Week 11 Famous Last Words

This week has been one of the longer weeks I have had in a while, and definitely one of my most unproductive weeks. For some reason I cannot seem to focus on anything, and honestly I do not want to right now. This happens to me every so often, my brain just seems to shut down on everything and I just am in need of a break from people and school and having to do things. Unfortunately this generally happens when I get so far a head in my work that I have nothing to do, so then I have a lull, and all of the sudden I have responsibilities and that is when my brain decides to give out and my attention span is reduced to the sixe of a flea. Seriously, as I am writing this my fingers do not seem to be working correctly and the amount of type-o’s I am having are infinite. My fingers just do not seem to want to work. I am at a level of being so overly calm that the stress of the many, many things I have to do this weekend appear to be nonexistent. On the plus side, we are watching some weird movie in one of my classes! Needless to say, I think I just need a break from everything. At least it is close to Thanksgiving break, which means that we are one step closer to ending the semester and it being Christmas, or winter, Break. I have to say, I am incredibly excited about going home. I have not been home since the beginning of August and I am really missing my family. I think the one thing that I have learned in 2014 is just how important my family is. My goal is to be able to move closer to them once I graduate in May. Nothing is more important than family.

Houston (Source) 

Week 11 Essay: Rhyme Here, Rhyme There

This week I chose to write over the Nursery Rhymes for the week. What I found difficult was that I had so much liberty with retelling nursery rhymes. There is so much that can be said about them and the hardest part was that I could not pick just one to write about. Events do not just occurs, it is a series of events that lead things to happen, a cause and effect as they say. While reading through the nursery rhymes I could not help but think of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill. For some reason that seems to be the nursery rhyme that has been imprinted the most in my mind, probably because of the morbidity of it. This is not to say that Humpty Dumpty is not morbid, but the concept of an egg cracking is so normal and such an every day task that it us not concerning. Jack breaking his skull open, however, that grabs my attention. There has always been a morbid curiosity about me. The dark side of man is so much more interesting than the good because it is what drives the dark that sparks my interest. It could very well be the medical side of me that draws my attention to Jack’s injury, but who knows? What really sparked my interest in writing this story was the big question: what caused Jack to fall down that hill? He could not have just decided to jump off of it, something had to cause him to fall and hurt himself. And because Jill did not hurt herself, and she also came after him, I knew that she was probably running down there to help him. So, what caused Jack to fall down that hill? There could have been several reasons, he could have been spooked by Little Bo Peeps missing sheep for instance, but I chose to have him pushed by Little Miss Muffet, It was an interesting challenge to say the least, and most enjoyable. 

Nursery Rhymes (Source)

Reading Diary Week 11: Nursery Rhymes

Nursery Rhymes 


While reading storybooks for last week my wheels began turning. I decided that It would be a fun idea to interweave stories in a similar style to what they used. While I did read the majority of the stories from the reading my mind kept coming back to the story of Jack and Jill because when I think of nursery rhymes that is the first one that pops into my head.

The nursery rhyme of Jack and Jill always felt strange to me. I could not understand why the two of them would go up to a hill just to fall off of it. I thought about the situation for a while and all I could think was that there had to be some dire circumstance that made them go to the top of the hill and then something else happened to where they fell off of it. Maybe writing it from their mothers perspective or a friend or one of them would be a good idea for a storytelling?

I really enjoyed reading the section with the Jingles, especially the ones that were more familiar like the Cow Jumping Over The Moon. It was fun because even the ones I had never heard before had a really good flow to them. It was enjoyable.

Week 10 Storytelling: Ghost Diary

Dear Diary,

All hope is lost. My mother and father are dead and now my sister has passed away as well. I have no other family, so I am forced to live with strangers in the village. I appreciate them taking me in and caring for me, but I’m weak and so they tease me because I have no strength. Now I’m an orphan AND have no strength. It’s no wonder everyone picks on me.

Dear Diary,

Today everyone went hunting, leaving me alone in the house… again. I was feeling very lonesome, since I am always excluded and left alone, when I heard a noise. I got scared and decided to hide in case someone was coming to hurt me. I was hiding and the noise happened again and again and then all of a sudden a ghost came in! It went over to our water tub and drank some of the water, and then it left. I guess ghosts get thirsty too. I tried telling the people I live with about it but they didn’t really believe me. Here’s hoping that more ghosts show up tomorrow.

Dear Diary,

It happened again! I was all alone in the house when the walls and frames began to shake and the next thing I knew a whole bunch of ghost came tumbling into the house! It was so exciting because one of the ghosts was my sister! I missed her so much. They invited me to sit with them on the floor while they played wrestling games and told stories. They told me if I kept their stories a secret that they would make me strong! I’m so excited!

Dear Diary,

Well, I accidentally told the people that I was going to be strong and as soon as I did, all my strength was gone. It was not fun. To prove my strength, the villagers tied me to a post and told me to escape from the ropes and hit a drum that was on the other side of the room. But all my strength was gone and I was not able to escape, so I just looked like a dummy. Eventually they untied me and left to go to a singing contest without me. So here I am, alone in the house again, wallowing in my shame.

Dear Diary,

You will never believe what happened! My Mom and Dad, as ghosts, came in to visit me!!! Once I told them how I am always being picked on by the others and how I am always excluded from activities, Mom and Dad told me that I should come with them and become a ghost! I am so excited! So here’s hoping being a ghost is better than being human!

Ghost (Source)

Author's Note. This is based on the Eskimo Tale Qalaganguase, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts. It is about a boy whose entire family is dead and he is forced to live with strangers in the village. Because he is weak they exclude him from everything and leave him alone in the house all day. While they were gone, ghosts would come and visit the boy. The ghosts told the boy if he did not tell the villagers about them, then they would give him strength, but the boy did not follow their instructions and as soon as he told the villagers of his strength, it began to leave his body. The ghosts then came back again to take the boy with them to the land of the ghosts and he left with them and became a ghost.
I felt it best to write this in diary form because the diary would have been used as a form of comfort for the boy since he was continuously left alone and had no family or friends. I did not include what happened after he became a ghost because I felt as though him leaving his diary would have been his way of letting go of the past and going on to a brighter future. Leaving the diary also would have allowed the villagers to read about the boy and make it into a story. 

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

Week 10 Essay: What about the Eskimos?

I took a class here at the University of Oklahoma about a year ago called Indigenous People and Resources where we discussed the Native American, or indigenous, peoples who lived in the Arctic region. Since I already knew so much about the people who lived there I decided I would get to know them further by reading their stories, which is while I chose Eskimo Folk Tales as my reading for this week. What is funny is that the term Eskimo actually means eaters of raw flesh. It is a term that the Inuit gave to the Inupiat since they are kind of like rival tribes. The Inupiat actually do eat raw meat because in order for them to get all of the nutrients and vitamins that we get from eating vegetables they have to eat their meat raw. Their main source of food is the bowhead whale, and if they were to cook it then they would lose all those vitamins and nutrients so they eat it raw. Knowing so much about these people from my previous class was definitely helpful when imagining the stories. I was able to better see the types of clothes they would wear, the houses they lived in, the setting of the area they lived. There were actually several things in the stories that I was able to notice was attributed to their surrounding environment. When they described the houses they lived in they would say that they had to crawl in and out of the houses, this was probably to minimize the amount of cold air that crept into the houses and trapped in the heat. The stories often mentioned sealskin; since there are many seals in the Arctic region the sealskin was probably used as a snow and/or water repellant, as well as a thick layer to keep them warm. I think of it as the original rain jacket! Also, they mentioned putting rocks over people who had died. I attributed this to the ground being so frozen that they could not actually burry the dead, so instead they had to burry them with rocks on the surface. All in all, the Eskimo stories were very interesting and entertaining.  

Inupiat Family (Source) 

Week 10 Reading Diary: Eskimo Stories

Eskimo Stories

Some of these stories actually reminded me of Biblical stories. Just goes to show that people are the same no matter where they are and people never really change.

I got an idea while reading some of the internet stories this week. These stories were originally verbal stories to teach children, and one of the people who's storybook I read took similar stories that taught lessons and turned them into a storytelling. What if I took a chief, or someone of importance in the village, and had them tell the children one of the stories while the parents were away since that was how the stories were originally told.

The story The Coming of Men, A Long, Long While Ago reminded me of the story of creation. It had a very strange take on death, because it seemed to me that there was a zombie for a minute there in the story. It had the similar Native theme of being one with nature, since it explained that after we die we are transformed into stars. So natural elements still very important even in the Arctic region.

I found some aspects of some of the stories to be a bit confusing because I could not tell if it was a name or a mythical creature. What I found interesting was because they live in the Arctic they could not burry the dead like they do in more tropical climates because the ground was too frozen to dig, so they placed stones over the dead body.

I greatly enjoyed the story The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son because it reminded me of going off to college. In a way it is about growing up and having to let go of someone you love so that they may create a life for themselves. Gave me an idea of the foster-mother having a diary.

I had storytelling ideas both for Qalaganguase, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts and Isigaligarssik. For the first I was thinking of doing a diary for the little boy since he is now an orphan and would be lonely. His story would get left behind once he turned into a ghost since he would no longer need material things really.  For the second story, I could make it an elder telling the story of how he defeated the wizard and how love conquers all, but he is telling the children and a researcher.  

Week 9 Famous Last Words

So this week is homecoming week, which means a lot of crazy stuff has been going on. However, since I am a senior this year and have done my just dues of homecoming I have not been participating at all. Here is how involved I was, my freshman year I pomped multiple twelve hour days, my sophomore year I was assistant to the art director, and last year I was director of the South Oval board where I actually got second place! Needless to say I am a little burnt out on this whole homecoming thing.

This past week has been full of exams and studying. I went to the new study place in the library and let me tell you, totally not worth it at all! I have never been somewhere that was so incredibly unorganized. It made me want to pull my hair out! Frankly, I am shocked that there are so few study rooms available for students on campus. Sure, they added more than there originally were, but nice the construction that area has gotten far louder because of constant tour groups! It feels like there is no safe haven for study groups to study in a classroom setting on this campus! I know that I am ranting, but I am just so irritated by the whole thing. Honestly they could have left the long tables and taken the books out and just put a huge wall of study rooms where the books/journals had been. I guess I just want there to be more places for groups to study. I could always go to classrooms but often times they are in use or the building is locked. My favorite place to study and do homework is in those giant lecture halls in Nielson. I am not positive as to why this is my favorite spot, but it is. 

My Worst Enemy, aka: Bizzel Library (Source)

Week 4 Storytelling: Good Night, Tommy

It had been an exciting day at the zoo and Tommy wanted to do everything except go to sleep. His mother, on the other hand, was exhausted from the long day and wanted nothing more than for her rambunctious eight-year-old to go to sleep. So she corralled him into his room, helped him put on his dinosaur pajamas, herded him into his bed, and tucked his wiggling body into the sheets. With her son still squirming in his bed she looked down at him and, in a soft motherly voice, she said, “How about I tell you a bedtime story, Tommy?” With enthralled excitement, Tommy exclaimed, “YES!!” So the mother sat on the edge of the bed and began her story…

Winter herding in the American West (Source)

Once upon a time there was a group of cowboys who were starting a long journey herding their cattle from their ranch in Texas all the way up to a place in Wyoming. The cowboys would ride their horses all day and then stop and make camp to rest and eat at night. Now these cowboys had been traveling for several days and were beginning to enter territories that they had never seen before. One night a few of the cowboys became spooked and were afraid to continue their journey.

“I’m scared, y’all,” said Joe.

“Yeah! What if we ain’t gonna make it ta Wyomin'?” exclaimed Johnny.

Slim realized that they were growing more and more frightened by the minute. He looked around at the other cowboys and, in a friendly voice, said, “Why don’t y’all come on over here ‘round this campfire and I’ll tell y’all a story?” So they did as he asked and Slim began his story, “Alright, this is this story of Wren and the Rattlesnake…”

Rattlesnake (Source)

A long time ago, in a desert just like this, there was a little bird named Wren. Wren and his pals lived with other birds just like them in a part of the desert where there was a cluster of cacti. During the day all of the birds would fly from cactus to cactus to socialize and hang out with their friends. Every bird made sure they all stayed together among the cactus cluster so they would remain safe from snakes, hawks, and other predators. When it got dark, all of the birds would fly back to their home inside one of the cacti to sleep, but Wren would look up at the stars and dream about getting away from the group and exploring the desert.

Wren grew excessively tired of the same old routine. So one afternoon, after a typical day of socializing with the other birds, he came up with a plan to leave. Early the next morning Wren woke up just as the sun was rising in the sky and took flight. He flew and flew and flew until he reached a little tree where he could stop and rest in the shade. Now the Rattlesnake had been traveling the desert for some time and was growing hungry. As he was slithering along the sandy ground, he spotted Wren in the tiny tree and thought to himself, “That ssssure lookssss tassssty.”

So the Rattlesnake called to the bird, “Hey birdie! I’m a little lossst. Would you mind coming down here and helping me?”

Wren, alone and not knowing of the rattler's intentions, hopped down to a low-hanging branch. “Hi, I’m Wren. What can I help you with?”

Now the other birds had been socializing for a few hours when one of Wren's closest friends realized Wren had not joined the group and informed the rest of the birds about this matter. The birds became worried and decided to create a search party, consisting of Wren's five closet friends. The group of five started flying around the desert together looking for their buddy. They had been flying for a while when all at once they spotted their friend off in the distance talking to the Rattlesnake and immediately began to fly toward him. 

“Yeah, the plateau is right over there,” tweeted Wren to the Rattlesnake.

“Where? I can’t quite see it. You must be too high up. Hop down here and show it to me, would ya?” said the now confident Rattlesnake, his dinner just within his reach.

Just as Wren was about to hop down into the anticipating mouth of the Rattlesnake, his buddies swooped in, two of them grabbing him on either side by his wings, and forcefully flew him to safety on a higher branch, leaving the Rattlesnake on the ground below to starve. The five birds began tweeting at Wren, telling him that the snake was evil and trying to eat him. Wren suddenly realized the danger he had put himself in and felt a shamed. From then on Wren knew that he was always safer with his friends by his side.

Cactus Wren (Wikipedia Commons) 

Slim grinned when he was done telling the story because he could tell all was well. He had done nicely in comparing the birds being safe together to the situation that he and the other cowboys were in. All the cowboys felt at ease and were no longer scared because they knew that they were safer together than alone, just like the birds in Slim's story. So the next day they saddled up their horses and rode on to finish their inevitably successful journey, unafraid of what lay ahead.

As the mother finished her story, she looked down at her son’s limp sleeping body and smiled lovingly. She pulled the covers up over his chest and turned out the light. Tommy had finally fallen asleep. 

Christian Krohg (Painting 1883)

Author's Note:

My story is based on the Arabian Nights. These are stories that are told by Scheherazade who is telling stories to the Sultan so that he will keep her alive. Since the Sultan is keeping Scheherazade alive because of his interest in her stories,  the ultimate goal of the storytelling for Scheherazade is keeping herself alive. Her stories are all told at night, as a type of bedtime story to the Sultan. She tells them in a way that keeps him interested in the story and wanting to hear more. Therefore she cannot be killed because if she were killed then the Sultan could not hear the end of the story. In her stories some of the characters also tell stories, creating a story within another story. I really enjoyed the way she would begin telling a story, start to get into it and then have a character in that story tell his/her own story to the other characters. Other than there being a story within my story, I am comparing my storytelling to Arabian Nights because both use the storytelling to facilitate a goal. While Scheherazade is using it to save her life, the mother in my story is using storytelling to get her son to sleep so that she may have a few minutes of peace, quiet, and relaxation. 

Bibliography: The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang and Illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898)

Week 9 Storytelling: Coming To You Live!

Seagulls (Source)

The disaster had already occurred. The sheer force of the wind had knocked many of the trees down, half of the land was flooded due to the over powering ocean waves, and many of the people were completely terrified. It was the aftermath of a hurricane.

“My name is Betty and this is XYZ coming to you live after a great disaster has hit the Gulf of Mexico,” boomed the young news caster clenching her microphone. This was not her first news report, but it was her first natural disaster. She was nervous. With her blonde curls hair sprayed to perfection and the red rouge flawlessly spread across her lips, Betty look confidently into the camera exclaiming,

“As you can see a great tragedy has struck the people of the Gulf. In fact, the hurricane waters were actually so strong it created three large islands just off the coast of Texas. With their land significantly reduced and their homes destroyed, it looks like it will be a long recovery for these peoples. I have here with me an eye witness who can tell us what happened.”

The camera panned to the right, paused, only for a second, and then tilted downward. It was a small boy, no older than five-years-old. Betty was gracefully squatting down next to the young child, holding the XYZ news labeled microphone up to his face.

“Can you tell us your name?” Betty asked the young boy.

“Umm, Michael,” he said nervously, unable to look away from the camera.

“Hi Michael. A little birdie told me that you were able to see everything during the hurricane and even before hand. Can you tell me about it?”

“Uh-huh.” Still unable to remove his eyes to the glossy black lends, Michael took a deep breath and began to account the events leading up to the disaster.

“Well we used to live out over there,” he said pointing to three large islands in the distance, “but because the fierce tribes from the north came down and started to be mean to the birds, the Storm God came and saved his birdies. At least that’s what my mom says.”

“Storm God!” Betty said with a shocked expression across her face. “Tell me about him.”

Michael grasped the mic from Betty’s hand and pointing out to the vast ocean he began, “Well the Storm God lives wayyy out there in the warm water. He’s kinda scary because of his pet bird he rides. His bird’s name is Hurakan and he is HUGE and shoots lightening! But it’s ok because they only come to visit us when he needs more feathers from our pretty birds to make his cloak. We always know when he is coming because suddenly everything is cloudy and the wind blows really hard and it gets kinda dark and then my mom comes and pulls me into our wigwam. So then I miss all the fun. My mom always seems much happier when the Storm God is gone though.”

“Wow that’s really a story there Michael. But can you tell me more about how this Storm God saved the birds?” Betty said with a glowing smile across her face.

“Sure!” he exclaimed. “Well when the mean tribe came they started being mean to all of the birds. The birds started being really loud making weird chirpy, quaking noises. Then all of the sudden there was a big BOOM and a POW, and lots of lightening. Nighttime then came really fast and the ocean water started to be really loud with gigantic waves!”

“Oh wow!” Betty began, but was quickly interrupted by an exclamatory “I know!” from Michael.

“I was in my wigwam with my mom and dad but I could still hear the wind because it was really loud and then there was lots of water everywhere! When it finally stopped I crawled out of my wigwam and saw the water start to leave and pieces of the land started floating way! I guess that’s where all the birdies live now since the Storm God loves them so much.”

“So you’re telling me that the Storm God created a big storm just to create islands for his birds to live and plants to grow?” asked Betty unbelievingly.

“Yes!” Michael exclaimed. “The Storm God loves his birdies!”

Betty took the microphone from Michael’s hands. “Well thank you so much for sharing all of this with me Michael.”

“Yeah!” he exclaimed. “You know I’ve never been on live television before. I’ve never ever been on live television!”

“Really now!” Betty said with a giggle. “Well you’re a natural!”

Michael grinned from ear to ear as Betty patted him on the head and, with a kind nudge, she sent him back to his mother who was standing just shy of where they were filming. As Michael galloped towards his mom, Betty stood up and brought the microphone to her lips.

With a smile she looked at the camera and said, “There you have it. A Storm God came to the Texas Gulf and created a hurricane to protect his precious birds. He is truly a humanitarian and super hero all in one. For XYZ news, this is Betty signing off!”

The Storm God’s birds now had a new home on the islands where they could live safely under the shelter of their beloved Storm God. And with that, the tribes went on to peacefully co-exist in the great land of Texas.

Pelican Island (Source)

Author's Note. This retelling is based off the story When the Storm God Rides, which tells the Tejas Indians legend of how hurricanes came to be. The Storm God lived off the coast in the warm water and would come to the main land to collect the feathers from the birds that lived on the Gulf of Mexico for his cloak. He would come in riding his great thunder bird Hurakan, which is where hurricane gets its name from, and essentially causing a hurricane every time he would visit the mainland. When a new Indian tribe moved in and started to treat the birds badly, the birds began to cry out to the Storm God for help. This sent the Storm God into a rage causing him to create, what I would consider, a category 5 hurricane. The hurricane was so tremendous that it created islands off the coast for the birds to live peacefully and safe, creating a sanctuary for the birds and plant. With the birds on their own island the Storm God could visit them anytime he wished.  There is actually an island in Galveston called Pelican Island where many of the different types of birds (mostly pelicans) live peacefully. They call it a bird sanctuary. 

I chose to do a newscast as a fun way to tell the legend of how hurricanes came to be. Whenever there is a natural disaster there is always a news report over it, but what I chose to do was incorporate the recent viral video, which you can find on YouTube, of a little boy who was interviewed on Good Moring America who has been dubbed ‘Apparently’ kid. 

Bibliography. When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936). 

Week 9 Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

Tejas Legends

When the Storm God Rides was a great story about how the Galveston Islands came to be formed, as well as where hurricanes come from. In the story there is a Storm God who would fly on his thunder bird, Hurakan, to the main land to collect feathers from the seagulls, pelicans, and other birds for his coat. One day a killing tribe came and invaded the Indians who were peacefully living there. They cried out to the Storm God and he came and basically created a category 4 hurricane, causing parts of the land to break off thus creating islands for the Indians and birds who originally lived there to live safely and in peace. This would be a great to retell as a bedtime story, from an Indian child's perspective as an eye-witness (possibly like a news segment), or as the Storm God's diary.


Nature occurs through humanized characteristics. Native Americans gave human characteristics to natural elements, disasters, animals, and plants, and used these characteristics to explain why events occur and why things are where they are. It is an interesting alternative to the scientific reasons to why natural phenomenons occur. For example, the scientific way we know hurricanes are created, what they do, and where they start versus the Native American reasoning as to why hurricanes occur.

Natural elements (i.e., wind, rain, thunder, lightening) are generally supported, or complemented, by a plant or animal presence. Natural elements are also gods.

One of my favorite stories was The Plant That Grows in Trees. It made me think of something that would be a cartoon or Disney movie. A bird basically has a conversation with the mistletoe. The bird does not want the mistletoe to die because it enjoys its berries so much so it flies it up into the trees so that it will grow year round. There are certain parts of Texas where mistletoe actually grows up in the trees and looks like really pretty moss.

The cutest story of the bunch was The Could That Was Lost. Little white puffy cloud got lost form his brothers and sisters and was sad so he laid down on the ground to take a nap where the plants were able to drink the water from him and become beautiful. AWWW!! So cute!

It seems as though the Indians are just guests in the majority of these stories. They are not the main character, nor are they the mention often. They were thought to be one with nature, and nature being a part of them. We are all just guests on this planet and should treat it with respect.

Something to take note of was the first paragraph of each story was very similar to a summary, or foreshadowing, of what was to happen in the story. These stories were probably originally told verbally rather than written, which would explain the strange first paragraph, or maybe introduction.  

Week 8 Famous Last Words

BOOMER SOONER!

I am so pumped about OU/TX this weekend! It is going to be so much fun and hopefully we actually win. Okay, okay… yes I am still harboring a grudge about our loss to TCU this past weekend, which should not have happened let me tell you! But I think that we are in it to win it for the rest of the season, hopefully. My favorite part about OU/TX is the fact that my father went to UT. It is probably the only time of the season when our love and passion for football really comes out! We attempt to keep it friendly and civilized but what can I say, we love our teams and we love to win. Last year I actually went with my parents (they are the coolest and most fun people to watch football with, don’t judge) and it was hilarious! I sat with my friends for the game on the OU side while my parents sat on the UT side. I met up with them after the game and I could hear my dad whistling “Texas Fight” before I could see him. When we finally did meet up, the man was so happy he started saying “BEER FOR EVERYONE!!” Obviously we did not buy beer for everyone, but it was just so much fun how happy he was… but that does not mean I want to see him that happy for this weeks game! Not even a little. I’m hoping they are all boo hoo –ing.

Beat the Hell out of Texas! (Source)

In other Jess related news, I have been having more and more people tell me that I remind them of Jessica Day from “New Girl.” I am thinking that it is just the name but I am actually very much of a silly person (when you get to know me). Just for funzies, last weekend my roommate and I decided that we would have a bouncing party on the couches in our living room and then ran around our kitchen island. It was a good time! We have also started cork wars! I have no idea how this came to be but we like to try to hit each other with wine corks from across the room. It turn into a while running/chasing thing, with strange hiding ideas involved. Fun and painless way to have a battle. 

Week 8 Reading Diary

While looking back at my reading diaries I found that their main purpose for me was to compile a list of my favorite stories from that unit, write a summary over those stories, and sometimes I even discussed over all themes and ideas. This allows me to see the stories that I generally have ideas over, or that I enjoy, or that I want to talk about later on in the week. Occasionally I will include ideas on how to do a storytelling over one of the stories in that reading unit. This is incredibly helpful especially if I am working a week or so a head because it is a little reminder of the ideas that I have for telling that story and often jogs my memory or gets my creative juices flowing. My reading diaries are really just the notes I take while reading the stories from each unit. It allows me to compile a list, in a sense, of what I though, how I felt, ideas I had, and so forth. Generally I refer back to my reading diary when I am writing my essay for the week. At some point in my essay I like to discuss something about the reading I did for that week or about the story that I read. The reading diary is more of what the story is about and what I saw in my readings, while the essay is more how I felt about the stories. By including the summaries of the stories that I like I am able to use that summary in my authors note for my storytelling. Being able to know the summary for your retelling is a very important step and should probably be the first one so that you have an understanding of the retelling. All in all, I think I am doing okay on my reading diaries. They are not perfect, but they are not horrible. Sometimes they are a bit messed up, but my brain thinks of a million things at once so that is to be expected. 

Essay Week 9: Home Sweet Tejas

For this weeks assignment I chose to read from the stories of Tejas Legends. If you did not already know, the origin of the name Texas comes from the Caddo Indian word Tejas, which means “friends” or “friendship.” Texas is very important to me, not just because I am from there but because it makes up half of my identity. I am fifth generation Texan, meaning that my family has been living in Texas, or more specifically the Houston area, for almost three hundred years! Texan in itself is a nationality. While listening to a radio talk show with my mother a few years back, I discovered that about 40 percent of Texans wrote “Texan” as their nationality in the United States census! Something I know my dad did and a fact that just about kills me laughing every time I hear it. So I feel that as a born and raised Texan, it was only appropriate that I were to read the Tejas Legends.

What I love about Native American stories is how much nature and natural elements are used and discussed. We are of the Earth and should remember that, yet so many people take nature of granted. However, I love how the Native Americans use gods of natural elements as explanations for nature. So many other cultures do this to explain the sun and the moon and the stars, but the Native Americans use it very much like Greek Mythology. What I mean by this is that their gods both explain the wind, thunder, lightning, rain, tornadoes, hurricanes, and more. The only difference between the two is that the Native American gods also incorporate animals in their use of creating natural elements; they create nature with the help of nature so to speak. Their use of gods is their way of explaining natural phenomenons, opposed to our Westerns ways of math and science. I just find their culture through the explanation of Texas to wonderfully enjoyable and fascinating. I am so happy that I was able to read these stories.

Texas Bluebonnet (Source) 

Week 5 Storytelling: Madhavi's Memoir

Hi. I’m Madhavi, and this is my story…

Growing up I was one of eight, and the only girl for that matter. As my brothers and I got older, we decided it would be best if we all stayed in the same large house on our farm. Every day my brothers would tend to the fields, while I would get water from the nearby stream and then cook them dinner. I loved cooking dinner for my brothers! It was my little way of saying thank you for all their hard work and taking care of me. Unfortunately, my sisters-in-law did not quite seem to understand that. You see all seven of my brothers decided to marry, probably so that they could expand our family, but I am convinced that they married the seven most horrible women alive! I’m not really sure what these women’s problems were, I mean it’s not like I wasn’t cooking dinner for them too, but for some reason they were just extremely jealous of the fact that I cooked dinner every nights and they didn’t. So you know what those psychos did? They made a deal with a magical nature spirit called a Bonga, essentially selling me to him if he got rid of me! Well, at the time I was unaware of this plot, so I went out to the stream to get water for the boys like I normally do when suddenly the pitcher would not go in the water and the water began to swirl around me getting higher and higher! I screamed out to my brothers for help but none of them heard me, none of them came. I could feel myself drowning. The pitcher began to fill with water causing me to sink to the bottom,  drown and die. Suddenly I was alive again, only I was not all me. I had been transformed into a Bonga. And when I opened my eyes, there, before me, was the Bonga my sisters-in-law had promised me to, and he carried me away. Let me tell you something about this Bonga, he’s kind of a weird guy!

Well, I managed to escape that relationship by turning myself into bamboo. I thought all was good, I had peace and quiet, I was by that beautiful stream I died in; life was good. That is, until this Yogi decided to come on over, chop me down, and turn me into a fiddle. I mean who does he think he is! And then he wants me to make music to entertain people so that he could get paid! What was I getting out of it, you ask? Nothing, absolutely nothing. So I decided that I would make my music the best, and saddest, of all so that maybe I could escape this Yogi. As luck would have it, this Yogi guy decided to play me for the village chief who took me away from the Yogi, thank goodness! Well, this chief gave me to his son, and I was so delighted that I was in better hands that I produced wonderfully happy music every time I was played. During the day everyone would depart my new home, leaving me alone and bored. So I, as the Bonga girl, would come out of the fiddle every day, cook dinner for the family, eat my fair share, take a plate for the chief’s son to his room, and then re-enter my fiddle. Then one day I’m heading back to my fiddle prison, just minding my own business, when suddenly someone was grabbing me! I began screaming, that is until I realized that it was the chief’s son. Still holding onto me, he looked me in the eyes and told me that I was "the one." I guess I did something that impressed him...  and he didn’t even realize that I was human AND Bonga until his family come home and got all worked up about it. Like it’s some big deal or something.

So time went on, as it always does, and my old family, pre-drowning, decided to come visit the chief. I was so excited when I saw my seven brothers, but those stupid boys did not even recognize me, can you believe it!? I shook it off and decided to bring them some water and cook them dinner like I used to, hoping that maybe it would jog their memory or something: it didn’t. So I sat down next to them and began pouring my heart out to them, telling my brothers about the horrible treatment I was subjected to by their wives. I told them about every horrible thing that had happened to me since their wives made that evil plot with the Bonga. My brothers just looked at me, blank stares on their faces. That’s when I extracted my revenge! I looked at those seven boys dead in the eyes and said, “You must have know it all, and yet you did not interfere to save me.” Well, you should have seen the look on their faces! Shock, sadness, shame, and guilt all together! It was priceless.

I am telling you this not because it is a happy story, but because it is the true story. And I want my story to be known.

Source

Author's Note. This retelling is based off the story The Magic Fiddle. In the original story the sister (the Bonga girl) is betrayed by her sisters-in-law, made into a Bonga, then becomes bamboo and is turned into a fiddle. She seeks her revenge on her brothers by telling them that they must have known about their wive's plot against her. The woman originally did not have a name in the story, so I named her Madhavi. I wrote the retelling as if it were her memoir, her last words before the great beyond. By doing this I could further add emotions to the story. I felt as though writing it from Madhavi’s perspective gave a funny twist on an otherwise depressing story. Using verbal echoes from the original story is something I enjoy doing because it allows you to essentially keep a piece of the story within yours, making things more familiar to someone who has read it and easier for someone to follow if they have not. My verbal echo was the quote I used at the end of the last paragraph. It is an important part of the original story since it is the climax to when she exacts her revenge. But her revenge is not about betrayal or necessarily physical revenge, it is more revenge upon the soul. The massive amount of shame and guilt thrust upon her brothers in one single sentence was enough to torture them for a lifetime.

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