Essay: Trickster and the Fool in Myths and Legends of the Sioux.

My favorite trickster and "fools" in this unit was the story with Unktomi and the two widows. Unktomi is very tricky because he was able to fool his widows so cleverly. Unktomi starts off his adventure by find red plums, and tricking the two widows with the red plums by making them think that they could find the plums easily. He also tricks them into think that he is their brother, and so the two widows trust Unktomi with watching their children. While the widows are out, Unktomi kills their children and uses them in a soup that he's cooking. When the widows return, Unktomi tricks them yet again by telling the widows to not check on their babies and eat the soup he made first. Like who does that? So then Unktomi leaves the two widows before they found out what he's done. When the two widows finally do find their babies, then are sad and angry and want to kill Unktomi. When they find out where he's hiding, they get tricked again by a stranger who lures them into a hole where Unktomi is, and he sneakily comes out the whole and traps the two widows into the hole and sets it on fire. In this story, I consider Unktomi and the stranger the tricksters, and the two widows were the ultimate fools. I would really consider this read, I really enjoyed it! Here is the link to the story: click me :)

(Loki, the ultimate trickster)

Reading Diary B: Myths and Legends of the Sioux

Out of all the stories in the second half of this reading, I think I was more fascinated with the ruthlessness of Unktomi in the story of him fooling the two widows. The story starts off with Unktomi finding some red plums on his walk through the forest. With the plums, Unktomi planned to trick two widows by enticing them with the red plums and watch their babies while they went out to find the plums. He also pretended to be their brother. While the two widows are out finding plums, Unktomi kills their babies and eats them in a soup. When the widows return empty handed, Unktomi tells them not check on the babies because he just put them to bed, and not to bother them until they're finished eating the soup that he cooked their babies in. When they realize what Unktomi has done, they try to kill him, he he crawls into a hole. A stranger tries to help them catch Unktomi, but the two widows end up in the hole and Unktomi escapes and traps them down in the hole and sets it on fire. I think if I were to retell this story, I would definitely change the ending. I am a sucker for karma, so I feel like Unktomi should face his demise. 

(Plum tree)

Sioux unit.

Reading Diary A: Myths and Legends of the Sioux

In this unit I thought the story of the lost wife was something I could write about this week. The story is about a woman who escapes an abusive marriage, and so she leaves her village. Upon leaving her village she meets a man and he leads her to a village of wolves. The man is the chief of the wolves and they help her stay alive for a year. During the time that woman is missing her family and husband are worried and have been looking for her. They find her and she eventually goes back with them. The husband also wants her to come back and live with him, but she refuses for awhile, but they reconcile in the end. I have so many ideas to twist this story some way. In this story there is the woman lives with wolves for year, and this made me thing what is she became one of them. Like a werewolf. Like maybe her meeting a new man, he introduces her to his family (wolves) and offers to turn her. Or she could be bitten and turned and not even know. There are so many ways I can twist this story! I would really recommend the first half of this unit. The stories are very insightful and I enjoyed reading them. 

(Girl surrounded by wolves)

Sioux unit.

Reading Diary A: Indian Fairy Tales

(The north wind attacking Shin-Ge-Bis)

I really enjoyed the story about Shin-Ge-Bis (I am going to call him Shin for short) and the North Wind. I thought it was cowardly for Shin's friends to leave him outside during winter by himself because they were scared of the North Wind. Luckily, Shin had a great attitude about defeating the North Wind. He was able to live for several moons (the Native American way of telling time) on his own. Shin was also able to catch fish even though the ground was frozen solid. The North Wind was not happy that Shin stuck around though, and devised a plan to get rid of him. The North Wind attempted to blow out Shin's fire and freeze him, but he ended up creating a snow covering on the place that Shin was staying to allow him to be warmer and Shin laughed at the foolish North Wind. The North Wind very upset at this point challenges Shin to come outside and battle with him. Shin comes outside and they tussle with each other until eventually Shin beats the North Wind. I thought this story was really cool. I really liked the bravery of Shin, and a possible storytelling post I could set out to tell is to make him a hero of some sort to save his family or village. I think that would be really cool. 

Here is the link to the Indian Fairy Tales.

Commenting Review Week

The commenting portion of this class is very cool. I like that we get to connect with other students and see other writing styles. It's also fun commenting on introduction posts and learning where people are from and what they like and stuff. It's also fun finding similarities between myself and another classmate. Some of the most interesting posts have come from Introduction posts. Especially since a lot of us in this class seem to be majoring or minoring in Psychology and we all seem to get paired for commenting. Comments have also been very encouraging because sometimes I do not feel very confident in my writing and then I will read my comments about my stories and others point out the good things that they liked about my story. When I comment on other people's blogs I tend to focus on the very best things that I love about their stories. And if I do see something that I am confused about, I will ask a question about it. Which is also the reason why I also like the comment wall. I like that there is separate place for questions and positive comments, or to connect with other classmates and talk about whatever we like. Overall, I have enjoyed the commenting so far this semester.

(Just a silly little meme. )

Reading Review Week: Writing Review

(Old typewriting)

I am not going to lie, I am really struggling with the storytelling posts this semester. Writing stories is all new to me, and what I am thinking I am having the most challenge with is getting started with writing a story. I also find it hard to end a story. The last storytelling post that I wrote about Prince Siddhartha, I had a lot of trouble trying to come up with a decent ending. Sometimes I think I have too many ideas to change a story as well. Like I will start writing a story one way and then sometimes I do not like it and start over. The reading has been helpful for strategies in helping me write a storytelling blog posts. Also getting inspiration from other students storytelling posts helps as well. Feedback from other students has been pretty helpful as well with my storytelling posts. Although, it is kind of discouraging when students find issues with something in my stories that do not line up with feedback from you. But I have also had some students give me great feedback, and said I should change some things that you pointed out in your emails. Overall, I have had a good experience with writing. I just hope to end the semester, I can write a lot more than I did in the first half of the semester.

Reading Review Week: Reading Review

When looking back on the readings I really enjoyed, many of them were very recent readings. Some of my favorite series of stories came from the Chinese Fairy tales, African stories, Life of Buddha, and Arabian nights units. For many of them I only enjoyed the first half of some of the readings. I am not sure why that was. I would always read the first half of a reading and then feel really bored with the second half and have a hard time finishing it. I did not feel this way about the Chinese Fairy tales and Arabian nights units. I also really liked the African stories unit and wish I could have done the other half of the reading because I really liked every single story in the first half. Some note taking strategies I use for my reading diary posts are I usually try to connect stories from our readings to possible storytelling posts of my own. I feel that by doing this I can have many ideas on what I want to write for a storytelling post. Reading diaries are also helpful because sometimes I forget some parts of a story, and going back to the key parts of the stories helps me remember important parts on the stories. Sometimes I do read these stories for fun. Some stories are very relatable in a sense, or I am familiar with them and just want to read them again. There are also some stories that I have read and I could not get any inspiration for writing a storytelling post. One thing that I might change about the dynamic of the reading diary is have more options of readings. There have been weeks were I really could not find a reading that I was really into or it took me awhile to find one that I liked. Having two options each week is great, but sometimes I wished I had the earlier readings first because I have really enjoyed the reading recently.

(A meme that I thought was pretty funny. )