Genocide Debate

This past Thursday our debate on the Rwandan genocide took place in class. My group was assigned to the view point of Belgium, I feel what my country did during the genocide was bad, we favored one side too much then to fix it we favored the Hutus more instead to help balance things out which in the long-term effects did not help at all.

I learned that France was the one to train the Rwandan army, which helped more people to be killed during the genocide, and that neither the United States nor United Nations did anything to help stop the genocide in any way. Another thing I learned about the genocide is that the MRND hosted a radio broadcast which talked badly against the Tutsi people (A hate radio). The RPF asked why they would influence so many people to start hating the Tutsis, the MRND defended by saying they were simply saying what they felt and were not saying it in a hateful or negative way.

Overall I enjoyed the debate very much; I learned many things of many groups both bad and good. It was a very good way to help each group think and say about the issue we are trying to resolve. I also like the fact that instead of reading about it or having a test on an article referring to the genocide we had something hands-on to do instead, which helped me learn more quickly of the problems happening in Rwanda.

No one can blame what has happened in Rwanda to just one country, because it was the act of all of the groups and countries acting together and making wrong choices that really triggered this whole genocide. Most of the groups blamed the US and UN but there was many others such as Belgium and the RPF that took a major role in the genocide. I hope we can have another debate such as the one we had last Thursday because I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot of different things.

The American Scholar

Emerson's argument in"The American Scholar" about American society still holds true today.

One reason is the fact the many jobs today only provide one skill. Such as my father who has been working as a computer technician for his entire life and he has not thought of any other options since. Also in the article Emerson also states that people get so into their job its second nature to them - “The priest becomes a form, the attorney a statue book, the mechanic a machine, the sailor a rope of the ship.”

Another reason the article still is true is because many of us rely on doing the same thing veryday. Many working men and women do the same thing, wake up, go to work, do the same thing at work they have been doing for the last few years, go home and start the cycle all over again the next day. So many Americans today are doing the same thing everyday and not exploring any new possibilities for their lives.

Halloween

Halloween is always the best time of the year – candy, scary movies, candy, dressing up and did I mention all the candy?

One of my favorite scary movies I’ve seen was the original “The Exorcist”, it may be a very old movie but it is a very scary one in my opinion. When I first saw it I couldn’t sleep for the next week and a half, and I usually don’t get scared by movies easily. Another movie that I was horrified of when I was about in the 4th grade was Chucky. I couldn’t stand him he just freaked me out, and every now and then my mom would trick me and tell me to turn the channel to this “cool” show and it would be chucky.

Dressing up isn’t a big thing in my family; I have dressed up as the same thing since I was in the 1st grade. I really don’t mind it as long as I get the candy; it is a skeleton mask with a black cape. (The Grim Reaper) My brother usually buys a new costume every year and never looks at it again after that year Halloween.

My favorite kind of candy is Milky Way’s and Mint Three Musketeer’s, but no one ever pass those out since no one else likes them. I never stay out to get a lot of candy because my next door neighbor gives her left over candy.

This year I didn’t even go tricking treating I went to On The Border for my father’s birthday which is the 31st and rented a free movie because it was his birthday. The movie I rented didn’t keep to the Halloween spirit – it was Land of the Lost, it wasn’t that funny but some parts were. My favorite part was when Will Ferrell said “great now we are stuck here with these things peering into our souls” he was referring to these animals with big eye that were staring at them in this small room.

So overall Halloween is a fun part of the year its beautiful outside and people are happy. It is the one holiday that’s main focus is to give kids lots of candy, which is what makes it such a great holiday.

Balloon Boy

It was October 15, 2009 at 3 o’ clock. I had just gotten home from school and I was flipping through news channels to find some interesting stories for current events. But when I looked through all the channels it was all the same news story. “This just in – there is a 6-year old boy trapped in a giant balloon 2000 feet over Ft. Collins, Colorado.” I was like WHAT!?... I just had to listen to this story.

So on the news reporter went about how this little 6-year old boy climbed into this 20ft wide saucer shaped balloon and floated away in the balloon because the rope holding the balloon down came undone. I was thinking to myself, how could parents not notice the little kid climbing into this crazy balloon? So I had to continue watching this story to see how they were going to get this balloon down from so high up in the sky.

On they went about how getting too close to the balloon with a helicopter would be too risky and how a net would just make it plummet to the ground. So all they were going to do was to let the balloon slowly lose its helium and float gently to the ground. So for the next 45 minutes I watched and filled my dad in on what was happening too.

So after 45 minutes the balloon was falling to the ground near Denver very slowly and rescuers were underneath the balloon ready to catch it and rescue the boy. So when the balloon finally landed 15 minutes later they held down the ropes that came detached, poked holes in the balloon so it couldn’t fly away and were starting to pry open that compartment that the little boy was in.

So finally they opened the compartment, and believe it or not guess what they found in it, NOTHING. I was like huh? You mean I waited an hour and a half to watch a big balloon fly around in the sky. So I quickly changed the channel in disbelief.

Later that night on the Larry King Show, there was an interview with the family about the whole incident, they talked about being worried and how they found the little boy in their attic they happened not to look in. So I thought to myself, oh well I understand why they were so worried… until I heard what the little boy had to say when his father asked him why he was hiding from everyone and didn’t come out when they called him name the little boy responded, “Um…you guys said we did this for the show.”

So now I knew that this isn’t real, although they were on the show “Wife Swap” the little boy would not be talking about that in an interview. So that was pretty much my entire Thursday evening because this story took a while to fully unravel.

The Nobel Peace Prize

In the past week it was announced that Barrack Obama the president of the US has won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Prize committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." And this is my viewpoint about it.

I personally feel Obama should have not won anything; he has been in office for less than a year. The only thing I see he has accomplished is talking with Pakistan and Iran about simple things those two countries could have done by themselves… And another thing is what he did that international in the last 2 months, the only thing I’ve seen him talk about is the Olympics, health care reforms, shortening summer and increasing school years.

Yeah he might of strengthen international diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but how did we get this far, it was the former president that got us that close with Iraq and Afghanistan Obama just finished up the job and took all the credit for the work. Also we think Obama has done a great job because we have had a not so good president for the last eight years and are used to bad leadership from a former president.

Last year’s winner Martti Ahtisaari won for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts. These efforts have contributed to a more peaceful world and to "fraternity between nations" in Alfred Nobel's spirit. – NobelPrizes Now this man really deserved the Peace prize, he tried to make this world right for over three decades. Obama has been in office for only about nine months, and has accomplished very little. Maybe the Nobel Prize committee looked into the future and saw all he accomplishments in the near future.

Obama isn’t a bad person don’t get me wrong, I think he is a great president and will lead America out of this rescission we are in. He just doesn’t need to earn the peace prize… it could have gone to someone with greater will power, and isn’t doing all those things part and responsibly of his job as the president, to lead our country better and helping others around us? Source

Defiance

Over the weekend I saw the movie “Defiance”, it was a movie about three Jewish brothers trying to survive in a Nazi controlled area in a small forest village they constructed with the help of about 1000 other Jewish families just trying to keep alive one day at a time.

This movie taught me a lot of things, not only to value everyday of your life but to enjoy the freedoms we have every day. There were many ways these three brothers faced hardship every day, they had to feed, shelter and protect all of these villagers in a Nazi controlled area, without being noticed by the outside world, and try to build a strong community as well. One of the main factors that helped the village survive was the help from a nearby camp of Russian soldier’s whose goals were to move in and try to reclaim Nazi controlled areas.

One of the main focuses of the story was getting revenge on the Nazi squad that killed and destroyed the three brother’s family and surrounding Jewish people. They used the help from other people around the area that were non-Jewish to cover up and help hide the village from being spotted. I think it was incredible what these three brothers and a few others could try to stop the Nazi’s from over running the entire area they were in.

Eventually all this resistance would make some attention and it eventually did. A non-Jewish friend of the village had told a Nazi official of their whereabouts. It wasn’t long until a squad of about 20 soldiers had tried to invade the village, but the Villagers were ready to defend, with the motivation of surviving and pulling through they fended all 20 off.

“Hope”, this was one of the words that really gave one of the three brothers to start to regain faith in their village that had been destroyed by a bomber. With their village destroyed and many dead they had lost a lot of hope. Eventually they rebuilt about 10 miles north and held out for the next 3 years. Eventually the war had ended and the 3 Brothers had immigrated to America, to live very successful lives.

I would recommend this movie to many people interested in history of WWII, It gave a good perception of an amazing tale of a family and village with an admission to survive and never give up hope in the others around them.

A - Z Poem

A is for Athletic I love to play sports with friends and always try my best to play sports I like such as football!
B is for Baseball, Baseball has to be one of my favorite sports of all time. I grew up playing it with my cousins and loved it then and still love the game today.
C is for Coca-Cola, It is my favorite drink and the only drink I will drink other than juice.
D is for Drawing, I like to draw many things that mean something to me (present) although I’m not a good one.
E is for Energetic, I am full of energy when not in the classroom!
F is for Friends and Family, I like to hang out with them as much as I can!
G is for Grandparents, They are my favorite part of my life.
H is for Helpful, I love to help others in need. I also like to help people when they are sad.
I is for Intelligent, I always try my best to exceed in my academics.
J is for Joker I am always trying to make others laugh and make people just have that much better of a day.
K is for Kind, I always am kind to everyone I meet and never try to be mean.
L is for Laughter, I am always up for a good laugh with friends. I also like to make other people laugh.
M is for Matt, it is my name.
N is for Nice, I am very nice to people, always trying to help people and make them laugh.
O is for Outgoing, I like to go out of my way to help people and become friends with new people.
P is for Pizza, it is one of my favorite foods. I love its greasiness and taste.
Q is for Qdoba, It is my favorite fast food restaurant, it’s even better then Taco Bell.
R is for Running, for exercise I enjoy to run and workout by running.
S is for Sunny, I love it when it is sunny outside, I feel much better during sunny days then cloudy ones.
T is for Trying; I always give my best effort and am always trying to improve inside and outside the classroom!
U is for US; I am very patriotic and love to represent my country.
V is for Video games, I love to play violent video games because they relieve my stress!
W is for Watermelon, It is my favorite kind of fruit to eat.
X is for Xochimilco, It is one of my favorite restaurants of all time located in Detroit, MI.
Y is for Yellow, it is my favorite color, it also reminds of the summer.
Z is for Zoo, the zoo is my favorite place to go during the summer.

A New Beginning

It was 5:30 AM and I could barely open my eyes and I just did not want to wake up… but I knew I had to, so I crawled out of bed and began choosing what to wear for school. I walked into the dark-empty hallway, it was freezing and lifeless. I walked into the kitchen and turned on the lights, shuffling my feet I slowly made my way to the pantry to pour myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. They were very stale from not being eaten since last June but I still managed to eat the entire bowl. After I was finally done I turned on the television and watched the morning news at 6, which was boring but it was the only thing on that early in the morning.

When it came time to leave 20 minutes later I rushed out the door and into the empty world, everyone was asleep and my street was so dark… I felt like it was the last man on earth. I slowly made my way down to the end of the street, to be met with a bunch of sophomores; they did not talk much since it was so early in the morning… When the bus finally arrived at our stop I climbed up the steep staircase and sat in the nearest seat to the two kids who were on my bus last year. We talked about our summer and looked for other kids we knew on the bus.

When we finally got to school I was surprised at the amount of people at the school it was like the entire population of Michigan had gathered at the school. When I got into the school I slowly made my way through the people talking in the hall and found my locker. I put my books away, grabbed a random pencil and went to go find some friends. I found a couple people and talked about how our summer went and what we had done exciting. I was so tired I didn’t really want to talk so I just said “It was good” and listened in on what the others had to say.

When the first bell had rung I rushed to my first hour and was ready to officially start my school year at Stevenson, I knew it was going to be a great school year…

Highschool

My first two weeks in Stevenson so far have been very fun. The first couple of days I was still trying to get the hang of the school and get to know the physical layout of the school still. I caught up with a couple of friends and met a few new ones too.

After those first couple of days of finding my classes and barely making it to class on time I had a set patterns and a set route to get to each class and it became a lot easier. Also after my first week of school things have gotten to be a lot tougher than the first week, since the teachers and students are getting into the groove of the regular school schedule. My school assignments have gotten a lot tougher too, I usually have about an hour to an hour and a half of homework every night compared to what I had last year back in middle school of about half an hour to forty-five minutes. Also the difficulty of the homework… I used to breeze by all of the homework and now I really have to try and think hard to get full credit for my assignments and tests.

The extra schools activities have also been exciting…last year the only after school activities we had were little parties now we are having many dances and meetings to get to experience the school in a whole different kind of way! My first outside school activity I went to was the Freshman dance which was very fun. There were many people I haven't seen in forever and many people I already knew!
Overall my experience so far at Steven has been a blast and I can not wait for what the rest of the year has for me.

Overall my experience so far at Steven has been a blast and I cannot wait for what the rest of the year has for me.