My day leading up to International Night!

Today was such a good day! It started out crazy (like it is for anyone who takes the train in the morning in New York), like is sometimes true for me I just caught my train as I was going up the stairs of the train station and had to catch it all the way at the back. I had to run to make my transfer, but I had tons of bags because my performance was later that day. I thought I was going to be late because there was a delay; however, as is common during the winter I SOMEHOW got there with more than enough time (which never happens during the summer...one more thing to add to why I don't like summer too much). Well, moving on...while in my Global History class he brought in a coffee maker and someone asked "What is that for?" (Can anyone say, the awkward moment when everyone stares at one person for asking about the most obvious thing ever). I would think they are used to make coffee, but I could be wrong, I am not too sure *sarcasm*. Then he told us he brought it so we could use it when we wanted to...is that even allowed...? Anyways, he moved on to say "I brought this but you can only use it if you find your own cups, if you want sugar or anything else you are going to get it for yourself too." So during our five minute break between our double period me and my friends raced around the school looking for cups and sugar...we ended up finding both after racing around in circle...by the time we got back to the class room we didn't even need the sugar since we were now wide awake. The rest of my day was normal until lunch when we went down and did each others hair and make up so that we would be ready for the show after school. I then went to Physics Lab, my favorite class...I am a nerd. I am a BARDIAN (the dictionary definition for this is some one who studies in BARD High School Early College in Queens). After we ran to the girls looker room and crazed around like headless chickens getting ready for the all the performances. When I was up I was happy that I had worked so hard and I was able to "execute the dance magnificently" (in the words of my friend). However, I was so nervous that the smile on my face was making my top lip twitch (the audience couldn't tell, thank goodness). I enjoyed performing and being able to share my hard work so much that I plan to do the talent show this year and do both thing again next year as well!

P.S. I finished The Host and will be putting up the review this weekend!

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

This is the trailer for the movie.

I like Twilight and then there are some things that I don't like about it. One of the problems that Twilight has is that I am much more interested in the supporting characters than I am in the main characters. I feel as if Bella doesn't change mentally ever, her character never grows except for at the very end of Breaking Dawn where she is a mom and thus becomes protective of her child, but her mentality never changes. I feel like all the other characters (because we get to see their pasts) they do grow and change mentally.

WARNING!: After this there may be slight spoilers!

I just saw Twilight: Breaking dawn Part 1 yesterday, and I must say I am really pleased with how they filmed everything to do with the baby. It was just amazing how they made Bella look so physically broken! I loved how they show the baby breaking her (literally...there was one part where I was just thinking, 'Is it possible to bend like that?'). One thing that bothered me was that in the book Rosalie had always wanted a child so she is very protective of Reneesme, but in the movie she seemed like a psychopath (one of those mom's that is obsessive and controlling and such).

I love when I can go to the movies and the audience all laughs, awww's and ooh's at the same exact time and I feel like this is one of those movies that does that well. There is a part where Edward breaks the head board of the bed and that was just funny, it was too much!

WARNING!: This next sentence is an extreme spoiler! (Skip over it if you want)

I LOVE the way it ended; with her eyes opening (they were red), and how they show the transformation from human to vampire.

I am looking forward to seeing the second part because of the Volturi; I really want to see how they are going to show the fight between them and the Cullens and shifters. I really loved how they showed the tension of keeping the treaty in this movie and I hope it turns out good in the next movie!

International Night at School

There will be an International Night is my school towards the beginning of December and I will be in it. Yay? Honestly I am a little nervous DESPITE the fact that we have been practicing every weekday after school for an hour and a half. But another thing is that I am very excited because I have worked so hard for this goal. This is going to sound cliche but to be truthful it is a group effort. All eight of us which includes me have been so supportive of each other; whenever one of us didn't understand how to do a certain move in the dance then someone was always there ready to explain it in the simplest way possible. The fact that it is a Bollywood style dance makes it something very knew to me, so when my friend asked me about it I jumped on the chance since I have always liked Bollywood...to me the people who dance it must have great control and they always look so nice doing the moves! As it nears I become more and more happy that it's me and a bunch of friends doing the dance and I don't have to do this with strangers. If I tape the dance (aka if my mom tapes it, I should say...)  then I will post it here. My friend is letting me borrow her blue salwar kameez (traditional Indian clothing and you would not believe how LONG it took me to learn how to say this with the right accent! I had to ask my friend to repeat it about 100 times!). I am just a bit nervous since I am all the way in the front...I hope this turn out well. I can already see myself having a Lizzie McGuire moment where I trip on something that should be impossible to trip over and take the whole stage down with me!

 This is sort of what it looks like except it has short sleeves and is a little darker blue, but other than that the bottom and neckline and shawl are all the same!


Author's Note: I love "The Host" so far the development of the story keeps you on your toes!
Second Author's Note: I have become obsessed with the music composer Yiruma! His piano compositions are beautiful and really capture the essence of feeling and the actual instrument. I recommend that you see what he is all about on Youtube!

Music

I am slowly (oh so very slowly) but surely (I'm not that sure?) getting more computer savvy! Sort of...
Well to start off I learned how to put a Music Player on my tumblr. I tried to do it here as well but I am not THAT savvy and so it was a failed experiment. If you want to get a sense of what I like to listen to on my free time then you can go there. I have up beat songs, sweet songs, sad songs, instrumentals (mostly piano compositions by Yiruma), etc. I hope you enjoy and get to see about music from other places as well as just music that is common to everyone too. Some of the songs are by the Korean Pop groups I mentioned a really long time ago. My tumblr is still the same : http://musenymphnews2.tumblr.com/

As a COMPLETE side note that has absolutely NOTHING to do with this I wanted to mention the I am currently reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer and when I finish I will be doing a brief summary and review of what I thought of it! I am going to be reading a book of short scary stories by Edgar Allen Poe (awesome writer!) after and will probably do the same thing for my favorite story out of all of them and MAYBE my least favorite story out of all of them. So look forward to it!

Tumblr

I have been thinking about this for a while and I have decided to get a tumblr so that my writings may be more seen and criticized. My tumblr will have other stuff since it's mostly for my pleasure but I will post my pieces on both sites now. You can visit me here: http://musenymphnews2.tumblr.com/

I will be posting a new piece soon!

History Class

I got an A- on this essay one of six students...yay for me...I just wanted to say...I WORKED SUPER HARD ON THIS!!!!!

Effect of Agriculture on Human Life – Essay

            The emergence of agriculture played a significant role in human life affecting jobs, science, and religion. While the transition to agriculture may have been an accidental one it caused social life to change with it. Before agriculture, hunting and gathering societies were very different. In a hunting and gathering community everyone has the same job and science and religion are not big parts of life. In a hunting and gathering community you could just leave an area when it did not meet the needs they had unlike in an agricultural society. They also believed in animism. However, after the transition to agriculture they had job specialization, they had to study the environment, and they believed in different gods that all controlled different things.

            Agriculture affected the way jobs were handled. While hunting and gathering societies were egalitarian and everyone grew up to have the same job of either hunting or gathering, in an agricultural societies there were some people who didn’t have a direct connection to growing crops, “…individuals who devoted …time to efforts other than the production of food” (Bentley and Ziegler, 25). Some people made tools out of metal that helped to cultivate food and to manage surplus of food and grain some people make pottery for storage. These were things that were also sold to the public for different reasons than these, for instance jewelry and decoration as well. Along with pottery in 7,000 B.C.E. and metallurgy in 6,000 B.C.E. also came textile production. It was necessary to have tools such as gloves to work as an agriculturalist and later on it also became an important role of society and the way people dress. Because of job specialization and people owning land (hunter and gatherer people do not own the land they use) people had different social status as well. Someone who was rich would have a bigger house, more jewelry, nicer clothing, and high quality pottery to adorn their house with and use for food, as opposed to someone who was poor who would have less of these luxuries and there was a leadership based on riches and influence, “Professional managers also appeared–governors, administrators, military strategists [since they now had something to protect], tax collectors…” (Bentley and Ziegler, 25). This was because the more land people had the more food people produced and because of the population explosion the demand for it was there and the more they would sell and make money for such things as these.

            Science was also a big aspect of people’s lives because of agriculture. In order to be able to sell food and have luxuries it was necessary to successfully grow the crops. Women were the also the one who helped this move along. They were the ones who gathered the plants that were needed and were the first ones to notice what helped and what didn’t help their plants grow. Through trial and error they studied the things that helped their plants grow most. By validating and testing the reliability of their results they knew what to do in order to have this. Science became very important to agriculturalist unlike to hunting and gathering societies where they just picked up from a land that replenished itself without the need of any human maintenance, “vegetable foods are abundant, sedentary and predictable. They grow in the same place year after year…” (Borshay Lee, 100). When “asked why they hadn’t taken to agriculture” and planted the mongongo nut the Bushman of the Ju/’hoansi-!Kung said, “Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?” (Lee, 93).

            While one would think that because there was science that religion would be something that they didn’t believe in ; however, the opposite is true, “Cities also gave rise to…priests, who…sought to discover meaning in human existence” (Bentley and Ziegler, 25-26). Agricultural societies had a very tight control over their crops because they didn’t let the environment control them, they controlled it; however, it was because of this control that they didn’t understand why sometimes things went wrong. They felt that because they were doing everything right then everything should have been going smoothly, so when something went wrong they blamed the gods. The gods they believed in mostly had to do with their agriculture system; there would be a god for the different aspects and things that helped to make the crops have a high or low yield, unlike in a hunting and gathering society where they were animist and just believed that there was not gods or goddesses but an energy in the world that was just there and that you didn’t have any direct contact with while going about doing things that needed to get done.

            To conclude, agriculture was important to human society and affected jobs, science, and religion the most. It led to job specialization which affected economic and social status of people. Agriculture also led to not only a surplus of food but the need for science in order to cultivate the crops to have a high yield. Lastly agriculture led to the development of a religion where the gods are very human like and are very important to the daily life and crops that they had. It was because of many of these changes that our society is the way it is now.

We read Gilgamesh in Literature Class

\Gilgamesh – Final Draft

            In Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell the gods have a close relationship with the humans. The humans ask things of the gods and the gods get glorification in return. They affect the humans in a positive way. The first of the occasions where the immortals help the mortals was when the gods ask Anu to save the people of Uruk from Gilgamesh’s destruction. Another incident is where Gilgamesh goes to Ninsun so that she may interpret his dream. She also gave Gilgamesh and Enkidu a blessing when they were going to kill Humbaba. In return the humans have temples dedicated to them and also do things like how the priestesses give themselves in the name of Ishtar to honor her. So it is important for them to have each other. The gods help the humans and in return they have to worship. The humans are grateful enough that they receive help, and thus carry out the things they have to.

            Gilgamesh “went to his mother, the goddess Ninsun, and asked her to interpret the dream” (83). This is important because it shows that the gods have wisdom and that the humans trust them. The mortals who have limited time on earth are not as wise as the immortals who have been there forever and therefore have the wisdom. Another incident that is similar to this is when Gilgamesh and Enkidu go to get Ninsun’s blessing before going off to kill Humbaba. Gilgamesh says “give me your blessing before I leave” (99) to which she answered by praying to the other gods so that they may give them protection on the journey. The humans rely on the gods to be there for them and share protection and wisdom.

            The gods were asked by the people of Uruk to save them from Gilgamesh’s “tyranny” the gods told Anu that “the people cry out” and no one dares oppose him” they said “Father, do something” (73). Then they “[created] a new hero, [and] let them balance each other perfectly” (74). The fact that they do something to help is what sets them apart from a lot of other pantheons. In this instance, the gods are like parents to humans as they have taken a protective role over the humans. They take care of their problems and fix their situations actively. In return they receive gratitude and offerings in the ziggurats and temples that were built to them.

            In the same way that the gods fix their problems actively the kind of praise the gods receive is very active and extreme as well, because the mortals are grateful and because they don’t want to inquire their wrath. The priestesses of “the temple of Ishtar” stand in front of the temple “ready to serve men’s pleasure, in honor of the goddess” (81). They are complacent enough to do this without any problems. However; if they anger the gods they receive hatred and punishment. After Gilgamesh insulted Ishtar she “shrieked, she exploded with fury. Raging, weeping she went up to heaven…as tears of anger poured down her cheeks” she “led the Bull down to earth, it entered and bellowed, the whole earth shook…” (137). She was very angry with Gilgamesh and even said, “I want to kill that liar, Gilgamesh, and destroy his palace.” (136). Ishtar was going to punish Gilgamesh, Enkidu and bring “famine for seven long years” (136) just because Gilgamesh, who is only one person, had pointed out a fault in her that was true. This shows that along with helping the humans they get a lot of power over them, much like parents over their children, but more extreme.

            The gods are helpful to the humans as long as the humans keep worshiping and not disrespecting the gods. However; when they do wrong toward the gods they receive extreme punishment.  The humans are dependent on the wisdom and protection of the gods, and without it them life is more dangerous. Human life is based on divine protection. The situation is a give and take relationship with the humans, and it makes sense, because Aruru, who is an immortal, is “the one who created humans” (74). The gods and humans need each other in order for both to exist, and without one where would the other be, because the gods are there to protect the humans so that they feel secure; however, humans are the ones who created the gods.

So...I wanted to say that I had a lot of fun writing this. I had to choose my own topic AND my own question to answer and I am very pleased with the results! Also, I could not have done this without the help of my wonderful editors (who are also my friends) Melissa and Anna. When they finished viewing my first draft there were so many pencil marks that I had a lot to work with and I got to understand how the people who read my passages feel. I told Melissa to become my future editor...she is heartless and I rather have someone tell me what is bad than tell me that it was perfect when it wasn't! Extra thanks to Melissa!