Thursday, February 7

Today is Thursday of Week 4, and here are the Week 4 assignments. Some of you will be writing a Story in your blog today, and some of you might be choosing the new "Story Lab" option; you'll see how that all works in the Week 4 Storytelling assignment.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Story randomizer updated. With the story randomizer, every story should get two or more comments, but it sometimes takes a couple of weeks for that to happen. Then, after a story gets two or more comments, I move it out of the randomizer. So, I did an update yesterday: there are now 80 stories in the randomizer, and 82 stories that already got two (or more) comments. The power of random: it's weird and unpredictable, but over time it all works out!

Project Stack. If you turned in a project assignment on Sunday before 6PM, you should have comments back from me; I'll keep working on the Sunday assignments today, and in the meantime you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. My goal is always to get through the stack by the end of the week, but it usually does take me all week.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Hannah added a couple of countdown widgets to her blog: Hannah M.'s blog. If that's something you would like to try, there's a Countdown Tech Tip.

Free Book Online. Today's free book is Inside the Drama-House: Rama Stories and Shadow Puppets in South India by Stuart Blackburn. This is a recent book, available free online thanks to the University of California Press.

Free Audiobook. In honor of Charles Dickens's birthday (see below), today's free audiobook is Hard Times.

Featured Storybook. This is a wonderful Storybook from Indian Epics last semester: Save Rama's Bridge. (You can also get a wild take on the story of the bridge at Stalder's Portfolio from this semester.)

India Video. Some of you have spent the past two weeks reading R. K. Narayan's adaptation of the Ramayana into English, so I thought you might enjoy this video about him: Remembering Narayan.

Myth Video. And of course there is a Crash Course video about Greece and Rome: The Greek and Roman Pantheon.

Myth Item. Here's a Biblical work of art that is part of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art: Sacrifice of Isaac by Menashe Kadishman.

Writing. This graphic might inspire some mix-and-match writing: Space Princess.

Plus some advice about being outstanding from Dr. Seuss:

Growth Mindset Cats. This cat is not afraid to be different: All learners are smart in their own unique ways.

And here's a lovely video about being different! It's a story without words: Alike.

Event on Campus. John Langmore, a photographer and film director from Austin will be giving at lecture at 7PM in the Fred Jones Museum: Big-Outfit Cowboys (details).

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

February 7: Charles Dickens. Today is the birthday of the great novelist Charles Dickens in 1812; you can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia. Do you have a favorite Dickens novel? My favorite is Hard Times (see above for the free audiobook!). Here is a lovely painting by Robert William Buss entitled Dickens' Dream:

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