Reading Notes: The Iliad, B

I wonder just how much I should change this story. It's possible I could base the story around the women with the men fighting consistently in the background, while the women work covertly behind the scenes to manipulate events. That would require an awful lot of rewriting though.

Part B continues with the killing of Patroclus, Achilles' chase and revenge on Hector, and Hector's funeral. Most of this may be irrelevant to the women's story but may be mentioned. All in all, perhaps the women are playing a chess game with the men as pawns. If their magic can influence the minds of men, and if they make pacts with the gods, they could control much of the rise and fall of this story.

The main characters of this would probably be Andromache, Helen, Cryse, and other currently unnamed women who quarrel with each other. Helen would be the most powerful sorceress on the Greek's side, having been kidnapped by Paris, she guides the Greeks to her rescue. Cryse and other women wrong by the Greeks would form the malicious witchcraft of opposition, wanting to punish them for their abuse, while Andromache might be the defensive witch of Troy, and the main reason the city was able to hold for 10 full years of siege before falling. Of course, she couldn't protect Hector, but maybe she had too much confidence in his abilities. Helen would be the most powerful witch involved in the conflict, hence why the Greeks win in the end.

(Image of Helen meeting Menelaus, photographer: Jastrow)

(Story Source: TThe Iliad, retold by Alfred J. Church)

Reading Notes, The Iliad, A

There are two Ajax in this story. I should give them different names.
Agamemnon takes Cryse hostage and plans to carry her back home with him.
I might prefer to have Cryse take more direct action in her rescue. Rather than Apollo punishing the Greeks, I could have Cryse escape and exact revenge on them using witchcraft.
I don't, in fact, like any of the women being treated like playing cards. That was all normal enough in ancient Greece but I may simply cut out the part of Achilles' presumption that he owns the woman he stole. At that, I will have to invent another reason for him to curse Agamemnon and his army.
After losing far too many warriors to Achilles, Hector rallies his troops and fight valiantly against the Greeks, pushing them to desperation.
Agamemnon sends his men to ask Achilles to rejoin the battle armed with promises of riches. Here, leave out the promised slaves. Possibly leave out his daughter's hand in marriage. He refuses.

The source for bitterness could still be witchcraft from the women they wronged on their way to Troy. Have sacked and razed so many cities a multitude of curses could be following the army, turning Agamemnon against Achilles, turning Achilles bitter, and leading to the death of Patroclus.

(Image: vase depicting Achilles and Patroclus, picture by Bibi Saint-Pol)

Story Source: The Iliad, retold by Alfred J. Church

Growth Mindset, A Critique

There are absolutely merits to Carol Dweck's concept of the growth mindset. I know I've struggled with not beating myself up over small failures to the detriment of my overall learning ability, but I also have a problem with the individualistic nature of her Growth Mindset.

The most effective learning and teaching strategies have to look at education as holistic and social rather than something that one person can control through force of will and attitude. Economic inequality in school isn't going to be overcome because every student woke up one day and decided to just change the way their brain worked. Attitude is not going to be able to buy textbooks, supply hungry children with breakfast, or pay the family's electric bills. I believe the implication that a change in mindset can adequately bridge such gaps between chronically impoverished school districts and affluent districts based on anecdotes of only a few schools is ingenuine. It paints the problem of academic failure as an individual one rather than one heavily influenced by one's circumstances and community. It also lays the blame for academic failing on the student, their parents, or the teacher when in fact these things are often beyond any of their control.

Furthermore there's a very good reason why students develop this mindset. It doesn't appear out of nowhere, it's culturally motivated. People focus on doing what they know they can accomplish and what's easy for them because failure is punished harshly. A person can take an english class in freshman year, fail it, but 3 years later make an A in English (maybe because they changed their mindset). If they retook that old english class they could pass it with flying colors. They've learned, the method's succeeded! But their report card still shows the F from freshman year. That F still drags down their GPA despite the fact that they learned from it. Being perfect is rewarded in our society, making mistakes is punished. Hitting a rough patch in life and taking a hit to your credit score because you couldn't pay rent for a couple months stays on your score for years. Making mistakes at your job can get you fired. Changing your own attitude about Growth Mindset doesn't mean that anyone changes their mind on how they're going to punish you for making mistakes, and when the stakes are so high (getting into grad school, losing your house, losing your job), how are we incentivized to maintain a "failure is okay" philosophy? The culture needs to change. Society needs to change. The blame for fear of failure is not on the individual, but on society at large that forces us into it.

However, none of these arguments for why this method is misguided or ineffective on a large scale, community wide basis necessarily mean that it can't work on an individual scale for a financially stable person in a non-marginalized or disadvantaged situation. But that's a lot of caveats for a educational method. If an teaching method is only going to work for a very few, should we really rely on  it for students to implement by themselves? Not everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Education is the responsibility of everyone as a whole. If everyone could just change their mindset on a whim, and thereby change their life, we'd have all done it already.

(image by Hunter Brady, 2012, Wikipedia)

Starting the Semester

Getting going in the beginning of the semester can always be hard. It's nice to kick back and relax during the summer but here are some tips for knocking the cobwebs out and getting back on track.

1. Make sure to eat your meals.
It's easy to forget to eat when your plate is already full with studying but remember to make time to eat and (ideally) cook meals if you can. The healthier your breakfast is, the more productive you'll be while working.

2. Turn off the music or the television.
Although we all love to multitask, distractions snap us out of our focus zone and make assignments take far too long. Turn the music off while you're studying or turn on some quiet classical music if you simply can't stand the silence.

3. Schedule time for self care.
You can't go to school if you haven't showered in 3 days. Make sure to wash behind the ears and get yourself something nice smelling for your room. School shouldn't be a punishment so try to make your studies as low stress as possible by doing yourself little favors.

4. Take a break and come back to it.
We've all sat down to write a paper in a night, whether it be a 3 page or the dreaded term paper we all know that dread. Although all-nighters are never preferred, make sure to at least give yourself enough time to step away from it, take a quick nap, and proof read (or send it to a friend to proofread). The last thing you want after all that work is to lose a letter grade for too many simple spelling mistakes.

5. Keep a schedule on you.
Although you might not be able to write down every tiny thing you need to do, listing the most important due dates (a test, an essay due, a club meeting) can at least give you a leg up on the big items. Know what takes first priority, what takes second, and what can be missed if it comes down to it. Forgetting due dates on papers is the best way to ruin a semester so try to avoid it.

Most importantly, remember to learn as much as you can and have fun starting the school year!

(image: A Student on a Laptop, Amanda Mills, Free Stock Photos)

Reading Options

Looking over the readings for the next weeks I think I want to start week 2 with Homer's The Illiad. I've read the odyssey before and really loved it but I never got around to reading the Illiad. I'm sure I'll enjoy this story too.

Another unit that interests me is the American Indian Fairy Tales unit. I'm always interested in the history and lore of the land I live on and would love to understand more of how it's original people view it.

I also want to look at the Unit on the Congolese Stories. For this I know absolutely nothing about stories or myths from the Congo and I want to branch out from writing about stories I'm already familiar with to areas and cultures that I never before considered investigating.

Finally, I'm also interested in the Egyptian Myths section because I've always found ancient Egyptian religion and culture to be incredibly exotic and purely fascinating especially considering how popular ancient Egyptian artifacts and mythology is in popular culture. I'm also pretty familiar with Greek and Roman myths and know that they were culturally influenced by Egypt and hope to draw some parallels between their story styles.

(image: drawing of typical depiction of Sun God Ra, picture from Wikimedia Commons)

Storybook Favorites: Norse, Chinese, and Urban Mythology

Norse Mythology Tales

This was my favorite of all the mythology projects. The writing of the myths is fantastic and maintains just enough of the detail and interesting bits of the story to stay faithful to the source material while still trimming it down enough to make it quickly readable. The very brief narration of Gunlad was cute but not distracting and only minor details were added to make the story more continuous. I am very familiar with and adore Norse mythology so I am very glad that this project was able to do it justice without skimping on any of the important bits.
(myths found at Norse Mythology Tales)

Ancient Chinese Fairy Tales

These Chinese fairy tales were fun to read. I'm not at all familiar with Chinese folklore so I enjoyed learning a couple. Although there were a few typos, overall I enjoyed the writing style and thought that the myths chosen were interesting and diverse. They displayed a few integral motifs of Chinese mythology (according to the authors notes) and sound very different from western myths. The layout of the site complemented the source material too. Although it's very simple, the coloring and the pictures keep the readings fresh and interesting. I loved the Chinese fairy tales.
(tales found at Chinese Fairy Tales)

Babs Urban Myths

I really enjoyed the project on urban myths featuring a woman who visits a psychologist, retelling horrifying event from her past, only to eventually involve her in one. I'd heard of a couple of the myths before but not others. I loved the way they all tied into each other at the ends and the way everything wasn't quite explained after the last story. I could tell the the author really enjoyed writing the story by their tone and especially the author's notes and the thought put into the introduction. The layout of the site suited the source material too. The gloomy, dark colors and spooky pictures reminded me of horror books I used to read with my brothers at night when we were young.
(stories found at Babs Urban Myths)

(image taken from Babs Urban Myths, original source: Urban Legends at creative disposition)

Introduction to a Dog Lover

Hello!

My name is Danica. I’m a senior on my victory lap majoring in Anthropology with a minor in Religious Studies. I’ve had an adoration for myths, fables, nursery rhymes, and any kind of cultural stories since I was first able to read. In fact, the first book I was ever able to read was a big book of nothing but mother goose tales. My tastes are a bit more diverse now as I like to study all aspects of cultures and religion rather than just the stories. I’m looking forward to grad school next year and likely several more years of schooling ahead of me. I’ll expect I’ll end up a professor in the future if all goes well.

I was born in Oklahoma but I don’t consider myself an Okie. We moved away when I was five because my dad was in the Air Force (now retired). I lived in Germany, England, and Illinois for 4 years each before coming back to Oklahoma for college. During my college stint I also moved abroad to Japan during my sophomore year. I had a blast but I still don’t know any Japanese. Whoops!

            In addition to stories I absolutely adore dogs. My parents have two german shepherd dogs named Andromeda (after the mythological Greek princess) and Fenris (an alternate name for the Norse myth of the great wolf Fenrir). Can you tell I was allowed to choose their names? Now that I no longer live with them I have my own dog. She’s a corgi and I call her Ana which is short for Anarchy Dog. All of them are rescue dogs and I absolutely adore them!

            I also love swimming, reading, video games, dungeons and dragons (although I haven’t gotten to play in a while), science shows, philosophy, writing, punk music, and blogging. I love spicy food, sweet things, traveling, Netflix, and am currently dipping my toes into social and political theory. I have a bunch of mythology books and I’m ready for to start blogging about them.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

(original photos of my corgi Anarchy Dog)

Story: The Lion's Share

A lion, a fox, a jackal, and a wolf went hunting one day among the forest they called home. The fox, with her keen sense of smell, searched through the bushes until she happened upon the scent of a stag and all four chased after it. They chased the prey between the trees until the wolf was able to catch him and bring him down.

As they stood puffing over their meal the lion ordered, “strip the meat of its hide and quarter it so that we may divide the meal accordingly.”

So the jackal stripped the meat and the wolf and the fox helped her to quarter it. When they were done, the lion stood over the stag and decreed, “Now that there are four parts, we will divide it appropriately. For my part in the chase I will take one quarter of the meat. For my wisdom and guidance, I will take another quarter as proper payment. I will take the third as your thanks for my graciousness for I could kill the three of you with a swipe of my paw if I so chose and yet I choose to leave you with the last quarter. As for that, you may decide among yourselves how you will split it between you. I make no claim to it.”

            Dismayed and out of breath, the fox, the jackal, and the wolf watched the lion leave with his three-quarters share.

            “This isn’t fair!” said the jackal. “We did all the work but now he takes the most meat! What are we to do?”

            “We should take our portion and go home,” said the fox, “the lion is right. We are no match for him.”

            “No,” said the wolf. “I have family who have had dealings with this lion. Perhaps they will know what to do.”

            So each animal took their small share of meat and returned home. They asked their mothers and their fathers and their neighbors about the lion and each, in turn, agreed that yes, they had hunted with the lion and each time he had taken an undo share of the bounty. The fox and the jackal and the wolf met again in the woods and they each told their stories of family who had gone hungry at the expense of the lion.

            The next day at dawn they each roused their loved ones and made for the lion who slept alone under a tree with his belly full of meat. They surrounded him as he slept and he woke startled to find that one hundred of his former hunting partners had returned for their share of the meat. They took his meat from him and when he had no more meat to give they tore him apart and took back the meat that way for although he could kill one animal with his strike he could not kill them all. With the lion gone and a new appreciation between the animals of the forest, the fox, the jackal, the wolf, and all their families hunted freely and equitably from that time forward.

The king may rule the day but the mob will not suffer under a tyrant forever.

Author's Note: This is a retelling of Aesop's fable The Lion's Share. In the original, the lion ate the entire stag while the other three left hungry with no retribution. I decided to give the story a better ending.

(The Fables of Aesop. Joseph Jacobs. The Lion's Share. Link)

(Picture of a Lion from pixabay)

My Favorite Place

The British Museum in London is one of my favorite places in the world. It's beautifully laid out with too many exhibits to visit in a day. If I lived in London I'm sure I'd visit the museum once a month. Of course my favorite part as a little girl was listening to the audio tour of the Egyptian artifacts. This was where I first learned of Sekhmet, the blood thirsty daughter of Ra. Interestingly, although she was a warrior goddess who killed scores of humans in a bloody rampage, she was also known as the goddess of love and healing. The British Museum may have begun my fascination with Ancient Egyptian mythology.

(top image: panorama view of the British Museum, taken by wikipedia user Muffingg (2010). wikipedia)
(bottom images: photos of standing and sitting goddess Sekhmet at British Museum, left by wikipedia user Asavaa (2005), right by user Stormnight (2006). wikipedia)

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