Free Blog - The Gulf Oil Spill

In late April (20 - 22) there was a massive explosion on an oil rig that caused oil to seep out of the well, the oil is still flowing out to this day.

Who's to blame? Well it would probably have to be the oil companies fault that owned the rig which is BP, although the company itself doesn’t know how the explosion happened what they really don’t know how to pick it up.

There’s not that many ways to pick it up, you can corral it but that takes quiet a long time. They could also make a relief well that could divert the flow of the oil to that rig, but that would take more than 5 months to construct and get it fully operational. Still with that we would have to find a way to plug of the main hole, which is what BP has thought about, they plan to put a 100ton dome over the hole plugging it up, then have a rig suck up the oil onto a ship stopping the oil leakage.

The only problem with plugging this hole is the fact that it is more than 5000 feet in the ocean making it hard to get anything down there, so the dome that BP has constructed will only reach the bottom late Saturday night and they will have it fully operational on Sunday evening. They have stopped trying to burn the oil because it has all dispersed and they won’t use the chemical detergents to break down the oil because it is apparently harmful to the ocean life, but BP denies these allegations, so they are using it in very small amounts.

Even when the dome reaches the bottom of the ocean to plug the hole up there is no guarantee it will work - "We haven't done this before," said a BP spokesman. "It's very complex and we can't guarantee it." The quest took on added urgency as oil yesterday reached several barrier islands off the Louisiana coast that are fragile animal habitats. The oils has clearly became a problem, but we need to find the fastest and a safest way to get the oil cleaned up and the hole plugged.

Stealing Buddha's Dinner Free Write

Cover of "Stealing Buddha's Dinner"

A Memoir about the childhood of Bich Minh Nguyen

I am currently reading "Stealing Buddha's Dinner" which is a story about a Vietnamese Family who had to move into Grand Rapids, Michigan because of the Vietnam War.

Both places have many differences from each other that give the Vietnamese Family a very large cultural barrier. When the new family moved in their rental home they were very wary about people, the father would constantly look out the window to check if any was outside and the grandfather would sleep with a large sword.Another barrier that they faced were that the kids are obsessed with food, it would seem that no one of them can get enough, they would have 1-3 fruits a day and always complain about having to put food around the Buddha statue.

It would seem that this book is revolved around their food addictions, when Bich's father got married to an American named Rosa who never let the kids have any snacks, so to compensate "" would steal or sneak food out of the kitchen just to get a quick bite.

Also people treated the main character Bich cruelly, at school everyone would call her Bitch instead of Bich - which is pronounced Bit - which made her want to have an American name very badly. Also the family in general was always out, Rosa would always get off brand foods and the no-name brands of items, which obviously made Bich jealous because her next door neighbor always had the best kinds of food which Bich liked because she herself loved food.

SIMUN

Overall my SIMUN experience was fun. It was a lot more fun than I originally thought it would be. Also less serious than I thought it would be, I could see my group was having fun and was a little more laid back the last 2 days. I liked the scenarios, especially how they were tied in with our prep questions that we did so we actually had an idea of what was going to happen. The only one scenario I didn’t like was the one about my country, because it was only the second day and I was still trying to think of what to say while all the other countries are stating their idea in the speakers list and caucuses. So I mainly resorted to inquires instead of just speeches, but I still managed to do 3-4 speeches on the second day which made me feel more confident the rest of the day.

I feel that I did a good job in SIMUN; the first day I only spoke once and asked one question since I wanted to get the feel of what was going on. Also I think I did well in the caucuses, I talked with fellow allies and other people who weren’t on my side to see what ideas were being made into recommendations. On the second scenario everyone sided with my view and three countries turned in 3 separate recommendations that were all alike.

To prepare for SIMUN I did the prep questions and the overview of Ukraine which was mandatory, but I also found some articles during SIMUN that I found were helpful in scenario two for the one about Ukraine that helped convince the other countries which were for Ukraine to join NATO to stop and think of the outcomes. I also prepared by reading over my graded prep questions for some clarifications on things to better help me during the scenarios.

I would differently prepare next year by researching more about my current allies and enemies and who I should focus my main attention on. Also find out what people like about recommendations that are brought to the floor to see what parts people dislike and like to write my own recommendation similar to that just better, while still helping and supporting my country. Overall my experience was fun, the chairs were nice and the mentors were very forgiving and had some great tips. I can’t wait for next year!

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games

The Olympics are the only time I like to watch TV, it is something new and not the boring old, Reality TV shows or the Drama shows that are usually on. It just brings something new for those 2-3 weeks that it is on. This is will also be my first year being able to watch and be entertained by the Olympics see how last year I was only 10 years old and didn’t care too much about the Olympic Games.

One of my favorite sports to match believe it or not is curling! Why? Well because there’s a lot more to it than just throwing a large stone down the alley and then sweep in front of it, there’s many things you have to take into account, you have know how hard you have to throw it, how much spin, when to sweep and know to land the rock in the perfect position.

Another one of my favorite Olympic sports is the speed skating, although the US didn’t get a medal, it is still fun to watch some of the other team’s race. One of the saddest events I saw was when the guy from the Dutch changed lanes and was disqualified, although he didn’t get a medal at all and the coach probably getting fired – on the bright side another guy from the Dutch team won a medal in the same event…

My least favorite sport is the Skiing Aerials; all the skiers do the same trick over, and over and over, all the skiers truly have to do is one more flip and/or spin and land it to get a better score. Also many of the news reporters have absolutely no clue what they are talking about when they see the skiers doing the tricks.

Another big Olympic sport I dislike is the bobsled and the luge, I feel all you have to do is lie down and steer the bobsled or luge. All you have to do is steer just a little bit but anything after that the track is just carrying you.

There may be only 3 more days or so of the Olympic Games but I for sure will be watching them, hope you will too!

A Stormy Weekend - The Big Fish Blog!

It was a dark-cloudy Saturday evening; a huge rain storm was upon us. Before the storm started my family had to go to the store to get some food. It took about 10 minutes to get to the store, while there we picked up many food items (cereal, milk, eggs, etc.) while in the middle of your shopping the store lights went out. It was so dark you couldn’t see the hand in front of you. As soon as the generators went on we bought our food and left.

On the way home we could saw the 50+ foot high storm front, the wind was very strong, so strong the bike rack filled with bikes flew away! It was complete chaos; we rushed into the house groceries in hand. Since the power was out we had to get the generator from our backyard shed, the shed was a distance away. My dad had to run into the shed and hull the large generator out, the wind was so heavy the generator wheeled away down the driveway by the heavy wind…

My Dad finally gotten the generator near the house and hooked up, the house illuminated the dark neighborhood. Near the end of the storm we heard the loudest sound ever heard before it was like 10000 fingernails against a chalk board. My neighbors 4 ft tree had flown out of the ground and landed in my yard and reached over into my other neighbor’s yard!

After the storm had settled and wind gone I could hear my neighbor’s dog pack (5-8 dogs) barking from the inside of her house as everyone helped to cut down the tree into moveable pieces. Just as we got started, channel 7, Channel 2, channel 5, etc. pulled in – every news station in Michigan had shown up to see the massive 10 foot wide hole in the ground. Everyone from my neighborhood to 2 blocks over was there.

It was the craziest weekend of my life, but a very exciting and interesting one.

Iran's Nuclear Program

The US and UN should not trust Iran’s sudden change in plans in their nuclear program.


Iran has stalled for too much time. Iran has changed their mind about sending over uranium to be enriched to foreign countries like Russia 4 times, and all 4 times have been a ridiculous way to waste many people’s time and patience with Iran. According to BBC, Iran is willing to send uranium, but is being stubborn by only accepting to receive fuel for letting foreign countries to enrich it.

Iran is not and has not been a truthful country. Iran in the past has lied and is doing it now, with Iran’s recent statement that they will become a nuclear power and will be enriching highly concentrated amounts of Uranium for nuclear warheads. Iran is like a child lying to a group of people to not get caught building a water balloon launcher and continually lies until their launcher is complete. Iran did such that, they lied and stalled for more time until they had their uranium ready to be a warhead.

Semester Reflection

I have learned many new things in my first semester of Global ED English class, especially new things that I probably wouldn’t have learned in a normal English class.

One of my very first things I learned to do was my weekly articles, I remember sitting at my computer trying to think of good ideas to help get my point across. It was only after the first weekly article where I finally got the hang of writing them properly and persuasively, all the thanks to Mr. Fielder’s great way of teaching us how to type our paper properly, by going through each paragraph with us one at a time.

Another thing I learned is how to view things at many different perspectives. One way that really helped me look at things in many different ways was listening to the “The Man in the Well” story, which really got me thinking of what the author was truly trying to get across to his readers/listeners. It really helped me when Mr. Fielder had a large class discussion on what others thought the author was trying say, everyone had their own little ideas and thoughts about what the author was trying to tell.

I learned very much about the Rwandan genocide. We had many class discussions about the genocide ranging from what we all had to say about one faction that took part in the genocide to what they were fighting over. One way we got to learn about the genocide was the debate, we each had an assigned group (U.S., U.N., MRND, Belgium, etc.) and debated over who truly started the genocide. Also when we had all of our facts known about the genocide Mr. Fielder had us write a letter acting as if we were in Paul R.’s (A person who experienced the genocide first hand) situation. When we wrote the letter it really helped me improve on my writing skills and taught me about pathos, ethos, transitions, and good supporting paragraphs. It also had us took what we already know about writing and just put it all together in one good paper.

Did you know Aborigines of Australia were mistreated for hundreds of years? That’s just one of the thing that I learned about the history of Australia, The aborigine people were mistreated and abused for centuries, ever since Europeans had first settled in Australia. Only recently have the Aborigine people gotten their rights back, but before that they used to be fenced off from the other half of Australia and the Europeans settlers had tried to breed out their heritage so there would be no remembrance of them. One way we learned about Australia was from watching “Rabbit Proof Fence” which told the story of 3 young children being taken away from their family and their mission to be reunited with their family once more.

Those are just some of the things I learned over my first semester, hopefully next semester I can learn even more!

Natives - Who would I be...?

If I was a native to any country we have learned about, I would be a native to Australia.

I would be an Aborigine of Australia because unlike the rwandans and the natives, they did not end up dead hurt in wars, the aborigines have just been moved/relocated to another part of their orignal country. Also they have been around for thousands of years, many tribes and native groups only last around 100 - 1000 years.

In South Africa, the original settlers were overrun by the british and other europeans. People may say that they werent treated that poorly and just were moved, but there was major overcrowding due to the goldrush and the natives could not buy any land in the region they were left with. People would also say that the disease in Australia was horrible and not worth it, it would only take one generation to evolve and make themselves born being immune to the disease.

Christmas Break

Christmas break is the best time of the school year... 3 weeks off from school, what else could be better besides summer vacation.

Over the break I really didn’t do too much I laid around and played my PS3, just waiting for Christmas to come around so I would get some new games. Right before Christmas I watched all my old movies that I hadn’t seen in a while, Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, I rented Inglorious Basterds and rented the game Borderlands.

On Christmas eve I always go to my neighbors, this year was like all the rest sitting around talking with random people I don’t know, the only good thing about that party is the food and lpaying with all their dogs they had at the time!

When Christmas day came up I was pretty excited since I knew everything what I was going to get, I knew this because I only wanted a few things this Christmas, and I got Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the best Nintendo DS game ever created by man, Scribblenauts. When I went to my grandma’s house for Christmas dinner I got the normal gifts which were clothes, but it didn’t matter to me because my grandma always makes the best food for Christmas!

After Christmas day the rest of the week went by pretty fast, probably because I was so determined to hit first prestige in CoDMW2, and watching some more movies that I got for Christmas. After a while I got bored and used my AMC movie gift card and saw Avatar which was a pretty good movie, but not worth all the money that was put into making the actual movie itself.( $280–310 million to produce!)

The Sunday before school started I was pretty down I had to finish up all my homework and had to prepare for the morning ahead- I had to change my alarm clock form 11am back to 5:45am which was pretty bad. Plus I knew the next morning I would be extremely tired knowing I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep from staying up until 3am every morning. Also the fact then we had to start school all together, get up early, and get piled with homework and studying, but especially the homework.