9/28/12

On Friday, Mr Schick was not there so we had a substitute. She was the person who is always in the room before our class, actually we are in her classroom. She asked us a lot of questions about the movie. Some of the questions included what has happened so far, what is like in the refugee, was the refugee a happy place or a sad place? She also made us write some notes on the questions. She left the room for about 2 minutes to get the video, while she left she had us write three sentences on what we predict will happen in the movie. In the movie, they talked a lot about how they missed their family. One of the narrator found his family, but his mom is sick with disease and a lot of uncles got killed by government troops. Because of all this happening, he decided not to go to college like he was planning to but instead work 2+ jobs to make money to send back to the refugee camp for his family. I like the movie though, even if it is starting to become sad now.

9/25/12

Today in class, we reviewed the test we took yesterday. Depending on whether or not you got an A, Mr. Schick would ring a bell. If you got an A, the bell would ring, if you did not get an A, no bell ring for you. I did not get a bell ring unfortunately. But to start the class off, Mr. Schick gave us chocolate chip cookies, but there were only enough for 18 out of the 20 students because the people in Mr. Schick's advisory ate 32 cookies, even with two of the people missing. Luckily, I was not one of the two people who did not get a cookie. The cookies were delicious and I very much appreciated them. After reviewing the tests, we continued to watch the movie about the Lost Boys of Sudan. We only watched the movie for about 5-10 minutes, and most of that time was spent trying to figure out how far into the movie we are, but that's okay.

9/24/12

Today in class, we took a test and watched a movie. I didn’t think the test was too hard but there were a few questions I got confused on. After we took the test, we watched part of a movie and took notes on it. The movie was about the Lost Boys of Sudan and there struggle to get out of Sudan during the Civil War. Classes ended when the narrator announced that the United States of America allowed some of the Lost Boys in the camp, to come to America. A lot of the Lost Boys were young boys between the ages 5-10 who were stuck at refugee camps for 10 years after the Muslims in Sudan decided ethnic cleanse everyone who was not Muslim. The movie told about the journey they went to from Ethiopia to Kenya and how then went from over 20 thousand to about 15 thousand because many starved to death, were shot, or attacked by animals. The part of the movie we finished was sad but I think you can learn a lot about the other nations through it. 

9/21/12

Today in class, people continued to go through their presentations. I don't remember any of the countries that went except for the USA. But I do remember what happened in the beginning of class. Doori and her group were about to give their presentation when they noticed a bug on the screen so they were all trying to get the bug off the screen and stuff. During that someone said a line from Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory so I forget who, but someone got the video up, so about the other half of the class was singing to the song. I think two of the groups that went on Friday were India and the USA. But I'm not positive if they went, or if any other groups went as well. Mr. Schick also announced that the test was moved to Monday because he wanted to finish the presentations before we took the test. But I already knew that because Mr. Schick told a few people the day before. Then class ended.

9/19.12

Today in class, we finished working on our project. Some groups were already done, like the group I was in, so I talked to Doori and some other people while I was waiting for the other groups to finish. Italy was the first country/group to go, they had a lot of interesting information, like how the population is barely increasing but they make a lot of money from electrical exports. The make money from exporting oil, but Italy doesn’t have enough oil to supply themselves so they have to important oil, but since they’re near the Middle East, they most likely get a steady supply of oil. My group, Nigeria, was the second group to go. I didn’t walk up to do the presentation but I was on CIA World Factbook getting the question Mr. Schick asked. At the end of my presentation, someone had a song on their laptop that kind of, not really, went with our presentation, so the song was played. 

9/18/12

Today we were working on our presentations and since we had to do the rest for homework, we don’t have to blog.

9/17/12

Today in class, we took a ton of notes off of a powerpoint that Mr. Shick said that he spent all night working very hard to make it boring and full of facts and statistics, he succeeded in doing so. Some of the notes had important vocab words and information that we need to know for a test that is coming up soon. Some of the vocab words included, life expectancy, crude birth rate (CBR), crude death rate (CDR), developing nations, developed nations, rate of natural increase (RNI), net migration rate (NMR), immigration, emigration, push forces, pull forces, and total fertility rate (TFR). At the end of class, we watched a music video from this really weird foreign language song that’s currently #1 of Itunes. The music video was really weird, like one of the weirdest videos I’ve ever seen. It was even weirder because it was in a foreign language so you had no idea what they were saying. The class today was really fun yet strange. 

9/15/12

Today in class, we talked about a bunch of different stuff in class. The class had a discussion with each other about different stuff on the video we saw about the bunch of different facts. We talked about what happens on chatrollet and omegle. We also talked a lot about online dating and how there can be a lot of creepers on there, but then again if your desperate enough, you could find someone on there. And then people told stories about what can happen on dating websites, like people lying about their age and then people murdering other people. We also talked about all of possible things there could be around in a few years, like computers in the Iron Man movie and a chip that can go into the back of your head and you could talk to people through thoughts. I think that this class, was the funniest class yet. 

Tenth Day

Today was the tenth day of Human Geography class. We finished going over the questions from the CIA world factbook. We got side tracked, a lot. We talked a lot about how HIV/AIDS is a major problem in India and a lot of African countries. I also learned that not all places in Africa are poor and there are major cities with sky scrapers. Also we talked about Slumdog Millionaire and how it was actually filmed in the Indian city. We also watched a video about a lot of statistics. I thought that it was interesting how China will soon be the number one English speaking country, since so many people in other countries, including USA, speak English as there main language. Another fact that I thought was interesting is that if Facebook was a country, it would have the third largest populations, behind China and India. This was interesting to me because I didn't realize that many people have Facebooks. The video had a lot more interesting facts, but I thought those two were the most interesting.

Ninth Day

Today in class, we went over what we posted on the blog yesterday. On Monday we posted on the blog, the 25 questions we answered on the CIA world factbook. I got smarties in class because I put that the amount of exports was an important statistic. We also talked about 9/11 a little since today was 9/11. We also talked a lot about foreign relations. Like who hates who, who likes who, who uses who and why they use them, and other stuff along those sorts. We were also told that almost all of the stuff in Walmart is from China. We talked a little about Osama Bin Ladin and how he was hiding in Pakistan and how many people before 9/11 did not know who he was but today, almost everyone knows who he is. We also learned that the USA gets a lot of oil from other places. Ninth day of class is complete.

CIA Questions

1. The population of the USA is 313,847,465.
2. The five largest countries, by population, are China, India, USA, Indonesia, and Brazil.
3. The population of Pakistan is 190,291,129.
4. The USA's government is a constitutional based federal republic.
5. The unemployment rate in Zimbabwe is 95%.
6. The largest country is the world by area is Russia.
7. Mexico has the third most amount of airports in the world.
8. The country with the most amount of exports is China.
9. The country that exports the most oil is Saudi Arabia.
10. The country that imports the most oil is United States.
11. The country that consumes the most amount of oil is United States.
12. Women are allowed to serve in combat roles in China's military.
13. GDP is gross domestic product (value of all goods and services produced by a nation in a year).
14. The country with the highest GDP per capita in the world is Liechtenstein with $141,100.
15. The USA is not in the top ten for GDP per capita.
16. The countries with the highest birth rates can be found in Africa.
17. 11 out of the top 12 countries with the highest number of deaths from HIV/AIDS can be found in Africa.
18. The other country in the top ten is India.
19. The USA ranks at 18 in deaths from HIV/Aids.
20. The USA is not number 1 in cellular phones.
21. 23.9% is Roman Catholic in the USA.
22. Mexico is 76.5% Roman Catholic.
23. The Net Migration Rate is the difference between the amount of people leaving the country and the amount of people coming into the country.
24. The USA does not have the highest net migration rate.
25. The current population of the world is 7,021,836,029.

The two most important statics is the net migration rate and the amount of exports. Net migration rate is important because you have to have people coming into the country to keep it successful so you have to have a high rate. Amount of exports is important because if you export a lot, you can make money, have trading partners, and good foreign relations.

Seventh Day

Today was the seventh day of Human Geography. We learned how to take notes by taking notes on Illinois. The essay that we took notes from were made for 4th graders but we did it anyways. I learned that notes are a facts made of fragments that are later made into sentences. When you are taking notes, you always want to use the least amount of words possible and use lots of abbreviations. We also saw a news article where 125 out of 250 students at Harvard were caught cheating on a final exam. We talked about college and how there could be 200 students in a class and the teacher lectures the whole time while you have to sit there and take notes for however long the class is. Or you can buy notes from somebody who was sitting in the front, but that isn't recommended because they could give you the wrong notes. We had to read our paragraph of our notes on Illinois out loud. There was a website we went on that had a bunch of information on how to take notes. Seventh day is complete.

Sixth Day

Today in class we learned how to know whether or not websites are good. Some of the ways we learned to tell if a website is good or not is, the ending in the url. If the website ends in .gov it’s a good and reliable website but not all .com websites are reliable. Anyone can make a website with .com as the ending so the information may not always be accurate and could be written by anyone. We also learned that Wikipedia is a reliable website to use but not as a primary source. With Wikipedia, there are people whose job is to review the entries and make sure they’re accurate. Also, on Wikipedia, the entries have to source on where they got their information, which you can use as a primary source. Some of the credible websites that we viewed in class was the CIA Factbook, NASA for kids, Wikipedia, and PBS. If a website says “opinion,” it is not a reliable source unless you are doing a persuasive essay. Sixth day of Human Geography is complete.

Essay #3

Excellence is always a good thing. I will approach excellence at John Carroll, to do so I will a have five-point action plan. My first way to excellence is to do all my homework on time. If I do all my homework on time, I won’t have to worry about doing it another day or getting in trouble.Also, I will be able to get the most amount of points since I won't have any points gone for late work. Secondly, I will manage my time well. I will do homework before I go on the internet or watch tv. Also, I will not procrastinate on long term projects or homework. My plan for excellence will also include making sure I have all of my textbooks/supplies needed for class. This is on my plan for excellence so that I can make sure I can participate in class and be able to do what everyone else is doing. Fourth on my action plan is to pay attention during class. If I am able to pay attention in class then I will be able to know what we are learning that day so I will be smarter. If I don’t get distracted I will understand more things and be able to retain more. Last but not least, my 5^th way to excellence at John Carroll includes having fun. If I have fun at school, I will enjoy school more and it will make want to come to school in the morning, not complain about waking up early. If I succeed in this five-point action plan, I will obtain excellence at John Carroll.

Essay #2

I think Socrates would say/think that he's glad to see that his way of teaching did affect people and that people are questioning what they think. Socrates would be interested in the things that people were able to create in American by questioning limits and knowledge. Socrates would also say that people in America recognized what he did to ancient Greek. Socrates was very loyal to Greek and he believed in the people, so he would be pleased to know that people in America are still learning about ancient Greek after so many years. If Elbert Hubbard came to America in 2012, I think he would not be surprised about how people are in America. In his essay, A Message to Garcia, he indirectly described how people in America respond today towards work and helping others. Hubbard would be disappointed but accepting the fact that America is the way that it is towards doing more than expected. Elbert Hubbard could tell that humanity was becoming lazier and finding more excuses as time went on, so he would be able to understand why people in American do what they do. However, I think he would be impressed with how far America has come since he was alive.

Essay #1

Arête: a type of excellence; hero. Socrates was excellent and a hero to ancient Greece. He extended the border of what people were allowed to think. Before Socrates got people to question things, people only thought what others told them to and did not question it. He caused people to question why you believe in certain things. He taught a new way of learning/thinking that affected generations. Socrates is even more excellent because he did not become famous for changing what people think until after his death. The students Socrates taught caused him to become famous. People, including his students, thought very highly of him and recognized what he did after his death. Socrates caused the way of thinking to change forever. The ancient Greeks were excellent and heroic. Ancient Greeks were the first people to use the democracy for government. They realized that the ordinary people of ancient Greece had the power, not the government, or a person of higher power. If ancient Greece did not use democracy, then there would be a lot of other places, such as the U.S.A, that most likely would not have the government they do today. Most importantly, Socrates and ancient Greeks are arête because they changed the way people live theirs live today.  

Fifth Day

Yesterday was the fifth day of human geography class. We talked about Greek terms and ancient Greece. We discussed arete, polis, Socrates, the death of Socrates, the Socratic method, the date 508 B.C., agora, and what idiot meant in ancient Greece. I learned that Socrates had friends in the jail who was going to let him escape after getting the death penalty, but Socrates denied their offer and was still put to death. Socrates didn't want to escape because he believed in Greece and since he was charged with the death penalty, he was going to obey what they said. I also learned that in ancient Greece, if you said you were sorry for your crime in the court, your crime would be forgiven. However, when Socrates had the option to say sorry for his crime and that he wouldn't do it again, he said that he did nothing wrong and he was only helping the youth of ancient Greece. Socrates died by poison, a quick but very painful death, which causes the nervous muscles to shut down and to suffocate.

arete: a type of excellence; hero

polis: an ancient Greek city-state

Socrates: Athenian philosopher

the death of Socrates: Socrates was put to death by the Athenian government because his teaching methods caused a new way of thinking in the youth

508 B.C.: Athenian democracy was invented

agora: main marketplace in Athens, a place where people voted

idiot: someone who isn't interested in politics, someone who doesn't vote