Class Procedures and Reminders:
Week 2 Read and Respond assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is not available yet; it will be available starting on Friday after everybody has had time to do their Thursday blog posts. So, for any of you night-owls, just check back after midnight tonight, and the assignment will be ready and waiting.
Storybook Stack. As of 6PM on Wednesday, I had read and replied to any Storybook assignments turned in before 7PM on Sunday. Anything turned in later on Sunday or during the week is still in the stack. And remember: if you want comments back earlier rather than later, don't wait until Sunday to turn in your assignment; turn it in on Friday or Saturday instead!
Week 2 Internet assignment. For the Week 2 Internet assignment, you will be building a simple little website with Google Sites. If you are not super-confident about using new technology tools, try to do that assignment today or or Friday instead of waiting until the weekend. That way you can contact me with any questions you have, and I'll be able to get back to you promptly!
Ramayana Readings in Norman. I was very excited to learn from Julie in Indian Epics that there will be a Ramayana reading series, starting this Friday at 8PM, at the Ashtanga Yoga Studio in Norman. Details at the Facebook page or at the Ashtanga Yoga website. From the Facebook page, I learned that the reader, Ravi Shankar, will be using the Ramesh Menon retelling of the Ramayana. The Menon version is really long, much too long for me to be able to use for this class, but it is a wonderful telling of the story. If any of you are able to attend, I am sure that you would enjoy it very much!
Writing Resource: Uses of the Apostrophe. The apostrophe is one of the punctuation marks that people struggle with in English, but this reference page can help (I hope!) to clear up any apostrophe confusion.
Foreign Words in English: Today's foreign word in English is ambrosia, which comes to us from Greek mythology. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Zoo Animal History: Trolley Tour. I am pleased to announce the first Storybook that is up and running for this semester, complete with an Introduction: it's Sarah's project about Hindu animal stories for the Indian Epics class!
FREE Kindle eBook: Folk Tales of the Khasis by K. U. Rafy. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the stories in the book. The Khasi are an indigenous people of northeastern Indian; you can read more about them at Wikipedia.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging (an American proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. That is good advice for real holes and for metaphorical holes too!
Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Ahalya, who is shown here bowing to Rama, her deliverer.
January 23: Walter Miller. Today is the birthday of the American author Walter Miller, who was born in 1923; he died in 1996. You can read about his life and career at Wikipedia. He is best known for the book A Canticle for Leibowitz, which I would rank as one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. I've lost track of how many times I have re-read this wonderful book! The image below shows the book cover from the first edition in 1960:
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
