12/12/18

Today was a very simple class and there really isn't much to blog about. Mr Schick wasn't here today so we had a sub. We started off in Mr. Schicks room but then everyone was too cold so we moved to our sub's room. We had three people that had to make up the test that they missed and everyone else was instructed to work on our exam essays. I finished my first essay on Option A which means that tomorrow I have to do my second essay, just in time for me to turn them in Friday morning. So really not much happened in Human Geo today because we didn't really communicate with each other at all because we were all trying to get our essays done in class so we didn't have to do them at home.

12/11/18

Today we took our test on migration. And I do have to say that I found it pretty easy. There were some questions that I had to think about for a couple minutes but I really just used common sense and knowledge of this lesson to get the answer I thought was right. The first part of the test was all matching with a word bank and it was basically a bunch of important terms from this unit. I didn't take too long on this part but I had to fill in all the easy terms that I knew were right before I filled in the harder terms that I wasn't so sure about. But once I got the easy terms out the way I knew that I had gotten the harder terms right. Today we have a Christmas mass service which means our class would be just shortened by 5 minutes. But tonight I am supposed to write my first essay of two and I think my first essay tonight going to be on the first topic which is to pick three different nations and the problems that they have regarding population and migration and what the nation's leader has to do about it.

12/10/18

Today we started off our class by taking some new notes on migration. But before we did that we talked about the two essays that are due this Friday. I forgot that he put up a blog on the available topics and the instructions on what to do. But when he asked who actually started their blogs no one raised their hands so that makes me feel a little better about myself. My plans for this week are to try and get all my blogs done during school and then do my first essay tonight and then do my second essay tomorrow night. Here are some of the important notes that I took. Mexico's border with the United States and the view from the U.S. recognizes motives that compel unauthorized immigrants to enter illegally because of employment opportunities, family reunification, and a better way of life. The border needs to have a workplace and border patrol. Immigration concerns in Europe consist fo many countries leaving the country du veto better life in other countries such as the U.S. Many people left Europe around the 19th century.

12/6/18

Today was a note taking class so the class went by fairly quick and I didn't find it boring today. We talked about migrants and the challenges they face and took notes on it. Countries have adopted selective immigration policies. The passing of the Quota Act in 1921 and the National Origins Act in 1924 by the U.S. Congress marked the end of unrestricted immigration to the U.S. More seek admission to the U.S. than is permitted by to quotas, thus preferences are shown toward: Family reunification, Skilled workers, and Diversity. Unauthorized immigrants are those who enter a country without proper documents. Characteristics of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. include Source Country (roughly 58% emigrate from Mexico), Children (of estimated 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants, nearly 1 million are children), Years in the U.S. (Duration of residency has increased for unauthorized immigrants and in 2010, 35 percent of adults had been in U.S. for at least 15 years), Labor Force (approximately 8 million unauthorized immigrants are employed in the U.S.), and Distribution (Texas and California have largest number of unauthorized immigrants).

12/5/18

Today we started class off by talking about the exams. We talked about when we would take our human geo exam along with the two essays we will have to write. There will be four different topics to choose from but we only have to write two of our choice. These two essays will be due next Friday which is the last day of school before exams. We then received a packet which we would have to find the important facts out of and then put them in our blog. Here are some of the points I got. The U.N. classifies countries according to four types of immigration policies: 1. maintain the current level of immigration 2. increase the level 3. reduce the level 4. no policy. 21 countries seek more immigrants, 32 want fewer immigrants, 116 wish to maintain then current level, 25 do not have a policy. The number of people trying to immigrate into the U.S. is at an all time high. People who enter without proper documents are known as unauthorized immigrants. Undocumented immigrants re different because they are the people who want more rights for themselves and this is the term they think is right.

12/4/18

Today Mr. Schick wasn't here so we had Mr. Blair come and sub for us as we did our sub work that Mr. Schick emailed us. We were told to read 84-85 in the article and take notes on these pages. Here are the notes. About 80 million people migrated to the U.S. between 1820 and 2015. There were three main eras fo immigration. 1. Colonial settlement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 2. Mass European immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 3. Asian and Latin American immigration in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Immigration to the American colonies and the newly independent United States came from two principal places: Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of those Africans were forced to migrate as slaves. Migration from Europe to the United States peaked at several points during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: 1840's and 1850's (Ireland and Germany), 1870's (Ireland and Germany), 1880's (Scandinavia), 1905-1914 (Southern and Eastern Europe). More than three fourths of the recent U.S. immigrants have emigrated from two regions: Latin America and Asia.

11/30/18 (Discussion Blog)

Today we were going to have class debate on immigration. There would be no arguing, there would just be us students sharing ideas of what we think about the question that's raised. First off one of the Key Points that I'm answering is "Why do people migrate"? There can be a lot of answers to this questions as this is most caused by the push forces and pull forces. These can be topics such as wealth, health, job opportunity, family, and basically it's just people searching for a better life. There is never no reason for people to migrate. I have learned some things about migration but not to much compared to what  have already known. The thing is that I'm not a politics person so when my classmates started bringing up topics about this different ideas on Trump and news I was just confused because I couldn't put the words together to make sense. I wanted to get involved but I had no clue what to say or what I was thinking about. But there were some classmates that stuck out to me during this debate. One of my fellow students, Colin Westermyer was speaking very strongly about his opinions. He was talking about the news people and how it can easily be fake. And I'm pretty sure he brought up the topic of gang members and why they can be a bad association with migration. Another student, Trent Katen is an obvious Trump supporter (which I am too) that really related his thoughts in favor of Trump but most people didn't enjoy Trent's words while I did. But three major things that I learned from this is: 1. The waiting room located in Mexico. There are obviously a numerous amount of people that are trying to move into the U.S. in hopes of getting a better life. But they can't just automatically get in because there is just too many immigrants. I agree with the waiting room because this country already has too many immigrants and I think it's just the most fair way to deal with it. 2. Protests. I learned that these immigrants can get a little rowdy with being harmful and just getting furious that they can't get in. But this doesn't mean that you can just throw a rock at an officer and hope to get away with it. That is why the man deserved to get shot but ten times is a little over the top. 3. Fake News. I've heard a lot about fake the news ever since Trump was elected into office. I honestly believe in the fake news because they just want the watchers to become anti trump and believe that what they're saying us correct even though it's not. News reporters need to just dish out the news and call it a day, not argue with ti and state their dumb opinions because it is just causing more conflict. Overall I kinda enjoyed this class even though I don't care about politics. I enjoyed listening to my fellow classmates state their opinions on stuff and I hope to do this again in the future.

11/29/18

Today we had a somewhat discussion class but it was more so preparing us for tomorrow's class which I'm assuming to be a debate kind of class. But Mr. Schick said he wants to hear a bunch of people's opinion on the topic. Th topic is gonna be on migration and whose right about it and whose wrong about it.We will be split up into three groups based on our opinions: Trump, Anti-Trump, and Neutral. I'm not sure about which group I am but if I were to pick one it would probably be Trump because I like what Trump has done with migration considering illegal immigrants and other things like that. But at the same time I don't really care because I don't really pay attention to politics because it doesn't really have an effect on my life. I enjoy these classes where we mainly discuss ideas among us classmates rather that Mr. Schick being the one who starts conversations all the time.

11/28/18

Today we had human geo first period and I was feeling really tired so I was kinda dozing off throughout the class. We basically had a normal class today which started off with some conversations about Mr. White an awe went into migration. I don't remember much from class today because it felt like awhile ago but I do remember looking at the powerpoint and looking up some things on our computers. I remember looking up what percentage of people in the world today are immigrants and that it has increased majorly throughout the years. There was a lot of different answers depending on which source we looked at. Immigration is the movement of migrants into a country and emigration is the movement from migrants out of a country. I remember this because I is for in and E is for exit.

11/26/18

Today we started off class by getting a few papers back. I got three papers back and I got belled for a three of them. The first one was the big test we took and I got a 91 on that one. The second paper we got back was a bubble quiz and I got a 100 on that. And the last paper we got back was a worksheet we did in class and I got a 100 on that. We then talked about how close to exam week we were. We only have a couple more weeks of school until our exams which would mean we have one more unit in geography and test before we take the big exam. I think exam week will be easy and that it is kinda a week off school because we only go in for a couple hours and this is just to take tests. But anyways the new unit we started today and took notes on is Migration. We already have learned a little about migration and I think that there is too much to learn abut this topic so I think that this will be an easy lesson leading into Christmas Break.

11/20/18

Today we went over the worksheet that we did in class yesterday. I missed a couple answers because I still didn't fully understand the five stages so good thing we didn't turn it in before we went over it or I wouldn't of got full credit for completing it. Then right after we turned it in he gave us a ten question quiz that we had to take on the scan tron. This was probably the easiest quiz I have ever taken because it was literally the same ten questions in the same exact order from the worksheet we just did. Even though I don't understand the five stages I remembered the order that the answers were in so I feel like I for sure got a 100% on the quiz. Once we were all done in about 5 minutes he gave us the opportunity to do our blogs even though we only had like 7 minutes of class at that point but I finished this blog up in about five minutes and now I'm waiting for my quiz to e graded.

11/19/18

Today class was just a bit shortened because we had a prayer service. We watched a 5 minute video about demographic transition. The video was about Hans Rosling and about the graph that he decided to make. I found it pretty interesting on how the graph evaluated and how almost all of the countries had a life expectancy lower than 30. We did a ten question paper on this video and I found the first five questions pretty easy but the last five questions were hard because I wasn't there the one class where we learned about the five stages which is what the last five questions were about. So tonight I have to watch the video again and look at the presentation Mr. Schick has to put up on his website so I can finish the worksheet.

11/14/18

I wasn't in class today because I had an orthodontist appointment.

11/13/18

Demographic transition is the transition from high birth rates and high death rates to lower birth rates and lower death rates. The theory was proposed in 1929 by an American Demographer known by Warren Thompson. Most developed countries have completed the demographic transition and have low birth rates while most developing countries are in the process of going through this transition. The major exceptions are some poor countries, mainly in sub-saharan Africa and some middle eastern countries, which are poor or affected by government policy or civil strife, notably, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Yemen and Afghanistan. The demographic transition model, in isolation, can be taken to predict that birth rates will continue to go down as societies grow increasingly wealthy. The demographic transition should be reversed via evolutionary pressure for higher fertility and higher mortality.

11/9/18

Today we took some more notes on deeper topics into population. I feel like we're learning the same thing we learned last unit but apparently it's just deeper into population. We talked about the summary of spatial patterns. Developed countries have lower rates of natural increase, crude birth, total fertility, and infant mortality. Developing countries have higher rates of natural increase, crude birth, total fertility, and infant mortality. We also talked about population structure. The x axis of a population graph will have the percent male displayed to the left of zero and percent female displayed to the right of zero. The y axis has age age cohorts typically grouped in 5 year intervals and youngest displayed at the bottom and oldest at the top.

11/7/18

Today we took our test. I found the test to be fairly easy but the only part I really didn't know was the extra credit but who needs extra credit. I found the first part to be somewhat stressful because I felt like I was gonna run out of time when I was having trouble finding the two crude oil questions. I had to look deeply into every subject and category on the world fact book. The fill in the blank part of the test was easy and when we were finished we were instructed to draw cartoons on the back of our test. I completely forgot what I drew to be honest. I feel like I overall pretty good on this test and that's good because it will hopefully start off the new quarter with an "A" in veracross.

11/1/18

Today we had human geo first period and classes today were shortened today because of the mass we were gonna have to replace advisory. Today we had limited time so we just took some notes. We took more notes that went deeper into population. We wrote and talked about the different shapes that represented different types of populations. The Christmas Tree represented that there were a lot of young people in the country and few elderly people. This means that there is a large population growth and this is a sign of an undeveloped nation. The next shape we talked about is The Box which means there is a pretty equal amount of young people as there is old people. This is a sign of a developed nation with a steady population growth. The last shape we saw was The Cup which means that there are fewer kids than elders in the nation. This is a sign of  developed nation as well.

10/30/18

Majority of our class today was on our computers. We talked a little about our unit test and released that there would be a section on it that required the help of the world fact book (www.cia.gov). There would be 15 questions that have to take us a maximum time of 15 minutes which means we have 1 minute per question which sounds fair because the questions he was giving us as examples were very easy and they took me probably around 20 seconds to find. This website is very helpful and it is very easy to look up information. But I also started to doze off in class today because I was very tired and I really didn't need to do any work so I didn't really pay attention that much.

10/29/18

Today class was shortened by five minutes because it was a D day but it still felt very long. Our final grade for the first quarter was put in which means my final grade of a 92 is done with changes. he gave us ten minutes to look over our grades and make sure that there were zero mistakes. My veracious wasn't working too well so it wouldn't load my grades but I didn't really care because I'm pretty positive my grade is as it should be. After everything was sorted out we then went over our blogs from the previous class and talked about some interesting facts that we all covered. I didn't find anyone's facts interesting besides the one fact I had which is the amount of airports the United States has compared to all the other countries. And to end the class Patrick went up in front of the class for the last five minutes of class and I honestly had no clue what he was talking about.

10/27/18

While I looked through the world facebook I found a lot of interesting facts about nations. I tried to just look at the topic of One i people and society because I haven't learned much about the other topics. One interesting fact I learned is that there is a nation called the Pitcairn Islands that has a total population of 54. I wonder how it would feel to live in a population with only a total of 54 people living on the same island as you. Another fact I learned that there is a rich country called Monaco that has a life expectancy of 90 which is crazy because it is way above other countries. Monaco is a very rich country with lots of rich people. I have learned a lot about Monaco because of this website. The third thing I learned is that most of the major known countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Italy all have really low birth rates. This is because these are all developed countries with a solid population that don't feel the need to have random kids. The fourth thing that I learned is that The United States is the 12th most obese country while most of the other well known developed countries all have low obesity rates. For my last fact I decided to go into the transportation tab and found that the United States has 13,513 airports which is 10,000 more airports than the country with the second most airports. I found it weird that China has way less airports than the United States.

10/24/18

Today in class we took more notes on additional slides to add onto our unit. We learned about migration and why people migrate. There are push forces and pull forces. Forces that push people out of the country is civil war, environmental degradation, unemployment or underemployment, and religious or ethnic persecution. Forces that can pull people out of the country is better economic opportunity, better health services, religious freedom, and political freedom. We also talked a bunch about Total Fertility Rate (TFR) which is the average number of children born per woman. For a population to remain the same, the TFR must be 2.1. Which means the population rises if the TFR is above 2.1 and the population can shrink if it is lower than 2.1. The world TFR is 2.42 and has been shrinking over the past years.

10/23/18

Today we talked more about population. In the beginning of the class we didn't take any notes because we continued on the topic of life expectancy. We talked about that topic and why sometimes life expectancy is usually higher for women then men. The life expectancy of men in women can vary a lot in different countries. The highest we've looked at is an average age of 90 and the lowest we've looked at is an average age of 50. I find it quite incredible how it can be at such a young age. We also talked about reasons why men tend to die younger than women. Some of these reasons were about men jobs,(which tend to be more dangerous) and men usually tend to do more dangerous actions then women.

10/22/18

Today we started our new unit. The new unit is on population. I actually found i quite interesting how many people are being put into the world versus the amount of people being taken out of the world. There are more people being born than people dying. We learned that most of the world's population is increased in developing countries not so much of developed countries. We looked at a website on the population increase of the United States versus the rest of the world. The world is much greater in the gaining of population. About 50 years ago there was less than 3 billion people in the world, but now we are halfway through 7 billion people. It just shows how fast the human population is increasing and why it could be a problem.

10/18/18

Today we took our test on mapping and time zones.  I am glad that the test was all multiple choice because I feel like when I answer multiple choice answers, I have a better chance of getting it right other than actually writing the answer. I didn't study for this test and I'm glad I didn't because it would've been a waste of time if I did. I answered my questions on the bubbled scantron and not on the actual test. I thought I did pretty well on the test and I'm hoping I got an "A". A "B" wouldn't be bad knowing that I didn't pay that much attention to this chapter on mapping. Overall I hope that these tests that he's giving us are always multiple choice and not writing because I find multiple choice to be way easier.

10/17/18

Today we started off early with talking about the fact that our test on cartography and everything about maps is tomorrow. We talked about what would be on the test and he asked us questions which he wanted the kids who usually don't talk in the class to participate. I tried to answer the questions that I actually knew the answers to. Then he asked us some questions on time zones and what time would be relative to another point on earth. For example a question would be like "If it is 10:15 AM in Bel Air, MD then what would the time be in Moscow, Russia. I was actually fairly good at these questions because you're really just counting over the time zones and either subtracting or adding time to the starting time. I actually quite enjoyed this class because I felt as if I understood what was going on.

10/16/18

Today Sydney had a shadow and in the beginning of the class Mr. Schick made the shadow tell him a little about culture and some examples of culture. She mentioned religion cultures and that was the discussion the whole class. We talked more about the different Christian religion and the categories of Christian religion. We mainly talked about the Catholic faith and how it relates and differs from the other religions such as Methodist, and Lutheran. It was another boring conversation that I did not like and I felt like it had nothing to do with what we were learning even though it did. Most people shared their life experiences with the class on religion and the different religions and schools they have experienced.

10/11/18

Today in class we talked about pretty much everything we learned. We talked about maps and the main key issues that Mr. Schick writes on the board. I found it pretty boring because I would much rather take notes or do something fun to remember everything we learned other than just talk and discuss about it. I felt like we were gone have a test today because it was all review in the beginning but it turns out that that was the whole class. We are having a test sometime at the end of next week which means I should probably study a little bit because I don't know to much about what we are learning right now because I can't keep interest. But towards the ned we decided to take some notes on a little topic that had more to do with GPS and it was pretty much about tracking devices.

10/9/18

We mainly took notes in class today. But before that we had a ten question pop quiz that was fairly easy but I got a 7/10 on it. The test included questions on mapping and also about the lines on the map. we reviewed what we learned from the previous class that Patrick taught very poorly. I took some notes but I found class very boring and almost fell asleep. I tried to stay  awake and learn what he was trying to teach us. We learned some more about scale ad the three main descriptions of scale. I forgot what these three were but I'll remember then when I look back at my notes. This class felt very long because it was boring.

10/4/18

Today was another loud class. We started the class off by taking some notes on specific places on earth and where they get their origin from. We learned that there are three ways in which places get their names and how they are known. The first is the place's name. A toponym is the name given to a place on earth. Names are usually derived from people of prominence, religious affiliation, physical features, or origins of its settlers. The second is site. Site is the physical characteristic of a place. Characteristics include climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation. The third is situation. Situation is the location of a place relative to there places. Half of this class was instructed by Patrick so I didn't learn much.

10/3/18

This class turned out to be another discussion class. We started off by taking some notes but as soon as we started on the topic of Google Home, Siri, and Alexa. Our class took off with comments and stuff about these devices listening to everything we are saying. I almost fell asleep but somehow stayed awake and stayed with the class. I'm glad we didn't take notes the whole class but listening to everyone scream about suicide and other stuff, I lost interest. I like the topic of GPS and how they work and I wish we would've went further into that subject. This class felt very long but it did make for an interesting blog to write.

10/2/18

Class today started off with us going over our first test. We learned that Mr. Schick gives the tests back one by one calling the person up to get their test. If you get a 100% or higher, then you get two rings of the bell. If you get between a 90% and a 99% then you get one ring of the bell. And if you get an 89% or lower then you don't get any bell. I got a 90% so I got one bell. After we all got our tests back he handed us three more maps to write certain cities on and label them. It depended on what time zone the city was in. I finished all three maps while others probably didn't. Class today went by what felt like faster then usual.

9/28/18

Today we had a very simple day in human geo. We finishes working on our maps while Mr. Schick took the time to read over our blogs and talk to us about what we could be doing better on them. My last few blogs have been all about maps so they are all pretty similar. I like learning about maps because I find it to be pretty interesting how different they can be in big and little detail. I've learned  a lot about maps throughout my years of geography and the time that I've spent learning about maps, I've learned more about maps within these two weeks of high school human geo. I hope we go deeper into maps because I like learning about compared to other social studies topics that I find very boring.

9/27/18

Today in class we got further into maps. We talked about different lines on the map and what they are called. We talked about the Prime Meridian which is the middle line of latitude located at 0 degrees. We then talked about the equator which is also located at 0 degrees but on along the lines of longitude. We also learned about the tropic of cancer and the tropic of cancer. The tropic of cancer is located above the equator and the tropic of capricorn is located under the equator. We had a shorter day at class so we didn't get to as much as we would usually would so after that we were given three maps and we were to table them with continents, oceans, and the important lines of latitude and longitude.

9/26/18

Today we talked a lot more about maps. This class wasn't  a discussion class like the past week of classes have been. We actually learned about the evolution of maps and measurements of maps. The earliest maps were reference tools which were simple navigation devices to show a traveler how too get from point a to b. The first world map was prepared by Eratosthenes (276-194BC). Then later improvements to the map were made by Ptolemy. We learned a lot about map scale. Map scale can be written out in three ways. Ratio/Fraction scale is 1/2,400. Written scale is 1 in=1 mile. And the graphic scale is what the bar line usually is called. Most of the time because earth has a spherical shape, it causes distortion on a flat map. It distorts the shape of an area, the distance can be increased or decreased, relative sizes of areas can be altered, and direction between points can be distorted.

9/24/18

One of the points the cartographers is that the two maps portray Greenland and Africa wrong. On the one map, Greenland and Africa are the same size but in reality Africa is really 14 times the size of Greenland. Another point is that Europe was drawn bigger than South America but South America has almost double the amount of land that Europe has. The next point is that Alaska appeared three times as large as Mexico when Mexico is larger by 0.1 million square miles. The last point is that Germany appears in the middle of the map but its really not. The lines on the map are shifted differently and positioned differently on the Peters Projection Map. These are valid points because they are true and scientifically proven. I don't think it matters that much because they're both maps that give an accurate demonstration of the world other than the fact that they are flat and both wrong.

9/20/18

Class today was annoying. It consisted of our class debating over false conspiracy theories for a whole class period. Some of these theories were debating over whether the earth is flat, which map is correct and if they are really both incorrect, some weird things about NASA, and if the world would appear upside down if someone took a space shuttle to outer space. My classmates overwhelmed Mr. Schick with multiple questions which allowed him to not teach the lesson that he had planned for the day. I find it kind of funny that my class takes this stuff that seriously too the point where it seems like there life depends on it. I've never had a class that takes human geo as seriously as this class.

Maps

Today we learned about the flat map of the earth. We talked about how the map that we are all used to is not actually correct. That map showed Greenland too be way bigger than it is and Africa to be way smaller than it is. Then Mr. Schick showed us a new map that wasn't to much different, but it was different enough for me to tell that there was a major difference between the two maps. We watched a show on Netflix that showed us the two different maps side by side and how each are different. It was actually weird realizing that all the maps I've ever seen are all false and that I'm just finally learning about this in my freshman year. I don't think this topic is too important to me because they really are the same thing and I found it kind of unnecessary to focus on two little differences.

9/17/18

Today in class we took our test on pretty much everything we've learned so far in these first couple of weeks. The main subjects on the test were A Message to Garcia, Elbert Hubbard, Arete, and Socrates.  I found the test to be reasonably fair because it did require some long challenging questions but if we studied and actually knew the answers then it was easy. I don't necessarily like writing two essay questions but it helps me learn the concept I'm writing about. The one thing I didn't really know that well is what arete is but good thing the test didn't require too many questions on that topic. I also had trouble of the polis question which asked for two different words that were different but had the same origin of polis. I put city and metropolis but I don't think I got that right. This also concerns me because he said this is gonna be one of the easiest tests we take all year so looks like I'm gonna need to study for every test we take.

9/14/18

During class our plans were ruined because Mr. Schick's computer was not loading into Google. We were planned to have an oral assignment where there would be a slide on the board and one of us would describe the slide to the class. I am thankful we didn't do this because I don't like oral assignments. Monday's class will contain a test of all the things we have learned so far. I understand most of it but the only thing I really don't know that well is arete. I'm hoping it's a simple definition and it doesn't take me too much time to study. My classmates also talked a lot about how bad google is and that was probably half of the class. This weekend I am going to try and study for the test so I can start off human geography with a good grade. Mr. Schick just ended up giving us the last fifteen minutes of class just to do our blog so we didn't have to do it over the weekend.

9/13/18

Today we talked a lot about Socrates and what he did with his life. Socrates was a Greek philosopher and was credited with finding some of the western philosophy. We learned that he was a teacher to children and that he broke some laws of his democracy. He broke the law of pretty much abusing children and trying to provoke people to believe in other Gods. He basically was saying that there are other things to believe in other than their main God. His defenses were that he should be rewarded for free dinners for life and that there are more than just one God. The guy found him guilty in a very close vote but he would be sentenced to die. He was to drink poison hemlock and die over the course of an hour. In class we also took a vote and be basically said that if we were bake then then we would've proved him guilty but if this case was in modern times we would say he is innocent and that he shouldn't die.

9/11/18


Today we focused on the excellence of "A Message to Garcia". It was published as an inspirational essay in March of 1899. It became very popular and because of this it was reprinted as a pamphlet and a book. There were over forty million copies sold which was a pretty big percentage of the population back then. And due to most people around the world owning this, it was printed in thirty seven languages. It was also made into two movies, one in 1916, and the other in 1936. The title of this story also became known as slang of a way to say get the job done. The time frame happened in the middle of the Spanish American War. Garcia was a revolutionary seeking Cuban independence from Spain and Rowan was an army officer. The President of the United States at the time was president William McKinley. Class today was another note taking day that considered of going deeper into the importance of "A Message to Garcia" and the backstory.

     9/10/18


Today we talked about "A Message to Garcia" and the true meaning behind it. We went through some simple backstory such as the fact that this event occurred during the Spanish-American war. We also learned about what was going on in the United States and the president at that time and a bunch of other facts. We also talked about certain vocabulary that we may not have understood what it meant when we first read it. We also went into detail about what Elbert Hubbard was trying to prove to people when he wrote this story. He was basically saying that we need more people like the man who delivered the message to Garcia. We took notes on all of these concepts and the class mainly revolved around learning more about this story and learning more about Elbert Hubbard.

A Message to Garcia

While I was reading "A Message to Garcia", I had a little bit of difficulty figuring out what was going on. At first I was thinking that it was a man trying to deliver a message to a man named Garcia who no one had trace of. The man had failed his mission in trying to find Garcia and returns in a way that the author clearly didn't like. It then seems like the author goes on talking about how people shouldn't be like the man delivering the message and they should never give up on a task. I can also realize that this a very old piece of writing and the words used and the context they were given in made me think that. Half the time I felt like I was just reading words and not actually processing them. In my opinion, I just felt like this piece of writing was just a way for the author to tell people that they should not be lazy and that they should never give up on what they're trying to accomplish no matter how long it takes. I think this also says a lot about Elbert Hubbard and what he liked to write about. Overall I did not really enjoy reading this writing but I feel like most people would say it is a good story.

First Days at JC

        My first few days at John Carroll went pretty well. It is a whole lot different from middle school.
It is different in ways such as off mods, sports, organization, lockers, books, classes, and technology. Off mods are very helpful in my opinion because they can give me time to catch up on work or just chill out for a period. This year I am looking forward to playing football and basketball. Both of these sports require a lot of practice to keep up with the team. John Carroll also doesn't force us to have any  certain type of organization like middle school. I can arrange my papers a d work in any way I feel comfortable with. The lockers here are ok, but I feel like they could use an upgrade. I don't really see the point of having locks other than people getting inside your locker and doing something wrong but we don't really see that anymore. Classes here are pretty similar to middle school but the main differences are advisory and there are no teachers really leading you. We can also have our own computers and have our phones in school unlike middle school. I like this concept because in case of emergency we can call someone on our phones and the computers I feel like are for our own privacy and comfort.