Indian Epics

Long long age there was a yaksha, a demi-god, named Suketha. Suketha had a daughter named Thataka. Beautiful, elegant, and graceful yaksha. Her beauty caught the eye of a asura chieftain named Sunda. He was a asura with great power and renown. Many gods feared him as he possessed great powers. Sunda went to Suketha to ask for Thataka. Suketha was happy to give Thataka to Sunda since Sunda ruled the lands of the mortals. The wedding ceremony was marvelous with high ranking asuras and yakshas attending as guests, foods were prepared by the best chiefs, and musics were played by the most renowned musicians in the lands. After the wedding Sunda and Thataka was enjoying their days as newly weds. Eventually, Thataka bore two sons named Mareecha and Subahu. Just like their father, Mareecha and Subahu was gifted with great strengths and powers. As they were immature, they started to demolish and ravaged the lands around them. Instead of teaching the kids, Sunda joined them and started to d...

Two Promises Revived - It was interesting to see even-though they did not remember their god life, Bharatha promised to rule only for fourteen years until Rama came back. Bharatha even told Rama he would burn himself if Rama does not come back in fourteen years. I think this passage shows great bond between characters and shows how great Rama as a person was.  Bharatha does not even enter Ayodhya, which was the capital of the kingdom. Image of Bharatha accepting Rama's shoes : Wikimedia Encounters in Exile -  Scene where he meets the sister of Ravana was interesting in a way that she is a sister of a demon but wishes to be good. Shows family drama which I love. - Kamavalli annoyed Rama with the marriage until she saw Sita, who was way more beautiful than her. I found this scene funny since the author used the description of her jaw dropping to the ground. - All these names are confusing me. I am guessing Kamavalli and Soorpanaka are the same character? - Funny how ...

(Image of Rama with his wife Sita, Hanuman, and Rama's brothers. Source. Wikipedia ) The Prologue - The story is very vivid. All the environment and events are described in good detail. - Vishnu decided to reincarnate as a son of the King Dasaratha to kill Ravana and his brothers. Sounds like a very common origin story, but always fun to read - Its interesting that Vishnu decided to born in a monkey clan, since Ravana was destined to be killed by a monkey. - Whole full year of sacrifice sounds very grim. But aftermath of this ritual was Rama and his brothers birth Rama's Initiation - Very interesting to read about Viswamithra here since I wrote a blog about him - The part where Viswamithra asks Rama to accompany him on a ritual was very interesting since it got me thinking master/student relationship in the future. - Did not realized this chapter was broken into smaller story sections. This can help readers to delve deeper into Indian myths and also help explaining...

I was always good at taking and giving out feedback due to my military background. We always gave each other feedbacks on what we could improve and what we are doing now. Now that I am a student, feedback from my peers and professors are very important to me since my future depends on it. I got to learn how to give better feedback though. As I take this course, I hope that I can improve my feedback abilities. ( Image from Pixabay )

For the topic ideas, I have decided to look into the comic books that was linked. I have managed to find four books that intrigued me the most. Vishwamitra This story between King Vishwamitra and Sage Vasishtha was very interesting. The conflict between Vishwamitra and Vasishtha for stealing a cow, Kamadhenu, escalated very quickly. Ever since I was a kid, I was amazed by big battles or fights between two characters. I could focus on how Vishwamitra and Vasishtha fights and eventually, Vssishtha burns all but one of Viswamitras sons and horses. I feels like i could blow this story into an epic scale. Nothing really beats wikipedia when you start the initial search for the story. Image of Vishwamitra: Wikimedia Abhimanyu This revenge tale of Abhimanyu also sounds very promising. I have never heard of this character until now and frankly the story got me hooked! The epic battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas is what I can focus on my project if I desired to go with this st...

The Wise Turtle  Once upon a time, a old king was living his last days. The king and his council was looking all across his kingdom to find a solution to immortality. King was very sad that his days were shortening and that he had no heir to take over his throne. One day, an old wizard visited the king's castle. Wizard told the king that the solution was to eat an aged turtles liver. King ordered his soldiers to bring him a turtle. Soldiers were searching along the coast line to looks for a turtle and they found a old turtle strolling along the shores. Soldiers approached the turtle and offered the turtle to meet the king. Since meeting the king was a great honor, turtle took the offer and went off with the soldiers. Once the turtle was obedient, the soldiers tied up the turtle to prevent him from escaping. Old turtles was shocked and asked "Why have you guys confined me?" "King desires your liver" said the soldiers. "Since my liver is desired by m...

Two Turtles Jatakas   by Ellen C. Babbitt This story focuses on two different turtles. First story portrays a wise and smart turtle while the second story tells a story of a foolish turtle. First story was very interesting in a sense that it felt like I read this kind of story before. A Wise one uses its knowledge to get out of a rough situation. Second story was also interesting in a sense that it tries to teach a life lesson. It teaches one to be humble and not to speak out when it is not necessary. Both of the stories were kept short where it got my attention and it wasn't a big commitment to read it. Goblin City   by W.H.D Rouse At the beginning of the story, it had interesting settings and characters. Hooked me in Ending was very dull. I personally do not like deus ex machina as endings but the fairy was random, the horse was random. I personally wish that the captain found more plausible way to escape the grasp of the goblins. (Image of Rakshasa : Wikipedia)...

I really enjoyed reading comics when I was growing up. I still enjoy reading comics time to time when I have some time to spare. Today, as I was searching for additional reading, I decided to pay more attention to the comic blog link that was provided. Image provided by ACKguide Krishna and Jarasandha  is the first book I came across while I was doing the reading assignment. The cover of the book got me hooked as it made it seemed like it was action packed. Image provided by ACKguide Kumbhakarna  is the second comic book I came across. Just like the first option of my choice, cover of this book looks action packed and it got my attention as soon as I saw it. Images provided by ACKguide Krishna and Shishupala  is the last comic book I choose. The cover got me hooked and the backstory between Krishna and Shishupala sounds very epic.  

As I grow older, I realized how important time is. In the Air Force, time was essential and we as a worker, had to do anything in best of our abilities to keep that time line for our country. As a student, time management and strategies are essential in succeeding. How to Beat Procrastination got my attention since I love procrastinating. In this article, I learned that by telling others that I am going to do something is really important. It shows commitment and also gives the teller the drive to actually do the work they said they are going to do. ( Wikimedia )

I am new to all these blogging, editing images, and generally this kind of class. I realized that its very simple and as I do these assignments, I can feel myself getting more comfortable with the usage of blogger.com and image searching. I hope that I can be more quick on imaging searching and learn how to manage and edit my blog at ease by the end of this semester! ( Image from Pixabay )

I felt pressured when I first read the assignments section. As I was reading the whole thing, I realized it definitely can be accomplished and noticed that you only asked 6 hours out of our week. I will work hard and try to enjoy it while I read and write. I am most interested in the storytelling part. I will have a lot of grammatical errors since English wasn't my first language, but it feels like I can really improve my grammars and let my imaginations go wild in this class. I also love the options of extra credit in this class. As a student, any opportunity of extra credit is always welcomed.  ( Image provided by Waifer X )

I have never heard of Growth Mindset or Carol Dweck. Her view on how our brain can grow and develop sounds very impressive. Her idea of growth mindset sounds to me like a phrase, failure is the mother of success. Her study on how our mind can learn and correct itself from a failure is amazing. Carol Dweck's point on how we should praise another was another shocker to me. Instead of focusing the praise on our accomplishments, if we praise on the effort and the process, people can develop and grow up to have a stronger willed person. She also pointed out that if we face more challenges and overcome it, our brain actually becomes more resilient. I like how she pointed out that kids who grew up in this generation is weak and only seeks to be comfortable. This kind of setting creates fixed mindset and by having a fixed mindset, one cannot develop and grow further. Her videos made me rethink my current habits. Instead of looking for a easy way out, it feels like I should seek challenges,...

(image: Photo taken of me in New York) Hello! My name is Tim Song and my current major is Biology and Pre-Physical Therapy. One of the coolest thing about being in a bio major is that you can seem really smart and brilliant. I was in the United States Air Force for six years and I finished my enlistment couple of months ago. Due to my work schedule, I couldn't attend the university of Oklahoma. I went to Rose State college for 2 years and OCCC for another 2 years. I received my associates in science in the summer of 2017. This is my first year in OU and I am very excited to learn and experience university life. (image: Photo take of me in UAE)  My favorite thing to do is to travel. Air Force spoiled me, by sending me to an exotic and beautiful countries and I am hoping to keep that up even when I have to pay out of my pockets now. I was done with my service since the November of 2017 and that meant I had til January of 2018 to do what I desired. First and foremo...

As I was searching for the stories that would interest me, I noticed that every single storybook that was created by other students were incredibly deep and well made. The level of other students completed storybooks were very amazing that, I thought I was browsing through some famous authors blogs. After my research was over, these are the three stories that got me hooked.  image source: Wikipedia:TWTDlogo 1000 Ways To Die: Demon Edition 1000 Ways To Die: Demon Edition focuses mainly on Ravana, Thataka, and Bhima from the Indian Epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. Just like the title of the storybook, the main episodes are split into three chapters/sections and it mainly focuses on the evil deeds of the demons and how they were killed by righteous heroes. I was not familiar with the source materials since the idea of the Indian Epic was not generally covered or studied. As I was reading the storybook, it made me interested and eventually led me to read a whole wikipedia pa...

Boston, Massachusetts . I lived in a little town in the Massachusetts called Amherst back in 2008. While I was living there, my family and I used to visit Boston often and I fell in love as soon as I laid my eyes upon it. Boston is full of history and beauty. Here is the picture of the most prestigious university in the world, Harvard. ( Photo by Tim Sackton ) Seoul, South Korea . Seoul, South Korea is the place I was born and I didn't really had the chance to  experience it, since my family and I moved to Virginia when I was young. When I joined the Air Force, I had a chance to visit my home country and when I landed in Seoul, I was amazed by their food and the Seoul culture. This is the picture of Hongdae, the most famous college town in Seoul. ( Photo by Michael Kay Park ) Just like this picture, Seoul is always booming even in the evening time!

This is the test blog for the Indian Epics class.