Earth Day

Every April 22nd, we celebrate Earth Day. People all across the world spend this day supporting environmental protection, and every year there is a spesific focus. April 22nd 2014 is the day of Green Cities!

A few kilometres outside the capital of Norway, lies a tiny city called Sandvika. This is where we go to school, and even though Sandvika isn’t much of a city, we want to look at its role as a Green City. Sandvika mainly consists of a shopping mall; nevertheless, it’s the largest mall in all of Scandinavia. The mall has numerous customers and visitors each day, and these people need to go to the restroom. The amount of paper towels these people would consume each day would be enormous, but Sandvika shopping mall won’t have any of that! In every restroom in the mall, there are 25 cm by 25 cm cloth towels for you to wipe your hands on after washing them. Instead of throwing these away after use, they are washed and reused. In the long run, this is a lot more beneficial to the environment than using paper towels. Other than the environmental perspective, there are several perks to the cloth towels; they feel luxurious, they don’t make a mess in public restrooms and they can absorb a lot more water than a single paper towel. We hope our school will follow the trend, and stop contributing to tearing down the Amazons!

The cloth towels will, however, not make our city green on their own. The public transportation around the capital is quite significant in this regard. All of the busses in our county run on biogas. This gas produced by the breakdowns of sewer and food waste, and emits 90 per cent less CO2 than the diesel used in most busses. Recycling sewer and food waste is also very beneficial to the environment.

Our city could definitely be “greener”, but the cloth towels and biogas busses are good examples of what we aim to achieve. There are plans for parts of the city to be rebuilt, so let’s hope the people responsible have green minds!

Why I agree with Edward Snowdens actions

Today we watched an interview with Edward Snowden where he explained his actions and what the information he leaked was about. To fully understand the case of the leaked information, and decide whether to agree or not, we need some background information. Edward Snowden was born in 1983 in North-Carolina. He started working for the National Security Agency, where we got access to thousands of classified documents. These documents were mostly about the US’ surveillance on both their own people, but also throughout the world. Later, he chose to release these documents, and this has been called the most significant leak in the US history. He had to flee the United States, and now he lives in Russia. The United States charged him with espionage and revoked his passport. This makes it impossible for him to leave Russia, and he has got a one-year temporary renewable sylum there. 

Edward Snowden has been called both a hero and a traitor, and he claims he is willing to die for his cause. He wants to enlighten the public and other countries’ leaders what is going on on the inside of the NSA and CIA. He claims that the NSA collected 200 million text-messages daily, and that they have monitored 112 government leaders.This surveillance has been going on for years, without anyone knowing. Personally, I think Edward Snowden did the right thing. He did the people a favor, and helped them realize what their own state was doing. I believe one has a responsibility to tell people when are in possesion of information of such importance. Edward Snowden is referred to as “an enemy of the state, but a friend to the people.” I think people like him are the ones that bring this world forward. They are critical when it comes to the state and the leadership, in stead of trusting it without asking a single question. If we didn’t have anyone like Snowden it would have been very easy for the leaders and the government to do exactly what they wanted. This could have ended bad for the people living in the country, because they don’t really know what’s going on.

I agree with the way Snowden handled the situation. Suddenly he got access to confidential information, and he chose to do something about it. He trusted himself, and believed that his actions could help the people and the world. He wanted to create a worldwide debate, something he succeeded in. The debate is really interesting, because there are so many different views on right and wrong. One thing that is for sure is that Snowden helped the American people to open their eyes and be more critical towards their government and NSA. 

All Fool’s Day

Today is April 1st. which means it is April Fool’s Day! Personally, I’m not a real fan of this day, mostly because I’m pretty gullible and easily fooled. My family and friends have had much fun deluding me the last couple of years. Last year, my best friend told me she had front-row tickets to our favourite artist’s concert in Oslo. I was so happy, until the next day when she told me it was not true. Even though I am usually the one being fooled, I remember April 1st three years ago. Another good friend of mine, Fride, and I were at our cabins in the mountain and were in the slalom pists. When our parents came to pick us up, we told them how we had saved a boy who fell while he was doing a trick. He had broken both his leg and arm, and Fride and I were the ones getting help and stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. Our families viewed us as heroes that day, until a couple of days later when we told them what really happened. 

The origin of April Fool’s is uncertain. Some claim that it’s to celebrate the turning of seaons, and that people get more foolish in the intersection between winter and spring. Many cultures have similar days like Aprils Fool’s. In India, they arrange a festival, Holi, where the purpose is for people to prank each other and throw colorful dyes at others. 

April Fool’s is not only for the people to prank each other, but also for the media to delude their readers/listeners/viewers. For instance, in 1962, a Swedish television channel managed to get thousands of Swedes to pull a nylon stocking over their TV, by telling them that this would give them access to colored television. A prank I found hilarious was the one Burger King published in 1998. They presented their newest hamburger, the “Left-Handed Whopper”. They claimed “all condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger.” Thousands of costumers showed up in order to buy the new hamburger. 

The Left-Handed Whopper

All in all, I like April Fool’s when it does not affect myself. I think it’s hilarious to read about and see other people being pranked, not so much myself. 

The Alaska-project

Hello!

A while ago, we started a cooperation-project with an American class, regarding the WW2. We share thoughts on the war, and  it is really interesting to see their views on different topics. I learned a lot by reading their perspectives and their thoughts on the subject. We have also made videos to get to know the students in Alaska, and they did the same thing. Now, I know much more about Alaska and the people living there, so this project has definately helped me understand their culture and ways. I hope they have learned about Norway and the people living here as well. We have told stories from our relatives who lived and fought durong the war. Personally find these stories really interesting and fun, I hope our friends in Alaska feel the same way!

The last call at the oasis

Today we watched another movie in class.This time we got to see “The last call at the oasis”, a film from 2011. It is a documentary about one of the most severe crisis the worlds population is facing today. The shortage and pollution of water is a worldwide problem, yet the movie chooses to focus on the problem in the United States. As you probably remember from one of my previous blogposts, we have watched another movie on the same theme, Erin Brockovich.

In the film Erin Brockovich, we got to know the story of a little town called Hickley in California. The major company PG&E contaminated the water supplies in the town with the toxic chemical chromium-6. In the end of the movie we get the Hollywood version of the story. PG&E gets charged in court, and all the problems in the little community dissapear. This is far from what really happened, and the real ending is revealed in the documentary we watched today.

Hinkleys’s waterproblem never got solved, in fact statistics show that the level of chromium-6 has increased in the area. Even though PG&E provides the community with bottled water to drink, a lot of people living in Hinkley is still affected by the pollution. Children have nosebleeds, rashes etc. The people need water to other things than drinkning, for instance showering, cooking and toothbrushing. The clean-up of the water has started, but it might take as long as 40 years to get rid of all of the contamination.

The Hollywood-movie shed light on the problem og water pollution, but we have a long way to go. “Last Call at the Oasis” explains that we may be able to manag this problem, if we act now. A man I found very inspirational in the documentary was this man who worked for a big company. He knew that there were trouble when it came to the water in the area, just like the PG&E in the Erin Brockowich movie. He says that a person who knows that something is wrong has a responsibility to act and do something about it. I think this quote is very important, not only in this context, but in our everyday lives. I believe that if more people lived up to this thought, there would not have been as much problems with for instammce bullying in school.

In depth project

Recently, I have started writing a huge project. We were allowed to choose topic ourselves, and how we wanted to approach it. In October, I read a book called “North-Korea, 9 years escape from hell”. It is a book written by Eunsun Kim, a former North-Korean citizen. She managed to escape the horrible conditions in the country, and the book is about the escape. The story made a great impact on me. In addition to the book, Eunsun Kim was guesting on of Norway’s most famous talk-shows, Skavlan. The interview was very sa, because she talked about how she had seen people getting killed, and her own father had died too. However, I found the interview interesting, because I knew so little about North-Korea and the situation there. I was eager to get to know more about North-Korea, and how people lived there. Kim paints a picture for people living outside North-Korea of how the situation is in the closed society. My in-depth-project is therefore based on this book, but I also wanted to include the Human Rights. My thesis-question for the project is; 

“In what way is dictatorship a global challenge, and what can the international society do to protect the citizens?”

I have chosen to focus a lot on the UN, and their work to protect the citizens in North-Korea and other similar dictatorships

I don’t want to reveal too much about my project yet, but I really enjoy learning and writing about it!

Double entry journal

In this blog-post I am going to look at a couple of paragraphs from the book “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan. I will also explain why I chose these paragrapha and what I liked about them.

“In two years’ time, my scar became pale ans shiny and I had no memory of my mother. That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what os underneath, what started the pain.” 

I chose this paragraph because I think it represents the book in a good way. “The Joy Luck Club” is filled with this kind of “wisdom words”. I especially liked this one, and the sentence “the wounds begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much”. I have never thought about a scar in that way. This is one thing that I like with this book. There are so many “sayings” from the Chinese culture that I am not familiar with. They really help me understand the culture more, and see things from other perspectives.

“This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones.The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the onlyway to remember what is in your bones. You must peel of your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing- No scar, no skin, no flesh.”

This paragraph is chosen because one of the main themes in the book is the relationship between mother and daughter. It is clear that this relationship is very important in the Chinese culture, and this is what the book is based on. In the extract from the book above it is described how a daughter should and is expected to honor her mother. You are not supposed to, under any circumstances, put your own needs in front of your mother’s. I liked this paragraph because the relationship between mother and daughter is described in a very raw and trustworthy way. It is interesting to learn about other cultures by reading descriptions like this one.

“Wah!” cried the mother upon seeing thr mirrored armoire in the master suite of here daughter’s new condominium. “You cannot pur mirrors at the foot of the bed. All your marriage happiness will bounce back and turn the opposite way.”

This paragraph is an introduction to the chapter “American Translation” in the book. This brings me back to the first paragraph I picked out, another set of “wisdom words”. The book is full of them, mainly coming from the mothers with a Chinese heritage. I think it’s really interesting to read the Chinese version of for instance the placing of a mirror. If it is hung up by the foot-end of you bed, it means bad luck. These are things that are so foreign to me, and I feel like by reading this I really get to know the Chinese culture better. There are so many examples of similar paragraphs, and they are all very different from my own culture. I get the impression that especially the mothers are very superstitious, something I’m not really familiar with. Therefore, I enjoy reading about different views on things, and their meaning in the Chinese culture.

 

Imagine a world without guns

Last Tuesday, we were told to find a topic that we were passionate about and present it to the class. I found it hard to find something I’m passionate about, but then i saw the news topic; Imagine a world without guns.

Ever since the Sandy-Hook massacre I have been following the debates whether to allow people to own personal guns, especially in the US. The Sandy Hook massacre happened in December 2012, when a 20 year old man killed 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementery School. After this incidence several citizens raised their voices to demand stricter gun control laws. In the 10 following months after the Sandy Hook shooting there have been 16 mass-shootings where  4 or more people have been killed and 9.901 people were killed by guns in total in those 10 months. One of these is the shooting in a movie theatre in Colorado where a heavily armed man killed 12 people and injured another 50 people.

Why I’m so interested in this topic is because the reality in the US is so different from here. In 2009 the US had a total population of 307 million people. In the same  year, there where about 300 million firearms owned by civilians. I can’t imagine how its like to live in a country where the majority owns a gun. The news article “Imagine a world without guns” is about a project started by the artist Pedro Reyes. He and his group have used weapons confiscated from the drug cartels in Mexico to create instruments. They have for instance transformed gun barrels into xylophones, rifles into flutes and they have made a guitar entirely from bullet magazines.

Watch the band perform John Lenno’s “Imagine”: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgMW2VuGItM

Pedro Reyes wants to show that the same weapons that are used to kill people can be used in a way to bring joy to other people. I think this is such a good idea, to be able to see other opportunities. He says that  he wants to teach people to use their guns is other ways than to cause pain and suffering. 

“The Joy Luck Club”

Hello!

This week we started a really interesting project where we are reading a book. We got the chance to choose between two books, and as you understand from the topic, I chose “The Joy Luck club”, by Amy Tan. In class this Tuesday, we formed groups consisting of four people, and we made a radio show. I got the role as Amy Tan, and I was interviewed about her life and book. Before we presented I had to spend a lot of time doing research on Amy Tan, I had no idea what I was going to be asked, so I had to be well prepared. Amy Tan’s life turned out to be really interesting, and I enjoyed learning about her past. Especially because her past is connected to the story in the book. The radio-show ended up being really good and fun, we even wore masks! 

I have barely started reading the book, I have read about 3 chapters. The impression I have of the book is really good. I love reading, especially about other cultures than my own. I’m not a fan of science-fiction, so I like simple stories. The reason why I like these kinds of books is that I find it easier to relate to the characters. “The Joy Luck Club” is about the relationship between mothers and daugthers, something I can easily relate to. 

Another thing I enjoy in this book is the language. The auther has used some Chinese words among the English language. I think this makes the story more exciting and trustworthy. The words are very suitably used, and there is a list of the words and translation in the back of the book. 

In 1993, the book was adapted into a succesfull film. Amy Tan herself wrote the manuscript. This is a movie I will certainly watch, but I want to read the book first.

I can’t wait to keep on reading and at last watching the movie! I will keep the blog posted when I read more of the book, to see if I still like the book as much as I do at the moment.

English in South-Africa, Singapore and Barbados

We just had an oral presentation about different varieties of English.

 

The competency goal we are working on today is: Give examples of other varieties of English then those that are used in the Anglo-American core area, and reflect on their distinctive character.

English is now the most widely used language in the world. The enormous amount of English-speakers in the world is due to the number of people having English as their second or third language.  It is spoken as a first language by the majority populations of several states, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and a number of Caribbean nations all these countries are defined as Anglo-American. There are so many varieties of accents among English speakers. And that’s why we’ve decided to talk about three of them, English in South Africa, Singapore and Barbados.

South African English 

South African English is the dialect of English spoken by South Africans; there are different varieties of English spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians.  There are three groups that South African English has been classified in, caused social differences. First one is cultivated it can be associated with upper class , then it’s general, a social indicator of the middle class, and broad, associated with the working class. There are words that do not exist in British or American English, usually derived from African languages such as Afrikaans or Zulu, although, particularly, there is also an influence from Indian languages and slang developed by subcultures, particularly surfers.

 

English- Standard Singapore

 There are two main forms of English- Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Singapore Colloquial English (better known as singlish). SSE is the most common variety of English used in Singapore. It is similar to British, with the same grammar and spelling. Because Singapore is one of the Commonwealth nations, the form of especially writing is similar to British.

The other form of English spoken in Singapore is “Singlish”. This is associated with low prestige, and is therefore not used much in formal communication. Singlish has, in contrast to SSE, words from among others, Mandarin and Hokkien. However, Singlish is used a lot in films and sitcoms, mainly locally made. Army Daze and Mee Pok Man are examples of films where Singlish is frequently used. The government has through decades tried to extinct the Singlish language, because in their opinion Singlish presents an obstacle to learning Standard English.

Barbados English 

The official language in Barbados is English; however you may also hear the locals speak ”Bajan Creole”. English is used by Barbadians in formal settings, such as communication and public services. In informal settings, like music or social commentary, Barbadians often speak with their Bajan dialect. People of Barbados use British English including in the spelling of some words, because of their long British heritage. Examples: favorite, not favorite and center instead of center.

Bajan creole consists of a West-African substrate and English substrate, which means languages are influenced by another through contact. Standard English is a secondary native tongue of most Barbadians, and is usually used when talking formally. Barbadians may opt to speak Bajan amongst themselves or when in a very relaxed setting. Bajan is a primarily spoken language with no standardized written form. Due to the lack of standardization, spelling may vary widely from person to person. There is much dialectal variation throughout the island. Barbadians practicing Rastafari on the island also tend to speak more with a Jamaican accent than full Bajan.

Similarities

The first similarity we noticed was that all three countries are former British colonies. This has influenced the language, and at least one of the forms of English spoken in all three countries is very similar to British English. However, we can see that the people have developed the British English, and made it their own. They have done this by adding words from for instance Mandarin, Indian and West African. Another similarity we saw was between Singapore and South Africa. In both of these countries, the different varieties of English are spoken in different social groups. In Singapore, Singlish is associated with low prestige, and is mostly spoken but the working-class. In South-Africa, the working-class speak a broad South-African. In Barbados, the language used in formal settings is British English, and this also counts for Singapore.