Sunday, February 18

Today is Sunday of Week 5. If you have not finished the end-of-week assignments, today is the day to do that, and maybe you will want to do some extra credit also! You can find all the assignments for this week and next week at the Class Calendar.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tip: Check your progress. Now that one-third of the semester is over (no kidding!), it's a good time to check your progress at the Progress Chart to make sure you are on track for the grade you want in this class.

Project Stack. I'll be updating the stack today so that you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. The sooner you get that turned in today, the sooner you will get comments back from me next week (if you wait until Sunday evening, it might take me until Thursday or Friday to get comments back to you).

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Here's a blog post from Akriti about her participation in Soonerthon: Twelve-Hour Dance Marathon for Soonerthon. This is a great event at OU, and if you want to support Akriti, here's her link. If anybody else has a blog post about a campus event you are involved in, let me know!

Myth Item. I know there are a lot of science majors in this class, so here is a cartoon by Tom Gauld: Mythical Scientific Creatures.

India Video: As we finish up with the Ramayana, I wanted to share one more Rama video: Seven Secrets of Vishnu: Rama (you will find Part 2 at that link).

Myth Book Online: Today's free book is The White Elephant and Other Tales from India by Georgene Faulkner,. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. The illustrations by Frederick Richardson are especially gorgeous:

Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is from the ancient Indian story collection known as the Hitopadesha: Beware the tiger who offers you a golden bracelet. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

Writing: If you ever wondered why commas are so complicated, it's because we use commas for so many different purposes, as you can see here: The 15 Punctuation Marks.

H.E.A.R.T.: As a lifelong weirdo, I really like this graphic! Make your weird light shine bright.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is ready to make that big effort: Effort ignites ability and turns it into accomplishment. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Video: Here's anoter empathy video, which features a beautiful revelation at the end: The Present.

Event on Campus: There's a matinee showing of Nice Work If You Can Get It in the Elsie C. Brackett Theatre at 3PM today (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 18: Nikos Kazantzakis. Today marks the birthday of the Greek poet and novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis, who was born in 1883. You may know him as the author of the book The Last Temptation of Christ — but his special significance for those of you in the Myth-Folklore class is that he wrote a continuation of the Odyssey, a modern epic poem picking up where Homer left off: The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. You can read more about his life and career in this Wikipedia article. Here is a photograph of the inscription on Kazantzakis's tomb: Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα, δε φοβούμαι τίποτα, είμαι λέφτερος (I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.).

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