Week 9: Curation

On one of our first dates after going long distance, my SO and I got palak paneer at a really great Indian restaurant. This doesn't relate strictly to this class, I suppose, but it is delicious and Indian, so!

 

Okay I didn't realize that the first two of mine were food related, but I didn't realize that chai tea is originally from India! I recently fell in love with chai tea, and I'm excited to explore more about it!

And here's a handy dandy chart for words that can replace 'went' in writing! Woo!

Week 8: Curation

I'm a sucker for tables and reference charts, and finding them for chakras has been fun! I'm a fairly habit-driven person, and I like having things to do with my hands to keep my mind occupied sometimes.

 

This pin is a quick guide to feudal nobility--which will be handy if I write for that time period in the upcoming weeks! It links to a chart on Dan Koboldt's website, that has a lot of useful facts about titles for people of status in nobility.



Look at this elephant. How happy is this elephant! I'm enjoying including elephant pictures in my curation assignments. So here he is.

Week 7: Curation Spaces

This week I finally have the time and the motivation to do one of my favorite extra credit blog posts, the curation spaces.

Image of Bride having hands painted with henna, from weddingpartyapp.com

First up we have a really gorgeous henna design I found on Pinterest- I love henna, and even got a small henna tattoo on my wrist at the Tulsa fair this weekend! I've always been in love with the temporary-permanent nature of henna. The commitment of tattoos scares me, so henna is the perfect compromise!

The Om symbol breakdown, from Sivana Spirit blog

Here's a good guide to breaking down the Om symbol, and seeing what everything means! I see this quite a lot when trying to curate things for this class, and now I have a handy graphic that tells me what each part of the symbol means. The rest of the blog seems pretty cool too, though I haven't had much of a chance to look deeper into it.

Elephant Calf 'Nunai' at the Animal Welfare Rehabilitation Center in Assam, India, from India Incredible Tumblr

There isn't much special significance behind this picture, except that it's a wonderfully cute baby elephant at a rescue center in India, and I thought it might bring a smile to someone's face! It definitely did to mine!

Week 3: Curation

Here's the rundown of the three most interesting things I found over the last week!

The first is, again, from Kid World Citizen. It's an interview with the author of a book who writes about a young Indian Princess traveling to different countries around the world. I really like this for a couple reasons--one, kids from all over the world, regardless if they're in India or France, can learn something about another culture through this book. Two, it really encourages a global mindset from a young age.

The second thing I found was more related to writing than anything else. I got stuck for a while on curation, because I wasn't sure how to relate everything back to India, but then I realized that there's a ton more we're doing in this class besides just reading Indian Epics, and that writing is a huge part of it too! So here I've got a link to someone who wrote up several tips on how to make dialogue more effective. I've already tried reading mine out loud, and it's really helped!

Lastly, another writing resource. This one is from a Tumblr called Writing Prompts. It's got a ton of interesting ideas and pictures to start a story from, all you have to do is supply the writing! Next time I'm stuck and can't think of a creative idea, I think I'll look here first!

Week 2 Curation

Alright, here's the top three breakdown of things I found and loved this week.

First up, we have a Hindu Gods and Goddesses quick reference chart I found while browsing on Pinterest. I've included a link to the chart below. I pinned it because I'm fairly terrible at remembering who's who whilst reading, so it's nice to have a handy reference guide in case I get lost. The chart is a fairly large image (so it's tiny here!), but it's got lots of little tidbits and good information to remember.

Image from worldhistorycharts.com

Number two is an interesting craft for kids I found, also on Pinterest. It's a dual arts and history/learning craft, and I love it when the arts can bring cultural awareness to children. The idea is to have hands cut out of craft paper and glued onto construction paper for some fun color, and then have children draw henna style designs on the hands while also learning about an ancient Indian tradition! This would be my most favorite thing I found this week, if the chart hadn't already come in at that spot. 

Image from Kid World Citizen, a website that I'm definitely going to have to frequent from now on.

I've also been using Pinterest to find and store images that I might like to use in the future for a Storybook or stories in general. One image I found was from Atlas Obscura, called the Root Bridges of Cherrapunji. The people in the region noticed that a type of tree, called the rubber fig, had roots that were particularly strong, and they began to guide the roots of the tree into bridges. The bridges are living, how cool is that? That's an insane feat of truly organic engineering.

Image of the root bridges from Atlas Obscura

If it wasn't apparent, I used Pinterest for all my finds. During one of my study breaks this past week, I actually did this as a fun and destressing type of activity instead of doing something completely unproductive, like browsing Facebook. I'm most familiar with the Pinterest platform, and being able to use it in conjunction with school is great!

Week 1 Curation

Okay, confession time.

I struggle with bookmarks. I have them. There are some folders, sure. Are they organized? I don't think you could call them that even if you were being kind. Are they relevant? Well, they all were at some point. Most of my bookmarks came to be because at some point I thought, "Wow, that would be a great thing to look at later!" And then I never do. In my mind, if I can't find it again by Googling it, then it must not have been important. This is not a good strategy. This is why I stumble across websites once and then keep that tab open for weeks after because I don't want to lose it. Of all my curation and organizational strategies, bookmarks just aren't in the wheelhouse. They're easy to make, and I should probably reorganize them, but right now they're mostly haphazard. There is, at the least, now a folder that reads "Indian Epics", so maybe that will jump start my bookmark bar?

Moving on to Pinterest- it's a little bit the opposite. I'm not always on Pinterest, I tend to take fairly long breaks between pinning-frenzies, but I use it a ton. Recipes, crochet patterns, travel ideas, gift ideas... It's all on there.

Nope, not kidding. A small slice of my boards on Pinterest, screencaptured by myself.

Most of these ideas, I'm not even sure I'll carry out. Cutting hot dogs to look like tiny octopi sounds amazing online,  but am I ever going to do that? Well, I won't rule it out forever, but I can tell you it won't happen anytime soon. Pinterest is the tool I use to put my jumbles of ideas so they don't take up extra real estate in my brain. 

Twitter and I have a particularly special curation relationship, primarily because I use Twitter first and foremost for recording quotes said by anyone from my roommate to my professors. If there's a particularly good zinger in class, or an insightful thought, or just something that made me laugh, it usually goes on Twitter. I don't use it as much anymore as I used to, but it's definitely still alive. 

Here's to better curation and thought organization!