A continuation/follow up on my previous religious discussion.
I have been thinking about writing this post for a couple of days now; I just never got around to it. The sermon at church today, however, inspired me enough to prompt it.
Over the past couple of years, I have been focused too much on what I didn't have. I got so frustrated over this point that I all but quit being Christian. I went to church only because I felt obligated, but I didn't participate in any of the outside activities that make up a Christian lifestyle. I avoided my Christian friends, I didn't pray, didn't read the Bible. I gave up on God because he didn't give me what I wanted.
I missed the point of Christianity completely.
During the past few days,however, I have been reminded of what it means to be a Christian. A friend of my from middle school posted a facebook note that discussed spiritual deepness. His observation was that there really isn't spiritual deepness to the Bible, but rather a simple command that can be summed up in two lines ""Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself."
What exactly does loving your neighbor mean? It means being concerned with their wellbeing over your own. It means not letting resentment get in the way of serving others. It means not judging someone's life decision or excluding them because of how they chose to live. It means seeing people as God's image and treating them accordingly. See Christ in others; Be Christ to others.
It's time for me to remember that point and act on it.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world. - Al Franken
Today was pretty good day. I drove home in the morning and came home to an empty house. This surprised me because even if mom was out, Daisy (our dog) should have been at home. Turns out Mom had taken Daisy to the vet because she has pancreatitis. The vet has her on an IV, and hopefully she will get better soon and come home.
Once I found out all this was going on, I ran some errands. I renewed my licence so I finally have one that does not have the "under 21 until" stamp on it. Woohoo big girl licence :). After that I was able to finally go pick up my new glasses. (I say finally because I should have had them 3 weeks ago, but the people at the store were somewhat incompetent. They got my prescription wrong and chipped the glasses frames so they had to order new lenses and new frames.)
After that I went home and worked on my portfolio for Truman. Not going to lie, that is kind of a ridiculous waste of time. At least on my part. I hope something good comes out of it for someone...
The rest of the day I have spent trying to get stuff together for this trip. I made a shopping list, which somehow seems to get longer and longer as I buy more things. I need to sit down and really think about what I need for this trip so I don't end up taking too much. Easier said than done.
Once I found out all this was going on, I ran some errands. I renewed my licence so I finally have one that does not have the "under 21 until" stamp on it. Woohoo big girl licence :). After that I was able to finally go pick up my new glasses. (I say finally because I should have had them 3 weeks ago, but the people at the store were somewhat incompetent. They got my prescription wrong and chipped the glasses frames so they had to order new lenses and new frames.)
After that I went home and worked on my portfolio for Truman. Not going to lie, that is kind of a ridiculous waste of time. At least on my part. I hope something good comes out of it for someone...
The rest of the day I have spent trying to get stuff together for this trip. I made a shopping list, which somehow seems to get longer and longer as I buy more things. I need to sit down and really think about what I need for this trip so I don't end up taking too much. Easier said than done.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
My take on our JINS discussion
This post is more about England in the 1500s and less (not at all) about Panama. But there is some Biology stuff at the end...
Today we talked about an article by Jan Knippers Black entitled "Introduction: Understanding the Persistence of Inequality." Her main point was that there are three basic ideas about why Latin America is so poor. The first is the Corporatism theory which places blame on the Iberians who colonized Latin America. The argument which we discussed in class said that it was the Spanish and the Portuguese who were responsible for introducing the hierarchical social structure that resulted in the exploitation of the poor. We compared Spain and England's governing and religious policies. I have issue with the idea of calling England a protestant country. When Columbus got to the Americas, England was still very much a Catholic country. It did not split from Rome until 1534 for issues more complex than just Henry VIII wanting a new wife. First of all, he wanted a son for a legit reason. England had very recently come out of a civil war. Henry had no legitimate son, a problem because up until that time in history England had no example of a woman successfully inheriting the throne. The only time a woman had inherited, there was a huge civil war between Matilda and Stephen. Henry wanted to avoid that at all costs. Creating the chance for a son was not Henry's only motivation for cutting ties with Rome when the opportunity arose. Henry also wanted more control over his own country and its wealth. When Henry split from the Catholic Church, the hierarchical structure was still very much in place; the difference was that the king was now the head of the Church and not the pope. This is an important point because we discussed that it was the hierarchical structure in Spain that created the problems in Latin America and if England had colonized it, that wouldn't be a problem and they wouldn't be as poor. I disagree for a couple of reasons. One, for the reason explained above. England was very much hierarchical so the same thing may have happened. Two, for the most part we seemed to be using the United States as an example of what happens to a British colony. The U.S. was hardly the only British colony and if we look at the examples of Ghana (which was briefly mentioned in class) and India we see two places that were colonized by Britain but still remain poor. I didn't really have enough a problem with either of the other two to discuss them more in depth. Part of this was also to show off my knowledge of Henry's split with Rome. It's a topic I have studied a lot over the years so I like to talk about it when possible.
Bio Lecture today was a little depressing. We talked about the carrying capacity for humans on the earth and discussed all of the horrible things we are doing to the earth. What stuck out to me most was that male sperm count is down in the U.S. because women taking birth control pills urinate out some of the extra hormones/chemicals from those pills which doesn't get filtered out in the water purification process. So men end up drinking it and have fewer sperm because they have extra feminine hormones. We also talked about how the Aral Sea has pretty much disappeared and how the Sea of Galilee is going to become a salt water lake if they don't start working to conserve water.
Today we talked about an article by Jan Knippers Black entitled "Introduction: Understanding the Persistence of Inequality." Her main point was that there are three basic ideas about why Latin America is so poor. The first is the Corporatism theory which places blame on the Iberians who colonized Latin America. The argument which we discussed in class said that it was the Spanish and the Portuguese who were responsible for introducing the hierarchical social structure that resulted in the exploitation of the poor. We compared Spain and England's governing and religious policies. I have issue with the idea of calling England a protestant country. When Columbus got to the Americas, England was still very much a Catholic country. It did not split from Rome until 1534 for issues more complex than just Henry VIII wanting a new wife. First of all, he wanted a son for a legit reason. England had very recently come out of a civil war. Henry had no legitimate son, a problem because up until that time in history England had no example of a woman successfully inheriting the throne. The only time a woman had inherited, there was a huge civil war between Matilda and Stephen. Henry wanted to avoid that at all costs. Creating the chance for a son was not Henry's only motivation for cutting ties with Rome when the opportunity arose. Henry also wanted more control over his own country and its wealth. When Henry split from the Catholic Church, the hierarchical structure was still very much in place; the difference was that the king was now the head of the Church and not the pope. This is an important point because we discussed that it was the hierarchical structure in Spain that created the problems in Latin America and if England had colonized it, that wouldn't be a problem and they wouldn't be as poor. I disagree for a couple of reasons. One, for the reason explained above. England was very much hierarchical so the same thing may have happened. Two, for the most part we seemed to be using the United States as an example of what happens to a British colony. The U.S. was hardly the only British colony and if we look at the examples of Ghana (which was briefly mentioned in class) and India we see two places that were colonized by Britain but still remain poor. I didn't really have enough a problem with either of the other two to discuss them more in depth. Part of this was also to show off my knowledge of Henry's split with Rome. It's a topic I have studied a lot over the years so I like to talk about it when possible.
Bio Lecture today was a little depressing. We talked about the carrying capacity for humans on the earth and discussed all of the horrible things we are doing to the earth. What stuck out to me most was that male sperm count is down in the U.S. because women taking birth control pills urinate out some of the extra hormones/chemicals from those pills which doesn't get filtered out in the water purification process. So men end up drinking it and have fewer sperm because they have extra feminine hormones. We also talked about how the Aral Sea has pretty much disappeared and how the Sea of Galilee is going to become a salt water lake if they don't start working to conserve water.
Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away
I didn't get around to writing a post yesterday because
1. I was too busy working on my AWESOME JINS paper
2. I listened to a lecture on ESL in our FABULOUS ENVS class
3. I participated in our FANTASTIC Bio Lab
4. I attended the STUPENDOUS potluck at Chad's house
(I am using lots of adjective here because I am not supposed to use in the VERY FIRST LAB REPORT I HAVE EVER WRITTEN that I will be writing soon/eventually.)(Also I am hyper because I didn't get a lot of sleep last night so I am trying to keep myself awake.)(And I do not use caffeine so I cannot rely on that to help me stay awake.)
Yesterday is pretty much outlined in the list above, but those who would like more detail keep reading.
1. My JINS paper is not that good. But I did work on it because I am an overachiever and I work ahead like that.
2. Dr. Sally Cook came to talk to our class about the challenges of ESL (english as a second language) teaching. I was surprised about how little Spanish she said we would need to know in order to interact with the kids at the school. Even though they don't know a lot (if any) English at this point, if they know that we know Spanish, they will use it as a crutch and not learn as much. Looking back at my experience learning Spanish, I can understand how that would happen. She also talked about how after a couple of weeks working with a student, we may notice a backslide in their learning. She said that is normal, and I think that is something that should be told to high school Spanish teachers...
3. Lab was way more fun yesterday then it was the first time we did it. The procedure was similar (read exactly the same) as last time so we all knew what we were doing. Since we all knew what was going on, we were able to talk a lot more which was fun because I got to know the people in that class a lot better. We shared stories about high school, college and mutual acquaintances. I enjoy Bio Lab and Lecture more than the other classes because it is so small (we have 5 people). It makes group work really easy, and everything is laid back.
4. We had a potluck last night so we could get to know everyone better. Fantastic idea. It was so much fun, and it was great to interact with people outside of the classroom. The conversations varied from coolest places we have been (which included Italy, Spain, Ireland, Israel etc.), pop culture (Avatar, South Park, blogging and facebook) to ants mating (apparently all ants mate while flying. Betcha didn't know that. Unless you are Will Petry.) We also tried to guess Marc and Chad's ages. Someone guessed 55 for Marc and Chad just laughed, so I'm pretty sure they were wrong. (I checked facebook and he graduated from high school in 1980, which makes him about 47. (Chad is 37, if I remember correctly, if anyone wanted to know.) Eventually numbers dwindled down until there were about 10 of us left. Then Chad started to tell us about times he was bitten by things like black widow spiders and 14 ft. long snakes. Yep, definitely an interesting evening.
1. I was too busy working on my AWESOME JINS paper
2. I listened to a lecture on ESL in our FABULOUS ENVS class
3. I participated in our FANTASTIC Bio Lab
4. I attended the STUPENDOUS potluck at Chad's house
(I am using lots of adjective here because I am not supposed to use in the VERY FIRST LAB REPORT I HAVE EVER WRITTEN that I will be writing soon/eventually.)(Also I am hyper because I didn't get a lot of sleep last night so I am trying to keep myself awake.)(And I do not use caffeine so I cannot rely on that to help me stay awake.)
Yesterday is pretty much outlined in the list above, but those who would like more detail keep reading.
1. My JINS paper is not that good. But I did work on it because I am an overachiever and I work ahead like that.
2. Dr. Sally Cook came to talk to our class about the challenges of ESL (english as a second language) teaching. I was surprised about how little Spanish she said we would need to know in order to interact with the kids at the school. Even though they don't know a lot (if any) English at this point, if they know that we know Spanish, they will use it as a crutch and not learn as much. Looking back at my experience learning Spanish, I can understand how that would happen. She also talked about how after a couple of weeks working with a student, we may notice a backslide in their learning. She said that is normal, and I think that is something that should be told to high school Spanish teachers...
3. Lab was way more fun yesterday then it was the first time we did it. The procedure was similar (read exactly the same) as last time so we all knew what we were doing. Since we all knew what was going on, we were able to talk a lot more which was fun because I got to know the people in that class a lot better. We shared stories about high school, college and mutual acquaintances. I enjoy Bio Lab and Lecture more than the other classes because it is so small (we have 5 people). It makes group work really easy, and everything is laid back.
4. We had a potluck last night so we could get to know everyone better. Fantastic idea. It was so much fun, and it was great to interact with people outside of the classroom. The conversations varied from coolest places we have been (which included Italy, Spain, Ireland, Israel etc.), pop culture (Avatar, South Park, blogging and facebook) to ants mating (apparently all ants mate while flying. Betcha didn't know that. Unless you are Will Petry.) We also tried to guess Marc and Chad's ages. Someone guessed 55 for Marc and Chad just laughed, so I'm pretty sure they were wrong. (I checked facebook and he graduated from high school in 1980, which makes him about 47. (Chad is 37, if I remember correctly, if anyone wanted to know.) Eventually numbers dwindled down until there were about 10 of us left. Then Chad started to tell us about times he was bitten by things like black widow spiders and 14 ft. long snakes. Yep, definitely an interesting evening.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
So I could be working on an Essay...
Or I could update my blog.
Yesterday, Angie and I met with Marc to finalize our idea for our project and iron out details of asking for permission to work on the dig/use images from the Archeological Park etc. It was a productive meeting, and I feel like I have a much better idea of what our project actually is and who will benefit. I had been a little confused about the logistics of who controlled what at the site where we are working. Apparently at this park there is a museum and an already excavated site that are open for the public. Over to the side of the park, there is a NatGeo funded dig. NatGeo is extremely jealous of the information it gathers so the finds from the dig are going to be pretty hush-hush until they are ready to publish. The pamphlet that Angie and I are putting together will only include information from the museum.
That evening I met with my Bio class (all five of us) to design a lab for Wednesday. We are comparing tyrosinase and DOPA reaction rates in Apples, Bananas and Avocados at room temperature and kept cool. Yep. That will be lab...
Bio lecture was pretty interesting this morning. We learned about cowbirds, an invasive species of bird that takes over the nests of other birds, knocks the original eggs out of the nest and replaces them with their eggs. Then the other bird parents end up raising the cowbirds young as their own. The study we were looking at involved warblers, I want to say. They were 1/2 the size of the cowbirds, so they were not able to keep up with the nutrient demand of the cowbird and their own health. There population was declining so some biologist did some biological stuff and fixed the problem (if you want technical details, let me know, and I will get those to you).
In History/JINS we finished up the discipline presentations. Again, it was cool to see what other people are studying, why and how. We also managed to waste quite a bit of time talking about our blogs and finals. I think there's a possibility we're going to try to publish a book about this trip as a class, but I don't know if that was actually decided. We'll see...
In other news, I got a very early (2 weeks early) birthday present today. My friend Tony sent me a Yale shoot glass :). I was pretty excited because I bought him a Truman shot glass for his 21st birthday in September and then realized I didn't actually own a shot glass myself. But now I do, and it is prestigious. Also, we are having a potluck tomorrow to get to know each other a little better. That will be fun.
Blast, I am now out of stuff to say so it is off to work on my scintillating essay.
Yesterday, Angie and I met with Marc to finalize our idea for our project and iron out details of asking for permission to work on the dig/use images from the Archeological Park etc. It was a productive meeting, and I feel like I have a much better idea of what our project actually is and who will benefit. I had been a little confused about the logistics of who controlled what at the site where we are working. Apparently at this park there is a museum and an already excavated site that are open for the public. Over to the side of the park, there is a NatGeo funded dig. NatGeo is extremely jealous of the information it gathers so the finds from the dig are going to be pretty hush-hush until they are ready to publish. The pamphlet that Angie and I are putting together will only include information from the museum.
That evening I met with my Bio class (all five of us) to design a lab for Wednesday. We are comparing tyrosinase and DOPA reaction rates in Apples, Bananas and Avocados at room temperature and kept cool. Yep. That will be lab...
Bio lecture was pretty interesting this morning. We learned about cowbirds, an invasive species of bird that takes over the nests of other birds, knocks the original eggs out of the nest and replaces them with their eggs. Then the other bird parents end up raising the cowbirds young as their own. The study we were looking at involved warblers, I want to say. They were 1/2 the size of the cowbirds, so they were not able to keep up with the nutrient demand of the cowbird and their own health. There population was declining so some biologist did some biological stuff and fixed the problem (if you want technical details, let me know, and I will get those to you).
In History/JINS we finished up the discipline presentations. Again, it was cool to see what other people are studying, why and how. We also managed to waste quite a bit of time talking about our blogs and finals. I think there's a possibility we're going to try to publish a book about this trip as a class, but I don't know if that was actually decided. We'll see...
In other news, I got a very early (2 weeks early) birthday present today. My friend Tony sent me a Yale shoot glass :). I was pretty excited because I bought him a Truman shot glass for his 21st birthday in September and then realized I didn't actually own a shot glass myself. But now I do, and it is prestigious. Also, we are having a potluck tomorrow to get to know each other a little better. That will be fun.
Blast, I am now out of stuff to say so it is off to work on my scintillating essay.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I love four day weekends
So, I had another 4 day weekend this week. It was lovely. It is so nice not to stress about stuff on Sunday night. On the other hand, I have never hated Tuesday mornings this much before.
This weekend was pretty productive. Not as much as I would have hoped, but that is life. Friday, Angie and I met with my friend Megan to see how University Publications could help us with our projects. They gave us some really good tips about asking for permission about using images. Really important and not something I would have thought of. My plan for Saturday was to read the articles for JINS, but I could not motivate myself to do that so I worked on my Portfolio for graduation instead. Hopefully, I will get around to reading tomorrow…
I’ve been thinking about this trip a lot recently, more specifically how this trip is going to have such a different focus from other trips I have been on. Most of the time when I travel, there is a religious aspect to the trip somewhere. My travel in the U.S. has been with my youth group as we participate in service work camps. When I went to Costa Rica I was with a group of people from a Catholic high school. And when I was in Israel, well it was Israel. Religion is kinda big there. And everyone in our group except one was a Christian. This trip will definitely have a different flavor since religion is not really a focus.
Haha, I feel a little silly for even writing a post like this. I am not really sure why I think this is important. Perhaps because I realize this trip is going to change me more than I can possibly imagine right now. It is a watershed event in my life you could say. Also, since religion has been such a huge part of my life right now, it is something I am highly conscious of. My view of the world is about to change astronomically, and I have no idea where my views on religion are going to land. My faith has always been important to me, but lately it has been harder and harder to hold on to, and I don’t want to lose it completely. Being out of the country on a trip with a secular focus, especially during Lent, will be challenging and formative. But then, that is what this trip is about :).
P.S. There is a lot more thought behind this post then I could put in right now. This topic will mostly likely be an ongoing theme throughout the semester as I learn to further appreciate the diversity in our world, and that I my way of viewing the world isn't always the best and may not even be right. (The last point is one of those things that I know, but don't really believe. This semester is going to be one huge reality check. A much need one ;))
This weekend was pretty productive. Not as much as I would have hoped, but that is life. Friday, Angie and I met with my friend Megan to see how University Publications could help us with our projects. They gave us some really good tips about asking for permission about using images. Really important and not something I would have thought of. My plan for Saturday was to read the articles for JINS, but I could not motivate myself to do that so I worked on my Portfolio for graduation instead. Hopefully, I will get around to reading tomorrow…
I’ve been thinking about this trip a lot recently, more specifically how this trip is going to have such a different focus from other trips I have been on. Most of the time when I travel, there is a religious aspect to the trip somewhere. My travel in the U.S. has been with my youth group as we participate in service work camps. When I went to Costa Rica I was with a group of people from a Catholic high school. And when I was in Israel, well it was Israel. Religion is kinda big there. And everyone in our group except one was a Christian. This trip will definitely have a different flavor since religion is not really a focus.
Haha, I feel a little silly for even writing a post like this. I am not really sure why I think this is important. Perhaps because I realize this trip is going to change me more than I can possibly imagine right now. It is a watershed event in my life you could say. Also, since religion has been such a huge part of my life right now, it is something I am highly conscious of. My view of the world is about to change astronomically, and I have no idea where my views on religion are going to land. My faith has always been important to me, but lately it has been harder and harder to hold on to, and I don’t want to lose it completely. Being out of the country on a trip with a secular focus, especially during Lent, will be challenging and formative. But then, that is what this trip is about :).
P.S. There is a lot more thought behind this post then I could put in right now. This topic will mostly likely be an ongoing theme throughout the semester as I learn to further appreciate the diversity in our world, and that I my way of viewing the world isn't always the best and may not even be right. (The last point is one of those things that I know, but don't really believe. This semester is going to be one huge reality check. A much need one ;))
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
And now for something completely different
AN ISRAEL POST! This was a busy day...
June 6
I got up early to watch the sun rise over the lake that day. It was beautiful. I wish I had had/taken more opportunities to do that. There was a dog that followed me down the beach. I was under the impression he wanted food. I had no food to give him.
Dog and sunrise.
This was an intense day. We saw everything. And hiked Gamla. Crazy. First we went to a place called Jacob’s Ford. There was a crusader fortress which had been built by Baldwin against Saladin. Saladin had offered to pay Baldwin to stop building it, but he refused. Saladin attacked the fortress with great success. He sent sappers in to weaken the walls of the fortress and attacked from both the Northeast and West. He was able to conquer the fortress in less than 5 days – had he taken longer than that, reinforcements would have appeared. This was the place where Kate, one of the archeologists working on our dig, had done work for her Ph.D. It was a treasure trove for bodies apparently. They found many human skeletons and at least 4 horse skeletons. One of the human’s had a cache of 160 coins! That was a really big find.
One of the biggest problems archeologists face is funding. This particular site had an interesting patron for its first couple of years. One of the geological organization (I don’t know exactly which one) funded it for the first few seasons because this site provided important information about the tectonic shifts occurring in Israel. There are two plates in this area (the Jordan River is on the fault line if I recall correctly). The eastern plate is moving to the north while the western plate is staying still. This means that Israel has large earthquakes every 100 years or so (unless it was 300 years or so – not sure). In any case, they are waiting for another big one. This fort is important in studies done about that because it was built along the fault line so there is a crack in the building that indicates how far the plates have moved. Since we know the exact date the fort was built (at least someone does. I am not that someone), we can figure out exactly how far the plates have moved in that given time period. We had to walk through prickly weeds to see the crack. That was an adventure.
The crack caused by the fault line.
Jacob's Ford - this is me trying to avoid getting pricked by the weeds.
Our next stop was supposed to be Qatzrim, but it was closed for Shabbat. It was important for something or other. I don’t remember what.
Next we went to Gamla. Probably one of my favorite spots despite the large amount of walking we did. We walked the ancient trail; the one most tourists DON’T do. It was rocky and steep. We climbed down and then up and then some of us climbed down further to see an extra area. That turned out to be a bad idea on my part. I almost did not make it to the top. I had to stop and pause for a while because my heart rate got a little too high. It was not comfortable, and I did not want to pass out. The view was really pretty when I did finally get there though. (We made the mistake of putting Justin in the front while we were climbing this thing. We didn’t know then how fast he walked…)
The historical significance of Gamla is pretty interesting. It was a place where Jewish people lived to stay away from the Romans. It has great natural defenses (would work well against Zombies), but the Romans were able to overcome them. When the Romans came, the citizens of Gamla ran to the highest point and then threw themselves off the cliff rather than become slaves to the Romans. (Not the choice I would have made, but whatever. I’m not being chased by Romans.) On the way back, we took a break, and I asked Nate read the Hebrew prayer for seeing the beauty of nature. That was pretty cool.
Gamla
After we hiked, we at lunch there and Lauren and I talked with the bus driver. He was a Palestinian Christian (I felt like all the Palestinians I met were Christians. I wonder how that was skewing our vision of what was happening.) Lauren launched into a string of questions about the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians which he did his best to answer. His children were in private school, a goal most parents seemed to have for their children.
After Gamla, when we were all very tired, we went to two more places that had lots of rocks, Banias and Tel Dan. They are the locations for the streams that feed the Jordan River. Banias is also known as Caesarea Philippi. There were lots of rocks, and Nate got scolded for something or other. I was really tired and hot. That is what I remember most from these places. And we just kept walking. We went to see the waterfall. That was cool except there were more rocks and more stairs, and I had a splinter.
After that we went to Tel Dan. That got to be a bit of a problem because we were on a tight schedule and some of us didn’t get started right away. We had a bit of a communication gap going on during this trip. I was hot, tired and in general had kind of a bad attitude. (I would like to state that everything we did at Tel Dan was completely legal and did not involve sneaking over boarders or Lebanon.) We also went to a scenic lookout via Syrian bunker. That was also pretty cool. THEN, we got to leave. Nate and I booked it out of there whilst everyone else took their time.
Tel Dan - notice the rocks...
After that we got back, and it was time for dinner. I finally met Haley (a girl who had come on Wednesday, but I didn’t get a change to meet until Saturday.) She is really cool. She went to a small, Christian college in Indiana and studied to be a worship leader (kind of like a DCE it sounds like). Pretty much doing what I thought I wanted to do at one point. She had been granted a fellowship to come dig and then she was spending sometime in Jerusalem and then her dad was coming up to visit. (I found out later her mom had died about 5 weeks before she left on this trip.)
That night was probably the best night I spent at the Kibbutz. We went down to the Sea as usual for drinks and conversation. Eventually a group of us ended up sitting in the Sea (on chairs with our feet in the water.) We started out listing our favorite memories from the first week of digging (Elizabeth and Nic were popular answers). Then we decided to have a bible study in which we went around the circle, said what our favorite bible passages were and why. Eventually it dwindled down to Nick, Tony, Nic, Lauren and I in the water and Johnny and Justin on the beach. Later still Nick, Johnny and Justin left. Then the real fun began.
Definitely the best conversation of my life. We talked about so many important things. We shared our struggles and our faith stories. I talked about things I haven’t shared with people all year. Mom’s surgery, all the people who died this year, the time God locked me into my dorm room. It was a liberating and healing experience to talk about God and his faithfulness with these people. I was absolutely not being judged nor was I judging. I was finally comfortable enough to embrace the vulnerability idea that the LSF girls had been harping on. I think being on the “Ocean of Freaken Galilee” with a full moon helped. It was so wonderful to see where these other people were on their faith journey. Tony had come with no expectations faith-wise. He was there as an academic. (This conversation was a pleasant surprise for him.) Nic, on the other hand, is about as far away from academics as you can get. He was there because he heard about the trip from Elizabeth during a Bible Study and “got the bug.” He sold his horse and his dog to get there (though he kept saying he was going to sell them anyway. He was thinking about moving to New Mexico so he may have been telling the truth. He was super humble though; hated talking about himself.) I don’t know what Lauren was expecting, but I know she took away a lot as well.
It was just an intense, overwhelming, but peaceful and calming, beautiful and wonderful time. We sang songs: worship songs, Christmas songs, children’s songs. It was awesome. There was a couple from Germany down there as well and we talked to time for a few minutes before leaving.
The conversation wasn’t completely serious. Nic did give Lauren tips for peeing outside. She actually did. I waited until we were in Jordan to make use of that information…
It was over all really cool. We were out until 1 a.m. and we had to be on the bus by 7 the next day. Yep.
June 6
I got up early to watch the sun rise over the lake that day. It was beautiful. I wish I had had/taken more opportunities to do that. There was a dog that followed me down the beach. I was under the impression he wanted food. I had no food to give him.
Dog and sunrise.
This was an intense day. We saw everything. And hiked Gamla. Crazy. First we went to a place called Jacob’s Ford. There was a crusader fortress which had been built by Baldwin against Saladin. Saladin had offered to pay Baldwin to stop building it, but he refused. Saladin attacked the fortress with great success. He sent sappers in to weaken the walls of the fortress and attacked from both the Northeast and West. He was able to conquer the fortress in less than 5 days – had he taken longer than that, reinforcements would have appeared. This was the place where Kate, one of the archeologists working on our dig, had done work for her Ph.D. It was a treasure trove for bodies apparently. They found many human skeletons and at least 4 horse skeletons. One of the human’s had a cache of 160 coins! That was a really big find.
One of the biggest problems archeologists face is funding. This particular site had an interesting patron for its first couple of years. One of the geological organization (I don’t know exactly which one) funded it for the first few seasons because this site provided important information about the tectonic shifts occurring in Israel. There are two plates in this area (the Jordan River is on the fault line if I recall correctly). The eastern plate is moving to the north while the western plate is staying still. This means that Israel has large earthquakes every 100 years or so (unless it was 300 years or so – not sure). In any case, they are waiting for another big one. This fort is important in studies done about that because it was built along the fault line so there is a crack in the building that indicates how far the plates have moved. Since we know the exact date the fort was built (at least someone does. I am not that someone), we can figure out exactly how far the plates have moved in that given time period. We had to walk through prickly weeds to see the crack. That was an adventure.
The crack caused by the fault line.
Jacob's Ford - this is me trying to avoid getting pricked by the weeds.
Our next stop was supposed to be Qatzrim, but it was closed for Shabbat. It was important for something or other. I don’t remember what.
Next we went to Gamla. Probably one of my favorite spots despite the large amount of walking we did. We walked the ancient trail; the one most tourists DON’T do. It was rocky and steep. We climbed down and then up and then some of us climbed down further to see an extra area. That turned out to be a bad idea on my part. I almost did not make it to the top. I had to stop and pause for a while because my heart rate got a little too high. It was not comfortable, and I did not want to pass out. The view was really pretty when I did finally get there though. (We made the mistake of putting Justin in the front while we were climbing this thing. We didn’t know then how fast he walked…)
The historical significance of Gamla is pretty interesting. It was a place where Jewish people lived to stay away from the Romans. It has great natural defenses (would work well against Zombies), but the Romans were able to overcome them. When the Romans came, the citizens of Gamla ran to the highest point and then threw themselves off the cliff rather than become slaves to the Romans. (Not the choice I would have made, but whatever. I’m not being chased by Romans.) On the way back, we took a break, and I asked Nate read the Hebrew prayer for seeing the beauty of nature. That was pretty cool.
Gamla
After we hiked, we at lunch there and Lauren and I talked with the bus driver. He was a Palestinian Christian (I felt like all the Palestinians I met were Christians. I wonder how that was skewing our vision of what was happening.) Lauren launched into a string of questions about the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians which he did his best to answer. His children were in private school, a goal most parents seemed to have for their children.
After Gamla, when we were all very tired, we went to two more places that had lots of rocks, Banias and Tel Dan. They are the locations for the streams that feed the Jordan River. Banias is also known as Caesarea Philippi. There were lots of rocks, and Nate got scolded for something or other. I was really tired and hot. That is what I remember most from these places. And we just kept walking. We went to see the waterfall. That was cool except there were more rocks and more stairs, and I had a splinter.
After that we went to Tel Dan. That got to be a bit of a problem because we were on a tight schedule and some of us didn’t get started right away. We had a bit of a communication gap going on during this trip. I was hot, tired and in general had kind of a bad attitude. (I would like to state that everything we did at Tel Dan was completely legal and did not involve sneaking over boarders or Lebanon.) We also went to a scenic lookout via Syrian bunker. That was also pretty cool. THEN, we got to leave. Nate and I booked it out of there whilst everyone else took their time.
Tel Dan - notice the rocks...
After that we got back, and it was time for dinner. I finally met Haley (a girl who had come on Wednesday, but I didn’t get a change to meet until Saturday.) She is really cool. She went to a small, Christian college in Indiana and studied to be a worship leader (kind of like a DCE it sounds like). Pretty much doing what I thought I wanted to do at one point. She had been granted a fellowship to come dig and then she was spending sometime in Jerusalem and then her dad was coming up to visit. (I found out later her mom had died about 5 weeks before she left on this trip.)
That night was probably the best night I spent at the Kibbutz. We went down to the Sea as usual for drinks and conversation. Eventually a group of us ended up sitting in the Sea (on chairs with our feet in the water.) We started out listing our favorite memories from the first week of digging (Elizabeth and Nic were popular answers). Then we decided to have a bible study in which we went around the circle, said what our favorite bible passages were and why. Eventually it dwindled down to Nick, Tony, Nic, Lauren and I in the water and Johnny and Justin on the beach. Later still Nick, Johnny and Justin left. Then the real fun began.
Definitely the best conversation of my life. We talked about so many important things. We shared our struggles and our faith stories. I talked about things I haven’t shared with people all year. Mom’s surgery, all the people who died this year, the time God locked me into my dorm room. It was a liberating and healing experience to talk about God and his faithfulness with these people. I was absolutely not being judged nor was I judging. I was finally comfortable enough to embrace the vulnerability idea that the LSF girls had been harping on. I think being on the “Ocean of Freaken Galilee” with a full moon helped. It was so wonderful to see where these other people were on their faith journey. Tony had come with no expectations faith-wise. He was there as an academic. (This conversation was a pleasant surprise for him.) Nic, on the other hand, is about as far away from academics as you can get. He was there because he heard about the trip from Elizabeth during a Bible Study and “got the bug.” He sold his horse and his dog to get there (though he kept saying he was going to sell them anyway. He was thinking about moving to New Mexico so he may have been telling the truth. He was super humble though; hated talking about himself.) I don’t know what Lauren was expecting, but I know she took away a lot as well.
It was just an intense, overwhelming, but peaceful and calming, beautiful and wonderful time. We sang songs: worship songs, Christmas songs, children’s songs. It was awesome. There was a couple from Germany down there as well and we talked to time for a few minutes before leaving.
The conversation wasn’t completely serious. Nic did give Lauren tips for peeing outside. She actually did. I waited until we were in Jordan to make use of that information…
It was over all really cool. We were out until 1 a.m. and we had to be on the bus by 7 the next day. Yep.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Confessions of a Chronic Overachiever
So I am a huge overachiever, which in this case is resulting in daily blog updates and lots of extra reading for those who are following it. I highly doubt the daily updating will continue too much longer...
But for now you will have to suffer through it. Anyway, today in class we finally got to start going over the academic discipline powerpoints that we created a week ago. We got through 3 out of 7 and I have really enjoyed them so far. My group (history) went first. We tried to connect it to science, which we did by comparing writing a paper to using the scientific method (thanks sciencebuddies.org) to do an experiment. I loved the questions people asked us at the end; it indicated to me that everyone got what we were saying and could relate to what people in our field do. Two biology groups went after that, and again, it became really apparent that everyone going on this trip has the same outlook on learning and how to go about studying the world. The subjects, obviously are different, but each is fueled by desire to know what the world is like and why it is that way. We're all doing the same thing. We make an observation, we question it, test it, answer our question, and then move on to a new question/observation. I AM SO EXCITED TO GO TO PANAMA WITH THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE! Everyone seems so passionate about learning.
Some other observations I made from the biology presentations about how it is similar to history are: it was hard for people to pick one particular aspect of their field that was their 'favorite,' biology majors are as clueless about their futures/future occupations as history majors and stereotypes are as prevalent about that subject as about history. It was exciting to see other people's perspectives, and I am looking forward to the rest of the presentations.
But for now you will have to suffer through it. Anyway, today in class we finally got to start going over the academic discipline powerpoints that we created a week ago. We got through 3 out of 7 and I have really enjoyed them so far. My group (history) went first. We tried to connect it to science, which we did by comparing writing a paper to using the scientific method (thanks sciencebuddies.org) to do an experiment. I loved the questions people asked us at the end; it indicated to me that everyone got what we were saying and could relate to what people in our field do. Two biology groups went after that, and again, it became really apparent that everyone going on this trip has the same outlook on learning and how to go about studying the world. The subjects, obviously are different, but each is fueled by desire to know what the world is like and why it is that way. We're all doing the same thing. We make an observation, we question it, test it, answer our question, and then move on to a new question/observation. I AM SO EXCITED TO GO TO PANAMA WITH THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE! Everyone seems so passionate about learning.
Some other observations I made from the biology presentations about how it is similar to history are: it was hard for people to pick one particular aspect of their field that was their 'favorite,' biology majors are as clueless about their futures/future occupations as history majors and stereotypes are as prevalent about that subject as about history. It was exciting to see other people's perspectives, and I am looking forward to the rest of the presentations.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Janurary 20, 2010 (what a boring title...)
Despite my threat in my earlier post, I have decided only to update this blog. That will make everyone's life easier. Plus this blog is way better looking than the other one.
Anyway, today we had our second class period for ENVS. Baillie Cloyd came in to talk about service-learning at Truman. I am glad it is something the University considers to be important. I only wish I had know about opportunities like this earlier in my college career.
I am getting more and more excited about our projects as we get closer to leaving. I am really excited about the brochure for El Cano. I realize I was complaining about this two posts ago, but I went to speak with Dr. Amber Johnson (my project advisor), and now I have a better idea of what I will be doing. Plus I have a partner! I will be working with Angie which should be really cool because we determined we're both kind of at the same place as far as this trip goes. We're both graduating in May, taking Bio 100 and working on the same project. Haha, that sounded way more intense as we were walking Barnett than it does written down... Anyway we are meeting with Megan Dowdy at University Publications to get an idea of what this kind of a project will look like. My idea right now is a tri-fold brochure, but we need to figure out how much text and pictures we can put on it. Those kinds of factors will determine what kind of information we need to gather while we are in Panama.
I also had my first science lab since high school today. It vanquished all my doubts about being a humanities major. Not that it wasn't fun; it is just that having to be as precise as one needs to be during an experiment would cause my anxiety levels to raise way more than they need to. I realize that messing up in a 5-person, 100-level Bio class will not result in death, decapitation, zombie apocalypse, or even a lower grade, but I still get very uneasy if things aren't perfect. Hmmm, that sounds like the definition for Neurosis... Perhaps I need a new slice for my identity pie chart. 100% Neurotic.
On a less Freudian note, I am super excited because Courtney (one of the other girls going on the trip) has lots and lots and lots of STAR TREK on her computer that she is going to bring to PANAMA! It almost makes up for the fact that I will be leaving two weeks after LOST starts. Almost.
Anyway, today we had our second class period for ENVS. Baillie Cloyd came in to talk about service-learning at Truman. I am glad it is something the University considers to be important. I only wish I had know about opportunities like this earlier in my college career.
I am getting more and more excited about our projects as we get closer to leaving. I am really excited about the brochure for El Cano. I realize I was complaining about this two posts ago, but I went to speak with Dr. Amber Johnson (my project advisor), and now I have a better idea of what I will be doing. Plus I have a partner! I will be working with Angie which should be really cool because we determined we're both kind of at the same place as far as this trip goes. We're both graduating in May, taking Bio 100 and working on the same project. Haha, that sounded way more intense as we were walking Barnett than it does written down... Anyway we are meeting with Megan Dowdy at University Publications to get an idea of what this kind of a project will look like. My idea right now is a tri-fold brochure, but we need to figure out how much text and pictures we can put on it. Those kinds of factors will determine what kind of information we need to gather while we are in Panama.
I also had my first science lab since high school today. It vanquished all my doubts about being a humanities major. Not that it wasn't fun; it is just that having to be as precise as one needs to be during an experiment would cause my anxiety levels to raise way more than they need to. I realize that messing up in a 5-person, 100-level Bio class will not result in death, decapitation, zombie apocalypse, or even a lower grade, but I still get very uneasy if things aren't perfect. Hmmm, that sounds like the definition for Neurosis... Perhaps I need a new slice for my identity pie chart. 100% Neurotic.
On a less Freudian note, I am super excited because Courtney (one of the other girls going on the trip) has lots and lots and lots of STAR TREK on her computer that she is going to bring to PANAMA! It almost makes up for the fact that I will be leaving two weeks after LOST starts. Almost.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Identity
So after sitting through 3.5 hours of class, we finally got through everyone's identity pie charts. (Okay, so the entire time was not devoted to that but still. It was a long class...) This class is incredibly diverse. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone better.
I am trying to remember not to assume too much about people from this assignment. I know from my own experience that what I actually ended up saying in front of the class didn't always convey exactly what I meant. I also wanted to say a lot more to explain what I did say further.
One thing I wanted to include was how my identity is changing. I touched on it a little when I mentioned the philosophical idea that one never reads the same book twice because you change from reading it. (I think the original argument involved a river, but whatever.) Some of the things I put on my chart are things that I actively want to change and others were things that have changed recently or are in the process of changing. It's hard to explain yourself when you don't have yourself figured out yet. It's always an ongoing process.
I am trying to remember not to assume too much about people from this assignment. I know from my own experience that what I actually ended up saying in front of the class didn't always convey exactly what I meant. I also wanted to say a lot more to explain what I did say further.
One thing I wanted to include was how my identity is changing. I touched on it a little when I mentioned the philosophical idea that one never reads the same book twice because you change from reading it. (I think the original argument involved a river, but whatever.) Some of the things I put on my chart are things that I actively want to change and others were things that have changed recently or are in the process of changing. It's hard to explain yourself when you don't have yourself figured out yet. It's always an ongoing process.
Monday, January 18, 2010
El Cano
In order to be as annoying as possible, I am going to try to update both this blog and the wordpress blog. The catch is, I won't put the same information on both blogs so you'll have to keep checking both. That is, if you are actually interested enough to read both :)
Anyway, I have been reading the blogs of other people going to Panama and I feel so far behind in my project! Every seems to have a good idea of what they are doing and how they are going to go about doing it. I have a rough outline of what I want to do, but I don't feel like I have enough background information. My current plan is to create an English language guide for the El Cano archeological dig site. Yo preocupo porque mi espanol no es muy bien y toda la informacion esta en espanol. Puedo leer y escribir en espanol mas or menos pero no puedo oir o comprendar muy bien. Mas personas hablan muy rapido. (I promise I am not trying to show off with my Spanish. Just practicing.)
My worries about the project extend beyond just the practically of my Spanish skills. I am also concerned about the size of the project. It just doesn't seem like a very big project. However, considering the other projects I will be working on (helping with La MICA's advertising, Bio 100 Labs and helping with the other ENVS projects), I am sure it will be just fine. Plus, it isn't like anyone knows what to expect from this experience. This has never been done before so there is nothing to measure success or failure against. I just need to stop worrying, do my best, and go from there.
Since I have already gotten ahead of myself, let me go back and explain how this semester is going to work for those who don't know. Truman State University is trying out a new service learning opportunity. The way it works is that those of us who are going on this trip are all enrolled in a set group of classes. Everyone is enrolled in ENVS Selected Topic: Panama Experience and JINS Race and Ethnicity. 4 of the 22 (including myself) are enrolled in Biology 100 while the rest of the class is in a Latin American History class. All of us are also getting credit for another class, in my case Anthropology: Archeology in Panama. We are all doing a group project as part of our ENVS class and an individual project for whatever extra class we are getting credit for. My ENVS project will be working with a group of girls to help with advertising and fund raising for La MICA, the biology research station where we will be staying while in Panama. (Check out the website at http://www.lamica.org/). My individual project is the one I was complaining about two paragraphs ago.
Anyway, this semester will be frustrating because I am working without precedents to follow, but I will be learning to step outside my comfort zone. Which is exactly what this semester is about :)
Anyway, I have been reading the blogs of other people going to Panama and I feel so far behind in my project! Every seems to have a good idea of what they are doing and how they are going to go about doing it. I have a rough outline of what I want to do, but I don't feel like I have enough background information. My current plan is to create an English language guide for the El Cano archeological dig site. Yo preocupo porque mi espanol no es muy bien y toda la informacion esta en espanol. Puedo leer y escribir en espanol mas or menos pero no puedo oir o comprendar muy bien. Mas personas hablan muy rapido. (I promise I am not trying to show off with my Spanish. Just practicing.)
My worries about the project extend beyond just the practically of my Spanish skills. I am also concerned about the size of the project. It just doesn't seem like a very big project. However, considering the other projects I will be working on (helping with La MICA's advertising, Bio 100 Labs and helping with the other ENVS projects), I am sure it will be just fine. Plus, it isn't like anyone knows what to expect from this experience. This has never been done before so there is nothing to measure success or failure against. I just need to stop worrying, do my best, and go from there.
Since I have already gotten ahead of myself, let me go back and explain how this semester is going to work for those who don't know. Truman State University is trying out a new service learning opportunity. The way it works is that those of us who are going on this trip are all enrolled in a set group of classes. Everyone is enrolled in ENVS Selected Topic: Panama Experience and JINS Race and Ethnicity. 4 of the 22 (including myself) are enrolled in Biology 100 while the rest of the class is in a Latin American History class. All of us are also getting credit for another class, in my case Anthropology: Archeology in Panama. We are all doing a group project as part of our ENVS class and an individual project for whatever extra class we are getting credit for. My ENVS project will be working with a group of girls to help with advertising and fund raising for La MICA, the biology research station where we will be staying while in Panama. (Check out the website at http://www.lamica.org/). My individual project is the one I was complaining about two paragraphs ago.
Anyway, this semester will be frustrating because I am working without precedents to follow, but I will be learning to step outside my comfort zone. Which is exactly what this semester is about :)
Friday, January 15, 2010
June 5
(Picture of my friend Amy and I at the Pub)
Not such a good day. Called home in the morning, but didn’t get a hold of my parents. I was having a really hard time with the phone card, but finally got through to my mom’s cell phone. At that point I was no longer able to deny that I had missed grandpa’s funeral because I was out of the country. I asked mom why they weren’t at home, and she said, “We’re in Kirksville, sweetie.” I had figured out that might have happened but had done a pretty good job of telling myself that perhaps it hadn’t. Oh well. So it goes.
So that was not a particularly good start to my day. After that, I slid down the wall of our dig site, Elizabeth stepped on my hand and some kid dropped a rock on my foot. I was also a little afraid that Rami was going to move me to a different site. Laura and Michaela had been moved because their locus wasn’t yielding anything. Nick from Truman got moved. I wasn’t doing a whole lot of work that day since I wasn’t feeling very good about life. I was mostly standing around taking buckets from the diggers to the sifters and back again. (Nic and Lauren had taken over sifting for the day.) So, I wasn’t in a very good mood, and a few people picked up on it. Nic did and tried to make me feel better, but it didn’t work very well. I really just didn’t want to be around people so during breakfast I went down and weeded the Nebraska chapel area.
I got annoyed again later on because we had to clean up early and go around to all the other dig loci for show and tell. Each group told us what they were doing at their sites and what they had found. I did not want to go. I walked with Lauren and Nic who were calling me Hannah Montana, but I walked quietly enough with my “I am going to be patient with you and you had better appreciate it” look. They did try to cheer me up, which was as successful as possible considering the circumstances.
After digging that day I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee and then sat around talking to people for a while. Since my day had been pretty crappy, I wasn’t too surprised that my head felt terrible during dinner. I took a short nap before we all headed over the Kibbutz Pub. That was definitely an interesting experience. I don’t really like drinking too much so I wasn’t there for the alcohol. I was hoping to dance, but when we first got there, nobody really wanted to do much other than sit around and drink. Eventually Amber got Nic to swing dance with her, and when she was finished, I danced with him a little bit. I taught him how to waltz. To a rap song. That was interesting… We had to be up early to go site-seeing the next day, so I left with the first group who headed out
June 4 (Israel)
Another day at the dig. Ate breakfast with Hanan, Nic, Elizabeth and Dr. Appold. Hanan asked what my name was and I told him it was Hanna. He said, “That’s not Japanese.” I said, “no, it’s Hebrew.” He tried teaching me Japanese again and said I should know the language of my heritage. I told him I was mostly German. He told me the Japanese genes show through and turns to Elizabeth and says “Isn’t she beautiful?” to which Elizabeth replied, “well of course she is beautiful. And intelligent and hard working.” And Dr. Appold chimes in with, “I can attest to that.” It was nice ego-boosting experience.
By this time, Lauren and I were being made fun of for not having found Q yet. One of the Loci (5714) on our site was closed because they weren’t finding much. Our other Locus (5715) was split into two loci because the dirt was different colors. The lighter dirt was more ancient, according to Rami. We found a Roman pin that day which supposedly came from my bucket. Elizabeth had quite an interesting story about what the Roman soldier was doing with the woman whose bead we found in locus 5714…
We took a field trip down to a small chapel area. It was really pretty. It was donated to area by the Archdiocese of Nebraska. It had been built around the same time as the chapel area donated by the Vatican so it was not used as much. It was also off the beaten track so people didn’t know it was there. It was made because once there was a group of blind pilgrims that came to visit Bethsaida (because that is where Jesus healed the blind man on the outskirts of town.) The Israeli tour guides, however, did not allow the people to pray at the site. This story reached the ears of some higher ups in the Catholic Church so they did something about it. The chapel area is pretty cool because you have to walk past a Syrian bunker to get down there. (Goes along with all the sardine cans we kept finding.) Elizabeth was not happy because there were lots of weeds, and no one ever did anything about it.
So, on this trip there was a little boy named Finn whom I shall take this opportunity to talk about. He was pretty much adorable, and everyone loved him. Mostly because he was the only person under 18, and he had everyone wrapped around his little finger. He had this huge sombrero that he wore all the time so he looked like a little Mexican running around (except that he had blond hair and blue eyes. At this point in the trip, he was pretty quiet, but that would change all too soon…
Despite the fact that pottery reading was optional, I decided to go that day anyway. I ended up with a job. I turned the light for the photo box on and off for Hanan. Nic ran the pieces to the other side of the table for bagging. It was good times.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A New Post
While I am in Panama I am required to update my blog weekly, so I will be better about letting everyone know what I am doing. If you would like to read it, go to http://air.truman.edu/panama/ and click on my name in the list on the right.
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