Wednesday, May 5

Today is Wednesday of Dead Week (Week 15). Here is a link to this week's items. All the assignments are ready to go; no need to wait! I hope you will be able to finish the class today or tomorrow; the class is over on Friday at noon. If you have any questions about that, let me know!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. Yesterday I read through all projects from people who are not done with the class yet, and today I'll start sending back comments to those of you who are already done with the class. As always, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

Course Evaluations.The window is open at eval.ou.edu, and your feedback is really important, especially for the online course program .The only reason these online courses exist is because students find them valuable: your support for online courses matters! This is my last semester teaching at OU, but of course I hope the online course program will continue (I am a believer in the power of online courses), and if you want to see online courses offered in the future, this is a chance for you to share your thoughts about that.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. A very cool Wikipedia Trail from Dalton: From Brahma to Mahavidya, which are the aspects of the goddess, Devi, as you can see here:

For some music, another beautiful Maati Baani video: Jao Priya.

And here's a story from India: Rahu-Ketu, the Eclipse Demon (you can click here for a transcription of the story).

This is a Cherokee storyteller, Robert Lewis, talking about The First Fire.

And here's a surprising English word from Greek mythology: MORPHINE, which takes its name from the god Morpheus.

Some inspiring thoughts by the great fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman.

Did you get a good night's sleep last night? Here's some information about sleep and the brain (and you can click here for a transcription of the infographic).

These are some items from the announcements back in Week 9:

Another lovely comic from Grant Snider (larger view):

Something about monsters from Crash Course:

And perhaps you have heard of Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell in Greek mythology? Well, here is puppy Cerberus! :-)

Plus a cat to inspire your reading (via Sudesna Ghosh) if you are doing a reading item today:

May 5: Cinco de Mayo. In Mexico, the Cinco de Mayo holiday is not a national holiday (it is celebrated mainly in the state of Puebla, in east-central Mexico), but in other countries, especially the United States, Cinco de Mayo has become an important holiday to celebrate Hispanic cultural heritage and traditions. You can read more about the holiday in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for this great image of a children's Cinco de Mayo parade in Minnesota:

Some chill music for a Cinco de Mayo celebration:

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