El Final

The final product:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12913851/parvez-and-baseema-tell-all


Xtranormal was a really interesting way to present my project which is why I picked it. I had a lot of fun listening and picking out accents and characters. The only problem was that there is a limit of free stuff you can use. And it takes a lot of time to load so that you can preview what you have so far. It was also hard because the characters can't really assert the tone that you want them to use so they just talk the way they want to and they are quite bad at accentuating the parts of the word that must be accentuated to make sense. So I hope that you can understand what I made them say. Overall, the project came out really good and I'm happy with my final product. Enjoy!

* Clicking on the link should take you straight to the video. It takes a while to load, so don't worry, it's all there.



Bibliography:

• Butler, Chris. "FC67: The Crusades & their impact (1095-1291)- The Flow of History ." The Flow of History. N.p., 2007. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/west/10/FC67>.
• Cline, Austin. "Muslim Perspective on the Crusades, Perspectives and Religion in the Crusades."About.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm>.
• . "Crusade." . WordIQ.com, 2010. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Crusade>. 
• Dynosoar, . "Islamic view of the Crusades." . Stardock Corporation, 02/06/2006. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://forums.joeuser.com/100054>.
• Hammond, Peter. "Jihad and Crusades ." . Frontline Fellowship, n.d. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.frontline.org.za/articles/JihadAndCrusades.htm>.
• . "The Crusades (1095-1291)." . Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, 2011. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm>.

Xtranormal

I decided to do a Xtranormal presentation for this project. I picked two adorable little animals to be my Muslim people who will be talking about the crusades and how they personally feel about them. The most difficult part of this project was that there wasn't much straight-forward information to go by so I had to infer a lot. I was wondering if I should make my characters have Arabic accents, but I didn't know if it was inappropriate or anything so I just decided to go with the classic British accents. Making the presentation with Xtranormal is a bit time-consuming so I'm glad I started this at 5 instead of like 8 or some other time later. It feels good not to procrastinate. I am a little worried that I am going to run out of things to say and that my presentation will be too short. I think that I'm going to do three Xtranormals, for each of the crusades I picked. I will use the same characters but different settings and it'll be like as if I was following them through the years. How exciting! I had to include a panda, my little British panda is just too cute. But.. back to work. I'll post the links up later when I am done.




****** Change of plans, I guess you only have 300 points to spend before you have to pay and buy more, so I shall only be making one presentation. NOT THREE. I guess I'll just have one of the characters narrate also for each time change.

Short & Sweet

Using sweet search...
As I was browsing through other's blogs and reading the comments and such (not in any way or form creepy... )
I read that someone suggested using sweetsearch.com, so I gave it a go. It's a pretty good website & I think as of now, it is the best source.
Some sources:
http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/west/10/FC67
http://boisestate.edu/courses/crusades/5th/
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4461
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/May-June-08/On-this-Day--Crusaders-Victorious-in-Siege-of-Jerusalem.html
http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/nelson/first_crusade.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm
http://www.mrdowling.com/606islam.html


I think the biggest problem is that although the interwebs are helpful, there are not that many websites that really assert how the Muslims felt concerning the crusades. Even if you type "Muslim perspective on first crusade" things don't really come up. I have only found numerous websites that merely tell what happened, not really individual views. I am hoping that if I use other country's google then I will be more successful.

status update... what is this, facebook?

oh blogger, it's been a while. i don't check you every day life facebook. Maybe you and facebook should switch places...

SATURDAY: was initially a little confused about the project so I took this night as an opportunity to get some smart people's input. So Laura and Luke explained the project to me and we did some initial researching. yippie! Then we treated ourselves to a little fro-yo as a reward for being so focused. hehe.

MONDAY: More research time. I have officially decided to pick Crusades 1, 4, and 7 with the addition of some references to the smaller crusades as well. I felt like that these three crusades would align and work together well and they're all a little different so the Muslims would have several opinions about them.

TUESDAY: Hello Google, it's nice to meet you again.
Some links I found:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/472/bk2_472.htm
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0042.html
http://forums.joeuser.com/100054
http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_online_publications/Crusades/CR02.pdf
One problem I found was that some sites are very repetitive so I have decided to try some other search engines tomorrow and see if I get any luckier.

WEDNESDAY: Hello Yahoo, it's been a while. Bing, have we ever met before?
Ah, wikipedia.... I seem to have a little stalker on my case.... It keeps popping up everywhere, but from personal experience, wikipedia and I will be taking a little time apart from each other. It doesn't seem like wiki  is too pleased about that? Do I sense a restraining order?
Yahoo keeps throwing this book called "The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives" which would be a wonderful source if only it wasn't a book... available on google books that I have to buy.
Some sources from yahoo on the crusades:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2001/oct05.html
http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5486
http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm

Some sources from bing on the crusades:
http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusadesviews_2.htm
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Crusade

Overall, I thought that google worked the best and gave me the most information. Yahoo would lose this competition because it didn't really narrow the search results down for me. It wasn't necessarily very useful. I liked that Bing would change the color of the link if I had clicked it before even if I had clicked it from google or yahoo. That was really nice because then I didn't have to click it again and waste time. Now that I got most of my research done, I'll work on the final proudct tomorrow.
I am hoping to do either a powerpoint or an animation because I feel like, personally, those two things help me understand and learn topics the best since they are very easy to follow and sometimes can be entertaining.

What is Jeopardy?

I did better than I thought I would during the jeopardy games. The majority of the questions that I was getting wrong had to do Islam and the majority of the questions that I got right had to do with China.

What Yerim Got Wrong: 

A: The two most important deities in the Hindu Pantheon.
Q: Who are Vishnu and Shiva?

A: The name of the ship that began to use the lateen sail (triangular sail).
Q: What is a dhow?

A: This administration used Persian techniques of statecraft.
Q: What is the Abbasid administration?

A: The Byzantine Empire used this since it placed an imperial province under the jurisdiction of a general because they provided military defense and handled civil administration.
Q: What is a 'theme' system?

A: This Frankish ruler is credited for saving the Roman Catholic church.
Q: Who is Clovis?

eggs benedict

"The Rule"
4. Monasteries that followed "Benedict's Rule" could be very useful institutions because enforcing the rules everyone is very controlled and tractable. Such strict rules such as 57. to apply oneself frequently to prayer and 63. to love chastity keeps the people under control. Another reason that the monasteries could be useful is because despite the harshness and lack of freedom the rules assert, the citizens are taught valuable lessons and live to be "good, model citizens". 3. then not to kill, 4. not to commit adultery, 5. not to steal, 6. not to covet, 7. not to bear false witness all encourage and pretty much forces one to become a moral citizen.

5. Socially, it is evident that these people lived in fear 24/7 365 days a year. Rules 44 & 45 (to fear the Day of Judgment & to be in dread of hell, respectively) exhibit such fearful behavior and the Rules definitely fostered this fear, perhaps to have greater control over the people. I can see the government using these rules to their full advantage and scaring the pants off of the people to coerce them into following orders. Economically, I think that the rules could have benefited society. With the fear and love for God that the monasteries encourage, everything is to be done for God. This could be motivational and make society work harder. The paragraph on "Of the Daily Manual Labor" frowns upon laziness and clearly these people were always out and about, getting things done. The Rules create a productive society who fear being lazy since if you are, you go to hell. oh, that's exciting.

The Fruit of the Gods

I liked the poems because I felt like that they flowed very well and was very rhymeish. I think that the poems reflected Indian society brcause they were very religious and reflected the caste system. "The Plums Tasted" talk about a poor girl who was in the bottom of the caste system. "The Pot is a God" talks about how the gods are one god.