Soul Tran

The Race Between the Crane and the Hummingbird Main Characters:  Crane Hummingbird Plot: The crane and hummingbird were both in love with a woman but she liked the hummingbird more. The crane refused to give up so she tried to get rid of him by tell them to challenge each other to a race and whoever wins would marry her. The hummingbird was overconfident because he was so much lighter and faster than the crane so he took longer rests and didn't imagine that the crane would keep flying throughout the night. The crane ended up winning the race but the woman still refused to marry the crane. Crane landing: Audubon Bibliography. "The Race Between the Crane and the Hummingbird" from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney,  web source

The Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting Main Characters:  Rabbit Otter Setting: In the woods near a pond Plot: An otter challenges the boastful rabbit a duck capturing contest. The rabbit had previously tricked the otter and was confident that he could win again. The otter easily captures a duck without being noticed and comes back. The rabbit fixes a noose and tries to strangle a duck but the duck broke free and flew up in the air until the rabbit fell into a tree. The rabbit was starved and weak until he convinced a man to cut open a portion in the trunk to free him. Rabbit and Otter:  Word Press Bibliography. "The Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting" from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney,   web source

This graphic from Monday's announcements was my favorite! It made me literally laugh out loud when I read it.  Minions:  The Awl

The Cat and the Mouse Main Characters:  Cat Plot: A cat wanted to get married so she stood on the corner and asked each animal that came by to sing and was amused by the mouse's voice so she married him. One day when she went to go buy food, the mouse fell in the pot and died. The cat didn't notice until later and mourned for him so it triggered a chain of events where the door slammed shut so the window responded by opening and closing and then a tree collapsed, and so on.  A cat and a mouse:  Borders of Sleep Bibliography. "The Cat and the Mouse" from Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane,  websource

The Turtle and the Man Main Characters:  Turtle Man Type of Story: Trickster Story Plot: The trickster turtle built a net with a man and claimed the better half of the net to capture food. The man got nothing but the turtle captured an antelope which he called on the forest animals to come sing and dance since he couldn't take it down himself. An ox came by and the turtle told him to clean the plates and help him prepare the antelope and then go get leaves to claim his share but when the ox left, the turtle took all of the meat and shut himself in his house. The ox was mad and went to go destroy the trap but got caught in it and died. The turtle hosted another session to now cook the ox and a leopard came by and got tricked just like the ox, except that when the leopard went to destroy the trap, he was successful and decided to lay in the trap and pretend like he was caught so when the turtle came to claim the leopard, the turtle got his head bitten off by the leopard.

The Vanishing Wife Main Characters:  Buite Swarmi Setting: It just says "certain town" Plot: Buite and Swarmi were brothers but Swarmi was married and owned servants while Buite was lonely and had no one. Buite had a dream that a beautiful woman told him to knock on the ground and he would get a canoe and paddles. She also told him to go fishing and she would could it for him as long as he cut the heads off of the fish. All of this came true in the dream and when he woke up to go fishing, everything that happened in his dream came true again in real life. He got the canoe and when he came home, he saw an extravagant home that replaced his shed with the beautiful wife and nine servants. She cooked the fish for him and he was wealthy and happy. He went fishing everyday with one of the servants and eventually grew tired of having to cut the fish heads off everytime. He kept refusing to do it after a certain point and the servant would protest so then he would run af

There was no new reading assigned for this week but I did the bonus reading anyways because I had time this week for the first time in forever! I read Italian fairy tales and really enjoyed it. My favorite story was “Water and Salt”. We didn’t have to write a story this week but I enjoyed looking back at the progress I have made throughout the semester and reflecting on how I have done and what I could do to improve. I also enjoyed finding a motivational graphic for one of the assignments because I live for those quotes. I always enjoy reading stories written by others in this class. One of them really surprised me because of how different their new story was compared to the original one. They also extended the story quite a bit and added dialogue to make it a completely different story. I was shocked when I found out what the original story was and how successful they were at keeping the original central message the same but changing everything else such as the setting, characters, an

Water and Salt Main Characters:  A magician The king The king's daughter The magicians' son Plot: The king had 3 daughters and he asked them how much they loved him. The two oldest daughters answered well but the youngest said "salt and water" which outraged the king so he wanted her executed. They secretly killed a dog instead and had the youngest daughter escape to a cave where a magician found her and took her in. His son fell in love with her and they were going to get married so they invited the king but they made sure to not give the king any salt or water to teach him a lesson. Salt and Water:  Health Bibliography. "Water and Salt" from Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane, websource

My favorite graphic from this week's announcements was on Monday .  Spelling Humor: Myth Blog

The videos made me really emotional and I'm glad that they made these videos to destigmatize mental illness because I have heard many comments from people who don't understand and they disregard mental illness as people who are just trying to get attention or are overreacting. I wish I could truly feel what they feel so that I could help! My favorite videos were Cooper Lund's and JD Baker's videos. Graphic about Mental Illness:  ChicagoNow

No man is an island. (English Proverb) The English proverb was found online at  PhraseMix . The graphic was made with  AutoMotivator . The original image is from CousinIsland .

Screenshot of Pagoda Search: Google

I am really happy with the progress I have made so far. It is crazy to think how much time as flown by already. I end up doing the assignments whenever I can find time so I don't have an exact routine I follow every week. I am enjoying all of the assignments a lot! I like doing the growth mindset extra credit options the most! For the second half of the semester, I hope to make more time to work ahead. I also want to explore new ways to tell stories because I have been sticking to the same basic changes for all of my stories. Persistence:  Livestrong

Overall, the feedback I have received is pretty helpful. The most helpful comments are the ones that suggest ways for me to improve character development and dialogue. My feedback that I have left for others has improved over time because I started out with compliments only and started to learn how to give back useful feedback. I have definitely been inspired multiple times by other stories that I have read. I think I am getting to know people because I get to read their introductions and I can hear their voices in their writing. I can get a sense of personality from their stories. I am happy about my introduction and blog because I am an open book so it's easy to get to know me from reading them. I want to be able to give better suggestions to others that they can actually incorporate or use for their story. I am happy with my blog the way it is so I'll most likely not make any changes. Feedback Cat: Cheezburger  I chose this image because feedback is meant to help y

Overall, the reading and writing assignments have been wonderful! I really enjoy reading every week and I look forward to it as a stress reliever. My favorite readings have been Aesop’s fables because they’re short, sweet, and simple. They leave me with a nice ending each time and a moral with a lasting impression. I am really happy with my class project, I have been doing a lot of extra credit to finish the class early and realized that I’ll finish the class before I finish my project so I’m sad about not finish the project in the end. My biggest accomplishment has been the revising process when I transfer stories to my portfolio. When I reread my story after all of the revisions, I could see the improvement and how much better the story became.  Rapunzel looking down at her lover on her balcony:  DeviantArt I chose this image because I really liked the romantic story between the girl and the thief in Twenty Two Goblins and I was glad I could make a connection to Rapunzel

My favorite component of this week's announcements was this growth mindset cat meme. I could not relate more to this cat's position for the study break. I got this meme from Friday's announcements. Growth mindset cat: cheezburger

The readings this week were as wonderful as ever! I did both portions of the reading and the extra reading! The Chinese Folk-Lore readings stood out to me the most because they didn’t follow the usual storylines that I am used to reading so I couldn’t predict the outcome. For example, I was really surprised when I read the story “Cave of the Beasts” because I have never read a story where the dad wanted to abandon his kids in the forest because they ate his eggs. I also really enjoyed what I wrote this week too. I immediately added my story to my portfolio after I wrote it because I liked how I changed the ending. I loved all of the stories I read by other people. Some of my favorites written by other people had a really great build up in plot and suspense. I like stories that are unpredictable. My other classes are killing me as usual but I finally finished all of my tests this week so life is going to be so much better! I also found a connection between this class and my Human Phy

Ravana tricks Sita and then abducts her: Pinterest

My favorite typing game was the olympic race typing game . I learned how to type in 6th grade from my keyboarding class. Back when I learned, I never knew who useful it would be and I was also surprised that I never lost my skills after the class. I do agree that typing games help improve your typing skills. Olympic Typing Game: Type Fast Now

I explained the growth mindset to my lab partner who was convinced that she couldn't do well in the class because she naturally wasn't good at science or good at taking tests. She was especially down in the dumps after we got our exam grades back. I explained that it is more helpful to have a growth mindset because she was doing well when we did discussions in class but she wasn't relaying her information well through the test. I told her that it was more important that she was learning the material rather than trying to get that perfect score on the exam. I also told her that she can learn to be a better test taker too through different strategies that she can try. She hadn't heard of growth mindset before so it was new to her when I tried to explain it to her.  Sharing Ideas: Freepik

  This story is now on my portfolio! Here is the link        One day in a house on the outskirts of a forest, there lived a family of nine. A father and his wife had seven daughters. The dad went out late at night to gather wood for the fire and discovered seven wild duck eggs that would be perfect for breakfast the next morning. He hid them in his bedroom with the selfish thought of not sharing with any of his children.      The wife woke up early in the morning to cook breakfast for the family and discovered the duck eggs in a drawer with her clothes. She fried them up one by one for each daughter as they woke up and walked into the kitchen. She made each one promise not to tell anyone else or they would not receive a duck egg. The father was the last one to wake up and he excitedly opened his drawer to look for the wild duck eggs that he could eat for breakfast but discovered that they were no longer there. He caught a whiff of the lingering scent of the fried duck eggs coming f

A Child of the Woods Main Character:  An old woman who is honored as a princess in her village Setting: In a large village deep in the forest of the North  Plot: The main character explains to a stranger why she is considered a princess in her village. She talks about how when she was younger, she got tired of her people so she went into the jungle that no one has every explored because it was known as the tiger eating jungle. She never was harmed by any wild beast and ate just fine so she lived there for a while before coming upon a bordering village. They were amazed at how she was still alive after living in the forest and took her back to her village where she was honored with gold and jewels. A child hiking in a forest: Montessori for Everyone Bibliography. "A Child of the Woods" from Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson, websource

The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away Main Characters:  Maiden: main charcter Ogre: villain Brother: hero Setting: Western portion of the old capital city of Lo Yang Plot: A maiden was abducted by an ogre that was disguised as a youth and brought her up to the top of a pagoda and trapped her there until she agreed to marry him. She constantly refused everyday even though he brought her wine, bread, jewelry, clothes, and all the expensive things a girl could want. He would make sure to move stones in the way so she couldn't escape and one day he forgot to close it up completely so she saw him turn from a human into an ogre and she was horrified. She said a man pass by below and got his attention by throwing her clothes down and the man remembered his neighbor's daughter had disappeared so he showed her family and the brother went to go save her by hitting the ogre with an axe and climbing with the help of others up the pagoda to save her. Story Idea: A gender flip coul

The Cave of the Beasts Main Characters:  Father, 2 youngest daughters, wolf, fox Setting: In the mountains Plot: The dad went to the woods and found 7 wild duck eggs which is perfect because he has 7 daughters but he brought them home and hid them for himself and his wife. His wife cooked all 7 and gave them to each daughter as they woke up for breakfast and told them not to tell anyone else. The father was so upset that he wanted to leave the girls in the mountains to get eaten by wolves. He invited them for a car ride to their "grandma's place" and the oldest daughters said no because they were suspicious and the 2 youngest daughters agreed. He drove out to the mountains and told them to get out so that he could go ahead and warn grandma but then he never came back to get them. They found a stone to sleep on as a pillow but then saw a light that led into a cave full of gold and jewels. The cave was owned by a wolf and fox that came home that night to sleep o