Jesika's Blog

Ravana Abducting Sita (Source: Flickr ) Ravana and Sita Plot : Ravana, the Rakshasa king of Lanka, disguised himself as a wise man in order to talk to Sita, who was unguarded in the forest. Eventually, Ravana reveals his true self and tried to influence Sita to become his wife. Sita was very furious with him and told him how she is devoted to Rama, her husband. Ravana was not happy and abducted her. He placed Sita in his chariot and rode off into the sky. I liked how Sita used analogies to compare her dedication and loyalty to her husband Rama Example: "I follow Rama as a lioness follows a lion" Lots of descriptions are used in the story I can change this story by writing it in a more modern style and change how Ravana was able to abduct her The Golden Deer Plot : Maricha, the brother of Ravana, can shape-shift, so he did into a beautiful golden deer. This was part of Ravana's plan to get Rama and Lakshmana away from Sita so she's alone. The plan w...

A very helpful tool I found was the Chrome extension called word count tool. This tool is useful when writing the blogs and seeing how many words you are at instead of having to transfer your work onto a Word document. Personally, I tend to write less so this tool helped me meet the minimum word requirement. It can also help you know if you need to shorten some of your writing. Plus, this extension is very easy to install! First thing, go to this Chrome page to install the extension ( link ). After installing the tool, highlight some random text and right click on the mouse. You should see the word count tool option. After clicking on it, a pop up box will appear telling you the number of words. Hope this tool is useful for you!

The first article I read on feedback was called Why Even the Best Feedback Can Bring Out the Worst in Us . I found this article interesting because it talked about how sometimes we don't take feedback well and respond in a negative way about it. Like, how we refuse to hear criticism even though it can help us better ourselves and reach our goals. One thing this article mentioned was that if we accepted the advice and bolstered our positive identities we might be more ready to accept the feedback. I found this quite helpful because I feel nobody really likes hearing constructive criticism. Also, this might be a good way to get past your bad feeling about the feedback and accept it in a positive way. The second article I read was called Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt in Creative Work by John Spencer. This article was intriguing to me because it gave some strategies to help overcome self-doubt. Some of the top ones that I found that might be the most helpful are abandon perfectioni...

Krishna and Rukmini I'm interested in this topic because I want to learn more about the love story between Krishna and Rukmini. I never really heard about Rukmini, but I am familiar with love story of Radha and Krishna. I want to learn more about how Krishna fought for his love Rukmini because her brother didn't want them to get married. Also, I think it would be interesting to tell this love story in Rukmini's brothers' perspective. Rama and Sita I love reading about love stories, so I'm definitely interested in learning more about Rama and Sita's love story. I do have some previous knowledge about them because my mom would tell me some stories when I was much younger. However, I would like to know more about they meet and their journey. Also, I think it would be fun to rewrite their story, or maybe see it from a different view point. Food and Religious Festivals I think this would be a interesting topic to do a project on because of my personal experien...

The Turtle and the Geese (Source: Wikimedia Commons ) The Turtle and the Geese Thi s story was about how two geese were trying to help a turtle to get somewhere since it couldn't fly. The turtle had to bite onto a stick that way the geese could carry him to their destination, and all the turtle had to do was keep his mouth shut. However, while in the air, the turtle heard some people talking about him and the geese, so he decided to respond to their comments. Thus, leading to the death of the turtle because he didn't keep his mouth shut. I like the lesson in this story because the turtle was not thinking things through before speaking. I also didn't understand why the turtles wanted him to keep his mouth shut because he didn't grasp the underlying meaning. Because he wasn't thinking things through, he ultimately suffered the consequence.  The Foolish, Timid Rabbit I also found this story interesting because of the lesson found within the story. This was ...

Krishna and Rukmini on a Chariot Driven by Ganesha (Source: Wikimedia Commons ) I'm excited to explore the different types of reading options that are available to us. One of the options that I'm interested in is the Amar Chitra Katha comic books, specifically the one about Krishna and Rukmini . Growing up I remember hearing about the love stories of Krishna and Radha from my mom, but I never really heard about Rukmini. I'm also intrigued by the anthology version of the Mahabharata . I think it would be really interesting to listen to the various authors and the styles they tell the story. Another reading I'm fascinated by is called Sita, Promila, Shakuntala by Sunity Devee. I like how the author was a women's rights activist, so I'm definitely interested in looking into her work. There are ton of other great reading options, but these are just some that stood out to me.