Germany Students Reflection

   

      The conference with the kids from Germany was a long one but soooo fun! It was really interesting to talk to the students. They were all very cute and spoke really well English. It was interesting to see what things we had in common with them and what we didn’t since our culture and lifestyles are so different. It was weird hearing that they don’t drive a lot of cars and that it’s normally one per family considering almost everyone with a license in our class has their own car. Certain foods we like aren’t exactly the same as theirs. Our normal days were actually quiet different from theirs. Their school days have long periods and they get breaks to go home and come back. Their security is low because they basically have none which differed from us because we have high security. Little things like that showed how lifestyles in Germany are different from here in the US.
       We got to talk about political opinions and world problems which was cool because we were able to see them from a side we normally would not. We got in depth about the upcoming election and our feelings towards it which helped to know each other better. Even though we didn't know much about their leader, we talked about her as well. I overall enjoyed this conference a lot and wish to maybe talk to them again soon! 

Juan Patron Reflection

Juan Patronn

What an INTERESTING conference I have sat through!! LOL. After a few technical difficulties and  couple of reschedules we were finally able to chat with Juan Patronn! He was actually an interesting person and is very successful in the business industry, so hearing from him was informing for me especially because I want to study the business field in college. Juan kept the conference fun especially talking about Miami life and his clubbing adventures. haha. He sure did work up a life for himself down there, but obviously worked hard for it. It was informing talking to Juan and I hope one day to live a life as interesting and fun as him! He's a LEGEND! #fire

Phil Cuzzi Reflection

                 

   

The Phil Cuzzi conference was an informing and fun conference. Being a former softball player, I found Phil's job as an umpire super cool which made me very intrigued  I've never really talked to an Ump before about the game and to have an MLB umpire sitting in front of me, I found it pretty awesome. When he was talking about real life plays and circumstances in games that I myself watched on TV I found it cool hearing about it first hand and watching it on the tv from the replays. I remember the exact yankee game he showed us of him throwing out the yankee player so hearing about it from Phil made it really come alive. Phil was a very inspiring person to talk to and I enjoyed hearing from him and about his job very much!!

Steve Richards Reflection

  
  Steve Richards Videoconference 

This conference was my personal favorite from last week. Steve was a super cool guy with a super cool job actually. At first, I didn't totally understand what he did at Republic, but after he started talking about a day at the job it sounded pretty awesome. I think it's SUPER cool he gets to deal with famous artists of the times. His stories meeting Harry Styles and Post Malone was the highlight of the conference for me. Also talking about Lil Tecca lol!! I never really thought about that kind of music world and talking with Steve was really interesting and brought a lot of attention to my eyes about the music industry and the current ways of dealing with famous artists right now! This conference was really enjoyable and totally cool.

Midterm Interview

Hello President Hassan Rouhani, I am Olivia Sweezy and today I have a few questions for you. 

Hello Olivia, I am President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. I am ready for any questions you would like to ask of me and my country. 

So a couple of weeks ago we heard of the killing of Qasem Soleimani. How was he killed? What leader position did he hold in the Iranian military and how do you think this is going to affect the future for the United States and Iran? 

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian major general and a commander of Quds Force until his death. Quds Force is a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. He was killed at Baghdad airport by a United States airstrike and your president Donald Trump approved of the killing. I can assure you, America will face consequences in the upcoming years for the killing of my commander Soleimani. 

Soleimani was commander of the Quds Force. Who else is in the Force and what is the purposes and practice of the Force.  How long has this Force been around for? 

The Quds Force is an Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard specializing in warfare and military operations. There are about 10,000-20,000 members of the Force. The current commander of the Force is Brigadier General Esmail Ghanni and deputy commander Brigadier General Mohammed Hejazi. The Quds Force came about in 1980 during the Iraq-Iran war. Since then it has provided support and has expanded its operations to neighboring countries such as Afghanistan. The Force began targeting the U.S. and other Western bodies since 2010. 

Now President Rouhani, How did the conflict between Iran and American come about? How has this conflict progressed over the years and why is it such a serious matter? 

After the Iranian Revolution in 1979 The U.S. and Iran had a disagreement over Persia being one of the United States closest allies. This conflict then grew from 1979-1981 because of the Iran hostage crisis when fifty-two American citizens were held hostage for 444 days. When President Trump pulled from the nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and made different plans, the relations between Iran and the United States have worsened leading to the Persian Gulf crisis and the killing of Soleimani.

I see you mentioned the Persian Gulf crisis, also known as the Iranian-American confrontation crisis in the Gulf. What was the purpose of this and how did it come about causing more tensions between the two countries. If there was a gain or purpose to this confrontation what was it and was it a success? 

The crisis in the Gulf began when political tensions between the countries grew due to the build up of the United States military when there was talk of Iran attacking American forces in the Gulf. in response to this, my country categorized American as a terrorist organization. In June of last year, we shot down a surveillance drone of America over the Persian Gulf which led to great tensions between us and the U.S. almost leading to armed confrontation. This crisis has led on ever since, and grew after the killing of American contractor by Iraq which led to the airstrike attack by the U.S. killing Souleimani. By this point, both countries are going back on retaliations from previous history and is setting the future for confrontations to arise. 

Thank you, President Rouhani for your time and the history of the United States with Iran. The interview was very informational.

Field Trip Reflection

NYC FIELD TRIP 2019

The day began with me rushing to school (as always) to ensure that I would make it on time to the cafeteria. Here I saw my group all sitting together where I joined them. We waited an inpatient ten  minutes to start heading onto the bus. Once we were seated I plugged my AirPods in and enjoyed the ride listening to my favorite playlist. We arrived into the busy city and everyone went into this little minimart sort of place. Some students got food, but many got coffee at one of the pop ups, including the teachers lol. Once many students realized there was a Starbucks right next door, many were upset they got coffee from the popup store and got another drink from Starbs. After this, my group began to walk to the escape room building. It was a tedius 20 minute walk. Once we arrived, we sat and waited for the guys working to go over the rules for the rooms. The time came. It was finally time to go into the rooms. A guy took me and my team into a small dark room, there was a small TV in the corner of the room projecting background information on Houdini and one person needed to pick a code to write onto the board. After this time began and we were scrambling to find all sorts of clues. The room was so fun and confusing.  It took a lotto thinking and definitely A LOT of clues! We sadly never made it out on time, but the guy did show us what we needed to finish doing in order to have escaped. The last lock code would have been the one Ashely wrote down in the beginning to escape the room. The experience was all around so fun and my group and I had a blast. After we finished, we all left the building extremely hungry. We walked around Macy's and looked at all the fancy stores. We then decided to go eat at this place called 'Toast' where we got smoothies and snacks. There wasn't too much time after this to do much, so we looked around and headed back to the meeting spot, Penn Station. Here we took pictures and waited for the other groups to meet up with us. We all got onto the bus and headed for home. The field trip was all around so fun and memorable. I think everyone had a good time in the city and were super thankful for the opportunity. We of course missed Ms. Menake though :(  and hopefully we will be able to do another trip with her there!

 

Grace Randolph Reflection

Grace Randolph

This conference was SO interesting!!! At first, I didn't really understand Grace and her job until she explained what exactly she does everyday. I think it is so cool how she gets invited to critic movies that aren't even out yet and gets to share her opinion on the movies for the public. She created a lifestyle out of loving movies by starting a Youtube channel as well, which is quite interesting also because in todays day and age Youtube careers are so popular among this generation. One part of the conference I found that I disagreed with was the Joker movie topic. In class Jack and Grace were talking about the new hyped movie 'The Joker' saying it was a great movie and well played. After the conference I went to go see the movie and though I didn't personally love it and did find it quite boring, the storyline was well played out by the main character. Overall I enjoyed this conference and think Grace Randolph and her job was very cool to learn about.