Spring 2021

This part of the Jatakas has been so fun to read. Both parts A and B from this week my very well be my one of my most favorite so far. All these stories remind me of my childhood and have been able to show me the reasons for which I fell in love with reading as a child. I want my writing to emulate these characteristics and make people see their childlike love of reading stories. The use of descriptive words contained throughout these little tales would be useful to give some good ideas for writing almost any type of story. The way in which the story Spend a Pound to Win a Penny used this type of language helped me to see the whole scene. Descriptive language has the ability to paint the writer into the scene so it is almost as if they are seeing it up close and personal. This story in particular was one I truly enjoyed due to the underlying theme it carried with it. From the onset of the story, a reader may assume it is just going to be a silly tall tale about a monkey; however, by th

 For this weeks reading I chose the Jatakas of The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India. Once again, these stories immediately stuck out to me for the use of animal characters. I feel like any story is more approachable and relatable for people when the characters are unsuspecting animals. However, with animals, I feel like there is so much room to create a new persona and character qualities without people having as many preconceived biases like they do for typical story characters. These animal based stories also have the ability to reach a large demographic audience spanning all the way from little kids up to adults. The underlying message of most these stories is one that many people can relate to and ultimately learn good moral lessons from. The story of the Giant Crab was not my overall favorite story in terms of plot; however, the writing style it contained was very interesting and something that I think would be good to try out. In my own writing I often feel as if some of

 The second Part of the Jatakas was just as fun to read as the first. I really enjoyed the almost childlike stories that were told all while having a deeper rooted meaning. Many of these stories carry different little twists or turns that I am not expecting. I always seem to catch myself trying to figure out how a story is going to end and concocting in my mind what I think should happen. In most of these stories I found myself on the right track but not piecing together the whole puzzle. My favorite story in this Part of the Jatakas was The Crab and the Crane. In this story, the crane is shifty and figures a way to trick the fish into allowing him to carry them to a new pond full of water when in reality he is just taking them away to eat them one by one. I saw that twist from the very beginning. However, after the crane has eaten all of the fish and the reader suspects the story is over, the author introduces a new character, the crab. I like how the crab is smart and outwits the cra

 I loved reading the Jatakas this week because they reminded me of tales that I read as a child. I also am very fond of stories that contain animals due to the way they are whimsical and fun to read. My favorite story in this Part A was How the Turtle Saved His Own Life. This story contains all the elements of a classic children's story. It starts out with excited children who turn out to be quite naive and think that the turtle is a demon. Then, the adults must be naive as well because they do not know what a turtle is either and begin to plot ways to destroy the "demon". And, lastly, after the men plot many horrid deaths, one idea is given to throw the turtle into the lake. When the turtle hears this he acts as if it is the worst idea of all while he knows that this is his perfect plan of escape and they will take him right back to his home in the river.  Turtle from Wikimedia Commons My second favorite story was The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking. I don't kno

 This weeks story on the Mahabharata was very interesting and unique. I enjoyed reading from the author Kincaid and found him to be different from some of the other authors I have encountered in this course. My favorite story in this section of reading was The Adventures of Prince Arjuna. Prince Arjuna is boy who embodies all the characteristics of what you would imagine a young prideful prince to have. The following sentence structure is one that I think would be good to come back to and use as it is different than my usual writing. "But Prince Arjuna, in the pride of his youth and courage, laughed at their warning, and, stripping off his garments, he plunged into the cool waters of the river." This sentence makes good use of commas, which is something that I am not always great at, and it also does a good job of painting a picture in the readers mind. Kincaid continued on using great imagery in the way that he depicts Prince Arjuna's dreams and visions. I think in addin

 I never realized that there were so many different things that I had the ability to add or remove from my profile on blogger. I configured my site to show author name as well as profile when looking at my page. I made all the changes to my profile to make it more unique for me.