Famous Last Words: The End

Grainy screenshot, from your's truly

With this post I will have made 93 posts on this Myth and Folklore blog, and accrued enough points for an "A" in the class. I made 84 posts to finish in Epics of India, so my posts/points efficiency ratio dropped from Spring to Fall. The warmer weather of the end of Summer must distract me, or maybe it is senioritis. Now that I have finished both this class and Epics of India, I think that I am all out of creative writing energy. I drew so many blanks when it came time to find some new ideas to write about for my storytelling. It's a really frustrating experience, believe you me. Still, I am proud of the seven storytelling posts that i came up with. 

I have made 20 reading posts, which I really find to be the most enjoyable part of the class. However, I didn't find that I liked the readings as much as Epics of India, which is not what I expected. I figured some familiarity with the subject material and extra cultural relevance would make it more interesting, but perhaps I just have a thing for the exotic parts of life. I think Homer's Iliad was my favorite of all the readings I did. I really enjoyed the characters on both sides, along with their interactions with the Gods of Olympus. Second would be The Voyages of Sindbad. They were comically unbelievable, which made them fun to read, but it also made them the focus of my favorite storytelling series, The Voyages of Sindbad the Unlucky Sailor, this semester. Third favorite would be an extra credit reading, a collection of Hans Christian Anderson stories. The original story of the Little Mermaid was a lot darker than the Disney version, shockingly so. 

Thanks for reading along with me this semester, good luck with your own work!

Famous Last Words: Review Week

This week is a week intended for reflection in this class. Unfortunately, I do not really have time for that, as much as I would like to take a week to reflect on all that I have accomplished this semester. Already this week I have had three tests in my core classes (Geology and Geophysics, Reservoir Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, and Reservoir Engineering II), I actually passed out from exhaustion last night. Within the next week and a half I have due: Another test, a lab report, two projects, and various other homework assignments. On top of trying to keep up with the assignments in this class. It's certainly going to be a stressful October, wish me luck.

Test, from Clipart Panda

The only reading I did this week was half of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Margaret Hunt. it covered Hansel and Gretel, Thumbling, and Allerleirauh. Hansel and Gretel was my standout favorite, I found the other two to be pretty weird. The major change from the original to versions I am familiar with is the parents abandoning poor little Hansel and Gretel in the woods to starve to death. I can't help but wonder if Hansel and Gretel's mother was somehow connected to the evil of the witch. They both died conspicuously close to each other, perhaps the witches evil permeated beyond the forest. Plus, leaving Hansel and Gretel to starve to death in the forest because you can't afford to feed them is one step short of eating them yourself. I was surprised about the presence of actual character development. Hansel and Gretel's father was clearly under a lot of emotional duress, stuck between his children and his wife. Gretel also really came into her own, and stopped following Hansel's lead by killing that evil witch, quite cleverly and brutally I might add.

Backup and Review: Don't Wait

From Laura Gibbs

I think that this is an important piece of advice. While I fell that it is important to have a goal and plan before you begin writing, sometimes you just have to let the words flow onto the page. Thanks for reading.

Backup and Review: Spell Checking

From Laura Gibbs

I have never heard of this specific tip before, but I will be sure to store it away for future use. I usually get paranoid that spellcheck corrected my egregiously wrong word to a word that I did not intend.

Wikipedia Trail: Dalai Lama to Guru Nanak

The Dalai Lama, from Wikipedia

I used a quote from the Dalai Lama in a recent Learning Challenge post, so I decided to start there. Our current Dalai Lama is the 14th one, which seems like relatively few for having been around since 1391. The Tibetan word 'lama" corresponds to the Sanskrit word 'guru". I couldn't remember which countries spoke Sanskrit, so I decided to click and find out. It turns out I was very wrong, Sanskrit is the Hindu religious language. It is also the religious language of the Sikhs. Sikh's have a number of gurus, so I clicked on Guru Nanak quite randomly. He lived from 1469 to 1539, and he was the founder of Sikhism. Lucky guess on my part, the list was alphabetical.

Wikipedia Trail: Hansel & Gretel to Napoleon

Hansel and Gretel, from Wikipedia

I started my trail at Hansel and Gretel this week. There is a joke to be made about that, but I'm too tired to think about it right now. It's shockingly recent to me, published in 1812 by The Brothers Grimm. I wanted to probe their dark minds, so I clicked there next and learned that they are from Hanau, Germany and that their stories were used a propaganda by the Third Reich. I clicked on the happier option. Hanau was first mentioned in literature in 1143. The town was destroyed by Napoleon in 1813, after which it was rebuilt. Of course, the first thing I checked was Napoleon's height. he was 5'6", average for his time. What a shame.

Tech Tip: Motivational Posters

It's easy to create a motivational poster using AutoMotivator. I used a random image from the site for my background image, and found the quote on Pinterest.

Tech Tip: Quotemakers

There are a number of quote image making websites, I decided to try PosterGen. Thanks for reading.

Learning by HEART: Being Busy

From Laura Gibbs

I like this, because it seems ridiculous, but it's something that we have all certainly done before. I also want this to serve as your reminder to occasionally dry out of caffeine. Things start to get weird as you cross the 300 mg/day boundary for months in a row.

Learning by HEART: Tolerance

From Laura Gibbs

I like this quote because it feels like something out of the Art of War, but is advocating peace. It also acknowledges that getting along with some people is difficult, but important, which I sometimes struggle with.