Wednesday, November 14

Today is Wednesday of Week 13. Here is a link to the Week 13 assignments, plus Week 14 if you are working ahead and/or mixing-and-matching as you finish up the class -- and yes, any combination of assignments you want to use to finish the class is good!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Story comments. My goal is for every blog story to get two or more comments, but I don't have a perfect system for making that happen. All the stories from before Week 11 should have gotten at least two comments (I think). If you have a story in your blog from Week 10 or earlier that didn't get two comments, let me know and I'll put it back into the randomizer!

Project Stack. I finished all the Saturday assignments yesterday, and today I'll be working on the Sunday assignments. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Here's a lovely graphic that Shea made at Canva: Charming Gardeners.

Featured Storybook. This project has a "Hunger Games" vibe: Sky Warrior: A Tournament of Champions. The brave warrior Pyppa does battle with the flying creatures of the gods' arena as each round threatens death in a new form — Medean dragons, the bloodthirsty flying goddesses called Keres, and more.

As the semester winds down, I am repeating favorite items from earlier announcements; these items come from Week 5:

Myth Video. Here's a video about a famous mythological space: Labyrinths.

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

India Video. Here's a lovely Maati Baani video, a collaboration between musicians from India and from Pakistan: Rang Rangiya. Turn on CC for the closed captions in English.

India Item. Arti has an Indian flag favicon for her blog now (more about favicons), and the Indian flag has a Dharma Wheel in the center.

Writing. Some advice from Margaret Atwood for your writing this week; don't let perfection become your writer's block: If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.

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

Growth Mindset Cats. This kitten is ready to keep trying when something isn't working.

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

Event on Campus. Weather permitting, there will be a Star Party tonight at 7PM, with plans to observe a Double Cluster, the Andromeda Galaxy, Saturn, and the Ring Nebula (details).

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

November 14: Karen Armstrong. Today is the birthday of the writer Karen Armstrong, born this day in 1944; she is one of my favorite authors on religious history. You can read more about her life and career in this Wikipedia article. My personal favorite of her many books is The Battle for God. Happy birthday, Karen Armstrong!

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