Shivani's Blog!

An elephant and his keeper playing in the water. Source: Wikipedia There was once an elephant named Sammy who was a kind and loving animal. His keeper built him a lovely living quarter that was connected to his house so that the elephant did not feel like he was not part of the family. The keeper had a wife and 2 kids who would come play with Sammy every day after school. Sammy was so happy and blessed to be a part of such a great family. He was content with his life. He would help with chores outside the house, like sweeping the outside concrete or watering the plants. Sammy would even help the keeper's wife with hanging laundry outside on the clothesline. Sammy would never do anything to hurt anyone, especially his family who treated him so well. One night, after the family hugged and kissed Sammy goodnight and went to sleep, a group of thieves happened to congregate right outside of Sammy's sleeping quarters. They were planning to break into most of the houses in a nea...

Image of a tusked Asian elephant in India. Source: Wikipedia The Elephant Girly Face Girly face - name of an elephant; named after being so kind and gentle this elephant never hurt anyone robbers came to the area and sat on the ground where Girly Face was sleeping; they talked and woke up the elephant; they talked of breaking into a house; they would kill anyone who would wake up; they said a robber shouldn't be afraid to kill and they have to be cruel and have no pity. A robber can never be good. Girly face heard all of this and thought that these men are teaching her how to act the next day, the elephant killed the keeper who arrived to feed him by slamming him to the ground; another keeper came to see what was going on and he ended up killing him too for several days Girly face was like this an no one wanted to come near her. However, they still left food for her The King found out about the behavior of the elephant and sent one of his wise men to find out what is ...

Two turtles on a pipe in a pond. Source: Pexels The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking Turtle lived by a pond geese were looking for food; became friends with the turtle; came often geese ask if the turtle wants to join them in going to their home that is far from where the turtle is geese offered to take him only if the turtle could keep his mouth shut turtle agrees and says he will keep his mouth shut geese wanted the turtle to hold the stick while the geese hold the other ends as they were flying, some children saw the three of them and said that they looked ridiculous the turtle couldn't keep his mouth shut and began to say that it is none of their business the turtle let go of the stick and fell to his death geese left and proceeded to their home lesson: the turtle couldn't keep his mouth shut and lost his life because of it Bibliography: Babbitt, Ellen. The Jatakas Tales of India, Part A. Source .

The Om symbol, a sacred sound and spiritual icon in Hinduism. Source: Wikipedia For this week's Wikipedia trail I started with Krishna since we have the option to read his tales for our storytelling for the week. Krishna is the 8th avatar of Vishnu. He has many names. He goes by Govinda, Mukunda, Makhan Chor (which literally means cream/butter thief!) He loved to eat butter as a child, hence his name, and he played the flute. All of the women surrounded by him are the avatars of Lakshmi, Vishnu's consort. Krishna led me to searching for avatar and its meaning. Avatar means descent, or the incarnation of a godly figure on earth. Avatar is most commonly associated with Vishnu because he has so many forms. The same concept of incarnation can apply in Buddhism. The next term I was led to was the Bhagavad Gita , a Hingu scripture written in Sanskrit. It is a part of the Mahabharata. It was written by the sage Vyasa, since the Mahabharata was written by him. This text has be...

I definitely use the Canvas dashboard often. I use it every time I log into Canvas so I can navigate to the class page I need access to. I really like it because it is easy to access and it is really user friendly. I configured it by changing the names of the classes from the course numbers to the actual name of the class so I don't have to remember what number is which class. I feel that this system is a lot easier than D2L. At first, I did not like it at all since I was so used to D2L. However, as weeks went by, I found it to be a lot easier to use. I was so used to the complexity of D2L that the simplicity of Canvas became a problem for a while. One feature I love is that we can see who is in the class and the ability to email through Canvas so we don't have to go to Outlook to email someone.

James J. Gallogly, the University of Oklahoma's 14th president. Source: Wikipedia My reading for this week went great. I finished both portions on time like I usually do. My favorite part was about Kunti and her meeting with the Sun God. I decided to write about that and I am thinking about writing a continuation story about it. My best writing that I have done this week was my Mood God story and my research paper for Research Methods class. I thought I did a pretty good job because I had a lot going on and I still managed to get it done, and it was decent for the time that I had. There was a story I read that was written by another classmate that I found was really interesting. It was from the perspective of the women of Ramayana and it was a much-needed read. The original version of the Ramayana only focused on the men of the epic and how they were feeling. The women went through a great deal, but they were not explained and their trials and tribulations were not spoken abou...

Sita and Rama in a 1950's bazaar art piece. Source: Wikipedia I started with Sita , who was the consort of Lord Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu. She herself, was an avatar of Lakshmi. She was one of the central figures of the Ramayana and was the Daughter of Bhumi, the earth goddess. She was adopted by King Janaka and Queen Sunaina. This led me to Ayodhya  which is an ancient city thought to be the birthplace of Rama. It is 1 of 7 different pilgrimage sites for the followers of Hinduism. There is much controversy about the present Ayodhya and the ancient Ayodhya being the same place. Ayodhya leads me to Treta Yuga  which is the second out of 4 different yugas. Yugas are the ages of mankind in Hinduism. In a way, it is like different ages (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, etc.) of the earth. During this yuga, people grew more materialistic and the power of humans diminished a slight bit. However, this period brought knowledge of the universal magnetism and humans learned and unde...