Thursday, April 9

Today is Thursday of Week 12. Here is a link to Week 12 and also Week 13 for anybody working ahead, plus that link to Week 11 which is still available too!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned in a project before 3PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now, and I will keep working on the Sunday assignments today; I should be able to read and reply to all the Sunday items today! Meanwhile, as always you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.

Mix-and-match. This is just a reminder that as you are planning how to finish up the class, any combination of assignments will work, and all the Week 11-12-13-14-15 assignments are available there in Canvas right now. When you are done, you can let me know by filling out the "Finished" form, also in Canvas. With the special grading policy this semester, you can take a P/pass grade in the class after you reach 301 points, or you can opt for a traditional letter grade (A 410, B 360, C 320, just like before).

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Here is another lovely biographical post; this time it's Maria writing about how she got her kitten Bingo as a birthday present when she was little. And Bingo Was His Name-o.

Twitter Stream. I thought this was a great Twitter message about philoxenia, "kindness to strangers," and you can learn more about the ancient Cueva de las Manos in Argentina at Wikipedia.

And on a Covid-related note, Queen Elizabeth recently addressed the nation... and the meme-makers went wild! You can see a lot of great ones at this Twitter thread. Of course I like the cat... and the Star Trek. :-)

Myth-Folklore. Here's a very cool animated gif; see more animated ruin gifs.

Myth-Folklore Video. This is a Crash Course video focusing on a character from Pacific mythology who also gave his name to one of the Hawaiian islands: Ma'ui, Oceania's Hero.

Indian Epics Today. Today's character is RAVANA, the ten-headed king of the rakshasas in Lanka; more about Ravana. Here you can see Ravana fighting in the Battle of Lanka:

Proverbs. And here's a proverb from India about otters: It is vain to look for yesterday’s fish in the house of the otter.

H.E.A.R.T.. Yes, it's that time of the semester: ask the coffee flowchart what to do!

Mindset Video. The characters at Zootopia keep on learning, with some help from Shakira: Try everything. (And the gazelle might remind you of Shakira's Super Bowl performance!)

April 9: Passover. The Passover (Pesach) holiday has begun; you can read more about this major Jewish holiday at Wikipedia. Passover began last night at sunset, and it continues for eight days, through April 16. Below is a Passover music video by the amazing Nina Paley: Chad Gadya, and you can read more about this folksong at Wikipedia. The last verse has all the characters in the chain: Then came the Holy One, and smote the angel of death, who slew the slaughterer, who killed the ox, that drank the water, that extinguished the fire, that burned the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat.

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