Greek Myth Is So Entertaining!

This Saturday was our final seminar for the Rome trip. I was excited about this seminar because it was going to be about Greek mythology. I arrived at the school earlier then everyone as always (maybe because i drive to fast). As soon as everyone arrived we received or agenda for the day. I couldn't help but notice how different each seminar instructor was. Mr. Sullivan was sort like a college professor, lecturing us about Rome, Mrs. Everett was more hands on (which i enjoy), and Mrs. White, was a mixture of the two.

Mrs. White began to break down the importance of why Greek myth was so important in Rome. She revealed to us that a lot of Rome's art work and beliefs was birthed from Greek myth. There was a lot of information thrown at us in three hours about Greek myth, and although some of it was hard to comprehend, i still found it interesting. One thing that stood out to me during the seminar was that the Greeks came before the Romans. The Romans were basically fascinated with the Greeks and adopted their traditions and turned them into their own. For example the Greeks worshiped the Gods, the Romans took their Gods and just renamed them with planets. Another thing they stole was the way art was presented. Nudity was big in Greek art, and that's were the trend of nude paintings sprang from in Rome.

After a short break with doughnuts and juice (thanks to Nick's mom), Mrs. White discussed with us, the popular and not so popular God's and Goddesses. She refreshed my memory of the ones i already knew about from my AP English 12 class and corrected me on the ones i thought i knew. She then had us choose two Olympian Gods and research them. I chose Dionysus and Hermes. I found a lot of interesting tales about them. I also learned about their strengths and weaknesses. They both were equally interesting, Dionysus was the God of wine harvest and festival, ironically his weakness was intoxication i found that humorous. Hermes was a messenger God, but he also was a trickster and a thief. He had no weaknesses and i like all of his powers. My favorite was the his power to trick the enemy with the sound of music from his flute. I thinks that there's a Hermes in every song nowadays because some songs can affect the moods of people.

Overall, its sort of bitter sweet that our seminars have come to an end. They were very informational and will come to great use on the trip. I'd like to thank each instructor for spending time to put this together for us. Looking on the bright side however, at least I'll get to sleep in on my Saturdays! =)

-Kaneisha King