http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/joseph-kony_n_1510034.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Now, all the military in Africa is a step closer to catch Joseph Kony. Joseph Kony, currently, age 51. For the past 30  years, Joseph Kony has kidnapped 10,000+ children. He and his brutal army killed 1,000+ innocent children. And Kony served girl children as sex slaves, boy children as children soldier. All the children who were and are kidnapped by Kony are innocent. They didn’t do anything wrong that leaves them no choice but to die. The dead children would still be alive if Kony didn’t exist. The kidnapped children would be with their family members if Kony wasn’t born. But it’s already too late for these children to come back alive and go back to their family, because Kony does exist in this world.

Long time ago, when “Kony 2012″, “Invisible Children” was mentioned during class, I did not know who Kony was or what invisible children meant. So during that class, I only listened. But as I listened, I just thought ‘Oh, kidnapping. How much kid would be kidnapped by a men?’ I wasn’t so interested in knowing about Kony. But after a few days, everything on my facebook page was “KONY 2012″, “STOP KONY”, etc. Then, I was very curious and I decided to watch the ‘Kony 2012′ video on facebook. It was 30minutes long. After watching the video, I was just really shocked. By all the information I learnt from the video, it was unbelievable. From then, I understood more about how other kids my age lives a different life from mine. From then, I was more interested in child labor.

“Kony 2012″ impacted the world a lot. It shook the world, it made all of us wake up and look at reality. For three decades, no one knew what was going on in Africa.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/01/world/asia/philippines-child-labor/index.html?iref=allsearch

Teenagers are already working at fields. They are taking a risk of their life for doing work that should be reserved for men. The teenagers work for 7 hours per day and get paid $3.50 only. It is estimated that there are 2.4 million child workers in Philippines. Most of them works in the field and land mine. There are teenagers who wants to study, but they cannot because they can’t afford the school fee and they use all their time to work. I’m probably the same age as these teenagers. But we live a totally different life. Child labor is a really important problem that needs to be solved.

I am very shocked at how another same aged kid is working so hard for 7 hours in the field, while I’m in air-conditioned classroom being educated. It would take the working kids forever to save the amount of money for an year of education in SSIS. They would have to work even harder and for a longer period of time. Children and teenagers should not lose their freedom for money and working. Children and teenagers should have their own rights to make an opinion and do what they like. Children and teenagers should not be forced to do something they don’t like. So child labor should be abolished. The sooner, the better.

If we try to make educational schools around places where poverty is happening, it would help everybody around the school to be educated. Education can reduce the amount of people in poverty. And once the amount of people in poverty reduces, the amount of child labor and modern slavery will decrease too. Just by building schools around the world can change the world by a lot. There won’t be as much child workers in the world. Then children and teenagers can finally have their rights to study what they want to study.

Annotated Link: http://diigo.com/0qlmw

http://gizmodo.com/5903021/bp-oil-spill-aftermath-eyeless-shrimp-clawless-crabs-and-fish-with-oozing-sores

There was an oil spill 2 years ago and the effect of that oil spill is showing up now. There are shrimps with no eyes, fish with no eyes, fish with no covers on their gills, etc. The sickness is spreading really fast around the sea, and the people that lives around the place where the oil spill occurred, shouldn’t eat the sick seafood. They might become sick too. And no one wants anyone sick. But seafood shops are still selling and cooking the sick seafood. Which is a big problem because we don’t know if the sickness with transfer to the human body too. But I assume that the sickness WILL transfer and I don’t think much people are aware of the sickness. This is a situation right in the middle. Hard to say the sickness with effect people but we have no proof. And its hard to say that the sickness won’t harm any people because the seafood is still not pure clean. What do you think? Do you think that the sickness from the seafood will affect human bodies? Or do you think the sickness won’t affect human body???

As I said, I think the sickness can affect human body after eaten. Because all the bacteria from the sickness of the food is going to go into our digestive system. Then, as our digestive magic happens with all the food breaking down and all, the bacteria can be separated as ‘no harm’ to the body. Then the bacteria will flow around our body freely while they duplicate each other. And our body will be full of harmful bacteria and we would eventually die. This process makes sense and it can happen in the future. But as this whole human sickness/death occurs, there will be more and more seafood becoming sick and when we aren’t beware of the sickness, we might eat the seafood and the death of people can spread too! After we find out about our seafood problem, we won’t be able to eat seafood anymore. Then I would be sad cause I won’t be able to eat any fish anymore. D:

 No fish eating would effect the world really soon too. Vegetarians wouldn’t like it so much if  they had to eat vegetables only for their rest of their lives. I know that some type of vegetarians eat fish and vegetables so that they won’t have to eat vegetables everyday. But after the sickness to the seafood spreads world wide, no more fish will be available. Then the vegetarians will be upset. And we don’t want them to be upset. But we aren’t so scientifically sure if the sickness from the fish can harm us. So we can relax a bit, but once the sickness is proven, we will have to change something about the sickness and all.

http://lingro.com/translate/http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/apr/11/dhaka-bangladesh-slum-dwellers-eviction?newsfeed=true

(Point of View from a Dhaka Citizen)

One day, the government announced us to move 10 feet away from the road so that they can expand the road. So we moved 10 feet away, we listened to them. But on the day the bulldozers came, they destroyed more than what they said. They destroyed 50 feet of each side of the road. I swear, the bulldozers destroyed over 100 houses in one minute. The bulldozers were moving really fast, like *WRINGGG* *BOOM* *CRASHHH*. Everyone saw their home crashing down by the bulldozer. We didn’t even have time to save some of our property. We lost everything in just a few minutes. We were crying for them to stop, but they didn’t listen to us. They kept going, until the land was empty. They even killed a small baby girl. The girl was crushed under the bulldozer. I wonder if they even have feelings for anything. How could they kill a girl and continue bulldozing? It’s all the government’s fault. If only they hadn’t decided to expand the road, we wouldn’t have lost anything and no one would have died.

(Me)

I don’t get why the government did something they didn’t say. I think 10 feet is already more than enough of space, but the government decided to bulldoze over 50 feet. I don’t get why the government did that. If only the government did what he said, no one would be killed and no one would have lost anything. Now the slum lives on shanties which are made out of mud, bamboo, and corrugated iron sheets. And those shanties can probably break down from a night of rain. Then where would the slum live?? Would they rebuild the shanties?? Can’t the government take responsibility of them??? They need help. They need money. But the government ruined their homes and now they lost everything. They ain’t got any money left. They need help. But its not like I can donate money for each one of them…I think the government should take responsibility of what he has done. Really, no other people should help. The government should solve this problem on it’s own.

If I was in that situation of the slum, I wouldn’t have agreed to move away from the streets since the beginning. I would have said ‘No’ to the government. Then the government wouldn’t have any choice of bulldozing over the houses. Even if they did, they should be arrested because it is illegal. But, I’m not sure if the government can be arrested by breaking laws. They make the laws and they govern the city/country. So I’m not sure if they would get arrested if they break laws. Like this article, the government removed 2000 illegal houses. Which they broke the law, but they aren’t arrested. I don’t think it is fair for them not to be arrested when they break a law. They are humans too, same as us. They shouldn’t be treated better than others or such. In conclusion, I think the government should take care of this problem with the slum. And after they finish solving this problem, the government dude should be put in jail. The government dude broke a law.

I wish I was….

I wish I was a genius. A genius which can remember everything after they read something once. If I was a genius, won’t need to study as hard. I really wish I am a genius because I’m never the type of person that can remember anything really fast. I have to be taught more than others to remember some subject I need to know. I really dislike it, because I have to spend more time studying than others. Though, if I don’t spend as much time I need to, I would be failing in school. But, I still do study as much as I need, so I’m not failing in school. Even if I’m not failing in school, I’m not happy with the grades I have currently. If I want to be happy with my grades, I would have to study more and more. Then I would be really tired at the end of the week. All these, repeat every week. And by Friday night, I am always dead tired. If I was a genius, I won’t need to be dead tired at Friday night. I would be more energetic and more happy. I won’t need to spend so much time on studying, I would have more freedom. If only I was a genius. I wish I was a genius.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/06/in-south-sudan-girls-are-given-away-to-settle-family-feuds.html

This article is about a story of a girl that is given off to another family because of her brother’s disloyal action. Atia is the main character of this story and her brother killed a man, and the dead man’s family gets to take Atia away. Atia have been living with this family for a long time. When she was 9, she was married to one of the son in the new family. Now, she is 14 and she have been suffering  for all those years. She tried to kill herself twice, but she didn’t succeed. In such a young age, Atia thinks about killing herself. I don’t think any young kids in this world should EVER think about killing themselves. They are too young to think about death. They should have hope instead of discouragement.

I don’t understand why girls are given away. Why not boys? Why not the person that made these situations happen?? Why does it have to be the small young girl in the family?? I don’t understand. Aren’t girls human to them? This article shows how much people care about girls. This also shows about women rights. Women’s rights are so tiny tiny, but men’s rights are so huge. This world is so unfair when we come to look at how each gender are treated. Long time ago, blacks were treated as objects. Now, it doesn’t matter with the skin color, but the gender. In a lot of places in this world, boys have much more rights than girls. Some places doesn’t allow girls to go to school, some places doesn’t allow girls to show any part of their body to other people except their family members. But boys are allowed with everything. This world is just so unfair.

Do you think there will be another ‘you’ in this world? Do you think everyone in a country thinks the same way and acts the same way?

A decision made by an anonymous won’t affect you, because they are unknown to you. But even if they are unknown, their decision will affect their home country and that affection can really slightly affect you. This article about a gunman shooting students in a University at California, has affected Korea. The gunman is a Korean and he shot 10 students, 7 dead, 3 injured. Now, his action will connect with Korea and people will think negative about Korea. Such as, ‘Korea has a lot of murders. There were quite a few situations like this and it happened again. We shouldn’t go to Korea. There must be a lot of murderers that can kill us. Korea is dangerous and the Koreans are dangerous too.’ Like these, other people will misunderstand about Korea. And then they will misunderstand about the Korean citizens and the Korean culture. So on, a lot of even Koreans that are not living in Korea can be mistaken because of the action made from some other Korean. Such as, us, the Korean students in SSIS. Some stranger might see us and they might be scared of us. Which is really really offensive and racist. It is wrong for the action the anonymous person did, but it is even wrong to think that we are all the same. We should not be treated like the one who made the mistake. We are different. Everyone should know that everyone in the world is different. Everyone in this world have a different personality, different look, different ways of thinking, different everything. Sometimes the differences can be really similar but it is still different by some way. In conclusion, even if some anonymous person does something, other people should not be affected. No one should be affected in any ways because they are different compared to the anonymous person.

When we were still young, of course we need help from adults and we listen to them. We don’t know much about the world yet, and we are still in the process of being helped from adults and we learn from them. As we grow old, we are able to make our own decisions. Though, we aren’t sure if our decisions are right or wrong and we need to be sure about our decisions. So we need help in those ways, but we learned a lot. We don’t need as much help as before. Now, we are teenagers. We make most of our decision on our own. We are still learning, but we don’t need to baby helps from the past. We should be able to talk for ourselves to the adults. We should be able to be independent. Independence is also a way for us to learn ourselves and understand more about life.

At school, every students listen to what the teacher says and follow the rules. That’s how kindergarten and elementary works. But it’s different starting middle school. Middle school students should now be able to talk for themselves and let the teachers hear their voices. We can no long listen to the teachers only. We have our own opinions too. We can talk to the teachers, tell them our opinions and thoughts, we have a possibility to change what we dislike. Starting now, we should speak up our voices and let the teachers hear our voices. Let them know what we dislike and what they should work on to change.

-First of all, we are not allowed to take our phones out in school. Why? Phones do not harm other students unless we show violence towards them. But we already have the ability to make decisions and we know that showing violence in school leads us to trouble. So of course, we won’t show violence by using our phones. Can’t we use our phones during breaks?? We know not to use phones during classes. We know that we aren’t suppose to text in class. We know everything that’s not allowed. And we know that there is nothing allowed that relates with phone. Let us use our phones during breaks! It is an entertainment! Everything you gave us is now boring! We need something new. And that new thing would be our phones!

-Second of all, why did you decrease our break time? It used to be 20minutes. Now, it is 15minutes. You may say that “Oh, 5minutes doesn’t worth anything to them.” HEY. 5minutes of extra break means A LOT to us! We can do so much during that 5minutes you took away! We can talk more, we can continue the sports game we started, we can do something during that 5minutes. Comparing our breaks from last year and this year, last year, we were able to play for 15minutes. How nice was that? But this year, we can play for 10minutes only. ONLY 10minutes. The other 5minutes, we are busy packing up and getting ready for our next class. 10minutes of free time is not enough for us and I would like you to change it back to 20minutes next year.

-Third of all, have you tried our uniforms before? From top to bottom, for at least a day. Did you wear them before? Have you ran with them before? Have you wore them after your shower? You should. You should feel how uncomfortable it is to wear these uniforms all day long. And then, you would know why we complain about them. There are a few solutions to this problem. You can either let us wear PE pants or you should change the design. PE pants are the most comfortable pants given from school. And if you change the design, you should make all the pants and skirts stretchy. Then, we won’t have any complains. Just make our uniforms more comfortable.

-Fourth of all, scheduling all the tests on the week before holidays is something that should never actually happen. For the teachers, it might be okay. Because they no longer have to teach much after the test. They just need to grade our tests and then it’s done. But for us, no, a lot of teachers schedule our tests on the same time as the other teachers so we would have like tests for each subject. And it is STRESS for us. We have to study for each subject, every night in order to have receive a good grade on the test. This is a torture to us. The teachers should balance out the tests. Once the tests are balanced, we won’t get as stressed. And we, students, will be able to rest as we study.

-Lastly, students are blamed when they are late. It’s not our fault all the time to be late! Sometimes the other teacher lets us out late and we are late for our next class! In those situation, I don’t think students should be blamed. It should be the teacher who is blamed. It’s the teacher’s fault. So next time, when a student is late, listen to their reason why they are late. If it isn’t their fault for being late, you shouldn’t send the student to the office to grab a tardy pass. If the reason is not reasonable, then the student should go grab a tardy pass, but not always.

5 main complains about SSIS. If you try, you can reduce complains and we can be happy. Listen to our complains and start making a change. If not, the complains will increase and we will definitely dislike YOU.

1. This Quarter I am going to try to chat only for 1hour and 30minutes each day.

2. Once I become a high school student, I will be busy studying and I won’t have time chatting. If I start reducing my chatting time this year, I won’t need to suffer reducing my chatting time next year. Also, less chatting is more working. I will be able to work more  on my high school assignments and homework. In conclusion, if I start chatting lesser, I will be able to study more and I will be able to have higher grades.

3. How I can achieve this goal

• I can set a time chart and follow the time chart everyday
• I can finish my homework during the evening and chat at the night til it’s bed time
• I can tell my mom to remind me continually about my chatting time
• I can post about this goal on Facebook and other students can tell me about it while we chat

The movie ‘Bully’ is about the title itself. It is a documentary and it is also a movie. A documentary about bully going on and out in schools. How bad and violent the students are. The behavior difference with a teacher and without a teacher. This is a movie about an 11 year old kid stopping his life with his own pair of hands. This situation is serious to the parent of the kid. But it isn’t to most people in school. Bullying is ignored by a lot of people. And to make people notice about bully, Weinstein made a documentary/movie. He made this for the middle and high school students. But it got a R rating. The movie got a R rating because there are a few languages used in the movie. But it doesn’t matter, because we (students) use them all. So the movie isn’t allowed for the students without a parent. But the whole movie was for the middle and high school students. This doesn’t make sense, does it? In my opinion, I think this movie shouldn’t be rated as a R. Students should be able to see this movie without an adult. This movie is made for the students to watch and change, not the adults to watch.