Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Jan. 4th, 2011 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyI read the second chapter of the ‘Silk Road’ book. This chapter was about Roman Empire and its Eastern trading contact in 1to 3rd century CE. I know so much about Roman Empire but not a lot about the Eastern part of it, so it was fun to learn. I’m glad I’m teaching this class, I feel like I will learn a lot myself. As I was reading the chapter I got excited about geography and maps, and I do love my historical atlas. So I worked more on my Powerpoint for the introductory lecture. I found lots of maps online of different ways to view the world, from world map from American point of view, to world map from Chinese point of view, an upside down map that puts Australia on top to Ptolemy’s map to the medieval maps with Jerusalem in the center.
And I will also explain why we use AD and BC and CE and BCE and what that means. Once when I was teaching Development of Europe a student came up to me after class and asked how did the Romans knew to count backwards since all the dates were 30 BC and 26 BC. I explained about the Roman calendar and how antiquarians calculated everything in our dating system. I no longer take that for granted when I teach and I explain this in the first lecture together with what I mean when I say 7th century CE or 7th century BCE. I do have this wonderful book of chronology for English history that really goes over so many dating systems – I get very geeky over things like that.
In the evening I also set up the school website for my writing classes, mostly I wanted access to rosters. I can see the pictures of my students too. One class is 2/3 boys, the other is more even. That will be interesting.
“The Fabulous Riverboat” by Philip Jose Farmer.
The book in one sentence: Sam Clemens builds a Riverboat and all that entails. Reading a story from Sam’s perspective is certainly different that the first book from Burton’s perspective. Sam is much more whiny and he gets easily depressed and he worries about everything too obsessively. And he cries a lot even in telling himself he doesn’t cry much. He feels guilty for many thing even when he knows he should be feeling guilty. Having his wife Livy in his proximity in love with another man just adds to his torture. And Sam is not that great at political machinations unlike King John. But Sam has a goal, a dream about his Riverboat and he is very determined. The Mysterious Stranger selected him to be one of the twelve men in his rebellion against other Ethicals, people who resurrected all humanity and Sam wants to get to end of the River probably to destroy it. (In actual conversations with Sam number twelve was never actually mentioned but Sam later tells the reader that it was – I think this is just author inconsistency and I just have to handwave it) This was a good book and I liked the political back and forth and just the details of what it takes to actually accomplish this. But I liked the first one better. This book is obviously just a set up for later books. Not enough women characters here – most of the twelve chosen – we know seven now – are men. Livy and Gwenafra are love interests at this point although Livy fights well in battle. I can’t wait for book three; I do love the universe.
Now that I’m done with the second Riverworld book I will read “The Study in Scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle and Marco Polo book. I read the introduction to the Sherlock Holmes volume today – it was pretty funny in its defense of Watson. I also read the introduction to Marco Polo – a very good introduction and I have to remember to tell my students to read it before tackling the book. I’m excited about both. I think I read Sherlock Holmes as a child, I certainly saw the awesome Russian movies when I was little (and I think Russian TV is showing it this weekend which is great), but I don’t remember much.
I caught up on NIMYM in the evening. I saw the last three minutes on TV last night as I turned it on to do Yoga so I knew the ending. Last night it was very effective. And very sad. I knew going in that there will be a countdown so I was watching for it. I missed maybe 2 to 3 numbers.
“Six Feet Under” Over the last month I finished watching the series. Today I watched the last episode. Mostly I had the show on in the background while doing other things and I rarely do that with TV I like. It was an OK show. It had its moments. Certainly the last episode was good. And the acting too. But I’m glad I didn’t watch it before otherwise I would not have wanted to see “True Blood” and that show I love. Mostly the characters here were just not that likable.
Exercise: I went for a walk, about 45 minutes.
Cross-stitch: Yellow was my color today as I did half the head of the ducky.
And I will also explain why we use AD and BC and CE and BCE and what that means. Once when I was teaching Development of Europe a student came up to me after class and asked how did the Romans knew to count backwards since all the dates were 30 BC and 26 BC. I explained about the Roman calendar and how antiquarians calculated everything in our dating system. I no longer take that for granted when I teach and I explain this in the first lecture together with what I mean when I say 7th century CE or 7th century BCE. I do have this wonderful book of chronology for English history that really goes over so many dating systems – I get very geeky over things like that.
In the evening I also set up the school website for my writing classes, mostly I wanted access to rosters. I can see the pictures of my students too. One class is 2/3 boys, the other is more even. That will be interesting.
“The Fabulous Riverboat” by Philip Jose Farmer.
The book in one sentence: Sam Clemens builds a Riverboat and all that entails. Reading a story from Sam’s perspective is certainly different that the first book from Burton’s perspective. Sam is much more whiny and he gets easily depressed and he worries about everything too obsessively. And he cries a lot even in telling himself he doesn’t cry much. He feels guilty for many thing even when he knows he should be feeling guilty. Having his wife Livy in his proximity in love with another man just adds to his torture. And Sam is not that great at political machinations unlike King John. But Sam has a goal, a dream about his Riverboat and he is very determined. The Mysterious Stranger selected him to be one of the twelve men in his rebellion against other Ethicals, people who resurrected all humanity and Sam wants to get to end of the River probably to destroy it. (In actual conversations with Sam number twelve was never actually mentioned but Sam later tells the reader that it was – I think this is just author inconsistency and I just have to handwave it) This was a good book and I liked the political back and forth and just the details of what it takes to actually accomplish this. But I liked the first one better. This book is obviously just a set up for later books. Not enough women characters here – most of the twelve chosen – we know seven now – are men. Livy and Gwenafra are love interests at this point although Livy fights well in battle. I can’t wait for book three; I do love the universe.
Now that I’m done with the second Riverworld book I will read “The Study in Scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle and Marco Polo book. I read the introduction to the Sherlock Holmes volume today – it was pretty funny in its defense of Watson. I also read the introduction to Marco Polo – a very good introduction and I have to remember to tell my students to read it before tackling the book. I’m excited about both. I think I read Sherlock Holmes as a child, I certainly saw the awesome Russian movies when I was little (and I think Russian TV is showing it this weekend which is great), but I don’t remember much.
I caught up on NIMYM in the evening. I saw the last three minutes on TV last night as I turned it on to do Yoga so I knew the ending. Last night it was very effective. And very sad. I knew going in that there will be a countdown so I was watching for it. I missed maybe 2 to 3 numbers.
“Six Feet Under” Over the last month I finished watching the series. Today I watched the last episode. Mostly I had the show on in the background while doing other things and I rarely do that with TV I like. It was an OK show. It had its moments. Certainly the last episode was good. And the acting too. But I’m glad I didn’t watch it before otherwise I would not have wanted to see “True Blood” and that show I love. Mostly the characters here were just not that likable.
Exercise: I went for a walk, about 45 minutes.
Cross-stitch: Yellow was my color today as I did half the head of the ducky.