Wikipedia Trails: From Draupadi to Neurons.

(Draupadi being dragged from her chamber)

First, I started with Draupadi. Then, I found that she had joke around and said "A blind man's son is blind", whenever she saw Duryodhana fall into the water. From there, I found that blindness can be caused by problems that occur in the brain. And lastly, from there, I found that the brain is composed of two types of cells: neurons and glial cells

Story: How the Mind Kills.

(Kamsa getting warned by a goddess.)

After hearing that a son of his sister, Devaki, would one day bring about his death, Kamsa vowed to kill each and every one of her children. He wanted to make sure that no one would jeopardize his position as ruler of Mathura.


On the fifth night of the winter season, Devaki gave birth to her first son. Kamsa heard of this and made his way to where she was. Devaki knew of her brother’s evil plan so she had previously made plans with her husband, Vasudeva, and arranged for her son to be taken away to a safe place. Upon his arrival, Kamsa was furious to find out what his sister had done. As punishment, he ordered for her to be locked in a prison for the rest of her life.


The caretaker of Devaki’s son, Yashoda, named him Krishna. She nursed him as if he were her own. As he grew, Yashoda came to find out that Krishna was no ordinary child. One day when she found out that Krishna had been eating mud, she immediately tried to remove it by telling him to open his mouth. However, when she looked inside, it wasn’t mud that she found. Instead, inside Krishna’s mouth, Yashoda saw the entire universe.


At the age of fifteen, the city of Mathura were well aware of who Krishna was. Everyone recognized the greatness that he offered. At this age, Krishna also came to find out from Yashoda about his evil uncle.


The city of Mathura was a beautiful one. People roamed the streets while animals grazed the grass. However, Mathura was known for its powerful earthquakes. With one shake, thousands of innocent people lost their homes. Krishna wanted a structure that could withstand these powerful quakes so he asked the divine architect, Vishwakarma, to build him one.


“I have constructed you the world’s first indestructible building. However, there is one thing that can cause this building to fall: lead. Unfortunately, I am deathly allergic to it and therefore I don’t have knowledge of the material which is why I could not protect the building from it. So as long as lead does not touch these walls, the building will continue to stand tall.”


Devaki waited ten years before conceiving her second child. She thought that surely by now her brother would have let go of the thought that one of her children would kill him. However, she was terribly mistaken. One by one, Kamsa took Devaki's children from her and killed them. Kamsa would take her child to the forest and kill it by throwing it against the wall of what looked like an abandoned building. He loved his sister dearly but he couldn’t risk giving up his position. This horrible routine continued on for years. Kamsa constantly lived in fear that Devaki’s next child would be the one to kill him. This strain caused him to become delusional.


After he gained news that Devaki had had another child, he rushed to claim it. He once again proceeded to the abandoned building in the forest and continued his routine like normal. All of a sudden, the ground started to shake and the building collapsed, trapping Kamsa inside of it. It turns out that due to his mind being destroyed by the constant fear that he would someday die, Kamsa had hallucinated. He had thought that he was carrying the baby from the prison where his sister was kept to the forest when in fact he had grabbed a small statue from his home. That statue turned out to be made of lead and the building that he would go to in order to kill the babies was the building that Vishwakarma had built for Krishna.


In the end, Kamsa died not from one of Devaki’s children, but from the fault of his own deranged mind. After the whole ordeal, Krishna was finally reunited with his mother and he became the king of Mathura. People no longer had to live in fear. The city flourished under Krishna’s rule.




Author's Note:

In the original story, Krishna is born as the eighth child. The person who told Kamsa of his fate told him that it would be the eighth child of his sister that would one day kill him. Kamsa locks up his sister and her husband as a result of that. In order to make the story flow the way I wanted it to, I made it to where Krishna would be the firstborn child. That way, it would allow for Devaki, Kamsa’s sister, to have more children that Kamsa would kill over the years. I wanted him to be continuously exposed to this in order to show why he became mentally ill. In the original story, Krishna does return to the city of Mathura and kills his uncle. This caused an uproar amongst the allies of Kamsa. They began to continuously attack the city which prompted Krishna to take action. He asked the divine architect, Vishwakarma, to build him a new city, the city of Dwarka. In my story I made it to where Vishwakarma built him a building, which was where Kamsa would go to kill Devaki's children. As you can see, I decided to focus more on Kamsa than on Krishna, as it is in the original story. I wanted to demonstrate to the audience how powerful the mind can really be. The irony in the story was that in the end Kamsa wasn’t killed by any of Devaki’s children, but by his own mind. He brought about his own demise because he wanted to keep his power.




Bibliography

Epified TV (India). Krishna. Link to videos online.

Reading Notes: Epified Krishna, Part B.

(Krishna and Balram meet their parents)

I loved the story about how Brahma came to realize the greatness that was Krishna. It really goes to show how great he (Krishna) really is to not only the people around him but also to the people who he had never met before. Krishna used kindness to get close to Hastin, who everyone had feared. He showed them that with just a bit of if, you could do great things. I wonder what was in the water that Akrur used to wash his face that caused him to see hallucinations. In the town Krishna and Balram met a woman named Trivakra. She was an old woman with 3 deformities: a twisted neck, a hunched back, and a paralyzed knee. It turns out that someone had told Trivakra that it would be the son of  Vasudev that would be able to heal her deformities. When she realized that that son was Krishna, she asked him to heal her and he did. After finally defeating Kans, Krishna was able to free all of his family members that were once imprisoned by him (Kans). After Kans died, Ugrasen became the king of Mathura. Now that Kans was dead, many of his allies attacked Mathura. Due to this, Krishna asked Ugrasen to move the city in order to keep the members of the city safe. After much convincing, Ugrasen asked Vishwakarma, the divine architect. to build the city of Dwarka. In this new city, Krishna became king.

Bibliography
Epified TV (India). Krishna. Link to videos online. 

Wikipedia Trail: From Kunti to Birthdays.

(Pandu and Kunti)

First, I started with Kunti. From there, I found out that she perished in a forest fire and attained heaven. From there, I discovered that in Greek thought, the immortal soul will return to the one who created it after death. Then from there, I found out that Judaism does not celebrate one's birth i.e. their birthday like we do, but one's death.

Reading Notes: Epified Krishna, Part A.

(Krishna and Radha)

Krishna worked hard to protect the ones that he loved. He had a strong distinction of right from wrong. I like this characteristic of him. Due to him hearing that the 8th son of his sister, Devaki, would cause his demise, Kamsa tried to kill her and her husband. Since he did love his sister very much, he locked them up in prison instead and killed every child they had. He killed the first 6 newborn by smashing them against the wall. The 7th son was transferred into the womb of another. This tricked Kamsa into thinking that Devaki had a miscarriage.  Vasudev followed the voice in his head and ended up switching him with Maya, the daughter of Yashoda. when Kamsa tried to kill the baby girl, it turned out to be Durga. Putana ended up being a demoness in disguise. She tried to kill Krishna by feeding him her poisonous milk but in the end, Krishna didn't die from her milk but he actually consumed it and her powers as well. Krishna became famous as "the boy who stole butter". When Yashoda found that Krishna was eating mud, she tried to get him to remove it by telling him to open his mouth. However as she looked inside, she found that his mouth contained everything: the universe, the sun, the moon, everyone, etc. Krishna's brother from another mother was Balram. In the forest where everyone played, there was a lake that was the home to Kalia the snake. He challenged the snake after finding that a bunch of his friends had died from the poisoned air and water. He danced on the head of Kalia and it caused her to leave the lake and therefore the poison in it disappeared. After the townspeople decided to shift their worshipping to the Govardhan hill, Indra was angered. He attacked their homes with thunder and lightening but Krishna sheltered with the hill by lifting it with his little finger. Krishna was in love with Radha, who had the purest of hearts. She would always put his safety first no matter what.

Bibliography
Epified TV (India). Krishna. Link to Reading Guide. 

Wikipedia Trails: From Carol Dweck to the Human Gastrointestinal Tract.

(Carol Dweck: Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset)

First, I started with Carol Dweck. From there, I found out that she was a professor of psychology at Stanford University. From there, I found that the son of the founders of the university had died of typhoid fever. Lastly, from there, I found that the cause of typhoid fever is from a bacterium called salmonella typhi that grows in the intestines and blood stream.

Week 8 Growth Mindset: Becoming a Better Writer

(Tree growing out of a book)

In this class, I have been able to discover several of my strengths. I had always thought of myself as being a poor writer. I never thought that I had the creativity needed to write an interesting story. I use to always dread writing essays so I eventually equated that to writing stories. However, as the semester progressed and I wrote more and more stories, I was able to discover that I was actually a better writer than I gave myself credit for. I realized this from the many positive feedback that I received from my peers. Even though writing stories in this class is an assignment, I still found myself wanting to do it. I didn’t feel as if it hindered my willingness to write. I really like how Laura made the class a fun learning environment. The assignments don’t even seem like assignments. She also gives us more than enough chances for extra credit so that we have the opportunity to rest. This helps me a lot since for some weeks, my creativity would be quite low. I will continue to try and practice my writing skills as the semester progresses.

Week 8 Reflections: Connecting With Others

(Person writing words on the board)

Throughout the semester, I have had the chance to read many stories, both good and bad. I got to observe the many different writing styles of my peers. From this, I have obtained a pretty good idea on what I like and dislike in a story. One of the things that I like in a story is action. Even if the author's writing style is not very good, I feel like having action in the story makes up for that. I admire people who are able to write in a way that doesn't look like they're trying to write a story but rather the story just naturally flows. Some habits that I see a lot include the absence of a  good climax in the story. I will go through the whole story without feeling any excitement due to the fact that the story did not have any turning point that really made me want to finish it. Also most of the time, I believe people do not add enough back story to their character. Most of the people who do this tend to have a pretty anticlimactic plot, which is why I suggest they add more of a backstory to their character. I feel as if it would make their story flow a little better while adding some interesting elements to it. I do feel as if I am slacking a bit in my feedback. I mainly focus on their plot when I'm reading their story. However sometimes, it's actually their grammar that is causing the issue. In the future, I would like to be more in-depth with my feedback by also commenting on the formatting of their story i.e. their grammar and the overall layout of their writing. Everyone is a good writer and with the help of our peers and instructors, we can all improve and move closer to becoming a great one.

Wikipedia Trail: From Drona to Herbivores

(Drona commanding the Kuru army)

First, I started out with Drona. From there, I found out that he had discovered a dog that had arrows jammed in it's mouth. These arrows were later found out to be shot by one of his unknown pupils, Ekalavya. From there, I found that dogs are naturally predators and that now all predators are carnivorous, some are herbivores.

Reading Notes: Epified Mahabharata, Part B.

(Ekalavya)

If I remember correctly, I believe that is was a Brahmin had cursed Pandu for shooting him. He cursed Pandu to died in the arms of his loved one. In the epified version however, Pandu is cursed to die whenever he becomes intimate with a woman. It is interesting to see the slight variations in the different versions of the Mahabharata. I did not know that this was a curse that had haunted Hastinapur for many generations.  I was under the impression that it was a curse that was uniquely created for Pandu due to his actions. Yama is the the god of not only death but also truth. Pandu named his first son Yudhishthir. It was funny to see that their second son, Bhima, broke the rock he had fallen onto. Kunti refused to use the mantra anymore after the birth of their third son, Arjun. Kunti helped Madri have 2 sons and there were the 5 sons of Pandu. Madri took the leap of faith as she jumped into the fires with her dead husband. I was shocked to see that Ghandari had given birth to a lump of flesh. Vyasa did not want to harm the lump so he divided it into 100 pieces and placed them all into vats of oil. The first son to emerge was Duryodhana. They all looked demonic. Durodhana became jealous of all the love that Bhima was receiving. Duryodhana tries to push Bhima into the lake while he was in a deep sleep due to the laced food that he had eaten. Vasuki, the ruler of the serpent world, gives Bhima powers. They met Drona while trying to retrieve a ball from the well. Bhishma makes him their teacher. They all met Ekalavya  in the forest when they saw how he had shut a dog up by jamming a bunch of arrows in the dog's mouth. It turns out Ekalavya had learned his archery skills from Drona, well kind of, he hand crafted an image of Drona after being rejected by him and practiced in front of that and became the world's best archer. Drona did not want him to beat Arjuna so he made Ekalavya cut off his right thumb and he did not hesitate to follow the orders of his guru.

Bibliography
Epified TV (India), The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution. Link to video online.

Reading Notes: Epified Mahabharata, Part A

(Bhishma)

Whenever I read something, I tend to just go over it without fully understanding everything that's happening. While I do know the overall plot-line of the story, I can sometimes overlook the important details. One of the main things that surprised me was the telling of how the first son of Shantanu, Devavrata, became Bhishma. I must have overlooked that part of the original Mahabharata because that was definitely news to me.
I really liked viewing the Mahabharata as an animation because it helped me to take the visuals that I had in my head and actually bring them to life.
I enjoyed watching about how Gandhari blindfolded herself for life in order to be equal to her husband, Dhritrasthra. Even though all of Hastinapur was happy for their marriage, Gandhari's brother, Shakuni (the future king of Gandhar).

Bibliography
Epified TV (India), The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution. Link to video online. 

Wikipedia Trail: From Arjuna to Watermills.

(A statue of Arjuna)

I first started with Arjuna. From there, I found that Arjuna had saved his teacher from the attack of a crocodile. From there, I found that American crocodiles are sometimes found in rivers which can be used as a source of power for mechanisms such as the watermill.