Humanities Is So Much Better Than Math

I think my favorite slide show so far is the medieval medicine slide show. It was interesting and gruesome all at the same time. I think It was well put together and well thought out. 

Kate and I are going to do our presentation today, I am a little nervous but excited at the same time. We are doing our presentation on Dionysus and the thing I find interesting about him is they way he was born. Well, one of the myths anyways is that he was re-born from Zeus' leg. Some times I wish the things we read in books were real, they always seem way more interesting then the real world. I guess thats why movies are so entertaining.

Today we talked about the second level of hell and I thought it was quite interesting. It makes me think of if there really is a hell and what it really is about. Because the people that were in that level of hell were in there because of lust. And their punishment was being in a tornado in the middle of a hurricane and since they gave into the sins of flesh they were in the tornado not allowed to ever tough each other but they had to feel that desire and that in itself is hell. I must agree, I don't know if I could bare that, but I suppose that is what it was part of hell.

We watched a documentary about knights in class today that I thought was a little interesting. The thing that I thought was interesting was Chivalry and how it came about. The fact that when knights first came to be there really was no such thing as Chivalry. As a matter of fact there was one time that knights barged into a city and killed about 5000 unarmed innocent people. Chivalry came to be because some guy decided that is how he thought knights should be. But it still wasn't up to the way it is betrayed in movies today. Knights were just knights, they did not rescue damsels in distress or fight off dragons. They were like all other types of people and weren't way better either. They were just higher up in the roles of feudalism.  

So I haven't written in a long time so here is a book we read awhile back that I found quite interesting.

Oedipus Tyrannus
This book was a greek tragedy and to me was very ironic and interesting. This style of reading was so much easier to read than the older stuff that we were reading like The Iliad. At the beginning of this story Oedipus ( the main character) Explains that there was something terrible that was going on in the city. A plague was going on and that plague was that nothing could reproduce. This meant that that plants could not grow, people and animals could not have babies, and other things like that. No one knew this was happening so they sent a man named Creon to ask Apollo what was happening. When he returned he came with the news that someone in the City had created a horrible murder. The murder of their old king Laius.

Later someone that people had considered a visionary had come to tell him who it was that committed the murder. The funny thing is that he was blind. (He was blind but could see everything) He told Oedipus that it was him that created the murder. Oedipus did not believe him because he didn't remember killing the king and didn't even know the king.

As the story went on things started to reveal and it turns out that he did kill the king. He was a bastard child and was on his way to the city from the city that he lived in to find his dad. On his way he killed an old man. That just so happened to be the king and....get this....his father. (What kind of fucked up shit is that!?!?!) So he showed up in the city and seemed like a hero so he inherited the thrown. He married the queen and she bore his children. (wait there is more irony) She was his mother. So he commited two horrible sins. Murder and Incest. Wow his life was pretty fucked if you ask me.

This whole story was just a huge twist of irony, and probably my favorite thing that we've read. I really enjoyed it.

For the past couple of days in class we have been talking about the book "The Trial and Death of Socrates" and I find Socrates to be quite interesting. I mean he was going around pissing people off and got put on trial for it. I love that he can pretty much convince everyone that they don't really know what they're talking about even though they thought they did. When he was in jail waiting to be put on death row a friend came to bust him out and Socrates said that he couldn't go because of a few reasons. (Those of which I will have to get back to you)

We are finally done with The Iliad, and I am kind of sad that we didn't read the whole thing. But I shall do that In my own time. We didn't have class on Monday because my professor was sick, which is sad becuase I enjoy the class very much. The end of The Iliad was a battle between Hector and Achilles, and Hector lost. Achilles was mad about him killing his cousin so for 12 days in the morning Achilles would drag Hectors body around in front of Troy. I love the change that Achilles goes through. Its really touching that he acutally showed empathy towards the end.

I can't wait to read the next book.