Week 14 Reading Diary: Tales of Ancient India

This week I chose to read Tales of Ancient India by Edmund Charles Cox. The first half of this reading focused on the life of Krishna.

One of my favorite stories was How Krishna Stole the Milk and Slew the Demons. I thought it was strange that Krishna would lie about stealing the milk and play tricks on the towns people to make them not suspect him. I was under the impression that as an avatar of Vishnu, Krishna would be more noble. Also, I liked the description of the bird demon Trinawart. Krishna seemed to be having a blast riding Trinawart, but he eventually killed the demon when he saw the destruction he was causing to the town.

Another of my favorites was How Indra Worshiped Krishna. This story had some great content that I could use for my storybook. Indra was angered by all the offerings going to Krishna and none to his alter, so he summoned some rain clouds to drown a city. Krishna stepped in and raised a mountain shield the city from the rain. Since Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, this will work nicely as a part of the final battle in my storybook.

Source: Krishna holding up the mountain Govardhan

The final story that caught my eye was How Krishna Slew Kansa. The reason I liked this story so much was because of the elephant Kubaliya, who was had the strength of 1000 elephants. I think a good story could come from a battle with Kubaliya.

Learning Challenges: Empathy

This week I did a Learning Challenge focused empathy. I learned that there are four qualities of empathy: 1) perspective taking, 2) the ability to take the perspective of another person, 3) staying out of judgment, 4) recognizing emotions in others and communicating.

Brene says she likes to think of empathy as a dark hole where someone finds themselves when they are stuck or overwhelmed, and then someone else comes down and says they know what it's like down there and you're not alone. I think that is a great analogy.

When someone opens up to you, the best thing you can do is just listen and not offer advice or sympathetic responses. Offering advice and sympathetic responses is the easy way to go, but listening and choosing to remember a time when you were in a similar spot is difficult and can leave you just as vulnerable.

Brene Brown: On Empathy.

Tech Tip: Google Timer

This week I chose to try out the Google Timer. I had never heard of this before, and it is very easy to set up.

Currently, my time management for school work is mostly about finishing an assignment or a certain section of it before I take a break. Sometimes I get off track when I take a break and it lasts longer than I had planned. This technique is a great way for me to remember to get back to work.

Here's a fun picture for those that struggle with time management:

Procrastination Flowchart

Week 13 Growth Mindset: Harnessing Stress

This week I took a look at the article: How Harnessing the Positive Side of Stress Can Change Student Mindsets by Katrina Schwartz and also the TED talks video: How to Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal.

The subject of stress and how I deal with it is very interesting to me. I find that I can become paralyzed by large amounts of stress, which negatively affects my academic performance. I have always been led to believe that stress is damaging to our health, but after reading this article and watching the video I came to realize that stress can be used as a tool to rise to a challenge.

It is believed that just changing your mindset about stress can help you to live a longer, more fulfilling life. People that view stress as bad for their health showed a much higher risk of dying than people that viewed health as a tool.

I have dealt with various levels of stress throughout my time in the Army and through sports, but the times that I overcame the negative effects of it were when I felt confident in my abilities to address the situation. I was able to harness the rush of adrenaline and make clear headed choices and actions. The countless hours of preparation gave me confidence.

For some reason, harnessing stress in the world of academia is not as easy for me. I know I spend a lot of time studying, but every now and then I freeze up due to anxiety. This article and video gave me some great advice on how to think about my responses to stress when I feel the negative effects consuming me.

By changing my mindset about stress, I believe that I can more effectively deal with my anxiety and perform at my best, even in the most stressful situation. I highly recommend reading this article and watching the video. Below I have embedded the video. Check it out!

How to Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal

Week 13 Reading Diary: The Mahabharata by Peter Brooks

This week I chose to watch The Mahabharata by Peter Brooks. I began watching this film at the start of the war. The links to this film are not accurate, but I kept thinking it may have just been a change up from the original story. I turned out to be wrong, so I watched the second half instead of the first half. Either way, I am pretty familiar with the Mahabharata from the previous readings.

My favorite part of the Mahabharata actually happens to be the war, so this was a welcome surprise. I was thinking the whole time about a story that would involve the loss of someone close and the effects that it would have on someone. Arjuna turns is infuriated and the loss of his son motivates him to carry on with the war, but Drona is just told that his son has died and he is unable to go on with life, let alone the war. Bhima also loses his son in the war and he grieves for a time, but then it just shows him going on like nothing happened. I suppose people grieve in different ways.

I also really like the character Ghatotkacha, who was Bhima's half-rakshasa son. Ghatotkacha has many powers and that make him a huge threat to Karna and his side of the war. Ghatotkacha would have won the war if Karna hadn't been forced to use his invincible dart that was given to him by Indra. I think I would like to write a whole story just about him.

Source: Ghatotkacha being killed by Karna

Growth Mindset: Multiple Intelligences

I have encountered the concept of multiple intelligences before, but it was refreshing to see it explained through a comic. After watching the short video about Multiple Intelligences by Marek Bennett, I learned that Howard Gardner and other researchers pioneered this concept. They concluded that there are 8 different intelligences, which include: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and naturalistic.

Multiple Intelligences by Marek Bennett

I have often heard that people learn in different ways and I always thought that I am more of a kinesthetic learner, meaning that I like to be hands-on. My favorite part of the video was the quote "While the linguistic and mathematical intelligences are important in their own right, they function most strongly in combination with other intelligences." I feel like a premium is placed on these two intelligences in the academic setting, especially in my chosen field of study, and this decreases the proficiency in the other intelligences. This video was a great reminder that we should focus on expanding and using all intelligences and not let certain ones dominate our lives.

Learning Challenge: Single Tasking

This week I did a Learn by H.E.A.R.T. challenge that focused on attention. Multitasking seems to be the norm, and sometimes expected, for people these days. I always find myself working on a wide assortment of things at one time, and it can turn out to be pretty stressful. After watching the funny video Single-Tasking is the New Multitasking by James Hamblin, I found a great way to focus on one thing at a time. The narrator said he used "Tabless Thursdays" to focus on a single task and not be distracted by other things. "Tabless Thursdays" work by only having one tab on your browser open at a time. I think this would be nice to try every now and then because I tend to switch between tabs a lot and end up not getting much done. Even now I have six tabs and a few PDFs open! Maybe this technique will help me finish a task and not get so distracted.

 

Interior Life by Grant Snider