Updates. They're fun.

                Today in class we reviewed/finished our PowerPoint and got assigned our weekend homework. We first reviewed the last slide on the PowerPoint. This slide was defining what an independent state was, and what it took to be an independent state. This took up most of the class time. After finishing this slide of the PowerPoint, we finally got to our assignment. This assignment was to use the CIA World Factbook and a list of countries to learn information about world leaders. We were supposed to find out the country’s government type, it’s leaders name, and the leader’s title. Finally, we were asked to include a picture. What I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure about is the ‘title’ part. I’m assuming it means official title, however, except for Queen Elizabeth II, who is only an honorary leader, most leaders are termed ‘President’. I’m not sure if this is fact or if the Factbook just labels all leaders with the term president. Unfortunately, I only really got to work on the assignment later, because my computer was having issues connecting to the internet. When I tried to restart it, my computer had to update (slight disappointment in technology). When my computer finally finished updating, I still had issues, but I managed to work on my assignment a little bit before the bell rang.

Social Engineering: Does it really involve math?

                Today in Human Geography we continued our PowerPoint. We didn’t really get through any slides since last time, because we were discussing social engineering in sort of an open debate format. Originally we started with what social engineering was, and how it is used in school. Social Engineering is a way that people influence the way you think. The tendency of news networks is that they have twenty-four hour news service. This means that they occasionally talk about the same subject for long periods of time until a new one comes along, or revisit a past subject. By using this type of news system, it makes us hyperaware of everything going on. However, when it comes to the presidential election, each news station seems to have on candidate that they bash on the head for hours. This makes news stations more and more like propaganda machines. One thing that I will say is that I think Fox News is more balanced than CNN when it comes to politics, even if they are right leaning. We then moved on towards how children’s networks tend to target children with lots of social engineering. And the fact of the matter is, young children don’t really have barriers against this, and the social engineering children’s TV stations employ is so the parents spend some money that goes to them. This, combined with actors on television that are of the child’s age, can cause serious behavioral issues. Child actors on TV (as well as adults) portray people that don’t act like real people. Children then copy this behavior and are worse off for it.

Cubby Puppy

Today in class we started our unit on political geography. This unit also centers around world leaders, a little bit of map work, and the World Series (???). Through political terminology, we learned these three terms. Country, Nation, and State. By best definition of Mr. Schick, a country is an identifiable land area, a nation is a group of people with a common culture, and a State is a population under a single government, often synonymous with country. Although there was a dispute over whether or not the definition was correct, I think it is correct for everyone, even Americans. America’s culture is our diversity, which we all share. Going into deeper detail, a country regulates its borders, distributes money, social engineering, transportation, public service as well as police power, sovereignty, and finally, external recognition. A nation is a group larger than a single tribe or city, that share traits such as religion, language, or historical background. An independent state has internationally recognized boundaries, has a person to represent them around the world on a regular basis (The U.N.), and has an active and engaged economy.

ANOTHER 89!!!

                Today in class we got our tests back. After deciding who was going to sit on the floor in order to make sure all the shadows had space at a desk, we introduced them. Two kids from my old school, St. Joan of Arc, were here. I know one of them, but the other one must have transferred in from another school in the past year because I didn’t know who she was. After that, one kid named Austin had to take his test, so we sort of just sat around quietly and waited for him to get through it so we could hand out the rest of the tests to everyone. I started writing this blog at that point so I could save time later. According to Veracross, my test score was an 89. I have no idea why I got this score, because I was very confident that I did well on it. This unfortunately bumped my overall grade down to a 90.8, so I need to start trying harder in my classes to maintain my GPA. After looking through the test, class was over and everyone left.

MLG AIRHORN CELEBRATION!!!

                Today in class we took a test. To celebrate the test, I played airhorn sounds on my computer. Unfortunately, Mr. Schick misinterpreted this as the fire alarm, but figured out that it wasn’t the fire alarm eventually. For the first page of the test we had ten minutes to fill out twelve questions. These questions were all statistic based, and we could use our computers. However, once time ran out, you couldn’t use your computer anymore for the first page. I managed to get this done with two minutes and sixty-three seconds to spare. After that, there was some matching as well as some two answer questions. I’m 95% sure I got most of the questions right, but some of them took some time to figure out. What was really funny was the trick question Mr. Schick put in at the end of the test for extra credit. The question was “What is the net migration of the whole world”. Well, since no one can get off the planet and move to Mars or some other planet yet, the answer is 0.

Poor Dog! He can't drive with that bad paw!

                Today in class we discussed crazy drivers and looked at the CIA World Factbook. Mr. Schick told us a story about a crazy woman in a Jeep that almost smashed the back of his car. Mr. Schick was driving the speed limit because he had his injured dog in the back of the car, and this lady in a Jeep was basically tailgating him on a curving road. This lady followed him for a long period of time, never slowing down. When she finally passed him, she screamed profanity out the window about Mr. Schick not knowing how to drive. We then proceeded to discuss why people do what they do when they drive, and we mostly agreed that when people drive they think with more self-centeredness when they drive. Afterwards we looked more at the CIA Factbook. Whenever we do this I sort of just get lost and I listen to whatever other people find on the website. When it comes to finding information that links together other information, I’m just not good at making the connections. After that, Mr. Schick discussed our test on Thursday that involved the factbook.

News Recording

                Today in Human Geo we listened to a news recording. Conveniently enough the recording that was playing also came with a script, since sometimes I needed to read over (repeatedly) what the person said. As we went through the recording, Mr. Schick would occasionally stop the recording to have a discussion about what was said. The overall news report was about the upcoming election and what ethnicities were voting for who. This tied in directly with our population pyramids, because they were discussing types of people and what the population consisted of. Most pyramids are centered around age and sex, where those statistics tell the ages in five year periods. Some other population pyramids are based off of other statistics, such as race or religion. America mostly consists of whites, and most whites vote. In comparison with other races, American whites vote more than other ethnicities. During the news report, two people were interviewed. Each lived as a child during the 50’s. Each discussed whether or not life was good during that time period, where the white woman said that it was good. However, the black (man or women, I don’t remember) said that her experience was not so good. As I suspected, civil rights during that time were not as good for blacks as whites, leading to better privileges for some than others.

Warning! Shadows Approaching!

                Today in class we had somewhere around five to six shadows (it might have been more). After introducing shadows for the first fifteen minutes, we continued our go over of the video. We started a little bit farther back, so we went over some of the stuff we did a couple days before, and the day did consist of a lot of review. We did however look at more population pyramids and what certain spurts or shrinkage of population meant. We also discussed why there seemed to be many more boys in a country. Overall, parents want boys because boys apparently earn more money, and they can later use that money to take care of their parents in their parent’s old age. This happens because in most countries there aren’t assisted living homes for the elderly. To ensure that they get a boy (This being applicable with Japan’s one baby rule) rich families use money to do an ultrasound, then bribe doctors to do an abortion on the woman. This is very common, leading to more boys being born than girls in some countries. However, some poor families who can’t afford to get an abortion or an ultrasound just keep having babies until they get a boy, which does level out the population between boys and girls. Afterwards, we looked over the CIA website for population pyramids, then analyzed them and guessed why each pyramid had spurts if shrinkages of growth.

Population Pyramid Power Nap

                Today in class we looked at population pyramids. We watched a video called TED ED that covered how population pyramids work and why we have them. A population period is sort of like a bar graph that has a vertical split and bar graph lines going to the left and right. Down the center of the graphs are five-year age groups that go from 0-4, 5-10, and so forth. The pyramid had men on the left and women on the right. Each five-year age group had a line going out in the appropriate direction, which could occasionally appear like a pyramid shape. This pyramid is an easy visual tool to help see where there is spurts of age throughout the groups, and can even be used to see where certain events took place, such as WWII where there was many deaths during the years the event was happening, making the lines shorter there. There are three main intervals for the pyramid. The three intervals are pre-reproductive, reproductive, and post-reproductive. Note that pre-industrial countries have higher life expectancy and lower child mortality, and vice versa. Also note that the picture of the man with his hands on his head is most likely losing his hair.

Sad dog, worse amnesia

                Today in class we saw and discussed dogs. More like sad puppies with brain tumors and half of one leg missing. All of this is true, however we also discussed more important things, such as the syllabus for Human Geo. We went over how the class gives no extra credit, and how late work is treated. Mr. Schick also told us cool stories about his daughter and how she went to work at a college newspaper. Since she went to work at our school newspaper, The Patriot she managed to get a job on her first day with no previous college based training or schooling. Her job was the Sports News Editor (correct me if I’m wrong Mr. Schick), which is a pretty important position as she edits and makes sure that the newspaper is correct before it’s released to the public. Most importantly, we went over the technology policy. After that we discussed whether or not we should let the sad puppy in the classroom turn in his papers that were late. I think that this is an iffy subject depending on whether or not the person really tries in your class to turn in work. However, this reliability can easily be established from my point of view on how the student has performed in the past.

CIA investigation part 2

                Today in class we continued our investigation of the CIA. Before we started our classwork, we had to listen to announcements, pray, and say the pledge. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear any of it because the seniors were running down the hall screaming and shouting the whole time (I thought it was funny). The six new slides we had to add to the PowerPoint were about obesity, literacy, overall GDP, and GDP per capita, how much of the world speaks English, and how many people in certain countries are Catholic (Some of these categories were represented in percentages). I got the last two slides, those two being the percentage of the world that speaks English, and the percentage of the certain countries that is Catholic. English is not actually the world’s leading language, the leading language is currently Mandarin Chinese. I’m guessing it’s the leading language due to so many people being in different countries that speak the language (Asian countries tend to have a lot of people). Catholicism is the leading religion in Mexico, at 82.7%. Afterwards, I helped a little bit with some of the other slides, then started this blog.

Happy readings, Mr. Schick

                Today in class we watched and discussed the opening of Newsroom. This film was filmed about four years ago. The clip from the movie we watched was of the reporter at a debate. There is a lot of time spent where the other reporters are arguing while the main character sits and listens. After a period of time, the main reporter is asked a question, and the reporter gives a neutral and comedic answer. The debate moves on, with more arguing from the Republican and Democratic sides of the argument. After another period of time, the main reporter is asked another question. The moderator asks the says to the main reporter that he hasn’t upset anyone so far because he’s remained neutral. Then, the moderator asks the main question: What do you think makes our country the best country. In the back of the room, a lady holds up signs that (I’m just guessing this) give brief notes on what he’s getting paid to say. The main reporter then goes on a speech/rant about how he thinks that there isn’t a reason to call our country the best country. He names a lot of statistics that show America isn’t the greatest country (Most of which we researched on the CIA website) and goes through all the things that America did that was truly great, and how we’ve declined. Afterwards, we discussed the video. I for one agree totally with what he was saying, paid or not. I think that America has declined greatly because people have become complacent. People aren’t informed enough or don’t care enough to be to make any real decisions. Another thing that I have to add is that Americans are constantly restricting themselves because we are afraid to hurt someone’s feelings. One example is Isis. Isis has grown big enough now to technically call themselves a small nation. If we weren’t so afraid of offending the Muslims by absolutely decimating terrorism, then we wouldn’t have this problem. Another is the whole ‘political correctness’ thing. For example, if someone insulted me by calling me stupid, I think I would try my very best to prove them wrong. Nowadays, if you call anyone a mean or in any way insulting in the slightest bit, it can be considered totally rude and hurtful. If you truly care enough to be insulted by someone’s comments, then you should be prepared to do something about it and prove them wrong. Overall, people have become complacent with how they are, and I think that this can ruin the country (and already is doing so, however the amount of people who care still outweigh the people that don’t).

The REAL CIA Investigation

                Today in class, for the second day in a row, we had FIVE, I repeat, FIVE, shadows. Each of the shadows introduced themselves (I knew none of them). Afterwards, we started classwork. For class work we researched information on the CIA website for a miniature project. Out of 10 topics, I did population, birth rate, and death rate. We had to get information on each of these for the top three countries, the bottom three countries, the U.S., and two other countries of our choice (Hopefully relevant to the topic of research).  Finding the information was relatively easy, as it was just a matter of copying and pasting the information next to the name of the country. On the other hand, it was extremely time consuming and took me the whole class period. At the end of the school day I had to reformat the PowerPoint because when I copied the words it put a weird white block around them. Fortunately, I got it done before I even got this done.