Famous Last Words: Week 9

Spring Break is almost over, and I can't believe it.  My spring break was spent down in Naples, Florida.  I went to visit my family and had the most relaxing vacation I have had in a while.  It seemed like every other vacation I have had in the past few years, I have either been planning for something, studying something, researching something or working.  This was the first vacation where I was able to relax and not worry about anything school related.

Personal Photo of Tiger Tail Beach

One of the main reasons I was able to do that, is that I have been officially accepted into graduate school!  It was the biggest relief for me to receive the notification and to say, I officially have a plan for next year.  The school I was accepted to was OSU (I know, I know, our rivals).  However, they have one of the best school psychology programs in the country and I have wanted to go there, and have been working on getting into there, for about two years now.  So the fact that I was accepted was a dream come true.  There is one other school I am waiting on before I make my official decision.  I am currently waitlisted there, so there is a possibility I could be accepted and I want to consider all of my options before making a decision.  However, I will most likely be heading up to Stillwater in the fall and I cannot wait to start my future career.  

I know that it will be hard for me to keep the momentum as the school year comes to a close, but considering graduation is less than two months away, I will just have to keep pushing myself so I can reach the end.  For all of those who are still juniors, or graduating in December, watch out.  Because graduation will creep up on you before you know it.  

Extra Reading Diary - Native American Hero Tales

For this reading diary, I chose to read Native American Hero Tales.

The Jealous Uncle - This story is about an uncle who a;lways kills his nephews when they are about two years old.  The mother of the boys and the uncle's wife agreed to trick the uncle next time there was a boy born, to let him live.  So a boy was born and the ruse worked for a while, but eventually the uncle found out.  He tried to kill him by trapping him in a log.  However, the boy was able to escape from the log.

The Jealous Uncle (cont.) - The unnatural uncle is still trying to kill the boy.  He first tries to kill him by going to gather ducks and eggs.  The uncle pushes the boy over a cliff, and thinks that kills the boy.  However, the boy has some eagle down that he is able to use to float down to the bottom of the cliff and then use to come back up.  The next day the uncle has the boy go get calms and a very large clam eats him up.  But the boy is able to escape and return with some clams for the uncle.

The Jealous Uncle (end):

            The boy was put in a box that his uncle had made and the box was put out to sea.  Eventually the boy found himself on the shore of the land that belonged to the Eagle people.  He then married the older daughter of the chief in the land.  As time went on the boy was sad for he missed his parents.  The chief told him to bring his parents to the land of the Eagle People.  He went back to his old village and saw the uncle was treating his parents badly.  He took the uncle to a high cliff and said either be dropped from the sky or swim from the middle of the lake.  The uncle was then dropped from the sky, since he could not swim, and the uncle died. 

Bluejay and his companions:

            Bluejay and his friends liked to hunt for seals, but only gave lean parts to Grouse.  So one day Grouse made a wooden seal and put it in the water.  The bluejay and his friends spear the seal and it swam for three days into the middle of the ocean.  The bluejay and his friends paddled back, but it took four days to paddle back and they were very tired at the end.  Then squirrel challenged bluejay to a climbing match, which bluejay won in the end. 

Bluejay and His Companions (cont.):

            Bluejay and his companions continued to paddled down the shore line and then hair-seal challenged bluejay to a diving match.  Bluejay won so they continued paddling down the coast line.  They then reached a village where they were put to more challenges but, were able to survive those.  Finally bluejay and his companions arrived back at their village and they gave grouse the biggest and fattest seal they could find.

(Wikipedia)

Dug From Ground:

            A young woman was digging up roots and ended up digging a baby from the ground.  She did not want to raise the child so she had her grandmother raise the child.  The boy learned to kill many things.  When he had become a man, the young woman would go out all day and come back at night with very long acorns.  Eventually he decided that he was going to follow her.  So eh followed her and saw where she got the acorns from.  He then decided to go get some of the acorns.  After he got some of the acorns, he killed a white deer, and then his mother recognized him as her son. 

Dug From Ground (cont.):

            This story was very confusing because it suddenly brought in a bunch of characters that I did not know where they had come from or who they were.

 The Attack on the Giant Elk - It was mean for all of the other animals wanting to attack the giant elk for no good reason.

The Attack on the Giant Elk - The attack on the giant elk, continued to be hard and unnecessary.  But the right person won in the end.  

The Adventure of My Life: Storytelling Week 9

One day it was a rather windy day.  My dad was trying to sleep and the Wind was not letting him.  So he turned to me and told me to go tell the wind to be quiet. 

"But you must listen to my directions.  You have to first put your arm out of the smoke hole and then stick your head.  The wind will listen to you only if you do that."

So I climbed up to the smoke hole at the top of our teepee.  But as I got closer and closer to the smoke hole, I got more and more excited.  My father did not let me normally see what was outside and I was a very curious girl.  I wanted to see what the world was like because my father normally had me stay in the teepee and never go anywhere.  So when I reached the smoke hole, I stuck my arm and my head out of the smoke hole at the same time.  Before I knew, I felt a tug on my hair and I was off!  I was being whirled around in the air, across the ground, over the shiny black ice.  It was one of the most terrifying and exciting things to have ever happened to me!  Eventually I started to feel the cold no matter what I did.  It was completely inescapable no matter what I did.

Suddenly, I felt myself land on the ground, on the frozen solid ice.  I was huddled there, shivering from the cold thinking that I was going to die right then and there.  I just waited for something, anything, to happen. 

Suddenly, I barely saw a figure in the distance.  I was half delirious by this point in time and thought it was just a figment of my imagination.  I didn’t realize that it was an actual person coming towards me, so I just closed my eyes and waited for something to happen.  Next thing I know, I was being picked up in a pair of soft, warm, furry arms.  I realized that the figure I had seen was actually a grizzly bear! 

(Wikipedia)

“Don’t worry little one.  I will take care of you.  You will be safe with me,” he whispered to me as he continued along his path.  I feel asleep in his arms from the exhaustion of everything that had happened.  I woke up when I felt a sudden rush of heat. 

“Don’t worry sweetheart.  You are going to be ok.  Let me get you warm and give you some food,” said a new grizzly bear, who I was assuming was the wife of the grizzly bear that had picked me up from the ground.

Both of the grizzly bears helped me regain my health.  They nourished me, cared for me, and basically became my second set of parents.  As time went on, I grew older.  Soon I was old enough to marry and it was decided that I was to marry the grizzlies’ son.  I had known him ever since I had been brought into the grizzlies’ house, so the choice to marry him was a clear one. 

We got married, and then children followed.  The mother grizzly became worried about what my father would say.  I had been away from him for such a long time; it was hard to imagine him back in the picture.  But mother grizzly insisted that we needed to let my father know that I was alive, married and that he had grandchild.  So we sent the eldest child back to my father to let him know about me.  We only had to wait a day or so to hear anything.

My father stormed into the grizzlies’ house, furious. 

How DARE you take my daughter as your own.  She is my child!  She belongs to me!  She does not need to marry any grizzly ever!” he spat those last few words.  “She is coming back with me to my teepee.”

“Father, don’t do this.  They cared for me when I was sick and I love them!” I tried to plead with him, but he was not having it. 

“I don’t care what you say. You are coming with me and we are leaving all of these grizzlies and grizzly children behind.  And as for YOU,” he spun around and pointed at the grizzlies, “you will never stand on two legs again, and you will never be able to speak, AGAIN!” 

And with that he stormed out of the house dragging me with him.  I cried for the rest of my days for the loss of my beloved grizzly family.

Author's Note: I wrote this story based off of the story I read called Old Man Above and the Grizzlies.  I wrote this story from the perspective of the Old Man Above's daughter and what she must have felt throughout the entire story.  

Reading Diary A - California and the Old Southwest

For this reading diary, I am reading California and the Old Southwest.

Three Coyotes Creation Stories:

            The first story showed that the coyote created the majority of the world and was the one who controlled the eventual fate of humans.  The second story is about how the Coyote helped the people from burning up and freezing to death.  The third story is about how all of the people on the earth died from the great flood, but then coyote saved the human race by creating the trees that eventually became the human race.

The Creation of the World:

            This story is about how there was blackness in the beginning and then the Earth was formed.  After the Earth was formed, the Earth Doctor made different parts of the Earth and kept making parts of the Earth until the Earth was complete.

Spider’s Creation:

            This story was about Spider and how he created the world.  He created everything found in the world, and he created the different people and put them into different clans.  The two mothers helped him by making the Sun and the Moon to give light to all of the people.

The Great Fire/The Origin of Light:

            The first story was about how there was a great fire that burned up everything on the Earth.  The Old Coyote was able to put out the fire, give the Earth water again and then create men and women to populate the Earth.  The second story was about how Coyote and Hawk created light to get rid of the dark.  So they created the Sun and the Moon, one of which burns more brightly than the other.

Creation of Man:

            This story is about how the animals of the Earth came together to form man.  None of the animals could agree because they all wanted man to have features like themselves and not like the other animals.  So eventually all of the animals decided to work together to create man.  Soon the animals all fell asleep, except for Coyote because he was clever.  Coyote stayed up late and finished man, so when the animals woke up, man was how Coyote wanted him to be.

Old Man Above and the Grizzlies:

            This story was about how the Old Man Above’s daughter was blown away to where the Grizzlies lived.  The Grizzlies cared for the daughter and then the daughter married the son of the Grizzlies.  Eventually the Old Man Above found out and was mad.  The Old Man Above then declared that Grizzlies would no longer speak and they would always walk on their four legs in the future.

(Wikipedia)

The Creation of Man-Kind and the Flood:

            This is a story about how the Earth Doctor created a race of man.  The Earth Doctor then destroyed the race and all of the animals on the earth because all of them started eating each other.  Then the Earth Doctor created a new race of man and destroyed that race because they were mean.  He created a flood to destroy everything except for two people who were good.

The Great Flood:

            This story is about the Great Flood and how the Star People went into the sky and formed the formations that are so well known.

The Fable of the Animals:

            This is a story that explains why Coyote is so cunning.  Originally man was going to create bows and arrows and give every animal a bow and an arrow.  The longest bow was to be given to the most powerful animal and the shortest bow was to be given to the weakest animal.  Coyote wanted to be first to get the largest bow, so he tried to stay awake all night.  However, Coyote was too tired by the end of the night and fell fast asleep with sticks pinning his eyes together.  So the Coyote received the shortest stick.  Man took pity on him and made him cleverer than any other animal as a way to find food.

The Course of the Sun :

            This story tells the story of how the Sun chose the path that he wanted to take, for his daily path.  The story also says when the Sun eats each of his meals, and also what he wears every day.

The Theft of Fire:

            This story tells the story of how Indians obtained fire and how it always burns on dry wood.

Coyote and Tortillas:

            This story tells of how Coyote tried to outsmart different people to obtain food, but in the end, his eagerness causes him to die.