Saturday, February 17

Today is Saturday of Week 5. I hope you are enjoying the weekend! You can celebrate the fact that you have completed ... (drum roll) ... one-third of the semester. Whoo-hoo!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tip: Pay attention to titles. Now that you are publishing stories and creating a project for this class, think about your titles: are they doing a good job? Plus, you can pay attention to the titles of other people's stories, and to the titles of books and movies, looking at all those titles with a new critical perspective and learning just what makes a good title.

Project Stack. I finished all the Week 4 projects in the stack on Friday, along with most of the Week 5 projects. To get comments back sooner next week rather than later, turn in your assignment today if you can; don't wait until Sunday. And while you are waiting on comments, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Oliver has created an interactive story this week using software called Twine; check it out, and see if your head explodes (based on the path I took, my head exploded!): Riddle Me This. Click on the link in the blog post, and see where your chosen path takes you:


Words from India. Here is a lovely word in English that comes from India: BANGLE.


Video: Everyone in Indian Epics knows the story of Rama by now, and some of you in Myth-Folklore may be reading about the Ramayana right now also, so here's the Crash Course video: Rama and the Ramayana.


India Comic Book: Today's comic book is about a hero from the Mahabharata named Arjuna... and it also features the monkey-god Hanuman from the Ramayana: Tales of Arjuna: The Exploits of an Exceptional Warrior. See the Amar Chitra Katha blog for the Bizzell Reserve call number and more information. That's Hanuman on the cover:


Proverb of the Day: This is one of my favorite ecological proverbs: Waste not, want not. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.


Writing: You can never have too much punctuation humor: All the Commas.


H.E.A.R.T.: And here's a calming graphic for the weekend: Three Seconds.


Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is getting in some practice this weekend: To write well, you must practice! You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.


Video: And here's a great video from TEDxOU about empathy and sharing your own stories (Jake in this video was a student in Myth-Folklore then!): Empathetic Storytelling.


Event on Campus: It's CollegeCon today, including a cosplay contest, speed Dungeons & Dragons, showings of Justice League, plus more, 2PM-8PM in the Union (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.


February 17: Loreena McKennit. Today marks the birthday in 1957 of the Canadian musician Loreena McKennit. Happy birthday, Loreena! In the spirit of myth and folklore, Loreena has done wonderful work with traditional ballads and melodies from Celtic and Middle Eastern traditions and has created a distinctive wonderful style all her own. You can read about her work and career in this Wikipedia article, and you can listen to her marvelous rendition of the traditional ballad, The Highwayman, here at YouTube.com.



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