Class Procedures and Reminders
Introductions. I hope you all enjoyed getting to comment on people's Introductions and stories this weekend, and you'll be getting visitors to your Introduction all semester long as new people connect with you through the random blog groups each week. Meanwhile, I'll be responding to some Introductions every day so that by the end of the week I should have read everybody's Introduction post; I'm looking forward to reading those Introductions!
From Week 1 to Week 2. (repeat announcement) Based on your personal schedule, Week 2 may have started already, or it might start today or tomorrow. Check the D2L Gradebook, and you'll see the day when Week 2 starts for you — and of course you don't have to wait for that date. Working ahead is always the best strategy!
Mythical Scientific Creatures. You've probably realized that I am a big fan of the cartoonist Tom Gauld! I thought this cartoon was a good start to the Classics section in Myth-Folklore:
Featured Storybook: Alexander the Great, Reborn! Alexander the Great lamented that he had only one world to conquer... but imagine Alexander in outer space, with one planet after another that can be his. This Storybook tells the adventures of Xander Mace, a character strangely reminiscent of the ancient Alexander.
Free Book Online: Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred Church. This blog post provides additional information about the contents of the book which includes stories about tragic Greek heroes and heroines such as Medea, Antigone, Iphigenia and Philoctetes.
India Featured Book: The Lord of Lanka: The Rise and Fall of a Demon King. This blog post provides additional information about this reading option for Indian Epics. This comic book (on Reserve in Bizzell) includes the story of Sita's previous incarnation as Vedavati!
Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Bacchus has drowned more people than Neptune (an English proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. Bacchus was the Roman god of wine, and Neptune the god of the sea, so the proverb means: wine has drowned more people than the sea has.
Today's Video: The Odyssey ("Across the Universe" by the Beatles). This is just one of many fabulous mash-up videos by my friend Amy Burvall! Listen to the lyrics: Amy has a fantastic knack for creating all kinds of echoes between the original song and the lyrics that tell the ancient story.
Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is ready to tackle the new week: Yes, I can! Details at the blog.
Event on Campus: The Union Programming Board will have FREE DONUTS from 10AM - 11AM in the Union Lobby (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
January 25: Burns Night. Every year, on January 25, the great Scottish poet is celebrated by people all over the world who gather together to drink and toast one another and to read some of Burns's marvelous poetry. You can read about the tradition of the "Burns Night" or "Burns Supper" in this Wikipedia article, and you can find the poetry of Robert Burns online at the RobertBurns.org website. He is most famous as the author of the words to "Auld Lang Syne," and the famous phrase "of mice and men" comes from his marvelous poem, "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough." You can read more about Robert Burns in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for his portrait shown here:
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.
