Caitlyn's Corner

Quote from Neil Gaiman The graphic that caught my eye from this past week was this quote from Neil Gaiman.  I have been so engrossed in his book  Norse Mythology  and seeing a quote from him in the announcements got me excited. It is an awesome quote, too.  Imagination is so incredibly important. I really loved this video What Makes A Hero? from Matthew Winkler.  It would have been awesome if I had found this earlier in the semester to help write my stories, but I guess I will just have to continue writing for fun!

Wow, Dead Week is coming to an end and finals are about to begin.  I cannot believe that this semester has gone by so fast.  It seems like only yesterday I was stressing over the first day of lectures for this semester.  I am filled with a huge mixture of emotions as I go into my final days of this semester.  I am sad that several of my friends are graduating and moving off to far away places.  My best friend, whom I have known for my entire life, is moving to Washington state in just a few weeks.  My brother graduates from OU's Medical School in two weeks and then he and his wife are moving to Alabama for his residency.  I am also incredibly happy for them, but I am going to miss them so much.  Relief is probably the emotion I am looking forward to the most.  Come Wednesday at 6pm, I will be free for summer and I am looking forward to it.  For now, I still have two classes to finish assignments for and a few final papers to turn in.  Then, I will give my final presentation on

This week, I did the Happiness Jar.  Everyday, I wrote down on a sticky note something that makes me happy and then I placed it in a mug (I didn't have a jar).  By the end of the week, my mug was filled with notes of happy thoughts.  I woke up feeling stressed about finals week starting in just a few days, so I started reading my little notes.  It seriously cheered me up.  Yeah, finals suck, but not every second of life does.  Journal I keep a journal and my New Year's resolution this year was to write down at least one positive thing in each of my entries.  I have kept to that and I even started highlighting all the positives in my entries.  Now, when I look back through my journal when I am feeling low, I can see that parts of my life are great and not every second is bad. I liked this jar idea, because it was a much more visual effect seeing all the happiness in my life.

Try Everything  by Shakira is not only an awesome song.  It has great Growth Mindset messages in it! She talks about how nothing is easy.  We all have to fail and fall a few times before we get it right.  It's something that we need to remember.  We have failed and are going to fail again in the future.  But that is okay.  Because one day, we will get it right.

Ragnarok For this last section of reading, I finished up Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman.  This was Chapters 16 and 17: Th Last days of Loki and Ragnarok.  Ragnarok was such an awesome read.  I just watched the Thor Ragnarok movie the other day, so it was really interesting hearing characters names that I remember from parts in the movie.  I feel like the movie definitely had a much more light-hearted feel to it than the original story.  This story is just filled with epic events, battles, and deaths.  I really loved reading it. I loved every minute of this book.  It made me fall in love with Gaiman's writing and also Norse Mythology.  I will definitely be reading more of both in the future.  I am so glad I was able to read this book for this class.  I definitely would not have taken as big of an interest in researching different parts of it if I had just read it for pleasure.

Thor's Fight with the Giants From reading so much Norse Mythology lately, I decided to read more about  Thor  in the Wikipedia article.  I really love Marvel Comics and that is what got me into Norse Mythology.  I was totally that girl in high school who was hardcore crushing on Marvel's Thor, Chris Hemsworth. It was very interesting reading Gaiman's book and also this wiki article to learn more about the mythology character that the comic is based on.  I remember Gaiman mentioned that Thursday was named after Thor, so I read the article until I found a bit about it.  Sure enough, in English,  Thursday  is named for Thor's Day.  I went to the article on Thursday and discovered here that Thursday is named for the Roman god Jupiter in most romance languages.  I am more familiar with Greek mythology, so I clicked the link for Jupiter to find out which one he is.  At the end of this article, in the See Also section, was a link to Ver Scarum .  I had no idea what this

For the sixth part of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology , I read chapters 14 & 15: Hymir and Thor's Fishing Expedition and The Death of Balder. The story of Thor's fishing trip was a really awesome tale.  It is one of those mythology stories that is larger than life, literally.  Thor is fishing with a giant, using a whole ox head as bait, and the entire scale of everything is ridiculous.  When Thor first reaches Hymir's home, a large giantess is preparing food.  Gaiman describes the scene as she is cutting "onions the size of boulders and cabbages the size of boats"  I really loved reading this story.  It is such a classic tale and is often found in art from the Norse.  I loved Gaiman's version of it too.  He blended together the telling from a few different sources and the result is wonderful.  This story is just so good. I think it would be really fun to tweak this into a story of my own and find images depicting the original.  I had  a lot of fun se

For part five of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, I read chapters 12 & 13: The Apples of Immortality and The Story of Gerd and Frey. Apple In the story about Thor's journey to the giants, Gaiman ended it with Thor thinking about how even he couldn't defeat old age.  In the next story, The Apples of Immortality, we hear a story of when Loki led Idunn, the keeper of the Apples of Immortality, to her kidnapping.  When she is taken, the gods no longer have their immortality and began to age.  This story is really interesting and I really want to work with it for a story this week.  I also really like how Gaiman has all the stories leading into each other so the book reads like a novel and less like a collection of random tales.

Growth requires hard work I picked this first cat because sometimes college gets really frustratingly difficult, but we have to remember that the hard work will pay off.  We are growing so much while studying at university.  We grow in our personal lives as well as in knowledge. Enjoy the ride I chose the cat above because I find it so hard to make sure I enjoy the here and now.  I get so caught up in planning for the future and preparing for the next step, that I forget to live in the moment I'm in.

It's down to the last week of class and I am planning on doing several (maybe all?) of the assignments for this week.  I usually do a huge chunk of my work on the weekends, but everything is due on Friday, so it's time to take a look at my schedule and figure out when to fit in work for this class and my other ones. Monday Myth: finish up week 14 Historical Ling: meet with study group and review old homeworks Morphology: read articles Tuesday Myth: do readings A, B, and Extra Credit for week 15 Historical Ling: lecture, review old homeworks Morphology: lecture, look over presentation outline Wednesday Myth: Story, HEART, Growth Mindset Historical Ling: work on topic paper Morphology: work on presentation Thursday Myth: Blog comments, Feedback, Extra Comments, Wiki-Trail Historical Ling: topic paper, final paper Morphology: Presentation, lecture, final paper Friday Myth: Famous Last Words, Back up and Review, Project Historical Ling: fina

How is already week 15?  There is no way that Dead Week is seriously here.  It feels like just yesterday I was looking over this semester's syllabuses wondering how I was going to keep up with it all and now we are here at the end.  I am so beyond ready for this semester to be over, though.  This has been one of the most challenging semesters of my time in university.  Today, I will get my assignments for my final papers due next week and I am very nervous to see what I will need to do.  Thankfully, with my linguistics courses I won't have to worry about that struggle to remember things talked about in the first week of class and then never touched on again.  With this major, we build on what we learn and broaden the definitions as the semester goes on. I have made myself a super nice, color coded schedule for the next two weeks.  When I have huge assignments looming over me, I tend to procrastinate by getting organized.  I tell myself that I am being productive, because this

I really loved the following graphic from the course announcements last week.  It caught my eye because the style is really cute, but then I began to read it and realized just how awesome it is.   Interior Life As I am reading Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman right now, I thought this video was perfect.  I have always loved the Epic Rap Battles of History because of their oh so clever lines.  This one was just too perfect for my to not talk about and share!

Odin and Fenris As I have been reading Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, I have been very curious about the characters that come up in the stories.  As I was reading about Loki's children, I decided to do a little research to learn more about them.  I started at the page on  Loki  and read all about his children.  I recognized the names from the story and a couple I had heard in other things.   Fenrir  was the one that I was most curious about.  I could have sworn there was a character in a really popular story named Fenrir, but I could not remember what it was.  Scrolling down to the bottom of this article, I found the "Modern Influence" section and read through there.  I saw that Fenrir Wolf was a character in Thor: Ragnarok, which I definitely remember.  I also figured out where I knew the name from.  J.K. Rowling named the werewolf that is buddy buddy with the death eaters Fenrir Greyback .  I headed over to this link to find out if she had specific reason to allud

For Part 4 of Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read through Chapter 11: Thor's Journey to the Land of Giants.  This story is a tale of Thor, Thor's servant, and Loki visiting Jotenheim. The giant Skrymir helps them find the huge fortress, Utgard. Upon reaching Utgard, the giant there, Utgartha-Loki tells them that only those who are the best of something are allowed in his city.  The travels then proceed to go head to head against a competitor in the task they feel they are the best of the best at.  Loki competes in eating the quickest, Thor's servant competes in running the fastest, and Thor, of course, competes as the strongest.  Thor and his companions are angry and confused when they are defeated by Utgartha-Loki's champions.  It isn't until the next day that Utgartha-Loki explains who they were really competing against. This story was very interesting.  At first, it seemed like another story about the gods easily defeating their enemies and being top dog, b

Thor woke up one morning to find that his hammer, Mjolnir, was missing.  Very confused about what could have happened, he started to get up.  He felt a splitting headache and then little blurbs of memory from the previous night came back to him.  The Avengers had all gone out to celebrate their recent battle win.  Now, being an Asgardian, it took quite a bit of alcohol to get Thor black-out drunk, but I guess that is what happens when you've recently saved the world from epic evil for the thousandth time and your mates are there with you.  Thor tried to remember what had happened, but his head ached every time he tried to remember last night.  The only thing he could remember was being with Iron Man at some bar in Manhattan.  Thor immediately called Tony, but he simply laughed at him for not holding his liquor well.  Tony told him to call Natasha, because last that Tony saw, Thor was with her and a few others.  Natasha finally answered on the third try.  At first she was worrie

For this third part of Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read through Chapters 9 & 10: Freya's Unusual Wedding & The Mead of Poets. Freya's Unusual Wedding begins with Thor discovering his hammer is missing.     Mjölnir  is the hammer of the gods.  Thor goes to Loki for help in finding who took his hammer.  Loki eventually discovers that a giant had stolen it and would only return it to Thor in exchange for Freya's hand in marriage.  The gods all gather to decide what should be done about returning the hammer of the gods.  Freya is very against marrying this awful giant, rightfully so.  Loki comes up with a plan of dressing Thor as a bride and putting a veil over his face to pretend that he is Freya coming to marry the giant.  Loki disguises himself as a handmaiden and off they travel to meet the giant.  Hilarity ensues as Thor pretends to be a graceful bride and Loki has to keep covering for his mistakes, especially during the feast.  This story was very enterta

For Part 2 of my journey with Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read Chapters 7 and 8: The Master Builder & The Children of Loki.  So far, these are my two favorite stories.  Stone Wall The Master Builder is a tale of a mysterious stranger that comes to Asgard and tells the gods that he can build their wall for them that could keep out even the strongest and largest of their enemies.  In return, he wanted the hand of Freyja as his payment.  The gods decided to set some more terms.  They demanded that he finish the wall in one season and with no help other than his horse.  If the wall was not finished by the end of this season, he would receive no payment.  The Master Builder agreed and he began working on the first day of the new season.  The gods became fearful of losing their dear Freyja when they discovered how quickly the stranger was able to build.  Loki ends up helping the gods with his usual trickery, saving their Freyja.  I really like how interesting this story was

I have always been very interested in Norse culture.  I tend to study the languages derived from them when given the option to choose a language for my linguistic assignments.  I don't know why, but they have always been fascinating to me.  Recently, I bought the Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman audio book on Audible.  I have always wanted to take a deeper look at these myths and Gaiman does such an amazing job telling these stories. While listening, I became very interested in getting more information about the gods, so I started a little Wiki trail. I checked out the Norse Mythology article first, to get a little overview.  From here, I became very interested in Freyja .  She is always described as the most beautiful woman and I was curious if she was similar to Aphrodite from Greek mythology.  After reading her description, I learned she shares a lot in common with Aphrodite.  They are the goddesses of very similar things.  While reading this article, I found a link to Valhalla

For my learning challenge this week, I read all of Through the Looking Glass out loud.  I usually hate the sound of my own voice, but after a while, I found that I really enjoyed it.  I got more into the story, because I was focusing so hard on putting color in the narration.  I did special voices for each character, felt like an idiot doing it, but it made the story so enjoyable.  This was a great book to try this challenge on, too.  I think I will do this more in the future. In a Bind

In my life, it is a daily struggle to keep up with fitness.  I really love reading, watching movies, and sketching.  All of these require very little movement.  During this semester, I have been working hard to get better at my personal fitness.  I took a pilates class twice a week and started from there.  I increased my time at the rock climbing gym, as well.  I went from going once a month to once a week, to almost once a day.  I can tell I am already feeling so much better. It has been a big battle, but I set my mind to growing in my personal health and I feel like I am achieving that.  My next challenge is to attempt to get into running. Rock Climbing

From Wednesday, April 18th This graphic from this week's announcement feed really spoke to me.  I have gone through this course of emotions in most of my classes this semester.  Currently, I am very stuck on confusion is one of my classes and it is killing me. I watched this video on the survivor tree and really loved it.  My freshman year, I went to Oklahoma City University and my Honors Comp class did a lot of research and volunteer work at the memorial.  I learned a lot about this amazing tree and everything it stands for.  You should check out the memorial if you get a chance.  It is really moving.

This week, I started listening to Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology and it is amazing!  This book has been so hard to take breaks from.  I usually listen to audio books when I am driving or walking to classes. but this one has me sitting in the car for an extra few minutes after getting to my destination. Neil Gaiman narrates the story and he truly has a gift at bringing these characters to life! I love his descriptions of all of the gods and their characteristics.  He also adds in a lot of his humor and this just brings the story to life.  I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.  I have always really enjoyed reading about Norse mythology, but this book has me obsessed.  It truly reads more as a fun novel than it does a book of old myths.  I have never sat down and really studied all of the Norse myths before, so I guess it is possible that they are just that amazing.  I really think it has more to do with how wonderful of an author Gaiman is.  He is an extremely talented wri

For me last reading, I decided to check out Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. I bought the audio book for this and I absolutely love it.  Neil Gaiman narrates the stories and he has an awesome voice for it!  This book is a bit long, so I will be reading this for my last several reading posts.  Part 1, I read through Chapters 1 through 6.  This included the introduction and I am so glad I read it! I usually skip intros, but this one was adorable.  Gaiman wrote this book so his son would fall in love with Norse Mythology just like he did as a kid. My favorite story from this part was The Treasure of the Gods (Chapter 6).  This story tells of how the gods got their favorite and most memorable treasures.  It tells us how Odin got his spear that has special powers, like how any oath made on this spear cannot be broken.  It also tells us how Thor got his hammer.  This is one of the most famous objects owned by the gods.  There is even another story entirely about when Thor's hammer is st

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There   has been one of my favorite reads this semester.  Lewis Carroll's imagination is a wondrous place filled with colorful worlds and odd characters.  The two Alice books are so creative and I highly recommend them to everyone. My favorite section of the second book was definitely The Jabberwocky . I have read this poem before and thought it was really clever.  I first read it in high school, but never really paid much attention to it.  Then, when I met my boyfriend, I ended up reading it again.  My boyfriend uses "Slithy Toves" for his user name on a few things and I finally asked him what it was from.  He immediately pulled out a copy of Through the Looking Glass , opened it to The Jabberwocky  and said, "This is one of my favorite poems.  It's filled with nonsense words that have no meaning, but the reader instantly has this image in their head of the creature."  He was totally right.  These crazy wor

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There  by Lewis Carroll (1871) is the reading unit that I decided to check out this week.  I thought this would be a good one to start with, since I read the first book last week.  I have never really read much of Carroll's works before these two weeks, except a handful of his poems like the Jabberwocky.  I have really enjoyed being able to read these two books and I have mad respect for Carroll after reading them.  He has amazing skills at bringing to life these crazy worlds with such colorful imagination. My favorite bit from the second book was The Walrus and The Carpenter .  This is a little story that Tweedledee tells Alice.  I remember in the Disney animated movie of Alice in Wonderland, they included this story.  I didn't ever realize how dark the story really is until I read the original in the book.  This story tells of how the Carpenter and the Walrus get a family of small oysters into following them ashore, where th

I have been super spacey about checking my email lately, so I have been messing up on do revisions on my portfolio for this class.  I somehow keep missing my emails from Laura about her feedback, so I bet she will appreciate the fact that I paid attention to this graphic from this week... Image source This week, the video that stuck out to me from the announcements was a TED Talk about The Power of Vulnerability.  It really spoke to me, because I have had several people tell me lately that I need to be more open and vulnerable sometimes, because I can be way too guarded.  It is something I need to work on and watching this video really helped me understand that.

I watched the Sprouts video Learning With Passion and Enthusiasm and really enjoyed it. It really makes a difference in how much you retain if you put a little passion into your learning. It is so much easier to handle a difficult class if you have passion and enthusiasm for the subject. I learned this a few years ago when I finally found a major that I enjoy. I am curious to see if I can find a bit of passion in my classes that I do not like the subject as much.

This past week was one filled with one crazy thing after another.  Monday, I went to the capitol in OKC and joined my old teachers, some fellow classmates, and my teacher friends in the Teacher Walkout.  This experience was one that I will never forget.  Monday, they had over 50,000 people at the capitol and we really thought the legislators would not be able to say no anymore.  As the week went by, our spirits fell a little with the news of returning to the schools with little to show of our efforts, but we can feel the change in the air that is coming. Wednesday and Thursday evenings, I was able to go up to Edmond and help finish making decorations with my brother and his fiance for their wedding on Saturday.  We shared many laughs and I definitely could feel some tears starting as I realized that my brother was about to get married. Friday morning brought the beginnings of one of the greatest weekends.  My brother's fiance, Aly, asked me and the rest of the bridesmaids to ha

For extra reading over this week and next week, I decided to do the  Beowulf Unit .  I actually read Beowulf my senior year of high school, but decided I wanted to reread it.  This story was actually one of my favorites from that year.  I think it was because it was one of the first stories that I went and did a lot of research over just for fun.  I was curious about the history of it: how old it was, translations, and anything else surrounding this epic. My favorite part from the first half is definitely The Wanderer's Song .  This is where we first learn of the torments from the monster Grendel.  I feel like this section is where we begin to feel excitement.  From the descriptions of the monster, you can tell the story is about to take off and become an exciting adventure. I really love how beautiful the language is in this translation.  The descriptions and imagery really help the reader feel like they are a part of the story.  You can see the stormy sea crashing waves into

Image: Squirrel Alice was sitting in a hammock on campus while her lab partner tried to go over their chemistry homework.   Alice tried to pay attention, but science classes were never of any interest to her.   She found her thoughts drifting as the warm spring breeze blew threw the trees and made the hammock sway. As Alice began to think of anything other than chemistry homework, she noticed something darting between the trees.   A little squirrel wearing a little jacket and beanie.   Alice found nothing off about this until the squirrel looked at his wrist to check the time on his little watch.   This is when Alice began to wonder what a squirrel was doing with a watch and why it would need to know the time anyways.   The squirrel began to run off and went into a large hollow tree.   Alice decided to abandon the chemistry homework and followed the little squirrel into the tree. Alice stepped into the darkness through the hollowed-out tree and immediately began to fall dow

Finishing up the reading for this week, I realized that I should have read this book ages ago.  I absolutely love the story and I really love Carroll's writing style.  I did a little Wiki Trail over this week's reading when I first started reading the book and found some interesting facts about Lewis Carroll and allusions to his real life in the book.  I am so glad I did that research before reading, because it was neat finding the characters in the book that had deeper meaning. The Mad Hatter by Sir John Tenniel My favorite part of the book was the chapter about A Mad Tea-Party.  All of the characters in Carroll's book are so colorful, but none compare to the Mad Hatter and his party.  I just love how ridiculous everything is and I kept picturing the animated characters from Disney's version.  I think for a story this week, it would be fun to do something with the tea party.  Either rewriting the characters into a different setting or creating new characters

For this week's reading, I decided to check out the  Alice in Wonderland Unit  from  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865).  This story has always been a favorite of mine growing up.  The Disney movie will always hold a special place in my heart.  I'm fairly certain I have seen it upwards of 100 times over the years.  Despite loving the story so much, I have never actually read Carroll's book.  When I saw it listed as an option for reading this week, I immediately started reading it.  While reading it, I became very curious about where Carroll got his ideas for the characters.  I ended up having a very long Wikipedia Trail over different facts in the book. I talked about a few of these articles in my Wiki Trails post this week. It is rumored that he based Alice off of a daughter of a family he befriended , but many think the book was simply dedicated to her.  I learned that the Dodo is supposed to be based off of Carroll himself.  Lewis Carroll was

For the Learning by HEART Challenge this week, I decided to check out the article in the I Wish My Teacher Knew page.  What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew  talks about a teacher that had her students anonymously write down something they with that she knew about them.  She ended up getting responses that ranged from kids wanting her to know they want to learn more history to finding out that some of her kids struggle with having a place to sleep at night.  I thought that this was an incredible idea.  It is important to know what your students are dealing with.  Sometimes there is more to that kid that always hands in his homework late and if you understand about his home life, you realize he would be your best student if he wasn't having to work two jobs already as a high school student.  I think that I will do something like what this teacher did when I start working as a teacher.  I know some of my teacher friends already do something like this with their kids and have great thing

For this week's reading, I focused on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland .  As I started the reading, I remembered hearing that  Lewis Carroll  was a mathematician, as well as a writer.  So, I decided to begin a chase down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. After reading the article on Carroll, I learned that he befriended the Liddell family shortly before writing his famous stories about Alice and her times in Wonderland.  Some argue that  Alice Liddell  was his inspiration for the stories, but others disagree.  I decided check out the article on this Alice to learn more about her.  In this article, I learned that Alice found herself basically broke after her husband's death and resorted to selling the manuscript copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It sold for much more than Sotheby's had appraised it for.  I had heard the name Sotheby's many times before, but never really knew much about it.  In the article about Sotheby's, I learned that it is a famous broke

For me, finding time to do exercises can be rough.  I have a lot of work to do for my classes outside of lecture, and unfortunately, it mostly involves doing a lot of research at my desk.  I checked out a few of these exercises to do at my desk and I really liked them.  I will definitely be continuing the ones I learned from 6 Yoga Exercises You Won't Be Embarrassed to Do at Your Desk .  I actually did these while I was at one of the little cubicle desks in the library with many people around.  A few people gave me looks wondering why thy heck I was moving so much, but most just kept on working on their own things. Image: Dog Attempting Yoga

As a person who is stressed nearly every minute of her life, I love finding new quotes that tell you how to deal with stress.  I found this quote from Maureen Killoran that I found from another student and it really spoke to me: Image: Kuma by Caitlyn Buckley edited in paint.net I have to keep reminding myself that I am the one choosing to be stressed.  I am choosing to make this a battle and I need to just take a step back and reevaluate and see that it will work out. The other quote I found this week that helped me a lot was one by Robert Frost.  Image: Lake Eufala by Caitlyn Buckley edited in paint.net

Image: Literary Map of London I loved this graphic that was posted in the class announcements on Sunday.  I love reading it and finding all of the classic stories that I grew up reading and others that have been on my list to read over the years.  There are a few I didn't recognize, so I will have to check them out.  I seriously love this picture, though.  It would make an awesome poster to pin up at my apartment.  This week, I watched the video: Focused and Diffused Thinking: The Ping Pong Technique from the Sprouts YouTube channel.  This video is great! It not only has a really interesting topic, but it has these neat little doodles the entire time that look like they are being hand drawn as the person narrates. 

This week's reading had me wanting to do a lot of outside research.  I read the Eskimo Folk Tales Unit and it kept bringing up questions from when I did a homework assignment on the  Greenlandic Language . I decided to review some of the facts about this language and found myself taking a little trail through the Wikipedia articles.  From the Greenlandic Language article, I became interested in what the difference was between Greenlandic and Greenlandic Inuit .  On this second page, I learned that Greenlandic Inuit is an ethnicity while Greenlandic and its dialects refer to the language.  After reading through this article, I learned that Danish is still highly spoken in the area.  I clicked on the Danish Realm link to learn more about the areas in the Kingdom of Denmark.  This kingdom includes Greenland, Denmark proper, and the Faroe Islands. As I read through this article, I discovered that while these countries are still in the Kingdom of Denmark, they have been granted self-

Image: Teacher Walkout I am fairly certain that everyone has heard at least some of the news surrounding the teacher walkout in Oklahoma.  Starting on Monday, thousands of teachers went to the Oklahoma state capitol to protest several things regarding education in Oklahoma.  Oklahoma teachers have not received a raise in ten years, while their insurance premiums have continued to rise.  This has resulted in their take home salaries dropping drastically.  Several districts across the state have had to drop down to four-day-school weeks, because they cannot afford to be open five days a week.  Schools all across the state have had to drop activities, reduce the number of field trips, and cut back on many other programs and opportunities for the students.  My teacher friends have been sharing pictures of the state of the textbooks their students  have to use and it makes me want to cry.  I have heard that several teachers have about twenty books for over seventy kids, because their d