Edward scissorhand

Edward scissorhands is movie from 1990. The main actors is Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder.
The film director is Tim Burton. He has also direct movies like Batman returns and Charlie and the chocolate factory. 

Short about the movie

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 American romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter Kim
The music is by Danny Elfman. It takes 105 minutes to watch the movie and the main language is english.

A topic in the movie: To be different ?
Why is it wrong to be different? What makes it hard to accept that its wrong to be different? 
 I think we bound different with wrong because people today are afraid to became stamped as strange, looser, psycho or just.. different. 
If there is a person i school class who sits alone during the break, he is automatically stamped as a looser. If there is one with different opinions than the other, he is stamped as freak before you even have blinked. And if there is one who use untypical clothes she may be exposed for hate, or they may love it. 
It is important to not be afraid to be different. You have to be yourself, even how crazy you may look. Even if you look like a freak you still have feelings and you deserve to be treated like a good person. 
I think we look like being different is bad thing because people not are able to think good about persons who not follow the "the right way"
And I think we have problems with accepting them because we are afraid of became stamped as a friend of "the freak"
To conclude I would like to say to everyone who not follows the mainstream way: You are amazing! Stand for what you are and what you mean, but make sure that you are able to see a case from two sides and reflect around questions. Don't let anyone tear you down!

Trafalgar Square Christmas tree

The tree from 2008

The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree is a tree donated from the city Oslo of Norway  to London, as a symbol of gratitude and support from the British people during the second world war.

The tree is sent every year since 1947. Twelfth night after Christmas the tree became recycled and composed. 

The tree gets gut down in the middle of November and sent to England by the sea. It is the mayor of Norway who cuts down the tree.  At the platform were you can see the tree, you can read these words:

This tree is given by the city of Oslo as a token of Norwegian gratitude to the people of London for their assistance during the years 1940-45.

A tree has been given annually since 1947.

Lightning ceremony

From the ceremony in 2006

The tree lighting ceremony in Trafalgar Square takes place on the first Thursday in December and is attended by thousands of people. The ceremony, led by the Lord Mayor of Westminster, includes a band and choir followed by the lighting of the tree with the flick of a switch. 





History from second world war

This is a link to a page of BBC. Here you can find a lot of stories from soldiers and civilians.  

This is a link to the story i read. The story in the link above is about two British RAF pilots who take part in the bombing of Porsgrunn harbour. Their plane is shot down and they crash into a lake. They are saved by two Norwegian Farmers who take care of them.

Later the Germans find them and kill the Norwegians before the pilots are taken to prison. This operation was preformed in April 1945. Not long after the pilots where arrested the war ended and they were set free.

THE 11TH HOUR

Today we saw the movie the 11th hour. It is a movie about how the people ruin our environment and how everything at this planet are related. 
There were a lot of a scientist, psychologist and leaders for big environment companies telling about how the human being needs the nature. They also told a lot of how the world have developed since Ronald Reagan was the president of America. They also made it clear how fatal the consequences may be if we keep doing like we doing today.  At the end of the movie they turned all the sad stories and all the sad information into a positive way to do the changes. After the movie was ended you may sit there whit a hope and and commitment for your actions. 

The movie had a lot of pictures that really make you think about your actions. Even tough the movie contains a lot a strong images I'm not sure I can believe it or not. 

I believe that there is awful things happens all over the world. But I don't find it that realistic. Were are all these  photos derived from? Sometimes I think they are manipulated so they can use our conscience. When I see documentaries about things in this world that make you think about our actions, its easy to make me cry. They use beautiful and very sting images. All this make me sit down and think why nothings being done. When a whole world sitting in their house watching tons of poisoned gas just flies out in the air I'm supposed to breath in every day.  

All this is about money i believe. The human being is a selfish and egoistic thing. It do not think its that hard to just a close a company which do bad environmentally productions. 


About taking notes

While watching the movie our teacher told us to take notes. Our teacher Ann wanted us to do a 
experiment. 

• How can we make good notes while watching a movie or a lecture?

We parted the movie in three parts. First we used pen and paper. The second we used our own computers to make our own notes. The last one was a public Google doc note paper  where 10 people shared their notes. 

I think several of this fit for me, depending on what I am going to listen to.  If you write it may be more easy to remember. A problem whit writing could be that it takes more time than writing on a computer. 

Writing on a computer may seems like the most easy, but as if the way to Facebook and other tempting websites get way more shorter. 

I would like to try to use more of public Google-docs. If you share it whit people you know writes good notes you can learn a lot from each other. It's also a wonderful opportunity to see a case or a problem from different view of point and became clear of something you didn't know in the first place. 

Do you have any view of points when it comes to how we trade our environment?

   I would loved to hear from you!

Edublogs awards

This year I would like to nominate the following student blog in the category "best student blog"

The following student has a nice layout. She uses nice colors and the typeface is easy to read. 

The content is good, and she has a varied and good language. And the winner is:

 Ewa!

Congratulations Ewa. I wish you good luck in your fight for this price. 

I would also like to nominate a teacher in the category "best teacher blog"

The following blogger has a very good teacher blog  She uses it every day and it is our way of learning. Her website is where we get our assignments. 

The special thing with this teacher is that she has used it to connect with people all over the world. She has friends in Lesotho(Africa), Nebraska, Alaska, India, Australia, England and Scotland. She is a very a interactive person, and you can find her at twitter, facebook and of course at her blog.

The winner is..

Ann!

Congratulations! You're opportunities to win is great!

You can visit Edublogsawards.com here 

About blogging in class

1. Write a small post on your blogs answering these questions:

•  Do you think there is more pressure on how you perform/write when you use blogs instead of writing a paper for the teacher only?
• Do you think the use of blogs reduces the difference between your work at school and your everyday life? 

I don't think its more pressure actually, but maybe more expectations because of our opportunities to use translate programs and programs that correct our spelling mistakes. When we get a assignment in the begging of the day, we have almost the whole day to answer it, and I think that make a good base to use a lot of time to write and use good language. I like to write blog posts instead of using books. I really like that we get a task and we have almost the whole day answer it. Then we get the opportunity to write good and use a lot of time in our english. We are also ought to write about something that interest us, and I think that is important to who much work we put in our blog.

It is way more easy to start the computer and write if we got homework. We also have a lot of information within reach and that makes us more international. Using a computer also means that the way to facebook and twitter is shorter that you think. 

Usually, in my class from lower high school, we are very focused at the english plan, and just follow the plan. When we write i blog, we may choose what we like and find something interesting to write about. 

The US election 2012 - Obama vs. Romney

The US election 2012 is today. The election is always on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, it has always been like that. Erling, Julia and I would like to ask a few questions about election that is today. We would like to first write about both candidates and what they stand for, then compare their politics, the conclusion and what differences\changes will be if Romney wins.

Barack Hussein Obama II, american lawyer, first African American president of the US. He was born August 4th, 1961 in Honolulu. He represents the democratic party as the 44 president in the row.
The democratic party is more into the state and want to include all the people in the country. They also want to introduce a health reform and they are into including the people in the society.

Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit Mars 12th 1964. He his a American businessman. In the election 2012 

Mitt Romney represent the republican party. The republicans want the people to take care of them self and they are very conservative. They don't want to pay taxes because they don't want to give money to the government. They are against abortion, but they support the weapon law. 

It's always okay to compare the opponents when you're wondering who you want to support. As a group we would like to compare Obama's and Romney's politics.

Education
Obama has approved waivers freeing states from the most onerous requirements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law with their agreement to improve how they prepare and evaluate students. Comparing to the Romney who
supported the federal accountability standards of No Child Left Behind law.

Heath care
Obama achieved landmark overhaul putting U.S. on path to universal coverage now that Supreme Court has upheld the law's mandate for almost everyone to obtain insurance.
On the other side we find Romney who promises to work for the repeal of the federal health care law modeled largely after his universal health care achievement in Massachusetts because he says states, not Washington, should drive policy on the uninsured.

Immigration
The republican party stands for that issued directive in June that immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children be exempted from deportation and granted work permits if they apply, a step that could benefit 800,000 to 1.4 million. "It's a temporary measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while offering some justice to these young people."
According to Romney who want favors U.S.-Mexico border fence, opposes education benefits to undocumented immigrants. Opposes offering legal status to undocumented immigrants who attend college, but would do so for those who serve in the armed forces.

Abortion 
Obama supports abortion rights. Health care law requires contraceptives to be available for free for women enrolled in workplace health plans, including access to morning-after pill, which does not terminate a pregnancy but is considered tantamount to an abortion pill by some religious conservatives. On the other hand we find Romney who opposes abortion rights. Previously supported them. Says state law should guide abortion rights, and Roe v.

Click here for more information about Obama's and Romney's politics.

Would it be any differences if Mitt Romney win?

   *He wants to provide the health care.
   *Privates hospitals.
   *People have to take care of themselves.
   *More soliders worldwide.
   *Rich people get richer, poor people get poorer

.

Inuits

BIG MIRACLE AND THE INUITS IN ALASKA 

Inuits are indigenous people living in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Traditionally the Inuits lived by fishing and hunting. They developed different techniques to hunt animals fast and effective. And they did it good. Still many of these people lives by the old traditions, but there are also a lot of people uses more modern equipment like snow scooter and firearms.
As the history tell us, the Inuits have made their own clothes, weapons and made sure that no one in the family was hungry. Very often they used bones from dead animals to build boats, sledges and houses. They used bones from different animals to build the important kayak. The kayaks have been important to the hunting of animals at sea. They also built bigger boats of hide and bones to transport people, dogs and equipment.

Their language is a  primitive language. Many of them also speak english.
Do you know anything more about the inuits language? I didn't find much about it..

This is a map were the primitive language is spoken in America, Canada and Greenland. 

I have also seen a move called Big miracle. In this movie we meet three whales who lives under the ice in Alaska. The whales are blocked behind a big wall of ice and they can't get out. In the first place the indigenous people wanted to kill them to get food. But a woman from Green Peace wants to let them out to free water. The people from Alaska do not want to spend a lot of time and money to rescue the whales. 
The movie ends happily. One of the whales dies because it is sick, but the two others survives after useful help from the Soviet marine. 

In this movie we get to meet indigenous people from Alaska. I would say that this move give us quite a real picture of how it is to live in Alaska. In the movie we can see their sledges, their dogs, clothes and easy way to live. In another way we also see that they live quite modern in these days. They have snow scooter, weapons more contact with the world so i bet its easy for them to get the food, drinks and necessary equipment they need to live up there. 
I think it is exist two kind of inuits. The ones that live very traditional with minimalism modern equipments and also them who have been more modern and live like other people in the rest of the world, in just a way colder country. 

Do you have anything more to tell about the movie? what point of view do you have about this case? I would love to hear :)

Capital punishment

Formal and informal texts

The differences between informal and formal text is that a formal text is objective. No personal opinions or feelings are allowed. You write in a third person style. You don't write to someone special, but to a big and unknown audience. 
An informal text may contain opinions and personal inputs. An informal text is perfect for discussions and lines for a theme. Here you can apply to someone special and give a special person your meaning about what she or he said. 

Informal text

I have chosen to write about Capital punishment because I think it is a central case these days. Even more companies try to abolish this kind of punishment. Especially Amnesty's fight to do away with death penalty touches me. In these days Amnesty also covers a case to stand up for injustice. 

I think this case is important to our society because it says so much about how different the worlds countries are. Here in Norway I can't even think about death penalty as an opportunity. In other countries thousandths of people are sitting in the "death row" just waiting to get killed. As Amnesty International says, this is a humiliating way to interpret FN's human rights. One of FN's rights says that "everyone got a right to a life." According to Amnesty International a murder from the government is a huge violation to this human rights. 




Formal text

Facts about capital punishmet
The most usual way to get a capital punishment is murder. After murder we find aggravated assault. To stand up with your opinions and talk against the government in some countries, especially as a woman this may cost you you're life. Stoning is widespread and especially in moslem countries since it is a traditional execution. ¨

In 2011, 21 countries preformed death penalty. Since 1973, 140 people have been exonerated from the death row in USA. 37 of the 50 states practice death penalty, but every state got their own law. Per 21. of September 2006 over 1000 people have been killed. The most usual kinds of death penalty are decapitation, hanging, stoning, electric chair, also lethal injection is common. 

Most of the european countries have done away with this kind of punishment, but we still find it in devolping countries and in the USA.

The situation from 2010 is that around 500 people have been killed in 23 countries. In 58 countries they have capital punishment as a solution in their law and around 25.000 people sits in jail for lifetime all over he world.

In December 2010 FN gave it as an advice to abolish this kind of punishment and in 2003 EU confirmed their position about death penalty. 



Country                                     Execution            Execution pr. 100 million people
1 China                                      3 400                           260
2 Iran                                           159                           230
3 Vietnam                                      64                           77
4 USA                                             59                           20
5 Saudi-Arabia                            33                                  130
6 Pakistan                                    15                                  9,4
7 Kuwait                                      9                                  400
8 Bangladesh                              7                                     5
9 Egypt                                            6                                     7,9
10 Singapore                                      6                                  140
11 Jemen                                     6                              30
12 Hviterussland                             5                                     48

In my text you can see the difference quite obviously since in the first text I use words like: I think, I like and I hope. In the other text I write in a third person style and to a big unknown audience. That is the main difference between informal and formal text. 

Two kinds and Lamb to the slaughter

Me and my friends Ewa and Karoline have read and compared these two stories. We find the stories very nice and the first one was very sad. I think the second one were very interesting. When I get a little into it, I was totally bound to it. After read these stories we found out it would be interesting to compare them and find some similarities and differences. Here is what we found out:

• First of all the main characters in the two stories are females. In "two kinds" the main character is a Chinese girl and in the other story Mary Meloney is the main character and she seems to be a bit crazy.
• Another similarity in the stories is that both of them takes place in the family and in the family house. In a novel its typical whit just a few characters. That make sense if we count the people we read about in both stories.  
• We also concluded whit that the sad endings in the story, is a result of the bad dialogue and bad communication between the people in the two stories. In "two kinds" mother and daughter don't agree of what is the best for the girl. The mother wants her daughter the best future and want to see her girl grow up and became something good and someone important. Therefor she just decide to sign her up for a talent show even if the girl don't want it at all. I think that if these to people just could have communicate a little bit better and sit down and talk it would be a lot better for bout. In the other story there is bad communication who results in that Mary murder her husband.
• The theme is similar in both stories. We find out that the theme could be love. Love between mother and daughter and love between wife and husband. We also see that there is a unilateral love in both of the stories. 
• The point of view is from the girls view. Its like reading from their thoughts.
• Killing and death as the only way out. As I wrote earlier I think these endings is a result of the bad dialogue in both relationships.

I hope you find the comparing interesting, and maybe you have any thoughts? Hope 

you will give me any reflections if you have any?

Please check out my friends blog at:

www.englishewa.blogspot.com

www.englishkaroline.blogspot.com

Unexpected ending, typical Roald Dahl

I have read the story The Landlady

There was a young man who wanted a place to live for the night. When he first looked in window the thought it looked very nice and comfy because there was a fireplace and a dog. In the first place he liked the little place and the woman who run it seemed to very nice. Later on he notices that there was bad things happening in the comfy little "bed and breakfast".  The women had stuffed her animals. She also said there was someone living at third floor. But there was no one at third floor. Sooner the man noticed that the persons "living" on third floor was stuffed like her animals.
In the end the man dies. He was poisoned by the tea they drank. In the novel you may noticed that he said he tasted bitter like almond.

I wonder why the man did not leave the place when i started to noticed that bad things happening there. Someone you got any good ideas?

I have also seen the movie by Hitchcock. He have done almost exactly the same. There is a few differences, The man is twenty two in the movie, and seventeen in the novel. It was also a little bit more difficult to see that the was poisoned in the movie. In the novel we get it quite fast. In the novel the lady got three floors and in the movie she only got one, so the setting was a little different.


I am not sure if i liked the novel or not. I find it a little bit hard to understand english novels because you have to read between the lines and think about what you read. Eventhoug i think it's funny whit such a funny way to end a story. You just sit there and in a way have no idea what just happened. I also find the story a little bit nasty but I think it was a kind of funny.

What do you think about the movie?

Here is a link to the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEz39MfsLXQ

This is a link to the novel:
http://annmic.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/the-landlady2.pdf

Social and cultural values

11. september 2012

10:29

This i written by me, but my friend Ewa has written more on here blog at www.englishewa.blogspot.no

I have written about social questions and Ewa has written more cultural questions

This is how boys and girls in the age 15-19 years old and who they spend their time.

 This is how an American teen spend their 24 hours. Do you agree? If not, what is different and who do you spend your time? What is typical an American teens life? 

http://www.loansandcredit.com/how-the-average-american-spends-their-day/
This i a  link to were you can find more stats about american people.

What is a great differences between Norway and the United States?

In my opinion living in Norway is better than living in the USA. I have never lived in the states and not trying to live the American dream.

A great difference  is the tax. Here in Norway we pay tax after how much we earn. The tax we pay is used to build roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, kindergartens and other official things that we need. In the states you have to pay for all this. An accident can ruin a whole family because they have to pay for the hospital.

1. What do the tax you pay to the government get used to? 
2. Who much do a normal person in USA pay in taxes?

Another question I got is how the American school is. Here in Norway we start school in an age of 6. We have seven years in a primary school and after that we have three years on a lower secondary school. Afterwards we also have three more years on high school. The first ten of these years is obligatory. And the three years at high school is optional but every Norwegian teen got the right to go to a high school. All this years is free and even university is free. Its just the private schools you have to pay for. Every public school is free.

1. How is the  school system in the states?

2. Do you have to pay for school and how many of the years are obligatory?
3. Is there religion teaching in school? In case if yes, what kind of religions are you learning?

Religion in Norway is multicultural. After a lot immigration from other countries we have a multicultural country. Even if we are multicultural our national religion is the Christianity. We follow the Christian traditions like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.

1. Which religion is your national religion?
2. Are you taught in different religions in school?
3. Which religion do you follow and which holidays do you have?

I hope you will help me whit these questions and i will gladly help you if you got some questions about  cultural an social values in Norway.

Isaac

At the day of 23. Th august 2005 a horrible hurricane rages around in the south coastline in the USA. Over a million persons was evacuated when they heard the big tropical storm was entering New Orleans. This hurricane hit the number five at the scale of Saffir-Simpsons.
This was the biggest natural disaster that ever had enter the south coastline of USA.

Seven years later a friend of Katrina arrive. He's name is Isaac. Almost at the same time as seven years ago a new and horrible hurricane threatens the city New Orleans.

People all around the state shop fuel, food, drinks, hygiene products and waiting for Isaac.

 - I have refilled the car and generator, said carpenter John Corll (59) to the AP in New Orleans, but adds that he thinks the dike system in the city is better prepared for big hurricanes now than seven years ago.

(http://www.dagbladet.no/2012/08/27/nyheter/utenriks/veret/orkan/isaac/23138362/)(norwegian webpage for news)

So far eight people have lost their life a result of the hurricane. The hurricane washed over Haiti and Cuba a few days ago. Meteorologists tells us that the forecast is identical the hurricane Katrina from 2005.   

- The resemblance is uncanny.. meteorologist Hennen sais.

Here you can see a picture of were Isaac is expected. Monday morning Isaac was 650 kilometers southeast from the coastline and he is expected to enter at Wednesday morning. The hurricane have a wind speed at hundred km/h

English dictionaries

Testing of online english dictionaries.

http://www.eoioviedo.org/webteca/recursos%20ingles/dictionaries.htm

This is a link to different online dictionaries. I tried a some of them and i found a favorite.
There are a few of them i would beg you to stay away from because they are miserable.

The one I liked was the first one: http://www.wordreference.com/
This dictionary translate to Spanish, Italian, French, Polski, dutch and a lot of other languages.
The dictionary may read up you're world look up so you can hear how to spell it and it also give you sentences to see the word in a context. The dictionary tells you the meaning of the world to.
The first thing I noticed was the clean and neat webpage.
It is very easy to find out were to search and look for the meaning of the word. It translated very fast to.

This is a picture of the dictionary I just recommended. I going to use this in my english class. I hope you will like it to. 

This is a link to another online dictionary i liked:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/telephone

This is a monolingual dictionary and its also free.  

If you click the link you will enter the look up word telephone. You can see that the webpage tell you the meaning of the word. 

the dictionary may tell spell the word for you, that is a big plus!

These dictionaries are very nice if you write or read an english text and want to use a little more difficult words. 

Living in Norway

Where to start when we are talking about Norway? Norway is full of opertunities and there is a lot of different things to do. But if we are talking about what Norway is for me, I think we could sit here for hours and talking about Norway. 

When you hear Norway and you're not living i Scandinavia you might think polar bears in the streets, cold and snowy.. I was i Tyrkie this summer and a man asked me were i came from. Id said Norway.. "Ahh! you are from Coldway, snowy and cold all around the year." Yes, Norway is cold and snowy but as an typical Norwegian viking loving the sun og heat we pay thousands  for every year, just to get back to Norway with a hint of tan skin just to survive the long, cold and snowy winter, we complaints if we even se a hint of the sun in Norway. "its so hot today!, i cant handle this heat.. its to hot to be outside today.."  So we Norwegians are not easy to satisfy AT ALL. 

But we norwegians are so much more than complaning brats who spend thousands of money on somethning we apparently dont like. 
We got one of the most beautyful nature in Norway. And if you are one of the lucky one to see Norway on a sunny day who might will be speachless.. Norway is acutally amazing when the sun shining over our blue water between the high moutains and deep walleys. 

World famous picture of typical norwegian nature

Norway is more than nature also. We have the world best skiiers that ever lived. Cross Country skiing is the national sport of Norway. With long wintermounths, snow in the mountains all year long and a whole skiing nation in youre back the conditions to bacame a good skiier are very high. 
I guess you have heard about Marit Bjørgen or Petter Northug Jr. This is two persons who have dedicateded their life to snow, coldness, pain, traing, a lot og training and more training. 

Personaly I am a skier to. I workout everyday, expose myself for pain that no one other than professional swimmers know about, snow, rainy autumns and looong winters.  The motivation i get just to look at my models on TV help me through all that nagativity make me a good skier.

To  finish this post i would like to say that its typical norwgian to be very proud of the Norwegian country.