Friday, March 30 - Sunday, April 1

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 10! The Week 10 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 10 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon.

NEW RESPONDING GROUPS. The blog responding groups have been shuffled around this week, so you should find some new people to read and respond to when you do the blog responding assignment for Week 10. If somehow I've accidentally left anybody off the list, please let me know. This is done completely at random, so you may be with someone you have been in a group with before, or you may have all new people - that is the magic of randomness!

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. (repeat announcement) The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now! In addition to the usual assignment of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. I hope you will have fun with this extra credit option - it is a chance to visit the Storybooks from the other class!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. My goal is to get comments back to everyone by the end of the day Friday for assignments turned in before Friday at 8AM.

March 30 - April 1: Medieval Fair. The Medieval Fair will be taking place in Reeves Park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10AM-7PM, and admission is free. You can find the entertainment schedule at the Medieval Fair website - there will be Jousting, Human Chess Games, Royal Birds of Prey and more! Here's a picture of an acrobat performing at last year's fair:

Thursday, March 29

Today is Thursday of WEEK 10 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 9 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that UNTIL NOON today 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.

My Thursday schedule. I try to schedule my out-of-office commitments on Wednesday or Thursday each week. This week, I am going to be out of the office for part of the day on Thursday. That means I may be a bit more slow to respond to your emails today than on the other days of the week - but if you send me an email during the day today, I'll definitely get back to you by the end of the day.

Storybook Stack. There are still quite a few items in the Storybook stack. If you turned something in before 8PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me; if you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack. You can check to make sure you assignment is in the stack here. If you want comments back from me by the weekend, please get your Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at 8AM so that I can get comments back to you during the day on Friday.

Friday drop deadline. (repeat announcement) This Friday, March 30, is the last day to drop the class with an automatic grade of W on your transcript. If you drop after Friday, you will end up with an F on your transcript (the only way to drop with a W after Friday is if you are passing the class when you drop, but if you were passing the class, you probably would not be dropping it, right?). So, for any of you in the class who are really having trouble keeping up, please take note of this deadline. If you have any questions about this, make sure you contact me about this today so I'll have time to answer your questions before the Friday deadline.

Thursday Events on Campus. At 6:30 PM in the Sam Noble Museum there will be a talk on "Women and Political Change in the Middle East" by Dr. Haleh Esfandiari (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Wednesday, March 28

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 10 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 9 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.

Friday drop deadline. This Friday, March 30, is the last day to drop the class with an automatic grade of W on your transcript. If you drop after Friday, you will end up with an F on your transcript (the only way to drop with a W after Friday is if you are passing the class when you drop, but if you were passing the class, you probably would not be dropping it, right?). So, for any of you in the class who are really having trouble keeping up, please take note of this deadline. If you have any questions about this, make sure you contact me either on Wednesday or Thursday so I'll have time to answer your questions before the Friday deadline.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in during the Break BEFORE Sunday noon, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in on Sunday afternoon or on Monday or Tuesday, 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. Also, see Tuesday's announcements for additional information about finishing up your Storybook with just three stories if you want to do that.

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. (repeat announcement) The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now! In addition to the usual assignment of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. I hope you will have fun with this extra credit option - it is a chance to visit the Storybooks from the other class.

Wednesday Events on Campus. There will be a workshop on "Time Management" from 3PM-4PM in 245 Wagner Hall - get some tips for managing your tip in the hectic final weeks of the semester! (time/location/details) Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 28: Marc Chagall. Today marks the anniversary of the death of the painter Marc Chagall in 1985; he was born in 1887. Chagall is one of my very favorite modern painters! You can read more about his life and work in this Wikipedia article. He uses beautiful colors and creates amazing dreamscapes that freely combine motifs from the Jewish tradition and also from other religious and mythological traditions as well. Chagall is best known for his paintings but he worked in other media too, especially stained glass. The painting below is entitled Les Fiancés de la tour Eiffel.

Tuesday, March 27

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 10 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 10 is on top. This week's topic is fairy tales in Myth-Folklore and in Indian Epics you're finishing up Narayan's Mahabharata. Note: If you have not turned in your Week 9 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now! In addition to the usual assignment of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. I hope you will have fun with this extra credit option - it is a chance to visit the Storybooks from the other class.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. I'm slowly making my way through the huge stack of assignments people turned in over Spring Break. If you turned something in the weekend at the beginning of Spring Break (Saturday-Sunday, March 17-18), you should have comments back from me now. If you turned in an assignment and did not get comments back yet, please check to make sure your assignment is in the stack: contents of the stack.

Finishing up the class: Storybooks. As I've mentioned before, there is no absolute requirement about the number of stories in a finished Storybook; based on your strategy for getting your points in the class, you can finish your Storybook with just three stories or even just two stories if you want - it is up to you! The Week 14 and Week 15 Storybook assignments are final revisions, so if you are stopping with just three stories, for example, you can skip Week 12 and Week 13 (the fourth story assignments) and go straight to the final revision assignments for your Storybook. So, you would turn in Week 10 (third story), Week 11 (third story revisions), and then the Week 14 and Week 15 final revision assignments.

Tuesday Events on Campus. At noon there will be a free concert by the Valerie Watts Flute Studio in the Sandy Bell Gallery of the Art Museum (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 27: M.C. Escher. Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1972 of the amazing artist M. C. Escher; he was born in 1898. You can read more about Escher's life and work in this Wikipedia article. I am sure you are familiar with many of his drawings and paintings; I have included one of my favorites below - Drawing Hands - along with a Vimeo video inspired by Escher's genius way of seeing the world. Enjoy!

INSPIRATIONS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

Monday, March 26

WELCOME BACK, everybody - and I hope you had a wonderful Spring Break! Today is Monday and Week 9 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 at the end of Week 9. Week 10 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get a head start!

Kylee Gwartney: Kindle Author! Kylee Gwartney, who is a student in Myth-Folklore this semester (professional writing major), has just published her first novel as a Kindle book at Amazon: Catching the Fever. Congratulations to Kylee! If you want to leave her a message or if you have any questions about her Kindle author experience, you can leave a message at her Ning profile.

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the break. 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. 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 be reading and replying to the assignments in the order they were turned in; please check to make sure that I received your assignment!

Monday Events on Campus. At 8AM in Room 149D in Bizzell there will be a workshop on "Capstone Central: Doing Library Research for Your Capstone Paper" - and remember, every department on campus has a librarian in the OU Libraries, so just ask your department secretary who your librarian is and how to contact them if you want discipline-specific help in doing your research; that's what the librarians are there for! (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 26: Khordad Sal. Saturday, March 26, marks the birthday of the prophet Zoroaster, which is a holiday, Khordad Sal, in the Zoroastrian religion. Zoroaster is the ancient Greek form of his name; in Persian, he is called Zarathusti, and you might also know him by the name Zarathustra. You can read more about Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism at Wikipedia; although there are not many adherents of this ancient religion in the world today, there are followers of Zoroaster and his teachings who live in India, Iran and Afganistan, and also in the United States. The image below shows the Faravahar symbol, which is one of the central symbols of Zoroastrian iconography, as shown here in a carving from the ancient city of Persepolis: