Extra Credit Reading: Rouse. Giant Crab

For this last extra credit reading I read from a group of stories by Rouse. I particularly enjoyed one story called "The Lion and the Boar." This story begins with a lion drinking from a pond and he sees a boar drinking on the other side of the pond. Since the lion had just eaten, he wasn't hungry but still didn't want to scare the boar away so that he could come back later and eat him. As the lion snuck away, the boar saw him and took that to mean that the lion was scared of him. With a big ego, the hog challenged the lion to a fight. The boar went back to his home and told the other boars that he was going to kill a lion. they all laughed and informed him of a lions massive power and told him their is no way he would win. An old wise boar told the foolish boar to roll in mud before the fight because lions are very clean and the lion wouldn't fight him if he was dirty. He did this and when it came time to fight, the lion smelled him and told him he would not fight because he was too dirty. The boar returned to town and bragged of his victory. The other boars decided they would still run to a new home because, even though the boar won the fight, there was still a lion nearby.

Bibliography: Rouse. Giant Crab (Link)

Boars (Source)

Week 15 Story: The Home Invasion

There was once a family living in the suburbs of Norman, Oklahoma. They were a normal family; a mother and father with three children, aged 17, 13, and 8. Each day, the mother and father would go off to work, leaving the the children home alone. Now usually, the parents would leave at least one of the two eldest children with the youngest whenever they left in order to make sure he was looked after, but one day they ran into a problem. The oldest child was out of town visiting a friend at college and the middle child was spending the night at a friends house. The plan was for the father to take a sick day from work and watch their young child when the mother left. The problem arose when the father was unexpected called into work for an emergency meeting with his boss. Unable to miss the meeting, the father left his youngest home alone for the first time. The young boy was fine with this, he had even been asking to stay home alone for a while. The father was confident everything would be okay.
The boy happily watched tv in the living room by himself. With no one home, he decided he would even turn the volume all the way up and have some fun. As king of the house, he blared the tv and jumped up and down on the couch until... *crash*... he heard glass break. He turned off the tv, thinking he broke a vase and was going to be in so much trouble. Then all of the sudden he heard voices.

"Hello?" He asked. "Is someone there?"

Around the corner came two masked men.

"Who are you? What do you want?" The boy asked in a shaky little voice.

"We are here to rob your house." One of the men said bluntly. "Where do your parents keep the valuables?"

The boy replied, "I am only 8! I don't know where they keep anything but food and my toys! Why do you come here and scare me?"

The men looked confused.

The boy went on, "I am small, I can't do anything to you. So why do you come in my house and try to hurt me and take my things?"

The men looked at each other and slowly retreated out the door and to their car, and the boy went back to his cartoons.

When the father returned from his meeting he asked his son what happened to the window, the boy replied, "some guys tried to rob the house but I scared them off."

That was the last time the boy was left home alone for a while.

The End.

Burglar (Source)

Bibliography: The Forest Fire by Noor Inayat (Link)



Author's Note:
My inspiration for this story came from a Jataka Tale by Inayat. The story is called 'The Forest Fire" and has a very similar plot. In that story, there is a family of quails that loves in a forest. There are two parents and seven baby birds. The parents go and fetch food like insects and seeds for their babies every day. Six of the seven babies eat the insects and grow big and strong, but the seventh only eats the seeds and doesn't grow at all. One day a forest fire approaches their nest. All of the birds fly away except for the small baby who didn't eat enough and cannot fly. As the fire comes near, the small bird tells it that he is just a small, helpless bird and tells the fire to go away. Upon saying this the fire stops and retreats. I read this story for my week 15 reading and I really enjoyed it so I thought I would rewrite it for my story. I changed the story to human characters and made the seven baby birds into three different aged children. I wanted to make it into a more realistic version of the same tale.

Reading Notes: Francis and Thomas Jataka Tales

For my last reading in this class I decided to do one more Jataka tale, this time from Francis and Thomas. One that I really enjoyed was titled "The Ass In The Lion's Skin." This is the story of a merchant who went town to town selling goods. He had a donkey that would carry his goods with him. When he got to a town, he would take the goods off of the donkey and send him out alone to eat. HE would cover the donkey in a lion's skin so no one would bother him. Farmers would see the ass, think it was a lion and stay away. This worked until one town saw the lion and tried to scare it away by shouting and beating on drums. This scared the donkey and he let out a "hee-haw" and the villagers realized it was not a lion. They beat the ass and stole the lions skins. I'm not sure what lesson this story teaches but I found it very amusing to read.

Bibliography: Francis and Thomas Jataka Tales (Link)

Donkey (Source)

Reading Notes: Inayat Twenty Jataka Tales

For this weeks reading I stuck with the Jataka tales that I have enjoyed so much. I read from tales by Inayat. I particularly liked a story called "The Forest Fire." This is the story of a family of quail that lived in a tree. There was a mother, a father, and 7 babies. Each day the parents would go out and collect worms, insects, and grass seeds to feed the babies. Sic of the seven babies ate the worms and insects, but the seventh only ate the grass seed. As a result, the six who ate the bugs grew and had bug, strong wings, but the seventh didn't grow at all. One day, a forest fire was traveling toward their nest. The parents and the six strong babies flew away to safety, but the small seventh baby could not fly. As the fire got close, the helpless bird spoke to it, saying he was small and couldn't fly. He asked the fire why it was coming to hurt him. As he spoke, the fire stopped and retreated, leaving the small bird and their home safe and unharmed. This was an odd short story but I enjoyed reading it.

Bibliography: Inayat Twenty Jataka Tales (Link)

Quail (Source)

Wikipedia Trail: Ravi Shankar to Timbre

I started this wikipedia trail by going to the class announcements page where I found a video of a man named Ravi Shankar playing classical India music. On his wikipedia page I read that he was a very famous musician across India and Europe and even served in the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. From there I found George Harrison, who had worked with Shankar in the 1960s. Harrison was the lead guitarist for the Beatles and was ranked as number 11 of Rolling Stone magazines "top 100 guitarists of all time." From there I found the slide guitar which is a techniques for playing guitar that involves a tube placed on on the the fingers of the guitarist which is slid up and down the neck of the instrument. This was popular in blues style music and started in the 1920s. Finally, I made it to Timbre. This is the word used in music for the quality of sound. Timbre is what makes the difference in sound between a guitar and a piano playing the same note at the same volume.

Slide Guitar (Source)

Learning Challenge: The Pomodoro Technique

For this Learning Challenge I chose to read about the Pomodoro technique. This is a studying/work technique that uses a timer to help you space out work and breaks. I chose this because I tend to race against the clock when I do school work and I think this technique could help me make better, more efficient use of time. The purpose of this strategy is to teach you to work with time, instead of against it. By taking short, scheduled breaks, it is easier to eliminate burnouts and manage distractions. I have tried this technique before and had good results. By taking a short break every 30 minutes to an hour I was able to get much more done in that time period than I can when I just work for hours on end. The Pomodoro Technique can be used by anyone with just about any task and I recommend trying it out.

Pomodoro Timer (Source)

Growth Mindset

For this post I decided to look at the Growth Mindset cats again. I think this is the most fun way to do this assignment. The first image that I was given was one that I really liked. It's caption says "The bigger the challenge, the more you stretch." I chose to use this picture because it really describes an idea that I try to remember whenever I am feeling very challenged by anything. The idea is that every challenge I face will result in me growing in some way if I stick with it. The hardest things you face will end up stretching you and making you grow as a person as long as you don't give up. 

Source

The second image I chose is one that kind of relates to the first idea I mentioned. The caption says "Real learning takes work." I liked this one because it connects to the first one in that it reinforces the idea that the hardest challenges take the most work but result in the best learning. 

Link