Tech Tip: Ethereal

for this assignment, i choose the ethereal design for my blog because i love the sky and the blue . and i also love the change and hate the routine in any thing in my life. and here is the steps how i did that:
1) To access your blog controls, you can click on the Design link in the top navbar, or go to Blogger.com and click on the design options menu, and choose template or You can also access the template options from the left-hand sidebar of your blog dashboard.
2) If you choose Template, you will see the template controls. Click the Customize button to see the template options. You can choose the color scheme and, most importantly, you can also choose the background image, either from one supplied by Blogger or by using an image that you upload.

Week 1: Famous Last Words

In the first week of this class, I read more than one story. There were short and interesting. the great thing after reading each story is there was a moral where everyone can learn from it something and make him think more deeply. I remember I did my reading over a story about a friend left his friend alone when he needed him. The title of the story is “Two Travelers and a Bear “and it talks about two men were traveling in company through a forest, when, all at once, a huge Bear crashed out of the brush near them. One of the Men, thinking of his own safety, climbed a tree. The other, unable to fight the savage beast alone, threw himself on the ground and lay still, as if he were dead. He had heard that a Bear will not touch a dead body. And the moral of the story is “misfortune is the test of true friendship”. I really liked that we had the opportunity to change whatever we want in the original story to create our own. That is gave me some space to extend the story in the way I felt it could be useful to give the same moral for the original story. writing in this style keep me comfortable when I am writing, where I tell the story without going to tell every detail in the story like how the characters look like or describing  how was the bear look like or if the day was sunny day or rainy day. I always like to focus in the idea of the story and try to tell it to the reader in the shortest way I can do because sometime when I read a very long story or novel and it has many details I feel bored very quickly. I do not like to spend like five minutes reading details where they do not add anything to the idea. The reason I am doing this right now because I still not a very good writer and have enough experience in writing stories, so I cannot attract the reader’s attention for to many time just to read details in my writing. But overall I loved this experience of writing and I will keep working in that during this semester and trying to learn how to do different styles of writing.

image information: this image from the story that i read this week 

Week 1 Review

in week 1, i enjoyed reading about the Growth mindset where this idea was new for me and i learned that knowing about Growth mindset can help any student  to do well and find the good way of learning things even if he did a lot of mistakes, he still can learn and be smart, and here is my favorite quote from last week

we always can learn from mistakes ( Memes)

Learning challenges

In my opinion, learning by H.E.A.R.T. is one of the most important things that every student should learn to succeed in college. Each of these areas is highly importance, but I think learning about managing time is so helpful and it is the key of successful in this life because without time management our lives could always feel rushed or stressed. And we will feel like we have time to do a lot of things through the day, but we do not know how to use this time. I believe when everyone knows how to use his time, he will always find the way for the happiness and the good health. In the first semester at OU I struggled a lot to find the balance between going to classes, doing homework, get in study groups, and my personal life and see my friends. I think managing time needs a lot of practice, but it is not hard to find it in the end.  

One of my favorite Quotes about time 

Growth Mindset

I had never heard of the growth mindset before watching the videos, but after I watched them I became very interested in this topic and want to learn more it. It is simply an amazing idea. Everyone knows that life is full in challenges, and it is very good idea when the person try different ways to handle any problem in life. The biggest challenges about learning new things in new classes are getting good grades. And sometimes, I spend my time just focusing on remembering what will be in the test or how to get an A. and forget to enjoy the new information and how the material in the class is so related to our daily life, so sometimes I end up with a good grade in the class, but without enjoying the materials.  Learning about growth mindset sounds to me that it is very effective way to improve myself and find the good way to learn the new things in life. My goal this semester is to get good grades in my all classes and enjoy the new information.  I hope learning about the growth mindset will help me learn what I want to learn from each class.

 practicing is the great way to reach any goal in life: source 

Storybook Favorites

After I looked at Myth-folklore past storybooks that students had done form last semesters. I choose three that caught my attention, which included “Love under the sea”,” A Dog’s Adventures”, “  Christmas with Andersen”. These three storybooks caught my attention very quickly because they talk about my favorites topics to read about which they are love story, Christmas, and traveling.

“Love under the sea” grabbed my attention because I love to hear about love stories and I also love the sea and fishes. This story talk about a catfish called Abaia who is basically trying to find the love in the sea. What I really liked is the great imagination in writing this story where Abaia, the catfish, do everything the human can do like browsing in the Internet and reading. Then Abaia start to introduce her best friend to us, the turtle who tried to help her find love. This storybook looks so interesting to me.

“A Dog’s Adventures” immediately caught my eye because traveling and visiting many countries is one of my biggest dreams in life. The introduction for this storybook is very great and it told me a lot about what I am going to read in this story. Bentley is a dog living in a little backyard in Norman.  And one day Bentley decided to travel and see the world, he wanted to visit Mexico, France and Italy. Then the story continued to tell us about his adventures in each of these countries. I liked the layout of this storybook and it is so easy to follow and brows between the stories.

image information: This is Bentley traveling to see the world

Lastly, “Christmas with Andersen” this is an interesting storybook to read. It has a title for ever page in it which makes the reader wants to keep reading to the end because these titles give a great prompting to continue reading the story. The design for this Storybook is really good.

My Un-Textbook choices overview:

After browsing the different units in the Un-textbook, I have decided that I want to start reading Arabian nights for week 2 reading and Alice in wonderland for the week 3 reading.

Arabian nights: I have always enjoyed the “Arabian nights “stories and think I am going to really like reading this unit. I also read about Scheherazade before, so I am so excited to read and learn more.

This is picture of  Scheherazade telling a story

Alice in wonderland: this is story was one my favorite stories when I was a little child and that’s why this unit caught my eye immediately. It will be very interesting to read more stories about Alice in wonderland in the Un-textbook .

Other reading that have grabbed my attention to read in the future: 

Robin hood: I think I am familiar with story due to the stories that I read before, but I really want to read this book to compare it with what I already know and see if I really know the original story of robin hood or not.

Egyptian myth:   when I was browsing this unit, I found that it is an interesting unit to read about. And I just want to read   more about the ancient Egyptian myths and stories .

Week 1 introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Duoaa Alkalaani, I am junior and majoring in Chemical Engineering and this is my second year at OU. My dream is to become a very successful engineer in the future and visit new countries as much as I can because I love traveling a lot. Just to introduce my background, I was born in Syria in a very small and beautiful city  called “Shahba “,I wrote about it in one of my posts for this class , so if you want to visit my blog and read more about Shahba I would be so thankful and happy to answer any question you may have for me,. So I grew up in Shahba and I have got graduated from one of its high schools. Then in 2010 I came to the U.S with my family, I studied two and half years at Tulsa community college in Tulsa and last year I moved to Norman to finish my degree. My brother and I majoring in Chemical Engineering at OU which makes the studying much more fun and sometimes a lot easier because he always has a very great ideas to deal with some engineering problems. Last semester I took an Engineering orientation class, this class was so easy and we had too much fun in that class because it was just about knowing the organizations at OU and how to get involve in the activities that the OU offers each semester, but the fun part in that class was to go outside the class room and find events to attend in the college of engineering where we can get some points. That was a very great and fun class to take.  I love to listen to Arabic music and I like to watch movies when I have free time, any kind of movies really it doesn’t matter for me. Also, cooking is my favorite thing to do every day. My favorite food to cook is “Makloba with salad”

image information: my favorite dish ( Makloba and salad )

Week 1 Storytelling : Three men and a Bear

Mike, David, and josh are three friends love each other and care about each other so much. These three friends had a very strong relationship, they were meet every day and tell each other about their problems and how they must get some money to be able to feed their children. One day the friends decided to go to the forest to bring some skins of snakes so they can sell them and get some money. In the following morning, while the friend searching for snakes in the deep of the forest, David went in different direction away from his friends, and suddenly he saw a bear in front of him trying to attack him, so David tried to escape, but unfortunately he could not do that because the bear got its tentacles in all of his body and made him suffer serious injuries, after a while David was able to grab out of his pocket a knife and stabbed the bear several times until it was dead. At that fighting time, Mike and Josh were watching David from a far how he was fighting the bear, but they did not try to help him in any way. After the bear died, Mike and Josh went to see David if he still alive or not and they saw him in a very critical situation and he could not be able to move because of his really bad injuries, so they decided to carry him on their shoulders until they find any house or small clinic in the nearest town to the forest, but the decision was not the perfect one to take because that would take them two days of walking to get to the town. And after one hour of walking, Josh said to Mike:” Mike, it is impossible to carry David on our shoulders all this time, we should think in another solution to this problem”

“ I got an idea, let me go by myself to the town and try to find anyone can help us with some first aid for David, and I will come back with him to here very quickly” Mike said.

Josh agreed with this idea and said” OK, I will wait here for you with David”

Unfortunately, mike went and did not come back to his friends and forgot that David needs the help very quickly. David and josh remained waiting for a period of time until they  heard the sound of a herd of buffalo coming toward them, then josh run away leaving  his friend David dying  without  helping him or caring about him. And that is what I always say: we can know true friend just in difficult situations.

Misfortune is the test of true friendship [pg 90]

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

The title of the story is “Two Travelers and a Bear “and it talks about two men were traveling in company through a forest, when, all at once, a huge Bear crashed out of the brush near them.
One of the Men, thinking of his own safety, climbed a tree. The other, unable to fight the savage beast alone, threw himself on the ground and lay still, as if he were dead. He had heard that a Bear will not touch a dead body. It must have been true, for the Bear snuffed at the Man's head awhile, and then, seeming to be satisfied that he was dead, walked away.
The Man in the tree climbed down.
"It looked just as if that Bear whispered in your ear," he said. "What did he tell you?"
"He said," answered the other, "that it was not at all wise to keep company with a fellow who would desert his friend in a moment of danger."

I made some changes in this story where I had three men instead of two. Also I talked about  a different  purpose of having these friends in the forest and how the difficult situations can show you if you have true friends or not. So the moral of the story is “Misfortune is the test of true friendship”

Bibliography: This story is based on the Aesop for children book “Tow Travelers and a Bear” illustrated by Milo Winter.

Shahba- the most interesting ancient city in Syria ....My favorite place

Syria is a very beautiful country and it has always been a center where East and West meet. It is no marvel that this country has flourished throughout history. part of learning about Syria is knowing Shahba which is my favorite place.
Shahba , also known as Philippopolis, is one of the last ancient cities founded in Syria during the Roman Empire. It was named after Philip the Arab who was the Emperor of Rome between 244 and 249 CE. The old city of Shahba is located 87 km south of Damascus in Sweida province. Because it was the emperor's birthplace, it was built as a smaller copy of ancient Rome ,but the city was never fully completed . Building stopped when Philip died in 249 CE.

Shahba still contains well-preserved ruins of the old city. within the four walls of the square city lies the Philippeion which is an  impressive temple with an outdoor place for prayers called Kalybe.
                                                                       

The Philippeion, a memorial monument, Source: Wikipedia

And if you are interested in the arts. you must visit Shahba museum where you can see magnificent mosaics of the period. one of them tells the story of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty , while another shows the picture of the legendary Greek musician Orpheus surrounded by animals.  I really enjoyed visiting that museum several times. it was amazing.
                                                                   
                                                                         

Shahba Roman Mosaics, Source : Wikipedia