Review: How I survived this semester

I was looking through our class announcements to see if I could find anything that struck me as reminiscent of this semester, and I somehow happened to find this:

Words of Wisdom: Latin Proverb (Web Source)

This infographic is the perfect way for me to end the semester in one of my favorite classes! I love that this class offered so much more than than the opportunity to learn about a new subject and included opportunities for personal growth inside and outside the classroom. Thank you Laura for a great semester!

Indian Epics Course Improvements

Planning Weeks
As a full-time working student, I feel like planning is a critical part of being able to successfully take on any amount of work under time constraints. I think for Week 2's planning, it could be really useful to have students look at important dates in their other classes and create an overall schedule for the semester that includes test dates, paper due dates, and any project or other important assignment due dates. I think this could also be combined with a tech tip to incorporate a calendar of the student's choice to plan out his or her semester (Canvas, Google, etc.). I'm not sure if you can embed a calendar on a blog, but I think another tech tip could include embedding this plan to the student's blog.


Story Planning
I completed some of the story planning posts this semester and I really enjoyed these posts. I have a hard time getting past the details of my writing, so writing stories can be very difficult under the various time constraints of the semester and working. I think it could be really useful if students utilized these posts to analyze their readings for the week, discuss what message they would like to convey with their story, and what elements they plan on using to accomplish that message.


Thematic Reading Units
I think this could be a great idea! It would be interesting to allow students a little bit of a choice with this option still, which I don't think would be too difficult because there are so many different themes in all of these readings. Here are a few themes/ways to organize the readings that I think could be useful:
Creation Stories
Love Stories
The Trimurti and Tridevi
Complicated Couples
(I think this option could allow students to pick one couple and follow the various complicated and intricate stories as the couple interacts throughout various lifetimes or in their nonhuman forms)
Dharma
Karma
Maya
(I could see Dharma, Karma, and Maya being combined, but I also think they're complex enough that they could be kept separate)
War Stories
Exploring Religious Traditions
(I started exploring the difference between Vaishnavism and Shaivism, although I know there are other branches of Hinduism that could also be considered)

Cause and Effect
I think it could be interesting to have students trace the causes and effects of certain events through the stories and try to identify the driving force behind those events, like dharma, karma, or maya. I was thinking this could be an interesting extra credit option or maybe an option for story planning.

Growth Mindset: How to Build a Team

Build a Tower, Build a Team- Tom Wujec

Learning Challenge: Creating Yourself and the World Around You

I liked both of these quotes because they address how powerful people are as the creators of themselves and as the creators of the world they live in.

Quotes by Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss (Web Source)

Wikipedia Trails: From Mohini to Narasimha

Mohini
I wanted to learn more about Mohini after my reading this week. So, I found Mohini's wikipedia article and read more about Vishnu's only female avatar. Her description was much different on wikipedia than the videos I watched by Pattanaik and most notably described Mohini's other form, Mahalasa.

Mohini on a swing by Raja Ravi Varma (Web Source)

Mahalasa
Mohini's article led me to an article on Mahalasa, the consort of Shiva's avatar, Khandoba. Mahalasa is very interesting and is explained as partially Mohini (and therefore Vishnu) and partially Parvati (as the consort of Shiva). Mahalasa seems to reinforce the interconnected nature of Hinduism, as many other deities seem to also do.

Kuladevata
After reading Mahalasa's article, I read Kuladevata's article. Kuladevata is known as the family goddess, or a specific goddess that a family or clan worships. Different families or clans from different regions have different Kuladevatas, often based on the beliefs or traditions of that region.

Narasimha
After I read about Kuladevatas, I read about Narasimha, the Kuludevata of a group of the Konkani people. Narasimha is an avatar of Vishnu.

Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Vishnu (Part A)

Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Vishnu (Mohini)

I thought this reading was really interesting. It discussed the idea of having two realities: a tangible or material reality, represented with the female form, and an intangible or spiritual reality, represented with the male form. Mohini is the female form of Vishnu, but unlike any of the female deities, Mohini represents spiritual reality. This reading does a really good job of reinforcing the idea of balance.

I appreciated that the narrator in the first video tried to reconcile some of the irritation associated with the separation of the two realities into genders, however I am not sure that I understand the reasoning enough to agree with the narrator. I recognize this is more than likely a cultural difference that is making it more difficult for me to really understand this kind of reasoning.

Mohini on a swing by Raja Ravi Varma (Web Source)

Bibliography:

Seven Secrets of Vishnu by Devdutt Pattanaik (Web Source)

Tech Tip: Blogger Profile

I updated my profile to make sure that it appears on the right-hand side of my blog with the picture from my google profile.