Making the Invisible, Visible: The first step...

     There are over 30 million people trafficked in the world today and the world have an average of having one person trafficked every 30 seconds. Out of all this, only 1% of the people gets rescued and the rest are all exposed to forced labour, unwanted sex all for the evil slave owners who makes all the money. A slave only cost 90 USD today and it is still a high growing crime today. Human trafficking is ranked number 3 of the top three of the crimes that exists in the world today. We must find a way to stop human trafficking and bring peace to this world.

     Some surprises I've encountered during my research are that a cost of a slave is only on average 90 USD, or 270 RM in Malaysia, which means the slave owners think the slave's lives are worth little money. Something else that surprised me was that I never have known that such a small country like Malaysia is both a host and a destination ground for traffickers. The traffickers usually bring people from Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia and Burma over to Malaysia and then expose them to sex and forced labour. I was also surprised because I thought slavery have ended a long time ago but only until now, I realized that slavery still not only exists, but increased on size! A good fact that surprises me is that although there are 30 million slaves in the world today, we can still stop it in 25 years. It surprised me because 30 million slaves with only 1% of them being saved can still be stopped in only 25 years, which I didn't expect it to be that short.


     I'm also sad because most of the slaves suffered for a few years and their lives aren't easy at all. I can't imagine how to live through all that and come out and can still tell those terrible stories and they're the only lucky 1% out of the whole 30 million slaves in the world today. I can't help feel shocked also because slavery was meant to be ended a long time ago in the 20th century but research showed that there are more slaves in the world today than that 30 years ago, when slavery was actually llegal.
 

     This image shows the issue human trafficking and it shows that the trafficked people really want help, but it makes it hard because they're kept invisible in the dark of the world. It is important to our community because human trafficking occurs a lot in Malaysia and we should rise awareness to the people and the government to stop human trafficking and help the slaves to escape. Learning about this issue makes me both surprised and sad and I think we should all collaborate together, stop Human Trafficking and make this world a better place for everyone.

Stopping Alcohol Addiction Is Worth Fighting For

Stopping Alcohol Addiction Is Worth Fighting For

   There are over 140 million people in the world who is addicted to alcohol and just in the US, there are 17.6 million adults who are addicted to alcohol. Alcohol should be stopped among the people to prevent alcohol addiction. Too much alcohol can lead to many harmful things including traffic accidents, unwanted rape and harmful things to the body. There are many ways to stop people being addicted to alcohol. Putting up ads about why they should stop alcohol, make videos to educate people and not to binge drink yourself and tell your friends not to too.

    Putting up ads is one effective and relatively cheap way to make people notice and stop drinking alcohol. Facts about what alcohol does to your body is an effective way to stop people from alcohol addiction. “The ads we have helped set up has been proved to be helpful. Some of our friends have actually stopped because of our ad.” From this, we can see that ads are proved to be helpful and they not only help other people stop alcohol, it also helps your friends stop drinking if they have the same problem. Ads can also show alcoholics what the negative effects of alcohol can be. “The ads we have set up showed most of the negative effects of what you can get from alcohol. One of our friend told us that after he saw our ad, he was disgusted by the pictures and so he stopped.” Ads can show information like pictures that help people know why they should stop from drinking. Most people can’t stop drinking after they’re addicted so showing them the negative effects of alcohol can help them stop drinking. We can see from this that ads are a helpful tool to stop people from drinking alcohol but there are others tools which is proved to be better than ads.

   Making a video that educates people about alcohol and why it’s wrong to drink a lot of it is also another helpful way. People such as kids can watch these videos in class, learn from it, and will pay much more attention due to the fact that teenagers and kids likes to watch videos in class. “From my observation, students tend to pay more attention to videos during class-time and will pay attention to key notes in the video.” Videos can stop new people into alcohol addiction. From Videos, students can learn the bad effects and from the quote, we see that videos will grab more of the student’s attention and so they will learn more from it. Videos can also show people who is addicted how to stop it without the complexity of words. “There are lots of helpful Youtube videos online which shows you some good strategies to stop alcohol should you want to do that.” Online videos have many helpful tips on stopping alcohol if you plan to stop. Videos online can help people go through it step-by-step without getting lost in words or misinterpreting it. People can pause the video if they get lost and it is much more entertaining compared to words. Videos is a key card on stopping alcohol. But there is one very good strategy that we have not yet covered.

   Telling your friends that binge drinking is bad is yet another good way to lessen the amount of people in the world that drinks alcohol. When you’re going to parties, you can tell your friends or possibly the party owner to hold a non-alcohol party. “Peer pressure is a very strong tool. It can be used in a good way or a bad influence in alcohol due to the fact that your friend would want to ‘fit in’ with you.” From this, we can see that you can help your friends stop alcohol by not drinking alcohol yourself. The peer pressure would work the opposite way and make your friend stop because they want to fit in with you and be like you. Telling your friends to stop drinking can also help the world from alcohol addiction. “If one out of every 20 of us who is addicted and they tell 3 of them to stop drinking, then this world will have over 1 million people who will recover from alcohol addiction.” Here, you can see that if one of us fight for stopping alcohol addiction,  then the world can still be changed because of you. It can be very helpful if a lot of people do this. This is how telling your friends to stop drinking can make a change to stopping alcohol addiction.

  Alcohol addiction is a very dangerous and something that’s bad for your health. It can lead to a variety of things ranging from traffic accident, unwanted rape, violence to liver failure, permanent brain damage and lots more. This makes it important to fight for no alcohol addiction and lots and lots of lives can be saved in the process. There are 140 million people who is addicted currently to alcohol but if you help out, we can all make a difference.


- By Zifan

Blog Essay

Zifan Ye
Period 7/8
S. Peters
17/10/2012

A Struggle For Hope

One billion children in the world live in poverty. Unicef #reported that just in the Philippines alone, there are thousands of children who live in poverty. Those children who lives under poverty have hardly any education, and most do not even have shelter, food or safe drinking water. People should help these children. Kesz, a thirteen year old boy, managed to achieve help the street children who live in poverty after spending his early life in a dumpsite. He has helped lots of children in his hometown by providing hygiene education and giving them hope.

Kesz doesn’t want more street children to have poor health and live in a dumpsite like what he is used to. By teaching them basic hygiene, he helped those street children. In order to stay alive before he was rescued, Kesz had to look for food and water in dumpsites. “I used to drink the water from a pothole in the street and even from sewage canals when I was little, because I did not know it was harmful to me. Brushing teeth was nothing I knew of, until I was rescued from the streets. Allowing the flies to feast on my open wounds and pus was normal to me and my friends.” From this, we can see that Kesz’s lived in a dirty place before he was rescued and while he’s there, he had no idea about hygiene and eat from dumpsites when he wants to and drinks from dirty sewages. However, Kesz’s luck hadn’t left him. After a terrible accident, he was rescued by Mr. Harnin, his adoptive father. When Kesz learnt what’s good and bad, he started to help other street children. “Today, many of the children still suffer poor health and because of lack of sanitation, they are close to danger and death. This is why I started and continue to lead street children to better health by teaching, demonstrating and spreading basic hygiene practice.”  Kesz didn’t like the life he used to. After he was rescued, Kesz started to help the street children by teaching them basic hygiene and eventually, he started an organization. Because Kesz has learnt the basic hygienes and knows what’s bad or good, he teaches the other street children and therefore, making other’s lives better and making a change.

After he was rescued, Kesz now lives in a nice home where the conditions are good. However, Kesz wants more street children to feel what it would be like when they’re loved like him and he tells them to hope for a better life. When Kesz was about to give up from the fire which nearly killed him, he was rescued by Mr Harnin. After that, Kesz feels like he wants all the street children to feel how it feels to be loved. For his birthday, Kesz send lots of gifts to the other street children instead of asking one for himself, thus giving the street children hope. “For his seventh birthday, Kesz didn’t want any presents for himself. Instead, he wanted to give something to other street children: Gifts of Hope.” To give the other street children hope after he was rescued, Kesz decided not to ask for a gift on his seventh birthday, but to give gifts to the other street children who are suffering because he want to give him hope and not to despair. Kesz had always wanted to help the other street children to a better life after he was rescued. To this, Kesz described how he felt when he was rescued from the terrible fire. “Looking  back, the fire that started a flame in my soul. A flame that would warm cold hearts, a flame that would shed light to the path of the lost, a flame that would spark hope, lighting an entire sea of darkness and desperation.”  Because of the fire, Kesz felt different after he was rescued from that fire. He wants to help the other street children who are still suffering and make a difference. The fire was, in other words, that very thing that changed his life. Since Kesz was rescued from a terrible fire, he wants all the other street children to feel what it’s like to feel love and have hope and by giving gifts to other porr street children, he has made a difference.

By continuing to help street children, Kesz gives them hope for a better future and precious knowledge of basic hygiene and also to go live a life with hygiene. Because of this, Kesz was awarded the Children’s International Peace Prize# in 2012. Kesz has inspired many children and adults to make this world a better place. Kesz has fought for his and all the others’ rights, therefore, he has made a change to this world.

Where I'm From - Zifan

I am from snow,
From badminton and Lego.
I’m from Garfield,
from fried rice and vacations.

I am from books, 
from computers and PSP.
I am from Facebook and games, 
which always makes my parents mad.

I’m from gardens, 
from small tvs to large tvs.
I’m from sun-shines to study rooms.
That’s where I’m from.

Victory - by Sonia Weitz

      The poem "Victory" means lots of things for me. First, it means how sad must Sonia (author) be when that happened, especially when she knows that her dad will be taken away the next day and be gone forever. It also mean how badly the Nazis treats people because not only her dad will be taken away, she will be killed later on too. "My lovely father (once big and strong). And me, a child ... condemned to die." It also shows how much she loved her dad because she's actually breaking the rules just so she can dance with him.

      The questions that raised for me is why are the Nazis so cruel to the Jewish people and also if so, why didn't the Jews stand up for themselves? I also wonder why was this poem called "Victory"? Does it have any meanings? I also think that the reason why Sonia Weitz wants to dance with her dad even if that means shot on the spot was because it'll pretty much be the last time she'll ever see her dad again.

Picture of Sonia Weitz

I agree...

      I agree that victims have a limited choice because of many things. For example, if a bully that's stronger than you bullies you and you're weak and you can fight back, what can you do? You can tell on him to a teacher or an adult alright but what if he/she's in the same class with you? The thing is, they will continuously bully you because you're weak and you can't stand up for yourselves. However, if you were as strong as the bully is, you can then stand up for yourself and beat the bully up if necessary. Also, before the Nazis started to punish the Jews, the Jews can move anywhere they want. But after the Nazis started to bully them, almost all the countries closed their gates, which means Jews just lost the opportunity to move away while they could. That's why I agree that victims have a smaller choices and options.

Holocaust Picture

      Today in Humanities, our teacher gave us a picture and on the picture, I noticed sereval things. First of all, under the old man's armpit in the picture, I can see a Communist sign a top of a piece of stone or something. He was also holding some gold coins which I think it might refer to when hyperinflation hits Germany. Also in his hands, he was holding what looked to me like a bended piece of metal or a stick. What all that might mean were when hyperinflation hits Germany, lots of people like the old man in the picture went poor and homeless and at the time, lots of Jewish people looks like the one in the picture, so I think it might also have something to do at the time with the Nazis harassing the Jews because the old man in this picture looks very poor and not well dressed.

      The yellow background also makes the man stands out so I think they're trying to use this picture as a target or something because at that time, the Nazis hates the Jews and they never stopped killing them and bullying them. The Communist sign under the Jew's armit probably also meant that the Nazis wants to kill all the Jews just like how they killed the Communists.

This picture is the cover of the book called The Eternal Jew.

Thank You!

The Treaty of Versailles

In my opinion, I think the treaty of versailles is unfair because it made Germany pay a lot of money. If it wasn't for the treaty of versailles, Germany won't think that the Jewish people stabbed them on their back and they wouldn't have treated the Jewish people that bad. It's also really unfair because it started the World War II and it wasn't even a good idea for peace because they pretty much forced Germany to sign the contract, for example.

Tank Trouble

:)

My Learning Profile

 Today, our class did a experience in humanities again on our Learning Profile. The learning profile I got in the end is an A again, which I didn't find it too surprising about because I got the same thing last year. The parts of body that we have tested on are our brain, eyes, ears, hands and feet. It was all very fun to do.


     The profile says I learn best by focusing on the details, small, little, details. Processes by analysis, verbalization, and writing. But I think I also likes to learn by moving around and do hands-on things too. It's true I like to follow instructions like it said on the paper (logic). It also said I can learn best by auditory and visual. But I like to learn with kinesthetics too. I thought it was kind of surprising at this part because I know about this and I thought it was kind of weird of it saying something other than what I thought. That's all about how do I learn best with.


     The thing I need to improve in as it says about me is that I have to control my level of stress or I can get angry easily. I thought this is actually quite true about me because I do get angry easily. Sometimes, I even get angry without knowing it, which means I have hurt my friends serial times because of that already. I also found out that this is like the only part that I strongly agrees with what it says on the paper.


     The strategy/ies that can help me to improve my learning is maybe be more active (I don't know if that's true...) and maybe don't get mad too easily. I thought the don't get mad too easily part is like my weak spot because sometimes, I hurt people without knowing it all because I was kind of yelling at them when I talk to them because they kept on screwing up. But I really thought the figure 8 strategy was nice to cool me down a bit although it doesn't really say that on the paper. I'm not sure if I should be more active and do more hands-on things because I do a lot of it.


     The last thing is that I want my teacher to know I am pretty much very even and probably OK with whatever the assignment is about. I also find out that I study better by sitting at the front a little to the left because except for my brain, I have everything else on my right that's dominate to me. However, I do like to do things at different times. For example, if I'm really tired and I have to do a big end-of-unit test or do push ups in PE, I would be really angry and not really in a mood to talk to anyone. This is also why I get bossy and couldn't calm down because on my paper, it says I can easily get annoyed or angry. Sometimes I'm sleepy and just don't feel like moving around (even though I'd love to when I'm not sleepy). Art is something that's both OK and relaxing to me at any time. But I hate it if it just comes to talking with no action or with lot of instructions like "don't touch this and don't do that..." and the rules for this and bla bla bla... because I'm not that much of an auditory learner (No offense Art teachers!!). I think I'm still too active for all that and just can't sit still for a whole 80 minutes (unless I just have to do it with no other choice or if I'm very interested in something we do).

This picture is from last year. I colored in better this year so it's not that confusing but it's just the same thing as it said on the last year's papers.

 Here's a picture of my profile person. As you can see, I am mostly right with my Brain left.


Enjoy :D :D

My Boipoem

Zifan,
organized, playful and kind,
son of my parents and friend of Gard,
gaming and reading,
love, fear and happiness,
cockroach, height and airplane,
who performed a skit in front of school,
going to Norway,
Kuala Lumpur,
Ye.

Me In 3

Me in 3

  The objects that I have chosen for my “Me In 3” project are a PSP game from a friend of mine in Australia, the PSP and a cactus. The reason why I chose these for my objects was because they all meant something big to me and I thought they are special, too.

  The first object I’m about to describe is the PSP game. It was called “Lego Batman” and so everything in there is pretty much made out of Legos. It was special because when I was about to leave Australia to come here, my friends were all really sad and so they all decided to save up money and bought me this game for $50 Australian dollars! They chose that because when my best friend, Steven was playing his DSi, he saw that I really liked Lego Batman. Since I was playing it non-stop in his house and I also knew it was his idea to get me this game and the game’s really good too!

  My second object was the PSP. It was given to me by my dad. So when I was about 7, I always wanted a PSP. So I kept on bugging my dad to get me one but in the end, it was actually my dad’s friend who bought me it and I was so surprised! The reason for that though was because before I went to Australia, I saw kids in my school in China playing that after-school and so I tried once and got really, really addicted to it… But my dad’s friend also bought me that because he wanted to say good-bye to us and didn’t know how. I guess that somehow, he knew I always wanted a PSP so he bought me one.

  My third object was the cactus. It was given to me by my grandma on my dad’s side who passed on a few years ago. Strangely that time at the funeral, I hardly cried! Maybe it was because I’m too little but anyways, it was she who gave me the cactus so now, if I look at the plant, it will remind me of my grandmother. Now the cactus got big enough that it blossoms every spring time!

  Thank you for reading my “Me In 3” story. Now maybe you have something like that make you want to add, too! Hope you enjoyed my story about myself!

Me In 3

Me in 3

  The objects that I have chosen for my “Me In 3” project are a PSP game from a friend of mine in Australia, the PSP and a cactus. The reason why I chose these for my objects was because they all meant something big to me and I thought they are special, too.

  The first object I’m about to describe is the PSP game. It was called “Lego Batman” and so everything in there is pretty much made out of Legos. It was special because when I was about to leave Australia to come here, my friends were all really sad and so they all decided to save up money and bought me this game for $50 Australian dollars! They chose that because when my best friend, Steven was playing his DSi, he saw that I really liked Lego Batman. Since I was playing it non-stop in his house and I also knew it was his idea to get me this game and the game’s really good too!

  My second object was the PSP. It was given to me by my dad. So when I was about 7, I always wanted a PSP. So I kept on bugging my dad to get me one but in the end, it was actually my dad’s friend who bought me it and I was so surprised! The reason for that though was because before I went to Australia, I saw kids in my school in China playing that after-school and so I tried once and got really, really addicted to it… But my dad’s friend also bought me that because he wanted to say good-bye to us and didn’t know how. I guess that somehow, he knew I always wanted a PSP so he bought me one.

  My third object was the cactus. It was given to me by my grandma on my dad’s side who passed on a few years ago. Strangely that time at the funeral, I hardly cried! Maybe it was because I’m too little but anyways, it was she who gave me the cactus so now, if I look at the plant, it will remind me of my grandmother. Now the cactus got big enough that it blossoms every spring time!

  Thank you for reading my “Me In 3” story. Now maybe you have something like that make you want to add, too! Hope you enjoyed my story about myself!

Me In 3

Me in 3

  The objects that I have chosen for my “Me In 3” project are a PSP game from a friend of mine in Australia, the PSP and a cactus. The reason why I chose these for my objects was because they all meant something big to me and I thought they are special, too.

  The first object I’m about to describe is the PSP game. It was called “Lego Batman” and so everything in there is pretty much made out of Legos. It was special because when I was about to leave Australia to come here, my friends were all really sad and so they all decided to save up money and bought me this game for $50 Australian dollars! They chose that because when my best friend, Steven was playing his DSi, he saw that I really liked Lego Batman. Since I was playing it non-stop in his house and I also knew it was his idea to get me this game and the game’s really good too!

  My second object was the PSP. It was given to me by my dad. So when I was about 7, I always wanted a PSP. So I kept on bugging my dad to get me one but in the end, it was actually my dad’s friend who bought me it and I was so surprised! The reason for that though was because before I went to Australia, I saw kids in my school in China playing that after-school and so I tried once and got really, really addicted to it… But my dad’s friend also bought me that because he wanted to say good-bye to us and didn’t know how. I guess that somehow, he knew I always wanted a PSP so he bought me one.

  My third object was the cactus. It was given to me by my grandma on my dad’s side who passed on a few years ago. Strangely that time at the funeral, I hardly cried! Maybe it was because I’m too little but anyways, it was she who gave me the cactus so now, if I look at the plant, it will remind me of my grandmother. Now the cactus got big enough that it blossoms every spring time!

  Thank you for reading my “Me In 3” story. Now maybe you have something like that make you want to add, too! Hope you enjoyed my story about myself!

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Ancient Greek Trailer

Thank you for watching!
Enjoy!
Zifan.

We're going to 7th grade...

      OMG! 6th past by so fast that to me, it seems as if the start of 6th grade was actually yesterday! But no matter what you think about 6th grade, I just HAVE to say that we ALL had a really awesome time. Now we're going to 7th grade, who knows what's going to happen? But no matter what, I know that we are ALL looking forward to it.


      I can never forget when we just started 6th grade in Middle School. It was quite a scary time. Each of us was really nervous and sometimes, I can even tell by my friend's voice that they were worried and scared. Of course, that's no doubt to me. I was scared too, just like the rest of them. Especially when we need to use our lockers, we get SO frustrated if we can't open our locker's lock. I also knew later on from one of my friends that after trying his locker for 5 minutes at lunch, he thought he'll never get it open again so he nearly cried! Luckily, a teacher he had no idea of came by and when she saw his face, she immediately knew what happened. Later, it was because he remembered the wrong lock combinations and they got mixed up! Ha ha! It might be quite a funny thing now but back then, I bet everyone (even me) had at least one time who got the wrong numbers or couldn't open it. I had that happen to me too!
      My greatest challenge other than the first time in Middle School 6th grade would probably be Malaysia Week. Think of that, a WHOLE week without electronics and a good sleep (for me personally)! I hate when I lose sleep! I ALWAYS make a big fuss about it! And the reason why I say MW was a challenge was because in that small particular week, I had a ton of "first times". Everyone went through first times before and everyone should know how it feels. Well, that's exactly how I felt when I was doing all this "first times"! But overall, I thought Malaysia Week was really fun! :D


      To me, the things I have learnt about myself this year are how quick I can actually catch up if I work hard! For the first trimester, I was in humanities support. But I thought that I wanted to do other stuff like I.T. although at that time, Humanities Support was a really good class for me personally. So I did my best and tried real hard. Finally, I was asked to take a Humanities Support test. I was real excited and after skipping a few lunch times :(, I finally passed Humanities Support! ( :D ) I was too happy so when Mrs Thompson asked me what class I want to choose, I said straight away. I.T. I.T. was SO good! Now, we even get to use the iPads! How cool is that?! I never realised though I can actually do it! Yay!


a) Behavior

 Could be improved


Satisfactory


Perfect - the model student






Explanation: I think my behaviour overall are pretty good but sometimes, occasionally, I can be out of control.






b) Participation






None


Satisfactory


Actively participate in class






Explanation: I usually participate the activities in class but sometimes, I just don't feel like doing anything so I might not participate THAT much...




c) Organization






Needs serious help


Satisfactory


I'm super organized


Explanation: I think I'm quite an organized person because nearly every time an assignment was given, I would usually turn it in on the due date or before due date.


d) Effort

 Needs serious help


Satisfactory


I always go above and beyond what is required.


Explanation: I think I give 90% of effort each day usually but sometimes, I can give more than 150% if I really wanted it to be good and to get a good grade on it.




      Now here are my two goals for next year in 7th grade...


Goal 1: Next year, I want to be more involved in things such as activities after school, in-school things and more. I think I can maybe even do some projects with my friends!


Goal 2: The second goal is that next year, I want to try to give 100% effort to EVERYTHING I do and not just when I wanted to or needed to do so. I thought that can maybe permanently make my grade go up and get an A- and above on every subject I have in the end (I ALWAYS wanted to do that but never did I succeeded before) of trimester progress report card.


      Some extra information I might want to let the 7th grade teachers know are that I'm sort of a quiet person (in here, I mostly mean asking questions, not chatting in class) so just to tell you guys that when I don't raise my hand for a question, it might not actually mean that I don't know the answer.


      Now last but not least, I need to teacher the class of 2018 (Favour!) some tips and suggestions! One big suggestion I have are that you should never leave ANY of your assignments on the last minute. In other words, it means that you should never leave your works till like the last night before due date. This way will bring your grades down REAL fast. I've never experienced this before (hardly ever) because I just don't have the habit of doing this. I thought that way was really lame! But if you want good grades (I bet most of you do!), then you should never leave things till the last minute! Otherwise, study hard. I wish you all, class 2018 a lucky year next year. Good luck!


Zifan Ye
20/05/2011
Enjoy! :D


P.S.: The 6-A teachers are AWESOME! :D

Letter from Jonas

Dear Lily:


      I am very sorry to tell you this and after you've read this, please keep it safe or burn it. Do not tell anyone. Lily, you have been a very good sister of mine. Remember the time when I was patting your back and you tried to get away from it? Well, that was when I was trying to give you a memory of the past so that maybe you can understand and pick up a few things in there just like how I did with The Giver. ""Lily, " he asked that evening when his sister took her comfort object, the stuffed elephant, from the shelf, "did you know that once there really were elephants? Live ones?" She glanced down at the ragged comfort object and grinned. "Right, " she said, skeptically. "Sure, Jonas. " Jonas went and sat beside them while his father untied Lily's hair ribbons and combed her hair. He placed one hand on each of their shoulders. With all of

his being he tried to give each of them a piece of the memory: not of the tortured cry of the elephant, but of the being of the elephant, of the towering, immense creature and the meticulous touch with which it had tended its friend at the end. But his father had continued to comb Lily's long hair, and Lily, impatient, had finally wiggled under her brother's touch. "Jonas, " she said, "you're hurting me with your hand. " "I apologize for hurting you, Lily, " Jonas mumbled, and took his hand away. " 'Ccept your apology, " Lily responded indifferently, stroking the lifeless elephant." Pg. 101. You guys might have found my cloth by the river and think I drowned right? Well, I didn't, I escaped from the community! The Giver have arranged the transportation to get to the outer edge of the community and from there on, I took dad's bike and rode away to what I always thought it to be Elsewhere, where there's feelings and there's freedom, unlike this community. You must be wandering why I send this letter to you, it's really because I think you are the only one in which I trust the most. But what do you think that made me do all this? Do you think I was doing this for fun? No! I won't risk my life just for fun! The thing  that made me do all this is mostly the feelings from lots and lots of the memories The Giver have given me. I think you should feel it too because it's just so good and it will also make you understand something really important, A life without feelings and emotions is a life that's not even worth living. That one reason why I want to risk my life into this. If I don't leave, then I won't really have a "life" anyways so I had to leave you guys all behind. I'm very sorry for all that anguish I have caused for the community.

      Although I have to escape after I knew all this memories, I still had a very good time with The Giver. He was a gentle man that takes care of you. I liked the memories a lot (except for some of the really painful and bad ones), they really did gave you knowledge and I think that's how I came to understand that a life with no feelings is not worth living at all. So I also think this is another reason that made me think of leaving. Lily, when you meet our parents however, Please tell them that I'm all right and please apologize for me to dad for taking his bike. Did you know that our parents sometimes lie if they have to? Well you know when daddy have to take one of the two identical twins right, well, he killed it! When something's killed, it mean it died or what we call it release. "He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. He continued to stare at the screen numbly. His father tidied the room. Then he picked up a small carton that lay waiting on the floor, set it on the bed, and lifted the limp body into it. He placed the lid on tightly. He picked up the carton and carried it to the other side of the room. He opened a small door in the wall; Jonas could see darkness behind the door. It seemed to be the same sort of chute into which trash was deposited at school. His father loaded the carton containing the body into the chute and gave it a shove. "Bye-bye, little guy, " Jonas heard his father say before he left the room. Then the screen went blank. " Pg. 150 - 151. Wasn't that very mean of our dad?! I'm not trying to blame him but I just feel oddly sorry for our dad and I also feel sorry for the poor baby although we can't have two exactly same person here in our community but they could have at least not kill it and maybe even send it here! Anyways, a life that's controlled by the others are definety not a life I want so that's the last big reason why I want to leave here. Of course I didn't even want to leave if I wasn't forced to do so because I didn't even want to suffer all that hunger and the cold! But at least I learnt a lot about the wild and I also learnt what freedom feels like. I hope you can understand all this Lily, you to me is bright enough to realize what I think so if you ever decide to leave, then I'll see you there from elsewhere!


See you for now,
love Jonas.

Utopia Lit Circle 5

      The two reasons for the quote on Mrs Narsiman's blog are that first, when Jonas knew how to transfer memories, he felt freedom and also when he for the first time, never to take the pill again, he felt freedom too. Why? It's all written down here...

      First up, memory transfer.... He felt freedom because he had never knew he can do that and when he knew it, he can then experience something he didn't know and it wouldn't be noticed or found out by any other people. The reason why I said so was because to me, I was be really excited about something new and exciting things that no one around me know. To me, that's also like a freedom for my soul too (it's sort of hard for me to explain more because I for some reason just can't express what I want to say in any languages so I just stopped there... :( ) I also thought it would be a pretty surprising thing since you didn't know you can do that and I think that really the happiness of found something I always wanted or I've never knew before just makes me feel good and free...

      Next up,the pill... "The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away." I think he did that because of all the memories he have received from the Giver. I also think he felt freedom because since it's his first time not doing something that he normal would do like the pill which he and everyone in the community should take. Instead, he threw it away. I think it was because of two reasons. First, I think he have really just made a choice on his own. He had and choice of having the pill or not to do that and he chose not to do so because like it said, something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away. I think when he made the choice, he have pretty much just tried something new and I think it was because of all the reason I've said above for the first reason. The second one is similair because it was his first time too of not taking the pill that he should have normally. The reason it pretty much the same so I'm not going to repeat it anymore.

      Thanks guys! This is all of my blog! Hope you liked it! Enjoy! Enjoy! :D!   

Zifan Y.

I did it

I did my comment on Norman's blog.