Feedback Thoughts

The article titled "10 Reasons Why Failure is Important" caught my attention right off the bat. Perhaps I was enticed to read this article because I felt like there would be a list (which I happen to like) or maybe because it had an easy to read graphic that was informative. The overall message of this post was that it is OK to fail because failing means that you tried, that you're human, and that you can learn from your failures to become better. Even before this class I tried to keep that mentality in mind if I failed at something or if I messed something up and I would do what we call in the military an AAR (after action review) on myself to examine my weak points and strong points so that I can change and become better. I think that more people should use the mindset of failing is OK as long as they are striving to become better and not shrugging it off while being complacent.
Source: Why Failure is Important 
The next article I read was "Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman's Advice on the Creative Life, adapted by Design Legend Chip Kidd". In this article Neila Gaiman's message was that failure was not the end of the world, contrary to popular belief. Essentially making mistakes is a good thing because you are broadening your horizons and trying new things. He also states that if you're scared to do something then you should do it which meant a lot to me. Often times I get so caught up in my fear that I try to talk myself out of doing something, I have to remind myself that to fear something is good because it can help you grow. We will never know how fruitful an opportunity is if we don't take it because we are letting fear hold us back.. and that can be one of the biggest mistakes we can make.
Source: brainpickings 

Image info: Success and Failure:Flickr

Topic Brainstorm

I think a candidate for my storybook will be Hindu deities. Deities hold a special place in many cultures and can be the driving force when it comes to peoples' actions. Fortunately this topic is fairly broad so I will be able to do some serious research into it and learn plenty along the way!


A second topic that I'm interested to learn more about is yoga. I would like to think of myself as a yogi but I'm not quite there yet, though I do enjoy the practice. Yoga would be a great topic to write my storybook about because it could give me an opportunity to grow my practice. In addition to growing my practice I think learning about the history and traditions of yoga would be interesting.


A third topic that I hold very near and dear to my heart is travel! I think to learn about traveling India would be amazing and could give me a chance to plan my next trip even! I probably would also include traveling to temples and include some back stories and information on religious holidays. Another topic I could discuss in the traveling storybook is animal species and habitats because I believe ecotourism can be beneficial for broadening peoples' understandings of the local ecosystems and how the local people rely and interact with them.


The last topic I may use is Hindu creation stories. I think this would be a good topic for the storybook since we all have that question "how did we get here?" that we want answered. Creation stories are the way people try to answer that and many of them are very interesting to me. I'm always a sucker for a good creation story as they typically involve lots of gods and goddesses battling it out.

photo info: Battle of Lanka

Week 2 Story: She's a Maneater

Once upon a time in a far, distant land there was a city full of demonic shape shifting women who liked to prey on and eat men. The city that these shape shifters lived in was only inhabited by these women and their beloved cats, and elephants, and monkeys. Often the women would grow lonely and so they would deploy their monkeys to search for lost men who were traveling alone. Once these lonely souls were found the monkeys would lure the men back to this city where the women would pretend to be distressed. These men felt for the women and would often offer to marry the women to assist in home and city life.

Little did these men know that these shape shifting demonic women would soon grow tired of them. Once the men were of no use or annoying to the women they were as good as dead because the women would imprison them and eat them, ALIVE!

One fateful and stormy morning the women deployed their monkeys to search for new men since they were growing bored with their current ones. Being good little monkeys that they were they were able to find a ship full of sailors who looked like prime eating. The skilled monkeys caused the ship to wreck and informed the women of the wreck. Once on land the men were greeted by these beautiful demonic women who lured them back to their city with promises of riches, food, shelter, and lots of babies. 

Arriving in the city the men saw an affluent and booming city that had been completely created by the women with shape shifting skills. The men married the women and they lived happily ever after. 

(Continue reading past the image)

                                          Picture information: Ravi Varma. wikimedia

But they did not. 

The women knew that they still had their former husbands imprisoned and that they needed to eat them so one night they got together and did so. One of the husband's woke up while his wife was out with the others. To this day it's not sure why he awoke, though it's believed that the cat jumped on him and woke him up. The faithful husband realized that his wife was not there but heard her come through the door and pretended to be asleep. As he lay there he couldn't help but notice that she had a human head in her hands and that she was EATING the brains like spaghetti. She then returned to bed. 

The next day the man approached his men and told them of the ordeal. Naturally not all of them believed him but there were those who did. The men who did helped plot an escape. 

One night at dusk the men got together and did a chant to summon a fairy and her magical horse. The chant was successful and the magical fairy horse appeared for the men to jump on and escape. All of the believers were able to fit on this horse and they flew off to return home. The non believers however, were not so fortunate for they were eaten that night by their lovely wives. 

Authors Note: 

The story has been altered from Twenty Jataka Tales and The Goblin Town

Bibliography. "The Goblin Town" from Twenty Jatake Tales by Noor Inayat (Khan). Web source.

Reading Notes: Jatakas Goblin City

This story revolves around an ancient goblin city full of women goblins only. The only way for these lady goblins to marry was to take hold of travelers in a forced marriage, once tired of these husbands they would eat them in order to dispose of them and move on.
One unfortunate day there was a ship wreck near the goblin city and so the lady goblins enticed the sailors (who were all men) to come to the city with food and clothing. The lady goblins recognized that the men may be afraid since there were no other beings living within the city so they opted to use their magic in order to make shapes of men doing activities.
The rue worked and they were able to persuade the men to stay by telling the sailors that their previous husbands were dead at sea.. though they were actually imprisoned and waiting to be eaten by the lady goblins.
One night the lady goblins snuck off to the prison where their "lost at sea husbands" were and proceeded to eat them. Flesh and all. That same night one of the lady goblins meat eating habits were exposed to her husband due to some light insomnia. While the new husband lay awake and pretended to sleep the lady goblin came back to the bedroom but not before finishing her meal and saying "Man's meat, man's meat, that's what goblins like to eat".. the gig was up.
The following day the news spread but naturally some people did not believe him. Fortunately there were those who did and they all plotted an escape route. It was their lucky day as there was a fairy who hated the goblins and wanted to save the men. She deployed her horse to rescue the men and return them to their homes. That same night the goblins ate the men who remained.
Source: Goblin Story

Picture source: Kali, wikipedia

Reading Options

While looking through the reading options for this semester I noticed several titles that caught my attention. One of them being "Rama and the Monkeys" mostly due to the fact that the word "monkeys" is in the title and I once was an aspiring Indiana Jones primatologist type. In addition to the story being about monkeys I also noticed that it is a creation story which I tend to find interesting. The second story that caught my attention was "Hunaman and the Mountain" which seems like it will be a good strong story where the main character must overcome obstacles. Last but not least I think I'm going to check out the story titled "The Rainy Season" because life revolves around rain and every culture has a good flood story. 

                                                (Picture information: Vali dying, Wikimedia)