Tuesday, February 8

*** CAMPUS CLOSED ON WEDNESDAY ***

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 4 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 4 is on top. This week's topic is ancient Greece in Myth-Folklore, Sufi stories in World Literature, and a new version of the Ramayana in Indian Epics. If you have not turned in your Week 3 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit (see Monday's announcements for details about late Storybook assignments).

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment by 10PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or 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.

Week 4 Internet: Coverpages. For your Internet assignment in Week 4, you will be publishing a Coverpage for your Storybook. This means you will create a NEW SITE with GoogleSites, and the homepage for that new site will be your Coverpage. I hope you will enjoy creating a website for your Storybook. To get some ideas, you can visit these previous Myth-Folklore and World Lit Storybooks, along with these previous Indian Epics Storybooks, and you can also take a look at this semester's new projects (see next announcement).

Storybook Coverpages published! There are already some people who have published their Storybook Coverpages - please feel free to take a look: World Literature, Myth-Folklore, and Indian Epics. Congratulations to the people who are ahead of schedule on their Storybooks! This list was updated on Monday morning; I'll keep adding new Storybooks to the list as people turn in their Week 4 Internet assignments.

February 8: Nirvana Day. In some Buddhist countries, February 8 is celebrated as Nirvana Day or Parinirvana Day (in other countries the holiday is celebrated on February 15). This is, by tradition, the anniversary of the day on which the Buddha left this life; as he died, he achieved "nirvana" which is release from the cycle of life, suffering, death and rebirth. You can read more about this holiday at the BBC Religions website. The image below is a depiction from Thailand of the Buddha's parinirvana: