Caitlyn's Point of View

Failure hurts, but it does not define me I have had a lot of unexpected problems this semester and it has affected some of my grades.  For one of my courses, I have had to accept the fact that it isn't going to turn out how I wanted, but it's going to be okay.  It's time to accept it and move on. Not sure what to do next?  Look in a book. Studying for finals always makes us realize there are a lot of questions we still have about these subjects.  I feel like I have read my textbooks twice as much the last few days as I did each week.  You'd think we would know the subjects better at this point in the semester.

Zoe the very cuddly cat, taken by Caitlyn Buckley Wow, what a crazy semester this has been!  I have had many ups and downs over the last few months and I am ready to bring this semester to a close.  This week has been filled with presentations, papers, exams, review sessions, and also lots of cuddles with my boyfriend's cat Zoe.  Animals are the best answer for stress and anxiety.  Zoe is definitely up for the job as study cuddly buddy.  Every time I work from the couch, she demands to sit next to me (sometimes on me or my laptop) and turn the purrs to high.  Hug your pets tight as the semester comes to a close.  They will make everything better and easier. Title inspiration: Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy  series .

Clock. flickr For the tech tip this week, I created a countdown timer to show how long until the end of the semester and the beginning of winter break.  This semester has been a crazy one and I am in desperate need of a long break from academics.  I start capstone in the spring and I need to get some good sleep in before then.  I am fairly certain I will have many all nighters this next semester.  You can follow the instructions here to create your own countdown for your blog.

For the Wiki Trails this week, I decided to start out at the Avatar the Last Airbender article, since I needed to do some more research for my portfolio stories.  I learned a lot about the series that I actually didn't know before, especially about the inspiration for the cultures in the story. The next article I read was Sireniki , which is one of the cultures that influenced the Water Tribe in teh series.  I had never heard of this before and really wanted to learn more.  This village is in the very north east corner of Russia. Drawing of a Bowhead Whale from 1884 , Wikipedia After this one, I read the article on the Bowhead Whale .  This is a whale whose migration patterns take it around this village.  This is such a wonderful creature and I am so glad I learned about them.  I really love whales and I am excited to have a new one to study. The last article I visited was the Sea of Okhotsk .  This is another place along the bowhead whales' migration patterns.  Ap

I watched these awesome TED talks about storytelling.  I really loved Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's talk about "the danger of a single story."  In this video, she tells of how she would write stories all the time as a kid and they were all like the ones she read about.  All her characters had white skin and blue eyes and ate apples and played in the snow.  She grew up in Nigeria and had not left her home country, yet.  So why were her stories so different from what was around her? Because she read English books and they were always the same story.  I grew up in a mostly white elementary school and then transferred to another district.  In this district, I made friends with a lot of first generation Americans.  I knew people in my classes from Myanmar, from China, from Venezuela, from Mexico, and from Nigeria.  When I first moved to this school, I was blown away by all of the people from all over and who looked so different from each other.  In my first school, I was stuck i

Guru, flickr I continued watch more of the Epified videos of The Mahabharata for the last bit of reading.  These videos are so good for telling these stories and giving little illustrations to help you better visualize this epic tale.  I decided to watch more of these to see if there were anymore details I wanted to add to the stories on my portfolio site.  My favorite part from this section of the videos was Karna Becomes King.  In this video, the stories tells of a competition of sorts to decide who will be king.  Karna steps forth and blows away the competition with his skills.  They say he must be from royal blood to truly compete, but he can only say he was found in a basket in a river.  This reminds me a lot of the Moses in the basket story from the bible, but flipped.  Moses was raised like a prince, but was really from low birth.  I found this part very interesting.

Christmas Book Flood On the announcement's page for today, I saw this post about Jolabokaflod in Iceland.  This is something I learned about 2 years ago when I started researching Iceland.  Teaching in Iceland is something I have been thinking about doing for a few years now and I keep making these lists of reasons to go.  When I found out about the Christmas Book Flood, I instantly added it to the list.  This sounds like the cutest little tradition.  The holidays seems more stressful than fun around here when we have to spend so much money.  Having a sweet tradition of just exchanging books sounds amazing.  I'm hoping I can talk my boyfriend into doing this for Christmas.  He and I are big readers and would love to do this. I watched this video of Sanjeeb Sircar playing O Come All Ye Faithful on the sitar.  I really love the sound of this song on the sitar. This instrument has such a rich sound and it really adds to this song.

Mural, flickr For the second chunk of reading this week, I continued watching the Epified videos of The Mahabharata.  Out of this section, my favorite part was The Magic Potion.  You can watch this video below.  In this video, Bheem is sinking in the water and is bound.  Serpents attack him and bite him.  A mortal would have been killed by their poison, but Bheem woke up and broke free of his bindings and attacked the serpents.  He continued falling and found himself at a city.  This part of the story would be fun to make a story out of.  It would be fun to make a crossover with maybe one of Aang's trips into the spirit world.

For the reading this week, I decided to take another look at The Mahabharata by watching the Epified videos.  Since most of my stories are based off of parts of this epic, I decided to watch another version, to see if there were more details I wanted to include. India, flickr I think my favorite part was The Blind Bride.  This was also one of my favorite parts of the Peter Brook movie.  I just think it shows how strong Princess Gandhari's character is.  When she discovers her husband-to-be is blind, she vows to wear a scarf around her eyes and go without her sight for the rest of time.  I think I will write a story about this for the last one.  It is such a great part of the story and I think it would be fun to write.  I may have difficulty making an Avatar cross over, though.

This week, I did little exercises while I studied in the library.  I have been having terrible back pain lately and this is really starting to help!  I really hope everyone starts doing this while they study.  It seriously saves your back!! Yoga for your desk

I watched this super neat video about American Ledger art.  A serpent, unless it devours a serpent, will not become a dragon . 

This semester has been one of the hardest for me, yet. I have been so incredibly busy with my studies and work that I have hardly seen any of my family.  During Thanksgiving, I saw my dad for the first time since August.  This weekend, I got to see my brother and sister-in-law for the first time since May.  This separation has been the hardest.  My brother and his wife have become some of my closest friends over the last four years and driving to their house for dinner twice a week has been such a wonderful way to get away from campus.  In May, they moved to Mobile, Alabama for my brother to do his surgical residency.  I have missed them so much and it was wonderful to get to see them.  I am so excited for break, because I will be driving out their with my boyfriend to spend a week with them.  I hope everyone gets to see their families and friends soon. A pic of my siblings and I being goofy during Thanksgiving last year

For my extra reading this week, I watched another part of The Mahabharata by Peter Brook.  I didn't really find any parts of this bit that made me want to write.  Overall, I really liked the beginning of the film better. For now, I think I will just take note of small details that I might add into my older stories and include on my portfolio.  I still can't recommend this movie enough. It is such a great adaptation of this wonderful epic. This movie really brings all of my favorite parts to life.  I think for the next reading, I will see about reading another version of this tale to get more information of what to include in my older stories. Sunset over Lake Eufaula, by Caitlyn Buckley