WRITE A LETTER

Dear Jake,

How are you? How’s it going? It was long since we met, wasn’t it? I miss elementary; it was fun playing together. Well, it’s not like I don’t like middle school. Actually, it’s really fun here in American International School (AIS, for short). We get to do lots of exciting stuffs, and I got to make new awesome friends. I’m doing very fine here, so please don’t worry about me. Oh yeah! I always forget the main point I write to you…

You know, yesterday, our whole eight- grade classes went all together to Cu Chi wildlife rescue center. It’s not a zoo; I’ll tell you before you get your hopes up. It does look like a zoo, but it’s not. It’s a place where animals come and rest until they recover- yeah, it’s like a hospital- then they can break free into the jungle or wherever they came from. The people there release them willingly. I know, cool, huh? The spaces for the animals are large- much larger than the cage people let them in and then kill them for medicine. There were bears, monkeys, baby leopards, sea otters, turtles… They looked really sick (except for the monkeys, they just started grabbing my friend’s shoulder and swing around wildly). Without Cu Chi, they’d start dying. This place is really helpful, you should come, too. I wanted to thank them for what they’ve done for the animals. Your family use bear biles- the medicine that were supposed to cure sicknesses and stuffs- right? Well, those biles come from hunting, killing, and making bears suffer. It doesn’t have any effect, so please don’t use them. It would decrease the bears’ population, affect the food chain, and hurt the animals. They are also living things just like us human, so what’s the point in killing them?

Oh, right! There’s also some articles that talks about them. I’ll put it right below the letter, okay? Yes, yes, I know you really, really hate reading. But deal with it.

Hey, can you help us? You can donate money to the wildlife rescue center, so they can improve. Tell people to stop hunting and killing endangered animals. Or you can do whatever you can to help them. Thanks so much!

Sorry I wrote too much. Hope we can meet soon. Say hi to your family for me.

Best wishes! Love you. Miss you.

Your best friend forever,

Anna Bui

P.S.: Remember what I told you. I’ll visit you soon… probably.

http://www.freethebears.org/web/About-us

http://www.savethebears.co.uk/

http://www.savenjbears.com/home.html

There are lots of videos like these on YouTube. You can find them if you click bear bile, or animal torture. Really good stuffs that might change your mind.
Yeah, well, anyway, reply!

HOMEWORK 2-11-2010 ;)

1. How does advertising influence consumption?
Advertising tells people to buy their products so that they would get money for themselves, but they don't really care much about the environment and how it effects it. They tell people their things are the best, so they'd buy it.

2. Do you think citizens are sufficiently informed about the sustainability of our consumption habits? If not, how can we become more informed about sustainability issues?I think some of them know about how it effects negatively to the environment, but their habits don't let them. When they see the advertisements that they like, people'll try to buy it. It's their habits from when they were young. Therefore, the school can teach students what sustainability is and how we can prevent it from happening. Parents should do that, too. It's not like they shouldn't buy a product that they really love, they can just buy less. For example, some certain people have lots of converse shoes, but he can just buy like two or three.

3. Do you think these advertising techniques influence what you and your friends purchase?Yes, somehow. I don't, because I don't really like things that people present for their own good, but I think my friends do. They love it. When they see something new that they like, they'll ask their parents or buy it themselves. Usually, if they see a model or someone they admire in the advertisement, they'd really want to have it.

Migration/ Immigration Assessment [Diary]

Friday, December 1^st, 2010

Hey, today is my birthday! And guess what, my family is forcing me to go to USA! This is insane! I mean; I have my friends, my close relatives, and this is my HOMELAND. They can’t just tell me what to do and make me MISERABLE like this. Well, first they celebrated and congratulated me entering the age of thirteen, of course, and then they said we’re going to California next week. That was out of the blue. Mom told me that there’s a better opportunity to succeed, and greater chance for me to study. Plus, dad’s side of the family is there, therefore, they could help us to find a new home and job. My parents seemed to not like Vietnam’s POPULATION and weather conditions much. I understand that they really want to SETTLE there, but what about me? I’m not so good at INTERACTING with people, and I already have friends here that I can’t leave. They said there’s flood here, and there’re like tons of EARTHQUAKES in California. It’s not like I hate America, I just… miss everything here. This is the worst birthday ever!

Monday, December 25^th, 2010

Okay, now I regret for arguing with my parents about going to USA. I mean, this PLACE is just so wonderful! The ENVIRONMENT is super, and people here are extremely friendly, not like in Vietnam. Oh, my god! How could I have said I hated it here in the first place? My friend told me moving to another country is like a nightmare, but I guess it’s not that bad immigrating after all.

Homework!

1. People make pollution that make the greenhouse gasses (greenhouse effect) causes the Earth to change like global warming. It effects the climate, or how the climate changes, and huge weathering.

2. a) Skeptics: a person who doubts the truth.
    b) Reluctant: opposing
    c) Dispute: to argue or discuss
    d) Uprooting: to tear apart violently

3. Weather is what happened to the seasons (like rain, sunny, cloudy) we experience from one day to another that doesn't last very long. And climate is the seasons (hot, cold) that happened at one exact place for a long period of time.

4.-Flood that destroy England
   -Flood in Pakistan
   -Heat wave baked the eastern part of England

5.There was one time when I was on the motorcycle with my dad and it suddenly rained heavily while we didn't bring a raincoat with us. Then the motorcycle just stopped and couldn't run any longer. We had to push it and walk home as fast as possible. It was severe.

6.Perception means to understand some sort of information.

7. In my opinion, global climate change is really bad. It effects the temperature and how people live. Global warming also make it bad for the animals that live in cold weather like polar bears or penguins because the ice are melting and they can't live there anymore. If people don't respect the environment and keep throwing out trash, releasing bad smoke from the transportation and companies.

Dream Land! =]

Dream Land was formed in year 0-1. It's a round land with two countries: Dumpty Key and Humpty Lock. DK is a nice and warm land, and HL is a cold one. Dream Land is a land with no humans, just animals and nature.
The animals lived freely where they want to. Until year 12, when the volcano in DK erupted, all the animals moved to HL and lived there because they were afraid they might die :) In year 35, the Fire and Snow Dragon was born. Snow Dragon was cruel and bad, so all the animals moved back to DK. Twenty years later, the trees in both countries were born, giving the animals food to eat without hunting. HL (the Dragon, polar bears, sea monster...) hated DK (other normal animals..:), so they had a war for about ten years, when DK won. The valley rosed up between them, and HL couldn't go back to fight with the west side country. In the middle of year 116, the animals break up into groups and followed their leaders.
~The end~

Family Tree Project

Well, before preparing for this assignment, I asked my parents about my family's lives. And there were so many things I didn't know. Like the doll that was there before I was born, my whole family comes from Sai Gon, and how my parents meet and get married. It's surprising that I didn't know that much until today...Great.
I also learned a lot about my friends and people around me. We all come from different cultures and different countries, but we are still good friends with each other. My friends are really awesome. Some can swim, some can cook, many went to different places or countries. It helps me to learn about my friends a lot. :D

Homework

THREE TYPES OF MAPS:

• Political
• Thematic
• Physical

There are some others like resources, climate... but the top 3 types are those above.

VOCAB:

• Geography: the study of people and places
• Environment: the physical surrounding of a place
• Location: the exact position using latitude & longitude
• Spatial: the position of a place and its physical relationship
• Region: an area that has common physical and human characteristics
• Place: the physical and human characteristic of a location.

OTHERS:

• The 5 themes of geography: location, place, human environment interaction, movement, regions
• The 6 essential elements: geography, environment, location, spatial, region, place.

We also learn about the way to read, the jobs of people who study about geography, and how to read maps.

USA :)

I've been in the USA for the whole summer and it was so clean and beautiful there compared to Vietnam. The roads (highway) was big and there were no motorcycle. All I saw was cars racing off. It's not very humid there like Vietnam but because it's in summber, the sun's bright and the weather's warm. There were many trees there and it was so refreshing. Sometimes the land's downhill or uphill. It was easy to move. People hardly ever throw trash there, and I like it.
In the morning (I always wake up late) I ate breakfast with my dad's family and then we went to the park or somewhere to play. It was really fun. I also went to 6 flags to play some roller coaster games. I love it. At night I came to the park with my cousins and we catch fireflies. I've never seen a firefly before in my whole life, so it interested me. We catched them and put them in a bag, but after a while they all died. :P

HELLO!!!

Hey everyone! And welcome to my blog!

My name's Anna and this year I'm gonna be in 8th grade. I'm studying at AIS, Vietnam, and I really like this school. I LOVE sports, even though I'm not really good at them. I like doing group works, and of course, don't like homework. I enjoy playing with my friends, it's really fun. Sometimes I get sensitive about things and get angry easily, but in the same manner, it's easy to make me happy, too. I'm not funny or smart or anything, but I love who i am.

That's all you'd want to know about me...See ya!