Indian Epics

There is no need to check on my class progress, as this is the last assignment! I chose this image because its whimsical nature stood out to me, especially since it's not in the style of all of the Indian Epics illustrations I've been looking at so often.  Rather than watch a video, I listened to three of the fairy tales of Maoriland . The first thing that stood out to me was the enjoyable accent of the narrator! But these fairy tales were very pleasant to listen to, and I think something that I would enjoy exploring further. I had never before been exposed to literature that had to do with Maori culture. I listened to The Wanderers, The Six Brothers, and Tiki.

For this last post, I thought I'd write about all of the writing everyone else has done! Normally for online classes where you are required to read and comment on the work of other people, it ends up being an endless drudgery of reading the same content regurgitated in different ways from readings or assignments. I thus had a bad association with online classes, and when I saw that a good portion of the grade relied on reading and responding to the writing of others, I was dreading it. BUT. Everyone so pleasantly surprised me. This class is unlike any other I've taken in many ways, but first and foremost is the level of creative license we are all encouraged to take. There were endless avenues to pursue, endless ways to convert something ancient into something new and modern and relevant. It consistently blew my mind to encounter the creativity of everyone in the class, and how they related these stories to things they cared about. It has truly been a joy to read all of

I chose to learn about Deskercise! This seemed super relevant for this last stretch of school, because I spend pretty much every second at various desks, studying and working. My back and neck are definitely the worse for it, so I thought learning about this would help. And it has! I read the Workout at Work article, which did a great job of outlining some simple exercises you can do without majorly disrupting anyone or your workday. I tried some of them, and it was great! I'll definitely keep these in mind as I enter full time work. These were two of my favorite stretches, and although they're apparently meant for people with arthritis , they'll be sure to help anyone reset and relax before getting back to being productive! 

For this assignment, I thought it would be good to go through the Growth Mindset Padlet full of the advice of other students. The first one that stuck out to me was this: I actually really like the rain most of the time, but sometimes even things we love can turn into burdens. It's important to let them wash off of you - you don't have to pretend they're not there or that they're not burdensome, but you don't have to carry them every second of the day. The other one that stood out to me was this one: This one stood out to me because I'm graduating and moving forward, and there are a lot of things coming up that I've never encountered before. This one encouraged me to see everything as an opportunity, not a scary decision that has to be made. Here's my ending image: Wonder Woman's power pose is a great way to start the day with confidence. It's a reminder that you've got this! 

I made this using the ICanHasCheezburger website. It was fun to make, and a little self-care themed to remind myself and anyone reading to eat an actual meal and drink some water in this last stretch of the semester. Coffee and pretzels don't count! Everything goes so much better when you fuel your body with what it needs!

My goal was to get from Panchatatra to Zeus in 4 clicks, as these stories are related to Aesop's Fables, which are Greek, which would lead to Greek mythology, which would lead to Zeus. I made it! I started with Panchatatra , which is another name for the Tales of Bidpai, which are pretty much the equivalent of Western civilization's Aesop's Fables. Most of them involve animals in some capacity, most often as main roles. They all have some sort of moral meant to be learned, as well as some humorous elements. An illustration of another famous Bidpai Tale. From there, I went to Aesop's Fables . This page just outlined the history of the Fables, their main themes, and the speculation about Aesop himself, who was a slave. On to Ancient Greece . This page was fascinating - I did not read all of it as it would have taken hours and I would have been lost deep in the rabbit hole, but considering how essential ancient Greece was to so much of our human knowledge base,

For these final reading notes, I decided to read what is described as the Indian version of Aesop's Fables. I loved reading the fables growing up, and even translated some of them as practice for Latin classes I took in grade school. Many of the stories were one or two paragraphs long, which made it fun to just quickly go through them. Some of them had very clear morals stated at the end, others you had to infer what you were meant to learn. Overall, they have the same charm and brevity that Westerners know and love with Aesop's fables. I greatly enjoy this style of writing and story telling because they're like little bites of wisdom you can take with you, told in a way to make you smile. Some of the other stories meant to teach you morals end on a much more serious note, and while those are also enjoyable, the silliness of these fables is fun to read. My favorite of all of them was the Poor Man and the Flask of Oil. The basics of it are that a poor man is given a flask o