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 ...

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 lingerin...

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...

Reading this week went well, I made time to do both parts of the reading as well as the extra credit reading. I liked reading Arabian nights to compare the story of Aladdin to the one that I was used to watching on Disney growing up. I also really enjoyed the parrot in Tales of a Parrot who tried to keep the main mistress from committing adultery while her husband was out of town by telling her stories to captivate her attention and keep her from leaving. I thought it was a comical story line and super interesting to read as well. I sadly ended up not having time to write my story this week because I was too busy drowning in my other classes. I usually put a lot of time into writing because I like to plan out what I want to write before I write it and I didn’t want to rush the writing for this class because then I would end up with a story that I am not proud of. I really enjoyed the storybook introductions that I read this week. I am super excited to read the storybook about trickster...

My favorite part of the announcements this week was from  Tuesday's  learning by heart post. I am a huge Game of Thrones fan so the graphic stood out to me.  Tyrion Lannister Quote: oulbh blog

Miemun and Khojisteh Characters:  Miemun: the main character who marries Khojisteh and buys the parrot Khojisteh: wife of the main character Parrot: wise bird that is bought by Miemun Ahmed Sultaun: dad of  Miemun Setting: Former times of Persia Overall Plot of the Stories: Miemun goes out of town and Khojisteh is about to commit adultery but the parrot continuously tells her stories every night to keep her from leaving. Plot of the Intro: Miemun and Khojisteh were set up by Miemun's father and they were the perfect couple who always spent time with each other. Miemun bought the parrot with a ridiculous sum of money because the bird was wise and kept up with current affairs as well as told advice on what to invest in for the market.  Story Idea: Change the setting to modernize the story line and change the wording as well as names to make it easier to follow along. Miemun with the parrot: Wikipedia Bibliography. "Miemun and Khojiste...

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp Characters: Aladdin: the main character Evil Magician: pretends to be Aladdin's uncle Minor characters: Aladdin's parents Storyline Aladdin's dad was a tailor who passed away and was depressed at the fact that Aladdin was idle and had no trade so one day, this evil magician shows up to tell Aladdin and his mom that he is Aladdin's uncle who left 40 years ago so that's why they don't know him. He takes Aladdin into a shop and buys him all of these wonderful suits and what surprised me was that the story started saying fake uncle at this part when it hadn't earlier. The magician tricked Aladdin into going into this underground tunnel and retrieving a lamp for this fake uncle and then quickly left and never came back. The only problem is that the magician forgot to take the ring back from Aladdin as well. Ending Aladdin rubs the ring on his finger and a genie comes out of the ground with 3 wishes to offer and the magician ...

The Physician's Revenge Characters:  Vizir: advisor to the king The Greek King Douban: a physician for the king Plot: The weak king gets tricked by vizir who means to do Douban harm. Vizir tells the king that Douban is actually trying to kill the king instead of heal him and the king sadly falls for his lies. The king orders Douban to be killed but Douban begs the king to let him take care of everything before he dies and amazes him with a book that with Douban's head on it can talk and give him advice. So the king allows Douban to go back to his house and grab the book with a guard and take care of last minute things before dying. Douban gets his head cut off and tells the king to go through the pages of the book while licking his fingers between each page but the King was confused as the pages were blank. Ending: The king gets poisoned by the pages in the book and Douban still ends up dying. Possible Storytelling Idea: Have the physician find a way to get the vizir ...

The readings were wonderful this week! I really liked all of the stories from Twenty-Two Goblins. The riddles proposed by the goblin were so thought provoking and I was curious to how any of them could be answered. I had time to do both portions and the bonus reading as well. I had to rush when writing the story this week because I became really sick after going to the state fair so the story is not as detailed as I would like it to be. I did not have time to relax and take a deep breath when writing; I had to just force words onto the page. I loved all of the portfolio stories that I read as well as the storybook introductions. Most of them left me in awe and I wanted more because they were all so interesting. It also gave me more ideas on how I want to design my portfolio. My other classes are a bit overwhelming. I feel like I am getting buried in workload and I fell more and more behind this week because I could not concentrate on anything while being sick. I also have had to host ...

My favorite portion of the announcements from this week was this graphic on Thursday . I will keep this in mind when writing my stories!  Imagination graphic: Buddha Doodles

     There once was a successful merchant named Jewel with a wonderful wife named Pleasing and a beautiful daughter named Pearl. Their family was well off because the father was successful in his trade in the town of Adyodhya. Jewel was content with his life and all he had left to accomplish was to marry his daughter off to someone successful. He brought great merchants and even kings over to meet Pearl but Pearl had no attraction towards any of them.      That night, there was some rustling outside of Pearl’s window. She cautiously walked towards the window as she heard loud yelling coming from a group. She could make out some phrases such as “We need to find him!” and “I’ll make sure to get back what was mine!”. She looked out the window to see a man hiding in her bushes and an oncoming angry crowd with weapons. Her heart raced as she tried to figure out what to do but she decided that every story has more than one side so she opened her window and usher...

     The story starts off with a merchant's daughter named Pearl who lives in Ayodhya and rejects all the men. She is beautiful and charming but refuses kings and great merchants. Her father is deeply sad about her love life but then the citizens were being robbed every night by thieves so the king went to go stop the thieves. The king found one and told the thief that the king was also a thief so the thief took him home to show him hospitality but the maid told the king to escape or he would be harmed so the king escaped to go get help and came back to capture the thief. He successfully captured the thief with his own hands and brought him back to be killed. Pearl saw the thief out of her balcony and cried at the sight of his death because she fell in love with him at first sight and her father thought she was crazy to love a thief but not kings or merchants but she wouldn't have it. She said she would go die with him and took his body to the stake to be burned with him...

I added a weather widget to my blog following the directions at this link  and I honestly love it!

     Ra complained that humans who he had created were speaking ill of him behind his back and were wishing to slay him so he called a council of the gods and goddesses to discuss what he should do to punish them. Some gave their opinions and they eventually reached the consensus that Ra should release his eye upon the people and Hathor violently slaughtered many humans until they all went into hiding and Ra tried to stop her by offering many jars of alcohol as a gift to her to finally make her stop. Ra then happily had loyal supporters who would never speak ill of him.      To change this story, I would modernize it because some of the parts were hard to understand at first. Ra and Hathor: Flickr Bibliography. Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie: link to online reading .

     The story starts off with a merchant's daughter named Pearl who lives in Ayodhya and rejects all the men. She is beautiful and charming but refuses kings and great merchants. Her father is deeply sad about her love life but then the citizens were being robbed every night by thieves so the king went to go stop the thieves. The king found one and told the thief that the king was also a thief so the thief took him home to show him hospitality but the maid told the king to escape or he would be harmed so the king escaped to go get help and came back to capture the thief. He successfully captured the thief with his own hands and brought him back to be killed. Pearl saw the thief out of her balcony and cried at the sight of his death because she fell in love with him at first sight and her father thought she was crazy to love a thief but not kings or merchants but she wouldn't have it. She said she would go die with him and took his body to the stake to be burned with him ...

Goblins: The 3 lovers The goblin gives the king riddles for him to solve and this one is about a beautiful girl named Coral. She has three lovers but she dies suddenly after getting a fever so the dad was sad until he found a brahman doing a spell to bring a baby back to life that was thrown in the fire. The dad took the book and found one of the lovers who slept in the cemetery with coral's ashes and the second lover at the ganges river where he left her bones. So the dad did the spell to bring coral back to life and claimed that coral should be his wife, while the other two also complained that coral should be their wives because of their contribution to bringing her back. The king said that the guy who slept in the grave should be chosen to be the husband because he actually did hard work. Goblins over a fire: Youtube Bibliography. Twenty-Two Goblins by Arthur Ryder: link to reading online

The reading was wonderful this week! It was really difficult for me to decide on just one unit to read from last week and it made me so much happier this week to be able to choose from another unit to read. I had enough time to do both portions of the reading because I worked ahead and read when I had time before I became really busy during the week. I remember the trickster stories the best from Aesop’s fables. I think all of the trickster stories are so interesting because there’s always a cunning and sly character and we get to see how they try to get what they want or we see someone else trick the trickster. My best writing this week was in this class for sure! The only other writing I had to do was a long lab report for my microbiology lab. I haven’t tried writing with a different style but I really enjoyed my story this week. I just relax and listen to music while I write to get into the writer’s groove. My favorite stories that I read this week by others were the ones retelling ...

My favorite item from this week's announcements was this graphic from Wednesday . I definitely agree that villains always have a similar background in what kind of occupation they have.  Common vs Less Common Villains: The Guardian

My portfolio can be found at this link:  link Image source: Lion: Buzz Feed

   This story is now on my portfolio:  link     A lion was on his usual hunting routine in the forest. He stealthily hid behind trees and bushes as he tried to stay out of sight of his prey. He moved slowly to avoid making any noise. Behind the bushes, a group of hunters were camouflaged and slowly approaching the antelope with the same goal in mind as the lion. The hunters set traps in the forest ahead of time and were waiting to scare the antelope into one of their traps in order to capture the antelope. The lion was so focused on the antelope in plain sight that he did not realize the people in the forest who were also hunting the antelope. The lion beat the hunters to making the first move as he decided to dash straight towards the antelope. The lion built up speed so that the antelope would not have enough time to run away but by the time the lion spotted the trap, it was too late to stop his momentum and he ran straight into a trap set by the hunter...

The experiment was a success! I really enjoyed looking back at the end of the week and reading through what I had written throughout the week. Usually when something bad happens to me, everything else throughout the day becomes that much worse and it turns into a huge domino effect. The jar allows me to focus on the bright part of everyday and the good things that happened to me so that I can look past the sad parts. I definitely prefer having the physical jar rather than the digital one because just looking at the jar on my desk makes me happy. To improve this experiment, I would need to continue to add more to it for longer periods of time so that I have a greater collection to draw from.  Happiness Jar: Dot Com Gift Shop

Venus and the Goddesses  Word had spread that Cupid was at his mom's place and badly burned on his shoulder while Psyche was at the sea bathing and bad rumors had spread about how their relationship was disintegrating. Venus found out who her son had married and was outraged at her worst enemy becoming her daughter in law and possibly giving her more daughters. Venus scolded her son for being a disgrace and choosing such a girl to marry and ordered others to go find Psyche. Cupid and Psyche painted by Luca Giordano from 1692-1701:  Wikipedia                          Bibliography. Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius; link to online reading