My hometown

I have just learned that we are going to have skype conversations with a class in Louisiana. That will be exiting- to see how they are, if they are any different, or experience that they are just the same as us.

So, here's a little something about my hometown:
I live in a lovely place called Haslum. Halsum is placed the municipality Bærum, in one of Norway's 19 counties, Akershus. Whith its 6000 inhabitants, Haslum is a nice and quiet place and suits the life of a family with kids. The area is safe and I am glad this is my home town. We have everything we need nearby. Bærum has facilities like large forest areas, beaches ski slopes and Scandinavia's largest mall, which results in an area suitable for everyone. The temperatures in Bærum differs from each season. This means we experience both warm summers and nice, cold, snowy winters.

This is a picture of a ski slope 5 minutes away from my home. Even though it is quite small, I like it.










This is Kadettangen, a small beach just next to the mall and ten minutes away from the school. The temptation to leave school early when the weather allows it, is sometimes pretty big. :)

Into the Wild

I just finished reading the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a book world known for the intense story about a young boy chasing his dreams. Some say this book is one of the best they have ever read. I, on the other hand, am not convinced.

We are taken on a journey, the journey of Chris McCandless, who abandons his life to live one he always wanted, see America and visit Alaska. His story is wonderful, sad and incredible. The fact that he actually did it, actually left everything and just travelled required quite a lot of courage. This, though, isn’t why I didn’t like the book. I admire what he did, even though it was selfish. And I do think it is nice that someone does so much research and writes this book.

Even though the story is true, I don’t like the way it was written. For me, it was too much nature and had way too many digressions. Of course, I understand that it had to have all the descriptions of how the wildlife was, how it was out there. I just thought it was boring to read about the other adventurers that died or killed themselves. They don’t describe how McCandless was, just how they were and that they were too weak to manage to live in the wilderness.

Anyway, I am not really a fan of reading, and when I first do it I would rather read an important book, a book that matters. In my point of view, this book isn’t in that specific category. Its intentions aren’t to change the world, just tell the story of a young adventurer.

The Victorian Age and Queen Victoria

Next week I am going to have a presentation. I have always been interessed in England, specially the British Empire and the royalties. Therefore, since we covered this era, I decided to cover the Victorian Age and Queen Victoria. Since the presentation should only last for approximately 2 minutes, I couldn't dig deep. I resolved to take the most important happenings and outcomes, or at least from my point of view.

This is what I presented:

The Victorian Age and Queen Victoria (1837-1901)

Before Queen Victoria inherited the throne in England, the country had developed. The industrial revolution had started, which meant England evolved a national economy they had never seen before. The British Empire kept on expanding, and defeating France and Napoleon made England the greatest power in Europe. In 1837 Queen Victoria inherited the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. She ruled the country for almost sixty-four years, and the era is called the Victorian age.

When she entered the throne, Britain was, as I said, still developed and the economy strong. Their agriculture was more productive than any other country in Europe. The country was stable politically, where they had a parliamentarian system as well as the Queen being the head of state in a constitutional monarchy. By having already established these safeties, which came to people having the power, and individually and naturally freedom, Britain got away from revolutions.

The Victorian era is also referred to as Pax Britannia. This is because Britain managed to keep Europe in peace. They used a policy named balance-of-power, where they supported the weakest in wars, or if someone were to threaten a country, England helped the endangered. By doing so, Europe was in peace for almost 100 years.

The British Empire also covered India, and Queen Victoria was crowned in 1877 as the Empress of India. But after that the Empire began to fall; the other countries around the world had caught up with Britain's development. At the end of the 1800's Britain was no longer the world's only superpower. USA developed and Germany was ready to step up. Britain could no longer handle the balance-of-power politics. This led to what we know as the first world war. And in 1901, the Victorian Age was over, it died together with The Queen.

The Valley of Elah

"Sometimes finding the truth is easier than facing it. "

The Valley of Elah is a movie which tells the mental situation for American soldiers, after returning from Iraq.

A father and formal military police sergeant is on the search of his son who is A.W.O.L.- Absent Without Official Leave(Absent WithOut Leave), at the military base in New Mexico, after coming home from Iraq. At the end everyone involved in the case, comes clean and the truth is revealed. He learns that his son has been killed by the men from his squadron.

Why? Because of all the bad things they had experienced in Iraq, the differences from back home, the several people they had killed, as well as accidentally kill civilians, their minds were twisted. Traumatic things had happened, and they could not handle it. They were mentally destroyed and the life home was hard to handle. Being used to kill others in pressed situations was the tipping point, and what drove them to kill a friend, a fellow soldier. We know this as the Post Traumatic Stress Dissorder. They were physically harmed.

Their memories were horrible and being a part of the war had scarred them for life, not just physically, but mentally as well, maybe mentally in particular. This is the life of thousands of soldiers in America today. They have families, but aren't able to take care of them because of their problems. Managing a normal day is hard, because they have to live with the memories, the memories that will haunt them everyday for the rest of their lives. Their lives have been changed, forever.

Lions for Lambs and The Use of the Mass Media

One of my questions were: Should we question ourselves on what we hear and be critical, or listen and believe in everything we hear in the mass media?

We should trust them, we should not trust them. The reason I mention both options is obvious. There are hundreds of news channels, thousands of newspapers and millions of web pages all over the world, which one of them are most trustworthy? Are some more trustworthy than others at all? Do we have to be critical on what we hear? Do we need to question the facts we are given every afternoon

Lions for Lambs rewiev

Two weeks ago we watched a movie, "Lions for Lambs", and were asked to write two interesting and important question containing themes from the movie. Lions for Lambs was a movie about America after the 9/11 attack, how they stood politically- how to handle the war of terror. We also met a young student not using his abilities to question things, managing to be critical, taking a stand. Sometimes it can be hard to know what you really believe in, what you think is the right choice, the right thing to do. That was the problem for the two other students we met.

"If you don't STAND for something, you might FALL for anything"