Famous Last Words: Week 14

This week I did was not able to complete both Readings, instead I had to use my Reading Diary A in place for B. The holidays were a crazy busy time and I was still rushing around on Monday and completely forgot. I chose another online PDE over the Buddhist tradition. The readings were very interesting, so it is a shame I was unable to complete both.

For the writing this week, I don’t think I would consider it my best work. I chose one of the stories from the reading called “The Hare Who Ran”. It was a very interesting story, but I was not able to recreate as good as I would have liked. I drew upon my childhood memories of snow days to reimagine the story. However, the snow days were some of the best times “back in the day” so I got a little nostalgic while I was writing.

As far as other people’s wriring, Heather’s storybook project really caught my attention. I don’t know how that was the first time I’d visited her storybook, but it was very well written and have a very cool layout that matched well with the overall theme.

My other classes have not been so bad this week. I had my first round of presentations, which is the first sign of the semester really coming to an end. I have spent most of this week just preparing the final two weeks of the semester, which will be filled with writing papers, presentations, and studying for finals.

Outside of school, I have to say it was very nice to be able to spend time with family last week. It’s always nice to get to spend time with people you don’t always get to see during the holidays. It definitely makes the hectic end to the semester easier to deal with.

Turkey Time: Wiki Commons

Famous Last Words: Week 12

Today marks my last day of class for the week. With all of my papers out of the way, it wasn't near as bad as my past weeks. I am enjoying the week of, though, because I will have three 10 page papers and the rest of my capstone due by the end of the semester *plays sad violin music*. I really liked this week’s extra credit blog comments assignment because it allowed me to reflect on this semester and think about all the stories I have read. At the beginning of the semester everyone was still putting their feelers out for their blog, so it was very cool to see how everyone developed their writing skills as time went on. It's impressive to see how good my classmates have gotten at this skill. Reading all of those stories reminded me of how much influence they had on my own writing skills. In the beginning, my writing was very rigid and didn’t have much imagination that allowed it to venture from the original story. However, after reading other people’s blogs you start to get more creative and stumble across different ideas for how to spin your story. It was a really helpful part of the course.

Outside of class, I had a fairly productive week as well. I have had a damaged car for a while now, so I finally took it to an auto repair shop and got an estimate on it. I’m planning on taking it in next week to get the repairs taken care of. It’s going to be so relieving to be able to open my car door all the way! Also, I submitted my final paper work for a scuba diving instructors course today. It only took me a quick trip to the post office, which is no big deal, but this thing has been lingering over me since the end of July, so I am very excited to have everything finally completed. As the semester comes to a close, everything seems to be working out pretty well!

Keep Calm and Carry On: Google Images 

Famous Last Words: Week 11

This week was another busy one. Unfortunately, I started to lag behind in this class. I wasn't able to complete the reading diaries or write a story, so I am knocking out all of the extra credit to help make up for it now that my schedule has slowed down a little bit.

This week I had a 2 page mini essay, a 150 page book, three chapters of another book, a research paper proposal that included a thesis statement, bibliography, and explanation of the question, significance, etc.., and then to top that off I had a 3,500 words draft due for my capstone project. All of this, with the exception of the 150 page book, was due by Wednesday. I'm not going to lie, it was a pretty miserable week, but I'm glad that it is all out of the way. Hopefully now, with the majority of my capstone done, the rest of the semester won't be so bad.

  

Lots of Paper: Wiki Commons 

Famous Last Words: Week 10

I am a little early on this post, but I have already had a busy week so I feel like it is merited. This week I chose to read "The Life of Buddha" online from the Sacred Texts site. Since the beginning of the class I have been wanting to learn more about the story of Buddha, so this was the perfect opportunity. The readings are a little lengthy, so I broke up the readings into two parts. For the reading, I focused on the episode in which Buddha returns home and convinces his brother to join him in his new pious life, which sort of bothers their father. I liked this story because it shows that everyone can create whichever path they want in like. There is no "right" or "wrong" as long as you are passionate about it. I really liked the storybooks I read this week too. I read to Western themed stories that were both very entertaining. I have also been really busy outside of this class. I have my capstone paper draft due next week, so I have to pump out 14 pages between now and then. It's going to be a busy end to the semester but I'm looking forward to finishing up my college career!

Sausage Race Finish Line: Wiki Commons