Reading Evaluation

By far, my favorite reading this semester was Karna: The Unsung Hero of the Mahabharata. His character in the Mahabharata fascinated me and, since I was doing a storybook on his father, I decided to read this as one of my choices for the final weeks of class and I am so glad I did. It was such a personal look into Karna's life and I absolutely loved looking at it from another point of view.

I also really liked Narayan's version of the Ramayana and his version of the Mahabharata. His writing style is really easy to follow and it makes the stories easier to follow and they read more like a novel. Their organization also makes reading diaries easier.

I really liked the balance of reading, writing, and commenting. It seemed like a nice and even distribution and the readings were not overwhelming, which was nice. I also enjoyed the multiple options we had because it meant it was easier to personalize the lesson. 

With this in mind, I would tell future students to keep up with the readings and try to space it out. Reading over the weekend or towards the end of the week before the reading diary is due makes it a lot easier to complete all of them on time. I wish I had done that this semester, so I would definitely recommend it!

Week 15: Reflections

I've truly enjoyed this class this semester. I love how it forced me to be creative and stretch my imagination. I feel like in most classes, academic writing is so central to the course that it takes the fun out of it. This class allowed me to express myself in whatever way I wanted and to be imaginative at least once a week in the midst of impersonal and boring assignments in other classes.

This class was truly unique and I am so glad that I got to take it this semester. I'm really proud of how my storytelling has improved and I'm especially proud of my storybook. After all of the writing practice this semester, I feel like the end product was something I could look back on and be proud. This was a fantastic course and I feel like it really improved the way I read and interpret stories and the way I write my own stories. Thank you so much for this class! It really is incredible!

Storytelling Week 14: Deep Slumber

Galaxy Photo found on Wikimedia Commons

"The stars are beautiful tonight, aren't they?" Shane asked, startling Jenny out of her reverie.

She looked over at her friend across the clearing. "Huh? Yeah, yeah, they're gorgeous," she paused before continuing. "Sorry I was just thinking."

Looking back up at the crystal clear sky, Jenny's mind wandered again. The stars were clustered so close together that they seemed to form a shimmering puddle of liquid light across the sky. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel herself floating through it, her thoughts sliding easily to the farthest reaches of the universe.

She did not notice Shane watching her expectantly until she said, "Well, what are you thinking about?"

Jenny shook her head slightly before turning her head back toward Shane. "I just heard something interesting the other day and it made me think," she started. "You know how, when you're dreaming, everything feels so real. You can never really tell you're dreaming until you wake up?"

Here she stopped, waiting for Shane's answer. When she nodded her head, Jenny continued. "Well, I was just thinking, what if this is just a dream? Or what if this is someone else's dream and we are just characters in it. And when they wake up, we disappear, only to reappear in a different form when they go to sleep again."

Shane's eyes widened before she laughed, eyes crinkling. "You're thinking too much! You have to just appreciate what is happening now because if this is a dream, there's nothing we can do but enjoy the stars and the time we have!"

Jenny paused and looked up at the sky again. She smiled, first at the stars, and then back at Shane. "You're probably right, I'm just overthinking things."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, both watching the stars so intensely that they noticed them begin to dim. One by one, they went out until finally-

****

Nina groaned, yanking her pillow over her head as her alarm told her it was time to get up. She had to leave for class in a few minutes, but before she left she reached into her nightstand to get her dream journal. She always had the most vivid dreams, and this had been one of the strangest ones yet. 

As she hastily wrote it down, she skimmed through the rest of her dream journal. Maybe one day she would figure it all out, but for now, she was running late.

Author's Notes

This story was inspired by the Pattanaik video and the story on Narayan's sleep cycle as the cycle of the rebirth of the universe. When Narayan is awake, the universe exists, but it stops when he is sleeping. For my story, I decided to switch it up and have the dream state as a universe of it's own. This was just a fun little story that I kind of think about a lot and the video this week reminded me of it.