Joe's Myths

I played the game that was recommended in the Tech Tip's section of the homework website. I really liked using this game because it was helpful to be forced to have to react quickly to what was being presented to me to type. I would recommend using this website if you need help with typing better.

My most recent portfolio story was about cosplaying , so I wanted to learn a little more about that. Cosplay is a portmanteau of the words "costume" and "play." This didn't help much because I don't know what a portmanteau is, so that was my next stop. It is a blend of words that does not contain the whole of each word. It was contrasted with a compound, which I couldn't differentiate, so that was what I looked at next. A compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Neat, but what's a lexeme ? It is a unit of lexicon with a single meaning. An example of cosplay. Link

Mike was an average student. He could handle most things his classes through at him, though he didn't like to put forth much effort. As such, he tended to look for the easiest way to do his assignments, even if that meant cheating. One day, he was given an assignment in his math class. He wasn't paying much attention, so he simply took it home, googled it, and wrote down the answer he found online. When he turned it in the next day, he was very confused by the asonished look on his teacher's face. "Mike," she said, "this is incredible! When I told everyone to try to derive the grand unified theory, I didn't think anyone would be able to do it. You must be a genius! We have to show the principal and get you into a higher level class." This was not what Mike wanted to hear or do, but he didn't want to get in trouble by admitting he cheated on the assignment. He was put into the honors math and science classes, and struggled with them. He was on ...

The story of chicken little got gruesome. This brings back the lady who swallowed a fly bit of repetition, but also included some death because someone decided it was a good idea to trust a fox. Literally never trust a fox. This giant just likes killing. If you can't tell the difference between three strangers and your own kids, maybe there's a better time to randomly kill three of them. Then again, apparently the girls could've escaped any time they wanted to, so they just wanted to make sure that the giant killed his kids before they left. Another fox is trying to cause problems. Fortunately, someone finally stopped believing him and he was brutally murdered. However, it was just her word against his. She had a severed hand, but that's not a ton of evidence. So this is where the gingerbread man story comes from. This repetition theme is pretty common in these stories. There's a guy who regularly kidnaps and eats children, and everyone acknowledges his existence an...

The first story is a wonderful example of how much trouble you can get in for lying. It also plays on the whole "guess my name" bit from Rumpelstiltskin, or however you spell it. I've always thought that was a ridiculous bet to take, as there are essentially an infinite number of names, especially if it's three words long. Nonetheless, its fun to watch someone's plans get thwarted just when they think they've got it all going in their favor. The next story actually involves death, which is always nice. There's also a lot of trust, like who believes that anyone needs an axe to part hair? The girl deserved to die a little. The next story is like the little old lady who swallowed a fly or perhaps like green eggs and ham. Either way, it was interesting to see the progression of the chain of things that needed to happen. Inanimate objects that sing the accusations of their murderer made for a good story. The image from the first story. Link Bibliograp...

One day, there was a very proud seagull. He went around all day boasting that he was truly the strongest of all the animals. He was largely ignored at first, with everyone thinking he was simply trying to draw attention to himself. Eventually, he became enough of a nuisance that the other animals decided it was time for him to show his worth or shut his mouth. When asked to prove himself, he would simply challenge the other animal to a contest. Whoever could throw a rock the farthest would be considered stronger. All of the animals would take their shot at this, each thinking they could easily beat the small bird. After all, the rock weighed almost as much as the seagull himself! First came the lion, who proudly threw the rock over a hundred feet. The bird, still looking smug, simply picked up a rock and flew that far before dropping his rock just beyond the lion's. This pattern continued with the other animals. The dog would throw, and the seagull would drop his rock just beyond...

This week, I read some fables from Aesop . I wanted to know the actual definition of a fable , so I went to there from Aesop's page. One of the features of a fable is that its characters can be " legendary creatures ." This sounded awesome so I wanted to see what qualified. A Minotaur is an example of such a creature. A Minotaur. Link

I tried the reccommended test at https://www.keyhero.com/free-typing-test/ . I typed at 71 words per minute with a 95% accuracy. I liked using this website because it allowed for mistakes and accounted for them later.

I came in to this class expecting to spend most of my time working with Greek gods. they were the bit of mythology that I was most familiar with and enjoyed quite a bit. I have been pleasently surprised by the variety of material I've covered this semester, broadening my horizons. That being said, some of this reading did cover gods (mostly roman, but tomato tomato), so I enjoyed this section specifically. One of the reason I liked this era of gods is how they are shown interacting with the world and its inhabitants. Reading how they deal with even the most ridiculous things like monkeys, bulls, cats, and specific types of people is always just so fun to me. It's Jupiter, or Zeus if you prefer the Greek. Link Bibliography: Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists by Sir Roger L'Estrange Link

I like that there are multiple stories that all contain the same animal. It's interesting to get to see the same character, which usually maintains the same archetype, from slightly different perspectives. For instance, at first the wolf is unforgiving and unreasonable, then he becomes deceitful and sly, finally he becomes more of a trickster. It was also interesting to watch religion get to seep into the life of the wolf. It was an aspect of life I hadn't considered to apply to these animal characters. I like how dogs were portrayed. I think that dogs have probably the most sides that could be showed, and these stories did a good job in trying to acknowledge all of them. An illustration from one of the wolf stories. Link Bibliography: Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists by Sir Roger L'Estrange Link

There was once a man named Steve who had a son, Mike. Mike was very in to cosplaying, or wearing costumes of his favorite video game characters and meeting others like him. Steve did not understand this, nor did he want to. He stayed as far away from Mike's cosplaying as he physically could. One day, Mike was getting into his costume, with the help of his mother, to go to a convention when his father came downstairs. It had been a particularly hard week on Steve and he was non too pleased to see his son dressed like he was. He became irate with his wife about how she enabled this weirdness in their son and eventually slammed a book on the table to express his frustration. Steve's wife took this as a cue to leave, and hurridly took Mike to his convention. After cooling down a little bit, Steve realized he had made a mistake and was determined to apologize for it. He knew where the convention was taking place and drove there himself. When he got to the convention hall, he spoke...

A common theme I'm seeing in these stories is people not doing what they're told. In the first case, it's the crow not telling the people that the girl is dead. I don't remember any others of the top of my head, but this fact remains pretty consistantly. Also, there is another story with animal sex. At least this time somebody sees something wrong with it, although it's a bit weird that their first assumption upon seeing a pregnant woman is "the dog must've done it." Makes me concerned about the rest of those people's lives. This dude is friends with the deer despite being an avid deer hunter. You know who my best friend is? A serial killer. Makes a lot of sense if you don't think about it. These people have some sort of cannabilistic ritual where they knowingly kill and eat each other but magically bring them back to life. That's got to be some sort of torture. Magic turkeys who expect a lot in return for their magic.All of that last story...

Immediately starts with bestiality and rape. This is going to be fun. Nobody questioned why the young unmarried boy was a father or who the mother was and then let him take the kid. Wholesome people we have here. Then the raped cow becomes a woman, because why not. That first story was wild from the start and only got weirder. The second one involved less rape, but was still strange. She killed her entire family, essentially forcing them to ascend to the stars, because nobody could figure out how to tell this guy no. The rest of the stories use the same general scheme: some odd marriage request involving animals and some of the animals try to help. I'm not a fan of using animals as main characters, so I didn't take very many notes here. A mole and a badger, two of the most useful animals. Link Bibliography: Tales of the North by Stith Thompson Link