Topic Brainstorm

 The first project topic that appealed to me was OU ghost stories! I have always loved ghost stories.  They seem to capture my attention in a specific kind of way.  I can get really into them when I listen to them.  That being said, I'm not sure if I completely believe in the ghosts.  But at the same time, I feel like some things have supernatural energy that can be felt.  Maybe I should consider myself fortunate that I haven't encountered anything supernatural! I think I liked this topic also because my old high school was supposedly haunted.  People always said the top floor, the fourth, was haunted at the school because a nun had apparently killed herself up there (it was a private school that used to be a boarding school).  The fourth floor was pretty creepy though.  There were beds and dormitories up there even when we used to go up there.  Nowadays it's mostly used for storage.  It is made a bit creepier by the fact that it's supposed to be "off-limits."  I have never thought about writing ghost stories but I could see it being pretty fun! It was nice to reminisce on my haunted high school : ) It's super neat that there are some stories about OU as well! I'm fascinated that someone has compiled OU ghost stories into a book! That's one that I wouldn't mind buying, for sure.  The source I picked out while researching was an article called The history behind OU's ghost stories by the OU Daily.  Some of them are pretty creepy, particularly the elevator accident in Cate.  

The next project topic that I really liked is Heroes of Myth and Legend.  Even though I did heroes from the epics last semester, I really can't get enough of this topic.  I had so much fun writing about Rama and Hanuman in the epics class.  And I really love ancient Greek mythology! I was a big Percy Jackson fan back in the day, and I still remember those stories fondly.  It would be fun to recreate some of my own.  While I loved writing about Rama, I think it would be fun to write some stories based off of some different heroes--ones that are maybe more common! Hercules would be a fun one.  When I was doing research I mostly looked through Greek heroes.  The source I picked out was an article about the Greek hero Perseus.   I think it would be fun to write stories about characters interacting with Medusa or other Greek legends :)

The next project topic that appealed to me was the Odyssey.  I remember reading this story years ago in school, but I think I would appreciate it more now.  Similar to the paragraph above, this story mainly interests me because of its connection to Greek mythology.  I remember the cyclops from this one, and parts of the harrowing journey that the hero went through.  It would be fun to have a project that was themed off of a quest! I think I would like that a lot.  It would be easier to plan out stories that can link up to create an epic.  The source I used for much of my research on this topic was an article on Odysseus. 

The final topic I picked out is on the saints.  I grew up Catholic so I am pretty familiar with many of these tales.  I would be interested to learn more about these humans who lived such extraordinary lives! I'm not exactly sure how writing stories for them would go...I feel like that would be harder for me.  It might be more limiting.  I like to be goofy when I am writing my stories, and I don't think I would want to be too extravagant when writing about the saints haha! But still, it would be a pretty amazing theme for a project.  I'll need to sleep on it :)  The book that I looked through the most for this topic was The Book of Saints and Heroes.  I particularly enjoyed the story The Saint with the Lion.  It was crazy to hear about Saint Jerome's interaction with the lion! I had never heard of him before.  

Odysseus after his long journey home.  

source: commons