We Got Our Tests Back Today

In Human Geo today we got our world leader tests back. I actually did pretty good, I got a 96. I got three questions wrong and the bonus right. One of them I made a really stupid mistake on. We had to identify what was in bold, and here was the question: "The leader of this country was imprisoned for three years, and was sadistically tortured while in custody." I wrote Dilma Rousseff. It should've been Brazil. Of course I made the mistake of writing the leader instead of the country. But anyways, I'm pretty happy with my grade because I got a few bad grades on a few quizzes and tests before this. I'm also really sad because I have an 89.43%, if it was something like an 89.53%, it would be an A. I just have to do really well to get up to an A. We also went over what the exam would be like, and turned in our essays. I am really nervous for the exam,  but it being all multiple choice and having the essay out of the way makes me feel a lot better.

World Leaders Test

In Human Geo today we took the test on World Leaders. We got a kind of Christmas Present type thing because he let us use our blogs for it. I answered over half of them without my blog and then I went on my blog to look up the answers I didn't know. It was actually not that difficult and I hope I did well. The only thing that messed me up a lot was the maps because I am very bad with maps. I knew some of the places like America and Mexico and possibly one other but definitely not all of them (yikes). I finished last because I checked the whole thing like 20 times and two of the questions got me stuck. There was a bonus question as well which asked about Donald Trump and where he is supposedly going after he said that comment on banning Muslims from entering the United States. (can we just "build a wall" around him please?) Mr. Schick also told us that he would be posting the exam essay questions for us to do. I'm planning to start my essay today and so that way I can finish it by tomorrow. Also, praise the Lord that it is Friday and almost break.

Finishing Up On World Leaders

In Human Geo today we went over the rest of the world leaders powerpoint. We have a Political geography/world leader test tomorrow and I'm kind of nervous because I really want to do good, because I'm determined to get an A this quarter. Anyways, we had a lot of stuff to write down, and here it is:

Mexico

• federal republic
• president Enrique Pena Nieto
• fathered two children of the women he was having an affair with
• had his wife killed in order to meet more women 
• known as the "Teflon" candidate 
• two years later after his wife's death he married soap opera woman Angelina Rivera, who is now the first lady of Mexico

United Kingdom 

• constitutional monarchy and commonwealth realm 
• Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth
• Cameron
• went to a prep school where princes were 
• child named Ivan had profound physical disabilities died in 2009 
• this experience made him broaden his horizons and changed him 
• he is the youngest prime minister in over 200 years 

Russia 

• federation 
• president Vladimir Putin 
• served as president of Russia from 2000-2008, re-elected in 2012, previously was Prime Minister 
• had a career in KGB as an intelligence officer, stationed mainly in East Germany, held that position till 1990, retiring with rank of lieutenant colonel 
• KGB was main security agency to the Soviet Union from 1954-1991, acting as the internal security intelligence and secret police 
• athlete 
• 63 years old 

Syria 

• authoritarian regime 
• president Bashar al-Assad 
• born September 11, 1965 
• graduated from medical school of Damascus University in 1988, started to work as a doctor in the army 
• took over his brother (who died in a car crash) as heir apparent 
• succeeded Hafez al-Assad (father) who led Syria for 30 years until his death 
• ordered mass crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters leading to the Syrian civil war 
• Syrian opposition, US, Canada, European Union, and most of Arab League have called for his resignation from presidency 
• during the Syrian Civil War, an inquiry by the United Nation's human rights chief found evidence to implicate Assad in war crimes and crimes against humanity 

Iraq 

• parliamentary democracy 
• mixed legal system of civil and islamic law 
• president Fuad Masum

Canada 

• parliamentary democracy, federation, and constitutional monarchy 
• prime minister Justin Trudeau 
• born Christmas Day in 1971 to Pierre Trudeau, then the 15th prime minister of Canada and Margaret Trudeau 
• supported liberal party 
• defended Canadian federalism at high school 
• into politics even as a young child 
• family and him started Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign for winter sports safety in 2000, two years after his brother died in an avalanche 
• fought against proposed $100 million zinc mine that he argued would poison the Nahanni River in the NW Territories 

World Leaders

Today in Human Geo, we went over some exam stuff and then we went through some of the World Leaders powerpoint. Here are the notes I took:

Brazil

• federal republic 
• headed by president Dilma Rousseff
• protested against Brazil's military dictatorship, served 3 years in prison for this where she was tortured 
• degree in economics, been divorced twice 
• had chemo for lymphoma, now in remission 

China 

• communist state
• ruled by president Xi Jinping 
• son of revolutionary war veteran Xi Zhongsun 
• married folk singer and army general Peng Lijuan 
• daughter Xi Mignze studies at Harvard University here in the US 

France 

• republic
• headed by Francois Hollande 
• no previous experience 
• mother of 4 kids is Segolene Royal, they have been dating for 30 years but never married 
• born to right wing father and left wing mom

Germany

• federal republic 
• President Joachim Guack 
• Chancellor Angela Merkel 
• degree in physics, PhD in quantum chemistry 
• been chancellor since November 2005 
• earned top spot of FORBES Most Powerful Women in the World for 8 out of 10 times 

India 

• federal republic 
• president Prunab Mukherjee 
• was a professor and journalist 
• rated one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and best parliamentarian in 1997 
• had a conflict with Rajiv Ghandi (who took over as Prime Minister after his mother was assassinated in 1984) and started his own party- Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress 

Israel 

• parliamentary democracy 
• President Shimon Peres 
• Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu 
• spent a lot of time in the US as a child/in his youth 
• after his brother was killed because of the Entebbe Operation of which he helped command, he returned to Israel and began to advocate international cooperation in fighting terrorism 

I Had a Shadow Today

Today in Human Geo I introduced Mr. Schick to Hannah who was my shadow. We talked about our chance for extra credit, which is to write a rap about what has happened in the world recently, and submit it to the New York Times. We can work with a group or partner or even work by ourselves, and it will get us 10 extra credit points. Then we watched a video of this group called "Flocabulary" or something like that do their rap on what happened in 2014. Then we got our scantrons back and went over the test we took yesterday. Mr. Schick had Hannah answer two questions and they went something like: *multiple choice question* *Hannah says false* or something like *choose the choice out of a,b,c,d,e* *she chooses F* or she just left blanks where she didn't know how to pronounce a name. It was pretty fun, we also ate popcorn. The class was kind of a mess actually...

World Leaders Assignment

So we took a quiz on cultural geography and religion (yikes), and I got like a 77 but that is still not as bad as I thought (also yikes). And now, our homework is to identify a few countries' world leaders, government types, and show a picture of the leader, so here it is:

Mexico
federal republic
President Enrique Pena Nieto



China
Communist State
President Xi Jinping



India
federal republic
President Pranab Mukherjee



Russia
federation
President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin



Germany
federal republic
Chancellor Angela Merkel
 


United Kingdom
constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm
Prime Minister David Cameron



France
republic
President François Hollande



Brazil
federal republic
President Dilma Rousseff



Syria
republic under an authoritarian regime
President Bashar al-Asad



Canada
parliamentary democracy, federation, and constitutional monarchy
Prime Minister Justin Pierre James Trudeau



Iraq
parliamentary democracy
President Fuad Masum



Israel
parliamentary democracy
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Cultural Geography

In Human Geo today we took notes on a new topic: cultural geography. This is what I wrote down:

Cultural Characteristics
*they are taught*
examples:

• language 
• religion 
• ethnic heritage 

Language

• Brazilians speak Portuguese (dominant language) 
• Brazil is the only South American nation which does not primarily speak Spanish 
• Canada is a bilingual nation 
• French and English are its official languages 
• Switzerland has 4 official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansh) but there is very little conflict 
• English is the language spoken for transactions 

Examples of Cultural Characteristics 

• ethnic heritage 
• in Yugoslavia many ethnic groups (Serbs, Croats, Bosnias, Albanians) 
• groups got along until they lost leadership 
• now they all have separate countries (Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia) 
• two groups: Tutsis & Hutus 
• Rwanda and Burund 
• Tutsis persecute Hutus (has led to almost constant war between the groups 
• in 100,500,000 - 1,000,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutus 
• Rwandan Genocide 
• religious demographic of Burund: 
• 3% Muslim 
• 91% Christian (65% Catholic, 26% Protestant) 

Religion 

• can be a unifying and disunifying force 
• 4 biggest religions in the world: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judism

Political Geography

In Human Geo today we talked about rules&how ughughughugh they were. Well I mean we actually learned about Political Geography, that was just something we talked about for 10 minutes in the beginning of class. We also talked about what happened near Pittsburgh, and how a taxi driver was shot by his passenger just because he was of the Islamic religion. I find that absolutely insane, the driver made no move on the guy, tried to talk to him, told him how he found the terrorist attacks terrible and how he believed in peace and equality (after being asked about these topics by the passenger). The man then got out of the car and said he would be right back he just had to grab something, and that something ended up being a shotgun, and the driver, panicked, drove away, but the man still managed to shoot through the back car window and into the driver's back between his shoulders. Thank God he's okay, and I hope the passenger gets some kind of punishment too. I hate people so much sometimes. Anyways, we took notes today on Political Geography, and these are the notes I took (sorry my blog is really long today):

How is the World Organized? 
Country

• an identifiable land area

Nation

• a population (group of people) with a common culture

State 

• a population under a single government 
• synonymous with "country" 

Nation-State 

• a single culture under a single government
• a nation which has the same borders as a state 

A Nation

• a group of people with a shared identity 
• think of it as a culture group 
• Nations are culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger than a single tribe or community which share a common language, institutions, religion, and historical experience

An Independent State

• has space or territory which has internationally recognized boundaries (boundary disputes are OK) 
• has people who live there on an ongoing basis
• has economic activity and an organized economy. A country regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues money 
• has the power of social engineering such as education 
• has a transportation system for moving goods and people 
• has a government which provides public service and police power 
• has sovereignty. No other State should have power over the country's territory
• has external recognition. A country has been "voted into the club" by other countries

We Presented Today.

In Human Geo today there were only two groups (mine being one of them) that had to present our ISIS project still. Luke's group volunteered to go first. Then it was me and Lauren's turn. We presented and Lauren told her jokes, and we finished early so they could ask questions. Luckily there weren't too many and she unplugged the laptop and shut the powerpoint off before we could get attacked with questions like Robby's group was. We also couldn't say the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's name, and Mr. Schick took away my coffee until I said it kind of correctly. Then we finished taking notes on the 5 major religions. Today we wrote down facts about Judaism, and here they are:

• number of adherents: 14-18 million (ninth) 
• call them: Jews 
• geographic location: Israel 
• founder: Abraham 
• holy book: Talmud, Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament)     
• beliefs: ethical monotheism- God is one, and concerned with actions of humankind; Ten Commandments, 13 Principles of Faith 

Presenting the ISIS Projects

Today in Human Geo we all presented our projects on solutions to ISIS. Well not all of us- Lauren and I, and one other group didn't get to go, and one group like barely finished in time for questions. Basically, we all got papers for "evaluation" of each group, and we had to write the names of the people in the group, and we had to grade them on their presentation, research, answers to the questions they were asked, and how good their plan was. We gave them a letter grade for each of these things, and then an overall letter grade on the project. There was also a spot to write extra notes if we needed to. All the groups had really cool ideas and really nice presentations, even though Robby's group got roasted so much. I think this project was pretty cool, and yikes we are going to have to present after Thanksgiving Break because we don't have Human Geography tomorrow.

Finishing Up the "Solving the World's Problems Including ISIS" Project

In Human Geo today we got an extra day to do out group/partner project on ways or possible solutions to ISIS. Lauren and I had gotten pretty far already, but we touched up a few things, and came up with a few more ideas:

• give the Syrian Army materials they need, so they can become stronger and have a better chance at fighting ISIS 
• Kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (leader of ISIS) 
• keep the leader hostage until ISIS will do something for us or surrender 
• threaten them 
• stronger drone assassinations 

Honestly, there isn't any real solution to this problem. ISIS is everywhere, it's near impossible to locate all of them- they are spreading everywhere, and hiding and blending in with other groups and other cultures. There's no exact way to completely destroy them, if we went to war, they would either win or start right back up again if we won. We need to get rid of as many members as we can however, and maybe slowly, but sometime in the future we can take down ISIS for good.


Bibliography:

www.theweek.co.uk

www.wsj.com

www.newsweek.com

www.theatlantic.com

www.foxnews.com

www.businessinsider.com.au

ISIS- Solutions??

Today in Human Geo we had to get into groups and think of possible solutions to ISIS, or ways we can stop them. Lauren and I are working together, and while we don't have it all put together yet to present it, we do have a lot of information, so here it is:

Who is ISIS?

• a group that began in 2004 as al Qaeda in Iraq, before rebranding as ISIS two years later. 
• It was an ally of -- and had similarities with -- Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda: both were radical anti-Western militant groups devoted to establishing an independent Islamic state in the region
• ISIS -- unlike al Qaeda, which disowned the group in early 2014 -- has proven to be more brutal and more effective at controlling territory it has seized. 
• Is in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamist militant group that has seized a chunk of land stretching from northern Syria to central Iraq (referred to as Islamic State by many) 


ISIS Agenda?

• (ISIS) have begun destroying 2000 year old Syrian statues in the ancient city of Palmyra and are claiming to have rigged the ancient ruins with explosives 
• They destroyed several sites across Iraq, includes the destruction and looting of Mosel Museum, the destruction of the 3000 year old Assyrian city of Nimrud and the bulldozing of the 2000 year old fortress city of Hatra. 
• "They don't care what it's called, they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities," said MEMRI Exec. Director Steven Stalinsky. "It is the Islamic State, and there's no room for anyone else. "This has been going on for some time, a systematic campaign to rid the region of any vestiges of Christianity." 
• They terrorize everyone including many Islamists and Muslims that don’t follow what they do. 
Many members have posted to social media what they are doing, for example: ISIS members in the heart of Iraq's once-thriving Assyrian Christian community of Nineveh, destroying symbols the Islamist terror group considers polytheistic and idolatrous. The images show the men removing crosses from atop churches and replacing them with the black ISIS banner, destroying crosses at other locations such as atop doorways and gravestones, and destroying icons and statues inside and outside churches
• They are moving out from Syria and Iraq and are finding more places to terrorize
• 

Ways to Try and Stop ISIS? 

• increase size of US force 
• use bombs or increase the power of the airstrikes 
• work with Syria and Iraq (specifically the Free Syrian Army, we can try and make allies) 
• get as many refugees over here or somewhere else, so we can try and isolate ISIS 
• try and topple their power structure by attacking their leaders or structure of "government" (how many other groups have collapsed) 
• get everyone to agree on something (either with the refugees, get everyone to see that we can’t just sit back and do nothing)

Specific Groups in Danger 

• The Yazidis 
• Iraqi Christians
• Shiites

SaveTheKids (SaveSyria'sKids)

In Human Geo today, I came in to find my desk turned around and I was congratulated on turning my back against everyone? Something like that. Anyways, we watched a really sad and deep video today. It was about a little girl, maybe 9, who seemingly had a good and innocent life, until there started to be a lot of violence, bombs, gunshots and everything. She and her mom actually had to leave their dad behind, and they got sick, lived as refugees, and in the end, were suffering from so much pain, post-traumatic stress, and the loss of everything they had. I loved the way the video was put together because it showed everything almost like she was holding the camera, so you saw her and what was going on around her. Each part was only shown for like 2 or 3 seconds, so we re-watched it and analyzed each part and the hints it left throughout the video, and the symbolism at the beginning and end with the birthday cake was so sad but had a great meaning. The actors didn't look like your regular Syrian Refugees, which in a way represented how it could happen to anybody. We also had a really great discussion about the whole refugees coming over thing, and it's a very complex concept, and I hope we are able to come up with a solution to this one day. (Oh and also Matt got compared to a terrorist because he kind of looked like him, he even said the terrorist looked like his family O.O)

Paris (and Mr.Schick is finally back)

In Human Geo today Mr. Schick was back from Salt Lake City ( I think that's what he said). We also talked about the Paris tragedy. On Friday, there were suicide bombings, threats, and terrorists attacks on Paris. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks. The number of people that died was well over 120. Many people were injured too. The attacks happened in a church, a concert, and a soccer game. I was actually watching the news and it was scary because there was a video of the game and in the background you could hear the bombs go off. Everyone in Paris was in a panic and it's terrible, it's almost like their 9/11. I also feel bad for all the Muslims who are getting "blamed" for this. Yes, ISIS is mostly/all Muslim but not all Muslims are ISIS. They even interviewed a few Muslims who said they have lived in Paris for forever, and are just as affected as everyone else. Luckily, everyone there seems to be really loving. The president of Paris closed the borders and took away the right to reasonable searches and seizures. I'm praying for everyone affected by this, and I hope we can find at least SOMETHING to do about ISIS, and I hope everyone recovers as well and as fast as possible too.

Religion and Babies TED Talk

Today in Human Geo Mr. Schick wasn't here, so we had to go to room 204 and do the work on Veracross, which was watch a video called the "Religion and Babies TED" talk. It was actually really interesting, bringing up how in different countries there are different amounts of babies per women and how some may think that's because of the different religions in all those countries. It doesn't, however. There were a few charts in the video that had some information on them. The first one, which was shown as the speaker was talking about Qatari, was titled Total Fertility Rate Per Woman said "the most important factors are as follows: increased age at first marriage, increased educational level of Qatari women, and more women integrated into the work force." The speaker also talked about how the number of babies per women decrease:

1. children survive 
2. many children are not needed for work
3. women get education and join the labor force 
4. family planning is accessable 

The less amount of children per woman will help with the population of the world greatly, and it will help even more if less people in poverty have less children- they can't afford to, they shouldn't need to have as many kids as they do just so they can live where they are. We've reached peak child, and the world population will probably reach to 10 billion or more. Religion has nothing to do with how many children per woman, the areas where the women live, and what they have to do to keep themselves where they are is. 

I also took the Sporcle quiz on the Veracross post and I didn't do so well, I got a 9/20. It's weird because most of the stuff you feel like you've heard it before or that it would be in a different book than it is. It was weird seeing some stuff I never thought the Bible said and stuff I never thought the Quran would say, because I never thought they were so similar. 

I Was Sick Today ://

Today I wasn't in Human Geo because I came down with a cold that is going around/caught from my sister. I will hopefully get all the notes I missed from Lauren, and I hope I can come back tomorrow after being out for two days. I also took the survey you sent out to us. And I don't know what else to write so I'm going to say au revoir now :)

Learning Stuff About 2/5 Different Religions

In Human Geo today we started a new Unit, and it's on religions. (Kinda controversial but still interesting to talk about.) The first religion we took notes on is Christianity, and here's a few facts we learned/went over:

• number of adherents: around 2.2 billion (largest in the world) 
• call them: Christians 
• geographic location: Europe, the Americas, Southern Africa
• denominations: Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestants (Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, many more) 
• founder: Jesus Christ (its' Abrahamic in origin) 
• holy book: The Bible , especially the New Testament 
• beliefs: Jesus is both human and divine- the Son of God, he led a virtuous life, he was crucified, died, and was buried, and resurrected; he ascended into heaven where he reigns with God the Father 
• clergy: the Pope is head of the church, priests are local authorities 

The next religion we talked about/took notes on was Islam: 

• number of adherents: 1.5 billion (second largest) 
• call them: Muslims 
• geographic location: Indonesia, Middle East, North Africa
• denominations: Sunnis (75-90%), Shiites (10-20%) 
• founder: Muhammad (570-632) 
• holy book: Qur'an 
• beliefs: monotheistic, Abrahamic 
• Five Pillars (testimony, prayer, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage) 
• Muslims see their purpose in life as serving and submitting to Allah (God) and observing Islamic law

Let the Fiesta Begin

So today in Human Geography, Mr. Schick didn't show up for the first little bit of class. There was a lot of stuff that happened during the fifteen minutes he wasn't here. It was a fiesta and there was a lot of talking and hot pockets and chips & salsa  and animal crackers and talking about how Metropolitan was pretty much the same as Neapolitan because they both sounded the same. We also all got an extra 3 or 4 points because one of the questions, number 16, he got the answer wrong. Then we went over the test. I got an 83 (I got 5 questions wrong oh my). But it's better than a C and I'm glad we got the extra credit too. I'm really excited because it's Friday too. And I don't have too much else to talk about so I want to say @ Mr. Schick that I hope you have a good weekend and get less stressed out :)

Test Today

In Human Geo today we took the test on the NOVA- World in Balance, People Paradox video. I don't think I did as bad as I did on the last test, and I feel like I did pretty okay but I guess we will have to see. I finished last and that's okay because I was checking my answers, I get so messed up on tests- I make myself really nervous about it because I always think I got the answer wrong even when I know for sure I didn't. There were a few questions I was a little confused on and had to guess, but hopefully, hOPEfully I got them right. Also thank you for not completely crushing my soul with this test because that's what happened with the last one. I hope I can also get an A this quarter because that would be really really really great.

Test Tomorrowww :)))

Today in Human Geo we went over a lot of our notes because we are having a test tomorrow. Everyone (well almost everyone, I got asked to ask) asked a question to the class and we would say the answer out loud on the count of three, and pRAISE because the test is going to be a scantron. I think I still have to review a little of my notes because I definitely don't know everything but since we have been working on this stuff for a week and a half or more, I am pretty comfortable with it. Apparently it's also a surprise on whether or not we can use our blogs (I hope we can). At the end of class we were shown a few videos that were pretty weird- one was called "Baa" another was called "Cows" or something, and another was just- I don't really even know what I was watching but I want to meet the guy with the mind to make that stuff. So now I'm going to go home and study and hopefully do really well on this test.

Finished the NOVA Video

In Human Geo today we got the news that we are having a test on Thursday and I'm praying it won't hurt as much as the last test. Anyways we finished up the NOVA video today and it was very depressing but I still learned quite a lot. We continued on learning about Africa and Kenya, it's crazy that the life expectancy went from 65-49 years. It's also crazy and sad that such a huge country has a death rate that's rising (first time this has happened). We were told the story of Flourence, a young girl no older than 20, and her whole family died of AIDS. She was left to care for her siblings and families kids, and worked hard to feed house and clothe them- until she got AIDS herself. She caught this deadly disease by doing what so many other women in that type of poverty do- sell her body for money. It's really sad that this is one of the only ways how many women can get money. Adults between the ages of 20 and 40 are decreasing by an insanely large amount, and the number of elders and kids/teenagers are increasing rapidly. The video said that 19% of african women use birth control- and 60% of women worldwide use birth control. Half of the girls in Kenya have children and they are only 18 or 19- some even my age which is insane to think about. The fertility rate there is 4, and India's is 3; neither are very good. It's a scary thought to think about how the population of the world could nearly double the size it is now in less than 50 years. In conclusion, we could solve this problem so many people and women are having by letting them have fewer children or none at all like they want instead of the husbands and families forcing them to give birth over and over again, giving them more rights and opportunities, and allowing them to get jobs so they can have better ways of getting money and providing for themselves and their families.

Finishing Up the NOVA Video

Today in Human Geography, we talked about China and how they are letting up on the "one child per couple" law, which is good, because like Japan, their population is decreasing and there is starting to be more older people than younger ones. We also tried finishing up the NOVA video, but we didn't have enough time. Anyways, in the video we went to Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-saharan means from or forming part of the African regions south of the Sahara desert.The population in this place in 1950 was 1/3 the population of Europe, and by 2050 the population is expected to be 1/3 more than Europe. Every single nation in this area has a bad economy/standard of living. Here are some effects on sub-saharan Africa (and other countries/nations) because of the economy, population and other factors:

• falling per capita incomes
• conflicts 
• pressure on immigrants 

Also, just to add on in Africa, forests are disappearing, natural environments are declining. The video also talked about death rates and birth rates. Because of  modernization, death rates are going down and birth rates are staying the same. Another sad fact of sub-saharan Africa is that 6-9% of the population has HIV or AIDS. That's a lot. 

Now this doesn't go to say that all of Africa is poor, South Africa and other places are modernized, they have cities, towns, and healthy people. But a majority of the population is suffering, and I wish we could do something to help that. 

From India, to Japan, to America

In Human Geo today, we continued on with the video. We learned more stats about India- population could grow by 1 billion by 2050 if couples had 2 children, or 2 billion by 2050 if couples had 2.5 children. The population of the world could increase from around 6-11 billion. Then the video moved onto Japan. We were shown a school that used to have 300 children, now only one kid sits in a single classroom, the last probable student of that school. The fertility rate of Japan is extremely low- it's 1.4 children per woman. One possible reason for this is that many women there are deciding not to get married and have kids, but instead get a job and find new opportunities. Some refer to them as "parasite singles". Japan's economy has also been in a recession. Many more women are starting to have to work rather than stay at home, so their family can stay in the middle class (same for the U.S.) We learned that by 2050, 1 in 3 Japanese will be over the age of 65. There are beginning to be more older people than younger people. We were told the story of the Ohno family: they were an 80 year old elderly couple, whose children left them to start their own families. They have to take care of themselves instead, and they have to work to make a living even at their old age because the only nearby nursing home was full. There is some good news for the elderly in Japan however- disability in the elderly is has been decreasing, so they are able to do more things that people around the age of 40 can do when they are 60,70, or 80. But there is a downside too- soon there will be fewer young workers to help the elders, and help with the industry and marketing and jobs suited for younger people. This will result in less money being made, so not enough taxes, and no Welfare.

Our economy is opposite from Japan however- because of all the immigrants we have coming to our country. On the downside, our economy generates 1/4 of the gases contributing to global warming- we are #2 on the list of the countries most polluting the world.

A similar issue facing these three countries we have talked about so far is the amount of children women are having - it greatly affects population. Many countries are encouraging couples to have more than 2 kids. A conclusion to this is- countries that have the resources to have children aren't, and countries that can't afford to have children are. 

More About NOVA and Uttar Pradesh

In Human Geo today we discussed the two people's loans they made to Kiva, and so far our class are winning with that whole extra credit point class thing. We continued watching the video today too, and it just got worse and worse. Over in Uttar Pradesh, women are basically considered an "economic downer". Like we learned yesterday, when women get married they are then given over to her husbands family to help with her in-laws, abandoning her parents. And if getting a wife wasn't enough for the man, the wife's family would give him a dowery, which is an extra type of "gift" to make it seem like the wife was more valuable and more worth marrying. Examples would be 4 cows and 2 goats, or a few chickens. And since having a boy rather than a daughter over there is so important to their culture, some husbands or in-laws would actually burn or poison the wives, killing or hospitalizing them, just because they gave birth to a boy. What makes it even more sad is that it's common, and not too much of a surprise to many people over there, AND the people that did the burning don't even get charged with crime or put in jail, because "she didn't have a boy" is a good enough excuse. *I don't really understand why they don't realize that the male chromosome plays a part in determining the child's gender.* Many babies are aborted or killed if they end up being female, and this whole part in their culture causes there to be 35 million fewer women than men, and a 7% difference in the ratio between men and women. We talked about ways for women to have a higher place in the ladder of power, because just telling the men, who are the highest in power over there, that it's the "right thing to do" won't do much, because they may just think "what's in it for me?". We thought of allowing women to have job opportunities, and get an education, so they are noticed as being more useful than just being able to give birth. We could also allow them to have connections to the outside world, to realize that this kind of discrimination doesn't exist everywhere, and that they do have a chance.

NOVA-World in Balance-The People Paradox

In Human Geo today, Mr. Schick told us a joke about how "he went to apply for a job to be a bell-ringer" for his church, and when he was there, there was also a man with no arms. He ran into the bell face first, knocked himself out of the building the first time etc etc, and then when everyone was looking at him on the ground wondering who he was, one guy said "I don't know him, but his face sure rings a bell."

Anyways, we took notes on NOVA- World in Balance- The People Paradox- today, and it's a documentary about the population and state of life in different countries/states around the world. Here are the notes I took:

• elders over 60 are expected to outnumber kids under 4
• older people need more healthcare 
• we saw one kid in a Japan classroom, because of the declining birth rate 
• Japan- population expected to decline by half 
• European countries- population expected to have 63 million less people 
• in developing nations, women are giving birth at an enormous rate, more children are surviving than ever before 
• the largest generation in human history is reaching their reproductive years 
• The Taj Mahal was actually built to honor a queen who died giving birth to her 14th child 
• "demographic divide" (ex.- high population vs low population; GDP) 
• India is soon to be the country with the largest population in the world (passing China which is now the largest) 

Uttar Pradesh- one of India's states 

• size of Colorado 
• india total fertility rate: went from 6.0 to 3.0 
• population could double by 2050 
• lives of women need to improve here 
• Gudi, an indian woman, 30 years old, told her story about almost dying due to giving birth to her 8th child
• doesn't want to have a baby/ wants to get sterilized 
• has the least impact on that decision^ her husband and mother in law are able to override her decision 
• her son has to take care of his parents once older, if something happens to him they are out of luck, they need at least one more son because they stay while the girls go off with their husband's families 
• 1 in 10 children die before turning 5 
• 95% of marriages here are arranged 

Kiva Extra Credit

I think Kiva is a really good organization. Even though 25 dollars may seem like a lot compared to other projects, this seems like one you can really rely on, and you know you are definitely helping people. You can even get the money back once they pay the loan back to you, but you also have the chance to turn that money over to someone else. Since Kiva was founded in 2005 , there are 1,345,887 lenders, $770,880,850 in loans, and a 98.46% repayment rate. They work with 302 field partners, 450 volunteers around the world, and 83 different countries. They say they "envision a world where all people-even in the most remote areas of the globe-hold the power to create opportunity for themselves and others." Kiva does not take any money from your donations, they all 100% go to the people. They get all their funds either from lenders or grants, corporate sponsors, and foundations.

I found two borrowers and the first one is named Ederlina. She's from the Bien Unido, Philippines and she seems really responsible and in need of the money. She's married to a fisherman and they have 4 children. For the past 24 years she has been helping him with his fishing business in order to earn a living. Her husband usually fishes during the night, so she prepares what he needs during the day.She wants the money from a loan so she can buy a new fishing net and boat engine, which will assure her that the boat will not encounter delays. A part of the loan will also be used for her to be able to pay her children's tuition fees. She says her main wish is that her children, ages 17 and 19, can finish their college education. The Philippines has an annual income of $7,000, and there are 1766 loans from Kiva to the Philippines right now. The country is not one of much wealth, and in some places there is a lot of crime and poverty. The economy isn't the best, so her needing money to support her family is reasonable.

The second borrower I found that seemed interesting to me was named Aya. She is from Al Hashmi, Jordan and is 24 years old. She's very talented in the visual arts category and had wanted to open up an individual workshop to do her work. She's been involved in a large number of art exhibitions inside and outside Jordan, and she has received many awards for her artwork. She also draws in her home, but it's not suitable enough for her to work in, which is why she opened a workshop of her own. Now that it's in the process of being opened, she wants to buy every item she can for it, and she is very excited about the whole project and being able to improve and develop her talent in art, which is actually what motivated her to apply for the loan. She has a lot of positive energy and wants to put it to good use, and says she will be very thankful if she gets the loan and is able to achieve her dreams. I relate to her myself, because I want to be able to do my art and be able to make people happy with it and put positive energy through my work, which is what she wants to do. Jordan is located in the Middle East Levant region, and regional instability has caused the country to be excluded from global investments for decades now. They also have a lack of natural resources, including water and energy which place a huge strain on the economy. The National Microfinance Bank offers many of the small businesses an opportunity to enhance and expand, and many loans to many underprivileged people like Aya so they can pursue their goals and dreams. 

Kiva

Today in Human Geography we got our tests back and I didn't do so well. But we talked about ways to earn extra credit and one of the ways was to write about the Kiva organization we looked into yesterday. I'm going to start on it tonight and hopefully post it by Saturday. Anyways, the website is really cool because you can click on any person or group of people, even organizations, read about them, find out facts about where they are from, and see what they need money for. You basically donate 25$ minimum to one of these people, it's like a loan, and the cool thing is they pay the loans back and you have the opportunity to just keep on turning the money over to the next person because someone is always going to need it. This website really relates to everything we have been learning about with poverty and everything, and it relates to a lot of issues going on in our world today, which is really cool because we have the opportunity to be involved in something we have been talking about.

Mr. Schick Left So We Compared Countries

Today in Human Geo we had to go to a website where we could compare our country to any other country. The first one I chose to compare was Australia. Three facts I found interesting about this country were:

• it is the sixth largest country in the world with 7,741,220 square kilometers
• a great number of Australia's plant life can be found nowhere else in the world
• is 21.92% less likely to be unemployed then America, Australia has an unemployment rate of 5.70% while the United States has 7.30%

Next, I chose to compare Japan, and found these three facts: 

• it is 65.48% less likely to die in infancy than the U.S.,  the number of live deaths in Japan is 2.13 while in the United States it is 6.17
• after three decades of unprecedented growth, their economy experienced a major slowdown starting in the 1980's, but nonetheless the country still remains a very high economical power 
• in Japan you are 92.11% less likely to be murdered than in the United States (.30 in every 100,000 people in Japan are murdered, compared to 3.80 in the U.S.) 

Lastly, I chose Germany: 

• I would use 40.98% less electricity there than I would here in the United States
• it is Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation (with Russia coming in first) 
• you are 89.11% less likely to be in prison in Germany than in the U.S. 

I think Kiva would be an interesting thing to try and participate in because of the cause and what it would do for the people we donated the 25$ to.

UGH

Today in Human Geo we took this test that was really really really really really really really really really really really really really hard. I studied too and it was very difficult. I had to guess on a lot of them but I think I did pretty good on the CIA World Factbook Part. I got done with two minutes left afterwards. Also there were two staples and I was really confused why. But yeah, it was hard, and I wish I could have written Denali again and gotten extra credit. ughughughughughughughughugh (now I will go cry) As of right now me and Lauren are sharing a desk in biology so we can both cry together. Also I really hope this is a 150 words. Forever and ever Amen.

Pre-PSAT and Human Geo Test Class :/

Today in Human Geo we talked about how we should not play games in class, and how we need to look good in front of a shadow, and the PSAT's. Mr. Schick told us that we shouldn't be scared until the SAT's and how we should however be kind of scared of Thursday because the test is going to be a lot harder than the first one (ah yay) . We also listened to an audio clip of the guy who was given the nobel prize for economics. It tied into everything we have been talking about (poverty, unemployment, effects of globalization). We also practiced with the CIA World FactBook more. The class was really different today because Lauren wasn't here. But anyways I'm glad we don't have to worry about the PSAT's as much as I would have.

Learning More About CIA

Today in Human Geo we talked more about the CIA World Fact Book. We went over the few questions we talked about last week, and then we moved onto the other ones. We also talked about countries in poverty and we talked about the Indicators of Poverty and Hunger:

• food: body mass must be above 16 
• safe drinking water: must be 15 minutes away maximum, and it must not all come from ponds and rivers 
• sanitation facilities: must be accessible from the home 
• health: treatment must be given for serious illnesses and pregnancy 
• shelter: must have fewer than 4 people in each room and not be made of dirt or clay
• education: everyone must go to school and learn to read 
• information: must have some connection to the outside world 
• access to services: education, health, legal, social and financial 

It's also sometimes hard to find where certain things are because of all the categories, but you still learn a lot. 

CIA World Fact Book

In Human Geo we actually used our computers for almost the whole class. We were given the job to go to the CIA World Fact Book website. Mr. Schick put on a powerpoint of at least 20 questions, and we had to go throughout the website and find the answers. It was actually quite easy to navigate once you got started. You can click on any continent and then onto a specific country you want on the map, and get all the information you could possibly want. There are several categories, that don't look too big when you look at them, but when you open them they tell you a lot of facts: introduction, geography, people and society, government, economy, energy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues. It is actually quite helpful and you can learn a lot once you know how to navigate around the site.

(I am also very sorry I am putting this up late.)

Populationnnn

In Human Geo today we talked more about population. We learned about the next migration rate: the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country during a year. We learned about immigration (excess of people entering a country, written as a positive number, and an example is that Canada has 5.56 migrants per 1,000 population and the US has 2.45, but it was 3.62 last year) and emigration (excess of people leaving the country, written as a negative number, and an example would be that Mexico has -1.68 migrants per 1,000 population, -3.61 two years ago, and -3.11 last year). We also talked about why people migrate. They either migrate because of push forces or pull forces.

push forces                                                                          

• unemployment or underemployment
• religious or ethnic persecution 
• civil war 
• environmental degradation

pull forces 

• better economic opportunity 
• better health services 
• religious freedom 
• political freedom 

We learned about fertility rate too. TFR is the average number of children born per woman. And for a population to remain the same, the TFR must be 2.1. If it is higher than 2.1, the population rises, and if it is below, it decreases. It's a huge difference if you compare the TFR of Nigeria (6.89) and the TFR of Japan (1.40). 

Mr. Schick also used me and my desk as an example of migration. 

Population & More

Today in class, I actually had Michaela as a fake shadow for a little bit until she was kicked out. But moving onto the actual class, we got back our pop quizzes and we talked a little bit more about the shooting in Oregon. We talked a lot about the guy that had the gun, and a lot about the stories Mr. Schick's friend told him, about how the guy died and how sometimes the media portrays the criminal as more of a "celebrity" than the actual victims. We also watched a video that was part of a pilot episode for the show "Newsroom". It was a little confusing at first but then once we got into the video, the spokesperson, Will McAvoy, made some very good points of what our country has become, how even though it's awesome, it's definitely not the greatest country in the world. We also continued our notes on Population and Settlement. We learned about Life Expectancy and how the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. We also talked about how women actually tend to live longer than men, because they go to the doctor's more, and how we have different types of things in our bodies than men. We learned about measuring population too: the crude birth rate- number of deaths per 1000 of the population, and the crude death rate- number of deaths per 1000 of the population. Then that ties into rate of natural increase, or RNI, which is what you get when you subtract the death rate from the birth rate.

Umpqua Community College

Today in Human Geo we talked about the Oregon shooting that happened yesterday at Umpqua Community College. Mr. Schick told us about how he used to go there for college, and it was really kind of shocking, especially for him, because that was his old school. We talked a lot about what happened and how many people died and how many people were injured (over 20 people involved). We talked a lot about gun control and if there was any way we could fix this problem, because school shootings are just such a "common" thing for us that we don't even think too much about it anymore, we just shrug our shoulders and move on. This should change, it's kinda sad that America has the highest rate of people killed with guns than any other country. Some ideas of how to solve this problem we talked about were: more background checks, more expensive bullets, and more gun control laws. Mr. Schick's daughter also came into class for the discussion and everything and that was really cool. We also found out that you can just buy a gun off amazon, and literally get it to your house in a day. America can be really scary and we just need all the more good in the world as we can get, because God knows there's too much bad.

pOp qUiZ

Today in Human Geo we took a pop quiz at the start of class that was 15 points. There were 6 questions and I actually got them all right. Then we started talking about the pros and cons of globalization. Some of the pros are:

• globalization is the logical, "natural" expression of modern international capitalism 
• new wealth will "trickle down" from rich to poor (countries and individuals) 
• globalization will spread benefits of new ideas and technologies 
• the world's poor countries will catch up to the rich ones 
• each country can produce the goods for which it is best suited 

Some of the cons are: 

• the only ones who tend to benefit from it are the core countries, results in inequalities between "haves" and "have nots" 
• its just not working in the last 20 years, rich countries have gotten richer while the poor have become more impoverished 
• promotes free-market, export oriented economics at the expense of localized, sustainable economics
• not fair, 20% of the world's richest people consume 86% of the worlds's resource s
• economic system is very unstable; too easy for a crisis to escalate 

We also talked about Population and Settlement for a little too. We found out that 7 billion people live on this earth right now and that by the time we are 20 or so it should have increased by 1-2 billion. It's increasing by over 73 million per year. We also learned that 90% of the population growth takes place in the developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America. 

Testttssssss.

Today in Human Geo we went over our tests we took a while ago. Mr. Schick told us about his "ding system"- if you get a B or lower you don't get a ding on the bell, if you get an A you get one ding, and if you get a 100 or above you get two dings. I only got one. We went over the whole test and we talked for a good while about wrong opinions because one question was asking to share your personal opinion and everyone went and said he should not have taken points off because, it's an opinion. But he said that your opinion can be wrong, and that just because it's your opinion on something doesn't mean you can say anything about a topic and be okay because it's an opinion, some opinions are wrong, you need facts. Lauren also turned her desk around for the whole class and tried to turn around mine.

Talking About Shoes and Stuff

Today in Human Geography we went over the video we watched yesterday. We talked about how underpaid all the Nike employees were. We talked about how terrible it is for them to Mr. Schick is the greatest teacher in the history of mankind.  I am not worthy live in the conditions they live in. We talked about how even though things are cheaper over there than over here, 1.25 a day was not sufficient enough. We also looked at different shoe and athletic wear companies other than Nike such as Under Armour. They are not as bad with having the workers in poor conditions like Nike, but they only have a net worth of 1 billion, while Nike has a net worth of around 86 billion. Nike's co founder is worth 26 billion dollars himself. Nike also sponsors many famous athletes, you think at least they could use some money for the benefit of all the Indonesian workers. 

Behind the Swoosh

Today in Human Geography we had a substitute, and we watched this short film called "Behind the Swoosh". It was a story told by a student at St. John's university named Jim Keady. He started doing research on Nike and where the factories of Nike were located, and what condition the workers there lived in; because he was told by his University that he had to wear Nike or he would have to resign. He believed how they lived was unfair and wanted to go see for himself the truth "behind the swoosh". He went to one of the Nike sweatshops for a month during the summer with a girl who felt the same way about this issue named Leslie Kretzu. When they got there they were welcomed and soon given respect by the factory workers after they saw that the two were on their side. All of the workers there lived in small cement 8x8 blocks. There was no furniture, and their bed was a single mat with maybe some type of cloth over it. They dealt with many rats and cockroaches, dirty water, and immense heat and humidity. They had to share all of the living areas, laundry corners, kitchen space, and wells with 5-10 other families. And after living in these conditions, working for 10 hours a day or more, they only were paid $1.25 a day. Their children were suffering too. They barely saw their parents, could not go to school, and all the nike scraps were put in piles in the children's playing area, where they were burned and released toxic fumes which damaged the children's lungs and caused them to get very sick. Jim lost 20 pounds during the month he was there, and Leslie got very sick and could only afford to get medicine and a drink, no food. The two then went to the factory office/headquarters where they were refused to see what they wanted to see, even though Nike claims they have nothing to hide, and they were continuously followed by security and factory management. All the workers were told not to speak to the two, and if so, would be terribly punished. Many workers suffered from the cruelty of the factory bosses, such as one named Julianto who was held at gunpoint, ransacked, and completely made scared, just because he did one thing that disobeyed the headquarters orders. Jim tried to talk to the Nike CEO and others, but they all refused to talk to him. Nike is in Indonesia because of cheap labor. I think that this is just heartbreaking, you're seeing families who work so hard every day, barely getting by, getting paid much much less by this huge company than someone like Tiger Woods, who gets millions of dollars by just endorsing Nike. And all the company management refuses to actually admit that what is happening is wrong, and it is so hypocritical. They obviously do have something to hide if they refuse to even speak with someone about what goes on behind the shoe. Just like Jim had said, America is not capitalism. Capitalism is not an excuse for this. America is a democracy where every human being should be treated as human beings.

I'm a Muslim But...

Today in Human Geo we went over when we would get our tests back/how we did. We also went over MORE globalization. We talked a lot about religion and stereotypes. Such as people in Mr. Schick's family being told to "go back where they came from" just because they were a certain race. We watched a video called "I'm a Muslim But..." where muslim people would say "I'm a Muslim but I'm not a terrorist." or "I'm a Muslim but I'm not forced to wear a burka." or "I'm a muslim, but I love to dance and go to parties." This was a video just showing and going against all their stereotypes. I thought it was enlightening and really cool. We also talked about Ahmed, the Muslim student who brought a clock that looked like a bomb into school and got arrested when he shouldn't have. And at the end of class, Mr. Schick showed us this selfie with the Walking Dead filter on it, and Lauren asked if she could come to the Speech and Debate Team after school on Thursday to have pizza with them, but just mainly come for the pizza.

More Globalization

  In human geo today we went over the website again. We talked about how many of America's things they have now like businesses, places, restaurants, and brands have become important to many other cultures and places in the world. This is called Americanization. We also talked about McDonald's a lot. We talked about the movie called "Super Size Me" and how food and drinks from fast food restaurants were bad for you. Lauren also talked about how McDonald's did not have veggie burgers, but Burger King did. We talked about how a lot of things we have in America are made in places like China and other places around the world because the workers can get payed less.

Globalization

Today we talked a lot about globalization. We went to this website and had to take the caption off of the pictures and put them into our own words. Here is what I came up with (some of them have titles):

1st caption
often associated with "Americanization"- exporting of American brands and consumer goods
2nd caption- Silk Road
old civilization, the silk road was a collection of trade routes connecting the markets of Asia with Arabia, the Mediterranean, and East Africa; routes still used today
3rd caption-Santo Nino de Cebu
globalization has spread religious beliefs (example, Roman Catholicism, originated from Mediterranean regions is now the dominant religion of the Philipines)
4th caption- Mobile Maasal
still held old traditions but they were influenced by other parts of the world with things like cell phones and farming
5th caption- language learning
knowing more than one language is common, as globalization involves many cultures; some such as English and Mandarin have millions of speakers while others like Quecha have become endangered
6th caption- exchange
shipping is huge, shipping containers are a product of increased globalization, huge quantities of goods are exported and imported by countries around the world
7th caption- United Nations Headquarters
each flag represents a united nations member state
8th caption-
 movies and art forms are one of the leading media of globalization
9th caption-
is a process that brings diverse cultures into everyday contact

Then we had to read the definition and put that into our own words:
globalization- connection of different parts of the world, results in different economical and political activities in people's lives, as cultures, beliefs, and goods move around the world, everyone becomes a little more similar with the way they live

Lastly, we had to read the first section called Globalization in History and do the same thing:

• has a long history 
• greek culture spread across much of southwestern Asia, northern Africa, and southern Europe
• silk road promoted exchange of ideas, knowledge, and goods 
• when colonies began oversees there was more globalization
• Britain's colony supplied goods like cotton to places such as India
• accelerated in the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution; mechanical mills and factories became common; companies used raw goods 
• sped up when air travel came into play, and when free trade and the Information Age became things
• many miles of fiber-optic cable connect the continents, allowing people around the world to immediately communicate through the web

Did You Know?

Today in Human Geo we watched this video called "Did You Know?". There are many different versions of it but we watched the one for 2012. It talked about how the world has changed over the years. There were a lot of interesting facts, such as that the top 10 in demand jobs now, did not exist in 2004. That's interesting to me because that means that new jobs people are thinking of just have been coming out of the blue, many new jobs are coming into existence every year and to think about some of them, like cyber security and working at places like YouTube or Google, and how they did not exist or we did not have a reason for them just a few years ago is insane. Another thing in the video said that the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the population of the planet. That is crazy because it really shows how many times a day people are on their phone communicating that way with people. It's crazy because so many people in the world do not have access to a device that can make texts, and that the people who do , have sent more texts than the actual human race. Just in a day. One last fact we heard in the video was that over the years different things have taken longer to sell (in this case, to sell 50 million of the product). When the radio first came out, it took a long time- 38 years to be exact- to sell 50 million of them, no matter how many people were interested. When the TV came out, it took 13 years. When the internet became available to everyone to use, it only took 4 years to get 50 million users on there. The iPod only took 3 years, and FaceBook- only 2. I think this proves how much more people have become adjusted to technology and how much technology has just become the "norm" for us now a days. This video made me think that I will have many oppertunities for amazing, advanced things in my life. Technology is used constantly around me and by me, that it makes me wonder what is to come next, and how I'm going to be affected by it.

We Took Our First Test

Today in Human Geo we took our first test. It was on Socrates, Athens, and A Message to Garcia. The test was mostly easy. I really hope I did well. I mean I know I didn't fail (hopefully, crossing my fingers) but I probably did not get a straight 100. There were a few multiple choice, short answer, fill in the blank, and there were four essays. The one essay on what it would be like being an ancient Greek gathering place to talk about an important issue, was the only one that I had a little trouble on. I think I now know about what Mr. Schick's tests are like and the style of them. I'm happy I also finished with 15 minutes left so I could write this now. I also really hope I spelled Denali right for the extra credit point: what is Mount McKinley called now? It was two extra credit points so lets hope.

So. Socrates.

Today we went over our notes for our test tomorrow. And then we went more in depth about Socrates and what happened in his life. We learned that as a young man, he worked as a stonemason, and he also fought heroically in the Peloponnesian War. His working class backgrounds and battlefield experiences may have shaped the way he viewed the world. We learned he was a tough guy, he became a teacher at a time in his life: he met with young students just outside the agora.

He had some controversy though. Athens was a great city which attracted brilliant thinkers, visitors from all over the world shared their knowledge of science, and things like medicine, literature, and philosophy. This however was often at odds with traditional teachings which centered around the Greek gods, which got young people thinking and questioning.
He was charged with two crimes: corruption of Athens youth, and impiety (not believing in the gods of the state.)
His defense was this: "It's my job to be gadfly to the lazy, sluggish horse that is Athens." "I should actually be rewarded with free dinners for life."
A jury of 500 male citizens found him guilty. His death was hard for almost everyone, and they allowed him the chance to be free, but he refused, in order to prove his respect and loyalty to Athenian democracy. He had the mindset that he was getting punished by his people and wasn't going to "run away" from it, but take the punishment heroically. His cause of death was having to drink a cup of poison hemlock.

We went into more detail about the Socratic Method too. Basically, you ask a series of questions to determine someones underlying beliefs and how much they know. He thought you should have reasoning, deeper meaning, and look further into things. This led to the Scientific Method.

Socrates summed pretty much everything that we learned up: The unexamined life is not worth living.                                                                                                                                            

I Left Early

On Friday, September 11th, I left school early to go out of town and I missed some classes and one of them was Human Geo, so this is my blog post for that day.

A Little Bit About Ancient Greece

Today in Human Geography we quickly went over what we talked about yesterday, and then we started learning about ancient Greece. We learned a greek word- areté. It means any kind of excellence, a moral virtue, and living up to one's full potential. It involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans. We talked about how the highest human potential is knowledge. If areté is knowledge and study, than the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself.

We also were asked to define several Greek words, events, and people:

agora- a term for "open place of assembly"
polis- a city state in ancient Greece, often fortified and with a sacred centre built on a natural acropolis or harbor
Socrates- a classical Greek philosopher, viewed by many as the founding figure of Western philosophy
the Socratic method- a form of inquiry and discussion based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and ideas
the Death of Socrates- an oil painting by French painter, Jacques-Louis David; painting of the execution of Socrates. He was convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing different gods, and was sentenced to die by drinking poison hemlock.

why the year 508 DC is important to the ancient Greeks- they established the first democracy in that year and it's also a year of the pre-julian roman calendar
what the ancient Greeks meant if they called you an idiot- they meant you did not participate in politics

Learning a Little More About a Message to Garcia

The first thing we did in class today was discuss our human geo schedule, such as when we had tests and class. We talked about exams and I'm happy that we have a half day each day we have exams (no classes, no lunch, no advisory) and a 17 day Christmas Break :)))) Then we took notes on a powerpoint called Excellence, it talked more about a Message to Garcia. We learned that it was published in March 1899 and re printed as a pamphlet and a book, with over 40 million copies sold. It was also made into a movie twice in the 1900's. I don't understand how a few pages of an essay was made into a movie and book, but it was. The term "take a message to Garcia" is used sometimes, especially in the military and it pretty much means to take initiative.

We learned about the "backstory" too. The setting was during the Spanish/American War. Garcia was a revolutionary seeking Cuban independence from Spain. Rowan was an army officer, and McKinley was the 25th President of the United States. During his second term he was assinated by an anarchist, and until last week he had the tallest mountain in North America named after him, but now the mountain is back to the name Danali.

Also, we went over some of the vocabulary terms we didn't understand. We talked about what we thought Elbert Hubbard was saying and in my opinion, he is talking about not enough people back then being like Rowan . It's about having the work ethic to take initiative and doing a task straight away without any complaints or questions.

5 Things I Hope to Do This Year

Coming in as a freshman to John Carroll was a very different experience for me than middle school was. I was very scared and nervous but once I got here I felt more comfortable. I had already thought of some things that I wanted to do before school even started, but now that I'm one week in and I see how everything works and all the things I can do, I've thought of 5 other things I want to accomplish this year. 

The first thing is trying to get straight A's. I had straight A's for a while in middle school but as the classes got harder I started getting lower grades. My hardest subject to get an A in is math. I hope to improve in that class, and I hope to at least get through two quarters with all A's. 

The second thing I want to do is to be more social. I'm not very outgoing around new people or people I don't know. My old school was very small and I've been there since I was three, so I was very comfortable, outgoing, and social there. But now that I'm in a bigger school and in a lot of classes without friends I'm super close to, its harder for me to be that way. I want to come out of my shell a little bit and meet new people. 

The third thing is I want to join a sport. I never was really too into sports but I've been thinking about lacrosse and I'm thinking of trying out for it in the spring. 

The fourth thing I want to do is become a better writer. I really like writing, and I hope that here at John Carroll I can improve my writing skills and come up with new ideas for books or short stories. 

The fifth and final thing I want to accomplish this year is get more involved with fine arts. One of my favorite hobbies is drawing, I have many sketchbooks at home and I do it a lot to pass the time and I like thinking of new things I can make. I hope I can find some new techniques or ideas here, and learn a lot more about art and what it is. I want art to be a hobby that I continue to do for a long time. I also may want to try and help out with the theater productions, or helping with costumes or sets for it too. I want to get more involved in the fine arts department and improve my drawing a lot this year.

These are five major things I hope to do in my freshman year here at John Carroll.  

Today We Talked About A Lot

Today in Human Geo we went over what we read yesterday, which was a story by Elbert Hubbard called "A Message to Garcia" . A lot of us shared what we wrote for our blog post, we had to talk about the meanings of words we didn't understand and what we thought the author was saying. We  talked about a lot of other things as well. Such as people being lazy in their work and jobs. For example, a girl in our class told us about the time she went to McDonald's for a smoothie , and the worker said she couldn't have one because the machine wasn't working, when she clearly saw the machine running. Mr. Schick also said there were many times when he went to Home Depot or some other store, and the workers just blandly pointed him in a direction on where to go. We also discussed what people think is wrong about our generation and our defenses to what a lot of people say. We talked a lot in class today and I liked it because it gave everyone the chance to say their opinions and thoughts.

A Message To Garcia

So today in Human Geo, after we worked out all our problems with the computers and getting our blog posts sent to Mr. Schick, we were given an assignment: read the paper, a Message To Garcia and take notes about it. I saw some words that I didn't understand, but now I know what they mean. One of them was slipshod. Turns out that means a person or method of work that is characterized by lack of interest, organization, thought, and care. I also didn't know what dowdy meant, but now I know it means a person without good style or appearance. I had no clue what maudlin meant but soon figured out it meant overemotional, or tearful or way too sentimental, sometimes while in some type of drunken state. I also found out that missive is a type of letter, usually a long one.

I think what Hubbard is talking about here is Rowan, who was told by the President to be a messenger to Garcia who was somewhere up in the mountains. He took the task, held it to his heart, and completed the task without any hesitation or questions. He passed through many places and ran into many problems but persevered and stuck to it no matter what. I think Hubbard is also sort of praising people who have the same skills, qualities, and work ethic as Rowan. He's praising the people that are willing to carry out responsibilities, can work independently, the people with a strong work ethic, and people who just get the job done right and on time. I think this is also kind of a motivation for people to have the same qualities and work ethic as Rowan.

My First Day

My first day at John Carroll went a lot better than I thought. I expected to get lost several times or go into the wrong class, or not even be able to get my locker open but none of that stuff happened. The only thing that went sort of wrong was when I got to my Algebra 2 class a little late. I was able to hang out with all the new people I met on orientation day, and I sat with all my friends from my old school at lunch. I also got help from an upperclassmen when I was trying to find my English class. Once I got in and found my way around I was a lot less nervous. I was able to figure out how everything worked really quickly and even though we went over a lot of basic rules and everything in all of the classes, but we already have homework, and I'll definitely remember to get the right notebook since Mr. Schick threw it around the room and stomped on it. I'll also remember where my English class is since its right near the room I have art in, which is my favorite class. All of my teachers were really nice and I'm excited for some of my classes this year. Some classes I'm really looking forward to this year are Intro to Drawing, Human Geography, and French. I'm really excited for tomorrow and my next few years here at John Carroll.