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.