Saturday, March 10

Today is Saturday of Week 8. I hope you are enjoying the weekend!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tip: Congratulate yourself! I hope everybody got a sense of accomplishment by looking back at your work during the review week... and you should all take a moment to congratulate yourselves for all the new things you have explored in this class (stories, technology, everything) and also for all the things you have shared with the class. Congratulations for all that you have done!

Project Stack. On Friday I managed to reply to most, but not all, of the Week 7 assignments, along with most of the early assignments people had turned in. While you are waiting on comments back from me about your Project assignment, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. I also sent around reminder emails to those of you who do have a Week 8 project assignment due this weekend, and if you have any questions about that, let me know!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. People shared lots of great thoughts in their review blog posts, along with some really nice graphics, like this one from Kayla's blog: Never a failure, always a lesson.

Myth Item. Here is a wonderful word from Greek mythology: LABYRINTH. It comes from the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, the monster imprisoned in the labyrinth built by the master craftsman, Daedalus.

India Video: OU's Holi celebration is today (see below), so I wanted to share this new video from Maati Baani that they released for Holi this year: Dhanak Rang De | Holi Special Song.

Myth Book Online: Today's free book is Magda, Queen of Sheba translated by Bessie van Vorst. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. You can find out more about the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast at Wikipedia.

Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb offers ecological advice: Dig a well before you are thirsty. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

H.E.A.R.T.: Here's an item to ponder as you think about how to spend your weekend: People to Surround Yourself With.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset kitten is ready for something new: Embrace challenges! You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Writing: Here's an item from the Punctuation Saves Lives file:

Video: Here's a punctuation video that I thought you might enjoy: How to Use a Semicolon. (Personally, I am a huge fan of semicolons!)

Event on Campus: Today is OU's Holi celebration at Walker-Adams Mall, 11AM-3PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 10: Mikhail Bulgakov. Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1940 of one of the most extraordinarily talented writers of the 20th century, and a personal favorite of mine, Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita — I won't even try to summarize the plot of this fabulous book (you can read a synopsis here at Wikipedia); I'll just mention that some of the characters include the Devil himself, a black cat named Behemoth, various and sundry witches, as well as Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. Below you can see a statue of the cat Behemoth in the city of Kiev (which is now the capital of Ukraine), where Bulgakov was born in 1891.

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