Mythology Blog Fall 2019

El Cerro del Muerto, Aguascalientes, Mexico. Image from:  https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_del_Muerto El gallo canto, signaling the beginning of a new day. It was a chilly, yet refreshing, Thursday morning. Rodolfo rubbed his eyes, yawned, and got out of bed. Empezó el dia con his daily chores by milking and feeding his vacas. While he was milking the fifth vaca, noto el cadáver de una cabra al otro lado de su cerca de alambre. He went to investigate. It looked like the work of coyote, but something didn’t look right. Rodolfo had never seen this goat before, and he didn’t know anyone else that raised goats besides himself within a 5 kilometer radius. Decidió seguir el rastro de sangre para averiguar de donde vino la cabra. The path led him into el cerro del muerto and five kilometers up the mountain. Ahí, encontró una chabola vieja and inside there was an old man crying. “Usted quien es?” Pregunto el viejo with tears in his eyes. “Soy Rodolfo Guadalupe Ruiz Ramos, my...

An image of Susa-no-wo fighting the serpent that I thought was really cool. I found this image at  https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Susanoo-no-Mikoto_(Mythology) Link to story:  https://sites.google.com/view/mythfolkloreanthology/the-divine The story that grabbed my attention the most was the Japanese story of The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. I am a huge fan of imagery, and this story had great examples of it like this one “It hath eyes as red as a ripe mountain cherry, a noisome blood-inflamed body, armed with eight fearsome heads and eight forked tails. Moreover, its back is all overgrown with firs, cedars, and pines, and it trails its tortuous coils over eight valleys and as many mountains.” Another aspect of the story that I thought was really interesting was how the motif of the number eight kept showing up. First, there was the Eight forked serpent, eight daughters, eight valleys, the sake of eightfold strength. I am not sure what the meaning behind it us and my ini...

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4. Week 3: Cupid and Psyche Week 4: Aesop (Winter) Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6. Week 5: Sinbad Week 6: Twenty Two Goblins Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.] Week 7: Congo Week 9: African Tales Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11. Week 10: California Southwest Week 11: Alaska Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13. Week 12: Beowulf Week 13: Celtic Tales Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Lang 1 Week 15: Inferno I read Beowulf in high school, but it been so long I don't remember most of it. I remember that I liked it so I'm excited to read it again.  I found this picture at:  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-43045874 I'm not too familiar with many of these stories so I am interested in seeing what they will be like. When choosing stories, I ba...

Time management strategies are definitely necessary as a college student. During my freshman and sophomore years, I was incredibly unorganized and often missed assignment deadlines, once I even missed a chem exam. This semester I am taking more credit hours than I have ever before and I will continuously need to improve my time management skills to achieve more than I ever have before. I am not worried though, I know where my weaknesses lie and I will do everything I can to improve. I read "How to beat procrastination," and "Why time management is ruining our lives." The first article offered some interesting tips and tricks like rewarding oneself when they begin a task or even to visualize how good it will feel to get something done. I think that I will tie my task to rewards more often because it seems like a fun way to get things done. The second article was pretty long but it also had an important message to me. That no matter what you do there will almost alway...

I am familiar with a few of the programs we will use for this class. Primarily the graphics ones and blogger. I am very interested learning how to make a webpage so the project assignment I think will be a good experience to practice with. Having so much of the class resources online is pretty different, usually for all my classes I never needed more than a text book or some online homework program like theexpertta or sapling. Learning how to use all of them will definitely be interesting.  Here's a photo I took of my girlfriends cat, Mars. 

I think that for me, the storytelling and project assignments will be the most interesting to do. Simply because I never really grew up with much storytelling and my imagination isn’t very wild. I think they will be challenging because I haven't really done any other assignments like them before, but I think it will be a good opportunity for me to try something different. The extra credit options that interest me are the growth mindset ones and I will try to do as many of the extra readings as I can. I'm not the most organized person so I think it may take me a bit before I get into a groove for this semester but I plan on getting as far ahead as I can once I settle down. You didn't specify what kind of image to attach so here’s a sort of joke.  Link to photo:  https://me.me/i/biologist-microbiologist-molecular-biologist-none-1f231f16b7f34d6998d4b4890a00d6df

Image of the sun. From  https://www.google.com/search?q=sun&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS824US824&hl=en-US&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiK8smqqpnkAhUF7qwKHTYwC2wQ_AUIFigB&biw=1112&bih=725#imgrc=PGUQAxc0QDB6YM I attribute myself a lot with the sun because of all the summers I spent working under it and the worked ethic I developed during those summers. I had never heard of Carol Dweck nor her growth mindset until today. I want to say that I have that I was raised with a sort of growth mindset and maybe I can attribute my academic success to that. My dad had worked landscaping since he came to the United States and in 2016, my freshman year in high school, he quit his job and became his own boss. At first it was a bit slow, but eventually, things picked up. The summer after my freshman year I started working for my dad, not really because I wanted to but because I had too. We would wake up at 6 am and often not be home until 8, 9, some...

My name is Jose Juan Ruiz Macias Jr. I am the son of Jose Juan Macias Ruiz and Irma Liliana Ruiz Ramos. Both are Mexican immigrants that came to the USA in 1997. I was born that same year in the small town of Sun Valley, Idaho. I spent my first year of life there. My dad wasn't a big fan of the cold weather, so we moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he previously lived for a couple of years with his older brothers. I grew up in the south side of OKC next to OCCC. I attended Western Heights High School and graduated in the top ten percent with distinguished honors. I also played soccer and ran cross-country from sophomore to senior year. I came to OU as an undecided major, pursuing a career in pharmacy. After two years, I changed majors to chemical bioscience, and now I am in the process of applying to grad schools to obtain a PhD.D. I am not exactly sure what I want to study. I've looked at several programs including biochemistry, molecular biology, pathology, and genetic...

Storybooks The Question is the Thing. Link:  https://sites.google.com/view/mythiccreatures/home This was the first storybook that caught my eye. This storybook was full of riddles and magical creatures which I have always been interested in. I was familiar with a couple of the creatures in the tale like the phoenix and sphinx, but it also included a creature from China which I had never heard. The introduction was good, I liked how it ends ominously. I liked the design, I like when stories include a lot of images so that you can see for yourself what the author is talking about.   "Itzamna's Desolation." Image from "The Book of All letters" The Book of All Letters. Link:  https://sites.google.com/view/myth-folkloreproject/home This was the second book that caught my eye. I have seen pictures of ancient languages and inscriptions before but I'm not too familiar with them. As a Latino, I was really interested when I saw the Mayans...

I was born in Sun Valley, Idaho and spent my first year of life there. After that my parents moved to south OKC where I was raised. I still have a lot of family in Idaho and we go back to visit every so often. This is one of the photos I took over there by my grandmas house back in 2015.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...