Week 8 Progress

Overall, I'm happy with my progress in this class so far. I look forward to the reading, I've learned to enjoy the writing, and I like where my project is going. My schedule for the reading is good, but as I discussed in my "Week 8 Reading and Writing" post, I usually leave the story for Thursday evening, which creates a bit of stress and sometimes causes me to post a story that I'm not proud of at all. Also, my Friday mornings are busier than I originally anticipated, so I end up doing the Friday assignments over the weekend, which is a bit of a pain. Also, when I do assignments at the last minute, I don't have the time or mental energy to fix things as I go, so I think the quality of my work would improve if I gave myself a little extra time.

I think the most important thing I can do to aid my progress in this class is to set aside time on Wednesday and Friday to stick to my original schedule and hold myself to it. I still like that schedule, because Wednesday is not a busy day for me and I have a couple hours Friday afternoon to do some work. Perhaps if I don't go home right away on Friday and instead head to the library after my last class, I'll be able to complete at least 2/3 of the assignments that I'm currently doing on the weekend.

Autumn day. Source: Pixabay.

The weather right now is a huge motivation for me to push through the semester, because fall is my favorite season!

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Feedback tells you that you can go higher. 

Source: Growth Mindset Resources.

This cat is a great reminder that we should have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset when we receive feedback, whether positive or negative. When we receive feedback, we shouldn't let it make us feel low, but instead it should inspire us to go higher and give us a path on which to do that!

So far, I've had a great experience receiving feedback from other students in the class. I like that the story comments are more social, so I get to hear what people appreciated about the story. I do think about what people have said they liked when I write my stories. It's nice to know that someone is reading my story each week, and I think that pushes me to put more effort into my writing. I wish that I was getting more constructive criticism on my project, as most of the comments have been more social and purely positive. I do really appreciate hearing that I'm on the right track, but sometimes I'm not sure what I want to change and what's working for people, so I hope that as my project continues I'll get more constructive feedback.

I've put a fair amount of effort into the comments I give other people, and for the project I try to give an idea for something to add or expand upon, even if I thought the introduction/story was nearly perfect. I enjoy reading other people's projects more than I thought I would, because my classmates have been so creative with their Storybook ideas and their Portfolio stories! I especially like reading the Storybooks because people have come up with some very interesting and unique topics.

I don't feel like I know anyone in this class very well, just because we don't see each other and it's a big class, but I've started to recognize certain names, and I associate those names with their introduction. It's fun to go to someone's project or weekly story and realize that I've read their introduction and already know something about them! I'm pretty happy with my introduction post and the comments on it. I talked about why I'm a biochemistry major in the introduction, and people often comment on that. Those comments are a nice weekly boost of motivation for when classes are hard, ha ha!

I might add a sentence to my comment wall that encourages constructive criticism and ideas to help me move forward in my project. I want to let people know that I really do want to know what's not working for them and what they'd like to see more of!

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I have been really enjoying the reading assignments so far. Other than this class, I am only taking STEM classes, so it is a nice break to read stories. Now that the weather has cooled down, I've been sitting outside to do the reading, so I usually look forward to it and it doesn't feel like an assignment.

My favorite readings so far have been "Cupid and Psyche" and the Japanese mythology unit. I liked Cupid and Psyche because it's an interesting story with a fun plot, and it created beautiful and unique mental pictures for me. Also, a couple years ago I read Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, so I enjoyed comparing this story to Lewis's retelling. I enjoyed the Japanese mythology unit because I thought it was beautifully written. I especially loved the first story in the unit, "Izanagi and Izanami," because it describes the creation of the world so artistically and lyrically. It illustrates the birth of the world and all the gods and goddesses by two flowers shooting upwards and downwards, which I just love.

My reading notes have been pretty helpful. I think the act of writing them helps more than the actual notes themselves, because I don't rely on them very heavily while writing the story each week. I use them as sort of a brain-storming session, where I write a sentence or two about aspects of the story that interested me. Later, when I plan the story, I look back and choose one or two aspects that I want to expand on in my story. I think this system has been working pretty well, because it gives me a reminder of what struck me while I read, which gives me a starting place for my retelling.

It has been surprisingly nice to practice writing, since I haven't written anything nonfictional since I was a kid. I especially enjoyed writing the poem that I wrote for the Jataka unit, because I hadn't even attempted to write a poem of any sort since childhood. The writing feels like work more than the reading does, which I think is because I usually am not forced to be creative, and I have a harder time grinding through work when it requires creativity. Once I have an idea for the story and am in the act of writing it, though, it can be quite fun!

I think that the writing aspect of this class is where I need to look forward the most. It would be more enjoyable if I wasn't always writing the story Thursday night, up against the deadline. One recent week, I wrote the story Thursday morning, which worked well for me because I had a chance to look it over one more time in the evening and then turn it in with no stress. It would be even better if I could do the story on Wednesday, especially since my Wednesdays are much less busy than my Thursdays anyway. I think if I set aside an hour on Wednesday to work on the story, I would have an even more positive experience with my stories.

I am very happy with my project so far. I'm really interested in selkie stories, and I think they're very beautiful. My Storybook has a plan that I like, so I don't feel stressed about continuing with the project.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, woodblock print by Hokusai.

Source: Wikipedia.

This is one of my favorite images that I've used because of the sheer beauty of it. I love the muted colors (they remind me of a rainy day) and the "claws" of the waves. I think it illustrates the beauty that I saw in the Japenese mythologies that I read last week.