Friday, September 23 - Sunday, September 25

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 5! The Week 5 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and so is the Week 5 Internet assignment (Storybook Coverpage commenting). Please make sure you get started on those assignments soon; they are due today or over the weekend.

Storybook Stack. If you turned in a Week 4 Storybook assignment on time, you should have gotten comments back from me now, with points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned in a late Week 4 Storybook, or an early Storybook for Week 5 or Week 6, it is probably still in the stack (anything turned in after noon on Friday goes into the stack for Monday). Because the Introduction is often the hardest part of the Storybook for people to write, this is the week where it takes me the longest to read and reply to everybody's assignments... so, if I don't manage to finish everything in the stack on Friday, I will get comments back to you on Saturday at the latest.

GoogleSites Tips. For the Week 5 Storybook assignment, you will be publishing your Introduction at your Storybook website. Here are some tips you might want to look at as you continue to work on the layout and design of your site: image size and placement - design templates - site navigation - site title and page titles. Also, please review the information on adding a new page - ESPECIALLY the part in bold red about making your new page a "top level" page; if you don't do that, you'll end up with a subpage which might give you all kinds of grief in the future!

Internet assignment - Ning Comment Wall. If you did not read the previous announcement about the Week 5 Internet assignment and the Ning Comment Walls, make sure you take a look at those announcements now - and you can even get extra credit for making your Comment Wall ready for visitors, both by making some more room on your Ning page, and also by adding a YouTube video to your page if you want, just for fun!

Friday Events on Campus. On Friday night and over the weekend, there will be University Theater performances of William McNulty's dramatic adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula - with performances next week also; for more information, see the article in the OU Daily (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Friday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 23: Autumnal equinox. Today, September 23, marks the autumnal equinox, when the day and night are of equal length, as the days are getting shorter. You can read about the astronomical details of the equinox at Wikipedia, and in the Wiccan "Wheel of the Year," the fall equinox is celebrated as the holiday of Mabon (if you are somewhere in the southern hemisphere, it is the spring holiday of Ostara). You can see here where the equinox takes its place on the wheel with its eight holidays:

Thursday, September 22

Today is Thursday of WEEK 5 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, you have until noon today to turn that in for partial credit. 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.

GoogleSites Tips. For the Week 5 Storybook assignment, you will be publishing your Introduction at your Storybook website. Here are some tips you might want to look at as you continue to work on the layout and design of your site: image size and placement - design templates - site navigation - site title and page titles. Also, please review the information on adding a new page - ESPECIALLY the part in bold red about making your new page a "top level" page; if you don't do that, you'll end up with a subpage which might give you all kinds of grief in the future!

Internet assignment - Ning Comment Wall. If you did not read the previous announcement about the Week 5 Internet assignment and the Ning Comment Walls, make sure you take a look at those announcements now - and you can even get extra credit for making your Comment Wall ready for visitors, both by making some more room on your Ning page, and also by adding a YouTube video to your page if you want, just for fun!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the very large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it - you can check to make sure I have your assignment by looking at the contents of the stack here. I will do my best to respond to everything in stack before the weekend, but this week is the busiest of the whole semester for me (the Introduction is the hardest part of the Storybook to write), which can mean I might end up doing schoolwork on Saturday - we'll see how it works out this semester! If you turned something in on time, I promise to get it back before the weekend; I might not get to the assignments turned in late until Saturday.

Thursday Events on Campus. Normally I list an event on campus but there is literally no event to list for Thursday, because not enough departments and groups are using the Calendar... which is really a shame: you know on a campus like OU there must be something happening on Thursday! So, if you are a member of a student group of any kind, make sure you use the Calendar to publicize events and tell people you know in other groups to do that, too. You can use this Calendar Event form to get an event listed - it's easy, and it's such a good way to share the news about what's going on anywhere on campus.

September 22: Billie Piper. Today marks the birthday of Billie Piper, a British actress and musician best known for her role as "Rose," traveling companion of the Doctor in the Doctor Who series. Yes, I am a Doctor Who fan (okay... fanatic) and I have been watching the Doctor since before most of you were born, I imagine - in fact, Doctor Who dates back to before I was born: the first Doctor Who episode aired on November 23, 1963. So, happy birthday to Billie Piper! Here's a picture of her with my favorite Doctor, Christopher Eccleston:

Wednesday, September 21

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 5 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 4 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.

Week 5 Internet assignment. If you did not read yesterday's announcements, make sure you take a look at them now, especially the information about the Week 5 Internet assignment. I hope you will have fun looking at other people's coverpages. Plus, you might get some ideas for things to try with your own coverpage, since of course you can keep modifying your coverpage all semester long.

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 Sunday at 7PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 7PM 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.

Writing Center. For your Storybook assignments, you are expected to turn in a formal piece of writing, with correct English usage, spelling, and punctuation. If you would like some extra help with that, make a visit to the Writing Center. Whether you need a refresher course on English punctuation or just some help in learning how to proofread your own work, the Writing Center is the place to go! For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website. You can even get... waffles! See next announcement.

Wednesday Events on Campus. The first Waffles for Writers event will take place at the Writing Center, 9AM-Noon in 280 Wagner Hall - drop by for a waffle and work with a writing consultant all at the same time (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Wednesday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 21: Milk miracle. In 1995, on September 21, there was what many people regard as a modern miracle: statues of the Hindu god Ganesha, as well as the statues of other gods and goddesses, appeared to be imbibing milk which was offered to them. You can read about the event in this Wikipedia article, and you can see a milk offering in this BBC video. The image below is from a British newspaper, the Sun, and you can find other newspaper headlines archived at the MilkMiracle.com website which documents the event.

Tuesday, September 20

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 5 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 5 is on top. This week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is Rome, and in Indian Epics Rama is about to begin his exile from Ayodhya. The Week 5 Internet assignment is available starting today! If you have not turned in your Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 5 Internet assignment available NOW. For the next eight weeks (Week 5 through Week 12), your Internet assignment will consist of reading people's Storybooks and leaving comments for them. This is an assignment that you cannot do early - but on the first day of each new week in the class, that is, on Tuesday, the Internet assignment becomes available, and you have the rest of the week to complete it. So, today, Tuesday, is the first day of Week 5, and the Internet assignment for Week 5 is available through the rest of the week and weekend. I hope you will enjoy looking at other people's coverpages and giving them some feedback!

The Ning Comment Wall. People will be leaving comments about your Storybook at the Ning Comment Wall which is part of your Profile page. In order to get your Profile page ready, I would strongly suggest that you make the latest activity and blog activity invisible, so that there will be more room on your Profile page for the Comment Wall. There is a Technology Tip for cleaning up your Ning Profile in order to make room for all the activity that will now start happening at your Comment Wall.

Storybook Stack. The Storybook stack is HUGE this week. If you turned in an assignment on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. A word of warning: based on previous semesters, I can tell you that this is the single busiest week of the semester for me. I promise that if you turned it your assignment in on time, I will get comments back to you on or before Friday. If you turned something in on Monday or later, you may not get comments back from me until this coming Saturday, depending on how the week goes - but I will get comments back to you by the very latest on Saturday.

Tuesday Events on Campus. There will be a seminar on Time Management from 3:30-4:30PM in Wagner Hall 245 (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Tuesday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 20: Jay Ward. Today marks the birthday of Jay Ward, the great American cartoonist, who was born on this day in 1920 and who died in 1989. He was the producer of the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, which also included Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman as well as Dudley Do-Right. These are all cartoons that I grew up with and which I still love to watch. Here's a DVD cover showing Mr. Peabody and Sherman (image source), which was always my favorite part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show:

Monday, September 19

Today is Monday. Week 4 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 on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Week 5 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started!

You really can call me Laura! Some of you still seem to feel like you need to call me Professor or Dr. or something like that. No need for that, really! (Plus, since I am just an instructor and not a professor, I don't want to get in trouble with the professor police, ha ha.) Since I'm on a first-name basis with all of you, please do the same and just call me Laura.

My weekend. In addition to celebrating the big win on Saturday (a bit more nerve-racking than I expected...!), I got a chance to write up something on a topic of great interest to me - the Internet and Aesop. So, if you're curious what I do in my not-very-copious spare time, here's what I was up to: Sir Roger L'Estrange, Aesop, and the Public Sphere. :-)

Storybook Coverpages. I'll be updating the list of Storybook websites for Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics on Monday afternoon when people have finished turning in their Week 4 coverpages. You can continue to experiment with your coverpage design all semester long, of course - just make sure the address of the page stays the same. Everybody in class will be using the link you have sent me to access your Storybook for the rest of the semester. Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, for the Week 5 Internet assignment you will be looking at and commenting on each other's Storybooks via the class list. I'll have more to say about that in tomorrow's announcements!

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. 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. You can then 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. If you turned in your assignment on Sunday or later, you may have to wait a few days before you will get comments back from me. In fact, this is one of the busiest weeks for me in terms of replies to Storybooks, so if you are turning in a late assignment, the sooner you can do that, the better!

Monday Events on Campus. Fred Jones Jr. Art Center has a showing of art by incoming graduate students in the Lightwell Gallery through the rest of this week. (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Monday at the Campus Calendar online.

September 19: Talk Like a Pirate. Today, September 19, is International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, a holiday you can read about at Wikipedia and at the Talk-Like-a-Pirate website. In honor of this holiday, you can even change your Google interface to be in "pirate lingo" - it's a Tech Tip! If you need help talking like a pirate, there are some good tips at the Yarr website. There is a translation tool you can use if you want some extra help. Below is an image of Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy") and John Baur ("Ol' Chumbucket"), founders of Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day.