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....

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 ...

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 h...

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 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 th...

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 be...

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...

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, espec...

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 Frey...

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 ...

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