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...