Thoughts about Comments

It was really encouraging reading all of my previous comments. People were really supportive of my writing and gave me very good suggestions on how to improve my stories and related posts. I like that we have to do comments on other peoples walls because it allows you to get to know one another. It also is fun to see other people's writing styles because sometimes that make me think about new ways of writing.

Storytelling for Week 5: Sebastien

Most people don't realize how fishing originated or why it came to be that humans decided to eat fish. The origins of fishing our peculiar to say the least. This is a story of how it all came to be and what fishing is today....

A long long time ago, before there were boats or fishing poles there was a man named Sebastien. Sebastien lived on an island near was is known today as Samoa with his family and small village. They were a hunter and gather type of village, however, they did try and grow some native crops with the minimal land they had. Sebastien was known for being an excellent swimmer, which was a big deal in a village that loved traditional water sports and activities. He was said to be able to dive 100 feet down and back up in one breath. Some believe he pioneered the sport of free diving. Sebastien was also a very pivotal man in history because he was the first fisherman in the entire world.

Sebastien
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Sebastien loved diving because he loved to look at all of the wildlife in the ocean. His favorite creature of the depths was the octopus because of how it could disappear in the blink of an eye leaving only a trail of mysterious black ink. One year the village Sebastien lived in experienced a terrible infestation of beetles that killed all their plants and brought disease to almost all of the wildlife. The villagers were unable to fid healthy food and when winter came they were down to their last reserves. This was especially problematic because the winter season brought the most powerful storms  so they could not migrate to another island safely. They thought about risking it and travel by boat to an island but the trees had even been infested with the beetles and the villagers could not make proper canoes.

Sebastien saw the peril that the villagers were facing and understood it was a desperate time calling for desperate measures. One thing that the villagers did not know about Sebastien is that he could speak any sea creature. He had always viewed fish as friends but thought he might be able to use them as food for the people. After all, there were so many of them surely it wouldn't affect the marine ecosystem. He had no other choice. He spoke to the most trusted sea creature in the pacific, Cynthia, the sea turtle and mother to all. Cynthia warned him that if he started this type of hunting that generation after generation of his kind will continue to do so until there is no fish left in the sea. She also said she knew how tough times were and that she would understand if he ended up deciding to eat the fish. 

Local Villager
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Eventually Sebastien resorted to hunting and eating the fish and he made the villagers happy and healthy along with his family. The environment after the beetles left and winter died down sprang back to life and island sprang back from it dark period. However, the fishing did not stop. People had come to love eating fish and it was treated as a delicacy. Fishing spread to other islands and eventually to other countries as the population of the earth grew. 

Sebastien grew to be a very old man. He was still alive when he was 150 years old. Same say it was because of all the good nutrients he got from being in the sun all day. Others thought it was because he swam so much in the ocean. He didn't see any truth in all the rumors. However, he did see something that terrified him in his old age. When he went and swam as he would every day there were no longer hardly any fish in the ocean around him. He would be lucky if he saw one fish a week when he went and swam. When he spoke to the other creatures of the sea they were scared. They told Sebastien how hard it was to have the fish almost disappear. So many things relied on the fish for survival and now they could not. They were scared they might be the next ones hunted when the fish ran out. One turtle said he was not scared though. He told Sebastien he was not scared because he knew the ocean would be ruined if all the fish were taken from the sea.


Author's Note. The original story is about a king who decides to get his boys fishes for the pong that they have on the property. However, unexpectedly a turtle decides that he too wants to live at the pond. The boys go to see the fishes for the first time but when they see the turtle they think he is a demon. They have never seen a turtle before to know what one might look like so they tell their dad the king to get rid of the demon. One of the kings friends says that the king ought to throw him into the river where he will surely be carried out to the sea and killed. The turtle says to the king that that would be an awful and cruel thing to do to a turtle all the while knowing that could mean his real freedom. The king thinks that the turtle is telling the truth so in an effort to kill the turtle he releases the turtle to the sea.
I told the story as a way to sort of explain the origins of fishing because I often wonder how it all started. I have had a couple environmental classes at OU and it is shocking to hear how much overfishing goes on in the world. It is even more crazy to see how badly that effects the marine ecosystem. I don't think people understand how much we really on the ocean because we treat it as if it were a garbage dump.
The thing I took from the original story is that humans don't always treat sea creatures the right way or understand the sea and its creatures well. I wanted to use that in a similar way in my story and hopefully make readers interested in finding out more about the ocean's current situation.


Bibliography. How the Turtle Saved His Own Life, Jataka Tales, Ellen Babbitt, 1912.

Week 5 Reading Diary Continued: Jataka Tales

I have been reading Jataka Tales by Ellen Babbitt this week. I have really enjoyed these shorter tales in this series of reading. I feel like it allows for a little bit more creativity when thinking of how to recreate them or take a spin off of the original story.

I think it would be a cool idea to have a story where bird migrate to a different region due to the winter and when they do they are totally without anyone they know besides themselves. It could be a story about having courage to go and meet people unlike yourself and pushing yourself out of that comfort zone.

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I think it would also be fun to do a story that is more of an adventure tale about an animal hiking up a mountain. Maybe it could be a story from the perspective of a donkey that helps carry things up Mt. Everest with the sherpas. It could be a story about how he had wanted to climb the mountain for so long but was stuck at base camp until he finally got his chance to go up the whole way.

I think doing a story that involves fish would be worthwhile. It could be a modern day fairy tale about how the oceans came to be over fished. It could start with a good relationship between fish and human. One where they both helped each other until the fishermen became greedy and how they eventually ended up hurting themselves by destroying the fish populations.

Week 5 Reading Diary: Jataka Tales

These are some of my notes from the first part of week 5 in which I will be reading Jataka Tales by Babbit.

I like how a river can be such a huge part of life for animals. It is rejuvenating and can be a source of life to all. It would be cool to do a story about a river and the people it interacts with. Maybe it can have human characteristics.

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I really like elephants and I think it is amazing how they can literally die from heartache. They also have fantastic memories. Just yesterday I saw a video of an elephant picking up trash and throwing it away in a trash can. 

I like the story of the turtle and how he needed to keep his mouth shut but was unable to do so. It could be a good story to use the turtle character from Finding Nemo to do a story about the importance of knowing what not to say. 

I think it would be fun to do a story about a deer who played in a band up at the north pole. He deceived everyone by wearing reindeer antlers and he achieved success and sold plenty of albums. Only to find that everyone stops supporting him when they discover his lie. 

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