Welcome back from Spring Break! I hope you all had a great week off; I certainly did! Today is Monday, which means that Week 8 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 at the end of Week 8. Week 9 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. The Week 10 assignments are also available now, too! (Week 11 will be available tomorrow, for those of you who are working two weeks ahead.)
Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the Spring Break. 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.
Grading. With the beginning of Week 9, that means there are a total of seven more weeks of the semester, which means 210 points of regular assignments available, plus extra credit. You may want to start planning now how you want to finish up the class. For a chart that shows you week by week point totals and other information about the grading system, you can consult this Grading Information page. It's fine with me if you want to finish the class with a grade of "B" when you get 360 points or "C" when you get 320 points; for an "A" you need 410 points. So, when you have reached the the points required for the grade you want to take, just let me know. As soon as you get the points you need, you do not need to do any more of the class assignments.
March 23: Akira Kurosawa. March 23 marks the birthday in the year 1910 of the great Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa. You can read about his long career and many cinematic achievements in this Wikipedia article. Of all of Kurosawa's films, my personal favorite is Dersu Uzala, a story set in Siberia around the year 1900, when Russian mapmakers rely on the skills of a native Nanai tribal member, Dersu Uzala, to survive the harsh Siberian climate. It's a fantastic movie, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1975. Highly recommended!
