Reading Notes: Stories from Congo Part A

 Story source: Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).

From Congo Unit -   Ngomba's Balloon

 

Story has overtones similar to 1001 nights which I am more familiar with - beginning starts out with meeting at lake and an agreement/bargain to not get murdered. The murderer husband turns out to be pretty okay for a murderer but the wife doesn't want to stick around forever, stuck waiting on the murderer husband to come back from his murderer business. 

 She gets the people around her in on it and the slowly build a balloon to load up and escape. The murderer husband gets suspicious for several days but she distracts him with food and dancing. On the last day when she is asleep she can't distract him so he decides to murder her with a hot wire up the nose.

 At this point her sister, who is now a cricket, comes in and chirps so the murder husband will dance and be distracted. So no one gets murdered! Once he leaves again in the morning, they load up in the balloon and go to her hometown. Her family is like whoa where you have been?! Then the murder husband shows up and her family is like uh oh. But they trick him, get him tossed in a hole and he gets murdered instead. Everyone doesn't live happily ever after, but most of the folks live so that's pretty happy! 

"Highland Village Balloon Festival" by TexasEagle is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

 

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I love the reading, mainly because I love reading! I definitely needed this week to kind of reset and reassess my schedule. I'm trying to get back on track with how life kind of steam rolled me in week 7, but onward and upwards! I have really loved researching and looking for things to write about for my story projects. I have bookmarked so many things and given myself so many ideas. I"m just really excited to be writing fiction. It has been years of academic writing so to write something creative that doesn't require a citation in everything other sentence is a really great change of pace. I just have to remember that my stories don't have to be perfect, I just need to explore and try to write something and have fun. 

"Just Write" by Sean MacEntee is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

 

Going forward I just really need to focus on readjusting my schedule with what life has thrown at me in this weird semester. But that's easy enough to change now that I know what I need to do!

Week 8 Progress

 

1. Looking back. I am okay with my progress knowing what all I had going on in my life I didn't completely give up, I did some things. I would liked to have done more things but I have to acknowledge that sometimes my best is just getting something done and getting some points and moving on to the next week and trying again. And I'm proud of that honestly. Like it it has taken YEARS to get the point where I am not in a full on panic because everything isn't just right. Still working through that but it is so much better. I am using a decent amount of extra credit and to get back where I want to be I'll be using more going forward, but I'm honestly okay with that as well. We had a rough few weeks in my house so I am greatful that the extra credit is there. I have enjoyed reading and writing the most. Commenting on other people's blogs and stories is still a bit anxiety inducing for me but I'm getting there. The website and blog development haven't been bad at all!

2. Looking forward. I may try to update the blog theme a little going forward. I think I'm pretty happy with the way I have the website set up right now so I don't want to mess with that too much. I am going to try to change up my scheduling of myself a bit this week and see if that doesn't help with some things going on with other classes/practicum and at home. Fingers crossed!

3. Image.We've come a long way!

"Rock Climbing in the Western Cape" by South African Tourism is licensed under CC BY 2.0
 

 

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

 

1. Feedback in. - I'm getting great comments from other students! The comments I find to be most useful are those that call attention to things I have missed - is something I wrote completely unclear? Or does something not read quite the way I thought it would. Sometimes I know what I mean but that doesn't mean it 'translates' to everyone else - that helps me figure out how to write things so everyone can read them and understand me.

 

2. Feedback out.  - I still feel like I struggle leaving detailed enough feedback sometimes. On some stories it is hard to find anything to give feedback on other than "this was great, I really liked the way you wrote it!" so that has been a struggle. That's the luck of the draw with the randomizer though. And 100% honesty, when the week is a struggle feedback is the thing I am most likely to miss doing and instead do extra reading. I'll read SO many blogs and not comment. I lurk. It's awful. Everyone's writing style is so different so I have definitely enjoyed seeing the way other people are writing dialogue and descriptions.

 

3. Blog comments. - I love reading other people's blogs! Love it. Commenting really does kind of give me anxiety though. I don't know if my blog really provides a space to get to know me as I limit what information I share online. I feel that ultimately it allows enough information that people can get an understanding of me.

 

4. Looking forward. - I need to try to check my anxiety in some way and give more feedback. It's a vicious feedback loop of "I'm getting feedback and not giving it" which causing more anxiety. Fun stuff. I don't know what changes I really could make to my intro but I'll think on it. Maybe there is something I could change a bit but I'm not sure. 

 

5. Image.

So this image actually gives a whole checklist on feedback that I love. I picked it because it really resonated with me as a social work student in the middle of a really strange practicum year. While some of this may not really feel like it applies in our online writing world, at least not literally, this is amazing and true for giving really great in person feedback to someone coming to you in a crisis type situation.

Week 6 Extra Credit Reading Notes: Project Research - Volcanoes

 This week I'm doing some extra credit reading from these pages:

Norse Mythology - Volcanos, Vikings, Fire Gods & Screaming Zombie Dwarfs - by Hannah Osbourne

Sangkuriang

Legends of Iceland's Volcanoes

For the Norse mythology page the author made several interesting comparisons between the well known Norse myths of Loki and Surtur and the warning signs of a volcanic eruption. This could pretty easily tie back into the angry gods idea - earthquake swarms pre-eruption? Loki is getting dripped on again, everyone watch out. He may get loose this time and then we are in for Ragnarok.

(Image information: Ragnarök by Doepler - Source)

The Poetic Edda further describes Fimbulwinter, three winters with no summer, as occurring right before Ragnarok. This could also relate to volcanic eruption as a large eruption would disrupt the climate.

Sangkuriang is wild and I love the story. I am not sure I could do it justice if I used it in my Storybook but it is tempting. We have shape shifting, mistaken identity, patricide, an Oedipal story line, deception and in the end the formation of a volcano. It's more complicated than most daytime soap operas and I would need to plot very carefully. 

Iceland has some AMAZING myths. My two favorites are the sorceress's magical pants and also the spinning/weaving troll. The last one evoked Rumpelstiltskin for me, which was interesting!

I have also read through information about Enkelados and Typhoeus, who are said to be under Mt Etna in Sicily and therefore responsible for the eruptions.

Tech tip: Embedding Audio - Sound Cloud

rmtic · Sonido De Volcán, Volcán En Erupción - Efecto De Sonido - Volcano Eruption Sound Effect

The hardest part was trying to find the exact audio clip I wanted and needed for my project!