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  As part of a Cultural Anthropology assignment we were told to visit the Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History. We had to make an exam based off the information presented at the exhibition. I had been to this museum a million times before, and there wasn’t really anything new for me to see, so I wasn’t expecting to enjoy my visit. However, when I went on October 1st with my friends I actually ended up having a great time. We took a bunch of silly pictures all around the museum all the while, learning about dinosaurs, space, evolution, and various cultures. I also ended up taking a ton of educational pictures of the different parts of the exhibition to use for my Anthropology project. The specific area we were told to focus on for our assignment had actually always been my favorite part of the museum. Learning about our ancestors and our origins as a species is mind-blowing. The Hall of Human Origins offers extensive information about human evolution, migration, and our earliest ancestors. It also delves into the origins ofhuman creativity and some of the most profound mysteries of humankind. I love that this exhibition always leaves me questioning things and wondering about the uncertainties of human evolution. After finishing my assignment, we continued to explore the rest of the museum and went through many of the cultural halls which are also very interesting. Learning about different cultures, practices, and beliefs makes your perspective of the world broader and allows you to be more appreciative of our diversity. Although it may seem like a hassle, going to museums is so important and if anyone has never been to this museum in particular, I definitely recommend it.

This week for enrichment workshop I visited an in school club, The Grid. The Grid is a tabletop gaming club, such as chess, uno, board games, and card games. The club has many options of various games, which are all interesting on the own right, but not anything like your average Monopoly or Life. A notable game, which I really enjoyed playing, is called Sheriff of Nottingham in which your goal is to deliver various good to your market stand, while also smuggling various contrand so you can have the most gold at the end of the game. The game uses up to 5 players, with one player rotating around as the Sheriff/Inspector  each turn. In each turn there are multiple phases where you pick up to 5 cards which can be anything from contraband to legal goods, which in the next phase, you declare what cards you have, while also lying about them to get contraband past. The inspector then choosed if he wants to see the cards, where there is a penalty for either player depending how truthful the cards were. This then repeats until each player is the inspector twice, the winner is whoever has the most gold. The Grid is a very interesting club for me being that I have a great interest and love for board and tabletop games. This club is also a great choice if you wish to play and learn new, obscure and interesting board games that you’ve probably never seen before. There are also great social interactions in this club, because if you are interested in the topic of this club, you’ll most definitely be able to talk and relate to all the members of the club. The leaders of the club are great people too. The Grid meets every tuesday during club hours in NV 4-120.

For my second enrichment workshop i went to the museum of natural history. We were required to go there by our anthropology teacher, and we had to look at the hall of human origins. We had to come up with a quiz that asked questions pertaining the museum. Though it was a requirement to be there it was also a lot of fun. I had been to the museum before but i always forget just how big and fascinating it is. It seems that every time i go there, there are some new things to learn about. The hall of human origins was also a lot of fun. There were some cool interactive displays that showed the growth of the human population and some that told us how primates communicated. I also got to learn a lot of cool stuff about our ancient ancestors and the story of humans got to here. I learned things like there is only one hominid today and that is just us, the homo sapiens, i learned that the first stone tools popped up around 2.5 million years ago, though they were just sharp edged rocks they signaled that the basics of technological thought were beginning. There was also the RAP robot which creates original paintings using random decisions and responses to the environment. The visit was quite a bit of fun and was a good break from the day to day of rise and grind. For people who live in New York the museums have become this place where only tourists go, but i think more people should go these museum since they are pretty cool. We take these things for granted and completely forget just how incredible some of the museums we have are.  The museum was very interesting  and in many ways, helpful.

On Friday, September 15, my fellow classmate, Rob Raman, and I decided to attend a math workshop in preparation for our upcoming math test. We agreed that attending these workshops from time to time would be a useful studying tool because of how knowledgeable the tutors are. When we walked into the classroom there were two other Math 2003 students in the room. The tutor walked in and had specific instructions regarding the questions that we were asking him. He said that we cannot ask him specific homework questions and we cannot ask him questions that will be graded as a test or quiz. If we had a question pertaining to a test or quiz it was our job to come up with a similar question that would help us to understand the material. He went around asking people if they had questions. If you didn’t have any specific questions we were told to say, “pass”, and if we did he would review it on the board. We recently did a homework assignment that he had handed back to us and graded so I figured I would go over those questions. Our tutor was very knowledgeable about the subject and he helped me with the issue that I had. I was having trouble deciding when I should be using parenthesis versus brackets when giving the domains or certain equations. One of the students also had a question about derivatives. Our class was a class behind her class, so we didn’t get up to that topic. However, since I went to the class I was able to understand the basic principles of derivatives. I would definitely recommend my fellow freshman seminar students to attend a math workshop because it is such a great review for such an important subject. Even if you feel comfortable on your math skills right now, there is always room for improvement!

On September 29th the baseball team had its first intersquad game of the fall. The game took place at Randall’s island and started at 1 o’clock. We played a 12 inning game that lasted until about 5 o’clock. It was a very fun experience to finally get out of the basketball gym where the previous practices had been held and get back onto a real baseball field with my new teammates we arrived to the field via a team bus at 12 and went through our warmup routine for about 45 minutes and then headed towards the coaches to what the teams would be. After receiving what team we were on we went to our respective dugouts and took the field for the game. The main point of the game was to get all the pitchers into the game and throw against live hitters one more time before the fall season ended and evaluate where the team stood as far as line up choices and which kids trying out for the team would be taken. This led to an extremely long and drawn out game that went ten inning in order to accommodate all the pitchers who wanted to throw or the coaches wanted to see throw. While the scrimmage was not quite a game environment it was just nice to be out on the field building chemistry with my new teammates. I think the scrimmage was very helpful to the team in a few ways. One way being getting used to playing with new teammates, getting to know those teammates better and getting some practice in a situation as close to a real game as you can get without playing in one.

For my second enrichment workshop I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I went to the Museum with classmate Enesi. I actually did this for an Anthropology project. For Anthropology we had to go to the museum and visit the hall of human origins. In the hall we had to make up a test on stuff that we deemed important on the hall. At first when assigned the project I sort of dreaded having to go to the museum. This was for two reasons. First off, Ive been there almost every year on a field trip with my summer camp as a kid. And second being that I already spend near four hours a day and nearly 6 dollars on mass transit and didn’t want to add to that.  Growing up in New York I am very familiar with the train systems and had no problem getting there. On a Thursday afternoon during club hours me and Enesi went. To get there we took the Forest Hills 71st ave  bound R train to 34th street Herald Square. From there we took the Bedford park bound B train to the 81st street which is conveniently named the American Museum of Natural History. In the Museum we spent ten minutes in line for security check. From there we proceeded to wait another 20 minutes in line to purchase tickets. Since we had a class later that evening we couldn’t waste time. As soon as we got our tickets we began to look for the Hall of Human Origins. After almost a ten minute journey trying to find the exhibit we were finally there Once in there we spent a grand total of five minutes in the exhibit, taking pictures of everything and planning to write our quiz questions later. It was hard passing all the interesting exhibits on dinosaurs, space, and even prehistoric times without being able to stop in for pictures as these places are constantly changing and adding new things. I feel like I would want to go back in the future on my on time, and just enjoy the museum for what it is.

On Sunday, October First, I went to the American Museum of Natural        History. I went to the museum because my anthropology homework required me to go to the “Hall of Human Origins” in the American Museum of Natural History. For the assignment, I had to create nine questions based on what I learned in the museum. In other words, my professor wanted the class to create a set of questions that proved we  went to the museum and learned something. After understanding the assignment, I took about a hour long train ride to the museum. Once I arrived at the museum, I was asked to open my bag and a staff member searched it. Afterwards, I waited in line to buy my ticket and also asked where the “Hall of Human Origins” was. Even though I acquired a map of the museum, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out where the “Hall of Human Origins” was. When I finally made it to the “Hall of Human Origins”, I began observing the displays to acquire information for my questions. The first display that I noticed was a display that explained the evolution of humans. It explained that at one point in time, humans began to branch off from primates and created a new species called homo sapiens. The display also explained that many of our primate ancestors died off due to their inability to adapt to the changing environment. After I finished studying this display, I created a question that asked why the diversity of primates decreased over time. For this multiple choice question, four options were provided. Once I finished creating the first question, I moved on to the next display to create my second question. I repeated this process until I accumulated a total of nine questions. Since I was finished with my assignment, I no longer had a reason to stay in the museum. After fumbling with the map to find the exit, I left the museum and went to eat lunch before returning home.