9/28/12

Class on Friday was very interesting. In the beginning of class we waited for Mr. Schick to come in but after what seemed like about 5 minutes we all decided to wonder where he was. Some people were saying maybe it was a test to see if someone was going to call or we were just going to shut off the lights and sit in the room quietly to avoid class, some people were saying he probably wasn't back from his field trip yet, and some people were saying he wasn't teaching today and we had a substitute who probably got lost. So after about 5 minutes Mo suggested calling the office and I asked her if I could do it and she let me. So I talked to the nice lady on the phone and told her what was happening and she said, " Mr. Schick is on his way." So after another 3 minutes Mr. Schick finally came and we watched more of God Grew Tired Of Us. It showed the 3 main characters and how they were adjusting in America after a whole year. Joe ended up finding his family was alive and he decided not to spend his money on school, but to use his money to help them.

9/27/12

Today all class we watched God Grew Tired Of Us. It is such a good movie. The video part we watched was about how the United States government picked a bunch of the Lost Boys and relocated them to America. The first part of it followed Panther and Daniel. They were relocated in Pittsburg PA. The video follows them and a group of other people and their new understanding of America.  They go to the super market with no understanding what so ever what most of the food is and how to cook it or anything. They are then assigned to their 4 person apartment and are introduced to all the machinery      (blenders, toilets, alarm clock, refrigerators…etc.). After seeing them get settled in Pittsburgh the video follows John. John is relocated in New York and he also is new and inexperienced with the food and the machinery. As he is talking to the camera the mystery of why the video is called God Grew Tired Of Us. John explains how he felt that after he and his people were ran out of Sudan by the Muslims that he felt God just grew tired of them and forgot about them. Overall the video was amazing and inspiring and the same time it was sad and heart breaking.

9/26/12

Today in human geography we reviewed the test that we took on Monday. We debated if certain answers could be accepted and realized what we did wrong on our wrong answers. We went over the test because Mr. Schick said we need to know it in the future for exams (midterms).  Someone in our class was shadowing a student from another school who was looking at John Carroll as their possible future high school. A little bit into the class people wouldn’t stop talking and it got to the point where Mr. Schick had to walk out of the room until we quieted down.  When he came back we finished going over the test and then we started to watch God Grew Tired Of Us again. We only watched for about less than 10 minutes because our mod ended and we had to go to our next class. 

9/24/12

Today in human geography we took our first test. It was worth 100 points and I thought it was fairly easy except for this one sections about Nigeria, India, Italy, and the United States. Most of it was multiple choice so that was a bonus too. After we finished the test we started to watch a video documentary called God Grew Tired Of Us. It was a really sad film about how the war in Sudan affected people’s lives. Thousands of people died. Kids werelocked into a house and the house was set on fire. The documentary followed “the Lost Boys” I their journey to find safety. They traveled to Ethiopia and for about 3 years they had safety until a new government power came to power and kicked the Sudan refugees out. They then had to travel to Kikawa Kenya (or at least I think that is where they went). There was a camp in Kenya that was created by the United Nations. The Sudan refugees still live there and they are creating a new culture.

9/21/12

In human geography on Friday our group presented our power point on Brazil.  We accidently forgot to put Eleanor’s real last name and put “Eleanor Butt face” instead. Mr. Schick and our group had a miniature debate on if Brazil was a developed or developing country. We ended up finding evidence on why Brazil was a developing country and we “stumped the teacher”. Well actually not really but you could say we did. Besides our power point there were 2 other power points that were pretty interesting.  Besides widening my knowledge on Brazil I also had a lot of fun with everyone on the group (Eleanor, Olivia, and Savannah). I learned a lot from this assignment and I’m looking forward to doing another assignment like this, hopefully with the same group. 

9/20/12

Today in human geography I didn't actually present my own power point, but I watched about 3 and a half power points. The power point that interested me the most was the power point about Nigeria. Just a couple facts that stuck in my head were was Nigeria was a developed nation and it has a 10.22 net migration rate. I always thought of Nigeria to be a developing country. It definitely surprised me and proved me wrong. There was also a power point about Indonesia, which was pretty entertaining because of the people that presented it.  They were a little disorganized but it all in all a good presentation. The last power point was cut off by the bell and the people who were presenting it didn’t get to finish it. Tomorrow my group is probably going to present. 

9/19/12

Today in class we were put into groups and were each assigned a country. I was put into a group with Savannah, Eleanor and Olivia. Our group is the best ever!

9/17/12

Today is Monday, which is supposed to be the worst day of the week, but human geography brightened up my day. The lesson whizzed by as we went through a power point and were told we were going to have a test on either Thursday or Friday. We learned a lot through the power point that Mr. Schick made. Something that really interested me was the fact that women tended to live longer than men. The reason behind this is men tend to take on more dangerous jobs, such as: firefighting, coal mining, joining the military. There are also small factors that tie into the topic because health is also a problem for men. Men tend to have more heart problems than woman. Another big topic we talked about was how the population of the planet is growing and the life expectancy now-a-days. The population of the world now is 7 billion people, and by the time I am in my 40’s the population will most likely be in the 10 billions. And in 2003 the life expectancy was thought to be in the 60’s. Now in 2012 the life expectancy is thought to be in the 70’s. Summing it all up we learned a lot this class period.

9/14/12

In human geography today we talked as a class the whole time. Everybody gave their opinions and asked questions about a video we had watched the previous class. We talked about the facts in the video that stood out to us. For example, there are more honors students in India than there even are students in America. Some of us gave our opinion on the fact and we all dissected the statement and discussed it more deeply. It really shows how huge India’s population is, especially compared to America’s population. Another thing we talked about is the fact that 1 out of every 8 couples get married after meeting online. I would never go on an online dating sight because first of all, people lie all the time about their physical appearance, there financial situation(they can say they are rich), and everything you could possibly lie about. Over all we had a really successful class and I ended up having a lot of fun.

9/13/12

Today in human geography we had some technical difficulties in the beginning of class. Most of everyone’s blogs weren’t working because they were either removed from the website or they needed a verification to continue blogging.  We talked more about the questions we did 2 nights ago for homework, and for some reason we talked a lot about if men could be pregnant. Madison kindly enlightened us that it was impossible for a man to have a baby because if they went into birth it would break their ribs…anyway we ended to class watching a video. I found 2 facts especially interesting, the fact that there are more honor students in India than there are students in the US. I also was found it very interesting that if Facebook was a country it would be the third biggest in the whole world (behind India and Japan). It was a very “interesting” lesson. 

9/12/12

Today in class we went over some of the questions we did for homework and deeply discussed them. It was really interesting to go more into our answers as a class and discuss the questions more deeply. I’ve always known that we have it better than a lot of other countries but I never realized how much. Even the things that we take as a negative, other countries have it way worse. A good example is how much our gas is here. In America we charge about 3 dollars per gallon and in all in ends up being about 40 to 70 dollars. But in other countries, such a Europe, they charge per liter. So it is probably triple the amount than our every-day gas prices. I really liked learning about the differences between the countries and I’m looking forward to continuing our lesson on them tomorrow.

Most interesting questions

I thought the most interesting questions were "What country has the greatest amounts of exports? (China)" because it shows how much a lot of countries depend on China for resources, and 
 "What country has the highest GDP per capita in the world, and how much is it? (Liechtenstein 141,000$)" because it shows how important Liechtenstein is.

CIA Factbook Questions

What is the population of the United States? 313, 847, 465

What are the five largest countries in the world, by population? China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil

What is the population of Pakistan? 190,291,129

What kind of government does the United States have? Constitution-based federal republic

What is the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe? 24.9%

What is the largest country in the world by area? Russia

What country has the third greatest number of airports? Mexico

What country has the greatest number of exports? China
What country exports more oil than any other? Saudi Arabia
What country imports more oil than any other? United States
What country consumes more oil than any other? United States
Can women serve in combat roles in China’s military? Yes
What is GDP? Gross domestic product ( the value of all the final goods and services produced in a nation over a year.
What country has the highest GDP per capita in the world, and how much is it? Liechtenstein 141,000$
Is the US in the top ten for GDP per capita? No
Most of the countries with the highest birth rates can be found in what continent? Africa
11 of the top 12 countries with the highest number of deaths from HIV/AIDS can be found in which continent? Africa
What other country is in the top ten? Asia
Where does the US rank in HIV/AIDS deaths? 18
Is the US #1 in number of cellular phones? No, it is 3rd
What percentage of the US is Roman Catholic? 23.9%
What percentage of Mexico is Roman Catholic? 76.6%
What is Net Migration Rate? Difference of immigrants of an area at a period of time
Does the US have the highest Net Migration Rate in the world? no it is 26
What is the current population of the entire planet? Over 7billion

9/6/12

Today was a REALLY fun day in human geo. We started off the class with a note taking exercise about Illinois, and I didn’t do very well in it. We then found out the exercise was really for a 4^th grade class. Finding out you didn’t do well in a 4^th grade exercise isn’t a real confidence booster if you ask me. Somewhere in between the exercise Mr. Schick told us the story of where he was born. Supposedly all the hospitals in Chicago were closed and his mom had to travel, in negative 12 degree weather, to a shady neighborhood in order to find the only hospital that wasn’t closed. After that, a few selected students read their notes (which they formed into a paragraph) to the class. We learned we should not write complete sentences and abbreviate in order to take quick and efficient notes. At the end of class Mr. Schick allowed us to start our blog early. I already can’t wait for human geo tomorrow!

9/5/12

Today in human geo we spent most of the class listening to Mr. Schick tell us about what websites are safe for research, and what websites are not. He pulled up several websites and had us guess if they were good solid websites that we could use for a research paper or a website with false information that is not true. Up till now I thought we should never use Wikipedia. Well I was wrong. Mr. Schick enlightened all of us on how amazing Wikipedia really is. It is pretty much the latest edition of the encyclopedia but it is on the web. I have always neglected to use it because I was told people edit it all the time, but Mr. Schick let us know how often people do that and they do not do it a lot. Most of the knowledge on there is trust worthy and I will definitely use it more in my future essays/ projects.

Essay #3

I am definitely aiming for excellence over my next four years at John Carroll. A number one topic for me that I need to work on is organization. In middle school I was SO unorganized. I would be all over the place for midterms and finals and be stressed out more than I should be for tests. This year I’m going to keep everything in a designated place so I can just bring a folder home for a test instead of several notebooks, a text book, and several folders. Another huge thing I need to work on is procrastinating. Again in middle school I would push everything to the last minute and stress myself out. Instead of rushing to do my homework before sports I would wait till the last minute after. This year I am going to make sure I do my work right away or as soon as I get it. I’m also aiming to work just a little harder in my weaker subjects.  Maybe if I study a lot harder in my weaker areas I will possibly be able to make them one of my strong subjects. Another thing I’m going to aim for is balancing my sports and my academics. I usually would look forward to my sport’s practices and just not think about my homework until I had to. This year I’m going to use my off mods wisely so I can get some of my homework done before my practice or game. One more thing that is a big “DON’T” this year is using the computer as a toy and not a work device. I am going to make sure to not go on any other sites besides the site I am supposed to be in class. This year excellence is definitely a huge goal for me and I hope to follow everything I said in this paragraph. 

Essay #2

If Elbert Hubbard and Socrates traveled into our time period they would be disgusted. A lot of people nowadays are lazy because of the use of technology. They have all the knowledge of the world at their fingers and what was meant to be a more efficient way to do things has turned into a way for people not to do their work properly. People used to have to go to the library, pick out a book and read it to find the information that they need. Now people can just go on yahoo answers and ask the question on the internet for someone else to answer. People have taken full advantage of the internet and not in a good way. Elbert Hubbard would especially be disgusted. It’s rare to find people nowadays who will just do the task given to them without dreading it and putting it off and even making someone else do it. It’s hard to find a modern day Rowan. Socrates would probably be less disgusted though because people in the US have an equal say in voting for the president and the governor. Maybe he would even be happy and proud to know that his teaching method, The Socratic Method, is still being used today in schools worldwide. He would also probably be very confused when people start throwing around the word idiot because it means a completely different thing from the time period he lived in. The point is they would both be shocked and disappointed in the dramatic change between their time period and ours.

Essay #1

My original definition of arête is excellence of many varieties. Someone with arête is smart, brave, witty, athletic, and confident, features that an everyday hero needs. And some people like this were considered hero’s back then. One example, someone we should all know by now, is Socrates. Socrates was smart and witty. He was confident in his beliefs to the point where he died for them. Socrates thought outside of the box. His teaching method, the Socratic Method, is a perfect example of how unique his mind was. He repetitively asked question in order to make his students become their own person by making them develop their own opinion and debating it in class. The Greeks demonstrated arête by giving everyone a say in their government and making everyone equal in opinion. They looked down on idiots, who were the opposite of arête. Idiots were anti-social civilians who didn’t participate in voting and kept to themselves.  Arête was definitely a huge part of the Greek civilizations and in a way it still is today.

8/31/12

Friday afternoon in human geography we went over mainly the definitions that we did the night before for homework. We talked about arête, and the date 508 BC, but there was one thing that interested me the most, the death of Socrates. You can’t help but admire if someone had the courage to not only stand up for their beliefs but to die for them. And the thing is he didn’t put up a fight, he didn’t try to run away when he had so many opportunities to do so, he accepted the death so freely that it makes me belief it is the pure definition of courage. Everyone wanted Socrates to do the simple thing and just say he was sorry, even if he wasn’t all he had to do was say it, but he denied the easy way out and he chose his beliefs over his life. While his followers, his friends and family cried over his decisions he freely chose the cup of liquid that would lead to a painful and terrible death. You can’t help but admire the pure courage and solitude of Socrates and I can without a doubt say he is one of the bravest men in history.