Famous Last Words: Falling Behind

 

Still ahead, but I feel behind (Source)

    I would have liked to be finished with week three of this class by now, but instead I'm only doing the extra credit. So I'm perfectly on time, and I'm glad this class affords working at your own pace. It's all about the ebb and flow. This past week I was busy with traveling and job applications. It was growth in a different area than just academic. I'm appreciative of it all. My family is finally done with the corona virus, so now there's no need to be cautious! At least in the house... I'm now back in Norman and was able to go to church in person for the first time in awhile. It was nice to see everybody again. I'm excited to spend time with old and new friends. Since it's my last semester, it's my last chance to. I'm not regretful, but I could definitely have been more social at times at OU. I think it's all worked out to my good, however.

    I ate a frog first thing in the morning a couple times this past week. I finished a lab for one of my classes the week before it was due. Another day I filled out a job application the first thing in the morning. Applications aren't so bad, but these assessments companies like to do now can be time consuming. I was able to spend time with both my sisters in some way. We're all young, but there's a possibility I'll be moving away from them soon. I know they look up to me and appreciate the time I offer them, so I try not to take it for granted. It's been awhile since I've consistently worked out, and I did four days in a row! It feels good to be sore from work and not from sitting around. I'm thankful!

Learning Challenge: Sleep

 

Sleep (Source)

Why Sleeping May Be More Important Than Studying

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/26079/why-sleeping-may-be-more-important-than-studying

    I remember my eighth grade teacher talking about the hippocampus and the role sleep plays in memory. I've taken a few psychology classes and have learned about the neural pathways and synapses. I know for a fact sleep helps with children remembering new words. I've always loved sleeping and get called out by my girlfriend for using words she doesn't know. All those statements are proof I'm an expert on the subject of sleep. It's just like how every person who has been driving for twenty years is an expert driver. 

    My studying pattern goes like this: I don't do it all night until I absolutely have to. When I do study until the early hours of the morning, I tend to do well on the test I'm about to take. I think there has been one occasion where I had to do that two nights in a row, but I've never done night after night of no sleep. I'm sure my performance would drop off if that was the case. 

    For the past few months I've been trying not to eat too close to my bedtime, but I've also been fasting.

I don't usually have any trouble with eating carbohydrates before I go to bed. In fact, I used to eat as much as possible before I went to bed, so I would have calories in my system at all hours. This is some hippie kind of stuff, but one guy told me once that digestion leads to bad sleep. Just like studying, I eat right before bed when it's necessary. 

                   

Microfiction: Nightmares

 Woody the Villain

    I walk down the stairs. Down to the basement. Perhaps to get soda. Woody is here. He's sitting in a chair. Woody is alive. He's not too nice. He's working with my dad? Boy, am I scared. It's not what he says. It's that he wants me dead. Wake up.

Pretty much (Source)

One Left

    I was in Chic-fil-A with my family and friends. I was eating a box of nuggets. A woman came to clean the table. Suddenly all the food and trash is gone. I had one chicken nugget left. I tell the woman I had one more. The box is in her hand. She rotates the box. The nugget falls to the ground. I ask her why. No reply. I demand she bring me more. She leaves and comes back. No nuggets. I get out of my chair. I scream at her. This isn't me. I'm not in control. I wake up.

Author's Note: 

    These are both nightmares I have actually had. The first is from when I was a child. Toy Story was my favorite movie as a kid. I had a huge Woody doll. One night I had a dream he was evil and so was my dad. Neither of them are evil, so you can understand why I was so frightened. I had the nightmare when I lived in Colorado, and we had an unfinished basement. When it was dark I was as afraid to go down there alone. It was scary on scary on scary.

    The second nightmare was one I had last night. The situation isn't that scary to me, although it would be very unusual to have an employee behaving like that at Chic-Fil-A. The scary part was that I was so mad at her for doing it. I was completely out of control and yelling at her. She really was remorseless, though.

  

 

Feedback Thoughts

"A fixed mindset could be holding you back — here's how to change it" was an interesting article for me because it included real word examples and situations. One of the best experiences I've had with feedback was in my eighth grade English class. The class took a quiz over the difference between it's and its, and I mixed them up perfectly. I didn't even know about the difference at the time, honestly. (Is that a defense mechanism?) Anyways, we graded them in class, and either I or the person grading my quiz told the teacher I got every single one wrong. My teacher started laughing in front of everyone. Luckily for me, this was one my favorite teachers, so I didn't think she was being evil. This moment did teach me to not take things so seriously and to laugh at yourself when you make silly mistakes. Silly mistakes are one thing, but mistakes where you thought you were right and put so much work into a project are more difficult to deal with. 

"Why It’s So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback" is true for me at times. I don't know. I do try to shy away from efforts that aren't guaranteed, and I don't want to be shackled to that mindset. I would say outwardly people probably think I'm very good at receiving negative feedback, and for the most part I am on the inside as well. Sure, there have been times where I brush off what someone says because I think it's ridiculous, but there are other times where I do genuinely think about what the other person is trying to tell me. Culture is very important. In this class specifically, I'm not nervous about receiving feedback I don't like because the stakes aren't pass or fail. It's learn or do well. Either way, it's a positive. 

Feedback (Source)

Topic Brainstorm

Gospel of Mark

Messiah Netflix Show Trailer

    One of my ideas would be having Jesus' life take place now. For this story, Jesus' original coming wouldn't have taken place yet, so it wouldn't be a story about the end times but a story about how Jesus would start his teaching in the modern world. I had to imagine this story had been done before, so I looked it up and found a show called Messiah. It was a Netflix series that was quickly canceled after it was released because of the similarities between the show and the Muslim prophecy of the Dajjal. This is the Islamic equivalent to the Antichrist. I've never watched the show, although I am interested, but it would seem this storyline follows a second coming formula. That's not the avenue I would go down. The logistics of figuring it all out would be difficult. I think it would be better/easier to write it in the style of the Bible where all the details aren't mentioned. Otherwise I would be spending a lot of time writing about someone filming Jesus on their smartphone and things like that.

Robin Hood

    I would take the Robin Hood story and have him succeed in transferring all the wealth to the poor. I'm not sure how/if I would incorporate this into the story (ha, there's a trading service called Robinhood), but there's a lot of wealth distribution occurring right now. Members of a Reddit group realized there was a short taking place on GameStop stocks, so they bought a ton of the stocks which caused the prices to rise. Now services like Robinhood are preventing anyone from buying the stocks perhaps due to large fund organizations getting upset about losing their short money. Anyways, after Robin Hood gives all the money to the poor, the poor rise up and persecute the rich in the same way they were treated. It would be an endless cycle. Maybe there would be multiple generations of Robin Hood figures, and a new one would come and put an end to the misery and pain. 

Dante's Inferno

John's Vision of Heaven

    Instead of describing Hell I would attempt to describe Heaven. This task would be awfully lofty, although I'm sure it's been done many times before. I might use poetry to describe the immense pleasure of being in God's presence. I know Dante makes it to Purgatory and Heaven, but seeing as I haven't read those portions I won't have to worry about undue influence. This is the least satisfying of the ideas for me because I know I'm incapable of doing Heaven justice. 

Russian Folktales

    I have no basis for these stories, but I did see vampires mentioned. My idea is to have a vampire who doesn't want to drink blood as much as he wants someone to drink his own blood. In this story, a vampire's immortality can be transferred over when someone drinks its blood. The drawback is that someone has to drink blood to continue that immortality. So I caught myself right here and realize that if a vampire has to drink blood to continue their immortality, why doesn't the first vampire just stop drinking blood if he doesn't want to live anymore? My solution is that the vampire continues living, but its existence is excruciatingly painful and miserable. Maybe I'm not doing anything original here, but since I'm not aware, I'm claiming creativity. 

Robin Hood (Source)

Week 2 Story: The Heart of a Lion

     There once was a man and woman who were madly in love with each other. The couple was on the verge of marriage, but before that could happen the man had to attend to his duties as a guard of the village. The man's position was as a watcher. One day while watching, he spotted a pride of lions rushing towards the outpost at which he was stationed. Instead of alerting the men at the outpost of the incoming attack, he ran away. On his run away from the outpost, he hit his head and died, suffering the same fate as the rest of the men at outpost.

    The man was reborn as a lion the moment his spirit left his body. Since at this time lions and other animals could talk, they also aged much faster than lions we know today. The man-lion was walking through the jungle one day when he spotted a woman picking berries from a tree. This was the same woman the man-lion was in love with during his past life. The man-lion was enamored by the woman's beauty. He hid in a bush and watched the woman as she picked the berries. The woman noticed the man-lion in the bushes. 

    "My long lost love told me all about lions and their hunting techniques; when lions are on the prowl, they hunt in packs. Therefore I have no reason to fear you," said the woman. 

    "No, no, fair lady. You have no reason to fear me. Even if I was on the hunt I would spare you because of your great beauty," replied the man-lion.

    From there the two were nearly inseparable. The woman would leave her parents home to visit the man-lion in the same spot where they met every chance she got. There came a point when the two declared their love for each other and their desire to wed. The only thing standing in the way of their betrothal was the woman's parents. 

    The man-lion mustered courage and asked the woman to lead him to her home. The woman's parents were not very pleased with the man-lion's request but feared angering him due to his status as a lion. They told him they would agree to his marriage to their daughter if he declawed and defanged himself. They told him it was out of concern for their daughter, but it was really a trick.

    On his way to get declawed and defanged he noticed a pride of lions rushing towards the village where his love lived. He met their ambush before the village, and the pride stopped to hear what he had to say.

    "This village is mine and mine alone. I wish to eat its inhabitants by myself," the man-lion told the pride. 

    "We won't believe your lies. We know you are in love with a human woman in that village," the leader of the pride retorted.

    Seeing that forceful action would be the only way to stop them, the man-lion began attacking the pride. He killed many lions in the pride, but eventually he succumbed to his injuries and died. What was left of the pride retreated knowing they would not be able to pillage the village with such diminished numbers. That night out of the carcass of the man-lion crawled out the man who was once a lion. The man skinned the lion using its claws and wore his former skin as outerwear. Knowing that the lions would eventually return, he went to warn the outpost protecting the village where his love lived. They believed him, and with a war party of 100 men, the man that was once a lion marched off in the direction of the lion pride's retreat. There the man and the outpost guards slayed all the lions. This is why lions are associated with courage.

                                                        The Courage of a Lion (Source)

    The man returned with the war party to the village. He immediately went to the house of his love. With tears and confusion the woman cried in his arms.

    "My love, I was a coward and lost my life. I was reborn as the lion you fell in love with, but I did not remember my past life. On my way to get my claws and fangs removed I saw a pride of lions with a thirst for blood. I did what was courageous and stopped them to protect your life and the life of the villagers. In the process I lost my own life, but it seems the right thing does bring its own rewards," the man who was a lion explained. 

    The couple embraced and lived a happy life together. 

Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Lion in Love." I felt bad about the lion being tricked even though I don't support bestiality. I always wondered why the woman would be okay with marrying a lion (maybe she wasn't). I turned a tale of deception into a tale of love and learning. 

Bibliography: "The Lion in Love" from Aesop's Fables by Joseph Jacobs

Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

 The Hare that Was not Afraid to Die

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock (1920).

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/jataka-hare-that-was-not-afraid-to-die.html

Pygmalion

Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/ovids-metamorphoses-pygmalion.html

The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal

Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912).

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/indian-fairy-tales-indian-fairy-tales.html

The Lion in Love

These fables all come from The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894).

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/aesops-fables-lions-part-1.html

There is no mention of the daughter in this story besides the lion saying he wants to marry her. I would explore the daughter's role in this story. Perhaps due to the Buddha story about the rabbit I am thinking of reincarnation. In my version of this story I would write a backstory about the daughter having a former love who died. I think I would have the events surrounding his death be where he acted cowardly in some way. He would be reincarnated as the lion in a sort of irony just like The Wizard of Oz. The lion will remember his cowardly act from his past life, but he won't remember the reason why he has the chance for another life. That reason is his former love. He will see her at some point and be instantly attracted to her. The daughter won't understand why, but she will have some sort of fondness for him, too. Over time they will fall in love. The lion's act of bravery will be approaching the daughter's parents and asking to marry her as well as removing his weapons (maybe have this be paralleled to his cowardly act). They will ask him to declaw and defang himself just like the original story, but instead of them making fun of him for taking their advice he will turn back into his former self. Then the two lovers will live happily ever after.

(Lion In Love by Tenniel)

Week 2 Reading Overview

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4.

Week 3:  Adam and Eve

Week 4: Infancy Gospels

Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6.

Week 5: Life of the Buddha

Week 6: Arabian Nights

Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.]

Week 7: Tibetan Folk Tales

Week 9: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung

Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11.

Week 10: Myths of the Cherokee

Week 11: Native America Marriage Tales

Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13.

Week 12: Robin Hood

Week 13: Canterbury Tales

Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15.

Week 14: Inferno

Week 15: Russian Folk Tales

    I am particularly excited about reading Dante since I've been meaning to read The Divine Comedy for sometime. I actually started once when I was twelve, but the combination of poetry and the subject matter made it too scary and intimidating for me to stick with. 

    Many of the stories I picked I have some familiarity with but want to know the stories in-depth. Others I have no touchstone for. I look forward to the flow of creativity from reading these tales and myths. Some of the stories I already have an idea for what I will write, but I'm not sure if they'll work in practice yet. We'll see.

(illustration by Otto Ubbelohde)

    I picked this image because it evokes fear in me in the same way I think many folktales were supposed to do for children. It also reminds me of this film called The Lighthouse. I didn't like the movie that much, but it stuck with me in a similar way to the creepy origins of all the Disney princess movies.