Reading Notes: Sita Daughter of the Earth (B)

• I love how the pictures and story tell how beautiful some of the areas are that Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita traveled through while in exile. Maybe I could do a story where an area is so beautiful that it puts them in a trance where they stay for years. Only to have lots of Ayodhya people come and try to convince them to come back or maybe rakshasas find them?
• If Ravana was gay Sita's life would have been completely different 
• What if the magic line that Lakshmana drew didn't let Sita leave? and the rakshasas had to try and break through it? Leaving him without his powers or something
• I wonder if Sita was held in a dark ugly dungeon if she would have changed her mind and married Ravana?
• How cool that the rakshasis that were guarding Sita began to care for her and tell her things to calm her. It'd be cool if earlier on they all could have teamed up and gotten her off the island.

(Hanuman putting Sita's fear to rest that Rama was alive)

• They never tell how the floating bridge was built?
• I love how it shows how tiny Rama was compared to Ravana and how he still won because he outsmarted Ravana.
• What if Sita or Rama prayed and asked for a boon that could make the citizens forget or truly believe that Sita was kept hostage and walked through fire to prove she was pure?
• What if the boys weren't very good at fighting or war things and Sita wanted to take them back to the King to get the proper training they needed?
• It'd be cool to make up a story about Sita's life after she left and went into the earth!
• It'd also be interesting to tell the end of this story through the eyes of her sons and Rama!

Week 10 Storytelling: Sita inspires Mulan

Long ago in ancient China, there was a small family of five. A girl named Mulan, her parents, her grandmother, and a dog named Little Brother. China was going through a war with the Huns. The Huns were the most awful human beings to ever live. They were killing anything and everything that crossed their path. Mulan's father had just gotten the letter from the Emperor that he had to go fight in the war against the Huns. Sadly no one in his family could take his place, because they were all female. There were strict rules that only men were permitted to fight in the war, even if they were elderly or sick. Mulan was heartbroken that her father had been called to war. It was just last week he fell and hurt his leg because he tried walking around without his cane. Mulan knew that her father was not fit to fight in a war. She went to bed that night as sad as could be, but had the most interesting dream of a woman named Sita...

(Mulan in bed dreaming)

""Father, why can't I fight the rakshasas that are tearing up people’s homes? They deserve to be punished!" said Sita.

 "Because you are too fragile, my princess. The rakshasas would tear you apart," Sita's father replied.

"Maybe a normal girl, but I am not a normal girl!" Sita exclaimed.

"Sita! We are not having this conversation. You will not fight any rakshasa," Sita's father sternly stated.

Disregarding what her father said, she decided to go out on her own and fight the rakshasas. Sita changed out of the formal attire she wore around the castle and into an outfit more fit for the woods. That night while her family was fast asleep she snuck out of the castle to fight the rakshasas. She stayed hidden because she'd rather not be surprised by these tricksters. That’s when she heard the screams!

She ran toward the sounds of screaming people. When she arrived, there were two rakshasas tearing apart a farmer’s livestock! Even though there were people around screaming and throwing things at them, the rakshasas weren’t fazed. Sita decided to attack them in a way others weren’t thinking. She gracefully walked up towards them and whistled. “Man, you boys sure are strong and handsome,” she flirted. The rakshasas immediately put their guard down and let the beautiful Sita get close to them. Little did they know she had her father’s bow hidden behind her. When Sita got close enough to them, she pulled the bow as far back as possible and fired the arrow. The arrow flew straight through both rakshasas’ heads! The people were so shocked they were silent. Sita looked confused, but then they started cheering for her! The people had a party for her the next day to thank her for her bravery in making their land peaceful again. To her father’s surprise she was the kingdom hero for killing those terrible rakshasas. “You did good, Sita. I am proud of you,” her father told her.”

Mulan woke up as soon as her dream ended. It was still dark outside. She knew she had to act quickly before her parents woke up. After being inspired by the woman in her dream, she knew she had to be brave and take her father's place in the war. She moved as fast and quietly as she could while dressing herself in all her father’s armor. She hoped and prayed fiercely that no one would recognize she was a woman. A short time before dawn she set out on her journey hoping to make her father as proud as Sita made hers.

(Mulan in battle)

Bibliography: Sita Daughter of the Earth by Saraswati Nagpal, Reserve at the Bizzell and Mulan


Author's note:

While reading the graphic novel of Sita's life, there was a scene where she had a strong willingness to go fight rakshasas. These two rakshasas were terrorizing her people’s land, and she wanted to put an end to it. However, her father told her that she was “fragile” and the rakshasas would tear her apart. Even though Sita listened to her father, the scene still reminded me a lot of the story of Mulan.

The strong amount of courage and selflessness in the characters Sita and Mulan made me want to connect them somehow. I liked the idea of having one of them dream of the other to gain inspiration for their own journey. I especially liked that Sita didn’t listen to her father in my story. In a time when most women were submissive to men the only way the men would see them differently was if a woman completely broke the boundaries. For example, Sita was fighting and defeating rakshasas and in turn gaining respect from her father.

I think the first photo sets a good feel for Mulan dreaming. I love the second photo of Mulan because it shows that women can equally fight alongside men. Also, I think it accurately shows that intensity she and Sita share.

I hope my story is fun to read. I also hope it encourages everyone to fight for what they believe in, regardless of their gender. Also, I hope to be a source of inspiration to people in this class for their future stories!

Reading Notes: Sita Daughter of Earth (A)

• It's very interesting that in this story Sita had the power to move the bow that no mortal could. What if she picked it up and then couldn't marry because men were scared of her strength?
• How awesome that Sita was inspired by Sati!
• I'd like to write a story where Sita gets to talk to all of the women that inspired her!
• Sita wanting to fight the rakshasas reminded me of Mulan wanting to fight. It'd be cool to do some kind of storying involving both of them.
• I think it's sad that once the girls are married they have to move to the husbands kingdom and can't contact their family. What if the men had to stay in the woman's kingdom and help her rule it without contact to their families? I wonder how the men would've handled that?
• I wonder if there is an interesting way to not let Ma Kaikeyi's boons?

(Sita, from the graphic novel)

I love this photo of Sita because it portrays just how powerful she is.

Bibliography: Sita Daughter of the Earth by Saraswati Nagpal, Reserve at the Bizzell

Reading Notes: Ideal Women

Uttara

• I could write a story where a very pretty girl somehow persuades Bhisma to marry her and have children. Maybe she has some kind of magical powers? Or maybe even somehow his stepmother convinces him to do so.
• While the women in these tales aren't very independent I love that the Pandu brothers were always so obedient to their mother, Koonti.
• Maybe a good storyline would be one where Koonti kind of tutors Draupadi and others on how to be independent and strong?
• It's crazy Uttara was married so young.
• I loved reading about how Koonti prayed and faught for her sons during the war of Indra. Maybe I could do a story over Koonti and Gandhari getting to the altar at the same time? What is Mahadev chose Gandhari's flowers instead of Koonti's?
• A story through the eyes of Uttara when her husband volunteered to go fight would be a good story!

(the young Uttara and her love, Abhimanyu)

Sati

• I had no idea Mahadeva was poor!
• It'd be interesting to do a story from Sati's father's eyes to show how she taught him that money isn't everything.
• I wonder how good this story would be if Sati didn't die but her father did?
• Instead of living in a cave as a hermit what if Siva was killed during his rampage on the earth?
• Super sad story..

Bibliography: I found the story of Uttara in Nine Ideal Indian Women and also the story of Sati.

Week 8 Growth Mindset

Thinking back on growth mindset it seems I myself have fallen into some of the "bad" dimensions. My biggest problem is doing things at the last minute. Starting this class a small part of me thought that I "wasn't good" at writing, but I've come to find out the more time a set aside to focus on a project the better it is. So moving forward in this class I need to sit down and figure out what days I have the most free time and do these projects during that time. I am also open to any feedback you guys have on thing that you think I could improve on!

(procrastination meme: imgflip)

Outside of this class I also struggle a little bit with time management but I'm always thinking about the end goal. Until recently I haven't had the best support system so I definitely had to motivate myself to keep moving forward and reach my goals.

 Outside of school all together I ask a lot of questions sometimes I feel like I might be annoying people because I ask so many. I think asking questions is how I get better though, at what ever job it is that I am doing. I am always up for learning new things, but being confident in what I'm doing takes a little while for me.

Week 8 Reflection

My reading notes have truly helped me every week write my stories. I never knew about the "reading like a writer" method until this class, but I've found it to be extremely helpful in story writing. I've enjoyed the stories I've read so far. While the stories have been a new and different topic for me, it has been a fun experience. I am struggling though to find a good time to do my readings, so that is something I need to work on. Moving forward I think I want to read various topics including stories that focus on women, children literature, and graphic novels.

I am proud of the stories I've written so far. I previously found out that I really do not enjoy technical writing so it's been surprising seeing how much I enjoy this kind of writing! If I ever come to a block in my stories I go back to my reading notes. If they don't help me I go back and reread parts of the stories. I don't have much in my portfolio yet, but I am glad this is the option I chose. I think I just need to work more on giving my stories a solid ending.

In the next two months I hope to make my stories more creative. I have read some of my peers stories that I've lost myself in because they were so intriguing. I hope to develop writing that makes my readers feel like that. I haven't paid much attention to the comments people have left me. I think if I start taking those comments into consideration more than I have they'll help me out a lot.

(Dori: pinterest)

Storytelling: Who killed Bhimy?

(Ganges River)

Hi, my name is Menna. I solve people's problems for a living, I run towards danger, and most people don't like me. What am I you ask? Well I'm a detective of course! After a long hard case I decided I deserved a break, I didn't want to be around people, so I thought why not go to India? For real though, I've read about this river called the Ganges where mysteriously magical things happened and I was dying to see it for myself.  Once I got to India I went directly to the river. Water always had this weird sense of calming for me. I think it was because when I was younger my family’s house was next to a river. I always fell asleep so easily to the crashing of the water on the rocks on the bank.

Usually when I took a walk near a river I had the same feeling as if I were meditating. Everything would become still, all noise blocked out - all that I focused on was my breathing. As you can imagine it was extremely hard finding something so calming for myself, being the crazy thrill-seeking detective I am. Tonight, though, something was different. Things felt unbalanced, disturbed, like an accident had happened.

As I continued my walk I considered I was being watched or something, because I was stressed out more than I was usually around water. At that moment, I saw something in the river that didn't look normal. IT WAS A PERSON! They seemed to be wearing some sort of gown, as if they were royalty. I quickly jumped in to rescue the person, hoping they were still alive. When I jumped in to help I was instantly in pain! I had jumped into an apparent feast for the snakes of the Ganges river, called nagas. While some of them were biting me, they were attacking this other person like they had not eaten in days. I had to draw the nagas away from the other person somehow; I decided to distract them by swimming away. Thankfully the nagas left the other person and chased me. Just as I started losing all strength to fight them someone pulled me out of the river.

The person that pulled me out of the river was Bhimy, one of the King's daughters! Immediately she thanked me for saving her while I’m confused thinking I should be the one thanking her. As I looked at the river it then dawned on me that she was the person originally in the river that I jumped in to help! How she had survived that vicious attack from the nagas I still do not know. I asked her how she ended up in the river but she couldn't remember. In lieu of recent events, I thought it was the least I could do to help figure out what had happened to her. After all I was a detective!

It seemed the more we talked about how she got in the river the more she started to remember. She said she was at her castle eating dinner with her family when her cousin Duryan wanted to talk to her outside. Bhimy then said, “When I went outside to talk to my cousin, Duryan, he had two glasses of wine. We both drank the wine while we talked. That’s the last thing I can remember.” At that moment, I knew this cousin Duryan had put poison in her drink.

“Why would Duryan want to hurt you?” I asked. Bhimy replied, “You think he's responsible for me being thrown in the Ganges? My sisters and I are next heirs to the throne, but he would never hurt us for that. However, he has implied he doesn’t think women are fit to be rulers.” I didn't even have to say anything after that. Bhimy realized I was right and Duryan was responsible for what happened to her.

The detective in me craved to have Duryan pay for his actions. As you can guess Bhimy agreed with me and wanted to help. Much to my surprise, I then watched as Bhimy talked to the animals near the Ganges. Apparently, some royal family members had powers and that was a power she had. The animals were eager to help Bhimy take down Duryan, but they didn’t give specific details as to how they would help. All they said was they had witnessed him do terrible things to people too many times near the Ganges, and they couldn’t stand it any longer. I thought it would beneficial to take Duryan down with the element of surprise. He thought that Bhimy was dead, so on his next visit to the Ganges I thought it'd be nice if Bhimy paid him a visit.

We were all in our places, the animals and I hidden behind some bushes and Bhimy on a tree branch ready to jump down. When Duryan made his way to the Ganges just as the animals had predicted, Bhimy jumped down out of the tree right in front of her cousin. “What?! You’re supposed to be dead!” Duryan exclaimed. After the initial shock of seeing Princess Bhimy he then fiercely ran after Bhimy trying to choke and kill her! Before I could intervene the animals already had! All the birds, rabbits, deer, and any animal around were tackling him in efforts to get him off Bhimy. More and more animals joined in and they eventually overpowered and pushed Duryan into the Ganges. We all watched as the nagas feasted on him. Pretty ironic that he died the way he wanted Bhimy to die, isn’t it?

So my vacation wasn't a vacation. On the bright side, at least I helped save Princess Bhimy from whatever harm her cousin would have eventually caused her. 

~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Author's Note:

In the original story Bhimy was Bhima, a boy. Also, Duryan was Duryodhana in the original story, so while there was a name swap there wasn't a gender swap with this change. Duryodhana tries to kill Bhima because he is crazy jealous of him. Bhima survives with the help of the nagas and comes back with super strength powers. In my story, instead of gaining powers I had Bhimy have the power of talking to animals. Also instead of the nagas helping her survive the attack I had detective Menna help her.

The image I chose was of the Ganges river. I chose it because I think it helps the readers imagine the setting of the story better.

I was originally inspired to write this story after reading some of Professor Gibbs tips on story writing. I started it just wanted to do an investigation case over Bhima getting thrown into the Ganges river by Duryodhana. However, the more I wrote the more fun I had changing things- why Bhima is Bhimy in my story. I like the idea of giving the females in my stories the desire and assertiveness to not let being a female change how they are treated. 

Reading Notes: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu (A)

For my reading this week on another take of the Mahabharata I chose to read The Five Tall Sons of Pandu because it was a version without superpowers and the gods. That intrigued me because the PDE version I read largely incorporated multiple gods and magical powers/items.

It shocked me that in this version Draupadi was just the wife of Yudhishthira. I could do a story where Draupadi is only the wife for Arjuna or Bhima (since he was her most fierce protector)

                                                   

(Draupadi's swayarmvara)

I could do a story where Shishupala loves his cousin Krishna instead of hating him. No way he’d die then.

If Draupadi was just the wife of one of the brothers (not including Yudhishthira) I wonder what she would do during the gambling match when Yudhishthira gambles away his siblings?

I could do a story where Yudhishthira and the brothers get exiled for some other reason that the gambling match, maybe he breaks a really important law or something?

I wonder why the gandharvas are in this version? I thought they spiritual/magical beings like the gods?

It’d be a nice twist on the story if when the Pandavas save Duryodhana in the forest from the gandharvas he uses that to make one of them think that he has changed. Then after a while he reveals that he hasn’t changed and kills that Pandavas brother.

It’d be so cool to write a story from the perspective of one of the Pandavas while they were living in exile in those “ordinary” occupations!

Bibliography-  Reading Guide: Wilson. The Five Tall Sons of Pandu.