Preston's Epic Blog

100 Word Story:  One day on a farm a little chicken named Chicken Little was out eating some corn his owner threw on the ground for him. While eating peacefully, he heard a loud thumb on the ground. Chicken Little instantly assumed it was the sky falling, so without further investigation, he started running through the farm yelling, "The sky is falling!" Soon enough, the pigs, cattle, ducks, horses, and even the barn mice were running with him! Finally, they got to the ranch hand of the farm. "What is all this ruckus! I was just cutting branches off the old tree by Chicken Little's pen!" Six Word Story:  Don't always assume everything is true. Chicken Little. Flickr Note:  I used the Jataka Tale by Ellen C. Babbit titled "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit." However, I decided to add my own twist with new characters from the movie "Chicken Little." Bibliography:  Jataka Tales: The Foolish, Timid Rabbit by Ellen C. Babbitt

 The graphic I'm choosing to write about is the sculpture from the Harihareshwar Temple . The stature is the face of Krishna with 5 bodies derived from it. It's an incredibly interesting sculpture. I recommend looking at the link! The video I chose is about the grammatical differences of "me, myself and I."  Found this interesting (obviously edited) photo on Flickr , and wanted to share.

The Buddha sat there, unmoved and unbothered. Weeks went by through rain, wind, and freezing temperatures. However, the Buddha still sat there, unbothered under the Tree of Knowledge. On his fourth week under the tree, the evil Mara presented himself in front of the Buddha who had recently been defeated by him.  "Blessed One, why do you tarry, you who know the path to deliverance? Blow out the lamp, quench the flame; enter Nirvana, O Blessed One; the hour has come," says Mara to the Buddha. "Mara, I must not enter Nirvana. I must now spread my word of supreme knowledge and let the world know of its beauty." says the Buddha. At that, Mara leaves the Buddha under the tree where he stays unmoving. On the fifth week comes torrential rains and freezing temperatures. The Serpent King, Mucalinda, knows that he must venture out to protect the Buddha of the extreme climate. The serpent coiled himself seven times around the Buddha in order to protect him from the downpour, th...

Many come to the Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge; some try to destroy him, some shelter him, and some bring food to him. The last to come to him are the merchants, and they are the first to profess faith in the new teachings of the Buddha. Now he is ready to travel the world and teach of his supreme knowledge. Initially the Buddha decides to not teach his ways. He believes mankind is too ignorant because of the extremely difficult reasoning behind his teachings. Brahma comes to Earth in order to convince the Buddha to go out and teach, and is successful. The Buddha now contemplates who will be able enough to receive his teachings for the first time. He first decides Rama's son, then Arata, but learns they are both dead already. He decides on his three older disciples who are living in Benares. He presents in front of the 5 monks and recites his teachings to them. In my opinion, the Buddha's teachings are quite redundant, but maybe that's because I'm being ignorant. I...

Siddhartha rejects the teachings of Arata Kalama. While his teachings give assurance to "transcending into the sky," they still allow terrible suffering of the human race. Siddhartha sets out to determine an end to this suffering. Siddhartha is still denying any gifts, because he now lives a life completely free of desire. He also rejects Rudraka's teachings because they are so similar to Arata and aren't of the truest law. We see some of Siddhartha's first mistakes on his path to wisdom. He becomes a beggar in the city, his disciples think of him as a foolish man, and they leave him. Also want to point out the recurring three bows people keep giving Siddhartha. Siddhartha now has a dream that assures him he is to become the Buddha. He reaches Sujata's house and is given a golden bowl. It flows upstream, so he knows it is his time to reach supreme enlightenment. He makes his way down to the Tree of Knowledge, and creates a seat out of grass. Finally, Siddharth...

Moche Culture I first saw a statue on the twitter page that was carved in the shape of an owl. The tweet said, "Moche, Vessel in the Form of an Owl Impersonator." It caught my eye because I have never heard of "Moche" before, so I thought, why not! Moche, Trujillo So I learned Moche is a culture and also a city. But, the Moche were once a civilization north of Trujillo, which is a capital city. Peru?! I love Peru, I've never been though, so I kept digging and decided to click on Moche, Trujillo.  Trujillo, Peru So, the past cite about Moche taught me about really the location and history of Moche, but not it's part of a tourist city of Trujillo. I've always wanted to go to Machu Picchu one day, which is in Peru as Trujillo is. So, maybe I can visit Trujillo one day also. Marinera While all the geography was cool, I wanted more! What was Trujillo and Moche really like? Well, Marinera helped out with that question, as it is a romantic dance between one and...

Growth Mindset Beyond School     I love going to the gym and exercising everyday. It's a time for me to get out of my house, shut my laptop, turn my phone off, and get as much energy out that I can. You have to be determined in the gym and not be lazy. If you are, you could hurt yourself or even those around you. I think exercising in the gym disciplines me and allows me to truly see how far I can actually push myself. It's also just an awesome way to better yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually. If you don't exercise and are reading this, I HIGHLY recommend. Typical Weights in a Gym. Pixabay

Drabble : The Truth of the World One day the prince of the most magnificent palaces in the world went for a walk through the city. This prince was sheltered his whole life - he was only ever accustomed to its pleasures! While walking through, he saw an old withered man. This frightened the prince, for he wanted to keep his young age forever. Next, he saw a deathly ill man that could not even stand. The prince said, "When did this mysterious sickness become such a thing?" His third encounter was a corpse. This frightened the prince the most. Lastly, he saw a Holy Man that encouraged him to the path of enlightenment. Six Word Story : Siddhartha's Questions What is to come of this? Notes :  I am reading The Life of Buddha as one of my free reading options right now, so I decided to do a little story about what encourages Siddhartha to enter the path of enlightenment.  My six word story signifies the confusion and questions Siddhartha has when he is accustomed to these encoun...

Siddhartha's father kept showering his son with gifts. He did not was to see his son leave to live a life in the forests. Siddhartha had a son with his wife the princess. However, through this all, the king lived a virtuous and humbled life, never giving into the possible sins around him. Siddhartha ventures off to discover three encounters. The first was old age, the second was illness, and the third was death. Little by little, each encounter dampened Siddhartha's upbeat mood. His father, the king, was still trying with all the power he could to shield his son from this, but the gods were forcing Siddhartha to these encounters. Siddhartha continues these grievances, and denies/shuns his father and friend, Udayin, of the gifts of beautiful maidens they've given to him. He returns to the palace still hopeless where his wife Dropa has a dream essentially about the end of the world. On the contrary, Siddhartha says to rejoice, for she shall be saved from evil one day. Siddhar...

The reading originally starts by introducing the king of Kapilavastu, King Suddhodana, and one of his many wives, Maya. Except, the story introduces Maya as the favorite wife of King Suddhodana. She comes to him in the dining hall in almost a begging way by asking for the holy practice of abstinence and to go to the "lofty apartments" outside of the palace. The king accepts her wish and tells her she may go. In her new loft, Maya had a dream that the reader can assume is he conceiving a child. When Maya comes back to the palace, she calls for King Suddhodana, and he comes. However he has a weird feeling in his body, but is reassured by the gods that great fortune is about to come to him and his wife. Maya enters late into pregnancy and knows her son must be born in the garden with the presence of innocent flowers. When the king gets word of his son being born he brings the Sakyas and brahmans to the birth place, very similarly to the Bible, and gives his son the name of Siddh...

Check out the latest version of this story in my portfolio!  Link Princess Peach after being rescued by Mario. Pixy.org Author's Note : In this story I wanted to adopt some ideals from the Mahabharata war battle scenes. The battle scene I adopted here was from the battle between Karna and Ghatotkacha. While Karna is portrayed as the "bad" guy and Ghatotkacha as the "good demon," I twisted the story a bit with the roles. In the Mahabharata, Karna is the one who possesses the one use bow, the Vijaya. He was supposed it to use to destroy Arjuna. However, he was forced to use it against Ghatotkacha. The weapon kills Ghatotkacha, and is assumed to be the reason why Karna is not able to kill Arjuna in the end. The roles I twist here are giving Mario the gift of the one use weapon, resembling the Vijaya. Therefore I set it up to where Mario represents Arjuna, and Bowser represents Karna. In the end, Bowser meets his end at the hand of Mario, just as Karna met his end f...

In the world of witchcraft and wizardry, there was an evil wizard who wreaked havoc all over the land killing or handicapping anyone through his dark magic. This wizard's name was Voldemort. One night he came into a home to destroy a family of three - a mother, father, and their son. Voldemort brutally ended the mother and father's lives, but their baby son, Harry Potter possessed a powerful magic deep within himself. As Voldemort thought up his last spell to end Harry Potter's life, he presumably vanished out of thin air due to Harry Potter's powerful magic.  Due to Harry now being an orphaned child, he was to go off and live with his aunt and uncle who didn't possess magical powers. In the world of normal humans, it was growing increasingly suspicious that there were wizards and witches living among them. The ones who possessed magic though, worked to great ends in order to keep their magic hidden from these normal humans; casting spells or drugging with potions t...

 Part B begins with Krishna still proving how mighty and divine he truly was. Brahma the creator once stepped over him and wanted to challenge his divinity. By doing this he captured all of Krishna's friends and cows. Krishna with ease replaced them by creating them anew. A year later Brahma realized what Krishna had done, realized his true divinity, and returned his friends and cows. One day Krishna comes to Gargacharya for the blessing to marry Radha. The priest refuses and explains to him this was not in Krishna's destiny. Furthermore states how his true birth parents were not Yoshodha and Nanda, but were in prison at the hand of Kansa. Krishna utterly upset by this, realized what his destiny really was. Akrur comes to the village to invite Krishna to the palace of Mathura. He explains to Krishna what this invitation truly meant from Kansa and that it was a proposed trap. However, Krishna still accepted and left to Mathura with Akrur. Krishna makes a name for himself among t...

 The king Kamsa had feared his destiny and didn't want to meet an end to anyone. A prophecy told him he would die at the hands of a soon to be born child from his sister. The prophecy also saying that she would have 8 children. The king brutally murdered each child up until the 7th born. When the 7th was born, Krishna, his father took him to a safe village where the king or anyone of the kingdom could harm him. The king this night was having dreams of failure and defeat, but he didn't know why since he though he had killed all of his possible defeaters. The 8th child was a baby girl, which made the king laugh, for he didn't believe a woman had the power to destroy him. That's when the baby girl transformed into a goddess and told him off. She stated the baby to destroy you was alive and safe away from him. With this, the king murdered any newborn child he heard of in the kingdom. Still, little did he know Krishna was safe by the side of Yoshuba. Yoshuba growing up was a...

Check out my latest story on my portfolio page. Link A Captured Image of the Deadly Rainbow Road.  Flickr Author's Note: I really wanted to capture the overall moral/storyline from one of the stories in this week 11's reading. The story comes from the "Jataka Tales" by Ellen C. Babbitt with the co-title "The Sandy Road." I wanted to recreate one of Babbitt's stories that I could add into my project with my own Super Mario Brothers twist to it. When reading through the Jataka Tales, I was reading with ideas in mind of translating a certain story to fit a need in my project, and "The Sandy Road" did just that. In the original, the merchant orders his traveling group to dump out the water with the thought of it being their last night of travel. I simply didn't add this aspect, but instead adopted the travel by night and rest by day. If one has ever played Mario Kart, they know how utterly frustrating and "seemingly never ending" the ...

 The Wise and Foolish Merchant - Don't be foolish like the merchant. Be wise and always observe The Elephant Girly-Face - Shows the innocence of children, or even someone who doesn't know better in adulthood. The Banyan Deer - Always show mercy, even if you are the king or most powerful in your herd. The Princes and the Water-Sprite - I don't know if it's supposed to be known what good fairies are like, but the oldest prince knows. Because of this we know he's the wisest of the three. We can learn about the power of wisdom from this story. The King's White Elephant - I'm not quite sure there's a moral to this story here, other than simply working hard. The White Elephant was beautiful, and it seemed to workout for him once he became the king's. The Ox Who Never Envied the Pig - In my opinion this is giving the advice to treat your body right. Don't envy others who have everything given to them, because it doesn't always work out in a good way...

The first story in the Jataka Tales was about a cunning monkey and a stupid crocodile. The crocodile several times had tried to get the monkey in his presence in order to kill, but the monkey out smarted him both times.  The story of the the Turtle Saved His Own Life was almost along the same lines - just shorter to the point. The turtle in a way outsmarts the humans "dreading" to be thrown in the water, but little do they know the water is the turtles home. The Merchant of Seri in my opinion is about greed and ultimately the wrongdoings of deception. The first merchant had lied about the gold bowl trying to get even more from the old lady. The second merchant had told the truth and originally refused. The second merchant ends up being the one with the better life to live. The story of the talking turtle was one with the moral being sometimes it's best to just keep your mouth shut. The story of the Strong Ox teaches one to be kind to all, even in times of stress or compet...