Randy Scharnhorst Blog

As soon as I began counting down the days until the end of my undergraduate career, life took a drastic change and decided that despite all my years of dedication to my education and to my sport, there was a different plan in store for my future. There were several things that I would not experience, things that I had dreamed of since I was a kid; I would no longer be able to finish my collegiate career as an athlete the way I had always envisioned it, I would no longer be able to have a college graduation ceremony where my family and friends could watch me walk across a stage and receive my diploma, I would not be able to have the dream wedding that my fiancée and I had been planning for almost 8 months. Though it seemed as if I could not catch a break, and felt as if my world was getting tossed around in a dryer, I began to realize that for the first time in my life, everyone on the entire planet has become connected in a way that no one could have ever even thought of. While I sa...

Authors Notes: This story was somewhat based on the story of Beowulf, but more than anything, just kind of came to me on my own. In this story, the son of an unjust king and queen finds out how easy he has it and begins to resent the way his parents treat their kingdom. He finds a beggar and brings him back to the castle as a friend but sees how his parents react to the sight of a beggar and becomes angry with them. This story is about fairness and being understanding of other people and shows how charity and generosity can go a long way. In the story of Beowulf, Beowulf was always looked at as not being as strong as he really was or was made fun of because of how clumsy he was. This story is related because the king and the queen both find the sight of poor citizens to be appalling, until one day those same citizens whose lives had been ruined by the king and queen, show up at their door and demand the kingdom return to the people. I hope you enjoy this story and hope that you all ...

Grendel Attacks: Beowulf awoken one day with a lethargic feeling and heavy mindset. It was foggy outside and the entire setting made Beowulf seem dazed and confused. In the distance, a beast came through the fog and it made loud grunts almost like that of a hog. As the fog parted and the moonlight crept in, a gigantic shadow made its way through the forest. The beast made its way to the great Heorot hall, and stood in front of the door. Beowulf and the other Geatish earls lay sleeping inside. The beast was Grendel. As Grendel got closer to the door, he sent out a spell that made those sleeping inside fall into a deeper sleep. Beowulf however was able to counteract the spell as he was already slightly awake. Grendel broke down the massive door and Beowulf quickly jolted awake. Beowulf saw the monster through the haziness, and as he got up out of bed, he struggled to get to the beast. When he laid his dreary eyes on the beast, he collected the full magnitude of how immensely large Grend...

King Hygelac of Geatsland: Geatsland was a land that is now what is considered northern Europe. The ruler of Geatsland was Hygelac. Hygelac was married to queen Hygd. Hygelac was a stern ruler, but his queen was considered to be Wise and Fair. Geatsland was on the coast, and there were many famous men who came from this land who were known to be heroic both on land and in the sea. Geatsland neighbored the Danes and the Frisians. All of the people in these areas were considered to be warlike. Geatsland was made up of vast forests that were inhabited by large beasts. Sometimes these beats would kill fishermen or farmers, and when this happened the Geats would wage war with the beasts. One day, the king and queen gathered the warriors of Geatsland in the kings drinking-hall. During the party, many stories were shared and songs were sang. The Young Beowulf: Hygelac's nephew Beowulf was one of the warriors of Geatsland. At a young age, Beowulf showed immense strength and a war like ...

Origin of the Sierra Nevadas and Coast Range: This story is about the creation of the world. Early on, there was nothing but water covering the entire planet. In one spot though, there was a large pole which two birds sat on. These two birds were the Hawk and the Crow. For many ages, they would fight for the top of the pole to perch on. One day they created other birds. These birds were Kingfisher, Eagle, Pelican, and Duck. Duck was able to dive deep into the water unlike the others, and when she dove once, she collected a beak full of mud and then died on the journey back to the surface. When she finally surfaced, Hawk and Crow took the mud from her beak and created the mountains. After they had finished creating their mountain ranges, Hawk realized that Crow's mountain range was much larger. He used some Indian tobacco which made him wise, and then circled Crow's mountains with more which then made Hawk's territory larger. Legend of Tu-tok-a-nu'-la (El Capitan): T...

Creation and Longevity: Coyote and Eagle are the main characters. Together they helped form the earth and all of its life. They each had separate jobs during the creation. Coyote created the planet, while eagle created the mountains. Coyote created hills, while Eagle created the valleys and ridges. Eagle was responsible for creating trees and bushes, and Coyote was responsible for medicine. Together they created man, and decided that if man wanted to live, they could, but if they wanted to die, they would let them die. Coyote was responsible for fire to warm the Indians. Ole Mole and Coyote: In this story, we hear about the journey that Coyote took to get the fire back to the Indians. He traveled eastward towards the white Fire Stone and stole the fire stone to bring back to the Indians so that they could be warm. We then hear about Sun, and his nine brothers. Each of them was flaming hot just like Sun, so Coyote had to kill the nine brothers to save the world from burning. Then w...

Ryker was the military specialist of a special city just outside of Tokonowa. He was known to be extremely skilled in martial arts and had many weapons that he was a true master with handling. He had been a part of an unidentifiable assault team that his country used to gain power in their kingdom. For his entire life, Ryker had trained countless hours a day to help his team achieve glorious victories in every battle they went into. Their team was known as the Convoy's, and it was Tokonowa's greatest military unit in all of the city's history. Ryker had several teammates who were specialists in other areas of fighting, Gino was good with guns, Amus was good with swords, and Becker was the best in the kingdom with hand to hand combat. Each day these four warriors would train together in the kingdoms training arena, working on their skills and battling against simulated experiences that would better prepare them in real life combat. After each week of hard training, they wo...

The Labors of Yamato - The Grotto of Love: Yamato (male) was married to Tacibana (female). He worried that she was too devote, and he thought she was tedious and of little worth. One day he went out hunting to get away from her, and he heard an eerie sound coming from a grotto. There was a legend about this grotto, claiming that it would pull people in with its beauty, and then never releasing. He swam towards it nonetheless. When he stepped onto land, a dragon appeared underneath his feet. When he got further in he saw nothing but beautiful sights, gems, coral, and other mystical things. He was then greeted by a mermaid who told him that he was in the presence of Benten, the female Goddess of Deathless Love. She told him to seek for the golden apple. The Labors of Yamato - The Golden Apple: This story is about the legend of a physician named Jofuku, who traveled to the Isle of Life Eternal, and found the Tree of Youth Immortal. This is where the golden apple was from. Once the man h...

Izanagi and Izanami: Izanagi is the God of the Heavens, and Izanami is his wife, and the "Beautiful Goddess of Love." Before the beginning of time, all was chaotic, but suddenly a cloud arose. Within this cloud was a seed, and once this seed was planted it began to grow. This seed bloomed into the sun. From this, another seed was dispersed, and this seed turned into the moon. From the moon, many seeds were sent out, and these became gods and goddesses. Izanagi connected the heavens and the moon and sun, and finally decided he wanted to find more land, and after searching for a while, he came upon the island of Onogora. From here he attached a floating bridge. From that bridge, earth-makers descended from the heavens to create the planet. After some time developing the planet, Izanagi and Izanami wed and then Izanami birthed eight descendants, which became the eight islands of Japan. These were Yamato (the Flowery Isle of the Dragon-fly), then Tsukushi (the White Sun Youth), I...

For the first couple weeks of the semester, I got really behind in this class and am still playing catch up every week in order to get the points I need still. I have started to become more comfortable with the class's assignments and progressions, but still find it hard to get myself to do everything in time. I am still working on utilizing the schedule that I have laid out more efficiently but overall am figuring things out. For the second part of the semester, I know that I need to be doing as much extra credit as possible, so I plan on working on some of those assignments over the break so that I can get all caught up with what I have already lost points on. The hardest part of any work, is finding the strength to get started. Credit:  needpix

Since the beginning of the class, I have enjoyed reading the feedback I have received from my classmates, especially on my introduction post. The intro posts have been one of my favorite assignments in this class so far, and I really enjoy reading my classmates introductions as well. I have had a very good time reading other people's stories from this class and commenting my thoughts on them. I think that it has been very fun to read and compare their stories to my own, and see how we might have interpreted the same story in completely different ways. Moving forward, I noticed that I have had a few people telling me that they would get an error message when they tried getting to my comment wall, but others also telling me they were able to get to it easily. I guess I will just need to monitor this in the other comments posted on my comment wall. As an athlete, this cate meme is way too relatable. credit:  Laura Gibbs

In the beginning of the semester, I fell really far behind with completing readings and assignments each week and am very upset about this. However, I have gotten back on track with my reading assignments and have found a style of writing that really interests me and makes my own writing much more fun and creative. The style of writing that I have enjoyed the most is short stories, because I like learning about how each story shares its own lesson with the reader, and how some of the stories even can be linked together to form one larger lesson. Since I have found that these are my favorite stories to read and to write, I have been much more confident in my writing skills and much more active in my blog posts and story writing. My favorite image I have used so far is this storm picture. In the story I wrote during this week, I wrote about an opossum who thought his life was horrible because he was constantly having to look after his house and clean up debris, until one day a massive...

Read my story in my portfolio here:  Copper and the Magic Book In the kingdom of Anvil lived a boy who went by the name of Copper. Copper was the youngest kid in his family, having one older brother whose name was Nickel, but went by Nick, and one older sister whose name was Diamond. Copper's father was a craftsman and worked in a forge building swords for King Platee's enormous army. Copper's mother was a stay at home mom, who was at one point a teacher, but now stayed home and did homeschooling with the kids. When Copper was 8 years old, there was a large war that broke out between the kingdom of Anvil and the nearby kingdom of Hammer. Copper, who loved to see his dad's swords, began helping his father in his forge in order to make enough swords to supply King Platee's army.  The famous sword of King Platee... credit:  NeedPix One day when Copper and his father were working in the forge, a group of soldiers came in and said to Copper, "S...

Hassebu: There was once a baby named Hassebu and when he was old enough, his mother wanted him to learn how to read. Once he could read, his mother put him in different trade schools but he was unable to learn any trades. Then one day he found one of his father's medical books and read it. While he was reading it some men came to their house and told his mother that Hassebu should go with them to cut wood to be sold in the city. She agreed and for the next several days, Hassebu and the men cut and sold wood. One day it was raining and the men stayed inside, but Hassebu didnt mind the rain. He dropped a rock on the ground and heard that under the ground, it was hollow, like a well was underneath. He called the men over and when they dug the earth up, there was a small lake filled with honey. They realized that it would be more profitable than wood and told Hassebu that he would harvest the honey since he was the one to discover it, and then they would all sell it and split the mone...