I'm still a little lost with this whole blogging thing, but oh well, something bought me back to it... so here it goes(again)!
I watched a classmate present a History class on Wednesday morning, and I was pleasantly surprised with a fantastic lesson learnt myself. The theme was the Mughal Empire, an empire that ruled most of India from approximately 1526-1857 by a dynasty of Mongol and Chagatai-Turkic origins. The class was focused on a particular Mughal Emporer, namely Akbar the Great (1542-1605). Akbar was the third ruler of the empire (succeeding his father), and began at the mere age of fourteen. He is seen as one of the greatest rulers of the empire, because as a result of the military, political, cultural and economic dominance under his rule, his power and influence extended over the entire country.
Akbar's success was in unifying the Mughal state. He established a centralised system of administration throughout his empire and adopted a policy of conciliating conquered rulers through marriage and diplomacy so as to preserve peace and order in a religiously and culturally diverse empire. This won him support of his non-Muslim subjects through his adopted policies as well.
I could go on about the fascinating history of this powerful empire (thank you Wikipedia for basic facts!), but for the sake of keeping it short and sweet, I would like to emphasise just one point:
Akbar's success was owed to his ability to unite the people of the country, regardless of its cultural and religious diversity. His steadfast tolerance, and acceptance of differences was what made this character so unique, especially so long ago in history.
I was touched by the fact that his tolerance was the very reason his rule was so powerful within the vast and ever expanding empire.
Akbar: "I love my own religion, but others also love their religion. If they want to spend money on their religion, what right do I have to prevent them. Do they not have the right to the love the thing that is their own?"
This to me is POETRY...
And it affirms my own responsibility to LEARN to TOLERATE all walks of life!
Why hello personal blog! Ummm, I'm not very confident with what I'm supposed to do here, so I figured I would attempt a start and see where the "winging it" takes me...
Is this thing on?
When it comes to technology, or more specifically, computers and the internet, I would say I live under a rock. As in I tend to be quiet selectively oblivious to what happens in the world with regards to social networking or sharing my thoughts with strangers. I'm old-school in many ways.
I'm pretty sure some of it comes from my father, who doesn't even own a cellphone. Yet, as a professor, he is very advanced with computer skills. Hence the selective. I use Facebook, and I can Google pretty well (my next google will be on whether to capitalise Google and Facebook in writing or not?)But if you ask me about Twitter and Blogging, I might ask you who is twittering, and I would keep very quiet about what I know about blogs (not much - thank you google for helping me to set up an account!)
When I heard of this side project involving blogging and twittering, my brain went into a little panic, and my internal computer immediately went on sleep mode. But somewhere in my subconscious ideas starting forming.
The teacher in me awoke and nudged...I absolutely love the idea of a personal project to learn something over a few months or a year. Ideas like perfecting my cupcake skills and learning how to hula-hoop, or even picking up my flute again after seven years of rest, sent me into excited tangents of the possibilities of learning new things that I wanted to learn. But I got very nervous when I realised that I had to use technology to do so.
A classmate pointed out that I am what is referred to as a technophobe. In other words, I have a fear of advanced technology or complex devices like computers. I had to absorb this about myself.
PGCE has fiercely infiltrated my life this year. And one major Ah Ha! moment in these past couple of months is adding to the realisation that we fear the unknown. And through acknowledgement, fear can be overcome, or tolerated at the very least.
How can I teach children new ideas if their minds are closed to these unknowns? How can I learn new things if my mind is closed to the unknown? And so my venture into 'know'ing technology will start..
And then there were other thoughts... I just don't have the time! So my absorbing processes took place, and I finally decided that I would start my blog, and give up Facebook for a while. I've probably used Facebook every day since I opened my account in 2007, which I find quiet an interesting thought with regards to addiction and habit, so I will see how the detox goes. I haven't signed in for four days, and I must say I feel strangely lighter than I thought I would.
I want to go back to expand some basics of myself. I want to learn how to fully embrace my passion for poetry. And my definition of poetry will include inspiration from actual poetry, as well as photography, and reading in general. Language and expression has always been an ongoing hobby of mine, and I feel that this will greatly benefit me as a to-be History and English teacher.
And so I had to make it official, because the first thing I tend to do in the morning is check my Facebook. So I stuck a post-it to my mirror and slept on it... hence the new beginning...
