Feedback Thoughts

Instead of telling people what they did wrong and just criticize them for everything. Tell them what they good well and how to improve on the things wrong. That way they can take suggestions and not just know what all they did wrong. I like the advice of finding the positive behind the weakness. There’s always something good even with the weakness so if you can find that strength It’ll help you instead of bring you down. Instead of being very specific and detailed generalize so they can use that advice in other parts of their life too, not only for the one thing they are working on. I agree with the article, instead of just giving praises to your child be there for them. The presence is more important than praising them for everything.

Mahatma Ghandi:AZ Quote

Story: The Unfortunate Day

I’ve decided to go hunting today since I love it. I don’t know what to hunt for but let’s just see what happens, I feel like it is going to be a really good day.

*deer sprinting by*

*Dasharatha shoots an arrow for the deer and runs after it*

Instead of finding the arrow lodged in the body of a dead deer, he found it in a shriveled old man that was laying on the ground bleeding and crying of agony. He saw that his wife kept yelling for her husband, asking what happened. Why did he suddenly stop talking, why is he crying from pain. What was that sound? Was it a weapon? What happened? Dasharatha finally came out from behind the tress to address the older couple and try to help them out for his mistakes.

“Hello” he says,

“This is all my fault, I was hunting and didn’t realize that the deer had run away and I accidentally shot at your husband instead.”

“You did this to my husband, you cased his untimely death. He still could have lived got years, but because of you he is no more”, she says.

“I am deeply very sorry; I did not mean to cause this misfortune upon you.” Says Dasharatha.

“What am I supposed to tell my son when he returns from finding us food? He is going to be so hurt and I cannot even see him and help him. How will I wipe the tears from his eyes since I cannot even see them on his face? What am I supposed to tell him? That I couldn’t even take care of your father for an hour.” -his wife says

“I know I cannot bring him back from the dead but I can help in ensuring that you and your son live comfortably for the rest of your lives.” -Dasharata

“Is that going to bring my father back? Will it bring back my mother’s husband? How could do make such a mistake?” -Shravan

“Son, I did nothing on purpose. I am just trying to help you guys out” -Dasharatha

“I have taken care of my blind parents for years without anyone’s help and I can continue to take care of my mom without your help too. So no thank you. You have caused us enough pain and hurt already, do not make it worse with your words.” -Shravan

“My son is right. You do not understand this pain as you have not felt is yourself, but in the future you will. You will understand the pain of losing someone you love when someone close to you leave. It may not happen now or anytime soon but it will happen and that day you will remember me and my words. You will only understand my pain then and only then will you know the hurt you have caused to the both of us.” -she said

Dasharatha left the woods that day confused. He was young and did not understand what the woman had said to him but he knew that he would because she had said it with such conviction that he was sure it would happen and that scared him.

Author's Note: The original story is of Dasharatha hunting and accidentally shooting Shravan, the son of the 2 blind parents. His parents find out and curse Dasharatha that he too will know the pain of separation from his son one day only then would he understand. 

PDE Ramayana: Dasharatha's Karma by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913)

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Dasharahta, Shravan & his Parents: Death

Reading Notes: Public Domain Ramayana: Section B

Barata come back and realizes what happened in his absence. His brothers and sister in law banished, the death of his father, the deceit of his mother and manthara, and knowing that ultimately his mother did all of this for him. That this was all his fault without even meaning to be. Baratha goes back with rama sandals so that they can be placed on the throne and he can be king while baratha just takes care of things in his absence. They then met with Anasuya where sita spoke of her story and how she came to be there. Upon hearing her story Anasuya wept and held sita close in a motherly affection and gave her clothes and some jewelry. After their departure they ran into viradha who kidnapped sita and fought with the brothers. He was slain and thrown into a pit upon where his curse lifted and he descended to heaven. Agastya a famous rishi offers rama weapons, food, and a place to stay. While rama rejects he goes further into the forest to run into shurpanakha. She offers herself to him and tells rama to leave his wife for her. Rama rejects her but says that his brother is without a wife or a companion in this forest and he might accept you as his if you want to try. After shurpanakha’s insult her brothers came forth to fight in her honor against rama. He killed Khara and his brother along with the rest of the demons and won the fight. Ravana hears of this battle where all his warriors had lost and sought to kill this man that caused his sister so much pain. With the help of Maricha who turned into this beautiful golden deer to lure sita away in order for Ravan to be able to kidnap her. Maricha dies but before he does he changes his voice to rama and calls for help. Lakshmana is forced to help him against his judgement that he actually needs help and leaves sita by herself. Ravana takes advantage of this and changes form into a sage to get to sita. He takes her and jatayu tries to help and he fights until he is killed and ravana takes sita away. Rama returns to the hut to find it empty and in his search for his wife he finds jatayu who tells him what happened. They then run into Kabandha who tells rama who ravana is and where he lives after his death. Rama found shabri who had been waiting for the 2 for decades and performed her final rites.Public Domain Ramayana: Online Reading

Rama, Sita, & Shurpanakha: Rejection

Reading Notes: Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition, Section A

2 great kings in 2 different cities. Dasharatha had no sons so he decided to sacrifice a horse that would travel for a year and later killed, along with other birds, reptiles, and beasts. All night long they performed mantras and parts of the horse was thrown into the fire by Kausalya and Kaikeyi. The gods promised that 4 sons would be born. Ram was born along with the other 3 sons in avtars of Vishnu to kill ravan. A rishi comes to ayodya to ask for help against the rakshas. So he asked for ram and lakshman and since dasharatha was bound by his promise he had to send them without his wishes. Shravan and his parents were in the forest when an arrow shot and killed shravan. Leaving his parents behind and a curse on the king. Dasharatha died without any of his sons with him because of his karma, wrong undoings, and Kaikeyi’s wickedness

Public Domain Ramayana: Link to the website

 Rama, Lakshmana,and Hanuman: Fight with Ravana

Tech Tip: Blogger Profile

I put my profile on display for people to see. I didn't remove my name from the posts or anything like that since I'm okay with my name being displayed.

Growth Mindset

I’ve never heard of Carol Dweck or the concept growth mindset before. It is a good idea or mindset to have. If you make a mistake, then learn from it and figure out what you did wrong. Instead of giving up try to make it better next time and learn instead of forgetting about it. I don’t really have any goals other than to learn things from all my classes so I get something out of all of them.

Learning: Cat

Starting the Semester

I think the biggest thing that is helpful is doing things ahead of time even if you will have time later on. Also just doing even a little bit if you have 30 min or 1 hour will help later on so you don’t have to stress later on. Planning out the week with your assignments will also be helpful. Getting a calendar or an agenda is also good and gives you less of a reason to procrastinate. These are helping me right now so hopefully they'll help everyone else too. 

Personal Photo: Nassau 

Reading Options: Ramayana

I want to read version 2 of the Ramayana for week 2. I picked this since it was the most assessable to me and I figured that it would be better to read about different versions from various authors to get different versions of the Ramayana, than the ones that I’ve seen so far. I’m very interested in reading about the Mahabharata because that is the that has always caused me confusion. I haven’t been able to fully understand so I’m hoping through this class I can finally understand it really well. I’ve never a class like this before but I’m in Classical Mythology along with this one. When I think of the word mythology I think of roman or the greek stories. I’ve grown up hearing most of these stories about the Indian gods and its really interesting to me. I listen to both the Indian music and watch the movies. I’m also into Indian dance but not really classical dance. I was born in India and I’ve been there 9 years, but I haven’t been to the places that were mentioned in this class. I can speak both Gujarati and Hindi but I can’t read or write in it. I recognize the people in the images such as Shiva, Krishna, Ram, Sita, and Draupadi but not the pictures themselves. I chose this image because it stood out to me and it was the only one in color. 

Ram and Sita: Golden Deer 

Storybook Favorites

I have picked 2 stories about Ganesh and 1 about Hanuman. These topics are already familiar to me and I have even heard these stories but as always it is fascinating to hear them in a different perspective. These stories are always going to be a little bit altered as it is going to be hard to figure out what really happened but all the versions are similar. The introduction does a great job of explaining what the rest of the stories are going to be about and how they chose to do their project. The introduction did grab my attention and for one of them I got so curious that I already read the whole thing and it was really good. I loved the way they twisted the topic into different stories and how they got to the way we hear about the stories now. Mysterious Motives really caught my attention because it was different than the rest and represented in a different light. The pictures and the titles really caught my attention. Along with the video on one of them and the way they wrote their introductions. The video explains the story of Hanuman and how he was involved in the Ramayana and how he helped his Ram. I loved the layout on one of them with the navigation on the side to help you navigate through the stories and having a plain or a background with pictures also catches my eye. I loved how all of the introductions were so different and creative instead of just a basic information of the page and then the stories. I also enjoyed the different pictures used since they showed the different looks and helped the story. I will definitely use this in my stories along with videos because they help create a visual effect and actually let me picture how this might have happened.

Ganesha: The Destroyer of Evil

Introduction to Me

Where do I even start. Let’s see, I’m a microbiology major. I love watching movies, spending time with my friends, it doesn’t really matter what we do. I also like watching TV shows like friends, Grey’s Anatomy, the Bachelor/Bachelorette, Modern Family, and I like watching this Spanish soap opera, El Internado. I got into it in high school when we watched it in my Spanish class and I still enjoy watching it. Although I’m not fluent in Spanish I do understand a lot of it and the English subtitles help. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pets because my mom is not a huge fan, I still play with my friends’ dogs any chance I get, because let’s face it dogs are just adorable. I love Italian food so I tend to go there a lot. I’m learning how to cook so I try random recipes I find on the internet that I like, and so far they’re pretty food. I can make some food from Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Indian and Indo-Chinese. I enjoy watching sports, especially football so during football season I’m always watching some sort of game. I love zip lining, river rafting, swimming, tubing, jet skiing. I haven’t been sky diving or para sailing but I would love to go at least once. Traveling is also a huge part of my life, my goal is to go to all 50 states. So far I have only been to 20 states so 30 more to go, and I’ve been to 4 countries including the United States. If I had an extra day for fun I would spent half of it with my family and the other half with my friends. I also like dancing which is why I have started performing at OU in the Indian cultural nights that we have.

Personal Photo: Grand Canyon (2013)

Story: The Trip to Remember

I was on a vacation with my friends at a cabin in the woods, since we had decided we wanted to just relax over break. The first thing we did was decide on taking a walk through the woods so explore and to figure out what’s around us. The first thing we ran into was find a said Temple of Doom. We had no idea what that meant so we decided to go exploring and see what turns up. There was a trap door that sent a boulder behind us but we ended up running into a hallway on the side and escaping that. After that we found a tunnel to leave and popped back up at the spooky tree. The tree looked like it had been growing for hundreds of years and it had these creepy vines all around it. The air in that area was also thicker which made it harder to breath and it was fogy so it really gave it an eerie feeling. We ended up going back to our cabin since we had seen more than enough and explored a lot. This place was a lot quieter than we thought and the opposite of what we were hoping to achieve with this trip. In the morning we had breakfast and made a picnic basket to go on a picnic somewhere in the woods, hoping to not run into anything scarier than our previous day. So we walked and we walked until we found a nice open area to sit at and enjoy the nature. We sat around just talking and eating when we heard a strange sound. None of us knew what it could be, we just thought that maybe we were just hearing things and thought nothing of it. Until we heard something coming from the trees and it sounded big. It turns out it was a bear rummaging the forest for food. As soon as we saw him we ran with the bear following us. We went everywhere we could to get away from that bear and ended up splitting up. Somehow we lost the bear from our trial and made it back to the cabin at the end of the day. Once we were all there we decided to just leave this place and never come back. We packed all of our stuff within the next hour, got into our car and took off never to come back.

Cabin in the Woods Log Cabin

Authors Note: I used the map to create my story of the strange things that are found in the woods. 

Bibliography. "Map of the Area Surrounding our Holiday Home," a cartoon by Tom Gauld from his book ROBOTS, MONSTERS Etc. Map

The Bahamas One Of My Favorites Places

I've been to the Bahamas on a cruise but I did not get to stay there the last time we went. I will be going again in December and staying that the Atlantis hotel so I'm hoping to go to their resort this time. 

The Atlantis Hotel and Resort

Photographer Konrad Herrman (April 10, 2015) Flickr

I love going to the beach and taking lots of pictures so the minute we got to this beach I had to take this. We spent all day there just playing in the water, going jet skiing, and swimming. 

Personal Photo Nassau Bahamas (July 2015)

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Tester

This is just to test the blog and see how it works