English Class

The Blind Side

2010-05-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

In English class on Tuesday, we watched a movie called "The Blind Side". It was first played in theatres in Norway the 12th of March. The story is based on a true happening, the life of Quinton Aaron. He was a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home. One family decides to take him into their family, and takes care of him. They support him, and gives him the recourses he needs to success as a football player.

We didn't finish the movie in class, because we did not have enough time. I really liked this movie! Because we didn't finish it, I don't know the meaning of the movie. I am very excited to see the end. We stopped it after Michael walked out on the family who had supported him. There had been a lady accusing the family of deciding what college he was going to attend in an indirectly way. So now I am wondering what will happen!? I can't wait until next week when we are going to watch the last part!

The UK election is right around the corner!

2010-05-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

The last week I have been sick, and stayed home from school. So I have had enough time to watch the news! So for a change, the Norwegian news channels has started to show reportages about the UK election. Since the UK election will be relevant for our English exam this spring, I have been trying to get some information about it earlier this year, but not getting any luck. The Norwegian news shows just didn't show any interest for it, until now. Two weeks before the election.

Some of the topics that has been up in the media is how Gordon Brown revealed his real personality (some people might say), by forgetting to turn of his microphone after a conversation with one of his own voters. He did not speak nice about her, even though she just asked him about something that would be relevant for all the voters to know. The woman was shocked over what he said, and some people excused Gordon Brown by saying "he is just a normal person, and its too bad that that one time you speak bad behind someone's back, the whole nation is about to know it. Everyone makes mistakes, and its not like I've never said anything bad about some one". Something that is for sure, is the this only made Gordon Brown loose even more votes!

In an article on VG.no, I read about how Cameron is trying to get the last votes to win the election. Cameron and the conservative party, are on top of this election. The public opinion poll has so far showed the drastic change. So this morning Cameron announced plans about how he will rule the country the first days, if he wins the election. On one side, this provokes many people. At least Nick Clegg, saying : "Have you seen the papers this morning? David Cameron, with breathtaking arrogance, is already measuring up the curtains for No 10 before you have even voted, telling you what he's going to do with Britain when it's not for him to tell you what to do with this country, it's for you to tell us, the politicians, what kind of future you want."

An other article from dagbladet.no, it tells me about the question time, which they have as a part of their government. This was the last question time before the election. This time the prime minister suffers from David Cameron's attack. Cameron makes Brown apologize for not sending helicopters that worked, to the British forces in Afghanistan. He picks on him for something he said earlier, that the conservatives deceived business people. At the end of the question time, Brown looks rather melancholy.

Now its only three days away, and then we will know who's going to be the next prime minister. This election has taken a big surprising turn, and I am very excited to know who wins!

GLOGSTER

2010-04-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

I made a glogster! You can find it here.

Question Time

2010-03-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

February 24th the house of commons gathered for question time. It's when the Prime Minister is being questioned by the Government. Some of the topics that was brought to light during this Question Time was discussion about taxes. Will the prime minister increase or decrease them? I think this is an exciting topic. Someone in the discussion wondered if the taxation would be something like what Robin Hood did. That the rich people in the country will pay more taxes compared to people with not that much money.

At 12.33 pm the prime minister comes with a statement. He explains the child migration in the UK back in the days. How Britain deported many children to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The children were lied to, some were told their parents were dead. They even changed the children's date of birth so that it would be impossible for the parents to find them.

During the question time the Prime Minister behaved calm and secure. Compared to the other speakers he spoke with a clear voice, and he answered the question very well.

Changed senior project!

2010-02-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago I decided to write about the environment for my senior project. When I sat down to find facts and stuff to write about, I just couldn't come up with anything to write about. The last two weeks I have been thinking about what else I can write about, a theme that I actually can find good facts about. So now I finally decided to have my paper about Sarah Palin! I will look into how she have affected American politics before and after the 2009 presidential election.

Group work day

2010-02-06T15:06:00.001-08:00

Last Tuesday in class we did something different from what we usually do. We divided the class in groups, with about 3-5 people in each of them. Our teacher had made a list of assignments for each group to complete. Some of the groups were connected together in a way that made them co-operate. For instance; one group found the facts, then the next group wrote notes for the rest of the class, then a third group used the notes to make a glogster.

In one way it worked. At least for me. I wrote about the American Government and how the power is divided in the three branches. So I learned a lot about that. But I have no idea what Anne Sofie wrote, unless I read her notes(which probably does not take that much time), but for the other groups who didn't write any notes, it will take some time to learn all the five pages of notes my group wrote. And when you write the notes yourself, you learn it way better. You have to concentrate to find out the exactly fact then write down our own sentence.

So all the other groups that didn't write anything, will have a lot more work to do before the test, because they didn't do the same work as for instance, I did. To do this in a different way we could have made the all the groups write notes. Then all the members in the groups could tell the rest of the group about their notes after writing them. Then everyone would know a little bit about all the material.

The Road

2010-02-02T00:55:00.000-08:00

"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave". This is good explanation of how the world have become in the novel "The Road". It is written by Cormac McCarthy, also the author of the book "No Country For Old Men". "The Road" is a story of a man and his son wandering towards the coast in The USA. It is a post-apocalyptic story, where almost all life on earth is gone. He tells the story without letting the reader know anything about what happened to the earth. On the road they try to avoid people. They can not know if the people are "the good guys" or "the bad guys". Several times through the story they meet these bad people. Their way of surviving this world, is to eat other people. As the story goes on, the fathers coughing get worse and in the end he dies, leaving the boy to himself. Luckily an other family finds him and they take care of him.

This book was written very well! It stands out compared to other books. There were no chapters, no commas, and included words I couldn't find in my dictionary. In some way that is an agent that implies that there are no breaks, not in the book, and nor in the story.

In November the adaption of this book was released in theaters in the US. In the trailer I can se that John Hillcoat has interpreted the book like it was a natural disaster, which I do not like. In the book you stand freely to make up your mind about what happened, but not in the movie. Anyways, I am looking forward to watching this movie! Hopefully we will be able to watch it with the class.

Here is a link to the trailer of the movie.

American Republicans

2010-01-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

Today in class we watched a documentary about republicans in the southern states in the US . It was made during John McCain's campaign and the election in 2009. We were shocked over how upset people can be when their favorite candidate don't win. Rednecks were crying in front of the camera when President Obama won the election. Old men explained how they only saw the number 666 when they saw Obama, and how they thought he is a terrorist. Someone even compared him to Hitler, and how America was going down now that Obama is president. They truly believed that he would do the exactly same thing as Hitler did. I can not understand how people can claim something like that. They just appear to be really stupid people without any knowledge about our world history!

Senior Project

2010-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

In my English class we are now starting our senior project. On Tuesday we had to decide on our project. Mrs. Michaelsen told me that it would be smart to chose a current topic, so I chose to write about the climate. I will compare how America and Norway as a country, work to decrease the polluting gasses and other ways to prevent our planet to get in big problems later. I will focus on two agencies, Environment Protection Agency and Miljøvernforbundet, which are agencies working for a better environment in each of the countries. I think the environment is a very important to take care of, so that will make the project interesting for me to write.

American Health System

2010-01-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

The American health system is a new form that will try to not "squeeze" the people. The way it is now, both the doctors and the insurance companies are trying to get the most money out of the people. The American Government think that the insurance companies have most of the blame. My information tells me that the changes will be mostly on the insurance companies, universal coverage, no restriction, lower costs, and exchanges, will be the main changes.

MILK

2009-11-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

Harvey Milk was an important person not only to the American gay society, but to gay people all over the world. He was one of the first men to give the gay people a voice, and hope about living a normal life like other people. The gay people was not treated right in the time before Mr. Milk started his work. The police would attack them with no reason, other people looked down on them, and they usually had a childhood with memories of getting bullied with. In one way you can compare it with the Afro Americans living in the USA some decades earlier. Only they did not have the same rights as these gay people had. The gay people only got looked down on. But both these groups of people have worked hard and fought many fights to come where they are today. Still there is many people who do not like gay people and think they are just faking it. But what can they do? They can not change other people.

The winner takes it all

2009-11-10T04:46:00.000-08:00

In the British election they do it in a different way then we do it in Norway. With the topic "the winner takes it all" I mean how they divide the power between the parties. When a party in Britain gets the most votes, the party win the whole election, and all the power. Compared to Norway this is very different. We have the power divided on all the parties that receive more than 5% of the votes. So the party with the most votes get more power and the other way with the parties with the least votes.

Lions for Lambs

2009-10-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

1. Lions for Lambs is a 2007 American drama film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. Explain how they are connected and what the soldiers are doing in Afghanistan?

The three stories in this movie is twisted tightly together at the end of the movie. They affect each other and create consequences for all of the people in the movie. It begins with the college professor who is trying to make his promising student more engaged to the class. The student, Todd Hayes, puts the blame on the way of college life. He is busy with being the frat house president, his girlfriend, being social, and just living life. The professor called him in for a meeting one morning, and offered him a deal: "I'll give you a straight B in this class, and you do not have to do anything more, not attend class and do not turn in assignment. The other option is to come to class more often again".

He also tell this student about to students he once had, Arian and Ernest. They had fought their way all the way up to get a scholarship and attend a college. They were not A students, but the professor remembered them. They had potential, and was not like all the other students who got their education paid of the parents. The came from bad conditions and had grown up in a not so good neighborhood, and still they got an education. Apparently they had become close with the professor, he had really gotten to them. One assignment they got was something like this: find out what was necessary in the world, what would make a difference? And what will you do to try to make a change? They chose to sign up for the army.

The professor felt like he fail the two students that actually had a potential. When Arian and Ernest join the war, they are assigned an extremely important mission in the war against terrorism and Taliban in Afghanistan. When they are flying over the mountains in Afghanistan, hidden Taliban soldiers starts shouting at the helicopter. Ernest falls out of the helicopter, and Arian decides to jump after him. Together they try to fight the Taliban soldiers as they are approaching. The army back at the base are watching what's going on from a satellite. They send out rescue planes that bombs Taliban. But the last one does not reach Arian and Ernest in time. They get shot right before they bomb the last of the Taliban soldiers.

At the same time a US Senator get a call, informing him about what happened with the mission he just executed. He is in a private meeting with a TV journalist. The Senator has a purpose, quoting;" My honest effort to keep the press better informed about mistakes, and to talk openly about fixing it, step by step". This mission is the way of correcting the mistake of going into Iraq years ago. If they don't do anything with this problem now, they can expect a shattered Iraq, a hopeless Afghanistan, and a nuclear Iran. And the meaning of this meeting was to have her write an article about this mission, not questions about it, but straight up hard facts. Something she has problems with.

As the connection throughout the whole movie the sentence "What do you stand for?" says a lot. The professor also mentions that its better to fail trying then to not try and fail, the important thing is that you did something at all.

2. The professor asks Todd to get involved. What can he do?

The professor notices that Todd is not attending as many classes as he used to earlier that year. Todd was the one student that the professor saw some potential in. He wanted to make Todd realize how things he did today, would effect the rest of his life. He was now a grown up. There were no legal guardians anymore, it was just him, and he had to make his own decisions. He didn't want Todd to waist his time at college with the potential he had. The professors goal wasn't to make the students become something great, but to become something that is important to them and has a meaning in their life. He wants them to become lions, not lambs.

The best thing Todd can do to get more involved is to just show up in class. He is already doing his assignments and achieving good grades. Attending classes was his only problem.

The Marshall Plan

2009-10-27T05:23:00.001-07:00

The Marshall plan was a program founded in 1948. George Marshall was a secretary of state in the United States, and he was the person initiating the plan. And as you can see, the plan was named after him.

The plan had a vision of helping the western countries in Europe after the 2 World War. It was suppose to rebuild and create stronger foundation for the countries.

13 billion USD was used for economic and technical assistance to the European countries that was a member of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. Trough the next three decades all the helped countries had reached a level that was past the wartime level.

Norwegian Traditionally Sports

2009-10-20T01:35:00.000-07:00

When you live in Norway, it's not always possible to do the sport you would like to at all times. In the winter it's very cold and snowy outside, and in the summer it's hot and nice. So it's not always easy to do the sport you would like to do. Because of Norway's looooong winter, winter sports are very popular and we have a lot of them. The oldest and most successful winter sport would be cross country. We have won several gold, silver and bronze medals in the Olympics. And on the other hand this is a sport almost all Norwegians participate in in the winter. We put on our cross country skies, pack a back pack with hot chocolate, hot dogs, and oranges and take a hike in the forests. It is also a very good way to exercise you whole body. You use your legs, arms, back, and abs.

In the summer time there is other sports that are in focus. Soccer and team handball is the most popular summer sports. I'm sure you know what soccer is, but team handball isn't a sport that is that popular all over the world. It is kind of a mix of basketball and soccer, if I'm going to compare it to other sports. You have a smaller goal than the one in soccer, but you play inside and use your hands. It's a fast sport with a lot of action.

Norwegian Weather

2009-10-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

In Norway we have a lot of different weather. Today it was freezing cold, but not any snow. I think the weather in Norway sucks. It's a short summer, where it rains a lot, and when the fall comes, its really cold and windy. Then it starts snowing in the end of November or December And it can even be snow in April- May... in June the nice weather comes, and when our summer break starts, it starts raining too.

George Orwell

2009-09-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

Orwell was born in India in 1903. His father worked in the Indian Civil Service, and his mother had grown up in Burma. He also had two sister, Marjoire and Avril. When he was one year old, his mother took him and his siter and moved to England.

Orwell later attended college and his teachers didn't really like him. But later he became a great writer and he is being considered as the 20th century's best chronicler of english culture. His real name isn't really George Orwell, that's just his Pen name. His real name is Eric Arthur Blair.

Compare two poems. "the solider" and "does it matter"

2009-09-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

These two poems are very different! "the solider" is written with more difficult words and yo have to interpret in your own way, if you understand it at all. It's about a solider that says what he wants people to think about him if he dies. The second poem, "does it matter" is criticism to the war. How some people could send the worker class of to war and just keep on living their own life. Its is more generally compared to the solider, where there is a solider “talking”.

Does it matter?

2009-09-01T03:27:00.000-07:00

Does it matter?--losing your legs?...

For people will always be kind,

And you need not show that you mind

When the others come in after hunting

To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?--losing your sight?...

There's such splendid work for the blind;

And people will always be kind,

As you sit on the terrace remembering

And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?...

You can drink and forget and be glad,

And people won't say that you're mad;

For they'll know you've fought for your country

And no one will worry a bit.

1.Losing your legs, losing your sight and losing your dreams is the three effects of the war on a soldier this poem touch on.

2.The poem reflects on the attitude that great wars were fought by working-class men on both sides and that the people they were fighting for, were often more the enemy than the people they were fighting against. This is shown in the repeating sentence: “people will always be kind” as long as you fought for you country. The poem says that the people who didn't fight in the war themselves goes on living their lives, while the soldiers have lost big parts of their lives in the war, like their dreams, legs or their sight.

3.Our theory on why this poem has become so popular now is: it was a big honer to fight in a war for your country before, and most young boys had a dream about becoming a soldier, but now more people understand what it contains to be a soldier in a real war, and how it changes a lot of people to face death and loose so much of their life as brutal as in a war.

About Myself!

2009-09-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Hi!

My name is Kristin. I am 18 years old and i just started my senior year. I live in a town called Asker, which lies in the suburbans of Norway's capital, Oslo. I spent my junior year in the US, and went to a high school north in Washington State. I had an awesome time there and have no regrets! I lived in the town Anacortes, and I really hope that I will go back there some day:)