Project Lesotho

photo: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesotho

Last Tuesday we tried to raise money for a elementary school in Lesotho. Early in the morning me and my schoolmates gathered up at Sandvika bus station. We wanted to sell coffee, and buns to people that were talking the bus or the train to work. Which i, personally think is a pretty good idea, but nobody wanted  to help. Everybody ignored us when we asked them if they wanted to contribute. I mean, its okay, if you don't want to give away money, but you could at least answer, when we ask.

Like i said, the money is going to a school in Lesotho. They have a few computers there, but no internet. So that was the goal. But for that to happend, we needed a lot of money. and that wasn't easy when people didn't want to help. I don't think we raised a lot, but everything helps right?

Lesotho is a country in south Africa. It has a population of approximately 2,067,000, and about 40% of the population live below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day.

Last year the other international English class raised money to the same school, and they sent us letters telling us how grateful they were for the money. One of the letters were from an orphan boy. He is 20 years old, and he  lost both his parents when he were 4 years old. He wrote that he couldn't afford food, but whit the money they had gotten, he could now eat. It was very touching, and put everything in perspective. He can't afford food, and we won't even give away 10 kroners to help him.

My edublog nominations

There were a lot of good blogs to choose from, but i would like to nominate this one because it has everything that i want to see on a blog

Best student blog: Stian

Twitter

Today in English class everybody had to make twitter accounts. We are going to use it in the class, so that me can communicate with our teacher and other students. I already had an account, but it has never been active.  I also found out how to get a twitter badge on my blog, so that it is easy to follow me.

I don't know what i think about using twitter in the school. It's okay i mean, but i don't know how much it is going to be used for important stuff.

I love the fact that i can stalk people on twitter. I mean, on facebook the other person has to accept you as a friend, but on twitter you can read about who you want. I find it very interesting reading about what people think about different things, and specially friends and famous people.

When it comes to using blogs in the education, a actually enjoy it a lot. I think it's a cool, and creative way of making learning English more fun. I don't have a lot of readers on my blog yet, but that's not important. All together i have had 136 visitors on my blog, from countries like Russia, Brazil and Croatia. It's weird to think about that a person i Germany have read my blog, specially because some of my blog post are not the most interesting. 

News of the World scandal

 

When 13 year old Milly Dowlers disappeared in 2002, the newspaper News of the World took the liberty to hack her phone. They listened to her phone so that they could get the best news stories. When the answer machine was full, they just deleted old messages, to make more room for new ones. Because of that, they gave her parents fake hope that she was alive, and they also deleted potential evidence. The journalists also hacked her parents phone. So when the police was looking for her, the newspaper had very useful information that they kept to them self. Milly was found murdered a half year later.

After a lot of investigations, the police know that this was not the first phone they had hacked, and not the last. It looks like News of the world have hacked phones everywhere in Britain. Police have a list of 4,000 possible targets. The newspaper had also paid private investigators to get private information about Gwyneth Paltrow, George Michael and a lot of others. The journalists had, according to The guardian, managed to get specified phone bills, private phone numbers, Social Security numbers, bank statements and tax information.

 In 2007, two of the newspapers employees where sent to jail for bugging celebrities, politicians and royals answering machines. This case brought a lot of attention, and Andy Coulson who was the editor of News of the world on that time, and he was also press manager for the prime minister, quit his job. The paper was closed in 2011.



Gran Torino

The movie Gran Torino is about a old, a bit racist man who lives in a neighbourhood where there is a lot of Hmong people. The Hmong people is a hill people who comes from Thailand, China and Laos. He always calls them names, and act really mean around them, but throughout the movie, he changes a lot, and we can see that he goes from being a man that hates everyone, to a man who actually has friends. I think Walt understands that the Hmong people actually are very nice persons, who just want to help him. A weird friendship with Sue and Thao, who lives next door, evolves.

 

The most precious thing that Walt has, is his Gran Torino, which is a old car in mint condition. The car means everything to him, and it is the only thing that he cares about.  His relationship to his family is really bad, and his neighbours know him better then his own son does. Towards the end of the movie, Walt offers Thao (the Hmong boy next door), to use his car to take out a girl. This is a really big thing for Walt, since he loves his car so much. Thao understands this, and their friendships becomes even stronger after this.

Trough the entire movie, there is a gang how is messing with the neighbourhood, and they are trying to make Thao join them. At the end of the movie Walt does something that changes a lot. He scarifies his own life, so that Sue and Thao, and the rest of the neighbourhood won't be bothered  by the gang anymore. This is because that he believes that he has nothing to lose. The only thing he loves is his car and his dog. And he knows that The car is taken care of by Thao, and so is the dog. And this is a very big deal, because he chooses to help others, people that he hated before, by putting him self in danger, so that the gang will be locked up, and no longer be a treat to Sue and Thao.

9/11

last Tuesday, we saw a documentary on 9/11. I liked the movie a lot. It was very touching. The documentary was supposed to be about some firemen working in New York, but while they where filming, they saw a plane hit the world trade centre.  And so it began.

The documentary was very sad. I had never seen those clips before, and it was weird to hear people cry and ask for help. I had only seen what was happening outside the towers, not the inside. And the look of people faces was shocking.

Since we recently had terror attacks in Norway, I think many can relate to the fear and the panic that struck that day. And it is so weird to think about that this was 10 years ago. I can remember hearing about it, but i don't think i understood it entirely. I didn't understand the extent of the accident. I was only 6 or 7 when it happened, and I just could not realise why anyone would do such a thing? Well, I still don't actually.

My expectations

I think that this year is going to be very fun and interesting. Today we watched a short movie called The Butterfly Circus. The movie was about a man, who had no legs, and no arms. I liked the movie a lot, because it really made me think about how lucky we are. This man had all odds against him, and still he did great things. I can't even imagine how difficult it is to do stuff without legs and arms. We also went thru the competency goals. It looked a bit difficult, but I think I'll manage.