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.

Fitness 500 Gym

I recently joined the Fitness 500 club in Hyannis, hoping that exercising there will help me stay healthy. Before doing this, I had mostly gotten exercise by occasionally going for hikes and short walks, so I thought that being active on a more regular schedule would be a good idea. My plan is to go to the gym after school three days a week. So far I am very glad that I have done this. Usually, after working hard at school and sitting through an hour long car ride, I am very tired by the time I get home. However, being a little more active in the afternoon has helped me a lot with this, keeping me awake and more productive for the rest of the day.

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.