Monday, February 17

Today is Monday of Week 6. (Yes, the semester really is one-third over!) Here is a link to Week 6 (and if you are finishing up Week 5 during the grace period this morning, here is Week 5). I hope you will enjoy the new readings this week: it's the Middle East or India again in Myth-Folklore, while you will be starting the Mahabharata in Indian Epics!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. As always, the project stack is HUGE on Monday. While you are waiting on comments back from me about your project, you can check the stack to make sure it's there.

Start the week with extra credit. If you put off doing the extra credit until the end of the week, you might run out of time, but you can do Week 6 extra credit at the start of the week, or at any time during the week. So, if you feel like tinkering with your blog to add new features or playing with some meme generators, or any of the other extra credit options. If you are interested in providing feedback on the future of Canvas, there's a survey about that in the Tech Tips!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. I saw this go by in the blog stream, and I thought it was so sweet: Dave (in Myth-Folklore) made this playlist for his wife for Valentine's Day. Find out more at his blog.


Twitter Stream. I follow a lot of different museums at Twitter to see lovely artwork every day, and here is a beautiful ceramic frog from southern Italy, 4th-century B.C.E. (details). It's a "guttus" which is a pot for a liquid that is poured out drop by drop:


Indian Epics Today. The god for today is Vishnu; he is appearing here again because he will have an avatar in the Mahabharata as he did in the Ramayana. This time, Vishnu's avatar will be Krishna.


India Video. As you get into the Mahabharata in Indian Epics, here's a fun video: Mahabharata meets Game of Thrones.


H.E.A.R.T.. And speaking of Game of Thrones, here are some thoughts about books and reading from Tyrion Lannister:


Storybooks. And here's a Storybook from last semester with a Harry Potter theme: Stories from the Wizarding World.


100-Word Stories. Today's story is an Aesop's fable: The Lion's Army (click title for more info).


Myth-Folklore. This is a map of Lake Monsters of America...  including the giant octopus that is supposed to live in Lake Thunderbird in Norman!


Mindset Cats. Advice from today's mindset cat: if you're facing monsters, don't let fear stop you.


Writing Video. And here's a video about my favorite punctuation mark: The Semicolon.


Event Deadline. This is not an event, but instead an announcement about an upcoming event deadline: Feb. 24, one week from today, is the deadline to submit your research for Undergraduate Research Day. It's for both research and creative work! (details)


February 17: Loreena McKennit. Today marks the birthday in 1957 of the Canadian musician Loreena McKennit. Happy birthday, Loreena! Loreena has done wonderful work with traditional ballads and melodies from Celtic and Middle Eastern traditions and has created a distinctive wonderful style all her own. You can read about her work and career in this Wikipedia article, and you can listen to her marvelous rendition of the traditional ballad, The Highwayman, here at YouTube.com.



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