The Wave, The Makeing

This response in this part of the book will be between chapters 5-8.
      Ben tought the students how to have good posture when sitting and made them more organized, they were able to get seated even quicker. Ben also made a symbol for The Wave and a salute. He made a special way that the students have to speak to him. They have to stand next to their desk then say Mr.Ross then continue to what they want to say. The class had to answer questions about World War 2 while they stood up and said Mr.Ross. Ben passed out cards and if there was a red X on the back of it you were a monitor which reported if any members of The Wave broke any rules, the monitors were Brian and Robert. They had a motto also it is “Strength Through Discipline, Strength Through Community, Strength Through Action.”
Robert Billings who was once untidy and had no friends actually became tidier. He combed his hair and tucked in his shirt, he is now friends with a lot of the other students in the class.
David wanted to get the football team more organized and work more like a team so he used what he learned from The Wave to get the team to be a real team. The team started to act more like a team after he speech on how they should act.
Laurie told her mother about the wave and she thought that they were not learning what they needed to know. Her father on the other hand thought that it might be just what they needed. Her father always wanted to talk about golf.
Ben was preoccupied with his class that he didn’t have enough time to make supper so he ordered chinese food.
When Laurie was talking to her dad and mom about The Wave I thought that her mom was being a little harsh. I think that Robert Billings seems like a brand new character because he has changed so much. It surprised me Brian and the other football player was about to fight when David stopped them, I thought they would have been punching and beating each other up. My favourite part in these chapters was when Robert Billings was sitting at a table at lunch will everyone else because Robert was once a class loser and now he has a lot more friends. I though that David or Amy was going to get a red X card because they seemed like the characters fit for the job so I was a little confused when Brian became monitor.

The Beginning of The Wave

This response will be during chapters 1-4 of the novel The Wave.
       The first part of chapter one talks about a girl named Laurie Saunders and its telling about her looking around a small office but no one else is there with her when the should be typeing for The Gordon Grapevine which is the school paper. The history teacher is named Ben Ross. He was haveing trouble getting a projector to work to show a clip to his class. He got a boy named David to help thread the film on the projector. David was Laurie Saunders boyfriend. The film was about the concentration camps the the Jews went to in World War 2. After the film a student named Robert Billings was asleep while most of the others in the classroom was stunned. The students asked many questions that Ben couldn’t answer very well. After class Laurie and David sat in the cafeteria at lunch together. A girl named Amy and a guy named Brian who was the football teams quarterback. Laurie lost her appetite from the film and David ate it for her. Amy and Laurie went to The Grapevine office and talked. Two kids named Carl Block and Alex Cooper knocked on the doors and said he was the principal in a low voice which made Amy waste a perfectly good cigarette. Ben Ross was bothered that he could not give the kids in his class a proper explanation for their questions. He could not find the explanation of why the people of Nazi Germany’s behviour was so inexpilcable.
           I feel that when lots of the kids in the class was stunned by the film I thought that I would probably feel the exact same way. I feel Robert Billings is always down, but it makes sense because he is the class loser, it kind of makes me feel bad for him. I think Ben Ross is one of those people who get interested in something then all they want to do is research everything they can find and learn about it. My favourite part out of these first four chapters was when everyone in class was horrified at the film they watched. I thought that the beginning of the book was kind of strange because, the beginning was Laurie Saunders in The Grapevine office. She was all alone in the office but there was suppose to be other people working with her for the school paper. The beginning confused me until I read further into the book. My favourite character would have to be either Ben Ross or David. Ben Ross would be my favourite because I think he is interesting in the fact that he soaks up everything he can learn about something that interests him. David would be my favourite character because he wants to be a computer engineer which interests me because I think that is what I want to be when I graduate.

Award and Prize

The chinese government did not like the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. It seems that the government of China does not want people to use the terms prize and awards. Liu Xiaobo is a person who disagrees with chinese politics and he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. 
        

Another controversial activity was when Peng Xiaoyun came up with a list of “100 Most Influential People of Our Time”,  in a magazine called Time Weekly. There were several Chinese people who made this list. After this he was forced to quit his job. 
  
The chinese symbol that means award and prize is now banned from media outlets and public places without the ok from authorities. I think that this is kind of an over reaction. I don’t understand exactly why someone would say that it is wrong to use the terms ”prize and award”. I feel that these terms are the best ways to describe an achievement.

Rosa Hubermann vs. Man

The Book Theif is a fascinating story filled with change whether its the characters or the conflict. At the beginning of  The Book Theif Rosa has a lot of conflict with a little girl named Liesel. She tried to get Liesel out of the car when she first arrived and she would not budge. She was trying to get Leisel into the bath but Liesel just refused.

She got in a fight with a nasty lady named Frau Diller because she always spits on their door. She was nervous because she had to hide a Jewish man named Max which was horrible to do at the time this book took place. Later on in the book she became less bitter and became a nicer person. The cause of this was because of the stress of Max, well, that’s what I think. Another conflict with Frau and Rosa was when Frau agreed not to spit on her door if Liesel read to Frau. 

Most of Rosa’s conflict is Man vs. Man. She also has some Man vs. Self conflict even though you don’t see it in the book. You can tell because as the book goes on she becomes nicer which means there is some kind of Man vs. Self conflict. As you can see of what I have told you, you see that she has some unique conflicts within the book.

Cuban Government Threat

Cuba’s government sees bloggers as a threat according to wikileaks. Cuba’s government believes that independant bloggers may have political impact on some of the islands people. Some small groups of people who are part of this movement has much support from USINT which is the United States Interest Section. The Cuban government continues to try to repress these groups.

When ordinary Cubans were polled about the movement most people did not even know that this group of people existed. The government of Cuba believes that the younger population, plastic artists , musicians and including bloggers are really good at being very rebellious and drawing great appeal from Cubans.

A well known Cuban blogger named Yoani Sánchez was abducted and held against her will by Cuban authorities, she was also beaten in November 2009. She feels that the relationship of the U.S. and Cuba greatly needs to improve in order for democracy to happen in Cuba. The USINT strongly believes that these bloggers are becoming activists and critics of the Cuban government and therefore they are supportive of these bloggers.

Rogelio M. Díaz wrote that he was glad that the US government saw that Cuba’s future lies with their youth. Thanks to the world of blogging Cubas youth is making a stand against Castro’s government and is on its way to eliminating the worlds last communist country.
                   

Media News

2010 was an election year in the Philippines and Myanmar and social media was very well used to look at the election results in the Philippines, and to popularize the ”boycott elections” campaign in Myanmar. Fillipinos sent Christmas greetings in September useing twitter. A person who was a blogger in Indonesia named Sony got sued by Sony Corporation for domain name for stealing the name Sony. 
                                                                                                

Cambodia were sharing holiday tales and how they gladly took part  in the Water Festival celebrations in the previous years. More than 340 people died and about 550 were injured. It took place over a bridge connecting Koh Pich Island and Phnom Penh city. During the last hour of the last of the Cambodian Water Festival.

Malaysia said that they did not buy missle technology from China and sell it to Iran. There were Christian churches that were attacked in Malaysia and Indonesia and also Church leaders were harassed. I got all this information from globalvoices.com.

My Ping Pong Passion

Ping pong is my passion. I picked it because I like to play ping pong. It takes a lot of energy and technique to play pingpong. Me and my dad are going to make a fancy paddle over Christmas break. Its a hard sport because you have to be able to get the to the the other side of the table and not miss. You have to curve the ball sometimes in order to hit the table.

I traced a ping pong paddle for step 1. Step 2 is to vut the paddle out. Step 3 is to make the handle pieces of the paddle. Step 4 is to attach everything together. Step5 is to glue the rubber onto the paddle.

Ping pong originated in Britain in the 1880′s. It was played among the upper class as an after-dinner parlour game. Books were stood up as a net in the center of a table. It was commonly known as wiff waff. The paddles were books and the ball was a golf ball. Later paddles were made out of cigar lids and champagne corks. Table tennis was made into an Olympic sport in 1988.

The paddle that I made is differenent from other paddles because it was hand made. Me and my dad worked on it for 2 days. The wood on the paddle is all sanded by hand, my hand. I made the plastic on the paddle light blue and not red and black like most paddles.

I learned a lot of carpentry work when making my ping pong paddle. I learned how to make rounded edges on a piece of wood. I also learned the interesting history of ping pong. I learned that it takes a lot of time and effort to make a single ping pong paddle.
           

Qu’est-ce que j’aime faire

Mon nom est Riley, Je suis 12 anees vieux. Je vis dans a ville appele Snow Lake. Il y a beaucoup activites j’aime a faites. dans la ete j’aime a allez dehors. J’aime a jeu video jeux. Dans le i hiver comme d’aller en traîneau. Le seul sport que j’aime à jouer est de ping-pong. J’aime boire du chocolat chaud quand il fait froid dehors. J’aime passer du temps avec mes amis. Je veux être un chef lorsque je suis plus âgé. Je comme cuisiner avec mon père. J’aime aller à la plage pour aller nager.

Martin Niemoller Poem Remix

In school my teacher got us to make up our own version of the Martin Niemoller poem. This is my version of the Martin Niemoller poem.

First they abused the jocks,
and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a jock.

Then they bullied the nerds,
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a nerd.

Then they terrorized the religous people,
and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a religous person.

Then they teased me-
and there was no one left to speak for me.

The Book Thief’s Child Characters

The main character of the book is a little girl named Liesel. In the beginning of the book Liesel, her brother and her mother were on a train packed with people. Liesel’s brother was sick and was coughing out blood and had sores. Luckily Liesel and her mother was still alive when they got out of the train. A grave digger dropped a grave diggers handbook and Liesel stole it. Liesel left her mother to be sent to a foster home with a tall, skinny man named Hans Hubermann and his plump, ugly wife Rosa Hubermann. Liesel would not get out of the car when Rosa was screaming and yelling at her but Hans spoke very softly to Liesel to get her out. She did not know how to read so Hans had to teach her. At school Liesel couldn’t read and when she said the she could read she ended up saying what she memorized from the grave diggers handbook. Kids made fun of her because of it and one day she lost it and savagely beat 2 kids. She was beaten by Sister Maria twice that same day.

Rudy Steiner is best friends with Liesel. Rudy’s dad is a member of the nazi party. His dad doesn’t hate Jewish people but being a nazi is very good for his business. Rudy was obsessed about a black man named Jesse Owens who was in the olympics. He loved Jesse Owens and wanted to be just like him, Jesse Owens was one of the fastest men in the Olympics. Rudy liked him so much he covered his body with charcoal at night and was running around.When Rudy and Liesel were racing he said if he won Liesel had to kiss him but if she won she wouldn’t have to be the goalie for soccer anymore.

I feel that Liesel can be rude and mean but she can also be polite and nice. She seems kinda patient because she waited so long for her mom to write her a letter back. At times she seems like a very stubbern character. She seems to have a little bit of a temper because at school,  kids were teasing her but she snapped and beat two of them up. Liesel is a very complex character. She can be happy one moment but angry another.

Rudy is a person who really likes Liesel and wants to kiss her. He is a very fast runner and adores Jesse Owens. He can be a funny character sometimes when he is trying to kiss Liesel.