Week 4: Famous Last Words

Well, the beginning of the week was definitely strange. I drove Monday night to Walmart with my roommate and a friend to get her a bike, and, since my car is small and we didn't have bike rails, we ended up putting the bike in my car through the sunroof. It was the friend's idea, and I still have no idea how we managed to accomplish that. It definitely amused some strangers; two of them asked to take a picture of it in the car. After we got back to campus, thankfully not pulled over by the police for having half a bike sticking out of my car, we managed to get it out somehow. But the night wasn't over. An hour later, a couple of people and I tried to teach my roommate (who had never learned) to ride the aforementioned bike, and it ended up with her falling a few times and random comments of encouragement from strangers.

And with a couple of friends on Thursday, we randomly found this gecko in my dorm building. It was so cute! It was red and really small; we trapped it in a cup for a while and named it Newt (the Gecko), since we thought it was one at first. According to one of my hall mates, it wasn't a newt. So we got it right.

Red Gecko

(Source: Wikimedia)

On Friday, with those same friends, I went to Raising Cane's for dinner. And since my name is super hard to pronounce for most people at first sight, I decided to go with 'Bob' as the name the order was under (someone dared me to). The guy just looked at me funny when I told him, and asked 'Bob?' incredulously. I couldn't keep a straight face when he said it (though I really wanted to).

That's pretty much it. Probably the most random part of my story was on Monday. It was actually pretty fun teaching my roommate how to ride a bike. She ended up learning fairly quickly.

Week 4: Storytelling -- The Ballad of the Giant

The Giant (From the Third Voyage of Sindbad)

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

With these ears of mine
That are elephant-like

I heard a disturbance

I came with a spike

I went to the courtyard

To there I ran fast

And opened the gates

And I saw there at last

A feast in the making

Two dozen men dead

Who sat on my doorstep

And to myself, I said

What a glorious thing!

I don't need to hunt

My meal came to me

Though these humans are runts

And just to be cautious

I'll sit here and wait

And if one of them stirs

He'll have an unlucky fate

So I sat there and waited

But none of them moved

So I looked at the fattest

And thought: he's the one I'll choose

Twice more passed my evenings

With cooked human flesh

But things changed on the fourth night

My food wasn't dead

How it burned! The hot poker

That they stabbed in my eye

I roared and I screamed

Then promptly dragged myself outside

I would get my revenge!

And I planned to get it soon

Though now I howled in pain

In the morning they’d lose

Those fools didn’t know

That although I was blind

I had help in the mountains

My kindred; my kind

I ran as fast as I could

Though I tripped and I stumbled

But who wouldn’t, blind?

Within this island’s jungle

Since my eyesight was lost

I used my nose and my ears

To steer through the thicket

While the pain caused me tears

I knew I was close

When the voices I heard

Of my brothers and sisters

Were easily discerned

Joy leapt in my heart

And I called to them in a shout

Come avenge me, my friends

Let’s wipe those humans out

Look what they did

To my poor, single eye

They’ll drown in the ocean

They pay for their crime

And though I can’t see

My hearing is clear

So while you attack in my name

Force out their cries of fear

Lead me to those vile creatures

Lead me near, close to the fight

Let me hear their voices pained

Let me feel their terrible fright

Time seemed long in my anger

But soon they said it was time

To strike at those humans

In the morning light

And so we set out

My comrades and I

To one edge of island

Where the humans would die

I soon smelled the sea salt

Felt the sand in my toes

Heard my kindred ahead

Throwing rocks with loud bellows

There! The many, satisfying crunches

Of tiny, crushed bones

That sounded my way
I laughed at the destruction sown



Author's Note

This was based on the Third Voyage in The Voyages of Sindbad. Since each voyage of Sindbad's is told by Sindbad himself, I decided to change it from his perspective to a character in this particular voyage: the giant that tries to eat (and later destroy) Sindbad and his companions. The giant isn't a particularly complex character or anything, but I decided it would be interesting to see what happened from his perspective. As for the poem...I was in the mood to write poetry rather than prose.  

And if you're wondering what happened, Sindbad didn't die. In the scene, Sindbad's entire crew tries to escape the giants in rafts, but the giants (who happen to have really good aim) sink all the rafts with rocks except the raft Sindbad is in (with two other people). And although that's the last of their run-in with the giants, the third voyage doesn't actually stop there. They end up running into a man-eating snake; Sindbad's the only person to survive the encounter, however.

Bibliography:
The Voyages of Sindbad by Andrew Lang (1898). Web Source: The Arabian Nights Entertainment

Week 4: Reading Diary -- Sindbad

The Voyages of Sindbad



Voyage 1: [p1, p2]

It’s interesting that he has enough foresight at the beginning, when he has almost squandered his fortune, to make money before he’s completely broke. And he decides to become a merchant (seemingly on a whim), which he happens to be good at. Anyways, it’s kind of hilarious and ridiculous that on his first voyage out to sea, he and a couple of crewmembers rest on island that’s actually a whale’s back. What are the odds? (*rolls eyes*) I think most people in his situation, clinging onto a piece of driftwood, probably would have died; he survives when he lands ashore an island. The time he finds the island and climbs its cliffs is when a group of people happens to be there. Where he landed was an uninhabited part of the island, and the group is only there to feed the king’s horses.

So him and the groomsmen go back to the king, where he tells the king the story. And like all kings do (not), he’s pretty much like, “do whatever you want; I’ll pay for it!”. Sindbad’s not greedy, though; so he just spends his time exploring the island (called Mihrage) and looks out for news from his homeland (Baghdad). And guess who eventually arrives on the island? His original crew, of course. And the best part is that all of his merchandise was saved. So he’s able to trade it all, become rich, and go back. And then he says he’s never doing that again.

Yeah right. 

Voyage 2: [p1, p2]

Sindbad goes out to sea again. Why? He’s bored of his unexciting, palatial lifestyle. So he sails away, trading things. Unfortunately for him, they stop and rest on an island. Like last time. But, pathetically enough, the reason he gets separated from his crew this time is because they forget him, not because something crazy happens.

Sucks to suck, Sindbad.

Anyways, the island happens to contain a giant bird called the roc, and Sindbad decides to get off the island by tying himself to the bird. When I read his plan, [this] was my reaction.

But it ends up working out for him. The roc drops him off at a valley of diamonds, where he once again finds his way back to civilization (he finds a group of merchants who take him back) and makes a fortune off of the diamonds he found.

Way to go, Sindbad.

Voyage 3: [p1, p2, p3]

For the same reason he gives in the second voyage, Sindbad goes out…and shenanigans happen to him. Again. Is it me, or is this starting to become a pattern?

He gets stranded on an island again – this time for good reason and with the company of his crew. Unfortunately, they get stuck on an island with giants. And some of his crewmembers get eaten by a giant, which sucks. But they get revenge on the giant by poking his eye out, who gets revenge back on them by pitting his family against the crew (while they’re trying to escape the island on boats). And, by a miracle, the only boat that doesn’t get sunk by rocks aimed at them is Sindbad’s. He and two other members escape to another island, only to run into a gigantic, man-eating snake, that unfortunately eats the other two members of Sindbad’s boat. It would have eaten Sindbad too, but he basically makes a fort for himself and the snake can’t get in. I’ll give him props for his plan. And luckily, the next day a ship finds him and the people (like usual) are extremely generous to him. And, like in the first voyage, he gets his cargo back.

I feel like Sindbad’s true talent is having luck. An incredible amount of luck. He may get himself into ridiculously crappy situations, but he comes out of them relatively unscathed and super rich.

Voyage 4: [p1, p2, p3]

Okay, thankfully he stops saying that he’s going to settle down – he kept lying to himself and it annoyed me. But, in normal Sindbad style, he ends up on another island he can’t get off of, this time because his ship was destroyed by a storm. Anyways, he and the five other crewmembers that survived are discovered by the residents, who, unfortunately, happen to be cannibals. The only reason he survives that bit of trouble is that he doesn’t eat the hallucinogenic herbs given to them or much of the food meant to fatten the crew up. So after a while, he ends up escaping, finding merchants on the other side of the island. They bring him back home…and life is good for him until he’s basically forced to marry someone (the king asks him to, as a way to keep Sindbad there). After a while, his wife dies, which means he has to be buried alive with her as her spouse, based on this country’s custom. The spouse does get some food and water when they are put in the pit, which is how Sindbad survives. An (ordinary, non-magical) animal leads him out of the cave, where he finds a ship and goes back home.     

Voyage 5: [p1, p2]

He still isn’t tired of voyaging at this point (as to why, I have no idea). But he gets tired of the riches and the ease and decides to embark on a trip once more. Since he’s so rich, he decides to commission the building of a ship and gets some other merchants to travel with him. But he ended up picking merchants that were kind of…well, cruel. When the crew stops on an island with a roc egg that has barely hatched, everyone besides Sindbad suddenly decides it’s time for lunch and eats the baby roc. Gross. Anyways, it was a bad move for them, because the parents of the roc end up getting revenge by destroying the ship. Sindbad once again survives his trip on a piece of driftwood, landing on a place inhabited by the Old Man of the Sea. Man, if there was ever a bad time for charity, it would be when Sindbad tries to help old mute man and basically becomes his slave. But the goblin gets drunk, and Sindbad escapes. Luckily (isn’t this always the case?) there are merchants on the island, and they let him travel with them to their country, where he ends up making money (lots of it) and returning to Baghdad.

Voyage 6: [p1, p2, p3]

Only a year after all the crap in the fifth voyage happened, Sindbad sets sail in his sixth voyage. This time, he goes to a different part of the world than he usually goes, but it doesn’t matter – trouble finds him once again. After a storm catches the ship he’s on, Sindbad and the rest of the crew happen to be pushed towards the most dangerous spot in the entire world.

After burying everyone else, he finally has the idea to go down the one orifice in the cliff wall, a dark cavern with a river leading away from the ocean. He has nothing to lose. So he builds a raft and goes, and it ends up taking him to the inhabited part of Sri Lanka, where he (like in his other voyages) meets the king and tells him his tale. A while after recording Sindbad’s tale, the king sends Sindbad off to Baghdad with riches for himself and the caliph (for good public relations). And, once again, Sindbad comes out alive and rich.

Voyage 7: [p1, p2]

In this last voyage, Sindbad truly doesn’t want to go out to sea. He’s had enough adventure to last him a lifetime and he’s ‘old enough’ to fully appreciate the luxury of the uneventful life. But, as fate has it, he’s practically forced to go because the caliph wants Sindbad to return the gifts given by the Sri Lankan king in the sixth voyage. So he goes and surprisingly nothing bad happens on his way there. However, on his way back, Sindbad and his crew run into some pirates, where he’s sold as a slave to a pretty nice master. The guy feeds and clothes him well; the one thing Sindbad is ordered to do is to kill elephants for their ivory tusks (since Sindbad’s a fair shot). So Sindbad does by hiding in trees while the elephants come through the forest each day, and finally the elephants get so angry at the death of their kind that they uproot the tree Sindbad is hiding in one day. They don’t hurt Sindbad (again, because his talent seriously is luck) and show him the elephant graveyard. All the tusks an ivory merchant like Sindbad’s master could want without the needless killing. Sindbad shows his master, his master frees him, and Sindbad goes back to Baghdad with the many provisions his former master provides him. In Baghdad his stories are recorded, and he doesn’t go out to sea again.