Feedback Strategies

When I give feedback, I often worry I will be too harsh and then end up probably being too nice in my feedback. However, I personally often prefer feedback that gives me something to grow on, even if I can be very self-conscious on what I write. I am hoping to take my own preferences into account more often when giving others feedback.

The first article I read for this assignment was The Difference Between Praise and Feedback by Anya Kamenetz. As I feel like I too often praise people instead of giving them valuable feedback, I thought this would be a valuable article which I could learn from. While the majority of the focus was on parents and their children, I still liked how it talked about feedback requiring time and effort to be meaningful, whereas praise is low cost but has more potential negative consequences. This made me think about how I need to realize that I may be harming the person more by sugarcoating my response instead of giving them truly beneficial feedback.

The second article I read was Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise? by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. I thought this was a really interesting article. I had no idea that so many managers avoid positive feedback altogether, though thinking back on all of the managers I've had I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. I thought it was also interesting how the employees rated managers higher who gave positive feedback yet so many mangers who only gave negative feedback thought they were extremely effective. I think this article helped me to learn that it is important to look for the good in things as well as the things that can be improved upon. After all, it was the managers who gave both positive and negative feedback that were rated the highest overall.

Thinking of these articles, and taking my own feedback experiences into account, I think I will try to make it a point this semester to make sure to give at least one piece of positive and negative feedback every time I give someone feedback. I hope that doing it this way will make the act become more natural after some practice.

Hand Writing the Word Feedback in Blue.

No Changes Made. By: Nick Youngson. Source: The Blue Diamond Gallery

Topic Research: The Marvelous Durga

The project topic I have chosen will be my topic with Durga's story being combined with Captain Marvel's. I am a big Captain Marvel fan (Carol Danvers, specifically, though I also like Mar-Vell and Monica Rambeau and others), so I am very excited to get to write my project on something that interests me so much.

The first place I started researching was Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page for Durga was especially helpful. Her origin story is of her defeat of Mahishasura, where she is created to defeat him since Brahma granted his wish of only being killed by a woman. I think I could easily incorporate Mahishasura into my retellings of Carol's origin stories, as Carol's origins include a male villain as well. I did some other research on Durga as well, and really enjoyed this article, Durga Puja: The story of the goddess and her incarnations, I found that describes Durga's three eyes and her ten arms and the weapons they hold.

Durga Riding a Tiger with Hanuman and Yogi.

No Changes Made. From Wellcome Connection Gallery on 03-29-2018. Source: Wikipedia

For Captain Marvel, I looked at her Wikipedia page (here), but as I own all of the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel comics (and working on her Ms. Marvel ones!) I will likely use my own comics as a reference for her stories. Carol's origin has changed a few times, so I think I might write my three stories for this project using each of Carol's origins with a Durga spin on them. However, Carol in her lifetime of comics has had many different heroic identities since her first comic in 1977: Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, and now Captain Marvel. So, it might be interesting to incorporate those as well.

If I go the three different origin stories route, then the origin stories I will use includes the one from the original 1977 comics run, talked about in detail on Carol's page of the Marvel Fandom Wiki. This page talks about Carol's childhood and when she meets Mar-Vell. While her first comics appearance was in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 in 1968, it is not until Captain Marvel #7 that she is exposed to the Kree device that gives her her powers.

The second origin story I would include would be the one from The Life of Captain Marvel comics by Margaret Stohl, which slightly retcons Carol's origin to be different from the original comics. A good summary can be found here, but I'd likely be using the actual comics as a source as well since I own them. In this one, she still encounters Mar-Vell, Yon-Rogg, and the Psyche Magnitron, but the machine this time awakens her latent Kree DNA given to her by her Kree mother-in-hiding, Mari-Ell. This was a big deal because, before now, Carol's powers were created by the Psyche Magnitron, not awakened.

The third origin story I would include would be inspired by the wonderful Captain Marvel film that came out in 2019. The plot of the film is detailed on Wikipedia, which I might use as a source but I own the film and have seen it several times so I'd probably just rewatch the movie for this story, since I use any excuse I can get to watch it! In this, Carol gets her powers when she shoots her gun at the light speed engine created by Mar-Vell to prevent Yon-Rogg from getting it. Unbeknownst to her, the energy source is fueled by the Tesseract, the space Infinity Stone, and thus she gains her powers. The movie is the story of her regaining her identity (Yon-Rogg wiped her mind and made her think she was a Kree alien herself).

I am really excited about this project idea! I think it would work well and I would have a lot of material for it.

Week 3 Story: Ahalya's Revenge

The world was dark and gray. For how long, she didn't know, but Ahalya knew it was so because she had two memories. One, of the brightness of the world and the colors of her old life, and the other, of the moment when Gautama turned her into rock for Indra's deceit.

And so, she waited.

One day, she felt a change. All of a sudden, there was light again! Looking up, she saw two young men and a rishi. Smiling at Rama, she thanked him for saving her. Then, she turned, and he was there.

Gautama.

Ahalya's world was red next as her fury surged. When he reached his hand out, she sneered at him. "Oh? And what do you think you are doing? You had your chance at being husband to the most beautiful woman in the world. I was created by Brahma for you, and you punished me!"

Shocked, Gautama drew back his hand. "You were unfaithful! I had to punish that. You should be grateful you did not get worse!"

"Worse?! One would argue you punished me worse for the crime of being deceived into sleeping with who I thought was my husband than the man who tricked me!"

Gautama sniffed. "Stop that now! We have company."

Ahalya, turning, looked at the three men. "You have thus far shown to be honorable men, and so I welcome you to Gautama's ashram. Please, enjoy yourselves."

That being done, Ahalya turned and walked into the forest. I need to get revenge for the horrors my husband has wrought against me, she thought. But how was she to accomplish this?

For many days and nights Ahalya planned. She knew that it had to be something worthy of the many years she spent trapped, but she did not know what. Until, one day, it came to her. What better way to gain her revenge than to have the very reason she was punished be his undoing?

So then, the next day, she approached her husband as the picture of humility. Thinking he had earned her forgiveness, Gautama embraced his wife and took her to bed. It was from this that Ahalya conceived a child, a boy, named Avi.

Gautama, still being busy with his devotions, did little in the way of raising their son. And so it was Ahalya who raised Avi all on her own. She taught him how to hunt, cook and sing, how to care for the earth and to mend his clothes. And all the while, she told him stories of her life and the world. Especially important was that she told him about how his father had punished Ahalya. How, for countless years she was trapped in darkness with no room to move.

Avi, having grown up in the wilderness, was horrified. How could one survive without the sun on their face and the wind in their hair? As he loved his mother more than life itself, and having a sense of honor, he started contemplating how to make his absent father pay for his sins. It wasn't until he was retrieving game from a trap he had made that he thought he could trap his father and show him just how horrible he had treated his mother.

And so, Avi labored for many days and nights in secret to create a concealed trap that only he could see. Once finished, he led his father towards the trap, under the guise of wanting to practice devotions with him. However, much to Gautama's surprise, no devotions were practiced that day. Instead, Gautama suddenly found himself trapped down in a pit, with no escape.

"Son! Help! I am trapped!" Gautama yelled up.

"Yes, and it is your own actions that have thus condemned you, Father." Avi replied.

"Avi?" Gautama, replied, astonished.

"Yes, I am the one who has created this trap for you. You see, while you abandoned me to be raised solely by Mother, she told me of how you punished her inside a rock for countless years. So I became her instrument of revenge and trapped you in the earth, in a pit of my own making." He turned then, and Ahalya appeared.

"Ah, husband. Don't feel too bad now, for you can now spend all of your time on your devotions, yes? After all, you did deserve it..."

And thus, Gautama found himself trapped in a world of brown and distant blue until the end of his days.

Artwork of Ahalya Leaning on a Tree.

No Changes Made. By Raja Ravi Varma. Source: Wikipedia

Author's Note: The main inspiration from this story came from Tale 35 in Tiny Tales from the Ramayana by Laura Gibbs, however Tale 34 was also inspiration. Tale 35, "They Come to a Deserted Ashram", detailed Rama, his half brother, and the rishi Vishvamitra traveling through Gautama's ashram, which appears deserted until Rama's foot brushes the rock Ahalya is trapped in and she appears. In the original story, Gautama appears as well, holds out his hand to Ahalya, and she takes his hand and forgives him. The reason she was trapped in the rock was detailed in Tale 34, "The Story of Ahalya", in which Ahalya, created by Brahma to be the most beautiful woman in the world, is deceived by Indra to sleep with him. He lusted after her and so disguised himself as her husband. Gautama found out, and punished them both, leading to Ahalya being trapped in a rock. I did not like how easily Ahalya forgave her husband for something that was not her fault, and so I decided to rewrite her ending and give her some form of justice. I came up with the idea for Ahalya and Gautama's son to be Gautama's undoing from the story of King Arthur, which I touched on a bit in my Reading Notes on Part A of the Ramayana. A retelling of King Arthur's birth, the similarities in which to this story inspired my use of it, are detailed on Wikipedia.

Bibliography: 

Part A, Page 4 of the Tiny Tales from the Ramayana by Laura Gibbs. Links: Tale 34 and Tale 35.

"Igraine." Link: Wikipedia

Reading Notes: Tiny Tales from the Ramayana Part B

For Part A of the Ramayana, I wrote about Ahalya, which you can read about here. As she appeared again towards the end of Part B I considered taking notes on her again, but I was much more interested about the tales centered around Hanuman.

In Tale 93, "When Hanuman Was Hungry", Hanuman's mother leaves him as a baby and he grows so hungry he flies up and tries to eat the sun, mistaking it for a mango. Indra becomes so angry over this that he throws a thunderbolt at Hanuman and breaks his jaw. In Tale 94, "The Devas Bless Hanuman", Hanuman's father Vayu is angry over Hanuman's injury that he stops the air from moving until Brahma arrives and heals his son.

While reading this story about infant Hanuman, I was reminded of the story in Greek mythology of Daedalus and his son, Icarus. In this myth, Daedalus makes wings for him and his son so they are able to escape the Labyrinth. Icarus, however, falls victim to his hubris and flies too close to the sun, and the wax holding his wings together melts and he falls from such a height that he drowns when he falls into the sea. The story is told on Wikipedia on a page over Icarus. I think it could be interesting to retell this Greek myth using the characters of Hanuman and Vayu.

While continuing the story of Hanuman, I thought it interesting that he was blessed by multiple devas and was given not only protection against any future thunderbolts but also radiance and invulnerability to sickness and weapons. While I don't know much about the story of Hanuman in the second half of the Ramayana, I think it might be interesting to write a story about how these gifts come in handy. Though, it is definitely privilege that Hanuman is given all of these gifts just because his powerful father was angered.

The end of Tale 94 was especially interesting to me as there was heavy foreshadowing, and I liked how that made me even more interested in Hanuman's story.

Artwork of Hanuman.

No Changes Made. Created by Kru Tony Moore on 04-30-2013. Source: Wikipedia

Bibliography: Part B, Page 10, Tales 93 and 94 of the Tiny Tales from the Ramayana by Laura Gibbs. Links: Tale 93 and Tale 94.

Reading Notes: Tiny Tales from the Ramayana Part A

For this reading, I enjoyed many of the tiny tales (honestly, all of them), but the ones that struck me as the most interesting were tales 34 and 35, dealing with Ahalya.

In Tale 34, "The Story of Ahalya", Vishvamitra tells the story of a woman created by Brahma to be the most beautiful girl in the world. She is "given" to a rishi named Gautama to be his wife.

Gautama is so busy with his prayers and such that he ignores his wife. And yet, when another deva, Indra, wanted Ahalya and disguised himself as Gautama so that he could "take her to bed", Gautama finds out and curses them.

Not only does he curse the man who raped his wife, but he also curses Ahalya! She did nothing wrong! Putting myself in her shoes, I am sure she was happy that her husband was finally showing her attention, and she perhaps thought that she could finally provide him with children. Instead, she gets turned into a stone for doing literally nothing wrong.

It's not until the 35th tale, "They Come to a Deserted Ashram", that she is freed when Rama's foot brushes against Ahalya's rock. The cherry on top, is that after she is freed she takes her husband's hand and forgives him. I was shocked!

Reading the story of Ahalya, I was reminded of tellings of the birth of King Arthur. Oftentimes the story is told that Uther Pendragon uses Merlin's magic to transform into Gorlois, the wife of Igraine. Igraine, believing Uther to be her husband, sleeps with him and later gives birth to Arthur. Wikipedia details this version of the story on a page over Igraine.

My biggest issue with the story of Ahalya is that she has been victimized by both Indra and Gautama, and in the end does nothing but forgive her husband. I want to see her standing up for herself! If I had written her story, I think she would definitely not easily forgive her husband, and maybe she would find a way to curse him back. Maybe I'd incorporate something based off of Uther and Igraine, and have Ahalya give birth to a son who helps her curse Gautama?

Artwork with Ahalya and Indra in the Background.

No Changes Made. Created by Raja Ravi Varma. Source: Wikipedia

Bibliography: 

Part A, Page 4, Tales 34 and 35 of the Tiny Tales from the Ramayana by Laura Gibbs. Links: Tale 34 and Tale 35.

"Igraine." Link: Wikipedia