Growth Mindset : Stories About Growth - Week 5

As my reading this week I chose Arabian Nights.  In this story I believe Aladdin shows a growth mindset.

One Thousand and One Nights - Wikipedia Article

Aladdin falls in love with a princess, and is determined to marry her.  Even though common folk don't marry royalty, he still implores his mother to ask the Sultan for her hand in marriage.  Aladdin waits eagerly for the month until the wedding, but instead the princess is Married to the Grand-Vizir's daughter.  Instead of becoming disheartened, Aladdin found a way to marry her anyway.

Aladdin gave the Sultan everything he wished for, and kept filling his requests.  When the princess was kidnapped, Aladdin traveled to another country to get her back.  He found her, and found a way to get her home.  In a way, you could say that Aladdin had a growth mindset about marrying the princess, he never gave up and perused her despite every challenge.

Week 5 Reading Diary, continued: Arabian Nights

This weeks reading is part B of Arabian Nights.
The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Genie, From Disney's Aladdin

 Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

• It is really nice to read a story that I already know, a story that disney has made a movie of. I know Disney adds a happy changed the ending of all of their stories to make them happy, so I am curious to see how this one ends.
• The story mentions the 'false uncle', but the story does not tell us who the uncle really is, so the reader is left to wonder
• It is especially interesting to me to see the differences between the original story, and the once that I know.
• Aladdin asks for the hand of the princess using jewels, instead of turning himself into a prince
• Aladdin steels a look at the princess, and falls in love at first sight
• Does Aladdin have an unlimited number of requests from the Genie? It would seem that he does
• The Sultan is very greedy with all of the gifts he demands from Aladdin
• I like the imagery that the author creates for the palace that Aladdin builds for the princess.  She must indeed be very beautiful to inspire such a thing.
• I notice that Aladdin never ever told the princess about the lamp, for otherwise she would not have traded it away.
• The magician was mean to want to kill Aladdin, but very clever to trick the princess into giving him the lamp.  I enjoyed the way in which he tricked the princess.
• Aladdin managed to trick the magician just as easily as the magician tricked Aladdin.  
• I notice that this story, unlike many of the ones from Tuesdays readings, actually use character names.  I wonder how the author chose which stories required named characters, and which ones didn't.
• I enjoyed reading this story, and was slightly surprised to see that it had a happy ending, since usually the key difference between Disney and the original is the ending.

Week 5 Reading Diary: Arabian Nights

This weeks reading is Arabian Nights, inspired by other student stories that I read last week.
The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

One Thousand and One Nights

  Scheherazade

•  Wow, the whole premise of the story just seems really messed up.  "So every evening he married a fresh wife and had her strangled the following morning before the grand-vizier"
• The intro to this story definitely captures my interest right away.  Such a dramatic start makes me want to read on to see what happens next.  The story does not give the reader a chance to get bored before the action starts. 

The Story of the Merchant and the Genius

•  The girl is very clever.  This is not the first reading story I've read this semester with multiple tales, but this is definitely my favorite premise for a story within a story.  
• It's a story within a story within a story.  That almost seems like to many layers.

The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind

•  I notice that none of these characters have names.  Instead they are referred to as "my son" or "my wife" or "the third old man."  I wonder why the author made this decision, especially since he named the characters in the first layer of his story.

The Story of the Second Old Man, and of the Two Black Dogs

•  Many of theses stories have a common theme of killing for revenge.  The Sultan kills his wives, the Genius wants to kill the Merchant for killing his son, and how the fairy wishes to kill the two brothers of her husband.

The Story of the Fisherman

• I assume Genies in lamps or pots or jars was a common theme in stories during this time.  Both the yellow pot, and the story of Aladdin both include a trapped Genie.  
•  I enjoyed this story, of how the Fisherman outsmarted the Genie.

The Story of the Greek King and the Physician Douban

•  I wonder what kind of power the physician possesses? It's clearly some form of magic that healed the king.

The Story of the Parrot; The Story of the Ogress

•  Why does the Grand Vizir distrust the great physician.  It is not made obvious in the story, so the reader if left to wonder.

The Story of the Physician's Revenge

•  It's getting hard to keep track of the stories.The stories themselves are interesting, but there are too many layers to them.

The Story of the Sultan and the Fish

• Why are the fish so valuable in the first place? I do not believe this part of the story explains this at all.

The Story of the Young King of the Black Isles

•  I enjoyed reading the mini stories.  This style of writing works very well.  Instead of having many disjointed tales, a story like 1001 nights can ties a bunch of little stories into one giant work.

Week 4 Review

Cartoon by Dan Piraro

The above image was taken from Tuesday, February 9th daily announcement. I love puns, and I thought this one was clever.  It's an Egyptian version of a fun little spelling Rhyme. 

Fun fact, there are more rules in the English dictionary that are an exception to the rule 'I before E except after C' than words that actually follow it.  I wrote a program for a class once that counted how many words follow this rule, and how many don't.

Famous Last Words - Week 4

Reading
This week I read a story called 22 Goblins.  I liked the premise of the story, but I did not really care for the story itself. I was really excited about reading riddles, but I did not care for the riddles themselves.  I feel like I was not able to answer a lot of the riddles because I don't know the culture behind them.  I may have enjoyed the story more if I knew more about the culture.

Writing
This class is where I do my best writing, because it is the only class that I do much writing in. I was OK with the story that I wrote this week, but I feel like I have done better work on the past.  Next week I get another chance, and will write a story that I am more happy with.  I get to start actually writing for my storybook, which is exciting.

Other Classes
My other classes have been going well this semester.  I am taking two graduate classes as well as my senior capstone. I have also been going to work, so this semester has seemed really busy.  I've been learning about search algorithms for my Artificial intelligence class, and learning about how Turing machines work for a class called Computational Complexity.

Outside School 
I have been doing some reading for pleasure this semester, which is usually something I only make time for in the summer. It's nice doing 30 minutes of reading before going to bed.  It helps clear my mind, and it's been letting me get further in the Dresden Files.  Not familiar with the series? You should check it out.  Jim Butcher has created a lot of interesting characters in a fantasy setting.  The main character of the story is a Wizard detective.  It's really good.

Dresden Files Wikipedia Article

Growth Mindset : Talk about mindset - Week 4

This week I talked to a friend about growth mindset.  I asked him what he knew about the growth mindset.  He said that he's heard about it a few times on the radio, but that he did not know a lot about the growth mindset, and that he'd never talked about it in any of his classes.

I then went on to explain what I knew about growth mindset.  It's about valuing effort, work, progress rather than feeling good only if the final product meets expectations.  He said this what not really something he applied in his classes, but that he did feel good about an assignment if he tried his hardest, even if he didn't get the best grade.

Growth Mindset - Flickr

Learning Challenge: Find a favorite attention meme - Week 4

Art by Kamil Kotarba

As much as I love technology and what it has done for the world, it really hurts attention.  Technology is a resource, it's a great way to share thoughts, to communicate quickly, to look up facts, to find directions on a map and many more things.  But I think some people become to dependent on technology, let it be part of every aspect of their life.  It's scary when somebody cannot go 10 minutes without their phone without feeling naked.  We should use technology, and not let it control us. Our attention and awareness will improve if we take the time to exist in this word, instead of existing only in a virtual one.