Reading Diary A for Week 13: Italian Popular Tales

I chose the unit Italian Popular Tales and my favorite stories were Zelinda and the Monster and The Fair Angiola.

I really liked the story of Zelinda and the Monster because it reminded me of the story of Beauty and the Beast.  The serpent reminded me of the Beast because he had been enchanted by a witch's spell.  He looked like a serpent, but once the spell was broken he was actually a young, handsome prince.  The story also had an enchanted mirror in it which the serpent used to show the princess her dying father.  That is a similar storyline to the movie Beauty and the Beast as well.

Where the stories diverge is that the princess does not love the serpent and tells him every day that she doesn't want to marry him.  The serpent uses the knowledge of the princesses father dying to persuade her to marry him.  It's when he promises to save her father that she decides to marry him.  Beauty doesn't declare her love for the Beast until he dies in her arms.

The movie becomes similar again when both the serpent and Beast turn into handsome, young princes and they marry the women they love.  In both stories, they also live happily ever after.

Angiola and Prince

My second favorite story in the unit was about The Fair Angiola.  This story reminded me a lot of the story Rapunzel.  I liked this story a lot.  The stories are similar in how the princesses are taken away from their parents and kept hidden away in a tall castle far, far away.  Both stories have princesses with extremely long hair and they both let down their hair out of the castle window, so that their captors can come inside the castle.

The stories diverge with how the princesses were taken to the castle to be hidden away.  Angiola had met her captor many times on the path into town and had talked to her numerous times.  She knew that one day she would be taken away because her mother had told her so.  Rapunzel did not know she was kidnapped and raised by an evil woman.  She had never met her before being kidnapped and thought she was her mother all along.

The stories again become similar in regards to the princesses meeting the princes in the tall castle and they both ran away with their princes.  The princesses were also chased and threatened by the women who had kidnapped them.  They also both ended up getting married and living happily ever after.

Famous Last Words for Week 12

This week has been a better week for me overall.  I got to relax some even though I had housecleaning and homework to do.  Relaxing and taking a nap are not things that I normally get to do at all usually.  My husband didn't have to work on Friday, so we spent the day together goofing off and running around together while the kids were in school.  That was certainly a nice change from the daily grind I deal with each week.

I'm so happy that my family's medical issues are well under control now.  That makes me less stressed and a happier person in general.  My littlest one does have the sniffles right now, but it's nothing too bad.  I can handle the sniffles.  Lol

My classes are all going well.  I didn't get as much done in this class as I had hoped for this week, but that's ok with me too.  I did get all the required stuff done, so I'm feeling quite good about that part.   I do love going to college, butI now realize that I like it much more when I take less classes in a semester and can concentrate on each one as I take it, so I can get a much higher grade.

My Trigonometry class at OCCC is not going so well, but I plan to switch to Audit and then retake it again in the Fall or possibly this Summer.  I know I'm not really a Math person, so I know that retaking the class will benefit me and help me obtain a better grade next time.  Trigonometry is hard and I feel that the more exposure I have to it, the better I'll do.  I also plan to utilize their tutoring services as well.  I think that will help me out even more.  Can I just say...I HATE Math!!  Lol

Ok, ok...I don't hate ALL Math, but anything above College Algebra sucks big time!

Trigonometry Sucks

Wasn't the weather beautiful outside this past week?  Even when it rained a little, I still enjoyed the weather.  I really do enjoy outside temps in the 70's to 80's and just a little bit of rain here and there.  The stormy weather that rolled in this morning was a bit of a shocker though.  I woke up to heave rains, howling winds and a little bit of small hail.  It kind of frightened me at first until I looked at my Accuweather app on my phone and saw that it was just a minor thunderstorm.  I can't wait to have a few days of no rain though because I'm getting a new fence installed as soon as the weather clears.  Yay!

I guess that's about it for my Last Words post this week.  Thanks for reading and have a wonderful, productive week!  Until I post again...bye!

Storytelling for Week 12: The Swan Princess

Once upon a time there was a king of the North land, King David, whose daughter had become of age to marry.  There was also a king of the South land, King Stephen, who was getting old and sick and needed his son to marry a princess, so he could make sure his kingdom would be taken care of and protected after he passed on to the next life.  The two kings decided to meet one day to discuss their children getting married in the near future.  The princess entertained the prince while their fathers discussed the marriage arrangements.  They became instantly smitten with each other and knew that they would be happy with getting married to each other.  This arrangement would bring forth peace between the two lands.

Well, the king of the West land, King Joshua, heard about this meeting and adamantly disagreed with the arrangement because he wanted his daughter to marry the prince of the South land.  King Joshua was very well known around the lands as a vengeful and hated man.  He did not want peace between the lands, but wanted to rule the land of the South as well.  So King Stephen told King Joshua that he would never allow his son to marry a daughter of such a wicked man.  This news enraged King Joshua, so he decided to kidnap the princess and have a witch cast an evil spell on her as well.

A couple days later, King Joshua sent out his best fighters to kidnap the princess of the North.  No one in the North kingdom realized what had happened until the next morning when King David found his daughter missing.   There was much grieving and sorrow that day in the land of the North!  Search parties were sent out to find the lost princess, but no one could find her.

Once King Joshua had the princess hidden in the darkest of places in the forest, he had a witch cast a horrible spell on her.  The princess was turned into a swan and was confined to the lake in the middle of the forest.  She could still speak with a human voice, but had to live her life as a swan.  If she attempted to leave the lake, she would die.  The only way for her to break the spell would be to promise to NEVER marry King Stephen's son, the prince of the South.  She could not make that promise because she loved the prince with all her heart.  The prince loved her with all his heart too, so he set off on a journey to find his beloved princess.

Swan Princess

The prince finally found his beloved princess after many months of searching and she told him of the witch's evil spell and of King Joshua's plan to have his daughter marry him instead of her.  The prince decided that there might be another way to save the princess and that way was to kill the witch.  So, the prince set off on another journey to find the witch.  Once he found the witch, she begged for her life and promised to reverse the spell that she had cast on the princess.

The witch and the prince rode back to where the princess had been held captive for many months.  The witch did as she promised and reversed the spell so that she would not be killed.  Once the spell was lifted, the princess was turned back into her human form and rode off with the prince to the land of the South to be married as quickly as possible.  They were married later that evening before word had spread to the land of the West where King Joshua lived.

King Joshua was enraged that the witch broke her promise to him, but by then there was nothing he could do about it.  In the end, the prince of the South land and the princess of the North land lived happily ever after for the rest of their days.

Editor's Note: I retold the story named The Fate of the Children of Lir.  I changed the story quite a bit.  Lir is a man who wanted to become king of the land.  When he was not chosen as the new king, he became angry and went back to his home.  To keep peace in the land, the chosen king sent a messenger to Lir telling him that he would let him chose a wife from one of his three daughters.  He was pleased and chose the eldest daughter.  They had several children together, but she died after having their last child.  So the new king sent another one of his daughters to become his wife to keep Lir appeased.  His new wife became jealous of Lir's children and took them to a lake where she cast a spell of them to turn them into swans with human voices for five hundred years.  Lir went out and searched for his children, but could never find them.  It wasn't until after the five hundred years had passed that the spell was broken and they returned to human form.  However, they did not return as human children, but as old people.  They ended up dying a couple days later after they were returned to human form.

I chose to change the story to fit more along the lines of the movie The Swan Princess.  That is where I got all my inspiration for the changes I made to the original story.  Even though I decided to use many ideas from the Disney movie, I didn't follow the storyline from beginning to end.  The original story was about the children of Lir turning into swans for five hundred years, but in my version I turned the princess into a swan until the witch reversed the spell after being threatened with death if she didn't reverse it.  Another similarity between the original version and my version of this story was that there was great sorrow when the characters went missing and that search parties were sent out to find them.  I kept that idea in my version of the story as well.  I also changed the ending to where the prince and princess lived happily ever after.  In the original story, Lir's children never saw their father again and ended up dying within a few days of turning back into human form.  The ending in my version of this story is also different from the movie's ending.  The Swan Princess dies in the movie, but is brought back to life by the prince's kiss.  In my version, the princess doesn't die and the spell is broken by getting the witch to reverse the spell instead of by a lover's kiss.  Another difference between my story and the Disney film is that I used a female witch to cast a spell on the princess.  In the Disney movie, the character was a male sorcerer who turned into a magical beast and the prince defeated the beast by killing it with his sword.  The last idea that I used from the original story, The Children of Lir, was that the king wanted to keep peace among the lands, so he sent Lir two of his daughters to marry.  I used the same idea of keeping peace in the land by using having the prince and princess vowing to be married and then getting married in the end.

Bibliography:

This story is part of the Celtic Fairy Tales (2) unit. Story source: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1895).

Disney movie: The Swan Princess, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swan_Princess.

Extra Reading Diary Post for week 12: Nursery Rhymes

The unit I chose for this assignment is Nursery Rhymes.  My favorite was Nursery Rhymes: Charms and Lullabies.  Here is the first one...

(Wikipedia: Rock-a-bye Baby)

HUSH-A-BYE, baby, on the tree top;

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;

When the bough bends, the cradle will fall;

Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all.

This lullaby is one of my all time favorites from when I was a child. I also sang this lullaby to my own children when they were little.  Even though it is a lullaby with an awful ending with the cradle and baby falling out of the treetop, little children don't know it has such a sad ending because the song is so catchy.  They don't really pay attention to the words...just the melody.

Lullaby

(Wikipedia: Peter Piper)

PETER PIPER picked a peck of pickled pepper;
A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked;

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?

This is one of my favorite charms (or tongue twisters) from my childhood. It brings back memories of my other and I in her kitchen saying tongue twisters to see who would mess up first.  Unfortunately for me...my mother won most of the time.  Lol   We would make a game of it every week while I was int he kitchen helping her make dinner.   My mother has since past away (last year), but the memories of all the good times we had from my childhood remain with me.  Choosing this unit about nursery rhymes reminded me of all those good times.  After I became an adult, single mother and moved back in with my parents for a while, we had the same kind of fun with my first daughter as she was growing up as well.

Peppers

Reading Diary A for Week 12: More Celtic Fairy Tales

The unit I chose for this week is More Celtic Fairy Tales.  My favorite story is The Fate of the Children of Lir.  This was a three-part story in the weekly readings.

This story was quite different than all the previous stories I have read from the earlier weeks in this class.  I like how the story was written in regards to the chosen King wanting to keep peace with Lir even though Lir wanted to become King and was upset about not being chosen as the new King.  Instead of fighting and/or killing Lir, the new King chose to keep the peace with Lir by offering him one of his daughters to be his wife.

Lir had a happy life with many children born to them until his wife died after having his last child.  Both Lir and the new King were devastated by her death, but the Kind wanted Lir to have happiness again so he gave him another one of his daughters to marry.  They were all happy for a while, but then the story takes a dark turn with the new wife becoming jealous of Lir's children.

The new wife takes the children to a lake and casts a spell on them to turn them into swans for 500 years.  This is where the story starts to remind me of the story and movie called The Swan Princess.  An evil sorcerer turned her into a swan.  The new wife reminds me of the evil sorcerer and the children remind me of Odette, the Swan Princess.

Even though the story started out very happy, it ended in a very sad way with Lir's children never seeing their father again.  It wasn't until 500 years later when a man from the North married a woman from the South that the spell was broken.  After the spell was broken, the children turned back into humans, but they were no longer children anymore.  Lir's children were very old, fragile humans who ended up dying just a day or two later after the spell was broken.

I really enjoyed the story overall even though it had a very sad ending for everyone.  I tend to enjoy stories with a happy ending better though.  I probably would have preferred that the children be reunited with their father, but that is not the way the story was written.  Maybe I'll retell this story and put it as my next retelling of a story in my Portfolio.  I could change it to have a happier ending.

Lir's Children

Famous Last Words; Week 11

I have been MIA for a while.  Sorry for that, folks!  Between my husband having some medical issues (surgery), my own personal battle with a stomach bug and my teenager dealing with bleeding ulcers and anemia...I've been emotionally and physically tapped out.

We are all back on track now, so I am back to writing my blog posts again!  Yay, for me!  I've ben trying to play a little bit of catch up in all of my classes and this class is no exception.  This class is hard work, but I love it nonetheless.

After being away from posting for about 2 weeks, it was definitely hard to get back into he swing of things again, but I persevered.  I'm looking forward to getting everything done for this class this week and doing ALL of the extra credit.  Ambitious, I know, but most definitely doable!

As for my other classes...well, I had to drop a couple of them so I won't be graduating this May.  I'm a little bummed about that, BUT the feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed is gone and that makes me happy.  I will still graduate, but I'm going to take it at a much slower pace.  I'm planning on taking one class at a time, so I can concentrate on each one and get the best possible grade in each of them.  This will be the best scenario for me because...wait for it...we will be adopting a newborn in August.  Yes, we are crazy and crazy excited to be adopting my grandchild.  We have no idea if it's a boy or girl yet, so I'll probably update with that information later on in this course. (We're hoping it's a girl though!)

My kids will give me the extra energy to get through it.  Lord knows...they are full of energy!  Lol

Here's to another week FULL of writing and other assignments!  

Cheers!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter yesterday!  My girls were able to color Easter eggs, visits with their grandparents and hunt Easter eggs!  It was a great day for them.  Since my kids were at the grandparents, my hubby and I got to spend the day relaxing at home with some much-needed peace and quiet.  It was a good day for us as well.  Lol

Personal photos of all 3 of my beautiful girls!

Storytelling for Week 11: The Man Who Lost His Wife

There once was a man and woman who lived in a small, provincial town where work was very scarce.  They did everything they could to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, but their effort was still not enough.  The couple was slowly starving to death.

One day, the husband decided to talk to his wife about leaving the town to find better work elsewhere.    He said, "Dear wife...we have very little food and no way to make a better life for ourselves.  I must leave this town to find better work."  

"My dearest husband, you must leave at once so that we might be saved from starving," she said.

So he began his journey that very afternoon with what little food they had left for the day in search of someone who would give him a job to support his faithful wife.  Her husband came upon a farmer who took in the man and gave him plenty of work and advise as well.  The farmer warned the man that when he finally returned home that unless his wife was truly faithful and loyal, the man might find that his life might be completely different than before.

After her husband had departed, the woman became very depressed but decided to continue plowing the fields and tending to her animals like she always had in the past.  After a few days had passed, a prince was on his way to see the king of the land.  His carriage had to pass through the area where the poor were tending the fields and animals.  The prince happened to glance out at the people and laid his eyes upon one very hard-working, beautiful woman.  He told the carriage driver to stop and he beckoned to the lonely, beautiful woman tending to the local animals and crops.

The prince said, "Oh most beautiful woman, why are you in the fields performing such harsh duties when you are as beautiful as you?  Why don't you come live with me and receive anything and everything your heart could ever wish or dream of?"  The woman was surprised and excited all at the same time because the prince had chosen to speak to her.

"I will come with you, my dear prince, and take you up on your offer," said the woman.  Even though she knew her husband was off working hard trying to provide a better life for them, she couldn't resist the charms and promises from the prince.  The prince lived up to his end of the bargain and gave the woman anything she asked of him.  She now had the life she had always wanted even though it was at the husband's expense.

The woman ended up marrying the prince and forgetting about the man who left to provide a better life for her.  When the man came back to surprise his wife with all that he had accomplished, he was shocked to see that his wife had left him and married another man.  He begged and pleaded with her to come back to him, but after a while his attempts fell upon deaf ears.  After the initial shock had worn off and numerous attempts of trying to win back her affections had failed, he realized that the farmer was telling him the truth when he warned him about his life possibly changing upon his return home.  The man could no longer take the rejection and fell sick from being heartbroken.  Less than a week later, the man died of a broken heart.

The End

Prince and the Beautiful Commoner

Author's Notes:  I retold the following story, The Tale of Ivan, from the Celtic Fairy Tales unit.  The story was about a husband and wife who were so poor that the husband decided to leave his home in search of work that could support his family better.  He did find work and after three years returned to his loving wife and they ended up living a very happy, blessed life.  While working abroad for those three years, the farmer that took him in gave him advice in place of wages, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Because he listened to the farmer's advice, he was blessed with riches and a wonderful life in the end.

I changed the story quite a lot.  I chose to focus my writing on the wife and what she did after her husband left in search of work.  In the original story, she was faithful and waited those three long years for her husband to return.  In my version, she fell for a prince and they ended up being together while her former husband was working elsewhere.  Also in the original version, there was a happy ending for the man and wife.  In my version, the man returns and find his wife living with another man, a prince, and has forgotten all about him.  He ends up dying in the end.

This story is part of the Celtic Fairy Tales (1) unit. Story source: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).