Lindsey's Epics

For today's free reading notes, I am continuing with the epified Mahabharata videos. Since I am already familiar with the story and have taken notes from the first time I read it, I wanted to hone in my focus on a more specific part of the story. In most of my notes and blogs, I wanted to focus on parts of the stories that could inspire a karmic action that could be useful in my college and karma portfolio project. So far with my work, I have focused on stories that revolve around relationships between a man and woman, like the relationship between Sita and Rama, or the rejection and hard work overcome to get what is desired eventually, like Ekalavya's story of becoming the most skilled archer which he eventually gave up. In both of the above stories, I was inspired by the positive outcome that I could conjure up to make the characters inviting and inspiring. With this next part of the Mahabharata, I want to focus on Arjuna's journey during his exile. As I read through the

For another free week of reading notes, I chose to continue on with the Epified Mahabharata videos. Part C starts out by introducing Karna. Karna was found floating in the river in a basket. Karna wanted to be a great man of war so he sought out to learn from Drona. Drona rejected him as he did with Ekalavya because Drona judged him by his appearance and father rather than getting to know the real him. Karna returned home where he silently bore his pain. One day, Karna found a teacher and guru that was the greatest there was. This teacher would only take Karna on if he was not a Kshatriya, which is the opposite reason why the other gurus rejected Karna. Karna told Parshuram that he was a brahmin and Parshuram accepted him. Karna learned the highest secrets and most dangerous ways of fighting. Karna was stung by a scorpion, but he suffered in silence as to not disturb his guru. Parshuram woke to Karna bleeding and concluded that he was indeed a Kshatriya for he was able to withstand t

Sunday nights have been family filled for as long as I can remember... even longer than memory can serve me. Nine of my favorite and most cherished family members would be in my living room and we would eat, laugh, and just simply be in each other's presence. My mom is the middle child of 3 girls. When she was a child, her parents owned a restaurant in Miami that she and her sisters worked at starting at the age of 10. My grandparents make the best traditional Chinese food I have ever tasted. Every Sunday they come over and make some of my favorite dishes which include ketchup shrimp, peeking duck, sweet and sour chicken, and so much more. Some of my earliest memories with my grandparents include me in the kitchen helping them cook and learning their ways. I have always been close with my mom's parents as they have always lived in the same city as me. My cousins and I always fight about who is their favorite and I know it is definitely me as I call them almost everyday (and my

Throughout this reading, most of the stories contain a plot of an animal taking advantage of other animals, whether it be because of their size or strength. I wanted to pick out a couple of my favorites of the section that stood out to me in a thematic way or simply because I enjoyed the story and the writing. In  Silence is Golden , there is a familiarity to the tale that reminded me of The Lion King when Simba roared for the first time and it was very weak. I think a rewrite of this story as The Lion King could be an interesting take. In this tale, there was a cub that had the physical characters just like a lion, but had the voice of a jackal. One day while playing with other young lions, the cub wanted to frighten them by roaring. His roar was weak and like a yelp. The cub was not accepted by the other lions. I think changing the ending of this to make it more accepting could be an interesting way to show humility of the other lions and braveness of the lone cub. (Lion cub roa

Throughout this reading, most of the stories contain a plot of an animal taking advantage of other animals, whether it be because of their size or strength. I wanted to pick out my favorites of the section that stood out to me in a thematic way or simply because I enjoyed the story and the writing. (The Giant Crab; Source:  GoodFreePhotos ) The first story,  The Giant Crab , teaches many lessons. The crab was greedy and that got him killed in the end. The elephants were brave and that got them the respect of many and eventually they became king and queen of the animals. I think this story is a great example of a type of story that could be used for many different themes. Some of the themes I saw right away were karmic actions, courage, and greediness. The Dishonest Friend  is a story that I think I could use as a possibility for my portfolio. One man asked his friend to watch over his plough while he was gone. The friend instead sold it and pocketed the money he made from it.

Once upon a time, lived a princess and her prince, on their vast piece of land. With them in their palace, lived hundreds of guards, servants, and courtiers to cater to their every needs. Next to their palace was a preparatory school. Many students would come to the palace to tour and hopefully prepare them for a life like the princess and the princes'. The princess and prince loved having an open landscape so they could get to know the students. On one sunny day, the prince and princess went for a lovely stroll along the pond that resided near the palace. As they were used to students often being around the palace, the princess told her courtiers to make sure her valuables were kept safe. The princess had her favorite pair of slippers that were her most important possession. They were a pair of beautiful pearl white slippers with a single pearl at the tip of the shoe. (The princess's favorite pair of while slippers; Source:  pxhere ) Monet was a student at the prep scho