Mythology and Folklore KT

I really enjoyed the reading for this week.  I got to go over some of my favorite fairy tales.  I had enough time to do both portions of the reading.  I remember many of the characters from the readings this week having a curse put on them. This seems to be a common theme with a lot of stories in mythology.  I will see if there are any this coming week.  I believe that I did my best writing this week in this class, because I got to be more creative than I normally am in my HR class.  In this class I got to write a story about a Queen who underwent a curse to protect her people.  It was a lot of fun, honestly.  I have never read a story like that before.  I really enjoyed reading the stories this week. It is always fun to see how creative people can get for this class.  To me, a story is successful if it has a good story arch.  One needs to develop a relationship with the character, no matter how short the story is.  I read ...

I started with the Little Mermaid because I just read the story by Hans Christian Anderson for one of my reading posts.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid The Little Mermaid.  I read through the entire article, then came upon a criticism of the story by P.L. Travers, who said that the end of the story scares children into behaving well, because it says that if they are naughty then the "daughters of the air" have to wait one more day before they get a soul.  I thought that this was a good point, so I decided to click on the "Mary Poppins" link, because I wanted to compare Travers story to Anderson's.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Poppins Mary Poppins Looking through the Mary Poppins page, under the "see also " heading, I saw that P.L. Travers praised a story called The Little Prince.  This story sounded familiar, So I decided to click on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince The Little Prince Reading throu...

Why Sleeping May Be More Important Than Studying By Katrina Schwartz One thing that my parents always told me growing up is that if you are unprepared for a test, it is better to get a good night's sleep than it is to stay up all night studying.  This article helped confirm that in my mind.  I like the idea of public schools starting at 10 a.m. so the students have enough time to sleep.  I did not know that it is important to establish a sleeping routine, or to not eat carbs before bed.  I did know that looking at screens before bed is harmful to your quality of sleep. I would like to research the importance of sleep further for the bulletin board that is my floor.  As a resident adviser, each month I do a different theme for the bulletin board with information for the freshmen residents that I am responsible for.  I firmly believe that some of them will be surprised by this information, and that it will help them in the future.  I am going to loo...

I have decided to come up with a motto for dead week and finals.  When thinking about this, I remembered a key chain that I had in high school.  I had gotten as a novelty gift from a theme park.  It had the Taylor (my last name) family crest and motto on it, and the motto was "He hits what he aims at."  I always liked that.  To me, it said, "you will accomplish your goals when you work toward them."  I modified a little bit, so now it is "I will hit what I aim at."   I made a picture of it in Canva. Created by me in Canva

I used the keyhero.com website and typingtest.com website.  I took a typing class in high school, so these typing websites remind me of the typing tests we had then.  I liked the keyhero website because it had you type out famous quotes.  I also liked that it showed you what word you were on and it wouldn't let you continue if you had gotten something wrong until you had corrected your error. My speed on that site averaged at about 46 words per minute, and I consistently had accuracy in the 90% range.  Typing test bugged me a bit, because it was timed.  I felt like I was in a rush.  I also did not like how it did not tell you if you got something wrong, it just tallied up the total at the end.  Overall, I like the keyhero website better. Taking these tests made me realize that I am not as fast as I used to be at typing.  When I was taking the class, I was consistently typing 70 words per minute.  It might not hurt to do tests like thi...

The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Anderson The Little Mermaid pt1 This story is wonderfully descriptive.  I like how all of the mermaids are given permission to learn about the human world, and explore along shipwrecks. The Little Mermaid pt2 It is interesting that the mermaids try to convince the sailors that it is so much better under the water, and that a storm is fun and playful for them.  The Little Mermaid pt3 The notion of mermaids not having an immortal soul is rather sad.  It is odd that if a person falls in love with them, then they are given a soul.  The Little Mermaid pt4 The sea witch is extremely scary.  She is not someone I would want to make a deal with.  The Little Mermaid pt5 and 6 It is extremely sad that the little mermaid did not get to be with the prince that she loved so dearly.  He never seemed to really take her feelings into consideration, instead always saying how happy she should be for him.  However, ...

The first thing I remember is waking up. When I woke up, I was in a dark room.  Slowly getting out of bed, I felt around for some source of light.  I found a candle and matches on the nightstand next to the bed. As light from the candle flooded the room, I took in my surroundings.  The room was circular, with fine furniture and tapestries hanging on the walls.  I was impressed until I noticed a large layer of dust on everything.  It looked like no one had been in the room in a long time.  Walking around, I noticed a large curtain.  Pulling it to the side, I found a beautiful stained-glass window.  I opened the window and looked out.  I was at the top of a very tall tower, which seemed to be part of a castle.  The land around the castle was barren and brown, and it looked like nothing had grown there in a long time.  Feeling the urge to flee, I frantically looked around the room for the door.  A door was nowhere to ...

Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm The Queen Bee I have read this story before, and I greatly enjoy it.  I like the fact that the brother who was kind and considerate was given the help he needed to break the curse.   The Twelve Huntsmen I like the lion from this story.  Having a wise lion would be a good addition to my story. Jorinda and Jorindel It is funny that they have such similar names.  I like how the answer for the problem came in a dream. The Twelve Dancing Princesses One theme that I do not like in all of these stories is the forced marriage.  I understand that it was common among royalty, but women should not be treated as prizes for an accomplished task.  In my story, I will not make this part of it.   12 dancing princess par Arthur Rackham, Source:  Wikimedia Commons

Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm The Frog Prince I like the idea in this story of the prince being cursed.  I want to incorporate a cursed prince into my story; I will probably have him be a frog as well. Rapunzel I am thinking of having the prince in my story run into a girl who is trapped in a tower. Brier Rose From this story, I like the idea of an entire castle being still for a hundred years because of a curse.  I will add this to the curse that I am going to put on the prince in my story.  Maybe the tower that the girl is trapped in will be a part of the prince's castle, and he finds and rescues the girl in the tower while he is still a frog. Die Brüder Grimm by  Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Source:  Wikimedia Commons