Literature Circle Responses - Part II

This book is a very interesting piece of art that reveals some of the dark values of Yukio Mishima. The author created a very dark character and he made that character a child in order to enhance the effectiveness of that evil. From my interpretation, Noboru must be very similar to Mishima. I read a small biography of the author and I found some very close similarities between them. Mishima was an only child who was often punished by his grandma and forced into isolation. He was not allowed to participate in any sports and so he spent most of his time in his room very alone. In the beginning of this book the main character, Noboru, is also being punished. Noboru has to go to his room for some time and stay isolated. Noboru starts feeling angry that his mom would isolate him and with no one to care for him. So Noboru gets revenge on his mother by violating her privacy and staring at her through a peephole in his room. Noboru did not know any other way to get revenge on his mom for isolating him so spying on her was his way of satisfying his anger. Mishima is possibly trying to give some insight on how he felt when he was isolated. There was a part in the book that showed signs of Noboru’s sexual ignorance. The chief of the gang, that Noboru belongs to, showed them pictures of different positions during sexual intercourse. But when Noboru was spying on Fusako he was very confused as to what she was doing. Fusako was masturbating but Noboru confused that act as something else. Could this mean Noboru is repressing his sexual curiosity? This could be a viable interpretation since he was taught, by the chief, that sex is a pointless act. But then, why was he so interested in watching Ryuji and Fusako have sex? I will have to analyze the book further to find this out.
Some themes that are expressed in this book are revenge, morality, nihilism, and death. All of these topics are represented in a great way by the author. Most of these themes are related to Noboru which made me kind of suspect that Noboru could be a representation of Mishima’s values. Mishima lived somewhat of a difficult life. As I said he was isolated, punished severely, bullied because of his love of writing, his values were rejected most, and the Japan he loved changed. He came from a samurai family so he must have similar values: glory, honor, and toughness. Mishima must have been taught to never let himself be controlled by his emotions, which he took to the extreme by making Noboru a person with ultimate dispassion. Noboru believes in no morality at all which makes him very unique. Why did the author choose to make him like that? No religion or religious idols are ever mentioned in the book. This could reflect more of Mishima’s values on the world. Does Mishima believe in any omniscient being? Maybe this lack of belief in an omniscient being reinforced his belief the meaning of life. And he placed those values into Noboru. Noboru believes life is pointless and death is the only savior from that. Mishima describes death so beautifully and that reinforces my interpretation of Noboru’s and Mishima’s attitude on death. Death, to Mishima, is not a bad thing because it releases us from all our mistakes and wrong-doings.
There are definitely many questions I have related to the figurative language used by Mishima. I am deeply confused as to what the significance of the sea is. Why do Noboru and Ryuji believe the sea is such an honorable place to be? Why is the land such a meaningless and boring place to them? The sea seems to have a huge significance in the book and it is related to many things. Especially since the setting in the book is a port town. So the town is on the brink of sea and land which are opposites. I do have a final question that questions the beliefs of the chief. Why does the chief believe so deeply in nihilism and what inspired him to believe in that? Another puzzling aspect to this part is that Noboru connects the parts where he saw Ryuji and Fusako have sex to the kitten killing scene. He states that during those to scenes the world was at balance and perfection had been achieved. I cannot understand how those two acts can be connected. But I can understand why Noboru did what he did to that kitten. According to him, the night he watched Fusako and Ryuji have sex Noboru experienced a perfection and pleasure he had never experienced before. I do not know what type of pleasure Noboru was gaining out of that but I do know he said he would do anything to regain that pleasure. So when he was given the chance to kill the kitten Noboru took with ease and found the same pleasure in killing a kitten as he did watching Fusako and Ryuji. This time, he had the control over that pleasure because he was the cause of the kitten’s death. There are still some mysteries as to what type of pleasure he gains from these strange acts but I just figured out Noburo found out he has control over that pleasure now. Meaning he can seek it whenever he can.
Finally, for my quote analysis I chose a quote on page 60 on paragraph 2, “Even that marvelous horn and the great wide world whose expanse it had limned couldn’t possibly have penetrated so deeply as this…the pumping of the bared heart placed the peeled kitten in direct and tingling contact with the kernel of the world.” It seems as if Noboru gets pleasure out of taking life. Mishima definitely has a different attitude towards death. Perhaps reading more into this book will help me find an answer to this puzzling book. But I doubt it.

Literature Circle Responses - Part I

Pages 1-72: The Sailor who fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukui Micshima is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. From this one bookk, I have learned a great deal on the life of Mr. Mishima. It is a fictional book that covers physiological and philosophical topics. The main characters are Noboru, Fusako, and Ryuji. Noboru is a 13 year old boy who has a huge interest in ships. Behind that nice and childish mask is a dark person who has a hatred for mankind. He has no belief in any kind of morality. He does show some respect towards Ryuji, a sailor, because Ryuji does not let anything distract him from finding glory out there in the sea. Ryuji is a lonely sailor who has appears to be a tough man with no emotion but behind that mask is a man who desires comfort. After a long time of searching for the glory that he believes is his, Ryuji starts to feel like giving up and doesn’t want to waste his time searching for glory when he can stay on land and start a family. I admire the way Mishima writes the perspectives of his characters and how they misinterpret each other. For example, in each chapter the reader gets to learn a great deal about the character from their actions and their thoughts. But when they talk to each other they hide their true personalities and put on their masks, so to speak. This way the reader has a sort of hindsight bias on the way the characters interact with each other. Noboru is fooled by Ryuji’s mask and so he sees Ryuji as a tough, emotionless, and a “true” man. Ryuji sees Noboru as a normal 13 year old boy that has an interest in mechanical things, likes to swim, and is just like any other normal 13 year old boy. But from their inner thoughts of the characters, the reader can truly understand the character. This is an interesting way to write the story because Mishima could possibly be suggesting the darkness in people. The more challenging aspects of this book are the metaphors, similes, and symbolism. Mishima describes love, nihilism, glory, and death in some of the figurative language he uses but it is very difficult to decipher the true message behind it. Knowing that Mishima came from a samurai family, I can somewhat assume he had a different approach on death than most people. To die honorably must have been a beautiful death to the samurai. Perhaps that is why Mishima describes death so beautifully. Such as on the scene where a kitten was mercilessly killed by Noboru to show how meaningless life is. I was confused as to why the author made Noboru compare a kittens death to watching Ryuji and Fusako have sex. There are a lot of parts where the characters describe their philosophical beliefs in-depth using figurative language that really confuses me. As for the rest of the book something negative must happen. Knowing a little about Mishima, I can assume the Ryuji will betray his search for glory and trade it for a simple life on land and start a family. Noboru has already started to develop hatred towards Ryuji for acting like such a typical human. So Noboru will probably do something extreme to quench his thirst for betrayal. And in the midst of this someone will get hurt but I am not exactly sure who will get hurt. Overall, this book is a good intellectual change from most of the non-fiction books I am used to reading. This book has made me think harder than most non-fiction books I have read. The way the message is delivered in this book is unique and so it makes deciphering the message a great challenge.

Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende was one of the guys who tried to improve his country by helping the common people but ended up being murdered. He was one of the "good" guys in the history of the common people of Chile. He took back much of the foreign owned business and made them Chilean. He only tried to help out the poor people of his country but the United States did not like him taking back all the foreign owned business. So they motivated people to revolt against him. And of course there were always those Chilean people who always hated Allende and wanted to remove him from power. Hatred towards Allende reached its pinnacle and he was murdered. Allende was one of those Latin American leaders who did not give in to the master power, U.S.A., and so he died. Thats a lesson, defy United States interests and die. Unless you another one of those master powers such as Russia or Japan.

Batista

Batista was my favorite Latin American leader that we read about. I like his nickname, "the Man." He has an interesting history, from dealing with gang members to leaving his people to rot in their extreme poverty. Heres a website where I found some of my research: http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/funfacts/batist.htm. I used this website to answer the question of how Batista dealt with his enemies. Batista was known for being the ventroliquist in many puppet governments. He did make very rich friends. Such as investors from America who had businesses in Cuba. Batista was a popular man in his younger years because he served in the army and protected his country. He participated in his own revolt to remove a bad leader. He was a hero amongst his people. In his later years, Batista became real harsh with his people. He killed many of them to maintain control over them. I think most Latin American leaders were a bit intinmidated by the United States so they made allies with them. By letting them make businesses on their lands or letting them build naval bases there. That way, they would be on the United States good side. Even if they're people suffered.

Physical Properties of water: Ice

In our group I did not do my topic on ice but I was fascinated by Jesse's information on it. So I did some research on it because Anne sais we would have a quiz on all the presentations. Anyways I did more extensive research on that and found the the differences in densities between ice and water. One way to see this is to place ice on top a glass of water. The ice will float meaning ice must be denser than water. Most solids would penetrate the surface because they are denser than water and sink to the bottom. Water has a strong surface tension making it difficult for objects to penetrate its surface. I always thought ice was denser than water. I wonder why a solid such as ice is denser than a liquid such as water. Here is a good website that has 4 explanations for why ice floats on water. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00136.htm. According to this website matter that displaces a liquids surface has to rise equal to the matter that was displaced. So that would explain why a solid placed on a liquid makes the liquid rise.

Revise and Edit Script

Today I had to revise the script since it is due on Monday. I added some citations and came upon new information. Some new information included the health concerns of the Tijuana River. Apparently the Tijuana River is very polluted one can get diseases such as cholera, hepatitis A, and malaria. Sounds severe. http://www.american.edu/ted/TIJUANA.HTM. The source is probably reliable since the format is proffessional. The Tijuana River is definately in worse condition than the San Diego River. But I wonder why? Could it be because there is no one to guard the river from pollution, in Tijuana? I cannot make any assumptions because I am not that well informaed about this. Also, I could not find any information on how one can get malaria from just getting near the river? I always thought you get that from mosquitos not from just physical contact with the water. If anyone knows the answer to that question feel free to answer.

Article on Latin America

US border build-up worries Mexico by James Hider is an article about the fortification of the United States-Mexico Border. The author was somewhat biased stating that "the move as a show of force by Mexico's much more powerful neighbour, just six weeks before presidential elections in Mexico." The author gave evidence to oppose the fortification of the border but also stated that Mexico does not do enough to support its people so they leave it for United States. There was an interetsting quote by a man named Julio Hernandez Lopez who believed that the reason for the United States to foritfy its border right before the Mexican Presendential election. He said that the United States was trying to send a message to Mexican voters how risky it would be to vote for a president who does not understand the power of white people. Could the United States really be trying to show off its power? This is another possible example of the United States getting involved in Latin American politics. The author gave statistics that explained how the fortification of the border only increase the deaths of immigrants and makes people trying to corss the border more desperate. Being desperate, they will do anything to cross the border even hire people to transport them across the broder. Mexico had a muted response because during Bush's live speech about the border, Mexico did not bother to broadcast his speech over their soap operas. I believe a simple wall will not stop people from trying to improve their lives. They will only get more desperate and hire traffickers to cross them across the border. Here is the link to the article Spencer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4987784.stm.

The Meniscus

http://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/liquids/tension.html. There is a great flash animation plus description on surface tension. The author of this website explains how the meniscus is formed. It is really interesting how mercury, the only liquid with stronger surface tension than water, forms an upward parabola instead of a downward parabola formed by water. Because the attraction between unlike molecules in water is stronger than the attraction between same molocules in water, they cling on to the glass tube. The meniscus can only occur when the water is placed in a narrow tube. A wider tube will have to much gravity and the water will have to much to lift so it it will be too much to lift.

Surface Area

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/SurfaceTension.html. This is a complicated website that explains the physics of how hydrogen bonding reduces surface area. Do you know why warm water is better to clean with than cold water. You will have to wait for our presentation to find out. Anyways, I never knew how useful this stuff is because you can apply this information to you everyday life. From chemistry I can know what is better. Another thing I learned in physics is that everything in nature wants to be stable in other words nature is lazy and wants to exert very little or no force at all. So everything in nature tries to arrange itself to exert a net force of 0. That is an example of nature trying to maintain balance.

Sticky Water

Surface Tension is a pretty difficult topic to understand but it is definately a very interesting one. Today I found a great website that explains the phenomenon known as hydrogen bonding. Hydrogen Bonding is the attraction between a hydrogen atom and a oxygen atom that causes water to be "sticky." You can click on the link or wait till our fascinating presentation to find out how hydrogen bonding works and how that relates to surface tension. http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/bubbles/sticky_water.html. It is amazing how bugs like the water strider can walk on water because of the strong surface tension of water. That has more to do with physics than chemistry but it just is interesting that because of a low center of gravity and stable positioning it can walk on water.

Physical Property of Water...

I shouldn't have slacked because now I am having trouble finding a physical property of water because my groupmates took all the common ones so I must now do more extensive research to find different ones. After some research I found a good topic. It ios very interesting but a little difficult to understand. It is called surface tension and here is a geat website to research it http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/surten.html. Surface Tension is the tension every liquid has and it affects its stickiness. You can see this in the Meniscus. There is a slight curve in the water that is because of the stickiness of water. Water molecules at the surface are at a constant tug of war with each other. This great tension makes it a great support for objects trying to float on top.

Important people of Mexican independence

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/santaanna.htm. A man by the name of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was responsible for a lot of chaos in Mexico and Texas. He started out as an enemy to the Mexican Independence movement but changed sides to plave his good friend Isturbide into power. After Isturbide lost power Santa Anna took his place. He was alected president but then Santa Anna declared himself a dictator because he felt his people were not ready for a democracy. He was thought to bring Mexico out from all this chaos it was in and take Mexico out of the hole Isturbide placed them in. Unfortunately Santa Anna only brought Mexico into further turmoil. Santa Anna lost and regained power constantly he was president and dictator 11 times. He cost Mexico more than half their territory and was eventually exiled. This man is thought to be the nemesis of Texas because he caused Texas a lot of turmoil which eventually led them to declare independence. It is kind of weird how Mexico fought for their independence because of an abusive country like Spain was controlling many aspects of their lives and they had very little freedom. They treat Texas the same way Spain treated them... Looks like that another example of humans not learning lessons from history.

Important Leaders

I found a very impotant person to Mexican Independence, Agustín de Iturbide. http://www.britannica.com/hispanic_heritage/article-9043055. He was a general who led the Mexican forces against the Spanish forces. As a younger man, he showed off his skills to many of his superiors and won many important battles. He was given comman over the military district of Michoacan and Guanajuato. With his forces and Vicente Guerrero's forces they overwhelmed the remaining Spanish forces and won their independence. Iturbide was an interesting man because of his military backround. He did become emeperor of Mexico but was so unpopular that he was exiled. When he returned to Mexico he was shot and killed. It is amazing how a man who fought vigurously for his countries freedom would be betrayed by it.

Enlightenment Ideals

Here is a website with a great amount of information on the whole Mexican Independence movement. http://www.teacherlink.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/mid.html. There is a great section on the Enlightenment values that infleunced their independence movement. That section somewhat defines the Enlightenment. Back at that time Mexican history education revolved around theology and most people had to survive with that. The Catholic Church dominated almost every aspect of life back then. Mexicans wanted to limit that power so that they could have some control. Science and reason were some of the dominating principles of the Enlightenment. People began to believe that they could improve their social status instead of being stuck whereever they were. This website helped me understand a lot better as to why the Enlightenment was so important why was it such a turning point in human history?

Mexican Independance

I found a great website that explains the causes of the Mexican Revolution but it is a bit biased. The author believes that Hidalgo was not a good leader and he just caused more suffering and bloodshed. The author believes that Hidalgo only got the Indians to fight for him and only caused more losses for Mexico. Heres the link: http://k12west.mrdonn.org/ColonialMexico.html#INTRO. The author said that the revolts caused by earlier men resulted in the unification of the middle class who banded together to fight against the Spaniards. So common hatred brought them together. From some of the information one can see of the ideals of the Enlightenment in the Mexican Revolution. Ideas that supported increasing ones social status contributed a lot to evolution The amount of informaton is enormous but becareful thearticle is based.

To confirm some of the information in my previous blog I went to a different website and found loads of information on one of the most impoartant figures in the Mexican Revolution. His name was Miguel Hidalgo. Another impoartant person wa Ignacio Allende, both were considered the fathers of Mexican Independance. http://www.mexonline.com/mexican-independence.htm. It contains detailed information on the beginnings of the Revolution. These two important people acted as martyrs for the Mexican Revolution because they died while trying to gain independance and the indiginous and mestizo rose against the Spaniards. This website confirmed other information from other websites.

Independance Movements: Mexico

Today I chose the country Mexico to research for the next week. For some beggining research I went to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/history/mexico/independence/ for some basic information on the Mexican Revolution. Here some starting dates and end dates are given. Some information is given regarding important people in this revolution It does not go into much detail but is great if you want to write down basic facts about Mexico. The website looks reliable except for the fact that the layout seems simple and not much effort was put into the content.

More Pictures

I have collected more pictures for our big Latin American Project. So far I only got pictures of rivers and pictures of San Diego's history. Michae Lung here I will post the link for the picture I found. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.waveberg.com/art/sandeigo360.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waveberg.com/wavenergy/bod05.htm&h=360&w=360&sz=31&hl=en&start=61&tbnid=bN5MjYlo7G9EVM:&tbnh=121&tbnw=121&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSan%2BDiego%2BWater%2BHistory%26start%3D54%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
I only posted one because it was an incredibly huge link. I am a bit confused as to how our video will look. Because we plan on having a news style video in which an anchorman introduces the audience to the issue and then we go right into our interview. After that we have pictures. But our pictures are just ones of rivers so it will seem boring. And I cant find any different types of pictures. Our script contains a lot of complicated terms and it will be difficult to show them as pictures.

Not much research left...

Well I believe we have gotten most of the research that is needed for our video and all that is left is trying to meet all the deadlines. Jesse, if you are reading my blog remember to do that interview and do not break the camera because I do not want to have to go through the trouble of telling the story of how Spencer Pforsich annihialated you and Michael because you broke David Jean's camera. The nest deadlines is that Flash animation. Jesse got an idea of what to make. He wanted us to make a flash that started out with a paper airplane flying and then landing in front of someone. Then that person would open it up and there would be the news. At first I thought that would be too complicated and noone would like it. But since none of us had any better ideas we deided to go with that one. If any flash masters are reading this we might need your help for this so come looking for us and ask for what help we need.

Time to find some pictures

After reading my script I have found some pictures that might match with some of the words that are said. I will list them here starting with San Diego Rivers: http://ucsdmasa.org/cutenews/data/upimages/n3303623_33997686_8063.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1158/544972474_7a1c74e0e9.jpg\
http://www.ci.santee.ca.us/Modules/ShowImage.aspx?imageid=73
http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/images/riverMaps/diego_river_1hr.png
http://www.zbirding.info/SanDiego/DSC02138%20015.jpg
http://www.sandiegoriver.org/images/KrystalatSanteeLakesoutflow.jpg
http://pangea.stanford.edu/courses/gp104/waterscape/users/alexp33/disp_SanDiego.jpg

Tijuana Rivers Now:
http://www.nature.nps.gov/nnl/Registry/USA_Map/States/California/NNL/TRE/images/TIJUANA_RIVER_CA.jpg
http://www.projectcleanwater.org/images/tijuana_topo.jpg
http://www.netconnection.com/tjriver/TJestuary_interpcntr.jpg
http://www.water-technology.net/projects/tijuana/images/img1.jpg
http://www.wildcoast.net/mznews/archives/IMG_2419.jpg
http://www.oasisdesign.net/images/img_book/GraywaterStreetTijuana.jpg
Ok thats all I got so far. These pictures fit decently with our script. But I know I will really have to find better ones. These pictures include mostly the rivers and water. It is very difficult to find more pictures of something else. Anyways, Michael those are all the pictures I got so download them if you believe they are necessary for the success of our video.

Required Classmate Blog Comment #5: Gabriel Ayala

Finally, I found a final blog who had some interesting information on a similar topic. Gabriel's blog was very interesting, to me, mostly because of a specific post. That once specifically explained the side effects caused by pesticides. It was new information that we could have much use of. So here's the link if you need it...http://spikeywaffles.blogspot.com/. You could even get a lawyer on that website just incase you have some disputes invloving pesticides. On other sections of that website they listed the side effects. This information will be very useful to us and as I stated in my last post, it will only add more evidence to our statement-that the Tijuana River is unhealthy. Today I feel liek using my habits of mind so I will use the one called Evidence. This website seems credible although I cannot find an author for it. But knowing that the organization who made the website is a lawfirm than I can guess that the side effects they listed are all harmful because they want to get people to hire them.

Required Classmate Blog Comment #4: RJ Sheperd

After spending more time out of my life looking for someone else who had a similar topic to mines I found one that could possibly have something to do with it. http://sendingmebackwards.blogspot.com/. His blog contained information on pesticides used in Mexico. This lead me to believe that pesticides could be on of the reasons for their horrible water quality. After some thought I decided to inform Michael Lung about this so we could inlude it some way into our video. So Michael Lung if you are reading my blog right now click on the link above and find RJ's section on Pesticides so you can gather that information. With this much information on Tijuana's water pollution it might be difficult to secretely persuade people that Tijuana's rivers are really bad. I believe with so much information on their pollution it will seem as if all we can talk about is Tijuana's water pollution. Unless we can find some positive things on it than it will seem like that.

Required Classmate Blog Comment #3: Austin Han

After more inspecting I found another classmate's blog who had a similar topic as I. He was researching water but not exactly in the same area as me. But there was a section in his blog that was a bit similar to mine. In this section he posted information on water in Mexico. http://austinhan08.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=12. It might be useful for other poeple researching on Mexico's water quality. When I read it though it was confusing and I just closed the window. For people who are more informed than me in chemistry and things of that sort, that website he linked would be good. There was another link to a website that informed people about Mexico's bad water. It stated that water from Florida was flowing to Mexico creating more unhealthy water. This information will be useful to show everyone how bad Mexico's water is.

Required Classmate Blog Comment #2: JV Hill

I inspected JV's and found some interesting, but complicated, information. Heres the link to JV's blog with the incredible information. http://jv-hill.blogspot.com/2007/09/san-diego-water-polution.html. I skimmed through the 100+ page article on the San Diego River. It had tons of information just not all of it was necessary. The most important part was the section on Water Quality. They listed the concerns, and the cause of them, of the San Diego River. Unfortunately, the article contains some very proffessional stuff therefore making it difficult for a tenth grader to understand. They listed elements I have never heard of, so I will definately need Anne's Help for this. It's only purpose for our video is just to take up time in our video. Because I fear that our video will be very short. That is because we did not want the topic we got but we will have to work with it.

Required Classmate Blog Comment #1: Michael Lung

Thanks for posting all those nice websites on the Tijuana River. From there I can pick out good pieces of information that we might need to include in our video and then collect pictures to match the information. In case there are any other groups out there that need information on the San Diego and Tijuana river's water quality and things of that sort heres a link to one of Michael Lung's posts that contains links to many websites on water. http://blogforspencersclass.blogspot.com/2007/09/rivers-information.html. The information we compiled is all in that link. From this information we were able to select to which side our bias would go towards. We decided we would secretely try to persuade our audience that the Tijuana River is polluted and the quality there is not good to sustain life. We found tons of information on how polluted the Tijuana river is including a list of the dangerous elements in the rivers.

Revising Story

September 17, 2007- Today I revised my Spaniard and indian accounts of the Spaniards arrival to the New World. Actually no one from school revised my work so I had to get one of my brothers. Since have not been around the sun as much as I have, they could not give that much professional critique. They used vague statements. So I had to work with that and so I just continued on with my story. But from reading some other people stories I got inspired to be more descriptive so whoever my audience is can easily picture what I am trying to describe. So that is what I did today but I did not do much of it.

Weekend and I do not feel like working

September 15, 2007- Well, today I really do not feel like working but through some divine intervention I got my lazy bottom off the couch and into the computer chair. I did not research but I added another question to my list of interviewer questions. I forgot what it was but I know it had to deal with pollution in the rivers. We will try to compare the pollution in both rivers and somehow bias it towards our side. I guess we will say that the San Diego river is much more safer or something of that sort.

Third day of Presentations

September 14, 2007- On this day I finally presented and showed what the Mayans were all about. I am pretty sure most people that came to my booth were interested and they learned a lot about the great Mayans. The Mayans were pretty impressive they could even be called "Greeks of the New World." Now that the mini project was over I worked on some interviewing questions for our expert. I deleted some of my other questions that Jesse thought were not good. I made new questions that I believed our expert could answer and I made other questions that an expert in water could answer, such as a proffesor.

Second day of presentations

September 13, 2007-On this day the Incan group presented and I learned quite a bit about them though I was still not persuaded that the Incas were more interesting than the Aztecs. Here is another cool website: http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/tan/projects/mayan/relegion.html. This website talks about some of their religious ceremonies. Like I said somewhere in my other posts, the Mayans practiced cruel forms of human sacrafice in which people's hearts were torn out by hand. This cruelness expressed by the Mayans could be compared to the cruelty the Spaniards showed them.

First day of Presentations

September 12, 2007- On this day the Aztec group presented ther research. It was interesting to learn about that Native American tribe, it is my favorite of all the Native American tribes. I got some ideas from their poster boards. I found an interesting website on the Mayan calendar that tries to decipher the Mayan calendar: http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html. The Mayan calendar is pretty confusing but I did understand that the Mayans believed the world started somewhere between 3000BCEand3100BCE. Thats where the Mayan calendar starts at least it continues many years and ends at 2012 so some people have predicted that the world could end at that time. Saying that the Mayans were wrong might be an insult to their society but I feel it is logical not to believe in this. Besides they believed in a flat rectangular world and they were wrong.

Sunday, and I do not feel like exerting force to research

September 16, 2007- On this day I went to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_River to collect some pictures on the San Diego river. I found many good pictures that I could not find anywhere else. They were good sources and they will surely benefit our video. Some of our fellow classmates will be able to connect with those pictures because they could explain how they have been there. I think our bias will be towards the San Diego river mostly because we live in San Diego. I am not exactly sure how we will do that but I feel as if it might have to do with pollution...

Mayan Weapons and Religion

September 11, 2007- http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0310200/mayawp.html. Unlike the Aztecs, the Mayans were not a warring tribe. They were fought mainly over territory but not often. This shortage in warfare gave them the time to advance in cultural acheivements. Of course, whenever the need arose for war Mayan people were eager to defend their land and pride. When I researched I found out that their weapons were so decorated that they did not even look like tools of death but more like decorations. The Mayans used weapons such as spears, knives, Atatl (Spear thrower), and the club. Every native american tribe was involved in some type of physical violence. I am starting to question if they were as brutal to each other as the Spaniards were to them. I've read about how the how some tribes were very evil to other tribes and their cruelty could not be much different than the Spaniards. Such as the Aztecs, they tore out people's hearts as sacrifices to the gods! They did that for the love of their gods just like the Spaniards conquered the native americans for love of their religion. So how do you compare the Spaniards motive for enslaving many Indians to the Indians own crualty towards each other. Besides weren't Indians savage and unlawful. Weren't they unorganized bands of people with no government? If they were then what the conquistadors did was a good thing by bringing organization to those wild savages. Well, that just my opinion I was just trying to see things from multiple perspectives. The picture below is a temple of the mighty Mayan warriors. The temple looks interesting and I am guessing it was built around 900AD-1200AD. That is because around that time the Mayans became increasingly hostile and became involved in more wars.

The End of the Mayans

September 10, 2007-http://www2.truman.edu/~marc/webpages/nativesp99/maya/conquest.html. Heres the link to a good website on the conquest of the Mayans. To my surprise the fall of the great Mayans did not happen exactly because of Spaniards but it happened because of othe Native Tribes. The Toltecs, a tribe of southern Mexico spread south into Mayan terrritory and controlled the Mayans from the city of Chichen Itza. The Mayans were not wiped out but instead they were allowed to live but they had to follow Toltec law, culture and religion. Toltecs encouraged a more militaristic nature of the Mayans. A famous Mayan named Hunac Ceel did not like the Toltecs so he took control of Itza and became the new ruler. His warlike nature changed the Mayans from the "Greeks of the New World" to nothing more than savages. The Spaniards could now easily take them over and that is exactly what they did. What if the Mayans held on to their lands and were united to defend themselves against the Spaniards. History might have tooken a different turn but not a very big turn. Spaniards would most likely have conquered the Mayans even if they were united or not. Plus there probably would have been another great conquistador who would be known for conquering the great Mayans.

Simple Website

September 09, 2007-On this day I came across a simple website that has very little information on each of the guiding questions we need to answer, but it contains the information in almost a list format so it is easy to understand and you easily just write down the answers. http://www.courses.psu.edu/anth/anth008_cmg149/mayan.html. On this website I researched some of the Mayan tools they used for their great architecture. The Mayans were a primitive culture in the sense that they had not metal and had to create all their buildings out of limestone, which was rich in that area. I also learned about some of the labor back at those times. Most poeple did agricultural work while others helped in the contruction of important structures. The website I got it from seems a little unreliable. The format of the website seems a little too simple plus there are some mispelled words. But I can back up that information from other websites so it seems reliable. For Micheal Lung, here are the websites that I said I would link for the Big Latin America Project.
1. http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et1094/et1094s9.html
2. http://www.projectcleanwater.org/html/ws_san_diego_river.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_River
4. (This website has a lot of big words but I am pretty sure the website also has good for information on the chemistry portion of the river so here it is) http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/bptcp/docs/reg9addendum.pdf

Little information

September 08, 2007- Today I hardly did any research, but I did glance over some bit of information. That information was about music. As you can see in the picture below there are many mayans playing their wind instruments while other mayans are playing their percussion instruments. They are, most likely, playing for a special occasion such as a victory or a celebration. The flutes, which were crafted out of fired ceramic, were considered the more extravagant and higher ranking intrument. Musicians were considered to be a higher rank than normal townsfolk. Music seems to be a very important part of every great culture that has ever existed. So it is not too surprising that the music is important to Mayan lifestyle.

Answers to some of the Guiding Questions

September 07, 2007- Here are some of the answers to some of the guiding questions. Just click on the link and read the information. http://www.mayan-world.com/cosmos-m.htm. Some of the questions answered are part of the religion and art section. The answers should not be a surprise because Mayan beliefs were similar to other native american tribes. They believed in life after and death and more life after that. They believed life on earth was a just part of a long cycle that was controlled by the gods. This information, to me, is similar to other information I have read about native american tribes. It seems weird to believe that after life there comes another life and after that another life. So basically you live many lives. If that were true people would do more strange things with that many lives.

More Mayan Information

September 06, 2007- Today I took a risk by gathering information from an infamous website. Anyways, if you believe the information might improve your intelligence then heres the link: http://www.conservapedia.com/Maya. The website has some general information that isn't really helpful but it goes in depth into a great Mayan acheivement-the Mayan calendar. It is amazing how people such as the Mayans could develop something like a calendar with their primitive technology. The Mayans were well advanced over other tribes, at least in their culture. The Mayans had a decent knowledge of astronomy, mathermatics, and the use of a written language. They also had something that Europeans did not have at the time and that was the concept of Zero. If you want to read more about that then click on the link above get ready to learn.

Art of the Mayans

September 04, 2007- On this day I found a decent website for information but a greta website for pictures of some Mayan art. It includes sculptures, masks, pottery and more. http://historylink101.com/1/mayan/mayan_art.htm

The sculpure below is of a jaguar which was thought to be a god. The Mayans believed that there was a jaguar god that determined the fate of all humankind. Most of the art that Mayans made were dedicated to their gods. Their art is fascinating because of the complex designs and patterns on the art they made. Mayan art has sometimes even been called the greatest art of the New World. Art was definately an important aspect of the Mayans. One can make many assumptions about them just from looking at their art. Their art reveals a lot about their values. Although I do not necessarily think their art is very beautifull i still find it intreguing.

Mayan Art and Architecture

September 05 2007-On this day I was fortunate to find such a great website. http://www.crystalinks.com/mayanarch.html
On this website I found lots of information on Mayan art and architecture. It is not really new information because most of the information states the Mayans obsession with their gods, which is what most of the native american tribes are obssed with. Some information I found interesting was that not only were the Mayans obssesed with their gods they were obssesed with the calender they made. They would make temples with exactly 346 steps to equal the number of days in their calendar. If you want a good website for art this is a good source. Although many questions arise. Such as how did they get the technology to biuld such great structures with their primitive tools in such harsh lands.