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Showing posts from October, 2018

Reading Notes: Marriage Tales Part B

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In this part, I decided to imitate my story on the book, The Dog Husband. I feel like out of all of the stories that were listed, this story seemed to grab my attention the most. The plot of the story seems to be complex and creative with characters that were vital surrounding the stories. I have listed some notes below that should help me create the perfect story if I actually choose to pursue this book.  The Dog Husband: The plot seems to be outrageous and pretty unreal. The story begins to explain a young girl and her dog whom she seems to care about a lot. This is just like a typical person with their dog (or animals).  The story begins to take a weird turn when it is revealed that the dog is capable of shapeshifting into a human. when the dog shapeshifts into a human, the human then begins to sleep with the girl and eventually gets her pregnant. While reading this story, I began to laugh because this truly was quite a story that I have never read before. In my story, I cou

Reading Notes: Marriage Tales Part A

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This week, I decided to explore a different chapter within the unit. This week I decided to visit the Marriage chapter and found some interesting stories that presented me with some good material to write this week's story. I am thinking of choosing one of these stories and tailoring it to fit my own standards. The Woman Stolen by Killer Whales: This story takes place on some kind of beach. A man is fishing with his wife and just going on about his day. The story then takes a drastic turn when the man hooks and catches what he thinks is a halibut fish. After using certain materials to enable himself to wheel in the fish, he gets the killer whale onto shore and has his wife cut it up. When the wife finishes, she goes to the water to wash her hands and gets dragged into the water by killer whales. The husband then enlists the help of fish to get back his wife and when he does, chaos occurs.  This is the leading choice that I am leaning towards in writing the story. My story c

Growth Mindset: Negative Thinking

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For my growth mindset, I decided to focus on Negative Thinking because this week, I found myself being the victim of my own negative thoughts. One thing I know about the topic is that it is kind of related to Overthinking because both tend to lead a person to have panic attacks about either something or someone. The illustration that was attached to the article, made me look at the topic from a new perspective because it showed me that my perception of something could be different from what someone else sees. What I learned and could do in the future is try to look at things from someone else's perspective and try to understand why they see things a certain way. Negative Thinking                           

Famous Last Words: Busy Week

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This week, I had a lot of things going on academically and to an extent, socially. Academic: I had a class where we had watched videos about African customs and traditions that reminded me of the Unit we did previously. We had discussed Orishas and the Yoruba people which were in a story in the unit but I cannot remember it. I have a test tomorrow in Statistics and I have not prepared myself for that yet. I am currently trying to brush up on the material so that I can be equipped and ready for it. We are doing class presentations in my Capstone class and I am preparing myself for when it comes time for my group and I to present our research for an article we are examining. I finished a class that was scheduled to end in October and received an A. This is leading me a step closer to finishing undergrad. I was able to finish my assignments for the class this week by changing my schedule and doing some assignments a day earlier than when it is due. Socially: I was able to s

Learning Challenge: Happiness Jar (Updated)

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For my learning challenge this week, I decided to try the happiness jar experiment. At the moment, I am not sure what in particular makes me happy except Graduation and seeing my friends succeeding in life after college. I plan to get all of my assignments done quickly and make sure I am ready to go for graduation and I plan on sending out as many resumes and killing my interviews for jobs in the future to set myself up for success. I am also going to speak things into existence and save a good amount of my money that I earn from my job to invest in myself and make plenty of more money in the future. This week I wanted to give an update about my happiness jar blog post and I would like to add to my happiness jar post. So far, things have been looking up since I have made the post and I wanted to keep track of the highlight. I would also like to add good health to my happiness jar because I am happy for my health and hope to continue to become a better version of myself. I would like

Tech Tip: Canvas Dashboard

For my Tech Tip this week, I decided to adjust my Canvas Dashboard and tailor it to the way I want to display my classes. I finished a class this week, so I took the class page off of my main dashboard display and also cleaned up my To-Do list for the remaining weeks of school.

Week 10 Story: The Unknown Monster

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Six Friends decided to take a trip up to Lake Kilikiliana to get away for the weekend. Due to the typical dilemmas that they faced in school, they decided this would be perfect since finals week is three weeks away. There were three guys, Mike, Smitty, and Zach along with three girls: Dana, Jessica, and Emily. The lake has been around for hundreds of years and is a place where people are notoriously known for going missing. Each year, there is either a person or a group of people that try to debunk the stereotype that surrounds Lake Kilikiliana. As soon as they pull into the parking lot, the crew immediately begins to bring out their sleeping bags, coolers, and other sorts of equipment out of the trunk. Skeptical about the place, Dana begins to question whether or not they should start heading down to the area where they should set up their tents. "You guys I think we should turn back around" said Dana. "Oh come on Dana, stop being such a girl, nobody is going to e

Reading Notes: Apache Part B

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For the B side of this unit, I decided to focus on a couple of stories that I think could make an interesting story for this week. Part B, in my opinion, had just amount of nuggets I needed to make the perfect story so it was kind of hard deciding what to write about. One thing I noticed is that this part deals with the animal Coyote in each story except a few. Coyote and the Mexicans I found this story to be confusing in a sense but hilarious because the character of Coyote gets himself into some misadventures and then eventually gets caught by Mexicans I assume. The story begins with a mischevious character name Coyote who is caught lying and gets kidnapped by a group of people and then taken to California. A judge then thinks he is staying the night with a woman and ends up being bitten by Coyote and then Coyote then Coyote runs away with the bag of money.  That and the part where the Mexicans catch Coyote, whom at this point is drunk, is what is my favorite part about the s

Reading Notes: Apache Part A

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This week I explored the Apache chapter for the Native American Week 10 unit. I found a couple of intriguing stories that I could use for my story this week: The Swallowing Monster: The purpose of the story is about an unknown monster that appears to come out when no one is looking. The beginning of the story begins to give off a horror movie type of vibe. The Monster swallows everyone in the story except a girl from which the monster is shown to have compassion for. This leads to the monster and a spider dueling for who gets to keep the girl. I would like to write this story because it gives off the right elements needed to make a horror movie of some sort. In my story, I would have each character die off slowly by getting swallowed by the monster until one character remains and is saved by an unsuspecting Animal  ( Swallowing Monster ) The Swallowing Monster  by Pliny Earle Goddard The Man Who Helped Eagles: This story, in my opinion, takes a more serious approach

Week 9 Story: Peasant Marries Princess

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Governor Bob of McCastland had a daughter named Amelia who was the definition of beauty and brains. She was on track to graduate medical school and work in the field after school which was typically expected. Back in her days as an undergrad student, Amelia was active in on-campus organizations and the Ms. McCastland pageant. She won the competition and by a landslide, to not that many folks' surprise. It was that day that a janitor named Sam decided that he will do whatever it takes for Amelia to be his wife. Sam went to the same university as Amelia but had to withdraw from the school due to financial reasons. Sam had been trying to get back into the school ever since he withdrew because he shared the same ambitions as Amelia but the obstacles that he faced were standing between him and her. Before Sam withdrew from the university, he was enrolled in a class with Amelia and her then boyfriend. They were in a group together for a semester-long project and that happened to be the

Tech Tip: Typing Game

For my Tech Tip, I decided to play another typing game because the game I played last week not only helped me with typing but it also gave me a break from the typical blog post with an image blog. This week I played Typing Race Master and I had a hard time playing it because I would keep on typing words and nothing appeared and I would end up getting disqualified from the race everytime. As nerve-racking as it was, I admit that it was pretty funny.

Learning Challenge: Happiness Jar

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For my learning challenge this week, I decided to try the happiness jar experiment. At the moment, I am not sure what in particular makes me happy except Graduation and seeing my friends succeeding in life after college. I plan to get all of my assignments done quickly and make sure I am ready to go for graduation and I plan on sending out as much resumes and killing my interviews in the future to set myself up for success. I am also going to speak things into existence and save a good amount of my money that I earn from my job to invest in myself and make plenty of more money in the future. ( End Goal )

Growth Mindset: The Snake

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For my growth mindset post this week, I decided to examine the character of the Snake from my story, Dezus and His Friends. The reason why I chose this character is because he does exemplify growth by correcting his mistakes he made within the story. The animal, Snake, is commonly associated with betrayal, deceit, and evil. In my story, the snake steals a sacred pearl necklace and allows the town to be up in arms. When the snake realizes that he disappointed the person that the snake wouldn't dream of disappointing (Dezus), he then begins to try his hardest to win back the trust of not only Dezus but the whole town as well and in the end he succeeds in his goal of getting the necklace back from the evil king. ( The Snake )

Reading Notes: Jamaica Anansi Stories B

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After reading the B side of this unit, I have decided to highlight some parts of a couple of stories I have found interesting. I feel like this side of the unit has provided me with just as much content. Spider Marries Monkey's Daughter This story reminds me of the overprotective relationship within a family. There are two characters in the story name Bredder Spider, Bredder Monkey, & Breder Green-Lizard. Bredder Monkey does not want Bredder Spider to marry his daughter because he feels that not only is Bredder Spider too fast for them but that he is beneath them as well. As the story starts out lighthearted it quickly turns dark in just a matter of paragraphs. Bredder Spider is eventually killed by Bredder Monkey and takes Spider and the Daughter's baby. My favorite part of the story is when Bredder Monkey tries to collect a group of gentlemen to guess the name of his daughter and they could not figure it out. It was only Bredder Spider that knew her name. Bredde

Reading Notes: Jamaica Anansi Stories A

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From this unit, I decided to examine the A side as a whole and collectively gather bits and pieces of Information from some stories to see if  I can recreate a story as a whole. Tiger Catching The Sheep-Thief In this story, Mr. Anansi gives a chicken to a lady named Ms. Madder who understood it to be a gift and so she commences to eating the chicken From what I could understand, Mr. Anansi is furious and wants something in return to make up for the chicken that was devoured. He settles for one of Ms. Madder's sheep and takes it to his house and cuts up the sheep in front of Tiger and the family. It was kind of hard to decipher the words that were being said in the dialogue. If I were to recreate this story, I would explore the notion of using different characters and stepping outside the Jamaican setting and change up the characters but maintain the same plot.                      Tiger Catching the Sheep-Thief  by Martha Warren Beckwith Tiger's Breakfast/Tiger's

Famous Last Words: Storybook/Portfolio Revisions

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This week has been a busy week because of my travel back home and magnitude of assignments. I finished one of my classes this week and I feel like a load has been lifted off of my shoulders so at least I can direct my attention towards this class and my other classes. This week was a review week so I did not do that much writing but I feel like reviewing my stories made me look at how far we have come in the semester when writing stories and our storybooks/portfolios. For next week I want to focus on finding stories that inspire me to write my own story of the week. I am not sure what unit we will be covering next but I am hoping it is filled with witty content and interesting plots within a story. I think that I want to focus on making characters that better fit my stories as well because I feel like I am not making the characters in my story mesh well with each other and also make it seem like they don't serve any purpose in my story. I will take a different approach

Learning Challenge: Deskercises

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Last week I did a learning challenge that involved doing deskercises and I said that I would record my response for how it affected me. After doing ten mins of the exercises, I feel like they helped alot and made me feel less tense in my body. I will continue to do these exercises because they were really helpful in keeping me energized  (photo:  Deskercises Update )   Link:  6 Yoga Exercises You Won't Be Embarrassed to do at your Desk

Tech Tip: Ninja Cat

For my tech tip this week, I decided to play a typing game that helps with typing accuracy. The Game I played is called Ninja Cat and I thought for a typing game that it was fun. I admit that it helped typed a little faster than I normally do.

Week 8: Progress

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I am happy with my progress so far because even though at the beginning of the class I had set my schedule, I decided to change up my routine and do assignments within a certain day so that I could focus on other work or relax throughout the week. I also have been doing the extra credit assignments (which is something I was not doing at the beginning of the semester due to lack of time) and have been enjoying the content that is in the file. The class assignments that I have been enjoying the most is reading the stories and making notes because, in my opinion, it is less stressful than writing the stories because when you're writing a story it takes you a good amount of time to prepare yourself to get into a story writing mood. For the second half of the semester, I would like to see more weeks where we get to view how far we have come from Week 1 of writing stories because since the semester is halfway done, I figured it would be nice to log back on here one day and read the stori

Week 8: Comments and Feedback

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The feedback that I have been receiving on my stories have been really efficient in helping me become a better writer. A good amount of the comments have been positive and inspiring with some of the comments highlighting my creativity and plot of the story. Some other comments have been really helpful and make me focus on what I can improve on in the next story. I admit that I have some grammatical errors and misspellings that I have to work on and I wouldn't have caught the mistakes if not for the responses I have been getting. I think the WWW and TAG methods are really effective because it allows the readers not to sugarcoat their opinions about your story and actually listen to their input because they could have the missing element that will make your story become a story that will be used as an example for other classes to based their stories on. Outside of that, I feel that I have been connected with the other students in the class due to their blog posts because the way they

Week 8: Reading and Writing

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For my revisions this week I decided to go back and look back at all my previous reading and writing assignments and I feel like they have significantly improved my storywriting ability mainly because the plot behind the stories I read help give me an idea of how I would want my stories to flow and how I would be able to either edit the endings or certain parts of the story or just make up my own story with my own characters. I would say that I like the direction that my blog/portfolio is going in so far because this is allowing me to showcase my storytelling abilities to the class and also allow me to show my creative side and let my imagination run wild. My favorite reading out of the units we covered in class definitely has to be the Africa-Asia unit because I feel like those stories instantly draw the reader into the story. One of my favorite stories was The Cock who Caused a fight between Two Cities because I found it very amusing especially with the twist at the end. Another favo

Famous Last Words: OU/TX

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This week was pretty productive since this was the week of the OU/TX game. Although the outcome was not what I expected, I was able to get most of my work done in time for the festivities. I am still having trouble editing my stories and making sure that they are good to go. Aside from that, I feel like I am making good progress in my portfolio and would love to have the opportunity to showcase my ideas to make my portfolio turn out the way I want it to. I am going to have to put more time into studying for my statistics course because it is going to get more rigorous and I will need to direct all my time into learning the material very well. I will be wrapping up one of my other classes next week so I am excited to at least be done with a class and be closer to graduating. during OU/TX weekend, I got the chance to go back home and visit friends,family, and my barber and catch them up to speed about how im doing in school and what to expect for my graduation. I have also been busy prep

Learning Challenge: Deskercises

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For my learning challenge this week I decided to look at an article that contained some exercises I can do at my desk to take a break from homework or other reading assignments. The exercises I read in the article were related to Yoga and is said to relieve tension in your body after hours of sitting in front of the computer. The exercises I am going to do include the Open Chest Stretch, Shoulder Roll, Neck Stretch, Chair Twist, Reverse Prayer Pose, and the Twisted arms pose. I plan on discussing the results of these exercises and how effective they are next week. (photo:  Yoga Challenge )  Link:  6 Yoga Exercises You Won't Be Embarrassed to do at your Desk                  

Growth Mindset: How to Praise Your Child

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For my growth mindset for the week, I read this article about How to Praise Your Child and before reading it, I made assumptions about what I was going to read. I thought the book would be more about spoiling children rather than replacing negative words with positive and effective ones. The article confirmed one of my opinions which was that praising your child can build their self-esteem because children respond well to positive feedback. One thing I did not know was the type of comments that were made and I would be willing to try these comments on either my children or any children in my family in the near future. (photo: Praising your child )                       

Tech Tip: Following at Twitter

For my tech tip this week, I decided to talk about the Twitter app. I already have a twitter that is for personal use and I find it to be very powerful because you can have your voice heard on the app. This app can affect a person's life for the better or for the worst.  That being said, people you follow are very important because they could serve important roles in your life. You could follow a sports page to be up to date with what is going on, a fashion page to see what is the latest trends, news outlets to stay current, etc. I followed OU, OU Football page, Celebrities, and other pages that I feel are very helpful to my days and life.

Week 7 Story: Tyson's Last Ride

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Tina and Titus were fraternal twins who were separated at birth. When their parents divorced, Tina stayed with their mother and Titus stayed with their father until the day they decided to rekindle their marriage and finally let the twins meet each other when they turned four years old. Ever since their meeting, Tina and Titus were inseparable. Tina and Titus eventually grew up to be spoiled and selfish rich teens who would get anything they wanted by either bribing the person or by simply bothering their parents to send them money while they were away on business trips. While they have a big house to themselves, Tina usually spends time with her beloved pitbull Tyson whom shes had since she was a young girl. Tyson is used to spending so much time with Tina that he starts going haywire whenever she goes to school but that is not the only time that these incidences occur. Tyson is known to attack guests whenever he is fed steak or chicken and because of these instances, he has to ge

Reading Notes: The Cock Who Caused a Fight Between Part B

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For my reading this week on I decided to explore the Nigerian unit of the week and have been heavily inspired by what the unit had to offer. In Part A, I read about the King who Married the Cock's Daughter and was entertained by the aspect of it. For my part B, I decided to go with something similar to that with a story called The Cock Who Caused a Fight Between Two Towns. The story talks about two half brothers, Ekpo and Etim, who were very rich and came from different fathers. Ekpo had a cock who would always bother him whenever Ekpo would sit down to have meals. They have a jealous friend named Ama Ukwa who is envious of their riches and would like to tear them apart. Looking at the elements that are in the story, it kind of reminds me of Othello to an extent with Ama Ukwa being the Iago of Old Town. The story then transitions to the Cock being stolen and then leads to the pet cock being killed. For my story I would remix the story into the same plot but different characters and

Reading Notes: The King who Married the Cock's Daughter Part A

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For my reading this week I decided to choose the Nigeria unit in the Africa chapter because it is a chapter that I am very familiar with. Being Nigerian, I have seen a lot of movies with plots that can be also found in these books so I figured "Why Not?" and decided to read the stories that were published. Of those stories I enjoyed the story called The King Who Married the Cock's Daughter because of the plot of the story, the humor regarding the wife Adiaunen's weird obsession with corn, and the expressions and emotions that were exhibited in the story. the story begins with King Effiom and his 250 beautiful wives living in his palace but his yearning for more beautiful women to become his wives and having the power to pay their parents and give them whatever they want in exchange for their daughter. One day, he comes across the Cock's daughter (whom i assume cock meant chicken farmer) and he is instantly infatuated with her beauty. He was so mesmerized by her be