Indian Epics

It was a Friday night and all of Lakewood Highschool was gearing up for the homecoming basketball match up against their hated rivals Mulberry High. Lakewood had high hopes for a state championship this year with Manny Rodriguez leading the way. These aspirations from the preseason, however, had not quite lived up to their hype. Manny had been in a shooting slump and seemed to average almost double-digit turnovers a game. This was a basketball school though and none of the students or faculty was going to give up on this team. Manny on the other hand was having a tough time wondering what was going on with his abilities. He kind of moped around school that day not really getting into the homecoming spirt. Instead, at lunch time Manny went downtown to walk around by himself. He had hoped that maybe it would get his mind right and clear his head for the game that evening. While he was walking by a shop he happened to look through the window and see a pair of vintage Larry Bird shoes. T...

This set of stories, to me, were not as grasping and as whimsical as the first section. I am sure there are many out there that would love to disagree with this statement. I did enjoy getting to read about Rama's adventures while exiled in the forest. Having to overcome many demons and battles. I think Khara rushing to battle against Rama found at pedia . that this section was crucial in setting up the story for future events. Many of the encounters that were made during this time in the forest seemed to set the stage for the future. Whether it was obtaining knew weapons for Rama to use or freeing someone from demon form so they might ascend to heaven, it seemed like these people and articles may show up later down the road for Rama and help him in his journey. My favorite story from this part of the epic was "Battle with Khara". I enjoyed it because there was a story before this that set up the scene that was quite comical and could in fact be real life. A woman fel...

Image of the demon Thataka trying to become  invisible found on Wikipedia   I just finished up reading the first section of the Ramayana epic. I have to say entering into this reading I was a little worried about the length of the story as a whole because it seemed to me to have a lot of section. Then I began to read them and they were not as long as I had initially thought that they would be. Plus, the story was really beginning to pull me in and made me want to keep reading which is a huge plus for me. Before I discuss an individual story to perhaps do a storytelling assignment over I thought I would address my preliminary thoughts on the epic as a whole. For this first quarter of the epic it seems to me like a story I have read many times over through my life already. That is the story of Jesus in the Bible. In this story Rama is born as a son that is half god and half man. Although the way and family that he is born into is quite different than Jesus their purpose ...

This Week I decided to go ahead and download the mobile app on my phone. I am hoping this will help me with my schedule and due dates. I did have to delete some things off my phone to free up space on my old iPhone but other than that it was a breeze to download and a breeze to use.

This week I like to think of the first real week of the semester. People begin to trickle into the Biz a little bit more and classes begin to pick up the pase for what it will be like for the rest of the semester. For me I think that everything went pretty well. In this class I was able to stay to my schedule (relatively) well and got all the critical assignments done. I thought that the readings were all good and I was able to stay engaged in them. I thought that for my first story book post of the semester I did pretty well in changing up the original but also keeping the main message the same. I think I found a new writing spot as well on the fifth story of my apartment there is an office space that looks over the football stadium that is a great place to work. For next week, I think things will be a little more difficult time wise. I will be having to go out of state for a funeral in the middle of the week so hopefully I can still find time to get things done and prepare myself...

This was a growth mindset cat from the Growth Mindset blog I chose this image this week because the past few semester I have really found out that for one to be successful in anything that they are attempting to do they must not only be very passionate and work hard but also have that time where they can settle down and rest your body and mind. It is crucial to reset yourself to be prepared to give it your all the next day or week! Going along with this theme of recharging, I found an interesting TED talk about how taking a break or boredom can in fact spark an idea of excellence. It is a great talk that brings a different way of thinking when we talk about boredom and how sometimes we get to caught up about trying almost too hard. If you want to give this video a look the link can be found here !

  Feedback from peers is a tricky thing to accomplish sometimes. Some people don't want to hurt others feelings so they may miss out on the opportunity to help others while others are not shy at all about how they feel and in some cases take critiquing too far. I have been on both ends of this chain. In most of my experience though, feedback has not been as good as it should be. We do a lot of peer reviewing in scientific writing and for in class assignments we would trade our articles and review them. Most all the time I have someone that marks mine up bad. Then when I look over it, it still seems fine to me so I submit it the way I have it and end up with a near perfect score. So in my life I have ignored peer feedback. That being said this class is different than others I have taken where this is taken place. I think I am, like the articles " Fear of Feedback " and " Why Rejection Hurts " discuss, afraid of failure so when I come in contact with feedback tha...

   My first topic that I came across that I might be able to work with the rest of the semester is the topic of Animal Characters of the Ramayana. I enjoy stories that are centered around animal characters. Upon doing some more looking into the subject I saw a heading called Campfire Animal Tales that caught my attention. I think using this could be a good way to tell stories. Create a setting where animals are setting around a campfire telling campfire animal stories. As far as animals in Ramayana stories I don't have very much previous knowledge about them, but this will most likely be my response to all of the topics I will chose. Buzzards are prominent birds in India so I thought I'd look at the birds of Jatayu to get more information.    The second topic title that gave me interest was Epic Battles. Who doesn't like an epic battle scene. I think that there is so much one could of with this topic as well. Subheadings of the topic included epic hero's and weap...

    There was once a place around the equator of earth that was beautiful in every aspect of the word. Under the shade of a mighty mountain laid a valley that possessed beautiful crystal blue pools and lush green vegetation all around. The temperature was always a perfect 70 degrees with light breezes. This was a perfect place for a couple rabbits to take settlement and raise a family. The rabbits began to increase in numbers as the years went by and established a wonderful quaint community. Now, many years past and something about their environment seemed to become different. The world, it seemed, had began to increase in temperature. This became ever more evident as the beautiful pools became sweltering hot tubs or were dried up all together. The vegetation also began to wither and die due to the heat as well. "What shall we do", cried the Rabbits.     Watching all this take place was a mighty Hawk perched high in the mountain. He could see what Hawk carrying a...

In this Jatakas story the author, Rouse, depicts a scene of 2 ponds where the story will take place. One is full of fish but is small and always in peril of drying up on the hot summer days. The other is a fish's paradise. Among the banks of the latter pond lives a cunning crane that thinks he can use is pond as a trap to catch his fill of fish. I thought that the crane was very cunning to think to use his paradise as a net. He was even very patient in luring the fish into his trap. He allowed one fish of the clan to travel with him to the better pond and back to the other fish to tell of how great this place was. After that it was easy pickings for the crane. In the story he takes all the fish back to one tree to eat them and always placed the bones in one spot. To me, this is the crane wanting to set a scene for the poor fish as they about to be eaten. This is the first part in the story that the trickster shows his arrogance. This will ultimately be his demise in the end. At the...

After participating in the Myth and Folklore class I had high expectation of what types of stories would be available for us in this class. After reviewing the reading options that we have this semester, lets just say I am not disappointed! There are so many different routes to go. Yes, the first 7 or so weeks are planned out for the class but then after that it is totally up to him or her on what route they want the class to go. I also am very excited about new options for the class to delve into such as music and images. These two aspects go great with story telling and just give another level of understanding for the reader. I am probably most excited about the music and music video portion of the class and reading options. I love all types of music from hard rock to celtic folk. I haven't however came into much Indian music so this will be a great opportunity for me to diversify myself even more in music than I am today. The artist I guess I am looking forward to hearing more a...

Hold On A Second Sir My Connection's A Little Ruff Funny Technology Meme Image click here for link to photo Technology... Something I have a love/hate relationship with. If I had it my way I would have little to do with it, but as most things go in this life I don't get my way and society keeps becoming ever more inter-tangled with technologies for every part of his or her day. Anyway, to get off my soap box now I have been introduced to many of the formats we are using such as Canvas, Cheezburger, Pintrest, ext. I have not however until now been introduced to the PBworks page but I am growing very fond of it the more I use it. I love how interactive it is and easy of use. I am already upping my "tech-savviness" by becoming a blogger so I guess the rest of this semester I would just like to continue in growing that.

The thing we can not buy and seem to never have enough of, time. It seems that there is never enough Photo showing time is short Click here for link to photo  time in the day, week, month, year, or lifetime. One way to keep from getting overwhelmed by this life and load it bears is to implement good time management strategies in ones life. This is much easier said than done I know for a fact. I like to think of "wasting" time having much to do with the everyday addictions of life. We all have something we are addicted to and get in the way of plans or schedules we have. Things that we will prioritize before anything else. Much like smoking, it is hard to put aside our addictions and get on track with what we need to do for the day, week, month, year, and so on so we stay on track for our goals. An article I really felt was something I try to use in my life has to do with just starting the event one has in mind to accomplish. This I believe is 80 percent of the b...

Extra Credit meme I created via meme generator. link here From taking the Myth and Folklore class last semester, I have high expectations for all the assignments on the list. I know that they will all be good options to choose from and I love that there is so much opportunity to succeed such as extra credit and other make up assignments. I enjoyed all the reading assignments and storytelling from last semester so I really look forward to that!

Hey! I'm Kasey Gill and I guess your here to read a little bit about myself. Well, I'm sorry but get prepared to be bored. Just kidding, my life isn't all that bad to talk about. I was been born and raised in the semi-small town of El Reno, Oklahoma, some 25 miles or so west of the Oklahoma City. Personal photo of an El Reno sunset I went to El Reno High School of course where, like most of us I'm sure had some good days and some bad days but always made the most of the days getting into trouble and making friends. During my four years there I began to fall in love with the thoughts and abilities of all things that science can offer the world. This started the basis of my higher level learning and future goals. As you could probably guess by the last statement I am in the Arts and Science's college majoring in Biology. I am a senior pre-med student and will be graduating in May (Thank the good Lord above). I have hopes of getting into the OUHSC medical program ...

Once again I get to delve into the topic of growth mindset. This class is a great way to implement the ideals that are proposed by growth mindset and then hopefully carry them over to other challenges in life. I decided to do a little refresher on the basis of growth mindset to help me get back to the place I was at the end of last semester. I watched the two videos by Carol Dweck. I really feel like this is something that education as a whole should look into. Challenge is something that is needed to further higher education. This is much like a conversation I had with a professor a few years ago. In todays society everyone must have an "A" in a class or they feel like it is not good enough when in fact a grade of "A" should be thought of as extraordinary. My professor said that in her education day most all kids were getting "C" or "B" grades and that was average or good and an "A" was rare. Are we getting to where grades are so infla...

I chose to use this image from Ali's story found at  Flicker because  it is a tornado near Cordell and I have friends near there. The first story book that came across my screen actually really interested me so I went ahead and checked it out a little more in depth. It was composed by Ali and is titled "Stories of the Wild West". Reading the introduction I was quickly grabbed by the author. The way it was written in first person, spoken by Sheriff Vishnu, really gave an interesting side to the storybook. This allowed the reader to give the Sheriff his or her own interpretation of the Sheriff like the voice and how he spoke. I also liked how certain words were used and the dialect of the story. This made it really seem like it was being told by an old time cowboy. The layout of the storybook was very nice, giving a good amount of visual aids for the reader, which were also nice. If you would like to read the full storybook you can find it here . The second ...

a classic mustang logo found at ford performance.com Taking Myth and Folklore last year I was very tempted to go ahead an copy what my favorite place was from that post and put it here. That post was about my love for the lake and how it had shaped me since I was a boy. Even though it is my favorite place to be in the whole world, I thought I might share another place I always enjoy. This isn't a place that you can find on a map (well at least not the same place on the map at different times). You can't put an address on it. There is only room for one here. The place I am talking about is my car. It was a high school boys dream and my reality. It began with a classic mustang, a boy with the desire to make old things new again, and a father that was very patient and was willing to pass his knowledge of cars onto his son. It may have taken my whole high school career to make what many thought was an old junker new again, but in my mind it was all time well spent. When I g...