I Decided

audience, so they don 't have to go learn it the hard way and figure it out themselves. His physical portrayal of his speech was very poor by just reading off of his transcript that he brought with him. These lessons are what stuck to me when hearing this. I bet it would stick with you as…

World powers always need to be growing. If a country does not, they will either collapse in on itself or become over run by other nations stronger than them. In “The Rise of the West” one finds that when China and the Ottoman Empire could not afford to advance and or shut out the rest of the world. They did not maintain their statuses of dominant world powers . It is true that they were still strong but their lack of advancement eventually caught up to them in the long run. China was truly…

where I am going to college and my plans when I get there. I do normally go along with the compliment and take credit for my successes, in part because compliments make me recoil, and explaining the extent to your influence would be too expository and frankly unnecessary in some situations. Your effect on my life goes beyond what I could ever expect, or even consciously like, and your influence I constantly feel at rare but increasingly frequent moments of realization and introspection. I would…

Throughout history, there have been many great leaders with very different styles of commanding. Some of these methods, while unorthodox, benefited the land’s people, the land’s economy, and people’s spirituality. In Rome, there were two powerful leaders who approached the throne differently: Gaius Octavius, “Augustus” and Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, “Constantine”. Both of these men inspired changes for the Roman Empire, such as: political reforms, spiritual reforms, and…

After reading this book I thought to myself that I have never really experienced anything as traumatic as Sittser, or really anything traumatic compared to his story and the stories of those he had shared. Then, after that thought I then remembered that toward the beginning of the book he explicitly stated that everyone’s pain is different and cannot be compared. In addition, through out the book he consistently spoke about the difference between a fracture and an amputation. He explained that a…

Universality is the ability to use one company’s hardware in combination with another company’s hardware. The idea of universality was supported by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who built his first computers for Apple, the Apple I and the Apple II, to be compatible with all other company’s data and connection types. Steve Wozniak’s feelings about openness are highlighted in an essay written by Tim Wu called “Father and Son” which also details how Wozniak’s partner Steve Jobs felt the complete…

their talents. I find this topic very interesting because sports is always going to be around, from pop warner levels to the professionals. I’ve recently been grateful enough to be a collegiate athlete. It is a hard task to balance being a student and an athlete because you are constantly working on your craft and studying. I would have certainly loved the idea of being paid to do what I loved while studying in the field of my interest. As I become more aware of both sides of the argument I tend…

Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge over the fellow but rival ruler of the Western Roman empire, Maxentius and his army, became a great triumph for the consolidation and growth of Constantine’s power and with it the development of Christianity. David Potter, author of Constantine the Emperor, argues that Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, or more commonly known as Constantine, “is best known as the emperor of Rome who converted to Christianity and in doing so made it…

From the origin of the American musical, a variety of creative teams have developed many methods to popularize now memorable shows. These methods were considered integral in the formula for developing the musical and were later deemed “conventional”. Composers and lyricists throughout the years eventually adapted these conventions and have created some of the most successful shows that are still relevant to this day, including Sweeney Todd and Les Misérables. Some of those inspirational…

Manichean Texts of the Silk Road Tun-Huang was a major destination along the Silk Road. The caves of the thousand Buddhas contained many important manuscripts and pieces of art which have been used by historians to learn about the cultures of the Silk Road. Among these were three Manichean texts written in Chinese. These are the Hymnscroll, the Compendium of the Doctrines of Mani, and the Traité Pelliot. These are significant because they are some of the only written documents we have of the…