Thursday, December 1

Today is Thursday of WEEK 14. There is nothing due today, which makes it the perfect day to get ahead and/or do some extra credit. Maybe you can even finish the class today! Here is a link to the assignments for Week 14 and Week 15.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Finishing the class. All the Week 14 and Week 15 assignments are available now, including both blog commenting assignments. So, there's no need to wait: if you want to give yourself a Dead Week in this class by finishing things up now, you can go ahead and do that!

Project Stack. If you turned in a project on Sunday before 8PM, you should have comments back from me; I'll keep working on the Sunday assignments today. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

My schedule today. I'll be away from my office again for part of the day today, so if you send me an email and don't hear back as quickly as usual, don't worry: I'll get back to you as soon as I get back online, and I'll be sure to catch up on any pending questions by the end of the day.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Time. Here's some fairy-tale advice about procrastinating: don't wait till midnight!

Creativity. Wise words from Scott Adams: Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Spelling. This is a tricky pair: PEDAL v. PETAL; the spellchecker is no help with this one.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Indian Epics class: Badri and the Dashavatara. From the time he was a small child, Badri has had mysterious encounters with the avatars of Vishnu, one after another after another.

Free Book Online: Wonder Tales from Wagner by Anne Alice Chapin. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Opera is one of the great storytelling traditions of Europe, and Wagner's operas are some of the most famous:

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is A bow long bent at length must wax weak (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This is a proverb for the end of the semester: you need to hang on just a little bit longer!

Today's Video: Is Doctor Who a Religion? This is a fun video from the PBS Idea Channel

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is using technology to grow: I shape the technology; it does not shape me. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: There will be a lecture on Disability Studies at 7:30PM in the Sam Noble Museum auditorium (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 even found a Gregorian chant (plain-chant) version of Rudolph! Here's the page about Rudolphus rubrinasus, and you can listen to the plain-chant version at Soundcloud:

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.