Famous Last Words, Week 11

Hi everybody!

It has been a decent week! The readings for the class have been very enjoyable. I chose to read the Southwest/California unit and had a blast. Fortunately, I was able to complete both readings early in the week so that I would not scramble last minute like I have done on occasion. Because of that, I think my Reading Notes have been better than usual.

For my actual storytelling, I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed in it. I was on campus until 3 A.M. Thursday night, so I had to scramble Friday morning to have my story submitted. Although following all of the necessary conditions, I felt that it could have been a lot better if I had more time. If I do decide to submit it into my portfolio, I believe I will edit it drastically!

Bedlam was today, and I'm really happy and excited to share that we won! It was a nail biting game, lasting about four hours because of the fact that it turned out to be a shoot-out! I wanted to finish up this extra credit assignment earlier, but the game was too good to ignore!

For next week, I hope to have all of my assignments done on time and of the caliber that I am pleased with. I am seriously hoping that I will not fall behind this week. At this point, it looks like I should be done with the course a week before Dead Week, and I would like to keep it that way! If all goes to plan, I can hopefully even finish before that! It is not that I do not like this class, it's just that I wanted to have this class out of the way when all of my math courses finally hit me!

Good luck to the rest of you guys!

(Optimism! :

MY Business)

Week 11 Storytelling: The Origin of the Earthquake

Long ago, before even the mountains were formed, there were willows and oaks that towered over the lands. Back then, these trees bore fruits of all kinds. No one knew this more than the Bear. The Bear was a selfish, gluttonous creature, eating anything that it could get its paws on and was not afraid to steal from others. He was so malcontent with the food that he had access to that he one day decided to climb all the nearby willows and oaks to eat their fruit. Tree after tree, the Bear propelled its growing body up every tree in the land, eating all of the fruits that it could reach. It was to the point now that almost every tree in the land was now fruitless. All for but one. There was a great, tall oak that towered above the rest. It was so tall that there are tales of other animals being able to see the monstrous tree from lands away.

The tree was considered sacred to all who lived in this land, but the Bear did not care. His hunger made him disregard this fact. Despite the outcry from other animals of the land, the bear dragged his now gargantuan body up the tree, eating what he came across. The tree was so tall and filled with fruit that it took the bear days to even begin seeing the top of the tree. Near the top, the Bear could see that he had eaten all but one piece of fruit on the tree: a lone apple perched at the very top. Determined to eat his fill, the Bear ignored the fact that it was exhausted and too fat to carry on. However, at the very moment the Bear tried to pluck the apple from its spot, it lost its grip and fell to the earth.

Upon landing on the ground, he Bear's massive body created an earthquake so large that any subsequent earthquakes that are felt today are merely aftershocks to the original. This is also the reason why Oak trees and Willow trees no longer bear fruit. As penance, all bears starve themselves during the winter to make up for the Bear's original greed and gluttony.

Author's Note: Piggy-backing off the theme that a lot of the Native American stories have, I wanted to create a story that gave us the origin to something or things. In this case, my story tells us how earthquakes came to be, why Oak and Willow trees do not have fruit, and why bears do not eat in the winter. Obviously, all of these can be explained scientifically: Earthquakes are due to tectonic shifts, not oversize bears falling from the sky. Oaks and Willows genetically cannot carry fruits that we are accustomed to, and bears don't eat during the winters for hibernation. I just thought that this would be a fun way to tell something we already know!

(The greedy bear:

Wikipedia)

Bibliography: Bibliography: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest. Katherine Berry Judson. Link.

Reading Notes: California and Old Southwest, Part B

For Part B of my readings this week, I continued with the California and Old Southwest unit. Like Part A of the unit, Part B focuses on nature and explains the origins of some notable occurrences in nature. Things like El Capitan (which I just learned was a rock formation and is the reason why Apple's OS El Capitan gives users the default wallpaper of the rock formation), mescal, lightning and thunder are told as why and how they were created. From the readings, I have to say that the origin of lighting/thunder and why mescal are so big is my favorite stories. At first, you don't really know where the story is going to take you, but in the end the story tells you that the children's adventures signify the notion that "lightning does not strike twice". 

For my writings, like I said for Part A, I wish to write my own origin story for something very common. As of right now, I think I might write about the origins of earthquakes and how they are caused by bears falling down! 

Bibliography: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest. Katherine Berry Judson. Link.

(El Capitan:

Wikipedia)

Reading Notes: California and Old Southwest, Part A

For this week's reading, I have decided to read the "California and Old Southwest" unit. Last semester, I was lucky enough to take a Native American Studies course here at OU, so I was exposed to a few of these stories in that course. I really liked the theme that all of the stories had, which was the subject of creationism. In last week's reading, it was the Inuit, if I recall correctly, whose legends stated that the raven was the one who created most of life. In this week's reading, it was the Navajo's, a prominent Native American tribe at the time, stories we are focusing on. Based on the readings, it looks like they believed nature and it's animals were existent beforehand, and that they were the ones who contributed to create life. Animals like the fox, the coyote, and the spider all created life and explain things about life today, like light, fire and other things from nature.

The aspect that I would like to take out of these readings and to incorporate into my writings is idea of taking something that we already know and changing the back story of it. In this weeks readings, for example, fire was stolen by the fox to distributed to the humans suffering from the cold.  In Greek mythology, we know that fire was stolen by Prometheus was the one who did that. In my writing, I don't see why I can't take a known, beloved story and just simply changing one aspect. This shows that everywhere in the world, the stories are all the same, the characters are just different.

Bibliography: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest. Katherine Berry Judson. Link.

(The Fox and Prometheus are one in the same:

Year Here)

Tech Tip: Canvas Profile

Hey guys, for this week's Tech Tip, I decided to alter my Canvas profile to make it a bit for personable. Looking at a few of my classmates' and friends' profiles, some of theme have yet to update theirs yet, and I didn't want to leave mine so empty! So for my profile, I decided to add a pic of Oklahoma City's beautiful Skydance Bridge, since I am an OKC native and a big fan of the landmark. I also added a short introduction to myself in my Biography section so that others can see what I am like!