UK Troops in Afghanistan 'to come under US command'

The UK shouldnt allow their troops to be under US command .
Jonathan Beale makes a good point by saying, "the recent influx of American forces meant there were now too many troops in too large a geographical area for just one command." That being said the US shouldnt have to command the troops of another country because they already have more then enough things to deal with when it comes to the US troops. No offense to the US but they tend to bud into situations and take control which has caused some problems in the past so commanding UK troops could possibly weaken their relationship. This issue could be simply solved if the UK just commanded their own 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Something for the UK to think about is if the US commands their troops then they'll get the credit for any achievments.

Florida

May 7th through 10th I was in Florida to celebrate Mother's Day with my Mom, Grandma, Aunt Kia, Aunt Lorrie, Aaron, Adam, and Aaron's dog Oz. The weather was gorgeous, the heat of the sun with a little breeze was perfect and the best part no rain. Each day while I was there I went swimming in their pool and sat out to tan. Also I went crazy with eating ice cream, I ate it a couple times a day each time I was there, it was sooooo good though. Its really cool cause my Grandma and Aunt Lorrie live next door to each other so then there are two houses to stay at, which is convienent.

The only problem with the trip was when my Mom and I were leaving. We left my Grandma's house at 6AM to get to the airport by 7AM, our plane was supposed to leave by 8:30AM so we had some time to spare. As the plane was headed toward the runway about to take off we stopped, there were technical difficulty so we had to get back to the airport. It would take a long time to be fixed so we had to find another flight. The next flight wasnt going until 2:55PM so we had to wait around the Tampa airport and even worst it wasnt nonstop like our original flight. It stopped in New York and then from there to Detroit. I nearly puked because of the turbulence to New York at the end of the flight. by the time we got to Detroit it was 9PM and by the time we got home it was 10:30PM. I was so tired by the end of it all and my Mom and I just took the next day off to relax.

SIMUN

I thought SIMUN was going to be a lot more intense then it was so I was relieved that I was in a good and pretty active group. But I don’t really like SIMUN that much because it's just not my thing to speak in front of people because that’s not one of my better skills but I did learn a lot about my country Tanzania that I didn’t know before. I thought I did fairly well, I asked some questions, spoke a little, and discussed solutions to the scenarios with my allies. I definitely need to speak more next year because although I did this year I know I could have said more. Preparation wise it was A LOT of research and writing. I had to find out my country's history which didn’t go back to far because it wasn’t to long ago that they became an independent country. I also had to look for countries that I'm allies with so I would know who to back up and who would back me up. Then I had to do even more research on questions about a certain situation in which I would give my view on. That took more time because I wanted to know the whole situation before taking a position on it so that way I could back up my position with facts.

Next year I would like to spend more time on the questions because some of them I rushed through so therefore I didn’t know as much about it when writing my response. Also as for my own countries research next year I need to find more key points that are important to know about the country. I can only hope that next year I will improve when doing SIMUN and come out of it feeling like I did my best.

Three Cups of Tea

In Pakistan and Afghanistan tea is the way to be further accepted within the culture ; the first cup your a stranger, second your a friend, and third your family. They live in mud and stone huts for shelter and eat food such as ibex. The area that their in is where the Taliban was created. The book Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson who promoted peace within these areas through education. Education is important especially for girls because most dont have any. His inspiration for all of this was from his sister who had died.

At first I wasnt sure how exciting this book would be because some auto biographies can get a little boring but this keeps me intrested. In this book there is a lot of emotion and detail that helps put the imagery in your head. I'm not sure exactly why but Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin use short paragraphs and long sentences.

I'm looking forward to continue reading this book and see what else is happening and I recommend this book to other people. Who knows it could inspire you to do something.

Yo Gabba Gabba is the best children's show of all time! The characters are so cool and each have there own personatlities, my friends and I all picked which character we wanted to be. I am Muno, the orange cyclops that's all bumpy. "He's tall and friendly." (Yo Gabba Gabba theme song) Eileen is Brobee the green striped one with 3 horns on its head and long arms. "The little green one." (Yo Gabba Gabba theme song) Mackenzie is Plex the yellow robot. "A magic robot." (Yo Gabba Gabba theme song) Foofa the flower headed pink one and Toodee the blue one are a couple different people. Abbi and Eileen's mom are Foofa, then Julie and Andrea are Toodee. For Christmas I got the Yo Gabba Gabba soundtrack, it's soooo sweet! My fav song on it is probably Nice & Easy, Hahaha. The song is sung by Foofa and Brobee. My fav episode is probably Family because Muno's family comes to visit, he has 2 parents, 1 brother, and 1 sister. I recently saw Muno featured in a Kia Sorento commercial which I got excited about because out of the 4 (5 including DJ Lance Rock) he was picked to be in it.

What is the best way to handle Iran at this point?

At this point Chinas way is the most rational way to handle the situation.

Their opinion sounds good, "pressure for tighter sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program could block chances of a diplomatic settlement on the issue." (Cowell 1) Many countries look at Iran and are worried but like China says "All countries, Iran included if they obey I.A.E.A rules, have the right to a peaceful use of nuclear energy." (Cowell 2) If Iran is following the rules there is not much that can be done about it.

Also all the countries should continue to still be observant of Iran. Iranian leader said, "There is really no problem. Some made a fuss for nothing. There is no problem." (Cowell 2) I guess all the countries involved will have to see if thats really true. Diplomats mentioned that Iran had not formally comfirmed there statement to, "export its enriched nuclear fuel for processing into nuclear fuel rods." (Cowell 1) What I want to know and I'm sure the other coutries do to is What are they using the nuclear fuel rods for? This all goes back to as long as there following the rules there is no need at this point to continue tightening sanctions.

Semester Reflection

There were a lot of different assignments that we did this semester and some really stood out to me, I truly got something out of them. Rwanda is the number one thing I enjoyed working on and learning about because we watched movies, read articles, did research, and role played. For role-playing my group was Juvenal Habyarimana the former president of Rwanda. Although he didn’t always make the best decisions I felt there were a lot of good arguments he could make against the other groups like Paul Kagame and Uganda. Paul Kagame was the accused of shooting down President Habyarimana’s plane and killing him and Uganda was holding Tutsi’s where they trained an army and came back to Rwanda to cause chaos. It was funny because after learning about Rwanda we watched “Hotel Rwanda” which I had seen once before but now that I had prior knowledge about the subject, the movie made a lot more sense to me and it portrayed the situation very well from the people’s point of view.


“The Man in the Well” was a great story because it really made you think about what’s behind the story and even after listening to it a couple times it was hard to decode. But what I learned is that there really isn’t just one answer, it’s all about you interpretation. I learned more about how to think outside of the box. The first thing we talked about in class was what culture was and when watching “I’m Normal, You’re Weird” it tested peoples openness to other cultures and the way they do things. Even though people are capable of understanding some things it is impossible to accept everyone’s way of thinking. Also it shows how moving to different cultures can sometimes take a toll on your own culture by changing you. Not everybody is like that though some still continue the traditions of their culture when they move somewhere different.


I actually kind of liked doing the weekly articles about China, Iran, etc. they gave me the chance to express my opinion about the current news going on. Also after writing these a few times it made my opinion more intelligent sounding and understandable to people who are even on the opposing side. Doing this had already made my writing skills in general a lot better. The movie “The Power of One” was a great learning experience movie but also had a good story line to keep people watching. Throughout PK’s like he had always been accepting of the black people and throughout the movie went through some rough patches but always continued to treat them like any other person and stand up for them. Through these hard times PK nearly quit helping a couple times but was always reminded what he had already done so far. I felt truly terrible because all the people he loved were killed.

This semester I clearly learned a lot and even though I don’t normally like school I surprisingly liked the assignments we did.