Jesika's Blog

The Return of Mathura Krishna is about 12 years of age now, and has been dealing with all the attempts made on his life by Kansa. He has managed to defeat all the demons so far sent his way. Krishna and his brother Bolarama head to the city of Mathura. There was a sacred object guarded near King Kansa's throne, which was a great bow. It is said anyone who wants to take his crown must first bend and break the bow, which is from the gods.  Krishna manages to bend and break this great bow. In doing so, it made a huge sound that even Kansa could hear it from a distant. Kansa wasn't able to sleep well because he kept dreaming of himself with no head. To others he showed no fear or concern about the bow breaking, but inside he was worried. There was a tournament in the city where people would match their skill to the King's wrestlers or fighters.  Kansa had a elephant secretly stationed which no one knew about. Krishna and Bolarama came into contact with this elephant a...

The Birth of Krishna Kansa is a tyrant king of Mathura. He loved his sister, Devaki, who married a noble named Vasudeva. One day a voice spoke to him saying his sister's 8th child from her husband would slay him. Ever since he heard this, he placed the couple in the prison and killed every child they had until the eight one.  When the eighth child was born, he showed signs of Vishnu. The parents soon heard a voice saying to take the child to the house of Nanda and switch the child with a baby girl who was just born there.  Vasudeva managed to escape the prison and sneak out to take his son to the village of Gokool to the King of Cowherds. They switch children and he went back to the prison with the baby girl. Kansa found out about the couple having another child and was surprised to find it was a girl. He thought a girl could not slay him and the voice made it sound like it was a man who will slay him.  When he went to go pick up the baby girl to kill her, she t...

Hey guys the link to my portfolio project is here . Hope you guys enjoy it! Imagery of books full of stories. ( Source )

The wolf searching for food. (Source: Wikipedia ) Hey guys, there's an updated version on my portfolio, here ! Once upon a time, there was a skinny grey wolf who wandered around for hours trying to find something to eat. He searched for some food and even tried to kill some small animals. However, he was so weak from starvation and was unable to succeed in his hunt. The poor wolf hasn’t had a good meal for a couple of days now until one day everything changed for him. During his search for food, the wolf spotted a great lion killing this big buffalo in just a matter of seconds. The wolf couldn’t believe his eyes and how strong this lion was capable of killing such a big animal. He followed the lion back to his den where he confronted the great lion. The wolf stooped to the lion’s feet and begged the lion to help him get some good food to eat as he was very weak. The wolf continued to tell the lion he would do anything for him. At first, the lion wasn’t too sure what ...

How the Monkey Saved His Troops The king and his men found this strange fruit, which was mango that they found out from people who lived in the area. They travel further down the river to collect the fruit and decided to camp overnight in the area to get more of the fruit in the morning.  While the king and people were sleeping, these group of monkeys came to eat some of the fruit, but they were being loud, which woke the king up.  King order his men to shoot the monkeys down with arrows. The monkeys look down and notice the archers. They went to their Chief and asked for help. The Chief of the monkey used himself as a bridge so his troops could get over from tree to another and escape.  The king saw how the monkey saved his kind and was impressed. He decided to make sure the monkey was taken care of the rest of his life.  The Foolhardy Wolf There was a hungry wolf who asked this great lion in helping him get food. They made a deal, which was the wolf w...

The Cunning Wolf Some people had no more food left for dinner, so a man volunteered to go get more meat for dinner with his club. He lays next to a watering hole and pretending to be dead, so when an animals comes he can surprise attack him. A bunch of animals noticed him and watched him for a while. The king of the wolves decides to go check out if the man is really dead, so he tells the others to wait.  The king wolf slightly tugs on the man's club, and instantly the man kind of pulls the club back. The wolf realizing the man is not dead and tried to fool the animals that he was dead. Luckily, the man misses when he threw the club at the wolf and noticed that they were no animals near by. Man goes back with no food because the animals outsmarted his move to kill them.  The Woodpecker and the Lion A woodpecker saw that this lion was in pain and found it it was because he had a bone stuck in his throat.  Lion asked for his help, but at first the woodpecker ...

Son of the Sun Kunti's secret was that she had a son from the sun god. When she was a young women, this sage came to her town. Now everyone was afraid of this sage because he tended to give curses to people. However, Kunti was not scared of him and kept him company. Seeing this made the sage happy and he had given her a gift that she could summon any god she wanted to by saying a mantra. Thus, she summoned the sun god to see if it worked and in the end result, he gave her a child.  Pandu's Curse Pandu and his two wives left the palace to go live in the forest to enjoy nature. In his time in the forest, Pandu enjoyed to hunt deers, but he made a grave mistake one day when killed a couple while they were intimate with one another. The man cursed Pandu that if he becomes intimate with a women he would die. Hastinapur was in need of a king now, but Kunti finally told Pandu about her gift. Pandu got happy and told her to summon a god to give Hastinapur a king.  Sons of Pandu ...

The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution         I really liked the illustration during the mini video series because it made the story more interesting and fun to listen. I think the video series did a good job overall summarizing some of the Mahabharata. It started with King Shantanu of Hastinapura falling in love a river goddess named Ganga. They marry under the condition that the king doesn't question her. Ganga ends up drowning seven of their sons once they were born. When she had the eight son, the king couldn't take it anymore and question her. She explains to him about the curse and leaves with their son. After many years pass, the king finally reunites with his son and brings him back to be the prince in the kingdom. King Shantanu falls in love with a fisherman's daughter, but can't marry her unless he allows her children to become king. However, the king could not do this since his son was promised to be the next king. Later, his son goes to the fisherman to co...

Looking back I've been doing pretty good, but I'm kind of behind on a little bit. I wasn't able to complete some assignments in week 7. I hope for this second half of this semester I can get ahead and be able to do more extra credit assignments. Looking at my progress chart I'm doing good, but it's like I could do better. So, I want to avoid getting behind and try to get at least a week ahead. My routine is not bad, but I'm thinking of doing some extra assignments on the weekends to get ahead. Also, doing all those extra credit opportunities would definitely help with that. Motivational quote ( Source ) 

I think overall I'm getting some good feedback from other students on my stories and project. I find the comments about an idea I could add in my stories to be the most helpful. Those comments really help me think of ways I could improve my stories or even add more details to it. In addition, I would say I'm giving useful feedback to others as well. I think the WWW strategy has helped me the most on giving feedback to other writers. Also, reading other peoples stuff gives me ideas on how I could write my stories, and it's a good way to connect with others. I feel like you could get some perspective about people through their writing. One thing I want to work on is giving better feedback that could be more useful to others. For instance, giving them ideas on how they could further their writing. I think it's important to take feedback in a positive way and a way to just improve oneself. The image below expresses what I think is important about the feedback process, and ...

Overall, I think my readings and writing assignments are well. There are some small things that I could improve on. On my reading notes, I could elaborate more on details of the story, and read the story more like a writer. I started to slack on my notes, so I could add in the notes on how I could change the story and analyze it better. That would help me when it comes to writing the story so I already have ideas. I think my favorite reading was about The Burning of Lanka. This story was interesting to read and rewriting it. Also, I'm pretty happy about my project website. I think the design and the layout are pretty good, considering I never made a website or blog. My introduction for my project made it clear on how I was going to write the stories, so I just need to work on how I'm going write the letters and the format. I'm not the most creative person, so I think I'm getting better at that part and coming up with ideas. In all, I'm not doing too bad and just nee...

Arjuna and Karna This story was about two brothers battling each other, Arjuna and Karna. In the battle, the brothers are shooting arrows at one another. Krishna and Shalya guided the chariots of Arjuna and Karna, respectively. At one point, one of Karna's arrows struck and severed Arjuna's bow string. Arjuna asked for a pause in the battle out of respective and according to the rules of battle. However, Karna did not care and continued to shooting the arrows. Then Arjuna was able to fix his arrow and fight back. Next thing you know, Karna's chariot was hit and the horse weren't able to advance. Thus, he asked Arjuna to pause the battle, in which he did but Krishna kind of talked him out of it. He mentioned to Arjuna about Karna killing his son Abhimanyu, which brought back Arjuna's anger. Arjuna proceed to shoot at Karna and severed his head. This ended the battle with a brother dying by the hand of a brother. This was kind of a sad story of how a brother died ...

Riddles at the Lake A brahmin asked the Pandava brothers to catch and kill this animal to get the sacred twigs from it. The brothers got tired and went to this lake because they were thirsty. Yudhishthira sent Nakula to the lake first. As he approached it, he heard a voice saying to if he answers a question he can drink the water, but chose to ignore it and continued to drink the water. He died after that. Next, Sahadeva went up to lake wandering about his brother and then also heard the voice. He ignored it and drank the water, which lead to his death. Arjuna went after and heard the voice. He used his arrows and started shooting them. Then he drank water and died. Bhima went to lake too and drank the water, which he died too. Finally, Yudhishthira went to the lake and asked the voice who it was. Voice said it was a yaksha. Yudhishthira agreed to answer his riddles. The voice asked many different types of riddles in which Yudhishthira answered with patients and carefully. H...