Burke Blog for Epics of India

This week, not much happened for fun, everything was focused on classwork, particularly in my graduate studies.  My capstone class had to have the aircraft for each sub team built, so that was a massive undertaking, and then had to build a final, completed prototype as well as write up a almost completed draft of the report.  My main portion of this project was the report writing, because it was something that I could do while completing all of my master's research and research assistant work out at the Advanced Dynamics Laboratory.  For research, we hit a massive ramp up in workload, as now we are moving to both the flight computer programming and control law portion as well as the actual physical construction of the octorotor.  This has taken up almost all my time, as I spent almost all of my week in the lab when I was not in class, and all of the weekend, so it was rather uneventful on any other front.  The only thing outside of this work I really did was g...

For this challenge, I talked to my girlfriend about growth mindset and what it entailed.  She had never heard of growth mindset specifically, but when we discussed the details,  it was similar to many concepts covered in her nursing program.  The one key difference is in nursing there is no learning from failure, the decisions you make are literally life or death, so she felt that taking lessons away and always being open to learning were good takeaways, but that the parts on failure had no place in your field.  Discussion, from  Pixabay

For this tech tip exercise I added the Gameday Weather sticker to the sidebar of my blog.  This means that when the weather forecast for an Oklahoma Sooners Football game is available it will be in the sidebar, so you can get a quick peak at gameday weather

It was an ominous day, one that was fated to be filled with war and bloodshed.  The day started with a pouring rain, but this was not water.  This rain was of blood, foreshadowing what would flow once more later that day.  As the army of bears and monkeys stood, howling and roaring across from the city walls, the earth shook from the din.  Inside Lanka, the city under siege, Ravana and his forces prepared for battle, while the captive Sita was filled with hope.  The news from the scouts suggested Ravana surrender his captive, but Ravana was filled with pride and refused to surrender, so he decided to attempt a different strategy. Rama and his Monkey Army, from  British Library In the meantime, a great phenomenon occurred, a circle of fire fell from the sky.  This appeared to be the provocation needed for war, as it sent Rama's army rushing towards the walls, and the din of the battle surpassed even the noise of earlier.  The battle raged ...

The story that inspired me for my storytelling exercise in this was the story Rama attacks.  The visuals in this story are amazing, the rain of blood, the fiery circle falling from the sun, etc.  This imagery provides a stunning canvas to paint my own tell, and attempt to make my own version even more epic.  The whole battle stories to tell with the siege and then the lies spread by Ravana give a psychological narrative as well.  The battle of psyches between Sita and Ravana gives another battle narrative, one that could become its own story.  I am not decided which of these two narrative I wold want to tell, but I do know all the groundwork that I need is there. Rama and Hanuman fighting Ravana, from  Wikimedia Bibliography: Myths of Hindus and Buddhists, Sister Nivedita,  Source

This week, the story that caught my attention for doing my weekly storytelling assignment was the story of Sampati and Jatayu. Ravana Cutting off Jatayu's Wing, from  Temple Purohit This story stood out due to the complex emotional themes of the brothers relationship, and the folly and pride of their race that led to Jatayu's death.  The image above is a different story, but one that I did further reading on and might consider finding a way to work into this tale in this week's storytelling.  I loved how the race itself could be given a deeper meaning or purpose, adding another dimension to the story.  Sampati's sacrifice could also be given a longer telling, and once again, the potential of fusing this story with the other version I read is tempting, having the brothers encounter Ravana on their adventure.  Overall, between this weeks reading and extra research, I feel confident in the amount of material at hand to work with.   Bibliograp...