Emigration/Immigration Quiz

Today in class we had a quiz on the immigration and emigration stuff we have been working on for about a week or two now. The quiz started with a page of matching and then two pages of multiple choice questions. The test was fairly simple and straightforward and I kind of just blew through it. It wasn't hard but it wasn't too easy either. I'd say it was just average because I did get tripped up on a few of the questions and had to think about them for a few seconds. Overall it was a simple test and I got it done quickly. On the other hand I've been making somewhat good strides on my essay and I hope to have it done by either tonight or tomorrow night.

Handout Notes

Notes from pages 84 and 85 of the handout. About 80 million people migrated to the United States between 1820 and 2015, including 42 million who were alive in 2015. The United Sates has had three main eras of 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

In 1790, the first census after independence, America's population was a mere 3.9 million people, including 950,000 of whom had immigrated to one of the colonies now part of the United States. Between 1820 and 1920, approximately 32 million people immigrated to the United States. 90% being from Europe. For European migrants the US offered a great opportunity for economic success. Among these European nations, Germany has sent the largest number of immigrants, at 7.2 million, Other major sources include Italy, 5.4 million; United Kingdom, 5.3 million; Ireland, 4.8 million; and Russia and the Former Soviet Union; 4.1 million. 1/4 of Americans trace their ancestry back to German immigrants and 1/8 each to Ireland and English immigrants. Immigration dropped sharply in the 1930's and 40's due to the Great Depression and World War 2. But, the number steadily increased in the 50's, then surging to historically high levels. Around 13 million Latin Americans have migrated to the US in the past half century along with 7 million Asians. Officially, Mexico passed Germany in 2006 as the country that has sent the most immigrants to the United States, ever. Although the locations from which the immigrants come from has changed the reason has virtually remained the same, rapid population growth limiting prospects for economic advance at home. Sadly, the United States is no longer the sparsely-populated, economically booming nation it once was.

Class Discussion

Today in class we discussed the current situation at the border, immigration in general, and Donald Trump. Overall, the discussion was what I'd assumed it be. People on a spectrum with some sticking to either a Pro-Trump course or an Anti-Trump course being the radicals of the spectrum. Personally, I do not Donald Trump, but that does not go to say that I do not like a secure border. People in class although would tend to stick with open border equaling anti-trump and vice versa. There were a few who were sticking to a pro-Trump, locked border doctrine and defended their opinions well. The people who were on the other side of the spectrum though tended to have points that may have been sturdy but could have some holes poked in them. Mr. Schick did ask us to put what we learned but because I'm always tuned into this stuff the only real thing I learned was my peer's views. Personally, nothing has changed for me from the discussion and I will be sticking to my beliefs of a secure border and disliking Donald Trump. Until next this has been Patrick Simms reporting to you live from Baltimore City.

n o t e s

So today's class was pretty tame and Mr. Schick even told us some stories from his childhood. So, to begin off class we continued taking notes on what we had been doing for about the past week or so. So, today's class was mainly involving population distribution and the three ways in which we can calculate it. The first way is to divide the number of people by the amount of land. The second way is to divide the number of people by the amount of arable (fertile) land. Lastly, the third way is divide the number of farmers by the amount of arable land. This in the end will give us a population density. Except the third way cause that kind of only includes farmers. For the second half of class Mr. Schick told stories from his childhood which was quite the delight. He told of a tornado that destroyed his elementary school and how a small Greek orthodox school somehow took in a few hundred kids and give them somewhere to learn while his school was being rebuilt. Hopefully he'll have more stories to tell from his childhood next class.

Quiz 2.0 or something

So today we had another quiz in human geography. It was on what we have been learning for about the past week or so. At the beginning we had a fifteen minute period of time to complete fifteen questions using the CIA World Factbook. This section was fairly easy besides trying to find the countries in two hundred country long list. I feel like I did well on this part and hopefully will find out as such soon. The second part of the quiz was to use some words from a word bank to help with a fill in the blank. Then, the last section was using some population pyramids to answer some questions and this was fairly simple. At the end we got to draw cartoons about what we have learned about society in the past unit. Overall it was just another average day and I can't wait to go home and relax.

just another Monday

So today was pretty average. Mr. Schick wanted us to go over our Veracross and make sure we were content with our grades and to sort out anything with him. Now Veracross wasn't working for about the first fifteen minutes of class so I just browsed other things in the meantime and talked to my foreign exchange student, Klaus. Klaus is from Uzbekistan, his father is German, which is how he got the name Klaus, and his mother a native Uzbek. He came to John Carroll to see what our beautiful school has to offer for his education. I'm pretty sure he's insistent on going. Might stick around for the next two or so years *wink*. Then after about that first twenty minutes we went over our homework which was the facts we did on our blog about a country of our choosing's people. After that class ended and it was just another Monday.                 

5 Wacky Facts about Russia's People

Starting off for fact number one is Russia's population. Oh my had it not changed in the slightest. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia's population has remained virtually the same, even decreasing. Currently their population stands at 142,257,519 people. This is less than the population of roughly 148.6 million people in 1991 (the year the USSR collapsed). I found this interesting because you would assume their population would grow after the collapse of the heavily in debt 1990's USSR. But it would appear that Russia is just trying to recover from the collapse and is having problems. Russia is a developed country though so it may just be falling to what other developed nations are experiencing. Going off of that we go onto fact number two. There are eleven births per one thousand of the population. But, there are thirteen and a half deaths per one thousand of the population. So, because of this the population is decreasing. But to quell this in a sense we have fact three. Immigration. Now, the immigration number isn't too high but still peaked my interest. From personal experience, I hear people trash on Russia and say it's a horrible nation, but they have a net migration of 1.7 per 1,000 people. It may not be a lot but people are at least interested in moving to this country and living there. Now onto fact number four, 74.4% of Russia's population is urban. This doesn't really connect to our lesson but I found it interesting either way because it has to do with one of our human geography questions, where are people distributed, and also because most of Russia is rural land and wilderness. Lastly, the age structure of Russia is interesting. There is a sharp decrease in the population in percentages with the age group of 15-24. While 17.12% of the population is 0-14, only 9.46%, but then nearly 50% of the population is 25-54 years old at 44.71%. It's interesting to me because you would think it be more gradually spread out but there are chunks and pieces and it might explain the population decrease. That is all, goodnight.

More Notes, yay

Alright so we took some more notes today on stuff like TFR (Total Fertility Rate). This rate is the number of children born per woman. For a population to remain the same this rate must be 2.1. The world fertility rate is 2.42, which is surprisingly low for all the times people talk about overpopulation. The US has a fertility rate of 2.01, yet our population is growing because of immigration, Nigeria with a sky-rocketing high 6.89, and Japan with a 1.4. The reason some countries, like Nigeria, have such high fertility rates may be because of A. children die young often so parents may want to have multiple children to atleast have some live on or B. In more traditional countries like India, families may want to carry on the family name so they may have 5 girls in a row and then finally have a boy. In places like Japan, the rate is low because most of the population is older and the younger people just aren't interested in having children. On the last note, Insular means to be proud of one's culture and not willing to leave their nation of origin no matter what.

Notes about Rates

Alright, back at it again at Krispy Kreme. The Crude Birth rate is the number of births per 1,000 people of a population. Crude Death rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 people of a population. Rate of Natural Increase (RNI) is produced by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births. Which in the end gives you the annual growth rate which is shown in a percent for a certain country or region. Net Migration is the difference between people entering and leaving a country or region per year. An excess of people entering a country is net immigration and the excess of people leaving a country is net emigration. Some Examples being: US with a net immigration of 2.45 per 1,000 people, Canada net immigration of 5.65 per 1,000 people, and Mexico with a net emigration of -1.38 per 1,000 people.

Population and Settlement

Alright fellas so basically we got this bread today and by bread I of course mean notes. So, there are roughly 7.5 Billion people on planet Earth, Every year the population increases by 73 million people, 200,000 people per day (8,377 per hour, 149 per minute, 2.5 per second). Most of the population growth takes place in developing countries like those found in South and East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Life Expectancy is the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. The highest life expectancy in the world is 89 years in Monaco, the US ranks in at #42 at 79 years, and the lowest is Chad with 49 years. The key issues here are where the world's population is distributed, why the global population is increasing, why population growth varies from region to region, and why regions face health issues that may affect life expectancy and population growth.

Another Test

Alright so today was test day and I guess that pretty epic. Hopefully I did alright but I guess I'll just have to wait to find out. Anyway, we started off class by Mr. Schick reviewing a tiny bit and then the whole female population of the class breaking out into the iCarly theme song. Now that was pretty epic cause I've never heard more than three people sing it at once, but it was fairly entertaining either way. The test was fairly straightforward and I personally didn't have any problems with it. I didn't think it was too easy but it also wasn't extremely difficult. After I finished I turned it in and went back to my desk to mess around for next however so many minutes, I believe twenty minutes if I'm correct. Otherwise than the test that was basically the day. It was pretty smooth and didn't bring any stresses. Definitely a ten out of ten.

Test Review

So today we reviewed for the test we'll be having tomorrow and just going over the stuff we've been studying over the past week or so. There's not really much to say about it so I'm just gonna write my notes here to hit that one hundred fifty word goal minimum. So, if it's 7AM in Bel Air, Maryland then it will be 6AM in Chicago, Illinois. Earth has 24 time zones. Each is fifteen degrees of longitude (360 degrees divided by 15 to get 24). The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The Prime Meridian is located at 0 degrees longitude and the International Date Line at 180 degrees longitude. The Prime Meridian passes through Greenwich, UK (Hence the name of Greenwich Mean Time for 0-15 degrees). All time zones converge on the North and South poles and whoever is there gets to decide what time it is. Map scale can be shown in three ways ratio, written scale, and graphic scale. Four types of map distortion are shape, distance, direction, and relative size. 2D models of the Earth are called maps and 3D ones are called globes. NOTES!

Cultural Differences

So today we had another beautiful open discussion about cultural differences in the world and even in groups within one place. For example we went over how Catholics and other faiths within Christianity handle things differently when it comes to mass. For example some faiths will not allow people who are not that religion or not religious at all to receive communion or go to church. While other faiths may allow them to do so. Traditionally with confession you would sit in a darkened booth with a priest on the other side of a screen listening to your confession. Sometimes now the booth has no screen at all or the booth is taken out of the equation altogether. Functionally it is all basically the same, but it has changed over the years. Another topic that we brushed over was the law system in the United States and Saudi Arabia. Here in the United States we have laws that are somewhat based on the commandments ,but there are so many other crimes and laws that we kind of stray away from that. While in Saudi Arabia the laws are strictly based on what is in the Quran. Another thing is that in Saudi Arabia when it comes to women they are very much more traditional. Women weren't allowed to drive until about a year ago. Women are expected to cover up their skin as much as possible. That is just what is traditionally expected in their religion. Here in the US we are quite the opposite, we have some interesting clothing to say the least. We just find it weird probably because we're not used to it. It says a lot about society, yet we live in one.

Culture and Globalization

So today in class we took some notes and learned some new stuff. We went over culture and globalization. Geographers study both definitions of culture; What people care about, What people take care of. Important cultural values derive from a group's language, religion, and ethnicity. Why their customary ideas, beliefs, and values produce a distinctive culture in a particular place. Then their is what people take care of. The elements such as production of material wealth including food, clothing, and shelter that humans need in order to survive and thrive. Then we have globalization. Globalization is the force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something in the worldwide scope. For example when a transnational company has factories in a country where it doesn't have a headquarters or a prime shareholder. Especially in the 2008 global recession. Which effected anything from home buyers in the US to salesclerks in Japan. Everyone was caught in a web of falling demand and lack of credit.

Review and Other Things

Today we basically reviewed everything that we had learned over the past week or so. But, more importantly we had an open discussion about tracking devices and other things that may violate our privacy. We went over the many advantages and disadvantages of these types of things. I personally don't believe in doing something like this, but, I could see the benefits of it in some ways. Another factor being that some people may have had an experience of want this done so that doesn't happen again. We also took some more notes on our new recent topic, culture. We didn't take a whole lot though. Just some basics of culture. Our notes being: Regions of Culture are the body of a customary belief, material traits, and social forms that constitutes the traditions of a group of people. Cultus is the origin word and it is the Latin word for to care for or to care about.

Types of Region

Today we talked about the three types of regions geographers identify. Formal region (uniform region or homogeneous region)- An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics. For example, speaking a common language. Functional Region (nodal region)- An area organized around a node or focal point. For example, circulation of a newspaper in an area. Lastly Vernacular Region (perpetual region)- An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity. For example the Gold Coast in Florida. We also had a pop quiz which I did alright on. Nothing really special happened that day other than the bad memory of me teaching that stuck around like a bad hangover.

Today I taught

So today in class we went over some basic terms for the Earth and locations. But besides that boring topic I taught the class. It was really hectic and a complete train wreck. I started off with listing off the three basic ways locations are identified. Toponyms; name give to a place dependent on people, religious affiliation, physical features, and origins. Site; name given to a place dependent on physical character, climate, water, topography, soil, vegetarian, latitude, and elevation. Lastly, Situation; name given to a place dependent on its location relative to other places. A place is a specific point on Earth, and those are how these places are named. Of course, describing the features of a place is an essential building block for geographers to explain similarities, differences, and changes across Earth. Basically by the end of it everybody had a good laugh (at me) and we all learned that that is why each point on Earth is Unique.

Alexa

So basically we talked about corporations and how they are evil. Of course being politically woke I already knew these BIG FACTS. So, we talked about RiteAid first. There were a lot of opinions on this one. On one hand RiteAid can take your location and order a medicine you need; for example diabetes patients. But then we talked about smart home devices like Alexa and Google Home. If you think about it they're always listening, just waiting for their names to be said. All this data could just not be recorded but if it is then its most likely being stored somewhere and listened to for some kind of purpose. What's to dictate than any company has to follow their policy, even if it comes out then they can just deny it and pay off the feds. These are large corporations doing this to the common man. We need to stop these corporations from abusing the privacy of millions of people across the world. They need to clearly state the cons of their service instead of putting it hidden way back in their privacy policy/ terms and conditions. No longer shall the common man suffer to the greedy corporations of the world. A spectre haunts this world and it is the one that will eliminate this greed. Stay woke people.

Test Aftermath and Timezones

Alright so basically in class we went over the test which I totally aced and got a 97% on. I’m proud of myself for once. Then Mr. Schick have out maps with time zones marked. On these we had to set the capitals of certain countries that correspond with the centre of which tike zone they are in. Fun fact, Russia spans 11 times zones, meaning that the sun almost never sets. Also on the board of the cities we had to mark someone wrote the Chinese spelling of Beijing next to Beijing. So, I wrote the Russian spelling of Moscow (Москва) as well. I am currently trying to finish the timezone maps for homework as well so that should be fun. I’m actually typing this on my phone cause I just remembered that we had to type this in addition to the time zone maps. That’s about it and I’ll see you all next time on pointless human geography blogs tomorrow night.

More Projection Work

So today Mr. Schick allowed us to finish our projection work and any other work if we were already finished with that. So, like yesterday, it was pretty uneventful and I don't think I'll be hitting my 150 word mark. That is why I'm going to rant on about how every projection is wrong and people need to WAKE UP. Everybody is despising the Mercator and loving the Peters projection. If anything Peters is even more incorrect. Everything feels pushed up and not at all natural. Some nations are disgustingly disformed. Countries that look normal on Mercator look like a pencil on Peters. If anything we should just be using a globe. And that concludes my pointless argument on maps and projections. Although it probably is better to have a nice piece of paper instead of a huge globe. But, I digress. Atleast I'll be enjoying a nice weekend in Ocean City where I currently am typing this blog from. I hope to have some fun and maybe bring Mr. Schick back a few antidepressants candies from Candy Kitchen. The class has been really harassing him as of late. Accusing him of murder and etc. Kind of feel bad, so this will be my way of paying back to a great teacher.

Projection Classwork

Sorry if this is late I immediately fell asleep when I got home and just woke up about 5 minutes ago. It is currently 02:43 at the time of starting to write this but I'll shortly go over what we did in class today. Mr. Schick reviewed some stuff with on maps with us and then gave us three different projections to work on. He gave us a Robinson, Mercator, and Peters projection. On these projections we had to mark the equator, Prime Meridian, nation(s) of origin, all seven continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica), all five oceans (Arctic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean), the International Date Line, Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, and the John Carroll School. During this ordeal a orange party was proposed. I was quite interested in the idea and quite so more when Austin suggested Mr. Schick steal bring some of the babies from the hospital to the party. Mr. Schick saw many faults with this but I think it would be quite the site. We shall see what is to come next class.

Point of Maps

So today in class we went over some historical maps and how maps have changed and become more accurate over the years. The Earliest maps were reference tools, simple navigation devices to show a traveler how to get from point A to B. First World map was prepared by Eratosthenes (276-194 BC). Improvements were later made by Ptolemy. After Ptolemy advances in mapping were mainly made outside Europe in China and the Middle East. Contemporary mapping, shifting from simply a tool that provides location reference to a tool used by geographers to communicate geographic phenomena. Map scale is presented in three different ways; Ratio/Fraction, Written Scale, and Graphic Scale. Projection: Scientific method of transferring locations on Earth's surface to a flat map. Earth's spherical shape causes distortion when drawing it on a flat piece of paper. Four types of distortion: Shape of an area, distance between points may be increased or decreased, relative size, and direction. Geographic grid is a system of imaginary arcs in a grid pattern on Earth's surface. Meridians are arcs drawn between North and South poles. Parallels are arcs drawn parallel to the equator at right angles to meridians. East to West. Each is numbered according to the latitude system. Points on Earth's surface can be communicated using lines of longitude and latitude. Earth is a sphere divided into 360 degrees of longitude. Divide 360 by 24 hours to create time zones 15 degrees apart. GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, is located at prime meridian and is the master reference time for all points on Earth. 

OCSE's Points

The segment starts off with the OCSE (Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality) speaking with some of the white house staff on why the President needs to change the standard map to the Peters projection. The first point one of the OCSE members presents is that the map promotes European imperialism and creates an ethnic bias against the third world. This may be because Europe is bigger than it should be and so are many other areas. Personally to me this is just an error Mercator had when designing his map, but may also be positively intentional. Mercator didn't have the best of data when he created the map and he created it to be designed for sailors to use. It's simpler and makes continents and areas bigger so that they are easier to know where they are. We may never know if he had a negative intent when creating the map but it's most likely that he didn't. They also state that the areas at the poles are expanded to create equal lines to make it easier to cross an ocean. They just answered their own problem. The map was designed to help sailors not create an ethnic bias. I can understand their reasoning but it's always the simpler answer than it's a discriminatory map. The OCSE members then insist that it can be interpreted that the top is better than the bottom and that bigger is better. So the Peters projection shows North and South lines parallel with East and West lines creating right angles. They also insist that we flip the map upside down so that instead the southern hemisphere is on top instead of the bottom. While these may create "equality" for the countries that were once in the southern hemisphere you can then argue that the countries and people in the north are now lesser than the south. Instead of solving the problem you just create a new one. Both maps are wrongly proportioned. You can never properly proportion a sphere (like the Earth) onto a flat plane like a map. Mercator's map just makes it easier to spot things because they are larger. Maybe instead of changing the map we should change the way we perceive it.

Human Geography, what is it?

Today in class we discussed Human Geography and what exactly it is. Geography is the study of where things are found on Earth's surface and the reasons for those locations. Human Geographers ask two main questions. Where are people and activities on Earth found? Why are they found? Earth is such an abundant place of people and different cultures, so it would be understandable why human geographers exist in the first place. They are here to document why and where these people can be found. This in turn created maps. Cartography is the art and science of map making. So cartographers make maps for two main purposes. As a reference tool to identify an object's absolute and relative location. And as a communications tool to convey the distribution of human activities or physical features. This in turn helps people know where things are. If you needed to find the Polish nation and it's people just pull up a world map and look around. If you didn't know it was in Europe then it may take longer but you'll still find it because maps are simple and easy to use. They are like this because all peoples need to find their way around the world. It helps us document where these people are and how we can keep track of them. It's worked for centuries and will for many more.

The Problems with an Earth Map

So today in class we discussed the Mercator and Peter's Earth map projections. Although technically speaking, both projections are wrong, Peter's is proportioned closer to what it should be then Mercator's. A lot of people were stunned when they found out the common map we had been using since kindergarten (Mercator's), was less accurate than Peter's projection. Peter's proportions the continents and countries more closely to what it would be if you were to spread our ball earth into a flat map. Neither maps are correct in proportion terms cause they're not globes precisely representing the spherical earth we live on, but Peter's should be used because of its corrected proportions. Another "benefit" to Peter's projection is that if you want you can flip it upside down to account for the relativity of Earth from a different perspective. Peter's projection has started to come into some schools though. In Massachusetts they have started making it so Peter's projection is the standard issue map. Will other states and schools follow suit? But why use inaccurate flat maps and not a globe, come on guys.

The Test

So today we had our human geo test. It was on what we did over the past few days in class including Elbert Hubbard, A Message to Garcia, Socrates, and Ancient Greece. I started off the test strong and I think I did somewhat badly on one of the questions in the middle but I still think I fared well. I finished the essay questions and turned the test in. After that I was allowed to go to my locker and grab my biology book to study for biology which was the next period. After that Mr. Schick asked us how we felt about the test and it seemed that everyone said it was fairly simple and easy. Although Mr. Schick did have to tell us that this test was more of a trial run and that the next few tests would probably be harder. But that's to find out next time on human geo.

Mr. Schick's Gmail and "The Test"

On Monday we will be having a test on what we've been learning in the class for the past few days, Excellence. In order to prepare I will frantically go over my notes this weekend and try to cram all the knowledge so I can ace the test. We've learned a lot over the past few days and I've taken a lot of notes on everything we went over. Hopefully I'll do well. Sadly, we weren't able to do the lesson that was planned for us. Each person was going to present one slide of the original slideshow in their words as opposed to Mr. Schick's. But, the evil company Google wouldn't allow Mr. Schick to sign into his Gmail after multiple fruitless attempts. So, instead we went over our topics verbally, even though nobody really had any questions. Therefore, Mr, Schick allowed to start our blogs early and to study, and that is where we are now.

Socrates and his trial.

Today we learned about Socrates trial in Athens because of his actions in the Agora teaching kids to think for themselves. Socrates was charged with corruption of Athens' youth and impiety. In a trial of 500 men he was found guilty (279-221), he was sentenced to death by drinking poison hemlock. His students who were successful into getting into his cell and Socrates refused to escape. He believed in the Athenian system and he knew his fate. Looking back now we can see that Socrates was truly and wise man and that his death probably cancelled a age of greater knowledge with Socrates and his teachings. It's truly interesting to take a step back and think about what it would be if Socrates was found innocent. Would things have gotten worse? Would he be tried again? or Would Greece be entered in a time of greater knowledge and questioning of the world around us?

Ancient Greece and Philosopher Socrates

Today in Human Geo we learned about one of the great philosophers, Socrates. Socrates made his own method for asking people questions, not to judge them but to instead listen to their answer and their reason why. He would do this outside the Agora and mostly target the audience of younger minds. He would ask them a question about something, let's say for example "What do you think of Greece's government?" He would let his questioned individual answer and then ask him why he thought that. Through this he believed he could teach the people he asked questions to. Now, these people started to think for themselves and that would start to cause trouble. Most people stayed with their traditions and beliefs in God but like travelers, the individuals who strayed away from tradition would bring new ideas to the table and concepts which would defy traditional beliefs. Saying the sun was an object in space and not Achilles chariot stirred most people. Knowing how the world works, different ideas and opinions usually don't mix or end well. 

Delving into A Message to Garcia

Today, we dived into the essay A Message to Garcia and its meaning. We started by reviewing over the details of the book like the author, publish date, setting, etc. We went over the vocabulary of the text and talked about the words and what we thought they meant. Mr. Schick then took us over the actual meaning of the text that we read so we could better grasp it. As Mr. Schick put it the author is trying to say that employees are too dependent and that the author wrote this essay as a rant about how they should just be able to get their job done themselves. Mr. Schick explained that the author really thought and wanted said workers to be kicked in the rear with a steel-toed boot and be put in order and get their job done. We also reviewed Mr. Schick's favorite word so far in the year, Arete. Which is the Greek word for excellence. Something I'm sure Mr. Schick wants us to try and reach in his class.

A Message to Garcia, my interpretation

I just finished reading a snippet from Elbert Hubbard's book/essay A Message to Garcia. I've been asked by my Human Geo teacher to give my interpretation of the little snippet I have read. From what I can tell after reading this piece is that the author dreads for more people like Rowan in the world. No questions asked, they know how, and they get the job done, right. The author tells of the story of Rowan and his message to Garcia, he states how Rowan did not need help, he simply accepted his job, went out, and came out successful. The author talks about how General Garcia had died but there would always be another Garcia in the world. This to me means that there will always be someone on the other end of a job that either receives what he needs when he needs it or whenever the sender thinks he needs to finish the job. Then the author puts us, the reader, into a situation to test the matter. He puts us into an office, our office, with six clerks. We request one of the clerks to  “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregio.” But the author gives us a dilemma. Will the clerk simply say "Yes, sir," and get to work? Or will he ask anywhere from a variety of questions. If we answer his many questions will the clerk even do his job? Will he ask us why we need it or how to do it? Will he get the other clerks to help him in order to obtain the information we want so badly? Will he return to us empty handed saying no man of said name exist? Would it have just been better to say never mind and do it ourselves? This is where the author introduces an idea that is and has been heavily disputed for as long as it's conception. The author states, "And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?" The author references that if we continue on like this we will keep putting pure socialism further into the future. This changes what he meant earlier of a man like Rowan. Instead of more people needing to be like Rowan, everyone should be like Rowan. A honest person who asks no questions, just gets their job done, nothing else. The author may be explaining how we can reach pure socialism and possibly pure communism. The author continues on, telling about other people in their jobs, can they complete the job they are assigned on their own free will? Will the person I assign, who may be a fine worker, on his way back stop at pubs instead of putting the important first and getting his job done? Will the man even finish his job? This is what is holding us back, the inability to do something independently. This is where the author continues on, on about the men who can't do their jobs themselves. They must have some help for some reason.  This is where the snippet ends, with the author explaining that the world needs, needs badly someone like Rowan. A man who can get the job done, without any idiotic questions or help from a outside source. One who takes that letter to Garcia without refusal or question. Without throwing the letter away and lying to the "boss". Someone who works while the "boss" is away or while he is home. Someone who never gets laid off or goes on strike for higher wages. For a man as such is so rare that an employer cannot let him go. There may be fine others but they can't get their job done right like such a man, so they must be let go. Civilization longs for a man as such and it is due time that civilization gets more men like this. He is needed everywhere in society, every country, every state, every city, every town, every village - in shops, offices, and factories. The world needs men like this and thus the world cries out for such a man, a man who is needed badly, a man who can, carry a message to Garcia. For the world will be a greater and brighter place with such these men. For they get their job done, no questions asked.

First Day at John Carroll, my experience.

Hi, this blog entry is about my first day of classes at John Carroll and the experiences I had. I'll mostly be going through the day as I went through my schedule so I can keep track of it neatly. I started the day by arriving at the school and going to the cafeteria to wait for the academic wing to be opened. I met up with some upperclassmen who I know and talked to them while we waited to go to our lockers. Once I had what I needed from my locker I went off to my first period class, advanced algebra 2. There we reviewed some things like the class rules and syllabus. We went over our contracts for our books and reviewed number terms. My second period was STEAM centered learning where we went over more class related rules and subjects and even played a "set" game where we had to make sets from different sets of shapes. After this I went to advisory where I basically just sat and listened to the noise and events going on in the room. After this I had Hnr. Human Geo where we had our photos taken for our ID cards. When we came back we went over rules and the syllabus a little. We were assigned our first homework project which just so happens to be what I'm typing right now. After that class I had lunch where I sat with my friends and discussed the new environment I've been thrown into. Then I had Honors Bio which was going over rules and the syllabus, getting contract, and doing an activity. Then I had an off mod where I sat in the media center with my laptop and worked on some homework. Lastly, I had German class with Mr. Canter which was fun because it was basically comedy night. Then ended the day and went home to finish my work for my classes.