English Social Studies

The U.K. election - who wins?

2010-05-11T03:45:00.000-07:00

The Liberal Democrats
Leader: Nick Clegg
Slogan: "Change that works for you. Building a fairer Britain."

The Conservatives
Leader: David Cameron
Slogan: "We can't go on like this."

Labour Party
Leader: Gordon Brown
Slogan: "A future fair for all."

The U.K. general election is very close to an end, and the Conservatives are leading the race with over 50 Members of Parliament more than the Labour. In my opinion, the Conservative Party should form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats due to their common interests in cases such as economy and health care. At the same time, Great Britain goes through a rough time right now in terms of the economy and it is risky to start a coalition "project" that has never been tried in this country before. It can lead to strides and disagreements within the government.

"Blind Side"

2010-05-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

Last English class we saw a movie called "Blind Side". In the film we meet a 17 year old homeless boy named Michael Oher. He has gone through his life living in various foster families. Every time he establishes himself in the new family, he runs away, until he meets the Tuohy family. The mother of the family, Leigh Anne, includes him in their warmth and he stays there for a long period of time. She also adopts him. Due to Michael's enourmous stature and incredible strength, he becomes a professional American Football player. Because of his athletic ability and grade improvements Michael receives numerous scholarship propositions. His entire foster family has enrolled in the University of Mississippi and it is expected of Michael to do it as well. The NCAA starts to investigate the case and tells him that they believe the Tuohy included him in their family just because they saw his potential in sports and wanted him to represent their family in the University of Mississippi. Michael feels extremely disappointed when hearing this and flees once again. The movie ends with Michael choosing another university and returning to his foster family.

The Road after finished reading

2010-04-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

In my winter break I finished reading The Road, but due to certain incidents I have not been able to write my blog entry yet. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the book was written by the famous author Cormac McCarthy. In the novel we meet a man and his young son whose names are not described. They find themselves surrounding a destroyed, ashened earth with only a few fellow survivors of mankind. Among them are cannibals, with a complete lack of empathy and care for people other than themselves. They travel in groups and the boy and his father are in a constant struggle of shelter from their presence. There are also other survivors that are in the boy and his fathers situation, but they are a minority. The father and son are always starving, always cautiously alert, only carrying a grocery cart with a few blankets and a gun with two bullets of which they are to use either to protect themselves against the cannibals following their tracks, or for the father to finish their lives before the desperate despair consumes them both. Their destination is the southern part of America, but when they arrive at the coast the fatal need of food leads to a tearful destiny for one of them.

In my previous blog entry I stated a negative view towards the book. My opinion dramatically changed as I read further on. McCarthy's way of describing the post-apocalyptic earth is simply astonishing. His description of the relationship between the boy and the father is even more compelling. Both of them are the reason the other one is still alive. The fact that they are so dependent on each other brings them really close. When I read the book I had a feeling of wanting to continue because of the unawareness of their situation. I strongly recommend you to read this journey of horror, attachment and love.

U.K. politics

2010-03-09T04:24:00.000-08:00

Today in class, we were assigned the task to act as journalists reporting from the Question Time on February the 24th in the British House of Commons. Me and my friend Camilla chose to represent a newspaper that supported the Labour Party.

Task 1
Question Time, February 24th
In British politics it is common that the members of parliament, usually shortened down to MPs, meets the Government Ministers to ask questions concerning various political subjects. These questions are known as "oral questions" and takes place at the start of business on a daily basis, in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In the lower house (House of Commons), each government department are obligated to answer questions according to a rota called the Order of Oral Questions. The difference between the Question Time in the two houses are that the questions from the Lords are to the government as a whole, but the questions from the Commons goes to the particular government departments. This is due to the division of power in the two houses; the House of Commons has more power than the House of Lords.

Every Wednesday, the Prime Minister participates in Question Time in the House of Commons for half an hour. The questions from the MPs are dropped at least three days in advance. The session starts with a question from one of the MPs about the Prime Minister's engagements. Following the Prime Minister's answer, the MP can raise a question concerning a particular political issue, usually of a current significance. The leader of the Opposition are then allowed to follow up on either this topic, or change to another topic.

On February 24th, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown started the engagement talk with a tribute to the troops in Afghanistan. The tribute was followed with a discussion about the economy.
The question that were asked to the Prime Minister in this particular meeting were in general about health care and economy. The Leader of the Opposition (the Conservatives), David Cameron, stated that the GNP (Gross National Product) per capita is lower today than before Brown entered the role as Prime Minister, and that he thereby leaves the country poorer than when he entered the position. Cameron talked with a massive empathy and tried his best to gain the MPs support. It seemed that Brown had a more relaxed appearance than his opponent Cameron. Brown replied with saying that the total GNP per capita is higher now than in 1997. Cameron accused Gordon Brown for lying and asked him to stand up with a straight face and tell the audience that the statement actually was true. Brown replied that he had answered the question three times already. It was obvious that Cameron had not prepared himself well enough for the debate.

Task 2
The importance of TV debates in terms of politics
This year’s election in Britain will be different. Every Wednesday the U.K. prime minister meets the House of Commons for what they call a “Question Time”. In 2010 this debate will be sent on television all over Britain, and many people believe this will have a huge impact on the election.
Although intensive debates can help a candidate, once the contest begins, it is almost impossible for the candidates to hide their true character. An example is when McCain performed poorly on a debate sent on TV. Just as the camera had picked up McCain's nervous laughter, manic grin and habit of cutting his opponent off, many people lost some of their respect for the U.S. presidential candidate. In other words, these debates could be the best chance British voters have of experiencing a moment of truth during this campaign.
It has been set a lot of rules for this new type of question time. The BBC, ITV and Sky and the three main political parties have agreed on the rules for live prime ministerial debates in the run-up to the election of 2010. The three 90-minute sessions will begin by focusing on domestic policies, international affairs and the economy. The studio audiences will then be able to ask questions on any subject, with television viewers doing the same via e-mail. The Labor Partys Gordon Brown, Lib Dem Nick Clegg and Tory David Cameron have welcomed the news.
The first debate, focusing on domestic affairs, will be held in the north-west of England.
The second, themed on global issues, will take place in south-west England. The third debate will be dealing with the economy. The applause will be restricted to the beginning and end of the debates and the audience will not be allowed to respond to the leaders' answers. Some of the other rules that are set for these debates are that the audience will, as I mentioned above, have the opportunity to pose questions, but no heckling. The leaders will have to make a one minute opening statement on the theme of the debate. Further on they have one minute to answer each question, and one minute to respond to the answers. The leaders also have to shake hands at the end of the debate.

Television has influenced the presidential elections in the United States for many years, in both a good and bad way. The media circus around presidential elections has made candidates to pursue a better image, but as I mentioned above it also can affect them negatively. The candidates that look bad or for example get nervous in front of the cameras can loose a lot of votes this way, but on the opposite, TV performance naturally makes a positive turn for the candidates. President Clinton is a good example to mention. Many people did not know much about him, who he was or what he stood for, but he made a fantastic apperance on television and in the media: Great presence, a good looking guy, smart and friendly – these factors made a turning point in his career. The media loved him, and the American people started to pay more attention to him – this helped him to win two elections in a row.

The Road

2010-02-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

The Road is a book written by Cormac McCarthy. The book has received the Pulitzer Prize and is soon to be a cinema movie, February the 19th to be correct. The action takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where the world has gone trough a crisis and is completely destroyed. We never get to know exactly what has happened. Only a tiny percentage of mankind have managed to survive. The book follows a father and a son on their journey throughout nothingness and ruins of the former American continent. As in the way they manage to survive, it seems to me like they have lived under these circumstances for many years. At the beginning of the book they are located in the northern part of the United States, and their goal is to get to the Southern part before the winter arrives. The country is completely lawless and they have to stay low due to other survivors, amongst them criminals and murderers. At first I thought that maybe the world had gone through a massive pandemic illness which caused all of the human population to turn mean on each other, but as I read further I understood that it is the disastrous conditions that have made the surviving human beings to kill each other. Imagine living under those circumstances. I believe most of us would have changed our behaviour dramatically. The basic instincts would have overshadowed everything else.

However, the boy and the father meet a fellow survivor in their path down south. The boy wants to help the man, but the father knows that they can't let a stranger's needs come in front of their own. The father's son whose name is unmentioned in the book seems to understand that they don't have much time left on the surface of the destroyed earth. He also says to his father that he wants to stay with his mom, which is dead. This basically means that he would rather die than living under such circumstances. There are flashbacks in the book which indicates that his mom gave birth to him and later took her own life.
In my opinion, I quite don't see how this book has received that vast amount of prizes and acclaims yet. I hope it reaches up to my expectations as the story goes further on.

A new method of working

2010-02-02T00:58:00.000-08:00

Right now in class, all of the classmates are collaborating together as a group. Our teacher has splitted us up in groups of five and given us various tasks. One of the groups is the front desk. Their responsibility is to divide material, prioritize, approve material and give the other groups time limits. My group is called the research group. Our job is to find and gather relevant material and send it to the other groups. Then we have the journalists, whose jobs are to write blogs and send them to the teachers, designers and the front desk. The fourth group consists of the teachers. They make criteria rubrics in terms of the test we are having next week. They also write the test questions. At last we have the designers. They create so-called Glogs and Photostories with the gathered material.

I liked this varation of working. Some got more to do than others, but at the same time I believe that everybody learned something new today.

Nobama

2010-01-26T00:19:00.000-08:00

Last week in class, we saw a documentary made by Alexandra Pelosi. The movie was filmed during the election race in America between Barack Obama and John McCain. Pelosi had chosen to focus on McCain's supporters and their view on Obama. I found it very interesting to see that many of them actually seemed more engaged in preventing Obama from becoming president than McCain to actually become the president. Some of the interviewees began crying when asked about how they thought America would develop if Obama was elected. Not tears of bliss, but bitter, scared thoughts.

Several interviewees drew a connection between Obama and Germany's imperial chancellor during WWII, Adolf Hitler. They compared Obama's and Hitler's charisma and their way of speaking to the crowd. I have to add that another argument for the comparison was the situation America was in during the election and the situation Germany was in during Hitler's party NSDAP's election.
But still, the comparison really blew my mind. How can one compare one of the most racist men in history and an African-American man, solely based on their speaking gifts? I tried to put myself in their situation. The American presidential line-up throughout the history has consisted mostly of middle-aged to old white men. As for the recent history, neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush jr. were impressive speakers. And so Obama enters the history, a colored man quite young for his coming goal. For the American conservatives this may have come as a shock.

Some of the Southerners also admit this in the documentary. One of the men interviewed actually states that "America is not ready for a colored man as president. I believe the society is moving too fast. If it were up to me, you shouldn't have the ability to vote." when talking to the female interviewer. First I found this statement very provoking, but after some thought I have to say that at least he has the guts to stand for his opinion. America is a country of liberty and he should be able to believe in whatever he wants to.

As you could see in the documentary, most of McCains "hard voters" lived in the inland of America. I allow myself to generalize a little bit: many of them were typical Christian rednecks. They were very religious and worked hard in the agriculture industry. They called themselves "real Americans" and pointed at the fact that they worked hard to keep the wheels of the country turning. Many of them did not believe Obama cared enough for them.

Now I have only mentioned a few of the comparisons and statements concerning Obama shown in the documentary. Other examples of comparisons were that Obama was the Antichrist and that he was the devil in human form. Some simply pointed at the fact that he is a "nigger" and therefore not able to fill the presidential role. In my opinion, many of these people seemed like they were living in the past. They were simply Christian, farm-working Americans that were not ready for such a dramatically change.

I strongly recommend the documentary. You can find it on Youtube. Here are the links:
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
Enjoy!

Environmental abuse - an inconvenient truth

2010-01-19T03:44:00.000-08:00

We are starting up with our senior projects this week, and now is the time to decide on which topic we are to write about. I have thought about both homosexual rights in the state of California and topics concerning the environmental abuse in America today. The reason I have thought about these two topics is because they both appeal to my interests. There is an ongoing debate in California right now concerning the right for homosexual couples to marry each other.

After much thought, I've decided to go for environmental abuse. I am going to do an in-depth study on Al Gore with the main focus on his movie The Inconvenient Truth, the Climate Project and his receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize. I want to find out in which ways he has affected American citizens and people all over the world.

Obama's new Health Reform

2010-01-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

Hi to all my thousands of readers. I want to wish everyone a happy new year! This is my first blog post in 2010, concerning Obama's new Health Reform.

In America today, they have a health system different from the system we have in Norway. The American people have to buy health insurances which are supposed to cover their expenses in terms of hospital visits, medical treatments etc. in case of illnesses. The health insurances are too expensive for the poor part of the American population, which means that they cannot afford to get ill. For instance, if they fall and break their leg or suffer from a major infection, they do not have the money to pay for the medical treatment they need. One of Obama's matters close to his heart has been to reform this health system. He wants a system more similar to our Norwegian health system so that the poor population also can afford to get medical treatment when needed.

The new Health reform includes: You can choose to keep your insurance if you like the one you have from before, there will be no more denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, no dropped coverage when you get sick, it eliminates yearly and lifetime caps of coverage, it caps out-of-pocket expenses and it requires coverage for preventive care. For the citizens who do not have a health insurance there will be created a new insurance marketplace called the Exchange which includes new tax credits for individuals and small businesses and low-cost coverage for individual and small businesses. Obama says that the new Health Reform will not add money to deficit, but will be paid for by the savings within the existing health care system. The reform also includes independent medical experts to identify abuse, waste and fraud in the system. In my opinion, the Health Reform seems genuinely positive for the American population. Today, the system is obviously malfunctioning and Obama has done the only right thing to do; to reform the health-care. I truly hope that the protesters realizes this in the future.

The American Constitution

2009-12-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

In class last week, we had an American visitor who taught us about the American Constitution. Her name is Lee-Ann Potter and she is from Maryland. Originally, she is the director of education and volunteer programs at the United States national archives in Washington, D.C. This year, she has moved to Norway with her family to serve as a Roving Scholar of American Studies.

Her way of teaching was inspiring and efficient. First, she introduced herself and the theme. Then she wanted us to talk with each other about why America has a constitution and what it contains. Later she showed us pictures concerning the Constitution. The photo I have included in my blog entry is actually the preamble of the American Consitituion made by license plates. It was a different and fun way to learn about politics.

The preamble goes like this:
We the People of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Milk

2009-12-07T05:54:00.000-08:00

Milk is a biographical movie about an American gay activist named Harvey Milk. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Milk is in a relationship with a man named Smith. They are tired of the discrimination of homosexual individuals in the United States and decide to to something about it. They move to San Fransisco, in hopes of finding larger acceptance of their relationship. Milk and Smith start a camera shop called Castro Camera, where they also arrange meetings with the gay people in their neighborhood. Milk decides to engage in the politics and starts a campaign to become a city supervisor. After two failed campaigns, Smith no longer endure Milk's devition to politics and breaks up with him. After the fourth year of campaigning, Milk wins a seat in the San Fransisco Board of Supervisors. This was a great step towards equality between the homosexual and heterosexual part of the American population.

British Politics

2009-11-16T23:55:00.000-08:00

I was a absent in my English class last week, due to a visit to Spain with my Spanish class. Therefore this blog entry comes a little late. In class last week, the others were given a text about the election in Britain. After reading the text, they were to write a blog entry about the British System of Government.

The prime minister is the leader of the strongest party. He or she rules the government in Britain. The parliament has the second biggest role, which consists of making the laws, passing the national budget and keeping an eye on the government. There must be a general election at least every five years. The parliament is splitted up in two parts; the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons has a much bigger role and more power than the House of Lords. There are 646 representatives called Members of Parliament, often shorted down to MPs. Each one of them represents one constituency. Britain is divided into 646 parliamentary constituencies. They vary in size, but most have an electorate between 60.000 and 75.000 people. The electorate is all the people who can vote. The House of Lords, however, is not elected by the people.

The Cuban missile crisis

2009-10-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

The Cuban missile crisis was the closest the world has come to a nuclear war. After the World War II, the United States and the Soviet union were building up arms to show the world which nation that was the most powerful. The arms race included nuclear weapons. It was lead by the American president John F. Kennedy and the Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev. This period of time is known as the Cold War.

In 1962, America lead the arms race and had missiles powerful enough to strike Soviet from American ground. They did not know that Soviet had placed intermediate-range missiles in Cuba, aimed towards the United States. Soviet cooperated with the present dictator in Cuba, Fidel Castro. The United States had failed to invade Cuba in 1961 and Castro felt a second attack was inevitable. Consequently, he approved of Khrushchev's plan to place missiles on the island.

On October 15, 1962, reconnaissance photographs revealed that Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba. This was the start of the crisis for the United States. After seven days of surveillance, Kennedy concluded to impose a naval quarantine around Cuba. Kennedy announced the discovery of the missiles to the public, and his decision to quarantine the island. He demanded that Soviet removed all of their missile installations from Cuba. He also declared that a missile launch from Cuba would be seen as an attack towards America. The tension began to build.

On the 27th of October, a U-2 missile was shot down over Cuba. Consequently, Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy demanding the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey, in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Finally, tensions began to ease the 28th of October when Khrushchev announced that Soviet would dismantle the installations in Cuba if the US would not invade Cuba. Further negotiations were held to implement the October 28th agreement, including a United States demand that Soviet light bombers should be removed from Cuba, and specifying the exact form and conditions of United States assurances not to invade Cuba.

Lions for Lambs

2009-10-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

In our last English class, we saw an American drama film called Lions for Lambs. The film drew connections between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter and a California college professor. The movie is telling three different stories at the same time that are somehow connected to each other. Jasper Irving, a Republican senator, is launching the government's new military strategy to the journalist Janine Roth. He hopes that she will sell the public on the strategy. Meanwhile, a professor named Malley is trying to convince one of his promising students, Todd, to keep up with the schoolwork and set higher ambitions in life. He had the similar talk to two former students who also had become apathetic about their schoolwork. After the talk, they decided to enlist themselves to serve the U.S. in the Iraq war.

Meanwhile the professor chats with Todd, his former students are engaging in the exact military strategy that the senator are discussing with the journalist. The mission went terribly wrong, and his former students ended up in enemy territory. Throughout the movie, the senator and the journalist discusses the military strategy, professor Malley chats with Todd about his goals in life and the two U.S. soldiers desperately wait for rescue. The movie ends with both of them getting murdered by the enemy Taliban.

Professor Malley asks Todd to get involved. I believe he means that Todd needs a wake-up-call to understand that with his talents, he ought to try to use them. Malley is frustrated due to the fact that the special individuals who have the ability to make things change do not use their abilities. Todd seems very critical towards how the political system is working in America. At the same time, he shows no desire of getting involved with it. In my opinion, taking Todd's critical eye on the government's decisions into consideration, he could have involved himself in the politics by joining a political organization.

Snowboarding

2009-10-20T01:23:00.000-07:00

In Norway we have many different winter sports due to our cold, snowy weather in the winter months. One of the popular activities is snowboarding. This sport has increased its popularity since the 1980's and are now one of the leading winter sports. You can practice snowboard in down-hill slopes or off-pist down snowy mountain sides . The first alternative is the most common here in Norway. It's also pretty common to create "sessions" where you bring a couple of friends and a photo camera, and slide down stairs, building tops, etc.

Snowboarding has been dominated by men since the very beginning, but in the last couple of years more females have started to arrive the scene. I have put in a picture of me and a group of girls called the Powderpuffs from a snowboard camp in Geilo two years ago.

The reason I chose to talk about snowboarding is because I was member of the BSK snowboarding team with the head quarter in Kirkerudbakken, Norway from the age of 13 to the age of 17. I love the sport because after you have learned the basic skills, you can learn to perform different tricks on both boxes and slides and when you are jumping. It's very fun to experience progression in this sport

Here is a video of two of the riders from Kirkerudbakken, Aleksander Østreng and Ståle Sandbech, who now are competing at an international level. Take a look!

The Nobel peace price for 2009 is rewarded to: Barack Obama!

2009-10-20T00:43:00.001-07:00

Today in class we wrote a note to the president of the United States, Barack Obama. He is soon to visit Norway due to his reception of the Nobel peace prize. Here is me and Camilla's greeting

Dear Mr. President.

Your position in the United States comes with a lot of money. We believe that you have done the right thing by donating the peace prize money to charity. We hope that you choose a charity fund that is associated with working for peace since the prize was given to you due to your actions toward gaining peace between the United States and the middle east.

We truly hope that you will take a visit to our high school, Sandvika VGS, on your trip to Norway for receiving the Nobel peace prize. The reason you should visit us, is because our school is one of the leading IT schools in Norway. We have recently been chosen by Microsoft as one of 30 Pathfinder schools in the world. There are many great and interesting students at our school that have involved themselves in your election. The students here at Sandvika are eager to learn more about how the political system works in the United States.

Best regards, Camilla and Karoline

The 9/11 terrorist attacks

2009-10-19T15:11:00.001-07:00

In our English class last week, we saw a documentary about the fatal terror attack known as 9/11. The documentary is the only known footage from inside the twin towers during the attack. The film started out as a documentary about firefighters. At the first part of the movie we got to know Tony Newman, a firefighter rookie. He had finished his education in the early summer of 2001 and a co-worker followed his freshman period with a film camera. The documentary did not turn out as expected due to the 9/11 incident which occurred randomly in the same time period as the making of the documentary. At the day of the incident, the fire fighters were routine practicing outside the fire department.

When the first plane hit the eastern tower, they saw the crash from their practice spot just two minutes away. They had never experienced something like this before in their career and it came as a total shock. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered that the plane's flaming jet fuel had shot straight through the elevator. Due to this, they had to use the stairs. Taking into consideration that the building consisted of around 100 flats, this dramatically slowed the evacuation process. Shortly after the first plane, the second one crashed into the western tower. The fire the crashes led to caused both towers to collapse. A third plane hit Pentagon, but the damages were small in comparison to the twin towers.

Almost 3000 people lost their lives due to the terrorist attacks. Among the dead were mostly civilians, but 350 fire fighters also died in their attempt of saving others. This led to a shocked and grieving nation . Shortly after the terrorist attacks, George Bush declared that the United States were going in for an attack of Afghanistan, as their first step towards fighting against terrorism. This war led to the removal of the Taliban regime which had a close connection to the group Al Qaida, the terrorists who stood behind the 9/11 attacks.

For the Americans, the terror attacks came from nowhere. Americans have not experienced war on their territory since the civil war over 150 years ago. There have been two world wars since that time, but none of them have involved American territory. 15 years ago, there was a man who bombed a public building in Colorado which caused the death of a couple of hundred Americans. But the strength of this attack was something they had never seen before.

On the contrary, Europe experienced major sufferings from the two world wars. Tens of millions of people lost their lives in both wars. Major cities like London and Paris has been bombed to the ground several times. Hitler was close to his goal of an extermination of the European Jews in his time. In other words, Europe has experienced more warfare than America. Of course, the fact that the terrorist attacks struck America and not Europe also influenced how Europeans viewed the incident.

But neither Europeans nor Americans had seen an attack aimed solely towards civilians before. It was also the first time a terrorist group had high jacked a plane. If you look back in history, previous attacks have been aimed towards military installations or buildings that are bound directly to the government in a country. Both Europeans and Americans asks themselves the question: What was Al-Qaida's real purpose? They spread as much fear they could manage among the western world and desolated some of the most important buildings in the United States, but why? The question still remains unsolved. The most common view is that Al Qaida was showing off strength towards the leading superpower in the world today.

To our Korean friends; a post about the Norwegian weather!

2009-10-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a small post about the weather in Norway. It is a country placed far north and this affects our weather conditions. On a good summer day, the temperature normally reaches up to 20-25 degrees celsius. But rain is a more common sight, especially considering the global warming that is going on nowadays. This summer for instance was terrible with only two sunny weeks in the start of June.

In the wintertime, snow is an often sight. But again, the global warming has caused our beautiful snow to often turn into rain. Our snowy winter occurs circa from November/December to March, but this is of course depentant on when the cold temperature strikes and when the sun decides to melt the snow. I love the Norwegian winter. It's beautiful to see how the snow changes and affects the landscape.

The picture I have put in is a picture that describes a typical norwegian, snowy winter.

Besides summer and winter, we also have what I like to call the "waiting months", also known as autumn and spring. I find these months boring because you cannot go down-hill skiing or other winter acitivities, nor going to the beach. These periods of time are often very rainy.

"Does It Matter?"

2009-09-01T03:26:00.000-07:00

The three effects of the war on a soldier the poem touches on is losing your legs, losing your sight and losing your mind or dream.

The two great wars were fought by working-class men on both sides and that the people they were fighting for were often more the enemy than the people they were fighting against.
We don't believe the poem reflects that attitude, because the poem explains that by fighting in a war the soldier will earn respect among his or her community. However, the poem is very ironic. It feels like the soldier has given up, and does not care about his or her life.

The reason why this poem has experienced some sort of revival considering its popularity is because Britain is still involved in wars, such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We feel that "Does It Matter" were more appealing to us than "The Soldier" because "The Soldier" was very complicated and difficult to understand, while "Does It Matter" was easier to read between the lines. It was filled with a sort of melancholy which gave the poem depth.

In the documentary about Siegfried Sassoon I learned these facts:

The WWI poets were brought up in a romantic era. They had the image of wars being fought with dignity. Things weren't like expected. Millions of young men were sent out to the trenches and died in the battlefield. The soldiers weren't prepared for the new guns and machinery that they had prepared for the WWI. Plus, the war was fought on foreign ground in France.

Sigfried Sassoon wrote poems and articles in the Times that were critical against the war. He wrote that at the beginning, the war was about protecting the country, but at the end, it was about conquering and aggression.

The government put him in a mental hospital because of his opinions. The reason they chose a mental hospital instead of a jail was that they simply couldn't lock up a well known Marshall from the war in jail for no specific reason. That would have caused massive riots and antagonism among the people.

About me

2009-09-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Hi there.

My name is Karoline and I'm a student of Sandvika high school in Norway. One of my subjects is called English Social Studies and this is a blog that all of the students in my class are making as a remedy for teaching.

When I'm not at school or doing my homework, I usually hang out with my friends or work in a clothing shop called Marinka. My favorite music includes Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, Young Jeezy and Juelz Santana.

As you can see above I've put in a photo of a green, rural area. This is my hometown called Lommedalen. In the old days my hometown was known for farming and inbreeding, but as I said, this was in the old days. There are a lot of people who have moved to Lommedalen from places elsewhere in Norway and now it holds 10.000 inhabitants. In my opinion, Lommedalen is a beautiful and peaceful place to live. It may seem like it is located somewhere in the deep forests of Norway, but it's actually just half-an-hour drive from the capital Oslo.