Week 14: Reading Diary B

I really enjoyed the descriptions of what the festival was like and all of the separate events that occurred at it this week. It was Yudhisthira's idea (or so he would want us to think). I would love to have attended this festival because everyone who came was given free food and presents. There was an interesting golden (grains) mongoose... and that was an interesting story. Eventually it actually turned into gold, so that was really lucky considering that was its goal all along.

Week 14: Reading Diary A

Duryodhana was depicted much differently here. This week was pivotal in defining his character. He has 100 brothers... Kind of crazy. Although his right to the throne was taken away, at least someone thinks he is great. Yudhishthira thinks that he is so powerful that he could take on one of the Pandavas.

Week 13: Tech Tip || Google doc dictionary

Here is one of the most commonly misspelled words in our language. If you are not sure if you spelled a word correctly in google docs, you can right click the word and "define" it, or you can highlight it, choose "tools," then "define."

Week 13: Famous Last Words

This week has been very hectic and we have not even had class yet! My sororities formal date party is this Friday so I am trying to get everything done in advance so I do not have anything to worry about come Friday. I have an organic chemistry quiz this Friday, which is rather unfortunate because I wish I could just take the day off to relax from (what I am anticipating to be) a stressful week. This quiz is really important though. Our professor has agreed to use the best 2 out of 3 quizzes from the semester, so I have to do really well on this one. I also have to visit career services and have them critique my resume and submit the finalized version to one of my other classes by Wednesday. I have so much online Italian homework to complete on top of all of that. I do not expect to enjoy much sleep this week!

Here's a personal picture of my ochem textbook!

Other than my usual stress with school, I really do not have much else to comment on! I am really looking forward to our date party, but I am also (almost more) looking forward to getting this quiz over with! I want to have all of my work for this class completed by tomorrow. It was nice to have the snow day, and an extra day to complete our weekend assignments, but I spent most of today studying for ochem anyways.

My third post to my storybook has gone along great! I think that everyone who has read it is able to really envision my characters and get a better understanding of who those characters are and what is important to them. I had a friend read my storybook (so far) and she liked the blog posts even though she has no idea what the Ramayana or Mahabharata are! Sounds like good news to me!

Week 13: Reading Diary B

Wow, the death of Drona was written very well here in comparison to Narayans version. Drona kills Drupada because he is his enemy. While Drona is mourning over the death (or so he thought) of his son, he puts down his defense for one moment and is then beheaded. Kind of messed up. Not a very fair fight.

Week 12: Tech Tip || Google Translate

Admittedly, I used google translate all the time. I take Italian at OU, so I have some pretty serious first hand experience with the Italian-English translations on google translate. I have defintely found the Italian-English translations to be a bit confusion sometimes and even misleading, but it is such a terrific resource. The app for iPhone has a feature where you can speak into the microphone and it will translate what you said--Very useful if you are traveling around a country with a language-barrier to yours!

Here is my translation of one of Aesops fables:

The Fox and the Mask

"A fox entered the house of an actor and, rummaging in the midst of all his costumes, he also found a mask theater artistically molded. He held it up between his legs and said, "A magnificent head! But the brain, nothing." Here's a story for some men beautiful body but poor in spirit."

Week 12: Famous Last Words

So this week has been really hectic for me. It might just be an end of the year thing, but it seems like everything has started to happen really fast. There just is not enough time in the day! I have not been giving this class as much attention as I should. I really need to finish up my third and fourth additions to my storybook but I keep on putting it off! Last weekend I was home for one of my brothers best friends weddings and I stayed home through Monday afternoon because my brothers both came home for the wedding. They are usually in New York and California, so it was a special thing for them to be home and I was not about to miss out on a second of that! But the result of me spending that extra time with them was that I did not publish anything new to my storybook last week! Ah! And I started to feel kind of sick and just unmotivated. I really think its the weather. Anyways, I am making a promise to myself (and my handy-dandy planner) that I am going to finish both posts to this week and get ahead on as much as possible!

I have a HUGE lab practical coming up the Monday after Thanksgiving break and I just know I am going to be stressing hard… and probably procrastinating a little because its freaking Thanksgiving and what else is anyone supposed to do but eat turkey and sleep? So the plan is to finish up/get ahead on as much as I can during this week and weekend. Fingers crossed.

Personal photo: This is what my Thanksgiving plate looked like last year!

I finished all of my commenting for this week earlier today and I just wanted to mention to anyone who is in our class reading this: Everyone has been doing so great. I can’t even put into words how much fun it is to watch everyone grow in their writing abilities and how creative some people have become in their stories! I just love it. Keep up the great work, everybody!!!

Week 12: Reading Diary B

My favorite parts of this section of the reading was Savitri's story and Mount Kailasa. With Mount Kailasa it was really the interest, detail, and significance that Buck expresses here that arise an interest in me. In comparison with Narayan's version, it appeared that Buck is much better at using detail in this section, specifically when Hanuman blocks Bhima's path. I really like Arguna because he seems like he is just one of the good guys-- very moral and strong in his heart. Even when he is learning how to use the divine weapons, it is as if he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

Week 12: Reading Diary A

I really enjoyed this part of the story because we are introduced to a new couple, Nala and Damayanti. I debated using them in my epic love tales storybook... well I have not published my next storybook story, so I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone. I'll admit I am a sappy person, but I was not all that affected by the reunion in the end of this reading after all of the troubles the two encounter. A lot of other events occurred in this section of the story but nothing really happened that I found all that intriguing other than what I have mentioned.