Famous Last Words: Week 6

Well, I was hoping that this week's post would be about having a great week and not being as stressed as I have been in my previous week's posts, but it turns out it wasn't much better.  Let me apologize now, if my Famous Last Words posts seems to be mostly on the negative side.  I'm really not a negative Nancy, but this semester has been wrought with new & unexpected stressors almost every week.

I took my first Trigonometry test and it did not go as well as I had hoped.  I will probably need to get a tutor, if I want to pass this class.  My other classes are going ok.  I'm doing pretty well in my Capstone class, my TA Psychology class, and my Research Methods II class & lab.

In this class, I came across several interesting posts and storybooks.  One in particular drew me in just by reading the title.  The title was something like LSD: The Yellow Submarine.  The storyline left me with a lot of unanswered questions, but it also intrigued me enough to want to visit it again and again to see how the story progresses.  Good job, Lillian on such an interesting Storybook so far!

As for my personal life, I'm preparing for my husband to have surgery tomorrow morning (if the weather doesn't interfere with the current plan).  He is a medically fragile man & any surgery could be potentially life threatening to him.  I also found out that my oldest daughter is pregnant again with child #4 and she is a single mother.  She has asked my husband and I to adopt the child once it is born in August sometime.  This is an exciting time for us, but also stressful too because this will be a high risk pregnancy for her.  

As most of you know already, we are foster parents and already have 5 children in our home right now.  I need to graduate this semester, so I can go to work part or full time once our newest addition is old enough to go to Early Head Start (somewhere around September or October).

I know most of you are a lot younger than I am and probably have completely different stressors in your lives than I do.  Please bare with me as I post each week.  I'm just trying to survive this semester without turning into a crazy woman and writing about it seems to help somehow.  Thank you for letting me vent.

Thank You

Reading Diary A: Chinese Fairy Tales

The unit I chose for this week was Chinese Fairy Tales.  My favorite stories were Why Dog and Cat are Enemies and The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck.

In the beginning of the first story, I like how the cat and dog were friends and got along well.  They both loved their owners and their owners loved them too.  After their owners had sold their golden ring and started to lose their wealth, the cat and dog created a plan to return the golden ring to their owners.  They worked together, side by side, and did find the ring together.  On their way home, the cat ended up getting home faster than the dog and took full advantage of this fact to get all the praise and adoration from the owners.  This infuriated the dog because all he received was scolding and punishment.  In this story, I can see why that would cause a huge rift between the cat and dog.

I liked this story a lot even though the cat and dog are enemies in the ending.  The story reminded me somewhat about how some human relationships turn out.  Sometimes even someone you've known for a long time can turn on you and become your worst enemy.  I have seen it happen to some of my friends before and it's a horrible feeling for them.

Dog and Cat

In the second story about the child of ill luck, it starts out with a King's daughter who has chosen someone to marry that the King does not approve of at all.  He is so enraged at the act that he throws them both our of the kingdom to live on their own.  They barely survive, but one day the husband decides to go out and seek his fortune.  After 18 long years, the husband returns to find his wife still waiting for him.  He found his fortune and shared it with his wife after he realized she had done what she had promised.  The story ends with her only living for a short while after being rescued by her husband.

Even though this was a pretty sad story, I still liked it.  I admire the wife's loyalty, trust and honesty.  I aspire to have those same qualities in my own life, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I could have waited for eighteen long years for my husband to return.  I probably would have considered him long gone or dead after several years had passed.  I can relate to the part of the story where she chose a husband to which her father didn't approve of.  She was young and I remember doing that very thing when I was a young teenager as well.  She sounds like she was a pretty rebellious girl and that is a trait in myself that I can relate to in this story.  This story also makes me think of the Disney story Aladdin.  The princess falls in love with a beggar and her father is against it at first.  Then, in the end, they get married and share in the kingdom's fortunes.

Princess Jasmine & Aladdin