Great Powers Game Debrief

I was the Ottoman Empire in the game. At the start of the game we were one of the weakest countries. Because we felt that it is very important for everything to be equal when buying, we usually did not by many colonies and therefore did not have a rapidly growing economy. But as the game progressed we did have a change in our economy. Also at the start Great Britain and the USA were the most powerful countries. I recognized this immediately and started trying to become allies with both very quickly. Soon enough though, I had to break allegiance with the USA because of a huge war that Great Britain had a huge advantage in. After the war we though that it is most important for us to restock our army therefore we did not buy many industries. I do not think that during the whole game only one thing was most important to buy than the other, but it changed as the game continued. Also our allegiances never really did hurt us, but mostly helped us in gaining more economy. Because we were always on the winning side of the wars, we always got a share of the gain and never lost much except for the armies used in the war.
I learned many things about conflict from this game. Firstly, I learned that during any type of conflict, no one is to be trusted. Also, many conflicts only arise because of economical gain. Third but not last, I learned that the strongest in the beginning of a conflict is not always the winner in the end. Great Britain and the USA were both weaker than us in the end, Great Britain with only 8 economic points!

End of Quarter 2 Feedback

For Quarter 2 I had the following goals:

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

I do think that I improved on my first and second goal, but I did not get a lot of time to work on the third goal so this will remain one of my goals for 3rd quarter. These are the goals that I will have for 3rd Quarter:

• Having no small, punctuational or conventional mistakes
• Improve paragraphing and dividing the writing into different groups
• Improving and learning some new video editing techniques
• Being able to put together a interesting and fun script for a play or video presentation

Hotel Rwanda

I will be answering question #2: How did individuals, groups of people, and the world community fail the people of Rwanda?

Well they failed them greatly. For one, the Belgian UN guards eventually abandoned them. Some people who were foreign actually wanted to help but were forced away. When the intervention force arrived, they gave so many Rwandans the hope they needed. But there were only an intervention force to those lucky foreigners. Most of those foreigners wanted to stay and help but were forced out of the country. The foolish intervention force, just came to protect their own people not those who actually needed protection. That is just some of the ways. The newscaster, when he sent that footage, well it was able to get on the newscast, but did it help? Did all these people come to help the Rwandans in the struggle they are having to deal with? The simple answers: no. No one came to help, no one came to intervene, no one helped those who really needed help. That is how the world and everyone who could help failed the Rwandans. The only person who helped was the person Paul called in Britain. He helped but he was the only one, while the rest of the world let them down.

Africa Footstep Cartoon

Obviously, the main visual elements is a giant footstep on a black shape of Africa. The cartoon is trying to show that the Europeans really left there mark on Africa. The author does not seem to have an opinion on whether it is good or bad, just that they had huge impact and it can still be seen. Now it is not obvious that it the Europeans were the ones who made the impact but it was probably someone who had taken control of Africa at one point or another. Maybe this point could have been more clear, because it is not very obvious that somebody had made a impact/left there mark, and the cartoon could be misunderstood if one did not know about Imperialism. I mean to say that I interpreted this cartoon the way I did because I was learning about imperialism now, but if someone else interpreted this cartoon it could have been quite a bit difference. If the author really was trying to say what I thought he had to say, then he/she should have made it more clear.

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.