Throughout life, without protection, both physically and mentally,

it becomes easy to simply give up on life, and prevent yourself from

having a sense of purpose. For example, in the beginning of the year
we studied Life of Pi. In the book, Pi is stranded at sea, with a tiger in
his lifeboat. Though instead of giving up, and allowing himself to die
while cast at sea, he remained resilient, and protected himself
emotionally through maintaining a sense of hope, as well as physically,
through training the tiger to obey him. This taught me the importance
of protection, driving me to choose it as an eternal truth in the Legacy
Project.
Rebirth is not only applicable to dying, and then reviving. Rebirth
includes a new state of flourish, in which you can obtain a new
purpose, and strive this purpose. I first learned this on the first day of
school, when a picture of Shiva was shown on the board, and the
concept has remained in my mind and been important to me ever
since. Throughout the year, rebirth remained a constant theme,
especially when we learned about the Scarab as a symbol of the day.
When searching through the Met, looking for an object, I came across
the Scarab, and remembered learning about it during class. Right
away, I decided I wanted to study it, and it fit perfectly with the eternal
truths I wanted to connect it to rebirth and protection.
The Legacy Project as been a great way to end the year; it ties in
so many concepts we learned throughout the year, and gives us an

opportunity to culminate the different skills we learned throughout the

year, including essay writing and research skills. I also love the
freedom the Legacy Project allows. Instead of being assigned a specific
culture, we were allowed to choose a culture we wanted to study, and
while studying mine, I not only learned more, but also had fun while
doing so.
Though I also find the subjects we studied throughout the year
important, starting with Hinduism, and ending with Islam, before the
start of the Legacy Project. Learning about each religion, both in class,
and through reading Humanistic Traditions has allowed me to become
more open-minded towards learning about new cultures and fully
appreciating them. The Legacy Project also reinforced this concept,
such as through the Sacred Space visitation. In the Sacred Space
visitation, I was foreign to the Seder and its rituals, though before it
started I thought about the various religions and cultures we learned
about this year, and how interesting they were, which caused me to
walk into the Seder excited to learn and participate in a different
religions rituals.
I will carry everything I have learned in Ancient World with me to
my sophomore year, and will to continue to learn about new cultures
eagerly.