What's the difference between ''show off'' and ''showdown''?

ans:
a show-off is someone who displays an act or talent. A show-off is a person, where as a showdown is an event.

Mystery of the Maya

Q1: When did Maya reach its highest achievements?
The rise of the Mayan culture began around 1800 BC. The classical period (when the culture at its peak) is considered to be between the end of the 3rd and the 9th centuries AD.

Q2:Where did Maya live?
The Maya lived in an area which is now south-east Mexico and parts of present day Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize. Like the Aztecs, they warred with other peoples and forced their defeated enemies to pay them in goods or services. However, the Maya stand out from other cultures of this period due to their advanced levels of knowledge.

Q3:What were Mayas accomplishments?

The Maya had their own calendar, their own writing system, and kept records of births, marriages and military victories. They also created literature, such as the famous Popol Vuh and the Chilam Balam, and were excellent mathematicians. One of the greatest achievements of the Maya is in this area they invented the zero.


The Maya developed positional numeration, which had not even been discovered by the Romans. Their writing was in the form of a picture language (pictographs) carved into stone, painted on walls, bark, deerskin and pottery. As further examples are being discovered, these pictographs are still being deciphered and translated so that knowledge of the Maya grows every day.


Their astronomers calculated the length of the solar year with amazing accuracy and the Dresden Codex contains precise lunar tables and a method to predict lunar eclipses.


The Maya were accomplished architects who built cities of pyramids, temples, palaces, ball courts, sweat baths and market places. The limestone they used for building came from the area they inhabited, the Yucat嫕 Peninsula. Here they also found flint for stonework.
The Maya liked to design and paint pottery, and made figures carved from stone and wood. The decoration of their pottery varied from simple decorative motifs to more complicated, elegant, brightly coloured images of animals and people. Jade, a precious stone, was used for decorative ornaments.

Physically, the Maya were usually short in height with wide heads and sparse, straight hair. They had wide and prominent cheek bones with well defined lips and slanting eyes. They tied two wooden planks on the front and back of the heads of newly born babies, which produced the classic Maya profile.
The clothing of the different classes can be seen in sculptures and clay figures from the Maya period. They made their clothes with cotton and animal skins. For decoration, they wore enormous feather headdresses, necklaces, earplugs, noseplugs, rings and bracelets. For their jewellery, they used jade, shells, bone, obsidian, gold and copper.
The Maya ruling class included high priests and noblemen. The majority of the population were farmers, craftsmen, warriors and merchants.


Q4:What happened to Maya after 900 A.D.?

After 900 AD, the Maya in northern Yucatán brought into contact with the Toltecs. There is evidence that Quetzalcoatl was there, that the Toltecs were influencing the development of Maya culture. By the time the Spanish arrived, Maya civilization had collapsed.

Q5:In your opinion, what is the most interesting fact about Maya's civilization?

The Maya Calendar
The Maya calendar in its final form probably dates from about the 1st century B.C., and may originate with the Olmec civilization. It is extremely accurate, and the calculations of Maya priests were so precise that their calendar correction is 10,000th of a day more exact than the standard calendar the world uses today.
Of all the ancient calendar systems, the Maya and other Mesoamerican systems are the most complex and intricate. They used 20-day months, and had two calendar years: the 260-day Sacred Round, or tzolkin, and the 365-day Vague Year, or haab. These two calendars coincided every 52 years. The 52-year period of time was called a "bundle" and meant the same to the Maya as our century does to us.
The Sacred Round of 260 days is composed of two smaller cycles: the numbers 1 through 13, coupled with 20 different day names. Each of the day names is represented by a god who carries time across the sky, thus marking the passage of night and day. The day names are Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Eiznab, Cauac, and Ahau. Some of these are animal gods, such as Chuen (the dog), and Ahau (the eagle), and archaeologists have pointed out that the Maya sequence of animals can be matched in similar sequence to the lunar zodiacs of many East and Southeast Asian civilizations.
Glyphs for two of the eighteen months of the Vague Year: Pop (left) and Zotz.
In the 260-day tzolkin, time does not run along a line, but moves in a repeating circle similar to a spiral. The two cycles of 13 and 20 intermesh and are repeated without interruption. Thus, the calendar would begin with 1 Imix, 2 Ik, 3 Akbal, and so on to 13 Ben, after which the cycle continues with 1 Ix, 2 Men, etc. This time the day Imix would be numbered 8 Imix, and the last day in this 260-day cycle would be 13 Ahau.
No one is certain how such an unusual calendar came into being. The 260-day cycle may tie several celestial events together, including the configuration of Mars, appearances of Venus, or eclipse seasons. It may even represent the interval between conception and birth of a human baby.
The 260-day calendar was used to determine important activities related to the gods and humans. It was used to name individuals, predict the future, decide on auspicious dates for battles, marriages, and so on. Each single day had its omens and associations, and the inexorable march of the 20 days was like a perpetual fortune-telling machine, guiding the destinies of the Maya.
The Vague Year or haab of 365 days is similar to our modern calendar, consisting of 18 months of 20 days each, with an unlucky five-day period at the end. The secular calendar of 365 days had to do primarily with the seasons and agriculture, and was based on the solar cycle. The 18 Maya months are known, in order, as: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xuc, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Maun, Pax, Kayab and Cumku. The unlucky five-day period was known as uayeb, and was considered an ominous time which could precipitate danger, death and bad luck.
The Maya solar new year is thought to have begun sometime in our present-day month of July, with the Maya month of Pop. The Maya 20-day month always begins with the seating of the month, followed by days numbered 1 to 19, then the seating of the following month, and so on. This ties in with the Maya notion that each month influences the next. Thus, the Maya new year would start with 1 Pop, followed by 2 Pop, all the way through to 19 Pop, followed by the seating of the month of Uo, written as 0 Uo, then 1 Uo, 2 Uo, etc.
The linking of the tzolkin and the haab resulted in a longer cycle of 18,980 days, or approximately 52 solar years. The end of this 52-year cycle was particularly feared, because it was believed to be a time when the world might come to an end and the sky might fall, if the gods were not satisfied with the way humanity had carried out its obligations.
The 52-year cycle was inadequate, however, to measure the continual passage of time through the ages. Another calendar was thus devised, called the Long Count. The Long Count was based on the following units of time: a kin (one day); a uinal (a month of 20 kins); a tun (a year of 360 kins or 18 uinals); a katun (20 tuns); a baktun (20 katuns, or 400 years). Larger units included the pictun, the calabtun, the kinchiltun and the analtun. Each analtun was equivalent to 64 million years.
The Long Count starts from the beginning of the current creation cycle, and corresponds to the present age. The date of this creation is set at either 3114 B.C. or 3113 B.C. of our modern calendar. This is the starting date for all subsequent counting - similar to our use of the birth of Christ as a starting point for modern historical dates.
To indicate a date, the Maya calendar used five figures in this order: baktun, katun, tun, uin, kin. This would be written as, for example: 9.10.19.5.11 10 Chuen 4 Kumku, which translates as 9 baktuns (1,296,000 days), 10 katuns (72,000 days), 19 tuns (6,840 days), 5 uinals (100 days), 11 kins (11 days). This gives us a total of 1,374,951 days (approximately 3,764 solar years) since the beginning of the last Creation, at the Maya calendar round position of 10 Chuen, 4 Kumku. This would be equivalent to a date sometime in our year A.D. 651 or 652.
One of the most important roles of the calendar was not to fix dates accurately in time, however, but to correlate the actions of Maya rulers to historic and mythological events. The acts of gods performed in the days of myth were reenacted by Maya rulers, often on the anniversary of the original event - a date which was carefully calculated by Maya priests. The calendar was also used to mark the time of past and future happenings. Some Maya monuments, for example, record the dates of events 90 million years ago, while others predict events that will take place 3,000 years into the future.
The calendar also predicted the future, as our astrological zodiac does. For example, the Maya believed that a person's birthday or day-sign determined their fate through life. The newborn child was thus connected with a particular god, and remained under that god's influence. Some gods were more auspicious than others, and a child born under a well-wishing god was considered lucky. A child born under a less kind deity had to ensure throughout his or her life that the god was propitiated - especially during vulnerable periods like the unlucky uayeb of the solar year.
Many scholars have wondered why the Maya calendar was so complex. In part, it was because Maya priests made all decisions about dates for sacred events and the agricultural cycle. There was thus no need for the average person to understand the calendar, and it could be as elaborate as the priests wanted.
The ancient Maya cycle still survives in southern Mexico and the Maya highlands, under the care of calendar priests who still keep the 260-day count for divination and other shamanistic activities. These priests juggled cycles of time and calculated when several of these cycles would coincide.

English listening -2

I found the second site is http://www.manythings.org/mp/ .
It 's Minimal Pair Practice ,I have to make out what tiny differ between the pair of words
and I am to make a fool of Quiz,that is , When I listened the "long" and "wrong",I am really wrong with the word.

English listening

I choose the Listen and Fill in the Blanks
from http://www.manythings.org/el/

I think the reading speed fit to me,so I like this site to exicise my listening ~~but, the Quiz just only one , I have no more Quiz to learn.
so, I'll surfing another site to fit me~~

How do I to make choice from penpals

from MITCHELL GOLDSHIELD

Hello my lovely pal

Good to know that you're boosting up with energy and it's a pleasure having your contact address.I will like you to be my friend,hoping that you will love to.For the miracle of friendship speaks from one heart to another, listens for unspoken needs, recognizes secret dreams, and understands the silent thins.Friendship is an opportunity,always a sweet responsibility.

Am called MITCHELL GOLDSHIELD.You can reach me through this email address:-mitchellgoldshield@yahoo.com .As soon as you respond to this letter,i will tell you a lot of things about me,my family and perhaps some wonderful things about this relationship.

from Maria

Hello Eason..
I'm form Mexico, I live in the city of Guadalajara, I'm 20 years old and I'm studying INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. What about you? I'm libra... do you believe
in the Zodiac signs and all that stuff?
You're my first penpal form Taiwan, and I'm excited about it..hope to hear from you soon.
One thing you should knw is that I take a while to answer back beacuse of my school, I don't have a lot of free time, but I always make time for my friends ok?
TALK TO YOU SOON
Maria


from Gilyn

Hello
My name is Gilyn, from Singapore. I had came across your website & hope to be-friend with you. I'm 25 this year & currently working as a registered staff nurse in a private hospital.

I like to surf internet & hanging out with friends during free time.

Sorry for the short email. But hope to hear from you. Take care........


Gilyn
chocolate_chinchin@yahoo.com
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

TRAILER of The Butterfly Effect & my sentiment

I love seeing movies since i were little and my mother usually took me to theather. I like science fictions, especially the story that make me open my eyes or make me keep thinking about it.Such as "the butterfly effect" is my favorite film.It says someone go through the time, change the past and take effect on his future.This story make me have much feeling about it.Hopefully i can go back to the past and change my life.I want to make it more colorful.

TRAILER OF The Butterfly Effect

My favorite film -- The Butterfly Effect

synopsis

Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) has lost track of time. From an early age, crucial moments of his life have disappeared into a black hole of forgetting, his boyhood marred by a series of terrifying events he can’t remember.
What remains is the ghost of memory and the broken lives of his childhood friends, Kayleigh (Amy Smart), Lenny (Elden Henson) and Tommy (William Lee Scott).
Throughout his childhood, Evan was under the care of a psychologist who encouraged him to keep a journal, detailing the events of his day-to-day life. Now in college, Evan reads from one of those journals and finds himself thrust inexplicably back in time.
Evan comes to realize the notebooks he keeps under his bed are a vehicle, a way to return to the past to reclaim his memories. But these recollections only leave Evan feeling responsible for the damaged lives of his friends, especially Kayleigh, the childhood sweetheart he still loves.
Determined to do something now that he was incapable of doing then, Evan purposely travels back in time, his present-day mind occupying his childhood body, in an attempt to re-write history and spare his friends and loved ones these traumatic experiences. By altering the events of the past, Evan hopes to transform the present.
But every time Evan changes something in the past, he returns to the present to find his actions have unexpected and disastrous consequences. Try as he might, he can’t seem to create a reality that allows he and Kayleigh to live “happily ever after.”
The Butterfly Effect is a suspenseful, provocative thriller that represents an intriguing new direction for Ashton Kutcher (That ‘70’s Show, Dude Where’s My Car, Just Married) and features a dynamic ensemble cast that includes Amy Smart (Roadtrip, Varsity Blues), Eric Stoltz (Pulp Fiction, The Rules of Attraction), William Lee Scott (Pearl Harbor, Gone in Sixty Seconds), Elden Henson (The Mighty, She’s All That) and Logan Lerman, with Ethan Suplee and Melora Walters (Boogie Nights, Magnolia).
The film marks the feature directorial debut of Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (the writing team behind the hit 2003 thriller Final Destination 2), who also penned the screenplay.
A Benderspink and FilmEngine production in association with Katalyst, The Butterfly Effect is produced by Chris Bender, A.J. Dix, Anthony Rhulen and J.C. Spink. The executive producers are Toby Emmerich, Richard Brener, Cale Boyter, William Shively, David Krintzman, Jason Goldberg and Ashton Kutcher. The co-producer is Lisa Richardson.
New Line Cinema will release The Butterfly Effect (rated “R” by the M.P.A.A. for “violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use”) nationwide on January 23, 2004.

Crossing Over --Bossa Nova

Lisa Ono,she is one of my favorite singers .
I would to introduce to everybody .
and I hope everybody will like her ~~~







The following are her songs
01. Ay Cosita Linda
02. Sueno Cristalino / Crystal Dream
03. Piel Cenela
04. Quizas Quizas Quizas
05. Volver A Empezar / Begin The Beguine
06. Morning
07. Frenesi
08. Ceu Cor de Rosa / Indian Summer /
09. Cogele Bien El Compas
10. Te Quiero Dijiste
11. Los Patitos

My new learning SYTLE in English

I just got the new way to study in English.I'm so exited .To learn not just only one way ,that old fashion.
I hope I 'll get something in this semester.

Thank you teacher let me open my eyes.