These last two weeks have by far been the busiest of the semester. My busy-ness seemed to have a correlation with this time of the semester being the Mid-Term week. This overwhelming pressure has yielded two diamonds. The first is a more in-depth and technical approach to Islamic Theology with a touch of Islamic Philosophy. The second, which I only finished about 15 minutes before it was due, is about the Presidential Dream course I am taking called 'World Religions in America' and the assignment was actually labeled as a 'Take-Home Midterm Essay Exam.' This served as a more general application of my semester experience so far and is an easier read for a general audience.
I have received my graded Islamic Theology paper and have posted it on my Religious Studies Page [Here]. The Paper is titled 'How the Islamic Mind Comes to Know what it Knows.' The paper examines and analyzes Epistemology in the Islamic faith based on the writings of ‘Abd al-Jabbar [No, not Kareem], who is a Mu`tazilite theologian that pioneered Islamic Speculative Theology and advocated God's oneness and his justice. This is the Mid-Term version of what my Final paper will be about. While this isn't necessarily a rough draft, it will be expanded upon, edited, and revised for a final submission at the end of the semester. This is the more technical of my two papers I will be posting, but my general audience paper is not that far away.
I am a member of the OU Religious Studies Club and this year I was able to help design the club t-shirt and this picture below is the final product [pending]. I came up with the main catchphrase 'For RELS?' out of jest during a club meeting. My background in graphic design immediately came through and I started to visualize the shirt. Thanks to the website CustomInk.com the other club members were able to help influence the design, helping us to arrive at the masterpiece you now see. The price of the shirt currently stands at $15 and the material is 100% cotton. Feel free to Send Me an E-mail if you are interested in purchasing a t-shirt. The current projected date that we will have them available for sale is mid to late November.
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| OU Religious Studies Club 2011/12 Shirt Design |
As soon as I get my other paper and after I make the necessary and appropriate corrections, I will post it for reading and reviewing as well. Also I received information through the OU study abroad program about a photograph contest with the photos we OU students took during their stays in the host country for Fall '10, Spring '11, and Summer '11. I can submit 2 original photos in the competition, the only rule is that the photos have to be taken by me and there can be no editing, but minor retouching and corrections are allowed. I have posted the entirety of my Istanbul photos on Facebook. What I found to be really cool is that Facebook has a setup for the general public to openly view the galleries regardless if the viewer has a Facebook profile or account. In no apparent order and with minimal duplicates, here are my Istanbul Picture Galleries:
The submission deadline for the project isn't until February 2012. The categories for the general competition are landscapes, people, culture, or architecture. I hope to have a sort of comments section for my posts setup before then, but in the meantime if you find an image that you like that was taken by me, E-mail Me with a description of the photo so I can add it to my possible submissions.
Keep checking back for more updates. I know it has been nearly 3 weeks since my last major posting, but my next few posts will be rapid fire and include the projects I have been working on during that time. I'm almost at 2,000 website views. And as always, Thanks for Visiting and Viewing!
Keep checking back for more updates. I know it has been nearly 3 weeks since my last major posting, but my next few posts will be rapid fire and include the projects I have been working on during that time. I'm almost at 2,000 website views. And as always, Thanks for Visiting and Viewing!
