First Semester Review

I feel I have learned a lot during my first semester in the Stevenson Global Education program; especially in the English portion of it. I have always liked writing, but I feel this year I was introduced to a completely new type of writing. This had to do with writing about event s that were either taking place currently in the world or in history. Never before was I given a news article to read, margin note and then write a one or two paragraph essay to state my opinion on the situation. Did I support what was happening or not? What did I think they should be doing? Well, to be honest, I had no clue. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I thought of the situation because it didn’t seem to affect me in any way. And I often asked myself why we had to do this, because I am no expert on these sort of cases. I had to think really hard about what I thought. Once I had my stand, I needed to support it, which was probably the hardest part. Of course I had reasons for my thoughts, but I wasn’t exactly sure of how to make them into two whole paragraphs. And as the year progressed, I felt much more comfortable with these assignments.
Margin notes were another thing I learned to do this year. Before, it was always just highlighting, but now I had to write down my thoughts and ask questions and summarize the articles. At first I wasn’t really sure what to note on, or what to do, but now it’s all very easy to me and when I’m given an article, in any class, I feel like I should be margin noting.
The movies we watched in class like the Rabbit Proof Fence and The Power of One really seemed to help me understand what was happening in the countries we were learning about. I also went to see Invictus over winter break and I found that some events I was reading about in the articles were the ones I saw in the movie and it really helped me connect better to the history of South Africa and the Apartheid.
In class we went over grammar and the usage of capitalization and apostrophes. I was surprised to find the mistakes I made sometimes and I also had some questions answered. Like, I always wondered if “it” was used in showing possession, as in saying,”There was a long, red dress and on its skirt …” I came to find out that “its” would not have an apostrophe, once and for all. The apostrophe in “it’s” is only to be used if you are to be combining the words “it” and “is”.
This was the first year I was in a class where we actually had a debate, and it was on the topic of the Rwandan genocide. I found that I don’t have much of a voice when it comes to this, but then again it didn’t seem like many complaints were thrown at my group’s part and Paul Kagame. Although looking back I feel there could have been times where we should have spoken and did not.
All in all, this semester has been pretty challenging, but when I received the letter we had to write from Paul Rusesabagina to the U.N. and realized I had gotten an A, I was realized that all my hard work had definitely paid off!

If I Were a Native...

I would want to be an Aborigine from Australia.

I believe out of all the natives we talked about in class, the Aborigines more peacefully than any other native tribes. They experienced the least amount of violence and were simply pushed aside by the white settlers. A fence was built to separate them, and sometimes a young Aborigines would be taken from its family or tribe. However, they never went through murders like those in Rwanda, nor have they gone through times as rough as the natives of South Africa.

Also, the Aborigines were able to uphold their culture through it all. A culture that has been present at least 50,000 years on Earth. It's amazing to think that a culture started so long ago has not been changed by man and that the people continue to uphold the traditions the ancestors began thousands of years before them. They literally live day to day and I cannot help but wonder what that must be like.

Christmas Break!!

I had quite an eventful Christmas break. Starting Friday night I went to Gabe Baugher’s sister and brother-in-law’s reception party at Genetti’s in Northville. They were having the party because they were married over the summer in Oregon and many family members were not able to fly out there for the wedding. Gabe and I were ordered to take pictures of the party all night long, and I’d say we took some pretty good shots. Taylor Cieslak was also there and when Gabe and I took a break from picture taking, we danced and ate and had a great time with Taylor. My favorite part was definitely the dancing! They had a DJ and as the night went on, the space clearing for dancing was soon filled…with some adults who might have had a few drinks… Gabe, Tay and I found it quite entertaining. It was a great night and I even got paid for taking the pictures.
Christmas is most definitely my favorite holiday. Every year, my dad’s family comes over for Christmas Eve. So, on Christmas Eve I often find myself cooking or baking and cleaning; helping my mom to prepare for the night. We usually make Christmas cookies, some sort of cake and cheese cake. I made the cookies and I chose to make a coffee cake this year. Now, I would consider myself a good baker, however sometimes I do make the mistake of not reading all the directions…I was supposed to put a ½pint(or one container) of sour cream into the cake and I had mistaken the pint for cup. So I put half a cup in, which was about half the container instead of the whole thing. And when I tasted the batter, it was fine, it didn’t taste weird or anything..it was kind of thick but it was supposed to be thicker. So I put it in and it turned out fine, until I had a piece of it and it was dry. So, the cake was a fail but the cookies were good!
Christmas morning we got up early and opened presents! This year, I really wanted a new digital camera, one that was better than the one I had and I got one! I also got clothes, an iPod shuffle for running along with other stuff. One of my favorite things about Christmas morning is opening the presents with the glowing tree as your only light source. Then when my brother and I finished opening presents, my mom started breakfast. We always, always, always have cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning! And they were delicious!! Later we went to my grandparents (my mom’s parents) house for dinner and more presents with my uncle, aunt cousins and grandparents. I’d say I had an excellent Christmas this year!