Monday: Time to work ahead. You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which makes it the PERFECT chance to work ahead on the Week 2 assignments. Believe me: if you put off the assignments in this class until the day that they are due, you are going to be under a lot of stress. If you can work at your own pace, even just a day or two ahead of the deadlines, you will find the class much easier to manage!
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 Week 1 Storybook assignments from Myth-Folklore, plus early Week 2 and Week 3 Storybook assignments from both classes, along with some Proofreading assignments also. The first thing I will do on Monday morning is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. So, after 9AM or so on Monday, you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. For those of you who are working ahead on your Storybook: you will need my comments on the assignment before you can move on to the next Storybook assignment - but you can keep working ahead on other assignments, and I will get the Storybook assignments returned as quickly as I can.
Myth-Folklore: Gilgamesh OR Egypt. Those of you who are in the Myth-Folklore class will have a choice of readings each week. In Week 2, the choice is between Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will do only one set of readings, and take the background quiz and reading quiz based on your choice of Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will end up with some blank items in the Gradebook; that is just because Desire2Learn, expensive software though it may be, cannot even conceive of a world in which students have a choice of what to do (sad, isn't it?). Your goal is to get 30 points per week, and if you do the quizzes for just one of the reading selections, you will end up with the points you need. Please do not do both sets of quizzes; just do the quizzes for the reading option you have chosen.
Myth Monday. Each Monday, I'll share a link here to one of my favorite resources online for folklore, mythology and epics. Last week was Theoi.com for Greek mythology, and today I wanted to share a great resource for Indian and Buddhist storytelling: The Illustrated Jataka & Other Stories of the Buddha, a digital project of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. There are three interrelated sets of stories here: Buddhist Fables (Jatakas), Buddhist Classics, and Life and Legends of the Buddha. Those of you who are interested in Aesop's fables might especially enjoy looking at the Jataka tales, since they have a lot in common with Aesop's fables (in fact, it is quite likely that some of the ancient Greek Aesop's fables were originally Indian in origin).
Monday Events on Campus. From 11AM-noon there will be a Study Abroad Information session in the Study Abroad offices in Old Science Hall (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
August 27: Sri Chinmoy. Today, August 27, marks the birthday in 1931 of the Indian guru and mystic Sri Chinmoy, who passed away in 2007. Sri Chinmoy preached religious tolerance and world peace, and is probably best known for his emphasis on sports and spirituality, as in his World Harmony Run. You can read more about Sri Chinmoy at this Wikipedia article; the image below is from the World Harmony Run website. (If you search for "World Harmony Run" at YouTube, you will find all kinds of videos - including a video from the Navajo Nation in Arizona).
