Spaghetti Supper

I recently assisted a number of my classmates in a spaghetti supper that they had organized. This event, which took place at St. John the Evangelist Parish Center in Pocasset, was set up in order to benefit Lithuanian Children's Relief Inc. Spaghetti was sold for between $5 and $10 to those who attended and that money was used to buy supplies that would help children in Lithuania. My duties at the event included setting the tables, washing dishes, and helping clean up after people left. The supper seemed to be fairly successful. I thought that a good amount of people showed up, all of the students were willing to help, and some students who came entertained everyone there with music. It was a very enjoyable activity to be a part of, and I am glad to know that it was beneficial on a larger scale.

Physics Study Group- Mock Exams

This week I spent a large amount of time preparing for my mock exam in Physics, and I tried to help the rest of my class prepare as well. I updated my blog with notes covering much of the material that we were told to study, with the information being largely taken from the IB Physics Study Guide book. I made sure that I told the members of the study group about this, and I tried spread the word to everyone who might have found it helpful. In addition to this, I gathered as many members of the group as I could find to meet in the time before the exam on Thursday for some last minute studying. I personally felt that this was very helpful, as we were all able to help each other understand various topics, and we were able to review a lot in a small amount of time, using IB books, class notes, the school textbook, and the IB data booklet to help us determine what we needed to know.

Physics Study Group- Blog Update

I have updated my Physics blog at http://sturgisphysics.blogspot.com/ with a variety of things recently. I have posted notes that I took in class, a link to a website that I think could be very helpful (www.wolframalpha.com) and an image I found of a Hertzsprung Russell diagram. It sounds like some of my classmates have been using the blog, so hopefully it was helpful to them when preparing for today's test.

Model UN- MUN Reflection

Reflecting on this year's Model United Nations event has made it clear to me how much I have changed over the past year. When I participated in MUN last year, I had no idea what to expect, and I was very much unprepared for everything that awaited me on the trip to New York. This time, having one year's experience of this activity in addition to the skills I have adopted over time as an IB student, I left the event feeling much more successful.

I think that the most noticeable measure of this was, to me, the fact that I was willing to stand up in front of my committee, which consisted of about 200 people, and speak about the issue on three different occasions. I am aware that other students spoke much more than I did, and that they had likely done much more research on the topic, but I was satisfied with my improvement since last year, when I only spoke once, involuntarily. Multiple other delegates told me that they thought I did a good job, which was very nice to hear. I feel that, even if I didn't have a very important role in actually creating the resolutions, people listened to what I had to say and I was able to at least have some impact on the course of discussion and some of the ideas that were brought up afterward. Because of this, I believe that participating in MUN for a second time was an extremely beneficial experience to me, as well as a very enjoyable one.

Model UN- New York Trip

Sturgis' MUN group recently returned from the National High School Model United Nations event in New York City. I feel like I participated significantly more in my committee's meetings this year than I did when I went last year, and because of this I believe that I gained much more from the trip this time. I collaborated with others including people not only from Sturgis, but from all over the nation, in order to discuss issues of global importance. The specific issue that my committee discussed was the impact of foreign debt and foreign direct investment on human rights. I worked with students who represented many other countries, and we were eventually able to create and pass two resolutions that we felt would effectively address this problem. While not in committee sessions, the Sturgis group was still organized, for the most part, staying in groups as often as possible and trying to make sure that everyone knew where everyone else was. Overall, I am very glad that I participated in MUN and joined the group on this trip.

Model UN - Practice Debate

Yesterday after school the Model United Nations group held an hour long meeting/practice debate in preparation for the trip next week. The topic of the debate was whether or not child soldiers should be prosecuted for the crimes they commit during wars. We divided ourselves into two teams, one to argue for prosecution and one to argue against it. I thought that the debate went very well. Everyone seemed to do an impressive job of thinking quickly and coming up with reasonable points to support their arguments. There was a large amount of collaboration among both groups; we planned out the major points that we thought we had to bring up, and we all listened carefully to what everyone had to say. I think that we will be ready to do an excellent job when we go to New York next Wednesday.

Physics Study Group - Blog

The Physics Study Group has not been able to meet very often, but I would still like to do what I can to help my class understand the material and prepare for the IB exam. I thought that one way to do this would be to create a blog which I could keep updated with the notes I take in class. So far, I have only posted some notes that I took about nuclear physics, but I will try to add more to it regularly. The blog is open for anyone to read, and I will see if any other physics students would be willing to contribute their own notes and knowledge to it. I think that this type of collaboration between students could be very beneficial to all of us.

The blog can be found here.

Model UN - Second Position Paper

Some issues came up recently and as a result I am going to be the only person representing Macedonia's SOCHUM committee. Because of this, I had to write a second position paper in order to be prepared to discuss either one of the two topics that might be discussed. As I wrote earlier, one topic was the rights of disabled persons. The topic I wrote about this time was the social and humanitarian implications of foreign direct investment and foreign debt. I had to write this essay on a very short notice, so it is not as long as the first paper I wrote, but I did the best that I could. As always, the other members of the school's Model UN group were very helpful, offering whatever advice they could to help me complete the paper on time.


Position Paper Topic A:

The Republic of Macedonia has been greatly impacted as a victim of the current worldwide financial crisis, and it recognizes the effect of the crisis on humanitarian matters. Macedonia, being one of the least wealthy former Yugoslav states, has been classified as a landlocked developing state by the United Nations.

At the moment, The Republic of Macedonia is concerned more with Foreign Direct Investment than with foreign debt. Between the years of 2003 and 2007, Macedonia seemed to have actually benefited from Foreign Direct Investments. The number of countries investing in Macedonia appeared to have increased dramatically since the early 2000s, with Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands holding particularly large amounts of FDI stock. This was very helpful towards achieving the goal of developing the Republic of Macedonia. More recently, however, the global financial crisis has caused the investments in the country to begin decreasing again. This change was particularly noticeable in 2008 and 2009.

The Republic of Macedonia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the "promotion of economic potentials and opportunities to invest in the Republic of Macedonia" and "conducting active economic foreign policy" to be among the nation's top priorities. We believe that cooperation with large organizations, including multinational corporations, is a very important part of improving conditions within landlocked developing countries such as Macedonia. As such, it may be wise to keep the regulation of multinational corporations to a minimum.

Of course, we also believe that some amount of regulation by the United Nations is necessary, recognizing that maintaining the respect of human rights as an equally important goal. In addition to this, no matter how the Republic of Macedonia may benefit from foreign aid through direct investments, it is not willing to make any sacrifices in terms of its national identity; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs aims to preserve Macedonia's sovereignty and independence.

Model UN - Position Paper Finished

I was able to finish writing a position paper for Model UN. I chose to write about Topic B, which discusses the rights and treatment of disabled people in Macedonia. Unfortunately, I was not able to write a second paper for my committee over the weekend. I will talk to the group about what to do about this, but at the very least I will be sure to do research on Topic A, which focuses on foreign debts and investments. I have posted my essay on Topic B below. I think that writing this essay helped me to develop yet another new skill; I needed to write it quickly, and I knew very little about the topic, so I had to do a large amount of research in a small amount of time. While this may not be a great habit to get into, I think that being able to more quickly process information that I research could be very helpful for my future education.

Position Paper Topic B:

Implementing the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons

My country, Macedonia, is very much aware of the difficulties facing disabled persons throughout the world and the extent to which it is necessary for the United Nations to ensure that the human rights of such persons are not overlooked. As such, Macedonia hosts non-governmental organizations such as Polio Plus, which is dedicated to preserving human rights and supporting people who suffer from disabilities. The nation is also currently involved with international organizations including UNICEF and USAID. Because of its concern for this matter, Macedonia has provided its signature for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons. In addition to signing the convention in March 2007, Macedonia also signed the optional protocol, further proving the nation's commitment to resolving this issue.

Within the past few years, Macedonia has made progress towards implementing the ideas set forth by the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy has been working with various NGOs in order to eliminate discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities since 2008. Polio Plus has been a particularly active participant in this movement, assisting Macedonia greatly with the process of Universal Periodic Review and remaining in contact with the UN Human Rights Council.

Macedonia is also providing disabled children with educational opportunities, working with organizations like USAID to give these children access to specially designed computers, in hopes of establishing equality in the education of all children in the country. We have recently begun the development of community homes for people with intellectual disabilities. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has stated that he sees this development as the first step in creating "a just and inclusive society in Macedonia," as it will help to encourage the people of Macedonia to recognize the rights and equality of the disabled persons around them.

However, we are still struggling to implement the convention as effectively as possible. In the recent past UNICEF has pointed out the inefficiency of institutions for disabled children in comparison to the relative success of providing the children with a family environment. Macedonia is willing to keep an open mind in regards to the best methods with which to improve this situation. Nations like Macedonia might not have the large amounts of resources that may seem necessary to combat discrimination against disabled persons, but it is clear to us that open-mindedness and sheer determination to succeed in this endeavor could easily be our most useful tools. The world must recognize the troubles that face disabled persons daily at treat those persons accordingly. However, it is important that this is done in a way that supports people with disabilities, rather than in a way that causes them to be denied of their human rights.

Model UN - Position Papers

There was a meeting this week in which we discussed the position papers that are due this coming Monday. I have been very busy with other schoolwork recently, so I have been unable to start my work on this assignment until now. I was told at the meeting that something had come up unexpectedly with my partner in Macedonia's Social/Humanitarian committee, so I will try to write both of our position papers. Normally this type of event may seem to make it difficult for me to achieve my goal of collaborating with others, but I felt that the whole situation was communicated very effectively through the group and I will do my best to complete my committee's position papers.

Physics Study Group - Changes in Structure

The Physics Study Group seems to be going well at this point, as we continue to work as a group answering example IB questions. However, I still believe that it could be more effective. Originally, the main goal of the group was to prepare Physics students for the IB exam. However, we are all concerned about our current grades in the class, and we often feel unprepared for tests and uncertain about homework. As such, I think that we may want to shift the focus towards group discussions regarding what we feel we need to improve on, and then address those issues to the best of our abilities at each meeting. Once we improve our grades as a group, we should be able to more efficiently prepare for our exams in the Spring.

Model UN - Practice Debate

The Model United Nations group met for about an hour and a half today after school. The primary purpose of this meeting was to hold a practice debate, in order to prepare us for the trip to New York next year. The topic of our debate was whether or not Guantanamo should be closed or left open. There were not many people at the meeting, so the debate did not move as quickly as we had hoped. However, it seemed to be a good start, and the idea of practicing debates seems like it could be very helpful. We spent the rest of the meeting trying to organize the group so that we could meet more effectively. I suggested the idea of providing people with packets of information about the topics of the debates before the debates themselves actually take place, so that we will all know what we are talking about at each meeting. The group seemed to agree that this was a good idea. However, we had some trouble determining which days are best for after school meetings, because this is a very busy time of the year. Despite these problems, the group seems very determined to succeed in its preparations.

Physics Study Group - SAT Review

The last Physics Study was spent going over material that some students would need to know for the Subject SAT in Physics. This material included the concept of relativity, which we had only just started to learn, but was likely to be on the test. The group was larger than normal this time, and other students, who were working on labs at the time, contributed to the discussion as well.

I am not sure how successful this meeting was towards the goal of helping students do well on their SATs; it is a complicated subject, and we did not have much time to learn it. Also, I am concerned that not everyone in the group completely understands what we are learning. I hope that I will be able to find a way for the material to be effectively communicated so that everyone can understand it.

Physics Study Group - Review

It has been difficult to organize the Physics Study Group recently - the Senior class is very busy at this time of year, making it hard for everyone to find the time to meet for Physics. However, the group is still meeting on Tuesdays at lunch when possible. We spent this week's meeting reviewing topics we learned last year. I thought this was very helpful for keeping the material fresh in our minds. Hopefully more members of the group will be able to come next week, when we will be going over topics that will appear on the upcoming Physics Subject SAT.

Physics Study Group - Second Meeting

The Physics Study Group was very successful in its second meeting. We had a total of six students show up to review IB questions and the material we have been learning in class. The turnout was much better than that of the first meeting, in which there were only three students in the room at any given time. This could be contributed to a couple of different reasons. Firstly, I tried to spread the word about the group to the Standard Level Physics class, because only Higher Level students came to the first meeting. Secondly, I ordered two pizzas for the group to share while we worked together, providing extra incentive for people to come while at the same time adding a little more of a fun and relaxed feeling to the whole experience. Everybody contributed to the review or had questions to ask, so the meeting was very productive. Next time, I will try to plan ahead and prepare questions of my own for the group to solve.

Physics Study Group - First Meeting

The Physics study group that I have been organizing met for the first time yesterday. The goal of the group is to gain a better understanding of Physics as a science and make sure that students are prepared for the IB exam. For the first meeting, Mr. Patterson, who is supervising the group, supplied us with some questions that we could expect to see from the IB, and we were able to work as a group to answer different parts of the questions until the subject matter began to make sense to all of us. Unfortunately, many people were unable to come to the first meeting, and I think that others were unaware that it was happening. I think that what we are doing could potentially be very helpful, but I may need to do more to get the word out about it for next week's meeting.

Trip to Abbey Kelley Foster Charter School- Reflection

On August 20th I traveled to Worcester with a group of Sturgis students who had volunteered to speak to a class at Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School. This school has decided to adopt the International Baccalaureate program, so it was hoping that we would be able to help its students understand what they would be doing for their Junior and Senior years of high school. When we arrived at the school, we had lunch in the cafeteria with the students who would be participating in the IB program. We introduced ourselves to them then and got to know them a little better. They seemed to be genuinely interested in the IB, and they had plenty of questions to ask us. After lunch, we moved to a lecture hall where we could more formally speak to them about their future education. The subjects of the discussion ranged from basic information about CAS, Internal Assessments and the Extended Essays to what we think about our education so far and what advice we would give to people interested in the program. Some of the advice we gave was to resist putting off work and to keep trying no matter how difficult school becomes. The students and teachers of Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School thanked us for taking the time to come speak to them, and they seemed to be very excited and even a little nervous about what they would be doing next year. I felt that we gave them the best advice we could give, and I think that they should be more prepared for the IB now. I also think that I, along with the other Sturgis students, gained a better understanding of our own education, having described our experiences to others for the first time. Because this was the first time I have done something like this, this activity was a new challenge for me. It was difficult trying to put my feelings about my education into words, but I am glad that I was able to do so, as it was very revealing to myself in addition to being hopefully helpful to the other students. Also, I often do not speak as much as I would like to, so talking to these people felt very helpful towards developing the skill of communicating with large groups of people. I am very glad that I went on this trip. The people at Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School seemed very nice and I am sure that they will make the most of their IB education.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Solutions Part 1

8/16/09
This week we began to discuss some of the possible solutions to global poverty. Much of this discussion was centered around energy poverty. A lack of accessible energy seems to be the root of almost all other types of poverty. Because of this, figuring out how to connect the world to a clean reliable, and abundant power source should be an important step towards eliminating extreme poverty. Many countries that have only recently been developed seem to want what they see as "the American lifestyle." However, it is important that these countries leapfrog directly into the most modern technology, rather than following the same model that we went through. We also talked about the social effects of oil as a source of energy. These effects seem to be generally negative today, as oil has been fueling petro-dicatorships in some areas and slowing down progression toward more efficient types of energy. I am not sure yet if there is much that I can do as an individual to help end energy poverty, but I am looking forward to learning more about solutions in next week's class.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Millennium Development Goals

8/9/09
Today I learned about the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight goals established in order to improve conditions in developing countries. These include:

1. Decreasing poverty and hunger
2. Universal primary education
3. Gender equality/empowerment
4. Decreasing child mortality
5. Improving maternal health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and others
7. Environmental sustainability
8. Global partnership

We also discussed the possibility of a water crisis. There seems to be an increasing scarcity of fresh water in many parts of the world, and this is made worse by various factors, such as the production of many types of food and biofuels, which require a lot of water to make. Many plants that developing countries export require large amounts of water to grow, meaning that they are virtually exporting the water that they need.
Today's class has further increased my awareness of my responsibilities as a person and our responsibilities as a country, informing me of how the world hopes to approach global development and what people can do to help achieve these goals.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Extreme Poverty

8/2/09
This week we identified our current goal as ending extreme poverty, rather than ending poverty altogether. Trying to fight poverty itself is likely to be unsuccessful, but eliminating extreme poverty, in which people live on less than a dollar a day, should help greatly improve the standard quality of life around the world. We also revisited our discussion about misconceptions, concluding that not all of the issues related to poverty can be linked to one thing, such as the type of government that controls a country. For example, one popular thought seems to have been that if a developing country is made into a democracy, poverty in that country will be eliminated. This has proven to be false, as poverty leads to poor governance instead of poor governance leading to poverty. It is also important for developed nations to trust that developing countries are not too corrupt to put money to good use. Now that I have become more aware of misconceptions like these, I realize that it is my responsibility to make sure that I avoid them and keep a more open mind about the state of the world and how it might be able to improve.