Class Participation

For my class participation grade, I think I should get a 90 % because I answer a lot of questions, but I am a distraction to the class.

LLAMAS!!!

Today in class, we continued to watch the movie about Jared Diamond’s book called Guns, Germs, and Steel.  I think we are done watching it now because Mr. Schick stopped it right after Jared Diamond said his idea.  We learned about what animals can be domesticated.  Out of over 100 animals, only 14 can be domesticated.  Some of them are horses, cattle, yak, water buffalo, llamas, and, of course, Mr. Schick’s goats.   At the beginning of class, we started talking about what teacher we have for Western Civilization next semester.  The only reason I don’t want this semester to end is because I really like my Human Geo class.  Some of the people in my class don’t have Mr. Schick again, but I do.  I hope I have most of the people from the class I have now in the class I have next semester! 

GOATS!!!

Today in class we watched more of Guns, Germs, and Steel.  Mr. Schick tried to scare our class today.  We watched the part of the movie where people are hunting deer again and Mr. Schick screamed just to scare us.  After that, we continued with the movie and found out about farming around the world.  In the Americas, people grow corn.  In Africa, they grow yams and in China they grow rice.  In Papua New Guinea, they can only grow two crops.  One of which is Sego and takes a very long to grow and harvest.  We also found out that Mr. Schick likes goats.  He kept stopping the video whenever there was a goat.  Most of the times, the goat was smiling.  I think I’m going to get Mr. Schick a goat for Christmas next year!

Friday

In class on Friday, we started watching a documentary on Guns, Germs, and Steel.  We got to see what Jared Diamond looks like and we got to hear his voice.  I think the people of Papua New Guinea are very skilled.  There is no way that people like us could survive in the wild without anything.  We are so used to being able to walk to the vending machines and buy a bag of chips that we wouldn’t be able to find anything to eat if we were stranded in the woods.  Unlike the people of Papua New Guinea, we have also had homes our whole live and we didn’t have to build them ourselves.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

I think Mr. Schick wants us to learn about Jared Diamond because he is a 75-year-old scientist.  He is from Boston, Massachusetts and went to school at Harvard University.  Now, he teaches at UCLA in Las Angeles California.  He studied Ornithology and Anthropology.  He also has a P.H.D. in philosophy and geography.  Jared Diamond wrote several books.  One of which is a best seller.  This book is called Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society.  He went to Papua New Guinea to study exotic birds.  Instead, he ended up studying the way the people there lived.  He has traveled all over the world.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society is one of the bestselling books that Jared Diamond wrote.  It was written in 1997.  This book was so good that it won the highest award that books can receive.  This award is called the Pulitzer Prize.  This book has also been made into a documentary or a movie.  The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations have survived conquered others.  I don’t know why the book has the title that is does.  I hope Mr. Schick will tell us tomorrow.

Exam Review

This is the first blog I've done in over a long time and I don’t know why!  Anyway, today in class, we started reviewing for the exam.  I kept raising my hand because I knew the answer, but Mr. Schick wouldn't call on me!  He looked at me and called on the person that was next to me.  I got really mad!  We were reviewing stuff from the beginning of the year and I totally forgot we learned that stuff.  When Cole started talking about it, I immediately remembered.  It was really strange.  I didn't talk much in class today.  This happens very rarely!  For some reason, I haven’t been myself lately.  Some of the class I was freaking out because after the class after Human Geo (if that makes any sense), I had to audition for Aladdin and I was really scared!  Mr. Schick told us that we have to use our blogs to study for the exam on Monday.  I think I’m in pretty big trouble because I don’t think that my blogs are that great.

Vocab.

Capitalism- an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Communism- a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

Free Enterprise-an economic and political doctrine holding that a capitalist economy can regulate itself in a freely competitive market through the relationship of supply and demand with a minimum of governmental intervention and regulation.

Free Market- an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.