Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales

Hello World!!

For this week's reading I choose to read, The Native American fairy tales. The one that specifically stuck out to me in this reading was the story of "The Little Boy and Girl in the Clouds." It reminded me a bit of "The Tortoise and the Hare." It had more to do with how slow and steady won the race and also made it up the mountain. I think that this story was quite interesting. I especially liked that the entire story was up to interpretation. You could gain whatever moral you choose to gain. 

I was curious about how the little boy and girl were able to stay up on the mountain for a whole month with no food or water and still survive. I understand that this is a mythological story so there isn't always a logical explanation for these things, but I cannot help but wonder. It isn't exactly a possibility for sure, but it is a part of the story. 

Source: Project Gutenberg

All in all, I really did enjoy the story and found it to be wonderfully simple. I also enjoyed that this specific story had the animals helping and working with the humans in order to get to the little boy and girl. I am a huge animal lover and this aspect of portraying the animals is quite endearing to me. What did you choose to read this week?

All information has been found here: American Indian Fairy Tales.
 

The Monkey's Bride

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"Stop throwing the food! Bubaloo!! I mean it! Stop now or else!" Aastha found herself screaming like crazy at her husband. He didn't even need to be called that! It had been two months since she had been forced into marriage by her parents. Even her two-year-old son had started acting like his new father. She couldn't even manage to describe what had happened with them. She just knew that she couldn't take it anymore. 

"Stop now or else!!" The father and son repeated over and over again. Aastha glared at her son Iagoo and he quickly sat down and put the handful of food on the plate. He reached over and grabbed a spoon as he continued to keep eye contact with his mother's piercing gaze. Aastha tapped her foot as she moved her gaze to Bubaloo. Bubaloo took one look at her and dropped down next to his son. He picked up a spoon and began eating off of his son's plate. If they had learned one thing in these two months it was that Aastha's glare was the warning signal that they had to listen to at any cost. Bubaloo had grown up an only child so when he was around kids he became entirely like one himself. The messes and whining, the tantrums and mischief. While it was cute sometimes, it was not something that Aastha enjoyed having to deal with all the time. 

"Now I have to go to the market to get groceries. I need you two to make sure that this place is spotless when I return. Am I clear?" she managed to say with a stern face.

 "Yes ma'am," echoed both father and son just as a huge chunk of rice fell off of Bubaloo's hair and onto his plate. Bubaloo glanced down at it surprised and shook his hair mimicking a dog. Rice and beans flew in every direction as well as one particular dollop on his nose. Bubaloo then proceeded to try and lick his nose. Aastha stifled a laugh and quickly grabbed her purse and keys and ran outside where she collapsed in laughter. She knew that she had to be the tough one to make sure that things got done, but sometimes she wanted to jump in on the fun as well. After all she had married a monkey and her son had begun to act like a baby monkey since. She sighed and continued to the marketplace. 

***

Aastha struggled to open the door with her keys and grocery bags lined up and down her arms. She finally got the key inside the keyhole and swung the door open only to find her apartment to be... well, it sure was clean. Spotless really. It was also soaking wet. She pushed the door open and stepped inside only to have a bucket of water fall upon her head. Surprised she dropped her groceries and pulled the bucket off of her head. She could hear her two monkeys howling with laughter. Apparently what had started off as a cleaning chore ended as a water fight. She smiled remembering the special tool she had picked up. She leaned down and grabbed the fully loaded water gun. She pulled it out and immediately drenched her entire family in water. As the three of them ran around the apartment continuing the water fight, Aastha smiled to herself and thanked God for her family filled with monkeys. They made each day and adventure and although tiring she couldn't help but be happy as well! Who says they couldn't all be monkeys together? 

Little monkey, Source: earl-brown.info

Author's Note: For this week's story I was inspired by the Quinault story I read about called "The Dog-Husband." The Quinault people are Native Americans who live in the Pacific Northwest of America. In this story, a girl ends up taking her dog with her everywhere and soon becomes pregnant with the dog's children. Upon learning about the pregnancy her family chooses to leave her in the house to die, but she lives with the help of a crow and gives birth to puppies. These puppies eventually end up becoming leaders of the clan, and take their human forms for the rest of their lives. 

I didn't want the story to be so incredibly heavy so I did my best to keep it a light story while still taking the time to use some similar elements. I decided that a sweet story about a family of goofy monkeys was the way that I wanted to go. I would prefer this story to be sweet and bring a smile to your face rather than to be heavy such as the original and have the ability to bother you a bit. I really liked the way that the story ended up turning out, and I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! 



All information has been found here: The Dog-Husband, from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson.

 

Week 8 Growth Mindset

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Growth mindset is something that we have spoken about before in this blog. The main concept of having a growth mindset is looking at failures in a positive light and learning them rather than attempting to beat ourselves up about our downfalls.

You know how we all have that little voice in or head's? Like the Marvin's voice for Dory is her conscience? When I was little my voice was always gnawing at me, and it always tended to exaggerate my flaws. My philosophy has always been, if you point out your flaws to yourself you will be able to work past them and find success. After a few years of doing this to myself constantly I realized I was completely wrong. I quickly found that talking myself up after things that didn't go my way helped so much more than trying to make myself feel terrible about everything that I couldn't do. I suppose I had discovered having a growth mindset was beneficial before even realizing that there was a name for what I had chosen to do. This small decision has allowed me to be able to accomplish things I had no idea I could do until I tried.

Inspirational Quote, Source: LoveThisPic

When thinking about this class, I have realized that I do my best not stressing out about everything that I have to do helps me. I also do my best to not go crazy when I miss an assignment. I simply take a look at all of the extra credit that I can use to recover from my error. This allows my stress levels to drop.  I still feel that my time isn't being managed well, but since I do get everything done on time I am not going to take that as a terrible thing.

All in all, I am thankful that I had the ability and the chance to apply a growth mindset to everything that I chose to do in my life. It has helped me excel in ways that I didn't even know were possible. I highly recommend that you attempt to apply this to your own life. You will see a world of a difference.

Week 8 Reflections

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 This week is our reflections post. We are to reflect on how the first half of our semester has been so far. Honestly, I feel that mine could have been a lot better but on my part. I think that I could have done a much better job keeping up with the workload. I am genuinely disappointed on myself. It has been difficult to keep up with everything that has been going on. I am getting better but I am not where I want to be, unfortunately. 

I think that I do enjoy my readings! My favorite reading so far has been the story of King Scheryar and Scherezade. I enjoy reading compilations of stories regardless and I found this one to be one of my absolute favorites. I think that the other readings have been interesting as well, but this one specifically has been my favorite. I can never decide on which story has been my favorite. I think that I enjoy writing them so much that they are all quite special to me. I probably won't have a favorite until the end of the semester. That is usually when I choose to pick one or two that I absolutely adore. 

Otherwise, I find that I am good at giving feedback and critiquing my own work. I find that I am able to provide constructive criticism to myself as well as to classmates. I think that is my strong suit in this class along with my stories. However, it is never too late to change yourself and I plan on only getting better. I am going to work harder from  now on and do my absolute best to keep up with everything on my time. Good luck to everyone else in the class!

Tiger Kitty, Source: Pinterest