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Amaterasu The Sun Goddess:  Source        Being the goddess of the sun after all these years is quite taxing. Being responsible for keeping the balance and harmony within the earth realm is just exhausting. You may have heard that I bequeathed my position to one of my descendants, and while this is true, someone has to make sure that no one messes up the balance. It has been thousands of years since that incident. With the exception of the elders, not many people remember who I am. The year is 2020, my descendant Asahi is now in charge of the light. I watch over her, as she is just a girl. I watch her as she channels her powers, I need to ensure that she is acting responsibly with something that she did not ask for. Having the entire power of the sun in your hands is quite the responsibility. I know how it was. Growing up with my brother, our parents put such a force of pressure upon us. It was inescapable. But those times are over, I must look forward to en...

Image of Japan  Source        Like I said with the first half of the reading, I was really excited to be able to add some Japanese mythology into my portfolio. These are definitely stories that I will want to incorporate into my classroom someday as an English teacher. I really enjoyed how all of these stories strung together as a linear story but also worked as stand-alone stories. I really enjoyed the entire mythology as a whole, and I am glad that I got the opportunity to broaden my horizons with literature, as I do not get much exposure to world literature in my current field of study. I thought it was a nice change from the first half of the readings, and I thoroughly enjoyed the readings. My favorite story from the anthology was Japan: The Jewel Heart of Desire. This story is connected to the fish hook story from the same anthology and is based around Emperor Chiuai and the Japanese Goddesses as a whole. I really liked how short these stories are, they...

Yamato in disguise:  Source Japanese Mythology: This week's readings really intrigued me. Many people focus on Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology. But, there are many mythologies out there to examine. Asian mythology, in general, is pretty untapped for me. Other than what I have read for this class, I have no prior knowledge of any stories. We are not taught anything in school, we never prioritized Asian literature at all. The stories from this week's readings come from The Romance of Old Japan. These stories are about God's Izanagi and Izanami, and their children, the sun goddess Amaterasu and her brother, Susanowo. The stories in this reading tell a linear story that is incredibly interesting and kept me on my toes for the entire reading. My focus story, the one that I will likely write my storytelling assignment over, is the Rescue of the Princess story. This story is by far the most interesting and captivating part of the entire storybook. You see how Yamato is a br...

Progress chart image:  Source So far, I am really happy with my progress. In the beginning, I was wary of how my blog and my website would turn out. I am very excited about how they are coming along. With as hectic as the last semester has been, I am actually pretty proud of how things are coming along. Unfortunately, I have not been taking advantage of the extra credit opportunities like I should, but I look forward to doing some more in the future. The assignments I enjoy the most are actually the reflective assignments. Too often, we get caught up in the semester. We don't find any time to look back and see how far we have come. Time flies too fast when we live this way. The semester is half-way over and I did not even realize it. Looking forward, I hope that I can take better advantage of extra credit opportunities like I said that I would. I hope that I can get ahead of the assignments! That is my biggest complaint with my work this semester, I have been waiting until the ...

Feedback Header Image:  Source So far, the feedback for this class has been rather helpful. The feedback has helped me to see grammatical errors, sentence structure errors, and other issues in my writing. All of the feedback has been both strong and positive. The most helpful types of feedback are specific critical comments that have direct instructions. For me, I think that the feedback that I leave is generally too positive. I have a tendency to not want to be critical, or harsh. I want to make sure everyone feels validated in their writing, and I would hate for someone to feel poorly about their work. As for the blog comments, it is fun to see familiar names and faces when I read my comments. Of course, there are still a few people that I have not interacted with yet, but there are plenty of people who I always look forward to. Moving forward with the class, I hope to be able to leave better feedback for my classmates. Feedback that is more critical, and less general. I hope...

Tibetan Buddhist Tantric Wrathful Diety Source:  Wrathful Diety I chose this specific image because to me, the wrathful Buddhist deities are the more intriguing ones, they tend to be the ones that people do not spend time focusing on. I was also inspired by Life of the Buddha readings that I scheduled to be completed during Week five        Overall, the reading and writing assignments are helping me stay on track for the entire course. These readings are specifically helpful to me as a future educator who wants to incorporate more diverse literature in the classroom. I think taking the reading notes helps with the story aspect, and I really like that a lot of what we do is story-telling, a medium that I am not exceptionally good at. As for my blog, I tweaked the layout and design and it is, to me, a lot more visually satisfying. My project website is sort of underwhelming, and I would say could use some work. I intend to put some work into it for the up...