Essay Week 12: Alice in Wonderland

This week I read the Alice in Wonderland unit. Many people know about Alice in Wonderland from Disney, that is where I know it from. Reading Alice in Wonderland is a lot different than just watching the movie. There are little things that come up that you do not catch in the movie. This Alice in Wonderland unit is written by Lewis Carroll.  This is what Disney based their Alice in Wonderland off of. This unit was great. I would say that it is tied with Cupid and Psyche in my top units that I have read this semester. There was not a single story that I did not like. My only disappointment was the gap between Down the Rabbit Hole and Advice from a Caterpillar. The gap is that Alice is trying to get into a garden at the end of Down the Rabbit Hole but at the beginning she is not in the garden but instead somewhere else where she meets a caterpillar. At the end of Advice from a Caterpillar Alice makes her way to the garden we think she is headed to at the end of Down a Rabbit Hole. I was a bit confused and had actually thought that Alice had made it to the garden at the beginning of Advice from a Caterpillar and had written it in my notes that way. Then at the end of Advice from a Caterpillar we find out that she had not been in the garden and that she was about to enter the garden. That was my only problem with this unit. Maybe a not at the beginning of Advice from a Caterpillar saying that she had not yet made it to the garden would be good. I really enjoyed the Mad Tea Party stories. Even though what the characters mean is kind of hard to keep up with I thought this was quite an interesting part of the story.  

 

Myself as the Mad Hatter, My girlfriend as Alice, and a random Queen of Hearts.

Halloween 2014

Essay Week 11: More Celtic Fairy Tales

This week I read the unit MoreCeltic Fairy Tales. I first tried to read Celtic Tales. I started on the first story but they way the story was written I could not understand what was going on. I decided to try More Celtic Fairy Tales because I really wanted to hear about some Celtic stories. I didn’t really think about how they are written might be tough for me to read. There were a couple of stories that were hard for me to understand and follow what was going on. How Cormac Mac Art went toFaery was a story were the type of writing left me confused. One story that the ending completely confused me was The Farmer of Liddesdale. The ending did not really explain much. The last paragraph really confused me. I was left with one big question and that was “who was the ploughman?” I also was asking myself, how did he just disappear? Why the mist? I reread that ending paragraph multiple times and I was always left with the same questions. There were some really good stories as well. I liked The Fate of the Children of Lir, The Vision of MacConglinney, The Story of the McAndrew Family, and The Ridere of Riddles. These stories took up the majority of this unit because they are the bigger stories. These stories were very interesting and I had not read any of these stories before. My favorite was The Ridere of Riddles. I liked how the boys in this story are clever and think on their feet quickly. The Vision of MacConglinney was a little hard for me to follow but I was able to follow it decently. I liked that this story was different that all of the other stories I have read this year. I thought this was a good unit but there are a few tough stories to get through. 

 More Celtic Fairy Tales. 

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Essay Week 10: Blackfoot Stories

This week I real the Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell. This story came from the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This unit had a variety of stories within it. There were many single page stories but ended with a five page story. I thought this was a well put together unit. The variety kept the reading interesting and that made reading the unit easier. Some of the individual stories were short, about 300-600 words, compared to the average story which is about 1000 words. While I was reading the section I thought this was great. The shorter the reading the less time the reading takes. Now when I look back the stories, I am starting to wonder what was left out of the stories to make them so short. More details could be added to those stories to help expand the story. I did not think any of the stories were bad this week. There was not a single story that is my least favorite. I did however really like the Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy story. I think I have said this before but I like the stories that take up multiple pages in the unit. I think the extra length helps with the detail and excites me as a reader. When there are short story after short story, they seem to drag on and make reading the unit a lot harder. I also like the hero stories. Kut-O-Yis is just that. He is not your normal hero though. He just goes around and helps people who are suffering. I did not find anything missing in this unit. I did find a problem in one of the stories that I informed our teacher on and she has now fixed it.  Overall, I thought this was another great unit and I do not see any changes that should be made now. 

Blackfoot Indian Stories 

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Essay Week 9: Hero Tales

This week I read the unit Hero Tales (Thompson) in the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This unit had 8 different stories. My favorite story was the Jealous Uncle. I liked this story because the character in the story was really smart and the story was easy to read. This story was about a boy whose uncle kills all the children that his parents have that are boys. With a little help from his parents and aunt at his younger ages, the boy is able to survive. He outsmarts his uncle many times and in the end kills him to end his parents suffering. I really like stories like this. I like to see how the characters can find their way out of a sticky situation. Another story like this is Bluejay and His Companions. This has the same type of outsmarting others in it as well. My other story I really enjoyed was Dirty-Boy. This story reminds me of the book Mahabharata from Epics of India. This story has two daughters to be won by completing challenges and so does part of the Mahabharata. I like these types of stories because I like how everyone doubts the underdog. In the end the underdog finds a way to win the event and in this case gets the girl. I guess I can relate to this because in many instances in my life I have been the underdog but I normally find a way to win. I didn't really like the Dug-From-Ground story. I was kind of lost throughout this whole story and it was kind of weird how the guy came to be born.  Overall, I liked this section. I would not say that it was my favorite but it goes to the top portion of my list of readings for this class.

Native Americans Web Source: Wikimedia

Week 7 Essay: African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books

This week I read the unit called African Stories from Lang'sFairy Books from the African Traditions reading options. I read this because our teacher, Laura Gibbs, recommended the unit to me. I enjoyed this unit. The unit is basically three different stories. The first two stories were basically about tricksters. Those stories were great to see how clever the characters were. The last story is about a hero and his journey. He defeats many powerful giants on his way but in the end he finds a huge giant that he is unable to defeat and the giant cannot defeat him. They both end up getting invited to live in the clouds with the gods. This was a great story. I really like heroes so this story kept me entertained. I actually stayed up late just to read this story. I would say this story was my favorite of them all. I did really enjoy all of the stories though. This is a great unit for this class. Each story is easy to read and just long enough to not make the stories short which would cause there to be a lot of stories. I would definitely recommend for other students to read this unit. There were not many big surprises. I expected the stories to be good. I was glad this turned out to be such a great unit though. I have never heard of any of these stories so that also kept the unit interesting. I liked the length of this unit as well. Other units have been a little bit longer which makes them harder to read the whole unit at once. This unit is short enough to read all at once. Overall, this is a great unit and I am glad I was recommended to read it. 

 

Picture From Africa

Web Source: Welcome 2 Africa

Week 6 Essay: The Monkey King

This week I read the The Monkey King unit from the Un-Textbook. This unit is about the Stone Ape that is very powerful that becomes the king of the monkeys and apes on his island. The Stone Ape starts to get into mischief which causes the gods to become worried that his powers would be used for evil. The Stone Ape’s mischievous side reminds me of Hanuman from Ramayana. The Stone Ape destroys the Netherworld city is a fit that he has. Hanuman is known to cause destruction around him as well. Hanuman destroys part of the city of Lanka by running around with his tail on fire. Both Hanuman and the Stone Ape are part of the monkey family. They are both skilled in battle and both defeat strong, worthy competitors. The two of them are also able to change their size as they please. I could actually see these stories based off of the same monkey. Maybe Hanuman really is the Stone Ape or vice versa. That would be a crazy twist. I really enjoyed this unit. I think I enjoyed the unit so much because the Stone Ape did remind me so much of Hanuman. Hanuman was my second favorite character from the Ramayana. I liked all of the stories but I really enjoyed both the Handsome King of Apes and The Destiny of Sun Wu Kung. The Handsome King of Apes tells about the beginning of the Stone Ape’s life, how he became king, and his first interaction with the gods. The Destiny of Sun Wu Kung story is about how Buddha is called on by the gods to settle the Stone Ape down. Buddha is able to do so and sets the Stone ape on his destined path. Overall, this is a great unit and it met all of the expectations that I had. 

The Stone Ape

Source: Un-Textbook

Week 5 Essay: Arabian Nights

This week I read the unit Arabian Nights. This unit was half about Aladdin and the other half was about Scheherazade. I really liked both parts of this unit. I thought the Scheherazade part of the unit was interesting. Each story led to a new story which really kept the unit interesting. I thought Scheherazade was very brave and clever coming up with a way to survive. She told a story but didn’t finish it until the next day and that story led to another story. This kept the Sultan from killing her. I really liked her story but my favorite part of this unit is the Aladdin section. The story was similar to the version I am used to but there were some major differences. The version I know is from Disney which the bad guy is close to the Sultan. In this unit the bad guy is just a random magician. The only bad part of this unit was I forgot the beginning story when reading the Scheherazade story because there were so many add on stories. I wish I knew how the story ended for Scheherazade. I may have missed it but I did not see how her story ended. An ending would be great because for all I know she starts a new story to stay alive every day. This story does not help me with my storybook but I really did enjoy this unit. I would recommend reading this unit to everyone. I would rate this in the top of the units that I have read so far this year. I would probably rate it the best if it was not for my love of Ramayana. Aladdin is such a great story especially the part where he goes after the magician for taking his princess. 

Aladdin and the Genie

Website: Un-Textbook

Essay Week 4: Ramayana

This week I read the Indian Epic Ramayana. I took the Epics of India class last year so I read two other versions of Ramayana. This version was the shortest of the three. So there were some major points that were left out. Overall, this version by Mackenzie contained the outline of the story. This would be basically your condensed version of the story. I thought the unit was very good though. I really enjoyed the Ramayana the last time I read it and I enjoyed it again this time. Rama is my favorite character from any of the other characters from the Epics of India class. That being said, I had to read this version. I was not let down. With each section the other versions came back to mind and filled in the gaps that this version left. If this was the first time reading Ramayana I would suggest to read at least one of the other versions from the Epics class. I really enjoy the golden deer section. I even wrote my storytelling about it. The fact that Sita has such an influence on Rama’s life is great. His love for her really shows in this part and when he goes to find Sita. Sita’s love for Rama is shown throughout the story as well. I also really like the battle part of Ramayana. Rama is such a great warrior which is seen through the whole story but the ending really shows his strength. Then at the end of this version you get hit with some of the biggest news, Rama is really the reincarnation of Vishnu and Sita is the reincarnation of his wife. I cannot even say how much I enjoy this story. I could read version after version and never get tired of it. 

Rama with Supanakha 

Web Source: Un-Textbook

Essay Week 3: Aesop (Winter)

This week I read Aesop (Winter). This was a very different unit from the one I read the second week of class. The second week I read Cupid and Psyche. That unit is a story that continues from part to part. Aesop (Winter) does not. Aesop has many short stories for each part. There are 20 parts and about four to five stories per part. That makes somewhere around 80 stories if not more. The stories are not that long but there is a lot of changing from story to story. I did enjoy each little story and the moral they provided. The number of stories was taxing on my mind though. I had a really hard time staying focused. I guess I find it much easier if I read one continuous story. I really liked The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox. I ended up choosing it as my storytelling base story. I really liked the moral. “Those who try to deceive may expect to be paid in their own coin.” This is so true. Karma will come back and get you. There weren’t really any stories that I did not like. They were all great but there were a lot of them. I chose this unit and thought to myself a lot of little stories would be great. I was correct they were all great but this unit wore me out. I spent a lot of my ahead time just trying to finish all the stories. I also was writing a brief overview of each little story at the beginning of my reading diary. That quickly changed when the first two parts took me over an hour to get through. Overall, I think this is a great unit. I just think everyone should know that there is a little more work with this unit.

Aesop (Winter)

Web Source: Un-Textbook

Essay Week 2: Sisters Envy

Siblings can be a blessing sometimes and other times they can cause you terrible pain. In the story of Cupid and Psyche, I believe that Psyche saw her sisters as a good part of her life in the beginning. In the story Psyche's sisters get married and move away leaving Psyche alone. She was so beautiful that no mortal could bring themselves to marry her. So her father is told a terrible being would take her and she would be wed to him. This happens, but much to Psyches surprise, the being was not terrible to her. He cared deeply for her but would not reveal who he was. Psyche sisters find out she has been taken and wed. They come home to console their grieving parents. They then decide to go to the cliff where Psyche was taken. Psyche brings them down to her home but does not reveal anything about her husband. She sends her sisters off with riches and believes all is well. On the other hand, the sisters became very envious of Psyche and decided to find out more about her mysterious husband. They go back and again are greeted by Psyche. They start asking questions again. Psyche not remembering the answers from the last time tells new ones. She then sends the sisters away with riches. The sisters know right away that she doesn't know who the husband is. They decide that Psyche doesn't deserve the lifestyle she is in and come up with a plan to take it away from her. Again, they return and start asking questions and filling Psyche head with evil ideas. This causes Psyche to turn on her husband and makes him leave her. While Psyche is out trying to find her husband the sisters return one at a time to try to take the husband for themselves. Her sisters end up dying in this attempt. After many tasks Psyche gets her husband Cupid back. If the sisters would have been happy for their sister then none of this would have happened. Instead their envy led to their own death. So be happy for your siblings even if they have more than you. Your envy could cause you to do terrible things.

 

Psyche and Her Sisters

Web source:  The Jealousy of Psyche's Sisters, Wikipedia