Review: Borders in the Mind

"Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people." image. 

Source: OU Class Announcements.

This is my favorite picture from the recent announcements on March 7, 2017. This is true. If the people of the world just took a moment to get rid of the prejudices and borders they create in their own minds, what a wonderful place the world would be.

Famous Last Words: Post Midterms and Spring Break Spree

Ahhhh~ The break that I've been looking forward to the most since the start of 2017. Spring break always comes as a nice breath of fresh air. The week before spring break was extremely hectic. I felt like I had so much to do, but so little time to do it. Although I am still pressed for time right now, it definitely wasn't as crazy as last week. Whew.

Since I didn't do much writing and reading this week for this class, I don't think I'll have much to say regarding the Indian epics, but let's just see what I can mentally conjure up. I enjoyed this week's reflection and evaluation assignments because I got to voice my opinions regarding various topics. I did do some casual reading over break. I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Caraval over break. The former was a rather odd book, but slightly funny at the same time due to all the weird characters and stories. The latter was really interesting because there was mystery, magic, and romance all in one book--my favorite genres. I'm glad that I am getting back into reading because I used to be an avid reader before college started. I probably read at least 10 books a week before. It's crazy to think that I've read less than 10 books for fun (I don't count textbooks, although some textbooks are pretty enjoyable) the entire 4 years I've been at OU.

I got to catch up a lot in this class over break. I've done a bunch of extra credit assignments just to get ahead. It seems that if I keep this up, I should be done with this class by the end of Week 11. Yay for early endings!! Although this is one of my more enjoyable classes... Next week, I hope to have time to write a story THAT WILL BLOW EVERYONE'S MIND. Since I only have a few weeks left in this class, I'm going to make the best of it. Especially since I only have 1 story in my portfolio so far. Fingers crossed!

"Believe in yourself." Ant holding up a giant twig meme. 

Source: Memecenter.

EVENT NOTIFICATION

My sorority is hosting a Thai Tea Tuesday on campus on March 21st from 10am to 1pm! We are selling ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS Thai Tea drinks and everyone should come check it out! 

Extra Reading Post: Ganesha's Secret

Ganesha's Secret

• How can anyone with weird heads be gods? 
• Why is there more than one god. 
• The Hindu notion of divine is unique, it is not restricted to a single idea or deity. 
• Each deity is a jigsaw puzzle, that comes together to make an overall God. 
• The world is subjective, for each person there is a different "world"
• I think this is rather profound. If I could write a story about this, that would be really cool. 
• Each world is different, but what matters more? The answer is everyone's world matters. 
• stories, symbols and rituals communicate a myth 
• Many things in life cannot be explained by logic
• Different cultures have different answers as to what happens after death 
• maybe I can write about a story of different perspectives about death 
• Ganesha's head 
• implies power because the elephant is not prey to many 
• the idea of Ganesha is reinforced by the story of his birth
• Parvati married shiva
• while bathing, Parvati molded a doll and created a child that was born without the help of a man
• He was beheaded 
• Shiva gave the child the head of an elephant that was part of the land of immortality 
• Ganesha represents the union of two opposites: Shiva and Parvati

Screenshot by me. 

Bibliography: 

"7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art - Chapter 1 Ganesha's Secret" by Epified. 

Wikipedia Trails: from Wonder Woman to The Jade Emperor

1. Wonder Woman
• Wonder Woman is a superheroine in the DC Comic universe. She is a member (founding member) of the Justice League and a warrior princess of the Amazonian people. She was actually sculpted from clay and given life by Athena!
2. The Amazonian people
• They are a fictional society of superhuman, based on the Amazons of Greek mythology. They are made of only women that live on Paradise Island. 
3. Demigod
• This is a term for an individual who is a minor deity, a mortal whose parents are a god and a human being, or someone who has attained divine status. 
• In Hinduism, demigods are deities who were once humans and became gods. 
4. The Jade Emperor
• In Chinese mythology, he is the first god and is the monarch of all heavenly deities
• He is also known was the Heavenly Grandfather or the Great Emperor of Jade
• although he was the head of the pantheon, he was not responsible for creation itself.

Image depicting the Jade Emperor. 

Source: Wikipedia article Jade Emperor.

Growth Mindset towards... Relationships?

For this growth mindset post, I would like to talk about relationships. I was looking at the Growth Mindset Cats page and this really caught my eye. After being in a relationship that lasted a substantial amount of time and leaving it pretty recently, I have learned a few things about relationships and one of the most important things is: relationships require effort. Regardless of whether the relationships are platonic or romantic, I find that there's always a degree of effort that needs to be put in--but there needs to be equal amounts put in by both parties. A lot of people will end up leaving their partners after troubles arise, but few realize that it takes work to overcome these obstacles. The good thing is, after you do put in this effort, you can reap the benefits of having a long-lasting relationship where you can fully trust the other person and enjoy their company without fear of judgment because this person has seen your highest of highs and lowest of lows.

"Relationships require effort" meme of two cats being cute. 

Source: Growth Mindset Cats.

Learning Challenge: The Lotus

The quote for this happiness meme is from a Buddhist proverb, but I could not find who actually said it. I created this image from AutoMotivator.

Week 8 Growth Mindset

After pondering my mindset, I have come to realize that I compartmentalize a lot. In some classes, I tend to go above and beyond, but in others, I do the bare minimum. Looking at the different dimensions of growth, I feel like half of me is growth and half of me is fixed at this moment in my life. I wish I could say I had an entirely growth mindset.

I think my strengths in my classes are that I always try to do work that I will be proud of. Yet, I want to do it in a way that is the moment efficient so I can get it over with quickly, so sometimes, I have to give up quality for time. I think that comes with college though because you have to prioritize to make sure everything is at least done in a timely manner.

Due to the flexible nature of Indian Epics, I have the luxury of working at my own pace for the most part. I think this will help me build on my weaknesses because through this class, I can practice my internal motivation to do my best work. Like most, I am focused on the grades mostly. It's just that there are some fields that require a good GPA to get into the school (like med, PA, nursing, pharm, law, etc.). This isn't something that is necessarily good because there are people (like me sometimes) that will focus on getting the grade rather than retaining the information. As much as I love to learn, there has been more than one occasion where I have forgotten all of the material after an exam is over. I wish that wasn't the case, though.

I think for the rest of this semester, I will focus on doing things earlier. I already have been doing it a little. Whenever I have exams coming in the next week, I would try to finish my assignments a week early. I would like to do this all the time, however.

The 2% Mindset. 

Source: Growth Mindset Cats. 

Week 8 Reflections

1) Reading

I think I have been making okay choices with the reading. When I first chose the PDE version for the Ramayana, I didn't expect it to be so dense and hard to understand. Luckily, I wasn't too far into the PDE version before I switched to Narayan's version. Because Narayan wrote it like a novel, it was much easier to follow and I enjoyed it much more because the characters were explained and introduced while I was reading. The reading I enjoyed most definitely was the Ramayana. This story followed one trajectory that was really interesting. The Mahabharata was interesting too, with all of its twists, but I definitely liked the Ramayana much, much more. I have been keeping up with the readings for the most part, except for one week where I took a break from Indian Epics because I had a lot of exams to do. I also like to include what I think would be a good topic to write about, which makes it easier for me when I go back and look at what I was thinking whilst reading. As for the coming weeks, I am excited to read about the gods and goddesses and Buddhist jataka tales.

2) Writing

I have only written 3 stories so far, but I feel that I am doing okay so far. The most recent story, I had an idea of where I was going with it, but I kind of lost it at the end. I hope that after I revise it, it will turn into something I am really proud of. I had already known that I was a slow writer since the beginning, but I also learned that the more time a project takes, the less motivated I am to start early. This is a bad trait when it comes to writing because I am reluctant to do it due to my perfectionist personality. I hope to be rid of it soon. When I need ideas for writing, I like to go online and see what scenario ideas people have and how I can integrate those in my writing/stories. I would like to branch out more in the next few weeks. The past few weeks, I've been writing stories that are more or less on the same trajectory as the stories. I recently read a peer's story and she only took one line out of the story and wrote an amazing story out of it. I want to try that eventually.

3) Connecting
I really enjoy good stories. There are so many people in class with amazing writing skills and there are some that are about average. Some people have the tendency to make their stories a huge wall of text that makes it hard to digest the story. That is something I would like to avoid in my writing. I think I'm giving good feedback, especially when it comes to portfolio comments because they're longer and allow me to freely express my thoughts.

Me sometimes:

Source: Pinterest.