Wikipedia Trails: From Anant Pai To Winston Churchill

Anant Pai: is an author I read about this week. He wrote many of the Jataka Tales comic books that I am reading. I learned through this search that he is considered the Walt Disney of India.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anant_Pai

Tinkle: Is a magazine that Anant Pai was the founding editor for. This magazine included news, comics, and puzzles.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinkle

Prime Minister: The Prime Minister of India is a fan of the magazine Tinkle. A prime minister is the person that is most senior in the executive branch of government.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_minister

Winston Churchill: He was the prime minister for the United Kingdom. He played a crucial role in WWII and the politics surrounding the war.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

Image found Here

Reading Notes: Swami ChinmayAnanda

Modern Life Meets Ancient Wisdom
This is the story of Swami who was a super smart child. He could memorize poems by reading them only two times. he was always the smartest in his class while he was in school. When he grew up he went to work for a newspaper. He eventually quits this job and goes to his hometown. He then decides to travel around meeting people and learning from them. He became known for his expansive knowledge and wisdom resembling leaders from the past despite living in a modern era.

Photo found Here. Book is available at the Bizzell Memorial Library.

By: Margie Sastry

Reading Notes: Ghanshyamdas Birla

A Builder of Modern India
This comic book starts by telling the past of his father and how he humbly made a name for himself and his family. When GB was born he was raised with a normal childhood despite his family being wealthy. After he finished school he went to secondary school but ended up quitting and going to work in the family business. At the age of 13 he decided to expand the operation on his own. He was successful at this and life was good until one day his mother became sick. This was a hard time for GB until he met Gandhi one day. Gandhi became a mentor to GB. GB eventually became a leader for business in India.

Photo found Here. Book is available in the Bizzell Library.

By: Yagya Sharma

Reading Notes: Anant Pai

Anant Pai

This book describes the great storyteller that Anant Pai was. He was born in 1929 which was the year Tarzan came out. this comic tells the life story of Anant and the struggles that his family went through. It talks about the great teacher he had while he was in college and how he helped shape Anant. This comic shows his slow growth to becoming famous for his comic books. It describes the struggle he went through to become India's most known writer. I found this comic very intriguing because I have been reading a lot of Anant's work. I do not think that this would be a good comic to write about because it is so matter of fact. 

Photo found Here. This book is available in the Bizzell Memorial Library. 

By: Gayathri Chandrasekaran

Learning Challenge: Be as Happy as Kevin

This is a video of Kevin Garnett after he wins his first NBA Championship. To me this is the picture of absolute happiness. This is a man who has been in the NBA for like 15 years and finally has won a ring. After all his effort his childhood dreams come true. This video inspires me to work harder everyday to achieve my goals.

Growth Mindset: Talking with a Friend

I talked to one of my friends about the idea of a growth mindset and they had not really heard of it before. They understood what it was about and the idea behind it after I told them about the TED talk I watched. They thought it was a really cool idea and thought they could apply it to their lives as well.

Image found Here.

Wikipedia Trail: From The Cow Jumped Over the Moon To National Film Registry

The Cow Jumped Over the Moon: I saw this on the weekly class announcements and it reminded me of my childhood.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cow_Jumped_Over_the_Moon

Billie Burke: MGM studios considered using the cow jumped over the moon for her but decided against it. She was most famous for her role in The Wizard of Oz.
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Burke

The Wizard of Oz: Billie Burke was Dorothy in this movie. This is one of my favorite movies and it also happens to be one of the first color films.
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)

Image taken from The Wizard of Oz Wikipedia Page

National Film Registry: This is a collection of movies that are historically significant that are stored in the library of congress. The Wizard of Oz is in this collection. I had no idea that this collection existed.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Registry

Tech Tip: Canvas Notifications

I have had canvas set up to email me anytime a grade gets updated for a while now. I find this to be very helpful for times that I am concerned about what grade I got. This is an easy way to get notifications and it keeps me from endlessly checking canvas for grades to be posted. I highly suggest this for this time of year when it seems that everyone has at least one class they are worried about getting a high enough grade in.

Story Planning: A Trusted Friend

Kanni the Unlucky
This story is about Kanni who is very unlucky until he finds his childhood friend who is a king. The king brings him into his home and give him a job. He begins to regard Kanni as family and he trusts him immensely. The kings business partners told the king he should not trust Kanni. The king did not listen to his advisors and continued to trust Kanni. One day the king had to take a trip and he gave Kanni the keys to his house so he could look after it. Kanni overheard some burglars talking about robbing the house and he began to come up with a plan to defend the house. He gave the workers instruments and they were all very loud. The burglars heard this and feared that the king had returned home already so they fled. The next morning the kings advisors found the weapons and footprints of the burglars and were amazed that Kanni could be trusted.

Source: Book is available in the reserves of the Bizzell Memorial Library at the University of Oklahoma. By: Margie Sastry, V.B. Halbe, and Anant Pai

This story was very interesting to me because the king had full faith in his friend even though his advisors were telling him not to trust the guy. I think this is an amazing testament to how a good friend can be trusted over anything. I think that a good friend is one of the most valuable things a person could have. Therefore, I would like to write a story about a friend that is reliable and can always be counted on. I think my main goal of this story is to be detailed. In my past stories I have struggled to be very detail oriented. This has been a comment on many of my posts so I would like to use this last story to correct my bad habits. I just want to write one fairly entertaining story that is grammatically correct and jammed full of details.

Photo found here.

Reading Notes: True Friends

Kanni the Unlucky

This story is about Kanni who is very unlucky until he finds his childhood friend who is a king. The king brings him into his home and give him a job. He begins to regard Kanni as family and he trusts him immensely. The kings business partners told the king he should not trust Kanni. The king did not listen to his advisors and continued to trust Kanni. One day the king had to take a trip and he gave Kanni the keys to his house so he could look after it. Kanni overheard some burglars talking about robbing the house and he began to come up with a plan to defend the house. He gave the workers instruments and they were all very loud. The burglars heard this and feared that the king had returned home already so they fled. The next morning the kings advisors found the weapons and footprints of the burglars and were amazed that Kanni could be trusted.

Photo found here. Book is available in the reserves of the Bizzell Memorial Library at the University of Oklahoma. By: Margie Sastry, V.B. Halbe, and Anant Pai

Reading Notes: The Hidden Treasure

The Hidden Treasure

This is the story about a boy who was to be the son of a king until the king was killed. This made his pregnant mother flee the country and the boy grew up unaware of his past. One day he found out that he was the son of a king and decided that he wanted to become a king. One day he left for the land his father once ruled while at the same time the king of that land was dying. That king decided that the person whom his daughter chose and also passed three challenges would become king. The boy came into town and impressed the princess and eventually passed all the challenges to become king. He brought his mother home and became a great king. This sounds like the story I wrote regarding Rama becoming king. Therefor, I do not think this would be a good story for me to write about.

Photo found here. Book available in the reserves of the Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma. By: Meera Ugra, M.N. Nangare, and Anant Pai. 

Reading Notes: The Mouse Merchant

The Invaluable Treasure

This is a really funny story about a water carrier who works for enough money to buy just two meals a day. Until one day he gets a little extra so he stores it behind a brick in the city wall. One day he gets married and wants to buy nice things for his wife so he sets off running on a very hot day to retrieve this coin. The king sees this man and tells his guards to go get him. The king was curious as to why the man was so happy. When the king had the man in front of him and found out the man was running to get his treasure he wondered how much the treasure was. When he found out it was one coin he offered to give the man one coin so he did not have to run anymore. The man said thanks but he would still go retrieve the coin as well as take the one the king offered. The king raised the offer trying to get the man to forget about the one coin but the man did not change his mind until the king offered half of his kingdom. The man gladly accepted this offer and agreed to forget about the one coin. Until, the king asked him what half of the kingdom he wanted and the man chose the side that the coin was hidden on so he actually got the coin in the end.

Photo found here. Book available in the reserves of the Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma. By: Subba Rao, Chandakant Rane, and Anant Pai

Wikipedia Trail: From Indian Comics to Royal Charter

Indian Comics:
I was interested in learning more about the Indian Comic books because I have been reading the Jataka Tales for my weekly readings. This lead me to wonder what other comics were out there from India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_comics


The Times of India:
I was interested about the times of India because it reminded me of the New York Times. It was interesting because the font of the India Times is very similar to the New York Times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India


BBC:
I was interested in the BBC because I am always intrigued by acronyms. It turns out the BBC stands for British Broadcasting Company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC


Royal Charter:
Is a document that works as a patent. These are often issued to towns to make them official.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_charter#United_Kingdom

Photo of the The Times of India taken from Wikipedia

Learning Challenges: Time Management Meme

This meme is so true to my life. Myself and most my friends work a large amount of time as we'll as doing this school thing so when we want to get together it is hard to find time to do so. I often find that our topic of discussion is how busy we all are. I guess thats just the price we pay for higher education. The fact that we have a small amount of time together to hangout makes me cherish and appreciate our time together.

Image found here

Growth Mindset: Growth Beyond School

This challenge is about challenging yourself to get better and grow in things outside of school. For me I want to get better at consistently working out. I know that working out would help my health both mentally and physically but I have fallen out of the routine. I use to work out every day for many years but the change from being a student athlete to a working student has been tough and my workouts have suffered. I am challenging myself to go workout a few times this week. 

Image Found Here

Tech Tip: Canvas Mobile App

I heard of the Canvas mobile app while doing extra commenting on some people's posts and decide I would blog about it in hopes more people will discover it. The app is extremely user friendly and it makes it so much easier to check your grades on your phone. This app takes away the hassle of going to your browser and logging in every time you want to do anything on Canvas. I am currently using an iPhone 6 for this app and I have not experienced any problems with the download or usage.

Storytelling: Never Trust A Longhorn

This is the story of the University of Oklahoma football team.

The year was 2014 and the Sooners started their season off strong. They were led by this new guy named Baker and a trustworthy receiver named Sterling. They were the strongest and smartest football team around. They were so good that they did not fit in with the other teams in the Big 12 and they thought that they were destined for a championship.

Until one weekend they took a trip to a sketchy place called the Cotton Bowl. This is where they ran into the ever so deceitful Longhorns. The Longhorns were not good people and they were known for their greedy and selfish acts, such as the Longhorn Network. The Longhorns had a history of being bad at football and they were especially down when they met the Sooners in the Cotton Bowl. When they ran into each other the Longhorns found out that the Sooners' power was stored in the bill of Bob Stoops’ trusty visor. With this knowledge they realized how valuable that visor was.

In the first half the Longhorns ripped off a small portion of Bob’s visor and began playing well. They took this part of the visor and were able to get an advantage over the Sooners. As the game progressed the Sooners' began noticing changes in their capabilities as players. The offensive line could not block as well, the corners could not defend as well, and the fans could not cheer as loud. The Longhorns' got a substantial lead on the Sooners' but that was not near enough for their greedy coach, Charlie Strong. He wanted more of Bob’s visor and he knew just how he could get it. Strong waited until Bob got pissed at the obviously terrible officiating crew and threw his visor to the ground. This was the perfect opportunity needed for the Longhorns to steal the rest of the Sooners' power. After the Sooners' lost their power they were unable to do anything to stop the Longhorns that day. The defense could not tackle the Longhorns' sneaky quarterback. The Sooners' offense suffered injuries and could not even piece together a first down. The Longhorns greedily ran the ball up and down the field under the hot Texas sun until eventually the game was over.

However, the Longhorns forgot to take into account that the Football Gods were watching this Red River Shootout. The Football Gods decided to punish the dirty Longhorns for their rude actions against the Sooners. The Longhorns were punished with a terrible rest of the season. The Football Gods were going to punish the Longhorns more but they decided not to because they already had to wear that ugly burnt orange. The Football Gods decided to give the Sooners their football powers back along with Bob’s visor. However, this was no ordinary visor, this was a magic gold visor that would give the Sooners the skill they needed to win the Big 12. This visor would also help the Sooners make it to the College Football Playoffs. Boomer!

Link To Photo

Author's Note: I wrote this story with the inspiration from A Jataka Tale comic book titled Elephant Stories. This story is about an elephant that is a little different than all the other elephants in his group so he decided to go away on his own. He goes out of the forest (Cotton Bowl) where he is met by a stranger who finds out how valuable the elephants ivory (Bob’s Visor) is. The man asks the elephant for some of his tusk because he is in financial trouble and the elephant lets him take it. He then goes and sells it and blows all the money. He then comes back and tricks the elephant by saying he paid his debts but now has no money to live. The elephant believes him and gives him the rest of his tusk. The elephant lets this happen and then realizes that the tusk is where he gets his wisdom. As the man leaves he is killed by God for being greedy (Texas Sucking) and then God gives the elephant extraordinary gold tusks (Bob's gold visor). I kept the general concept from the original story but I changed many of the details by making this story more about football.

Source:Jataka tales of Nobility: Elephant Stories found in the reserves in the Bizzell Memorial Library on the campus of     the University of Oklahoma. By: Lakshmi Lal, Ashok Dongre, and Anant Pai