Week 14 Reading Notes: Part A

The Hypocritical Cat

Cat Watching the Rat Line
Source: Pinterest

- There was this group of rats that lived by the river in a whole

- This one cat was watching them for some time and really longed to eat the rats

- So the cat had to come up with a plan on how to trap the rats so he could actually be powerful enough to eat the rats

-The cat came up with a plan were he stood close to the hole and would act like he was praising the sun and only feeding off the air

- The cat wanted it to seem like he was the best thing there was, this worked because each morning after that the rats came by to praise the cat for who he was

- After a few days of this pattern the cat finally took to his plan and started to eat the last rat in the line that goes by him

- After a few weeks of this the chief of the rat troop noticed that his army was starting to get a lot smaller and the chief started to get really suspicious

- The chief now posted himself at the end of the line and was watching the cat the whole time and he noticed the cat was starting to get greedy once the chief was coming up

- As the chief passed by the cat started to pounce on the chief but the chief caught him in time and escaped

- The chief then jumped on the cat and attacked his throat

- The rest of the troops saw this and ran over and attacked the cat and the rats ended up eating the cat 

The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. Link: The Hypocritical Cat

The Dishonest Friend

- There was this friend that had to leave for a little while and asked his friend to watch his farm and his plow
- The friend promised to watch over everything and to keep everything safe while the friend was gone
- However, the friend was not trustful as soon as the guy left the friend took the plow from the farm and sold the plow
- Once the plow was sold the friend took the money and pocketed the money
- When the friend came back and asked for his plow back the friend came up with a far fetched excuse as to what happened to the plow
- The excuse was that a really big rat came and ate the plow and took it away
- The friend did not believe this and so he came up with a plan to get his plow back to him
- The friend took the dishonest friends son for a walk and basically kidnapped the son and returned to say his son was taken by a really big hawk
- The dishonest friend did not believe this and so the dishonest friend took him to the town judge to sort all of this out
- The judge caught onto the fake story the friend told the dishonest friend so the judge told the dishonest friend to give the friends plow back and he could have his son back
- So after all the dishonest friend gave the friend back his plow and the friend returned back his son and everyone was back to being happy

The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. Link: The Dishonest Friend

Week 13 Story

The Golden Goose

The Golden Swan
Source: My India

There was this family that lived in a forest, a father, mother, and three children. One day the father called all the family into the main room of the house they all lived in and told them he had to leave for a little while. The mother was confused as to why the father had to leave as he had a job and was not in need of searching for a new one.

The father said, “I have to leave and when I come back, I will bring a lot more riches to this family than my current job.”

The mother and the children were still confused, but they all accepted and didn’t try to dig any deeper as to why the father had to leave them without any warning. The father the next day took off down the road to leave wherever the voice in his head would lead him. The next day the father ran into a fairy in the forest he was passing through and the fairy stopped him in his tracks.

The fairy asked, “why are you here walking through this forest you look like a family man?”

The father replied, “I was told the other day from a voice that I needed to travel and that I would come across something that would bring my family riches we have never had.”

The fairy was intrigued by this and waved her wand and turned the father into a goose made of golden feathers. The fairy said, “Now you are golden and of value to your family go to them and give them a feather.”

The father thanked the fairy and flew to his family as fast as his new golden feathers could go. When he arrived, the children were swinging under the oak tree outside and saw the goose and yelled for their mother. The mother came running outside to find the goose and was in awe of the goose when she laid eyes on him.

The goose plucked one of his feathers off and gave it to the mother and said, “sell this feather and you should be able to live comfy for the rest of this month.” The mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and like the goose said the family was well off. The goose returned one month later and gave the mother another feather for the mother to sell. Like before the mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and the family lived comfortable for a few months as this process continued.

Then the mother was scared that with this new lifestyle the goose would soon stop coming so she set up a plan with the children to trap the goose when he came back next. The goose like clockwork came back on the same day and time, like he always did each month before. The mother got close to the goose this time to take the feather, but instead of grabbing the feather she launched herself onto the goose. When she grabbed the goose, she yelled for the kids to start plucking all the feathers off the goose.

However, once the kids started to pluck the feathers off the goose, the goose started to shake hard and felt weird. The mother felt the shaking and couldn’t hold the goose down any longer and so she rolled off the goose and stepped back. The goose started to transform back into the person he was before, and the mother and children were all in shock when they saw who the goose really was.

The fairy popped up next to the father as he lay there on the ground confused on what happened. The fairy said, “I put a charm on you that if at anytime someone tried to take advantage of your gift you would turn back to your true self.”

The father was angry at his wife and could not believe that his beautiful wife and children would be so greedy like they were. The mother tried to apologize to the father and the father was not happy with his wife. The father grabbed the kids and said he was sorry that this happened to them and it wasn’t their fault this happened. The father gave the kids one last hug and left down the road in search of a new job and maybe never return to his family as he was saddened by his wife’s greediness.

Authors Note: I wrote a retelling of the tale about The Golden Feathers written by Noor Khan. This story is about a father that left his family to bring back riches to the family that they didn't have. The father was in the forest when a fairy turned him into a goose that was made of golden feathers. The father which now a goose flew back to family because he saw the value of the golden feathers. The wife started to get greedy and was afraid the goose would stop showing up to give his feathers to her. So, one day the wife and the three daughters grabbed the goose and started to pluck all his feathers out; however, the fairy put a charm on him for if and when this happened. Once the kids and mother started plucking the golden feathers the goose turned white like all the other geese. The goose once turned back into a normal goose flew off to join the other geese and lived a happy life with them. 

However, in my story I kept a lot of the original story; however, I wanted the father be brought back so the wife could see that there was no reason for his wife to be greedy. Instead of the goose staying a goose I chose to have him turn back into a human as himself. 

Link to the original story: The Golden Feathers 

Growth Mindset Extra Credit

How To Spark Curiosity in Children Through Embracing Uncertainty by Linda Flanagan

Source: Mind Shift

The thing this article really hit on I have always dealt with is uncertainty of the unknown. This really plays on my mind when I am up for a checkride in the flight department. This is due to the uncertainty of the multitude of questions that the examiner can ask you during the oral exam. There is always that gut wrenching feeling before the oral exam because you never know if you are prepared enough or know enough to get through the exam. 

Addressing and enforcing the feelings of uncertainty and discomfort that it brings. This is a good idea to let the students know that its okay to not be perfect on every subject. However, if this done at an early age in my opinion it needs to be followed by some sort of task to help fill that void of uncertainty. Like the author says give the students some sort of project where they are tasked to find mistakes within something. However, this would have to be something outside of the students general class material (like English when finding grammar errors). I think the idea presented about giving a student an assignment that gives them the chance to fail is a good idea, but the assignment shouldn't hold any weight on the students grade in the class.  For instance, I could see in some classes where the student is given an assignment to do ahead of the course material being taught. This would give the student an opportunity to branch out and find the unknown when they can't figure out the homework assignment. However, the assignment like previously states should only be for completion and not graded for correctness. As I feel if it were a weighted grade then the student would lose interest and the whole idea of enforcing uncertainty would be lost. 

The last thing that is talked about in the article is how Cueva-Dabkoski has changed her mind-set since being in college. I thought it was interesting on how she set a goal for herself in trying to do personal research she wanted and do so in a certain time frame. This would be interesting for college's to integrate this into the freshman orientation classes they take in their first year. This would give a new student a learning objective to find research about new things they are interested about. This may even give the student ideas towards paths they want to pursue as a career or could help enforce the student in the degree choice they want to declare. 

Curious Cat from Laura Gibbs Blog
Source: Growth Mindset Blog

Reading Notes: Week 13 Part B

The Two Pigs

- There were two little pigs that lived outside the town of Benares

- This old lady one day was passing by when she spotted the little pigs 

- The old lady took the two pigs back home with her, named them Mahatundila and Cullatundila

- Two years passed and the two pigs and the old lady lived a happy life 

- There was a party going on in the town of Benares and all the men in town ate all the meat

- They were not satisfied and so they showed up at the old ladies house to try and buy the two pigs

-The lady wasn't giving into the men and so the men got her drunk 

- With this the lady offered the youngest pig, Cullatundila

- Cullatundila caught onto the trap the old had set up for her

- Mahatundila found out about this and Mahatundila spoke words that touched everyone in the town including the king in the nearby palace 

- The king later died and the pigs left the kingdom and returned to the forest were they lived happily together 

- "Bathe in a pool of water as on a bright feast day, And you shall find a perfume that never fades away" 

Old Lady and The Two Pigs
Source: ISM Blog Post

The Patient Buffalo

- There was this monkey and buffalo sitting around the same time

- The buffalo was resting beneath and the monkey decided to go and try to annoy the buffalo

- The monkey tried jumping on the buffalo's head and swinging from his horns

- However, the buffalo was not phased by this

- So the monkey tried destroying all the grazing land the buffalo ate on, but still the buffalo was not disturbed 

- Then came along a fairy who told the buffalo of his great powers 

- The buffalo did not seem interested in this as the monkey was not a pest to him 

- The buffalo told the fairy that he could not punish the monkey for he had only a small brain

- With this the fairy took her wand and warded the monkey away

- The fairy also put a charm on the buffalo so no one else could come and bother the buffalo agian

- From that day on the buffalo lived a happy life

The Buffalo and Monkey
Source: ISM Blog Post

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat. Source: Indian Epics Readings and Resources 

Tech Tip: OUCreate

I was not familiar with what OUCreate was and I think even with spending an hour looking over it, I am still really confused. There are so many options that you use for OUCreate and so many things you can attach that you already have. I created a sub domain so I wouldn't have to pay for the name.

The first thing that I was the WordPress add on that you can do to your OUCreate site and so I dove into that. The only reason why WordPress caught my eye is because I remember it being a option for this course as a website platform. Then, when I created a WordPress account I found you can import a Blogger profile into WordPress. Now I have linked my Blogger account into WordPress; however, I have no luck on getting WordPress to actually display the material.

OUCreate seems like a good platform, but I do not see it as a good thing for beginners there is no easy step by step way of how to use the platform. When doing stuff and adding it to your domain it is confusing on where to go to view everything that you have done. I think it will just take some time to play around with the platform a little more to gain a better understanding of how it works. 

Reading Notes: Week 13 Part A

The Golden Feathers

-A Father, Mother, and three Daughters lived in a small forest hut

-The father tells the mother and children that he has to leave them but will return with many riches

-The father met a fairy and the fairy asked him where he was going

-The fairy touched the traveler with her wand and changed him into a goose with golden feathers

-After he was changed into a goose he became very sad and was confused on how he was going to support his family

-The mother had a plan to pluck all the feathers from the goose just in case he never returns

-The goose returned and the mother grabbed the goose and the daughters started to pluck all the feathers off

-The fairy thought about this and put a charm so the feathers once plucked would turn white

-The goose never grew gold feathers again

-Once freed from the barrel the mother threw him in the goose flew away

-The goose flew away to a forest where birds were happy 

The Golden Swan
Source: My India

The Master's Test

-A master was talking to his pupils and admitted to them he was poor

-The pupils were loyal to him and wanted to help their teacher

-The master said they could steal from the towns people

-The master told them to find the quietest spot and grab a person as they pass by, then take their money 

-One of the pupils caught on to the masters test of wisdom

-The master applauded the student for understanding this and the others fell with shame

-The master wanted them to learn that when a bad thought came about for them to realize that they themselves are judging themselves

-With his teaching the pupils were able to live a happy life

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat. Source: Indian Epics Readings and Resources 

Week 12 Story Lab: TVTropes

The tvtropes website is very interesting in the way it picks out different things that directors do in tv shows to depict different things they want and also things they put in scenes to add effects to the show.

The first one that got me was the Groin Attack, which takes a look at the different ways a director uses a punch to a persons groin as an effect. The one example was shown in the show The Simpsons when Homer is watching a video of a guy getting hit with a football. In that scene it shows how funny most people think watching someone getting hit in the groin is funny. Then there is also the use of groin attack from a female to a male to show a diminishing of the male characters masculinity. This article really just caught me because I would have never even known that directors and writers put these in the shows to add drama for the viewer.

The second thing I read about was the article about the Determinator- which is a character that is good or evil, male or female, young or old, and who never gives up. This was really interesting because the determinator is said to be some character that just will never give up no matter what the odds are. One of the examples they use for describing what a determinator is, is the energizer bunny, where it just keeps going and going and going. Then they also use the Trix rabbit for the cereal commercial. The two commercial examples that they used were interesting to me because I don't think I would have ever matched those two commercials up to having a main theme to their characters.

Energizer Bunny Source: Giphy

Bibliography: TvTropes. Web Source

Reading Notes Week 12 Part B: The Life of Buddha

The Life of Buddha

Siddhartha Leads a Life of Pleasure

- Suddhodana lived a nice life and was really caring of his people

- Suddhodana always gave the people the advice and guidance that they needed instead of death 

The Three Encounters

- The prince was ready to leave the kingdom and his father found out

- For the princes goodbye his father made sure to clean a path for him so the prince will stay clean of all the bad in the world, he was given a chariot for his travels

- Even with the efforts of the princes father the dark and grey that the world brings was soon brought upon the prince 

- The gods put a struggling old man in the path of the chariot and the prince was confused as to why the old man looked the way he did

- The princes father did his best to undo the unsightly thing his son had saw, he did this by arranging a really nice day in the garden with the help of a friend

Gopa's Dream

- Even with the efforts in the gardens to help change the mindset of the young prince nothing was helping

- The prince did not accept any of the pleasures his father had given him because all he could think about was the death that was awaiting him as he got older

- Once he got back to the palace he couldn't sleep and this is when he met Gopa

Siddhartha Leaves His Father's Palace 

- The prince asked for his horse late at night 

- The prince set out on the horse late at night to leave his fathers kindgom

- The horse was as quiet as he could as not to wake the towns people 

-There is great efforts to get the prince to come back to the kingdom but every try is unsuccessful 

-The prince enters the forest in disguise in run down clothes and cut his hair

- The prince did this so no one would notice him and he would have the element of surprise if there was ever an attack on him 

Buddha Source: Samadhi

Bibliography: The Life of Buddha. Andre Ferdinand Herold. Web Source