Wikipedia Trail: From Lions to Alexander the Great

LION
I picked lion to start out with because I read some Aesop's Fables that were about lions. Lions are big cats that are part of the felidae family. There are eight different subspecies of lions that are recognized today. They can be mostly found in the wild in Africa.

HERACLES
Heracles (also known as Hercules) is a Greek mythological character. He is a demigod whose father was Zeus and whose mother was Alcmene. He is one of the most famous demigods. At one point in his life Hera caused Hercules to go mad and kill his family. He wanted to pay for his crimes so he set out to accomplish ten tasks. Two of the tasks weren't accepted so he had to do a total of twelve tasks.


Hercules and the Nemean Lion

MARES OF DIOMEDES
The mares of diomedes were man-eating horses from Greek mythology. They were wild and uncontrollable horses that belonged to Diomedes, who was the king of Thrace. These horses were apart of Hercules' eight task.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Alexander was the king of the ancient kingdom of Macedon. He led to Greeks in a conquest of Persia. He was not only the King of Macedon, but also the Pharaoh of Egypt, the King of Persia, and the King of Asia. He is regarded as one of the most influential people in history.

Famous Last Words: Almost Done!

Since this was the last week of class I didn’t do any assigned reading on Monday and Tuesday. I did chose to do the extra credit reading though. I went all the way back to the beginning and read the Aesop’s Fables, the one translated by Jacobs. It was really fun and quick to read the stories in that unit. I liked how they were all broken down into different categories based on character. There were a lot of stories about lions. I liked how at the end of each story there was a little lesson that the story was trying to teach. This week I got to finish one of the story books that I started at the beginning of the semester. It was really cool to see the story come to an end. I did have a few issues with how it ended, but hey we all aren’t professional writers, so not everything will be one hundred percent awesome. I have finished two out of six classes this week, and once I finish my assignments for this class today I will be done with half of my classes for the semester! I am doing pretty good in all of my classes this semester. I am a bit worried about the two classes I have to take a final in, they are my two hardest classes! I am confident that I can study well and get a good grade on both tests! Next week is finals week! School is so close to being over, it’s crazy how fast this school year went by. I can barely remember last semester, but that could just be my horrible memory coming into play! My summer plans aren’t that exciting, just summer school and work, but I am looking forward to a slower pace of life for a few months!

Me next week

Reading Notes: Aesop's Fables (Jacobs), part A

A lion, a fox, a jackal, and a wolf went hunting one day and killed a stag. They had a hard time figuring out how to split up the meat. The lion told the animals to quarter the body. Then the lion said he got one quarter because he is the king, another quarter because he chased the stag, a third quarter because he is making the decisions, and the last quarter because no one will stop him. No one dared question him. “You may share the labours of the great, but you will not share the spoil.”

Lion

A slave escape his master and ran into the forest. He saw and lion and started to flee, but it wasn’t chasing him. The slave noticed that the lion had a thorn stuck in his paw. The slave removed the thorn and bandaged the paw, and soon the lion was able to bring the slave to his cave. They both lived together in the cave for a while before the slave was captured. The slave was put in an arena with the lion who hadn’t had food for a while. When the lion was let loose he remembered his friend and began to lick him. The emperor took the slave, and after the slave explained what had happened, pardoned him and set him free. “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls”

A man and a lion were contemplation which one was stronger. The man said that humans were stronger and show the lion a statue of Hercules defeating a lion. The lion said that that didn’t mean much because a man made the statue. “We can easily represent things as we wish them to be.”

A lion would try to hunt four oxen, but every time he tried, they would stand back to back. He could never approach them because of their horns. One day the oxen started fighting and split up. The lion was easily able to kill them one by one. “United we stand,
divided we fall”

A fox got into a theatre and saw a face staring at him. He was scared until he realized it was just a mask. Then he wasn’t frightened anymore. “Outside show is poor substitute for inner worth”

Bibliography:
The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs

Review: The Story Coaster

The Story Coaster

I picked this illustration from the announcements because it made me laugh out loud. I love to read and I thought this humorous picture was just fantastic. I can think of each part of the roller coaster and how it applies to some of my favorite books.

Growth Mindset: I don't know what I am doing

The Power of "I Don't Know"

I chose this meme because I myself have a hard time saying "I don't know" I think this is a good info-graphic to show how to help you when you don't know something. I also think that this is illustrated really nicely.

Learning Challenge: Pay Attention to Me

Grant Snider: Interior Life

I really liked this illustration under the attention tab. I picked this meme because I thought it was the cutest of the bunch. I think that it is a funny way of looking at how people's brains work. Of course I don't think that it totally applies to everyone, but it's still cute.

Google Timer Tech Tip

I think that using a timer can be a great way to manage how long study breaks are. I think that I will start a study break with no defined ending point and so my break ends up being a few hours long. That's not always what I want when I take a break. I think I should probably implement this technique next semester.

Improvements

I think that changing the review weeks to planning weeks would be helpful. Especially for week 8. Being able to step back at evaluate how the class is going, and then planning how to approach the last half of the semester would be helpful. This would be most useful of your original plan for the class wasn't working and you needed to reevaluate your approach to the class.

I also like the idea of having thematic units as well as book units. I did find that some of the stories within the books we read weren't very enjoyable to read because the subject matter was boring. Having a whole unit to read that was about the same subject would be really fun.

Wikipedia Trails: From Swans to Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Swans
I started off my wikipedia trails by looking at swans. One of the stories I read this week was about a witch who turns her new husbands kids into swans. I think swans are pretty so I wanted to learn more about them.

Lohengrin

From swans I went to the opera Lohengrin. This opera is swan related which is why I ended up on it. I learned that the famous wedding march comes from this opera, which I thought was really cool!

Neuschwanstein Castle

Next I went to neuschwanstein castle, which served as an inspiration for the opera Lohengrin. I love castle so I wanted to learn a bit more about this one. The palace took 17 years to complete, and is now open to the public to go visit. 

Neuschwanstein Castle

Sleeping Beauty Castle

The last wikipedia article I visited was sleeping beauty's castle. I was really excited to see that sleeping beauty castle took inspiration from neuschwanstein castle. They are both so pretty. I didn't realize that the castle is also featured in Hong Kong Disneyland

Famous Last Words: Death is Upon Me

It’s finally dead week! Only one week left of classes. This past week was pretty good reading wise. I think I accidentally read two different books thinking they were the same. So, parts A and B are different, but I don’t think it’s a big deal. I really like my story that I wrote for this week. I adapted Cinderella and turned it into a genderbent story, which was really fun to do. I think that it was easier for me to write my story this week because I was easily inspired by the stories I was reading. I quickly thought of my idea for this week, and knocked out my story in no time! I didn’t really read anything outstanding this week. Everything was ok, but nothing was amazing. One story was a bit confusing to read, but I think I understood better once I re-read it. My other classes are going ok. A bit overwhelmed by the amount of work left to do. But it’s all almost over so I think I can manage it all ok. This weekend was really fun. I went to a spring banquet to celebrate the graduating senior within the college ministry I am a part of. We all got to dress up, which is a fun change from sweatpants and t-shirts every day. My boyfriend was one of the seniors recognized, so it was fun to get to celebrate him graduating. I am looking forward to watching him walk the stage in two weeks. This upcoming week is going to be a little crazy. I have two major semester long projects due, one final, and a bunch of other homework. I am going to have to buckle down and get all of this done on time! I have my weeks all planned out to get this all done on time!

Almost graduation time