Vocabulary word: Commotion
The dead body in the pool of my school made such a big commotion that all students were excused from coming to school for a whole week.
Vocabulary word: Foundered
He foundered the test because he played video games the day before.
Vocabulary word: Ruin
The bomb brought great ruin to millions of people, leaving some without a house and some without a family.
Vocabulary word: Inert
After the unfortunate accident my body was inert for month.
Vocabulary word: Negotiation
After so many years of war, the two countries decided to hold a negotiation and try to come up with a peaceful solution.
Vocabulary word: Innumerable
The relatives form my father's side are innumerable.
Vocabulary word: Boundaries
After the the country conquered more land, the boundaries changed.
Vocabulary word: Descendants
He decided to leave all his fortune for his descendants.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
27th of October: Homework: Gentleman of Rio en Medio
Literary Focus: Literary Analysis:
Question #6: Infer Why doesn't Don Anselmo reveal who "owns" the trees on his first visit to the lawyer's office? Was he being clever, or was he unaware of the potential problem? Explain.
Don Anselmo was not being clever. Don Anselmo is an honest person. He didn't take the additional money for the land which shows how honest and self righteous he is. A self righteous man such as Don Anselmo was not trying to be clever in this situation.
He was aware of the potential problem too. The reason why Don Anselmo didn't take the money was because he knew that he couldn't sell the trees. Knowing that, he probably could predict that the kids might still come visit the trees and overrun the property of the Americans. Don Anselmo knew that he couldn't sell the trees and thus probably could predict the potential problems that might occur.
My theory is that he just didn't find it necessary to talk about the ownership of trees at the moment. I read this story, where the main character doesn't find out a lot of things until it's too late. But when she asks her fellow classmates about the reason why they didn't tell her, they tell her that she didn't ask. I think Don Anselmo is like that too. I think he just didn't find it necessary to talk about the trees on his first visit to the lawyer's.
Question #6: Infer Why doesn't Don Anselmo reveal who "owns" the trees on his first visit to the lawyer's office? Was he being clever, or was he unaware of the potential problem? Explain.
Don Anselmo was not being clever. Don Anselmo is an honest person. He didn't take the additional money for the land which shows how honest and self righteous he is. A self righteous man such as Don Anselmo was not trying to be clever in this situation.
He was aware of the potential problem too. The reason why Don Anselmo didn't take the money was because he knew that he couldn't sell the trees. Knowing that, he probably could predict that the kids might still come visit the trees and overrun the property of the Americans. Don Anselmo knew that he couldn't sell the trees and thus probably could predict the potential problems that might occur.
My theory is that he just didn't find it necessary to talk about the ownership of trees at the moment. I read this story, where the main character doesn't find out a lot of things until it's too late. But when she asks her fellow classmates about the reason why they didn't tell her, they tell her that she didn't ask. I think Don Anselmo is like that too. I think he just didn't find it necessary to talk about the trees on his first visit to the lawyer's.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
26th of October: Homework: Stop the Sun
Literary Focus: Literary Analysis:
Question #5: Compare and Contrast Terry and his mother support his father in different ways. What do these differences tell us about them?
Terry's mother tries to ignore her husband's syndrome. She tries not to talk about Terry's father's past and his syndrome too. I think she tries to block the reality and just wants to live a normal life. She thinks that it's best to not remind her husband of his past and hurt him in the process. She is the type of person that finds it better to ignore a problem rather than confront it.
Terry, on the other hand, wants to know more about the syndrome and even though he tries to ignore the syndrome when it bothers him, he can't. Terry is very curious of his father's past and wants to find out more about it one way or the other. He wants understand his father's problem by asking his mother, teacher and later his father about it. Terry thinks it's better to confront the problem and deal with it rather than ignore it. In this aspect, he is totally different from his mother.
Question #5: Compare and Contrast Terry and his mother support his father in different ways. What do these differences tell us about them?
Terry's mother tries to ignore her husband's syndrome. She tries not to talk about Terry's father's past and his syndrome too. I think she tries to block the reality and just wants to live a normal life. She thinks that it's best to not remind her husband of his past and hurt him in the process. She is the type of person that finds it better to ignore a problem rather than confront it.
Terry, on the other hand, wants to know more about the syndrome and even though he tries to ignore the syndrome when it bothers him, he can't. Terry is very curious of his father's past and wants to find out more about it one way or the other. He wants understand his father's problem by asking his mother, teacher and later his father about it. Terry thinks it's better to confront the problem and deal with it rather than ignore it. In this aspect, he is totally different from his mother.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
7th of October: Homework: Short Story
“There are Idea Starters on the right side of page 231. You can use these ideas, mix them together or even come up with a new idea. It’s all up to you.” Mr. Patrick explained to his sixth period class. Both hands holding the big Language Arts book, he walked around the small classroom full of eight grade AIS students. Olia, who was sitting in the front row was excited about the assignment. Sure her stomach hurt from eating too much in lunch time but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Mr. Patrick was giving a writing assignment and Olia loved to write.
“You guys have twenty minutes to brainstorm and fill in the “Pre-write” worksheet. What you can’t finish now will be your homework.” As soon as Mr. Patrick said that, Olia took out her pencil and started to brainstorm.
After five minutes, Olia finally thought of what she called an average story.
“A story about a dead girl.” She said to herself. “That might work.” And she started filing in the worksheet. But minutes passed and Olia still couldn’t fill in the events part of the worksheet.
For the whole afternoon, Olia’s head was busy filtering her ideas, throwing bad ideas out and taking possible good ideas in. What she learned in Life Science or what she read in Chinese class was totally forgotten for the whole afternoon.
By the time Olia came home, she was too tired to brainstorm and admitted to herself one thing: She was stuck.
“Huh.” Olia sighed and went upstairs to her room.
“Hey.” Olia greeted her sister, Tania who was sitting on the bed of their shared room. “I need your …”
“Wait.” Tania cut her off. “Where’s Cirque Du Freak that you promised me.” Olia sighed and took out Cirque Du Freak volume five that her sister was so eager to read. Tania snatched the comic book out of Olia’s hands and started flipping through the pages.
“Hey, I have a short story assignment. I came up with something but I’m not sure if it’s god enough. Can you…” Olia glances in Tania’s direction. “Are you listening to me?” Olia put her hands on her hips and puffed her cheeks. Tania was too busy reading to notice what ever Olia did.
“I have a lot of homework today. Can you please let me read in peace before dinner?”
“Fine.” Olia exclaimed and went to take a shower. “I’ll just ask her later.” She thought and slammed the bathroom door.
“… and then she finds out that her family really loves her and goes up to after life happily. What do you think?” Olia was sitting next to her sister in their room after dinner. Her sister as sitting at the big wooden desk surrounded by pink walls that Olia was so annoyed with.
“It’s okay.” Tania said, her eyes never leaving her homework.
“Can’t you give me a better comment than ‘OK’?” Olia said feeling frustrated.
“I don’t like it.” Tania said. Her eyes were still on her homework.
“Then give me a better idea.” Olia said, raising her voice a little bit.
“Write about ethics.”
“What about them?”
“The super factorial number 1! x 2! x 3! x…x 12! can be written as a factorial times a perfect square, that, is in the form m! x n2. What is m… I think m should be six…”
“What are you talking about?” Olia leaned over her sister just in time to see Tania circle option B.
“Math homework? Come on, is your homework more important than me?” Olia finally exploded.
“I told you my idea and you didn’t like it. What else can I do?” Tania sighed.
“Come up with a new idea, of course.” Olia said in an exasperated voice.
“I’m no writer, sorry.”
“You don’t need to be a writer!” Olia shouted and sat on the bed that was right next to the table.
“You know, if you struggle so much just to think of a plot, why don’t you write about how you struggle? There’s a conflict and there are characters right?” Tania said, finally looking at Olia while speaking. A light bulb turned on on top of Olia’s head.
“Tania, that’s a genius idea!” She exclaimed and started to fill in her worksheet, this time, with no difficulty.
“Hey Tania!” Olia yelled from the first floor of her house the next day.
“What?” Tania yelled back from the third floor.
“I got 100%.”
“On what?” Tania yelled.
“Arg.” Olia said. “Forget it.” She yelled and went to eat. Tania will never change.
“You guys have twenty minutes to brainstorm and fill in the “Pre-write” worksheet. What you can’t finish now will be your homework.” As soon as Mr. Patrick said that, Olia took out her pencil and started to brainstorm.
After five minutes, Olia finally thought of what she called an average story.
“A story about a dead girl.” She said to herself. “That might work.” And she started filing in the worksheet. But minutes passed and Olia still couldn’t fill in the events part of the worksheet.
For the whole afternoon, Olia’s head was busy filtering her ideas, throwing bad ideas out and taking possible good ideas in. What she learned in Life Science or what she read in Chinese class was totally forgotten for the whole afternoon.
By the time Olia came home, she was too tired to brainstorm and admitted to herself one thing: She was stuck.
“Huh.” Olia sighed and went upstairs to her room.
“Hey.” Olia greeted her sister, Tania who was sitting on the bed of their shared room. “I need your …”
“Wait.” Tania cut her off. “Where’s Cirque Du Freak that you promised me.” Olia sighed and took out Cirque Du Freak volume five that her sister was so eager to read. Tania snatched the comic book out of Olia’s hands and started flipping through the pages.
“Hey, I have a short story assignment. I came up with something but I’m not sure if it’s god enough. Can you…” Olia glances in Tania’s direction. “Are you listening to me?” Olia put her hands on her hips and puffed her cheeks. Tania was too busy reading to notice what ever Olia did.
“I have a lot of homework today. Can you please let me read in peace before dinner?”
“Fine.” Olia exclaimed and went to take a shower. “I’ll just ask her later.” She thought and slammed the bathroom door.
“… and then she finds out that her family really loves her and goes up to after life happily. What do you think?” Olia was sitting next to her sister in their room after dinner. Her sister as sitting at the big wooden desk surrounded by pink walls that Olia was so annoyed with.
“It’s okay.” Tania said, her eyes never leaving her homework.
“Can’t you give me a better comment than ‘OK’?” Olia said feeling frustrated.
“I don’t like it.” Tania said. Her eyes were still on her homework.
“Then give me a better idea.” Olia said, raising her voice a little bit.
“Write about ethics.”
“What about them?”
“The super factorial number 1! x 2! x 3! x…x 12! can be written as a factorial times a perfect square, that, is in the form m! x n2. What is m… I think m should be six…”
“What are you talking about?” Olia leaned over her sister just in time to see Tania circle option B.
“Math homework? Come on, is your homework more important than me?” Olia finally exploded.
“I told you my idea and you didn’t like it. What else can I do?” Tania sighed.
“Come up with a new idea, of course.” Olia said in an exasperated voice.
“I’m no writer, sorry.”
“You don’t need to be a writer!” Olia shouted and sat on the bed that was right next to the table.
“You know, if you struggle so much just to think of a plot, why don’t you write about how you struggle? There’s a conflict and there are characters right?” Tania said, finally looking at Olia while speaking. A light bulb turned on on top of Olia’s head.
“Tania, that’s a genius idea!” She exclaimed and started to fill in her worksheet, this time, with no difficulty.
“Hey Tania!” Olia yelled from the first floor of her house the next day.
“What?” Tania yelled back from the third floor.
“I got 100%.”
“On what?” Tania yelled.
“Arg.” Olia said. “Forget it.” She yelled and went to eat. Tania will never change.
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