Thursday, February 14

Today is Thursday of Week 5. Here is a link to the Week 5 assignments. For a lot of you this is Storytelling Day, so I hope you will have fun with that (let your imagination run wild!), and then tomorrow I'll be able to add all the new stories into the randomizer!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Stray Comments. Every once in a while you may notice a comment on your blog that seems like it is meant for someone else. That happens sometimes (it's easy to click on a wrong link by accident), and if you let me know, I can try to find out who the comment was meant for and repost it for, no problem!

Introduction Comments. I forgot to mention that I finished commenting on all the Introduction posts last week, but if I missed somebody, please just let me know! I don't comment a lot on the blogs once the semester gets going, but I definitely want to read and comment on everybody's Introduction.

Project Stack. If you turned in your project before 6PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me, and you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. Meanwhile, I'll keep working on the Sunday assignments today.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. The Wikipedia Trails are always fun; you can use them for story research or to explore something you are interested in from the class reading. Here's a Wikipedia Trail from Mariah's blog: Chipko to Varanasi.

Free Book Online. Today's free book is Tales of the Persian Genii retold by Francis Jenkins Olcott with illustrations by Willy Pogany.

Free Audiobook. Today's free audiobook is The Indian Story Book by Richard Wilson. It contains very short versions of the Ramayana and of the Mahabharata, plus other stories from India, like the story of Nala and Damayanti as shown in the illustration below.

Featured Storybook. Some of you are reading about Isis in Myth-Folklore this week, so here is a Storybook about her: The Egyptian Goddess Isis. The goddess Isis was a devoted wife and a devoted mother, and these stories are about the heroic efforts she made in order to preserve her family.

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

India Video. Here's a different kind of path: Dharma - Your Path.

India Item. Last semester a student used an Indian flag favicon for her blog, and as you can see the Indian flag features a Dharma Wheel in the center. So far this semester, Alyx has added a coffee cup favicon to her blog; I'm not sure if anybody else has done the Favicon Tech Tip. Let me know if you have so I can share it in the announcements.

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.

And here's a fun cartoon about staying positive: Yesbody.

Growth Mindset Cats. A yesbody is someone who looks for opportunity, like these growth mindset kittens:

You do have the power: the power to create.

Event on Campus. It's IHeartTheMuseum tonight at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum from 5PM - 9PM: a photo booth, candy, tours, and art! (details)

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

Valentine's Day: Green M-and-M Legend. In honor of Valentine's Day, here is a Valentine's Day Legend from Snopes.com. Ten years ago, in 2008, the Mars Candy Company promoted the distribution of packages of all-green M-and-M candies because the green candies are supposedly an aphrodisiac — true or false??? Well, Snopes.com tells us that is true that Mars promoted the green candies for Valentine's Day, but as to whether the green M-and-Ms really are an aphrodisiac, Snopes.com is not saying!

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