2-21

Today in West Civ. we continued reviewing for our test. We went over that Sparta was a different city-state. The men were completely dedicated to the state for their entire lives. Men sometimes wouldn't even live with their wives or families, they would live in a 'training camp' with the other men. With the men gone for most of the time, women had a lot of freedom, unlike other women in other city-states. The women were expected to raise the family, run business', and do other forms of work that men typically did. Sparta had a governmental system that allowed the landowners to have complete domination over the noncitizen people that were forced to work for them to keep the land they lived on. The workers weren't payed nearly enough to become wealthy, just enough for them and their family to survive. We learned that a Tyranny was a stage before Democracy. A Tyranny is a form of government with one ruler who took power by force. The rule is usually a man who obviously isn't a very nice person, also he probably has a lot of wealth. We ended with leaning that Sparta tried to remain isolated from all other civilizations to keep their  way of life. The teacher gave us the rest of the class off to do homework.

2-20

Today in west civ we are reviewing chapter three. Mr. Schick tried to be boron but didn't succeed and then made Ben read. Ben was really loud and didn't pronounce like 1/2 the words. We reviewed that the early Europeans talked in Indo-European languages that formed into the Greek and Latin that our languages formed from today. We learned that the Dark Ages is Mr. schicks least favorite time period. There was no writing and nothing productive occurred. During this terrible time, the Greeks were not affected and even expanded their territory.

2/15

Today in west civ we went over our tests that we took a while ago. We had to answer 25 multiple choice questions and had two written answers. We had two choices for each written answer. I chose the important details of a pyramid and we had to name three of them. I named the building material, location, and how many workers you use. For the second written answer I chose to explain how the Nile River helped the Egyptians. I explained how it flooded and they made an irrigation system to water their crops. It also left behind rich soil that benefitted the farming. They also used it for bathing and traveling. Since they could only get to northern Egypt and couldn't get back down the river they invented the sailboat. The Egyptians took advantage of the wind to push them down back to upper Egypt.

2/7

Today in West Civ. class we reviewed for the upcoming test tomorrow that is apparently going to be hard. We went over the uses of the Nile River, Upper and Lower Egypt, mummification,and some religious beliefs of the Egyptians. Also someone brought in example of how the Egyptians used to paint the hieroglyphics and what the paper felt like. We also learned some things about what the Egyptians thought happened after you died. When you died you had to get your heart weighed, and the heavier it was the greater chance you had of being sent to the afterlife paradise instead into the jaws of a monster.  The reason you wanted your heart to be heavy is because it was believed that the more good deeds you did, the heavier your heart became.

Today in class we had to find a partner and then had to build a pyramid. To build the pyramid you had to choose the location and the amount of people you wanted to build it. Then you had to choose the angle of the pyramid and what material you wanted to use to build it. You had to choose a majority of farmers to do all the labor and about 1/4 the amount of them is the craftsmen and the officials make up a small part of the work force. My partner was Alex and we finished first.