Monday, February 8

Today is Monday. Week 2 is now over... and WEEK 3 has begun. The new week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is Biblical and Classical stories, and in Indian Epics you will be starting the Ramayana. I hope you will enjoy the stories! You can find the week's assignments at the Class Calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. As usual on Monday, the project stack is huge. Providing feedback on all the project assignments usually takes me all week, and I work through the assignments in the order they were turned in. While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Introduction comments. I hope everyone got one or two comments on their Introductions over the weekend. The randomizer works well overall, but, being random, it means you'll get more comments some weeks, fewer comments in others. I'm still commenting on the Introductions, and that's something I will be working on this week and next week also. Meanwhile, you'll be getting more comments on your Introduction this week and every week going forward (you'll see how that works when you do the Week 3 commenting).

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream.  Some of you have been exploring the growth mindset extra credit options (yay!). To inspire you to carry on with learning more about how you learn and grow, I wanted to share this really cool graphic from Hanna's growth mindset blog post.


Twitter stream. Here's some beautiful art from India; it's a depiction from a legend of two famous lovers, Shakuntala and Dushyanta:


A history professor had her students make memes using a Bayeux-Tapestry app, and they did a wonderful job; see the whole thread for more examples! There were my two favorites (more about Bayeux Tapestry).



One of my Twitter friends, Legonium, is doing a Lego version of Vergil's epic Aeneid! 


Reynard the Fox is one of my favorite folklore tricksters; here's a medieval illustration from the British Library where he's pretending to be a pious bishop... before he eats all those birds!


And here's some more Bhangra from Gurdeep Pandher in the Yukon:


A useful video from Crash Course: What is myth?


And here's a word from mythology: COLOSSAL (find out more), from Greek kolossos.


Plus a word that comes to English from India: ZEN (find out more)... from Sanskrit dhyana. 


February 8: Nirvana Day. Today is a Buddhist holiday, celebrated in some places on February 8, and also on February 15; you can read more at Wikipedia: Nirvana Day. This is, by tradition, the anniversary of the day on which the Buddha left this life. As he died, he achieved "nirvana" which is release from the cycle of life, suffering, death and rebirth. The image below is a depiction from Thailand of the Buddha's parinirvana:



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

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