St. Mary's Assyrian Church of the East

The Assyrian people, most commonly known as Assyrians and other later names, such as Ashuriyun, and Atorayeh are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia. They are people, who speak and write distinct dialects of Eastern Aramaic exclusive to Mesopotamia. 

Project Space: Fieldwork!

      The place that I have chosen to observe is my church, St. Mary’s Assyrian Church of the East. My original church that I was raised it burned down on October 16, 2009 due to arson. Three years later on November 04, 2012 we had our grand opening for our current church now. My church has been rebuilt beautifully. It honestly is just so breathtaking.  When you walk in you first walk into a room before the actual church and in this room there is a candle lighting area that is created to look like the rock tomb Jesus was laid in. In this room on the right side there is a wall that has tree branches made out of metal and on the leaf of this tree has the names of the families that donated a great amount of money to purchase a big part of the church for example the domes we have or the chandeliers, etc. Also in this room there are stairs that lead you up to the second floor of the church where they can seat about 200 people, where the monitors are controlled and where the choir sings. After this room you enter the actual church through these big cherry colored wooden doors. When you enter there are two sections of pews one on the left and one on the right and they consist of about 15 rows of pews each side. They are also cheery colored wooden pews and have red as the sitting cover. The floors are a cream colored marble but under the pews it has a shade of red carpet. The walls are a light yellowish paint that is not regular paint it is Venusians paint.  On the walls there are windows made out of stain glass and each stain glass has a message from the bible that has so much meaning to it. For example one of the stain glasses has the arch of Noah on it and all these different images that represent something. When you look up to the ceiling, it is painted as a sky with a light baby blue color with white fluffy clouds on it. From the ceiling we have about 12 big beautiful gold chandeliers. My most favorite part of the church is the Alter. The Alter is huge and has about 5 stairs leading to it. In the Alter we have a red rug with cream designs on it on the floor and we have a big stand that consists of where the priest puts his bibles and papers and the holy bread and wine. The wall that is the back of the alter that is behind this stand has a breath taking hand painted painting of these gold rich colored stair case that is in the sky that leads to a faded yet still showing cross. This represents the stair cases that lead us individuals to heaven. It looks so real that you just get lost in it when you see it. The Alter is closed with these huge long red velvet curtains that separate the church from the Alter. On the sides of the Alter there are also narrow red velvet curtains that lead us to the back of the church where the priest and deacons change into their clothes and have their individual rooms. The left side leads us to the back, the right side leads us to the back as well but the ride side also has a small chapel where the priest does the baptisms and its image is also the same as the church, but like a mini version of it. As much as I describe it is nothing like seeing it in person. From the outside our church has bright green grass that leads you to this unique designed black gate that opens up to the outside of the church. The outside we have two domes a small one and a bigger one and a big beautiful cross on top. The sound of my church is very quiet and the only thing you hear are the prayers preached by my priest Father George and the choir singing. All you hear are songs and prayers throughout the church and during mass the speech that is given by Father George. The only thing I smell in church is the holy incense that is placed in front of the church and then passed around to every individual to cleanse their hands and face. People outside this community and subculture would view this place the same way as me because it is a church and they will have respect for it but it won’t mean that much to them as it does to me. I have so many memories in my church that it means so much to me.

      The people that attend this church are mainly Assyrians. Some whites attend as well if they have married an Assyrian. Our church is open to anyone that wants to come and that have the same beliefs as us. The environment in my church is very respectful and friendly we know one another and all share one interest. Our interest that we all have in common is cleansing ourselves and preparing ourselves for God. We learn the word of God through the bible and praise him throughout mass with our prayers every Sunday. We all own this church. Rebuilding this church wasn't easy and cheap, we all had to fund raise and donate to have this church rebuilt for us. Personally I can tell who is regularly attends and who comes once in a while. I can tell because I am at church every single Sunday and because I say hi to so many people and I am really good with remembering a familiar face. It is actually very easy to feel comfortable at my church. I know this because when a new young person comes the youth which I am involved with is there to introduce one another and talk and make friends with the new comer so they don’t feel awkward and stop attending for that reason. Recently about a couple of months ago a Muslim came to our church to convert himself to become a Christian he is not Assyrian and he attends church every Sunday because he made friends and is getting involved with us even though he can only speak English and Farsi. I don’t think it is possible to feel awkward in our subculture we are so open to others and show so much love that a stranger won’t feel awkward when attending our church. 

Reflection on Project Web

            Project web has honestly been the project I most enjoyed doing. I know this is our first this semester but compared to last semesters process building up to the essay I loved it more this time then I did last semester. I think it was because this project we had to make a blog and that was different which made it fun and exciting to do.

Our group topic for project web was about texting while driving. My subtopic for this assignment was about the documentary commercials and videos about the results of texting while driving. I found many videos that aware people about the consequences of texting while operating a vehicle. I actually chose this topic because it is the thing that most annoys me to see when I am driving. I hate when I see drivers so distracting on their phones that they are not paying attention to the road that can cause them their life and lives of others that are around them. I also chose this topic because I wanted to learn more about it to educate my friends and family members that text while drive because they don’t just listen to me when I tell them so I need some sort of evidence to show them so they can finally listen and actual stop texting while driving. I honestly have learned so much more then I was expecting. The facts that I learned about were just mind blowing. I wasn't expecting for that much information about this topic. This blog actually made it very easy for me to do some research on my topic because I couldn't just post something I had to actually look for articles and then post it on my blog. It was fun creating the blog and creating the background and different styles of posts. This project has given me so much useful knowledge that I can use now and in my near future.

            Since last semester I have seen a change in my writing process. What I was struggling with last semester was sentence structure and how to lengthen my overall essay. To just be honest I really did not like the progressions at all last semester. This semester everything I did benefited me when it came to write the final draft. I was so into my topic and it was so interesting that I actually had three different drafts for this assignment. I learned so much and found so much information that I needed to change my drafts every time because I had to add something new. Last semesters topics were not that interesting so everything I found I created it into one draft and never changed or added anything which didn't give me the grade I wanted. I have actually seen change in myself. I have learned to embed quotes into my sentences so it sounds natural and flows and I have learned how to expand on one idea in my body paragraphs so that I can actually create a full paragraph without any trouble. The easiest about this process was posting what research I found on my blog and creating my blog in a way that my group and I liked it. I didn't have anything that was difficult. In general just finding reliable research that I could have used was a bit of a challenge I faced during this project. Overall I think I put my best work into this and I feel confident with what I have turned in and I am looking forward to use how I was graded on it and hopefully it is as good as I think it is to be. 

Morning Freewrite!

So far for my Project Web I have found my group topic and I have an idea of what I'm actually going to write about. I haven't done much research but because my topic is do not text and drive I already have some ideas from what I have seen in the past. For my part in this project I am stating my opinion about the commercials AT&T has created about the causes of texting and driving. I still need to find more articles and documentary about this issue. I think I have a variety of sources that I can rely on because this topic is such an important and "hot" topic in California. My steps to my ideal completed project are not done yet because I only a couple of posts and still need more and still to complete my final paper. I'm actually looking forward to Project Web because I have so much to say about this topic!

Favorite Article Post

My favorite article from all four that I read was "What's the Matter with Kids Today?" by Amy Goldwasser. What surprised me the most about this article was I have never actually read something that supports teenagers browsing the Internet and calling it their social life. Because of the access the internet has giving us we are better educating us with what is happen in the world. For example, we have easy access to YouTube that can provide us with many different videos to watch about what is going on with the president so we can have a clear idea of what is happening in our world today. I agree with this article because the Internet is extremely a useful source for everyone to use. Many people do not usually agree that the Internet is the greatest thing out there but in this article Amy was actually explaining what good things come out of it and how useful it is for teenagers to use. I agree with her that people need to stop thinking of the Internet as such a bad thing towards teenagers because one day those teens could use the knowledge they know about the Internet to do something successful in their life. 

My first Post!!

This is officially my first blog! I am excited to see how everything works out! :)