Reading Notes: More Jataka Tales Part A

In the story of The Girl Monkey and the String of Pearls, I was interested to see the outcome so mild. The girl monkey waited to steal the string of pearls and when she eventually got them, I assumed that the guard would have been executed for losing the pearls. Then when the guard set up a plan to find them and lured the girl monkey out, I thought the girl monkey would be executed for taking them. Instead, it only mentioned that the guard was praised for his idea! It was just a different ending than I thought it would have. Then, as I read about the Stupid Monkeys and how they were given the task of watering the trees, it reminded me of a joke I heard years ago. In the joke, two guys were tasked with measuring the height of a flag pole. One started to lay it down to get the measurement and then the other guy said, we were told to measure the height! Not how wide it is! In the story, the monkeys were unsure of how much water the trees needed, so the leader said to pull them up and water them according to how long the roots are. It ended up killing the trees!

Stupid Monkey!

Source: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt

Reading Notes: The Jataka Tales Part B

Today I read about the elephant named girly face. The elephant was the nicest elephant who would never do any wrong. He always treated averyone nicely and would not harm any of the trainers. The head trainer always said that girly face is the nicest elephant and he would do no wrong to anyone! One night, some robbers were sitting outside girly face’s enclosureand began talking about how to rob a home. The robbers spoke of how they must kill anyone who was awakened in the house. They must be cruel and show no mercy so that they can be successful. Girly face heard this and decided that they were trying to teach him how to live his life. From then on he killed all the trainers that would enter the enclosure. After so long, the king hired a wise man to figure out why girly face had changed so much. The wise man asked around and found out about the robbers and their conversation outside of girly face’s enclosure. He told the king to send good men to have conversations and that would have the same effect on girly face. After this was done, girly face returned back to the normal elephant that he was and never killed anyone again. This story is great at showing why it is important to surround yourself with people who will uplift you and not bring you down.

Friends can lift you up!

Source: The Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part A

The Jataka tales are very interesting! I loved reading the stories and seeing how they ended. There were some that were all about trickery and deception, and there were some that did not need trickery or deception to make a fool of one of the characters. The monkey and the crocodile was interesting because it made sure to note several times that the crocodile was stupid. It wasn’t that the monkey was smart, the crocodile was just stupid and couldn’t keep up with the monkey’s thinking. In the story of The Sandy Road, the leader of the drivers almost made a fool of himself by telling everyone to throw out their water and supplies because they would reach the city by the break of day and be off the sand. He fell asleep and lost the way which meant they were still on the sand by day break. He searched frantically until he spotted a tuft of grass, which meant there was water underneath. He ordered a hole to be dug there and when they hit a rock, he ordered a boy to strike the rock until water came forth. They drank the water and went on to the town, but it almost turned into a disaster. Some of the stories were about learning life lessons rather than having a character that was made a fool of. The story of The Ox Who Envied the Pig showed that it is better to be content with little and live longer with family rather than be given the “choice food” of death and enjoy it only for a time that will quickly come to an end. These stories were short but held many values and lessons in them. It was great to see all the cunning and witty characters come out on top!

All about the trickery!

Source: The Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt

Gangs of New York

Link to story on my portfolio site:Gangs of New York

Week 8 Progress

Looking back on my assignments for this class, I am disappointed in how much I have missed out on. I had set in my semester plan to do as much of the extra credit as I could. So far I have done NONE of it... I bit off more than I could handle this semester and I am hoping to get ahead of things during the last half of the semester. I will knock out some extra credit this weekend and plan to finish most of the reading for next week so that I can get ahead on a story. This last half will be intense and tiring but I will make it!

Attack the day!!

I definitely have to work on time management and prioritizing assignments to make the most of what time I have. I have picked out the slow times at work that allow me to finish up work and I plan to use those times to stay ahead once I use this weekend to catch up. As much as I can, I need to avoid doing the assignments past 9pm because I usually go to bed around 10:30pm and I try to rush through them when it gets that late. This last half is the half that I win it all!

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I think the feedback aspect of this class is great! I really like how involved everyone is and how easy it is to read and evaluate other student's posts. One of the only down sides is that everyone tries to be so nice that it makes it difficult to leave honest critique because we have never met the individual that we're leaving the feedback for. I have noticed that as the semester goes on, the feedback is getting more in depth and students are more comfortable leaving feedback other than saying good job or what they liked about the posts. I think part of that is because of reading the introduction posts and that by this time, most everyone has seen everyone else's introduction post.

Cheezburger

With that said, I noticed that instead of pointing out what needed to be changed, I just left feedback saying that I enjoyed the writing and what specifically I liked about it. I find it difficult to actually be honest and I try to be nice with my posts. I am hoping that as the semester continues, I will feel better about leaving feedback and see that feedback can be helpful and positive at the same time! That is why I chose the image above.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

We're half way through the semester! Going back and looking at my notes, it is interesting to see how I translated my notes to a story. One thing I noticed is that I like to change a lot of the story. I use the foundation, but not much more. I'd like to try and stick closer to the origin and see where that goes. I would say that writing isn't one of my strong points. What I like about these blog posts is that they are all different and contain new material each post. It makes it nice to split up all of the writing instead of writing eight to ten pages on a broad topic. That's part of the reason I chose a portfolio. I was worried that I'd stall out and run out of ideas to finish up a long story. I love seeing how others are writing their stories and seeing how they carry them on week after week.

Amba, a Javanese shadow puppet

I like this image because the story of Amba talks about how distraught she was and how she had really let herself go and did not care about anything other than her revenge. When I read about her appearance, I imagined this but with more matted hair. To me it is a lesson about focusing on bettering myself rather than letting myself go trying to get revenge on someone else.

I look forward to writing more stories and using my notes in different ways so that I can understand which technique fits me better and produces better writing. Instead of straying so far from the story and my notes, I'll try making smaller changes and see how creative I can get with the characters. Happy midterms!

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata, Part D

During today’s reading, I read about how a father went to seek vengeance on his son’s killer. The evil Jayadratha, along with his 6 warriors fought Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna. Though his chariot had been destroyed, and the charioteer was dead he continued to fight the warriors, and defeated them one by one. The Pandavas tried to help him, but Jayadratha and Karna would not allow it. Abhumanyu received a wound on his forehead, and the blood poured down into his eyes, and blinded him for long enough, that the son of Duhshasana killed him. The story depicts his death to be a peaceful one, and not one of a man slain in battle. Once the man’s father, Arjuna heard that his son was dead, he made a vow saying, “May the course of a father and the vengeance of a warrior smite the murderers of my boy! May I never reach heaven if I do not slay Jayadratha on the morrow.” A spy heard this, and informed Jayadratha, so he went into hiding, “trembling in fear”. The next morning, Arjuna and Krishna drive swiftly across the land, fighting many warriors to reach Jayadratha. From an elephant, Duhsjasana faced him. When Drona blocked the way, Arjuna refused to fight him. Duryodhana also fought him, as well as Bhurishrava, who they slew. As they closer to the sunset, they went up against many warriors until finally, they found Jayadratha as the sun was setting. However, Karna attacked Arjuna, but Krishna covered the sun, making it look as though the sun had set, so Karna retreated and Arjuna defeated and cut off the head of Jayadratha. This story was intense, and showed the love and the loyalty that this father had for his son, and the lengths he could go to find his killer. 

Arjuna defeats Jayadratha.

Image Found Here

Source: Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie

Found Here

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata, Part C

During today's reading, I read about Arjuna and his journey to the mountains. He went up to the mountains to pray and live off of the land. Whatever the land provided to him was what he could have for food. Arjuna stayed in the mountains for several months eating smaller and smaller amounts until he only needed air to sustain himself. The air alone would supply him and he would no longer need food. He kept praying until he reached a point that he could stand with his arms lifted and without support for days at a time. I like the idea that he was living and breathing nothing but what he wanted to accomplish. He was seeking strength from the gods and nothing would be able to stop him once he attained that strength. During his prayers, a boar charged at Arjuna with intentions of killing him. Arjuna pulled out his bow and shot an arrow at the boar while at the same time, a hunter shot a dart at the boar. Hitting it at the same time, Arjuna and the hunter both got angry accusing each other of interfering with their shots and claiming it was their boar to kill. The hunter had his wife and several followers and appeared to be some king of the land. Arjuna said they should battle for it and the hunter agreed. Arjuna knew that this hunter must have been important since he was being followed by so many. Still, Arjuna challenged the hunter. After Arjuna shot until his quiver was empty, the hunter had absorbed all of the darts and was clearly not mortal. Arjuna didn't give up and challenged the hunter to wrestle for it. Being touched by a hand, Arjuna began to pray some more and cast garlands of flowers onto an image of the god he was praising. Instantly the garland was around the hunters neck and it was revealed that the hunter was the god and was pleased with Arjuna for recognizing and praising him. Arjuna was granted weapons and was blessed for his time spent on the mountain. I see this as Arjuna putting in time and effort to a goal and attaining that goal.

Arjuna receives the Pashupata from Shiva

Source:Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita
Found here