super big brain mega smart blog made by david!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been enjoying cyber school, however, I must admit it is getting a bit too hard to handle. On one hand, it's very nice to have a free schedule and be in charge of my own learning (with the help of the teacher's lesson plans, however) but on the other hand, it's been difficult to find the motivation to do work. The more I stay at home, the more it feels like a long vacation, and the more it feels like a vacation, the harder it is to force myself to work. I found myself last week starting to get the habit of skipping assignments or procrastinating intensely. After I noticed that I was starting to develop it has a habit, I made a dedicated effort to break it and resume the good habit of completing all my work. After reading today's assignment, it came to my mind that the teachers also have it rough right now, how they must have all assignments be written ones and be worth a grade otherwise most people would skip it (I must admit that I would be guilty of that). My ...

The plague that hit Athens and COVID-19 share a few similarities. When the plague hit Athens, the people panicked, a lot. It is said that they held no regard for the law, nor for behaving honorably. We can see a few people acting like that right now. Fights breaking out over toilet paper, panic buying, and in some cases, even thefts all show the disregard for not only following the law but also for common etiquette. One difference would be that everyone took the plague in Athens very seriously, even to the point of abandoning anyone who had it; many people assumed they were going to die. While there are a lot of people who are acting rational and self-quarantining, there are also a lot of people who are not taking this seriously enough and are still going out in public. I heard a story the other day of a beach in Florida that was filled with people who didn't care about if they spread this epidemic. During the time of the Peloponnesian War, people didn't know a whole lot about ...

Philip II was the king of Macedonia from 359 BC to 336 BC, when he was assassinated by one of his personal bodyguards. As a youth, he was taken as hostage in Illyria and then held in Thebes. There he gained military and diplomatic education by Epaminondas. Phillip returned to Macedonia in 364 BC and became king in 359 BC. Had many military conquests, such as defeating 3,000 hoplites, creating the Phalanx, and defeating 7,000 Phocians in the Third Sacred War. He was assembling an army to fight Persia, however, he was assassinated before he could attack. Alexander the Great, son of King Philip II, succeeded his father at the age of 20 after he was assassinated. He was tutored by Aristotle until he was 16. After inheriting his father's army, he launched the attack on the Persians that his father had planned. After invading Persia, he began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years, and, eventually, overthrew King Darius and took control of the Persian Empire. He continued his conqu...

Alexander the great's father, Philip, was offered a horse by  Philonicus for 13 talents. While estimations vary, a talent could be similar in value back then to $100 to us, meaning this horse cost 1300 dollars in today's terms. While that may not seem like much today for a horse, 13 talents for a horse was quite expensive. However, this horse was unruly and seemingly impossible to ride. As they were about to dismiss the horse as useless, Alexander says,  "What an excellent horse do they lose for want of address and boldness to manage him!" Alexander and his father made a bet to see if Alexander was able to tame the horse. The stakes were that if Alexander was successful his father would buy it, however, if Alexander wasn't able to tame him he was going to cover the cost.  Alexander, having noticed the horse being afraid of his shadow, he turned him to the sun and mounted him. Alexander called this horse Bucephalus, in reference to him being quite strong. 

Today marks the end of cyber week one! Honestly, I'm really enjoying cyber school. It sure is upsetting for spring sports to be temporarily canceled and socializing is a bit harder, however, there are still plenty of ways to talk to my friends so that's a minor problem. Cyberschool is nice in the way that I can just focus on my work and spend an intense 3-4 hours of non-stop work and be done for the day. School has so many wastes of time, such as walking to classes, the time it takes to settle in, and that if you finish an assignment, sometimes you gotta wait till everyone else is done before beginning the next one. By being able to smoothly do one assignment after the other, the school day goes by so much quicker, despite there being the same amount of work. On the flip-side, if I'm feeling sluggish I can take it at my own pace and go much slower, at the cost of having a much longer school day, however, I would believe it to be worth it. There are quite a few other benefit...

Explain why you think Socrates, and Sophists like Protagoras, would start questioning traditional beliefs at this particular point in history. I believe that Socrates started questioning traditional beliefs at this point in history because of his own principles. His principle was to come to a decision by his own rational thoughts, not that of others. When the generals came back and were subsequently put on a trial, Socrates, being the intelligent man he was, thought that maybe killing all your generals would be a bad idea. He also might've questioned whether the crime they committed should've counted as a crime at all. What the generals did was abandon their men that fell overboard and retreat, perhaps a seemingly cowardly act. However, perhaps they had no choice and if they hadn't then the entire military would've been killed an extremely worse outcome. Perhaps they knew that retreating would've been the best decision. Socrates, who looked further than the...

When in a war against the Spartans, the Spartans occupied Athenian land and burned all the farms, thereby removing the food source. The Athenians had a plan, however; they could live off of trade by sea and have the Spartan's attack be more of a setback instead of being deadly. Still, though, the Athenians were restless and suddenly their plan had backfired on them. The trading ships had brought the disease with them, and it soon spread to all of Athens. This plague was described to be extremely painful and unbearable to the poor souls who got it, and over a third of Athens had gotten it. The fear of this plague created an anarchy of people who didn't care for any rules of government or religion. Eventually, Pericles contracted the illness and died. It soon became apparent that Pericles was holding the Athenian democracy together, and once he was gone a power struggle ensued.

1. Who was Pericles, and what were his goals for Athens? Pericles was a wise and stable statesman that led Athens during much of its golden age. He wanted to strengthen Athenian democracy, hold and strengthen the empire, and glorify Athens. 2. How is a  direct democracy  run? Direct democracy is run by the people ruling directly, not by representatives as we do in the US. "The people" only counted adult male property owners that would vote on governmental actions. 3. How did the  Delian League  work? After defeating the Persian empire, Athens formed the Delian League, a league that worked as the alliance and government between all Greek city-states, and Athens took control and used its treasury to make its navy the strongest in the Mediterranean.

Today in class we had another sub and watched part two of the video. There was a bit of trouble in setting up the monitor to view the video but thanks to our sub, Mr. Siller, we were able to do it. I'm trying to understand the video but the quality is a bit off and I'm not going to be able to remember the names, especially with names such as "Persicualies" or whatever. I really do hope that we don't have a really hard test on this or else I'll cry probably and that not good so I guess I'll just not mess up or something like that I don't even know what I'm saying anymore bye see you tomorrow!  Unless you're still gone! Why are you gone? Guess I'll ask when you come back.

Today in class we had to watch a video. Nobody had a Macbook pro so we all had to watch on our computers. No one had earbuds and my AirPods were dead so it was a mess of audio. Using subtitles I tried my best to understand what was going on and Dr. Gallen (who was subbing for us today) went off on someone in our class and it was something. Anyways the video was really long and boring but I managed to push through and take some notes on it however I'm positive none of the info will stick with me so it's probably hopeless but here's hoping that I manage to retain even the slightest bit of information so I don't fail.

Today in class we covered more slides, mostly on philosophers. We started with Socrates, which we had already gone over, and reviewed the basics. So basically, Socrates looked to science and logic instead of the mythos that everyone else believed in. He was charged with serious crimes: impiety and corruption of the youth. Despite being able to escape, he stood by the democratic method and accepted the verdict: Death. The next great philosopher was Plato, a student of Socrates. Thought the ideal state was one ruled by philosopher-kings. The last great philosopher we went over was Aristotle. He wanted to make an academy in Athens where everyone would share their knowledge.

Today in class I had a makeup test. This was very stressful for me because my grade in Western Civ is my worst grade (80) and I'm feeling a lot of pressure to improve it. Luckily for me, I studied hard and the test was easy which improved my experience quite a bit. The test comprised of multiple-choice, a geography section, and semi-essay questions. A few questions were somewhat debatable whether or not they were phrased the best but I managed to pull through with a 100% on it, boosting my grade to an 87! I still don't have an A so I still have my parents on my back but, hopefully, I can earn an extra 3% soon.