Week 2 Storytelling: The Choosing

           

Image information: Rachel and Leah as envisioned by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 1855. Source: Rosetti Archive

            The world that we live in is not fair for everyone. People learn this at different times in their lives—they live different experiences and find the truth at different stages, but in the end we all find out. The truth lies in wait for all of us—an inescapable crossroad that dissects our life into the past and the future. I grew up knowing what was coming for me, and yet the day that I stumbled across that threshold I was as uncertain and as unprepared as the rest of my peers.

            My mother taught me that the way to thrive here was through acceptance. Accept your place in the group, Allia. Accept your fate, Allia. Accept what is to come, Allia. Do not fear what is to come, Allia. You will learn to love your place here, Allia. Everything is taken care of, Allia, have faith.

Everyone wants you to embrace your faith. Lean into the unknown and the uncomfortable and let The Other take away all your fears and uncertainties. My mother taught me to give in; but I will not be broken by my time here.

            I was my mother’s first and only child. I am called “The Miracle From The Other” by my tribe—birthed from a mother who never saw her first blood and lived with the knowledge that she might never see one. I am the sign that faith alone prevails; and yet I cannot bring myself to fold myself to fit into their beliefs. Although I am in some ways an only child, I have seven brothers and two sisters. My mother, my father, and his three other wives all live together in a raucous sort of harmony—built upon the foundations laid in place by acceptance, order, love, and faith in The Other, faith in the Choosing, faith in tradition.

            If I have learned nothing else from this tribe it is that there is a great love present in its people. But through the years I have also seen the undercurrents of distress that this love creates. Love is not equal. Love is not fair. And my father loved my mother more than all his other wives combined. It shown through his actions, through his eyes when he gazed upon her, through the way he begged The Other to restore her to fruitfulness, and through the way The Other accepted his pleas—gifting my mother to my father in lieu of a Choosing.

            My mother did not go through the Choosing, but that does not mean that the same fate awaits me. Only great things supersede between the Choosing, and there have been few great things present in my life. The world is not fair to me. I must live in a world where choice is taken from me, and where I am seen as the portal to a new generation. There is no great love in my life—only the Choosing.

            I knew my day was coming but I am still not ready. How am I to be expected to just give myself over to faith, over to The Other’s mercy on something as small and invisible as faith? How can I be expected to put myself in the same place I see my mother and the others struggle? How can I be expected to live in a world where unhappiness seeps through the cracks of the walls built by faith and acceptance? Where resentment boils in the hearts of those who are either not enough or will never be good enough?

            As I walk to the Choosing Tent, my thoughts still and a sense of calmness comes over me. A plan begins to form within me—one that would change the course of my future and possibly alter the history of my tribe for generations to come. I look at my family surrounding me as I stand in the doorway of the tent and feel my plan solidify. I look back towards the tent that once represented everything about my future and then took a step back. “I rescind my right to the Choosing.” My words flowed from around me and echoed in the voices of my tribe as I kept walking. I had chosen my own path and with it I had gained my freedom.

Author's Note:

I chose to base my story off of the lives of the women Rachel and Leah from the Bible Women Unit. There is so much info and concentration on men and other people/issues in the bible that I think oftentimes the women get overlooked. I changed the original by making it into first person to give the reader a more personalized feeling to the ongoings of their life. I also changed the setting--the choosing does not actually occur to my knowledge. But so much of the stories that I read had the dichotomy between love at first sight and multiple marriages with the most loved often being the one barren. It was just really interesting to see that theme run through so many of the stories. 

Bibliography:

Rachel Story Source: King James Bible (1611): Genesis 29 [Librivox Audio]

Leah Story Source: King James Bible (1611): Genesis 29 and 30 [Librivox Audio] and Genesis 35 [Librivox Audio].

Week 2 Reading Diary Post B: Bible Women Cont.

This is my Reading Diary Post B for the Unit Bible Women. Once again, it is just pure thought stream as I read so please feel free to ignore at will.

Image Information: The Shade of Samuel Invoked by Saul (The Witch of Endor) by Nikiforovich Dmitry Martynov (1826-1889): Source: Wikipedia

The Witch of Endor:
Desperation to keep his throne drives Saul to throw away his own morals. Desperate in his separation from God. Women as a tool to contact God/ speak with things outside the earthly realm.

Bathsheba:
Love at first sight. Even though she is the wife of one of David's people. HE gets her pregnant and then tries to cover up his deceit by getting Uriah to sleep with his wife and absolve him of guilt of producing a baby. When that didn't work the next most reasonable plan was to kill Uriah to cover up his indiscretion. He then took Bathsheba as his wife. Even though this caused him strife with God. David is said to have been one of the closest prophet's to God and yet he too was subject to such a large fall from grace. All these stories involve women as a stepping stone to losing your morals.

Esther:
Women as replaceable when they do not fulfill the needs of men. Esther saved her people by exploiting her husband's favor of her.

Susannah:
Another love at first sight story; looks like it is going to turn out just as badly as the others. At least these elders realize that their lust is wrong. Oh just kidding they're making plans to rape her. Doesn't seem so good now. Oh good some victim blaming in there. Perfect. At least she had God's favor and didn't actually have to die for someone else's lies.

Mary and Elizabeth:
God impregnates Elizabeth to prove that he can because Zacharias is doubtful, but impregnates Mary because she is highly favored. Weird parallel there. He uses Elizabeth as proof for both Zacharias and Mary of his ability to do the impossible. Mary as the fruit of all women. Hmm.

Mary and Anna:
Very cool that Anna is a prophetess. Haven't seen one of those yet. Most women have only been introduced as wives first and whatever else they did second.

Herodias:
Another man who stole another's wife. What was the point of her asking for John the Baptist's head? Did I miss something important?

Martha and Mary:
Two sisters who don't marry the same man, but instead seek favor from Jesus. Interesting replay on the sister dynamic that was done so often in earlier stories.

I have basically no idea what i'm going to write my storytelling post about, guys. BUT, I do know that it will have women, deception, betrayal, a little bit of death, and probably some babies. I know, original, right? Stick around this week and let me know what you think!

Week 2 Reading Diary A: Bible Women

Image Information: Poster from a play about specific women from the Bible: Source: Echo Theatre

A large majority of people have been introduced to the people present in the Bible in some manner or another. Its teachings are something that have influenced our society for hundreds (thousands) of years. Even today, its stories still manage to remain relevant. But some stories are still more prevalent than others and that is what this reading post is dedicated to. The women of the bible, important in their own right but oft overlooked.

So basically this is just my brain flow. Ignore at will.

Eve:
Man shouldn't be alone. Women as companions. Why do people not realize that this creation story is just a story when men and women have the same number of ribs? Tree of knowledge and going against the word of god. Two different ways of looking at it, good and bad. Kind of harsh.

Sarah:
Gifted a son even though both her and Abraham were very old. Miracle baby. 100 is very very old to be having babies.

Hagar:
Kind of weird to just decide that this hand maid is the solution to their baby making problems. And then get angry about the plan working. Bore Abraham a boy when he was four score and six (86?). After Sarah conceived Isaac she tried to force Hagar and Ishmael from them. Why would she do that? I imagine that she had a lot of time to get over her issues with Hagar and her child. A lot of jealousy in this story and the last. As well as some resentment.

Rebekah:
Okay so Rebekah becomes the wife of Isaac after helping out Abraham's brother. Wait was Rebekah barren too? And did Isaac take too more wives? What. But then she has twins; two nations in her womb. I thought it was super interesting how it mentioned that Isaac loved Esau (meat eater) and Rebekah loved Jacob. Would be easy to write a story about a family divided.

Rachel:
Okay this is one of the women from the story of the red tent. I wonder how familiar it is to that. Jacob fell in love with her at first sight, but gets tricked by her father into marrying his other daughter even though he worked for Rachel for seven years. And then he worked even more for Rachel to be actually given to him. It seems like these stories like to mess with the women. People must be super resentful towards everyone. Ugh. It even says he loves Rachel more. That means that Leah must have known that she was second choice. Really rough.

Leah:
Even better. God makes Rachel barren to even the score. And she just keeps bearing sons hoping that Jacob will love her. This is really sad. And of course Rachel gets angry (JUST LIKE HER Aunt) and starts the cycle all over again. Why do people keep giving their handmaids to their husbands as a solution? Except Rachel took that baby from her maid. Crazy. It's just reading like a really weird competition between sisters and abusing their maids and giving Jacob a ton of children. But God feels bad/remembers that he closed Rachel's womb and gives her a son (Jacob). Hurrah. This just makes me feel weird and uncomfortable.

Potiphar's Wife (Zuleikha):
This family has a really messed up dynamic. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (Leah's sons) and into the service of an Egyptian names Potiphar. A story about unrequited love turned horrible. Healthy relationships are few and far between.

Jephthah's Daughter:
Another story where someone must be sacrificed. She accepts her fate graciously enough however. Cries about her virginity and lack of life in the woods for two months and then is burned to death.

Delilah:
A woman offered a large amount of money for information on a man who was in love with her. And he loves her so much that he just offers up all of his secrets. Except that he doesn't. So she keeps asking and eventually he is worn down. And then she betrays him. All for money. Seems to be a common theme.

Hannah:
Once again another woman who had no children and another wife who did. She was the more loved of the two. Her love for her son converted this other guy though and her story didn't turn out as awful as I expected.

So after reading this first half of the Bible Women Unit I already have the makings of a story idea in my head. Most of the stories deal with the unequal distribution of love and power in relationships. Favor doesn't necessary follow with children. It'd be interesting to write about the need for favor in a life where you aren't the only wife.

Famous Last Words Week 1

For the amount of times in my life where I have thought that I should start a blog, it has never actually been a real interest of mine. I don't really like the spotlight and the idea that people are reading things that I wrote has always been the deciding factor in my decision to blog. But this past week blogging for the first time ever has actually been really nice.

I've forgotten what it feels like to write. I don't do it enough because I always feel like I don't have the time, the energy, or the creativity necessary to create something. Instead I usually just deflect to reading and leave it at that. But there is something so satisfying about making something that is your own, something that came straight from your mind and that you pasted to the canvas.

I used to write a lot. Nothing big and nothing very great, but I used to do it all the time. Poems, stories, little things. Basically anything that came to mind. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I wrote my storytelling post this week. I doubt it's the best thing I have ever written, especially because the majority of it was written when I was sleep-dumb at 5 in the morning, but it was a really really good start into getting back to myself. And I am so looking forward to writing more storytelling posts in the future. Maybe it'll even inspire me to write actually stories--let my creativity kind of come back into myself. Rejoin the fold.

Classes haven't started yet so I don't have a lot to say on that front at the moment. But I will go ahead and invite you all to an event that is happening on Sept. 11th in OKC at the Skirvin Hotel. I am interning with the Oklahoma Eating Disorders Association this semester and they are hosting an event called Conversations of Hope. Basically this guy named Brian Cuban is coming in to speak about his book and talk about recovery. Basically it is for a super great cause and it is free to attend (although they do suggest a 30 dollar donation with the dinner), and you can learn all about my favorite platform. I've posted the info below. Thank you all for an awesome first week. I can't wait to see what is to come.

Image information: OEDA Event poster for Conversations of Hope on Sept. 11th: Source: Oklahoma Eating Disorders Association

Conversations of Hope

Friday, September 11th, 2015

Doors open at 6:00pm

Dinner is served at 7:00pm

Skirvin Hotel

1 Park Ave., Oklahoma City, OK 73102

Brian Cuban

http://briancuban.com

Join the Oklahoma Eating Disorder Association for a community event designed to honor those who are in treatment, recovery, or have passed away from an eating disorder. Brian Cuban will be giving his first-hand experiences of living with, and recovering from eating disorders, drug addiction, and Body Dysmorphia Disorder. In addition to the impactful speaker this evening will be filled with delicious food, live entertainment, and raffle prizes dedicated to raising awareness and inspiring hope for recovery. 

Register at: 

https://app.etapestry.com/onlineforms/OklahomaEatingDisordersAssoca/COHRSVP.html

Week 1 Curation

Okay. Let me just say that I love organization. All forms of it. However and wherever and whenever I can get it. My closet is divided into seasons and then further sorted by color. My bookcase is organized alphabetically and by type of book. I keep my movies in a shoebox organized by title name and type of movie. Typing it out makes it seem like I have more of a problem than I am willing to actually acknowledge, but the point is that I really, really like for things to have a rightful place. And sadly, today is the first day that I have found a way to organize as obsessively on my computer as I do in my own physical reality.

Bookmarks, guys. I've known about this and Safari's reading list for years but oh my god I had no idea that I could organize all that with folders. That is like my dream come true. My very sad, very nerdy dream (Life is too short to care, so whatever). This is great; finally another way for me to keep my jumbled thoughts a little more put together.

It was mentioned that I should share my thoughts and my best internet finds for the week on a weekly blog post and I could totally get behind that. Most likely it will be so so so random and have something to do with women, or the election, or human rights, or probably just like puppies, but it would be interesting for me nonetheless and I could definitely get behind it.

I'm honestly not really an avid user of social networking sites. So hearing that Pinterest, Twitter, and other similar sites can be used to keep your electronic self organized is news to me and I would love to grow my knowledge in that subject.

On another note, here is basically how I keep my self together technologically. Bookmarks. Make them. Love them. Use them. But that is just for websites I visit a lot, such as D2L or Ozone. For papers and things that I have to make myself, I use folders. So many folders inside of so many folders. I have assignments from high school just living in my mac for the rest of eternity. For assignments and that kind of thing I use this app called iStudiez Pro. Honestly it was the best purchase I have ever made for my iPad and is everything I could ask for in a personal school planner.

Image information: Screenshot of my life in folders: 2015

Stick around for more thought curations in my future posts. I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

Growth Mindset

Image information: Growth Mindset motivational poster found on Pinterest blog. Originally from principal.blogspot.com. Source: Pinterest

Today was the first time that I encountered Carol Dweck's theory of Growth Mindset. This theory basically explains why people succeed and how to become one of those people by learning that your abilities have to be developed. Dweck explains in her theory that the issue with our limited success can be partly attributed to how we teach children to learn. We live in a society where we place a lot of importance on grades in school. We also live in a society where we desire instant gratification and where we are accustomed to achieving it--and when we don't, we don't quite know how to handle it in a rational manner.

Dweck preaches living in a "not yet" mindset, a mindset where you realize that time is necessary for growth, and that effort and commitment required to produce this growth. I'd like to think that I would score closer to the growth mindset side of the scale than the fixed mindset, but I feel that because I am a product of my generation, that I most likely have an unhealthy amount of fixed mindset as well. I'm not accustomed to encountering things that I can't understand or overcome with minimal effort--especially when it comes to school. At least not anymore. And I think that because of this lack of challenge could contribute to my lack of growth mindset.

When I started college I was exactly like those kids they warn you about in high school. The kid who got by without reading but who inevitably ended up doing not so great their first year because of the culture shock. It took a lot of effort and time to get myself back on track to being a good student. I still have to watch myself throughout the semester because i'm prone to burnouts when the semester is coming to a close. I've learned that I really need to schedule myself and stick to it in order to be successful.

I think that the Growth Mindset is an interesting concept and I would be interested in looking more into what exactly it and the Growth Mindset Challenges include. I've always really stuck with what has worked for me, but I'm sure that there is a better, more effective way to be learning than what I am doing.

This semester I really want to focus on my writing and enhancing that aspect of my personal portfolio. I will be in the middle of graduate school applications and I could use all the help I can find. This is also my (hopefully) last year at OU, and I think it would be really great to end on a good note. Welcome in real adulthood with some success rather than burnout and little energy.

Storybook Favorites

In anticipation of my impending decision on whether or not to pick a Portfolio or a Storybook for my class project this post is for the browsing of my options. So here goes nothing.

Myth-Folklore Storybook: Which is the Real Cinderella?

Image information: Which is the Real Cinderella?

The fairytale Cinderella is a common enough in today's culture. Especially with Disney's movie on it, most people my age and younger are familiar with their version of the tale. But I read a lot of the Grimm Fairytales as a kid and am familiar with their version as well as a few different other versions, so this is definitely not a new topic. The Title of this storybook does do a good job of explaining what the storybook is about.

I picked this storybook because it took a common story that most people know and love and then put a very original twist on it. The Introduction did a good job of showing what her storybook was about and was interesting enough to catch my attention and prompt me to read the rest of the stories. The storybook was well designed and I appreciated the fact that the person didn't use over the top fonts or distracting backgrounds. 

Myth-Folklore Storybook: Lost in Wonderland

Image information: Lost in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is one of my early loves and I am so happy that I found this storybook in the example archives. Who doesn't love Alice? This is a topic that I am very familiar with and that I thought was covered rather well. I really enjoyed how the author modeled her introduction off of Lewis Carroll's writing style. 

I would have read the stories even if the introduction hadn't done such a good job of introducing the rest of the stories in the storybook. Each of the stories flowed well into the other and had a very wonderlandesque feeling to it. I really liked that the background was reminiscent of the roses from Alice in Wonderland and I really liked how the author used the same letter calligraphy to start each story that was present in Carroll's original books. I also liked how her intro page linked to the next part of the story--that is something that I think would be nice to integrate into my own storybook project.

Myth-Folklore Storybook: The Dark Side of Fairy Tales

Image information: The Dark Side of Fairy Tales

I'm not as familiar with the Grimm's fairytales as I am with other myths and folk stories, mostly because there are so many stories written by them. This storybook focused on four of the most well-known stories though, so they weren't too unfamiliar. I really liked how the storybook focused on the macabre version of fairytales, something that is often glossed over in today's representations. The introduction was really well written and did a great job explaining what the storybook was going to cover. 

The writing style of the introduction made this storybook sound like the whole thing was one big ride and it really piked my interest in reading this story. As for the design, I liked how the blog was supposed to be the darker side of fairytales and as a result the whole blog was designed using dark colors to bring the whole concept together. Also, something that I think I want to incorporate into my storybook is the small design aspect of the current label page. This blog had the current page you're on be put into a larger font just so that you had a better idea of where on the website/storyline you were on.

UnTextbook Brainstorming

I have always enjoyed reading--basically anything that I can get my hands on I enjoy. But I have always had a soft spot in my mind for fairytales and fables from different cultures. Don't get me wrong, I love the modern stuff. But there is just something so raw about myths and fables that have been passed down from generation to generation and have a direct connection to culture and its people.

So without further ado, here is my (short, probably subject to change) brainstorming list for this semester's units from the UnTextbook.

Image information: Illustration from The Walrus and the Carpenter found in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I chose this picture because it is directly linked to my favorite books and is one of the most interesting poems I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Source: Wikipedia

Myth-Folklore Unit: Alice in Wonderland

For as long as I can remember I have loved Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. So it would of course be my very first choice to cover in this class. I have always felt very connected to both the out there story line and the way that Carroll wrote the story. It has always felt more like poetry to me than anything else and I just love the flow it has. 

Myth-Folklore Unit: Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There

How could I chose to write about Alice in Wonderland and not follow up with Through the Looking Glass? I have always been obsessed with Carroll's poetry in this novel. His poem The Walrus and the Carpenter has been a staple for me for years. I even wrote an essay on it in high school. It would be so cool to write about this in a different manner specifically for this class. 

Myth-Folklore Unit: Adam and Eve

Who can say no to an origin of man story? I grew up hearing this story and I think it is so cool to compare it to the other origin stories from other religions and cultures and to find the similarities and differences as well as to speculate what those delineation imply about the society in which they are found. 

Myth-Folklore Unit: Bible Women

There is a lot of stories in the bible that most people never come across. While they are often not the most quoted and well-known stories, I think that this unit sounds really interesting as people barely ever talk about women from the bible in terms of their stories and their struggles in a male-centric world. Reading and understanding their part in the growth of the Christian faith and its subsequent influence on American society sounds very interesting. 

Myth-Folklore Unit: Buddha

I have always been obsessed with religion and how it differs from culture to culture. I have taken a lot of classes about religion and culture and Buddhism has consistently been one of the most interesting religions I have read about. The betterment of the self and by association the world is one of the most beautiful things religion has given to people, and Buddhism to me emulates that. 

Myth-Folklore Unit: Celtic Fairy Tales (1 or 2)

When I went to Ireland and Scotland this summer, I fell in love with the landscape, the people, and their stories. I bought probably 4 or 5 books that were all about the folklore there. This would just give me more opportunity to immerse myself in their culture. 

      

Welcome to Me: My Personal Introduction

Well guys, I know that I already told you about my deep love for trees, but what I didn't do was actually introduce myself. So this is what this post is for--to tell all you readers about exactly who I am, what I want to do with myself in regards to the future, and basically anything else you'd want me to know about me. (This is me.) My name is Amanda.

Image Information: Selfie after my most recent haircut; July 2015

SO firstly, the most important thing to me is my family. I'm the eldest of three kids as well as part-time caregiver for my stressed mother and father. My siblings are my favorite people in the world and we are very close. I actually just flew my sister down to Florida to get her settled into her dorm for freshman year of college at Florida Atlantic University. Which was about as heart-wrenching as it could be; i'm pretty sure I cried more than my mom. My sister's name is Alex and she is 18. My brother, Avery, is 15. They are about as different as two people can be, but I like to thing that we all are cut of the same cloth. This is us at my sister's graduation from high school.

Image information: Picture taken by my Aunt Stephanie; Avery (left), Alex (middle), and me (right) being our cute selves; May 2015

Secondly, as much as I love my family the love of my life is not a human at all. I met my soulmate in the parking lot of a Hobby Lobby when I was a sophomore in high school. His name is Teddy Bear (Ted for short) and he is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Image information: Photo taken by me of my baby at 5 months old; April 2010.

 Teddy is a Mastiff/Labrador mix and currently 120 pounds. Honestly, he is the sassiest, grumpiest, and laziest dog I have ever met. Not only does he hate running or playing with new toys, he barely plays with me for 5 minutes before he decides it would be cooler to just run to me and let me rub his back. What can I say, my babe is spoiled.

Image information: Photo taken by me; Ted chilling on his chair-and-a-half; Spring 2015

God, he is so freaking adorable.

Image information: Photo by me; Ted trying to nap on the couch; July 2015

I spend the majority of my time with Ted and I can honestly say he is my best friend. Not only is he great company (super easy for me to get along with) but he is also a great cuddlebear. We love getting and giving kisses. But on a more serious note, he really has helped me through the toughest periods of my life.

Image information: Selfie by me; Ted and me cuddling on the floor; July 2015.

This year I am going to be a senior in college. I plan to graduate in the Spring with two degrees--Psychology and Women Gender Studies. My ultimate plan is to go to graduate school and pursue my Ph.d in Clinical Psychology. To me, it is very obvious that the world is not a perfect place and I want to do everything I can to make sure that no one has to go through their issues alone and/or without the information that they need to be safe, sane, and healthy.

I eventually want to end up working in a clinic that caters to eating disorders of all types, and then after a while possibly start a non-profit. Either that or go into research and find better ways to deal with and to treat eating disorders. There is still so much that we do not know about eating disorders or what it means for the brain and for the person, and I feel like it is one of the most overlooked issues in America today.

This is a cause very dear to me, and something that I absolutely love to talk about, so if there is anything that you want to know, or if you have any questions at all, please ask me! I'd be delighted to rant about my favorite topic.

On a lighter note, here are the basics of me. I am twenty years old, daughter of a super smart mom and a very military dad. I moved around a ridiculous amount of times as a kid and somehow we ended up sticking around Edmond for good. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida but consider myself raised here in Edmond, OK. I moved to Norman for freshman year, moved back home for sophomore, and then Ted and I settled into a quaint little house here in Norman where we plan to stay until graduation.

I am obsessed with Coca-Cola and I probably drink it way, way, way too much. But I love it. I collect notebooks because I always feel like I can't get enough even though I barely ever actually write in them. My favorite color is yellow, but I also like dark blue. I am a night owl through and through and absolutely hate waking up for early mornings. I currently work as a waitress at a bar/pub on Campus Corner here in Norman; but I have been serving for well over two years here and there in Edmond before this job.

I hope that this has been an enlightening look into who I am, but if there is something that I left out that you would like to know, just ask me! Thanks for reading.

Week 1 Storytelling: If You Sneeze on a Monday...

Picture of young boy sneezing. Web Source: Allegra

             When Lonnie was five he began to associate the looks on his mother’s face to his own actions—specifically his sneezes. It didn’t make a lot of sense at first, and honestly he thought himself crazy at the beginning, but as time passed he began to grow firmer in his belief that his sneezes actually influenced the way his mother treated him and acted for the rest of the day.

It began on a Monday, as all bad things tend to, and it was the first time that Lonnie realized that he might actually be different. The jury was still out on whether or not this different was bad or good, however, and until he decided he liked to think of himself as simply unique, as someone who had a very weird, very oddly specific super power. Kind of like a much lamer superman. It worked for him, mostly because for a majority of the time he managed to forget about it—except when he couldn’t.

This Monday was different for a majority of reasons. Although Lonnie thought himself to be some type of sneeze seer he actually didn’t sneeze that often. So when he sneezed first thing Monday morning while sleepily walking down the stairs he didn’t really think anything of it—until he walked into the kitchen and saw the abject terror written on his mother’s face from where she stood by the oven faithfully making him his morning bacon.

“Hey Ma.”

He plopped himself down into a random seat at the table and then immediately froze.

“Uh, Mom? Are you okay?”

She managed to gesture wildly with the spatula in his general direction and sputter out a mangled “Lonnie.” Her voice weakly cracking at the end, “It’s a Monday.”

Okay, so it took him a little bit longer to catch up with what she was indicating than he was openly proud of admitting, but mornings were not always nice to him and they both knew it.

Added to the fact that his mom had never actually come out and specifically said that she understood what was going on, Lonnie was kind of just winging it. I mean he was twelve now, was he ever going to get the answers he was looking for? Was he the newest in a long line of sneezing seers? Was his mom one? Had his dad been one? He had come to terms with the fact that he would probably never know, or find out, because his mom had never explicitly come out and acknowledged that anything outside of the norm was occurring. Until today that is.

“It’s a Monday, baby. So I need you to promise me that you’re going to be extra careful at school today.” She breathed out, finally setting the spatula down and twisting to turn the oven off behind her. “I’m only going to tell you this once, okay? You’re my big man now and I need you to try extra hard to remember this for me. I love you and I want you to know everything you can about yourself, and our family.”

She moved to sit next to him at the table, pulling his chair to face her, it scraping eerily across the floor as she pulled, and took his face into her soft, warm hands. She looked him in the eye and quietly began to sing, a look of fear present in her eyes,

“IF you sneeze on Monday, you sneeze for danger;

Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger;

Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;

Sneeze on a Thursday, something better;

Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow;

Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweetheart to-morrow.”

            After she finished, she brushed her right thumb across his cheek and stood back up, walked over to the stovetop and began shoveling bacon onto a plate.

            “So, just to get this straight, I definitely do have super powers, don’t I?” She set the plate down in front of him and sighed.

            “Lonnie, you have to realize that the issue is much deeper than that. This has been in our family for generations, and it is generally considered a curse.” She picked a piece of bacon off of his plate and began breaking it into little pieces distractedly. “You have to be careful, Lonnie. It’s a Monday and danger comes in many different shapes.”

            The crumbs fell to the table and Lonnie caught a glimpse of his future—sitting his own kid down one day after something as innocent as a sneeze. Singing this exact song to them, praying for the danger to pass, praying for the days to change, praying for better news, but ultimately ending in sorrow, praying for tomorrow. Only for it to cycle on for forever.
             Lonnie brushed the crumbs to the floor and tried to smile. Leaned into his mom and closed his eyes. “So definitely not a super power then, huh?”

Author's Note:
This story was based off of the nursery rhyme "If you sneeze on a Monday..." The poem details what sneezing on different days of the week symbolizes. I chose this poem because I was very intrigued by how such a small thing, a little tiny sneeze, could supposedly predict danger, or love, or even sorrow. Not only that, but the sneezes became an issue of importance to the people. No longer was it such a small thing. What had once been inconsequential was not a day, if not life, altering omen. It had a large range of meaning and I thought that was really cool. We don't often pay much attention to sneezing, but at some point in history some person was intrigued enough with sneezing to write a whole nursery rhyme about it. 
I didn't really know where I was going to go with this story, but it definitely turned out a little more serious than I was anticipating. All I could think about after I first read this Nursery Rhyme was that there was some kid out there who thought he was the coolest for having an out there super power, and it kind of evolved into whatever this turned out to be. 
Also, it is so hard to find a good illustration of people sneezing.

Bibliography:
The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897). The Nursery Rhyme Book

Blarney Castle (Favorite Place)

     I'm going to go ahead and tell you guys something about myself that isn't exactly common knowledge to anyone outside of my immediate family. It's not something weird or even relatively exciting, but I think if anything it says a lot about who I am while simultaneously giving you a glimpse into my personality.

     I love trees. When I still lived at home I was in love with this one huge tree that lived on this random corner in the middle of a farm in the middle of nowheresville Arcadia, Oklahoma. I would purposefully drive farther out of my way on my way to and from home just so that I could drive by it and see how majestic it looked. This beautiful, old, thriving tree just in the middle of all these smaller, younger trees, foliage, and man-made buildings. 

Image Information: personal photo of my favorite tree from adolescence;
 winter 2010.

      This past summer I went on a trip around the British Isles, where I had the incredible opportunity to go to Cork, Ireland. And even more wonderful is that about an hour inland from Cork/Cohb, my means of train a bus and a lot of walking, is this amazing place called Blarney Castle. 

Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; photo of us approaching Blarney Castle; May 2015.

     Blarney Castle is said to be the resting place of the mythical Blarney Stone--a stone that blesses the ones who kiss it with the gift of eloquence. This stone resides on the uppermost level of the remains of Blarney Castle over a small hole in the floor (which was what apparently passed as a security measure in the 1400s and now primarily exists just to terrify tourists). To reach the stone you have to climb the entirety of the castle, walk through the whole perimeter of the castle's roof, and finally lay on your back over aforementioned hole a hundred feet off the ground while putting the entirety of your trust in this very sweet, very old man to hold your body up while you kiss the stone. 

Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; a picture of me attempting to kiss the Blarney stone; I look decapitated and that view was just as far down as it looks, very scary, just in case you were wondering; May 2015.

     But the journey to the Blarney stone is much longer than just that. To even get to Blarney Castle you have to walk through a good majority of the castle's gardens. The whole grounds has approximately 60 acres of gardens, and because Blarney Castle has been around for upwards of 600 years, there are plenty of beautiful, wonderful, huge trees that make up a large part of the Blarney Castle grounds.

 Image Information: personal photo of one of the many creeks and many trees that lived on the Blarney Castle grounds; May 2015.

Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; a picture of me and a beautiful waterfall on the grounds; May 2015.

     In conclusion, I love trees and I have never seen a more beautiful place with more beautiful trees than I did when I visited Blarney Castle and that is why it remains my favorite place (in the world). 

     P.S. Enjoy some of these pictures of some of my favorite trees from the Blarney Castle grounds. 

Image Information: personal photo of another beautiful, old tree from Ireland; May 2015.

Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith; photo of a very old, very large tree inside Blarney Castle grounds-me as a human reference; May 2015.