Reading Review Week

Looking back at my Reading Diaries, I can see that I am a big fan of Hanuman. I write about him a lot. At one point, I called him a "rockstar." He is, for sure, a very likeable character -- definitely my favorite to read about.

I noticed that two of my Reading Diary images were of Pushpaka chariot. For some reason, that is one of my favorite elements of the Ramayana. The idea of a flying vehicle that can expand to hold any number of people and navigate itself is just really, really cool! I have re-posted my Pushpaka images here.

(Ravana's Pushpaka chariot)

(The Celestial Chariot)

I think the Reading Diaries have served as invaluable help for the Storytelling assignments. As I looked through my diaries, I realized that before I even wrote most of my stories, I talked about them in the Reading Diary. A lot of times, I even said something along the lines of, "... was such an interesting story, and I think I'd like to explore that further in this week's Storytelling assignment." I remember, too, that I frequently looked back at the things I said in my diaries while I was in the process of writing my stories. It was helpful for finding page numbers and things. This is something I would recommend for future students, using the Reading Diaries for brainstorming weekly Storytelling topics.

The Reading Diaries have also been super helpful for remembering the differences I noticed between Buck's and Narayan's versions of the Ramayana. Since they're the same story, I find that they run together pretty easily in my mind, so it's really nice to be able to look back at my Reading Diary and remember what exactly happened in which version. I'm sure this will be true for the Mahabharata, as well.