Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Our last day of Humanities class was on Tuesday!  The semester is now at an end and all we have left as students is to prepare for our finals then take them and then we are free to go about our summers.  On Tuesday we simply finished the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and then Tucker sent us on our way when it had finished.  Humanities has been a fairly interesting class and I have read books that I have always heard about and books that I have never ever heard about before in my life.  To be honest, a lot of the books were slightly hard to understand just because of the writing style.  They are not in modern terms which is expected and that is good for us.  In today's society people barely read and if they do they read things that are dumbed down pratically.  So I think it was a good thing to have read books in this class that made us really concentrate and it helped us to expand our reading knowledge.

Internet!!

So this is the first time I've had internet since Thursday.  I personally really enjoy being away from technology but it really sucks when you live in an age where everything is done by technology.  I had a wonderful Easter break filled with family, friends, and 1,400+ driving miles... oh, memories!  Anyways, in class on Thursday we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I must admit that this is a unique movie to show in class but it is pretty darn well fitting for our Humanities class with Tucker.  Plus it is a really nice and relaxing way to wind down the semester!  I can't wait till tomorrow when we get to finish watching it and hopefully talk about it.

Inferno

In the book Dante's Inferno there are nine circles of Hell.  Some of the punishments are rather funny and well fitting in my opinion.  In one circle people are put there for lust during their previous life.  The two people will run towards each other with a longing passion and need to just simply touch each other, but because they are in Hell they cannot do this.  So instead of being able to touch each other, they run after one another and end up in a whirlwind that spins each one of them around so they are seperated.  This continues to happen over and over and over again; they will never be allowed to touch.  Another circle of Hell is for people who were glutinous in their previous life.  In Hell they are surrounded by food and they continue to indulge in their glutnious ways while being rained on by urine or being snowed on be feces.  I personally think that their punishment could be a little harsher or at least like the one for lust.  I think the people who take part in gluttony should be at a feast with all the food, scents, sounds, etc. of the food but when they sit down with a plate full of food, the food would then simply vanish in front of their eyes.  I honestly think something around those lines would be a better punishment for them.

Class to Real Life

So on Tuesday we took notes over Romanesque Feudalism and it was pretty interesting.  I love how in the architecutre for the churches there is so much symbolism put into them.  I really do wish that I knew all this stuff before I went to London and Edinburgh.  I can look back and remember a few general things that relate back to what we talked about in class.  But it would have been really neat if I had known this stuff before hand so while touring the churches I would have noticed the smaller things better.  Well I guess I'll just have to go back and look at it all over again!

Song of Roland

So on Tuesday and Thursday we talked about the Song of Roland again.  I just find it really cool how in that small book there is so much that relates to God, Jesus, and Christianity.  As a Christian believer, I find it really neat.  Another thing is that there is quite a few things that relate back to the other books we have read in class for example, the funeral in section 109 is like the one in Homer.  Also, Roland is compared to Achilles a lot also in his attitude and tragic flaws.  In class on Tuesday, Tucker read section 149 and was laughing like crazy, that was pretty entertaining!  I enjoyed this book because of the realtions back to the Christain faith but at the same time I was getting really annoyed at the fact that everything rhymes!!

Roland

In class on Thursday we had to read the first 70 paragraph thingys for The Song of Roland.  While I was reading oru section for class I was honestly getting annoyed at the book.  I am fine reading things that rhyme but if it is an entire book then that gets pretty annoying.  I had to take quite a few break while reading because it was bugging me so much.  It seems like a pretty good book though, I am interested in seeing how ti turns out, even though Tucker kind of gave it away during class.  I find it really intriguing how many symbols, metaphores, and representation to the Christian faith there is in this book, I really like it.  Also, some of the books we have been reading relate back to Achilles, I wonder if all the authors planned that or if scholars have just looked into these things too much.

Nice Weather

So, on Tuesday I was at a meeting and was running late for class and so I jogged across campus that way I would be able to not miss a lot of what was going on.  I came in a few minutes late and I was handed back my mid term and my cultural event paper.  I must admit that I did a lot better then I thought I did, so that took a huge load off of my shoulders.  Tucker started talking but took me by surprise, announcing that we were not going to have class because it was such a beautiful day outside!  I loved it, I was able to go outside for a walk and enjoy the gorgeous Spring weather!!  On Thursday we took notes all class period about Rome to the Early Christian Middle Ages and that was fairly interesting and I learned some new things that I previously did not know.  I think this second half of the spring semester is going to be my favorite for this class.  I'm excited!

So on Tuesday in class all I can honestly remember talking about is God.  I do not even remember what about exactly.  Then on Thursday we had to take our mid term.  Our mid term was an essay test.  We had five essays to study from and then our actual test was three fo them.  There isn't much to blog about for this week.  So yeah, have a great mid term break yall!

So, yesterday I decided to bare the wind, snow, and cold to go to my Humanities class.  The majority of my classmates were there and we were just chit-chatting away.  We looked at the clock and realized that Tucker is 10 minutes late; we all decided to give him until a quater after and if he wasn't there by then we would all leave.  Well five minutes later, he was a no show so we all left.  I was actually wanted to talk about the two books we had to read for yesterday.  I thought it was kind of ironic how in the last book how Turnus started to run and Aeneas decided to pursue him in the chase.  The ran in a circle about five times or so.  It reminded me how Hector and Achilles ran in circles during the final books of The Iliad by Homer.  I was not too happy with the very end of The Aeneid.  Just the idea that at the last moment, Aeneas gets an extra surge of rage and kills Turnus.  Typical ending, I guess this is where Hollywood got the idea for every movie in today's world.

Pale and Pasty

We have been reading The Clouds for Humanities which is an old Greek comedy play about Socrates.  On Tuesday we came to class and Tucker asked us to describe how the students looked at the Thinkery.  The students were scrawny, pale, and sickly looking.  Tucker asked why that was and we told him it was because the students were always inside studying.  Tucker agreed and said that they never got out to enjoy beautiful 62 degree weather.  Then, surprisingly, he told us that was our lesson for the day and to go out and enjoy the weather.  So, to enjoy the weather I went out for a walk with my suitemates.  They had to leave for work so I grabbed my book and went on C Trail to the pond.  I found my tree that branches out across the water and entered my own little world.  It was so nice and greatly needed =)  Afterwards, I went and watched my friends play some basketball, which was real entertaining.  I was outside for about three hours until the sun went down and it got chilly.

Oh!  I was finally able to wear my basketball shorts and a short sleeve shirt with no jacket!  It was real nice.

Humor

We started reading the play called The Clouds for class on Thursday.  I must admit that I did not want to read this play at first because I thought it was going to be real stupid, so I just simply skimmed our reading assignment before class.  When we got to class, we started taking notes about old greek comedy.  It is pretty amazing how so much of today's comedy is built off of their comedy in the B.C. era!  Well, during the class discussion I started to think to myself that this might actually be a pretty darn funny book.  So, I opened it and started to truely read it (not skimming) and I found myself laughing at the play within the first minute.  I cannot wait to finish reading this play!

Greek Theater

On Thursday in class Tucker lectured about the Greek Theater.  I actually found all of it pretty interesting.  I already knew that "back in the day" they did not allow any women to be a part of the theater, which I find odd.  Back then men were supposed to be the "real" men, well what kind of a real man does theater?  I would have thought that theater would be the woman's role.  I also think it's funny how the men, or should I say boys that have not hit puberty yet, played the roles of girls and women.  It is hard to believe that those "real" men would want to play the role of a woman.  Also, their theaters could seat close to 50,000 people!!!  The theaters were all outdoor too.  So, they must have had extremely loud and powerful voices to have all 50,000 people hear them.  Back then there were no such thing as microphones or megaphones.  How did they get their whole audience to hear them?  That's my question!

The End

So in class on Tuesday we talked about our last three books in Iliad.  I really enjoyed these three books to be honest.  I was curious during the whole book about how was going to end up dieing.  I thought Achilles was the one who was going to die frist because his mother was always reminding him that he was destined to have a short life.  So when Hector was killed, I was surprised.  I thought it was entertaining how Achilles tied Hectors body to the chariot and drug it in the dust.  I felt bad for Hector's wife and son after she heard about her husband's death.  I was proud of Achilles when he gave back Hector's body at the end of the book.  I do wish that we could have read the whole book in order to fully understand what had gone on.  But I understand we wouldn't be able to get through the rest of the books this semester if we read all of the Iliad.  I enjoyed this book more then I thought I would have!

Hey Yall!

So, I set up this blog for my Humanities class.  We are assigned to blog about what we learn, understand, or what we don't understand, etc. about class that week.  So, this week in class we started reading the book The Iliad by Homer.  My Humanities class is a semester long and we have a lot of other books to read; so we have been skipping around in the Iliad.  We have read books 1, 6, 8, 11. and 16 so far.  I sort of wish that we had more time to read all of the Iliad because by the time I read book 11 and 16 there were new characters coming into the picture and new events.  But quite a few of my classmates have said that they have watched the movie Troy and I am thinking it might help if I watch it for myself.  I really admire Athena, Zeus's daughter, she is the goddess of wisdom and war.  She sides with the Greeks and tries to help Achilles and the rest of them with the war.  In doing so, she is not afraid to stand up to the mot powerful god, her own father, Zeus.  That takes a lot of strength and guts!