There was a problem with the class wiki site on Monday evening, but I think that's all fixed (fingers crossed). For more information, see the Monday announcements.
Today is Tuesday of WEEK 11, and I've re-arranged the Declarations area in Desire2Learn so the new week is on top. Also, the Internet assignment for this week is now available! If you have not turned in your Week 10 project yet, you may still do that for partial credit, and Tuesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Reading Diary that was due on Monday — and if you missed them yesterday, here's a link to Monday's announcements.
Class Procedures and Reminders
Portfolio/Storybook stack. As often on Tuesday, there is still a huge bunch of assignments in the stack. If you turned in an assignment before noon on Saturday, you should have comments back from me and points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack. You can 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.
Finishing up the class. (repeat announcement) Now that Week 10 is over, there are just five more weeks of school: Weeks 11-12-13-14-15. It's a good idea to make a plan now for finishing up the class, i.e. choosing what assignments you want to work on, deciding on how many stories you want to include in your Portfolio or Storybook, etc. If you have questions about any of that, let me know!
Indian Epics: Weeks 11-14. (repeat announcement) There's a twist in the reading routine for Indian Epics in Weeks 11-14 so that you will be choosing what you want to read: Buck's Mahabharata (for four weeks) OR four one-week long reading options from the Myth-Folklore class. I've put up some information here that I hope will be helpful: Indian Epics Reading Choice. I hope that all makes sense, and if you have any questions about that, let me know!
Language Resource: History of the English Language Chart. From Sabio Lantz (Triangulations blog) comes this nice chart showing some important features of the History of the English Language, and here is a full-sized version.
Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are COMPLEMENT and COMPLIMENT. For details, see this blog post.
Featured Storybook: Rakshasa Stone Magazine: The Best Demon Music Reviews. Read detailed reviews of all the songs on the latest albums from Ravana and the Rakshasas, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, and even the new album from Hidimbi's Son, a.k.a. Ghatotkacha.
FREE Kindle eBook: English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which is the source for the "English Fairy Tales" unit in Myth-Folklore.
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Every blade of grass gets its own drop of dew (a Scottish proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. The order of nature has much to teach us!
Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Ganesha, shown here writing down the Mahabharata as Vyasa dictates to him.
Tuesday Event on Campus: There will be a talk — Beyond Our Borders: A Conversation with Burcu Degirmen from Turkey — today at 11AM in the Community Room LL118 of Bizzell Library. The Beyond Our Borders series features OU students from across the globe talking about their country, culture, and what they wish more Americans understood about their homeland (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
October 28: Sister Nivedita. Today marks the birthday of Sister Nivedita (Margaret Elizabeth Noble) who was born in Ireland in 1867. In 1895 she met Swami Vivekananda and became his disciple, moving to Calcutta in 1898 where she opened a girls school and worked as a nurse; she was also involved in the Indian Nationalist movement. She is the author of several books, including Cradle Tales of Hinduism; as you might guess from the title, it contains stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. You can read more about her life and career at Wikipedia, which is also the source of this photo:
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.
