Indian Epics

Author's note: In the Ramayana, Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana are in exile. The demon Shoorpankha sees Rama and Sita, and lusts after Rama. She tries to persuade him to marry her. Rama, in his perfection, sees her for what she is and rebukes her. Shoorpankha goes to her brother, Ravana, and tells him of Sita's beauty, hoping if he steals Sita, then Rama can be hers. It works, and Ravana falls madly in love with Sita. He has his uncle, Marecha disguise himself as a golden deer and present himself to Sita. Sita demands that Rama capture the deer for her, despite his warning that it is a trap, which leads to her eventual capture. I did not like the infallibility of Rama. It is boring to have a character that is So Perfect, in my opinion. I also did not like that it is Sita's greed for the Golden Deer that allows her to be captured. So, in my story, no one is perfect. Sita, Rama, and Lakshmana are all deceived in one way or another. And, without spoiling the ending, I chose to...

The Ramayana, By R.K. Narayan The Demon Ravana ( Source ) In beginning, both Rama and Sita portrayed as "perfect" Attractive Devoted to each other Morally righteous How did Ravana get so powerful Why 10 heads? Man demons are lusty Or are Sita and Rama really just that  hot? Mareecha knows what's up, but Ravana won't let him off the hook How is Rama that strong? Sita portrayed as silly and impulsive misled by Mareecha, twice desires the obvious trap of the golden deer won't listen to Lakshmana when told the cries she's hearing aren't actually Rama Ya know, character flaws are good sometimes. A paragon is fine, but this whole "He's so perfect and holy and flawless in literally every way makes him... unrelatable.

The Pearl among Ruminant Creatures, the peaceful Cow ( Source ) Sacred Cow Looking for a fight? Selfish to put others lives on the line for his own entertainment Being held against his will by his desire to not be rude Unfavorable diet is payback for looking for a fight Pearl among Ruminant Creatures King is suspicious - almost seems like he looks for excuses to be unhappy There is no credit in virtue which is not assaulted by temptation King got his fight Impure intent in fasting, praying Granted such an outlandish wish? Why? Other king doesn't get berevity/burden of life Gods wanted him to take it easy on himself and enjoy life. Interesting. Irony - in seeking cow to provide himself with riches, gives up all worldly comforts Still never gets rid of hatred, malice Finally gets peace and no longer wants cow. Happy ending I guess?

" So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life."  This Neil Gaiman quote from the article " Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman’s Advice on the Creative Life, Adapted by Design Legend Chip Kidd " really stuck out to me. As an engineer, making mistakes is part of the process. If you are trying to solve a problem, it is virtually impossible to get a solution that works the first time. Humans just don't have the omniscience to predict every problem that will arise with your solution. Those problems can really only be detected by trying something and failing, but by trying something and seeing how it fails we learn. We understand the problem better and can create a better solution in the next iteration. For my line of wo...

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, weaves a story involving many pantheons, set in a modern day. ( Source ) American Gods One possible topic is to play on Neil Gaiman's work in American Gods, and create a world in which some of the less prominent gods are fighting for the devotion of the humans. To do this justice, I would need to play on their stories and their essence while weaving them into a new story. In trying to draw on the stories of the gods and goddesses, I will need to figure out what stories would lend themselves to creating conflict between different gods, or which focus on gaining followers. Here is a list of stories about various gods and goddesses that might be useful to me. Brought into the modern day It may be interesting to put a modern spin on these ancient characters and stories. The characters would likely act very differently if put in a modern setting; the cultural norms and expectations are very different. This myth may be fun to bring in...

For this story, I combined the two turtle stories into one. I wanted to have the pride he develops in the first story lead to his ultimate downfall in the second. Bibliography. " The Turtle and the King " and " The Turtle and the Geese " from Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbit. The Turtle Conversing with a Crane ( Source ) There was once a king who had two young sons. In his palace garden, there was a pool of water. His sons loved playing in the pool. They loved wading in the cool water on hot days. They loved watching the fishes swim to an fro, their colorful scales glinting in the sun. They loved watching the cranes stroll gracefully through the shallows. One day, as the boys were playing, they noticed a turtle sunning itself on a log by the shore. They had never seen a turtle before, and were terrified, thinking this unfamiliar creature must be a demon. They ran inside and buried their faces in their father's tunic, crying loudly about the demon in...

Rabbit: Rabbit spooked himself: "What if this should happen? Oh no! It did!" Could relate the animals to gods perhaps. i.e. Ganesha is the elephant, Brahma is the Lion, etc. "They stopped, for they knew the voice of the King of the Beasts, and they feared him. Turtle: Combine stories? Character flaw developed in first story leads to death in second story Pride in cleverness in first story, "Pride leads to the fall" in second when kids insult him Mistakes it for a demon Being thrown in by a waterfall might actually kill him Crane and Crab: Neat parallel between fish and crane, and crane and crab  Viciousness of crane, pecking out eye of one-eyed fish Pride and hunger lead to crane trusting fish "Do you suppose I was born to carry crabs about?" "For that beak was made to eat fish, not carry them." Monkey: Theme of out-witting and tricking Same as Crane and Crab, tricking the trickster "Sir Monkey...

I will read Narayan's Ramayana. I like that it can be traced back to an original Sanskrit version. That's really neat! I prefer a story that is more close to a novel. I think having a ton of different writing styles within the same story would be kind of jarring. I also appreciate that there is a detailed reading guide to help me navigate the story. I find reading guides often encourage me to take a closer look at things I may have skimmed over before, and to take new perspectives I may not try on for size otherwise. One of the comic books that caught my eye is " Guide: Tales of Durga ". When I was younger, I read a book series called "Tiger's Curse", which draws on Durga's mythology. I would love to further explore her mythology, and get a new understanding of the books I read before. Another comic that looks interesting in " Guide: Ganga ". I know the Ganges River is sacred because of its connection to the goddess Ganga, but that's ...

I love my color-coded daily planner. ( Source ) I read two articles. The first was " How to build a realistic study plan that you'll actually stick to ".  I found it interesting that they focused on a weekly planner, with only a mention of a daily planner. For me, I find it much more useful to have a daily planner, to the point I buy a notebook I like and fill it out to make my own planner, so that it's exactly what I want. It helps me to have my recurring obligations (like classes, work, weekly meetings, etc.) visible along with the other tasks I need to complete. By being able to see the blocks of time I have a planned obligation, it helps me to see what time I do have open for other things, like studying, cleaning, hanging out with friends, and working on personal projects.  The second article I read was " Why time management is ruining our lives ". I found this article fascinating. It hit really close to home. I, like most people these days i...

Many of the technology tools for this class interact and intertwine. (Source) Most of the technology tools we will use in this class are pretty familiar, though I haven't done much with graphics creation. One technology tool that is completely new to me is Twine. I have read the "Create Your Own Adventure" books, but I've never seen the digital form. I feel like that is a much more difficult form of storytelling, to keep not only one plot line in your head, but many. One would have to be very aware of each individual branch, and be sure not to reference any plot points from a branch that the reader did not go down. I find it interesting you suggest Google Docs for our writing. I have mainly used it when collaborating with others in a group project, so that we can all work on a single document at the same time. I know others who use it just because they have several computers they work on, and that way they don't have to worry about version control or flash...

A painting depicting a scene from an ancient epic regarding the god Vishnu. (Source) Most of these assignments are pretty familiar. For most of my humanities classes, we have weekly readings. I have taken other online courses which require weekly blog posts and comments. It is also not uncommon to give peers feedback on their work. An assignment I have not yet encountered is the storytelling. I am interested by the concept of writing stories for a class in which we are supposed to be studying the stories written by others long ago, the Indian epics. It will be a fun opportunity to stretch my creative writing muscle, something I have not used in a very long time. Similarly, the projects sound like fun. It will be nice to develop my stories further, instead of just writing and immediately moving on without a look back. I appreciate the option of extra credit, and further, that there are so many opportunities and such variety in the extra c...

The Dichotomy of Growth Mindset I am of two minds about this idea of a "Growth Mindset". On one hand, I have experienced the pitfalls of having a fixed mindset. There's a fairly large community online of people my age who were high-achieving children, reading way above their grade level, aceing tests with little to no studying, you get the idea. I relate to them. We were praised for being so smart, and for our achievements. But freshman year, I struggled a lot. I didn't have study skills, because I had never had to study before. I felt discouraged when things didn't come to me easily. I wasn't used to having to work for my grades, and it was a huge blow to my esteem that this quality of "smart" which I held as so important to my identity didn't seem to apply now that I was competing with more than just those in my small, rural hometown. A growth mindset would have helped me embrace these harder classes that actually challenged me rather t...

Hi! My name is Alex. I'm a senior mechanical engineering major. With any luck, I will graduate this semester. After I graduate, I hope to go to grad school at CU Boulder, to get a degree in mechanical engineering with a research focus of robotics and systems design. As you may be able to guess, I love robots. I have been part of the competitive robotics team for four years now, and am currently the president. You can check us out here if you're interested in seeing what we do, but here's a few pictures anyway because I think they're neat. The early stages of this year's IEEE bot. A prototype of his year's RoboMagellan bot. I also work with robots. I work for the KISS Institute of Practical Robotics, where I get to teach kids about coding and robots, which is ridiculously cool, and a ton of fun. I also build the controllers the kids use, but that's not nearly as interesting or fun. I'm also an officer for Engineers' Club. We do lots o...

(Source) Real Housewives of Greek Mythology I love this idea. There is a ton of drama in Greek mythology, and I've never seen the stories told specifically from the women's point of view. I also find the format really interesting. I really like the uniqueness. The stories are given in episodes of a season (unfortunately it appears to have been cancelled after season 1). The stories themselves are given in the format of a screenplay. Overall I'm just loving the creativity that went into this storybook. As I was reading Season 1, Episode 1: All is Fair in Love and War, I was caught off-guard by the author's characterization of the Goddesses. Whereas I always thought of Athena as very logical and calculated (she is the goddess of wisdom and strategy after all), but this story portrays her as being rather short-tempered. I have to wonder how much of that portrayal is based in the author's interpretation of the myths about Athena, and how much is based in the des...

Double Arch at Arches National Park (Picture From Here) Arches National Park is a beautiful place full of gravity-defying rock formations, interesting flora and fauna, and excellent rock climbing. My family used to go to Arches for spring break when I was little. I have many fond memories of exploring and hiking and scrambling and campfires and stargazing. That's probably why it's one of my favorite places on earth. 

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