Paul

The article “Joseph Kony On The Move As Manhunt Steps Up” by Louis Charbonneau says that more and more things are being discovered about Kony, that he’s moving everyday, and that he is kidnapping more children, they are used as soldiers and sex slaves. And some governments are getting closer to his location, and how soldiers, sent by governments, are trying to catch him.

First of all, I don’t understand why nobody could catch him in the last 30 years. People must have noticed that there was something that was going on 30 years ago, and governments must have noticed it, too. I don’t think that they have not noticed that children were kidnapped, and people were killed. I know the message of this article, I know that governments in Africa are getting closer to catch Kony, but I do not clearly understand why the soldiers that are sent by the governments don’t try to capture the children first, it would make it easier for them to catch Kony because Kony would then be without any defense. And the last thing that I don’t understand is why people in Africa are glad that millions of people around know the story and will try to help them. We can’t just fly to Africa, we have jobs, school and other important things to do, I can’t go to school just to go to Africa and help the people. I bet I couldn’t do anything against Kony.

If I was part of a government in Africa, I’d close some airports in Africa, and also some trains, buses, and ships because it would make it harder for Kony to escape if we get closer to catch him. People in Africa think people from other Countries could help them because millions of people know Africas situation, but how could we do that? I think we are too scared and too selfish to help them. We wouldn’t take guns because we do not want to kill people.

In my opinion, we should just send money to the African governments to help the soldiers that are trying to catch Kony. With the money, the governments could buy more equipment for the soldiers. And the governments in Africa should try to find children that are not kidnapped by Kony, just to make sure that he can’t increase his army, and to make sure that girls are not being raped and mistreated. Children should have a chance to go to school, so that they can have an education.

The article, written by Jeremy Hence,  talks about people in many countries, and how they suffer everyday. They don’t have work, money, and because of this they don’t have food to eat. In addition, there are people who want to help suffering families, but they can’t help because there are not enough people to help.

What the article didn’t really state was how exactly we can help suffering people who don’t have food. But it did say that they have sent money, but the money wasn’t enough to feed all the suffering families. Thousands of people die everyday because they couldn’t eat. I couldn’t really understand how to help people, I mean I’m a student, I can’t send money, nor can I send food.

If I was in this situation, I would try to convince more people to help suffering people because I think we haven’t convinced enough people. There are 7 billion people living on this planet, and thousands of them try to help, but that’s not enough. We need millions of people to help these people who can die everyday. The article says if we won’t help suffering families, it’d be too late. But I think it’s already too late because thousands of people die everyday, as I already said. But the article has helped me to understand how many people really suffer. If I could give everybody a job, money and food, I’d start at this very moment.

So in conclusion, it’s a bit too late to help all the people, thousands of people die every single day, and this since hundreds of years. I’d help everyone if I could, but I think there will never be a world without suffering people, and there won’t be people who are not going to die.

We all know what’s happened 2 years ago – an oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil spilled everywhere in the water, it all discolored to black-brown water. Many animals that lived in water died. The article says that fishermen, scientists and seafood professors have found deformed animals like fish without eye-sockets, without covers on their gills, or shrimp with tumors or without eyes. That’s what they’ve found in the last to years, and they said they will find more.

What I ask myself is if the people who cleaned the water with chemicals really thought about using chemicals. Because the chemicals have killed and deformed the fish, shrimps and other animals, not only the oil. And what I’ve never understood is why did there explode this oil thing? I’ve heard some explanations why that happened, but I’ve never understood these explanations, they were too complicated.

Scientists and fishermen are pointing out to the oil disaster that took place in 2010, they have used chemicals to clean the water, and these chemicals have created these deformities on fish, or shrimps. I think they had the right to clean the water, but did they think about the animals in the water that could die/deform because of chemicals? What I also think is that they should have thought about a chemical that can clean the water, but without deforming/killing fish and shrimps that much. If I was there, I’d try to convince all the people that we would have to think about using chemicals because there are animals outside in the water.

It’s also a disaster for our environment. We, the people, produce too much garbage, and in addition, we have cars, trucks, motorbikes, factories and other things that pollute our environment, and it’s getting worse. We are still destroying our planet, and it all has begun when people started to build factories, cars, and trucks. The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is just a small part of the pollution.

Imagine you kill a person from another family, and because of that you have to give them your sister, or your cousin if you don’t have a sister. That sounds horrible, right? But now that you’ve given your sister or your cousin to this other family, this girl is being mistreated, raped, and she’s married to a person in this family; maybe one of the sons. And she gets raped, abused, just take revenge of the girl that is given to them.

Well, this story happens in South Sudan. Not only in the south, in whole Sudan. Except some little parts. The article tells a story about a girl in the beginning; she was 8 years old when her brother killed someone, and she had to join this family to replace the killed family member. She was married to a son of this new family, and he died, and she was passed on to a brother. She got raped repeatedly, and she had to clean the whole house. But why is there such a law? Yes, it’s a punishment for the family that had to give away a child, but wouldn’t it be easier to send the murderer to jail and pay taxes to the family who lost one of their children? I think this law would be much better.

It didn’t only happen to this one girl, it happened to so many girls in Sudan. They got raped, they had to clean everything in the house; it must be horrible for them. I don’t know if they have to do it for the rest of their life, but I’m pretty sure that they have to replace this one person who got killed in a family for at least 20 years. I feel really sorry for those girls. And Sudan doesn’t have a good government; this government don’t know anything about punishing someone.

In my opinion, the laws in Sudan should be changed; that means murderers should go to jail, and the government should change all the laws. And if this law with handing out girls to other families will stay alive, these girls shouldn’t be raped or something like that. They can clean the house for sure, but nothing with sexuality.

The Declaration of Independence – we want to demonstrate against school. But why are we doing this? Is there any reason to do this?

Well, we’ve got grievances. Grievances what school is doing to us. First of all, school wants us to be at school at 8 o’clock in the morning. Why do we have to torture ourselves to wake up at 6.30 in the morning? We want to have school later, at least from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.. We can sleep longer, and we are not as tired as we usually are. And in addition to this, we have a reading block. But why? When we’re already tired, why are we supposed to read a book? To get more tired? So tired that we fall asleep? Nice idea, school, but not with us. We don’t want to read a book. Maybe we want to read a book that we’ve chosen, that we’ve bought, but not books from the library; half of the books in the library are boring. And we want to read when we want to, not when the teachers tell us to read.

The second thing is our uniform. I mean the reason for a uniform is that we don’t have to think about cloths that we are gonna wear every single day. But we only have a limit of uniforms, we have to wash them, and maybe the shirt or the pants rip, and then we have to waste money to buy another shirt, or other pants. And it’s very expensive. We want to wear what we like. Even if it takes more to choose cloths, we don’t search for 2 hours. Maybe for 10 minutes, and that’s nothing. So, why uniforms when we can choose our own cloths?

And what about homework? Some teachers just give too much homework, and we get homework every day, that means we have not much free time to hang out with friends. And some teachers give homework that fills up 2 days. And we don’t want to sit the whole night on our homework; we want time to hang out with friends. We have the right to hang out with friends, and we have the right to have free time.

Some teachers send us to the office when we are 10 seconds too late – wait, what? 10 seconds too late? Why do they send us to the office then? 10 seconds, that’s nothing. It’s understandable when we are 15 minutes too late, but not 10 seconds because when we walk to the office, it takes even more time, and what when there are 10 other students in front of you in the office? Then you’re really too late. But it’s not our fault, it’s the fault of the teacher who sent us to the office. So, why do we have to go to the office if we are too late? It doesn’t make sense! And at least then we know our day won’t be a good day, we just want to go home. We want to go home because we are mad because of the teacher who sent us the office because we were 10 seconds too late.

One more thing that I want to talk about is fire drills. There were fire drills during lunch time. Why during lunch time when we are hungry and just want to eat? Some students are starving when they get to the cafeteria. They just got food, and suddenly a fire drill. And that what makes me mad, fire drill while eating. Why no fire drill when we are in class? I think all the teachers should think about it.

Okay, here’s the last thing. Some teachers dismiss us too late. Then we can get in trouble with other teachers because we are too late in class, and we have to go to the office again. And again, I can just say it’s not our fault, it’s the teacher’s fault because this teacher dismissed us too late. But why do some teachers dismiss us too late? Do they want us to get in trouble? I can tell you, there’ll be a time when the teachers get in trouble.

So, we have to wake up too early, we have to wear a uniform, we have too much homework, teachers send us to the office because of being 10 seconds too late, and fire drills during lunch time. All these things make us mad. There will be a time when we will be demonstrating. We have a choice for freedom and independence. No, we don’t have a choice, we deserved independence. Why is the school torturing us with things that we have to do? We don’t want to do these things, except it’s necessary.

Dear beasts of Britain.
Why do we still have kind of wars?
It’s like effectual wars against the Colonies.
We feel like it’s contempt for us.

I hope you recognize that we suffer,
and I hope you recognize you treat us like slaves.
Give me liberty or give me death.
These are my last words. 

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Saigon South International School has five Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLR). I am the most successful with Balance in Life because I do things after school that are not related to school. I need to improve Dedicated Service because I don’t help other people if they need help.

As I already said, I am successful with Balance in Life. I know how to spend my time with things that are not related to school. One example is that I go to bike trips with my family, or with my friends. I also meet my friends outside of school to talk about random things; about our life, or what we want to do when are older. I make plans for my life later, so that I can tell people what I might do when I’m older.

What I need to improve is Dedicated Service. When I see people who have problems with something, I join them and look at this problem, but I do not think about how it can be solved. When I had a concert in Germany, the drummer needed help to set up his drums on stage, all the other people in my band helped him except me. And also when some other people set up the rest of our equipment on the stage, I didn’t go to help them. Sometimes I think if I’d help them, it’d make them happier.

I’ve thought days about improving my Dedicated Service. I came to the solution to help people who are setting up things for a festival, for example in school. I’ll try to ask them what I can do to help them and do the things they’re gonna tell me. I know I’m shy, that’s why I don’t dare to ask people if I could help them. Another step how I could help festivals is to ask my friends if they want to help me setting up something for a festival, and we can go as a group, and I can talk to other people at the festivals, so that I make new friends.

Because of the ESLR’s, I know what I can do successfully, and what I need to improve. I would change all my weaknesses if I had the time for it. And if I knew all of my weaknesses, I would try my best to improve them. But even if I’d try to improve all my weaknesses, I know that nobody’s perfect. Head up, stay strong, give a smile and move on