Week 14 Famous Last words

A week before dead week! Dead week is here! I cannot believe that my college career is almost over. Good thing is that since I have couple online classes, I don't have that many finals. It is so hard to concentrate when I am about to graduate. My motivation has left me after I took the senior portrait.

I read some awesome stories by fellow classmates and they were all so creative. Since my major doesn't involve a lot of writing, it was fun to explore other people's writings. My favorite was the birth story storybook.

I am trying to finish this class today so that I can just start working on other classes. I have a final paper due for capstone tomorrow and also a world music paper due on Friday. After I get through all the papers, I will be able to focus on my studies.

Work wasn't too bad. I am getting burned out a little bit, but I think its natural for a person who had the same job for a long time. I will be training the new baristas this week again which won't be that bad.


I had a great weekend. I spent some time with a great friend of mine. I went to a car racing event which was mind-blowing and watched a movie too. The car racing event was exhilarating. There were so many mustangs because it was mustang club event. I was able to ride in my friend's car which has 540 hp. The car event was something different and I hope to go to more of those in the future.

 I watched a movie called Ex Machina. The movie made me think about how technology is dominating our universe now. The movie was great, but I did not like the ending. It is crazy how technology rules this world now and soon, the technology might take over the human population. I would recommend this movie to other people too.

Here is a funny meme for Finals.

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Portfolio Introduction

Storytelling for Week 4:Diary of Kaikeyi
Storytelling for Week 5: Diary of Shurpanakha
Storytelling for Week 7 Sita Abandoned
Storytelling for Week 12: Rishyashiringa

Reading Diary B Week 14

• Bhishma's death was very dramtic. I thought it was cool how Bhishma had a choice on the day he will die. I thought it was very meaningful how he dies on winter solstice which was the shortest day of the year. Another cool thing that happened was that his scars disappear from his body. 
• I wonder what the meaning of Yudhishthira's dream. He had a dream where he traveled with his brothers, Draupadi, and a dog. All of sudden, everybody died, but the dog was with him. Then Indra appeared infront of Yudhisthira and ask him to go to heaven, but he had to leave the dog. Yudhishthira refuses to abandon the dog and find out that the whole thing was a test. The dog was the Lord Yama who was trying to test his son. This event reminded me of the movie Kingsman. In the movie, Eggsy had to either kill the dog or not become a Kingsman.
• Because Yudhishthira is faithful, he was able to go to the heavens in his dream. Later, he woke up realizing that it was just a dream.
• The Pandava line was dead at first. The story was that Princess Uttara gave a birth to a son, who was the only one left of the Pandavas, were born dead. With the power of Krishna, he was able to gain life. 
• I thought it was nice how Krishna was presented with a new chariot from Maya. 
• It was nice reading Buck's version of Mahabharata, but it wasn't my favorite. I'm not a big war fan, but Buck's Mahabharata had a lot of war scene. 

Yudhishthira in his dream

Famous Last Words Week 13

Like every other week, this week have been busy. I had some papers due in my other classes so I had to engage myself with word document. In my Organizational/ Industrial psychology class, I am currently working on a presentation. For my capstone class, I had to visit the mental hospital to go meet my patient. I actually could not go to my world music class because I got called into work early. My online classes are going well.

I can't believe there's only three weeks of school left! After that three weeks, I will no longer be a student anymore. It is crazy to think that I will be an official grown-up now! I think I will be joining the Army after my graduation. I was planning on going to nursing school, but I decided to take a break from school. I've realized that I was very exhausted from going to school and working.

Work was super busy because I had to train two new people. Other than training, work wasn't too bad. Starbucks is coming up with a new summer frappuccino called S'mores frappuccino.

I enjoyed reading other people's writing. Because it's toward the end of the semester, there weren't a lot of stories, but the ones I read were great! I had to do some revision this week for my new story. My favorite story was a story written by Khadija called "The show must go on". The story contained showed thoughts of different characters. The characters were the Pandavas, Duryodhana/Karna, The post clearly showed the protagonists and antagonists mindset. Khadija had a very unique way of writing.


I watched Fast and Furious last week, but I 've been obsessed with the song that they played at the ending scene. It is called See you again by Wiz Khalifa (feat. Charlie Puth). The song made me think of a good friend of mine who is deployed to Abu Dhabi.

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Storytelling Week 12: Story of Rishyashringa

My name is Rishyashringa and I am going to tell you a little story about me. In my story, there are two significant events that happened to me. I am going to tell you a story about my birth and how I met my lovely wife. I hope you enjoy.

Birth story:
When my parents first told me my birth story, I was a little disturbed because it is quite unusual. To start off, I am a little different from others because I am half deer and half human. My birth story sounds embarrassing, but here it goes. One day, my dad, Vibhandaka, was taking a walk around his house. He told me it was part of his daily routine. While he was walking around, he said he saw someone at the lake. Because there were so many bushes around the lake, he could not see who it was, so he decided to get close up. When he got close to the lake, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. The beautiful women was an apsara named Urvashi. He told me that she was so beautiful that he immediately ejaculated and the sperm went into the lake. Vibhandaka was so embarrassed about what had just happened. As he was leaving the lake, he saw a deer drinking the water. My dad did not know that this event would result in a birth of son. Through this dramatic story, I was born.

Because my mom is a deer, I have some unique looks. I have an antler on my head and some spots on my body, but luckily, all the rest is human. The unique mixture of DNA also resulted in some superpower because I was able to control the weather.



How I met my wife:
It was just a normal day. I was just outside of my house enjoying the weather. Some lady came to my house looking for me. It was weird meeting another human because the only human I've interacted with was my father. This lady's name was Shanta and I just fell in love at first sight. All of sudden, she hugged me and kissed me. I was surprised by her action, but I liked it. Since I did not have any human friends, it was nice interacting with another human. She stayed over that night and we had a great time.

After I put Shanta to bed, Dad asked me to come speak to him. I thought my dad would be happy for me, but he told me to stay away from Shanta. He said she was evil. I could not listen to him because I was already in love with Shanta. I told him that there was nothing he could do because I was already in love with her.

She stayed for the rest of the week. Shanta told me that she was princess of Anga and that she needed to go back soon. I asked her if I could go with her and she happily said yes!

The next day, Shanta and I packed up and went to Anga. When we arrived there, it started to rain and Shanta seemed so happy. I asked her why and she told me that Anga has been waiting for my power because they were going through a drought. Although I felt used a little bit, it did not matter because I loved Shanta.

Rishyasringa and Shanta

Author's Note

I decided to write a story about Rishyashringa. He had an interesting birth story and I thought he was a good character to write about. I was quite shocked when I read his original story because the content was pretty sexual. I wrote the story in first person so that the story came from Rishyashringa's point of view and made it sound like he was telling a story to some other person. I kept the original story for the most part, but added little details so that it would not be the same as the original. I made Rishyashringa have spots on his body and described each event more in-depth. Other than that, I wanted to keep the story original. I found the perfect picture of Shanta and Rishyasringa so I thought it was suited for my story. In the picture, it displays the antlers on  his head which shows that he wan't a full human. The one thing I learned from this story was that no matter how we look or where we are from, we deserve to be loved and to love. Although Rishyashringa had a different look, Shanta fell in love with him. I hope we all can love like Rishyashringa and Shanta.

Bibliography:

• Buck, William (1973). Mahabharata.

Storytelling for Week 7: Sita Abandoned

It has been almost ten thousand years since Rama and Sita were back in Ayodhya. Throughout all these years, Sita wasn't able to have a baby. Although she wanted one very much, Rama was too busy taking care of Ayodhya.

One day, Sita heard some great news which might change her life. Sita was finally pregnant! She was so joyous that she could not handle her emotions that were going through her. Sita had tried so hard to become pregnant. The first thing that popped into her mind was to tell Rama the good news!  When Rama heard the news, he was so happy! Sita also wanted to visit the Ganges river as a family tradition. Every woman who got pregnant visited the Ganges to make the body clean. Because the Ganges river was considered sacred, she wanted to go to the river and make sure that she was cleansed before she gave birth. However, there were some unexpected tragedies that were waiting for Sita. 

There was an episode which led to this tragedy. Ten thousand years ago, many things happened to Sita. Sita was abducted by Ravana and had to live with him at his palace for a long time. Because people knew about Sita living at Ravana's palace they gossiped about Sita saying that she was dirty and not pure. The only person who did not hear the gossip was Rama. The gossip was cruel, so no one spoke about Sita in front of Rama. 

Sita was still at the Ganges and one day, Rama was walking around the garden to refresh his mind. While taking a walk, he saw two of his officers talking and heard them gossiping about Sita. He hid behind the tree to listen to the officer's conversation secretly. The two officers were talking bad about Sita and calling her names because she lived with Ravana for a long time. Although Rama knew that Sita lived in Ravana's house, he did not know that people were talking bad about her. Rama knew that he could not have Sita live with him anymore because he did not want his reputation ruined as a king.

After a couple weeks, Rama called his brother,Lakshmana, and gave him a mission. The mission was to take Sita to the Ganges with Sumantra, who was the prime minister, and to abandon Sita there. It has been only a couple weeks since Sita came back from Ganges, but she was about to return to the Ganges. Although it was cruel, Rama had to make a decision. He did not want to hear people talking bad about Sita. Lakshmana thought it wasn't fair for Sita, but there was nothing he could do about the situation. Since Rama was the king, Lakshmana did not want to do anything that was against Rama. While this was all going on, Valmiki, King Janaka's friend, found out that Sita was about to be abandoned. Before Sita's father, King Janaka, passed away, he told his good friend Valmiki to watch over Sita. Although Valmiki was a hermit, the Gods allowed him to have the power to travel from place to place in a split second. To carry out this will of King Janaka, Valmiki was going to save Sita no matter what. 

Lakshmana and Sumantra left Sita at the Ganges river. The Ganges river was the home of the goddess Ganga, who was an Indian Goddess. Ganga invited Sita to the water to clean her. Although Sita had been there two weeks ago, Ganga encouraged Sita to be cleansed once again. After Sita was done with the cleansing procedure, Valmiki came and took Sita to his hermitage. Sita was so confused and did not know what was going on. Valmiki informed Sita about the situation and Sita was shocked. Time passed and it was time for Sita to go into labor. Sita thanked the Gods for providing a place to give birth. Sita had mixed emotions about her life at that point, but she was able to give birth to two handsome sons, Kusha and Lava.

Image Source

author:  Himachal Pradesh

Author's Note

I decided to retell the story of Sita when she was abandoned by Rama. When I read this story, I thought it was very heartbreaking. I felt sorry for Sita. Because of the fact that Sita had to live with Ravana for years, many people talked bad about her and said she was not innocent. After ten thousand years, she was able to become pregnant. Even though she was  pregnant, Rama was bothered by all the gossip and rumors going around about Sita.  Due to all the gossip and rumors, Rama decided to abandon Sita at the Ganges. For the most part, I kept the original story. I added some details on how Valmiki and King Janaka were friends. I thought adding a character like Janaka to the story made the story more interesting because he was able to save Sita from her misery. There were changes made to the time frame of the story because I made Sita go to the Ganges two times. I inserted the picture of Valmiki's Hermitage in the story. I picked this picture because Valmiki's hermitage was where Sita gave birth to her sons. I thought it was significant for her to give birth at a place other than her palace. 

Bibliography

- Buck, William (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way. 

Reading Diary B Week 13

• There were so many characters involved in this week's reading.
• It was a little hard to follow along the story because some of the characters had different characteristics and backgrounds compared to the previous book we read. The characters had similar name or went by two different names
• Karna refused to fight anyone that was a women. I've noticed that the characters were pretty strong in their outlook on gender.
• The story of Amba was so sad. I thought it was sad how she was rejected by King Shalwa and had no where else to go. 
• I enjoyed reading the story of Sikhandini because there were a lot of drama within the story. Drupada wanted a son so he aske Shiva for a son, but when the child was born, it was a girl. I thought it was weird how Shiva did not know if it was a boy or a girl. The most messed up part of the story was that Drupada was going to let Sikhandin marry a girl. Although Sikhandini was raised like a boy, I am sure her body was a female body. I felt bad for Sikhandini because she probably went through identity crisis her whole life. It was nice how the Yaksha traded gender for Sikhandin.
• I thought it was nice how Arjuna got on the same team with Sikhandin
• Death of Bhishma contained so many imagery. The graphic was horrifying and beautiful at the same time. I thought it was crazy how he had so much arrow that his body did not even touched the ground. I thought it was beautiful how there were flower rain and water coming from the ground for Bhishma. 

Bhisma's bed