Legendary Myths

Story 1 || 100 words: Mr. Owl fancied times where he could fly through the woods, singing with joy. One day, Miss Owl went out to pay a visit and bid Mr. Owl to watch the home and eggs. Yet, Mr. Owl yearned to sing, so he went off to teach at the singing school. Upon his absence, Miss Cuckoo, stubborn as she was, came and left her eggs in the nest. Upon this discovery, Miss Owl was not happy at all and sent Mr. Owl in search of the culprit. So, he still flies searching for who did it and forgot how to sing. Story 2 || 50 words: Mr. Owl loved to sing. While he was out realizing his passion at the singing school, someone left eggs in his nest. Now Miss Owl was quite angry. So, now he searches for who left her eggs. He sang 'Who' for so long, he forgot how to sing anything else. Boreal Owl - Courtesy of eBird Author's Note: For this week's set of microfictions, I opted to retell the story of Why Mr. Owl Can't Sing. The original story tells of an owl who l...

Growing up, I never had a care in the world. Sure I was poor, but I played all day long in the streets. Though my father passed from grieving over my playful activities, I remained unwavering from my ways.  Then one day, as I was frolicking in the streets as usual, a stranger approached me. He claimed to be my long-lost uncle, and I was utterly astonished. I ran home immediately to tell my mother and made preparations for supper for his presence. The stranger made himself at home and kissed the place where my father once sat. The next day, my uncle bought me a fine suit of clothes and merchandise, which made my mother ever so happy. The following day, we ventured outside the city gates until we came to two mountains  divided by a narrow valley. My uncle stopped us and bid me to start kindling a fire. So I gathered up sticks and started a fire. He then pulls out some fine powder and spreads it over the fire. I felt the earth shake, and it opened right in front of me, rev...

Like others, I have heard childhood tales of Aladdin and the lamp. I was fascinated with being able to read more literature regarding this tale. This first story illustrates the upbringing of Aladdin and how he discovered the power of the lamp. The story begins with Aladdin, a young lad who did nothing but play in the streets all day long. His father, Mustapha, grieved such much of his son's idle playing and passed. Still, Aladdin kept playing in the streets. One day, a stranger approached him as he was playing in the streets. The stranger, a famous African magician, proclaimed that he was Aladdin's long-lost uncle and bid him welcome him to his father's home. The next day after spoiling Aladdin with a fine suit of clothes and merchandise, the magician led Aladdin to the sight of two mountains devised by a narrow valley. Throwing a powder upon the fire that Aladdin helped kindle, the magician discloses a square flat stone with a brass ring. The magician entices Aladdi...

For this section of the reading, I was most interested in the story of Scheherazade. It was interesting to read a story told from Scheherazade and then follow that story with subsequent stories read by other storytellers within Scheherazade's story. The entire reading section reminded me of Inception, where it's a story within a story within a story and so on and so forth. The tale of Scheherazade begins with Sultan Schahriar, who had a wife whom he loved dearly. Yet, he learned of her deception and ordered the grand-vizir to put her to death. He declared that he was adamant that all women were as wicked as his former wife. As such, he married a fresh wife every evening and had her killed the following morning. The grand-vizir was tasked with providing the Sultan with a fresh bride each day. Scheherazade, daughter of the grand-vizir, courageous in the highest degree, begged her father to allow her to web the Sultan. Scheherazade was determined to stop the ba...

For this post, I used the following article: How to Beat Procrastination  This article confirmed that procrastination greatly impacts our productivity levels in a negative way. When tasked with the burden of completing a certain tasks, we naturally think of countless reasons to defer it and avoid it altogether. Personally, I have suffered from procrastination during my Professional Development class when it came time to writing our project papers. After completing the presentations, I found myself thinking of countless excuses to not focus on writing the papers. I found myself performing other coursework for other classes instead of writing the project papers. However, this article taught me that doing other tasks to be productive is still a form of procrastination. While we prioritize other tasks to cross off our to-do list, we still neglect to perform the very tasks that we opted to avoid. So while we feel productive by accomplishing other tasks, we are actually hurting our pr...

Open Door Cat - Courtesy of Growth Mindset & Feedback Cats I picked this first cat meme in particular because it emphasizes how welcoming new things with open arms can result in beautiful things. By being open to new ideas, we can encourage people to be creative and think of even more solutions to complex problems. This is especially important in engineering, where there are often no set solution paths and different ideas can arise from brainstorming sessions. It is important not to disregard an idea that conflicts with your own, and be open to other ideas to encourage creativity. Always Look Up For Ideas Cat - Courtesy of Growth Mindset & Feedback Cats I chose this second cat meme because it goes hand in hand with my discussion found above. A simple change of view can vastly affect your perspective on issues or problems and drastically impact your plan of action. Seeing different perspectives can often change what kind of solution can be implemented to solve a pa...

I have had the Canvas Mobile App installed on my iPhone for the past year or so. It has been especially helpful to keep track of grades and course announcements without needing to log in with a browser on a traditional computer. It is also useful to easily send Canvas messages to professors without needing to dig a laptop out of your backpack. The Canvas Mobile App also allows me to keep track of important due dates in each of my classes via the built-in Calendar function. Overall, I have had a great experience using the app. I even enabled the Canvas widget on my phone to keep track of course grades and assignments!