Saturday, November 28

Today is Saturday of Week 13. I hope you are having a lovely holiday weekend! You will find the Week 13 assignments on the Calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Thanksgiving Break. As Thanksgiving break winds down, you'll need to finish the Week 13 assignments if you did not do that already. And for those of you who want to finish up the class early, now is a great time to do that. Maybe you can even finish up the class this weekend! Let me know if you have any questions about that.

Announcements in D2L. Blogger made a change recently that allows me to display the announcements inside D2L. I hope this will make it easier for everybody to keep up with the announcements — and don't forget: there's a Review extra credit option which gives you a chance to review the past week's announcements too!

Project Stack. You can check the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. If you turned something in before last Sunday, it is probably still in the stack, and on Monday I'll begin working through the assignments in the order they were turned in. If you want comments back sooner rather than later, make sure you turn in your project assignment today, Saturday — don't wait until Sunday.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

OU Social Media Decorating. The OU Admissions office has some holiday wallpapers, Facebook cover photos, etc. Find out more at the OU Admissions website.


Indian Words in English: Today's word from India in English is GURU, a Sanskrit word that means "teacher" (the root meaning is "heavy," and it is related to the English word "gravity"). For details, see this blog post.


Featured Storybook: The Roaring Lion: Demons and the Desert Fathers. In this Storybook, a man named Adam journeys on a spiritual quest to Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai desert, and in a series of earthly encounters and heavenly visions, he is transformed.


Free Book Online: Myths of the Norsemen by Hélène Adeline Guerber. This blog post provides additional information about the gods, goddesses and other mythological beings included in this book.

India Featured Book: Rama and the Monkeys by Geraldine Hodgson. This blog post provides additional information about this reading option for Indian Epics, which is a one-week version of the Ramayana — perfect reading for Week 14 to reminisce about the Ramayana!


Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is A running horse has no need of spurs (a Latin proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Here's the Latin: Equo currenti non opus calcaribus.


Today's Video: Jaye Ambe Mantra. Something new from Manish Vyas!


Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat knows how to get smart: Success is about stretching yourself. Details at the blog.


Event on Campus: Bizzell Library will be open today, but limited hours: 10AM - 5PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.


November 28: William Blake. Today marks the birthday in 1757 of the visionary English poet and artist William Blake. You can read more about his remarkable life and career in this Wikipedia article. Much of Blake's artwork was religious in nature; the painting below is an illustration of the famous scene from the Biblical book of Samuel, where the witch of Endor (right) conjures up the ghost of Samuel (center) at the command of King Saul in disguise (left):



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.