Chinese Poetry

Overall the poems from the Tang and Song poets are not bad, but because they do not rhyme I am not a big fan of them.  Any poetry that does not rhyme I have a hard time appreciating what makes it special.  The poems from the two dynasties are similar in their references to nature and family, as well as occasional references to wine. They are so similar actually that if it was not provided to us I do not think I could guess which dynasty each poem came from.  There are differences between them, such as length of the two being the most obvious.  Although these poems are direct resources from each society, I do not think they represent either well.  Both take sad and dark undertones for the most part and both of these dynasties were powerful and thriving.  This is fair to say for any work of poetry in a society.  No individual's perspective can completely represent all parts of a society, especially in a work that is meant to be artistic and most likely exaggerate frequently.  If you were to take it in perspective of today, our music is our most common form of poetry.  However, "Hit me baby one more time" by Britney Spears and "Yeah" by Usher although popular, do not very accurately represent our society hopefully.

Document one is from Benjamin of Tudela and is the most credible because it is the least biased view and gives seemingly accurate descriptions of the city for outsiders.
Document 2 is written by Robert of Clari, but this document is very biased and is written for the common people to boost their view of the wealth of Constantinople.
Document 3 is written by Nicetas Choniates and describes how the Latins destroyed artwork of Constantinople.  This view is biased, and portrays the Latins as barbarians, so it was most likely written for the people of Constantinople.
Document 4's author is unknown but it is most likely a citizen of Constantinople.  This document is a simple picture of the basic outline of the city, so it could be directed at outsiders to portray the city as large and strong.
Document 5's author is unknown, but it is a picture of the inside of a beautiful church, showing the importance of religion in their society.
Document 6 is written by George Acropolites and this gives details about an emperors trip to Constantinople and the various prayer rituals that took place.  This source is credible as it is written as a historical document to teach others how important religion was in the city.
Document 7 is written by Chrysobull, to explain the relationship between Constantinople and the venetians as positive and largely trade related.  This is written most likely for the public to show the positive relationship they shared with the Venetians.

Silk road project

3 things went very well in our project, the first being the use of the book to find trade routes of the silk road. Our routes are as close to accurately placed as they could be with the resources we had. Another thing that went well was the essay. Because we were collaborating on our project, we divided the essay into two halves, which made it easy to write about once we agreed on which topics to cover. A third thing that went well was overall collaboration. Doing this project on our own would have taken significantly longer and many of the ideas we had for the map would not have been brought up.
Although our project was a success, there were a few things I was not happy with. The maps were very hard to find an accurate scale for, and drawing a map freehand is tedious and difficult even though ours came out looking good. Another difficulty of this project was balancing work in and out of school with a partner while dealing with a major power outage. A final thing that was a hassle was distinguishing trade routes in a way that was organized and clear. Although we have all our trade routes mapped, at a first glance it is very difficult to understand what each arrow represents.
Overall our project was a success, but if I had to do it again I would spend less time drawing the map and more time worrying about the details of the trade routes, which is the most important thing. This would also give us more time to have worked on the essay, which we had to cram into a few late night hours.