Everything In Between

Week 9  (Source:  Bear and the Bird ) The water was flowing as a flutter of fish swimming up stream showed signs of a new spring. The sun was out and the flowers and animals were just now peaking their heads out from hiding. A gentle roar heard over the sound of rippling water. A great brown grizzly emerged from his den in hopes to find the nearest school of salmon. He made his way to the water and saw their shiny scales sparkling back at him. After hibernating for a whole winter he was determined to catch as many fish as he could. He struck his paw down into the water and boom...  Nothing.  He got frustrated and tried again and again. Confused as to what he's doing wrong as he's done this many times before he gave up and angrily made his way back to the water bank. He let out a quiet but powerful sigh.  A bird with long brown and gold feathers swooped down into the stream and picked up the biggest salmon the bear had ever seen. The bears hunger got the best of him and he snarl

 Week 9  I really enjoyed the readings from part A, so I was really excited to jump into the readings for this week. My favorite ones typically are the ones where animals are the main characters. The Tibetan Folk Tales collected by Albert Shelton didn't disappoint either! There were many animals and a lot of character to them as well as other objects of life that play a big role.  (Source: Rabbit and the Lion ) In the first story that caught my attention was How the Rabbit Killed the Lion   by Albert Shelton. The beginning of the story starts off so strong. It painted a picture of how life was for animals before, what I inferred as, climate change. It introduces the Lion as the "king of beasts" which is pretty typical for the animal kingdom now. It shows that the lions character was somewhat cocky. The rabbit known for being fast had to think quick. The rabbit used that to their advantage saying there was a beastly creature in the body of water by him. His own vanity ki

 Week 9  It was very interesting to read Tibetan Folk Tales , Part A collected by Albert Shelton. Looking through the reading assignments I was immediately intrigued with the one about the Tiger and Frog. I kept reading and found a couple stories that really stood out to me. I saw that the stories all started out with "Long ago" or a variation fo that, and told a lesson by the end.  The first story that caught my attention was  The Tiger and the Frog collected by Albert Shelton, it is an interesting take on the relationship animals have. This small frog is seen as beastly by an actual beast. It made me kind of sad for the Tiger because it was starving and needed food, but at the same time I didn't want the frog to be eaten. I think that shows the emotions of the animal kingdom in a weird way. It also reminded me of the frog being able to "talk a big talk" and scaring the tiger so much that he believed it. I think that's an interesting mindset for a way ani

 Week 8  Looking Back: I'm actually so proud of the time and energy I've put into writing for this class! I think I've really mastered the reading (some of the earlier weeks I did it completely wrong). I'm happy with how I've stayed on top of my work in this class even though it's flexible! I've really used the assignments to help with my blog, blog posts, and comments. I know I haven't really done the extra credit because I've been on top of my work, and I kind of use it as a "Don't fall back on work and if you do, you have to do 2 extra assignments" so it my mind I use not doing them as a motivator to just do my assigned ones!  Looking Forward: I think in the beginning of the semester I was way more confident and I've noticed I'm becoming less confident in my writing. I think I really want to create a good storybook that makes sense but sometimes it stresses me out, so one think I want to do more of is reaching out to the prof

Week 8  Feedback In: I actually really enjoy reading what others have commented on, mostly my introduction because of my major and all the funny comments around that. I also like how I can give these names I see personalities so it's nice to see what everyone is saying and I respect all of their comments/opinions/feedback! I definitely find their suggestions to my storybook to help a lot like clarifying what I'm trying to say as it might make sense in my head, but not to others! Writing really isn't my strength at all so I actually find this kind of feedback to help a lot.   Feedback Out: I know in my own comments I always try to leave one thing to improve, but I really liked how people pointed out small details that I wouldn't catch or not many would comment on. I think for myself really reading these projects in detail and commenting on those might help how I give my feedback. I usually use other student's styles of writing to kind of learn from since so many of

 Week 8  Looking back on all the work that I've done so far I've seen a lot of improvements. I definitely started this assignment off by reworking my blog and looking over the website going back on forth on a few things. It really helps that we have to comment on other students' work because I get to see all the possibilities of creativity. I think I kind of just used a base level of understanding when designing my website and blog, (mostly because that is the only level of understanding I had) but it was nice to see what I could do with it to turn it into work I was actually proud of. I think as of right now I'm happy with where I'm at with the project and how my blog looks! I'm actually so proud of it.  Going into some of my reading notes and other assignments, I have also seen how much I've changed. I think that mostly is because I was doing the assignment wrong for the first two readings, but now that I'm doing it correct I've noticed when I take

Week 7  (Source: Leopard ) The ground started shaking as the animals scurried away to find cover. They had no idea what was going on. There was a loud rumble and a flash of light. Things suddenly seemed to ease down. Confused, all the animals popped their heads up to look around. They saw smoke coming from the ground a couple of miles away. As their curiosity got the best of them, they wanted to see what exactly was going on. They approached the hole in the ground but couldn't see much. "It's like it had fallen out of the sky!" said one of the elephants.  As the air started to clear, the outline of a leopard emerged. His hair was as soft as yarn and his teeth as sharp as a razor. They animals knew this leopard was small, but wondered why he came to them so abruptly. The leopard rose from the pit and spoke, a voice as smooth as silk. "I am the chosen one to protect this animal kingdom from any harm.  The animals burst out laughing unable to take this leopard serio

 Week 7 In addition to the reading yesterday I decided to keep reading  The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung , part B from Wilhelm's  Chinese Fairy Book . I have noticed I'm drawn towards the actions of the main character the Monkey King. He was already born powerful and lived that way for many years taking care of his fellow animal kingdom, he had a government system, yet he worried about being immortal. This is also recapped in " The Lord of the Heavens " section. I find it somewhat interesting that he gained immortality but he still wishes to have this overwhelming power. I also get this contradicting feeling that he is also very humble and eager to be apart of different powers, like when he visits the Heavens. I don't find any of his actions to be ill intended but they definitely are to better himself and not exactly for selfish reasons. This makes him a very complex character to me. I also find his fights with Notscha in " Notscha, Son of Li Dsing " to reas

 Week 7  In this week's readings, I found one that caught my attention mostly because it was from an animal's perspective. I read The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung , part A from Wilhelm's Chinese Fairy Book  and I was instantly intrigued with how the story starts. In the first specific story " Handsome King of the Apes " the way the monkey king is described reminds me a lot of The Jungle Book. I thought this because he is  discovering this new world and he's learning what he can do, while at the same time bringing so many different types of animals together. I like that the story sets up the idea that a lot of time has passed with their way of living being a routine. It definitely creates suspense when moving onto the next story. In " The Great Sea " I found there to be so much personification. I'm not sure if the idea was to somewhat lighten the mood, but I did find it amusing imagining an ape dressed as a human, acting like a tourist in this huge cit

 Week 6  I decided to kind of browse around the story lab options because I find them to be quite fun and help me find new interesting and insightful ways to write. I found the articles on the Writers Write website to be so interesting! To start out with a kinda fun one I enjoyed the article " Music To Listen To While You Write " because I didn't even think about how other mediums of creativity can really help amplify my own writing creativity. I often see music as its own version of storytelling so to incorporate it with writing has the ability to make it better. I didn't realize how many people work with music on and how the type of music can really affect your work. The article suggests it should be melodic, harmonizing music where it encourages the listener to be productive through sounds. The article also stated how some people don't listen to music at all, I am the opposite of that, I have to have some sort of noise on, but didn't consider piano music t

Week 6  In the reading " The Life of Buddha " Part B, by Andre Ferdinand Herold, it starts off with Siddhartha's departure. I feel as if the story begins with a turning point in his journey as he seeks to find more to life and as he states in " Siddhartha the Hermit " he wants to "destroy old age and death." I find the words he speaks to Chandaka during his parting with him in the same story to really show how Siddhartha thought at the time. Although Chanda is offering gifts and pointing out how he will never see his family again, I feel as if Siddhartha knows that it doesn't matter because it's inevitable. He has clearly already made the choice and he wants to do it for his family, and for others; a reoccurring thing that always draws back to his personality. With that being said, I also realized they were parting ways in a forest, which is known to be symbolic as Part A stated with the birth of Siddhartha and the tree he was meditating under.

 Week 6  In the reading " The Life of Buddha " (Part A) by Andre Ferdinand Herold, I noticed so many elements that really contributed to the creation of this story. It starts before Buddha is even born where the details in " Maya's Dream " set the precedent for how the imagery will be portrayed throughout the story. I really liked the ties to nature that are presented and how the holy animal, an elephant, is present during every turning point of the story. The elephant in the beginning even represented the baby in Maya's dream. I also noticed the author really hones in on the feelings of each character, such as Maya's happiness, and King Suddhodana rejoice. I noticed in every part of the story, there really wasn't a time where they weren't accepting of the situation because they were okay with the work of their Gods except up to the very end. One specific part of the story in " The Birth of Siddhartha " was the actual birth of Siddharth