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Sorry this is late, i've been sick since friday and i've been kinda miserable lately.

I thought it was fascinating hearing all of the different customs from all over the world.  One of the things that I puzzled over in class was how some cultures have traditions honoring the dead or their ancestors where my culture doesn't really have that.  I don't know if it's just my family or if it's a lot bigger than that, but for me it's always been "don't talk about unpleasant things" so sad things about loved ones dying just aren't talked about except maybe once in a while at a holiday where the whole family comes together and we'll just mention whoever it was in conversation, maybe followed by a funny story they used to tell.  I think that's one of the strange things about American culture is that we're so separated from death.  One of my teachers used to make the point that even our food comes prepared and packaged, we're so far removed from the death of the animal that we're about to eat.  Most people nowadays wouldn't eat any meat unless it was saran-wrapped in a styrofoam tray. My point is that death is one of those things that we don't think about until we absolutely have to and when we do, it's very difficult to.  I don't know, death has always been one of the few things i find really weird and uncomfortable to talk about after a while and i don't know why.

Anyways, I really enjoyed hearing about everybody's different cultures and all their stories.  It's really somewhat eye-opening, getting to hear about customs directly from the people who participate in them, rather than just reading about them in a book or seeing them in movies. (Movies do have a way of manipulating things.) I can't wait to keep talking about cultural evolution this week!