christmas break blog assignment

1. The film, The Power of One, was very moving. I liked it a lot. I learned a lot of new information on the apartheid laws in Africa. I learned that the apartheid laws were very cruel and racist against the black South African citizens in the mid twentieth century. I also learned that the apartheid laws restricted the colored South African citizens from living wherever they wanted. The apartheid laws made it so that the colored citizens had to live in their own separate communities. The colored citizens living conditions were no where near as good as the British or Dutch people’s living conditions. They were dirty and often up to twenty families would live in one single room of a so called house. The bathroom access was also very limited and cruel. There was one bathroom or better yet, outhouse for ever two-hundred and fifty colored citizens in a community. Before watching the movie, The Power of One, I had no idea these apartheid laws had ever even existed. I thought it was very inspiring to see how the main character stood up for his friends, and for all South African colored people, or as they were called in the movie, Afrikaans. The film showed the main character or P.K. standing up for all the mistreated people in South Africa throughout his entire youth, up through his early adulthood. I enjoyed the film The Power of One very much and I would love to be able to see it again sometime. I thought it was a great film to show in global ed. and I think it is definitely one of my favorite movies we have watched in global ed. so far.
2. The holidays are a very special time for my family and I. My whole extended family on both my mom and dad’s sides gather together on Christmas Eve and Christmas day to celebrate another great year spent together. My family has many traditions. One of my favorite family traditions is that on the day before Christmas Eve my mom, my dad, my two brothers and I go the Greenfield Village holiday nights and lights show. When we go to the Greenfield village holiday nights we always get hot chocolate from the village candy store and take a ride on the Model T cars that they have at Greenfield Village. We also watch the civil war soldiers perform military drills. On Christmas Eve my mom’s side of the family, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and all my cousins, come to my house where we play cards and games and eat a delicious meal. We open presents from each other after we eat. Then afterwards my mom’s side of the family goes home and we wait for Christmas morning. On Christmas day my family opens gifts and eats a breakfast that my mom makes early in the morning. Then my family packs up our things and heads to my aunts house on my dad’s side of the family where we spend Christmas day opening more gifts and playing many tournaments of hearts and screw your neighbor card games which I almost always loose at, before eating and setting off to bed normally at three a.m. I love my family’s traditions. Especially on Christmas day when more than forty of my family members gather at my aunts house. That’s a lot of Snyders for one house!
3. I rang in the New Year with one of my best friends Katy. We had good food and lots of fun watching the ball drop and watching movies afterward. I will definitely miss 2009 and all the wonderful things the year brought to me. I had many unforgettable moments and great times with friends and family. My 2009 contained one of the greatest summers I have ever had, the breaking of some very dear friendships, my fifteenth birthday, the loss of an amazing uncle, the start of my freshman year in high school, and the one year anniversary of the loss of a close friend. I am not happy to let 2009 go, but I am looking forward to fresh starts in 2010. I don’t want to let go of all the wonderful things that happened to me in 2009, like the forming of many new great friendships, whether they were in dance, or in school, but there are some things I would like to leave behind and to be able to tell myself that I lived through them. I am looking forward to the forming of new friendships in 2010, and hopefully to another great summer with memories to last a lifetime. I am not ready for my freshman year of high school to be over in 2010, but I am also looking forward to the start of my sophomore year in 2010. I am most looking forward though to new beginnings and a new clean slate in 2010. I am hopeful that the New Year will bring the strengthening of my friendships and good health and happiness to my friends and family and me.