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

Microfiction Week 2

The alligator tries to trick a monkey across a river in order to eat his heart. The monkey realizes this and tricks the alligator into taking him back to land.

Late nights don't stop the train.

Picture from Twitter

Authors Note: The first short story is a two sentence microfiction where I tried to basically retell the story I read in this week's reading, but in two sentences. The 6 word story is about a picture I found on twitter under the #6wordstory hashtag. I think it is hard to tell a story in 6 words as it leaves basically everything up to interpretation. I also counted the conjunction "don't" as one word so maybe it is actually a 7 word story.

Original story source: 

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Feedback Thoughts

For this assignment I read Why rejection hurts so much and Seven ways to crush self doubt. I think the biggest thing that I learned from reading these two articles is something that we have learned before, the growth mindset. Both of the articles mention this mindset in a sense, one directly and one indirectly. They both admit that having a little self-doubt is good and is necessary in order to be able to reflect upon yourself and your past decisions but dragging yourself down because of those decisions is bad and should not happen. I think some of the best forms of feedback I've received is that from my friends. They are never afraid to tell me how it is, even if that is something I may not want to hear. The good thing is they are always helpful in finding solutions to my problems as well. 

Image from Cheezburger

Topic Brainstorm

The Gods: There are so many different gods in the Hindu culture I think it would be interesting to learn more about a couple and what they represent. I have a little previous knowledge on the subject as my mother is very religious and I go to the Hindu temple decently frequently with her when I am back in my hometown of St. Louis. However,  I have never really taken the time to learn about everything in there and I think this would be a good chance in order to actually learn more.

Weapons of the Gods: I've always been interested in ancient conflicts as times were so much different back then that the conflict resolutions aren't as applicable anymore. Sometimes this conflict was resolved through war or physical violence. I think it would be interesting to learn more about these conflicts and the weapons used in them. These weapons could be both physical weapons like spears and axes and what not but I'm sure there are other supernatural weapons used like being able to summon storms and things like that.

Animal Characters of the Ramayana: I have been very interested in animals my whole life. Animals also always play a huge part in stories all over the world. I think it would be interesting to look at the similarities and differences that animals play in the Hindu epics as compared to something like the Bible. I have a little previous knowledge about this as I know that in Hinduism, most gods have an animal associated with them as their vessel. I'm not sure if there are similar things in other religions but that might be something interesting to look into.

Food: I love food. Most people love food. I took a class last year called Diet in the Mediterranean, which I have mentioned before, that delved very deeply into what exactly food can tell us about a religion, place, or people. Taking this knowledge into the Hindu epics would be a good way to tie together different classes.

Some statues of Hindu Gods

Flickr

Week 2 Story

Fool's Gold

Once upon a time, sailing an ocean far away, was a pirate that sailed the open seas, looting everything in sight. This pirate was considered to be the richest in all the land and him and his crew were always clever in order to not get caught. Deep under the sea, there was a Kraken and his wife that lived in solitude, but always longed the riches that land contained. One day the wife turned to the Kraken and said, “Oh Kraken king, how I long to feast on the riches of the pirate. He has everything from all the lands in one place.”

“How do you propose I take his riches dear wife?” said the Kraken King. “He has the biggest cannons in all the land! There is now way that we can just sink him like all the other pirates!”

“Trick him,” the Kraken wife said. “Use his own greed against him and get him to come to the sea alone.” That day when the pirate set sail from his home, the Kraken approached his ship very calmly and said, “Oh most successful pirate, I have found a whole stash of gold in the most remote of locations but it is only accessible by row boat. If you will let me, I will escort you to the location, but only you can come.” Greedily, the pirate agreed and the two set off to find the loot. Suddenly the Kraken turned around and started grabbing the boat, trying to sink it. “Fool, what are you doing,” the pirate said. “I have no gold with me on this boat it is all at a secret location I will tell you if you let me go.” Reluctantly, the Kraken agreed and took the pirate to land where he said the loot was. “Fool! You have escorted me back to land. You have no power here and I will signal for my ship to come get me.” Defeated, the Kraken swam back to his abode under the sea to his disappointed wife.

“Wife,” he said, “Even though we are big and strong and can sink any ship we please, what is the point if we can’t be happy with whatever we have?”   

Kraken Sinking a Ship

Flickr

Authors Note: This story was derived from The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart from the reading anthology. It tells a tale of basically two characters and how one outwits the other. 

Original Story:
Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Week 2 Reading Notes: Jataka Anthology

The common theme in all of these stories seems to be the various forms of Buddha's reincarnations and the different lessons that he learns in each one. In this story, Buddha comes back as a monkey and gets real big and strong and is king of the monkeys. The crocodile's wife wants to eat his heart. The male crocodile caves in and says ok I'll try to get him to eat even though he lives on dry land. The crocodile then plunges him into the water and when the monkey is like hey why are you doing this the crocodile explains to him that he is going to bring his wife the monkey's heart. The monkey then tricks the crocodile into believing that he keeps his heart in a tree and makes the crocodile take him to a tree, where he promptly climbs up it and tells the crocodile that he was lying.

Crocodile looking up at the monkey after being clowned

Pixabay

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Week 2 Reading Overview

  

In the coming weeks I think I am going to read R. K. Narayan's Ramayana. I like that it is all written by one author. This continuity is something I enjoy in a book and the other option almost seems like a collection of short stories by different people rather than one continuous book. One of the drawbacks however is that there are no pictures! Maybe I will go back to the other book and look at those pictures.

As for the two videos and comics I am interested in, they are the CrashCourse on the Ramayana, Food for Gods, Ganesha, and Rama. I thick CrashCourse is a very valuable resource and I think the writing for them is very good for gaining a broad understanding of a subject, even if they might not be super detailed. In high school I watched a lot of CrashCourse videos on double speed to learn about history. The video on the foods that gods ate is also interesting to me as I have never really thought about what the gods eat and I love food. Do they eat regular people food? Are there certain holy foods that they eat exclusively? This video will help answer some of those questions. The two comics I chose are interesting to me as they are two creation stories that my mother has told me before when I was a kid. Although I never really payed attention then, I think it will be interesting to learn more about them and maybe even educate her on the matter. 

A traditional portrayal of Ganesha

Wikimedia 

Tech Tip Week 8: Canvas Notifications

Personally, I am a little anal-retentive about knowing what is going on in my classes so I have all of the notifications on Canvas turned on. This includes new files uploaded, grade changes, comments, and the whole nine yards. I think it is a little redundant when I get notifications from the app and through my e-mail but sometimes it is good when I swipe away a notification on my phone, only to check my e-mail later and be reminded of it.

Tech Tip Week 7: Canvas Calendar

My time management skills for this class and school in general is to try and get things done on time before the due date. I really enjoy the flexibility that online classes give you however because nothing is really on that much of a schedule. I can do assignments when I have the time like at 10:45 at night. Not having to go to class either is really nice because in the same way, I can do the work in between my other classes. I don't typically use the Canvas calendar as I always just look at the "to do" section and go by the closest date there.

Tech Tip Week 6: Canvas Mobile App

I've used Canvas both on Android and iOS. I really enjoy using Canvas on my phone. The only problem is that it is hard to really do assignments on your phone so I usually just look on my phone for due dates of for when grades are put in. I also pretty consistently find myself going to the Canvas website to see the statistics for assignments.

Tech Tip Week 5: Text to Voice

I personally think that text to voice is useful for cases like audio books and things like that to where you can listen to them while driving or doing something else. If I am sitting down and just trying to read, I find that it is easier to just use my eyes as I can go back and re-read much more easily and I read with my eyes faster. Typically, I don't listen to audio books very much because of this reason.

Tech Tip Week 4: Typing in Browser

I think the typing in browser thing is neat but honestly it seems a little unnecessary. If I ever need to type something I can just as easily open up a Word document and type there. Looking at the code to type in browser, it also does not save and is really easy to accidentally exit out of by mistake and lose all your work.

Tech Tip Week 3: Firefox

For this week, I installed Firefox on my PC as a secondary browser. I've used Firefox here and there but it has never been my primary browser. I like the clean look of Chrome more. The plugins available on Chrome are also very nice as there is something for basically everything.

Tech Tips: Browser Tune-Up

For this weeks Tech Tip, I went ahead and made sure that my browser settings were all up to par with what they are supposed to be. I think that having the word count is especially useful as the posts have word limits.

Time Management

      

I think my biggest task this semester will be to use the two days a week I have off of physical classes, Monday and Wednesday, efficiently and productively. That means getting out of bed at a reasonable time and using the mornings at least to work on my two online classes. This is why I chose to read The Important Habit of Just Starting by Jory Mackay. I find that my biggest problem is just starting assignments, but once I do I can typically finish them pretty fast. Another article that I read is How to Beat Procrastination by Caroline Webb. I think the most interesting point in this article that I read about was the point that telling people that you are going to do something will make you do it. This was interesting to me because I had read previously many years ago that this is actually a bad thing as that instant gratification telling people you are going to do something is actually a negative and you perceive it as a reward even though the task has not been accomplished. This, however, is a little different than how the article mentions it though because they use it in the sense of telling people that you will have something done by a certain day or by a certain time for them. As a result you have to be held accountable for it.

Making a checklist is good for keeping track of tasks

Flickr

Technology Tune-Up

Personally, I like to consider myself pretty tech-savvy so even though I may not have used the specific programs listed like Cheezburger to resize my pictures but I've used some of the basic functions in Photoshop and some Googling to resize and re-scale pictures as needed. I usually use Google to learn about things like that as it is a treasure trove of tutorials and even if it might not be the most straightforward method, I can always rely on somebody asking the same question I have on some forum and somebody else answering it.   

Me typing my problems into Google

Giphy

Learning about the Assignments

Personally I am most excited for commenting on other peoples' blogs. I think it always fun to see what other people have written about and what they find interesting. This is a little similar to an English class that I took after freshman year where we had to write discussion posts and comment on other peoples' posts in order to get credit but the posts were not as in-depth and to be honest the course work wasn't as interesting as I think this course is going to be. The discussion posts were also just on Blackboard so it was nothing like the blogging that we are doing in this class. As for the extra credit assignments, I think the Wikipedia trails will be interesting  because this is something I already do in my free time. Wikipedia has vast amounts of knowledge and being able to get credit for going through it seems like a good opportunity  

The Growth Mindset

Before watching this video and learning more about Carol Dweck I had never heard of her before or even really heard the term "growth mindset" before. The concept, however, is not one that is foreign to me and one that has been instilled in my by various teachers, coaches and even friends through out the years. I think this mindset was particularly evident in my AP Stats class where the teacher did not really care what you came into the class knowing, but was very insistent that if you put your mind to it, you could learn everything that you needed to know. He was a big believer in this growth mindset and that there is no reason that somebody should not be able to grow their mind if they put the work in. With this unique approach to learning, he, unsurprisingly, had some of the best test scores in the school.

This semester I would like to have a similar approach to school and this class. I plan on taking the MCAT this semester and I need to study for that but at the same time I am not as stressed as some of my other friends studying for it as I know that as long as I put the time and work in, I am confident I will end up doing fine. I like to take that same approach to many things that I do. Even though there are some things might quite literally be out of my reach, like being a professional basketball player, I know that at most things I can work hard at and at least become competent at them. I think this is a big part in the growth mindset.      

Growing your mind by exercising it

Pixbay

Introduction - A Srikar Story

Hi! My name is Srikar Kommareddy and I am a junior studying biomedical engineering. In the future I hope to go to medical school and continue my education, eventually becoming a doctor in the military for a few years before settling down. I am originally from a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri called Wildwood. It's about a seven hour drive northeast on 44-east. Last semester was pretty good and I think my favorite class was a class called Diet of the Mediterranean. Although it might seem kinda weird and specific it was actually more broad than the name entails. We talked a lot about different stigmas different foods have, where they come from, and basically anything and everything about food. We even had a banquet at the end where everybody made a dish from a country in the Mediterranean and shared it. As far as me personally, I like to think I'm a pretty laid-back person. I really enjoy watching sports such as football and basketball and also playing them, even though I might be very good. I also really enjoy cooking but it is a little harder to cook at college since our kitchen is not fully stocked like one at home might be. Over break however, I enjoyed the resources of my parents and cooked to my hearts delight. I made broccoli cheddar soup and bread bowls from scratch as well as some pad Thai. I also grilled a little since we were blessed (although probably not a good thing) with some warm weather. My favorite movie is probably What's Eating Gilbert Grape. It's a great drama with Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp. I would highly recommend. I don't watch a lot of TV but I did watch Game of Thrones for the first time over break. To be honest, it was kind of underwhelming, especially the ending. I have one sister that I went and visited over break as well who lives on Long Island. She is a pediatrician there and is moving back to St. Louis soon. My parents are very excited that she is moving back. Sadly, I don't have any pets. I met a lot of animals over break though which was fun! Overall, my break was good and I am excited for this semester to begin and this class.

  

Plane flying over the Midwest

Flickr

My Three Storybook Favorites

The first story I chose was basically because I thought the title was fun and really pulled me in. Tales of Tails is a story about the animals of Hindu Mythology. Sadly, although the introduction is brief, which is good, it is a little too brief and does not really give insight into what is to come in the actual stories. The layout of the page itself is pretty good and self explanatory. In particular I like how the first story has a YouTube link of a video of stream noises to really set the scene as you read it.

The second story that I chose was Looney Tunes Goes to India. This post was interesting to me as I wanted to read more on how the author incorporated the characters from Looney Tunes into his own stories. The introduction was pretty good overall with each story having it's own picture and sentence on the home page about what it was about. I think the organization is a little weird as you can't really tell which story goes with what sentence introduction very well. Maybe a hyperlink to the story after each sentence would make it more clear.

The third story that I chose was a post on Voldemort and relating the Harry Potter world to Indian Epics. The introduction is very well done although it is very long for an introduction. I think it is very well done though as the author actually takes the place of the Harry Potter characters and then retells the story in their own perspectives. As far as the actual layout of the page goes it is pretty good. I like that the pages are very clearly laid out on the left side of the page and are labeled clearly. The pictures seem kind of large and you have to scroll to see the whole picture or actually zoom out of the page.

 

The cast of the Looney Tunes

Source: Flickr

My Favorite Place: Bryce Canyon!

Bryce Canyon

          Of of all the places that I have visited in my life, none have quite taken my breath away like the view I had of Bryce Canyon, in southern Utah, this past summer. The formations that can be seen are called "hoodoos" are created by the unique positioning of Bryce Canyon which allows for a larger amount of freeze-thaw weathering than usual. I think the best thing about Bryce Canyon is that on the drive to it you can't tell that you are near up until you park and walk to the ledge. Only after you get to that ledge can you truly see the magnificence that is Bryce Canyon.

Caption: Looking out over Bryce Canyon from Sunrise Point (Wikimedia Commons)

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