Gods word will be done by us and us only

Eboo Patel believes that we should be able to live comfortably and be friendly to every religion and religion shouldn't matter at all for anything for interacting with one another. What does it matter if you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Catholic or Jewish? We are still human beings and each person should be treated the same. We are should be looking at the same direction, comfortable, yet apart.

I think Patel is right in saying that we must be comfortable with each others presence and try to help each other. In other speeches, it makes me feel as though they want a Christian person and Muslim person to walk around holding hands all day long. Our school for example is an extremely diverse place. We are all in one community and that is the school community and everyone is in it no matter where you are from, but we are not holding hands and walking down the hall. We are comfortable in each others presence and we dont care if they are Hindu, Christian, Muslim or Jewish. We accept them for who they are.

I have seen people calling each other names according to their skin colour or what they believe in. I do not support this yet like Patel and Jesus Colon, I did not do anything to stop this. This is because I have had other personal experiences where I have seen fights and then there was a good person who tried to stop the fight but in the end, all of them got suspended. If that happened to me, how good would that look on my record? It could affect me for life. Patel has now opened my eyes to see that not taking action will affect me for life because I will be left with the guilt of not helping that Patel and Jesus Colon have now. They have atoned for that by doing good deeds for others to a greater degree. They have also taught me that I have to take action when I can. Action separates opinions and beliefs

I chose this picture because this represents all of the people who want to make a difference but dont have the courage to take action to do so. All our idea are all scrambled up and never made into affect because we are not going further. However it looks beautiful because ultimately our ideas are for the good of mankind. Peace makers all over the world want to shape this not into idea, but an action that we will all follow.

Identities, what we can do to make them the best we can.

In the story of Jesus Colon, he believes that you should always offer your help no matter how you look and what kind of reputation you have. He believes that you should not let anything come to you, you must go to it. If someone asks for your help you must help them. If you see someone who needs help then you must offer your help not wait for them to ask you because the might not. It is our duty as human beings to help each other come through no matter what he/she looks like or talks like. We are one race

I think that Colon acted like a "rude animal walking on two legs". But in my opinion, I probably would have done the same thing. It is defiantly not the right thing to do. But I close my eyes and think that I was Jesus Colon, I would have been thinking the same things he was thinking about. Would she scream? I would get in real trouble then.

I think that it takes one bad event to make you a better person. In this case when Colon ignored the lady he made a promise to himself that he will always offer his help to anyone he thinks needs it. In Fatmire Feka's case it was the war and separation of her family that made her give speeches to everyone and inspire them. Now Jesus Colons walks away with a promise to keep to himself and I walk away with the knowledge on how to live by my promise.

Poem:

This Poem By James Berry really stuns me. How he used poetry as a form of making us know about difference. I dont really have an answer to these questions and I dont think there is one. A line that really gets to me is "Do we shut our eyes to it or poke it with a stick?-4th line of the poem. This relates to what we do in real life. When you see something of the unknown do you not care?-shut our eyes to it. Or do play around with it and experiment-poke it with a stick. This is exactly what we do with the unknown. This poem has many unanswered question and I dont really understand it so I cant say much about it but it is defiantly about fear of the unknown and exclusion.

The Island:

The Island is a picture book by Armin Greder and it is not so different from other picture books when you first look at it. Little words, Big pictures. But when you thing about it, there is a lot of meaning in the book. There is a huge message and I think a big idea is "fear of the unknown brings no gain" Because they see a poor stranded man with only his boat and reluctantly take him in. The are very scared of him and dont give him any food or let him out. They then banish him and build high walls around their city so no one could get in. Now what if they is disease in their community? They cant get help because they do not know anyone around them to help them because they excluded everyone else. So if you always help people, they will help you back.

Peace is a need

In her speech, Fatmire Feka talks about her past and how it affects her today. How her family is still missing and how peace could have changed all of this and what we can do to achieve total world peace. She also thinks that we need to take action. You do not have to be like her and become a leader but at least try to help with donations. Not just heartless donation in which you just drop a coin in a box, just caring will do better than that. But try to tell others about what is happening and hopefully, they will start caring to.

Feka's speech relates to John Donne's "No man is an island" because Feka wants peace. Peace means that we are together and the whole point of John Donne's poem is that man kind is not separated and can never be separated, we are all part of the big picture, none bigger than the other, like a puzzle. But I think that that puzzle is incomplete and we are the ones that have to fix it. From both the world wars and other wars before and after those we can see that that puzzle is slowly being completely. Now people like Feka, Aung San Suu Kyi and many other peace makers around the world are not trying to fix the puzzle, but are trying to make us fix the puzzle with them.

When my brother leaves overseas for some time for some reason, my mom always misses him and the moment he gets back, she says that she missed him and the next day everything goes back to normal. It would be hard to imagine if he never returned and we didn't know where he is. Feka is going through this right now and it is a lot harder than I can ever imagine. To be struck by horror that follows you because you dont know if they are alive or dead. It is much harder to have someone "missing" than someone dead because when someone is dead, you can have a funeral for them and honor their souls. But if they are missing, what can you do? Nothing.

I feel that feka is a great hero in our time because she teaches us more than to make peace, but look at her. Her family is missing and insted of being sad about it she has inspired the world by using the stories to fight against hunger, poverty and make equality with peace. Although I don't think that she would have been the person she was today if her family did not go missing. However, it still takes a great deal of strength to become where she is today. Like my blog quote "A hero is a person who can hang on for longer" Feka is a hero because she hung on for longer. And she hasn't leg go yet

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I chose this picture painted by Rene Magritte because it shows a person who is completely oblivious to us to the left, In the middle he has turned slightly towards us so you can slightly see his face. On the right he has made a quarter turn to his right so you can see half of his face. I think that it is the peace maker goal to try to turn that person around and see what is happening to the world around him.

Is something really that great that you will sacrifice yourself and others for it?

Aung San Suu Kyi's interview for BBC talks about that the Burmese people have to do fight for democracy together. no man is an island, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.-From poem no man is an island by John Donne 1624. In my opinion, Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the greatest souls to have walked this earth. Under house arrest for 15 years. How would that feel? Lonely. Trapped. An animal in a cage. But these are all subdued by one other feeling. The feeling of hope. Hope that one day we will have democracy in Burma, knowing that day will come closer with every day that passes and we will get through those days with our blood, sweat and tears. Then, when she walked out of her house and saw all the people there for her, that hope went away and in came in knowledge.

I think that Aung San Suu Kyi is fighting for all the right reasons, but not in the right way. Do we have to use peace? Is peace really that great we must sacrifice what we are looking for? I think not. when brothers and sisters argue over something huge, sometimes we get in a fight. So what its not the end of the world. I remember this one time where me and my 15 (17 now) year old brother got into a fist fight. I was only 10. Guess who won? But he won because he was bigger. Aung San Suu Kyi is the older brother and the Burmese government is the little brother. Aung San Suu Kyi has the support of the U.N and many other countries but she is not using it to her advantage. I mean, not use all the nuclear weapons on Burma but just threatening the government of Burma to see what we can do.

What I have said on Aung San Suu Kyi could make me seem like a more negative type of person however I still admire her and her words of wisdom. Can any normal person speak on what he/she thinks is right? Can they continue on what they think is right with a gun at their head? a one way ticket to god himself. But I think that If Aung San Suu Kyi uses a little force then they will achieve what they want much quicker and not have to bear the pain and suffering any longer.

You my think that I am extremely foolish to have chosen a tomato soup can painting by Andy Warhol but I have reasons for it. Before we learnt more about Aung San Suu Kyi, did we know a lot about Burma? Maybe some of us did but I sure didnt. In this picture you can only see the front which obviously says "Campbell's condensed tomato soup" Which is the brand and product. It is the most recognizable in the picture and in real life we see the front first. But its whats on the back that matters. What the ingredients are, the expiry date and usually some more information about the product. The front is Aung San Suu Kyi because she Is the leader and is what we look at Burma for. The back is the people of Burma. They are mor important because it is what Aung San Suu Kyi is fighting for

We are together and together we are strong

I think that the theme of the poem is the fact that together we are strong. I can support this idea by the first two lines of the poem which are "No man is an island; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."So basically, it mean that no person is by his/her self. Every person is inter-connected to each other and we are one. "It is not the Human race are. It is the Human race Is." (Jon Turteltaub, 2007, National Treasures 2 :Book of secrets). Another aspect of this poem that I will review about in this post is that in the middle of the poem the line "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am part of mankind." This relates to the first line because the first line tells us that we are together. This line concerning diminished tells us that every time someone dies, it affects us all negatively because we are part of the human race. Relating this to the first line would be like each person represents a village in the continent, as John Donne describes the human race as a continent, then when one village gets destroyed in a fire and that village was helping another village to get food, then the other village will suffer for some time. In reality, if someone dies, then his/hers mother, father, siblings and other close friends/family will be in a period mourning of which they may never recover from. Therefore, I conclude that the ideas that John Donne induces in the poem is the idea of the human race as a single form and how when a piece of the form is taken off, another section may be permanently or temporally damaged.

The Video:

I personally think that this video is a great way to communicate to the world and to get your message out. It is extremely effective and I feel that getting words around the cities of New York and Sydney from the add on a billboard to the random scrunched up litter on the ground. Along with the backing track that made you feel this indescribable feeling inside yourself that made you think deeply about the words and what the mean together, which also brings in another idea that each word by itself wont make sense. Even if you are just missing one word in the whole video, It will take some time to comprehend the whole video, which I consider a loss of time. Another idea of this would be how it says "Man kind is not an island" in the poem and video but in the video, since it was filmed in two different cities which are half way across the world. In the video, you also could not tell which city was which unless there was a significant landmark. This brings in the idea of the human race being the same all over the globe. Personally, I am more a visual learner than auditory and this is one of the reasons I prefer the video to the poem.

John Marsden

John Marsden is an author from Australia. He came to our school last week and talked about how a writer should write. He made us do many different activities like writing different descriptions and joining nouns and verbs together. One of these activities was to write a four letter story about an animal dying. A four letter story is a story that has words no longer than four letters. It was a lot harder than it sounded! Most of us did not even notice that we had more than four letters in some of our words. This was my story:

I lay here, my end near. I can see my end, I can hear it too. It is not good but I must go. Not now, if that man had not shot me. I hear him tell many, what he has done. But they dont help, they go away. The man does not care, but he shot me. Who cares, I am just a dog. I roam the town, with hope. Hope that a man will free me from this lone town. And take me with them, to a home. Now that hope has come true, but not the way I want. The man who was too free me, has shot me. But he has made me free form this town, and now I will go to a my new home, hell. When I die, I will make food for many of my kind. The same kind who roam the town with hope. The same hope of a man to free them. I wish them good luck, a new hope I now have. Hope that all my kind will be free of not just this town, but all of them. And that they will go to a home that they can love. Not my future home, that I will hate. Now I die a sad dog. My end is now here and down I go to meet the hounds of hell.

I think that my story is quite good, I thought I used what John Marsden said about writing and I think it worked out quite well although there were some words which were more than five letters.

To find out more about John Marsden, click on the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marsden_(writer)

Why did I choose these picture? Hmmmm.....

Manchester united football (soccer ball), i pod, electric guitar, Laptop, Cricket bat, book, McLaren shirt, Sudoku booklet, toy Yak

This item is a Manchester united football (soccer ball for some of you).My aunt gave me this football ball in America and me and my cousin played with it everyday. However, I am not including it in my photo for that reason. This item represents me by showing two things about me. One of those things about me is that I like football (soccer). I’m not that good at it but I like the sport. Another thing that this item tells about me is that I support Manchester united. This item also reminds me about the times when I lived in Singapore. Because every day I used to play football (soccer) with my friends. I lived there for about 12 years and I miss it very much.

Another item that tells a lot about me is my i pod.My Mom gave it to me on my 11Th birthday and I was extremely happy. This tells that I like to listen to music. I like to listen to lots of music like rock, R&B, rap and many more genes. I go to concerts sometimes and I enjoy them. I always use my i pod when I go on road trips or go to school (by bus). My i pod also has games that I play when I get bored. It can also be used to go and surf the web when ever I have Internet connection

One item that represents me is my electric guitar. This shows that I play guitar. I got this guitar in the beginning of 6Th grade which was also the time I came to K.L. So this reminds me of the time I've lived in K.L. I also like to play my guitar a lot. I like to play it because it is very fun to play most of the songs I know and sometimes play along with the actual song. It also helps me calm down. Yes, even when I am am playing heavy metal songs, it still calms me down. I also started playing guitar in Singapore so it reminds me of that too. I like to use my amp and make different sounds

I would bring my laptop because its where I can do all my work from and play games, use Facebook, watch movies and do other stuff on it. I got it in the middle of 6Th grade because my Mom and Dad used the computer a lot and I could not complete my work in time. It is also very convenient because it is not that heavy and it can be used for many different reasons. I also use it to talk with my old friends who are overseas. This makes me very happy because I can talk to them whenever I want to if they are online (for Facebook) or if they are not, I could just send them a message.

This item is my cricket bat. I chose my cricket bat because I play cricket and it is one of my favorite sports along with football (soccer). I used to play it a lot in Singapore with my friends. I also used to play in school for the team and with friends but once I moved to K.L there is not much place to play with my brother where we live and not many people play it in school so I have mostly abandoned the sport. But I do play it with my friends when we go back to Singapore.

The next item is a book. It is called Artemis Fowl by Eoin (pronounced Owen) Colfer. It is the first in the Artemis Fowl series. However this book is not just by itself. It is representing all the books I read. Believe it or not, I actually read a lot. I like to read because its like a movie in your head. Except its in much more detail and any time you want, you can stop reading and read it again tomorrow. Movies are also bad for your eyes and most of the time, don't give you the full story.

The 7Th item on my list is a McLaren F1 shirt because I support the McLaren team. My favorite driver is Lewis Hamilton. I have been supporting them for at least 4 years. But I have only watched two Grand Prix and I really enjoyed them both. One was the Singapore night race about two years ago and the other one was here at Sepang.

This item is a Sudoku book and I really enjoy it. Its fun and it is very challenging. It is also good time pass. Sudoku also makes me think more creatively so it makes me smarter. However that book is very hard and I have only done a few of the puzzles and sometimes I have to cheat to get the answers! It also makes me think quicker and I use it whenever I get bored.

The final item on my list is a toy Yak. Right now, you my be surprised at this random object but to me, it is far from that. My brother gave me this Yak about 2 years ago when he went to Mt Everest for a school trip. since he is leaving this year, I decided to put this here because it is definitely an object that I can remember him by.Its like a picture but it is 3D and it brings back memories. I know when he leaves, I will miss him.