Week 14: Famous Last Words

Quadrant streak of Legionella bacteria
(similar to the streaking I do in lab)

Well, this past week has been nothing but bittersweet for me. It was definitely a crazy week! As the semester draws to a complete close (with this upcoming week being dead week, aka the very last week of classes), it's been such a whirlwind. I had my very last regular test on Wednesday, and I've been finishing up all of my final experiments in my capstone lab, and this upcoming up week I will begin my final paper for capstone. I only have that one paper and one final, and I will officially be ready to graduate. I can't believe the time has actually come! It's honestly the most surreal feeling ever.

Another high I had this week was the Relay for Life event, which occurred over this past Friday. Together, the OU community raised over $180,000 for the American Cancer Society - absolutely unreal! It was such a fun experience, and I'm so glad I was able to spend my entire senior year working and planning such an amazing event for an even more amazing cause.

As far as this class goes, I am wrapping everything up this week and should be finished as soon I
as receive my comments back from Laura. It's been such a fun experience being in this class, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. There have definitely been some units that I have liked more than other, but all of them contain unique and individual stories of their own. I loved the idea of the UnTextbook; I think it has been really effective in the way the class was run. It's super easy to navigate and all of the notes in the episodes are super helpful too! Such an awesome class overall!

Indian Epic UnTexbook: Tales of the Sun

After skimming through the book options for the Indian Epics UnTextbook, the Tales of the Sun by Georgiana Kingscote and Natesa Sastri, were stories that just happened to pop out at me. After clicking on the link and leading to the Gutenberg website, I used the EPUB version of the story, and downloaded the book to my computer. Because I have a MacBook, my computer automatically opened up the book in the application iBooks. I've used iBooks for my own personal reason, so I'm not sure why I never thought to use it before for school! It was a great tool, and it was perfect for this particular assignment because it was super easy to navigate through, and iBooks automatically placed a link to the table of contents at the bottom of the screen, therefore it was super easy to jump between stories.

One of the stories I chose to read was "The Poisoned Food". The main reason I chose it was because Laura currently has it bold because she is considering as a story to include in the UnTextbook. I really enjoyed this read, and I thought it was lighthearted and very easy to follow. The language flowed very nicely, and I never found myself asking "wait, what is going on?". I think sometimes whenever the language gets too flowery or there are a lot of words that are still in the original language that the story was written in, it can sometimes be hard to follow. However, I think this story (and the other stories in this unit) were great!

Another story I looked at was "The Lost Camel", and I really enjoyed this story. The logic behind each of the young men's description of the camel was really interesting. I liked that each of the men were able to use the observations of the trail left by the camel to make different assumptions about the camel. It was fascinating to me that even though nobody had ever seen the camel, they could predict what he looked like. Overall, I think the story was really easy to read, and it was short and simple. I think this story would be a perfect addition to the UnTextbook!

Week 14 Storytelling: Straw Spun of Gold

"My daughter is the most beautiful and talented woman in all the land! She can spin straw directly into gold! Can you believe it? She deserves nothing but the most handsome prince as her husband," the poor miller exclaimed.

(Once Upon a Time [Miller's Daughter & Rumpelstiltskin])

The miller was sad, poor man who had lived his entire life living right next to the king's castle. He forever longed for his family to be royal, but he knew there was no way he could escape his poverty. For whatever reason this one day, the miller decided to press his luck and convince the king to
let him prove himself. If he wasn't going to be able to make it into royalty, at least maybe his daughter could live the life he always wanted.

"WHAT! Okay, well sir, I do believe you have yourself a deal. I love me some gold, of course, and if your daughter can really do what you're saying she can do, my son just might become the next available bachelor," the king cheerfully agreed.

When the miller got home, he delightfully explained to his daughter what her task would be, forgetting that this wasn't a talent she actually possessed. She had no idea what she was going to do. How would she be able to make this dream of her father's a reality?

Author's note: I decided to go with the story of Rumpelstiltskin as my story for this week because I love the story so much. I pretty much kept the story as the original, but just added a little more dialogue to the mix. I hope you enjoy my retell!

Bibliography: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

Reading Diary A: Grimm (Ashliman)

I wasn't quite sure exactly what I wanted to read for this last week of material, but I finally decided to go with Grimm (Ashliman). This is one set of stories I have wanted to read since nearly week 1, so I figured, what better time than the last week to go ahead and jump on board!

(Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book [1889])

One of my favorite stories from this unit (and in life in general) is Little Red Cap. As always, every time I hear this story, I enjoyed the cute story. However, I thought the ending was really interesting. In every single children's book that this story appears in, there is no mention of the huntsman coming into the house to cut open the wolf. I'm sure this is left out because it is a tad bit on the morbid side for a children's story. It's really interesting that the huntsman is able fully save her. Another thing I thought was interesting is how her name has been changed throughout time, history, and culture. Most stories that you hear of the little girl in the story refer to her as "Little Red Riding Hood"; however, in this story, she is referred to "Little Red Cap". I really do wonder where/when the common name we hear today became the popular name.

Another story I have always enjoyed reading is Rumpelstiltskin; therefore, it's only fitting that it is one of my favorites of this unit. I am an avid watcher of the show called Once Upon a Time that airs on ABC on Sunday nights, and one of the main characters os the show is Rumpelstiltskin. Like the original story, he is a poor little man who is always looking for something that will benefit him. In this story, he is willing to help the miller's daughter spin the gold, but before he does he says to her "What will you give me if I spin the straw this time?". Each time he is willing to help her, he only wants to know "what's in it for him". Although I have heard the general story of Rumpelstiltskin, I guess I never realized exactly how it ended. I had no idea he rips himself up into pieces! Crazy!

UnTextbook Online Reading Options

1. Device. I used a Macbook Pro laptop to complete this assignment.

2. Browser. I used Safari as my default browser, and for some of the readings, I downloaded them and opened them up in Adobe Reader. Some of them I just viewed as a PDF in my browser.

3. Best Option. I personally like downloading the PDF files because I find them a tad bit easier to read, but I think it's most likely due to the fact that that is method I am most familiar with.

4. Worst Option. I thought all of the options were great ones!

5. Reading Online. I have the Kindle app downloaded to my computer, so I use that for books that I read for leisure. I also have to read scientific documents/articles online often for many of my classes. I tend to just download the PDF to my computer and use Adobe Reader as the main program.

6. Taking Notes Online. Do you have a good method for taking notes when you are reading online in a browser window? For example, I open a plain text file resize my browser window and text file so that they both appear on the screen, and I take notes while I read. What notetaking method do you use for material you are reading in your browser window?

7. PDF Notetaking. I usually just pull up a word document (usually in the "note-taking" version) and place them side by side on my laptop in two separate windows.

8. Hard Copies. I personally prefer reading hard copies, especially scientific articles, because I find it much easier to take notes on a physical piece of paper because I am able to mark up all over the paper with highlighter and different colored pens, and then I type up my notes later. I often prefer printing at home because of the convenience; however, I tend to have to print documents with tons of pages and I run through printer ink like nobody's business. Because of this, I often will print off bigger documents from the library.

Online Education Review

I have taken quite a number of online courses throughout my time here at OU, and I can personally say that I have really enjoyed them all. One of the many features that I love the most is the ability to work at your own pace. Although all of the assignments and the way each course was set up have varied based on the likings of the professor, that is one thing that remains true throughout them all. Online courses give you the freedom and the flexibility to work on whatever you need to whenever you need to, and there is often some cushion if you are unable to complete some assignments. I love that online courses work with my busy schedule (believe me, I am one of the busiest people you will ever meet, haha). I really love how Laura has set up this course because there are so many graces if you happen to slip up a week or you just find yourself absolutely swamped and you are unable to complete something.

Online Course

Overall, I loved this course. I had a blast getting to know people through the blogs, and I especially enjoyed so many of the stories that we read. While there many familiar names, there were so many other stories that I had never heard of, and that definitely made it fun and enjoyable! I would absolutely recommend this course to everyone! (Don't worry, I already have to some!) I wish I could take it over and over again!

General Education Review

Knowledge

OU's general education requirements are very unique, in my opinion. I won't lie, when I first started at OU, I used to think the gen. ed. classes were really stupid and rather pointless. However, as I've gone through each semester of my college experiences, I've grown a deeper appreciation for the classes. The high school that I graduated from allowed many opportunities for students to earn college credit through concurrent courses at a nearby college, as well as numerous AP courses. I was lucky enough to come into OU as a sophomore with 37 hours under my belt. Many of these courses, were of course, general education credits. As I began to decide what I wanted to do and what direction I wanted to head with my degree plan, I began slowly trying to craft a way to just knock out all of the general education courses at once. I quickly learned that was a stupid decision on my part, due to my heavy load of science courses. I had nothing to cushion the blow, so to speak. General education courses, in my opinion, help students in all areas, which I think is the original purpose in the creation of them. If general education courses were not required, I would not have been required to take any sort of history, English, or social science course because none of which are automatically built into the curriculum of my major.