Extra Reading Notes: 7 Secrets of the Goddess, part C

These reading notes come from Epified's 7 Secrets of the Goddess, in particular episode 5 at 8:00

In the Devi Mahatmya, Durga creates the devi Kali to achieve her own goals. A great demon named Aktabeej possessed a boon with which any drop of blood that feel on the ground would sprout a clone of himself. Thus, all the gods feared to fight him, lest they make him bleed and he multiplies, becoming even more powerful. All the devas came together and asked Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu to help kill the demon, but none of them would help. Thus, when asked, the goddess Chundi (who appears very similar to Durga) agreed. She rode to the army of Aktabeej clones on the back of her tiger, holding her many weapons. However, before the battle, from her forehead she spawned Kali to assist her. As Chundi attacked the demons, spurting blood every which way, Kali used her long tongue to lap up every drop of blood before it could hit the ground. No more clones were allowed to appear, and the demon was finally killed.

Image Info
Kali, the Wild Goddess - Wikimedia

Back up and Review

During my backup and review, I actually realized I was missing some of my declarations! I don't think it would have ultimately mattered, because I would have double checked before finishing the course, but I was actually surprised to find that I had forgotten about 3 of the extra credits I did today.

I watched Cosmic Sexy Time, Eggs, Seeds, and Water. It was... something. It talked about the origin stories of a bunch of different mythological origin stories. As it turns out, a lot of them are kind of weird. In Egyptian mythology, the first god was alone and did some... rubbing... and then two more gods appeared (although it sounded like he coughed blood.) In Greek mythology, Cronos cut off his fathers testicles and flung them, and from their blood, many lifeforms spawned. In a form of Indian mythology, a creator god called Prajapati spawned the entirety of the universe in an egg, and formed it by breaking the egg open. 

I liked this image because Shiva is one of my favorite of the Hindu gods, and because this statue is just super cool; the gold tints on the silver and the exquisite detail are awesome looking!

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Famous Last Words: Finishing the Class!

Famous Last Words: I’m done! Well, that’s not really true, as I’m writing this I still have two more extra credit assignments to do, but they wouldn’t be famous last words if they weren’t wrong. Although I have greatly enjoyed this class, I’m ready to put it behind me and not have to worry about readings for my last two weeks of college.

This week has been a bit of a drudge to the finish line – although we finally got our capstone working (and that was long delayed) that meant we had to conduct numerous tests in a very short span, and it only gets worse from here. Not only that, but the robotics lab was one of the harder ones, so I had to spend a lot of time in the lab working on it. It paid off though! I got a 98.

 Since I need to get a lot done next week, today is my day to power through Indian Epics. I felt pretty bad about my project story when I wrote it this week, but when I looked back at it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, so I think it was my best writing for the week. I painted myself into a corner with the storytelling; I didn’t find anything that really intrigued me with my readings, so I kind of had to force it, and I didn’t end up liking my end result or wanting to work on it more. Fortunately, I think that was the only story I wrote that I felt terrible about; I had a few others that were subpar, but I still enjoyed writing.

I also caught a couple cool projects and stories on my way out and got to catch up with my friend Callum’s project. He’s been writing about Indiana Jones, and it’s been pretty neat, so I was glad I had a free choice to read his final story (unless he writes a fourth one). I may revisit my own project page and add a little more flair to it; a lot of readers have requested a return to the tavern, and I may just have to give it to them. But until then, I’M DONE!

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All Done - Flickr

Wikipedia Trail from Durga to Vedas

During my readings of some fellow student’s projects, as well as the readings of Krishna, I encountered the warrior goddess Durga, who spiked my interest.

1). Durga. Durga is one of the Devi. She takes the form of a warrior with countless arms and a weapon in each hand, and she rides a tiger into battle. She is most well-known for slaying Mahishasura, a legendary demon who looked like a buffalo. She uses actual combat to preserve peace, prosperity, and goodness in the world, and is known to have killed many demons other than the buffalo demon.

2). Parvati – Parvati is another of the devi. She resides over love, devotion, and fertility. Parvati is the mother goddess, and the wife of the god Shiva. She has many aspects, other goddesses who appear different but are truly Parvati, including Durga and Kali. Some sources even say ALL goddesses are aspects of Parvati.

3). Vedas – The Vedas are large collections of knowledge written in Sanskrit. They are considered above mankind, and therefore not written by ordinary men – it is said that they were written by powerful sages who only wrote them after ages of meditation. There are four Vedas. Some versions of Hinduism treat the Vedas as scripture, but some forms of Hinduism do not.

Image Info
Parvati and Shiva - Flickr

Learning Challenge: Ditching Nocturnal Behaviors

I just read the article Yes, Your Sleep Schedule Is Making You Sick. It put a lot of things into perspective for me...

For a little backstory, I have had 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM classes for the last 3 semesters. So this semester, when I didn't have all that many classes to take, I finally throttled back on my early classes. Like, WAY back. My earliest class is at 11:30 AM, and I only have it once. So my sleep schedule has shifted quite a bit; on weekends, I often end up staying up very late into the morning and then sleeping till noon... or later... But even on days when I get a lot of sleep, I still often feel tired! I thought just getting enough sleep would make me feel better, but that isn't necessarily true.

After reading the article, I found out that my Circadian Rhythm is probably very wonky. As the article states, I am most likely feeling the effects of my rhythm not being synced up with the day. This is because I use heavy curtains to block out the sun during the sunrise; my body doesn't get the dose of early morning light. The solution is of course obvious; I need to start going to bed at a more reasonable time and stop using the blackout curtains. Hopefully some early morning sunlight will help me reestablish a better rhythm.

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Window Sunlight - Max Pixel

Growth Mindset: Looking Back, and Looking Forward

This class was the first time I ever heard about the growth mindset, and it really rang true with me. I definitely felt like a victim, as if I had been thrown into a bad mindset. Now, I'm trying my best to move out of that mindset. I feel as if I've improved a lot since the beginning of the semester and I feel a lot better about myself. 

One of the areas I struggle with is understanding that failure is a natural part of life and helps us grow. I saw this growth mindset post, and thought it was comical but also insightful

F ailure
I s
S uccess's
H erald

I like this because it is something that needs to be remembered, and the idea of an insightful fish will probably not be forgotten any time soon.

Another post I saw was this one

GROWTH PARTNERS

We need to partner with people instead of viewing roles as rigid and defined. For example, the classes that I feel have been most beneficial are those classes where I gained the professor as a mentor, a guide, and a friend as opposed to a disseminator of information. However, this requires the professor to see me as more than a student in a class, and for me to see them as  more than someone paid to impart knowledge.

This is definitely a different mindset for me. Although I gained the respect of many teachers and I think they respect me, I definitely view them in the teacher mindset more than the friend mindset. I will have to try my best to make use of this mindset in my last few weeks at OU.

Image Information

Failure - Flickr

Tech Tip: Blogger Template

Well, I finally changed the format of my blog! I'm not big on the whole blogging thing, so I never really thought about changing the style of my blog. I like having the two columns with the tags and the posts so that people can more easily navigate my blog. I also changed the color style (I was just informed that the dark theme messed with a lot of my posts so I changed it back.) I've always been a fan of a dark theme with some contrast and bright colors in it; I tried to get cyan in there instead of orange, but couldn't find a color I liked, so I went with the default orange. I hope everyone likes the new style! I'm sure anything is better than the default.