Epics of India

Note: For my biographical writing this week, I chose to tell the story of a baseball game I played in when I was 9 using a first person perspective. This was not a pleasant story in my athletic career, but is one I can laugh at now. What are the Odds I’ve played baseball most of my life, and over that time I’ve changed in a lot of ways as a player. When I was 9, my specialty was bunting. I was that one skinny kid who was pretty fast, and at that age it’s pretty hard for a defense to successfully get an out on a bunt, so I used that to my advantage. It was the semifinals of the 9 and under state championship, and I was up to bat. There was a runner on third with one out, and we were losing 2-1. Like I had done all year, I tried to lay down a bunt to let the runner from third score, and I would try to make it to first base before they could throw me out. It turns out that it wasn’t my day, because for the first time that entire season, I popped a bunt up, which went right back to ...

For this week’s tech tip, I chose to download and install the Firefox browser onto my laptop. I’ve always used internet explorer for an unknown reason, but this should come in handy as Firefox is much faster. I may even try downloading Chrome in the future.

I thought the reading for this week was very interesting. I enjoy reading a lot of the shorter Jataka tales where the stories themselves are simple but they messages they can convey are deep and powerful. Each one gives a different perspective on a variety of human interactions and emotions, and they also give a different perspective on what it means to be human, as often the stories are described using animals. I didn’t do a lot of writing this week, but I did thoroughly enjoy reading through Eden’s blog.. She’s taken a similar approach to me in her writing, often trying to intermingle Greek mythology and our Indian epics, and she’s done a wonderful job with it. I enjoyed the way each story flowed into the next, as well as the emphasis she put on the difficult moments each of her characters experienced. Things in my other classes are somewhat interesting right now. I’ve only recently heard from most of my professors, and while some of them have proven themselves to be fairly adept a...

Here I completed my week 10 review. I backed up and checked my progress on canvas. In scrolling through the announcement page, I found the graphic on the corona virus and the video on the Inuit legend. For the graphic, I did think it was interesting how many similarities there are between the symptoms invoked by the corona virus, flu, cold, and just allergies. This is also concerning because it shows just how hard it can be to distinguish it apart from others without doing some sort of regulated testing. I found the video of the Inuit legend to be fairly similar to some of the Jataka tales we’ve read, where it’s a simple story that conveys a powerful message. Image of Corona Virus Comparison

For my micro fiction writing this week, I chose to stick with the theme of low stress online work and chose to wrote two stories, one at 25 words or less and one at 6 words or less. 25 words or less: Dasharatha owed a boone. Although cruel, he was obligated. Painfully, Rama was told of banishment. He had no choice. He must go to the woods. 6 words or less: Odd sound. Arrow. Not his intended. Image of King Dasharatha Grieving  Author’s Note: For my 25 words or less story, I chose to retell the banishment of Rama from the city. This story seemed to need more background information to retell in a shorter period of time, but I felt 25 words was enough. For my 6 word or less story, I chose to retell the killing of the old man and his wife by king Dasharatha. This story was accidental, and was crucial to the story of Dasharatha’s death, but I thought it would be fun to try and retell in as short a space as possible.

For my Week 10 StoryLab, I chose to watch one of the Crash Course videos on Mythology . The video I chose to watch focuses on heroes and how they are often developed in mythology. It’s interesting how mythology often uses heroes to display a wide variety of human emotions and actions. Some use the heroes to set this wonderful idea that we physically can’t reach but should strive for, and some even appear to use heroes to demonstrate that even those better than us often struggle and have challenges they may not be able to overcome. The most interesting emotion they used heroes to convey was selflessness. It isn’t an emotion you would generally expect heroes in stories to convey but they often did, emphasizing the importance of it even more. Image of Nordic Heroes  

For Part B of my Week 10 Reading, I chose to cover Babbitt: More Jataka Tales . I’ve continued to enjoy these stories more and more as I like the deep philosophical thoughts they can provoke, which is surprising given their simplistic nature. The stories in this section definitely seemed to emphasize the importance of perspective. In the Red Bud story for example, four brothers got in an argument over the appearance of a tree, and it turns out that they all had seen the same tree, just in different seasons. It’s important to understand that not everyone views things in the same way that you do, and I liked how these stories echoed that. Image of More Jataka Tales

For Part A of my Week 10 reading, I chose to cover Inayat, Twenty Jataka Tales , namely the Guilty Dogs story. I was fascinated by this story and the message it was trying to convey to the reader. The idea that the rich and privileged dogs were to the guilty ones and yet they were the only dogs destined to live was a powerful message that still echoes today, and is something a lot of people certainly take for granted. The idea of it being dogs to as opposed to people was interesting, as the image people have of dogs makes them much more empathetic to a story about them, and certainly makes the message hit harder. Image from the Guilty Dogs