Best Tuesday Ever!

FINALLY BREAK IS HERE! I'm so happy I could do a double back flip, but I won't because I would end up breaking my neck... But either than that I'm so so so happy! Just the thought of being able to sleep in tomorrow morning makes me smile! Today in class we all just chilled and listened to music and worked on stuff. I ended up working on creating a William Shakspeare Facebook page for my English class. It turns out Will's favorite movie is Twilight! I guess he has a thing for love stories, except Bella and Edward have a happy ending unlike Romeo and Juliet. Maybe in his eyes there love was beautifully tragic and that's the best love story of all. Anyways I'm about to go to the Senior Variety Show! YAY! Well I'm actually being forced to go by my parents since my sister is in it. I hope she does well with her dance routine. And that's about it! I'm off to enjoy my break :) PEACE OUT!

I am EXTREMELY Close to Smashing my Laptop!

Okay, so here’s the deal: I HATE MY COMPUTER! I am seriously going to throw it out a window, hit it with a sledge hammer, run over it with a 100 gallon cement truck, and burn it with a flame thrower. Did I get my point across? What happened was my computer decided not to load, as usual. And Alyssa’s laptop wasn’t charged so she had to use my laptop. Eventually we got my laptop to work after many harsh words were exchanged between the computer and me. The entire class was in charge of contributing a slide to a PowerPoint on microfinance. Let me just say ours was the best! It was simple yet it had excellent information. I even came up with the word microentrepeneurs! Not to mention Alyssa and I did our slide in half the time everyone else did considering we were dealing with technical issues. We are totally going to get an A! By the way I really think we shouldn’t do a PowerPoint with the entire class again! No one can work for five seconds without someone changing the background black!

All I Can Say is Catching Fire is AH MA ZING!

I am so so so so so so so happy one of my family members reminded me to do my blog from yesterday! Since it technically isn’t due until 12:00 I still have a solid 40 some minutes to complete my post, and I doubt it will take that long. Yesterday we continued on our Peace Corps challenge and Alyssa and I saved the tribe of Wazuzu! That deserves a happy dance. Then we basically listened to music and sang off key. Overall it was an awesome class! We should totally do this more often, seriously! I can’t really think of anything else to talk about, but I did have an amazing last couple of days because I saw The Hunger Games: Catching Fire! It was life changing and beyond perfect! I mean the visual effects were stunning and they captured the beauty of the book and were able to transfer it on screen! Plus who wouldn’t want to see Josh Hutcherson! ;)

Worst Luck Wednesday

Let me say this, I have probably hard the worst luck this Wednesday! First thing this morning while I’m bringing in my canned good the bag breaks on the staircase! There were cans going every which way! The worst part: my sister, Tia, didn’t even help me! Then I had an earth science test that didn’t go to well. I don’t know what I got yet, but I have a bad feeling about it. When human geo came I spent a good half of the class in the tech lab trying to fix my laptop again. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it! There has to be something wrong with my laptop because everyone else’s WIFI is working just fine! I finally returned to class after it seemed like my computer was fixed, but it turns out when I returned to class my WIFI didn’t work! I shouldn’t be surprised. On the bright side Alyssa and I worked on the Peace Corps challenge and saved the small village of Wazuzu! Plus we got to listen to music! We should do stuff like that way more often! 

Praise the Lord!

Thank goodness I got a good grade on the world leaders test! The majority of my class didn’t do too well! I got a 97% so I’m beyond happy about it! Only one other person got a good grade in my class, and they kind of lost it and did a major happy dance. I mean I guess you can be happy about getting a good grade, but you shouldn’t be vulgar about it. It turns out that when reviewing the test the most common error was misreading the question. There was only one question that wasn’t on the PowerPoint that was made for our help. I made a lucky guess about which world leader was nicknamed “Bibi.” Coming up we are going to learn more about Economic Geography. I look forward to learning more about microfinance and the Peace Corps. It seems like it’s going to be an interesting topic to get into! 

Peace Corps. is Amazing!

Happy Monday! I can’t believe that this semester is almost over, which means I will have to move onto a new teacher! It’s very bittersweet! But on the bright side Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner! Today we discussed microloans. It’s really cool how that works. There no down side to it! You lend your money to a building business and this helps that person get on their feet and help their own community out. Plus, you get paid back! It’s like a cycle of never ending helping! It’s a win win! We discussed the Peace Corps and what they do. I really love the idea of going around the world and giving help o those who need it. I almost like the idea of joining it. Just being able to help all those people, and making a difference in their lives would be amazing. There is so much we can do to help the world, so why not go to these places in need and help out?

Blog #2!

So now I’m making sure I post my blog today, so I’m doing it while everyone is finishing up their test! Praise the Lord from Heaven above the test/quiz was open note, well open “blog.” I was nervous all day long about this quiz! I think I did really well, and if I had to guess I think the only one I got wrong was which leader had the nickname “Bibi.” I couldn’t find the answer on my blog anywhere! Oh well either than that I believe I did excellent! If I had one suggestion for the quiz is that the lines were long for my answers! Do you know how hard it is to fit “King and Prime Minister Abdullahbin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud” on one tiny line?  Try saying that fast five times! In the end I believe today was one of success not just in this class but others as well!

So I Kinda Forgot to Blog...

So I may or may not have forgotten to blog last night. Okay well I did, but it’s only because I got carried away studying for two tests and a bunch of other homework! I especially studied for our test today (hooray.) Yet I’m still very nervous I won’t do well. It seems like there are thousands of world leaders and then we have to know what kind of government they have and what impacted their lives and a bunch of other stuff that makes my head spin. Does it seem like I’m stressed? SPOILER ALERT! I AM! I know we have had a few days to study and I have been reviewing, it’s just when the day of the test comes I start to have a panic attack! Oh and I do plan on posting another blog today, because I making up for yesterday’s blog. But yesterday I found out our class has very strong opinions on women’s’ rights! Woman rule! Enough said!

My Inspiration

Today in first mod human geography, we went over more about world leaders! It turns out a lot of these people are very interesting, and others are sort of boring. It’s crazy how some of the people were inspired to become leaders even though their countries were against them. Like Dilma Rossuff the leader of Brazil, she never gave up trying to save her country even though they had tortured her brutally. She remained strong and never stopped fighting for the Brazil she believed was there. Dillma is a true inspiration! I wish we had someone like her running the United States of America. We have a test Wednesday that I’m not looking forward to. It just seems like there is too much information for my brain to take in! I’m going to start studying right away! By the way I really don’t like my seat in human geography due to the fact I can’t see that well in the back and that there are people that don’t know when to shut their mouths. Hopefully I can get a new seat soon!

A Very Long List of What Inspired These Leaders to become the People They Are Today!

President Enrique Peña Nieto (Mexico)

·       Enrique Peña Nieto said that he became interested in politics during elementary school, when he was picked as class leader (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/enrique_pena_nieto/index.html)

·       Around 1981, the fifteen-year-old Peña Nieto had his first direct contact with Mexican politics. He then began delivering propaganda in favor of his relative who was running, a memory Peña Nieto still recalls as the turning point and start of his deep interest in politics. (http://www.excelsior.com.mx/node/830745)

President XI Jinping (China)

·       His father, Xi Zhongxun, was a contributor to bringing about the social revolution and a revolutionary leader. (http://www.rferl.org/content/china-profile-xi-jinping/24764283.html)

·       He rose through China's political ranks swiftly, serving for three years as a provincial governor, then as a provincial Party chief, and in 2007 as Hu Jinato's successor (http://contextchina.com/2012/11/ten-facts-about-chinas-incoming-leader-xi-jinping/)

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (India)

·       He played an important role in helping India's economy while serving as the Minister of Finance.

·       He worked for the United Nations after receiving an Ph.D. from Oxford University.

President Hamid Karzai (Afghanistan)

 Led the resistance during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s (http://news.yahoo.com/facts-afghan-president-hamid-karzai-215600163.html)

·       When the Taliban took control of the country, it offered him the U.N. ambassadorship. He declined and fled to Pakistan when the Taliban began working with foreign terrorists (http://news.yahoo.com/facts-afghan-president-hamid-karzai-215600163.html)

Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany)

·       Merkel was a member of the Free German Youth, the official youth movement sponsored by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-67682698.html)

·       While a student, she participated in the reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritzbastei, a project students initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on campus, this was something she was passionate about. (http://www.biography.com/people/angela-merkel-9406424)

Prime Minister David Cameron (United Kingdom)

·       Once he became head of Britain's Conservative party, Cameron sought to modernize it and shed its right-wing image (http://www.biography.com/people/david-cameron-39203)

·       In 1991, Cameron began briefing then-Prime Minister John Major, and the following year he was promoted as special adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont (http://www.biography.com/people/david-cameron-39203)

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (France)

·       Ayrault was a member of a movement of young Christians in rural areas (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18070495)

·       He joined the Socialist Party (PS) after the 1971 Epinay Congress during which François Mitterrand took the party leadership (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18070495)

President Dilma Rousseff (Brazil)

·       She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was eventually captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972, where she was reportedly tortured (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103104552.html)

·       Wanting to make a difference for the country she loved, even though they had supposedly tortured her, she still went after becoming a part of the government to make a change for the better (http://www.aboutbrasil.com/modules/brazil-brasil/Quick_facts_About_Brasil_Brazil.php?hoofd=9&sub=50&art=1043)

President Nicolas Maduro Moros (Venezuela)

·       Nicolás Maduro was born on 23 November 1962 in Caracas, Venezuela, the son of a union leader. (http://www.elmundo.com.ve/noticias/actualidad/politica/perfil---nicolas-maduro-cruzo-la-calle.aspx)

·       His first introduction to politics was when he became a member of his high school's student union (http://www.elmundo.com.ve/noticias/actualidad/politica/perfil---nicolas-maduro-cruzo-la-calle.aspx)

King and Prime Minister Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)

·       He is the tenth son of King Abdulaziz (http://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/)

·       Helped create the Allegiance Authority, a committee of princes who vote on the eligibility of future monarchs and crown princes (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/28/world/meast/king-abdullah-bin-abdulaziz-al-saud---fast-facts/)

President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani (Iran)

·       As a young cleric Hassan Rouhani started his political activities by following the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the beginning of the Iranian Islamist movement (Rouhani, Hassan (2008). Memoirs of Hassan Rouhani; Vol. 1: The Islamic Revolution (in Persian). Tehran, Iran: Center for Strategic Research)

·       In 1965, he began traveling throughout Iran making speeches against the government of the Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the king of Iran (http://www.biography.com/people/hassan-rouhani-21313175)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel)

·       Netanyahu became leader of the Likud party in 1993 and continued working with Likud ever since (http://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-netanyahu-9421908)

·       In 1967, Benjamin went to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces' elite unit, "Sayeret Matkal," and took part in a lot of military operations, including the 1972 rescue of a hijacked Sebana airplane (http://www.biography.com/people/benjamin-netanyahu-9421908)

A List of Countries, Their Type of Government, &Their Leaders!

Assignment #1

(*Images go with the text above it*)

Mexico

• Federal Republic
• President Enrique Pena Nieto
• He was the eldest of four siblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique Peña del Mazo, was an engineer for the electric company and his mother, María del Socorro Nieto, a schoolteacher.
• Reports that he fathered two children in extramarital affairs while his wife Monica raised the couple’s 3 children, plus the investigation into the sudden death of his wife at home in 2007, have prompted many to call him the Teflon candidate because trouble seems to slide off him. 
• Two years later he announced his engagement to soap opera actor Angelica Rivera.  Rivera became his wife in a star-studded wedding ceremony two years ago and is now the first lady of Mexico. 

China

• Communist State
• President XI Jinping
• • Xi Jinping is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers.
  • He married folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also holds the rank of army general, in 1987. To many in China, Ms. Peng was the better-known half of the couple before Xi Jinping became leader of the Communist Party.
  • The couple have a daughter named Xi Mingze, who is studying at Harvard University in the US.

India

• Federal Republic
• President Pranab Mukherjee
• • He taught Political Science at the Vidiyanagar College, and worked as a journalist before entering politics.
  • Mukherjee was rated as one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was adjudged the best parliamentarian in 1997.
  • He had a conflict withRajiv Gandhi (who took over as Prime Minister from his mother Indira after she was assassinated in 1984) and started his own party – Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress.

Afghanistan

• Islamic Republic
• President Hamid Karzai
• He emerged as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine the regime.
• He is well versed in several languages, including his native Peshto, Persian, Hindi, French, and English.
• Several times in 2001, Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but his warnings went unheeded.

Germany

• Federal Republic
• Chancellor Angela Merkel & President Joachim Gauck
• Graduated from University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics and physical chemistry; earned a PhD in quantum chemistry from the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1986
• Has been Chancellor since November 2005
• Merkel has earned the top spot on the FORBES list of Most Powerful Women In The World for eight of the past 10 years.

United Kingdom

• Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm
• Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth II
• At the age of seven, the young Cameron was packed off to Heatherdown, a highly exclusive preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and Andrew among its pupils. Then, following in the family tradition, came Eton, Britain’s top private school.
• His first child, Ivan, who was born profoundly disabled and needed round the clock care, died in February 2009.
• The experience of caring for Ivan and witnessing at first hand the dedication of NHS hospital staff, is said by friends to have broadened Mr Cameron's horizons. He had, friends say, led an almost charmed life to that point.
• Cameron is the youngest Prime Minister (43 when he took office) in over 200 years.
• 
  
• Elizabeth became queen on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953.  Her reign has lasted 60 years - and counting.. 

France

• Republic
• Francois Hollande
• Hollande has no previous experience in a national government position.
• The mother of his four children is Ségolène Royal, with whom he shared a 30-year relationship.
• He was born in 1954 in the city of Rouen to an extreme-right physician father and progressive social worker mother.  

Brazil

• Federal Republic
• President Dilma Rousseff
• She opposed to Brazil's dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s, and served three years in prison, where she was repeatedly tortured
• She has been divorced twice.
• She has a degree in economics, and now rules the country with the eight-biggest economy in the world.
• She underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma in 2009, and is now in remission.

Venezuela

• Federal Republic
• President Nicolas Maduro Moros
• Nicolás Maduro Moros worked as a bus driver before becoming politically active in the early 1990s. 
• Maduro was introduced to Hugo Chávez in 1992, after Chávez and other disenchanted members of the military were imprisoned for an attempted coup and Maduro began campaigning for  Chávez's release. (Chávez was released in 1994 and won election to the presidency four years later.)
• After President Chávez won a third term in October 2012, he selected Maduro to serve as vice president. Maduro worked alongside the outspoken president, serving as one of his closest advisers as well as a loyal spokesman, until Chávez's death at 58 on March 5, 2013, from cancer.
• 
  

Saudi Arabia

• Monarchy
• King and Prime Minister Abdullahbin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud
• He has fathered 22 children, the youngest when he was 79.
• He is worth approximately 21 billion dollars.
• He was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still holding when he became king.
• In November 2007, King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict in the Apostolic Palace. He is the first Saudi monarch to visit the Pope.  In March 2008, he called for a “brotherly and sincere dialogue between believers from all religions.”
• In 2011 he granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving (the only country in the world with such a ban).

Iran

• Theocratic Republic
• Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, and President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani
• Ruhani-
• Mr Rouhani has held several parliamentary posts, including deputy speaker and has also served on the Supreme National Security Council.
• Was just elected President of Iran - June 2013
• He has been openly critical of the outgoing president, saying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "careless, uncalculated and unstudied remarks" have cost the country dearly.
• Khamenei-
• In 1963, took part in street protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. After the uprising was quashed, Khamenei was exiled. Khamenei was imprisoned multiple times and, in 1975, was internally exiled to a remote region in southeastern Iran.
• Was elected President of Iran in 1981 and re-elected in 1985.  Became Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989.
• 
  

Israel

• Parliamentary Democracy
• Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu & President Shimon Peres
• Netanyahu-
• As a child and youth he lived with his family in the US in the years 1956-58 and again in 1963-67
• After his brother Jonathan (Yonni) was killed, in July 1976, in the course of the Entebbe Operation, of which he was one of the commanders, Netanyahu returned to Israel and started to advocate international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
• Quote: "There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the State of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred."
• Peres-
• Shimon Peres was born in Belarus. To escape the persecution of Jews there, the family fled to Palestine in 1934. 
• When Arab forces launched their attack on the new state of Israel in 1948, Peres was given the chief responsibility for securing military equipment for Israel from abroad. 
• Later he organized Israel's nuclear program and is regarded as the father of Israel's atomic bomb.
• As Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres was in charge of the Israeli negotiations during peace talks with the Palestinians.  In the autumn of 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his own Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The End :)

I got an A again! I think...

Mondays are not fun at all! The first thing that happened in human geography was the retest for the Cultural Geography, even though I got a 93 the first time. But we all had to retake it so that meant I did too. The test was a breeze, and I think I may have done better than last time! The reason I don’t know is because I had to take my computer to IT Support because it decided to hate me on this particular Monday. But I did find out when I returned from IT Support that I got a bell ring so I must have gotten an ‘A.’ Anyways, after that we moved on to a new topic! We began talking about three words. Country. Nation. State. A country is a geographical land, where we can see the lines on a map. A nation is a group with something in common. A State is a political group. It’s as simple as that, but I can’t help but think it’s going to get way more complicated. 

Hooray for my A :)

I was so prepared for the quiz today! Well sort of. I got home really late last night from hanging out with my friends, and I still had homework to do for my earth science class. Eventually I finished my six page paper on some German scientists whose name I can’t pronounce. But when I started studying for human geography my eyes lids kept closing. This went on for about a half hour until my dad told me to go to bed around twelve. This morning my mom’s alarm clock didn't go off so I was an hour late for school. But on the way to school I successfully studied all my notes! So I guess it worked out in the end. We’re going to get our tests back shortly, because they are being graded as I type this.  Drum roll please! I got an ‘A’! A 93% to be exact! That totally made my raining day!