Epics of India

Here are my reading notes for week 14 part A.  This reading is Twenty Jātaka tales, retold by Noor Inayat. Link The Monkey Bridge There was a mighty king monkey that ruled over 80 thousand other monkeys. They live up in the Himalayan mountains and lived near the Ganges river. This river led all the way down to a town where humans lived. This river also had a branch that hung over it which produced mangos.  The king monkey had told his followers to "never let a mango fall into the river for it will flow down to the humans and they will come find these trees and we will have to leave." One day, a mango that was hidden ended up falling into the river and going all the way down to the town.  The king of the town, Brahmadatta, was swimming in the water while a fisherman caught the mango. He immediately brought it to the king and they were all amazed. The tasted it and said that it was unlike any fruit they had ever tasted.  Soon after, the king led a boat up the river to find this

   The Danger of a Single Story This Ted Talk was about falling into the tendency to take a single stories that you see on the news and placing everyone from that region into the same stereotype. In this Ted Talk, the speaker was talking about her real world experiences about coming from Africa. Her roommate was surprised that she was able to properly use the stove. She couldn't believe that her roommate thought that everyone from Africa was poor. She then fell into this single story phenomenon.  Imaginary Friends and Real World Consequences I enjoyed watching this Ted Talk because the speaker talked about a lot of relatable characters that most everyone knows. She first started off by talking about characters from the Harry Potter series. She talked about how everyone that has watched the movies or read the books have developed connections with the characters. She later goes on to talk about the Game of Thrones series, specifically about the red wedding. They killed off many of th

The Ox who won the Forfeit  Long ago a man owned a farm where he raised and sold animals of all kinds. He owned chicken, sheep, horse, ox and more. One day while the man was strapping one of his ox up to tug his carriage around, something phenomenal happened.  The ox was accidentally attached to the wrong carriage and began tugging the whole line of carriages along with him. Astonished by the strength of this ox, he began testing the ox's abilities by increasing the weight of what the ox could handle. Starting with his line of carriages, he began to fill all of these carriages up with rice, making them heavier and heavier. The man began talking to the ox saying, "How much more can you pull? I continue to add more and nothing seems to phases you." Until it got to the point where there was no more weight that he could add, yet the ox was still able to pull it along.  The man was speechless, proclaiming "only if you could speak to me then we could move mountains."

Notes for Wednesday reading The Mahabharata  by C. A. Kincaid 12 years in exile and the Pandavas now have 1 year of disguise at the court of King Virata. Yudhishthira has finally learned gambling so he is Kanka, a gambler. Bhima becomes a cook named Ballaba Arjuna takes Brihannala and is a dance teacher Nakula is Granthika and works in the stables Sahadeva takes Tantripala and becomes a cowherd They leave their weapons in a shami tree where no one will find them Bhima is to avenge a main who was raped by Kickaka, he takes Draupadi's place in the dark and kills Kickaka. People then want to burn Draupadi at the funeral. Duryodhana hears Kickaka's death and attacks King Virata. The year of disguise is up so the Pandavas go to rescue Virata. They reveal who they are and Arjuna's son Abhimanyu marries the princess Uttara. Yudhishthira seeks peace but Duryodhana makes the king refuse. They all prepare for war at Kurukshetra. Arjuna hurts Bhishma so bad that he lies on a bed of ar

These are my reading notes for week 9 part A. The Mahabharata by C. A. Kincaid In the city of Hastinapura, there was a king named Vichitravirya, who died and left 2 sons, Dhritarashtra who is blind, and Pandu. Pandu becomes king and has five sons, Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. These 5 sons are known as the Pandavas. Once Pandu dies, Dhritarashtra becomes king and has 100 sons with Queen Gandhari. Duryodhana is the eldest of the 100 sons. Together the Pandavas and Kauravas, who is Duryodhana, are the Bharatas. Drona is the boys' teacher and Duryodhana get jealous that he is the worst. Duryodhana loses it when he hears that his father named Yudhishthira his heir. Duryodhana plots to kill the pandavas. He plans to burn them in their house but the Pandavas are warned by Vidura and the Pandavas escape though a hidden tunnel. A couple randoms die in the fire and everyone thinks it is the Pandavas The Pandavas go into hiding as brahmins. Bhima and Hidimbi, a monster,

 Looking back on what I have done throughout this semester, I am very proud of what I have created with the blog and portfolio. My favorite part of what I have done is create the word press website to host my portfolio. My weekly routine is pretty good and I stick to it most weeks. If I don't follow the schedule perfectly, I allocate time in order to finish the week out. The class assignments that I enjoy the most is retelling the stories after we have taken all of the notes for what we have read. When I do have some extra time, I have been able to do some of the extra credit opportunities which are very cool.  Looking forward into the next half of the semester, I would like to explore more of the extra credit options and see what they are like. I do also want to avoid pushing off some of the work until the last minute and getting a better routine. Source