Persuasive Speech

Here is a video of me giving a speech about making music mandatory at SAS. I wrote this speech after creating a podcast about music at SAS.

Nutrition Video

Getting On The Right Note - Music In Middle School

I am most proud of my soundbites in my podcast. I felt that I chose good soundbites from my interviews that represented all perspectives on my topic. I also felt that I did a good job with my bridges and transitions. One example that I am most proud of is when I added a bridge in the middle of my soundbite to connect the two ideas my interviewee talked about. 

My biggest challenge with this podcast would have to be putting research (quotes and statistics) into the podcast script. I felt that this was difficult as I had to find the right evidence that flowed with the ideas my interviewees talked about instead of evidence that was off track and would just make listeners confused. 

Something I wish I had more time to fine tune would be my research. There is always room for improvement and I feel that I could’ve worked on phrasing my research in a more efficient way that leaves less room for confusion. I feel that my evidence is already quite good, but I feel that if I had to fine tune something, it would be the way I phrased my evidence.

One piece of unintended learning I discovered during this unit was that you should always check your recordings before you leave the recording studio. This was because a couple of my recordings were started too late and I had to re-record using my computer microphone, which is very different in terms of sound quality compared to the microphone at the Note Pad.

My interviews went pretty well as I was able to get the sound bites I needed to represent the different perspectives the community had on my issue. I built rapport by asking them about background information on their musical history. For example, with Brian, I asked him if he plays a musical instrument (3:36 in the interview clip). This helps build rapport as this was a question that helped me get to know Brian better and it was also related to my topic, so it didn’t bring the interview off track.

I think I did a good job with my interviews, but something that I could improve on would be my follow up questions. Overall, I felt that I did a good job with my follow-up questions, but there is always room for growth. During Brian’s interview, I asked him, “If I am not mistaken, you play a musical instrument right? And what is that instrument? Why will you keep on playing and learning that instrument?” He told me he played the clarinet and the french horn and he likes the challenges that come with learning the instrument. Learning that Brian has been learning musical instruments for a long time and being a musician myself, I wanted to know his views on his ability to play the french horn impacting him. So I then asked three more follow-up questions: When did you start playing the french horn? And has the ability to play the french horn, does affect your feelings or emotions? How about stress levels. Do you think that a musical instrument helps with the amount of stress someone feels?

SMART Goal

Who: Myself

What: Getting my max push-ups in a minute to 40

When: By the end of the third quarter

Which: Using my routine I've created of slowly increasing the number of push-ups I do every day.

Why: To improve my upper body strength for sports.

Goal: I want to get my max push-ups in a minute to 40 by the end of the third quarter by using my routine I've made of slowly increasing the number of push-ups I do per day to improve my upper body strenght.

Fitness Plan

                DECIDE: My FITNESS Plan

D Define the Problem	Select the FITNESS COMPONENT or SKILL COMPONENT you’d most like to improve this year. (Fitness: Cardio, Muscular Strength, Muscular endurance, Flexibility, Body Composition.core strength) (Skill: Balance, Agility, Coordination, Power, Speed,  Reaction Time) Explain why you chose this component. Muscular Strength. I need to work on my muscular strength so that I can shoot and pass better in basketball and in other sports. Muscular strength also helps your ability to play sports for extended periods of time. Create and link a short video (10-15 seconds) that illustrates your chosen component. (using your laptop, iPad, iPhone, or other device). Upload to youtube and paste youtube link here: https://youtu.be/DlHESM-5OSs
E Explore the Alternatives	List 3 other Fitness/Skill Components that you could also improve and explain how they will benefit your overall fitness: 1. Endurance - Having a better endurance means that I can play sports and move around for longer periods of time. This also can help me run a quicker mile. 2. Reaction Time - Having a better reaction time can allow me to make decisions quickly and helps me with my reflexes. 3. Speed - This can help me play sports, especially sports where you have to evade defenders, that require sudden bursts of speed or are played in small areas.
C Consider the Consequences	Identify 2 positive and 2 negative possible outcomes as a result of your choice: (Ask yourself … how risky is each alternative? What are the chances of success? How would it affect my short term fitness? How would it affect my fitness long term?) Positive 1. Being stronger can help me play sports for extended periods of time because I won’t burn out as easily. For example, if you are a quarterback in football, if you are stronger, you can keep on passing the ball during the fourth quarter because you still have the energy and strength to do so. If you aren’t as strong, then you wouldn’t be able to throw the ball during the fourth quarter because you wouldn’t have enough strength due to fatigue and lack of strength.      2. Being stronger can also make you less prone to injuries because you wouldn’t be that fragile. You wouldn’t strain your muscles because they would be able to last longer due to their strength. If you weren’t as strong, you could get injured or strain your muscles if an activity requires you to exert a lot of energy. With that, you can play more sports for longer periods of time. Negative      1. Too much exercise can result in injuries, especially if you push yourself too much. I’m not saying that pushing yourself is bad, it’s what makes us better, what I’m saying is that you have to listen to your body and know when to call it a day when you exercise.     2. Also, muscular endurance can cause soreness. Sometimes when I go run during training, I feel sore when I finish. That is another thing that you can prevent from listening to your body.
I Identify Values	This decision is important to me because I want to become stronger so that I can play sports for extended periods of time and I can be less injury-prone. Also, exercise is important because it gives you so many benefits. In a way, it is your body’s natural medicine.
D Decide and Act	Create an action plan for improvement.  Outline a plan for a week of fitness activity that will improve your chosen component.  Create short video links  (10-15 seconds) of your chosen activities to help illustrate your plan. My plan to improve my muscular strength is to do simple, but effective exercises. Examples of such exercises are push-ups, sit-ups, and lunges. I will do these exercises daily.
E Evaluate the results	My goal was to improve a specific fitness component.  I will know that my decision and action plan has been effective when......... My goal is to improve my push-ups and sit-ups. I will start out by doing 15 push-ups and sit-ups and then increase the number by 2 each day. I will be able to track my progress by the number of push-ups and sit-ups I can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkvuuJJwn5o

Application Essay Unit Reflection

Dear Mrs. Windust and Mr. Arleth,

During this unit, I learned so much about the interesting blend of narrative and reflective writing and the process of writing an application essay. I have learned so much that I can’t fit all of the learning in this one letter. From the high schoolers, I’ve learned that you should write the essay so that it reflects how you think, your personality, and how you communicate. At first, I tried adding all of this vocabulary in my essay which I later then found out was a bad idea because the essay started to not sound like me anymore.

On top of that, I also learned about the transitions and the basic structure of an application essay from you guys. There should be both reflection and narrative writing in the piece. In my opinion, the long hours of revising and editing my piece was all worth it, but If I could go back and do something differently, I would cut more fat, add more reflection, and get feedback from you in the mornings or after school.

Looking back at my On-Demand, I noticed how my On-Demand didn’t have much reflection while my application essay did. That was something I was really proud of. As I revised my essay, it watched it transform from a very narrative dominant voice to a mix that sounded more like Armpit Hair. The moment I took a step back and realized the difference between my first draft and my final essay was the best part about this unit for me.

Overall, this essay taught me so much about reflective writing and I am very thankful that I got to learn more about this new style of writing.

Your Dedicated RLA Student,

Johan Chua

_________________________________________________________________________

Here is an excerpt that comes from the middle of my essay:

"That day, it was finally time I accepted the fact that there are no shortcut around waiting and patience. It is inevitable that one would experience delays and the need to wait. You just have to learn to deal with it.

Climbing Reflection

One thing I thought I did well during my climb was that I used both my arms and legs to climb up the wall instead of only pulling myself up with my arm strength. However, I could improve my technique by using more leg power to get up the wall by pushing myself up with my legs and then reach higher with my arms. I felt that I kept my body close to the wall most of the time until the wall became steeper and I started hanging, which caused my arms to get strained. I could also work on saving my energy for the harder parts of the wall - the part where the wall gets really steep and I start to hang - so that I could get higher up the wall instead of falling quite low in the wall due to fatigue.

Overall, I feel that my climbing has improved in the short three days we've been in the climbing gym, and that it has significantly become better since the first time I've been in the gym in sixth grade. In sixth grade I only could climb up to the red line, now I can go way higher. This improvement is one thing I'm very proud of.

MS Fitness Card

Ellis Island Reflection

How do you think people felt upon their arrival to Ellis Island? 
I think that people felt excited and happy as they made it to the land of USA and completed the long journey from wherever they came from. For me, completing the journey is like being halfway to where you want to go; and the other half is getting through immigration. However, I also think that they felt fear and nervous as they could get deported at any time. One wrong action can get you deported and that is life-changing for someone.

What do you think the immigration hall screening was like? 
I think the immigration hall screening was stressful for everyone which created a stressful atmosphere and made others feel even more pressured. I also think that it was a scary place to be knowing that one mistake could end your hope. If I were in a stressful, scary environment and I had to answer an official's questions knowing that if I don't act in a calm manner, I can get deported, I would be scared to death.

How did you feel when you arrived at the classroom and learned about your fate?
I felt relieved and very thankful as I ended up getting US citizenship. I felt thankful because I knew I wouldn't have to go through all the trouble other people - people who got deported - would face. I felt safe knowing I was out of danger and trouble of getting deported and denied US citizenship.

Wellness Prezi

Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Eras

Letter to Bartolomé de las Casas

Instructions:
The year is 1501. You are a Taino servant named Juanico. You were recently taken away from Bartolomé by order of the Spanish Crown. Write a letter to him urging him to do something about the encomienda system in the Americas and the treatment of Tainos and other indigenous people.


Dear Barteolomé,
How are you? I hope things are going well over there.

The government just took me again and it's terrible. I have no idea what they are going to do to me. They might abuse me or even kill me. I'm taking a big risk by writing this letter to you and please, please, please take every word I tell you and spread it.

I need to talk with you about the encomienda system. I thought it would be a fair system that would help our society move forward. I thought my tribe would be protected. I thought peace would be brought. I thought us Tainos would have a better life. But we didn't get any of that. Instead, we were forced to convert to Christianity and become slaves.

They made us slaves! We work 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year doing all the dirty work that our "owners" are too lazy to do. We work in mines to collect gold, we raise livestock, we run the plantation and plant crops, and if we don't and rebel against them, we'll get killed. I've seen plenty of my friends and members of my tribe gxet killed because they didn't want to be slaves or convert into Christians.

They don't understand that we are humans, not animals. We have the same amount rights that an animal has. We are all equal. We should be treated better. Help us, do something.

You must change this.

From your friend,
Juanico

Reliability, Bias, Inferences

This advertisement shows that a bottle of Fanta Grape Soda is made out of all grapes. From background knowledge, I am 100% certain that Fanta is NOT made out of all grapes. In fact, after checking the ingredients list in a bottle of Fanta Grape, I found that the first few ingredient in this drink is carbonated water, sucrose, citric acid, and flavoring. Continue reading the list and you will find no signs of grape! Instead, there's Red 40 and Blue 1 food colouring to use "in small quantities to give products a vibrant and attractive color", according to the Coca-Cola Product website.

Just by comparing the advertisement to the actual product, you can already tell that this ad was created to be a biased advertisement. This ad is reliable but at the same time not reliable. The reason this ad is reliable is that it's from Fanta, a real company. However, this ad is giving a false impression to viewers as it shows how Fanta is 100% grape when it's really not, which makes it untrustworthy.

Reflecting on my findings, I infer that this Fanta advertisement is trying to attract people to buy Fanta's beverages by showing viewers how Fanta doesn't have all this sugar and junk in it and is all grape, when it's truly not.





Sources: http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/fanta-grape/
Image found on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/272608583671892833/

Letter To My Past Self

Dear Johan,

It's going to be a prolonged and gruelling experience. It will test you. But in the end, you will pull through and mature as a stronger individual.

The next stage of your 7th-grade science curriculum you’re about to face will make you make mistakes, it will make you lose your cool. But listen to me, don’t attempt avoiding the mistakes, you will need them. They will help you with your future.

You have always worked well with others in regards to group projects, however, when the many opportunities to become a leader came your way, you have always declined. But the continuation of not grabbing opportunities is inevitable. One day you will have to become a leader, and that day will be very soon.

Your next science unit is natural disasters. You will be put into a group not of your choosing consisting of two other members, one being supportive, cooperative, and friendly, and the other you could say the opposite of that.

Working in a team setting always has its challenges. Different individuals have different perspectives, personalities, and ways they take on tasks. Listen, you will have differences with your teammates. You will feel like you want to work against them instead of with them, however, you’ll have to learn how to manage conflict.

On top of the various personalities in your team, no one will step up and become the leader of the group, so you will have to take on that responsibility. It will make you anxious, but stay tough.

Being the project group leader is something you have little experience with, and if not done correctly, can cause your team to fall apart, and you do not want your team to fall apart.

As you try out this new experience for the first time, you will have disagreements, you will carry extra burdens, you will feel pressured to keep your team moving in the right direction, you will make mistakes. . Those mistakes are what will shape you and make you who you are, the person who is writing this letter right now.

Having the leadership role also means getting everyone on the same page and dividing the work evenly and fairly. You have to be strong and guide and support your team through tough, difficult times. When you will try to divide the work up, you will find that things don’t always go your way and other people want to do their own thing.

“I’m doing parts A, B, and C!”

“Those are the easiest parts, can we split the work more fairly?” You will ask.

“...But they are already mine. I even wrote my name there already.”

“But if you take the easy parts, you will leave us with all the hard tasks.”

“Yea. So what?”

Bringing the team together is the biggest challenge you will face during this project. It’s hard, it’s tough, but when completed, it’s all worth it.

Being a leader will require more work and responsibility than you think. 

Watch how you act, don’t lose your composure, and most importantly treat other team members with respect, no matter how different they see things than you.

Just remember these words: composure, respect, hard work. And you’ll be a great leader.

You got this.

Your older self,

Johan

PE Goal

MY PE GOAL FOR 8th GRADE

1. Here’s what I know about myself as a mover.(answer these on your own then share them with a partner of your choosing)

• I really like to play basketball, swim, and gym sports.

• I think I am kinda/pretty awesome at playing indoor sports that require speed and explosive power. Ex. Basketball, Tchoukball, Water Polo.

• I find the most challenging sport or activity for me in PE is Track & Field. The reason for this is that I have a hard time running long distances and doing field events.

• I prefer team sports or activities.

• This year in PE I would really like to achieve a quicker mile time.

MY GOAL

“I.... want to improve my 7th grade 4th quarter mile time by 15 to 30 seconds... by the second mile run in 8th grade... by running more often... on the track near my house or on the treadmill in the gym... so I can improve my running endurance for other sports I like such as basketball.

Feature Article Blogpost

For the last few weeks in RLA and Health, we have been working on making a feature article. Throughout the making of our articles, we have chose a topic, developed a slant (or opinion on the topic), researched, had a design lesson with Ms Dowd, and designed our article.

Over the past weeks, my topic and slant changed quite a bit. My original topic was sleep and how it related to stress, but after attempting to research this topic, I couldn’t find any sources. This made me change my topic to sleep deprivation. Now, I had to develop a slant. My first slant was about the negative effects of sleep deprivation. But I felt that it wasn’t specific enough to make my article unique and stand out from the others. I thought about making my slant more specific, and using the knowledge I already had, I broke the negative effects into two parts: physical health and mental health. I chose to focus my article on how sleep deprivation negatively affects teenagers’ physical health, but then I realized I was more interested in researching about the negative effects on teenagers’ mental health. So then I changed my slant to how sleep deprivation negatively affects teenager’s mental health. That was the last change.

My researching process was fairly simple. My sources were from Webpath Express, a research engine, which can be found on the SAS library website. For the note taking, I used a three column chart. The first column was the source information, the second column was the notes itself, and the third column was the analysis, where I analyze how the notes relate to the article. On top of that, I highlighted my notes to organize my data even further. Each color represented a topic. Here are the colors I used:

Yellow: Related to Mental Health/Behavior Slant

Green: Sleep Hours, Facts & Percentages
Blue: Solutions

Orange: Causes
Red: Domain Specific Language

After the researching process came the drafting. There isn’t much of a process when it came to drafting, so I’ll skip that and move on to designing my article. Before designing our articles we had a lesson with Ms Dowd about design. I learned that an article has to have multiple columns and all the images have to fit each of the columns. For example, an image can be one column wide, two columns wide, etc. But it can’t be one and a half columns, etc. Also, I learned that there is a drop caps in every article at the beginning or introduction. A drop caps is when the first letter in a paragraph is bigger than the rest. Finally, I learned that you should use a color pallet and be repetitive with the colors in your article. When I say repetitive, I mean sticking with it for the entire article and making it a pattern. Like all the subheadings will be green and all the body text will be black.

Designing A Spinner

Project Adventure Reflection

1. Name and explain your game and rules. 
The name of my group's game was Marco Pacman, a combination of the popular game Marco Polo and Pacman. The objective of the game as a Pacman is to be the last Pacman standing while the objective of the Marcos are to get everyone out.

The rules are as follows:
There are two Marcos who are blindfolded and the rest are Pacmans. The two Marcos are watched and accompanied by someone not playing for safety purposes. This game must be played in a gym with lines on the floor. All the Pacmans have to stay on the lines and can't jump lines, but the Marcos can travel anywhere. When the Marcos yell Marco, everyone else replies Pacman.
If a Pacman gets tagged by a Marco, the Pacman must sit down in between any two lines and can tag other Pacmans traveling on the lines to get back in, but this can only happen if the player is on their butt. The Pacman who got tagged must sit down in the nearest gap in between two lines and the Pacman who tagged the other Pacman is back in the game.
The game ends when all Pacmans are sitting down and out.

2. What were the challenges/ difficulties of working together as a team? 
Communication was a big issue. We all had great ideas but compromising to finalizing the game came with lots of conflict. Everyone had a good ideas but making them into one idea was an issue because everyone wanted to share their new ideas instead of trying to work together to create one idea.

3. What was the benefit of working together? Explain? 
The benefits of working together was that a lot of different ideas were being created, which allowed us to really choose which idea was the best. Also other group members have different perspectives about your ideas, which can make your idea even better. Finally, working together gave us team members to test our game on a smaller scale, to see if the game actually works.

4. Discuss ways that your team problem solved to make the game better (this could have been as the class played the game). How would you modify the game if you played it again? 
There were many tweaks we made to our game as we were finalizing it. An example of this was the rule where Pacmans could get back into the game by tagging other Pacmans, this made the game more fair and more interesting.
Something we could modify is the way people travel on the lines because it was quite hard for the Marcos to tag the Pacmans when we played the game in PE as a class. This was because all the Pacmans were running and the Marcos were walking. Another thing we could modify for next time is the rule for when a Pacman gets tagged. Instead of sitting in the gap, they would sit on the lines, this would solve the issue of the Marcos having difficulty catching all the Pacmans.

5. What did YOU contribute to the team?
As a team member, I contributed to the making of the rules and the testing of our game. Whenever we tested our game on a small scale, just our group, I would find all the possible scenarios that might happen in a real game so that we could make rules to fix that. For example, I showed how our original idea, tag on Pacman lines (the taggers are NOT blindfolded), would take forever when I just kept on chasing my teammate as that person just continuously ran until the got so tired the gave up

Math Normal 7th Grader Project

Narrative Blurb

Life is good for teenager Scott Cruz. He has many friends, does well in school, and lives a happy life. Can life get any better? Well sadly, things changed in a heartbeat for Scott. On the way to his 8th grade graduation, at age fourteen, Scott’s world was turned upside down. While driving on a busy intersection, his taxi driver wasn’t paying attention to the incoming traffic and crashed head on into another car, hard, causing Scott to fracture his skull. Upon waking up and finding himself in the hospital, he gets the bad news: his skull fracture caused him permanent deafness in both ears. Dealing with his sudden disability was hard, but thankfully he had his older brother to go to for help. But what happens if he relies on his brother too much? Well, he’s about to find out.

Statistics Homework 3: Data Analysis

How alike or different are the data values from each other? 
They are pretty similar, they all have quite similar values of central tendency. The biggest difference in these three data sets is that the thrid set's data is more spread out that the first and second's data.

Which data values occur more frequently or less frequently? 
Some data values that occur more frequently than others are 7, 7.5, and 8, and this is the cause for the mean to be 7.5. There are some data values that occur less frequently, such as 1.5 and 4, and they are outliers.

How spread out or close together are the data values in relation to each other? 
I would say that the first set and the second set of data values are pretty close together, with the exception of the 1 on the second set, and the third set of data values are very spread out. The reason the thrid set is more spread out is that the thrid set has an outlier, 4, that messes up the data. There is also another outlier, 1.5, in the second data set, which made the data seem more spread out.

How spread out or close together are the data values in relation to a measure of center?
The measure of center for all the three data sets are about 7.5 and 8. However, the data isn't that close to it. Yes, there are a lot of students with the shoe sizes of 7.5 and 8, but there are way more students with shoe sizes of 6 and 9.

What do you infer about the shoe sizes of 7th graders?
I infer that the average shoe size in 7th grade is 7.5

Globalization Blogpost

1. What aspect of globalization your cartoon is criticising? (Highlight one)

cultural/social             technological/environmental            political/economic

2. Which visual techniques or literary devices (from the list above) did you use in your cartoon? Explain why you used it and why you think it is effective.

Symbolism: We used symbolism in our cartoon. An example of this is how Monopoly represents the real world. The money, houses, and properties represented the real world’s money, factories, branches (stores), and countries. Apple owns most of the properties and Nokia owns only one. By doing this, we show how Apple has so many stores and factories that they are just taking over the world, leaving little space for Nokia to grow.

Personification: We also used personification in our cartoon. An example of this is when we made the Apple and Nokia logos players of the game Monopoly.  They had money, houses, and property. They could also buy things such as houses and properties. The two companies, Apple and Nokia, are playing this game in the real world. They both have different amounts of money and different amounts of properties and are both competing in the economic world, just like how two people would compete in a game of Monopoly.

Exaggeration: We used exaggeration in our cartoon. Example of this is when we gave Apple everything, like all the properties and lots of money, and gave Nokia basically nothing. In the real world, Nokia is not doing that bad, but in the cartoon we wanted to exaggerate the point that Apple is taking over the world and became such a big company, it’s basically eating all the smaller companies/local businesses because Apple is grabbing customers before they can reach the smaller companies/local businesses. Basically, in the cartoon, we wanted the readers to notice that Apple has everything, giving them a big advantage and power.

3. Explain the message regarding globalization.  
1. Use evidence from the cartoon.
2. Make connections to the globalization unit, current events, or your life to back up your assertions.

The message of our cartoon is big companies such as Apple have an unfair advantage over smaller companies or local businesses, and with the help of globalization, taking over the world with their products and demeaning smaller companies such as Nokia, as they leave less space for them to grow as they grab the customers before they can reach the smaller businesses. This is shown in our cartoon when Apple has everything and it basically gives Nokia basically no chance of growing because people are interested in bigger companies and not the smaller, unstable ones. Apple has lots of money, factories, and properties and Nokia has no money, and only one property. It’s related to globalization because it shows that international companies such as Apple, are invading countries with their products and lowering the status of local brands such as the local’s small companies, preventing them from growing. People now are so interested in the big companies, such as Apple, that they don’t bother to even check the smaller companies or local brands.

How has cultural/social, technological/environmental, and political/economic globalization transformed our world? (Give some specific examples from our unit, ITN’s etc.)

This unit has helped me understand globalization and how important it was in the modernization of our world today. Before this unit, I had no idea what globalization was. I thought it was just some small thing that didn’t really affect anything. But after learning about globalization, I now know how it changed our world in so many different ways from the technology we use to politics and economics to our culture. You can find globalization practically anywhere, after all, it made our world what it is today. Without globalization, there wouldn’t be McDonald's in Japan or Apple in China, which is a good thing and a bad thing.

Firstly, globalization has impacted our cultures. Globalization allows different cultures to learn about other cultures instead of their own. This is a good thing as cultures can improve based on other cultures or new ideas they have learned or heard. However, there are some negative aspects to the globalization of cultures. Some cultures are being wiped out as dominant, powerful nations, such as America, take over the world and basically “Americanize” it. Instead of the world learning about different, unique cultures, and growing with many different cultures, you can find McDonald's in Japan and poor kids living in third world countries drinking Coke. Whenever I visit the Philippines, there is always a time I will choose McDonald’s over the local dishes. They have McDonald’s there, so why not? America has gone into many countries and introduced its culture by building McDonald’s, KFC, Nike, and other American brands there. But although globalization has allowed America to practically take over the world with its culture, it improved international relationships. Nations are helping each other out now and are working with each other to solve global issues such as global warming and terrorism.

Secondly, globalization has impacted our technology and the environment. From the medical technologies to the advanced communication systems to the devices we use in our everyday lives, technology is all around us. The development of technologies have allowed the world to do advanced research and find medicines for diseases. Communication is now easier, you can communicate with people halfway around the globe, miles and miles away from you. Back then, communicating was very difficult, especially overseas, and would take such a long time to send mail and communicate. But now, new technologies have allowed us to communicate as fast as ever. We can now share ideas and new concepts with the whole world and be engaged in what’s happening on the other side of the planet. I facetime my grandparents who live in the Philippines. Also, globalization has introduced the web, which unifies our globe. And you can’t forget transportation! Airplanes, boats, bullet trains. They were only introduced recently and have spread across the globe. Being a kid who travels a lot, airplanes and boats are really important, what would I take instead of them? They are the only option. But with these ups, there are some downs. Globalization has affected our environment. Big companies such as Apple have built factories in China and other Asian countries which caused pollution there. We have experienced the haze from companies burning down trees and there is a possibility that China’s polluted air might travel to other nearby territories.

Lastly, the economy and politics. Globalization has promoted global economic growth. Big companies are building factories in other third world countries which is creating jobs and even lifting some people out of poverty. This can help out the developing nations’ economies as their people are working and earning more money than what the average local can make doing his average job. Nation’s economies are doing better than before. However globalization in the economy have some drawbacks. Big companies are taking over small, local businesses or even other companies. They are selling their products all over the world. People now are interested in their new products that they stop paying attention to all the local brands, who will shut down because they’re not doing well. I buy shirts from Nike and other big brands and I don’t even look at the smaller companies, who probably sell their shirts at an even better price. Globalization has allowed big companies to grow and small companies to shut down. It has given big companies such an advantage in the economic world that the smaller companies are basically hopeless, therefore shutting their doors and closing down.

Overall, globalization has shaped our world and has made it what it is today. Without it, the world would be a different place.

How has and will aspects of globalization impact your life? (Give specific examples.)

Globalization will definitely impact my life and it already has! Take for example medicine. The development of technologies and machines has allowed new medicines to be created. Medicine has cured me from so many diseases Without it, I don’t know anything else that could cure me. A hundred years ago, there wasn’t such medicine to cure diseases back then, so people would end up dying.

Another aspect of globalization that has impacted my life is technology. I use a MacBook for school work and communication. My computer was made from an American country and put together in probably China. If globalization didn’t bring the world together, I don’t know if I would be typing on this computer. Also, a majority of my education is on a computer, so without it. I’m disconnected from the world and wouldn’t be able to find out what’s going on in the world.

A third aspect of globalization that has impacted my life is the economy. Whenever I travel to different countries, I can always find a McDonald’s or a KFC there. There have been many times when I choose the American fast food restaurants instead of trying the local foods.

In conclusion, globalization has impacted my life in positive and negative ways. Without globalization, my life would be really different. My understanding on the globe would be very different, I probably wouldn’t have a MacBook or a phone, and I wouldn’t be able to find a McDonald’s or KFC wherever I go. I’m not saying globalization is a bad thing or good thing, but I’m sure it really impacted my life.

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