Wednesday, April 21

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 13 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 12 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Storybook stack. There are still quite a few assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment on Sunday or earlier, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in on Monday or Tuesday are probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.

My Wednesday schedule. I do most of my work during regular business hours on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday, while scheduling any out-of-office commitments on Wednesdays. So, today I'll be away for part of the day, but I should be back in the late afternoon and available to answer any email questions by the end of the day.

Mix and match points. (repeat announcement) Now that there are less than three weeks of the semester left, you might want to plan to do some "mix and match" in terms of just which assignments you want to complete this semester to get the points you need for the grade you want to get: 410 points for an A, 360 points for a B, or 320 points for a C. So, based on the assignments you enjoy most/least in the class, you can certainly skip some assignments, provided that you end up with the points you need at the end. My only recommendation is that you do this cautiously. You don't want to skip so many assignments that you end up not getting the points you need for your desired grade.

April 21: John Muir. Today marks the birthday of John Muir, a great American environmentalist and writer. Muir was born in Scotland in 1838 and immigrated to America with his family in 1849. Muir was instrumental in the protection of Yosemite Valley and other natural treasures of northern California. You can read more about Muir's amazing life and inspiring achievements in this Wikipedia article. There are many places named in honor of John Muir, and one of my favorites is Muir Woods, located just north of San Francisco. Here is a picture of the beautiful redwoods there: