Connor's Journal: Seeking For Independence

The American Revolution was a time of rebellion and uprising, between English colonist who settled in a land called America and against their homeland, Great Britain.  It was the inexperienced underdog soldiers against the highly trained British troops. Many bloody battles occurred in twenty year, and these events have shaped the future of both countries.  The war was mainly based about placing political power into the hands of the ordinary.  At the end of the war it was the first time colonies have won their independence from a parent country. For that reason, the American Revolution has earned it spot in the most important revolutions in history.

The American Revolution has caused many long and short term effects. America had created a republic, rather than keeping their British tradition of monarchy.  The Americans wanted to place power into the hands of ordinary people and created a leader called a president. Americans were able to vote for who they wanted represent their country. To keep away from monarchy the Americans deiced to only allow a president to be in office for only two term. This prevented a president from taking to much power to himself. The political power of the ordinary people increased the amount of freedom and rights which Americans still have today. Besides the political power Americans still have today, after the American Revolution a bill of rights was passed which ensured Americans many things from freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. This added to the power to ordinary citizens of America. However, not all things lasted very long after the American Revolution.  The short term effects of the revolution were quite simple. America was no longer part of Great Britain and had become a independent country. America had become it own nation, and separate for great Britain. The American Revolution has caused many long term effects and also had its share of short term effects.

Over the path of the American Revolution many things changed and stayed the same. Women and African Americans didn’t have any change in the way they were treated. Women were still viewed as the housewife, who raises the family, and takes care of children. Men where dominated in households and Women did not have much to say in the American Revolution. African Americans also did not experience much of a change either. Many were heroes in the American Revolution, however, even though most were freed, the way people treated was that they were always slaves. Though in the North Slavery was viewed as unacceptable, settlers in the south stood their ground for slavery. This eventually lead up to the American Civil War between the North and South. Overall, white men were the most powerful and truly the only ones that really gained political power after the American Revolution.

The American Revolution can be related to many things happening currently in the world. As I said in the paragraph, slavery and the way women are treated the same as in the American Revolution in some countries around the world. Women don’t have much power in political changes and don’t have the ability to vote.  They are expected in many places to be the ones that take care of their families and children. Slavery is also still consisting in countries around the world. Many people and even children work countless hours without making hardly any money. The revolution can also be related to the struggle currently happening in Ukraine. Protesters want their president (Viktor Yanukovych) to step down. Ukraine is in the process of splitting apart and this has resulted in many bloody protest and many countries around the world are concerned for the future of the country. Though the American Revolution happened almost 250 years ago, many problems still can relate to this revolution.

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Pack It All Up

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Throughout the Pack It Up project, my group and I had endured many challenges, failures and at the end, success. Now with the Pack it Up project over, I have time to reflect on the process of creating our shapes, working as a group and presenting to other people our final product.

Thinking about the way we design and produce a package is a very complicated process. In our project, our group began with a basic understanding of what we needed to package and also what are goal for the packages were. Waste minimum space. That is how we started visualizing what we wanted. After that process of visualizing we were able to put our image from our head to the computer on a program called Google Sketch Up. The part that comes after this, was definitely the hardest part of the whole process. We had to add correct measurement, dimensions and tabs to a net of the shape. It took us a many tries to get our measurements perfect and insert our tabs correctly for all three of our nets, however, I think the time we put into the creation of the net was well worth it. After the  net process, came the building phase. When building, we saw mistakes of the net and were able to improve them (This also took a couple times to get right). In the end, we had to put all of the measurements (Surface Area, volume, total cost) and pictures of nets, Google Sketchs and our final designs into one presentation that we presented to the class.

“How does failure help us succeed?” That question is asked a lot, especially in math. When you don’t do as well on a test or a quiz, you ask to yourself “What can I learn from my mistakes and failure?” I believe their is only one answer to this question. To learn from your mistakes you must keep improving and trying. Throughout the Pack It Up project our group endured many failures from getting the correct measurements and building our package properly. When we were building the triangular prism, we noticed that the measurements that we had used were all incorrect. However, with a bit more thinking and help from our teachers we were able to complete the triangular prism. We also came across failure when building the cylinder. Just like our mistake in the triangular prism, we had to change all the measurements and build the shape multiple times.  Overall, failure does help us to succeed because without failure there would be no success.

The American Revolution In Plain English

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Have you ever want to watch a video that gives you all the facts and key information in under five minutes? Well, wait no more, watch the American Revolution in Plain English. This video contains many key events from the American Revolution from the Boston Massacre, to the Boston Tea Party, and in the end, the defeat of the British. The American Revolution was based around taking political power from King George and placing that power in the hands of ordinary people. For the first time, a colony had won independence from its parent country, and it wouldn’t be the last. If you are interested in learning about the American Revolution or have a couple minutes to spare, please watch our video!

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The Hidden Secrets of Ketchup

Have you ever wonder to yourself  “Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard but only one variety of ketchup?” Well, before reading the exposition of the novel What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell, I had never thought about it. To be honest I am not quite a fan of mustard, however, ketchup earned the sauce of my early childhood award. I would put it on my food that I absolutely hated. It was a way to hide myself from the food I didn’t like and make it taste more of what seemed familiar to me.

“There are five known fundamental tastes in the human plate: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umani,”(44). Heinz, the leader in sales of the worlds ketchup wanted to push their ketchup to have all of these five tastes in one dip of their ketchup. They set out on a  extensive market- research project were researchers would go into households to watch he way ketchup was being used.  One key lesson Heinz had learned from this experiment is that “Small children tend to be neophobic; once they hit two or three, they shrink from new tastes,”(46). When a two or three year old “Was confronted with something strange on his plate- tuna fish, perhaps, or Brussels sprouts- he wanted to alter his food in some way that made the unfamiliar familiar,”(46). Thinking to my past I could always remember myself getting a plate of pasta that I didn’t favor and putting ketchup on it to make it taste good.I had wanted to subdue  the content on my plate.  “Ketchup could deliver sweet and sour and salty and bitter and umani, all at once,” (46). Thinking back to when I was in my early childhood, this scared me. Every time I was confronted with something new or different and forced to eat it I would let ketchup do the job of hiding that fear of eating something utterly disgusting.

Even to this day, I still sometimes use ketchup when I am made to eat something new.  The next time, however, when I get the ketchup from the fridge,  I will remember this book and put the ketchup back and try something new.

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The Wall of Human Spirit

Zombie, or as the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines it as the “Supernatural power that according to voodoo belief may enter into and reanimate a dead body.” The Word Zombie for many of us can spark a sudden sense of terror or fear. However, in the novel World War Z by Max Brooks the word zombie goes much further than the ordinary emotions of  fear and terror.

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Many questions arise in the resolution of the novel World War Z.  “Couldn’t just one restart the plague all over again? And what about those who prowled countries above the snowline? How long would we have to wait for them? Decades? Centuries? Would refugees from these countries ever have a chance of returning home (266)?” The living dead had brought more than just devastation and death to the world. They’d knocked down the wall of the human spirit. Would it ever be possible to rebuild that wall? That is only up to us. In the exposition and rising action of the novel many could only understand that the zombie was the equivalent to an inevitable death.  However, truly it was a battle of person vs. self. Would you let that wall of the human spirit crumble down into ruins and watch powerlessly as the world falls into a pit of fear? “We’d had to prove to ourselves that we could do it, and leave that proof as this war’s greatest monument, (267).” What did humans really need in order to keep together and fight? “Heroes, that’s what we were, that’s what our leaders wanted, that’s what our people needed,” (314). The human mind is the most powerful thing of all, and if you let it loose out of its borders you will bound to end up in ruins.

In the end of the novel World War Z,  I was very satisfied with the resolution. It left the reader hanging on a cliff not knowing what was in store for the future.  The Zombie Virus has slowly declined. The world has temporarily (Key word, temporarily) defeated the zombies, however there is a cost to the defeat. Many have been left with only memories of suffering from dawn to dusk not one day were they were able put their guard down. “I’d been afraid so long, fighting and killing, and waiting to die that I guess I just accepted it as normal for the rest of my life,” (342). The resolution of World War Z was to prove that the human spirit will always be able to get up on it feet after being knocked down. It is like a wall. It can be demolished, put into pieces, however, it we always build back up.  Always.