My hurricane experience was wonderful.  Most people called hurricane Katrina a disaster or a tragedy, but I thought of it as a blessing from God.  I’ve gained so much from my hurricane Katrina experience.  It allowed me to get closer to God and really appreciate my faith and blessings.  My evacuation was more like a vacation.  My family and I first planned to evacuate to Huston, but it took so many hours just to leave Louisiana that we got tired by the time we reached Orange, Texas.  We finally settled down there for a few days and then met up with my uncle and aunt in Baton Rouge.  We were three families, at one point four, in a small two bedroom apartment, which we decided to call shelter C for some reason.  At that point I realized how much I was taking for granted.  The simplest things were unavailable, such as a bed.   We were forced to sleep on the floor, which was very uncomfortable.  It mad me think of all the poor people across the world that were forced to sleep on the floor their whole life, not just a week.  Consequently, I learned to appreciate the simple blessings that I have and that are considered luxury to others.  Living in shelter C with the extended family allowed us all to spend quality family time together.  I got to know my family a little more and that was very important to me.  We stayed in Baton Rouge for about a week and then we all decided to go to Memphis, Tennessee.  By this time no one was allowed to go inside New Orleans.  As a result, my family decided to use the free time to travel, since hotels were not charging evacuees.  We stayed in Memphis, in a really nice hotel, for three days and then we were off to Washington D.C. to visit another uncle that I haven’t seen for over eight years.  From D.C. we went to Virginia and stayed there for about a week.  After that, we went back to Orange, Texas and stayed two days, and then we went back to shelter C in Baton Rouge.  When we were finally allowed to enter to New Orleans we returned and found that our house got about four feet of water.  We were forced to live with my aunt for three months until it was repaired. That’s about it for my hurricane story. 

I like the class so far because it reminds me of my history 1030 class I took with Dr. McCord.  His way of teaching history made me love it after hating it with a passion in high school.  He used visual teaching. For example, he showed us pictures of artifacts and movies, then related them to what we were learning.  This class is very similar.  I expect to gain some basic knowledge about the Bible and what it means from this class, but in a fun, interesting, and simplified way.  I honestly took this course because it is a requirement in the pre-pharmacy curriculum.  I think the Bible is very important to learn and understand even though I am Muslim because it will help me understand another religion other than my own.  In addition, Muslims believe in all three books, the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an.  I don’t have any background in the Bible and that’s why I chose to take this class.  I am currently a pre-pharmacy major, so in the future I hope to become a pharmacist.  This class has a lot to do with the vocation I chose because it will help me relate to people that I may encounter, in my career that have different beliefs.  I can definitely make the course commitments. 

586 BCE a key event in the Bible because that is when the Babylonians attacked and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple that Solomon built.  Lamentations basically just describes the horrific destruction of Jerusalem after it was attacked and destroyed by the Babylonians.  The book was written by Jeremiah in a poetic fashion and it consists of five chapters.  The first chapter describes the misery and oppression the city of Jerusalem was in at the time.  The second chapter blames the people’s sins for the destruction of Jerusalem.  Chapter three is full of hope.  Chapter four mourns over Jerusalem and the temple.  Finally, chapter five is a prayer.  There are many parallels to the horrific scenes described in Lamentations and the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans.  For example, in the book of Lamentations, the author describes how Jerusalem was always full of people, and then suddenly it was empty.  New Orleans was also like this after hurricane Katrina.  It was labeled as a ghost town at the time.   

            The Merneptah Stele is an ancient artifact that was discovered in Egypt.  The stele is the only accepted ancient Egyptian artifact that mentions something about Israel.  However, the stele was made by the ancient Egyptian king, Merneptah, to campaign against the Libyans and to brag about his victory.  He also mentions his defeats against other tribes and groups of people.  The stele’s purpose was to advertise the king’s greatness so his people can respect him.  The Merneptah Stele pertains to this course because this course has a lot to do with the Israelites and ancient Egypt.  The Merneptah Stele connects both the Israelites and ancient Egypt and it helps us understand the history of the Bible and where the stories come from.

            The reason of watching the Babe Ruth movies was to point out that many things in history are said to have happened but there isn’t enough evidence to prove that they really did happen.  For example, when Babe Ruth pointed to center field, it was in both movies but no one that is alive today really saw him do it in real life, so we will never know if it really happened.  The same thing applies for the stories of the Bible.  No one knows if it really happened because we don’t really have good evidence to prove it but we still go with it anyway.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Week 01: Background. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.