Tuesday, February 2

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 3 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 3 is on top. In Indian Epics, this week you will be finishing up Narayan's Ramayana, and in World Literature you will be reading New Testament parables. In Myth-Folklore, it's the Hebrew Bible, with a choice between the stories of Noah and Babel, or the stories of Samson and Daniel. If you have not turned in your Week 2 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. (See note about that below.)

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the HUGE stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on or before 7PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 7PM on Saturday or on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I read the assignments in the order that they are turned in, so the later you turn in the assignment, the longer you'll need to wait to get the comments back. It usually takes me all week to get comments back on all the Storybook assignments people have turned in. In fact, this is the main part of my job teaching online: I spend about 30 hours each week reading the Storybook assignments each week and writing back comments. :-)

Tech Tip emails. Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails people sent in over the weekend, but I'll get to that later in the week, I promise. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of them.

Late Storybooks. (repeat announcement) Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. If you want full credit (10 points) you must turn the Storybook in before noon on Monday. If you turn it in late, you can receive partial credit, as follows: turn it in on Monday after noon and you can receive up to 8 points credit max.; on Tuesday, you can receive up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday you can receive up to 6 points of credit. If you turn the Storybook assignment in on Thursday before noon, you can receive up to 5 points of credit. No late Storybook assignments will be accepted after noon on Thursday.

February 2: Imbolc. In the Wheel of the Year holidays, February 2 is celebrated as Imbolc (sometimes spelled Imbolg), the cross-quarter day which is in-between the Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year) and the Spring Equinox (when the day and night are of equal length, with the days growing longer). Because the seasons of the year are opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres, when it is Imbolc in the northern hemisphere, it is the holiday of Lughnasadh in the southern hemisphere! Here is the Wheel of the Year showing the four main holidays at the solstices and equinoxes, along with the four cross-quarter days: