rbm001's blog

I chose to come to Morningside because it was close to home and because I could play baseball.  I think that being so close to home has helped me because I can still see my family when I want and my mom can still do my laundry.  That is a big help because then I don’t need to spend money to do laundry.  The other big reason to come to Morningside was to play baseball.  I have enjoyed baseball a lot this fall and it is really fun.  I like the camaraderie on the baseball team and with other kids in the dorm.

Morningside being a liberal arts school really didn’t have much to do with me coming here.  It seems like most schools were liberal arts schools.  If i wouldn’t  have gone to Morningside, I would have ended up at a big university like Iowa.  That was actually my second choice and it a really close call between the two.  It turns out i’m a die-hard Hawkeye fan which sometimes isn’t good.  A liberal arts school really didn’t impact my decision in coming here at all.

Today in Intro to Religion we mimicked the hajj, the pilgrimage for Muslims to the holy city of Mecca.  First, they would would wash their feet and hands before they enter the Mosque.  The second step in the pilgrimage is the walking around counter clockwise of the kaaba.  This must be done 7 times.  After this, the third step is to run back and forth from two hills seven times.  This symbols the search that Hajer, Abraham’s wife did when she looked for water for her son.  The next step is to stand and reflect on the mortality of the inner self for nearly an entire day.  Stoning the devil is the next step in the pilgrimage to Mecca.  Pilgrims gather pebbles and toss them at the three pillars to signify their defiance of the devil.  Then, the pilgrims must walk counter clockwise around the kaaba seven more times.  The final step is the sacrificing of the lamb by a qualified butcher.

It seems to me that there are more Jewish holidays than there are Christian Holidays.  The Jewish calender begins on this date actually, Roch Hashanah, which is the Jewish new year.  The normal new year is not until Jan. 1.  The next major holiday is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  Atonement is the reconciliation of God.  Next, we have Shavu’oth, the Festival of Weeks.  The next is Sukkoth, the Festival of Booths.  The next, and most known is Hanukah, which is the celebration of Independence.  This is the most known Jewish holiday by far.  It is referenced in many movies and books and every Jew looks forward to this.  The final holiday is the Passover, which is the remembrance of Exodus.  Moses led the Jews out of the holy land and they remember this and have feasts to celebrate.

This is one of the better books I have read in awhile.  It involves the author (Kevin Roose) who was attending Brown University, and transferring to the evangelical college Liberty.  He goes from a very comfortable situation to an entirely new one at Liberty.  Liberty forces you into the religious ways no matter what.  His only religious affiliation when he arrives is Quaker, and even then he barely practices it.  He didn’t except to start praying and actually make friendships with a lot of Liberty students in his dorm.  He even started dating some Liberty girls even though he couldn’t even kiss them.  He made some really good friendships while at Liberty which he didn’t expect at all.  The whole Liberty experience made him really think twice about religion and it almost converted him.  He struggled most with the fact that he was mostly lying to every person there.  He felt really bad about that and it deeply hurt a relationship of his.  The other thing that really bothered him, at least at first, was the gay jokes that everybody made at Liberty.  He had many gay friends at Brown and at Liberty being gay was a huge sin.  At first he couldn’t deal with all the jokes but he eventually got over it  by the end of the semester.

Pilgrimage is an interesting thing.  There are different ways people do pilgrimage to different parts of the world.  People sometimes make pilgrimages and they won’t even know it.  Most pilgrimages are for religious purposes to see the main part of their religion and to get in touch with their religion.  There are two types, descriptive and analytical.  People will continue to make pilgrimages all over the world and they always want to see the main thing in their religion.

My dream job would be a marketing manager at a big company.  I would hope this company is in a large city in the midwest because that is where I would like to live.  A marketing manager would help the company decided what they need and also help with the pricing strategies of the company.  Another big thing that they do is that they estimate the demand for new products.  I want my dream job to be in a skyscraper with the best technology available.

I would have to graduate from Morningside with a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis on Marketing.  I also plan to minor in Computer Science to diversify my skills.  After Morningside, I would have to get my masters in Marketing and I plan on going far away because I want to see the world.  Then, it’s all about applying for jobs and hoping I land the right one!

I do agree with Alex Watters that you should be networking in your first year.  There is no better time to start, and you’re better off because you then have more time to network.  You don’t want to start too late because a lot of your friends are made in your freshman or sophomore years.  Networking will help you a lot more in the real world because then you have connections with other people that you wouldn’t normally have.  It could help you get a job that you wouldn’t normally get as well.

There are many interesting things I’ve learned in Intro to Religion.  From the weird guy (Freud), to the pilgrimages it is so far pretty interesting.  One of the better things i’ve learned is the analytical pilgrimages and the descriptive pilgrimages.  Analytical describes pilgrimages that are really broad in their description and are not narrow.  The descriptive pilgrimages are more detailed in their description of where the pilgrims go and where the pilgrims go.  I thought that Freud was probably the most interesting man we covered.  He was really weird and I don’t really see how his views are accepted by people.  I thought that Durkheim was the most reasonable person we have covered.  Every theorist we have covered talks about totems in their theories.  Totems are the first instance of a symbol.  Totems are usually more of a animal or a spirit.  The totem is usually used in the Durkheim theories and Freud theories. People were not allowed to eat or kill a totem animal. Only if it were a special ceremony or occasion may you kill and eat a totem animal. Obsessively neurotic people feel grief when they lose somebody close to them. If they wanted to keep the group together, they have to find wives that are not part of them. The foundation of human society is “social contract” according to many philosophers. The events in Sophocles’ play took place thousands of years before he even wrote it. Members of the tribe can identify their totem animal by their dead father.

Hughes wrote Salvation so long after the experience because he felt like he wasn’t ready to tell about it.  It was a big moment in his life that he kept secret from the world for so long.  His family members cared very deeply about him seeing Jesus and if he didn’t actually see him, Hughes might have greatly upset his family.  The weirdest part of this story is, the adults never had seen Jesus so how would the kids see him, and why did the adults care so much?  Hughes feels really awful about the whole thing at first and is even driven to not believe in Jesus anymore.  This was obviously a big day for him.  This narrative was more to explain the distance between generations than it was to criticize anybody.  His aunt and the other adults were brought up that way and for whatever reason they thought that all those kids had seen Jesus.  Every generation is different and it shows in this narrative.  The other kids had definitely not seen Jesus and the round kid Westley even told Hughes to just get up because he was “tired of sitting there.”  The generation before him would not have done that.  They would have waited until they saw Jesus and not gotten up because they were tired.  However, Hughes’s people would just get up because they wanted to get it over with and fool all the adults.  In conclusion, the difference in generations is the main idea of the story.