Catch up

While Mr. Schick looked and graded some of our blogs we worked on our maps... more or less. The class instead decided to discuss how Mr. Schick could possibly be a murderer. The facts aligned more and more so we came to the conclusion that Mr. Schick is a criminal. I'm slightly concerned, but it's okay. Since we then finished all of our work, we looked him up on white pages. We found mostly everything about him. We found his address, relatives, age, birthday, address, hometown, and middle name. Creepy right? Actually its kind of scary and I'm worried that someone might search me. There goes all of my personal information. Who cares about privacy anymore anyways. At least I finished all my maps and had a good laugh. I got to do my french homework because I didn't finish it last night, but I'm now frightened about the test we took in human geography last week. I think I did good, but you never know in human geography.

Labeling the Map

Today we spent class finishing the notes we took and started to label the three maps we were given. I also learned that I'm worse at geography then I thought. I can't believe I actually thought that Japan was in China. While working hard on my maps, Mr. Schick spoke very loud next to me and I have no idea why, but it scared me to a close death. I then jumped out of my seat and let out a frantic squeal. I scared the whole class into thinking that an emergency was happening. I don't remember very clearly, but I'm pretty sure I jumped out of my skin.  Now Mr. Schick most likely thinks that I'm a crazy person, but what's new. Tomorrow I have to finish all my maps and hopefully spell Arctic Ocean correct because I didn't that correctly either. What a eventful yet good day.

Time zones

Today at the end of class, Mr. Schick brought up a really good topic. Why do we start our day at 12 o'clock? I've thought about this one night when I couldn't go to sleep. I then couldn't think of a reasonable answer. so I gave up. I looked up why there's 24 hours in a day and it said this, "Our 24-hour day comes from the ancient Egyptians who divided day-time into 10 hours they measured with devices such as shadow clocks, and added a twilight hour at the beginning and another one at the end of the day-time, says Lomb. " Night-time was divided in 12 hours, based on the observations of stars." As I looked more into this topic I found there's a more in depth explanation for the division of night-time into 12 hours which is based on the number of "decan" stars which were seen to rise during summer nights in Ancient Egypt. This made more sense to me, but I still ponder on why we always stuck with the 24 hour day. Then again we are still primarily using a map from 1569. I hope that the class of 2022 can be the class to help make more discoveries and possibly make a difference in the world.

The Netflix Clip

Mr. Schick ditched the Honors Human Geography class today. After we cried about Mr. Schick being on a field trip with his class, Mr. Blair read out our assignment for the day. It is to "rewatch the clip that was shown in class and in your blog, describe the points made by the cartographers.  Are they valid points? You may wish to explain whether you agree or disagree with these points, and why."

In the clip, the said that the Mercator map created an ethnic bias against a third world, Germany.
I see how they could say this because when I look at the map, right in the middle in Germany. I don't know if this was done on purpose, but it is very suspicious. If you did however face the map upside, that would put America on the bottom and Germany no longer in the middle. That leads us to the question, does size and position equate to power in todays society? I do agree with this statement because personally I never even think of Australia. I know that it's a country, but it's never one of the first ones to pop into my head. I do agree that this is because it's at the very bottom of the map so not many people acknowledge it. 

Welp

Today's class was interesting to say the least. My classmates went on question every about the world. At the end of the day, no one has to be right or wrong.I think being correct or inncorect is what frustrates people most. If you truly believe in something then you'll never be 100% wrong. So instead of complaining about being lied to all of the time, and wishing harm against maps or people (Socrates), we should focus on what we do know. The facts. We know that we've been blessed with endless information to know and learn. There will always be the what ifs, but if we waste all of our time worrying about them, then we won't have time to learn about true facts. I think that the class took Socrates point of view a little too literally. It's okay to question life, but not every aspect of the proven world. I really hope that people don't live on the fact that the earth is "flat". Crazy.

The World Maps

Today in class, we learned that we've been lied to all of our lives. In fact, we apparently don't even know the size of Greenland. Yes that is an overreaction, but my mind was still blown. When I first saw the clip, I thought it was all fiction. How could they make a map that is wrong and still use it? I would think that if you knew a map was very incorrect and displayed unfair love to countries, then they would switch out the maps to the correct one. Well there is no correct map since the map is in the shape of a spheroid and a map is on a flat piece of paper. I also saw that we don't always have to look the north side of the map first. I always assumed that the map was supposed to be faced in that direction. It is only faced like that so North America is seen first. Poor Australia is always seen at the bottom, but if you flip the map you can see it first. This topic today seemed to anger some of my classmates and I understand why. Todays lesson was one of my favorites so far.

Today's Test

The test today wasn't as bad as I thought. I thought that I was going to be flustered and not know some of the answers but I knew pretty much all of them. I wish that I would have gotten the notes I missed from class because I didn't understand two of the questions. Overall, I really hope I got a good grade because I made sure to study and do what I was expected to do. I wish I would've gotten the extra credit right. I knew that it was a car, but I just couldn't remember what kind. If I didn't study the notes I took, I definitely would've failed. The class shockingly finished really early. I thought that the test would take a long time, but it went by surprisingly fast. It was hard to keep track of the time though because the clock was going insane. It was like it had a mind of its own.

Test on Monday

Today in class, Mr. Schick couldn't get his computer to work so we talked about our test on Monday. He also gave us the question that we will be writing about. The question is, "Is the unexamined life not worth living?". This weekend I will review over my notes and decide which way I would like to answer the question. Right now I think that the unexamined life is not worth living, but my opinion could always change. Then in class, we discussed our schedule which is very confusing. Today out of all days I'll most likely get lost but that's great!! I'm also super excited to win our game today against Bel Air. I stayed up last night and pictured all the plays I'd make and the different goals we'd score. All my family is coming so if we lose, that would be a little embarrassing. I usually start out on the field, but this is my first year playing so I never know for sure.

Socrates The Controversy

I think that Socrates was charged unfairly with the two crimes. I don't think that having a different mindset is a bad thing. If no one had different theories about life then we wouldn't have half the knowledge about the world that we do now. It would be a different if Socrates had a no followers or supporters but the trail was a close call. People loved him so much that they developed a way for him to escape the death he was sentenced to. Just because someone views their way of life different doesn't make them any better of a person than you are. I think that this lesson showed me that I need to be optimistic about the world and it's many mysteries. This class has also inspired me to read more books about history. I used to find them boring, but now its very intriguing.

Missing Class

Today I had to miss class because of a field hockey game. I didn't want to miss class and drive an hour away, but it was all worth it because our team won 8-0. I can't wait for the battle of Bel Air now and I really hope we play as well as we've been playing.

Arete

Today in class, I learned about the word arete. I had never heard of this word before we started talking about it in class. It means excellence of any kind and moral virtue. This word is all about taking initiative, which is something to keep in mind for this school year. I need to focus on what I have to complete in school and take that initiative in order to reach arete. Excellence is something that I believe we should all strive for. We also can't expect to always be perfect. Excellence can mean a lot of things according to the person. I know that excellence for me is straight A's, but for some people it's just passing the class. No matter what you should try your hardest and put in all your effort in order to reach your goals.

A Message to Garcia

   Elbert Hubbard was an American writer, editor, publisher, artist, businessman, anarchist and libertarian socialist philosopher. But what he is most know for, is his essay called A Message to Garcia. The 1, 500 word essay, which is now a 42 page book is short but full of meaning. 

  The story tells of the U.S President William McKinley needing to get a message to Garcia, who is located somewhere in Cuba. Rowan accepted the task without questioning. He took the letter from President McKinley and traveled to Cuba to deliver the president’s message. Rowan took a boat to the coast and made his way through jungles, to complete the mission all alone. Eventually, he found Garcia’s hideout in the mountains and delivered the president’s letter. 

  Reading the essay , I found that the point of A Message to Garcia, is not that you shouldn't blindly take a task without knowing all the details. I found that the point of the story, is to show the value of personal responsibility. No matter how big or small the mission is, it's up to only you to complete it. You can't rely on others to do the task for you and you also can't continuously make excuses for yourself. When reading about the essay by Hubbard, I found that most people think it's just a lesson for soldiers, but I think it's a good life lesson for everyone.

9/5 First Day

   Today was the first day of high school and it was interesting to say the least. I got in school a little later than I was expecting, especially because I needed to set up my locker. It's really not my fault my mom insisted on taking more or less than 1,000 pictures of me. Clearly, she doesn't see how weird I look in my uniform. But no matter how bad I look, my moms Facebook friends always find me cute. I got to my locker at 7:57. I go to open my locker and to my luck, it was jammed. After 2 minutes of pulling and tugging to open my locker, I asked for help. At this point, I didn't have any clue of what time it was. By the time I sprinted as fast as I could in a school friendly manner, it was 3 minutes past the time I was supposed to be in class. I tried to explain my whole situation calmly as she demanded I get a late pass. As you can tell, my day didn't start off too good. My day got better as the hours passed. It was finally the end of the day and I felt good. Somewhere deep down inside all the stress, I had a feeling this year would be good.