Monday, January 4, 2010

China and Japan Research
























China is located in eastern Asia. China's total area is 9,596,961 sqare kilometers. China's climate ranges from tropical in the south to subartic in the north. Some of China's natural resources are coal, iron ore, pertroleum, and natural gas. China experiences frequent typhoons. China is the most populated country in the world. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html

Japan has the third largest economy in the world. Japan's size is slightly smaller than california. Japan's population is 127,078,679. Air pollution in Japan sometimes results in acid rain. Japan is one of the largest consumers of fish and tropical timber. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html

Monday, November 30, 2009

India Research

India is one of the oldest world's civilizations. India is located in Southern Asia bodering the Arabian sea and the bay of Bengal. Indias total area is 3,287,263 square kilometers. The climate varies from tropical to temperate. India has a high natural resoucre of coal with the fourth largest reserve in the world. As of July 2009 India has a population of 1,166,079,217 people putting them at the second largest population in the world. India has a problem with infectious diseases from water and food. 80.5% of Indians are Hindu and 13.4% are Muslim while the rest either Christian, Sikh, and other unspecified religons. The capital of India is New Delhi. 25% of the population in India is below the proverty line. India is a major source of human traficiking. India is one of the world's largest producers of opium for legal and illegal uses. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world.../in.html

India Free Writing

When I think about India I think about this movie I watched when I was younger and this movie was about India and the temples their and their beliefs. They have this temple completly devoted to rats and I remember thinking how cool that was because in our culture we generally are grossed out by rats but the Indian people think that these rats are just fantastic and their feeding them. I've considered traveling to India before after having a discussion with my aunt who has a friend who went their just a couple months ago. She let me look at the pictures and they looked pretty cool. Once I read in a magazine article about fifty things that should change the world this month or something to that effect and it was talking about how in India there's this river thats sacred to the Indian people and they couldn't worship in it at the time they were supposed to because it's so polluted.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Misconceptions About Islam Disscussion


Misconception Two "In Islam, denial of human rights is okay because; Islam is against pure democracy and Islam tolerates slavery." Islam isn't denying human rights by being against a total democracy. It's felt that the Islmaic state must get it's laws from the Qur'ran and Sunnah and a pure deomocracy would put the people above the Qur'ran and Sunnah and the Qur'ran states that no one is above it. So the concept of pure democracy wouldn't work out for what they believe. Also, it could be argued that the United States and other countries where Islam is not the dominant religon are also against pure demorcracy because, even though we have a democracy it's not a pure democracy so if people were to believe in and follow this misconception then almost every religion would denying human rights. As for the slavery, in the Sunnah it says that everyone is slaves to their lord, and their lord is the higher power that they believe in. Many people were freed from slavery in the Muslim world because of the teachings of Islam. It's also unfair to make a assumptions based on how they view democracy


Misconception Three: "In Islam women are inferior to men because; A man can marry up to four wives, a woman can only marry one man, A man's share of inheritance is bigger than a womans, A man can marry a non-muslim a woman cannot, Women must wear the veil." In the Quran it states that men and women are in fact equal and that Allah favors the people based upon their actions and not upon their gender. To Islams it makes sense that the mans inheirtance is bigger than that of a womans because men are expected to work and support their families while women are not expected to work.

Middle East Research


The coutries that are in what is considered to be the middle east are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, and Yemen. http://http//www.mideastweb.org/countries.htm

The Middle East goes back all the way into ancient times. The Middle East has been home to the worlds three major religions; Judiasim, Christianity, and Islam. There are many different ethnic groups in the middle east. The Middle East economy ranges from very poor to very wealthy. http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East

In the modern Middle East oil has caused conflict. Before oil became a major conflict causer religion was a more prominent political issue. http://http//www.globalissues.org/issue/103/middle-east

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Moment Assingment


I feel like throughout my life I've had many little moments that might have seemed insignificant to some people but had a much bigger impact on my life. Having to just pick one was hard but I sorted through all of them and picked one that I felt I could share. About two years ago I spent the summer with some family. At the time I was in a pretty bad spot in my life. People are always joking about how teenagers have it pretty easy but, in today’s world I think that it's harder to find yourself when other people are always telling you how you should be. So I was fifteen and struggling with that pretty badly and I think that I was just pretty angry at everyone and everything. My Aunts sister in-law saw that and understood. On a side note I hate how people are always trying to fix things or people by making them talk about. My Aunts sister seemed to get that and on the day I left to go back home she handed me this notebook and told me to write whatever I wanted in it. The journal was leather and inside there was recycled paper without lines. After I left I thought about what she said and I started writing in it, random things, things that didn’t really make any sense, but made perfect sense to me. Just being handed a notebook seemed like not a very big deal but the actual writing in the notebook changed everything. Things like how I felt about the world and how I felt about myself and how people relate to one another. It's weird to think how if I had never been given the journal I might still be mad inside or how without the journal my entire perspective would be totally different.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Things Fall Apart Reflection


Why do you think Okonkwo kills himself? Please address the pressure/standards that Ibo culture imposes upon him i.e., how the story sets him us “as a fish out of water,” also consider how these standards do not seem to prepare him for the challenges that confront him as a result of encountering the British.
I think that Okonkwo kills himself because everything just built up inside of him and so he decided to give up. Okonkwo probably knew that he was going to die anyway because of the man he killed and he knew that the British wouldn’t allow him to live after that. It could be argued that Okonkwo killed himself to prove a point, becoming a martyr of sorts but I feel like the pressure of being exiled and then the dissapointement of coming back to things that aren’t the way they were before or the way they were supposed to be got to him and he felt like life wasn’t worth living anymore.
Okonkwo is set up like a fish out of water because his traditions, traditions that have been around for years and years in his culture are ending and changing. So like a fish out of water speaking metaphorically Okonkwo can’t breathe because things are changing and falling apart and there’s nothing Okonkwo can do to fix it. The Ibo culture is so fixed on tradition that there’s no room for a little give or take. I feel like not having the ability to adapt and the pressure of the Ibo society helped contribute to Oknokwo’s death.