Peter's Myth Blog

1. Greece :  Greece, officially the   Hellenic Republic   (Greek:   Ελληνική Δημοκρατία ), historically also known as   Hellas , is a country located in   Southern   and   Southeast Europe , with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2016.   Athens   is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by   Thessaloniki . Greece is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Situated on the southern tip of the  Balkan Peninsula , it shares land borders with  Albania  to the northwest, the  Republic of Macedonia  and  Bulgaria  to the north, and  Turkey  to the northeast. 2. Turkey : Turkey is a  transcontinental country located mainly in  Western Asia , with a smaller portion on the  Balkan peninsula  in  Southeast Europe .  East Thrace , located in Europe, is separated from  Anatolia  by the  Sea of Marmara , the...

Although I never liked Twitter, I know its social signifcance and it's even often used by the President. So I feel compelled to learn about it no matter how much I disliked its messiness and streams of post. I made a twitter lists for followers and the folks I follow. It looks niche and pretty cool afterwards when I made all these lists. Nonethless, I'm still not a fan of Twitter for I think it has too many little functions that users don't even use all that often. But making a twitter list of people really nicely organized my twitter account, and I'm overall satisfied with this experience.

This was a Congo reading. I found this reading to be absolutely fascinating. I haven't tried a reading in Africa this semester so I thought this reading about the fetish sunga would end my list of reading lists really well. Basa was a clever fisherman: "Every day he used to go out fishing in the river, and every day he caught great quantities of fish which he used to smuggle into his house so that none should know that he had caught any." This is so clever yet greedy I thought. Wow.. Basa oviously was a hoarder: ""Basa, have you caught any fish?" And he would answer "No," although his house was full of fish going rotten." I thought Basa liked to keep everything to himself so others can't touch his belongings:"It happened that uponthat day Basa caught so much fish that he had to make some new matets, or baskets, to hold it all." This is a vivid and imagery scene I particularly liked in the reading: "When they ste...

I've searched through and read several articles in  Writers Write   website. One article that really caught my attention was " C. S. Lewis’s 5 Rules For Writers " This article caught my attention because I thought C.S. Lewis was one of the greatest writers of all time. To hear a writing advice from such renown writer, I thought, would greatly enhance my writing abilities. C.S. Lewis also wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, which I only watched in movie and tv series. I took all of his five advices to heart. I think they're all very important and useful tips for writing stories. I like the first advice: "Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else." Wow.. I was like..'what a practical advice is it that comes from a really renown writer. His first advice, in short, was get the message across clear so the readers can understand your writing. I also like his second advice ...

I've always been a big fan of Grimm brothers' fairy tale stories. Obviously, I think Grimm Brothers' fairy tale stories are the best of European fairy tale stories. I especially enjoyed the readings in the Reading A section, so I decided to review and do the reading notes for it. Grimm brothers' works are truly creative and fascinating. I've read several of them, but I haven't read this particular story of The Robber Bridegroome. It's relatively less known story of Grimm Brothers. There is no Disney version or a movie about it. So unless someone is truly interested in fairy tales, people wouldn't know much about this fascinating story. It was one of my favorite reads indeed. The story begins in an interesting plot: there was a miller who had a pretty daughter, but despite her beauty the miller was unsure about her marriage success: "If a decent sort of man comes and asks her in marriage, I will give her to him." A suitor came and asked th...

I really liked reading all the European fairy stories. One interesting thing that I've found is that all the stories are incredibly rich with vivid, imagery details, rich plots, and interesting characters. Although I thoroughly liked reading all the amazing and fascinating European fairy stories, the one that really caught my particular attention was The Swan Maidens. This story was full of suspense, surprise, and rich plots. The story began in an interesting way: There used to be a hunter who would stalk a deer to hunt. He suddenly heard the sound of ducks' wings and pointed his gun at them to catch. This was such a beautiful description of a scene with so much visual and imagery details: "there appeared seven maidens all clad in robes made of feathers, and they alighted on the banks of the lake and, taking off their robes, plunged into the waters and bathed and sported in the lake." Although all of the maidens were beautiful, the smallest and youngest one r...

The Semester Horse  (graphic) I find this marvelous horse to be relevant to my current situation. It gets tougher to stay on focus and finish strong when the semester gets closer to the end. We had Thanksgiving and now Christmas is on the way. Yet I do feel like it's super important to keep focused on academics and keep in mind of the large amounts of tuition that we have paid as students. The graphic is so funny and it caught my attention right away when I saw this. Eyes on the stars  (video) I really like this narrative video. It's about what it's like to grow up as a Black child in the 1950's when everybody was racist. It really hit my heart that a nine-year-old boy who came to library could be considered to be a "disturbance". It's very sad. But the power of reading and books are powerful as it was demonstrated in the video. The boy was obsessed with stars and science fiction and eventually became an astronaut. As this video demonstrates, books...

Time has come to judgment. This is dead week and I see no sign of survival for my traditional, in-class classes. Worries and intrusive thoughts are damaging my head. I'm at a very grim, perhaps the most abyss point of my life. Yes the classes are all upper-division and each one of those classes require LOTS of assignments. Exams and essays are tough and harshly graded. For someone like me who is an international student from a foreign country where nobody speaks English, I think different standards need to be applied. How in the sane world am I supposed to perform at the same level as American students who has spoken only English over 18 plus years. I started learning this language in 2016 (before that, I learned English like American high school students learn basic Spanish) and I think I'm still not ready to write "academic" papers with lots of research and citations. Nor am I ready to take exams that have essay questions. But what about the tuition though? In...

I've watched my dear friend Lance. He's an amazing guy that I've met in MIS class. I used to be a business major, but I didn't survive the major requirements. I was stressed and felt extremely bad for myself for not being able to make it to passing the class. My friend Lance who was sitting next to me taught me that I shouldn't be stressed over and business major isn't even the best major. I told him that my parents wanted me to major in business, but he also said my will  was even more important than my parents'. I told him that all my education is wholly financed by my parents. He said my will was more important because I wouldn't even do well if I did something I disliked. He was right. I disliked business and all the classes I was taking. So I decided to change my major to communication. Oh well. I found myself disliking it again. I think I generally dislike college courses because they are all rigid, except this class. This class has lots of a...

My friend Tony told me that he flunked his calculus exam. He said that he is feeling really bad because he now was in a situation that he had to change his major. He had been an electrical engineering major, but he couldn't sustain his major because he wasn't doing well in math classes. He told me that he likes engineering and making stuffs, but he never understood why the major required all the "unnecessary" conceptual math courses that he dreaded. Because he failed calculus classes twice, he told me that he had lost his scholarships and were asking his parents to pay his tuition.  When I heard Tony's tragic story about failing classes, I couldn't agree with him more. I've failed classes before and I myself changed my majors three times. So I taught and shared him about my survival strategy, which is to relax and not blaming oneself for the result or consequences.  We're told that we "choose" our lives and we're "responsi...

Now that I've set up my Twitter account yesterday, I thought it would be great to learn how to follow someone on Twitter. I found that it's relatively simple, yet can look confusing when it's completed. One thing I dislike about Twitter is its endless streaming of posts and it gives me headache to read all the messy posts that keep coming up. I've followed Elon Musk. I've always thought he was amazing. He's created life-changing companies like Telsa and Space X and he actually was the real-life model of Iron Man's Tony Stark. His companies, which include Telsa, Space X, and Boring Company, are impacting the world and future of humanity in major ways. Telsa has made fully electric and first fashionable (electric cars prior to Telsa were small and ugly in terms of design) electric cars that consumers love. I also followed Former OU President Boren. I respect President Boren so much. He has changed OU in major positive ways and OU is a more beautiful and ...

I found myself fascinated with reading Rapunzel story. It was an amazing story and truly creative. I liked how the long hair could create such creative story like Rapunzel. 1. Rapunzel : Rapunzel is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Rapunzel by Friedrich Schulz published in 1790. Its plot has been used and parodied in various media and its best known line ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair") is an idiom of popular culture. 2. Brothers Grimm : The two German brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore during the 19th century. They were among the first and best-known collectors of folk tales, and popularized traditional oral tale types such as "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig...

I've always been a big fan of Grimm brothers' fairy tale stories. Obviously, I think Grimm Brothers' fairy tale stories are the best of European fairy tale stories. I especially enjoyed the readings in LibriVox sections, so I decided to take notes of them. Grimm brothers' works are truly creative and fascinating. I've read several of them, but Rapunzel was a work of art in my opinion. I've only watched the Disney movie version of it, so it was fascinating to read the written version. The story is almost similar, yet slightly different in the way it was narrated. The story begins with a couple who was longing for a child. She believed it so dearly that she thought God would give her the child she wished for. It sounded very eerie and dreadful to me: "It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress who had great power and was dreaded by all the world." There must be something that wo...

I've searched through and read several articles in  Writers Write   website. One article that really caught my attention was " Why You Should Open Yourself Up To The Possibilities Of Story " This article caught my attention because I couldn't agree more on how important it is to be open to the endless horizons of possibilities of story when I'm writing stories. Otherwise, we might risk to write a story that isn't as creative as our initial intent. I've written lots of stories over the course of this semester, but I've always wanted to improve the quality of writing every time I write new stories. So I thought this useful article can help me a lot in improving the quality of my writing. Like the author said, it's a risk that leaves an author dry.  How To Be A Writer’, in the book, Self-Help, when we are open to new possibilities and creativity, the story becomes richer and fuller.  I like reading about the story of Rosa Parks and the bomb, and ...

I've always been a big fan of Grimm brothers' fairy tale stories. Obviously, I think Grimm Brothers' fairy tale stories are the best of European fairy tale stories. I especially enjoyed the readings in the Part B section, so I decided to review and do the reading notes for it. Grimm brothers' works are truly creative and fascinating. I've read several of them, but I've only watched the Disney version of Snow White. I haven't read Snow White's written version before. It was really fascinating to read about the story because it seemed slightly different from the movie. It begins with a similar beginning as the movie. The queen, who was the mother of Snow White, dropped three drops of red blood in the snow. It was a snowy day and the queen was contemplating on how her daughter would look like. She obviously wanted a very pretty one. The queen wished that her daughter would look like a lady whose skin was fair as snow, lips were red as blood, and hair w...

I really liked reading all the European fairy stories. One interesting thing that I've found is that all the stories are incredibly rich with vivid, imagery details, rich plots, and interesting characters. Although I thoroughly liked reading all the amazing and fascinating European fairy stories, the one that really caught my particular attention was Beauty and the Beast. I've never read the book version of the story, and I was amused at how text version of the story is more fun to read than watching the Disney movie! The story begins in a really interesting way, which is quite different from the Disney movie. There are the father and his doting three daughters. He asked his daughters for a favor because he loved them so much: "What shall I bring you back, my dears?" I like the youngest and most mature, in my personal opinion, daughter's interesting response: "Bring back yourself, Papa, and that is what I want the most." I thought this daughter re...

I decided to do another learning challenge this week because I have had a really good experience from someone who is so empathetic. It's about Kim. Kim is a friend from Korea. I like him so much because he is so kind and caring. Kim, although he is from Korea, has lived in America for many years, certainly many more years than I have. He came here when he was only twelve years old. When I arrived here in OU campus, I didn't know anything about the environment. In fact, I was confused to find the dorm that I was assigned to. I barely spoke English back then, so I desperately needed help. All the RA's apparently didn't speak Korean, and we couldn't communicate well. I even used the Google translator several times to get my messages across right. Fortunately, one of the RAs knew Kim. Kim has been a long friend of his, so he made a call and Kim showed up to our sight right away after few minutes. Kim graciously navigated me throughout campus, including dorm, resta...

Twitter is a really popular social media platform and its regular users include the President of the United States. The set-up was incredibly simple like most social media accounts are. I tweeted a simple tweet, Boomer Sooner. Wow. I think this is the power of social media. Anyone can sign up and tweet regardless of their status. In the past, people had to be famous or powerful enough to be able to show up in TV to reach a large audience. I've never been a regular user of Twitter and I've set up an account just for this assignment. But it was truly fun. Now I understand why people always tweet (before I've never understood why), including the President. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of Twitter design though. I dislike the messy design and so many unnecessary functions that require some time to learn. It's great that it limits the words though, and that I think is a good advantage of Twitter over other social media platforms like Facebook or Google. Obviousl...

I haven't read the South African folktales in the previous readings, so I found these readings to be really fascinating. I think they are all rich in plots and characters, but the story about the ants was the most fascinating of all. I have read about the story of other animals such as monkeys, crocodiles, lions, and so on, but insects like ants aren't usually given attention worthy of a great story. So The Lost Message part of the reading was my favorite of all South African stories I've read. I like the very beginning of the story, which is so true to the core: "The Ant has had from time immemorial many enemies, and because he is small and destructive, there have been a great many slaughters among them. Not only were most of the birds their enemies, but Anteater lived almost wholly from them, and Centipede beset them every time and at all places when he had the chance."  How many ants have I accidentally stomped on and killed? Probably countless. Yet, it...

Once upon a time, a jealous and hateful uncle named Unnatural Uncle lived in a village of the Crow Nation. Unnatural Uncle hated the boys and would always kill them when they were born. He just vehemently disliked boys and like girls. Villagers thought it was perhaps because Unnatural Uncle hated his ugly look, but nobody knew for sure why he hated boys and would always want to kill them right after they were born. This cruel and merciless act of Unnatural Uncle was against the Crow moral code of conduct, but the chieftain and villagers couldn't intervene in his murder process because his extreme hatred and jealousy would scare off the people who approached him. One day one of his younger sister gave birth. The sister was long yearning and hoping that it was a girl. She was scared of her brother's cruel jealousy and hatred toward boys. When she gave birth and found out that it was a boy, she screamed in deep fear, "Oh my god. It's a boy. My brother is going to ki...