Clear-up after Afghanistan quakes

There was a very huge clear-up after two earthquakes at Afghanistan on Friday. There were at least 21 people were killed and 4 villages damaged and about 200 houses were destroyed. The workers arrived to the area as soon as they can, but they were too late for some of the people, many have died from this tragic disaster.


Saturday April 18 2009
from BBC
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8000000/newsid_8005200/8005202.stm

Children killed in US plane crash

There were fourteen people killed by a plane crash in Montana. The plane was flying fourteen people from California to Montana for a ski trip; seven of them were children. This horrible accident took the life of seven young children. The accident is still under investigation, the official claimed that they didn’t have much information at this moment and not really sure what caused the terrible accident.

Monday, March 23 2009
By BBC
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7950000/newsid_7958500/7958563.stm

School meals rules "too strict"

The schools in England are having a plan of making healthy food for the students. There are some special rules need to be followed and it is really interesting. There's also a group called The Local Authority Caterers Association which provide the school meals which says that the best way to help those students have a healthy body is to have a balanced healthy diet.

Wednesday, March 25 2009
By BBC
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7960000/newsid_7962700/7962738.stm

Scotland

The people that lived in Scotland around 1200s were in a dark age. They were very poor and most of the people had never taken a bath in their whole life. In the movie that we were watching during our humanities class was called "The Brave Heart", the British had controlled the people in Scotland. At that time, there were no laws to protect the people in Scotland, so the solders from England can do whatever they want. For instance, the solders can take someone else’s wife. They can kill whomever that they wanted to kill. It was very unfair to the Scottish people. 1200s was a very dark age; there were a lot of people who lives in Scotland were killed. They were poor; they wore very dirty and simple clothes. For my opinion, it was a very terrible time.

image source: http://api.ning.com/files/SxxQ-bTcXOnPFSIiTjABsfdwDip75uJ8-TYWHBY72Vd*wQKrqw1TBJoPhgIw0jmVuT5L-J2ILqpSQT3x-Akeswb6LfhlbjUJ/scotland.jpg

After the fall of the Roman Empire

After the fall of the Roman Empire, there were no strong army that can protect the people and the land. Many wars broke out, the society of that time was also not in order, that was the time we called “Dark Ages”. The Roman Empire had little ability to control those lost lands. Without the protection from the government and constant wars going on, people’s life changed a lot, during that time, the rulers was not able to keep the libraries, public baths areas, and major educational institutions. Any new building that was much smaller than before. Cities and businessman lost the economic benefits and there were no safe conditions to trade things or make things. Culture development and education were fall behind. It became unsafe to travel or carry goods to other places, many arts and crafts disappeared overnight.

image source: http://knowinglyundersold.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/13602_fall_of_the_roman_empire_screen_5.jpg

Article - Feudalism

After reading about the feudalism information from the about.com, I learned that the scholars created the word “feudalism” in the 16th and 17th century to describe a political system at that time. Feudalism was not the only form of political organization back in the medieval Europe. The peasants work on a land for a lord so they can get protection, known as manorialism or seignorialism, they are not the same as “feudal system”. Still others since the 1970s have re-examined the evidence and concluded that feudalism is an unworkable term and should be removed entirely from the educational discussion, or at least used only with severe qualification and warning. Therefore, I think fedualism is just a general term to describe the polictical system at that time, can’t be fully represent the political system in the medieval time.

image source: http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/feudalism.jpg

The Crusades Video

In the video that we had watched during humanities class was about the Christian of Europe in the 11th-13th centuries that wanted to take back the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Crusaders were against everyone who did not follow their religion and did not look like them. This included Muslims, Jews, and even dark-skinned Christians, all of whom were attacked and murdered by them. It was really terrible because all the different groups had been killed by the Christians. I really think that Crusaders were heartless and cruel. People should have their freedom to choose their own religion, and the Crusaders really caused the hate between the Christianity and Muslims.

image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Gustave_dore_crusades_entry_of_the_crusaders_into_constantinople.jpg

Simulation Blog Post

The simulation that we've done today was to write down all the workers' job and use the note to explain these info about the jobs in the Medieval time in Rachel's kingdom. Everyone tried hard on doing his or her own work. We drew the castle, which the pope, queen, and the noble lived. Outside the castle on top of the little small mountain, there was a very long and wide road that was built by stones, which people and horses can get through. Besides the road, the stores, shops, etc, and it was a very bustling town. Down to the mountain, there was a very big farm, a bit far from the mountain, which farmers lived in the downtown. People there work for the queen, we haven't finish our final decision and queen Rachel will still find a better way to compete the draft about her kingdom design.

image source: http://images.google.com.tw/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/33149539_426bae23ff.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/thisfrenchlife/33149539/&usg=__PSMU3Xe9XieYKIVzY9MylM3bnBU=&h=500&w=392&sz=48&hl=zh-TW&start=15&um=1&tbnid=8NSj9GL2OGkIrM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmedieval%2Bartisans%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dzh-TW%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

Blood Red Horse

The book Blood Red Horse, which was written by K.M. Grant. The story is well written and has a definite sense of period in the 1100’s but no old English dialogue. There are three main characters; will, Gavin and Ellie, are well drawn and have real depth. In the story, I think William and Ellie had a vivid characteristic. William is a young boy who lives in the city of Hartslove, governed by his father, Sir Thomas de Granville. Gavin, his brother, is a knight with a black stallion warhorse called Montlouis. William and his brother Gavin didn’t get along well; Gavin is a bully, and mistreated William. Ellie is a young girl, adopted by the de Granvilles and brought up with Gavin and William. Ellie is a little girl who is very clever and smart. I liked her the most. She was supposed to marry Gavin, but she was in love with William. In the 1100's in England most of the marriages were pre-arranged, especially in a big wealthy family. Through the book, you can follows their growth from children to young adults. As they age it becomes ever clearer that there is a romantic triangle of sorts here - Ellie is clearly attached to Will, yet must marry Gavin the oldest. How their emotional stories progress really holds the story together.

The 1100's was during the Medieval time, it was a custom that peasants live together in villages, and farm the land in strips, each peasant owning his own strip of land. The villages were mainly self-governing, run by the manor court, which was made up of officials chosen from among the villagers themselves. As people needed protection, they empowered kings and lords through knights to protect them, or those kings empowered themselves to make that transaction on their behalf.
As people developed crafts and began moving their lives more around larger villages and cities to ply their trades, a middle class and upper middle class developed, and standing armies began coming into favor as power centered around the royals - kings, princes, dukes - while knights and extended nobles became less and less relevant.

image source: http://www.inlyschool.net/summer_reading/BookImages6-10/proficient/BloodRedHorse.jpg

Climate change "makes hurricanes"

The number of the extreme big storms in the Atlantic Ocean has been rising, it was because the climate has changed and effected by the major problem –“ the global warming”. The hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean have been doubled compared in the past hundred years. The ocean has been warmer and warmer, the sea temperature has been affected and changed the climate and increased the number of the hurricanes in the ocean. The experts estimated that in 2007 it will be a hurricane active year and about nine hurricanes were forecast. In this article, I have learned that the climate changing had affected the nature and created many problems. The hurricane is a terrible thing to most of the farmers because it will damage the crops and make them lose their money, all the hard work will go down in the drain. The prices in vegetables will go up to the public. The hurricane not just created a horrible situation to the human being, but also to the animals as well.

Monday July 30 2007
By BBC
source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6920000/newsid_6922700/6922763.stm

Calls for more deer to be culled

In Britain, there are calls for the number of deer were too many, and need to be controlled and try to cut down some on the road accidents. In the past, there were many creatures on the road and caused 200 car crashes per day. Some of the experts said that the deer should be killed; therefore some of the deer had been shot to control the population of the deer. But there were also some experts disagreed of culling the deer, they think that there will should other ways to control the numbers of the deer. People think that too much creatures will have many problems and they will be over populated in numbers, so some of the creatures still have to be killed for controlling the balance of the population. They have tried to make signs and special markings on the roads to stop the crashes but accidents still occurs.
For the deer article, I think the caused of the accident was that the deer population was out of control, and there is no effective way to protect and keep the population in the right numbers. I think if I worked in the city council, I will set up a hunting season, which will allow people to hunt deer during the hunting season, which can keep the deer population in the right number. Or I will have a reserved area for the deer, so they can get protected, and during the hunting season, the reserved area can also open to public for hunting.

Thursday January 29 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7850000/newsid_7859000/7859019.stm

Humanities - Learning Outcomes

What of the Learning Outcomes did I use in my learning?

In the Learning Outcomes, i used the community contributor in my learning. I did some community service to help the people and the community, I help the community to clean the streets and I never litter. I have also used the critical thinker and problem solver in my learning. I helped my classmates to solve some computer problems before and also give some suggestions to help them to solve their problems. Sometimes help with their homework or even some personal matter.

How did I use each of those learning outcomes? How can I describe each one?( i.e, how could someone see me being an active learning, a community contributor?

As for the active learner, it means that the person want to learn more. I did some research for my projects, also for my extra readings. I sometimes ask for help from teachers, classmates or my parents, and it was very helpful.

The effective communicator means that the person has a very good relationship with other people; and they can communicate with others very well. I had helped my friends to ask for some information and also had communicated with people from other countries. I learned a lot of different cultures from them and I had also introduced my country to them and it was a good conversation.

The problem solver, the person solves the problem when they meets one and also help the other to get over their problem. I had once that helped my classmate to solve her computer problem, it took a while but it works after I fixed it and I solved her problem.

The person of high characters is with honest and loyalty. For me, I had always been loyal and honest to my classmates, friends, teachers, my parents and family.

Finally, the community contributor is a person that cares about the community and help it to make it better. I had done the community service before for about four hours during school hours. We took care of the dogs; I tried to feed them, took them for a walk and it was really great.

What content, skills and big ideas did I learn from doing the project?

The book report of the Language Arts class, i learned how to find out the plots, what are introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. These were very important tips to help you understand the book very well. We had also need to write down the characters from the book that you were interested in and described their characteristics with strong adjectives and give examples. It was a very big project and we also need to have a presentation in front of the whole class and give comments or suggestions to others and learn from each others.

Investigation into NY plane crash

There was a plane crash into a river in New York on Thursday. Due to the experienced pilot, everyone on the board made out safely. Investigators were already talked to the pilot about what really happened. The officials wanted to pull out the plane in one piece, a giant crane and a huge boat have already been brought to do the job. According to the Captain, he thinks that the crash was caused by birds flying into the engines.

Saturday January 17 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7830000/newsid_7835000/7835037.stm

Bafta award nominations revealed

The film Wall-E had just won a Golden Globe, and after a few days, it has been nominated again for another three awards. The rubbish collecting robot is the best film and the best sound at the Bafta awards. Wall-E is going head to head with the musical movie Mamma Mia. Kate Winslet, winner of the Golden Globes was also nominated as the best actress at the Bafta awards, so does Heath Ledger for best supporting actor for his role as Joker in the Dark Knight.

Thursday January 15 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7830000/newsid_7830200/7830201.stm

Wall-E wins at the Golden Globes

Wall-E has wan the prize of the best film which was the Golden Globes in Los Angeles. The story was about the human produce too much garbage and Wall-E was the rubbish - picking robot. This movie has beat off another two films Kung Fu Panda and Bolt and won the award. Blot is the film that features the voice of Miley Cyrus. Golden Globes are considered the prediction of future Oscars winners.
Kate was also a big winner of that night, she had won2 Golden Globes, and Kate was very shocked when she won her prize because she had been nominated for many times, but never won anything.

Monday January 12 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7820000/newsid_7823500/7823522.stm

Zavvi to close 22 shops

The retailer music store Zavvi had been badly affected by the closure of Woolworths and 22 stores were closed down because of that. Zavvi still has 92 stores remaining and are struggling to survive under the recession. They hope that some parts of their business could be sold out to new owners so the rest of the stores can still operate normally. There will be 178 people losing their jobs resulted from this world-wide recession.

Thursday January 08 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7810000/newsid_7817700/7817781.stm

MOVIE BEN-HUR part 2 / part 3

Judah Ben-Hur is a 17 year old Jew at the time of the roman occupation of Judea. His boyhood friend, Messala, comes back from Rome to help to govern the province of Judea. But he is no longer the Messala Judah once knew. He is a Roman now. Judah realizes that they can no longer be friends, and he leaves him. 

Later that day he stands on the roof of his house to watch the new govenor parade in. He accidentily knocks a tile from the roof and hits the govenor on the head. The govener, being slightly furious at Judah, sends him to the galleys and his mother and sister are sent to a rather unpleasent prison. All of their possessions, including their house are taken by the romans. Judah is furious at Messala for doing this and vows to kill him.

Three years later Quintis Arrius takes over the ship that Ben-Hur is rowing in.
They are attacked by pirates and Ben-hur saves Arrius' life. Arrius is very grateful to Ben-Hur and adopts him, making him the heir to all his property.

Five years later Judah arrives in Antioch. There he meets a wealthy merchant named Simonides and his daughter, Esther. Ben-Hur thinks she is very pretty, but he has more important things to think about. He finds out that Simonides is his fathers servant and he asks him where is mother and sister are. Simonides does not know where they are and sorrowfully tells Ben-Hur that he does not know.
Simonides does not say that he believes Ben-Hur or not. Ben-Hur goes away and meets Shiek Ilderim. Shiek Ilderim owns a very fine team of horses and Ben-Hur is an expert charioteer. He asks if he can be Ilderim's charioteer. He knows that Messala will also be in the race and he wishes to humiliate him by winning. 

There he meets an Egyptian named Balthazar and his beautiful daughter, Iras. Balthazar was one of the three wise men and he tells Judah that he should forgive Messala. Judah is not ready to do that.
He is quite taken with the beautiful Iras and spends as much time as he can with her.

Simonides has Judah come to him and he tells him that he is indeed his fathers servant and gives his fortune to him. Ben-Hur gives most of it back to him. Simonides than says that the king whom Balthazar had seen long ago, would have need of an army to conquer the romans. He suggests that that is what Ben-Hur should do with his fortune. Ben-Hur agrees.

When the day of the chariot race arrives people from all over the world are there. For a long time Messala has the lead. But he was to close to the wall. His chariot hit the wall and he fell out. Ben-Hur won the race and Messala is without use of his legs, and has lost his fortune from a bet he made that he would win.

In Jerusalem the tribune in charge of the prison finds a cell that has been almost completely blocked up. The only opening was a small one left for feeding the prisoners. I must say that must have been very unpleasent conditions to live in.
He opens it up and finds two women who have leprosy. He gives them clothes and they are brought out of the city. Unknown to him they are Ben-Hur's mother and his sister, Tirzah.

After the chariot race Judah continues his search for His mother and sister. He finds out that they are lepers and believes they have been stoned. So he follows Jesus and begins to gather followers for his army. Amrah, an old servant belonging to the Hurs know where Tirzah and her mother are and she brings food to them every day. She heard Judah talking about how Jesus cured lepers and she brings Tirzah and her mother to a road which Jesus will use to get to Jerusalem. Jesus cures them and Ben-Hur was in the following of Jesus sees them and is reunited with his family.

That friday he follows Jesus up to where he will be crucified. While he was watching along with thousands of other people he finally understands that Jesus will not have his kingdom on earth but in heaven.

Five years later, he is married to Esther and they decide what to do with there fortune.
They built the catacomb of San Calixto.

MOVIE BEN-HUR part 1

The movie that i watched today during class was about ancient Rome . The people in the movie dressed very normal and nothing special , everyone wore very somilar clothes . The buildings were also very empty . The Romans treated their slaves very rude , but they did not kill them , instead the Romans use them to work on the big ships . Jesus also applearsed in the movie . He was a kind-hearted ans generous man . In the beginning of the movie , there was a brief introduction of him . In the ancient Rome , the soldiers wore shorts because it was very hot during summer time , and they also wore red cape on their back and carried sword on their waist .

Britain gripped by big freeze

It has been freezing in some of the parts in UK , and it is as cold as the Arctic . The south east of England has dropped to eleven degrees below zero . The bad weather is going to stay until this weekend . The temperature in Scotland is rising during the day , but at night it is still very cold. The weather in UK now might get worse overnight .

Tuesday January 06 2009
by bbc
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7810000/newsid_7813000/7813060.stm

Search on for escaped beaver

The beaver has been hunted for their fur back in the 16th century in Britain . There were three beavers from the southern of England had escaped from their home . It occured in October, but two of them had been found in no time. Unfortunately, the third beaver has been abducted to a farther place and it was never been found. Beavers live near rivers, streams, ponds, small lakes and marshes. They build lodges of sticks and mud on islands, on pond banks or on lake shores. Beavers have to keep chewing on the woods so that their teeth wouldn't grow too long.

Tuesday December 30 2008
by bbc
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7800000/newsid_7805100/7805199.stm