Mythology and Folklore 2020

The Man in the Moon Central Eskimo I think the setting in this one is actually the star, because it's literally set on the moon. The way the story is told, you get this very unearthly (obviously), magical, kind of feel.  I imagine this small, desolate house surrounded by the grayish, rocky plains of the moon, covered in white deerskins so that it almost blends in with the surroundings. Instead of actual halves of walruses guarding the door, I imagine two statues of the upper bodies and heads of the walrus on either side of the door, facing each other,  and they come to life just as you pass between them and try to snap and bite at you. You enter the house and see a red-and-white dog sitting in the entryway. It's the only dog on the moon, and I imagine it to be kind of stately and observant, watching you as you enter the house. The story talks about an inner room and an outer room, and in the inner room sits  the Moon's wife, the Sun. I imagine that the eskimo can...

Legend of the Head of Gold Characters: The father The mother The four sons In this story, the youngest son is the focus Wakantanka - according to Wikipedia, Wakantanka (or Wakan Tanka) is a Lakota term for something sacred or divine, usually translated is "The Great Spirit" or "The Great Mystery." It doesn't seem to refer to any single deity Wakantanka's friends The horse the youngest son escapes with Plot: A man and his wife have four sons, they are all very poor and it seems like the sons are wasting away because of that. The man tells his wife that he does not want his youngest son to die of poverty, so they should take him to Wakantanka to be raised, and the woman agrees. They set off for the "Darkening Land" (I can't find an explanation for what that is online, but I think it's some kind of spiritual plane or underworld) to look for Wakantanka. A stranger appears to them and asks what they're seeking. The man...

In this story, I'm not really sure about the grizzly's motivations. He's just walking along, and sees Buffalo Bull, and decides to antagonize him. What for? To start a fight? He claims that the buffalo had been walking around, saying he wanted to fight him, and the buffalo seems very confused about that. The bear beats him up a little, and starts to leave, and as the buffalo is considering whether he should strike back, the bear comes back again for another fight. I literally have no idea why here, I can't imagine why the bear keeps trying to start something with the buffalo, unless he's really that bored. The buffalo finally fights back, after a few more times of this back and forth, and he goes to push the bear off a cliff, and manages to do so, but his momentum sends him flying over the edge. The bear lands safely in a thicket, and when the buffalo finally comes back, he says they should be friends. Since I don't know the reason the bear started the fight i...

A Rabbit Story So, since there is really only one main character in this story, I can't do the same character charting as I did with the last reading. Instead, let's look at the chain of events that led to the rabbit doing all these awful things to try and figure out how he ended up doing this. The old mother bear, jealous because the rabbit's mother was able to dig up more roots than her, killed the mother rabbit and took her body, along with the roots she'd gathered, to eat with her son. The rabbit has been waiting for his mother to come home, and when she doesn't, he goes over to the bear's house to see what's up. He sees the two of them eating his mother and freaks out (understandably) and vows revenge. He knows that it's the mother bear that has killed his own mother. One day, while the mother bear is out, the rabbit shoots a red-hot arrow into the baby bear's ear and kills him, fleeing and taking his mother's sack of roots with hi...

The Two Devils Character Charting:  I will be listing the main characters of this story, as well as what seems to be the driving motivation behind their actions and the character trait that either allows them to succeed or fail by the end of the story (as in, do they die or not, because this story has a fair amount of death). The Seven Sons (excluding the youngest one, who ultimately survives) Motivation - desire, attraction Trait  - superficial (the brothers decide to make the woman they meet in the woods their wife, just because she is pretty, without taking even a second to get to know her, and subsequently six of them die by her hand) The Youngest Son Motivation - gratitude (also desire and attraction, because he also agrees to marry the she-devil, but once he is saved, he is grateful and wishes to reward the man who saves him) Trait  - luck? (he really only survives because of the fake fortune-teller, not because of anything he really did, so he wa...

So far, I am pretty pleased with my progress. According to Laura's progress chart, I'm on track for a good grade, which isn't my top priority like it was freshman year (I think we were all still caught up in the idea then that grades meant everything ) but it still is nice to see that the work you're putting in is getting results like that. I try to keep up with the assignments, and even work ahead sometimes, and so far I've been doing well on that front. As the semester goes on, that might become harder, as aside from this class, I have two graduate seminars and my thesis to work on, all of which are pretty research- and writing-heavy. Since the assignments for this class are never overly complicated or burdensome, it shouldn't be a major problem. I actually find myself looking forward to these assignments, as they are easy to manage and a refreshing change from the kind of stuff I do for my major. Looking forward, my biggest concern is, as I've said, keep...

Overall, I've found everybody's comments helpful. While I may not always agree with certain stylistic comments, I appreciate getting to hear different points of view on my work, because sometimes it is so hard to see past our own mental blocks when reviewing our own work. That's something that happens to me in my research papers for my grad classes, too, so it's nice to have this setting where I can hear different perspectives on my fiction work. I find that the more specific the comments, especially in terms of my weak areas, the more helpful they are. I think in my own comments on other peoples' work, I could be more constructive. I always try to fill my comments with positives, because I genuinely like my classmates' stories, and also because I don't want to offend anyone. But we're here to learn from each other, and if I have a question or a concern with something, I should be more confident to identify that to them. Reading other people's'...

Looking back over the reading and writing assignments of the past few weeks, I'm pretty satisfied with my progress. I noticed that my stories have gotten a lot more confident; I'm more willing to tap into my literary side and bring some writing elements of my favorite kinds of books into my own writing. At first, it felt very strange, and somehow almost egotistical, to write and publish fiction for all the world (but in reality probably just this class is reading this, and maybe a couple of other people) to see. But the more I write, the less strange it feels. I've always liked writing and reading; my favorite class in high school was freshman year English, and to this day the teacher I had for that class is one of my favorite people (hey, Mrs. Gross!). When I came to college, however, my writing ended up being either school-related, and therefore decidedly non-fiction and mostly research-based or just me writing for myself in my journal. It has been a great experience so f...

Article title:  New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy Author: Erik Baker Source: Ladders My notes: This article discusses four findings from neuroscience that can help us all to be happier. As a stressed, burnt-out graduate student, finding a bit of happiness is always welcome. I actually suffer from clinical depression, and one of the awful things about that is sometimes I can't even muster the energy to  look  for happiness in my everyday life. I'm generally of the attitude that you can't trust self-help books that tell you they have the key to happiness, because I think that a) actively looking for it makes it harder to find, and b) each person's version of happy is different, and might require a different journey to get to it. That being said, these findings do come from neuroscience, which literally studies the human brain and how it functions. If anyone has the most accurate tips on how to feel happier in our lives, it's a neur...