Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Today.......

 The whole day I kept staring menacingly at my computer, at my empty blog page, at the clock. Time edges on slowwlyy, mocking me as i try and finish my science for the day. When will i ever use carbon dating? What about prime factorization? 
At one point i was giving my computer the Daggers look. If looks could kill then my computer would only be a pile of springs now. But hey, I survived! And just look at me .. 

Sunday, 11 March 2012

What we have become

Last night i sat on the couch watching The Lord of The Rings, The Twin Towers. I was chuffed with myself because I had just finished the book the day before (even for a fast reader like moi it took a while to read and i had to re-read some bits to fully understand what was going on) and i thought i deserved to watch the movie. I came to the part where there is war at Helm's Deep and it was pretty full on. Arrows flying, the groans of the dead, swords clashing. I had to admit, the filming was amazing, it must have taken forever to get all the cameras in the right angles and get all the right shots, it was all full of action.I suddenly realized,however, that they make war so glamorous in the movies and it doesn't really happen like at all that in real life. Here it is worse. These men who go out to war have families, friends , lives. I imagined having to give up my dad so he could go out to fight men younger and older then him in a pointless war. I imagined knowing that he would not come back, that he would be dead by morning. What is the reward to all of this? What forces us kill thousands of men to get the approval of men that don't know the real you.How can anyone kill someone of their own kin and not even give the slightest care, show sympathy or compassion at the young man they just killed. THAT is what's really missing in the world. Not another shopping mall, not another raid of deforestation, no more dead men, heartbroken children and depressed wives. We need to show compassion, love, and understanding.We were given and amazing privilege by being placed upon this beautiful, astonishing, spectacular planet. And we messed up. Big time.We cut down trees that are not ours, we pollute the skies yet its these things that we need to survive. We have messed up so much that i am scared of what the world is going to be like when i am older. Will it be so full of pollution, misery, hate and the sense of people just giving up that everyone sits  around in decrepit houses waiting to die?


 Scientific experiments have shown the planets really do have feelings. They were here long before us and yet we think that we are all so high and mighty that nothing else can even come close to being as spectacular as us.
 Just because we can walk and talk and kill doesn't mean that we rule everything on this earth. 
In the park by our house, the gardeners have planted small saplings that are trying so hard to grow, around the huge football field. Everyday  i see people walking all over them because it is a shortcut and they don't now have to walk around them. They pay no attention to the small plants that are just trying to get by. What we don't realize is we need these trees and plants. Without them we would have no oxygen and would die. These plants are the reason we are alive, yet we stomp all over them and never give a care. One of the worst thing is, people don't look around and notice this is a problem. Parents don't tell their kids off if they walk in the flower bed, they encourage them to do it by walking in the flowerbed as well! Imagine some stranger coming up to you and slapping you across the face, you have never met this person and have done nothing to them. That is what it is like when we walk all over plants. If they chose to come alive right now, they would have a hell of a lot to say to us, that's for sure.


We have become so overcome by greed that it clouds our eyes and mind, making us think that if we do not buy something it was a crap day. We get so upset if something doesn't go our way that we feel like throwing a temper tantrum. Yet, millions of children and mothers are lying on the ground , they have no money and they haven't eaten in 2 weeks so they have no energy to get up. Mothers have to watch their children die before them and there is nothing they can do. All of this is really enough to make one feel sick to their stomach. And so guilty about what we have done.
              And ashamed, ashamed of what we have become. 

Saturday, 10 March 2012

Home.....

Nothing beats waking up in the morning to the sweet sound of airplanes flying right over your roof. They come over there every 3-5 minutes, bliss...

Wandering the desert

Wandering in the Desert at 5:30 in the morning. Just in time for sunrise. Enjoy the show












Le Camel!

Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Things I did today

1. Woke up.


2.Tried to wake up Thing one and Thing two... Took a while.


3. Got them to eat breakfast.


4.Did some Math,English ,Afrikaans,Geography,Natural Science and something else that I can't remember.


5. Wrote a cinquain about Wellington boots .


6. Did the jig of joy when we got the internet.


7.Lay on my bed staring at the ceiling.


8. Tried to think about Atoms and how small they are.. failed.


9. Tried to make a cake for Hospitality.... Got flour everywhere.


10. Contemplated freedom.

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Dubai

Each day goes by faster and faster and it is now only 5 days till we have to move to Dubai. I can't even begin to say how much i am going to miss my home. My room. My Best Friend. My bed. UGH. I mean, Dubai can't be all that bad. Right? anybody, somebody? Reassuring words would be great at this time of my life. At least there will be tonnes of things to do, no more boring rainy days and screen eyes from watching too much television like we did in South Korea. And the waterparks sound fantastic, plus there is an ice rink near the place we are staying (dance of joy)..............

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

What's wrong with school?

My best friend and i have been home schooled for a week now. I have done homeschooling twice before both times on the small island in South Korea. I missed being with people and the privileges and funny times of being at school in the classroom. I also missed having a teacher that could explain things to me. Yet, now I finally realize the advantages of being homeschooled, especially since i am in Grade 8 and I really have to start getting serious about my school. 

When my family and I came back to South Africa from South Korea in 2010 i switched from being homeschooled to going to a government school. I was going to grade 7 at the time and was joining up with some of my old school mates from grade 2. My best friend had been going there pretty much her whole life and was in the grade below me so i was very excited to start and get back into the system. After about 4 weeks i found out how horribly wrong about the whole school thing. Teachers should get chosen for their love of teaching and children, not just because they are strict and want the money. People who failed their matric maths or english certainly shouldn't be teaching math to grade 7 pupils. I also found that in a class of 32 school kids, you  have some who want to learn and become professional doctors and who really take learning seriously and some who just faff around and disrupt the lesson while others join in to impress their friends. Also, some kids are not as great in maths as some or in science or english, so those you are behind keep everyone else from learning and showing their true potential. So you have a teacher who is trying to explain how to calculate quadratic equations  to a group of 32 teenagers who have no interest at all in the subject, then someone has to put there hand up and ask a question of how everybody's weekend was. This sentence is one of those that can completely destroy 2 hours time without anybody noticing it. This question popped up a lot in my class and kids are always eager to answer it so long as it gets them away from how to square a number. This wouldn't be so bad if one kids joined in but pretty soon you have the whole class shouting how they walked their dog or fed a horse and before ya know it the hour for maths has disappeared and you are stuck with a bunch of homework that was meant to be done in class. That's another thing I don't get. Homework. You spend 6-7 hours at school only to come home with another 2 hours of work that was actually supposed to be done at school. The teacher gets a pile of worksheets at the beginning of the day that she is meant to give out for homework at the end of each day, but when the lesson is running the ' what did you do on the weekend' question pops up and none of the required work gets done so that work plus the already assigned homework is given to kids to do at home. Then you have the problem of the homework not being the stuff you learnt in class. At school it's 2+2, at home its 2+2+4 and then in exams it's ' a man has 3 cups for water, he uses one himself then gives one away to his friend. How many cups must the man have before he has a lollipop.' The teachers only explain the easy stuff at school and give the hard work for homework so they don't have to explain it, the parents do. 

There are many things that are wrong about school and that is why I am so glad to be homeschooled. I can focus on subjects that I am really interested in and can finish all the work that needs to be done quicker than at school, plus I do not get homework!