My Semster Reflection Blog

One thing I learned this year was how the Tutsis were treated in Rwanda. Before we learned about the Rwandan genocide, I didn’t have a clear thought of what genocide actually was. I thought it was just a fancy word for being in a war. But it isn’t anything like that. The Tutsi’s were killed slowly and painfully just for who they were. Even if their relatives were Hutu they would still be killed. And the Hutus killed each other if they were helping the Tutsis. But what really showed me a clear picture of how the Tutsis were treated was in the movie Hotel Rwanda. When Paul and one of his workers were driving to get food and the road was very bumpy but they don’t know why because it was so foggy. And when they got out of the van to see what it was. Paul fell into hundreds of bodies of dead Tutsis that were left all over the road and were falling into the river on the side. Tutsis weren’t treated as if they were even human beings.
Another thing I learned was that myths aren’t just made up stories that have no correct information. Most myths did originate from a logical story that at one time was probably true. Making up our own myths in group helped me understand it a lot better. I had to write a myth about where the Earth came from. So my group’s myth was that two planets met on an online dating site, then had Earth. And the Sun watches over the Earth because the Sun is what gives us light and warmth.
I learned how to become a better write from the endless revisions we did to our weekly papers, such as the Iran paper, China paper and Our First Day Paper. I thought at first that I did a really good job writing them because I spent so much time on them. But as we started revising I learned that my resources were horrible and my support didn’t really make that much sense or didn’t relate. I learned how to use action words in my papers to make it seem like the reader is actually there. And when writing a paper you have to either pick past tense or present tense and to always have correct punctuation.
Blogs taught me how to write without a topic given to me. It showed me that you can write about almost anything and if you have a topic given to you, how much detail you can put into four hundred words. Writing seems fun after writing blogs because it doesn’t just have to be about school topics. In the free write blogs I’ve written I got to write about plans for the weekend, homecoming, cheer, my birthday, Christmas and things that interest me.
Learning about South Africa taught me how colonization can affect the people living in places. When the British started colonizing in South Africa it was almost like they kicked the Zulus and other tribes out of their homes and forced them to go north. And when they did they got kicked out again by the Boers. Unnecessary battles killed tons of people. The Zulu people thought that if they shared with the British then the British would share with them. But the British seemed to be careless for any people there but themselves. It showed me a different perspective on colonization and why some people are still colonizing today.