Reading Notes: Nzambi's Daughter, Part B

• Animals must work together to free a maiden to be married
• When they present necessary item to mother, the animals disagree on who should really have her
•  The mother says because they all deserve her and are fighting over her, none of them can have her
• The maiden waits on her mother for the rest of her life
• People only want her because she is beautiful
• is she smart? dumb? funny? serious? 
• Does she want to get married or stay? 
• Does she really want to serve her mother for the rest of her life? A servant in her own home?
• Doesn't she want to get out and live her own life???
• Maybe she wants to be married off, but is afraid of her mother's wrath. 

Nzambi Figure
Source: Wikimedia

How The Spider Won And Lost Nzambi's Daughter: Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).

Reading Notes: The Vanishing Wife, Part A

• Guy gets the perfect wife, house and servants 
• He has one job: don't let his wife see a fish's head. 
• He gets lazy and stops cutting the heads off right away as he should, and so she sees it and he vanishes
• Why wasn't the guy grateful enough or what he had that he couldn't follow through on his  one job??
• Who else does this?
• probably everyone.
• In life we do the one thing we knew we weren't supposed to do. 

Dude would press this button.
Author Chris Mckenna Source: Wikimedia

The Vanishing Wife: Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).

Week 8 Progress

Overall I am really enjoying this class. I love the writing assignments and I definitely do as much of the extra cedit as possible. I did this because I knew I would reach a point in the semester where I had no motivation. Well the time has come. Last week I totally fell off the wagon and didn't most of the assignments. Everyone has those weeks, right?

For the rest of the semester, I want to change my schedule just a bit to start working on the coming week on Sunday. That way I can get ahead and have more time I can devote to story planning for the class project.

My motivation to push through the rest of the semester is to get to Christmas, drink lots of hot chocolate, and be a woman my dog can be proud of. 

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I definitely enjoy reading the comments from my peers. They're always really nice and supportive, which is cool little ego boost at the end of the week. The class project feedback has probably been more constructive than the story feedback. Often time I do not get a critique for my stories, which is fine since I don't usually go back and edit. But perhaps more constructive criticism would help me for the following week.

Reading other people work is inspiring and motivates me to work harder on my own writing. I try to always give something for the writer to improve on, but my peers are doing so great on their stories! Sometimes it's hard to find anything wrong!

By reading other people's blogs, I definitely get a sense of their personality! However, I am not getting to know people through commenting. I don't stick to reading the same people every week because I would rather read lots of different writing styles and switch it up often. I think the same can be said for my blog. I am very candid in my writing, so I think people are seeing the real me, but I don't think that anyone is really getting to know me.

I need to be better about bookmarking class projects I like. I think that it's fine to read different people's blogs every week, but these class projects are more comprehensive, so I should probably stick to a few people's projects!

(cheezburger)

I chose this image because while criticism is not often, there are definitely patterns which is what is important. If it mentioned twice it's doubly important.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I have loved doing the readings, but I mostly enjoy doing the stories. I love to write so this has been such a great experience. I think that my favorite readings were the Egyptian stories, second place was the Japanese stories.

Notes: I definitely use my notes every week. I like writing a synopsis (even though that's technically not what we are supposed to do) because it helps me remember what are the big takeaways, the major plot points of the story. That way I am sure that my story is reflecting those major points. I also make notes to myself to remember what I wanted to focus on.

Stories: My biggest accomplishment of the class I think has been the Introduction for the class project as that was the most difficult, but it cam out well and I am proud of it. However, the story I had the most fun writing was the first story, Beauty Fight Backs. I was excited to write it, and I based it off of my favorite story formula: Beauty and the Beast. I am still most proud of that.

Image: Finding images is my least favorite part of the assignments every week. I don't put as much thought into it as perhaps other people do. I would much rather write. My favorite image used is from my story Martyrs Imprisoned. When I was writing and thinking about Christian martyrs being held by the Roman government, I immediately thought of Paul's cell which is in the Rome which I saw when I went.

Prison cell of Saint Paul in Rome.
Photo by Edith OSB Source: Flickr

Looking Forward: I think to get more out of the reading and writing experience, I need to get back on top of my Class project. I feel so behind last week that I didn't have much time to write the first story for the project. That definitely isn't something that should be rushed, so instead I just decided to wait until next week to get started on it. I still am sure that it will turn out well, I just need to devote more planning time to it so that I can sit down to write effectively.

Week 7 Story: Mother's Love

She ran frantically through the forest. She would have stopped several times and let them take her, but she was running for someone else now. Her swollen belly carried the most important person she had never met.
She had told her husband not to get too deep into court politics, but he hadn't heeded her warning. He was murdered by his enemies, and now they were after her and his unborn child.
No time to worry about the past. She had to keep running.
Her legs were weak, her chest pounding. But suddenly, a more powerful shooting pain struck her.
"No! It can't happen now! No!" But her words couldn't stop her baby's arrival.
She searched everywhere and found a small gathering of trees in the middle of which she might be able to stay hidden. There she tried to stay as quiet as possible as her son broke out into the world.
She stared at her precious bundle, trying to calm the crying baby. She felt overwhelmed by her joy, until the reality of her situation dawned on her.

Mother of Yellow River in China
Posted by Farm Source: Wikimedia

She was without a husband, without a home, and in the middle of the woods. Her husband's enemies wanted her and her son dead. Only the strongest of children could grow in such an environment. She must make make him strong.
She wondered the forest searching for a river, pain in each step. When she arrived at a rushing body of water, she dipped the baby down into the water and whispered a prayer of hope that her child would be strong enough to endure all things. The baby wiggled in her arms, and then went still. Once she had finished her prayer, she brought the baby out of the water. 
He wouldn't have looked any different to a stranger, but a mother sees all. She could detect the gold aura that clung to her son. And so she named him Kintaro, The Golden Boy. He grew to be the strongest of all men and the mightiest of warriors!


Author's Note: This is based off of the The Adventures of Kintaro, The Golden Boy. I stayed true to the story except in the original, it is never explained why Kintaro is supernaturally strong, which bothered me as a reader. So I decided to create a reason. Partly inspired by the story of Achilles and the River Styx, I gave him his strength by his mother praying while practically offering her son to the rushing river. Make of that what you will, but I see it as the river blessing the child with its force and energy.

The Adventures of Kintaro, The Golden Boy: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

Reading Notes: Princess Hase, Part B

Japanese Cherry Blossom
Source: pexels

• Princess Hase writes a poem which saves the life of the emperor
• stepmother is so jealous, she has a servant go out to the woods to kill her
• instead of killing her, the servant builds a house for him, the princess, and his wife
• they live out there as she waits for her father to find her
• Father finds her, takes her home, she lives out the rest of her life happily
• Hase is too obedient! Cinderella feel about the story
• Why does she go with servant? Better reason needed
• Maybe the emperor can get involved? He has seen and heard from her, and been saved by her on several occasions? 
• Empower her or make her even more less capable of taking care of herself

Princess Hase: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

Reading Notes: Kintaro, Part A

Woodblock print
Posted by Amcaja Source: Wikimedia

• father is disgraced and woman must run away to escape his adversaries at court
• lives in woods. gives birth to son there
• Son has crazy super-human life strength. 
• Kintaro= golden boy
• What made him so strong?
• From living in the woods?
• His father?
• his mother? 
• Why is he a golden boy?
• What could his mother of done to make this "golden boy" truly special and different?
• dipped him in a mystical river? 
• prayed to the gods?
• maybe his father was like that?

Kintaro: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

Famous Last Words: Getting it Together

This past week was a week of getting my life together. I had two presentations at the end of the week that I wasn't super prepared for, but went really well! It was a good weekend as I rewrote my Fulbright essays (AHHHH!) and I got hang out with my mom on Sunday. While I didn't have much time to do homework to prepare for this coming week, I still feel serene as I start this Monday.
However, as previously mentioned, I am working on my Fulbright application because it is due this Friday, October 6th. And I am freaking out. If this weren't for a class, I would be sharing some choice words. I'm scared as I finalize my application because not only am I applying for something that means a lot to me and would be so great, but it feels bigger than that. This is the most important thing I have ever applied to, both in terms of prestige and my own personal life. This could set me on a path that leads to greater things than if I do not get it. Honestly Fulbright is all I can really think about, and my school work is reflecting that. I am hoping that after October 6th, I will be able to refocus my priorities and get back to what's important in the here and now. We can only hope for the best!

Me on the Second Floor of the Eiffel Tower.
France: the country I will be living in for Fulbright!

It doesn't help that I am having some tension with my roommate recently, so I am hoping to resolve that going forward this week. Last week this tension was just an extra thing that was always weighing on me. So I really want to work this week on talking it out and being honest with her. Life is just a little bit harder when you and your best friend aren't on the best of terms.

Review: Languages

What grabbed my attention from the announcements was the note about the etymology of pundit. This was from the announcement on Friday September 29. I never knew that it was originally a sanskrit word! I love languages and how they get so mixed up, especially English since it's already such a mixture. I would love to learn more about what words we get from languages I would never think we have much contact with!

The Sanskrit alphabet!
Madhumita1052 Source: Wikimedia

Reading Notes: Scheherazade, Extra

Sceherazade by Sophie Anderson
POsted by Irina Source: flickr

• King is marrying woman, killing them the next day because he hates women, thinks they are deceptive
• Daughter of sultan's grand-vizir offers herself up to save all women
• Tells her sister stories to stall being killed
• This girl is so brave, I think that Queen Eleanor would love her character and story
• I think I would want to cut the sister, keep it between her and the sultan so that I can further develop the sultan's character
• Maybe the grand-vizir tries to save her, everything goes wrong?
• Why didn't she run the plan by her dad? Where's her mom?

Scheherazade: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).