Presentation time!!

Today in Human Geography we presented our projects. While we were watching other groups present their presentations we had to grade them on how we thought their power points were. I learned a lot of interesting things from others power points like I had an idea that a lot of stuff was made in China and foreign countries but I had no idea how much was being made. I also learned while preparing our project that there are a lot of safety measures that the United States has that China does not really care about all that much. There are also very bad working conditions in the factories of China and a lot of the workers there get sick and spread disease. One other thing that was so awful to learn was that Chinese factories put more led into their products than there should be and this could threaten someone’s life, watching how much led you put into a product is a key factor in manufacturing things but all they really want to do is make money.

Some visitors!

Today in Human Geography we continued to work on our projects. My group that I am working in had finished the research part of the project yesterday so today we finished things up by creating a small poster. This assignment will be one hundred points and each group will be grading other groups’ projects after they are done presenting them tomorrow. The past two days I forgot to mention that we have had some very special visitors from Japan. About 100 students came to shadow at our school for a week to see how we do things and if they would like to do an exchange program and possibly come back next year and stay with a host family and continue to learn more English and go to school at John Carroll for a while. This is very exciting for all of us and we hope that they will be joining us at school again!

the project!

Today in human geography we worked on a project that has to do with Chinese and American products. We had to split up into groups and pick whether or not we were going to be supporting America or China. The group that I worked in supported America and we did our project on the product of shoes and why you should buy them from American companies instead of Chinese companies. In our power point we talked about how the factories in China do not use caution with safety and sometimes put harsh chemicals into their products, making it less safe for the buyer. The working conditions are also bad inside the Chinese factories and workers are not paid as well as they would be in America.  Today my group finished pretty much all of our project and tomorrow we will be making a poster in class.

Some important terms!

Today we discussed four important terms:

Capitalism- An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit. (America)

Communism- (classless; state owned/Gov.) a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community  as a whole or to the state.( China)

Free enterprise- an economic and political doctrine holding that a capitalist economy can regulate itself in a freely competitive market through the relationship of supply and demand with a minimum of governmental intervention and regulation.

Free market- an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear  of monopolies.

We also talked about how in America there are a lot of poor people but a very high number of rich people. Also We were talking about how a baseball player makes millions of dollars a year but a teacher doesn’t even make anything close to that and teachers better the world by helping people learn and baseball players don’t really do anything but play a sport and have people come and watch them.

Cites:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free+market?s=t

China!

Today in human geography we started our class off by reviewing what we watched yesterday in the movie. We learned the following: Most of the cars being made in China are for American companies. When the Chinese want to buy a car they save up their cash to buy it, they do not use a credit card for it. Chinese car making factories have to be watched to make sure they aren't cutting corners on safety precautions in order to make more profit. There was a man that was being interviewed and he was making 28 dollars when working for an American man and when he changed jobs to work for a Chinese man he only would make 15 dollars an hour instead of 28. They also mentioned one of the biggest auto part industries which is Wanxiang, Chinese auto part industries will soon become the largest. The last thing we talked about was that China is the biggest producer and consumer of steel and that the Pittsburgh Steelers got their name because Pittsburgh was a steel State.

the other part of the movie!

Today in human geography we watched some more of the movie. In the part that we watched today they mostly talked about cars. China puts 25,000 cars on the road a day, but the people living in China do not really know how to use them yet. There are about 400 traffic accidents a day because there are so many people trying to drive in an overcrowded road, most of the people are just learning how to drive but they are not teenagers, they are probably in their mid-30s, and before cars about four years ago the people of China were using bikes to travel to where they needed to go. The city Jin Ch’ing is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. A lot of the people living here are poor and a lot need jobs, so there is a ton of manual labor for them in order to make money, like people build bridges, roads, highways, and tunnels but they only get a few dollars a day. 

People's republic of capitalism!

We have been watching a movie called “People’s republic of Capitalism” and we have been taking notes on the movie. I will just talk a little bit about the notes I have taken. People in China believe that girls should not be as well educated as boys, this was what one woman being interviewed was talking about, also she talks about how she makes all of the money in her family; she harvests lotus roots and she carries about 120 pounds worth of them to the market to sell by herself and she, along with the other people who do this only get about 3 American dollars for them. She gets about ten dollars a week and that comes to about 570 dollars a year. Half of this money goes to her child’s education and the other half goes to other necessities for her family.  The next person to be interviewed is Dr. Jung, he works in China and his family lives in America. He is currently searching for a cure for aids and some of his work has moved onto human trials, he works for NIH. Dr. Jung’s children go to high school in America and he has a house there also, he wanted his children to grow up in a non-communist place. Also he has his own lab in China and he does this because everything is cheaper than in America, he has a better deal in China than in America.  We also talked a little about how there a lot of interdependence is going between China and America. 

sick

i was absent again today but feeling much better i am coming in tomorrow

sick

i was also absent from school today

sick

today I was absent from class.

The test and paper!

Today in human geography we took a test.  The test was based on the lessons we have had on political geography. We learned about leaders and the countries that they rule, and some interesting facts about them and also their contributions to their country. The layout of the test was: on the front there was a matching of the leaders to their country, and on the back there were maps and pictures and some other facts that you had to match with the leaders.  Also today we handed in our papers that were written over the weekend. The papers had to be double spaced and at least 500 words or more, we had to write about the relationship between two countries with America. After we took the test, we just had some free time to do what we wanted for the rest of the class, we could study or just talk to our friends. 

War

Today in human geography we talked about recent events such as the war going on between Israel and Palestine.  Palestine started shooting rockets at Israel because they hate each other. Then we watched a video on how badly the civilians are affected by this war, many people have died from the bombs hitting their homes. The new leader of China is XI Jinping and Hu Jintao is out.  We also talked about the test that we have to take Monday; this test will be on the world leaders and some facts about them and what countries they run.  

Papers!

Today we talked about the paper we will be writing. The paper must be at least 500 words and you have to talk about two different countries and how they interact with America and if you want to you can add how they act with each other. The paper will be due this Monday and we are allowed to write the paper with a partner if we would prefer to. Another thing we talked about besides the paper was that Texas wants to secede from the union. This was the first that I had heard of it, we also talked about if the people of Texas voted on it they wouldn't break away from us because a lot of people want to come to America and be Americans, so who wouldn't want to be a part of that. Also they would have to spend a lot of money on other things that they already have now with us.

Absent

today i was absent from class because i was sick.

Nuclear war

Today we went over our pop quizzes that we took on Friday. We started going over the answers and we really got to talking about how Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to order a pre-emptive strike against Iran and how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to also order a nuclear strike against Israel.  Also we said some things about Fidel Castro, who is a communist, has been in power for over 50 years and he has passed his power to his brother in law. Ever since he took power in Cuba we have not been able to trade with them, we cannot even buy cigars from them because it is illegal. There has also been a lot of drug dealing going on between Cuba and us because most of the people in our country have a bad habit of doing drugs and we can’t stop buying them from other countries. The last thing we talked about was how there are a lot of nuclear power plants near people’s home and they are always testing bombs in that vicinity.

Time for a pop quiz!!!

Today in human geography class we took a pop quiz! This quiz was based basically on everything that we have been talking about for pretty much the whole entire week which was the world leaders and some interesting facts about them. Before we talked about these leaders and what kind of a role they play, I had pretty much no prior knowledge of these leaders except maybe a few things about Barack Obama. These leaders have worked very hard to get to where they are today, and now I know how much it takes to achieve something great, but you have to go after it and work hard. I am inspired by these people, but especially the leaders that are women. Angela Merkel kept on fighting for what she believed in even though she was punished for her beliefs at first, and now she is the chancellor of Germany and one of the most powerful people in the world. Also Dilma Rousseff, she is the very first woman to be elected as president in Brazil, she is also the first economist to be elected president of Brazil. Now I don’t know if I would want to be the head of a country, but this lesson on the world leaders gets all of the students who learn it inspired to follow their dream of being who they want to be and to never give up on their dream.

The President of the United States

In today’s class we talked about some more of the leaders that we have been studying, we went back to get some other info on the people that we had already talked about yesterday. Hu Jintao became of the young communist youth league, and in 1982 he turned thirty nine and became the youngest member of the central committee, he was made vice president at the age of fifty six in 1998- he was the youngest person in modern history to have this job- after, he was made vice chairman of china's state central military commission, and he is also the head of the communist party in China, he will not become leader of China anymore because the people in this country do not vote, someone else decides for them. Next we moved onto David Cameron and that when he was a child he received an amazing education and eventually graduated from Oxford with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, Queen Elizabeth doesn’t really do anything, and she is just a figurehead. One other thing we talked about briefly was how before Hamid Karzai became the leader of Afghanistan the Taliban was pretty much in control.  Now onto Obama and some things that have shaped him into a leader: Barack had a very good education; he graduated from the Colombia University and Harvard Law School. He was a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law. He served three terms for the 13^th district of Illinois from 1997 to 2004, he also won the senate election in 2004, and he resigned when he won the position of being our president in 2008 when he ran against Hilary Clinton and John McCain. After serving for four years he has just won the election again against Mitt Romney and will continue to be our president for another term. 

country leaders

In today’s class we talked about some of the different leaders of the countries we have just recently researched. First we started talking a little about the Taliban and what they are, the Taliban is a group of terrorists that kill people who the think are wrong. There was a girl named Malala who was protesting for women’s rights to get the same education as men in her country, the Taliban thought that this was wrong so they shot her in the head. She went to the hospital and has to receive reconstructive surgery on her head, this story instantly became famous.  We went on to talk about the leader of Iran; Mahmud and how he was against women’s rights and then we talked a little about coup d’état, this term means trying to overthrow the government and trying to take over. Probably the most interesting person we talked about today was Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany. Angela was arrested for coup d’état and she was tortured while a prisoner, they would hang her upside down and torture he with electrical shocks to her body, this method was called the bird perch. Even through all these terrible events she still fought for what she wanted, she did not back down and she became the first woman to become a chancellor of Germany. Another thing we talked about was how some leaders want to form a coalition government, which means they do not believe in women’s rights, we kind of skimmed through a couple more leaders, not really getting into much detail but we tossed around Mr. Schick’s Globe and pointed out the country that we talked about, and that was the ending of today’s class.   

Leaders

Mexico:
Leader: Enrique Pena Nieto

• has not yet taken his role as president but will be taking office in December
• he was governor of Mexico for six years before running for president 
• people cheat on ballots when voting for him, people's lives are threatened unless they vote for him

China
Leader: Hu Jintao

• became a local leader of the Young Communist Youth League, in 1982 he turned thirty nine and became the youngest member of the central committee
• he was made vice president at the age of fifty six in 1998- he was the youngest person in modern history to have this job- after, he was made vice chairman of china's state central military commission.
• head of the entire communist party of China
• they don't vote-hu jintao is not going to be president anymore 

India
Leader: President Pranab Mukherjee

• President of the unit of congress since 1985 but resigned in July, 2010
• 1969 was when he got a break to be in politics from prime minister Indira Gandhi - he helped Pranab get elected into the upper house in India's parliament.

Afghanistan
leader: Hamid Karzai

• Chosen for a two year term as Interim president during the 2002 grand assembly
• In 2004 he was elected president and he won a second five year term in 2009
• before he ran this country the Taliban ran it 

Iran:
Leader: Mahmud

• He was an engineer and a teacher from a very poor background, he joined the office for strengthening unity after the Islamic revolution.
• when he ran for president, his campaign received 62% of the election runoff votes and he became president- this was in 2005, his second term ends on august third 2013

Israel:
Leader:   prime minister Binyamin netanyahu

• He formed a coalition government 
• The first Israeli prime minister born in Israel after the founding of the state

Germany:
Leader: Angela Merkel

• She is the First woman to become a chancellor of Germany
• She is seen to play a very crucial role in managing the financial crisis (referred to as the decider) she also plays a major role in the problems that concern health care reform and future energy development 

United Kingdom:
Leader: David Cameron

• He earned his first honors degree at oxford- philosophy, politics and economics
• when he was little he got an amazing education
• At age 43 he became the youngest British prime minister  since earl of Liverpool 198 years later
• the queen speaks fluent french, she has a lot of awards, she has been in power for the longest time- she is just a figurehead 

France:

Leader: Francois Hollande

• On the 16th of October he won the socialist and Radical left party nomination with more than 56% of the votes
• On May sixth he defeated his opponent in the second runoff becoming the president of France

Brazil:

Leader: Dilma Rousseff 

• First woman to hold office, she was also the first woman to become chief of staff to the president of Brazil
• She was elected in a runoff on October 31, 2010- She is the first female elected president of Brazil, she is also the first economist to hold office

Venezuela:

Leader: President Hugo Chavez

• he has held the position of president since 1999
• He has focused on implementing socialist reforms in his country as a part of his project which is called Bolivarian Revolution 

 Saudi Arabia:

Leader: king and prime minister abdullah bin abdulaziz al saud

• he became king on August 1, 2005 on account of his half brother king Fahd's death
• he held important political positions during his life, one of them being that he was the mayor of Mecca as a young man, he is the sixth king of Saudi Arabia

countries!

                Mexico:

       

                            Constitution: Federal republic            

       

                               Leader: Enrique pena nieto

                                 

China:

 Constitution: communist state

Leader: Hu Jintao

India:

Government:  federal republic

Leader: President Pranab Mukherjee

Afghanistan:

 Government: Islamic republic

Leader: Hamid Karzai

Iran:

Government: Theocratic republic

Leader: President Mahmud

Israel:

Government: Parliamentary Democracy

Leader: President Shimon Peres and prime minister binyamin netanyahu

Germany:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: Angela Mercle 

                                             






United Kingdom:

                                             Government: Constitutional Monarchy and commonwealth realm

                                              Leader: Queen Elizabeth II

                                                    

                                          France:

                                        Government: Republic

                                         Leader: President Francois Hollande

                                         

Brazil:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: President Dilma Rousseff

 

Venezuela:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: President Hugo Chavez

Saudi Arabia:

Government: Monarchy

Leader: king and prime minister abdullah bin abdulaziz al saud

a do homework day!

Today in human geography we didn’t have a lot of time to do a lot of work so we just did some other homework in the short time that we had. We pretty much had a free class to get other work done!

review for the test

Today in human geography we discussed making up questions for our test that is this Friday.  We mostly reviewed what we had learned which was the religions and the Vikings, Native Americans, and Columbus. We talked about Siddhartha and how he fasted, Saul and his transformation, different gods and if the religions were monotheistic or polytheistic. Also the Geographical distribution and percentage of these religions throughout the world, for example: a lot of people that live in India practice Hinduism; about 80% of India is made up of this religion, and Christianity can be found in most parts of Europe and around that area. There are also some people who haven’t chosen to practice a religion, about one billion people in the world do not practice any type of religion. We also said that there should be a question on the test concerning Muhammad and where he was born, which was mecca. So today all we pretty much did was review and watch Doori laugh herself to death!

Hinduism and Judaism

In our last class of human geography we covered the last few religions: Hinduism and Judaism. First we talked about Hinduism and how it does not claim any one prophet, it’s a way of life and a way of living. The sacred text is called Vedas and Bhagaud, and sometimes the people of this religion go to services. About 80% of India is made up of Hindus, there are different sects of this religion and there are over 1 billion Hindus in the world. Next we talked about Judaism, this religion is monotheistic. We discussed the story of Abraham and Isaac; the story goes that Abraham was going to sacrifice his own son Isaac in order to prove his faith in God, and he was going through with the plan until God stopped him. God said to Abraham that because of his unfailing faith Abraham would have as many descendants as there are stars. Abraham's descendants are known as the Jews and their holy book is the Talmud and the Torah, also a few other books included in the Old Testament. There are 13.5 million Jews, 42% live in Israel another 42% live in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest are spread out over Europe. The Abraham God is their central figure; the same central figure as the Christians and the Muslims. 

Islam and Buddhism!

Today we talked more about religions. First we talked about Islam and how their central figure is Muhammad (570-632) he was known for supposedly speaking to God. His revelations from God were written in their religion’s holy book which is called the Qur’an. We learned that this religion is monotheistic and that there are about 1.6 – 1.7 Muslims in the world, also most of these Muslims are found in the Middle East like Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Muhammad was born in Mecca and the Muslims think that this is a very holy place, also Medina is another very sacred place where the Muslims are expected to go to before they die. We talked a little about how different the people of this religion dress than us, their women are dressed very modestly and we do not dress so modest, the Muslims were getting angry with us because our culture was starting to slowly weasel its way into theirs. After Muhammad died two groups were formed and they turned against each other, their names were the Shiites and the Sunnis. Then we talked about Buddhism, their central figure is Siddhartha Gautama (   563-483 BC). He was either going to be a king or he was to be a spiritual leader. His father of course wanted him to be a king instead of a spiritual leader so he kept him away from religion, until Siddhartha ran away only to discover that the world was so much different than the life his father gave him, there was suffering and war.  He sought to end all suffering. This religion does not have a holy book, but it does have what they call the 4 noble truths and they are: 1.- everyone experiences suffering, 2. The origin of suffering is the craving for acquisition of identity, 3. Suffering can be ended, and 4. The way to end suffering is the eight fold path. They believe in reincarnation, and if you were a good person on earth you would come back as a higher life form, but if you were a bad person you would come back as a lower life form until you were good and worked your way up to being a higher life form. Buddhism has 376 million followers in the world. 

religion and Paul

In today’s human geo class we talked about more ethnic heritage. We talked about how in the countries of Rwanda and Burundi in Africa, and how there are two dominant ethnic groups; the Tutsis and the Hutus. The Hutus were always more dominant over the Tutsis and persecuted them, but in some areas that is different and the Tutsis are dominant and they are the ones who persecute the Hutus.  Next we talked about how the U.S. had merged multiple ethnic groups in their countries with no problem. Korea and Japan mostly just go by one ethnic group because they want to retain their ethnicity. After that we started talking about religion and how there are five major religions in the world today and they are: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We went over our homework that discussed these five religions, but then we got to talking about how Christianity got started. Christianity used to be a criminal offence and people were persecuted for it. There was a man named Saul and he loved persecuting the Christians because he was very good at it, but one day while on his way to Damascus there was a beam of light that blinded him and he heard God’s voice telling him not to persecute the Christians anymore. After his encounter with God, Saul changed his ways; he was from then on known as Paul and he went out to all these different places and preached to all these people. If people wrote him letters, he would write back to them, those places built churches and from then on they fully understood God. When Jesus was alive he was not as widely famous as people thought, Jesus mainly preached in his own homeland and didn’t get to travel a lot. Towards the end of class we talked about Jesus knowing that he was starting a religion or if it was unintended. A few of us thought that it was unintentional and that Jesus was just trying to set us on the right path.

Religions!

                                                                          Religion

There are many religions around the world, and we were given five different religions to look up information about- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. First Christianity, this religion was founded at about 30 AD in Palestine.  This religion is under the category monotheistic because Christians only believe in one god, and the Christians have a holy book called the Bible. About one third of the earth’s population consists of this religion and they all worship one central figure; which is God, and because there are a pretty high amount of Christians there isn't really one place where there is a huge collection of them, but there is a fair amount of them in the north. Next is Judaism, this was founded at around 1812 BC in the Middle East. Judaism is monotheistic because like Christianity they believe in one god. This religion has a holy book called the Torah, their central figure is God and also this religion has about 14 to 15 million followers.  Many of these followers are located in the United States and Israel. After that there comes Islam, which was founded at around 570 AD in Saudi Arabia, and this religion is monotheistic.  Islam has a holy book called the Qur’an and their central figure is Allah, which means God in Arabic. There are maybe 1.5 million people in the world that practice this religion, and many of its followers are found in Algeria. Then there is Buddhism, this religion was founded at about 580 BC in southern Nepal, and is polytheistic because they believe in many different gods. Their holy book is called the Tipitaka and the central figure in this religion is Shakyamuni Buddha. There are around 2 million followers to this religion and most of them are found in Tibet. The last religion we researched was Hinduism, this was founded in 3,500 BC in India and this religion like some of the others we looked at is polytheistic. There are a few holy books that accompany this religion, they are called Vendas and Upanishads, and there isn't really a central figure because there are just so many different figures in this religion. There are around 1.5 million followers and many of them can be found in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. I liked doing this assignment because I learned a lot of new things about other religions that I hadn't known about before.

Notes about languages

Today in human Geo we talked about how some countries are affected by what language they speak. We started taking notes on how Arabian countries speak mostly Arabic and how this is important; they can benefit from this because they need to be able to speak with most of the people in their country and know what is going on, and also in order for them to learn certain things this is helpful. Mr. Schick talked about when he went on a trip to France he wanted everyone to think that he was French and that he tried so hard to speak perfectly to others and one time he did exactly that. Eryn told us that she will be attending the school trip to France and Spain, and she will be staying in a hotel and touring around France. Doori also told us a story of when she and her mother were talking to a French man but it was kind of hard to understand him. We didn't finish the note taking, but what we mostly learned to day was about how people spoke in different countries and also we learned the term- Lingua Franca which means that the language is pretty known and spoken.

Our presentations

Today in human Geo we presented our projects to the class. We learned that the Native Americans lived in America about 12,000- 17,000 years ago, and that when we conquered America, we pushed them out of their own home and they eventually ended up on separate reservations, which is the only land that they can truly call theirs now. My group did our presentation on the Vikings. We talked about how they arrived in America at around 1,000 AD and the very first Viking to arrive was Leif Eriksson. The Vikings came to America on big long ships, but they were not the first, the Native Americans were there before them, also we talked about what they built their homes with like turf and wood. The Vikings also farmed wheat, barley and rye, but they left after a while because of conflicts. The last group did their presentation as Christopher Columbus, and he did not intend on finding America, he was just trying to find a shorter route to India when he stumbled upon this big piece of land. As everyone knows, Columbus and his men did conquer America.

Columbus Day

Today in human Geo we went over the test we took on “God Grew Tired of Us.” After we had gone over all the questions we talked about how today was Columbus Day and we didn't have off like we used to. So we got into talking about how Christopher Columbus wasn't the first PERSON to find America, because when they got here there were already Native Americans and also there were Vikings for a while but they left because of the conflict of the natives. We split up into like three groups of six or seven and each group had to choose what they wanted to be (Vikings, Native Americans, or Columbus) our group got to be the Vikings. After we assigned our groups Mr. Schick told us that we were to create a power point on our topic using the questions that he had given us to answer about the group we got. We will present our information to the class tomorrow.

the test on the movie!

Today in human geography we had a test on the movie that we just recently finished. The movie “God Grew Tired of Us” was probably one of my favorite movies, because we really got to see what went on in other countries besides our own. The story was very touching and made our class really inspired to stand up and make a change and do something for this country. The next class we have we will probably talk about how we are going to go about raising awareness and what charities we want to do. A few of the people in our class including myself really want to go to different schools and have them watch this movie so that they understand why we were so inspired by this story and hopefully they will feel the same way. If that idea works than maybe after we talk to some other schools they would get inspired by us and they could go and talk to other schools, so this could possibly be like some sort of a chain reaction that Sudan could really benefit from if we all choose some charities that give to Sudan. We have the power and the ambition to do this, so hopefully our contributions will help out.

Charities!

 Today in human geography we began class with our prayer and then we got started talking about how there a lot more people were posting things on our open source page on Mr. Schick’s blog. So Mr. Schick asked us if we had any favorites of all the charities trying to help Sudan. The first person to talk about their favorite charity was Doori, her charity was outreach Africa. Doori explained to us that this charity provides the children of Sudan a really good education and we all talked about how it was good because if you give the children a chance to learn we can help them help themselves. Next I talked about the charity that I found which was called the water project. This charity provides wells for Sudan because most of the people in Sudan do not have clean drinking water, they drink out of streams and they drink very unclean water. I really like this charity because it would allow our class to have a fund raiser and then give the money to this charity, it is $5,000 per well. We also talked about maybe instead of having John Bul Dou coming and talking to us we could have Panther come and talk to us because It might be cheaper.

research on the lost boy foundations!

Today in human geography we started class off by telling Mr. Schick what charities we tried to find last night in order to find out a way that we, as a class could help out Sudan. We split up into groups to search for different sites that could possibly help us figure out how we should go about helping this place. Mr. Schick put an open source on his blog so that we could see some of the websites that he and some other teachers found, but since it is an open source we could find different websites to put on that page. Our class kind of goofed off with the page for a little while but then we got a second chance and we were set strait. After we did all of our research Mr. Schick told us that he had emailed John Bul Dou and told him that our class wanted him to come to our school and speak about what is going on in Sudan and what he is trying to tell people. John responded with an email telling Mr. Schick that there was a day that he would come but there would be a fee and he wrote in the email what he would go over during the course of his speech. Of course we are very excited! I feel that our class really got into the story of the lost boys and we truly want to do something in order to help them and Sudan out.

The end of the movie!

Today in human geography we finished up the movie. Before the movie ended a lot of things happened to the boys. Daniel talks about his friend that had a breakdown; he says that he does not blame his friend for doing this because there are so many images of the war in Sudan in their minds and it would cause anyone to go a little crazy. It is the fourth of July, but even thought this is a happy time for us; watching fireworks, and listening to them, it makes the lost boys scared and somewhat sad because the loud noises makes them remember the bombings and the shootings that went on. After this John talks about how he knows that God created him for a reason, he did not live through burying all his friends for nothing. John was right because he is making a big difference in helping Sudan; he organized a march to raise awareness about all the bad things happening to his homeland. The lost boys have a reunion in Michigan. While at the reunion John comes upon the conclusion that he thinks the younger boys will forsake their culture because America has changed them greatly in the way they dress, talk, and act. After the reunion the boys go back to their houses; Panther talks about how he wants to go to Pitt. University to get his bachelor’s degree. He also talks about how different things have become for them like how at first 200$ was so much money to them but now that they have bills to pay and need to buy everything required to live their standard of a lot of  money has changed. Panther wants to go back to his country to marry his girlfriend and to educate his country with all the things he has learned. John calls his mother and is going to meet her; meanwhile he becomes the secretary for the lost boys unity in phoenix and wants to raise money for the lost boys and girls in order for them to go to school. We find out that Daniel gets another job at the supermarket and talks about while he was working he saw a woman crying and he comforted her because no one would, he says that she felt a sense of home while he was with her. John finally after 17 years of separation from his mother, gets to see  her again and he also gets to see his sister. When John enters the airport he talks to some people interviewing him and says although he is happy, he is sad for the other lost boys who have yet to be reunited with their families. When John sees his mother he runs to her and he hugs his sister and then he hugs his mother; his mother was so overwhelmed with emotions that she collapses into his arms and cries and so does he. Anonde is his mother’s name; she was so excited to see her son that she danced and sung all the way out of the airport. Panther also receives a big moment; he gets to go back to Africa and he gets married to his girlfriend and he hopes to bring her back with him, he says he is going to put a school in his village because he got his degree in economics. Panther was also one of the lucky few to see his family again. We find out that John founded a non-profit organization to help out Sudan and he also makes it known that he wants to build a medical center in Dinka. Unfortunately Daniel has still not been reunited with his family. I thought that this was probably the most amazing stories that I have ever heard. I can say that I enjoyed the movie at parts, but it was also probably the saddest story I have ever heard. I am really glad that we got to watch this movie in class because it really opened up my eyes to what really goes on in the world, we live in a place where we take things for granted like showers and money and even food, but some people are not as lucky as us and they don’t have the nice things that we do. Seeing this movie makes me want to do something and help out countries like Sudan. I found this website and maybe if we all donated we could get some water wells for Sudan and get them fresh water-http://thewaterproject.org/wells_for_sudan.asp?gclid=CLaL1bDo4LICFVSd4Aodd30APw

The Movie!

Today in human geography we had Mrs. Stathis as our substitute. We talked about what notes we have been taking on the movie so far and we also talked about how the boys must have felt about living in the refugee camps for a really long amount of time. They were there so long and once they were done with learning everything they could while they were there they must have gotten bored. Then we went on to continue the movie at chapter 15. Daniel, Panther, and John Bul Dau have all gotten jobs to support themselves. John works 3 jobs- 1 in a factory, 1 in the McDonalds, and he is also a night guard. Daniel works in the downtown part of Pittsburg processing checks. Panther is working as a busboy in a high class restaurant. Later they all talk about how different the people are in America, they are less friendly and they said that they used to know everybody but now they know no one.  Also one of the boys goes missing and then the police find that he has gone crazy and he is admitted into a psychiatric ward.

the lost boys coming to America!

Today in human geography we continued the watch “God Grew Tired of Us”. We picked up at the part where Daniel, Panther, and John Bull where getting on their first plane ride to America, Daniel and Panther in Pittsburg and John Bull in New York. When Daniel, Panther and some others first get into the house in which they are to live in they are totally amazed at how the electricity works in the house, like the refrigerator and the lights, and also how taking a shower works. They were also amazed at some of the foods that we eat in our daily lives, when they went to the store to buy food they were totally shocked from seeing so many different foods that they haven’t tasted. John Bull talks about how awful it was when he was back in Sudan, and then when the boys were travelling, he said that 13 year olds should not have to bury their friends and others but he had to along with some of the other boys. He said that since everyone was dying and all this tragedy had struck, he figured that God had grown tired of them, because of all the war and death. When one of the other men was interviewed he said that even though this opportunity was very good he and the others were sad because they left the camp and are in a good place now, but the others are still in a bad place. Everyone said that they wanted to have this opportunity, to support themselves and have a good life here. The government is giving the boys three months to get jobs and eventually pay back the money that was paid for them to fly to their destinations.

Going over tests!

Today in human geo when we walked in we got chocolate chip cookies! After that we said our prayer that we said every day. Then for the rest of class we spent our time going over our quiz and making sure that the answers were right, because they will most likely be on our midterms. We pretty much zipped through the quiz except we all kind of gave answers and talked about our answers for the push and pull section of the test. The last thing we did was try and get to the place we left off in the movie that we are currently watching(God Grew Tired of Us) it kind of took us a little while to see exactly where we left off, but we had left off at the part where Daniel and Panther are about to leave for Pittsburg  and Daniel gives up his corn rations in order to get candy for all the little children, and then they sing a song to all their friends to remember  them, and then the bell rang ending our class for the day.

"God Grew Tired of Us"

Today in human geography we had our first test; it was mainly about all things having to do with the population. After the test we started watching this movie called “God Grew Tired of Us”, the parts we watched today started out with 3 people being interviewed, their names were Leopard, John, and Daniel. They were all talking about having a war come to where they lived which was Sudan, this war was somewhat over religion, children were locked in houses and burned to death, and all males, no matter what their age was, were to be shot and killed. People fled the city and walked through the dessert and found refuge at a refugee camp for boys, at this camp they were known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan.” At this camp they were provided food and clothes, then later on they had to walk back through the desert, the international aids came to their rescue in the desert and took them back to the camp, they provided the boys with education and clothing, but some of the boys got to come to America which they were really excited about. Some of the pictures that were shown in this film are really gruesome, children of very young ages had almost starved to death and looked like skeletons, watching this movie really makes you realize how good we have it where we live and we should be grateful.

projects!

Today in human geography we got a surprise, no test! The reason we didn’t have our test today is because Mr. Schick wanted everyone to give their presentation before we went onto the test, which will now be Monday. My group went today; we did our project on the country Indonesia. During our presentation we talked about a few things, we talked about push and pull factors for our country, like Indonesia has a high death rate from HIV/AIDS and they also have a number of other diseases there, this would be a push factor- making people want to leave the country. We also talked about the net migration rate which was – 1.08 migrants per 1,000 of the population, the crude death rate was 6.28 deaths per 1,000 of the population, and pretty much the last thing we talked about in our presentation was the crude birth rate, this was 17.76 births per 1,000 of the population. That was the end of our presentation.

presenting our projects

Today we started our day off with our prayer, and we started reciting what the President of UMBC told us in our assembly that we had with him the other day. After this we all got with our groups that we did our power Points with and we checked with each other to make sure that our emails had gone through to the person that was building our project, and sending it to Mr. Schick. Then after talking to our group members we went on to begin presenting them. There are a lot of things that we learned from other people’s power points that we didn’t know beforehand, our group hasn’t gone yet but I think others will benefit from our slides, just as we did theirs. I think this project really shows how helpful the world fact book is, I mean we just started this project yesterday and the website has everything you need right under the country’s name that you are looking up.