Week 8 Reading and Writing

I think so far, my progress is most adequately reflected in my reading notes and blog. I think they are helpful to me when I go back and look at them when I am writing my story later. I think one thing that I can do to improve my reading notes is instead of being hyper specific, I need to write down more common themes that I read in my stories. This will help reflect in my stories so they are not super similar to the actual stories.

I think this picture has been my favorite that I have used so far. I mean look at it. It is just so regal and majestic. After all, they do call lions the king of the jungle (even though they actually live in savannas and not jungles).

Image source: Pixabay

Week 7 Review

Personally, I really enjoy the mindset cats as they make me laugh a little. 

The video I watched was a crash course on the Mwindo Epic. I chose this video because I really like John Green and his Crash Course series. Even though it wasn't actually him narrating this one I still enjoy the style and easy to understand language that is used in them.

Famous Last Words: Week 7 Keeping on top of things

This week was pretty good as a whole. I thought the reading for this week was a little worse than the previous ones as there are a lot of names to keep straight and it is hard to remember all the characters without going back and rereading the previous week's reading but I guess that is what the reading notes and stories are for! For now, my other classes have let up as we are past the midterm season so I can now spend more time on this class. That means doing all the extra credit and getting ahead so that when my other classes pick up again I wont fall behind in this one. In particular, I think it is important to get ahead in the week too and as I have not a lot to do this Sunday, I will probably begin working on week 8. I am planning on going home to St. Louis next weekend to visit my family so getting ahead now is important as I don't want to be working on homework when I am there and I am going to be losing 14 hours due to driving time. Outside of school this week was pretty good as well. Most of my friends were in town this weekend and not busy so we all got to do things together this weekend where as usually we are scattered about. Last night we watched Wall-E which I had never actually seen all the way through. I had seen pieces here and there so I knew the general plot but I didn't actually know how it ended. A tear might have been shed. I'm a big fan of Pixar movies and I think they have a unique way of putting big life lessons into silly animated movies.

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Week 7: Wikipedia Trail. SLAM to Louis IX

The SLAM: A lot of the twitter feed has stuff from the SLAM and I really like learning more about it because it is a place that I can visit and actually see the things I am reading about in real life. I think it is fun to learn the history of a place I have been to so regularly.

St. Louis: Similar to my sentiment with the SLAM, learning more about the city I grew up near to me is something that I enjoy. One thing new I learned with my reading of the article is that the St. Louis Botanical Garden is supposedly the second best in North America. I knew the zoo was one of the top zoos but I never realized the botanical garden was held so highly too!

Downtown St. Louis: In my reading of this article I learned more about WASHU and who it was named after and such. I didn't realize it was named after George Washington's birthday.

Louis IX of France: In this article I read about the namesake of St. Louis and a little more about who he was. 

The beautiful St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM)

Week 7: Growth Mindset

My personal motto, is "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Personally, I like this quote a lot as a lot of the time I have problems starting things but after I do, I am able to work pretty efficiently to get it done. This especially applies to getting up in the mornings. I really enjoy my bed and it is very comfortable but if I muster up the energy to get out of bed at 7 versus just staying in bed and sleeping until 10 I feel like I've had a much more productive day.

Learning Challenge: Learning about Sleep

For this week I read An Underappreciated Key to College Success: Sleep. I always knew that getting a good nights rest is better than staying up all night studying before a test but I never knew that after being awake for 20 or more hours, your brain functions as if it is legally drunk. I think one thing that I want to experiment with is using white noise to sleep. Right now I usually fall asleep watching some random YouTube video which I know probably isn't the best for me but I think I use it more as background noise than anything. I wonder if using a white noise generator like the article mentions is better as I would not have to use my phone and can avoid the bluelight, although I do already have a bluelight filter that turns on on my phone past 10PM.

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Week 7: Microfiction

Wolf!, he said.

They didn't come

The boy cried wolf when their wasn't one, over and over.

When the wolf actually came, the others didn't.

Authors Note: This microfiction is an adaptation of the boy who cried wolf. In this common fable a boy says wolf multiple times when there actually isn't a wolf but when it actually does come and he says wolf, nobody comes to his aid as they think he is lying. This is a good life lesson as when you become known as a liar, even when you are telling the truth, people will still think you are lying.

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