Reading Diary A: Jewish Fairy Tales

First the first week of reading, I chose Jewish Fairy Tales.

(The image that accompanied The Beggar King)

The Giant of the Flood:

• A giant goes out of his way to guarantee his survival through the floods by making Father Noah help him. 
• Og basically became Noah's slave. Sacrificed a lamb, a pig and a monkey to bless wine so when man drinks too much he behaves silly.
• Og eventually turns against Noah's word and opposes the Israelites. His plan to use the mountain to harm them failed and Moses was able to mortally strike him with a sword. Years later he perished.

The Beggar King:

• King gets mad at the Holy Book and tears out any pages that he dislikes because he is unwise.
• Goes on hunt and with no success ends up getting stuck in woods to learn a lesson from a Genie.
• He is forced to do be the servant of a troop of blind beggars as a punishment for his sin. 
• After he has completed his punishment, he returns to throne and rules with kindness and sympathy to his subjects.

The Quarrel of the Cat and the Dog:

• Cat and dog were best of friends until the winter came. Dog became depressed and Cat became restless and angry.
• Cat suggests they split up because they cannot find enough food together to share. Dog is upset by this but reluctantly agrees. They make a pact to never cross paths again.
• Cat goes to Adam's for mice as food and forgets about Dog. Dog doesn't fare well and nearly dies. He finds Adam's house by accident.
• Cat is unhappy Dog now lives there. They fight constantly because Cat is upset Dog broke the oath and this is why they all always fight.

The Water-Babe:

• Princess Bathia finds Moses floating on the Nile river.
• Princess throws Moses a birthday party and at the party he puts on the Pharaoh's crown. Bilal takes this as a sign that he means to steal the throne. Everyone else brushes it off as nothing because he is only a child.
• Bilam requests that he be judged.
• Moses has to choose between a burning coal and jewels to stay alive. He chooses the coal.
• Reuel gives the Princess a staff that was given to Adam when he left the Garden of Eden and said that it will passed down to Moses. 
• Years later when Moses became a man, he was able to read the magical words on the staff and with that staff he did the amazing things that he did in Egypt (when he free the children of Israel as related in the Bible).

From Shepard-boy to King:

• David understood the world around him. He heard someone whisper that he will be the king of Israel one day.
• Finds a mountain that lacks the normal natural scenery. Realizes it's a unicorn. He is stuck on it until a lion comes.
• Lion was angry. Deer saves David from Lion and brings him back to humanity.
• The deer leads lion astray, allowing for David to continue to live and write his experience as a psalm after he was king of Israel.

The Magic Palace:

• Ibrahim and his family fell on hard times. Wife asks that he look for work so they can feed their children.
• Borrows nice clothes from neighbors so he can leave the city and work abroad.
• A builder confronts him with a plan to build a palace and says they should work together to build it.
• The find a Jeweler and show him the plans and a model so they can get the money to build it.
• Ibrahim now has money to feed his family and the architect/builder can make his palace.
• They dream about the palace and they realize it came true. The builder was freed and you find out that it was Elijah the Prophet who built the glorious palace. 
• The merchant hosts a feast with all the people of the city in the palace and spreads the gold and silver throughout the streets.

Week 1: Review

Out of the class announcements, I must say that the Map of the Internet was my favorite post. It was featured in the August 30th post. I giggled when I read there was a My Little Pony island. I knew there was a big My Little Pony following, but not big enough to warrant an island on a map! I found that a bit intriguing.

Week 1: Famous Last Words

(A sad but true depiction of me during week one. I found this on google.)

It's nearly Monday, which means the start of week two. I know you guys are reading this, but I just frowned at the thought of the weekend of being over. My first week of classes was a bit...rough? I decided to take 6 classes this semester (one class is capstone) and reality just hit me with the insane amount of readings I have to do. My goal is to stay ahead. We will see how long that will last. I refuse to leave my spot on campus until I am done with most of week two for this class! The need to do work for this class also stems from excitement to work with the material. I really enjoy writing and I think this class was a perfect choice to work on my writing skills. I want to get better at story telling, so I look forward to those posts the most.

Other than the insane amount of readings, my classes seem pretty good! This class and my German Thought and Culture class are the ones I am most excited about. I really enjoy reading stories from other cultures because I think they are good representations of some portion of a culture. Hopefully these classes will give me a holistic perspective of cultures I do not know much about. Perhaps I can use these two classes to find common tropes that may appear in literature.

Tomorrow will be a bit nerve wrecking because I start my internship bright and early at 8am. Wish me luck! I will need it, in addition to coffee. On the bright side, my boyfriend is coming to visit Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon! Woo! I am so excited. He lives all the way back home in Richmond, Virginia. Perhaps week two of the semester will be a pick me up in comparison to week one!

Week 1 Curation: ?!

(Curation flow chart found here.)

I am going to be quite honest, my organization would be considered as disorganized to most. Hopefully this class will whip me into shape! In the past I have tried to use bookmarks as a way to group the things I find interesting online together. Despite my lack of ability to keep my online life organized, I am really good at filing my saved documents into folders. That is something I am very OCD about because I know I will revisit them, so having them in a location that I can easily find is important to me. Hopefully, I can transfer that skill of filing my saved documents in organized folders to online with the help of this class.

As for social media, I am not too good at it. I know how to use it and am capable to do so, but I absolutely suck at following through. I've never been big on Pinterest. It has always seemed a bit like one of those websites that leads you down the rabbit hole and you end up spending an endless amount of hours filtering through posts. This is the reason why it is not my cup of tea at all. I do like Twitter, but I just often forget about it.

The engagement level of this class will hopefully improve my ability to actually function effectively and efficiently online. Online curation seems like one of those areas where you want to work smarter, not harder.

Growth Mindset

(Cat meme by Laura Gibbs found on the Growth Mindset Memes Blog.)

I wasn't sure what to expect after seeing the title of this assignment. I had never heard of the growth mindset or Carol Dweck, so I was a bit nervous. After watching Carol Dweck's TED Talk "The Power of Believing That You Can Improve," I am quite happy that I watched her videos. I am a firm believer in looking at the glass as half full rather than half empty. Having a positive, encouraging culture around education can only strengthen the experiences one has. Everyone learns differently and I think it is important to focus on getting everyone to understand a concept rather than focusing on how they got there.

I've always found that most things come easily to me. I really haven't had to put too much effort into things and would still be able to get by. I've changed that up the past few semesters by picking classes with professors that I knew would be challenging and I would actually have to work hard for a good grade. Due to this change, I have become a better student. I try not to improve based on the grade that  I am going to get (though it is an important factor), but I try to improve so I can become better at what I am trying to do. The desire to truly understand what I am learning has become a top priority to me with my classes.

To enhance the rest of my educational experience, I will be using some of the growth mindset challenges throughout the semester.

My Three Storybook Favorites

Let me start this post off with: I am really horrible at making decisions. I am possibly the most indecisive person ever and so, choosing three storybooks was really hard. I did, however, power through my inability to choose and narrowed my list down to three storybooks.

(Lion Emblem Noble created by Lockheart23 on Deviantart)

The one that grabbed my interest the most was The Thin Line Between Tragedy and Comedy. What kept drawing me in was the title. I am a sucker for a good title. Even if the content is bad, I will read a book that has a solid title. With this storybook, the title did not make the subject of the story book obvious, but it gave you a hint as to what the content would be about. I enjoy a bit of mystery and so, this was an obvious top choice for me.

Planet of the Cats was another storybook that kept popping up at the top of my list. I am not sure if it is the fact that I love cats, but I was drawn to this one. I like the style and layout of the storybook. I think it is clean and simple, and if you couldn't tell... I like clean and simple. It is so easy to navigate, which makes me like it even more. In addition to that, I like that there are pictures on every page and that they are not the same types of imagery. The image variety keeps things fun.

Lastly, we have Monsters or Misunderstood? This storybook caught my attention because it's so fun! The introduction made me laugh so much. Comedy is golden in my book.  Even the layout and design add to the humor because it feels like I am on a therapist's website. I think it is witty that they are monsters that have therapy appointments. It sounds like some future Pixar or Disney movie. I can only hope to have something as witty as this.

My Un-Textbook Selections

(14th-century tapestry)

It was extremely hard to choose only a few units to describe why I want to read them. I am so interested in so many different things that I feel my selections are culturally diverse within England (which is what I wanted).

So here goes my list:

Unit: Beowulf - In the 9th grade we read a translation of the Old English epic poem and I really enjoyed it. I am mostly wanting to revisit Beowulf because I would like to read it in prose form. Trying to understand Beowulf as a poem at the age of 14 was pretty challenging, and I hope to learn something new from rereading it.

Unit: Czech Folktales - Besides the similar tropes that run through most folktales, I know nothing about the ones from eastern Europe. I want to see how they compare and contrast to the ones from the west. I'm worried that I may not understand some of the cultural references that they may make, but I hope to learn a lot from them,

Unit: Kalevala - Much like the Czech Folktales, I am mainly interested in this because I know absolutely nothing about it. Based on the description though, I am excited to do the listening portion of the Unit. I think having an aural factor added into story telling can enhance the experience one has with a story.

Unit: Welsh Fairy Tales - I am mainly attracted to this unit because I have quite a bit of Welsh in my bloodline. I think it would be awesome to read stories that may have been told to my ancestors. I cannot decide between the two Welsh Fairy Tale sections, so it is likely that I will do both. I am probably most excited about this section. I am curious to see if Changelings will be mentioned.

Unit: Canterbury Tales - The Canterbury Tales were only briefly mentioned in high school, and I am excited to read these tales. I have only read a small portion of one, and I can barely remember which one it was. I also find Middle English interesting, so I can not wait to revisit these tales to compare the difference between this style of writing to that of today's.