Week 9: Reading Diary "Through the Fire"

Fire:  

• It seems to start off in a girls room and her nurse is reading her a story 
• While she reads the story she comes up with fancy names for herself "off-spring of vengeance, the unexpected one." 
• What is the significance of the "fire ceremony"? (they pray from sun up to sundown and a there are over 100 priests that perform at the ceremony, they can only eat one meal each evening consisting of rice that was soaked in milk.) 
• Yaja and Upayaja are brothers who lived on the banks of ganga 
• King Drupad would thought that he was too good for the meal and would only drink water that was carried up from ganga. 
• He felt like that Gods would be obliged to answer any of his prayers 
• Why did King Drupad want revenge so badly?  
• What is the significance of rice and milk? 
• Dhristadyumna: (was the son of Drupada and brother of Draupadi and Shikhandi in the epic Mahabharata. He was the commander of the Pandava army during the Kurukshetra War.) Also means "destroyer of enemies" 
• Draupadi: (she is the "fire born" daughter of Drupada, King of Panchala and also became the common wife of the five Pandavas.) Also means "daughter of Drupad". 
• Were girls treated differently than boys in the palace? 

Draupadi: "fire born"

Blue: 

• Refers to herself as dark-skin because she did not have an almond hue 
• What I find interesting is that she spent hours in skin-whitening ungeunts, scrubbed with different exfoliants.  
• Found a friend in Krishna who was the same complexion as her. (Krishna is one of the most widely revered and most popular of all Hindu deities). 
•  Krishna was quite the ladies man and had multiple wives. 
• Krishna was born in a dungeon where his uncle Kamsa imprisoned his parents with the intentions of killing him at birth. 
• Refer to page 34 
• Meaning of Krishna: "The dark one" or "ones whose attraction cannot be resisted". 
• What is the significance of the term "blue" for skin color? 
• "A problem becomes a problem, only if you believe it so" 

Week 8: Reading Plan

We have been doing a lot of reading about the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. Professor gave me the idea to read a novel by novel by Chitra Divakaruni as my reading for the second half of the semester. It is told in first-person by Draupadi, as Shikhandin is an amazing main character! I was informed that the book was long, but such a pleasure to read. I can find copies in the Library, even an audiobook is in the Library. The book is called Palace of Illusions. I am excited to read this book and continue with the theme of my storybook from the previous week.  

Palace of Illusions

Since I was informed that this book is extensive, I think that I would really how to break down my reading so that I can get through the entire book. So to break the book down, I will probably read a few chapters a day so that I can get a better perspective of what the book has to offer.  

A little history about the writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, she is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Divakaruni's works are largely set in India and the United States, and often focus on the experiences of South Asian immigrants. She writes for children as well as adults and has published novels in multiple genres, including realistic fiction, historical fiction, magical realism, and fantasy.  

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Reflections: Looking Forward

Looking Forward I don’t think that I should do anything different than what I am doing right now. As I looked at the grade chart, I am doing well with keeping up with all of the points. I am actually ahead of the grade tracker for the week. So with that being said I think that my strategy for this class is working well for me, even though I don’t have a set day and time to dedicate to the class. 

 I want to actually spend a little bit more time on the readings than I have in the first half of the semester. Because I am usually pressed for time, I would just read the first two or three pages and then write my Reading Diary over what I wrote. It kind of worked out for me, but then again it didn’t because then I wouldn’t know what aspect of the reading I wanted to talk about for that weeks storytelling post. So for the remainder of the semester I want to actually dedicate a little bit more time to the readings. 

I think that instead of  waiting until the next day to do some of the blogs. I should carve out some time to get them done the night that they are due. I think that I take advantage of the fact that we have a grace period and then decide to do the assignment then instead of doing it the night that it is due. So instead of just having one assignment due every night, I have multiple.  

I think for my storytelling posts, I need to spend some time actually editing my posts before I put them on my blog. I get a lot of good comments about my story and how I wrote it, but I also get comments about some grammatical errors and also fluidity of the story. So that is one thing that I want to work on for the remainder of the semester.   

Looking Forward!

Week 8: Reflections Looking Back

I can't believe that we are already to the middle of the semester. This semester is going by so fast, that is bitter sweet. Im excited about the semester ending because that means that I am that much closer to graduation. But, I'm also nervous because that means that I am that I will soon have to figure out my life after graduation. 

Graduation!

This class has really helped me get back in touch with my creativity, by all of the storytelling posts. I really liked my story for week 7 Check out that story here! and also my post about the romantic love story of Rama and Sita Check out that reading here! I was actually really impressed with how fun it was to recreate some of the stories that were written about Indian Epics. 

One thing that I am guilty of is not setting out a specific day and time to for this class. Since this is my last semester here, I am enrolled in all upper-division courses for my major. The other thing that kind of makes it hard to designate a specific day for this class is because 3/5 of my classes are structured around groups. That means that anytime I have outside of work and meeting for organizations are designated to my groups. So I usually get a chance to get to the deadlines of this class whenever I find time in my schedule. 

Whenever I am working on blog posts for this class I love to work in the union. I can never really work on homework at home because I always find an excuse (cleaning the apartment, taking a nap, cooking dinner) not to do my homework. But there is something about the union that is so serene to me. I always feel at peace when I am working on homework there. The union is my go-to-spot for homework. 

I like that fact that this class is online, however, I don't like the fact that it seems like there is something due everyday of the week. Even though we do have a grace period to complete any work that we haven't gotten a chance to get to, I feel as if this class can be a little overwhelming.  

Just Push Through!

Week 7: Tech Tip

This is my first time using a Tech Tip and I found it really interesting. As I have been commenting on other students blog post, I always wondered how they changed the design of their blog to make it more personalized. I decided to use to use the Blogger Templates for this week. I decided to change the background of my blog to a picture of a globe, because I first, want to travel the world and second, plan on studying abroad in the spring. I thought that this template would fit my life the most because it is about to be an item that I can check off of my bucket list pretty soon. I liked how detailed the post about blogger templates was. It was very descriptive which helped me navigate through easier. I think next I want to change the font on my blog. I think that a different type of font actually lets someone know your creative side a little better. Plus I get really jealous when I see a blog that has a nice font on there.  

Technology

Reading Feedback

• Did the reading come with a Reading Guide? If so, was the Reading Guide helpful? If there was not a Reading Guide, would it help to have one? 

What is feedback?

For last weeks reading I decided to focus on the maiden who became a knight. The story talks about how King Drupada begs Shiva for a son to help defeat Drona. Shiva grants his prayer but says he will have a child that would first be a daughter, and then a son. The queen has a child, and she raises the girl as a boy, trusting in Shiva's promise. The queen names her Shikhandini, but she uses the male form of that name instead: Shikhandin. Drupada arranges for Shikhandin to marry a princess, but when the princess's father finds out Shikhandin is really Shikhdanini, he is outraged and threatens to wage war on Drupada.  

Personally, I prefer to read from an actual book so that I can highlight and take notes in the book. When I am reading something online, it is kind of hard for me to follow the story the story or I tend to lose interest because I can't physically engage in the book. I usually just go through the motions, instead of actually paying attention to what I am actually reading.  

Yes the story that I read had a reading guide. The reading guide made it a tad bit easier to actually know what was going on. Also I was able to write up some notes from the reading guide so that I could write up my storytelling post. If there was not a reading guide I think that it would have made it harder for me to actually formulate what I wanted to write about and how I wanted to frame my blog for the week.