John Carroll Blogs

Today in Human Geo. we went over what we will be having on our exam on Thursday. I've been studying but I'm still pretty nervous because of the fact that we have to write 2, 5 paragraph essays. The only reason this worries me is because we also have to answer the 120 multiple choice questions and then go write the essays. I've already written both of them in advance and laid out my points to remember for Thursday but I'm just worried about finishing it in the time span of an hour and a half. I just hope that I will be fine and everything will work out in the end because I have been studying hard for all my midterms.

Today I took the Human Geo. test and I pray to God I did good on it. I studied for 4 days to bring my grade up. I need to ace this test. Honestly I don't know how to feel about it, there were a few questions that I didn't know and it worries me because I just made my best educated guess. Right now he is about to hand them back. Oh please God let it be an A is all I'm thinking right now. My heart is feeling like its going to explode because it's beating so fast. Honestly though this feeling just makes me think on how much I hate tests, why put this worry on people just for the grade on material. I understand why and it's to make sure the kid understands it. The teacher wants to make sure that the students understand the lesson and can carry that information into their lives as an adult. Well apparently the class average was an 82.5 which is extremely worrying already. So somehow I got a 79. I just don't get it the more I try the worse it gets. Like my grade is ac...

In Human Geo. today we learned more about global warming and how it affects the world. We are also getting prepared for our test on Monday which I am pretty worried about because I need to get a good grade.  I honestly just need to study really hard for it because the last test didn't go so well. I'm just hoping for the best during the test and during the exams.

Today in Human Geo. we learned about global warming and how it affects the world around us with Bill Nye the science guy. I learned that people try and push off the fact that global warming is happening or they say that the effect of it isn't that bad when in truth global warming is terrible. It honestly can destroy this planet if people continue to go on using our natural resources the way they are now. People really need to take the planet into consideration when they are using natural resources because it just might help us in the long run.

Well during the testing I thought I did well. That's basically all I can say right now to be honest. I just logged onto Veracross to see that I got a 68 on it which just makes me want to literally want to through my computer out the window as I'm typing this because I studied for that test for 3 days starting on Friday. I also studied all day during school today but I guess that doesn't really matter due to the fact that I bombed it. I truthfully didn't think the test was extremely difficult as I was taking it but man was I insanely wrong. I'm just going to end this blog here because I am just running out of words to say due to the fact that I want to just destroy something right now but doesn't matter because the grade is what it is. At least it didn't hurt my overall grade to terribly

The reason I wasn't able to blog yesterday was because I was in a hotel with no internet connection which in my opinion was very stupid due to the fact that it was a 5 star hotel. You would truly expect there to be internet if a hotel is ranked very high. The reason I am able to access blogger today is because we are now at a different hotel and it has a decent connection to wifi. The problem is that there are many people connected to the wifi and I had a great difficulty connecting to it. I'm going to try to see if I can access blogger tomorrow despite the internet and hopefully I will be back again.

Today in Human Geo. we started to talk about how people call soft drinks around the world. Mr. Schick had us do this because he thought that it was a good way to show the variety of cultures around the world. All over the world people pronounce soft drinks differently from pop, soda, coke, bubbly, and even just fountain drink. Our world today is made up of an amazing collection of cultures that each have their own customs and ways.

Today in Human Geo. we learned about how children usually follow what they are taught. For example if your parents like a certain football team you will most likely like that team as well. Depending on what your parents religion is means that you will most likely follow them as Christians, Catholics, Amish, and many more. You will also most likely like the same kind of music your parents like if they have you listen to it. This tendency I don't have because I don't really enjoy listen to music at all and my parents and sister all love listening to it. I'm the only one in my family who finds it kind of dull and boring to be honest but I guess that's just my opinion on the matter.

Today I was absent from school because yesterday I went to New York to see the Giants play the Chicago Bears. I went with my uncle and great uncle that both live there and rooted for the Giants while my father and I rooted for the Bears. The reason I am absent even though the game was yesterday is that due to the weather and how tired we were last night when we got home my father couldn't possibly drive back home. The game yesterday was good though even though the Bears sadly lost but I'm very grateful that my dad took me to see it because I had a lot of fun with my family and rooting for my favorite team with my dad alongside me.

Today in Human Geo. we took the World Leaders test and to be honest I thought it was pretty hard even though the way it was formatted was pretty easy. It might have been so difficult because I had to use all of my brainpower 1st mod to take a biology test but nevertheless I still thought it was somewhat difficult. There were at least 5 questions that I just completely guessed on and hopefully I guessed right (I'll find out soon enough) because I would really like to get a good grade. Next mod I have to go take an honors algebra 2 test so hopefully I have enough brainpower to at least get a B+ on the test.

Today in Human Geo. we went into further detail on world leaders and their back rounds. Mr. Schick wanted to give us a good review before the test tomorrow to make sure we will do well. I honestly don't think that the test will be that hard because it is all multiple choice and there are no essay questions. Hopefully I will do well tomorrow and be fine.

Today in Human Geo. we had a substitute teacher who allowed us to fix mistakes that we made on our powerpoints and work on correcting them. After we finished our mistakes we were allowed for our test on Thursday that I later found out that our substitute made. Apparently he used to teach Human Geo. with Mr. Schick but now he doesn't. Today was mostly an easy day but Thursday will definitely be harder

Today in human geo. we learned about more world leaders and the one I want to talk about is Mexico. Mexico's leader Enrique Pena Nieto is a corrupted man from what I've heard. He was having an affair with his wife who soon mysteriously died and he remarried which is a little fishy. Now he will most likely be arguing with the U.S. because trump wants to build a wall but it's fine.

Today in Human Geo we talked about different leaders around the world and how they will possibly have issues with Trump once he is put into office. For example we talked about how Mexico's president will have a lot of issues with Trump do to the fact that Trump wanted Mexico to pay for a wall between the two nations due to illegal immigrants. We also talked about China and how they will also have possible issues with us because they want to open up factories in the U.S. which means that they will get paid minimum wage in the U.S. instead of the low wages they get in China. For some reason even though the world is supposed to be a peaceful place it seems that every nation has a problem with another one.

I believe that during Trump's first year of office he might start construction on the wall he was talking about. What I'm concerned about is how he will get Mexico to pay for it and American's feelings towards it's existence. I also think that he could get us out of debt pretty well because even though he doesn't have good political experience doesn't mean that he isn't a good business man with possible plans to save America from our massive debt. Honestly I don't think Trump is going to be as bad a president as everybody keeps saying.

I will admit that I am nervous for what will go down tonight or possibly tomorrow morning because this will be affecting our generations future. Either way I know that our generation will negatively be affected even though we believe that one president will be better than the other. I just know that if Hilary gets elected she will hurt our parents money situation and if Trump gets in then we could possibly go to war because he is a loose cannon but it's not my decision to vote. That job is up to the adults.

Today in Human Geo. we made predictions based on fact on who we thought would win and against my prediction was for Clinton to win even though I want Trump to win. Angela scolded me for wanting him to win because she is anti- Trump but it's fine. Anyway I honestly hope that another Clinton doesn't get into the White House tomorrow and everything ends ok.

Yesterday in Human Geo. we had a substitute because Mr. Schick was most likely emotionally worn out from the Cubs winning the game. We instead had a man that originally teaches Social Studies for Sophomores but instead he taught our Human Geo. class. It went pretty well because we all finished our projects (I believe) because we had the entire period to work on them.  I understand that Mr. Schick needed a day of rest after the emotional rollercoaster that he had over the week and I'm glad he decided to relax for a day.

This morning I found out that the Cubs won the World Series last night and it made me very happy for Mr. Schick. The look on his face this morning was great and he actually was beyond expressional happiness. He just seemed so happy because he was a true fan and he stuck with the Cubs through thick and thin to see them win a championship. Honestly I think that Mr. Schick really deserved this for being so loyal and connected with his family through the Cubs.

I'm very happy that Mr.Schick was able to have a good time in Chicago because it seemed like a precious and memorable moment that he got to spend with his family. As he said, they haven't been there in over 100 years so not every family had a chance to do this. I have to admit that I enjoyed the video of him on the airplane getting everybody else to join in on the take me out to the ballgame song. There were a lot of people that wanted to join in and others that truly didn't care. I honestly hope that the Cubs win tonight just so Mr. Schick can have his and his family's favorite team win. Maybe it will give the Chicago Bears some good luck to because everybody knows that they need it.

Yesterday in Human Geo. we talked about the services nations provide their citizens and the governments around the world. We were assigned a project around the end of class to search up certain governments around the world, who they were led by, what role the leader had, and to find a picture of the leader. I'm also learning things that I never knew before for example I never knew that the United Kingdom was ruled by a prime minister. I always thought it was the Queen, so I think that this project is a really good way for us to get more connected with the world around us.

Today in Human Geo. we talked about the presidential election and why people are voting the way that they are. In my parents case this is exactly correct because they are only voting for Trump because they don't want Hilary in the White House due to what she did with emails and what her husband did in his presidency. I just think that no matter who gets into the White House they will do something stupid. Honestly either one will probably make a mistake but I guess that's just my opinion.

Today in Human Geo. Mr. Schick told us that he will be flying to Chicago to see a Cubs game in a week for the world series and I'm very happy for him because I'm a Chicago Bears and Bulls fan so I know how much it means when they have a chance to win something. It seems that he is extremely passionate about this team and that's what makes me so happy that he has a chance to go see them. I as well will be going to see the Chicago Bears play the New York Giants in a few months and I am already very excited for that. Not like we have a quarterback because Jay Cutler is terrible but that's besides the point because I am just very happy that Mr. Schick's loyal support to the Cubs has paid off and he can see them win something big. Maybe one day my Chicago Bears will get to the Super Bowl but we will just have to wait and see about that one.

Today in Human Geo. Mr. Schick gave back our tests that we took yesterday and apparently they weren't as good as everybody had hoped. He said in the beginning of class that some people who had straight A's didn't anymore due to this test. Now this surprised me because I thought that the test was prospectively easy due to the fact that we got to use our computers to look up the first few answers and then you could answer some of  the other questions on the test based off of those. During class we also had to stay quiet during the first 10 minutes of class so a kid could use his computer for his test and it was kind of awkward just sitting there waiting. Honestly I didn't think the test was super difficult but I know some people have trouble with certain things where other people excel so I'm not one to judge.

Today in Human Geo. we took a test using the C.I.A. World Factbook and information that we learned while using it. Honestly I thought that the test was fairly easy because the first 10 questions were free points due to the fact that we got to look them up on our computers. The only downside to this though was that this portion was timed and a little freaky because if you didn't finish in time then oh well, you wouldn't have had the correct answer. The hardest part of the test for me was definitely when we had to come up with push forces and pull forces because it was very hard to think about positives and negatives about different countries in the world. In the end though I think I did very well on my test and I didn't think it was all that difficult.

Today we used the C.I.A World Factbook to find interesting facts about the world and check things other then their population pyramids. For example today I learned that Afghanistan spends about 30% of its money on its military which is a huge amount of money. It has the highest rank and the second ranked one is only 9%. The amount of money that they spend on their military is literally insane because if they had 1 million dollars then they would spend about 33,000 dollars on their military. Apparently they need it to rebuild their army but I would never spend that much money.

Yesterday in class Mr. Schick said that this generation of kids agrees with what their parents believe based on scientific studies. Honestly I never really thought about it until now but it is very true because I believe in just about everything that my parents believe in. I believe in their thoughts on politics, my dad's favorite football team, and even which sport is my favorite. Shockingly, kids of this generation are strongly influenced by their parents opinions and that can definitely be a good thing or bad thing later in the future.

Today I decided to blog about my feelings toward John Carroll. Honestly I've noticed that the difficulty to balance schoolwork and sports has become harder. What I mean by this is not that I'm failing any classes even though if I get a B I go crazy, I mean that I have less time to myself. Stem and football are definitely hard to balance but I know that other football players are in the same boat as me so I can't really complain. I was the one who chose to do this so I have to be responsible for it. All I know is that tomorrow is going to be very tiring due to my game an hour away and probably a lot of homework.

Today in Human Geo. we watched a video called Ted Ed. It taught us about population pyramids and how certain countries will have decreasing or increasing populations. We also talked about how women have decided to not have kids more recently then previous years because they want to make lives for themselves. They want to earn their own money and not stay at home to raise the kids.

Today in Human Geo. we learned about cyber days. From what everybody said they sound like they are going to be terrible. We will get tons of homework and being in my honors classes don't help because most likely I will get hours of homework from my math and biology teachers. We also talked about the syllabus and how late homework works. I thought it was a pretty fair system because even if its really late you should still have to do the homework. I'm just really upset about the paper that I messed up on because now 10% of my grade is gone.

Today in class we talked about the new slides that we made and interesting facts that we found along with them. We talked about how America produces one of the biggest amounts of oil but we also buy a lot of oil as well. Americans depend on oil during their daily lives for transportation and its really important that we get it. We also talked about how people are saying that America is really obese and we aren't even as high up as I thought we would be. We are only ranked 19 on obesity when you would think we would be ranked 1 or 2 with as much as you hear people talking about fat Americans. Like we aren't the fittest country but only 33% of our population is obese.

Today Mr. Schick assigned us our first paper and I have to admit its a little bit threatening because he said for it to be over 750 words but I do believe that we have ample time to do it. We have tonight (except for the fact that I'm to tired to write a paper after my football game) Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I never like writing papers because they always account for such a huge part of your grade and there are the thoughts running through your head like what if I didn't punctuate properly or what if I misspelled a word. A paper is always just a huge worry for middle school to even the college level because people know it matters. I'm just happy that we have a pretty good amount of time to do it so we won't be struggling to get it done the day before.

Today in class we talked about how the U.S. is or is not the best nation in the world. When asked our opinion on the subject the class was about evenly split on the matter. After we talked about which way we voted and why Mr.Schick had us watch an 8 minute video about a politician being asked about what makes America the greatest nation in the world. Originally he said some cliché answers like because we have freedom but then he realized that the U.S. is really not the best nation. He started saying how other nations also have freedom and some have even more then us and how we aren't even on the top of many lists in the World Factbook. The U.S.A. is definitely not the best nation in the world but when you think about it what nation really is? No nation is perfect or even great for that matter. At the moment I consider America slightly above average its not terrible but its not the best either, but many nations fall in this category because the world isn't great by itself and it...

On Friday Mr. Schick gave us an assignment using the C.I.A's World Factbook. I think its a very interesting project where we can learn some pretty cool information about the world around us. In my group I have Michael and Kate and we all almost finished all of our work during class. I finished two of my three slide that we divided up between each other and it all went pretty well. Some of the info did surprise me though but I'm glad that I learned it because you never know when the information could be handy.

Today Mr. Schick showed us the C.I.A. website where we can find out about any country's population, birth rate, death rate, and FTR. This was  very cool website because we have access to the world's information and we can find out which countries are having a decreasing population and which ones have increasing populations. This is also a very useful tool for projects in religion class for example because we can also find out the religions that are dominant in that country. This website is very helpful and I'm sure I'll be using it for projects later in the year.

Today we got a new person in the honors human geography class. His name is Aleck and I already knew him from Saint Margarets because we both went there last year. I was there since 6th grade and he came there in 8th. Anyway class today was pretty funny because one of the students had to switch places with Mr. Schick and become the teacher to present the slides we took notes from yesterday for Aleck. She was very nervous and she kept laughing which made all of us laugh but all in all I really enjoyed class today and to be honest I really enjoy Human Geo.

Today we learned about the mass amount of people we have on the planet Earth. We have about 7 billion people on the world at this moment which is just such a hard number its insane to even think about. The only views of Earth that we have are pictures from space and comparisons on globes and they are pretty tiny which makes it very hard to imagine that many people on a very tiny Earth. One thing about population that does bug me a little bit is that the people who can afford to have kids sometimes don't. I understand that it's a big decision but sometimes it's just based on the money put into the kids and that is just ridiculously greedy that I can't stand it. There are people in 3rd world countries having about 5 kids per family hoping that one or two may survive to adulthood when we sure know that in America they will survive if they have parents who provide for them.

Today we went over our tests in Human Geography and we also talked about how and why we got some of the answers that we did. I also found out that one of my questions that the teacher marked wrong turned out to be correct and it helped my grade out by 4 points. I'm really glad that I decided to speak up about it because it helped my grade. Later on we also talked about our interpretation on Socrates' saying of the unexamined life is not worth living and some people had some very interesting points that made me reconsider how I wrote my answer and how I thought about it as well. Todays class really wasn't all that difficult though and I wound up learning a lot about the way he gives us tests.

Today in Human Geo we did a round discussion on the topic of self-driving cars. Everyone had some good opinions on the matter and a few that I would like to point out are terrorists attacking the connection of the cars and people not being able to afford the cars. Both of these were very good points and first I would like to talk about the cost of the cars, see things in this day and age are so overpriced that when those new cars come out in full swing they will be so insanely up there that only the 1%ers can afford them. Next would be the terrorists hacking into the system that drives us to our destination, see I liked this point because it also brought up the idea of a manual override on the cars incase anything like that were to happen. This would mean that even when you have a self-driving car you would still need to know how to drive a car yourself just incase anything went awry.

Today at school has honestly been one of my worst days so far. I had literally 4 tests to take. I had a biology test, a Spanish test, an algebra test, and a religion test. Honestly I didn't even know about the biology one until I walked into school but I still got an A+. It was really rough and I'm glad that I was able to have a free period during Human Geo today to study because it really helped me to do better on my tests. I also didn't even get to use my actual free mod today because I had to take an algebra test during it so I didn't have any time to myself until the end of the day. All in all though I think I did pretty well for as much of a load that I had.

Today I took my first test in Human Geography and I have to admit that I think I got at least a B+ because I know there were some questions that went straight over my head. I do know that I did fairly well on my essay questions because I could formulate the sentences with ease after reading the questions. I definitely did have some trouble with the question about the polis because I could not remember what a polis was and I don't even remember writing it down in my notes  but I probably did and just forgot because teachers don't put questions on a quiz that we didn't learn. At lest most teachers don't anyway. I believe I did very well on the multiple choice questions and the fill in the blanks but I do think I missed a few like the day when A Message To Garcia was written because I have a lot of trouble remembering dates for tests. All in all though I think I did do well on my first test and I'm very proud of myself.

Yesterday I didn't blog due to the fact that I was very nauseous and whenever I tried to look down at anything like my phone, my computer, or even a book I would get sick.

See Socrates was a living in a very stable time in Athens. Many people from around the world were coming over to share knowledge about medicine and building and ect. See Socrates would question these people to try and get them to learn new things as he did with his students. With this said though Socrates made his students think outside the box so much that they started having doubts about the Greek gods and Socrates was put on trial for not believing in them and for poisoning the minds of the youth of Athens. Now what I find interesting about this trial is that Socrates defended himself, he was his own lawyer. Instead of defending himself though he just flat out said yeah I did teach them this but I should be rewarded for making them think. Now that takes a lot of guts to say that during a trial where you know if your found guilty you will die. Socrates wound up being found guilty by the jury of 500 but it was a very close vote and he was sentenced to death. Socrates was give...

Today in human bio I learned how to use this website correctly. Before I was very unsure about whether or not I was doing things right because this website was new and foreign to me. Today though I learned that my blogs looked good and that my blog was somehow in pacific time instead of eastern. I found out that I could customize the back round of my blogs so they will look better and I learned a bit of information about Mr. Schick. Apparently he taught my sister Lauren when she went here and he is very happy to find out that she now is a journalism major just like his daughter. Finally I found out that blogger can be a very useful tool for finding out information and just learning about the way people think in general.

Today in Human Geography I learned of a very interesting way of teaching. A very interesting style per say. It was all based off of questions. The teacher would question you just to make you think and in a way off of the thinking you do you could possible teach yourself. Its basically a method to self teaching because for example if the teacher asked you about your thought on the presidential election and who you would vote for you would pick your candidate. Then he would bring it further and ask if you had a specific reason for choosing that one. You could possibly come up with a legitimate answer or realize that you picked him/her because everybody else was to which makes you a person that runs with the largest crowd. When giving deep thought to this way of questioning it makes you realize that life can truly be more then what you make of it and you just have to ask the right questions to figure out the information that you want out of it.

What I learned today in human geography is that a lot of people try to take shortcuts and they won't pay off for you later in life. As Mr. Schick was saying earlier that if you take shortcuts in school your grades won't be as good as you want them to be. He was also talking about how Socrates was definitely ahead of his time because he wanted people to think for themselves and not depend on something else like we do now on computers. Socrates also was killed for what he believed in which made a lot of people upset due to his wise teachings.

My 5 Point Plan For Freshman Year 1. Maintain a straight a average while balancing it with sports 2. Have a great year in JV football 3. I would like to try and make some new friends 4. I am thinking about trying out for the play or maybe just helping out with stage crew 5. I would like to have a better year than any of my middle school years

Greece and A Message To Garcia      Greece is similar to a message to Garcia because since the Greeks sentenced Socrates to death due to him asking questions it is similar because Hubbard was annoyed by people asking questions as well. But Socrates was related to me because the questions he asked were for information and to learn like me asking a teacher a question in class. Hubbard was annoyed by people asking dumb questions. The Greeks also valued loyalty and skill like Hubbard did because he despised any slackers that existed. He thought that everyone should be doing there jobs with maximum effort which they should be doing in my opinion. Finally it talks about how Socrates participated in a war and during the story the message to Garcia was delivered during war times

My Thoughts on a Letter to Garcia      After reading a message to Garcia it really made me reconsider some things in life. Do people really put out as much effort as it seems or are they just putting out the bare minimum to get by as easy as it can be? It also made me think about my standards as well. I know I strive to get good grades in school but am I maybe not trying hard enough. Last year I didn't get the grades I wanted I didn't get straight A's and after reading this essay it makes me feel like I was slaking because I didn't live up to my full potential. This also makes me think about the way I play football. I know I try my hardest but after reading the essay it also makes me feel like it isn't enough.  It makes me feel like I should be giving more than I can provide. If my  limit is 100 I should be giving 110. Last year I got two major injuries that prevented me from playing and now I feel like I should have powered through the pain because ...

     My first day at John Carroll has definitely been eventful. I’ve had trouble opening my locker 4 times today and I have almost been late top multiple classes. When I first arrived today I also arrived to find out that my backpack was too big to fit inside of my locker so I had to give it to Mr. Ireton to hold for the day. During Spanish class I found out that the two books for the semester were due today and I didn’t have either of them because the shipping got screwed up. Something that did go well today though was I received my Har-Co and student ID cards today without any trouble. I also managed to not get lost which was a big win in my book. All in all though I think I will enjoy my time at John Carroll despite the mishaps that may befall me.