Tuesday, October 7

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 8, and I've re-arranged the Declarations area in Desire2Learn so the new week is on top. If you have not turned in your Week 7 Storybook/Portfolio assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit, and Tuesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Blog Check-Up that was due on Monday. If you missed them yesterday, here's a link to Monday's announcements.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Week 8 Internet assignment. The Week 8 Internet assignment is available now, and there is also an extra credit option this week too (there will be this same extra credit during Weeks 8-12) — and you can visit Storybooks from the other class if you want for the extra credit! I'm hoping you might be curious to see what the students in the other class are up to; there are so many great projects in both classes. You'll find the instructions, including the extra credit, here: Internet assignment page.

Storybook/Portfolio Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook and Portfolio assignments in the stack. If you turned something in on Saturday morning, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Saturday or on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still in the stack. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Spring Enrollment. (repeat announcement) Enrollment will be starting soon for Spring classes, and the online classes fill up really quickly. If any of you would like to enroll in MLLL-3043 Myth-Folklore or MLLL-4993 Indian Epics for Spring, please let me know by noon this Thursday so that I can save you a space in the class for Spring.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Oklahoma Folklore: Mythical Lake Monsters. I really enjoyed this wonderful chart of the mythical lake monsters of the United States! Click here for a full-sized view of the map. It even includes the giant octopus that is supposed to live in Lake Thunderbird.

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

Featured Storybook: The Last of the Seapeople. This Storybook contains the tales of Shameil, last of the seapeople. The seapeople once thrived in the great waters of the world until humanity destroyed their habitat, and these stories of the seapeople and their lost civilization contain a warning for us all.

FREE Kindle eBook: Mighty Mikko - Finnish Tales by Parker Fillmore. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which includes stories about heroes, animals, and the occasional troll!

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins (a Chinese proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is a proverb about unintended consequences!

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Rama and Hanuman. The image is from a Ramlila theater performance.

Tuesday Event on Campus: The American Institute of Organbuilders Gala Concert will take place at 8PM in the Sharp Concert Hall (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 7: Edgar Allan Poe. Today, October 7, marks the anniversary of the death of the poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe in the year 1849; he was only 40 years old when he died. You can read more about Poe's remarkable and tragic life in this detailed Wikipedia article. Because his books are in the public domain, you can find them in many different online editions. Below is an image of the cover designed by the famous illustrator Gustave Dore for Poe's famous poem, The Raven:



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.

Monday, October 6

Today is Monday. Week 7 is now over... and Week 8 has begun. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish any of the Week 7 assignments. I hope you will enjoy having a review week now that you are half-way through the course! See below for details.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. 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. It is really important to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack. Especially during these revision weeks, I have no way of knowing that you have completed the assignment except for the email that you send me.

Week 8 Assignments. (repeat announcement) There is no new reading in Week 8, and instead there are just some review activities. You can see how that works in the Week 8 chart on the assignments page for the class you are in: Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.

Indian Epics: Weeks 11-14. Next week, you'll be starting Narayan's Mahabharata, and then in Weeks 11-14, you have two different reading options: Buck's Mahabharata or your choice of Indian reading units from the Myth-Folklore class. You might want to to start thinking about those options now, especially if you think you will want to get a copy of Buck's book: Indian Epics: Making Your Reading Choice for Weeks 11-14.

Spring Enrollment. Enrollment will be starting soon for Spring classes, and the online classes fill up really quickly. If any of you would like to enroll in MLLL-3043 Myth-Folklore or MLLL-4993 Indian Epics for Spring, please let me know by noon this Thursday so that I can save you a space in the class for Spring.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Myth Humor: Uma Thurman, The Mundane Goddess. In this brilliant modernization, you will see Uma Thurman as Hera, living the life of a modern housewife... and badly in need of therapy!

Foreign Words in English: Today's Persian word in English is JULEP, as in "mint julep," from the Persian gulab, as also in the Indian sweet called gulab jamun. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: A Journal of Three Voyages to Utopia. In this Renaissance adventure, our bold traveler visits the land of Cockaigne and the city of Langarrow (now lost), and finally ends up in the remotest Utopia of all: Shangri-La in China.

FREE Kindle eBook: Stories From Livy by Alfred Church. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which includes the great legends of Rome's beginnings, starting with the emperors Romulus and Numa.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Life's not all beer and skittles (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Long before Skittles was the name of a candy, it was a game!

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Rama and his family. You can see Rama here with Sita, his brothers, and Hanuman, too!

Monday Event on Campus: Oktober Fest Bretzen (pretzels) will be available in the first floor of the Union from 11:30AM - 12:30PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 6: William Tyndale. On this day in the year 1536, the religious scholar William Tyndale was executed. His crime was translating the Bible into English. He was strangled in a public execution, and his body was then burnt at the stake. His last words were reportedly, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes!" (the King of England at the time was the notorious Henry VIII). You can read about Willian Tyndale's remarkable life and scholarly career in this Wikipedia article. The image below shows Tyndale at the stake:



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.

Sunday, October 5

Today is Sunday of Week 7. The blog commenting assignment, along with the Storybook/Portfolio commenting (Internet) assignment and the Storybook/Portfolio assignment, are due today. So, if you have not finished those up already, now is the time! And if you missed them, here's a link to all the earlier announcements for this week.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Storybook Stack. I don't update the Storybook stack as often on the weekends, but I'll update it at least once or twice. If you want comments back on your assignment sooner rather than later, turn in your work earlier on Sunday rather than waiting until later. If you wait until Sunday evening, you will be farther down in the stack and will have to wait longer for my comments back to you.

Week 7 UnTextbook Report.  (repeat announcement)  Thanks as always to the people who filled out the Google Form with your comments and feedback about the second week of Asian and African units! I've written up the results here: Week 7 UnTextbook Report. There's no new reading for Week 8, but you can move right on to the reading for Week 9 — Native American — if you are craving some stories! And the same is true for Indian Epics: you are done with the Ramayana, and Narayan's Mahabharata awaits you in Week 9.

Week 8 Assignments. (repeat announcement) For those of you who have been working ahead, those Week 8 assignments are now available. There is no new reading in Week 8, and instead there are just some review activities. You can see how that works in the Week 8 chart on the assignments page for the class you are in: Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.

Designing Your Class Schedule. (repeat announcement) I've drawn up some sample class schedules that show exactly how you can arrange this class like a M-W-F- class OR like a T-Th class OR a weekend-only class. There are other possibilities, too, of course — the options are really unlimited. The fact that there will be no new reading in Week 8 is a perfect opportunity for you to get on your own schedule with this class, instead of letting the daily deadlines determine when you do the work.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Word Humor: Wanna Live Forever? Become A Noun. This charming video from NPR features a fun song about the people whose names became nouns: sandwiches, leotards, shrapnel, and more!

Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are SEW and SOW. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: The Real Arabian Nights. You may know the heroes of the tales of the Arabian Nights, characters like Aladdin and Ali Baba, but in this Storybook you will see things in a new way as the evil magician from the story of Aladdin shares with you his own version of these famous tales.

FREE Kindle eBook: Philippine Folktales by Clara Kern Bayliss. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. This is yet another collection of Filipino folktales, different from the book used for the Filipino unit in the Myth-Folklore class. It contains stories from the Tagalog, Bagobo, and other tribal traditions of the Philippines.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is If I laugh not, how can I live? (a proverb from India). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is a proverb among the Kashmiri people of northern India.

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Sita's Departure, as she is received into her arms of Mother Earth, while Rama, Lakshmana, and her two sons look on.

October 5: Isaac Bashevis Singer. On this day in 1978, the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Singer was one of the greatest Jewish writers of all time (he wrote in Yiddish), who won acclaim for his marvelous novels and short stories about Jewish life in Poland and in America. He was born in 1902 in Poland, emigrated to the United States in 1935, and died in 1991. You can read about his life and career at Wikipedia and at this online exhibit at the Library of Congress. You can also read Singer's Nobel Lecture online. The image below shows Singer's tombstone; meanwhile, you might also be interested in this list of Yiddish words used in English.



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.

Saturday, October 4

Today is Saturday of Week 7. I hope you are having a nice weekend! If you did not finish up the end-of-week assignments on Friday, you can do that this weekend.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Week 7 UnTextbook Report. Thanks as always to the people who filled out the Google Form with your comments and feedback about the second week of Asian and African units. I've written up the results here: Week 7 UnTextbook Report. There's no new reading for Week 8, but you can move right on to the reading for Week 9 — Native American — if you are craving some stories! And the same is true for Indian Epics: you are done with the Ramayana, but Narayan's Mahabharata awaits you in Week 9.

Storybook Stack. Much to my own surprise, I got through the stack on Friday! So, if you turned something in before Friday, you should have received comments back from me by now. Any assignments that came in on Friday are at the top of the stack for Monday. I don't update the Storybook stack as often on the weekends, but you can check there to make sure I received your assignment; I'll update it at least once or twice over the weekend. If you want comments back on your assignment sooner rather than later, turn your work in today or on Sunday morning. If you wait until Sunday evening, you will be farther down in the stack and will have to wait longer for my comments back to you.

Week 8 Assignments. (repeat announcement) For those of you who have been working ahead, those Week 8 assignments are now available. There is no new reading in Week 8, and instead there are just some review activities. You can see how that works in the Week 8 chart on the assignments page for the class you are in: Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Writing Humor: Grammar Lessons with Food. My favorite is the man-eating chicken!

Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are CANON and CANNON. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Monstrous Beings of Greek Mythology. This Storybook features fire-breathing bulls made of bronze, savage bird-women called "harpies," and the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis, notorious monsters of the sea.

FREE Kindle eBook: Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which has several chapters on dragons, along with sea-serpents, unicorns, and the phoenix.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is He that hunts two hares will catch neither (a French proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. It's a proverb about the perils of multitasking!

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Rama's Return. In this detail, the four brothers greet their mothers.

Saturday Event on Campus: There will be a performance of Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera in the Reynolds Performing Arts Center at 8PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 4: Saint Francis - World Animal Day. Today is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. Because of the special love that Francis had for every creature in the animal kingdom, October 4 has been designated World Animal Day. You can learn more about Saint Francis at Wikipedia, and the image below is from the World Animal Day website. The purpose of the holiday is "to celebrate animal life in all its forms, to celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom, to acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives, and to acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives." Happy World Animal Day! Celebrate animal life!



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.

Friday, October 3

HAPPY FRIDAY! You have reached the end of Week 7! Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish Thursday's work, and the blog commenting assignment for this week is available now too!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in.  This is a VERY busy week with all these new stories. So, I will try to get comments back to everyone before the weekend, but if you turned in a late assignment for Week 7 or an early Week 8 assignment, you might not get comments until Saturday morning. Meanwhile, if you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Week 8 Assignments. For those of you who have been working ahead, those Week 8 assignments are now available. There is no new reading in Week 8, and instead there are just some review activities. You can see how that works in the Week 8 chart on the assignments page for the class you are in: Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Map of the Internet. From Jay Simons at Deviant Art comes this remarkable "Map of the Internet." Here is just a small detail of the whole map:

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

Featured Storybook: Hanuman and the Naked Philosophers. Mark and his friends are in possession of an ancient Greek manuscript bearing the name Χάνουμαν — could this be a Greek account of Hanuman, the flying monkey god and most devoted follower of Rama?

FREE Kindle eBook: The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which contains some wonderful fairy tales from all over the world.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is one of those proverbs that is literally true, with lots of metaphorical applications too!

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is Sita's trial by fire, while Rama, Lakshmana, and Hanuman look on.

Friday Event on Campus: There will be a performance of Classical South Indian Karnatak music at 8PM in Sharp Concert Hall. One of the performers will be VV Subramanyam on violin, and I've included a YouTube video of him performing below (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Click here for the YouTube video (embedding not possible for this one):

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.

Thursday, October 2

Today is Thursday of WEEK 7. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook/Portfolio assignment yet, you have until noon today to turn that in for partial credit, and 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

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 9PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in 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.

New Responding groups. The blog responding groups for Week 7 will be ready tomorrow, on Friday as usual, with everybody in random groups once again. More information about that in tomorrow's announcements!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Art by Anirudh Sainath. These contemporary works of art depict the gods of the Indian tradition using the style of comic books and video games, very different from the traditional iconography, but still very recognizable. Here is Rama, riding Hanuman into battle:

Indian Words in English: Today's Indian word in English is CHAKRA, the Sanskrit word for a circle or wheel. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Lost in Fairyland. Imagine that you slipped and fell in a puddle — and then fell through the puddle and into a fairyland. . . how would you get home? Having a fairy map and a fairy compass might help!

FREE Kindle eBook: South African Folk-Lore Tales by Sanni Metelerkamp. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book, which will be of interest to those of you who want to explore more stories from Africa.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Don’t put all your eggs in one basket (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is a proverb that is still going strong in the 21st century!

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is The Battle of Lanka, and you can see Hanuman slaying the three-headed rakshasas named Trisiras.

Thursday Event on Campus: There will be pumpkin decorating and other free food from 11AM until 2PM in the Cate Rock Garden (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 2: Birthday of Gandhi. The great Indian spiritual and political leader, Mohandas Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, 145 years ago. On January 30 in 1948, after having led the fight for India's independence from the British Empire, Gandhi was assassinated. The image below shows the memorial in New Delhi where Gandhi's body was cremated. Written on the stone you can see what were reportedly Gandhi's last words: "Hey Ram" (Oh Rama) - his invocation of Lord Rama will definitely mean something to the students in the Indian Epics class. Although it is a matter of some controversy as to whether those were Gandhi's last words, here is something he wrote in December 1947, just weeks before his assassination: "In the end it will be as Rama commands me. Thus I dance as He pulls the strings. I am in His hands and so I am experiencing ineffable peace." If you look closely at the photograph, you will see the words "Hey Ram" written in Devanagari script, gold letters on the black stone, just behind the burning stick of incense:

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.

Wednesday, October 1

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 7. If you have not turned in your Week 6 Storybook/Portfolio assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit, and Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Reading Diary that was due on Tuesday.

Class Procedures and Reminders

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 5PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned in your assignment later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, 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.

Week 7 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) The Week 7 Internet assignment is available now, and everybody has their project up and running now (which is great!), so I have been able to put everybody into a new random group. If you are ready to do that assignment now, it's ready for you: Internet assignment page.

Week 8 Review. (repeat announcement) For those of you who are working ahead, Week 8 is a review week, and the M-T-W-Th assignments for Week 8 are not ready yet, but they will be ready this Friday, October 3. If you have finished the reading and blogging for Week 7 already, just keep on going: you can move on to Week 9 reading assignments now! That's the Native American reading in Myth-Folklore, and Narayan's Mahabharata in Indian Epics.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Writing Humor: Grammar Rock. When I was a little kid, I knew all these Grammar Rock songs by heart (they showed them on TV during Saturday morning cartoons). Conjunction Junction is my favorite:

Mythology Words in English: Today's mythology word in English is VOLCANO from the name of the god, Vulcan. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Norse Giant Perspectives. The giants are often the foes of the Norse gods such as Odin and Thor; in this Storybook you get to hear the stories told from the giants' point of view, with the giants as heroes of course.

FREE Kindle eBook: Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan by Toru Dutt. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book. Some of the stories will be familiar to those of you in Indian Epics, such as the stories of Sita and Savitri.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is The fruit must have a stem before it grows (a Liberian proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Nature itself thus gives us a profound metaphor to use in thinking about our own growth.

Ramayana Image: Today's Ramayana image is The Battle of Lanka. Here's a close-up showing Hanuman and Ravana:

Wednesday Event on Campus: There will be an OU Library booksale on the south side of the Library on Wednesday and Thursday from 10AM to 4PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

October 1: E.B. White. Today, October 1, marks the death in the year 1985 of the American author, E.B. White, the author of such marvelous children's books as Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. You can read more about E.B. White's biography in this Wikipedia article; meanwhile, here is a book cover for the translation of Charlotte's Web . . . into Latin: Tela Charlottae!

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.