Week 2 Story: The Ivory Girl

Pygmalion the artist lived in a small house, where his only company was his painting and sculpting tools. He loved his job as an artist, but as time went by his house seemed to get smaller and smaller and he became lonelier and lonelier.

"Only a woman," he thought, "can cure my loneliness." So he began his search for a wife, but no woman could please him. Everywhere he turned, he saw wickedness and shortcomings.

"These women are inferior to me," he sighed. "Not one will be a suitable wife." Returning to his art, Pygmalion wistfully sketched the lines of the perfect woman who only existed in his dreams. Suddenly, he dropped his pencil and leapt to his feet.

"That's it!" he gasped. "I will make my own woman, the perfect wife." Grabbing his chisel and pulling a block of ivory from the closet, Pygmalion began to create his masterpiece. He worked tirelessly until the statue was finished, and when he stepped back to admire it, he fell in love with the ivory curves made by his own hand.

Pygmalion lived happily with his statue for some time. He liked to gaze at her and wrap his arms around her. Eventually though, he started to want more.

"If only she were as warm and soft as flesh," he murmured, stroking her lifeless cheek one evening. "And if only she could bat her eyelashes and smile at me. Then she would truly be the perfect woman."

Venus, hearing his request and seeing a lesson to be learned, reached down from her station and touched a lock of ivory hair on the statue. Warmth gathered there and spread to the girl's head, traveling down and turning stone to flesh. Pygmalion, who had his arms around her, felt her soften against him. He grabbed her face, now warm and glowing, and pressed his lips against hers.

He felt hands on his chest, and at first they excited him until he realized that they were pushing him away. His statue's lips broke away from his, crying out in confusion.

"Who are you? How did I get here? Where have I come from?" the girl asked, shaking her head and gazing warily at Pygmalion.

Pygmalion, annoyed at the interruption, replied, "My dear, you know me. I am your creator and you are mine."

"I may be familiar to you," said the girl slowly, "but you are a stranger to me. I am not yours."

Pygmalion was beginning to grow nervous. He thought maybe he liked the girl better as a statue. She sounded like those other women whose hearts he believed to be inferior to his. Mustering up all his patience, he assured her, "You are mine. I made you and we are to be married and have a child together." He pulled her in again.

At this the girl spun around and stepped away from Pygmalion. "If you wanted me to be your statue, you should have kept me as ivory," she said indignantly. She strode toward the door.

Pygmalion lives alone to this day, still unaware that his heart is no better than any woman's. He has stopped including women in his sketches and sculptures, because even those he cannot control.

Diana of Gabii, sculpted by Praxiteles.

Source: Wikipedia.

Author's Note: "Pygmalion" is a story about a man who, thinking all women to be bad, sculpts his own woman out of ivory. In the original story, Venus grants his request to turn the statue into a real girl because she favors Pygmalion. The original story treats the girl as a statue even when she has become a person. She bashfully but readily accepts Pygmalion's advances and bears a child for him. In my retelling, I wanted the girl to be given the autonomy she deserves as a human, and I also wanted Pygmalion to be exposed for wrongly assuming women to have some failing of the heart that men don't have. Women aren't perfect because they're human, not because they're inferior to men.

Bibliography: "Pygmalion" from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline. Web source.

Reading Notes: "The Man in the Moon" and "Pygmalion"

"The Man in the Moon" stands out to me because I think its moral is readily applicable to modern life. The basic idea of the story is that a blacksmith is unhappy with his job because he is uncomfortable, so he asks to be something else, which is even more uncomfortable.   He continues to shape shift until he is the moon; at this point he remembers his old life as a blacksmith but cannot change back and is forever stuck as the moon. I think it is easy to identify with the blacksmith, even though he acts foolishly, because many of us have a tendency to wish we could have or be more, only to find out that we are still not satisfied when we reach that goal. To me, this story is a more interesting version of the adage "The grass is always greener on the other side."

"Pygmalion" is a unique story, and I liked how this particular retelling described the metamorphosis of the ivory woman. I thought the premise, that Pygmalion created his own ideal (but inanimate) woman because he was unsatisfied with those available to him, had promise for a lesson or moral, but instead Pygmalion just got everything he wanted. I was surprised that the ivory woman just bashfully accepted what was happening to her as she woke and had no problem marrying Pygmalion and bearing a child for him. Even when she becomes a real person, she is not treated as a real person in the story. This bothers me, which means it might be a good story for me to retell differently!

Pygmalion and Galatea, painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Reading Options

I am pleasantly surprised at the vast amount of reading options available to us this semester! Especially exciting to me is the fact that the options come from all over the world, including cultures I've never even heard of, such as the Khasi people from India and Bangladesh. I've heard many Greek myths and Western fairy tales before, and while I'll be happy to revisit those stories and compare them to others, I'm pleased about the exposure to other cultures and styles of storytelling that I'll be getting.

Even though I just mentioned how excited I am to learn about other places through their stories, I'm going to start at home. One of the units I am very interested in is the Southwest/California Native American tales. I'm from New Mexico and proud of it, but I know shamefully little about the Native American tribes from our area. I've heard the Coyote trickster tales, but not much else. Creation stories are attractive to me, so I hope to read a variety of those. There are many in this unit! The Nigerian unit has many stories that explain why certain natural phenomena happen, especially concerning animals, and I find that interesting and closely connected to creation stories. I think I like to hear the different ways people explain how the world around them works and why it works that way, whether the explanation is literal or figurative.

I came across the Japanese mythology unit through the story randomizer on the UnTextbook site. The randomizer displayed the Japanese story "The Fortunate Fish-Hook" and I was drawn in by the artwork. I am a fan of a certain style of Japanese art that I think is best represented by Kawase Hasui, and the artwork for "The Fortunate Fish-Hook" reminded me of this style; I couldn't help clicking! I like that the book used for the Japanese mythology includes artwork, so I'll be returning to this unit.

Illustration from "The Fortunate Fish-Hook." 

From Romance of Old Japan.

Example of Kawase Hasui's work, from Wikimedia Commons.

I read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie in high school, which filled me with a vague desire to educate myself on some Indian epics. While I'm not in the Indian Epics class, I was happy to see that there is a unit over Ramayana for us Mythology and Folklore people! I'd like to read this "brief retelling" in order to gain a basic knowledge of the events and themes of the epic (for cultural reference reasons) and so that I can maybe read longer versions in the future. I also see that there are other Indian units with great collections of stories that I'd be interested in reading as well.

There are many more units that sound interesting to me that I haven't yet explored; the last one I'll mention today is the Women Saints unit. I'm not Catholic, but I'm really intrigued by the mysticism of Catholicism and the many stories about saints. I'm also interested in the way women were treated and written about in the Middle Ages. I read the story of Saint Juliana, and her treatment was pretty disturbing; what was most disturbing to me was that her imprisonment for refusing to marry a powerful man seemed quite commonplace (although that could just be the language of the story). I liked Juliana's strong and steadfast character, and I found the conversation with the demon and other spiritual aspects of the story pretty interesting. Christianity from the Middle Ages is generally terrifying and never boring!

I plan to keep exploring the units, but I think I have enough to keep me occupied for the time being!

Time Strategies

Ironically, I'm writing this post at the last minute. I promise I left enough time to do it, but maybe I need to read a few more time management articles!

I started by reading "You Say Multitasking Like It's a Good Thing" by Charles Abaté. This was a great article for me to read, because I've noticed over the past year or so that my ability to focus my attention on one thing is suffering. It's easy for me to fall into the habit of checking my phone constantly, even when I'm trying to do serious work. Not only can that lead to me wasting my time on Instagram, but even the act of checking my phone distracts me and makes me lose my focus. Abaté points out that according to research, we actually learn differently when we multitask (which is basically what I do when I continually interrupt my work to check my phone). He writes that when we single-task, we learn on a more conscious and intellectual level, which allows us to remember and apply information better. This summer, I deleted all my "fun" apps (mostly social media) off my phone, just for a few weeks, to allow myself to break the habit of constantly checking it. This strategy worked, because once I realized I had nothing to check and no apps to pointlessly open, I stopped picking up my phone so often. I don't think there's anything wrong with social media, but I also realize that it's an important skill to be able to focus one's attention on one thing for a long period of time. It's something I'm working on, and articles like this one with real evidence for the harmfulness of distraction (in the form of multitasking, in this case) serve as a great reminder to continue checking and working on my focus.

The perils of multitasking!

Comic by Rob Cottingham, Flickr.

I've seen "single-tasking" challenges online, which sound silly and can be extreme but are good ways to observe our tendency to multitask. Realizing how strong the urge is to multitask and distract ourselves is a good first step in bettering our abilities to focus.

I also read "How to Beat Procrastination" by Caroline Webb, which explains why the lure of procrastination is so strong and suggests strategies for avoiding it. She argues that the reason we procrastinate is because we have a strong present bias, which means that the present is more real and concrete to us than the future and so we tend to favor the present when we make our decisions. In other words, we procrastinate because working would be hard on our present self, even though procrastination is much harder on our future self. I had never heard of the present bias before, and I think it's a really helpful way to explain procrastination. It is true that life is usually easier when I don't procrastinate, but that's difficult to see in the moment when I'm faced with work. Knowing I have this bias can help me to better evaluate my time management decisions, and Webb's suggestions for conquering this bias are helpful. Especially helpful to me is her suggestion to break down the assignment into small, manageable tasks and identify the first one. When I procrastinate, it's usually because I'm overwhelmed by the task I have to do. If I can make that first task into something small and doable, and if I can also recognize that I'm biased and I'll have to do the work at some point no matter what, I think that I can come much closer to beating procrastination.

Technology Tools Overview

Source: Public Domain Pictures.

As you can see in the caption above, I've already learned one small technology skill in this class that I didn't have before, which is linking text to a web page. It's simple, but I had never done it before. I find it really useful and a nice way to give background information on anything I want to talk about on this blog, without going off on a tangent. It would also be useful for a regular blogger to link between her own posts or blogs.

The list of technology tools I've used prior to this class is not very extensive. For most classes, I only need to use Word, Canvas, email, and maybe Excel. I used Wordpress to make a blog about what I ate during my semester abroad as a class assignment. This is my first online class, so it makes sense that I'll be using new tools I haven't tried before!

I use bookmarks a lot for personal and school purposes, but I didn't know that there were bookmark organizers like Diigo. I'll have to check that out because I really do like bookmarking and I have a lot of them!

I've used Mac Preview to do basic editing of pictures, but I've never made memes before. I've also never done an audio recording on a computer or published a website.

I like that there are quite a few different platforms and pages for the content of this class. There are many ways to connect, and it's fun to be exposed to different options for posting web content and to see how the different options can be connected. I think using the Internet comes naturally to people my age, but there are many platforms I've never even heard of before, so I'm looking forward to improving my knowledge of the various ways to publish content online.

Class Assignments Overview

Ready to read!

Library at Chirk Castle, Wales. Photo by Brian Smithson on Flickr.

After reviewing the weekly assignments, I'm feeling excited about the amount of freedom this class provides! All my other classes this semester are quite strict in terms of requirements (they're mostly just exams), so I'm looking forward to more self-expression and self-guidance in this class. The only core assignment I've had experience in is the reading. I enjoy writing but haven't written a story since I was a kid and I've never done creative writing in school, so I'm excited to try that out and improve. I'm usually pretty private and wouldn't dare post my writing or thoughts online for my peers to see, but I actually do look forward to commenting on other people's posts and receiving feedback on mine. I think it'll be nice to have this class that is so different in both structure and content than my other classes!

The extra credit assignments I'm most excited about are the growth mindset posts, HEART posts, and famous last words posts. I think these could serve as great personal reflections, and these are things I'd consider doing even if not in the class. I think the Wikipedia Trails idea is also really cool! When I was a little younger, I would sometimes play the Wiki Game, which is an online race to get from one random topic to another random topic on Wikipedia. Wikipedia Trails seems similar and I think I might enjoy it! I'd also enjoy looking at other people's trails. It looks like I have the opportunity to grow on a personal level as well as an academic one in this class, and that really motivates me.

Growth Mindset: First Impressions

I am new to Carol Zweck and her studies about the growth mindset and fixed mindset, but I wish I had been exposed to her earlier! The videos I watched about her findings greatly impressed me and have already started to change the way I think about school. I'm so happy that her videos were assigned to us in this first week of classes, because I think I can use her ideas to guide me through the semester and keep me level-headed and ready for a challenge.

What spoke to me most was the differences in the way people with a growth mindset and people with a fixed mindset respond to challenges. I saw some of myself and my own behavior in Zweck's description of students with a fixed mindset: while I do enjoy being challenged, I think what I enjoy most is being good at the challenge. I like to do things right, and I can become quite frustrated when I can't do something correctly right away. Running away from the challenge and doing something easier is definitely a temptation for me, because just as Zweck says, I don't want to embarrass myself. I think my frustration when I'm not immediately good at something, as well as my fear of failure and embarrassment, stem from a fixed mindset. It is so freeing to think that my intelligence and capabilities are not fixed and that I'll be capable in the future of doing things I'm not capable of doing now. Put that way, it seems like a simple and obvious idea, but I think many of us don't carry that attitude with us in our day-to-day lives. Failure becomes less permanent, and therefore less scary, when I say to myself, "Just because I'm not good at this now doesn't mean I never will be!" This mindset is invaluable for the beginning of the semester, when in many classes I'm faced with all the tests and projects and labs I "need" to ace all at once. Zweck's ideas have helped me to slow down this week when I get overwhelmed and to remind myself that I'm in these classes to learn and not to be perfect.

Zweck's short video "Make Challenge the New Comfort Zone" is also helpful for the beginning of the semester, because it is a call to crave challenge rather than ease. I like that she says we should feel cheated when we do an easy task, because challenge is what stretches us and makes us better. It's easy for me to fall into the mindset of just getting through each class as easily as possible and being happy when something is easy. This video is a great reminder that challenge is good for us and we should want and even create challenge. Craving challenge is a completely different way of approaching school than usual, and it really does change my attitude towards my more difficult classes.

For example, the class I'm most worried about this semester is Quantitative Analysis, which is a chemistry class that requires analyzing unknown samples and determining the amount of certain chemicals in those samples. The lab is done independently (no lab partner) and we're graded on our accuracy rather than just completing the lab. This is very different from anything I've done before, and when I first heard all the requirements for the class, I started to get nervous about working on my own and having to be so accurate. When I tried to apply the growth mindset to my attitude about the class, I realized that if I want to do research (or any detail-oriented job, really), it will be important for me to be able to work independently and accurately, whether the work is in a lab or a hospital or an office building. This class has the opportunity to be a wonderful learning experience for me, and while I'm not expecting to enjoy every second of it or to never get anxious about it, I appreciate that I have a chance to practice working in a lab and to get better at many different skills. What a different attitude! Thank you, Carol Zweck! And thanks to Laura for introducing the growth mindset to me.

I like this quote (and the cute cat!) because I have trouble with 

not trying things out of fear of embarrassing myself or failing. 

This is a great reminder for me!

(Image made by Laura Gibbs at Growth Mindset Resources.

Original image from cheezburger.)

Introduction to a Girl with No Plans

Hi! My name is Sally and I'm a junior majoring in biochemistry here at OU. I was born in North Carolina but have spent most of my life in Los Alamos, New Mexico (known for the WWII Manhattan Project). I chose to attend OU for college because although I'm really fond of New Mexico and its gorgeous landscapes, I wanted to try living in a new state and OU gave me the option to do that without spending too much money!

Beautiful Los Alamos! I really do miss the mountains

during the semester. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I enjoy learning about biochemistry because finding connections between different ideas, facts, and systems makes me really excited! Biochemistry has a lot of these connections because it requires us to think on large and small scales to understand life, from the atom to the cell to the organism. It makes me happy and full of wonder to see how the simplest chemistry concept allows the existence of complex functions and systems in the body. I don't know what I want to do career-wise yet, but I'm considering doing research. I chose biochemistry not because I had a certain career in mind but because I generally like studying it and I like a certain amount of stability, which a STEM major can provide.

Here is a blurry picture of me presenting my

summer research in Los Alamos.

My favorite things to do are playing the piano, spending time outside, reading (I like classics the best), and spending time with my friends or parents. I've played piano since I was 7, and it's been a big part of my life. I think I have more innate motivation to play piano than to do anything else! My favorite composer to play is Debussy (but I definitely haven't played all the big composers!), and I also really like playing jazz and gospel arrangements. 

I know it's cliché because everyone loves it, but I'll still say it: I love to travel! Last semester I studied abroad in Arezzo, Italy, which was wonderful and definitely gave me the travel bug if I didn't have it before. For spring break, one of my friends and I rented bicycles in France and traveled on a bike trail by the Loire river for five days, visiting little villages and staying in Airbnbs along the way. I really enjoy visiting smaller towns since I'm not much of a city person and since the people are always so dang nice!

Cycling in France, with the Loire River

in the background!

Even though I had a great time abroad and am hoping to travel more someday, I must say that I'm also happy to be at OU again, surrounded by Chick-Fil-A and ready for another semester!

Storybook Favorites

After browsing various students' storybooks, I chose these three because of their unique approaches to the project and their detailed, purposeful introductions.

Ancient Chinese Fairy Tales (Gǔdài tónghuà gùshì)

Tin Hau Temple (Mosaic Art Source)

This storybook retells three ancient Chinese fairy tales and compares them to classic American fairy tales and bedtime stories that the storybook's author heard growing up. I enjoyed the author's introduction, in which he explains that his motivation for creating this storybook stems from his childhood affinity for bedtime stories and from his marriage to a Chinese woman. After reading the introduction, I felt that I knew exactly what I would be reading and why this storybook exists in the first place. 

The title, Ancient Chinese Fairy Tales, is very clear, especially combined with the author's statement in the introduction that his purpose is to retell a number of these fairy tales. I knew ancient Chinese fairy tales existed before this storybook, but I had never been exposed to any.

The design of the site is clean and pleasant, and it does bring to mind images of Chinese culture. I like the blossoming tree branch at the top of the page; it's not distracting and it definitely adds to the look of the site. The navigation bar is easy to use and the font is nice and simple.

Law & Order: The Shape Shifters Unit

The city of Ayodhya, where the "show" takes place.

(Wikimedia Commons)

This storybook is a spin-off of the popular show Law & Order, focusing on a variety of shape shifters in Indian epics. I think it's a really clever and unique way of introducing characters and their stories, and the title itself made me want to read further into the storybook. As with the previous storybook, I knew that shape shifters in Indian epics existed, but I had never heard their specific stories. I like that the storybook's author chose a pretty specific topic (shape shifters) and then took that topic in an interesting and humorous direction.

The introduction is written in the voice of the Law & Order narrator, which is funny and kept me entertained enough to move on and read some of the individual stories. I liked that in the introduction the author gave us some specific information on the stories we would be reading; it's a good way to pique interest and keep the audience reading. I understood what the storybook was about and what each story would be about by the end of the introduction, which I appreciate.

The author seems to have chosen a stark, almost futuristic theme, which goes well with the typical aesthetics of Law & Order. I would have liked to see a better picture on the site's homepage.

The Four Elements: Birth and Death Stories

(Geninne's Art Blog)

This storybook discusses birth and death stories of various characters in Indian epics and the importance of the different "elements" (water, wind, earth, fire) in these stories. I think this is such a creative idea and shows that the author put a lot of thought into the topic. She discusses the symbolism of each element and how this symbolism is significant in certain characters' stories. Stories are drawn from the Ramayana, which I had heard of but not read, and the Mahabharata, which I had never heard of.

The storybook's title interested me because it gave me an idea of what the site would be about but left me wondering exactly what it meant. The introduction did a good job of explaining the title and the author's motivation for writing about birth and death stories through the lens of the four elements. I liked that she began by discussing the elements and their importance in the Indian epics, and then moved on to talk about interesting birth and death stories that could not have happened without these elements, and finished by explaining why the elements' connection with the birth and death stories actually matter. The introduction flows naturally and gives its audience a reason to read on.

The design of the site is clean and bright, which I like. One thing that stood out to me was that the author got all her illustrations from the same source. This tied the site together and gave it a coherent feel. I do wish that she had included some pictures of the characters she discussed, perhaps in connection to the element under scrutiny.

Arezzo, One of My Favorite Places

Last spring, I spent four months studying abroad in Arezzo, Italy. Arezzo is a Tuscan town that's been around since Etruscan times. It's built as a medieval city, with its duomo, or main town church, at the very top of the hill, and the rest of the town center cascading down towards the fields and train station. It's hard for me to choose any one place as my favorite, but I had a really special time here. Arezzo isn't tiny (its population is around 100,000), but due to the concentrated town center, it feels sort of like a village. My friends and I could walk just about anywhere we needed to go, and I loved that those walks always took place on cobblestone down narrow, winding streets. We quickly got to know the owners of our favorite lunch places, since the employees don't change so often as they do in America, and often the owners of these small shops serve you themselves. I really enjoyed the intimate atmosphere of the town. I also loved that we were only an hour and 8 euro away from Florence! I miss being surrounded by so many centuries of history and art. And boy do I miss the pizza.

Piazza Grande: host of cappuccino drinkers, 

a famous joust held twice a year, and

some scenes from Life is Beautiful.

Source: Wikipedia.

Basilica of San Domenico, located

just down the street from the

converted monastery we stayed in.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Cobblestone streets!

Source: Wikipedia Italy.

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