1st Semester reflection

Use your 1st Semester reflection sheet to write a blog post on how you did last semester and how you plan to improve your academic performance this semester. Please refer to the attached rubric for basic standards and remember:

1. Any post below 500 words: automatic zero.

2. Any post without at least 3 examples of multimedia embedded: automatic zero.

3. Any post without at least 5 relevant and useful hyperlinks: automatic zero.

4. Submit a link to your academic journal POST, not the home page, here. Make sure your blog is not private.

Good luck!

P.S. Your reflection sheet must also be submitted by this due date

According to Benjamin Franklin, "without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning." This quote is reflecting my situation in this semester. My average grade in last semester was totally acceptable and much better than usual average grade I have. Even though, my accomplishment has no meaning without improvement. Consequently, I would like to improve this grade in the second semester.

First things I can improve without doubt is my history grade. The grade i received last semester was barely not acceptable in my opinion. If the teacher does not grade it based on point, I would fail. To accomplish this, I analyzed history grade. As an analysis, I have to improve the homework grade. Because the homework grade is a lowest and will improve other grade as well. One thing I have to make sure for it is finishing task before the dead line. Because I am not good time manager, I always leave tasks until the due date.

One thing which I can improve more without any problem is my time management skill. I can use some time manager or task management application to manage my time and tasks effectively and quickly. By accomplishing this, I would have more time to work on each project. This means I would have more time available to finish extra task.

By improving my task efficiency, I would like to go American or British University. I still did not figure out which university I would like to go. However, I am sure that I need an ability to be able to applied by university. SAT, SAT Subject and IB curriculum score is some of must important score I should have. Consequent, This year and next year are going to be must important year which I have to put more effort than lasts year. As I wrote at first, I would like to improve and succeed on my history course and to have good time management skill. I believe these effort would not hurt me at all and help me a lot.

As a conclusion, an improvement I should have in this semester is to manage time and tasks effectively by using application or any other way, and to have the high history grade. Finally, I would like to go to American or British university with high score of SAT, SAT subject and IB.

Blog Post #5

The documentary movie, Promises, explains the conflict between Palestinian people and Israel people. And the movie also shows the complication of the life of seven children: Moishe, Mahmoud, Shlomo, Yarko, Daniel, Faraj and Sanabel. The Promises Film Project team supported some of them to get together and to play. In the end the documentary, they discussed about the problem of Palestinian people and Israel people. Several year’s later, The Promises Film Project team created update of the film. In the update, the team interviewed children. In the interview, some children partially show their opinion against the conflict. This fact tells that their opinion had changed by time. Even though, their problem shift from racial one to their environment. This means they are started think about each other’s side. As a proof, Shlomo, the boy who did not participated to get together, refused interviews. It shows that the meeting they participated clearly changed their mind.
Israel is a jewish country with the population of 7,170,000. And 20.7% of them are Arabic. The conflict happening in Israel comes from religious and racial problem. Judaism and Muslim consider this land as holy land. Consequently, they both argue the land is theirs and other should leave. The story takes place in Jerusalem. And the seven children live in this place. Daniel and Yarko are Israeli boys living in west Jerusalem, secular Jews, put off more by religious Jews than Palestinians. Moishe, Mahmoud, Faraj and Sanabel are Palestinian who live in Palestinian quorter. And Shlomo is a orthodox Jewish boy who did not participated to get together and refused interview. These children are living inside the city with many racial problem. For example, Moishe’s best friend get killed by Israeli soldier. It caused his hate to Jewish people. In a school of Mahmoud, teacher strongly support the idea against Jewish. Faraj’s house is completely destroyed be Jewish. In the movie, he sit on the stone which was originally part of his house. And these problem complicate their life. However the team tried to bring Daniel and Yarko to Palestinian quarter to see their reaction to each other. When they started communication, their mind had changed. They started to see each other as a individual men rather than Arab or Jewish. Several years later, children met each other shifted their opinion against race to opinion to country they are living.
As a conclusion, the documentary clearly shows the problem caused by lack of communication. The project team actually asked them to communicate and it changed their mind against race to opinion to country itself. In my opinion, the communication is crucial for those country with many conflict. Because the lack of communication cause more conflict rather than understanding each other. In the movie they achieved to communicate and started thinking about understanding each other.
"Israel." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
"The Promises Film Project." The Promises Film Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Promises. Dir. Justine Shapiro. Perf. BZ Goldberg. 2001. Film.

Blog Post #4

Topic:"What does it take for someone to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect like the transformation that occurred in Derek?"

American History X is the movie about the concepts of hate and racism. We watched the movie in the class and discussed about racism and hate. Basically, the film is a story of two brothers. Elder brother was called Derek. He is White supremacist who joined the group of Neo-Nazism after his father was murdered by black people. And he served in prison 3 years because he killed two men. When he had released from prison,he changed his mind. Experience in the prison takes him to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect.

My opinion is adopting with another race make people's mind change. He adopted with black guy called Lamont. Before He met Lamont, he categorized people into two categories which are black and white without looking their characteristic. So it was first time he looked black man by their characteristic. In addition, one shocking event happened to him. White people did sexual assault to Derek. I guess he could not trust anyone at that moment. After he got sexual assault, he met with the man who was teacher of his brother, Danny. He asked him like this "Has anything you've done made your life better?" It was the begging of changing his mind. Then, he started looking person by their identity and stop categorizing them.

In conclusion, my opinion is that conversation with other races change mind to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect.

Response to the article

Under Pressure

I read this article and I talked about education with my education with my Japanese friend. First things we thought about are situation in the Japan. In japan, you always have to go to university if you want to enter any kind of company. What I think about education is that education is the one way to measure how you can work. Not everything.

“It’s important to use test results, but it’s also important that they not become your oxygen.”

–Pat Hunter, Principal of Maple Elementary, Seattle

This is a one phrase from the article and I think it is exactly what I talked about. In my opinion. Education is one way to learn how to work in a society. So something, which can be a way to learn, can replace education and itself.

So I think that school without class is also one way to learn how to work. I think that would work. When I saw that classroom. I compared with Google office. These two is seems like same and their way to work is similar. Normal school we usually go is school that teaches how to work in the normal office. The school without classroom is school that teaches how to work in the office like Google. I think the education system would change by the situation of working place and jobs. I hope education system will change and get better for childs

Lucas Suzuki

Blog Post #3

"What does the re-election of President Barack Obama mean for me and the world?"

By this re-election, I think many things such as a situation of Middle East will change and improve a lot. For me. It is not big event. Which means it doesn’t mean so much for me. Because I don't have many information about US and relationship with US. For World, I think it is big changes especially for US and Middle East. They will improve and fix themselves. And they have to change the relationship with Middle East. In addition, things that I hope to US is fixing of relationship of China, Korea and Japan. The relationship of these three countries are not good. So I hope US intervention to Asia

Goal Setting

 Assignment 2: Before the due date, write a blog post in which you reflect
on the time management goals you set on 19/20 Sept. In your paragraph, include whether or not you met your goals,any problems you had, any successes you had, and anything you learned. Also include an updated version of your goals based on your experience. (250 word min.)

Things that I learned from time management assignment are balance of rest and working. In a first time, I put lot of working time on my schedule. Because I thought this is a best to work most efficiently. But I was so tired to work by this schedule. Consequently, I changed a schedule. I put rest time more than last one. I followed this schedule and I didn't feel so much tired for it. I learned something from this schedule. Good schedule require some of rest time. Rest (break) is time to refresh the mind. Like a computer, if you use a computer constantly, then computer start getting slow. Because computer became hot. To use your computer faster, you have to shut down and wait a 10 or 5 minute. And you have to do same things for your body. The body requires some break per 1 or 2 hour. I tried it and my working speed get faster. This is a one technique I learned from this assignment and I will use it a lot.

*put a image - 1012/11/12

Blog Post #2

You briefly met with a college recruiter last week, and you reviewed a number of questions to ask about colleges. This must have gotten you thinking about your future, so tell us about it: Without any strict requirements, write about your expectations, goals, fears, concerns, questions that you have concerning your future in college. Additionally, now that you know that recruiters want to hear about you and your intellectual interests and pursuits, how do you think being an aware Academic Leader will give you an advantage when applying to the college of your choice? 

First, I love so much to learn computer technology and use this to makes my life style better. So I would like to go to the college that I can learn about computer technology specially. But I do not know a lot about college. So this is my one of concern that I am with. In addition, I am not sure I can follow technical class such as about computer program because of my language skill such as a English and Portuguese. It is also my one of concern. But I will try about them. Because my goal is to be engineer. As a result I will learn more and more and try to go to college. I concern a lot about college. But I do not fear to go to college. And I think to be academic leader makes a lot of advantage to you.

*put a image - 1012/11/12