Storytelling Week 7: No Service: Group Project

What's worse than having a hoard of fire ants stinging you? Being in a group project. At least that's what Annie, a junior business major, thought. Annie is your typical straight A college student. She always reads every chapter for class, writes a novel when taking class note, and somehow finds time to get enough sleep.

Annie is not happy right now though. It's 8:42 p.m. on the day before her midterm presentation is due. No one in her group could meet in person so they are stuck messaging back and forth.

Annie checks her phone.

“1 NEW MESSAGE,” her screen blared.

“Hey guys, so I have taken the initiative and designed the layout of our project. Take a look and tell me what you think!!!!” a message from Hannah read.

You have got to be kidding me, Annie thought. This girl has gone to maybe three classes and she thinks she knows what’s going on?

“3 NEW MESSAGES,” her screen flashed.

“Nice! Glad someone is doing that. I don’t have time for this,” Joey typed.

“Guys as long as I get a c in the class I really don’t care what we do…” from Ryan.

“Awesome, I didn’t really put that much time into the layout but I don’t care as long as we pass,” Hannah replied quickly.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, Annie screamed internally.

“I am almost done with the CORRECT layout of the….” Annie started to type.

“1 NEW MESSAGE,” her phone alerted her.

“K guys lets call it a day and get some margs at campus corner.” Hannah replied.

Swish. Whack. Shatter.

Annie threw her computer across the room in a fit of rage.

“Oh crap. Oh crap! WHAT HAVE I DONE”? Annie screamed looking at her busted computer.

Annie has lost all of her work for the project and now has no way to talk to her classmates.

Annie failed her midterm presentation the next day.

(Broken Laptop)

Author's Note:

This story was based on the South African story The Lost Message. In the original story, different types of ants got together to find a way to stay safe from their enemies. No one listened to each other and they did their own thing. The kind of the insects found this out and sent a messenger beetle to tell the ants the secret of unity. He never arrived to the ants so they don't know how to unite. 

Same goes with this story. Annie let her anger and frustration get to her and destroyed her work. She wasn't able to finish her project and she failed. 

Bibliography:
Book: SouthAfrican Folk-Tales
Author: James A. Honey
Year: 1910

reading Diary A: South African Folktales

South African Folktales

The Lost Message

Anteater

So this story is about how ants came together to find a place to retreat when they are being attacked. The story says the ants have many enemies since they are small and destructive. 

When they held a meeting, there were many different types of ants to talk about the problems they face.

Basically the story is about how all these different ants couldn't come to one agreement so they separated and did their own thing. 

The king of the insects heard that their ideas weren't working so he sent a beetle to tell them the secret of unity. The beetle never arrived so they still have no clue what they are doing. 

The Story of a Dam

So the story starts out with a great drought throughout the land. The lion summons different animals to see if they could find a way to collect precious water. So basically these animals that worked so hard to create this dam didn't take care of it. 

I think I will try to combine these two stories.