butterflies and ants....

Well, I am back from my mom's home in the land of no high speed internet. I am so glad to have my high speed. I literally could play an entire game of solitaire between pages loading - so I didn't do much on the internet. Sometimes that can be a good thing.

My husband is a slob. He says he cleaned up but considering the case of ants we have now, and the amount of pet hair that is clinging to everything, he didn't really do anything. He keeps the money flowing and the computers running, but his slobbish ways are annoying. So, today I will clean the house (dishes and pots from 3 days that he didnt' do, bathroom -I won't mention the mess there, the vacuuming and mopping --something is sort of slippery on the kitchen floor - I don't want to even know). I don't do laundry, mainly because my basement is the home to very large and very hairy spiders and I will not survive another encounter. Consequently, to get laundry done I have to do a lot of nagging and then very slowly a basket of clean will come up for me to fold. If I had the machines upstairs, I would do the laundry myself. Enough bitching.

So, I have been thinking quite a bit of my turning points in history. I feel quite certain that given the nature of the class - the prof is expecting just the typical ones I picked - the sixth grade ones if you will. However, I do get that there are more interesting small events that sort of started a chain of events that led to big changes. I also get that many events include several turning points within themselves. When I teach turning points, I usually explain that when a turning point happened, the course of events that followed were opposite to the way they were before.

In my thoughts I remembered that phenomena "The Butterfly Effect" which is basically a scientific idea, but is fascinating. This guy at this website thinks we are doing it wrong though.

I found a person who believes that some photographs changed history here. I don't really agree that the photos changed anything, but I do believe that they illuminated and made the events more real to the masses. I have seen all those pictures before and usually use them in my teaching.

I especially like this list of books that changed history. I think these did have an impact, and in fact I was going to list Common Sense as one of my turning points before I thought I needed bigger events. I am going to have a second list of turning points to share and I am going to include Common Sense, and The Feminine Mystique.

I also found this great website that spotlights an event that changed history every Monday. It's not limited to U.S. history like I am for this assignment, but is fascinating anyway. I am looking forward to the world history part of the class, I think the article on the Qin emperor is very good. I hope to someday see the Terra Cotta soldiers. Oh, and the Great Wall.

Well, I better get busy cleaning this pig sty in which I reside. On a side note, I am making collages as suggested by Oprah and "The Secret" because if I make a collage about the places I want to see someday, and think really hard and positive about them, then I will be able to go, right?