Joe's Myths

Part A's reading notes got really repetitive as I tried to separate them by story and ended up saying a lot of the same things for multiple stories, so this time I'm going to try a less structured style of notes and just write things down as they impress me. In The Fox and the Leopard, the fox is described as having "sarcastic talk," which makes me like him already. He uses this sarcasm to mess with the leopard, despite being in a losing battle, and in the end tries to cover himself with some useless "true beauty is on the inside" nonsense, as if the rest of the conversation hadn't been about outward beauty. I'm not a fan of this story. The Wolf and the Goat was a short and pointless story. There was no twist, everything happened as expected. There was a half hearted attempt at a trickster, but it was weak and disappointing. The Cat, the Cock, and the Young Mouse delivered a new, more subtle trickster. The cat in this story didn't say anything...

My reading is a collection of Aesop's Fables. These usually involve animals and include a lesson, or moral, to be learned at the end of the story. I like this style of story telling as it is fairly concise, not excessively rambling on. The Wolf and the Kid warned of the dangers of letting things distract you from what you're supposed to be doing, which is very important. This story is a little different because the character learning the lesson was not the main character, nor the protagonist. This twist could provide an interesting new view on other stories.  The Tortoise and the Ducks illustrates the importance of knowing when to keep your mouth shut. It does this by killing its main character, which is also a cool way to twist a story.  The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox is one of my favorite stories in this reading section. It involves the archetype trickster, that I wrote about earlier. The moral even centers on this, as the fox, who is normally tricky, himself gets tricked...

D.R.U.M. D - Don't R -Remember U -Useless M -Mantras I had a tendency to memorize the most random, useless things in high school. This acronym should help me stay focused on the most important things in my life. This should be easy for me to remember since I've been a percussionist since 6th grade. DRUM Picture Link

I've been using the Canvas App for a while now, originally it was so I would know when my professors posted exam scores. I have since begun using more of its features, like looking at messages, checking announcements, and I've even submitted a few assignments right from the app. It is a very useful innovation and I will continue to try to use it better every day.

 Dealing with failure can be difficult. Picture Link 6 Mental Habits That Sabotage Your Scores  A few of these points really hit home for me. I love to make excuses. It's my favorite pastime. Seeing it explicitly stated like that made me realize how destructive of a habit it is, and I'm going to try to work on it. The other thing that made me think was when it talked about second guessing yourself. Whenever I'm not 100 percent sure about something, it's going to grind any progress I was making to a halt. I let that affect me way too much and will try to have more confidence even if I'm not entirely sure if I like what I'm doing. 8 Things to Do When You Make a Mistake  One of the major things this list brought to my attention was my need to be able to adjust to new situations. I tried very hard my first semester to treat college like high school. I did very little work or studying outside of class and just enjoyed all my downtime. This didn'...

Topic 1: Tricksters. I like the idea of working with tricksters because I think I would enjoy the deception and tricky nature of the stories. This type of behavior seems to line up with my sense of humor quite nicely, and I think it would be an interesting topic to work with. Till Eulenspiegel is a famous trickster who originated from German folklore, first recorded in the early 1500's. He seems like he could be an interesting character to follow and perhaps I could find one of his tales to retell. Eulenspiegel Story A picture of Till, looking very similar to a court jester.   Topic 2: Dragons . Dragons are always an interesting topic. I attribute this to the fact that anything that can spew fire is amazing, especially if it's sentient and is often associated with treasure. I don't know very much about dragon stories, and what I do know is probably not very accurate, so I'd be interested in learning more about the topic. I found a book titled "A Natural His...

Note: I have added this story to my portfolio here: Link Pym's Gal Pym Malachi Ian was tired of being alone. He blamed some of his lonely nature on the name his parents gave him, supposedly he was descended from some famous Greek sculptor, but he just thought it was lame. Not that he wanted to be popular, everything about the idea disgusted him, specifically the other people. He wasn’t cynical, he just couldn’t stand the rest of his generation, specifically the girls. All they cared about was how they looked and what parties they went to and every other aspect of their appearance. If something didn’t directly affect how they were seen, either literally or in a social sense, those girls couldn’t be bothered by it. But Gal A. T., she was the exception. Everything about her was perfect, from her looks, to her brains, to her slightly shy personality. Everything that could be perfect about her, was in Pym’s eyes. The only problem was that she wasn’t exactly real. Pym was ...

I chose to focus mostly on the story of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with his creation. He becomes so attached to his ivory statue, that he asks the gods to grant him a bride like her. Venus hears him, grants his prayer, and brings his statue to life. He makes out with it for a while before it becomes fully human, then they eventually get married and have a son, Paphos. This story uses a lot of repetition. Every time Pygmalion is interacting with his statue, or eventual wife, his action is repeated several times. This helps to describe his attachment to his creation and confirm how much he loves her. This could be a useful method when I write that makes sure I emphasize my points enough. Biography: Ovid, Metamorphosis: Pygmalion Link Pygmalion and his wife Link

While looking over the reading options, I noticed the Bible Women option. I've been in the church since I was little, so I'm interested to see if there will be a new perspective on stories that I've heard about my whole life. Delilah Delilah is a no good liar who wants Samson to die. I've liked this story because, despite the several repeated coincidences, Samson continues to trust her. This makes for an interesting story. Esther The story of Esther is interesting because it involves lots of secret planning and trickery. There are also several parties, one specifically to gain the favor of the king so that he will come to the next party that she plans. It's just a crazy story overall. Eve Eve is one of the most well known stories, but still I haven't ever looked at it in significant depth. It would be interesting to get a new, deeper understanding of this story. Delilah cutting Samson's hair Picture Link

Time management is a concept that I occasionally struggle with, as I prefer to put off everything until the last possible moment and this strategy backfires on me quite often. I plan on avoiding this recurring issue by sticking closely to the proposed schedule provided by the instructor and trying to finish as much work as I can early in the week to avoid last minute panics. My favorite definition Picture Link

I've grown up around technology and consider myself fairly competent in most areas. It may take me a little while to adjust to any given specific circumstance and to understand how exactly things are supposed to be done, for instance how to attach images to these posts, but I am confident that I'll be able to adjust to it. A tragic technical mishap. Picture Link

This is unlike any other class I've ever taken. The closest experience I have to this is a discussion based class I took last semester that involved a significant bit of writing, but it wasn't as personalized as this will be, so I'm looking forward to the new experience. I am also excited to get to look at how other people will be responding to these assignments and getting to discuss ideas with them through comments. Overall, I'm very excited for this class. Chris Pratt expressing my excitement Picture Link

Since I started attending OU, I found out that I learned in a very different way than most of my fellow classmates. While they would spend hours reading and re-reading the textbook, I would skim the topic once, make notes about topics I didn't quite have a handle on, make flashcards for anything I had to memorize, and be done with the whole thing. I would check myself on topics by looking over the subject names in the given topic I was studying and be able to recall most of the useful information. Anything I couldn't immediately call up, I compiled with my notes, and would look at them periodically for the next few days until I understood it. This drove my friends crazy because I wasn't spending the same amount of time studying as they were, but was still getting good grades on the assignments. I've embraced my learning technique and have honed it to be more efficient. This allows me to not spend excess time on anything I know well and providing more opportunities to st...

Hello everyone, my name is Joe Green. I'm from Piedmont, OK, which is a small town a little northwest of Oklahoma City. I was a percussionist in the school band and was the drum line section leader my senior year. I played basketball all four years of high school, though I didn't play much my senior year because I broke a bone in my foot just before the season started. I am a junior chemical bio-sciences major. That major is basically what happens when you take the prerequisites for medical school and turn them into a college degree. Last semester I took an ethics class that had a term paper where you had to pick an ethical issue and, using multiple sources, create and support an argument one way or the other. It was interesting to hear people talk about physician assisted suicide, head transplants, and the importance of net neutrality. I am taking the MCAT later this semester and will then apply to medical school, hoping to get into OU's. If all goes according to plan, I...