Friday, September 9 - Sunday, Sepember 11

HAPPY WEEKEND! This is the end of Week 3. The Week 3 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 3 assignments are due on Friday or, if you prefer, on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Also, if you have not kept up with the announcements during the week, please take a minute to look at the announcements you missed; here are all the announcements for the past week.

This Semester's Storybooks Online! Some people who have been working ahead already have their Storybooks online, and a couple of people have already published their introductions - one person even has her first story up: wow! To see this semester's growing list of Storybooks, visit the Myth-Folklore Storybooks page and the Indian Epics Storybook page and take a look.

Proofreading Practice. Remember the story about the stonecutter back in Week 1? For some of you the proofreading was pretty easy, but for some of you there were definitely some topics you needed to review and practice. In order to give you some self-guided proofreading practice, I've put up five short little stories that are like the Week 1 proofreading exercise, and this time they have answer keys so that you can check your work. I hope you will find these little exercises helpful as you get ready to do the first real writing for your Storybook in Week 4; here are the Proofreading Practice Stories. Let me know what you think! Almost everybody needs at least some help with proofreading and I hope that these stories can provide some useful practice.

Week 3 Responding. The Week 3 Responding assignment is now available! For the Responding assignment, you should be looking for the Week 3 essay and story - which means you may need to scroll down, because some people are working ahead. So, if you do not find somebody's Week 3 blog posts at the top of their blog, just scroll on down until you find what you are looking for. For more information about what to do if someone does not have the posts you are looking for, see the instructions for the assignment.

Storybook Stack. On Friday, I hope to be able to finish reading and responding to every Storybook assignment in the stack turned in before Friday at noon (contents of the stack). I don't do any grading over the weekend, which means that if you turn something in after noon on Friday, it will go into the stack. I'll start working through the stack first thing on Monday morning, in the order received. If you want comments back next week sooner rather than later, don't wait until Sunday to turn in your assignment! The earlier you turn in the assignment, the sooner you will get comments back.

Friday Events on Campus. As announced in the OU Daily, philosopher John Corvino (check out his blog) will present a public lecture on "The Definition of Marriage," sponsored by the Philosophy department, at 4PM in Dale Hall 112 (time/location/details; the event was originally scheduled for 3:30, but has been rescheduled to 4PM in a bigger room). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Friday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 9: Pieter Bruegel. Today, September 9, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who died in 1569. Bruegel is famous for his painting of the Tower of Babel - which may be of interest to those of you in the Myth-Folklore class this week who chose to do the readings from the Book of Genesis. You can read more about Bruegel's life in this Wikipedia article, and you can also read an article there about his painting of the Tower of Babel (1563). For a larger view of the image, click here:

Thursday, September 8

Today is Thursday of WEEK 3 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 2 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit until noon today. For those of you in Myth-Folklore, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

D2L ERRORS AGAIN... PROBLEM FIXED. Michelle Davis, the super lady who runs D2L for us, says the quiz problem has been fixed. Fingers crossed!!! So, you should not be getting error messages - and if you do get an error message, please send me an email and let me know which quiz is causing problems. MY APOLOGIES: we have never had so much trouble with D2L as this semester. Thanks to those of you who wrote in to let me know about this!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me. If you turned in something on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack (contents of the stack). Please check to make sure!

Week 3 Read and Respond assignment. The Week 3 blog commenting assignment is not available yet; it will be available starting on Friday. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog today, Thursday. So please wait until midnight tonight when people should have finished their Week 3 blog posts, and then on Friday (starting tonight at midnight if you want), you can do the Read and Respond assignment.

Thursday Events on Campus. Another Union Week activity: Breathe Electric free concernt on Thursday, 8PM, on the East Lawn of the Union (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Thursday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 8: Star Trek begins. Yes, today is a great day in the history of television - it marks the broadcast of the first episode of the original Star Trek series in 1966 (yes, 45 years ago!); the original series then ran for three seasons until June 3, 1969. My devotion to Star Trek began in 1972, when the show was in reruns and I was able to watch every afternoon when I came home from school (I was in third grade). I have never lost my love of that show and I can shamelessly confess to owning the complete original series on DVD. For those of you with Netflix instant streaming, you can watch the original series there. I watched all the episodes of the original series this summer, and it was a lot of fun!

Wednesday, September 7

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 3 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 2 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.

D2L ERRORS AGAIN... PROBLEM FIXED. Michelle Davis, the super lady who runs D2L for us, says the quiz problem has been fixed. Fingers crossed!!! So, you should not be getting error messages - and if you do get an error message, please send me an email and let me know which quiz is causing problems. MY APOLOGIES: we have never had so much trouble with D2L as this semester. Thanks to those of you who wrote in to let me know about this!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the enormous stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Friday afternoon or on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, 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. It usually takes me most of the week to return all the Storybook assignments. The sooner you turn the assignment turned in, the sooner you will get comments back.

Tech Tips emails. Quite a few people sent in Tech Tip emails over the weekend, which is great! Please feel free to work ahead on those extra credit tips now, since some of them can be really useful for the rest of the semester. I'll reply to all those emails, but not until I get through the Storybook stack. You don't need to wait on my reply before you do the Declaration; as long as you have sent me the email as instructed, that's great - you can go ahead and do the Declaration without waiting on a reply from me.

Internet Assignment emails. (repeat announcement) I will be replying to your Week 2 Internet assignment emails, but you don't have to wait on my reply before you go on to the Week 3 Internet assignment. So, please feel free to do that at your convenience; you don't need to wait on my reply to your Week 2 practice website in order to complete the Week 3 Internet assignment.

Wednesday Events on Campus. As part of Union Week, there will be Putt-4-Parking at 11:30AM in the first floor Lobby of the Union - you can win free parking in the Union Garage! (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Wednesday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 7: The Tasmanian Tiger. Today, September 7, marks the sad day in 1936 when the last of the Tasmanian tigers died in the Hobart Zoo on the island of Tasmania. You can read more about Tasmanian tigers in this Wikipedia article. The Tasmanian tigers were the largest carnivorous marsupials of modern times. In the 19th century, private companies and the Tasmanian government paid a bounty for dead tigers and their pups. As a result, the Tasmanian tiger was virtually extinct in the wild by the 1920s - although there are still rumors and reports of sightings of Tasmanian tigers even today. The date September 7 has been designated as National Threatened Species Day in Australia, commemorating the death of the last Tasmanian tiger in captivity. The YouTube video below below shows rare footage, filmed in 1933, of the last Tasmanian tiger; the painting below is from a 19th-century catalog of Australian wildlife:

Tuesday, September 6

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 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. First thing on Tuesday morning, I will update the stack of Storybooks that people have turned in over the long weekend, and I will be responding to them in the order that they were turned in. To check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. For the Storybook assignments, you need to wait until you get comments back from me before you go on to the next Storybook assignment - but of course you can do the other assignments in the class - so definitely keep on going! I'll get back to you as soon as I can with the Storybook comments; given this four-day week, it will probably take me until Friday or maybe even Saturday morning to get through all the Storybooks in the stack. Meanwhile, please take a minute to check and make sure I have your assignment in the stack! Thanks!

Late Storybooks. 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 assignment in over the weekend (or during the Monday morning grace period). 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; 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.

Internet Assignment emails. I will be replying to your Week 2 Internet assignment emails, but you don't have to wait on my reply before you go on to the Week 3 Internet assignment. So, please feel free to do that at your convenience; you don't need to wait on my reply to your Week 2 practice website in order to complete the Week 3 Internet assignment.

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 or next week. 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!

Tuesday Events on Campus. As part of Union Week, you can see the Norman Magic Experience - "interactive and extreme magic experience from master magician Norman Ng" - on Tuesday evening at 8PM in the Union Food Court (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Tuesday at the Campus Calendar online.

Tuesday, September 6: Birthday of Robert Pirsig. September 6, marks the birthday of Robert Pirsig, who was born in 1928 and who is still with us today: Happy birthday, Robert Pirsig! Pirsig is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I first read this book when I was 16 years old and I've read it again pretty much every year or every other year since then - let's say twenty times or so. This is the only book I don't think I will ever catch up with - every time I come back to it, it seems a little more far out, in the best sense of that phrase, and I keep running right on after it, learning new things every time. The novel itself is about a motorcycle journey that Pirsig took across the country in 1968 together with his young son, Chris - here's a picture from the trip showing the two of them on the bike; you can learn more about Pirsig in this Wikipedia article.