Anna's Human Geo Blog

        Today in class we took notes from the textbook. I learned about the rise of christianity. The life and teachings of Jesus is alot of what I read. God promised that the Messiah would come and restore the kingdom of the Jews, who were enslaved by the Romans. "Jesus of Nazareth" was a Jew named Jesus who was born in the town of Bethlehem. He was a carpenter. He was baptized by John the Baptist the prophet. Around the age of thirty is when Jesus began his public ministry. He preached, taught, did good works, and miracles. He taught and believed monotheism. Christianity was a growing movement whose source of teachings is the Gospels. The twelve men that followed Jesus were the apostles. Jesus and his apostles teachings started attracting larger and larger crowds. And ofcourse Jesus never focused on wealth or status. I learned alot from the textbook today.

        Today we took our test and it was open blog. I feel confident in how I did. My grade in this class is currently not a good grade. I'm hoping this test will bring my grade up. It was aslo jillian's birthday. I recognized all the information on the test, but for some questions a few details slipped my head and I took an educated guess. I also have some notes from last class that I didn't fit into my last blog. Pax Romana was a time of piece that lasted two hundred seven years. Ofcourse this roman peace was a struggle to obtain. There was forty years of stability and peace while Ceaser Augustus ruled as emporer. Next there was an age of emporers. During this time their was some good, some bad, and some insane emporers. Tiberius ruled as an excellent general, yet a reluctant leader. After his sin died he left Rome and quit the job. He died at age seventy seven. We had a good class.

        Today in class we learned about Ceaser and  Octavian. Ceaser's Reforms consisted of granting citizenship to people in provinces, expanding senate by adding friends, created jobs through the poor especially through public work, increased pay for soldiers, started colonies where those without land could own property, and much more. As you can see Ceaser was an excellent ruler that gave equality to all, yet the snobby rich people did not like getting less authority, thus they stabbed Caesar. He was betrayed by his fellow friend Brutus. And unfortunately the senators did not even get punished for it. After his death, Octavian, who was like a son to him took over as sole heir. And that was the end of the republic. He also had a triumvirate and it consisted of mark antony, and lepidus. But, Mark and Octavian became enemies and Mark formed a personal and political alliance with Cleopatra. Also Lepidus retired. This started the Battle of Actium. Octavian won, ya...

        Today in class we learned about the Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was the largest stadium in the world. This phenomenal form of architecture was the go to place for all Roman citizens. This was the prime source of entertainment for all the plebs and and government officials. In order to reach the highest amount of entertainment, they would starve the animals, and get them annoyed before they released them to "battle" a gladiator or a criminal. I use the term battle loosely because it was not a fair match. I find it frankly unethical to find amusement through the killing of another human being. Additionally, Julius Ceaser came along. He had  triumvirate known as "the rule of three men". Caesar was known as an amazing leader because he made the common folks happy, and not just the rich aristocrats. We learned a lot today and had a great class.

       Today in class we continued learning about the different branches of the government and the similarities between the Romans and the United States. The Roman Legislative branch of the government has a senate that consists of three hundred people! These people were always aristocrats, of course. Additionally, once you become a member of the Senate, you are part of it for life. They had assemblies that were either centurion or tribal, this had one hundred ninety three members and they were members for life as well. The United States Legislative brach of the government has a senate of one hundred people, there are two senators from each state. The senators serve a six month term. The legislative branch also includes the house of representatives too. It has 435 members, they serve a two year term. We learned a lot of information about the legislative branch of government concerning romans, and americans!

        Today in class we learned about different types of government and their similarities to our government in the United States today. Res new Republica is Latin for the people's affairs. Rome had a brand new republic. In Roman times there was democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. Ofcourse there was NO TYRANNY because it was too scary and didn't want to repeat their mistakes. The U.S. originally modeled their government on how the Romans government was. Although, they weren't exactly the same. They both had three branches of government. They were executive, legislative, and judicial. They also both followed a legal code. The roman executive government consisted of the requirement of two consuls in order to balance power, one year terms, each consul has veto power. Additionally, it was a rule that they controlled the military. Lastly they only used a dictator when in a serious crisis, and they could only rule for 6 months. The U.S. executive government has a presi...

        Today in class we took more notes on Rome. Because of the recent terrible reign of the king (mentioned in last blog) and his terrible behavior, the people decided they would never be subject to the rulings of a king ever again. This attitude lasted for about four centuries. The rule of kings was replaced with consuls. Consuls were elected officials. Their term of office was one year. They were always patricians. Patrician is the roman term for aristocrat. The consuls duties consisted of dealing justice, making a law, and commanding the army. The Plebs (people) challenged the Patricians. The plebs were 98% of the population. They were angry that there was no actual laws, just unwritten customs. They said they would not return to the army until laws were formed. We learned a lot today.

        Today in Western Civ we started learning about Rome. Rome was settled was first settled by the latinos. Also the etruscans were some of the first people that settled at Rome as well. Rome was located at the north central part of the peninsula. The etruscans were metalworkers, artists, and architects. Rome copied, borrowed, plagarized, or took the Greek's culture, religion, art, war techniques, and much more. The Latins were indo european and settled at the banks of the Tiber River. The Tiber was small and was only used for trading, and the small ships could only go as far ar Rome. No military, bg ships were allowed or could fit, which was a very wise choice that the Romans made. We also learned about the myth of Romulus and Rome, the twin brothers. Rome was named after Romulus, because he won the argument over a hill with his brother. The 7th and final king of rome was a terrible, murdering tryant. His name was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and was also called T...

        Today in class we went over our test. I did not do very well on it. Because people had complications concerning certain questions Mr. Schick gave us the points for the questions we did not remember learning. We also discussed how this semester of the school year this class has become harder to understand for some. This is because we were able to fully comprehend the information we were learning through discussing it, instead of mindlessly copying down words from the textbook. Although this style of learning may be easier sometimes we should try to learn new studying habits by applying ourselves even more in order to be able to understand what we’re learning. Yet if we learn through discussing instead of reading a chapter from a textbook and taking notes, when we get to college we’ll be able to understand what the book   says and be able to take notes. If all through high school we’ve been mindlessly writing down information then forgetting it th...

        Today I took the test I missed yesterday because I was absent. It was very challenging, but I was surprised how much information we have covered in such little time! I'm not sure I did too well, so I'll just have to review the questions I got wrong. I got the notes I missed yesterday. They were about Ancient  Rome and early Christianity. Concerning power and authority, Rome came about from 500 BCE - AD 500. Rome was a republic. A Republic is a government in which elected officials represent the people. Eventually, absolute rulers called emperors seized power and expanded the empire. Concerning the growth of the empire, at it's height it touched three continents (Africa, Asia, Europe). For several centuries, Rome brought peace and prosperity before the empire collapsed. Concerning Religious and Ethical Systems, out of Judea came a monotheistic religion called christianity. These teachings of Jesus of Nazareth soon spread throughout Rome and beyond.

        I was absent on Friday and Monday because I got pink eye :(

        Today we went over the notes and information that we have learned from the chapter we have read through. Some of the main points we focused on was the philosophy and art. Some notes on the board were on Alexander's Empire. Philip contributed in the building of the empire. He was Alexander's father and King of Macedonia. He became King through invading Greece and won, he conquered the land. Alexander steps in as king at age twenty. Alexander continued to conquer Persia, India, and much more. This he reigned as the unchallenged ruler. Unfortunately Alexander died at thirty two. The art and philosophy we learned about focus on epicureanism an stoicism. It founded the school of art. Additionally, sculptures came about during this Hellenistic time, as well as a decline. We learned a lot today, and I'll have plenty of time to study for the test coming up. He also told us the essay on the test will either be: describe the progression of greek civilization mycenean, ...

        Today in class we took notes on the next chapter in the textbook. It was on Alexander's Empire. His father, Philip was king of Macedonia. He was 23 years old. He used special advanced army tactics to excel in battles. Including phalanx. He went to conquer Greece, and did! He then went to defeat Persia, but he was stabbed and died before he could. Alexander defeated Persia. He was the mere age of 20 when he became king. He was known to be an amazing leader. This was displayed when he tamed a wild horse at the age of eight. Alexander continued to conquer more and more places. He eventually conquered all of the Persian Empire. He reigned as unchallenged ruler of South Asia.  he then went on to conquer India. On his and his soldiers way to defeat eight another army, they were faced with an army in their path, and of course defeated them. After this the soldiers explained to Alexander that they were tired and wanted to go home. Alexander allowed them to go ho...

        Today we had another group present their project to the class. They had a really creative video that they made of them competing in Olympics games, like they did in Greek times. It was really funny, but I also learned a lot from it. During the video they would pause it and talk about the type of competition they were about to show and explained how and why the Greeks did it. My group has to perform our presentation on Monday because Kelsey is sick, and Giovanna and Jillian are performing in the play during class time. After we watched the Olympics presentation we still had class time, and because no one was presenting we took this time to work on what we needed to. So now I'm writing this blog and thinking about the presentations and what information about Greek Culture that I can take from them. We had a really cool presentation and a great class today.

       Today in western civilization the first few groups presented their project on a topic that influenced Greek culture. Each group had to choose an interesting aspect of Greece to study about and present. Everyone who presented did a really good job, you could tell that they knew what they were talking about and put a lot of time and effort into their projects. Everyone deserves an A, according to me, but I'm still learning about Greek History, so it's obviously up to the person that has been studying and teaching about Greece for many years. By the way, I'm referring to Mr. Schick. The Greek food tasted really good, and the trident, and warriors that a group made was really cool too. I'm excited to present my groups project, and learned a lot about Greek culture and such through watching everyone's presentations. We had a great class today.

        Today we learned about the allegory of the cave. Plato wrote this to consider examining concepts. This was about prisoners who were trapped since birth that were chained towards a wall and couldn't turn. There only light was a small fire behind them and a light at the end of the cave. A ll these prisoners could see were shadows, and it's all they knew. Then one prisoner was freed. He came out of the cave and realized the shadows that he thought were real, were not. He saw the true objects, and after much adjusting realized he was perceiving the beginning of his life wrong. He goes back into the cave and after adapting to the darkness, he explains to his friends that they were wrong. They disagree and push him away and say he's a stupid. This taught me to open up my eyes to all the possibilities. We had a great class.

        Today in class we talked about logic. Logic is about reasoning. Fallacies are failures in reasoning that lead to an invalid argument. Step one is trying to understand, and Step two is critical evaluation. We also discussed how we perceived things and realized it could not be all the same because we are all different people. For example, some questioned that we all see different colors but label them as what we are taught. If we are taught that a certain color is blue, that is how we define it. Our personal perception of the color blue may be Jim's yellow. Although we may be seeing different colors, we define them as all blue, or pink or yellow, or whatever. Additionally we talked about guns. We were told that Mr. Schick wasn't putting up one side of the gun discussion, but that he wanted everyone's opinion to be heard and considered. I completely agreed and appreciate that he would specifically let us know that all our opinions are freely welcomed. We had a g...

        Today we continued learning about questioning how we live our lives and why. During this class we discussed the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of reality. This branch is called metaphysics. We also learned about another branch of philosophy. Epistemology is the brach that studies the nature and scope of knowledge. This branch makes us question things such as, Is everything real? We also wonder, How do I know if I'm right? As well as, How will I know if I'm wrong? Can I ever be certain about anything? This lead us into value theory. This brach consists of ethics and aesthetics. Ethics are human conduct within which you decide how to interact and live with other human beings. We question, Should I treat strangers the same as people I love? Aesthetics teaches us the nature and beauty of art. We learned a lot in class today, and had a great time.

        Today in class we learned about philosophy. We questioned many things. Reality is asking, What is the nature of reality itself? In further description it asks, Why do you feel what you feel? Why do you think what you think? This class we started exploring and questioning different aspects of life, and talked deeper about what it means to think. Mythos means storytelling. Philos means science. Philosophia is the love of wisdom. Therapy times definition of philosophy is the academic study of anything. The first university was Plato's Academy. This schools rival was Aristotle's Lyceum. During this time they had separate disciplines. In this context the meaning discipline is defined as a field of study. Whether it be math, english, or religion, one would be studied at a time, not all together. Philosophy came to be understood more as a way of thinking about what the world is like/ What's the nature of reality? Is the world just made up of energy and matter, or is...

        Today in class I took the test that I missed on Friday. I think the test was a good level because it was the right amount of challenging. I would have done a lot better if I remembered to study the map of Greece. I did very well on all the other sections of the Test. After I took the test, I started taking notes on the new section of the book. After this, we went over the test. I went over where the seas and such are geographically located on the map and studied them so that I'll know where they are in the future. Now I can label where the Aegean Sea, the Ionian Sea, the Adriatic Sea, Peloponnesus, Athens, Sparta, Crete, Asia Minor, and Macedonia are located on the map. We accomplished a lot in class today and think I can do better on my next test if I study every section.