Week 10 Story: Riding the Bull

      Krishna never fit in, in his hometown. All anyone cared about was hunting, fighting, and bull riding. Krishina was more interested in helping the less fortunate and spreading kindness. Krishina knew that if he could somehow earn the other cowboys respect they would come to understand and follow his teachings of love. After thinking it over Krishina knew what he had to do, he had to do what every other cowboy was too afraid to do, he had to ride the bull named Hastin.

       Hastin was the biggest meanest bull in town. He was so mean that most people wanted to have him killed before he hurt someone. Krishina gathered the other cowboys around and told them what he planned to do, "In one months time, I shall ride the great bull Hastin in the annual rodeo," he declared! All the other cowboys mocked him, but he was undeterred and began his plan that night. Krishina knew that kindness was the ultimate strength and even Hastin could be rode if someone showed him some kindness. Every night Krishina would visit Hastin. He would play his banjo and feed Hastin the freshest grains and the sweetest moonshine. As the month wore on Krishina could tell his plan was working. Hastin seemed to love his music and even let Krishina feed him out of his hand. By the end of the month Krishina saw Hastin as his friend and he knew the bull felt the same way.

       The morning of the rodeo, Krishina was exited to show off and earn the other cowboys respect. Before he rode Hastin, Krishina explained what he had done.Looking out at the crowd Krishina said "This past month I have been able to tame and befriend Hastin; not through cruelty and fear, but through kindness and compassion. Kindness is the ultimate strength. With his motive explained Krishina sauntered over to Haskin. With one last wave Krishina leaped onto Hastin. As soon as Krishina's butt grazed Hastins back, the bull went wild. What Krishina thought was his friend was still the same wild bull and Krishina went flying off into a pile of manure. Covered in manure as the crowd laughed at him, Krishina decided it was time to go spread kindness somewhere else. 

Authors Note: I retold the Story of Krishina rides Haskin. In the original he is able to ride the bull. This shows his message of  "Kindness is the Ultimate strength" and shows his glory. Krishina is the God of compassion and love. I retold the story in an American setting and had Krishina fail in his task and be ridiculed. 

A bull rider attempter

Link to Bull riding Article

Title:  Krishna

Author:  Epified TV (India)

Year:  2015

Link to Video playlist
Krishna rides Hastin

Reading Notes - Epified: Krishna

For this weeks reading I watched the krishna YouTube shorts. I really enjoyed this format. They were quick, to the point, and I loved the illustrations. I thought that a lot of these shorts had potential for my story this week. The first story Krishna Humbles Brahma had a lot of potential. I like the aspect of people dissapearing and being replaced with a doppelganger. The rest of the village did not notice for the entire year their people were missing. I think this leaves a lot of room for a sci-fi or horror story. In the original Brahma realizes  Krishna's power when he comes to return the people and see's everything has been replaced by Krishna and continued on as normal.  The next story, Krishna rides Hastin also interested me. This one is about a mean bull that everyone wants to kill. Krishna decides he will ride this bull in one month. He spends the month feeding the bull and playing music, building up the bulls trust. At the end of the moth he is able to ride the bull through the street. This is a theme I have seen in popular culture before, and I think it would be interesting to do a story on this. I would like to do a story where at the end the bull is still mean and Krishna gets bucked off.  What I liked most about this story is the end message. Krishna says "Kindness is the ultimate strength. this seems to be the overarching theme of the videos and Krishna later on in Episode 16. Krishna has compassion for an old crippled woman and heals her. The woman comes to him as her savior and his healed by her faith. i saw a lot of parallels between Krishna and Jesus in the Bible. A lot of the stories were similar to parables in the Bible and both Krishna and Jesus act very similar. This also opens up a lot of new ideas for potential stories.

Man is unsuccessful at riding bull
Pixabay bull rider image link

Title:  Krishna
Author:  Epified TV (India)
Year:  2015
Link to Video playlist

Week 9 Story: The Last Boy Scout

The scouts all gathered friday evening. They all bought ther survival gear and everything else they would need on their camping trip. Tents, rope, matches, trailmix, it was all there and they were eager to step off into the wilderness. "Today we will finally earn our survival badge, and with that I will have all the badges a scout could earn," the leader of the group Yudhisthira declared. The other three scouts all nodded in exited agreement.

          They arrived at the park shortly before sundown and quickly began to set up camp. Arjuna was eager to show off his knot tying skills and created a haphazard shelter of ropes and canvas. Sahadeva attempted to start a fire with his new flint rock, before conceding to use his lighter. The boys told a few ghost stories and quickly fell fast asleep

     They woke to the morning sun already beating down upon them. Thirsty, the boys began to look around for their water. " Hey who has an extra water bottle, I forgot mine, " Nakula said. "I forgot mine too," replied Arjuna. Quickly the boys all realized they were in trouble and they would have to figure out how to survive if they ever hoped to earn their survival badges. Yudhisthira attempted to contain the panic but even he was starting to become worried. "I think there is a pond nearby, why dont you check it out Nakula," he said.

     Nakula ran off and quickly reached the pond. When he reached the shore suddenly the pond spoke to him and said "before you may drink, riddle me this". Nakula was to thirsty to be bothered by a talking pond and quickly drank anyway. Almost  immediately, he fell over dead.

      Worried Shadeva decided to go investigate. He too reached the pond and saw his friend lying dead. He too heard the voice of the riddling pond, but was so thirsty he decided to drink anyway. He too fell over dead almost immediately.

      Next Arjuna grew impatient and went off over to the pond. He saw his two friends lying dead and then the pond spoke to him. Arjuna would not be taunted by a talking pond, and with a mighty "Come at me bra," began to throw rocks at the pond. When this did nothing he too decided to go ahead and drink from the pond anyway. Unsurprisingly he too fell over dead.

      Alone Yudhisthira decided to investigate the pond as well. When he saw his friends dead he bagan to cry. Suddenly the pond spoke to Yudhisthira as well, "Riddle me this, scout," the pond declared. "I will answer your riddles magic pond, but first tell me what happened to my friends," Yudhisthira replied.  The pond was silent for a moment and then said "Your friends died from drinking dirty water from a stagnant pond, look at me, this water is full of all kinds of bacteria. Now for your first riddle; What three things are needed for a fire?"

Yudhisthira remembered his scout training and confidently declared "Heat, oxygen, and fuel."

Immediately the voice said "If you do not have any water, what should you drink?

For this question Yudhisthira had to dig deep. He thought about all the Man V Wild with Bear Grylls he had watched. Again he confidently replied "You drink your own pee"

The pond then spoke again "What should you do with pond water before you drink it?"

"You should always boil it," Yudhisthira replied.

Suddenly the pond transformed into William Dickson Boyce, the founder of the boy scouts."You have passed my test wise scout, You may have two wishes," Said Boyce.

"I wish my friends were alive and I wish we could all get our survival badge, exclaimed Yudhisthira.

Suddenly all three boys arose and the four of them happily left the forest, shiny new badges in hand.

The Great scout Yudhisthira and all his badges.
Yudhisthira Image
Scout Image

Authors Note. I told the story of Yudhisthira from Chapter 50 of the Mahabharata reading: Riddles at the Lake. The story is about five warriors who encounter the God of wisdom disguised as a pond. Yudhisthia is able to answer his difficult riddles and save his friends. I was pretty pleased with how the story turned out. I think telling the story as boy scouts worked perfectly and fit the theme of the original story. The story turned out a lot longer than most of mine, but I like the details I was able to include, such as their complete lack of survival skills, and the absurdity of multiple men drinking form the same pond that just killed their friend.


The Mahabharata, A Summary by John Mandeville Macfie (1921). Mahabharata

Reading notes: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu.Part B

I was exited to read this version of the reading when I saw that it was taking a down to earth approach. I liked that it was not going to be clouded with all the drama of the gods and all of the magical elements. Unfortunately I did not like how hard to read this reading was. It did not have much flow and seemed bogged down in details. It kind of read like the bible or another really old book. Something in the reading I would like to write about is the mighty battle that took place starting on page 102. The battle has Duryodhan on one side against Krishna and Arjun. Arjun is at first unwilling to fight because he does not want to fight his old teacher. Krishna must remind him of his duty. Arjun and Krishna are losing badly and begin to fight heroically. Dodging and firing arrows, even leaving their chariot. By the end of the day the battle is at a stalemate rather than a defeat.  This leaves a lot of open interpretation for a battle story. I have not yet done a modern battle story. I think it would be interesting to do a gritty modern war story. The details I took away from the source material fit this theme perfectly.

Krishna and Arjun
Wikimedia Image

The Indian Story Book: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu
Author: Richard Wilson

Week 8 Progress

I am fairly pleased with my progress so far. I would like to start doing some of the extra credit to get some more points. I would like to have enough for an A. My weekly routine is OK, but I need to make the smaller assignments a bigger priority. I tend to put of the weekdays readings a bit to much.
Looking forward I would like to continue with the quality of my stories and comments. Something new to try is to put more effort into the reading assignments. I would also like to check back with some of the peoples projects I have seen.
My motivational image is a WW2 propaganda poster. They are motivating and most importantly available for reuse.

WW2 Motivation

 

 

 

Pixabay Poster Image

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I have been very pleased with the comments I have been receiving. I really like seeing that other people are liking what I wrote and that people are actually reading it. I like the comments where people give me suggestions for improvement. A lot of people have ideas on what I should expand on or make more clear.
I think that my feedback is pretty good. I always try to tell people the things I like about there writing, as well as include something that I think could be improved. Seeing how creative some people are is encouraging me to be more creative in my writing.
I do feel like I am getting to know the people in the class. I read peoples introduction and then read their stories. A lot of people have their own unique style and I feel like I know the people better than most of the people in my physical classes. I think my blog and introduction also accurately represent me. In the future I would like to try to be more specific with my blog comments. I would also like to make my blog a little flashier. I like this image because it is an easy to read chart with a lot of good information/

How to give Consructive Feedback

Growth Mindset Memes

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I think that the reading and writing is working well. My favorite reading so far has been the The Divine Archer. This book was easy to read and was full of great content. I am also enjoying the Mahabharata. This had a lot of great stories that I will be able to write about. I am especcialy looking forward to my next story, which I have already planned. My notes have been helpful in remembering the basic plot outline and important details. I try to write down anything I may need so that I do not have to look at the readings when writing my story.  I am pleased with my project so far and how my stories have been coming along. I like how the writing challenges and criteria are forcing me to expand and improve my writing. My biggest accomplishment in my writing is being able to write creatively and in a way that does more than just convey information.
In the future i would like to try to be even more creative and outside the box in my writing. a lot of people in the class have had some stories that were really out there and they turned out great.
my favorite image i have used so far is this image of Ravana. i really like how ridiculous he is portrayed and this is how I picture him in the readings and my writings.

The Great Ravana

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ravana.jpg

Week 7 story Planning: The Last Boy Scout

Something I would most like to write a story about is chapter 50. Riddles at the Lake. The mail character in this story is Yudhisthira. He was a very capable spear hunter and a man of character.  The first thing I thought of when reading about his background was a boy scout. I think it would be fun to tell a story about a group of dorky boy scouts. Yudhisthira will be the greatest of the boy scouts. They go off on an epic quest to gain their survival badge by camping in the nearby park. They pack all of their survival gear and rope tying equipment. Unfortunately, despite all their training they do not bring enough water. Desperate to not die in the park their search will bring them to the magic pond. My favorite part of the original is how they each drink and then die. I would like to expand on how ridiculous it would be for the third to walk up, see two of his buddies die from drinking from the talking pond, and then drink from the pond anyway. I could show what the third scout is thinking or even what the pond is. Finally Yudhisthira listens to the pond and does not immediately drink.  Another big part of the story is the many riddles that the hero must answer. I could make them anything I want like survival skills or pop culture references. In the original Yudhisthira is able to answer them all and gets two wishes. Using his two wishes the scout will be able to bring his friends back and even get his survival badge. I think this will be a really fun direction to take the story. Following this format will leave a lot of room for expansion into a great story. 

The Haunted pond

Wikipedia link Vinegar Pond

The Mahabharata, A Summary by John Mandeville Macfie (1921). Mahabharata