Learning Challenge: Health and Happiness Memes!

(Image found via Learning Challenge website)

Forget these as steps to happiness (although no doubt they're awesome if you use them that way too)--this is such a cool way to remember how to deal with things. Once things get to the end of the semester--particularly with papers; I'm trying to learn how to love papers because theoretically they're things you can learn so much from but really in practice currently they're just a way I torture myself with procrastination and perfectionism and anxiety--I really do have to remind myself that there are steps towards success, and the first step involves controlling myself (and my negative thoughts). Often times this is as easy as taking a deep breath, sometimes it involves using this method, and sometimes I have to resort to Maggie Stiefvater tactics. But eventually I can control my thoughts enough to look forward to the second step. Alternative solutions are hard, but in a lot of cases I can calm myself down even further due to the step back I have to take to see the whole picture and make new plans. And then comes the third step: I choose the situation that's going to make me the happiest in the long run. Which I guess is sometimes the situation that leads to the least tension and negative energy, but sometimes it's unavoidable, and I have to keep taking deep breaths and just Do The Thing...

But anyway. This is a great picture, with a great mental device, and I'm glad I found it on the blog!

Reading Evaluations: At the End

Oh my goodness, I don't think there weren't any readings that I didn't enjoy this semester. Some of my favorites were the Czech Folk Tales and the Spenser (if you have any more of the Spenser written in that prose-retold style that would be a wonderful addition, I think, because Britomart was amazing and I immediately wanted to read more of The Faerie Queen the next week but obviously didn't really have the time to do it outside of class). One thing that I, as a neurotic and obsessed anthropology student, would like is more info about the various ethnographic collections that you included in the Untextbook as a whole--if there's one thing this semester has taught me, it's to be eternally suspicious about ethnography from the early twentieth century, and my brain won't rest until I know how the tales were collected--but I thought that the collections here were in general very wonderful, and I really appreciated that you used some told in folk-style, because besides the fact that I think that's very cool it's also very ethical when the tales are being presented as primary source material (you probably already know all of this! But I'm reiterating that I appreciate that you did it this way...).

As for Reading Diary strategies, I usually ended up focusing on two or three tales and going into depth on how I could expand or contract or fudge with them to make my own Storytelling for that week--sometimes just rambling on for a paragraph about ideas was very helpful when I was feeling unoriginal later on in the week! I'd also talk about some similarities that I saw as a whole for all of the tales, if it was a collection, and try to come up with some way to put that similarity into the Storytelling as well...

As for tips for reading strategies: finish the readings early!! Even if you don't have time to read and write the reading diary post all in one sitting, it's so helpful to have done all the reading and only have to synthesize your thoughts if you're having to turn an assignment in last-minute. Just something that I found really helpful! Oh, and also jotting down random notes into a word file/on a piece of paper while I was reading, because a lot of times I would read and then not work on the Diary for a few days...whoops...but it all worked out, in the end!

Tech Tip: Automotivator Poster

(made using random image from Automotivator)

(Info on how to do this tech tip here)

Usually around this point in the semester I wish I was doing anything but paddling, and the urge to give up and just watch the sunset is very, very strong. It's a trick to be able to keep an eye on the boat and the sunset and keep paddling, but someday I'll learn it...

Reflections on Storytelling

I think that the thing this class has forced me to do, and that I've been most proud of accomplishing, this semester, is writing (like, for real, starting, finishing, and revising) all of the stories that I have. Normally I have such a problem opening up Word and just starting a story, but I learned that if I have a prompt--or even several prompts combined into one--that gives me enough of a starting point that an opening line usually pops into my head and I can just get going! Finishing stories the stories that I did end up starting has also historically never been one of my strong points, so the fact that I did manage to finish as many as I did--even if it wasn't one every week--was awesome, because that's something I've never done before! Also, all of the editing challenges were really helpful, as they pushed me to look at some problematic aspects of my writing that I've never looked at as problematic before (*ahem* looking at you, commas and semicolons) and push to make them better (or at least more grammatically correct and less superfluous) (I don't think I'll ever loses the parentheses and dashes, though--would it even be me writing at that point? I'd be suspicious...).

Anyway, this class has really been a catalyst for my creativity, and now I'm inspired to go out and write more stories! Even if they're not as good as I'd like them to be the first time around...because there's always revising to fix that problem...

Week 14 Reading Diary: Italian Popular Tales, Extra Credit

(The cover of the book via the Untextbook)

I decided to finish the unit that I started earlier this week instead of starting a new one, because I really enjoyed the stories in the last half! This half actually had a lot more stories with animals in them, and they all (or most of them, at least) seemed to be stories about little things that get passed from person to person and then at the end they've become a huge thing and gotten out of hand--until the narrator makes a wry comment, and makes the whole thing seem absurd! This actually occurred to me to be a really good metaphor for the perils of gossip, and that's probably what I would write about if I were writing any more stories this week...but instead I'll just talk about some of the other stories that weren't like the ones I described, because those were pretty good too...

The Language of Animals: I can actually sympathize a lot with the main character from this one, because he goes through 10 years of school far away (although at the end of it his teachers say they don't have any more to teach him, and I doubt that would ever happen for me!) only to go back to his family and find out that the stuff he's learned isn't, in a lot of cases, appreciated. Most people don't appreciate me yammering at them about what I've learned during the semester, or whatever, so a lot of the time what I've learned goes unsaid until someone needs an answer for things, and then I can't help myself and I shout out the answer! So basically what I'm saying is that I would make this story into a modern-day college/grad student story, because I think that would both be very amusing, in a slightly terrifying and true way.

An Incident in Rome: this is what happens when you go underground in Rome! Just kidding, kind of...actually, what I would probably do is set this story in an underground in Rome. Why do I like modern retellings so much? I guess I'll never know...anyway, this story had some potential for both the comic (I read somewhere that having two people who are both really set on their dialectically-opposed goals is one of the best recipes for comedy, and I agree) and the tragic (reading forever is probably hard on your eyes, and being the person that sentenced Jesus to be crucified probably is not the easiest thing, especially when you're being eternally punished for it)....

Source: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane (1885). Untextbook.

Growth Mindset: Memes!

(Meme is from the Growth Mindset blog)

As Professor Gibbs says, this saying is actually part of a larger quote that's worth reading (sourced from here):

The good life is lived best by those with gardens — a truth that was already a gnarled old vine in ancient Rome, but a sturdy one that still bears fruit. I don’t mean one must garden qua garden… I mean rather the moral equivalent of a garden — the virtual garden. I posit that life is better when you possess a sustaining practice that holds your desire, demands your attention, and requires effort; a plot of ground that gratifies the wish to labor and create — and, by so doing, to rule over an imagined world of your own.

It hasn't been an easy past week at all for me, and this weekend has been just as challenging. This quote reminded me that it's entirely up to me what I choose to focus on and where I put my time and energy--you really do have to "live in your own little world" sometimes in order to not let life get to you...remembering this isn't the easiest, though!

Tech Tip: Soundcloud Embedded

Here's the link to learn how to embed Soundcloud in a blog post...it's fun, if you need some extra credit points...

Learning Challenge: Killing Boredom with Procrastination

(A funny image about citations, via Flickr)

This is the article I'm referencing in this post (it's a beautiful article. If you're wondering whether you should read it, you should!)

So the title of this article is "Two for One Deal: Killing Boredom with Procrastination." I read that phrase and got really intrigued, because the kind of boredom that I  think of when I think of things I want to procrastinate on are not actually boring. But it turns out that there's lots of kinds of boredom, and the one this article is referencing is apathetic boredom--or a feeling of helplessness and depression in the face of a large, scary task.

This article is beautiful because, now that I think about it, that feeling actually is boredom. And it's conquerable, through the stress management techniques that are laid out in the article before. I've been conquering this kind of boredom all along, when I've been cleaning the apartment instead of writing that essay I was supposed to start writing yesterday.

Except when I've run out of time, and there's no time to procrastinate.

So I guess the answer is to start things earlier, so that I have time to procrastinate in the right way? Do I think that would help? Probably, yeah...especially this coming Dead Week...I have a huge paper due on Wednesday that I've been putting off writing, but what I'll do tomorrow morning is do up the citations and organize my notes.

And then I'll write. And it'll be great...yeah...

Week 14 Storytelling: The Face of Truth

(Italian Greyhound, via Wikipedia)

Author's Note: I'm putting this one at the beginning because this is going to seem like a really weird story to anyone who hasn't read the original story. This Storytelling isn't my best, but basically it zones in on a particular part of the Italian fairy tale The Fair Angiola, which is a story very similar the story of Rapunzel, where the daughter (Angiola) of a woman forced into a contract with a witch after taking some produce from the witch's garden is taken by the witch one she turns a certain age. In this version, however, when the prince comes to rescue Angiola from her confinement in the witch's tower the witch chases after them, and just as they are about to lose her she puts a curse on Angiola that she will now and forever have a dog's face. Of course, the witch's little dog followed Angiola because he loves her, and eventually when he and Angiola have been living in a cabin in the forest for some time, with the prince visiting occasionally but unable to marry Angiola because of her cosmetic issues, he goes back to the witch and asks her to lift the curse. The witch, having calmed down some, gives the dog a vial of water to lift the curse, and Angiola and the prince and the dog live happily ever after.

I thought that the idea of having the face of a dog was really intriguing. I was waaaaaaaay to tired this go-around to go into the depth of sensory detail that I would have liked to in this story, but I know that dogs have things like only being able to see in blue and yellow and seeing in the dark and a really sharp nose that would really freak a human out if they suddenly developed those traits and lost their human ones...but anyway, here's the story...

***



All Angiola could ever smell was the scent of the witch’s magic.

Her nose was stronger now, of course, than it had been before. It was one of the few perks of having one’s face turned into a dog’s that she could think of. There weren’t that many others: her world had turned all blue and yellow, and her peripheral vision had turned uncanny while looking forwards was nearly impossible (especially with her nose in the way). She also tended to pant a lot, as it was summer and the weather had turned very, very warm. Panting was not a particularly attractive pastime, and she did so hope that Duccio would not hold that image of her in his head for the rest of their married lives—if he did, in fact, ever end up marrying her.

No, she did not particularly enjoy having the face of a dog.

She left the cabin less and less as time went on. There really wasn’t any point to leaving, as seeing the outside world just reminded her in a thousand-fold ways that the witch had cursed her. She couldn’t see the green of the leaves on the trees, or take a breath without all the smells of the forest overwhelming her. Thankfully, she never got any urges to chase the various small animals that crossed her path, but even that small favor seemed insignificant in the larger breadth of her problems.

The witch hated her. So did Duccio’s parents, and they’d never even met her—they only knew that she was a peasant girl with a face like a dog’s, and therefore entirely unsuitable to marry their son the prince of the kingdom. Maybe even Duccio hated her. Hadn’t his visits become shorter and farther apart, lately?

Really, the only thing that made her life bearable was Poalo.

Poalo was a small ball of energy. She knew, theoretically, that he was quite old, but she supposed that being a witch’s dog might give you a longer life span than most. He liked to fetch, and to roll in the dirt, and to be scratched at just that point behind his ear. But, most of all, he liked to talk, and his barks and whines and growls were the only noises she could manage to create with her new snout-mouth.

She missed talking the most, she thought. Her conversations with Poalo were what kept her sane, when all she could manage to convey to Duccio was a faint sense of frustration and anxiety, translated through soulful gazes where his eyes were the wrong color and she always ended up making desperate sounds deep in her throat. Being a witch’s dog, Poalo had not only lived quite a long time but had also had quite a few adventures that he was more than happy to tell her about. He had once, he told her, been turned into a squirrel by the witch when she wanted him to spy on another witch in the next kingdom. Before, he had been quite a large dog. Now, he was only about as long as Angiola’s forearm and barely reached about her anklebone when they both stood side by side.

It had been an adjustment, he’d told her, but he’d managed. As she would eventually adjust to her new face. He’d licked her nose, then, then settled down between her and the fire in a boneless heap, nose tucked underneath his tail.

Yes, Poalo was the only reason for her continued sanity.

One day, as they were both sitting in silence for once with nothing to do but wait out another long, Duccio-less day, he touched her ankle with his nose and laid his chin atop her knee, staring into her eyes in that slightly-pathetic, entreating way he had. “I could go back to the witch,” he said carefully, “and see if she couldn’t give you something to make your face back into a human’s?” He paused. “Although I at least think you look prettier this way. Human faces aren’t nearly as beautiful as dog faces are.

She hugged him. “You don’t have to, Paolo,” she whined, burying her face in his fur. “I know she wasn’t very gentle with you, either.”

He dragged his sandpaper tongue over her shoulder in a slobbery kiss. “But I would. For you.”

It was her turn to pause, and while he did so he began washing her hands. She watched him for a long moment, considering his offer. Then: “She cut off part of my finger, once, when I was little, because I didn’t want her to take me away from my mother. I’d hate to think what she would do to you, if you went back.”

“I’m not afraid of what she might do to me,” he growled. “I only want you to be happy. It pains me to see you unhappy.”

The whine left her throat before she could stop it. She loved him so very much, but—she smoothed the short furs of his coat—she didn’t want him to get hurt by the witch. While the witch loved them both in theory, in practice she was given to volatile moods and cutting off the small fingers of forgetful children. Not to mention turning the face of the girl who had been like a daughter to her into a dog’s.

But he wanted her to be happy.

“All right,” she said to him. “But be careful.”

When he left that night, she stood at the door and stared out into the darkness after him. She could see much better in the low-light with a dog’s eyes than she could with a human’s, and she watched his white pelt bob in the distance until it faded out of sight.



Then she went back inside, heart heavy, to wait for both of the loves of her life to come back.

***

Source: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane (1885). Untextbook.

Week 14 Reading Diary: Italian Folk Tales

(Medieval banquet, via Wikimedia Commons)

I really liked all the stories this week! I'm running kind of low on time, so this will have to be a quicker Reading Diary than most: here are two stories that I really enjoyed from this section, that intrigued me enough to be potential Storytelling material:

The Fair Angiola: so, Rapunzel is one of my favorite fairy tales and this is a very interesting variant of that tale--from the sentient housecleaning products in the witch's tower, to the fact that the witch bites off a part of Angiola's finger when Angiola keeps forgetting to tell her mother to make good on her deal with the witch, to the fact that the witch then turns Angiola's face into a dog's, everything is so interesting. But anyway, what I was thinking was to either write the story from Angiola's perspective the day that the prince arrives to climb up her hair and convinces her to run, beginning when she first sees him and ending with them both leaving would be a cool way to do this (also bringing this scene into the present day would also be very cool. Or maybe telling the story from the perspective of the household objects? Or maybe the balls of yarn? Or maybe telling the story from Angiola's perspective when she has the face of a dog? That must have been very, very weird...

Water and Salt: this is a crazy fairy tale. Every character in it is crazy. From the king that orders his daughter executed on a whim because she says that she only loves him as much as water and salt (although I've made this misstep with other people: if you're logical and not flowery-sounding about how much you love them sometimes they get very offended. Although I've never actually had one sentence me to execution), to the magician that the daughter (apparently?) falls in love with (or did I read the story wrong? I'll have to go back and check when I have more time) but then orders her to kill him for no reason the day before her father comes (is it his magical sacrifice that saves the kingdom? The story says that they quartered him and put his quarters in separate rooms. It also says that his quarters turned into precious stones and metals, which while great is not actually very helpful when we're trying to decide how he died after all). Anyway, I was thinking that it would actually be cool to tell this one from the king's perspective that had his daughter executed, during the final banquet....

Source: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane (1885). Untextbook.

Portfolio Index

This is the index to my Portfolio:

1) St. Ives: a story about a merchant who is more than he seems, a pilgrim who is less than he seems, and a cat.

2) The Consumption: a story that I really refer to in my head as "the dungeons and dragons story", but not for the reasons you're thinking of.

3) Luck and Misfortune: this story stars a man named Lucky. Whether or not he ends up so, at the end, is up to you to determine...

4) The Chase: what happens when you combine three people--who are all persistent for different reasons--and bikes? Shenanigans, that's what!

5) What the Heart Desires: how young Britomart gains her staunchest companion.

Week 13 Reading Diary: Russian Folktales, Extra Credit

(Leshy, via Wikipedia)

I really enjoyed the tales from this unit--I was looking for something written in a more colloquial style (see: I have reached exceeded my thinking capacity for this week, apparently, so stuff written in a higher style was out) and these stories all had really awesome characters--and so many twists! A lot of them deal with a sense of poetic justice, too, which is really satisfying to read when you're just done with everything! But anyway, here were some of the stories that I especially enjoyed:

The Water Snake: this one was actually really sad, but I thought it was interesting that, unlike so many other stories where the daughter is tricked into marriage, she actually ended up happier married than she was at home--I'm sure there's some kind of socioeconomic-situational stuff that I just didn't catch here, but that kind of ending to that particular kind of marriage isn't very common in fairy tales in general (at least not any that I've read, and especially not when the girl is tricked into marriage, as opposed to being sold/traded into it by a well-meaning but rather thick father). Anyway, the storytelling period for this week is over, but if I were to write a story about this one I would probably focus a bit on the snake's background--a legion of snake-people sounds really cool, actually--there might be more mythology out there that I could find...

The Leshy: I'm a sucker for stories that include "Green Men"--wild woodland spirits--although I find it really interesting that, in this case, the woodland spirit is related to the Devil (the spirit is the Devil's grandfather) as opposed to being a beneficiary of any of the characters in the story. If I were to write a story focusing on this one--although I suppose it would be possible to write a story that focused on a combination of some of these stories--I would focus on the priest's daughter's life after she goes to live with the huntsman as his wife. The story says that she was "given" in marriage to him, but I might change the story so that she ended up choosing him, or write one that focuses on the fact that she didn't agree to marry him. Or a story that focuses on the transition back to normal life from living with the man in the woods. That turned dark fast...I'll stop now...

Source: Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887). Untextbook.

Week 13 Review

(Dante's Inferno: Academia Version, via the Announcements. Source: PhD Webcomics)

I believe that this is from Wednesday's announcements--the link is in the caption for the photo. I feel like this is very accurate. I especially like the "Teachery" part...

As for potential announcements from this week--I really don't know about any group events going on for next week, but I do know one for tomorrow--OU Improv is doing their last show of the semester tomorrow (it starts at 5 or 6, I think??) and I know their director and it's going to be awesome! And I know that there's a bunch of anthropology lectures coming up next week, but I can't remember any off the top of my head...I'll post one of these next week, and see what I can find...

Week 13 Famous Last Words

(my life in a nutshell, via http://quotesgram.com/the-end-funny-quotes-semester/)

I should be more excited about the end of the semester than I am right now, because I'm actually almost all caught up on everything that I fell behind on during the first few weeks! As wonderful and informative and mind-stretching as Visual Anthropology was, it was also very intense, and it didn't leave a lot of room for doing anything else, so I was forced to triage and fell way behind in everything. And then it didn't actually end when it was supposed to, so that put me further behind. And it was really discouraging for a while, because I thought I was never going to catch up. But here I am--I'm back on track for points in this class, and I have a plan for finishing, and I have plenty of time to write papers from other classes.

But I am very, very tired. So I don't always get things done in the least amount of time they could get done in. See: I didn't do a Storytelling post this week because yesterday afternoon I had no brain for creative stuff, and this morning I didn't have a brain for creative stuff, so I decided to do two extra credit posts instead. And I'm having a hard time writing in Arabic, because that's like creativity in a completely different vein and requires me to use way more imagination than I have at the moment. So everything I end up writing in Arabic is very so-so, but I keep trying. Which is fine, because I'm learning how to balance things like what homework has to get done with what kind of shape my brain is in. But at the same time it's kind of discouraging that I have all of this time but I'm using all of it getting a small amount of stuff done. It's just the curse of wearing yourself out in the beginning of the semester, I guess: note to self for the next time...

So, yes...we'll keep on keeping on...I think everybody is exhausted at this point. I don't know what it is about spring semester, but it seems to fly by and be about ten times as intense as fall semester...

Week 13 Growth Mindset: The Power of Belief

(Josh Waitzkin, via Wikipedia)

For this week's growth mindset post, I watched this TEDxManhattan talk by Eduardo Briceno. In the talk, he recaps what we've already heard Carol Dweck say in her other videos towards the beginning of the semester, and elaborates on the effects of growth mindset--not only in children, but also in adults such as Josh Waitzkin, who has won many national chess championships and many national championship awards in Tai Chi Chuan. Waitzkin attributes his success to having developed a growth mindset after losing his first chess championship--he says that this loss proved to him that he wasn't a prodigy, or inherently more intelligent that anyone else, and inspired him to put more effort into improving.

I found Waitzkin's story pretty inspiring; being a martial artist who came late to my sport myself, I'm always interested in the stories of people who start various martial arts in their twenties and go on to become national champions. It's not just martial arts that growth mindset is useful for, of course, but their philosophies play really well together as a whole, I think--one of the goals of the World Taekwondo Federation is to instill a philosophy of constant improvement and integration of the mind, body, and spirit, for example--so it's interesting to think of growth mindset in that context....

Week 13 Tech Tip: Weather Widget

So I've finally gotten around to adding a weather widget to the sidebar of my blog--better late than never, I suppose! Anyway, if you want to add one to your blog as well (it's a seriously easy process, and you can get extra credit from it) the info for doing so is here.

Week 13 Learning Challenges: Time Management Advice from Maggie Stiefvater

(Stiefvater herself, via Wikimedia Commons)

This week I thought I would sort of add on to the time management stuff I posted a couple of weeks ago and give you some other awesome time management stuff that I've collected over the years. All of it is by--you guessed it!--Maggie Stiefvater, who is a huge believer in setting (manageable; more on that later) goals and then putting your butt in a chair and achieving those goals (or I guess you don't have to put it in a chair if you don't have goals to achieve that require sitting down, but all of my struggles with time management tend to center around my inability to sit still for more than 20 minutes at a time, so that's a helpful saying for me).

Anyway, from her early stuff there's this article that describes some of the things that keep her from achieving her goals in a timely manner, and there's this sequel explaining what exactly she does to combat these things.

From her later stuff, there's this one, but basically it says a lot of the same things, it's just an updated version and not nearly as comprehensive. And this one, which is somewhat about timers but mostly just about Space Penguin.

And I think that's all? I hope it's helpful for someone, because it's sure been helpful for me...as of now Maggie Stiefvater has almost 15 books published (her next one is due to come out in seven days, and I can't wait), and is a serious artist and musician as well as everything else she does, so it's advice coming from a good source!

Week 13 Reading Diary: Czech Folktales, Part 2

(Mortar and pestle, via Flickr)

Once again, so many cool stories in this unit! The narrator in these is really droll at times--like in one of the stories he tells us that the protagonist's name is Francis, but that it doesn't really matter if we know that or not--which might also be a cool angle to take for a Storytelling. I haven't really tried to do third person narration at all this semester except for one story, so I might want to try to do that this time around. There aren't that many weeks left, after all!

The Soldier and the Devil: this story was hilarious. The fact that the Soldier put the Devil and then Death in his knapsack, but had to let them go because he was causing too much trouble, was just too much for me, as is the part where he throws his cloak in the gates of Heaven when St. Peter refuses him entry, and sits down on the cloak and says it's his real-estate now...I could just imagine how everybody who dealt with the Soldier was probably simultaneously amazed and irritated by him. This might actually be a good story to do from another person's point of view--or maybe Death/The Devil's point of view, since they're actually both characters in this story?

A Clever Lass: I think it will come as no surprise to anyone at this point when I say that I'm a huge fan of stories with girls who are Tricksters, especially since there are so few of them. This was probably my favorite story in the unit, if only because of the King's fussiness and the Queen's awesomeness and the fact that he basically teases her with impossible tasks all the time and she bests all of them with her intelligence. This story might actually be a cool one to write a sequel to--because I bet the King isn't going to stop being a pill, even though at the end of this story he finally admits that the Queen can advise anyone she wants. In fact, it would probably be really interesting to see what their children got up to...I bet there were some hair-raising situations there...

Source: The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922). Untextbook.

Week 12 Reading Diary: The Canterbury Tales, Extra Credit

(Dorigen and Aurelius, via Wikipedia)

I'd actually read part of the Canterbury Tales before in a Puffin edition, but I've always really wanted to read more tales from it and I had the excuse for this unit! The prose retelling actually worked really well for me--I'm not a big fan of prose retellings in general (I had several bad experiences with various versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey when I was younger and now I tend to avoid them like the plague), but this Week I read two and I liked both of them! Maybe I should give more of them a try...they tend to be easier to fly through than the actual poems, although obviously I adore the poem forms too...anyway, here were some of the stories I read and enjoyed:

1) The Friar's Tale: The Story of the Summoner--(I skipped the Wife of Bath's tale because I've already read it, but I really, really enjoy that one and there's a lot of overlapping mythology from various places and basically I recommend it highly)--This story was deliciously creepy, from the meeting on the road to the strange traveler being cagey and refusing to tell his story to the Summoner, to the bitter end when the Summoner finally got himself in over his head. It was very satisfying to see that someone as unpleasant as the Summoner got what he deserved, and strange for the fiend to almost come in as the hero of the story. I've already done a Storytelling this week, but if I had to do another one I would probably retell this one from the point of view of the fiend? Or the old lady? Or maybe the Summoner's horse...or pan...this one would be a good one to retell from a different point of view...

2) The Franklin's Tale: The Promise of Dorigen--I really loved this one, because it had so many generous people in it and it was largely due to them that Dorigen (or anybody else, for that matter) didn't end up in an unhappy situation. It's my pet peeve when ladies who do the littlest thing wrong are forced to leave their husbands and have unhappy endings--there are a lot of those stories out there--and I was worried, for a moment, when Dorigen made her promise to Aurelius, that this was going to be another one that made me want to throw the computer across the room after reading. But it wasn't! And Aurelius's sub-tale was lovely, with the moral magician, and Arviragus was great because he honestly loved Dorigen and he was a good person anyway. So, yeah...I loved all the characters, and if I were to write a story about this one I would probably bring it into the present day. Because I love doing that!

Source: The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). Untextbook.

Week 12 Learning Challenge: The Happiness Jar

All right--so here are  things that have made me happy in the past 6 days (we'll see if you can see a trend...):

Day 1: It's Sunday, so I had time to talk with my roommate (who's awesome, by the way, but I never see her because she's just as busy as I am), go for a walk, and do my homework. I love it when this happens...

Day 2: I had food I made from the weekend! (I cook for the week on the weekends, which is time-consuming but generally worth it because otherwise I end up eating only peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner and while I love peanut butter it is not a food group in itself.) I ate some chili and it was wonderful...especially after biking home in the rain...

Day 3: Sent a bunch of emails I'd been putting off. Adulting win!

Day 4: Met with one of my teachers about an internship for next semester and was able to start setting it up the same day because people replied to my emails (you see I am hypocritical as anything about my email habits, but we all have our flaws...)

Day 5: Went for a walk and listened to music. It was sunny and nice and spring-like, which is basically the best way to make me happy...

Day 6: Shopping for food is the best, and that's what I did. Also I went for a walk, and it was beautiful outside again...Oklahoma spring is my favorite season, barring the tornadoes...

Week 12 Storytelling: What the Heart Desires

(Britomart, by Walter Crane, via Wikimedia Commons)

***

Author's note: This story is a backstory to the events that occur in the section of Spenser's The Faerie Queene that describes the trials of Britomart. Britomart is an awesome, awesome princess who, one day, sneaks a look in Merlin's mirror and sees an image of the man she is destined to wed. Falling instantly in love, she vows to go in search of him, and in the process gain fame and glory--which she does! Her companion on her adventures is an old lady named Glauce, who was her nurse when she was young.

I chose to tell the story of how Glauce came to be Britomart's nurse because I really wondered what events in Glauce's life had led her to be a) the nurse to the princess, b) loyal enough to the princess to help her in all her wishes, and c) competent enough to dress both Britomart and herself in full suits of armor and know how to wield a sword. None of Glauce's back story is really explained in the source story, so I decided that she had been a knight, and had fought with Britomart's grandmother in the wars (nothing about Britomart's grandmother is mentioned in the source story, either, so I made all of this up), who had died protecting Glauce on the battlefield, and that's why an old nurse was willing and able to dress up in a suit of armor and take up a sword and go traveling across the whole world with a headstrong princess.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the story...

***

The King and Queen hired me to raise Britomart because I was the only living woman in memory who had picked up a sword and shield and fought for my kingdom, and Britomart was the only one-year-old in living memory who had ever been as stubborn as she was. Maybe they had thought at the time it was my battle training that would give me the upper hand in raising their child, but really it was my firm promise, given to her the first time we met—her in fine swaddling clothes, sucking on her fingers, eyes wide and brow determined, and me in the clothes I wore to haul sacks of grain from the barns to the kitchen—that I would aid her in any area she chose to pursue.

The King and Queen smiled at me, gave me a room in Britomart’s quarters and a closet full of clothing it would be hard to walk down the hall in, much less to the barn, and left me with the baby. The moment they left the room, Britomart started to cry.

She cried for hours that night. I tried everything—holding her (she flailed until I put her down), changing her swaddling cloth (it was dry), singing a soft song (my voice was terrible, and she cried harder)—but the watchman cried one and then he cried two and finally, long past his cry of three, Britomart wailed herself to sleep.

I sat on a chair beside her crib for a while after, watching her little chest rise and fall with each breath she took. My legs ached from pacing and my ears rang from her piercing cries. Exhaustion pulled at my eyelids.

“I fought with your grandmother, child,” I murmured to her, my voice scarcely louder than the ivy rustling outside the window. “She could fight a battle all night and fall asleep not five minutes after victory was declared. She would be proud.”

Then I fell into the deepest, most dreamless sleep I’d had since the wars.

The reprieve was short-lived, of course. Britomart was up again at five, and as soon as she had opened her eyes she was crying again.

I called for a doctor, who said there was nothing wrong with the child except perhaps a bit of colic, and maybe I should try putting some hot pebbles wrapped in a blanket on her belly. Britomart screamed harder. The maid who came in while I was hurriedly pulling the blanket off said her sister had raised two colicky babies and the only thing that had worked for her was rocking them a certain way for as long as it took to calm them: she demonstrated. For a hopeful second Britomart fell quiet in amazed surprise, and then started crying harder than ever. After a while, the maid, apologetically, gave her back to me and left to do the rest of her chores.

Standing there, attempting to match the rocking motion the maid had been showing me, my head pounding and my jaw aching from clenching it so hard, I realized it was strange that I hadn’t yet seen the King or Queen this morning. It also occurred to me that Britomart’s crying was only as loud as it was because of the stone walls of the room. Outside, it would be much quieter. So I dressed her in the least ornate swaddling cloth I could find and, still in my barn clothes—there hadn’t been time to change since the previous afternoon—I set out to the gardens.

As suspected, her misery was much less amplified outside. She even calmed a bit when she saw the flowers, although after we'd passed it seemed she had been most interested in the gardener, who was trimming the bushes into fearsome shapes with a pair of arm-length clipping blades. He started when he heard us, nearly slicing his arm open, and Britomart quieted again.

This gave me another idea, and we ambled our way toward the barns, Britomart’s incredible lungs turning heads all the way. We entered and I took a breath of musty hay and friendly horse. I went to the back wall.

She went silent when she saw the armor.

It hung on the back wall: countless suits and faded blades of swords and spears, glinting as far as the eye could see. At the center hung a suit of women’s armor, lovingly oiled, a simple but well-wrought sword and sheath on one side and a long, strong spear on the other.

“Child,” I murmured, “That’s your grandmother’s armor. She died defending my life, as I would die defending yours.”

It was three weeks before she cried again, and that was only because her swaddling clothes were wet.

We still had disagreements, of course, but those were ameliorated over time. It took Britomart three years to discern that my lack of orders was not at all an invitation for her to give me any, and six to stop falling out of every tree and into every available fight. As she got older and better at recognizing that when I asked things in a certain way it was better if she listened, things became easier.

Years later, when she gazed into Merlin’s mirror and fell in love with the image of the man destined to become her husband, I took a breath and led her to the barns again. There I dressed her in her grandmother’s mail and put her grandmother’s spear in her hand. Then I dressed in my old mail, and took up my sword, and followed her out into the world.

***

Source: Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod, with drawings by A. G. Walker (1916). Untextbook. 

Week 12 Reading Diary: Britomart, Part 2

(Britomart, by Walter Crane, via Wikimedia Commons)

I think I loved the second half of this unit even more than the first! Britomart has completely and utterly won my heart, and Spenser's The Faerie Queen is now definitely on my list of things to read when I actually have time to read things for myself. It's an actual need for me to find out what's going to happen to Amoret--which is actually one of the ideas that I was playing around with as a storytelling idea as I was reading. Some other scenes that really hit me were:

1) The procession from the Evil Enchanter's castle: I feel like this could be really interesting if you drew from present-day metaphors for all of the traits that were represented in the procession. It would also be cool to bring Britomart into the present day and figure out why she might be trapped in a room with two doors that she's afraid to open. This scene actually reminded me a lot of the Lady and Tiger puzzles I used to do when I was younger--they're fun, if you like messed-up logic...

2) The tournament. There are so many ways this could be done: as a present-day thing (Medieval Fair, anyone?) or another type of contest/fight/etc. Or told from a different point of view (I vote Amoret's; I love Amoret). Basically, though, the fact that Britomart went through all of the trouble of fighting against all of the other competitors just to ensure that Amoret would have the chance to be admired and chosen as the most beautiful and faithful lady is one of my favorite things. Their friendship was really heartwarming, and I think it would also be cool to put a bunch of how much they meant to each other in the story.

3) The scene where Artegall realizes Britomart's a girl. And he just kind of kneels and looks at her for a long, long time. It's so hopelessly romantic, and I am so hopelessly sappy this late at night, but like I said this unit made me really happy and this page in particular...so, yeah, Britomart is awesome...

Source: Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod, with drawings by A. G. Walker (1916). Untextbook.

Week 12 Reading Diary: Britomart, Part 1

(Britomart viewing Artegall in Merlin's mirror, via Wikipedia)

I am so glad that I chose to read the Britomart unit this week--because I honestly don't know when I've read a more awesome story about a lady knight! (That's a lie; I've read some really awesome ones otherwise. But this one was written way earlier, so that counts for something, I guess?) There's literally nothing that I do not love about what's happened in the readings so far, from the fact that Britomart sets off on her quest not only because she wants to find Artegall, but because she also wants to see the world and gain fame and glory, to the fact that regularly challenges her fellow knights and wins all of her fights due not only to her enchanted spear but also to years and years of weapons training. I'm having such a hard time deciding what direction I might want to go this week, Storytelling-wise, because there's so many possibilities within this unit, but here's a few of my thoughts so far:

1) Any of the sections here would be excellent fodder for writing in a minor character's point of view. There are so many reactions to Britomart's disguise as a knight that it might be cool to tell the story from the perspective of one of the knights she fights, or maybe one of the ladies she rescues? It would also be possible to tell any of the stories from Glauce's point of view, awesome old lady/squire/companion to Britomart that she is...

2) It might be possible to add another episode to the story? Britomart gets into a lot of trouble, and a lot of it is because she doesn't stop and think before she rushes into things, so another episode would probably be comprised of some kind of challenge/castle/maiden/friendly or unfriendly knight that our heroine meets with gleeful courage and incredible fortitude and confidence...

Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod, with drawings by A. G. Walker (1916). Untextbook.

Week 11 Growth Mindset: The Positive Side of Stress

(Stress, via Blue Diamond Gallery)

How Harnessing the Positive Side of Stress Can Change Student Mindsets

This article was really well-timed in my life, because this is one of the things I've been struggling with my entire college career. Sometimes stress can't get to me no matter how had it tries--I'm somewhere far, far above my troubles, and able to work with no problems, no setbacks, etc.--and sometimes I can't stop letting stress get to me. I can't do anything, then--it's like being paralyzed by fear.

So obviously I've been trying to figure out why this happens. I'd gotten it narrowed down to a few options--and then I read this article. And everything made more sense.

These were some of the thoughts I had on the three methods they describe for harnessing "the positive side of stress":

1) "Caring for others builds resiliency against stress": I agree with this statement 100%. When I was competing as a gymnast, the best way I found to take my mind off of the stress of the competition as pertained to me was to focus all of my attention on what the stress of the competition was doing to someone else. Making someone else feel better--either by encouraging them before they were up, or cheering for them during their routine, or giving them a hug when they didn't do as well as they wanted--or they did do as well as they wanted--always helped my own stress levels. When you lift someone else up, it lifts you up as well--and it's harder not to believe your own words of encouragement when you're encouraging someone who's in the same boat as you are, or a worse one.

2) "Purpose in life reduces stress": This is also golden. I forget this a lot, but it always helps to connect what you're doing--especially if that something is something you'd really rather not be doing--to the larger scheme of your life and where you're trying to get to, or what you're trying to accomplish. It's not always easy, and sometimes it takes a sizable dash of creativity and no small amount of suspension of disbelief, but it does help, in the long run. (The important thing about this is to see the task as another stepping stone towards greatness, and not an event your greatness hinges upon; that way you don't freak yourself out by convincing yourself this is the only chance you're ever going to get. Because that's not true.)

3) "Focus on how stress can help [you] grow": Aaaaaaand the last piece of this beautiful article wraps everything up nicely. Like I said, it helps if you look at stressful situations as another stepping stone in your life--but there's a reason why I said stepping stone, and not stair. Life is not a perpetual ascension into the sky of your goals. In a lot of cases, achieving goals--especially when they're big ones--is more like crossing a river using stepping stones, and trying to pick the best way across. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards--but without that step you couldn't have gotten to where you needed to be. If you look at stress as just another step towards where you need to go, then it gets easier to cope when it feels like all you ever do is move backwards. In theory, anyway--in practice it's a bit harder...

Week 11 Storytelling: The Chase

(Pink bike, by wirelizard via Flickr)

Paul met Rhonda on one of those early spring mornings when we took our bikes down to the Mounds for a thrill. He and I went to the Mounds because, if you went to the top of the biggest hill, you could gain enough speed coming down to get a fair bit of air at the top of the next. That’s what we were doing when she rode by on her pink monstrosity, put together as a puzzle, stately as you please.

Paul, who could get fascinated enough by one glance at a pretty girl to lose his senses for an entire day, was of course instantly enthralled. “Deacon,” he said, leaning over his bike handles, “I’ve never seen her before. Have you?”

“No,” I said. I was watching her ride away, too, skirt flapping and chrome rims flashing in the early sunlight, but unlike Paul I didn’t think the sight required hanging all over my bike to get a better view.

“You sure?”

“I’m positive. Never seen her before in my life.”

Paul was still watching her. “You should go chase her down. See if she wants to join us.”

“Hmmm,” I said. I wasn’t paying attention, being too busy worrying about what trouble Paul was going to cause this time. Having responsibility for Paul, I dealt with all the fallout from his wild plans. Catching air at the Mounds was relatively restrained; he’d done plenty of other things, both with and without me behind him complaining that he was always getting us both into trouble I always got blamed for. Like when we “accidentally” stole some guy’s car that looked like Paul’s from the parking lot at Walmart because it was white and expensive. Or like that time he acted just off enough for an entire year that I was starting to worry about drugs or something, but turns out he'd just made amends with the owner of the car (who looked suspiciously like him, down to his lying, entitled, richy-rich inner core) and they’d swapped lives for funsies.

So I should clarify: by “Paul met Rhonda” I mean “Paul chased Rhonda,” and by “Paul chased Rhonda” I really mean “Paul made me chase Rhonda.” Because things always worked out like that.

“I’m serious, Deacon,” Paul was saying. “I might die if I don’t get to know her. She looks like the kind of person who’s just…Deacon. Do you want her to get away? Do you want me to live with an eternally shattered heart?”

I almost replied that it was impossible to shatter a heart, even a one as weak as his. But he didn’t like to talk about his health problems when we were out pretending that we were normal people and it wasn’t important that he live to inherit his father’s business empire sometime in the future, so long practice ensured that I didn’t. “Fine,” I said instead. “I’m going. Say thank you.”

We were halfway up the biggest mound. I took off down the slope expecting to catch her in less than two minutes: she wasn’t going that fast, and thanks to Paul’s inability to sit still and not risk his life and limb I could keep up a pretty good pace.

An hour later, I was still following her. Not because I was slacking—I was panting like a Golden Retriever—but because, despite her apparent slowness, she had been pulling ahead of me for the past half an hour. Now she was only a faraway smudge on the horizon ahead, and my head was aching from thirst and the mid-morning heat and all I wanted was to cuss Paul out until he thought deeply about how the words “want” and “need” never appear together in a thesaurus entry.

I gave up. Paul sat up straight when he saw me coming back, but slouched back down again when he saw I was alone. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.

“I’ll bring my fast bike, then.”

And the next morning I did bring my fast bike, one of the models with the skinny wheels that can go several kajillion miles per hour. Paul’s dad had spontaneously gifted it to me right after Paul discovered that biking was his new nirvana. I was afraid to know how much it had cost.

When she rode by, I climbed on and sped down the hill. I followed her for two hours, then—and every moment she pulled a little farther out in front of me. So, once again, I went back to Paul: this time with further complaints.

“You owe me big time,” I said. “I got thrown by a pebble in the road and ended up in a thistle bush.”

Paul pursed his lips. He was bad at most emotions besides manic obsession, sympathy included. “Poor Deacon. I’ll go tomorrow. You rest up.”

I almost argued. Instead, I told myself that Paul could deal with the outcome of his decisions for himself for once. So the next morning, as Rhonda pedaled past us, he was the one who took off.

He was gone for four hours. I was ready to call the hospital. But he did return, eventually, Rhonda riding slightly ahead of him, and when I’d given him the most comprehensive and threatening earful of his life he grinned at me and introduced us. “Deacon, this is Rhonda,” he said. “She says you’re very persistent. Rhonda, this is Deacon—he’s my babysitter, but I prefer to call him my right-hand man.”

“I'm your right ventricle man,” I said, "and you make my job impossible. How on earth did you catch her?”

Paul’s smile was incandescent. He looked at Rhonda. “We negotiated terms of stopping.”

Rhonda smiled back at him. She seemed fond of Paul for some reason--maybe insanity called to insanity. “Oh yes,” she said. “It’s amazing, really, what happens when you call out to a person when you want them to stop.”

***

Author's Note: this story is based off of the story "Pwyll and the Wondrous Lady" from the Mabinogion. In the story, the king Pwyll goes out to the mounds one night after dinner after being promised that men who go there either see horrible things or a marvelous sight. As he's sitting on the mound with one of his men, he sees a lady ride by on a horse and falls instantly in love. He orders his servant to catch her, but the servant can't catch up with the lady despite the fact that she doesn't seem to be going too fast. So the next day the servant brings a faster horse, but he still can't catch her. But on the third day Pwyll goes after the lady himself, and actually thinks to call out to her to stop--after which she promptly stops, turns around, and tells him that she's been riding to the mounds every day specifically so that he could see her.

What I wanted to do was take this story--which I found fairly hilarious while reading--and bring it into the present day. Thus bikes instead of horses, and Paul (sounds kind of how Pwyll looks like?) is a business guru's son with heart troubles so he needs a minder, and Rhonda being awesome and totally opinionated (which she definitely is in the Mabinogion)...

Source: "Pwyll and the Wondrous Lady." The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest (1877).

Google Timer Tech Tip

So since I talked about writing in short, timed bursts in my last post, I thought I would also do a Tech Tip post about Google Timer, which is awesome. As I learned from this class, basically you type "set timer for" into Google and it pops up with a timer. Which is much, much more convenient than the method I was using previously, which involved an app on my laptop (there is also a timer on my phone, but I dislike that one because then I can't leave my phone in the other room so it can't distract me.

So, as for any tips I have for timed (ha!) time management, I have this blog post by Maggie Stiefvater. And this one. And this one. Those last two are less about timers and more about time management in general and spreading the awesomeness of Maggie, but I digress...

There's also the Pomodoro Technique, which I used just this past weekend to write many, many pages. So that works, too--you just need more time than 10 minutes to accomplish it...

Learning Challenge: Learning About Time Management, Writing 10 Minutes a Day

Link to the article I am referencing

Ooooooooh boy, do I ever have a problem with putting off writing. Just like the article says, I tend to push it off until I have big time blocks--but who ever has big time blocks? Not me. So instead it just gets pushed further and further out...and the deadline looms...and I start worrying that what I write won't be good enough, or that I won't be able to write about what I've been planning on writing about, or...or...

But you know what I've learned (especially this semester)? Writing isn't a big deal. You don't need large chunks of time to do it--you just need 15 minutes and a focused brain. And also some kind of writing implement, because without that it's hard to write.

(The focused brain is also a hard part. But I think that goes in Health? Anyway...)

This article really articulated some of my recent thoughts about writing, especially when you really don't feel like you have enough time to write in your schedule. Just writing for 10 minutes at a stretch can be extremely productive, and the more you start to write in these short bursts the more you get used to them. It also, like the article says, makes writing much less daunting: I'm going to do this thing for 10 minutes, Kathryn, I tell myself. No pressure. No strings attached. No opus magnum required. Just 10 minutes...

(I also find that when I only have a short amount of time to write I have much more luck getting myself to focus. Partly because I do well with short-term intensity, and partly because 10 minutes is well below the amount of time it takes me to get bored with things. I can sit down, stare at the computer, and type constantly for 10 minutes. It's harder to do it for 2 hours. Or *ahem* twenty-two, as was the case this past weekend) (not in a row. That's superhuman. There were breaks--just not as many as there should have been...)

But anyway. I'll be attempting to utilize this method for the incredible (!) amount of final papers that are due this semester. It'll be good. Or, you know, as good as things can be when you've got 12 books and 7.5 billion tabs open in the same window and outlines scattered as far as the eye can see. But whatever, right? It's only 10 minutes...

(My aforementioned role model Maggie Stiefvater showing off her teapot timer. Photo credit to Maggie Stiefvater)

Week 11 Reading Diary: More Celtic Fairy Tales

(Page 78 illustration in the book: Owen O'Mulready, via Wikimedia Commons)

This unit includes a really wide range of genres in its tales, from the extremely tragic and poetic Children of Lir to the almost slapstick Story of the McAndrew Family. All of the stories struck me as completely retell-able, too--any of them would be really fun to do through a tighter point of view, or switched between that time and now, or told from the point of view from an unexpected character in the story...here were some of my ideas...

The Vision of MacConglinney: there is so much food in this story. I was hungry while I was reading it, and I had to get up and get a snack halfway through because my stomach kept growling and distracting me. Besides the victuals therein, though, the protagonist of this story is actually really funny--he describes an entire vision world constructed of food in order to lure a gluttonous demon out of the king, where it has been causing the king to basically eat his kingdom out of house and home. I don't know exactly what I would do this, but maybe it would work as a metaphorical story?

Dream of Owen O'Mulready: this is a short one, but it's really weird: a man who has never dreamed before tells his neighbor that he wishes he could dream, and the neighbor tells him that he should sweep out the fireplace and sleep there that night, and he'll be sure to have a dream...and boy, does he! It's a nightmare...and he wakes his wife up from trying to climb up the chimney in his sleep...I feel like this would have to be a really surreal-feeling story to work--or maybe it could be told by a narrator who was excessively practical and dry-humored? I feel like that would provide a funny contrast...

Source: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1895).

Week 11 Reading Diary: The Mabinogion, Part 2

(Taliesin monument, via Wikimedia Commons)

The funny thing about this half of the unit was that it took me until about halfway in to get the joke: that Taliesin the bard, who speaks all of these words of wisdom and silences the best bards of the king and manages many other seemingly impossible things, is at most about seven years old. Then I read this entire section with a grin on my face, because honestly the image of a young child putting an entire courts' worth of nobles in their places, and advising a king and queen, and bullying the king into having a horse race just so that he can be even more tricksy win the king the race--that is the best image.

What I was thinking for this half of the unit was definitely including Taliesin in the story, but developing his character so that we see what people, generally, think about him. Elphin and his wife can't like taking orders from a child 24/7--especially a child with more snark in his little finger than most adults have in their entire bodies--so what would their reactions to Taliesin's advice be? What about Elphin's court? There must have been some people who hated him for being such a know-it-all, even despite the fact that he was the reason that the kingdom prospered as much as it did. Maybe a modern-day story, with a child genius? Or would it be funnier as a medieval fantasy-type story? Who knows?

Source: The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest (1877).

Week 11 Reading Diary: The Mabinogion, Part 1

(Pwyll hunting with his hounds, via Wikimedia Commons)

The fact that I actually get to read the Mabinogion for this week is crazy exciting to me; I've been meaning to read it for years and somehow it just hasn't happened. That said, there's a lot of fodder for stories in this week's unit, and a lot of cool ways to turn it into stories, so here's my thoughts so far:

Pwyll and Rhiannon: this entire story is great. I chuckled the entire time I read it, because of the single-mindedness of all of the characters--Pwyll saying I'm going to the mound again today if it kills me, I'm going to finally catch this beautiful woman, and his servant saying I'm going to make my ruler happy if it kills me or my horse, I don't care, and Rhiannon coming by every day riding her horse and deliberately making it so that Pwyll can't catch her unless he asks her to stop first. Rhiannon is one of my favorite characters from any of the units we've read, because she's so incredibly opinionated and strong-minded and so willing to go out and get what she wants. So I was thinking that it might be interesting to do a piece where Rhiannon decides on her plan to go out and get Pwyll interested in her--maybe set in the present day?

Gwawl's Request: Once again, Rhiannon is the real reason why Pwyll succeeds in the first place. Also, the part where Pwyll agrees to give her suitor whatever boon he requests is priceless, because of the way she chews him out afterwards. I don't know that I want to write a story about this so much--I just wanted to mention this part because it's one of my favorites!

Gwri Wallt Euryn (these names are killer again): I really, really appreciate the fact that the royal child who accidentally ended up with the wrong parents was actually suspected of being royal by the parents--there are so many other stories where this isn't the case, and in all of them my suspension of disbelief takes a severe beating, because I honestly can't think of a situation where the foster parents couldn't put two and two together. Missing royal child + mysterious baby shows up on the doorstep + royal child is suspiciously strong and brave and handsome and looks incredibly like the king...gee, I wonder where the child could have come from? But in this case Teirnyon figures out what's happened pretty quickly (although not before Rhiannon gets framed for eating the baby) (although in Pwyll's defense he mostly only goes along with this explanation because the entire rest of his kingdom is incredibly outraged). But anyway, I was thinking that a baby switch story in the present day might be interesting...although I don't know how I would pull off the "royal" part...

Source: The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest (1877).

Week 10 Reading Diary: Inuit Folk Tales

(polar bear, via Wikipedia)

This week's reading was (is?) really, really interesting--it's unfortunate that I'm writing this post so early in the morning, because I want to have more coherent thoughts about everything but in truth life is due so I'll just talk about some of my favorite tales and the thoughts that went through my head as I read them...

NUKÚNGUASIK, WHO ESCAPED FROM THE TUPILAK: (these names are killer). My immediate impression upon reading this story was that it was very, very creepy--and if it were brought into the present day it would be even creepier. The Tupilak is an interesting concept, and it might function well as a metaphor (I'll have to do more research on that. Tomorrow? I don't know if I have time to do research before this story is going to be due...but anyway...). The evocative nature of all of these stories means that they have the potential to carry a lot of sensory description, but I'm not sure if I want to fall back on that again this week or try something new for a change...brotherly dynamics, maybe? I usually don't end up with a lot of dialogue in my stories, but I really enjoy writing it, so that might be an option? Dialogue is always cool for showing family relationships...

THE WOMAN WHO HAD A BEAR AS A FOSTER-SON: this story was actually really heartbreaking. It made me miss my dog. The love that the old lady and the bear had for each other--and the fact that this love means that she lets him go in the end--is the highlight of the story, and I was thinking that a quiet story with just the two of them in it--or maybe the old lady worrying about the danger her bear-son is in while talking with someone else? Or watching him play with the children? Could it be a worry-for-the-future kind of story? Who knows; we'll see tomorrow--would function really well as a counterpoint to all the rest of my stories, most of which are really dramatic and sensory-focused (because that's how I experience the world: turned up to 100 on any given day. Ignore me. I'm rambling from tiredness).

Source: Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).

Week 9 Storytelling: The Song of the Stars

(Amateur photograph of the Pleiades, via Wikipedia)

It was quiet at the end of the lake. In fact, some said that it was so quiet that some nights, when the sky was clear and the water was still, you could hear the stars singing in the sky.

When I say “Some said,” of course, what I really mean is that my mother, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother all said. They liked to tell stories, and when I was younger I liked to listen. I even believed the stories they told: about the maidens who sang and danced in the sky, and the brave and indestructible Turtle, and the swans who caught the chief’s daughter, who fell out of the sky.

Then when I was twelve I went to middle school, where real life hit me, and I didn’t believe any of the silly Indian story crap anymore. And that was that.

But was it? Those stories were, maybe, the reason why I was sitting in this cabin, at this lake, so hungry I couldn’t see straight. My family had always stayed in this cabin to fast—they were traditional and actually did things like fast and stuff, although I always believed that if my grandmother hadn’t been such a scary woman that everyone else didn’t dare to cross her and say they didn’t believe in the Old Religion, as she called it, that my family wouldn’t have been quite so traditional. In any case, the Old Religion wasn’t really like it had been before the Methodists came and the tribe moved to Kansas. We were still pretty Methodist, just with some quirks. But anyway. This was the lake that they told all the stories about. And here I was, fasting in the middle of nowhere, traditionally, because my grandmother had told me to.

And here I was, listening to a song that was so beautiful it made my teeth ache and my hair stand on end. And I had to stop myself from going outside, because I knew that I shouldn’t go back to the beach that night. Nothing good could come of falling in love with a star.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t fallen in love with her, though.

The first night I’d heard the music, I thought it was the hunger playing with my brain. I was sitting in the cabin just like I was now, with the lights off and the moonlight spilling in the window and onto the walls and floor. Everything was silent except my complaining stomach and the squeak of the leather chair beneath me when I moved. The musk of the summer night—damp, mellow dirt, dusky fur, and the sharp tang of stagnant water—had wrapped around me, and I was drowsing pleasantly, warm beneath my blanket.

Then I heard the song: faint, wistful, and old—so, so old. The kind of old that speaks to the part of you that isn’t quite your heart, blood, or body, but something else.

I was out the door before I knew what I was doing.

I had nearly reached the beach before I knew where I was going.

There on the beach were the maidens, their white coats heavy with beading, and their black braids heavy with length, all of it swinging and catching the moonlight and shimmering as they danced. There were seven of them, but they seemed like more and they moved as one, their mouths were open in that wonderful song, the music gaining strength until I didn’t think I could bear it.

I shifted. My foot knocked a pebble into a larger pebble, making a clear sound like a bell. A warning bell.

The maidens stopped dancing and glanced at one another. Then they ran—towards a basket that was standing at the edge of the water. They leapt in, dresses rippling like moonlight, their hair flapping like ravens’ wings behind them.

The basket rose up, and was gone.

I watched the spot in the sand where the basket had stood for hours afterward, the stillness pressing in on me from all around, before I turned back to the cabin. I didn’t sleep that night.

The next night I went to the beach again. And the next. It was a week for clear nights: every night the stars were shining, and the wind was calm, and the lake was still. And every night they came back to the beach, and watch them from behind the reeds as they danced, and after a while—sometimes a long while, but sometimes not—I would forget myself and make a noise. My breath would rustle the reeds. My joints would pop as I moved. Once, I turned my head too quickly and scared a bullfrog, who let out a surprised bellow and jumped back into the mud with a plop and a sucking sound.

Tonight, though, I would not go back. I had started dreaming about one of the maidens: her shy smile and the glint of humor in her eyes as she swayed and sang.

Nothing good could come of falling in love with one of the Sky People.

I went anyway, of course. I’d never had any self control. That night, I made the noise for a purpose. And, that night, I gave chase.

My fingers caught the edge of her sleeve just before she leapt into the basket. She turned to look at me, and in her eyes, instead of fear, I saw a kind of amusement.

“We were wondering when you would,” she said. “I’ve been watching you—ever since you were small, I have loved you. You stopped believing, and it nearly broke my heart. But—“ her eyes searched my face—“it’s a different sort of love now. Will you come with us?”

I swallowed. I thought of my grandmother, who would have given a toe, a leg, her life—all just to see the Sky People. She’d told me, once, that if she ever saw the face of a sky person then she might die happy, and I had thought that I would pray for them to show up so she would stop sticking around.

“Yes,” I said. And she pulled me into the basket after her.

Author's note: Once again, I am short on time when writing this, but basically this story is based on a Wyandot myth about why one star of the constellation known as the Pleiades isn't quite as bright as the others. One night, a man who is fasting in a cabin on a deserted part of a lake hears music, and goes out to investigate: he sees seven maidens dancing on the beach, but makes a noise and the maidens vanish into the sky via the basket, as in the story. For several nights he goes back, and keeps making noises, and they keep vanishing, until one night he decides that he's going to capture out of them to make his bride. So he gives chase when they run for the basket, and catches the youngest of the sisters, who says that she will only marry him if she will come live in the sky with her people. 

I wanted to pull this story into the present day, because that's something that I haven't really done yet this semester and I love seeing how some parts of the myths are compatible with modern-day stuff, and some stuff you have to think really hard about to make it fit. This story wasn't nearly as well-researched as I wanted it to be, but basically the Wyandot are also known as the Huron, and they have tribal lands in both Canada and the US--the tribe that the boy from this story belongs to was forced to emigrate to Kansas, where they founded a settlement that eventually became Kansas City. So that was interesting. And then there was all the current-day tribal stuff that I tried to get right, but I probably got wrong, so if anyone knows any better than please correct me....

Source: Myths and Legends of British North America by Katharine Berry Judson (1917).

Links that may be interesting: Wyandot History