Scramble for Africa

I was the Netherlands or purple when I played this game. Sameet, my partner, and I were trying to take control of important passes in Africa. For example we took control of The Strait of Gibraltar and the Bab-El-Maneb. Even with our small number of dice, we were not only able to take control of this but also a small part of the Congo Basin and a small part of lake Tanganyika. We also took a part of Madagascar which had a lot of precipitation and good planting areas. Altogether although we were aiming for much more we did still get some important parts.

The Winner- this really depends on how you think about it. If you were to choose the group with the most natural resources then France would win, but if you looked for the most strategical points then either The Netherlands or Great Britain could have won. So you see it all really depends on how you look at it and then decide.
The Loser- although this really depends on the way you look at it too, it seems like either of Portugal, Spain, or Belgium must be the losers. They all had ok land but not as good as expected.

Five themes of geography

The mnemonic MR. HELP really will help you remember the five themes of geography which are:

• Movement-how people, goods and ideas move from one place to another.
• Region-groups of things that have something to do with one another.
• HE (Human Environment Interaction)- how we relate to and work well with the physical things around us.
• Location-absolute meaning exact (longitude, latitude) or relative meaning close (next to..., near..., under..., etc.)
• Place-description of the place you are in.

These themes are cannot only be used in geography but also in literature. For example in the novel A girl named disaster here are a few examples:

• Movement-The trading post mentioned on pages 46-75
• Region-all the villages (no specific page/pages)
• Human Environment Interaction: the waves (no specific page/pages)
• Location: Relative: somewhere in Mozambique (no page/pages)
• Place: Near and on Lake Cabora Bassa on page 113
  

Cartoon Analysis

This cartoon is trying to show how england is trying to take full control of the world and has very imperialistic ideas. Visual elements like the arms, hands, and countries show this control that the center country, england, has. The author is trying to show that england is acting like an octopus, using its multiple arms to take over multiple countries. The author does not put this objective of englands in a positive light. One can figure this out using visual elements. The animal he used, an octopus, is not commonly used as a good animal as much as it is used as a bad animal. That one visual element gives a type of negative light on the whole cartoon. Also the whole idea of conquering has always been negative. If you look at it carefully it looks like the octopus has more control over those two center countries then any of the other countries. For real control the author could have used more of a grasp than just placing the hands there.

Violence leads to more violence

Here are a couple of examples showoing how violence leads to violence:

• Once the mental violence or hatred for Caesar had begun in Cassius' mind the real violence took place when the conspirators killed Caesar. Then the speech that Antony gave made even more violence since the plebians killed a helpless poet because he had the same name as a conspirators. Finally a war sprung out and even more violence had begun.
• Really any war, begins with one group attacking another. Since the other group wants revenge, they attack, and soon enough a whole war is started.
• At my house, my friend always picks on and teases this other guy. Soon enough this guy gets really mad and tries to beat up the guy who teases him. Although he doesn't succeed, it is still a situation which does show violence creating more violence.

This is a sad truth but a true statement anyway.

Leadership/Leaders

A good leader should have at least some of the following qualities:

• He/she should be able to listen to others not only talk, talk, and talk



• He/she should be well organized and ready to share ideas



• He/she should be able to share ideas as well as bring out those hidden ideas in the group



• He/she should be able to bring out those quiet voices that have good but unheard ideas



• He/she should be able to identify the problem a group is facing and fix it



• Not only these but many more.

I think the following people are already leaders in the grade eight community:

• Me



• Lucas



• Joel



• Phillipe



• Avi



• and probably many others who have not risen yet

Most of the people who I listed do demonstrate some of those qualities but none of them demonstrate all. This is probably good because, only all of these people combined will create the ideal leader. Not only these 8th graders but probably many adults and maybe even a little bit from everyone on earth. You'll probably need all of this and much more to create the perfect leader.

Pic. from: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/january11/gifs/mlk.jpg

First Quarter: Challenging Stuff

The piece that I found most challenging is the interview. I have never been a very good writer and the interview format was very new for me. Obviously this made it a lot harder for me to be able to write this piece well. Eventually I did not have a lot of trouble but it did end up quite a problem for me.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:
I was surprised to find out that such an intelligent scholar was born in a simple middle class family. Karl Marx’s full name was Karl Heinrich Marx and he was bron in Trier, in the Kingdom of Prussia’s province of the Lower Rhine. He was the third of seven children of Hienrich and Hienrietta; Sophie and Hermann were older than Karl while Henriette, Louise, Emilie and Caroline were younger. Karl’s father, Hienrich, was born as a Jew having actually descended from a long line of rabbis. However, because the Prussian authoroties did not allow him to practice law as a Jew, Hienrich had to baptise and become Christian so that he could continue practicing law. He not only changed his religion but also had to change his name from Herschel Mordechai to Hienrich Marx. Karl’s marriage also seemed to be an interesting subject, but I wanted to hear that from the horses mouth itself.
This paragraph was one of the hardest for me.

First Quarter: Proud Stuff

Out of all the things I have done in first quarter, I am most proud of the final part of the Industrial Revolution project. I worked very hard on that project. I took it home and finished the two main pages, the cover, the title, and the bibliography. Although my partners did help me I still think that I did the most work on this project. After all I spent about 3-4 hours two night s in a row so I think I deserve a lot of credit. Also I was the one who edited that video after school so I think I deserve credit for that too. Over all I think that my partners do deserve some credit, I just deserve a little bit more.
Here is an excerpt from the expository piece:
The concepts of Socialism and Communism began to spread during the 19th century, almost at the same time when the Industrial Revolution was spreading across Europe. One of the greatest philosophers of that time, Karl Marx, along with his friend, Friedrich Engels, developed the philosophy of Communism, and in 1848 published the Communist Manifesto, which became “Bible” for communists. In Karl Marx’s words, Communism is: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Thus, Communism is a type of society that is based on equality and no competition. Marx and Engels saw that the working class, the Proletariat, was being taken advantage of by the upper class, the Bourgeoisie. Noticing this they ‘called’ upon the Proletariat to overthrow the social order and create a classless society. They wanted the Proletariat to create a new world: a Communist world! An intermediate form of Communism, called Socialism, was based on the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

WOW and its benefits

WOW or Week withOut Walls is a very important learning experience. Not only does it teach us to tough it out when you are not in the ideal world you usually are in, but it teaches you teamwork, responsibility, time management and many other things. For example, rafting through the dangerous rapids requires a lot of team work since you can only make it through if everyone workd together. Also you have to be extremely responsible as you may lose a valuable object, like a mobile or i-Pod, as well as make some type of mistake, which you were warned against, and put yourself or someone else in danger of some sort. Now where does time management come in? Well, being on time is not only a major holdback for the group but also a major hold back for you. Being on time is a very important thing, since a lot of things depend on whether you are on time. Some such things could be, whether you have enough time to do the activity planned or not, whether you missed something important that might impact your safety, or some thing else like that. Teamwork, responsibility, and time management are just some of the skills you learn on WOW that you may not be able to learn during school. There are many others but then again I could take a week writing about all of them, and I’m sure you would not want to read that much, right?

Pic. From: http://www.himalayanadventure.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/river-rafting.jpg

End of Quarter Assessment

I think that I have met my goals, but I have not succesfully accomplished either of them yet. I think along with these goals I will set new goals for the next quarter. Some of those goals include:

• Better self editing
• Better reasearch skills, like spending more time researching and researching more thouroughly
• Improve paragraphing and dividing the writing into different groups

Thats about it!

The Rise of Socialism and Communism

The concepts of Socialism and Communism began to spread during the 19th century, almost at the same time when the Industrial Revolution was spreading across Europe. One of the greatest philosophers of that time, Karl Marx, along with his friend, Friedrich Engels, developed the philosophy of Communism, and in 1848 published the Communist Manifesto, which became “Bible” for communists. In Karl Marx’s words, Communism is: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Thus, Communism is a type of society that is based on equality and no competition. Marx and Engels saw that the working class, the Proletariat, was being taken advantage of by the upper class, the Bourgeoisie. Noticing this they ‘called’ upon the Proletariat to overthrow the social order and create a classless society. They wanted the Proletariat to create a new world: a Communist world! An intermediate form of Communism, called Socialism, was based on the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”
To summarize, in a pure Communist world the government would control everything and everyone would get what he or she needed. But, in a Socialist world the government would own most of the “businesses,” some are still privately owned, and those who commit to the society will earn based on that commitment.