former papers (ec)

#1

Imagine that you wake up on any ordinary day and you head to your job at the oil rig with everything seems normal; the breakfast, the shower, the boat ride to the rig, and the job. You’re working on the job and you hear and feel a rumbling but you don’t know what is going on. You soon realize that your oil rig has had an explosion down underwater and nobody knows what to do so they are all panicking and you can’t do anything about it. This is exactly what happened with the British Petroleum (BP) oil rig when the rig blew and started to gush out oil. It is and has been the biggest news story for the past two weeks. And it of course happened in the Gulf of Mexico near the U.S. Whenever you hear of a major oil rig leak, it is usually in or near the U.S. Oil leaks don’t happen often but when they do, they can take a long time to clean up, especially if they are underwater like this one. On the rare occasion that this does happen, there has to be a tested plan to get rid of the leaking oil (which this rig didn’t have). Because of this leaking that is happening with the Deepwater Horizon- the name of the rig-, there should not be anymore offshore drilling except for the already existing rigs- which need to have tested “incase of emergency” plans.

The reason that the existing plants shouldn’t be shut down is because the U.S. truly needs that offshore oil. The U.S. is struggling with their oil and would not be able to provide for their whole country for very long without the oil from the ocean. There is just so much oil on land but oil is limited. The U.S. is a huge country with so many people that drive cars. However, oil is not just for operating vehicles, it is in paint, hair products, for generating electricity, and much more which would make oil even more valuable. So the offshore rigs would be good to have. If we don’t have it, then somebody else will claim it and we should take any oil we can get. The U.S. without enough oil is like girl not having enough shoes. It would be complete chaos. But we don’t want to get out of hand. Like I said, oil spills do happen and if that is going to happen, then you might not want many more oil rigs because those are just more rigs that could start leaking and the more tested backup plans that you’ll need.

If we make too many off shore rigs, that would just be an accident waiting to happen because those are just more oil rigs that have a chance of leaking. And if leaks do happen, you will definitely need something to stop the leaks. Most people would just say to put some waterproof duct tape on there, but in some very rare cases, duct tape won’t do it and this is one of them. The owners of the rig will need to have an “incase of emergency” plan that has been tested many times. If it is only tested once, in might not work the second, or actual, time. That would be like testing a roller coaster only once before it is open to the public. It could be disastrous. This is only my opinion on what to do though.

Some people might think that they should completely shut down off shore drilling. That wouldn’t do any good because there is hardly any oil on land compared to the oil that is offshore. Just because there were some bad things that happened doesn’t mean that you give up. It should not be allowed to have any more rigs come into offshore drilling because there are already so many that they could provide for countries. If they are completely shut down, then countries will quickly run out of oil.

#2

What comes to mind when you think of a teenager? Most people will of a selfish and immature child that doesn’t listen to anybody but their friends. But that doesn’t define every teen because there are many different kinds of teenagers. There are orphans, only-children, leaders, etc. For the ordinary teenager, nobody matters to them; the world is resolved around them. Some teens actually care about people, though. Some teenagers have to be caring because of a certain situation and some even have to take the role of a parent. In the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, the main character, Cassie, changes throughout the book by starting as an ordinary African American teenager and slowly develops to taking a parental role for her brothers.

There are many different signs of Cassie acting like a normal African American girl at the beginning. She gets ready and walks to school just like and other black girl would at her age. Cassie wakes up early and gets ready in her Sunday dress for the first day of school and takes the ordinary one hour stroll down to the school with her brothers. She gets harmed and treated horribly because of the racism that happens every day; just like any other African American girl would. Black girls were all treated equally 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that they were treated fair. They were all treated horribly and they were harmed just because of their race. Like when the Wallaces said “’ Get out of my store you n*****.”’ It just seemed like a way of living, for the whites to harm the blacks. And the African American girls couldn’t do anything about it. They aren’t going to pick a fight with a big white person. Neither would Cassie. However, Cassie did not stay that way throughout the whole book.

Cassie becomes a parental figure to her brothers by taking the role of a parent to her brothers because her actual parents tell her to take care of her brothers while they are away. When there was a fir in their rice field, Cassie watched her brothers. A fire was set in the rice field and Cassie’s parents helped put it out and said to Cassie “’Watch your brothers while me and your papa are gone.”’ They thought that she was responsible enough to take care of the kids- which is one of the main roles as a parent. Also, regular people that take care of others can be described as a parent. You don’t need to be a biological parent to be somebody’s parent. There are aunts, uncles, godfathers, grandparents, foster parents, and others. They may not be the real parent, but they still take the role of parent. If something happens to the actual parents, somebody else can step in. Whoever steps in, the children will always be dependent on that person.

Another reason that Cassie represents a parent is because she takes the role of being a role model. Parents are often role models to their children because children always want to be just like their mom and/or dad. If you ever ask a five year-old child what they want to be when they grow up, most of them will want to be what their mom or dad is. If a boy’s dad is a police officer, the boy will most likely say that he wants to be a police officer as well. I want to be exactly like my dad without his job because I don’t really want to be an accountant right now. Parents are role models to their kids just like Cassie is a role model to her brothers. Parents will always want their kids to be nice and good kids. Then they will have to be a nice and good role model to their kids and they will most likely be like their parents. Children with nice parents will most likely grow up to be nice people and children with bad parents will most likely grow up to be bad people. If you have parents that are mean and rude people and they raise their kids like that, the children will learn how their parents act and will grow up to be mean and rude. Good people are good role models for other people. Their children will eventually become teenagers, and that’s where the parenting pays off.

Parents work hard for 13 years, trying to raise a good child. They always seem sweet until they turn 13. That is when you will know if you did a good job raising them or not. That age is the same time when you get the selfish, immature, and demonic child. Some teenagers do act their age though, and will act kind. Your parenting will probably be the foundation of how your child acts from then on.

One Shirt, Two shirts, Redshirts, Blueshirts

http://www.newser.com/story/89425/thailand-protest-violence-mostly-over.html

I think that the Thailand Red Shirts should quit fighting with the government.

The Redshirts only are fighting to get the old prime minister back and reestablish the old government. I do not think that the Thailand government is going to give up against some protestors who don’t like them. Plus, the government is much stronger than a bunch of middle-class protestors. There is proof as well. 15 people were killed by the military in Bangkok and there were 96 wounded. 3 of the redshirt leaders have just surrendered but there have been more and there will be more. The redshirts are slowly being taken care of and they still continue to keep protesting anyway. The government continues to take them down though. I would think that they have learned their lesson by now but they cannot seem to learn from their mistakes. The more the protesting goes on, the more the protestors will be harmed. They really hate the government, but no matter what they do, the government of the country will always beat the country itself.

Slime Balls

Last week, we had to complete the easiest blog I ever had to do. I finished in class, which is the first time I had ever finished anything during class. I got the blog done in about ten minutes and then, I didn’t know what to do. I was just sitting around doing nothing. Until I tried to play a strange slime soccer game. It was like volleyball except with nets on the end of the screen instead of in the middle. Your player was a big slime ball and so was the other player. It was very weird at the beginning but once I got the hang of it, I started tearing it up and I crushed everything about the game. It wasn’t even a challenge. Then Austin tried to challenge me.

I laughed and took the challenge. How could he think that he could beat the master? He’s just an amateur. He played me and the first game I was going easy and in the middle of our game, the lunch bell rang so we called it a game and the final score resulted with a three point victory by yours truly. When we came back from lunch, we started a new game.

He came out strong and surprisingly, he took the lead. It was very suspicious. I thought that maybe he was practicing during lunch. But since I am the undisputed, world heavy-weight champ of this game, I came back. I scored probably ten in a row. He was on his knees begging for mercy but I decided to beat him more because he already losing bad enough. I think that by the time he quit, the score was about 22-6. He gave it up because he couldn’t take down Godzilla. I think if he practices more, he might come close to losing by 5 or 6. But it would still be no challenge.

So as of right now Austin is 0-2 and I don’t think he will ever play again because of the fear that I put him through. I think he might even suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that I caused. He knows that he cannot beat me but he can still try. I am 2-0 and still working on up but I can’t move on because everybody else is obviously terrified of losing to me. This is the undefeated, undisputed, World-Heavyweight Campion of Big World Cup Slime Soccer signing off.

SIMUN blog ll

When we first had to start our research of SIMUN, I thought that it was going to be the hardest things ever. In the beginning, it was horrible because we had to spend a month researching the topics that we had. First we had to look up information about our country. I had Iran, which I thought would make it even harder because nobody likes Iran and they are all over the news so nobody would go on my side. I really needed to do well because of that reason. I did well on the researching of my country but the next part was the part I hated the most and the part that was really hard.

We were assigned four questions to answer, but it wasn’t a yes or no question. They weren’t even short answer or essay answers. They were full paper answers. I had to research the topic and then somehow expand my short “This should happen” answer into a full answer that was about a paper long. The research never seems like the hard thing, but when I researched these questions, nothing came up. It was so aggravating. I finally found my three sources then came the really hard part, expanding the answer. It was extremely difficult but I finished it and had a good time in the end.

Actually going into the first debate day of SIMUN, I didn’t know what to expect. I just sort of sat there for the first couple of minutes and realized that if I wanted to get a decent grade on this, I would have to wake up and say something. So I went on the speaker’s list. Then I made a mistake when I was done with my speaking, I yielded my time to the chair, not questions. I asked some questions throughout the debate and ended up with, what I thought was a pretty good first day. The second day was almost exactly the same as the first except with a new debate and this time; I yielded my time to questions and handled them pretty well. The third day was definitely the most difficult thought. I couldn’t understand where my position was and what was going on. Then I figured it out, added myself to the speaker’s list and right when I was going to speak. Somebody proposed to move into voting procedure and I didn’t get to speak. If we would’ve gone faster, I could’ve done the debate about Iran, which I would’ve been way move involved with but I didn’t get to do that debate. So I think that I did okay but I could’ve done way better. Next year I will definitely get more involved and overall, I was a good experience and I had a good time.

SIMUN blog

As Iran I think that the Taliban should not be able to break into Pakistan for the nuclear weapons. You can’t just invade a country for nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons for a reason and that reason is not to give the Taliban bombs to blow people up. The last thing we need is a terrorist group with more nuclear power. Pakistan should be able to have their nuclear weapons because they made them which would mean that the weapons are theirs. Pakistan had the weapons from the beginning so they should be theirs for use. The Taliban would be much more harmful with the amount of nuclear weapons that Pakistan has.

If the Taliban got those nuclear weapons, the U.S., and the world, would be in danger. There aren’t many things worse than a very dangerous terrorist group with nuclear bombs. There could be many things blown up with nuclear weapons. Pakistan won’t mean any harm with their weapons. They should keep the weapons because all that they will use the weapons for is self-defense and safety of their citizens in case of an emergency. The Taliban would not use for in case of emergency, they would use the weapons because they wanted to. So the Taliban should be stopped by somebody from taking over the Pakistani weapon bases so that the world isn’t in complete danger.

Roll of Thunder...

For my book I am reading “Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. “ I am really enjoying my book. It is about an African American family that is experiencing very rude and cruel behavior towards them. They are getting beaten and harassed. Many whites are very racist to them.
It shows the many differences of the culture of African-Americans back in the sixties. It also shows how the race isn’t different and they should be treated equally. They aren’t very rich and they are a family with a girl, 3 boys, a mother, a grandmother, and a father that is barely ever home. Their father is constantly working for the family and the mother is a teacher. But they still do not have a lot of money. People will shove them and make fun of them and it makes you think, why would they do that? It’s just a person just like me and you. It is just like harassing somebody of your own race. They look different from the outside but are very similar on the inside. They are the same race: Human. Not one race is better than the other. I know many people that would disagree but according to my family and I, all people, black, white, brown, or blue, are equal. In the book, there is a very racist group of people with the last name of Wallace. They beat up all of the black kids that come by and don’t let blacks enter their store. They are one of those groups that think one race is better than the other. If people learn this, the world would be much more peaceful and a lot of more people will be happy. But from where we stand, racism has decreased and continues to decrease but there will also be that one little group of people.

Smashed Off the Tracks

I awoke in the morning, as tired as can be, and got ready for a very long day. Today, I was taking part in a huge model train racing meet; the national championship for my age group. I had had a great season so far and, feeling very confident, I had a feeling that I would have a swell meet today. I, settling down for breakfast, looked out the window and saw a large train going by; quickly flashing my mind on about a dream I had had the night before.

I had dreamt that I was a conductor of a racing train that was black, with some red racing stripes, and I was in first place coming to the end of the race. Hurriedly, I took over the lead from the former 1st placeman, my arch rival, Ty-rainasauraus Rex. I then heard the announcer yell into the earthshaking megaphone, “And the Black Stallion has taken the lead.” Feeling startled by the loud megaphone, I forcefully shutting my ears, lost control of the train. A few seconds later, I was riding at high speed off of the tracks and still going but slightly tipping. I was frightened, and I saw my rival, Ty-rainasauraus Rex, pass me up again. So I hurried back to my controls, skillfully turned the train back onto the tracks and luckily, while making it back onto the tracks, knocked the back of Ty-rainasauraus Rex off of the tracks and he started to fall off the tracks. He, also being very skilled, managed to maintain complete balance even with his tail-end hanging off of the tracks. Eventually, I caught up to him face-to-face and realized, again being skilled at noticing mistakes, that all of his controls were turning the train to the right, so if I did not get out of the way soon, I would be smashed off of the tracks. So I backed up and this time, was ready for the announcer to scream out his mind in wondering what I was doing. Sure enough, he did- I immediately heard “And the Black Stallion is backing off and letting Ty-rainasauraus Rex take over the lead.” I was, hopefully, foreshadowing what was going to happen; but as of right now, as was going to lose because the other train was still ahead and controlling well. Luckily he, screaming and jumping out of the train, lost control of his train and his train fell off of the tracks and crashed into a big building. As I predicted, I crossed the line in first place. Then, when I was about to get my award, my loudly buzzing alarm clock went off.

That day, at my tough train racing meet, I went 8-2 for the round robin; winning the first seven then going 1-2. I won in the quarter finals in a very long and grueling match while advancing to the semi-finals. In the semis, I raced in an even closer race and won by a hair. In the finals, I faced the Raptor- which was another dinosaur name, and I was the Blue Bronco- which was a horse as well. I was blue with red racing stripes. It was a close race throughout and near the end, the Raptor fell off of the tracks and I ended up winning the race. My dream was what happened in real life but with no announcer.

Boxes of Sand

When I was a kid, I would love to come home from school every day and to get out of the boring building. I would come home, eat a snack, and then go outside. I always loved when I could go outside because that meant I could play in my homemade sand box. I loved playing in my sandbox. My sandbox had a lot of toys and the best thing about it was that my sandbox had a built-in crane. I would always lift up all of the sand with the crane and bury the toys. Then I would search for the toys in the sand and bash the toys together and I would break a lot of them. The toys were really fun to play with but I liked my sandbox but I like my sandbox for other things as well.

I really like playing in my sandbox and mostly in the summer. I liked the sandbox in the summer because all of the sand was really warm. I could bury myself in the sand and it would make you feel so good. It felt like being in a hot tub but it was a sand box. It was one of the greatest feelings that I have ever felt. I would still play with the toys but the sand being warm was the best part.

I guess there were three things that I did not like about the sandbox. One was that the sand would get into your pants and it would not come out no matter how many times you shook the pants out. The sand was very irritating and I would have to go inside if too much sand found its way into my pants. I had to be careful that the sand would not end up in my pants. The only other things that I did not like about my sandbox were when it was raining outside and when the weather was cool. When it was rainy, the sandbox would flood and when the weather was cool, the sand was cool and it was not fun to play with. After it rained, the rain would make the sand clump into a ball and it wasn’t fun anymore. I didn’t like it when the weather was cold either because it makes your body cold. I don’t know if it makes me weird, but I like warm over cold.

The Big Fish

There were many strange things going on one day in my life.

I woke up that day and went up the stairs to find 4 animals running all over my house. They had chewed up the furniture, ate all of our food, and broke many things. I walked into the kitchen and my wife was screaming for everyone to clean up. She was going to make breakfast but soon she realized that the animals had devoured all of the food. She told me to get rid of the creatures so I did. Every time I did get rid of them, they came back. It seemed like I could not get rid of them. My wife and I had to get to work so we took the animals and put them into a building that would tame the creatures.

After I finally left my house, I went to my work. I was working fine and then my phone had rang. The tamer I had left the creatures with was calling to say that the animals were too vicious and that they were getting in too much trouble. I had to leave work and go get the animals even though I did not want to see them at the time. I walked into the calming clinic and everything was tore up. The furniture was all scratch and there was food everywhere. I took the animals and I let them outside again because I did not want to deal with them but I had too. After work, I walked into my house to be surprised by the 4 animals inside my house and they had eaten all of my food again. I had to get rid of them but wherever I put them, they would find a way to get back into the house.

My house was practically ruined by these creatures. I decided that they could live with us. Every time they did not listen, I would punish them. Eventually, the animals had learned their lesson and were behaving more. I realized how to deal with the evil animals and they seemed to not be so bad after all. They turned out to be very responsible and they weren't ruining our house anymore.

China Renews Opposition to Iran Sanctions

China is hurting themselves by not going into sanctions with Iran.

With China opposing Iran sanctions, Iran will not act. Right now, China thinks that Iran is harmless and is using the enrichment plants for “A peaceful use of nuclear energy,” according to China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi. But Iran was caught with underground uranium plants out of nowhere. To make matter worse, Iran had just announced that they have make nuclear weapons. Now Iran’s enemies are in trouble (Israel for example). If Iran does harm a country, other countries will be angry at China for not acting with Iran and China would have some consequences. But if China does help, Iran could have their nuclear plants shutdown.

China could also support the Iran sanctions and doing that would help China and the world out. China is allies with Iran so if China supports the sanctions, they would get Iran to act and to realize how much controversy that they are causing in the world. Iran would get their nuclear power enriched by the U.S. and Russia. The U.N. could shut down the underground plants and Iran’s nuclear weapons would be gone.

Some people might think that China should continue to not support sanctions because China won’t be able to change Iran’s mind. They might think the Iran will continue to make the weapons anyway. But, with the power of China added to the U.N., the U.N. would be more powerful and could shut down the power plants and could bring the nuclear weapons in Iran to a stop

My favorite English class I have ever had in 9th grade

In Global Ed. English, I learned many things that I did not know.

For instance, I learned that I can actually be a good writer. In the beginning of the year, I wrote three papers and got 2 D’s and a C. But after being told that I needed to develop my papers and I needed a focal point about a million times, I finally got the idea. I took a couple months but I got a C+ which was above average. Then we started to write a blog every week and that helped me out to get used to writing papers. Since the blogs, I’ve amazingly got only B’s and A-‘s on my papers. From the beginning of the year, I thought that I would drop the class and it would be a very long semester. It still is hard but I have gotten the hang of things and I am a much better writer now.

Another thing I learned was how to take notes. I just figured notes were writing down things that I thought were interesting. I was right but there was way more to it. From the beginning we margin noted a lot which is pretty much like highlighting with some writing in the margins. That was boring but sort of easy. The notes that really bothered me were Q.C.V.I.’s (Questions, Connections, vocabulary, and Interesting/Important facts). First taking them, they were easy to me except for the connections because I could find a way to connect with the stories in many ways. We always had to do 5 of each and one day, Mr. Fielder changed it to 2 questions and 2 connections. I was happy but he said the questions had to be discussion and the connections had to be developed. Now the connections were easier but discussion questions were hard to find. I eventually got the hang of it though.

The third thing that I learned was that there is a lot more to capitalization than and the beginnings of the sentences and proper nouns. There turned out to be many properties of capitalization that I didn’t know about. I then got the capitalization thing and after you understood it, you understood it well. Or so you thought. We had a pop quiz on capitalization and I blew through it but it turned out that I got a lot wrong. I had more wrong than I had right and I didn’t know what was going on. We got another packet and we had to practically memorize the rules. After studying the rules of capitalization, we took a third test on it and I did pretty well on the third test.

After the capitalization, I learned something yet again, How to research on the computer. Yes, I know researching sounds like the easiest thing to do in school, but when you have Mr. Fielder, that is a whole different story (in a good way). He made you look for a source and he had to check it. I only had a bad source once so the researching was pretty easy for me but without learning what a credible source would be, I would have probably just picked the first topic I saw. But then we had to search stories for our topic on South Africa. I thought like it would be the Rwanda articles (the articles that were easy to find). It was for the first two I found. I googled the topic, printed it out, and he checked it. But then I couldn’t find any more that he would okay so I kept looking. It took a while but I finally got Mr. Fielder to check a third article.

What we spent most of the semester on were foreign countries. The foreign countries we studied were Australia, then Rwanda, and then South Africa. I used the things that I learned to learn about these foreign countries. We read a novel about Australian Aborigines called Walkabout and watched a movie called Rabbit Proof Fence. We had to write a paper comparing the two and because of the writing skills I learned, I was able to do a good job on the paper. Then for Rwanda, that was the most difficult for me because there was so much going on in the genocide of Rwanda that I was confused. But the movie Hotel Rwanda helped me get a better understanding of what was going on. And we last learned about South Africa. This was probably the easiest for me to understand because it was semi-modern day and the only time that there was too much going on was the Anglo-Boer war. But research helped me understand the topic more. I understood my topic, which was the first and second decade of freedom but the movie Invictus helped me understand it more. My learning help me learn even more in this class.

The Native I would be

If I was a native to any country we have learned about, I would be a native to Australia.

I would be an Aborigine of Australia because of the fact that they were not brutally murdered and because they still live today after being the longest existing tribe in the world. They have been around for about 50,000 years and they are still around. The Aborigines being around for 50,000 years is one reason that I would be an Aborigine. Most natives from countries don’t last even a hundred and they have lasted more than 500 times that amount. They have lasted longer than your great X5,000 grandparents and they were treated poorly by the British and almost eliminated their culture. Another reason I would be an Aborigine is that they stand out from the rest that they have an ancient culture in a modern time. They have passed on their cultures for all those generations. That makes it seem like the Aborigines are a very strong group of people and care a lot about their culture. They seem dedicated and strong so that is something I like about them.


Some people would argue that the Aborigines were treated more poorly than other countries and that they would rather be some other country. First of all, it is their opinion and they can think what they want. I still think that being an Aborigine is the safest bet. Looking at how both the Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtered. Native Americans were kicked out further and further to the west then some were slaves while others were killed. In South Africa, the people were forced out of their homes and moved north. Yes, some Aborigines were killed and were forced out of their homes but not nearly as much as other countries and they were able to stand up for their culture and their land and are still around today. Natives Rwandans have only been around for about 200 years, Native Americans are barely seen anywhere now, and South Africans were never heard of again so Aborigines are the most successful because they are still around. Rwandans and Native Americans are also around but have not been around anywhere close to 50,000 years.