South Korean Parliament Free Trade Brawl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqvdJSO6Ssc
This link will take you to a you tube video that deals with a brawl that broke out at a South Korean Parliament meeting. I chose this video because this is something that would never happen here in America. One person made an interesting comment though, he said, "This is basically the governments way of doing what the American government do best... filibuster. it's just the Korean government doesn't have the patience like the American government has. But both countries do use the same corrupt tactics to get their ways." Times are rough in South Korea, along with many other countries in that region. It's hard to even imagine what life is like over there. We think that right now we are having major issues with our government and economy and the like, but really, if you think about it, we are not that bad off. It could be so much worse, like it is in South Korea.

Food Around the World

It is so interesting to see what people eat all around the world. Off of the videos that I watched on the website, the weirdest thing to me was the ice cream flavors in Las Angeles. As normal as ice cream flavors are, I think it's just weird to me because I expect to see things different from what I eat in other countries, but I thought that in the U.S. we were all basically on the same diet. But obviously not because I would never eat banana peanut butter bacon ice cream! I can't imagine people who would enjoy that and they are not even that far away from me.
I am not a very adventurous person when it comes to trying food. I did one time eat at a restaurant in Lincoln called The Oven. This is Indian food. I was so nervous going there because I knew there would be nothing that I like. They eat a lot of lamb and pork rather than beef or chicken. All of their sauces and everything were just really weird to me. I ended up not liking it of course, but it was a good experience.
The reason I think that we eat so differently around the world is due to culture and where we are in the world. Being in Nebraska, it isn't convenient for us to be able to go out fishing every day and come home with fish for dinner. But in Japan where sushi is big, that's what is common. It also has to do with what we grow up eating. I'm not very apt to try things because I never ate anything that wasn't considered a pretty American food growing up! These things influence what we eat and don't eat in our lives and when we get the chance to try someone else's culture of food we should do it so we can experience many different things!

Members of the G-20

The members of the G-20 for 2009 are:

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Indonesia
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Russia
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
South Korea
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
European Union

The World in a New Perspective

It's so interesting to think about how our world can look so different if you just change the view a little bit. Google Earth is helpful because it helps you to recognize places around the world even at a different angle or different perspective. I've been using Google Earth lately to help me with my map quizzes and it just helps so much to see the different places in a different view. I thought this view of the islands between Asia and Australia was cool. If you just looked at it without knowing that it was at a different perspective I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't even know where it was. With the features that Google Earth has, it is a learning process to figure out where things are and understand that it isn't always on a flat surface with north at the top and south at the bottom. It's cool to look at the world in a new way.

Slumdog Millionaire

This was such a great movie! I would recommend this to anything! I've never seen a movie before made how this one was. The flashbacks and everything made it seem more personal to me. The plot is more or less, Jamal, who is from the slums, is on the show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." He is doing very well, getting all of the questions correct. After the first night of him being on the show they take him and accuse him of cheating because how could a boy from the slums know all of this information? But as they are questioning him, it goes to flashbacks in his life where he has experienced different situations leading him to know the answer to the seemingly impossible questions. By seeing his life journey they see that he is not cheating at all, but just being lucky that he's getting the questions that he knows the answer to. It was so hard seeing in the movie how the little children were treated. They were take by men who were only searching for ways to make money. These men had them practice singing and doing certain skills. Then they would do cruel things, like squirt some sort of acid or something in the kids' eyes and make them blind. They did this so that they could have them stand out on the street corner and sing to make money for the men. Their thinking was that if they were blind children, they would in turn make more money. Ultimately people wonder what is a boy with no desire for riches doing on this game show? We find out that it is to send notice to Latika, his lover from his childhood. He never stopped loving her and tried to find her many times in their life. He knew though, that she watched the show and she wanted her to see him and then they could live happily ever after. Luckily, like all good movies, it does end this way. He uses his phone a friend call and calls his brother. But his brother had given his phone to Latika, so when she answers they profess their love to each other. And they live happily ever after. And to make things even better, he ends up answering the final question correctly and wins twenty million rupees. As far as who this makes me think about geography, it just makes me very thankful for me to be where I am. Mumbai seemed like a decent city, but there were just so many poor people. It was unbelievable. I've never had a chance to go somewhere and help people in need like that who are being treated poorly to make money. I would like to go someday to somewhere like that and help them out because my life has been so blessed I can't even really comprehend what it's like unless I was really there.

Spring Break

Spring break for me wasn't any too adventurous! I just went home. Home for me is Auburn, Nebraska. It is a little town in the southeastern corner of Nebraska. I lived in Auburn my whole life, so it holds a lot of good memories for me. I loved growing up with the small town atmosphere and the friendly people. It's so interesting how people enjoy such different things in the places they live. In my future, I want more than anything to raise my family in a town similar to Auburn, but other people who grew up in Auburn plan to never come back and just get out and go to a big city! I couldn't imagine going to a school where I don't even know half the people that I walk by in the halls, and I don't want my kids to go to a school like that either. So even though Auburn was a small town with not a whole lot of fun things to do, I loved it, and I love coming home to it! Over spring break I worked at a private preschool that I used to work at when I was in high school. It was so great to see all the kids again and to get back into the preschool setting! I also spent a lot of time planning my church's Vacation Bible School for this summer. My family also went to Lincoln a couple of days, one for a girl's day of shopping, and another for my little sister's basketball tournament. I was looking forward to spring break because I thought I would just be able to sit and relax and do nothing! But that wasn't the case at all, I was stuck being busy the whole time, which made break go really fast! But all in all it was a great break! The only thing I would have changed would be the weather! I could have handled some nice tropical weather!

Aid to Africa

This who issue on aid to Africa is a really hard issue for me. I hate seeing some places in Africa living how they do, so my first instinct is to say, go ahead and give them what they need. We, and other countries have the money and resources to help them out. But then there's the problem of them only becoming dependent on us and not doing what they need to do to survive. I'm not sure if it is a learning issue or if they just don't want to do it. I've thought of how we could do this and stop giving aid to them, but not just abandoning them. I think all the countries who have been giving to Africa for so many years now should get together and give them one more huge chunk of money. Then we should send people from our countries over the Africa to be as teachers to them on how to use this money and how to make this money accumulate and then leading to them prospering. I think if we tell them it is the last time any of us are going to give them money and then give them the lessons on how to make things work, they will have better chance of living on their own. If we had some of our intelligent financial people over in Africa for a few years, and then we went back and checked up on them every year after that it would make a big difference because they'd know we are watching them and we are not going to give in again and continue giving them aid. If we were to let them know that it is now up to them we could see some big improvements I think. But as I said, this is really hard for me to decide because I hate seeing people in poverty and suffering, but I don't think we can have Africa only be dependent on everyone else forever.