Nata’s Class Blog

Rule #1: Change yourself.“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” A quote made famous by Gandhi, who lead India back to independence from the British in 1947, using only words and peace. In this post, Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World by Hendrik Edberg, the blogger writes down 10 Gandhi’s beliefs in changing the world, followed by famous quotes from Gandhi himself.

This post overall, is telling you to be capable of changing yourself before you decide to change the world. Ghandi lead the people of India into standing up for themselves, for independence of their country. They fought peacefully to make a stand in what like they believed in and they wanted to see their country gain independence, and from all their hard work and effort they succeeded to change the world; by making their country independent.

According to Ghandi’s quote, “You must be the change you want to see in the world,” Ghandi himself has been a great change to the world. He led people to believing that you can achieve anything with peace, stop war, gain independence, standing up for what you believe in, and so on. If we wanted to change the world, we wouldn’t have to make as much effort as Ghandi had made since now there are more ways to connect to people like through the internet where your voices can be heard by many different ways like using facebook (and other social networking sites) email, twitter, or blogging, like this. All this is one click away, but generally everyone just takes this opprotunity for granted.

Ghandi’s philosophies relate to many issues we’ve been studying about in this year. In Rice Without Rain, Inthorn, the village headman made a stand to increase the farmers’ share of rice. Although he later died of infections, he had helped raise a petition on increasing the farmers’ share of rice so that other farmers wouldn’t be forced into giving the rice they needed to raise their village to the landlords. By reading Ghandi’s philosophies, it also links to our Connected World unit, where we have been focusing on how we could make the world a better place for everyone.

Imagine what Ghandi did, several decades ago. He was only one normal being, like any of us, and look at how much change he has made of the world. Now, imagine what one of us can do if we really tried, with all this new technology we have now, technology that people from the Ghandi times would never have the opprotunity to know about. And now, imagine what we can do as a group. It may not be easy to be the first person to start a petition, but somehow, you would eventually have your voice heard if you really tried. I want to take action in prolonging global warming (if not stopping it, but eventually it will happen) but if I only say what I want, and not putting any effort into stopping the situation, then no one would think I’m trustworthy enough to follow because it’s useless to follow a hypocrite. But on the other hand, if I could start a chain mail or a blog to get people to follow me, then it would make a great impact on the world and what I want might actually start to happen. To be honest, I’m not going to spend all the freetime making bulletins and posters and organizing dates to turn off the lights and all, because it’s not my job to do, yet at least. But what I can do now is post things on the internet to help the environment like what Hendrik Edberg has done for the article on Ghandi’s philosophies on changing the world. To change the world, you have to prove to the world that you are capable of changing the world by making an effort and trying your best to stand up for what you believe in. Relating back to Ghandi’s quote, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

50 ways to be successful in life

1). Determination            

2). Courage

3). Honesty

4). Positivity

5). Caring

6). Understanding

7). Enjoyment

8). Happiness

9). Giving

10). Loving

11). Fairness

12). Hope

13). Lively

14). Easy-going

15). Peaceable

16). Encouraging

17). Mellow

18). Agreeable

19). Friendliness

20). Learn

21). Accept

22). Compassion

23). Trust

24). Try

25). Generosity

26). Appreciate

27). Relax

28). Loyalty

29). Satisfaction

30). Contentment

31). Observe

32). Listen

33). Forgiving

34). Dream

35). Moving On

36). Achieve

37). Sympathetic

38). Independence

39). Respect

40). Tolerate

41). Perseverance

42). Forget

43). Remember

44). Patience

45). Responsibility

46). Reasonability

47). Moving On

48). Confidence

49). Reliability

50). Trustworthy

Throughout this year, I think that the quality of my writing improved a lot since the beginning of 7th grade.  At the beginning of the year, my writing had too many unnecessary words and was all disorganised. My friend, who I think is a pretty good writer had helped me with the organization of my writing as well as cutting out the unessary words that were just a waste of space while I read her writing and tell her in which areas her writing is good and where she should improve. Because of her, now I have more organized writing that I think is more easier to understand than my writing in the beginning of the year. I also have more experience with writing since now, from reading my friends writing and observing different writing styles used by different authors when I’m reading a novel. Ms. Ulster had also help me with my writing by making comments on it in powerschool. Sometimes she says I’m missing a conclusion or that I should make my writing more detailed. I think that my writing quality is better because of the comments I get from my writing. Whenever I write something new, I try to pay attention to the areas that people commented on I’m not good at so I could improve my writing more, and hopefully someday I’ll be able to write nicely with my writing giving the impact I want it to on readers making them interested in reading my work instead of just feeling like they just want to get it over with.

Although I haven’t been posting Connected World posts in a long time, this time I found something worthwhile to write about. The post I’m writing about, Students building a future for Romanian orphanage takes place in Romania, Eastern Europe and is written by Thomas312 on May 19 2009 at 4:30 pm, local time.

There are 6 students (who’s names weren’t unspecified in Thomas312‘s blog post) who are involved in the programme “Build-a-Future” in West Ashby. They organized a 24 hour sponsered cycle and a row-a-thon at Build-a-Future to raise funds for their trip to restore the orphanage. They are fixing parts of it, weatherproofing the roof, restoring the footpaths, and making a new play area for the orphans. They would have to drive 1,200 miles in a mini bus over four days to reach the Comarnic that is approximately 30 miles outside the capital city of Romania, Bucharest.

 I chose this post because I find it really interesting because these students are proactive, and capable of organising this event to benefit an orphanage. And also because by restoring a nearly crumbling orphanage in Romania proved that the students determined to help other people not because they are forced to but becuase they really want to improve the lives of the orphans of this orphanage. In ISB, there are also community service opprotunities similar to what the students in Romania are doing too, like the Orphanage Caregivers who go visit an orphanage to help care and give warmth and love to the children there. Other than that, there is also the Green Panthers, which is a group that helps the environment by planting trees or some other way, promoting eco-friendly productions and many other things, the Tsunami Relief club that helps raise money to help the people that are in need when their homes were destroyed by the tsunami wave in 2004, and many more groups that help the community around us. 

If this opprotunity was given to you in your present life, would you take it? And how would you feel about people renovating your orphanage if you were one of the orphans? Tell me what you think about what these students are doing for the orphanage in Romania because I’d love to hear your thoughts on this blogpost!

7th grade, of course, is going to be harder than 6th grade. There is more homework to be done in a limited amount of time and less free time to do other activities that appeals to your liking.  At the beginning of the year, when I had just become a 7th grader, I always left my homework and projects until the last minute. Well, it worked, but not for long. As we got further into the year, there was a rapid increase of homework and the teachers always have high expectations on you to push you to be the best student you can be. And by doing it in a last minute rush does not bring out your best work at all, then resulting as a bad grade. When a big holiday like the winter break comes up, we’d get a lot more homework and exams to do. Then when you’re really happy that you’re going to be homework for the next couple of weeks of winter break, you’d still get “holiday homework” from some classes so that hopefully you don’t forget anything during the summer.

If I’ve known that in 7th grade you’d have to really understand what the concept of the math lesson was or what the meaning of the vocabulary word was, I’d be better off. In math class, if you don’t understand one unit and you let it pass, the next unit would be a lot harder than it would be if you clearly understood the last unit. What’s hard is that when you forget the formulas you learnt right before the test then you’re doomed. And also, if you mess up the formula then you’re doomed too. I never really understood what an adjective and a verb was so when they handed me my first vocabulary quiz, I almost failed. It was more than just writing the correct spelling down and matching up the definitions and vocabulary words correctly. Even though I know what an adjective and a verb is now, the vocabulary quizzes are still a major challenge for me because they just keep getting harder. But it’s my fault too because I’m not doing such a good job on my behalf as well because I usually do other homework like math worksheets, modern language homework, humanities homework, and projects from the classes before studying my definitions for the vocabulary quiz. And after a few days I forget that the vocabulary quiz is coming up so then I get horrible grades on it.

At the beginning of the year, I used up my freetimes playing games and other useless but fun stuff instead of doing homework that was due on the day after tomorrow and so forth. In the end, I’d have to stay up until around 2:00 am finishing last minute homework due in a couple of hours. Although, this sounds really cheesy but now I’ve learnt to do my homework beforehand so when I actually have freetime, I can do better things to my liking. The teacher’s expectations will increase as well from the start of the year until the end of the semester. 7th grade is going to be a great year with some obstacles (like homework, projects, exams, and etc) and loads of fun! Good luck in 7th grade!

She watched as the waves gently roll towards her, colliding agaisnt land spreading its foamy self across the shore, then touching the edge of her toes. The ocean seems to go on forever, she thinks, even when you sail to the end of the horizon it seems that you’re still not getting anywhere at all. Yet it’s so special because just about anything can happen in it, from a whale giving life to another newborn to people spreading ashes of their relatives onto the surface of the sea.

The sea is a beautiful thing, he thinks. There are tons of coral and sea animals in the ocean, filling it with life and movement. Then there’s the sea itself, wild and free, who could be both rebellious or calm at times. Did you know that if you look closely at the horizon, you can see the waves already forming; the gentle white creases already coming to shore. Growing stronger, with every second, until it smashes against the shore; shattering itself into pieces. 

There isn’t a point in God creating the ocean. All it does is make it’s boring waves hit land a million times over and over again, so why waste time on it? Video games is a much better creation, he thought as he began drawing robots shooting lazer beams from their eyes. The sea is so confusing, with its annoying curving waves making everything so hard. When in the games it’s a lot easier because all you have to do is just to kill all the villians that come on screen, he thinks as he reaches for his game boy.

After reading some blog posts from our class, I realized that many people wrote about the internet how it has an impact on their lives rather than their childhood memories of reading. From reading the posts I think that nowadays, students tend to go on the internet for entertainment more than they read books. In the blog posts about reading, I noticed a trend in the books that captured everyone’s attention. They were usually books that had settings in mythical places like castles in the sky or a world beneath water and grew up with mostly Dr. Seuss or other picture books.

What amazes me is that Dr. Seuss is very popular for children’s books because his books capture the interest of many younger children although everyone tends to grow out of them. How exactly is his writing so magical and why does it only work on younger kids? I think that why kids enjoy these types of books are because they love letting their imagination fly. If you give a kid a pencil and a crayon, then they’d probably scribble all over it but then say it’s the highest castle in the world or something else fantasy-like.

Although Dr. Seuss’ made-up characters like the Cat in the Hat once held our attention, when we get older, we read more complicated books. But while in the more complicated books, there are less books with the setting of breathing underwater and fairies and all and more books of love and death, so then I guess it builds up a stereotype for us to think that the Dr. Seuss books are cheesy and not worth reading and etc. But in the end, we all love to be taken away to different places which a great page-turning book.

Ever since school started using the internet to help with our academic learning and educational purposes, I started going on the internet and browsing websites as well. It started when my third grade teacher showed us an online math game website. After I started playing games on that site, I started clicking on advertisement links advertised by other game websites and so on.

When I got to fifth grade, I started going on to social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace. I also got a hotmail account to go on MSN (instant messaging) to keep in touch with friends and family members when they’re not around.  After using the internet for entertainment for most of my life, I started using it for contacting teachers to ask about homework help, to do research for homework assignments, post homework online, and other educational purposes rather than just online games when I started Middle School.

              The internet had already influenced me in a great deal and it still would continue to do that. In the past, research had to be done in the library, skimming research books to see which one contained the information you needed.Nowadays, life is much easier because you could just type what information you were looking for into Google or any other search engine or even read books online like reading Manga instead of buying the book and everything is much quicker as well. In another perspective, you also waste less paper and save the environment too, by posting assignments instead of filling worksheets or cut less on phone bills by emailing friends instead of contacting them through the phone or writing hand-written messages to them.  Therefore to conclude, I think the internet has been the most efficent way of connecting to people in different parts of the world and also (one of or) the best, frequently used inventions of the 21rst century.

Red Scarf Girl by Jiang Ji-Li

Something that I’ve observed unusual is because in the author’s time, everyone was loyal to Chairman Mao even if it killed them. Jiang Ji-Li was also a unique character in the book, because of the way she had changed since Chairman Mao launched The Cultural Revolution. Her life was once based by her goals but now it is based by her responsibilities. Chang Hong was also an interesting character because of the way she acted as a Red Guard even though her brother was suffering from epilepsy. She never showed that she worried a lot about her brother and put her responsibilities in being a Red Guard and academic study for Chairman Mao before her own personal life. (ADD EXAMPLE/S)

While reading the book, I noticed that since Yin Lan-Lan had changed from being shy to rebellious since Chairman Mao launched his latest mission, destroying the fourolds, the author started to mention her less when Jiang Ji-Li was finishing Elementary School. I think that the author might be trying to give out a message but I still don’t understand her point. And I also wondered why Yin Lan-Lan had such a change in her personality when Destroy the Fourolds was launched. I was also confused why Ji-Li still showed loyalty towards Chairman Mao when he had caused her family and friends to be in trouble. But when I read the epilogue the author had written, I understood better about their society. But other than that, I didn’t have many questions because the book was pretty easy to keep up with.

When I was reading the book, I felt very bad for the people of Communist China, especially when Thin-Face slapped Jiang Ji-Li’s grandmother, yelled at her for being a landlord’s wife, and made her weep the streets of the alleys. It gave me a better understanding of a Communist environment, since I’ve never read about it or seen it. After I stopped reading the book, I felt that Ji-Li was a very brave child to be able to help her family and go through school life with people looking down on her because she came from a family with a bad class status. She had was strong and the courage and determination to live such a harsh life, living with fear and lack of childhood (page 263 “Now my life was defined by my responsibilities. I had promised to take care of my family, and I would renew that promise every day.”) when she was once the perfect student everybody loved to a student who was looked down upon because of her class status when the Cultural Revolution was launched by Chairman Mao.

I think I relate to a bit to Ji-Li currently, not as harsh but just in the fact that life has been harder. There is more school work to be done, more responsibilities, fearing angry protesters, and wearing the right shirt colors to avoid misunderstandings that could between different political groups in Thailand. Whereas in Ji-Li’s world, it was much harder since she had been teased by her classmates about her class status, to the point where she didn’t want to go to school anymore. She also had to deal with her younger brother and sister while her parents were busy and even Grandma sometimes when she had to go to the hospital.

For this week, it was required to search for articles about your region or topic on http://www.topix.com/. I choose an article on my topic, human rights about a girl from a Muslim background killed by her own father for violating their families requirements for clothing in St. Petersburg. The article, Muslim dad has daughter killed for wearing mini-skirts posted by Diana Fasanella on April, 17 2009 is about a Muslim Russian father, Garfar Kirimov (age 46) who hired hit men to shoot his daughter for almost $3,000 for wearing resisting to wear traditional Muslim clothing for women after he had asked her to stop wearing make-up, tight tops, and short skirts. 

In my opinion, Garfar Kirimov is wrong for killing his own daughter (even if she didn’t listen to him) because anyhow, murdering is a crime. His daughter has the right to dress in any way she wants because she has the right to choose for herself, and I think that her father should be more flexible on their religion since his daughter has already grown up in city life. I also believe that Muslim culture should be more flexible on their rules so Garfar’s daughter could’ve chosen another religion (since it seems that she’s unsatisfied with the clothing rules), or Garfar himself could’ve been more easy-going on his daughter so that none of this would’ve happened.