Friday, February 17

HAPPY FRIDAY! You have reached the end of Week 5! The blog commenting assignment for this week is available now, and there are also project feedback groups this week too: lots of chances to connect! Here is a link to the class calendar; if you finish Week 5 today, Week 6 is ready to go. :-)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. I've replied to all the assignments turned in on Sunday, and today I'll work through the rest of the stack, up to anything turned in on Thursday. I'll try to get to anything turned in on Friday, but that will probably go in the stack for Monday. You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. It is really exciting to see all the Projects that people have created this semester!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Mindfulness. Here's a great graphic from TinyBuddha.com about how to practice the pause.

Language. I thought those of you in Myth-Folklore who read Egyptian stories this week would enjoy this cartoon about hieroglyphs and emojis.

Spelling. Another word pair that the spellchecker will not help you with: CLICK versus CLIQUE.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Jackals of Telekeshi: Tales of the Watering Hole. The jackal is a troublemaker and trickster, and the lion, baboon, and giraffe all have stories to tell about him.

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Ramayana: India's Immortal Tale of Adventure, Love and Wisdom by Krishna Dharma. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. Those of you in Indian Epics who are wanting some more Rama, Sita, and Hanuman, you will find it here; thanks to the generosity of the author, this contemporary translation of the epic is available free online:

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is The snake goes crookedly, yet it arrives straight within its hole (a Kashmiri proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. As long as you make it to Friday, it doesn't matter how you got here!

Video: The video for today is Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care. Find out more at the H.E.A.R.T. blog.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is full of confidence: Yes, I can! You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: The Pink and Black Ball is tonight at 8PM in the Union: it's an alcohol-free semi-formal benefit to raise funds for the Gender + Equality Center (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 17: Loreena McKennit. Today marks the birthday in 1957 of the Canadian musician Loreena McKennit. Happy birthday, Loreena! In the spirit of myth and folklore, 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.