Monday, March 30, 2020

Week 10 Lab: The Hungry Hungry Crocodile (Rhyming Poem, Microfiction)

Monkey on the Crocodile's back: Yoga for Modern Age

There once was a monkey who lived in a tree
Happy and healthy yet hungry was he

For just cross the river there was a small grove
Of mangos bananas and foods that he loved

Meanwhile a crocodile was beginning to start
To dream of a scheme to eat monkey heart

So the croc yelled out to the monkey up high
“Cross on my back so youll stay nice and dry”

The monkey considered and pondered and thought
And decided “why not? I’ll give it a shot”

As soon as he jumped on the crocodiles back
The croc said “haha! Now your heart is my snack”

The monkey, so smart and clever was he,
“Well good thing my heart stays up in my tree”

The crocodile, confused, still wanted his snack
So he said, “go get it! And come straight back!”

As soon as the monkey landed on land,
He smiled and waved goodbye with his hand

“Foolish little croc, you’ll never get me!
You just let me escape and I’ll always be free”

Author's Note: Trying something a little different this week! I honestly had no idea that this is what I would end up with for this week; it actually just came to me! I woke up one morning with the first two stanzas in my head and then I pulled up my phone and wrote the rest (with slight modification to keep the same cadence). I used to always write poems like these for my family members' birthday/christmas/holiday cards, so I have a lot of practice with this style of writing! Im glad that I can put it to use for a grade finally! I hope you enjoyed the Dr. Seuss-esque rhyming poem!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=monkey


Thursday, March 26, 2020

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part B

Hello VagaBuddies,

Welcome to the second part of the reading notes for the first collection of Jataka Tales! I am really liking these Jataka Tales. Not all of them are good, but they remind of Aesop's Fables and they are new to me! I will talk about a few of them in this post. Here are the stories I read for this reading:

Reading Part B
The Wise and Foolish Merchant
The Elephant Girly-face
The Banyan Deer
The Princes and the Water-Sprite
The King's White Elephant
The Ox Who Never Envied the Pig
Grannie's Blackie
The Crab and the Crane
Why the Owl Is Not King of the Birds

One of the wild things about this collection was that the story of the Princes and the Water-Sprite is an exact copy of the story of the Pandevas brothers in their exile in the forest. From each brother going to get water individually, to the sprite/yaksha taking them because they didn't answer correctly, and down to the eldest brother winning all his siblings back through his morality, this is practically the same story! It was very fun to see how Buddhist texts and Indian epics influence each other, and the similarities make sense because they both were written at the same time!

In my last blog post about these Jataka Tales, I talked about all the stories where the message could be summed up as 'don't be a d*ck.' Elephant Girly-Face kind of fits into this theme, but it's also very different because the main character, Elephant Girly-Face, was just annoying to me. I didn't like that Elephant Girly-Face was so easily influenced to become mean and then just as easily was back to being nice. It made the message really unclear. Was the message to not believe what others say immediately? Or was it to not fuck around with mean elephants? Who knows.

Elephant Girly-Face literally becoming a little shit because he overheard some thieves talking: Gateway To The Classics

Another story that had a confusing message was the King's White Elephant. Here, the baby white elephant learned how to work with the carpenters, but then was sold to the king. It seems to me that the carpenters had no right to sell the elephant, because the elephant seems remarkably sentient (and so should not be sold). Besides that, the story just ends with "and the elephant went with the king and was taken care of." It didn't seem to me that the white elephant particularly deserved this good life (he was a good elephant, but didn't do something amazing), nor did he deserve to be sold to someone else at all!

Overall, these stories left something to be desired. I liked the story, "Why the Owl Is Not King of the Birds" but it was just ok. Many of the stories here didn't seem to have a particular lesson or moral like the previous collection had. Maybe I just need to change my expectations for when I inevitably read more of these stories!
Vaga-Buon Voyage!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=wise

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part A

Hello VagaBuddies,

This week I am reviewing the first half of Jataka Tales. I will give a short summary of some of the stand-out stories (whether good or bad) and explain my position!

The Merchant of Seri
The Merchant of Seri was a great little story about being a good person (a common theme you will see repeated in this blog post), where one greedy merchant tried to take advantage of someone by devaluing a piece, but another honest merchant was able to take advantage of the greedy merchant's cockiness. Overall, the theme of the story was to not be a d*ck. I liked that the honest merchant offered his entire stock just for that one gold bowl, and he was still able to live off that one trade for a good amount of time. Good for him.

The Ox Who Won the Forfeit
The Ox Who Won the Forfeit was another 'don't be a d*ck' story. In this one, the farmer tried to be all tough and macho in front of the townspeople, completely embarrassing his strong ox in the process. The strong ox understandably refused to move and win the bet for his owner. But fortunately, both parties had a good feelings-dump after the bet and the ox agreed to win his owner more money! Yay for kindness and helping your friends get rich!

Jataka Tales: V. The Ox Who Won the Forfeit
Picture of the owner decorating his ox before the 2nd bet : Internet Sacred Texts Archive

The Sandy Road
The Sandy Road, I think, still falls. under the category of 'don't be a d*ck', but in a different way than the other two stories. Here, the guide makes a mistake, and instead of trying to blame it on other people or anything, he owned up to it and made it right. I respect that a lot! Especially since the guide's entire thought process was, "it's all up to me to make this right, so let's not stop until everything is ok!" Not only that, though, but the guide also marked the well for other travelers to use. How kind of him! I liked this story the best because it rewarded someone for working hard.

Vaga-Buon Voyage!

Bibliography:
Ellin Babbit. "Jataka Tales" http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=jataka&story=monkey

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Week 9 Story: The Case of the Kidnapped Detectives, Part II

-CONTINUED FROM WEEK 7-

The Blind King's Bar: Wonder HowTo 

Chapter 2.
Following the strange text that Solomon sent to his twin, you drive out to the Blind King’s Bar at the edge of town. Pulling into the small bar’s parking lot, you wondered why anyone, much less the talented detective Solomon, would come all the way out here, especially after it had been abandoned for over a year. Weeds were growing through cracks in the concrete, the old red sign had faded into a rusty brown, and many of the broken windows had left shards scattered in the parking lot. It was only late afternoon, but the inside was too dark to be able to see far inside. You think that Solomon must have been pursuing a case himself, which lead him out here, but you didn’t remember seeing any open cases under his name. What could have been so intriguing as to bring him out here? Regardless, something sets your instincts on edge.
As you move closer to the building you start to see more of the bar inside: tables, chairs, old glasses, the like. But on the ground near the bar at the far end you also see four large lumps (two that seemed identical and one that was clearly bigger than the others). Suddenly, you recognize the four masses as the bodies of the four missing detectives, your friends.
Nerves on edge, anger rising, you rush to the door, but years of detective work remind you to look for signs of a trap before rushing into a dangerous situation. You sweep your eyes across the room, but you don’t see any signs of movement. You pull out your gun and move to the door. You slam your foot into the door, but the old wood gives way too easily, and you’re thrown off balance as you stumble through the doorway.
Before you could regain balance, your right foot trips some fishing twine across the threshold and a fine mist blasts your face. It tastes bitter on your tongue, and you try to rub it off your tongue and eyes, to no luck.
From a megaphone over your left shoulder, you here a voice cackle. No. Not a voice. The familiar, eerie voice of your worst nemesis, Enigma.
 “I have you finally, Yu-did-ie” the scratchy voice screeched over the speaker. “Now we get to finish the gamie!”
“I thought you died in some shitty hole, Enigma” you cough out between rasps of air, the poison sinking deeper into your lungs. “What did you hit me with?”
“He-he-hie,” Enigma answered. “Only some fun little poison I made! You’ll be dead without my antidote, but you have to play my gamie! I warned your friends not to be too hasty, but they refused to playie. Wittle Archie even tried to shoot out my drinkies!”
You realize that you had been played. The poison became worse with every step and the antidote was labeled in a beer bottle locked behind a glass wall. The only way to get the code would be to play Enigma on his own terms. You only hope you can solve all the puzzles this time.
----------
Author’s Note: I did it! I continued the story from Week 7, but I also left it on another cliff hanger, because it was getting long again. In this part, I introduced the main antagonist in this story, Enigma, based off of Yama. Even though he hasn’t done much in the story yet, I am basing Enigma’s character off of the character of the Yin Yang killer from Psych (love that show), because both sets of villains/heroes interact with each other through series of riddles.

Mahabharata. Narayan. R.K. pp 85-131

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Tech Tip: Tech Tips with Blogger (Favicon Image, Featured Post, Featured Link)

Hello VagaBuddies,

Welcome to my first Tech Tip Extra Credit post! I used this relaxed, retrospective week to update my blog and put in some new features!
One of the things I added to optimize my blog was a favicon image. I used a picture of the world to go along with the traveling theme that I had started early on!
I also added a featured post, which I set to my Introduction post. I wanted to make it easy for any new visitors to get to know me easily!
The last thing I added was a featured link to my storybook! I have added one story so far, and I am really proud of how it is turning out, and I can't wait to add more!

I am glad that I had this week to update my blog and do some much needed work on it to make it something I can be proud of!

Technology through the decades: WannaJoke

VagaBuon Voyage!

Week 8 Progress

Hello Vagabuddies!
This is retrospective post part 3: progress edition! I will review the progress I have made so far in this class!
So far, out of the 410 total points I need for an A, at the beginning of week 8, I was at 204. The goal for Week 8 was 205, so I am one point short, which is not too bad! To make up for it, during this retrospective week, I have started an extra credit reading (finishing up the Mahabharata reading) and a Tech Tip post (about refining my blog).
I definitely started off the class being very proactive and working ahead, but I progressively got more and more distracted to the point where the last two weeks, I have missed assignments. Hopefully, this week will be good to make it all up and then some more!
For the second half of the semester,  I hope to be more proactive about completing my assignments. Also, I am looking forward to finishing my storybook for this semester. The mantras and everything was fun to research for the first story and I can't wait to do it again!

Edna Mode - one of my favorite Pixar characters of all time. Edna Mode, Disney Love, Disney Magic, Dark Disney, Disney Stuff, Disney Pixar, Funny Disney, Disney Nerd, Princess Disney
Edna Moda cause why not: Pinterest

I don't know why Edna Mode showed up when I searched for motivational memes, but I also don't think I should question it. And neither should you.
VagaBuon Voyage. 

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Week 8: Comments and Feedback

Hello VagaBuddies and welcome to retrospective post Part 2: Electric Bugaloo!

In this post, instead of being meta and reviewing my previous posts, I am going to be even MORE meta and reviewing my reviewing techniques! A large part of this class has been. learning about the feedback process and practicing giving and receiving feedback throughout this class on various assignments.
For myself, I found it interesting to learn about the feedback process, especially because of my job outside of school. Working as a math tutor to grade school kids through high school means that I work with a lot of kids with low self-confidence on a subject that they struggle with. Giving good feedback has helped me be more encouraging to my students, even when I tell them that they're wrong.

From Feedback Cats: Cheezburger

I chose the above Feedback Cats (TM) picture, because I am by far my own worst critic. I don't think I am overly critical of myself, but I usually find much more fault in my work than others do. I hold myself to a high standard, and sometimes I fail. Usually, though, I am able to have a great attitude and work/study harder for next time. I feel lucky to have a great attitude when it comes to working, and I hope I keep with me all my life!
VagaBuon Voyage!

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Week 8: Reading and Writing

Hello VagaBuddies and welcome to a very retrospective blog post. 
I am going to take the time here to look back on the last couple months of reading and writing blog posts that I've done, just to see how I can shift gears to make better content in the future. 

Overall, I can say that all the reading and writing blog posts are going great for me personally! The reading notes give me a chance to develop my thoughts on the readings, which is difficult to do if you're not in a book club or anything and aren't forced to talk about what you read. The stories, on the other hand, give me the chance to express myself and be creative (and it has been a great outlet for me this semester!) Overall, I think my writing is pretty good, and I have had a lot of fun trying out different styles of stories to tell. However, I have noticed that my sciency stories did NOT do very well in terms of page views, comments etc (LOL)(See Image below from my very first story!). That makes sense to me, because like who wants to read a story about water purification?? I am kind of glad I moved away from that style, because honestly it has been a lot more fun writing stories where I don't need to do a lot of outside research to write! I did like that those stories were a unique retelling of the original stories, but I just didn't feel as creative about it. 
Figure 1: Cartoon drawing of a normal cell next to a carcinoma cell with description of the carcinoma cell in green: YouTube

Overall, I am looking forward to doing some more creative writing, and continuing the meta-writing style I developed in my Week 5 story! That one was by far my favorite one to write, and it came so easily! Not only that, but it definitely seemed to be received well among the other people in this class! I think that I would like to try a lot more meta-style writing assignments. My roommate is a connoisseur of meta-fiction, so I am sure he could give me some ideas to try to incorporate into my writing. What a challenge!
Vaga-Buon Voyage!