Week 6 Storytelling:

Mina was a wonderful wife; Franklin, however was rather undeserving. He was constantly complaining about her and questioning her loyalty and trust, though she had given him no reason to. One bright, sunny day, a beautiful woman arrived on their doorstep. She had long, blonde, curly hair and the greenest eyes Mina had ever seen.

“How can I help you?” Mina asked.

“I’m here to see Franklin,” the beautiful woman replied.

Despite her immediate jealousy, Mina stepped aside and let her in. She went to get Franklin and told him that there was someone here to see him. Franklin walked in to the foyer, immediately recognized the woman, then left with her in a hurry. Mina was devastated, but she refused to let it show, even after Franklin didn’t show up back at home for a week.

When he returned, Mina tried to find out more about what he did and where he went, but she was afraid of prying too hard.

“Did you have a good time?” Mina asked as Franklin was searching through the fridge.

“Sure did, are we out of orange juice?” Franklin replied.

And that was that; not a word more was exchanged about his week away. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Mina was approached by many men. She turned them all away without a second thought; she loved Franklin and knew that he wouldn’t like it if she gave any of the guys any serious consideration.

Their relationship seemed to be fine; they weren’t fighting, they still went on their weekly dates, everything seemed to be going great, or so Mina thought. There was a knock at the door one day and she answered without a second thought. Standing there in front of her was a beautiful woman with dark brown hair to her mid-back and dark, piercing eyes. Immediately, Mina got a knot in her stomach. She knew immediately what this woman was here for, but she questioned if she should just send her off or play dumb and shut the door. She knew Franklin wouldn’t appreciate that. So instead, she simply decided to let it happen again.

“Hi there, what can I do for you?” Mina asked the woman.

“Hi, I’m here for Franklin,” the woman replied.

Mina stepped aside and ushered the woman in, even if a bit reluctantly.

“I’ll go get him,” Mina said.

She retrieved Franklin and walked with him to the foyer. Again, he recognized her immediately and without another word, he was off. Mina was so upset she could hardly eat or sleep for the next two weeks until he returned. The drill was the same as last time; they exchanged few words over the topic and skirted around it until their relationship was normal again. Until one day, another beautiful woman showed up. This woman had long, vibrant red hair. She ushered her in without a word and grabbed Franklin from their room. Without another word, he was off.

This time though, Mina had had enough. She packed up all of her things and was off within two days of Franklin leaving. She left behind their home and her phone, knowing Franklin would try and contact her. Just like that, she started a new life without Franklin and never once looked back.

Author's Note: I read the Japanese Mythology stories and found Yamato's wife's devotion particularly interesting. She was willing to throw down her life for his despite all of his infidelities, and I wanted to emulate this. However, I didn't think that she deserved to be subjected to it anymore than necessary so I wanted the wife of my story to finally gain the strength to leave her husband. 

Bibliography: The Romance of Old Japan, E.W. and F. Champney, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-japanese-mythology.html . 

Caption: A Japanese Empress. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_an_empress,_possibly_Xiaoxianchun,_wife_of_Emperor_Qianlong.jpg .

Reading Notes: Japanese Mythology Part B

Caption: A Japanese dragon. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_dragon .

Bibliography: Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend, E.W. & F. Champney. http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/japan-izanagi-and-izanami.html .

Reading Notes: I don't really like the portrayal of women in these stories; it seems that their main task is to be a loyal and devoted wife. It doesn't seem that the men are expected to exhibit this same loyalty to their women, as evidenced by Yamato's desire for the siren. I like the siren in this story, I think her demanding tasks are kind of hilarious. Yamato is a great warrior and he shows no fear, really. I think the sacred sword sounds really interesting; I could write about how it became known as the sacred sword or write about some of its' endeavors. I've always really loved dragons so I think it would be an interesting topic to write about the dragon that he encounters. I like the devotion of his loving wife; she is willing to sacrifice her life so willingly regardless of his past infidelities. 

Reading Notes: Twenty-two Goblins Part A

Reading Notes: I really like this style of writing where it's a story and a riddle all in one. The king seems to be pretty intelligent as well, this is quite evident in his reasoning through the dead man being at blame for his own death. The king seems to understand the stories that the goblin is telling and I think his answers are correct so I find it strange that the goblin just runs away after the king answers him every time. I think that this story telling technique could be really interesting to explore. I think it would be fun to write a riddle like a story and have the readers try and solve it at the end.


Caption: A photo of Arthur W. Ryder. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_W._Ryder.png .
Bibliography: Twenty-two Goblins, Arthur W. Ryder, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/goblins-snakes-poison.html .

Reading Notes: Sinbad Part A

Reading Notes:Right off the bat, I relate to Sinbad in being bad at taking care of money. He spends it like I do. I also like how this story is told in first person, I like the amount of information and insight that the first person storytelling allows for. I like Sinbad's longing for adventure and his aversion to staying still in the same place for too long, this is also something that I feel I can relate to. I really like the amount of detail in the story, it's something that I think really benefits this story and makes it interesting. Regardless of what I write about, I think that preserving the amount of detail in this story is important.


Bibliography: The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, Andrew Lang. http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/sindbad-first-voyage.html .
Caption: An illustration from the stories of Sinbad. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sinbad_1.jpg .

Feedback Focus

In terms of their usefulness, I'd say reading out loud>setting a timer>taking notes and deleting as I read. I wasn't really surprised that reading out loud was helpful to me better understanding the story and to catching all of the details throughout. I didn't particularly like the other two techniques, I didn't find them quite as useful. I can see how setting a timer might help some people, but it made me feel like I needed to rush through the reading and then I didn't really want to reread it. In the future, I would consider using the reading out loud strategy again, but probably not the other two. I'd say the biggest advantage of reading out loud is the attention to detail you'll receive, but it's biggest disadvantage is that you cannot do it everywhere in every situation. I'd say that for taking notes over the reading, the biggest advantage is that you then have notes over the reading after, but the biggest disadvantage is that you only look at the material once. For setting a timer, I think the biggest advantage is that you're required to read it all the way through once, though I think the biggest disadvantage is  that you might feel rushed reading and miss important details. I've taken notes when reading before, but never like this. I've read out loud before and I always found it useful, but I've never set a timer to read by. I particularly liked the reading Why Dog and Cat are Enemies, I thought it was a cute story and I liked the way that it was delivered. 

Caption: An aptly-named street sign. http://www.picserver.org/f/focus.html .

Week 4 Story Planning: A Dream

Caption: Buddha's face. http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/hledej.php?hleda=buddha . 

Bibliography: Andre Ferdinand Herold, The Life of Buddha, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-life-of-buddha.html .


Story Planning:In this week’s reading, I read about Siddhartha Buddha. I always found him to be an interesting being with very universal teachings. I really like the stories of his journeys and of his realizations along the way. I thought it was particularly interesting how Buddha was so able to leave his family and friends behind and go live in solitude. I think it would be hard to have lived such a loved, privileged life and then to leave it all behind to grow as a person. There was a quote from the reading this week that I found particularly interesting: I can no longer live in a world that is but a dream. I thought this quote would be interesting to build a story off of. So my plan is to write a story about a really vivid, detailed dream that feels very real. At the end of the story, the person will wake up from the dream and realize that their life is entirely different from this dream, but that they believed this dream was their reality during it. I think that this leaves a lot of possibilities for the content of the dream, and I’m open to any suggestions that anyone has that would be an interesting theme for the dream. However, I do plan to employ other teachings from Buddha into the dream, as I think that he has some very interesting teachings that could be used allegorically. I think that in the dream, the person will live an extravagant, lush life, and the person will grow accustomed to this life throughout the entirety of the story. However, when the person wakes up, they’ll realize that their life is actually rather meek and undesirable. They’ll have a tedious, laborious job and they will have a lot of obligations that they must fulfill. I think that centering my story around this quote will allow for a lot of interpretation and creativity in my own story.

Reading Notes: Life of Buddha

Caption: Siddhartha Buddha meditating. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buddha2.jpg . 

Reading Notes: Buddha is a very intelligent, understanding being. I find it interesting that he wants to live in solitude. Chandaka is right, Buddha is loved and young and has family, it seems strange that he should choose to leave all this behind and live on his own. "I can no longer live in a world that is but a dream."-I really, really like this quote. I think I'll somehow incorporate it into my story. I think it's particularly interesting that Buddha had no troubles leaving everyone and everything behind, yet he is seriously mourned by those that love him and no one wants him to leave. I also really like Buddha's musings in "Siddhartha Becomes the Buddha"; I think that it's interesting that his musings follow this thought process and leads from thing through many.

Bibliography: Andre Ferdinand Herold, Life of Buddha, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/life-of-buddha-siddhartha-leaves.html .

Reading Notes: Homer's Odyssey Part B

Caption: A sculpture of Odysseus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Head_Odysseus_MAR_Sperlonga.jpg
Bibliography: Homer's The Odyssey. http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/odyssey-ghosts-of-erebus.html .


Reading Notes: I didn't particularly like Part B as much as Part A; I think I'll write about part A. I don't particularly like the part with the ghosts of old friends showing up. I think it's kind of strange and doesn't add a whole lot to the story. I think that there isn't as much that could be expanded upon with the story of the ghosts. I guess I could write about it from the ghosts' point of view? Or I could write about their experiences prior to them coming back to talk to Odysseus. I could maybe write about their deaths, but most of them are already covered in other stories so this doesn't seem super interesting to me. I do like the part of the story with the sirens; I think it's intriguing and I think it would be particularly cool to write about this from the sirens' point of view. I think it could make a good story to write from the sirens' point of view about how they draw the men in and why they do it.