Collage Tech Tip: Lil Wayne and Kurt Cobain

A picture of Kurt Cobain I had on my phone and a picture of Lil Wayne that I actually took at his concert. 

I made a photo collage using my phone instead of my computer. The app I made this collage on is called Enlight which I actually use for most of my photo editing which normally ends up just being memes.  I actually make collages pretty often for different things but for this assignment I chose to do a collage of two of my favorite musicians. I chose Lil Wayne and Kurt Cobain because I've been listening to them pretty frequently recently.

Learning Challenge: Be Happy!

Want to Be Happier? Science Says Do These 11 Things Every Single Day
One of the things that I had already known but this article confirmed was that actually smiling makes people a lot more happy. I knew this from random speakers I have heard in the past but I still think it is cool how performing the action actually makes one happier. I found it interesting how just planning a vacation can make someone happier even if they don't go on it. I actually used to make fake vacations with my friend without even knowing this but they were always hilarious and did make me happy. I also became curious with the idea of mediation. I have never really thought about doing that but honestly it wouldn't be the worst thing for me to take a little time when I'm stressed to just empty my mind through meditation. Overall this article was interesting to read and made me think of ways I need to be more positive.

I chose this picture because of what the article said about taking vacations and this is one of my favorite movies. I  found it on Flickr. 

Growth Mindset: Sharing the idea with my room mate

For this Growth Mindset assignment, I choose to talk to my room mate Graham about it all. Basically the way the conversation went was me explaining my outlook on it all him and asking him how he handles things in his life to keep positive and reflect on his daily life occurrences. One thing he told me that he has been trying to do better was realize why he is doing something in moments and whether it will affect him positively or not in the future. I told him that is a good idea and that I should do that with things like studying and what not. Sometimes I will just be doing something and living in the moment which isn't bad but it might not be productive for the future. I also gave him some ideas about reflecting at the end of each day to truly analyze what one can do better for them selves. Overall I'd say it was a positive conversation and he enjoyed listening to the ideas behind Growth Mindset.

I chose this picture because Graham and I got our minds together to have a good conversation about being positive and  proactive. I got it from here . 

Wikipedia Trails: From Spiders to Horse Shoe Crabs

Spiders

From my reading this week I read a story about why spiders hide in the corners of room so this is why I looked them up first. I personally hate spiders and am actually terrified of them. I learned from this page that their closest relative is the Scorpion, which I also would hate if I ever encountered one. I also learned that one thing that separates spiders from a lot of the bugs is the fact that they have fangs which can inject venom. I knew that they could do that but wasn't really sure how the process occurred which was cool to read about.

Scorpions 

I've never really found any interest in scorpions, all I knew was to avoid them at all costs haha. I found it interesting that they are on all continents except Antartica and can live in some pretty bizarre conditions. I also found out that the most harmful stinging ones aren't on North America so that gave me a little more assurance.

A picture of a scorpion found on Wikimedia Commons.

Eurypterid

I didn't even know these existed but they are more often referred to as Sea Scorpions. Although most of them swim, I learned that some of them have long enough legs where they can crawl. I also learned that their closest relative is the Horse shoe crab.

Horse Shoe Crabs

These are another type of arthropod and I obviously went straight to their page from the sea scorpion one from seeing how closely related they were. I learned that they have a lot more rods and cones compared to humans meaning they are extremely susceptible to light but even with that they have very poor eyesight. I also found it interesting that these creatures don't have any hemoglobin in their blood.

Reading Notes: Congo Unit, Part B

Congo: The Antelope And The Leopard

What I really liked about this story was the use of dialogue to set the tones in the story. For example "What fearful eyes you have got..." this was a great way to communicate the idea that is supposed to be seen. I like this because as a reader you can fully imagine what is going on for the plot yet also build a visual. Also in my opinion this is a great way to understand where the character is coming from too. For me to try and use this story as a template with my own writing I should focus on trying to describe things while having to characters communicate with each other. For this story I was thinking that I could use the idea of hide and seek for children since that is kind of what the leopard and antelope are doing. In my portfolio since it is supposed to be younger things people can relate to I feel a good hide and seek with a twist to this story could be very entertaining. I could possibly change the ending around in some way too because I wasn't the biggest fan of this ending. Maybe it is just me but I haven't liked the ending or climaxes for most of the congo and west african stories. I feel like they are too rushed which makes me think that as a writer I should focus on delivering the final message with such detail that the reader could never say it was rushed. I don't like the feeling of wanting more so I need to make sure that in my own stories that I'm not leaving the reader hanging by lack of detail and emotion. Overall, I liked this story and it got by brain thinking about different ideas for a story, but I felt that it could have been delivered in the end better. 

This is a picture of the leopard found on Pixabay.

Bibliography:

This story is part of the Congo unit. Story source: Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).

Reading Notes: West African Folktales, Part A

Why Spiders Are Always Found in Corners of Ceilings

I truly enjoyed this story because of the way everything was built up. I felt like I was riding a rocking wave because it would build me up to be excited for his farm then he would get robbed. Then it would build me up for making the rubber man to catch the robber, and then it would bring me back down when Anansi got caught. This made me take away the aspect of keeping the reader fully entertained. I was just seeking the climax but from multiple aspects which is something I want to try and resemble in my stories. At one point I forgot the title was why they are found in the corners because the author had me focused on other issues. I think the way this did it was through the detail in the hard work or the emotions of the different characters. I think as a reader you grew to have empathy for the different characters because their reactions were described so well. I normally focus on details in my reading notes because I think that is the most important thing for me to catch on to as a writer but this time I’m going to say the details in the reactions are truly what made this a better story. The descriptions of what caused things to occur like a chair reaction made it easy to flow with the story. Then as you were flowing it all came together and you realized why spiders hide in corners.

Honestly though this made me think of this story of an example of how to end the story as well. I think it could have gone more into detail with how he felt embarrassed to fully explain why he hid. I liked the ending by all means but as a writer I think I should focus on not leaving any descriptive nature out as this story seemed to do for me. 

A spider picture I found on Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography:

This story is part of the West African Folktales unit. Story source: West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

The specific story link is above in the header.