What I Believe in

I believe in fighting for my rights.

A few years ago, when I was 11 years old or close to that, I had a fight with my brother. My brother and I started fighting because my brother "accidentally" hit me. I got angry and hit him back "accidentally", which angered him. He kept hitting me constantly, which angered him even more. So, we kept hitting each other and somehow, it ended up in a big fight. Because he was two years older than me, I lost.

A few days later, my brother, again hit me “accidentally”. This, again, angered me and I fought back. The whole thing repeated, and I once again found myself beaten up. This happened several times, and every time my brother disturbed me, I fought back.

After that sort of a fight took place many times, my brother seemed to be tired of me fighting back at him. Soon, he gave up and stopped bothering me. If I didn't fight back, my brother would have bothered me, maybe for the rest of my life. But because I did fight back, my brother grew tired, that he stopped disturbing me.

There were and still are many people who fight for their rights. 200 years ago, people of America thought that they were being treated badly. Under the command of Washington, the Americans won against the English army, which was known to be the world’s strongest, and created the strongest country of the 21^st century. Vietnamese people’s thoughts were taken over by communism. People of Vietnam wanted communism. Even though this was only from their ignorance, they fought when their right of choosing what they wanted was taken away by the USA. They, people of a small country in the middle of nowhere, fought and won against USA, one of the two strongest nations in the world.

I believe might should not be used to suppress others. I believe that if it is, it should be fought against, for rights of people. I believe that if it is, people will achieve their goal.

Image from http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/a/sam50/CMLIT101home.htm

I chose this image, because I believe in rights, and this picture is representing it.

1066

1066 is about a war that took place in 1066. The war that changed the blood of english kings. It is about the time when England had to face two invasions. One from south, and one from east. First, king Hardrada stroke england, and was killed in battle. Next, sir Willium of Normandi invaded the southern area of england, forcing king Harrord of england march hundreds of miles to reach willium's forces. Due to Willium's plans and exustion of Harrord's army, Willium won, and Harrord died in battel, with an arrow in his eyes.

Some things that I realized through this game is that the army morale is very important in wars. At first, without this knowledge, I hired many archers and some close-range fighters. I kept marching and shooting, and the enemy taunted me, so my army's morale fell badly. But, I did not know how bad it could be, so I let them be. Then, when both army's collided, I realized that my troops were always running away, even when they were in large numbers. So, the next round, I hired 5 close-range warriors, and 8 archers. All the archers kept shooting, while others taunted the opponents. Their morale fell rapidly, and by the time enemy forces were close to mine, their morale was 1, making every troop hit b arrow run away. When their morale reached 0, due to my taunting, they lost and I won.

In order to win this game, you must remember the importance of army morale. I f you do, you will have no problems beating the hardest levels

Do what you believe is right

Is it right to risk bringing such danger on one's relatives and friends by challenging the forces of law and order?

I believe the answer to this question is yes, but that was not what everyone did, when law and order was corrupted by Nazis. Even I'm not too sure what I would do when in this situation, since if I tried to stop what I think was wrong, I would be in a gas tank with hundreds of Jews. A few days ago, our teacher asked me and my classmates an interesting question. She asked if we were living in times of World War 2, would we stand up against Hitler and try to stop him? If we had a Jewish friend, would we stand up for him and save him from agonizing death, risking our own lives. I would try to make my self do it, but I think I would fail at it. Every life, human, animals, and plants, have natural instincts, and surviving is a part of it. Everyone wants to live and at that time of the history, helping Jews meant death. Since putting themselves in to danger was going against their natural instincts, most people refused to do it, knowing that was wrong. But people were able to overcome their fear for death and do what they thought was right. They were the villagers of Le Chambon. Most people in the village sheltered at least one Jew in their house, without asking them about anything. They just gave protection to them. Some of the villagers even managed to help some Jewish people across a mine field of Anti-Semitism, in to Switzerland, where Nazi's power did not prevail. When Nazis were gone from Germany and the new young people poured out their anger towards the embarrassing past to their parents who only watched the Holocaust and did nothing knowing that it was wrong, the parents would have felt guilt. This could also have contributed to contrast between the young and old, causing chaos and dis order. People who let their friends die in Holocaust would have more pain. Anger of their sons and daughters would bring thoughts about the friend, which made them agonize in pain.

There are two stories about people who stood up against the Nazi rule and helped Jews. One is "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" by John Boyne, and the other is "Rose Blanche" by Roberto Innocenti. In "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", the protagonist is the son of a Nazi official, named Bruno. He was only 9 when his father had new assignment and had to move to a new hose called Out With, which actually was Auschwitz, one of the largest death camps built by the Nazis. There were no neighbors around but Jews, so Bruno make friend with one. The friend's name was Shmuel. Bruno always took food with him and gave it to Shmuel, saving him from hunger. All they could do was to talk to each other due to they electric fence between them, but they made good friends, and Bruno was not lonely. One day, Shmuel came to Bruno's house for some labor, and Bruno offered Shmuel food, which was gobbled down in a seconds. But when a soldier came in, he noticed that Shmuel ate something. Shmuel said Bruno was his friend, but in his terror, Bruno denied it. Because of this, Shmuel received beatings, and Bruno felt extreme guilt. He apologized and Shmuel accepted it. A year later, Shmuels's father was taken to the gas tank and was killed. But Shmuel did not know this, and thought he went missing. He asked for help from Bruno and a day later, Bruno got dressed like other Jews, crawled under the fence, and went to look for Shmuel's father. But both Shmuel and Bruno was trapped in a room where poisonous gas came out and killed everyone in the room.

Rose Blanche is about a plain girl named Rose Blanche, who was living in Germany when it was controlled by Nazis. One day, she saw a boy trying to run away from a military truck, who got caught and was put in to the truck. She followed the track of the truck and found herself in front of a forest. She walked in and found Jews on the other side of a electric wire fence. Every day after that, she returned, and gave food to those people. The Germany started running out of supplies, and her self could not eat very much, but she kept on doing what she did. But one day, the Russians came and freed the camp. Rose did not know this and went to the camp, where she was shot in a crossfire.

These two stories have many things in common. They are about children who tried to help people who were in pain, and was killed because of it. They both brought food from their house and gave it to the Jewish people. I believe that this action gave the Jews hope, that they might be able to be saved. The difference is that Bruno's work had no impact what so ever to the world, but Rose's work saved many people, by giving them hope and keeping them alive with food she brought.

Even the smallest resistance, such as done by Rose Blanche was able to make a difference. If many people are to stand up against a infested government, they will be able to make a big change to the world.

Image from http://www.ouhsd.k12.ca.us/lmc/ohs/read/Holocaust.htm

The day of lottery

I would name the story 'The day of the lottery', because it is the day of the lottery when this place took place. I first thought about putting words like grim, bloody, death. However, I soon realised, those words would expose the ending, the part that creates the void. So, giving up on the attraction of people's eyes, I chose this title.

All the way through the story, I kept thinking that something bad was going to the 'winner'. I thought he (or she) was going to be killed. Some of my classmates thought that the winner was going to be sent away, but I thought, for the author to make the ending more memorable and make the readers pity the victim, the victim will have to die.

Another reason why I thought this was because of the response to what happened then Mrs. Hutchinson drew out the paper with a black spot. She was in despair and others of the village were very happy. Added on to that, the black spot. "There could have been other marks, but why this?" I asked this question to myself and soon came to a thought. It has to do with the black spot in 'Pirates of the Caribbean 2'. In the movie, the black spot was a sign of death, and something bad is going to happen to this person, who got the black spot... this led me to thinking of this person's death.

Even after having this... exiting thought, I didn't feel bad or anything when I found out that the ending was not there. I just thought it was another one of those "Power of the Void" thing Mr. Housego talked about over two classes. Also, I didn't care about the story.

When I received the folded and stapled paper saying "Do not open until 5p.m. and follow the instructions", the part saying "follow the instructions" threw me in to despair. The part made me think it was the second blog entry. Also, I started thinking the ending of the story might be written on the paper. I did not know why, but I just did. Although strong force of curiosity was inside my mind, my forgetfulness was stronger. The paper was left in my locker for the rest of the school day.

I almost forgot to bring it home, but thanks to someone who was reading it in the hallway (at 2:50 p.m.) , I remembered to bring it home. I slept on the bus from tiredness of the school day, forgot about the paper until 7 p.m, when I was trying to remember my homework. Because of my forgetfulness, I was able to follow the instructions. (the name of the person who was reading her paper in the hallway had a name which contains four letters. First two letters of the person is 'Ro', the last two 'sa'.)

When I read about the black box, I thought it was something bad, because most of the things shown as dark or black is thought of as something bad (does not apply for people), for example, a shadowy street, black mark that shows a substance is poison, etc. As I stated above, the black spot made me connect this story to 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. It made me think the person will be killed, and the story is more interesting then I thought.

When I read the ending of the story, I felt good and proud that my prediction was correct, but felt nothing else, because I was expecting it. I think if I thought more carefully about the piles of stones, I would even have predicted how the victim was going to die.

I think the voids created by the author drew attention, created tension and question from the reader, and made them want to read on the book.

Some of the Voids left by the author was no title, no information about the author, no ending, clues and foreshadowing, mystery paper and the delayed ending.

No title would make people wonder about the story, since they can usually get an Idea of the story from it. No author information will make people wonder if the story is worth reading, since they do not know if it was written by the greatest authors of all time, or just a kid. No ending will make people think and wonder deeper about what is to happen to the 'winner'. The clues and foreshadowing created tension inside the readers, letting them know something bad was going to happen, but without any other details. The mystery paper will make people wonder what is inside and make them feel anxious to find out. The delayed ending will give people enough time to go crazy wondering about it, or just make a few predictions.

Power of theVOID!

PART 1
The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides (silence) an exceptional education that challenges each student to (silence) develop the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become (silence) a highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global citizen.

I think by putting these silences during a speech, one can make the listeners wonder for the reasons, and there for, attract more attentions. I tried to place these silences (Voids) so that they create most tension and questions for the listener. All of my pauses are located after a word that gives a clue of the existence of an impotent information. Since the people know that the information is right after the VOID, they will be asking questions and be being tensed, instead of ignoring it.

PART 2
I think a composer could create tension in their music by suddenly taking away elements of the music, or even creating a sudden silence, after a great crescendo, or in the middle of a fortissimo. When those kinds of things happen, people will think that something is wrong with the artists. They will start questioning. Questioning about "What is wrong?", "What is happening?", and sometimes, "Do I want to listen to this music?" Through their questions, people will be pulled in to the music, thinking about it. After all attention of the people are pulled in, the composer could release the tension, by putting back the elements he took out, or vanishing the silence with music.

Matt Harding

From Mrs. Whiting's blog I've seen a clip about Matt Harding dancing around in many different places with others. They were all smiling. Even the people who seemed...poor. They all danced and laughed, breaking the habit of stressing and being depressed. this could be good for every one's health. When people laugh or smile, level of hormones that are good for human body like endorphins and neurotransmitters increase. Matt Harding gave happiness to many, many different people, just by dancing. This could be an example of how much influence a man could leave in the world. This could also show how much difference we can make our selves.

resources: chai09.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/im-back/

Compliment guys

In these days, things are economically bad. People are loosing job and it's hard to get one, too. From the worst economy in decades, people are being depressed. In this kind of time, the compliment guys could be helpful to every soul living around them, lifting their depression. They give complements to whoever pass by them.

Every journey starts with the first step. If more people start complimenting each other, new world might come where everyone is happy and where there is no violence.

About the picture: This is an image of a thumb up, representing complements.