Last Human Geo Class of 2014

Wow it feels like just a couple weeks I was writing about my first day here at John Carroll and how much I loved my Human Geo class. I can't believe we've already made it to the the mid terms in December. I have to say Human Geo was definitely my favorite class this whole time and I knew it front the beginning. My class honestly made my few months with them amazing and helped me develop into this school. I'm really sad that we might not be in the same class in the new year. We had a little party today to celebrate the up coming break and the ending of our Human Geo course. I made my famous molten fudge cookies which my class fought for. Then we went over a couple things about the exams like we did yesterday. I just can't get over how much I enjoyed this class. Mr Schick was such a great teacher to all of us and I really really hope I have him in the new year. He makes learning about history fun which helps me remember things better. He relates to the students so well and it shows in our test scores how engaged we are. I'm kinda scared for my new classes coming up in the new year but I'm thankful for how much I learned from the classmates and teachers. I know we will have like 2 weeks after the break but I feel like that will fly by as fast as these few months have. Sooner or later I'll be preparing for new classes in my sophomore year. I still don't even feel like a freshman yet which is really weird for me. Hopefully I keep in contact with the people I've met in this class and Mr Schick especially. I'm sad to see it end but I'm excited for a new beginning.

Exam Prep

Today we went over the test that we took yesterday on Cultural Geography. I got a 82% on the test which is actually a lot better than what I thought I got. I was right when I said I got all the alliances questions wrong. I got every single alliance question wrong except for the United Nations and I've known about it for a while. We went around reading the questions and giving the right answers so we have a good study guide for the exams. after doing this Mr Schick gave back all of our old test so we could study off them for the exam next week. He said the test really would not be that hard this year for us. We are apparently the top class out of all the classes he is teaching at this time. He told us that the exam would cover all the material we've learned so far and should come out to around 150 questions. I'm really not that nervous for his test because I actually pay attention in his class. Social Studies is really easy for me to study for some reason and I don't know why. I think i'm going to read through all the test we've taken and then go through all of my blog. We are probably reviewing again in class tomorrow since we don't have class the Monday. Im bringing in cookies tomorrow too because my birthday is monday and I wanted to celebrate with my class.

Cultural Geography Test

I just got done taking the Cultural Geography test and I was very frustrated during the test. I made flashcards at home last night for all of the religions and it felt like it all just slipped out. I had my family help me study the alliances and I think I did really bad on that part. I'm really glad at the moment that I have an A in this class because I'm not sure how I did on that. I felt so prepared when I walked in here today and then when I looked at the test I just zoned out. It was all multiple choice which should have made it even easier for me. As you can probably tell I'm just upset at myself because of how hard I studied and then as soon as I get the test I just lost all of it. I knew even the exact number adherents of each religion and we didn't even have that on the test. Even if I didn't get a good grade on this test, I felt like I've learned a lot about many different religions. I plan to use the flashcards I made last night to study for the mid-term exam next week. Wow, I can't believe the mid-terms are next week, very scary. Mr Schick said as long as we study the material well we will do fine. I think I'm going to make a study group with my friends so we can help each other study for next week. We are going to review tomorrow and Friday for the Human Geo mid-term because we don't have class Monday (my birthday!). I'm starting to get really nervous as I'm waiting for the test to be graded and I hope I didn't do horrible. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Wrapping It Up

Today we learned two more religions to wrap up our lesson of Cultural Geography for our test tomorrow. Buddhism has between 500 million to 1.5 billion adherents and they are called Buddhists. The reason there isn't a certain amount it because it doesn't make you decide one against one God. You can be Christian while also being a Buddhists because it has a different meaning to people. Their leader Siddhartha Gautama was considered to just "really get it" and understood the meaning of life. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are ways of following Siddhartha's teaching. Next was Judaism which has 14-18 million adherents and is the ninth biggest religion in the world. The reason we talked about it even though it is a relatively same religion because of how affective it is to the other religions around them. Their geographic location is Israel and they believe they have a very close relationship with God the Father. They actually think of him as a father figure helping them through stuff and punishing them if they do something wrong. Like many other religions they are Abrahamic believing Abraham lead the religion and was their founder. Their holy books are called the Talmud and the Torah. after discussing all the religions we went back to the ones we learned previously and highlighted somethings that would be questions on the test. I am so happy that the test is only multiple choice questions and most of them are about the religions we've focussed on. I think the only problem I will have is remembering things from the "Slumdog Millionaire" movie. i plan to study a little bit tonight and study tomorrow in my off mod.

Religions

In class on Friday, we talked about some of the most popular religions in the world. The first one we discussed was Christianity, and I already know a lot about this religion because I am catholic. The number of people who categorize themselves as Christian is around 2.2 billion which makes it the largest religion in the world. They are called Christians and are usually located around Europe, the Americas, and southern Africa. They have many different denominations inside of the religion and they all believe basically the same thing but have different opinions on some subjects. Their founder is Jesus Christ and their holy book is called the Bible. Their main belief is that Jesus was both fully human and divine and was the blessed Messiah. The next religion we talked about was Islam which has 1.5 billion adherents which make it the second largest religion in the world. They are called Muslims and are usually located in Indonesia, Middle East, and North Africa. The two denominations  are Sunnis and Shittes who have been fighting about religious beliefs for years. Their founder was Muhammad and their holy book is called the Qur'an and their beliefs are monotheistic and Abrahamic. The last one we learned about that day was Hinduism being the third largest religion with 1.1 billion adherents. They are called Hindus and they are found in India and Nepal and their holy book is called the Vedas. They have no distinct founder but a lot of philosophical beliefs and believe strongly in reincarnation. Next class we will learn about Buddhism and I'm really excited to learn about it because I've heard so much about it.

Spatial Divisions

We branched out on the topic of Cultural Geography today and learned about something called Spatial divisions. Spatial divisions deal with how we divide the livable space found on the earth. We decide this by establishing social, economic, and political control over the land. People can be a member of more than one spatial group. For example, I live in Harford County but I also live in the United States AND I live in North America. The list could go on forever how many groups people belong to. Some other examples of spatial divisions are clubs and economic alliances. These spatial divisions can also cause conflicts or cooperation just like in all the other subjects we've looked at. Before we even took notes on all of this we listened to a song Mr Schick made up about the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". He told us to listen well because it will be on our mid terms in two weeks. His daughter sang a remixed version of the song "Billionaire" to fit the story of the movie. Mr Schick made up a very clever rap to go along with the movie while he played guitar. I was very impressed with his guitar skills and his bars. We've all heard Mr Schick rap a couple times in class before but never like this it was awesome! I think we will all ace the movie part of the mid term. On the other hand, I'm going to start studying for exams this weekend so I can be totally prepared for these tests. I am extremely stressed out over these tests but I'm going to try to make it easier on myself by studying extremely hard. I just cannot wait to get these awful tests out of the way.

The Adventurous Adventures of Bob Schick

Today we discussed the topic of religion in relation to Cultural Geography. This characteristic can also be a unifying or dividing force for many countries and cultures. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have millions of followers that all believe the same thing. Yet they all wage wars on each other because they all think they are right and everyone else is wrong. You believe in the Prince of Peace but you're going to destroy the peace to defend him? It makes absolute no sense for these countries to be doing this and it really works Mr Schick up. Hindus and Muslims fight in India and Pakistan over who's right and wrong and has killed thousands and it is still going on. It's ridiculous how people define themselves so much by their religion that they'd kill so many others just to prove it's "right". There are even conflicts between Catholics and Protestants who believe almost the same thing! No one is right or wrong you believe in what you want to believe in. People should not slaughter those who don't have the same beliefs as them. I mean think about it, they are killing others to prove that their religion is right which states that killing is a major wrong doing! I was fascinated by things Mr Schick said about his beliefs and things that lead him to where he is. He told us a story which gave my goosebumps that have lasted up until now. He was pulling onto a road at 4:30 in the morning in LA when he felt a hand grasp his shoulder. He slammed on the breaks before being able to pull onto the road and looked behind him and saw no one in the back seat. As he sat in the car uneasy he saw a huge catering truck run right through the red light which could have killed him if he had gone. I was absolutely stunned and blown away and I stayed after to class to talk more about it. I couldn't believe this kind of thing happened to him I mean that mysterious hand could've saved him life! But Mr Schick just told all of us to believe in what we believe and to not make judgement on others beliefs.

Countries and Cultures

Today we expanded our notes on the lesson of Cultural Geography. As I said in my last blog about this lesson, cultural characteristics are parts of a group's everyday life. Basically these are the ideas and themes that put the foundations in your language, religion, and ethnic heritage. Language can unite some countries in many ways but sometimes it cannot. Arab is spoken in many countries that hate each other but some Hispanic countries are united together by their language. Switzerland is a very neutral country and has a very diverse culture but very little conflict between the groups. One thing that is very important to know about the English language is that it is the world wide business language. Many ethnic groups are very hostile towards each other because of many different reasons. There are two main ethnic groups called the Tutsis and the Hutus in Burundi, Africa and they persecute each other if they are on their powered land. Lucky, the United States and Switzerland have peacefully merged multiple ethnic groups in their countries. I mean you can just look around a classroom in my school and see people from all around the world. It's amazing that these cultural characteristics can either combine or divide cities and even countries. I'm glad that I live in a country where we are relatively on the good side of ethnic acceptance.

Class Missed

On Tuesday, I wasn't able to make it to class because I was at a close family member's viewing. I don't feel like writing this whole thing on the viewing so I will write it about my Thanksgiving and what probably happened in class. Our last few classes consisted of us watching the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" and of course I had to miss the day when things were really getting interesting. I'm not sure if my class finished the movie yet but I really want to know what happened that I missed. Mr Schick hasn't said anything on his blog about it so far but I will keep checking. I'm writing this blog  little late because I had to go to family dinners, viewings, and funerals throughout the week. I thought I could make it up by just writing something now. I'm also very excited to discuss with my class about what's been happening in Ferguson lately. I actually witnessed a protest in action at the mall today. It wasn't a full on brawl with destroying things but there were people yelling and running through the mall until the mall cops got to them which made them even more upset. I really want to see what Mr Schick has to say about the whole situation and everyone's views on it. My family has been talking a lot about it and I'm still not sure what I think about it. I really hope we talk about it Tuesday, especially since we are learning about culture.

Movie Day

Today we watched the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" again for the whole class. I didn't quite understand some of it but I'll try to summarize. So in yesterday's showing of the movie Jamal and Salim's mother was killed by a different religion group who didn't like Muslims. They were left on their own to take care of themselves. They had to provide a shelter and protection for themselves which was pretty hard considering how young they were. The boys picked up a young girl in their group along the way named Latika. They were picked up by a bad orphanage who wasn't really interested in taking care of kids they just wanted to "take care of them". they escaped but left Latika behind and Jamal nearly killed Salim for leaving without her. They came up with pretty clever ways to make their money and got some moo la. Then Jamal was thinking of what ever happened to Latika. Salim could have cared less until he had seen her. Latika had turned out to be a prostitute for the orphanage people. Salim killed the leader of the program as they ran for their life with Latika with them. All this is happening in flash backs when Jamal is on the television showt hat he was accused of cheating on. He is knowing all of the answers from his wild life as a child and it's pretty crazy how much he remembers from it. Mr Schick told us that we would finish the movie on Tuesday because we don't have him Monday and we have a whole hour with him Tuesday. I'm excited to see how Jamal got to where he was in the movie in the present time.

Slumdog Millionaire

Today we watched a movie called "Slumdog Millionaire" in Human Geo Class. It was based in the slums of India which were quiet awful. Trash was everywhere and they had to wash their clothes in toxic water. My bedroom would be the size of a whole house for an entire family in India. It made me feel really privileged to be going to the school I am. I'm currently writhing this is a nice warm library on my thousand dollar laptop when in the movie they couldn't even afford a classroom large enough. Makes me think about a lot of things that I think are a big deal when I am actually so privileged to be where I am today. In the movie a man wins a lot of money on a big TV show and a lot of people think he cheated to win it. The police system there is so different from here, they torture people instead of just asking questions or ticketing them. Quite harshly I might add considering they use shock methods almost every interrogation. I watched them torture this innocent guy because they thought they cheated the show out of their money. How could someone of his class get so far in a game show and win that much money? Doctors and lawyers couldn't even get as far as the man did. He can thank his crazy childhood in the slums for this. His experiences in his neighborhood taught him little lessons that doctors and lawyers could never know. I can't wait to finish this movie and know how everything unfolds for this man.

Spotify Projects

Today, Mr. Schick was not there so we had a substitute in a second floor classroom. I was already in our original classroom downstairs when someone came to tell us that we had a sub. I usually like on Wednesdays when I can stay in the same seat and not have to move around a lot. Anyways, I was only there for a small part of the class because I had to leave for a doctors appointment. Everyone was pretty confused about the Spotify projects which made me confused. One project I already finished but I thought the other one was just extra credit. I thought the smart thing to do was email Mr. Schick and ask what he wanted. I haven't checked my email yet but I'm pretty sure I will have a response soon. I didn't do my blog as early as I should have but I was wondering if I should write one or not considering we did nothing in class. I just wanted to do it just in case I needed to so I didn't drop my grade considering mid-quarter is Tuesday. I did well on the last test but the blogs are worth a lot believe it or not so I will find out today if I even needed to do it or not. It's better safe then sorry right?

Cultural Geography

What do you call that bubbly carbonated drink? Pop? Soda? This could be apart of your cultural geography which is taught to you by wherever you live or how you grew up. This is what we will begin studying in human geo for the next couple of weeks. We talked a lot about our Baltimore slang with "zink" and "hon" as many other states and countries have. We pick up this language from our surrounding from the day we were born. We learn our first words from our family and for me I was baptized as a baby. I was introduced to the catholic religion at a very young age. I continue to follow that faith as I now participate in a confirmation class at my church. At my age, it is my decision to chose what I believe in and the people around me and many other sources are starting to affect that. All of these different ethic groups teach me different things about their culture and they learn things from mine. Baltimore is my home and I have brought in so much from the culture that when I once visited the south someone guessed that I was from Baltimore. I never realized I had that much of an accent I have and it kind of surprised. I'm actually so excited to start learning about this subject because I love learning about other cultures. It's so fascinating to me how different so many cultures can be and how much we all can learn from each other. Going deep into this subject will help me understand more about many other cultures and how they learn from me.

Russia's National Anthem

Russia National Anthem
Take a listen to Russia's proclaiming National Anthem! My first listen I was surprised to have it be sung the way it was. I listened to a couple different groups singing the anthem and it changed it's tone a lot. The first one I listened to was a group of what sounded like women which sounded very regal and kind of like the UK's. Then I listened to a male army group sing it which made it sound like a marching song. Give it a listen and decide which you think it is. I liked the UK sounding one more than the army because the second one was very intimidating. That was what Russia was probably going for considering their culture. I tried to compare it to the United States and I thought it sounded nothing like this. Our national anthem is very different from others in my opinion and hard for me to describe. But it sure has a different sound than this one and I think Russia's anthem is very intimidating in some sense.

The Test of Leaders

I just finished taking the test on the worldwide leaders and I think I did pretty well on it. I knew almost all of the multiple choice question by heart and only had to think about a couple. They were pretty easy for me and mostly about which leaders which and their countries. The only ones I got a little mixed up on were the ones about the government and the leaders back stories. I thought the test was well laid out and I really like scantron test. Scantron test are graded really fast and I like multiple choice because it gives a lot of options. I have to say I studied really hard last night and it really paid off. The only thing that I was worried about was the essay which turned out just fine. It was about the changing of the position of the president. I won't say too much because another class still has to take the test tomorrow because they don't have Mr. Schick on Thursdays. I'm so glad it's over with because that was a lot of information and I was so worried I wouldn't keep up. This was a great lesson because I feel more informed about my surroundings and know more about the government. This will be so helpful to me in the future when I myself am more involved in the government.

Test Preparation

It was announced yesterday that there was going to be a test today on the world leaders. Our way of studying would be to study our class' power point projects Mr. Schick had put together into one huge power point. Turns out everyone had a heart attack because you needed permission to get into the different projects. Mr. Schick saw our distress and pushed the test back to tomorrow. I was glad because I had a lot of homework last night and I had to study for my Earth Science test as well. As of right now I'm taking notes in class about the test we are having tomorrow. I asked Mr. Schick what the layout was of the test and he said that it was 30 multiple choice question with an essay. We are supposed to study the power point he made for us since it is available to the public now. Cody and I's power point is one of the featured ones in this big power point. This is apparently a compliment because it means our project is a great study guide for Russia. We are using other people's projects to study and Mr. Schick put up his own notes to help us. Right now we are going over the power point he made and it seems really well thought out and a great study guide for us. The notes are laid out very well and explained very well and I love how Mr. Schick always goes over stuff with us. He always answers all our questions so fluently and makes me feel really confident before the test. I usually do pretty well on his tests and I like the way he has them set up. I will study the big power point tonight along with my Earth Science. I have learned so much about the surrounding nations within these few weeks so easily and feel confident about this test

Veteran's Day and Prsentation

Today on Veteran's Day, David and Alex taught us about the country of Syria. The government in Syria is under an Authoritarian Regime which is where the president kind of controls everything. The country has been in a Civil War since 2011 and it has gotten a lot worse. The president that runs everything is Bashar al-Assad and has been since July 17,200. He won by a landslide with 88.7% of the vote and he has the right to appoint the Vice President. He has over stayed his welcome and is in his third term and is not expected to leave anytime soon. Bashar didn't even want to be president but had to because his older brother Bassel died in a car accident. Next Steven and Trish taught us about the country of Israel. Irsael has a government of a Parliamentary Democracy and it has been that way since 1948. The last president in power was President Shimon Peres and the Prime Minister is Binyamin Netanyahu also known as Bibi. The President has a limit of one term of seven years and the Prime Minister has an unlimited amount of time in office. The only way these terms would be changed is if the leaders got impeached, killed, or just die of natural death.  There is a special system called the Knesset that picks the president for the country. Some interesting things about Israel are that they are a very smart nation with many intelligent people. Then Jess and Rosemary taught us about the country of Mexico. The country is run by a Federal Government and the leader is President Enrique Pena Nieto. He was the governor of Mexico before he became president and also fathered two different children from two different woman while being married and somehow still was elected. He got 38% of the vote and his six year term will go to 2018 but I wouldn't be surprised if he stepped down now. His main focus is to stop the major drug cartels and crime records in his country but teachers are making it a little hard to focus on that. He is changing the education system and the teachers are starting big protests against this change because of how bad it will be for children. Another problem is that Mexicans turn to selling drugs for easy money because Mexico does not have good job offers. These drug cartels are becoming extremely dangerous and multiplying day by day. The teacher protests and drug cartels went head to head this week and cartels won. Some college students were going to protest about the education changes at an important speech. The mayor has been accused of hiring a drug cartel to kill these college students and quite harshly I might add. Then Elle presented Brazil which has a Federal government and is run by Dilma Rousseff who is the first female president of Brazil. The terms of presidency is four years and they can become president many different times but just not all together. Dilma is a tough cookie because she was arrested for being in protest and was tortured AWFULLY in jail. Just like many other countries, the people have the ability to impeach the president. I will use this to study for the test coming up and I will also use Mr. Schick's power point he showed us today.

Day of the Presentation

Cody and I presented our slides on Russia today in front of the class while they took notes. I started off by saying the first slide which wasn't all that hard considering it just had Russia on it with our names. Then Cody read his slides that he had typed up about the government and Putin's reign. Mr. Schick stopped us here and there to discuss a few things about their government and how it worked. He was impressed by our slides at that point which made us pretty happy. Then I read my slides on Putin's dark secrets and bad habits which got most of the class' attention. The facts that grabbed their attention the most were Putin's laws for homosexuals and his involvement with the Malaysian airline crash. People really got into the conversation when I put up the slides asking their opinion on Putin. Most of the fight was actually over the homosexual laws Putin had made. Megan made a very good point saying that he is a good leader military wise but not communication wise. I loved the class participation and so did Mr. Schick. He said that Cody and I's slide shows was excellent and that we did a great job presenting. Cody and I high-rived and took our seats with our heads held high with a pat on the back.

Class Presentation Slides 2.0

The first group to present their project slides today was Jon and Parker and they taught us about Germany. Mr. Schick told us in the beginning of class that he liked how the presentations went yesterday which is good news to the two groups who already presented. Jon and Parker told us about the government and how it's run with its leaders and systems. They also told us about all the stuff that happened after World War 2. Germany basically lost the war to the United States and had to recover from the whole ordeal. The awful dictator who everyone knows him name, Hitler, killed himself at the end of the war. The group had very nice slides with a lot of information and good descriptions of the words. Then the next group to present was Kendall and Adam who taught about the country of Japan. Their slides were amazing in my opinion because of how well thought out they were and great information. They must've researched really deep ingot he subject to get just what they were looking for. All that hard work really paid off for them and I would've given them a 100. I don't really want to present tomorrow but Cody will probably want to. I will try to take some pointers from Kendall and Adam's presentation because it was so helpful.

Day One of Power Points

Mr. Schick chose a few groups to go up to the front of the class and present their slide show presentation. The first group to go was Zach and Rory's presentation of the country of France and its government They told us about President Hollande and the Prime Minister Manuel Valls who are the main leaders of the country. The Prime Minister takes control of the press work such as public speakings on current event opinions.  Zach and Rory also gave a glimpse into both of the leader's past before they came into office. Hollande had pretty successful parents and was born into a catholic family, but later became atheist. Manuel was actually born and raised in Spain before going to France for work. He was the mayor of Evry before later becoming the Prime Minister. He also speaks four different languages quite fluently! Manuel was caught suggesting more white people would make a better image for a country which made many start to dislike him. Then Alyssa and Veronica presented their slides about the United Kingdom to us. The United Kingdom's government is a monarchy with a commonwealth realm to assist governmental affairs. Queen Elizabeth is the Chief of State and has been for sixty three years and she will be there until she is unable to carry out the position. David Cameron is the Prime Minister and was appointed in May of 2010 for the position. The Prime Minister also does not have a limit on his term and can stay there until he can no longer carry out the position. Cody was not in class today so I didn't get to volunteer to go but I think I wanna go soon just to get it all over with. I think we will be hearing from Kendall and Adam tomorrow on their country. Stay tuned with more presentation information.

Finishing Touches

The class was devoted to finishing the power point projects for most of today. Cody and I just browsed through the changes I had made over the weekend because he hadn't visited the site in a while. I put things about Putin's overthrow which is kind of a mystery to everyone. Actually I feel like Putin himself is a big mystery. Whenever I try to look up facts about him they are never bad reviews unless I dig deep. It seems like he tries to hide a lot about himself, at least from what I've seen. When I research other leaders it is easier to find faults and tragedies in their lives than it was for Putin. I eventually found some pretty good dirt on Putin to put into my presentation for tomorrow. My dad works for a big prosthetic company that has many big company parties. At his last dinner for work on Wednesday he ran into a big CNN reporter and decided to sit and talk to him. When I mentioned I was doing a presentation on Russia to my father he said he had something that would help. While talking to the CNN reporter they got into the subject of the missing Malaysian airline event. The reporter said that Putin might have been involved in shooting down one of the flights missing for had an inside jobs. My dad got this information straight from a big reporter that had been put on this case to investigate. I was so happy my dad told me this because it was a big plus on the project and isn't very well known yet. I'm putting the last touches on the slides now and will be fully ready to present tomorrow.

Wrap It Up

For today and tomorrow, I am focussing on wrapping up Cody and I's slide show for Russia. I had been searching and searching for things about impeaching Putin while Cody did other slides. So I have decided to finish the project considering the dead end impeachment search took up most of my time. I might write an outlined script for our presentation we have to give Tuesday in class. Not like a full out script but just who reads which slide so we aren't all over the place. I'm thinking about adding maybe two to three slides more onto what we already have. I might talk about Putin's big accomplishments since he was put into office or maybe even some of his downfalls. I am going to research some more information about the people's opinion of him from all views. Even though it seems like everyone LOVES Putin, I think I can dig up some dirt on him to put in my project. Considering the amount of homework I have today, I think I'll split up my work into the two days that I have to work on it. I am so excited to see how the project turns out and can't wait to be finally finished with it.

The Langrehr Schick Overthrow Duo

We continued to work on our partner google slides today on our countries and leaders. Cody and I are almost done our slides but I ran into one thing that keeps on blocking me from getting done. Mr. Schick said we need to find out if the president of the country could be over thrown from their office. I researched for an hour the night before and nothing came up for impeach or even assassination. Either people must really love their Putin or Putin loves keeping them quiet about it. I find it kinda creepy that no straight forward answers pop up when I research about his impeachment. I told Mr. Schick that I had a dilemma with one of the topics we had to research and I explained all of it. He said that he would research it himself on his computer and if no one had impeached him yet, that him and I would do it ourselves. He sat down at his computer scrolling for a few minutes on his computer screen as I had the night before. He said that it looked like we were heading to Russia to impeach Putin. I don't have my passport ready yet but we'll get around to it. I just can't believe no one wants to over throw Putin really badly. There are so many reports in America about people starting petitions to take down Obama but it never happens. That doesn't even happen in Russia and I think Putin tying up a few loose lips about it. I don't know but the whole thing makes me feel a bit suspicious. But worry not Mr. Schick and I are taking care of it. Also Cody has done a great jobs on the slides he did in the project. I haven't done as much as him because I've been in such road block because of the whole keep quiet situation with Putin. I plan to make that up by doing maybe the last three slides tomorrow and writing up the presentation script and bringing in props for our presentation. I think besides a little goofing off, this project is going really well for Cody and I.

Russian Presentation

Today, Mr. Schick told us that we would start off the new quarter with a new power point presentation. We could not use the power point app already on our computers, we have to use Google Slides. Google slides is really cool because you and your partner  can work on something at the same time. The slide they're working on just appears on your screen and saves automatically. Mr. Schick picked our groups for us and I was paired up with Cody. Then we got to pick a number out of a hat to see who got to go first in picking their country. I won the first pick and Cody and I picked to study Russia. I think the President for this country is really easy to study because he is all over the internet. Putin is pretty well liked by his people I haven't read one bad thing about him so far. But I plan on finding something that would cause the citizens to want to throw him out of office. This would be helpful because I need to list ways the citizens could throw Putin out of office besides killing him off. The slides must contain the name of the country you're doing and they're kind of government. Also you have to include how long they have existed under their present form of government. Then how long their present leaders have been in office and how long they are supposed to stay there. I don't think this project will take too long but it will take up most of our classes this week. I hope this presentation turns out well for Cody and I.

Pop Quiz

Today we had an unexpected pop quiz on the leaders of the countries we've been focussing on. I was really scared when I heard about the quiz at firs. I felt better when I found out it was matching and multiple choice. I was really proud that I got an 87 considering I didn't study. I would know this so quickly because Mr. Schick only had to walk down the hall to grade them. The Scantron tests are so easy to grade all you have to do is put it in the machine then it puts in the grade. Our class got the highest average out of all of them. Turns out section 6 was the worst out of all and ours had an average of 76%. I know it doesn't sound too good but compared to the other classes, it was amazing. I think it was because our class engages more in our class discussion. This makes us remember the things we say about the presidents and leaders which helps on the quizzes. I wasn't as worried as the other classes were because I knew I paid attention in this class. I have to say the only difficult thing for me to do in this class is turn blogs in on days I'm not sure I should. I plan to work on that over time because these blogs cost a lot for our grades. Considering it's the end of the quarter, I've really been thinking about my grades. I hope to do well throughout the year in this class because I want to expand my knowledge on the subjects we study in this class. I mean I didn't even know who some of these leaders were before we started this project. Now I know a Nobel Peace Prize leader and one who has a super hero named after him! I have already learned so much from Mr. Schick's class and I'm super excited for the rest of the year. This is definitely one of my favorite classes I've ever taken and hope to keep my good grade in this class.

Headaches and Homework

I wasn't able to make it to Mr. Schick's class today because I had a terrible migraine today. I had it when I woke up today and thought I'd just take my health test and then go home. After a nice long nap in the dark for 5 hours I was feeling much better. So I thought it would be time to check up on the classes I missed. I checked for Human Geo, Spanish, and Math and got all the work together. Surprisingly, it wasn't as much as I was expecting. I thought I would expand on the facts that I stated in my last blog about the strong leaders. I noticed there was a pattern between most of the leaders. The one's that had a very structured educations know how to lead their countries more intelligently. Some of those leaders had many degrees in important subjects such as Politics and Economics. Having studied these subjects for so long taught them how to keep a hold of things for they're country. I also believed the leaders that had a tragedy in their lives drove them to better their lives by being inspiring leaders. But some of those leaders take power to the wrong extent and use it in the wrong way like Bashar. I forgot to mention a few things about the President of Mexico, Mr. Nieto. Mr. Nieto is not an all fine and dandy guy if you ask me. He was still voted into office after a huge scandal that he did not deny which I think is absolutely insane. He fathered two children from two different women while he was married to someone and they still elected him? Why would people want someone who's personal life is so out of order to run your country? Also, why would women vote for this guy if he cheated on his wife with two other woman? I think that is so disrespectful and I would never vote for someone who would do that to their loved ones. If they can do something that betraying to their family, what are they capable of doing with the country. Some of these leaders have some special quirks and good traits but some just don't know what to do with their power. We need to truly think about our values and how our leaders are going to guide us to them.

Leader's Upbringing

The leaders in the blog before this had very interesting lives before stepping into office. Vladimar Putin in my opinion is a pretty awesome guy, I mean he's got a comic book character named after him. More importantly, what's strange about Putin is that his family has no record of ancestors besides his grandfather. He had a couple of horrible deaths in his family like his grandmother and his uncle's disappearance at war. One thing that might influence his presidential decisions is that he was involved in KBG as an intelligence officer. This might have taught Putin ways of protecting his country and being interconnected with others. Next we have Merkel, the first female chancellor of Germany in all of its history. Merkel was very educated and serious about her studies which might help in her office. A good education can better your decisions, especially if they are for an entire country. Prime Minister David Cameron is a descendant of King William IV which might have prepared him for his role in office. Living the royal upbringing could have prepared David for the prestige position for running the United Kingdom. Somethings that also probably helped him achieve his position along the way were his Honor Degrees in Politics, Philosophy, & Economics. Hollande's promises in his campaign look out for not only the upper class of the country, but the lower classes as well. Hollande had an experience of being a commoner at one point so he understands what it's like for those people. He took office considering all people of his country no matter how much they had. Dilma Rousseff is one tough cookie I will tell you that. Before stepping into Brazil's office, she joined the resistance movement against the military dictatorship and was arrested for it. While incarcerated, she was not only beat, but tortured and assaulted. I think this horrible experience taught her to tough it out and see where that takes you. I think she would be able to lead her country through very hard times with her persistence and determination. Bashar Al-Assad said he learned his awful ways of killing his own people from his dear father. When his father was in office and there was a religious issue in the country, he killed many civilians. I think it was either this or Bashar's brother's death that drove him to be such and aggressive leader to his people. Akinito is a very intelligent leader which is very essential for the country of Japan. When Akinito was a child, he was separated from his parents and was raised by chamberlains and tutors. I think this could lead him to make good decisions in office because he knows more about the world around him. Xi Jinping, the president of the country of China, is a working man you could call it. This humble leader once worked for other big leader figures as secretaries. I think he learned a lot from these great leaders he worked for and carried what he learned over into his own leadership. Shimon Peres in my opinion is one well rounded man with many accomplishments. He was head of Israel's Naval Services which shows he knows how to run his people and protect them from any harm. He was elected Israel's Parliament which I think showed him the ropes of the whole operation. Also, the man was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! This definitely shows how great of a person Peres is and how well he can guide his country. Pranab Mukherjee is also another well educated leader which helps guide them in the right direction for their country. He has a degree in Political Science and taught the subject as well, which I think also shows good people skills. All these leaders have experienced something in their life that makes them who they are as leaders today. Good or bad it's important to see that they are people too not just a person who controls the government, but a person who knows what the world is truly like.

Part Two

Russia
Government: Federation
Leader: President Vladimar Vladimirovich Putin












Germany
Government: Federal Republic
Leader: President Joachim Gauck/Chanceler Merkel

United Kingdom
Government: Constitutional Monarchy/Commonwealth Realm
Leader: Queen Elizabeth II/ Prime Minister David Cameron

                                                                  France
                                         Government: Republic
                   Leader: President Francois Hollande

Brazil
Government: Federal Republic
Leader: President Dilma Rousseff

                                                                                         Syria
        Government: Republic Under An Authoritarian Regime
                                            Leader: President Bashar al-Asad

Canada
Government: A Parliamentary Democracy, A Federation, and a Constitutional Monarchy
Leader: Prime Minister Stephen Joseph Harper

Japan
Government: Parliamentary Government with a Constitutional Monarchy
Leader; Emperor Akihito

                                                                      Israel
               Government: Parliamentary Democracy
                           Leader: President Shimon Peres

Leader All Around Our World Part One

Mexico
Type of Government: federal republic
Leader: President Enrique Pena Nieto






China
Government: Communist State
Leader: President XI Jinping


                                India
                    Government:
              Federal Republic
                            Leader:
                         President
            Pranab Mukherjee

You've Got Grades Part 2

Today, Mr Schick handed back our tests that we took that week. I didn't get as good of a grade as my last one, but it was not a bad grade. I could've done better as Mr. Schick said and this motivates me to do well on the next one. I knew I had screwed up on the CIA Factbook part of the test, as I mentioned in my last blog. I now know how to get to the facts about the entire world, since Mr. Schick showed us how to get us there up on the big screen. This would've been a huge boost on my grade if I had known this going into the test. Then we went to the next page to discuss the matching vocabulary words. I got a perfect score on this page because memorizing vocabulary is one of my strong suits. One of my classmates helped Mr. Schick review the test too. We went over the next page very thoroughly asking many questions. I only got one wrong on this page which I was quite satisfied with. Many people were asking about the push and pull factor essay questions. Mine were about Syria, Lebanon, The United States, and Mexico. I explained why which one was which and how it got to be like that. Some people got these questions wrong because they referred to continents instead of specific countries. For example, Mr. Schick had said many people had put just Africa down for push factor. Then we flipped to the last section of the test which as I said involved population pyramids. I got all of these questions right because I find population pyramids pretty interesting. I just like how it can predict the population of future generations and how large the ones will be now. Finally, at the very bottom we discussed the two bonus questions. I didn't do either of these but I didn't get any points taken off for not answering them. Some people got a 104 on their test because they not only got a perfect score, but they got the bonus questions! I was really glad Mr. Schick went over the test so well so I can remember all the information for exams which aren't too far away.

Test Tuesday

Today I finally took the test of Migration and Population for Human Geo. The first part of the test was really nerve wrecking cause you only have ten minutes to complete that section. I think I did okay but that was probably my weakness of the test. I missed four questions because I couldn't find the percentages of the languages of the work. I had problems locating information about the entire world not just one pin pointed country. I also couldn't find the producing number for oil for some countries which made me mad because I had seen it doing homework once. When the ten minutes was up I moved onto the vocabulary section which was pretty easy. It had a word bank which made things a lot easier for me. Then I had to do MATH on my HUMAN GEO test which wasn't exciting for me since I always mess up easy math. I'm pretty sure I did alright on that part of the test because it involved mostly statistics. The next part was easy peasy lemon squeezy for me. You had to list two push factors of a country and two pull factors of a country. I chose Syria and Mexico for my push factors because they both had problems in their country making people want to live somewhere else. I chose the United States and Lebanon because they have a safe environment with job options for people. The final part of the test was on the population pyramids we had learned about. I'm pretty good with the pyramids for some reason so I think I did fairly well on that part of the test. The pyramid only had the labels of A, B, and C. There was no labels of gender or country and that is what the questions were asking about. I hope the test goes okay for me and if not I'll study even harder on the next subject to do better on the next test.

Retreat

On Friday, I went on the last Freshman retreat with my religion class. I know this isn't about Human Geo but I thought since I didn't take the test Friday I should at least blog about something. On retreat we started out in our big group doing ice breaker games. We introduced our selves to new people and played games to get to know one another. Then we went inside of Saint Margaret's church and sat down and were introduced to our Junior retreat leaders. We were then separated into groups with the Junior leaders with 5 other kids. My leader was a girl named Nicolette who was so sweet, pretty, and fun to be around. We started off by drawing a poster to represent what represents a JC patriot. I was pretty proud of my groups poster when it came time to share it with the other groups. We had snacks and went outside to play some more games then ate lunch. Then we played a game called "I have mail for" which was really fun. After that we had to write our letters to our future selves. I took my time on my letter because I knew it would be important in the future to me. I'm so excited to open it in a couple of years and see how much I have changed throughout my years of John Carroll. After I finished writing my letter I turned it into Mrs. Sullivan and joined the rest of the groups. Then I took a picture with Nicolette and the rest of my group outside. Later, I took a picture with just Nicolette and I which turned out pretty good. I was kind of surprised when I was sad the day was over. I thought I was going to hate the retreat but turned out loving it. It was a great experience and I can't wait to go on more with my classmates in the future.

Beware Test Ahead

Today we went over the last few things that will be on the test tomorrow. Even though I won't be in class tomorrow I'm planning to take the test after school hours tomorrow. We mainly went over immigration and the population pyramid and changes that occur in it. We talked about illegal immigrants who hold up companies that wouldn't survive without them. Americans think that manual labor is so beneath them and they would never go sweat at work for a small pay. These illegal immigrants will take as many of these jobs as they can find. They came to the country most likely just to find some jobs that will support them and their needs. Even though these are low pay they think they're the best thing yet. Some people think that's why we don't search out all illegal immigrants that come to the United States. These people support so many factories and jobs and if we just kicked them out all of these companies would start to shut down. Then we continued on the information on the population pyramid. Mr. Schick said that we would have to identify certain countries based on the population pyramid. There would be a word bank to help us out but he said it would be pretty easy to identify each one. You can tell if a country is struggling to live longer or struggling to produce children. If the top of the pyramid is very narrow it is probably a country struggling with health care. This might relate to a nation in Africa which has many people dying at a younger age. If the bottom and top of a pyramid is narrow it probably means that the country is having a hard time producing children. Mr. Schick said this is true for the country of Germany who's pyramid has a bulging middle section. I feel well prepared for this test and hope it goes as well as my first test went and maybe even better.

Road to Success

Today we went over the information that will be on the test Friday. I was really glad our teacher did this because I felt like I didn't quite know what exactly was on the test. I now know I have to get more familiar with the CIA Factbook because we will have questions on the test for it. We will have ten minutes to look up the answers to the CIA Fact questions and then we will have to close our computers. Then we will start testing like regular with matching and definitions from vocabulary we have learned. I'm guessing there might be an essay but I don't remember Mr. Schick saying this. The main subjects of the test are Population and Migration. The blogs I've written so far on these subjects have helped me throughly understand them. My blog also helps study because I start to remember pin points of lessons from them. One example was my blog on the population pyramid. That was one of my longest blogs and it explained the whole lesson over again. I see why Mr. Schick has us write these every night for homework even though it's a pain. It really helps review the section for a test and is a very good study guide. I never realized that the more you put into the blogs every night pays off for the tests in the end. It helps drill the lessons into your brain so you don't just have the information go in one ear and out the other. I won't be in class on Friday but I plan to make up the test either after school or on Tuesday. I hope this upcoming test goes as well as my first test did so I can boost my grade higher before the quarter ends. I plan to study hard and do my best to ace this test so not only my grade improves but learn more about our surrounding world.

Is America All That?

Today we were discussing once again whether the United States is the greatest country in the world. We resourced back to the handy website the CIA Factbook once again to research this controversial subject. We had to find facts that supported the idea of America being the greatest or something bad about it. A couple people found some really good things about our country. Most found out about some pretty awful things about the United States. Our country is currently number nine out of all the country's in the world with the amount of people living with HIV. India is so much bigger in population means and they only have twice as many people living with HIV. If you think about it, that's pretty bad in comparison. We also found that we owe trillions of dollars to many other countries for goods we got from them. This got us to talking about our oil supplying of the world. What if we eventually run out of oil to use for all our daily activities? It has been predicted that this will happen eventually happen but we just aren't sure when. If this happens, we put out some ideas about how we could reduce the use of oils. Mr. Schick shared with us how he has solar panels installed on his house for their electricity source. He said that installing them was kind of expensive at first, but the panels saved him thousands of dollars later after installing them. In my opinion, I think every house should have something this environmentally efficient to save oil. If we start to run out, prices would sky rocket and all chaos would break loose. I think we should try and find a way to pay back these countries so we can focus on upcoming issues like this one.

America the Best Country in the World?

In class on Friday, we wanted a video from a TV show talking about America and it's ups and downs. In the video, there is a news anchor taking questions that they want an opinion on from him from some college students. A young girl stands up and asks the man why do you think America is the greatest country in the world. At first he tries to dodge the question the interviewer said he wanted a real answer. The news anchor gave his opinion loud and clear after that. He explained how no we are not the greatest country in the world and if you're dumb enough to believe it go right ahead and be blinded with the stupidity of your own country. He wasn't complete;y wrong about any of his points in his speech either. This man made very good observations about our country and how we need to realize we aren't as top notch as we think we are. He mentioned how we need to start acting instead of maybe thinking about acting on controversial issues. I couldn't agree more on this which we expanded on in class. A great example is Isis, we have no clue how we are going to help out the victims besides bombing the whole country. We waited and waited to act on the situation when we should've just acted as soon as we could to help the people involved. America needs to pull themselves together and figure out what needs to be fixed before it's too late for us. We need to pay these country's that we're in debt with and find a common ground with these war ranging countries. We need to start acting instead of just cowering at a foreign crisis. I'm not saying we're the worst country but I'm not saying we're the best. This country needs to step it up and show others why we are proud to be where we are.

CIA Fact Book 2.0

Today, we restored back to looking back at the website called the CIA Fact Book. Mr. Schick had told us a couple days ago that just one population pyramid can help you explore the country in so many other way. I explored the struggling African nation's pyramids and they were awful to see. Most nations didn't have people living over 80 at the most and babies were pouring by the hundreds. With babies being born this rapidly, its more likely for them to catch a disease within their early lives. Also, people are having this many children because they don't know exactly how long they have considering all the illnesses floating around in these African nations. This also means they could be rushing into things and not being safe about producing the children and could collect the illness known as Aids. A baby born with Aids isn't expected to last longer than their first birthday's. These struggling nations don't have the means of good health care to help clear up these problems. That's why so many people aren't surviving past the ages of 80 or so. Looking at these pyramid mades me realize how thankful I am for the health care I have. I'm also so thankful their are people in my country willing to help people in poor health as well. The struggling nations around the world deserve a better health care and chance of living. It's sad to see how much of a struggle it is to keep you own children alive as well as yourself. I hope that some day we can find a way to better the struggling nation's health care.

Spotify to Try

Today, we discussed how we were one of Mr. Schick's favorite classes to teach. He said how our class conversations are always so intriguing and he loves how much we participate. I agree because almost every single class we have at least a conversation about one controversial topic for a good 20-30 minutes. We all love to voice our opinions and give our input on the topics we discuss in class and its a great environment for learning. Anyways, Mr. Schick told us that he had a special idea for our class because we were such an amazing class. He said that he wanted us to help him on a project he had started with turning modern day music into learning. All we have to do is find songs from today's music that could possibly relate to education or something were learning at the time. To do this, Mr. Schick gave us a code for a free Spotify account for a year! We all got on our computers and logged in the code and started our profile for Spotify. Everyone started to play their favorite songs because it was nearing the end of class. It was very interesting to find out everyone's music tastes and who their favorite artist was. You can create stations on Spotify for your favorite artist and many more and you can have as many as you want. I'm very thankful that I got the free account and can't wait to explore music for education.

Population Pyramid

We talked about the population pyramid in today's class and discussed how it changes over the years. A population pyramid shows how the population changes due to how many people die and how many are born. The chart shows the percentage of people in the country its focus is on and its death and birth rates. Some things that might affect these rates are natural disasters that could kill many people and wars. Also industrialization and the change of women getting good education affects how many babies are born. For example, a woman trying to get her college degree might wait until she gets out of school to have a child which means the birth rates decreases. Another example of how the pyramid changes is when the baby boom happened after World War II. When soldiers came home from battle, a huge amount of babies were born and this still affects the pyramid today. The baby boomer babies aren't such babies anymore, in fact they are entering their older years now and taking up the elder population. The pyramid also tells us about the country's health care for people. In many African countries, the oldest people on the chart are at the most 70 years old. This makes the birth rate sky rocket because they have children younger since they won't live long enough to have them later. If a pyramid looks almost even on the sides, you have an example of a advanced industrialized country. This means that the country has a low death and birth rate, good living conditions, long life expectancies, and a stable population. This chart is a flashback to the past and a fast track to the future as well and can show us a lot about our population and surrounding world.

Facts of the World

In class on Friday, we explored the CIA website with facts everyone found interesting. I went up to the front and showed everyone the islands I explored on the website. I talked about the military systems and its main government focusses. Many other people went up to present their facts that they had found for homework the night before. Some that I found interesting were the ones concerning Africa's struggling with the disease of HIV. Mr. Schick told us that this could most likely be because the people living in these countries didn't have the means of protection from this disease. Woman that get this disease and have children the child usually doesn't live past their first birthday. Then we explored the country of Syria which is going through a horrible event called Isis. Isis was caused by the people of Syria trying to over throw their leader and he got angry and is now punishing them. The people of Syria are getting bombed and beheaded by their own country's leader. This is why the country's migration rate is at its all time high because people are trying to get out of there as fast as they can. The United States actually stopped a 911 like terrorist attack that was almost caused by people that support Isis. We were so angry at Syria for this attempt that we pounded the country as hard as we could with bombs. I think that the world needs to be more aware of this event that's happening right now and how important it actually is. We need to find a way to stop this horrible murder spree dead in its tracks

Mr. Schick Rap Battle Star

We kicked off our class today with a very intense rap battle between Cody and Mr. Schick. Mr. Schick laid down his paper clip along with some rhythms that beat Cody's attempts. After that we went over the test again to the people who weren't there the day before. We discussed the Socrates essay more today and how he was one of the most influential speakers of his time. Socrates actually trained the philosopher Aristotle who also became one of the most well known philosophers. We talked about how Socrates could've gotten himself out of killing himself but chose not to. He had such brilliant way of speaking that he could've made an amazing defense against his case but he didn't. Even if he didn't make a great statement for himself, his friend's had an escape plan for him and he still didn't go. He respected his government so much that he forcibly killed himself because his fellow citizens voted that ruling. One of the greatest minds took his own life because he loved his democratic government. I've learned so much about Socrates in my Human Geo class. We started small but expand a little more every day on our knowledge of Socrates and his legacy he left. His legacy speaks to us in many ways pushing us to search for what we want and to achieve it.  Socrates was a great example of Greek's word arete meaning excellence. He was the greatest mind you could ever find see how that rhythms?

Ding! You Got Grades!

Today in Human Geo, we went over our graded unit one tests together. First we went up to go get our papers from Mr. Schick one by one. You knew immediately if you got and A or not because if you did Mr. Schick rang his bell on his classroom on wheels. I was very pleased to hear that bell when I approached Mr. Schick to accept my test grade. We went over the multiple choice questions on the first part of the test by going around the room and saying our answers. We only had big problems when it came to the essay writing portion of the test. I had a hard time with the description of Socrates but that was it. It seemed like I wasn't the only one. Cody said he was hurt by Mr. Schick's comments on his essay which we all had a good laugh about. He said that Mr. Schick said that he was a big mistake which made me laugh pretty hard. Turns out we cleared out the whole thing out and mistakes were corrected with no crying. Also we discussed the essay on Socrates' saying "the unexamined life is not worth living". Mr. Schick explained this didn't mean go run out into traffic like there's no tomorrow, it means more than that. He only counted the explained answers for that essay question because he felt like he was reading the same thing over and over. I was quite satisfied with my grade and though the test was pretty easy for me. I hope the rest of this year goes this smoothly for me in this class.

Migration Rates

In class, we discussed the migration rate of many countries around the world. We mainly focussed on the United States and Mexico's migration relations with each other. In Mr. Schick's power point which was made in 2013, it said that United States' migration rate was 3.62 which means per thousand of the population. But that number has decreased, at the moment our country's migration rate is 2.45. The new website that Mr. Schick showed us was pretty interesting as well. I explored around the website for a while but I always went back to one very small country called the Pitcairn Islands. This small place is actually quite amusing to how small it is considering it only inhabits 48 people. It's no wonder they don't have any disputes with any other countries since one of their main focusses is postage stamps. Also, since they have no problems with other countries they don't have their own military, they are protected by the UK forces. It's fascinating how migration works in our world with so many people going here and there and everywhere. The website I explored was very captivating and I think it could be helpful in the future as well. Learning about our world's migration rate and pollution variations was an interesting lesson that I plan to expand my knowledge on even more.

Population of Our Planet

As of right now, the planet earth is inhabiting over 7 billion people and it is not going to get any smaller. The build up of people was slow at first, but then a burst of population came through and doubled, even tripled the population on this earth. By the time I'm in my forties or fifties, there could be some possibility that the 7 billion people could double to 14 billion, maybe even more. An example of how much the world expanded is China's culture. They are ruled by a communist government that tells them how to live because they pay for everything their citizens buy. They have a law that states a couple cannot have more than one child. China is inhabiting about 1.3 billion at this point in time, imagine how huge it would be if they hadn't made that a law. This shows how much our population keeps growing day by day. We don't know how many people are really out there and there will be more and more after them.

Substitute

The other day,  Mr Schick wasn't able to attend our class. We had Mr. Myeryel substitute in for him to look after our insane class. We had to study the whole class for the test the next day. I used some quizzing websites I had picked up from other teachers to study for the test. I also used my blog which surprisingly was really helpful because it was basically a set of online notes. Mr. Schick wasn't kidding when he said our blogs were gonna be one of the biggest deals of his class. We were allowed to listen to music and for some reason, music really helps me study. I don't like studying with people talking around me, but I can focus really well when I have my headphones in. The next day was the test, which I thought was gonna be really hard considering someone cried during one of Mr. Schick's finals. The test was surprisingly easy for me, paying attention in class was really essential for this test. Many of the class discussions we had were topics on the test. Since I usually participated in the class, I knew almost everything by heart. I think talking through the subjects so much really drilled the conversations into my head which was really helpful. I hope I did well on this test to keep up my grade. I have a lot of confidence in this class and hope to get the good grades I plan to work for.

Globalization

Last class, we talked about globalization, which means the connections of the parts of the world. We discussed Japan's globalization to the American economy and culture. Japanese people have a history of having the longest life expectancy to most people. This was because of their healthy diet of raw vegetables, fish, and many other healthy foods. This life expectancy number started to lower when Japan started putting more American fast food restaurants on every corner. The culture was affected along with the health of the Japanese people. Dinner was usually a very traditional meal of discussion and dining together. This changed when people started to eat out on their own because they could just go through a drive through and be done. Many people liked the restaurants but didn't like the affects of the food. High cholesterol and blood pressure levels from all the fat and sodium lowered the people's chances of living a longer life. Globalization is good in some ways, but sometimes all it is for is for money. People think that we all connect deeply through this blending of culture, but there are down sides to it.

The Speeding World

Why would we want social media on a watch? Shouldn't that just be on your cell phone? Well, today in class we discussed how people had the same thoughts about cell phones with social media and text message. People used to ask why they would do something they could do on their computer. Maybe that's how our generation will react if the new Apple Watch gets as big as the iPhone. Shouldn't watches just tell time, maybe not. Mr. Schick told us a story about his first time using a cell phone, it was so fascinating at the time. It used to be so mind blowing that you didn't have to have your phone connected to a wall to talk to people. What if that's how we will be with the new Apple Watch. It talks about how it could memorize your credit card information and you could make transactions without your card. Maybe it'll turn out that we don't even have to take our credit card with us everywhere. If this new "smart watch" blows up, imagine what would happen to all the expensive watch companies. Our world is moving faster than you think, and if you think about it someone's life could've changed in the time of me writing this blog. Maybe I'll look back on this post and say "Wow I can't believe we used to carry our credit cards everywhere with us". Maybe even "Wow I can't believe we used to type on laptops for homework".

The World Around Us

Today we watched a video on the rapidly developing world around us. One thing that really struck me was that 1 in 4 couples that were married in the past year met online. This made me kind of sad cause I feel like just an online profile doesn't define your soulmate, ever heard of opposites attract? I feel like they would connect on some levels but then realize there's no passion behind it because they didn't meet on a face to face level. Also, the video described how we could possibly be preparing kids for jobs that don't even exist yet. This amazed me that our technology and intelligence advanced so much in matter of just a few years over time. I was also overwhelmed when the video stated that I would most likely have at least 10 jobs by the age of 38. That age isn't even middle age and i will already have worked for 10 different companies maybe even more than that. These jobs could also be in completely different fields of business and I'd probably have a hard time keeping up with it. This video taught me that our world is already 10 steps ahead of us before we even have the idea of the future. We are changing almost as fast as the world around us and we don't even realize it until it's gone.

The Life Worth Living

The great Socrates had a saying which stated, "the unexamined life is not worth living." What i think this meant is to explore yourself a little more. Ask more questions but don't complain, ask about why you're doing what you doing and if it fulfills your desire in life. Ask yourself what are my values or what's the most important thing to me right now and why? Is it worth it? Explore you're feelings and express them even if it's scary. My perfect world might be much different than other people's, but we all have the same thing in ming, happiness. Explore what you want so badly and what you have to do to get to it. The unexamined life is one that you don't know what you want, and who wants to live in a life of no purpose. Set your goals and work to achieve them. Set your values and priorities straight so you have a clearer patch to your goals. I think the examined life if one where you ask yourself who am I truly?

Ancient Greece 2.0

Today we expanded our knowledge on the subjects we focussed on the day before and doing cheer kicks in the process. We talked about Greece's voting system and how they vote on ideas. The big gathering area known as the agora holds the meetings of the citizens to discuss the matter at hand. There isn't one big superior person to speak the entire time, one by one people give their honest opinion for people to consider. When it comes to voting on the discussion, they bring around a large vase to each person to put their rock in. They have a white rock for yes and a black rock for no. After counting, they announce the winning decision to the crowd of voters. Then we moved on to expand on the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates died a very cruel death because he was forced to commit suicide by drinking poison. He was forced to do this because he told others he thought political important things were more important than the gods. His friends told him they had an escape plan for him, but Socrates said he didn't want to escape. He respected his people's decision, took the cup, and killed himself in front of his friends eyes.

Ancient Greece and Excellence

Today we learned a few different things about Greece and it's people's arete, which means excellence.    As a greek citizen, you had to participate in voting for ideas or decisions in the town. It was mostly men because women weren't allowed to vote at the Agora, the voting area in the town. Another thing we learned about was the city of Polis, which was like the capital of Greece because of how popular it was. We learned that in 508 BC, Cleisthenes grants full rights to all free men of Athens to vote for town decisions. Our class also got to learn about the Greek philosopher Socrates. The philosopher had method to his teachings; finding out the real truth behind things in his own light. Socrates was eventually forced to commit suicide by drinking poison. Finally, we learned that being an idiot in Greece isn't that bad. Being and idiot meant being a private person and one that didn't vote. Ancient Greece had a very interesting history of excellence.

Five Ways to Success

I plan to put my best foot forward in my four years at John Carroll. Organizing myself will lead the way to my success in and out of school. Making lists of what I need for homework or when tests are will help me pull through all the difficult tasks of a student. Giving myself a certain time frame for homework so I can get a good rest is important as well. In another way to succeed, I plan to use my phone less so I can focus on my homework more. I don't need to be on Twitter reading useless tweets when I could finish my homework early and then go to sleep. Being on my phone less will allow me to pursue another lead to success, to study more. I need to start getting used to studying before I go to bed instead of the morning of the quiz or test. Cramped studying might have worked in middle school, but I don't think it's going to cut it in high school. Also, I want to have a better relationship with my teachers so I can communicate more with them. I used to be really stubborn and not ask the teacher for help on a concept or homework I didn't understand. I know it would help more to communicate my problems then try to solve them myself. Last but definitely not least, I will be working on my patience. I'm awful at computers and get really frustrated when I don't know what to do on my computer. I also have trouble having patience with homework, especially in Math. I will try to strengthen my patience and learn to solve my problems before exploding.

Message To Garcia

In class on Friday, we discussed the story Message To Garcia. The story was told from the time of the Spanish American war. The president had to get an important message to a person in an undetermined location. Roan was a very loyal and trusted messenger to many so the  president sent him to go deliver the message. Without question, Roan went into the deep forest during a time of war and in a few weeks he had emerged with success. The whole point of the story is that people today ask too many questions instead of just getting up and doing the job asked. We complain before we act on the task that needs to be accomplished. Everyone is so lazy with their work unless they are threatened or rewarded in the end. When the whole world is slumming from the under achievers, the independent loyal workers will rise. We should all take this story into consideration if we want to succeed in our careers. Nothing is handed to us in this world; we must work for our success.

Human Geo Water Polo

I had a very fun Human Geo class today with my classmates. We had a very intense debate about how to play water polo and how the room smelled like cleaning product not watermelon jolly ranchers. Then Mr. Schick told us about his awful cold that made his throat quite scratchy. He also told us that our class is actually ahead of all his other classes because we've had him everyday since school started. After that, our teacher introduced us to our new student, Rosemary, who was really sweet and nice. Then Mr. Schick checked that we all posted our blogs the night before and called us up one at a time so he could read them. After Mr. Schick saw my blog, I helped explain the schedule to Rosemary who was very thankful for that. I'd say we had a very interesting class today and I'm very comfortable talking amongst my classmates and with my teacher.

2nd Day of Schick's Class

Today's class was mostly taken up by Mr. Schick helping a couple of my classmates and I figure out our blogs. We started by checking who emailed him before nine o'clock last night and we realized most of us weren't on the list. As soon as we all were situated, Mr Schick started to explain how to properly upload a blog post. He also showed us that we can save it as a draft and preview it before we actually post it on our website. We can also edit our blog site to have different colors on it. Our teacher warned us though; if we make the background black we could not see our black font for our writing. I feel quite caught up on the information about my blog and how to publish my work. I was confused about my blog how to work the site at first but I think I have adjusted to the new program.

My First Day at John Carroll

My first day at John Carroll was nerve wrecking, but turned out to be a very interesting day for me. I came in feeling very nervous, but one of my Sophomore friends told me I had nothing to worry about. As soon as the halls were open, I went to advisory and then headed to the gym to get my pictures done along with other activities. After my Human Geography class  I was feeling quite confident because my teacher made me feel really welcome. Then I experienced my first off mods and ate my lunch with my friends. The next three classes I had were kind of difficult for me, but I plan to try my best in each class. The last of my classes was English and I felt like I developed a good relationship with my teacher who also made me feel comfortable in my environment. At the end of the day, I was pretty satisfied with my first day experience. I look forward to my upcoming years as a student at John Carroll.