Week 10 Story: The Story of the Fox

You may have read my tale "The Fox- Woman, and if you did then you know my story. If not I'll give you a brief synopsis about it.

Red Fox: Nps

I am a fox who takes the form of a woman, and does wifely duties. I come and take care of the house while my husband is away, but when he returns I am my beautiful human self, but there is one problem. I release a foul odor once I have been in my human form for a while.

You may be wondering how I become a woman if I am a fox, and the truth is, I am not really sure how this occurs. There is some magical power that allows me to be a fox in the outdoors but once I enter a home, I am this beautiful woman.

To be honest, I enjoy being my fox self more than the human form. I love running in the outdoors and climbing anything that I can see, and plus I get to use the bathroom outside. Oh, and I can also smell and no one cares.

In my human form, I have to do all these stupid chores. I have to clean the house and make sure everything is tip top in shape. Plus, I don't really like using human showers because they are weird to me. So, once I begin to really smell and put out this foul odor, I leave. I leave the home forever and try to stay in my fox form for as long as I can!

So, now you have heard my story. You may see me running around in the forest, or if you're a male who has been away for a whole, you may see me in your home. And, if your home is clean, please thank me for my work. I spent lots of time making sure it was clean for you, and I absolutely hate doing that. I just wish I could live in my fox form forever!!

Author's note:
The Fox- Woman
Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

I decided to give the perspective of the fox woman from the original story. In my story above I give you a brief synopsis of the story, and tell you how the fox feels about her work. I wanted to make it similar to the story line of the original story, but try and make it a little funny. 

Week 10: Reading Notes: Part B

The Dog Husband

Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Whale in the water: Wikipedia

• Girl had a dog whom she loved
• Dog slept by her feet, at night turned to human form and slept next to girl, before morning would turn back to dog
• Girl became pregnant (from dog) family was angry, torched the house and left the girl
• Father killed dog, girl gave birth to 5 pup (4 males and 1 female)
• Dogs were singing and dancing in human form when the mother was away collecting clams
• tore down the dog blanket, were stuck in human form
• Males learned to use a bow and were great hunters, able to kill whales 
• Killed so many, crow went and told the old village
• They did not believe until one of her birds choked on a piece she had stolen
• They then believed and went back to the old village and the sons became chiefs

The Youth Who Joined the Deer

Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Deer and fawn: Pixabay

• Hunter who loved deer, had 2 wives, one bore children one did not
• While hunting, saw tracks of deer, followed them and ran into a woman and her child
• Asked if she had seen deer, she said no, so continued to follow the tracks lead to no where
• Went back to woman and said she must have seen the deer, the man followed the woman because she said she had been waiting for him
• The two went to her village, and all saw that she had brought her husband
• The two became husband and wife, and slept in the same bed but not with each other
• Killed his two brother in laws, missed them
• The flesh was eaten and the bones were thrown into the river
• Came back to life when thrown in water, revived
• Deer people lived by hunting and killing each other and then reviving
• Hunter became buck
• wife gave birth to son

Week 10: Reading Notes: Part A: Native American Marriage Tales

Bear- Woman and Deer- Woman

Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Grizzly Bear: Pexels

• Grizzly bear and doe are wives to chickenhawk
• Grizzly and doe checked one another for lice, grizzly had none and doe di
• Grizzly bit off doe's head and took both piles of acorns
• Burned the head in the fire, doe's children recognized it
• The two fawn's teased the mother crizzly
• They escaped over a river using a Crane's neck as a bridge
• When Grizzly tried to do the same thing, Crane tricked her and she went floating in the river

Eagle and Whale Husband

Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

• 2 girls playing with eagle bones and whale bones, said they would marry one of the two
• Eagle swiped up one girl and a whale the other
• Eagle took girl and gave her many small birds to eat, made a role of their wings, one day say a kayaker and wished for a boat to leave
• Went back home, eagle searched for bride, shot in body
• Other girl was tied to bottom of ocean by rope, and had nothing to do but pick lice from whales body
• Girl escaped by boat with brothers
• Whale realized and tried going after her and the boat 3 times
• Last time, the boat made it to see and the whale was turned into a whale-bone

The Fox Woman

Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Fox: Pixabay

• Hunter had a home and would leave to see who would come and observe and take care of his home
• One day left, but still observed his home
• A fox went in, and he was curious
• When he entered, he saw a beautiful woman with a fox's skin hanging up, claimed to be her husbands
• The two lived together for a while, but she produced a foul odor
• Took her fox skin back on and left the man, was never seen near man again

Week 9 Story: The Monkey and the Turtle and Crocodile Part II

Crocodile and Turtle: Flickr

Once there was a monkey who enjoyed deceiving and tricking all creatures of the world. One day, he saw two land creatures walking together: a turtle and a crocodile. While usually these two creatures would not be seen together, the two were best friends.

The monkey saw the two creatures from his tree and thought they would be the perfect pair. He climbed down from his tree and approached the two.

"Hello, I am monkey and saw that the two of you looked lost"

The two creatures responded, "Why yes, we have been traveling all day and night and have arrived here. We are very tried and hungry, and are looking for food and a place to stay"

The monkey smiled. "Why, I can help you, why don't the two of you follow me"

The Turtle and the Crocodile were surprised by the kindness of the Monkey. They were delighted in his kind nature, that they followed the monkey willingly.

They approached a field full of strawberries and vegetables. The Turtle and Crocodile's eyes grew large, and their tummies began to growl.

The Monkey said, "All this fresh fruit and vegetable are mine, and you may eat as much as you wish. I am going to head home, and come back in a little while to show you where you can sleep for the night"

The two creatures, barely heard anything other than they may eat the food, so they indulged in everything in the garden.

As the monkey left, the two creatures were eating, and about five minutes later, the true owner of the garden came by.

"Hey you two! Those are my prize possessions" Yelled the owner.

About that time, the turtle and crocodile had full bellies, and were surprised to hear that the garden did not belong to the Monkey.

The owner chased after them with a long pole and bolos. The turtle grabbed the crocodiles tail, and the crocodile went running far far away from the owner.

Although their tummies were full, the crocodile was able to out run the owner and the two of them went off. Hoping to find a place to stay for the night, from a trustworthy animal.

Author's Notes
The Monkey and the Turtle and Crocodile
 Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

In the original tale, the Monkey was a deceiver and took upon the Turtle and the Crocodile. In the story, the Monkey took them to a pumpkin plantation and the two creatures ate until they were stuffed, and the Monkey escaped to his home. About the time the animals were eating, the farmer passed by and captured the turtle and crocodile. The farmer ended up killing the two creatures. I decided to use the original story, but change a few details. Instead of pumpkins, I decided to make it a garden, as well as letting the turtle and crocodile survive. I had the two creatures escape the owner of garden, and continue their search for a place to stay. 

Week 9: Reading Notes: Part B: Philippines

Why the Ocean is Salty

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

Bora Bora Ocean View: Pexels

• Tall giant named Ang- ngalo, only son of the God of building
• lived in mountains, and dug many caves
• Caves protected God of Wind, Angin 
• One day saw a Goddess across the ocean, purest water, water was made of her tears
• Ang- ngalo walked across the water to her, his footprints are the deep caverns 
• Beautiful maid was Sipgnet, Goddess of darknesses, wished for a mansion white as snow
• Went to Asin God of salt, and got bricks as white as snow
• Could not have her deep and quiet slumber disturbed, sent waves over the little tunnels and bridges the men were making
• This caused the water to become salty, with the salt washing in it

The Story of our Fingers

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

• Antonio asked his grandfather why the thumb was far away from the other fingers, he told this story
• Little finger was hungry and asked the ring finger
• Continued to ask other fingers, thumb said we should steal
• All disagreed and pushed the thumb away
• This is why the thumb is far from the others, was willing to steal, while the others were honest
• Willing to die than to steal

The Lost Necklace

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

Hens in the grass: Pixabay

• Crow bought a fine necklace from a merchant, so proud immediately started wearing it
• An old friend, a hen admired the necklace, and wished to borrow it for a day
• The Crow liked the hen, so he allowed her to borrow it for the day
• When the crow returned the hen and her chicks had their faces in the ground
• The Hen explained that they lost the necklace that the chicks took it, and that they had been searching forever
• The crow said the hen needed to pay him back or else he was going to take one chick a day until the necklace was paid off
• She had nothing to say but agree
• To this day, this is why chicks and hens put their faces in the ground, they are said to still be looking for this necklace

Week 9: Reading Part A: Philippines

Flying Squirrel Monkey: Wikipedia

The Monkey and the Turtle
Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

• Monkey and Turtle were friends
• Turtle tricked monkey many times
• Split a banana, monkey got the end that would not grow (top)
• Turtle took the roots, and it grew many fruits
• Monkey went to pick bananas for turtle, but ate them for himself, turtle put sharp pieces in the trunk so the monkey injured himself when he came down
• Turtle gave hot peppers to monkey, snake almost choked him to death
• Then Monkey hallucinated, asking where the turtle was and could hear his voice
• Monkey beat his belly with a rock to death

The Monkey and the Crocodile

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

• Monkey needed to get across the water, but all there was, was a crocodile
• Convinced Crocodile to spare his life, and if he brought him across the river that there would be plenty of monkeys for him to eat
• So he did so, but monkey ran fast up to the tree to his mate
• Crocodile said the monkey would pay for this
• Crocodile looked dead, so monkey went down to where they were these bright pepers
• Crocodile put him between his teeth, but monkey convinced him that he was helping the king, and if was dead troops would come after him
• So crocodile agreed to give him as many breads as he wanted, and let him fo
• Monkey ran up to the tree, as the crocodile ate many hot peppers 
• Ran to get water, monkey laughed

The Monkey and the Dragon Flies

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

• Poor dragon fly was exhausted from flying and wanted to rest on a branch, and asked the monkey kindly
• They denied that no weak creature could stay on the branches of their shelter
• Monkey tried to hit her
• Dragon fly was quick and flew away and told the king what had happened
• Offered to fight monkeys
• Both agreed, dragon flies were unarmed while monkeys were ready
• When the battle began, dragon flies went straight for their foreheads, and the monkeys attacked the flies, and killed themselves

The Monkey, the Turtle, and the Crocodile

Story source: Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler (1921)

• Monkey deceived many creatures, and many creatures wished to kill him
• Monkey wants to deceive slow creates of the land, approaches turtle and crocodile
• Two are surprised by the kindness and tell they are looking for food and place to stay
• Monkey offers to help
• Took the two to a pumpkin plantation
• The two of them ate many pumpkin and the owner passed by
• Grabbed their poles and bolos and went after the crocodile
• Turtle grabbed the tail of the crocodile which was not good
• The men captured the two creatures and killed them both 

Week 8 Progress

Progress

So far this semester, I have been able to keep up with all the due dates for the first half of the semester. I hope to continue this progress during the second half of the semester after spring break. At first, I was really on top of the assignments, and would finish them a day or so in advance, but lately with all my other courses I am finishing the assignments on the day of, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I try to start my weekly assignments on Monday, and continue to do at least one or two each day. This allows me to be ahead by the weekend, and I can catch up on anything I may have missed. While at the beginning I took advantage of the extra credit assignments, I have not completed any of those lately. As of now, I am sitting at an A point value, so I don't really see the need to do the extra credit unless I miss some assignment. I think for the second half of the semester, I will keep the routine that I have created and hopefully this will allow me to keep track of all the assignments each week!

Meme of how I feel about other courses this semester: Pinimg

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Feedback In
I am very impressed by the feedback that I received on my project. Each person that commented included something positive about the project itself and then included a suggestion or two, which is beneficial. Something that I really like that commenters did was catch the mistakes that I may have not seen when rereading my posts. For example, sometimes its hard to catch your own spelling errors because you know what you want to say, and you just read it as if it were like that. So its nice to see that others are able to catch the mistakes I may have made. I also like that readers are giving suggestion on how to improve my stories in a positive manner.

Feedback out
I enjoy reading other peoples storybooks and portfolios because its interesting to see how people use their creativity to create their stories. One thing that I find to be a challenge for me personally is writing a 150 word comment. While this doesn't seem like a challenge, sometimes I just run out of words and feel like I may fluff my response to some individuals. I need to work on this, however I like giving other author's feedback on how to improve their projects and any telling them what I like about their projects also.

Blog Comments
Oh, I loved reading other peoples introduction posts. I really felt like I got to know a little more about the other students in this class aside from just their names. Plus, it helped when starting to read other stories and posts they had. It helped make them a little more personal. I also like that we comment on other peoples posts and give feedback to them on what we liked and any suggestions they may need.

Looking Forward
Looking forward in this course, I personally need to work on giving better feedback to other students. Sometimes I give people a generic comment, and I should put more time and effort into my responses. Also when giving them positive words back, I should be more specific in what exactly I like about their story or posts, and if I have any suggestions I should be more clear with those.

Cat Criticism: Cheezburger

I believe that all criticism can be beneficial to writers whether it is brutal or not. We all hate criticism, but without it, we would never get better. So, I felt this image was important because not only is it cute yet funny, its message is  important. We can all learn from criticism. I also think its funny because the brown cat is definitely cutting eyes to the white one, but that just makes the image more cute. Overall criticism is important to make any writer better, we need it in order to improve our writing skills. 

Week 8 Reading and Writing

Reading and Writing
At first, I found the reading assignments to be difficult. Only because there were so many stories to read and some were much longer than others and I was so confused on what to put into my notes and what not to put in them. However after a few weeks of the weekly readings, I got the hang of it. It did help that we had two reading assignments each week and were required to document out notes. I also found it beneficial when I realized we did not have to have notes for each story, but only the ones that we were interested in, or thought about retelling. This helped since each reading part had about 10 stories within it. I do believe that the reading notes help when it comes to picking which story I want to retell each week, however if I create poor notes, sometime I have to reread the original stories a few time, but I do find the weekly notes to be beneficial. I keep my reading notes to simple bullet points and highlight the main ideas of the stories, and maybe a few fine details. This helps when I go back to my notes in remembering what the story was about.

Class Project
So far, I am really enjoying the class project. While at first, I was very confused and kind of intimidated by what the project entailed, but I am actually having fun with it. Since my project is about traveling and is a little more personal than others, I am enjoying telling my personal story. I am also finding it fun to include my personal experiences to the original stories from around the world. I look forward to continuing the project this semester!

Biggest Accomplishment
In this class so far, I believe that my biggest accomplishment would be stepping out of my comfort zone and telling my story. While this is a challenge in itself, I am enjoying sharing a little of my life story through my storybook.

Everyday Quote: Mesewcrazy

I really like this photo that I used in the learning challenge extra credit. It's a little reminder to find the good in each and every day. While so much negative and bad things could occur in a day, its important to focus on the positive in life. I also like this photo because its an informal one that looks like something someone created for themselves.

Looking Forward
One way I can improve my reading and writing in this course would be to take more time to make sure I am satisfied with what I am creating. I could improve my weekly notes by maybe not using bullet points but actual sentences to improve the detail I put into my notes and a way I could improve my writing/ stories would be to improve my author's notes. I could explain better what the story was originally about and improve what I changed or fixed.

Week 7 Storytelling: The Bonze and his tricks

While we read the Story of "The Miserly Farmer", here is the story behind the Bonze.

The Bonze (priest) has been known to trick farmers, but not just any farmer. He tries to out smart the farmers of fruits. While everyone loves fruit, fruit farmers are the easiest to trick, according to the Bonze. Since everyone loves to eat fruit because of its colorful appearance and its sweet flavor, no one can pass up a good piece of fruit. So here we are, with the story of the Bonze.

Farmers Market streets: Wikimedia

Growing up, the Bonze had everything and knew everything, but he was always put down for the way he looked. While he was very knowledgeable and respected, people didn't care for him as a priest. So, he had to find a way to support himself. 

While he was able to live a life full of happiness, he always felt something was missing. Every week he walked the streets of the market and admired the sellers there. There was everything and anything at the market, but the fruit stands were always the most loved.

Although he didn't have a green thumb to grow his own produce, he always bought a fruit each time he went.

Then, he came up with an idea.

He could trick the sellers into giving him free fruit if he dressed up as a homeless priest. He thought to himself, who could deny a Bonze fruit if he is suffering.

So from then on, he decided to dress the part in order to get fruit from the farmers at the market.

He knew this plan was wrong and that he shouldn't do it, but he wasn't one to have a green thumb, and he loved the fruits of the markets. So if it meant he had to trick a few people in order to get what he wanted, he was willing to do so.

So from then on, the Bonze used his great knowledge to trick the farmers and get the sweet tasty fruits.


Author's Note:
The Misery Farmer
The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921)

In the original story, it focuses on the way that the Bonze tricked the farmer. While the farmer harvested these sweet pairs and refused to give one to the Bonze, he used his ways to steal everything that the farmer had once had. He drew the attention of crowds by growing his own pairs on a tree and giving them out to the people, but in the end he ended up taking the farmers pears and axle from his cart. So, I decided to give you the back story of how the Bonze became so sneaky and trickster like in order to get the fruits of the market.