Mr. Schick Was MIA Today

Today Mr. Schick wasn't in class, I think he was at a field trip or something. I saw it in the daily bulletin. Anyways, we had a substitute who was the actual teacher of the classroom we were in. I forget her name though. She had us explain to her about the video in the beginning of class because she didn't know what was going on, so we all were telling her important stuff about the video. She then had us write down a sentence prediction of what would happen next in the movie. I said that they would have started settling down in the US and be working. I was correct! Except that they were missing their friends and family and normal traditions and customs. They said that they had a lot of questions but there were few people who could answer them. They wanted to know about Santa because they didn't know who he was, they said that Christmas in Sudan is totally different. Panther and Daniel said that they were both sad because they were never home and hardly saw each other anymore, and they all wanted to know how Americans lived hardly ever seeing each other or spending time with friends and family since they are always working. I hope we finally get to finish the video Monday.

Video Continued

We continued to watch the video today, God Grew Tired Of Us. It wasn't as sad as the first day, but not as not sad as the second day. I saw that they didn't understand pretty much anything, like plumbing or electricty, and they didn't even understand how to eat the food, like butter they ate it whole! And they were so surprised by the potato chips, they were like is it all ready to eat? It was really funny. I kind of wanted to go into the movie and be able to help them with everything because they didn't understand a lot of it. One thing that really bothered me was that they had to pay back the money to fly in the airplane back to the United States. I kind of wish that the US could have just payed for it and kept it that way. One day, I hope to be super rich and then I can go and help people in Sudan and other countries that need my help. And I would use my money to buy them food and clothes and other things they needed. It was really sad when John Bul Dau told us that when he was 13 he had to bury all of the people that died on their journey. It was really heartbreaking. I hope we get to finish the movie tomorrow because I really want to know more about their transition into life in the US and their journeys and hardships that they have faced all throughout life.

Watching a Video

In class, we started by going over our tests we took the day before, I got a 94. I am so proud of myself! I studied very hard. We then continued to watch and take notes on the video we started watching, called God Grew Tired of Us. It was very sad. The people in the video showed us the travel route they were taking. It said they would go up the coast to Europe and take a plane to the United States. The people in the video were excited to go to the United States but sad because they would miss the people they were with for the majority of their lives, the people they have been with are like their family. Class was fun.

Video on Sudan

Today in class, we started with a quiz. It was pretty easy, but you never know if you made a mistake because sometimes you think an answer is right, but its actually not right, its wrong. I hope I get at least a B. After our quiz, we watched a video on Sudan. It was really sad, I wanted to cry at some parts. The Muslims in the north, were trying to get rid of the tribal religions and Christians in the south. They made a law that said they could kill any boy at any age, so a lot of boys fled from the country. The things they did to people that weren't Muslim were heartbreaking. The giant group of boys that fled, are known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. Everything they went through and at such a young age is very upsetting. It makes me want to go out into the world and do something about it, it makes me want to go out and help people who have difficult lives and need all the help they can get. Towards the end of class, into the video, it was at a part where some of the boys got to go to the United States to live. I am glad that some of them got to go. One of the narartors, I think it was Daniel, sold the rest of his corn to get money to buy candy for all of the children in the camp as a treat because he was going to Pennyslvania. What he did was so nice and caring, and he didn't even have much to begin with, but still he gave. I can't wait to watch the rest of the video tomorrow in class.

Presentations

We continued to present our presentations on our countries. My group went first, we did pretty good! Then a few other groups went. They were really good too! During our presentation, Mr. Schick kept adding in a bunch of extra information, which made our presentation better! Someone starting singing the Edge of Glory during class, and then someone starting playing it on youtube. It was hilarious. I liked watching the USA presentation, I learned some interesting stuff about the USA. Mr. Schick said that it bothered him that our infant mortality rate was what it was. Overall class was really interesting and fun.

Presenting Our Presentations

Today we started class working on our presentations, we were supposed to be done, but my group was very discombobulated. So we took the beginning of class, along with other groups to finish putting things together. My group ended up working until the last second of class! Me and Daman were working together on each of our laptops to make sure we had everything and more, while making it look presentable and awesome. A lot of people were walking around talking at the beginning of class too. Towards the end of class, we started presenting our projects. Two groups went, but I forget which countries they did. Then it was my groups turn, but we got cut off by the bell so we have extra time to make our presentation look complete and amazing!

Working on Presentations

Today we started working on our presentations, my group was assigned India, Damon was working on the powerpoint while Evan, Mason, and I find the information for the powerpoint. I really wanted to do the powerpoint because I love to do technology things and I like to get things done myself, I'm kind of an overachiever and I like making sure everything is done to the correct criteria. But overall, class was fun and I got a lot of information on India. I found out that its net migration rate was -0.05/1000. I had to look hard and use the other information given to get push factors for India. I ended up getting that it was a poor country, it was over populated, and some other stuff too. I hope that our powerpoint turns out well, I tried to be as helpful as I could and make sure I fiund good information, so I got a lot of help from Mr. Schick.

Gangnam Style!

Today Mr. Schick said that class was going to be super boring, but things are never boring in our class. We are too awesome for boredom. We learned a lot on basic population settlement. We had to take notes on it. We got sidetracked a lot, as usual, but this sidetracked was unlike any other! We watched a music video at the end of class by Psy, called Gangnam Style. Its my theme song, I'm really surprised Mr. Schick let us watch it! It was hilarious though so it was a good ending to class. We learned about a lot of stuff like net migration rate, fertility rate, and other stuff. Mr. Schick told us to remember the number 2.1, because that is what the fertility rate needs to be in order to maintain a constant population. When Mr. Schick grades this I'm sure he'll be proud of me for remembering, and I didn't even need to look at my notes! I am just THAT good. Well class was super funny and awesome, like usual. Its hard not to have an awesome class when Mr. Schick is your teacher, so I guess this Monday, wasn't too bad.

9/14/12

Class today was super awesome! Everyone was talking and into the discussion! We talked about how there was a lot of creepers in the world today and how times are super different. We talked about online dating, most of us would never do it because of the weridos in the world. We also talked about how in a few years there might be something that you don't even have to carry around or put in your ears. That there might be a chip we put in our head and we can listen to music and stuff like that, and we have a tattoo that controls it and it goes on our arm. If I could invent the next big thing for music, I would probably invent something that you get put into yor ear where you can hear the music playing, and then you get a tattoo somewhere on your arm that does all of your basic controls, and then if your press a button, it makes a holographic projection of a screen appear on your arm that looks like the iPod touch screen. I think that would be a cool invention! Overall, class was so much fun! I love my human geography class!

9/12/12

Today in class we continued to go over our World Factbook Questions. We got sidetracked a lot. Mr. Schick was telling us about how we don't think before we do stuff, because all humans have a drive. A kid in class said that when it comes to sexual encounters, dolphins are the same as humans. Mr. Schick then laughed and said, "I wonder how many people will put that in their blog tonight..." So I decided I would be one of the people who put that in their blog. During the beginning of class, I sent Mr. Schick an email about my absence the first time in his class. I ended with "Thanks dawg!" I thought that it was funny. At the end of class, we watched a video. I thought it was really cool and interesting. I learned that China will soon be the number one English speaking country in the world. I also learned that India has more honors kids than the US hads kids. I think that that is super awesome information. I love learning about that kinda stuff, like statistics.

9/11/12

Today we went over our homework, Questions for the CIA Factbook, but we got sidetracked a lot. We talked about 9/11 and a bunch of other stuff. Mr. Schick told us that Venezuela doesn't like the United States, but we need oil from there so they charge us a lot for it. He also told us that at a United Nations meeting the president of Venezuela said that President George W. Bush was the devil in front of the United Nations! We also learned that it was Mr. Schick's first year of teaching when it was 9/11, so he was really freaked out. We learned that we get a lot from China, and 90% of the stuff at Walmart is from China. My favorite part of class was when Mr. Schick gave us Smarties for picking good questions for our most important question.

Questions for the CIA Factbook

1. United States Population: 313,847,465
2. 5 Largest Countries of the World by Population:
        1. China
        2. India
        3. United States
        4. Indonesia
        5. Brazil
3. Pakistan Population: 190,291,129
4. United States Type of Government: Constitution-based federal republic
5. Zimbabwe's Unemployment Rate: 95%
6. Largest Country in the World by Area: Russia
7. Country with 3rd Greatest Number of Airports: Mexico
8. Country with the Greatest Number of Exports: China
9. Country that Exports the Most Oil: Saudi Arabia
10. Country that Imports the Most Oil: United States of America
11. Country that Consumes the Most Oil: United States of America
12. Can Women Serve in Combat Roles in China's Military: Yes
13. GDP: Gross Domestic Product
14. Country with the Highest GDP per Capita and How Much: Liechtenstein - 141,100
15. Is the US in the Top Ten for GDP per Capita: No (#11)
16. Countries with the Highest Birth Rate are On Which Continent: Africa
17. 11 of the Top 12 Countries with the Highest Number of Deaths from HIV/AIDS can be Found in Which Contient: Africa
18. Country in the Top 10 from Death from HIV/AIDS Not in Africa: India
19. US Rank in HIV/AIDS Deaths: 18
20. Is the US #1 in Number of Cellular Phones: No (China, India, US)
21. Percent of US that is Roman Catholic: 23.9%
22. Percent of Mexico that is Roman Catholic: 76.5%
23. Net Migration Rate:  the difference of immigrants and emigrants of an area in a period of time (rate per thousand)
24. Does the US have the Highest Net Migration Rate in the World: No (Qatar)
25. Current Population of the Entire World: 7,021,836,029

The Two Most Important Questions Were: What is the country that consumes the most oil and what is the country that exports the most oil because when you know what country consumes the most oil (the United States of America) then you can make guesses about what the country is like. For example by knowing that the US consumes the most oil, you can think that it has a lot of transpotation, cars, roadways, etc. Also when you know what country exports the most oil (Saudi Arabia) then you will know that it has a large oil reserve and its probably a fairly rich country, because everywhere you have transportation you need oil.

Day Four

We had to take notes on taking notes today in class. You're supposed to write in fragments and not in complete sentences, you give enough information for yourself in order to generate a complete thought or sentence later when you are looking at it. We practiced with taking notes on Illinois. I learned some cool stuff about Illinois, even though it wasn't what class really was about. Then we had to write out a fake blog, Mr. Schick told us we aren't supposed to say, "I learned" and "today in class" and things like that when we blog, or that it isn't recommended. Overall I think class was really fun and interactive, even though Mr. Schick was lecturing us on how to take notes, we still were pretty involved. Day four of Mr. Schick's class was awesome.

Day Three

Today in Mr. Schick's class we learned about reliable websites when doing research. We learned that Mr. Schick loves Wikipedia, and its good to look at if you want to know something, but you can't use it for a primary source or when you are doing a research paper. We also learned that in a .gov domain your information will always be legit because it is coming from the government and not a random person. Another thing that I learned was that when you are looking to decide whether a website is legit or not, look and see if they give contact information or any information about themselves. In class, we also added the World Factbook to our links on the side of our blog, so when we need to do any research we go to our blogs and use that to get there. Class today was fun and we got to discuss a lot and do a lot in class. My third day in Mr. Schick's class, is complete.

Essay #3

I think that excellence is a very good thing, in order to achieve excellence at the John Carroll School I need to have a five point action plan. The first way to be excellent in my four years at the John Carroll School is to always work my hardest and do my best in all of the work I turn in. This includes doing all of my homework and turning everything in on time. Second, I will need to push myself to the limit physically and mentally. Physically so I can do my best on the basketball team and hopefully make varisty. Mentally so I can get A's and B's on all of my assignments. Third, I need to do everything as soon as possible and not procrasinate. That is an issue I have always had and it really needs to be fixed, so I will use my first year at John Carroll as my turning point on procrastination. Fourth, I have to participate in all of my classes and not sit back and listen or watch. My dad always tells me that you remember 70% of what you DO. So you need to partipate in class, take notes, and get involved, it will only help you in the long run. Lastly, I have to make sure I have fun in highschool. I find it easier to learn and do things when you are having fun. When I am bored its hard for me to pay attention and do my best, so if I am trying to make it fun and a have a good time then classes will go by faster and work will be more bearable.

Essay #2

I think that if Socrates time travelled to 2012 that he would be shocked at how much has changed. I also think that he would be fascinated. Maybe he would look to see if his questions were answered or maybe he would look for more questions to ask or maybe both. I think he would be impressed with the advances in technology. I also think that he would be very happy to know that people were always questioning things and wanting to know answers and get to the bottom of things. I think he would be satisfied to know that his teachings are studied, thought of and looked at today. I think that Elbert Hubbard would be disappointed to see all of the machinery and that people weren't doing much and machines were running a lot. He might say that we have gotten a lot lazier, but maybe he would see in some cases we got more hard working and efficent. I also think that Elbert Hubbard would get frustrated looking at the lazy people, and want to push them to get going and make them stop sitting around and creating excuses not to do work. Besides that, I think he would be impressed to see how far we have come since his time, even if it means having more technology.

Essay #1

Arête means excellence, or a hero. Socrates demonstrated excellence when he questioned what everyone knew and what was taught at the current time. Many people disagreed with what he was telling people and what he was teaching, but he continued to teach and believe what he thought was correct. He taught in a way that no one had seen before to younger generations, the older generations didn't like this. Socrates also went with what he thought on everything and had a difficult time accepting that he was wrong. He would ask a question to a stranger or friend, when they answered he would add another question on top of it and kept going until an acceptable answer was reached, this is called the Socratic Method. To his students, Socrates was a hero. Before and after his death they thought highly of him, they thought he was a very smart philospher and he knew what he was talking about. People today still think of Socrates as a hero. Ancient Greeks demonstrated excellence when they decided to use democracy for their government in 508 BC. They are heroes in a way to the United States because we looked at this government and thought it was a clever idea, this helped form our government to be what it is today. Also, Ancient Greeks invented wheelbarrows, gears, plumbing and many more fasinating things that we use today or get the base idea of things that we use today. Overall, Socrates and the Ancient Greeks helped to dicover and create many great things all throughout history and even today.

Day Two

I wasn't in class on Friday due to my grandmother's funeral.