Thursday, September 25

Today is Thursday of WEEK 6. If you have not turned in your Week 5 Storybook assignment yet, you have until noon today to turn that in for partial credit. Thursday morning until noon is also the grace period if you did not finish the Storytelling that was due on Wednesday.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Commenting on Storybooks. Every week from now through Week 12 of the semester, you will be commenting on people's Storybooks and Portfolios. During these weeks, please provide as much detailed, specific feedback as possible. That will give people something they can use in revising and improving their projects! So, be specific: when you like things, say exactly what you like, and also do not hesitate to say when something is confusing, or if you think something important is missing, etc. Find out more about giving good feedback at these pages: Details, Details, Details! and Storybook Feedback.

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 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned in an assignment later on Sunday or on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, your assignment 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. I should be able to reply to all the Storybooks turned in on Thursday or earlier by the end of the day on Friday!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Technology Fun. I thought you might enjoy this animated graphic that shows the "evolution" of the desk over the past 30 years! As someone who was still using a typewriter when I started college, I can relate to this from start to finish! :-)


Mythology Words in English: Today's mythology word in English is MARTIAL, from the Roman name of the god of war: Mars. For details, see this blog post.The image below shows the god Mars depicted in a 17th-century woodcut:


Featured Storybook: Why the Bee Stays Busy: Lessons Learned from Laziness. Your bee storyteller uses poetry and fables to explain why bees are always so busy: How do bees learn to do this, you ask? / Well, my friend, it is no simple task. / Many creatures are fond of idle distraction, / But legends warn against such inaction.


FREE Kindle eBook: Tales of Old Japan by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which features a wide range of stories, from the legend of the Forty-Seven Ronin to fairy tales like The Tongue-Cut Sparrow.


Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is If you climb up a tree, you must climb down the same tree (a proverb from Sierra Leone). Details at the Proverb Lab. Call it arboreal karma!


Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Hanuman and the Sea-Demon. I love how this one image shows Hanuman going into the demon's mouth and then escaping out the ear!


Thursday Event on Campus: It's Chinese Movie Night at 7:30PM in the Gaylord Hall Auditorium (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

September 25: Navaratri. Today marks the beginning of the autumn observance of the "Nine Nights" Fall Festival (and ten days) dedicated to the worship of Devi, the goddess in all her forms, especially as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. The date of Navaratri (also called Navratri) depends on the lunar calendar, and in 2014, the Fall Navaratri begins on September 25. You can read more about the festival at Wikipedia and at About.com: Hinduism. Here is an image of the goddess Durga:




Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed, and you can check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.