Week 11: Famous Last Words

It’s the home stretch! I have figured out my basic weekly assignment list for the rest of the semester: two more Storybook things (both of which are revisions), three reading posts a week, and about five points, on average, in other assignments a week. Shouldn’t be too hard to keep up with, right?

This week was a busy one for reading. I ended up finishing The Palace of Illusions, reading an Amar Chitra Katha comic, and starting Breaking the Bow. I really enjoyed the final chapter of Divakaruni’s novel and the philosophical way in which it wrapped up after hints being given to Draupadi about that all along. The comic, Stories of Creation from the Brahma Purana, was fun. I hadn’t tried any of the comics or graphic novels at Bizzell, so I’m glad I took the opportunity to see what one was like. And of course, I’m enjoying Breaking the Bow right now. I’m interested to see what else the anthology has in store, with such a diverse array of authors, genres, and takes on the epic.

I had a couple interesting Epics-related interactions this week as well. Checking out the comic from Bizzell, one of the workers gushed about how much she loves the comic series, having grown up reading these. The lady who checked out the book to me was just amazed at it being volume 834. J

Earlier in the week, I unsuccessfully tried to avoid yet another campus proselytizer on the South Oval. But this one turned out to be super friendly (and seemed genuine about it) and was discussing the Bhagavad Gita, not Christianity. Turned out she’s from ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), which made me realize that while many of us read these epics for entertainment, others can view them as texts relating stories of spiritual significance. I hadn’t really connected the Krishna of the Ramayana with a god who people still worship, so this was an interesting perspective to encounter.

 life-size statue of ISKCON founder Swami Prabhupada

from ISKCON Temple Chennai

(Wikimedia Commons)

Week 10: Famous Last Words

Hopefully this is my hump week of the semester. (Is that a thing? I think in college life "hump week" is a useful concept. Also maybe "hump month." Sometimes things just really don't lighten up for several weeks. Or all semester.) Post-spring break, I'm finding it difficult to stay focus and work on class stuff when I have the time to do it. As my approaching-paper-deadlines stress gradually increases, it's not helping that I, erm, haven't really been doing that much research for them even if I have the spare time. If this is the only week (well, I guess the last week) I have this issue, it would be great.

I'm enjoying this course, of course, and reading Divakaruni's novel. It's getting a bit depressing, though, so I'm looking forward to moving on to Breaking the Bow (how often do you get to read science fiction for class??!!). I'm still holding out hope that I can forge on ahead a bit and finish the course early. While I like the subject material and assignments, it will also be nice to have one less thing to worry about towards the end of the semester.

The second story of the Storybook...not my best. I liked the character the first took on, but the second seems dry to me. I think a major part of it was not being familiar with the story as much as with Sita's, not having seen all of the nuance that people read into/take out of it. Also, I was trying to squeeze in a lot of cultural information at the same time, because with this festival there was actually a lot of detailed info online.

The pookalam flower carpets for Onam are my favorite festival tradition so far. 

(Wikipedia)

Hopefully the third story will go better. I think I'll have to use a comic book or graphic novel from the library as a main source, so that should be fun! I haven't yet ventured out to see what's on reserve for the Epics class -- I really prefer reading longer novels and such -- but I should definitely take at least some advantage of the resources pooled there. :)

Week 8: Famous Last Words

At the halfway point in the semester, it seems appropriate to do one of these posts. :) I'm mostly keeping up in this class, despite having to switch to doing things according to the daily due dates instead of being a week or more ahead. Again, maybe I can use this weekend to forge ahead into Week 9 and buy myself at least a little space? (But who am I kidding; I'm also trying -- and not really succeeding -- to get ahead on research papers right now, too.) I'm getting more selective about the assignments I do; for example, I intentionally skipped the blog comments assignment for this week but made up the points with two tech tip extra credit things.

I'm super excited for the readings in the second half of this course! I've already started in Palace of Illusions, and up after that is Breaking the Bow and then, hopefully, allowing enough time, I'll read The Missing Queen. I love being able to work fun novels into my readings for class! Not to mention, these are all books I'd either run across before and wanted to read, or that were mentioned earlier in this course and sounded intriguing.

The Storytelling and Storybook assignments are hit-or-miss for me. I was surprised by how my first Storybook story turned out. I had expected to put in more detailed information about festival celebrations, but I ended up having a difficult time finding much more than surface descriptions. On the other hand, I felt like Sita's voice really took over as I was writing, which is the first time I had that authorly character-writes-own-story feeling. For the weekly blog assignment, meanwhile, I loved the idea of telling Krishna's story as a revitalization movement, but I felt like the idea fell flat as I tried to actually write a version pulling out those elements. Eh, on to the next week!

(source)

Week 4: Famous Last Words

This semester. Oh my gosh. It's quite the whirlwind. A month in, I'm still in the energetic-busy phase rather than stressed-out-beyond-measure-busy, which is nice. I'm able to focus and stay on top of assignments much better this semester than in some previous ones, and it's reducing my stress level a crazy amount, actually, just to mostly have things done on time. Hopefully this feeling will continue as I get into the time to research and write papers... I keep thinking I'll have time to get ahead, but this semester keeps throwing curveballs, mostly exciting ones. With this being my last semester in Oklahoma, I'm trying to prioritize friends and some extracurriculars over almost exclusively focusing on school, and I think this actually both makes me mentally healthier, to have something fun breaking up the studying, and better at time managing and therefore more efficient.

I enjoy the readings for this class more each week. The Ramayana was a lot of fun to read, and I'm looking forward to starting Narayan's version of The Mahabharata in the next few days. Sita Sings the Blues went way beyond my expectations. It's trippy, creative, catchy, thoughtful, deep -- so much more than the simple visualization of the epic that I expected. I love Nina Paley's open-ended but insightful conclusion that finally brings focus to what Sita is feeling and experiencing during this story that so often centers on Rama's perfection rather than his crappy treatment of his wife. I kept showing one of my friends various scenes from the film as I was writing my Storytelling post this week and kept recalling my favorite parts. I keep getting the song that Sita's sons sing about Rama stuck in my head, with its snarky verse criticizing Rama's behavior. :)

still from Sita Sings the Blues

source: On the Human