Histories and Mysteries

As last year, Histories and Mysteries will feature four extra articles every Thursday in July. So far, I've planned some writing tips and book reviews already. Also, from June 24 to July 3, I will be on a mission trip to Tepic, Mexico. I have scheduled a few articles during this time, but I will not be able to correct anything should I use incorrect grammar on accident. In fact, this article was pre-written and scheduled. After I return, I will write an article on my travels for one of the July specials.

In the last miscellaneous article , I wrote about tips for buying at a garage sale. This article is about hosting your own garage sale and what you need to know. Community Rules   First of all, you want to check the rules of your city or county. Some cities only allow two garage sales per year (Ontario, California); other cities charge a fee for hosting a garage sale which may be about $10 per time. Fortunately, my city allows garage sales anytime.   Another thing to look out for is putting up signs on lampposts. Some cities say that is illegal to do so and will fine you for it. My city says it's illegal, but people keep doing it, and nobody gets fined for some reason. They should just retract the law.   Following the rules will definitely save you a lot of trouble and might even reap some benefits. If your community only allows garage sales twice a year, the community garage sale will draw many more people than if you just do a garage sale on your ...

Welcome back, readers! #rebelliouswriting is a movement against the low content standards of books (especially young adult books). This movement started last year with a couple of rants on Writing is Life and the beginning of the blog, Rebellious Writing . Since then, writing bloggers have included a post or two on inappropriate content in books and why we need clean reads. First of all, I want to speak about both of the blogs I mentioned above. Gray Marie is the blogger at Writing is Life , and she does a mix of rants, book reviews, and writing encouragements. Rebellious Writing is a collaboration of many different bloggers who write young adult (which I will refer to as YA from now on) book reviews as well as more rants. Sometimes I love rants way too much. Maybe I should do some on this blog. As a result, I am jumping on this bandwagon with two or three posts following the #rebelliousreading challenge . I anticipate that this series will end before November where I will ded...

We have been going through a series on Israel for the geography articles on this blog. Today, I want to discuss a few different topics concerning Israeli culture: education, transportation, cuisine, etc. Education:   Education in Israel is not so different from ours in the United States. All students must attend kindergarten to 12th grade which is split into four categories: kindergarten, primary education (1st to 6th grade), middle school (7th to 9th grade), and high school (10th to 12th grade). The school year begins on September 1st, ends on June 20th for middle school and high school, and ends on June 30th for primary education.   There are five major types of schools that an Israelite can attend: state-secular schools, state-religious schools, independent-religious schools, Arabic schools, and private schools. At the end of most high schools, students are prepared to take the Israeli matriculation exam which tests students over seven ma...

We have moved on from Sumer to the next empire in history: the Old Babylonian Empire. You might need to Babylon was part of the Fertile Crescent and the former Sumerian empire. According to Genesis 10:9-10, Nimrod, a great hunter, was the founder of Babel ("the gate of God" in Akkadian, but "to confuse" in Hebrew), later known as Babylon. After Ur-Nammu of the Sumerian Third Dynasty died, the Sumerian empire crumbled under two main attacks in 2000 BC. The Elamites from the Iranian highlands in the east sacked Ur, and the Amorites conquered lower Mesopotamia and established Babylon. Once Hammurabi became king of Babylon, the rest of Mesopotamia was conquered as part of their empire. After Hammurabi's death, the Kassites overran the kingdom. The Old Babylonians also adopted a form of Sumerian/Akkadian cuneiform to preserve older works from Sumer. This culture produced the Enuma Elish or the Babylonian Genesis which dates to the 7th century BC. This "cr...