A Message to Garcia

Today I was really inspired by the story Mr. Schick read us. But before I get to that, I need to tell you what happened at the beginning of class. The mod started off with a few people asking questions about their blogs. I thought that this was going to be exactly like yesterday, where we did not get to any lessons and I just sit there listening to questions. But things changed quickly. Some kid who sits near me asked if we could have those donuts that were in a bag underneath Mr. Schick's desk. Mr. Schick kind of ignored the question and started talking about the clubs that he was running, like the film club and the debate team. Then Mr. Schick told us to open our composition books. He was going to read us an article written by Elbert Hubbard, called "A Message to Garcia". The article took place during the Spanish-American War, and was about how President McKinley asked a man named Rowan to deliver a letter to Garcia, who was a general in the war. No one knew where Garcia was, except for the fact that he was somewhere in the mountain ranges of Cuba. When Rowan was asked to accomplish this task, he did not ask "Where is he?". Instead, he managed to complete the task by delivering the letter, even though he did not know where he was. Do people nowadays always set an example like Rowan did? People can now be lazy, or ask questions to make the task simpler or to get out of doing the assigned job. We were copying down notes in our composition books as he was saying this, and every so often he would stop reading the article and would ask us what that just meant. Everyone had there own opinions onto what the main message of the article was. I think the main message is to be worthy of delivering a message to Garcia.

Learning about Ancient Greek Terms

Today, I did not get much accomplished. We spent the whole time trying to get every one's blog to work, and by the time we were finished, class was already over! I did not do much except for answer a few of Mr. Schick's questions. Mr. Schick sent us all home with an assignment though. He wanted us to research a few words that relate to Ancient Greece. I will list the words and their definitions below.

• arête: describing someone who gives 100% effort; the best someone can be.
• Polis: translating to city in Greek; an Ancient Greek city-state.
• Socrates: Ancient Greek philosopher. Born 470/469 BC in Athens. Died 399 BC.
• Socrates death: Socrates attempted to change the way of justice and peoples pursuit of goodness in Athens. He was also guilty of impiety and was sentenced to death by drinking poison.
• The Socratic Method: a method of teaching in which the teacher asks a series of questions instead of directly telling information. 
• The date 508 BC: Athens becomes one of the first colonies to establish democracy.
• Agora: an Ancient Greek marketplace.
• What the Ancient Greeks meant if they called you an idiot: some one who had better things to do than vote in a democratic election. 

So those are the 8 words I was supposed to research. I was surprised to know what "idiot" meant in Ancient Greece. I would have never guessed that.

My First REAL Day at John Carroll

Today in class, we learned about how the year is going to work. We went over the prayer that we will say at the beginning of each of his classes. Mr. Schick also helped some of the students set up their blog, for the people who had trouble setting it up yesterday. The majority of the class was spent going over the syllabus we were supposed to read the previous night. Mr. Schick told us about the lateness policy, academic integrity, the grading methods, the materials needed, and other important topics. Once the mod was over, I thought to myself  that this year won't be so bad at all (not that I came into class with a bad attitude or anything). I am going to learn a lot of interesting things in this class, and meet lots of new people too. I am looking forward to an awesome school year in John Carroll!

My First Day at John Carroll

When I walked into John Carroll Thursday, I was very nervous. This was a whole new experience for me. Coming from a public school, I was not accustomed to the way private schools work. But, none the less, I was excited and ready for whatever they would throw at me. Not many people I knew from my school would be going to John Carroll, so I walked in assuming I would only know three or four people. However, I ended up recognizing many people from my old schools and from other extra-curricular activities. The day started when I walked into the auditorium. All of the incoming Freshman were there. The principal of the school welcomed us to John Carroll, and told us the meaning behind the name and its motto; Compelling, Considerate, and Uncompromising. After that, we were sent to our Advisory. My advisor was very nice, and showed me my locker and combination. We then learned about the school and how mods worked, then took a break to eat lunch. After lunch, we then followed our Wednesday schedule. I met many new people and had fun learning about my teachers. I can't wait to go back to school on Monday!