2020: Hannah's Blog

A Kiss Like No Other A newly wed couple went to Fuji for their honeymoon. For one of their planned activities, they planned to go bungee jumping off of Lover's Leap, a well-known geographical cliff. The wife was nervous and not as brave as her husband, so he stepped up to go first. He made it down safely and called up to his wife, "Come down and you shall receive a kiss like no other." The wife shakily peers over and stepped off the cliff. The bungee cord never pulled taut, and with a deafening snap , the wife's body laid crumpled at the foot of the cliff, feet away from her husband. The staff member on duty looked over the edge in horror with the safety clasps for the wife's harness in his hands. She received a kiss like no other, the kiss of death. The Tooth Fairy There were two sisters 10 years apart in age. One had all of her adult teeth, the other just lost her first baby tooth. The mother explained the phenomenon of the Tooth Fairy to the youngest. Ju...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_YB2FedY_o Once upon a time, there were two roommates and they had a platinum laptop. It was a special laptop, with immense power and can operate without Wifi anywhere in the world. But this they did not know, and sold it for a decent price to buy tickets to Lollapalooza. No sooner was the laptop gone than they began to grow dumber and dumber, and at last failed all of their classes that semester. They became stressed out and financially low since they had to pay for another extremely expensive semester to retake classes and ultimately miss Lollapalooza. They had a cat and a dog who suffered from this as well. Their owners were paying them less attention and food started running scarce. They two animals brainstormed ways to fix the problem. Finally, the dog hatched a plan. "They must get their laptop back" he said to the cat. "The laptop is in a safe guarded by the government, how will we manage that?", asked the cat. ...

This is a photo of me taken by my best friend when we visited her hometown in Wisconsin after spring finals last semester. This was the best point in my life so far. Picking Up the Pieces This piece is extremely personal, but I've decided to share solely because I've run out of times I can talk about this with my friends and family and I still don't "feel better". So, here's my attempt at "writing my feelings out" in hopes of healing. I can imagine it'll be lengthy, so I may right a series of biographies to finish what I have to say. 2019 changed my life. It shattered me. 2020 is the year I try to pick up the pieces. Last year was one of the best and worst years of my life. It was the best because I had found a group of friends I wanted to have for a lifetime. I quit rowing and kept my weight down, which is huge to me. School was going successfully and I had an internship lined up for the summer. I met my best friend and made memories...

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/china-why-dog-and-cat-are-enemies.html This week I chose Chinese Fairy Tales. The style of these stories threw me off a little bit. There was a lot of tragedy and odd things for a fairy tale. The most bizarre story was the Cave of Beasts. I suppose in Chinese culture, the man of the house receives the "best" first, thus I understand his anger when he finds out the children ate all of his duck eggs. But did he really need that many duck eggs to himself? The mother in the story reminds me of my own in terms of putting her children's needs first. This is the strangest story, though, because the father gets SO mad about these precious duck eggs that he tosses just two of his many daughters into the wild where they could have been eaten alive. Instead, they lucked out and trapped their potential predators and looted some valuables they found... to which their terrible father takes as his own when he finally decides he misses his ...

The main theme of my storybook will be urban horror stories as told by a pothead who recounts (his or her) terrifying nightmares ever since (he or she I can't decide yet) took a break from smoking marijuana. I'm still playing with ideas on how to construct the stories, whether I want each story to be a new nightmare or some greater twist will happen. I plan to follow a mix of the scary stories I chose for my topic research. I also really liked the style of the snopes website but I'm struggling with the creativity on that end. I'd like to have an element in the writing that was really unexpected and have it shock the reader. A lot of these dreams I've had myself but with some variation.

Mind Candy! Here's my comment wall for my Trippy Stories !

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/goblins-conclusion.html For my second reading this week I tried to sample other stories, but they just weren't catching my attention such as the Twenty-Two Goblins story. I enjoy story within a story plot, especially with this plot twist of a conclusion.  First of all, I'm really bothered not knowing the answer to the last riddle. I need answers! Especially because that was such an almost-maybe-I-don't-know incest bomb.  I notice there's a strong sense of marriage loyalty from these stories. Righteousness was discussed in this part more than judgment of people's quality.  The best part of this unit was the goblin taking akin to the king, even though he didn't know the answer to the riddle (bummer). He helped the king and it was really cute. On the same note, I wish there was an image for this goblin. I currently think of the creatures from Spiderwick Chronicles and I don't think that's accurate....

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/goblins-brave-wise-clever.html This week I chose to Twenty-Two Goblins because the overview captured my interest mentioning a goblin that tells riddles. I thought it would be a fun read and indeed it was. I have to say the story is quite odd overall and I would like to know how certain things came about. Such as, choosing fruit to be the carrier of gems, or why the goblin resides in a corpse (creepy!). I'm not familiar with Indian folklore, much less so than Greek mythology. One thing I noticed that I'd like to look into were the names of the characters. They would sometimes be named after objects or just something you wouldn't expect a name to be. Like, "Crescent", "Five-cloth", "Moonlight", etc. I wonder if they have any specific meaning, because within the story it doesn't seem so.  The recurring theme in the goblin's riddles are "who is the most  or best-suited  type of person...

https://pixy.org/731450/ The last few weeks have been so extremely hectic. I only completed half of the readings for week 4 and missed nearly all of the assignments for week 3. I've been having bouts of kidney problems and when I'm not zapped of energy, I'm doing homework for my other classes first. However, it would be nice to have extra time somehow because I've been inspired through my last reading which sparked my first story. Or part of one. I had really big ideas for a story that I was writing at 1 am and submitted a lazy version in a sleepy haste. I'm confident that things will become easier soon and I can improve my productivity to energy ratio. I'd like to add on to the Theron and Ana story soon and see if I get anymore great comments on it!

Urban Legend Horrors Looking back on my choices for storybook topic research, I found myself most interested in urban legends that were focused on the aspect of horror. I skimmed through a website called Snopes for more stories. I had heard of this website before but never took the time to see what it's all about. I love how easy it is to gain fact checks on really chilling things, even more so when it's proven to be true. I came across three stories that are centered about a common thread that I deem the most fear-striking component of all: Oblivion. https://www.snopes.com/collections/scary-urban-legends/ The first story was a fact check on the accidental burial of live people. The title alone struck me, as one of my biggest fears is to wake up six feet underground with no one to hear my screams, destined to die of suffocation. It's actually proven that accidental burial isn't unheard of and there have been hundreds of cases. This solidifies my reques...

Theron and Ana Theron's Charm and the Anger of  Coeus In a certain college campus there lived four brothers of surpassing charm. Although all of them were really lovely, only one bore such beauty and intellect that the whole town was under his spell. Anyone who met him was dumbfounded at his alluring charisma and couldn't fathom a mortal to be so god-like in looks but in knowledge as well.  The curiosity of skeptics drove people from neighboring towns to see the statuesque heartthrob. He mesmerized men and women of all ages with his advances in engineering and science research. Crowds of eager students in awe at his divine looks. His charm afforded the hearts of many, of which he could achieve nearly anything he desired at arm's length. Rumor seized across the nation that he must be the god Coeus.  Coeus, the god of intelligence, turned to his secret lover with rage.  "Venus, behold me, the source of all knowledge of imperial divinity is underm...

Cupid and Psyche Apuleius http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-apuleiuss-cupid-and.html http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/apuleius-magical-palace.html This is the first mythology story I've read that I want to keep reading thus far. I'm actually excited to read the next part because I'm eager to know what happens. The language style is a lot easier for me to read than some of the older English versions of mythology/folklore stories.  It was interesting to read the overview after reading the stories. Cupid and Psyche was compared to the love story of Beauty and the Beast, which I wouldn't have thought of right away while reading. I only know the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast and not the original tale. In that case, I would disagree that the love stories are similar--but I'm interested to read the original story to see if there are stronger connects. I would go as far to say the story of Cupid and Psyche remind...