Sunday, September 8

Today is Sunday of Week 3. If you have not finished up the Week 3 assignments, today is the day to do that! Here is a link to the Week 3 assignments, and Week 4 is ready to go too.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Extra credit now for midterms. Some of you will probably have midterm exams starting up in a couple of weeks in your other classes; I know, that seems weird... but in classes with multiple midterms, they sometimes start up early. If you  do some extra credit now, you can build up your points so that you can take a week off in this class when things get intense in your other classes. This Chart shows how your week by week progress works in this class.

Call me Laura. As I mentioned earlier in the semester, please just call me Laura! I'm on a first-name basis with all of you (plus I am also a student with you in the Myth-Folklore class this semester), so it just makes sense for you to use my first name too. Really!

Project Stack. I'll update the stack periodically today so you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. The sooner you turn in your project today, the sooner you'll get comments back from me next week.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Speaking of extra credit, Grace did a Cheezburger Tech Tip just for this class: it's so cute!

Twitter Stream. I know some of you are interested in food, so I noticed this "history of lentils" from Scroll, which even includes a reference to Rama's favorite lentil dish.

Indian Epics Today. The Ramayana character for today is Bharata, Rama's noble brother who refuses to take Rama's place as king. Instead, Rama's own sandals sit on the throne, as you can see in this painting of Rama embracing Bharata on his return:

India Video. If you have a few minutes today, here is one of my favorite videos from Devdutt Pattanaik; yes, they have TED talks in India too: India is not chaotic.

Storybooks. Here's a fun story about a little animal's adventures: The Brave Hedgehog.

Proverbs. This is a proverb from Zanzibar about another small creature, the ant: A coconut shell full of water is a sea to an ant.

Story of the Day. Today's "why" story explains Why Rabbit's Tail is Short. This is a Brer Rabbit story from a storyteller on St. Helena Island in South Carolina.

H.E.A.R.T.. For those of you who are starting the Week 4 reading today, here is a thought about reading as a useful escape from reality.

Mindset Cats. Today's mindset cat is ready to try new things!

HEART Video. This is one of my very favorite StoryCorps videos; it's about astronaut Ronald E. McNair... and it involves Star Trek (see below): Eyes on the Stars.

Event on Campus. Jonathan Shames will be giving a piano recital with guest artists Min-Jeong Koh, violinist, and Adrian Fung, cellist, at 3PM in Sharp Concert Hall. Here's a video of a performance by Min-Jeong Koh:

September 8: Star Trek begins. Yes, today is a great day in the history of television — it marks the broadcast of the first episode of the original Star Trek series in 1966 (yes, 53 years ago!); the original series then ran for three seasons until June 3, 1969. My devotion to Star Trek began in 1972, when the show was in reruns and I was able to watch every afternoon when I came home from school (I was in third grade). I have never lost my love of that show!

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