Copan

Throughout the Classic Period, the Mayan civilization ruled the area in which they were located.  One of the greatest Mayan cities during this time period was the city of Copan.  This city is located in present day Honduras and grew to prominence during the classic period.  One of the most important and well known structures in this city is the hieroglyphic staircase.  What makes this structure so well known is the fact that each staircase tells a story or event that has happened within the Mayan history.  These stories range from rulers deaths, new rulers coming to power, etc. This structure is currently still translated.  This staircase has helped us further understand the life of the Mayans and their civilizations.

Display Day

Yesterday, instead of having class, we all went to the FYS Display Day.  Here, there was a variety of things and activities to see, such as posters of haunted places, participate in yoga and other mediation activities, as well as read brochures.  I took part in seeing the haunted places, mostly because that sort of thing interests me.  The poster that interested me the most of about the island of dolls.  But why did this interest me so much?  Well, this interested me mostly because it creeped me out the most.  Like why are there scary looking dolls everywhere throughout the entire island.  This fact made me want to look up more information on the Internet.  However, after seeing all of the posters with haunted places on them, I was led to think that this class about ghosts and legends and their stories was really interesting.  I would like to learn about all these ghost stories even if I would be a little freaked out.  As a matter of fact, I listed this class to be one I wanted to take after the class I am in now.  As I was walking around the displays, I noticed the brochures on baseball and the question it asked: Sport or Religion?  Why was this question so interesting to me?  Well, it is just because I play the sport of baseball and that I believe it is a sport with religion spread throughout it.  Just take Josh Hamilton for example.  He is a Christian person who found God to come out of his bad time when he did drugs.  This is just one example of how religion is used in the sport of baseball.  Overall, I found that the Display Day was very interesting and I learned a lot from going!

Astronomy

Throughout the period of the Mayans, many of the Mayan people accomplished so many things.  A couple of these accomplishments include writing and math.  An accomplishment of writing is that scholars have called the Mayan writing one of the hallmarks of a true civilization.  My question is how were the scholars able to understand the writing of the Mayans?  I mean I could never understand the writing because it looks difficult to understand.  For the math concept, the Mayans were the first civilization to have the concept of zero.  This concept was a huge step in history.  I just don't understand how the Mayans were smart enough to establish all of the accomplishments that they accomplished.  This just amazes me!  Another idea that amazes me is the fact that they understood astronomy and how they created building that alined  with the stars.

Deities

Throughout the civilization of the Mayans, the people believed in deities and the afterlife.  They associated these gods or deities with animals.  But why did they use animals as figures for their gods?  I am puzzled by this fact.  Also, why do the Mayans have specific animals for specific things that these gods symbolize or worship?  What was interesting about the Mayans is that they believed in life after death.  This was especially interesting with the story of Pakal and how the Mayans designed his tomb to allow him to travel to the afterlife.  In my opinion, I am believe the same this that Ricky believes when he taught us about the conspiracy theory about Pakal flying into space on a spaceship.  That is really interesting in how we depict these different theories about the Mayans.

Contribution

Throughout some point in my life, I would like to be part of a contribution that helps part of a community or some part of the world, such as a country.  To me, this contribution could range from something little to something big.  However, in my opinion, I believe that I should do something big for a community or country because that is the type of person I am.  I like to do stuff for people due to the fact that I am a nice guy.  One contribution that I would like to make is to go on a missionary trip to a country filled with poverty.  While I'm on this trip, I would build schools, churches, etc. in order to help this country out.  Also to just put a smile on the people of this country would be an awesome feeling because I like to do that to people and that with a smile on there face I would feel like I have done something good for them. This is a contribution I would like to make due to the fact that my high school would go on these trips and they really interested me, however I could never go on them because I would have baseball.  However, I would really like to go on one now.

Mayan God - Itzamna

Throughout the Mayan civilizations, many people believed in gods that symbolized certain things, such as the sun, food, water, war, etc.  Out of all the gods that the Mayans believed in, one of the most important gods was known as Itzamna.  According to the Mayan language, is name means or symbolizes a lizard.  To the Mayans, he appears as an old man with a hooked nose and large eyes.  Overall, he is the god of creation, otherwise known as the ruler of the heavens and day and night, the god of corn, the calendar, writing, and many other things.  Throughout many myths of the Mayan people, Itzamna, has been seen as a cultural hero of some type due to the fact that he help create the foundations of civilization for the Mayan people.  All in all, this god is one of the most important gods in Mayan mythology.

Creation

Similar to the blog I wrote last week, we had a discussion about the speaker. Why is hip hop music so popular right now when most of it is violent or speaks about being violent and doing illegal acts?  In my opinion it is due to two main reasons.  One reason is because the children of this generation are somewhat rebellious and do what they want, even if it is violent.  The second reason is because many of the children are raised in homes that allow them to listen to hip hop music, so this in turn makes it necessary for them to be violent.  Also we discussed the creation myths.  How are the Popul Vuh and the Christian Bible are similar?  I believe that it due to the fact that they both talk about a creation story.  This includes explaining the creation of the earth, animals, and humans.  When do we register for our classes?  We discussed this briefly, so I should just see my advisor and discuss it with him.  What if I can’t get into a certain class?  Do I just what to take it the following year?

Hip hop

"Why is hip hop music so popular right now when the majority of it is violent, demeaning toward women, and vulgar?  What does its popularity say about us as a society and what we value or do not value?"

Hip hop music is so popular right now for a couple of reasons.  One major reason in my opinion is that many children these days seem to be somewhat rebellious.  As being rebellious, the children want to be like the people the rappers are rapping about.  They want to seen as "cool and fit-in", so they become more violent and vulgar as well as more demeaning toward women.  Another factor could be the fact that many people are raised to listen rap music, so it just becomes popular to them.  This popularity says about us as a society that we value the wrong things just to "fit-in".  This also tells us that society chooses not to respect people.

Time?

Time? What is time? Throughout the past week, the idea of time played a key role in our discussions.  But, what really is time?  I believe that time is just a way to organize your everyday activities.  For example, waking up in the morning or going to class.  We all have to do this everyday and it involves time because you wake up at a certain time and your class begins at a certain time.  To the Mayans, time played a very important role in their everyday life, such as night and day as well as the seasons throughout the year.  Numbers, however, was also a very important role to the Mayans.  What just amazes me is the fact that the archeologists found a way to understand the Mayan language and read the the numbers that the Mayans wrote down.  Like how did they come up with the ideas for what the Mayans were trying to say.  This just amazes me how they are so smart to recognize the language.

 

How did they do it?

How did the Mayans do it?  The Mayans just completely blows my mind with everything they did, such as creating the ball game, building their cities, and researching the stars.  How were they so smart with the little tools that they had?  How did archeologists first know how to read the Mayan language?  In my personal opinion, I don't see how they first came to realize what everything meant.  Did they just guess at first?  I'm just confused how they came to conclusion on what everything meant.  Overall, I'm just intrigued with everything about the Mayans, such as their lifestyle and why they did what they did. When I get older, I would love to take a trip to a Mayan city just to learn more about them and see their creations up close and personal.

Who am I? Part 2

Who am I? Yet again we learned about more if our classmates and yet again it was very informative.  I believe that this assignment, Cultural Autobiography, was a great way to get to know the people around you.  After giving my presentation, I believe that my classmates around me know me for me and know what kind of person I am, so hopefully my classmates and I can become closer.  What are major problems surrounding the campus of Shenandoah University?  Without a doubt the answer is alcohol and smoking.  Learning this from Ricky, or as I should say Professor Pardo, was really interesting because I never knew that these factors were such a big deal.  My perspective of both alcohol and smoking has greatly changed due to the fact that they can both be such a hazard on your life.

Who Am I?

Who am I?  Throughout this entire week, I got to learn about all of my classmates.  What I came to realize was that our class is very unique!  I enjoy meeting and learning about new people because I am just that kind of guy.  There are kids from all over the United States.  I found that through the cultural autobiography, that I am more interested in learning about other people.  So from now on, around campus, I will introduce myself to people I do not know and hopefully get to know them more.  As I see my classmates around campus everyday, I realize that I am either just like them or that I am far different from them in so many ways.  Hopefully, in the next couple of days, after I do my presentation about myself, everyone will see me as me!

Sending Shenandoah to the World

If I was to ever go abroad, where would I go?  This question frequently floated around my head throughout the entire time I was at the Study Abroad Fair.  After leaving the fair, I realized that I would like to spend my time abroad in South Africa.  I would want to go here due to the fact that I am interested in what the culture is like in South Africa and how the people interact with each other there.  To be completely honest, I walked into the fair not wanting to leave the country to study abroad.  However upon leaving the event, I became extremely interested and asked this question to myself: how do I even begin the process of studying abroad?  I asked this question to myself because I feel like I could one of the people who typically would like to study abroad and expand my horizon in order to learn a new language and study outside of the United States.  The Study Abroad Fair really did change my way of thinking about creating a new journey in my life and study abroad.