Week 14 Review

This painting is Botticelli's  Primavera which is on display at the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy! I got the chance to see this three years ago. Wow, has it really been that long?? The symbolism is extremely important in this painting, albeit debated. I most enjoyed the theories that it had to do with the goddess Venus! Of course, as noted in Friday's announcements, this painting is also representative of the ancient Roman festival, Floralia!

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Week 14 Famous Last Words

Wow, I cannot believe that dead week is already here. Tomorrow is the beginning of our last week of class! It's bittersweet to be bringing a close to all the things that have played such a big part of my life, not only this semester, but also for the past four years!

This week in class, I read Italian Popular Tales! After studying abroad in Italy my freshman year (and being a life-long lover of all things Roman history), my ears always perk up at the opportunity to learn anything new about this ancient and complex culture. I particularly enjoyed these stories because they combined elements of familiarity with plots that were new and exciting! I think my favorite moment from the reading though was in the story where the ground opens up and leads to a mystery person that ends up being Pontius Pilate! I loved the element of suspense throughout the short story. Also, I thought that, like Dante's Inferno, the piece conveyed a lot about Italian changing culture over time.

While I did not do a storytelling this week, I did post my final story for my storybook. I found it a little more challenging than usual to write this story because the original stories were hard to mold to fit my writing goal. So, I challenged myself to think creatively to combine small elements of each of the source stories to fit in with my larger storybook story! I am proud of the result, and truly like the characters much better now without their not-so-nice attitudes!

Most of my other classes are also wrapping up for the semester. I finished one class last night, actually! Now, my main focus will be on completing my honors research paper and my capstone paper. My laptop and I are about to spend a lot of quality time together!

12 days until graduation!

Okay, I'm getting sentimental! I'll miss this place!
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Week 14 Tech Tip: Google Site Clean-Up

This week, I wanted to learn how to clean up my storybook Google site.

Since I just added a new page this week, I wanted to be sure to first disable the comments on the page. Next, I went in a took away the search bars that were once prominently featured at the top of my page. It looks so much more clean now without the bright white search bars in the middle of my carefully colored title bar! Finally, I did a once over to see that all of the images were sharp and fitting to the size of the template.

It feels great to look over the little details as I finish up my storybook! Check out the cleaned up version here.

Week 14 Learning Challenges: Reading Kama Sutra

This adorable graphic was featured on this morning's Learning by Heart post! It's my lucky day! As I tuck into the many, many books I'm using as sources in my capstone paper and honors research paper, I've found myself in quite a few of these hilarious reading positions. Reading truly involves getting 100% in your element so that you can learn from and experience the text. I've been trying to be less mindful of how I read and more mindful of what I feel and think during it.

My friend recently created an instagram collection of images with the joy of reading (in whatever way in whatever place is comfortable!) in mind. I instantly thought of it when I saw this picture! You can keep up with her posts here. P.S. I'm in a few of the photos!

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Week 14 Growth Mindset: Use your Brain...Draw and Color!

This week, I chose to look back at the Growth Mindset memes for my challenge, and I was so happy to see this cat representing Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences! I read his theory last semester and revisited it very recently. I've been doing my best to expand my mastery of all of my intelligences! This cat meme was perfect for this week because, for the first time, I tried to learn to draw calligraphy! I found that I'm not very good at it yet, but coloring in my adult coloring book helped me feel better about my efforts afterward!

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Week 14 Extra Credit Reading: Italian Popular Tales

Due to being sick and a few too many tornado warnings for my taste, I was not able to do my Wednesday reading diary post. So, here are my thoughts on the second half of the extremely interesting Italian Popular Tales unit! These stories are originally from Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane.

The story that immediately caught my eye was "An Incident in Rome." Why did a hole in the ground lead to somewhere? Why did the carter agree to go in?? Maybe I'm still in the Russian ghost story mindset, but I feel like that was foreshadowing something spooky. This story excellently used suspense. The identity of the person in the hole was not revealed until the very end. The story structure was composed just like a latin sentence is constructed! Wow, all my semesters of latin have paid off!

While the first section of stories was more familiar, I really enjoyed the newness of the stories and the diversity of themes in the second section!

Pontius Pilate-- the surprise character
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Week 14 Reading Diary: Italian Popular Tales

As much as I enjoyed my spooky Russian reading from last week, I have to admit that I was happy to turn to something a little more happily-ever-after this week with the Italian Popular Tales unit. These stories are originally from Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane. 

Since I studied abroad in Italy after my freshman year, I was excited to get a different perspective on the  culture that I so enjoyed learning from and about. Most of these tales seem to be from around the middle ages which was a time of huge diversity and commerce in Italy. How great to read some of the stories that probably were shared all over the growing cities and towns!

Many of these stories have similar bases to stories that I grew up hearing from my family or seeing in movies. For example, in this first part of the unit, I really enjoyed the story "The Fair Angola." While it had many similarities to what I know as Rapunzel, it also had themes from other classic tales like Rumpelstilskin! I wonder if more of the stories in the second unit will have that kind of overlap?

My favorite story by far, though, was the story of Catherine. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of Fates. I wonder if they have any connection to classical ideas of muses? Also, the number 7 kept being repeated in importance. I'd like to learn more about that and see if that symbol comes up in other stories.

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