Monday, October 6

Today is Monday, and Week 6 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Week 7 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 8 assignments are also available now, too! (Week 9 will be available starting tomorrow, Tuesday.)

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. The first thing I will do on Monday morning when I get to work is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. So, after 8 a.m. or so on Monday, you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will be reading and reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in.

Storybook: Working ahead. In order to do the Week 7 Storybook assignment, you will need to wait for comments back on your Week 6 assignment. Depending on just when you turned in your Week 6 assignment, you may have to wait until later in the week, even as late as Friday, in order to get comments back from me. If you want to work ahead on your Storybook, though, you can do that - just move right ahead to the Week 8 assignment, adding the second story to your Storybook.

October 6: Saraswati Puja. As mentioned in a previous announcement, during Navratri, the Hindu festival of the goddess, there are festivities dedicated to Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts. Today, October 6, marks the beginning of the Saraswati Puja as it is being celebrated during the fall Navratri this year. You can read more about Saraswati in this detailed Wikipedia article. Below is an image of Saraswati, showing her with a vina (a traditional stringed musical instrument) in one hand as she strums it with another hand; in her two other hands, she holds a book (a symbol of learning and wisdom) and a string of beads to be used in meditation (symbolizing spiritual practice and dedication). Her traditional animal vehicle is the swan, so you can see swans swimming around her feet as well: