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Reading Notes: Lang Unit II, Another Cat!

Today I chose to read the second Lang unit. I took notes over "The Cottager and his Cat" from because I enjoyed "Puss in Boots" so much from the first unit. I wondered if it wouldn't be a similar story and it turned out to be true! This is two stories now that I have read in which cats bring the character great luck, and to me that just reinforces my love of them. So here are my notes. Characters: Rich old man, his wife, his son, the king, and many hut inhabitants  Setting: tumble down cottage not fit for pigs, the forest, other huts, the Great Hall of the Palace Plot The old man was rich even though they lived in a hut  He got ill one day and died  In a dream, a man appeared to the son telling him half the the father's gold was ill gotten so he should give it back to the poor and throw the rest into the sea, keeping only what floats When he did this, six shillings floated up wrapped in paper He worked in his garden with his mother for the n
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Reading Notes: Lang European Fairy Tales II: Blue Beard

I am doing some week 15 assignments here during dead week to fill in some missing points. Because I read the first Lang unit last week and enjoyed it so much, I decided to read the second Lang unit this week. Of the stories that I read here are my notes over "Blue Beard" which I found quite exciting! Blue Beard was very rich, but considered ugly and terrifying for having a blue beard I would like to research to see if this is a reference to something else, because it is so strange  He also had had many wives previously and no one knew what happened to them  One of his neighbors had two daughters and he wanted to marry one of them  Neither of them wanted to marry him and kept playing him off on the other  To persuade them, Blue Beard invited the family and many others to one of his estates and they partied for a week After that, the younger sister decided he wasn't so bad and they were married  Blue Beard has to go away on business so he gives all of his ke

Story Laboratory: Getting Help

For this week's story assignment, I decided to do a story lab since I haven't done many of these. Of the listed options, I chose to read through some of the posts on the "Advice to Writers" site, and I was not disappointed! Some of them were funny, others were kind of abrasive but they all had a little nugget of wisdom to offer. Of the ones I read, I found a couple that I liked because they seemed like good writing advice, but I found more that I liked because they seemed like good life advice. Here are the two that I liked the most. "Be a Good Steward of Your Gifts" Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours. -Jane Kenyon " The Useless Days Will Add Up to Something " The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs

Reading Notes: Lang Unit 1, Part A: A Handy Cat

Hi there! For this weeks reading I chose to do the first Lang Unit because the stories come from all across Europe. I was immediately drawn to the first story in the unit, "The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots," because I have seen Puss in Boots as a character in other works but had never heard his story. The picture to the left, is an illustration for the Mother Goose Story Book version of the story. This is the moment that the cat calls for the kings carriage to stop and save the "Marquis of Carabas" from drowning. I would like to use this picture and others of a similar style if I use this story for my writing this week. Speaking of which, here are my reading notes for this story: A miller left his property to his sons  The mill to the older son, a donkey to the middle son, and a cat to the youngest  The youngest says he will likely starve since all he can do is make a muff out of the skin of the cat To save his own skin, the cat comes up with a plan and tel

Week 13 Review: Home Stretch

Hi there! I don't know about anyone else in this class but I am busting my butt to finish these assignments up so I can get an A in the class. Staying in the holiday spirit, I am so thankful for the extra week (Week 15). Because of it, I don't have to cram a bunch of extra credit assignments into next week, but instead can work on mostly standard assignments. I also caught a previous assignment that I did, but didn't do the declaration for so that was a nice treat to start this week off with. I took the time to read through the announcements for the last seven days, and that has thankfully helped me understand how class is working over the next couple weeks and what finishing up looks like for me. As I was looking through said announcements, I was completely distracted by the blurb about St. Catherine. My full name is Catherine and I come from a Catholic family, but I had never heard of her in detail. So I spent quite a while reading about her on Wikipedia and found out t

Reading Notes: Mabinogi Madness

For my second reading this week I chose the Mabinogi or the Mabinogion. I chose it because the description sounded interesting and the stories didn't seem to be any that I knew. I didn't realize that all of the first part of the unit was about the same character, but I am glad that it was. I haven't read many stories this year that are that continuous so I found it refreshing. I chose the picture above because this is what I imagined the horse that Arawn was ridding when he entered the clearing. Because this is such a long story, I would likely only write a story based on a portion of it. Because of this I chose to take notes over "Pwyll Goes Hunting" and "In the Stead of Arawn." Here are the notes I took while I was reading: Pwyll, Prince of Dyved, Lord of the Seven Cantrevs of Dyved Pwyll wanted to go hunting and chose to do so in Glyn Cuch He got to Glyn Cuch let his dogs go and started after them He hears other dogs barking that aren’t his

Reading Notes: Aesop's Fables, Another Lion

Hi! For my first reading this week I read Aesop's Fables. I have always thought these were fun stories and enjoyed some of the lessons they teach. One in particular that I read was about listening to one's parents which I think is really important, because that is how we learn to be adult and keep ourselves safe. However, this story was told from the perspective of two lions, a father and son. The father tells the son when he is young not to go picking a fight with humans because he will lose. Later when the little lion is older, he disregards what his father taught him, and goes looking for a man to grapple with. When he finds the man, he is tricked into putting his paw in a trap and to get free he loses his claws. While this is a great lesson, I thought it was kind of backwards. If anything I think that humans would be wise to avoid picking a fight with lions. So if I were to rewrite it I would put the characters in the opposite position. I would have a father tell his ch