for the people to sacrifice a girl once a year to be a bride for the river god. When a girl would come of age in a wealthy family, sorcerers would claim it was her. Her parents would bribe them to spare her, and the sorcerers would accept the money. This continued until a family either would not or could not pay, and their daughter would be sacrificed. When a man named Si-Men Bau came into office, he was appalled by this, and said that the next year he wanted to be present for the ceremony. The day came and the girl was about to be thrown into the river with the bridal riches when Si-Men stopped them. He said that someone must first go to the river god and tell him to come get his bride himself. He fi

Week 10 Lab

For this week's StoryLab, I decided to explore Jon Winokur's Advice to Writers site. Below is a list of some of the advice that stuck out to me: "I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are at their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?" - Toni Morrison "A character should explore the world and herself. And I'm only following her. I ask a lot of questions. A character gets up in the morning and looks at herself in the mirror. What does she see? Herself or someone else? When you put characters into these moments that are extremely private, they will show you something." - Yiyun Li "I had a teacher who would say, 'Keep it on the body.' For him that meant every sensation should stay tied to the corporeal experience,

Reading Notes: Pacific Northwest, Part B

Today my favorite story from this section is An Indian's Vow to the Thunder Gods, from Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Katharine Berry Judson . An Indian woman promised to give Thunder her first-born child. She forgot her promise until the first Thunder of spring came. She could not give up her son. It came the two years following and she still didn't give up her son. One day, the boy was playing out in the woods when a storm suddenly appeared and the boy was struck dead by lightning before his mother could get to him. The story ends with a mother singing a song each spring about Thunder and her loss. ( Lightning at Petrified Forest National Park )

Reading Notes: Pacific Northwest, Part A

The story I liked from this section was another origin story; this time it was How Silver-Fox Created the World, found in Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Katharine Berry Judson. In this story, nothing existed at first except Coyote and Silver-Fox, but Coyote did not want to create anything more. So, Silver-Fox kept sending Coyote away and created a hole and an island he one day escaped to. Coyote was sorry and went to join Silver-Fox on the island, but there was little space or food. Every day, Silver-Fox made the island a bit bigger and created things like sunflower seeds and a sweat house. Coyote would run around the island every day to see how it had grown. Coyote wanted a winter 10 moons long, but Silver-Fox said it was too long. They argued for a long time until Silver-Fox made winter 2 moons long, spring one moon, and autumn one moon. ( An adult silver fox )

Reading Notes: South African Tales, Part A

The story that intrigued me most this section was The Lost Message from South African Folk-Tales by James Honey . It describes all the different kinds of ants and how disjointed they are. They wanted to form a council to decide how best to hide from predators, but the amount of ants and the amount of predators made this difficult. They didn't end up coming to an agreement, which meant each group was left to defend themselves against their primary predators. The Insect-King tried to send them the skill of cooperation, but he chose a beetle as his messenger and so the skill never arrived. I thought this part was most interesting and also most confusing. What is the insect king, and why was the beetle inadequate? The story doesn't answer these questions but it might be fun to explore. ( An anteater, one of the ants primary predators )

Week 8 Progress

I'm overall happy with my progress so far, although I planned to be further ahead rather than working on the week of the deadlines. I'm hoping to adapt my routine to work a week ahead. I'm also happy with where my websites are at. I'm really enjoying the story retelling assignments and I'm wanting to play around more with those. ( Procrastinating Ghosts comic by Reza Farazmand )

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Overall I think the feedback I've been receiving has mostly been helpful. I think sometimes it's too positive and doesn't give me enough direction to improve my writing. I think I've been pretty good at giving feedback to others, I always try to provide at least two suggestions or ask two questions unless I see no room for improvement. The comments have been a really fun way to connect with people - there are two or three blogs that I go visit every week now. I think I like the way my comment wall and introduction post are now - I may adjust my comment wall after I post my first story but otherwise I think I'll leave it. I really appreciate this graphic for showing the mindset you should be in when giving feedback rather than just explaining the act of giving feedback. Source .

Week 8 Reading and Writing

Overall, I think the reading and writing assignments are working well for me. I think my main issue is making the time early in the week for the reading, but when I'm able to I really enjoy the assignments and have fun with them. I was worried about my creative abilities regarding the story retellings before beginning the class but that's probably been my favorite part so far. I'm also happy with the current layout of my website and blog. I think my project is also going fairly well - I've only completed my introduction but I have a plan for where it's going to go and I think it's feasible. ( Illustration of Kali by Tommaso Meli ) My favorite photo is actually the one I'm using on my home page for my storybook. I love the illustrated style and all the elements of Kali that it includes. Looking forward, I think I need to take this upcoming long weekend to work ahead so that I don't fall behind as the semester speeds up. Otherwise, I think I

Growth Mindset: Learning from Other Students

The challenge I decided to do was learning from other students by going through and reading quotes from previous students. 1. "G.R.O.W. - Go Rip Open Windows. Sometimes in order to grow, you have to seek out opportunities. You have to force the window open." I really like this one. I hear all the time to take advantage of open doors and open windows, or that when one door closes another opens. But I think it's important to realize that doors don't open by themselves - and if someone else isn't opening it for you, you have to. Rather than waiting for the opportunity you want, go get it. 2. "Create a community. I feel like growth mindset is the best way to create an all-inclusive community of learning and to avoid disenfranchisement of individuals who may feel inadequate." I think community is the best way to encourage failure and growth. When you have a group of people trying the same challenges as you, you feel encouraged to be more reckless bec

Tech Tip: DuckDuckGo

After trying DDG, I have to say it feels a lot like Google. I didn't notice a significant dip in quality of results or images after a few searches. However, as an advertising major, I personally wouldn't use it because I know that user data is so important to my industry (even if it can be a bit creepy). I've used a couple of other Google alternatives that are charity-based, so for example, it would donate a cent for every search you made or it would plant a tree for every search. These alternatives always tended to work very similarly to Google with some added benefits so I try to use them when I remember.

Week 7 Review

The video I watched was the Ted Talk about what would happen if you didn't sleep? It was so interesting how quickly the body devolved, I wouldn't have expected certain senses to shut down so significantly on just day two or three. Learning that less than 6 hours of sleep leads to an increased risk of stroke definitely makes me rethink my sleeping habits. There's many days where I sacrifice sleep for other things I have to do, but I need to start prioritizing my wellbeing more. My favorite image from this week is this art for Navratri by Ketan Pal . It reminded me a lot of the art I'm seeing and using for my storybook over Kali.

Famous Last Words: Recovering from the Flu

The past couple of weeks I've definitely fallen behind due to being sick. This week, I only completed half of the reading, which is unfortunate because I was excited for this section. I think I may use the extra credit reading in a future week to go back and revisit this week's sections. I remember the reading that I did complete was strange and that it left me wondering if it actually conveyed any moral lesson, and who the audience for that story was. I definitely want to revisit those ideas in future storytelling. Sadly, I also didn't complete the storytelling assignment for this week so I'll have to remember to come back to this later in the semester. This week I had to write a strategy brief for an advertising campaign for my ad copy class. Normally I hate copywriting with a passion–I'm much better at art direction and academic writing. However, I think I nailed that assignment and that I might finally be getting the hang of a solid copywriting strategy. As fo

Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, part A

My favorite story from this unit was The Cave of Beasts by R. Wilhelm , mostly because of how many turns it takes. A father finds seven duck eggs and doesn't want to give any to his seven daughters. However, throughout the night, each ask for one and eat it after promising not to tell the others. The father was mad and decided to trick his children into going into the mountains to be eaten by wolves. The five oldest daughters said no but the two youngest said yes. The dad abandoned them and they soon found a cave full of precious stones owned by a fox and wolf. When the foc and wolf returned, they didn't find the daughters. The daughters trapped them in kettles in the cave and burned them alive. Eventually, the father returned for the daughters and was happy to find them alongside all of the jewels. (Cave paintings in China. Source .)