Myth & Folklore

 Reading Notes Part B  Photo by Jeremy Bishop from Pexels Part B: In Sinbad’s fifth voyage he and his crew that he assembled climbed aboard his ship and set sail for more adventure and trade.  They end up on an island and encounter the Roc birds again.  Once again in this story, Sinbad becomes abandoned on the island by himself and loses all his crew as well as his ship. I feel like all of Sinbad’s voyages have gotten him into a similar situation where he becomes trapped on an island and rescued later.  So, on this adventure I have thought about maybe including a longer duration of time spent on the island.  I will maybe write about how he finds the Old Man and the man captures him and holds him prisoner.  I think it would be interesting to write about a great escape on an island all alone with man-eating birds and a crazy old guy who quite possibly could also be a man eater.  Since Sinbad is a wealthy merchant, I think this would be a different...

 Sinbad Notes Part A  Photo by Asad Photo Maldives from Pexels I think I am going to incorporate some of the plots from the third and fourth voyages (stories) and try and focus on those for the upcoming story.   I like the story of the third voyage because it starts out with Sinbad and the crew docking on a remote island.   The fourth voyage begins with Sinbad and his crew shipwrecking on an island so I figure I can potentially merge the stories/voyages together since they both have similar settings.   I like how they spend a lot of time figuring out where they are on the first island and then realize there are small inhabitants that are quite aggressive.   The inhabitants stole the ship and left the crew for dead with the cyclopes.   I wanted there to be more cyclopes and we only got to see that in the end of the story when everyone escaped.  My plan is to introduce more of them early on and maybe even having Sinbad discover an entire settlement ...

 Feedback Strategies  Photo by Nick Wehrli from Pexels Feedback Thoughts How to Give Bad Feedback Without Being a Jerk This article makes it short and sweet by pretty much just coming out and saying to not soften the blows when you are giving feedback.  The author says that In order for both the receiver and the giver of feedback to benefit from anything, you need to start by not pulling any punches when it comes to giving feedback.  By saying things that are transparent and not manipulative, the receiver can actually benefit from what the person has to say.  I particularly liked how the author suggested to say things like " I have been researching great leaders and they gave great feedback, I am trying to replicate" or something like "I have high expectations and I know you can reach them, here are a few suggestions I had..." I find those to be a great way to say something constructive.  Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback The authors lists several reasons...

 Sinbad  Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels Sinbad Research:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_the_Sailor Just by reading the Wiki for Sinbad the Sailor I have come to find a lot of Arab writers were influenced by Greek writing when the story was written.  The voyages of Sinbad have a lot in common with the adventures of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.   http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/sindbad-second-voyage-cont.html In this story, Sinbad finds himself on an island with his crew in search of adventure and riches.  He takes nap only to find when awakens that his entire ship and crew have left him.  He has to escape large predatory birds from attacking him and finds a way to hitch a ride on one of them.  The bird (Roc) takes him to a dangerous valley full of diamonds and large snakes.  Another merchant crew was there and he is then able to join with them and return to Baghdad.  There is a lot to work with in this particular vo...

 Miracle Man  Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels James stepped of the badly weathered ship after what seemed like an eternity at sea.  He was approached by a man with a disturbing appearance.  Upon closer inspection it became known that this man was not just a man anymore.  He had been overtaken by something which explains why he was bruised, bleeding from self-inflicted injuries, and his wrists and ankles were rubbed almost down to the bone from the chains he wore.  James asked the man for his name and they simply replied with “we are Legion” (Historically a legion was 3,000-6,000 men).  A divine figure, James would not stand for such a thing and so he said unto the legion “leave this man, or I will cast you out myself.”  The legion stalled James and pestered him with riddles before he acted.  James ran up to the man and grabbed him by his arm and demanded the legion leave his body.  As he did so, the evil spirits erupted from the man a...

 Part B Notes Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels Notes: For part B of these reading unit, I was most interested in the story of when Jesus first entered in Jerusalem.  Jesus and his disciples first entered the city and were not accepted well by the priests.  The people loved His doctrine and that frightened the priests.  As I was reading, I could only think what if the priests did accept his doctrine?  What changes would have occurred in the treatment of Jesus in the gospel of Mark?  The Pharisees themselves were amongst the priests as well and would still have sought out to destroy who they saw as a threat to their traditional ways.  I would maybe like to take a turn away from that in my retelling of this story.  I think it would be interesting to write about the “what if” and provide conjecture as to what would have happened if Jesus were to not be captured. As far as the last supper and the arrest go, I would like to change how some things wen...

 Gospel of Mark  Photo by egil sjøholt from Pexels Notes:  Jesus exits the ship only to find a man who looks in rough shape.  Bleeding and talking to himself the man is clearly undertaken by demons.  After a long voyage, Jesus still decides to help the man.  The demons spoke for the man and Jesus asks the man for his name.  The spirits answer for him exclaiming their name was "legion" (legion from my understanding is thousands of troops).  Could have been possible for there to be thousands of spirits living inside the man.  Jesus demanded the spirits to leave the man and sent them into a pen of nearby pigs.  The pigs, overtaken by the legion spirits, began squealing and all run off a cliff to their ultimate deaths.  Possibly write more of a story for the man that Jesus helped.  After he told the people of the nearby city and wrote about his experience what did he do?  We don't get to read any more about it.   It ...

 Feedback Thoughts Photo by Lukas from Pexels Seven ways to crush self-doubt The very first topic John Spencer talk about in this article is "comparing yourself to others" and is one of the most relevant topics to me personally.  I think it can be helpful to look up to others and strive to do things successful individuals do, but it is easy to compare oneself in a negative way.  In terms of work I try not to do this because it will just have a negative impact on further aspirations whether it is academic or career oriented. Fixed Mindset "Replace the word 'failing' with the word 'learning'" is a sentence that stood out for me.  It always will go back to mindset and attitude.  Depending how you look at your feedback will set you up for the next task.  If you do so in a poor way, that would not be the most productive way to go about the next task because you already have the thought of "failure" in your mind.  by replacing that word with ...

Project Brainstorming   Photo by Walid Ahmad from Pexels   Scheherazade  From what I have seen and researched about the story of Scheherazade I became hooked almost instantly and look forward to reading more.  I have never heard of this story, but upon reading it I really became interested in it.  My goal is that this will help me develop differences in the future plots of my stories.  I might be able to do a role reversal or even write about the sultan switching roles with grand-vizir. Sinbad I have seen an animated film that was an adaptation of this story, but that had to be at least 10 years ago.  From what I researched about this story, I have no prior knowledge and I look forward to being able to write up my own story with a similar plot.  I definitely enjoy adventuring stories and Sinbad should be a fun one to work with.  I find it to be easer to write about adventures because there is a lot of room to work with.  At any...

Genji  Susanoo slaying the Yamata-no-Orochi, ca. 1870, by Toyohara Chikanobu It was a clear day in the Mountains of the Old and Genji was camped by a river when he found a dress floating downstream.  His journey of tracking the beast Orochi had brought him to this remote area in the mountains so he was curious as to where this dress had come from.  Genji journeyed downstream to find a small village no more than 300 people.  Astonished by this remote village, Genji entered and was immediately taken to the Temple of the Gods.     In the Temple of the Gods, he was questioned by those who governed the town because he had the dress from the river in his possession.  As the interrogation grew more hostile, a terrible noise was shaking the village.  It was Orochi, the eight-headed serpent, the beast Genji had been tracking for some time.  Genji realized the village was in immediate danger so he told the council he was wondering about the moun...

 Reading Notes Susanoo slaying the Yamata-no-Orochi, ca. 1870, by Toyohara Chikanobu In the beginning of the story, it opens up with Susanoo finding a chopstick floating down the river.  It instantly sparks his curiosity because he has never seen any signs of man or woman in the mountains where he is residing.  I would maybe like to focus on more of what he was doing in the mountains in the first place.  For my story, I would like to add a backstory that explains how my protagonist would just so happen to be in the same place as the antagonist.  I would like to to make the protagonist and antagonist have a history of conflict and make it known in the beginning of the story.  An ongoing feud for the ages; so there would be a little more to it.  I would also like to possibly add a minor change in plot and character names, but for the sake of notes I will use the same ones in the original story.  I would maybe take the love story out of it and make i...

  Reading Overview  Photo by Roberto Nickson from Pexels Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4. Week 3:  Adam and Eve Week 4: Noah Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6. Week 5: Sinbad Week 6: Ancient Egypt Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.] Week 7: West Africa  Week 9: China Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11. Week 10: Apache Week 11: Hero Tales Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13. Week 12: Aesop's Fables Week 13: Robinhood  Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Italian Week 15: Hunt     I am interested in reading about Sinbad and Robinhood because I remember seeing the movie adaptations of them when I was a kid.  I would like to also read stories about Odin and Thor because I recently starting watching Marvel movies.