Commemorative Celebration

My commemorative event is Graduation.

The end of first semester is near and after that; it’s only one more semester until our high school careers will be over (unless we get held back). The celebration will be a party, much like a toga party only we wear our graduation gowns and caps. The party lasts 12 hours to signify the 12 years of schooling we have been put through. We celebrate every year and the party starts at 3pm. seeing as that is the exact time school officially ended for us at SFS. The party then goes on until 3am. At the party there will be a lot of party games, ranging from kindergarten games to high school games to signify the transformation of being kindergarten students, to seniors. At the start we play the graduation procession song and show a slideshow of all seniors and what they looked like at graduation and what they look like presently (this will be fun several years after graduation to see how we’ve changed). There will also be a caption saying where we are in life including where we live, what our job is, whether we’ve gotten married, children, and other accomplishments. There is no commemorative food seeing as we pretty much ate anything during high school. The clothing is graduation gowns as previously stated. To start each party off, the valid Victorian will mention a memorable part of his/her valid Victorian speech that they said during the graduation ceremony.

Cupid and Psyche

Aphrodite puts psyche through three impossible tasks for a human to perform. Cupid helps her out in every task but in the last task Psyche ignores Cupids advice and she is put under a spell. Cupid gains the help from Zeus and gets Psyche to come back to life. Psyche becomes immortal and a servant of the gods, so that she may live with her love, Cupid, for ever.
The story is trying to teach us that love overcomes many things. Love and the freedom to love is a virtue that the Greeks regard highly. The story tries to teach that nothing should inhibit the ability to love and that through the power of love, anything is imaginable. Readers can take from the story that it is important to follow their heart, despite what other people might tell them.

Buddhist Tempel/Hike Reflection

                Humans tend to turn to religion to answer difficult questions such as, “where did we come from, where do we go after death” etc. When going on a nature hike there are many things that prompt questions like these. We look at flowers growing along the path and while others might neglect their presence, others ponder how these delicate and beautiful species came into existence. At the Buddhist temple, there was a tree that was 500 years old. To me, it is fascinating to think that a tree manages to survive over 5 times the lifespan of average humans. A tree, though not very capable of moving anywhere or doing anything extremely exciting, is still a very complex organism. Such complexity sparks the desire to know how it came about and how it evolved to be what it is today, and while science often explains how it evolved to become what it is, science can never explain from where everything originated. And, when science fails to explain things, people turn to the supernatural and religion. I believe that people spend their lives seeking our religious truths and nurturing faith or worshipping religion for many different personal reasons. A Buddhist might try to seek religious truth such as “nothing is permanent” in order to be able to attain Nirvana. I believe many people worship creation out of a slight fear of the unknown. After all, whatever managed to create our world as we know it, probably has the capability of destroying it just as easily. A Taoist might nurture faith in order to find balance in nature, or Tao. Religion is a very important cultural aspect that not only answers some tough questions, but also gives hope and faith to everybody living in a sometimes not so beautiful world.

Meditation reflection

For my time of meditation, I went into the guest bedroom and sat on the bed there. The room has a very nice view over the city of Seoul and is very peaceful and quiet. As I sat in the room I just looked over the city and tried to forget about everything going on around me. When I closed my eyes and tried to think about obtaining right mindfulness, right thoughts and right concentration but it was a lot harder than I expected. There were a lot of random noises that I would hear and they would distract me from obtaining right concentration. It was hard to really distinguish which thoughts would be considered “right thoughts.” A lot of the time I would get distracted by thoughts about what I was going to do tomorrow, how much fun I had yesterday, and a lot of thought went towards things I had to do for school. I couldn’t get my mind concentrated enough on figuring out any of life’s truths. As for inspiration, I guess I was inspired to get a head start on some other homework due this week, but I wouldn’t really call that a great inspiration, it mainly came to me because I figured I wanted an easier week this week. The main problem I have with meditation is disciplining myself to having a hundred percent focus on concentration, right speech, and right thought. The whole experience was very relaxing however despite my mind wandering about randomly going from thought to thought.

Ghandi Movie Reflection

                Ghandi believed very much in the Hinduism because he grew up as a Hindu. Ghandi had lived abroad for most of his life and thus, he had very different views than traditional Hindus. At the time, India was faced with the caste system which was law to the Indians. However after Ghandi had witnessed the equality in London, he found the caste system useless and he opposed it quite strongly as seen in the scene where he tells his wife that she will clean the bathroom if it is her turn. Ghandi’s religious views were very much influenced by those around him. He had Muslim friends, studied in a predominantly Christian country, and yet was technically Hindu himself. Ghandi believed in a very open form of Hinduism. In South Africa when the group of white workers confronts him for walking on the sidewalk with a white man he simply states, “We are all children of God.” He does not believe in boundaries between religions and believes that everybody is equal, a view quite contrary to the Hindu belief in the caste system.

                Ghandi stated in the movie that one should “’Love they neighbor as thyself’ is not something we Hindus prescribe to, but it is something we could learn from.” As stated in the previous paragraph Ghandi clearly opposed the idea of the caste system because he believed in equality. The quote says that Hindu’s don’t prescribe to the idea of loving their neighbor as themselves. The caste system prevents Hindus from loving their neighbors as themselves because of the separation between castes and ideas that castes lower than you are bad and sometimes considered as “untouchables.” Ghandi believes that the Hindus could learn from the Christian belief of loving thy neighbor as thyself because he believes it would help abolish the caste system and unify India as a whole so they can fight (non-violently of course) for their independence.

Assignment 3 Sacred Poetry

Sleipnir

Eight thunderous hooves

batter the land as it moves,

breaking the clouds as it soars

shouting out its thunderous roars.

Carrying the great Odin on its back

courage this fierce beast does not lack.

Traveling from one world to another,

it lives forever.

As it Conquers the travels of the land and sky,

no mortal dare look it in the eye.

Great Sleipnir, carrier of Odin,

the two worlds it will never stop roaming.

Question of Reflection number 1!

Mircea Eliade was very right when she said that religion "has not vanished without a trace." There are countles examples of ancient religious locations, artifacts, writings that archeologists have dug up, allowing anthropologists a chance to go 'back in time' and understand a culture better and explore its methods of worship. One good example is Stonehenge in England that clearly shows that the civilization that lived there at the time practiced some form of religion. As for my ancestors, they probably worshiped some viking god such as Thor or Odin. Yet somewhere way back in my family's history they decided to become Lutheran, and thus, I too became Lutheran. I wouldn't necessarily say that being Lutheran caused me to become a different person, but it has definately played a rather large role in my life in creating memorable experiences, and determining which morals I believe in. Although I learned most most of the family mores and morales from my parents, those were all based on Lutheran beliefs established a long time ago that became embedded in family traditions. The fact that I was baptized and confirmed does not necesarily mean that the christian values and morals magically floated into my head, but it is due to my primarily christian based upbringing that I believe and practice the morals that I have known for as long as i can remember. That is how religion has influenced my personal history.