Week 9: Reading Diary B

I read the Native American Hero Tales

The Son-in-Law Tests

• Wemicus (the animal trickster) had a son-in-law that always outwitted Wemicus. 
• One day they were in camp and Wemicus told the man that they called the lake burnt moccasins lake. The man knew that Wemicus would try to burn his moccasins in his sleep, so he switched their moccasins. Wemicus then had to walk in the snow without moccasins. 
• Wemicus told the man to come sliding with him, but his wife warned him the hill was covered with poisonous snakes. She gave him a stick with a magic tobacco that would prevent the snakes from hurting him. 
• His wife then told him that Wemicus would ask him to pick the lice from his head, but they would be poisonous lizards. He fooled him by cracking cranberries instead of the lice. 
• Wemicus then wanted to race him on a canoe and Wemicus went to fast and flipped in the lake. The man went up to where he landed and saw that Wemicus had been transformed into a pike and this is where they come from. 

The Jealous Father

• Aioswé had two wives and he became jealous of one his sons. One day he came home and found that his other wife had been intimate with the son.
• One day they went to an island to gather eggs together and the father left him on the island. 
• A walrus found him on the island and said he would take him back to the mainland. The walrus asked if the sky was clear, but the boy lied and they headed to sea. The walrus then said to warn him if he heard thunder and when it came the boy lied again. The walrus left him in a shallow part of the sea, but was killed by lightning. 
• An old woman found him on the shore and instructed him how to arrive home safely and gave him the stuffed skin of a weasel. 
• Then two blind women tried to kill him with dagger elbows, but he tricked them into killing each other. 
• When the boy made it home he sang at a fire how he would make the world burn and cause the water to boil. He shot an arrow and the forest began to blaze and the water boiling. He told his father to hide in his bear grease and he drew a line around him and his mother. They were the only survivors and his mother transformed into a robin and he a Canada jay. 

Robin found on Pinterest

Week 9: Reading Diary A

This week I read The Native American Hero Tales

The Jealous Uncle

• There was a woman whose brother was known as "Unnatural Uncle."
• He was called this because he killed two of his nephews. One day the sister was pregnant and Unnatural Uncle's wife came to warn her. They decided that if she was to give birth to a son the wife would lie and tell him that she gave birth to a daughter. 
• She raised her son to act like the girls so that the uncle would never know. However, one day the uncle found out he was a boy and took him to gather wood. 
• He took him to a large log, cut out a piece and then trapped the boy in the tree and left him to die, but the boy escaped. He brought wood to the uncle and went home. The uncle only wanted to kill him even more. 

The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle

• Giant animals preyed upon people including the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle.
• One day, Jonayaíyin the deliverer was sent to them. 
• He was told the Elk lived in a great desert far to the south and gave him arrows to kill the elk. 
• He found the elk lying in an open plain with no trees he could hide behind. Then the lizard came and asked what he was doing and told him to where the garments of the lizard. Then the gopher told him to burrow his way to the Elk. 
• The gopher made a burrow to him and began to gnaw the hair of the Elk. The Elk asked what he was doing and the gopher said that he needed that hair for his children to sleep on. 
• The gopher then told the boy to go through the hole and shoot the Elk in his exposed heart. 
• He ran through the earth and plowed the land leaving use the current mountains. 
• The Elk then died and he made a coat from the elk hide. 
• He then wanted to kill the eagle, I-tsa, and was told it could be found in the West. 
• He made it to the Eagle's nest and was carried to the nest by the eagle. 
• He then killed the mother and father eagle and took away the young eagles power. 

(Elk found on Pinterest)

Week 6 Storytelling: Observations of Mr. Yamato

                                                         Observations of Mr. Yamato

Patient # 4002

Date: August 25, 1917

Observations: To protect the confidentiality of the patient I will refer to patient number 4002 as Mr. Yamato. Yamato has suffered fits of extreme delusion during his time here at the Tokigama Psychiatric Facility due to severe schizophrenia. I fear that Mr. Yamato has lost all sense of what is reality and fiction in his mind. I will describe any events that Mr. Yamato experiences in this journal.

(Psych Ward on Pinterest)

Date: August 30, 1917

Observation: While Mr. Yamato was roaming the halls, he saw another patient violently grab one of our nurses, Yoko Himata. Mr. Yamato insists in telling the story as Ms. Yoko being a princess known as Tacibana that was kidnapped by a group of bandits and taken hostage. He declared his love for the princess and gave details of how he slew the bandit that took her hostage. However, the true actions of Mr. Yamato were that he called the guards and they handled the situation peacefully. It is interesting to see how his delusions are progressing steadily each day.

Date: September 2, 1917

(Nurse found on Pinterest)

Observation: Mr. Yamato's condition is progressively declining and his ability to differentiate between reality and fantasy is fading. Today, the nurse Yoko that Mr. Yamato insists is truly the Princess he calls Tacibana took his vitals as usual. Mr. Yamato was not interested in talking with the nurse today, but he heard the yells of another patient down the hall that calls for help out of a desire to seek attention. Mr. Yamato was transfixed by this patient’s voice and insisted that she was in fact a siren calling his name. On September 2, Mr. Yamato left his room and travelled throughout the psychiatric ward in search of the patient calling for help. When he had at last found his “siren”, she asked him to bring her the medications that would help her. Mr. Yamato accepted this mission and believed that he was indeed searching for a “golden apple of immortality.” I can honestly say that Mr. Yamato has lost all sense of where he is and does indeed believe that he is on a heroic quest.

(Siren found on Pinterest)

Date: September 15, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato searched that day for medications, but every hospital employee that he asked refused to help him and directed him back to his hospital room. One of the other residents, named Goku, told him a story of a man that had made his way to the island of paradise full of golden apples, which in reality was the pharmacy.

Date: September 22, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato’s seemingly harmless delusions have now begun to become physical. Today, Mr. Yamato attacked a male attending nurse with a pair of scissors, cutting his stethoscope and he came to check vitals. Mr. Yamato shouted at the nurse calling him a demon boar and after cutting the stethoscope Mr. Yamato screamed in victory that he had slain the boar by cutting his tail. I fear that the medications we have given to Mr. Yamato have only worsened his condition.

Date: September 24, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato awoke in his hospital bed with a burning sensation throughout his entire body. He began to go into cardiac arrest and our medical team swarmed into the room to help him. Mr. Yamato screamed about a fire taking place in a field surrounding him and screamed as any employee touched him that he was being trampled by hundreds of deer. However, the nurse Yoko or in Yamato’s eyes Tacibana came into the room and gave him an injection of morphine. Mr. Yamato thanked "Tacibana" for bringing him the weapon needed to counter the fire and for saving his life.

(Morphine found on Pinterest)

Date: December 1, 1917

Observation: Days have passed without an incident, but today while Yoko was tending to Mr. Yamato he heard the cries of his “siren.” Mr. Yamato asked Yoko to leave him alone for a little while, but as she turned to leave he had swiped her keys and ID card. When he was alone, he travelled to the pharmacy and found a pharmacy technician who was just entering the pharmacy. He tied up the pharmacy technician and took with him a large amount of morphine and oxycodone. Upon questioning the technician remembered Mr. Yamato asking, " where is my sacred sword!" A visitor witnessed Mr. Yamato approach the door of his “siren” and show her his “sacred sword.” The "siren" tricked him into opening her door and she then stole his “sacred sword” to fuel her drug addiction and locked him in her hospital room. We found Mr. Yamato in the room and let him out of the room and discovered what happened. We locked down the hospital in search of the patient, but Mr. Yamato found her hiding in a storage closet. Mr. Yamato took the medications from the patient and reported her location to the guards, and upon his arrival the guard heard Mr. Yamato shouting, "I have recovered my sword and destroyed the demon deer." Mr. Yamato has given this patient two separate and unique identities of both the "siren" and "the demon deer." 

Date: December 12, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato was placed under surveillance since the incident that took place on December 1.  However, on this day he managed to escape his room in search of the "siren" that had deceived him. He was armed with a pair of scissors and witnesses recall hearing him muttering that he would slay the “siren.” Before anything happened Yoko stopped Mr. Yamato and he openly praised her for saving him from the "siren’s" grip. He awoke in his hospital bed and looked for Yoko, but she was nowhere to be found. The patient in the room next to Mr. Yamato recalled hearing Mr. Yamato screaming that a dragon had attacked his kingdom and he went to search for the dragon. I saw Mr. Yamato in the hall and asked him what he was doing, but based upon his physical agitation, rapid breathing, and perspiration that covered his body I knew there was going to be trouble. Mr. Yamato lunged at me screaming that I was the dragon controlling all of these evil deeds and stabbed me with the scissors in the arm. The guards tackled Mr. Yamato, but he was screaming in victory that he had slain the dragon. When we brought him to his room, we discovered the appalling truth that he had slit the throat of Yoko at the beginning of his psychotic break just before attacking me. However, Mr. Yamato will forever believe that his princess Tacibana sacrificed herself to save him from the grasps of the dragon. We then sent Mr. Yamato to a psychiatric facility in a high security prison where he will live the rest of his days as Yamato, unaware of the pain he caused in the real world.

(Solitary confinement found on Pinterest)

(Scissors found on Pinterest)

Author's Note: This tale is based from the Labors of Yamato, but I chose to place a wonderful twist on the story.  I chose to follow each individual tale in the same order, but chose to make the tales a hallucination of the doctor's patient. I believe that this is an interesting way to portray the story and can bring about a different interpretation of mythological tales.  This tale originally contained the hero Yamato who saved a princess and married her soon after. However, he began to be bored and craved adventure. He travelled by sea to another land and that is when he met the siren. She called to him and sent him on a quest to find the golden apple of immortality. A man told him where he could find this apple by a stranger and then set on his way to get it. Throughout his quest he defeated a demon boar and was trapped in a fiery field, but his princess saved him by bringing him his sacred sword which he used to create a counter-fire. He then traveled to the siren and told her that he could not find the apple, but she tricked him and stole his sacred sword for her father, the god of the sea. Yamato found his sword, took it back, and killed the siren's father who was in the form of a dragon. However, after defeating the dragon at land he was at sea and he angered the god of the sea. He was going to destroy their boat, but the princess sacrificed herself to save Yamato.


Bibliography: The Labors of Yamato from Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E.W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).

Reading Plan

Week 9: I will be reading Hero Tales from the Native American section. I believe that it would be great to learn about Native American heroes. I believe that it is important to ensure that Native American belief's are kept alive.

Week 10: I will be reading Myths of the Cherokee. I chose this section because I live in the Great Plains and would like to learn folklore about the area in which I live.

Week 11: I will be reading Beowulf and I previously read Grendel. I would like to read it from the other perspective and I know it will be a great read.

Week 12: I will read Through the Looking-Glass, because I am interested in reading some of the classic tales. I have never read Humpty Dumpty or Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and I look forward to learning about the entire story.

Week 13: I will be reading the Brothers Grimm (Crane). I like the movie Into the Woods which is based upon the Brothers Grimm books for princesses, and I want to read the original Rapunzel. I think it would be great to rewrite some of these stories.

Week 14: I will read Dante's Inferno. I chose this because I visited Italy and while in Florence I saw a gallery that contained stone tablets with the different levels of Dante's hell carved into it. I believe this will help me to interpret what I saw with a much deeper understanding.

(Best way to prepare for mythology!)

Looking Forward

I believe that the second half of the semester will be extremely interesting. I hope to continue using the tales of mythical creatures to tell the tales, but I think I would like to give the creatures a deeper emotional connection that caused their actions. I will definitely continue to work ahead so as to finish this class relatively early!

(Challenge)

(Journey)

Reflections: Looking Back

I believe that the writing style I use in which I place the perspective of mythical creatures is a great place for me to contribute to this course. I am most proud of the story I wrote about The Untold Tale of Pyro. I am proud of this story because it has reached been visited 296 times, which is 270 times more than I believed it would be seen. This gave me assurance that my tales were not too extreme or weird, but that they could be enjoyed. After writing this story I constantly find myself looking for mythical creatures and ways that I could tell the story in their eyes. Expect more stories like Pyro's in the future!

(What Pyro would look like found on Pinterest)

Week 4: Ammon: The Wax Crocodile

Ammon: The Wax Crocodile

My name is Ammon and I am a Nile crocodile currently living in a wonderful lake near the temple of the god Ptah. I want to tell you a story about how I came to be a part of this beautiful world. It all started ten years ago with a piece of wax that a scribe, known as Aten, carved into the shape of a crocodile.

Aten was an elderly man that lived a simple life, casting simple spells and worshipping the Egyptian gods. One day the Pharaoh came to visit the temple of Ptah and he had quite the following. One of the people following him was a young lad, known as Minkah, with devilish good looks and the ability to charm even the great serpent Apep, who wants to see nothing more than the destruction of all Ra has created. Aten brought the Pharaoh to the temple of Ptah, but Minkah stayed at the small shack of Aten the scribe and he flirted with the scribe’s wife, Anippe. Being a young woman that was forced to marry a much older man, she never felt fully satisfied and happy. However, Minkah seduced Anippe and they defiled Aten’s house for days. Aten found out about this injustice and abuse of his trust and this is where I come into the picture.

(Apep)

Aten loved to cast spells and on that day he cast a spell over the wax crocodile that he had carved bringing it to life and transferring some of his knowledge me. Aten gave me the greatest gift that anyone could ever give, the gift of life. I often hear people say that he threw me into the water when Minkah was bathing, but the truth is that he placed me in the water the night before and gave me instructions on what to do. Of course, I had to become accustomed to walking, swimming, and even catching prey, so I stayed up all night practicing and honing my skills so that I would not let Aten down.

(Crocodile)

The next day I saw Minkah bathing in the water and I slowly swam to the shoreline, hiding just beneath the murky water. I was within three feet of Minkah and without any hesitation I lunged at him. Oh it was such a fantastic experience! The boy screamed like a girl and as he continued screaming for help I took him to the middle of the lake and drowned him.

(Hidden Crocodile)

What they say of my story is the incorrect version that one day I took Minkah into the lake and he never resurfaced, but I will be completely honest with you. Aten was pleased with my work and wanted to show off his magical abilities to the Pharaoh. As a result, he asked me to rip Minkah into seven pieces and bring a different body part of Minkah to the shoreline for seven days as if putting him together like a puzzle. I did this without hesitation and on the seventh day the Pharaoh finally realized that I was no ordinary crocodile. In the end I ate the pieces of Minkah and the barbecued pieces of Anippe after they burned her at the stake, and Aten is living the life of luxury since the Pharaoh gave him a small fortune to practice magic.

(Hungry Crocodile)

Aten still lives next to the lake and he brings me cattle and chickens for dinner sent from the pharaoh himself. As for Aten, he was made head scribe of our area and his little shack is now a palace, and I cannot count the number of wives he currently has. The moral of the story is that life is a blessing and you definitely do not want to cheat on your spouse if they practice magic.

Author’s Note: This story is based off of The Wax Crocodile from the Ancient Egypt unit. This story follows the original story exactly, but is set in the perspective of the crocodile that brings it to life. This story is told in the third person and centers around the scribe and the boy. In the story the scribe took the pharaoh to the temple, but while he is gone the boy began fraternizing with the scribe's wife. The scribe then took a wax crocodile and brought it to life intending to murder the boy while he bathed in the lake. I did add a few extra things such as names and some gory details, but overall the story is the same. I wanted to show from the crocodile's perspective why he listened to the scribe's commands, that he was grateful for the gift of life. I believe that in stories like this people often only look at it from the human character's perspective, but they rarely look at the animals as more than a means to an end. However, every creature on this earth is a living being and every day we all fight for one more day to survive. Life is the greatest gift anyone can give and by being given the gift of life Ammon felt eternally indebted to Aten.

Bibliography:
Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907)
Source: UnTextbook

Week 6: Backup & Review

My favorite post was from Monday, September 21, 2015. There is this wonderful and accurate picture of science and science fiction.

(Science and Science Fiction)

This is so funny because so many people think that science is like that on the right of the image, but in reality its just a lot of data and experiments!

Week 6: Famous Last Words

This post is really made for last week! Last week I focused on the Japanese tales. This reading was extremely run and I really enjoyed all of the tales. There were plenty of tales that contained mythical beasts and brave heroes. The tales of Yamato were extremely interesting and I decided to challenge myself and write my storytelling based upon the psychiatric break of Mr. Yamato. I was extremely proud of the story that I created from this myth and I think people will really think differently about tales of great heroes when they read this tale.

Now we can talk about my other classes. Honestly, I feel like this post is my weekly rant about school and helps me unwind. My physics 1 and physics 2 labs were so dreadfully long this week. We watched ice melt and hit a hockey puck from 7:30pm to 9:00pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I was not very excited. I then had to work on my Spanish literature class, which seems like I am reading old English. My beer class is by far my favorite class this semester and it ends in two weeks! My biology capstone is my second favorite course. We have finally decided on a direction to take our semester project and will be working as a team to develop a “product.” Neurobiology is by far one of my most interesting classes and I have learned so much about a neuron it is not even funny. Finally, the moment I have been dreading has come this week. I had my first cell biology exam this Friday and it was intense. There were 4 questions with sub-parts and it was all free response. However, everything seemed to work out wonderfully and now I must work to conquer my Spanish literature exam the next week.

(Cell bio was life)

Week 7: Growth Mindset

This semester I have actually discussed the growth mindset in a couple of my classes like my biology capstone and at my house. I remember the longest conversation I had about the growth mindset was with my friend Damiana at around midnight. We were talking about all of the problems found within the inner city public school system. I then talked to her about how useful it would be if the education system taught with a growth mindset and consistently challenged students. I told my friend a little about what the growth mindset entailed and she instantly agreed with me. We both believe that the inner city schools we came from did not promote a system of challenge, but instead allowed students to do no work and continue throughout high school until they graduated. 

(All we need is coffee and the growth mindset)

Thoughts about Comments

I really like the comments related to my stories. They are extremely helpful in showing me whether or not the message I wanted portrayed was as clear as I believed. I really like it when people will comment about a specific aspect of the story they liked and it doesn’t feel like a “generalized” good job. I also like it when people will point out something that they felt could use clarification or improvement even if it’s during just the blog commenting assignment. It is extremely helpful in helping me make sure my story is at its best. I believe that I may start using the blog commenting assignment to provide some constructive advice that would help with a students overall tale and not just telling them all the things I liked about their stories.

Back to the grind of classwork!

(Spanish Literature)