Monday, November 9

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 the final Week 11 assignments. This week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is British and Celtic stories once again, and in Indian Epics, people are going their own way — and I added reading guides to one week's worth of Devdutt Pattanaik videos if you are interested! Enjoy!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project 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 stack. Then you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Finishing the semester. Now that there are just four weeks of the semester left (Weeks 12-13-14-15), you need to make sure you have a plan for finishing up with the points you need for the grade you want (410 for an A, 360 for a B, 320 for a C). You can use the D2L Gradebook to see what points you could use to reach your goal, and if you have any questions about that, please ask me now!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Nessie. Beware the Nessie in your keyboard: the Caps Lockness Monster!


Indian Words in English: Today's word from India in English is ZEN, which comes to English via Japanese from Chinese chan which in turn goes back to Sanskrit dhyana, meditation. For details, see this blog post.


Featured Storybook: The Thin Line Between Tragedy and Comedy. In this "choose-your-own-adventure" Storybook, you get to decide the fates of Romeo and Juliet. Can they escape the doom that Shakespeare imagined for them? And will that simply lead to another tragic ending, or perhaps to a happily-ever-after ending worthy of comedy?


Free Book Online: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry edited by William Butler Yeats. This blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book.


India Comic Book: Bhagawat: The Krishna Avatar. This blog post provides additional information about the comic book which is on Reserve in Bizzell Library. It's actually NINE comic books bound together, which means it would be enough reading for the rest of the semester (two comics per week). If you want to know all about Krishna, this is one great way to learn!


Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is You must take the little potato with the big potato (an Irish proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Just speaking for myself, I like ALL the potatoes, if we are talking about real potatoes rather than life's metaphorical potatoes.


Today's Video: The Machine is Us/ing Us. Here is a thought-provoking video from Michael Wesch. It's been an YouTube for a while now... with over one million views! Join the crowd and take a look:


Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat knows: You haven't failed ... you've learned. Details at the blog.


Event on Campus: Do you know how to change a tire? Come to HandyWoman and start learning: 7PM in the Henderson Tolson Cultural Center (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.


November 9: Dhanteras. Today is the festival of Dhanteras. The festival celebrates Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and also Kubera, the treasure-keeper of the gods. You can read more about the holiday and its legends at Wikipedia. Here are some more Dhanteras wallpaper images.



Note: You can page back through the 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.