Week 11 Story: A Stoms' A'coming

It was late August; just about the time school starts each Fall. Deep in the Gulf of Mexico, there was a storm forming. This was not just a normal storm, it was Category 5 Hurricane. The only reason it was a Category 5 is because there is no such thing as a Category 6, and beyond. Meteorologists were just starting to track its path as it entered the Gulf of Mexico, and they immediately knew this was a storm to be feared. They ordered their news contacts to immediately push an evacuation effort for New Orleans and Houston. 

The news anchors began broadcasting that night, an estimated 5 days before the storm hit. Many families started prepping for an evacuation. Plans were made to stay with family and friends further North. They loaded their most valuable things in the car with them and headed out of the flood zone. 

Others decided they wanted to wait it out. They had been told all too many times that a wretched storm was coming just to have a few rain showers and nothing more. This time they weren't falling prey to the meteorologists' unnecessary worries. They brought their generators out of storage, stocked up on food and gasoline, and loaded up on sand bags to keep rain out of their garage and doors. 

It was only about one day away, and many people chickened out because they heard reports of how large the storm was. Still, tons of people were set to wait out the storm. The first clouds were rolling in, and the winds were already gusting. The floods came, and they were worse than anyone could have imagined. Those who stayed moved to their rooftops, boats, and other floating devices. Some did not have anything to stand on so they were just floating around in the water, trying to find something to stand on. Fish, sharks, and other sea creatures had made it inland, and they were hungry because their normal food was not there… So many of the sharks and large fish started to bite the feet of those who were floating in the water which caused a scene of terror. It was like Jaws except in real life…

And that is why so many people in Houston and New Orleans have no feet. 

Hurricane Katrina - Wikipedia

Author's Note: I took my story from the Tejas stories, specifically from the story about how the woodpecker came to have a rough tail. In writing the story I thought I was onto a great one, but I didn't hone in on a particular character like the original story. The story of the storm, the people who left early, and those who stayed were derived from the original story, and the plot is almost the exact same. I just changed the characters a bit and made it into a modern example.

When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends by Florrence Stratton (1936)

Week 11 Reading Notes: Tejas - Bonus reading

From the second segment of the Tejas tales, I particularly enjoyed the story of how sickness came into the world. It is an interesting tale, and to me it is really cool learning about how the natives of East Texas believed different things to have occurred.

So in the story, there was an old medicine man and a Great Spirit. The old medicine man was dying, and the Great Spirit wanted him to share his wisdom with his tribesman. In order to do so, the medicine man was supposed to meet a messenger under a certain tree in the woods. Unfortunately, the medicine man could not make the appointment as he was getting much more sick. He decided to send two of his tribe folk to meet the messenger. So the two young men went out into the woods to meet whoever this messenger was. The young men ventured out into the forest to the designated tree. They waited a short time when a snake arrived slowly to the tree. In fear, the men took to sticks in order to beat the snake to death. What they didn’t know was that snake was the messenger sent by the Great Spirit. The men waited a long time for a person to arrive, but nobody came to see them. They then traveled back to the medicine man to update him on their travels. When they told them medicine man that nobody came to see them, but they killed a snake, the medicine man was deeply saddened. He said that the snake was the messenger and the tribe was in trouble because the Great Spirit would be angry.

That night, another snake came to the tribe and laid eggs all over the village. Each egg hatched a new illness or disease, and that is how sickness came to mankind.

Texas map - Wikipedia

When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends by Florrence Stratton (1936)

Week 11 Reading Notes: Tejas

The reading for this week had some really cool individual stories. For example, my favorite was the story about how the woodpecker came to have a short, jagged tail. It is said that a flood was coming in the night, but only the frog could tell it was coming. He somehow learned the native language and ran to tell the Indians that the flood was coming. He croaked in their language and warned "a flood is coming, run away!" The Indians laughed, and so too did the woodpecker. All of the other birds in the land flew away to taller trees, but the woodpecker didn't. 

As predicted, the flood came with furious storms. The water rose quickly and the natives ran for their lives as the water flooded their homes. The woodpecker couldn't see to fly away because it was night, so he was forced to stay put. The water rose so high that his tail was in the water, and a fish decided it looked tasty. With a flash, the woodpecker had lost part of his tail, and that is why it looks so rough and ugly now. 

My next favorite story was the story of when the storm god rides. He has a mighty bird which he rides around the Gulf Coast in Texas. The bird is called Hurakan. The people can tell when the storm god is coming because Hurakan makes the sky dark with clouds, and winds come to and fro with reckless abandon.

The storm god did not always wreak havoc on the natives’ homeland. There was a time when the natives were peaceful and did not harm the birds of the skies. One day, ruthless, killing tribes from the North drove out the peaceful natives. The killing tribes shot the birds and robbed their nests, and in response the birds cried out for the storm god to help them. He did, and he brought a wave of fury with him. The oceans flooded the land, and the wind knocked the Indians to the ground. The storm god laughed in their demise, and the birds were thankful for relief.

When the oceans receded, little islands appeared along the coast. The storm god had created these as a peaceful home for the birds who had been afflicted by the ruthless natives.

A hurricane - pixaby

When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and other Indian Legends by Florence Stratton (1936)

Reading Notes: Week 10 (part 1)

This unit I am trying things a little differently. Because the Eskimo stories were very short and similar, I've decided to look at the reading on a macro scale. In the past, I have always written about every story in the unit.

Each of the sub-stories within the Eskimo Folk Tales unit had the same sort of plot. One of the stories even said the same thing. The main trend is a single man and his efforts to find love, his failed love, and his hunting abilities. Often times these were strongly correlated. For example, many of the characters in the stories were unable to find love because they were poor hunters. The women in the stories sought a man who could provide and held prestige in the community. Most of the men in these stories were not noble people. They were generally poor hunters without the help of others, and they struggled to provide.

In a couple of the stories, animals played significant roles. One elderly woman had a pet bear who was more like a child. In another, a community relied on a large dog to bring back food.

When looking back on this unit, I will remember the themes of pity and misery associated with the characters. It seems odd to me that the Inuit people have a tradition of miserable men in their folklore. After considering their situation for some time, I thought it may be because women are not as prevalent in the society. So it is possible that there were more eligible men than women, which led to a trend of sad, lonely men. It is entirely possible that I am way off base, but I think there may be some truth to it.

I am hopeful that the second half of this unit will be a bit unique compared to the first half.

A happy eskimo dog - flickr

Eskimo Folk Tales by Knud Rasmussen (1921)

Week 8 Progress

I am not sure that I would say that I am happy with how I have done in the class thus far. It is my own fault really. At this point, I am still on track for an A, but I was hoping to finish a bit early. Finishing early is still an option, but things are starting to get busier and it will be more difficult than it could have been. I am most proud of my story book. Though it is still in its development, I am very proud of how its turning out. On the other hand, I am enjoying the readings the most. In general, they are super entertaining. Sinbad was especially fun. I haven't been using extra credit. Mostly because I have been lazy. 

For the second half of the semester I am looking to be more proactive. I want to look into doing extra credit because that will help me finish faster. Ultimately, I am just looking to make an A in the class, but if I could finish earlier it would be awesome. I also want to avoid submitting assignments in the grace period (as I ironically finish this during the grace period).

Motivation - ThinkingHumanity

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I have been a big fan of the commenting portion of this class. In general, the comments are really encouraging, and I think they help motivate many students to write interesting and unique stories. Personally, the comments have been very helpful because they have given guidance on where I can improve. 

On the other hand, I feel like many of the comments I give are not as "critiquing" as others. I have a hard time criticizing classmates' posts. Many of them are awesome stories that I can't find much to critique, and other times I just don't want to be discouraging to the writer. In general, I have been focusing on the positive, but occasionally I have thrown in some small critiques. It seems a bit foolish to speak about how the critiques are helpful, but then I don't like critiquing because I don't want to discourage classmates with a critique. 

For the blogs in particular, I do think it is helpful to comment on classmates' posts to create a sense of connection among classmates, but the connection is not super deep. To be fair, it is pretty impressive considering this is an online class. I'm not sure much more could be done to create connections, but I don't think its necessary either. The blog comments are very good as they are. 

I don't really want to make any changes to my posts for commenting purposes because the comments I have received are very helpful. However, I would like to change my commenting style toward classmates. My comments lack the critiquing aspect that I have found useful in comments on my posts. I'm hoping to add that element into my comments more often to be helpful to my classmates more than I have been. 

Feedback Cats - Cheezburger

Week 8 Reading and Writing

The Mythology and Folklore blogging experience has been pretty interesting. I have largely enjoyed the assignments, viewing only a few as tedious and boring. In general, I am a bit dissatisfied with my blog. It seems that each week I fail to either do one-half of the reading, or write a story. Each time I have done two of the three reading and story assignments. I wish I had been able to convince myself to put the time in to finish all three. These assignments make up the heart of the blog, and I feel like mine isn't quite complete.

Sinbad - Wikipedia

This is my favorite image from my blog so far. It is just a simple cartoon image of Sinbad. The stories of Sinbad were very entertaining, and I feel that this photo really captures the adventure of Sinbad. I have no clue whether this is even remotely accurate in appearance, but it is definitely accurate in capturing his spirit!

For the future, I really want to find the time to write all three of the early-week blog posts. They are the most fun, and I really want to develop my blog and finish strong. I think by pushing myself to work ahead I will not find time constraints to be such an inhibiting factor.