Famous Last Words Week 7

here is a little Joy for your life......

Jumping for Joy

Joy,
What brings me joy in my life.
Work.
Well work is work, yes it is an escape from the problems of day to day life, it is a place where I can go and just let loose and not have a real worry in the world. But who has ever said “I’d rather be at work” I would have to be a real masochist to say that. I mean work is just a means to and end. I have bills, and things I would love to do so work provides me the money I need to do that. I do like my job but I would not say that it gives me joy.

Friends
Lately I have made new friends and had a few old friends come back into my life. As for the new friends it is a constant frustration to find just one I can truly count on. It is not their fault or mine it is just that they have not been through the experiences of my life that have led me to this present time so trust is a commodity that it hard to come by. It is just hard to open up to them and when you finally do most of the time disappointment is what you are left with, and the for the one or two that you can start to trust well it is still a long road to that life long bond that you can count on daily.  So I don’t get joy from them.

Family
If your family is anything like mine then it is hard for you have a moment when everyone is getting along so that you can just enjoy being around each other. I’m the black sheep of my family so for me it is hard to constantly live up to the lack of expectations that they have for me, but I do it. Don’t get me wrong I love my family and I hope they all outlive me, but sometimes I just feel like I got the weight of the world on my shoulders and when I pick up the phone I just want to vent, but I am unable because of what they are going through in their lives. So no my family does not bring me joy.

Spouse
Well I know it is hard to believe but a guy as good looking and charming as me is still single. I have come to terms with the fact that I will be single for a long time if not for the rest of my life. It is not that I don’t want someone to grow old with, Someone that I can tell anything to, someone to wake up with, but it is just too hard. I mean it, for all of you that have that congrats. For me I just don’t have the patience to do it. I don’t know how to meet people. So I would say no relationships do not bring me joy.

Religion
I’m not even touching that one.

Ethan
Ethan is what brings me joy. I know this because he is the best part of my day and I never feel worthy of him. My son makes me smile uncontrollably and I love every minute of it I will never feel like I am a good enough dad, but will continue to try harder everyday to be one. I will have a great relationship with his mother no matter what our past holds for us.  I will call him just to hear about his day. When I am sad and overwhelmed by life I will look at him and smile and never let him know how broken my heart is over not having him there with me everyday. The fact is, that no matter what he will love me, regardless of what I do, what I am, or what I become, brings me more joy than you could imagine. What brings you joy, because for me Joy is a five letter word, but so much more than just a word.

Picture Attribution

By Cat from Sevilla, Spain [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Japan Fairy Tales Essay Week 7

King Killing Centipede

For this week I read the unit Japan Fairy Tales by Ozaki. Most of the stories in this unit played out like a typical western style fairy tale, but with a mix of eastern influences. One of the things that I found most surprising was that in these stories there really was not a whole lot of action. In the Bag of Rice story there was a lot of time given to establishing the problem with the centipede and the reward given to the king along with the king’s life, but the actual battle with the centipede seemed to happen quickly. It was over before it started. In the story about the boy that was strong, there was a huge amount of time given to the life of the boy when he was young, but as far as the boy in action there was very little, although there companions of the boy did get a lot of time. There seemed to be a lot of time dedicated to the animals as they wrestled but when it came time for the boy it mirrored the bag of rice story because his action was over quickly. These stories seemed to focus mostly on the peripheral characters in the story much more than the main characters. I am not sure but this is possibly because the characters in the story are supposed to represent the personality of the main characters and also work to establish the values of the main characters. Still I was pleased with the stories and much like the western fairy tales I heard as a child these stories all had lessons to teach. They were positive in nature and also hinted at possible fate scenarios, in which each person on earth has a destiny and that they should accept their place in the world because there is a plan for each of their lives.










Picture Attribution

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Fujiwara no Hidesato, August 1890. From the Thirty-six Ghosts series. 9.25" x 14.25". The print depicts Fujiwara no Hidesato shooting a giant centipede at the palace of the Dragon King.

StoryTelling Week 7

The Centipede and the Spit of Doom

Giant Centipede

Hi I am Bob. I live in this village in Asia. I know it is kind of an out of place name here in my village, but what can I say, it is the name my parents gave me. Don’t be so judgmental. I mean who says your name is all that cool?

Sorry, it is just that I am a little low on the self esteem if you know what I mean. It is just that I have been going through some personal issues lately, and well it is not your fault, and also ever since MTV stopped playing music I have been on edge. Well back to what I was telling you.

So I live in this village and every night this centipede comes and takes one of us. We are not sure where he takes us, but I am guessing that he eats us. So basically my village is a buffet for this thing. Our leader is no help either, which is weird because the dude can turn into a dragon, so I don’t know why he don’t just light that thing on fire so we can have a centipede cookout.

Well today was a great day because we were rescued by this stranger. Our leader was the one who brought the stranger to us. We fed him and told him of our ordeal. When the centipede showed up the stranger pulled out his bow and arrow and shot one at the centipede, but it just bounced off. He shot another one at him and it also bounced off. Then he licked his last arrow and shot it at the centipede and this time the arrow killed the centipede. Thank God this guy showed up. I think it was pretty convenient that he appeared to save us. Our leader gave the guy some gifts and sent him on his way.

Still something was odd about the way the stranger killed the centipede. I asked someone why he licked the arrow. They told me that saliva was poisonous to the centipede, so the man tipped his arrow in his saliva to kill the beast. Apparently this was common knowledge.

Hold on now, so you mean to tell me that all this time we could have just spit at the darn thing and killed it. I mean you would think if it was common knowledge that someone in the village would have known about it. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we would have just spit at it. Think of all the lives that would have been saved. Think of the plot holes in the story about the centipede that could have been avoided. If only someone would have just spoke up.

I don’t wanna come across as bitter, because I am thankful that we are safe from the centipede. I do wonder what happened to that man that saved us too. Someone told me once that the man was actually a great king in his own land. At any rate I sure am grateful to him.

Author's Notes

This is a retelling of My Lord Bag of Rice from the Japan Fairy Tales. This is first person account of the story. I made this a silly story because the original is a silly story full of all kinds of plot holes. Still this story is the same other than the first person account.

Bibliography 

My Lord Bag of Rice/ Japan Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki

Picture Attribution

By Tod Baker from Tianjin, China (gigantea (7)  Uploaded by berichard) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Reading Diary Part A Week 7

Japanese Goldfish

Japanese Fairy Tale Unit (Ozaki)

My Lord Bag of Rice

For some reason this reminds me of a mix of Beowulf and an Arthurian quest type of story. The spin of the dragon turning into a man is a nice twist. I wonder if most of the Japanese tales have people changing from animals to humans. So saliva is deadly to centipedes, but why did the weather and everything else goto crap once the centipede was killed? Hmmmmm, the rewards seem to be a bit crazy, the rice however reminded me of Jesus and the bread and fish miracle.

The golden boy

Like the other story this one focuses more on the surroundings of the action rather than the battle. While it is the end that brings the boy the glory, this story focuses on his upbringing and life as a child and there is very little about his adult life.

The man who did not wish to die



I didn’t know that hermits were like superhuman. I always just thought of them as being more a monk type of figure. A land without death or disease? These people wanted to die, so this is kind of a mirror of the wants of the main character. So this story teaches the value of death and how knowing you are going to die makes you appreciate living each day. The people in the perpetual life town could not be happy because there was no fear of death so everything was taken for granted.

Bibliography

Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki in the untexbooks web page http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-japanese-fairy-tales.html

Picture Attribution

Ryukin goldfish, Plate XIX in: "Goldfish and Their Culture in Japan", by Shinnosuke Matsubara. Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXVIII 1908, Part I. P. 397.
Scan from the NOAA Photo Library:
Image ID: Image ID: fish3168, Fisheries Collection