Famous Last Words: Go Beyond! Plus Ultra!

For this class, I have not been keeping up with the assignments. What’s bogging me down is the reading. I’m trying my best to keep up with the reading but since it can be long, I get sleepy. When I tried to catch up on my reading notes, I focused on one or two characters. I didn’t really like using that tactic because the beginning of the section was about the two characters I picked. Then, later, the story focused on different characters. Since the characters I focused on were only used in the beginning, I didn’t take notes about the main part of story. In one story that I read today, the author used names that had meaning behind it. The translation behind the names made the story more meaningful and followed the theme. I would like to adopt this tactic  into my future works. 

I’ve been putting in much effort to keep up with my biochemistry and physical chemistry class. Despite my efforts, there’s still so much material to go over. Unfortunately, I have three exams for three consecutive days – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On the bright side, I’ve finally resumed my MCAT studying this weekend after putting it off for so long. I have a little over a month so I’ve been trying to finish a chapter a day for each book. Right now, I’m reviewing organic chemistry and now, I’m on chapter three. 

This past week, I went to OU’s Miss International pageant where my friend and roommate Ida participated in. It was an amazing experience. Each contestant was amazing and I tried to meet all of them. When the contestants were showing their talent, my heart was racing for all of them. 

Lastly, the death toll for the coronavirus has surpassed the death toll for SARS. Now, the value is above 800. I watched videos about how China’s popular sites have become ghost towns. My cousins finally messaged me back and now we’re having long-time needed conversations. 

Coronavirus Spread

Source: CDC

Wikipedia Trail

Scythians
On the twitter stream, I saw a Scythian horse. It was adorned with accessories and I have never heard of a Scythian horse. When I searched it up on Wikipedia, I didn’t find an article about horses but instead found one about the Scythians who were a nomad group of people who lived in the 7th century B.C.

Khazars
While reading about the Scythians, I saw the terms: Huns, Goths, Turks, Avars, and Khazars. These terms peaked my interest because I’ve learned about the Huns, Goths and Turks, but not the last two.

Rabbinic Judaism
I read that the elites within the Khazars converted to Rabbinic Judaism. I’ve never seen the word “rabbinic”; it reminds me of the word rabbit. I learned that rabbinic Judaism is the mainstream form of Judaism. It’s called Rabbinic Judaism when the religion is espoused by the Rabbinites.

Oral Torah
In the previous article, I read that Judaism believes that Moses received the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. I was interested in learning more about the Oral Torah because I’ve never heard of a Torah.

Gold Pectoral

Source: Wikipedia

Extra Credit Reading Notes 0

Despite being the wife, Kaikeyi doesn't care about the death of her husband nor her other sons. Throughout the reading, I noticed that men are notably nicer towards women. For example, maybe it's because she was his mother, but Bharata would not kill his mother despite the wrongdoing she's done. Shatrughna and Bharata both knew that Rama would not be happy if he finds out what they did to a woman. I might change how Kaikeyi received zero punishment. Bharata's comments about parents are interesting to me. He says that a man's allegiance to them is temporary. A man enters and leaves this world alone. I might include Bharata's analogy in my future story.

Later in the story, Sita was kidnapped by Ravana while Rama was trying to catch the golden deer was. The demon’s plan was good so I think I might keep this part of the story. The sister of Ravana, Sherpanakha wanted Rama badly so she tried to kill Sita. There’s not much I want to change because I enjoyed reading this part the most.


Bibliography
Mackenzie, Donald A., Ramayana, http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/pde-ramayana-bharata-returns.html

The Golden Deer, Rama, and Sita

Source: Academy