Indian Epics

Years had past since the last time we saw the preacher. He had decided to stay with widowed woman that he met in the first story. They began to live together and soon after had a son. The preacher began to teach the word of God again but also still took leave from time to time to deal with bandits and the like in nearby areas. He also saved his now home time a couple times since his stay began. As the child that they had began to grow, he became very strong for his age and was as healthy as an ox. This was not what was usual for this time and in this town. In recent years the town had been plagued with the deaths of many of the newly born infants.  This terrible situation was felt in many of the families. One that had been plagued by this infant death syndrome more than any others was Martha DeVill. Martha, ever since she was a child, always loved little children. When she was small she loved to play with dolls and spent most of her time acting like they were hers. She would f...

I once again decided to watch/listen to the videos put together by epified. I really like the playful stories of how Krishna grew up. He played many tricks and grew up like most children would it seems. If any kid had these great powers I am certain that they would be playful with them and pull the same tricks. I think  I could create a western story from the 12 episode of the part B series of the epified videos. In this video "Krishna Rides Hesten" Krishna told everyone that he would ride the largest and most aggressive bull in the village. I think I could change this story up by allowing the preacher to tame and ride a crazy bronco. In the story I would use the preachers love for all of God's creatures as his motivation. This horse could be very crazy and have an angry owner that just wild bronco wished to kill the horse after many defeats. The horse could then turn out to be the most trusting and fastest steed in the west. In a future story the horse may turn ...

The Child Krishna   I decided to do my reading this week as watching the videos. I really liked the epified videos I had watched before in week 6 or 7 I believe so when I saw we had the chance to watch more epified short stories I knew that is what I was going to do. Right off the bat in the first episode of the tale of the birth of Krishna, I thought that the birth was much like that of the birth of Jesus in the Christian religion. Yes there are many differences but both were born in a lowly state. One in a stable in a manger and one in a jail cell. In both instances the animals seemed to know what was happening. That a god was being born on earth. Further more in the second story the father and son snuck out of the prison because of the fear that the evil king would kill the child. This also is like the Christian tale that King Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus so Mary and Joseph fled with Jesus. I thought that when Krishna's mother looked in his mouth and saw all the unive...

So for this week I decided it would be a good idea to do a story planning post so I could get a few thoughts together. I really want to continue the epic of the preacher. I now have a pretty good backstory and a solid intermediate story but now I need to begin creating stories of his travels. Maybe he should make his way out toward California. I think that could work but the hardest part now is find a story from the Mahabharata to use as a base story to manipulate. This is partly also why I decided to do a story planning post too, so this way I will be able to have all the stories from the Mahabharata at my disposal. I do not think that this next story should be one with a battle in it. I think instead it should be about the preachers tough travels across the desert to the California border. Or maybe across the Rocky Mountain range. Now what story could be one that would work with this? Nevada's Desert For this first section of the Mahabharata I can think of one story where th...

Kaliya I continued my reading notes assignment for the week as listening to the epified videos. Much like part A I enjoyed how the narrators are able to put all the characters together and make sense of what all is going on in a great manner. I really like being able to hear the pronunciation as well. When I read the stories sometimes I wondering if I am even close to getting the names and such right. I particularly liked the episode "The Magic Potion". First because the evil plan that Théoden had was shown to not be able to work. It also contains a cool new place that was underwater much like Atlantis but home to serpents instead. That is just really cool! Bibliography Epified TV (India). " The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution" 2015-2016

Epified I chose to do this weeks reading, and probably upcoming weeks as well, as a video of the Mahabharata. For the first part of the video's, part A, I really liked how they simplified each story and really emphasized what we needed to know for the future of the epic. Also, because this is the beginning of the epic it really lays base for everything that is to come. Listening to this story in a form of a movie really helps to understand who all the characters in this epic are and how they interact with one another. This is especially nice because for me there are a lot of characters in the epic and they can become confusing to me. It was nice to have illustrations for each part of the story as well. It was cool to watch them being drawn while listening to the story. I really like the seventh episode because it shows how love can really prevail. The princess bride decided to blind herself for life to marry the blind king. That is crazy to me and really shows how much she want...

In all I have to be happy with my progress so far in this course. Of course, I am not as far along as I wish I was. I had high hopes that I would be done my this week but I haven't taken and done all the extra credit opportunities available to me. This being said, I am still ahead of schedule and will most likely end the class early with an "A" grade. I will most definitely participate in more extra credit assignments in the future. Interestingly enough the story writing portion of the class has been my favorite so far. I find myself writing and losing track of time because I am getting into my own writing so much. Last semester in Myth and Folklore I thought of the story assignments as being kind of daunting but this semester the words just seem to flow. A Cat Progress Mem e

  cheezburger Feedback from other classmates has been crucial in being able to further my story writing ability and my portfolio project. I take everyone's feedback into consideration when going over my work. I find the most "harsh" feedback to be some of the best that I have received. It really gets to the point of what I need to change and in most cases is very direct. I feel like for myself I have tried my best to give out good feedback as well. I really like to implement the three "W's" of feedback in my posts or like to use the sandwich method of commenting someone on there work, telling them something they may need to work on, and then ending with another comment of their abilities. I feel like when your giving feedback this is good to do because if gives good information to the author but also does it in a kind and respectful manner.    I feel like my introduction post along with my "Favorite Place" post really gives someone a sense of...

Writing meme Looking back at the past six weeks or so of reading and writing I have done, I have to say I am both impressed with the reading options as well as my performance as a writer. I like that there are a couple different reading options available to us. I have been using the free online domain for all my reading sources and find that they work great and are easy to read. In reality, besides the reading that was short stories, we have only gotten through two epics. This works well however because they are composed of many stories that take some time to read and understand. My favorite epic so far has been the Ramayana. I thought that the stories were all great and it had a good storyline to follow as well. It was easier, to me, to take reading notes on and create an original story from. These reading notes have helped me really outline my thoughts for my storytelling in class and have also helped to refine my stories in my portfolio. Speaking of my portfolio project, I have...

For this weeks tech tip I decided to use the google define feature. I do not use this a lot but it always seems to come up when  I was to learn some more in depth information. It is handy to have though when you need to search for a word real fast nd just type in what you know about the word and then it brings up the one you are looking for. For my word to look up I chose "hyperpolarization" because I have been studying action potentials and the effect drugs have on them. So if anyone was wondering when you go out for your Thursday night drink and take in some of that alchy it works to cause GABA receptors in your brain not to work and thus your cells have an influx of chloride ions. This causes, you guessed it, hyperpolarization and because of this your cells can't talk to each other or in other words cant send an action potential. This causes the downstream effects that are seen and felt from consuming alcohol.

There once was a legend of a preacher in the West that only was known by the name of R. Some say it stood for reverend, others said it they called him that because when someone challenged him to a shootout, when they yelled “Draw!” no one had ever made it past the letter r before they found a bullet between their eyes. The preacher is most notably known for his stand off with the infamous Joel which you can read in my story here. But, although he is well known for his good doings around the West and cleaning up the towns, little is known about the origins of this preacher. Well, that is, until now.                 It was 1856, right before the boom of the “Old West” as we know it now. A tiny town in upstate Montana was home to a young man that was fascinated by all things cowboy. He quickly learned how to rope and ride and decided that he should try his luck on a cattle drive that was headed South to deli...

I just finished up the Mahabharata and have to say that it rivals the Ramayana in how much I enjoyed the epic as a whole. The story lines were great and they all seemed to fit together so well. My favorite story for this section of the epic, although it might not be the most exciting of part D, was "The Afterlife". In this story Yudhishthira found himself seated in heaven with Indra where all things were glorious and good. He couldn't help but find himself in a solemn state of misery because his friends and family were not there with him. Indra discussed that his brothers and wife had fallen short to be able to be apart of this glorious place. Yudhishthira was troubled by this and decided he should go where his kin are so Indra transports him to hell where he beholds so many terrors and disgusting sights. Finally, Yudhishthira hears and sees his brothers and decided that he must stay in hell with them to comfort their griefs. At that moment Indra snapped his fingers and a...