Sunday, February 15, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Extra Reading Diary--Turkish Fairy Tales
Today I chose to read the first half of the Unit called Turkish Fairy Tales. My favorite stories were The Fish-Peri and The Fish-Peri (cont.). This was an interesting story about a man who lost his family and didn't know what to do with himself after that loss. He ends up catching a fish that turns into a beautiful maiden. This story may have a sad beginning, but it turns out to have a very happy ending. The fish maiden helps out the man with every task the King throws at him. I like how the fish maiden was loyal to the man because he had spared her life when he found her.
My favorite character would be the fish maiden. She is very beautiful, kind-hearted, forgiving, loyal, and helpful to the man and I admire those qualities in a person. I like the fact that she chose to help him by cleaning his house and helping him with all the difficult tasks that the King threw at him to do. I also admire the quality that she possesses with helping someone in need. I can identify with this character because of her qualities.
The illustration is a perfect picture of the Fish-Peri and the man. I think it is a beautiful picture and I think the font of the title is perfect. The chosen font is wavy and flowing like the water and a fish's tail. Tome, the picture also looks like it depicts a castle in the background. In the story, one of the difficult tasks that the King asks him to do was build him a beautiful, golden castle.
My favorite character would be the fish maiden. She is very beautiful, kind-hearted, forgiving, loyal, and helpful to the man and I admire those qualities in a person. I like the fact that she chose to help him by cleaning his house and helping him with all the difficult tasks that the King threw at him to do. I also admire the quality that she possesses with helping someone in need. I can identify with this character because of her qualities.
The illustration is a perfect picture of the Fish-Peri and the man. I think it is a beautiful picture and I think the font of the title is perfect. The chosen font is wavy and flowing like the water and a fish's tail. Tome, the picture also looks like it depicts a castle in the background. In the story, one of the difficult tasks that the King asks him to do was build him a beautiful, golden castle.
Storytelling Week 5: The Psychic and the Magical Leopard
One day, a magical leopard decided to go to a psychic to find out what his future held for him. The leopard's power was being able to speak in whatever languages the people around him were speaking. So, the leopard traveled far and wide to find a psychic who would not be afraid of him and would tell him about his future. He was a fierce-looking leopard with bright colored spots, large muscular body, huge paws, and long, sharp fangs. Many people were afraid of him, so finding a psychic proved to be a difficult task for him. This magical leopard dreamed of one day marrying a princess who was as beautiful in personality as she was beautiful in appearance. After traveling quite a long distance, he finally found a fortune teller who would tell him about his future.
The fortune teller was slightly afraid as first, but then realized this was a great opportunity to make some money off of the magical leopard. As the leopard approached the fortune teller, he said, "Be not afraid...I will not hurt you IF you tell me about my future." The psychic said, "I'm not afraid and I will be glad to tell you your future if you provide food for my family for one year." The leopard agreed for he was desperate to know about his future.
The fortune teller said, "Very soon, you will come across a river that is very wide and deep. You will go to take a drink and will be swept away by the current." Looking horrified, the leopard tried to sit still while listening to the rest of the story. The psychic continued on by saying, "At the point when you think you are about to die, you will be rescued by a sweet, loving princess whom you shall marry." The relief on the leopard's face was quite obvious by now even though he was still afraid of the thought of nearing death.
The fortune teller said, "Very soon, you will come across a river that is very wide and deep. You will go to take a drink and will be swept away by the current." Looking horrified, the leopard tried to sit still while listening to the rest of the story. The psychic continued on by saying, "At the point when you think you are about to die, you will be rescued by a sweet, loving princess whom you shall marry." The relief on the leopard's face was quite obvious by now even though he was still afraid of the thought of nearing death.
So, the leopard thanked the psychic and promised that once he found the princess and married her, he would bring the psychic food every day for the next year. The leopard began his journey, but it took him almost two weeks before he came across a flowing river. He wondered if this would be the river the fortune teller told him about in his vision. The leopard bent down to get a drink and lost his footing on the river's bank. He fell into the river and thrashed about while trying to gasp for air. He knew he must be nearing his end. Right when the leopard was about to draw his last breath, a beautiful princess scooped him up out of the river with the greatest of ease. She caressed his face and fell instantly in love with the leopard. The princess vowed to stay with the leopard until he regained consciousness.
Once the leopard regained consciousness, he gazed into the eyes of the most beautiful princess he had ever seen and whispered, "Thank you for saving me. How can I ever repay you?" The princess said, "Marry me and I will love you until the day I die." The leopard hurriedly agreed and they were wed the next day. From that day forward until one year had passed, the leopard provided the fortune teller's family with food just as he had promised. The psychic, leopard, and the princess smiled because each of them had gotten their wishes fulfilled.
Author's Note: The story,The Raibar and the Leopard, is part of the Santal Folklore unit. Story source: Folklore of the Santal Parganas by Cecil Henry Bompas (1909). This story is about a raibar, which is also known as a matchmaker, who meets a leopard while traveling to arrange some marriages between several families. He doesn't want to be eaten, so he basically promises to find the leopard a mate. The raibar ends up tricking the leopard into getting into a sack and he beats up the leopard in the sack and throws him in the river. The raibar goes about his business of arranging marriages and forgets all about the leopard. The leopard gets rescued by a leopardess and they end up together. In the end of the story, the raibar runs into the leopard again and the leopard spares his life because he had found his mate.
My story is quite different from the original storyline. I decided to keep the leopard as one of my main characters, but chose to change the rest of the story to be more modernized. However, I did use the part of the story where the leopard is rescued by a leopardess and the fact that they end up together. The picture I chose is of a beautiful, regal-looking leopard. He just looks so majestic that I thought it would be perfect for my storyline. It also looks like to me that he is sitting near the water's edge. The second picture is of a fortune teller. It is a picture of a beautiful woman who looks like someone the rabiar might meet during his travels. I also decided to use the words psychic and fortune teller interchangeably throughout the story, so I wasn't using the same word repeatedly.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Famous Last Words: Week 4
Wow, this week was especially tough for me. I fell behind in getting my work done and ended up not being able to do any of my Reading Diaries or Storytelling for this week. I'm so thankful for an understanding instructor and all of the extra credit options that are available to us all. I had numerous personal life situations happen that interfered with my schoolwork, but with a husband and 6 children most people can probably understand why. For most of the week, I felt like I was stressed out and ready to lose my mind. Thankfully, I can look back on everything that happened and smile because I survived without being put in the looney bin! Lol
As for my other classes, I haven't found any similarities between them and this class, but I did find out that one of my children, 15 year old girl, is learning about Greek Mythology (the gods, goddesses & beasts) in one of her classes. It is kind of nice to be able to compare what she is learning to the material in this class. Each day, we talk about what she has learned that day and I let her read my blogs and see the story selections that we can chose from in my class.
This week for one of my extra credit assignments, I chose to include a YouTube video into a blog. I've never really searched or looked around on YouTube much before doing this assignment, so I really enjoyed looking around at all the video options there. Man...the video options on YouTube seem to be endless!!!! I posted a video on eyeliner techniques on my blog! I was fascinated with all of the makeup tutorials on there. Since looking around on that site, I have used it for another one of my classes to help me understand Trigonometry better. There are tons of videos on Trigonometry topics and they really did help me with two homework assignments that were due this weekend. Needless to say, I will be watching a lot more YouTube videos from now on!!! :-)
As for my other classes, I haven't found any similarities between them and this class, but I did find out that one of my children, 15 year old girl, is learning about Greek Mythology (the gods, goddesses & beasts) in one of her classes. It is kind of nice to be able to compare what she is learning to the material in this class. Each day, we talk about what she has learned that day and I let her read my blogs and see the story selections that we can chose from in my class.
This week for one of my extra credit assignments, I chose to include a YouTube video into a blog. I've never really searched or looked around on YouTube much before doing this assignment, so I really enjoyed looking around at all the video options there. Man...the video options on YouTube seem to be endless!!!! I posted a video on eyeliner techniques on my blog! I was fascinated with all of the makeup tutorials on there. Since looking around on that site, I have used it for another one of my classes to help me understand Trigonometry better. There are tons of videos on Trigonometry topics and they really did help me with two homework assignments that were due this weekend. Needless to say, I will be watching a lot more YouTube videos from now on!!! :-)
Friday, February 6, 2015
Extra Reading Diary: Santal Folklore
The unit I chose for this blog was Santal Folktales and my favorite stories were The Raja's Dream and The Raja's Dream (cont.).
I thought this was a great story. It starts off with a somewhat sad storyline about a man who can't have children by his first wife, so he decides to marry a second woman because his first wife can't have children. After his second wife has children by him, his first wife ends up bearing him child. The man can't choose which son will inherit his fortune, so he kicks the first wife and her son out of the palace. The father then has a dream about a golden, tiger, snake and monkey. No one is able to interpret his dream, except for the son from his first wife. He then sends all his sons on a journey to find these golden creatures.
The son from his first wife goes out on a journey to find these golden creatures while the two sons from the second wife just complain and sulk because they think there are no such creatures. While on his journey, the son from the eldest wife meets several uncles and each one tells him to carry on and he shall find his animals. He ends up finding a snake princess and marrying her. After some trials and tribulations, he is given a magical ring and he heads back home. With the help of his snake princess (who has magical powers) and the ring, he shows his father the golden animals and he is ultimately chosen as the successor to the throne. The second wife and her children are then thrown out of the kingdom.
I love how the story ends with a happy ending with the son from the first wife being named the successor to the throne. This son ended up with a wonderful princess bride who always believed in him and helped him every time he needed it. The other sons were dismayed and never even attempted to look for the animals, so they were cast out. The story has a moral to it as well. The moral of the story was if you persevere through the trials and tribulation in your life and believe in yourself, you will be rewarded in the end. This story also has another moral to it. This moral is if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. This saying also applies to the first wife's son.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Reading Diary A: The Praying Baker
The Praying Baker in the Unit Persian Tales would be my favorite for this week. This story was one of the few stories that had a happy ending. Most of the stories in this unit had horrible endings with people getting eaten, killed or hurt in some way. This story was about a baker who was asked by a King to find his ring or he would have to give his life if he didn't find the ring. The King gave him 10 days to find it. Upon the tenth day, the baker's wife found the ring in the belly of a fish while she was preparing it for dinner. The baker presented the ring to the King and the Kind ended up making the baker his favorite person and gave him a huge reward. There was quite a bit of trickery in this story as well on the part of the King. This story had several plot twists which I thought made it more interesting. The picture that went with the story was of a fish and I thought it was quite appropriate for the story.
I guess you could say that I wasn't really a fan of this unit overall because most of them ended up with people getting hurt in the most horrible of ways. This main character in this story threatened the baker with death if he didn't find his ring, but he lived at the end because he had found it. The story leads you to believe that it was because of his faith in God that the ring was found by his wife and his life was spared because of that. I also like the fact that in this story that the man's wife is the one who found the ring. In general, all the stories in this unit make the females out to be stupid or unworthy. In this story, the baker's wife is the actual hero because she was the one to find the ring and told her husband to present it to the King. The only thing that has me puzzled about the stories in this unit is that they always end with "and the sparrow never got home". I'm not exactly sure what to make of that last comment. It almost seems like it doesn't belong in the story, unless there is some meaning to it that I'm not comprehending.
I guess you could say that I wasn't really a fan of this unit overall because most of them ended up with people getting hurt in the most horrible of ways. This main character in this story threatened the baker with death if he didn't find his ring, but he lived at the end because he had found it. The story leads you to believe that it was because of his faith in God that the ring was found by his wife and his life was spared because of that. I also like the fact that in this story that the man's wife is the one who found the ring. In general, all the stories in this unit make the females out to be stupid or unworthy. In this story, the baker's wife is the actual hero because she was the one to find the ring and told her husband to present it to the King. The only thing that has me puzzled about the stories in this unit is that they always end with "and the sparrow never got home". I'm not exactly sure what to make of that last comment. It almost seems like it doesn't belong in the story, unless there is some meaning to it that I'm not comprehending.
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