The american constitution

A while ago there was a woman, Lee Ann Potter, in our school who told us about the American constitution and how the American politics works. I was going to write about this earlier, but I forgot to do it. I liked her presentation because it varied a lot in what she said and made us do. She engaged the students and pointed out the different ways the constitution affects us. In that way she made it interesting.

For example she showed us the preamble in art, a man called Mike Wilkin made a piece of art by car licenses from all the American states. It is the picture below and I find this peace of art pretty funny.

In 1976 the television channel thought about teaching the children something during the commercial breaks. They made funny cartoons which taught the children stuff like the preamble.

An important question she raised was: Why do we need a government? The people needs to have rules to follow and know that there will be consequences for their actions. With a government it is easier to have control over the people and to have some kind of a structure of the people.

Milk

Last Tuesday we saw the movie "Milk" in class. The movie is based on a true story about how Harvey Milk and how he fought for the gay peoples rights in San Francisco in the 1970s. We did not have the time to see the whole movie, so I am going to write this post based on the part I have seen.

In the 70s people were very intolerant to people who stood out, and especially the gay people were stroked by this. Harvey Milk was sick of being treated differently from other people because of his sexuality, he moved with his current boyfriend to San Francisco. They were supposed to open some kind of a store and live together. But they were treated very bad and they wanted to do something about it. They started campaigns for the gay people to be accepted in the community. Harvey Milk was a very good orator and after a lot of speeches and different campaigns he had gathered a lot of people. He was all over the news and the American people either hated or loved him. He encouraged people to come out of the closet and be themselves. He was a politician and after years of fighting he won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977. After being a supervisor for 11 month, he was killed by another politician. Milk is known for opening the American peoples mind for gay people. His fight was a necessary fight and I think a lot of gay people are grateful for the work he did.

Politics in the UK

In school today we have learned about how the British politics and how the system is built up. The people elect an MP(Member of Parliament) from their constituency. There are 646 constituencies in the United Kingdom and 646 members of Parliament. These are in the House of Commons and are elected in a general election. There must be a general election at least every five years, but the prime minister can ask the queen to dissolve parliament at any time. That meens he wants a new general election. The prime minister is the leader of the strongest party and his or her party is the government. The parliament “watches” the governement, make the laws and passes the budget.

There are also the House of Lords. The Lords are not elected, but given the title. You can become a lord if you are an expert in a field like: medicine, science, astronomy, education or something else. The House of Commons has much more power than the House of Lords. The picture on the top are the houses of parliament.

The Korean War 1950 - 1953

I am going to write about the Korean war which took place in 1950 to 1953. Before the world war 2 the Japanese military forces ruled the country. When Japan lost world war 2 they had to give up Korea to the US and the Soviet union. Korea was split into two peaces; south and north. The US took care of South-Korea and the Soviet union took care of North-Korea. They made a plan of four years of running the country , but after those four years the US and the Soviet union had to withdraw their forces.

They did and there were two leaders left, both with intentions to unite Korea. The leader in south was Syngman Rhee and he was elected with a lot of help from the US and UN. The leader in north was Kim Il-sung, he was assumed to loose the election because South-Korea was bigger and had about twice the numbers of inhabitants as the north. In the end of 1949 and the start of 1950 there were a lot of different political demonstrations in South-Korea because the people did not want a leader elected by the Americans. Rhee's military responded with use of force and weapons.

North-Korea did not accept this and their military forces were bigger and better during the start of 1950. They attacked South-Korea 25 June 1950. 135 000 people died that day and there were no other military forces from other countries to help them. The US sent military forces after some days and the fights kept on to 1953 when the truce were made 27. July. There are still bitterness between the south and the north, but a lot of people have family on the other sides.

During the war 2 or 3 millions died.

Rebecca Loos - from David Beckham to Rykkinn!!

A friend told me an interesting story that I would like to share with you.

Rebecca Loos was suspected to have an affaire with David Beckham and she was also a glamour model. But there's nothing glamorous with her new apartment on Rykkinn in Norway. She now lives with a Norwegian man and their son in a very small apartment, in the Ghetto!!

This is the hood.

To our Korean friends

I am going to tell you something about the Norwegian weather. We have four seasons in Norway; autumn, winter, spring and summer.

In the autumn it is cold and usually it rains a lot. But this autumn it has been pretty good and sunny, but freezing cold though. When I woke up today it was about one or two degrees outside and the sun was shining. The leafs falls of the trees and everything is orange.

The winter is even colder and there is a lot of snow. I like the winter because you can go snowboarding and play in the snow, but when the snow's not that good and it is slushy, it is very enjoying.

The spring is very nice, the snow melts and the nature blooms. The birds comes home from their trip south, and everybody is kind of frisky, and happy because they know summer is coming up and the school year is about to end.

The summer is my favorite, the sun shines and you hang out with your friends and doing what you like best. My favorite activities in the summer are being on the beach, driving my boat, waterskiing and sunbathing. It's not as hot as in Korea of course, but compared to the winter it is very good. The photo below is from the beach I spend most time in the summer.

I'm looking forward to hear from you.

Does it matter?

Does it matter
by Siegfried Sassoon




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.








Maria, Mikkel and I have read the poem above and analyzed it:


The poem touches three effects the war has had on the soldier; social problems, physical damage and psychical damage. "Does it matter? - loosing your legs?" That is in the first verse and it is about physical damage. The second verse covers psychological damage because he looses his sight and he can't see anything, but still he turns his face to the light and trying to be positive. The last verse is about the social problems that fighting a war can give you. You can be mad after experiencing all those horrible things you can experience in a war, but people won't mind, because you have fought a war and it is OK to be mad.



We think the soldier is a working-class man. The rest of the community doesn’t see what he has sacrificed because he did it for the country, so his damages is not that bad. It seems like it is the government saying “Does it matter?” and they don’t really see the individual but try to glorify his actions.

The poem has a newfound popularity and it might be because today we focus more on individual rights, we think it is important to see the individual as a person and not for what they sacrifice in a war. In this poem they put the country above the person which was normal to do in that time period(around 1916). We can also see this trend in the rest of the modern society with less person joining for instance political organizations today than 100 years ago. (source - "Å gjøre en forskjell" Jonas Stør)



“Does it Matter?” was the poem that appealed the most to us because we think it is more directly than the other one(the soldier).

About me

Hi.

My name is Ingrid and I'm 17 years old. I live in Bærum and go to Sandvika VGS which is a modern school in Sandvika. I have English every Tuesday and will use the blog to write about what we learn in school.

The picture shows a bridge that is in front of our school. The bridge is called the Claude Monét's brigde and is very old.

In my spear time i work in a shoe store which is called Bekkestua sko, meet my friends and I exercise a lot. And of course I do my homework. I also spend a lot of time in Sandvika Storsenter which is Scandinavia’s biggest mall, and spend too much money on clothes and other stuff I really don't need.

I live in Rykkinn in Bærum. My family has a red house and I live there with my mother, father and sister. We have a dog called Zita. She is an American cocker spaniel and the cutest dog I've ever seen.

Zita is the same type of dog as Lady.