Break At Last!!

Today in Human Geo, we basically did whatever we wanted to do. My friends and I listened to music, talked, and did some homework. It was a pretty great class. Mr. Schick wasn't in there too long because he had to go do the end of the day announcements. Having Human Geo was a pretty great way to start off the break, because it wasn't even like a real class! Well HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! HAVE A GREAT BREAK AND BE SAFE!!!

The CRAZY Class

Okay, so today in Human Geo, the whole class worked on a PowerPoint at the same time. It was crazy in the beginning, all we did was chat each other, but after a little while, we started to get to work. It definitely wasn't smooth sailing. People kept deleting things and wouldn't admit it was them, Laura would make the background to all the slides a picture of herself, and Jordan added a cowboy to the backgrounds at one point. It was a pretty amusing class, not going to lie. Some people cough cough John were getting really mad when we went on their slide, when we were just trying to help. It was pretty funny though. Today's class was a good one! I hope we do something like that tomorrow.

Winner

On Friday, in Human Geo, we continued to work on the Peace Corpse Challenge. Jordan won the game in my group, but no one else did, which was kind of sad. As we were working on the game, we listened to some great 80's tunes, which got us in a good mood. I'm telling you whenever I listen to 80's music it put me in a good mood. I really wish music today was more like that. Anyways, it was a pretty good class. Honestly, I like working in groups a lot because you can get different perspectives on the topic. See ya Monday!

Another day with the Peace Core Challenge

Today in Human Geo, we worked on the Peace Core challenge. It is actually pretty tough. I am not very good at it. I just wanted to rush through it and get it over with, but that was not the point. We were supposed to take the time to actually read what the people we "talking" to. I honestly don't have the patience for those kinds of games. My group and I played some pretty good music while we were doing the game, which was pretty nice. We were jamming out to Tracy Chapman. Overall, it was a pretty good class.

Reviewing the Test

Today in Human Geo, we went over most the test on political leaders. I personally did no do as well as I wanted to, but I still have time to pull up my grades. Some of the questions I didn't read the bolded word, so I would get the name of the leader right, but it was asking for the country. That was the big issue I had. I really need to work on reading the whole question before trying to find the answer. At least I know my lesson now. I wish we could do a retest on this one!

Peace

Today in human geo, we did the peace core activity. We worked on this a lot and to be honest, I think it was kind of boring. It was better than just lecturing though, so that was good. At least we got to get into groups and hang out with my friends, which was fun. Hopefully we get to do this again tomorrow.

Test day

Today in Human Geo, we took a test on political leaders. We got to use our blogs to help us though which was awesome! Even though we got to use our blogs, it was still pretty tough. I mean I basically had everything that was on the test in my blogs, but it was still a bit challenging. One part I seemed to struggle with was the countries location on a map. I think that may have put me over. Hopefully the map part didn't sink my grade!

A Debate

Today in Human Geo, we continued going over the political leaders powerpoint, and started to go into better detail. We all got into this long conversation how women should have the same rights as men. We also talked about why people think terrorists attacked us on 9/11. Mr. Schick said that the way people expose themselves on television and online has a big affect on that. People from other counties see that and think it is okay for them to do in their country. We also talked about some reasons why women dress so modest in other countries. It is because the don't want men to look at them impurely. We talked about those things for the majority of the class.

Monday Morning

Today in Human Geo, we finished the presentation on the presidents. It was another Monday morning first period class, but the class was actually lively and awake, which was quite surprising. We were our usual talkative class. I have to say Human Geo is probably on of my favorite classes. The people in the class make it fun, and I also like what we learn. It's pretty interesting, and not boring at all!

It's Friday

In Human Geo on Friday, we went over the powerpoint on interesting things about presidents. We also went over the test/ re-test. I did a lot better on the retest! And we all got 5 points back because Mr. Schick made a mistake when he put the answers in the scan-tron. Even if you didn't get the real answer, you still got 5 points back. So if you put D even though it was A I believe, you would still get 5 points back. It's pretty awesome. So thanks Mr. Schick. I am honestly not looking forward to this test on world leaders. It is going to be a really tough one!

LOTS OF PRESIDENTS

Ever since President Enrique Pena Nieto's early 20s of being a community organizer, he has maintained presence in politics. He was born into the political world, with his father as the Mayor of the town of Acambay. http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/presidentsofmexico/p/Biography-Of-Enrique-Pe-na-Nieto.htm

President XI Jinping was the son of Xi Zhongxun, the contributor to bringing the social revolution. Hi father was sent to jail when he was 15, which caused him to protect his family and go into work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping

President Pranab Mukherjeeh was also born into politics. His father was a Congress leader who faced many hardships, including being sent to jail for his role in India's independence struggle. President Mukherjeeh got his Master's degree in History and Political science as well as a degree in Law from the University of Kolkata. http://presidentofindia.nic.in/profile.html

President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Hamid Karazi's father served as Deputy Speaker of the House of Parliament in the 1960s. He took a postgraduate course at Himachal University on political science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai

President Joachim Gauk came from a family of sailors. He was a former Lutheran pastor and human rights activist. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/18/anti-communist-pastor-gauck_n_1356919.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Gauck

Prime Minister David Cameron, son of a stockbroker, was born with both legs deforme. Cameron a lineal descendant pf King William IV.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron

President Francois Hollande's mother was a social worker, and his father was an ear, nose, and throat doctor. After graduating college, he got a job as a Councillor in the Court of Audit.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande

President Dilam Rousseff was Brazil's first female head of government. Her father, was a political exile from Bulgaria, where he was a member of the Communist party in the 1920s. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dilma-rousseff-1.876366

President Nicolas Maduro Moros was a bus driver before becoming a world leader. He then served along side Hugo Chavez as the vice president. After that, he was elected president. http://www.biography.com/people/nicol%C3%A1s-maduro-21145011

King and Prime Minister Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Saud is the tenth son of King Abdulaziz. Abdullah was announce commander of Saudi National Guard as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_of_Saudi_Arabia

President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani entered the military service in 1973 in the city of Nishapur. He graduated college with an M.Phil. degree in Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Rouhani

President Shimon Peres speaks many different languages, including English, French, and Hebrew. Hi grandfather had a huge impact on his life, and he taught Peres a lot of what he knows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres

Political Geography

Mexico
Federal Republic
President Enrique Pena Nieto

• He was the eldest of four sblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique Pena del Mazo, was an engineer for the electric company and his mother, Maria del Socorro Nieto, a schoolteacher.
• Reports that he fathered two children in extramarital affairs while his wife Monica raised the couple's 3 children, plus the investigation into the sudden death of his wife at home in 2007, have prompted many to call him the Teflon candidate because trouble seems to slide off him.
• Two years later he announced his engagement to soap opera actor Angelica Rivera. Rivera becam his wise in a star-studded wedding ceremony two years ago and is now the first lady of Mexico.

China
Communist state
President XI Jinping

• Xi Jinping is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhonxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers.
• He married folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also holds the rank of army general, in 1987. To many in China, Ms. Peng was better-known half of the couple before Xi Jinping became leader of the Communist Party.
• The couple have a daughter named Xi Mingze, who is studying at Harvard University in the US.

India
federal government
President Pranab Mukherjee

• He taught Political Science at the Vidiyanagar College, and worked as a journalist before entering politics.
• Mukherjee was rated as one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was adjudged the best parliament in 1997.
• He had a conflict with Rajiv Gandhi (who took over as Prime Minister from his mother Indira after she was assasinated in 1984) and started his own party - Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress.

Afghanistan
Islamic republic
President Hamid Karzai

• He emerged as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine the regime.
• He is well versed in several languages, including his native Peshto, Persian, Hindi, French and English
• Several times in 2001, Karzai warned the US that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the US, but his warnings went unheeded

Germany
Federal republic
President Joachim Gauck/ Chancellor Angela Merkel

• Graduated from University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics and physical chemistry; earned a PhD in quantum chemistry from German Academy of Sciences in Berlin 1986.
• Has been Chancellor since November 2005
• Merkel has earned the top spot on the FORBES list of Most Powerful Women In The World for the past 10 years.

  


United Kingdom
Constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm
Prime Minister David Cameron/ Queen Elizabeth

• At the age of seven, the young Cameron packed off to Heatherdown, a highly exclusive preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and Andrew among its pupils. Then, following in the family tradition, came Eton, Britain;s top private school.
• His first child, Ivan, who was born profoundly and needed round the clock care, died in February 2009.
• The experience of caring for Ivan and witnessing at first hand the deication of NHS hospital staff, is said by friends to have broadened Mr. Cameron's horizons. He had, friends say, led an almost charmed life to that point.
• Cameron is the youngest Prime Minister (43 when he took office) in over 200 years.
• Elizabeth became queen on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953. Her reign has lasted 60 years- and counting...

 


France
Republic
President Francois Hollande

• Hollande has no previous experience in a national government position.
• The mother of his four children is Segolene Royal, with whom he shared a 30- year relationship.
• He was born in 1954 in the city of Rouen to an extreme-right physician father and progressive social worker mother. 

Brazil
Federal republic
President Dilma Rousseff

• she opposed Brazil's military dictatorship of the 1960s and the '70s, and served three years in prison, where she was repeatedly tortured.
• She has been divorced twice.
• She has a degree in economics, and now ruled the country with the eighth-biggest economy in the world.
• She underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma in 2009, and is now in remission.

Venezuela
federal republic
President Nicolas Maduro Moros

• Nicolas Maduro Moros worked as a bus driver before becoming politically active in the early 1990s.
• Maduro was introduced to Hugo Chavez in 1992, after Chavez and other disenchanted members of the military were imprisoned for an attempt co up and Maduro began campaigning for Chavez's release. (Chavez was released in 1994 and won election to the presidency four years later.)
• After President Chavez won a third term in October 2012, he selected Maduro to serve as vice president, serving as one of his closest advisers as well as loyal spokesman, until Chavez's death at 58 on March 5, 2013, from cancer.

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

• He has fathered 22 children, the youngest when he was 79.
• He is worth approximately 21 billion dollars.
• He was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still holding when he became king.
• In November 2007, King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict in the Apostolic Palac. He is the first Saudi monarch to visit the Pope. In March 2008, he called for a "brotherly and since dialouge between believers from all religions."
• In 2011 he granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving (the only country in the world with such a ban).

Iran
Theocratic republic
President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani and Khamenei
    Khamenei

• In 1963, took part in street protests against the US-backed Shah of Iran. after the uprising was quashed, Khamenei was exiled. Kharmenei was imprisoned multiple times and, in 1975, was internally exiled to a remote region in southern Iran. 
• Was elected President of Iran in 1981 an re-elected in 1985. Became Iran's Supreme Leader in 1989.

   Ruhani

• Mr Rouhani has held several parliamentary posts, including deputy speaker and has also served on the Supreme National Security Council.
• Was elected President of Iran - June 2013
• He has been openly critical of the outgoing president, saying Mahmound Ahmadinejad's "careless, unclaculated and unstudied remarks" have cost the country dearly.

 

Israel
Parliamentary democracy
President Shimon Peres/ Prime Minister Binyaum Netanyahu
    Peres

• born in Belarus. To escape the persecution of Jews there, the family fled to Palestine in 1934.
• When Arab forces launched their attack on the new state of Israel in 1948, Peres was given the cheif responsibility for securing military equipment for Israel from abroad. 
• Later he organized Israel's nuclear program and is regarded as the father of Israel's atomic bomb.
• As Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres was in charge of the Israeli negotiations during peace talks with the Palestinians. In the autumn of 994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his own Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

   Netanyahu

• As a child and youth he lived with his family in the US in the years 1956-58 and again in 1963-67
• After his brother Jonathan (Yonni) was killed, in July 1976, in the course of the Entebbe Operation, of which he was on e of the commanders, Netanyahu returned to Israel ans started to advocate international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
• Quote: "There are those who say that is the Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred."

 

RETEST

Today in Human Geo, we took a retest on the 5 major religions and cultural geography. I'm glad we took a retest, I mean my test grade in the first place wasn't that bad, but I don't want it to be hard for me to get it up throughout the second quarter. I hope I did better on this one. I really think I did because I studied much more, and I knew what questions I had trouble with so I could look into them some more. For example, I had no idea what religion was founded in the 7th century, but know I know, it is Islam! I would've never known if I didn't look it up and study, or ask about it in class. So, thank you Mr. Schick for letting us take a retest!

Friday, Test Day

Today in Human Geo, we had a test. I thought I was ready for it, but when I took it, I wasn’t really sure anymore. I seem to get Buddhism and Hinduism mixed up, hopefully I did well, but I feel like I didn’t which isn’t good. I was paying attention during the review, but when the test came all that I knew seemed to have left me. I really hate when this happens. I even studied last night. I really hope that I am wrong about all of this, but unfortunately I don’t think I am. I’m glad I have these blogs to give my grade a little boost. I really hope I got a good grade on the test.