Epic Things

Bibliography.  "The Elephant and the Dog" from More Jakata Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt (1922).  Web Source. Focus Story: The Elephant and the Dog Notes:  - Elephant and the dog became best friends after continuous visits by the dog to eat the elephant's leftovers.  - They became close and would do everything together. - One day, comes a farmer who catches a glimpse of the dog. He wants the dog and offers to buy it from the elephant-keeper who agrees. - Over time, the elephant became more and more depressed as he misses his best friend to the point he would not eat or bathe. - The king found out about this and announces a large reward for the return of the dog. - The dog returns and they lived happily ever after.   Elephant and Dog (Source: ENews ) Thoughts : This was such a cute and endearing story. I love how loyal the elephant was to the point he would not eat without his best friend. The plot of this story is about pure friendship and I am all for it. It makes...

Bibliography. "The Three Fishes" from More Jakata Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt (1922). Web Source. After reading all the stories from Part A of More Jakata Tales, I decided to focus on The Tree Fishes as this story stood out to me.  Focus Story: The Three Fishes Notes:  - Three characters: Very-Thoughtful, Thoughtful, Thoughtless - Beginning: The three fishes leave their safe home out into the open river. - Very-thoughtful expresses a concern as it's dangerous since there are fishermen in the open river but the rest were not. - Thoughtful and Thoughtless accidentally and foolishly ran into a fisherman's net. - Very-thoughtful cleverly saved them. Because of this, they agree to go back home with Very-thoughtful. Fisherman (Source: Web ) Thoughts and Ideas for Storytelling : I really enjoy this story and chose it mainly because there are endless possibilities for storytelling. The names of the fishes were unique and describe the character. The story was simple and an easy...

Long ago in the land of Hastinapura, Queen Vichitravirya ruled with an iron fist. The Vichitravirya has two daughters, Pandu and her older daughter Dhritarashtra. After the queen passed away, the throne fell into Pandu, Vichitravirya's youngest daughter.  Queen Pandu has five daughters all with different husbands: Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. People call them the Pandava sisters. After Queen Pandu passed away her sister, Dhritarashtra, assumed the throne. Dhritarashtra has one-hundred daughters, all known as the Kauravas with the eldest named Duryodhana. Both the Pandavas and the Kauravas grew up together. But as they grew older, Duryodhana grew more and more resentful towards her cousins' beauty. When Duryodhana's own mother elected Yudhisthira as the heir to her throne, Duryodhana plans to ruin her cousins. Slowly, the Pandavas turn into nobodies after Duryodhana manipulated her mother into stripping their royal titles. As the Kaurava took over...

Bibliography . The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata- The Princes of Elephant City by C. A. Kincaid (1921).  Web source. Synopsis : Duryodhana continues to destroy the Pandavas. The Pandavas go into war against the Kauravas including Drona.  Drona is killed by manipulation. He was tricked into thinking his son is dead. Duryodhana goes into a one-on-one fight with Bhima. Bhima wins. The Pandavas win the war. Yudhishthira becomes King of Hastinapura. In the end, the Pandavas and Duryodhana make peace in heaven. Yudhisthira and the dog (Source: Websource ) Thoughts : Part B is definitely much shorter than part A. What I really like about this part of the retelling is the simplicity of the ending. It's very straightforward and easy to understand. As someone whose English isn't that great, I enjoyed this retelling.

Bibliography . The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata- The Princes of Elephant City by C. A. Kincaid (1921).  Web source. Synopsis: King Vichitravirya has two sons, Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Pandu becomes king and has five sons (Pandavas: Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva). When Pandu dies, Dhritarashtra becomes king. He has 100 sons with Duryodhana as the eldest ones and they are collectively called Kauravas.  Drona is the trainer of the Pandavas and Kauravas. The Pandavas are his favorite which makes Duryodhana jealous. Drona uses his pupils to attack his enemy, King Drupada of Panchala.  The gods gift King Drupuda with the beautiful girl Draupadi to avenge his kingdom. A monster, Hidimbi, falls in love with Bhima after the Pandavas goes into exile. During this exile, Baka torments the Pandavas. Arjuna is able to win a contest to be a suitor for Draupadi. Due to a misunderstanding with his mother, all four brother marries Draupadi. Yudhisthira loses everything in...

I am happy with my overall progress in this class. A lot of you reading this might see that I am working ahead. I am working on this class almost all day every day whenever I am not at work. I am most happy with my microfictions because it took me so long to think of ideas that are possible to tell under 100 words. I am also really proud of my website. I really wanted my storybook to exude the Marvel universe aesthetic and I feel like I have done that so far. In the next few weeks of this class, I would like to really focus on my writing skills especially in the stories of my project. I'd like to improve my grammar and the clarity of my writing. I hope to avoid confusing stories as I tend to just babble on and on.    Every Morning Quote (Source: Laura Gibbs with photo by James Gordon )

The writing assignments have been going pretty well for me. I enjoy the idea of storytelling with our own twist rather than a simple retelling of the same story. It's really unique in that sense. The reading assignments have been good. The hardest part is definitely how complicated and rich Ramayana and Mahabharata are. There are so many characters and stories within the story that I typically forget what is going on. For my reading notes, my first note is definitely way longer than my most recent note. I learned that with reading notes it is best for me personally to write a short, concise, and simple note. These help me the most with the storytelling assignment. I am overall really happy with the blog and my project website. A lot of the problems or challenges of my writing are definitely the clarity and grammar. Dr. Gibbs gives really good feedbacks that really tackle these issues I have.  The image I have chosen is a really nice modern interpretation of Ashwatthama. I really lo...