Peter's India Blog

There are several stories in the Jataka tales, but not all of them particularly caught my attention. One that really did was this fascinating story of monkey and crocodile. I even like the very beginning of this story: Mother Crocodile wanted to eat the heart of a monkey and asked her little son crocodile to catch a monkey. Yet the son crocodile didn't think it's possible since monkeys live on land and didn't come into water. Nevertheless the little son crocodile came up with a witty plan: "I know what I'll do. I'll get that Monkey that lives in a big tree on the river bank. He wishes to go across the river to the island where the fruit is so ripe." I thought it was a clever plan. I also like how the author blatantly labeled her son crocodile character as stupid : "But he was a stupid Crocodile." Trying to kill the monkey by drowning him seemed pretty clever. Obviously, the monkey suffered greatly from going underwater: "When the

I think Canvas is an integral part of being an OU student. My courses, both traditional in-class ones and online classes, have individual Canvas pages.  Nevertheless, many OU students, including myself, aren't so adept at using Canvas. I've learned about the Dashboard bar in this tech tip exercise. It was really interesting to change Dashboard views. I tried Card view, List view, and Recent activity. They all display my courses in different manners. I thought each one of them had unique advantages.  The most fascinating feature that I discovered was Nickname option and Color management. Wow. I didn't know I could "nickname" my classes in any way I wanted! And I could also change colors? That was a truly fascinating discovery. I did manage my Dashboard page to look more neat and pretty. They are now organized. My Dashboard bar is more convenient and useful than ever. In general, I thought Canvas was kind of messy and not organized, although it ob

**While I was doing Part 2, check-up, I've found that I didn't declare for one Reading Notes that I did back in Week 5. So, I declared it for Extra Reading for Week 10 instead. When Your Brain Doesn't Sleep (Graphic) I've found this graphic to be relevant to my current state. It's also interesting to learn about the science of brain and sleep. Brain perhaps is the most important organ in our body, and it does many important jobs to make us stay afloat. I've also found several brain malfunctioning experiences I've had due to sleeping less. Lost memories, anger, impaired wit, head in the clouds, slurred speech, and risky decisions all sound very relevant to my personal experiences of getting inadequate sleep. It's so fascinating to learn about the interesting correlation. The graphic is obviously very effective at fulfilling its purpose of informing people about the danger of sleep deprivation. Tapasya (Video) It's truly interesting to

I chose to do a happiness challenge because I wanted to feel happier and appreciate the small things that I don't notice and take for granted. I'm sure there are many things around me that I should be more appreciative of. I've been anxious and neurotic largely due to my irregular, random patterns of sleep. Scientists and sleep experts recommend getting eight hours of regular sleep every day. Like today, I've often gotten zero hour of sleep. So for this happiness challenge, I want to get eight hours of sleep everyday for one week from today, Monday, October 29th to Sunday, November 4th. I really want to see if getting eight hours of sleep really makes someone happier like the scientists say. To accomplish this challenge, I have come up with a specific plan that includes several steps. 1. I will work and study only until 9:15 PM. 2. From 9:15 PM to 9:30 PM, I will take a shower to get ready for sound sleep 3. At 9:30 PM, I will be lying on my bed.

The title, "The Emotional Weight of Being Graded, for Better or Worse" obviously instantly caught my attention. It's such an interesting title because I'm a college student who has been constantly graded by professors. This article really confirmed my belief about grading. Grading does evoke fear to students who are being graded. I now know why: students often identify  with the grades they receive rather than just looking at them as mere numbers. Their sense of self-worth is often defined by the grades they receive. One interesting new thing I've learned while I was reading this article is that powerful emotions attached to grades drew children’s inherent interest in any given subject. In other words, grades students receive and their feeling about the subject are closely related. If a student receives a good grade on a subject, not only he or she is going to feel more confident about the subject, but also they are more likely end up liking it and feel sa

Once upon a time, two fierce brothers lived who were managers of a Kansas corn farm. John, who was honest, scrupulous, and fair-minded, disliked cheating and liked to work with his son all throughout the year, especially during the harvest season. John was popular, so he had many followers and sharecroppers who genuinely liked him. In addition, the owner of the farm, who was an old man in his eighties, really liked John and wanted him to succeed his ownership once he died. There was another brother whose name was April. Unlike John, April was greedy, competitive, and was always determined to win. April disliked rules and often ignored the proper procedures when he was working on the farm. One day, April decided to cheat John out of excessive greed. April wanted bumper crops for himself and did not want to share as much with his fair-minded brother John. So April, along with his fellow crooked followers and sharecroppers, decided to revolt against John and his scrupulous follow

I really like the fascinating, yet unique stories of the Princes of Elephant City. I like the detailed description of rich family history: "Long after the reign of King Bharata, there was a king in Hastinapura called Vichitravirya, who died and left two sons: Dhritarashtra, the older son, who is blind, and his brother Pandu, who becomes king. Pandu has five sons: Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna by his wife Kunti, and Nakula and Sahadeva by his wife Madri." It's a very complicated history of a family with lines of succession. Surprisingly, as generations progressed they had more kids. Vichitravirya had two sons, Pandu had five sons, and Dhritarashtra had whopping 100 sons! As I read this story of procreating so many sons, I thought King Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari must have been exceptional people who could have so many kids like that. I know India is the second most popular country on Earth, and it even hints why that is in its mythology. This description of Du

I really liked the combat story of Arjuna and Karna. The way the reading described the battle sounded very intense: "The arrows of Arjuna fell upon Karna like to summer rain; Karna's arrows were like stinging snakes, and they drank blood. At length Arjuna's celestial bow Gandiva was struck and the bow-string severed." The two heroes fought nip and tuck to win the battle. Karna, unlike Arjuna, seemed to lack grace and sense of justice. Karna attacked the injured men despite Arjuna's desperate warning: "Pause, O Karna. According to the rules of battle, thou canst not attack a disabled foeman." Despite Arjuna's warning, Karna was an unethical and ruthless foe. He attacked his injured opponent with ruthless raids of arrows. This cowardly action (from Arjuna's perspective) made Arjuna extremely angry that he almost became a different character: "When Arjuna had restrung his bow, he rose up like to a stricken and angry tiger held at bay, and

I'm certainly not happy with my progress so far. To be honest, I'm in a serious crisis. I have been lagging behind this class since like Week 3 and it had been continuing until last week. That was almost a month worth of missing several assignments and lagging behind in class. I really need to catch up and earn more points by finishing regular assignments on time and doing more extra credit assignments, starting with this Week 8. Otherwise, I'm on ground for failure. Nevertheless, I'm very proud of my truly unique and creative stories. I look them back, read, and re-read the stories I have created, and I'm happy and satisfied every time I read my unique, creative, and authentic stories. I had a good weekly routine up until about Week 2, but I have been lacking from having a good weekly routine. I'm bringing it back to get more assignments done. The kind of assignment that I enjoy the most in this class is story assignments. I'm an extraordinarily cr

I actually like the comments and feedback I've been receiving from fellow students in this class. They tend to be very thoughtful, considerate, and substantial. The comments and feedback that I've been receiving from my fellow classmates have been improving the quality of my writing in several ways. My classmates have been using smart feedback strategies such as WWW or TAG/Pretend, which prompt them to attentively read my stories and be considerate and thoughtful when leaving comments.  The kind of comments that I personally find most useful is comments that followed the WWW strategy. Specifically, 'I wonder' and 'what if' parts of their comments have made me ponder again about my stories and add more details and fix small flaws in the stories. To be completely honest, I think the quality of comments and feedback that I leave for other students tend to be lesser quality than comments and feedback I receive from other students. I have thoroughly read

It's been weeks of reading and writing in this class. I like this class, but there are several readings and writings I need to do. The assignments are really interesting and honestly most stories are pretty fascinating. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied and happy with my blog. My website (Project) has been lagging behind a little bit, but I've done very good revisions on my Portfolio stories. The biggest accomplishment I think I've done in this class is the several creative stories that I've written for story assignments. They become the basis for my portfolio project, and I think they are all interesting and pretty creative. My favorite reading by far is the story of Vali and Sugriva. Although they are both Princes, the brothers have different personalities and motivations. Reading notes definitely help me keep track of the contents of reading and supplement important information when I'm writing new stories. I've employed all the sorts and kinds

Once upon a time in ancient India, there was an evil, greedy Prince named Duryodhana. He was among several princes of the kingdom, but he was the most greedy and power-hungry of all. Among his brothers, there was wise, clever, and popular Prince named Vidura. Prince Duryodhana always hated Prince Vidura because he was popular with people. Prince Vidura, although he was ambitious like Prince Duryodhana, he wasn't a cruel-minded person like Duryodhana who could kill people easily to accomplish his purposes. Duryodhana, through his cunning strategies and deceits, became the official heir of the kingdom. Now that Prince Duryodhana became the official heir, he felt a great need to get rid of Prince Vidura because he feared Vidura might become more powerful than him. Duryodhana feared that Vidura might summon his forces who were known as the Pandavas and revolt against his authority. So Duryodhana, using his newly acquired power, imprisoned Vidura, his mother the Queen, and t

I like wisdom and smart strategy of Prince Vidura. To avoid evil Prince Duryodhana, he came up with a clever solution of digging the floor of the lac palace and making an underground passage for escaping to the forest. Prince Vidura also hired a competent staff to facilitate his clever escape: "Prince Vidura sent to Varanavata a skillful miner. He eluded the guards outside and made his way safely into the lac palace." And the operation of this clever escape was also well-operated without getting caught: "By night he worked, and by day he hid his work by covering the mouth of the passage with wooden planks, so that Purochana, the wicked captain, should not guess that the Pandavas were planning flight." This kind of clever escape strategy and operation reminded me of an action movie escape scene. Prince Vidura obviously was a clever person. Not only their clever strategy worked, they were also lucky to fool the villains: evil Prince Duryodhana and King