Quilts! Not the most interesting thing to hear or the most interesting thing to see, at least, that’s what I initially thought before going to the American Folk Art Museum. The American Folk Art Museum, located on Columbus Avenue between 65th street and 66th street, is a free, public museum. My friends and I decided to visit since we had never heard of the museum before (also because it was free). As soon as we entered, we were greeted by the friendliest police officer. He seemed quite jolly and happy to work there. The place looked clean and well-kept in general. But besides how clean it was, the museum was full of one thing; quilts. Nothing but quilts.

At first, I thought the museum was going to be boring. Who wants to stare at, what is essentially, big, glorified blankets? I decided to look at them anyways since I was already there. The more I looked at the quilts, the more interested I became in them. Each one had a different pattern or design which represented different cultures. One quilt even had a chessboard sewn into it that was once used by soldiers in times of boredom. I felt more educated in cultures after this museum. I realize now that culture can be shown through various means, even in a blanket.

Carlos and I decided to go to The Metropolitan Museum of Art aka MET. Its located in Manhattan near Central Park. It’s the largest art Museum in the United States. The site was beautiful. There were beautiful water sprinklers and the structure of the building is astonishing. When we walked in, we immediately saw ancient Egypt statues. We walked into The Prehistory of Egypt. We saw statues, hieroglyphics, ancient writings, and how pyramids were built. It was fascinating to learn all these new things about Egypt.

In the picture below, I am with a Mummy in a tombstone. It’s unbelievable of how Egyptians would burry people as mummies. They will be rapped up in natron and then drain all the fluids in the body and take out the brain. Then they will insert a sharp object that looks like a sickle into the nostril all the way through until the back of the head. Then they will remove all the internal organs, the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines. There’s more to it, but i’m not going to talk about it in depth. The point is this is just one, only one of the many customs, rituals, beliefs that ancient Egypt had. The whole point of mummification was so the soul in the afterlife will be happy and pleasurable. It was fascinating visiting the MET and hopefully one day I’ll go again to see more than just Egypt.

I recently visited the National Museum of Mathematics just a couple of blocks down from campus. This was an experience that will aid my first semester here at Baruch with my newfound perspective. I initially believed this would be a less than enjoyable experience for me as it was a requirement that I attend something such as this museum or similar, however as I explored the various exhibits scattered throughout the halls of the museum this narrow-minded view point began to disappear. I found myself deeply interested in the displays and descriptions of various installments in the museum. The interactivity of the exhibit kept me piqued my interest and kept me engaged with the more historical and conceptual mathematical context to the installations. The overlap between the theoretical/conceptual and applicational areas of mathematics was what really captivated me during this experience. Ideas learnt inside the classroom did not exist in a vacuum, they mostly unknowingly find their way into our everyday lives and application.

This was an eye opening experience for me as I had expected to get so little out of this mandatory experience. Academics are not necessarily completely work, enjoyment can be found in the same academics given the proper perspective. This will be of great use for me and my time at Baruch. I can carry a much more open minded view point with to all my classes whether I take them by choice or as another mandatory requirement to graduate. I can find small pockets of interests in otherwise larger fields of study to keep me engaged and inspired in otherwise areas of study I had previously found disinterest and dissatisfaction with. I am glad I had the opportunity to have this experience and look forward to continuing to do so during my time in Baruch.

 

Today I attended a reptile exhibition is a museum.  Reptiles aren’t my ideal choice of pet, so normally I would have had no inclination to attend.  However, my girlfriend really wanted to go to it, and I knew I could write about it for my blog post, so I thought I should just go.  And that’s exactly what I did. In all honesty, I wasn’t very excited to go.  I was just gonna go in, take my picture, do a lap around all the reptiles, and then go home. But my whole mentality changed the second I walked through those doors.

When I think about reptiles, I think of lizards and snakes.  And that’s exactly what was there, along with frogs, crayfish, and turtles.  But what amazed me was both the hundreds of different species of each of these animals, as well as how the prices of each animal differed.  There were these two lizards that were identical besides a spot of one of their heads.  The one without the spot sold for $125, and the one with the spot sold for $800! I couldn’t believe it.  There were tiny snakes and huge snakes, as well as tiny lizards and huge lizards.  There were even a couple of people walked around the museum with these gigantic snakes around their shoulders just chilling.  I think those people are crazy and I would never do that in my life.  All in all, it was actually very interesting and it was definitely worth it to go.