Friday, April 17

Yes, you made it to another FRIDAY. It is the end of Week 13 (which is the fourth week of the weird new all-online semester... pretty incredible!). For those of you are working ahead to finish up, here's a link to Week 14, plus a link to Week 12 if you're using the grace period to do any of those items from last week.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Suggestion Box. There's a Suggestion Box link in the Canvas menu and also here in the blog sidebar; as always, if you have thoughts or ideas about the class, feel free to use that. This semester has turned out like nobody expected, and nobody knows what Fall semester is going to be like yet... so if you have ideas or suggestions as we carry on in this strange new world, let me know!

Project Stack. Yesterday I replied to all the projects turned in on Sunday, and I've been working on the Monday items, and I'll get through as much of the stack as I can today. Meanwhile, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email. Also, I wanted to say THANK YOU for working on your projects; I have been really glad to have stories in the stack to read every day.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Lots of people have been experimenting with microfictions, and those six-word stories can be the hardest... but look what Brett came up with: Horror Microfiction. Just six words... serious horror.

It all starts with a cough.

Twitter Stream. And here's a more light-hearted bit of microfiction from Twitter: it's a mythological microfiction!

For the Covid-item today at Twitter, I thought this was so cute: a professor is asking her students to share pictures of their pets helping them to study now that classes are all at home:

Myth-Folklore Video. Here's a very cool Crash Course video: African Pantheons.

Myth-Folklore. And from the wide world of mythology and folklore, here is a diagram of Mythical Creatures.

Indian Epics Today. The characters for today are the Ashwins, the divine fathers of the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva. More about the Ashwins. Plus an Epified video: The Greatest Twins.

Writing. If you need some encouragement in your writing, Sylvia Duckworth has lots of reasons why you should be creative.

H.E.A.R.T.. And if you had a hard week (every week feels hard these days...), here's some advice from Molly Hahn of Buddha Doodles:

April 17: Benjamin Franklin. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Franklin in the year 1790; he was born in 1706. You can find out more at Wikipedia. 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.