Christian's Epic Blog

 I decided to do more research on OU ghost stories for this assignment! I'm looking forward to discovering more about the supernatural side of the university :) While I was doing my research, I noticed that many of the stories were supernatural incidents that may be happening in the same building or part of campus.  Some occurrences, such as hearing voices from seemingly no one, seem like they would be hard to base stories around.  I think it would be cool addition to a story about ghosts, though I'd like something more exciting :) some of the other stories I have been finding are more exciting to me.  I think they could be used to draw inspiration for writing ghost stories of my own! The first story I really liked was about a music professor that haunts an auditorium.  It was from an article called Haunted Norman: ghost hunting on the OU campus. The article didn't  initially outright say the names of some of the buildings, but the author drop details such...

     This week I picked out a couple of articles that I felt could apply to me in particular.  The first one that I chose for this post was Preschoolers and Praise: What Kind of Messages Help Kids Grow?   This one initially stood out as I happen to work with preschoolers through first grade most of the time while I'm at work!  While this has definitely helped my patience, I knew that there were still a lot of things that I could improve upon.  At times, it's hard to understand exactly the best approach to take when trying to help young kids and I thought that this article may help.  Immediately I noticed I tend to do a lot of what this article discourages: generic praise.  One specific line about the cons of generic praise is that it lacks instructional value.  The article spoke of a different kind of praise that would be better to implement: process praise.  Process praise works to tie children's actions to their own success. ...

     While I was on the fence about which topic to pick, I ultimately decided that epic heroes is the most interesting topic to me.  Reading through the Ramayana really helped to solidify my decision.  I love the character of Rama.  He is a larger than life figure with seemingly no faults, at least from what I have read thus far.  He is a natural born leader and a prodigy in every sense of the word.  It would be really fun to write about someone such as Rama.  The fact that Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu makes his story even more interesting; I can see parallels from these ancient Indian stories to other ancient Greek and Nordic stories.  For instance, heroes such as Hercules and Thor were also godlike beings and had crazy heroic adventures.  I would love to be able to write about someone who is practically invincible!  Reading through the PDE of The Ramayana helped me decide that I wanted to write about heroes.  It was...

     Bharata at last returned from his escapades outside of the kingdom.  His travels mostly included partying and gambling--Bharata had been taking advantage of the riches that came along with being Dasharatha's son since he had come of age.  He was spoiled by his mother Kaiyeki since his birth, and this caused him to become a very entitled young adult.  His brothers Rama and Lakshmana were always telling him he needed to grow up and uphold the honor of their family name.  This caused Bharata to hate his brothers.  Bharata would often think that they looked down upon him because he was not as heroic as they were.  Bharata would often scoff thinking about them--they were complete showoffs! All they ever want to do was make their little brother look bad , Bharata would think to himself.      When he arrived at the gates, Bharata knew that something was off about Koshala.  Normally the kingdom was vibrant and warm, though o...

     In part B of the PDE Ramayana we start to see Rama's adventures out of his adolescence and youth.  I think for the first time we can start to get indications about how crazy powerful he really is.  I honestly was very perplexed by Rama's brother, Bharata, once he comes back to the kingdom.  For some reason, I assumed he would be spiteful such as his mother and his mother's servant, though this was far from the case.  It was heartwarming to see how hurt Bharata was by the passing of his father.  The exile of his brother clearly was just spit in the wound; he was going to make sure he played no part in the exile of Rama.  Then I started thinking about Bharata; I believe he too was an incarnation of a deity, even if it wasn't Vishnu's avatar like Rama is.  It makes sense that he would be a just person just like his two older brothers.  I really loved Bharata's character; he was insistent on bringing Rama back to be king. In fact, ...

     I did not know what to expect as we started the Ramayana, but quickly I became intrigued by the story of Prince Rama.  Originally from the start of the reading I thought the two kingdoms Kosala and Mithila were juxtaposed against one another to foreshadow some epic battle between the two kingdoms.  As the story wore on, I started to forget about Mithila.  The main focus was on Dasharatha and his sons, specifically Rama.  From his birth, it seemed like everyone knew that Rama was a special, special child.  Of course, it's pretty cool from the reader's perspective knowing that he is, in reality, an avatar of Vishnu.  It seemed to me like Rama's destiny was to eventually take on the demons, specifically the king of demons Ravana.  After all, isn't that why Vishnu decided to divide himself (through reincarnation) to Dasharatha's sons? From birth, Rama seemed destined for excellence.  I really enjoyed that Rama and his brother were ...