3/1/11

Today is a Tuesday and there is no Western Civ class on Tuesdays.

2-28-11

  Today in class Mr. Schick have us back our first test on the movie "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and Papua New Guinea. He graded them and put the grades on Powerschool a while ago, but he never physically gave them back to us. We went over them as a class for the whole two mods. He made sure we had all of the correct answers down so that we could use that to study for our finals in June. We will most likely be starting a new lesson on Wednesday, since we don't have class on Tuesdays.

2-25-11

  Today in class we used Skype to talk to a woman named Sarah from Egypt. The night before we had all posted 10 questions for her to us to ask her. For the about the first half of class we decided who would ask her questions and what they would ask her. Then for the rest of class, we talked to her through a video chat. Not everybody talked to Sarah, including me, because it was optional. The people that did choose to talk to her just walked up to the computer at the front of the room and talked to her until she finished answering their question. Of course we talked about the problems in Egypt and what their future holds, but we also learned personal things about her as well. I think that it was really amazing to be able to talk to somebody on the other side of the world using new technology, such as this interactive website known as Skype.

Questions

1. How long were the people of Egypt planning to get rid of Hosni Mubarak?

2. Do you think there would still be a rebellion if Egypt never had access to the internet?

3. Are you the only one in your family that speaks out against Hosni Mubarak?

4. What changes do you hope will be made now that Hosni Mubarak is no longer ruling?

5. Were you ever afraid to be a part of the rebellion?

6.  Did your family try to talk you out of being in the riots?

7. If so, what did they say?

8. Has your relationship with your family changed due to your decision to be a part of the riots?

9. Do you think Egypt will experience this problem again?

10. Where do you see Egypt 5 years from now?

Hosni Mubarak

  He is the president of Egypt that has been voted out of office by the people. He unfairly always won the "elections" that he was elected in. He was been their leader since 1981. He wound up being hated because of pretty much how the elections ran. Nobody could run against the president and the people started to think that their votes didn't even count. In September 2005, there was a multiple candidate election, although Hosni was still controlling all of it. There was no way for anybody to beat him out. Everybody just did what he told them to say; it was wrong to speak against the leader. Technology brought new ideas to the people, as in different opinions of the leader. There were thousands of illegal votes sent in. People had to pay to vote. Due to all of this trouble, the people wanted a new election. Hosni was of course elected because there was no re-election. People could get sent to jail for speaking out against the government without a trial. The police can abuse you with no charge. If you belong to the wrong group you could lose funding or your job. The police are allowed to violate your privacy. He said that he will not run again this year in September 2011, but the people wanted him out immediately. Finally, he resigned, and there were cheers throughout the streets of Cairo.  

2/23/11

  Today our rap/song projects were due. Mostly everybody presented theirs in front of the class. I was one of the ones that did not. Then Mr. Schick started to show us a video for about the last 10/15 minutes of class. The video was about the current riots in Egypt. The main character, a woman named Gigi, was tweeting live from the center of all of the action. Her family doesn't really like this though because they know how dangerous it could be. She is Egyptian, but believes that the ruler should be kicked out before his time is supposed to be up (like the majority of Egypt). However, her aunt believes the opposite and thinks that her niece is not being loyal to her country. We will probably finish the rest of this video tomorrow.

Egypt Rap/Song

I was originally working with a partner for this assignment, but then she decided that we do separate projects. The original concept for this idea started from the song "Pyramid" by Charice and Iyaz. 

The Egyptians built the pyramids

            To stand tall through every single thing

          There will never be any more for sure

The stones were pretty heavy

As hard as the ground

             But they were needed to stack strong

      They  built it from the bottom up

           Even through desert storms

                 They were out there holding their own

             Nothing froze the work load

    They knew what they had to do

                       The weather couldn't shake them

              Disease couldn't break them

     Nothing was put above

                             The pyramids were built with solid rock

                              Touched by thousands of hands

                             Aiming to reach the top

                             Even though the sun was burnin

                             They never fell and just kept goin

                                  So now forever will be the pyramids

                                        The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                         The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                         The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                      They worked close side by side

                                       They made sure it wouldn't fall

                                        Its story had no end

                                         Kind of like a mystery

                                      Every step was long

                                            And the time never flew

                                            The upcoming  was unknown

                                                 But then the pyramids went down in history

                                                   The weather couldn't shake them

                                                 Disease couldn't break them

                                            Nothing was put above

                             The pyramids were built with solid rock

                              Touched by thousands of hands

                                Aiming to reach the top

                                        Even though the sun was burnin

                                          They never fell and just  kept goin

                                        So now forever will be the pyramids