Friday, February 23

HAPPY FRIDAY! You have reached the end of Week 6! Here is a link to the class calendar, where you will find Week 6, and also Week 7 if you are ready to just go go go this week and move on ahead.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tip: Reflect on Friday. Friday is naturally a good day for reflection, so take a few minutes to look back on the week and plan ahead for the weekend. And if you want to write out your thoughts, the Famous Last Words option is available every week; Friday is a perfect day to do that!

Project Stack. Yesterday I finished all the projects turned in on Sunday, and today I will get through as many of the projects turned in on Monday and later during the week. While you are waiting on comments, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Every week there are so many fascinating story experiments, and I wanted to share this one from Haley's blog: Dust and the Snake King. This story is a great example of how a single plot element from one story can be the basis for another story; you can see in Haley's note how she created this fascinating story using just one very weird plot detail from an Indian folktale.

Word from India. Today's word from India is the name of the game PARCHEESI. You can see a Parcheesi board in depictions of the famous gambling match in the Mahabharata:

Here's what the Hasbro Parcheesi board looks like; this was one of my favorite games when I was little, and I had no idea it came from India:

Myth Video: Here is one of the Horrible History videos from the BBC: Cleopatra, and here are lyrics to the song. Cleopatra was not actually Egyptian herself (she was Greek), but she was definitely the subject of myth and legend!

India Comic Book: Today's comic book features a distinctively Indian heroine: Sukanya: The Princess Who Married a Sage. See the Amar Chitra Katha blog for the Bizzell Reserve call number and more information.

Proverb of the Day: Here is an inspiring proverb from Kashmir: Man is more fragile than a flower, and yet harder than a stone. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

Writing: And here's some word humor for the weekend: Thesaurus Club.

H.E.A.R.T.: If you're feeling kind of overwhelmed by the things you don't know right now, think about this: The Power of I Don't Know.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is all about yet: What is this? I don't know . . . yet. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Video: Here's something for a happy end-of-the-week: Pharrell Williams - Happy. This video has almost a billion views... you could be one of the people who helps put it over one billion.

Event on Campus: There are free showings of Coco in Meacham tonight at 6PM, 9PM and midnight (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 23: Majel Barrett. As a lifelong fan of Star Trek in all its incarnations, I am also a fan of Majel Barrett in all her Star Trek roles, and today, February 23, is Majel Barrett's birthday. She was born in 1932 and died in 2008; her husband, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, died in 1991. She played Nurse Chapel in the original series and Lwaxana Troi in Next Generation and DS9, while also providing the computer voice for all three of those series, plus Voyager. Here you can see her in her original series days, and in Next Generation:

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