Pip Pip Hurray!

Oh, I have never been happier! After running away from my tribe and marrying Evergreen, I truly am overjoyed. I could not follow through with the wedding that my parents had arranged for me. There was no way that I was going to spend my entire life with a killer, someone who has no regard for animals and all of the love and life that they have for us. I decided the morning of my wedding that I would run away and finally find the happy land that I had always dreamt of. I knew that the fairies would accept me, not only because I looked like them, but because I would fit in perfectly. And I was right. As soon as I walked along the shore and saw their homeland, I knew this was the perfect place where I was meant to be. One of the fairies saw me and instead of running, he came towards me. He introduced himself and I immediately told him my situation, so that he would not be frightened and so that he would know I wanted to stay with them and become one of them. I spent the next few days get

I am focusing my notes on The Fairy Bride, which is the last story in the American Indian Tales section of the readings. I chose to focus my notes on this story because I thought it was a neat story and it was based on Lake Superior, which my family has visited many times. I am doing a regular note-taking style. There was an Indian girl whose father was the chief her parents cared for her and protected her greatly, they never wanted bad things to happen to their only daughter.  the daughter saw many interesting things when she went off exploring on her own, but no one really knew what she saw.  the mother wanted her daughter to stop being so adventurous and to settle down and get married.  There was a place that the fairies lived and danced and played, and it so happened to be somewhere that the daughter liked to go.  no one could ever see them, though some fishermen heard them and saw the fairies' footprints.  the fairies would often play pranks on other people the

For week 11, I am experimenting with a new note-taking strategy. When I first read some of these tales, I really liked how they started and ended. I am going to focus on the first story, Iagoo, the Story Teller, and how this story began and ended. I am planning on just taking notes on the different word choices, sentence structures, and why I liked these stories. The beginning of the story:  I like how the first word was all capitalized. This made it stand out and gave the first sentence nice emphasis, even though the word itself was not very important.  I also like how in the first sentence the author made sure to introduce some of the characteristics of Iagoo. This helps readers to automatically take the side of the main character because of the positive connotation they now have of him.  I also really liked how much context was provided in the very first paragraph. Not only did we learn about Iagoo himself, but also a little bit about his past, where he lives, and what he d

I have always been a language geek, all thanks to my mom. She was a journalism major in college, and so she always instilled in me the importance of using proper grammar. I find that I can hear incorrect grammar a lot easier than I can see it, and so I have to read things aloud often as I edit them. I thought it would be really fun to watch the different Ted Talk videos about language because of the little tips and tricks I might be able to learn. My favorite of the videos was "Where do new words come from?" by Marcel Danesi. I guess I had never considered how new words came to be, but it was fascinating to me! I have always wanted to come up with a new word, and I felt think this video sort of taught me how! Here are some notes that I took while I watched the video: there are over 170,000 words in the English language (wow!!) words can come from a multitude of different origins  I always thought people just came up with random words and some committee approved of them

Because I am planning on entering the health field, I thought it would be interesting to focus Wednesday's notes on "How Sickness Entered the World." Although I really enjoyed all of the readings from the Tejas unit, this one stuck out to me. I am doing a normal, classic note-taking strategy since I tried a new strategy for Tuesday's notes. The style I usually stick to is bullet points of important sentences and topics, that way I can look back and easily remember what is going on. How Sickness Entered the World: two young Indians killed a messenger from the Great Spirit before this happened, there was no sickness and people lived very long lives a very old, wise man was dying  the Great Spirit wanted to teach the man how to leave his wisdom with his tribe he was going to send a messenger (remember above^^) to tell him how to do this  because the old man was so sick and dying, he needed people to go to meet the messenger for him.  he sent two young Ind

I chose to read the Tejas Legends for week 10 readings. I was excited about this because these stories were originally from east Texas. I've spent some time in east Texas, and so I thought it would be really cool to be able to read stories when I could actually picture the place in which they were written. My favorite of the stories was "Why the woodpecker pecks," and so I decided to base my reading notes off of this. I chose to focus on the beauty of how this story was written and pick out some of my favorite sentences from this story. "a Tap! Tap! Tap! sounding in the top of a dead tree..." I love how they used onomatopoeia in the very first sentence so that readers could immediately picture and hear the sound that a woodpecker makes.  "looking just like a little man in a black coat and a red hat." This allows readers to visually picture how the woodpecker looks after hearing its noise in the first sentence.  I love the way the author uses sound

 Justice is Served The husband and wife were so in love. They were ever thankful to the doctor for introducing them to each other. If it weren't for him, they would have never found each other. But that's beside the point. What they were really interested in was the money. They loved each other but they were both greedy. They thought they could never be ultimately happy unless they were rich. They both had worked for the doctor at one point or another, and so they knew that he had more money than he knew what to do with! The husband and wife were talking one night about their lack of income and how neither of them held jobs. They decided that their best bet would be to deceive the doctor and take his money! The next day, the husband went to the doctor and asked if he could borrow some money to help his wife, who was sick. The doctor willingly gave the husband money, because he trusted him and wanted the wife to get better. A week later, the husband returned, claiming his wif

I am focusing my notes on the story of The Ant. For some reason, I had a really hard time focusing on these notes/readings today. The noting strategy I am going to use for this week is the bullet point notes of the main ideas from the text. I want to utilize this strategy because I had a hard time focusing and did not retain much the first time I read it, and so making points about the most important parts of the story will help me to look back and remember everything! God made both the ants and the snakes from the ground after he created the earth.  These were made from a rock  the snake wanted God to give him power he wanted to kill those who were troublesome people and also the rebellious people.  God put poison into the teeth of the snake which allowed him to kill the bad people.  he was instructed to be conscientious of the people's actions before biting them. The ant got jealous and wanted the same powers that the snake had just gotten.  God gave him the power

This week, I am reading the Filipino Tales. The story that stuck out to me most from the section A was The Clever Husband and Wife. I wanted to try a new note-taking strategy that I partially made up for today's reading notes. I am going to break down the story and share how I felt when I read each different section. I think this will help me to potentially write a story based on this reading because I will be able to think back and remember my thoughts and feelings as I read this story for the first time. I am excited to try this new note-taking strategy! At first, when I read that the husband was going to get to marry the love of his life, I felt so excited! We didn't know the character of the husband yet, and so I felt as though he deserved to get married and spend his life with his love. Next, when I found out that they did not have any money and they were just planning on using the doctor's money to live off of, I became a little bit suspicious. I didn't think

Looking Back: Looking back on the first 8 weeks of this semester, I am really happy with my progress so far. I have been able to stay on track almost every week, despite having a super busy schedule. Some weeks are very structured and I stay on a strict schedule, whereas other weeks I fly by the seat of my pants and do the assignments whenever I have a free moment. I prefer structured weeks! I have enjoyed most and am most proud of my website about Ruth and Boaz. I have loved working on it and getting to learn more about this beautiful story.  Looking Forward: Looking forward to the rest of the semester, I don't see myself changing a lot. One of my courses is about to end because it was 8 weeks long, and so thankfully this will give me more time to focus on my blog and website. I am really looking forward to continuing to develop my blog and especially my website. I can't wait to see where this course takes me!  Einstein will inspire me to finish strong!

Feedback in: I love receiving comments and feedback from my classmates. It helps me see things from a new perspective, and the comments are always really kind. For me, the comments that are most useful are comments that say both the good things about my writing as well as the things that need to be changed. This encourages me and pushes me to do better next time.  Feedback out: I have found myself giving the same feedback to others that I feel I like the most. I pick out the things from their writing that I really enjoyed, and then I pick out things that I was confused about or wish they would have expanded on. Sometimes it's hard to give feedback because people do so well, but I know it is helpful so I always try to find at least one thing to offer adjusting feedback about.  Blog Comments: I really like reading the introductions of people and commenting there. I think this is the most effective way to get to know someone in an online course.  As the semester continues, I want

So far, I have enjoyed the reading and writing assignments. Some weeks have been better than others, but I think for the most part they have gone well. When my other courses have been busy and I have been stressed, I sometimes find myself not devoting as much time to this course. This is something I want to change over the next 8 weeks, because this course is one that I actually really enjoy and want to spend time on. I am really happy with the way that both my blog and my website look. I think that my blog matches my personality, and my website matches what I would expect a website for Ruth to look like. Something I have enjoyed a lot this semester is the opportunity to be creative and try new things. This class is different from any class I've taken, and I have really enjoyed getting to write and read things that I normally wouldn't get the chance to experience. I have liked trying new research methods and note-taking methods. The notes really help to write the story for the

For these reading notes, I am going to break down important sentences of the story and write my opinions and thoughts about these sentences. I think this will help me to see things from the writer's perspective, as well as potentially start to get some ideas about a story that I can write. I read part B of the Nigerian Folk stories, but I am just going to do these notes over "Of the Fat Woman who Melted Away." "There was once a very fat woman who was made of oil."  this first sentence really caught me off guard! I wasn't expecting to read about a woman who was made of oil, though the title said that she melted away.  "men...offered dowry," "her mother always refused."  This shows that it was arranged marriages during the time of this story, but that because this girl was made of oil she was not able to get married. Her mother said that she would not be able to work on the farm or in the fields because she would melt in the sun. I

This week, I decided to do a normal note-taking style instead of changing it up like I normally do on Tuesdays. The style I consider normal is what I do in most of my lecture classes. I read/listen and take notes on the aspects of the lecture or story that I find most important or that stick out to me most. Taking notes while I read and listen helps me to retain the information better and to stay focused instead of drifting off and daydreaming. I usually will do big headings and then bullets underneath each heading. Sometimes I write in complete sentences, but most of the time it's shorter, more concise notes. The Elephant and the Tortoise:  elephant used to have eyes that were in proportion to its giant body.  elephant ate so much at the feasts that the humans and animals shared with each other  (animals and humans were friends at this time) tortoise seemed to be mad that elephant ate more than others he wanted to stop the elephant  tortoise went to elephant's ho