Tuesday, January 15

Today is Tuesday of Week 1, and if you have not logged on at Canvas to get started with the class, today is the day to do that! Here is a link to this week's assignments. Happy Blogging! :-)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Monday announcements. If you didn't get a chance to read yesterday's announcements, do that now: Monday announcements. And you can subscribe to the announcements by email if you want; there's a subscription box in the right-hand sidebar of the blog.

Blog network. Congratulations to everybody who has their blog set up already! I'll be updating the Class Blog Directory periodically today with all the new blogs, and you can see the latest blog posts by clicking on the Blogs link in Canvas.

Blogs and Comments. By the end of the day today, everybody will be blogging! My goal this week is to read and comment on all the Favorite Places posts, and I'll be reading Introduction posts this week and next. In Week 2, you'll all be commenting on each other's blogs too! (I'll try to get that assignment ready soon for those of you who are working ahead.)

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. One of the fun things about having a blog network for class is that I can always find cool things to share here in the announcements, like this great picture of Central Park that Casey posted as a favorite place:

Free Book Online. Today's free book is Curious Creatures in Zoology by John Ashton. This book is a place where you can find fantastic beasts, and lots of them.

Free Audiobook. In addition to sharing a new free online book, I'm also sharing a free audiobook each day. Since Turkey has been in the news, I picked this one for today: Told in the Coffee House: Turkish Tales by Cyrus Adler and Allan Ramsay.

India Item. I am a fan of proverbs, and Indian literature is full of proverbs; this one comes from the ancient story collection called the Hitopadesha: The chariot will not move upon a single wheel.

India Video. Here's a video by one of my favorite musicians from India, Bickram Ghosh.

Myth Video. Here's a fun and thought-provoking video from Mike Rugnetta: Is A Thor By Any Other Name Still Thor?.

Myth Item. Yesterday I shared an English word from India, and here's an English word from mythology: TUESDAY, which is Tiws-Day, the Day-of-Tiw, and Tiw was the Germanic god of war. Here he is putting his hand in the mouth of the wolf Fenrir:

Writing. This item is a combination of mythology and spelling humor, because you can never have too much spelling humor in English: A Werewolf.

And here is some technology humor: The Joy of Tech-Meditation:In your mind's browser, clear your cache... now delete your history... now navigate to a blank web page.

And here's a video for the start of school: Be Brave for Education.

Event on Campus. As part of CAC Winter Welcome Week, it's Callaway’s Coffee House 7PM-9PM tonight in the Walker Tower Storm Shelter (complete Winter Welcome schedule). Plus you can get free coffee with the purchase of any pastry as the Bookmark in Bizzell this week (details).

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

January 15: Makar Sankranti. Today is the Hindu holiday of Makar Sankranti, which you can read about in this Wikipedia article or here in this BBC article. It is celebrated under various names and with various rituals throughout India. In many places, kite-flying is part of the holiday, as you can see in this lovely image from the Makar Sankranti celebration in Mumbai, and you can follow the #MakarSankranti2019 hashtag at Twitter.

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