Greek Mytholody incflunced our daily life

Greek mythology is where the people of ancient Greece share a whole span of stories and tales of the Greek gods, goddesses and heroes of whom they believed in. Although centuries have passed by, these gods and goddesses are still instilled in the people’s mind.

            Each god and goddess is worshipped as a deity who ruled over different regions in ancient Greece. Some of these gods and goddesses have both Roman and Greek names as in the past, Greece was once taken over by Rome and the people of Rome had in one way or another adopted the Greek beliefs and myths.

            There exist many stories on Greek Mythology, such as the story of the Titans overthrowing Uranus, the battle between the Titans and Olympians, the Trojan War, and the social life of each god and goddess. All of these stories are mostly centred on the gods and goddesses of the Pantheon on Mount Olympus which are Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite and Hermes.

            Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, Demeter and Hades are children of Cronus whereas Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite and Hephaestus are children of Zeus. These gods and goddesses each symbolises something unique. For example, Zeus is the god of the sky and Hermes is the god of mischief and messenger of the gods.

            Nowadays, our life is widely influenced by Greek Mythology. The obvious example would be the Olympic Games. The ancient Greek culture has been kept alive through various sources of media, such as movies, literature and pop culture. Architecture and art that can be found in many parts of the world has features that were affected by Greek Mythology. Besides that, the naming of days, months, planets, and even various words and expressions have originated from Greek Mythology.

Greek Mythology is an important factor in our daily lives. However, most of us are ignorant of its great influence. One of the most obvious example in which Greek Mythology has played a significant role is the founding of the Olympic Games.

Back in the olden days, the Olympic Games were held in Olympia, a city which was situated in Elis, Ancient Greece. The ancient Olympic Games were held in honour of Zeus, the God of Sky and Thunder and also the Supreme God of Greek mythology. During those times, Zeus’ most sacred place, the Altis was situated in Olympia. The Altis was referred by the Greeks as the Sanctuary of Zeus, whereby a visit to this place is seen as a way of honour to Zeus.

The poet Pindar has attributed the founding of the games to one of the best-known heroes of Greek myth, Herakles. Herakles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a mortal woman. According to the legends, Herakles’ had completed one of his twelve labours and had initiated the first games in honour of Zeus with the purpose of celebrating his successful accomplishment.

Greek mythology is also known to influence historical Greek literature. The only general surviving Greek literature handbook, which is the “Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus” contains all stories on Greek Mythology, including the Titans, the Gods, and the Olympians.  Moreover, this source of literature also provides a summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.

Greek Mythology has also managed to seep into our entertainment industry. Many of us still read Greek myths, either as a study or as a form of entertainment. Some famous stories include the tales of Perseus, Theseus and also Heracles. In this day and age, many people are fascinated by Greek Mythology to the extent of using Greek myths as a basis for publishing novels and screenplays, i.e. Walt Disney’s production of the cartoon ‘Hercules’, and Warner Bros. production of ‘Clash of The Titans’. One of the recent bestselling novels, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series have also been adapted from Greek Mythology.

In fact, one of the most famous movies, ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ has been influenced by Greek mythology. Fluffy, the three headed dog in the movie was obviously referring to Cerberus, the three headed dog that Hades, the ruler of the Underworld had. In Greek Mythology, Cerberus who guards the gate to the underworld is "a three-headed, dragon-tailed dog, who permits all spirits to enter, but none to return.

Greek Mythology can also be seen to influence what we now know as classical art. This form of art was created by the ancient Greeks. Indeed, many of the Greek sculptures and designs, especially Vase Painting were widely influenced by Greek Mythology. Majority of the Greek sculptures that can be found nowadays tell us stories about the Gods, Heroes, Events, Mythical Creatures and Greek culture in general. The Vase Paintings mentioned portrayed the life of heroes and Greek gods.

Besides that, temples were constructed as an offer of thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for successes in war, i.e. the construction of the Parthenon in honour of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom. At the present time, many of America’s governmental buildings have been designed with this form of classical art.

The naming of days has also been influenced by Greek mythology. Each of the seven days in a week has been named after Greek gods or goddesses. The Greeks even called the days of the week Theon hemera, which literally means “Days of the Gods”. For example, Sunday was named after Helios, God of the Sun and Monday was named after Selene, Goddess of the Moon. However, due to Roman influence, certain names have been substituted with variations in equivalent of the original gods or goddesses, i.e. Tuesday originated from ‘Tiu’, which was the Anglo-Saxons equivalent of Ares, God of War.

As with the naming of days, the names of various months were also influenced by Greek mythology. All the months except July through to December were named after gods and goddesses alike. For example, January was named after Janus, God of Doorways, Gateways, and Beginnings, May was named after Maia, Goddess of Earth, Honour and Reverence, June was named after Hera, Goddess of Women and Marriage and others.

Celestial bodies in space often have names with origins of Greek Mythology. In the Western World, names for the planets are derived from the naming practices of the Romans, which indirectly have Greek origins, as Roman Mythology is greatly influenced by Greek Mythology and has many common characteristics. For example, Jupiter is the Roman equivalent of Zeus, and Saturn is the Roman equivalent of Cronus.

Most of the constellations have names of Greek mythology origin, i.e. Centaurus (the centaur), Hydra (creature), and Pegasus (a winged horse born from Medusa’s head when she was killed).

Some asteroids such as Demeter and Apophis, which was predicted to impact earth in the year 2036, all have names which originated from Greek Mythology.  Even space exploration missions were named after Greek Mythology. The most famous example is Apollo 11, the spaceflight that landed the first humans on Earth’s Moon.

As is common knowledge, the Greeks were the pioneer to use an alphabet. In actual fact, there exists some common vocabulary that originated from Greek Mythology. One of the examples is Cupid. In Greek mythology, Cupid is the god of desire and love. He is the son of goddess Venus, Roman equivalent of Aphrodite and god Mars, Roman equivalent of Ares. In the modern culture, Cupid is used to symbolise love and is always shown shooting his bow to instigate love.

There are also many companies and games with names that have been influenced by Greek Mythology. For example, Nike, as most of us are familiar is a well-known public trade company of sportswear and equipment supplier. Its name actually originated from Nike, Winged goddess of Victory, who can run and fly at great speeds. Furthermore, the name  Odyssey, which according to Greek Mythology is the 10-year sea voyage endured by the Trojan War hero, Odysseus, as he sought to return home to Ithica, has been used as names for a well-known travel agency “Odyssey Travel”, and even cars, “Honda Odyssey”. 

Greek Mythology has indeed shown its influence in our daily lives, albeit inconspicuously. 

Heal the world by giving them rights

When I was young, I bullied animals a lot. However when I start to grow up, my thinking was starting to get mature. I felt that all animals have their own rights, not only animals actually, every single living things created by God should be given rights, should be taken care properly, of course these includes the plants and trees.

    Animal right, also known as animal liberation is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human being. Like nowadays, there are a lot of animal schools. We can send them there to learn tricks and or basic skills such as, where to pee or dispose their wastes.

This is also meant that animal should be threaten as non-human person and members of the moral community, and should not be used for food, clothing, research subject or entertainment. This point of view has been presented by a lot of expert, for instance philosopher-Peter Singer and many others. Those guys showed a bad example that brought a huge negative impact to our future generation that follows our footsteps.

            As the world population nowadays is paying more attention to the right of an individual, therefore, non-human animal as an ‘individual’ should not be neglected. In country, there are a lot of organization which named to be animal’s guardian, but they are not doing the same thing as what they have shown externally to the people.

            Nevertheless, there are still some organizations which do help animal to own their rights. SPCA, an organization in Selangor has done it well in protecting animal. In these years, SPCA had help numbers of animal to change and also to improve their live. Adoption, donation and etc are available in SPCA to help these ‘orphan’ to better up their live.

            Besides, law should be strengthen to protect animal so that they have the legal rights to own a more comfortable, safe and healthy living condition. People should have heart of empathy to them, as we definitely dislike others not paying respect to us. This will also happen to the animal as they also have feelings.

            Elementary school should aim to educate students to create awareness, empower and motivate people to be agents of change to improve animal’s living condition in their communities. This will inculcate people moral thinking of giving animal legal rights to have a better living condition without fear and anxiety.

    There’s once a case. There’s a girl kicking a kitten. Her act was recorded down by the CCTV, and that video was uploaded to youtube. After the video was spread out, a lot of people were hunting for her, until she needs to come out to make an official apologize.

            In conclude animal has the right to own a living condition similar to us. Animal should be fed three times per day (breakfast, lunch, dinner), live under a shelter, get to see doctor when they are sick, exercise, have some entertainment and etc.

We shouldn't treat the animals like that. They have rights.

          What do we know about animal rights? Do we truly understand it? It is indeed a very fragile topic to discuss about. Everyone tends to have different opinions and thoughts about it, based on different individuality, the responds may vary. Animal rights have had always been important to me. There is a lot of organization in this world that are formed to justify and defend against animal rights. We are no different compared to an animal, come to think of it our premature ancestors are in the figure of an ape. The only difference in between us, humankind and animal is that we have the ability to think rationally and act like a human.

          There is a lot of news reporting on animal abusing. Do not you feel crestfallen when you see the animals being battered, harmed, abused or any physical torture? Animals are like us human, they have feelings and they feel pain. They have love, they protect their little ones from danger and they take good care of their little ones just like how we humans do. As we humans learnt moral values when we are all just a little being, we should consider the ethical side of animal righteousness. We are taught since young of many ethical values, as I have just mentioned above, we humans can think rationally. If one is to commit an act of torture or abusing an animal, is not he no difference compare to a heartless creature or a dreadful beast? A man’s best friend as they have always mentioned, is a dog. How can a dog be compared to us human when we are much more greater than animal? If we are to think consciously and clearly, a dog can be a man’s best friend because it can always stay loyal and faithful to it’s owner no matter under which or what circumstance. Can a human do that? Can a human stay loyal? Not every human can achieve it and we humans should be respecting and protecting such animals.

          Animals are amazing, they are the creation of God just like we humans are. Because of our egocentric attitudes, we destroy their homes, cutting down the trees of the forest and what we get is what we want but what they get is the threatening of life. Some humans even slaughter animals just to enjoy, what they thought, “delicious” taste of the animal’s meat. In China, they have dog meat in every kind of dishes, some of them even opened a restaurant selling dog meat. Recently, a video poser posted a video of a worker in a small factory slaughtering a dog. It had received a very big impact from different kinds of views, opinions, responses and many had rise up their voices against the workers that are killing the dog. This issue is a very big concern to the society around the world as to the community within the region. It is very serious as this act is unethical and very brutal. Are we not civilized citizens? Do not we have any pride or integrity? How can we human do such un-human acts? We should be protecting and preserving the habitats of animals in this world instead, we are harming and causing an immense damage to them.

          Humans has human rights same goes to animals has animal rights. If we can respect and follow the rules of human righteousness, we definitely can follow the rules and without any doubts, respect animal rights. We as humans have a lot of benefits because we can think and act the way we want, rationally. But to the animals, they do not have the ability to think and act like how we human does, that is why we humans tend to take advantage on them, doing whatever they like to the poor animals; killing animals for their furs, meat, fangs and horns for antique collection, doing dreadful things and hurting animals in terrible ways. Animals deserves to be appreciated and just like us, well respected too. We should consider animals’ feeling and we should really take a huge step into their “world.” We should not be such self-centered beings, fulfilling our sinful desires by harming animals.

          We must be aware and have our full attention on animal rights. We are all civilized people and civilized beings do not do uncivilized acts. We should stand up for animal rights and fight against it. We should protect our beloved animals and do not let them be harmed by heartless beings. Animal rights should be as important as human rights.

Places to Go (episode 2)

There's another place that i will like to recommend. Of course is also a place that i went with my family. Its a place that we have fun and the chance to bond. The place is called- the famous PULAU PANGKOR. The sea is clean, there is white sandy beach, and lots of delicious food.

My family planned the outing during the mid year which is around June. So the weather is still okay. At PULAU PANGKOR, although we have not much of water sport, but we enjoy feeling the sea breeze, the scenery and of course watching the sunset. I regretted that I forgot to take a photo of the view. Anyway, we did have some fun there. We catch crabs! I mean little crabs. Those crabs know how to run away by digging holes. We played beach volleyball there too. Unluckily, I've been spiked on my face, pity my handsome face.

We also went for some tracking. Its just a minor tracking around the island. Seems that the island that we see is different from the one we read in storybooks. ITS A LOT PRETTIER than the one we read about. However, the island might be pretty, but there are leeches sometimes which freaked us out. I still remember that my sister screamed as loud as a thunders roar. During the tracking session, there are a lot of slippery stones which is because of the humid atmosphere. The atmosphere was cooling but i felt uncomfortable because the humidity makes our skin sticky. My cousin and I did some silly things while we are there. When our uncle was sleeping soundly in a net bed which is tied between two coconut trees, we sew the bed by using some rafia strings. Then we lit a few candles underneath. Starting, my uncle felt hot, then soon he felt something was not right and he woke up. Both of us were laughing at the other end when we saw him panic and moving around like a caterpillar since he was bind up. When we see him start yelling, we faster went there and blew off the fire, but we don't dare to untie him, because we were afraid that he'll start chasing after us. After that, he was untied after all, by other relatives. Me and my cousin were scolded by our parents for doing such dangerous thing. Though we have been scolded, but we still think that it was so cool to do that. After a whole hour of lecturing, we went off to have some fun again. This time, we took some fire crackers, and hid ourselves beside the public toilet. When someone went into the toilet, we waited for the sound of the person peeing. Then we lit up the fire cracker and throw into the toilet. The firecracker was not a strong one, so we weren't worried that it'll hurt someone, at most they will just get frightened.After throwing into the toilet, we ran off at the speed of light. When we went back our room, we laugh it out loud for what we did.

I love this place a lot because it brings a lot of childhood memories. I will bring my children to this island in the future and tell them what i did as a story, although it was not to be proud off. 

Places to Go (episode 1)

In this beautiful mother earth, there are lots of places to go. My opinion was, as long we go with our family or friends and we enjoy having fun together, the places we go will be a wonderful place. :) So there is a place that i went with my family recently. I went to a villa at Puchong. This place has a beautiful scenery and its all about water sports. There are banana boats, donut boats, yachts for us to play. I love the place because i love to play water sports. Its been some time since i go for a trip with my family members. Everyone seems so excited for it. Especially my uncle, when we all sat on the banana boat , he kept calling the person that drives the motor boat which is pulling our banana boat to go faster. He said, " CEPAT! CEPAT! CEPAT LA! TAK MAKAN KE!???" . I was stunning at the back and felt a little bit regret sitting with him. Thanks to him, we all flipped over at last, and everyone was soaked in the water. Although we are all fully soaked, but we are all having lots of fun!
Other than playing the banana boat, my siblings, cousins and me row yachts. We compete among each other and had a WORLD WAR 3 among us. Clashing each others' yacht and had combat using our paddle stick. Of course we didn't think of hurting anyone, its just like a demonstration of combat practice by the armies. My brother who was in the yacht with my auntie, because my auntie cant swim, had a 'inner fight' among them. At last they both flip over. Not only they flipped over, even I was flipped over after losing the war against my sister. I was defeated by her. UNBELIEVABLE!

After all those fun, we took some rest. We brought our own food to the villa, of course, all of them must be cooked. Is just like having steamboat with everyone. Sitting with them really brings me a sweet atmosphere, which makes me wanted to spend more time with them. However, i thought, fortunately that we wont have this type of gathering everyday, because if we eat this much everyday, I will grow into a BIG FAT ROUND SHORTY! Then I'll have to face my college mate with such funny looks, I'll definitely be called names. Obviously i wont like it.
After the meal, we back to our games again. We played the donut boat. Its a boat looks like a donut. We have to sit our butt into the middle of the donut-shaped boat. Then, the motorboat will pull us at a high speed. When i sat in it, the guy just drove off without leaving me any signals.When he was driving at high speed, my donut boat was bouncing on the water, thanks to that, my butt is going deeper and deeper into the hole. At last I was stuck in it. However, that was not the climax, the entire boat flipped over and i dropped into the water once again, this is because, he speed on the water and turn without slowing down the speed. So the boat that was tied at motorboat's back, was flipped over because of the aerodynamic.
Actually, having this much fun is because i was spending time with my family, as long that we are having fun with our family, everywhere will be the best place to go.

~Part two of my college life~

I am so lazy in blogging though every time i blog it'll be fun, but to start my blog, takes me a lot of time to push myself to have the mood of doing my work. Luckily, I have found a reason for me to do my homework! OORRAAAHHH!!! It's very obvious that i'm not responsible enough because i still have a lot of homework to catch up, but i will do it. That's what i promised her. So i must do it! Hopefully that she can give me some support. May God bless me too.

These days in college was awesome because finally i manage myself into the Taylors basketball training. I found out tat their training was a lot different from secondary school. Now in college, the basketball level is different. I realized that size and height which i am lack off, is very important in college basketball. Anyway the first training was smooth until something happened.

I had some conflict with a senior player. That day, we were opponents. At first we were winning smoothly, until our second match. He was trying to cut in to the middle lane, so is my job to guard him down. Unfortunately my footstep was half a second slower, so i had a blocking foul. That foul triggers his anger but thats not the end. Another time, he was up to a open lay-up after a fastbreak, so i chase him down and stopped him by giving him a hard foul. Although is a training, but i thought it was necessary for me to at least try to stop him. From the view of the desperation of winning a game, i did the right thing. However, in his eyes, i was playing rough. So from that foul play onwards, he started to use elbows when he's near me, he started to defend me by giving me quite a sum of pushes. I don't know whether i should be proud because there's a senior defending me seriously. Hahaha.. Seems that my first day of training was such remarkable for i'm the only junior that was been treated that SERIOUSLY!

Other than the basketball training, lets tell u something about my studies. My FM studies (Fundamental of Management) was on the right track because i felt that it was the easiest subject for me. However for others, like IT and Mass com, I'm having a hard time going through them. To me, those two subjects are kinda hard to absorb. Why? The reasons are simple, IT is boring, and Mass com talks a lot of history of the mass communication at first, which equals to BORING. Luckily Miss Z knows how to entertain the us, if not , we'll all be dead at the spot. Unfortunately IT was seriously boring, and it CAN'T BE HELP! oh my gosh~~~

Lastly about my social life. HEHE~ I had a great time with my college friends. They are a lot more insane than i thought which i loveeeeeeeeeeee it! Being with them was all about fun! We had a lot of jokes happening between us. Thanks a lot! They are the ones that made my college life interesting. :)