Week 2 Review

Even though I am in the indian Epics class rather than the Myth and folklore class, the item I found really interesting from the current announcements was Bulfinch's book of mythology. This was really fun to skim through, because I went to Italy this summer and it talked about a few of the characters I had learned about. This book would have been really helpful in answering some questions I had while I was there! I would have totally downloaded and read it if I had known about it! I didn't know that Vesta was in both Roman and Greek mythology. The temple of the Vesta in the Roman Forum was one of the most fascinating things I remember from my trip to "ancient Rome".

(Image Information: The House of the Vestal Virgins, Roman Forum. Source: TripAdvisor)

Week 2 Growth Mindset

(Image Information: Jake speaking the truth. Source: GJMueller)

I chose to write about Carol Dweck and Racheal Simmons' CNN article on "Why Women Fail". Basically, this piece talks about how women are the undisputed leaders of the classroom, and because of this they are despondent when they are faced with failure. It mentioned that when girls do not make an "A" in college, they seem to be more likely to drop a course than a boy would. They mentioned that it is because women are trying to pull a "trifecta" of being beautiful, smart and well-rounded. I thought it was really intriguing that Carol Dweck decided to write on the Growth Mindset in relation to women only.

Tech Tip: Embedded YouTube

For this week's tech tip, I am going to embed a youtube video into this post! I promise you will love the video, too. 

"Cat Gets a BRAIN FREEZE!!" at Youtube

Week 2 Curation

So my top three finds this week go as followed:

Sita Sings the Blues movie. This is a really interesting video to watch. It has beautiful animations and tells the story of Sita. It's almost like a "Ramayana for Dummies". If you didn't understand anything from the readings - this is a must watch! I've included the trailer for the piece so you can get an idea of what the movie is like.

"Sita Sings The Blues Trailer" at Youtube

The second thing that I found wasn't necessarily anything that would help me academically, but seeing as Dragon Ball Z is my husband's favorite thing ever, I had to bookmark this photo. It just goes to show you how important it is to be able to connect to what you are reading in this class! 

(Image Information: "This reminds me of a dragon ball z episode." Source: Book Culture Bookstore.)

The third item I chose to write about is Nabaneeta Dev Sen's article on how women relate to the Ramayana. His piece, "When Women Retell the Ramayan". It is a very powerful culture-based read. It talks about how the Ramayana has set up the Indian culture for a patriarchal system, and how Sita even plays a role in telling women how they should act. I thought the most interesting point of this piece was the role Sita was said to play in the "golden deer" story, and how she was at fault for what happened because she had "asked for it" and stepped outside society's boundaries for women.

Week 2 Reading Feedback

I chose to do the online readings instead of my book because I got a little confused reading the book I bought and where it correlated to the readings you selected. I found the audio files you made to be very helpful. Some of the pieces were harder to read than others - in my case, these were the ones written in the form of a poem. When I came across these, I knew that your audio would help me understand it more. I did feel like the reading took a little bit longer than you estimated for us. Some stories I had to read more than once because I could not understand what was trying to be said. I did like that you let us chose between online or printed formats of the reading.

(Image Information: Rama and Sita being in love. Source: Gallery Nucleus)

Storybook Topics

IDEA ONE: CSI Epics
Background: If you have read anything I have posted about myself, you know that I love TV shows (more like Netflix and Hulu, but still the same thing). One show that I am a little obsessed with is any of the CSIs. I figured this would be a really fun topic to explore a storybook with. I could narrate the deaths of specific characters and explain how we came to find out what causes their death. I think it would be really interesting to learn how each character’s death could be possibly connected.
Research so far: I got some ideas about possible stories from a storybook I read last week about 1000 ways to die in Indian Epics. I feel as if the more I read the epics assigned, the better knowledge I will have about creating this possible storybook. I can already think of some possible featured stories (Dashratha, Lakshmana) I would also of course use this handy-dandy death stories page provided by the lovely Professor. 

(Image Information: Crime scene photo. Source: The Indian Express)

IDEA TWO: Karma Cases 
Background: My husband always is talking about Karma, so I thought it would be interesting to research some stories about different action-reaction situations in the Epics that I read. I could also tell him about some horrible fates he might meet (as did some characters) if he is mean to me. I would be really interested to learn how each story reacts to the next one. I would love to learn how the very first pages I read in this class may have changed possible paths for characters.
Research so far: I got the idea because my husband was actually talking about karma while I was writing this assignment. Most of what I have been able to find about this possible Storybook originates from the list of past projects that dealt with the topic. For ease in research later, I am going to bookmark the page AND link it here (in case I'm on my ipad)

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IDEA THREE: Disney/Pixar Stories 
Background: After writing my first storytelling assignment and reading the stories other people came up with, I realized how much of these pieces relate to stories we all know at heart. I thought writing my Cinderella piece was very challenging and exciting as well! I think this would be a fantastic storybook because it challenges me to put these new characters into the world of my favorite stories as a kid. In doing so, I have to somehow relate objects and characters in a way that the audience understands what I am trying to portray.
Research so far: After looking through some of the storybooks, I realize my best bet is to read through most of the love stories or couple stories. Although some stories are very interesting, such as Krishna and Radha’s love, I’m not sure how I could necessarily tie their stories to my beloved childhood tales. However, I am thinking it could perhaps be okay if I made up my own fairytale storyline for this project as long as I follow the mainstream characteristics of Disney princess/love stories.

IDEA FOUR: War Stories 
Background: As someone that studies wars, international political theories, and things that surround these notions, I thought it would be interesting to come up with my own story about the battles the Indian Epics characters faced. I figured that I could possibly rewrite their stories in a way that could establish it as a story in the current day setting.
Research so far: As with the other possible storybooks that I have researched, the most helpful items that I looked at were past projects, although there were not as many to look at on this subject.  Even though there is not a lot of past material to perhaps play off of, it doesn’t mean I don’t love a challenge. (Growth mindset!) 

Week 2 Storytelling: Rama, A Cinderella Story

(Image Information: Photo of Rama and Sita. Source: Daily Kos)

There once was a very handsome man named Rama, son of Dasharatha. Although, Dasharatha favored Rama over his other sons, his wife and Rama's stepmother, Kaikeyi knew this was the case and had a plan to make her son, Bharata the ruler of the land, Ayodhya. She banished the poor Rama to the forest and in doing so, opened the doors to Bharata to take over the throne after Dasharatha's death.
However, Bharata knew that what his mother had done was wrong and that he could never be as good as Rama would be as the leader. Bharata escaped Ayodhya while his mother was not looking and set out to find Rama in the forest. Once he finally came across his brother, he asked him for forgiveness for the actions that had taken place. Rama knew it was not Bharata's fault and forgave his brother. Bharata attempted to bring Rama back to the city and grant his brother his rightful throne. However, Rama refused to go back Bharata only had two options. First, he tried to convince his beloved brother to let him take his place in banishment. Rama would not let his brother take this punishment for him, though. Bharata's only other option was to allow his brother to rule from afar until he would one day be able to return.
So. Bharata took the glass slippers from Rama's feet and took them back to the city to place them upon the throne. Bharata took over the operational aspects of rule, but diligently made sure that his brother came first. Every time someone brought a gift for them, the glass slippers were presented the item first. Whenever it was raining, Bharata would make sure that the slippers stayed dry. Bharata would wait for his brother to return, and was willing to wait forever. Meanwhile, Rama had other duties to tend to in the forest. An evil was lurking near him and his wife, Sita.

To be continued..... Will Rama ever return to Adyohya? What was the evil in the forest? What will happen next? Stay tuned next week to see the outcome!



Author's note: While I was reading the story of Rama's banishment, the only thing I could think about was a correlation to Cinderella. So that is what I wrote about! The image of Rama’s stepmother (or at least one of them) and the description of her jealously tied to Rama made a connection in my head to the stepmother in Cinderella. Due to the layout of the family, I actually googled the story to see if it had any influence on the princess story that we all know so well. AND THE VERDICT IS… no there is not a connection between the two, at least not one that they intended when they were making the childhood tale. Even though the connection did not exist, it did not mean that I could not make it exist. That’s right guys, I started something new and exciting. Although the story doesn't exactly follow the Ramayana, it presents the knowledge you need to know but just in a different manner. You should still be able to see the symbolic connections in my version of the fairytale. I thought it was pretty clever to turn the sandals into glass slippers and one of the stepbrothers into Rama's fairy godfather.

Resources: "The Sandals", Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913).

Reading Diary B: Public Domain Ramayana

I think that I enjoyed the second set of stories even more than the first! It is probably because the first readings set up the story, and this batch really got into some variety. My favorite part of this set was when Maricha became a deer. I thought the description of the deer was very interesting: lotus blue ears and a tail of rainbow! The first thing that I imagined was a "My Little Pony" character.

(Image Information: Maricha as the beautiful deer. Source: glimpse of krishna)

Anyways, I thought this was a very clever act. Even though Rama made Lakshman stay to protect Sita and in doing so had changed the way Ravana had originally foreseen the plot, they made their plan work around it and eventually captured Sita.
The other story I found to be very interesting was "The Sandals" by Donald A. Mackenzie. After deciding to not come back to Ayodhya, Bharata planned to rule for his brother while he was away, without taking the seat on the throne. Rather, an object of Rama's was placed on the throne to represent his rule. I thought it was interesting that Bharata held up his brother's right to the throne and even offered to be banished instead of Rama.
So far, my favorite character is Rama. This is most likely because his character has been established in so many different ways. I could tell his love for Sita was true in how he makes sure she is always protected (even though she may escape the protection such as when Ravana comes in disguise as an older, hungry man). You could almost feel his lament after finding out that Sita had been taken.

Reading Diary A: Public Domain Ramayana

After completing the readings, the ones that stuck with me most were "Bhagiratha and Ganga by John Campbell Oman" and "Rama Wins Sita by Donald A. Mackenzie". I think that I enjoyed the story of the goddess Ganga becoming a river because it made a definite correlation between the heavenly world and the earthly world. Not only was this connection made, the story mentioned the importance of communication with the Gods on a constant basis. It mentioned the line of men that continued to perform sacrifices in order to aid their ancestors that had passed on after coming into contact with Kapila. My favorite part of this story is when Ganga gets tangled in the hair of Shiva. For me, when I read that, I just had a strange image of a girl stuck in some guys hair. 

The second story I mentioned above (and the Janka story before it) grabbed my attention because it reminded me of Act III of Wagner's "Die Walkure". In Wagner's opera, the god Wotan sends his favorite daughter, Brünnhilde, into an enchanted sleep by kissing her eyes. In addition, he casts a spell that creates a magical flame around her that will only allow the bravest man to enter and save her. However, now that I think about it, I guess this is how a lot of epic stories play out when they involve the daughter meeting her soul-mate and most worthy companion. 

(Image Information: Photo of Rama and Sita. Source: Amor y Sabor)

I enjoyed most of the PDE readings, however, the few written in poetic form were a little harder for me to stay with. I seemed to get a little lost (thank goodness there was an audio recording!)