Topic Brainstorm!

At first, I thought brainstorming for ideas was going to be really difficult, since it is only week 2 and we haven't read all the stories yet. However, I looked through the Project Ideas Index and found so many options! All at once, different ideas came flooding to me. 

#1) One of the listings on the page was Supernatural Characters of the Ramayana. My mind immediately went to Doctor Who. It is so intriguing to learn about supernatural creatures so I looked at some of the stories listed on the page. They mentioned rakshasas, which I am a little familiar with only because I know Ravana is considered a bad demon. However, I do not know much about the other rakshasas, especially the female ones. I would like to learn more about these creatures and how they are involved in the Ramayana. I like this past story, called Ravana Diaries, because it gives Ravana a voice and we finally get to see the situation from his point of view. I have a few ideas for this story, but I'm not sure which will write better yet. One of my ideas is writing it in first person, where I am the companion to the Doctor in Doctor Who. We would go to the place that Ravana held Sita and help Ram and Hanuman fight off Ravana and the other rakshasas. Another story I could develop is having good rakshasas in the mix, and us trying to figure out which ones are good and bad while trying to fight them off. Another idea I had was giving Ravana or another rakshasa a background story, so that we can see WHY a lot of rakshasas are bad. 

#2) When I saw the listing for Animal Characters of the Ramayana, I thought about the Lion King (which may partially be due to the fact that I am wearing a Lion King shirt as I write this). I am thinking of making the story set in Africa and replacing Simba with Lord Rama, Scar with Ravana, and Nala with Sita. I would like to add Hanuman in there, but Timone and Pumba are a perfect duo so I might add Hanuman as a monkey in the jungle that befriends them before Simba comes along. I want to learn more about the animal characters that assist Rama or Hanuman in the many battles they encounter. I feel like there is a ton I could write about this in the Lion King setting, because Rama was exiled for 14 years, and Simba also left his home for years. Each one encountered many things in the forest, so I could potentially write many stories about different animals they came across and how they helped. Two resources that I found pertaining to animal characters in the Ramayana were Campfire Animal Tales and a Wikipedia page about Nala. I thought it was very interesting that there is a character named Nala in the Ramayana and in the Lion King!

#3) Another listing in the Project Ideas Index was about Nagas and Naginins. Obviously, knowing me, my mind went straight to Harry Potter because Lord Voldemort's snake was named Nagini. In Harry Potter, she was an evil snake, since she carried one of Voldemort's horcruxes with her. In the Mahabharata, snakes, or nagas, are seen as evil also. I was thinking that in my stories, I could make Nagini a good character. I know that Lord Shiva carries a snake on his shoulders, so maybe Nagini could be his pet instead of an evil person's. Snakes in my culture are seen as auspicious and many people pray to snakes and give it milk, as they believe killing snakes would be offensive to Lord Shiva. I would like to learn more about snakes in the Ramayana and Mahabharata and see why some are portrayed as evil and maybe even turn that around.

#4) Finally, I had a few ideas about the Festivals and Holidays listing. My family celebrates a lot of festivals in our home so it would be fun to learn more about each one, the historical background of each one, and be able to turn it into another story. I was thinking I could talk about Diwali, since it is believed that this holiday celebrates the return of Lord Rama after his 14 years of exile. I could combine a few of my ideas by including a re-tell of what Lord Rama encountered in the forest, but also exiling him to the African forest where Simba went in the Lion King. Then I could have Nala, or Sita, come and help him on his journey back once the 14 years were over. I'm not really sure about the other plots as of yet, but I'm sure once I read through the entire Ramayana and Mahabharata, I can combine and mix-and-match some characters to make a story out of this! I also love celebrating Krishna Janmashtami, which is when Krishna is born. I could provide a back story of how he was born or even the stories of when he is a little kid and his first battles. Another resource I could use for this one would be the small stories I have about Krishna as well as many other Gods and Goddesses. (see the picture below)

This is a personal picture that I took of all the little stories and information I have about some of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. I'm hoping to find inspiration for my stories through these.

Tech Tip: Blogger Template

Hey guys! I realized my blog looked super boring because it was just the simple layout that I had chosen when I signed up for Blogger. So, I decided to change it up and make it personalized! I immediately chose an elephant design as my background (all my friends who I have shown my blog to say it fits my personality so well). I also clicked on "advanced" when I was doing the layout and new design, and it allowed me to change all my fonts so that they were all the same font! Like the widgets on the side, sidebar with labels, my post titles, my blog title, everything. It was great. I also changed the link color to turquoise because that is my favorite color :) there's a lot you can do to your blog to make it super personalized if you wanna do that - I recommend it just because it's rewarding to finish a post and then view it on your page. Your own page, your own blog.

Week 2 Story: The Girl Who Gathered Respect

Sofia Hernandez saw her class schedule for the semester, and the first name she saw was Dr. Donald. Her heart nearly skipped a beat. He was the most difficult professor that she had ever heard of. He is known for belittling his students, especially women, because he does not think women should be in the engineering field at all. Her friends who had taken his class both warned her of him and his way of calling out female students on extremely difficult questions, that he knows are hard for everyone. 

Sofia began her first day of the Fall 2017 semester with a happy start and was determined to make the best of this year, whether her professors were helpful or not. Finally, the time for Dr. Donald's class arrived. Sofia walked in and saw Dr. Donald asking student's names as they walked in. However, not all the students' names. Just the male students. When Sofia decided to question it, his response was "you girls won't be in my class much longer, why would I bother learning your names?" When Sofia looked shocked at his rude comment, he replied with "I give it one week. It'll be too much for you to handle." 

Sofia was warned of his crudeness, but didn't think he would be outright cruel in front of the whole class. Nevertheless, she continued with the class and was determined to prove him wrong. She spent hours in her room studying, and when she needed inspiration, she would call her parents and stare at the motivational posters on the wall. She passed the first three tests with flying colors. Dr. Donald was actually shocked at this, and tried finding evidence that she cheated on those tests. Finally, when he couldn't find any (because there was nothing to find), he began to devise a final exam just for Sofia, which consisted of problems that were of much higher difficulty than the final exams that the rest of the class received. 

Sofia, knowing how unreasonable and cruel Dr. Donald could be and knowing how well she was doing in the class, was suspicious of what he may do for her final exam. She began studying a month in advance for her final exam, and spent hours every night going over the material. She read the entire textbook, including material that won't be covered until the next semester. Finally, when the day of the final arrived, Dr. Donald thought she would soon fail the class and have to throw her engineering dreams away. Much to his disappointment, she started working on it immediately. Dr. Donald thought to himself, "Surely she can't answer these questions, even I didn't know how to solve these until my last year of graduate school..." Sofia kept working on the exam until the last minute. When she turned it in, Dr. Donald read through her answers and immediately realized that her intelligence and maturity was far beyond his own. He was fired from teaching the next day, and Sofia received a great job opportunity before even graduating from the university.

Source: One of the many posters that Sofia has in her room.

Authors Note: 

This story is another version of The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses. The original story was about a monkey king named Devadatta who had many sons. He feared they would take over his kingdom so whenever he encountered one, he killed him. Bodhisatta, however, knew of his father's tactics. He went to him and Devadatta asked him to bring him lotuses from a lake that an ogre lived in. Bodhisatta quickly figured out the trick, and ended up befriending the ogre, which killed Devadatta. Bodhisatta was then named the new king. 

I wanted to change the story, but keep the central plot of someone being underestimated and tricked, and having the plan backfire on the villain. I set the story on the OU campus, specifically the life of a female engineering student because I think they are highly underestimated all the time. I replaced Devadatta with Dr. Donald and replaced Bodhisatta with Sofia Hernandez. I decided not to kill Dr. Donald because I think getting fired from such an esteemed position after working so hard for it would be miserable enough.

Hope you guys liked it! Feel free to leave comments/suggestions since this is the first time I've done something like this :-)

Bibliography. Tayodhamma Jataka in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers. Web Source.

Reading Notes: Lotuses and Goblins

Two of the stories in the Jataka Anthology that I liked best or thought I could re-tell in certain ways are: The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses and Goblin City. These two had some pretty neat themes and plots that were interesting to me.

The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses

I really liked this story because it served Devadatta right. I love stories in which someone is seen as weak or dumb or incompetent, and they end up outshining the rest because it gives hope to those that need it. To the people who are seen as weak by their classmates or teachers, even. So seeing how a son outsmarted his father was neat and I think I will use this for my story re-telling this week by changing the setting to a classroom on the OU campus. I won't disclose my entire story here, but it's something that has been on my mind recently and I feel like it would make a good story.

Goblin City

This story was really interesting due to the fact that the females were in charge. I think that is something awesome and something new, because oftentimes people picture men as the ones in charge and so demanding of resources. I like how the women were in charge, although they were not the best creatures. :-) I was thinking of recreating this story into a sort of "Boy Who Cried Wolf" kind of story, or one where the goblins aren't necessary evil. This could go in so many directions and I'm not sure which one I will choose for the storytelling this week!

Source: I thought this picture was really neat because it seems like Buddha is everywhere, always seeing, and always knowing. 

Reading Options

I am really excited to read all the stories this semester! I love folktales and myths so I am interested in those stories and to see how much of them I have heard of already. I looked through the folktales and picked a few that I would be interested to read. One of the ones I picked was How the Jackal Ate the Elephant from the Panchantantra because I have a book at home with Panchantantra tales and I think I may have read or heard of this one before, but I have forgotten those tales now so it would be neat to read them again with a different perspective. I also picked The Brahmin and the Goat for the same reason. Lastly, I picked a tale from Deva/Devi called Garuda: Vishnu's Divine Mount because in the temple during certain celebrations, we pick up a huge statue of Vishnu on Garuda and parade outside. I never learned much about Garuda or how he came to be so it would be interesting to learn that.

I am also really excited to read the Ramayana and Mahabharata books, because I have grown up reading the children's versions of those books, which are probably a lot happier than the real ones. 

Source: A picture of Lord Vishnu on Garuda. 

Time Strategies

I originally had said I would do all my work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I think I might stick to that schedule. This past week, I was also trying to fit in time for me to study for the MCAT, but I would rather do the work for this class, so I ended up procrastinating on the MCAT studying with work for this class.. not the brightest idea :-)

This brings me to the articles I read, one of which was about procrastination. According to Peter Banerjea, there are four questions you should ask yourself to overcome procrastination: 

1. What one thing can I do to get started?
2. What are my three biggest priorities today?
3. How can I make this easier?
4. What will go wrong if I don't do this now?

I liked these questions because if I actually sit down and ask myself these, I can probably get more stuff down than just complaining about how I procrastinate too much. The last question is something I ask myself a lot and it's probably one of the reasons I haven't failed a test yet.. I get too scared of what will happen if I fail or if I slack off, and that drives me to study and work on stuff. :-) The other questions are also good points, because I need to prioritize daily and try to make my workload easier so I'm not struggling at the end of the semester.

Source: Actual representation of my life.. and my favorite meme of all time because it applies to basically everything.

The other article I read was about recapturing time. Joynicole Martinez states three pieces of advice to recapture my time and prioritize better:

1. Refuse to yield your first 15 minutes.
2. Recognize the pruning season.
3. Practice the art of no.

I liked this article a lot too because Martinez mentions how to prioritize, exactly: starting off your day by relaxing/meditating/praying, then identifying the things you need to get done, and finally chunking off your time to those tasks. I try to make a schedule for myself everyday, but I think the relaxing part is important because I tend to get stressed out easily, so if I take some time to myself I might have a better mindset when going into my work. Martinez also brings up saying "no" to things that do not fit in your priorities, which I need to work on also. I have gotten better at turning down hangouts with friends when I need to, but sometimes I hear "you wanna get boba?" and I'm like "oh gee I haven't had boba in two weeks, I deserve it today" and then it turns into an hour long break... so I need to work on saying no when I know I don't have time for it. :-)

Technology Tools!

I actually didn't realize how much of this class would be technology based until now! I love that there are so many tools for us to use, and so many tools to help us build websites and more interesting blogs (for those of us who do not blog often, like me). I'm familiar with a few of the basic tools listed; for example, I have already bookmarked a lot of stuff for this class, I use google docs often so I know how those work, and I do a lot of image editing and graphic creations (such as making flyers for events). However, I am interested in learning how to create a website, make audio appear in a website, looking at the support sites, and exploring other tools to make my blog more interesting!

I also liked how the page mentioned that in our future careers, we will probably need to use the Internet and need some of the tools we will be learning in this class. I agree! We will probably be thankful for this class and all the interesting technology tools we learn because who knows what might come up in the future and we will already know how to quickly get places on the Internet and create websites! Technology has advanced so much recently so I'm glad we are learning more things about it in this class!

Source: I don't mind some of these changes, such as Internet mails, but nevertheless I think these memes are funny.