Monday, November 3

Today is Monday. Week 11 is now over... and Week 12 has begun. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish any of the Week 11 assignments. This week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is another week in the British Isles, and in Indian Epics you have a choice of Buck's Mahabharata or reading units from the India section of the UnTextbook. I hope you will enjoy the readings!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Storybook/Portfolio stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the stack that were turned in over the weekend. 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.

Week 11 UnTextbook Report. (repeat announcement) Thanks as always to the people who filled out the Google Form with your comments and feedback about the British Isles, first week. I've written up the results here: Week 11 UnTextbook Report. I am curious to see which units people will be choosing this week!

Finishing up the class. (repeat announcement) There are now just four more weeks of school: Weeks 12-13-14-15. It's important 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!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Knowledge is (Super)Power. Even superheroes need books!

Indian Words in English: Today's Indian word in English is SITAR, which comes to English from Urdu. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Epic Festivals of India. This Storybook is a "calendar of enchantment" which brings to life the stories and rituals of the festivals of Rama Navami, Hanuman Jayanti, Krishna Jayanti, and Diwali, the festival of lights.

FREE Kindle eBook: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. Howard Pyle's book of Robin Hood legends is an old favorite of mine that I read when I was little. :-)

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Those who can read and write have four eyes (an Albanian proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This makes a good proverb to go with the Superheroes and their books above!

Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Krishna. As you can see, he is playing his flute.

Monday Event on Campus: As part of "The Fall of the Berlin Wall: 25th Anniversary Week," there will be a talk at NOON in Hester Hall, Room 145: "Brothers in the Struggle against Imperialism - 'Indianthusiasm' in Socialist East Germany" by Dr. Frank Usbeck. (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

November 3: Carracci. Today marks the birthday in 1560 of the Italian painter Annibale Carracci, who is famous for his paintings on both religious and mythological subjects, like this famous painting of Venus and her lover Adonis. You can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia.

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.