Making people feel awkward isn't an issue. I look at it as a hobby.

Another day, another project completed and done away without ever having to glance back at it again. Except for this blog post of course.

I found the trial very enjoyable and felt that it turned out pretty great. In some cases, it was more difficult, however. As the direct examiner, I had to research all of the witnesses on my side of the trial. This wasn't bad for most, but for some, such as the European knights, it was hard to find viable information that I could work to help our cause. Overall, I enjoyed the project very much, though.

I'm not really sure what to think of my performance, at all really. I felt that I did a great job preparing and had all of my information together, but when it came down to it, I feel like I may not have had enough questions asked, which was discouraging because I was unsure of how many questions per witness would be sufficient. Oh well. I feel like I did a good job though and I know I put in a lot of effort, which is what really matters to me. Next time, to improve myself, I would probably ask a few more questions per witness.

When it comes down to it all, I think I'd declare the Mongols as somewhere wedged between good and bad. They certainly had their evil moments in their using innocent civilians as human shields and such, but there is no denying the fact that people in some places that they conquered, sans China, felt as though the Mongols were more liberators since they had been displeased with their administration before the invasions (thank you textbook). I think that in many ways the Mongols are misunderstood, but there is no excusing their violent actions.

I would definitely charge the Mongols as guilty of kidnapping and terrorism, but genocide is a more questionable verdict. I wouldn't declare them guilty of genocide, as they did not systematically destroy a specific group of people. There is no doubt that they kidnapped people, however, and there is no question that their actions caused great fear (terrorism) amongst peoples that they attacked.

Genghis Khan - He'll Kill You With an Axe.

Personally, I have to believe that Genghis was a crazy psycho murderer. The guy slaughtered people. To say he wasn't in my eyes equates to patting him on the back and telling him "Aww it's okay man. You're a great guy. Sure you killed my family, but that's alright, I accept you for it." His sheer intent in his attacks proves him to be a psychopath. According to the video that we watched, Genghis engaged in terrorist actions specifically for psychological reasons. Honestly, that's a bit of a crazy, creepy, low blow. If you're going for psychological warfare, you are seriously messed up in the head (yet brilliant in a sick way). He sought out specific tribes in order to scare other tribes close to them in order to force them to surrender to him. Crazy much? He even sought out and fought his best friend. I find the fact that he did not watch the murder of his friend basically irrelevant, because he was psycho enough to bring his friend to such a fate. To subject someone to such an event, whether or not you perpetrate the actual execution, is sick and twisted. If we look into the formation of Genghis's personality based upon nature vs. nurture, it's probably safe to say that his childhood played a huge, massive part in the way he turned out. His father died when he was young, he was forced to deal with his horrible half-siblings, and his family was left to fend for itself and fight for itself. This factor does not excuse his murders and killings - just because he had a craptastic childhood doesn't make it fine for him to go on rampages across Asia. So is Genghis Khan a psychopath murderer or not? In my opinion, the creep is most definitely a psychopathic killer.

The Crusades Project

All done!


My project can be found on Twitter.


In order to find it, search for the hashtag #darncrusades
It's all there.


Bibliography:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vw0MFGH8rJENzBYdGdQxRwii4i1-zQCqvzKD-pGmh8s/edit?hl=en_US#

Crusades Project - Part 3

Almost done! Time to put the bibliography together.

Today, I finished constructing all of my remaining tweets to demonstrate my understanding of the Muslim viewpoint on the Second Crusade and Third Crusade. As I did this, I located several more sources, which I used for these two crusades. These sources are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Crusade

http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-second-crusade.htm

http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/crusades/2nd/12.shtml

http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/crusade/thirdcru.html
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_crusade3rd.html
http://the-orb.net/textbooks/muhlberger/lionheart.html

Today I made use of the search engine, sweetsearch.com. I really liked it, and preferred it over google.com and bing.com, which I used yesterday. The sources that it provided me with were much more helpful than those provided by google or bing. In this way, sweetsearch proved most helpful.

I only had one real problem with finding information - as I only needed specific information (how the Muslims were affected, etc.), I had to spend a good amount of time weeding out unnecessary information provided by different web sites that I visited. It was most difficult finding specifically what I needed rather than random stuff that was relevant to the topic, but not relevant for my exact purposes.

The only problem that I encountered with my choice of using Twitter for my project was that it was a bit more involved than I had anticipated...I had to create three different email addresses in order to create three separate accounts, and it was a bit inconvenient having to sign out of one account and into another constantly.

My project worked out exactly as I had envisioned, and I am very happy with it. This is because I was able to convey opinions of several different people, but formulate a common base for all of them so that it was organized, flowed well, and made sense over all.

Woo!

Crusades Project - Part 2

Today, I began to get down to business. I located several sources, and was able to begin and complete my work on the First Crusade for my project.

First, I created three Twitter accounts for several Muslim men that will contribute "their" opinions of the crusades...Mohammad Abbas, Ibrahim Jafari, and Abdul Mahdavi.

(This was an extremely irritating process, as I was forced to create three new separate email addresses to accomodate all accounts).

How did I find my information? For today at least, I used the Google search engine.
Where did I find it?...My sources to begin with:
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-first-crusade.htm
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/crusades.stm
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/first_crusade.htm

I also attempted a use of Bing after Google began to frustrate me, but I wasn't a fan of the pages that I was being provided from it.

Crusades Project, Part 1

And so it begins.

First of all, I hate Blogger for deleting my first (and superior) version of this post. Anyways...
Decisions have been made, and it's time to get going...unfortunately. Yay stress!

For my project, I will be focusing on the following crusades: The First, Second, and Third Crusades.

I have made this decision because I believe that these three crusades will have the most information available to me, as each of them had an actual outcome. For example, the First Crusade ended with the streets of Jerusalem running red with blood. Obviously, I can easily formulate opinions of those who experienced such an event, as it is so violent. Therefore, opinions are obviously going to be strong on the subject and easily inferred. As for the Second and Third Crusades, both ended with a Muslim comeback or another event that again would facilitate strong opinions.

I have also chosen to create a Twitter hashtag, #darncrusades in order to display my understanding.

I have made this decision because I wish to create several accounts representing a few Muslims that would have experienced these crusades (obviously I will be making them up out of my imagination). I will be able to easily display my understanding of the topic because I can literally post opinions right on there per account, and that'll be fairly simple. It will also allow me to prove that I understand the given subject in a diverse light, in that the multiple accounts that I will be creating will allow me to create multiple opinions that may conflict with each other depending upon the personality of the characters which I create.

I have chosen to display my information in this fashion because it will appear as very organized and easily readable, as everything will be right in chronological order, and all tweets will have to be short and concise.

I hope to accomplish my goal of proving my understanding through being able to formulate believable opinions. In addition, I hope to be able to create different opinions for each Twitter account that I create per Muslim character that I create so that I may be able to diversify my project, and create multiple viewpoints.

Well, here we go.