Friday, December 7, 2018

Famous Last Words: Finally Done

So these really will be my famous LAST words. No pressure. As I scramble to finish this very last assignment before I have to leave for my 11:30 class (and mentally kick myself AGAIN for not doing this last night) I've been thinking about... well... just how hungry I am really. Not much else. I'm really excited to be finishing up this semester on a relatively high note (at least in this class). I'm thinking maybe I will start a blog next semester. Nobody will read it, but it'll be fun. I can make it like an online diary. Sharing life advice with freshmen starting OU in the fall.

So my adventure last night, and why I didn't do my homework like I should have, was all because of a little Yorkie that I'd like to share with you because he is just TOO adorable. On Tuesday, I signed a lease for next year at Callaway House Apartments. Out of the Residential Colleges and into a big girl apartment! I will be living with one of my best friends and sorority sister, Alyssa, in a two bedroom/2 bathroom unit. I'm mostly excited to have a kitchen. Anyways, Alyssa is from the Tulsa area and her parents needed a dog sitter. Enter Moose:

(Personal Photo)

This little ball of fluff weighs about 1 lb soaking wet, and is beyond spoiled. Last night we drove to OKC to meet her parents and do a dog handoff before they got back on the highway to head to somewhere in Texas (don't ask me, I can hardly navigate around my own state, let alone the midwest).

This Saturday is my sorority's annual holiday dinner with our brother fraternity. The (ideal) plan for saturday is to come home after spending the night at my boyfriends, head over to Alyssa's place, and spend like 6 hours baking with christmas music and a dog (in his christmas sweater) before getting all dolled up to go have a big family dinner with my sisters. I wish everyone the best of luck on their finals, and have a great holiday season!

Review: Week 15

It seemed only appropriate for me to choose the picture and video from today's announcement. I especially like that the christmas card has so many different languages on it. The video was SO cool. I can't believe someone managed to arrange THAT MANY recordings into an actual song, and all of the singers are good too! The scrolling credits are longer than the actual song because there were that many people. I can only imagine how much work this took.



Wikipedia Trails: From Anti-Suicide Smock to Cherokee

The Random Article button took me to a rather sad starting point this morning. Anti-suicide smocks are gowns specifically designed to keep people from forming them into nooses. There was also mention of an anti-suicide blanket, which led me to the Quilting page. Many quilting patterns were done by Native Americans. One tribe of native americans that is well known, especially in Oklahoma, are the Cherokee. That is where we end out trail today. On a much happier note thankfully.

via Pixabay

Learning Challenge: Learn About Sleep

This article mainly reinforced what I have learned and have tried to practice this semester. ALWAYS choose sleep. Studying until 4am means nothing if you can't function enough to remember what you studied the next day.

via Wikimedia Commons


Article: Why Sleeping May Be More Important Than Studying

Growth Mindset: Learning from Other Students

Quote 1:

R.U.N.

I've always like the word run. When we get negative feedback, let's take it in stride. We accomplished something that received feedback. We have the potential to make it better, to do better.
R-Rejoice
U-Under
N-Negativity

I don't handle negative feedback well, so this will be one to keep in mind going forward,

Quote 2:

YOU WILL BE OKAY
My mantra is something my mom always tells me when I'm freaking out or stressed over schoolwork. When she says "You will be okay," there is a sense of "you will be okay because you better have put in the effort for this test/essay/whatever and so you will do okay because you put the work in, right?" It  emphasizes the process - the process of studying/writing a paper/listening and paying attention.

This is a big issue for me. When I put in so much effort, only to have a grade come back not as high as it needed to be.

via Flickr

Tech Tip: Canvas Dashboard

I turned off my color overlay!!! Man I wish I would have known how to do that earlier. I would highly recommend everyone go do this. If your class actually has a picture set up for it on Canvas, you'll be able to see it clearly now! That being said, if there ISN'T an image selected you can still choose a color to have displayed for each class.

Seriously, where was this all last year??? I feel cheated.

Reading Notes: Nursery Rhymes (Part A)

This sin;t my typical Reading Notes style, but the main thing I would want to consider doing is rewriting pieces from the Tales and Proverbs sections in the same style as the two Songs sections. What can I say, I like rhyming!

There's also a piece in Songs, Part One about Johnny and I have the urge to redo it in the style of the "Keke Do You Love Me' song.

via Wikimedia Commons


Story Source: Nursery Rhymes

Week 15 Story: The Lost Mother

Author's Note: A lot of the russian fairy tales (or rather all of them) center around people coming back from the dead. In the first story I read, there is a mother who had died in childbirth found nursing her child at night. When she is discovered, she leaves without saying anything and the baby is dead in the crib. I decided to ignore the last paragraph about the baby dying and make a new ending where the mother is some sort of vampire. This is what happened after she was discovered:

Sarah froze when the lights came on. She hadn't thought about what to do if caught, she just wanted to see her baby one last time. The lad was so hungry and, to her surprise, she was still producing milk. Even in death. One of the men rushed out of the room to fetch her husband. This was going to be hard to explain.

Her dear, sweet John rushed into the doorway and stopped, looking at her. He would glance down to their son in her arms, still suckling, but always returned to her face. A look of both longing and pain could be seen in his eyes. The babe unlatched from her bosom and snuggled into his mother's arms. John watched the movement and suddenly became enraged.

"Out damned spirit!" he shouted. "Leave my beloved's body to rest and my house to mourn. It is a cruel trick which you play here this night!" Then he began reciting passages from the bible that would be needed for an exorcism. Sarah knew this would not work, unfortunately. If only it were that simple. She turned and gently set the baby back in his crib and waited. When the yelling finally stopped, and everyone in the room realized that it had had no effect on her, she spoke.

"Oh Jacob, if only your sweet reading would save me. I'm afraid I'm beyond even God's help now. I don't have the slightest idea how to begin to explain this, but if you'll let me I would like to try." Sarah took a step forward and reached for him, but he shrunk back and held the wooden cross from the mantle in front of him. This would not, as she now knew, hurt her. However the fear in her husband's eyes did more damage than he would ever know.

She decided to just start explaining and let things happen as they will. "When I was a young girl, there was a strange man that came to my town. He claimed to be a doctor, but no one knew where he was from. He had no family and no story, but our most recent physician had just died under mysterious circumstances, and we needed a new doctor." Sarah took a deep breath. They were all listening, good. "Well this man has no distinguishable family titles, but was very wealthy. He seemed to have taken a liking to me, but there was something about him that I didn't like. I refused him, despite his insistence for my hand in marriage. I'll be forever thankful for my mother and father for agreeing with me that he was not fit to be my husband. The man eventually left after being rejected for the 9th time. He vowed though, that one day he would be back to have me for all of eternity. I didn't think much of it because then I met you, my dear husband. I fell in love and I haven't thought about this man for another day in my life. Until he came back suddenly. That day that our son came into the world. The bleeding wouldn't stop, so you called for a physician, and in walked the man who refused to leave me alone. When he sent you from the room with the baby, he bit into himself like an apple, then forced me to drink the blood from his wrist.That bleeding suddenly stopped. I was healed! But just as I was about to shout for you, he grabbed the pillow and smothered me."

"I don't understand." Jacob interjected, "you say you died, and i myself buried you not a fortnight ago. So how can you be standing here before me tonight?"

"The blood that healed me did this. The doctor who killed me was a child of the night, and by my demise coming with his blood in my veins, so have I become one too."


Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Reading Notes: Russian Folktales (Part B)

2. The Headless Princess

  • Synopsis:
    • A boy coming back from his lessons peeps into the princess' window
      • She takes her head off
      • The boy tells everyone what he saw
    • The princess becomes suddenly ill
      • She tells her father that if she dies, he should have the priest's son read the psalter over her casket for three nights in a row
      • This boy is the boy that saw her through the window
    • The princess dies
      • The boy is asked to read the psalter
    • The boy tells his grandmother about what he saw and what he has been asked to do
    • His grandmother gives him some instructions to stay safe
      • Take a knife and draw a circle in the ground
      • Read your psalter, but whatever you do, don't look behind you
    • The boy obeys his grandmother and is protected when the princess rises from the dead each night and attempts to attack him
    • At the end of the third night, when the sun rises, the casket does not close behind the princess when she falls dead again
    • The king comes to the church and sees his daughter's body face down in her now open casket
    • When the boy tells the king what had happened, he orders a stake be driven through her heart
    • The boy is heavily rewarded for surviving
  • Possibilities
    • That wasn't the daughter
      • possession/impersonation
      • the real daughter is found after they put the stake through the heart of the one in the casket
6. The Two Friends
  • Synopsis:
    • Two friends agreed that whomever got married first would invite the other to his wedding, dead or alive
    • One of the friends died
    • When the living friend got married, he stopped by his buddy's grave and invited him to the wedding
    • His friend came back to life and convinced him to have a drink at his "place" before the ceremony
    • They shared a total of three drinks
    • For each drink the groom had, 100 years passed in the world above
  • Possibilities
    • Explore the story of the groom being reintegrated into society 300 years in the future
10. The Dog and the Corpse
  • Synopsis:
    • A man goes out hunting with his dog
    • On the way home (after dark) they encounter a living corpse
    • The dog attacks the corpse when it rushes them and the hunter makes a run for it
    • The next morning, the dog returns home and tries to bite him for the betrayal
    • The dog continues to hate his master for a whole year
      • They have to chain him up to keep him from attacking
    • The dog breaks loose one day and tries to kill his master
    • The dog is put down
  • Possibilities:
    • I just want the dog to live
      • Maybe he could get adopted out?
Ghost
via Max Pixel
Story Source: Russian Fairy Tales, W. R. S. Ralston

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Reading Notes: Russian Folktales (Part A)

1. The Dead Mother

  • Synopsis:
    • A couple is happily married
    • The wife dies in childbirth
    • The father hires an old woman to care for the child
      • The child will not be soothed
    • At night, the baby sleeps, well, like a baby despite crying uncontrollably all day
    • The nanny decides to stay up one night and try to figure out what it is that calm the child
    • She hears someone go into the baby's room and the crying stops
      • She tells the father about this
    • The father and his men decide to hide in the baby's room over night to try and catch the person who has been coming in to nurse and soothe the child
    • When the person enters, the men spring out and shine a light on the intruder
      • It's the mother, dressed in the same clothes she had been buried in
  • Possibilities:
    • What if the mother is a vampire???
    • How do the people react to finding her?
8. Wednesday

  • Synopsis:
    • A woman goes to bed after deciding to get up early and finish her work in the morning
    • She forgets to cross herself before going to sleep
      • This apparently summons a demon into her home
    • She discovers that the demon wants to kill her and manages to banish it
  • Possibilities:
    • I want the demon to just be genuinely helpful
      • It's just lonely and wanted to help
Little Demon Dude Just Doing His Best
via Pixabay

Story Source: Russian Fairy Tales, W. R. S. Ralston

Monday, December 3, 2018

Famous Last Words: One Week Left

Well, I did it. For the second week in a row I have completed all six regular assignments and all eight extra credit assignments. This past week was absolutely insane, and this coming week won't be much better. On the brightside, I no longer have the take my Experiencing Music final. Speaking of, if anyone is still in need of their fine art gen ed, I would HIGHLY recommend this class. It's so much easier and more fun than Understanding Music.

Anyways, on Friday my professor announced that anyone who had a 95% or above no longer had to take the final exam. Per the syllabus, we get three absences in that class before our grade is affected. I was a good noodle this semester and didn't skip a single class period (for this course at least). So I don't have to go to the last three classes (M/W/F) this week. All they will be doing is studying for the final, that I no longer have to take. It hurts my heart a bit because that was the one class I actually enjoyed showing up to. This course doesn't count. We don't actually have to go to class. I mean, Why couldn't I get out of my Organic Chemistry final instead?

This week I have this class (I need the week 15 help), an oral exam in Italian, and a research presentation in Organic Chem. It's gonna be a struggle with lots of late nights. Then, this weekend, my sorority is doing a holiday dinner with our brother fraternity. I'm going to go over to my friend Alyssa's apartment to get all dolled up and bake a crap ton of pumpkin bread. I'm so excited!

After finals week, I'm flying from OKC to Florida where I'm meeting my family to go on a week long Caribbean Cruise! It's gonna be a lot of fun, especially since the drinking age at most of the places we'll be stopping is only 18 (RIP to my little bro who's only 17). I hope everyone can finish out this semester strong. We're so close guys!

Also, I finally got my pink christmas lights hung up in my room! Yay!

Me realizing just how hot these 90s era lights were
making my flammable body pillow
(Personal Photo)

Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales (Part B)

1-3. The Boy who Snared the Sun

  • I just want to see the boy get pulled into the sky by his lasso.
4-6. How the Summer Came
  • There is mention of a great flood in this culture too
    • There has to be some truth to it
7-8. Fairy Bride
  • I would love to write about the girl's point of view as she goes to the fairy world and gets married

Fairy Bride
via Pexels

Story Source: American Indian Fairy Tales, W. T. Larned

Review: Week 14

Source: Class Announcements, Sunday, December 2
I chose this picture this week because it's dead week and I feel this meme on a spiritual level. It's been a rough semester.

For the video, I went back another day to the Saturday, December 1st class announcements. This short story is absolutely adorable and the sullen teenager playing video games reminds me a little bit of my younger brother. Have a look!


Wikipedia Trail: From Ebenshausen to Nuclear Fusion

I started of this joureny with the "Random Article" button on Wikipedia. It took me to Ebenshausen, a municipality in central Germany. Then it was off to Vehicles Registration Plate. Next was Metal. Finally, I ended on Nuclear Fusion.

Germany, my starting point.
Source: Wikipedia

Learning Challenge: Crying Alone in My Room Before Class

This week I looked at the Empathy Challenge "I Wish My Teacher New..." reading the note from so many young children about fighting parents, sketchy financials, and even homelessness has me fighting back tears as I type this. The worst part is that it was done anonymously, so there isn't much that can be done about the situations since you don't know who wrote it. I understand why it probably had to be that way though. I just want to go hug all of these poor babies.

Boy Crying via Pixabay



Growth Mindset: Kitty Cats

Challenge: Explore the random Growth Mindset Cats

I'm actually VERY allergic to cats, so these kittens will have to do. Here are three of my favorites:

Look at this cute little bean :) (Source)

This cat has no shame at all (Source)

SO CUTE!!! AHHH!!! (Source)

These are in no particular order of preference. I just found two super cute kitties. For the second photo, I related to the "What Have I done..." look on the cats face a little too much.

Tech Tip: Canvas Mobile App

I've had the Canvas App downloaded since freshman year. You can technically access Canvas through the OU app, but the dedicated Canvas app works so much better. The interface is smoother and more colorful the the OU app. I would highly recommend anyone who isn't using this already to go download it! If nothing else, it's really helpful for checking your grades easily. I wish it would alert me to due dates, but there's probably just a setting I missed. Oh well.