Famous Last Words

This week is starting out hectic, especially because its the week right after Spring Break and I have so much on my plate. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's even more stressful that I have to prepare for the MCAT that I'm taking in about two months while I have to keep up with all my classes. At the start of this semester, taking only fourteen hours I didn't think I would have too much of a load but that turned out to be completely wrong. I have been sleeping very late and for very few hours. This makes me end up sleeping long hours and waking up late on the weekends to where I have even less time to study for the MCAT—weekends being the time I keep to study for that huge test. That test is eating my soul—no joke. The stress it is causing is becoming too much, but hopefully it will be over soon!

Aside from that part of my life, I can say that this class has its good and bad moments. Sometimes it seems like a lot to do but other times its really nice because it is a lot of writing, and writing is something that is a passion of mine. When I realized that this class was mostly writing stories, I was thrilled. If I could have another chance at college, I would have writing as a profession though write now it's just a hobby and I'm totally okay with that. My favorite story I would have to say is "I See Fire." That was a story that came to my mind like a lightbulb and I wrote it so fast and I absolutely loved it too. I've found that stories that come to me in a flash like that tend to actually end up really good. And judging from all the comments, I can see others love it too for which I'm glad!

Reading Diary A (Shantanu, his wives, and their children)

Narayan's Mahabharata
Pages: 1 - 39

• The woman that Shantanu, king of Hastinapura, married was the human incarnation of the Ganges river. *Possible story: his thoughts when she drowned the babies without telling him the reason why.
• The babies, who are incarnations of the eight gods, are being drowned because they stole the divine cow of the sage Vashistha. *Possible story
• Bhishma is the eighth child that she took into the river with her and brought back later, back to the king.
• Shantanu falls in love again. *Possible story: him falling for these women (comedic)
• He falls in love with a woman named Satyavati. She is a fisherman's daughter.
• She has two sons with him: Chitrangada and Vichitravirya
• The first son dies soon after his reign but the second son is still alive. 
• Bhishma then rules for a while and seizes the three daughters of the neighboring kingdom when they were having their ceremony for obtaining a husband. 
• One of them, Amba, is let go because she told Bhishma that she promised herself to another king. 
• He however rejects her because she was in another man's home and now Bhishma is basically on her hit-list. *Possible story
• Vichitravirya dies too, though. 
• Satyavati's son that she had with Parashara, named Vyasa, is then asked to bear children with the widows of Vichitravirya since Bhishma won't due to his circumstances. 
• Three children are born, two with flaws (blind Dhritarashatra and pale Pandu) and one without (the one that came from the maid, Vidura).
• Pandu dies while making love with Madri because he was cursed. Madri climbs on to the funeral pyre with him too. *Possible story
• Pandu has five sons: Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva (the Pandavas) and his brother Dhritarashtra has one hundred (the Kauravas).
• Dhritashatra makes Yudhisthira his heir. 
• The Pandavas are much more popular with the people.

Interesting depiction of the Pandavas

Source: DeviantArt