Monday, September 19

Today is Monday. Week 4 is now over... and Week 5 has begun. The new week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is Middle Eastern and Indian stories once again, and in Indian Epics you will be starting the Mahabharata! You can find the week's assignments at the Class Calendar.

Update: The Week 5 Project Feedback groups are available now! :-)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. The Project stack is pretty enormous at the moment, as always on Monday. I'll be working my way through the assignments in the order they were turned in, and you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. THANK YOU for all your great work over the past few weeks: now there are lots of new websites and portfolios, and these projects will be the best part of the semester!

Week 5 Project Feedback. Starting this week, you'll be doing actual feedback on people's projects, starting with the Portfolios. Each week those Project Feedback Groups will be ready on Tuesday; I'll have more information about that in tomorrow's announcements.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Time. I'm guessing you all know this feeling: The Whatever Clock.

Typos. And it's always good to have a sense of humor about typos: Before Hitting Sned.

Words from Mythology. The next time you hear a police siren or ambulance siren, you can think about this bit of Greek mythology: SIREN.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Indian Epics class: Rama and the Other Avatars. Imagine a young boy growing up in Montana who learns... that he is an avatar of Vishnu, a new Rama for the 21st century, with rakshasas to battle. Luckily, he will have some help from Mohini, Vamana, and Agastya.

Free Book Online: Mother Goose: The Old Nursery Rhymes with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents, and see below for more information about Arthur Rackham. Today is his birthday!

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is A goose-quill is more dangerous than a lion's claw (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. It's kind of like the "pen is mightier than the sword," but with animals!

Today's Video: Labyrinth History and Walking. The "labyrinth" (like the "siren" above) is a Greek word that is still going strong in English!

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is learning from others; Observe others: the task is possible! You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: There will be a lecture by Charles Stang at 5PM in the Bizzell Community room LL118: "The Apostle Thomas and the Origins of Syrian Christianity" (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

September 19: Arthur Rackham. Today is the birthday of the great illustrator Arthur Rackham who was born in 1867 (he died in 1939). You can read more about his life and career in this Wikipedia article, and you are probably familiar already with some of Rackham's illustrations, like his famous illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.