Class Procedures and Reminders
Project Stack. As always, the project stack is huge on Monday! While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.
Half-way through! With Week 7, we are getting to the halfway point of the semester, and Week 8 will be a review week (instead of the regular reading and storytelling, there are some reflection-and-planning posts). Also, I wanted to remind everybody that there's a finish-in-Week-13 option, before Thanksgiving Break. If you can get to 380 points by the end of Week 13, you can call the class done with an A, 335 for a B, 300 for a C. You can see how all that works here on the Progress Chart. (Finishing in Week 13 is just an option; you can also go the whole 15 weeks if you need to of course: 410 for an A, 360 for a B, 320 for a C.)
The following items are for fun and exploration:
Blog stream. This is something from the Padlet, so I am not sure who added it, but I thought it was wonderful! And if there is one thing you can take away from this class, I hope it will be faith in the process of learning online: click, explore, learn, and then share what you learn with others.
Also, for those of you who have done the "stress check," I don't know if you've looked the results, but you can see what other people have responded, and it's really striking how people's experiences are all over the map, from good to bad to in-between. Here's what the pie chart looks like right now:
The main thing is to just keep doing your best: this semester is not what anyone ever expected...
And from Scroll, a piece about namaste and distancing: Namaste has become the perfect pandemic greeting.
And a lovely OU photo from JoAnn Palmeri who works in Bizzell:
And not from Twitter, but from NPR this weekend, a wonderful interview with Maeve Gilchrist, who plays the Celtic harp: Maeve Gilchrist's New Album Features Heavenly Harp Music.
Storybook. So in honor of Celtic traditions, here's a Storybook from last year: Selkies in Celtic Folklore.
And if you're curious about the Celtic languages, here's a video:
Plus an Old Irish poem to enjoy from the 9th century: Pangur Ban. More at Wikipedia. I and Pangur Ban my cat, / 'Tis a like task we are at: / Hunting mice is his delight, / Hunting words I sit all night. / Better far than praise of men / 'Tis to sit with book and pen. / Pangur bears me no ill-will; / He too plies his simple skill.
100-Word Stories. In honor of World Teachers Day (see below), here is a story about Nasruddin and his students: Why Nasruddin Rides Backwards.
October 5: World Teachers Day. This is a UNESCO holiday in honor of all the teachers of the world; you can find out more at the UNESCO website, and you can follow the events of the day at #WorldTeachersDay at Twitter.
I'd like to honor my favorite teacher in grad school, Sally Goldman. She and her husband, Ronald Goldman, both teach Sanskrit at UC Berkeley, and they are also the directors of the Valmiki Ramayana translation project. Here is a video about their work; they are both in there!
Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.
