Wednesday, September 19

Today is Wednesday of Week 5. I hope you are enjoying this week's reading! Here is a link to the Week 5 assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in your project before noon on Sunday, 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 email.

Use the Suggestion Box. If there is something I can be doing to improve this class, you can let me know, either by email or via the (anonymous) Suggestion Box. I have gotten a lot of good ideas for improving this class from past suggestions. We all need feedback! :-)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Here's a fun Wikipedia Trail from Haley in Indian Epics, all the way From Ravana to Bollywood. This is an actress playing Ravana's mother Kaikesi in the series Siya Ke Ram:

Featured Storybook. And speaking of Ravana, check out The Ravana Diaries. For many years, an archaeologist has been excavating ancient sites on the island of Lanka, seeking to learn more about Ravana, King of the Rakshasas. Finally one day he discovers just what he had always hoped to find: Ravana's own diary.

India Video. Here's a nice music video from India, with an appearance by Maati Baani: Yaara. Turn on the CC (closed captions) to see the English lyrics.

Myth Video. Here's a Crash Course video on a famous mythological topic: Dragons and Serpents.

Myth Item. Here's a medieval dragon from a hilarious Buzzfeed list: Medieval Beasts That Cannot Even Handle It Right Now.

Writing. Meanwhile, here's a word-beast: Thesaurus-saurus.

Poor dinosaurs! Here's some procrastination humor ... with some Noah's ark too!

Growth Mindset Cats. This growth mindset kitten knows no fear: Every day new and larger dragons come along.

Some of you in Indian Epics have been watching Nina Paley's genius film "Sita Sings the Blues" this week, so I thought you might enjoy Nina's TED talk: Copyright is Brain Damage.

Event on Campus. I was excited to see that "Growth Mindset" is the topic for this week's Engineering First-Year Interest Group tonight at 6:30PM tonight (details).

Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

September 19: Yom Kippur. Sunset yesterday began the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the "Day of Atonement," which lasts until sunset this evening. You can read more about Yom Kippur at Wikipedia; the image below shows Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, a painting by Maurycy Gottlieb (1878).

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