As the Story Will Tell Itself: To Become the Mouth Which Holds the Universe

In a world where the specter of Capitalism no longer haunts Europe, the Bodhisatta was born into the form of our lord and savior, Karl Marx. During his time in this world, he worked to bring peace and prosperity through the philosophy of his holy book, The Communist Manifesto . By this point, he had managed to exorcise the accursed spirit from Europe, but his work was far from over. Not everyone was happy about his actions. There was one particularly disgruntled capitalist: Ayn Rand. She despised how the prosperity of the land was seeping with altruism; she desired said prosperity for herself and her fellow "elite," individualistic heathens. She pondered how to accomplish this. Then she thought, "Perhaps if I could steal and destroy The Communist Manifesto , I would be able to seize the means of production for myself..." Wringing her hands in delight, she set out to find him. Beloved Marx sat meditating under a pine tree. "Dearest Marx," Rand said to...

Reading through the Jataka Anthology , one story stuck in my head as a story I would like to retell: The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart . I like stories about tricksters getting caught in a situation and then managing to get out of it with their wit. In my notes, I wrote brief summaries of parts of the story and then below gave a general explanation of these parts . Notes: crocodile's mate desires monkey's heart an unreasonable desire someone is set to fulfill  crocodile comes to monkey promising of a place across the river with amazing fruits the one set out to fulfill desire comes to potential victim with a promise that is too good to be true crocodile offers a ride across river, monkey agrees, crocodile begins sinking to prepare to take monkey's heart one to fulfill desire offers chance for promise, victim agrees with or without suspicion, betrayal is revealed   monkey tells heart is in fig tree, tells crocodile to take him there if he desire heart...

In all honesty, the unfamiliarity and sheer number of choices made searching for topics of interest daunting at first. Thankfully, I still managed to find some that I would like to try to read and learn about later this semester, which turned out to be just some of the gods and goddesses. Saraswati . The first thing I looked through was the comics page. Nothing stood out to me except for the comic about the goddess of wisdom,  Saraswati: Stories of the Goddess of Wisdom . There is no special reason why I chose Saraswati; gods and goddesses of wisdom are one type of deity that I find intriguing. Sarasvati appears to Yajnavalkya Web Source: Wikimedia Commons Kali . Kali is a devi I remember having learned a little bit about some years ago, though where I do not remember. It was just a short text telling about how she was in a destructive and bloodthirsty rampage, and she did not stop until she realized she was dancing upon her husband, Shiva, who laid himself ...

Time management is something with which I struggle. One thing I try to do for all of my classes is to work ahead so that I have more flexibility in what I can do later. However, I have trouble just convincing myself to start my work. That tends then to lead to rushing close to deadlines to get everything done. I was especially guilty of this last semester when it came to doing my programming projects. My continuing goal is to be better at both managing my time and lessening my procrastination. The first article I looked at was Realistic Study Plans by Amanda Collins, which talks about using weekly and daily planners as well as how to allot time for studying and doing work. I already use an online calendar to keep track of class times, due dates, and work times, but I can never figure out how to effectively use it to keep track of free time to work on my assignments and projects. An idea I like in this article is using a physical weekly planner. A planner would make it easier to plac...

I am familiar with some of the technology tools that are useful to this class like image editing software, bookmarking tools, and website building tools. While I have not ever before published a website, I have had some experience in the past designing websites. I am excited at the chance for learning more about image editing and how to generate images and memes. All of these things provide an ability to be more creative with out work, especially compared to the strictness of most of the other classes I have taken. Cat looks at the Wikimedia Commons's main page Web Source: Wikimedia Commons

A few things are new or uncommon to me in terms of ever doing them, let alone as assignments: blogging, commenting, reading Indian epics and stories, and writing stories that I have to let other people read and critique. For anyone who has read any of my previous posts, I'm sure my inexperience in blogging shows. So far the blogging has been a bit of a challenge for me, but with the practice I will be getting over the course of this semester, I am sure I will get better at it. I am most definitely excited for reading some epics and stories. Ever since I discovered the existence of epics during my world history class in high school, I have been wanting to read them ever since. As for the extra credit, I think I would be interested in the extra reading and the famous last words. I look forward to what challenges these assignments hold for me over the course of this class. A book with a lovely cup of tea Web Source: Wikimedia Commons

Beforehand, I had never heard of Carol Dweck. I know I have heard of the growth mindset, but where I cannot remember. It might have been in the psychology class I took a couple of years ago. In any case, while watching the first video I was reminded that I was raised as one of those children to expect good grades, candy, and other things as rewards for my work. I actually had my first realization of this when I got my first B as a final grade in college. I know that through most of my schooling experience I would view the work I was given as easy and, therefore, would not put too much effort into it. Yet in the past, I managed to get good grades without said effort while others could not despite their effort. As I grew older, I began to be interested in learning the subjects I had to take for the sake of learning about them, but I was disappointed in the approach to the topics we would be learning. Everything was just too easy, yet I still valued my grades. I had a bit of a reversal ...

Hi, there! My name is Molly. I am a third year Computer Science major at the University of Oklahoma.   Image of Bizzell Memorial Library on the University of Oklahoma campus Web Source: Wikipedia Commons   So first of all, I am not good at coming up with titles. Second, I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is to describe myself as "tech-savvy," but I couldn't think of a better way to put it. As stated before, I am a Computer Science major, so I know how to program in languages like Java and C++. In the years before college when school was still free, I also learned a bit about mobile application and game development. I'm not much of a fan in terms of dealing with hardware, but a year or two ago someone gave me a Raspberry Pi 2, a small but malleable computer, which I was finally able to work on over the summer and turn into a small media box. Image of my Raspberry Pi; photo taken August 2017 Overly caffeinated is a fairly accurate way to des...

Yama's Collected Souls . This was the first storybook that caught my interest. There was just something about having the word "souls" in the title that attracted me. This storybook contains four stories told by Yama, "Lord of Death", recounting the lives and deaths of four of the more interesting souls he has obtained over the years. Now I am not familiar with any Indian epics or stories beyond recognizing the names of some of them. While reading through the introduction, I had to look up the names of the characters mentioned to have a better context of what I was reading, and I'm sure if I had read any of the epics, the brief introductions of the characters Maricha and Jatayu would make more sense to me. The introduction seemed to do a good job in keeping my interest with the author's writing style giving Yama a kind of believable voice or speaking manner. My only complaint with it is the lack of a brief introduction for the other two characters to gi...

For whatever reason, I usually have trouble coming up with an answer when asked what my favorite place is. I search through my memories of specific places I've been to throughout my life, and yet there is nothing that stands out as a favorite. In slight frustration, I decide to go out to a local coffee shop to give myself a break before thinking this over again. As I was staring into the quiet space of the dimly lit room while waiting for my currant black tea, I realize my answer: coffee and tea shops. Image of an aesthetically pleasing coffee shop with a large assortment  of beans, flavored syrups, and informational chalk boards Web Source: tpsdave on Pixabay There is nowhere specific in mind in terms of a favorite shop. I've thoroughly enjoyed my experience in every one to which I have been no matter if it was in a "sketchy" part of town or too bourgeois for my taste. I have always been a tea lover, and coffee recently has been finding a way into my hear...

Oh, hey! I didn't see you there. I just wanted to let you know that t h is i s a t e s t po s t .