Week 10: Story Lab

For this week I want to write about what I did over spring break since today is the first day back! This spring break a couple of friends and I went to Colorado to visit Rocky Mountain National Park, Denver, and the other surrounding areas. We had a lot of fun and tried to stick to areas where there are not a bunch of people. Rocky Mountain National Park was gorgeous and the hike to get to the destinations were brutal. We were woefully unprepared so we were sliding all over the place. One of the biggest problems we had were the footwear that we chose to wear. We kind of figured that tennis shoes were going to be OK as none of us other than one had actually been to the park before and he had only been in the summer. As a result, we didn't know that the packed snow is basically ice. We slid all over the place. The views and scenery were worth it though. Below is a picture of me and my friends in the mountains.

My friends and I in Rocky Mountain National Park!

Week 10: Reading Notes A/B

For this week I watched all the Epified videos on Krishna on the two playlists. Krishna is a god that was born into the mortal world. A cruel King named Kamsa basically tries to stop him from being born by killing all the babies that are born. He does this to 7 but on the 8th one Krishnas father swaps him with a girl so that when Kamsa comes he laughs asking if a girl is going to kill him. The girl transforms to Durga and reveals that his killer has already been born and would come to him when he was ready. As Krishna grows up he gets the label as a naughty child.

In the second part of the reading for this week we have assorted examples of a grown Krishna performing divine things. An example of this is how when Brahma stole his friends and the cows, Krishna remade them using himself. Another good example that I think I might write about is Krishna riding Hastin. Krishna manages to ride the bull by being nice and feeding it, not by sheer force like other people have.

Bibliography:
Picture Source
Part A videos
Part B videos

Week 9: Wikipedia Trail - Virus to Corona Virus

Virus: For this week I wanted to learn a little bit more about the thing that is causing so much change in our daily life. This is why I read a little about what a virus is.

Corona-virus: From there, I navigated to the page for corona virus. This is a specific type of virus that is commonly found in humans and birds. In humans it causes an upper respiratory infection. 

SARS-CoV-2: This is the strain that is currently causing the coronavirus pandemic in the world. This specific strain has very close similarities to a strain found in bats, indicating that bats might be the origin.

Coronavirus disease 2020: This page is all about the current pandemic. Currently the death rate is at about 4% but can increase closer to 15% in older or already immunocompromised populations. There are confirmed cases on all continents but Antarctica. 

A Picture of the Novel Corona Virus

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Week 9: Learning Challenge-Deskercise

For this weeks learning challenge I looked at assorted exercise that I can do without getting embarrassed. I think I am going to do the neck stretch the most. I find that if I am staring at a screen for an extended period of time I tense my neck up and it gives me headaches. I can take a couple of minutes every hour to do this and hopefully prevent the headaches before they occur.

The Neck Exercise

Growth Mindset Week 10: The Huff

One of the biggest cases of where having a growth mindset is helpful is when you are learning to play a sport. I keep this in mind every time that I  go and play basketball with my friends. Even though I might not be the fastest or the best at shooting, I remember that it is a team game for every time that I mess up and turn the ball over, that is a learning opportunity and I know what not to do for next time. One thing that really helps is that I always play with friends so they know what to expect from me and how to play to each other's strengths and weaknesses.
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Week 9: Microfiction

A Shady Tree

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Weary from sun, shade was underappreciated.

Two weary travelers stopped under a tree. They complained that the tree didn't provide anything, when in reality its shade is what they were using.




Authors Note: This microfiction is an adaptation of the story "The Plane Tree" from Aesops Fables. The moral of the story is that sometimes the most obvious blessings are the most underappreciated.

Week 9 Story: The Gang Gets Drowned

Kong opened his eyes and took a deep breath in. It was a bright early morning on the banks of the Nile River and Kong was ready to take on the day. Today was the day his wife, Nile, was expecting their first child. Kong was excited as he did not have any kids and it was expected that this first child was a boy. Little did he know, his day was about to take a turn for the worse.

 

As Kong walked to the nursery, he spotted a lone Nile crouched by the bank of the river. In her arms he saw a small figure, wailing with furious intensity. As he looked more closely he saw Nile drop the child into the river and saw him get swept away by the strong currents of the Nile River. 

Kong called out in shock and fear. "Nile! What are you doing that is our firstborn son. He is destined to be the next ruler of our kingdom!" Startled, Nile whipped around wondering when Kong had arrived.

"Remember the promise you made to me the day we married? The promise that you would never question me or ask me why I am doing what I do?" Defeated, Kong turned away and sobbed as the wails of his son faded away, down the river. 

The years came and went and Kong watched his next six children all meet similar fates but when it came to the eighth child Kong could no longer remain silent.

"Nile I can not sit quietly while you systematically drown all of out children! At least tell me why. Why are you doing this."

"Oh my king it pains me as much as it pains you, to watch your children get swept away in the same river that gives our kingdom life. Long ago I swore an oath. This oath said that I would give birth to the eight Vasus who were cursed to live mortal lives. I swore that when they were born into their mortal lives I would immediately kill them and release them from the curse." Frustrated, instead of drowning the last child, Nile took the child and left. 

The roaring banks of the Nile River

Source

Authors Note: In this weeks story, I focused on the beginning of the Mahabharata. I drew my information from the first Epified video. I find that these videos are excellent to start as a foundation because they are short and sweet. They don't focus too much on the minute details so you can fill in these parts. 

Bibliography: Epified Mahabharata Episode 1 

Week 9 Reading Notes: Epified A and B

For this week I chose to watch the first two playlists on the Epified Mahabharata playlists. I really liked the story telling in these videos as they were all very short and in everyday language so they were easy to understand. I watched them all on twice the speed as well because they had non-auto generated subtitles so I could just read and watch the picture for each little story. The expressions the characters had were also very insightful. I think specifically I want to go back and look at episodes 15 and 16 to write my story for. These two episodes deal with Drona and Drona training the Pandavas. 

Image of Drona

Source: Wikipedia

Bibliography: Epified Story 

Week 8 Wikipedia Trail

Mahabharata: This week I wanted to learn a little bit more about the background of the Mahabharata. For instance I learned that the author of the original Mahabharata is Vyasa.

Vyasa: Veda Vyasa is said to be the one that compiled all of the ancient Indian epics. He is thought to be one of the seven Chiranjivi that are still alive.

Chiranjivi: A Chiranjivi is one of seven immortal being that are supposed to be alive until the end of the current earth stage. These beings are supposed to be unaffected by any ailment.

Kali Yuga: Kali Yuga is supposedly the fourth and last of the life stages of the Earth. Interestingly these 4 stages are clearly labeled and Kali Yuga is supposed to have started in 3102 BCE and last for 432,000 years.

A picture of Vyasa
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Week 8 Learning Challenge

For this week I looked into Deskercise! I think one of the most interesting things that I saw was just fidgeting. I already have a problem of fidgeting when I am sitting mostly still. I will do things like twiddle my thumbs or bounce my knee up and down. I never realized that it was good for me.

Stretching your wrists is important if you are typing a lot.

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Week 8 Growth Mindest

For this week's growth mindset post I chose to look at the cats because who wouldn't want to look at cats honestly. I particularly liked this picture below. I think it is particularly analogous to writers block. Sometimes you get in one mindset are unsure how to proceed. Sometimes taking a break is better than continuing on.




Link to Blog post

Week 8 Microfiction

Greedy he was.
Nothing he got.



There once was a man who was not satisfied with what he had.
In an attempt to get more, he lost what he had.

The Man and his Goose

Source

Author's Note: For this week's microfiction I am going to stick to the theme of rewriting one of Aesop's Fables but in short. This week I went with The Goose & The Golden Egg. In this popular story there is basically a guy who has a goose that lays a golden egg everyday. He takes this egg and goes to the market and sells it everyday to get rich. He gets greedy and instead of waiting he kills the goose to get all of them at once, only to find that there are no eggs inside.

Week 8 Biographical Writing

This week, I am going to respond to where I lived my first semester of college and where I lived and how it contributed to my college experience. During my first semester of college here I was scared about who I am going to meet and making new friends. As I am from St. Louis I didn't know anybody who went or goes to OU. I moved into David L Boren Hall instead of the towers like most of the other freshman. I think the main reason for this is because I committed to OU pretty late as it was not my first choice of college. My roommate freshman year, Dylan Lloyd, who coincidentally I told about this class and is also in it, was and still is one of my roomates. He is from Kansas City and got paired with me as he also didn't commit to going to OU until very late as well. Luckily we got along very well and he is one of my best friends currently. In our hallway there was another guy that I met and became friends with name Evan. I also live with him currently. I think living in DLB instead of the traditional dorm setting. I remember the first day that we moved in, the faculty in residence that was in charge had a cookout or something like that where Evan, Dylan and I went. There, we met some guys that lived on the 4th floor of the building named Zach and Jose who were roommates. That night we played card games all night and two years later. Zach, Dylan, Evan, and I all live together and when Zach graduates this year. Jose is taking his place in the apartment. I think this first week and finding this core group of friends was vital to my college experience. Without this, although I am sure I would have made friends eventually, I don't know if it would have been the same kind of fraternal bond that we have.

An image of David L. Boren Hall

Week 8 Progress

To be honest I am not really happy with my progress so far. Although I am on pace for an A still in the class, I was hoping to get further ahead than I currently am. I think for the second half of the semester I need to try to do the assignments early in the week instead of the weekend they are due.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Overall, I think the comments and feedback that I receive is pretty helpful. Sometimes it is hard to take it into consideration though if people are doing their commenting into the week and I am doing my revisions earlier. One thing that I think could be changed is the introduction blog comments. I think that going back the something we wrote week one and commenting on it still seems kind of outdated. Maybe we could add an assignment like a mid semester update that we can shift to.

This is my favorite feedback cat that I found. I like it because it really shows that criticism isn't always a personal knock at a person but it is for developing your work to make it better.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I think so far, my progress is most adequately reflected in my reading notes and blog. I think they are helpful to me when I go back and look at them when I am writing my story later. I think one thing that I can do to improve my reading notes is instead of being hyper specific, I need to write down more common themes that I read in my stories. This will help reflect in my stories so they are not super similar to the actual stories.

I think this picture has been my favorite that I have used so far. I mean look at it. It is just so regal and majestic. After all, they do call lions the king of the jungle (even though they actually live in savannas and not jungles).

Image source: Pixabay

Week 7 Review

Personally, I really enjoy the mindset cats as they make me laugh a little. 

The video I watched was a crash course on the Mwindo Epic. I chose this video because I really like John Green and his Crash Course series. Even though it wasn't actually him narrating this one I still enjoy the style and easy to understand language that is used in them.

Famous Last Words: Week 7 Keeping on top of things

This week was pretty good as a whole. I thought the reading for this week was a little worse than the previous ones as there are a lot of names to keep straight and it is hard to remember all the characters without going back and rereading the previous week's reading but I guess that is what the reading notes and stories are for! For now, my other classes have let up as we are past the midterm season so I can now spend more time on this class. That means doing all the extra credit and getting ahead so that when my other classes pick up again I wont fall behind in this one. In particular, I think it is important to get ahead in the week too and as I have not a lot to do this Sunday, I will probably begin working on week 8. I am planning on going home to St. Louis next weekend to visit my family so getting ahead now is important as I don't want to be working on homework when I am there and I am going to be losing 14 hours due to driving time. Outside of school this week was pretty good as well. Most of my friends were in town this weekend and not busy so we all got to do things together this weekend where as usually we are scattered about. Last night we watched Wall-E which I had never actually seen all the way through. I had seen pieces here and there so I knew the general plot but I didn't actually know how it ended. A tear might have been shed. I'm a big fan of Pixar movies and I think they have a unique way of putting big life lessons into silly animated movies.

Image Source

Week 7: Wikipedia Trail. SLAM to Louis IX

The SLAM: A lot of the twitter feed has stuff from the SLAM and I really like learning more about it because it is a place that I can visit and actually see the things I am reading about in real life. I think it is fun to learn the history of a place I have been to so regularly.

St. Louis: Similar to my sentiment with the SLAM, learning more about the city I grew up near to me is something that I enjoy. One thing new I learned with my reading of the article is that the St. Louis Botanical Garden is supposedly the second best in North America. I knew the zoo was one of the top zoos but I never realized the botanical garden was held so highly too!

Downtown St. Louis: In my reading of this article I learned more about WASHU and who it was named after and such. I didn't realize it was named after George Washington's birthday.

Louis IX of France: In this article I read about the namesake of St. Louis and a little more about who he was. 

The beautiful St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM)

Week 7: Growth Mindset

My personal motto, is "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Personally, I like this quote a lot as a lot of the time I have problems starting things but after I do, I am able to work pretty efficiently to get it done. This especially applies to getting up in the mornings. I really enjoy my bed and it is very comfortable but if I muster up the energy to get out of bed at 7 versus just staying in bed and sleeping until 10 I feel like I've had a much more productive day.

Learning Challenge: Learning about Sleep

For this week I read An Underappreciated Key to College Success: Sleep. I always knew that getting a good nights rest is better than staying up all night studying before a test but I never knew that after being awake for 20 or more hours, your brain functions as if it is legally drunk. I think one thing that I want to experiment with is using white noise to sleep. Right now I usually fall asleep watching some random YouTube video which I know probably isn't the best for me but I think I use it more as background noise than anything. I wonder if using a white noise generator like the article mentions is better as I would not have to use my phone and can avoid the bluelight, although I do already have a bluelight filter that turns on on my phone past 10PM.

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Week 7: Microfiction

Wolf!, he said.

They didn't come

The boy cried wolf when their wasn't one, over and over.

When the wolf actually came, the others didn't.

Authors Note: This microfiction is an adaptation of the boy who cried wolf. In this common fable a boy says wolf multiple times when there actually isn't a wolf but when it actually does come and he says wolf, nobody comes to his aid as they think he is lying. This is a good life lesson as when you become known as a liar, even when you are telling the truth, people will still think you are lying.

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Reading Notes: Mahabharata D

For the second part of this week's reading I think I am going to look at death in the Mahabharata which is everywhere in part D. We see some long forgotten plots like Amba's come to fruition. There were three main characters that I will focus to chose on this week. These characters are Abhimanyu, Krishna, and Drona.

Abhimanyu: The death of Abhimanyu was very tragic. He was first disarmed as he was so fearsome when he was armed that he could not be slain and he was blinded. After this Duhshasana leaps forward and bludgeons him in his face.

Krishna: Krishna's death is a lot more subtle than Abhimanyu's. It is not intentional. Krishna gets shot in the ankle by an arrow and dies. This is the one mortal spot he had, similar to greek mythology and the Achilles heel.

Drona: Drona's death is also tragic like Abhimanyu's. Drona is a great warrior and he has divine weapons like we say earlier and in the Ramayana. Still grieving over his son, Drona can not think to procure these weapons and instead charges at the other warriors and is slain that way.

Krishna's Death

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Source: PDE Mahabharata 

Reading Notes: Mahabharata Part C

In this set of reading notes I think that I am going to draw mainly from Life in the Forest. In this section the Pandava princes walk further into the forest where Draupadi followed them. A brahmin then tells the rajah to call on a sun god. He does in a prayer and then Surya appears. He gives him a copper pot that has infinite food in it. For twelve years the Pandavas lived in the forest.  One day Krishna comes to visit the forest.

Surya the Sun God

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Mahabharata C: Source

Wikipedia Train: Yaure Language to Rugby World Cup

To begin this Wikipeida trail I looked through the Twitter feed and found the Yaure mask. I chose this piece as it is located in the St. Louis Art Museum, a place I have been to many times as I am from St. Louis. I then went on Wikipedia and then looked at the Yaure language. I learned that Yaure is a language of west Africa.

Ivory Coast: Then I clicked on Ivory Coast as I feel as though it is a country I do not know a lot about so I would like to learn more about it. I went through the table of contents and found out what sports they like to play as sports are one of those things that unify a whole group of people

1995 Rugby World Cup: From here I clicked on the 1995 Rugby World Cup as this was the first world cup that Ivory Coast qualified to play in. It was also the first major sporting even to be held in South Africa after apartheid ended which is a big deal.

Rugby World Cup: I wanted to learn a little more about rugby so then I went on to learn about the Rugby World Cup as a whole. The most recent competition took place in Japan where South Africa beat England to get their 3rd world cup.

The mask that started it all. Source

Growth Mindset: Original Thinkers Video

One new thing that I learned from this video is that people that procrastinate (Although it is a bad habit don't get me wrong), tend to be more creative thinkers. I am also curious as to why this is. One hypothesis I have is that when you have less time to do something you have to find ways to do the same task more quickly so maybe you are more used to thinking outside the box to do something. I think I am going to google more about this. Maybe something along the lines of "procrastination and creativity correlation". I'm sure there are some studies done on this subject even if they are not by the New England Journal of Medicine or Nature.





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Micro-fiction: The Tortoise and the Hare

As the hare lays there comfortable with his lead,
the tortoise makes progress like a fast mare and finishes ahead of the hares heed.

Hare was lazy, Turtle was steady.

Authors note: The story that I chose to condense and make my own microfiction out of is the classic story of the tortoise and the hare. What was interesting to me is that the story is listed as the hare and the tortoise but I have only ever heard it flipped as the tortoise and the hare. I don't think I ever really struggled with making the story as the original is pretty short to begin with but I did have to stop and think for the 25 word one to use words that would rhyme, but still convey meaning instead of just not making any sense.

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EC: Week 6 Biographical Writing

For this week I think I will be writing about my weekend for extra credit because I think it was very enriching and is a weekend I will remember for a long time.

This weekend a couple of friends and I drove up to Tulsa, OK for a friend's sister's quinceanera. For those of you unfamiliar, a quinceanera is a coming of age ceremony for a hispanic girl when she turns 15. We left Friday night and first stopped at the hotel to drop our stuff off, but then we went to my friend's house to eat some food. Not only was his house out in the boonies somewhere but the food there was out of this world. I'm already a big fan of Mexican food but when it is authentic and spicy and fresh I'm in heaven. We ate to our hearts content and the next day was the actual quinceanera. I had never been to a quinceanera so I had no idea what to expect but it was a great time. There were a ton of people, and once again great food. The dress his sister was wearing was also very pretty. It was a light pink kind of like what is shown below. We ate and drank and danced to our heart's content. It was a very fun weekend as I love big family functions like that. I think in the future I need to go to more quinceaneras.

An example of the dress that his sister wore

Source

Biography

I think the stupidest thing I have ever done probably goes back to my childhood where my friends and I would play in our back alley way. I'm convinced that when you are a child you have a +10 luck stat that you slowly lose when you get older. In my back yard there was a big paved road that my garage backs up to. My friend lived right next to me so often times we would ride bikes down it really fast and then lock our back wheels to see who could make the longest skid mark. This wasn't even the stupid part. The stupid part was that sometimes we would play a game where we would see if somebody could get a stick through the spokes as they rode down at full speed. Kinda like this meme but somebody else doing the sticking. Luckily nobody ever managed to actually get it through. If they did we would probably go flying.

Our game

I chose this story because I the prompt of the stupidest thing you've ever done was funny.

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata Part A/B

For this week's reading I wanted to read the PDE version of the Mahabharata as I think it is a little more accessible and easier to understand. The hardest part of this week's reading is to keep all the names straight, especially when we see generations grow and new generations arise. It was also a lot to keep track of in terms of the several smaller stories that were intertwined into the main one. I found myself Googling the names a lot to look at the family tree to remind myself of the relations, kind of like Game of Thrones honestly. Below is the family tree that I used and helped me.

Family Tree

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Storybook Plan

I think for my storybook I am going to make it animals of Africa-ish themed and try to retell stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata but using different animals that you would find in Africa. I think by doing this maybe I think I would use the stories that include the celestial weapons in them. These stories would come from the Ramayana. As far as perspective I think I am going to use a third person omniscient story teller, maybe like Rafiki from The Lion King type deal. I'm not exactly sure what main lessons I want my stories to have. I think that I will write them like those little stories that you read when you're kids where each story has its own little life lesson.

Assorted animals of Africa

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Biography Week 5

One of my earliest childhood memories that I can remember vividly is my experience learning to ride a bike without training wheels. When I was younger my family used to live in an apartment complex and all of the kids that I used to hang out with me were maybe a year or two older than me, around 6 or 7 years old. I was still in preschool at the time. When all the other kids were playing outside and riding their bikes around without training wheels I couldn't and 5 year old me felt excluded. I remember my mom  helping me taking them off and holding me up as I tried to learn. I also remember riding into a car and probably leaving a scratch. Eventually I just told her to let go and went for it. I did learn that day and it is one of my first accomplishments.

Little kid with a bike that looks like mine

Wikimedia

Microfiction Week 5

Left an exile. Came back King.

This story is the closest synopsis I could make of The Lion King. I have been writing a lot about lions so I figured the Lion King would be a good story that everybody knows.

Girl sacrifices herself for her dad. Proves she can do what any man can.

Keeping with the theme of Disney movies I wanted to summarize Mulan in two sentences.

Source: Pixabay

Reading Notes: Ramayana C

This week I focused more on my project of writing about the weapons in the Ramayana.

One of the best examples of this is in Vali's Death. Bows are a very dominant trope in the stories and in this story. Bows are used a lot in slaying and defense. Snakes are also a very common theme and are usually portrayed as evil. In this case we see a snake-like arrow being shot from a bow. 

The Death of King Vali

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Feedback Strategies

The two articles I read are Be A Mirror and How to Give Bad Feedback Without Being a Jerk. I chose the first article because, honestly, I didn't know what being a mirror meant and I wanted to know more about what the article could possibly be about. This article talked about the five different qualities of feedback that people with a growth mindset have. Being a mirror involves giving feedback in a way that promotes these 5 qualities.

The second article that I read is about how to give negative feedback without sounding like a jerk. This is something that I struggle with and I either sound too mean or I just neglect to mention the negatives. I think the biggest point is that you need to explain why you are giving feedback. If people understand that you are trying to better them they will be more willing to accept it and not look down upon you.

Being a mirror

Source: Pixabay

Topic Research: The Weapons of the Ramayana

 

The weapons of the Ramayana that I have encountered so far have really fallen into two categories. These are the "mortal weapons" like the bow and arrow that was used or "celestial weapons" that the gods used. Whenever times get really tough Rama seems to draw upon a celestial weapon to do a lot of damage.

When looking more into these celestial weapons I learned that each deity has a different celestial weapon that they are associated with. Here are three examples of this.

The Trishula: The trishula is a trident that is wielded by Shiva the Destroyer and is said that it can not be stopped by anybody but Shiva himself.

The Manavastra: This weapon is commonly wielded by Manu and was used by Sri Rama on the demon Maricha. We have already seen Maricha in theses epics taking the form of a golden deer to lure Rama out of hiding.

The Gada: The gada is a mace that Hanuman carries. This weapon is particularly interesting to me as it is one of the most recognizable weapons in Hinduism. You see it in basically every picture of Hanuman, resting on his shoulder. Interestingly, I never actually knew what it was called but the word "Gada" in Telugu, the language I speak basically means lump so I thought this was a fun little connection. 

Lord Hanuman with his mace

Source: Flickr

Week 3 Story: A Lions Game

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there lay a lioness and a lion under a great big tree. This lion and lioness rules all of their kingdom, with their reach being far and wide. These two lions ate antelope exclusively and the hyenas that also lived in the kingdom knew this. One day, one of the hyenas decided to paint itself like an antelope. This hyena was big so it looked like a big antelope when it was painted. This made it look nice and juicy for the other lions. The King Lion was convinced by the Queen lion to go follow the big juicy antelope around until he catches it. The King Lion chased the “antelope” around and through his whole domain. Eventually he catches it, and when he does he killed it with a humongous bite. After he killed the hyena’s soul came out of the body and talked to the King Lion. Turns out the hyena was actually possessed by a demon! The hyena’s soul let out a big roar, the same way the King Lion did. The roar was the same type of roar that the lion made when he was in pain. This roar carried for miles, as lion roars carry on for long distances. The Lioness heard it and got concerned. She talked to her trusty adviser the monkey and he told her that he is not to leave her side. After much more convincing, the monkey finally leaves to check on the Lion King.    

A portrait of the Lion King from my story

Source: Pixabay

Authors note: This story is a retelling of The Golden Deer and The Chase from the Ramayana Part B. In these stories Rama is convinced by Sita to go chase a golden deer but the deer was actually another form of a Rakshasa. The deer gets killed and the Rakshasa comes out and starts talking like Rama. Sita hears and convinces Lakshana to go and check on Rama.  

Source: PDE Ramayana 

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part B

Battle with Khara:

• Kind of a sinister setting. Animals howling with a red sun that gets swallowed.
• Rama wants to fight them alone.
• Laksmana and Sita go and sit in a cave
• The Rakshashas appear and come after him looking like a black cloud because they are so dense
• Thousands of weapons are thrown at him as he starts shooting flaming arrows.
• Rama gets a celestial weapon and slays Dushana.
• Sita comes out of hiding and kisses Rama

The Golden Deer:

• Maricha takes the form of a golden deer
• Maricha sings to Sita and has her convince Rama to go follow the deer

The Chase:

• Rama chases a deer and shoots it through the heart
• Maricha comes out of the deer and in Rama's voice calls out to Sita
• Sita gets scared and asks for help to check for what Rama is doing
• Sita gets mad because Lakshmana will not leave her side to go check on Rama
• Lakshmana gives in and goes to check on Rama

Maricha as a Golden Deer

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Source: PDE Ramayana 

Reading Notes PDE Ramayana-A Week 3

• 2 kingdoms
• Koshala: King Dasharatha
• Mithila: King Janaka
• Capital of Koshala was Ayodhya. Big grand city lots of temples and stuff. Lots of wildlife
• King of Koshala sad because no sons from his three queens
• Horse sacrifice. Horse wandered around for a year and came back and along with 21 other animals was sacrificed
• Gods promised 4 sons to king
• One of the sons born is a reincarnation of Vishnu and was born in order to defeat the king of the rakshasas Ravana. Vishnu born as Rama. Brahmin recognizes this and tells the king
• A wise sage comes and asks Rama to fight against the rakshashas. Reluctantly, Dasharatha agrees
• Rama fights Thataka and cuts off her arms. She turns invisible and then starts throwing boulders so he shoots her with an arrow.
• Suddenly rakshashas appeared and attacked Rama but he killed them all.

Source: PDE of Ramayana, Multiple Authors

Battle of Lanka

Source: Wikimedia