Friday, September 20

HAPPY FRIDAY! Today is Friday of Week 5... which means the semester is already one-third over. Incredible, but true! Here is a link for finishing up the Week 5 assignments and, for those of you working ahead, here is Week 6.

Class Procedures and Reminders

My schedule today. I'll be out of the office for most of this morning, but  I'll be back at my desk in the afternoon. So, if you have questions, I'll get back to you with answers sometime in the afternoon.

Project Stack. If you turned your project in on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. I'll definitely get to the rest of the Week 4 project assignments today, and I will reply to as many of the Week 5 and Week 6 assignments as I can. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Project Stream. In addition to the blog stream, I'll be posting items from people's websites too, and I wanted to highlight today the lovely art that Brittany designed for her Indian Epics Storybook: Tales of Twinhood. I think it looks wonderful:

Twitter Stream. Here's something fun that happened at Twitter; I shared Cody's Ravana meme and pinged Nina Paley, the creator of Sita Sings the Blues... and she commented back! The power of Twitter: it can be a great way to connect with writers, musicians, artists, cartoonists and all those creative people whom you admire. (I have been a fan of Nina Paley since before Twitter even existed!)

And just to share some more Nina Paley goodness, here is the opening sequence from her new film, Seder Masochism; this segment is Moses meets the Goddess, or... You Gotta Believe.

Story of the Day. Today's origin story is a Cherokee legend about The Origin of the Bear. The bears used to be people...

Storybooks. And speaking of bears, here's a fun Storybook: The Adventures of Office Medved the Bear.

Indian Epics Today. The character of the day is Ravana's virtuous brother, Vibhishana. This painting shows him joining Rama's side during the war:

India Video. You can learn more about Vibhishana in this Epified video: Virtuous Demons.

Myth-Folklore. Some of you encountered genies in the Myth-Folklore readings from the Middle East this week, so I thought I would share this brilliant Cyanide and Happiness cartoon:

Writing. And in addition to magical lamps, here are some other magical objects that can come in handy: Magical Items for Fantasy Writers from the genius Tom Gauld.

Mindset Cats. Today's mindset cat knows that being different can give you power.

And it was this great graphic from Sylvia Duckworth that inspired me to create that cat meme: 10 Things We Can Learn From Superheroes.

Event on Campus. Come to the Architecture Library tonight at 6PM for the opening reception in honor of this year's Hispanic Art Showcase (details).

September 20: Annie Besant. Today marks the death of Annie Besant in 1933; she was a leader in the Indian Independence Movement, and she was also a well-known Theosophist who took a great interest in the sacred texts of India, including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. You can find out more about her life and accomplishments in Wikipedia, and I have some related links at the Indian Epics site. This photograph of Annie Besant was taken in the 1880s:

Here is a video about her life:

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