Final Assessment

To be completely honest, it is 1:00 a.m. Yes, I procrastinated on this project. Usually I never procrastinate on any project, but now I am starting to feel like summer is so close, and that it is time to just graduate. I wish I never did procrastinate on this project and I'm kicking myself right now. I liked this project and it had great value within it because I talked to some of my college friends and they said that sometimes they have to blog for their professor. Now, I don't know if you want me to touch on the course, or just the blogs but I'll touch on the course too.

It was time for me to schedule my classes for my senior year, and I said to myself, I like history a lot, and I'm already in an Honors course, why not just bump up a level and take A.P.? It'll look good for colleges, and it'll bring my class ranking up. The beginning of the course was probably the hardest for me. I didn't like all of the church background, and the monarchs. All of that just confused me and I'll probably get all of that wrong on the final. I'm not that great at remembering names, but I can remember important dates. As the course went on it seemed to get easier because I got used to the level of work. Then came the DBQ's... I had no idea what those were, even when we were doing them in class. But as we went on with doing more DBQ's, I started figuring them out, and I got a lot better at writing in general and writing DBQ's.

I want to thank you, Maz, for taking your time to teach me your knowledge about European history and that I apologize for not keeping up to date with my blogs. I really appreciate the time you put into looking at all of our projects and grading them. I look forward to finishing up the year, and graduating with your knowledge. Hopefully I will get to shake your hand at the commencement ceremony, because you have taught me a lot; not just in European history, but in writing, and life skills.

Israel and Palestine Conflict - Chapter 31

With the history of these two groups under my belt, I have a pretty well understanding of how these two started fighting. Israel was there first but because of famine, moved and in came the Palestine's and the Palestine's have been there ever since. Then Zionists (extremist Jews) came into Palestine to "claim" their land back because it was given to them by the Holy One and is considered the Holy land to the Jews. This is a very sticky situation. If you look at it from the Jewish point of view, they were there first and in the Bible it was their land granted to them by the Messiah. But in Palestine's point of view it's kind of like a move your feet, lose your seat kind of deal. The Palestine's were there for thousands of years and now the Jews expect the Palestine's to move out of their land. I wish I could side with both groups of people because they are both considered right.

September 11, 2001 - Chapter 31

When you think of September 11, 2001, what do you think of? I think of 9/11, plane crashes, terrorists, fire, and the word tragedy. I can remember what I was doing that day. I was in fifth grade and it was just a regular day for me. The whole school heard nothing of it until 3:15 when we heard the afternoon announcements. The principle came on and said "This morning, at 9:00 a.m., there was an attack on the World Trade Centers." The rest of his speech I can't remember, but I remember thinking to myself, what does this mean? I also remember walking home and all of my friends were saying what if we got attacked by terrorists on our way home? and I was just like what is a terrorist? I was completely blind to the world around me. I remember coming home from school and asking my mom all theses questions and then I asked where do we go from here? she just said that we'll probably find out who attacked us, and the go to war with whoever started it. Unfortunately, my mom is almost always right. This day will always go through history as a day of tragedy for the United States.

Population Decline - Chapter 31

I think it was Jonah who presented this topic and it really amazed me about some of the things that go on in the world because of the population. In the world today, the population is decreasing because of a couple key factors: population is decreasing in world powers, and women are having less children then they used to. Today, the population in third world countries are at a steady incline. This blows my mind because it seems like they would be the ones who wouldn't be able to afford to keep children around. To me, it just doesn't add up why someone would want to bring a child in to a third world country. I know it is a beautiful thing to have children, but to have them grow up in an environment that isn't safe, where water is bad, and maybe there would be a war/conflict going on, is not a good thing to have children grow up in.

After WWII was over, all the soldiers came home and had a bunch of children together with their spouses. These children are called baby boomers. Families were made up of 6-8 children. Now that they are getting older, they are starting to die off, and they didn't have as many children as their parents did so this leads to a decrease in population.

Waterfall - M.C. Escher - Chapter 31

Again, I use an M.C. Escher painting because this guy is a complete GENIOUS! I looked at this one for quite a bit of time trying to figure this one out (yes, just like the last painting). It's another simple, but complex painting. Escher uses the buildings to keep it simple, but then uses the little mill with the waterwheel to start his illusionary effects. It looks as if the water is traveling down a declined path, but the water is also traveling up an inclined path. In this painting it is all what the interpreter sees in the painting. To me I see the water traveling down the sloped path, and ending up above the mill, creating the waterfall. This painting is definitely one of my favorites by M.C. because he is a complete master of tricking minds. M.C. has a real skill at illusions and I can tell why he is a famous artist.

Ascending and Descending - M.C. Escher - Chapter 31

I'm going to be completely honest with you, I stared at this painting for at least 15 minutes, trying to find out why the people weren't going anywhere. I finally used logic to figure this one out. If you look at the sets of steps on the upper left and the lower right on the top of the building you can see that they look completely flat. But how Escher tricks our minds is he puts steps there to make it seem like the people are going up or down the flight of stairs. I like this painting a lot because it made me really think and use my brain to figure out how this works. I like the way that this painting is so simple but so complex. Simple because all the painting is is, in essence, a building with stairs on the top. But at the same time it can be so complex because the brain can't comprehend what is going on at the top set of stairs.

Print Gallery - M.C. Escher - Chapter 31

As I was looking for modern day artists, I saw an M.C. Escher painting called "Relativity" and I liked its design or layout. So I started to look up other paintings or drawings that he has done and I came across this, "Print Gallery". This is art, unlike paintings that have lines, and shapes all over them. Unlike them, this takes actual skill. In this painting, Escher has a man standing in a gallery and he is looking at a painting. Escher then connects everything in the painting, to the outside world. The way everything is detailed, it just looks amazing. I like how at the top left corner it looks as if you are looking through a window at a painting but as you go down you see a man standing inside of a building. It just amazes me how a person could have that much focus and skill to draw something of this stature.