Hammurabi's Code

Today in West Civ. we started off with a lockdown. SO basically the entire school was under lockdown and we spent fifteen minutes squashed up in the corner of the room. Anyway our homework today is to look up 3 rules in Hammurabi’s code and write about them. So here it goes. One rule that stood out to me was the one that Mr. Schick told us about in class. An eye for an eye. For example if a doctor kills someone’s kid in surgery then as punishment the doctor’s kid dies. Honestly that is the stupidest rule. Obviously the doctor didn’t do it on purpose, but no one is perfect geez. Another rule that stood out was if a boy strikes his father then his hand will be cut off. This one is kind of reasonable in that it’s extremely disrespectful and unacceptable to hit your parents. I’m pretty sure if I slap one of my parents I would end up dead. The last one that was really strange was if a woman belittles her husband she will be thrown into the water. First off that makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Like, does she die? Anyway the rule itself is stupid because of free will but I guess back in the day that is just how things were.  

West Civ Notes

Today in West Civ. we started taking notes for the first time in this class. We are learning about the western world which consists of Europe and the Americas. Here are the notes we took.

-        Prehistory: before things started getting written down

-        200,000 years ago, human species first emerged

-        Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age) hunter gathers

-        Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) *advanced tool making*

-        Agricultural Revolution: they went from nomads to permanent settlers

-        Hierarchies based on what job you had

-        Invention of the wheel and plow caused more efficient farming

-        Monotheists: one god

-        Polytheists: more than one god (sun god, rain god, wind god, etc.)

-        Fertile crescent-Mesopotamia- modern day Iran

a.      Sumer

1.     Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

2.     Invented cuneiform (first writings)    

Girl Rising

On Friday, in West Civ. we talked about the movie we watched, Girl Rising. Mr. Schick said that the school wanted him to read us a passage and then discuss it with us but instead we just talked randomly about our thoughts on the movie. I thought the movie was really inspiring but way to long. First off it was like -9 degrees in the gym and not to mention I got a neck cramp from looking at the screen for too long. But besides all of that, the movie was really good and taught me a lot about other countries. I am lucky to live in the United States. But even here, we still have some of the same issues. Like, for example, how women get paid 71% of a man’s salary for the same job. Obviously it’s not nearly as bad as in other countries but this kind of stuff is going on basically everywhere.  

Pro Blogger

Today was our first class of Western Civ. It was like an eight minute class due to the two hour delay. We got some new kids who transferred from the other human geo teacher’s class. Obviously Mr. Schick is the best Human Geo/West Civ teacher. It’s a known fact. Anyway we spent our class showing the noobs (newbies) how to make a blog site and telling them to buy a marble copy book. Which, fun fact, are $3.75 at the book store. What a rip off. Even though most of us had a blog from Human Geo class, we still have to make a new one for West Civ. I even gave my new blog this book shelf back ground to make it look fancy. I’m like a pro of blogging now. I actually love blogging because it’s an easy way to study your notes. I hope that West Civ is as good as Human Geo was because it is basically the only class that I could stand without ripping my head off.