Week 3 Reading Diary: Bible Women Continued

The Witch of Endor It is interesting that the witch was more of a medium in the story who sees the ghost of Samuel rising. It seems a little eerie and adds a bit up mystery and uncertainty to the story.

Bathsheba I find it interesting and a little amusing how the story "tiptoes" around the fact that Bathsheba and David have sexual relations and conceive a child. The scene is very straightforward and to the point "And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house." All of the stories in this unit have a way of describing things in a different and unusual way. I would have to say definitely love at first sight. 

Bathsheba, by Gerome

I also love how curvy and voluptuous women were depicted back in the day and how men believed they were the most beautiful women they had ever seen. David did day he say the most beautiful woman and wanted her.

Mary and Anna I have heard of Anna The Prophetess before, but didn't realize she was so different from a lot of other of the Bible Women. She stayed single and did not remarry and instead prayed and fasted all night. She committed herself complete and entirely to God and it makes me wonder if this was foreshadowing the Nun lifestyle?

I like how all the different stories in this unit flow together and build upon each other. You have to read each of the stories completely and in order to understand the next one the in unit. The unit flows really well and I hope my storybook can flow really well as well.

However, even though this unit is derived from the Bible, the language is a little bit hard to understand. I had to look up the background on the wikipedia links and look up the definition some of the harder words. I want to use complex and creative language, but to where my audience understands my stories easily.

This story is part of the Bible Women unit. Story source: King James Bible (1611)

Week 3 Reading Diary : Bible Women

Eve  I have always enjoyed the story of Adam and Eve. What I like most about the story is that it has purpose. Eve eating the fruit from the forbidden tree, disobeying God's command not to, she brings upon Sin into the human race. Also, Eve's disobedience caused women to have pain in childbirth and severe labor. Although the story of Eve is true, I think creating a cause and effect situation would be fun. Such as the reason we have chocolate milk is because there was a cow who disobeyed the farmer and swam in the pond and turned his skin brown and could only produce chocolate milk.

Hagar: I guess it was common even back in the day to have a surrogate mother when another cannot bare children anymore. It was interesting that Hagar carrying Abraham's child would cause tension because Sarah did not like that Hagar after she became pregnant. After reading more about the story in detail in the wikepdia article,  Sarah's name translates in Hebrew of a women of high ranks, such as a princess or noblewomen. I like the idea of using a name that has meaning to create and make up characters.

Rebekah: I like how caring and giving Rebekah is. She is compassionate and selfless, giving camels water and the servant. It seems like she tried very hard in everything but didn't gain anything. It was interesting how the birth of the twins did not only symbolize sibling and family conflict, but conflict that would affect other generations and nations in the future.

Deliah: Deliah's significance is very intersting because she is a prominent woman figure in the Bible that resembles temptation and betrayal. I love how each woman in this Biblical unit has an important meaning and symbolic value.

(Delilah and Samson, by Lucas Cranach)

Stories' source: King James Bible (1611): Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 

Mythology and Folklore Storybook Topics

1. Possible Topic :  Animals. I am an avid animal lover so I think a storybook with animals or an animal as the topic would be interesting for me and enjoyable to create. I like the idea of using a frametale with animals as the storytellers, such as Tales of a Parrot, where a parrot tells the story. After going through the topic list, I think I would want to focus on a "real" animal, and not a mythological one.
Research : After researching through past projects, the un-textbook, and other online sources, I found of a lot of good information and research. The past project, Old Cat + New Puppy + Aesop's Fables = Life Lessons, has a cat as a frame-teller and the author retold/re-wrote a story from Aesop's Fables from the cat's perspective. I enjoyed this approach while still incorporating original work from Aesop's Fables. I liked a bunch of images from Winter's Aesop such as the picture below because they provide an accurate illustration that helps you imagine the story in your head. 

Winter's Aesop 

2. Possible Topic : Fairy Tales. This topic caught my attention because who doesn't like a good fairy tale? I agree with what I read on the topic page  and want to defiantly steer away from Disney and maybe try to expand my horizon and think of some different fairy tales to retell or use as the basis of my storybook. I ran across the The Ugly Duckling from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books and am familiar with the story but was more importantly intrigued with the meaning behind the story.
Research : I looked further into the fairy tale on wikipedia and found that there might have been some other motivation to the story. Instead of using this story as a metaphor for inner beauty, it is speculated that it can also be a metaphor for secret royal linage. I found that interesting and possibly fun to use other morals, themes, adaptations, and metaphors to retell the story. Maybe in current day situation?

3. Possible Topic : Nursery Rythmes. Nursery rhythms are shorter than fairy tales and could be an advantage to myself to expand on an idea and use my imagination without any limitation. Some nursery rhythms are hard for me to interpret so I had to do some research to understand the basics and plot summaries. I feel since the rhythms are so short, there is a lack of detail, so the interpretation I could take on the nursery rhythms have endless opportunities and no limits. 
Research : . I looked as some past storybooks about nursery rhythms from last semester and loved the creativity and interpretation they took. There was only 2 storybooks that had nursery rhythms as their topics. Both were based off of The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright. There are endless amount of nursery rhythms in The Real Mother Goose and I feel like I could intertwine some of these rhythms together with the same character or using individual stories that happen to affect the next story in the book.

4. Possible Topic : Urban Legends. The title "urban legends" caught my attention instantly. I expected a lot of the topics on the topics list to be very ancient, and traditional. But in fact, a lot of topics included football, love, college life, marriage, animals, food, and so on. Football would be a very fun topic because I love the sport and have so many personal experiences with Football since I have front row tickets every game;) (hence being a cheerleader).
Research : I found so many topics on snopes.com that were so interesting. For example, the Food topic had so many interesting urban myths about foods such as Walmart great value ice cream not melting and how the Chinese are raising St. Barnards for food . I was actually so sad about the St. Barnards myth turing out to be true.

Storytelling Week 2 : Jealously Never Wins XOXO

Jealously Never Wins
XOXO

At the final summer hooray before the fall school year begun, Blair Waldorf held the annual back to school bash at her house in The Hamptons. Blair was the most popular girl at Upper East Side High and everyone worshiped the queen bee. In order for her party to be a hit, like usual, Blair asked her talented and glamourous cousin, Lauren, to provide entertainment for the night. Her voice was beautiful and her music was hip. Everyone was satisfied and elated with Blair's selection.

All of Blair's friends could not stop admiring Lauren and were so ecstatic that Blair let her upper-east side friends meet her cousin. All except one, Ashely. Ashley had always had the lead role in musicals in school, become appointed president of the choir club, and took voice lessons weekly with an elite voice coach. Ashley was envious of all the praise that Blair and her friends were showering Lauren with. Ashely had always wanted to win Blair over. She craved to have a friend as popular, trendy, and powerful as Blair. Impressing Blair would ensure that Ashely's senior year would be off to fabulous start and maybe she could finally sit on the front steps for lunch with the rest of Blair's posse.

Ashley was sure that she could sing and provide entertainment as good as or even better than Ashely. She climbed gracefully and effortlessly onto the stage and started to sing one of her personally written songs, one that no one has ever heard before. In fact, Ashely had never let anyone hear her sing before. 

Confused and surprised, Blair and her Lauren obsessed posse turned around to see Ashley all alone up on stage, belting emotional and personal lyrics out. Desperate for some positive or enthusiastic crowd response, Ashely began to panic. She started to stutter her lyrics and stood there completely silent. Her mind fell blank and she could not recover or improvise as a natural stage performer would.  

The party fell silent. All that could be heard where whispers to one another commenting on the embarrassing and humiliating situation Ashely just put herself in. "Let's leave the entertaining to a someone who knows what they are doing, and someone who doesn't eat lunch in the hallway,"Blair snickered. The upper-east students burst out into contagious laughter and turned away from Ashely to finish their scandalous and immature conversations.  

Embarrassed and mortified, Ashley ran off the stage almost as fast as she convinced Blair that she was not worthy. Maybe she learned her lesson and won't try to imitate her betters.

Author's Note :I chose to re-tell the story of the Monkey and the Camel in a modern and more relatable way. In the original story, a monkey was chosen to dance for the king and a camel became envious from all the praise the dancing monkey was receiving. The camel then attempted to imitate the monkey and dance at the party in order to hopefully engage the audience and draw attention to himself. The camel's feet got tangled and he fell face first in front of everyone. Disgusted with this jealous animal, the rest of the party decided to eat his ribs and meat afterwards. I wanted to express the theme "Don't try to ape your betters" in a Gossip Girl setting because I am obsessed with the show! Blair, her house in The Hampton's, her glamorous parties, and her upper-east side friends are all a part of the original TV series. I introduced Lauren and Ashely as new characters, taking the place of  the Monkey and the Camel. Instead of dancing, I changed the act of entertainment to singing. I wanted readers to be able to understand the theme of "don't try to ape your betters" and the theme of jealousy. 

Gossip Girl (Image by Sarina Rose)

Bibliography : The story The Monkey and the Camel came from the Aesop for Children, illustrated by Milo Winter book. (1919). 

Week 2 Reading Diary : Aesop For Children (Winter) Continued

Here are some other stories from Aesop for Children, illustrated by Milo Winter that I enjoyed and took some notes over for my second half of my Reading Diary.


The Fox and the Leopard
I enjoyed this story because it had a great message about how looks are beauty do not always indicate that someone is kind, friendly, sweet, intelligent, or posses positive qualities. This would be another fun story to re-tell in the storytelling section of this class.
"A fine coat is not always an indication of an attractive mind."

The Wolf and the Shepard
This story was short and easy to understand. I enjoyed that the author didn't use a long introduction or take forever to introduce characters, the scene, the plot, the problems, and the resolution.

The Wolf and the Shepard

The Mouse and the Weasel
I am fascinated to see each story in this unit have different animals that interact with an unexpected animal. A weasel would have never crossed my mind if I was brainstorming for possible animals for characters. It could potentially be a strategy to pick an animal based off of its symbolic meaning. I looked up both animals to see if there was any symbolic meaning behind the two, and it was interesting because weasels usually hunt mice. In the story, the weasel did not kill the mouse, instead left him to suffer from eating too much. Interesting...

Mercury and the Woodman
I loved this story! I loved how cleverly the theme "honesty is the best policy" was narrated naturally in the story without trying to hard. Easy to follow, and a happy ending. You can't help but smile for the Woodman who got his axe back. Interesting to have a god appear in the story when this unit isn't focused on greek gods or goddesses. A "guest appearance" or a "character crossover" might be an interesting thing to add. Definitely keeps the audience surprised.

Week 2 Reading Diary : Aesop For Children (Winter)

I choose some of my favorite stories from Aesop for Children, illustrated by Milo Winter, and described some of the things I liked or paid close attention too.

The Oxen and the Wheels 
I loved this story and the theme behind it. I thought it was very interesting that the author made wheels, a non-human object, a huge character role in the story. This story could have been easily told using two "typical" characters, but instead the characters were stretched to animals and objects.

The Plane Tree
This story had an awesome message behind it, "our best blessings are often the least appreciated." I thought the message was very true and I also thought that the way it was portrayed was very interesting. The story had a good use of descriptive words and instead of saying a hot afternoon, the author used "walking in the noonday sun."  To describe the tree, I liked how the author used the phrase "sought the shade of a wide spreading tree to rest" to describe the appearance of the tree.

The Monkey and the Camel
 I loved this story. It is so true about real life. People become envious so easily and so quickly. I could see myself having fun re-telling this story in a high-school setting.

The Envious Camel

The Dog and His Master's Dinner
I felt bad for the dog when he was stopped by the pack of dogs. How could you outrun them when you are cornered you and you couldn't get away from them? I felt sympathy for the poor and faithful pup!


The Dogs and the Hides
I thought this story was going to be different then what actually happened. I had no idea the dogs were going to burst from drinking water. I had to laugh, it was sad but very funny. Stories with amusement and hilarity are often the best.

Learning Challenges

In all of the HEART areas, I found that Happiness/Health and Attention were the topics that interested me the most. I have actually been working on all of these areas in my life but am a little unsure how to really make a change, difference, or become more invested positively in these areas. After browsing the Learning by HEART website, I stumbled upon a few challenges that I would like to try this semester.

Happiness/Health : I would like to try the happiness jar for a week or two to see how it goes. I think that remembering the positive and happy things (little or big) can help keep your mind in an encouraging state. Also, it would be rewarding to look back and read all the happy moments over time.

Attention : I have practice mindfulness before and gave up because I believed that I wasn't very good at it. I would like to try mindfulness again and start to incorporate meditation into my daily life. I have done a little bit of mindfulness before bed when I am anxious and can't sleep, but I give up too quickly. I would like to improve this area of my life.

Staying Focused