Indian Epics

Two thing stood out to me most in this last part. First, the devotion of Sita to Rama, as well as everyone's devotion to Rama. She had the chance to stay behind in splendor and wait for him to come back, and Lakshmana had the chance to stay behind and be treated as a royal, but they both followed Rama into the woods to face whatever was coming at his side. I was a little surprised by how ready a few people were to kill themselves when Rama didn't get to be king or when they found out that Dasaratha was dead (see the giant eagle), but that's just ancient devotion I guess. The second thing was the trickery of Soorpanaka, and the fact that all of her tricks in this story came because she, as the embodiment of evil, fell hopelessly in love for Rama, the embodiment of good. It was funny to read when she was talking to Ravana and trying to cover up her feelings - everything I've encountered so far has made me want to read the poem itself rather than just the prose version.

This is a depiction of Rama and Sita's wedding, the result of many years of preparation as hundreds of thousands of people had to migrate to the city for the wedding, and the stars had to align to the perfect position. I have just begun reading Narayan's The Ramayana  and am enjoying it immensely. The descriptions of the characters and the great tales of evil and heroism are fantastic, and Narayan does such a wonderful job of conveying the intense emotions in the original poetry through prose. My favorite part of the story so far has been the background for Rama not becoming king when we was meant to towards the end of Part A. The ultimate importance of keeping one's word that trumps even the love of the entire world, sending Rama into the forest, is something that I think we've certainly lost today, and something that Narayan conveys very well. I also like all of his descriptions of the relationships between the characters - there are some that are so closely ti

Mr. and Mrs. Crocodile Please Note: The current version of this story is on my portfolio site.  Mrs. Crocodile is sitting in her weekly women's group meeting, eating some of the river eel and algae rolls her best friend, Mrs. Piranha, always set out. They had so much to catch up on... Mrs. Crocodile was getting bigger every day with the little babies growing, and her husband had been up to more of his usual antics. She loved Mr. Crocodile, but sometimes she wondered how he managed before she came along. "Hello, honey," said Mrs. Piranha. "How are you today? Those little guys giving you a hard time?" "No, not bad. I'm just enjoying getting to eat all these delicious rolls... you know they're my favorite. All of these cravings have been so strange. Just the other day I had the most intense one for monkey's heart." "Monkey's heart?! Those pests are impossible to catch, but oh so delicious if you can manage to snag a bite.

The two stories that stood out to me were The Cunning Crane and the Crab (From The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse ) and The Crocodile in the River (From Vanarinda Jataka, in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers ). I liked them both because they went into great detail with the surroundings and other aspects, whereas the other stories were more straight to the point, not providing as many intricate details. I enjoy that they had the lessons to be learned at the end of them, and there was a good mix of dialogue and the rest of the story. A meme I made for the response of the crocodile's wife... (I only added the top caption)

INDIAN EPICS READINGS: I have chosen the Ramayana by Narayana because I prefer to read things I can hold, and I've already bought the book! Comic 1: Ganesha - I have chosen this one because the story and character of Ganesha seems fascinating. I'm excited to learn about Ganesha !  Comic 2: Saraswati - I'm interested in comics that mostly surround women and their role in myths. Video 1: Miracles of Lord Krishna - Interested in this because Krishna is one of the few names I was familiar with before starting this class, but I still don't know much about him. Video 2: TEDxSydney: Fabulous Indian Tabla and Tanpur - I chose this because I've never seen a TED talk I didn't like. OTHER READINGS:

For this blog post, I read the articles " The Important Habit of Just Starting " and " 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time ." Funnily enough, I was procrastinating reading these articles. I kept the tabs open for a few days, despite my goal of finishing all of this class's work far ahead of time. This morning, I told myself 'Okay, you just have to sit down and get started. They'll most likely be interesting enough that you'll want to keep reading. Just. Get. Started.' So I did. And my wise inner self was right about forcing my procrastinating other inner self to hush. Just starting whatever it is you have to start is often annoying, and it takes a while to get mentally plugged into whatever the task is, but once you do, it's worth it, and you're normally far enough along that you want to keep going. One thing I do to help myself when procrastinating is make a promise to myself to work for 15 minutes. If at the end of that I

I am pretty comfortable with most of the technologies discussed - while I've never made a meme, I'm confident in my ability to figure it out pretty easily. I have briefly maintained a blog on WordPress for my travel abroad experiences, so I'm familiar with that format and maybe should have used it instead of Blogger, but I thought it would be better to become skilled with something new rather than sticking to the familiar. I appreciate that this class is one that focuses on applicable skills. I say I'm comfortable with tech, but I am suspicious of cookies...

The general assignments excite me less than the extra credit options, but that's because I generally don't think of myself as a storyteller, so I'm apprehensive of catching/pushing myself into creative ruts. Hopefully I can get more comfortable with the creative process. The Creative Process is something I've never really been comfortable with - I like concretes.  Some of the extra credit assignments that really caught my intention were the one going down the Wikipedia wormhole and the ones where we can explore Growth Mindset more. I especially want to learn practical ways to train myself to use the mindset in all aspects of life. This class is nothing like anything I've taken before, and I'm loving it. 

I had never heard of Growth Mindset as an actual part of academia or way of thinking, but as I listened to the TED Talk and the subsequent videos and information about Carol Dweck, I realized that I was very clearly raised with a growth mindset. I had a single mother for most of my life, and mostly out of strategy and good parenting, but I'm sure sometimes out of necessity, I learned from the time I could speak and walk to solve my own problems. This is not to the exclusion of asking for help when it was needed, but the help I got was not solving the problem for me, it was redirecting my perspective or providing a new tool so that I could do it myself. When I was painfully shy at 8 years old, I was told to call and make my own doctors appointments and handle all business over the phone that was related to my needs. At the time I was painfully self-conscious and nervous about making those phone calls, but they were always on speaker and she was always there to give me prompts if I s

I am studying Nonprofit Administration, and graduating in May. I come from St. Louis, MO, where I've spent just over half of my life. I have two siblings, a 9 year-old brother and a 2 year-old sister, both the best little humans to grace this earth. I've enjoyed my time at OU, during which I spent a semester at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea. During my time there, I was able to hike many of the mountains surrounding Daegu, visit some gorgeous temples and sites of historical significance, and also hop over to Japan for a little less than a week. I've also been to Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and surrounding towns in Germany. I love both places.     My most recent international travel took me to Monterrey, Mexico, with my fiancé and his mother. He was born there, and still has a large part of his family living there. It was lovely to meet them, and they were kind enough to take me all over the city, visiting museums and parks, and eating lots of amazing foo

Thoughts on Three Storybooks I have had almost no exposure to the stories of India prior to this class, so all of the storybooks contained mostly new information for me. Krishna: Lord of Infinity This is Krishna with the Cowherds I thought this storybook was insightful - it is my favorite of the three I chose. The storytelling is interesting, with a good balance of dialogue and actual background. I like that the style of images they chose is pretty consistent throughout the whole thing. Their introduction was fascinating and made me want to continue exploring the storybook. They had a good amount of text in between their images, whereas some of the storybooks had mostly text, and did not have breaks between their expository and creative writing, which sometimes made them confusing. I like the way they formatted their bibliography - it was helpful to have the links next to the description in a bulleted list like that.  To Love and to Lose: Hidimbi's Story I really

I have chosen three places - all of them have a great deal of meaning to me, and store many memories. Monterrey, Mexico - I recently took my first trip here with my fiancé. It's where he was born, and where his family has its roots. We traveled all over the city, going to museums and shops and eating a lot of food. We also went to visit a few mountains that surround the city. One of the most striking things about it is that the mountains rise up practically from the city. This is a photo I took of what I believe is the original post office building for the city. Taken December, 2018. This is a photo I took from the center of a city, in an old steel mill industrial park that has been turned into an oasis in the middle of Monterrey. Taken December, 2018. Daegu, South Korea - I spent a semester studying at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, and it continues to be one of my favorite places. I made such wonderful friends, and South Korea is beautiful in so many ways

This post is to test the new Indian Epics blog.