Class Discussion on Migration Asylum

           The class discussion that we had today was probably my favorite thing we've have done all year because it spiked so many interesting topics. Everyone had a different opinion on which asylum was "correct", which changes were good and which were bad and just the general idea of asylum. With this being said one of the biggest things I learned was that the exact characteristics of asylum was. The characteristics associated with this include, race, religion, nationality, political beliefs and social groups. This means that in order to seek asylum, you have to be suffering from one of these things. Eventually Obama added domestic violence to the characteristics. To build off of this, I found out that in the podcast what metering is and this goes hand in hand with asylum. Metering (as stated in the podcast) is the limiting of people that can apply for asylum and it is currently around 30 people a day. I honestly find it so sad that we are choosing to turn down people who are trying to escape horrible events that just drag them down. We are such a powerhouse of country so we should have enough courage and leadership to be able to try and tech countries that singling out people is not a way to run a country or treat your people. The biggest thing that I learned but cannot understand is that the immigrants either get detained or they'll be allowed through but they will be released with bond or released with an ankle bracelet. I really just cannot wrap my head around how that is fair. When you see someone with an ankle band on, you think they're some sort of criminal and that does not make any employer want to hire them. This is exactly why in our country we constantly put labels on people and have stereotypes because our very own government is encouraging it. It's so hard to understand how our president thinks because his only mindset it seems is to only focus on America and not anything else. Yes, this country should be his pain priority but it is very inappropriate to just turn a blind eye towards the people pleading to get inside for the better of their own life.

           All of these facts were mentioned one way or another in our discussion today which went pretty smoothly given our class can be a crazy bunch. Out of everyone in the class I personally thought that Colin brought really good points to the conversation that made everyone think and rethink. One thing that Colin mentioned is how we really cannot come to any true conclusion because with every news source will take the events and twist them to their own story. If we base our final opinion off of what the news says, we're choosing one opinion over another. Colin never really showed which "side" of the conversation he was on but everything he mentioned led the conversation in a very interesting way. Most people in the class added very good points and I was very impressed. There was one person in the class (who I actually will not name) who's viewpoint I completely disagreed with and I could not see any of the points he made. He kept saying things about how what Trump is doing is completely correct and that when they throw rocks, the military should be able to shoot them with a rifle. This is not any way to handle human beings. The odds of a rock killing you is much smaller much smaller then the odds of a rifle killing you.

          All of the things we've learned today and all of the information shared in the discussion is helping me to answer our key issue of "Why do people migrate?". This question is clearly answered by the qualifications for asylum. Some people choose to migrate due to race, nationality, religion, political beliefs, social groups or domestic violence. There are also other reasons such as economic events that would encourage someone to migrate. The general idea of asylum would encourage someone to migrate because of the hopes of escaping the hardships within their own country. 

Asylum

          In class today, we learned about what an asylum was in terms of migration and I'm still really confused as to what it is. When Mr. Schick first mentioned this word, all I could think of is American Horror Story because of their asylum chapter. It was very quickly brought to my attention that we weren't talking about American Horror Story which honestly made me kind of sad. We then proceeded to watch a podcast about what the asylum is. From what I understood about the podcast is that the asylum is when the nation is deciding whether or not to accept immigrants who have some sort of hardship back in their home country. The hardship has to be pretty significant and the whole purpose of this is to completely remove them from the issue. I am not entirely sure if this is correct but I think that with my information gathered, I have a decent understanding.

A Repeat of Last Class

            We started off class today by hearing a completely random story about how Mr. Schick played Tetris for five hours and I had no idea what that story had to do with anything. I find that Mr. Schick always tells really random stories but I'm not gonna complain too much because they waste time which is nice. Once his odd story was over he passed out an article that repeated everything that we did on Monday. Although this was annoying, it was kind of annoying it was nice to have a clear article with all of the information so that I don't have to write so many notes. We ended up just only getting through all of the information we already learned Monday but, this really helped the information stick in my brain. I'm actually a huge fan of this packet because it makes learning the information so much easier.

Migration!!!!

           In class today, we started our 4th or 5th unit (I honestly have no idea) and it's on migration. During this unit I plan on actually taking notes because it was brought to my attention that exams are right around the corner and I've been treating this class as one big joke (sorry). In class today we learned about the actual definition of migration which was "a permanent move to a new location" and from there, there are two types of migration. The two types of migration are international migration and internal migration. International is moving from country to country but internal is just making a big move but within the same country. These are probably the most important notes I took today but, I can already tell I am not going to have any interest in this unit at all. However, I have learned over the years that you cannot have everything you want!

Yet Another Quiz

          I feel like the days are on repeat and I've been constantly been writing about quizzes. Today's quiz actually wasn't that bad because it was the same thing as yesterdays quiz. I of course complained about it because have to do so many quizzes gets really annoying. I'm pretty sure I got a 100% on it because we literally just went over the answers. Everything we did was about the Hans Rosling video and that video was super boring. I'm kind of tired of all of these quizzes but if they continue to be exact replicas of what we just did in class then I think I will stop complaining. I wish we could do some fun group activities or other hands on activities but I guess I can't have everything that I want. It's just so hard for me to find anything in this class entertaining because human geo doesn't have anything that entertains me.

Quiz??

           We walked into class today and Mr. Schick starts to pass out what I believed to be guided notes but, it sadly wasn't. The paper he ended up passing out was actually a "quiz" that went along with a video. I could not stand the guy in the video's voice because it seemed so fake. I also got really bored during the video because I do not find any part of human geography interesting in the slightest. The video today wasn't super confusing but there were five questions on the quiz that were not even talked about so that was pretty confusing. I'm pretty sure I did good on the odd quiz we took but every time I say that in this class I don't.

Missed Class

           Today, November 14 I was not in class because I had a doctor's appointment for my hip injury. When I went to the doctors, he did all of the movements on my hip and then I got an x-ray to ultimately conclude that I have a high grade 2 or low grade 3 strain in my hip flexor. This means that I am unable to run for 2 weeks and it could be a full 3-6 weeks before I am cleared for full activity. Dealing with injuries is challenging for me because I am always so active and having to sit out of sports is something that I hate doing. It's very challenging for me to slow it down and rest for a little because I am constantly go-go-go.

Demographic Transition

          Demographic Transition (DTM) is yet another model used in the world to help understand population growth. DTM was developed in 1929 by the American demographer, Warren Thompson. Adolphe Landry of France and Frank W. Notestein both built upon Thompson's idea's however, the initial thought is given to Thompson. DTM refers to the transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates that typically occurs when the country is transitioning to a pre-industrialized economy to an industrialized economy. This model proposes the theory that population will eventually stop growing. This theory has proven true for many countries but for certain countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, there is an exception because they are poor and are negatively effected by their government/military. Within DTM, there are five different stages. Stage 1 is known as high stationary which means, the birth and death rate are both at their highest providing a very stable population growth. Stage 2 which is called early expanding has a high birth rate but a rapidly falling death rate, ultimately resulting in a very rapid population increase. The 3rd stage which is also known as late expanding has a falling birth rate and a death rate that is falling slowly and because of this, the population increase slows down. The second to last stage known has low stationary has both a low birth and death rate resulting in a stable or very slow population increase. The very last stage has a very low birth rate and a low death rate which will allow for a very stable population of allow for a very slow decrease.

What Did We Do in Class??

           Look, I am going to be completely honest, I have no idea what we did in class. I was falling asleep at 11:20pm on Saturday night when I suddenly realized that I need to do my blog and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m currently in New Jersey for a tournament so this blog is also extremely random. My only recollection of what we did on Friday is take some class selfies (courtesy of me) and then I proceeded to email them to everyone in the class. Then I’m sure we did something but I have absolutely no idea what we did. Probably just did more with population and growth but still not sure.

New Unit!

           We started a new unit today but in my personal opinion its really just part two of our previous unit so, I call it unit 3.5. In class, I feel like we really didn't start anything new but I also was extremely tired so I kinda zoned out if I'm being entirely honest. The only thing I really remembered from class today is that we looked at Mr. Schick's old school that was very damaged by a tornado but beyond that picture, I have no idea what we did today. However, after school today we had our soccer banquet and it was so nice to get everyone together for one last night and to recognize all of the good that has happened this season. I don't think that I could've ever had a better freshman season then what I had this year. I cannot wait to see what next year brings for me and the team.

Third Test

           In class today, we took our third test and I have mixed emotions about it. For starters, the first section which was about navigating the world fact book and we had 15 minutes to do so was fairly easy in my opinion. All you had to know how to do was use the CIA World Fact Book website, and if you knew how, you were good to go. The only challenging question was about the amount of crude oil consumed because well, that wasn't even stated on the website but eventually, the class figured it out. The questions dealing with population pyramids were a little more challenging because of how vaguely labeled they always are but, I think I did pretty good on them. So far, our tests this year haven't been super challenging which I find really, really nice.

Population Pyramids Cont.

           In class today, we continued to talk about population pyramids but, we focused today on individual cities and not big countries. While looking at each of the charts it was very interesting to see how certain places have a very young population while many others have a population with a high amount of old people. Even though this was interesting, the most interesting thing was how in one of the cities, there were no 80 year old and then all of a sudden, there was an odd growth in the amount of male 85 year olds. I don't really understand how theres no 80-84 year olds but then there is a random amount of new 85-89 year olds. The old men just randomly appeared and I don't understand how. I asked about this in class but I was never given a true answer.

Population Pyramids

           Before I get started about todays class, I figured I would provide an update to my last blog about my absence from class due to my game. We lost (sadly) but it was probably one of the best games we've played all season. It's so sad to see my first high school soccer season gone just like that and I'm gonna miss it so much. To be completely honest, I am not nearly as sad about the game as I am about our seven incredible seniors leaving. When I was first on varsity, I was kind of intimidated by them but once we got close, I began to love them so much and formed an incredible bond. They are all so helpful and so kind, next year is going to be so hard without them. I've already cried about them leaving and I am still getting emotional as I type this.
           Anyways, now on to what we learned in class today. We started to talk about population pyramids and they're actually pretty interesting and super easy to read. Compared to many other graphs, these graphs are a lot easier to compare and see the differences between the two sides. In all honesty, I have no idea what to write about these graphs so the only thing I really have to say is that they are pretty easy and different.