Story Lab - Empoword

Once upon a time (image source from pixabay)

Reading this college manual about writing, made me realize we are all story tellers. We tell stories everyday in our own life. We are stories. The way we identify ourselves, our ambitions, our life, our passion composes many stories of ourselves. We end up being stories in the end of our life when we pass away.

A good story should have well written narration. Your story has to at least be descriptive, creative, impactful, and entertaining to the audience. For example, scope refers to boundaries of the plot. I need to focus on the background of the stories and build it up. People will have different perceptions of my story if I am not detailed and concise about it. And when I write my stories, I need to pace out my plots and sequence. I tend to usually jump into a dramatic scene without building it up. 

The few mistakes I have in my story is not building characters, adding enough dialogue to show their emotions or mood, or being detailed enough about my plot. I feel like reading this made me notice more of my mistakes and I could fix it in my next stories or revision. In my stories, I usually just jump to the plot because I know how the story starts and how it ends- which I shouldn't be doing that. Not everyone will see what I see or understand what I understand. 

Link

Reading Notes: PDE Jataka, The Horse That Held Out to the End- Part B

Seven Headed Flying Horse (image source from Wikipedia)

In this life, the Buddha came to life in the form of a horse that was a thoroughbred small horse. The horse was the King's Destrier who was surrounded by pomp and state. He was well fed with exquisite three-year-old rice that was served in a gold dish worth thousand pieces of money. The ground in his stalls were perfumed with four odors. His stall also have crimson curtains while a canopy studded with golden stars. He had fragrant flowers and a lamp with scented oil.

All the seven kings envied the kingdom of Benares. They told the king of Benares to give up his kingdom or to battle them. 

The king of Benares sent for the Knight to fight the seven kings. The Knight responded, "Give me but your noble Destrier, and then I could fight not only seven kings but all the Kings in India." He provided the Knight with his horse and went into battle.

As they went into battle, they abducted six kings and brought them back as prisoners. The horse was wounded and bleeding which caused him so much pain. The knight made the horse lay down but he refused. Destrier knew that no horse will help catch the seventh king and he would lose. He was so close to accomplishing on capturing the seventh king that he did not give up. 

The horse got up and captured the seventh king. The horse went back to the King's gate and saw the King again. He gave the king orders to not slay the seven kings. Do honor for them both, exercise charity, and rule the kingdom in righteousness and justice. As the took off the armour of the horse, he passed away. 

The king buried the horse with respect and great honors. He send the kings to their homes after giving an other to never war upon them again. 

Marie L. Shedlock, The Horse That Held Out to the End, Link

Reading Notes: PDE Jataka Tales, The Hare That Ran Away- Part A

Little Hare (image source from Wikipedia)

Buddas came and go, but this Budda reborn into a Lion- he spends his life helping others. There was this nervous little Hare that was always nervous and worried that something dreadful was going to happen to her. She always repeats this saying, "Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would happen to me?" She said this phrase so often that she thought it was going to happen one day. It was like she believed it was going to happen too. One day, she heard the slightest noise and it was a heavy fruit that had fallen upon a rustling leaf, which made her believe that the earth was falling in. The hare ran away so fast and told the older brother hare, "the earth is falling in, and I am running away." 

When the brother hare heard it, he told his other brother hare which his brother hare told others. It was a telephone game where everyone knew the earth was falling in. The deer heard it, the sheep, the wild boar, the buffalo, the camel, the tiger, and then the elephant. 

The wise Lion heard all this noise and asked what the big fuss was. There were no signs of the earth falling in so he had to get to the bottom of it. The source of the problem came from the Little Hare. He asked what made her think the earth was falling in? She explained how she saw it by the tree. The Lion took her back to prove to her that the earth was not falling in. He explained how the fruit fell and made a frightening noise, but it does not mean the earth was falling. 

Marie L. Shedlock, The Hare That Ran Away, Link

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata - Part B

Karna (image source from Wikipedia)

Karna is the son of Surya the Sun God and Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. She gave birth to Karna before she married King Pandu. When Karna was born, he had earrings and armor showing that he could not be killed. Kunti had to release him from her posession and set him adrift in a river to be adopted by Adhiratha. 

Karna grows to be a formidable warrior that Indra worries that Karna might kill his son, Arjuna. Indra wanted to deprive Karma of the supernatural protection with his earrings and armor. So Indra disguises himself as a brahmin and begged Karna for the earrings and armor. Karna is not an idiot but sees right through the disguise, knowing it is Indra. He offered to give Indra the earrings and armor in exchange for the an invincible weapon. Indra gives Karna a deadly dart that can only be used once. 

Karna cuts off his earrings and gives it to Indra. As Indra took the items, he ascendeda smile to heaven. The news went around how Karna was no longer invincible.

Sister Nevedita, The Arrow of Death, Link

Reading Notes: PDE Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists: Mahabharata - The Boar Part A

Arjuna with his bow and arrow (image source from Wikipedia)

Arjuna is the third Pandavan brothers. He was out worshipping one morning by offering flowers and clay image of the Great God then a boar came by. He decided to try and kill the boar with his bow and arrow given from his worshipper. Once his bow was up in the air; suddenly the atmosphere got quiet, the birds were not chirping, streams not flowing, and suddenly it was dead silence. Arjuna still had the mindset of killing this boar no matter what. As he pulled back the string, he shot the boar.

After a couple of seconds, the boar was shot again with a dart and died. Arjuna did not know who shot the boar and called it his "unknown rival". As the other hunter stood there towering over Arjuna, which seemed like a king that was being accompanied by his queen. 

Arjuna was upset someone shot the boar because it was his quarry and demanded for a battle. As he saw the huntsman swallow up the darts, he knew he could not have beat the huntsman. He wanted to duel for a wrestle and threw himself at the opponent. Once he threw himself at the huntsman, he felt the touch of the Great God on his heart. 

Arjuna was crying out for the Great God because he did not know it was him, so fell on his feet. He apologized and was worshipping at his feet. The Great God placed out his hand and blessed the worshipper with divine weapons as he could be hurled by the mind, eyes, words, and by the bow. 

In the end, the Great God gave Arjuna a divine bow and blessed him. Then he walked away into the caves and snow that went up into the sky with all his train. 

Bibliography: Sister Nivedita, The Boar, Link

Famous Last Words: Glancing Back

During week 8, it was more of a review and catching up. It was a lot more hectic this week because midterms are coming up before spring break and I am trying to cram everything in. Just looking back at this class for a bit... I realized I do not really enjoy giving feedback because I suck at giving advice or knowing how to word things properly or not knowing if my feedback is correct. I just feel bad if I give them an advice that was incorrect. 

I also wanted to talk about this recent concert I had to attend for my Native American Music. It involved of a lot of dancing and interacting which was really exciting. Our performers were telling us the tory in their culture and the purpose of dancing. They dance to thank the creators for giving them sun, the ground, plants, and all this good stuff. I found out that they have lots of traditions and beliefs that differs from different culture which is pretty awesome. It just made me think of this class a little bit of what Hinduism is about. People from different places believe in different things or enjoy different things- that is what makes us all unique.

For this coming week and spring break, I just want to self myself a goal. I want to get ahead before it gets crazy in my capstone class and midterms after spring break. Then next thing I know… it is graduation day already. Where did my four years of college go? I cannot believe we are halfway in the semester already…

To end these last words, I just want to share this dog that I will be getting soon. She’s an Australian Shepherd with lots of cuteness. Here is a cute picture for you guys to enjoy.

Australian Shepherd (image source from me)

Week 8 Progress

I am okay with my progress I have made so far. I just look forward to putting more work into this class because it can be easy to get offtrack. The only changes I hope to succeed is putting in more time into this class because I usually put this as my last priority. Just looking back, the assignments I really enjoy doing is when I get to create my stories. They are simply so creative and easy for me to write whatever I want. I like how my website looks because they are simplistic and organized; exactly what I need!

Australian Shepherd to motivate me (image source from pixabay)

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Students are never failures. They may experience failure, learn from failure, grow from failure. But they are never defined by failure. (Image source from Andi McNair)

The comments I am receiving on my posts are useful for sure. But the most useful feedback I enjoy is the one our professor gives us. She emails us back in a timely matter and tells us exactly what we need to fix, and I really enjoy that. The feedback I give back could be better. I think my strategy is reading the author’s note first then reading the story, so I can be aware what I am reading for the story. Also, reading other students feedback helps me make sure I am not the only one thinking a certain way. Sometimes I doubt myself and think I am wrong until I see someone post a similar comment to mine- which makes me feel a lot better.

What I can move forward is to be more descriptive about my feedback. I felt like I was very broad and barely specified it in my feedback comments. Maybe if I did that, it would definitely help them improve their posts because I would want the same thing.