Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Week 14 Reading Notes: Part A

The Hypocritical Cat

Cat Watching the Rat Line
Source: Pinterest

- There was this group of rats that lived by the river in a whole
- This one cat was watching them for some time and really longed to eat the rats
- So the cat had to come up with a plan on how to trap the rats so he could actually be powerful enough to eat the rats
-The cat came up with a plan were he stood close to the hole and would act like he was praising the sun and only feeding off the air
- The cat wanted it to seem like he was the best thing there was, this worked because each morning after that the rats came by to praise the cat for who he was
- After a few days of this pattern the cat finally took to his plan and started to eat the last rat in the line that goes by him
- After a few weeks of this the chief of the rat troop noticed that his army was starting to get a lot smaller and the chief started to get really suspicious
- The chief now posted himself at the end of the line and was watching the cat the whole time and he noticed the cat was starting to get greedy once the chief was coming up
- As the chief passed by the cat started to pounce on the chief but the chief caught him in time and escaped
- The chief then jumped on the cat and attacked his throat
- The rest of the troops saw this and ran over and attacked the cat and the rats ended up eating the cat 

The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. Link: The Hypocritical Cat

The Dishonest Friend

- There was this friend that had to leave for a little while and asked his friend to watch his farm and his plow
- The friend promised to watch over everything and to keep everything safe while the friend was gone
- However, the friend was not trustful as soon as the guy left the friend took the plow from the farm and sold the plow
- Once the plow was sold the friend took the money and pocketed the money
- When the friend came back and asked for his plow back the friend came up with a far fetched excuse as to what happened to the plow
- The excuse was that a really big rat came and ate the plow and took it away
- The friend did not believe this and so he came up with a plan to get his plow back to him
- The friend took the dishonest friends son for a walk and basically kidnapped the son and returned to say his son was taken by a really big hawk
- The dishonest friend did not believe this and so the dishonest friend took him to the town judge to sort all of this out
- The judge caught onto the fake story the friend told the dishonest friend so the judge told the dishonest friend to give the friends plow back and he could have his son back
- So after all the dishonest friend gave the friend back his plow and the friend returned back his son and everyone was back to being happy

The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. Link: The Dishonest Friend

Friday, November 15, 2019

Week 13 Story

The Golden Goose


The Golden Swan
Source: My India
There was this family that lived in a forest, a father, mother, and three children. One day the father called all the family into the main room of the house they all lived in and told them he had to leave for a little while. The mother was confused as to why the father had to leave as he had a job and was not in need of searching for a new one.

The father said, “I have to leave and when I come back, I will bring a lot more riches to this family than my current job.”

The mother and the children were still confused, but they all accepted and didn’t try to dig any deeper as to why the father had to leave them without any warning. The father the next day took off down the road to leave wherever the voice in his head would lead him. The next day the father ran into a fairy in the forest he was passing through and the fairy stopped him in his tracks.

The fairy asked, “why are you here walking through this forest you look like a family man?”

The father replied, “I was told the other day from a voice that I needed to travel and that I would come across something that would bring my family riches we have never had.”

The fairy was intrigued by this and waved her wand and turned the father into a goose made of golden feathers. The fairy said, “Now you are golden and of value to your family go to them and give them a feather.”

The father thanked the fairy and flew to his family as fast as his new golden feathers could go. When he arrived, the children were swinging under the oak tree outside and saw the goose and yelled for their mother. The mother came running outside to find the goose and was in awe of the goose when she laid eyes on him.

The goose plucked one of his feathers off and gave it to the mother and said, “sell this feather and you should be able to live comfy for the rest of this month.” The mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and like the goose said the family was well off. The goose returned one month later and gave the mother another feather for the mother to sell. Like before the mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and the family lived comfortable for a few months as this process continued.

Then the mother was scared that with this new lifestyle the goose would soon stop coming so she set up a plan with the children to trap the goose when he came back next. The goose like clockwork came back on the same day and time, like he always did each month before. The mother got close to the goose this time to take the feather, but instead of grabbing the feather she launched herself onto the goose. When she grabbed the goose, she yelled for the kids to start plucking all the feathers off the goose.

However, once the kids started to pluck the feathers off the goose, the goose started to shake hard and felt weird. The mother felt the shaking and couldn’t hold the goose down any longer and so she rolled off the goose and stepped back. The goose started to transform back into the person he was before, and the mother and children were all in shock when they saw who the goose really was.

The fairy popped up next to the father as he lay there on the ground confused on what happened. The fairy said, “I put a charm on you that if at anytime someone tried to take advantage of your gift you would turn back to your true self.”

The father was angry at his wife and could not believe that his beautiful wife and children would be so greedy like they were. The mother tried to apologize to the father and the father was not happy with his wife. The father grabbed the kids and said he was sorry that this happened to them and it wasn’t their fault this happened. The father gave the kids one last hug and left down the road in search of a new job and maybe never return to his family as he was saddened by his wife’s greediness.

Authors Note: I wrote a retelling of the tale about The Golden Feathers written by Noor Khan. This story is about a father that left his family to bring back riches to the family that they didn't have. The father was in the forest when a fairy turned him into a goose that was made of golden feathers. The father which now a goose flew back to family because he saw the value of the golden feathers. The wife started to get greedy and was afraid the goose would stop showing up to give his feathers to her. So, one day the wife and the three daughters grabbed the goose and started to pluck all his feathers out; however, the fairy put a charm on him for if and when this happened. Once the kids and mother started plucking the golden feathers the goose turned white like all the other geese. The goose once turned back into a normal goose flew off to join the other geese and lived a happy life with them. 

However, in my story I kept a lot of the original story; however, I wanted the father be brought back so the wife could see that there was no reason for his wife to be greedy. Instead of the goose staying a goose I chose to have him turn back into a human as himself. 

Link to the original story: The Golden Feathers 

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Growth Mindset Extra Credit

How To Spark Curiosity in Children Through Embracing Uncertainty by Linda Flanagan

Source: Mind Shift

The thing this article really hit on I have always dealt with is uncertainty of the unknown. This really plays on my mind when I am up for a checkride in the flight department. This is due to the uncertainty of the multitude of questions that the examiner can ask you during the oral exam. There is always that gut wrenching feeling before the oral exam because you never know if you are prepared enough or know enough to get through the exam. 

Addressing and enforcing the feelings of uncertainty and discomfort that it brings. This is a good idea to let the students know that its okay to not be perfect on every subject. However, if this done at an early age in my opinion it needs to be followed by some sort of task to help fill that void of uncertainty. Like the author says give the students some sort of project where they are tasked to find mistakes within something. However, this would have to be something outside of the students general class material (like English when finding grammar errors). I think the idea presented about giving a student an assignment that gives them the chance to fail is a good idea, but the assignment shouldn't hold any weight on the students grade in the class.  For instance, I could see in some classes where the student is given an assignment to do ahead of the course material being taught. This would give the student an opportunity to branch out and find the unknown when they can't figure out the homework assignment. However, the assignment like previously states should only be for completion and not graded for correctness. As I feel if it were a weighted grade then the student would lose interest and the whole idea of enforcing uncertainty would be lost. 

The last thing that is talked about in the article is how Cueva-Dabkoski has changed her mind-set since being in college. I thought it was interesting on how she set a goal for herself in trying to do personal research she wanted and do so in a certain time frame. This would be interesting for college's to integrate this into the freshman orientation classes they take in their first year. This would give a new student a learning objective to find research about new things they are interested about. This may even give the student ideas towards paths they want to pursue as a career or could help enforce the student in the degree choice they want to declare. 

Curious Cat from Laura Gibbs Blog
Source: Growth Mindset Blog

Reading Notes: Week 13 Part B

The Two Pigs

- There were two little pigs that lived outside the town of Benares
- This old lady one day was passing by when she spotted the little pigs 
- The old lady took the two pigs back home with her, named them Mahatundila and Cullatundila
- Two years passed and the two pigs and the old lady lived a happy life 
- There was a party going on in the town of Benares and all the men in town ate all the meat
- They were not satisfied and so they showed up at the old ladies house to try and buy the two pigs
-The lady wasn't giving into the men and so the men got her drunk 
- With this the lady offered the youngest pig, Cullatundila
- Cullatundila caught onto the trap the old had set up for her
- Mahatundila found out about this and Mahatundila spoke words that touched everyone in the town including the king in the nearby palace 
- The king later died and the pigs left the kingdom and returned to the forest were they lived happily together 
- "Bathe in a pool of water as on a bright feast day, And you shall find a perfume that never fades away" 

Old Lady and The Two Pigs
Source: ISM Blog Post

The Patient Buffalo

- There was this monkey and buffalo sitting around the same time
- The buffalo was resting beneath and the monkey decided to go and try to annoy the buffalo
- The monkey tried jumping on the buffalo's head and swinging from his horns
- However, the buffalo was not phased by this
- So the monkey tried destroying all the grazing land the buffalo ate on, but still the buffalo was not disturbed 
- Then came along a fairy who told the buffalo of his great powers 
- The buffalo did not seem interested in this as the monkey was not a pest to him 
- The buffalo told the fairy that he could not punish the monkey for he had only a small brain
- With this the fairy took her wand and warded the monkey away
- The fairy also put a charm on the buffalo so no one else could come and bother the buffalo agian
- From that day on the buffalo lived a happy life

The Buffalo and Monkey
Source: ISM Blog Post

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat. Source: Indian Epics Readings and Resources 

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Tech Tip: OUCreate

I was not familiar with what OUCreate was and I think even with spending an hour looking over it, I am still really confused. There are so many options that you use for OUCreate and so many things you can attach that you already have. I created a sub domain so I wouldn't have to pay for the name.

The first thing that I was the WordPress add on that you can do to your OUCreate site and so I dove into that. The only reason why WordPress caught my eye is because I remember it being a option for this course as a website platform. Then, when I created a WordPress account I found you can import a Blogger profile into WordPress. Now I have linked my Blogger account into WordPress; however, I have no luck on getting WordPress to actually display the material.

OUCreate seems like a good platform, but I do not see it as a good thing for beginners there is no easy step by step way of how to use the platform. When doing stuff and adding it to your domain it is confusing on where to go to view everything that you have done. I think it will just take some time to play around with the platform a little more to gain a better understanding of how it works. 

Reading Notes: Week 13 Part A

The Golden Feathers

-A Father, Mother, and three Daughters lived in a small forest hut
-The father tells the mother and children that he has to leave them but will return with many riches
-The father met a fairy and the fairy asked him where he was going
-The fairy touched the traveler with her wand and changed him into a goose with golden feathers
-After he was changed into a goose he became very sad and was confused on how he was going to support his family
-The mother had a plan to pluck all the feathers from the goose just in case he never returns
-The goose returned and the mother grabbed the goose and the daughters started to pluck all the feathers off
-The fairy thought about this and put a charm so the feathers once plucked would turn white
-The goose never grew gold feathers again
-Once freed from the barrel the mother threw him in the goose flew away
-The goose flew away to a forest where birds were happy 

The Golden Swan
Source: My India

The Master's Test

-A master was talking to his pupils and admitted to them he was poor
-The pupils were loyal to him and wanted to help their teacher
-The master said they could steal from the towns people
-The master told them to find the quietest spot and grab a person as they pass by, then take their money 
-One of the pupils caught on to the masters test of wisdom
-The master applauded the student for understanding this and the others fell with shame
-The master wanted them to learn that when a bad thought came about for them to realize that they themselves are judging themselves
-With his teaching the pupils were able to live a happy life


Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat. Source: Indian Epics Readings and Resources 

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Week 12 Story Lab: TVTropes

The tvtropes website is very interesting in the way it picks out different things that directors do in tv shows to depict different things they want and also things they put in scenes to add effects to the show.

The first one that got me was the Groin Attack, which takes a look at the different ways a director uses a punch to a persons groin as an effect. The one example was shown in the show The Simpsons when Homer is watching a video of a guy getting hit with a football. In that scene it shows how funny most people think watching someone getting hit in the groin is funny. Then there is also the use of groin attack from a female to a male to show a diminishing of the male characters masculinity. This article really just caught me because I would have never even known that directors and writers put these in the shows to add drama for the viewer.

The second thing I read about was the article about the Determinator- which is a character that is good or evil, male or female, young or old, and who never gives up. This was really interesting because the determinator is said to be some character that just will never give up no matter what the odds are. One of the examples they use for describing what a determinator is, is the energizer bunny, where it just keeps going and going and going. Then they also use the Trix rabbit for the cereal commercial. The two commercial examples that they used were interesting to me because I don't think I would have ever matched those two commercials up to having a main theme to their characters.

Energizer Bunny Source: Giphy
Bibliography: TvTropes. Web Source

Reading Notes Week 12 Part B: The Life of Buddha

The Life of Buddha

Siddhartha Leads a Life of Pleasure
- Suddhodana lived a nice life and was really caring of his people
- Suddhodana always gave the people the advice and guidance that they needed instead of death 

The Three Encounters
- The prince was ready to leave the kingdom and his father found out
- For the princes goodbye his father made sure to clean a path for him so the prince will stay clean of all the bad in the world, he was given a chariot for his travels
- Even with the efforts of the princes father the dark and grey that the world brings was soon brought upon the prince 
- The gods put a struggling old man in the path of the chariot and the prince was confused as to why the old man looked the way he did
- The princes father did his best to undo the unsightly thing his son had saw, he did this by arranging a really nice day in the garden with the help of a friend

Gopa's Dream
- Even with the efforts in the gardens to help change the mindset of the young prince nothing was helping
- The prince did not accept any of the pleasures his father had given him because all he could think about was the death that was awaiting him as he got older
- Once he got back to the palace he couldn't sleep and this is when he met Gopa

Siddhartha Leaves His Father's Palace 
- The prince asked for his horse late at night 
- The prince set out on the horse late at night to leave his fathers kindgom
- The horse was as quiet as he could as not to wake the towns people 

-There is great efforts to get the prince to come back to the kingdom but every try is unsuccessful 
-The prince enters the forest in disguise in run down clothes and cut his hair
- The prince did this so no one would notice him and he would have the element of surprise if there was ever an attack on him 

Buddha Source: Samadhi


Bibliography: The Life of Buddha. Andre Ferdinand Herold. Web Source

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Reading Notes Week 11 Part B

The Wise Goat and the Wolf

-A group of goats lived in a cave and two wolves hunted these goats until only one goat was left alive

-The last goat was wise and learned from the deaths of all her friends that left the cave before her

-The wolves had no clue on how to catch this wise goat that was a left in the cave, every time they tried to catch this goat it always escaped

-The wolves came up with a plan to catch the last remaining goat by tricking the goat into helping them

-However, this plan was foiled when one of the wolves let his impulses get the best of him and the wise goat caught on to what the wolves were trying to do

-The wise goat was able to run back to the safety of the cave before the wolves were able to fulfill their plan

-The wolves tried once again to try and draw the goat out of the cave

-However, the goat was wise and knew that nothing good was going to come out of listening to the wolves so the goat came up with her own plan to trick the wolves 

-When the goat agreed to come back with the wolf for a second time, this time the goat tricked the wolves by saying she was going to bring her friends with her also 

-Once the wolves found out who the goat had as friends they ran far away and left the goat alone 

Wise goat and Wolf
Source: kidsgen

How The Monkey Saved His Troops

-This troop of monkeys lived on the shore of river that was home to a mango tree 

-These monkeys relied on this mango tree to supply them with fresh fruit to eat when they hunted for food at night 

-Each night the troop of monkeys went to the mango tree to pick up all the mangoes off the ground that fell over the day and then climbed the tree for more mangoes

-Later one a king and his fishermen a distance down river were checking their nets for fish when they noticed a strange fruit in the nets 

-The king called upon his forestry people to find out what the strange fruit was called, his people advised him that it was mango and that it was safe to eat

-The king and princess loved the mangoes and the king demanded that he be taken to where the mango tree was at 

-The king and his people arrived at the mango tree and picked up all the mangoes and then stayed overnight to get more in the morning 

-The monkeys like clockwork came back to the tree that night and found no mangoes on the ground due to the kings people picking all of them up

-The monkeys then climbed the tree to find more mangoes and in this process waked the king from his sleep

-The king was not happy about this and demanded his archers to shoot the monkeys as they descended the tree 

-The monkeys were scared and sought help from their leader to evade death from the archers down on the ground 

-The chief monkey came up with a plan to save his troops, the chief did this by building a bridge with his own body for his troops to move to another tree to escape the archers arrows 

-The chief saved all of his troops and the king saw everything the chief monkey had done and was impressed with it and decided to let the monkeys live a happy life 

Monkey saving his troops
Source: BBC School Radio


Bibliography: Ellen C. Babbitt. The Wise Goat and the Wolf. Source

Ellen C. Babbitt. How The Monkey Saved His Troops. Source

Reading Notes Week 11 Part A

The Three Fishes

-Three different fish named: Thoughtful, Thoughtless, Very-Thoughtful 

-Thoughtful and Thoughtless took off down the river and weren't paying attention and ran into a fish net

-Very-Thoughtful saw this and sprung into action to save the other two fish

-Very-Thoughtful to get the fish out made the fisherman that owned the net think the net was broke

-The fisherman pulled the net out of the water and freed the fish

-Thoughtless and Thoughtful thanked Very-Thoughtful for saving them 

Fish
Source: Bed Time Stories

The Red-bud Tree

-Four princes found about this tree that was covered in red-buds and wanted to see it for themselves

-The first prince went to see the tree, but it was not covered in red-buds it was bare and black 

-The second prince went to see the tree, but it was not bare it was now covered in beautiful red-buds

-The third prince went to see the tree, but this time the tree was not covered in red-buds it was covered only in green leaves

-Lastly the last prince went to see the tree, but the tree didn't have any buds or leaves this time the tree had bean pods on it

-The last prince ran back to tell his brothers what he saw and all of them disagreed with each other on what they each saw at the different times they went to see the tree

-Their father heard all of this and came over to sort out the disagreement between the brothers by making them realize they had all went to see the tree at different times and this why they each saw something different

Redbud tree
Source: Tree Center

Bibliography: Ellen C. Babbitt. The Three Fish. Source
Ellen C. Babbitt. The Red-Bud Tree. Source

Friday, October 25, 2019

Story Lab Week 10: Tedx Videos

A New Theory of Human Intelligence 

I found this Tedx video to be really inspiring and also interesting to actually see something like this take place somewhere to see what the results would be. Universities get way to caught up in the stats of year to year and always trying to be the top dog against everyone else in having the highest scores. However, what opportunities are they missing out on and also what opportunities are they taking away from students that want to pursue a college degree. Are there people out there that can't pass the normal standardized tests that would may not look on paper but actually be really good in the real world environment and they are missing out because they don't fit the social norm. I think it will be really interesting to see some results of what Kaufman finds out if and when he does any studies on his new theory. 

Copy Right is Brain Damage 

This was a very interesting way to think about what copyrighting has done to a lot of what people and the creations that they have made. Getting copyrights really does put a damper on the possibilities of what something can become, through the original artist and others that wish to branch off and create their own version. All copyright has done is made it so that the artist is hurt in the long run and the community that they share, all the while the corporations are making money off it and changing it to what they want to attract more people to buy their version. This video also really got me to thinking about how culture is formed and how the idea of copyright has really suppressed the progression of culture through works of art. 



Neural Connections
Source


Tedx Videos Source: Story Lab Creative Mind 

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Reading Notes: Epified Krishna Part B

- Krishna showed a devotion that Brahma wanted to challenge to see how Krishna would react. Brahma started to kidnap the cows and villagers that would equal a year. However, Krishna combated this by just making replicas of the lost cows and village people from himself. Brahma bowed down to Krishna after this task.

-Krishna wanted to prove to all his brothers and villagers that he can ride a vicious bill named Hastin. So, Krishna started to spend a lot of time with Hastin by playing music to him and feeding him sweet straw until Krishna thought enough time had passed by to earn Hastin's trust. To all the villagers and Krishnas brothers surprise Krishna mounted the bull and rode the bull all around the village with no problem. Krishna thought them the lesson of kindness through taming and building a friendship with a wild creature.

-Kansa makes a come back into the stories about Krishna, when he invites Krishna to Mathura for a event called Dhanur Yajna. However, Kansa had a plan that was not in good faith and this plane was to try and kill Krishna for a second time; however, the news of this plan made its way back to Krishna and even with the advice of his brothers and villagers Krishna said he must go.

-Krishna and Delmar arrived at Mathura and there was a very nice warming party of villagers that met them and Krishna and Delmar adverted any angry villagers by bringing happiness and this was done by fixing a deformed woman.

-Kansa then came at Krishna trying to kill him and Belram by trampling them with an aggressive elephant called Kuvalayapida; however, the creature was no match against Krishna who knocked the creature out in one blow. The brothers fought off all things that Kansa threw at them to try and kill them. The brothers made it to the event where Krishna picked up the bow that was created by Shiva and it snapped and Kansa launched his whole army upon the brothers. However, just like everything else there was no chance and Krishna and Belram defeated the army and Kansa didn't even get a chance to run before the brothers reached him and successfully attacked him.

-With the defeat of Kansa, Krishnas birth parents and grandfather who were locked up in the kingdom of Mathura were set free and Krishnas grandfather became the new king of Mathura. However, an ally of Kansa was not happy about the defeat of Kansa and so king of Magadh waged a war against Krishna and the Mathura kingdom. However, Krishna and his grandfather had another kingdom built to house the villagers of Mathura so when Jarasandh came to the kingdom they would only find a empty city. Krishna became king of the new location and the Pandava brother Bhima was left to defeat Jarasandh.


Krishna and Cow Herd
Source: Wattpad


Bibliography: Epified, Krishna, Part B Video Source: Youtube Playlist

Reading Notes: Epified Krishna Part A

The story about how Krishna came about starts when he was born as the eighth child, Krishna was able to survive the death that captured the other seven babies before him. Krishna was not just any baby and he turned out to be a spectacle they all did not expect. They all thought the eighth kid was in safe hands until Kansa found out about the eighth child being born. Kansa came to look at the eighth child and to kill the baby like the other seven. However, the child which is now known as Krishna was able to overcome Kansa and Krishna was safe at last. Krishna later became King and many other things.

Krishna grew up and was known for not being a very nice child, he was becoming a terror throughout the community's. Krishnas mother tried to kill him one day; however, from that day she found out that he was not a normal being and that Krishna was special.

There was a huge storm that came through the town brought on by Inda and it was a huge one and all the towns people ran to Krishna for shelter. Krishna raised the mountain that was next to him and lifted it with his little finger. Krishna then asked for forgiveness from the gods and goddesses. Krishna was then given a Gopi named Radha which was proven to be loyal to him through making her drink scalded milk.

Baby Krishna
Source: Clip Dealer

Bibliography: Epified Krishna Video Source: Youtube

Friday, October 18, 2019

Week 9 Story Telling: The Friends Return

Updated Story Found Here: Tyler's Portfolio

Teacher of the Sons
Source


The band of friends that is now five was once a group of six, but these friends are closer than most and once you break a vow you are no longer wanted in the inner circle. The group was once comprised of Brooke, Mia, Rowdi, Steven, Josh, and Anthony. It was only just a few months ago that all six friends were seen walking around together having the best time in each other company, until Anthony broke the vow to never release any information that was talked about within the friend’s circle. This group of friends has one thing in common and that is they all work together at the same place; however, Anthony was transferred to another store due to conflicts with his leader. Once transferred Anthony envied the other friends because they were able to stay together and were having fun at the store he was no longer at and he didn’t like that at all. So, even with the vow to never tell anyone outside the circle of friendship, Anthony began to tell people at his new store about things that he and the other friends use to do at his old store.

With Anthony spreading rumors about stuff he and the friends use to do it made its way back to his old leader through the back channels and the team started to get in trouble. The friends found out about what Anthony had done and they banned him from the circle of friends. Once Anthony found about the friends agreeing to ban him from being within their circle, he ran back to them wanting to be accepted back into the group. However, this group of friends don’t take the breaking of vows they have made lightly and told him that they won’t be able to accept him back into the group.

Upon kicking Anthony out of the group, a great leader that the friends always looked up to came upon the friends during this time and took them under his wing. This leader was known as Bruce the Almighty (at least this what he thought he was), Bruce took the friends one by one and taught them different things on how to navigate the drama that was lingering over them.  Through the guidance of Mr. Almighty himself the friends were able to make their circle between the five of them even stronger and not let the drama that Anthony has bestowed upon the group take them down. With everything that the friends have overcame they are now an inseparable group that hasn’t let anything come between them.

Authors Note: For this story I tried my best to find a way to incorporate the group of friends I have used in a couple of my blog posts again for this week. So, for this short story I took a couple of the videos from the Karmic Revolution video series and relate to the friends to the best I can. The first video that I used was about Ambas Ruin and how once she was kidnapped and wasn’t able to return to either kingdoms that she went to. Ambas Ruin and Anthony getting kicked out of the friends circle is were I tried to relate that section of the story to the reading we did. Then for the second story that I used was Sons of Vyasa  and this is were Bruce the Almighty comes into the story of when he takes the friends under him and teaches them different things. This is not really completed and will have more context added into at a later date. 

Bibliography: Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution. Source 

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Week 9 Reading Notes: Part A

Goddess Ganga
Source: Wolverton Mountain

For this week I have chose the video files: Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution for the reading assignment. Having the stories put into a video form has really helped me with being able to follow the story line and how things fit together. When it comes to imagining things like the stories that are told in the Mahabharata I really start to lack in my conceptualize of things.

The narrator of the videos does a really good job in the visualization of the characters while the story the is going along. The other really nice thing about the videos is that now I have a reference as to if I am saying the names correctly (I found out I was really wrong on a lot of the names).

The story that was interesting to was about Shantanu and his wife Ganga goddess of the river Ganga. The narrator does a really good job of keeping the story true to itself but also making it in a more playful manner than it was depicted in the book that we read a few weeks ago. The videos also go through and really show more of depiction of what Ganga does and gives a more in-depth picture of what she does.

The other interesting part is when we get to see how Bhishma becomes who he is as we know him throughout the book. The book doesn't really go into depth about how the characters become who they are in the present unlike the videos. I think having more of a background for each character as they go from being one person to another would have cleared a lot more things up when trying to read the book.

Bibliography: Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Week 8 Progress

Source: Flickr

Looking at the overall progress that I have made in this class, it has not been great and that is mainly due to my own doing. I let the hustle of all my other classes and work take over me and I caved and so I just threw a blanket on all my assignments like they didn't exist. This hurt me as now I am way behind in the course as far as points and will have to be doing some more of the extra credit options at the end of each week.

Looking forward for me in this class, I will have to make sure that I am on top of each assignment and giving this class a dedicated time each day to knock out the assignments in a efficient way. Also, I will have to make sure to do a couple of the extra credit assignments at the end of each week to rack up those missing points that I missed out on, on the weeks before.


Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Week 8 Reading and Writing

Looking back at the what has been accomplished in this semester so far in this class really amazes me and I truly never would have thought I would have made it this far. This class has really opened up the realm of what I have exposed myself to, some of this stuff I probably would have never even gave it a second look before this class. However, I have really enjoyed both books that we have read in this class so far. As far as the readings go even though I have enjoyed them I would like to see maybe a little more time in between the reading and story telling due dates. I find for a person like me that doesn't really have a creative story telling side to struggle a little in pushing to get the reading done and then having to write a story right after.

As far as the website that I have created, it is okay for what is right now. I really haven't had the chance to really go through every setting that google sites has to offer. I think the biggest issue I have is google sites not giving the owner of the site the option to change font colors for their site and just making the user have to use the preset font colors in whatever theme that they have chose to use. The blog for this class, I am really happy with how it is turning out and the layout that I have. Blogger, really has a lot of versatility in it for the user to be able to make the blog what he/she wants it to be, blogger has also made it really simple for a beginner to learn how to use the software and become comfortable with doing stuff in it.

Looking forward in the Epics of India class, there is a few things that need to be changed for me to get more out of this class and be more productive. I think the biggest issue I have is time management and it really is taking a toll on all my classes this semester. I get bogged down with all my classes and so they all take a hit when that happens. I think to better my experience in this class I really just need to sit down and write up a time schedule for all my classes and make myself stick to it no matter what happens. I feel if I can get a time that is just dedicated to this class then I can sit down and actually consume more from the readings and other things in this class. If I am able to consume more from what I'm doing in this class then I wouldn't have to rush through everything and just do enough to check the boxes and submit and move on, I would actually be able to create something that actually has some worthy content.

Source: Biodivvy
I chose the picture of the sacred groves of India to add to this post because it entices my travel bug. We have been reading all these old stories about India and the culture that has been passed down and looking at this piece of history that relates to the things we have been reading about really intrigues me to travel to India to explore the culture. 


Thursday, October 3, 2019

Week 7 Story: The Fate of Five Friends

Updated Story Link

The Fate of Five Friends

Friends

In the town of Norman Ka Shivir, there were five friends; Mia, Brooke, Rowdi, Steven, and Josh. These five friends hung out every week just doing whatever they could pass time and have a fun time together. So, one day the friends went on an adventure around the town on the new electric scooters that made their mark in town. In a group of friends like these five, there is always a few that could be questionable on how they make through the day and still come out without hurting themselves or others and then there are some that are noble and levelheaded that some look up to.

The friends set out the scooters to go roam the campus and experience the new fall colors added to the gardens and the trees that were starting to change the colors of their leaves. As stated, before some of the friends were not to adapt to roam about on these scooters with ease and Brooke and Josh really set the bar for this theory to become true. As the friends were making their way across campus Brooke and Josh going as slow as they could, running off the sidewalks and falling off the scooters at every turn that was made. While Mia, Rowdi, and Steven were moving along with grace and coordination following next to each other making the ride seem like a breeze, awhile Brooke and Josh are covered in grass and scuffed up hands.

The ride finally came to end when the friends arrived at their favorite place to be on campus corner to wind down for the night, ochonnaills. The friends parked the scooters and made their way into the pub to sit at the bar and relax for the night. However, there was a problem that faced them once they arrived at the bar to sit down, the normal bartender that served them every time they visited was no longer there and the new bartender was not going to allow them a free seat unless they were to answer questions given to them. The bartender made clear that no one was to sit at the bar until all questions asked to them were answered.

As the friends approached each was given a question and as Rowdi approached she answered and was granted a seat, Mia and Steven were next in line and both answered correctly and were granted a seat. Next was Brooke and Josh and both being clumsy and no regard for their surrounding proceeded to sit down and have no regard to the warnings that were given to them. The bartender said to them, “I warned you to not sit at the bar unless you could answer my simple questions first.” Brooke replied, “I only want a drink not to play any games with you.” So, the bartender turned to the big security guard sitting the corner and summoned him over to take care of Brooke and Josh. Mia being the noblest of them all pleaded with the bartender to give her more questions to answer for Brooke and Josh to have a place at the bar.

The bartender being one to not cave with persuasion that all college students plead with on a nightly basis. The security guard grabbed the two friends and outside they were sent to spend the rest of the night, sitting next to the old gentleman playing the guitar while everyone else sat inside enjoying a cold one. 


The yaksha and Yudhistira



Authors Note: I am not very good this creative writing thing and so it took me way longer than it probably should have to write 500 words to get this short story completed. When reading the Mahabharata, the story that really stuck out to me the most was the story of the Hundred Questions. This is when the brothers are famished from hunting all day and need water and they come upon a pond and are told to answer questions before they can partake in drinking the water. One by one the brothers go to the pond to make sure it safe to drink and each one is given the warning to not drink the water until they answer the questions that is asked to them. However, being tired and thirsty and disregarded the warning and drank the water and instantly fell dead. Each one of the brothers did this until the last one, Yudhistira and he was wise enough to see his brothers mistake and answer the questions the yaksha asked him, in return he was granted a one wish since he was able to answer all the questions that was asked to him. In the first line, “Norman Ka Shivir” is Hindi for Norman’s Camp, I used this because the name for the town of Norman came from a guy named Norman and to be funny when surveying the land for Oklahoma before the land rush he branded “Normans Camp” into a elm tree. Then also there is another Hindi worded used which is “ochonnaills” which is the Hinidi translations for O’Connells which I’m sure most know is a bar on campus corner here in Norman.

Bibliography: the Mahabharata, R.K. Narayan. Book Source.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Reading Notes: Mahabharata Part D


Mahabharata Part D- this starts when the brothers are going back forth with their uncle on trying to come up with a peace option for giving the brothers back something and the uncle is just not willing to give in.

Battle Field Kurukshetra
Source: OrissaPost

  • This starts by Yudhishthira sending one of his messengers named Krishna to go and speak to Dhritarasthtra about coming up with a peace deal and that the brothers just want five villages so each one will have their own
  •        When Dhritarasthtra finds out about Krishna coming to the palace he wants to set a big ceremony for him and try to basically make him a friend to them; however, Duryhodhana has different plans and to set up a trap to try and take Krishna as prisoner
  •         Krishna arrives and speaks about the peace deal and it is quickly declined
  •         Krishna returns to the brothers to tell the bad news and say that a war has been declared between the brothers and their uncle
  •         The battle starts and both of the parties set up their armies in different ways and certain guidelines are set forth for how the battle is suppose to happen, one that I found weird is that all battle is suppose to stop at night time and pick back up in the next morning
  •         The battle goes on for days, the different armies start with different formations and they are counterattacked with a different formation from their opponent
  •         There is many deaths and each side really takes turns throughout the battle on who loses the most and looks like they are going to win
  •        Finally towards the end of the battle both sides are starting to get angry with each other and they both just want the battle to be over and so they start to lose all moral guidelines and just start taking lives
  •         The brothers are stronger and have a noble person on their side that is able to lead in the right direction for each action to defeat their uncle in the quickest way
  •         The brothers come out on top of the battle and win
  •         They head to the palace where they once lived to take it back and Yudhishthira becomes the King, along with his brothers in other positions of authority under him


Bibliography: the Mahabharata, R.K. Narayan. Source: Web Link


Tuesday, October 1, 2019

the Mahabharata Part C: Reading Notes

Sacred Groves in India
Source: Biodivvy


Mahabharata Part C- in this section it starts out with the brothers and their wife still out in the forest on the last part of their twelve years.


-starts out with Yudhishthira and Nakula were running after a deer and they kept missing and went on and on hunting until they gave up
-they had chased this deer for so long that they were thirsty for water and so one of them climbed a tree in search for some water
-there was place that seemed it had water and so Nakula went to find the water and see if it was going to be a safe place and come back with whatever he found out
-as Nakula approached the water there was a voice that instructed him to not drink the water until he answered some questions
-Nakula disregarded these commands and took a sip of the water and Nakula died just after drinking the water
-so since Nakula never returned one after the other, the brothers went to go find out what happened, each brother passing away because they wouldn’t follow the commands to answer the questions before they partook in the water
-Yudhishthira was the last brother and since none of his brothers returned from the watering hole he went on a search himself to find out what happened to his brothers
-Yudhishthira found his four brothers dead next to the shore of the water and there was the voice again “saying if you don’t want to be like your brothers then answer these questions and you can have all the water you want”
-Yudhishthira being the person he was didn’t follow any commands unless he could get something in return (because as we learned from the beginning he was not afraid to gamble)
-Yudhishthira answered the questions that were asked of him and in return he was able to drink the water and at first he was only promised to get one brother back, but since he was able to answer all questions and also pass the test of not revealing who he truly was all the brothers were brought back to life

Second part of the part C read

-the brothers and their wife get to the end of their twelve year sentence to the forest and now comes the time were they are to stay unrecognized for another year
-they find a kingdom they will call home for the thirteenth year
-they struggle to work as servants in the palace and follow the rules so they are not to be noticed as their true selves
-they make it through the thirteenth year and now make their decisions on how to get back their kingdom and royalty back from their uncle and cousins


Bibliography: the Mahabharata, R.K. Narayan. Source: Web Link

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Story Lab Week 6: Tedx Videos- One side of story and fictional vs real emotions

The Danger of a Single Story

When watching this Tedx video that features Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and her view of a single story being told and how we base that knowledge of our perceptions of the world. This is very interesting in that you can truly see the beliefs one person has of any culture or of any one thing in particular by looking back on what they were exposed to. If you look at her example of her moving to college and meeting her roommate for the first time and how their encounter transpired. 

Personally I think that this is an issue that is seen all around no matter where you are brought up, that from a child you are brought up in a certain way with your families values and what the family views as right and wrong. Even if you look at old philosophies this trend as already been documented as a thing that has been watched and observed, when looking at rationalism- where a person is said to learn from "a priori" (prior to experience) experience and they base all knowledge off of what they have learned before hand to experiencing something else to rationalize what is right or wrong. 

Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences 

Jennifer Barnes does a really good job at bringing up a really good point as to why we can connect to fictional characters way easier than our real life figures. I feel that Barnes could have done a little better in actually discussing a more factional reason for why this is. However, just from experience of having these feelings toward fictional characters, I think its really due to the recency of the feelings that are develop toward those characters or people. With fictional characters you are bonding with them right there in the moment and you have no control of what is happening to them so you show more empathy to the characters. Where for real life lets say your immediate family members, yes we do show empathy and sadness for them but we are with them at all times. With our family members we have a closer connection that we can see and control in the real world and I feel that desensitizes our feelings toward them as time goes on. 

Source: Quote Fancy

Video Sources: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcjPshEANsTgZZHDnBQt7N30

  

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Reading Notes: Mahabharta Reading Part B

- at first the brothers and the one wife are summoned to the kingdom that they were banned from

- asked to gamble basically for the rights to however should have the best palace whether it's the brothers or the brothers uncle

- in my opinion the brothers are cheated out their palace when they gamble on the dice game, but it was also their fault for continuing to bet when they were just losing every round

-the brothers ended up losing everything in the bet and were forced to become their uncles slaves in his palace

- the uncle started to feel bad for them after one of the elders talked to him, so he gave the brothers back their palace but kept everything else

- then they were summoned back to their uncles palace to gamble again because their uncle now got scared that the brothers would regain everything they lost and come back to kill him and the rest of the people that supported him

- and once again the brothers lost everything and this time they were forbidden to reside anywhere except the forest and they were to stay there for twelve years and one more year unless somebody noticed them


Horses talked about in gambling
Source: India Today

Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, "the Mahabharata". Source: Textbook

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Mahabharta Reading Part A

-We have two characters that fall in love, the wife only has one condition on the marriage and that the man can not question anything that she does on her time
- The couple has a kid and the mother drowns the child in the river
- This trend continues until the 8th child is born 
- 8th child is allowed to live only because it was the rebirth of the person who granted the wish of the curse for the other 7th children 

- Some character is flying overhead the water and he drops some semen in the lake and it is received by a fish and this fish had two kids a girl and boy
- The boy is taken and the girl is left to live and be raised by a fisherman
-We meet a the characters of the girl who is raised by a fisherman and the fisherman won't allow the marriage of her unless she gets to take the throne 
- A proposal is given and the marriage happens 
- Since the fisherman agreed to the marriage the woman's stink of bad fish was removed 

- Meet Bhishma
- Satyavati given in marriage to the king
- gave birth to two sons
- Chitrangada and Vichitravirya
- All the sons are taken through training 

- Bhishma took care of his family
- Bhishma renounced thrown

- Chitrangada was proclaimed king
- haughty ruler but for a short time
- waged war against Gandhari and killed in battle
- Bhishma put Vachitravirya on the throne
- since he was young, Bhishma was regent

- All the brothers are forced to leave the palace and find refuge somewhere until it is safe to return home 


Representation of Bhishma
Source: Global Fashion Street


Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, "the Mahabharata". Source: Textbook