tech tip: einstein chalkboard

famous last words: visitor

This weekend was an eventful one to say the least. After a stressful week, my older brother came in town for the OU vs TCU game. I think this was my first time having a full game-day experience outside of being a cheerleader. It was a blast!

We got up around 10am and headed to campus corner for breakfast and then went home to change and headed right back to campus corner. It was fun, yet exhausting. Just being in a large crowd for hours is exhausting to me, but I was still a blast.

As for the game itself, it was great! I am not sure if I will go to the last home game and, if I don't, I am content with this game being my last game to attend as a student at OU. 

Photo from Flickr.

Since my brother was here, I didn't do as much homework as planned, but I don't regret it. I got ahead in this class enough so I just have 6 points left after this assignment and then I will have completed the course. I am very thankful that all of the extra credit was available since it motivated me to work ahead to stay on top of my work despite all of the times I have been sick this semester.

tech tip: quote

reading notes: the faithful house-dog, part b

I had a hart time picking my second story this week since both wolves and dogs were in the options. I decided to go with dogs since my whole project is over wolves and I found a great one! The title of the story is The Faithful House-Dog which immediately caught my eye. It reminded me of my first dog that I have from the time I was 3 until I was 18. He was most definitely our faithful house-dog.

I really enjoyed this story as it was written different than previous stories I have read. This story was set up in the form of a poem. Maybe I will try to make a poem this week. It all depends on how much time I have though because I do not think I exactly a natural at coming up with poems on the fly. We will see!

The story starts out by saying that the dog is a man that is always generous and that some may mistake the generosity for stupidity. But, the dog knows what he is doing and doesn't give attention to those that snare. 

Late at night, a fellow came to his home and tried to bribe him with food. He asks the man if he is really attempting to distract his mouth from its' real job of being on guard. He tells the man that he is mistaken and that he recognizes the strange act of kindness and knows that he is not actually doing it out of generosity. 

(Photo from Flickr.)

I can tell you that you must have a VERY faithful house-dog for them to not give in to a food bribery. My dogs right now would have dropped any task for an extra treat, but I still love them. They just would never be given the task of guarding our home, haha!

Aesop's Fables (English) unit. The Faithful House-Dog by Christopher Smart.

reading notes: an ape and a fox, part a

This week we are reading British and Celtic stories. I chose to read a story from Aesop's Fables which is from the English unit. The story I picked is called An Ape and a Fox.

The story starts out with a lion that has passed away. The beasts then all meet in the council to choose a king. I am not sure who all is included in this group of beasts, but I am hoping to find out as I continue to read. 

As they try to choose a king, no one seems fit. Everyone has something else that they are better at like strength, brains, ect. 

The ending of the first paragraph did not make much sense to me. It seems as though there were some translation errors that make the sentence unclear. Hopefully, I will still be able to get something out of the story at the end.

From what I am understanding, the fox is a pretender and has to go against the choice from the beasts. The fox tries to give him some information to maybe throw him off. He tells the choice that there is a hidden treasure that is from royalty and belongs to the choice. He tells him that he has nothing to do with it.

At this point, you find out that the choice from the beast was the ape. The ape follows the fox to the "hidden treasure," but it's not treasure after all. Instead, it was bait in a ditch. The ape laid his hands on the treasure and the trap sprung up and caught his fingers. 

The story ends with the fox saying that governors should be men of business and not pleasure.

(Photo from WikiMedia.)

I think this story can apply to our last election series. It ends with this thought of who should be a ruler. But, what happens when one is both business oriented and in it for pleasure? Maybe I can make a modern version of this for my story this week!

Aesop's Fables (English) unit. Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists: An Ape and a Fox by Roger L'Estrange.

learning by heart: happiness challenge

This week I decided to do a happiness challenge. I read an article titled "The 9 Principles That People Who Feel Successful Say They Live By." This caught my eye because of the word "feel" in the title. In today's age, we are taught that success is many things, but rarely are the person's feelings about their live included in the definition. 

The article starts out with exactly the reason that I clicked on the article in the first place. They explain that success is an abstract concept that is extremely difficult to truly define AND achieve. 

I did not think about the fact that companies and such still base their thoughts and rewards on the traditional standard of what success is. This de-values the personal journey it takes for the individual to actually feel successful. 

There were many ways to live in order to feel successful, but the 2 that stood out to me the most were to suspend judgments and to develop resilience. I like the bit about suspending judgements because it is so very true. Spending time judging yourself or others for mistakes drains valuable energy that you can be using to push beyond in your life. Also, I loved that they said you must develop resilience. I loved this because a lot of people this this is a set that you must adopt when you fail at something. Instead, this is key to feeling successful in the final steps as well. You must surround yourself with a great support system so you know you can get through those rough patches and still feel successful. 

(Photo from Fickr.)

growth mindset: cats

(cheezburger)

I chose this meme to use as I feel like I constantly need to remind myself of this in college. It's hard to think in this way when you are just starting out college, but now, as a senior, I am always trying to get the most out of my classes. It takes time to really realize just how much money is being put into each minute you have with a professor and it's so important to really learn from them so you don't just waste your money and time.

(cheezburger.)

I chose this meme because I think it reigns true for all of us and is sometimes hard to remember. Although we all come from different backgrounds and are going through different things in our lives, we must think positively. We must always remember that we are moving forward from the lowest of lows and that the worst things are just the beginning of something better.