Friday, January 17

HAPPY FRIDAY! Today is Friday of Week 1, and you have reached the end of the Orientation Week: congratulations on all you have gotten done this week! The Orientation is all about getting ready for the semester to come, and in Week 2 the readings and stories will begin. I hope you will have fun with all of that!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Weekly schedule. As you saw this week, there were assignments due on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday — and then there are "end of the week" assignments, which you can do on Friday or over the weekend. So, if you have not finished up the final Orientation assignments, you can do that today (Friday), or over the weekend, based on what is most convenient for you.

Catching up on announcements. If you didn't keep up with the week's announcements, you can always catch up on them afterwards; this link will take you to the most recent announcements.

Blog comments. I'm still commenting on the Favorite Places post (they are so much fun to read!), and then I'll start commenting on the Introduction posts; it usually takes me a week or two to read and reply to all of those. Meanwhile, the Week 2 Commenting assignment is available now, so you may be getting comments on your blog posts from other people in class too.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Those of you in Indian Epics will be reading about heroic archers in the epics... and there's an archer in class: this is from Hannah's favorite place post; she's teaching archery at Camp Allen. How cool is that?!

Twitter Stream. An exciting thing that happens at Twitter every Thursday is #FolkloreThursday; yesterday was also "Appreciate a Dragon Day," so there was this item in the stream: Dragons: A Brief History of the Mythical, Fire-Breathing Beasts.

Indian Epics Today. The character for today is SHIVA, the great god, or Mahadeva (Great-God). He is the god of destruction and also the god of yoga and of dance, the Nataraja (Dance-King). You can find out more here: Shiva.

Storybooks. This is a Shiva Storybook from last semester: Maha Shiva and the Epics. (If you are interested in learning about different kinds of web publishing systems, this website is made with Wix.)

Myth-Folklore Video. Here's a fun video that shows how animals of all sizes and types are worthy of storytelling: Tiny Hamster is a Giant Monster!

Indian Music Video. Jere's a Maati Baani video with music for the weekend: Tore Matware Naina, featuring Joy Shanti; the video was filmed on Azheekal beach in Kerala, India.

Words. The word from mythology today is FRIDAY, from the name of the Germanic goddess of married love, Frigg, wife of Odin; details here. Happy Frigg's-Day!

100-Word Stories. Today's story is a fable from India: The Scorpion and the Turtle (click title for more info).

Mindset Cats. Today's growth mindset cat is reminding you to study hard, and then take a break.

Event on Campus. There will be free screenings of Knives Out at 6PM, 9PM and midnight in Meacham, and you can vote on other films you'd like to see this semester: Meacham Movies.

January 17: Benjamin Franklin. Today is the birthday of Benjamin Franklin, polymath and politician, who was born in 1706. For more about his remarkable life and accomplishments, see this Wikipedia article. There is also a delightful bit of Latin verse composed in Franklin's honor by the French statesman Turgot: Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis, "He ripped the lightning from the sky, and the sceptre from the tyrants." The painting below shows "Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," by Benjamin West (Philadelphia Museum of Art).

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