More From God Grew Tired of Us

During Fridays class, we continued watching the documentary of God Grew Tired Of Us.  We are learning more about John, Daniel, and Panther's adventures in the United States.  All of the boys that came to the United States have to pay back the government for the plane ticket and for their apartments.  All of the boys get jobs they did not even know existed.  John has two jobs of working in a factory and working at McDonald's.  A charter bus takes John and another boy to the factory early in the morning.  It is so early that they must sit outside and wait for the factory to open.  At McDonald's John has to flip burgers.  Before his job, he didn't know how to flip burgers or what it meant.  Daniel got a job at a bank working with checks.  Panther got a job in a hotel working as a bus boy and serving tables.  Panther was explaining how everyone in the hotel is so nice to him.  The boys always travel in groups wherever they go because that is what they are used to.  Although, people that owned shops the boys went into were getting nervous about them traveling in large groups.  The shop owners had a meeting with the police and the police had to instruct the boys not to travel in such large groups.  John was going to go to school, but then he got a letter from his mom and dad.  The letter said that everyone in his clan was killed except for his mom, dad, brother, and sister.  Instead of going to school, John is trying to make people aware of the war in Sudan and get it stopped.

God Grew Tired of Us

Today in class we continued the video "God Grew Tired of Us".  Some things it told us today was that the United Nations run the refugee camps.  Each member a part of the refugee camp was provided with clothes, food, and a small amount of education.  They are taught math, science and all the other basic subject.  We learned more about the Lost Boys of Sudan and how their lives were.  If a boy was no longer in school, they would just wait their days out for their freedom to come.  During today's part of the film, we saw that some of the Lost Boys were chosen to go to the United States.  The United States government was going to place them in a city with a few others from their camp.  The government would pay for their flight, their apartment, and all other necessities until they had a stable job and could pay the government back.  Two of the boys, Panther and Daniel, were chosen to be located in Pittsburgh.  Another boy named John was chosen to be placed in Syracuse.  We watched them learn how to use all the lights and other electricity objects and learn the customs and food of the United States.  They didn't know how or what they were eating and cooking.  I can't wait to see more and watch how they adjust to the customs of living in the United States.

Sudan's Civil War

Today in class we got our tests back.  I did pretty well, but I messed up in places that I know but I read wrong.  After we went over the test, we watched a video called "God Grew Tired of Us". The video was about Sudan's Civil War.  The war was between the North and the South in 1983.  There were boys talking about how their lives were in Sudan before the war.  The ground was fertile and boys worked on farms with cattle and crops.  Every one was happy and enjoyed each others company.  Once the war started, that all went away.  The government said that all young males would be killed.  All the boys that could escape started walking and running away.  The boys who were traveling were called the Lost Boys of Sudan.  None of them knew where the rest of their family went and ended up making families within each other.  Not one of the boys wants to ever go back to Sudan.  They fear that they will get hurt or killed because they fled the country looking for a safer place.  The went to a refugee camp in Kenya.  They never imagined they would be in the refugee for longer than a few months.

The Sudan Civil War

Today at the beginning of class we took our first test.  I knew more things on the test than I thought I knew.  After everyone was finished taking the test, Mr.Schick tried to have us watch a video.  None of us really knew what it was about.  He and no one else could figure out how to get the sound on the video to work.  We all finally gave up trying with the sound.  He explained to us that Sudan was in many civil wars and that they were very tough and rigorous on the citizens.  The Second Sudanese Civil War was started in 1983 and lasted until 2005.  It was a result because of a conflict between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army.  Roughly about two million people died as a result of this war.  This is the most amount of people that have died in a war since World War II.  A few factors that led up to this war were natural resources and racial or religious discrimination.  Those people who lived in south Sudan had all of the rich resources and the central people did not.  70% of Sudan's profits demanded on oil which the South had.  Central Sudan is next to the Sudan desert which supplies nothing.  Also, the south of Sudan uses the Nile River as a water source and it helps keep he soil fertile.  As a result, central Sudan got jealous of all of the south's resources and started the civil war in anger.

United States Presentation

In class the last group for country presentations went up.  The country was the United States.  I already knew a lot about the United States since of course I live here.  Although, there were many things I did not know.  For example, I learned that the United States has an unemployment rate of 9%.  The rate of natural increase or the death rate subtracted by the birth rate is 5.29.  The birth rate of children in the United States is 13.69 births per 1000 live births.  The net migration rate is the number of people entering and leaving country.  The net migration rate for the United States is 3.92. This means that more people are entering than leaving the country.  Also, I learned that throughout the 19 and 20th centuries, all fifty states were added and they became the nation we are today.  Another fact I learned is that we are the third largest country in population in the world.  The United States is a developed country.  Today the United States has 290 million people with cell phones.  245 million people also have internet or access to it.  Many of these facts I had no clue about.

Countries

Today in class all groups except one presented.  Each group was assigned a country and we had to research about its population and characteristics involving the citizens.  We went over Thailand, Nigeria, and Italy.  I learned many facts about each of these countries.  Most of the facts that were presented involved the population, migration, and birth and death rates.  Thailand's population is 67,091,089.  Thailand has a birth rate of 12.81.  This means that there are 12 lives births for every 1,000 births.  This is in the middle for the standings in the world.  Nigeria's population is 170,123,740 .  They are ranked number 7 in the world for having the most deaths from HIV/AIDS diseases.  Also, the net migration rate is -0.22.  This means that more people are leaving the country then entering it.  If more people are leaving the country, then it seems that maybe it does not have a good economy or other reasons.  My group presented the country of Italy.  Italy's population is 61,261,254.  It is ranked number twenty-three in the world with the most people.  It's population growth is 0.38%.  This means that the population is growing a little bit.  I'm glad I have learned so many things about different countries so far.  I can not wait until tomorrow when we learn about the United States.  

World Facts

Today in class we talked about the world and its population.  The world's population today is over seven billion people.  The population is constantly increasing by 77 million per year.  90 percent of the world's population comes from developing countries such as Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America.  Developing countries are those countries that don't have their health care figured out or a strong government.  The United States is considered a developed country.  The life expectancy is the average number of years that a person or group of people from a certain year in that country will be estimated to live.  Males born in the year 2012 are estimated to live until they are about 76. Women are estimated to live until they are about 81 years old.  The average age between men and women born in 2012 is about the age of 78.  We also talked about the net migration rate.  The net migration rate is the difference of people entering and leaving the country during a year.  In the United States today, the net migration rate is 3.62.  There are 49 other countries that have a higher net migration rate than the United States.  People migrate for various reasons.  Some examples are that they want to leave their country because of civil war, environmental degradation, unemployment, religious or ethnic persecution.  They would go to a different country because that country could have better economic opportunities, religious freedom, and many more.  Another thing we talked about in class was the total fertility rate.  It is the average number of children born per woman.  If the rate is higher that 2.1 it affects the population with an increase, but if it is lower than 2.1 the population will fall.  The United States TFR is under 2.1.

Did You Know 3.0

In class we went over the YouTube video Did You Know 3.0.  It is about a bunch of things you would never know that are happening today in the world.  Some things were written about what will happen in the future.  One interesting facts it talked about was that if Facebook was a country it would be the third largest country in population.  This explains how many people use Facebook.  This means that there are more people using and on Facebook than there are making up the population of the United States.  Facebook has its pros and cons to using it.  Some pros are that if you are in a group or on a team that you can make a "group" on Facebook and be constantly updating each person in the group easier.  Also, if you need to contact someone about someone, you can write the information on their wall and they will see it.  Some cons to Facebook are cyber-bullying.  Facebook is an easy place for cyber-bullying to occur because you can just write whatever you want and can direct it about a certain person.  People start drama about anything all the time and it is not fun.  People just need to mind their own business and stop talking about people behind their backs.  Everyone has a different opinion, but just because you doesn't mean you need to make a fight about it. 

Hectic Class

Today’s class was different than normal. Everyone was tired and you could notice.  Mr. Schick even said that our class was not like the normal.  We all then tried to get on our blogs.  Only a handful was allowed to.  Mostly the blogs were saying that they had been deleted.  None of us knew why it said it was deleted. Some messages even said that the blogs had “suspicious activity” or they did not think “that they were the real author”. Some kids were worried that all their work was going to be lost and that they were going to have to make an entire new blog.  Mr. Schick just told us all to just to wait and it was probably just a little mess up with blogger.com.  He just kept on telling everyone “do not try to fix it!”  Probably if we tried anything we would mess it up even more.  Five minutes later, “maybe you should try to fix it”.  It was a hectic class, but a good one at the same time.     

We watched the Did you know video.  One thing that caught my interest was that thee are 845 million monthly users of Facebook. Also, the first text message was sent in December 1992.  

Today in Class

Today in class we went over the questions we did for homework. We had to go on the CIA Factbook and answer questions about the world.  Finding out things about the world was very interesting. We learned that China is the top country with the most exports.  Everyone in class then began looking at their shoes and books to see what was made in China.  The United States gets China to make their products because it is cheaper.  China does not have minimum wage and uses child labor.  In the United States, every employee has to get payed at least minimum wage hourly.  Saudi Arabia exports more oil than any other country in the world, but the United States imports more oil than any other country.  The United States had the most imported oil because we actually run off of oil.  From all of the cars and other transportation types that use oil we need a lot of it.  Aside from transportation, we use oil in many other things throughout our daily lives.  Instead of oil we all should be using solar power.  If we all use solar power, the world would be a better and cleaner place to live in.

CIA Factbook

1. What is the population of the United States?

313,847,465 

2. What are the five largest countries in the world, by population?

1. China

2. India

3. United States

4. Indonesia

5. Brazil

3. What is the population of Pakistan?

190,291,129 

4. What kind of government does the United States have?
Constitution-based federal republic

5. What is the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe?
95%

6. What is the largest country in the world by area?
Russia

7. What country has the third greatest number of airports?
Mexico

8. What country has the greatest number of exports?
China

9. What country exports more oil than any other?
Saudi Arabia

10. What country imports more oil than any other?
United States

11. What country consumes more oil than any other?
United States

12. Can women serve in combat roles in China's military?
Yes

13. What is GDP?
Value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year

14. What country has the highest GDP per capita in the world, and how much is it?
Liechtenstein-- 141,100

15. Is the US in the top ten for GDP per capita?
No, it is number 11

16. Most of the countries with the highest birth rates can be found in what continent?
Africa

17. 11 of the top 12 countries with the highest with the highest number of deaths from HIV/AIDS can be found in which continent?
Africa

18. What other country is in the top 12?
India

19. Where does the US rank in HIV/AIDS deaths?
#18 

20. Is the US #1 in number of cellular phones?
No, it is #3

21. What percentage of the US is Roman Catholic?
23.9%

22. What percentage of Mexico is Roman Catholic?
76.5%

23. What is the Net Migration Rate?
The contribution of migration to the overall level of population change

24. Does the US have the highest Net Migration Rate in the world?
No, they are number 26

25. What is the current population of the whole planet?
7,021,836,029 

Evaluating Websites

1. The CIA World fact book website looks and seems very professional and could help with papers and projects about things and countries in the world because it shows an actual map of the world and true facts about it.

2. I think that the Message to Garcia website is a great resource because it tells us facts about Elbert Hubbard himself and how he came up with A Message to Garcia.

3. The forbidden knowledge page does not seem to be real because it does not look like they writer edited it. I found a lot of grammar errors and I think that if the author wants us to believe what he is saying he would have checked and corrected the errors.

4. The NASA Kid's Club website looks real and very useful because it is teaching children facts about Americans in space and what we know about the universe outside of Earth's atmosphere.

5. The CNN article about Obama looks like a great place to find articles for information because it is about current events and what is happening with the 2012 Election this year.

6. The New York Times website is helpful because it is a website for an actual newspaper in New York.  Putting the website on the Internet allows people out of New York to read about current events.

7. I believe that the article about Obama's election and who is voting for him on the fox news website is very helpful with papers about current events because it talks about the election that we are going through right now.

8. The Wikipedia website giving information on the Washington Times looks real, but also doesn't look that real.  I believe some of the information is true, but some false statements are also in the body of the article.

9. The Human Geo 2012 blog is very resourceful because it has people set aside from this blog that are writing about different topics in history.

Wikipedia

Today in class we talked about Wikipedia and other search engines.  Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopedia in the world.  Also, what makes it the best encyclopedia is that is is all open to you at the comfort of your home.  It is a great source to find things for things like research papers, reports and much more.  A long with most search engines, it has its pros and cons.  Some pros are that it gives you a bunch of information and is updated electronically every day.  It also gives you the resources where it found the information which can help you find out more about your topic.  A long with all the information about the certain topic, it shows subtopics that are related to it and can give you even more information.  While reading the information, some words are highlighted and if you click on those words it gives you special information about that word or phrase.  The cons are that anyone can access Wikipedia and edit or change anything they want.  This is not good because someone could right any random facts about your topic that sounds true but isn't true at all.  Most of the information is correct, but some is not and you never know.  Every time we see something on Wikipedia and it doesn't sound very correct we should always double check it.  Wikipedia is a great resource, but if I am working on a major project or paper I am going to check on the information to make sure it is true.

Essay #3

Over the next four years I am attending John Carroll I will like to accomplish a lot of things.  The first thing I would like to accomplish and succeed at is getting good grades.  If I got good grades and stayed on top of all my school work and not waiting until the last minute to do all of it, I won't be stressed out and I can enjoy my high school career.  The next thing I would like to succeed in is being a great leader in all the sports I participate in.  I am going to play volleyball and lacrosse during my four years at John Carroll.  I hope I can be a great leader in both of these sports.  Hopefully when the end of high school comes, I wish that I will get in to a good college that I want to go to.  I hope the college that I end up in has a good major that I will enjoy to study and hopefully end up as one when I am older.  Along with the college idea, I would like to play a sport during college.  Hopefully I will get into a college that I will be able to play that sport I like. The fifth and final goal for high school is to have fun and enjoy myself.  I don't want to be one of those people that looks back at their high school years and wishes they did something or calls themselves boring.  I want to look back and remember all the good memories I made.  I hope and wish that I accomplish all of my goals!

Essay #2

If Elbert Hubbard and Socrates traveled to the year 2012, they would recognize some things and also be upset about other things.  Elbert Hubbard would notice that people these days are lazy and don't always do what they are told.  He always believed that people should always obey what they are told and not question it or be lazy.  He would see how people like to procrastinate instead of doing what the should and have to do.  Most people today do not do what they are told without asking a million questions about it or saying that someone else should do it.  Then there are also those other people that do their jobs even if they don't like it because they want to get it over with and don't ask any questions about it.  Socrates would notice that we are still using demo democracy like they did in his age.  He would also see how people listened to him and stand up for what they believe in.  He would also notice how some people don't stand up for what they believe in and just sit and listen to other people even if they don't agree with what they are saying.  I think that they both would be very surprised how people act so much differently than people did when they were alive.

Essay #1

Arete means excellence in any kind and making of good character.  The ancient Greeks demonstrated this quality very well because they came up with the concept of having a democracy as their government.  The democracy was a very good idea because we still use it now.  This type of government allows any citizen to say and express what they believe in about the topics or issues the democracy is talking about.  Creating this type of government was a very big moment in history.  This demonstrates how the Greeks had character with letting anyone say what they believe about the issues in the city-state.  Socrates is also a very good example of excellence in any kind.  Socrates walked around the town explaining and helping young people figure out the problems in their lives.  He is a great example of good character because he helped others instead of being selfish with only worrying about himself.  Socrates always stood up for what he believed in no matter what the consequence was.  Even if the consequence was death, Socrates continued to stand up for what he believed in.  By doing this, he is showing young people like ourselves to stand up for what they believe in and not back down if we think there should be a change.  He was an excellent example as a person of good character and excellence in any kind.

The Date 508 BC

Today in class we went over and discussed the date 508 BC.  During that year, Cleisthenes gained power in Ancient Greece.  He made the first democracy ever in Greece.  A democracy is a form of government where the whole population of people or all the eligible members of the city-state have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.  This type of government is ruled by the people.  This was a new way in order to rule Greece and no one had seen anything like it before.  The people would hold meetings and they would all meet in an agora.  An agora is a gathering place usually in the middle of a city-state.  During the meetings, the people would us the socratic method to debate about different topics and laws about Greece.  Once the time came for a new ruler to be chosen, the people would all vote on who they believe should rule.  If you were able to vote but didn't, the Greeks called you and idiot and selfish.  Their meaning of an idiot is much different than the modern definition.  If you were called an idiot in Ancient Greece, it meant that you were able to vote but chose not to.  Our meaning is that you are not very smart and make dumb decisions.