Mother Crocdile

One of the folk stories that i enjoyed was mother crocodile.  It was a story about how children should learn to obey there parents and when they don't listen bad things happen to them. In the story the crocodiles would not leave the resiviors when the mother said it was time because crows had informed her about a war that was coming.  The children stayed any way and then when they stayed a general was injured in the battle and the only way to cure him was to feed him three young crocodile brains.

poetry day

Poetry day was very fun and exciting.  As a class we mad three poems together and the first and third were awesome.  The one poem about tacos however was very interesting considering we were talking about the digestive system turning on himself and having bad poop.  Yet Hannah decided to turn it around and make it pass rainbows. We also wrote poems that were four lines long about  permanent objects like chairs and time.  Our final poems were four to six lines in which people had to guess the objects.  sadly Alex wrote  a beautiful poem about love and i guess diarrheal when he said ,"it burns with the red hot intensity of a thousand sun."

 

when things fall apart

I really enjoyed the story "when things fall apart".  In some ways i found the piece to be very sad, okonkwos internal battle of self was heart breaking in my mind.  The story describe a fire that was inside of him that would swallow him whole and it did.  The weirdness of the piece however came when he did commit suicide.  The author feed you so much about the internal fire that was going to be the end of him and he set you up for his death to be a little more dramatic.  But instead he simply hung himself, he had come to terms with the fact that his country, his village had left their values and traditions behind and sadly that included Okonkwo.

open mic night

Alex and I went to the lumen the other night.  I was surprise don how many people were in attendance.  It was also cool how Mr. Reed noticed that we were there and the waved to us.  At some point he was try to encourage us to go on stage and read something but we had not come prepared with anything to read aloud.  I know that I personally could have tried improv. but would most likely have made a fool of myself.  The people who did read were very talented and their pieces took me aback.  I can only write certain types of poem or pros yet my peers were writing things I have only dreamed of writing, things that never flowed from my tongue with ease.  The faculty and student did an amazing job with the lumen magazine.

the bone by Birago Diop

The bone is a really awesome story that is written by a French writer although the setting reminded me of more of a southern African type of family.  The story is about people who go out and make this awesome kill and then a man named Mor who takes the shin bone and gives it to his wife.  He tells his wife to cook the bone until its soft and the meat was falling off the bone.  His hut brother found out  about the bone and thought he should be allowed to have it to.  Mor did not want him to have any so he faked a sickness and then his death all because of  his greed.  the wife kept warning her husband that it was getting out of hand and that she was was going to loose him.  He told her to let him bury him.  After his death Awa was taken by Musa to be his wife, as soon as they got to the house he said, "Bring it ans lets make and end of it."

Punishment

I loved the short story punishment. I thought its story was very captivating and comical at moments. In the story their are two brothers that live together and they each have a wife. The two wives how ever do not get along by any means.  One day after work the one brother asks for dinner and the elder wife gets upset and asks him where the food is and if she should go out and get a job so they could have food in a very snide remark.  Anger probably shot through him faster than you could blink an eye.  Like how dare she challenge his man hood and his capability to provide for the family, or well thats what he was thinking. He just reacted and plunged the knife into her head.  Freaking out he asks his wife to take the blame and just say it was self defense.  But the wife young round and robust knew she was replaceable, was appalled at this judgment call and decided to beat him at his own game.  So when they officers asked what happened she merely remarked, "i killed her." Denied self defense, there being a fight everything.  Her husband was pissed and made up a story about how his brother killed the wife.  Yet they took his wife to court.  Finally at court he told the truth but the judge just thought it was sweet that he try'd and take the blame for his wife.  She knew in the end he loved her but she wasn't budging.  the wife took the blame and died with a sense of pride.

in camera El Saadawi

the short story in camera was very emotionally straining for me.  Its one of those things that make you think and feel everything possible.  I loved how she brought in all the senses for her short story weather it was a lack there of sense or one sense picking up the slack for another.  Her ability to choose word that are triggering amaze me for example when she said that the light that struck her eyes were searing.  But it is also a very sad piece where they are in a court room and they are putting her on trial for saying that the leader of the pack of men who were raping her and the mend above him were stupid. She said this because he was not making half the impact he wanted to because she was not the type of woman who held her worth by the presence between her legs but by the woman in her head, "  One of them, lying on top of her, had said: This is the way we torture you women—by depriving you of the most valuable thing you possess. Her body under him was as cold as a corpse but she had managed to open her mouth and say to him: You fool! The most valuable  thing I possess is not between my legs. You’re all stupid” (3007)  Sadly however by the end of the story we discover that the poor girl is put back in the prison to be raped and tortured some more until that head strong  woman is nothing but an empty shell.