Friday, Feb. 17 - Sunday, Feb. 19

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 5! The Week 5 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and so is the Week 5 Internet assignment (Storybook Coverpage commenting). Please make sure you get started on those assignments soon; they are due today or over the weekend.

Storybook Stack. If you turned in a Week 4 Storybook assignment on time, you should have gotten comments back from me now, with points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned in a late Week 4 Storybook, or an early Storybook for Week 5 or Week 6, it is probably still in the stack. Because the Introduction is often the hardest part of the Storybook for people to write, this is the week where it takes me the longest to read and reply to everybody's assignments... so, if I don't manage to finish everything in the stack on Friday, I will get comments back to you on Saturday at the latest for any assignment that people have turned in before Friday at 8AM. Anything turned in after 8AM on Friday morning will go into the stack for next week.

GoogleSites Tips. (repeat announcement) For the Week 5 Storybook assignment, you will be publishing your Introduction at your Storybook website. Here are some tips you might want to look at as you continue to work on the layout and design of your site: image size and placement - design templates - site navigation - site title and page titles. Also, please review the information on adding a new page - ESPECIALLY the part in bold red about making your new page a "top level" page; if you don't do that, you'll end up with a subpage which might give you all kinds of grief in the future!

Internet assignment - Ning Comment Wall. (repeat announcement) If you did not read the previous announcement about the Week 5 Internet assignment and the Ning Comment Walls, make sure you take a look at those announcements now - and you can even get extra credit for making your Comment Wall ready for visitors, both by making some more room on your Ning page, and also by adding a YouTube video to your page if you want, just for fun!

Friday Events on Campus. There will be free screenings of the film The Immortals (website) at 6PM, 9PM and midnight in Meacham auditorium (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Saturday, February 18: Nikos Kazantzakis. This Saturday 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 φοβάμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύτερος (I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.)

Thursday, February 16

Today is Thursday of WEEK 5 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, you have until noon today to turn that in for partial credit. For those of you in Myth-Folklore, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

GoogleSites Tips. For the Week 5 Storybook assignment, you will be publishing your Introduction at your Storybook website. Here are some tips you might want to look at as you continue to work on the layout and design of your site: image size and placement - design templates - site navigation - site title and page titles. Also, please review the information on adding a new page - ESPECIALLY the part in bold red about making your new page a "top level" page; if you don't do that, you'll end up with a subpage which might give you all kinds of grief in the future!

Internet assignment - Ning Comment Wall. If you did not read the previous announcement about the Week 5 Internet assignment and the Ning Comment Walls, make sure you take a look at those announcements now - and you can even get extra credit for making your Comment Wall ready for visitors, both by making some more room on your Ning page, and also by adding a YouTube video to your page if you want, just for fun!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the very large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it - you can check to make sure I have your assignment by looking at the contents of the stack here. I will do my best to respond to everything in stack before the weekend, but this week is the busiest of the whole semester for me (the Introduction is the hardest part of the Storybook to write), which can mean I might end up doing schoolwork on Saturday - we'll see how it works out this semester! If you turned something in on time, I promise to get it back before the weekend; I might not get to the late assignments until Saturday.

Thursday Events on Campus. The OU Juggling Club (website) will be meeting from 8PM-10PM in the Huston Huffman Fitness Center, Room 140 - beginners are welcome; no experience required! (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 16: Christopher Eccleston. As some of you know already, I am a Doctor Who fan (fanatic), and today, February 16, is the birthday of Christopher Eccleston, who is my favorite of the Doctors; he was the Ninth Doctor in the 2005 season of the series. For those of you who have never watched Doctor Who, you can get it at Netflix - instant streaming! I've been watching Doctor Who literally all my life - the series began all the way back in 1963. You can find out more in this Doctor Who article at Wikipedia; the image below shows the Doctor and his time-traveling spaceship (it just looks like a police call-box) named the TARDIS:

Wednesday, February 15

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 5 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Week 5 Internet assignment. If you did not read yesterday's announcements, make sure you take a look at them now, especially the information about the Week 5 Internet assignment. I hope you will have fun looking at other people's coverpages. Plus, you might get some ideas for things to try with your own coverpage, since of course you can keep modifying your coverpage all semester long!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment by Sunday at 8PM, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 8PM on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Writing Center. For your Storybook assignments, you are expected to turn in a formal piece of writing, with correct English usage, spelling, and punctuation. If you would like some extra help with that, make a visit to the Writing Center. Whether you need a refresher course on English punctuation or just some help in learning how to proofread your own work, the Writing Center is the place to go! For hours and services, visit the Writing Center website.

Wednesday Events on Campus. There will be a free screening of the film "Pearls on the Ocean Floor," a documentary about contemporary Iranian women artists, at 7PM in Meacham Auditorium in the Union (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 15: Nirvana Day. In some Buddhist countries, February 15 is celebrated as Nirvana Day or Parinirvana Day (in other countries it is celebrated on February 8). This is, by tradition, the anniversary of the day on which the Buddha left this life; as he died, he achieved "nirvana" which is release from the cycle of life, suffering, death and rebirth. You can read more about this holiday at the BBC Religions website. The image below is a depiction from Thailand of the Buddha's parinirvana:

Tuesday, February 14

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 5 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 5 is on top. This week's topic in the Myth-Folklore class is Rome, and in Indian Epics Rama is about to begin his exile from Ayodhya. The Week 5 Internet assignment is available starting today! If you have not turned in your Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Week 5 Internet assignment available NOW. For the next eight weeks (Week 5 through Week 12), your Internet assignment will consist of reading people's Storybooks and leaving comments for them. This is an assignment that you cannot do early - but on the first day of each new week in the class, that is, on Tuesday, the Internet assignment becomes available, and you have the rest of the week to complete it. So, today, Tuesday, is the first day of Week 5, and the Internet assignment for Week 5 is available through the rest of the week and weekend. I hope you will enjoy looking at other people's coverpages and giving them some feedback!

The Ning Comment Wall. People will be leaving comments about your Storybook at the Ning Comment Wall which is part of your Profile page. In order to get your Profile page ready, I would strongly suggest that you make the latest activity and blog activity invisible so that there will be more room on your Profile page for the Comment Wall. There is a Technology Tip for cleaning up your Ning Profile in order to make room for all the activity that will now start happening at your Comment Wall.

Storybook Stack. The Storybook stack is HUGE this week. If you turned in an assignment on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday or Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. The Introduction is often the most challenging part of the Storybook for people to write, which means it is also a challenge for me to get comments back to everyone before the weekend. Meanwhile, if you have not yet turned in your Storybook for Week 4, you can still do that for partial credit.

Tuesday Events on Campus. Paula Conlon will be giving a Native American Flute concert at noon in the Sandy Bell Gallery of the Museum of Art as part of the Noon Concert Series (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

Valentine's Day: Green M&M Legend. In honor of Valentine's Day, I decided to look for a Valentine's Day Legend from Snopes.com. Here is what I found: in 2008, the Mars Candy Company promoted the distribution of packages of all-green M&M candies because the green candies are supposedly an aphrodisiac - true or false??? Well, it is true that Mars promoted the green candies for Valentine's Day that year, but as to whether the green M&Ms really are an aphrodisiac, Snopes.com is not saying! Other legends about the candy colors are as follows: orange M&Ms are good luck, brown ones are bad luck, and if you get a red one last out of the bag, you should make a wish and it will come true. As for the green M&Ms being an aphrodisiac, no one is quite sure how this rumor got started - but it has been circulating since the 1970s! Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday, February 13

Today is Monday. Week 4 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Week 5 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started!

MONDAY: Campus closed until 10AM. Due to the winter weather, the OU campus is closed on Monday morning until 10AM. Since there are no assignments due on Monday, I haven't made any changes to the class schedule. In general, campus closings do not affect the schedule for this class - but if a power outage or other winter weather trouble causes some disruption in your Internet access, let me know as soon as you get back online in order to figure out how best to make up any missing work.

You really can call me Laura! Some of you still seem to feel like you need to call me Professor or Dr. or something like that. No need for that, really! (Plus, I am just an instructor and not a professor, so I don't want to get in trouble with the professor police, ha ha.) Anyway, since I'm on a first-name basis with all of you, please do the same and just call me Laura.

Storybook Coverpages. I'll be updating the list of Storybook websites for Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics on Monday afternoon when people have finished turning in their Week 4 coverpages. You can continue to experiment with your coverpage design all semester long, of course! Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, for the Week 5 Internet assignment you will be looking at and commenting on each other's Storybooks via the class list. I'll have more to say about that in tomorrow's announcements!

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. The first thing I will do on Monday morning when I get to work is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. You can then check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will be reading and reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in. If you turned in your assignment on Sunday or later, you may have to wait a few days before you will get comments back from me. In fact, this is one of the busiest weeks for me in terms of replies to Storybooks because the Introduction is often the hardest part of the Storybook to write. It will take me all week to get through the stack!

Monday Events on Campus. There will be a free showing of "The Help" on Monday at 7PM in Meacham Auditorium (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 13-15: Lupercalia. Today is the Ides of February in the Roman calendar, which means it is the first day of the festival of the Lupercalia. Lupercus was the god of shepherds and his festival was intended to insure fertility in the coming spring. At the beginning of the festival, there was an animal sacrifice, and thongs were then made out of the hides of the animals. The Luperci priests would then run through the streets, dressed in goatskins, and lash the women of the city with the thongs, a ritual which was meant both to promote fertility among the women, as well as an easy childbirth. William Shakespeare famously included the Lupercalia in his play Julius Caesar; you can see that reference here. You can read more about Lupercalia in this Wikipedia article.

(image source)