Microfiction Week 2

The alligator tries to trick a monkey across a river in order to eat his heart. The monkey realizes this and tricks the alligator into taking him back to land.

Late nights don't stop the train.

Picture from Twitter

Authors Note: The first short story is a two sentence microfiction where I tried to basically retell the story I read in this week's reading, but in two sentences. The 6 word story is about a picture I found on twitter under the #6wordstory hashtag. I think it is hard to tell a story in 6 words as it leaves basically everything up to interpretation. I also counted the conjunction "don't" as one word so maybe it is actually a 7 word story.

Original story source: 

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Feedback Thoughts

For this assignment I read Why rejection hurts so much and Seven ways to crush self doubt. I think the biggest thing that I learned from reading these two articles is something that we have learned before, the growth mindset. Both of the articles mention this mindset in a sense, one directly and one indirectly. They both admit that having a little self-doubt is good and is necessary in order to be able to reflect upon yourself and your past decisions but dragging yourself down because of those decisions is bad and should not happen. I think some of the best forms of feedback I've received is that from my friends. They are never afraid to tell me how it is, even if that is something I may not want to hear. The good thing is they are always helpful in finding solutions to my problems as well. 

Image from Cheezburger

Topic Brainstorm

The Gods: There are so many different gods in the Hindu culture I think it would be interesting to learn more about a couple and what they represent. I have a little previous knowledge on the subject as my mother is very religious and I go to the Hindu temple decently frequently with her when I am back in my hometown of St. Louis. However,  I have never really taken the time to learn about everything in there and I think this would be a good chance in order to actually learn more.

Weapons of the Gods: I've always been interested in ancient conflicts as times were so much different back then that the conflict resolutions aren't as applicable anymore. Sometimes this conflict was resolved through war or physical violence. I think it would be interesting to learn more about these conflicts and the weapons used in them. These weapons could be both physical weapons like spears and axes and what not but I'm sure there are other supernatural weapons used like being able to summon storms and things like that.

Animal Characters of the Ramayana: I have been very interested in animals my whole life. Animals also always play a huge part in stories all over the world. I think it would be interesting to look at the similarities and differences that animals play in the Hindu epics as compared to something like the Bible. I have a little previous knowledge about this as I know that in Hinduism, most gods have an animal associated with them as their vessel. I'm not sure if there are similar things in other religions but that might be something interesting to look into.

Food: I love food. Most people love food. I took a class last year called Diet in the Mediterranean, which I have mentioned before, that delved very deeply into what exactly food can tell us about a religion, place, or people. Taking this knowledge into the Hindu epics would be a good way to tie together different classes.

Some statues of Hindu Gods

Flickr

Week 2 Story

Fool's Gold

Once upon a time, sailing an ocean far away, was a pirate that sailed the open seas, looting everything in sight. This pirate was considered to be the richest in all the land and him and his crew were always clever in order to not get caught. Deep under the sea, there was a Kraken and his wife that lived in solitude, but always longed the riches that land contained. One day the wife turned to the Kraken and said, “Oh Kraken king, how I long to feast on the riches of the pirate. He has everything from all the lands in one place.”

“How do you propose I take his riches dear wife?” said the Kraken King. “He has the biggest cannons in all the land! There is now way that we can just sink him like all the other pirates!”

“Trick him,” the Kraken wife said. “Use his own greed against him and get him to come to the sea alone.” That day when the pirate set sail from his home, the Kraken approached his ship very calmly and said, “Oh most successful pirate, I have found a whole stash of gold in the most remote of locations but it is only accessible by row boat. If you will let me, I will escort you to the location, but only you can come.” Greedily, the pirate agreed and the two set off to find the loot. Suddenly the Kraken turned around and started grabbing the boat, trying to sink it. “Fool, what are you doing,” the pirate said. “I have no gold with me on this boat it is all at a secret location I will tell you if you let me go.” Reluctantly, the Kraken agreed and took the pirate to land where he said the loot was. “Fool! You have escorted me back to land. You have no power here and I will signal for my ship to come get me.” Defeated, the Kraken swam back to his abode under the sea to his disappointed wife.

“Wife,” he said, “Even though we are big and strong and can sink any ship we please, what is the point if we can’t be happy with whatever we have?”   

Kraken Sinking a Ship

Flickr

Authors Note: This story was derived from The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart from the reading anthology. It tells a tale of basically two characters and how one outwits the other. 

Original Story:
Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Week 2 Reading Notes: Jataka Anthology

The common theme in all of these stories seems to be the various forms of Buddha's reincarnations and the different lessons that he learns in each one. In this story, Buddha comes back as a monkey and gets real big and strong and is king of the monkeys. The crocodile's wife wants to eat his heart. The male crocodile caves in and says ok I'll try to get him to eat even though he lives on dry land. The crocodile then plunges him into the water and when the monkey is like hey why are you doing this the crocodile explains to him that he is going to bring his wife the monkey's heart. The monkey then tricks the crocodile into believing that he keeps his heart in a tree and makes the crocodile take him to a tree, where he promptly climbs up it and tells the crocodile that he was lying.

Crocodile looking up at the monkey after being clowned

Pixabay

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Week 2 Reading Overview

  

In the coming weeks I think I am going to read R. K. Narayan's Ramayana. I like that it is all written by one author. This continuity is something I enjoy in a book and the other option almost seems like a collection of short stories by different people rather than one continuous book. One of the drawbacks however is that there are no pictures! Maybe I will go back to the other book and look at those pictures.

As for the two videos and comics I am interested in, they are the CrashCourse on the Ramayana, Food for Gods, Ganesha, and Rama. I thick CrashCourse is a very valuable resource and I think the writing for them is very good for gaining a broad understanding of a subject, even if they might not be super detailed. In high school I watched a lot of CrashCourse videos on double speed to learn about history. The video on the foods that gods ate is also interesting to me as I have never really thought about what the gods eat and I love food. Do they eat regular people food? Are there certain holy foods that they eat exclusively? This video will help answer some of those questions. The two comics I chose are interesting to me as they are two creation stories that my mother has told me before when I was a kid. Although I never really payed attention then, I think it will be interesting to learn more about them and maybe even educate her on the matter. 

A traditional portrayal of Ganesha

Wikimedia 

Tech Tips: Browser Tune-Up

For this weeks Tech Tip, I went ahead and made sure that my browser settings were all up to par with what they are supposed to be. I think that having the word count is especially useful as the posts have word limits.