Alex Lagge's India Adventure

The Sandals: I really liked this passage because of the importance of giving up the sandals. Not only where the sandals solid gold, but they were also very important for the times when this was written. Most people would only have one pair of shoes and on top of that being a forest without any shoes would be very painful. Rama is giving up something very important for his lively hood. As a writer a good part for this story would be to have someone give up something very important to them. I am not sure exactly where I want to take the story, but I am going to try to piece important parts of each story together. Viradha: This is a good battle scene. There is a good amount of action with Rama and Lackshmana attacking Viradha. They inflicted more than enough damage to kill any other opponent. It was discovered that the Viradha was invincible. They quickly dug a hole to take him out. Since this is such a major battle I will probably write my story about this section. I like that the your

King Dasharatha: I started with this one because I wanted to try and get the base characters and setting. Group of people/ country Koshala. Ruler: Dasharatha Kids: Rama Mithila Head providence: Janaka Daughter: Sita Capital: Ayodhya Performs horse sacrifices to try to get a son, but gets 4. There is great imagery all through out this should be a major focus for me. Help for weapons: They bring a sword and bow.  Thataka: important for my battle and weapon story possibilities. They fights Thataka and cut off her arms and nose. Then they get their celestial weapons when giving a bone and blood sacrifice.   King Janka: In this story there is talks about a bow that is so strong and hard to use gods can't even break it. The king is going ot give his daughter's hand in marriage if someone can bend it. The only problem is is the bow can't even be bent by gods, so it begs the question will the boys be able to do it. (Vishwamitra) Having a challenge would be a good idea for t

Epic Heroes : In anything I read or watch I am always enthralled by the heroes. I love following what the hero does and what makes the person a hero. Are they a just a good person with super powers or are the a struggling soul that is a tragic hero? Heroes for me are what makes a story so I can definitely see myself focusing on these people! Epic Battles: Going hand in hand with the heroes are battles. I love a good battle more than almost anything. Since I was a little kid I have been reading about war and battles. This topic is super interesting to me. I love large scale battles with hundreds of thousands of people. Or a one on one between 2 gods going all out. I will definitely be reading about them! Food: Like any human I really love food. Indian food was a type of food that I used to not like, but ever since I tried curry I fell in love. I hope to learn a lot about what food represent to the people of India. Across all cultures there are different types of food and different

I really liked this tool. I have been using it since the first blog post because I like how it shows what level you are writing at. I am only at a 9th-10th grade level. It kinda makes me feel bad, but I guess I'm glad i'm good at math. I don't really trend either way in length. Sometimes I will be able to go on and on and other times I won't have much to say. I can guess how much I have written pretty well! I guess this is around 110 words! Actual amount: 97. Not too bad of a guess!

I choose the article by John Spencer titled Seven Ways to Crush Self-doubt.  I really liked this article because I have always been kind of hard on myself. I have been working very hard on not comparing myself to others. I think that that is the best ways to get over your negative thoughts. Since I have stopped comparing myself and stopped thinking and talking negatively about myself I have been feeling much better and a much stronger person! The next article I choose was Why Rejection Hurts So Much by Guy Winch. I found this article to be very interesting because it shows how evolution played a roll in rejection. I liked some of the tips he gave about fighting through rejection, but what has really helped me not care about rejection was going onto Tinder and having hella girls reject me. It really helped and now I don't ever get sad when people day no. Having a high self worth is very important, so I agree with him on that aspect. The worst feedback I ever got was in high school

Marty was just your average 10th grade boy. He loved sports, movies and video games. His favorite hobby though was reading. He had just gotten into horror books. The first one he read was IT by Stephen King. It was really creepy, but Marty knew he would never get over his fear of clowns if he hid from them forever. Unfortunately, for Marty the book did nothing but scare him more. Every night Marty had to walk his dog as one of his chores or else he would not get a car for his 16th birthday. When he was walking his dog he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a figure hiding in the trees. He looked and for sure it had to have been a clown! The white makeup, the red honky nose and the creepy eyes gave it away in an instant. Marty sprinted home with his dog gleefully running alongside him with no idea anything bad was happening. As soon as Marty was in the safety of his own home he quickly got onto Twitter and sent out a tweet of what he had seen. Within minuets he has thousa

The story Jatakas is about a rabbit who leads all the other animals in a mad frenzy running from the end of the world. The rabbit thought there was the crack of the earth just as he woke up. My favorite part of the story was where we saw all the animals blindly follow the rabbit because he was in a frenzy and afraid. It took one strong voice from the lion to show people where they had gone astray. The rabbit running from the "crack in the earth" Bibliography: Jataka Tales Ellen C. Babbitt

I have decided to go for the public domain Ramayana. The only factor that really influence my decision was not wanting to spend any money on the book. I am not afraid to read "old" language at all. In fact I find old language to be kind of funny and cool. The first comic I chose was the  Tales of Balarama . This one looked interesting to me because of the action scenes that are given by the summary. I enjoy books that have a lot of action and fighting scenes so this seems like a good comic for me. The next comic I chose was Parashurama . The reason I liked this one was because of the sons loyalty to his father. It is very strange to think about killing your own mother because your father told you too. The level of devotion to what his father says is mind boggling. Next for the videos, I choose the Stages of Life . What caught my eye about this video was the way that the story was told by drawing. I really enjoy watching the youtube videos that are made by someone drawing

Time management is a key that unlocks every door in out life. Since time will go on no matter what we must effectively use it. No amount of money can give you more time than someone before you. In order to effectively use your time a good way is through checklists. Lauren Marchese, in her article The Psychology of Checklists , shows the power of the checklist. Since our minds react positively to dopamine then there must be an effective way to get it when working. Checklists make our brain think we are doing a lot of work so it helps us stay on top of things. It always feels nice to cross things off the list. Based on my old classes my biggest challenges will be starting on assignments. I am not in too many hard classes this semester, but there is a lot to still do in all my classes. Keeping a planner helps a lot in staying on top of assignments; the only thing to watch out for is procrastinating because things seems so far away. A planner will help you feel not too busy. Tim Grahl,

My first impressions of the class is good. I enjoy being able to work at my own pace since I am usually a pretty fast worker. Plus it allows me to work on other things as needed as I can come to this class at anytime of day. The online environment is nice because I can shamelessly be in my pjs and still be at class. Also the ability to make your own schedule is nice. I would like to get better at my research as well as speed on the computer. Sometimes I can get bogged down with all of these tabs open! Working on my latest blog post!

The assignments that are the most interesting to me are the reading assignments. I have always enjoyed reading since I was a little kid. Having some assignments that help me learn and read at the same time sounds great. This is unlike any of my other classes because you can work ahead as well as there are no tests. All extra credit assignments grab my attention because I am going to try to get my points and be done early! An actual photo of me at the end of this class!

I had previously heard about the growth mindset before, but I didn't know it was by Carol Dweck. I learned about it from some inspirational speaker talking about how if people though they were going well and were smart then they would do better than students who thought they were dumb. I like to think I am pretty resilient being an engineer there are countless failures I have had, but I haven't let them stop me.  I have for sure done bad in classes, but I continued on knowing that I could push through. I have always been really quick and got by without studying, but my sophomore year I relied that I couldn't just absorb information and would need to study. That moment was the biggest change in how I approached school. I will learn about growth mindset for the extra credit for sure!! My goal is to get a 4.0 this semester while still working 30 hours a week. My classes seem very manageable I just need to focus and lock in. Hopefully the growth mindset will help me. An actua

Hey everyone my name is Alex Lagge. I am a junior at ou. My major is computer engineering. Why did I choose that major? I find computers to be fascinating and one of the most important pieces of the future. After my undergrad, I want to pursue an MBA and data analysis master. Even though I'm a computer engineer, I am planning on not doing a whole lot in the engineering field and want to go work as a data analyst. That's the boring school stuff about me. My hobbies are all things sports. I wouldn't consider myself a stereotypical sports bro though. Even though I spend a lot of my time reading and watching sports, I like the strategies that go into sports and the data behind decisions. A quick example is how the NBA is going toward more 3's and layups/dunks because from an efficiency stand point they are the best shots to take. The sport I like more than the NBA is football. The NFL is the superior football league compared to college. Many people enjoy college football mo

The first storybook I chose was Mahabharata: The Heroes. The reason that this story stuck out to me so much was because of the very stories my great uncle would tell me about his times in Vietnam. Just as the boy in the story talks how his about his father told him stories of battle from the Kuruksherta Wars I too heard stories of battle. My uncle would tell me about the heroes he fought along side with. The valor and glory that they strove for while fighting in "the Godforsaken jungles". The stories of the roars of the helicopters as Fortunate son played in the background. The memoirs he told were beautiful and awe inspiring.                                                                                              The helicopters  my uncle described in his stories.  The next story book I chose was The Burning Forest . I liked this one for a few reasons the first being I do agree with the previous student of how the preindustrial revolution earth was not as

Ever since I was born I have been a Minnesota Vikings fan. I have gone through the extreme highs and lows that comes with being a fan. From the Minneapolis Miracle to missing field goals to lose key games; I have lived through it all. As a football fan there is something special about visiting your team's home stadium. US Bank stadium is the new home of the Minnesota Vikings. I was recently graced with the opportunity to visit the stadium to watch a football game in this current NFL season. The experience was nothing short of extraordinary. The fans, the energy and the beautiful purple color took my breath away. Even though we lost the game, it was a top ten experience in my life. I will never regret visiting.                                          (The inside of the stadium about an hour before kickoff                                                          photo taken by myself Dec 12-18)                                 (Outside shot of the stadium photo from Wikipedia

I really hope this works!