Reading Notes: Ramayana Part B

I thought it was interesting that Bharata was upset with his mother. I guess I just expected him to be corrupt/greedy like most people are and be excited that he was to be the new king instead of Rama. This could be a possible story line.

It's sad that Bharata performed the father's funeral without Rama and Lakshama, I bet they were mad when they found out.

It is really crazy to me that Bharata acted like the sandals were Rama even presenting gifts to them. Maybe I could make a story were Bharata thinks the sandals are alive and he has conversations with them as if they were Rama.

I don't really like the Prose writing method like Anasuya is written in.

From the Viradha story I could write something about how Rama was supposed to deal with him in a kind manner and since he turned to violence Viradha would cast a curse on him were in situations he needed kindness he received pain.

I wonder why Rama told Shurpanakha to go after Lakshmana when he has a wife back at home?

Lakshama could have told Rama that the deer was a trick by a rakshasas...

A good story idea would be where Rama catches Maricha and Lakshmana and Sita go together to find Rama. Before he kills Maricha Rama could ask him to grant him the power to take any shape. The 3 then could make a plan to go take down Ravana.

It’s weird to me that in all of these stories people aren’t afraid of dying. In fact most of them are happy in the end because they have turned to their true form or were released from a curse. It’d be neat to learn more about their beliefs of dying and the afterlife.
Here are some images that stood out to me while reading:

                                                                       (Kabandha) 

(Lakshama cutting Shurpanakha's nose & ears)

(Ravana kidnapping Sita)

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana

Productive Feedback Thoughts

I read the following sources for receiving feedback and giving feedback:

Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head

5 Tips for Taking Feedback like a Champ

Be a Mirror

The Difference Between Praise That Promotes Narcissism vs. Healthy Self-Esteem

                                               (Daily Nation: Giving Effective Feedback)

I loved reading the silence the critical voices in your head article. It was so informative in positive thinking. I had no idea that for every negative feedback that I received that I need five positive ones to feel happy and balanced. I also love that it discussed appropriate methods for accepting positive feedback, because I usually just minimize it and then I end up forgetting what I was even complimented on. This one was a really great read!

5 tips was also good. It talked about the stuff that no body wants to talk about. For example, how if we think something is going to hurt us we avoid it but that's not going to help us. We have to face hurt sometimes to grow. I also loved how it discussed state vs trait. Just because I made someone feel bad when I said 'insert rude comment here' doesn't mean I am a bad person.

The articles for giving feedback were great as well, because I tend to find myself being vague when providing feedback. I also don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so it was good to read the mirror article to learn how to reflect what is there without any judgement. I had never thought to take myself out of the equation before when providing feedback but I think that is a great thing to do in order to focus on the other person. I thought it was very interesting about the types of comments you can give and how those affect people and their egos. The last article is definitely one I will share with others!

I have had a lot of experience with giving feedback to others. With that said though, it's never a bad thing to look up methods on how to improve your feedback methods. I loved reading these articles I found them all very insightful. I personally never get shaken up with negative feedback unless it's from my boss at work, so the first two articles I can definitely apply to myself.

Storytelling: There's always someone bigger and better

Growing up there’s always someone that grabs your attention. You can’t recall the exact moment but you just know all of a sudden they were your focus in life and you had never been happier.

Ana grew up as a princess and she was always told one day her king would come. Little did she know there would be many princes wanting to marry her. She was cute, but she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the kingdom. I think what made her so desirable was her courageousness to try whatever she wanted. It was hard for a man to find a woman that would be his wife and friend. Up until recently it was frowned upon for a woman to participate in the same pastimes as a man. That didn’t stop Ana though. She was so anxious to try everything she had been told not to her entire life. She loved running through the woods, shooting animals with her bow and arrows, riding horses, trying on armor and pretend to fight with different weapons.

Her brothers found her behavior absurd and they couldn’t help but tell their friends about her when they went out. Due to the big mouths of her brothers, all the men in the kingdom and some men from surrounding kingdoms had heard of Ana. Ana’s father was so pleased there were multiple men that wanted to marry his daughter. Mostly because he thought he could benefit from all the gifts the men would give him. He asked for crazy things that he didn’t need like a statue of himself made out of chocolate, a rare thing to find in their area.

Man after man came by their castle giving Ana’s father gifts trying to impress him. Until one day Rama, a prince that he had heard was incredibly strong, came by. Ana’s father was gifted a bow long ago but he was never that athletic, plus he couldn’t pick it up. He was sure this young man could get rid of this stupid bow so he asked him to break it. Without a sweat the young man picked it up and broke it and a large thunderbolt came down from the sky. Ana’s father could not believe he broke it. That bow was from a god!

As Ana was being given to Rama, Parashurama appeared out of nowhere. Parashurama was an avatar of the god Vishnu and he was taller than all the castles in the kingdom! He exclaimed that Ana should be his wife and no one else's. When her father asked what he could give him he replied with wealth, so of course Ana's father accepted. A hard lesson he would learn, though, was that having all the money in the world could not give you happiness.

Ana was devastated her father gave her to Parashurama. She fell in love with Rama the moment she saw his face. Nonetheless, Parashurama was to be her husband. She decided to make the best of the situation and try to become friends with Parashurama. Thankfully once you got through his tough guy front he was actually a nice and sweet guy. They talked for hours getting to know one another. Parashurama took Ana on the coolest adventures. She didn’t think of it before but how cool is it that her husband can fly wherever he wants? He can also throw lighting bolts, and help her reach high places like the tops of waterfalls!

Ana got just what she wanted after all. She was married to her best friend.

                                                       

(Parashurama from Ramayana)

Bibliography: This story comes from the PDE version of Ramayana

Author's note: I got this idea as I was reading the Ramayana. In the original story Rama wins Sita as his wife by breaking the bow. Parashurama comes in just to yell at them for breaking the bow.

While reading this I thought why doesn’t Parashurama take Sita as his own wife? After all he was obviously the biggest and strongest of the men at Sita’s swayamvara. He was depicted as bigger than a giant! He was incredibly large compared to everyone else surrounding him in the pictures. So I incorporated that in my story!

One of the reasons I thought of this “there’s always someone bigger/better topic” was because the Texas slogan “everything is bigger and better in Texas” was a topic of conversation at my house the day before I wrote my story. Bigger doesn’t always mean better but for Sita’s sake I wanted it to, so I made Parashurama a nice and friendly husband. Another reason is I thought of how whenever most people compete for something at a young age it’s like out of nowhere here comes someone older and “bigger and better.” That definitely happened to me when I was younger.

The picture was my main source for showing just how much bigger Parashurama was than Rama. While reading the Ramayana, this image stood out to me because I didn’t visualize just how big Parashurama was until I saw it. It is part of a bigger picture of everyone that was at the swayamvara. I wanted to just focus of these two since they were the main subject of my story.

I chose the story of Parashurama from the Ramayana to write my story over because I thought that it was a little odd for Rama to be so idolized at the swayamvara when there was another avatar of Vishnu there as well. Even after Rama showed Parashurama his strength I still thought what is stopping this guy from doing whatever he wants?

Reading Notes of Ramayana Part A

I like how vividly they describe the city of Ayodhya

I think it’s interesting that all of dasharatha’s wives “faces brightened” when they found out he wanted to have children. Did they not know this? Did they all want to have his children?

I thought Vishnu said he was rama but then later says he has divided himself up as four sons of dasharatha’s?

How did vishvamitra know that rama was the most powerful son?

That’s so cool that his swords had spirits that could talk to Rama. I wonder if his brother was upset that he didn’t get cool weapons like that?

I don’t know why Ahalya was cursed by Gautama she didn’t know what she was doing was wrong

The Ahalya version of writing was easier to read than the others for me.

How did Rama know that Sita was an avatar of a god?

I could do something where Sita doesn't leave the garden but tells her maids to leave her. She could convince her father to do this competition of breaking the bow, but before they declare Rama as the winner Parashurama could come in and win Sita for himself.

                                                             (Rama fighting Demons)

Bibliography: PDE Epics, Ramayana link

Brain Food: Growth Mindset

I have never heard of the word growth mindset before but it has definately been a part of my life. Carl Dwek is right we always tell others "Oh you are so lucky you had it easy" when really if you take a step back and look at those people they didn't learn as much or get as much life experience compared to someone that had a harder set of problems. I think the problem that I've noticed is that people want to get things done as fast as possible; they aren't looking to gain any knowledge or experience. I know I am going to try to rid this toxic mindset and start exploring the growth mindset!

                                                                 (stay motivated: cheezburger)

Time Strategies

Oh time management. This little booger can be quite difficult for me sometimes. However, over the years I have learned some important things about myself. For example, I am a visual learner so checklists work well for me. They give me some direction and make me feel accomplished when I check items off my list. Like any other college student though, procrastination usually gets the better of me. I really enjoyed the article "How to Beat Procrastination" it gave some really good tips that I think I am going to do. One of which being public about my commitments to homework, the more people I have reminding me to do my homework the better!

                                                                (procrastinator probs)

Reading Options

I plan to do the PDE Ramayana online in Week 2. My decision was factored by the fact that there were different writing styles, because I get bored easily I thought that would be a good choice for me. Also, it is free! I’ve never taken an epic literature or mythology class before so all of this is very new to me. I have never taken any classes about religion before although I am religious. I think I have meditated? I did yoga for a few months.

                                                                   (confused flckr)

Idian Epics Storybook Favorites

A Karmic Hero

                                                              (Yama: God of Death)

The topic of Yama being a mentor to a person that was once the demon king Ravana is new to me. I had never heard of either of these characters before. The title initially drew me in because it had the word hero in it and from my all about me post you know that I love stories about superheroes. The introduction however is what really pulled me in when it discussed that someone was altering the timeline and it was up to me to fix it. I loved how creative this story is! Throughout the story it lets you make decisions that affect the rest of the story and there even some fill in the blank parts for the reader to customize the story! There were only images on the intro page and they sort of scared me, like if I was sitting in front of the guy in the picture above I'd do whatever he said for sure so he doesn't kill me. For the rest of the story it’s just white so I would’ve enjoyed a little splash of color more. Overall though it was a very intriguing and interactive story!

Hello, when am I?

This storybook topic was also about time travel! I knew that going in however due to the name of the Title. I am familiar with time travel just from movies I’ve watched, time travel stories are always so interesting to me. The introduction was perfect! I was really shocked when the main character fell through a water puddle. It definitely made me want to read more. The Layout and design was great too it was kind of gloomy and rainy so I really felt like I was in the story. I loved the use of the photo below, it tied in very perfectly with the story topic. Overall I like the design of this storybook, because it sets the mood for the stories and has navigation easily accessible at the top of the pages.

 

                                                                      (Rain Puddle)

CSI: Indian Epics

I am familiar with the topic of CSI as I grew up watching all of those TV shows with my family. The title was a good fit as well as the pictures. The intro captivated all my attention in the first paragraph with the line “If you are reading this it means I am dead.” So naturally I kept reading till I finished the stories! I think the design of using a notepad is the most creative background used out of all 3 of the storybooks I picked to read. With the notepad as the background I really felt like I was reading a detective’s personal notes so it held my attention more than without it. Overall this design layout was really good and if I do something similar I would consider using the notepad background and navigation side bar.

Introduction to a Different Kind of Engineer

                                                                  (awkward waving)

This is a pretty accurate depiction of me trying to not be awkward yet still being awkward!

First things first though! My name is Mariah Butler. I am from a super small town in Southeast Oklahoma and defying all odds by going to college. I am the middle child of 5 (fun fact: 4 of us are redheads!) I’ll let you imagine how fun that was growing up...

                                                                            (Giphy)

I currently live with my boyfriend where we are raising a 3 year old cat, Lois, and a bamboo plant, Mr. Bamboo!

In school I'm studying Industrial and Systems Engineering. I honestly picked this major because it was the result of the ASVAB test I had to take in high school. Thankfully it worked out great!

It took me 2 years to realize that I had to pay attention and put forth more effort in school instead of living off the mindset that “C’s get degrees”. For that reason I haven’t really “liked” many of my classes outside of the really interactive ones. However, last semester I took a class called Data Driven Decision Making that I really liked. Sounds super boring I know, but I like numbers and I knew it would be beneficial for me to learn for when I got into the “real world” so I enjoyed taking that class. Also, when it was over I was one semester closer to finally graduating! To me that is a big accomplishment because I feel like I’ve been in college forever! (by the way I’m a fifth year senior)

Other than wrecking my car and spending $2,500 to get it fixed my Christmas break was pretty uneventful. I did learn a lot about cars, especially how important it is to not slam on your breaks when you are sliding on ice about to hit a curb...

Oh ya I did go to Rhema too! It's the biggest Christmas lights festival in Oklahoma, it's located in Tulsa, and it is absolutely amazing! If you ever get a chance to go you should. Here’s a picture I took of it:

(Rhema)

I am excited break is over though because some of my favorite shows to watch are coming back on air! They are mostly superhero shows: The Flash, Arrow, Gotham, Legends of Tomorrow. I also really like Westworld, Modern Family, and Don’t trust the B in apt 23.

Youtube: Flash Season 1 Trailer

Other than keeping up with my tv shows I am currently learning to play piano and that's pretty fun. My favorite song I've learned so far is the theme song to Jaws!

but mostly my hobbies are playing sports like basketball or softball fun fact I actually came to OU for the Rowing team!

   

Week 1 Story: Into the Woods

My dear, do you know,

How a long time ago,

Two poor little children,

Who’s names I don’t know, were stolen away on a fine summer’s day, and left in a wood, as I’ve heard people say.

And when it was night,

So sad was their plight,

The sun it went down,

And the moon gave no light.

They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried,

And the poor little things, they lay down and died.

And when they were dead,

The Robins so red

Brought strawberry-leaves

And over them spread;

And all the day long

They sung them this song:

“Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!

And don’t you remember the babes in the wood?”

(Nursery Tale in The Nursery Rhyme Book)

Madie and Brenda at the young age of 12 were the best of friends. They loved to ride their bikes around town and visit new places. However, that is not really something parents want their children doing at 12 years old. Their parents had warned them multiple times of places they were not allowed to go, one of which being the woods. But you know children do the opposite of what their told…

One day Madie and Brenda were walking their bikes around town. They were both feeling sad because their other best friend from school, Allison, had just moved far away. Madie, Brenda, and Allison had been best friends since preschool, so it was hard for them all to be separated as they were. As Madie and Brenda were beginning to turn around and go back to Brenda’s house they ran into Nancy. Nancy was a grade below them in school but they weren’t too fond of her. Nancy asked if they wanted to go with her to the woods to see the fort she had built. Madie and Brenda figured why not go check it out, and give Nancy a chance. Who knows? She could be the third person in their circle since Allison moved, plus they didn’t have anything better to do. 

                                                                          (Woods)

When they got to the woods Madie and Brenda left their bikes by the road since it’d be too hard to walk them throughout the woods. As they are following Nancy, Madie and Brenda began to get a weird feeling. Madie had some red paper in her pocket from school so as they walked she would stick a piece of the paper on a branch on every couple of trees.

As Madie was busy leaving little pieces of paper on trees Brenda was trying to keep up with Nancy. Brenda stopped for a second to wait on Madie because she didn’t want to lose her. When Madie got to Brenda there was no sight of Nancy or her fort. They yelled and yelled for Nancy for hours. Finally, they decided they should try and find their way out to go home. They searched for the small pieces of paper that Madie had left on the tree branches but they could only find a few. They thought maybe the wind had blown the rest off. With no direction on how to get out and with the darkness setting in, they decided to find a safe place to sleep. They found all the sticks they could and attempted to make a barrier of some sort for protection. They shortly realized sticks aren’t going to keep them safe.

Madie and Brenda were both filled with so much sadness and fear that they began to get angry with each other for no reason. “You’re the one that said why not go with Nancy! We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you!” Brenda yelled. “I was just trying to help us get our minds off of Allison moving away! I didn’t know Nancy would leave us here!” Madie exclaimed. The girls just argued and argued until finally they had no more energy. They ended up falling asleep on the moist ground of the woods separated by a few feet due to their fight. Brenda woke up in the middle of the night to Madie screaming! She was being attacked by coyotes! Brenda ran over to help, but Madie kept screaming at her to run. “Run Brenda Run!” Madie managed to yell. So, Brenda did. She ran as hard as she could in the opposite direction of the coyotes. She was so frazzled and hurt from seeing Madie being attacked she didn’t noticed the drop that was coming up. She fell into a stream that was running through the forest, the blow from the fall knocked her unconscious and she drowned in that stream.

                                                                   (Strawberry leaves)

The next morning the birds, frogs, and all the little critters were so shocked to find the two girls. It truly broke all their hearts. As they all stood around and mourned for the young girls the Robins that lived there decided to act. When a Robin dies it is the duty of other Robins to honor them by placing beautiful strawberry leaves on them. The Robins flew to town and gathered some strawberry leaves from a man’s garden they regularly hung out at. They flew back to the woods and laid the leaves on the girls like they were beautiful Red Robins. The little critters then all gathered around the girls and sang peaceful songs to them until they were found by the humans with the shiny badges.

The little critters of the woods declared war that day on the despised coyotes…

Author's Note:

From reading the original tale at the beginning it says that there were two girls that went to the woods that laid down and died. It never explains why they went to the woods or the actual cause of their death. I came up with my version of the story from a childhood memory with one of my best friends. Only in my life we found our way out of the woods from the pieces of paper we marked the trees with. We never did go back to those woods, especially after we told our parents and found out there were coyotes in those woods.

Bibliography:

My story is based off of the Nursery Tale on page 56 called "My Dear Do You Know" in The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang.

Hands Down Favorite Place- Florence, Italy

Florence, Italy

I studied abroad in Italy almost 3 years ago (I feel so old saying that) and I still find myself dreaming of it and its absolutely breathtaking views. One of which being the view of the Florence skyline shown below.
                                                       

Steve Hersey: Florence

I think one of the reasons I loved it so much was that my older brother was my tour guide. He had been living there for a year working on his Masters degree, so when I got there he knew every inch of the city and the history behind it all. If you ever get a chance to go to Italy I definitely recommend Florence, because around every corner there will be something that you will completely fall in love with. During my trip we got to see around a dozen cities and none of them left more of an impression than this one. 

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