Week 10 Lab: The Hungry Hungry Crocodile (Rhyming Poem, Microfiction)

Monkey on the Crocodile's back: Yoga for Modern Age

There once was a monkey who lived in a tree
Happy and healthy yet hungry was he

For just cross the river there was a small grove
Of mangos bananas and foods that he loved

Meanwhile a crocodile was beginning to start
To dream of a scheme to eat monkey heart

So the croc yelled out to the monkey up high
“Cross on my back so youll stay nice and dry”

The monkey considered and pondered and thought
And decided “why not? I’ll give it a shot”

As soon as he jumped on the crocodiles back
The croc said “haha! Now your heart is my snack”

The monkey, so smart and clever was he,
“Well good thing my heart stays up in my tree”

The crocodile, confused, still wanted his snack
So he said, “go get it! And come straight back!”

As soon as the monkey landed on land,
He smiled and waved goodbye with his hand

“Foolish little croc, you’ll never get me!
You just let me escape and I’ll always be free”

Author's Note: Trying something a little different this week! I honestly had no idea that this is what I would end up with for this week; it actually just came to me! I woke up one morning with the first two stanzas in my head and then I pulled up my phone and wrote the rest (with slight modification to keep the same cadence). I used to always write poems like these for my family members' birthday/christmas/holiday cards, so I have a lot of practice with this style of writing! Im glad that I can put it to use for a grade finally! I hope you enjoyed the Dr. Seuss-esque rhyming poem!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=monkey

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part B

Hello VagaBuddies,

Welcome to the second part of the reading notes for the first collection of Jataka Tales! I am really liking these Jataka Tales. Not all of them are good, but they remind of Aesop's Fables and they are new to me! I will talk about a few of them in this post. Here are the stories I read for this reading:

Reading Part B
The Wise and Foolish Merchant
The Elephant Girly-face
The Banyan Deer
The Princes and the Water-Sprite
The King's White Elephant
The Ox Who Never Envied the Pig
Grannie's Blackie
The Crab and the Crane
Why the Owl Is Not King of the Birds

One of the wild things about this collection was that the story of the Princes and the Water-Sprite is an exact copy of the story of the Pandevas brothers in their exile in the forest. From each brother going to get water individually, to the sprite/yaksha taking them because they didn't answer correctly, and down to the eldest brother winning all his siblings back through his morality, this is practically the same story! It was very fun to see how Buddhist texts and Indian epics influence each other, and the similarities make sense because they both were written at the same time!

In my last blog post about these Jataka Tales, I talked about all the stories where the message could be summed up as 'don't be a d*ck.' Elephant Girly-Face kind of fits into this theme, but it's also very different because the main character, Elephant Girly-Face, was just annoying to me. I didn't like that Elephant Girly-Face was so easily influenced to become mean and then just as easily was back to being nice. It made the message really unclear. Was the message to not believe what others say immediately? Or was it to not fuck around with mean elephants? Who knows.

Elephant Girly-Face literally becoming a little shit because he overheard some thieves talking: Gateway To The Classics

Another story that had a confusing message was the King's White Elephant. Here, the baby white elephant learned how to work with the carpenters, but then was sold to the king. It seems to me that the carpenters had no right to sell the elephant, because the elephant seems remarkably sentient (and so should not be sold). Besides that, the story just ends with "and the elephant went with the king and was taken care of." It didn't seem to me that the white elephant particularly deserved this good life (he was a good elephant, but didn't do something amazing), nor did he deserve to be sold to someone else at all!

Overall, these stories left something to be desired. I liked the story, "Why the Owl Is Not King of the Birds" but it was just ok. Many of the stories here didn't seem to have a particular lesson or moral like the previous collection had. Maybe I just need to change my expectations for when I inevitably read more of these stories!
Vaga-Buon Voyage!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=wise

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part A

Hello VagaBuddies,

This week I am reviewing the first half of Jataka Tales. I will give a short summary of some of the stand-out stories (whether good or bad) and explain my position!

The Merchant of Seri
The Merchant of Seri was a great little story about being a good person (a common theme you will see repeated in this blog post), where one greedy merchant tried to take advantage of someone by devaluing a piece, but another honest merchant was able to take advantage of the greedy merchant's cockiness. Overall, the theme of the story was to not be a d*ck. I liked that the honest merchant offered his entire stock just for that one gold bowl, and he was still able to live off that one trade for a good amount of time. Good for him.

The Ox Who Won the Forfeit
The Ox Who Won the Forfeit was another 'don't be a d*ck' story. In this one, the farmer tried to be all tough and macho in front of the townspeople, completely embarrassing his strong ox in the process. The strong ox understandably refused to move and win the bet for his owner. But fortunately, both parties had a good feelings-dump after the bet and the ox agreed to win his owner more money! Yay for kindness and helping your friends get rich!

Picture of the owner decorating his ox before the 2nd bet : Internet Sacred Texts Archive

The Sandy Road
The Sandy Road, I think, still falls. under the category of 'don't be a d*ck', but in a different way than the other two stories. Here, the guide makes a mistake, and instead of trying to blame it on other people or anything, he owned up to it and made it right. I respect that a lot! Especially since the guide's entire thought process was, "it's all up to me to make this right, so let's not stop until everything is ok!" Not only that, though, but the guide also marked the well for other travelers to use. How kind of him! I liked this story the best because it rewarded someone for working hard.

Vaga-Buon Voyage!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=monkey