Class Procedures and Reminders:
Back in the office. I'm back in the office on my regular schedule today! I've gotten caught up on almost all the email questions that people sent me on Tuesday, and I'll finish getting caught up on that Wednesday morning. Thanks for your patience yesterday in waiting for me to get back to you!
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 before 2PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, your assignment is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. You can check to make sure your assignment is in the stack; here are the contents of the stack.
Week 6 Internet assignment. If you did not read yesterday's announcement about the Week 6 Internet assignment (reading and commenting on Storybook Introductions), please make sure to take a look at that - the assignment is available now!
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Graduation Divination: Grant Snider is one of my favorite cartoon artists and, given that many of you are graduating seniors, I thought you might enjoy his Dodecahedron of Destiny. See a larger view at Grant Snider's website.
Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are DISCREET and DISCRETE. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Remember the Alamo! In this historical Storybook, Sam Houston is your storyteller, sharing with you his memories of the heroes of the Alamo, including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie - and Houston also has their diaries and letters for you to read.
FREE Kindle eBook: Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights by E. Dixon. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. You will find the voyages of Sindbad here, along with other stories that are probably new to you, such as the tale of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess of China.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Man is more fragile than a flower, and yet harder than a stone (a proverb from India). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is from a collection of Kashmiri proverbs that I found at GoogleBooks.
Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is The Bridge to Lanka. You can see that Rama and his army of monkeys and bears have just begun to build the bridge, and they still have a long way to go!
Wednesday Event on Campus: As part of Arab Cultural Week, there will be a screening of the Moroccan film Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets in the Boomer Room of the Union, 6PM, with free pizza and drinks (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
February 19: Frits Staal. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Professor Frits Staal, who died on February 19 just two years ago, in 2012 (he was born in 1930). Prof. Staal was one of the great Sanskrit scholars of the 20th century, a highly original and provocative academic who taught for many years at the University of California at Berkeley. You can read more about Professor Staal in this obituary at the UC Berkeley website; his passing was noted in many Indian newspapers as well, such as here at the Deccan Herald and here in The Hindu, which is the source for the image below:
Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.
