If you could only see the beauty that comes from ashes

Today in class we watched a short film named The Butterfly Circus. It`s a movie about “Will” that is born without legs and arms. Will is played by Nick Vujicic who is famously known in real life for his body. When we first meet Will he is a depressive man owned by a circus. He is exhibited on a “weird people stand”. But one day another circus director from another circus talks to Will. Will, who doesn’t know that this man is probably the nicest man he will ever meet, spit him in the face while the man tries to cheer him up.

Will immediately realises the huge mistake he has done, and then joins the man and his circus. The man helps Will understand how amazing he is and that he can overcome all challenges. He says to will “The greater the struggle the more glorious the triumph”, and this changes Will`s life.

When I watched the film I got really touched and it actually sent me an amazing message. No matter the challenge and obstacle you face, never give up! No matter how much you have to struggle to achieve your goal, the triumph will be glorious.

 

My advice to next year students

In our class today, we watched and listened to two commencement speeches by J.K Rowling and Ellen Degeneres. J.K Rowling is a famous writer who has written the popular novel series, Harry Potter. Ellen Degeneres is a popular talk show host.

Ellen Degeneres held a speech at the Tulane university in New Orleans for the graduating students. She held a speech about success and how there were different types of success in life, but she considered succeeding in life as a good person is the most important type of success. She told us that she had no idea what she was going to do with her life when she finished high school. She had no money at that time. At the time back then she thought of success as being a famous celebrity, but as her life changed she found out the true meaning of success: To follow your passion and your own path.

J.K Rowling held a really touching speech about how you can learn from failure. She said that she had learned much from her most downwards part of life and said to all young college students that failure is an important stage of life. She told us that during her younger stage in life, she received much criticism by everyone near us because she chose to write novels. Yet, she chose her own path and succeeded massively in life.

There is no way to success without failure. Failure will help you realize who you are and what you want in life. When you have accomplished the true self of you, that’s when you have succeeded in life. That’s my advice to you next year students, live your life as you want it and don’t let anyone tell you how to because it’s YOUR life. Choose your own path and m

My reading of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The plot

I’ve chosen the paragraph were Arnold rises high in the air and blocks Rowdy`s dunk.

“I rose above him as he tried to dunk it. I TOOK THE BALL RIGHT OUT OF HIS HANDS! Yep, we were, like, ten feet of the ground, but I was still able to reach out and steal the ball from Rowdy. Even in midair, I could see the absolute shock on Rowdy`s face. He couldn`t believe I was flying with him. He thought he was the only Indian Superman. I came down with the ball, spun, and dribbled back towards our hoop. Rowdy, screaming with rage, was close behind me. Our crowd was insanely mad. They couldn`t believe what I`d just done. I mean, sure that kind of thing happens in the NBAand in college and in the big high schools. But nobody jumped like that in a small school gym. Nobody blocked a shot like that. 

This paragraph represents a lot about the plot. First of all, it`s how the Reardon fans cheer when Arnie did the amazing block. This sums up how much the Reardon students image of Arnold has changed. He went from an outsider to a local hero, and they went from ignoring him to caring about him. He`s one of them. And this represents the plot really good.

The theme

I`ve chosen this paragraph were Arnold and Penelope discuss their dreams.

“I want to go to Stanford and study architecture.”
“Wow, that´s cool,” I said. “But why architecture?”
“Because I want to build something beautiful. Because I want to be remembered.”
And I couldn´t make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren´t supposed to dream like that. And white girls from a small town weren´t supposed to dream big, either.
We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly”

In my opinion, this paragraph describes the theme perfectly. Arnold and Penelope discuss their dreams and that’s exactly what the theme in this book is; dreams. Both Arnold and Penelope was uncertain they were able to achieve their dreams, but they had hope. That draw your attention to hope wich is exactly the other theme in this book. Dreams and hope fit perfectly together in this setting: without dreams there is no hope, and without hope there are no dreams.

The setting

I’ve chosen this quote were Mr.P talks to Arnold about the rez. I could not find a suitable paragraph that described both the rez and Reardon (the two places where the setting is).

“If you stay on this rez,” Mr. P said, “they´re going to kill you. I´m going to kill you. We´re all going to kill you. You can´t fight us forever.”

Mr.P describes the rez as a murdering place. The rez does not literally murder people, but it kills the spirit in the people. The rez is such a depressing place that it can kill people`s hope, dreams and spirits. That`s why I think this paragraph describes the setting quite good.

Character development 

I chose a paragraph were Rowdy explains to Arnold that he is an old-time nomad.

“You`re an old-time nomad,” Rowdy said. “You`re going to keep moving over the world in search of food and water and grazing land. That`s pretty cool.” I could barely talk. “Thank you,” I said. I would always love Rowdy. And I would always miss him, too. Just as I would always love and miss my grandmother, my big sister, and Eugene.  Just as I would always miss my reservations and my tribe.”

I chose this paragraph because it describes Arnold. It describes Arnold as a traveler and an explorer, and that’s exactly what Arnold is. He traveled away from the rez and explored a new life at Reardon. The paragraph also explains that Arnold is a caring person aswell. He cares about the ones he leave behind and he would always miss them no matter where he traveled.

My impression of the book

This book surprised me big time. Before I started, I was stupid and thought it was boring because I judged it by its cover. But when I started to read, I immediately understood that this book was awesome. I was very positively surprised because the book was great and I loved it.

 

The US presidental election

Here is the list I consider contains the most famous presidential candidates

1. Donald Trump

2. Hillary Clinton

3. Bernie Sanders

As it stands right now I would say Donald Trump is the most famous presidential candidate because of his controversial behaviour. During his campaign, he has shared some thoughts of him that many believe are despicable and disrespectful.

Hillary Clinton is by a small margin the most popular democratic candidate. She has won more delegates than Bernie but it is a close call between the two of them.

I did a quiz about the presidential candidates (https://www.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential-quiz) to see who I would have matched with. All my answers matched me with Hillary Clinton. I agreed 96% with her in the quiz. One of the popular issues is gay marriage. I have visited a website to see the percentage of voters from both parties (republicans and democrats) supported gay marriage and how many declined gay marriage. The total percentage of voters from all parties and states showed that 66 percent of the American people supports gay marriage and 34 percent don`t. 96% of the democrats supported same-sex marriage while only 4% did not (7,3 million democrats supports gay marriage while only 400,ooo don`t). The republicans results showed nearly the opposite. Only 31 percent of the republican voters (2,2 million) supports gay marriage while 69 percent (5 million) is against gay marriage. In my opinion, this difference is astonishing.

While the different parties had huge differences in this issue, the different states did not. Nearly every state I checked showed this answer: 60-70% yes vs 30-40% no. How come it that the different parties showed massive differences, but the different states showed very similar answers?

Please note that all vote numbers is the number of people who answered the quiz`s questions.

 

Oh, Donald Trump… It`s not only his name that is funny, but he is a funny man himself. Even though he is funny sometimes, I would not vote for him if I was an American and here is 3 reasons why.

1. First of all, it`s his unreasonable statements. When he`s debating against other candidates and they actually has a good argument against him, he fires back with something like “9/11 happened during your brothers regime” or “Shes bleeding everyone, she`s on her period”. How on earth can a presidantIal candidate say something like this AND STILL BE WINNING?
2. Second, his racism. Everyone who does not support Donald Trump has realised that Trump is a vast racist. His statements like “Mexican’s are rapists, criminals and murderers” and he even wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States!
3. I don`t have a number 3 yet, but I’m sure that number 1 and 2 is all the reasons I need for not to vote for Trump.

 

I have chosen two republicans and two democrats and here are my favourite tweets from them. I chose these tweets because it describes what they are working for and what they want to provide to America if the become presidents.

 

Donald Trump (republican)

Here are two tweets written by him. The first shows what his campaign is about while the second one shows what 99% of his tweets is about… Insulting the other candidates.

 

Ted Cruz (republican)

This guy does not tweet much himself, he basically retweets tweets from his supporters. That seems like his “thing”.

 

Hillary Clinton (democrat)

I like this tweet by Hillary because it shows a bit of her ideology and at the same time humours Donald`s idiotic idea of building a border wall between Mexico and USA.

Bernie Sanders (democrat)

I absolutely love this tweet by Bernie Sanders. He is my favourite candidate and I really hope he becomes president because he is the only one who can save the USA. I love this tweet because it shows how he supports the earth itself and its health. I myself is a massive supporter of exactly this topic: defeating global warming.

The donkey and the elephant

Both the republican and democratic party have an image. The democratic party`s image is a donkey while the republican party`s image is an elephant. Here is the reason why (copied from http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/donkey-elephant.html):

“The Donkey— Presidential candidate Andrew Jackson was the first Democrat ever to be associated with the donkey symbol. His opponents during the election of 1828 tried to label him a “jackass” for his populist beliefs and slogan, “Let the people rule.” Jackson was entertained by the notion and ended up using it to his advantage on his campaign posters.

But cartoonist Thomas Nast is credited with making the donkey the recognized symbol of the Democratic Party. It first appeared in a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly in 1870 and was supposed to represent an anti-Civil War faction. But the public was immediately taken by it and by 1880 it had already become the unofficial symbol of the party.

The Elephant— Political cartoonist Thomas Nast was also responsible for the Republican Party elephant. In a cartoon that appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey clothed in lion’s skin, scaring away all the animals at the zoo. One of those animals, the elephant, was labeled “The Republican Vote.” That’s all it took for the elephant to become associated with the Republican Party.”

The delegate system

To be the nominee from each party you need to have a certain number of delegates. In the republican party, you need 1237 delegates to achieve the nomination. The picture below shows how many delegates the republicans need to achieve presidential nomination from the republican party. Donald Trump is currently leading the race to presidential nomination.

The picture below shows how many delegates the democrats need to achieve the nomination of the democratic party. As you can see, Hillary Clinton is leading the democratic race for the nomination.

Newspaper articles

I read an article from the newspaper Los Angeles Times. The headline is “Facing a key test in Ohio, Trump takes aim at Kasich”. This article does not directly say shit about Trump, but it indirectly says he is a douchebag. They share a lot of statements from Trump where he talks crap about Kasich (in very many statements). Their description of Donald Trump describes him as an ignorant, rude and arrogant person.

 

Sources

1. http://www.isidewith.com/poll/965633/9333350
2. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/datablog/2016/mar/15/trump-clinton-ohio-florida-primaries-us-election-2016?CMP=share_btn_tw

 

 

Trump, Cruz, Sanders and Clinton`s twitter pages.

 

Sherman Alexie and Nick Hornby

I have watched to interviews of both authors. My impression of Sherman Alexie is that he is a nice person and a huge bookworm. He seems like the guy who would read a book in the corner of the room instead of watching a movie with the rest of the class. My impression of Nick Hornby is that he is a musical person, he likes music and books. He says in the interview that he is a sports fan, but at the same time, he disguises sport. You might be thinking “How weird?”, but my in my theory there is a reason for this: he´s an Arsenal fan. They are so close to winning the league every year, but every year they fail right in the end.

I would like to read the book written by Sherman Alexie because in the interview he was really cool and I enjoyed watching it. I read the first chapter of the book “An absolute true diary of a part-time Indian” and it was surprisingly funny and amusing.

Global goals

This is a link to our production towards the Global Goals.

Safer internet day

Safer Internet Day (SID) is organised by Insafe in February of each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially among children and young people across the world. Safer Internet Day 2016 will be celebrated on Tuesday 9 February 2016, with a theme of ‘Play your part for a better internet!’. This website will showcase the many events and activities taking place across the globe to mark the day.  (Safer Internet Day)

Our Kahoot! It contains questions about internet use and its dangerousness.

 

PressReader

Our teacher Ann made us do something new this week. She made us try out an app called PressReader. In this app, we can find a supreme amount of newspapers from all around the world. The county I’m from; Akershus has provided this app freely for every student and teacher in the county. When we log into PressReader from school we access the app`s global newspaper collection.

The newspapers where you`re from usually bring you local or nationwide news, but if you want to keep up with other countries news as well I recommend trying out PressReader. PressReader has a massive collection of newspapers from many interesting countries such as USA and Germany to mention some.

Our task today was to find a news story written by three different newspapers. It was basically the same news story but from three different angles. Our mission was to see how the different newspapers observed and shared the news, would there be a huge difference or would there be huge similarities?

My group and I chose the ongoing snowstorm (Jonas) in the USA. We found articles from  New York Daily News, New York Post and The Washington Post-Sunday. The overall information in all three articles was mostly the same. Inches of snow, wind, death-rate and the problems caused were mentioned in each of the newspapers. But we did observe one specific difference: New York Post`s article contained much less basic information than the others. The Washington Post-Sunday and New York Daily News chose to focus on general information about the blizzard around the country, and New York Post wrote about how it affected New York.

“Two kinds” by Amy Tan – analysis

The short story “Two kinds” is written by Amy Tan. The story is set back in the late 80`s in the American city, San Francisco. This was a time where everyone hunted for success, especially for the mother in this story. She immigrated from China to America because of the chance of success.

In the story, we meet a few characters: the daughter, mother, father, piano teacher and the other family. But in my opinion, the story is mostly based on the daughter and the mother. The story itself is told from the daughter’s point of view. Since there is such a huge dialog between the daughter and the mother it`s easy for the readers to understand the tension between the two. The daughter is a normal teenager who is in the age where everything teenagers do is to ignore their parents. Everything she does in this story is resisting her mother. The mother is fairly similar to her daughter because everything she does is arguing and pushing on her daughter. The author hasn’t described the characters in their physical appearance. The reason behind this is to put all the attention on the mental tension between the mother and the daughter.

The main plot is as I`ve said: the tension between the daughter and the mother. The reason for this conflict is an argue between them. The mother wants the daughter to take piano lessons because she sees a talent in her daughter, but all the daughter can see is a zero in herself. The more the mother pushes the daughter into piano lessons, the more the daughter purposely sabotages her talent because she doesn`t want to succeed big time. The plot is quite chronological because it doesn`t jump in different time occasions. The plot jumps from time occasions in a chronological way.

After some observation, I think the story has a climax. I believe the climax takes place when the daughter brings up the mothers two dead babies. It`s only now the mother gradually starts leaving her daughter alone.

The theme in this short story must be something similar to “choose your own path”. I think this because despite all the nagging from her mother, the daughter still chose to resist it and choose her own path in life.

 

 

 

 

How we can improve our English

In our English classes today we usually write different sorts of blog posts. We mostly write reflected texts based on a theme we have discussed previously. In my opinion, this will improve our English writing skills, but not good enough.

No one in my class has perfect in Englis and every one of us can improve their skills. So how can we all become better in English? My number one priority is to read better-written texts. If we all read well-written texts we will certainly improve our texts because our brain will observe and learn from the better texts. By reading more well-written texts, we will capture knowledge from professional writers. Our new knowledge based on professional texts will make our texts better. Another option is to do grammar tasks because it will basically improve our grammar. We also need to improve our oral skills. As we speak more English our pronunciation will improve. When I`m in an English-speaking country I want my pronunciation to be perfect and therefore, we need to speak more English.

During my first semester at Sandvika, I have noticed a better vocabulary. The reason is all the blogging, it makes me more aware when I write my texts. I think we should continue all the blogging, but we should also manage to read more in our lesson.

In addition to what we usually do in English class, our teacher Ann has handed out several different websites to us. These websites contains information and tasks about how we can improve our english. One of the websites, who is called The study zone, contains different tasks in three different subjects-Grammar, Reading and Vocalubary. And she also gave us a website called NDLA and on this website we could read a more theoreticly way to achieve better both our oral and written English. I really loved the NDLA site because it contained so good information and I think this is the best website for me. Ann also posted two websites wich were based on adjectives and nouns. These websites were full of tasks based on adjectives and nouns. I personally don`t like this sort of work, but it are effective. These were some of the websites, but there are som more! If you want to visit all these website check out my teachers blog to find them – http://annmichaelsen.com/2016/01/12/teaching-language-learning-for-english-as-a-second-language-esl/