La Bella Vita

The Blind Side - A True Story

2010-05-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

In today’s class we saw a movie called The Blind Side which is based on a true story. The story is about a black boy named Michael Oher, also called “Big Mike”. When Michael was a little kid, his mother was a drug-addict and his father was absent. Because of the family’s circumstances, the Family Services took control over his life, sending him from one foster home to another. When we meet him in the movie, he is homeless and is enrolling in a private Christian school to play football. At school, Michael gets a new friend called S.J Tuohy who is a lot younger than him. As S.J’s family sees Michael wandering around the streets at night, they pick him up and take him home. As the Tuohy family grows to love Michael, he gets his own room and bed in their house.

Even though Michael isn’t the best at school, it turns out that he’s got big protective instincts. No matter what happens, he always does whatever he can to protect the Tuohy family. At the field, Michael doesn’t get the hang of the game in the start, but as Leigh Ann Tuohy, the mother of the family, encourage him to use his protective instincts, he finally succeed. The Tuohy family is a white Christian family, and their friends think that this “little project” with taking care of the big black boy is ridiculous, but Leigh Ann is proud of the new member of her family and sets her friends straight.

As Michael continue to succeed on the field, several offers to play at university level comes up, but to be able to do this, Michael has to be better at school. The Tuohy family hires a tutor to help Michael, and his grades rises to the point where he is able to play for a university. Even though he has several offers, he ends up choosing the university where the father of the Tuohy family once played football and Leigh Ann once were a cheerleader. After choosing the university he wants to play for, a female investigator questions Michael to see if the Tuohy family forced Michael to go to their old university, so that they could benefit from that particular university. Michael gets suspicious about what the investigator said and questions Leigh Ann, but realizes that the Tuohy family is his family now and only wants the best for him and his future.

I really liked this movie because Michael was so easy to like because of his kindness and his protective instincts. I also liked the movie because it is based on a real story, and this makes it easier for me to relate to the story. To be able to do what the Tuohy family did for Michael is really fantastic, and it shows us that there can always be hope when people like them exists in this world.

Election in the UK - The First Debate

2010-04-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

We have just seen the first election debate ever sent on television in England. The Conservatives with David Cameron, The Liberales With Gordon Brown and The LiberalDemocrates with Nick Klegg were gathered to answer questions from the audiens and to defend themselvs against each other. All three were asked tough questions, but i think David Cameron had a little more trouble defending himselves. Both Klegg and Gordon attacked his manifesto. Klegg, who is the one with the least amount of power in UK politics did really well. It might have somthing to do with the fact that he weren´t asked to defend himselves as much as the other two. They have never been in power and therefore the people have not much to say against their manifesto. All three manifestos are quite simmilar. It seems like they all want to achieve some of the same goals, but they have different ideas about how to get there. I think Nick Klegg won this debtate because he had the easier task to just explain his manifesto instead of defending it.

Devolution in the United Kingdom

2010-04-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

Our task from today's class was to make a Power Point, Glogster or Photostory about the Devolution in the United Kingdom.Pauline and I chose to make a glogster together and this is how it turned out:

"The Road"

2010-03-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

As I have written in an earlier post, we have all been reading a book. The book I have red is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy which I think appeared as a boring book in the start, but after a while it got better.

The book is a story about a father and his young son who walks through destroyed America heading for the coast. We do not get to know what has happened to the world, but it is clear that something has destroyed all civilization and almost all life on earth. On this journey, the father and his son doesn’t have much except from the clothes they’re wearing, a cart of scavenged food, a gun for protection and each other. The father has understood that they will not live trough the winter and leads his son to the coast in the hope of finding warmth, food and other good people like themselves. The other people they see on the road, which are referred to as “the bad guys”, are people that has no problem killing and eating other people to survive, and therefore the father and the son has to hide and watch out at all times. Sometimes we follow the father’s memory back in time to meet the boy’s mother. She was pregnant when the nature disaster hit and committed suicide when the boy was born, leaving the father alone to take care of the son. The reason the father is taking the son to the coast is because he is sick and he know he is going to die soon. In the end of the book, they reach the coast, but the fathers attempt for seeking warmth and food is a lost cause. He has thought his son how to protect himself from “the bad guys” and then he dies. In the end, the son sits with his father’s body for three days until he meets a man who promises to take care of him.

Personally, I think it took a while for the book to get interesting, because there was a lot of walking and description of the landscape. I felt that I had to concentrate a lot to not start thinking about something else when I read, but when I came halfway through it got more interesting. There was a lot more situations that caught my attention and I have to admit that in the end when the father died, I started to cry. So I have to say that the last half of the book was good and exciting and I wish that the whole book was like this.

Question Time

2010-03-09T04:05:00.000-08:00

In todays class we got some assignments to work with. Pauline and I worked together, and this is what we wrote:

In question time Wednesday February 24, Gordon Brown had to answer though questions. He appeared engaged, interested and sincerely concerned with the issues that were presented. His body language projected that he was restless and at the same time very focused on answering the questions in the best way. Any how, the Prime Minister did not answer all the questions as correctly as others, maybe because he did not have a good enough answer prepared for those questions. The debate started calmly, but after a while the temperature was raised to a higher level. It’s not hard to see that the MP’s are involved in the topics that they are presenting.

The ongoing election that takes place in Britain gives the politicians the opportunity to have TV-debates with question time. This occurs when MP’s ask questions of Government Ministers which they are obliged to answer. The questions that are asked in these TV-debates are usually pre-arranged by the organizers of each party and are intended to allow the Minister to discuss the virtues of government policy, or to attack the opposition. Skilled Ministers will often attempt to turn around the opposition’s question, but there is not allowed to lie or providing misleading answers to Parliament.

In the USA they do not have Question Time for the President, but he shall from time to time give the Congress information of the State of Union.

Collaborating in class

2010-02-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

In today’s class, we were divided in to five groups called Front Desk, Research Group, Journalists, Teachers and Designers. Every group had their own tasks, but the main goal was that everybody was preparing for the test next week. I feel that I didn’t learn a lot from this method because I was writing about one topic the whole time, and I also think that some of the other groups didn’t learn or do nothing, but that is because I was on the group that had to do the most. I had fun today, but I didn’t learn very much, so from 1-10 I would rate this day as a 5 J

"The Road" - To be continued

2010-01-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

In class, we could chose between two books; The Road by Cormac McCarthy or The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. I chose The Road and have read about 50 pages now and to be honest, I didn’t really understand much. From what I understood, the book is about a man and his son who has no place to stay, and is always on the run from “the others”.

I know the book has been made in to a movie, so I went on YouTube to check out the trailer:

After having watched the trailer, I understand a lot more of what I have read. I think that it will be more exciting the more I read, so I will just have to keep on reading. A lot of people tell me that it is a good book and that is why I chose to read this one. I really want to see the movie, because the trailer looks exciting, but I will resist my temptations and finish the book before I see the movie. After all, I have learned that it is best to read the book before you see the movie, and not the other way around because I always get disappointed when I do that.

"Obama Rama Drama"

2010-01-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday in class, we watched a documentary on YouTube were we saw the reactions and views of the Republicans before the election in 2008. The people that were interviewed hated Barack Obama so much that they said he was a terrorist working with Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaida network, and called him names like “NoBama”, “Barack Hussein Obama” and singing songs like “O-O-Bama, he’ll tax to the max so you’ll feel real pain! No-Nobama, so vote with your brain, chose McCain”.

The source of the hatred for Barack Obama lies a lot in his believes and adolescence I think. They feel that Obama has been living in cities all of his life and does not know how it is for those who live in the country. They believe in God, not homosexuals or abortions. They also feel that they are the hardworking people who keep America running and that Obama can’t relate with them like McCain can. The Republicans are not ready for a black president.

Obama are also being connected with Hitler by the Republicans. Obama is a great public speaker and so was Hitler, and by that they think that there will be another WW2. Personally, I think what their saying and their behavior is ridiculous. The Republicans said that if Obama was elected President of the United States, America would be ruined and they would be scared for their lives and for their country. On Election Day they all cried when McCain lost just like if the world was going to end, but it seems to me like America is still going strong and Barack Obama is doing a decent job.

Here you can see the clip from YouTube!

Senior Project

2010-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

For my Senior Project I have chosen to write about terrorism. I am going to include The 9/11 terrorist attack and the aftermath, but I'm going to focus mainly on why the terrorists act like they do, why they act in the name of God and how it is for those muslims that aren't terrorists but still get judged. We connect terrorism with Islam, but that is kind of ironic since Islam teaches to not harm other people.

We are also supposed to choose a book to read in class, and I have chosen "The Road".

The government says: Democracy is the right to dissent.

2010-01-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

They mean that dissent gave birth to the United States and that freedom of speech is a critical mechanism of democracy and therefore guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Dissent is a theme of American history. It is written in the constitution that people can go out and assemble and protest . It's the mechanism for change in America. If there's something you don't agree with, you can be apart of a group and implement that change. Almost every group has an organization and protests, and this gives us and the government an awareness that there is a problem. People have the ability to speak their own mind and voice out the contempt that they have for the government. You shame the authorities into redressing something that they see is wrong. Jefferson wrote; all men are created equal, so after the constitution was written it was clear to a lot of people that not everybody was having these rights. The constitution is like a contract between the government and the people, and if people aren't being covered by that they're demanding the right to be covered. If you can't fight for those rights, then you're under a controlled society, and that is not what democracy is.

There were dissenters like Susan b. Anthony who voted and got arrested because she was a women, and she said in a speech; is it a crime for US citizens to vote? And today we think: how can that have been considered a crime?

The positives of a democracy is that it's actually controlled by the people. Government changed America when people spoke up against the government. The phrase; all men are created equally means something different now then when Jefferson wrote it. There are always people who feel that they are not being treated fairly, and sometimes they are quite right!

In The Valley of Elah

2009-12-22T01:43:00.000-08:00

The movie “In the Valley of Elah” is a movie about the old warrior Hank Deerfield who gets a call from the military that his son Mike, has gone missing from the base after returning from duty in Iraq. Hank drives to the military base in New Mexico to find out what has happened to his son. After a couple of days, the stabbed and dismembered body of his son is found not far from town. Hank gets good contact with the detective that works on his case and together, they try to find out what really happened with his son. Hank and the detective investigate and discover shocking things not only about Hank’s son, but also about the other men serving in Iraq and how they treated people who were suffering. In the end, it turns out that Mike’s three good friends from the base had gotten in to a fight with him and then killed him, without caring a lot about it. This is a movie that gives us an example of how mentally damaged you can get when you experience war, and how it gets you to that point where you no longer care about other people or their lives. '

I really liked this movie. It was a lot of action and tension, but there were also some sad moments that made me connect with the movie. I thought it was really scary to see how war can affect soldiers and kind of dehumanize people. This is a movie I definitely would see again.

In Barack Obama’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, he said “Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed”. In some ways, this quote is connected with this movie. We saw how the soldiers performed on duty in a distant land when nobody was there to see it. How they killed and hurt innocent people without even caring about the damage they had done. I would connect the quote mostly to Mike in the movie. He tortured and killed innocent people, and then he got killed. You could say that he got a taste of his own medicine. Barack Obama also said “The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause and to comrades in arms”. I do agree with the President on this. It is a huge sacrifice to risk your life for your country when you know that you can die any minute. So I hope there are not many soldiers that are so affected by the war that they act like the guys in this movie. There are too many innocent people that die in war, and there is no need to do more harm in this world.

This movie has given me a picture of how dangerous it is to serve in the war in Iraq. I understand that when you come from a safe and protecting environment at home, war changes your life and your perspective of things. I don’t think that a lot of the young adults that choose to serve and fight for their country at war know what they are going to face. It is honorable to fight for your country, but there are very few men and women that come back from war as the same person they were before they left. Some get mentally damaged, some get physically damaged and some get so damaged that they don’t come back at all.

Nobel Peace Price Speech

2009-12-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

In our previous session we studied President Barack Obama’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. We saw a clip, read the speech and underlined different important things that the President mentioned. As our last homework before Christmas, we got these tasks about the speech to answer:

1. What was the Marshall Plan?

The Marshall Plan was a plan that the United States had for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and removing the threat of internal communism after World War II. The Plan was named after the Secretary of State; George Marshall, who also has received the Nobel Peace Prize.

2. Why is Obama humbled by this award?

Barack Obama is humbled by this award because he feels that he hasn’t accomplished anything worthy of this prize, but he views it as inspiration to accomplish his goals as President of the United States.

“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee. I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.” – Barack Obama

3. Who was Woodrow Wilson and why was he awarded the Nobel peace prize?

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28^th President of the United States. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1919 for his attempt to make peace after the First World War, with his fourteen points for peace.

4. Who are some of the previous winners that he mentions?

In his speech he mentions former Nobel Prize winners like Albert Schweitzer and Nelson Mandela. Albert Schweitzer was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher and physician. He received the prize in 1953 for his philosophy of “Reverence of Life”, and for founding the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné in west central Africa. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is a former President of South Africa. He received the Prize in 1993 together with Frederik Willem De Klerk for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.

5. According to Obama, what is a just reason for war?

According to Obama, reasons for a “just war” is if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense, if the forced used is proportional and if civilians are spared from violence.

6. What are Obama’s 3 ways to avoid war and keep the peace?

Obama’s three ways to peace is to deal with those nations that break rules and laws, find out the nature of the peace that we seek and not only include civil and political right, but include economic security and opportunity. “For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.” – Barack Obama

7. What “old architecture” is buckling?

When Obama says that the old architecture is buckling, he means that other countries are no longer afraid of the United States as a nuclear superpower. I think he means that USA has “let their guard down” without noticing it, and it has made them weaker to threats like terrorists and suicide bombers and this increases the risk of catastrophes.

8. What does Obama mean by a “gradual evolution of human institutions”? Where is this quote from?

By “a gradual evolution of human institution” Obama means that war is at some level an expression of human feelings. This is a quote from one of President Kennedy’s former speeches.

9. Why can’t Obama be guided by the example of King and Gandhi alone?

Obama can not be guided by the example of King and Gandhi alone because, and I quote; he faces the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.

Here is the first part of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech in Norway.

Preamble to the United States Constitution

2009-12-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

We had a lady named Lee Ann Potter visiting the class today and we learned about the preamble to the United States Constitution. It was really exiting and educational, because I didn't know a lot about it, but now I feel that I know a litle bit more. The preamble is a document that explains the constitutions purpose and underlying philosophy. The Preamble serves solely as an introduction and does not assign powers to the federal government, nor does it provide specific limitations on government action.
She also showed us this video from when she was young, and it is really catchy!
Video for children about the Preamble

"Milk"

2009-12-01T03:55:00.000-08:00

Last week we saw the movie "Milk" from 2008. This is an biographical film about the life of the politican Harvey Milk.He was the first gay man to be elected to public office in California. The Movie starts on Harvey Milk's 40th birthday. At this time he was living in New York City, and had not yet settled in San Francisco. It is a story about his way into city politics, and all of the battles he experiences in the Castro neighborhood and throughout the city. He leads political campaigns to limit the rights of gay people, and we also get an insight in his romantic and political relationships.

In class, we didn't get the time to see how the movie ends, but the part we did have time to see was very fascinating. It seemed like a good movie, even though I didn't see how it ended.

Elections in Britain

2009-11-17T00:44:00.000-08:00

Politics is about winning power and using it to do what you think is right. To win an election, you must have a campagne where you use at least three weeks for campaigning and preparing for the election. Each loacal party has a candidate who are ready to fight against the other parties, and there are also some candidates that do not represent a party, but still attends. During the three-week campagne, the candidates do everything they can to persuade people to vote for them and their causes. Important debates between the party leaders takes place on television, but you are not allowed to pay for political advertising on radio and television, but it is allowed on the internett and on billboards. ¨

2001 - Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon

2009-10-27T05:11:00.001-07:00

On September 11, 2001, out of that clear blue sky came a stunning attack. Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four commercial airliners and used them as missiles against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Almost 3000 people were killed and America's response was swift.

We have heard a lot about the World Trade Center when it comes to this tragedy, but what about Pentagon? Five al-Qaeda hijackers took control of Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. 64 people on the airliner and 125 people in the building were killed. The plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused a partial collapse. When they rebuilt the damaged section of the Pentagon, they also built a memorial and a chapel for the people who had died. Every year at September 11, they light one candle for each of the persons that died to honor their memory.

Ski Jumping - Traditional Sport in Norway

2009-10-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

In Norway we have some traditional sports and one of them is Ski Jumping.The skiers go down an "inrun" ramp with a take-off in the end where they attempt to fly as long as they kan before they land. The skis they use for ski jumping are long and wide and a litle bit heavy.

This is of course a winter sport since you ski on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games. You can also ski jump in the summer but then you have to perform on artificial surfaces like porcelain or have frost rail track on the inrun.

When the ski jumpers competes, they get points for distance and style. The Ski Flying World Record of 239 meters is held by Norwegian Bjørn Einar Romøren in 2005, and we are very proud of that.

“9/11 a day we will never forget, the story of the people”

2009-10-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

We all know what happened 9/11 2001. On the morning of September 11th, 19 Al-Quaida terrorists hijacked four jet airliners. Two of the airliners were intentionally crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everybody on board and many others working in the buildings. The buildings collapsed within two hours. The third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. There were no survivors from any of the flights. 2 993 people with each of their own history died from the attacks, leaving America in great sorrow and fear.

They say everybody remember what they were doing that day, and I do to. I remember going home from school, only 10 years old, and I had no clue on what had happened. When I came into the kitchen, my mom and dad was watching CNN and there it was. I could see the Twin Towers burning, and then one of them collapsed. I didn't quite understand what was going on and I remember my dad being very serious when he explained it to me, but I couldn't wrap my head around it. I didn't even know what a terrorist or the World Trade Center was. But I understood that something sad had happened.

A lot of things changed in USA after 9/11. People was now scared and didn't want to fly, and extreme security started checking everything at the airport. It also made racism presentable, making everybody causious. September 11 affected people in a personal way; the destruction of the city and the loss of thousands of people.

George Orwell

2009-10-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

The English author Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, was born 25 June 1903. He was born in Inida but was brought back to England by his parents when he was only one year old. He attended the school Henley before he went to Eton. Many of the teachers reported that his achievemnts at school was bad, though some said otherwise. Because of his familys inability to pay the fees, he was not able to go to the unviersity.

Orwell then went to Burma to join the police force, since his family had connections there. When he later returned to England after resigning from the police force, he started focusing on writing. His first novel "Burmese Days" was published in 1934, and he wrote the novel on the basis of his time in Burma.

He later took a job as a teacher in England, and since it was a small school, he could also use some of his time to focus on his writing. Through his life, he wrote a lot of novels and some books, including the one we have read in class "Down and Out in Paris and London". He was a heavy smoker and died 21 january 1950 in the early age of 46. Orwell made a huge influence on popular and political culture with the numerous literary concepts he left behind.

To Our Korean Friends!

2009-10-13T03:42:00.000-07:00

Today we have our English Social Studies Class, and we are trying to make contact with you guys! We are told to tell you about the weather in Norway. It is Autumn now and it's starting to get very cold here and the winter is coming really soon I think!

We have four very different seasons here in Norway; Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. Our winter is awfully cold and there is a lot of snow on the ground, just like you can see on the picture.

Our winter is very long, it almost lasts 6 months and it is really cold, so we have to wear warm clothes or else, we will get sick a lot. When the winter is over and the Spring leads us to the summertime, I get very happy because finally we can go to the beach and go swimming and things like that.

Which season is your favourite season, and how is it where you live?

The poetry of the great wars

2009-09-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

During and after World War 1, soldiers wrote about their experiences and feelings in poems. A lot of them had died, but others such as Siegfried Sassoon had survived. Sassoon was sent to a hospital because of his poverful meanings about the war. That was their way of getting rid of him. There were problably not a lot of poetry of high quality from the German side, but it was the English poetry that made war poetry a genre with growing popular interest.
By the time of World War 2 the term "war poet" was very popular, and people often talked about them.

War poet by Wilfred Owen:

I have been urged by earnest violins
And drunk their mellow sorrows to the slake
Of all my sorrows and my thirsting sins.
My heart has beaten for a brave drum's sake.
Huge chords have wrought me mighty: I have hurled
Thuds of gods' thunder. And with old winds pondered
Over the curse of this chaotic world,-
With low lost winds that maundered as they wandered.

I have been gay with trivial fifes that laugh;
And songs more sweet than possible things are sweet;
And gongs, and oboes. Yet I guessed not half
Life's symphony till I had made hearts beat,
And touched Love's body into trembling cries,
And blown my love's lips into laughs and sighs.

Does it really matter?

2009-09-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Questions:

g) What three effects of the war on a soldier does this poem tuch on?

h) It is often argued that that the two 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. Does this poem reflect this attitude?

i) This poem has enjoyed a bit of a revival of late. What reasons do you think there might be for its newfound popularity?

Answers by Kaja and Birgitte:

g) The three effects of the war on the soldier is loosing his leg, loosing his sight and bad dreams.

h) The poem reflects the attitude of question, because the people that are fighting, are fighting agains their own kind, but the people they are fighting for are from the upper class. We believe that they would rather fight with their own kind, than against them.

i) Because we look at the poem in a different way now, than people did before. During the war, they did not care for poems because of the war, but now we are very interested in how the war was and how people felt because it's history.

About Me

2009-09-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

My name is Birgitte and I live in Asker (That's the looooovely place in the picture!). Yes, that was ironic. Asker is not as lovely as it may (or may not) look like. It is always something that is under construction, the bus is always late and there is a lot of creepy people hanging around Trekanten! But of course I love it here:-)

I go to Sandvika VGS and I like it a lot. This is my last year and I'm really looking forward to "Russetiden" (This is a time where we can get drunk and party constantly for 3 weeks, without any excuses). And that's a few words about me.