Reading Notes: Tejas Legends, Part B

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I found a lot in this set of stories that I really enjoyed reading. First, in "Why Hummingbirds Drink Only Dew" I like the sense of loyalty given to the birds. The hummingbird made a bet with the heron and lost the bet. It didn't really have to keep its word but according to this story, it kept its word forever.

I'm really big on symbolism and I really think "The Maiden Who Loved a Star" did a great job of showing blind love in a very symbolic way. I think this would be a good story to just re-tell, without making too many changes to it.

I thought "Old Quanah's Gift" was an incredibly moving story, I thought. The old man spent most of his life making this incredibly beautiful and meaningful blanket. Then when he dies, he leaves it to whomever deserves it the most, which happens to be himself. In the end, seeing worth in another brought beauty for all of the tribe. Again I think this is a really fun symbolic story. I'd love to try my hand at writing with symbolism more.

I feel like this set of stories theorizes answers to a lot of big picture questions. For example, where did illness first start? I think there is a lot of potential for writing inspiration in this set of stories.

Source
"Tejas Legends: When the Storm God Rides", retold by Florence Stratton, online source

Reading Notes: Tejas Legends, Part A

(The North Wind's Hair (Spanish moss); online source, www.commons.wikimedia.org)

     I actually chose this section of reading as a way to try and challenge myself further. I really like to push my own limits and I felt like this set might help me to do that. I would like to write a children's story at some point and I personally find that much harder to do than writing stories for an adult audience. I chose this particular section also because of the use of human-like character descriptions to depict inanimate objects, such as storms, rivers, etc. I won't be using these tactics this week, because I've already got something in mind, but I'll come back to these notes at a later date when I'm ready to try my hand at a children's story.

     Most of these stories drew my attention for the same reason. I'd really like to try and write something where the characters are people representing an object or an idea, because I'm really not good at that kind of symbolism and I'd like to expand my writing skills. "How the North Wind Lost His Hair", "The Plant That Grows in Trees", and "Grandmother River's Trick" are good examples of what I'm talking about, along with some others. The north wind is displayed as a person that fights the south wind, mistletoe is portrayed as something having thoughts and feelings, and a river is said to be the grandmother of the little fish that live within her.

Source
"Tejas Legends: When the Storm God Rides", retold by Florence Stratton, online source

Famous Last Words: Getting sick and falling behind - Week 9

     This hasn’t been a good week for me. Actually, it would seem that none of the last few weeks have been good for me. Lol.

     My reading for Mythology and Folklore didn’t go too good this week. I only got half of the reading done, which put me 4 points being where I wanted to be. I had hoped to get an “extra reading” extra credit done by the end of the week but I wasn’t able to because of work, house guests, and getting sick again. There is nothing of note to add as far as school goes. This semester is going pretty well actually. I’ve kept up and stayed ahead in my classes until Spring break. Then this week, the week after Spring break, I’ve struggled and got behind my “ahead” schedule again and just barely got my assignments done on time. I’m not too worried about it though. I’ll get back ahead this week!

(Family; online source, www.mlrtahoe.com)

     Outside of school, things aren’t too bad. Work has been busy this week, as usual and most of my days have been pretty hectic. Our plumbing issues appear to finally be fixed, so that’s a positive thing. I said before that I was sick again but I really think it’s just allergies messing with me. I haven’t 100% convinced myself of that though. I’ve felt pretty horrible for most of the week. Just overnight I all of a sudden had a sore throat and super stuffy head and my whole body hurt. I’m not a fan of feeling that way… NOT at all! Also, the house guests I mentioned before? I should have noted that they were my brother in law (husband’s biological brother), his wife, and their 3 children. My husband and his siblings were adopted at a very young age, so this was actually the first time he has physically met his brother and the first time my step son (my husband’s son) has met his cousins on that side of his family. It was pretty incredible witnessing that moment, honestly!! 

Week 9 Story Planning: A Forbidden Love

(Young lovers; internet source, www.rudinahp.wordpress.com)

     Next week, I’d like to write a story about a forbidden, unsupported, or unlikely love. I read the Native American Marriage Tales unit this week. “The Bear-Woman” jumped out at me when I read it and I thought it would be fun to write something along the same storyline. In the original story, a woman falls in love with a bear and keeps the relationship a secret to her family while continually insisting that she doesn’t want to marry. Eventually her family finds out about the affair and gathers all the villagers to kill the girl’s lover. I didn’t like that the story ended with both the girl and her lover being killed, so I’d like to make a different ending for my story. I also just watched beauty and the beast, which I think may be adding to my desire to write this story. Since I’m still not certain of where this story will head, I’m doing a planning post this week and hopefully will write this story out next week!

Characters

• A young girl in love, whom nobody takes seriously, except her love interest. 
• The girl’s love interest… I’m not sure yet what this character will be like just yet but they will have some sort of displeasing characteristic that makes the girl’s family and friends plead with her to stay away.
• The girl’s parents. Both will care for their daughter and have her best interest at heart. However, they won’t realize that they’re doing more harm than good by trying to protect their daughter from a nonexistent evil. 
• The girl's skeptical (but supportive)best friend.

Plot
     A young woman will fall in love with an unlikely suitor and her relationship will not be accepted by her peers, and most importantly by her parents. Eventually, the girl will tire of hiding her relationship from everyone and come forth with the truth. In the end, her family will either learn to accept her lover or will lose her forever. The actual story will reveal which way things go.

Setting
     I’m not clear on this yet either (hence the reason I’m doing a planning post, when I traditionally prefer to write right off the bat.) but I think it will be set in a small town where basically everybody knows everybody and everyone is interested in the outcome of the girl’s love life.

     I’m hoping to use this story to convey the idea of acceptance and to show that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Source

"Native American Marriage Tales", by Stith Thompson, online source

Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales, Part A

(Red Fox; Internet source, www.welcomewildlife.com)

  I enjoyed this section because of the simple language used for the stories but I find several of them really confusing. I guess that could be a good thing though, because I could use that as inspiration to learn more about Native American culture. Most of them are written with a very simple writing style and in a pretty straight forward manner so that it's easy to understand the direction of the stories. 

     Unfortunately, I didn't feel extremely inspired to write from this set of stories. I did find a few things I think I can use though. "Bear-Woman and Deer-Woman", for example, I think I could write some sort of backstory for this. I found myself wondering as I read this story how a deer and a bear came to be sister wives to a chicken-hawk. So, maybe I can answer that question for other readers in a story of my own. I also really didn't like how this story ended, with one wife killing the other and if I use this story as inspiration for my own, I could recreate this ending to be something I like better. 

     I really loved "The Fox-Woman" too, although I'm really not sure what I would want to write with this. I think the idea of a mystery helper is a fun idea but I'd like to change the plot, because I don't feel that I could re-write this one well without taking too much of the original story into my own. 

     I feel like "The Rolling Head" is a little bit "too much" for me. I think it's a clever story but it really creeped me out that the father fed his wife to their children. Maybe I could use this to write something similar with a little less of a demonic twist. For example, the man kills his wife and lies to his children about it (but doesn't feed her to them... ewww.) and in the end, the children's mother comes to the children spiritually to tell them what really happened. 

Finally, I rather enjoyed "The Bear-Woman". I'm 99% sure I've read this story before in another set of reading and I almost wrote a story based on it then. So maybe this time I will write something, using this one as my inspiration. I like the forbidden love idea and think I could write maybe a fun romantic tragedy based on this, although a lot of my stories have turned out to be tragic... That was never really my intention but that's just how things keep coming together.

Source
"Native American Marriage Tales", by Stith Thompson, online source

Wikipedia Trail: Otolaryngology to Squalene

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    I chose to look up otolaryngology. I’m taking fourth semester Spanish and one of our assignments is to speak with someone from another country for thirty minutes on video chat, four times throughout the semester. Well, today, I asked my conversation partner to tell me a new word that he thought I was unlikely to know, and I wasn’t disappointed. He taught me the word “Otorrinolaringología”, which means otolaryngology. He explained what it was during our conversation but since I’m very interested in the medical field and I thought it was such a fun word, I wanted to include it in a Wikipedia trails post!

     I then jumped over to the Wiki page for otitis externa, which is apparently an ear infection known more commonly as “swimmer’s ear”. I’ve heard of this before but I never knew the technical word for it, so that was kind of neat. Also, there is a pretty gross picture on this Wiki page. You’ve been warned!! Lol.

     Then I noticed another word I didn’t recognized and jumped over to the Wiki page for “cerumen”, which is apparently the fancy medical term for earwax! What I did not know is that one of the major elements that makes up ear wax is fatty acid. There is a picture of a huge chunk of earwax on this page, so not as gross as the infected ear but still not really something you really look forward to seeing. Haha.

     I also didn’t know that squalene was part of what makes up ear wax and I didn’t even know what squalene was, so I figured that would be the perfect place to end my Wikipedia trails post, so I jumped over to the Wiki page for that. Squalene is a natural 30 carbon organic compound. Although it is found in many places, the primary source is shark liver oil. We have a compound in our ear that is also very prominently found in shark liver oil. So there, now that’s something you know…

(Squalene; online source, www.compmed.com)

Famous Last Words: Mental Burnout - Week 8

(Mental Burnout; online source, wwwbebrainfit.com)

     This week hasn't been very productive as far as well, anything goes, really.

     

     This is technically Spring break, so there isn’t much to report as far as school goes. Basically, I’ve fallen behind my “ahead of the official schedule” schedule again, because I honestly had no desire to work on anything school related or anything I “needed” to do this week. I planned to work on homework as if I wasn’t on break because last week was supposed to technically be my break from schoolwork because I was a full week ahead but I think I was to the point of burn out, so I needed a short break. I’m feeling better now and I’ll get back on it and be ahead again within the week though!!

     I haven't felt motivated to do much outside of school either. We moved into our new house on March 1^st and we’ve still unpacked very little. Granted, we did have to put in an inground electric fence, as well as fix a huge chunk of actual fence so that our dogs wouldn’t get out. We also have done quite a bit of running from place to place, trying to get everything set up in our new house. There are so many little things that you don’t even consider needing until you buy your own house. A rake, for example. Plus, we needed a lawn mower, a ladder, a water hose… Well, you get the picture. Lol. We have also been having plumbing issues already (not exactly what one hopes for during the first week of living in a new home but such is life, really.) Even with all of that, I still really thought we would have things a little more “put together” by this point than we do but it just feels like the last 2 weeks have been rather unproductive. I was hoping to be mostly unpacked and set up by now but we don’t even have one full room set up, just bits and pieces of each room and empty boxes and trash all over the place. Lol.

     Well, hopefully next week will be a better week all around!