Monday, February 13

Today is Monday. Week 4 is now over... and Week 5 has begun! The new week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is the Middle East or India once again, and in Indian Epics you will be starting the Mahabharata, with lots of drama right from the start. You can find the week's assignments at the Class Calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. The Project stack is full of projects! 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. And 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 by Tuesday, and I'll be setting those up this afternoon. I'll have more information in tomorrow's announcements.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

School. Beware of the Caffeine Causality Loop!

English Words. Find out more at Thesaurus Saurus.

Words from India. You may be surprised to find out that this word comes from India: SHAWL.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Fairy Godmother: Diary Thief. There are all kinds of fairy godmothers out there, and the fairy godmother you will meet in this Storybook is a kleptomaniac: she steals diaries! Thanks to her bad habit, you can take a peek into the private lives of fairy tale characters.

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Nine Ideal Indian Women by Sunity Devee. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents, and you can find out more about the author here: Sunity Devee.

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is No chick ever came from a fried egg (a medieval Latin proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. For those of you who are students of Latin, notice the internal rhyme: Ex frixis pullus ovis numquam venit ullus.

Video: The video for today is Nefertiti ("Kiss Them For Me" by Siouxsie and the Banshees). This is another one of Amy Burvall's wonderful mash-up videos. Find out more at Nefertiti at Wikipedia.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat welcomes all the emotions of learning: surprise, awe, interest, and confusion. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: A new exhibit has opened at the Sam Noble Museum: Ugly Bugs! (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 13: Lupercalia. Today is the Ides of February in the Roman calendar, which means it is the first day of the festival of the Lupercalia. Lupercus was the god of shepherds and his festival was intended to insure fertility in the coming spring. The Luperci priests would run through the streets, dressed in goatskins, and lash the women of the city with the thongs. You can read more about Lupercalia in this Wikipedia article and at NPR.

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