“It was like someone had ripped part of my soul out and put rotten eggs as a replacement. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stank right now”
This is what Hashik’s reaction is to his best friend Babur getting kidnapped. It makes you feel as if you yourself had had your heart ripped out. This is called empathy. Authors try to create it as much possible. Those who don’t are not very successful writers. Here are some key points to creating empathy. You need to give lots of details so that the reader can clearly imagine the thing you’re trying to describe. Create lots of emotions so that the reader can connect to the character.
In the book The Breadwinner, the author creates empathy by using adjectives to describe how Parvana is coping with her life. People can understand that she is annoyed by the way the Taliban are treating people and women in particular. I felt particular empathy for Parvana when she had to leave Shauzia and rescue her family. Because I have had the same experience myself, it was easier for me to feel empathy, but I also felt that everyone else felt empathy too, even though they hadn’t had the same experience.
Empathy is something that anyone can attain with practice and hard work. Overall I think that you can get empathy by giving lots of detail, and entering lots emotions.
That is what I have to say to the world.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
LIfe Under Cover
Life under cover can mean two things:
One. You live in a life of lies and the constant worry that someone will discover you.
Two. You are covered from head to toe in a burqa.
Either way, it’s pretty hard to move around. Not very many people are under cover spies. Maybe a hundred or so. About fifteen million people have to wear burqas every time they go outside.
Burqas are long garment of clothing that covers your whole body. They also have some cloth that covers your whole face except for your eyes. Some burqas have a mesh-like thing covering your eyes. Because of this many women fall allot in the streets. It’s also incredibly stuffy in there. When it’s 40 degrees Celsius outside I don't think many women would choose to go outside all the time.
There is no way I would be able to stand such agony.
Why don't they just take them off? I hear you say. Some people don't know any better. Imagine someone comes at the door and says
"Take off all your clothes. It is now the law that you are not to wear your clothes while going outside."
Would you do it right away? Go to school the next day stark naked and hope that its all going to be alright? Would you stay home and hope that the law will change and you can go outside without having to be ice cold.
After about 20 years or so you've gotten used to the idea that if you go outside with any clothes on you will be shot. Now, someone comes at the door and says that you can wear your clothes again. Would you put them back on right away? Or would you wait until it’s been a week or two and you've gotten used to the idea.
Can you see the problem that Afghan women are facing right now?
One. You live in a life of lies and the constant worry that someone will discover you.
Two. You are covered from head to toe in a burqa.
Either way, it’s pretty hard to move around. Not very many people are under cover spies. Maybe a hundred or so. About fifteen million people have to wear burqas every time they go outside.
Burqas are long garment of clothing that covers your whole body. They also have some cloth that covers your whole face except for your eyes. Some burqas have a mesh-like thing covering your eyes. Because of this many women fall allot in the streets. It’s also incredibly stuffy in there. When it’s 40 degrees Celsius outside I don't think many women would choose to go outside all the time.
There is no way I would be able to stand such agony.
Why don't they just take them off? I hear you say. Some people don't know any better. Imagine someone comes at the door and says
"Take off all your clothes. It is now the law that you are not to wear your clothes while going outside."
Would you do it right away? Go to school the next day stark naked and hope that its all going to be alright? Would you stay home and hope that the law will change and you can go outside without having to be ice cold.
After about 20 years or so you've gotten used to the idea that if you go outside with any clothes on you will be shot. Now, someone comes at the door and says that you can wear your clothes again. Would you put them back on right away? Or would you wait until it’s been a week or two and you've gotten used to the idea.
Can you see the problem that Afghan women are facing right now?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Holocaust Horrors Brought Back by Survivor Eva Olssen
Imagine this: You're a 19 year old girl from a poor Jewish family at the beginning of World War II. You live in Hungary with your whole extended family in two rooms. There isn't any work for Jews anymore. There is no money for food. There is no hope. Someone comes to the door and says, "Pack your bags! We have work for you! Go to the train station to be taken to a brick factory where you can work."
You believe him, you pack your bags and you head towards the train station. Walking there feels strange, like being in a silent movie, with everyone on the sides of the streets, watching the Jews parade quietly towards the train station. No one knows for sure where the train is really going, but everyone hopes they are heading to a better future.
They are wrong.
Auschwitz. One of the most horrible concentration camps man has made. That is where Eva Olssen, her family, many of the Jews of Europe, and other innocent people were sent. The reality was that it was the place where it was almost certain that they were going to draw their last breath in the black smoke.
These were no passenger trains, they were box cars, and they stuffed them with as many people as could be squeezed inside. When they finally reached their destination, after four days of going non-stop without water or food, they arrived at Auschwitz. They were ordered into a line and were then sent to the left or to the right. Some realized that left meant certain death. Right meant you had some chance of living. Families were wrenched apart in this line. All mothers, children and pregnant ladies were sent to the left to be suffocated in the gas chambers. Eva's mother was one of them.
Can you imagine having your mother sent to certain death without being able to tell her one more time how much you loved her? Eva felt like that.
I find it amazing that some people were brainwashed into thinking that sending people to life or death was a good solution. Can you imagine being the person who did that, during the war? Feeling absolutely no guilt at all? And then after the war, once you've lost? What would you do? Run? Hide? Commit suicide? Or would you try to do so much good in the world that you eventually could forgive yourself? None of these would save you.
Eva Olssen came to our school to tell us about the horrors that the Holocaust brought to the world and to her family. I am in awe of her amazing courage, to have endured those hopeless years. Hungry, thirsty, scared, sick, all those things she had to suffer through while she was only a young woman. The whole school was silenced as her words bored through our heads.
" 200,000 people die every year because of sickness and of old age. The Nazi bullies killed 14,000,000 people who had done nothing wrong, all because of HATE and BYSTANDERS."
After she was liberated, she went to Sweden where she found love and a husband. When her son was 10 years old though, her husband died because of a drinking-and-driving accident. To lose one parent is one thing, to lose your whole family is another, but losing your husband as well? It must have taken more courage to survive all of that than I would ever be able to pull together.
Eva Olssen suffered things that I can't even begin trying to imagine. I hope that neither I nor anybody else has to suffer through such horrors, minute by minute, as Eva did.
She told us that there was one thing she wished she had done but didn't so she asks you to do it before tomorrow:
Tell your parents you love them.
You believe him, you pack your bags and you head towards the train station. Walking there feels strange, like being in a silent movie, with everyone on the sides of the streets, watching the Jews parade quietly towards the train station. No one knows for sure where the train is really going, but everyone hopes they are heading to a better future.
They are wrong.
Auschwitz. One of the most horrible concentration camps man has made. That is where Eva Olssen, her family, many of the Jews of Europe, and other innocent people were sent. The reality was that it was the place where it was almost certain that they were going to draw their last breath in the black smoke.
These were no passenger trains, they were box cars, and they stuffed them with as many people as could be squeezed inside. When they finally reached their destination, after four days of going non-stop without water or food, they arrived at Auschwitz. They were ordered into a line and were then sent to the left or to the right. Some realized that left meant certain death. Right meant you had some chance of living. Families were wrenched apart in this line. All mothers, children and pregnant ladies were sent to the left to be suffocated in the gas chambers. Eva's mother was one of them.
Can you imagine having your mother sent to certain death without being able to tell her one more time how much you loved her? Eva felt like that.
I find it amazing that some people were brainwashed into thinking that sending people to life or death was a good solution. Can you imagine being the person who did that, during the war? Feeling absolutely no guilt at all? And then after the war, once you've lost? What would you do? Run? Hide? Commit suicide? Or would you try to do so much good in the world that you eventually could forgive yourself? None of these would save you.
Eva Olssen came to our school to tell us about the horrors that the Holocaust brought to the world and to her family. I am in awe of her amazing courage, to have endured those hopeless years. Hungry, thirsty, scared, sick, all those things she had to suffer through while she was only a young woman. The whole school was silenced as her words bored through our heads.
" 200,000 people die every year because of sickness and of old age. The Nazi bullies killed 14,000,000 people who had done nothing wrong, all because of HATE and BYSTANDERS."
After she was liberated, she went to Sweden where she found love and a husband. When her son was 10 years old though, her husband died because of a drinking-and-driving accident. To lose one parent is one thing, to lose your whole family is another, but losing your husband as well? It must have taken more courage to survive all of that than I would ever be able to pull together.
Eva Olssen suffered things that I can't even begin trying to imagine. I hope that neither I nor anybody else has to suffer through such horrors, minute by minute, as Eva did.
She told us that there was one thing she wished she had done but didn't so she asks you to do it before tomorrow:
Tell your parents you love them.
Do it today. There might not be tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
MS Team Building Day
On monday middle school went to norval for a team building day. The idea of the day was to get everyone to work together to solve the problem being set in the group you were put in. One the problems involved balancing on wires and get everyone to the other end, and trying to get a tire off a pretty tall pole.
One of the highlights of the day was when we had to walk across the wire and get to the other end without falling off. I was one of the three only people who got across without falling off. It was very difficult to get to the other end without someone to hand you the different ropes and leaning on people as to not fall off. We all worked very well together to get each other, and not neccesarily ourselves to get to the other end.
One thing I thought my group didn't do very well was listen to each other. There was an awful lot of shouting in my ear. Instead of everyone waiting for someone to finish speaking, they would shout out what they thought they should do. We didn't come to a conclusion, and my ear was in quite a state after the day was done. Because of this, it took quite a while before we all could settle down and come up with a strategy. Which is most likely the reason for not being able to get the tire off the pole.
I thought that overall the day was a good experience for everyone. Even though my ear hurt. It was awfully fun just the same. I hope that next year we will be able to listen to one another and be able to take what they say, try it out, even if they don't like the person who suggested it, and work together to solve the problem being set. That's what it's all about anyway.
That is what I have to say to the world.
One of the highlights of the day was when we had to walk across the wire and get to the other end without falling off. I was one of the three only people who got across without falling off. It was very difficult to get to the other end without someone to hand you the different ropes and leaning on people as to not fall off. We all worked very well together to get each other, and not neccesarily ourselves to get to the other end.
One thing I thought my group didn't do very well was listen to each other. There was an awful lot of shouting in my ear. Instead of everyone waiting for someone to finish speaking, they would shout out what they thought they should do. We didn't come to a conclusion, and my ear was in quite a state after the day was done. Because of this, it took quite a while before we all could settle down and come up with a strategy. Which is most likely the reason for not being able to get the tire off the pole.
I thought that overall the day was a good experience for everyone. Even though my ear hurt. It was awfully fun just the same. I hope that next year we will be able to listen to one another and be able to take what they say, try it out, even if they don't like the person who suggested it, and work together to solve the problem being set. That's what it's all about anyway.
That is what I have to say to the world.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
"The Clothes Make The Man"
Some people think that the world is made of clothes. And clothes only. That the type of clothes that you wear define who you are. I do not agree with that. A person could be particularly smart but has shabby clothes. Or the queen came to a party in jeans and a t-shirt and broken down uggs and the bodyguards at the entrance say,
"You the queen? Not a chance!" True, this would probably never happen but it wouldnt be fair to judge the queen by her broken down uggs.
To me, clothes are made to protect you, be comfortable, and keep you warm in winter. For canadians the last one is the most important.
That is what I have to say to the world.
"You the queen? Not a chance!" True, this would probably never happen but it wouldnt be fair to judge the queen by her broken down uggs.
To me, clothes are made to protect you, be comfortable, and keep you warm in winter. For canadians the last one is the most important.
That is what I have to say to the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
