Thursday, October 24, 2019

"Karma, Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf"

In the second unit of my Humanities course class, "Stories", focused on the concepts of morals and values. We studied and read some of Aesop's Fables to get inspiration and examples for what makes a good fable. Reviewing different well-known fables brought back nostalgia from my childhood. To get into our morals and values, we did a self-evaluation exercise that influenced some of my characters' traits. For this action project, we were instructed to create our own fable about anything as long as we end our story with a clear moral or lesson. We had to describe the setting of our story using descriptive language and we also described our protagonist and antagonist by using anthropomorphic features for animal characters in our story. Our story finally had to have a piece of symbolism in it. The parts of this action project that I am most proud of are my story itself because I put a lot of effort into and my edited photo of a scene from my fable. I hope you enjoy my story.

N.L. "Thank You Snap". 2019



“Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf"

The blossom of spring in nature made the animals’ homeland burst into beauty. Every Summer morning, the birds sang louder than an opera and the frogs played beats from their bellies. Snap Rabbit loved waking up to the sound of grace in the morning. He skipped through the forest to his job of gardening in the center of the forest. Whenever he had time to spare, he traveled throughout the peaceful forest to greet his neighbors. “Hello, how are you” and “You got help if you need it”, were his most common sayings when he kindly greeted his neighbors. Every day when he was done working, Snap would visit his forest friends to check up on and help them out in any way possible.

All of Snap Rabbit’s forest friends loved having him around. He often helped the foxes, weasels, birds, mice, and squirrels find and collect food for their young. He also took care of Grandma Owl by making her soup for her cold. Only one animal did not enjoy having Snap Rabbit around, Dash the Wolf. Dash didn’t have friends because she didn’t get along with the other animals very well. She lived pretty far from the rest of the animals, besides Snap Rabbit and Grandma Owl.

Snap Rabbit and his family lived in a burrow placed around the western points of the forest. Dash the Wolf lived in the cave 3 miles away from Snap Rabbit and Grandma Owl. She enjoyed being mean to all the other animals as her hobby. She would take backpacks from the children of Snap Rabbit, mice, and weasels to confuse them on which ones belong to who. Dash would often get yelled at by the other animals for playing tricks on them and their families, but she did not care.

Since Snap Rabbit was a good friend of all the other animals and always willing to help them out, the animals gifted him a celebration to show their appreciation for him. A “Thank You” banner hung in between the trees while Snap received gifts from the other animals. During Snap’s party, Dash decided to have some fun of her own since she wasn’t invited. She took some of Snap’s gifts and ran off towards her home with them. Squirrels whispered amongst each other as they watched Dash the Wolf run off with the gifts. In a matter of minutes, Dash was struggling to get out of the giant spider web near Grandma Owl’s home. The spider web caught Dash like how a dreamcatcher catches bad dreams and allows good dreams to flow through it.

The three squirrels ran to Grandma Owl and told her to beware of Dash the Wolf. Grandma Owl didn’t like Dash but she felt bad for her. Instead of staying in the comfort of her home, she went to go help Dash out of the web. She was still sick but helped anyway. Dash was puzzled about why Grandma Owl wanted to help her out of the web. They didn’t have a positive relationship with each other but Grandma Owl wanted to change that.

The biggest nuisance of all the animals in the forest finally was struck with bad luck while hanging in a giant spider web. After Dash was out of the web, she felt bad for stealing Snap Rabbit’s gifts so she decided to return them. She also said sorry for being mean to the other animals and gained trust from them. In the end, Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf become good friends and lived peacefully among each other and the rest of the forest animals.


Moral:

Be good to others and good will come to you.
Be bad to others and bad will come to you.

Karma is the constant cycle of good and bad energy flowing through people and their lives based on the actions of people.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

FLAVOR

In the first unit of my Humanities course class, "Stories", focused on the concepts of descriptive writing such as adjectives, adverbs, metaphors, similes, and imagery. We studied the importance of figurative language and practiced writing stories figurative language. We had to describe settings using adverbs and adjectives. In addition, we read different etiologies, which are the creation myths of the Earth. We studied how reading a story with figurative language engages a reading more than reader listening to a story. For this action project, we were instructed to create our own etiology about anything. Our etiology had to incorporate descriptive and figurative language and be clear to the readers. The parts of this action project that I am most proud of are my edited photograph of a hand swooping down from the skies, during an important event in the story, and my creative story itself. I put a lot of effort into this story so I hope you enjoy my etiology of cooking and clothing.

The picture below represents a hand sprinkling resources from the sky. Upside down, this picture represents the hand of a demi-god snapping their fingers which brings color and imagination to the island.

N.L. "Snap of a Goddess." 2019 


N.L. "Hand of Nas/Dre".2019

FLAVOR

Boom! Splat! Woosh! Siszz! These spooking exciting sounds came to the ears of mankind like a splash of Oceania washing the shores of beaches. After Xonos and Ursia created our planet, the world was devoid of colors throughout the lands. Xonos’s named means stranger, as in he was a stranger to the land he created beside Ursia. The name Ursia comes from a family of moths called Notodontidae. Xonos is a minotaur who fiercely stands 30 meters tall. Ursia has been seen once in all existence of mankind. She’s described as a fairy goddess with the face of a blossom of roses and the body of an enormous butterfly with moth wings. Our sizzling land was filled with an oppressive hierarchy of people for the past centuries. Our people looked different from each other. No family was the same skin color or shared the exact same characteristics. Our great Elder Wise passes the legends and prophecy of our land to its young. She loves to go on with her storytelling and spew out questionable acts of different gods such as Xonos and Ursia. What interests me the most is the prophecy of their two children. “The Mighty Ones”, Nas and Dre are destined to return to their antecedents created homeland for mortals. They are to provide mysterious resources from the unknown,” once said Elder Wise. Many people here wish for resources that boost their statuses such as riches and wealth. I myself dream of things that change the perspectives of people on this land. Resources such as knowledge beyond our world, realm, and universe. Heck, our even existence. “Stories” such as this one have been told for centuries throughout out so many generations. Elder wise knows about the 5 inner realms; Ereth, Synoth, Haewz, Sahdar, and Nikjau. “Ereth is the realm of our planet. Sahdar is the realm of unknown creatures that could be anything from colossal giants to microscopic insects that breath fire like demons. Synoth is the realm of sound named after the sound of music within nature. The realms of Haewz and Nikjau are unknown, yet they haven’t been discovered by man through prophecy, legend, or miracle. But they are said to be the realms of “The Mighty Ones”. Our people lived simple lives. We are farmers, landlords, tax collectors, traders, priests, students, and children.

Some of us aren’t like all the other sheep among the herd. We, the mind-blowing artists, create many works from natural resources such as rocks, grass, trees, and water. We discovered the colores red, orange, and green from nature on our planet. We wanted to adjust common things to be more appealing to the eyes of man. At first, we all lived without a worry for taste until the Night of the Black Moon. During this night, my friends Ezra, Amarowa, and Benji and I snuck out from our homes. We closely watch the Black Moon and the blistering sparkles vividly glow from the stars in space. As we stargazed, a hand reached out from between the Black Moon and clouds. Nas, the descendant half-blood god of trends and style, struck our world with an explosion of colors and life throughout the land. Nas’s fist pounded our island like a mountain erupting from beneath us. Nas was only one of the “Mighty Ones” destined to come back to our island. As soon as Nas snapped his fingers, every piece of clothing lit on fire with eye candy. You could see the flavor of his craft within different colors of every thread. Our clothes before were boring colors such as beige and khaki, but now that changed. Benji’s sandals became the oceans’ waves, Amarowa’s dress transformed into a glossy sunflower, Ezra’s hair and shorts merged into the stars and glowing sky, and my headscarf had turned into angel wings. Galactic stars and hues of light shined bright throughout the pitch-black atmosphere. Right then and there I and my friends slept into the breeze of the night.

The next morning, we all woke up in our beds with no idea how we got there. As breakfast was being prepared Ezra noticed a fisherman out on the water ready to caught lunch. In our village, our usual meals are either loaves of bread, rice, fish, fruits or water. As the fisherman was drinking water from her pouch, a hand from above our stars graciously swooped down onto the shore of the ocean. A humongous oval-shaped stick flew into the palm of their right hand. A gigantic bowl rose from the ocean made of diamond crystals. “I am Dre, the mightest of all”, a voice shouted through the wind. Dre’s head levitated from his body as if he was decapitated. His hand right hand started stirred the stick around in the submerged bowl. Ezra hurried outside without care of fear to watch Dre. Our eyes glistened as Dre sprinkled mystical ingredients and seasonings from a portal that shot out his eye on his forehead. “I bless you all with this porridge, it will open your third eye,” said Dre. The population of the island gathered around and watched him mix and swiftly stir things into the bowl.

 Dre stood in shock as he stopped stirring the humongous bowl. Smack! He clapped his hands against the bowl which shattered it into a hundred thousand pieces. Every shattered piece of the bowl became a dish for everyone on the shore filled to the brim with a mushy oaty substance. “Porridge, this is the food from that legend,” said Amarowa with excitement. Everyone, including myself, stood confused as Amarowa and Wise jumped with joy. Elder Wise and Amaraowa explained, “This food will strengthen our minds with knowledge and creativity. It will allow us to find the Gods within ourselves.” Elder Wise walked further towards the ocean as she was stuck in a daze. Dre handed her a giant book that shrunk in her hands so humans could obtain what was within. She proclaimed that this book would provide the prophecy for the future and generations of their people to come. Benji finished the porridge with a single slurp while everyone else enjoyed the tastes and feelings in their mouths. An inferno of savory fats made our mouths water. Elegance from the half-blood god was expected nevertheless. Dre smiled down on his parents’ creations and then returned to the sky from which he came.