Ann's Blog

(Image Information: Inspirational Cat, Blogspot ) I thought this picture was cute and it made me feel happy. Orange cats are so precious, and the message is one that I think a lot of college students can relate too. For many people, college is an escape from their bad home life, a safe haven from their past. At least, that has been my experience with it. It can be hard to focus on the present and not on the past, but you've gotta do it if you want to make good grades.  The video I watched was Asking Dumb Questions is a Smart Move. I really liked this video because I feel like I am full of dumb questions. I always seem to have 10 more questions than everyone else in the room but most of the time I keep them to myself out of fear of being annoying or sounding dumb. Now I know I should just be confident and ask away!

(Image Information: Workplace, Pixabay ) This week I did an extra credit reading on Sindbad the Sailor and I really enjoyed it. I read both Part A and B and wrote notes up on the stories. I learned a lot. My best writing of this week had to have been in this class because I did not write much for my other classes. My best was probably my story this week, which is about Fox-Fire. I had fun writing this story and I experimented with using elements from my actual life, which I had never done before.  I read many different blog posts and stories written by my classmates this week and they were all excellent. There is a lot of talent in this class. I have seen many aspects in my classmates' writing that I have learned from and will try to apply to my own work in the future.  My other classes are going well. I am in a French class that requires a lot of writing and I think that writing so much for this class has made me more confident in my writing which has made wr...

(Image Information: Sindbad the Sailor, Wikipedia ) I started by searching for Sindbad the Sailor on Wikipedia since his story is the most recent I have read for this class. Wikipedia describes Sindbad as "a fictional mariner and the hero of a  story-cycle  of  Middle Eastern  origin." From this page, I was led to The Count of Monte Cristo , which is simply described as " an  adventure novel  by French author  Alexandre Dumas." I am familiar with Dumas, though I have yet to finish the Count of Monte Cristo. According to Wikipedia, the main character in the Count of Monte Cristo uses the name Sindbad the Sailor as an alias at one point. I loved learning this fact, and it makes me glad I read Sindbad.  Next, I went to the page of Auguste Maquet  who is described as "a  French author, best known as the chief collaborator of French novelist  Alexandre Dumas." I was very intrigued to find out that Alexandre Dumas worked with a ghos...

(Image Information: Sleeping Child, Pixabay ) For this learning challenge, I decided to read about sleep. I have always had a lot of sleep problems and weird sleeping habits. I dream every night and have lucid dreams every night. This leads to me waking up unrested and then wanting to nap later in the day. But even when I nap I don't get peaceful sleep. I also stay up late and occasionally stay up till morning only to take a short nap before class. These days are always unbearable and now I know why. I did not realize previously that it was so important to go to bed at the same time every night and to not eat a lot before sleeping. I work as a server in a restaurant and on weekends I usually work from 11 to 9-10 with no breaks, and when I get off I am usually hungry and exhausted so I often end up eating a big meal (my only meal of the day) right before I go to bed. I have known this is super unhealthy (yikes) but I didn't realize how much it could mess up my sleep quality...

For this assignment, I watched the Sprouts Growth Mindset Animation. It was a cute, short video that reminded me what the difference is between having a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. I think this video helped me better understand what exactly having a growth mindset is and how to go about changing your fixed mindset to a growth one. The video was really inspiring and it made me realize that while I have aspects of both mindsets, I was raised to have a fixed mindset and definitely need to work on having more of a growth mindset. I have bad anxiety so I avoid trying new things, but this video made me want to change that. It also gave me an idea of what/how to teach my future students. From watching the video, I think some things I need to work on are positive thinking, reacting well to feedback, and trying new things. I thought it was interesting how the video mentioned that some job interviewers will test their candidates for growth mindsets. Now I know! (Image Information: De...

Week 9 Extra Credit, Reading Notes, Voyages of Sindbad, Part B This time I decided to focus on content. Specifically, I will focus on the repetition of the same storyline by the author.  The story starts with Sindbad once again deciding to set sail on another voyage, despite his past. He and his fellow sailors come across a roc's egg and break it apart and eat it. They are then attacked by the parent birds. The boat is sunken but Sindbad survives. He drifts to an island and meets an old man who tricks him and forces Sindbad to carry him high so he can pick fruit. Sindbad makes wine to lighten his burden and also gets his captor drunk, thus allowing Sindbad to escape. He runs away and meets some mariners who help him. He leaves with these mariners and they go to a different island to collect coconuts. They have to fight with mischievous monkeys to get the coconuts. Sindbad collects and sells coconuts until he has enough money to return home.  Unsurprisingly, before l...

For this week's tech tip I tried creating a story on Twine. I kept the story very, very simple. The reader is asked to choose between three animals. If they pick the right one, they win. If they pick one of the other two, they lose. I had fun playing on Twine and would like to try creating a more detailed story. I think it would be really cool to write a story on Twine for one of our future assignments, or even just for fun. I think it would be fun to write survival stories, about a hero or an apocalypse. Another idea is to make it a fortune teller story, where the reader's fate will be told based on the choices they made. Here is the link to my  story.  (Image Information: Twinery, Speed of Creativity )

(Image Information: Fox Face,  Flickr ) (Image Information: Fox Close Up,  Maxpixel ) Hello. My name is Alex and this is my story about fox power.  It was nearly forty years ago. I was a young boy, about thirteen. My family lived out in the country in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. My mother had always loved animals, and she was constantly adopting them because she couldn't stand to see them hungry. We had sheep, pigs, cats, dogs, rabbits, goats...you name it, and we probably kept it as a pet. The one creature we'd never cared for was foxes. Back then, there weren't many foxes in our part of the woods.  One day I'm out feeding and watering the animals, something I don't particularly like doing but have to do anyway. The pig has gone and knocked her water bin over, so I've gotta climb the fence to her pen and turn it over for her. I'm struggling in the mud, trying to right the dang thing. It's heavy, and my feet are slipping in the mud and ...

Bibliography:  Chinese Fairy Book , Richard Wilhelm, Translated by Frederick H. Martens . Stories: Fox-Fire and The Talking Silver Foxes Fox-Fire: I thought this was a really cool story, particularly because I am currently reading Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee, which is about Korean mythology but is still quite similar as it is about a family of foxes with magical, shapeshifting powers. Throughout Asian mythology are legends of foxes and their power. In Chinese, it is the Huli Jing, in Korean, it is the kumiho, and in Japanese, it is the Kitsune. These are all variations of the same mythical fox-like creature. The foxes can have multiple tails depending on their power and age and can shapeshift into any form. In this story, a boy stumbles across a fox preparing the elixir of life. He manages to steal it from the fox and becomes very powerful. He is able to make himself invisible, was able to see ghosts and devils, and could commune with the spirit world. " In cas...

Bibliography: Chinese Fairy Book , Richard Wilhelm, Translated by Frederick H. Martens . Story: Yang Oerlang. Reading Notes: Yang Oerlang Beautiful Sentences:  " Now you must know that at that time there were still ten suns in the heavens, glowing and burning like fire. " I thought this was the most beautiful sentence in the story. I think describing the suns as glowing and burning like fire paints a pretty picture in the mind of the reader. It makes me want to practice my descriptive writing in my story this week. Why I Chose This Story: I found it interesting to read another version of how we came to only have one sun. There is a common piece of Chinese folklore that describes an archer shooting down the suns. I had never heard this version of Yang Oerlang crushing them with mountains. That is why this was my favorite story of them all. Story Rewriting Ideas: I love the idea of the ten suns being gods and I think it would be interesting to do...