Absent!

Hello Mr. Schick,
As you know, I was absent today.  I went to Johns Hopkins because my mom thinks i have chronic limes disease or something.  I don't, so thats good.  She thinks that because i did have limes disease before, like the whole bullsi thingy, and i have joint pain.  So my mom was talking to her friend who has chronic limes disease and her friend said it was eating away at her joints and it is really bad.  So my mom started freaking out because i have joint pain too, but that just because i have hypermobility in my joint, and when I'm growing they will hurt a little.  So I went to Johns Hopkins, and everythings good! My mom is relieved! that is why is was absent.

Well, today we went over a quiz that i did terrible on.  It brought my grade down from an A to a B thank you very much.  Grace also presented like half of her presentation.  I did find some of the stuff interesting, like the reincarnation thing.  If incarnation was real, I would want to be reincarnated as a cat.  That would literally be so awesome.  Like you don't have to go to school or work.  You just eat and sleep.  I mean it could be real just as much as Christianity could be, because we can't prove it.  Its just if you believe it.

Christianity

Today, we split up into groups and you assigned a religion to each group.  My group got Christianity.  I did't really learn much about it, because I already know so much. things I already knew were like the two main Christian holidays are Christmas and Easter.  I also already knew that there are different denominations of Christians like Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and some others.  I knew that catholics call the people in charge priests and protestants call them pastors.  We did make our power point look pretty rad though.  It was overall easy, because we had such an easy topic.    

quz

On friday we took a quix that i think i did pretty well on, though i did not study at all because I forgot about it.  

Is America really the Greatest Country?

Today, you showed us a very interesting clip about America.  We spent the rest off the class sharing our opinion on America compared to other counties, and if America is the "best."  Personally, I don't think any country is the "best."  All counties have good qualities about them (for example, oil), and all counties have bad qualities about them (for example, a bad economy). But, there are obviously countries that are superior and more developed than others.  What I'm trying to say here is, no country is the best, but i still think people should have pride and nationalism in their county.  That might not always be the case though.  Like for example, i would not be proud to live in Syria.  What I'm saying is if you live in a good country, you should be proud to be a citizen of that county! I think nationalism is very important, and Americans need more of it.  America has accomplished a lot of things and i am proud to be an American.  I'm not saying America is the best, I'm saying I have nationalism.  And people thinking were not free... what?  Of course we are free! I mean we have laws, but a society needs laws to keeps everything under control, like crime.  Of course we are free.  So "I'M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, WHERE AL LEAST I KNOW I'M FREE.  AND I WON'T FORGET THE MEN WHO DIED, WHO GAVE THEIR LIFE TO ME."

Religion and Spatial divisions

today, you ranted to us about religion.  I completely agree with you in your rant.  Isn't religion suppose to be peaceful like "love thy neighbor as thy self"?   Looking at that map today, it got me thinking on how many religions there are in the world.  How can one religion claim they are right, and everyone else it wrong?  It seems so stupid.  I just realized how similar Muslims and Christians are too.  They both believe in God, and they both believe that they have a messiah.  It's just Christians and Muslims have a different messiah.  Who are Christians to tell Muslims they are wrong, and vise-versa.  Just because Christianity is more popular dosn't mean it't the "right religion"  Christians could be right just as much as Muslims or Jews could be right.  All of them could be wrong for all we know!  I just don't get why people are fighting over something they can't prove, and the bible is not proof.  The Bible and the Koran and all other religious groups were written by people.  It is just a matter of faith, and believing that the books are an inspired word of your God.  We also talked about spatial divisions today.  Spatial divisions are how we divide the livable space found on the earth by establishing social, economic, and political control.  They can cause conflicts or cooperation.  

language and ethnic heritage

Today, we looked into more of the specifics of cultural characteristics.  We discussed language and Ethnic Heritage. In language we took alot of notes.  Like Brazil is the only south American country that speaks Portuguese.  Canada has two official languages which are french and English.  Switzerland has multiple languages, but people get along very well there.  English is now considered the world business language.  We also talked about Ethnic heritage.  In Yugoslavia, there were many different ethnic groups, and they didn't get along well.  That caused them to split up in separate countries.  The ethnic groups were areserbs, croats, bosnians, and albanians. Korea and japan have primarily one ethnic group, while Switzerland and the united states have multiple ethnic groups.  

We took this really hard test on Friday. I'm pretty sure I failed it, i didn't even finish it.  There is not much to write about so I am going to conclude now. bye

Chapter 3. Cultural Geography

On Tuesday, we started a new chapter entitled cultural geography. Culture is a part of a groups everyday life.   Three culture characteristics are language, religion, and ethnic heritage.  Some counties have very uniform cultures and some countries have diverse cultures.  For example, the United States has a very diverse culture.  People from all around the world live there.  Everyone has their own religious beliefs, and some people speak foreign languages.  An example of a non-diverse country is Israel.  Way more than half of Israels population is Jewish.

Population Pyramids on a smaller scale

Today we discussed the population pyramids more, but on a smaller scale.  We looked at actually population pyramids from towns and cities.  The cities had more people with the ages 20-40 living in the city and few kids.  This is because people who live in the city mainly focus on their job and do not have kids.  There were also towns with military bases and collages which greatly affected the population around the ages of 19-30

Population Pyramid

Today we took a quiz on the God Grew tired of Us film.  After that we started to learn about the population pyramid.  There are three types of population pyramids.  There is the Christmas tree, the box, and the cup

The Christmas tree usually matches up with developing nations.  For an example, African countries.  In Africa, there is a very high birth rate and because of many diseases, there is a low life expectancy.  The box is usually developed nations with slow population growth, and a long life expectancy.  an example of the box is the United States. The cup is a developed nation with a low birth rate, and a long life expectancy.  There are more elders than young kids.  An example is Japan.

God Grew Tired of Us pt. 4

We finished the movie today, and it didn't end the way i expected it to end.  I thought it would end with Daniel, John, and Panther all making it in America and getting decent jobs, but it didn't.  John was very motivated.  He had three jobs, and was trying to locate his family.  After all, his mother and sisters were still alive, so he arranged for them to be flown to America to meet John.After 3 years of hard work, John is supporting his family in Syracuse and Africa.  He got a bachelor Degree in Syracuse University.  e also opened up a medical clinic in Duk, Sudan; his home county.  Panther went back to Africa to marry his girlfriend and see his mother and brother.  He also got a bachelors degree in economics at University of Pittsburgh.  And he opened a school in his village in Africa.  Daniel still lives at job corps ans is taking classes at community college, but unfortunately, he did not locate his family.

God grew tired of Us Pt. 3

On Friday we continued watching God Grew Tired of Us.  John now has two jobs.  One working at a factory adn another working at McDonalds.  John, Panther, and Daniel all discovered that the people in America are different from the people in Sudan.  Americans are not nice and inviting, like the people in Sudan.  They don't have a lot of time to hangout with eacother because everyone works different hours.  America is not what they were expecting it to be.  They are all grateful to have this opportunity, but John, Daniel, and Panther still miss home.  

God Grew Tired of Us Pt. 2

today we continued watching the video God Grew Tired of Us.  David and Panther are in Pittsburgh and John is in Syracuse.  They are going to be supported by the United States for three months, and in that three months they need to get a social security car and try to find a job.  This way the United States are not supporting them forever.  

God grew tired of us Pt. 1

Today we watched some of a video titled God grew tired of us.  I do not get the title yet, but I may get it later in the movie.  The movie starts off telling us about the Religious Civil War Sudan is going through.  North Sudan was Muslims, and south Sudan was animists and Christians.  Northern Sudan was attacking Sudan.  The soldiers were ordered to kill every man and boy.  If they didn't kill them they would mark them.  A lot of young boys escaped and they traveled to Ethiopia for refuge.  This was a very hard, long trip; many kids died of starvation, dehydration, and attacks from wild animals.  They got to Ethiopia, but Ethiopia was having economic problems itself, so they only let them stay for a couple years.  When they got kicked out from Ethiopia, they fled to Kenya.  Kenya had refugee camps that took these group of boys called "the lost boys."  27,000 boys fled from Sudan, and in the end, the grand total that survived over these past five years
was 12,000 boys.  After about ten years of staying in these refugee camps, three men, Panther Bior, John Buldau, and Danil Abul Pach, Were given the choice to go to the United States.  Of course they chose to go.  That's when class ended. I'm really exited to watch the rest of the movie.