Sorry its all connected, but here are the rest of my blogs!

I would totally take the time to separate these blogs, but I am late for work and I wanted to turn them in.  SORRY!

Jessi

·        Blog 1- Why I chose the Phoenix.         

o   I chose the Phoenix bird because it has been a popular creature in recent media, such as Harry Potter.  Secondly, I chose the phoenix because I think that there will be a lot of coverage on the topic, since it has become more popular.  As a bird that bursts into flames and from the ashes a new bird is born, the Phoenix seems very intriguing.  Personally, the Phoenix was also our logo for The Vagina Memoirs Production in 2012.  If you haven’t seen the production, it is life changing.  Especially for the people who put on the show.  This picture reminds me that like a Phoenix, things may go wrong in your life, but sometimes you have to shake it off and start anew.   Overall, I feel that the phoenix is a great mythical creature to research on and I think that I will have a great time analyzing the validity of said claims. 

·        Blog 2

·         The Phoenix is a bird with the head of an Eagle and the body of a Heron or Stork.  Even though the Phoenix is covered in fire, the Phoenix finds its food in the water.  The phoenix dies and catches on fire, resulting in being born again for the ashes.  Apparently, the Phoenix is so hot that even under water; its fire does not go out.  I also found this quick link that basically tells you the some information on the specifics of the Phoenix through the resent ages! Oh year, breaking out the classics!

·         http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=117

·        Blog 3

·         Being that I have so many tattoos, I wondered if many people had tattoos of the Phoenix bird.  When I searched Google, I found a ton! I challenge you, if you like art, check out the tattoos people have posted of the Phoenix bird.  In addition to this, I thought that it would be interesting to compare and contrast the differences between some of the birds.  I know that this is not required in researching our mythical creature, but I do not know a lick about mythical creatures, so I figured the images would spark some form of debate. 

·         Here is the link if you want to look with me;

·         http://www.lizaphoenix.com/encyclopedia/birds.shtml

·        Blog 4

            In trying to research the origins of my mythical creature the Phoenix, I have become confused.  Every article I read overlaps with the same information as to who really was the home-base for the Phoenix.  I do understand that this is a mythical creature, but I guess for a legend, I wanted to believe in the magic if only for a little.  I believe that is article does a fantastic job at showing some, not all, but some of the different cultures that claim the Phoenix and this illustrates the specific story attributed to that culture. 

o    http://www.buzzle.com/articles/phoenix-bird.html#phoenix-myth-in-different-cultures

·        Blog 5

o   The web provided phenomenal support in the historical description of the Phoenix bird.  After grazing over several wiki, mythology, and mystical creatures books I was able to create a better understanding of my mythical creature.  One idea that I found very interesting is the idea that Phoenix’s live in colder regions.  I was genuinely surprised by this due to the fact that all of the originating countries containing the Phoenix are countries with excessively hot climates’.  Well, excessively hot for me anyways. J Here is that article I found.  I also like where it says that if the Phoenix chooses, it will pick a human as its familiar.  I think that would be one of the greatest things ever, to have a Phoenix next to you.  I see now why Dumbledore was awesome!

·        Blog 6

o   One of the problems that I had in going about different research methods was finding proper data that related to the actual Phoenix Bird.  Some of the results that I have gotten back were relating to the car, town, and Harry Potter.  When looking through possible newspaper articles, the Phoenix bird did not come up one time.  Many of the options were for local newspapers with a bird as a logo. However, once I started using EBSCO, I found two articles pertaining to the Phoenix.  Here is a link to journal describing the importance of the Phoenix regarding something as simple as a button. 

·        Blog 7

o   I went on Youtube to try and find a sighting of a Phoenix bird.  Naturally, I did not find any real conclusive videos.  However, I did find several videos that seem more like cloud watching then a Phoenix Bird.  Another video that I found was looked like a shooting star.  It looked way too far into space to be anything else.  It had me wondering if the Phoenix is a mythical bird, then how do we determine what should be deemed credible or not? One of the videos that I found pretty interesting is the link below. I believe that it is just an eagle, but it is up for discussion.  Any thoughts?

o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFB86zyReYU

Final blog

I have learned a lot from this class. As a freshmen, I think that knowing about all these resources at the library will be very beneficial throughout my education. I know I wouldn't have found half of the things I did without this course. My favorite lesson was the special archives. The old book and all the little pop up books were so interesting to see and I never would have even known it was there. I liked this course a lot and am glad I took it.

Monsters of the Sea

The other book that came in from Summit was entitled Monsters of the Sea. It had quite a large section on mermaids. Most of it was the recollection of all the cultures who had mermaids in their history. It also included all the famous hoaxes. It gives a full account of the differences between Stellar's sea cows, manatees, and dugongs. It is quite obvious the author believes they are the explanation for the sightings of mermaids. I didn't find this book very helpful. All I got from it was the earliest listing of a mermaid which was 5000 bc.

The field guide

My summit books came in earlier this week so I will write about one this time. It is called The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. A very long title for very little useful information.The only discussion of a mermaid was one paragraph. They were trying to prove the existence of a mermaid near Papua, New Guinea but instead discovered a dugong. They successfully identified it and that's all that happened. Very uneventful story.

I have no excuse

I got curious where our idea of a gorgeous woman in a sea shell bra came from so I went to Google  I didn't find what I was looking for but I found this forum with videos attached.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=226816

The first video is a man who apparently caught mermaids on film off the Great Barrier Reef. The second is some performers at an aquarium. They move quite similarly to the "real mermaids" the man saw. He distinctly points out that it would be difficult to swim like that without using your hands but the women did just fine. Also, the first video was originally from a film editing company. I think this "real mermaid sighting" is a total hoax.

I have no excuse

As I went back through my syllabus to be sure I covered anything, the blogs came up. I smacked myself in the head and here we are.

Last year, the National Ocean Service released a statement saying mermaids do not exist. They released this statement because of the mockumentary on Animal Planet that many believed to be real. They didn't give any reasoning other than "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found." While I'm not sure if they are real, I believe the government was simply getting tired of the questions. They cannot know without a doubt that no humanoid creatures have ever swam the oceans of Earth.

No government Docs on the Mothman?

Why are there no Government Documents on the mothman?

That is a good question and can be answered in various ways. As with many other cryptids it could be that the government doesn't see the Mothman as a topic worth investigating or hasn't been around long enough to  incite an investigation. On the other hand it could be that the Mothman is being kept under wraps by the government itself. A lot of sources around the Mothman mention sightings of the Men in Black who appeared to be government agents and tried to convince reporters and other witnesses not to write or bring up the mothman. It is possible the government knows the mothman is real and have some involvement in its creation or whereabouts. It could also be that the Men in Black are aliens themselves who are out to silence humans who are onto their plans.