Myth-Folklore 2019

For this week's readings, I chose Ovid's Metamorphoses which includes multiple tales involving the Greek/Roman gods and goddesses. My favorite story out of the seven included in Part A was the story of Phaethon and the Su n from Ovid's Metamorphoses , translated by Tony Kline (2000). Phaethon is the son of the sun god Phoebus. He asks his father to prove his parentage by granting his son one wish. The god grants Phaethon a wish and the boy asks to be allowed to drive him father's chariot which carries the sun across the sky each day. Phoebus reluctantly agrees, seeing the danger in his son's request. Sure enough, Phaethon is unable to control the horses and lights heaven and earth on fire. Jupiter is forced to kill the boy with a lightning bolt in order to save the earth. Phoebus mourns his son, as does the boy's mother and three sisters. His sisters all turn into poplar trees as they mourn their brother. I think it would be interesting to rewrite this stor...

For this post, I chose to write on Deborah Maue's Giving Creative Feedback -- A Guide for Those Who Aren't Creative and Youki Terada's A Troubling Side Effect of Praise . I found Maue's article very helpful for evaluating the creative work of others while being a rather uncreative person myself. I am not creative at all and so I sometimes struggle with evaluating other people's work and creativity, either because I simply do not understand why they went a certain route or because I feel like I have insufficient creativity myself to judge others' creative work. This is especially true when it comes to writing. I myself am not a great creative writer so I have problems with evaluating other people's writing, which I can already tell I might struggle with in this class as we do this a lot in the comments assignment each week. I am getting better at giving helpful feedback but the steps Maue lays out for evaluating creative work are helpful as they help one to ...

The topic I have chosen for my final project is  Tigers The stories I am most interested in are The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger , The Hungry Tigress , The Cat and the Tiger , and The Tiger of Chao-Cheng . In The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, an Indian tale,  a shape-shifting tiger changes into the form of a beautiful brahmin boy and wins the heart of a brahmin girl. The tiger eventually shows the girl his true form once they are married and on their way to his home in the woods. She is frightened but has a son with him, which turns out to also be a tiger. She uses a crow to send a message to her brothers who come to rescue her, tricking the tiger into being scared of them by using an ant, donkey, tree, and tub to convince the beast that they are huge, dangerous creatures. After the tiger runs off, afraid, the girl kills her tiger son and cooks it to give to her brothers and returns home with them. The tiger realizes her deceit and is distraught upon finding his so...

Throughout human history, war has plagued mankind and resulted in the loss of countless lives. One such war, fought not terribly long ago, ended only after great bloodshed and sorrow. One side emerged victorious after six years of fighting, ruling over its vanquished enemy and absorbing its lands and people. As tends to happen after wars, books upon books were published praising the efforts of the winning nation's soldiers while lambasting the defeated. As the saying goes, history is written by the victorious. One day, several years after the war had ended, two scholars met to discuss a recent publication about the war. One of the scholars was from the conquering nation, a young man who had escaped fighting in the war and had continued his studies as it raged on. The other was an elderly scholar from the conquered nation who had seen his own country win and lose several wars in his long lifetime, this last being the final event that brought his nation to its knees. He and his c...

If I choose to do my story over this part of the week's readings, I will do my story over the nature and inanimate objects section. The Tree and the Reed  in  The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894). In this fable, a tree asks a reed why it does not grow its roots deep into the ground and grow up as tall as the tree. The reed says that is may not be a magnificent plant but that it is content and safe the way it is, to which the tree scoffs, claiming that no one would mess with it due to its large size. Yet a storm rips the tree up and destroys it while the reed is able to come back after the storm passes. ( If I were to retell this fable, I would have two characters who are friends. One becomes wealthy in a business that involves quick cash but has high turn over. The other works at a boring but stable job with no turn over. The rich friend asks the poorer friend why he does not enter the more profitable field, to which the poorer friend says he is safe and content wit...

If I choose to do my story over this part of this week's readings, I will probably choose to do it over some of the lion fables as these are my favorites. The Lion's Share in The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894). In this fable, the lion works with a fox and jackal to kill a stag. When they are all dividing up the meat, the lion claims all parts for himself for various reasons, one of which is that the others will not dare to challenge him over it. The jackal and fox are forced to let him have it, but note that the lion had no problem sharing the labor but did not want to share the rewards of the labor. ( If I choose to do this story, I could place the story in modern times and have it involve various world leaders who fight a war as allies but after the war is won, one of them-the leader from the strongest nation-takes all of the territory and plunder and refuses to let the other nations reap any of the rewards of war. ) The Lion and the Statue  in  The Fables o...

The story I chose to read for extra credit was Part A of Cupid and Psyche  from The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated into English by Tony Kline. The story begins with a young girl being captured on her wedding day. Her wails annoy an old woman who threatens to have the men who kidnapped the woman burn her alive if she continues wailing. The girl tells her sad story and her fears that her betrothed will be killed by the kidnappers,  as she saw in a dream, to which the old woman tells her not to worry, that dreams occurring in the daytime do not come true. ( Perhaps here I could add some details about the old woman or the curious narrator? This story might also be fun to do in a modern setting. ) The old woman then tells her the story of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche, a beautiful princess, is worshipped by people for her beauty, arosing the jealousy of Venus. Venus orders her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a horrendously ugly, poor, and sick man. An oracle at Apol...

The two articles I read for this post are Why It's So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback by Tim Herrera and Why rejection hurts so much--and what to do about it by Guy Winch. Personally, I struggle with dealing with rejection and sometimes with negative feedback, although I have gotten much better at dealing with criticism since starting university. One of the main ways that I have improved my writing is through criticism written on my papers by professors, which I find incredibly helpful. The least helpful criticisms I have ever received typically involve people telling me that they do not like the way I did something but not telling my how to improve in the future. Simply criticizing someone without offering help or guidance is not really all that helpful. I still tend to take things personally, even though I know that I shouldn't as most people mean well when they are offering criticism. Rejection, too, shouldn't be taken personally but rather as a fact of life and an op...

The four topics I am considering are Tigers, the Brothers Grimm (with a focus on the role of gold in their stories), Italian Tales (with a focus on the role of animals in these tales), and Tibetan Folktales (with a focus on felines, both large and small, in these tales). Tigers : The stories I am most interested in are The Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, The Hungry Tigress, The Cat and the Tiger, and The Tiger of Chao-Cheng. I am interested in seeing how the tiger is portrayed in different cultures and time period, specifically how these portrayals may differ from each other or complicate the general idea of the tiger playing the role of villain in stories. I'm sure most will portray the tiger in a negative light, but some may not, such as The Tiger of Chao-Cheng who is portrayed as loyal to the old woman. I know very little about tigers in stories, except for the evil tiger Shere Khan in the Jungle Book. I enjoy retelling stories from different characters' view points so...

As I glided through the woods one morning, I spotted a young man below, walking the warpath in the woods. We owls are symbols of wisdom in some cultures and are ill omens in others. For this man, I was an ill omen. The path he tread I knew was dangerous, haunted by the spirits of war. Attempting to warn him, I called out to him. He turned at my call but continued on. I followed him through the woods, out of concern. A few minutes later, I heard twigs break underneath me and the man heard, as well. He looked behind him in panic, but saw nothing there. But I saw her. Many decades ago, a mother lost her son in war. He fell victim to his enemies, his foot crushed in the struggle by a panicked horse. Dragged along in chains, the young warrior died before reaching the enemy's territory and his body was tossed into a creek not far from where this young man now walked. His mother later perished from grief when he did not return home, her body left on a burial scaffold in these wood...

Reading Notes For: The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost , Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913). Method: Focus on plot Mood: Suspense is built up with the young man being alone in the woods, with an owl hooting eerily, and with the sound of twigs breaking behind the man, signaling that someone is following him. The fact that the man is walking on a warpath is also spooky, as many men probably died on that path. Twist/Plot: One twist in the story is when the ghost woman laments her son and tries to cut off the young man's foot. I would like to fill in this hole by giving a little bit of background to the woman ( why she is a ghost, why she is wailing about her son, and why she tries to cut of the young man's foot -- the son could be a warrior who died on the path, perhaps he lost a foot in the battle, thus her attempting to cut off the foot of the young man? ). Twist/Plot: Another twist is when the strange man proves to be a ghost. Aga...

My reading choices: Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4. Week 3: Aesop (Jacobs) Week 4: Ovid's Metamorphoses Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6. Week 5: Ancient Egypt Week 6: Arabian Nights Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. Week 7: The Monkey King Week 9: Tibetan Folktales Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11. Week 10: Inuit (Eskimo) Folktales Week 11: Marriage Tales Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13. Week 12: Robin Hood Week 13: Faerie Queene Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Brothers Grimm: Crane Week 15: Hans Christian Andersen I am really excited to do the Ancient Egypt, Brothers Grimm, and The Monkey King units, as I think these sound incredibly interesting! I also am looking forward to the Hans Christian Andersen and Tibetan Folktales units, as well. I am glad that there are lots of ...

The two articles I read for this assignment were Jory MacKay's The Important Habit of Just Starting and Lauren Marchese's The Psychology of Checklists: Why Setting Smaller Goals Motivates Us to Accomplish Bigger Things . I found MacKay's piece particularly interesting because I often find it difficult to start working on things like papers and projects, even ones I am excited to do. I never really understood why I was so adverse to starting these sorts of things as I enjoy writing, but this article sheds light on how fears of failure and focusing on short-term rewards can stop people from starting whatever it is they need to start. The simple idea of just starting something can actually be very difficult for some people, myself included, so I found it useful to see the reasons why this is difficult and strategies for, and benefits to, simply starting, all laid out in a short article. I often have to tell myself to just start and I always find it much easier to do the work t...

As far as technology we will be using in this course that I am familiar with, I have used free textbook/book websites before and greatly appreciate the access they give poor college students! I am also very familiar with Google Docs and love using it anytime I am working on a project that I want to be able to take on the go or share with others, like with group projects. I love that it saves your work automatically and that groups of people can edit it whenever and wherever they please. I also make frequent use of support websites involving writing and citing whenever I am working on a paper for a class. No matter how many times I use Chicago style in my citations, I am always forgetting something and find websites like Purdue OWL very useful in the citation process. Blogging, however, is completely new for me and I am excited to add to my blog and to see how others' blogs progress throughout the semester! The online environment is, so far, very relaxed and comfortable for me in ...

Storytelling is a new type of assignment for me as I have never really taken a creative writing course in college before. Generally, all reading in my classes is done either for strictly informational purposes or for forming a thesis for a paper, never for telling a story based on these readings. I have also never had a blog before, much less for a class, so blogging and commenting on others' blogs will be new for me, as well. I have had classes where students commented on others' work, which I find extremely helpful and interesting. Looking at someone else's work often changes the way I look at mine and gives me new ideas on how to improve my own work. I also enjoy semester-long projects as I find it fun to slowly build up a project and see how it turns out after weeks of work (instead of procrastinating until the last second and producing a less-than-stellar project). As far as extra credit goes, I am very excited to do the Wikipedia Trails (something I spend a lot of t...

I vaguely remember hearing my AP Psychology teacher in high school mention Carol Dweck's ideas, but no details of the discussion come to mind. So this course marks the first time I have heard in full about Dweck's growth mindset ideas. In my personal life, I have always been in the "fixed" mindset, unfortunately. In school, I was always taught that some children were capable of doing certain things and others were not and that it is best to stick to what you know you can do so you get good grades rather than branch out and try something you might fail at and risk getting bad grades. I knew that the only way I would be able to attend college without going into tremendous debt would be to get really great scholarships, so I worked to protect my GPA and to do well on standardized tests and actual learning fell by the wayside. This mindset has extended to most other areas of my life: I can either do something or I can't, and I should probably stick to the things I can...

For starters, I am a history major and a German minor and I greatly enjoy the fact that I get to learn about different people, places, and cultures in my field of study. I love the fact that several people can see the same event so very differently and that we can read texts today that were written thousands of years. I enjoy the fact that history shows us great changes in human civilizations all across the world and offers methods for better understanding these changes, while also showing similarities that arise from simply being human, despite vast distances in time and space between individuals. In the same vein, the best course that I took last semester was Imperial Russia which covered a region I had never before studied. I was determined to take at least one Russian history course before graduating in May 2019, so I am quite happy that I was able to do so and greatly enjoyed learning about the formation of the Russian empire and the eventual destruction of the imperial Russian ...

Nine Lives of a Cat: Falling Through the Generations One of my favorite storybooks is Nine Lives of a Cat  as I love the mysterious and clever creature that is the cat. Having two of my own, I loved seeing the playful and also serious nature of our feline friends crop up in the stories of Li Shou, U Kai, Bastet, and Muezza. I also enjoyed how the author weaved myths and folktales about cats into world history. The introduction was perfect for outlining the general premise of the storybook and for giving a glimpse into its contents. The design of the story book was beautiful and streamlined, with gorgeous photos of nature at the top and interesting depictions of cats and cat-like beings at the bottom. A personal photo of my cat, Maximus. Of Monsters & Myths: Sakurasou to Ume Of Monsters & Myths is another of my favorite storybooks. The dialogue is interesting and well-written and I enjoyed the way the author incorporated various Japanese mythical creatures, h...

My favorite place on earth is Heidelberg, Germany, where I studied for four months in the fall of 2017. Heidelberg is located in southwestern Germany, very near the French border, and sits on the Neckar river. It is home to the stunning Heidelberger Schloss (Heidelberg Castle) as well as the Old Bridge. While I did not live in the beautiful Altstadt (downtown), I enjoyed living in the more modern area across the Neckar river as this is where I met a lot of other foreign exchange students, including my wonderful roommate from Bulgaria. Student life in Germany was incredibly cheap, with housing, food, and university costing next to nothing. This allowed me to travel to various places like Krakow, Prague, and Milan, as well as across Germany. Heidelberg remains my favorite place to visit and I hope to return in the near future!                                             ...

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