Showing posts with label Week 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 3. Show all posts

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Topic Research: Egyptian Goddesses

Nut: Goddess of the Sky

Nut is in the creation story, as she is the sky goddess and the mother of famous god's and goddess's as Isis and Osiris. Nut is the arch that is the sky and touches both horizons. I think that it would be interesting to give her a bigger role in the creation story, and to give her a voice to describe what her duties are. 




File:Geb and Nut03.png
(Nut, The Arch of the Horizon. Credit to E.A. Wallis Budge at Wikipedia commons.)

Isis: Goddess of Earth

In the story of Isis and Osiris, Isis and Osiris were the first of the god's born from Nut, goddess of creation and motherhood. Isis and Osiris immediately fell in love, but Typhon the God of monsters was jealous of their beauty and love. Typhon came to Earth and began to acquire followers and cause war in the lands of Isis and Osiris.  Isis created a plan and tricked the God of all to tell her his name, and used the name to save her people. This condensed version of this story is in the Untextbook.

Hathor: Goddess of Joy

When rebellious words were spoken against Nu, the eldest god, he gathered the gods and goddesses to gather their opinions. It was suggested that the gods must take up arms against the humans, and Hathor  was the goddess in charge of the slaughter. When Ra saw the destruction Hathor was capable of, he ordered an end to the slaughter. In the end, Hathor was returned to a peaceful state. This story is from the Untextbook.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Feedback Strategies

General Thoughts on Feedback:

In my last feedback post, Feedback Thoughts, I spoke about how over the summer I did some job shadowing with a drilling company in Houston and they were trying to implement an anonymous feedback system. The most important part of the feedback system, according to the H.R. representative, was that the employees take it seriously and give honest feedback. This being said, my personal opinion on feedback is the same as the H.R. representative; in order to be helpful it must be taken seriously and be completely honest. Giving feedback can be difficult, since I always worry about offending someone, but I have found that being critical and honest is not the same thing as being mean.

Thoughts on Feedback Articles:

When choosing an article, I was immediately interested in How to Craft Constructive Feedback, by Laura Gibbs. I think the 3 step system to observe, describe, and suggest will be a very useful format to follow in the future when I am giving feedback to evaluate a performance. This is because in my potential career, the purpose of the feedback will not be focused on self expression, but rather performance.

I also found the article Specific Feedback that Helps Learning , by Justin Chando to be very helpful and informative. Although the article is directed to help a teacher give feedback to a student, I think the overall concepts will help me in this class as well as in the future. As the article states, great feedback gives a path to a better future, no matter what is being critiqued, so it is important to give specific advice that could act as a guide. Another piece of advice I thought was important was to be honest and transparent, in order for the feedback to be relevant and useful. 

(Feedback, Loud and Clear. Credit to geralt at pixabay)

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Week 3 Story: Noah and the Giant



Noah and the Giant

Long ago, there was a man named Noah who was spoken to by God himself. God had told Noah that a great flood was coming to the earth and that he must build an ark in order to save a pair of each of the animals of the world. After years of preparation, the time of the flood was near and Noah had gathered pairs of all the animals of the earth except the unicorn. As the rain started to fall, a pair of giants the size of a mountains approached the Ark. Scared for the animals and the ark, Noah ran to meet the giants to see why they were approaching. "Why are you here, giants? " shouted Noah, "You are  both tall enough to withstand the flood and would not fit on my ark anyways!" The male giant boomed a response "It is not the water we fear, as we will be taller than the flood. We fear that we will not be able to find food when the water wipes out the animals and plants. We wish to make a trade." "What trade?" Noah asked. "We see that you have failed to acquire a unicorn for your ark. If you will give us food during the flood we will bring you a unicorn and promise not to harm you, your people or your ark." Noah thought for a moment before agreeing to the trade.

A night passed and the waters slowly started to rise, and Noah thought that the giants had failed to find a unicorn. As soon as Noah started to close the doors of the ark he heard the booming voice of the giant, "Wait!, we have found for you the last unicorn, and our deal is complete." Noah thanked them for keeping their part of the deal and every day of the flood he gave the giants some of the food stored on the ark. When the flood had finally ended, Noah and the animals left the ark to find an empty land. Noah immediately started to plant new crops for the future but the giants were disappointing at the barren land. In anger, the male giant wrecked the progress that Noah had made, breaking his promise not to harm Noah's people or anything on the ark. Noah approached the giants and said "You have broken your promise and must be exiled for your sins, if you ever come back I will use the strength of God to kill you both."  The giants ran far away, and struggled to find enough food to sustain them. Years went by and the giants shrunk from the size of mountains to the size of a very large human, and this is where Goliath the giant had his origins.


File:Noahs Ark.jpg
(Noah's Ark, credit to Edward Hicks)

Author's Notes

In the original story, The Giant and the Flood, a single giant named Og approaches Noah with a unicorn since Noah could not find one. The unicorn was so giant that Noah had to attach a rope to it's horn and as it passed by a mountain the giant jumped on the unicorn so it could steal the unicorn's food as Noah threw it out to it. Noah made a deal with the giant, since the giant was strong enough to destroy the ark, that if he fed the giant then the giant must be his servant when the flood stopped. The giant, out of hunger, agreed to the bargain. After years of serving the humans, Og got tired of the work and tried to kill the humans. Since he broke the promise, Moses killed Og. In my version of the story, I felt that it would make more sense for the giant to live and be an ancestor of Goliath from the famous story, David and Goliath. Because of this, there needed to be two giants so that they could be exiled together and continue the giant bloodline. I also cut out some of the story that I did not think was necessary, like the dialogue where Moses is speaking with a bird, or when Og sacrifices animals to a grape vine.

Bibliography

The Giant and the Flood, Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Reading Notes: Jewish Fairy Tales, B

Reading Notes

In Reading B of the Jewish Fairy Tale unit I was really interested in the story the Higgledy-Piggledy Palace. As I stated in my last reading notes blog, Reading Notes, Jewish Fairy Tales (A), I grew up in a Christian household and was taught many Biblical stories both at home and in church. In fact, I was named after the biblical character, Sarah, who is considered to be the mother of the Jews and is the wife of Abraham. The Sarah and Abraham story I am familiar with is the story of how Sarah was very old and prayed for a child and finally was blessed with a child in her old age because of her faith and patience. In the story the Higgledy-Piggledy Palace, Sarah was young and so beautiful that she needed to be hidden from the Egyptians, but was found and taken to the Pharaoh anyways. I was impressed with the in depth details of Sarah's beauty and I would try to include this if I were to retell this story. Also, if I were to retell this story I would really enjoy telling it from the perspective of Sarah. Both in the biblical version and this version the story was written without her personal thoughts and feelings throughout the stories entirety so I think it would be fun to give Sarah a voice. Another aspect of the story I would change is some of the word choices, such as using the term spirit to the supernatural being that helps Sarah. In my opinion, since Sarah is praying to God for help it would be more clear for the spirit to be an angel of God.  I am really excited to retell this story from a new perspective and am thrilled that there is a story about the biblical Sarah.

Image result for sarah from the bible
(Biblical Sarah, Credit to Jim Padgett)


Bibliography

Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa

Reading Notes: Jewish Fairytales A

Reading Notes


When I was young, my parents would take me to Sunday School at church every Sunday morning. Because of this I was interested in reading the Jewish Fairy Tales and Fables unit, as I am familiar with some of the biblical stories. In the reading I was very surprised at how even though there were some similarities to the biblical versions, they were all stories that I had never heard of before. The story that stood out to me the most was The Giant of the Flood. This story wasn't necessarily my favorite, but I enjoyed the incorporation of a giant into the classic Noah's Ark story. What surprised me the most was the giant unicorn since it was in The Shepherd-Boy to King story as well, yet I have never encountered a unicorn in the biblical versions. Something I enjoyed about the story was the origins of wine and being drunk from the grape plant. In the bible there are many stories with wine or about drinking so it was interesting to read about this origin story of wine. In The Giant of the Flood I would change a few things if I were to retell it. Since the whole purpose of the Ark was to take animals in pairs so that they could reproduce when the flood ended, I may add another Unicorn as well as another giant to the story. Also, I may remove the parts about the bird and the lion because to me they seemed out of place in the story. The biggest change I would make is the ending, because I think it would be really interesting for the giant to be an ancestor of Goliath from the classic story David and Goliath. Instead of Moses killing the giant in the end, Og the giant could be allowed to live in exile and have children, which could explain how Goliath is so huge. 
File:Noahs Ark.jpg
(Noah's Ark, Credit to Edward Hicks)


Bibliography


The Giant of the Flood, from Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa