11/26/13; STORY TIME

STORY TIME! Today in human geo, we had a story time day! Mr. Schick told us his two stories about Gumby, once in 4^th and 5^th grade. In 4^th grade he landed Gumby into his teachers coffee mug and she ended up drinking it! Then in 5^th grade he cut a nun in the hand! Next he was telling his stories about teachers giving him physical abuse. And also, Annie thought that Devin was watching Regay Bush, and it was pretty funny. Once he had to kneel on a metal rod for 45 minutes, and then he got lifted by the hair, eye level, and screamed at. Then we went onto the topic of writing sentences, a lot of us had written lines before. Mr. Schick had to write 1,000 sentences of something, and that was the one time his mom stuck up for him. Overall today was a really fun class before break. Story time over.

11/25/13; Terrible Power Point

Today in human geo, we started to work on a power point about microfinance. It ended up being very terrible from the lack of structure and communication. It was basically a free for all with the notes on the slides, I was completely stressed out. I don’t know why it bothered me so much but it did. You would figure that I could just find a topic that has to do with microfinance and write a slide on it? No I couldn’t, most of the time that slide topic was taken or people were messing up YOUR slide. I’m interested and nervous to see what tomorrow brings us, I can only hope that it is positive. But one good thing came out of today, I got to listen to music and block out the world around me. So until tomorrow when I will be excited for the much needed break.

11/22/13; JFK 50th

Today in human geo, Mr. Schick was not there. All we did was work on the Peace Corps Challenge, it was very boring. I was really excited for class today because it is always so open and exciting but today was the complete opposite. Everyone is sitting in silence and it is very sad, I was also hoping to talk about John F. Kennedy today because this is his 50^th year for his assassination. That’s what this week was really building up to, but instead the class has to sit in silence. The Peace Corps Challenge is both good and bad in my opinion, it teaches you what things are like outside of your country but it really doesn’t in force the correct answer. When they ask you a question, if you chose the wrong answer, they don’t explain why it’s wrong and what the better choice would be. But overall the game is good. Mr. Schick said that he wouldn’t be giving out a test before Thanksgiving break which is good, so until Monday.

11/20/12; Microfinance in Detail

Today in human geo, we talked a lot about microfinance in great detail. We also talked out how we are different from the other classes in the way we handled the bad grades. Our deep conversation started by talking about microfinance, and how it tremendously helps small businesses. Then someone mentioned the “Small Business Saturday” and we got talking to deep detail with that and how the big businesses over powers the small businesses. And now onto my usual JFK rant, on the news today I found out that the people in Texas (I don’t know who exactly) but they decided to re-pave Elm Street, and NOT re-paint the “X” where JFK was assassinated. I think that is outrageous, whatever your belief on his assassination was, it still happened, and it is a huge part of this country’s history. And to not re-paint the “X” I think is almost as if you’re trying to forget what happened. Which is completely absurd. Tomorrow we do not have class so until Friday.

11/19/13; Test Review - World Leaders

Today in human geo, we reviewed our World Leaders Test, and Mr. Schick was not very happy at all. We learned that our class had the lowest average and that nobody could really do worse than Matt Bataglia. Mr. Schick was very disappointed in us because the test was an open blog test and he expected us to do very well. Most of the problems we had was that we did not read the questions clear enough or our blogs did not have enough information. In my opinion, a few questions on the test were worded strange and we felt rushed. Overall everyone could have done better, there’s always room for improvement. Tomorrow we will continue with microfinance and the Peace Corps Challenge. I still think that we should do something for JFK’s assassination on Friday, but I think Mr. Schick would rather not. I truly hope he does something though, so until tomorrow.

11/18/13; Peace Corps Challenge

Today in human geo, we started a new unit and started to work on the Peace Corps Challenge. The Peace Corps Challenge is; you are a person going to visit the village of Wazuzu or something like that and it’s not real, it’s in your mind. But during the challenge, you are faced with a problem in the village and you are supposed to talk to the villagers to understand their opinion on the issue and then choose the best solution to the problem. Sometimes it’s very confusing and boring but we are “learning”. The overall choice that you make is supposed to help the community in the long run, but the problem is that if you choose the wrong solution, it really doesn’t correct you. We will continue with the game/challenge tomorrow. I think that because on Friday, it’s the 50^th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, that we should do something that relates to that, but that’s just my opinion, and I like my opinion.

11/13/13; ...Its the start of something new

Today in human geo we took our World Leaders test, it was an open note from our blog test thank god! It was all on their background information which we had been going over for about a week now. And some of the locations of the world leaders countries. We learned a lot of new interesting facts about the different cultures around us, and it showed me that not every country is like ours. I mean I already knew that but it just furthered my knowledge. And now as the old topic came to an end, a new one must form. We will not find out what that new topic is tomorrow because we don’t have class and we are off school Friday! So for a full recap, we took our world leaders test today and we will not find out our new topic until next Monday, so until then I guess.

11/8/13 11/11/13 11/12/13; Revised World Leader Notes

In human geo, we went over our last test. We have five weeks until our final exam and our political geography test will be next Wednesday. Notes that will be on the test;

PLACE - GOVERNMENT TYPE - LEADER/PRESIDENT

Mexico - Federal Republic - President Enrique Pena Nieto


- wife had a sudden death in 2007

Germany - Federal Republic - President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel
- Merkel has been the most powerful women in the world for 8/10 past years

 

Venezuela - Federal Republic - President Nicolas Maduro Moros
-  previously a bus drive
- previously the vice president

China - Communist State - President XI Jinping
- Son of one of the Communist Party founders
- daughter is studying at Harvard
- married the army general of China  

 United Kingdom - Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm - Queen Elizabeth II (since Feb 6, 1962) Heir Apparent Prince Charles (son of the queen, has yet to take thrown)
- (PM) youngest prime minister ever
- (queen) inaugurated on February 6, 1952

Saudi Arabia - Monarchy - King and Prime Minister Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud
- worth 21 million
- fathered 22 children
- 2011 granted women the right to vote and run in the future

  India - Federal Republic - President Pranab Mukherjee
 - mother was prime minister of India but was assassinated
- rated one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984

France - Republic - President Francois Hollande
- born in 1954 with a physician father and social worker mother
- no previous national government experiment

Iran - Theocratic Republic - Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei 
- (SL) was Iran's president before - was imprisoned multiple times in 1975
- (P) elected in June 2013

Afghanistan - Islamic Republic - President; Hamid Karzai
- emerged as a resistance leader
- warned the US that the Taliban were connected with the al Qaeda and that there was a plot of an attack on the US, but the warnings went unused (9/11)

Brazil - Federal Republic - President Dilma Rousseff
- has a degree in economics
- underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma in '09
- disagreed with Brazil's military, was arrested and in prison for 3 years, which in that time she was tortured

Israel - Parliamentary Democracy - President Shimon Peres
- (president) organized Israel's nuclear program
- (minister) believes that if Israel has been established earlier then the Holocaust would have never happened

 11/8/13; today in human geo we started to go over the background information for each leader, we haven't finished yet.
11/11/13; we continued to go over the background information for the leaders, our test will be on Wednesday.
11/12/13; we finished going over the background information power point and our test is tomorrow.

11/5/13 11/6/13; World Leaders

PLACE - GOVERNMENT TYPE - LEADER/PRESIDENT

Mexico - Federal Republic - President Enrique Pena Nieto

Germany - Federal Republic - President Joachim Gauck

 

Venezuela - Federal Republic - President Nicolas Maduro Moros

China - Communist State - President XI Jinping

 

United Kingdom - Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm - Queen Elizabeth II (since Feb 6, 1962) Heir Apparent Prince Charles (son of the queen, has yet to take thrown)

Saudi Arabia - Monarchy - King and Prime Minister Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud

 

India - Federal Republic - President Pranab Mukherjee

France - Republic - President Francois Hollande

Iran - Theocratic Republic - Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei 

Afghanistan - Islamic Republic - President; Hamid Karzai

Brazil - Federal Republic - President Dilma Rousseff

Israel - Parliamentary Democracy - President Shimon Peres

11/4/13; Bad Humor

Today in human geo class we took our test and started a new topic. The new topic is political organization, along with world leaders and map work. Some vocabulary for this unit are;

·       Country – a identifiable land are (on a map)

·       Nation – a population with a common culture

o   A group of people with a shared identity

o   Culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger that a single tribe or community, which share a coming language, institutions, religion & historical experience

·       Capital S State – population under a single Gov. (synonymous with “country”)

·       Nation State – a single culture under a single Gov. a notion which has the same borders as a State

·       Independent State

o   Recognized boundaries

o   Organized economy (currency)

o   Internationally known

o   Has;

§  Education

§  Transportation

§  Government

§  Sovereignty

§  External recognition

§  A population

After those notes, we started to watch a video about the three big words, country, state, and nation. The speaker tried to be funny but failed, tomorrow we will continue to go through the notes and finish the video.

11/1/13; Test Day - just kidding

Today in human geo, we were supposed to have our test. But that has been pushed back till Monday because we did not finish all the things that we needed to cover. So today was basically a study day! We went over all of the religions that we will be on the test. Some notes from today’s class are;

·       Judaism is the least populated out of the five

·       Christianity is the most populated

·       Most Hindu’s are in India

·       Buddhists are ok if you believe in more than their religion

·       Buddhists believe deeply in meditation

·       Buddhists believe that Buda was at first a very wealthy man, until he saw the poor outside his home and wondered why he can live the way he does while others live no poorly. He then decided to have the lifestyle of them, in a picture he is very skinny and meditating.

·       Buda does not look like the “guy with the fat tummy”

We will have the test on Monday.