Back Again

Today we finally got to be in Human Geo again after our nice long Christmas break. Mr. Schick is an awesome teacher and he always says our class is the best which is pretty much true. We got started learning about North Korea which is on a peninsula shared with South Korea and these two countries just can't along. North Korea is run by the infamous Kim Jong-Un who took control after his father Kim Jong-Ill died. The government are completely oppressive to their people and isolate them from the rest of the world. On a map of the world at night North Korea being compared to South Korea is just sad. The only light that is visible is from Pyongyang, which is the capital of North Korea while on the other side is South Korea which is absolutely bursting with light especially in Seoul (where John is staying). North Korea is so dark at night that it actually appears as a body of water from a picture up in space. North Korea is just a "rogue" state and South Korea has a booming economy is a rapid growing industrial power. One of the most interesting things we learned is that North Korea and my town in Maryland are on the same line of latitude which is 39 degrees which is just strange for me to think about.

Review

Today in class was the review day because of how close we are getting to exams and how little everyone in the class knows. We started off by going over our cultural geography test which Mr. Schick handed back and apparently alot of people bombed it and he expected better, but we went over it and Mr. Schick answered all the questions that everyone had which wasn't alot considering all the people who did bad on it and once finished with that we went on to the previous test we took and had to refresh our memory on that. Our previous unit was political geography and this test had all the questions about the world leaders and important aspects of their lives. We didn't get to go over it today because we ran out of time but im sure we will tomorrow and im not sure if we will go over the unit test before that but either way we pretty much have to know most of it.

Test Day

Today in Human Geo we took our test on Cultural Geography and it turned out that me and John were the only ones in the class to get an A on it, this really surprised me because I honestly thought I did awful but I guess not. Now I have to worry about the mid-terms which is the next test we will be taking and it is a little more important than the rest of the regular tests we take because it is everything we have learned up to this point and I don't know, even if I do study, how well I will do on it but I know a good amount of the material so if everything I know will be on mid-terms I will be set.

12/9/14

Today in class to start off we sang Happy Birthday to Mr.Schick and he, just like anybody else on their birthday, checked his Facebook for all the birthday posts on his wall and it turns out he has a lot of interesting and famous friends. Then, he told us about the rapping contest that the New York Times is having for students about the major things that happened in the year, I could probably write a really good rap but I don't think I would want to submit it. When class started we wrapped up our unit on Cultural Geography with the presentation of Mr. Schick's religion PowerPoint. We learned about the religions Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. A lot of info about these religions was pretty interesting like how Buddhists follow the Eightfold Path and believe in the Four Noble Truths. Mr. Schick I am pretty sure was Buddhist at one point in his life because he got really into telling us about the classes he took and how even eating a raisin can be given meaning. Also, Hinduism is the oldest religion dating back way before Judaism and the time of Jesus. People believe in different religions and live different life styles but for some reason they just can't get along. Our test is tomorrow on Cultural Geography and I am pretty confident in it.

Shickie McCoy

Today in Human Geo it was pretty awesome, only because Mr. Schick, in order to review for our test, made a song for Slumdog Millionaire to help us remember what the whole movie was about. It was through iTunes and it was a remix of Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars' "I Wanna be a Millionaire". Mr. Schick did the rapping part while his daughter did the singing part. I was surprised because his daughter was actually really good at singing and Mr. Schick dropped some serious bars all about the movie. He even pulled out his guitar and started strumming some chords with the song. We all clapped at the end because that took some serious time and effort to make that song the way he did and continued with class. We talked about Spatial divisions and how they can cause conflict or cooperation. Also, how there really isn't any habitable land that isn't owned by someone or something anymore and took more notes for our Cultural Geography Unit

Religion's Amazing Effects

Today in Human Geo class we talked the whole class about religion and its effect on cultures and different groups and how it can be a unifying force or how it can just straight up divide two or more groups. For example, in India there is a lot of fighting between Hindus and Muslims or in Northern Ireland there was tons of fighting between the Catholics and Protestants. Fights caused by religion have been happening for centuries and in my opinion it is ridiculous that you would fight over a belief where I am sure it is said you are not supposed to be killing people. Religion is complicated in the fact that people fight for a religion against another religion while in the end, when it gets down to it, they all have the same general ideas and most guidelines on what and what not to do. We also talked about Mr. Shick's awesome ghost experience where he was saved from a speeding car from hitting his car and probably killing him. Our class got a  little off topic but Mr. Schick feels strongly about this topic and the class asked a lot of good questions because it is interesting how people can behave insane for something that isn't even guaranteed.

Movie Ending

Today we finished the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" in Mr. Schick's office which is basically the TV studio for our morning announcements and probably the coolest office. The movie ended with Jamal winning 20,000,000 Rupees on "Who Want's to be a Millionaire?" by answering the final question which was about the Three Musketeers and Jamal completely guessed and got the right answer. He also got the girl of his dreams, and became a hero for all those who live like he did. His brother was shot to death after going against his gang and letting the girl that Jamal loved go even though he helped capture her and in the end it was a really good movie and was good for starting off the Culture Geography Unit because it really showed the culture of India along with all the poverty and what it was like living in the Slums. The corrupt police department that captured Jamal let him go because they didn't have enough evidence and even the announcer who gave him the wrong answer so he would lose couldn't outsmart him. It was nice seeing the poor guy win for a change.