Oh What a Semester

Alright so I'm not even going to lie, this blog post is only being written just so I can say I wrote another blog haha. I have absolutely no idea what to write about, no creative ideas...nothing. So here goes a free write of my jumbled thoughts of my constantly racing mind.
 So here I am, 11:45 pm on a Sunday. Tomorrow is the last day of classes of my freshman year here at UNH. Uhm...wait what? This isn't real life is it? What just happened to the last 9 months of my life? I feel like I just moved into Christenson and died of heat stroke for a week, with no way of escaping the deadly heat. hahah I'm sure everyone remembers that. Honestly, that is definitely on the list for worst times ever. Anywho, this year has come and gone so quickly, but I wouldn't change anything about it. I'm succeeded, I've failed, laughed, cried, been stressed out beyond belief, and everything in-between. Well...maybe a few things like the failing and crying part...haha but hey I learned from those "freshman in college" mistakes and they made me stronger and wiser. All in all, as much and I NEED summer and sun, the beach, life-guarding, being tan, bonfires, swimming, it not being winter and snowy, and happiness, this has been an amazing year and experience, and I will remember it forever. I have met so many awesome new people and learned so much, but I this this English class has had taught me the most this year. Alright I know that sounds wicked corny and makes it look like I'm just saying that to suck up and stuff but I'm completely serious. Even though I was forced to take this class as a requirement, I really ended up enjoying it even if i did complain a "tiny" bit about the work....You're still reading this? HA bravo to you, I like you. Back on track here.... the fairytale theme really kept my attention because it was unlike any other class I have taken. Not to mention the essential lessons and skills I learned about writing papers such as having a strong thesis, topic sentences, no filler, being creative, researching, all while trying to have fun with it will help me throughout my years here at UNH in all classes and in life. People never stop writing, and i am grateful for learning from the best teacher ever. (Okay that right there is sucking up). But hey its true so whatever.
Alright so I'm going to wrap this up now and spare all you great amazing people who are still reading my thoughts on this fine spring night of (now) May 9th, of the year 2011. Now you're all probably thinking, this is weird/ it has no connection to fairytales....but that my friends are where you are greatly mistaken. Almost all characters in fairy tales have thoughts of some kind. And I just wrote about my own thoughts. So therefore, I am a character of a fairy tale. Think about it....

Have a great fairy-tale-like summer everyone! Thank you to all those who have been reading my blog posts and good luck on FINALS....DUN DUN DUNNNNNN. Alright I'm really finished now. Buona Notte!

Toddlers and Tiaras? More like, Toddlers in Handcuffs...

I'm sure that every one has seen this show Toddlers and Tiaras at some point while flipping through the channels, but if you haven't here is a little summary. "Toddlers & Tiaras is an American reality television series that debuted on TLC in 2009. The show follows the controversial world of child beauty pageants, looking closely at the pageant contestants and their families as the children prepare for their pageant shows. The show airs without any narration in order to avoid passing judgment (Wikipedia). Now this may not seem that bad, but I personally think this show is just really sad.
This show is a perfect example of how mothers are influencing their daughters so much and so intensely that they are all like little mini barbie dolls running around and have nothing unique about them. These mothers are living their dreams through their daughters and pushing them so hard to achieve it for them, and we can't forget a main focus of the very large cash prizes and trophies awarded to the winners of the pageants. However, the sad part about this is that these little girls are being made into stubborn, rude, selfish, and spoiled children, not to mention that they are being deprived of their childhood, constantly traveling from pageant to pageant every weekend, while during the week they are constantly under huge pressure being forced to practice new routines and searching for new costumes. These little girls are trapped in their mothers imagination which is constantly suffocating theirs. I understand that these are strong opinions, and many people may disagree with me saying that these little girls like doing the pageants and have fun, and while this may be true in some cases, its definitely not all. In one episode that I found online, a mother was forcing her five year old daughter to get her eyebrows waxed. First of all a big issue here is that she is five years old. Second of all, she is so terrified of it because the last time her mother made her do this, the little girls' skin was ripped off during the procedure. This is just not okay. Five year olds should be outside running around playing games, using their imaginations, and enjoying life, not being forced to get their eyebrows waxed...five year olds should not be stressed out about anything other than the monster under their bed at night.
These mothers are forcing their daughters to grow up way to fast. With all of the make-up, fake eyelashes, fake teeth, fake tans, hair extensions, expensive dresses, shoes, and God only knows what else, to make them "Beautiful" just like a princess in order to win a silly contest, these little girls in the end, are in reality just being set up for failure, because only one girl can win. But honestly, what really is beauty anyways?

Is this going over the top?

So the other night I was hanging out with my friend Kasey. She was creeping on facebook per usual  and what not when all of a sudden she got wicked excited about something and turned to me and said, "They have Disney princess dresses now!". Naturally, I got excited as well and said, "GAH this is a perfect blog topic send me the link"! She made fun of me, but did send the link and now I'm writing my blog. (That was just a little fun fact conversation portion of the blog.) Alright so any-who, this new line of wedding gowns was designed by Alfred Angelo who is apparently a world wide distributor and retailer of wedding gowns headquartered in Philadelphia. Who knew? Well...Wikipedia did. However, this new line features themed gowns from each Disney Princess including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Tiana, Belle, and of course Snow White. Each gown then offers a complete set of accessories including earrings, bracelets, necklaces, shoes, bags, tiaras etc.  Now apparently, this is not the first line of Disney Princess gowns. Last year there was one designed by Kristie Kelly, yet she left out Tiana from Princess and the Frog. Although these gowns are very nice looking, I personally think that it is just stepping over the line of the whole "Fairy Tale Wedding" ordeal. I don't really understand the whole hype; I feel like if I had to get a dress I wouldn't want to share it with a princess as well as a million other people who want the exact same dress.This might possibly be because I am not a girl and honestly don't really care if a dress is similar to a Disney Princess's, but to me they all look like white wedding gowns and like any other dress you would find in any other wedding store. Some are poofy, some are not, and some have little sparkly silver gem things on them. That's the only difference to me and I don't see much resemblance to the gowns in the movies. That being said, I think this whole line of gowns is just another Disney money maker idea at its finest because in reality, what girl doesn't want to spend a shitload of their fathers money be a princess for a few hours? Not too many.
As I was looking though the article though, I was reading some of the comments of the readers and I thought it was kind of funny to see the reactions of some people. I"m going to post the link to the website at the end of this blog so you guys can read some more, but here is what some person said, "Yep, they look nice on someone weighing 85 pounds. How do they look on someone weighing 140+???" (cqdeed). This comment relates directly back to our class discussion and of Betsy Hearne's argument about how Disney is creating these barbie like images which no "normal" person and achieve. Therefore in reality, a perfect fairy tale wedding will always just be a dream because nothing in life is perfect. I think eventually there are going to be adds saying "Come get married in Cinderella's Castle, or on Jasmines flying carpet"!. Oh the wonderful just out of reach world of Disney...


Here is the article about the wedding gowns. Enjoy!
http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2011/03/28/disney-wedding-dresses-by-alfred-angelo/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopDYNLprim0001&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl10|sec1_lnk2|53162#comments

Also, here is a youtube clip of the models in the gowns at the first photo shoot for the adds. Some of the gowns are even explained as to why they chose to design them they way they did.

Research Paper Thoughts

Hellooo everyone! First off, my apologies for not posting in a while...I know this is not a good thing and I am really going to try not to let it slip my mind anymore. I need to be better at this whole blogging thing. On that note, I wasn't really sure what to write about so I just want to talk a little about my research topic and what I found out recently that I think is interesting.
My mother is a Pre-School/ Nursery teacher at St. Joseph's School in Haverhill, Ma. Its a small catholic school of only a couple hundred students in nursery to 8th grade. (I actually went there for 10 years.) Anyways, for my topic I want to research fairy tales in early childhood education, how they are taught, and how the students react to them. I know when I was a little kid I remember my mom reading fairy tales and nursery rhymes to me, and watching all the Disney movies with my sister and all that fun stuff. However, what I did not know that I found out while I was talking to my mother, is that she used to change the endings to the stories so that I wouldn't get scared! ME scared? pshttt.. My mom teaches three and four year olds, and although she doesn't teach them fairy tales, she does teach them students nursery rhymes. My mom told me that when she reads them the story of the old lady who lived in a shoe, at the point in the rhyme when the old lady "whips" her children to bed, my mom will casually change it to "kiss" her children to bed. Her students have no idea that a change was made and no one gets scared or nervous. I don't know about you guys, but if I was whipped to bed, I would not be happy and probably be scared to go to bed... As for the fairy tales, another woman my mom works with who teaches Pre-School (4-5 years old) has "Fairy Tale Week". She mostly teaches her students about the Three Little Pigs and the importance of building a strong house and helping out others. Yet, the big bad wolf sometimes scares the kids, so at the end of the tale, instead of the wolf eating the pigs, she changes it to that the wolf becomes friends with the little pigs and has dinner with them! I thought that was funny.
Something else I found interesting is that she doesn't even tell the story of Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood anymore because they terrify the kids to the point where some even cry. How crazy is that? My mom thinks its because of how strongly kids today are told never to talk to strangers or wonder off on their own, yet when my mom was little, she was told all these stories, even the scary ones. She even told me that she thought they were scary, but she handled it and they told them in school anyways. Does this mean that kids today are too sheltered? Or is this just the way our world has become, that teaching children about scary things just isn't an acceptable thing anymore because kids of this young age simply can't grasp onto the idea that not everything is good? These are questions that I  will hopefully answer in my paper. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? If so, feel free to add in!

Even this version of the Three Little Pigs has yet another alternate ending!

Giambattista Basile's Profile

Giambattista Basile

            Giambattista Basile was born right outside of the quaint, yet bustling, coastal city of Naples, Italy. Historians have had some difficulty determining when his exact birth year was. It is known that he passed away on February 23, 1632 in Guigliano, Italy. During his lifetime, he was an Italian poet, courtier to many princesses of Italy, a soldier, and believe it or not, “Basile moved to Naples in 1608 and began a career in government, serving in the court of Ferdinandino Gonzaga and holding the post of governor to a number of small Italian states” (Giambattista Basile eBooks-library). Yet most importantly, Giambattista Basile was a fairy tale collector, which is why he is remembered today.

            If it weren’t for Giambattista’s peculiar interest to write down these ancient tales, we would not have the modern day fairy tales we all know and love today, such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapuzel to name a few. However, Basile is mostly remembered for his outstanding collection of Neapolitan tales titled, Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, which means, “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones". Even though Basile wrote these tales down, he did not publish them himself, it was actually his sister Adrianna who published his stories. She published his stories in two volumes under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis in Naples, Italy in 1634 and 1636. He most likely chose to do this in order keep his interest in fairy tales a secret from society, and maintain his reputation as a tough soldier, and successful governor. An interesting feature about Basile’s writing is that when he transcribed these ancient tales onto paper, typically near Venice and Crete, Italy; he transcribed the tales in the actual dialect, while still adding a bit of his own flare to the tales. By using this technique, Giambattista was successful in preserving the variation of tone used when one told the tales, which most fairy tale collectors chose not to do. This was a main reason why his tales stood out among the rest.

            Despite all of his hard work collecting these ancient historical tales, they were almost lost in time. Thankfully, over a century later, German fairy tale publishers known as “The Brothers Grimm” caught a hold onto Basile’s talented work. They praised his work and dubbed it the first national collection of fairy tales, and the oldest variants ever discovered, and gave it much attention in their third edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

            Although Giambattista Basile lived during a time we today can only imagine, he is still remembered for a reason. That reason is that he was bold and brave. Basile was a man of many talents, and pursued his life as a soldier, courtier, poet, governor, and took a risky chance to pursue what he loved to do, which was collect fairy tales. If it weren’t for him, and his talent of preserving the tone, pitch, and overall feeling in general of the tale, those ancient tales may have been lost forever. We wouldn’t have most of the fairy tales that we know of today because without Giambattista Basile, they may have never been written down for other people to find, and then add his or her own flare to the tale to continue the everlasting tradition of fairy tales.

           

Works Cited

"Giambattista Basile - EBooks in PDF Format from EBooks-Library.com." EBooks-Library.com - Your Best Source for EBooks, Historical Documents and Sheet Music - All in PDF Format. Web. 02 Mar. 2011. <http://www.ebooks-library.com/author.cfm/AuthorID/31>.

"Giambattista Basile." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Basile>.

"Giambattista Basile: Information from Answers.com." Answers.com: Wiki Q&A Combined with Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedias. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. <http://www.answers.com/topic/giambattista-basile-1>.

"He Who Dares Not, Wins Not - Giambattista Basile." Quote Snack. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. <http://quotesnack.com/giambattista-basile/he-who-dares-not-wins-not/>.

Reader Response- Little Red Riding Hood

            As I was reading Little Red Riding Hood again for the first time in a long time, I realized that the picture that the words created in my head were exactly the same as when I was a child, listening to my mother tell me the story. I always pictured a bright, colorful, happy setting in the woods with bright blue skies with the sun shining through the tree tops, birds singing, animals running about, and Little Red Riding Hood skipping joyfully along the dirt path. Even when the “Big Bad Wolf” came into the scene, the mood never changed, for I knew that he was not a real wolf. Therefore, I never associated the wolf as being scary or mean, but more as a funny character who dressed up like a grandmother as a practice joke. All in all, the part of the tale that catches my attention the most now is the moral of the story which is of course, “never talk to strangers”, which catapults me down memory lane back to my childhood when one day, I did just the opposite of this.

            It was a hot summer day during the mid 1990’s. My mom went out to do some errands, so I went over to my best friend and neighbor Jason Toney’s house for a few hours. We did everything together even though we were almost a full two years apart; he was like my little brother. I remember we were playing in his driveway, by ourselves, which wasn’t unusual despite our young ages. We lived in a very safe condo development, and his mother was just right inside the house. Then all of a sudden, a man driving a blue car slowly pulled up to the end of the driveway and stopped. I looked at Jason and he looked at me. We both had no idea what to do, seeing as we had no idea who this person was or what they were doing, and this was not a street that just anyone drove down. The stranger rolled down the passenger side window and started talking to us, but we couldn’t really hear him. I being the oldest took initiative and did the talking. I took a few steps closer to the car while still keeping my distance, knowing that I shouldn’t be talking at all. The stranger then said, “Come closer to the car. Are your parent’s home”? We both nervously and quickly said yes, and then he proceeded to ask where both of us lived, and inquiring information that he did not need to know. I knew then that this was not a normal situation and that we needed to leave. Jason and I sprinted inside to tell his mom, and the stranger quickly drove away.

            Luckily for us, nothing bad happened to Jason or me that day, but only because we knew that we needed to flee the situation and stop talking to that man driving the car. Who knows, he might have been a nice person, but even a young ages like that, we knew we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers and he was very creepy about the whole ordeal. Jason’s mom told my mom about what happened when she got home and they were both very worried, but thankfully we never saw that man ever again.

Therefore, the moral of the story is of course, never talk to strangers. Even if the situation seems safe and nonthreatening, it’s not worth the possible consequences. Who knows, that stranger might just be the”Big Bad Wolf”.

1st Post

Hey everyone, this is my first post. I'm just getting started so bare with me.