Famous Last Words Week 13

Well, this week has been interesting. I got my reading diaries all done on Monday night, which is something I haven't done at all this semester. I definitely should have, it was nice not having to worry about it on a Tuesday or Thursday night at 10 o'clock. I've gotten behind on my project multiple times, but I'm gonna try to get it all done this week.

My other classes are going pretty well. I'm kind of banking on a curve in microeconomics, but who knows if we'll actually get one!

I got advised on Wednesday, and it's kind of setting in that I'm almost done here at OU. I mean, I have 16 hours in my major left, plus a minor, so only 2 semesters left. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to be out in the real world yet, but at the same time, I'm ready to be done with school. After 17 years of schooling (gonna be 18 by the time I'm done), I've had about enough. I'm also kind of bummed this is my last season of OU football!

My girlfriend and I just recently started a show called Death Note on Netflix. I was never a big fan of anime shows, minus Pokemon of course, but she showed me another series called Samurai Champloo during the summer and I loved it! Death Note involves Japanese gods of death called shinigami, and how one kid has their powers with a journal called the death note. If you're a fan of anime, I'd suggest checking it out!

This picture is of the main character, Light Yagami, and his shinigami, Ryuk. 

Source

There are only two weeks left of school, and they couldn't be over soon enough. I'm ready to move back home for the summer, get a dog (hopefully a Blue Lacy, the state dog of Texas), and get ready for my last year of school. That's about all I have to say!

Storytelling Week 13: Farther They Descend

So Dante and Virgil descended, down, down, down, further into the levels of Hell. They stepped to the edge of a cliff and warily peered into the Seventh Circle. There seemed to be no easy way to travel down the steep, craggy hill.

"How shall we continue our journey, Virgil?" Dante asked. "This cliff is far too steep for either of us to go down, and I don't see another way down."

At that moment, Virgil spied a set of particularly worn-out steps etched out of the side of the cliff. They appeared to have been used quite a bit at some point in time, although they were completely abandoned now.

"I think I've spotted our pathway into the Seventh Circle," Virgil explained as he directed Dante's vision towards the staircase. "There appears to be a bit of blockade we'll have to deal with once we have reached flatter ground."

Dante squinted his eyes to see what Virgil was talking about. Through the ash floating around, which took up almost all the available air, Dante made out a large, looming figure. It looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't quite tell what it was.

"Virgil, your eyes work better than mine down here. What is that creature?"

"Tis the Minotaur, the foul beast Theseus slew all those years ago," Virgil explained. "He blocks all entry into the Seventh Circle. But for now, we must first worry about the daunting task at hand -- making it down the stairway."

The Minotaur waiting on flat ground.

Credit: Johannes Holm

So Dante and Virgil began their slow descent. They clung tightly to the wall, grabbing whatever handholds they could find to keep balance. The steps seemed to go forever. There were hundreds, possibly as many as a thousand. After what felt like hours, the pair found solid footing, and unfortunately, the Minotaur.

"Step aside, Minotaur!" Virgil cried passionately. "None have stopped us thus far, and you certainly won't either!"

The Minotaur had been in Hell for quite some time. He could sense living souls, smell their breath. When he noticed Dante, his eyes burned with rage. Not for any particular thing Dante had done, but simply by being alive. He longed for the days when he wasn't trapped in a lifeless world.

He did the only thing he could thing of. He charged Dante at full speed. Dante barely dove out of the way as the Minotaur's horns came inches from his chest. Virgil began flailing his arms wildly to draw the monster's attention.

"When he charges me, head to the passageway that leads down, Dante! We only have one chance!"

Virgil finally caught the Minotaur's attention just as he was preparing to launch himself at Dante one more time. Once he was turned around, Dante sprinted towards the road that led to the Seventh Circle. Virgil ran to meet him, and they continued on their quest as the Minotaur watched them walk away.

Author's Note: I used the Minotaur and Centaurs section from the Dante's Inferno unit. This section about their descent into the Seventh Circle is not very long, so I wanted to extend it to display just how much difficulty I think they might have faced along the way. Pretty much everything in this story, minus the key parts, was made up by me.

Bibliography:
Dante's Divine Comedy: Dante Alighieri, 1320. Translated by Tony Kline, 2002.

Extra Reading Diary: Andersen Fairy Tales

For the extra reading diary for this week (which I'm also doing on Monday night, what?!), I chose Andersen Fairy Tales for no other reason than the Emperor's New Suit. This is mainly because I'm fairly certain the Disney movie, The Emperor's New Groove, is based on this story. If you haven't seen it, by the way, go watch it now! It's probably top 3 in my favorite kid's movies of all time. I don't know how many times I've seen it, but it's a pretty high tally. After a quick Google, it appears they only have a similar name, but I'm gonna leave it because I love this movie and feel like everyone should watch it.

The main characters from The Emperor's New Groove.

Characters left to right: Yzma, Kronk, Emperor Kuzco and Pacha. 

In the Emperor's New Suit, there lives an emperor who only wants to wear the newest and most stylish clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day. One day some dudes rolled up to his overly festive kingdom and said they could make the finest clothes the emperor had seen. Their clothes had the ability to be invisible to any ruler unfit to rule or one who was exceptionally dumb. The king agreed to pay them a lot of money.

They began "working" on the clothes, when really they were just pretending to make them and taking the fine silk and gold cloth the king gave them and storing them away. The king couldn't see what they were making, so he sent his most trusted minster to check on them, because surely he wasn't unfit for office. When the minster couldn't see anything either, he pretended he could so they wouldn't think he was unfit or dumb. One other person, the king himself, and eventually all the people acted like they could see the clothes the men were making.

Once it was "ready," the men acted like they were carrying things to the king, and gave him all of his new clothes. He puts them on, and still, everyone pretends like they can see the clothes so no one thinks they are dumb. The king's servants even carry the "train" to the cloak, when in reality they were holding nothing at all. Everyone "saw" the clothes, until one small child spoke up. "He's wearing nothing at all!" the kid said. His father agreed, and eventually so did the rest of the people. The king thought these people were right, but carried on as if he was wearing the finest cloaks and garments possible. 

Reading Diary B: Dante's Inferno

Doing something I don't think I've ever done so far in this class and getting the reading diaries done in the same night! Like in the first diary post for Dante's Inferno, I'm just gonna keep this one fairly short again to save up some material for the storybook and storytelling. 

Dante's most recognized work is considered the best Italian literature ever created, and one of the world's greatest works as well, up there with the obvious choices like The Odyssey or Hamlet. It took him twelve years to write and has 14,233 lines. That's not a typo, that's fourteen THOUSAND lines, all perfectly within his terza rima rhyme scheme. By the way, all of this information is readily available on Wikipedia. 

One interesting aspect of The Inferno is that while each Canto, what Dante used to divide each section of his journey, is a different tale in a way, the entire poem is an allegory. But there are other ways to interpret the poem, according to Dante himself. The entire first poem, from his first encounter with the leopard blocking his way to Heaven, all the way down the Inferno to Satan himself, has other political, religious, and philosophical undertones that may not be entirely apparent on the first read. This is why almost 700 years later, people are still studying the various techniques and intricacies of Dante's greatest poem. 

Super interesting cover art of the three sections of The Divine Comedy

Source: DeviantArt user TyrantWave

Reading Diary A: Dante's Inferno

Well, I've been working on Dante's Inferno for a while, what with my storybook being about Dante and Virgil's adventures through Hell, so I figured why not do this unit to get more background to make writing in my storybook easier! This won't be very long, just cause I want to save my writing for the storybook and storytelling, but there are a couple things I'd like to hit on from the unit!

One thing you have to realize when dealing with Dante is that he was an extremely knowledgeable writer. All of the characters throughout his writing are either real people, or real legends that would have been popular or at least somewhat known throughout his lifetime. Take Cerberus and Plutus for example. Cerberus is one of the most famous beasts of the underworld, described as a dog with three heads, with a snake's tail and lion's claws. Dante ties all these characters into his epic seamlessly, with not a one seeming out of place.

Pretty impressive depiction of Cerberus

Done by: DeviantArt user GENZOMAN.

Dante also created a new rhyme form when he was writing The Inferno, the first in his series, The Divine Comedy (untranslated as Divina Commedia in Italian). Dante decided to write the entirety in his new form, Terza rima. According to that Wikipedia article, the scheme is as follows: a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d. There is no set rhythm, but iambic pentameter is preferred. Pretty interesting stuff!