Week 14 Famous Last Words

This week has been interesting for me because I am a senior and starting to realize that college is going to be over sooner than I think. It has felt weird doing things for what could be the last time. Some things I am glad to do for the last time but there are others I will surely miss. I am not sure if I have appreciated Norman and living here as much as I should have until recently. I am going to grad school in Michigan so I won't be living in Norman or Oklahoma after graduation. I have realized just how great Norman is and what an awesome place it has been to go to college. The community here is unique and the people in Oklahoma have been great. Don't take it for granted.

For anyone who might be younger in school I have some advice and words of encouragement. We all know school can be tough and burdensome at times. It can really wear you down and there are a lot of things you have to learnt hat you don't always want to. However, the sooner you change your attitude towards learning I think that whole feeling of school wearing you down changes. I had that issue and once I changed my mindset and told myself how lucky I am to even get to learn things changed for the better. I realize that sounds cheesy perhaps but it is true. Your mind is very powerful and whether you think something is this way or that, either way you are right. You have the decision on how you are going to respond tot he situation you are in. I would also say don't be too hard on yourself during college, in all aspects. Realize that you learn more from messing up then you do from always being right. Also, be intentional with your friends and work to build relationships because that is the best thing in college. You get to live down the street or next door to people you want to spend time with. In the future when people get done with college everyone kind of seems to spread out. I know I am going to miss being so close to all of my friends.

I'll stop before I start rambling on about too much. Thanks for reading!

Image Source

Boomer Sooner.

Tech Tip: Weather Widget

Today I did a tech tip and put a weather widget on my blog. If you are interested in doing the same you can check out this link for directions. It only took me a couple of minutes to do.

I don't know about you but as I have gotten older I have noticed that the weather dictates my day a lot more. Having to figure out what the weather is like helps me decide what I need to wear and what to plan for. Being able to get accurate weather information has allowed me to save time and energy and not make mistakes like forgetting a rain jacket.

Week 14 Storytelling: Bernard

Cockaadoooooodledooooooooo!!

Bernard did a nice fist pump after he made his morning roar to wake up the farm. He was proud of himself for such a perfect execution in the soprano key.

Image Source

Meanwhile, the other animals were rolling their eyes at Bernard. The pigs thought it was ridiculous that he still did a morning call even when the family all had cell phone alarms. The horses were late sleepers and always felt like Bernard was doing it just to get them irritated. All the animals agreed that Bernard just wanted all the attention on him. He was that male pop star that left the band for a solo career and individual praise.

After his morning call Bernard strutting around the farm making sure everyone had heard him and fishing for compliments on his performance. He didn't do much besides strut around and boss other animals around. For some reason Bernard and Connor the pig disliked each other very much. Everyone has there theories as to why they dislike each other but no one can say for certain.

This morning Bernard walked over to Connor and told him what a filthy excuse for a pig he was and told him he could still smell him from the other side of the farm with a bar of soap in his nose. Connor just laughed and proceeded to do a belly flop in the mud puddle. This angered Bernard as the mud flew up and splashed his well manicured coat of feathers.

Image Source

Connor started laughing along with the rest of the pigs. Bernard looked ridiculous and you could tell he was embarrassed. Bernard scoffed and Connor and the other pigs and then trotted off. 

Bernard found a spot in the barn where no one was and sat down. He was frustrated and angry at the whole situation. What the animals didn't know about Bernard was that he had had a hard child hood. He lost his mom and dad when he was young and had no grown up with much parental guidance. He missed them very much and wondered why he had to have lost his parents. Growing up he was never the popular chicken and he was sought the others approval. He just wanted others to like him and be friends with them. But he didn't know how to best do that. Now that he was the head rooster he was still stuck in his old ways.

Connor came trotting in and noticed that Bernard was frustrated and upset. He sat and talked with Bernard and asked him how he was and apologized for splashing mud on him and laughing. He felt bad for Bernard and told him he didn't realize that he had lost his parents so young. His heart softened for Bernard and he felt compelled to try and be a better friend to him.

Five years later Bernard and Connor were inseparable and they were always having fun together. Bernard had learned from Connor on how to respect others and be a good friend. He found it funny when he stopped worrying about what others thought he actually found some friends.


Author's Note.
The original story is actually not about a rooster but instead a mouse. The mouse comes across a rooster at this estate and is bewildered by it.
"I passed the mountain bounds of this estate,
And off was trotting on another,
Like some young rat with nothing to do
But see things wonderful and new,
When two strange creatures came in view:
The one was mild, benign, and gracious;
The other, turbulent, rapacious,
With voice terrific, shrill, and rough,
And on his head a bit of stuff
That looked like raw and bloody meat,
Raised up a sort of arms, and beat
The air, as if he meant to fly,
And bore his plumy tail on high."

I really liked how the author described the rooster so vividly and it made me wan't to write a story about a rooster. I tried to make it warm and light hearted. I think it is easy to not like someone like Bernard but you never really know what they ares struggling with. Sometimes those types of people need a friend and some guidance the most but don't know how to ask for it. 

Bibliography.

Mice, The Fables of La Fontaine, Elizur Wright, 1882. 

Week 14 Reading Diary Continued: Fables of La Fontaine

These are notes over the second half of my reading on the Fables of La Fontaine.

I think it would be fun to do a story about a rooster and how he takes his job seriously of waking people up each morning. Maybe he has gotten too cocky though with the other animals and needs to get taken down a peg or two.

Image Source

I think it would also be fun to write a story about an animal that can also transform into a human. Maybe it could be a guy that when he wants to can transform into some kind of fish or whale. Maybe he swims to exotic places or goes to the Great Barrier Reef.

It would be fun to write a story about a woman who lived on a star and because she lived on the star she could travel to any moment in history. Not the future but anywhere in history.

Week 14 Reading Diary: Fables of La Fontaine

This week I decided to read from the Fables of La Fontaine. Below are some notes on my reading from the first half of the week.

I think it would be fun to create a spin off of the story about the rabbit and the turtle racing. I was thinking it could be a story where the rabbit wins because he has been taking performance enhancing supplements.

Image Source

I think it would be fun to create a story where two very unlikely animals become friends and help each other accomplish something. Maybe there could be a dolphin and a stingray that are big wave surfers and a huge wave comes and one has to save the other.

It could be interesting to make a story about a pack of wolves who are forced to survive through hardship and starvation. It could be a story about the will to persevere and how having support can get you through the toughest times.

Week 13 Storytelling: Celebrating Friday

A long long time ago there were no names for the days of the week. People wandered around hardly bound by time. This proved to be a good thing as well as a bad thing. People enjoyed not having hard deadlines for things but this brought about laziness and neglect.

The biggest city in the world at the time was called Origin and it was here that the idea of a week was born. In order to better govern the people of the world they decided creating a bigger presence of time was a good idea. One of the ways they thought they could do this was by creating a calendar that consisted of days, weeks, and months. There were to be 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and 12 months in what they called a year.

15th Century Calendar
Image Source

This proved to be a good idea and a lot of people felt like this would help progress society and the world they lived in. Some of the highly educated people had noticed that there wasn't a lot of motivation amongst people before they put in place a calendar. However, afterwards, those intellectuals noticed the pace of life increase and the growth of society to increase faster. They felt pleased with themselves.

The only problem they had was that people didn't know how to differentiate one day of the week versus another. The intellectuals decided that they should name the days of the week to help people in their organization.

There were five different intellectuals that decided they would go to a local tavern on the fifth day of the week and name the days of the week. They thought this would be a fun way to get creative in coming up with names suitable for the week days.

They all agreed the each of the names of the day should end with day. When it came to the fifth day everyone got excited because this was the last day of the work week for them. They were all teachers and the students had the sixth and seventh days of the week off.

Image Source

After much deliberation they all agreed on the name for the fifth day. They decided to call it Friday. The chose this because in their accent fri sounded like free. When school would get out on Friday and all the kids had left the teachers would walk out of the building together and shout WE ARE FREEEE! This had been there ritual for a long time so they thought it only fitting to use it as the name of the fifth day.

Author's Note.
In the original story there is a woman that decides she is going to comb and spin flax on a Friday. I think this is the type of work she does. Apparently this is upsetting to Mother Friday because she comes to the house of the lady when she has fallen asleep. Mother Friday is engaged that the lady would be doing such a thing and takes dust and dumps it all in the woman's eyes. The woman wakes up screaming and not knowing what happened. In the end the woman begs for forgiveness and Mother Friday eventually removes the dust so the lady can see again.
The story inspired me to do a story about the origin of the Friday weekday. I thought it would be funny to have there be a lighthearted story behind it because Friday is such a great day of the week for most people. I think ancient history can kind of be presented as a period of time where the people were more serious than lighthearted. I wanted more story to kind of change that attitude about that time period.

Bibliography.
Friday, Russian Fairy Tales, W. R. S. Ralston, 1887.

Week 13 Reading Diary Continued: Russian Fairy Tales

Below are notes I had while reading the second part of the unit I chose for this week over Russian Fairy Tales. 

There seems to be a lot of stories that are on the scarier and more suspenseful side. I think that it would be cool to create a suspenseful/scary story that really makes the reader swallow their breath little.

I also think it could be fun to tell a story about two friends and a journey they go on together. Maybe I could even make it animal themed like Homeward Bound.

Image Source

I think it could be interesting to tell a story about the problems gossip can create. Maybe I could kind of make it like a black plague.