Refugee Camp

On Friday, the senior class went to visit a refugee camp simulation located at Balboa Park to inform us about the living conditions and the lifestyle of refugees located around the world.
Journal Prompt: Reflect on the school's water crisis and the field trip to the refugee camp run by the Doctors Without Border. QIf we could change anything in structure of the refugee camp, what would it be?

I'll have to admit that I actually believed Brian when he talked about the "water shortage" at school. However,if we are trying to conserve water shouldn't we try to conserve electricity as well? I felt that this approach wouldn't be effective, but it did raise awareness. I had no idea about how stringent we were on resources.oom.

The field trip on Friday was really interesting and informative. The hot weather also made the experience seem realistic. I had no idea that more than 42 million people are uprooted by war and conflict. I was really surprised when I saw how the refugees' food supply and living quarters were because they are the minimal basic necessities. If you look at our lifestyle compared with what our basic necessities are, we are really living a life of luxury. I think that what the organization does is sufficient enough, but they really need to improve on sanitary conditions. I know that their supply is limited, but if they improved the sanitary conditions the people would be less prone to diseases.

Response to Commentary

Commentary: Classrooms Have Become Unecessarily High Tech

I find this funny since our school, High Tech High International, utilizes technology for educational purposes such as this blog where I present all of my assignments. I do agree that technology does have its pros and cons when it comes to a classroom setting and spending 5 billion dollars seems highly uneccesary. I feel that because of the exponential growth of technology advancements it is good to educate kids on technology at a basic level, such as when I first went to this school. I learned to utilize my skills of fireworks, photoshop, microsoft, and dreamweaver to enhance the quality of the product that I'm working with to present and in some occupations these skills may be required. I agree with the author that "Very little in these early grades needs to be digital, electronic or high def." and that there are cons such as "including the constant need for technological assistance, ongoing teacher training, upgrades to systems and programs, and much more" and also the need to renew classroom resources such as textbooks. This is why I like our school system in the way that we don't have textbooks but I would like to improve it so that we have at least one textbook for a references and make copies of that. In summary, basically I believe that schools should implement some sort of a technological learning environment maybe in the later years in school such as in high school.

Black History Month

HISTORY IS A WEAPON

Slavery Without
Submission,
Emancipation
Without Freedom

by Howard Zinn

Questions for Socratic Seminar:
1. In Lincoln's speeches, it is as if he is molding his words to fit what people want to hear. What do you think Lincoln's true stance was on slavery?

2. Do you see the passing of of the Emancipation Proclamation as an excuse to open the Union Army to blacks?

3. Though some may say that the abolition of slavery wasn't the Civil War's main purpose, do you agree/disagree that freedom for African-American's couldn't have existed without the Civil War?

4. Do you agree with DuBois theory that American capitalism has allowed both whites & blacks in some sense, become slaves?

Definitions:
Abolitionists - a person who favors the abolition of any law or practice deemed harmful to society

Absconding - to leave quickly and secretly and hide oneself, often to avoid arrest or prosecution.

Disintegration - separation into component parts

Pusillanimity - the state or condition of being pusillanimous; timidity; cowardliness.
Segregate - to separate or set apart from others or from the main body or group

Evidence Expert:

Page 171; Par. 2
Page 175; Par. 4; Last sentence
Page 186; Par. 3
Page 191; Last Par.
Page 210; Last Par.

Barder and the Flying Turban

Their power of flight

seemed to stir so much commotion.

However, they were just having fun

with their powerful imagination.

Barder and Arlen thought it was the orange turban

that controlled their ability to fly.

But it was their bonding friendship,

that enabled them to roam around the sky.

Luna

This week, our class went to the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa to look at the exhibitions. Our assignment was to find a picture of our choice in any of the exhibits and to write a creative writing piece such as the Turnstile Photo creative write. Here is my story on Izima Kaoru's piece entitled UA Wears Toga.


Luna was the Ka of Midway which was a passageway for the dead spirits to their afterlife, reincarnation. There, the spirits cleansed themselves and chanted for forty-nine days before heading on to their rebirth. Luna, as the Ka, held the powerhouse of the energy which was in the form of a mystical orb. The orb was the building block of Midway and was how Midway came to be. Midway was just like a city, where in a way, it had many lands and hot springs that were used as cleansing and forests. She was the protector of the power and in turn she had her own protectors as well, the Laers. However, Sang, a very powerful spirit wanted control of the orb so as to gain control of Midway for he thought that the spirits should not be reincarnated. He had a hard life on Earth as a human and found humans to be destructive and vile beings. After seeking for the orb for so long and finding the Ka, Luna, they battled for thirty-five days. Here we are now, at the battle scene where Luna has fallen. Despite her ultimate death as a spirit, she destroyed the orb and used her energy as the source and foundation of Midway.

Aspiring Anthropologist

The picture above is the basis for my story, which is taken from
Bill Sullivan's Turnstile Photography Project. His photography project is a compilation of pictures taken of a stranger's first moment going through the turnstiles to ride the subway.



Gratified, complacent, self-satisfied; these feelings of accomplishment rushed through Jane's head as she walked out the doors of the American Museum of Natural History. She had conquered her dream of graduating with a BA in anthropology and had just recently been placed at AMNH as one of the researchers of African Ethnology. That was how her day began to end as she walked toward the subway station after a long day of reading books at Barnes & Noble. She was a rather frugal person and found it to be very convenient to be sitting on the comfy couches and delving into a book about the conspiracy theories of the disappearance of the ancient Mayans. People's way of life always interested her as a child, for her upbringing was in a very diverse neighborhood in Queens, New York. However, she always thought there was a difference between learning about ones way of life and gossip. For a moment, while walking past the ticket booth and on her way to the subway she reminisced of her childhood. Out of mind and with her head in the clouds, contemplating of how her life would be and how far she's gone, she walked through the turnstiles on her way to visit her mom to tell her about the good news, and soon enough a slight smile began to form.