First Semester Reflection

One thing I have learned over this semester is the colonization of many countries and how this affects the native people, the future of the country and government and famous conflicts that resulted from colonization. We had learned about South Africa and how the Dutch and British settled the country and caused many wars and apartheid which almost completely eliminated the major tribes of South Africa. Australia was colonized by the British and turned into a white dominated country while the aborigines were captured and attempted to be breed into white people by changing their religion and traditions and breeding them with white individuals. In America the pilgrims and other groups came to settle the land taking over Native American territory so more white people could settle. I learned how similar events occurred in each country that was colonized and resulted in almost complete elimination of the native peoples.


We learned a lot about Africa and the many conflicts that occurred there. The one conflict in Africa that interested me most was the brutal genocide between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda. We debated about this and from it I learned almost every detail about the conflict. It also allowed me to see the conflict through other group’s points of view. For example the Hutu extremists group the interhamwe who were responsible for most of the killing did this not only out of anger but fear of getting themselves killed by another extremists group and the demand of Juvenal to kill the Tutsis. But they did also kill for land and money. We were told how this became one of the most horrific genocides in history and it was ignored by the UN, America and many other powerful countries. If this conflict was acknowledged more by other countries especially countries of power many of the 800,000 lives would have been spared. We watched a movie about this genocide called Hotel Rwanda. I thought this was a good movie and showed proof of the genocide well although this movie would be hard to understand without any background knowledge.


Although each week I dreaded the “weekly article” it taught me how to take good notes on articles, by using margin noting, and how to make a well written, clear article response. The articles consisted mostly of news stories about Iran and their nuclear power plants, china trying to become the world economic power over the U.S. and difficult decisions about Afghanistan President Obama had to make. After taking notes on each article we had to write a good clear response with a thesis statement and a supporting paragraph. From this I learned to delete clutter and to stay on topic and get right to the point. I learned how to pull examples from the article to support my opinion on the article.


After our debate and Hotel Rwanda we wrote a letter asking for help in Rwanda as Paul Rusesabagina. In this letter we did not write as ourselves but took on the characteristics of Paul such as using guilt and bribary into getting help.

Cruise, Winter Break

This holiday break was like no other I have experienced before. Instead of hanging with friends and spending christmas at home in the bitter cold, I was in paradise spending 11 days with my family on a beautiful ship the size of a building.

The cold weather had just begun and I was already ready for the summer time. Lucky for me I left my friends back home in the cold and traveled to a sunny paradise. Unfortunatly our traditional family christmas could not be celebrated.

We arrived to florida anxious to go outside and feel the sunlight and warmth on our skin. But instead of sunlight heavy raindrops hit the pavement and flooded the streets of Ft. Lauderdale. The taxi had to take us through streets that were so flooded they seemed like rivers until we arrived at my grandpas house.

We spent two days in florida just enjoying the beach and the unique boardwalk resturants and shops until we would departure for 3 days on the open ocean on the Costa Atlantica cruise.

A giant ship welcomed us as we arrived to the check in for the cruise. I wondered how such a huge magnificient structure could float on water. The inside of the ship was even more unbelieveable then the outside. A huge lobby stood in front of us with beautful paintings and lights. A bar was was at the end of the ship surronded by comfortable places to sit and mingle with other customers. Three glass elevators were at the other end which took people to all 11 decks to their rooms.

The ninth floor had to be my favorite because that is where the buffet was, here they served food 24 hours everyday. The second floor held the resturant, shops and the main lobby. The top deck or roof of the ship had three pools, tanning areas, bars and a gym area to play sports. Unfortunatly for me i was sea sick the whole time so i couldnt wait to get off the boat and visit the first island St. Thomas.

I woke up to the beautiful mountanious scene of St. Thomas. We finally stepped foot on land and immediatlygot a taxi to tour the island and go to the beach. We went up every hill and looked down at the beautiful scenes of St. Thomas. We arrived at Magens Bay the water here was so blue and clear. From the beach we could look out to the ocean and see the mountains that surronded the bay.

Our next stop was San Juan Puerto Rico. This city was so beautiful and and unique. The most interesting part of the city was old town San Juan. A 3 mile long fort surronded the neighborhoods and cemetary of old town. The fort faced out to the ocean and was used before and during WWII.