Tuesday, March 31

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 Project commenting assignment for this week is now available! 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

My schedule today. I'm having my wisdom teeth out today (argh!!!), so I will be out of the office for the afternoon. I hope to be back to work as usual on Wednesday morning, assuming that all goes well. :-)

Project Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Project assignments in the stack. If you turned in an assignment on Friday or Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack, and you can check here to make sure your assignment is in the stack: contents of the stack.

Finishing up the class: Projects
. As I've mentioned before, there is no absolute requirement about the number of stories in a finished Storybook or Portfolio; based on your strategy for getting your points in the class, you can finish your Storybook with just three stories or even just two stories if you want - it is up to you, and the same is true for the Portfolio. If you have any questions about that, let me know, and there is more information about grading and finishing the class here. There are several people who have already finished the class, which is exciting to see!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Language Resource: The Alphabet. This fascinating animated graphic depicts the evolution of the alphabet, and you can find out more at Wikipedia: The Alphabet.



Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are WAIST and WASTE. 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 eBook: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. This blog post provides additional information about this marvelous collection of stories from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. It is one of the reading options in Myth-Folklore this week!

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is At a round table every seat is first (a German proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Of course, the tales of King Arthur made the "round table" famous throughout Europe.


Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Ganesha, as depicted in an enormous statue in Hyderabad, India.


Tuesday Event on Campus: There will be free frozen chocolate bananas in the first floor of the Union, 11:30AM - 12:3PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 31: Edward FitzGerald. Today marks the birthday of the poet Edward FitzGerald in 1809, who is best remembered for his translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the classical Persian poet. Here is one of the quatrains:

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

You can read more about FitzGerald at Wikipedia, and you can also read about Omar Khayyam's remarkable life and career at Wikipedia, which is the source for this image of Omar Khayam's tomb in Neishapur, Iran.





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.