Tuesday, December 1

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 14, and I've re-arranged the Declarations area in D2L so the new week is on top. Tuesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Reading Diary that was due on Monday.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Favorite Projects. Thanks so much to everybody who shared their favorite Storybooks and Portfolios! I compiled the projects with the most nominations to make a ballot for people to vote on: Fall 2015 Favorite Projects. This is not for a grade: it's just for fun, so that you can take a look at some great projects (maybe some you have not seen before!) and also give your fellow students some well-earned recognition.

Week 14 and 15 Project commenting. The Project commenting assignments for BOTH Week 14 AND Week 15 are available now. There's no need to wait, so if you need those points to finish up the class, both weeks are ready to go!

Project Stack. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I've read and replied to all the assignments turned in last weekend, and now I'm working on the projects turned in during the week (Monday, November 23, and later).

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Inflated v. Concise. Here's a really useful list of inflated phrases that you can deflate, thanks to Amanda Patterson:

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

Featured Storybook: Dai Dreaming: A Collection of Birth Stories. This is the story of a midwife, or dai, who has watched the birth goddess herself, Shashthi, in vivid and dramatic dream visions, both beautiful and terrifying.

Free Book Online: The Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant (translated by Alexander Barclay). This blog post provides additional information about this 15th-century classic of social satire.

India Featured Book: Nala and Damayanti as told by Donald Mackenzie. This blog post provides additional information about this one-week reading option for Indian Epics. It is one of India's most famous love stories!

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Every road has two directions (a Ukrainian proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. It's literally true, and it's a great metaphor also!

Today's Video: Black Death ("Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani) . This grim little parody is another one of Amy Burvall's videos, and it will be of interest to anyone reading Boccaccio's Decameron in Myth-Folklore this week.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is a curious kitteh, and: The future belongs to the curious. Details at the blog.

Event on Campus: The OU Annual Holidays Lights festival will take place at 5PM in David A. Burr Park (south of Sarkeys) with holiday music, hot chocolate, and elves! (details) Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

December: Latin Christmas Carols. As one of my Latin hobbies, I collect Christmas carols and holiday songs in Latin, and I've got a special blog — Gaudium Mundo — where you can find a different Latin Christmas carol or holiday song for each day of the month of December... beginning with Rudolphus on December 1. I've collected SIX, count 'em, SIX different versions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in Latin... a plus a Gregorian chant (plain-chant) version. So, if you have taken Latin or are taking Latin now, you might want to check out the Gaudium-Mundo blog for a Classical Christmas! If you are interested in Rudolph in particular, here's the page about Rudolphus rubrinasus.

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.