Semester Blog Reflection/Final Review

There were many things this First Semester that I learned about in Mr. Fielder’s class. Last year when I was thinking of high school, I talked with some former Global Ed students that are in the program or have graduated and have taken the program. While I was talking with them about Stevenson and the Global Ed program, I was told that Global Ed may have its ups and downs but it is completely worth it. I have been learning and understanding that more and more. Every day I come to my Global Ed classes I become more and more interested with this entire program.
One thing that I enjoyed to learn was watching and reading Rabbit Proof Fence. The reasoning of why I liked to view this story and have open discussions was because it really had a very interesting story about three young girls and their journey to survive. Molly, Grace, and Daisy are three little Aborigine girls who were taken away by the Australian government in Jigalong. The government and leaders tried to take away all of the Aborigine children, little girls mostly, and use them as their own slaves in order to completely erase the entire Aborigine race. After living under their headquarters, Molly had come up with a brilliant plan to sneak away with her sister and cousin, Daisy and Grace. They ran away to be together again with her mother and her tribe in the desert. This generation of children was also known as the “stolen generation”. This story interested me because I really was astonished with the leadership role played by Molly Craig. I was also very interested because of the harm and unfairness the Australian government was doing to these poor Aborigine children.
Another thing that I loved in Mr. Fielder’s class was to play a game called “Boggle”. This game was really fun and I would always be really excited to play. First off, Mr. Fielder would make a chart containing how many letters he wanted. Then once he was done making his list in a scramble order he would put it on the overhead. What we had to do what to make words out of those letters. This game was fun and it was a good reward at the end of the day.

One other thing that I learned in Mr. Fielder’s class was about the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan genocide was a massive killing in Rwanda killing thousand upon thousand Hutu and Tutsi people, invaded Rwanda from Uruguay. In 1990, the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) was mostly made up of the Tutsi people. In 1994 the killing of Juvenal Habyarimana was a drastic change and it sadly created the massive killing in Rwanda. The Hutu was said to believe that the Tutsi were the ones who killed their beloved leader. So, the Hutu had a plan that since the Tutsi killed their leader, we should kill them. This was a war that went on for a very long time, it shouldn’t have even happened in the first place. This genocide was very drastic and unmanageable. It caused a great war and an unbelievable amount of pain and sorrow.

Something else that I learned in this class was about margin noting. Even though I thought of this as a pain, it helped me understand the meaning of the context I was reading. I really didn’t think that it would help that much, but it did. While we were reading the story called, “The Man in the Well”, margin noting helped tremendously. For example, for words I didn’t quite understand and so I would look them up in the dictionary and make a side note for what it meant. Now, I really like to margin note all my papers to help me and understand more. It helps me more than just reading a paper without really defining the context.

Lastly, one more thing that I liked to read about was Squirrel Cop. This story was hilarious and made me laugh throughout the entire time listening to the story. The reasoning for reading this story was to hear the descriptions the author made and try to imagine this actually happening right in front of you. For example, when the author was talking about when the police officer went into the attic and the squirrel jumped down and ran into the fireplace, then under the brand new couch. The author gave great descriptive words and really put a picture in my head and made me think that this was actually happening.
In conclusion, Global Ed is worth working for and at. I like to learn and I keep on learning every day in Mr. Fielder’s class.

Christmas Time

Christmas time is always a big and crazy time for my family. We are always busy either with decorating the house or making food for our family parties. My favorite time of the year is Christmas because it is such a giving holiday, my whole entire family comes together and it gives us time to just talk and enjoy eachothers company. Also I really enjoy Christmas because it reminds me of when I was a child and how much I believed in Santa Claus and how happy it made me feel. Decorating the house is something big that my family and I really like to do together. Decorating the tree is most deffiently my favorite because I like to put the ornaments, candy canes, lights, and tonsile all over the Christmas Tree which ever way I want too. Making cookies for the family is also fun too. My mom's sugar cookies are always the best! After my mom makes the cookies, my sister and I decorate them. We decorate them with candy, sprinkles, frosting, and sometimes m&ms. I like to make mine look like Santa Claus or a snowman. When we go to our family party on Christmas Eve we all have to make homemade food and we also bring presents for one another. We all go to my Grandma Tini's, my mom's mom house. We have a pretty big family so things can get a little hectic at my grandma's house. The adults stay up stairs and talk in the living room. The children all go in the basement. We play games, watch Christmas movies, and just have a good time together. It is never boring with my family. When we have dinner it's my favorite part because my family are all really good cooks. My grandma makes the turkey, which is absolutely delicious. Everyone else just makes their own dishes. My mom and my Aunt Wendy are in charge of making the deserts. My mom makes her Jello Speciality and my Aunt Wendy makes her Christmas Cake. Right when you walk into the dining room everything smells so fantastic. Once we're all done eating, we wash dishes and then go back to our games. After an hour or so, we all go into my grandma's big living room and exchange presents. That's always super fun. Then after we play with our toys and talk. The kids stay up stairs and play cards with the adults. This year I learned how to play euchere, and it's pretty interesting. I'm doing fairly well at the game. After we'd have our fun we all say our goodbyes and go back home. Once I got home, I went straight to bed. My sister is still young and believes in Santa. She was so excitied she woke up my family at five in the morning this year. She's crazy, but she always knows how to make me laugh. Right when I walked downstairs I was amazed at all of the presents we got this year. I loved all of my gifts. My absolute favorite was my XBOX. I got Modern Warfare 2, and right when I opened it I got playing. This Christmas was very intersting and I always enjoy my Christmas and I know my family did too. I can't wait until next year! I'm counting down the days.