Week 8 Famous Last Words: Spider Stories!

I do my work for the class on the weekend, and I was really excited for this weekend because I was going to start working on the Spider stories for my Storybook. I used one of the stories from the West African unit to actually do some writing (how the stories all became Anansi-stories!), and I started taking notes on other Spider stories I could use as sources. I focused on the Hausa stories published by Tremearne, and I also came across his obituary while I was doing research: he died fighting in the British army during World War I. Here is a photo of him in uniform: 

I had no idea... He was only 38 years old, but he did so much work and published so many books just in that short time. That is very sobering for me to see; when I was 38, I was just beginning to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So, knowing that about him, I feel even more grateful for the books that he published, and I am glad I will be using his Spider stories for my project. I am sure if he could have known someone would be using his work 100 years later, he would have been pleased. 

I'm trying to get ahead on my work as a student in this class because there is a big crunch-week coming up, and I might not be able to do any student-work next weekend. So, I might try to add a page to my Storybook tomorrow too, but it's not due until March 28, so that will work out either way. Since I can't use Canvas to keep track of my progress like a regular student, I have a spreadsheet, which is actually so much better because i can color-code things and sort them and make my plan... and based on my current plan, this is all I have as the semester starts to wind down:

And my countdown-to-retirement clock now says 55 days. That feels really weird, but also good to be honest: I am so ready to totally immerse myself in African folktales for the whole summer AND for the fall and beyond to see what I can learn. Before, I always had to limit the scope of any project to the weeks I had off during the summer. But now...... I can think BIG. And my ambitions for learning about African folktales are very big. I am really glad that I have this Storybook project to help organize some of my thoughts and get ready for the story adventures to come.