Spring 2021 Online Course Diary: Week 5 Famous Last Words: Storybook going strong!

I may do some extra credit this week (or not... I have so much stuff to write for that book chapter still... eeeeek!), but just in case this is my last chance to think about Indian Epics for the weekend, I wanted to write something now because I was so happy with how my Storybook is taking shape: Hanuman in the Ramakien. This is the week when people are writing Introductions, and I wrote my Introduction, plus I was able to add my first story since it was a story I had written for my blog earlier: Hanuman's Birth.

I get such a thrill every time I write a new story... and I also get such a thrill when I build a new website. What is it about creating new things that makes me feel so good? I should read through the creativity literature to see if I can find out what that is. I guess it is some dopamine thing in the brain. Anyway, I feel great! Plus I had this brainwave: instead of doing one class each semester next year, I think I will do both at once. Right now, I cannot really do the "project feedback" assignments since I'm already reading all the projects for my job. So, I've been swapping out those points with other kinds of extra credit assignments (this semester, I'm doing lots of extra reading because of the Ramakien). But that project feedback is 6 points, which is about the same as the project. So I was thinking that next semester, I will enroll myself in both classes at once so that I can do two projects! It will not be that much more time than the extra credit options I'm doing now... and it would be twice the fun in terms of having something to share with others and show at the end of the semester. So, of course I'll do Brer Rabbit as my project for Myth-Folklore next fall (that's a no-brainer since I'm going to be working on Brer Rabbit all summer), and that also means I could do something in Indian Epics, something Mahabharata-themed. This whole Hanuman project is kind of unexpected since I actually prefer the Mahabharata to the Ramayana, so that would mean next year I could really immerse myself in Mahabharata work by being a student in both classes for both semesters.

When I figured that out this weekend, I was so happy. Next year is looking pretty scary to me, partly because of all the bad stuff happening at OU (but I'm going to assume I'll still have my job...), but also because either way things go with my dad, it's going to be hard: either he will still be alive next year, or he will not, but either way, I am going to be really beyond my emotional exhaustion limits. I need all the help I can get, and creating stories and working on projects is, at least for me, the best possible medicine. It gets me out of this world and into a different one. Which is exactly what I need, ha ha.

So, I hope everybody is having fun writing their project introductions or working on revisions this weekend... I had so much fun with mine. Yay Hanuman!

Here are some cool images that I found from the Ramakien posted at the NCPedia website of all places (I think they are in support of a Ramayana class their online course program used to teach):