Theseus rough draft/A Video

THE STORY OF THESEUS

Think about the classic hero’s story. What comes to your mind? Action, violence, adventure? All of those things occur in the story of the Greek hero Theseus, and they occur often. Whether he’s fending off an Amazonian army, battling a Minotaur, or liberating the people of Athens from bandits, Theseus was always doing something exciting. He was a man who was almost worshipped by the people of Athens. However, his story isn’t the happiest one that you’ll ever hear. It’s filled with hardship, death and sadness. He wasn’t a perfect person, and his death was strange and unexplained. When he did die, though, the people of Athens buried him in a temple that was erected in his honor. Theseus’s heritage is under some dispute. Some say he was the son of the King Aegeus of Athens, others say he was the son of Poseidon (which might explain his strength and prowess in battle). Either way, his mother and grandfather raised him in poverty. When Theseus came to age, his mother, Aethra, told him of a sword and some sandals that King Aegeus had left for him as a birthright when he came of age. Theseus took up the sword and sandals and set off to Athens to claim his heritage. Theseus was well received by the people of Athens when he arrived. King Aegeus (still not knowing Theseus to be his son) invited him to the palace for a feast. At the feast, Theseus learned of the contract Athens had with King Minos of Crete where Athens had to send fourteen sacrifices to Crete to be devoured by a Minotaur every nine years. Theseus didn’t like this, and decided to go to Crete and kill the Minotaur himself. He did, with the help of Ariadne, daughter of Minos. Theseus sailed home with Ariadne (although he abandoned her on an island) and returned to Athens. However, he had forgotten to hoist white sails on his ship to show his father that he was still alive, and so Aegeus jumped to his death in the sea (now called the Aegean Sea). Theseus became the King of Greece, but resigned his power so that Greece could have a more democratic government. He went on many other adventures, but unfortunately, his story ended tragically. His only son was killed after Theseus banished him, his third wife committed suicide, and Theseus was killed tragically by a friend of his, for unknown reasons (although his ghost apparently appeared before the Greek army and led them to victory in battle, and the Greeks built him a temple.. His story displays some common themes that often occur in Greek mythology, those being: Heroes often complete seemingly impossible tasks (he killed a Minotaur, for Olympus’s sake); Heroes reclaim their rightful place in life (he became the King of Greece); Heroes often rise from lowly beginnings. Theseus is one of the most revered heroes in Greek mythology, and with good reason.
Theseus started off in poverty. He was born and raised in Troezen by his mother and grandfather. His father, depending on who you believe, was either King Aegeus of Athens, or Poseidon (which would explain his strength and skill in battle). Either way, Aegeus, after sleeping with Aethra, Theseus’s mother, left his sandals an sword should their child be a boy. He left them under a boulder and told Aethra that when Theseus was strong enough to lift the boulder and claim the sandals and sword, he should venture to Athens to claim his birthright. However, after spending the night with Aegeus, Aethra apparently waded out to sleep in Poseidon’s bed, which is were the confusion about Theseus’s lineage arises. Whatever the case, Theseus came of age and moved the stone. With his new sword and sandals, he set out to Athens to reclaim his birthright.
Theseus had to go through a bit of journey to reclaim his rightful place as King of Athens. Theseus’s grandfather offered him the chance to sail to Athens. This route was much shorter and safer. However, Theseus, inspired by Heracles, wished to prove himself a hero. He ventured to Athens by road, and subsequently encountered its inherent dangers (namely bandits). Bandits had been troubling the travelers on the road to Athens for quite some time. For instance, a man name Periphetes (son of the god Hephaistos) beat travelers to a bloody pulp with a club. However, Theseus was not an average traveler. He killed Periphetes with his own club, and wielded said club for the rest of his life as a tribute to his first good deed. He encountered several more bandits (a man who tied his victims hands to pine trees, and a sort of ancient Greek version of the killer from Saw who tortured victims in his iron bed of DEATH). Thus, when Theseus arrived in Athens, he was very well received by the city’s people he had removed the dangerous bandits from the roads, and the King (who was still unaware of Theseus’s true identity) invited Theseus to a feast. However, Aegeus’s wife Medea used sorcery to discover that Theseus was the King’s son. She didn’t want her own sons with Aegeus to lose their right to the kingdom. She convinced the King that Theseus wasn’t to be trusted, and that the King should serve Theseus a poisoned drink. However, the King recognized his sword at the last moment and stopped his son from drinking the poison. Medea fled and everything looked good for Theseus. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to spend much time with his father. When he returned from killing the Minotaur, he forgot to signal his success to Aegeus by raising white sails on the ship. The King couldn’t bear his son’s death, and flung himself into the now Aegean Sea. Theseus did become the King of Athens (although he later resigned that position for a more democratic form of government in Greece) it wasn’t under the happiest of circumstances. Theseus lost his father right after completing one of the greatest accomplishments of his life, slaying the Minotaur of Crete.
Theseus slew a horrendous monster (the Minotaur) on the island of Crete. The Minotaur was, ahem, the bastard child of King Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, and a bull. The bull had been a gift to Minos from Poseidon. However, Poseidon assumed that Minos would sacrifice the bull to him. Minos couldn’t bring himself to kill the bull, because apparently it was that beautiful. As punishment, Poseidon made Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull, and, well, you can assume what happened next. Their offspring was the Minotaur, a half - man, half - bull monstrosity. It had immense strength, and was fiercesome. But, Minos didn’t kill it. He had an engineer, Daedalus (yes, the same one from the Story of Icarus flying too close to the sun etc.) build a labyrinth, in which he put the monster at the center. Then, he required that Athens send 14 sacrifices to Crete to be sent into the labyrinth as food for the beast every nine years. Theseus heard of this, and wanted to put a stop to it. So, he sailed to Crete, promising his father to fly white sails should he return alive (a promise that he never kept). Theseus got to Crete, and met Ariadne, the daughter of Minos. She fell in love with Theseus, and showed him the secret to escaping the complex labyrinth (trailing some thread behind you to retrace your steps). Theseus did so, and met and slaughtered the Minotaur. He returned to Athens triumphant, only to watch his father plummet to his death in the sea. Such is the life of a hero.
Theseus was a champion for those who were defenseless. He never let those in need suffer, and always fought for what he thought was right. However, his story, like that of most heroes, was wrought with tragedy. His father and one of his wives committed suicide. Another wife died in battle. His son was killed by a sea monster, after Theseus banished him for apparently being in love with Theseus’s wife (wow), and he died tragically at the hand of one of his friends. Still, he was absolutely loved by the people of Greece, and was a great hero.

Yes, this is sort of cheating, so to make up for it, I'll show you this lovely video that me and ________ made in Communications Tech. I probably shouldn't be putting my face on the Internet, but honestly, so few people read this that I don't think that it really matters. So, with out further add doo, SAVE THE DEER PSA (oh, btw {by the way} this is supposed to be like the commercial for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" except with deer, fyi {for your info [information]}

Story Behind the Science

Story Behind the Science: Gregor Mendel

                In the summer of 1878, French Seed Company representative C.W. Eichling visited Gregor Mendel at his monastery in the Czech Republic while touring Central Europe. Eichling toured the monastery grounds with Mendel, and observed the monastery’s pea plant beds, which contained over 25 varieties of peas, many of them hybrids. Although Mendel made one of the most important discoveries in Biology, it was not until 20 years later that his discoveries where recognized. He was born as Johann Mendel in 1822 in the now Czech Republic, and lived as a peasant for most of his childhood. He went to boarding school in Opava, and earned top grades. Although he wanted to become a teacher after graduation, he was forced to return to his parent’s farm in Hyncice. He was accepted to the University of Olomouc in 1841. He earned a two-year degree in math, physics, psych, and ethics. In 1843 he was accepted into the Augustinian Monastery in Brno, and was christened “Gregor.” As long as he performed his clerical duties at the monastery, Mendel was allowed to study whatever he wished in the monastery’s vast library, which he did, still hoping to become a teacher.

                Unfortunately, Mendel encountered many difficulties in becoming a teacher. He failed the teaching certification exams four times, and was only able to become a substitute teacher at the monastery. However, when the Brno Technical School teacher got sick, Mendel filled in. The Abbot of the Brno monastery was impressed with Mendel’s teaching, enough so to send him to the University of Vienna to become better educated. Mendel received his degree in 1854, and returned to the monastery to immediately begin his experiments with peas. Although there had been many heredity experiments involving animals prior to Mendel’s work, scientist didn’t often experiment with plants because they had trouble believing that plants could sexually reproduce. A few did, however, and it was these men that inspired Mendel to experiment with a pea plant’s heredity. Scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Koelreuter both experimented with hybrid crossing, but until Mendel, no one knew how specific characteristics were passed on to the offspring.

                Mendel began his research in the summer of 1856 on the Pisum pea plant genus. Mendel’s experiment was different from the others because he had an idea about “factors.” He believed that it was the factors that controlled the different variations of a trait. After Mendel made sure that his plants were pure-bred, he began to cross them. He showed with the F1 and F2 generations of tall and short pea plants that the tall gene was dominant and the short gene was recessive. An important step in Mendel’s work was that he counted the plants with the particular trait, and came up with a 3:1 ratio for dominant: recessive.

                Even though Mendel’s research was revolutionary to the field of Biology, it wasn’t really recognized by many scientists. Very few took his research took his research seriously. Mendel was appointed the Abbot of the Augustinian Monastery in 1868. When he became the Abbot, his extensive managerial duties kept him from performing his experiments, and he quit the pea plants. Mendel died in 1884. In 1900, some scientist rediscovered Mendel’s work and labeled him as the father of genes.

OK...So, Spanish

I was having a writer's block (amazing, after having not written anything for a few weeks). So, this is basically a transcription of my part in the Spanish 3 play Arrugapieles (or Rumplestilzskin). I won't give any context, or type any of the other parts. Hopefully that will make it sort of funnier and/or more interesting to read. Also, my parts (yep, I have two. I am THAT GOOD) are Antonio, el amigo del molinero, and Carlos, el mejens wait...how do you spell that...where's my paper.....oh. Crap. I've left it at school, and unfortunately don't have it memorized yet. Wow, this has been and epic, massive fail. This is probably the most useless thing you've ever read, if you're still reading at this point. Sorry you've spent your time reading this utter piece of poo.

Learner's Permit

So, I haven't done a hugging thing on this blog (or the discussion board, for that matter) for a couple of weeks. Basically, it's because I'm sort of lazy, and procrastinate a lot (see this old post for all the deets {details}). I could try and make excuses, but there's really no excuse to be made. So, sorry to my three (who am I kidding, two) avid readers for darkening your Sunday nights for the past couple weeks. I know how you've gone to sleep weeping in despair after spending hours refreshing my blog's home page.

Anyway, on to happier things. Last weekend (and by that I mean the weekend before last) I got my Utah Department of Motor Vehicles Learner's Permit. I passed the Learner's Permit test at 86% on my first try, and I barely even studied. ((:D)) (PS that was a happy face signifying that I was glad that I didn't have to study or really know to much about driving to be able to drive). I did find one of the questions on the test odd, however. It went...a little....like this: "When operating a motorboat, do the same rules and regulations regarding alcohol still apply to the operator of the boat?".....What? Why would we need to know this. The Learner's Permit doesn't allow you to drive a boat, so why would you need to know this. Luckily, it was a Yes/No question, so I just put yes, and I think that I probably got it right.

I was pretty surprised that I passed the test on my first attempt, because there were people failing it left and right. "Oh, I only needed to get twelve more answers correct." "Darn, 63%, so close." What's the deal? What do you not get about signs, speed limits, correct blinker usage, high or low beam lights, proper four-way-stop etiquette, and municiple speed codes? What's so hard about that? OK, so maybe I did study I little. I wasn't trying to brag or anything. No, not at all.