Post #1 Second part of the semester.

Chapter 5 reading.10/24/2014

Today in class we learned and talked about China and India, these were part of the reading that we were supposed to read.
In China we talked about how the landowner had a lot of power. There were a certain amount of people that owned all the land. There was someone that tried and changed this, however that person was then assassinated because of the change that they wanted to do. This is very important because there was a lot of inequality that was happening.
In China however their were people that sponsored poor peasants to get a higher education. This is important because they are giving them an opportunity.
We also talked about how people were had to be born into the elite class. It was extremely hard to even be apart of this type of class. The elite class was the one that made all the decisions and had the most power.

It was extremely noticeable that their were classes in China and in India. If was also extremely noticeable who was part of the higher class and who was not.
At the beginning on the chapter i also read that it talked about how the elite had so much power that they can even make their own military and over power the emperor if they wanted to. This is important and interesting because it just shows how much power money and class status can give you. We still sort of have classes today. They are less noticeable but we can all still see them. In the chapter classes were made to keep people in order and to make sure everything worked accordingly. They were also meant to keep the higher people on the top and everybody else below them.
Lets just say if people were to distribute the land that the small percentage of higher people had, people would not know how to run the land, how to work the land, what to make out of the land. This is also a good point on why the small percentage of people controlled a lot of the land. People that did not have land would be confuse on how to run the land, would be confuse on what to do with the land, would be confuse not having that higher person telling them what to do.

Another thing we discussed were slavery, Slavery is probably one of the oldest human practices that have been practiced. I think slavery goes back to the neolithic era, where people started to settle down and that's when they started coming up with the idea that they can just force people to work for them. We have seen all different types of slavery and we have also read and seen how slavery has come back around in the eras.

Last blog of 1st part of the semester.

There has been period where their were has been always someone with more power than others. This is important because people have developed that and this says a lot about the people. This shows how they are progressing as a community and want to evolve further. This is important because a stronger figure head has developed in the community but a figurehead has also developed when it came down to gender.

We all knew that men in general were more strong and were seen as a figurehead than women. Women were always the one with the lower role in society.

This s important because even to this day we still see this in our society and our community. This has evolved with us for the longest time and it is important to recognize this.

Cant think of a tittle blog

Paleolithic societies were very small, they had a small population and it talks about how they lived in peace and with a lot of tranquility. However men were always the one that were seen as the figure head they were seen as the strong brave ones, they were seen as the ones that were in charge and were the ones that made the decisions.

When reading the book i read that men would get into bloody battles  to settle who was the strongest and it was more of a physical competition to see who was going to be in charge.

Men and women also had a unique roles in societies. Besides men and women technology also had a very big impact on the society, the population and the people in general. Technology permitted only a very low population density and ensured an extremely slow rate of population growth.

Back then their were a lot of factors that were stopping people. These factors were not based on what people can do but they were based more on what did people know and how far their knowledge was going to take them.

I found this chapter and this period very interesting because people were barely figuring themselves out and they were barely learning things that would soon benefit them in many different ways.

Last post before midterm

Comparing all the seminal thinkers and there ideas really helped when it came down to studying for the midterm. The seminal thinkers that i thought were more interesting were Buddha and Jesus. 
It was interesting comparing and seeing what they thought was the goal that one should achieve in life. I really liked that Buddha thought that anyone can achieve enlightenment. I also liked how Buddhism is not only a religion but it is also a way of life. I have been to a Buddha temple and that was one of the most fascinating places i been too. I could just feel the feeling of peace and everything being so calm, it even brought me some calm when just being there.

Another seminal thinker that I found quite interesting was Jesus. I found him interesting because obviously i believe him. I have also read the bible and i find it interesting when reading it and finding out everything that went on back when Jesus roamed the earth. The goal of life is going to heaven, anyone can achieve this afterlife. This is what i was taught to think ever since i was a kid, so this is something i strongly believe in.  All the seminal thinkers had something to do with religion and there points of view of how one should live there life. This is important because they all had different ways of thinking and different ways of seeing how one should live there life.

First Blog of October

Sanjuana Garcia

10/03/2014

The last couple of classes i have been finding interesting, we have moved on to a different era so the people are different, the literature is different, and everything about the people and how they lived is different. I found today's class extremely interesting because we analyzed and read the The superior man from The Analects of Confucius. I really enjoyed reading these because everybody in class had there own different points of views of reading them and they had all different ideas when it came down interpreting them. Some of them i can relate too and a lot of them made me deeply think. My favorite one was XIV.29 The master said, "The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions". I can extremely relate to this because this is a big thing i should work on and this is also something that made me think that i struggle with. What this quote is saying is that one should not say much but rather let his actions speak for him. This is one of the many quotes that caught my attention. I did realize that if people were to follow all of these quotes their lives would be a lot more relaxed and it could even make them into a better person.

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The epic gilgamesh

Doing the skits on Wednesday was a lot of fun. It was so nice to see my classmates feel comfortable around each other and put up some good presentations. The presentations were awesome and it helped me understand the story better. Going after all the plays after the presentations and discussing them helped even more. That gave me a better understanding about the whole story and the way the people thought and the way that they did things. Other things that caught my attention this past week in class was learning about the Neanderthal and the homosapiens. The activity that we did in  class that made more sense to me was that a Neanderthal male mated with a homosapien female. This was interesting because how are we supposed to know what people preferred and why these two types of people ended up having a fertile offspring.
So starting the Neolithic era we started looking at The epic of Gilgamesh. This i a epic story about civilizing humans. The makin characters in the story is Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Harlot. We acted out the story and saw how people acted and how they became more civilized than how they were.

Chapter 2(start with agruculture)

 09/04/2014
Chapter two(agriculture)

• While reading i learned about agriculture. i learned about the ways it spread and the way that people helped it spread.
• There were two different ways that it spread. The first was diffusion and the other was migration and colonization.
• this also meant the spread and the movement of cultures and languages. 
• globalization of agriculture was a very long process that has lasted thousands of years.
• Some places and people that resisted agriculture was because of the harsh environments which they lived in and the harsh deserts or artic environments.
• one thing that caught my attention was that some people that lived in certain environments did not feel the need for agriculture.
• However people did see a decrease in agriculture because that was due to the fact that technology was being presented, intermarriage, disease, or through the violent displacement of people.
• As agriculture was increasing population was also increasing. They saw a very big increased in population through the agricultural revolution era.
• NOT everything was sweet with agriculture. There was a big decrease in human health and more diseases.
• People would be in contact with animals most of the time, and that would make them a target for the diseases that they carried(small pox, flu, measles, chicken pox, malaria, rabies etc.)
• One thing that i always found interesting was when they discovered that wheat, rice, and grpes were domesticated and they could be made into alcoholic beverages.
• Animals were very important in the sence that people rely on them a lot for milk, and food producing. 
• Women and men had roles, and women's roles were more involved in milking animals, processing the milk.
• A lot of societies retained much of the social and gender equality of gathering and hunting communities.
• Other village societies came to organize themselves politically in having chiefs,kings.
• Agriculture gave the opportunity for men to dominate nature, but it also gave them the power to dominate each other.