More of Slumdog Millionaire

Today we watched more of the movie and we got to some really good parts right before the bell rang at the end of the day. I was really  hoping I could stay to watch the rest because I really like the movie but I had to leave. I'm really happy because today was the start of our Thanksgiving break!

Slumdog Millionaire

Today the class started out by giving me a synopsis of what was happening in the movie since I was absent Friday. Afterwards we went to Mr. Schick's classroom and watched some more of the movie. I have never seen Slumdog Millionaire so it was interesting to watch. I am really enjoying the movie so far even though I missed the beginning. It's somewhat sad but it's definitely a really good movie. I can't wait to watch more of the movie!

Not in school

I was not in class today so this is today's post.

Extra Credit Songs

Home- Chris Daughtry
Only in America- Brooks and Dunn
Pink Houses- John Mellencamp
She's Leaving Home- The Beatles
Going to California- Led Zeppelin
Home- Dierks Bentley
Rest of my Life- Soja
Leavin This Town- The Beach Boys
Leaving California- Maroon 5

French National Anthem

English Translation of La Marseillaise

Let's go children of the fatherland,

The day of glory has arrived!

Against us tyranny's

Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)

In the countryside, do you hear

The roaring of these fierce soldiers?

They come right to our arms

To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Refrain

Grab your weapons, citizens!

Form your batallions!

Let us march! Let us march!

May impure blood

Water our fields!

This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,

What do they want?

For whom these vile shackles,

These long-prepared irons? (repeat)

Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!

What emotions that must excite!

It is us that they dare to consider 

Returning to ancient slavery!

What! These foreign troops

Would make laws in our home!

What! These mercenary phalanxes

Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)

Good Lord! By chained hands

Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!

Vile despots would become

The masters of our fate!

Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,

The disgrace of all groups,

Tremble! Your parricidal plans

Will finally pay the price! (repeat)

Everyone is a soldier to fight you,

If they fall, our young heros,

France will make more,

Ready to battle you!

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,

Bear or hold back your blows!

Spare these sad victims,

Regretfully arming against us. (repeat)

But not these bloodthirsty despots,

But not these accomplices of Bouillé,

All of these animals who, without pity,

Tear their mother's breast to pieces!

Sacred love of France,

Lead, support our avenging arms!

Liberty, beloved Liberty,

Fight with your defenders! (repeat)

Under our flags, let victory

Hasten to your manly tones!

May your dying enemies

See your triumph and our glory!

Refrain

We will enter the pit

When our elders are no longer there;

There, we will find their dust

And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)

Much less eager to outlive them

Than to share their casket,

We will have the sublime pride

Of avenging them or following them

My comments:

France's national anthem is very gruesome and maddening whereas ours is basically happy. Ours shows how proud we are of our country, it talks about our flag, our braveness during battle and that at the end of the day, after all of the bombs and explosions, our flag was still standing. Almost their entire anthem is about bloody war and fighting. You would never think it was so gruesome by listening to it because it sounds pretty uplifting and pretty. I would say the tone of their anthem is definitely military. 

11/17/14

Today in class Mr. Schick shared the news with us that the academic team took first place over the weekend which is awesome. So we all asked questions about how these tournaments work and stuff so we had a practice round of questions. The questions were actually pretty hard and I give a lot of credit to the people on the academic team. Mr. Schick also let us see our test scores and I did really bad so I'm pretty upset especially since mid quarters are coming up. We also started learning about cultural geography. To get that started we looked at a map that was colored by places that call soft drinks by a different name. Such as soda, pop, or coke. Then we talked about having different views from our parents. I'm actually pretty excited to learn about cultural geography, it seems more interesting than the last topic.

Test

Today we took the test on Political Geography. I thought I was somewhat well prepared considering I made index cards but I guess the stuff I studied wasn't what I should've studied because I think I did awful. I'm disappointed actually because my grade in this class is definitely not where I want it to be and now that I did bad on this test, it will come down even more. I'll be happy when we start on a new topic because hopefully that will give me another chance to bring up my grade. Even though I'm stressed out about my grade and the test I have confidence that I can fix it all.

11/12/14

Today in class Mr. Schick explained to us why our test was postponed until Friday. More groups got up and presented their projects and we got the whole study guide situation figured out so now we can see other people's projects when we go to the study guide. The first presentation was on Russia which was halfway presented 2 days ago, so today Russia's group finished. Next up was Brazil. Here are some facts about Brazil:

Brazil
-Federal Republic
-Dilma Rousseff is their president
-Presidency: 4 year terms
-Dilma Rousseff was elected in 2011 becoming the first female president. This is her last term for right now.
-Ways to remove president: impeachment, electing another president, assassination.
-Brazil is very happy with their president.

Mexico
-President Enrique Pena Nieto (member of the institutional revolutionary party)
- Federal republic

Day before the test

Today in class Mr. Schick was only here for the first few minutes but then he had to leave so we had a substitute. We got to spend the whole class studying for our test tomorrow. Mr. Schick uploaded a study guide to his blog which is very useful since not everyone finished presenting their projects. Some people had an issue with the links on the PowerPoint though. Other then that, today was an easy class.

More presentations

Today was my first day back in class since Wednesday, due to the play, so I missed presentations on Canada and Japan. But, today more people presented their projects. We started off with Antony and Adrien's project on Syria.

Syria
-republic under an authoritarian regime
- Bashar al-Assad is their president whom was born September 11, 1965 in Damascus.
- Syria has been a republic under authoritarian regime since 1941 (73 years).
- Ways to get rid of president: Assassination, revolutionary war, and the country being taken over by another.
-Bashar al-Assad had the most votes in the last election at 88.7% of the votes. However, most votes came from Assad threatening the people to vote for him.
- Voting is rigged by "counting wrong" on purpose, bombing or threatening, etc.
- Assad can be president until 2021. They have 7 year terms.

Germany
- Federal Republic
-  They've been a federal republic since 1990
- East and West Germnay were separated by the Berlin Wall after World War II but reunited as a whole country in 1990.
- 2 leaders, President and Chancellor
- President Joachim Gauck (since March 23, 2012, independent political party. Pastor over a Protestant church.)
- Chancellor Angela Merkel (November 22, 2000. Former research scientist. Leader of Christian Democratic Union since 2000. Named most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.)
- Replacing the leaders: Impeachment of the president, or not being elected. New chancellor can be nominated. The Bundestag can kick the chancellor out or president out.
- Offices are elected by the Bundestag. Held every 4 years. Disabled people who are in overall foster care cannot vote along with people under 18.
- Christian Democratic Union, Social Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, LINKE, GRUNE.

United Kingdom
- Constitutional Monarchy (1066): King or Queen acts as head of state along with the Prime Minister. King or Queen has the ability to make and pass legislation.
-Commonwealth Realm: sovereign state that's a member of the commonwealth of nations.
- Commonwealth of nations- 54 members with one suspended and dates back to the mid 20th century.
- Prime minister of the UK has no term limits. He is appointed by the Monarch.
-David Cameron:Prime Minister since 2010,  he is the leader of the conservative party and is the youngest prime minister since 1812.
-Prim minister appoints members of the government and is the principal gov. figure in the House of Commons.
-Every Tuesday the cabinet discusses important issues for the gov.
- people of the UK support Cameron as a Prime Minster.

United States
- the leader of the U.S.A is President Barack Obama.
- Constitution based federal republic, with strong democratic tradition.
-Obama can be president for 2 more years and cannot run for re-election. He won the 2008 and 2012 election.
-Obama is the first  half African American president
- We can re-elect a president, or they can be impeached or overthrown, or the president can be assassinated, or a revolution can start.
-Impeachable offenses: treason, bribery, or other high crimes.

Russia
- Federation: formations of a political unity with a central government by a number of separate states, each of which retains control of its own internal affairs.
Official name of Russia is Russian Federation
- Governed under the constitution of 1993
- Russia became Russian Federation in 1991
-Vladimir Putin has been president since 2012. Previously served as president from 2000-2008 and was Prime Minister from 1999-2000. He is now allowed to serve another terms.
-Russia has 6 year terms.
Dmitry Medvedev is the Prime Minster of Russia
-Legislative branch adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse and the power of impeachment of the President.
Executive Branch- President is the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces
Judiciary Branch
United Russia- main political party. founded in 2001.
Russian Military: very strong and aggressive due to strong leader Putin and his weapons.
Russia is the largest country in the world

Presentation

Today in class Kyle, Luke and I presented our PowerPoint on France's government. I think it went pretty well and was overall pleased with our project. We showed our slides and had some pretty good discussions. The other students took notes on our project because we will need to know the information about these countries for the test. Then, once we were finished, Ella's group got up and presented their PowerPoint on China. They only got to present the first slide because we got into a big discussion about communist states,rich/poor people, equality, and a bunch of other things that led to some disagreements among people in the class. Overall, it was a productive class and I'm interested in seeing other people's projects.

Field Trip 11/4/14

Today in class Mr. Schick decided to take us to the Cancer Awareness tables in the hallway since the majority of us didn't get to go during the day. We each got pamphlets from different tables and they had examples of what breast and testicular cancer feels like. They also had a table about smoking where they had 2 lungs displayed, a healthy lung and an unhealthy lung. The unhealthy one was black and looked awful and the healthy one was a reddish color and had life to it. The unhealthy lung was what a lung would look like due to smoking. They also had a table that gave awareness to skin cancer and they had a little booth that you could stick your face in and look at your skin under special lights that showed white and orange specks on your skin or purplish colors. The purplish color showed sun damage and the white specks showed dry skin. They also gave out free sunscreen samples.