Spark!

Growth Throughout the Year

How have you improved during this year? Can you say you’ve reached your goals from last year? I think your answer can vary, depending on how you spent this year. Also, I am sure that most students have changed and improved at least a little bit, even though some students might be slightly behind pace. This year, I feel like I haven’t improved myself as much as I could have. However, I know that there were some changes in a way that I think about learning, and that I did make some of my writing skills practiced. This year hasn’t been the best year for my academic achievements, especially at the end of the year. From this experience, I learned that I have to work harder to meet the expectations. In the next few paragraphs, I will be talking about which areas I have improved, what I did in my classes, and my thoughts about each area.

Having compared my writing few years ago and now, I feel like I have improved more than how I thought before reading my work from a year before. To be honest, it’s not long ago since I’ve started to outline my work before writing a first draft. I thought it was useless and waste of time to rewrite the whole work with a bit of revising. Now I’m starting to notice the importance of outlining; it helps the writing to be in much more organized form, and actually saves some time. Another change that I started to pay more attention is the revising process. I notice myself reviewing the comments made by teachers and students in depth, and going them over few times to make the corrections fitting and fluent. As a writer, these two things were the dramatic change for my revision, since I started using them this year much more often with care. The challenges that I faced during writing was when I was stuck with words and how I express my thoughts into words. Sometimes, there’s not a word that I’m thinking in my first language, and when I really need that word to use it to express my thoughts, it’s so hard to go around to meet that point that I was trying to make. I found it easier to revise on my word choice, fluency and structure of my writing, since I’ve seen lots of good examples from classes and practiced them writing Article of the Week. This is also why I really like AOW, since it was the main stream that I practiced my writing on. Even though some topics bored me, I can say that I worked my best every single time with AOW, because I knew that writing is my weakest part, and I knew I needed practice. My goal for ninth grade is to transfer my learning to the next level. For example, now that I’m getting used to fix my writing more often, I want to make sure that I revise my work in variety of traits. Also, I want to increase the amount and time I spend to read, because every teacher said reading helps us to improve our writing greatly. By doing this, I think I can be a successful writer in high school.

At the beginning of this year, our class has set up a goal to read 40 books throughout the year. Each year, I realize that I’m reading a book that’s little more challenging than what I’ve read the year before. I figured this out when I updated goodreads, and recycle books that are too not challenging. Usually, my reading habit is to read quite slow, but whenever I find really interesting book, I read a couple more until I start to slowly speed down as the book starts to be less interesting. Basically, I read a lot when I meet my favorite books, and start to slow down again when I think the book is not as fun as the book before. Keeping myself to read constantly is hard, but it is also something that I try very hard to do so. This method is very useful to other subjects, and you just simply have to work on things even though it’s not your favorite things to do. Since I didn’t reach my 40 book challenge reading, my next goal is to read 40 books. By setting up possible goals, I’m sure that I can meet this goal.

Speaking and listening are also some area that I improved at. I used to be more shy and unwilling to speak in front of the audience, but now I’m not shy anymore. Since the class was all of my friends and they were friendly, they actually were the motivativation to get my confidence. Therefore, I began to speak in front of the audience with clear, loud voice, calm hands and natural eye-contact in presentations. Listening was a area that I was always good at, since I know it shows how much I give respect to the speaker. This was something that I was taught since first grade, so it was easy to pay attention what the speaker is trying to tell. Getting confidence is the most important way to success in other subjects. There are some subjects that I feel not much confidence, such as Science. Most students become less active in Science class, and I am a part of this category. However, by getting confidence in this subject, I will be able to share my thoughts more clearly, and get knowledges easier by asking more questions.

My learning habits didn’t change dramatically from last year. For sure, I know that I’ve gotten more organized and responsible throughout the year. However, there is a area that I still can’t get better at:Study skills. Fine study skills are crucial to students to study for test and quiz. When I studied for tests before, I only went through my notes. Then I started to get advice from teachers and friends around me. At first, they were pretty surprised that those were all I did when studying for test. So I changed my way of studying right away. Now, I look at my notes, handouts and practices in class, go online to practice, and sometimes study with someone else who can give me help when I’m stuck. When I go to high school, I want to transfer my learning to the next step, and start to manage my time more wisely.

Having accomplishments are very meaning to me as an 8th grade. I didn’t recognize that I had lots of learning until I started to write them in each topic paragraph. By changing the way I think about learning, I was able to develop faster. Honestly, I thought studying was just one area that students have to do. However, I changed the way I thought about learning now; knowledge that we learn right now will be a way for us to live a comfortable life years later. For sure, studying your least favorite subject, or studying, may be a painful thing to do right now. But if you want to think of your future, it is better to suffer now, and be comfortable later on. Wouldn’t it be proud when you turn back and see how much you’ve grown?

I am away from my soft,cushioned bed,
from my messy, unorganized closet,
away from my white, whiny dog,
away from my temper and joy.

I am away from my old dolls and teddy bears,
now with my best friends,
hanging out with new happiness,
finding new joy with new friends.

I am from the chilling snowy evenings,
new TV channels with advertisements,
from the strict, angry tutors,
but also from the family filled with love and trust.

Feb/17/12
Poem:
As the bright stars shine between the woods,
the feathery palm trees shadow the river,
their shadows swimming through the water,

The forgotten forests breathe with emptiness,
waiting for someone to recognize their presence,
bringing back their old memories and their life.

How long does it take someone to walk through woods,
the forests starts to fade down,
losing their colors and life,
pleading for someone to pass by.

Image by heyjennlam

This week’s article was generally about environmental issues and some conflicts connected with those issues. This time, the topic that I can write about is quite broad. There are few main events; a passionate journalist being shot, and the forests in Cambodia being cut down. I never knew that being some kind of a reporter or journalists had to risk their life sometimes, and Chut Wutty, a forest activist was wrongly killed by the military police.

First of all, I want to talk about Chut Wutty, and what kind of person he was. According to Mr.Young, he was a passionate man, eager to accomplish his work. This time the deforestation got his attention. He wanted to see what was happening in Cambodia with the illegal logging, so he went into the woods. He was with two other men, and they became to witness of his death. When there was a shooting, these two men had to protect themselves behind the woods, and did not see the actual shooting. However, Mr.Young said “The more that comes out about his death, the more murky it gets.” Shooting of a military police means lots of things to me. Firstly, they had something that they didn’t want these men to investigate about. What would it be? I guess the ‘big companies’ are giving decisive effects to the people in the forest to deforest the forest. Also, I’m shocked again that the government is not taking any actions for it. Obviously, governments wouldn’t get into these small conflicts that doesn’t affect their society. Knowing the reality, it makes me think again about things that the governments were interested in, and realized why the governments are sometimes called to be a cold-hearted in some countries.

Going back to the point, this event should be also known by lots of people, so that people can help the people in the forest who fears the  big companies, and make Mr.Chut Wutty’s life more reasonable. From this article, I learned again that there are thousands and millions of small and big events that are related to the human’s rights. To get people to acknowledge these things and unravel this complicated problem, it is important to be aware of these events.

Diigo Annotated Link

Image by jinja_cambodia

This week’s article is about the people living in Dhaka’s Korail, and that area is given eviction order. Right now, they do not have any kind of resources to live on. No water, food, electricity, even no shelter and belongings. All they own right now is only their body and nothing else. Their house and belongings are destroyed and crushed under the power of the government, and they didn’t even have any time to move them to safe places. It seems like the government only cared about their situation, and avoided to consider their situation. The government shouldn’t be the ones that can control everything, especially to their own citizens. If the government neglects the citizens, who do they rely on?

The eviction was more severe than what I thought of at the first time. ”One young girl was crushed under a bulldozer during the forced evictions.” I was really stunned and shocked when I read this phrase. A bulldozer is ‘lot’ more heavier than human’s weight, and if it crushed a girl, then the girl would be at least badly injured. In worst case, she might be even dying. I guess there were more than pushing and shouting at each other. From this, we can predict that people had quite severe conflicts.

Forcing people from their homes, destroying their belongings and even harming each other to make them leave, are the examples of people not having respect for human rights. The scenario can be and sometimes is at a much more dangerous/severe range, but I think these are bad examples of human rights. The definition of human rights is a basic right that is believed to belong justifiably to every person in this world. No matter what situation or level a person is in, I think every people are equal and no one has the right to take the control of others, like the government mentioned in this article.

Diigo Annotated Link

Image by nordnordursins

This week’s article is about the amazing, bizarre glasses that Google is inventing. According to the article, Google employees will be testing the glasses in public this summer and it could be released at the end of the year. The article was mostly with pictures and a video, so I was able to see how it looked when people wore it during the day. When watching the video, I was stunned and speechless for the first half of the video. I’ve never thought of such an idea. When this glasses are released, I think many people will be stunned just like I did.

The most shocking part of this video was the ability to do things. These glasses work as smart as smart phones, and even better. You can capture images of what you see, save your locations, follow navigation and more. The best part of all of these is that it can understand what you say! In the video, the person wearing the glasses said, “Music, stop.” Immediately, it did what he told and received a phone call in facetime. However, I’m a bit worried with the glasses. The article said that when you want to see the icons, you should look upward. What if you’re just looking up, and bunch of icons pop up? What if the edges of the glasses poke your eye? I still don’t really get how we can see the icons and music when you wear the glasses. At the same time, I want to try the glasses, since it’s such a dramatic change of glasses.

Finally, I realized that our technology is improving daily and that it could be outstanding. The video seemed so unreal, because I’m still wondering if we can do these things. Lots of people will be interested in this glasses when it’s released. However, I think it’s not crucial item to own when you don’t work or hang out alot. I think this glasses will be most popular between businessmen and businesswomen. Lastly, I want to give a round of applause to Google for inventing this unique glasses!

Annotated Link

Just a few days ago, our class watched this video about Joseph Kony, who is the leader of the LRA. The video shows how much he tortures children’s lives by hearing a story from a perspective of Jacob. Jacob is one of the ‘ invisible children’ in Uganda, and he had watched the scene of his family being killed by LRA. Other than that, the video mentions a lot about his crimes that are against humanity, and how the abducted children are being treated. It was stunning and totally wrong. However after reading the article from the other perspective, I thought that maybe the video was a bit exaggerated. Like it is to everyone, when you have bad feelings towards someone, you mostly looks at his/her wrong side. Maybe that’s how Jacob saw Joseph Kony. At the same time, I am definitely not trying to defend Kony, since he did took actions for crimes. Having read the article from the opposite perspective, I learned that there’s always a different side that can  explain the situation in more fair, objective way. I felt this during reading the article.

Poem 1: Colonists and British

We colonists’ voices are abandoned from the anguishing truth,
our spirits are possessed by the powers of the British

From long ago our requests were not worthy demanding,
exhausted to raise our voice for them to hear

While the responsibility of the government are fading like a fog,
we colonists remain humble and alone

Will we ever be fairly reconciled, are we requesting for nothing?
Liberty only exists when there is a freedom.

Poem 2: Environmental Issues

As we destroy the woods for our good,
the bare forest breathe through emptiness,
not capable to do anything for themselves but to avert their thoughts.

For now, we do not know when
We are guiding ourselves to the middle of nowhere,
not suffering enough to realize the side effects,
extenuating the future for us to live.

While the nature beseeches and hope for their suffer to end,
we do not hear them enough to listen to,
which afterwards will lead us to suffer.

In Chinese class, we just finished our last unit, which is chapter seven. This chapter was all about market and the conversations that can be used in the market. We’ve learned conversations that can be heard a lot in the market, like how to ask the price for each objects, and how to bargain.The following sentences are the basic key structures that we learned;

A: 你到那里去？

B: 我到市场去。

A: 你去市场做什么？

B: 我去市场买一件礼物送给我的朋友。

A: 好把！我买一个！

We’ve also learned how to use money in the market. Last year, we did learned a bit about money value, but this time we studied specific ways to use money. The following sentences are some of the money values we learned.

1. 六分
2. 六毛六分
3. 六块六分
4. 六百六十六块六毛
5. 六千零六十六块六毛分

I found this chapter really useful compared to other topics we learned for the last few month, since I will be using lots of Chinese when I move to China next year. I also feel relieved that I’ve built the basics, so that I can use them when needed.