English social studies

Election in the UK - almost over

2010-05-11T04:10:00.001-07:00

We´re gettin close to the end of the UK election. Brown has resigned and the Labour paty ha to get a new leader. Now it´s down to Cameron and Clegg. Who is going to be Britain´s next prime minister?

Now that Labour has a new leader, Clegg has to decide if ha want´s to cooporate with The Conservatives or The Labour Party.

The Blind Side

2010-05-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

The film "The Blind Side" is based upon the true story about how Michael Oher went from being a poor, homeless boy to become a the first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft.

Michael Oher is an african-american boy from the ghetto. He don´t know who his father is and his mother is a crackhead. He´s been in foster care almost his whole life, but now he has no place to go. He has little formal education and his learning abilities are low. Against all odds, he get´s exepted in to a good chritian school. At school he get´s knowtised by different members of the Tuohy-family. One rainy night, when The Tuohy family are out driving, they see Michael walking along the road in shorts and a t-shirt. Leigh Anne Tuohy tell´s him to get in the car, and they all drive back to the house.

Michael end´s up staying with the Tuohy. He get´s his own room and they hire a private tutor to help him with his studies. He become´s a part of the family and The Tuohy´s become his legal gardien´s. Michael has a special body contruction that are pefect for american football and after a while of had work to get his grades up, he get´s a spot on the team. At first he doesn´t understand a lot of the game, but after Leigh Anne gives the coach some pointers, they are able to get a star player out of Michael. The film ends with a football scholarship to Old Miss(University of Mississippi).

The election in the UK - the first debate

2010-04-27T01:12:00.000-07:00

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.

United Kingdom

2010-04-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

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

Question time

2010-03-09T04:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Senior project

2010-01-19T01:54:00.000-08:00

The second semester have just started and we are going to begin working with our senior project. We´ve talked about it a lot and found different subjects to write about. We´re trying to write about different subjects so we´re not all writing about the same thing, this way it will be more interesting for the teacher to read all our projects in a few weeks.
I still don´t know what I´m going to write about, but this is one of my choices:
Segregation - in the past vs. Today - why is there such a difference between the north and the south(also in different places in the south, cities) are they afraid? Racism?

I still don´t know how to go about this or how to gather the right information to write a good paper. The next three weeks are going to be used at the internet and the libarary so I can gather information from multiple sources.

The government

2009-12-01T04:02:00.000-08:00

"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."

Today we had a presentation in class about the US government. The lectorer Lee Ann Potter went through the contitution and what the different sentences mean. This were a very educational and interesting lecture because it´s not something people in norway useally know, unless they are especially interested in the American contitution. Mrs Potter made the lecture inspiering, fun and easy to follow.

Milk

2009-11-29T12:18:00.000-08:00

The movie Milk is a biography about Harvey Milk. He was a gay rights activist and the first gay politician to be elected to public office in California.
The story begins on Harvey Milke´s 40th birthday in New york, before he had moved to San Fransisco. We get to ee the first meeting between Harvey and his much younger lover Scott Smith.

The winner takes it all

2009-11-16T23:45:00.000-08:00

Politics is about power. The power to say something about how the country are being runed. In British politics you either win os you loose when you run for election. If you loose you arn´t alaoud to sit in Parlament.
The Parliment are made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Both houses meet in the Palace of Westminster.

On election day(wich always is a thursday) the polling stations are open all day so as many people as possible can vote. In England you can also vote by post wich makes it a little easier for the once that can´t get to the polling posts. Theres only one person who´s elected, the person with the most votes. The winner takes it all.

Martin Luther King Jr.

2009-10-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Martin Luther King Jr.(Januar 15 1929-april 4 1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia and was son of the reverend Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Hewas a smart kid and entered college at an age of fifteen.

King is the most known activist in the African-American civil rights movement and today he´s become a human rights icon all over the world. He had followed in his father King Sr´s. footsteps and his actual job was as a reverend at the batiste church, but he started early as an activist. In 1955 he led the Montgomery bus boycott and he also helped to found the Southern Christian leadership conference in 1957.

The speech king made in Whasington in 1963, named "I have a dream" is one of, if not the most known speech worldwide. With this speech he established him self as one of the great orators in U.S history. Martin Luther King Jr. recived the Nobel peace prize in 1964 and was the youngest person to recived this award.

April 4 1968 King was assasionated. He had travelled to Memphis, Tennessee to support the black sanitary public work employers in their strike. He stayed at Lorraine Motel at room 306, wich also is known as the "king-abernathy suite". Martin Luther King Jr. was shoot while standing on the balcony at 6:01 p.m april 4 1968. He was later pronounced dead at Joseph´s hospital at 7:05 p.m.

Norwegian weather

2009-10-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

In norway we have four different seasons: Summer,autum, vinter and spring. In the vinter the ground are covered with snow and its freezing outside. Useally the temperature is below 0 and its ice everywhere! In the summer its around 30 and the sun is shining. This summer it was raining a lot, but we had a few good days at the beach too.

Right now its autum. The sun is shining, but its freezing outside, and its a lot of wind..

Poem: Does it matter?

2009-09-01T01:55:00.000-07:00

Does It Matter? (1916)
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 remebmbering
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.

g) Three effects of the war are mentioned in the poem:
- Getting hurt physically (losing your legs)
- Losing one of your senses (losing your sight)
- The dreams and thoughts you gain from being a soldier in which you will never escape (those dreams of the pit)

h) This poem reflects the attitude that whom you fight for are more the enemy than the people you fight against. It does so by explaining how was can destroy you both physically and mentally and afterwards saying that “no one will worry a bit.” The people you fight against are often more your friends if you do not consider they are fighting for your enemy. All soldiers are in the same situation even if they fight for different teams.

i) The poem has experienced a revival of late. The reason is because of the glorification of war has been condemned in the previous decades. We now care more about how terrible it is being a civilian in a war. Additionally wars are still happening making this topic relevant.

j) “Does it matter” appeals more to us than the other one because it is easier to understand the content. It is easy to put oneself in the position of the soldier spoken of in this poem whereas in the other poem they speak more of England and the effort and consequently the lives given for the sake of England by the soldiers.

About me

2009-09-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Pauline, I´m 19 years old and my hometown is Bærum. By car, it lies only 20 minutes away from Oslo, wich is pretty convenient if your going shopping, out to eat, going to the movies or one of the big concerts. Its a great place to live if you don´t want to drive for houres to get to the beach, the town or mall.
Its my last year at high school, and next year I´m hoping to studie International relations, politics or somthing else if i change my mind by the end of the school year. I´m glad I still have some time to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. At least I know that I want to work with something international and not just something that has to do with Norway. And something more than to sit behind a desk.
When I´m not at school, I like to spend time with my friends and do different things. We go out dancing, stay at home and watch a movie, exercise, go to the mall or just hang out and do absolutely nothing at all..!
Two days ago I watched Stephen Lynch i Oslo, on "sentrum scene" with two of my best friends. He´s so funny and I love his humor. It was a "going away gift" to one of my friends, she´s going to Italy to work on a farm with mistreated horses. It was a great night with a LOT og laughter! I can ´t wait to watch him again.