Famous Last Words: Week 14

It's the end of the fourteenth week and everything is chaos once again, just like the beginning of the semester. I procrastinated quite a bit this semester, a product of senioritis no doubt. However, I would like to say that I did make some progress towards alleviating my habit of procrastinating, so all is not lost. As the semester comes to a close, I found myself wondering how much better I could have done or how differently I could've done other things in order to make it an even more successful semester. But at the end of the day, I think I did pretty well considering it was my last semester ever as an undergrad. My other classes are going alright, although my Capstone course has been tough! It's way more difficult than I was anticipating, but I've enjoyed it nonetheless for the most part. It's a relief to almost be done. I can definitely say that I'm looking forward to my gap year! I'll probably be studying for the OAT and working full-time, but I like knowing the fact that I don't have to worry about grades, assignments, and exams for a whole year.

As for my writing over the semester, I think my most creative work was about Cat and Mouse and the little feud they had. The story that I enjoyed the most out of the ones I wrote was the when where the old couple get left behind in the underworld. I struggled a bit more this year than when I took Epics of India when it comes to getting assignments done on time. I'll barely be pulling of an A this semester, when in the other class, I finished it early and had extra time to study for finals. I thoroughly enjoyed this class though, I think even more than Epics of India, because I was able to branch out and read other stories that I wasn't as familiar with. I ended the week with a bit of bad news, but overall, great week!

How I feel studying during dead week; Flickr

Week 14 Review: Procrastination

After backing up my blog, I came across an interesting post in the announcements. It was an image about time management and it was titled Stages of Procrastination. I thought the image was pretty accurate and I got a kick out of it because I'm guilty of procrastinating all the time. It kind of made me feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one who goes through these stages, although it could be avoided if I just planned my time better.

Stages of Procrastination; Learning by Heart

Reading Notes (EC): English Fairy Tales

Tom Tit Tot

I thought this was an interesting story that has the potential to be retold in a variety of ways. It was about a girl who was told to watch the pies her mom had made until they had softened again. The girl though, was impatient and ended up eating all five of the pies. The mother had no food to give the King, so he asks to marry the girl in exchange that she sows him things one month out of the year. The mother agrees and marries her daughter off to the king and for eleven months, the daughter is treated lavishly. At the beginning of the twelfth month, the king takes the girl to a room and tells her she must sow five things a day or else she will be killed. Unfortunately, the girl does not know how to see but a black creature appears out of nowhere and offers to sow for her as long as she can guess his name by the end of the month. She would have three guesses a day or else he would get to take her. So the girl takes this deal, but each day she got the name wrong and each day she got more and more nervous as the creature became more and more confident that she would not get his name. Then one day the king came by and said he had seen a tiny little black creature who had said his name was Tom Tit Tot. So on the last day, when the creature thought he had her, the girl told him his name and he took off, never to be seen again. I'm wondering what it would be like to tell this story from the creature or the king's perspective. It would be a cool concept to consider.

The small little black thing with a tail; UnTextbook

Bibliography

English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Reading Notes (B): Brothers Grimm

The Queen Bee

This was a fun little story about two king's sons who go off in search of their fortune and life dreams. While away, they end up falling into a foolish life that prohibits them from going home. The third son, a dwarf, finds them and joins them on their journey through the world. Along the way, the two older brothers want to kill the ants, ducks, and bees they pass. However, the dwarf brother stops them from doing so. Eventually they arrive at a castle where an old man feeds them and allows them to sleep in his castle. The next day, the older brother is assigned to a task that holds the fate of  a lot of people in his hands. He fails, however, as does the second oldest brother. The dwarf brother, though, succeeds in completing the first task with the help of the ants he had saved from his older two brothers. He also completes the second and third tasks with the help of the ducks and bees he also saved from his brothers. The dwarf brother ends up marrying the best princess due to his heroic feat, while the other two brothers marry her two sisters. I thought this story was awesome because there were so many tasks to complete. I could use elements of this story for my story this week and create a fun little game show or something of the sort. I could also tell the story from the perspective of the old man who lives at the castle, which I think would be interesting to figure out.

The Twelve Huntsmen

I liked the idea of the all-knowing lion who kept telling the king that the huntsmen were actually girls. Everytime he tried to expose the girls, the servant would inform the girls of the upcoming task and they would fool the king deftly. I enjoyed the ending of the story because the king was finally reunited with his beloved first wife, whom he had only left because the previous king, his father, had asked him to marry another princess. This would also be an awesome story to expand or retell.

The King and his lion; HathiTrust

Bibliography

Grimm (LibriVox) from Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm

Reading Notes (A): Brothers Grimm

The Frog Prince

This was a story about a princess who lost her golden ball in a spring. She was so sad and upset she had lost it that she vowed to give up all her riches and clothes if she could get it back. A frog from inside the spring heard the princess wailing and offered to retrieve the golden ball for her on one condition: she would bring him to her house and let him eat from her plate and sleep on her bed. The princess was naturally wary of this frog, but she agreed to what he had said. However, once he had retrieved the golden ball, she was so overcome with relief and joy that she forgot all about the frog and ran off back home. The frog ended up showing up at the princess's house later that night and her father, the king, advised her to keep her word. So the frog ate from the princess's plate and slept in her bed on the same pillow she slept on for three days straight. On the third day, the princess was shocked to find that the frog has turned into a handsome prince! He explained how he had been cursed by a witch and now that he was normal again, he wanted to take the princess back to his kingdom and marry her. I thought this was a great story to build off of because I'm already familiar with it. There's so many modifications I could make to either make it more modern or to just continue the story.

Rapunzel

This story is one that I'm very familiar with and it brings back a lot of childhood memories. This could be a great basis for another story this week. I read a story by another student last week that built off of this one and it was one of the best stories I've read all semester so I'm excited to see what I could do with this story!

Rapunzel; Un-Textbook

Bibliography

Grimm (LibriVox) from Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm