Semester Reflection

Over the couse of my first semester in global ed. english class I learned a lot of things I didnt know happened and many things I wouldnt have learned in a normal Language Arts class.

For one, I learned extensivly about the Rwandan genocide, an event I never knew occured. It happened because of years of tension between Hutus and Tutsis, as a result of constantly switching power over the nation. The Belgians, who had colonized Rwanda, made their few differences a big deal with the implementation of identity cards, separating them. When the Hutus were in power, an unknown group succeeded in shooting down the Hutu president Juvenal Haribyama's plane down. The MRND, a Hutu extremist group took the news and immediately blamed Tutsis for the attack. A civilian army formed itself after the event, calling itself the Interahamwhe. They went on to the killing of thousands in less than 100 days. The genocide was brought to an end when a multi party system was proposed to represent both ethnic groups, and the killings stop. This was one part of history I was surprised to learn about.

Another culture we studied this semester was South Africa. It was colonized by the Dutch Boers after being discovered and used by Portugese sailors a few years before. The Dutch moved into the territory forcing native Africans out in battles like Blood River. Eventually the natives were overpowered and were forced to move. The British took South Africa for a period of time as a base in their war againest the French. After the war was over the British still occupied South Africa and wanted to keep the land for themselves. When diamonds were found under the country Britains desire for it grew higher. On two occasions, wars fought over South Africas resources. The British wern't successful in either when matched against the Boers. South Africa stayed under control of the Boers for years, and after many elections the National Party took office. It was under this government, in which apartheid was formed. The NP's idea was took take the already discriminated againest, black population in South Africa and totally separate them from whites in all aspects of life, from stores to health care. Ultimately the apartheid ended when Nelson Mandela took office as president and South Africa has been free for two decades.

Even though these pieces of history were interesting to learn about the most things I learned in this class was about writing. Most of the time when we had to write something in class it was an article response. The articles I remember most were the ones regarding a nuclear Iran and a stronger school program in China. For the most part we had to have a good straight-forward thesis statement to show what side of the arguement we were on and had to use one or two different reasons we feel this way as support for the response. The most challenging part for me wasn' writing enough, but writing too much. Our class learned how to effectively remove clutter from our writing to have it make more sense. For example, to get rid of clutter it is good to get rid of words that dont help explain the idea your trying to get across or excess information that dosen't need to be there. The most comlicated piece of writing we did this semester was Paul's Letter. I got one of the only A's in the class because I tried to think of it as a bigger article response. The only difference was this one had to include a counter-arguement which was a s simple as looking at the same issue from another point of view. Overall this is where I learned the most and the part which will be most valueable in the future.

There were also blogs which taught me this class didn't have to be all that serious, and taught me to write about my own life and be creative in what I choose to write about. Some blogs like the Emerson one related to an article response but the free blogs were an activity that was an easy way to get writng.

I learned effective note-taking skills in the form of margin notes and QCVI's. Margin notes are useful when I am struggling to find the whole meaning to piece of writing I may not understand. Basically, I look for the important details of the piece and underline them, and try to make sense of it in the margins of the paper. I ask myself questions when doing these so it helps me focus instead of just reading it once. QCVI's were also helpful for the same purpose, being the most useful when reading "Walkabout" because I had to search for details and question we had to dicuss later. Connecting the book to other sources helped me study for the "Walkabout" quiz. Both thses skills were useful during the semester for novel and short story reading.

The movies we watched in class really helped me get an idea of the area we we studying. We watch a movie for each major region we covered. "Rabbit Proof Fence", "The Power of One", and "Hotel Rwanda" gave a visual approach to what was happening in the time period and was something the class could discuss afterword.

These were the important things I learned this semester.

Rwanda being colonized

The best country to live in during its early colonization would be Rwanda.

Discrimination has happened in Australia, South Africa, the US and Rwanda. However, in South Africa and the US slavery and relocation were common to make room for the colonists. In Australia children were stolen by the government to be raised in the colony and married to white men, until no trace of Aboriginal culture remained. In Rwanda, during its colonization, had no slavery or elimination plans. Although Hutus were treated as second class citizens, no harm would come to them as an ethnic group until the genocide, which was still years away. Hutus led lives of discrimination and hard labor, but it’s obvious this life was better than one spent watching your culture deteriorate or being a slave.

The second reason living as a Hutu is the best of the scenarios is that early on there was no real barrier between the Hutus and Tutsis. They were free to inter-marry, be friends and work alongside each other. It was only the moderate Tutsis that ever caused any problems in the early stages of Rwanda's development as a colony. Both groups were living together in one life, not seperate lives of slavery and freedom. Both these reasons explain why living as a Hutu during Rwanda's colonization is much better than living as a minority elsewhere.

Thanksgiving '09

Thanksgiving this year was as interesting as always. It started out as a normal Thanksgiving Day. I would get up, go down stairs and see what is going on. Normally, I will try to refrain from eating anything until dinner, which I successfully did this year. My family and I went to my grandparents around one in the afternoon and spent some time with them. My aunt was also at my grandparents working hard on the meal with my dad (her brother). Around 5:30 dinner was ready and it was delicious. I remember eating all sorts of good food including turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and various other things you might not think would be on a Thanksgiving table. We ate for at least an hour and when we were done we stayed for another hour.

We said are goodbyes and left, but even though it was 7:30 there was still places to go to. The other side of my family is huge. I have over one hundred first and second cousins and we all get together at one of my distant cousins house We never arrive early enough to eat, but we always try to stop by and this year was no different. There were still around 35 people sticking around when we arrived. Many of them were people I only recognized by face and had no idea what their names were. This year at the party it was probably the most boring year yet. I hardly knew anyone and I am not a kid anymore. Nevertheless, I stayed until the end and we went home. However, my Thanksgiving fun was hardly over.

At a last minute change of heart my mom decided to get a doorbuster TV deal for our living room on Black Friday, tomorrow. She said I could have the old living room TV if I came with her. At 3 AM we stood outside of Target in a light rain for two hours (which in retrospect wasn’t that bad) to get a new 32 inch LCD TV. After two hours of waiting I was in charge of running past all the other shoppers to secure a TV for our family. At five AM the doors open and even though they said no running was allowed I was sprinting along with everyone else. And most importantly I got the TV. So that was my thanksgiving weekend.

Rwandan Class Debate

This Thursday, we had our class debate on the genocide in Rwanda. After studying on the subject from the point of view of Paul Kagame, I really do believe he was doing the right thing. For one, unlike many of the other groups think, he didn’t start the genocide at all. The problem started in Belgium. When Belgium created the identity cards to separate ethnic groups, they made tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi people even more prominent. The Tutsi people, who were already in power, were forced out of control by Belgium and put under a Hutu government. The Hutu government, headed by President Juvenal Habarimana, the FAR, and MRND, ruthlessly forced the Tutsi people out of their own country into exile in Uganda. The Tutsi exiles couldn’t live in Uganda forever and had to invade their own country just to be able to live in their homes. Hutu people took this action the wrong way and sent the FAR and Interhamwe to slaughter the returning Tutsi people. The Tutsi exiles couldn’t just let their people die and were forced to fight back resulting in the Rwandan Genocide. This is what I think truly happened to the Tutsi people.

This experience to debate helped me learn a lot about how SIMUN may work in the future it was also a fun way to learn. I thought it was interesting to simulate what a real world UN meeting would be like. Everything from “yielding” the floor to someone, to a moderator to control what goes on was 100% real. I liked the point of view I was looking from in this debate, as I believe Paul Kagame was doing the right thing. I hope the class can do these sorts of activities again because it was a much more interesting experience than learning about the conflict in lecture form. We were all able to express ourselves better in this form of learning. This helped the class get much more involved than what we normally are. I know all of us would like todo this again and I can't wait until it happens.

The American Scholar

Emerson's argument in "The American Scholar" about American society still holds true today.



Emerson's arguement has similarities to modern American society. One reason his argument is viable is the mention of division of labor within our country. In the past, people were taught a variety of different skills. Today, people have been reduced to doing one, specialized job. Modern people want to feel whole doing these jobs, but the have lost sight of what is important. The statement "a priest becomes a form and an mechanic becomes a machine" says that these people do not neccesarily need to do other things, but lost the meaning of being a priest or mechanic. In this way many people have become overwhelmed by their jobs.

These people who have become their occupation have also become "mere thinkers" the total opposite of "the Man thinking. Emerson expresses how he disikes mere thinkers and how they get their ideas from the work of others. "Men thinking", however get their ideas from the world around them. It is true people today are like this, an example being those who plagerize essays or take credit for others ideas for money. True Men thinking, generate their own ideas, and take together knowledge of the world to use. Inventors and scientists are just two examples of people who use this knowledge.

Free Blog- Halloween '09

After a busy week at school, I was definately ready for Halloween weekend to be here. I was glad this year the thirty-first falls on a Saturday because I usually have to worry about getting homework done before I go out. The benefit of having Saturday off is I can spend some time doing homework early and have fun later that night.

On Thursday I cleaned and carved my pumpkin. Since I am going to be gone Friday to go to the Stevenson football game it seemed to be the perfect time to carve. It has been a tradition to carve pumpkins while listening to Halloween music, but we couldn,t find the CD we usually listen to, so we played songs off our iTunes library. I decided to carve out a skeleton pirate's head. The book I got the sketch from said the design was challenging, I found it to be pretty easy to do. It dosen't look like a perfect copy from the book but I did all right. Normally our family carves pumpkins the day of Halloween, but the pressure is off for this year.

We also decorated Thursday, too. Our house is never scary and thats just something I've gotten used to. Our neighbors, however, always have the scariest house on the block. Their dad has been on the Channel 7 Saturday news every couple of years talking about his house. In fact on Wednesday after school was over I came home to be greeted by a ten feet tall monster standing on the front lawn.

As for a costume, I had no idea what I was going to be. For the past three years I pulled together a costume with one hour to spare. We have a bunch of costumes and wigs in our basement that just sit down there and I could always borrow a monster mask from my insane neighbors. Unlike when i was little I dont buy a costume anymore. This year I ended up going as Slash, the guitarist from from Guns 'N' Roses. I wore the band t-shirt, sunglasses, a top hat, wig, and fake tatoo sleeve. As you can see, I use what I have and make the best of it. I love Halloween but I plan on next year being the last time I go trick or treating. However, I also plan on getting loads of candy this year.

We had the family over on Halloween night as usual. Every year we get pizza, go trick or treating and come back and have pumpkin pie. This year however, there was a Halloween party down the block that started around 8:30. We decided to go to the party instead, and it was exciting. All of our neighbors from around the block showed up, and we hung out, ate food, and sat around a bonfire.

Halloween will always be fun even when I stop dressing up. It is a cool holiday that I am glad was started. I've loved it since I was little and most likely always will. Happy Halloween!

Spirit Week

This week is Spirit Week. Each day we dress up as something different as preparation for homecoming. Monday was Country Club day which I dressed for because I golf a lot. Tuesday was for Tie-Dye which I don't own any of. Wednesday had a western theme, and I didn't dress for it. I don't plan on dressing up Thursday, but I will most likely dress up Friday for Super Spunky Spartan Day.

I haven't been dressing up that much but I am really excited for the game this Friday. One reason is because we are playing Churchill, and it will be a fun rivalry game because I know a few people from Churchill and other schools that are coming just to have a good time. Another reason is that I have been working on the Global Education float after school since Monday.

Global Ed. is working on a Ghostbusters float, and even though its not a "horror" film, it fits the theme and it is going to be a awesome float. A couple of seniors went out and and bought some strobe lights and other special effects to make the float better. Last year the Global ed float won the competition and I expect no difference this year.

I decided to go on Monday just to see what was going on. The first day I was cutting out letters and that was an easy job. The next day after I was folding flowers which was also easy, and Wednesday I was painting the background of the set. I was surprised I got to help on such an important part of the the float. After the float building was done each day I wondered what I would work on the next day. Then Thursday we put it all together. I stayed until the very end and it looked really awesome. It took from 3:00 to around 8:00, but it was worth it to stay. I ended up meeting some upperclassmen and seeing the other classes floats. I really do believe we are going to win.

This week has been busy, but it has also been really fun. I will definately remember what happened this week and will look forward to it again next year. And in honor of the game this Friday, GO SPARTANS!