A New Voice

    Nearly everyone was read stories when they were little. Most commonly stories were read before bed time. In fact if you were not read stories, especially in the US, before bedtime your childhood is thought to be significantly lacking. My childhood was filled mostly of your typical Christian stories accompanied by other fables, and fairy tales. I am unsure if being raised by Christian family played a role in which kind stories were told. However, I was still left lacking the knowledge of the "classic" bedtime stories.
    Up until middle school I had never encountered Greek mythology. Although, after middle school I had kind of forgotten about Greek Mythology, along with everything I had learned, I decided to pick it up again. This week I met with Mary Chase, my writing professor, to do a check-point of how my blog was going. What I pulled from our meeting was that I need to loosen up in terms of my writing style and let my thoughts flow. Next we talked about linking my thoughts about Greek Mythology to modern day. I was then refreshed on the Greek Myth ofArachne.
    For those of you do don't know the story it is about an arrogant girl whom of which was very skilled at weaving. Because of her skill she believed she was the best weaver and challenged Athena to a weaving contest, which resulted in Arachne being turned into a spider. Aachne's new transformation was designed to punish her and her descendants weave for the rest of their lives with their work constantly being destroyed.

    After revisiting this story I began to think if there was more to the punishment than just having to weave for the rest of your life, fixing the aftermath of humans. Have you ever been showering and looked up to see a massive spider who caused you to drop your shampoo on your foot and scare the living crap out of you, all in the matter of about a second? Well, one of the first things that came to mind is that I really hate spiders, especially if they are discovered in bed and our of reach. Next, entered word arachnophobia into my brain, and from there on I thought of how many people are scared of and dislike spiders. Despite them killing a large majority of insects, they are still hated among the majority of humans. That got me thinking, maybe there was more to Athena's punishment. Not only did Arachne and her descendants have to live their life with their work constantly being destroyed, but they were also viewed as monsters and undesired by most people. They are forced to see (with very blurry vision) the hatred and fear they cause humans, then they are left to run for their life from their distressed punishment's foot, vacuum, Kleenex, coffee mug, or whatever hard object happens to be lying within reach. Then if not killed that time they are forced to repeat the process, given that they are not killed by another predator.

Have any thoughts about spiders or any stories about your encounters? Leave me a much welcomed and appreciated comment below.