John Carroll Blogs

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.