Epics of India

King Leonidas in battle in the movie "300" Source The sun was setting, but this night did not result in the blanket of night, rather a blood-red sky covered the land as the beasts of the jungle roared and howled. Leonidas knew that the time for battle was soon approaching. Depraved of his spartans, Leonidas knew that he must protect his queen by any means necessary. "My king, where should I position myself?" asked Lak, one of Leonidas' finest generals. "Nowhere" Leonidas spoke. "As much as I would enjoy dying side-by-side with you on the battlefield, my number one priority is making sure my queen is safe. I need you to take her deep into the forest and find a cave to hide in. Guard her with your life, and do not come out until you hear my command." Though one of the fiercest warriors in Sparta, Lak simply nodded and with a "Yes my king" he was gone, leading lady queen Gorgo deep into the dark forest. The howls of the

The demon king Ravana Source 1: In the morning, Bharata was fetched to go to the palace where he was informed of Dasharatha's passing. He cried and asked about Rama, to which his mom Kaikeyi explained what she had done. Bharata was not about it, and swore to go into the jungle and return with the rightful king, Rama. 2: Bharata prepared the funeral for the late king, and after the funeral was done, the city spent 10 days in mourning 3: Bharata and Rama met in the jungle and cried over their dead father. Bharata tells Rama the he should be king, but Rama denied. Dasharatha's advisers tell Rama to be king, but Rama denies again, saying "Dad exiled me for 14 years, and I will fulfill his wish." 4: Bharata gives Rama some golden sandals and then takes them back saying "I'll put these at the throne for you when you come back. And if you aren't back in 14 years, I'll kill myself." The sandals are the sign of royal authority 5: Rama and compa

Rama and Sita Source 1: In the beginning, there were 2 major kingdoms, Koshala (Ruled by Dasharatha, Rama's dad) and Mithila (Ruled by Janaka, Sita's dad.) The capitol of Koshala was Ayodhya, a beautiful and prosperous city. The king was of the "Solar race" and lived in a palace guarded by strong warriors and lions. He had 8 councilors, and 2 priests. You'd think his life was perfect, but he was depressed because he had never had a son (even though he had 3 queens and tried with each of them.) 2: Fed up with not having a son, the Dasharatha decided to preform a horse sacrifice to the gods in hopes that he'd be blessed with a son. He set a horse out in the wild, accompanied by a brahmin. When it returned a year later, a ceremony took place where 21 other animals where to be sacrificed. After the horse was slewn by the chief queen, the king awarded great gifts to the brahmins. Soon, many gods, including Vishnu, came to the sacrifice to hangout. After som

Take risks and embrace failure Source The growth mindset is a new idea that is emphasized in this class, and I must say I am a huge fan of it. Like the instructions for this assignment stated, in school "there is a huge emphasis on grades and little to no feedback, which has resulted in more students not taking risks due to the fear of failure. I think actual feedback, not just "You got this question wrong," would help students learn from their mistakes and allow for that risk to be taken in the future with more confidence as they now know what they did wrong the first time and they now know the proper way to do said risk. While feedback has many positive things that come along with it, it is not a perfect method. For example, in the article " Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head " by Sabina Nawaz in The Harvard Business Review, I learned about how feedback can hinder productivity as well as jump start it. The article tells the story of Rajeev, a

A painting of Ganesha Source Looking at the Project Topics Listing link reveled a plethora of intesesting topics I would love to learn about. Though difficult, I've narrowed the topics that interest me down to 4... 1: Ravana . I was able to read a little bit about Ravana while looking at storybooks during Week 1 and he seemed very cool to me. As I have previously stated in my "about me" post, I am a huge fan of superheros, and Ravana reminds me of a super villain as he possessed uncanny abilities and had to be defeated by a protagonist, Rama. The coming war in Sri Lanka seems very cool to me, and I would love to learn more about it and its demon ruler, Ravana. I would like to retell this story in the style of a comic book as I feel that it would be a great fit for that style, as well as an easy way to understand the story of Ravana. 2: Ganesha . The reason I was so interested in Ganesha is because I already know of   him, but not who he is. When it comes to

Long ago in the mystical lands of the southern US, there was a city called UT. The inhabitants of UT were all female and called longhorns; orange four-legged beasts with massive horns coming out of their heads. This disgusting appearance frightened all who happened to stumble across UT in their travels. Luckily for the beasts of UT, their city had a deep connection to magic. The longhorns used this magic to transform their appearance from their natural beast-like state into beautiful human women in order to attract travelers to venture inside their city. Once inside the city the longhorns, still in human form, would flirt and memorize the travelers into marrying them. The longhorns would have their fun with the travelers, and once they became bored of their new husbands, they would shed their magical cloak and reveal their true beast-like state and proceed to eat them. One day, an explorer by the name of Kyler Murray set out to chart the untamed lands of Texas, the island where UT

The Winged Horse Saving the Men Source The many stories included in the anthology all seemed interesting, but the one that grabbed my attention the most was the story of the goblin city. The story states that on the island of Ceylon , there was a city full of female goblins. These goblins had no husbands, but they were able to marry if they chose to. The goblins would marry travelers who stumbled upon their city, and once the goblins were tired and bored of their new husbands, they would eat them. One day, a ship arrived at their city and it was full of men. The goblins knew that they could now have a lot of new husbands, and with that came lots of man flesh to feast on. Though the goblins were arguably evil and barbaric, they were smart. They knew that the lack of man and civilization would set off an alarm in the men who arrived that something was wrong. To hide the fact that the city was only inhabited by female goblins, the goblins used their magic to make the illusion that

I am looking forward to reading the Ramayana, as the battle between Rama and Ravana sounds very interesting to me. I have chosen to read the Narayana version of the Ramayana as it is told like a story. While the public domain edition is free (which is very appealing) I feel that reading an anthology will make understanding the overall story more difficult, as there is no beginning, middle, and end to follow.   I have looked over the various comic books and videos that have been linked to get a better understanding of the readings to come, and I have discovered that though the many names can be confusing at first, the stories told are very interesting. For example, the comic books "Vasantasena, A Dancer and Her Most Precious Jewel," and "Tales of Balarama: Valiant Brother Of Krishna" (Which can be found here and here respectively) caught my eye, as the stories consisted of 2 sides of good and evil in a conflict. What was even more interesting was how the story o

My model for stress Source When it comes to time management, and general organization as a whole, I struggle quite a bit. This can be reflected in this blog post, as it was open earlier this week and I have waited until the last the day to complete it. This is why I decided to read the article "11 ways unsuccessful people mismanage their time" by Áine Cain (which can be found  here ) to find ways to better my time management skills, as I find looking at what's wrong and improving that is easier than trying to improve on a new skill. What really stuck out to me is the sections that state that unsuccessful people procrastinate, don't plan time for fun, get distracted easily. I get distracted and procrastinate, and that is my "fun" time, but I am stressing out during this time as I know I should be working on my homework. I plan to combat this by following a ritual like the article mentions. For every hour I spend studying/doing homework, I will watch a

An actual photo of me trying to understand technology Source One of my greatest concerns regarding this class was the heavy emphasis on technology. I have never taken an online course before, and my personal computing skills are sub par at best. Thankfully, looking over the technology tools and course websites, I was able to alleviate some of those worries. About 75% of the content posted I have used, or feel comfortable using in the future so I plan on getting familiar with the remaining 25% as the semester goes on.

If you fail to start working on assignments, you'll never get your dream grade Source At first glance, the assignments seem to be fairly straight forward. My only concern with the assignments is the time commitment required for them (and this class as a whole) as I am fairly worried about budgeting my time between this class and my others. Some weeks, there is very little work needed to be done in my other classes, but on others I'll be swamped and the stress of finishing my blog posts and readings is very daunting for me. I am hoping that on those weeks where I am not busy I can work through multiple days worth or assignments to get ahead so when I do have a busy week I will not fall behind. Thankfully, the extra credit exists which I am planning on taking advantage of so I can either get ahead and finish early, or in case I miss any assignment on a busy week. All in all, I am hoping to finish this class as early as possible, so towards the end of the semester when fin

Growth Mindset Meme Source One of the things that stuck out to me the most in Carol Dweck's TED Talk was about 1:47 when Dweck stated that students felt it was tragic and catastrophic when presented with a problem that they couldn't solve. 2 things really caught my attention, first being that "Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet, they were gripped by the tyranny of now" and the second being that the students stated that they would cheat next time if they failed a test. The reason this was so attractive to me is because this is exactly how I feel, and what I've noticed how others feel. It seems that many students, at all levels of education, feel that if they do not achieve their goal (in this case passing a test) then they believe that they are unable to obtain that goal and feel defeated. This sense of defeat is what leads many to find nontraditional and unethical ways to reach their goals, (i.e. cheating) as their original attempt resulted in failu

You know I had to do it to them  Photo from October 2017 Hey everyone, Matthew Boensch (pronounced like "bench") here! I am a sophomore and an MIS major in Price college. I am originally from the south Philly/Jersey area, but have been living in North Dallas for the past couple of years. While I have picked up "Y'all" while living in Texas, much of my Northeastern slang has not left me and tends to come out when I am talking casually. I listen to all music, and I mean all music, so if you have any obscure or unpopular songs or genres you like, please drop a link cause I love discovering new stuff to bump to! While my music goes from Japanese EDM to ancient Mongolian throat singing, the stuff I listen to most of the time is underground and old school hip-hop, as well as lofi. I love playing all sports, even if I'm not too good at them. I played Offensive line in high school, as well competing in field events during track season. I am a huge super hero

The story of Ravana This storybook is very interesting, especially if you have little to no knowledge about Indian myths and folklore. This storybook was told through the eyes of Ravana's grandfather. The storybook starts out with some background information regarding Ravana, and then continues to tell the story from his birth to his death at the hands of Rama and his thousands of soldiers. The story is told very well, but the web page itself is fairly bland. The page consists of a dark background with white characters, and a few pictures here and there, but that's about it. While this doesn't take away too much from the story as a whole, it does fail to grab the readers attention. A Picture of Ravana Source Rama and Sita This storybook immediately grabbed my attention, as the aesthetic of the page was executed flawlessly. This story is about the love story between Rama and Sita, and the web page reflects this this by telling the story with a faint gray backgr

Disney World is marketed as the most magical place on Earth, and for me that absolutely holds true. Between the dizzying rides, the tasty food, and all of the fan-favorite characters walking around, the reason that the resort is my favorite place is none of these. Rather, the aesthetic and "magic in the air" of Disney World is what is so attractive to me. Blue Angels flying over Cinderella's castle in Disney World Source

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