Semester Reflection

I have learned many new things in my first semester of Global ED English class, especially new things that I probably wouldn’t have learned in a normal English class.

One of my very first things I learned to do was my weekly articles, I remember sitting at my computer trying to think of good ideas to help get my point across. It was only after the first weekly article where I finally got the hang of writing them properly and persuasively, all the thanks to Mr. Fielder’s great way of teaching us how to type our paper properly, by going through each paragraph with us one at a time.

Another thing I learned is how to view things at many different perspectives. One way that really helped me look at things in many different ways was listening to the “The Man in the Well” story, which really got me thinking of what the author was truly trying to get across to his readers/listeners. It really helped me when Mr. Fielder had a large class discussion on what others thought the author was trying say, everyone had their own little ideas and thoughts about what the author was trying to tell.

I learned very much about the Rwandan genocide. We had many class discussions about the genocide ranging from what we all had to say about one faction that took part in the genocide to what they were fighting over. One way we got to learn about the genocide was the debate, we each had an assigned group (U.S., U.N., MRND, Belgium, etc.) and debated over who truly started the genocide. Also when we had all of our facts known about the genocide Mr. Fielder had us write a letter acting as if we were in Paul R.’s (A person who experienced the genocide first hand) situation. When we wrote the letter it really helped me improve on my writing skills and taught me about pathos, ethos, transitions, and good supporting paragraphs. It also had us took what we already know about writing and just put it all together in one good paper.

Did you know Aborigines of Australia were mistreated for hundreds of years? That’s just one of the thing that I learned about the history of Australia, The aborigine people were mistreated and abused for centuries, ever since Europeans had first settled in Australia. Only recently have the Aborigine people gotten their rights back, but before that they used to be fenced off from the other half of Australia and the Europeans settlers had tried to breed out their heritage so there would be no remembrance of them. One way we learned about Australia was from watching “Rabbit Proof Fence” which told the story of 3 young children being taken away from their family and their mission to be reunited with their family once more.

Those are just some of the things I learned over my first semester, hopefully next semester I can learn even more!

Natives - Who would I be...?

If I was a native to any country we have learned about, I would be a native to Australia.

I would be an Aborigine of Australia because unlike the rwandans and the natives, they did not end up dead hurt in wars, the aborigines have just been moved/relocated to another part of their orignal country. Also they have been around for thousands of years, many tribes and native groups only last around 100 - 1000 years.

In South Africa, the original settlers were overrun by the british and other europeans. People may say that they werent treated that poorly and just were moved, but there was major overcrowding due to the goldrush and the natives could not buy any land in the region they were left with. People would also say that the disease in Australia was horrible and not worth it, it would only take one generation to evolve and make themselves born being immune to the disease.

Christmas Break

Christmas break is the best time of the school year... 3 weeks off from school, what else could be better besides summer vacation.

Over the break I really didn’t do too much I laid around and played my PS3, just waiting for Christmas to come around so I would get some new games. Right before Christmas I watched all my old movies that I hadn’t seen in a while, Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, I rented Inglorious Basterds and rented the game Borderlands.

On Christmas eve I always go to my neighbors, this year was like all the rest sitting around talking with random people I don’t know, the only good thing about that party is the food and lpaying with all their dogs they had at the time!

When Christmas day came up I was pretty excited since I knew everything what I was going to get, I knew this because I only wanted a few things this Christmas, and I got Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the best Nintendo DS game ever created by man, Scribblenauts. When I went to my grandma’s house for Christmas dinner I got the normal gifts which were clothes, but it didn’t matter to me because my grandma always makes the best food for Christmas!

After Christmas day the rest of the week went by pretty fast, probably because I was so determined to hit first prestige in CoDMW2, and watching some more movies that I got for Christmas. After a while I got bored and used my AMC movie gift card and saw Avatar which was a pretty good movie, but not worth all the money that was put into making the actual movie itself.( $280–310 million to produce!)

The Sunday before school started I was pretty down I had to finish up all my homework and had to prepare for the morning ahead- I had to change my alarm clock form 11am back to 5:45am which was pretty bad. Plus I knew the next morning I would be extremely tired knowing I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep from staying up until 3am every morning. Also the fact then we had to start school all together, get up early, and get piled with homework and studying, but especially the homework.