Week 13 Review: Home Stretch

Hi there! I don't know about anyone else in this class but I am busting my butt to finish these assignments up so I can get an A in the class. Staying in the holiday spirit, I am so thankful for the extra week (Week 15). Because of it, I don't have to cram a bunch of extra credit assignments into next week, but instead can work on mostly standard assignments. I also caught a previous assignment that I did, but didn't do the declaration for so that was a nice treat to start this week off with. I took the time to read through the announcements for the last seven days, and that has thankfully helped me understand how class is working over the next couple weeks and what finishing up looks like for me. As I was looking through said announcements, I was completely distracted by the blurb about St. Catherine. My full name is Catherine and I come from a Catholic family, but I had never heard of her in detail. So I spent quite a while reading about her on Wikipedia and found out that the "nickname" my grandfather uses for me, Aikaterina, isn't a nickname! It is the Greek/Russian version of Catherine, which makes sense considering my grandfather's family were Germans living in Russia before they immigrated to the United States. While I wasn't named after Saint Catherine, I was happy to gain some understanding about my grandfather and have a look into the past. If you want to read about Saint Catherine here is the link to her wiki page. The portrait I have included is the picture that Laura used on the announcements page. Saint Catherine is pictured with a wheel like one used to torture her. Spiked wheels such as these came to be known as Catherine Wheels.

I also really enjoyed the video about empathy from November 16th. I have always felt a lot of empathy and sympathy for others. While sometimes this can make my emotions overwhelming, I think it is really a gift. I think it helps me understand others and have an understanding of the world that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Bibliography

Caravaggio [Public domain]

Empathy: The Human Condition

Comments

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