Caitlyn's Point of View

Even though I'm doing a portfolio project, it has become more of a storybook since I have kept the same theme throughout the semester.  This week, I spent time doing some research on The Avatar the Last Airbender series and also on The Mahabharata.  I wanted to see if I could find better details to include in my stories and if there were any changes I could make to my introduction.  I also wanted to find some sources for my Avatar background information on my site. Some pictures I might include:   Drupadi and Pandavas    Bhishma refuses to fight with Shikhandi Interesting Avatar facts I might use: This world is adjacent to a spirit world. I don't have info about this on my introduction page, but I wrote a story about an avatar's interactions in the spirit world. An avatar has the ability to master each element, but still has to study each one. Mahabharata details I might include: Shikhandi was born a girl and then reborn as Shikha...

I continued watching The Mahabharata by Peter Brook for this next reading.  I really enjoyed the parts where Bhishma is worried about Shikhandi.  He fears that this is the one who can kill him.  When he encounters Shikhandi, things get interesting.  I think this section would be fun to work a story out of.  It reminds me of some old Greek myths where the heroes were immortal except for one epic weakness or in Lord of the Rings when the Witch King says he cannot be killed my a man, so Eowyn runs up with her sword, yelling "I am no man."  The more I look at it, the more I see similarities between Shikhandi vs Bhishma and Eowyn vs The Witch King. I may end up straying from my Avatar theme to write this one. The Witch King, flickr You can watch this movie here:

Sunset in India, flickr For my first reading this week, I continued watching The Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook.  From this section of the movie I enjoyed the part where everyone is discussing the coming battles.  Some fear the Pandavas will defeat them.  Others argue that they have large armies and greatly outnumber their enemies.  Some are worried about battling with their own kin.  This discussion has a lot going on and I feel like it would be great to work with for a story. I think for my next story, I want to try to stick as close to the original as possible, while still keeping with my theme of Avatar.  This is going to take some work and I'll need to do a little more research and reading this week to figure it out, but I will definitely post it for my final story next week.  I really enjoy trying to stick to one theme for all of my stories.  It adds an extra challenge some times. You can watch this movie below:

For my Tech Tip this week, I finally created a Twitter account.  I have actually had one before, but I didn't really use it.  I had one my freshman year when my Chemistry professor offered extra credit for doing problems he posted on twitter.  As soon as that class ended, the account was forgotten.   Well, I guess it's time to get back into things and rejoin the 21st Century. I have no idea how to access my old account since it was made with my old university's email address, so I have made a new one. I think I will use my twitter to keep up with the linguistics community.  Some of my professors have been talking about a few groups to follow on twitter, so I think it's time to check those out.  To see my first tweet, click here ! Bird, flickr

For Growth Mindset this week, I took a look at the slide show Introduction to Learning Process by Dr. Muhammad Nadeem.  I never thought to look at learning as a change in behavior, but it really is and I love how Dr. Nadeem starts off the slideshow with this little bit included in the definition.  Since I am very interested in teaching after school, it was really nice getting to learn more about how people (and animals) learn.  I especially liked the little diagram that was included about the learning process being like a continuous cycle.  Learning, flickr

I continued The Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook for the next section. This movie is such a great way to really understand this story.  I think the part of this movie that might be fun to work into my own story is when Duhshasana is having nightmares about the Pandavas wanting vengeance.  It's such a common thing for the antagonist to have guilty and paranoid thoughts about their victims seeking vengeance, so it would be easy to find a parallel to work with.  If I stick with the Avatar theme, there is a part when Azula gets paranoid, but it's not quite right, so I'll need to do more research. Battle, flickr

Avatar Aang and his companions were able to defeat the Fire Nation army and the leader, Firelord Ozai.  Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation had joined their quest to bring the Fire Nation's raids on the world to an end in order to restore harmony between the four nations.  Doing this might have been an act of treason, but he did so to save his nation from the destruction of his father.  After Firelord Ozai was defeated and Princess Azula imprisoned, the Fire Nation needed someone to become the next Firelord. Aang approached Prince Zuko shortly after the end of the war to discuss this matter with him. "Zuko, your people need a new ruler.  They need someone who will help bring these people into accepting peace.  I believe that you are this person." Zuko looked at Aang with fear in his eyes. "I don't know if I can do this, Aang.  I am my father's son.  What if I become him and make the wrong decisions?  What if I bring war upon my people and the world...

For today's reading, I watched the next part of The Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook.  I think the main part I will focus on for a story this week is in the beginning of this section when Draupadi and the Pandavas are speaking with Krishna.  Krishna tells them Yudhishthira is the king the Earth needs. but Yudhishthira doubts this.  I feel like I can easily do a crossover with Avatar here and include bits on Aang's doubts for being able to defeat the Fire Nation.  I'll need to do a bit of research to figure out which characters in Avatar really fit well with the Mahabharata characters.  Another option would be to use characters from the Avatar sequel, The Legend of Korra.  Some of these characters might be better reflections of the Mahabharata characters.   Crown, flickr You can watch this movie below:

For the reading today, I started The Mahabharata, a film directed by Peter Brook and written by Jean-Claude Carriere and Peter Brook in 1989.  This movie is such a great adaptation of this story!  I recently watched A Little Princess for a class and I forgot that Sara tells part of the Ramayana in it.  They movie shows this little girls interpretation of the story and it is really neat to watch it this tale come to life.  From what I have seen so far of the film, it is really good.  I think my favorite part is when Gandhari and Dritasashtra are married and she covers her eyes after learning that he is blind.  She wants to be so loyal to him that she doesn't want to every "reproach him his misfortune."  Seeing the actors portray this part, you can really feel her devotion to honor her husband. Blindfolded, flickr You can watch this movie below:

Aang speaking to his past lives, Wikipedia In preparation for the battle that was fast approaching, Aang decided to meditate at the edge of the cliff.  He was trying to find his way to the spirit world so he could seek advice from the past avatars.  As he sat their and focused entirely on his meditations, he found himself entering the avatar state and was able to speak with his past lives.  Aang was searching for the answer to the most difficult question: how can he defeat the Fire Nation without killing the Fire Lord.  Avatar Wan came forward and told Aang a story from his time as the avatar. Avatar Wan was in fact the very first avatar.  He was gifted the powers of the elements from a great lion turtle.  The lion turtles are the creators of this world when it was still connected to the spirit world.  The humans began to have many problems with the spirits attacking and the humans would attack the spirits in return.  Wan searched for...

I decided to go back and finish up the rest of Ramayana for today.  I am so glad I did!  This epic has honestly been one of my favorite reads this year and it was so good to finally finish up my notes over it. A lot happened in the fourth section of this story, but I enjoyed the part where Rama tests Sita the best.  I thought there were a lot of interesting things going on and it would be easy to include them in another story based off of the Avatar the Last Airbender universe.  Sita is so sure of her words in claiming purity, that she jumps into a fire.  I think it is a little ridiculous that Rama has to make sure his bride is still pure.  But, once the god of fire, Agni extinguishes the flames and tells them her words are true, Rama believes it.  The gods are confused by Rama's actions to prove Sita's purity and Brahma comes to discuss things with him.  I'm not sure what part of the Avatar story I'm going to mix with this to create a new one, ...

For the first half of this week's reading, I checked out The Gita .  It was really fun getting to read another story for this class that was in a comic book style.  I never read comic books as a kid, but I thought that this was a really neat idea.  The art style reminded me of old school comic books, but I felt like they really fit the story.  After reading the epics for this class, it was fun to have a break and read something that focuses more on the art to tell the story. I thought it was very interesting that Yudhishthira was dethroned by his cousin through a dice game.  I think it would be really fun to find a way to incorporate this detail into another story to make things more interesting. I thought the rest of the story was fairly interesting, but this little detail was something that stood out to me and I want to use it in my next story.  I think I'll try mixing a couple of different stories to create my next one. Image from the Gita Wikiped...

Statue of Shiva , Wikipedia After reading another classmate's story site, I decided to check out the page on  Yoga , because it has similar origins as these epics we're reading. In the etymology section of this article, I was curious about this link titled Epic Sanskrit and got really excited. This took me to the interesting article on Indian Epic Poetry .  Here, I learned all about the Indian Epics, some of the ones we're reading for class were discussed here, as well. From here, I found interest in Hindi .  I decided to read this article because I really don't have a strong background of knowledge in non-western religions.  I really loved learning more about this rich culture and found interest in a link called Awadhi language.  It always comes back to language for me and I really enjoyed learning more about this fascinating language and I'm definitely bookmarking it and coming back to read more later.

For the second half of this week, I read the  Jataka Tales  by Ellen C Babbitt.  I absolutely loved these stories.  That had a sense of familiarity of the little tales and fables I grew up listening to my mom read, but also were very different.  I really loved  The Foolish, Timid Rabbit  and  The Quarrel of the Quails . The Foolish, Timid Rabbit kept reminding me of the story about the tortoise and the hare racing.  In that story, the rabbit was also foolish for being a bit too sure of himself.   I really loved how these stories brought a bit of my childhood back and I can't wait to read the rest of them later this week. Jataka Painting from Wikipedia