Storytelling for Week 13: Fortune Favors the Bold

Once upon a time there were two men named Luke and Henry. They were best friends, having grown up together and known each other for many years. After many years of education and striving to learn the skills needed to succeed in life, these two men decided that it was time for them to go out into the world and travel. In this manner they would learn needed life skills, as well as forming connections and discovering how to take care of themselves and how to actually deal with other people. The men traveled together for over a month before they came across a stream one day. As it was a hot day, they decided to stop and rest next to the stream, in the shade of an old oak tree. They spoke of the future they hoped to have and their dreams, as well as the expectations that others held for them. Time passed quickly while they talked, leading to them setting up camp along the stream. They wanted to make sure that they were in a safe location and close to water, so this was an unexpectedly good discovery for them. Once they had set up camp, Luke and Henry spoke for a brief amount of time about random topics before going to sleep. In the morning, they discovered that someone had been to their camp while they were asleep, leaving behind a rock with a message engraved upon it. Upon closer inspection, the duo discovered that the message was actually a challenge that promised a grand reward upon completion. Luke, who was generally the more outgoing of the two, surprisingly decided he didn't want to waste his time on this. "After all," he said, "there is no guarantee that this will actually be true. It is likely that some random vagabond saw our camp and decided to play a trick on us for their own amusement." Henry, however, decided that he wanted to try to fulfill the challenge anyways. Because of this, the two came to the mutual agreement of splitting ways for a time. Luke continued on to the nearest town, while Henry worked to succeed and win his prize. He had to swim down the river through a whirlpool, followed by carrying a heavy lion statue to the top of the mountain. While the task was daunting, Henry was not scared. He fulfilled his end of the bargain and succeeded. Upon his arrival to the top of the mountain, he discovered a hidden city. The lion statue that he was carrying came to life and started roaring, bringing the people flooding out of the gates. Henry then discovered that the challenge was to find a successor for the king, who had just died. By choosing the bold path with no guarantee of success or even truth, Henry had proven his bravery and his ability to make difficult decisions with unknown consequences.

Authors Note
This is from the story Two Travelers.  I did not change very much, but I chose to emphasize the bond between the friends and how they acted rather than on the challenges faced. I thought this story was interesting because it taught the message that fortune favors the bold.

(Image of the goddess Fortuna; Image source Wikipedia)

Week 13: Reading Diary A

Introduction
- Stories being told to save the wise man Bidpai from the tyrannical king. Other versions are that he is the advising vizier to the king.

The Rustic and the Nightingale
- A rustic man grew a beautiful garden. He has a rose tree that is his pride and joy. One day he sees a nightingale destroying some of the roses on it. He lays a trap and catches the bird. The bird begs for forgiveness and says it will die in captivity, moving the man's heart and having him let it go. In return, the bird tells the man that there is a pot of gold buried where he stands, and as thanks, he should take it for the garden.

The King, The Falcon, and The Drinking Cup
- The king had a favored falcon that he loved, counting it as a main treasure. When he went hunting, he took it with him, somehow getting separated from his hunting party. He finds a stream and goes to drink from it when the falcon knocks his cup from his hand. This happens again and the king throws the bird to the ground, killing it. Then one of his attendants comes upon him and is sent for water. When he returns he tells the king that he would have died from the water, as it has been poisoned by the corpse of a dragon. The falcon had saved his life.

The Two Travelers
- Two friends are traveling together when they come across a stream with a rock in it that bears a message. It says that if they should undertake a number of ordeals, bravely facing danger, they will be richly rewarded. One of the men, Salem, decides it is a hoax and he will have no part. The other man, Ganem, decides to undertake the challenge. He succeeds and is made king as a reward for his bravery.

Week 12: Famous Last Words

This week has been pretty crazy.  I am starting to have all of my homework assignments piling up, as even though I knew they were coming up I still managed to forget exactly when the assignment would be due.  There are a lot of papers that will be due in the next few weeks.  One of my assignments is for my Bible as Literature course.  I have to find a movie or book that is based off of a story or book from the Bible and then compare it to the original tale and write a paper on how accurate it is or how far from the original message it is.  This seems like it may be fun, but I still need to decide what the original topic is going to be.  I also need to find out how many pages this paper is going to have to be.  In my other classes I have a capstone paper and a paper on poverty.  The paper for my capstone is about twenty percent done.  I need to have around twenty pages written by about Thanksgiving.  I am hoping to have enough of it done, or better yet have the entire paper finished, before Thanksgiving so I can relax when I am at home.  My paper for the class on poverty is about half way done.  I need to do more research on finding sources that are current, as well as providing more background information for my topic.  With how crazy my week has been, I have managed to start buying Christmas presents which means that I will be able to relax when it gets really hectic during the holidays. It also means that I have been able to take advantage of some of the sales that are going on.  This year I hope to be able to relax and not have to run out for some last minute gifts because I forgot someone.  I hope everyone has a great week!

(Pumpkin Pie: Image source Wikipedia)

Essay for Week 12: High School and College Writing Experience

I have taken a lot of English and writing courses over my years in high school and college.  In fact, for my first two years of college  I was majoring in English Literature! I ended up switching to International Area Studies because I did not know what I wanted to do with my life at that point.  To be honest, I am still not really sure what my plans are for after graduation.  Nothing is set in stone yet.  Anyways, at the time I loved to read and write.  I still do, but I switched my major to a minor so that I would have some more time to focus on things other than writing papers.  I love what I am doing now, but I occasionally miss the classes that I used to take.  My senior year English teacher in high school was the main reason that I wanted to major in Literature.  She is a wonderful woman who encouraged her students to do the best that they could.  At the same time, she was not really strict and she understood that things came up that her students had no control over.  Mrs. Sanchez was a great teacher; she did what she could to encourage her students love of reading.  One way that she did this was to have group discussions and allow us to decide how the book did and didn't meet our expectations.  In college, my experiences have been both good and bad.  I have had a professor that marked down on papers if you did not agree with her stance on an issue, or if you had managed to somehow get on her bad side during the school year.  I have also had great experiences, however, where my professor made the lectures fun and gave great advice on how to best improve a paper.  I don't use my writing skills outside of class very much at the moment, but I believe they will come in handy when having to write letters and such for work.  If I was teaching a writing class, one of the first assignments that I would give would be to write about something you are passionate about, such as a favorite band, sport, animal, etcetera.  I would do this so that I could see the level your writing was at.  It would give me an idea of how capable you are at writing at the beginning, as you should be able to write a lot about something that you love.  One assignment that I have generally always hated has been timed writing.  They are almost always a part of entrance tests, which I think is the main reason that I dislike them.  For that reason alone I would not give those to my students.

(Turkey stress ball; Image source Wikipedia)

Storytelling for Week 12: Quarrel of the Quails

Quarrel of the Quails

There was once a camp of girls that was built by a gorgeous lake.  One day construction began on the opposite side.  The next summer there was a new boys' camp built there.  It was a very nice construction, but the girls did not want to have to deal with more people.  In their minds, the lake and everything near it was meant to be part of the girls' area.  It wasn't supposed to be invaded by boys!  About a week after the boys' camp opened, the leaders of the two camps met and decided to have a game day so the groups of children could get to know one another.  To foster competitive spirit, they grouped them so it would be the boys versus the girls.  They put the oldest of the camp residents in charge, leaving it up to them to come up with a valid game plan to win the day.  The first game that the children decided to play was capture the flag.  In their version the kids decided that the two groups were able to take prisoners, though they would have to post guards in order to ensure that the prisoners did not escape and make their way further into the enemy territory.  The leader of the girls was smart, telling the girls working for her that they should work in squads of three so that they could help one another escape if they came across any of the boys.  The boys, on the other hand, began to get frustrated when their prisoners kept escaping.  Things changed, however, once some of the girls got in a fight after one of them tripped and blamed the other.  The one who accidentally tripped the other apologized, but it was too late.  Now that there was contention within the group, the plans for unity and beating the boy's camp fell apart.  The other girls all took sides, leading to them refusing to help their friends escape from the "prison".  This fall out led to the boys winning the camp tournament, as well as forcing the girls to apologize for their behavior prior to the defeat.  In the end, this turned out to be a good thing, as the boys and girls came to be friendly rivals and made friends with one another.  The competition became a yearly occurrence, strengthening the ties between the camps and leading to lifelong friendships.  While the struggles within the group led to it falling apart, it eventually led to them growing closer together.

Author's Note

This story is a retelling of the Quarrel of the Quails, which focuses on how working together can be beneficial, while fighting within the group can lead to everything falling apart.

Story source: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, illustrated by Ellsworth Young (1912).

(Image of a quail, photo source: Wikimedia)