Famous Last Words for Week 1

I started the first week of classes pretty unorganized, but I think I had a good schedule figured out by the end of the week. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have about three hours between my Linear Algebra and Signals and Systems classes. So I plan to use that time for working on Epics of India reading and writing, as well as Fridays after class. I was able to keep up with the assignments alright, but I'd like to get more ahead on them than I am now. Next week, in particular, I'm going to visit my brother in Chicago, so I would like to get most of the assignments done before I leave on Wednesday.

(personal photo from when I visited my brother last year at this time; February 2014)

Writing is something I am very slow at. I enjoy it, but historically, writing assignments take me much, much longer than other kinds of schoolwork. In that regard, I think it's important that I maintain a good writing schedule for the semester. I have a good study space in Devon Energy Hall where I think I can focus well in a quiet environment. That's where I intend to do most of my writing this semester.

Reflecting on the first week of this class, I really like the blogging aspect of it. It was fun to create my own blog; I've never done that before. I also very much enjoyed looking at my classmates' blogs and reading through their introductions. Most of the classes I take are with other people in my major (Computer Engineering), and so it's interesting to communicate with OU students studying things very different than I am. I am looking forward to the rest of the semester, for sure.

Indian Epics Overview

I'm really excited to study Indian Epics this semester because it is so different from other courses in my major (Computer Engineering), and because it's a topic I really don't know much about. I do recall reading some Indian stories in high school when we studied Hinduism as part of a religion unit in English class. But that is the extent of it.

Looking through the overview material provided, the story behind the Ramayana story seemed familiar, and I think I read a version of it in high school. Particularly, I remembered the character Ganesha, so below I have re-posted a photo of a Ganesha carving from the Indian Epics Resources site:

(Ganesha carving)

As far as epics go, I remember reading from a number of Western epics in my senior year English class in high school, including selections from Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey. I really enjoyed them, and I'd like to read them in their entirety someday. Now I really look forward to reading epics from another part of the world.

Storybook Favorites

The first storybook I looked at was Player One Vs. MAYA because it sounded like a game. I was excited and a bit surprised to find out it actually is a game. Which I think is super creative! It’s a decision-based game about Maya, a divine architect. The goal is to get through the game without being influenced by the deceptive Maya. That is a very unique way to relay the story, and I liked it a lot. It’s a cool concept, and the writing itself is very good too. Additionally, the site has a video-game sort of look to it, as do all of the images, which go together nicely and support the concept. The whole thing was very well-made.

(Player One Vs. MAYA)

Tales from the Carnival was the next project I looked at, and I found it interesting because of its subject and its delivery. It’s about Wise Creatures, which are super intelligent animals. This story follows a modern day journalist who reports on traveling carnivals because they keep up the tradition of Wise Creatures, as it is fading everywhere else. I skimmed through the rest of the story past the Introduction, and it’s really imaginative and well-written. The dialogue is good, and the plot seems very interesting.

The last storybook that grabbed my attention was Yama’s Tattoo Parlor. It is told from the first person perspective of Yama, who is the god of Death and who, in this story, has given up the underworld to set up shop in tattoo artistry. The author tells different stories through characters who show up at the tattoo parlor, which I think is a really neat framework. The structure works well for setting up the different stories. I also like how the author uses it to incorporate information about how tattoos fit into the culture.

Looking at these examples, I see there are a lot of different ways to make a really great story. Unique story structures and presentations elevated the content of the storybooks I looked at, and I want to try to do something like that for mine this semester.

Introduction

Hello! I’m Allison Olin, and I’m a junior studying Computer Engineering here at OU. I’m the secretary of the OU Robotics Club, as well as the secretary of OU Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE).

I think the coolest thing about me is that I have a twin brother, Jack. He’s awesome! He is studying theater and economics at Northwestern University. My favorite things to watch him do are improv and sketch comedy, two of his greatest talents. I’ve always thought my brother’s a genius, and he’s the funniest person I know.

(personal photo of my brother and I, taken January 2015)

I have two dogs, Daisy and Cooper. Daisy is a spaniel mix and my fourteenth birthday present. She is for sure the best gift I’ve ever received! She didn’t grow very much, and she looks the same as she did the day we brought her home, so she’s like an eternal puppy. Cooper is a golden retriever and a goof. He’s only one year old, but he’s already as big as a moose. And clumsy. Over the years, my little dog got into the habit of sleeping on the back of furniture. Cooper, who is not little in any sense, observed this and also attempts to sleep on the back of furniture. I have seen him fall off the back of the couch many, many times, but he’s very persistent.

(personal photo of my dog Daisy, taken January 2015)

(personal photo of Daisy and Cooper, taken January 2015)

I was born and raised in Colorado, and I love it there! There are so many fun things to do at any time of the year, and the climate is perfect. Last summer, I interned at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, working on software to incorporate system intelligence into big data management lab-wide. This upcoming summer and fall, I will be doing a co-op at HP in Fort Collins, CO, and I’m very excited to return to my home state for a whole semester.

Week 1 Storytelling: The Great Tweedle War

In the far-off galaxy of Tweedle, children all over playgrounds on the planets Dum and Dee sing and clap to the rhyme of a long-ago war.

Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee
Resolved to have a battle
For Tweedle-dum said Tweedle-dee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew by a monstrous crow
As big as a tar-barrel,
Which frightened both the heroes so
They quite forgot their quarrel.

After many years of peaceful trade and cooperation, the planet Dum built a new and advanced space station, and it came as a surprise to citizens everywhere when the Dum government denied access to all people of Dee. Enraged by news of the sudden hostility between their long-time allied planets, Captain Cabrel, leader of the premier ship of Dee’s space fleet, intentionally misaligned his ship’s coordinates so as to pass into the edge of the space station’s orbital path, damaging its exterior hull.

In bitter retaliation, Dum declared war on Dee. Battles were continually waged in the outer space regions in that part of the Tweedle galaxy for almost a century. Cyborgs and robots were drafted in droves to step up the fight. The debris of thwarted spaceships littered the sky.

The struggle might have dragged on for another century, had they not been jointly threatened by a new enemy. The unexpected arrival of a colossal, black space voyager, entirely foreign to Tweedle, so completely unnerved the two planets that they forgot their animosity and reunited as allies. Together, and terrified, the Dum and Dee space fleets pointed their combat ships outward and stood their ground until the voyager turned around and sought other planetary conquests in the universe.

After such an encounter, the previous ninety-nine years of fierce contest was all but forgotten by the Dumian and Deeish peoples. By now, it has so absolutely vanished from public memory that the majority of the truth remains only in the deepest sections of the history books. A small part lives on in schoolyard songs.

(space battle)

 

Author’s Note: I based my story on “Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum,” which I found in The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang in 1897. I selected this particular rhyme because Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum are two of my favorite characters from the Alice in Wonderland books by Lewis Carroll, which I enjoy reading over and over again. Quoted in my story above, the rhyme appears to be about a fight between two small boys who couldn’t share and get along. So I tried to imagine it on a much larger scale, one of galactic proportions.

Lake Seven - My Favorite Place

My very favorite place is my family's cabin on Lake Seven near Frazee, MN. I'm from Colorado, but I spent every summer there growing up. Some of the things I love to do at the lake include swimming, water skiing, fishing, kayaking, and spending time in the local towns. 

(Image Information: personal photo of Lake Seven;

photo from July 2011.)

Also, my grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles live near there (my grandparents just down the road), so I have many fond memories of family reunions, card games with my grandma, and playing in the water with my cousins.

(Image Information: personal photo of my dogs in our boat;

photo from July 2012.)