STORY: TRANSFORMATION



Photo Credits: Wikipedia

 
The cave was covered by a waterfall so blue,
That no one could see past it, some couldn’t get through.
But one was so brave, to go through the water,
He shouted “I am Sir Yang, the most valiant martyr.”
Through the water he went where his enemy stood waiting,
A giant with a black face and red hair that was blazing.

Some time did pass once the fighting commenced,
The giant took flight, he knew he was losing, he was not dense.
Up in the air, the giant turned into a sparrow,
Now light and agile, the bird could dodge any arrow.
Quick behind him came the transformed Sir Yang,
So fast the birds flew to escape death’s fangs.

With Sir Yang too near, the giant made a wish,
Hitting the water with a splash, the once giant turned into a scaly fish.
The bird was no longer in sight and Sir Yang cursed,
“Damn this creature! This couldn’t be worse!”
As soon as he said it, his luck turned around,
There was movement in the water, the giant was found.
“A fish! A fish! That is what I need to be.”
So Sir Yang was to change so he could swim deep in the sea.

The fish saw then that Sir Yang had found him,
“What now?” he asked, fins flapping to swim.
Right before the change took place,
The fish (once giant) turned into a snake.
Knowing that the sparrow was too small,
Sir Yang changed instead to an eagle with enormous claws.
Quick Sir Yang was to keep on the snake’s trail,
He was soon upon him again, and the snake let out a loud wail. 

But once more the snake changed just before he was seized,
At this point to Sir Yang, it all seemed like a tease.
On the edge of a cliff, Sir Yang found the old snake,
But now again he was a bird in idle wait.
Sir Yang grew tired of these games and took out his arrow,
And with the skill of an archer he hit the small little sparrow. 

Off of the side of the cliff the sparrow tumbled with ease,
Down to the base of it with the help of a soft breeze.
Looking down from the edge Sir Yang stood disgraced,
For the giant tried to trick him into the chapel from which the giant was shaped. 

“Nice try, you giant, but you will not trick me!”
“For I will break your windows and doors, just you see!”
When the giant heard Sir Yang’s threats he was chilled to the bone,
For he knew that his threats were not idle ones, they were written in stone. 

As fast as a tiger the giant changed one more time,
But first he went to a place he thought Sir Yang would never find.
The giant was right, Sir Yang could not find a trace,
So he went to the Gods to find the giant’s hiding place.

The Gods laughed at the giant’s cleverness and said “Do you see?”
When he did he was astonished saying, “The giant pretends to be me?”
 

Right under Sir Yang’s nose did the giant hide,
In his own shape, his own throne, drinking his own wine!
In anger, he hastened back to his own home,
To the place where the giant sat, enjoying the life that was his own.
 

Confused as they were as to why two kings appeared,
The giant laughed and resumed his form and all of Sir Yang’s subjects ran in fear.
The fighting resumed but not long after,
Sir Yang came up with a plan for the giant’s capture.
 

Catching the giant’s leg with a rope,
The giant tripped and fell just as Sir Yang hoped.
Sir Yang’s followers soon realized they had an advantage,
And started tying him down as well as they could manage.

Sir Yang secured the final strap,
And gave himself a pat on the back.
This is the end of the giant’s mean life,
For Sir Yang’s sword killed him with one clean swipe.   

Author's Note:
There were a few scenes that stood out to me in this story. One of those being the scene where Yang Oerlang was sent to capture Sun Wu Kung and bring him to Heaven to pay for his crimes. They change into many forms while fighting each other so I thought that kind of repetitive nature of the story would go well in the form of a poem. In the end, Yang brings Sun to Heaven and they try to kill him there in the oven but it doesn’t work. So, for the sake of ending the story without a cliff hanger, I just had Yang kill him. This wouldn’t have worked in the original story because Sun was immortal. I had fun writing this story and I hope you enjoyed it!



Bibliography: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

READING NOTES: THE APE SUN WU KUNG (READING B)

Photo Credits: Yun Huang Yong

Reading B:

The Lord of the Heavens:
So the ape gets a second chance at redemption. I wonder why there were no charges. He was almost sent to death for what he did and then he was let off to work in the stables. I could write in the perspective of the northern star how it spoke for the ape and then wasn’t very grateful for it.
The Great Saint:
He is very ungrateful for what he has now knowing that his position isn’t as highly ranked as he would have hoped because of his former title of king. I could write about the way he exited heaven from the perspective of someone in heaven watching. Interesting that he trusted devil-king leaders. Maybe there could be more to the robe…that it held some sort of evil magic.
Notscha, Son of Li Dsing:
I could write this like the ape is the son and the heavenly king is his father. He tries to make him humble but fails and his teachings make the ape rebellious and a brat. I don’t know why the star is trying to help him.

The Queen-Mother of the West:
So he acts like a brat and gets what he wants and more. This story doesn’t seem to have good life lessons. Essentially it is saying take what you want and don’t let anyone stand in your way because you were born better than everyone else. The trees would go nicely in a rhyme.

Laotzse:
I could write about the feast or the preparation of the feast. He knows he did something wrong so all he knows to do now is run. He got away with everything before, why not now?

Guan Yin:
I could write about Yang Oerlang or his parent’s love story.

Yang Oerlang:
I could write a poem about all of the different forms they took when fighting each other.

Buddha:
It would not be fun to be sentenced to death by oven. 

The Destiny of Sun Wu Kung:
It wasn’t by force but by the way of Buddha that the ape was finally tamed. I wonder why he was not called in the first place.

Journey to the West (synopsis):
This was the overview of the story.
Journey to the West (conclusion):
Other endings to the story.

Bibliography: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

READING NOTES: THE APE SUN WU KUNG (READING A)

Photo Credits: Wikipedia

Reading A:

Handsome Kind of the Apes:
I like the setting of the island called the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. I think it would be easy to create an image in the reader’s mind.

The ape jumping off of the waterfall reminds me of the part in Tarzan when they tell him he needs to get an elephant hair. It also reminds me of the Jungle Book with the monkey king.

The Great Sea:
He has to try to escape the rod of rebirth. Interesting that he just left not really knowing where he was going and that he was going alone. Huh. Strange that he is aspiring to be like Buddha but yet he knocks people down and steals clothes from them. Never enter the woods to the sound of some lovely person singing. Maybe this is where all of the scary movie plot lines came from…

Sun Wu Kung Gets His Name:
So, the singer was a lumberjack but he learned the song from a saint. Why do monks/religious people always seem to live in caves? Instead of knocking he just chewed very loud. It is almost like a divine interview for the ape. I like the description of a white marble chair. The ape with no name… I could use that as something in the story. If he can’t dance in joy then what can he do? I wouldn’t want to live a life without random gyrations. Rude dude, rude.

The Master:
All he wants is to live forever. This part reminds me of the part in Game of Thrones where Arya Stark must become a girl who has no name. The man and the girl beat her and try to teach her things and she cleans the “house”. She eventually leaves once the girl tries to kill her because she couldn’t kill for the many-faced God.

Learning the Art:
Why was he surprised when the ape was there if he was expecting that the ape understood what he was saying? He learned to change into 72 different beings.

Sun Wu Kung Departs:
This master apparently doesn’t like laughter either. I guess if you want to live forever, you have to do so in a very sad and unentertaining way. I wonder if he’ll come back and become immortal later.

The Devil-King:
I wonder if apes actually do summersaults to move sometimes. I might change this story into a rhyming poem instead of a story. I think it would work out well. It would also work out well if the ape was a man because he does everything a man does. I wonder if he was supposed to be connected to his home so much like that while trying to disconnect from his heart.

The Dragon-King:
I don’t understand why it was okay for him to steal when he was trying to be immortal. I feel like those who try that in stories are always very good people/beings. I wonder why it was too light of a sword.

The Dragon-Queen:
Interesting that the queen had a say seeing as she’s a woman. What a mean guy, threatening someone with the weapon they just gave you for free.

The Nether World:
Interesting that he threatened the princes of the dead. A book seems like a feeble thing to decide immortality.

Bibliography: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

STORY: NOT AS IT SEEMS

Photo Credits: Unsplash

The early rays of sun stretched across the bed. When they finally make it to my eyes I pull the covers up over my head as my refusal to start the day just yet. My husband stirred next to me, he too trying to escape the day for a few more minutes of peaceful dreaming.

I sighed softly into the covers and turned away from him. Although he is a kind and loving man, he is not who my heart desires. It is most unfortunate that the one I love is his only brother. I am one of many who do not marry the one that they wish. It is uncommonly rare for a woman to desire a marriage and to be granted that marriage, in these days. But, he was better suited to care and provide for me and our children and I had learned to accept that.

The only problem is, there will be no children. It has been over three years since our wedding night and nothing to prove of it. How could I stand to live out my days knowing that my only wish, to be a mother, will never be granted to me? What evil had I done to deserve such a depressed tale? If doing right wasn’t working, I thought, maybe I should do wrong.

I pushed the covers down and slipped gently from bed. The morning was not yet heated by the sun’s glow and I wrapped my robe tightly around my middle. I dressed quickly to avoid a chill and went to start my daily routine.

Walking into the kitchen I saw eggs for breakfast already brought in for me by my husband’s brother and the one I love, Bata. How sweet it was to save me the trip to the coop on this frigid morning. As I begin to prepare breakfast, I am assaulted by the image in my window. With the sun just peaking over the trees, the light was reflecting off of Bata’s figure, already hard at work in the fields not twenty yards from our house.

Almost as if he could feel my gaze, he turned towards the house and smiled at me softly. Even after three years of marriage to another man, it took naught but a glance from him to heat my face and fill my stomach with nerves.

Once breakfast was finished, my husband and Bata made their way to the field to start the day’s work. I was left to clean and sow and things of the sort until it was time to prepare for the next meal. It wasn’t a bad life to be sure, but I always imagined the patter of feet running to and fro accompanied by little voices. Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can just imagine the way my children would be like. There would be three of them. All close in age and all the best of friends.

The door swung open suddenly, jarring me from my fantasy. In the same moment, it gave me an idea. I needed children and if my husband couldn’t give them to me, the man before me can.





Author's Notes:

When I read this story it cast Anpu’s wife, who doesn’t even have a name, in a very bad light. She essentially was depicted as a liar who wanted to cheat on her husband with his brother. So, wanting to give the woman a chance, I created a background story for her that explains why she wanted to sleep with her husband’s brother.


Bibliography: Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie

READING NOTES: EGYPTIAN MYTH AND LEGEND (READING A AND B)

Photo Credits: Wikipedia

Reading notes:

Reading A
                Creation:
Interesting that the world started covered in water like many scientists believe.
I wonder why Earth only started with one God, did they come in a specific order after the first?
Interesting that Ra took the form of a human and walked among them.
                The Secret Name of Ra:
Isis lived in the human world but grew tired of humans. I could focus on her and what she was feeling on earth. Although it would be hard to think from a perspective of a God.
Oh so all of the Gods are Ra’s children and his father is Nu.
It is weird that the Gods are not as immortal as other ancient Gods and could be killed by a snake bite.
                Ra and Hathor:
“So beer was made” This is a good God for sure. Filling thousands of jars with beer. Funny that blood is paid by beer. And then they got a Goddess drunk so she’d stop killing people. Huh.
I could write in the perspective of someone who was almost killed by Hathor but survived because she got drunk.
Or, I could write about someone who had a parent who survived Hathor’s killing spree and the story would be mostly about the celebration.
                The Sun’s Journey:
Interesting that the moon was created as a solution for the Gods.
So Ra got passed all of the different tasks of the underworld so that Ra can be reborn and they are all reborn at the end. I’m not sure how I could change this into some other kind of story… Maybe I could change each task to something else. I am not sure about this one.
                Osiris:
I could write a story about someone who lived during the transition from small tribes to a united kingdom.
                The Death of Osiris:
They locked Osiris in a coffin that fit perfectly. I could write about Isis and her sorrows of her husband’s murder.
Interesting that the woman was okay with her after her protectors killed her child…even though she brought it back to life.
                The Journey of Isis:
I could talk about Isis’s fear that her son would be killed too.
Why do all of these kids get stung by scorpions and then get brought back to life.
She is one dedicated lady.
                King of the Dead:
I could write about Horus’s life while he was readying to take back the throne from his crazy uncle.
                The Wax Crocodile:
The scribe’s wife was burned at the stake and the youth who she had relations with was taken away by the crocodile.
                The Green Jewel:
I could write in the perspective of one of the twenty pretty virgins.


Reading B:
                The Two Brothers: Part One:
I could write about the daily life of the two brothers. It would focus on the daily struggles of their lives. I could also write about the elder brother’s wife. What she felt for the two brothers.
The wife of the brother sucks.
                The Two Brothers: Part Two:
I could write about Bata’s wife. It could try to explain why she wanted the other brother. Maybe she felt like she was meant to be a mother but her husband was sterile. The story could be written either in the first person or in diary form. There isn’t much about her in the story other than her wanting to cheat on her husband in a seemingly selfish manner. When she was denied, she could just be embarrassed and didn’t want her husband to find out the truth of what she had asked. So, she told her husband the lie first. She thought she would be able to get away with bearing a child from her brother-in-law because they look similar.
                The Two Brothers: Part Three:
I could write about the older brother during all of this. It could include the daily life and how he regrets trusting his wife. He is very lonely and when the beer bubbled and the wine was sour, he was excited to finally be reunited with his brother. Although he knew his brother was momentarily dead, he was determined to find his brother’s soul and revive him.
I could also write about how the younger brother’s wife felt about being in this arranged marriage. Not only that but to be confined to her house, not allowed to leave because of fear of the sea spirit.
                The Two Brothers: Part Four:
I don’t know what I would write about for this one. Maybe I could write a poem about this whole section. It could rhyme and account for the guy never dying.
                The Book of Thoth: Part One:
I could write from the perspective of Ahura, Nafer-ka-ptah’s wife. How she tried to not let him go on his mission. It could be in diary or first person form. She would not be happy that she had to go with their child.
                The Book of Thoth: Part Two:
I could focus on the opening of boxes and tell a story or write a poem about that. It is interesting that he gave the book to his wife to read as well. That he would share the power.
                The Book of Thoth: Part Three:
It really stinks that the wife and child were lumped into his greed and that they also have to pay for what he has done. Interesting that he would still want the book even though it cost him his and his family’s lives.
                The Tale of King Rhampsinitus:
I could rewrite the story in the perspective of the mother or the son who lived. It would be in first person.







Bibliography: Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie

FEEDBACK FOCUS

Photo Credits: Karolina Grabowska

Feedback Practice: Staying Focused



1. Reading Out Loud
I like to read out loud as long as there isn’t anyone around to hear me. I have dyslexia so I tend to mess up a fair amount of times when I read out loud. I think I actually prefer whispering or just mouthing the words instead. I also like to read out loud (or mouth it) because it personifies the reading and makes it feel more like story time when I was a kid.



2. Copy-and-Delete
I like this technique a lot because it takes the story and chunks it into more manageable pieces. It is not as daunting to read so much when there is only a small section you can see at the time. Although, I don’t think this would be very time efficient. I would rather just put the two windows side by side so I can see the story and the reading at the same time. I prefer to read out loud than to use the copy and delete strategy. But I also like to see both my notes and the story at the same time.



3. Use a Timer
I am not sure if the timer really helps me. It might help if I was reading something so boring and full of jargon that would make my brain hurt. But, as it is, I usually enjoy reading all of the stories that people write. During the ten minutes, I read the story normally and went back to the authors note at the top to connect it all back together.



Overall, my favorite reading strategy is reading out loud or mouthing the words. It reins my focus in to where there is no way for me to start daydreaming in the middle of it. If I am reading out loud, I can catch when I start drifting off topic. I enjoyed reading the story called What the Heart Desires. It showed a level of detail and imaging that the others lacked. I don’t think I would recommend a specific reading style to someone because everyone learns in different ways. There is no one size fits all for learning!

STORY: THE VOYAGER'S WIFE

Photo Credits: jarmoluk

Dearest Sindbad, 

It was a beautiful summer day here. The wind lightly blew the hair from my neck, just enough to cool me off. When I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes, I could only just imagine that it was you softly blowing on my neck and hugging me as the chair did. Not a minute goes by whilst I’m awake that you are not in my thoughts. This beautiful day has succeeded in making me quite sentimental. Thinking of all the months we have been apart from each other makes my heart heavy with pain. Even while I sleep it is you I see behind my lids. But as I fall asleep, with the moon shining through the window, I know that you are there. Although, you are not in front of me, your presence is like a warm blanket or a soft glow from a candle. When I look up at the moon, I know that no matter how far away we are, the moon can see the both of us. Just as I feel your presence, I hope you too feel the adoration I have always felt for you. I only hope that you are to receive this message when you finally arrive at your destination. I will write more as my heart feels the need to speak with you in some way. My love – please return to me. For I can seldom keep myself together anymore. As always, I wish you the safest of travels without perils. 

I love you to the moon,
Marina




My sweet Marina,

Do not fret my little bird. For I have reached my destination at last. Soon – my dearest – I will make my way back to you. Do not worry for me. You must look after yourself for me while I am not there by your side. I do wish it were me, holding you so sweetly in my arms as the sun sets behind the tree line. It must be that I have yet to see the sun in weeks. The clouds are constantly looming over me. It must be because I am not with you. The sky reflects the way I feel this moment. A depressed and dark creature I am without my wife by my side. The crew men do not understand the perils I have with leaving you. There is nothing worse than a man who does not understand these things. For they cannot understand why the ocean does not excite me like it used to. For when I am on the ocean, I am away from you and this is always my biggest regret. I only wish for this voyage to end so that I can hold you in my arms once more. There is only so much left of the journey and I will write when I can. For now, though, enjoy the little flowers you planted outside our bedroom window and the smell of the pines that encompass our house like a wool blanket. The voyage has been rough thus far but nothing that would keep me away from you. There is something stronger than us that binds you and I together.

All of my love,

Sindbad





Author’s Note:

For this story I created a wife for Sindbad the sailor from the Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor. In the stories he was always going on voyages to dangerous places. Instead of focusing on his adventures, I focused on the “woman he left behind”. I have always enjoyed reading love letters. Although it seems like they have died out recently and have the stigma of being cheesy or not manly. This is mainly the fault of technology but it has been kicked out of our culture for the most part. Sindbad always came home at the end of his voyages, without injury and with a lot of money. I tried to write this story from the perspective of someone other than the main character to make it more dimensional.



The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).