Sunday, October 19, 2014

Week 11: Reading Diary A/B

The monkey and the crocodile story is fun to read- simple language and it reminds me of stories I read when I was younger.  The crocodile is so not smart though.  I enjoy the cunningness of the monkey and at the end how he was still on alert even though the crocodile claimed to leave him alone in the future.
Again, the turtle is very clever- I really like these stories.  On a more superficial note, how could the king think the turtle is a demon?  I could see if the boys had never seen one they’d be scared but the king?
The poor turtle.  I understand that too much talking can get one in trouble, but I also dislike how talking is somewhat portrayed as foolish.
I love how all these stories are so simple and easy to read yet make good points.  The man should have known better than to treat his ox harshly maybe in an attempt to look more manly in front of many men.
As this story exemplifies, working together is so crucial.  I have seen this commonly on sports teams- if there’s quarreling or drama, the team falls apart.  Also, being a part of the RA staff, we have to all work together to keep things running smoothly and then the job is easier and more fun.
This story is so true and so relatable.  Gossip gets spun out of control.  Whether or not the story changes, the original source may be terribly inaccurate and before long, many people are shocked/scared for absolutely no reason.  It’s good to verify some things before believing them and the lion does a good job of showing how important that is.  I also found it fitting that the lion was one to verify since he seems to run the show in his environment.
I don’t really get the moral of this story- if you work too hard, you’ll be taken away from where you want to be?
Again, the point of this story is not entirely obvious- be clever and catch wrongdoers?  I’m not really sure but the story was entertaining nonetheless.

Reading Unit home page:  http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-jataka-tales-babbitt.html

What a sad story.  At least the daughters had it right.  I think it’s sad the mother thought the goose wanted something from them at first.  I wish the goose came back to show her what she had done although the mother may have not recognized the goose at all if it looked like other geese.
Another sad tale- that’s too bad.  I hope the gardener didn’t get fired over this incident.  At least the intentions of the monkeys were good even though their actions were bad.  I wonder if monkeys are supposed to be not very smart in the culture although Hanuman was very smart.
I don’t like how the lion was so ungrateful.  The woodpecker was very smart though to prop the lion’s mouth open in the event that the lion decided to eat the woodpecker.  The lion sounds awfully full of himself though to assume he does so much for the woodpecker.  I mean really, what does he do?  Not try to eat him every day?  It’s not like the lion could even get food for the woodpecker since their diets are so different.
The wolf is sly- his perspective was not stealing but saw the fish as compensation for settling an argument.  Sneaky….
Based off of this story, I take back my previous idea that maybe monkeys were considered not as intelligent since in this instance, the chief monkey was very wise and was rewarded greatly for it.  That’s nice the king kept his promise- what a nicer, happier tale.
What a nice story.  I like how they all worked together.  It would have been perhaps a little bit nicer if they were friends long before they were needed since it sort of seemed somewhat odd that their friendship would have formed right before.  Also very odd a lion is in the same environment as the other creatures (mostly the turtle).  However, I liked how they had one another’s backs- that’s so nice.
Again, a sad story- I applaud that the wolf tried to get better and stronger.  I hate that the story seems to say that one should be afraid of failure because everyone will fail at some point but it will lead to more successes (usually).
The poor parents of the lion- they must be so sad.  This is a bit of a jump but I feel like this is what can happen in life and specifically college- some people fall into peer pressure and make friends with who they are told not to and really end up hurt from it.  Of course, it can happen any stage of life but college gives freedom that oftentimes results in bad decisions.
Cute tale of friendship (no pun intended)- this was a great story to end on.


1 comment:

  1. Taylor, this is great! I am so glad the instructions for how to choose the reading units made sense, and I hope you will enjoy doing the different readings each week! You are the first person to have done a Week 11 reading assignment!

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