AP World Exam

I thought the exam was about medium. I think the multiple choice went decently, I actually knew what I was talking about, so that's always a plus. Some of the passages and maps were tough. I kicked butt on the DBQ, but unfortunately, by the time we were writing the essays I was yawning and daydreaming about sleeping. Which, naturally, made me more tired. So the COT wasn't too bad, but honestly, by the time I wrote the CC I was pretty much done. I didn't really know what I was talking about but hey, I wrote a thesis and hopefully got a few points for making things up in the correct format. If I was doing it over again (my worst nightmare) I would have started studying much, much earlier. Because when I stated (though it was earlier than the night before, I promise) I started panicking because of all the information in front of me. I used my notes, the textbook, and my blog posts. I probably should have used some videos, because I heard they helped people. I probably would have gone to bed earlier too, the night before, but I ended up lying there. Staring at the ceiling and imagining myself blanking and having a mental breakdown. Thankfully I didn't freak out. Side note: thanks for the food! I had a cookie and an unhealthy amount of pretzels. It cheered me up. :)

My love is vengeance, that's never freeeeeeeee

1) Similarities: The color scheme is pretty similar in each portrait, with the exception of the black-and-white photo. The background is darker colors, and the light falls on the person being painted. This not only makes them stand out in the portrait, but also implies that they are "good". They are the light among the darkness. There is a lot of red and gold used in both the furniture and clothing, which gives them a more regal look. Simon Bolivar, who looks more like Borat the more I stare at him, is also wearing white pants. He's clean, sharp, and neat. The perfect image for a leader - flawless. All of these men look strong, confident, and ready. What else could you want in a leader? I mean, one of them is sort of slumped over, but the sun still falls on him.

2) Why are they portrayed like this?: When people look at a leader, they don't want someone who's unsure, or unprepared, or wavering. They want a strong, determined fighter. They want a man who can get stuff done. All of the men are portrayed like this because it builds an immediate sense of trust. Nobody is going to look at them and think 'Gee, I don't know about this guy...' (except maybe Mr. Slumpy over there). They're going to say 'Wow! He must have been a great leader. Just look at his posture.' Despite what their actual accomplishments are, future generations are going to look back on them with respect, because they appear to have been great leaders.

3)Why do revolutions need leaders?: Most people are not leaders. People need someone to guide them in the right direction, set a good example, and create a path to follow. Without a leader, people start to scramble. They doubt. And usually a new leader steps forward, ready to take the reigns and guide people. People are heroic for all sorts of reasons. The thing that gets them the most recognition is their actions. If they do something radical - but not pointless - it will grab attention. It will make people want to learn why he was doing it. Then, once he's caught their attention, they learn the ideals behind the actions. So I guess everything is important - but the thing that gets noticed the most is actions. Everybody knows that Paul Revere rode his horse all night long, screaming about the British coming over. But he isn't remembered for his ideals, his opinions, or his deepest musings. The general public generally doesn't dig deep enough to get into that.

Wait, other people are different than me? Blasphemy!

1) The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals were all mushed into one chapter, unfortunately. The idea makes sense, because they were intertwined with each other, and each had similarities. They affected one another. So it would be reasonable to put them into one chapter, for an easy side-by-side comparison of how they're related to one another. The downside of this being that they might be squished a bit too close. It's hard to separate them, and keep track of what things came from which place. I'm constantly having to remind myself of which one it is I'm reading about. Textbooks are set up be to factual, organized, and clear. This makes them pretty boring for the most part, so I think they least they could do is be clear.

2) I definitely think this global interaction was a good thing. People tend to get so sucked into their own lives and cultures that they forget that - gasp - not everybody is exactly like them. People are still like this today, but that's a whole different story. I think this was a good opportunity for people to experience what life is like in other parts of the world. Trade allowed them to discover new goods and expand what goods they produce. Religion and culture were spreading and mingling, evolving and changing. I think it's much more beneficial to be aware of the world around you, as opposed to being isolated or ignorant. It was a time when people were beginning to learn about other cultures. Sometimes people need a little push, so they can realize that just because it's how you've been doing it since forever, doesn't mean it's the best way.

I sound weird in ShowMe

Heena's (696-700): http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=jlGPHfs
Shannon's (701-705):  http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=iwh3SQi
Melissa's (705-710): http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=k4a0MLI
Mine (711-715):  http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=JFOqKUi
Nrupa's (715-718): http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=EfIKRiC

Christianity and Capitalism

I think Christianity is constantly changing because the world is constantly changing. When people dislike something that is commonly accepted, they try to change it. Everything from what the church supports to the technicalities of a Christian mass has changed at some point. Prayer, masses, and preaching have evolved because there are more convenient and relateable ways to do those things now. Christianity will probably be different in the future than it is today, no different than laws or politics. If the people involved are changing, the religion is bound to change too.

Capitalism. I honestly don't know what it is, really. I'm fairly certain it has something to do with the economy. So...a type of economy. Maybe.

Griots

I personally would be much more interested if we learned history through storytelling, singing, and dancing. It would hold my attention much more than textbooks, and I'd probably remember the facts more easily. A downside being that if the lessons are only passed down orally, and not recorded, they're bound to lose and change information along the way. What we would be taught might not be accurate, or it might be exaggerated for the sake of keeping the stories captivating. Textbooks are definitely more accurate, with primary sources and such. While learning history through this kind of art would be awesome, it wouldn't be very accurate. Then again, I don't know how awesome singing about history would be first thing in the morning.

Mongols on Trial

I personally enjoyed the trial. It was fun seeing everyone put on the roles they picked. If we did another one I think I'd pick to be a direct examiner though, because being cross-examined was terrifying. The prep was pretty easy, especially because of the variety of sources we could use. But when it came to the actual trial, I found that a lot harder. You had to think quickly and remind yourself that no matter what you personally felt, you had to make the Mongols sound a certain way. That was tough for me, because I would have easily voted them guilty, but I was a part of the defense. I think I did better with my questioning with Melissa than the cross examination. I wish I hadn't faltered under Futaba so much, but can you blame me? I knew my information but being put on the spot is not my strong suit.

I think that a person can be ambitious, successful, and prosperous while also being a terrible person. That's kind of what I think of the Mongols. They had incredible achievements and expansion, but I don't like the way they went about gaining that. I personally don't like humanity's need to conquer conquer conquer. It's nice to expand and rule, but it's impossible to do without tons of bloodshed. And I think people have always been, and always will be, too greedy and violent to break these habits. It's depressing, but I don't see many other options when I look at how we act today. But back to the Mongols, I think we can admire them for their accomplishments and military strength while also acknowledging that they were ruthless killers. As were most people we learn about in history. Humans are just violent, unfortunately. We're selfish and greedy and ignorant. But that's besides the point.

I would have definitely found them guilty of terrorism and kidnapping. It's pretty clearly written in history that they stole people from opponents all the time, and they instilled fear through this and by demolishing cities. There's no way they didn't know the effect they would have on other societies by destroying everything in their path. They were far too clever for that. As for genocide, I'm not sure. I'd probably not charge them with that, only because I don't think they killed anyone because of their race, religion, etc. They just wanted to rule everybody, I don't think they cared which specific groups they were ruling. Equal opportunities for all the conquered, wooo!

Genghis Khan - insane or genius?

Genghis Khan was known for being one of the most ruthless leaders the world has ever seen. But was he crazy? I think that depends on your definition. I think he was extremely power hungry and driven - all of his attacks were thoughtfully planned out ahead of time. There was always a reason, a purpose, a strategy. He wasn't just randomly killing of people - you know, except for his half brother that took his fish. He carefully planned out all of his attacks so that they would benefit him - often scaring other potential targets into surrendering. He could just as easily have slaughtered them, but it was more logical to let them give up peacefully. He was also said to save women and children from the attacks. I know, "but killing men is just as bad!" The world he was brought up in was brutal, though. Survival was vital and could only be achieved through personal strength and determination. Genghis Khan was raised and taught that in order to survive and thrive, seizing power was necessary. And killing was necessary to seize power. Do I think killing a family member over a fish is normal? No. In fact, I personally believe that there's something abnormal going on in a person's brain who can willingly and relentlessly murder people. But that's just my opinion - Genghis Khan could have very well been completely healthy. He certainly was intellectually.

Links

Hashtag: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23APworldSillyCrusades
My profile: https://twitter.com/#!/Quran_4evah
Heena's profile: https://twitter.com/#!/Allah_luvs_me

Wrapping it up

I really liked the outcome of this project, because I think our idea of having the two Muslims talk back and forth was really unique. Some of the tweets sounded a little forced, and I think some were awkward simply because people don't casually tweet what year it is. But besides that, this was a ton of fun! Heena and I both followed some other Islam-related twitters, Heena gained a random follow (who I'm sure was confused), and I accidentally followed a ton of Muslim twitters on my personal account the first time around. We got to poke fun at each other and think outside the box with our research, which I really enjoyed. I would love to do something like this again the future. Muhammad the Quran lover will always have a place in my heart.

Bibliographies are boring

But unfortunately, they're necessary. Here's mine:


 "Crusades." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades>.

 Rickard, J. (24 March 2001), Sixth Crusade, 1228-1229, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_crusade6th.html

 "Sixth Crusade." Packrat Productions. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.packrat-pro.com/crusades/crusade6.htm>.

 Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past: Volume A: From the Beginning to 1000. Boston: McGraw Hill, C2011., 2006. Print.

Bing continues to disappoint me

I rarely use Bing, because it tends to lead me around in circles and it likes to autocorrect everything I type in. Which explains why I was having difficulty finding articles on the "piece crusades". Hmm. Well, Bing was decent for this project, but the best page it could provide me with was Wikipedia. Not everything seemed reliable, and often the articles would simply mention "peace" or "Crusade" or "Is Islam a friendly religion?" and not actually be talking about the crusades. Google was slightly better, but I was surprised by the lack of quality articles I found using it. I love Google. But apparently it's not the best for history projects. Yahoo, shockingly to me anyways, provided some nice articles that I used during my research. There wasn't a lot of irrelevant stuff in the middle, which is nice and it saves time. Sweetsearch was the best, because it linked to lots of informative articles and didn't give me too much random stuff to sift through.

The only other reference we used was the textbook, which I put in the bibliography.

Tweet War

So Heena and I did make a series of tweets, which are almost completed now. Our hashtag is #APworldSillyCrusades , and looking back, it may have been wise to shorten it. Anyways. It goes back and forth between Heena's account, @Allah_Luvs_me, and mine - @Quran_4evah. Heena / Fatima is tweeting back and forth with me / Muhammad about the crusades, and what's going on, and how we see it happening. We included a picture of an accurate portrayal of how Muslims pray, and some of the text was written in Arabic (with English translations, of course). Now what's mostly left to do is organize our sources, make a bibliography, and link everything. It's the final stretch!

It Begins

Despite the fact that I had to cancel all my social plans due to rigorous Chemistry studying, Heena and I did start planning on what we're doing for the project. We're most likely going with the 1st crusade, the 4th crusade, and the peace crusade. Of course, we'll have an honorable mention of the children's crusade, our favorite. We're going to do a series of tweets, possibly including some pictures of ourselves (can you guess who will be playing the Muslim girl?). I've started some of the research, but not deep enough to post anything about search engines yet.

Eid

Eid is an Islamic holiday that is usually compared to Christmas. Muslims celebrate it at a slightly different date each year, depending on the position of the moon. They exchange gifts and spend time with family, similar to how Christians (and a lot of non-Christians today) celebrate Christmas. Islam was huge in the earlier eras, and its even bigger now.