11/07

During the Postclassical Era, it seems as if many of the regions we have talked about changed politically, socially and economically. Byzantine definitely changed its political system after the fall of the Roman Empire. Church and state was more connected. It was not as conquering as the Romans were. The middle easy changed a lot. It changed because again church and state were connected. The rulers of the dynasties were Muslim and ruled according to ways that will not disobey they’re religion. China seems very inconsistent with its government. During the Sui dynasty, China was reunified but then again if falls many years later because of internal failure. People were taxed too much. Before its fall, China had many projects such as building palaces, repairing the Great Wall, and Building the Grand Canal. These projects probably resulted in high taxes. The tang dynasty comes in and tries to make the people content by equally distributing land which the Byzantine were unable to do. This equal distribution of land kept the people content for a very long time. The dynasty again falls but this time it was the because the emperor lost interest in political matters and grew an affinity towards worldly plearsures. The Song dynasty came along but boy was there way of governing terrible. They ended they’re reputation of being the “Middle Kingdom.” China became very decentralized at this point in time and were soon kicked out of they’re own land y the Jurchen which were nomads. Disorganized nomads defeating a people that are suppose to be well structured? That is odd. This was mainly due to the fact that the army had non experienced people leading the fight.
Economically, all three regions experience trade with another because the expanse of their empires. It seemed that trade again boomed because of the existence of the silk roads.
Social change was not really prominent in Byzantium and Islamic areas. In Chin it was kind of shown through land distribution, but to me its mostly prominent in the caste systems of India.

10/24/10

Byzantine empire was not as interesting as learning about Rome. I think it mainly lost my attention because of its lack of power. What was interesting in its chapter was the conflict between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church. They fought over too many things. They almost seemed even opposite of each other. It was as if what ever the Roman Catholic liked, the Eastern Orthodox had to hate it. So far Greece and Rome were my favorite chapters mainly because they both had strong empires and a strong government. I like learning about the Persian War. The history channel was on the other day and they were talking about the Persian War. Many of the stuff that they mentioned during the program I was able to recognize. At the end of the chapter on Greece, there was a section on religious salvation. It interested me on how they knew that there was a God who would send a savior who would die to save humanity. They also believed that only one God ruled the universe. The book happened to call this a mystery religion.Rome was interesting because of how its government and control changed from kingdom to republic and lastly to empire. The Romans didn’t seem to get into any major war besides the Punic War. I liked the way that Augustus ruled because he didn’t make his form of government seem so oppressive. He actually seemed like a great leader. He disguised his absolute control with a republic. He actually let the people take part in the government. The Silk Road was so dull to me. It only got interesting when I found out that two great empires, Rome and China, were connected. The Silk Road to the Roman roads.

Speech class

One time my friend and I were in an arcade on a cruise. W had just finished the whole game of Time Crisis at the same time setting the highest score. We were walking out when my friend bumped into another kid. This kid did no look past it but decided to attack my friend and start a fight. One thing he didn’t know was that my friend was a top mma fighter in the state of Virginia they both fought and my friend soon put him into submission using a sleeper hold. The kid was going to knock out in the arcade but i stopped my friend. later that evening me and my friends were walking out of a buffet and heading to the  lobby on the cruise. That was when we were stopped by the exact same kid but this time, he had 7 other friends with him. My friend was dumb enough to start aggravating the kid. that boy got so mad he started to  to throw some punches and that was when i pushed him back to prevent my friend from getting nailed in the face. This kid seriously had anger issues. he started to cuss us out so i just told him to calm down. I  then told my friends to just pick another route to go to the lobby. Ten minutes later, we were on our way to the pool . and guess who we saw? We happened to run into that angry little troll again. This time he and his friends were all cussing us out and taunting us. The angry little troll got  into a boxing stance and started doing punches at us.  I was tired of him and ready for a fight myself because one of my friends was a girl and he pushed her around and started trash talking her. Right when he was going up to her again for the second time, i pushed him back and went to his face and said, “ Hey, you don’t treat a girl like that , and second you really don’t want to start anything with me.” he pushed my back and said, “Why don’t you go back to China asian boy!” It was the last straw. I told him softly “Lets go,” and i got into my fighting stance to intimidate him out of a fight. He and his friends started to run towards me and i took it that they were stupid enough to still want to fight after i tried to hint to them that i was black belt. So i started running back. I ran back ten feet to give me room. Luckily i was in shorts. The next move I did was suppose to again intimidate them out of a fight, so I started to flips and the famous flying and flip kicks of shoulin. The second offensive finally work. The boys backed off and ran away. later tat evening, my friend found out that those boys were caught by the security gaurd for being rowdy and loud. My style of fighting is that of which bruce lee proclaimed was his style, “Fighting without fighting.”

 

10/10/10

The last two weeks of AP World have been on the Classical Era. So far we have already studied about Persia, China, and India. To me, Persia and China focused mostly on their government because their empires were large and had a high population. On the other hand, India tried to focus itself on India but became divided by their affinity towards having a social class and their religion. The barriers between social classes were to great for the lower classes to handle and created too much stress upon them. They sought after religion to relieve their stress. Those faiths that they clung towards to were ones that had the followers disconnect with all worldly affairs and just meditate . All three main religions, Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, held towards the belief of Ahimsa. By practicing ahimsa, followers were ordered to be kind to all things on earth. The common goal that the religions had, was to escape from the cycle of reincarnation.

Persia and China  both had a strong government and both lasted for hundreds of years. China lasted because of its tight control but in the end fell because of civil disorder. Persia survived much civil disorder because of the intricacy in its government. It was not overthrown my the people. It was only conquered by outside invaders. If the Persians and the Chinese were to integrated each others success in to their own government, they would have probably lasted for a few more hundred years.

Week 5

The past 2 weeks of Ap World History was busy and then again it wasn’t. We had fewer homework assignments, but starting now, we have to read a lot each week.

When we were discussing about the Indus Valley civilizations, one thing that interested me was the Rig Veda’s account for creation. The Rig Veda was very poetic in its writing. It was interesting to know that most of the civilization so far in the book incorporated a deity. They all had one for guidance and support. The Maya account for creation, Popul Vuh, is similar to the Genesis’s account to creation. The men in both accounts of creation had to be put to sleep. When they a woke from their sleeps, both had a life long partner. Learning of the Chinese dynasty was best when we were able to talk about their writing. They’re writing style is very different from most other writings. Their writing was very expressive and poetic whether they were talking about protesting the government or talking about brothers.

The one chapter that was the most intriguing was when we were talking about the early Mesoamerican society. How did they create a calendar that is so accurate with Earth’s rotation around the Sun. The book mentions that their calendar was only a few minutes off on the calculations of the earths rotation. How did they build their temples and monuments with such great architectural detail? Many of us in modern times would not be able to do many of the things the Mesoamerican civilizations did regarding astronomy and architecture without the proper training. These people had no training at all.

All the civilizations so far have been patriarchal. It would very interesting to come across a civilizations where the women dominated the men. That would be very different, but I highly doubt that is going to happen. I am looking forward to learn more about the Classical period in history. It looks more interesting.

Two weeks of Ap world history has passed and i have learned to like it a little more everyday. Its just simply fun for me to learn about different cultures. My favorite part about Ap world history so far is doing the fish bowl. During the fishbowl, im able to gain access to other students mind and see how they are thinking whether it be in agreeing in what i think or opposing to my ideas. It gives me a chance to catch different things that i might have missed in my reading.

For the first two weeks, discussing how the hunter gatherers slowly transitioned into being a agricultural society was quit interesting. They first had to go through so many hardships at first to in the end have a respectable life style, one higher than those of the HG. Because they were less worried about their survival, they were able to have more luxuries.

Learning about the Law Code of Hammurabi was very interesting in the sense of knowing how the people back them lived and. I saw that they had higher expectations of each others property. For example, if a man stole, he probably ended up dead. What was different between Hammurabi’s law and our law was pretty much equality. Women did not really gain the respect that they really deserved in some situations as they would in today’s situations. Women obviously did not have a high position in society as the men did. The laws back then evidently were abided by because the consequences for each rule was pretty much death. They enforced it by using psychological terrorizing the people. In the our time, we just put people in prison for a certain amount of time. In a way they both have pros and cons. We should not just take away a life because of a transgression but must apply forgiveness, evident in today’s justice. Back then they probably had a lower crime rate, but then again we must have respect for all life.

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