Indian Epics Fall 2019

A few months had passed since the Jackal/Lion cub was made fun of for using his voice. Many had forgotten as he had fell into the background during the games and activities that he went to. He still had the body of a lion and that was enough to stop others from continuing to make fun of him. The worst part about not using his voice is that the cub was terrified to pursue his true dream: to sing. One day the cub was running errands for his father (the lion). He had some food strapped on his back that he was carrying home and was getting bored on the long walk back home. Then, a thought popped into his head. He looked around and saw that no one was there, so he began to sing. What many do not know about a jackal's voice is that they have the most beautiful singing voice. It had been so long since the cub had been able to use his voice that is was a little hoarse, but shortly it became a lovely clear tune that his mother (the jackal) used to sing for him when he was little. Every ...

For the longest time I never downloaded the Canvas App on my phone. I think I finally did last semester as a junior. Before then I would just have it open as a website on my phones browser and look on there. I did that because on the Mobile App the one thing you cannot do is look at the averages. Because I have the toxic trait of comparing myself to others, I like to know where I stand with everyone else. Even now that I have the app, I will check when a grade gets released, but I still usually go onto the actual website so I can see the averages. It is a good app for general purposes like looking at assignment due dates and grades, but overall I do not use it much. I usually just pull out my laptop and do everything on there. I do love the layout of it though. Canvas is a great website and is very simple and easy to use. This carries over to the app so I like that. Overall it is a good app, but I do wish it would show the averages of grades.

For this reading, I stuck with the Jataka tales and realized how much I loved reading these. They feel less daunting than a whole book so the reading goes by so much faster. This week the first story I chose I did not actually like. I actually hated it because the message it had was not a good lesson and did not have an actual ending. It was the "Silence is Golden" story. It started off with a lion and a jackal having a kid together. While he looked like a lion, he sounded like a jackal. Because of this he would never speak. One time he decided to speak and he was made fun of. After that he decided to never speak again. Then the story just ends. It ended like the lesson was telling us to be ashamed of something we were born with. I get that this story was not written in 2019, but wow. If I were to write a story with this as my source, I would definitely change it to make sure that he learned how to speak up and not be ashamed for what he sounded like. As a kid and even now ...

The story that I enjoyed the most was the story of The Axe, the Bowl, the Drum, and the Diamond. It has a lot of things that I have always enjoyed. It has Castaway elements, a flying pig and even some Lord of the Flies in there, except I hated lord of the flies. To start off the story we have a character that gets stranded on an island. Typical for most stories that start in the ocean, but all of a sudden he sees something without wings flying toward him. It creates new meaning to the phrase "when pigs fly." I had always pictured a flying pig to be majestic and cute with these huge angel wings, but this pig is not like that all. It has no wings and is large and has tusks. Far from cute. The next part I am a little confused about. The pig does not even see the man on the island. He lands and basically goes straight to bed. I guess the man was hiding and then is brave enough to creep on the pig as it is sleeping. That is how he discovers the magical diamond. The next part mad...