White tiger assignment page 30 -130

What can you learn about Balram's life as a driver? 


You can learn that a driver is a deprived person. And that only because of the job! Many people see drives as servants/slaves. People who aren't smart enough to get higher in the social hierarchy. Drivers are woken up in the middle in the night when their 'mister' wants to go somewhere. It also depends on the kind of master you, as a driver, have. Mr. Ashok is pretty cool to Balram, not everyone driver can say so. It's also hard to become a driver, it costs a lot of money and the poorer people don't have that. 

What have we learned about the Indian Culture from the novel "The White Tiger"?

In the White Tiger, a guy named Balram is writing a letter to the Chinese premier Jiabao. Balram tells the Chinese premier about his life in India. As far as we have read (the first thirty pages), we didn't learn very much about the Indian Culture. It’s not very clear yet what is really a characteristic and what is not. Balram tells a story to Jiabao with two different points of views. The view of the media and foreigners, and his own point of view. For example, Indian people like to jump in the (holy) river Ganges, which is -according to Balram- a very dirty river. And many people in India are under-educated people, they're 'half-baked'. You can also make up of the first 30 pages that some kids go to school without having a name. This, however, is not immediately a characteristic of the Indian culture. When we're reading through the novel, we'll find more characteristics of the Indian culture I think.

TED Mark Pagel - How language transformed our humanity

I'm going to answer the question "What do you think about the fact that there's a dilemma in our modern globalized world. Whether to keep our 7,000 or 8,000 different languages or make the world as one world with one language.'

Well, I think that has some negative and positive sides. When everyone is going to change their language in the same one, teachers which teach people foreign language, will lose their job. Everybody is going to be the 'same' , there is no challenge anymore to learn how to speak another language with which you can communicate to foreign people. On the other hand, it'll make it easier to trade with eachother. When people speak the same language, there will be less of a barrier to understand eachother. Plus the fact that, like Mark Pagel said during his speech, the European Union will have to spend less/no money on translating all the reports into 23 different languages. This will save them billions of dollars! The money used for the translations could be used for Greece right now (for example).  I'm not supporter of the idea to make one world with only one language. It's hard to let all people adapt the new language. Besides, I think different languages are pretty much interesting!

There will be people who think: "YEAH! This is an amazing idea!". How will you change the language of people who live in the bush bush? Mark Pagel's speech was quite interesting, I'm wondering how different people think about this dilemma.

From metaphors we live by

Lakoff and Johnson have written a book about metaphors. Below you will read a short summary about the first seven chapters.

Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities.

A case of how a metaphorical concept can hide an aspect of our experience  can be seen in what Michael Reddy has called “conduit metaphor”.  The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/objects out of the word/containers.

The linguistic expressions are containers for meanings aspect of the conduit metaphor entails that words and sentences have meanings in themselves, independent of any context or speaker. The meanings are objects part of the metaphor, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and contexts. The part of the metaphor that says linguistic expressions are containers for meaning entails that words (and sentences) have meanings, again independent of context and speakers.
There are sentences that have no meaning without context, but there are cases where a single sentence will mean different things to different people.  The conduit metaphor does not fit cases where context is required to determine whether the sentence has many meanings at all and what meaning it has. 

Once we can identify our experiences as entities or substances, we can refer to them, categorize them , group them, and quantify them = REASON ABOUT THEM.
Ontological Metaphors are so natural, we don't notice them being a metaphor.



Different types of metaphors:
Structural Metaphors: one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another concept
Oriental Metaphors: have to do with spatial orientation (happy is up, sad is down)
Ontological Metaphors: entity and substance metaphor (Inflation: view it as an entitiy, refer to it, quantify and identify it)
Container Metaphors:
Land Areas: moving out, into another - we set boundaries for physical things, we define where the forest stops, we define when we're in or out a room.
Visual Field: we describe what we can or can not see.
Events, Actions, Activities, and States: Events are often viewed as a container object, Activities as substances. Activities are viewed as containers for the actions and other activities that make them up.
Personification: on-human objects or concepts are given human traits or described as if they were human.
Good things are UP, bad things are DOWN, fundamental concepts contain more or one spatialization metaphors. It is hard to distinguish the physical from the cultural basis of a metaphor, since the choice of one physical basis from among many possible ones has to do with cultural coherence.
Many of our values cohere with the metaphorical structure. Which values get priority depends on culture, subculture and your personal values.

School should start selling chips

We all love chips, especially when we have a period in school when we don't have class. This is why school should start selling chips. It's healthier than a sandwich because they fry it in natural fats. School will earn lots of money but, for us, a portion of chips will only cost €1! Besides the ridiculous cheap price, it is a perfect lunch for like once a week! Mayonnaise, JoppieSaus or the Macdonalds sauce will be included in the €1. Enough variation for everyone and it can make your day! Who does not want this?

American Civil Liberties Union advert

ACLU wants to stop discrimination by creating this ad.
I did not know that the right person was Charles Manson, a man with a criminal mind. The fact that Martin Luther King is 75 times more likely to be stopped by the police is shocking. I thought we'd passed that time period already. This is clearly not the case. It makes me pretty much angry how this can happen. A bad guy won't easily get stopped by the police while he has done so many bad things. I get the idea that they would even arrest a black person for murder when all the evidence available shows that there was a white guy who had murdered! This ad might be exaggerated and dramatized but there is truth in it. They want you to feel angry and shocked for the fact how this ever could happen. By using percentages it even looks worse. 80% is a lot! They really want to activate you to support their organization and I think they bring their story in the right way. The pictures will attract and interest the readers, then they get the desire to get to know more and finally,  exactly what ACLU wants, they can activate the readers to change this situation. Although, I don't think you, as a normal citizen, can change much about this. You will not be able to influence the police. The police (and the government itself) will have to change their way of acting. This should not longer happen.

Displace that place

This place, that place (Kiran Chandra) can be written with different words and letters and still sound the same. We had to analyse the following picture:

Analysis
My first impression was that it looked cool, interesting, challenging, strange but appealing. A lot of first impressions, haha. I think it is appealing because I find it interesting to look at such a pictures with text which creates different meanings while the sound stays the same. It is challenging to find out what they really mean by this.
Because of the white background, the black letters stand out. The basic colors make it very clear what is written in the picture. It's funny how different words can sound the same and how you can play with letters. I keep the meaning 'this place that place' in mind and for me while Kiran has used different words, I don't see another meaning. The same for when I keep the meaning 'displace that place' in mind.
I still can't figure out whether she's meant to say 'displace that place' or 'this place, that place', and to be honest, I don't even care about that. It's just cool for me how she shows that you can create different 3 sentences, which sound the same with different meanings.
After knowing the fact that Kiran was born in India, I think the right part of the upper picture must be a big city in India. Everything is a bit dirty and poor-ish.

Analysis 40-line fragment Romeo and Juliet

Act 2 scene 3 ll. 1 – 44

After the balcony scene, Romeo comes to Friar Lawrence’s cell and finds him between the beautiful flowers. The first 30 lines is an introduction of the friar, it tells about his flowers and how he uses them. This is important for the audience, otherwise they won’t know what he really is. Friar thinks he has not been sleeping last night because of Rosaline, his previous lover. This is false, Romeo came to visit the friar for serious help. He wanted to marry Juliet in secret. Friar does not want to help at first, later he does.

Romeo always comes to the friar for some wise advice, just like Juliet. Friar Lawrence marries the two lovers and later on, they come back for advice and help. The friar plays an important role in Romeo’s and Juliet’s life; he marries them, he helps Juliet to not marry Paris, he informs Romeo about his banishment and if they need any help, he’s there.

The tone in the fragment is pretty neutral and anxious. Romeo is up early and the friar thinks it’s no good. The tone of the friar himself is changing a lot. He starts off having a good day, the sun is shining and it’s all good. When he sees Romeo, he’s getting anxious because he’s up so early. The friar is nearly getting scared when he thinks Romeo has been with Rosaline (quote: “God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?”). Romeo his tone is neutral, he’s not happy, but just as nice as always. This will change later in the scene.

By using a lot of details, Shakespeare creates a situation wherein people may feel like they’re really there, when Friar Lawrence is talking. He also uses rhyme. (quote: “The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb”) Shakespeare also used alliteration, I’m not sure whether he did this on purpose. (quote: “So soon” “therefore thy”) What is also very remarkable is that nearly all nouns have an adjective (quote: “frowning night”, “burning eye”). 

Commenting on translation and what was my part in the translation?

Laura and me both translated Act 1 scene 1.  We wanted to have a more like a ‘gangster’ version of Romeo and Juliet. We have used NoFearShakespear for translations, just to have a look at the modern version. We did not copy it directly.
I have to admit that Laura has done more than I did. This was simply because she worked on it during cancelled periods and I did not have a laptop with me.

We kept the ‘naked weapon’ joke because it was a pervy joke and an important quote. Boys are often more sexually in making remarks, and Sampson made this remark. The “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” we changed into “Do you give us the finger?”. Many people do not know about biting the thumb as an insult to another person, this is why we changed it to giving the finger.

To use ‘modern’ insulting words, the play became more from nowadays.
The fragment of Romeo and Benvolio is a pretty important one, Romeo tells about his love for Rosaline. This is one of the most important events in the beginning, it comes back later during the play. To keep this part clear, we did not use too much ‘gangster’ words. The point Romeo tries to make is very clear.

Because of the fact that our play did not have many different events, it is not really interesting to get into every detail. I think our translation was pretty good and clear. It is a very important scene because this is where it all starts. 

Evaluation Romeo and Juliet

On the 8th of June, the time was there. We all had to perform Romeo and Juliet and I actually really liked it! I did not know all of my lines but I just sneaked to Sanne, behind the curtains, to read through my lines.  I expected it to be a huge fail, no one really knew his or her lines. The rehearsals we did in class were not really good in my opinion. It was chaotic. After only one rehearsal with all of us together, which already took us like 3 hours, I thought we wouldn’t fail as badly as I expected before. During the performance, it was pretty much fun. Romy fell on the ground while the curtains were still closed, she screamed “AU” and we all laughed. I think most of the audience did not know what had happened. People forgot their lines and just improvised some lines. Curtains got closed while the scene had not finished yet. I don’t really care though, I’ve had a fun and awesome evening with everyone together! Even in such a short time, I think we did a pretty great job!

Analysis Disabled by Wilfred Owen

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,

 — In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

 Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
 All of them touch him like some queer disease.

  

There was an artist silly for his face,

 For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

 And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,
After the matches carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why . . .

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
 Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
 He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.

 Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears
 Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
 For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
 And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
 Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,  

And take whatever pity they may dole.  

To-night he noticed how the women's eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don't they come

And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This poem is pretty negative/disappointed/pessimistic whatever you want to  call it. 

This is shown by several phrases. "queer diseases" , "shivered in his ghastly suit of grey", "he will never feel.."

Some of the stanzas are optimistic, at least, he thought they were optimistic.  They were about the army, before joining them. "No fears of fear came yet"

When he'd joined the army, he wished he had not lied about this age to join the army and he wished he never joined the army at all.


The contrasts used are:
disabled vs. healthy
whole vs. broken
cheered to war vs. cheered home
youth vs. old
truth vs. lie


A lot of rhyme is used in this poem. Also, metaphor ("threw away his knees"), personification ("Town used to swing so gay"), simile ("he'd look a god") and alliteration ("smart salutes") is used.

Revision of the poem weeks

The past weeks, we’ve been learning about poems and stylistic devices. I think the poems about World War I were interesting but difficult. I found it hard to get the real meaning of these poems. We’ve had the stylistic devices previous year, this year it was less difficult. It was interesting to learn more about these poems but when we had discussed like three poems, I felt like we already had discussed more than enough of those poems. While analyzing the poems, I thought it was amazing how these people could describe such normal things with such difficult words/sentences. It really amazed me. I think I could never do that.

Analysing an ad by using the advertising checklist

Source: http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/07/30/192-of-the-best-smart-clever-creative-advertisements/
Target audience: everyone who has to organize a funeral
Topic: Funeral service
Theme: Funerals
Informative: yes, when you need the help of a funeral service, you can look at the little tiny letters. There is an address or something
Reminder? No, not really
Comperative? Not really either...


AIDA:
Attention: "Come a little closer"
Interest: "Why would it be placed near a railway? You'll die when a train is coming along."
Desire: Good service to remember when you need it.
Action: Write it down somewhere.


Logo: the 2 crosses with circles underneath
Slogan: none
Transference: associates with the death
Bandwagon: none
Exaggeration: none
Stereotyping: not really
Using famous people: no


Persuasive language: Yes, "come a little closer"
Rhetoric: no
Jargon: not either
Intertextuality: No.
Loaded language: no
Naming: no
Slang: no
Imagery: no
Personification: no
Wordplay: no
Sound patterning: no


Shot type: the picture has been taken in a way the text is really outstanding
Rule of thirds: a little bit, the centre of the ad on the wall is on such a "rule of thirds - dot"
Colours: neutral, not too obvious
Lighting: nothing special about it
Background: -
Foreground: -
Images: - 

Discussing Dulce et Decorum est and the Toyota ad

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

This poem consists of words which have a negative glow on them. He wrote the whole poem in a dramatic way, by using rhyme it became a good readable story. It also gave more feeling to the story, like you really feel what's happening at that moment (at least, that's how I felt). It describes how hard life was as an soldier fighting for your country. "Dulce et Docorum est pro patria mori" means "it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country." Owen does not agree on this. "All went lame, all blind", "Obscene as cancer". These are parts of a text you wouldn't like to happen to you. This is a hard poem to read. Owen used rhyme (blood - cud), simile (coughing like hags), and alliteration ("And watch the white eyes writhing in his face") in his poem.

I think this is an interesting poem, it describes life as a soldier (which was horrible). It took some time to analyse this but it was worth it. Life as a soldier was not good at all.


Yes, i know i don't have enough words, but i have been working on this for like 3 days and i could not come up with more words.


The features of the Toyota ad

This ad has a witty, arresting image, it's an eyecatcher when you're looking through a magazine or something. When people have a closer look, they will see that there's a lady in the middle.
It also has clear graphics, it gives you a modern feel, it's not like an ad from 50 years ago.
The "TOYOTA" is the prominent logo of the ad. You may say it's not really a logo, but people easily recognize it. The first thing you see when you look at this picture is the "Zero emissions" and the 'flower' on the background. When you take a little time to analyse this picture, you'll see there's a lady in the middle of the flower, and that they try to create zero emissions. ("aim")
This is an interesting ad, there is a lot to discover and to think about.

5 Creative advertisements

Target audience: men, interested in cars
This is the advertisement for Mini Cooper. 
The women bent because of the "Mini" and she's waiting for a car to pass by. I think the advertisement just describes the 'Mini' and the 'Cooper' and nothing more.



Target audience: adults, elderly. Actually all people who want to have a nice breath
This is the advertisement of Clorets.
Fish smell and when you have a bad breath your tongue colors a bit. This is why the fish is placed as a tongue, when you're having a bad breath, you can smell like fish!

Target audience: people who are old enough to go on a trip by themselves, from grown-ups to elderly
This is the advertisement of Eurostar.com
The food is the typical English breakfast and lovers often have sex. This is why the egg attracts the beans which have changed into sperms. 

Target audience: all people who use stamps
This advertisement from Australia post is meant to show how your own post stamp would look like. 
You can create one yourself, the mirror is the place where and how your picture is going to be placed.

Target audience: people who are having sex (there is no specific age for those things)
Condomshop.ch created this advertisement. "Don't be stupid, protect yourself"
When you're not using a condom, you might get into dangerous situations. Just like when your house is on fire.
I think they choose to use the nude man so people will think he just had sex without a condom and therefore came into this dangerous situation.

Social Media

The role of social media is grossly overestimated.


We had the discussion if the role of social media is grossly overestimated.
Many of us disagreed. It is easier to communicate with eachother, the whole world knows what's happening, the social media is accessible for everyone and it's cheap. No phone costs, only internet costs. Whenever you want to get more information you can go on a social media to look it up. You can find people with the same interests as you on the internet and have a nice chat with them. If there has happened something dramatic, most people tweet it. So we're all quickly up-to-date.

Guinness book of records for having 8 kids

Laura from Miguel street (a street near the Port of Spain) set a record in the Guinness Book of Records 2 years ago. She was the only one in the world who has 8 kids. Nothing strange about that but, those kids are from 7 different men!

It’s time to get to know that remarkable story better.
We did some research in Miguel street, talked to some people
and went to Laura if she wanted to talk to us about this great news.
And yes, she gave us some more information about the background of the 8 kids,
7 different men and how she experienced it.

Laura was very happy about this. Not everyone has the ability to get such a record
in the Guinness book of records! After 3 or 4 times getting a baby,
you get to used to it, according to Laura. Her first 6 kids are from 6 different
men, the last 2 are from the same man, called Nathaniel. She said their relationship
was pretty serious and Nathaniel came to live with her. He was
pretty quick a member of the Miguel street ‘gang’. Nathaniel made rude remarks
to women who just passed by and he told the guys he was used to beat Laura.
But the opposite was true. Laura admits she shouts and curses at her kids, but
she really loves them. She also blames God for the fact of having so many kids.
There was no job for Laura, but she still had to feed all those hungry mouths.
She did this by asking her friends for some help.

According to a boy from Miguel Street, her belly was rising and rising,
then it was flat again. After a few months it started to rise again!
 “Laura was the most vivacious person in the street”, the boy said.
Many Miguel street people had the opinion that Nathaniel was dirtier than them,
because he came from the east end of Port of Spain. When the guys from Miguel street
discovered that Nathaniel was actually trying to be the ‘cool guy’ from Miguel street
by saying he was used to beat Laura, they wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
After their first child (Laura’s 7^th child) , Laura wanted Nathaniel to leave.
She said she’d call the police, that made him finally leave Miguel street.
The only thing what was left was another child in her belly from Nathaniel.

The eldest daughter of Laura, Lorna, drowned in a swimming pool
only one week ago. This was very sad for Laura and the other 7 kids.
We wish Laura and her kids the best of all.
Now Laura has a place in the Guinness book of records, people probably want to be better than her. So who knows? Maybe there’s a women with 10 kids from 10 different men!

written by Tukusi for Girls Only Magazine Trinidad and Tobago.™

Rationale

I choose to write a Magazine Article because I wanted to inform others about this happening. The Magazine is called “Girls Only Magazine”, just because I couldn’t come up with something better and I think girls are more interested in such a story than men are.

My first idea was to write a newspaper article but that was a little bit too hard and I couldn’t find the right formal sentences, instead I was writing more informal sentences. I also started with an introduction which is written in a way like you’re telling it to a friend. Then I thought about ‘doing research’, so I could quote some things from the book.

To make it look a bit professional, I wrote her answers in the article, but not like an interview. It still had to be an article. It also gave a better story, than just telling everything from the authors view. Now it’s clear, the 3^rd paragraph is about Laura and how she has been thinking about this all. And the 4^th paragraph, I include the “I-person” from the book in it. Because I still don’t know what his name is. The reason I wrote that the record was already set 2 years ago is because of the 5^th paragraph.

In the book, later in the chapter, Lorna dies. I thought this would be nice for my article so I had to change the time for a bit. I could not say that Laura set the record only 1 week ago, so that would mean her 8^th child is one week old now. If I did so, it would not really fit into the story according to the book.

The last paragraph is more like an ending in a magazine I think. Bit of asking a opinion (“who knows?!”) of the one who reads this article, but also show that it’s the end of the article.

The last thing to discuss is the writer. I chose a name which means hummingbird in the Trinidad and Tobago language. The Girls only magazine is a magazine from Trinidad and Tobago. Because the story has happened in the country itself, in one of the streets near the port of Spain. The language use is not like the people of Miguel street, this is just because I think there are people in Trinidad and Tobago who do speak ‘normal ‘ English. The Miguel street gang might just speak a dialect.  

Past vs. Future

What is more important? You can’t say that the future is the most important for all of us. It depends on the person. For me, I think the past is the most important but the future is also quite important...

People often say: “The past repeats itself”. If that is true, the past would be more important for us because we can expect what is going to happen and prepare ourselves for it. But therefore, it would be less exciting if you already know what is going to happen.

A lot of things got discovered in the past, but without a doubt, I can say that this will also happen in the future. We, or scientists, haven’t discovered everything yet. Maybe there will be more information about where we, the human being, come from. Or if the evolution theory is right.  There is already pretty much evidence to show that the earth is older than the people who believe in a creator of the earth believe. Scientists have shown that the evolution began 8million years ago, the creationists believe the earth is only 4,000 years old. But who knows if scientists are always right?

I think in the future we’ll develop even more technology. Nowadays we have the iPad, iMac, Macbook, laptop, mobile phone and iPod. In the future this will be a product everyone has, and there are even more luxuries.

With the knowledge from the past, we can handle things which will happen in the future or are already happening. But we must not forget that some knowledge from the past might be outdated. So in fact the future will most likely be a place where we will see to the knowledge of the past combined with the possibilities of today.

Without a past, you don’t have enough knowledge to survive in the future. But there are new problems we will have to face in the future, which were not there yet in the past (or not that big), which means we don’t have all the knowledge yet.

By reading all those arguments, I change my mind and I think both are equal important.  I think that past and future are equally dependant on each other, no past without a future, because then why would we live? And no future without past, because where would we be without the inventions from the past?

"How to Die"

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
  While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
  To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
  Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
  And on his lips a whispered name.

You'd think, to hear some people talk,
  That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
  Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it
  Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
  With due regard for decent taste. 

We did a Phileas Fogg play about the first world war

and of course, we had to write a response:

The first world war really interests me. This is why I really liked the Phileas Fogg role play. I had to play the ‘news reader’, or actually, the one who read some names of cities in which people had died. I also had to support Iris together with Laura, while we died in the gassy air. The people who taught us the play were really nice, just like 2 years ago. They are funny as well by the way. This was finally a nice ‘Op-Maat’ project. In the end of the play, Ben was the last man standing. He was the only soldier who survived. This was an awesome moment. Everyone died and Ben still stood in the middle with his helmet and a gun. I learned a lot about the first World War; how people lived, how they died, what they did to survive and ofcourse, how to play drama. Mr. van Voorthuizen also recorded the play and I’m really looking forward to see it again. If there was an opportunity to do it again, I definitely would take that opportunity.

Woesh

So, this is a new blog which we needed to create for our English assignments.
I'll only post those assignments on here, other posts/pictures etc are on Tumblr.


Just so you know.