Monday, August 31, 2015

Reading Diary A

The Land of the Cyclopes
“From there we sailed with heavy hearts, and came to the land of the Cyclopes, a lawless, aggressive people, who never lift their hands to plant or plough, but rely on the immortal gods. Wheat, barley, and vines with their richly clustered grapes, grow there without ploughing or sowing, and rain from Zeus makes them flourish.”
It is very fascinating to me to see how the Cyclopes are described as people who are barbarians and aggressive. This shows me that these people are not very prosperous as the story explains.  Not to mention that they never go out of their way to plant or farm for different foods instead of just eating what grows without the work. This really gives me the idea of what kind of savages these people were and makes me reflex on humanity. Luckily for Humanity it is different and we are creatures that always find ways to make things easier with a better means to an end.

A Picture of the Cyclops Polyphemus


Prisoners of the Cyclops
 “Then I formed a courageous plan to steal up to him, draw my sharp sword, and feeling for the place where the midriff supports the liver, stab him there. But the next thought checked me. Trapped in the cave we would certainly die, since we’d have no way to move the great stone from the wide entrance. So, sighing, we waited for bright day.”
        
I love how right when the hero of the story is making plans to kill the Cyclopes and escape things get a lot more complicated then he thinks. He then has to figure a way to move the great stone that acts as a door for the giant. This reminds me of just plain life because nothing is ever as easy as you think it is. You may think you have something planned and you believe you are going to accomplish a goal but out of nowhere things get complicated. I just love how this part of the story is relatable to real life and it complications.

The Cyclops defeated
            They heard his cry, and crowding in from every side they stood by the cave mouth and asked what was wrong: “Polyphemus, what terrible pain is this that makes you call through deathless night, and wake us? Is a mortal stealing your flocks, or trying to kill you by violence or treachery?”
Out of the cave came mighty Polyphemus’ voice: “Nobody, my friends, is trying to kill me by violence or treachery.”
To this they replied with winged words: “If you are alone, and nobody does you violence, it’s an inescapable sickness that comes from Zeus: pray to the Lord Poseidon, our father.”
Wow! This is probably my favorite part of this story, which is where Odysseus instead of giving the Cyclops his real name gives him “Nobody” as a name. There after the name given saves their lives because the Cyclops doesn’t make any sense. These are the parts of stories I find most thrilling due to the fact that things eventually fall into place is such clever ways. This would be part of the main reason I enjoy reading classical stories because of how unique and clever they may end up being.

Escape from the Cyclops
This section of the story shows me that Odysseus although clever is somewhat stubborn and prideful. I say this because as he leaves in his boat he yells at the Cyclops taunting him and provoking him to throw big rocks and almost killing them. Even though his men kept urging him to stop he had to give his name to the Cyclops to take credit for his blinding. This is a good representation of just human kind in general. We as humans do things but always like to take credit for doing things. Sometimes being prideful of our doings can lead to negative outcomes.

The Curse of Polyphemus
            Something that stood out to me is that Odysseus showed a lot of leadership when getting to Circe’s island.  He hunted a stag and brought to his men to eat. Even though they are lost and have almost been killed he brings them food and word of encouragement. He never seems to lose spirit and seems to always have hopes of getting home.  The characteristic of optimism is something I feel that all good leaders have. For that reason I believe Odysseus is a good leader to his men.

Circe’s Magic
“I replied: “Eurylochus, by all means stay here by the black ship’s hull, eating and drinking, but I, bound by necessity, will go.”
         The words that came out of Odysseus mouth were pure words of courage. Even as his fellow companion begged him to not go and just leave Odysseus felt the need to go back to save the rest of his men. I feel like that is relatively similar to out nobody gets left behind motto in war. Usually soldiers go out to rescue their comrades even if they are surround or trapped by the enemy. I believe that to be a true act of valor and honor.





Week 1 Review

Something I found very interesting was the periodic table of story telling because I am majoring in chemistry and the periodic table is something that I am very familiar with.


Periodic Table of Storytelling 
Picture Source: Announcements

Famous Last Words Week 1

My reading for this went somewhat well because I didn’t half read them however I could of done a better job at writing about them. I also believe that my time management had to play a big part on this first week. I believe my best writing that did this week was my story telling. It was cool experiencing to just write whatever I wanted relating back to the fable that I read. It was a different style of writing that I am not used to doing in a college class. I wrote about a farmer, which had nothing to do with a Lion from the original fable. Yet it was very fun just to make up my own story with the same lesson taught by the fable. I remember doing this type of writing back in elementary or middle school, which is something that I always, enjoyed doing. 
            My other classes are tough and even though they are tough I am glad I have this class because even though it is a lot of busy work it is not too difficult. The thing that makes this class a little bit more challenging is the fact that you have to keep up with it if your not ahead. I enjoy reading other people writing because it is very entertaining to see how some people can get so creative with their writing. I believe I have to improve my writing creativity and this class will be able to help me due to all the writing that we have to do. Another goal I have this semester is to balance my time out with work and school. It is something I am sure all of us struggle with that however, for me it is something I really need to get better at.


  

Picture of a Farmer.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Week 1 Curation

I usually use bookmarks to keep track of my online work for school and sometimes for work. I usually put my bookmarks into folders whenever I decide to bookmark a page for a certain thing. As for curation, I have used twitter for a long time although I have not been using it recently because I am so busy most of the time. Thanks to this class I also now have a Pintrest, which will be very interesting using this semester since I have never used it before.


Twitter Logo. 
Source: Google Play