Famous Last Words Week 13: Snow-day

Snow-day

Last week everyone was talking about how they thought that we were going to get snow this weekend. Now I am from Colorado so I was thinking that it was either not going to snow at all or we would just get a very little bit of snow. To my surprise I woke up yesterday to meet up with two separate groups to work on group presentations and it began to snow. I absolutely could not believe it! I was very excited to see the snow though. I felt like we did not get a Fall this year and went straight to winter but who can be mad at the snow?! Then last night my roommates and I were cooking for a ‘friendsgiving’ and it was snowing so hard! We were all getting so excited and could not wait to see it President Boren was going to call a snow-day or not. We hung out all night and enjoyed the food that had been prepared and then finally we got the text from OU saying that school had been canceled for today! We were all absolutely ecstatic and could not wait to sleep in this morning! This snow-day I mostly just slept in, relaxed and ran some errands since the snow melted pretty quickly! I also have loved having the day to get caught up on homework and housework.

Source: Flickr

This is looking to be a very busy week for me; I have one exam and two final presentations. My first presentation is tomorrow and it is in my Purchasing and Buyer behavior class. It is over the marketing techniques on New Year’s. Then Wednesday I have a presentation in my Social Media Marketing class over a marketing campaign. Finally I have a program exam in my Marketing Research class on Thursday night. So one busy busy week!

Reading Diary Week 13: Grimm (LibriVox)

This week I read stories from the unit Grimm (LibriVox).

In The Frog Prince there is a princess that has lost her golden ball in the river. She is so upset and asks the frog to fetch it for her. He agrees only if he can live with her. She feels its joke so she says yes. The frog comes in and lives in her home then he becomes a prince. She finds out she has broken the curse and they live happily ever after.

In Rapunzel there is a husband and wife that see some rampion in a garden on the other side of their fence. The wife exclaims that she needs it so the husband goes to get her some. The next night she requests the same; he heads out but is caught. He promises his child to her so she will allow him to leave. Rapunzel gets locked away in a tower in the woods on her 12^th birthday. The king’s son who figured out how to save her then rescues her.

In The Straw, The Coal and The Bean there was a woman cooking beans using coal and straw. There was one bean, one coal and one piece of straw that escaped the cookout. They ran off and stayed together, until they faced a river and had to decide how to get across. The straw stretched out and the coal walked out but got nervous and burned the straw and they both fell in to the river and died. The bean laughed at this and then burst. A seamstress walked by and sewed the bean back together.

In The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage there was a mouse, bird and sausage that lived in a house together. They each had a separate role when it came to the cooking situation. The bird grew tired of always having to do the most work so he changed the roles around. A dog then ate the sausage while he was out looking for wood.

In The Traveling Musicians there is an ass, a god, a cat and a cock. They are all unwanted by their current owners so they escape, meet up and then venture off to the city. They find a house full of robbers on the way though. They scare the robbers out and then make it their own home.

In Clever Elise there is a girl named Elise who is about to marry a man named Hans. He vows that he will only marry her if he she is smart. He is at her parents home enjoying dinner and they send Elise to fetch beer from the cellar. They all end up following and crying that her child may die.

In Briar Rose there is a queen who helps a fish get back in to the water and he feels that he owes her so he grants her a wish. She then has the most beautiful daughter in all of the land. They invite all the fairies except one to give blessings to the girl. The one that is not invited comes anyway and casts a spell upon the girl for her 15^th birthday.  

In The Queen Bee there are three brothers that are all together. The two older ones are normal size but the third in a dwarf. They begin their travels and the two older brothers make fun of the dwarf brother. They also are looking to roast ducks and kill the bees in order to get their honey.

In The Twelve Huntsman there is a young man who is in love with a young woman. His father is the king and grows to be very ill so he calls him to come see him one more time. The young man agrees to marry whoever the father wants him to and forgets about his woman back home. The girl is devastated and she gathers up eleven other women and they pretend to be huntsman.

In Jorinda and Jorindel there was a fairy that placed a spell on any young man that walked past her. They would be stuck in place until a young maiden came and set them free. Young women would get changed in to birds however and the fairy would put them in to cages. Jorindel was changed in to being stuck in place and jordina was changed in to a nightingale.

In The Fox and the Horse there was a horse who’s master no longer wanted him because he had grown old. The horse sought out a fox and the fox helped him show his master that he was still strong. The horse captured a lion and the master was so impressed that he told the horse he would live in the stable and be well taken care of for the rest of their lives.

In The Twelve Dancing Princesses there is a king who is wondering where his twelve daughters go dance in the night. A soldier is traveling and receives a cloak that will make him invisible from an old woman. He follows them to their destination and wins the challenge. Then becomes the next king and marries the eldest daughter.

In The Turnip there were two brothers, one very wealthy and the other very poor. The poor one grew the largest turnip in the kingdom and presented it to the king. The king loved it and gave him all the riches he could ever think of. The other brother grew very jealous and angry of him.  

Famous Last Words Week 12: Almost Done

Almost Done

Wow I can’t believe that we have just wrapped up week twelve of the semester! This semester is going by so quickly and I can’t believe that I will be graduating in just about six months!

Source: Flickr

(I thought this was kind of a funny and applicable picture!)

 This week was finally one of my slower weeks; I only had one project and one quiz. I did underestimate the magnitude of my project however. It was a job analysis paper for my management class, I put it off till the last minute but then it ended up taking me five hours to complete! I also had a pretty tough quiz in my business law class that ended up going pretty well. I say that this was a slower week for me because it was the first week since week three that I did not have an exam. I am in eighteen hours this semester so it has been very busy and the tests seem to be never ending.

This upcoming week I have a final exam! It is a little strange but we also have a final project so the teacher asked if we wanted to move up the exam and push back the project presentation. The class agreed that would be the best thing to do, so on the bright side that is one more final exam down! I also have the majority of m finals during dead week this semester. I am in three night classes so all three of those will be during dead week and then one teacher just moved the final to dead week. So then I only have one exam during the actual finals week. I am excited about this because then I will be able to go home to Colorado on the Tuesday of finals week and see my family!

I am doing my best to stay on track with this class, everything usually goes as planned. The portfolio stories sometimes do end up getting in a little late however due to all my exams but I am working on starting them earlier!

Week 12 Essay: The Two Knights'

The Two Knights'

This week I chose the unit Through the Looking Glass. I had a really busy week so unfortunately I was only able to read the second half of the reading but I found it to be very interesting! This unit was particularly interesting to me because it was about a lot of the children stories we hear about growing up. I think it is fun when we get to read a unit that is about things that are already familiar to us because we stay much more interested in the information.

Source: Flickr

One of the stories that I read that were interesting was titled My Own Invention. This story actually ended up taking up four short stories so it was rather long. The first section was the one that I found to be the most interesting though! It was all about how Alice had just woken up from her slumber and was wondering if she was still in a dream or not. She was very confused and did not know what to do. Two separate knights who were both claiming that she belonged to them then approached her. They fought over her in a battle and then the Red Knight gave up and she was now the White Knights. In this story the two knights’ are differently colored. One is red and the other is white. I found this to be interesting as red is usually associate with evil and white is more associated with good and hero. That is exactly what happened in this story, the white knight prevailed and saved Alice from the possession of the red knight.

I reason I found this story interesting was because this was a part of the Alice in Wonderland story that I either had forgotten or had not heard before. It was unfamiliar to me but the main character was recognizable to me. This made for reading this story enjoyable because I knew parts of the story but there were still elements that were new and foreign to me. Overall this week I really enjoyed the reading and think that it was a great unit.

Week 12 Storytelling: The Battle

The Battle

I was nestled up in the forest under a large oak tree. I awoke to some birds chirping and looked around. For the life of me I could not remember if I was still in a dream. I felt that it was maybe my dream but maybe someone else’s! I looked around and saw nothing that seemed familiar, until all of a sudden I heard loud galloping. I saw the evil Red Knight named Luther coming towards me and I began to feel nervous.

‘You belong to me now!’ the Red Knight Luther said to me.

I did not know what to do, but I did observe him to be very clumsy. It seemed that he kept falling off his horse and this was all I could notice. He was explaining to me how I was going to be his prisoner now but more galloping shortly interrupted it.

‘I have come to rescue you!’ the White Knight Arnold shouted.

‘She is mine and you can only have her if you win a battle!’ responded the Red Knight Luther.

Source: Flickr

I was so overwhelmed and did not know what to make of this situation. I backed up and hid behind some sort of tree to try and protect myself. The battle commenced and I began to observe. 

I noticed that there were several rules that were part of this particular battle. One of the rules seemed to be that if one of the knight’s gets hit he will fall off his horse, but if that knight instead misses then he will tumble off of his own horse. Another rule I took note of was that when they fell off their horses they always fell on their heads. This was so peculiar to me.

Finally they both ended up falling off their horses at the same time on to their heads so the battle was over. They shook hands and the Red Knight decided to give Alice to the White Knight. He ventured away and the White Knight was feeling very victorious.

‘I want to be queen.’ Alice explained.

Authors Note: For this story I decided to retell the story of In My Own Invention.  I really liked this story because it was still including Alice and it was about a section I had never heard before. I kept the story pretty much exact to the original with just a few minor changes. I decided to tell the story from Alice’s point of view since she was the main character. I also decided to give the two knights names because they had no real identity without them!

Bibliography: Through the Looking-Glass. Lewis Carroll (1871) My Own Invention.