Epics of India

Here is the link for the video I watched on Narayan for extra reading this week. First, this video talks about the god Narayan, obviously. It talks about reincarnation, and how this makes Hindus much different from Muslims and Christians. It tells of how Narayan is sometimes thought of as time itself. The next part that really interested me was the part with Markandeya. There was a lot of talk about how things are destroyed in order for new things to be created, and how then entirety of the universe is one massive cycle of creation and destruction. This part kind of segways into the reincarnation again talking about how death is only a small pause rather than a complete halt to any entity. The video later gets back to this and talks about the kind of culture that stems from this kind of belief and how no one has a sense of urgency in their life, because they know that death isn't the end of it. Markandeya Bibliography: Author: Devdutt Pattanaik Title: Seven Secrets fr...

I started by looking at an Indian holiday called Janmashtami  which is actually just a celebration of the birth of Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu. There is a bunch of fasting, eating, dancing, and meditating that happens in celebration of this holiday. This made me look closer at Krishna himself, and I learned quite a bit about how he has been portrayed through Hindu literature, and how those portrayals inspired dances such as  Kathakali , which is like a play and a dance all in one. They also wear costumes like the one below. Kathakali Costume From that page, I also found a link to Bharata Muni . He was essentially the father of Indian theater and was an ancient dramaturg. 

Here is this really neat video previewing some of the art from the graphic novels in Bizzell. I haven't had the chance to go look at them, but maybe once my semester tapers off, I'll finally get the chance to head over. The art in this looks really well done, so it would just be nice to look through once before I graduate. And here is the cover one one of those novels :

A few weeks ago, I started looking into deskercises for this class, and I've gotta say, they are still pretty useful. I use them quite often, and I find that I am less stiff when I leave the chair or wake up the next morning. I have also added the shadow boxing stretch from this link to my repertoire of stretches. It is just a fun one that I really enjoy. I think I will continue doing these exercises well into the future. link

The motto I use isn't actually one that I necessarily made up, but one that I have always used, just because it is perfect for me. It might seem silly, but it is "Keep moving forward" from Meet the Robinsons, which is a pretty great movie. I really like this motto, because it helps to keep me from stopping whenever I run into some difficult problem.

What I found that works best for me is organizing my bookmarks into different folders. When I no longer need a particular folder, i.e. if it was for a class I already finished, I just delete it. I tend to bookmark a lot of things, but I can usually sort them pretty well into just a handful of folders, thus keeping my bookmark bar from getting cluttered. I also make sure that my bookmarks are shared between my devices, so that I always have them when I need them, just in case I can't remember a particular site.

This spring break has been pretty crazy. Unlike most people, I didn't actually get a break. Instead, I was doing a bunch of work for my capstone and getting our lab set up. I also spent 2 days just trying to find myself a new car. But you know what? I got one, and I am pretty happy with it. Needs some TLC, but nothing too extreme. As far as my lab goes, everything is looking really good and we are doing the last few things today. We got a bunch of parts machined this week and ran a bunch of wires between our control boxes and our test equipment. I can't wait to start on our actual tests. In the picture, you cant see our test equipment, but you can see a big green thing; that's a pretty neat  wind tunnel . Our rocket testing stuff is going on the far side of that. Testing lights in our lab (Personal Photo) I also finally got to do some editing on my Abyssal Struggle story. I have been waiting to do this for what seems like forever, and it felt good to finally g...

The story I am thinking about writing is the one I just took notes for. It is the mantra that Kunti gained from sage Durvasa after she showed him kindness when all others at the palace only showed fear. He whispered the mantra to her and told her only that it could summon any god. I guess she was bored, because she decided to just try it out and ended up summoning the sun god Surya. She ended up having a child with him. I am only really interested in the mantra itself here. If I write a new story from this, that is the part I am going to keep. I had mentioned in my reading notes a little bit of the kind of battle I would want to write about, but I think I can flesh that description out a little more. I want some kind of wide open battlefield on the outskirts of a well defended city. I might set it in the Terai-Duar  grasslands, where everything is pretty open and flat. I think I will start it at a late stage in the battle, where the city gate is about to be breached. This ...

The story I've picked to focus on this time is that of how Kunti gained her mantra. Growing up, she amused a very irritable sage, who then gave her a mantra that allowed her to summon any god. She tried it out and summoned the sun god, who left her with a child. I kind of want to just run with the concept of summoning gods for a story. Kind of what I am picturing is some massive battle where a defending force looks to be defeated, but someone steps forward and brings down a god into the fray and wipes the field of enemies away. Link Bibliography: Author: Epified Title: The Mahabharata Link

One story that stood out this week was that of King Shantanu revisiting the Gange river 16 years after his wife had disappeared with his son. He was interrupted by an archer taming the river with his arrows. Gange appeared and introduced the archer as his son, Devavrata. I feel that I would just want to pull Devavrata from this story and have him fighting some kind of river spirit. I don't really enjoy many of the stories in the beginning of the Mahabharata, so this seems like the best plan I can see myself getting behind. Something like this. .. Bibliography: Author: Epified Title: The Mahabharata Link