Famous Last Words for Week 6

Time to check off Week 6 in the grand scheme of this semester.  I'm always so happy to be experiencing the weekend but every time the week ends I just want to replay it because I'm in denial that this semester is ending. 

This week was a fun one and it started by my sorority initiating the freshmen and officially making them new members!  These kinds of things mean so much more to me as I get older.  I really appreciate the ceremonies and traditions so much more now when I'm a senior than when I was a freshman doing it myself for the first time.  Below is a picture of me with one of the freshman.

(Personal photo taken in September 2015.)

 On Friday I spent most of the day hanging out with my roommate.  We then decorated our house for Halloween and went maybe a little over the top.  It's safe to say that now everyone who will step foot in our house any time during October will realize that Halloween is our favorite holiday from the hanging bats, ghost stickers and purple lights decorating our door.  

Then to get ahead on my homework in time for OU/Texas weekend I did assignments ALL DAY on Saturday.  I was going to go out with my friends that night but then I was so tired from doing homework all day that I fell asleep.  I was so busy with work in all my other classes I didn't even finish my assignments for this class.  Thank goodness for all the extra credit this class offers.  

Hopefully I'll be caught up soon and I'll be ahead in all my classes (wishful thinking). 

Essay: Absense of Tragedy

After completing this week's reading diary over Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki), I could draw one major theme from all of the different sections and stories.  If you're a good person, you'll get your rewards eventually. 

Since I grew up on sugared up versions of fairy tales thanks to Disney movies, I was not expecting this when I began reading this week.  From Hase-Hime (who was very Cinderella like) to the Lord Bag of Rice, these characters all got their karmic revenge when it came to the fates of their enemies. 

Speaking of karma, that's another thing that I found interesting.  Although, India and Japan are technically on the same side of the globe, they don't share TOO much in common culturally.  There are similarities but you often link together Japan with other Asian countries if you're tallying up the shared aspects of culture.  That's what I was so interested to see the karmic theme in all the fairy tales.  I've read plenty of Indian Fairy Tales after being in Epics of India last semester and I found the Japanese Fairy Tales to be way more uplifting. 

My overall observation of the readings, is that there was an absence of tragedy for the main protagonist.  And isn't that a good thing? 

(Kellscraft)

Reading Diary B: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

This is a Reading Diary that details my thoughts of the second section of the Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) unit. Story source: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

•  This just begins like a beautiful and classic fairy tale.  I love it already.  
• Uh oh.  The mysterious old woman is giving him so very specific instructions.  
• I mean at least the Goblin of Adachigahara was hospitable.  
• Is it bad that anytime a text says Ogre I just picture Shrek? 
• I laugh picturing a guy on a horse carrying a giant ogre's arm while riding into town.  
• This old nurse is very manipulative!  
• I like that in the end Watanabe never killed the ogre but he saved the town because it's now too afraid to ever come back. 
• Hase-Hime sounds like Cinderella!  
• Wow karma is a b!  Try and poison you'll step-child and you'll accidentally poison your own.  
• In the last section of the story, "quite" should be "quiet". 
• Yay!  See everything worked out for Katoda because he was a nice person.  

(Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki from The Story of Princess Hase.)

 

Reading Diary A: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

This is a Reading Diary that details my thoughts of the first section of the Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) unit. Story source: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

•  I love that this has an audio recording.  It's such a different experience to have the text read aloud.  
• This story just has so much mystery.  
• A dragon's mortal enemy is a centipede ????
• This has the most beautiful descriptions.  I wish I could visit this palace!
• Very clever to put his saliva on the arrow!
• Hidesato thinks he has to go home but he had no idea that he had to kill the centipede initially.  
• Are these the best presents the dragon king has...
• Wait inexhaustible rice is actually pretty cool.
• Oh clever.  He's the Lord Bag of Rice. 
• The beginning of Kintoki's story is similar to the Count of Monte Cristo.
• Wow wrestling games with forest creatures, I am so jealous.  
• Of course the woodcutter happens to be one of the greatest generals of Japan. 
• This is truly a rags to riches story.  
• I love love love the image of Mount Fuji.  
• Oh mortality is sought after in every culture.  

(Mount Fuji from the Untextbook.)