Cultural Experiences

Author's Note : Stef Foster and Lena Adams, a lesbian couple, have a big, happy family of foster, biological and adopted children. Mariana and Jesus, siblings, are adopted thirteen year old twins that the couple have taken in. Brandon is Stef's fifteen year old biological son who the couple keeps as she has rights from a previous marriage. Fifteen year old, Callie and ten year old, Jude are the new comers into the Foster household who are also biological siblings but are placed in this household as foster children. As they have been moving in and out of homes and have not stayed in a stable household, things begin to happen relating to emotion, fights, etc. The Fosters deal with many different issues such as romances that spring about, break ups that take place, hook ups, life lessons, etc. and somehow, they overcome it all. Callie is Lena and Stef's eldest daughter, half sister to Jude, adoptive sister to Brandon, Jesus and Mariana. The court places Callie in the A...

Princes and the Water-Sprite - A king had three sons: Prince of Stars, Moon Prince and the Sun Prince. King was so happy for the third child being born he granted the queen a boon. When Sun Prince was 21, the queen asked the king for him to have the kingdom before his elder brothers. King refused and told the elder sons to go live in the forest till the king dies as they can take over the kingdom then. Sun Prince joined them as well. The water-sprite each of the brothers what the good fairies like. Sun Prince didn't give a good answer so he was taken down into the cave, and later the Moon Prince joined him as well. The elder brother went to go find his brothers and answered the question correctly and was given the opportunity to choose which brother to save. He chose the younger one as he was the reason why they got sent away and because of his kindness, the water-sprite sent both brothers back up from the cave. The king later died and the eldest brother was made king and ruled al...

Banyan Deer - Once upon a time there was a gold deer with a red flowerlike mouth and bright hoofs. He resided in the forest and was the king amongst 500 other deers. They lived close to the Monkey deer population. Townspeople wanted to make the deer locked into a park so they could carry on with their errands. They drove the deer there and shut the gate and told the king. The king would hunt the deer from that stable. The Banyan deer king had been granted his life so he will not be killed by the king and one day, a mother of the baby deer was chosen to fall and since the Banyan deer put himself as tribute, the king ordered that no more deer in the park or the forest will be hunted because of his kindness. This jataka stood out to me as it shows us the value of friendship and treating people the way you want to be treated. Even though the Banyan Deer King had the opportunity to save himself and not get his life taken away and to choose someone to get killed by the king, he still pu...

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Jane who was happily engaged to Michael, the love of her life, until she was accidentally artificially inseminated with the sperm of the owner of the Marbella hotel, Rafael Solano. Once the news was brought to both Jane and Rafael, the telenovela starts from there onwards. Skipping forward into the episodes, Rafael's sister, Luisa gets caught into a love disaster with a foiled escaped prisoner referred to as Rose which is short for the widely known, Sin Rostro. Rose is a sociopath and a convicted murderer who ends up having plastic surgery and looks composed as she goes about her evil deeds. She ends up going off the rails and taking people hostage and taking lives because Luisa ends up betraying her love as she keeps hurting the Solano family. Rose is unable to process the fact that Luisa does not love her anymore and she ends up killing people Luisa cares about to win her back thinking that this is the solution to a broken relat...

The Woodpecker, Turtle, and the Deer - Deer lived in a forest next to the lake close to the Woodpecker and next to the turtle. A hunter wanted to trap the deer going into the water and he did. The hunter came into the house with a knife and the woodpecker struck him in the face. The turtle had blood all over his mouth because of the leather. The hunter picked up the turtle and threw him into the bag. The deer tried helping the turtle by coming into site of the hunter and the hunter started running after the deer. When he lost the deer, he went back after the turtle and the turtle was gone as well. The turtle and the deer teamed up and found and rescued the woodpecker and they all lived happily ever after. This jataka stood out to me when reviewing the jatakas from the list of additional jatakas to read as it facilitated teamwork and standing up for one another. When the deer was in trouble, the woodpecker and turtle came to help out. When the woodpecker was in trouble, the deer and ...

The Three Fishes - Thoughtful, very-thoughtful, thoughtless were the three fishes who lived in the river near town. Very-thoughtful sensed danger amongst them all but the other two fish kept staying back and did not want to leave yet. One day thoughtful and thoughtless got caught by a fishing net and very-thoughtful saved them both. Since very-thoughtful saved them, thoughtful and thoughtless decided to leave and to go back to the wild country and all lived safely ever after. This story was meaningful as the three fishes stood up for each other and did not leave each other in the dirt. As they are brothers, once they got caught up in the net, all of them vowed for each other and none of them left either one of them behind which was super powerful to read. Even though the king wanted one of them to take over the palace and the other two brothers had all the chance to leave him behind to get ahead in line of taking over the throne, the eldest brother did the right thing and saved bo...

Author's Note : This famous CW drama TV show ended its first season with the cliffhanging question of whether Spencer James's little brother, Dillon, is the child of Spencer's father, Corey, or the child of Billy Baker, with whom Spencer's mother had an affair with years ago. We are entering episode one of season two when Corey James and Grace James meet and get some time to talk and discuss everything that is going on and Grace finally admits that she has no clue who Dillon's biological father is and resorts to taking a DNA test as she is frightened to bring that upon Billy Baker who has his own marriage and life falling apart because of the affair. This story resembles the "Ox Who Envied the Pig" jataka. In the jataka, the ox were given regular and boring food even though they did the most work on the farm and went out of their way to get stuff done, while the pig was given a full three course meal for sitting around and playing in mud everyday and not ...

Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking - Two geese and the turtle became friends and later, the geese asked the turtle if he wanted to join them on the journey home and the turtle decided to join as he wanted to go. Geese said that they will take the turtle in their mouth and he will need to be quiet up until they reach the destination. They took off and the turtle could not stick to his end of the deal and started talking to people below and the geese ended up dropping the turtle and making him fall to his death. This jataka stood out to me since it showed that the turtle was given directions to follow by the geese and he could not so he was met with the consequences. This relates to real life stories by indirectly telling you to follow directions because in some situations it can be a life or death situation. I can relate to this because a while back when I was learning to ride my bike, I was getting the hang of it when I wanted to try riding the bike without holding on especially w...

Turtle Saved His Own Life - A famous courtyard with a lake was present for young princes to play, swim, boat and raft in. Later, the king put fishes in the lake. There was a turtle in the pond with the fishes and the boys thought that the turtle was a demon as they have never seen one before. King ordered the boys to catch the turtle and to bring them to the palace. Once this was done, he ordered the men to kill it by throwing it into the lake. Turtle heard their plans and planned to do reverse psychology and say that throwing him into the lake would be the worst option and once the king heard that the turtle was scared, he ordered the men to throw him in the lake and that's what happened to him which as a result, rescued him. This story really stood out to me because it showed how cunning and intelligent the turtle is. Knowing that if he acted scared to one of the ideas that the king and his boys suggested, the king and the boys would do exactly that so that they can give him...