Religion Project: Week 2
I am now in week two of my religion project. I have been studying and researching the Amish for the past two weeks, and am now preparing for my day(s) in the life of the Amish. Next week, I am going to embark on my journey of being Amish, following their rules and trying as much as possible to recreate the life that they live. Of course their are some exceptions to this, but I will do my best to make this project as authentic as possible.
This week I’ve been collecting a lot of information. I’m trying to take advantage of as much computer time as I possibly can. In my Renaissance project, I found after a while of reading through site after site, that taking notes gets a bit tedious. So instead I copy and paste the sections that are useful to me on a website, note the URL, and dump it into a document. Right now I have about 50 pages of notes I have to sort, though I’ll probably be doing a lot of deleting and categorizing so that its easy for me to focus on one section of my notes when I am writing my essay. I am also being a lot more careful about reference checking, verifying all of my sources to make sure that they are trustworthy. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, and have to start focusing more on my work, and find more efficient ways to complete the tasks that need to be addressed.
I’ve also been doing a lot of preparation for next week. From the little things, like taking care of my wardrobe, finding a surprising amount of amish clothing on ebay (the internet, it has everything!), to creating some of the rules for myself for next week. I’m going to have to do some weekend work to finalize what I have to do next week. I’ve been looking more into the tools and technology the Amish use, so I can figure out if I have any wiggle room with my shunning of modern conveniences.
Surprisingly enough, Amish aren’t as isolated as most people think. Its not that the Amish want to halt all progress of society, but rather slow it down, and are slowly adapting to new technology. The most common piece of technology would probably be the phone. It’s actually very common for an Amish teenager to own a cell phone (Even the Amish have phones Rob). The Amish kitchen is one of the main rooms in the house. Its a place where families unite and work together, and will probably look like an older version of your own kitchen. Even some of the more liberal Amish groups have refrigerators (that run on gas). Their water comes from a windmill or water tank that runs by gravity. There was a really interesting website that gave me all of this information if you want to learn more.
Tomorrow I’m going to be looking up a lot of books about the amish for next week so that I still have material to study, and start looking up cooking recipes for next week. I have no idea how or what I am going to eat, but I’ll have to find a way. Until next week, so long, fair well my fine computer.
