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Reading Notes: British North America Tales, Reading B

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  ("Young Silver Fox" by Matt Knoth via Flickr ) The story that I chose to focus on for this post is “ Coyote and Fox ” by Katharine Berry Judson (1917). This story is about the Coyote and the Fox in which the Fox outsmarts the Coyote in various occasions. The first is when Coyote was sleeping after eating a bunch of rabbits, he left some rabbits in the oven to which Fox took advantage of. Fox ate all the rabbits in the oven as Coyote was too lazy until eventually Coyote got hungry. Since there was no food left, Coyote ended up chasing the Fox but was never able to catch him. The next trick that Fox played on Coyote was when Coyote stole the robe that Fox made out of eagle feathers as Coyote wanted an upgrade of his magpie robe. Coyote was successful in stealing the robe, but Fox used magic to get the robe back. In this story as well as other stories in this section, I would say that magic is quite commonplace. In this story, the Fox uses magic to get his robe back, b...

Reading Notes: British North America Tales, Reading A

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  ("Sun over Earth" by NASA via Flickr ) The story that I chose to focus my reading notes on for this post is “ Creation of the Earth ” by Katharine Berry Judson (1917). This story is about how the creation of the Earth as well as the how the moon, sun, and stars ended up in the sky. In this story, the Earth, Sun, Moon, and Stars are all characters with the Sun and Earth being spouses and the Moon and Stars being relatives of the Sun. The husband Sun always got yelled at by his wife, Earth and ended up getting kicked out of the house they shared because the Earth complained that the Sun made the house too hot. This happened a lot and Sun ended up moving away with his relatives Moon and Stars, leaving the Earth alone. Old Man went up to the Earth and asked why she was alone to which she told what had happened. The Old Man went up to the Sun, Moon, and Stars to send them up into the sky where they would never be able to desert or hide from someone again. The Old Man then...

Week 9 Story: Why Lightning Accompanies the Rain

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Author’s Note: The original story relates thunder and lightning to a being a mother sheep and her ram. The ram often gets angry and causes damage to house and trees causing the mother to loudly yell at the ram to stop. The ram doesn’t listen and continues to cause trouble until the king eventually has to banish the sheep (thunder) and the ram (lightning) into the sky. The ram still causes damages, but you can sometimes hear the sheep rebuke the son unless she is too far away. For the most part, I kept my story close to the original, but I just added the fish representing the rain to the story. I added rain because rain typically goes along with thunder and lightning and I made rain a fish as fishes are typically associated with water. ("Lightning" by Diamond Hoo Ha Man via Flickr ) Long ago, thunder and lightning lived on the earth in the outskirts of the town far from the presence of others. They used to live inside the town however, lightning always caused trouble lea...

Reading Notes: Nigeria Folk Stories, Reading B

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  ("Lightning" by Ben Napper via Flickr ) The story that I chose to focus on for this post is “ The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder ” by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910). I chose this story because I thought that it related to the story that I wrote the reading notes for Part A of this reading. This story tells about thunder and lightning while relating thunder to being a sheep and lightning being a ram. Lightning is thunder’s son and lightning always makes a lot of trouble. He knocks down trees, burns down houses, and destroys the land similar to what actual lightning does. The loud sound that thunder usually makes in real life is actually thunder yelling at lightning to stop making trouble according to the story. Lightning ended up causing too much trouble and the king of people banished both lightning and thunder into the sky. The story ends by saying that the thunder you hear sometimes is when thunder is rebuking lightning but sometimes when lightning runs too far...

Reading Notes: Nigeria Folk Stories, Reading A

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  ("Sun and Moon" by Wonderlane via Flickr ) The story that I chose to focus my reading notes on for this post is “ Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky ” by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910). This story is about how the sun and the moon, his wife, invited the water and his people their home. The water warned the sun that his people were numerous and that they would have to buy an extremely large compound to house them all. Once the water arrived at the sun’s house, a few of his people went in and filled the house until the water was knee-deep. Every now and then, the water would ask the sun if it was okay for more of his people to come in, to which the sun agreed. Eventually, the water filled the entire house until the sun and his wife had to escape to the roof. They eventually went up to the sky and stayed there ever since. This story and the others in this section all have a similar plot and ending to them. It usually ends with why something is the way it is such as w...

Week 8 Progress

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  (Inspiration Message by Bunny Jager via Flickr ) I’m quite satisfied with my progress so far as I’m on par to finish the course on the expected time. My routine is pretty consistent as I tend to do the assignments either the day before they are due or the day of. Since the assignments don’t take that much time, I could do them fairly quickly even if they are due the day when I start them. I enjoy the reading assignments the most as they bring new interesting stories for me to read. I haven’t done any of the extra credit options but that is something I definitely want to take advantage of starting with the second half of the semester. Overall, I think my progress in the class is okay but could definitely be better if I start working ahead and take advantage of the extra credit assignments.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

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I think that the feedback that I am receiving from other students is very helpful. I think that the shorter comments are good for seeing what I am doing correctly while the longer comments are super helpful for seeing what I am doing right as well as what I can improve on. Personally, for my feedback comments, I think that my longer feedback comments are good enough, but I could definitely improve on the shorter comments. I think that connecting to people through their blogs allows you to see a little bit of their personality both through their personalities and their writing style, so I think that it’s a good way to get to know people. For future feedback assignments or blog comments assignments, I might want to improve giving more helpful feedback in my shorter feedback comments. ( Negative Thoughts Cat by Laura Gibbs) I chose this particular image because I really believe in this message. If you keep negative thoughts in your head all the time, it will greatly affect your mo...