Indian Epics Blog

This week, I was willing to bet money that I had mono. I had chills, a fever, and worst of all, I was sleeping around 12-16 hours per day, and waking up still feeling tired. The doctor at Goddard thought it was a viral infection, and I had hope. I spent my days eating chicken soup, drudging to class, and sleeping. I thought all hope was lost. I had a fluid dynamics test and a thermodynamics test that week, and I had to chug a combination of cold brew coffee and theraflu in order to remain consciousness. But then, Thursday struck. I slept for only (yes, only) nine hours and I felt great. There was color in the world. The birds sang in harmony. The squirrels pranced to and fro about their trees. Nature amalgamated into one beautiful euphonious sound of good health. Most importantly, I would be able to make Gameday (not saying I'm the lucky fan, but every game I've been to, we've won by atleast 20 points.) The day afterwards, I slept for only seven hours. I can feel my bod...

This week, for my Wikipedia trail, I started off learning about the Rakshasa, and ended up on the page for the acre. We will learn about two interesting intermediate steps along the way as well. First, I started on the page for: Rakshasa.  Rakshasas are a class of mythical beings within Indian mythology, the name translating to "man-eater." They are somewhat similar to what contemporary mythology might consider a demon or monster. Within the Ramayana, rakshasas are beings that are on the side of Ravana, the commander of the rakshasas, and there are many battles in the midpoint of the Ramayana about the rakshasas and the monkey armies. On the page of the Rakshasa was the page for: The Bengali Language . Bengali is the main language of the nation Bangladesh, and it is the second most spoken language within the India-Asia region, only behind Hindu. It developed at some point around the first millennium BCE, and it came to prominence around 500 AD, though that year is argued ...

This week, I learned more about the growth mindset, specifically, eradicating mental habits that hamper success. I read the article entitled "6 Bad Mental Habits that Sabotage Your Success" by Amy Morin. While there were six different habits that we do that all inhibit success to some degree, one in particular stood out: Making Excuses. First, on making excuses. In a psychology class I took in high school, we learned about something called the fundamental attribution error. This is essentially where we attribute our successes to our innate skill, our failures to the conditions around us, the success of others to the conditions around them, and the failures of others to their innate skill. It is interesting that this habit is seen so negatively by some that it is one of the main six that will inhibit success. I once saw an interesting comment by someone, that we all have lived long lives, had interesting experiences and successes, different relationships, educations, backst...

This week, I continue to learn more about sleep during the learning challenge. I was not able to complete this last week because I was slightly sick, and funny enough, I ended up sleeping 14-17 hours a day because of how tired I was. In order to learn more about sleep, this week I read: 10 Proven Ways Teachers Can Improve Their Sleep by Sarah Marsh. The article delves into some interesting details about sleep. Some of them are more obvious, such as not keeping lights on before one goes to bed and not drinking caffeine too often before bed, but there are also more subtle ones such as consistency in bed times and the optimal room temperature of 65 F. I personally learned more about the finer details this week, one interesting one was exercising in the morning as opposed to the night. There are interesting implications to all of these, and I'm considering trying as many as I can. One thing that would be interesting is how ingestion of melatonin affects sleep. Many of the people I...

This week, I completed a Story Lab in which I read the EmpoWord document. This had some interesting takes to narration and story telling that I had either learned previously and forgotten, or never learned at all. One interesting think that the book mentions is defining the scope and sequence of the story itself. Often time, I choose a plot and characters, but after that, I begin writing. This sometimes leads to issues where I do not know how to tie event A to event B within a story, but I know it needs to happen in order for the story to flow. Or, conversely, sometimes within the story, I will get to the point where I am not sure what should happen next. Properly defining a scope can not only reduce these problems, but make a story even stronger since the narrator knows every twist and turn. Another tool to take advantage of is pacing. I often pace the stories about the same throughout, so that the speed of the story is the same from beginning to end, but I remember that some of ...

This week, we continue reading the Mahabharata, part B of the Public Domain Edition (PDE). The first interesting parallel within this reading is of the competition to shoot the fish in the eye with the heavy bow. This is reminiscent of King Arthur and the magic sword, where no one, no matter how mighty, was able to lift the sword from the stone until King Arthur came along. That many people could not even lift the bow, let alone shoot it, makes Arjuna's accomplishment all the more impressive. This ultimately does beg a question though: why did no one ever question how much better they were at the competition than all of the other competitors? Consider a dunk contest or any physical requirement: if one athlete is so much more dominant than all of the others, it would surely raise eyebrows. So why does it not here? The lack of logical questioning comes up again during Duryodhana's gambling game where Yudhishthira continues to lose game after game after game. At one point, it ...

This week, we start reading a new Indian class, the Mahabharata, I chose to read the PDE (public domain edition) again, and this serves as notes for the first twenty stories within the epic. During the reading of the Ramayana, I would pre-read the plot on Wikipedia, this time, I will try to read only the PDE first, then the Wikipedia story if necessary. One thing that immediately stuck out was the high character turnover, compared to the Ramayana. In the Ramayana, there were not too many different characters, and the plot seemed to revolve around the characters. In contrast, the Mahabharata seems to have the characters revolve around a different plot. This seems to highlight the role that karma and the Gods play in the fate of the other people as their wills are shaped to the God's destiny. A second thing that stuck out was the role of curses in this story as well. In the ninth story of the PDE, "Pandu and His Wives", there is a similar role of a character killing som...

Once there was a dog named Kyler, and he was perhaps the best boy in the world. He could protect his owners from all sorts of perils, such as random people delivering paper, visitors that had to pass a rigorous security check, and even cleaning devices that projected so much noise that they could cover up the sound of approaching intruders. Kyler was great at his job, and every time he had done a good deed, he would be rewarded by getting to play with his favorite toy, a little plush reindeer. But Kyler also remembered what happened when he was a bad boy, his toy would be taken away. One day, Kyler was napping, paying little attention to his surroundings when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eyes. He stood up from his shady perch under the tree, and trotted over to the tree, where he saw a squirrel. The squirrel, being up to mischief, pelted an acorn at him. This brought a challenge to Kyler's territory, and he started shaking the tree in an attempt to get the squirrel ...

This week, we read a different type of the Ramayana to see a different telling of the same story. I read the Ramayana by Sister Nivedita . Previously, I had focused more on the overall style and choices that the author made, but in this post, I will delve further into specific examples to support the previous claim. The first story that comes to mind is when Hanuman is burning down Lanka, and he decides that the most important objective is that of rescuing Sita. It was not exactly as clear as to what his reason was for burning the city, or going back for Sita, despite saving himself. In this version, it is crystal clear, though, I do believe that it loses some kind of imagery that I had in my head when I read the story in the Public Domain Edition (PDE), though. A second story that is clearer in this version is the story of Indrajit vs. Hanuman. While the PDE edition does a good job of clarifying how Hanuman is captured and punished, this version does a great job of ensuring that t...

This week, we read a different kind of the Ramayana, allowing us to see a different telling of the story. I chose to read: Ramayana by Sister Nivedita . The main thing that stands out right from the get go is that this story is told in a very objective manner. There isn't too much emphasis on the rhyming or song like style of the story like there was in the previous version of the Ramayana, and it takes away to some degree the spirit of the story as a whole; however, I do believe that I comprehend this version of the story better. For instance, the beginning sets up very well, and I believe that makes for a more comprehensible story. This does bring up an interesting question of story of how crucial comprehension is to making a good story. The Ramayana that we read last week had a stronger feeling of spirit, the poetry and the language seemed to immerse the reader in the story. The intuitive flow is more smooth and it doesn't feel as jutted. However, I can comprehend this v...

This week, I had the opportunity to continue work at my consultancy position. This position has been very interesting for me because I have had the chance to delve deep into thermodynamics and advanced linear transforms while at work. I also get to learn more about algorithm analysis and programming as we are trying to develop a new algorithm to determine thermodynamic data. In addition, the career fair for many of the engineering majors was this Thursday, and a lot of my friends are currently stressing out about internships and interviews. This is leading to a decrease in their sleep which would be contra to my opinions on a healthy sleep schedule. Overall, I hope they do well and get an internship. Me personally, I will return to ExxonMobil in Spring, Texas this summer. Looking forward, we have a lot of tests coming up this next week, and I imagine that stress will increase a lot in my friends. I am hoping to do well on the tests and continue my streak of not being disappointed b...

This week, I continue a Wikipedia trail that interestingly starts out with Ravana, and ends up at the Zero-Sum Game theory from economics. Ravana  is one of the main characters of the Ramayana, stealing Sita away from Rama, and opposing Rama in great battles. He is depicted as the Rakshasa king within the poem, and the king of Lanka. He is depicted with ten heads, and he is considered to be one of the greatest devotees of Shiva. One Ravana's page, there is a link to... Political Science.  This is the field that studies governance, policy implementation, fields of law, etc. Essentially the study of the interaction between people and politics of any kind. It's focuses are on the roles, decision-making, and allocation of power within each different area of government. While it can be similar across cultures, it is often thought to be a different field of study when compared to two different governments, such as China and the United States. On the page of Political Science, th...

This week, I continue to learn more about sleep. In line with the health aspect of this adventure, I have learned more about the negative effects of sleep deprivation in this article. One thing that this article confirmed for me was how harmful a lack of sleep can be. It goes into hallucinations, diabetes, bipolar disorder, etc, but the main idea is that we often think that sleeping less will help us be more productive, but it ends up harming us down the road. I used to stay up till around 2AM and wake up at 8 regularly, so not as big of a sleep deficit as many people, but the world is a completely different place when I get 7-9 hours of sleep using a consistent bed time schedule. An interesting topic to follow up on is whether or not sleeping too much also has an adverse effect, and whether or not one can truly catch up on sleep. The interesting thing in this article is that it makes it clear that we do not know exactly why people sleep. There are theories, but no concrete conclu...

This week, I read an article that covered how the growth mindset has strayed from its path, titled, "The Stanford professor who pioneered praising kids for effort says we’ve totally missed the point" by Jenny Anderson. One thing that this article confirmed for me was that intelligence is a malleable object. Our brain is a muscle and it can be worked out and improved over time. It's interesting though, because the article discusses how when we focus on growth mindset, we get lazy and try to just reward effort as opposed to the opportunities to grow. It seems to me that the growth mindset is about the opportunity to grow, rather than trying with no results. Dweck notes that this is often the case where adults tell children that they have done a good job, but there is no thought on the future. One thing that I would like to know more about is to what degree the brain can be stretched as a muscle, and if there are any limits that people naturally have. For example, I lik...

This week, I completed a Story Lab, in which I watched two separate TED Talks, the links can be found here . The first talk seems to epitomize the first impressions we develop from stories, while the second one delves into the relationships we make with characters. In the first talk, the idea of a first impression is further discussed, where the speaker notes how she had opinions of a country that had been built up solely from a few stories she had been told, and how when she encountered other people, they already had predispositions based on stories they had been told. This can be broadened to a wider audience to suggest that we often see short amounts of information, and then we make the conclusions ourselves. For example, people often just read the headlines of news articles and believe they know everything about that topic afterwards, as opposed to ever reading the article. The second talk digs into the connections we make with fictional characters, and why we spend so much tim...

https://sites.google.com/view/indra-the-thunder-god/home

This week, I finished up the Ramayana. The stories in D are told slightly differently form the stories in A-C, with the main thing that stood out to me being the irrationality of the characters. There is a large number of battles that occur within the final part of the Ramayana, often with Rama and others dying. However, for some odd reason, this is perfectly permissible because there's a root in a far off kingdom that Hanuman can get to really quickly and find, then he can race back and revive people. The root itself causes a lot of logical issues, but in addition, why not just pick the root and grow it somewhere else? Additionally, why do they keep going to battle after a loss? If Indrajit where to do his job optimally, he would kill Rama and capture the body instead of waiting for him to be revived. While the Ramayana often does not have logical consistencies, there is no clear reason that the battles occur this way. Next, there is the proving of Sita's purity. The trial...

For this week's reading, I finish up the Ramayana, Public Domain Edition. Part C ranges from stories number 41-60. The most interesting part of this story was the focus on Hanuman as a semi-main character. It depicts him on his journeys to find Sita, and in the beginning where he does not help Rama. Perhaps more interesting is the beginning story of how Rama gains Hanuman's trust in the first place. It is never actually explicitly mentioned within these stories of Rama directly helping Hanuman as he had previously, but rather, Sugriva. This in turn leads to Sugriva being indebted to Rama. The thankfulness and admiration that everyone has for Rama is evident when Hanuman realizes that he might have burned down the entire down and Sita, where he would rather die than return a failure to Rama. Also of interest is the seemingly odd restrictions placed on Ravana. There is substantial hinting that in his past, he was also treacherous, as in the first half of the Ramayana, it is m...

This week is met with many different sources of stress and many different sources of work. I started work at a new consultancy company part time, which results in less time to study, but a different challenge overall. With tests coming up, it will be interesting to see how I am able to balance different classes with needing to sleep eight hours per day, and how I can also balance that against needing to cook my own foods. There is a sense of urgency in everything I do now as I must spend more time working on classes in my free time, and I do not have the same time to simply goof around. While I still plan on slacking off to the best of my abilities, I unfortunately have to focus some efforts on classes. We have had quizzes in numerical methods, hard homeworks in thermodynamics, and difficult questions in complex analysis. This, combined with reading research papers at my job and delving out the minutiae vs. the substance is resulting in an increased difficulty in my time overall. B...

This week, I used the starting point of the Ramayana for my Wikipedia trail, which ended up with the page for Espresso. First, we start with the Ramayana , which is an epic Indian Poem. In the poem, the exile of Rama and his wife, Sita is described, as well as their eventual return. There are stories of different Gods and monsters within it. It is one of the largest poems in existence with over 24,000 verses and over 500 chapters. The common themes are that of honesty, duty, and the ideal son and father. Within the Ramayana was the post for: Indonesia . Indonesia is an archipelago (collection of close islands) north of Australia. It is one of the most populated islands and has been an important trade region for many years. Since it is so close to the equator, there is not four different seasons, but rather, a dry season and a wet season. This results in a decently tropical climate as a whole. Within the page for Indonesia was a page for: Coffee.   Coffee is a drink that ...

This week, I decided to learn more about sleep. In their article, " Why Sleeping May Be More Important Than Studying," Mindshift delves into a study of students, and the effect that a lack of sleep can have on their abilities to perform in the classroom. The interesting thing about this article is that while the study does show sleep to be more important than we might have thought, sacrificing sleep for studying often leads to lower performance in the classroom. The article notes that when children took tests, they not only could not remember the material as well, their short term memory would also fail. An interesting follow-up to this article would be over college students since the material is more difficult, but routine sleep deprived people might develop immunities to the short term difficulties the students in this study face. In order to maximize the utility of this article, I am still planning on maintaining a regular sleep schedule, going to bed at around the sa...

This week, I looked at student quotes in order to hopefully gain a change in perspective or new thought related to the growth mindset and improvement. I found the quotes on a Padlet . Two quotes that really stuck out were: "I was so focused on not failing that I almost missed the whole point of school. To learn. And you learn from your mistakes, from your past. You don't learn anything from doing nothing wrong. You have to mess up to learn, you have to mess up to grow." This one stuck out to me because it epitomizes a lot of what people struggle with in school. We generally just focus on getting the grade, and subordinate learning to be a secondary consideration. This results in moving on to the next year without being prepared and still not learning in the next year either. "I want to pay more attention to the growth rather than the speed. I always try to learn things quickly and have many times crammed before an exam without actually learning the concepts. I feel l...

This week, I had the opportunity to learn more about positive feedback, as opposed to last week where I learned more about negative feedback. The two articles I read were Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise?  and Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" First, Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. This article is interesting because it delves further into the ratios of positive vs. negative feedback that managers give. I found one thing interesting that managers often decide not to give positive feedback because they want to be seen as the tough boss that tells it as it is; however, many times, people rave about the great boss they have and how they can feel comfortable talking to them when they mess up. It would be interesting to see more employee side surveys where they see which kind of manager employees would rather have, then they compare the efficiencies of the two groups. Alternatively, it would be interesting to see th...

This week, I am working on deciding a few possible stories that I could write about related to the topic of Indra, the Thunder God. Three possible stories that came to my mind after doing some research are: his weapon, the Vajra, his identity compared to other Thunder Gods, and finally, a retelling of defeating the drought serpent, the Vritra. First, the Vajra . The vajra often shows up in use, and it is stated that an instrument maker, Tvastra, created it for him, but it might be interesting to retell a story of how it was created, or to give another look into modeling the Tvastra as we do modern day cars, where there are many considerations made for common uses and more economical uses as well. Next, I could compare Indra to other gods . In the Heroes of Olympus stories, by Rick Riordan, there is mention that the gods Ares and Mars are actually the same god, they just embody a different persona based on culture and times. I would be interested in perhaps comparing two cultures (s...

I almost always have a problem with cooking in general. The main issue is that most of the foods that I like to eat are not general things I can cook quickly (or I am just extremely lazy, likely the latter), or, I make too much of one food that I cannot eat it all before it expires. This Saturday, I noticed that five pounds of beef were in my fridge that were going to expire within a couple of days, so I decided to make five one pound burgers for me and some friends for the game. Which was okay, aside from the fact we were eating 1,000 calories for breakfast. Or another time, I decided to make 20 lbs of jambalaya because I didn't want to cook for two weeks, but at the end of the first week, I was tired of jambalaya. This generally isn't the worst of problems, because my roommate eats the jambalaya. It is also a problem because it happens somewhat irregularly, but the other consequence of this is that when I don't want to cook, I'll just eat out. This is bad for both h...

This week, I researched more into Indra, the Thunder God, and followed a Wikipedia Trail that lead me to scientific pressure. My starting point: Indra, the Thunder God . Indra is a deity in Hindi and Buddhist texts, and he is often thought of as the Thunder God, God of the heavens, rains, lightning, and rivers flowing. He is known for defeating Vritra, a serpent monster associated with the drought, and he is seen in high regard. Also mentioned on his page is: Thor , the Norse God of Thunder. Thor is known for his red hair, beard, and his hammer that he wields. There is thought to be a parallel between Thor and Indra based on their hair color, and different weapons they wield that are considered to be signature items. Thor wields his hammer while Indra wields a thunderbolt named Vajra. Mentioned on Thor's page is: Thunder . This one should seem obvious, but an interesting thing about thunder is that while it is often considered to be connected to lightning in some way, it is a...

There was once a terrible monster named Thataka, the father of a terrible demon named TJ, or Thataka Junior. He lived in the Midwest plains and often looked for challengers. One day, he saw a man, named DJ, short for Dasharatha Junior, and his friends, Dasharatha Junior Friend 1 and Dasharatha Junior Friend 2. They were wandering in the plains, and surveying the area for future settlement. The demon Thataka started throwing random hay bales and tumbleweeds at the group of friends, and began bellowing as loudly as he could. This startled the group of friends, and they began preparing a strategy to fight him. DJ returned fire by slashing Thataka with a sword, and Thataka, in order to regain a competitive advantage, blinded DJ. However, using the power of echolocation, DJ was still able to locate Thataka, and using the “spray and pray” strategy with his sword, began slashing Thataka into pieces. The demon was defeated and died, however, there was news of Thataka’s death that eventually m...