Reading Notes: Part A of the Ramayana - Patrick's discoveries

The Ramayana by R.K. Narayan is the coolest epic that absorbed me into its world in such a short matter of time. The first part of the story carries the theme of longing that seems to be the basis of the relationship between the Father, Dasaratha, and his son, Rama. In the beginning of the text, the sage, Viswamithra arrives to the Dasaratha's kingdom and requests the help of Rama in order to vanquish some demons and bring justice to the land. The king originally said no to the request and after trying to configure a different option, concedes to allowing Rama go with the sage. The king's response to the request is sincere and reminds me of the longing that most parents have for the future of their children - in that their children are safe and successful. The deeper matter seems to be that the king's response is a defensive response to the fear of the unknown. This theme of impending unknown shows up often in the text in other parts of the story as well including when Gautama turned his wife to stone as his wife did not know exactly when she would be brought back to normal. Perhaps the mos revealing of the fear of unknown is revealed when Dasaratha deprecates upon hearing that his son Rama voluntarily went into the exile which is the forest. The Father eventually dies from his grief after hearing that his son will not come back to rule.

Other fun notes were the similarities between Homer's Odyssey in the stringing of Shiva's bow, as Rama was the only and legitimate person capable of stringing the royal bow just as Odysseus was able to string his own bow and ward of the suitors. I am not sure if Narayan wrote that part of the story on purpose or if the story of the Ramayana were told through the lens of understanding Greek epics but I find it fascinating how similar those two parts of the story are. 

More fun lines - I like how on the first page, Viswamithra denied needing any rest because he basically mastered all of his inner bodily needs through self-discipline. That classification of oneself is so fascinating to me as I typically don't have any inner bodily needs since I am made out of wood, so maybe I could start thinking of myself as a type of sage. Perhaps I too can reach that level of discipline through sheer will power and austerity just as the sage did.

image taken from neveryetmelted

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006.

Reading Notes - coming together for a common goal - Patrick

The story of The hawk and the osprey was quite interesting. It reminds me of adventures back in highschool when Albert used to carry me around in his pocket. There were three really good friends that I remember being sported by, Huan, Alex, Dante, and Sam. My adventures with these guys all ranged from being miscarried to different classes to being forgotten in the boys bathroom in the urinals. The story of how the hawk, the tortoise, the osprey, and the lion all connected to this idea that in the end, all of the friends congregated together and served their purpose - to carry me around for the day. Anyways, that story just brought some nostalgia ;). It's pretty funny because I was being carried around even before i was painted.

photo taken from my phone

Learning Challenge - The importance of sleep~ thoughts by Patrick

Being as woody figure, I am blessed with the ability of actually not having to fall asleep at all. My eyes are painted wide open and Albert never developed a mechanism for closing them. Nonetheless, the article I read, why sleeping may be more important, was quite intriguing nonetheless. One thing that I always realized about humans was not only their want for some of them, but also, their actual NEED to sleep. I always knew that people needed to sleep at least a couple of hours in order for memories to be encoded into long term memory. I also knew a little bit about why certain physiological factors might affect sleeping patterns - such as lights, foods, and daily activities. One thing I did not really put much thought into prior to the article was the idea of quality of sleep vs the quantity. In college, Albert has lately been making it a goal to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night, but less than 8 of those hours are quality sleeping hours.
The possibility that arises with this new information is that Albert can adjust his schedule properly to not only get the quantity of sleep he needs but also the quality of sleep.

To conclude, I wish everyone the best in all their endeavors this week.

Goodnight
~Pat

photo taken from Albert's Phone.

Famous last words: Hitting my MCAT Studying goals!

This week was really hectic! A personal life goal that I put for myself last week then told my friends to hold me accountable to was 20 hours of MCAT studying in. This semester I will be taking the medial school admissions test known as the MCAT and I really to make sure I was excelling not only in school but also in life. My original goal starting the semester off was to get in 30 hours of MCAT prep in a week all the way up until the date of my test which will be on April 20th (4/20).. :)

I was not able to hit those goals so I lowered it down last week to 20 hours instead. The first half of the week did not go very well and I was only able to get in a like 4 hours by Thursday morning.. However, as I was walking out of class, I saw one of my friends studying for her LSAT and I asked her how she went about studying for it. She enlightened me to her schedule of putting in 30 hours a week for the past two weeks and told me how manageable it has been for her. After talking to her for about 10 minutes I had this new resolve to finish up the week strong and hit the original goal for studying that I had planned. I ended up the week on Saturday at around 5:30pm hitting my 20 hours of studying in for the week! I actually ended up passing out right after words. Anyways, hitting my goal of 20 hours this week gives me a lot of confidence going into next week that I will be able to manage both my study hours for the MCAT and for school as well! I want to emphasize how important it is to set goals and actually hit them. I just feel so good after hitting my goals and I feel like a new person!

Thanks for reading!

Image taken from business2community

Feedback Thoughts

6 bad mental habits
silencing the critical voices

The articles are spot on! My favorite one is silencing the critical voices because it emphasizes the importance of positive thoughts! For the past two years in college I have had the opportunity to run my own business during the summertime with Southwestern Advantage and develop leadership and communication skills. The primary concept that Southwestern teaches their students is the importance of positive self-talk. Everyday during the summer time whether its through the rain, heat, empty, and negative feelings of self-worth, the convictions of positive self-affirmations have served me in the program and outside of the program in my daily life.
The other article, 6 bad mental habits, is also pretty cool. It is so important to not get hung up on the negative image we can have on ourselves and I think when it comes to handling feedback it gets kind of tricky. One way that I like to look at feedback is by viewing it as 'constructive.' It is so humbling to realize that I cannot see everything and appreciating others for helping me see my blind spots. It is so important to assess situations constructively and the idea of feedback is great because there are many things I am blind to in my work and life.



Photo was taken on my phone and captions were created with group me (I started a conversation with myself so nobody would notice that I’m making Patrick memes (not that it matters but that’s how this picture was formed))

Topic Brainstorm

https://sites.google.com/site/yamastattooparlor/
I like the tattoo parlor idea alot. As I’m brainstorming ideas for projects, I’m trying to figure out the best way to incorporate Patrick into my final project. The idea of the tattoo parlor is really neat and the author has a lot of freedom to think creatively about the events that happen in that divine environment.
http://indiaepicsnewspaper.weebly.com/
What appeals to me about the Shremeeti News paper is the drawing in effect that it has of being a mystery crime scene thrill. Perhaps some type of myster blog could be thought of where Patrick is Protagonist trying to figure out a mystery. Another idea that I think could work is some type of survival horror blog with updated news where I go missing and Patrick attempts to look for me.
https://sites.google.com/view/theepicsofwaffleandtootsie/introduction
The Jataka tales of Waffle and Tootsie up to what I have checked out so far is the front runner for my project. The project will follow the Jataka stories through the literary analysis of Albert intermingled with questions that I learned from another class I’m taking this semester called Fate and the individual part II. Another idea is an anthology where Patrick is in all of the Jataka tales, but instead is a diary sketchbook survival idea like in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe where Patrick reflects upon the originally stuff that he has to do in each of the tales in first person.
https://sites.google.com/site/lovethroughtheeyesofnature/does-a-love-g
The last thing that interests me is the blog of love through the eyes of nature. The introduction to the blog is very funny as it is told through the eyes of a squirrel. The possibility that opens up from the blog idea is that Patrick reflects upon stories of love or really any emotion through his daily existence with reflections toward divine Hindu gods. The blog could be a prayer similar to Augustine’s Confessions.


Picture from Wattpad Patrick as a detective

Week 2 Story: Patrick's spin - The Dionysian Hero Faust in Goblin City

As Albert types on his computer, I am currently somewhere in Florida milling away in Scottie's room. The adaption of this story will be taken from Goethe's Faust Part 1 character - Faust in a story that puts this hero in the Goblin City of the Jatakas.

When Faust awoke from his slumber, his good friend Mephistopholes awoke him to come explore what true pain and pleasure is. Agreeing to this and being already disenchanted with life, Faust signs his name in blood with Mephistopholes in exchange for this experience. Faust is awoken with a new sense of power beyond measure. With his newly acquired powers, Faust created a city of She-Goblins known as Patrickville where he would lure young sailors to their demise. The village has the same appeal as Sirens did on the Greek Odysseus that sailors would inevitable jump off and swim to their doom in order to experience such pleasure. Faust built a city of lies - dressing the She-Goblins up as 21st famous century actresses - Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, Nicole Kidman - and surrounding the city with the lie of industrious livings. Once the young lads were finally on the island, the disguised goblins seduced the men into marrying them for life.
After marriage, the sailors had a jolly time with their new wives and did not think much of it. Nights went by of pure bliss until Faust – once again growing disenchanted with his condition and experiences chose to turn the disguised goblins into man-eating monsters. As the goblins awoke to their fate, they congregated together as one big unit and ransacked different houses and continued to eat each other’s new husbands. Luckily, the grand master of the sailors awoke before his wife could eat him and kicked her in the face. As she was lying there on the ground, crying, the sailor frolicked away into the woods and awaited his next plan. He soon saw other sailors running away into the woods as well. Soon almost all of the sailors agreed that they needed to get off the village.. but how?
Luckily, at this moment in time, Patrick Startrick, the superhero in this story, shows up on the back of his friend’s elephant. Prashant, the owner of the elephant, advised the sailors to get away from the island as it is cursed by the angry warlock Faust. The sailors got away thanks to Patrick while the other sailors, who did not get the memo, were eaten alive.

The moral of the story is to not be too excited about marrying famous people because they could be man-eating goblins controlled by a bored warlock named Faust.
 

This image was created and texted to my phone by my friend, whom I have known since I was four years old, Scottie. 

Author's notes: 

The original story is about a group of sailors who got stuck on the island of Ceylon and were forced to marry these disguised goblins that ate them. At night the Goblins ate some of the sailors while the captain of the sailors awoke and ran away getting part of his crew to fly away on a horse while the rest of them were eaten.

I changed the story a little bit because I had a conversation with one of my friend's who drove me home last night because my car had a flat tire and I did not have a way to get home (long story what happened was that I had a flat tire before the school day but I was in a hurry to get breakfast with my southwestern mentor and she ended up picking me up from my house while I left my car there. She ended up taking me to campus as well and so I did not have a ride home, so my friend Emily took me home.) about what a Dionysian Hero was and I did not know how to explain it. I knew that Goethe's Faust was a Dionysian hero because Dr. Anderson said so in class and figured I could just explain what that type of hero is through Faust.

My adaption of the story portrays Faust as somebody who disregarded all considerations - those of morals, ethics, pleasures, and pains, in order to experience what he feels like he is missing out on. I also replaced the fairy in the story with Patrick riding on the back of an elephant with his friend 'Prashant' because I wanted to show off some cool pictures that my friend created.

Bibliography: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. Goblin City

Reading Notes: Jatakas Anthology - Two Turtle Jatakas

My favorite Jatakas Anthology is about the two turtles. The turtle stories are really two separate story that involves one where the turtle is tricky and avoids death, while the other one the turtle was foolish and died. The things that really stood out to me was how stark the stories are and how close they correlate with real stories of people. For example, the story of the turtle and the geese was kind of like an Aesop's fable about keeping one's mouth shut. The story portrayed an instance where a turtle became such good friends with a pair of geese that he was going to fly away with them. The only postulate for flying away with the geese was that the turtle must keep his mouth shut. The mentioning of the keeping the mouth shut is important as it seems to be commentating on a real life instance where keeping one's mouth shut is necessary to preserve life and stay healthy. The idea of keeping the mouth shut juxtaposes with the first story of the turtle who because he opened his mouth was able to preserve his life.

https://sites.google.com/view/jatakas/turtle

Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt


The image was taken from Mainlesson

Patrick views ideas - Reading Options

Today as Albert was in class, I was resting somewhere in someone’s pocket. I thought about what type of Indian reading options I would do for class.

I am most excited for the Ramayana and the Mhabarata. Other cool stories I want to explore is the story of how “Angada slays a demon” http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/image-angada-slays-demon.html another cool story I want to explore is the Khumbarkana about how the giant was able to even defeat Indra, another Hindu God. http://ackguide.blogspot.com/2015/04/guide-kumbhakarna-vol-528.html The last thing I really liked was the Indian epics short stories. http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/2017/11/overview-komarraju-lesser-known-tales.html

All in all I am very excited for this project. Here is a photo of me the last time I got really excited

Photo was taken on my phone

Time Strategies - How I'll stay ahead

Albert's Thoughts:

Out of the two essays I read - my favorite one Why Time Management is Ruining Our Lives by Oliver Burkeman portrays the perspective that the constant pursuit of business in our 21st century "efficient" lives seem to have decreased the 'quality' of our lives by mixing leisure and busy time. The essay was very stark and reminded me of a book I read this Christmas break, Sapien: A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Harari who states that humans are not anymore happy than we were millenias ago. The emphasis on productivity today I agree seems to have mixed in with our schema of what it means to live a whole and maximized life. It is also through that essay that I appreciate why I am doing this blog from the perspective of Patrick as this gives me a chance to step outside of myself - into a perspective where I can emulate something that is so static all the time. Overall it was a great read into time management!
Link : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

The other essay I read was Time Management Tips Just For The Creatives by Amanda Oliver was quite fascinating. There were already some things that I already do such as allocating my energy to more energy draining projects first and making sure I am most productive at my productive point during the day. One thing that did stand out to me though that I started but never quite continued was the idea of ENDING my day with a checklist of things to do for tomorrow. The idea is quite entertaining as I have started my day of with a checklist once for about a month and just stopped. I think that ending my day with a checklist would be a great idea to do as it will allow me to rest easily with the comfort that i know exactly what I am doing the next day. I plan to implement this today before I wind down for the night. Also Togl and IFTTT are apps I am looking into now.

Link: https://www.canva.com/learn/time-management/

- Albert 

Speaking of different ways to manage time - here is an old photo of patrick lying on his side in his bed. There really isn't a correlation specifically to time but I just wanted to highlight the concept of how not efficient his making use of the bed is. 

photo taken from my phone

Technology - more thoughts by... Patrick!

Currently I am having Albert view the blogs as I am still missing in action in real life - I believe I'm in Ohio right now for a photo shoot - but I am very excited nonetheless. I am familiar with most of the technology such as Google Docs, Tumblr, and Pinterest, but I may look into using Cheezburger for creating memes about myself and this experience. Anyways, here is a photo of me 'planking' on the gas valves in my Chemistry back in high school!

                                           This photo was taken from my phone

Assignments - patrick's thoughts

After browsing through the list of potential project ideas and extra credits, the ideas that most intrigue me are the "famous last words" and "extra reading" assignments. The personal reflections diary would be neat as I spend most of my day modeling for random photo projects or just simply existing. It's really quite interesting, to think about it this way, but sometimes people spend a lot of their days pondering or moving about. It is at moments like those where I really enjoy the static nature of my existence with the knowing that I know and came from my creator - Albert.

 More on this later ~~

                                  This image was created by my friend Brad and emailed to me

Growth Mindset - a reflection

Since creation, I have only garnered attention from the shadows of my accomplishments. I often feel lost and mistaken as how other people perceive me, not as how I view myself. This reflection is about my growth mindset.

The adventure started two years ago when Albert first took me out for the summers. Being a wooden sea star, I've always thought that my place was in the oceanic world with others of my kind. A place that is cool and dark with lots of bivalves to prey upon. It was not until the summer time where I really learned that what makes me different is what makes me special. For the past six years I have always pushed against the buoyancy of nature. I am aiming deep just to get shot right out of my environment. I never gave any excuse as to my condition or matter, but its pure law that when I am made to float I should only face resistance when I dive.

Thus resistance I did face both below and above the comfort of my beliefs. These past summers have truly been life changing. I traveled around in arid environments reaching sweeping temperatures with sometimes nothing but the wet of the humidity to keep me moist. Sometimes I don't know where my next meal will come from or even the results at the end. Regardless, I know that things will always work out. I realized that wherever I am, whether it is up above the horizon or into the watery depths, there will always be discomfort at whatever stage I am in. I choose to keep going and that is why I keep growing.

Photo was taken from my camera

Introduction - Patrick...a story of creation.

My name is Albert. I am a letters-constitutional studies major here at OU and I am pre-med. During the summer time I sell books door-to-door in another state and I take pictures of funny things. I want to be a doctor/surgeon and one day co-found a business with my peers. I also eventually want to be married to a lovely wife and have 5 kids (3 boys, 2 girls, all spawned by me and my wife), 3 dogs (a pomeranian, a maltese, and an auzziedoodle), and a miniature pony, all by the time I'm 42. Anyways, that's enough about me.... Here is who and what the blog is really about...... *drum roll* PATRICK!!

The purpose of the blog is to reflect and meditate on Indian Epics through the perspective of Patrick Startrick, a wooden figurine I created in 10th grade. All reflections will be through the eyes of Patrick in the first person, with all mentions of me in the third person. Patrick was born my sophomore year in high school on accident. A friend of mine and I were designing a sculpture out of two pieces of wood. Both pieces failed, but from the rubble arose possibility. My friend ended up throwing his piece of wood away, but I saw potential with my half. At first the block looked potentially like a long sword. I shaved the piece and sanded it down into what later resembled a magnet shaped device. The final product was a wooden figurine that resembled Patrick Star from the popular show on Nickelodean, Spongebob Squarepants. I decided to paint the figurine a shade of pink and had another friend draw a face on him. Ever since then, like a child born from wedlock, our accident morphed into life of its own - thus spawned Project Patrick.                                     
                                                       

All photos were uploaded from my Phone

Project Patrick started off with just a few friends and I as we sought areas in our class schedule to bring "life" to Patrick. The concept of "life" was a very interesting topic to me as I was taking IB classes at the time - the idea of life both biologically and figuratively really drew my attention. I started taking pictures of Patrick both inside and outside of school in my daily activities as I pondered this question of life. A few examples of the integration is shown below.

                                                      Here this is Patrick Skyping with one of my friends

                                                  Patrick with a baby photo

                                          Here Patrick is part of my Science Fair project

                                          A rad picture of Patrick in my physics class with the Tesla Coil

                                        Patrick at a Mexican Restaurant (Featuring my sister in the background)

                                      Here Patrick is being sported by one of my friends as a pocket square
                                              Also all these photos were taken from my phone

The project is quite amusing and as I grew older and my friends all started utilizing social media, there were eventually a few social media projects that were started as well such as his presence on instagram.
                                           
                                                     All pictures were taken from my phone

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this blog as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Patrick's Story Book Favorites (ideas for this blog)

For this post, the assignment is for Albert to find some of his favorite blog projects from other students. The idea for this theme project will be a combination of a meditation and news Hindu dating fantasy through my lens (Patrick). 

The first project Albert really appreciated was from who made his website as a fantasy ideal dating Hindu gods match making. The idea is original and funny and opens up room for possibility. The introduction and the first picture does a great job of explaining what the project is about and the navigation is simple use-friendly. I knew exactly which gods to read about. 

Link: http://hinduloveronline.tumblr.com/story1

Image: Indian Couple by Thanwan Singh, Flickr provided by Hinduloveronline

The second website Albert really appreciates is Barney's blog which gained inspiration from the show How I Met Your Mother. The blog had an amazing introduction allowing for clear understanding that this will be the thoughts and insight provided from none other than Barney himself. Personally, both Albert and I have never watched more than 10 minutes of the show, but Barney's blog definitely sparks interest in the show. The navigation is not as clear cut or distinctive, but is still pretty neat as it gives a funny account of his experiences in India.

Link: https://sites.google.com/site/barneysepicofindiablog/findings

Lastly, the third website that garnered much appreciation from Albert was labeled the Shreemati News which spins an idea of being a news blog for married women in India. The website seems pretty cool and could potentially spark some type of mystery news blog from both Albert and I. The navigation is pretty clear and the "Breaking News" section of the blog intrigues me.

Link: https://indiaepicsnewspaper.weebly.com/

Patrick in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina... My Favorite Place

One of my favorite memories this summer was this summer time when Albert took me along with him during his adventure in North Carolina with Southwestern Advantage. Albert ran his own business as a professional educational consultant in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina. Sneads Ferry is a tiny shrimping community with lots of culture and the community was absolutely amazing and welcoming. It was on June 10th at around 5:40pm that he took me out and positioned me for some cool photos on the horizon of the pier. The second photo is of me on the hood of his car next to the seafood restaurant Blackbeard.

Both of these photos were taken personally from my iphone SE

Patrick isn’t here

this is a test post. Patrick is currently in Florida