First Semester Reflection

During my time in this Global Ed. English class I have learned many things, from Rwanda to Australia. I was very satisfied about what I had learned in this class and how much more open to new ideas I am. The main things I learned about were Rwanda, Australia, South Africa, and how to write a good essay. These all gave me important values and ideas that could be used later on in life. Like to help me get a very good job and have a good life.
The first thing I learned about was how to write a good essay I was not overly good at first, but with the things I learned that I need to make a good essay really helped. The first thing I learned about was how to eliminate clutter from my writings. This helped me write more clearly and get to the point of my essays. Next I learned about using pathos and ethos to help per sway my reader to agree with what I want them to do. By far the most important thing I learned was how to transition and support my essays. This helps make my essays not jump around and stay on topic with good support for that topic.
The next thing I was taught about was Rwanda and the genocide that went on there in the late 1990s. I learned how an untied people could turn on each other in an instant without realizing what they were even doing. Rwanda’s Tutsi and moderate Hutu population was devastated by what had happened to them. While watching the movie Hotel Rwanda I figured out how nobody was willing to help the Tutsis from the Hutu extremists. They were too preoccupied because of what had happened in Somalia to even consider seriously helping the Rwandan people.
During my time in Global Ed. English this semester we had two debates about a story, “Man in the Well”, and the Rwandan Genocide Debate. Both of these debates were very helpful in learning about what was really going on in both situations. During the Man in the Well debate I learned you do should see the bigger picture not just the tip of the iceberg. During the Rwanda debate I figured the U.S. and other influential countries did not do all they could to stop the situation.
Still by far my favorite way to learn was watching the videos that my class and I were watching in both Global Ed classes. They gave me a better and less boring understanding of what I was learning about South Africa, Rwanda, and Australia. My favorite of the three movies I watched was The Power of One. The main reason was so I could work on my combinations; I will never forget that assignment! On a more serious note I look forward to watching more movies in the future.
The last ways that helped me was the blogs; margin notes, weekly articles, and Q.C.V.Is Blogs were a good way to help me practice my writing skills. When I margin noted the papers that were given to me I could grasp the reason of the paper easier because of the notes and questions I wrote down. The weekly articles were another good way to refine my writing skills just like the blogs. The Q.C.V.Is, just like the margin notes, was a way to better understand what I was reading. I can say I learned a lot over this semester and all of I was a way to improve myself at writing, and am glad I learned it.

This year Thanksgiving was very fun and full of excitement, considering I had two of them. The First Thanksgiving I went to was at my uncle’s house. There I say most of my cousins, because I have twenty-six of them, and we played some football in the front yard. I have to say I spent most of my time downstairs playing the Nintendo 64. I know it is really old, but it is still just so fun. By far my favorite part of the day was the apple cake that my mother made. My cousin and I had to have eaten half of the cake.

My other Thanksgiving was on Saturday at my house. I had my dad family over and there are much less of them. For most of the time I was in my computer room watching funny YouTube videos that my cousins showed me. By far the funniest video was of a prank radio station. The announcer prank calls the owner of a Chinese restaurant and tells him that his restaurant is on fire and burning down. It was very funny. My cousin left about ten thirty and I finally could go be alone.

Then Christmas holiday parties came and I was very happy. I can see all of my cousins again. For my mom’s side of the family we went to a banquet hall and had a party it was very boring because there was nothing to do. So eventually a couple of my cousins and I went outside and started playing kick the can in the parking lot. Now you know just how boring the party was. When the party was over my cousin Dillon invited my cousin Jake and I back to his house to stay the night. When we got there we watched a movie that was on TV and played a board game. Then we called it a night and went to bed.

The last family meeting was with my dad’s family at the restaurant DeLucas there we had pizza. It was much calmer than my mom’s family’s party. I ended up having a lot of fun catching up with my cousins. On Christmas I mostly got clothes but that is what I asked for because I didn’t want too much, but I did get the Xbox back. I say I got it back because I was grounded from it. Over all I had to say my holidays are pretty good.

In 1994 there was a genocide in Rwanda and many were killed the Rwandan government denies these claims. The major amounts of the murder were preformed but militias who were Hutu extremists. It all started when Juvenile H. the first Hutu president was killed. The Hutus thought it was a work of the more powerful but minority Tutsis.

After the debate I had a much better understanding of what role each group played. If I didn't know about the MRND's role my group the Interahamwe would have never been able to defend ourselves. When we were able to defend ourselves we could redirect questions to other groups and get the focus off of us. This is a good way to get a better understanding on stories and situations that we are learning.

Emerson's argument in the American Scholar about American society still hold true today.

One reason Emerson’s argument is still holding true today is people are becoming more focused on one thing. It’s like people now a day have tunnel vision an example is people usually only major in one subject. He wants people to major in everything so you can be more successful and smarter. People are drifting away from being the "Man Thinking" and becoming good at only one thing.

Emerson is saying people are not being like the thinking man. He says they are being more like the farmer, mechanic, etc. etc……… He also says to achieve this higher state of mind bringing us ever closer to becoming “Man Thinking”. He also talks about the hand and fingers, humans are the fingers and a greater being (God) is the rest of the hand. In conclusion the "American Scholar" has the job of being "Man Thinking" to see the world clearly and not blocked by the past history.

Over this Halloween I went to my friend Matt's house to trick or treat. First I picked up my friends Tim McCotter and Mike Sopko and headed off to his house. When we got there Matt said it was too early to trick or treat so we started to play his Playstation Three. We played a racing game called Dirt 2 and Grand Theft Auto Four. We had the most fun playing Grand Theft Auto Four because of the cools car and glitches.

When we were done playing the Playstation we had a great idea and decided to air soft. Air soft is when you run around with pellet guns and shoot at each other. It doesn’t hurt a lot so nobody had a problem when they got hit. I probably was the best at it considering that I hit everyone and didn’t get hit by anyone. The funniest part was I hit them all in the same place. The only bad part of air softing was that we had to rake the lawn before we could play.

We finished air softing and finally decided it was late enough to go trick or treating. Last year I started a tradition of walking up to a Speedway and buy a slurpee. So Matt had to lead us to a Speedway because Tim, Mike, and I didn’t know where we were. When we showed up at speedway we bought our slurpees, but on our way out Tim spilled his slurpee all over the counter. Matt and I told him to act like it never happened and just walk out. That’s what we did.

We finally finish trick or treating. I didn’t get that much candy from, but it was enough for me. We got back to Matt’s house and played street hockey in the driveway. I was not very good, but Mike and Matt were very good. Then we chose to play a mini scale hockey game called mini sticks. You play on your knees and is much easier to score and I was good at that game.

We all ended up sleeping over at Tim’s house and had a lot of fun over there. We played Xbox. I have an Xbox also so I did the best at the game we were playing. When we were done playing Xbox we went up stairs to Tim’s room and he showed us funny video. Then we went off into our own conversations with each other and feel asleep at one o’clock.

Soccer is my favorite sport and I can’t imagine not paying soccer. I play for the LCSC club select division. My team is pretty good and I think we are in third place. One of my friends from Stevenson Joey Demarco is also on my team. If we win our last games we will be in first place. I haven’t been playing soccer for long but I still am pretty good. This is my first year of playing with a club before this I had played for my school.
I like club soccer better because now I am playing forward and facing better opponents. I have two goals and with a few more games left I am looking to adding to that total. Soccer is a great sport and by far is the most popular sport in the world. Every country that I know of has soccer teams. One of the reason soccer is the most popular sport in the world is because of how cheap it is to play soccer. I find soccer fun and a invigorating to play. My favorite part of soccer is how you can be physical without killing someone like in football.
Soccer to me is a fairly simple game to learn. I speak from experience because I use to play football believe it or not. I was the leading tackler for three years straight, but when I got to light because of the weight limit change I was endangering myself going up against 160 pound guys when I only weighed eighty. So my dad wanted me to try soccer and see if I liked it. Well after a week of getting use to it I loved it. Now I am good and still love to play and don’t plan on quitting soccer ever. It is fun and I like knowing that I can be good at a lot more than one sport.
In conclusion soccer is the most popular sport in the world and I play it. It is fairly simple to learn and get good at, and it is nice to be good at more than one sport. I think people misunderstand what soccer is all about and are quick to call it a sissy sport. I once though this but came to a realization of that it is not that much of a sissy sport. Soccer is surprisingly physical and people do not need to be so quick to judge it.

There is major tension in the Middle East and one of the main factors is Iran. Iran is hiding their intentions with their nuclear power plants. From what the U.S. is assuming they are using the nuclear power plants to make weapons and will use them against Israel. This is not good because if this happen there will be many more attaches from other countries to defend their allies.

One way to prevent this is for the U.S. and other countries to invade and destroy these threats so there will not be a nuclear holocaust. Another thing the U.S. need to do is to find the right way to invade and be somewhat none hostile. If this fails then the U.S. and allies should combined efforts and think a way to eliminate the power plants without invasion. This is not just a Middle East issue it is an international issue. So not just a few countries need to get involved the whole world needs to get involved.

Iran is a very important country to many other countries because of their major oil reserves. So in the matters of a war against Iran the U.S. and allies will have to fight counties not only loyal to Iran but countries that rely on Iran for oil for their country.

This could also be a good thing that they have nuclear power so some countries can help Iran develop a good alternative energy source. Not only that but Iran could destroy it themselves to stop harm to their country and the countries around them. Iran is a country that has not been peaceful with U.S. and that is not good. On the other hand Iran has done nothing to have the United States to be friendly with them. This many not be an issue today if the United States and Iran were just friendly with each other.

I think that if no one had nuclear weapons then there should be no problem and everything would be fine, but everything turned into a race and a competition for who could be the strongest and the best country. Since numerous countries have nuclear weapons there is tension and competition. This is not civil competition like when Russia and the United States were seeing who could get people on the moon first. If no one had fear of another about weapons then the world would be a better place and we wouldn’t have incidents like Hiroshima.