Mythology and Folklore

This week, the final week of the Native American folklore section, I have chose to do my first reading over the Inuit tribes. I have read that the Inuit do not like the term Eskimo because it is a derogatory word must like red man is here on the Great Plains, so I will refer to the people as Inuit's in this blog. Anyways, I have read the part A section of the Inuit folk-tails and I would have to say my favorite story was "The Giant Dog". It was my favorite for a couple of reasons. One, it was a classic Indian folk-tale. Two, it seems to me that there was many other tangents that one could take in this story to give it more character and meaning. For me, I would start by elaborating on the man and the giants dog's initial friendship. Where did the dog come from? Why did the dog allow the man to tame him and ride him as he wished? These question would first be answered, giving some more background to the story. Next, I would develop more detail into why the giant dog wa...

I chose to check out the Browser and Bookmarking tech tip in hopes that I may be able to get my life together a little better and make myself a little more organized. I have used the bookmarking tool many times in saving published papers and such that I will need to review for later. I haven't used the feature of creating your own title before and I think I will start using that in future bookmarks.

Picture from AIC of turtle traveling down the river  I decided to do the extra credit reading this week because I recently enrolled in the Indian Epics class so I wanted to read some more about Indian folklore and figured I might as well write up a post about it and get a few points. I chose to do this blog over one of my favorites I had time to read today and that is "How the Turtle Saved His Own Life" and is apart of the Jataka Tales unit in the untextbook. First off the title of the story caught my attention. If I don't do anything else with this story or take anything from it, the title was enough. Anytime someone is able to save himself or herself that deserves great respect. I read on into the story and was impressed with the cunningness of the turtle. In most stories that I have read the turtle wasn't the most cunning. This however was the case here and can be found in other stories as well. We have all heard of the story about the race between the rabbit ...

I have chosen to do a planning post this week mainly because I have wrote a few different stories that have great Native American backgrounds already. Because of this is makes it difficult sometimes to continue the flow without stories sounding too much alike. So, this is a great opportunity to step back and rethink my storytelling methods and try and come up with something different and great. I would like to do a retelling or rendition of the story "Coyotes and Rattlesnake". Partly I want to do this because I have done a story over a story that had the two main characters as a Snake and Coyote already. Also, however, I think that I could fairly easily change the story into more of a Halloween like tale. For instance, the two characters are attempting to scare each other when they come to their own houses. This part could easily be changed to a Halloween type of scenario where one neighbor is scaring the other and vice-a-versa. The only difficult part of the whole thing wo...

Coyote and Rattlesnake found at Love the Hurt Continuing my learning about Native American folklore I decided to read the second list of stories from the Southwestern/California unit. I chose this unit because of their bountiful use of the Coyote character. I am using Coyote as a main person in my storybook so I thought it would be a good idea to perhaps learn a little more about what he may be like in different cultures across the U.S. I chose to do this blog over the story "The Coyote and the Rattlesnake". To me, this is an interesting story that needs some more explaining. Perhaps a prelude to the story would be very helpful. In the story the Rattlesnake and Coyote live near each other and invite one another over for dinner. Coyote soon becomes afraid of the Snake because of his rattle. To me I am not sure how Coyote would have never seen or heard the rattle before. That is why I would need some more explaining to better the story. Then Coyote went to the Rattlesnakes ...

Raven at Lost Lake, BC, Canada. Photo by M. Pia De Girolamo This week I was happy to see that our reading would be over the Native American unit. I have taken many different American Indian courses here at the University of Oklahoma including language courses, philosophy classes and music. These courses have given me a good background for our readings this week and also I was able to learn about some folklore from those classes as well. I chose to do my first reading over the Alaskan Legends section because of their heavy use of the Raven character, who I am using in my storybook. Because of this I hoped that this section could spark some more ideas and give me more background information for my future stories. I particularly liked the story about how Raven stole the lake. It was not per say my favorite story out of the section but was one of the most interesting and gave a good depiction of what kind of character Raven is. In the story Raven was first discussed that the Crows had ...

It was the beginning of fall in the North and many of the leaves on the trees had begun to fall to the ground. It was not cold yet but still it was not hot either, it was that time we all long for when the sun is warm and the breeze is cool. Lilly had been out in the fields helping the men with the harvest. Lilly had always been one of those girls that just never did want to do what the other girls were doing. She was always getting into trouble hanging out with the boys. All her life she had looked to the West and longed for an adventure, a quest of sorts. Soon she may have her wish. As Lilly and the other men were coming back to town they all had a look of discouragement on their faces. Their sacks and bushels were all barely half full with grains and other goods. They knew that this is all that they would have to make it throughout the harsh winter months to come. They took what they had to the silos and went back home to their families. After the town counselor had seen the small...

An image of the River at the base of the Mountain My second story for the reading notes assignment came also from the Laos chapter and is titles "The Magic Well". If you have read my other reading notes post for this week then you can get a sense of why I have chosen this story as my part B reading. It has many similarities between it and the story "The Mystical Mountain". In both stories there is a place that contains water in which can be used for healing purposes. There are some differences however. In this story the place was given to the people through the dream of an elderly man. The spirits came to the man and showed him the path to the healing waters, which would then heal the ill prince. The spirits must have had need for the prince or have plans for him later in life because they gave up a location of a very useful well to the humans. I would have liked to have known a little more about the old man and what might have happened to him after his saving ...

God's Thumb From the Holes Movie  I chose to write up my reading notes this week on the story "The Enchanted Mountain" and can be found in the Laos chapter of the Untextbook. I first decided upon this chapter in the Untextbook specifically for this story, solely based upon the name. It reminded me of one of my favorite movies "The Hobbit" in which a group of dwarves and a hobbit make their way to the "Misty Mountain". Anyways I really enjoyed the story. It was about a magical mountain that held great animals and amazing fruit. It was a sort of a mash up of many different stories to me, taking ideas from other stories I have read and placing them in this story here. Maybe however, other groups took this story and teased it apart into many other stories. Right off the bat I got a since that this story was kind of like stories about the fountain of youth. When the story tells of a pool at the top of the mountain and gives such description about how p...

Looking Back Taking a peek back through the past weeks of the semester and looking at my progress I am happy with all I have done and also somewhat displeased with myself. I really thought I would have more time to dedicate to this class and get weeks ahead of schedule but as well all know there is simply never enough time. Although I have not fallen behind by any means I am not as far ahead of the game as I had wished to be. According to the "grading chart" that is a good measure of how many points one should have at a given time in the course to get the grade they want I am doing just fine to receive an "A" grade and still finish early. What disappoints me is that I skipped out on some key extra credit opportunities a couple weeks that would have furthered me in the class to the point I would be satisfied with. This being said I do, do at least a few extra credit assignments each week. My favorite assignments however are the story telling tasks. I love getting ...

Feedback In I have found that for about 99% of the time the peer to peer feedback has not only been helpful but also has been motivational. I'm not sure if it is the fact that everyone is trying to use the feedback strategies that have been outlined for us or if it just the way the class is formatted but everyone's feedback has been quite helpful in my writing experiences and also is encouraging. Most all of my comments and feedback end with some sort of "good job" which is a good feeling making me what to incorporate their suggestion into future stories and make them even better.  Feedback Out Feedback that I personally have left on other helps in a two fold manner. First, it helps the individual better create stories in the future either directly by taking my comments and using them or indirectly by making them think about something maybe they would not have and incorporating it that way. Secondly it helps me to better myself. In thinking about ways that th...

Looking Back So, we are now half way into the semester and it is time to look back at the first half of the quarter and reflect on all the reading and storytelling I have done. I love the way the class is structured with two reading notes due at the first of the week and a story due during the latter end of the week. This gives time to read many different stories and get the juices flowing for our own storytelling experience. I find that the reading notes are particularly helpful in allowing me to put some information and thoughts physically down for later when I am actually writing up a story. This can act as not only a reminder for me when I start to right something up but also can give me a platform to springboard off of for story telling. I have been decently happy with my overall project this year so far. It is difficult sometimes trying to create a story that is not only pleasing to read but also goes with past and future stories that we must create. The stories that I have re...

1) I started off with the Game of Dice from the Indian Epic Mahabharata. This topic intrigued me because of the beautiful tapestry that was imaged there. I also had just got gambling at the casino with weekend so it sounded like a game of chance to me. It did end up as a game of chance, however one player had rigged the game with magic dice. The Wiki link can be found here . 2) I then was led to the Rules of Engagement from the Kurukshetra War. I thought it was interesting that they would actually set basis for rules of engagement. I know that there are certain ethical rules of engagement when it comes to war but some of these were interesting to me. For instance one was that only one warrior could engage another at a time. So to me this is giving the side that has the greatest warrior the advantage.  Wiki link found here . 3) I was then navigated to the Indian epic potery page. I was wanting to maybe learn more about basics of the background of Indian epics to get a better per...

Cat Wondering Where to Go Next. Read The Blog here . I chose this can as my next meme because it can speak to so  many different situations. It could be what location do I  want to go next or maybe perhaps where in life do I  want to go next. Do I want to be a collage graduate or maybe a father. Where should I go next? What is my next destinations or maybe I can create a map and follow it to my final destination. Curiosity Growth Mindset Cats. Read the Blog here . I chose this cat meme as my first because it speaks to me as  a researcher. In my past I have done some research for medical  research. To me, to be successful in that field one must always Be curious about something they want to better in order to make new discoveries. 

Everyone's seen the video of the cat getting a notification of the term paper due by 11:59 and he franticly starts typing on the computer. This is why I set up my notifications for a day in advance. For this class in particular I set my notifications for the days I set my schedule too earlier in the year in hopes that it will keep me on track.

Watch out for the little guy I chose to do an extra credit reading from the Native American Great Planes chapter. I chose the story of the snake and the coyote. This story has a very meaningful message to me as well as things in it that I have been wondering about. So the story is about a coyote who roams the fields and roads days in and out and had started to hear a vive that was pleading for him to watch where he walked. The coyote could not figure out where the noise was coming till one day he looked down and saw a snake. The snake pleaded once more saying if you do not walk around me I will be forced to have to kill you. The coyote was so full of himself and said how could a snake kill me ?! So, the coyote stepped on him one last time and at that moment the snake bit and killed the coyote. To me this story has a big meaning behind it that many may not understand. Sometimes in life the little guy gets looked over many times. They are passed by without a notice. Finally one day a...

Ghost doing ghost things I found it odd that a ghost had to swim across the water. In most other cases I have seen ghosts with water they could just hover above the water. I have never seen a wet ghost before. This would have changed the whole story because then the man would not be able to say he was a ghost because he would be swimming while the ghost just going about over the water. I also found it strange, not that the ghost played tricks on the village people, but that he would steal the kings son's soul for no reason. Too add to that why would he just leave it with the man while he went on to do other things. I would think that if he had no use for it he wouldn't have played such a harmful trick on the boy, meaning that without his soul he would die. Finally the man must have been very careful and sly to not alert anyone that he had the soul of the boy. Although he healed the boy one would think that the king's men would become suspicious of a strange man comin...

Sad wizard after he had his possessions stole I was enjoying the stories of the Tibetan folklore so much that I decided to keep reading into part B for my second reading of the week. I decided to do my second round of notes on the story "How the Wolf, Fox, and Rabbit Committed a Crime". I was very interested in this story just by reading the title because the characters are all well-known tricksters found in different lore around the world. For my story book I decided to do a compiling of stories from different native American tricksters to be able to mix three different ones together into a cohesive story. So, as one can see I would be very intrigued by this title and story. I wasn't disappointed. I enjoyed the start of the story, already stating that the three are all friends and willing to work together. This is usually not the case however so it would be worthwhile to spend a little time to go into detail about how the three became friends or why they were all...

Clip art of the Ghost I chose the Tibetan folklore chapter as my main focus because I have done research in the past over the Tibetan plateau and the Tibetan people and thought that reading these stories may give me even more insight into their culture and society. While reading the collection of part A I found that the story "The Man and the Ghost" had many particular parts within it. First off to start the story the man was just walking through the narrow mountain path and we were not informed as too why he would have been traveling through there as well as the ghost just happening to be traveling through the wilderness. Was the ghost a ghost of the wood or one that had been of a man that had died in the mountain? Next I found it odd that a ghost had to swim across the water. In most other cases I have seen ghosts with water they could just hover above the water. I have never seen a wet ghost before. This would have changed the whole story because then the man would not...

This week I finally decided to add the Canvas app to my phone. It is very convenient to check what I need to do this week as well as check grades. I do think that some of the features are different than the regular lay out and I don't like that but honestly it could just be because I haven't used it much yet (you all know what I'm talking about),

Tricky Cats trying to get outside I read and reviewed the growth mindset article over how difficult does not mean something is impossible. Of course I chose this announcement to read because of the cat meme. Here is a link to the article if you too are interested in the read.