Ancient Greek Values

Some of the most important values in the Ancient Greek civilizations were ingenuity, hospitality, loyalty, and respect. I believe they're also considered important in our time, because we meet them in our daily life basis (I hope.) Most people would say; "WOW! It's amazing how from around 3000 B.C.E., such qualities evolved among us and still exist today!" Well it's not. These are important values so of course we have them at our time. What is amazing is how they had it in their time, not how it lasted.
Ingenuity means skill or cleverness in devising or combining; Inventiveness, this is important because it helps us think of new ideas and make us "genius". In the story of Odysseus, ingenuity is the most common quality found along his journey, and his many adventures. He thinks of all these how to keep himself away from death, and how to help his sailors and crew get home safely. For example, when he met the Cyclops, he called himself 'Nobody' and when the Cyclops screamed "Nobody's escaping!" to his guards after he got stabbed in his eye, the guards didn't know he actually meant someone is escaping. So that part was filled with many exciting and creative ideas and secret plans of escaping, which represent ingenuity.
Another very critical Ancient Greek value shown in the excerpts is hospitality. Hospitality means kindness in welcoming strangers or guests (My definition of the word.) Circe greets them with a very nice manner, but then she changes them into pigs, and erases their memory from home, so that they don't know where their desire is to go, and where exactly their home is (in general, the spell made them forget about everything they were attempting to accomplish.) Although, it is very common in the Ancient Greek times to be very kind/neighborly, even if the people are your enemies, you still had to greet them nicely. All of this represents hospitality.
Loyalty and respect were also extremely important in those times, and the Greeks would always value their family and friends. 

In modern society, one can find ancient Greek values in many places in the world. The positive side of peoples always present the values.  Besides athleticism of course, not everyone is athletic, but the rest all people have. For example, hospitality, it relates much to being caring and friendly these days. You don't have to help every single homeless or poor person that walks by, because back then, there weren't really that many people that actually needed help.
Another Greek value that is very common today, is ingenuity. Many people think of ways to avoid a problem or to solve it, by being 'genius'... basically lies or just helping.

Minoans Vs. Mycanaeans

The Minoan civilization and Mycenaean civilization had many things that were alike. Mycenae was founded 300 years after the Minoan civilization was, and because of the fact 300 years is not a lot, they had many similarities, although the Mycenae was more advanced. For example, the water management. Both civilizations had drain pipes, and bathrooms, with bath tubs and flush able toilets! Although there were differences, the Minoans did not have any house security; door locks or bolts, since there were no theives or  wars. That means that Crete (home of the Minoans) was a very peaceful and calm place. Meanwhile, the Mycenaenas had big fortresses, bridges and walls, to protect themselves from war. 

In my opinion in even later Ancient Greece (Ancient Greece was there for VERY long,) the aspects that would have survived the break-through, would definitely be the cultural practices and the religious ways, since it was of course the people that practiced and owned it, and not that they were forced to or something, like in other cultures/religions. And the cultural styles would have also survived, because they were passed on by oral presentations.

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was built by a Mongul emperor named Sahah Jahan, for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Sahah Jahan was born in 1592, while his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal was born in 1593. They married in 1612 and had seven children. In 1628 Shah Jahan became the Mongul Emperor. Only three years later his beloved wife died shortly after childbirth. In 1632 Sahah Jahan began the project of building a mausoleum, or tomb for his wife, the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is located on the banks of the Yamuna River. It took twenty-two years to complete with an estimated 20,000 workers. The building is surrounded by four 138 ft. minarets and sits on a 315 ft. square marble platform. Each side has a 110 ft. arch and center dome is around 200 ft. high. The building is built in an Islamic style of architecture. Centered in the building is a tomb for Mumtaz Mahal. Next to her tomb, is the tomb for Sahah Jahan. The tombs in the building are empty. The bodies of the two are buried in a crypt below the building. The entire plan of the Taj Mahal is symmetrical, with one exception. Symmetrical means that one side of the building could mirror the other side if cut down the middle. The only exception is the tomb of Sahah Jahan which was added later to the building. There is a story which suggest that Sahah Jahan was planning on building a replica of the Taj Mahal for himself on the other side the river, though no evidence or plans of this has ever been found. Sahah Jahan was overthrown by his own son and imprisoned in the Red Fort within sight of the Taj Mahal. He was forced to spend the last eight years of his life in prison till his death in 1666.

Choose one practice from the Buddhist Eightfold Path and describe how you could incorporate it in your life OR provide an example from your life of a

#6 RIGHT EFFORT:

Without putting effort into something, or anything really, nothing can be achieved. Right now I may be putting my minimum, or my maximum amount of effort. I tend to try and put my maximum efforts in school, basketball, and my social life. Not all at the same time of course, that's not putting the right amount of effort, but more effort than my body, and brain can manage. Whenever I want to improve my shot in basketball, or get a good grade in a Humanities project, I try hard. Sometimes it is hard putting your maximum efforts, but sometimes it is also necessary. After hearing the two powerpoint presentations from Ms. Moore about Hinduism and Buddhism, i was extremely motivated, and decided I will try to do my best, and give all my EFFORTS in humanities class, and all the other classes, trying to get a 6 or a 7 on my report card. As i do not have the reputation of the student with the best grades in the Middle School, I would like that to change by putting more efforts. If you do not put in all your efforts, you will feel disappointed usually, or you won't be proud of your own work. Therefore if you want to be proud of yourself and of your own work, you must put in all your efforts.

Reflection on Maps

Physical features, climate, and elevation, they are all relates to each other somehow, and all affect each other. One example of how they affect each other could be a desert - the desert, being the physical feature, is only created by the climate of that area, which is a very arid, dry climate. If the desert had a different climate, it wouldn't be a desert!
I personally, learned a lot from this mapping project, mainly about India. I also learned that in any country, the physical features depend on the type of climate, and the elevation somewhat depends on the physical features. People usually settle in places where there are many natural resources, created by the physical features, the climate and the elevation of the location.

Lost City of Mohenjo Daro

Located, in the nowadays Pakistan, lays the lost city of Mohenjo Daro. Mohenjo Daro stood from about 2500 to 1900 B.C., But then at 1900 B.C. it was abandoned completely and was left as a 'Ghost City'. Scientists claim it was abandoned because the people were in jeopardy of starvation because of Earthquakes that occurred, leaving them without an ability to grow their foods.

The city was found in the year 1911, and many excavations were done in the 1920's through the 1940's. Scientists have found that this was an extremely advanced city. It was a fairly large city, and very advanced. It was built on a hill to prevent floods from the nearby Indus river, and it was one of the only cities of its time to have a sewerage system. It was obvious by the artifacts found that it was a fairly wealthy city, thriving in wealth and trade. Many scientists, archaeologists, and historians have studied every inch of this city, and we still have no idea what happened to make the majority of the cities population leave. It reaches some kind of obvious archaeological fruition about 1900 B.C.," Said Jonathan Mark Kenoyer. "What drives that, nobody knows."

Unlike most religions and beliefs their one was based on something else. The closest found to a temple in the town of Mohenjo Daro was a building that somewhat represented a temple. It is believed that this ancient civilization believed in cleanness every house had a well and a bathroom.

Shiva - The Destroyer

I know, that Shiva, the Destroyer, was definitely a popular choice, I think it would be really interesting to to my blog post about her, and what she did. In the Hinduism religion, it is believed that for something to be born, or re-born, something has to die. Shiva is the god, who takes and recycles the soul. Shiva -- The Destroyer, is worshiped by the Hindus because what the Hindus believe is that when you die, you soul is reincarnated... or else enlightened. When one dies, Hindus believe he is reborn either to higher, or a lower social class ranking. People can be reborn, into as high a rank as royalty, or as low as a poor man/slave/animal. Shiva is the God who takes away life... but she is also the God that reincarnates the soul.